To start sending Easter emails, you just need to open marketing stats, and you’ll see that 81% of Americans celebrate this holiday. In 2023, US consumers planned to spend $24 billion in Easter, the highest figure on record, according to the results of the annual survey. This budget has been steadily increasing throughout the years:
54% of those who didn’t celebrate Easter still were on the hunt for Easter-related sales and were planning to spend $23.41 per person (up from $17.64 in 2020).
So, the Easter celebrations are very important to many people and you can use this fact to your advantage. Why not participate in overall festivities and take a chance to sell more using Easter email campaigns?
In 2024, Easter falls on Sunday, March 31st, so you need to be ready a bit earlier than last year. Let’s dive a little deeper into the essence of an effective Easter campaign. To make it work, follow several simple steps:
Sending out Easter emails should be a part of your overall email marketing strategy and every campaign should have its goal. For Easter messages, as with other holiday email campaigns, these may be the following:
As Easter is celebrated in spring, many retailers use Easter emails to promote and highlight their spring lines. You can follow this strategy too.
Depending on the goal of your campaign and your email strategy, you can choose the tone of voice, key message, and other points of focus.
The majority of Easter emails the customers receive have different purchase incentives. To make an impact, you can choose another route like sending Easter greetings or tips.
In this email, the temporary tattoo brand Tattly has combined the best Easter egg designs with links to funny holiday-related articles. They sell nothing but still coax to visit their website and grab readers’ attention.
You can structure your campaign to include two or more messages. For example, you can begin with something Easter-themed like a holiday message from your company’s CEO or an announcement and finish the email with product recommendations or deals.
Here’s an example of an Easter hunt promotion and some product recommendations:
Another marketing strategy is to send not one but several email campaigns. The first one in a sequence can announce the upcoming sale, the next one can be about the sale itself, and on Easter, you can send a holiday card, and after that — an email reminding customers of the last days of the sale.
A good Easter campaign is personal, relevant, and timely. To make your emails more reader-oriented, use segmentation based on the customer’s preferences, and recommend the products they’ve viewed or the ones similar to the goods they’ve purchased. Make sure each segment of your list gets an email designed to appeal to their interests and buying capacities.
When the campaign is sent, monitor opens, clicks, and conversions to see how well your Easter email performed. Do not limit yourself to these basic metrics, though: pay attention to the order size, the number of new and regular buyers, website visits, etc. All metrics that measure the kinds of actions your email drove on your website matter.
If you need some Easter subject line inspiration, here it goes:
You can also try adding emojis in your subject line. You can also use A/B testing and send two variations of an email with different subject lines and compare the impact of a subject line with an emoji and without it.
Here are examples of clever subject lines with emojis:
To make your Easter email more attention-grabbing and turn it into a conversion machine for your business, apply these simple practices.
Easter is celebrated in spring when the flowers start to bloom and the sun is shining bright. Try to convey a sense of the beginning of new life in your email newsletter using light spring tones and patterns — flowers, leaves, sun. Predominating green, white, light blue, pink, or yellow colors will perfectly complement your Easter email template.
This Easter email from dusk has a warm yellow color palette. The banner images convey a celebratory and warm atmosphere. The yellow checkered background is an especially interesting detail since it reminds us of a picnic blanket.
When it comes to the message you convey, think outside the box! Let your creativity shine and avoid cliches in your text. It will help your email stand out in cluttered subscribers’ inboxes.
Remember — Easter is fun! Use puns and plays-on-word in the email body, or in a subject line. You can even take inspiration from April Fools’ email ideas. Interesting copy entertains the readers and wins their attention. And, surely, try to make these puns Easter-themed.
Crate & Barrel used a funny Easter pun in a headline, combining it with a cute holiday GIF. The email looks fresh and entices you to go to the website to see what else the company has to offer.
We’ve already shown a great example with a GIF above, so let’s expand on it. Animated GIFs are a simple way to add some fun to different types of email campaigns — they catch the attention and make the readers look at your newsletter a bit longer. The best way to apply it to your holiday email is to make it Easter-themed: use an Easter egg, Easter bunny ears, and even the actual word “Easter”.
In this example, marketers used the funny phrase “hop to it”, which is traditionally associated with Easter bunnies. It adds a little fun to the message, transforming it from a boring email that has nothing to do with Easter to a holiday email.
You can’t say Easter without an egg! 32% of Americans were planning an egg hunt on Easter in 2022. So, this is probably the most known Easter symbol, but there are also other ones, like Easter bunnies, carrots, and flowers. Add them to your email design to make it more festive.
Oeuf used a clever marketing trick, displaying their products to imitate an Easter bunny. Combined with mimosa flowers, it looks cute and spring-like.
Using gamification in your emails is not only a cool and creative way to entertain your subscribers and redirect them to your website. It also perfectly captures the Easter spirit! You can start a full-fledged egg hunt, or simply add some gamification elements to your email — it depends on your goals and resources.
The tricky part is that game mechanics can be tricky to pull off. The brand We Might Be Tiny first decided to have an egg hunt promo on the website but the game wasn’t properly programmed. In the next email, the company made sure customers could make use of the deals. The game here is simple: subscribers need to find the code that grants 70% off. It’s still a fun guessing game and a great example of how to correct email mistakes.
Countdown timers are a proven technique to increase click-through rates: they create a sense of urgency and fear of missing out on discounts and other useful deals. That’s why it is worth including one in your Easter email, especially when it comes to a time-limited promotion. See how the urgency is highlighted in the example below: not only did the company use a timer, but also added the phrase “hurry, only 3 days to go”.
Now that you know how to create an effective Easter email campaign and what techniques to use, let’s look at some noteworthy Easter email examples for your marketing inspiration. Use these as your email templates or just enjoy the designs.
What we liked about it: A creative approach to applying an Easter theme to the brand’s products is definitely worth your attention. The first thing that catches an eye is running accessories, laid out in the shape of an Easter bunny. Then we see that On Running launches a themed challenge: make an Easter image with your running route and share it using the hashtag #RunOnEaster. That’s a great way to create more UGC.
What we liked about it: This email campaign has a simple structure and layout but it’s the images that make it breathtaking. Since the product is sweets, the photographs aim to make them appetizing. The saturated colors and light effects entice the customers and also convey a feeling of celebration.
What we liked about it: The design is absolutely stunning and looks like a gravure from an old book. It combines both amusing illustrations and some useful promotional info: 15% discount on selected items in the shop. This email perfectly displays the spring vibe and clearly conveys the key message.
What we liked about it: This email almost entirely consists of a GIF. The cracking egg makes the campaign feel interactive and excites the subscribers with the promo code reveal. Plus, the email uses classic Easter imagery and pastel for a holiday feel.
If you haven’t sent Easter campaigns before, the time has come! The holiday is loved and celebrated by millions of people all over the globe — why not take advantage of it and start some marketing activities? To make your Easter campaign work, follow these simple steps:
The best practices for your Easter email design are:
This article was originally published in March 2022 and was updated in March 2024 to make it more relevant and comprehensive.
