It's no secret that customers are the lifeblood of any business. Showing them appreciation is an essential part of keeping them engaged and loyal. One simple way to do this is by sending customer appreciation emails.
These emails can be used in a variety of ways, from thanking customers for their purchases to recognizing special occasions such as birthdays or anniversaries with your company. They can also be used to reward loyalty, offer exclusive discounts, and more.
In this article, we'll discuss nine types of customer appreciation emails you should consider adding to your email marketing strategy - plus some tips on how to write effective ones that will have maximum impact on your recipients.
Let’s get started!
What Are Customer Appreciation Emails?
A customer appreciation email is a message sent to customers to thank them for their brand loyalty. It is an effective way to strengthen relationships and show gratitude for customers who remain loyal and supportive of your business.
Why Are Customer Appreciation Emails Important?
Customer appreciation emails are a great way to show how much your business values customer feedback, purchases, and support.
When customers receive genuine appreciation messages that demonstrate an authentic understanding of their needs, they feel appreciated and valued as part of your company. This can lead to more positive experiences with your brand, which helps create long-term customer loyalty.
In addition, these emails can also create stronger relationships with existing customers by encouraging further engagement and improved trust in your brand.
This could include thanking them for their continued support, referring to specific occasions they've been especially helpful, or simply expressing gratitude for having the recipient as a customer.
Lastly, your emails can include offers or incentives such as discounts or rewards to show appreciation for customers' past patronage or encourage them to continue doing business with your company in the future.
Handy Tips to Create Effective Customer Appreciation Emails
With the right balance of creativity, personalization, and strategy, you can create customer appreciation emails that drive engagement and loyalty. Here are some useful tips to help you with that.
Start with a personalized greeting
Address your customers by name, and make sure to include any other information that shows you understand who they are, such as their company or role. This will help create an immediate connection with your customers and set the tone for the rest of the email.
You can start off by writing personalized subject lines to make your customers click on the email. The next step is to personalize the overall email experience.
When customers receive personalized emails, they know that the company has taken the time to learn something about their preferences or interests. This adds a layer of trust between the company and the customer, which encourages loyalty over time.
Related: How to Personalize Emails the Right Way? 10 Proven Tips
Express gratitude for their loyalty
Make sure to clearly communicate how much you appreciate your customers’ continued loyalty and support. You can do this by showing examples of how they’ve helped you in the past by doing business with you or sharing stories from your relationship.
Use words like "thank you" or "we appreciate you," but be sure that your message feels authentic and heartfelt.
It's essential to ensure that your customers know specifically why you are grateful to them. Whether it's the number of orders you have received from them, their loyalty, or the valuable feedback they have provided, take the time to articulate why this customer is so special to you.
For example, instead of just saying, “we value your loyalty,” say something like, “your loyalty over the past 5 years has been absolutely invaluable to our business” – this shows customers how much they mean to you and recognizes their commitment over a period of time which conveys genuine gratitude on another level.
Write your email copy in a friendly tone
Formal or technical language isn’t the way to go for customer appreciation emails. All industries can benefit from utilizing a friendly tone in emails because it helps establish trust between yourself and the recipient, all while conveying a more professional attitude.
However, don’t mistake a friendly tone for verbosity every time because keeping your email copy concise is also extremely important.
To begin, you can structure your customer appreciation emails in two ways:
Keep it punchy and short - for new customers on board because long messages may not feel genuine.
Make it heartfelt and longer - for loyal customers who’ve been doing business with you for some time now, as they’ll appreciate a heartfelt letter.
Make the email design appealing
In order to add some extra flair to your customer appreciation emails, consider using images or visuals, such as photos of products or services you’re offering.
If possible, also include links directly to the product page in the form of CTA buttons, so customers can easily find what they are looking for. Lastly, it’s always nice to offer additional discounts or rewards programs to thank customers for their continued support.
You may be looking for the best tool to quickly and effectively create visually appealing emails. Well, we have the best solution for you.
Unlayer is a powerful and effective platform for making email designs appealing. It offers a wide range of features that help you quickly create attractive emails without any coding knowledge. With its intuitive drag-and-drop editor, you can easily customize the design of your emails in no time.
One of the most attractive features of Unlayer is its comprehensive collection of customer appreciation email templates. The templates are not only designed aesthetically but are also optimized for mobile devices, making sure that emails look great on all screen sizes.
Offer a reward
There are many ways to reward a customer’s loyalty, such as discounts, free shipping, exclusive offers, or early access to new products & services. This will show them that you value them as customers and encourage future interactions with your business.
End with a Call-To-Action
Finally, close out your email by encouraging customers to take action on something specific (make sure it’s clear what it is).
You could ask them to sign up for an upcoming webinar or take advantage of an exclusive offer before it expires - anything that adds value and reinforces why they should continue doing business with you.
Related: Call To Action in Emails: The Only Guide You’ll Ever Need
9 Types of Customer Appreciation Emails You Should Send (+ Examples)
Here are nine effective customer appreciation emails to inspire your very own process - with real-life examples from top brands.
1. Welcome emails
One of the most common types of customer appreciation emails is welcome emails. Why?
Because welcome emails provide a first impression of your company to potential customers, set expectations for future interactions, establish trust in the brand, and help create stronger customer relationships.
They also allow customers to get familiar with your business and brand, as well as the products and services you offer.
Consequently, it increases customer loyalty by expressing appreciation to customers who took the time to sign-up or created an account. You can express gratitude for their interest in your business through a welcome email and show them that their patronage is valued.
Here’s an email example from Harry’s that fully captures the essence of welcoming new customers aboard with its concise email copy and eye-catching email design that is consistent with its overall brand image.
Related: 8 Incredible Welcome Email Examples for Inspiration (+Tips)
2. Thank you emails
Thank you emails are a great way to build customer relationships and show appreciation to them for signing up, placing an order, or being supportive of your business.
This helps keep them engaged with your brand and encourages them to return for more purchases in the future. Additionally, sending timely thank-you emails after subscribing to a newsletter or downloading content can help nurture leads over time.
Look at the below thank you email example from Moo, which has taken out the time to appreciate its customers.
3. Special day emails
Special day emails can be part of a larger strategy to show customers that they are appreciated throughout the year and not just during major holidays when companies traditionally offer discounts or promotions.
As such, these messages provide another avenue for you to engage with your customers on a regular basis and strengthen relationships over time.
You can send out these emails to recognize the important events in your customers’ life, such as birthdays and anniversaries.
Here’s a birthday email example from Nike that celebrates their customer in style by offering them a special birthday gift and free shipping.
4. Milestone emails
Milestones represent specific achievements that customers have achieved - be it a certain purchase amount, the time elapsed since the first engagement with the company, or the number of purchases.
Celebrating these specific occasions through a milestone email can make your customers feel recognized and valued.
For instance, you can offer discounts or gifts as rewards for reaching certain milestones - whether this be a special gift or an exclusive discount - it is sure to boost customer engagement further.
Look at the milestone email example from Allbirds, which is celebrating the milestone of reaching one million customers. The company simply thanks their email list for their support. Instead of offering discount codes, Allbirds preferred to partner with a non-profit organization as a token of appreciation.
This way, they can further strengthen their brand image by helping preserve endangered wild bird habitats.
5. Exclusive offer emails
Special offer emails have become a common way for companies to thank their consumers while also driving sales.
Special offers can be introduced as discounts, bundles, or exclusive products that wouldn’t normally be available to customers. This serves as a reward for loyalty and encourages customers to choose you over your competitors.
The message should include clear information on how long the offer is valid, what items or services it covers, any terms & conditions associated with it, and most importantly – how much money can be saved by taking advantage of the promotion.
You should carefully create special offer emails to ensure that they resonate with your target audience and show appreciation without feeling too pushy or sales-y.
Here’s an email example from The New York Times that gives its readers an exclusive 50% off.
6. Early access emails
Early access emails are a powerful way for you to engage your customers and show them appreciation.
Why?
Because these emails provide privileged, limited-time access to products, services, or experiences before they're available anywhere else. This creates a sense of exclusivity and urgency that compels people to take action and become more engaged with your company’s offerings.
Check out how Faithful The Brand does that cleverly:
7. Seasonal holiday emails
Customers appreciate the act of being remembered during important holidays, and an email expressing this sentiment can go a long way in creating a positive bond between the customer and your company.
For example, you can send promotional emails with exciting discounts during the holiday season to boost sales.
In addition to offering tangible benefits for both customers and businesses alike, seasonal holiday emails are also an impactful way to spread positivity throughout the year.
Whether it's wishing someone a happy Easter, sending out Valentine's Day discounts, or celebrating Thanksgiving blessings, these messages act as reminders that we all have something to be thankful for amidst the hustle and bustle of daily life.
Check out the below email example from Starbucks, wishing their subscribers Valentine’s Day with a special gift from the heart.
8. Customer referral emails
Referral emails do more than just thank customers for sharing information; they provide them with an incentive to continue referring other people. This incentive can be anything from discounts on certain products or services to special referral-only offers or promotions.
An excellent way for you to make sure your customer referral emails are making an impact on customer loyalty is through metrics tracking. This allows you to measure how many people are actually responding positively to the offer in the email, how often those people become returning customers, and which campaigns are driving the most conversions.
Doing this helps you understand which strategies are working best so that you can further optimize your messages and target specific segments more effectively over time.
Cometeer offers their customers a chance to get $25 off their next purchase for referring a friend. The email communicates the details precisely and features a straightforward CTA button. This makes the whole process hassle-free, so customers can easily refer their friends and earn rewards.
9. Contest and giveaway emails
Contest and giveaway emails are an effective form of customer appreciation because they create excitement while simultaneously encouraging loyalty among customers towards the business’s products/services by offering rewards/incentives that cannot be found anywhere else.
The types of materials used in these types of customer appreciation emails could vary from product samples, gift cards or coupons, free trials for services, or even winning a particular product for free.
Always remember that the purpose of these emails isn’t to generate more leads. So, it is best to employ a minimalist email design and keep it simple and easy for customers to enter the contest.
Check out how Postable does that intelligently:
Wrap Up
Customer appreciation emails are an important part of customer retention and loyalty. It's essential to show your customers how much you value their support, and these emails are a great way to do that.
Whether it’s through reward programs, exclusive offers or discounts for loyal customers, providing personalized customer service, or simply saying thank you, customer appreciation is vital in keeping them engaged with your brand.
We hope these nine types of customer appreciation emails have given you some ideas on how to start building relationships with your existing customers as well as attracting new ones.
With the right strategy in place, you can easily increase customer engagement and foster long-term loyalty towards your business.
