While it’s only August, marketing and ecommerce teams at retailers around the world are already starting to plan out their email marketing programs for the 2011 holiday season. With that in mind, beginning with this post, Silverpop will run a series of quick tips and ideas for holiday email marketing.

For online retailers, shipping and shipping deadlines are a mixed blessing. Gifts that are shipped to a customer's home, especially with free shipping offers, are incredibly convenient for the harried consumer. But for the procrastinators among us, if we wait too long we'll miss the cutoff to have the gift arrive in time for Christmas—or miss the less expensive shipping deadlines.

Silverpop client King Arthur Flour uses a simple content tactic for helping customers navigate shipping deadlines that I love. It creates a table (below) of the different shipping options, deadlines and geographic availabilities.

The chart is incorporated in the same footer area (pictured at right) of every holiday email. As you might gather from the above example, the chart is then updated throughout the season to convey when specific shipping options are no longer available. This is a very creative, but also simple, approach to help motivate subscribers to place their orders before deadlines pass.

Have any favorite or creative holiday email marketing tips—especially those around shipping? Please share below.

Additionally, here are links to some related holiday presentations and resources:

• Tip Sheet: “8 New Twists on Holiday Marketing Traditions to Help Drive Revenue” (requires registration)
• Webinar: “Retail Roundtable: Retail Email Holiday Wrap-Up”—This Webinar featuring Silverpop clients King Arthur Flour and Cuddledown, who share things they learned during the 2010 holiday season:
  • Recorded Webinar
  • PDF of Slides
  • “ ‘Sending Waves’ Key in 2010” blog post
  • Webinar: “Naughty or Nice? 10 Keys to Holiday Email Marketing Success” (slides only, recording not available)
  • Tip Sheet: “Pre-Holiday Email Marketing Checklist” (requires registration)
  • Study: “Internet Retailer Top 500 Study” (while not specific to the holiday season, the data can be helpful  for planning and benchmarking purposes)
    • The Slides
    • The Study (requires registration)