Steps to Follow for a Successful Thanksgiving Email Marketing Strategy
When it comes to email marketing, people often forget to put themselves in their audience's shoes. Think of your habits. What do you look for when reading through your inbox? How do you judge the quality of a sender's email?
Take a moment to consider these questions, and look at the steps below for the maximum outcome. After all, there's nothing worse than sending an email that no one wants to read.
Set Your Goal
Before you start writing your Thanksgiving email, take a moment to think about the aim of your message. What outcome are you trying to get with your Thanksgiving email?
- Is it time to give back to your loyal customers by offering discounts and gifts?
- Do you want to grow your sales by providing a seasonal campaign?
- Is this email for winning back your inactive customers?
- Do you just want to send personalized Thanksgiving emails to welcome new subscribers?
Once you decide on your goal, the following steps will be easier and more meaningful.
Create a Thankful Message
Thanksgiving might be the best time to emphasize generosity. You can mention your act of giving back in your message. Knowing that you are part of a good cause will make your audience want to be involved as well.
Offer something special: If you feel like saying thank you is not enough, you can make them feel appreciated by offering a little offer as well.
Get personal: You can also focus on being more intimate with email language to build and strengthen your connection with them.
Be humorous: If your brand tone resonates, it is an excellent time to get humorous in your email. For example, adding a couple of Thanksgiving-related puns could put a smile on the readers' faces.
Don't forget to mention Black Friday: It's beautiful to express gratitude to your customers without requesting a purchase.
However, because your customers will be prepared to make serious purchases after Thanksgiving, you could also want to provide a brief reminder about your Black Friday promotion.
Find the Perfect Subject Line
Your email subject line matters, and Thanksgiving emails are no exception. It is the first thing the recipients see, so it should be attractive enough to make them go ahead and open your email.
You can totally go creative with your email subject lines on this day, as it is one of the best times to play with words and add some emojis.
Here we have curated some Thanksgiving email subject line examples for you to get inspired:
- Happy Thanksgiving from our family to yours!
- You can't afford to miss this Thanksgiving deal!
- Limited time to save on Thanksgiving resources!
- The Thanksgiving deal you've been waiting for!
- Stop EVERYTHING! The newest items for Thanksgiving are here!
- Thanksgiving discounts have arrived!
- BOGO this Thanksgiving!
- Gobble this up: 25% off Thanksgiving essentials
- If you've been waiting for a good sale on Thanksgiving, it's here.
- If you love Thanksgiving, you're going to love this sale.
- Big savings for Thanksgiving lovers.
- Because there's no better time to say thanks.
- Are you ready for Thanksgiving?
- Happy Thanksgiving with awesome offers!
- A time for sharing, a time for caring.
- Ready to FALL for our offers this Thanksgiving?
- Let the feast begin!
- Free shipping on our Thanksgiving collection 🎁
Design of Your Thanksgiving Email
As food is a big part of this special day, even if your brand is not exactly focused on food, you may try to include some good-quality popular food images.
When it comes to the design of your Thanksgiving email, there are two directions to go: either go crazy with bright colors and eye-catching images or keep it simple to emphasize your message.
Still, it might be good to use warm and welcoming fall colors to match the Thanksgiving vibe.
Once you optimize your Thanksgiving email marketing campaign for mobile devices, you will be good to go. You can also use different design tools to go above and beyond.
Bonus Tip: Don't Forget to Give Back
Remember, you’ll always have time to market your products and services, but Thanksgiving carries gratitude and sharing in its essence.
So it is better not to be too pushy and don’t try too hard to sell your products. It’s a great time to connect with your customers on a personal level to invest in your future sales.
In honor of this connection, you can treat them with little gifts and freebies just to let them know that you are thankful. This act of kindness will work wonders for your business.
10 Inspiring Thanksgiving Email Examples
It's time for business owners to express gratitude to all of the people who have impacted their operations this year, including customers, clients, employees, team members, partners, and anybody else.
So let's look at the brands that nail their Thanksgiving email marketing strategies and get inspiration for an outstanding Thanksgiving email marketing campaign.
1. Chipotle
There is no doubt that Thanksgiving is a busy day with family and friends gathering and cooking delicious food. And this is precisely what Chipotle aimed at in their email marketing campaign.
Chipotle is an American chain of fast-casual restaurants that offers to clear away the rush of cooking so you can have more time to enjoy with your family.
They also mentioned that they have food for everyone, including vegans and those on a special diet.
Including high-quality images of the food they offer and their take on Thanksgiving as "Friendsgiving" serve well for the aim of the email.
It can be said that Chipotle used this holiday time to its advantage with a spot-on email strategy.
2. Fracture
Fracture is an internet-based photo-finishing service offering photo-printed glasses.
Their Thanksgiving email marketing campaign consists of more than one email; in fact, they are expressing their gratitude with a 12-day [giveaway campaign](https://popupsmart.com/blog/giveaway-email-templates.
Their Thanksgiving email campaign offers a daily giveaway of up to $5.000. Because this gift is offered daily, they manage to keep the recipients engaged every day.
They mention in their email that consumers just need to open the email and opt-in to receive emails to guarantee that they will keep the email open rates high.
They also offer a discount code to show their gratitude to their customers.
Each email starts with something they are grateful for with a relevant image that makes it heart-warming and relatable.
Fracture manages to catch the spirit of this special day in its Thanksgiving email campaign.
3. Tracksmith
Tracksmith is a running company that provides premium running equipment for racing, training, and all other conditions.
Their Thanksgiving email has a huge headline asking, "Did you run today?".
It makes total sense, as many people feel the urge to involve in physical activity after gobbling up Thanksgiving food.
This kind of relatable content makes the reader curious about what is coming next.
Tracksmith offers early access to the Black Friday offer following their question, which is again on point as Thanksgiving is followed by Black Friday.
They used the opportunity to engage in Thanksgiving and also remind the recipients of Black Friday seamlessly with their straightforward email including visible CTA buttons.
It can be said that Tracksmith managed to hit two targets with one arrow.
4. Postmates
Acquired by Uber in 2020, Postmates is a food delivery service offering local delivery of restaurant-prepared meals and other goods.
Their Thanksgiving email starts with a catchy headline saying, "Say bye. Get pie." followed by a high-quality perfect-looking piece of pie which is a must-have for Thanksgiving.
The main body of the email is pretty humorous, including all the common talks you can have at Thanksgiving with your family and relatives.
The CTA buttons are obvious and properly positioned. It might also be a good idea to check out some CTA examples before creating your email. For the design, they preferred contrast colors to make it more eye-catching, and a clean look was applied overall.
Postmates manages to get the attention of customers with both the design and text of their Thanksgiving email.
5. Panna
Another brand that takes Thanksgiving from the yummy side is Panna, Pesticide Action Network (PAN) North America.
The subject line, "SO Many Sides: Bacon-Leek Stuffing + Luscious Gravy + Mashed Potatoes & More," lets you know about the email content before you open it.
Panna designed their Thanksgiving email with high-quality, mouth-watering food images.
Each image is followed by a friendly message, including a recipe. The CTA button is very visible, and you can see the links to the recipes easily.
With their Thanksgiving email, Panna manages to attract attention thanks to the clever use of images and friendly language.
6. Sonder
Sometimes the simpler is better. That's what Sonder achieves with their Thanksgiving email.
Sonder manages short-term rentals, such as apartment hotels, and they leave a sense of warmth in their email, starting with the email subject line, "Thankful for you."
This subject line is amazing because it shows you don't always have to go above and beyond while creating email subject lines.
A simple line showing gratitude is all it takes to increase your email open rate at this time of the year.
What follows this simple subject line? A simple email body, appropriate images, and a visible CTA button.
The colors of the email suit well with the season. Their main email body mentions they can provide accommodation without sounding pushy while kindly wishing a happy holiday.
We can agree that Sonder reminds us simplicity is the ultimate sophistication with their Thanksgiving email.
7. Whole Foods Market 365
While some brands go simple, Whole Foods Market 365 preferred to go big and bold with their Thanksgiving email marketing campaign.
Following the subject line, "Thanksgiving Got You Stressed? Not Anymore with 365." which shows that the brand found the customer pain points, a huge pie image is coming with capital and bold headline.
The image is followed by more with a visible CTA button for each. Although the opening of the email is bold, it can be seen that it is continued with a more straightforward design.
We can say that Whole Foods Market 365 did their homework, found customer needs, and delivered its email in line with that. Well done!
8. Blue Apron
Have you heard of FOMO?
If not, you can check out Blue Apron's Thanksgiving email example.
Blue Apron is an American ingredient-and-recipe meal kit company which makes total sense when we check out their email.
When you first open the email, you directly see "Won't Last Long," which makes you think, "What won't last long? What am I missing?". When you read the rest of the email body, you get what they did there.
The subject line "Because those leftovers won't last long" also calls the reader to action. They kept the message short and plain, followed by a clear CTA in contrast color.
9. Ibotta
Another FOMO marketing email example is coming from Ibotta, a mobile technology company.
Before we dive into the email body, let's check the subject line, "Happy Thanksgiving from Ibotta 🦃." The use of the turkey image is classic; in fact, the subject line itself is very traditional as well. Could it be more creative? For sure. Does it work this way? Why not?
The real deal starts once you open the email. You are welcomed with a massive $50 referral code offer. It is impossible to miss because of its size, and the "Ends Tomorrow" headline is what created the sense of scarcity, aka FOMO.
Although images and text could be more creative, Ibotta shows that using the right size also matters when it comes to email marketing.
10. Uber
The last Thanksgiving email marketing campaign example comes from no other than Uber, a company that provides mobility as a service.
They have a subject line that says "Flying to feast?✈️". Considering that Thanksgiving is a time when many people travel to gather with their loved ones, this is a pretty clever and curious subject line.
Inside the email, they used appropriate colors and illustrations. They keep the main body short and use a little bit of wordplay.
The CTA button is visible and placed well in order to direct the reader to their services.
Uber shows us how to simply take advantage of special days like Thanksgiving with their well-designed marketing email.
Before You Leave…
If you're going to try out Thanksgiving email marketing, be sure to keep the main aspect of this holiday in mind: giving thanks.
It's the perfect opportunity for brands to show how thankful they are for their customers and attempt to look down on their luck.
It's also great for promoting charity campaigns, as so many people already have a charitable spirit around the holidays.
So be sure to take advantage of this opportunity to connect with your existing list.
Make your emails timely and relevant, include a call-to-action, and include a link back to your website for maximum impact of your message.
What are your plans for this Thanksgiving? Are you ready for a shopping haul?
Meet me in the comments below!
Have a wonderful Thanksgiving from your friends at Popupsmart!
Frequently Asked Questions
1. What is the Best Time to Send Thanksgiving Marketing Emails?
On the eve of Thanksgiving, people typically cease opening marketing emails. This fall in open rate lasts until the Monday after Thanksgiving.
Given this knowledge, it is recommended to postpone sending marketing emails until the week after the holiday in order not to welcome recipients to an inbox full of emails that could look spammy.
2. How Many Emails Should I Send at Thanksgiving?
If you are planning something like a giveaway campaign, then the number of emails depends on the length of your campaign.
Other than that, it is better to keep them under 3 or 4, enough to make them know about your offers but not as many as that will overwhelm them.
3. How do You Say Happy Thanksgiving in a Professional Email?
If you are looking to exchange greetings with colleagues or friends over email, here are some suggestions:
Just writing "Happy Thanksgiving" to different colleagues can sound quite awkward. So, try this:
"Hi! Happy Thanksgiving! Hope you and your family have a great holiday."
It's simple but still could work, considering you want to keep it professional.
You can also go for:
"Wishing you a Happy Thanksgiving from your friends at {Company Name}. Have a safe and happy Thanksgiving with your family and friends."
