The Christmas Email Calendar

The Channel You Already Own

In December, every other channel gets more expensive and more crowded. Paid search costs climb sharply, social reach falls, and organic rankings are largely settled by the time the season starts.

Email does not do any of that. The list you have costs the same to reach on 27 November as it did in June, it arrives directly, and it converts better than almost anything else because these are people who already chose to hear from you.

Which is exactly why it gets abused. A great many businesses treat December as an excuse to send daily discount blasts to an unsegmented list, and then wonder why open rates never recover in January.

Here is a calendar that works harder without doing that.

Before Anything: Three Preparations

1. Segment the list

At an absolute minimum, three groups:

• Previous customers — the most valuable segment by a distance. Different message, earlier access, more trust
• Engaged non-customers — opened or clicked in the last 90 days
• Cold subscribers — no engagement in six months or more

These should not receive the same emails at the same frequency. Previous customers can take more contact; cold subscribers should get fewer, better emails or they will unsubscribe and take your deliverability with them.

If you can segment further — by product category, by location, by average order value — do. But three is enough to make a real difference.

2. Clean the list

Before the season, remove or suppress addresses that have not engaged in twelve months. It feels like throwing away reach. It is not: sending to dead addresses is one of the main reasons December emails start landing in spam folders, and spam placement in December is expensive.

3. Test in dark mode

More than half your recipients will read your emails on a phone, and a growing share of those in dark mode — particularly in a Northern Ireland December, when it is dark from four in the afternoon.

Many email clients invert colours automatically, and the results range from ugly to unreadable: logos with white boxes around them, black text made invisible, buttons that disappear. Send yourself a test and look at it on a phone in dark mode before you send anything to anyone.

The Calendar

Early November — Warm Up

Send: something useful, not promotional.

Before you ask a list for money, give it a reason to open. A gift guide, a genuinely helpful piece of advice, a behind-the-scenes look at how you are preparing, an early look at new stock.

This matters mechanically as well as socially: engagement early in the season improves inbox placement for the emails that follow.

Also this month: send a re-engagement email to your cold segment. One email, honest — "we've not heard from you in a while, would you like to stay on the list?" — then suppress the non-responders for the season.

Mid November — Early Access

Send: early Black Friday access to previous customers only.

Genuine early access, 24 to 48 hours ahead. It converts well, it makes your best customers feel like your best customers, and it spreads server load away from the peak.

Do not send early access to the whole list and call it early access. People compare notes.

Also: if your delivery cut-off dates are confirmed, start putting them in the footer of every email from here on.

Black Friday Week, 23–29 November

This is the highest-frequency week of the year and that is broadly accepted by subscribers, but only if the emails are worth opening.

• Monday — the offer goes live, to engaged segments
• Wednesday — a different angle. Best sellers, a category focus, a gift guide, not a repeat of Monday
• Friday morning — Black Friday itself, to everyone except cold
• Friday evening — "ends tonight", to openers who have not purchased
• Sunday — final reminder, engaged segments only

Five sends in a week is a lot. Watch your unsubscribe rate daily, and if it climbs sharply, cut a send. A list burnt out in November is a list that cannot help you in December.

Monday 30 November — Cyber Monday

Worth its own send, and worth a different offer if you can — digital products, services, gift cards, anything that does not depend on shipping. Our guide to Cyber Monday for service businesses covers why this day behaves differently.

Early December — Switch to Deadline

From 1 December, the persuasive lever changes completely. It is no longer price. It is will it arrive in time.

• 1–3 December — "Christmas delivery dates" email. Practical, clear, with your cut-off dates prominent. This is one of the highest-opening emails of the year because it answers a question people actually have
• 4 December — Small Business Saturday, if you are an independent. Our Small Business Saturday guide covers the angle
• 8–10 December — gift guide, segmented. Different guides to different segments where you can

Mid December — The Deadline Run

This is where most of your December revenue is decided.

• Around 12 December — "last week for standard delivery"
• Around 15–17 December — final posting date reminder, sent the morning of and again in the evening. Be precise and be honest. Our guide to final posting dates covers getting this right
• After the cut-off — pivot immediately to gift cards, e-vouchers, click-and-collect and anything else that still arrives in time. Our guide to gift cards and vouchers covers this

That pivot is the most under-used move in December email. The day after your posting deadline, a large number of people still have presents to buy and no way to get them delivered. An email that solves that problem is welcome, not intrusive.

22–24 December — Stop Selling

Send: one email. A thank-you.

No offer, no discount code, no "last chance". Your opening hours over the break, when you are back, and a genuine thank-you for the year.

It is the best-performing email many businesses send all year in terms of replies and goodwill, and it costs nothing. Our Christmas post covers the sentiment; the practical point is that a list which has been sold to for six weeks responds well to being left alone for two days.

26–29 December — The Quiet Week That Isn't

Online traffic in the week between Christmas and New Year is far higher than most small businesses expect. People are at home, on new devices, with gift money, and planning January.

• 26 or 27 December — Boxing Day sale, if you are running one
• 28–29 December — January-focused content. Planning, resolutions, new year services, gift card redemption

Our guide to the between-week covers the behaviour in detail.

1–5 January — Reset

• 1 January — a short, warm new year message. Not a sale
• First working week — your actual January proposition, whatever that is

Our post-Christmas sales preparation guide covers the January transition.

The Rules That Keep the List Alive

Every email needs a reason to exist beyond "it's December". If you cannot say what the recipient gets from it, do not send it.

Watch unsubscribes daily during peak. A normal rate is a cost of doing business. A spike means you have sent one too many, and the next one will be worse.

Subject lines: specific beats clever. "Last day for Christmas delivery" outperforms "Ho ho ho! 🎅" by a distance, because it tells someone why they should open it now.

One clear action per email. Not five.

Respect the unsubscribe. One click, works immediately, no "are you sure" gauntlet. Making it hard is a legal problem as well as an unpleasant one.

Mobile and dark mode, every time. Test both before every send.

Measuring It

Look at revenue per email sent, not open rate. Open rate has become unreliable and it does not pay wages.

Also worth tracking: unsubscribe rate per send, and whether your December sends damaged January engagement. If your open rates in mid-January are materially below where they were in October, you sent too much.

Our guide to the metrics that matter covers the wider measurement picture, and our guide to email marketing for Belfast retailers covers list building the rest of the year.

If you want help building a festive email programme that does not exhaust your list, get in touch with Amigo Studios. We work with businesses across Northern Ireland on digital marketing that lasts past December.