With Cyber Monday over and the final stretch of December ahead, online merchants are officially in the count-down to the holidays. To help, Ecommerce-Guide.com spoke with Luc Vezina, head of marketing at Campaigner, to find out what Web shop owners should be doing during the month of December as part of their overall holiday promotional plans.

Tips for December E-Mail Promotions

• Make It Easy For People to Buy: People are in buying mode and you have to make it easy for them to complete the sale. Your e-mail should help people find a product they are looking for by categorizing items by the recipient of the gift or by price range. The easier you make it to shop by using a strong call to action, the better your e-mail marketing results and conversions will be. This can be done through the basic layout of your e-mail. For best results, make sure your product images are linked to the product page on your Web site. People will be more inclined to click on those product shots, not text underneath. If possible, include shopping cart links right in the e-mail.
  
  
• Target Male Shoppers: According to the National Retail Association, by Dec. 18 of last year 20 percent of men had not't started their Christmas shopping. This is the perfect time to target those last-minute male gift shoppers. You can send the e-mail to the entire list, if you're unable to segment and target only male subscribers, but focus on making it attractive and easy for male shoppers to simply click and buy. Offer suggestions for types of recipients, such as wife, boss, child, teens, parents, mother-in-law and so on.  
  
  
• Countdown in Earnest: Its time to step up those occasional countdowns you started in October and continued in November. Now is the time to instill a sense of urgency in your countdown message, and remind shoppers of exactly how many shopping days are left before the last shipping date.
  
  
• Deep Discounts: The reasons more people are moving to online shopping are changing. In the past it was mainly about convenience, but this year the droves of online shoppers will include more recession-minded consumers who don't want to waste time and gas driving around, and those who really are sticking to a tight holiday spending budget. Be sure you offer deep discounts to holiday shoppers on your subscriber list in the final weeks leading up to your shipping cut-off date. Now more than ever these deep discounts will result in conversions.
  
  
• Put Call-to-Action in Subject Lines: As the shopping frenzy closes in, subject lines will directly influence your open rate. And while your message is sitting in a subscriber's inbox, this single line is what differentiates you from the competitors. If you tested subject lines back in October and November, now is the time to get those subject lines working for you. Subject lines need to be very aggressive, and forget about branding right now. The focus is on your call-to-action, so put those deep discounts and promotions right in the subject line. Vezina said that this time of year, e-mails with an offer in the subject line will have higher open-rates.   

Luc Vezina, Campaigner's head of marketing, is an advocate of permission-based e-mail marketing. He is responsible for driving the direction of Campaigner's products, which let marketers carry out relevant, personalized dialogues with their customers.