Memorial Day Email Examples and Strategy

Breakout the grill and help your customers celebrate with on-point Memorial Day emails

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Memorial Day has a theme for everybody: American patriotism, the unofficial start of summer, family gatherings, and long weekends off from work. One of these is bound to resonate with your customers and drive sales.

We’ve gathered some steal-worthy Memorial Day email campaigns you can use as inspiration. We’ve also listed some strategic tips you can adapt to suit your brand image and audience expectations.

Given that driving sales and/or store visits is a major promotional goal for Memorial Day emails, we focused on emails showing fresh ways to dress up your offers so they don’t look like everybody else’s.

Memorial Day Email Examples
Memorial Day Email Strategy: Top Tips

Memorial Day Email Examples

Go back to the essense

Vineyard Vines always finds good ways to connect with its customers on holidays. This Memorial Day email is a classic example. It begins with an eye-catching subject line (“Enjoy your long weekend …”) and preview text (“But don’t forget why today’s important for all of us.”) that set the tone for a personal and heartfelt message. The message ties into the brand’s motto (“Every day should feel this good”) and is presented with the typical red white and blue Memorial Day color scheme.

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Organize a sale

Both the subject line and email copy of Modcloth’s email remind their customer that they need to hurry if they want to benefit from the brand’s Memorial Day sale. The free shipping and returns advertised at the top of the email add an extra incentive to shop.

Also, notice the subtlety of this Memorial Day email design: the red white and blue colors are just enough to have this email campaign fit the holiday’s theme.

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Break out the swim trunks

Chubbies stays true to its playful brand with this funny Memorial Day Message. It uses the holiday to ring in the summer season and stands out in its subscribers’ inboxes with an eye-catching subject line (“I sincerely regret not opening this email.”) and preview text (“Signed, Future You”).

The email copy is just as engaging and introduces a variety of swim trunks, including one with a fitting American flag design.

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Show respect

We picked this Memorial Day email campaign because it’s a simple and stark reminder of what the day is all about. It one stands out from the pack because it uses color effectively and sparingly in a black-and-white photo. It also mentions both men and women in its tribute. Lots of Memorial Day photos focus only on service members who happen to be men. Including women is a gesture of respect … and recognizes the reality of today’s military.

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Get out in front of the holiday

When you plan a Memorial Day Weekend promotion, get out in front of all the other big discounters. Gap sent this email on the last Monday before the holiday weekend, when competing retailers relied more on generic messages or sent nothing. The subject line prods shoppers to act (“Redeem your code now! You’ve been given early Memorial Day deals”) and the preview text mentions the discounts and free shipping that are then repeated in the email copy. Finally, the offer code (“PARTY”) is easy to remember.

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Showcase matching products

Maybe not the prettiest email on this list, it definitely does match both the holiday and the brand. For Memorial Day, Deep Blue watches decided to showcase watches that match the red-white-blue color palette. It also promotes its sale as a Memorial Day event and offers a brand-matching and easy-to-remember discount code (“BLUE”).

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Memorial Day Email Strategy: Top Tips

Use the Memorial Day email subject lines and emails above as inspiration for your own Memorial Day email marketing campaigns. If you’re emailing different segments of your list, consider creating Memorial Day email templates for each of them so you can easily run A/B tests and improve your campaigns year after year.

If you’re planning a sale, you can also create a specific Memorial Day sale template you adapt each time a test returns a better-working CTA button, email design, or subject line.

Appeal to patriotism

Some brands devote an entire email to this theme. Others refer to it symbolically by using American flag motifs and red-white-blue color choices in fonts, hero-image products and background images.

Note: Don’t confuse Memorial Day — where we honor people of service who have died in wars on foreign soil — with Veterans Day (which is more about supporting our veterans and thanking them for their service).

Focus on summer

The long Memorial Day weekend is the official kickoff to summer, even in places where it’s summer all year long. Fun in the sun, travel and family figure into this theme. Of course, your competition is also thinking alone the same lines. Make sure you come up with a stand-out email that your brand manager is going to love, too.

Emphasize friends, family and partying on the long weekend

Most Americans celebrate Memorial Day with friends and/or family. Your Memorial Day subject lines and emails can evoke togetherness, party prep, and everything else that goes with getting together for an extended holiday weekend.

Test promotional discounts

If you have time, test whether your customers respond differently to Memorial Day promotions. Try percentage off versus a monetary discount. Does one drive more sales or higher average orders than the other?