4 Ideas To Revamp Your Easter Emails

2017 data from the National Retail Federation (NRF) speak for themselves: last year the spending planned for Easter in the USA exceeded $18 billion, promising the highest peak in fourteen years now, or since they began recording the data. The increase compared to 2016 is more than 6 percentage points.

Within this data, nearly 27% of this spending takes place online: more than a quarter, which is a very significant percentage.

For email marketers, Easter has a lot to offer. So, let’s find out how to face make the most of it in email campaigns.

It’s not just the brands of the food industry that benefit from email campaigns specifically designed for this holiday. Here are the goals that you can set for yourself.

Increase online conversions

E-commerce websites can tailor their offers to the needs of the moment. For example, proposing everything necessary for Easter dinner, like Liberty London…

… or offering special packages for fun weekend adventures, like the airline Vueling...

… or offering ideas for spring beauty treats, just like Julep does with a pretty animated GIF:

And here is the hatching egg in all its cuteness:

Increase in-store visits

Retailers can advertise a selection of specific products to attract customers to their stores, or promote a special opening. For example, Evans Cycles has created a perfect reminder email notifying recipients that its stores are open on Easter Sunday:

Create engagement

All it takes is a quiz, an interactive game, a hatching egg or a riddle to create interaction with the readers. We will show you some effective examples later on.

There’s no single answer to this question. You can choose to concentrate every aspect of the communication in a single message, or build an informational flow that dilutes the content over time. The first solution can be the best if the Easter tone significantly deviates from your email’s normal content, so you don’t have to overly “alienate” users with repeated communications that are far from what they expect.

The drip campaign option can instead be best if it’s more in line with your usual brand message. A houseware e-commerce website, for example, can set up a sequence of emails divided by theme: Easter tableware, gifts, ideas for children, and so on. In this case, it is important to study the best timing.

1. Leverage lightness (also with GIFs)

Use colors, images, graphic inspirations, playfulness. Easter rhymes with spring and lightness. Align your emails with this concept and you’ll realize that it takes just a little bit to make them perfect for the season.

Animated GIFs are a great way to add movement to email and bring them to life. Creating and inserting them in communications is also surprisingly easy, as explained in this tutorial. Here are two classy, effective communication examples from Terrain:

2. Create a seasonal offer

Easter is clearly not Christmas, but there’s no reason why you shouldn’t try to boost sales with a special selection or a dedicated coupon code. This message from Hotel Chocolat, for example, includes a discount valid only for the day of Easter. We also like the clear and elegant graphic layout of this email, as well as the reference to the Easter theme which differs from the usual pink or green egg.

3 . Go for a game, a quiz or an interactive element

We discussed this at the beginning of the article: a themed game is not an ordinary thing and it strengthens the relationship with the recipients. It also tickles user interaction and builds customer loyalty with a light, playful touch. Here are some examples of interactive content that can be developed.

A real egg hunt 

Every year, for Easter, chocolate manufacturer Cadbury promotes an actual egg hunt in Britain. This email serves as a call for the initiative, which takes place all over the country, and provides an excellent example of how to combine online and offline for communication purposes that go beyond a single channel.

A virtual egg hunt

An easier alternative to offline initiatives? A virtual hunt for Easter eggs hidden on the e-commerce website and/or in stores, which once found give special discounts. This is the strategy the fashion brand Banana Republic put in place with this refined and effective Easter email.

However, a special prize goes to Topman‘s communication department. A virtual treasure hunt is made unforgettable by a Pac-man themed animated GIF with a nostalgic and playful appeal. It’s impossible to not click! For us, this message beats all the others.

Here’s their spectacular animated GIF in motion:

Infographics

Tea makers Fortnum & Mason successfully try an infographic quiz – fun, fast and visually stunning, it makes the use of email two-way and interactive.

This email gets a high score also when viewed from a mobile device. Its modular structure ensures that the blocks will automatically relocate on smaller screens, in order to be easy to read, scroll and tap.

Ok, that’s all great, but Easter is really too off-topic for your business. Instead of completely ignoring the opportunity this specific holiday offers, try to at least ‘soften’ the tone and content of your emails, adapting them to the spring season. Like GetResponse does in the message below. The results may be unexpected!

Now you should have all the elements to start shaping your Easter emails. If you like, you can let us know in the comments below which choices you make and how they perform.