Last updated on February 10th, 2023
The holiday season is around the corner. It means businesses all over the world will now be juggling new creative ideas to gain prospective customers in every best possible way. And, one of the result-oriented ways will be email marketing campaigns. Interesting right! Let’s find out the top email design ideas you should consider for the holiday season.
Tapping into the most lucrative time of the year is no joke, and businesses are well aware of that. One of the most surefire ways of getting there is by increasing and boosting your brand visibility. And with email clocking a global total of 4 billion users, a better channel for accomplishing this objective is hard to find.
One of the critical factors that determine the success of email campaigns during the holiday season is their design. The more visually appealing an email is, the better are its chances of driving engagements and subsequent conversions.
In this article, we will take a look at six email design trends (and the email templates that can do justice to them) to help you kickstart your holiday marketing preparations. Ready to take the plunge? Let’s dive in!
6 Email Design Ideas For The Holiday Season
01. Animated GIFs
Want to capture the imagination of your subscribers? Look no further than animated GIF emails.
Adding GIFs to your emails instantly makes them lively, quirky, and above all, more visually engaging than static emails.
The best part? You can get really creative with them- showcase your collection, do a short product description, or even depict customer data in a much more digestible format.
Animated GIFs let you convey emotions that can never be realized through words, images, and emoticons. As a result, your emails appear more intimate and personable to your readers.
After all, getting customers to warm up to your brand is the ultimate holiday season goal, isn’t it?
Take A Look At These Examples:
[Source: reallygoodemails]
The adorable drummer guy really takes the cake over here, right? Besides, using this GIF as the email header is a brilliant tactical move as well. Why?
Because it ensures that that’s the first thing that the readers see when they open the email, giving them further incentive to scroll down to the rest of the body. In general, channel incentive programs are a great way to attract more people and boost the engagement rates.
Not many people you know would have the heart to look away from a fluffy drummer, would they?
[Source: reallygoodemails]
Of course, the hero in this email is the animated wreath, but that’s not all there is to it. Notice how the copy and the design have been kept really minimal and uncluttered to purposefully let the animation be the central element in this template.
Although this might seem trivial, attention to minor details like these are what separates the best emails from the mediocre ones. When you go all out with your copy and design aesthetics despite already having an animated GIF in the email, you’re defeating the very purpose of including it.
02. Interactivity
There’s perhaps no better way of ensuring reader engagement than physically encouraging them to interact with your emails. Yes, it is possible!
From implementing CSS-animated buttons to embedded questionnaires to image carousels, you have many options at your disposal to make your global holiday emails interactive.
What’s more, if you’re feeling very creative, you can even go ahead with a simple click-based game revolving around a simple premise and storyline. No, we’re not just talking; we walked it as well!
Except the design, your email subject line is arguably most important component of your emails. The subject line is the first thing what subscribers see first in their inbox An interactive email subject line makes audiences to open your email.
To Celebrate This Year’s St. Patrick’s Day, Sent Out This Email.
The email invites the readers to join an imaginary character named “Benjamin Banks” in catching the leprechaun. Upon clicking the CTA button (Catch The Leprechaun), they’re led to the game.
The next frame looks something like this:
The objective of the game is simple. A leprechaun will appear on the screen at arbitrary instances. The player’s goal is to click on it as soon as they see it.
If they’re able to click on the leprechaun successfully, then the following screen appears:
Clicking on the CTA button on this screen allows the player to share this email on their social media handles.
Although the premise of this game is pretty simple, this email has a greater likelihood of inspiring greater engagement and interest simply because it is interactive.
You can see the email in action, here.
[Source: reallygoodemails]
In this interactive email, Penguin has coded the names of popular books in the form of emoji sequences.
The decoding part is left to the reader. After making their guesses, the reader should click on the emoji sequence title to reveal the answer.
For example, if you click on the first title, you’ll see this:
As is clear from these examples, interactive elements, if used smartly, can boost the quality of your emails by leaps and bounds.
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03. Representation
Let’s face it- Brands can no longer be regarded as just commercial entities. Such is their penetration in our daily lives that they now exist as an active vessel of our society.
This means that to earn the loyalty of the present-day customer, brands can’t just rely on a few transactions. They are also required to foster public dialogues and exhibit their consciousness to the everyday world happenings.
Last year, the #BlackLivesMatter movement saw brands all across the globe raising their collective voices against racial inequality and discrimination.
In the times to follow, brands started including more people of color and those from varying religious backgrounds, ethnicities, and sexual orientations in their communication, signaling loud and clear that representation as a design trend is here to stay.
Here Are Some Examples Of The Same:
[Source: reallygoodemails]
[Source: MILLED]
04. Bold Typography
Bold typography is an extremely handy design technique for announcing new product launches, upcoming sales, and new offers. Come holiday season, and this trend assumes all the more importance.
Irrespective of whether you’re coming up with new holiday-centric products or putting up attractive discounts on your existing ones, the best way to convey that information in an email is through bold typography.
Additionally, bold typography can also be used to outline customer data in an exciting and visually appealing format, making it more inviting for the readers.
Here Are Some Examples That Will Help You Understand This Design Trend Better:
[Source: reallygoodemails]
In this email, Harry employs bold typography to call the user’s attention to an important statistic and follows it up with a quirky and well-written copy to drive their point home.
[Source: reallygoodemails]
The fact that Rifle Paper Co has 30% off on everything during Christmas is kind of hard to miss in this email, isn’t it?
Well, that’s the magic of bold typography for you. It is hands down among the best design techniques you’ll ever come across when highlighting important information is concerned.
05. Gradient
An evergreen design trend, gradient promises to render your email campaigns with a classy and sophisticated look. It allows you to whip up multiple templates, each containing a different variation of the hues that are characteristic of each occasion.
For instance, on Christmas, you can play around with green, red, and white to come up with a gradient template of your own liking.
Likewise, on Halloween, you can put your imagination to the test with the classic shades of black and pumpkin orange.
Thanksgiving and New Year’s- which colors are you going to choose to create your gradient?
Take A Look At Some Email Templates That Aced Their Gradient Game:
[Source: reallygoodemails]
Since gradients make your templates visually rich and engaging, it is important that you use relatively non-decorative fonts, much as Harry’s has done over here.
The chosen font stands out immaculately against the backdrop and is highly readable. Other than curating the style of the font, pay close attention to its color as well.
For instance, since the background has darker shades in this email, the font has been kept white on purpose to present a pleasing contrast.
Here’s One More Example From 1973 Ltd:
[Source: reallygoodemails]
06. Geometric Shapes
More often than not, when brands add visual imagery to their email templates, they pack some sort of cryptic messaging into it as well. This is usually done both to compliment the copy as well as the products that have been showcased in the email.
Now, while this is not necessarily a bad move, it can backfire at times. You can’t always expect your readers to have either the patience or the time to engage with your imagery and decipher it to receive your message.
So, how can you make your template design visually pleasing and non-cryptic at the same time? Two words- Geometric Shapes.
Dotting your template with solid circles, rectangles, triangles, polygons, and the like is a highly effective design trend that can significantly enhance the overall aesthetic of your holiday emails.
Don’t believe us? Take a look at these examples:
[Source: reallygoodemails]
[Source: MILLED]
Conclusion
Irrespective of what design trend you finalize, it’s essential to keep your brand’s overall image and tonality in mind before implementing it across your communications. Once that’s out of the way, the sky’s the limit for you. Mesmerize your readers with your holiday email marketing campaigns and revel in the festivities and cheers that follow!
