The Last Email Before Christmas

One email, four jobs

By early December most of your customers have already heard from you this season: an offer, a gift guide, perhaps a reminder about something new.

The last email before Christmas is different. It carries information people act on: the last day to order for delivery, what latecomers can still buy, when you are open, and a thank-you for the year.

Sent in good time, it is one of the most useful emails a store sends all year. Sent after the cutoff, it is an apology with a subject line.

What it needs to say

• The last order dates, by shipping method and destination.
• Gift cards delivered by email, for anyone past those dates.
• Local pickup, with the days and hours it runs.
• Holiday hours, including the days you are closed.
• When things restart after Christmas: orders, replies, the shop.
• A short thank-you, signed by a person.

The second keeps the email useful after the dates have gone. A reader who opens it too late for delivery can still buy something that arrives in minutes.

When to send it

Count back from your earliest cutoff, not your latest. The last date for standard delivery to the far side of the country, or to a remote address, comes well before the date for local delivery.

Few people act on an email the moment it arrives. A message read on Thursday evening about a Friday cutoff leaves almost no time, and one read on Saturday leaves none.

About a week before the first cutoff suits most stores, which this year means this week or early next. Put that first date in the subject line, so the inbox alone tells a reader whether to hurry.

A short reminder the day before the cutoff can follow, as long as that is all it says.

Leave the catalogue out

The last email is not the place for new arrivals, a gift guide and three offers. Each extra item pushes the dates further down, and on a phone the dates are what slips out of sight.

Show one product at most, below the practical information. Anyone who wants to browse is a single tap from the store.

A short email is also more likely to be read to the end, which is where the thank-you sits.

A worked example

An olive oil shop with a tasting room downtown sells oils, vinegars and gift boxes, in the shop and online, shipping across Canada.

Last year its final email went out on December 19. It announced a new gift box with a photograph and a long description, and said nothing about delivery.

Most replies asked the same question: would it arrive by Christmas? Outside the province, it would not. Some customers ordered anyway, and the week before Christmas went on apologies and refunds.

The email had been written as a promotion and sent as one, after the dates that mattered had passed.

This year the last email goes out next Tuesday. Its subject line gives the last order date for delivery outside BC, and its opening lines give the dates for every destination.

Below them come e-gift cards, the shop's pickup hours over the holidays, and a thank-you from the two owners. The new gift box is there too, in one line after the dates.

Gift cards for the latecomers

A gift card delivered by email is the one thing a store can sell on December 24 that still arrives in time.

Make it easy to buy: its own page, a clear link from the email, and no shipping questions at checkout. Let the buyer send it to the recipient's email, or print it at home to slip inside a card.

Test it before the email goes out. Buy one yourself, look at how it arrives on a phone and on paper, and check that the code works at your own till.

Holiday hours, day by day

A line saying reduced hours over the holidays helps nobody. List each day from the weekend before Christmas to the first working day of January, with the hours or the word closed.

Include pickup if you offer it, and when emails and phone messages will be answered.

Set the same hours on your Google My Business listing, using its special hours setting, and on the website. A customer who finds three different answers will believe the wrong one.

Written to be found again

Many people keep this email. In the last week of December they search their inbox for your hours, the pickup times or the day you reopen.

Write those as plain text, with the words a person would type into that search: holiday hours, closed, reopening, pickup. A picture of a calendar finds nothing.

Send it from the name customers know you by, so a search for the shop's name brings this email up first.

The thank-you

Keep it short, and keep it free of offers. A thank-you with a discount code attached reads as one more promotion.

Mention something real from the year: a new product, a move, a staff member customers know by name. Then sign it with a name.

Placed after the practical information, it is the last thing a reader sees, which is where it belongs.

The counter-case

A business that ships nothing has less to say. Its last email can be hours, gift cards if it sells them, and the thank-you.

A store with a small list of regulars may fold all of this into one friendly note, and a store whose customers rarely buy gifts may not need the gift card section.

But any business shipping physical goods before Christmas should send its last email while every reader still has time to act on it.

Before you send it

1. Find your earliest cutoff for any destination.
2. Send a week before that date.
3. Put the date in the subject line.
4. Keep products below the practical information.
5. Link to gift cards delivered by email.
6. List holiday hours day by day, in text.
7. Sign the thank-you with a name.

Step two is what makes the email useful rather than apologetic. Every other part of it depends on reaching people while the dates in it can still be met.

Putting those dates into every holiday email, not only the last, is covered in holiday shipping deadlines in your emails.

Frequently asked questions

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