If you ever wanted scientific evidence that sending email coupons can be a good thing, here’s an interesting report from Harvard. Basically, they found that people create mini "mental accounting models" in their own heads, in order to stick to short term budgeting goals.

A surprise gift certificate or coupon (the professors call them, "unanticipated small windfalls") will give people that little push to go buy stuff they wouldn’t normally buy otherwise. And they usually end up spending slightly more than normal.

So this holiday season send your customers some "unanticipated small windfalls" via email. MailChimp can help. You can setup a Postcard Template for Thanksgiving and Christmas, for instance. Use the "splashy graphic" slot for your coupon.

And with our new segmentation feature, you can actually send campaigns to targeted groups within your list of "people who are interested in e-coupons, AND who clicked on the coupon in my previous campaign" (here’s an example).