Since its inception as a national holiday in 1914, Mother’s Day has grown to become the third largest retail holiday in the U.S.

To art sellers, this means huge opportunity.

The National Retail Federation projects a record-setting $23.6 billion in sales on Mother’s Day this year. This is up 10.3% from last year’s record of $21.4 billion.

But as we mentioned in our Valentine’s Day Email Marketing Guide for Artists, your audience might spend much more, especially for an art gift.

A Surprising Statistic & the Advantage You Have as an Art Seller

According to Statistic Brain Research Institute, while jewelry is always a hot seller, it’s actually pretty far down the list of what Moms really want.

35.5% of shoppers have jewelry on their lists, but only 11.2% of Moms said that’s what they really want for Mother’s Day.

So what do most Moms prefer? Handmade items topped the list, followed by dinner, greeting cards, gift cards, and flowers.

Think about that. What’s “handmade,” if not art?

The 3-Part Email Campaign

This is the same kind of email campaign we recommended for Valentine’s Day. It’s pretty straightforward.

Here’s what it looks like, in a nutshell:

1. Email your list, announcing a special offer. You share that art makes a wonder Mother’s Day gift, better than flowers, dinners out, or the other usual, standard stuff. This email offers a special promotion of some kind – a discount and/or free shipping + a time sensitivity element (scarcity). You must let them know your offer expires. If you don’t, people will not take action.
2. Resend the email 24-48 hours later to the un-opens. We cover how to do that in MailChimp in this post.
3. Send a final reminder email. Three days before your offer expires, or 24 hours before it expires, remind everyone that the special is going away. (Or do both if you’re feeling bold – I’ve done this and I didn’t actually die, and I made more sales, AND no one complained). Reinforce the value of art as a gift, and ask for the sale.

Quick Note On Discounts

The go-to promotion for any holiday campaign is going to be a flat discount. We most often see 20-40%.

It’s important to offer a discount in order to stay competitive during this crunch time in which every art retailer is vying for a piece of the high demand for art.

For the discount-adverse, consider offering free shipping, or a free gift with purchase.

And, like Patrick mentioned in the recent Art Marketing Podcast episode on Mother’s Day Marketing, even if you’re not comfortable with ANY of these options, you should still absolutely send your list an email inviting them to shop your art for Mother’s Day.

It may not be as effective without a special offer, but a reminder that art makes a great gift may be all some of your customers need to make a purchase.

Email #1: Warm-Up Email, Where You Announce Your Offer for the First Time

This is the first email you send to alert people of your offer.

Remind them Mother’s Day is coming up. If you have the bandwidth, it’s a good idea to share a gift guide or gift suggestions in this email.

You could also offer an e-gift card. Then share your offer + 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 Mother’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.

Email Institute says:

“Subject lines that create a sense of urgency and exclusivity can give a 22% higher open rate.”

ESP MailChimp says:

“When it comes to email marketing, the best subject lines tell what’s inside, and the worst subject lines sell what’s inside.”

Some Subject Line Examples

NOTE: Keep in mind, shorter subject lines tend to work better. This depends on your audience and how engaged they are, so you may have to edit/shorten some of these:

Scarcity/Urgency Phrases

• Time Sensitive
• Ends tomorrow at noon EST
• Last chance
• Last day
• Final hours
• Expiring soon
• This awesome Mother’s Day deal expires tonight
• This deal ends today
• 2 hours left
• Discount ends today/in 24 hours/Friday at 5:00/etc
• This goes away today
• Do you want this? This Mother’s Day deal expires at 5:00 pm today
• Get it before it’s gone
• 24 hours left for 20% off
• Open up to get this deal before it’s gone

General Body Copy Tips

Give Mother’s Day gift ideas in the email. This is one of the BEST ways to add value for your subscribers, many of whom aren’t sure what to give, which is why they fall back on standard gifts like flowers and gift baskets.

But art is much more memorable and special, so highlight this in your email.

You could offer a Mother’s Day Gift Guide as the first email, and put together ideas for gifts that are perfect for Mom.

Be sure to promise timely delivery.

Add a P.S. after the sign-off in your email that reiterates your offer and the expiration date – some people ONLY read the P.S., because they’ve been trained from reading so many marketing emails that the important bits will always be repeated there.

Body Copy Examples

The body copy could be some variation of:

Email #2: Announce Deal & Recap/Reminder

This is the email you send to remind people you have an offer and that it’s ending soon.

There are potentially lots of folks who never saw your first email, or saw it and didn’t bother to read it.

We’ve all been trained by marketing emails that we will get at least 2-3 emails about the very same offer, so many of us ignore the first email about a deal by default. I know I always do.

Subject Lines

Choose one from those above that you didn’t use the first time around.

Body Copy Examples

Same deal as before – use one of the messages from the examples above, but vary it up.

Or, you can simply say:

Your first email will help you get a feel for the interest in your offer. If you make a lot of sales from your first email, you can roll out a similar message for email #2.

If purchases are low from email #1, you might want change up the messaging in email #2.

But keep in mind, your Mother’s Day sale will be competing with hundreds of other deals and sales your subscribers will be receiving at the same time, so your first email might not even get opened or read, which is why it’s so important to send more than one email if you really want to make sales.

Email #3: Reminder Email That the Deal is Expiring

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

Some Subject Line Examples

Or choose one of the scarcity/urgency phrases from above.

Body Copy

The body copy in the final email can be short and to the point.

This is the third email, so they’ve likely at least glanced at one of the two previous emails, or at the very least noticed them in their inbox even if they didn’t read them.

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

Body Copy Example

This might be the entire email:

Your final email could be longer than that, but basically you simply need to reiterate your deal, when it expires, and how to get it.

Very Important: Make sure the web page your call to action takes visitors to on your website 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

So, there it is! As far as the when for all of this – work backwards from your last possible ship date.

Give yourself enough time to ensure all sales will ship in time for the big day.

All of these steps were broken down in detail in the new episode of the Art Marketing Podcast, The Mother’s Day Marketing Playbook.

And, for ASF customers, we ran a special Mother’s Day webinar on how to execute your Mother’s Day email and Facebook/Instagram ads campaign.

The bottom line on Mother’s Day: just go for it. Put in a few hours of work, set up a promotion, and take a stab at this massive art holiday.