13 Thanksgiving newsletter ideas to connect with customers this holiday season

Thanksgiving is a marketing goldmine waiting to be tapped.

As ecommerce brands prepare for the Black Friday Cyber Monday sales frenzy, Thanksgiving is the calm right before the storm—a time when brands can still engage customers, but in a more thoughtful and personal way.

BFCM weekend is all about maximizing sales, and Thanksgiving is your opportunity to prime your audience without overwhelming them with pushy promotions.

Thanksgiving may be inseparable from the BFCM rush, but that doesn’t mean your messaging has to be purely promotional. Customers are already reflecting on what they’re thankful for, giving you the perfect opportunity to connect with them on a deeper level before the sales kick off.

Whether you’re sharing heartfelt stories, offering early deals, or simply expressing gratitude, a well-crafted Thanksgiving email can strengthen loyalty and keep your brand top of mind when Black Friday hits.

As we explore Thanksgiving newsletter ideas and tips, you’ll discover ways to connect with your audience, spread some holiday joy, and boost sales while you’re at it.

1. Thank your customers

While expressing gratitude on Thanksgiving may seem obvious and somewhat expected, explicitly thanking your customers can go a long way in building loyalty and making them feel valued. Taking a moment to acknowledge their support can foster a stronger connection with your subscribers and keep them engaged with your brand.

In this Thanksgiving newsletter, see how luxury watch brand Egard thanks their subscribers. The brand acknowledges the customers’ trust and support, creating a sense of appreciation and emphasizing the connection the brand has with their subscribers. The Thanksgiving email also cleverly reminds customers about the brand’s upcoming Black Friday sale and includes a promo code:

Another great example comes from jewelry brand French Kande. Note how this Thanksgiving newsletter doesn’t contain any promotions or calls to action—it focuses purely on expressing gratitude and includes a handwritten signature by the brand’s founder, adding a personal touch.

2. Thank everyone involved with your brand

Acknowledging everyone who has a role in your business—from your dedicated team to your trusted partners—may be as important as saying thanks to your customers.

Thanksgiving is an opportunity to show appreciation for the entire community that makes your brand thrive. Expressing gratitude to everyone involved helps build trust, strengthen relationships, and reinforces the values your brand stands for.

Take a look at this heartfelt Thanksgiving email from Sakara Life, a plant-based meal delivery brand, thanking everyone involved in their journey—from farmers and chefs to their internal team and customers.

3. Share an end-of-year round-up

Thanksgiving is a great time to look back and share your brand’s journey over the past year. A year-end round-up email lets you celebrate milestones while giving heartfelt thanks to the people who helped you achieve them—your customers.

Here, see how Kosterina, a Mediterranean food brand, celebrates Thanksgiving by sending a year-in-review email, thanking customers for their support and highlighting key moments from the year—from new product launches to exciting partnerships.

4. Highlight your brand’s charitable giving

Many brands use Thanksgiving as an opportunity to highlight how they give back to their communities.

By sharing your brand’s charitable efforts in your Thanksgiving newsletter, you can show that your purpose goes beyond sales and build stronger connections with your customers. This can motivate them to support your business, knowing their purchase contributes to a meaningful cause.

Take Latico Leathers as an example. In this Thanksgiving newsletter, the leather accessories brand thanks customers for their support and their role in helping provide meals to families in need. The email copy emphasizes how customer purchases have contributed to donating over 100,000 meals to nonprofit organization Feeding America, making customers feel like an essential part of the brand’s charitable initiatives.

5. Share valuable Thanksgiving tips

As your customers gear up for their Thanksgiving celebrations, providing them with practical, holiday-specific tips can keep them engaged while highlighting the real-world use of your products. This tactic offers a great way to stay top of mind without being overly promotional.

This Thanksgiving newsletter from Work Sharp, a knife sharpener brand, provides tips focused on selecting the right knives for preparing a Thanksgiving meal, reinforcing the importance of keeping knives sharp and ready for the holiday feast:

6. Share a Thanksgiving recipe with your customers

If your brand sells cookware, kitchen appliances, or food products, engaging your customers with content that’s both helpful and relevant to their Thanksgiving plans could also mean sharing a recipe.

Showcasing your products in a subtle, value-driven way incorporates the festive spirit while helping your brand stay top of mind—without feeling overly promotional.

In this Thanksgiving email, SnS Grills takes exactly that approach by sharing a recipe for smoked turkey with cowboy butter, encouraging customers to use their grills to cook a holiday meal. In addition to the recipe, the email also includes a grilling essentialssection, subtly promoting relevant items that customers might need for preparing their Thanksgiving meals:

7. Offer limited-time Thanksgiving gift cards

Gift cards are a win-win strategy during the holidays. They’re a great way for last-minute shoppers to conveniently gift something thoughtful, and they’re a great way for your brand to drive both immediate and future sales.

Gourmet food retailer myPanier, for example, sends this Thanksgiving newsletter right before the holiday. By offering customers a $10 e-gift card for themselves when they purchase a $50 gift card for someone else, myPanier incentivizes quick action with a limited-time offer. This move allows the brand to create urgency while encouraging repeat purchases—customers get a reason to return and use their bonus card later, keeping them engaged with the brand.

8. Incorporate testimonials into Thanksgiving emails

Thanksgiving is a time to express gratitude, and what better way to do so than by highlighting the trust your customers place in your brand? Incorporating customer reviews into your Thanksgiving emails allows you to showcase real experiences, build credibility, and show how genuinely grateful your customers are for your brand.

In this Thanksgiving newsletter, see how the Homeopathy Store highlights a customer’s positive experience with the brand’s products, specifically mentioning how they rely on them to stay healthy during Thanksgiving.

9. Promote your Thanksgiving giveaway

Giveaways are a fun, effective way to engage your audience and generate excitement around your brand, especially during the Thanksgiving season. By tying your giveaway to the holiday, you can catch your audience’s attention and increase participation while spreading some holiday cheer while you’re at it.

Footwear brand Splay, for example, ran a Thanksgiving giveaway where 25 lucky winners could receive a free pair of shoes. See how the brand announces the giveaway through an email, inviting customers to enter by following Splay on social media, liking their giveaway post, and tagging friends for additional entries.

While the email serves as the primary touchpoint to inform subscribers about the giveaway, it also encourages engagement across multiple platforms, including Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter. Each action (like, follow, or tag) increases the customer’s chances of winning, while helping Splay expand their reach organically through social sharing.

In 2023, activewear brand POPFLEX took a similar approach to kick off the holiday season. They launched a shopping spree giveaway in October, ahead of Thanksgiving. But instead of engaging on social media, participants had to create a holiday wishlist on the POPFLEX website in order to partake.

Nearly 100,000 customers entered to win, which gave the brand a ton of valuable customer data to use for targeted holiday messaging throughout the rest of the season. This strategy helped contribute to a 91% YoY increase in ecomm revenue from their BFCM sale.

10. Promote a Thanksgiving-inspired collection through email

As we’ve seen with Splay and POPFLEX, you don’t need to offer traditional Thanksgiving items to entice your customers to buy your products on Thanksgiving. Even if your products aren’t explicitly tied to the holiday, you can capture the Thanksgiving spirit by promoting items that reflect the season’s colors, themes, or moods.

Check out this creative example from nail care brand Dashing Diva. In their Thanksgiving newsletter, they introduce “The Thankful Edit”—a collection of fall-inspired nail designs featuring autumn colors and unique patterns that evoke the spirit of Thanksgiving:

11. Promote a Thanksgiving sale to engage customers early

Many brands mark Thanksgiving as the starting point of the BFCM weekend because it gives them a great opportunity to connect with their audience before the chaos ensues.

While Black Friday and Cyber Monday focus on big discounts and maximizing sales, a targeted Thanksgiving sale allows brands to engage with customers a day early while still building excitement for the weekend ahead.

For inspiration, take a look at this Thanksgiving email from men’s grooming brand Mountaineer Brand. They include a countdown to their Thanksgiving flash sale to remind customers the offer is only available for a limited time:

12. Give a sneak peek of your BFCM deals

With BFCM around the corner, Thanksgiving is the perfect moment to give your most loyal customers a little treat in the form of early access. Consider sending a special Thanksgiving email that offers a sneak peek of what’s to come—maybe a preview of the best deals they won’t want to miss, a head start on shopping with exclusive early access, or special limited-time discounts.

Remember POPFLEX? Watch how they build excitement for the Thanksgiving sales weekend with this early access email engaging their VIPs. POPFLEX uses their bestselling product to grab customers’ attention, building anticipation and getting their most loyal audience ready to jump on the deals when they go live.

13. Get ready for Thanksgiving with Klaviyo

With so much to communicate to your customers this Thanksgiving—gratitude messages, enticing offers, and sneak peeks of your Black Friday and Cyber Monday deals—you need an industry-leading marketing automation platform on your side.

Klaviyo helps you set up and schedule your Thanksgiving emails in advance, making sure they land in your subscribers’ inboxes at the right time. Use Klaviyo to send messages of gratitude and promote your best deals while you create meaningful connections and reap the benefits.

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