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How to Celebrate Lunar New Year in Your Email Marketing

Beefree team
Beefree team
Jan 20, 2021
How to Celebrate Lunar New Year in Your Email Marketing
How to Celebrate Lunar New Year in Your Email Marketing

Every year, billions of people around the globe celebrate the Lunar New Year in spectacular fashion. By investing in Lunar New Year email marketing, you can build relationships with a large consumer base and even grow your brand.The Chinese Lunar New Year typically falls sometime in late January or early February according to the Gregorian calendar. This year, the festival will be celebrated on February 12. While the festival is more heavily celebrated in Asian countries, people across the world will welcome in the new year.This holiday is known by multiple names, including Lunar New Year, Chinese New Year and simply Spring Festival. The majority of the emails in our inbox use the term Lunar New Year in their communications. Take a look at these Lunar New Year email marketing ideas to get inspired for this special celebration.

Billions of people celebrate Lunar New Year each year. Use this time to build relationships with a large consumer base!

Decide who should receive a Lunar New Year email

Of course you can always send your customers a straightforward email wishing them a happy New Year and offering a special promotion or good deal. But this is a good time of year to add a more personal touch, too. Consider sending a Lunar New Year email to clients as a way to strengthen your relationship with them moving into the new year. You can even send a Lunar New Year message to family and friends, wishing them a prosperous year full of peace and good health — similar to this message from Dior.Subject line: Happy Lunar New Year

lunar new year email marketing idea
gif of red fan that says lucky new year

Set a strategy for timing

Figure out the best timing to get your Lunar New Year emails in front of your subscribers. We recommend sending out Lunar New Year email greetings a few days before the holiday. If your audience isn’t overly familiar with Lunar New Year, this gives you a little time to share some information about the Spring Festival and get them up to speed.

Incorporate the animal for this year

The Chinese New Year is based on a different animal each year according to the 12 animals that are included in the Chinese Zodiac. An easy Lunar New Year email marketing strategy is to play off of that animal as you design your Lunar New Year emails. In 2020, Rag & Bone designed an entire product line appropriate for the Year of the Rat:Subject line: Last days of Lunar New Year

lunar new year email

If you don’t have the time to fully commit to the theme, don’t worry! A simple note wishing your readers a happy Lunar New Year, like this beautiful graphic from Society6, is enough.Subject line: ? New Year | 35% Off Bed+Bath & Free Shipping

happy lunar new year email

If you get stuck, try researching what this year’s animal represents. For example, in the Chinese zodiac, pigs represent wealth — leading Banana Republic to craft this Lunar New Year message in 2019.Subject line: Hurry! Our Lunar New Year offer ends soon

lunar new year email greetings

2021 is the Year of the Ox. While it might take a little more creativity to incorporate an ox into your marketing emails, this can still be a great starting place as you think of Lunar New Year email marketing ideas to use this year.

Use the best Lunar New Year email subject lines

Using the term “Lunar New Year” in your email subject line can immediately signal to your subscribers what the email is about. Many Lunar New Year subject lines also refer to different aspects of the holiday, mentioning “luck” or red envelopes. And when it comes to emojis, we’re seeing moons, party poppers and lots of animals (based on the zodiac for that year). Take a look at these subject lines sourced from our inbox:

  • Lunar New Year! Up to 20% OFF sitewide ?
  • Lucky you! Happy Lunar New Year
  • ? Open your lucky red envelope ?
  • Last chance for a Lunar New Year gift
  • This Lunar New Year, let pigs fly

Add red and gold

Lunar New Year email marketing is the place for lots of festive red and gold! These are popular colors used to celebrate the Lunar New Year because they symbolize prosperity. This message from Shu Uemera (sent in 2019, the Year of the Pig) has a red background with elegant gold CTA buttons and lettering throughout.Subject line: ? happy lunar new year!

lunar new year email

Create educational content

You don’t have to send a promotional email for Lunar New Year. Creating an email newsletter that shares educational content can also be a great idea. Share articles or information with your customers to help them learn about the Lunar New Year — and if possible, do so with a relevant angle for your brand. For example, businesses in the food and beverage industry could share about the type of food that’s commonly eaten to celebrate Lunar New Year. This KiwiCo email is promotional and educational all in one, letting you peek inside one of the company’s subscription crates to see some fun Chinese New Year-related crafts for kids.Subject line: Beyond the crate: Fire-breathing dragons, origami fortune cookies, and more Lunar New Year DIYs!

lunar new year email newsletter

Wrap-up: Chinese New Year email templates

Now that you know how to wish a happy Lunar New Year in email, it’s time to start creating. Use our mobile responsive, HTML Chinese New Year email templates to help with your email design. With the BEE email editor, it’s simple and easy to create high-quality emails — no coding experience required!

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chinese new year email

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Start by first improving your security methods

In general, you should always look at ramping up the security measures in your business. You can use one of the top types of risk assessment matrix to understand your business's threats and how to resolve them. Then, since you already have that information, you can use it to create better newsletters and emails. 

Make sure the personalization feature works

One of the biggest red flags for an SEG is a generic greeting. Adding Dear Sir/Madam at the start isn’t going to fly in today’s world. Even if your email gets through, it’s unlikely the recipient will open it. 

That’s why you need personalization. Linking your email marketing tools to your customer relationship management system means you can offer easy personalization, like addressing your customers by name, or even offering personalized recommendations based on their order history. 

Avoid image-only emails 

Image-only emails are tempting for an email marketer. They’re striking, they look good, and you can fine-tune what they look like in Photoshop or another image editor. 

They can also be a red flag for SEGs.

Thankfully, the solution is simple: enrich your emails. The best part about this approach is that it also improves the accessibility. Improving email accessibility will help ensure that all your customers can engage with your emails on their terms. Those emails will also load faster, look great on all devices, and be more engaging. 

Align your emails with the landing pages 

SEGs look out for suspicious links. A link might be suspicious if there’s a misspelling or if the link doesn’t sound like the content in the email. So, how do you ensure that SEGs don’t see any of your links as suspicious? 

You make them predictable. 

An easy way to do this is to create a landing page from an email. On top of aligning the landing page with the content of the newsletter, you’ll want to: 

  • Make a custom URL for every link that matches the content of the page 
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  • Don’t use urgent language around your link

Use 2FA to boost security

Do you need 2FA to get past SEGs? No, but it’s a great way to help protect you and your customers. 

You can protect sensitive data by adding user identity verification. For example, a customer may get an order confirmation email but wants to cancel or change the delivery details. Including a two-factor authentication step ensures only the customer can request changes. 

Building in extra security features puts your customers at ease. It also protects your endpoints and, in turn, your business. So, no, you don’t need 2FA to get past SEGs, but it’s worth looking into for you and your customers’ protection. 

Avoid urgency 

Urgency can be a flag for SEGs. So: 

  • DON’T WRITE IN ALL CAPS
  • Minimize the use of exclamation points

Think of the copy in your newsletter as a chance to win over your audience, not scare them into clicking the link. Doing this will improve your relationship with your customers since they’ve come to you on their terms. It’s also essential to get emails past the SEG.

Key takeaways 

Secure email gateways are a primary defense against spam and phishing attacks, but they can pose a problem for email marketers. By working to understand the security risks associated with email scams, you can then understand what your email needs to make it into inboxes. 

From there, you’ll want to make your emails more personable, accessible, and secure. Once you’ve found that sweet spot, your newsletters will be more likely to get past the secure email gateway and into your audience’s inboxes. 

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