Valentine's Day Email Examples and Subject Lines

Valentine’s Day is the ultimate clash of romance and commercialism, but the traditional emphasis on flowers, candy and jewelry is evolving into experiences over things. Do your Valentine's Day emails reflect that shift?

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Valentine’s Day is the ultimate clash of romance and commercialism. But the traditional emphasis on flowers, candy, and jewelry is evolving to favor experiences over things. Your Valentine’s Day emails should show that your brand knows your customer preferences intimately and is ready to pivot to new directions as needed—not just offer the same Valentine’s marketing ideas year after year. 

Here’s how the landscape is shifting:

    • Valentine’s Day spending exceeded expectations in 2022. Valentine’s Day spending stayed strong in 2022 despite the pandemic. The National Retail Federation predicted total spending would fall, but spending actually increased to $23.9 billion—making 2022 the second-highest year on record for Valentine’s Day spending. How can you tap into this potential?
    • Ecommerce is popular for Valentine’s Day. More than 40 percent of Valentine’s Day shoppers in 2022 made purchases online, which presents a great opportunity for email marketers to promote seasonal offerings and ideas for Valentine’s Day gifts.
    • More consumers are sitting out the holiday. Participation in Valentine’s Day has been dropping since 2009 when 63 percent of consumers said they planned to celebrate. In 2022, 53 percent said they planned to do something holiday-related. How can you get more people excited about the holiday through your Valentine’s Day marketing?
  • Men and women celebrate at similar levels. Just over half of men and women planned to celebrate Valentine’s Day in 2022, meaning you shouldn’t focus on just one gender in your email marketing. Are you ready to personalize your content for both audiences?

Keeping these trends in mind, read on for some examples of great Valentine’s Day marketing ideas you can use as inspiration.

Valentine's Day Email Examples
The Best Valentine's Day Email Marketing Strategies

Valentine's Day Email Examples

Create clever content

BarkShop creates great email campaigns and this Valentine’s email is no different. The content is cleverly put together and shows a clear understanding of its devoted pet-parent clientele.

We wish we’d written the headline (“choose love … love chews”), and the hero image of the dog having a date night with its bone made us chuckle.

Aside: An NRF survey found that 20% of Valentine’s Day gift recipients are pets. Emails like this can only help up that ante.

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A little nudge never hurts

Some people are better at remembering V-Day than others. If you think your audience may want to give their significant others a nudge, then this Valentine’s email from Le Tote is just what you need.

We love how clear the preview text is: “Nudge your special someone and we’ll let them know you’d love a Le Tote”. The simple email design also keeps the recipient’s focus on the core message and the CTA button.

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Make a holiday mash-up

This email mashes up two popular retail holidays – Valentine’s Day and President’s Day. It’s a great tactic to use when the two holidays fall within a couple of days of each other. (V-Day always lands on Feb. 14, but President’s Day, the third Monday of the month, can be anywhere from Feb. 15 to the 21st.)

Continuing with the theme of the mash-up, Inkhead.com doesn’t offer one but two purchase incentives: a discount and free shipping. Marking an end date for these deals automatically adds a sense of urgency too.

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Have some fun

Emails don’t usually make us LOL, but this one did. Case-Mate uses a clever animated GIF and email subject line (“Put a Ring on it for Valentines Day!”) to play on the usual Valentine’s Day clichés about rings and ring boxes to promote its cell phone accessory. Check out the full email to see it.

It’s a great idea to creatively associate your product with Valentine’s Day when it doesn’t have natural tie-ins. And, be honest – that subject line put Beyonce’s song in your head right, didn’t it?

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Think outside the (pizza) box

This Valentine’s Day email by the food-delivery service Caviar is a humorous love letter to food, but the email is actually a vehicle to promote its hyper-local food delivery service.

Caviar uses its customer data to suggest local restaurants, which could be places that the recipient has ordered from or which use Caviar to deliver meals. The offer code (“BEMINE”) is easy to remember, and the call to action (“Order now”) might be just the thing to prompt a click.

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Help them spread the love

Versace helps its subscribers wish their loved ones a Happy Valentine’s Day by letting them create and send a personalized card. This sets them apart from all the brands that are promoting products, but that’s not all. Every subscriber who sends one of these cards is creating brand awareness for Versace and introducing the brand to new potential customers. Smart!

The animated email design shows recipients what their card could look like, enticing them to create their own.

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Celebrate love by sharing customer stories

Online fashion retailer Myntra puts its customers front and center on Valentine’s Day by sharing what love means to them. This is a great example of how not all of your Valentine’s Day emails need to be promotional. Sometimes, the best thing to do is make your customers feel special, and what better way to do that than to include them in your email?

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Style them for their date

With this email, Hugo Boss helps its subscribers get dressed for their Valentine’s date. We all know how hard it is to pick an outfit for a special occasion, but not with this email! It shows us exactly what to wear, regardless of whether we’re just having drinks or going for a proper dinner.

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Share DIY ideas and recipes

Your customers might want to celebrate Valentine’s Day with a cozy night in, or they might have to watch their budget a bit. In that case, you can share tips for some DIY gifts or – as The Kroger Co. does – for recipes they can make to wow their partner.

This email is packed with inspiration and the yummy-looking photos are all the incentive you need to click on to the recipe… and buy the products to make it from The Kroger Co.

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Give them a gift

What better way to tell your customers you care than giving them a Valentine’s Day gift? Rebecca Taylor treated its customers to a limited-edition custom journal on purchases of $250 or more, which can be an effective incentive for customers to explore your store.

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Tell them to treat themselves

“Cupid who?” Carbon38 cleverly asks its customers, encouraging them to instead “treat yourself” with a curated selection of clothing and styles. The holidays can be stressful for everyone, so who wouldn’t appreciate a gentle nudge to make themselves a priority?

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Help plan their evening

One of the many things we love about this Valentine’s Day email from Sugarfina is that it doesn’t try to drive a sale from the customer. Instead, it provides a great date night idea using its Love Letters Candy Tasting Box—showcasing a great way to send a personalized email to customers that have bought the box.

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Guide them through some soul searching

As seen by the highly addictive BuzzFeed quizzes, people love interactive content that teaches them something about themselves—or at least gives them a laugh. Moosejaw sent this outstanding email to its customers, promoting a quiz to learn their love language. The custom visuals paint a picture of a comforting and idyllic Valentine’s Day, making the quiz irresistible to take!

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Make an offer they can’t refuse

Curating a selection of Valentine’s Day gift ideas within a specific price range is a great way to help budget-conscious shoppers and those looking to find add-ons for their larger gifts. In addition to spotlighting one price range—like gift picks under $25 in the above email—you could spotlight multiple ranges that your customers can select from.

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The Best Valentine's Day Email Marketing Strategies

Be conscious of how often you reach out

Every holiday is a prime opportunity for you to drive sales, but you need to balance how frequently you reach out to your subscribers. Valentine’s Day closely follows the busiest holiday email marketing season, so closely monitor your email KPIs including opt-out rates to catch if you may be sending too many emails.

Stress the need for speed

Valentine’s Day has a relatively short promotion window, so it’s smart to offer a dynamite promotion for early bird bargain-hunters. Also, prompt laggards to act by using deadline-driven promotions, exploding offers, and flash sales in your Valentine’s Day emails. You should also be explicit about shipping deadlines.

Buying a gift card used to be a last-resort, last-minute option. However, the percentage of consumers buying gift cards has risen sharply in recent years, so it’s a good idea to bring them forward earlier in your Valentine’s Day email campaigns. For the truly last-minute shoppers, you can offer e-gift cards as an easy option that will surely arrive on time.

Appeal to non-V-Day buyers

With nearly half of American consumers opting out of Valentine’s Day, that’s a good-size market. Speak to this market with a Valentine’s Day email campaign that encourages them to treat themselves.

Help with discovery

Gift guides help customers find products they might not come across if they were just poking around on your website. A carefully curated product selection promoted as a gift guide via email could help subscribers find that perfect Valentine’s Day gift.

Be a useful resource

Some gifts are tricky to buy, like jewelry, electronics, or athletic equipment. Devote at least one email to tips on how to find and buy the perfect gift. A resource like this helps remove shopping obstacles and motivates customers to venture out of their comfort zone to find that ideal gift.

Put time into your Valentine's subject lines

As with any other popular holiday, your Valentine’s Day email marketing campaign will be battling for your subscribers’ attention as other brands aim for their dollars as well. Your email subject lines are the strongest tools you have to get your emails opened. No opens, no clicks, no sales, so spend time at least as much time optimizing your subject lines as you do creating your actual emails.

Encourage gift-giving amongst friends and family

Valentine’s Day isn’t exclusive for romantic partners—friends, families, and even pets can celebrate the holiday. Encourage your subscribers to get Valentine’s Day gifts for their various loved ones, and use individual emails to spotlight specific gift ideas for different recipients.

Be aware of industry shifts

Your shoppers will behave differently each year and you want to keep an eye on your industry trends to know if any challenges you’re facing are unique. Stay in tune with recent marketing trends to understand how shopping behaviors have changed.

Create a memorable experience

Well-planned Valentine’s Day email marketing campaigns can do much more than drive brand sales. Consider investing in unique and custom content that will leave a lasting memory for your subscriber, such as providing a quiz for them to find their ideal Valentine’s Day style. Extend your Valentine’s Day campaign across all of your brand channels, including social media and any content streams, to give shoppers more chances to engage with your content.

Track your results in real-time

As with any holiday email marketing campaign, your team should pay close attention to your email KPIs including open rates, click-throughs, purchases, and unsubscribes. Every subscriber action can help you understand how to best approach them through email, and you can shift course more quickly if you’re monitoring your results in real time—not just on February 15.

Get more Valentine’s Day marketing ideas with MailCharts

The above Valentine’s Day email marketing examples are just a brief glimpse at the many ways you can delight your subscribers in February. But don’t limit yourself just to these ideas.

We’ve curated hundreds of email examples for every holiday and email marketing need, including inspiration for your next Valentine’s Day marketing campaign. Try MailCharts for free today to access more than 150 examples of Valentine’s Day subject lines and emails from leading brands.