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Nobody wants to forget about mom this May. Mother’s Day email marketing is an opportunity to engage with consumers on an emotional level while helping them find the perfect way to say "Thanks," "I love you," or "Sorry I was such a pain in the butt all those years."

Your brand can use email campaigns to help people remember Mother's Day and to celebrate their moms. Make no mistake about it, we're all ready to splurge a little on the women who raised us.

In the U.S. alone, consumers spent $35.7 billion in 2023 on Mother's Day. That's up significantly from the $31.7 billion spent for Mother's Day in 2022. For comparison, U.S. consumers spent $9.8 billion on Black Friday in 2023. Granted - that's Black Friday only and not the entire holiday shopping season - but it goes to show how important Mother's Day email marketing could be for B2C brands.

While Sunday, May 12, 2024 is still weeks away, you need ideas for Mother's Day email campaigns now. In this article, we’ll go over examples that show you how to craft an inspirational Mother's Day email campaign.

Elements of effective Mother's Day email marketing

An effective email marketing campaign isn’t just compelling content or great email design. It also isn’t just one certain element or feature that you execute to convert browsers into buyers. Instead, there is an extensive list of moving parts you need to balance to bring the subscriber through your campaign from start to finish.

Check out some of the elements that are part of a successful B2C email campaign:

• A responsive email template and eye-catching content.
  • 71.5% of consumers primarily view email on mobile.
• A Mother's Day landing page with a fresh, clean layout.
• Abandoned cart emails to bring Mother's day shoppers back to complete their purchase.
• A transactional email to confirm your customer’s order.

What we're saying is that while the promotion itself is certainly important, you need to think about the entire experience - inside the inbox and beyond.

5 ways to enhance Mother’s Day email marketing

Now that we know the basics of crafting a great email marketing strategy, let’s focus on the first part of the customer journey – the marketing email. Here are some best practices for a successful Mother’s Day email campaign:

1. Appeal to the emotions of your subscribers (and moms)
2. Use subject lines wisely
3. Send helpful Mother's Day gift guides
4. Place social proof in the email
5. Reassure last-minute shoppers

Let’s take a closer look at the practices listed above with specific Mother’s Day email examples.

1. Appeal to emotions in Mother’s Day email campaigns

There are a lot of emotions surrounding good old Mom. They aren't always positive. That's why some brands choose to send Mother's Day opt-out emails ahead of time. This lets them segment those customers so that they don't receive Mother's Day emails. There's been mixed reaction to this strategy.

For the customers who do receive your Mother's Day email promotions, you'll need to decide wat kind of emotion you want to appeal to as that will dictate the tone of your copywriting and design:

• Heartfelt?
• Humorous
• Inspiring?
• Grateful?
• Nostalgic?
• Helpful?

Create a successful Mother's Day email by tapping into those emotions. But don't overdo it. Choose an approach that is authentic to your brand. Let's take a look at how a Charity: Water email campaign appealed to people on an emotional level.

This email is from a decade ago, but it's also timeless. It uses simple yet classy design with all the elements of an effective email. But it's the emotions that make it work. Charity: Water combined the idea of honoring your mother with memories of what she did for you as a child. Then they connect those memories to the need for clean water around the world.

What mother wouldn't be proud of a child who chose to honor her by giving back to moms in need? To find out how the rest of the experience unfolds, read our full blog post on Charity: Water's Mother's Day email.

2. Use Mother's Day subject lines wisely

The emotion at the center of your campaign should show up in the email's subject line. Check out this Mother’s Day email subject line from Prose. It's a haircare brand, but these email marketers knew exactly how to bring it home - starting with the subject line:

“A gift as unique as your Mom” (despite the capitalization error) works because it simultaneously solves a problem (How do I find a unique gift for my mom?) with the emotion (My mom is special!) However, Prose doesn’t just stop there. Check out how their subject line works with their email preheader below:

Prose’s email preheader seamlessly continues the gripping subject line with “Show her (or any mother figure) some love with the best custom products.” We really appreciate Prose’s initiative to be inclusive of all mother figures, including grandmothers and other important women in our lives. In fact, Prose’s customer base probably also feels the same. Talk about finding a way to make your subject line play well with your preheader text.

Inside this email, Prose delivers on the promise of the subject line, showing just how unique any mom can be with an animated gift celebrating all the roles mother's take on in life (including hairstylist).

By listing all these roles, Prose focuses on the uniqueness of “your mom,” as they mentioned in their subject line, before bringing it back to their hair product brand identity. Prose starts with a punchy, attention-grabbing subject line to increase open rates and brings it home with a well-crafted email message that appeals to our emotions.

3. Deliver gift guides for Mom to the inbox

Mother's Day email marketing strategies that send gift guides to consumers help spark inspiration. Here's an example from The Landmark Project:

To get online shoppers to click on your gift guide and visit your website, consider adding a special Mother's Day promo code in your email. The promo code this brand used is front and center as well as above the fold.

While we're not suggesting Mother's Day shoppers are cheap, we know for a fact that deals and coupon codes help you get more clicks. Sinch Mailjet's report, The path to email engagement 2024, found that is the top reason consumers click on a promotional email to visit a brand's website.

Since gift giving entails shopping for someone else, it may be tricky to add personalized product recommendations in Mother's Day emails. However, you may be able to segment your list in other ways so that your messaging and gift guides are more targeted.

4. Use social proof in Mother's Day email campaigns

Social proof in the form of reviews or ratings can be a good incentive for your customers to click through to your landing page. Check out the email from Ibex below.

They combine great graphics and content with customer testimonials and give star ratings. This inspires confidence in your subscriber and increases conversion rates. When your mom is tough to shop for, it's nice to know that others approve of products. That's why featuring social proof can be a helpful addition to Mother's Day email marketing.

5. Reassure Mother's Day shoppers with transactional emails

As much as we all love our moms, May 12th is going to sneak up on some people. Customers might leave finding the perfect Mother’s Day gift to the last minute. Add an extra note, like Victoria’s Secret, to assure them their orders will reach their gift recipients in time, even without express delivery.

Though Victoria’s Secret is ostensibly reassuring their customers that their gift orders will be delivered in time, they also create a sense of urgency. “Order by May 1st,” or it might be too late! We like this subtle reminder a lot better than a blatant countdown timer, but that might work too, depending on your customer base.

What you send after the purchase is made matters too. More than 80% of global consumers told Sinch Mailjet that transactional emails were somewhat or very important during holidays like Mother's Day. From confirming the order, to updating shipping, to confirming delivery. Your customers want to know their gift for mom will arrive ahead of the big day. So, don't underestimate the importance of transactional emails. They're integral to the customer experience (CX).

Putting a bow on Mother's Day emails

You've only got one chance to deliver a Mother's Day email marketing campaign that hits the mark. Don't let silly mistakes or problems with email client rendering make a mess of your masterpiece.

Sinch Email on Acid is an email quality assurance platform. Marketing teams use it to identify and fix issues as simple as typos and subject line display as wel as complex problems such as email accessibility and the way Gmail renders your HTML emails in dark mode.

Check out our email previews to see how your campaign renders on more than 100 clients and live devices. Take advantage of a free trial - then enjoy unlimited testing with every paid plan.