Kristen Dunleavy — March 3, 2017 Follow @KristenWritesIt
St. Patrick’s Day provides an awesome opportunity to reach out to your subscribers. Why’s that? For starters, it’s unexpected. That means it’s your chance to surprise and delight your subscribers with a freebie, sale, piece of content or even a contest.
If you’re still scratching your head about what your St. Patrick’s Day email campaign could look like, here are a few ideas for inspiration. And don’t forget, St. Patrick’s Day is Friday, March 17!
5 last-minute St. Patrick’s Day email ideas
1. Delight customers with a freebie or discount
Let your subscribers know that it’s their lucky day! A freebie doesn’t have to be a costly prize. It can simply be a clever piece of content (think checklists and guides), a free shipping offer, or a limited-time bonus gift with any order.
To add some context to your email, you can include a scratch-off that reveals a different freebie or discount to everyone who clicks. For example, you could offer a variety of discounts ranging anywhere from 15%-75% offer. For a subscriber to discover their discount, they have to click on your scratch-off to reveal it.
The San Francisco 49ers used a geo-targeted scratch-off that automatically randomized offers for a recent holiday campaign.
This tactic not only drives engagement, it gives you an unexpected way to reward your subscribers.
2. Create a visual, curated list
If you’re an online retailer, why not create a visual email with a curated collection of your green or gold offerings? After all, content that contains visuals can drive up to 650% more engagement than content without visuals.
Use high-resolution images and showcase your products in a simple way. Simple product images can help your subscribers connect with your brand. Check out how New Balance did it:
3. Promote daily deals
With St. Patrick’s Day falling on a Friday this year, you can leverage Friday, Saturday and Sunday to promote your St. Patrick’s Day deals. One way to do this is promoting a new deal for each day of St. Patrick’s Day weekend. Let your subscribers know that each deal will only last a limited-time.
To add context to your daily deals, you can use time-targeting to automatically unveil new deal each day. This is ideal for getting subscribers to keep coming back to your emails – dare we say, even looking forward to them!
Boxed used time-targeting to promote daily deals during the holiday season. They were able to promote a new deal a day for 12 consecutive days in a single email send.
4. Showcase user-generated content
If your audience is celebrating St. Patrick’s Day, why not showcase them in your email with a live social feed? Live social feeds are perfect for leveraging user-generated content in your emails. UCG lets you add authenticity to your emails because you can show off real people engaging with your brand.
You can also use them to build your email list. On your social channels, tell your followers that you’ll be featuring live social posts in your upcoming email. To see if their photos or posts have been featured, they’ll have to sign up for your list to check it out. Since the feed is live, they’ll want to come back and check out the email again and again.
5. Run a contest
Promote a St. Patrick’s Day-themed contest to reward your loyal subscribers. One way to do this with context is using a live poll. You can present several different options in your poll – different products, content preferences, taste preferences, etc. – and count each click as a vote.
You can then choose one winner at random, and/or you can reward everyone who participates with a discount on their next purchase or another small freebie. Who doesn’t love feeling lucky?
As a bonus, live polls let you collect valuable information on your subscribers that you can use in future email campaigns!
Bonus tip: Don’t forget a festive subject line!
A shamrock, rainbow, or even a beer emoji can be perfect for getting your subscribers’ attention and boosting open rates – as long as you’re using them correctly. Check out this Litmus guide to using emojis in email.
Here’s a little inbox inspiration to help with your St. Patrick’s Day campaign:
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