Layla Thomas, our summer marketing intern, shares her views on holiday email messages in her latest blog post. You can reach out and say hi to Layla through LinkedIn.

The early bird may or may not get the worm, but it definitely gets opens.

After reading the material in Listrak’s Holiday Insights Resource Center and hearing about the 40% of people (who are evidently far more prepared than I) that begin purchasing Christmas gifts as early as October, I decided to do a little digging around.

With just a quick look at emails spanning from October to January in 2014, the relationship between emails sent and open rate appeared to be starkly inverse.

In December, the Open Rate sees a substantial dip while the number of emails sent per company is at a seasonal high. Conversely, low sending in October sees extraordinarily high Open Rates. As the holiday season peaks, you can expect recipients to have a lot more emails and lot less free time, seemingly resulting in more discriminatory inbox behavior.

To maximize face time with your shoppers, start the conversation before they’re worrying about the in-laws visiting or ham burning in the oven. With strong content-rich emails that build the relationship now, you’ll have a strong foundation to soften any disengagement the busy month of December may encourage.

What are your holiday email habits? Leave us your thoughts below.