Study: Unconventional holiday themes boost email open rates year-round

Brief:

Email campaigns centered on unconventional yearly occasions like National Dog Day or Tax Day help to boost customer engagement outside the holiday shopping period, leading to higher click-to-open (CTO) rates, according to a study by Yes Marketing shared with Mobile Marketer.
Emails with non-traditional themes, such as Groundhog Day, generated five times the average conversion rate of 3.8%. Tax Day-themed emails drove a 14.3% CTO rate, compared to the 9.2% average, while National Dog Day spurred a conversion rate of 18.6%, more than four times the average, Yes found.
Additionally, the CTO rate for mobile email campaigns was 31% higher than on desktop computers in Q3 2018, indicating that consumers are more amenable to opening marketing emails on a smartphone or tablet, according to Yes. The insurance and entertainment industries generated the highest mobile CTO rates at 74.5% and 38.6%, respectively.

Insight:

Yes Marketing's study of email campaigns shows the importance of gearing such marketing efforts to mobile devices, where consumers may be more likely to open them than on desktop. The study also highlights methods to boost CTOs by developing creative marketing campaigns around unconventional occasions, as Amazon has done with its annual Prime Day shopping event. Such campaigns may help marketers better compete with major competitors like Amazon throughout the year, including the busy holiday shopping season.

Several brands have developed yearly campaigns around unconventional holidays in order to drive foot traffic, sales and brand awareness or to promote a new product offering or loyalty program. Nestlé, for example, leveraged National Cookie Day on Dec. 4 with a marketing campaign to encourage participation in a social media Q&A and boost social engagement. Dunkin' has celebrated National Doughnut Day on June 1 and National Coffee Day on Sept. 29 for years with special promotions on email and social media.

These kinds of campaigns may help to reverse a decline in new and active subscribers in marketers' databases, Yes observed in its study. The share of new subscribers fell by 24% and the number of active subscribers in marketers' databases declined by 16.7% from Q2 to Q3, the study found. The decrease is a sign that marketers need to develop fresh ways to entice new subscribers and maintain engagement after people opt in to receive email promotions.