Lyris' strategic account manager discusses five holiday email mistakes you should avoid.

You've been a good little email marketer all year long. You've cleaned up your subscription process, targeted your offers and purged your list of nonresponders.

But now Cyber Monday has come and gone, and if you're not in the black yet, you may be tempted to push your email marketing program to get you there. Or perhaps your email marketing program is going so well you want to blow out the numbers.

Don't let the last minute holiday push into the black give you a black eye. Avoid these five holiday email worst practices, and you'll not only avoid a lump of coal in your stocking, your bottom line will be feeling that holiday spirit for months to come.

Don't rush. 
Things can get a little crazy at this time of year, and it's tempting to try to take a few shortcuts. Won't the cookies get cooked faster if I turn up the oven fifty degrees?

Don't get burnt. Take the time, and vet your email campaign through your normal quality control process. Proofread, validate the links and test for deliverability. Run a split test on your offers.

Testing may take a few more hours, but that's time well spent when compared to the time it takes to send out an "oops" message for a dead link.

Don't overindulge. 
Those eggnog lattes may taste great going down, but you'll start your New Year's resolutions even deeper in the hole. 

It's just as easy to overdo it when it comes to email. The immediate results may be as sweet as that eggnog latte, but you may have a bigger problem than a snug waistline come January.

A temporary, slight increase in your mailing frequency might have been welcome by your customers earlier in the season. But if you go overboard now, holiday excesses will come back to haunt you.

Though your messages may be timely when you send them, they may not be when they're actually read. You may still be hard at work, but many of your customers have started their vacations. 

And believe it or not, there are people out there who don't read their email as often when they're out of the office-- if at all. The last thing you want is to have your well-crafted messages mass-deleted in the post-holiday spam purge.

Even maintaining your normal mailing frequency may look excessive to someone who returns to her mailbox after several days' absence.  

Don't make promises you can't keep. 
In the retail space, people actually pummel each other to purchase the must-have gift of the season. No one can literally choke you over the internet (can they?), but all the goodwill you have built up with customers will fly out the window if they end up empty-handed for the holidays because their gift is sitting in your warehouse. 

Some of the best gifts don't come in a box. Push customers to retail locations, or promote subscriptions or donations that the giver can print and offer in an envelope. When you suggest gifts that don't require a mail truck, you give the procrastinators hope that although it's late in the game, they still can be holiday heroes.

Don't keep playing the same old song. 
Are you beginning to dread going to the supermarket because you know you'll have to hear "Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer" for the hundredth time? 

Your customers may be experiencing the same sinking feeling when they open their email boxes. They've already gotten a dozen messages with subject lines like "Guaranteed Christmas Delivery!" and "Last minute gift ideas!" Tone down the desperation, and turn up the fun. Differentiate your email by reminding readers what it is about your brand and your messages they enjoy all year 'round, not what makes you exactly like every other online retailer in the holiday season.

Don't assume the holidays end in December.
Sure, you laugh at your neighbor who leaves the "Merrie Xmas" sign on his roof until Labor Day. And you snigger at your competitor whose website features a dancing Santa border even two days past Christmas. 

But don't think that just because the holidays are over that the giving spirit is gone-- it's just been redirected. Instead of thinking about what they can give others, people are thinking about what they should be getting themselves with all those gift cards or return credits. 

As they are buying gifts for themselves, those visitors could be giving you gifts, too-- their email addresses. Give your email signup a fresh look, and give subscribers a little something for signing up. 

Not only will you make the holidays last all year long, you'll be an even better little email marketer come December next year.

Wendy Roth is strategic account manager, Lyris Technologies. Read full bio.