Mother’s Day Email Marketing Trends

Have you ever loved someone so deeply, respected their life's work so profoundly that you campaigned to have a national holiday declared in their honor? Anna Jarvis did. You see, Anna had quite the remarkable mother, Ms. Ann Maria Reeves Jarvis, a West Virginian caretaker who worked to treat both Union and Confederate soldiers wounded or fallen ill during the Civil War.

After her death in 1905, Ann Maria's daughter Anna campaigned to have her work and the tireless efforts of all mothers commemorated throughout the country. Her petitioning paid off when in 1914, President Woodrow Wilson proclaimed Mother's Day to be a national holiday (May 10 this year, by the way).

Thankfully, there's a way to show mom you care that doesn't require the signature of the President of the United States: a fresh bouquet of flowers. We took a look at email marketing trends from Mother's Day 2014 across major floral brands (ProFlowers, 1-800-Flowers.com, FTD, Teleflora, FromYouFlowers) and found similarities and differentiators in key areas — subject line, body and call to action (CTA).

Subject Line
Mother's Day subject lines fell into five categories: value, time, content, guilt and sentimental. Value-based subject lines included simple dollar or percentage discounts. Oftentimes accompanying the value-based subject lines would be a time-based reminder, like "URGENT: Last Chance for a $19.99 Special for Mother's Day!"

Content subject lines focused more on pointing consumers to another resource like a gift guide or catalog. Though we know your love for mom is pure, for some, guilt is a major motivating factor on Mother's Day. A common subject line in that category was a variation on "Don't Forget Mom!" (How could we?) Finally, sentimental campaigns, something like "Make Mom Smile" can be used effectively. While we were able to identify five distinct categories, the most successful campaigns found creative ways to combine subject line types.

Body
More often than not, the message/offer copy found in the email body was a simple extension of the subject line. Therefore, we classified message types in a similar way. What worked best was straightforward banner copy consisting of 30 or fewer words along with offers in large, distinct colors and fonts, and multiple order recommendations. Remember to keep the theme or themes presented in the subject line alive in the body of the email. For instance, you can expand on the offer or include an offer code redeemable at checkout.

CTA
Our analysis found the standard "Order Now" present in almost all cases. You can play it safe or stand out from the crowd. We recommend a more emotional angle with "Send to Mom" or "Buy for Mom." As with any holiday marketing campaign, the challenge is to find a balance between promotions that are basically coherent and navigable and finding ways to differentiate your brand in a fun and memorable way.

These are some of the world's most prolific senders, and this is one of their biggest events of the year, so the creative they send into market is highly competitive and highly scrutinized. They're counting on it to work. If the trends and practices you see in these examples are sound enough for this occasion, they're almost certainly worth using to benchmark your own campaigns. Oh, and once more for good measure: Mother's Day is May 10!

Kevin Kelleher manages analyst relations for Return Path, a provider of data solutions for email marketing optimization and fraud protection.