Once a season, I select examples of emails from my inbox that caught my attention due to their design, message, interesting technique, or humor to share with you and give you a little inspiration. Today it’s time to look at the emails of spring.
I choose 10 emails and 10 subject lines in my inbox that inspire, surprise, or make me smile. This time, I’ll also show you a few examples of annotations in the Gmail promo tab.
Emails that play up the holiday theme
Every month contains many themed celebrations. Stripo even created a unique email marketing calendar to track them. The email marketer’s task is to choose a holiday relevant to the product and prepare communication that will give subscribers warm emotions and be appropriate, creating the correct associations with the brand. Here are a few such examples:
1. Email from BaubleBar
Subject line: Happy National Pet Day!
Sender: BaubleBar
(Source: Email from BaubleBar)
In this email, BaubleBar combines cute and funny photos of pets with its product so naturally that you pay attention to them after the emotion. They used one of our favorite promotional email techniques for the main banner — GIF animation.
2. Email from Placeit
Subject line: Save 15% On Any Plan
Sender: Placeit
(Source: Email from Placeit)
Holidays are a great reason to hold promotions and offer exciting discounts. Easter is especially suitable for this because everyone is shopping and is used to great deals. To help subscribers understand that a special offer is limited, use a countdown timer. Look how they did it in Placeit by Envato. They created an attractive email design, added symbolic eggs, and started a countdown.
By the way, if you also want to add a timer to your email, you can do it quite simply using Stripo. In our editor, you can create and configure a timer in just a few clicks using a special block.
3. Email from Tesla
Subject line: Earth Day, Every Day
Sender: Tesla
(Source: Email from Tesla)
Holidays can be used to remind followers of a company’s values. For example, look at how Tesla did it on Earth Day. They sent an unusual email where they didn’t talk about a new car but reminded us about their eco-activities and one of the brand’s key messages — preserving the planet’s energy resources.
Vibrant color combinations and dynamic content in emails
Brands got tired of pastel colors this spring and returned to bright colors. This also affected email design.
Harmoniously combining bright colors is a challenging task. But this is a direct way to ensure your email stands out and attracts attention. If you add dynamic content, such as an animated GIF, the result will definitely be memorable. Look at how brands used these features to design emails I couldn’t ignore.
The following emails have one more common feature — they don’t just show diversity but offer ready-made solutions and teach subscribers how to use the product.
4. Email from Chanel
Subject line: New OMBRE ESSENTIELLE
Sender: Chanel
(Source: Email from Chanel)
Chanel’s email marketers and designers 100% completed the task of drawing attention to the color palette of the shadows. They used a black background to make the colors look even more attractive and display predictably when transitioning to a dark mode. Pay attention to the ready-made makeup looks for each color — relevant for everyone who wants to use shadows.
5. Email from Halfdays
Subject line: Layering Perfection
Sender: Halfdays
(Source: Email from Halfdays)
Here is another striking example of this spring. All fans of multi-layered clothing and bright colors were definitely pleased with this email: three trendy bright colors and several elements of the collection. Choose, combine, and enjoy. In addition to the pleasant colors, I liked this email for its ease — it contains no unnecessary elements, and everything is thought out and leads to shopping.
6. Email from Nike
Subject line: We Got Your Festival Fits
Sender: Nike
(Source: Email from Nike)
Nike has come up with another way to use dynamic content to help followers choose what to wear. They created ready-made festival fits in several color combinations and presented these solutions as an animated GIF. If you have ever struggled with combining clothes, you will appreciate this approach immediately in your email. All that remains is to go to the website and buy.
7. Email from Urban Outfitters
Subject line: Psst… sooo much new stuff JUST dropped!
Sender: Urban Outfitters
(Source: Email from Urban Outfitters)
GIF animation in this example successfully fulfills its mission — it immediately attracts attention. Here it was not the images that were made dynamic but the inscription — a simple line became an eye-catching banner. Harmonious groups of images complete the impression.
8. Email from PUMA
Subject line: Easy Rider — Straight From the ‘70s
Sender: PUMA
(Source: Email from PUMA)
This bright spring selection would be incomplete without an email from PUMA, whose images send us back to the 70s, hinting that everything new is well-forgotten old. And you see all the spring trends — bright colors and memorable compositions.
Summer is coming…
Spring gives way to summer; therefore, in May, more emails display summer themes. Brands are preparing for summer and encouraging their subscribers to do so as well.
9. Email series from Gucci
Subject line: Summer-Ready Accessories in Jute
Sender: Gucci
(Source: Email from Gucci)
Gucci made an underwater email series — a promotional campaign that is literally impossible to take your eyes off. This visual has everything we expect from a carefree summer — clear blue water, a great mood, and a new hat and handbag.
Look at another email in the series, where the addition of the trendy color fuchsia further enhances this impression.
Subject line: Gucci Lido: Summer Spirit
Sender: Gucci
(Source: Email from Gucci)
10. Email from Emirates Skywards
Subject line: Alina, your Emirates Skywards monthly digest
Sender: Emirates Skywards
(Source: Email from Emirates Skywards)
Another example of a summer vibe is from a country where it is always summer. In addition to the tempting offer of vacation and recreation, I liked this email due to its personalization, which attracts attention at the beginning; its well-thought-out structure; and its functional blocks. Pay attention to the blocks if you need to post different information for one subscriber.
The Module+ approach in Stripo helps you create such emails quite quickly. All blocks are created once, and then the information in them and the data are simply updated if necessary.
Annotations in the Gmail promo tab
Something else I noticed in my inbox this spring was the increased use of annotations for the promo tab in Gmail. Fashion industry brands immediately offering their best products and discounts and companies sending information digests have done this. Check out the examples below to see how this makes emails stand out in the inbox.
And here you can already see the discount:
Here is an example of an annotation in the format of a single image that leads to the desired page:
I took this screenshot because I saw a new and interesting solution for annotations — just color blocks with titles:
I hope you don’t skip this step in the process of preparing your emails. By the way, in Stripo editor you can quickly prepare annotations using a special function — Gmail promo annotation builder.
The 10 email subject lines from my spring inbox that caught my attention
How often do you open an email just because a subject line hooked you? I do this quite frequently. Therefore, I saved an additional selection of 10 successful subject lines for inspiration.
- Spring Styles, Easter Smiles! — Thomas Earnshaw
- Something huge is finally here! — MacPaw Team
- time for a spring reset — Girlfriend Collective
- Camera Phone Shortcuts You May Not Know — CNET Insider
- As Versatile As Your Style — Nike
- Low Stock Alert! — BaubleBar
- Don’t miss: 30% off must-have makeup — NYX Professional Makeup
- Jean shorts. In COLOR? Groundbreaking. — Old Navy
- and our Top Rated are… (+ 20% OFF in the app) — Urban Outfitters
- Here comes one smooth Father’s Day — Harry’s
Wrapping up
We’ve put together all of these spring newsletter ideas to give you some fun inspiration when looking for creative email ideas. Use new trends and best practices, maintain a consistent style, and add some flair. Then, your email strategy is sure to lead to success.
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