Now that we’re well-versed with holiday marketing hacks, it’s time to level up and get inspired by some of the most epic holiday email campaigns.

The best time to start your holiday email campaign is right in advance of Black Friday and Cyber Monday. You can create a holiday “preview” sale and include a coupon that’s only available through your email marketing campaign. A lot of people will do this. What makes your company stand out is in how creative your email design is going to be. Is it going to be a run of the mill graphic design or will it be inspired to think differently. Think differently by creating a photo spread or using more modern design elements.

If you have the capability, have an interactive email marketing campaign that links to an interactive landing page. This works brilliantly for retail industries. The landing page could be a photo of a real family living room with a Christmas tree and fireplace. The styling you go with will depend on your audience: contemporary modern or classic. You can have gifts under the tree and visitors can click on the gifts to see what’s inside, each one being a product. An interactive landing page stirs the imagination and gets people virtually engaged with your products. If they can imagine it under your tree, they can imagine it under their tree.

You can also play on the “12 Days of Christmas” Theme and have a 12 day email campaign that features one product at a time. If you’re featuring one product, you’re going to really need to engage readers with that product. Include a video if you can, get a popular guest blogger involved if possible. It also helps create buzz if you offer an email integrated giveaway for reach product. If you’re going to do a giveaway, make sure you’re taking advantage of the opportunity by creating FOMO (fear of missing out) ahead of time, through social media, prior email campaigns and your website. Also make sure you’re making it easier for people to subscribe to your email campaigns since this type of campaign will increase subscribers.

Creative holiday campaigns don’t just need to be about the email campaign itself. You can use the email campaign to draw attention to a creative holiday “gift” or service. Consider what Netflix did. They offered a video of a warm fireplace called “Your Home – Official Trailer.” The idea was that you could use Netflix to turn your TV into a live video of a cozy fireplace. You’re still using Netflix, and you’re getting something personalized out of it. It’s genius.

How you use your email marketing campaigns can – and should – vary. Do what works for you and your growing organization. If it’s strictly about content, great. If it’s to draw users to a landing page, even better. The goal is to move beyond just promotional content during the holidays and find a way to personalize your company and what it has to offer an audience base.

As a rule, it’s always better to send more holiday email campaigns that are varied in style and content, rather than just the one-off creative holiday campaign. This is the time of year for you to get noticed and a creative email campaign has the potential to do just that.