A report advising retailers how to maximize the potential of online shopping during the Christmas season has been released by the Email Experience Council (EEC), a working group formed by the Direct Marketing Association (DMA).

Drawn from the experiences of leading retailers last year, the 15-page guide presents the “12 Phases of Christmas” strategies for different points of the holiday season, which includes promoting e-gift cards and options for consumers to buy online and pick up their purchases at a physical store.

"The holiday selling season is absolutely vital to the profitability of most retailers and other business-to-consumer marketers, and companies' Web sites and e-mail marketing are playing increasingly vital roles in reaching holiday sales goals," said DMA Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer Ramesh Lakshmi-Ratan.

He said that a DMA survey conducted last December found that almost 22% of marketers surveyed had experienced an increase in their 2006 post-Thanksgiving weekend Cyber Monday sales compared to 2005. "Many of those sales were the result of commercial e-mails," he added.

The report's findings include that major online retailers increased their e-mail volume last year by 47% on average during the holiday season, with 29% promoting e-gift cards during the eight days ending Christmas Day. The report advises that e-mail volume should peak in the second week of December this year.

"Long before retailers hang any wreaths or tinsel in their stores, they (should) send out e-mails promoting their Christmas deals to their subscribers-lots of e-mails," said Chad White, the EEC's director of retail insights and editor-at-large, who authored the report.

The $99 document, Ring-Cha-Ching, Hear Them Ring: The Guide to Gearing Up for the Holiday Email Season, is available from the EEC at www.emailexperience.org.

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