Marketing

4 Successful Marketing Email Examples (With Downloadable Worksheet)

Dec 22, 2022

Learn from these stellar examples then use the templates provided to create stunning emails of your own.

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Gary FroniewskiContent Writer
4 Successful Marketing Email Examples (With Downloadable Worksheet)

What we'll cover

According to GetApp’s 2022 Email and Social Media Marketing Survey*, well over three quarters (84%) of businesses rate email as critical or extremely critical to their overall marketing success.

If you’re a small business marketer just getting started, however, there are many critical aspects of your digital marketing strategy that need attention. To successfully juggle those and create high-quality emails, it’s crucial to conserve resources while still making the most out of your efforts.

Cue templates (and listen for the choral music). Adapting successful emails into templates helps scale your strategy andsave resources. If you’re not exploring this option as a small business, you’re losing time and money by manually creating every email.

Want to know more about the basics of email marketing first? Check out our guide on The Do’s and Don’ts of Email Marketing.

What are the different types of marketing emails?

Generally, marketing emails fall into two main categories: transactional and promotional.

Transactional emails provide essential information for customers such as shipping and account notifications, receipts, and password resets. These can also be triggered by actions not taken such as a cart abandonment email. Promotional emails are used to share exclusive offers, alert customers of sales, or send announcements, new product info, and invitations.

The four types of emails we’ll be discussing represent the options that are most sent by businesses based on our survey data.

types sent
  • Welcome emails: A type of transactional email that’s typically the first thing a new customer gets when they sign up to receive communication from a business.

  • Sales or promotions: A type of promotional email used to alert a potential customer to a new sale or promotion a business is offering.

  • Newsletters: A type of transactional email usually sent on a regular basis that shares ongoing news about a business.

  • “Thank you” emails: A type of promotional email sent to thank loyal customers for a purchase, a donation, or signing up for a program offered by the business.

To help you produce engaging emails of your own, we’ve created a downloadable worksheet for the four types of emails above.  Inside, you’ll discover tips for each element of a successful email and guidance on how to approach the message itself.

What makes for a successful email?

success factors

Successful emails are timely, provide value to your customers, include personalization, and they work toward a main key performance indicator (KPI) for your overall marketing goals. Ensuring you have as many of these elements as possible in every email will increase your chances of success before you even hit send.

Popular email marketing software includes features that make this easier, allowing you to automatically send emails based on customer actions (timeliness) and customize product recommendations based on past purchases (personalization). Both of these aspects provide value as they offer helpful information to customers without the need for their intervention.

Curious about the most effective email marketing software out there? You’re in luck! We’ve narrowed down the options to create a list of the 10 Best Email Marketing Software.

With these success factors in mind, we’ll now share some effective marketing email examples along with tips to help you emulate them.

Welcome emails: Sephora

sephora welcome 1

Screenshot of Sephora’s Welcome to Sephora! marketing email, taken by author [1]

What better way to greet a new customer than with a welcome email? Personal care and beauty product retailer Sephora has created a lovely graphic to welcome new shoppers to their Beauty Insider program. This aesthetically pleasing welcome to the Welcome (if you will) draws the reader in immediately and refers to them by name. Personalized emails like this one serve to add an extra touch of warmth to the greeting.

They follow this up with a list of what to expect from the relationship that includes a link to more information on the program. The effect of this is two-fold as it provides valuable information to the reader and links back to Sephora’s website.

sephora welcome 2

Screenshot of the list of perks for joining Sephora’s Beauty Insider program, taken by author [1]

As a small business with click-throughs to your website being a potential main KPI, having this call to action (CTA) front and center is crucial. It’s always a good practice to place the first action you want a new subscriber to take “above the fold” or within one scroll of the top of the email.

Tip to get started

Make a good first impression! A welcome email means someone has already given you their info and wants to see more, so don’t squander this opportunity. Immediately let them know the benefits of signing up and consider offering a new customer promotion as an extra treat.

Sales or promotions: Anthropologie

anthro sales 1

Screenshot of a sale and promotion email from Anthropologie, taken by author [2]

This sales and promotion example from clothing retailer Anthropologie is packed with nuggets of promotional email wisdom. Not only is it visually appealing, but the business is also able to infuse helpful information into the graphic while simultaneously guiding customers to a seamless, shoppable experience. This helps reconnect with folks who are already on the customer journey, providing them with easy ways to re-engage with your business.

The brand also lets existing customers know they can get free shipping on certain orders. This instills a sense of urgency with the “this weekend only” tag, includes a CTA to shop now, and shares product categories like home or bedding & bath that readers may not even know they carried.

anthro sales 2

Screenshot of gifting perks & holiday services offer by Anthropologie, taken by author [2]

Below the fold, they introduce another element of timeliness by offering a Thanksgiving promotion and a list of gifting perks. As you can see, there are a variety of elements that attract the email subscriber to take some sort of action, which leads us to our next tip.

Tip to get started

Driving towards a tangible goal with every send is crucial so you will need to optimize your emails for conversion. Consider what CTAs you want your reader to take and make sure they are front and center. It’s also good to include CTAs for secondary goals below the fold for those who keep reading.

Newsletters: News from the Barre

barre newsletter 1

Screenshot of Ballet Austin’s News from the Barre newsletter email, taken by author [3]

Not only does this email newsletter example from Ballet Austin have a catchy name and header image, it also gives email subscribers a snapshot of what they can expect to read straight away. For newsletters with a lot of content, this is an important element as it gives people a chance to be enticed into reading more.

What if you don’t have a lot of content, though? If you’re a smaller business just getting started, you may not have enough email copy to produce a hefty newsletter every week—and that’s ok. The important thing is to recognize that and establish a schedule that’s realistic.

A common mistake is to overdo it by choosing an unsustainable cadence that has you scrambling for content, sending subpar emails, or even missing your scheduled posting time. This inconsistency can lead to your email list ignoring your emails—or worse—unsubscribing entirely.

barre newsletter 2

Screenshot of a fall schedule update reminder from Ballet Austin, taken by author [3]

Ballet Austin’s newsletter program deftly utilizes timely milestones to create their ongoing content. In the above email newsletter example, they use a graphic format that can easily be edited to share other news, which helps save time and resources later on while still producing high-quality content.

mailchimp editor

An example of drag-and-drop editing functionality from Mailchimp

Tip to get started

Utilize drag-and-drop editing functionality in your email marketing platform to lighten the load on creating engaging content. Many popular tools include easy-to-use editing features so you can create showstopping graphics without the need for professional editing software.

“Thank you” emails: Ballet Austin

swan lake 1

Screenshot of a Ballet Austin “thank you” email for attendees of Swan Lake, taken by author [3]

Another great example from the team at Ballet Austin, this “thank you” email to patrons who enjoyed Swan Lake is short, sweet, and to the point. The theme of an eye-catching header image and early CTA remain, with a link back to Ballet Austin’s site front and center.

The heartfelt message is accompanied by a look ahead to what Ballet Austin has in store for next season along with rich media in the form of a video that previews what’s to come.

swan lake 2

Screenshot of a video showcasing Ballet Austin’s 2023 offerings, taken by author [3]

The addition of a video makes the email more dynamic overall, the important info is included in the thumbnail (especially clever), and there’s a link to get the full scoop below. Ballet Austin has done a fantastic job here of offering a branded experience that accomplishes the goal of thanking the reader while also offering multiple CTAs that lead back to their main site.

Tip to get started

Stay concise in your “thank you” emails. These are meant as a touchpoint to show appreciation to loyal customers and offer them ways to continue interacting with you. Keep that goal top of mind, and lead your message with gratitude. Lean on other emails to deliver more in-the-weeds info.

Tech to help you templatize as your business scales

Now that you have guidance on what your message should include and how it should look, what about tech that will help you get here?

Start with the worksheet we provided at the top of this article. It will show you a full example of what each of these email types might look like and offer blanks to fill in so you can craft your own versions.

Templatizing elements of your email strategy is one way to lighten the load through automation, and email marketing software can take it a step further. We’ve identified four features to look for in an email platform that are especially useful for this task:

Content repositories

content-repository-SAS-customer

An example of a content repository from SAS Customer Intelligence 360

Having a place to store the content you use in an email marketing template for later will make it easy to create similar messages in the future. Many email platforms offer content repositories that include this feature, so be on the lookout if you plan on utilizing templates in your email campaigns regularly.

Drag-and-drop editors

emfluence-drag-and-drop-editor

An example of a drag-and-drop editor from emfluence

Once you’ve gathered the information you want to include in a templated email, having an easy way to input it into your email platform is a must. This is where drag-and-drop editors come in. They allow you to easily upload and arrange elements, add widgets, and preview/test your messages to create beautiful emails.

Template libraries (ready-made templates)

template-library-zoho

An example of a pre-made template from Zoho Campaigns

Template libraries with ready-made options are a great source of inspiration and can help you create beautiful-looking messages in no time at all, especially when used in conjunction with drag-and-drop editing.

Excited to get started? Go forth and send!

Taking advantage of the email platform features, best practices, and templatization techniques we covered today will supercharge your email marketing strategy from day one. It’s also a good idea to align with your marketing leaders on a plan to audit the types of emails you send now in an effort to automate your most-sent emails and further streamline your process.

Finally, when considering these tactics and the tech above, evaluate your current software stack to make sure your tools are easy to use and address your specific pain points. And if they don’t? GetApp’s Category Leaders in Email Marketing is the best place to find the top ranked email software based on reviews from customers just like you.

Taking all these things into account early and often will not only lead to a better experience for your readers as you get started, but it will also help you scale your strategy while maintaining (and improving) the quality of your messages over the long term.

If you’re hungry for more info how to build a successful email marketing program, keep your eyes on the GetApp blog for new content and start with these resources:

Note: The applications selected in this article are examples to show a feature in context and are not intended as endorsements or recommendations. They have been obtained from sources believed to be reliable at the time of publication.

Survey Methodology

2022 GetApp Email and Social Media Marketing Survey

* GetApp conducted this survey in January 2022 among 299 respondents to learn more about small, midsize and large business email and social media marketing tactics. Respondents were screened for full-time employees of all company sizes that have involvement with marketing-related activities. They must have been working within roles including advertising, brand management, customer experience or service, data and analytics, IT, marketing, product marketing and management, sales or strategic planning and be current email and social media marketing users.

Sources

1. Sephora homepage, Sephora

2. Anthropologie homepage, Anthropologie

3. Ballet Austin homepage, Ballet Austin

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About the author

Gary Froniewski

Content Writer
Gary Froniewski is a Content Writer at GetApp covering all things digital marketing, with a focus on emerging trends in experiential marketing. A recipient of multiple AMD Spotlight Awards for flagship product launch campaigns, he has a wealth of experience creating compelling copy to support Fortune 500 companies and small businesses alike. In his spare time he loves to enjoy food experiences, play tennis and disc golf, and explore nature in his home base of Austin, TX.
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