Holiday Email Marketing Calendar [2024]: Best Practices and Ideas

We love holidays. Even though we often complain that holidays often create unnecessary hustle, stress, and eventually a hole in our budget, they pull us out of everyday routine and make us remember that there’s more to life than just work, daily chores, and commutes. They are a subtle pointer to things and people in our lives that really matter. 

Pre-holiday time is also a time when our mailboxes start to overflow with marketing emails from the brands we are subscribed to. It’s time for companies to target their clients with the best deals, discounts, offers, and new products. It’s the time for marketing to shine! So, what is this magic ingredient that makes us click those desired “Order now” or “Know more” buttons in some campaigns and send others straight to the trash bin?

In this article, we will try to explain what holiday email marketing is, why it is important, and share some inspirational ideas for the major holidays of the year. 

What Is a Holiday Email Marketing Campaign?

Holiday email marketing campaigns are a series of targeted emails sent to your customers during major holiday seasons. While essentially performing a function similar to a regular email campaign, holiday email marketing campaigns take it one step further. A skillfully crafted holiday campaign allows you to connect with your audience on a more personal level and to stand out in a sea of competitors. 

For every company holiday email marketing campaign is an opportunity to blend their business strategic goals with the festive spirit and present it in a carefully (boldly, romantically, extravagant – pick the one that’s right for you) crafted message. 

Why are these campaigns so crucial? 

Well, during holidays like Christmas, Black Friday, or Valentine’s Day, people are already in a buying mindset. They’re looking for gifts, deals, and inspiration and are not just open to communication but actively seek it. Your campaign meets them right there, offering exactly what they need (for that you should, of course, know your audience). 

Aspects to consider for a successful email marketing campaign:

• Personalize your emails. By using customer data you can send offers and product recommendations that are truly relevant for your customers.
• Make sure your emails capture the holiday spirit. Think engaging content, festive designs, and maybe a special holiday offer or discount. 
• Make your campaign optimized for a mobile. Considering that today around 47% of all users open their emails on their mobile devices, even the most brilliant email campaign optimized only for a desktop, risks ending up in a trash folder. 

Having your seasonal marketing calendar handy and full of ideas is a perfect foundation for your inspiration and creativity. Besides, it will reduce your stress substantially when you know that holidays are coming soon. Below we share some ideas that you can use as an inspiration when designing a marketing holiday calendar for your company. 

Christmas Eve and Day (Dec. 24th – 25th)

• Be creative but consistent. Designing your Christmas email marketing campaign will require the use of festive colors and patterns of this holiday – traditional greens, reds, golds, and striped red and white. Be sure to incorporate them in your traditional branding but in a way that your overall campaign design is still guided by your overall corporate theme. Otherwise, your customers might get lost in a variety of styles and colors and, as a result, your brand won’t stick with them for long. 

• “I like to move it move it” or about the importance of being interactive. According to the research by Ion Interactive, interactive content is 81% more efficient at grabbing people’s attention than regular content. Keep it in mind when designing your holiday email marketing campaign – especially for Christmas. The holiday that is filled up with glitter, fireworks, and sparkling decorations screams for the same level of excitement also in your emails. Consider including interactive elements like countdown timers for special offers, holiday quizzes, or clickable content.

• Build up anticipation. One holiday does not mean only one email campaign. Quite the opposite – you can build up your customers’ Christmas anticipation by offering them a new deal or discount every day in your mini version of the advent calendar for 12, 25, or 30 days. Combined with an attractive design, this Christmas email marketing campaign will work as a teaser making your customers look forward to the next surprise deal to open up.

Christmas is a perfect holiday for building anticipation. Advent calendar tradition and songs like “12 Days of Christmas” seemed to engrave it in many generations’ DNA. So, using this theme as a silver lining of your pre-Christmas email marketing calendar is a perfect way to keep on reminding your customers about a variety of upcoming deals in a classical way.

This approach from Home Goods with their “30 Days Until Christmas” hits all the right spots:

• Showcases its products
• Builds up anticipation and curiosity daily
• Appeals to Christmas traditions

St. Valentine’s Day (Feb. 14th) 

As one of the biggest streaming service providers, HULU managed to skillfully combine its services with the idea of a cozy Valentine’s Day at home and an increasing trend of in-home celebrations.  Its “Love Comes in All Genres” campaign slogan is yet another great nod towards both the variety of its video library and the diversity of its users and their relationships. By adopting a design that subtly combines its corporate black and green colors and St. Valentine’s theme, it managed to create a simple, yet romantic and on-point campaign.

International Women’s Day (Mar. 8th)

• Celebrate diversity. We all are different and as women, we have so many ways to showcase how unique we are. Use the idea of diversity and individuality as a silver lining of your campaign. Like this, you can highlight the uniqueness of your product and how it can help women make their individuality shine brighter! 

• Don’t forget about strength. Remind the readers in your campaign about “daily battles” that women lead constantly and speak about qualities like strength, persuasion, compassion, and dedication, that are oh sooooo needed to fight them. By highlighting how your product can help women address their daily, big, and small struggles, you can connect with your customers on a deeper level and bring out the spirit of your product. 
• Show the heroes behind the scenes. Introducing the female team behind your customers’ favorite products is one of the very efficient Women’s Day campaign ideas. All those who inspire, design, create, and deliver – many of them are women and they work hard to make this brand into something your customers love. This might be an especially good idea for small or family brands, but bigger companies can exploit this idea too by showcasing their female founders, CEOs, female designers, or their only woman in a sales department.

This small business campaign showcases a perfect blend of storytelling with authenticity. 

Nowadays, when the spirit of authenticity is valued more than ever, a campaign that showcases exactly this – a real product with a real woman behind it – has a much higher chance of attracting customers than a perfectly photoshopped poster. Supplemented with a small real-life story this campaign says, “I followed my passion and so can you.” Reminding your readers of this on Women’s Day is both clever and inspirational.

April Fools (Apr. 1st)

• Announce a prank contest. Offer your customers to share their best pranks in exchange for a gift or a discount. In the end, 91% of customers like brands that use humor. So, why not use it to your advantage? It allows for positive interaction with your customers and is a great way to imprint your brand name in their memory. 
• Fool around. Use sentences like “No joke,” “No kidding,” and “You’d be a fool if…” in your campaign to stimulate people to purchase your products and announce that missing out on such discounts can only….well, a fool. Like this, you keep up the spirit of the day, add a twist of fun, and ensure your customers know that when it comes to great offers, you’re dead serious.
• Go over the top. Roll out the campaign with the most absurd (and totally fake) product or statement you can think of. Announce: “We doubled the prices. But if you’re no fool – get a discount” or “The Couch Potato Workout Kit. Fitness for those who can’t leave the sofa!” Once you’ve got your customer’s attention with these prank offers, hit them with the real deal – an awesome discount or a can’t-miss offer.

This campaign from Vinomofo might not look like much. Nonetheless, it is truly efficient, despite its seeming simplicity. Why? If as a seller you can offer your customers a discount of 50%, you might not need any other tricks. By combining this offer with a catchy red background and a fitting slogan, you can be sure that this campaign won’t go unnoticed.

Mother’s Day (the second Sunday in May)

• Give your campaign a real face. Our mothers aren’t usually super models and they rarely pose for pictures in photo banks. They are regular people that often look tired and have wrinkles – but that’s what makes them real, and we love them for that. So, ditch the stock photos and opt for imagery that showcases real, relatable mothers – joyful yet exhausted, flawless yet flawed. Real doesn’t mean unpolished – it means genuine and it resonates deeply, especially when celebrating something as personal as Mother’s Day.
• Turn it into an experience. Mother’s Day is about making moms feel cherished and appreciated. Transform each product in your campaign into an experience that celebrates motherhood. Don’t showcase just flowers – sell the idea of “Bringing Spring into Her Home.” Turn a yoga outfit into a gateway to “Caring for Her Health and Well-Being.” This approach shifts the focus from the product to the experience and emotion it brings, making your offerings more appealing. Use language and imagery that evoke these experiences, helping customers visualize how your products can create special moments for their mothers.
• Create moms categories. Finding a gift for a mom that she really needs can be challenging. To help your customers and make your campaign resonate, use personalization. Create an email campaign with categories like “Florist Moms,” “Cooking Moms,” or “Fashion Moms”. Within each category, curate a selection of products that align with these interests. This not only helps customers quickly find the perfect gift but also shows a deeper understanding and appreciation of the diverse personalities and hobbies of mothers. 

By using storytelling in this Mother’s Day email campaign Clinique managed to connect with its customers in several ways at once. 

• By using pictures and stories of its actual employees, it showed those heroes behind the scenes that make Clinique products lovable by so many people. 

• It appeals to the connection of generations – something really important, especially on Mother’s Day. 

• Finally, it shows that its products can be used by all genders and all generations – a subtle, yet smart move.

So, in one campaign Clinique managed to address multiple aspects, both about its customer and products, in a very human way.

Halloween (Oct. 31st) 

• Exploiting FOMO in your design. Fear of missing out (FOMO) can be a powerful tool, especially in combination with Halloween spirit. Create a sense of urgency in your campaign by incorporating a countdown timer ticking down to the end of a terribly good sale, or limited-time offers that vanish like ghosts at midnight. Phrases like “Don’t miss out on these frightful deals!” and images of fleeting ghosts and melting candles can help with tapping into the audience’s fear of missing out on something great, compelling them to act quickly.
• Embrace the nature of Halloween. Halloween is the time when you might put the subtlety to the side and go slightly over the top with your gruesome ideas. Fonts that mimic blood-dripping letters, backgrounds with spider web overlays, or a product image in the shape of eyeballs – those will be just right for your campaign. The key is to maintain brand integrity while pushing the boundaries of typical design. Try to balance between scary and exciting, but without creating an off-putting impression.
• Incorporate spooky and traditional Halloween taglines. Classics never get old, same goes for the good old Halloween “trick or treat.” These familiar phrases can instantly evoke a Halloween mood. For example, “Trick or Treat Yourself to Our Spooky Sales!” combines a well-known saying with a call to action. Get creative with the “threatening” aspect in a fun way, like “Click ‘Know More’… or risk a ghostly visitor tonight!” With these taglines you create a fun, engaging narrative around your products and offers.

In this email marketing campaign, Lush managed to find a great fit between its products (that indeed often brewing and bubbling) and the Halloween theme of witchcraft. By combining pictures of their products in the form of traditional Halloween pumpkins, ghosts, and black cats with a fun and spooky call to action, Lush created a fun, engaging, and truly Halloween-ish campaign.

Thanksgiving (the fourth Thursday in November, Nov. 28th in 2024) 

• Incorporate the spirit of gratitude. Embrace the holiday’s essence by expressing gratitude to your customers. Personalization can be a powerful tool here. Consider sending thank-you emails to your loyal customers, acknowledging their specific purchases and support. Sweeten the gesture with a special discount or complimentary delivery. Through this, you can reinforce customers’ loyalty in alignment with the Thanksgiving spirit.

• Toss in the Black Friday. While Thanksgiving is a time for gratitude, it’s also the precursor to one of the biggest shopping days of the year – Black Friday. Why not blend them in one campaign? In the end, gratitude and shopping can perfectly go together. You could start with a message of thanks and slowly transition into Black Friday deals. This strategy creates a narrative that links gratitude with the excitement of shopping, making your customers feel valued while subtly nudging them in upcoming sales.

• Don’t forget about turkey. Thanksgiving without a turkey is like Christmas without a Christmas tree. And remember, it’s not just about how the turkey looks, but also how it tastes. Offer your customers valuable tips and recipes for making this year’s turkey so delicious that their guests will be the ones saying “Gobble! Gobble!” This is also an excellent opportunity to present related products like kitchenware, dining décor, flowers, and sides as the perfect “turkey companions.”

What shall you do if your company’s produce has nothing to do either with food, or with décor, or any other most traditional holiday items? 

Casper, the US producer of mattresses and other bedding items, found an answer to this question in their campaign. By combining a traditional Thanksgiving pumpkin pie with a good night theme and a short narrative of what comes after the Thanksgiving feast, they created a very appealing and cozy campaign. This is a great example of how you can create a narrative not only around the holiday itself but also around a post-celebration period. 

Alternative holidays

Apart from the most celebrated Holidays, there are plenty of less popular ones that present companies with additional opportunities to use them as marketing holidays and to remind the readers about their brand. Considering the diversity of holidays, every company can pick those that fit their brand or product the most to craft the most fitting email marketing campaign.