Father's Day Email Strategy

Shoppers’ increasing willingness to open their wallets is good news for your Father’s Day email campaigns.

Explore all 175 Father’s Day Email Subject Lines and Examples emails

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Poor old Dad can’t catch a break. Father’s Day is still a relatively small holiday. Fewer people shop for Father’s Day than for Mother’s Day, and the ones who do spend less. But the spending gap is narrowing, according to the National Retail Federation’s Holiday Spending guide. Shoppers’ increasing willingness to open their wallets is good news for your Father’s Day email marketing campaigns.

Gift advice that shows some ingenuity, plus copy and images that use humor and appreciation for all kinds of dads, and sentiment can persuade more subscribers to shop with you. Scroll on for some hand-selected Father’s Day email subject lines and emails to use as inspiration.

Father's Day Subject Lines and Email Examples

Throw in a dad joke

Who doesn’t love a good dad joke? (Is there such a thing as a “good” dad joke?) This Father’s Day email campaign by Banana Republic uses the concept well. The subject line introduces the joke while the email design strategically overlays the joke on a large product image, leading the recipient straight to the call-to-action to shop for Father’s Day gifts.

The free shipping on orders over $100 is an extra incentive to shop, and to increase exposure for their Father’s Day campaign, Banana Republic asks subscribers to share their own favorite dad jokes on social media using one of the its hashtags. Smart!

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Stay on-brand

Hydro Flask sells bottles and related accessories for outdoor lovers so it only makes sense that its email campaign targets those with outdoorsy dads. The images and accompanying copy tie different Hydro Flask products to some common dad-related personas (craft beer enthusiast, grilling genius, outdoorsman), and the call-to-action buttons lead the recipient to the related product categories where they can shop their Father’s Day gifts.

Lastly, we love the simplicity of this Father’s Day email subject line (“Make Dad’s Day”) and how Hydro Flask lists the benefits of buying their bottles at the bottom of the email.

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Offer some interactivity

If you want to see the marketing and engagement possibilities that interactive email offers, study this email from a UK restaurant. People love personality quizzes and so instead of sending a typical Father’s Day gift guide, Brewer’s fayre gamifies the process of finding the perfect gift right within the email. Once the user has answered all of the questions, a CTA appears to click through to the website. The email design is super simple, with the instruction to “Take the Quiz” popping out against the blue background.

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Show dads and kids together

Emails showing photos of company employees and their children have been a regular feature of Mother’s Day emails, and we are happy to see them appearing in Father’s Day emails as well. We picked this email because it shows a diverse group of Frank And Oak employees and kids who are good-looking but not model-perfect. We also like that it shows the men wearing branded clothing in everyday poses because it makes them more relatable. Recipients looking for a Father’s Day gift are more likely to be able to picture their dads in these outfits than when they had been showcased by models in a stylized setting.

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Father's Day Email Marketing Ideas

Use the Father’s Day subject lines and email examples above as inspiration for your own Father’s Day campaigns and combine them with our strategic tips below to boost your chances of success.

Help shoppers out with a gift guide

Your customers might know the brands their fathers like but have no clue what to buy him. Help them out by sending a gift guide showcasing great gifts at different price points. This is a handy way to promote merch your shoppers might not find otherwise.

Find some clever ways to present your guide, too. Many brands now tie their product assortments to themes such as personas, interests, activities, personalities, etc.

Another tip: Create more than one guide, and devote each guide to a different theme. You’ll avoid the need to create a “something for everyone” assortment of products and also increase the chance that you’ll present great gift ideas that your shoppers wouldn’t have found in their own browsing. Either send the different guides as multiple Father’s Day emails within a sequence, or segment your audience and create guides for each segment.

Show Dad the love

Since we began tracking Father’s Day emails, we’ve noticed more brands are sending emails that go beyond the usual Dad jokes or stereotypical he-man product assortments.

Instead, they are celebrating Father’s Day with content that taps into the emotional aspect of Father’s Day, such as quiet messages of strength and support that play up the “Dad as hero” aspect of the parent-child relationship.

In an age when society no longer frowns on men showing emotion, these messages can strike a special chord with your readers and also help your brand stand out in the inbox over all of the “goofball dad” messages.

Have a laugh with Dad

Speaking of goofball dads … It’s a rite of passage that your father will embarrass you, whether he shows up wearing white socks with sandals or cracks cringe-inducing jokes in front of your friends. But it also means that humor can resonate with your customers and give your creative team room to play.

You don’t need to highlight a special offer or discount to have an engaging email that has good-natured fun with a traditional holiday. Good copy and fun imagery can humanize your brand and make customers feel good about buying gifts from you.

Offer subscribers a chance to opt out

It’s a trend we first observed among UK brands in advance of England’s Mother’s Day holiday in March and are beginning to see for Father’s Day as well. More and more brands allow subscribers to either pause all emails until after the holiday or to opt out only from Father’s Day email campaigns while still receiving business-as-usual and triggered or targeted messages.

It’s an unusual show of empathy, but it also has a business use because it helps retain customers who might have opted out of all emails otherwise. This move might take some back-end work for you but the positive effects and higher retention could justify the time you spend.