What’s your Q5 email marketing strategy?
If your answer is “Huh?,” or “Um-m-m …,” or even “We’re promoting our after-Christmas sale going on, and I’m going on vacation,” this post is for you.
The time between Christmas and New Year’s Day, and even a week or two into the new year, is like an economic microclimate. It has even taken on its own buzzy name that shows how it bridges the end of Q4 and the start of Q1.
You might be off-duty at that point, but your customers aren’t. They’re just shopping differently. You need a post-holiday email strategy that meets them where they are with campaigns that speak to their unique goals.
Create an effective Q5 email marketing strategy with RPE Origin’s new guide.
And no, you don’t have to invent a brand-new set of Q5 email marketing campaigns to help you reach your post-holiday goals! Our guide, The 6 Q5 Strategies Nobody Else is Talking About (Yet), has insights, tips, advice, and real-world campaigns that show you how to reposition and refocus your post-holiday campaigns to create email messages that appeal to your customers’ new priorities.
You’ll discover what makes up Q5, why people are shopping differently in that short window as one year winds down and another begins, and how to reach out to them with campaign ideas and email examples.
In the meantime, here are some highlights:
Why a Q5 email marketing strategy makes sense
Your Q5 email marketing strategy should include campaigns that help your customers achieve their goals in this unique period. If not, you could lose out on some revenue that could help you meet your year-end targets. Even worse: You could end up pushing those customers to brands that do meet their needs!
Google said it best in its recent consumer trends report:
“The two-week period from December 26 to January 8 … is one of the most profitable windows of the year. …
[After] the holidays, shoppers are most likely to buy: 87% of their shopping occasions result in a purchase. For retailers, this is the most critical time to be present, to reengage shoppers who may have been too busy during the holiday rush and to reconnect with loyal customers.”
No matter what these post-holiday shoppers are looking for, you can meet them with fresh, purpose-driven emails that do more than sell. And, yes, you can still sell. But you do that with purpose and flair, with messages that center on value-added content over hard sell.
That’s the heart of a Q5 email marketing strategy.
Meet your 4 kinds of post-holiday shoppers: Your customer base might vary, but these are the kinds of shoppers that you should be looking for:
- Goal-oriented bargain hunters
- Self-gifters
- Resolution-setters
- Information-seekers
Now you can see why a one-size-fits-all approach to a post-holiday email marketing strategy can fall way short. Keep reading to learn how to approach each kind of shopper.
3 Q5 email marketing campaigns to reach loyal shoppers and engage new customers
We picked 3 of the 6 campaigns featured in the guide to give you a taste of what you can expect.
1. Help customers redeem gift cards
[alt text: Q5 email marketing strategy 1: Help customers redeem gift cards. Shinola promises post-holiday shoppers they can use their cards to get what Santa didn’t bring them.]
About $23 billion in gift cards never get redeemed, despite efforts like National Use Your Gift Card Day (coming up on January 18, 2026). Maybe it’s because not enough brands send reminders like this one from Shinola, which lures cardholders with the promise that they can get what Santa didn’t bring.
2. Recap the year that was
[alt test: Q5 email marketing strategy 2: Recap your customer’s year with your brand. If you don’t have personalization data, use numbers that relate to your customers’ interest in your brand, as Health-Ade does.]
Personalized recap emails use data to tell a story about how your customer engaged with your brand over the year. But even if you don’t have this granular data or a platform that allows this 1:1 personalization, you can still create a recap email that connects. Health-Ade ties every part of its recap to its customers. That extra line of copy that says, “Did your fave make the Top 3?” invites the customer to make a mental calculation and draws them into the conversation.
3. Welcome new customers
[alt text: Q5 email marketing strategy 3: welcome new customers. Offer new customers or subscribers a guided tour of your brand, product, or values, as Huel does with its “Bestseller Bundle.]
However your newcomers found you, your job now is to keep them engaged. You can do that with a guided tour of your products, your brand, your values, and anything else that would appeal. Huel’s approach will work for any brand that sells products as part of a system or group, such as wellness, fashion capsules, sports equipment, food, or dining.
One final tip: Consider a time shift
Our new guide, The 6 Q5 Strategies Nobody Else is Talking About (Yet), has more insights, tips, and advice for your Q5 email marketing strategy. But we’ll leave you with one tidbit you can test right now (as in today!) to increase your chances of having your email seen in the inbox and acted on:
Data from Litmus shows people change their email habits during the holidays, including the Q5 period. The new optimum sending time? It’s 7 p.m., when 9.45% of all opens occur.
— Source: Litmus from Valdity
You don’t have to revamp your entire email schedule. Instead, take this data tip as a reason to check your sending data to see if your customers also change their engagement habits during the holidays.
If you notice a consistent shift, test a campaign to see if you get higher engagement and conversions from the new send time.
Here’s to an engaging, connecting, and profitable holiday season, and may you reach your post-holiday goals, too!
And if you need any help coming up with a Q5 email marketing strategy, we’re just a phone call away. Let’s talk!
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