Fall is officially here and Halloween is just around the corner. That means that ecommerce stores should start planning their Halloween email campaigns and take advantage of one of the most fun holidays of the year.
That’s right, Black Friday isn’t the only shopping event of the season — surprise and delight your subscribers with a Halloween-themed email marketing campaign.
In this article, we’ll talk about why you should include Halloween in your email marketing strategy, tips for crafting the perfect Halloween email, and even share 35 Halloween email subject lines to inspire your campaign.
Why Halloween Campaigns are a Good Idea
Halloween is huge — and it’s only getting bigger. In fact, according to the National Retail Federation, Halloween spending has seen a dramatic rise for the past several decades.
Here are some quick takeaways from their study:
- More than 148 million U.S. adults plan to participate in Halloween-related activities.
- Those who are celebrating plan to spend $92.12 on average
- 53% of those people plan to decorate their homes
- 46% of those people plan to carve a pumpkin
- 18% of those people will dress up their pet
How to Create a Good Halloween Email
That data is clear: people love Halloween, and they’re willing to spend money to celebrate it. If they’re going to spend money to enjoy Halloween anyway, why not encourage them to spend money at your store?
Host a Sale
A good email marketing campaign is only as good as the offer that it promotes. Sometimes that offer can be exclusive access or limited-time products — but more often than not, an offer is a great sale. Give your email list a trick in the form of a free gift with a purchase or 20% off.
Use Halloween Emojis
The use of emojis in marketing has become commonplace. They’re an eye-catching way to add color and images to a subject line and can make your email stand out in someone’s crowded inbox.
Plus, there are so many Halloween emojis! Here are a few of our favorites to consider for your subject lines:
- Skulls:💀 ☠️ 🏴☠️
- Ghost: 👻
- Devil: 😈👿
- Jack-o-lantern: 🎃
- Spider: 🕷 🕸
- Vampires: 🧛♀️ 🧛 🧛♂️
- Zombies: 🧟♀️ 🧟 🧟♂️
- Witches: 🧙♀️ 🧙🔮
- Spooky faces: 👹👺👽🤖
- Fall leaves: 🍁
- Candy: 🍫 🍭 🍬
- Haunted house: 🏚
- Scared face: 😱
- Hearts 🖤 🧡
We can’t say for certain that if you use emojis, you will increase your open rates, but there have been quite a few experiments that suggest they do. We suggest running your own A/B tests on your subject lines to see if your subscribers respond well to emojis.
Use a Halloween Themed Design
Email design is the unsung hero of email marketing. Don’t use your standard email template for your Halloween campaign — design something fun and festive for the holiday.
Not very creative? Think of all the Halloween decor in your favorite haunted house: spiders, cobwebs, lightning, witches, candy corn, etc. Halloween is supposed to be fun, so have fun with your design!
If you don’t have a designer in-house, you can always change the colors to black and orange. Another easy thing to do is add a Halloween GIF — this is no shortage of good ones on Giphy.
But as always: don’t neglect your CTA. Conversions are still the goal, so don’t hide your call to action under a dusty spiderweb!
Halloween Email Subject Lines
It doesn’t matter if you have the best email content in the world if people don’t actually open the email. To get people to open your messages. Your subject line is your first impression and your best opportunity to boost your open rates (but don’t ignore preheaders either).
Here are 35 Halloween email subject lines that you can use on your holiday campaign:
- Scared of paying full price? Shop our Halloween sale.
- Trick or treat! It’s shopping time.
- Fa-BOO-lous free shipping for Halloween 👻
- These sales are so good they’re scary!
- Spooktacular sales for Halloween
- Happy Halloween! 20% off storewide.
- Give yourself a treat this Halloween 🍭 🎃
- Spooky sales start Saturday!
- Have a boo-tiful Halloween 👻
- Halloween treats inside.
- Celebrate Halloween with storewide sales 🖤🎃☠️
- Halloween Deals for all Ghouls and Goblins
- Scary Savings are here
- Last Chance for Spooky Halloween Deals 🕸 🎃🧛♂️
- Frighteningly good deals 🧟♀️ 🧟 🧟♂️
- No tricks, just treats
- Everything you need for your Halloween party
- Halloween flash sale starts now!
- Fang-tastic savings for Halloween 🧛♀️ 🧛 🧛♂️
- Halloween sales aren’t just for kids
- Grab your Halloween costumes and start shopping
- Ha-Ha-Halloween savings are here 🕷🎃👻
- 20% off everything for Halloween
- Save now on delightful tricks and terrifying treats
- Deals to die for! 💀 ☠️ 🏴☠️
- Click your treat
- Spellbinding saving ’til midnight 🧙♀️ 🔮
- Mummy of the year – you deserve a treat
- Don’t miss out on these ghoulish goodies
- Creepin’ it real, with these frightfully good deals
- 👻 Spooky Savings for all our BOOS 👻
- Hello, gourd-geous, take 25% off
- Happy Howl-oween, treats for your pets 🐾🎃👻
- Oh my gourd! Trick or treat yo’ self
- Like my costume? I got it at a boo-tique 💃🏻🕺🏻🎃
Halloween Email Examples
Still need more inspiration for your Halloween email marketing campaign? Check out these Halloween email examples:
Liquid Death went all out with their Halloween campaign. They created special packaging and highlighted its unique use in this eye-catching email campaign.
The email designers at Magic Spoon are some of the best in the business. For this Halloween email, they stuck with their recognizable illustration style by made it a little spooky with a witch. Also, we love how they compare their cereal to candy, which is obviously fitting for the holiday.
The product photographers deserve a special prize for the images used in this Halloween email from Crate & Barrell. The images inspire creativity and almost dare the recipient to throw the best Halloween party on the block.
This email from Tattly caught our eye because of the unique discount. How often have you seen a 31% off discount? Well, Halloween is the perfect time to offer one.
We like this email because it plays on the “treat” idea by offering a free gift with purchase, plus a chance to win a $200 gift card.
This Halloween email is great because they planned their product to align with the season. If you have any Halloween-related products, make sure they make it into your email!
We like this email because the design is beautiful while still maintaining an emphasis on the CTA.
So there you have it, 35 Halloween email subject lines and examples to help BOOst your email engagement. If you learned nothing from this post, just remember to have fun. You don’t want to scare away your customers by being too serious 🧛♂️.
