Some online retailers have marketing campaigns that run on autopilot all year. Surely, you don’t count yourself in that group (nudge, nudge).

If you aren’t tuning and tweaking for key seasonal holidays, your campaigns are likely underperforming. As we head into the holiday shopping season, which is just moments away, it is a good time to assess your big three of SEM: Search Engine Optimization, Pay-Per-Click, and Comparison Shopping Engines. Do you have your titles, descriptions, and ads tweaked to give you maximum exposure?

For an overview of our recommendations, please head over to our HEROweb Marketing & Design article archive and take a look at Q4 SEM (Search Engine Marketing) Pointers.

If you’re planning on sending a Valentine’s Day promotional email to your customer base, you’re not the only one. According to a recent survey conducted by Constant Contact, 68 percent of small businesses plan an online Valentine’s Day promotion. Since it’s quite likely that your email won’t be the only one landing in your customer’s email inbox over the next few days, it’s important to make it stand out.

Constant Contact’s Valentine’s Day email templates can help. With choices from simple e-cards to newsletters, these templates can get your message across with eye-catching pink and white, hearts and flowers.

Template Examples: 

With just ten days left until the holiday, it’s not too late to prepare an email and send it using these or 8 other easy-to-use templates. Email promotions can definitely help drive traffic to your site on this important gift-giving holiday. 

What do people search for around Valentine’s Day? I checked the search phrase “Valentine’s” on the Digital Point keyword tool and found the following list of holiday-related phrases: 

Phrase                            Hits Per Day

Gift Valentine                2,676

Valentine’s Day               1,277

Craft Valentine               1,217 

Valentine Hearts            725

Valentine Poems            560

Gift Idea Valentine        436 

Valentine Graphics        426

Gift Man Valentine        556 (see, it’s not only men who have a hard time deciding on gifts!)

Candy Valentine            187

Chocolate Valentine     152

Gift Romantic Valentine  134

Unique Valentine          126 (now there’s a good term to optimize one of your gift pages for!)

For the greatest impact, work any of these terms into your page titles, product descriptions and other on-the-page content. But, I would think twice before optimizing that power tool set or vacuum cleaner for Valentine’s Day. My local newspaper insists on running an ad each February for a store advertising specials on vacuum cleaners with the headline, “Give her what she really wants!” Guys, I’m here to tell ya, don’t fall for it!  Let me know, do you intend to send a Valentine’s Day promotional email?

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It’s not too late to send out a holiday email promotion if you haven’t already. People are either still shopping or just getting started, and there’s a good chance they’re looking for something easy. Now is a great time to remind people of what you have to offer, especially if it’s a deal like free shipping or gift wrapping.

Make a list of all the things about your site that are gift-friendly and send out a postcard to your email list. Make sure to remind people that you have gift certificates, can customize something, or have guaranteed Christmas delivery. Making your holiday email look festive is part of the fun, and we touched on that in a previous blog post about using Constant Contact’s holiday email themes.

If you have some great stocking stuffer ideas or items that you know are popular gifts, point those out.  Offering a discount is a good way to get visitors back to your site this time of year. And when they get there, greet them with a site that’s ready to accommodate holiday shopping, with links to the items you featured in your email right on the front page. Don’t make them have to search for the items or deals you tempted them with in the email! If they were tempted enough by your email to click through to your site, there’s a good chance they’re interested enough to buy. So remove all obstacles and prepare for some late season sales!

Tags: Holiday, Email, Promotions, Seasonal, Emails

Looking for a quick and easy way to get some holiday traffic to your website? Email cards have measurable results, they don’t take as much time to read as a newsletter, and get your name on your customers’ radar as they prepare their holiday shopping lists.

Email promotions are easy anytime, but are especially welcome this time of year as people are faced with holiday gift buying. People are looking for deals, unique items they can’t get in their local stores, and ways to save time. You can offer them all three things! Customizing a seasonal themed email card or promotion is easy to do with Constant Contact’s themes, and they can be customized to suit your needs and desires.

Here are some sample themes:

Using one of these templates, you can offer a discount code for customers buying Thanksgiving themed-items, or free shipping up to a certain date in December, for instance. These email promotions shouldn’t be too “hard sell,” just customize a short, tasteful e-card and watch your traffic increase as customers return to your website to see what you have to offer.

Hopefully, you’ve read MightyMerchant’s article on optimizing your site for the holidays. The article suggests restructuring your site with gift shopping in mind, such as moving popular gift items to the front page to make them easy to find, or tweaking your product descriptions so they reflect gift-giving. When a recipient of your holiday offer clicks your e-promotion to visit your website, greet them with a website that looks like it’s ready for the holidays. Combining site optimization tactics like this with a targeted holiday email card is a great way to boost your sales this time of year.

Here are some more of Constant Contact’s holiday themed email templates:

Now is the time to get started on holiday marketing. Even if customers don’t return to your website right away, the email from you will be in their inbox, and they’ll turn to it when they’re ready.