Fangtastic tricks for a spooktacular Halloween newsletter

I love all things spooky, you could say… it’s in my blood. 🧛‍♀️

I’m not alone—Halloween spending last year hit $10.14 billion in the US alone. As far as marketing opportunities go, Halloween hits the jackpot!

If you’re thinking it’s all just a bunch of hocus pocus, or your business isn’t spooky enough to get in on the action—think again. There are heaps of ways you can add a touch of Halloween spirit into your emails to increase conversions, delight subscribers and show your fun side!

By the end of this article, you’ll have ideas for Halloween subject lines, designs, sign-offs and more, with email examples to get your creative juices flowing. Read on… if you dare! 

Subject lines can be the make or break for your email marketing campaigns at any time of the year. Halloween is a time to get creative and have fun with your email subject lines to make them stand out in your subscribers’ inboxes. 

Think beyond a simple “trick or treat” or “boo”. It’s quite possibly the punniest time of the year, so don’t be afraid to be a little candy-corny—that’s what it’s all about!

Halloween email subject line examples

We recommend always showing your personality and being human in your emails. Holidays, Halloween especially, offer the perfect opportunity to let loose and use your wit and humor to bring life to your emails. After all, all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy. 🪓

• Use wordplay alternatives to adjectives such as “eerie-sistable” and “fangtastic”

• Use famous quotes and references from horror/Halloween movies and books

• Use puns: Give ‘em pumpkin to talk about; Eat, drink and be scary; Witchful thinking—the possibilities are endless!

Subscribers will be drawn into your content and appreciate the references from their favorite movies and TV shows—they’ll feel that you’re just like them!

Lumosity makes a joke about zombies to promote an offer for their brain training game.

And asos even extends the Halloween humor to their discount code #witchplz. 🧙‍♀️

Do you usually use the same sign-off for your emails? Now’s the time to switch it up! It’s the one night a year that you get to be someone else, so have fun with your Halloween newsletters too!

Here are some quick ideas for your sign-off:

• Stay spooky

• Happy Halloween!

• Have a haunting Halloween!

• Wretched/repulsive/revolting regards

• Keep it gory

• Keep it scary

• Beastly wishes

• Creep it real

Lumosity and asos are great examples that your product or service doesn’t need to be scary, gruesome, or Halloween-related to get in on the fun. 

On the other hand, fans of your business with a soft spot for spookiness will appreciate specific offers and content created, or curated, specifically for the holiday. 

Retail/e-commerce

Curate a collection of Halloween products (or those that fit the theme), and maybe even throw in a special offer! 

Urban decay sent out a fangtastic promotional email in which they created Halloween makeup kits to create specific looks. They also threw in a special discount and free shipping, while promoting one of their best-selling products as a must-have to complete the look. 

Cooking/food

At the foundation of any good Halloween you’ll find costumes, candy, scary movies and… a good ol’ party! And what party is complete without an incredible selection of party food? Put together a few of your favorite, fun Halloween recipes to share with your email list—you can also ask them to share their own creations with you to drive up engagement.

Food company Land o’ Lakes’ Halloween email features fun recipes using their products.

And meal delivery service Blue Apron uses super cute and spooky Halloween-themed cupcakes for the design of this re-engagement campaign. 

Travel

Sure, beautiful beaches and scenic mountain landscapes are great. But what about the creepier local haunts? Share the darker (still fun!) side of travel with a list of your top creepy places and events to visit around the world—think Dark Tourist for inspiration. 

AirbBnbB’s Halloween newsletter celebrates the holiday and promotes their more spooky accommodation. 

Movies/books

Share a list of your all-time favorite horror/Halloween movies, latest book releases, movie reviews, scariest horror reads, most celebrated horror directors/authors, and so on. If you’re a horror author or filmmaker, some unique content such as a short story or film is a great way to get creative and engage subscribers with something they’ve never seen before.

Goodreads gives subscribers plenty of recommendations to celebrate Halloween during their “Horror week”.

Good email design follows a set of rules that helps to showcase what your brand is about, delivers your message effectively, and drives conversions. At Halloween, however, it’s time to dress up your design with striking visuals that are lighthearted and engaging. 

Although it’s still important to follow the basic guidelines of email design, Halloween email campaigns allow you to be more creative, so think outside the box when it comes to color, font and images. Show subscribers your spooky (and fun!) side.

Try switching out your colors for a more Halloween-friendly color scheme such as black, orange, purple, green, and red. Darker colors with bright accents are the way to go—if your logo is black, play on that or invert it to make it stand out against a dark background. You can even edit your logo to be themed (think dripping with blood or slime!) or just change the color to fit the design. 

In this Halloween newsletter example from Society6, they’ve switched things up to contrast with their usual, white-background emails. For a more contemporary design inline with their brand, they’ve opted for more muted Halloween colors, which gives the email a unique look. They’ve also changed the color of their logo and social media icons at the bottom, to match the theme. 

To ensure that your copy displays in subscribers’ email clients, you should stick to web fonts and web safe fonts. That doesn’t mean you can’t have fun with Halloween style fonts in your graphics, though! For a Halloween newsletter, choose fonts that are disheveled, use brush strokes, vintage horror style, historical-looking, or all caps. For inspiration check out these 25 best Halloween fonts, and for a huge library of cool, free fonts check out dafont.

Asos goes for the classic, creepy slime effect font along with a more basic, all-caps font for a simple but effective Halloween email design that looks great with the contrasting colors. 

Use Halloween-themed images and graphics to tie everything together and set the mood. Try to have fun with your images but don’t get too spooky. Keep all imagery lighthearted and fun in the spirit of Halloween, don’t include anything too dark or gory! Although some subscribers might be horror fans, it doesn’t mean they want to see the famous foot scene from Saw in their inbox! You can also show a bit of your personality by using emojis in the copy and subject: 🧙‍♀️ 🧛‍♀️ 👻 💀 🎃 🧟‍♀️ 🔮

If you’re looking for stock imagery, Unsplash has a beautiful collection of free Halloween stock photos.  

Here are some ideas that you can use for your Halloween images:  

• Pumpkins/jack-o-lanterns

• Slime

• Ghosts

• Witches

• Broomsticks

• Candles

• Monsters

• Fangs

• Eyes

• Spooky houses

• Cauldrons

• Potion bottles and books

• Bats

• Spiders/spider webs

• Black cats

• Skeletons/skulls

• Graveyards

In another Halloween newsletter example from Lumosity, they’ve opted for a graphic design rather than photos, choosing a witchy theme complete with cauldron, potion bottles and witches hat. Not forgetting the Halloween candy to represent the “treats” they’re offering!

Allsole uses Halloween as an opportunity to promote Vans’ Nightmare Before Christmas collection (is that a Halloween or Christmas movie? Who cares, it’s great!). They’ve included photos of the shoes along with images of characters from the movie for an email design that is sure to be a hit with fans!

Adding movement to your Halloween emails gives an extra spooky factor, or sometimes, comedy factor: 

In any case, it makes your email more engaging and more memorable! We’ve already included a few emails with gifs, but here’s another example from BestSecret that uses animations to bring their design to life.

You can have fun with your call-to-action (CTA) text, but you should follow the general guidelines on creating CTAs for your email. Fit them into your overall design but be cognizant of how you use them to ensure you get the best results with click-throughs.

• Make sure your CTA is eye-catching and clear in a contrasting color that fits your Halloween email design

• Be creative and use Halloween-related phrases and words but make the message clear

• If your email contains multiple buttons, make sure your main CTA is the one that stands out most

MeUndies gets their CTA right with a clear message and contrasting purple color that fits the design and stands out against the black background. They've also managed to get punny with their CTA while still making the message clear.

Now you’ve learned all the best practices to create scary fun Halloween emails, it’s time to plan your campaign!

1. Decide on the topics and goals for your campaigns

Think about the types of content you can share with subscribers—do you have a creative idea that will drive them through to your blog? Or perhaps you can create a creepy discount code or Halloween sale on a selection of your items. Maybe it’s the ideal time to promote a new product or service.  

2. Add your Halloween emails to your newsletter calendar

Sending out a single email on October 31st is fine, but to really increase conversions and engage subscribers, planning a few Halloween email campaigns for 2-3 weeks leading up to the big night is the best way to go.

If you already have a bunch of email ideas mapped out, see if there is any way you can add a Halloween twist to them. This could be as simple as making tweaks to the language and design! 

Curious about when to send your email newsletters? Check out this article on the best time to send emails.

3. Create your Halloween email design

Don’t skip out on design! A few emojis here and there aren’t going to cut it. 

Using the design best practices above, along with a professional email marketing tool like MailerLite, you’ll be able to create stunningly scary emails in no time at all. You can use one of the ready-made email templates for a professional email design that can be easily customized to be spooktacular!

4. Build a dedicated Halloween landing page

Do you have a Halloween deal or sale that’s simply to die for? Use it as an opportunity to collect more subscribers by creating a dedicated Halloween landing page where people can sign up to participate in the offer.

Check out the article below to learn more about building a landing page that converts:

5. Build excitement with automated emails

Create a buzz that’ll rattle bones with a pre-Halloween email automation. Send a series of emails leading up to your Halloween offer to build excitement and create urgency as the sale comes to a close.

Your pre-Halloween build-up workflow could be made up of these five emails:

1. Teaser email: Let subscribers know that something wicked this way comes, tease your offer and pique their interest.

2. Details of the sale: The second email can let subscribers know what they’ll get in your Halloween offer, make sure to highlight the benefits here.

3. The Treat: Launch the offer and include an irresistible CTA

4. Reminder email: Let subscribers know that the sale is ending soon. Include a countdown timer to create urgency.

5. Last chance email: Tell subscribers that this is the last day they can participate in your offer before it closes.

Utilize segmentation in your automation to separate subscribers based on their purchases and engagement with your automation.

6. Send your Halloween newsletter at the right time

Depending on where your subscribers are located, Halloween for them could be a full day before or after Halloween for you. Consider delivering your campaign based on timezones, so that your campaign arrives at the same time of day for everyone depending on their geographic location.

Wanna know the best time to send an email? Check out the article below:

Now you know that Halloween email campaigns really aren’t scary at all, and are a super fun way to show your personality, connect with your audience, and increase conversions.

Get the right balance of creepy content, devilish design, and haunting humor and your subscribers won’t be able to break the spell!

Try out a Halloween email marketing campaign this year and let us know how it goes in the comments!