While this limbo-like time period straddling the summer and fall seasons may throw our bodies for a loop, it's actually the perfect time to start planning for our fall to winter email marketing tactics.
We don't recommend falling into the habit of taking a break between your summer campaigns and your winter holiday email campaign. Adding pumpkins to your email layouts isn’t always a good idea, either. Even if your email campaigns are not sales-focused, autumn is a great time to come out with new, creative concepts and content.
Autumn email campaigns are a critical part of a brand’s digital marketing calendar. These emails get sent before the holiday season is in full swing—banking on an increase in both overall spending and retail sales. Fall newsletter templates prime subscribers and set up a foundational pattern of engagement.
This is a busy time. Fall combines everything from back-to-school blues to the start of sports seasons. That’s on top of shopping and making plans for the holidays. Your subscribers will appreciate email campaigns that offer ways to save time. More than increasing revenue, fall newsletter templates that follow this idea can shape your brand identity and focus.
Fall email campaigns normally feature season-specific themes and occasions. Here are nine distinct examples of our favorite kinds of autumn newsletter templates, and what we like about them.
What is a newsletter, and how it is different from other content in your email campaigns? Usually, a newsletter gets sent on a regular schedule, with informational content as the main point. They range from long walls of text to a collection of bite-sized “here’s what you missed” descriptions paired with links to full pages.
Source: Really Good Emails
What we like: This newsletter focuses on the start of the best places to travel during the best season to travel, Fall. While it is very much a sales piece for Outdoorsy, it doesn't feel like it as much for the reader because of the feel-good images and nostalgia created around the cozy fall season.
Even if you’re not a clothing brand, you can take advantage of these fall newsletter templates. Your product lines or initiatives to promote will likely change periodically. Think of your version of fall fashion email campaigns as snapshots or bullet points of new brand interests you want to share with your audience. It’s a way to let your subscribers know that your summer products are now, literally, so last season.
It is also worth noting that an autumn email campaign like this is ideal for promoting sales and for using segmented lists targeting several demographics.
Source: Really Good Emails
What we like: This email relies on strong and effective visuals to get the point across. There are less than 35 words in this image, but we already know that there’s an ongoing sale, that there’s a free shipping offer, and that the brand’s fall line focuses on flannel solids and prints.
Breast Cancer Awareness Month falls in October each year, and many brands work this into their autumn email campaigns. Whether they participate by selling or discounting certain items, spreading awareness, or a savvy combination of both—such as donating profits to a selected charity—rests on unique internal factors.
You may consider running fall newsletter templates similar to this for smaller or lighter occasions, such as the end of Daylight Saving Time in November. Veterans Day and Columbus Day are other great opportunities to get involved in a cause marketing.
Source: Milled
What we like: This email can seem like a breath of fresh air among other fall campaigns running on typical autumn colors like black, brown, yellow and orange. Puma does a great job advocating for a cause without seemingly monopolizing off of it.
For many areas, autumn signals the start of great outdoor weather. A lot of typical fall-themed visual cues come from this idea, like brightly-colored falling leaves and wearing warmer clothing.
Fall newspaper templates dealing with the outdoors are not rare but can be uncommon enough to grab your subscribers’ attention—especially if it’s the first of its kind they come across.
Source: Really Good Emails
What we like: This email is actually the beginning of a Black Friday campaign, which is cleverly conveyed by the border color. The CTA button is bright green, jumping out of the dark background and supporting the undercurrent messaging of nature and the outdoors. There’s also a hashtag in the main heading, which could be an indication of a multi-platform marketing campaign that brings email and social media together.
This is a great way to engage your audience if you’re an active local brand. Fall newsletter templates that center on collecting important social events and special offers available in a certain area can expect to have high open rates. They may even stay in your subscribers’ inboxes for easy reference throughout the season.
For bigger brands, this is an ideal opportunity for segmented lists by location—although executing this properly will take a good amount of research.
Source: Really Good Emails
What we like: There’s so much going on in this email, but it doesn’t feel cluttered. The addition of the autumn leaves is a great touch, as well as the nod to fall colors in the menu icons and CTA buttons. The fall activities appear as enticing images that occupy the space right underneath the menu, instead of hidden in list form behind a click-through link.
Halloween is fun, festive and for kids as well as for adults. You can run your Halloween email campaigns all throughout October, culminating with an event or the end of a contest. Spooky newsletters with content that can be a blend of horror and humor are also doable, as well as trick-or-treating tips.
Source: Really Good Emails
What we like: What is an easy recipe to make for Halloween-themed events? The email answers the question at least four times! Some of the recommended recipes even look simple enough for a child to do, doubling as a bonding activity. And while there are no Halloween-based designs layout-wise, we get a strong fall color story running through all the food images.
At this point, the holiday season is in full swing, and there are so many fall newsletter templates that you can fold into your Thanksgiving email campaigns. Of course, most email marketing will shine a light on seasonal sales like Black Friday and Cyber Monday. In recent years, the phenomenon of Grey Thursday has also gained ground. It could be worth baking Grey Thursday into your Thanksgiving campaign.
Sales aren’t the only topics you can highlight in your Thanksgiving campaigns. You can focus on food, family, and even make a special offer in the name of gratitude.
Source: Really Good Emails
What we like: The brand has a penchant for slick headings with alliterations, and we’re here for it 100 percent. “Gobble up our Gratitude” complements a background image of a Thanksgiving feast, making sense even though nothing else about the email is food-related. “Spend on Simple Event Starts Black Friday” is catchy, simple to remember and happens to include about half of the email campaign’s contest mechanics.
After Thanksgiving, most email marketing starts putting the focus on Christmas, after what can be a few months of low-key buildup. As a small brand, this may be the best course for your autumn email campaigns.
However, if you think your audience will benefit, you can plan something for Giving Tuesday, Winter Solstice or another offbeat holiday. You will probably already have your Christmas sales and promotions up and running by this point, so something relatively unique will just add to the variety and may attract engagement from an unlikely segment of your email list.
Source: Really Good Emails
What we like: Apart from the snowflakes, the only thing that tells us that this is a Christmas-themed email is the Grinch. This is an ingenious use of a well-known property or name to boost engagement.
Fall newsletter templates can combine revenue generation with relationship building. This is due to the informational and problem-solving dimensions this type of email content provides.
Most focus on the traditional end goal of holiday email marketing: Christmas and gift-giving. Email marketers should consider executing varied autumn campaigns to maintain freshness and interest. This keeps your brand in the minds of your subscribers, even if you haven’t started your long-term holiday campaign yet.
Need more inspiration to create your own fall newsletter templates for your campaigns? Check out our 5 ways to up your email engagement on the fly.
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