The Christmas season is traditionally a time of year for taking a break from work, catching up with family and friends, often travelling away from home for a long awaited holiday.

Checking email is not often high on the agenda (unless you’re exceptionally attached to your subscriptions – ahem – but even then it’s nice to have a break). In fact coming back to a mountain of email in the inbox isn’t the nicest welcome back to real life. Deleting in bulk and indiscriminate unsubscribing (*gasp*) are not unexpected at this time of year. What if you unsubscribe before your holiday then forget to resubscribe in the New Year?

Wouldn’t it be nice if, as a subscriber, you could effectively pause your subscription while you’re on downtime? You could sleep easy knowing your inbox wasn’t filling up during your break, and that your subscriptions would reactivate at a specified time.

As a marketer, it makes sense to make it as easy as possible for your subscribers to love you. Consider implementing a simple form, either on your Preference Centre (“Update my Details” form) or your Unsubscribe Form, inviting subscribers to pause their mailing for a specified time. Include a brief intro encouraging them to interact plus two date fields (holiday start and end dates). Once you have this information you may build it into your regular newsletter segment by excluding records whose Holiday Start Date is before today and Holiday End Date is after today.

It’s a simple initiative your brand can take but represents clear advantages to your valuable subscribers. What’s more, it limits the number of emails you send to a vacant inbox over the holiday period (eliminating waste) and discourages unnecessary unsubscribes.

Now to get all the companies to which I subscribe on board before Christmas…