Black Friday and Christmas emails for garden centers and nurseries
For a garden center, the holidays are a second season. Christmas trees, wreaths, poinsettias and gift cards bring customers back in winter, when most of your plants are asleep. Email is how you tell them what you have and when to come.
Know what you are selling in winter
A garden center’s holiday business has more in common with a local farm stand than with an online shop. You sell things that are fresh, seasonal and perishable, and people mostly collect them in person. That changes what your emails do: they announce arrivals, set pickup times and keep customers from driving over for something you ran out of on Saturday.
It also gives you more to sell than a typical shop. Fresh trees and greens, wreaths and garlands, poinsettias, amaryllis and paperwhite bulbs, indoor plants, ornaments and gifts, and gift cards for spring. Gift cards in particular are an easy sale: a gardener wants one, and you are guaranteed a customer in April.
Let people reserve and say when pickup happens
Fresh Christmas trees are the busiest weekends of your winter. Customers need to know when trees arrive, how to choose a species, whether you cut a fresh trim, and whether you will tie it to the car. If you take reservations or offer delivery, say so. If you are first-come, say that too, with the hours.
The same goes for wreaths and poinsettias. Order-ahead for local pickup is a popular choice for people who want a specific size or color, so give a last day to order and a pickup window.
The five emails
- Early access and pre-orders (the week before Black Friday). Introduce wreaths, centerpieces and poinsettias for pre-order, and tell your list when fresh trees arrive. Subscribers who reserve now are saving you stress later.
- Black Friday: gift cards and a plant-and-gift offer. Gift cards with a bonus are the cleanest garden-center offer: for example, a bonus card with a gift card over a set amount, redeemable in the spring. This pulls revenue into your slow season and fills your calendar for March. Or offer a discount on indoor plants and houseplant gifts. Name the dates and the limits.
- Small Business Saturday: the trees have arrived. A tree-day email: what you have, species and sizes, hours, hot cider if you serve it, and a thank-you to people who shop local. Photos of the lot beat anything else. Examples.
- The wreath, poinsettia and gift guide (early December). Plants that make good gifts, plant care in one line each, and the order-by date for pickup. Include teacher gifts and hostess gifts at a price.
- Last call and holiday hours. Tell people the last day for fresh trees and wreaths, hours on December 23 and 24, and that gift cards are instant by email. Last-day template, adapted for pickup.
What to put in a garden center’s holiday emails
- Dates and hours first. They are what people open the email for.
- Species and size, priced by height. People want to know what fits in the living room.
- Care for cut trees and poinsettias in two sentences: fresh trim, water daily, keep away from heat vents. If you want to add pet notes, keep them careful and suggest checking with a veterinarian.
- Pickup instructions, including where to park and what to bring for tying down a tree.
- Honest stock notes. “We expect to sell out of the large trees by mid-December” is useful and not a false-scarcity trick when it is true.
- An easy path to the spring: a note that gift cards apply to seeds, bulbs and plants when you reopen.
Keep one eye on the spring
Every email you send in December is also warming your list for March. Customers who enjoyed the tree lot are the ones who will come back for tomatoes and spring containers. Use your signup form at the register and online during the holidays, and the January email should be a thank-you, not a pitch.
A short template: tree and wreath season
Hi [First Name], Christmas at [Shop Name] starts [day, date]. Fresh trees [Species], [size range]: from [$ price] [Species], [size range]: from [$ price] We cut a fresh trim, shake it out and tie it on your car. Open [hours]. Wreaths and greens [Wreath type], [$ price]: pre-order by [date] for pickup [date range] [Garland or centerpiece], [$ price] Poinsettias and gifts [Colors and pot sizes], from [$ price] [Amaryllis or paperwhite kits], [$ price] Gift cards: [offer], good for spring planting. [Reserve your wreath -> link] Holiday hours: [dates and times]. Last day for fresh trees: [date]. See you at the lot, [Your name], [Shop Name]
For ideas on gift guides, see the gift shop guide, and see the Black Friday email calendar for dates.
Want to see this built from your own products?
Paste your store's address into our free mockup tool and get a Black Friday email made from your real products. No card needed.
Prefer to skip the writing? We write and design the whole run for your shop, ready to import into Klaviyo, Mailchimp, Omnisend or Shopify Email, in 72 hours.