Father’s Day – while it’s not quite as strong as Mother’s Day when it comes to retail and eCommerce sales, the total Father’s Day gift spend for 2016 was still $14.3 billion, which makes it one of the biggest eCommerce sales holidays of the year.

It’s a great opportunity to sell some of your art.

In fact, according to the National Retail Federation (NRF), Father’s Day sales continue to go up every year.

So why not get your Father’s Day email sales campaign ready to go and take advantage of all those fine folks who plan to celebrate Dad this year with a special gift?

Just because Mother’s Day gets way more media attention, it doesn’t mean we should forget dear old Dad.

While folks spent an average of $126 per gift on Father’s Day in 2016, that figure is likely to have ticked up a bit this year if trends hold.

And, as we mentioned in the Valentine’s Day and Mother’s Day email marketing guides, your audience might spend much more on an art gift.

This is especially true if you’ve been sending your subscribers regular romance emails between your sales offers, like we talk about on the blog here.

What We Can Learn from Mother’s Day Email Campaigns

According to online marketing and eCommerce experts at the Marketing Technology blog, several trends from Mother’s Day email campaigns can help boost sales for Father’s Day.

After analyzing Mother’s Day 2017 marketing and sales data gathered data from more than 2,400 online retailers, they found four key trends worth noting:

• Mother’s Day sales peaked closer to the holiday – peak sales were on May 8th, one week before Mother’s Day, while the most popular day for shoppers to buy on a mobile device was on May 13th, just one day before the holiday. While it’s important to plan and launch your email marketing campaign in advance, your sales might not pick up until closer to the actual holiday. This is why it’s so important to send more than one email.
• Email re-marketing was most effective the week before Mother’s Day – the peak sales day was also the day that email re-marketing open rates were the highest. As we always say, you must send more than one email, and you must send to un-opens. This is why “Sale Ending,” “Deal Expiring,” and “Last Chance” emails are so important to get the best results from your email campaign. Many people wait until the last possible minute to buy, and shoppers appreciate the reminders.
• Abandonment rates spiked in the days leading up to Mother’s Day – desktop and mobile sales were highest in the week leading up to Mother’s Day, but so were cart abandonment rates. One way to combat this in your Father’s Day campaign is to offer free shipping, guaranteed delivery, or other compelling incentives. Studies have found that 61% of shopping cart abandonment in linked to the online return policy, so make yours as convenient and stress-free as possible to improve conversions.
• Tuesdays were the least popular shopping days, and Saturdays the most – the data showed that Mother’s Day shoppers used weekdays for browsing and weekends for buying. The folks at Marketing Technology suggest running a 24-hour promotion on the Tuesdays leading up to Father’s Day to increase weekday sales, and use the weekends to simply remind people to do their Father’s Day shopping, since folks are already inclined to buy on the weekend.

Take into account how your own Mother’s Day email campaign performed and factor that into the advice above to come up with the most effective Father’s Day email marketing plan.

Now, onto the 3 part Father’s Day email marketing campaign!

Email #1: Announce Your Father’s Day Offer

In your first Father’s Day email, introduce the exciting news and tell your audience about your offer.

Remind them that the big day is nearly here, and give them a gift guide with a few suggestions.

You want to demonstrate that your art could make a great Father’s Day gift.

After you share your offer, make sure to conclude it with an element of scarcity/urgency.

General Subject Line Tips

Use the Deal + Scarcity/Urgency framework where possible.

In your subject line, make it clear this is a special Father’s Day promotion.

Create a sense of urgency to boost open rates, using words like “expires in [time element],” “ends soon,” “only [time element] left,” etc.

Subject Line Examples

Scarcity/Urgency Phrase Examples

Body Copy Examples

Add value to your email by providing Father’s Day gift ideas in the email.

And as we always recommend, add a P.S. into your email that reiterates your offer and expiration date.

The body copy could be some variation of:

Email #2: Resend the Father’s Day Offer

The second email is to remind people of your Father’s Day offer and then remind them it’s ending soon.

This might seem redundant to the first email, but it’s necessary because a lot of people on your email list might’ve not even seen your first email.

Subject Lines

Choose one from Email #1 that you didn’t use.

Or, you can simply add “In Case You Missed It” (ICYMI) or “Wanted to make sure you saw this” to your original subject line:

Body Copy Examples

Same deal as before – use one of the messages from Email #1, but vary it up.

If you noticed that purchases were low from your first email, you might want to change up the messaging for Email #2.

Remember that your Father’s Day email is competing with hundreds of other brands, so it’s very important to not skip this resend email.

Email #3: Father’s Day Offer Expiration Reminder

This is the final email you send to remind people your offer is ending ASAP.

Subject Line Examples

Or, choose any one of the scarcity/urgency phrases from the previous email examples.

Body Copy Examples

This last email must be short and concise.

At this point, time is of the essence. They need a gift and they need it fast, so get right to the point in your email.

This might be the entire email:

Your final email could be longer than that, but basically you simply need to:

1. Reiterate your deal
2. Share when it expires
3. Tell them how to get it

Important: Make sure the web page your call to action takes visitors to is crystal clear about what your special offer is, when it expires, and how to get it. The path to buy needs to super clear and easy to navigate, or you’ll lose sales.

Conclusion and Other Tasks

Remember to work backwards from your last possible ship date – make sure to give yourself enough time to ensure all sales will ship in time for the big day.

And if you want to deliver even more sales, use the email + Facebook ad combo technique!

Now that you have all the ammo you need, get it started!

If you have any further questions, visit the Art Storefronts Marketing Discussion Forum (exclusive resource for ASF customers).