I love Halloween. It’s the one day in the year when my black clothes are considered “on trend”, as the mags would say. But what’s more cool is the bat-outta-hell flurry of awesome email designs that we stumble upon at this time of year.
Well, it sure isn’t too late to get your email out the (creaky) door. If you’ve left it late this year and are howling for inspiration, read on for a review of two eerily-good campaigns from our customers!
Shearer Candles
Designed by: Stephanie Barnet, Shearer Candles. Template by H&A Graphic Design
Photography by: Victoria Barnet
We couldn’t pass on this one. Cutting back on the creepy crawlies, this Halloween email from Shearer Candles is pure class. Featuring excellent product photos and a healthy balance between imagery and copy, it’s sure to light up your inbox.
The 3-column layout of this newsletter offers itself to bite-size content, which is perfect for distractable readers. A sense of hierarchy is apparent, with appealing content like ‘Our top sellers’ featuring in the upper portion of the email, with less critical information filtering down. That said, the entire email is full of the good stuff – not to mention refreshing, as it isn’t often that you see a defiantly mature Halloween email marketing campaign.
Finally, you may have noticed the lack of call-to-action links on this campaign. Well, there’s a good reason for it. Two versions of this campaign were created – one for online customers, then this one for walk-in customers to their store in Glasgow. Both have their copy specifically tailored for these different audiences, which is no doubt a clever strategy on their part.
A big hand to the Shearer candles team for shining a light on good design this Halloween!
WhimsyWraps
Designed by: WhimsyWraps
The ‘frightful & delightful’ heading breezily summarizes WhimsyWraps‘ email newsletter. Featuring straight-up examples of their playful candy-wrapper designs, this campaign does its best to generate excitement by announcing a 4-day sale, offering perks, a coupon code and ultimately, encouragement to get orders in well before the Halloween season. But what always raises our pulse is seeing an email campaign that still looks great with images turned off. For example:
In anticipation of the header image being not visible when images are blocked, WhimsyWraps have displayed all important details as editable text in the bottom portion of the email (including the ‘SHOP HALLOWEEN’ button). They’ve also provided ample ALT text throughout, meaning that the images-off crowd don’t miss the message in this design.
Finally, we love this styled-up forward-to-a-friend link:
The short permission message is a nice touch, as well as the positive message that you’re letting your friends know about a good thing. Personally, I almost rolled off my exercise ball with excitement when I found out that one of our customers makes personalized candy, so don’t be shy now!
A little more editable text could have probably been added to the header navigation of this email, but all up, it’s spook-tacular!
“Happy Halloween, folks!”
Well, on behalf of the Campaign Monitor team, I’d like to wish you and your clients a Halloween filled with bad puns and good, personalized candy. If you think one of your campaigns has been a treat this season, please share it with us in the comments below.
