As lovers gear up to bask in the revelry of chocolates, teddies, roses, and promises (among other things, of course) in the spirit of Saint Valentine, you can count on them to wield their wallets rather generously. No, we’re not making this claim out of thin air; we are basing it on the fact that consumer spending reached approximately $26 billion in 2023. This, then, is a cue to smart marketers to double down on their Valentine’s email marketing campaigns to
ensure they lose no love from their customers.
With consumer behavior and email design trends constantly evolving, designing the ideal Valentine’s email can tend to be a touch puzzling. One of the best ways to gather clarity and actionable insights in this scenario is to carefully analyze the campaigns of some of the top players in the business. Don’t know where to start from? We’ve got you! Today, we present before you a handpicked set of some of the most exquisite Valentine’s email templates out there with the hope of getting your creative gears revving enthusiastically! Ready to get started? Let’s go!
1. Nike
Subject line: A perfect gift for Valentine’s Day 💌
Now, the importance of curating a compelling hero section is not lost on any email marketer- if the first impression cast by your email isn’t rock solid, getting subscribers to engage meaningfully with it can be a task and a half. This urgency often drives brands to try out too many things in the hero section of their custom design templates, resulting in the eventual output being massively incoherent.
But the same can’t be said for the folks at Nike here, who are visibly laser-focused with their approach. Employing minimalism, Nike cut straight to the chase with their hero section; one look at it is enough to tell you what the rest of the email is going to be about. The template is commendably neat and elegant, thanks to the masterful use of white space. And thanks to the optimal image-to-text ratio, the email never ceases to be engaging while communicating the message it wants to.
At the very top of the email, Nike subtly incentivizes readers to sign up for its membership program- yes, the mention of the free delivery perk (this call for membership is reinforced in the footer, too). A similar ploy has been used towards the bottom of the email to encourage readers to download the Nike app.
2. Lulus
Subject line: Valentine’s Vibes 💖
We absolutely love emails where brands allow their offerings to do all the talking, precisely like Lulus have done over here. It helps, of course, when you are a fashion brand because then it becomes a little bit easier for you to visually hook your subscribers with your products.
Besides leveraging stunning, high-quality visuals, Lulus have also made use of playful typography in their Valentine’s template to establish an informal demeanor, thereby inviting more engagement. The scribbles and doodles accompanying each frame further reinforce this posturing. The social media buttons, contact links, the manage preferences link, and the unsubscribe link – are all neatly placed in the email footer.
3. TUSHY
Subject line: Save 14% on the Ultimate Pair 💕
Brands that know how to deftly leverage humor in their campaigns are always at an advantage when it comes to getting noticed. And TUSHY, according to us, is one of the best in the business when it comes to doing that. This Valentine’s email from them is a stellar case in point. From the GIF in the hero section to the product description to the dummy user testimonial, nothing fails to tickle your funny bones.
On the design front, the template’s single-column layout makes it mobile-friendly and easy to navigate. Another thing worth appreciating here is how they have played around with font sizing to put the spotlight on some of the most critical bits of information in the email. Care has also been taken to make the CTAs contrast sufficiently against the background so that they are conspicuous (and how wonderfully engaging are those CTA copies!). A scrolling text right at the very top informs the readers of the last day by when they should place their orders to get their products shipped for Valentine’s Day; just the kind of information that all customers appreciate!
4. Gillette
Subject line: Love your shave, from Valentine’s Day and beyond
Gillette’s Valentine’s email departs from a convention that all the three previous email templates in this list (and a few of the subsequent ones) adopt- using a color palette revolving around red. When it comes to special occasion emails, brands generally prefer to deploy the primary color associated with it to evoke the sentimentality intrinsic to it. But it’s not really mandatory to take this route with your custom design templates. If you’re confident about fashioning an engaging end product while sticking to your brand’s color palette, you’re absolutely welcome to stick to it.
For spotlighting its products, Gillette makes use of a simple yet effective GIF in the hero section. The content has been laid out in a Z-pattern to facilitate improved readability. The copy accompanying each product is crisp and witty, increasing the engagement quotient of the email. The image-to-text ratio in the template is optimal as well.
5. The Bouqs Company
Subject line: The BEST Valentine’s (or Anytime) Gift 💝💐
One of the most reliable ways to cut through the noise is by emphasizing your value proposition in your campaigns, pretty much like The Bouqs Company have done over here. Recognizing that virtually every business would attempt to pitch one thing or the other with their Valentine’s campaigns, The Bouqs Company decided to go a step ahead and neatly list all the reasons that make their subscription worth opting for.
The template makes use of a retro typeface for headings, which imbues it with an endearing charm. Even though the email has a fair deal of text, it looks far from being cluttered. This is because the email copy does not exist in clunky paragraphs at any point; byte-sized sections of 2-3 lines are all it confines itself to. Additionally, to ensure that the copy doesn’t cause an information load, a sufficient number of images have been used as well.
6. Myntra
Subject line: 😍Love In Real Life
Stories that champion love are moving and spellbinding and hold the power to fill us with clarity in a world full of anxieties and uncertainties. And the more diverse they are, the better they tend to be. Myntra’s decision to foreground such narratives in their Valentine’s email is what makes it so incredibly special.
Replete with heartwarming images of the narrators, the email presents itself as a tender ode to that one unconquerable emotion that makes our world go round. The best part? These narrators are none other than Myntra’s customers! No better way for a brand to garner admiration than celebrating and cherishing its patrons, wouldn’t you agree? Each story in the email is paired with a unique hashtag, which is just the perfect cue for subscribers to share these stories across their social media accounts.
7. BarkShop
Subject line: 💘 Be the Valentine your dog thinks you are… for just $5!
You’d be hard-pressed to find more adorable Valentine’s email templates out there than this one by BarkShop. Goofy dog pictures, dainty illustrations, and a dotty poem- what’s there not to love about this email!
However, what truly helps in driving home the perkiness of this email is its visual composition- shunning aside all recognizable conventions, the visual arrangement takes an extremely free-spirited approach, curating the template as if it’s a page in a scrapbook. At the same time, a precise discipline informs this arrangement, preventing the template from appearing incoherent. The terms and conditions have been clearly stated in the footer alongside the social media buttons, as well as the important unsubscribe and view in browser links.
8. Four Sigmatic
Subject line: Be nice to yourself today
Besides showering love on your near and dear ones, Valentine’s Day is also an occasion to be kind and compassionate with oneself. And it is this very strain of self-love that Four Sigmatic advocate in their Valentine’s email.
Encouraging their readers to carve out some much-needed time for themselves, Four Sigmatic highlights a few products (with a rather efficient GIF) that can perfectly complement their self-love journeys. The tone of the email copy is amiable, and this tone is brilliantly reinforced by the design language as well (the stylized image frames, wavy lines as section demarcators, and a few other touches).
Wrapping It Up
We hope these stunning email inspirations have left you teeming with ideas for your Valentine’s email campaigns. Goes without saying, of course, that these examples just scratch the surface of the vast design possibilities that one can implement in their Valentine’s email template. Feel free to explore more by digging through dozens and scores more of similarly spectacular templates on the internet!
Rohan Kar
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