There should be no need to remind everyone about one of the most important people in their lives - their mother. She gave birth to you, raised you and is there to support you in any endeavor.
Mother’s Day is getting close. With this, it’s important to send some warm wishes to your mother. Sending her a card, flowers, calling her, or visiting with a gift is a perfect way to say “thank you” for all the feeding, wiping, motivating, and protecting so you can grow up happy and healthy. However, finding the perfect gift is often a difficult task. It’s usually, the last thing that people think about due to their fast-paced and busy lives.
Email marketers have an even bigger challenge ahead of themselves. They not only need to remember their own mothers but also about everyone else’s. They are responsible for curating the perfect gift the consumer is looking for and creating a compelling email marketing campaign that will make them want to purchase it. Thankfully, we might just have something for you with our list of amazing Mother’s Day campaign ideas that will inspire your own.
Table of contents
Get ready before you send a campaign
5 email campaigns for Mother’s Day
Get ready before you send a campaign
Figuring out the right campaign is only a start. In order for it to be successful, you need to make some important decisions first. For a lot of email marketers, the most difficult part of launching a Mother’s Day email campaign is figuring out 3 key aspects.
1. Establish your target audience
Without knowing your recipients, the email campaign can flop as the language, the imagery, and the tone does not fit with the group. And what is the most important part of creating valuable content that will target the exact group of people you want to reach? Segmentation. This simple yet powerful feature allows you to divide the seemingly never-ending list of emails into dedicated groups. Depending on the type and amount of information you have, you can separate them by demographic, age, gender, or purchase history. The more information you have, the better your segmentation will be.
If you have trouble segmenting your contacts, turn to the tried and true methods, like creating a customer persona. It will help you better understand the target audience. Along with the persona creation, you should turn to your analytics and reports to monitor the device that your emails are opened on, the time when readers access their inbox, and so on. If you have a contact list, but don’t know too much about the subscribers, you can always simply try to ask them. Send them a survey, gather some information in exchange for a small discount or free shipping.
Now, when it comes to Mother’s Day email campaigns, your segmentation should be fairly simple. Thanks to the customer persona, you can establish age and gender which is essential for your campaign. If your persona belongs in the millennial or Gen Z group, it’s safe to say that their approach to Mother’s Day is more modern and loose. You can also assume that most of the people from this group treat motherhood differently than let’s say the baby boomers. For the younger generation, creating a family can be a bigger challenge taking into consideration the current economy. They are more likely to take in pets instead of raising children. Their idea of fun is experiences - not gifts.
If your target audience is older, you can opt for a more classic solution with your campaigns. Flowers, chocolates and Mother’s Day cards are one of the many ways that your email campaign will appeal to the older generation that is still comfortable with computers and the internet.
Of course looking into age and gender, you can also send a special Mother’s Day email with wishes, if you feel that the majority of your audience is actually mothers.
Segmentation by location is also important, as depending on the country, the gift ideas might vary drastically. Mother’s Day isn’t celebrated on the same day all over the world, so this is also something that you need to take into account.
2. When to send an email
We already touched on the subject of when to send emails, but this section is not exactly related to the time of day or the specific day of the week. It’s more a guideline for various types of email campaigns.
Ideally, you want to send an email campaign in advance so your audience can take the necessary steps to make a purchase. However, you can do so much more depending on the campaign you launch.
Mother’s Day is a perfect opportunity to actually get more contacts instead of focusing on sales. Instead of creating a product-focused campaign, change the approach. Create something that the users will be able to participate in. During any similar holiday, it has become popular to launch a contest. It can be a picture with your mom, a cute thing you did for her when you were younger, a photo recreation with your mom, or a funny story from your childhood. There are many contest ideas that will help you build your brand awareness and get you some new emails to work with. But you need to remember that such campaigns need to be prepared at least a month in advance. You need to give enough time for people to take part and enough time for you to verify and pick a winner.
The timing has to work even if you are launching a last-minute offer campaign. Take into consideration how long it would take for your product or service to reach a potential customer. Set up the campaigns based on that. Finally, if you are sending a separate email with wishes, try to match it with the day of the celebration. Do your research first as Mother's Day has a different date in many countries.
3. Set the right tone
There are three ways you can set the tone for Mother’s Day email campaigns. You can either tap into nostalgia, make it cheerful or take a modern approach. Let’s guide you through those options one by one.
When it comes to Mother’s Day, the most popular approach is to take the nostalgic route. Take advantage of the memories most people make with their mothers and apply this to your campaign. It’s quite a powerful emotion that is predominantly positive and leaves a big mark in the human brain. It means that using nostalgia in your email campaign will have a positive effect, and thanks to this, your brand will be associated with this feeling in the future.
Using nostalgia can be tricky, as tapping into this emotion requires some basic psychology knowledge. If you feel like you can’t showcase it in your email campaign, you can take a cheerful approach. Creating joyful content filled with jokes is very effective, no matter the generation. You can, however depending on age, make your jokes lighter or more controversial. It’s important to note that this type of email campaign should be in line with your brand. Therefore if you are not known for making jokes and creating this lighthearted atmosphere in your emails, maybe instead of introducing it on holidays, ease into it throughout the year.
Finally, if both of the above ideas are not something you are looking for, you can use a more modern approach. Nowadays, more and more people decide to celebrate Mother’s Day differently. They give their moms gifts that you wouldn’t have thought about before. Many are celebrating this day alternatively as well, celebrating pet-owners as mothers. You can take this less traditional take and use it in your campaigns. Remember though, that this will work better with the younger generation, and it might be necessary to create separate campaigns depending on the number of customers you have from various segments.
One last thing that you need to take into consideration when setting the tone of your Mother’s Day email campaign is that not everybody has a good relationship with their parents. That’s why, before launching your campaign it’s best to inform your recipients about the upcoming day to give them a chance to sign out of this specific email. You can also decide to completely opt-out of this holiday, however, think about this move carefully. This way you can lock the business out of the potential revenue.
5 email campaigns for Mother’s Day
Since we have the rules now for creating a Mother’s Day email campaign, it’s now time to figure out the offer you want to give to your subscribers. We put together a list of five very interesting and different campaigns that hopefully will give you an idea of how to create your own.
1. Timed offer
There is nothing better than creating a sense of urgency in your subscribers. For that, use a timer in your email to remind people about the special occasion. You can do this in two ways.
Firstly, you can create a special timed offer available only for a certain period of time. Add a simple timer to your emails with the offer and send it away. It will let people know that they have limited time to purchase the product and lead them to make an impulsive decision which is great for your business.
Secondly, as Mother's Day is an exact date on the calendar, you can make a timer that will indicate how much time you have to order so it will arrive on time. Furthermore, you can do it very easily, in just a few clicks using Nifty Images. Thorntons decided to use this option on Mother’s Day. They set up a timer that shows exactly how much time you have left so your order will be delivered before the celebration. To make this work, you will need to segment recipients based on their geolocation. The timer will be set depending on the time of assembly and delivery.
2. Create the nostalgia
I’m sure you can remember the special Mother’s Day cards you’ve made in kindergarten. They were by no means a work of art but I’m sure you remember how happy it made your mom when you gave it to her. The same emotion can be applied to an email campaign just like Puma did.
They took the idea literally using a cute child-like drawing to put those good memories into motion within their subscriber’s heads. The design is simple, it’s not heavily promoting the products although you can clearly notice the shoe in the drawing. However, thanks to the way it was showcased, it seems very innocent. It brings good memories rather than the urge to shop. Such an email campaign can be more catered towards building your brand awareness than making some dollars.
3. Make it personal
Speaking of increasing your brand awareness, there is one fool-proof way to do so, and it’s a great tactic to pull out on Mother’s Day. Instead of sending a sale-oriented email, let your subscribers get to know you and your employees. Lucky Brand decided to show their childhood photos with their moms as a form of celebrating the holiday. It turned out to be quite a classy, beautiful campaign that made their customers feel closer to them.
Lucky Brand put themselves in a very vulnerable position showing the pictures. Of course, not everybody would be comfortable with sending their personal photos on the internet. However, this is not the only way to do so. You can make a more sale-oriented email using a personal touch. Ask your employees to pick one item from the shop and put it together in an email to create a list of “Our Picks” perfect for the occasion. It will still have the personal touch you are looking for, but it also showcases the products you sell.
4. Create an experience bundle
Newer generations enjoy experiences more than physical items. And the older generation just wants to hang out with their children more. So, why not create a connection and offer something both a child and their mother can enjoy? There is a creative solution for various businesses like spas, restaurants, and hotels. Instead of selling items, sell experiences. Offer lunch at a special price just like the one below, or charge full price and add a free item like a glass of wine or a dessert. The offer itself largely depends on you, but rest assured that such deals are incredibly popular. It’s a great bonding experience for generations and it creates memories that will be long remembered.
5. Use humor
Puns, jokes and snappy comments are great for more lighthearted companies to really shine on Mother’s Day email campaigns. If you feel like you can pull off a good joke without offending anyone, you should definitely try it. Remember though, that with a clever one-liner, you need to add a good design and a final reveal. After all, it’s supposed to be fun, not offensive. The below example is pretty much perfect for Mother’s Day. It’s simple, it’s fun and most importantly, it doesn’t hurt anyone’s feelings. It’s also a great attention grab, as such text will definitely make a person’s heart rate go up.
Effective jokes take practice and they need to be in line with your brand. If you are unsure about implementing them in your campaign, I strongly recommend you to read this guide that will help you make the decision.
All of us live very fast-paced lives trying to balance work, personal life and caring for our mental health. It’s important however, to remember the people who are close to us and to always celebrate their days. Wish them all the best and show appreciation for all they do for you.
We would like to extend those wishes to the special people in our lives - mothers. Thank you for all your kindness, support, and showering us with unconditional love, no matter what we do.
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