Your Last-Minute Holiday Email Checklist

Kristen Dunleavy

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November 16, 2016

With Cyber Week fast approaching, you probably already have your holiday emails stacked and ready to go. But there’s a lot at stake – if you’re like [65% of brands](/blog/report-the-2016-retail-holiday-readiness-report/), your goal is to increase revenue from email conversions. Your email campaigns need to get noticed and outshine your competition.To get the most out of your holiday email campaigns, use this blog post as your checklist before hitting send on your holiday emails.**Double-check your automated emails**[Email automation](/blog/5-email-automation-best-practices/) isn’t truly automated; it requires human intelligence to get your desired results. Double-check your automated holiday emails to make sure they’re in the correct order and they’re being sent to the right people.**Pay attention to personalization**Using [personalization](/blog/email-marketing-personalization-101/) in your holiday emails? Test it before you send to make sure it’s working. Nothing is worse than getting an email addressed to %%NAME%%.**Check your split tests**Split-testing guarantees that you’re sending emails that are optimized for your subscribers. Check any existing split tests to make sure you’re testing just one part of your email – this will tell you exactly what’s working and what isn’t. Consider adding a live A/B test to your holiday emails if you haven’t already – it’s the best way to optimize email content on the fly.**Watch your timing**Inboxes are inundated with messages during the holidays. Make sure your emails are being sent at times that make sense for your subscribers, no matter what time zone they’re in.**Pair email with social**[Email and social](/blog/using-live-social-feeds-in-email-to-drive-sales-and-engagement/) are better together. If you’re promoting an exclusive holiday deal via email, you can use it to turn your followers into subscribers – just tell them to sign up for your list to access your holiday deals. And consider adding a live social feed to your emails to show off [user-generated content](/blog/why-brands-need-to-tap-into-user-generated-content-and-how-to-use-it-in-your-emails/).**Review your email content’s relevancy**If you’re promoting limited-time deals during the holidays, make sure that your email content and your website content are consistent with each other. Content automation – or automatically pulling your website content into your email campaign – is one way to ensure your emails are always up to date.**Swap expired offers**Make sure your holiday emails always contain fresh content by swapping out expired offers with new ones. Since [45% of emails](https://go.movableink.com/Everything-About-Contextual-Marketing-Ebook.html?utm_source=inboundweb&utm_medium=blog&utm_campaign=contextualmarketing_ebook) are opened after an offer expires, always have a back up for anyone who opens your email after your deal is over.#### Ready, set, review your holiday email campaign!Use this checklist to ensure your holiday email campaigns run as smoothly as possible. Want more last-minute holiday email tips? Check out our infographic, [5 Last-Minute Holiday Quick Wins](/blog/infographic-5-last-minute-holiday-quick-wins/).