The document provides best practices for designing holiday marketing emails. It recommends including lifestyle content like recipes, gift guides organized by various categories, promoting free or quick shipping, building customer confidence, charitable promotions, limited-time offers, gift wrapping services, using wish lists, reminder emails, holiday greetings, optimizing automated emails, opt-out options, and encouraging customers to buy gifts for themselves. The goal is to emotionally engage customers and make their shopping experience easier during the holidays.

1. DESIGN FOR
HOLIDAY EMAILS
E C O M M E R C E
The Best UX practices for holiday themed marketing
emails
e C o m m e r c e U X D e s i g n a M i n e W h a t i n i t i a t i v e

2. 1e c o m m e r c e u x d e s i g n . c o m
Add a lifestyle section
Make an emotional connection with your
customers by adding videos or pictures
of people enjoying your products, or by
including recipe ideas, home decoration
ideas, gift-wrapping tips, party planning
advice, etc. Include innovative elements and
photography that compel your readers to
explore further.
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3. 2e c o m m e r c e u x d e s i g n . c o m
Gift guides
Make your shopper’s lives easier during the
holidays by helping them choose the perfect
gift for everyone on their list. Curate your
products into gift guides. Categorizing them
by relationship (gifts for boyfriends, gifts for
spouses, gifts for girlfriends, gifts for family,
gifts for children, etc), by price (under $10,
under $15 etc), by gender (Ideas for men, for
her etc), by personality (geek, adventurer,
entertainer etc), by color, by product
category, by age (babies, kids, teens, adults)
or by top rated products are few examples.
Run multiple gift guide email campaigns
or even combine multiple ideas in a single
campaign.
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4. 3e c o m m e r c e u x d e s i g n . c o m
Free and quick shipping
Tell your shoppers whether you offer free
shipping, overnight shipping etc so that
they don’t have to spend their time looking
around your website for it. Shoppers
expect free shipping in one form or another
during holidays. If it’s not possible for you
to offer free shipping on all orders, offer it
on orders over a certain amount based on
your business or offer it only on specific
days. Communicate this information to your
shoppers on all your emails. Send a reminder
about the order-by date for christmas
delivery.
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5. 4e c o m m e r c e u x d e s i g n . c o m
Build confidence
If you want your shoppers to purchase from
you, you need to make sure they find you
trustworthy. Remind your customers about
product quality, satisfaction guarantee,
customer service, competitive price, trusted
payment methods, customer reviews etc and
let them know how much you value them, so
that they think of you when they want to buy
something. Also, they will buy from you with
confidence.
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6. 5e c o m m e r c e u x d e s i g n . c o m
Promote charitable
giving
Give back to charitable organizations during
holidays. Donate a percentage of your sales
made on selected days or throughout the
entire season and integrate your involvement
into your email campaign. Tell your readers
how they can contribute, whether by
shopping on a selected day or by purchasing
a product that supports the cause. Include a
catchy link that encourages your readers to
join your cause and help those in need.
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7. 6e c o m m e r c e u x d e s i g n . c o m
Limited-time offer
Encourage existing customers to purchase
more giving special limited-period discounts.
Specifying a coupon code in your email and
telling that it will expire on a certain date like
Black Friday, Cyber Monday, Christmas Eve
etc will create an urgency to act.
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8. 7e c o m m e r c e u x d e s i g n . c o m
Gift wrapping
There are many shoppers who order their
gifts online and send them directly to their
friends and family. And, there are so many
people who don’t have the time to wrap
gifts. Help them by offering gift wrapping
or by offering gift boxes that do not require
wrapping. Your customers will appreciate this
extra touch. If it’s not possible to offer gift
wrapping for free, do it for a nominal charge.
7
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9. 8e c o m m e r c e u x d e s i g n . c o m
Wish Lists
If you have a wishlist feature incorporated
in your website, don’t ignore it as it is
an opportunity to make your shoppers
buy. Wishlists are a good way to promote
your products through emails on special
occasions. Encourage your shoppers to
add products to their wish lists by running
‘Win your Wishlist’ campaign or just send an
email asking them to share their wish list with
their friends and family so that they can get
what they really want during holidays. Use
the wish list data to offer more relevant and
personalized offers. Send an email when the
item in the wish list goes on sale or when the
products in their wish list are about to go out
of stock.
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10. 9e c o m m e r c e u x d e s i g n . c o m
Re-emailing
If you are running a promotion for a selected
duration and when the offer is about to end,
send a last minute reminder email that
creates an urgency to act. Save your time
during your hectic holiday schedule by using
the same design elements with little changes
that says ‘Its a reminder’. Sending this email
to subscribers who have already opened and
clicked the original email will boost sales.
9
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L E A R N M O R E

11. 10e c o m m e r c e u x d e s i g n . c o m
Holiday Wishes
Emailing an attractive seasonal greeting with
a simple message is a great way to keep your
store on top of mind. You could send a
holiday greeting as a thank you message
along with the purchase. Sending an
unexpected thank you greeting will add to a
good shopping experience and increase the
chances of that shopper buying from you
again. A photograph of your employee is
worth including in your thank you and holiday
greeting as it’ll have add a personal touch to
the whole activity.
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12. 11e c o m m e r c e u x d e s i g n . c o m
Optimize your triggered
emails
Rework your standard triggered emails
design and language to reflect holiday cheer.
Givea festive look to welcome emails, thank
you emails, order confirmation emails etc.
Include a holiday message along with the
visual imagery associated with the holiday.
Stand out with just a few small tweaks to
your auto responders.
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13. 12e c o m m e r c e u x d e s i g n . c o m
Provide holiday opt-out
You might plan to send emails multiple times
a day or a daily deal kind of a campaign
during holidays. As you increase your email
frequency, let your subscribers know that
they will be seeing more from you in their
inbox and ensure that you offer them a
holiday opt-out. Otherwise you might end up
with pushing your members to unsubscribe
altogether or they might even flag your
messages as spam. You could even consider
asking your subscribers to opt-in to receive
additional holiday deals and offers.
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14. 13e c o m m e r c e u x d e s i g n . c o m
Remind shoppers to
buy gifts for themselves
Its a tendency that people buy for themselves
when they purchase for their friends or family.
Use that to your advantage. Tell them
something like ‘Buy one and get the other
for free’ or ‘Buy one, get the other at half the
price’ or ‘Get a free sample with your order’
to treat themselves during holidays.
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15. P O W E R E D B Y
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