The last hurrah of summer, the Labor Day long weekend is a holiday millions of Americans look forward to. Especially if you’re a merchant selling online.
Last year consumers spent over $2 billion online on Labor Day. This makes it the fifth-largest single day for sales in the US, right after Amazon Prime Day, Black Friday, Cyber Monday, and Single’s Day.
As you’re reading an article on Labor Day email marketing campaigns, you probably already know the holiday weekend presents a prime opportunity for making extra sales. You also probably realize that email marketing is the best way to drive these sales over the weekend.
What you might be unsure about is exactly what to put in your Labor Day emails and how to structure your campaign.
With that in mind, we’ve curated this collection of ten of what we think are the best Labor Day sale emails out there to help you with your campaign.
Labor Day sale email examples
1) Sale sneak peek
When it comes to your Labor Day email marketing, you don’t want to wait until the Monday to send your first email. Or even the Friday if your sale lasts the whole weekend.
Instead, you want to spread the word early to ensure most of your customers know about your sale leading up the weekend. This way you’ll increase the chances of your subscribers seeing the email and knowing about your sale.
To kick start your campaign, a ‘sneak peek’ email like the one below from REI Co-op makes for a great choice.
By advertising your sale early, you’re also giving people the opportunity to decide to spend their money with your store during the holiday sales period. If you don’t give them this opportunity, you risk your competitors doing so.
2) Save the date email
If you don’t want to spoil too many details about your sale, you could instead opt to send a simple ‘save the date’ style email like the one below.
This style of email gets your customers excited about your upcoming sale and will have them keeping an eye out for your next email in their inboxes.
Get Started on your Labor Day Campaigns with SmartrMail today
💌 Install SmartrMail and Automate your Labor Day series 🤗
3) Sale announcement
After getting your customers hyped, you should follow up with an announcement email once your sale actually commences.
This is where you’ll include all the details about your sale like dates and savings (even if you’ve done so already). Just like in the example below from Papyrus.
The other thing to note about this example is the fun and creative email design.
Your Labor Day emails should reflect your store’s branding, so don’t be afraid to add a bit of personality to them if it’s on-brand.
4) On-theme Labor Day sale email
While you don’t have to always explicitly tie your emails in with Labor Day (after all, the occasion is really just an excuse for a sale), doing so might help with creating your email.
In the example from Winc, they’ve used the historical significance of Labor Day as a day of rest in celebration of workers in their email design and copy.
Sign-up to our newsletter and receive a free Calendar with all the most important key eCommerce dates that you shouldn’t miss in 2024
5) Animated sale email
Talking about creative email design, a simple way to make your Labor Day emails stand out is to introduce some animation. The email below does a great job at this.
The watermelon ties in with the Labor Day theme and having it quickly being eaten helps to create a sense of urgency that time is running out on the sale. This will help get people to click through so that they avoid missing out.
The only thing with GIFs is that if you do decide to include any in your Labor Day email campaign, remember that less is more. Going overboard with GIFs is something that can turn off customers.
6) Creating a sense of urgency with a countdown
If your Labor Day sale is spanning the whole weekend, you’ll want to send an email each day of the sale. As the sale draws to a close, you’ll also want to up the sense of urgency.
One way you can do this is with an HTML countdown timer in your email. Like in the example below from Miracle Noodle.
Again, creating a sense of urgency will help get your subscribers to click through to your sale by playing on their fear of missing out (FOMO).
7) Half-way through email
If you’re running an extended Labor Day sale that lasts an entire week or more, then don’t send an email every day during your campaign. An email every day for a week will only annoy any potential customers.
Instead, only email at milestones like the beginning of the sale, a couple of days before the end of the sale, the final day, and at the halfway point, like in the email below from Article.
By regularly emailing during your extended sale, but not overdoing it, you’ll keep your sale in your customers’ minds increasing the chances of conversion.
8) Non-salesy Labor Day email
Not every email you send during your campaign has to be a sales-focused email, as the jewelry brand Aurate demonstrates with their email below.
This is an excellent example of a brand-building email that while might not drive as many sales right away, will improve people’s affinity with your brand. This will benefit your brand much more in the long term.
So if you’re able to work any theme of Labor Day in with your brand, or even just to thank your workers, this is a type of email to consider adding to your campaign.
Read more: Guide to Email Marketing for Jewelry Stores
9) Extended Labor Day sale email
There’s nothing like extending or expanding your sale to breathe new life into a campaign that’s becoming stale. So as your sale comes to an end, you can give it one final push by announcing new Labor Day deals and savings.
In addition to announcing further Labor Day savings, you could also help cure the post long weekend holiday blues by extending your sale to the Tuesday.
10) Colorful holiday email
Finishing off this list of Labor Day emails is a colorful example from Tattly.
The email design is eye-catching and the contrasting color choice for the call to action button grabs your attention.
As a common theme to Labor Day is that it’s your last chance to enjoy summer, many email marketers choose to go with a vibrant summer theme in their campaigns.
Finalizing your own campaign
Now that you have plenty of inspiration, it’s time to start creating your own campaign.
After you’ve finished putting your emails together, you’ll want to come up with a great subject line so that they get opened and read.
Luckily, we have a list of 50 Labor Day email subject lines that you can use throughout your campaign.
Wanting even more examples of email campaigns? Check out Really Good Emails.
