Creating Festive B2B Emails Without Sounding Tacky, Cheap, or Cringe

You better not pout. You better not cry. You better not shout. I’m telling you why… 

Soon your inbox will be full of cheesy, cliche, and downright cringe-worthy emails.

That’s because the holidays are here, and almost every business from coast to coast will blasting your inbox with festive emails for:

• Halloween
• Thanksgiving
• Christmas

And even New Year’s!

This holiday season, let’s do away with festive B2B emails created for the sole purpose of the holiday. Instead, how about we discuss good copywriting tactics for holiday-themed emails.

TLDR: 

• The goal: Send festive B2B emails as part of your outreach campaigns
• The tactic: Design an email framework that allows you to build your messaging around holidays
• The result: Create holiday-themed emails that don’t sound forced or cheesy

Step 1: Avoid cliches at all costs

Close your eyes, and repeat to yourself: “If it comes to mind too easily, I will not use it.”

Chances are it’s probably overdone. 

In general, B2B sales emails are less suitable for festive moods than B2C emails. Holiday shopping and purchases are solidly in the realm of B2C. Aside from people taking vacations, B2B sales are considerably less impacted by seasonality.

Before settling on your option, think up another 2 or 3 more choices and bounce them off your teammates (or generative AI). They’ll help press the brakes and be a voice of reason.

Step 2: Always add a call to action

Holiday emails without purpose or goals are better left unsent.

Every email you send should bring something to the table and work towards building a relationship. Otherwise, it will be like showing up at a Halloween party potluck without bring a drink or snack.

Make your emails worth your customers’ time by adding a CTA that gets them to take action. Some ideas include:

• Holiday-themed promotion
• Limited-time discount or offer
• Sneak peek into upcoming features
• Referrals for a bonus or reward (e.g. discount, swag, gift card, ungated content or tool)

If you really want to send a simple holiday message, you’re better off posting it on social media and engaging with your followers. 

Better yet, create some type of fun or entertaining content that still delivers some value, like a TikTok video. Inboxes quickly overflow with messages, so video and interactive content will give you a better chance of standing out.

Step 3: Appeal to the reader’s emotions

Emotional storytelling is your best friend. And holidays are a convenient vehicle for storytelling potential. (Why else would there be so many holiday films?)

For example, a holiday email from AiSDR might play up the Halloween theme by touching on ‘nightmares’ or ‘fears’ people have about sending emails with errors or bad copy – a la Nightmare on AiSDR Street – before giving you the tools and knowledge to save your emails.

If we’re talking about the Thanksgiving and Christmas season, you can experiment with stories and traditions that evoke nostalgia and other ‘warm and fuzzy’ feelings. 

Just remember though that your email narrative needs to feel natural and organic. B2B emails aren’t naturally conducive to overly festive language, so as soon as your copy sounds forced or artificial, people will recognize it, and you won’t get results.

And consider your audience. If you’re reaching out to a global market, not all cultures celebrate Halloween, Thanksgiving, or Christmas.

Step 4: Align your message with other occasions that coincide

The nice thing about holidays (aside from the lights and presents 🎁!) is that there are so many other events taking place around them.

For example:

• Halloween? Budget season
• Thanksgiving? Black Friday
• Christmas? Q1 expense planning and roadmaps

Many B2B companies are making their budgeting and financial decisions right around the time of the holidays.

Take Halloween. You can spin your message around the idea of ‘scary budget surprises’ and emphasize how your solution enables optimized spending and performance.

Or Thanksgiving. People will be more open to Turkey Day references if you merge them with a time-sensitive Black Friday discount. After all, they’re rewarded with a nice discount in return for reading your Thanksgiving message.

Result

The biggest pitfall of holiday B2B emails is the temptation of pretending to be something you’re not. You’ll need to accept that most holiday-themed email copy just won’t work for a B2B audience.

But with the right framework, your holiday emails should deliver these results:

• Relevance – Aligning your emails with budgeting and planning cycles will keep your festive messages relevant for a business audience while giving you freedom of creativity.
• Stronger engagement – Focusing on meaningful messages instead of cliches will help strengthen positive relationships with customers.
• Higher conversion – Clear CTAs and purpose-driven content will get more readers to take action.