The unofficial start of summer and a day to honor those who died serving their country, Memorial Day is also a major date on email marketers’ calendars.
It might surprise you, but transaction rates for Memorial Day campaigns are higher than for both Black Friday and Cyber Monday emails. And with a third of Americans planning to use the long weekend to do some shopping, it’s no wonder that more and more retailers take advantage of the holiday to grow sales.
As you’re reading this article, it’s a pretty safe bet that you’re planning on running your own promotion.
It’s also likely that you’re planning on running your own email campaign to advertize your promotion.
So to help you with standing out in people’s inboxes, we’ve curated this list of the 10 best email examples we’ve seen.
We’ll also take you through what makes the emails so good from both a design and strategy perspective.
Examples of Memorial Day emails
1) Your typical Memorial Day sale email
Sender: Candle Delirium
Subject line: 😍 Huge $15 Off Memorial Day Sale + Free shipping!
This email from Candle Delirium embodies everything a typical Memorial Day email has: red, white and blue colors, American flags, and mentioning of savings.
What makes this email stand out in the inbox however is its design. The gold background compliments the stars well and gives a luxury feel to the email that reinforces the brand’s image.
If you have no idea what your own emails are going to look like yet, this is a good example to start getting inspired by.
2) Sale announcement
Sender: Angara
Subject line: Don’t Miss the Memorial Day Sale
As we’ll see later on, you don’t have to limit yourself to just one email in your campaign. But however many emails you decide to include, chances are your first email is going to be announcing your sale.
To create a sense of urgency, which helps to get your subscribers to your store and not simply put it off for later, Angara has decided to include a countdown timer.
This is something to consider in your own email as it also doubles up as a way of letting people know how long your sale lasts for.
Services like Sendtric let you easily create your own HTML timers that you can then insert into your email template.
Get Started with our free Memorial Day templates
💌 Install SmartrMail and check out our growing list of free templates🤗
3) Use of coupon codes
Sender: Goggles4U
Subject Line: Last day for the Biggest Memorial Day Sale – Hurry!
Instead of directly discounting items in their store, Goggles4U has instead opted to require customers to enter a code to access their savings.
While this might seem like this just creates extra work for your customers, harming conversions in the process, there is a benefit to this approach.
By sending your subscribers coupon codes, you make them feel like they’re getting exclusive access to the savings. This feeling alone can be enough to give them that extra little push they need to click through to your store and start adding items to their cart.
Even if you’re offering the same sale to everyone, by the time your subscribers realize they’ll already be on your site and half your job is done.
To make your offer feel even more exclusive, you can take things a step further and use seemingly randomized codes like “MEMDAY-3w1A” instead of “MEMORIAL” to make subscribers feel like the code is unique for them.
4) Heartwarming Memorial Day message
Sender: Vineyard Vines
Subject line: Enjoy your long weekend…
Not every Memorial Day email you send has to be a sales email.
Vineyard Vines instead opted to send a Memorial Day message to their subscribers reminding them of the true nature of the holiday.
While these types of brand building emails might not generate as many sales in the short term, they strengthen your brand image and how favorable customers view you over the longer term.
This makes this type of email a good option if you aren’t going to hold a sale, meaning that you still have a chance to connect with your audience.
Even if you are going ahead with a sale, adding an email like this into your broader campaign won’t hurt.
5) Capitalizing on the start of summer
Sender: BONOBOS
Subject line: How do you Memorial Day:⛱? 🚕? 🌲?
For many, Memorial Day represents the start of summer.
This means that many will use the long weekend to get outdoors, fire up the barbecue, go to the beach, or even just buy new clothes for their summer wardrobe.
Smart email marketers pick up on these habits by tailoring their email campaigns along these lines.
This is something that’s particularly easy if you sell items like apparel, barbecues, sporting goods, beach towels, luggage, etc.
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
6) Free shipping offer
Sender: WorldSoccerShop.com
Subject line: Memorial Day! New US Soccer Gear + Free Shipping!
In addition to this email being well designed with a stylized American flag, it highlights free shipping as the offer.
Seeing as shipping costs are a leading cause of online shopping cart abandonment, free shipping is a particularly powerful offer.
If you’re unsure of what to offer in your Memorial Day sale, free shipping is a good place to start.
7) Reminder email
Sender: BONOBOS
Subject line: Reminder: Don’t forget to remember to shop for Memorial Day.
Another email from BONOBOS, this time they’re following up on their original sale announcement with this reminder email.
As previously mentioned, you shouldn’t limit your campaign to a single email. Chances are that a significant part of your email list will simply miss your first email and of those who do open it, many will forget about your sale.
Sending a simple reminder email or two over the long weekend will ensure that more people know about your sale and make a purchase.
8) Extending your sale
Sender: Dunkin’ Donuts
Subject line: Memorial Day Sale EXTENDED!
Another way to flesh out your Memorial Day campaign and ensure more people have an opportunity to take advantage of your offer is simply to extend your sale.
That’s what Dunkin’s Donuts has done by sending an extra email out on the Tuesday after Memorial Day.
Chances are that they were always planning on having their sale last until the end of Tuesday, but you can hold off on making that decision for your sale based on how well you go over the weekend.
9) Taking full advantage of the email subject line
Sender: Chubbies
Subject line: I sincerely regret not opening this email.
Send with the subject line “I sincerely regret not opening this email” and followed up with the preview text “Signed, Future You”, Chubbies has taken full advantage of this important part of email marketing.
Your subject line is often all that stands between your email being ignored and your email being read. And when a third of your email list base their decision on whether or not to open your email solely on its subject line, you’ll want to come up with an attention-grabbing one.
Chubbie’s Memorial Day subject line does a great job at not only standing out but also being clickable.
Adding an emoji is another tactic you can easily and quickly employ to even your subject lines a better chance at being noticed in people’s crowded inboxes.
For more tips check out our guide on writing subject lines here.
10) Tapping into the essence of the holiday
Sender: JANE
Subject line: 🌭 Our Memorial Day event continues 🍉
While many emails use a red, white and blue color scheme and incorporate an American flag has gone a step further and included good old American hotdogs.
Memorial Day is at its heart a patriotic holiday so including other Americana is something you might want to consider to tie your email into the holiday.
Hotdogs also help reinforce the beginning of the summer aspect of the holiday too.
Whether it’s hotdogs, beach towels, or baseball, reinforcing the holiday spirit in your campaign is something worth considering.
Your own Memorial Day marketing
Now that you have plenty of ideas and inspiration, it’s time to go about creating your own Memorial Day campaign.
Just remember not to limit your campaign to just one email, consider offering free shipping to reduce cart abandonment, keep your emails holiday focused and ensure you utilize every part of your email including its subject line and preview text.
