Ah, springtime. Q2 marks the spring season as well as the start of summer for school-goers. Q2 holidays don’t see the same email promotional push as those we see in Q4, but there are many opportunities to tie promotions and sales to the holidays on the calendar to avoid a Q2 email rut.
Why is your Q2 email strategy important?
We all have lofty yearly goals and want to see YoY growth. Slowing down cadence and marketing during Q2 can ultimately impact those yearly targets. In Q2, there are plenty of holidays to capitalize on depending on your product offering including Father’s Day, Mother’s Day, and Memorial Day. Avoid getting into a monotonous routine with your email marketing during this time and find unique ways to market those holidays as well as the springtime season.
Email trends & insights during Q2
This year, Q2 was significantly affected by COVID-19 shutdowns. We saw a hit in many industries, but particularly travel and tourism. On a positive note, ecommerce boomed in Q2 as shoppers shifted from in-person shopping to online. We expect to see ecommerce continue to increase, but COVID has accelerated that trajectory.
In Q2 2020, across premium brands, we saw the following popular subject line terms trending. As we found in our Q1 email strategy, in Q2 these terms also mention the month sent (#7, “June” and #8, “April’s”). In addition to month sent, the most popular subject line holiday appears to be Father’s Day — with the top two popular terms being #1, “Dad” and #2, “Father’s”.
The 2020 Q2 marketing season saw promotional numbers similar to Q1: more than 50% of emails contained some type of promotion — percent off, dollars off, free shipping or BOGO. (Thanks to big ecommerce like Amazon and Walmart, it seems that free shipping is becoming more of a staple. So this high volume of promotional emails is unsurprising.) As in Q1, percent off was the most popular discount type compared to dollars off, free shipping, and BOGO.
The following industries saw a slight decline in overall sending behavior, likely due to the obvious outside factors:
- Arts and Entertainment – This category trended downwards throughout the quarter.
- Beauty & Personal Care – Showed strong cadence until June where we saw the number of sends dip.
- Travel & Tourism – This category started to decline in March. The decline remained steady through the first part of Q2.
- Gifts – Even with holidays like Mother’s Day and Father’s Day, the gift category saw a slight decline in sending behavior YoY.
A few things to keep in mind for Q2 2021 planning:
- Just because there are fewer holidays to capitalize on (and more niche holidays) doesn’t mean Q2 is not important to your growth goals.
- Be mindful that Q2 2020 was an abnormal year for retail in many industries. So your results in 2021 are likely to change. You might need to look back at 2019 data for an apples-to-apples comparison.
- Capitalize on whichever holidays relate to your brand’s ecommerce offerings.
Key dates and holidays through Q2
Click below for in-depth email examples and strategies to prepare key campaigns for Q2.
- Father’s Day: Email examples and strategies
- Memorial Day: Email examples and strategies
- Mother’s Day: Email examples and strategies
- Earth Day: Email examples and strategies
- Cinco de Mayo: Email examples and strategies
- Easter: Email examples and strategies
Q2 email strategies and ideas
Take a look through several of our favorite blog posts covering a few thought-starters for your Q2 campaigns.
- How to keep Mother’s Day marketing on track
- Planning campaigns for June and beyond
- 3 Easter Marketing Ideas for Email
- Mother’s Day Retail Promotion Ideas
- 7 Engaging Earth Day Newsletter Ideas and Examples
- 4 Email Marketing Strategies to Test This Spring
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