PPC

7 Unbeatable Lead Nurturing Strategies (+5 Examples to Follow)

Published

1 month ago

November 3, 2023

7 Unbeatable Lead Nurturing Strategies (+5 Examples to Follow)

It would be amazing if every person bought or booked after their first point of contact with your company. It rarely happens that way. But with a solid lead nurturing strategy, you can greatly increase the chances that a lead turns into sale.

After over 20 years split between sales and marketing, I’m acutely aware of the anxiety that fills the space between a lead showing interest and when they finally place an order. So let me break down what a successful lead nurturing campaign looks like and give you a few examples of them in action. Put some of these strategies in place and watch your conversion rate jump.

What is lead nurturing?

Lead nurturing refers to the steps you take to build a relationship with people who’ve shown interest in your product or service but aren’t ready to buy yet. Using lead nurturing strategies, you guide people through your marketing funnel from initial interest to conversion.

lead nurturing - marketing funnel represented as an ice cream cone

Lead nurturing guides people through your sales funnel.

A lead nurturing campaign can take on many forms and use multiple channels to reach a prospective customer. Email is the most often used, but social media, snail mail, and even the occasional phone call are useful. Anything that strengthens your relationship while the prospect considers their options will up your chance of making the sale.

As a practical example, let’s say someone has a consultation with your team but doesn’t book a service during the call. Over the next couple of weeks, you send a few follow-up emails, mail out a coupon-code postcard, and attempt to schedule the work through SMS texts. All of those actions are part of your lead nurturing strategy.

lead nurturing - follow up email

An example follow-up email as part of a lead nurturing campaign.

Benefits of lead nurturing

Here are a few ways that a lead nurturing strategy leads to a higher sales close rate.

Builds a relationship with your business

Over 90% of people polled by PWC said they’d buy from a company that gained their trust. And nearly that many said they’d recommend that company to others.

lead nurturing - graphic of the 90% stat

Your lead nurturing campaign is an opportunity to send helpful tips, social proof, and other content that gives a lead more confidence in your company.

Increases brand awareness and recall

How many times do you see an advertisement or logo before you remember it? The common answer is that you need seven touchpoints with a potential customer before they remember your brand, logo, or products (it’s unoriginally called the rule of seven).

A developed lead nurture strategy lets you have those meaningful interactions with someone after they’ve requested information or saved a product to their cart. When it comes time to buy, yours is the brand at the top of their mind.

Educates your best customers

Buyers are taking advantage of the vast amount of information available at their fingertips. A Google study revealed that 53% of shoppers always research before buying. At the same time, transparency is becoming as important as price and quality for many buyers.

The business that offers the most information will win. And that’s exactly what happens during the lead nurturing process. You give more information about where your products are sourced or the steps you take to leave a service area spotless. The more informed your lead feels, the more likely they’ll choose your solution.

Leads to an increased conversion rate

All of these benefits lead to the ultimate goal of enticing more people who’ve become leads to buy from your business. Since nurtured leads make 47% more purchases than leads that weren’t nurtured, it has a good track record of hitting that goal.

7 strategies for successful lead nurturing campaigns

Lead nurturing isn’t one size fits all; a clothing retailer will use different tactics than an enterprise software consultant. So consider this a menu of super effective lead nurture ideas you can mix and match to build your own strategy.

1. Send targeted emails

I love email as a lead nurture channel. It’s easy to automate, less expensive than ads, and endlessly flexible. Plus, it’s useful for just about any type of company or product.

lead nurturing - graphic showing the benefits of email marketing

Of course, you can’t just send a bunch of random emails to a lead. That’ll get annoying. Here are some ways to get the most out of your nurture emails:

Segment your list: Segment your leads by behavior (clicked on a product page, watched a video), engagement (those that opened the last email vs. those that didn’t), or journey stage (new lead vs. returning customer).
Personalize for relevance: Send personalized emails with offers and information relevant to each customer based on what you know about them (their birthday, their interests, their shopping habits).
Write captivating headlines: Keep open rates high by writing concise, actionable subject lines.
Include a strong CTA: Add a call to action that clearly states what your lead should do next (buy now, watch a video, claim your discount).
Make sure they’re mobile friendly: 70% of emails are opened on a mobile device, so make sure yours are fast-loading and easy to read on mobile.
A/B test: A/B test variations of your CTA, subject line, and offers to see which gets the most clicks and conversions.

2. Retarget with ads

Retargeting ads help you nurture leads by presenting your offers to them multiple times as they click around the web. If you’ve ever clicked on a product page and then seen an ad for that product on other websites, you’ve probably experienced retargeting ads.

These ads work by tagging someone who visits your website or enters your marketing funnel in some other way. The lead is then presented with ads automatically on websites within an advertising network (like the Google Display Network, for example).

lead nurturing - graphic showing the retargeting flow.

Make sure to follow lead nurturing best practices when setting up your remarketing campaigns so your ads don’t go from effective to overbearing.

3. Leverage SMS marketing

In the right situation, SMS marketing—using texts to reach your audience—is the ideal lead-nurturing strategy. That’s because SMS requires an opt-in, so the people you text have qualified themselves as interested leads.

Here’s why SMS marketing works:

It costs less than other forms of advertising
A text doesn’t fight for attention like an email in a crowded inbox has to
89% of customers say they prefer texts to calls with businesses
Text open rates are as high as 98%

Just like emails, you can use texts to offer time-sensitive discounts, confirm appointments, or announce new products or services.

4. Create nurture content

Content marketing solves the need to educate your leads while they consider their options. It includes several formats such as blog posts, FAQs, ebooks, or webinars.

lead nurturing - screenshot of a content email

Following up with helpful content is a solid nurture strategy.

Content is a multi-channel marketing tactic that fuels the other nurture channels. You can send a piece of educational content through email, SMS, or distribute it on social media.

Ideally, you’ll create content for each stage of your marketing funnel:

Awareness stage: Focus on exposing and solving a problem through how-to content.
Consideration state: Show how your product or service solves the problem with use cases.
Action stage: Explain specific product features coupled with discounts.

5. Connect on social media

I think some marketers forget about social media as a viable lead nurture channel because it feels less one-to-one than email or texts. That’s a shame because it’s a natural fit for building trust if you’re already posting helpful content.

An important step for lead nurturing on social media is to make sure you invite leads to follow your accounts. Then they’ll see your brand, products, and amazing content in their feeds.

lead nurturing - Instagram post from a service company

Social media is the perfect place to nurture leads with helpful content.

Once leads start following you, it’s important to increase their engagement by asking questions, posting polls, or going live on Instagram or Facebook. That helps you in three ways:

You connect directly with a lead, especially in comments and replies.
You learn more about your leads through polls, questions, and their engagement.
You get more people viewing your posts because social media platforms reward engagement.

And don’t forget, you can always ask a lead to contact you via direct message if they pose a question or response on one of your social media posts.

6. Pick up the phone

I got a voicemail a while back from a yoga studio I visited once. I’d done a free trial class and the instructor that led it called to see if I was interested in coming back. She’d asked me some questions in the class, so her voicemail had specific recommendations for which sessions best fit my needs.

Using the phone like this to nurture leads can be tricky business. Many people, especially younger generations, don’t like phone calls. Make sure you have permission to call and make sure you add value.

The call I received was valuable because it was personalized for me. And yes, I went back for more sessions because of it.

7. Score leads

Lead scoring is the process of assigning a value to a lead based on a set of predetermined characteristics. Leads become more or less valuable based on things like the value of the product they’re interested in and the likelihood of them making a purchase.

A lead score then determines what nurture strategies you’ll apply. Leads with higher scores might get higher touch follow ups. Lower scores can be handled with automated lead nurturing tactics.

lead nurturing - graphic of the lead scoring process.

Example time. Person A gave their email address in exchange for a guide to home lawn maintenance. Person B called and spoke to a rep about hiring crews to maintain three golf courses. Both the product value and the action give lead B a higher score and suggest the need for more direct follow up.

There are other characteristics to consider. The person’s decision-making ability (e.g. head of purchasing) or the source of the lead (referral vs. cold website visit) might also affect the lead score.

Lead scoring helps you direct the highest effort towards the best potential return.

5 lead nurturing examples

Theory is great, but let’s dig into some lead nurturing examples from companies that do it well.

1. Abandoned cart recovery

Abandoned carts are a scourge for most online retailers. Missing the sale after coming so close is like getting stopped at mile 25 of a marathon.

Menswear band True Classic doesn’t take missed opportunities lightly. They immediately send a valuable offer to people who look at a product or place it in their cart.

lead nurturing - a recovery email from True Classic

Notice the urgency they’ve added by making the offer for “a limited time.” The offer and urgency will convert lots of leads to customers.

2. Milestone celebrations

Of course, not every lead is so close to making a purchase. For lower-intent leads, it makes sense to just keep a friendly dialogue open.

This chiropractor does a nice job of it by sending a happy birthday SMS text with a link to a fun birthday message.

lead nurturing - a birthday text from a chiropractor.

You don’t need to gather personal information to use this lead nurturing strategy. You could send a thank-you note on the anniversary of your first connection. Or if you work in a particular industry, like education, you could send a “happy Teacher’s Day” email.

3. Dynamic remarketing

Google’s Dynamic Remarketing Ads make lead nurturing more personalized by automatically pulling the products you look at and filling them in the ads.

Here’s an example from a retail shoe store.

1699025164 343 7 Unbeatable Lead Nurturing Strategies 5 Examples to Follow

And perhaps no one is better at it than companies in the travel industry.

lead nurturing - retargeting ad from a travel company

The idea is to make it super easy for the lead you’re nurturing to see the ad and complete their purchase.

4. Maintenance reminder

There are so many things in life that need regular maintenance. Our cars, our HVACs, and our bodies all need the occasional review and tune-up. If you’re in the business of providing those services, an automated lead nurturing campaign is perfect for booking more business.

This home services company sends timely texts each year to catch leads as they’re facing seasonal maintenance jobs.

lead nurturing - reminder text from a home services company.

This lead nurturing tactic works well for consumable products, too. If a tube of toothpaste or bag of dog food is expected to last 30 days, then a reminder to purchase every 30 days should give conversions a boost.

5. Social listening

Social listening is such a cool and underrated lead nurture strategy. The gist is that you set up alerts when someone mentions your brand or a keyword on social media platforms. You then join the conversation in an organic way.

I consider this a lead nurturing tactic when someone directly asks about a product you produce, which is exactly what happened here.

lead nurturing - instagram post showing a woman cutting wood with a sword.

The original poster tagged the company, Viking Wood Splitter, which makes wood cutting swords (of course). People showed interest in the swords throughout the comment section. The brand was right there, nurturing their new leads with answers and advice.

Start lead nurturing to convert more sales

Most people won’t buy right away. Lead nurturing helps you convert more of your hard-won leads into customers by building a relationship through trust, transparency, and education.

Here are seven of the most effective lead nurturing strategies:

Send targeted emails
Retarget with ads
Leverage SMS marketing
Create nurture content
Connect on social media
Pick up the phone
Score leads

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Related Topics:Examples Follow Lead Nurturing seo Strategies Unbeatable

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The Easy Guide to Facebook Video Ads for Any Business

Published

2 days ago

December 8, 2023

Max

The Easy Guide to Facebook Video Ads for Any Business

Social media platforms are focusing more and more on video content. Facebook used to be a place for folks to upload their photos into albums to keep them organized and share what they’d been up to, but with the increase in popularity of TikTok and Instagram Reels, users are now so much more accustomed to scrolling through endless videos designed to make them laugh, cry, or stay informed. With this change in user behavior, it’s now more important than ever to be sure you’re creating engaging content that cuts through the noise and stands out.

An example of a Facebook video ad.

Video ads on the Meta Business platform (which reaches Facebook and Instagram) is a great way to do this. Although the ability to churn out video ads regularly was reserved for brands with big budgets in years past, new tools and AI have helped democratize this and now any brand can advertise using high-quality videos without spending much at all.

In this post, I want to talk through some best practices for Facebook video ads and show you some tools you can use to execute those strategies.

Facebook video ads best practices

Follow these Facebook video ad tips to squeeze the most out of your Facebook ad costs.

1. Create videos in all aspect ratios

If you’ve used Meta Ads recently, you probably know there are tons of different placements your ads can show up on the network. The good news is that to cover this vast list of placements, you only need to come up with three distinct aspect ratios for your video ads:

Having videos in each of these aspect ratios ensures you’re eligible to show in all the placements you’d like to.

We’ll talk later about how you can make these aspect ratios if you don’t have a dedicated creative team, but in the ad creation process, you’re able to select different video files to fit into each aspect ratio. Facebook will then automatically serve the creative with the right sizing for each spot to ensure you have the best-looking ads.

Now, while it might not seem like a huge deal to have all three ratios, I think it’s actually one of the easiest things you can do to help make sure your ads look good and stand out. In the image above, you can easily see how different an ad will look in the vertical and horizontal placements if you only have a square image. They’re not bad, necessarily, but they certainly don’t have the high-quality, professional look that most users have become accustomed to in recent years.

🛑 Want to know how your Facebook ads are really performing? Find out with our free Facebook Ads Performance Grader!

2. Be prepared for all sound options

If you’re a Facebook or Instagram user, you’ve likely visited the platforms in all sorts of scenarios. With full sound while sitting on your couch or in your bed. Maybe you have your headphones in while out in public, or maybe you’re even one of those crazy people with their sound up on the subway. But odds are, there have been at least a few instances where you were on those platforms and didn’t have the sound on at all.

For each of these instances, you were bound to see ads and the level of volume you were using likely had an impact on how sticky those ads were for you. Designing your ads to be digestible regardless of a user’s sound level is highly important.

Here are a few questions to ask yourself while crafting Facebook video ads sounds:

Do you have an engaging/entertaining voiceover?
Is there music you can choose to fit the mood of the ad?
Do you have subtitles for the voiceover in case someone’s sound is off?
Is the voiceover clear and easily understandable even in a loud environment?

3. Get your main message across in the first 3 seconds

No matter what the original purpose was for someone to visit social media, the main point is that they’re not there to view your ads. I feel very confident in saying that for the majority of people visiting Facebook or Instagram, they’re not there to see what product or service you’re selling.

Similar to ads on YouTube, users are pretty easily able to skip and scroll past the ads on Facebook and Instagram. That is, unless you run non-skippable ads, but those are pretty rare. So, you need to make sure you’re making a big impact in the first few seconds of your ads…before the remainder of it is skipped. If you do a good job of creating a compelling hook in that short time, you can certainly draw their attention for longer, maybe up to 15-30 seconds, some even longer. But odds are, your views will be short so you need to be front-heavy.

In this time, it’s important to get your business name and core brand messaging across so that even if a user does scroll past you, you’ve at least made that much of an impact. They’ll have a higher chance at brand recall later if they’ve heard your name in that brief intro. This can include text, voiceover, business logos, and more, so be creative, engaging, and entertaining.

4. Blend into the platform aesthetic

In my experience, the best ads on Facebook or Instagram (I’m typically an Instagram user) are ones that blend into the platform aesthetic. The ads that typically entice me the most are the ones I don’t really know are ads until I look down to see the Sponsored messaging down at the bottom.

The best way to discover this is to become a user of the platform itself. For Instagram, go to the Explore tab and type in some of your key terms, maybe the same ones you use for search or maybe some terms that mirror the interest or behavior targeting you’re using for your campaigns.

See what the grid looks like. What shows up? What brands are there? How are they marketing to people? While you may not want to become just part of the noise, blending in allows you to make a greater impact and feel more natural to the audience.

For example, I have a renewed interest in landscape photography and am in the market for a new camera. If I were a camera brand (or someone selling camera-adjacent things), either of the two grids above could help give an idea of what my ads can/should look like to blend into the platform. Then, make sure you follow the other best practices above to get your message across.

💡 Ready to improve your Facebook ads? Get 16 effective strategies for Facebook ads to try now!

5. Retarget users who engage with your videos

I might be biased, but one of the biggest mistakes I think advertisers make is not retargeting people who watch their Facebook videos. Sure, they might find their way to seeing you again through prospecting or they may remember you enough to come back to your site, but why would you target people (who you seemingly thought were valuable) once, then not work to target them again? Especially after they are already aware of you?

On the Facebook ads platform, you can make audiences of users who have engaged with your videos in many different ways. Just head to the Facebook ads audience manager and choose Video as your source for an audience.

From there, you can choose how they have interacted with those videos. Did they watch the whole thing? A certain percentage of it? Think about where your value propositions and messaging hits in those videos and be sure to include that in your audience filters.

Next, you can choose the videos you want to retarget people from. Yes, you can select only certain videos if you think they’re more impactful, part of a separate campaign, etc.

Lastly, you can choose how long you want to reengage with someone who watched those videos for that amount of time. One error I see is always setting the time frame to the longest possible setting. Now be honest…if you saw a video ad once 180 days ago, do you think you’re still a hot prospect for that brand? Probably not. Make sure you keep that in mind when making these audiences. Higher engagers can likely stick around longer, but lower engagers probably should be let free from your retargeting grasp a bit sooner.

Helpful Facebook video ad tools

Now that we have some best practices out of the way, I want to talk about how to make the Facebook video ad creatives. Not every Facebook video ad has to be done by a hugely expensive creative shop. Some can be done just as well with your own means, and sometimes for free! Here are some of the top Facebook video ad creative resources your business can take advantage of:

Yes, phone cameras are acceptable

A big expensive camera only makes world-changing videos when there’s an amazing photographer or videographer behind the lens. For most people, a camera phone will do just fine. In many cases, they’ll do better than if you tried to use an expensive camera due to all the ways the tech companies are making them easier to use.

Next time you need to put together a video, take a shot with your phone first. Many times, those videos will turn out great, and will help fit you into the platform aesthetic naturally as much of the content on Facebook and Instagram is also shot on a phone.

Facebook’s cropping tool

Once you have a video, there are options in Facebook ads to adjust your creatives for different sizes.

In the image above, you can see we have a square video that needs cropped to vertical. Granted, this would be a terrible user experience, but if your video does lend itself to this easy cropping, there is an option directly within Facebook to do that for you.

Facebook video builder

If you don’t already have any creatives and you need to build something almost from scratch, Facebook also has a video creation tool you can use to put together videos.

You can use existing images combined with Facebook’s video ad templates to make a video for your account. There are tons of templates that allow you to control for colors, text, timing, and more. Just lead on the user-friendly builder and you’ll end up with a platform-ready Facebook video ad in no time!

Canva

While there are some paid in-platform upgrades, Canva is a great tool to get just about any type of creative made (video or otherwise).

There are countless free templates you can customize to help promote your brand. Canva also includes easy options to convert one theme into a new aspect ratio, helping you to cover all the video sizes as I mentioned above. In short, if you’re a novice to video marketing but need to get something done, you should check Canva out.

Create great Facebook video ads today

Facebook and Instagram video ads are a great way to interact with your customer base and are only getting more necessary as other platforms lean into video. It doesn’t take any particular expertise or deep pockets to get your Facebook video ads up and running. Just a bit of patience and some guidelines and you’re on your way!

When you want to improve your results, follow these Facebook video ad best practices:

Create videos in all aspect ratios
Be prepared for all sound options
Get your main message across in the first 3 seconds
Blend into the platform aesthetic
Retarget users who engage with your videos

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PPC

How to Make a Click-Worthy YouTube Thumbnail (+Free Tools!)

Published

3 days ago

December 7, 2023

Max

How to Make a Click-Worthy YouTube Thumbnail (+Free Tools!)

With millions of videos vying for attention, your YouTube thumbnails serve as the first point of engagement for potential viewers. These seemingly small images carry significant weight in attracting clicks and views.

YouTube thumbnails provide a snapshot of your video content, setting expectations for what viewers can expect. A well-crafted thumbnail not only piques interest but also conveys the essence of the video.

In this article, I’ll share everything you need to know about YouTube thumbnails, including tools to create them, tips to keep in mind, and other lessons I’ve learned from running my own YouTube channel.

What is a YouTube thumbnail?

A YouTube thumbnail serves as a visual snapshot of what a video contains. It appears as a small image next to the title of the video on YouTube’s search results page, related videos section, or the recommended videos section.

This image plays a crucial role in attracting potential viewers and encouraging them to click on the video. The design and content of this thumbnail often influence the decision of a viewer to watch the video or not. Therefore, it holds significant importance in the world of YouTube content creation.

YouTube thumbnail size

The best YouTube thumbnail size is 1280×720 pixels. This is an aspect ratio of 16:9. The minimum width you should shoot for is 640 pixels.

You should also shoot for a relatively small file size—under 2MB. YouTube thumbnails can be saved as JPGs, GIFs, or PNGs.

YouTube thumbnail tips

Your YouTube journey begins with a single image—the thumbnail. This seemingly small, but critically important element is the initial gateway for your viewers.

“If people don’t click, they don’t watch. So, you want to give them something to click,” said YouTube star MrBeast.

Here are some tips to create effective YouTube thumbnails.

Make them engaging

Think of your thumbnails as digital hooks to capture your audience’s attention. Make them visually striking, vibrant, and engaging.

💕 Want more tips and ideas? We’ve got 130+ for you! Get the guide >> 130+ of the Best Online Marketing Tips for Generating More Traffic, Leads, & Sales

Be consistent

Building a recognizable brand on YouTube starts with consistency in your thumbnail design. A uniform style helps viewers easily identify your content. In addition to consistency in your thumbnail design, keeping a close eye on others in your field who share your audience is a smart strategy.

Checking out what your competitors are up to can give you helpful clues about how many people click on their stuff. This helps you see how your channel’s look, content, titles, and colors stack up, so you can ensure you’re putting your best foot forward.

As you can see below, MrBeast’s thumbnails are visually striking and attention-grabbing, featuring bold colors, expressive facial expressions, and compelling imagery. He maintains a consistent style in his thumbnails, making them instantly recognizable to his viewers and helping build a strong brand presence on YouTube.

Represent your video accurately

Your thumbnail should provide an honest representation of your video. Misleading thumbnails can lead to viewer frustration and backlash.

Create an emotional impact

It’s well known that emotions are contagious. This means that watching someone else have an emotional reaction to something can cause you to have the same reaction.

Humans react to other human faces, and it’s an easy trick to get more people to click on your YouTube videos. Humans will naturally assess the emotional state of the face. When their mouth is open, it’s usually to show that they are surprised. When someone sees this surprised reaction, they are enticed to see what is so surprising.

🚨 Speaking of emotion…get our free guide >> 135 of the Best Words & Phrases for Marketing with Emotion

Learn and adapt

Continuously analyze your analytics to adapt your content and strategy based on audience feedback and changing trends.

The thumbnail below was my first to go well (in relation to my other videos). The simple title in the thumbnail, the upward arrow, society’s current fascination with ChatGPT, the length of the video, me in it—smiling and wearing something that matched the color scheme of the thumbnail. These are things I took note of as potential drivers of success for future videos and thumbnails.

Source

Free YouTube thumbnail makers

Here are a few YouTube thumbnail creation tools to try, including the one I use for all my thumbnails.

1. Fotor

I use an app called Fotor to create my thumbnails. Fotor is a fantastic all-in-one platform that makes thumbnail creation a breeze. It’s an easy-to-use photo editing and graphic design tool, available in web, desktop, and mobile versions. It provides a full suite of tools that cover most image editing needs, including face retouching and image-generative AI.

Fotor also includes advanced AI-powered tools such as background remover, image enlarger, and object remover, which make complex edits simple.

I created a super simple video walkthrough where I use it to create a YouTube thumbnail. Check it out here.

2. Canva

Canva is a design tool (with a free option) that can help you create impactful YouTube thumbnails. Simply navigate to the site, choose YouTube thumbnail as your design option, and find an already-created template to customize or create your own design.

Within Canva, you can adjust colors, add your own images, and brand your YouTube thumbnail with your business logo.

3. Visme

Visme is another online design tool that makes it easy to create YouTube thumbnails. Like Canva, Visme has already created templates that you can choose and customize according to your branding.

Simply choose your template, customize it, download it, and you’re all set!

Start making effective YouTube thumbnails with ease

Creating a great YouTube thumbnail is only one piece of the puzzle when it comes to effective video marketing on the site. But the right YouTube thumbnail strategy can help you build consistency, attract people to click on your videos, and increase engagement with your content.

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PPC

12 Holiday Emails for Customers (Templates & Examples!)

Published

5 days ago

December 5, 2023

Max

12 Holiday Emails for Customers (Templates & Examples!)

How to put your customers into a holiday slumber 😴 :

To our valued customers,

As the end of the year draws near, we’d like to take this opportunity to extend a heartfelt thank you to all of you for your support. Thank you for choosing us and we wish you a wonderful holiday season and happy new year!

sleepy bored face

Want to send an authentic holiday email this year that your customers will actually want to read? This is your cheat sheet!

How to use these holiday email templates

This post contains both the copy and creative you can use for your holiday customer appreciation emails. These emails are longer and more personalized—great for your most loyal customers or for businesses with a small client base. If you want shorter, more general copy, head on over to my holiday greetings and messages.

The copy is also pasted into some templates I made in Canva, which you can access with a free Canva account!

Here’s the link to the templates in Canva.

free holiday email templates in canva

Holiday customer email tips

In such a short piece of content as this, small details have big effects. Here’s how to get it right.

Express gratitude! Customer appreciation is the goal here.

Keep it short and use a conversational tone. This is an e-toast, not a live journal.
Be inclusive of all holidays, and be warm and positive, but not overly hyped—the holidays can be difficult for many people.
Make it visual with creative graphics or a team photo.
Share your growth and achievements to give customers a reason to stay confident in your business. BUT make it about them—the growth you achieved with their support. What you achieved together.
Connect it back to your mission (NOT your value prop).
Focus on the future. Speak to an ongoing relationship, but not through a CTA or sales promotion. Save that for your year-in-review email.

Words & phrases to make your holiday email message authentic

Take a gander through these words and phrases you can use that the other gajillion businesses out there aren’t using:

Instead of ‘valued customer’

Don’t call them valued, make them FEEL valued through your messaging.

Dear customers
To our awesome customers
To our customers near and far, old and new
To all of you
To each and every one of you
To the Baker & Co. family
To the SparkLife community
To you and your families
Dear customers, partners, and your families
Friends
First name (if you have a small list and can MANUALLY do it).

Instead of ‘exciting year’

It’s been a…

Lively
Rewarding
Exhilarating
Electrifying
Wild
Awesome
Zestful
Refreshing
Bustling
Bright
Spirited
Rousing
Rigorous

….year!

Instead of ‘as we approach’

Any “as we.” As we approach, enter, wind down, you know them all. How about:

Every year, I/we
If you’re like us, you are…
As the saying goes…
One of my favorite quotes is
Ask a question
Whether this email finds you ___ing, ____ing, or ___ing, we hope it finds you well!
As I sit here listening to [unique/meaningful/inclusive song name]
Exactly 11 months ago, we were…..
When we started out this year we _____. Little did we know…
Here at ___ we believe in ____, so…
One of our core values here at ____ is ____.
As I write this email, I’m watching the snow falling outside my window for the first time this year.
As it turns out…

Instead of ‘take this opportunity to’

Take THIS opportunity to remove yourselves from the mileu by using phrases like:

Words can’t describe our…
We’re reaching out to say…
We want you to know that…
We extend our deepest…
It is with pride and joy that we…

Instead of ‘thank you for your support’

Nothing wrong with this statement, but make it better with specifics.

Thank you for…

Trusting us with your ____
Using ____ for your ____ needs.
Confidence and loyalty to _____
How much you’ve [taught us, inspired us, encouraged us, etc..]
Choosing us as your ____ provider
Giving us a reason to come into work each day
Showing up to our events
Your reviews, social shares, votes
Positive vibes, enthusiasm

5 holiday email templates any business can use

To make your life easier, I’ve compiled some templates that incorporate the tips and words and phrases above. Check’em out.

If you want to You can also customize them in Canva