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The Top 8 Thanksgiving Email Examples & Campaigns for Inspiration
As digital marketers scramble to get their Black Friday and holiday campaigns in order, it’s common to overlook the importance of Thanksgiving emails.
You might wonder why you should even bother with Thanksgiving email campaigns. If your business doesn’t revolve around food, what good is sending a Thanksgiving email? Shouldn’t you just put your energy into the upcoming holiday shopping season?
Big mistake.
Thanksgiving emails can benefit your bottom line in several ways. Plus, you have multiple options for piquing interest and building trust among your subscribers as the emotional (and notoriously stressful) holiday season kicks into overdrive.
Here are 8 examples that exemplify how to use the Thanksgiving holiday to your advantage this holiday season:
Things to consider while planning your Thanksgiving email campaigns
As with any themed email campaign, you’ll want to consider the overall nature of the holiday if you really want your Thanksgiving email campaigns to resonate with your subscribers.
Here are a few tips to keep in mind:
Focus on gratitude.
You’re thankful for your subscribers and customers, right? Well, then let them know. Thanksgiving is the perfect time for boosting loyalty programs, offering hefty coupons, and other customer-centric offers. This will help show that you value their business and space in their inbox.
Highlight generosity.
How are you giving back this Thanksgiving? Tell your subscribers about it. Highlight any charitable causes you’re contributing to and let readers know they can be a part of it with special offers from your brand.
Get personal.
Other than food, the holidays are a great time to put a strong emphasis on family. Consider reaching out to your subscribers on a personal level by sharing a message from your own family or your company “family.” Use this as an opportunity to build a connection with your readers.
Don’t forget the food either.
Even if your business doesn’t revolve around food, Thanksgiving is a perfect time to include some high-quality images of everyone’s favorite dishes. Just make sure all of your Thanksgiving email campaigns are specially designed to render properly on mobile or don’t even bother sending them.
Colors matter.
Thanksgiving isn’t the time to experiment with flashy color combinations. Just stick with what people expect: simplicity. Grays, whites, blacks, browns, and warm colors like orange and yellow are perfect for providing that warm and welcoming Thanksgiving aesthetic.
8 incredible Thanksgiving email campaigns
The National Retail Federation expects American shoppers to spend a total of $717.5 billion over Thanksgiving weekend this year which averages to roughly $1,027 per shopper. Thanksgiving emails are a perfect way to get your foot in the Black Friday door by connecting with your audience and including that personal touch.
These top Thanksgiving email campaigns from previous years give some much-needed inspiration to create the perfect email.
1. Living spaces
Non-traditional holiday get-togethers are in right now. Stay on top of trends with your Thanksgiving email to hook your reader’s attention and their interest right away.
This email from Living Spaces gets it right by highlighting the need for furniture for Friendsgiving. The high-quality graphics are perfect for giving readers a taste of fall accents and style.
The colors here are on-point as well and the email was likely sent out with enough time for subscribers to purchase new furniture for their holiday parties.
2. Ibotta
When it comes to comprehensive Thanksgiving email campaigns, this email from Ibotta truly knocks it out of the park. Though it’s a little long-winded and has too many CTAs—often, when faced with too many choices, your reader will choose nothing at all instead of risking making the wrong choice—but instead of confusing the reader, this email offers something for everyone at every stage of planning for their Thanksgiving holiday.
From holiday food preparation to post-party cleanup and after dinner drinks like tea, why would the reader need to look anywhere else for their holiday essentials?
To top it off, Ibotta ends the email with a CTA referencing Friendsgiving and enticing readers to earn $50 cash back by getting their friends to sign up.
3. Brandless
Brandless understands the value of highlighting customer appreciation during the holidays.
This email sends an excellent thank you message and includes user-generated photos from Instagram. Brandless knows their company wouldn’t be around without support from their loyal customers so they’re happy to dedicate a thank you email to sharing their appreciation.
Brandless understands their audience well. And that audience cares about giving back to their communities. For that reason, the email also reminds readers that Brandless has donated 100,000 meals through their ongoing partnership with Feeding America.
As icing on the cake, Brandless offers readers a CTA at the bottom of the email for a free guided meditation session to manage their users pent-up holiday stress.
Oh, and if you’re in need of your favorite essentials, you can easily purchase them through the email, too, just in case.
4. Casper
Just because you don’t sell food doesn’t mean you can’t take advantage of the food them by providing mouth-watering images of food with your Thanksgiving email campaigns.
Casper’s email is simple yet effective. The gray and orange colors fit with the relaxing vibe they’re trying to portray while also remaining on theme for the fall holiday.
The high-quality pumpkin pie graphic with a cute moon shape is excellent for reminding readers how great it would feel to crawl into a brand-new Casper mattress after their Thanksgiving feast.
Plus, the CTA is simple and interesting, thus enticing readers to click-through and ultimately convert.
5. Uber
Uber does a great job putting themselves in their subscribers’ shoes and identifying their pain points. The rideshare company knows that people spend a lot of time flying and traveling during the holiday season.
Their email encourages their users to book their ride to the airport early to ensure they arrive for their flight on-time. The CTA isn’t overbearing and simply encourages readers to learn more about how it works.
To top it off, the email campaign has a festive GIF background with calm, thematic colors. Like Uber, you can find unique and interesting ways to make your subscribers’ lives a bit easier during Thanksgiving weekend and highlight these features in your holiday email marketing campaign.
Source: Really Good Emails
6. The Humane Society
The Humane Society understands the importance of interactive emails for encouraging reader engagement.
Their Thanksgiving email reminds readers that they’re part of the greater good when they donate. Meanwhile, the interactive graphic pushes readers to click around and see what their donations have helped accomplish.
Although it doesn’t use much whitespace, the Humane Society’s email is full of heartwarming graphics and minimal colors to keep the aesthetic warm and fuzzy.
Source: Pinterest
7. J. Crew
J. Crew does an excellent job of using the allure of food to grab their subscribers’ attention, despite the fact that they sell clothes and not groceries.
The 50% off deal doesn’t hurt either. It’s hard to turn that down when J. Crew knows their readers have a lot of upcoming holiday shopping to do, not to mention all the holiday parties they’ll attend.
The warm yellow color is bright enough to add some excitement without ruining the overall Thanksgiving vibe of the email.
Plus, J. Crew reminds their readers that they can enjoy special offers by either shopping online or presenting their email coupon in-store. Instead of forcing your readers to pick one or the other, allowing them to choose which method of shopping works best for them and you’ll both win.
Source: Pinterest
8. Artifact Uprising
As a company that sells top-quality photo books, Artifact Uprising understands the emotional value of the right image at the right time.
This email perfectly expresses everything Thanksgiving represents with a heartwarming photo and emotional message from the team.
The dark yet warm colors are perfect for connecting with the Thanksgiving feeling and the CTA at the bottom isn’t annoying or intrusive. It simply reminds readers of the services Artifact Uprising provides (which just so happen to make excellent gifts).
Sometimes less is more—especially when it comes to Thanksgiving email campaigns—and Artifact Uprising definitely gets it.
Source: Really Good Emails
Wrap up
Thanksgiving email campaigns are the perfect opportunity to connect with your subscribers on a personal level. Let them know you care not only about them, but also about the greater good.
Use Thanksgiving as a chance to show how you give back to the community with charity promotions and hefty discounts for loyal customers. Provide your readers with tips for managing holiday stress and offer ways you can make their lives a little easier for some curated content that your audience will really appreciate.
Just remember to use a serene layout with lots of whitespace and high-quality graphics to really resonate with your subscribers.
As always, the key to great email marketing is to understand your readers. From there, you can figure out how to best help them during Thanksgiving weekend and the rest of the year.
