Testing is one of the most important steps in email marketing. With the festive season around the corner, waiting until the holidays to test emails isn't a good idea. Holiday season is the time when businesses make most money and you need to be absolutely prepared for it beforehand.

Also, determining your holiday email strategy based on the metrics of non-holiday email campaigns isn't ideal because the intent and interest of your audience might not be the same around the holiday season.

These days, the holiday buzz starts in October as people begin to gauge gifting options. You too can start your preparations early by testing a sample list filled with a mix of loyal customers, one-time users, and leads. A/B testing with this group can help you further draw conclusions based on the campaign reports.

To glean actionable insights, here are a few pre-holiday tests that you can run immediately.

 Incentives 

 

One of the biggest factors determining the success of holiday emails are the array of offers and sales. To make sure your offers are irresistible, test various kinds beforehand.

 

Below are a few different types of incentives you can try.

 

Discount Price: To know the amount of money that people would like to spend during every purchase, test various amounts off to determine maximum conversion without impacting margins. You can also test various minimum order amounts.

 

Percentage Off: This is similar to testing discounted prices, except that you're testing various percentages off instead of fixed amounts.

 

Tiered Offers: Check if the “buy one, get one free” kind of approach works better than other promos.

 

Shipping Offers: Try offering free or discounted shipping either alone or along with with other discounts.

 

Gift With Purchase (GWP): Free gifts along with a purchase is another incentive that tends to work well. 

A subject line is almost like the face of the campaign and can decide its fate. Therefore, it's important to continuously work on them. Since people are likely to be flooded with similar holiday emails, determining which subject lines work best can decide if a campaign is a success.

(For example: A note from Santa's Workshop or Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays from [Brand]?)

(Example: Boxing Day Sale or 25 % OFF + Best Christmas shopping deals)

Average Order Value 

Another important aspect that might affect your holiday emails is the Average Order Value, which is the average amount of money each customer spends per transaction with your store. You can use these early campaigns to analyze how much people are willing to spend during the holiday season and price your product or service accordingly.