You’re enjoying the beach, working on your tan, watching the waves roll in… sounds fantastic! What could possibly go wrong? *Ping* – what’s that? An email coming in. Well, you would have the time to read it, but you’re on vacation and wanted to relax. So what are you going to do?

Are you reading emails in your holidays? For marketers, the main question is: is their target audience actually reading emails while on holidays? And if so, what type of emails do they read?

The answer to this is crucial to determine if, when and how email campaigns should be sent out during the holiday season.

An (absolutely) non-representative poll (1) by myself on Twitter returned the following result:
Most people say they read their private emails while on holidays, but they pretend not to read work emails (are you maybe cheating yourself a bit here ;)?

The good news for marketers: newsletters are usually sent to the private email address – and therefore they’re part of the emails people do seem to read!

But really, there is no definitive blueprint. While some people explicitly use their free time on vacation to read marketing mails, some really only want to relax. Some do not read emails at all or leave their mobile at home.

Experiment and optimize Yes, there are no roaming costs in the European Union anymore. There’s free WIFI everywhere. And last but not least the quality of devices has improved a lot, and your phone can replace an actual camera. So your target audience will theoretically be able to receive push messages around the clock.

But please don’t be impatient if email opens are coming in slower than usual. And make sure to customize your offers for the holiday season: shop offers with a very short availability will most likely not be as effective, for example. Respect and cater to local differences as well. In France, most people are off on holidays at the same time for most of August. It’s all about expertimenting and optimizing. Keep that in mind and stay relaxed with your audience. Unfortunately for them, but fortunately for us marketers, every vacation comes to an end.

What about Deliverability? Of course, we should not forget our favorite topic. You can relax here as well. As long as you stay consistent with your send outs and don’t make the holiday send out the “once a year, one shot newsletter” that goes out to ALL the contacts you’ve ever collected (instead of sending to your usual active contacts), you don’t have to worry about deliverability issues.

And now, enjoy your holidays if you still have some ahead of you. With or without email, that’s up to you.

(1) Sample too small 🙂