Promotional Email Examples

Email marketing is one of the most powerful marketing tools in the digital marketer’s toolbox, but only if you send emails the right way. In this article, we’ll study five effective promotional email examples and the takeaway lessons you can use to write powerful marketing emails of your own.

1. KissFlow welcome email

KissFlow Welcome Email

The KissFlow welcome email is only a couple of paragraphs long, but it still manages to do several things:

  • Establish brand tone – Right from the headline, KissFlow establishes itself as a brand that isn’t afraid to turn some people away if it allows them to connect with their ideal customer. They also establish their no-nonsense tone, a subtle guarantee that what you see is what you get from this company.
  • Develop audience expectations – The first paragraph of this email establishes overall expectations for what the KissFlow brand provides: stellar workflow management. The second paragraph shows what you can expect from KissFlow immediately after you join their newsletter: a five-minute consultation to help you decide if KissFlow is the best service for you.
  • Provide next steps – The final paragraph establishes the subscriber’s next steps. They can either wait and accept a phone call half an hour after they receive the email, or respond before the half hour passes to conduct the consultation via email instead.

Accomplishing all of these things in one email also shows that when KissFlow says they’re going to simplify your workflow, they mean it. After all, their first email has done what many brands take two or three emails to accomplish.

The lesson

You want to establish what subscribers can expect from your brand from the first sentence of your welcome email. This includes both your overall brand voice and more specific expectations, like what they can expect to see in your next email.

2. Trello “Create a new board” email

Trello Nurture Email

Establishing a basic relationship with your customers is the  “easy” part. Once you’ve got a subscriber, you need to develop that relationship. Trello’s “Create a new board” email made it onto our list of promotional email examples because it builds relationships in a few ways:

  • Remind subscribers of their services – The clever line “Elevate your Board game” uses a bit of humor to remind you of what Trello does: help you create “Boards” and streamline your workflow. It’s also a great example of Trello’s lighthearted brand voice.
  • Show subscribers what they can do with this service – This email goes on to show customers all the different ways they can use Trello boards. This is a great way to remind readers about a service without seeming spammy.
  • Provide concrete callto-actions – All of the options provided in this email are followed by a link that asks readers to “Learn More.” This gives people a specific way to continue interacting with Trello, further strengthening the relationship.

All in all, this is a stellar example of how you can build relationships with subscribers even when you don’t have a new product or an upcoming sale to promote.

The lesson

One of the best ways to nurture relationships with your subscribers is to give them specific, actionable information that allows them to interact with your brand right away.

3. Perkbox new features email

A promotional email example from Perkbox about announcing new features

This email is a bit longer than the other ones featured in this list of promotional email examples, but it also strengthens Perkbox’s relationship with subscribers in a variety of ways:

  • Tell subscribers a story – The first four paragraphs of this email focus on the story behind Perkbox’s new updates. This allows subscribers to understand their process, getting a “behind-the-scenes” glimpse of sorts.
  • Make subscribers part of the story – The second paragraph talks at length about how user feedback guided the changes Perkbox is announcing. This shows subscribers that their feedback is being heard and makes them feel like they’re actively contributing to the future of Perkbox.
  • Show readers how they can take advantage of new features – The “Check it out” button in the middle of the email is a vivid call-to-action that encourages subscribers to interact with new features. You can create the same kind of call-to-action in your emails when you release a new product.
  • Remind people that your team is available to help – The final paragraphs of this email ask Perkbox users to contact them if they have any feedback or issues with the new updates, and provides a contact email for those communications. This shows subscribers that Perkbox considers customer support a priority, further reinforcing how much they value their community.

This email is a great example of how you can make a longer email resonate with your audience.

The lesson

Shorter is usually better in email marketing, with 200-word emails enjoying the highest click-through rate, but sometimes you need more room to tell a story. Even so, you want to make sure every word counts, as Perkbox has done in this example.

4. Trello thank you email

A promotional thank you email example from Trello

This email once again demonstrates Trello’s understanding of email marketing. It’s only one sentence and a button, but it still manages to connect with their subscribers in multiple ways:

  • Make subscribers feel valued – Trello thanks their users right in the headline of their email. This makes subscribers feel like important members of the Trello community and shows that Trello understands that their subscribers are the reason for their success.
  • Offer subscribers something of value – Trello also says that they’re giving away free premium memberships to celebrate. This gives subscribers the opportunity to get something of real value and reinforces the idea that Trello appreciates their subscribers at the same time.

This email also shows that Trello understands their audience on a deeper level. People use workflow solutions like Trello because they want to save time, and this short, sweet email allows them to interact with the brand without a major time investment.

The lesson

Every business milestone is also an opportunity to remind your email subscribers that they are important to your business. You can celebrate your milestones with giveaways to further demonstrate how much you value subscribers and offer them something of value at the same time.

5. Olark feedback request

A feedback email from Olark

Long-term success comes from listening to your audience, but first you need to get them talking. This email from Olark, a popular live chat service, does a couple of things to accomplish that:

  • Establish why you’re asking for feedback – Brands always love feedback, but this email establishes why Olark is asking for feedback at this specific moment: they’re making plans for the year ahead. This gives subscribers an incentive to respond right away and demonstrates what their feedback will be used for.
  • Make it as easy as possible for them to provide feedback – Rather than giving subscribers a complicated survey or simply asking them to “provide feedback”, Olark asks a single, simple question and tells readers to respond directly to the email. This makes it easy for them to send the appropriate feedback within a few minutes.

The simplicity of this email also reinforces the idea that Olark wants to make life easier for its customers.

The lesson

Surveys and generic requests for feedback have their place, but the best way to guarantee useful feedback from your audience is to ask them a single, specific question and make it easy for them to answer.

The most important lesson you can take from these promotional email examples

The most important thing you can learn from these promotional email examples is that every email you send should accomplish at least two things:

  1. Evoke an emotion in your subscribers – Make your subscribers feel something, whether it’s curiosity about your products and services, joy for your successes, or pride in their involvement with your company. You can do this with quick, exciting announcements or longer, more involved stories.
  2. Encourage subscribers to engage with your brand – Your goal should always be to build relationships, and the best way to do that is to get customers interacting with your brand on a regular basis. Include a strong call-to-action in every email, asking subscribers to interact with your company in some way.

You can do many more things in a single email, but every email should accomplish at least those two things, even if it’s only a sentence long.

Final thoughts on these promotional email examples

These promotional email examples demonstrate some of the most powerful ways companies can strengthen relationships with their email subscribers.

Studying promotional email examples from companies in your own industry can give you even more ideas, but you’ll need to test these strategies out for yourself to find out what resonates with your audience. So start writing those emails!

And if you’re looking for an affordable way to actually send these emails, check out our comparison of the best cheap email marketing services or the best free services (if your budget is $0). Personally, we use Brevo.

Any questions about how to implement the lessons from these examples? Ask away in the comments!

Free guide

4 Essential Steps to Speed Up
Your WordPress Website

Follow the simple steps in our 4-part mini series
and reduce your loading times by 50-80%. 🚀

Free Access

All promotional email examples came from https://www.goodemailcopy.com/.

0 Comments
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments

Or start the conversation in our Facebook group for WordPress professionals. Find answers, share tips, and get help from other WordPress experts. Join now (it’s free)!