If you’re anything like us, you get emails all the time with subject lines like “Quick Question…” or “10 min this week?”
Ugh. It’s so gross.
Today we’re going to look at brands that are doing it right.
We’ve scoured the web and found examples of email marketing that have used humor really well.
Poo-Pourri
These euphemisms are great and the poop jokes fit with the brand. It’s just the nature of the product.
The light nature of these emails is not irritating, instead it’s a fun way to keep their product front of mind.
Mack Weldon
Great use of Dad Jokes here to drive awareness for products that dads might like (or get yourself something nice). It’s way better than a generic Father’s Day email. Even if people don’t by, campaigns like this are likely to lift brand affinity.
Beardbrand
So this email comes as the first in a series from Beardbrand where they’re pitching a new pillow to help with “Bed-Beard.”
If it sounds ridiculous, it is. The pillow isn’t real. But they came up with a great way to grab attention, get a laugh, and then they follow up with this…
As an indoctrination-series, this is a fantastic way to introduce people to Beardbrand. We know they are going to be fun and we need to stay on our toes a little bit.
Death Wish Coffee
Here’s an attention grabber from Death Wish Coffee. Halloween seems like a great opportunity for a company called “Death Wish” to do some advertising.
Huckberry
This email is included on the list because of the subject line “Don’t be that guy on Zoom. You know, the one without pants.” It’s pretty good for a pandemic-era subject line for a company that sells pants and shorts.
Function of Beauty
Function of Beauty does a really nice job here making the inbox feel like social media. Email has a reputation as being boring while social media feels more fun, so why not make emails look like social? And that’s a pretty good
PRO TIP: Find social posts around your brand or industry hashtags that have good engagement and just use those in your email!
Who Gives a Crap?
The copywriter for Who Gives a Crap was out on maternity leave, so they used it as an opportunity to be authentic. They could have gone a lot of different directions, but this one is endearing.
Ulta
Here are a couple more pro-tips from a big brand (Ulta):
#1 – Have an automated abandoned cart sequence in place, if you don’t you’ve got money sitting on the table.
#2 – Write like you talk.
???
There is some good witty copy in here and they had some fun with the photography, but we included this one just so you can compare it with the next one (Chubbies). Notice how Chubbies gets the humor right in the headline, and uses an even more fun photo closer to the top.
Chubbies
In addition to the notes above, Chubbies reminds us how powerful Reviews can be in your emails. Your customers will always write better copy than you will, and other customers will trust them more. Chubbies even found funny reviews to use in this series. Nicely done.
Conclusion
Pretty much any business can benefit from using humor in their emails. Even if you’re in a “boring” industry, humor is even more likely to make you stand out. Here are some things to keep in mind:
- Use social media content that has already proven to be engaging
- Use some of your best and most authentic reviews
- If you aren’t funny, find someone who is
- When it comes to “how often to send”, ask yourself if the email builds brand affinity or degrades it. As long as your building that brand affinity, you can send as much as you like. But take a step back if you start to lose your mojo and the numbers decline.
If you didn’t already know, we like to use humor in marketing at Gravity Digital. We have a free course (How to Use Funny Videos to Increase Your Sales) where you can learn to incorporate humor into video, and some of those principles will apply to email too. If you’re interested in having us take a look at your email strategy, we’d be happy to do that as well.