Fun Newsletter Ideas To Wish Your Prospects Happy Holidays

Many businesses use holiday newsletters as a chance to boost sales and announce last minute deals. Other companies opt to use their holiday newsletter as a chance to nurture their subscriber list — providing them with well wishes, a thank you note, or some other content that’s a break from the barrage of marketing emails they’re receiving this time of year.

At Wild Fig Marketing, we’re of the opinion that nurturing your prospects and customer base are key to increasing customer loyalty, and as a result, sales. Our advice? Give the flashy, deal-laden emails a rest. Here are five fun newsletter ideas that you can use to wish your prospects a happy holiday in a way that they’re sure to appreciate (and that’s sure to boost your bottom line). 

What is a Holiday Newsletter?

A holiday newsletter is an email sent to customers during the holiday season to maintain engagement with your customers and prospects. Like all newsletters, it should include some sort of greeting and offer your subscribers engaging, valuable content. 

During the holidays a newsletter can be used to either announce upcoming seasonal offers and last-minute deals, or to simply nurture your prospects and build relationships with them.

As we said earlier, we prefer the latter. Here’s why: 

More and more these days, people are being inundated with e-commerce advertising and messaging. While this is necessary in order to keep a business going (we would know — helping our clients advertise is kind of our job!), humans have the incredible ability to tune things out. And the more repetitive something becomes, the easier it is to tune it out! 

So if all you’re doing is sending out sale email after sale email during the holiday season, guess what? Your message is going to be tuned out, too. 

People are being sold to all season long. Use your holiday newsletter as a chance to shake things up, have a little fun, and show your customers and prospects that you genuinely care about them! Let’s take a look at some examples.  

1. Say Happy Holidays From the Whole Team

Want to show your prospects your human side? Then put the humans of your organization front and center! In this type of holiday newsletter, you can: 

• Show your clients a bit of behind-the-scenes of your office
• Include personal greetings from the team
• Record a short and fun video with thanks and good wishes

For example, take a look at this fun time-lapse office decoration video that Aristotle Interactive used to wish their customers and prospects a Happy Holidays: 

Sharing behind-the-scenes glimpses of your team preparing for the holidays adds a personal touch to your brand and helps humanize your business. You can also include fun facts about the team or highlight team traditions!

And if you can find a clever and subtle way to promote your products at the same time (perhaps a small CTA at the bottom of your email?) that’s great! But for this type of holiday newsletter, the point is connection — not conversion.

2. Advent Calendar Newsletter

Everyone loves an advent calendar! So how about working one into your holiday email marketing campaign? Instead of traditional treats behind each door, offer a daily dose of holiday cheer. Each day can reveal a new piece of festive content, such as a holiday-themed recipe, DIY decoration ideas, or links to content related to the season. (And while you could take this opportunity to sneak in a coupon or two behind a few “doors,” we’d recommend not using the entire calendar to promote deals.) 

Check out this awesome advent calendar by Flippingbook that they sent to their subscribers.

This is an especially effective way to engage and nurture your subscribers, as it offers an opportunity for continuous engagement throughout the month of December. And while we don’t recommend sending your list an email every day, a weekly email with the previous week’s calendar surprises should do the trick! 

3. Year in Review 

Creating a "Year in Review" email is a fantastic way to reflect and humbly-brag on past highlights, while also getting your prospects excited about what’s to come in the new year. Take All Trails newsletter, for example: 

All Trails' "year in review" newsletter does a great job of incorporating fun facts and providing more value to their subscribers with links to trails on various continents. To make this type of newsletter the most effective, frame your company's accomplishments as being things that you and your subscribers have experienced together. 

4. Interactive Newsletter

Encourage your subscribers to get involved and interact with your newsletter content. 

Need some ideas for interactive Christmas content? Check out this interactive Christmas tree by the company Two, below.

Two sent this Christmas tree to their subscribers and encouraged them to decorate their tree in any style they wanted to. There’s even something for the Grinches out there, who could click “BAH! HUMBUG!” and watch the Christmas tree shrivel into something reminiscent of a Charlie Brown tree. 

Image source: https://www.emailonacid.com/blog/article/email-development/holiday-interactive-email-campaigns/

Data shows that interactive emails are more effective at getting people's attention than emails with “passive” content. Martech Advisor reports that “interactive email content increases the click-to-open rate by 73% and adding videos to email can boost click rates up to 300%”!

5. Warm Wishes

During the holiday season, some newsletters stand out for their simplicity and sincerity. These "warm wishes" messages skip the promotional pitch, offering a genuine thank you from businesses to their customers or subscribers. Here’s an example: 

These straightforward expressions of gratitude remind us of the authentic connections that we all value. Stripped of any promotional deals, links, or ads, this type of newsletter captures the true spirit of the holidays by conveying appreciation and warm wishes to the community that supports them. 

Tips for your Holiday Newsletter 

Subject Lines

Your subject line is a key part of your newsletter’s effectiveness. Here are some helpful tips to help you craft the perfect subject line for your holiday newsletter: 

Do:

• Keep it short and simple
• Personalize your subject lines
• Use actionable words
• Add emojis to bring out the holiday theme

Don’t:

• Don’t over-promote your products
• Don’t forget to check for grammar/spelling errors
• Don’t use spam words in subject lines
• Don’t add too many emojis
• Don’t use ALL CAPS

Calls To Action

A call to action, or CTA, is a button or a hyperlink that asks users to take a specific action. CTAs are most often used in emails, blogs, advertisements, landing pages, and websites. If you include one in your newsletter,  make sure it makes sense with the type of content you’ve written.

Here are some tips to help your CTA button attract clicks: 

• Use actionable words and first-person voice in CTAs
• Use vibrant colors to make CTAs stand out from the email copy
• If your holiday newsletter is long, use multiple CTAs
• Write CTAs relevant to your newsletter’s theme

Tired of Writing Your Own Newsletters? Let Wild Fig help!

At Wild Fig Marketing, we understand that authentic messaging can majorly benefit your customer relationships and increase customer loyalty. Whether you're looking to convey gratitude during the holidays or maintain year-round engagement, the content experts at Wild Fig Marketing can create meaningful content that speaks to your audience and solidifies your brand. This season and beyond, let Wild Fig Marketing be your partner in creating great email and newsletter content. And from our team to yours, Happy Holidays!