Last-Minute Christmas Email Tips (That Don't Suck)

Alright, it's December. Christmas is barreling toward us faster than your uncle after three eggnogs, and you've just realized your email game needs serious help. Maybe your open rates are pathetic. Maybe your unsubscribe rate is climbing faster than holiday shipping costs. Or maybe you just know, deep down, that your emails are boring as hell.

Good news: it's not too late to fix this.

Bad news: you need to stop doing what you've been doing.

Let's talk about how to send Christmas emails that people actually want to read, starting right now.

Stop Apologizing for Emailing

Here's a fun drinking game: take a shot every time you see "Sorry to bother you during the holidays!" in your inbox this month. Actually, don't do that. You'll end up in the ER.

Why do marketers do this? You're not sorry. If you were actually sorry, you wouldn't send the email. And your subscribers didn't sign up to watch you grovel.

Instead of apologizing for existing, try acknowledging reality without being pathetic about it. Something like, "Your inbox is probably drowning right now, so I'll make this quick." See the difference? You're showing awareness without acting like sending them an email is a federal crime.

The moment you apologize for communicating with people who literally gave you permission to communicate with them, you've already lost. You're signaling that your email isn't worth reading. Why would they read it after that?

Your Subject Lines Are Probably Terrible

Let me guess what's sitting in your drafts folder right now:

• "Holiday Sale - Don't Miss Out!"
• "Our Gift to You This Christmas 🎁"
• "Last Chance for Holiday Savings!"

These subject lines don't suck because they're holiday-themed. They suck because they're the same thing everyone else is sending. Your subject line is competing with 47 other promotional emails that landed in the same inbox on the same day. Standing out matters more in December than literally any other month.

Try these approaches instead:

Be weirdly specific: "The exact day you should send your holiday emails (it's not when you think)" beats "Holiday Email Marketing Tips" every single time.

Create curiosity without being clickbaity: "We tried something stupid with our Christmas campaign" works because people want to know what stupid thing you did. Just make sure the email actually delivers on that promise.

Use numbers that aren't round: "23 hours left" is more believable and urgent than "24 hours left." Same with "47% off" versus "50% off." Round numbers feel made up. Weird numbers feel real.

Drop the emojis unless they actually add something. A single well-placed emoji can work. Seven Christmas trees in your subject line make you look desperate.

The real test: would YOU open that email if you didn't work at your company? If the answer is "eh, maybe," then it's not good enough.

Make Your Emails Scannable or Die Trying

Nobody reads anymore. They scan. And in December, when people are juggling shopping lists, family drama, and year-end work deadlines, they're scanning even faster than usual.

Here's what happens when someone opens your email: They spend about 1.3 seconds deciding if it's worth their time. If they see a wall of text, they're gone. If they see something that looks easy to digest, you've got a shot.

This means:

Short paragraphs. Like, ridiculously short. If you're going more than 2-3 lines, break it up. I'm serious about this. White space is your friend.

One idea per paragraph. Don't try to cram your entire value proposition into a single paragraph. That's how you lose people.

Subheadings that actually tell people something. Not "Our Services" but "Why Your Current Email Provider is Costing You Sales." Not "Features" but "What You Actually Get."

Bullet points when listing things. But not for everything. Save them for when you actually have a list of things. Using bullets for a single item is weird.

The goal isn't to write less. The goal is to make whatever you write easier to consume. There's a difference.

Talk Like a Human, Not a Corporate Robot

I'm going to share something that might hurt: most marketing emails sound like they were written by a committee of lawyers who've never experienced joy.

"We hope this email finds you well during this festive season. As a valued customer, we wanted to reach out to express our gratitude and share some exciting opportunities..."

Shoot me now.

Compare that to: "Hey, it's been a chaotic year. Here's something that might make December slightly less stressful."

Which one would you keep reading?

The way you write emails should sound like how you'd talk to someone at a bar. Not a job interview. Not a board meeting. A actual conversation with a real human who has a sense of humor and doesn't speak in buzzwords.

This doesn't mean being unprofessional. It means being personable. There's a massive difference between casual and sloppy. You can be conversational while still sounding like you know what you're doing.

Test: Read your email out loud. If you sound like you're giving a TED talk or testifying before Congress, rewrite it.

Urgency Without the Cringe Factor

December is naturally urgent. Christmas comes whether you're ready or not. Shipping deadlines are real. That's built-in urgency you can use.

But there's a right way and a wrong way to do this.

Wrong way: "LAST CHANCE!!! SALE ENDS SOON!!! DON'T MISS OUT!!!"

That's not urgency. That's panic. And it makes you look desperate.

Right way: "Orders placed after December 18th won't arrive before Christmas. Just being upfront about that."

See what happened there? You created urgency by stating a fact, not by yelling at people. It's more effective because it's credible. The shipping deadline is real. You're not making it up to manipulate people.

Other ways to create real urgency:

Inventory counts. "We've got 47 of these left" works if it's true. Don't lie about this. People will find out, and then you're done.

Specific deadlines. "Order by 11:59 PM EST on Tuesday" is more urgent than "Order soon." Vague deadlines don't work because they don't feel real.

Honest scarcity. If you're genuinely running out of something or ending an offer, say so. If you're not, don't pretend you are. Your customers aren't stupid.

The key is that your urgency needs to be rooted in reality. If people can't tell whether your deadline is real or manufactured, they won't act on it.

Segment or Send Generic Garbage (Your Choice)

Sending the same email to everyone is lazy. And in December, when attention is scarce and competition is fierce, lazy loses.

You don't need fancy AI segmentation. You need basic common sense:

People who bought from you versus people who haven't. These are different audiences with different needs. Talk to them differently.

Big spenders versus one-time buyers. Your VIP customers deserve more than the same discount you're giving to everyone else.

Engaged subscribers versus people who haven't opened an email in months. Maybe the inactive ones need a different approach. Or maybe they need to be unsubscribed.

B2B versus B2C. If you're selling to both, they care about completely different things. Business buyers aren't shopping for themselves. They have budgets, approval processes, and different pain points.

Even simple segmentation can double your results. An email that feels personally relevant performs better than a generic blast. This isn't rocket science.

And if you're thinking "but I don't have time to segment everything," then at least segment something. Do the 20% of segmentation that will get you 80% of the results. Start with your best customers and work backward from there.

Your Call-to-Action Needs Serious Help

"Click here" is not a call-to-action. It's a placeholder you forgot to replace.

Your CTA should tell people exactly what happens when they click. Not vaguely. Specifically.

Bad: "Learn More"
Better: "Show Me Holiday Deals"

Bad: "Get Started"
Better: "Start My Free Trial"

Bad: "Click Here"
Better: "Download the Free Guide"

Notice the pattern? The better ones tell you exactly what you're getting. There's no mystery. No confusion. Just clarity about what happens next.

Also, stop putting seventeen different CTAs in the same email. Pick one thing you want people to do and make that obvious. If you're asking them to buy something, read your blog, follow you on social media, and refer a friend all in the same email, they'll do none of those things.

One email. One goal. One clear CTA.

Mobile Isn't Optional Anymore (It Never Was)

Over 60% of emails get opened on mobile. In December, that number goes even higher because people are shopping from their phones while hiding from relatives.

If your email looks like garbage on mobile, you're losing more than half your audience.

Quick mobile checklist:

Is your text readable without zooming? If people need to pinch-and-zoom to read your email, they won't. They'll delete it.

Are your buttons big enough to tap? Tiny links that require precision tapping are annoying. Make your CTA buttons big enough that someone with cold fingers can tap them while walking.

Does your email load quickly? If you've stuffed your email full of huge images, it's going to load slowly. And people will give up before it finishes.

Did you actually test it on a phone? Not just the preview in your email software. Actually send it to yourself and open it on your phone. You'll find problems you didn't know existed.

This isn't advanced strategy. This is basic functionality. But most people still screw it up.

Timing Matters More Than You Think

When you send your email matters almost as much as what's in it.

Here's what most people get wrong about December email timing:

They wait until the last minute. If you're sending a holiday campaign email on December 23rd, you're too late. People have already made their shopping decisions. Get your important emails out earlier.

They send everything on the same days as everyone else. Tuesday and Wednesday mornings are when everyone sends promotional emails. That's also when your email has the most competition. Try Monday afternoons or Thursday evenings. Test different days.

They forget about time zones. If you're sending to a national or international audience, schedule your sends for optimal times in each region. Sending an email at 2 AM in your subscriber's time zone is dumb.

They send too many too fast. Three promotional emails in two days is a great way to get unsubscribed. Spread things out. Give people time to breathe between sends.

And here's a controversial opinion: sometimes not sending an email is the right move. If you have nothing valuable to say, don't say anything. Quality over quantity actually matters, especially when everyone else is bombarding inboxes.

Stop Trying to Be Clever and Just Be Clear

Marketing people love being clever. They love puns and wordplay and references that three people will understand.

Your subscribers? They just want to know what you're offering and why they should care.

"Sleigh Your Way to Savings!" is clever. It's also meaningless. What are you actually offering? How much of a discount? What's included? Nobody knows from that subject line alone.

"50% Off All Winter Gear - Free Shipping Included" isn't clever. But it's clear. And clear wins.

This goes double for your email copy. If someone needs to read your email twice to understand what you're offering, you've already lost them. They won't read it twice. They'll delete it and move on.

Be so clear that there's no room for confusion. Tell people exactly what you're offering, what it costs, and what they need to do to get it. Anything less is a waste of everyone's time.

The Bottom Line

Christmas email marketing isn't complicated. But it does require you to stop doing lazy, generic things that don't work.

Send emails that respect people's time. Make them easy to read. Write like a human. Create real urgency based on actual facts. Segment your list so you're not sending irrelevant garbage to people who don't care. And for the love of everything holy, make your emails work on mobile.

You've still got time to turn things around. But you need to start now, and you need to do it right.

No more boring subject lines. No more walls of text. No more fake urgency. No more sending the same thing to everyone and hoping for different results.

Your subscribers deserve better than that. And honestly, so do you.

Now go fix your emails before Christmas gets here.