Christmas and holiday email templates

A holiday season is several emails

The end of the year is not one send. Different customers need different things at different times, and each has a natural moment. Shops need gift guides and shipping cutoffs. Restaurants need party bookings long before December. Clinics and offices need to announce changed hours. Charities need an appeal before the year closes. Schools and clubs need invitations with enough warning.

Take 10 minutes in October and list the emails you will send, with a rough week for each. Then write them ahead. Campaigns can be scheduled, so a quiet week can do the work that would otherwise happen during the busiest one.

When to send which email

Party and group bookings go first, in the autumn, because calendars fill. The restaurant holiday party email asks for a booking with three set menus and a private room, and it suits any venue that takes group bookings. Mini sessions follow, four to six weeks before the holidays, while families are still planning cards. The holiday minis template does that for photographers.

Gift guides run from late November into mid-December, and can go out twice: once early, then again as the last order day approaches. Holiday hours and shipping emails go out a few weeks ahead, once your cutoffs are settled. Year-end appeals tend to land best in the last two weeks of December, when many people decide on their giving. Resend with an update on progress if you have a match to reach.

Gift guides and last order dates

A gift shopper wants a short list and a deadline. The budget guide opens with the last day to order for delivery, then sorts nine gifts into three budgets, with a price and a link on each. The luxury guide is a darker, quieter layout with three featured gifts, a wrapping band and a block that names the last day to order. The warm guide has a smaller range of four standouts in two price groups, plus a wrapping offer and a code.

Put the last order date in the first screen and again near the bottom. State what happens after it: express shipping, pickup only, or a gift card by email. If you give a delivery promise, make sure your own fulfillment can keep it.

Hours, closures and practical notices

Customers look for this email when something goes wrong, so it should answer the question quickly. The holiday hours and shipping template puts closed days in a strip at the top, a last-order headline below and a band of four key dates with a note each. The clinic version lists each date with its hours or closure, three places to go when the clinic is closed and a refill reminder.

Send it about two weeks before, and check the dates against your actual schedule first. A wrong closing time is worse than no email.

Events, appeals and community

The season is also when groups ask their people for time and money. The school concert invitation puts the day, time and place in the headline, prints the program and lists doors, parking, dress and photos. It ends by asking parents to sign up to bring cookies. Give people the details they will look for the night before.

The food drive email turns the pantry list into a checklist with a box for each item, four drop-off points and three volunteer shifts. The year-end match appeal opens with a deadline and a big 2x, shows what each gift becomes once doubled and reports how much has been matched so far. Use it only when a donor has agreed to a match, be exact about the cap and the deadline, and update the matched-so-far figure by hand each time you send it.

Writing the subject line

Be plain and early. "Last day to order in time for Christmas" works because it names the deadline and the consequence. "Our holiday hours" is exactly what a customer is searching for. For an appeal, "Every gift doubled until midnight on New Year's Eve" says what is happening and when. For a gift guide, "Gifts sorted by what you want to spend" tells the reader how it works.

Avoid a subject line that could be sent by any shop. Name the date, the budget or the event. Short subject lines also fit on a phone without being cut off.

Keep the design steady across the season

A customer may get three or four emails from you between November and the new year. Use one look for all of them: the same colors, the same fonts, the same button style. Every template opens in the drag-and-drop editor, so you can match the colors and fonts yourself from the gift guide to the hours notice to the thank-you.

Change the words and the main photo each time. A reader who sees the same layout with a new headline knows it is you, and knows there is something new to read. Write the shortest version of each message you can, because December inboxes are full and a long email gets skipped.

Add one line of warmth near the top of each, in your own voice. A sentence about the year or the people behind the shop does more than a seasonal graphic.

Say thank you afterward

The best email of the season is often the one after it. A short note in early January to the people who bought, booked, gave or came, with no offer attached, stands out because few businesses send one. Say what the season meant for your business and what you have planned next.

Mistakes to avoid

The most costly is a wrong date. Check every cutoff, closure and delivery promise before scheduling, and then check again on the preview. The second is leaving the deadline to the bottom, where people miss it. The third is sending too many emails with nothing new in them. If the second gift guide looks like the first, change the headline or add a reason to act.

Remember that not everyone celebrates Christmas. Several of these templates say holiday on purpose, and you can change the wording to suit what your customers actually observe.

Questions