Fabulous Price Drop Emails: Design Tips, Subject Line Ideas, and Examples

Conventional thinking suggests that you just need to lower your prices to make customers immediately run to your store and empty your shelves. But it’s not that simple. There are innumerable ways to announce a price drop, and it’s easy to push buyers away by choosing the wrong words.

Let’s discuss price drop emails and everything there’s to them. This post will help you learn how to announce price drops in the most efficient way and make your offer sound irresistible. We’ll give you design and copywriting tips and show you fantastic price drop emails from successful brands.

What is a price drop email?

Every time you lower the price of a specific product, you do a price drop. Chances are, some of your customers keep their eyes on this product and want to buy it in the future. By sending them a price drop email, you let them know that the time has come and that they can grab the product from their wishlist at a bargain price.

If you don’t send price drop emails, you run the risk of disappointing your customers and losing revenue. These emails are essential for driving sales, but they also propel customer loyalty — after all, you’re helping them save money on the items they always wanted.

Price drop emails aren’t new, nor are they hard to make. Think of them as simplified special offer emails or announcement emails. You can also treat your price drop emails as last chance emails — especially if your price drop has a limited timeline.

How to write an effective price drop email

There are a few things you can do to make your price drop emails convert like crazy:

1. Impeccable email automation. Notify your subscribers the second your offer goes live and send subsequent reminders if needed.
2. Personalization. You want to make sure that you don’t annoy your audience with irrelevant offers, however good they may be.
3. Product-centered messaging. Make sure your email makes it clear which products are on sale and for how long.
4. Moderate email length. Ideally, your whole message should fit above the fold. Price drops emails don’t have to be wordy or even scrollable.
5. Killer headlines. Use ultra-short and prominent headlines and enhance them with powerful typography. Make sure they practically scream about your price drop.
6. Catchy copy. Trim the bulk and polish your subject lines, CTAs, and product descriptions to hit the right spot. Use active verbs and highlight the benefits of your deal.

Read on to see how actual businesses use these and other tricks to attract attention to their sales.

What are the best price drop email subject lines?

With price drop email subject lines, you need to get straight to the point. You may benefit from creating light intrigue, but your subject lines shouldn’t be too vague or confusing. The idea is to put the reader in the buying mood right away and communicate the increased value of the offer.

We’ve looked at dozens of price drop emails and collected some subject line ideas for you:

1. Great news!
2. Your favs just got cheaper
3. Save 20% on your favorites
4. You’re going to love this
5. PRICE DROP ?
6. Last call — your favorites are 30% cheaper
7. Check out the new price on X
8. Markdowns on your favs
9. Price drop ↓ 15% OFF your favorites
10. We think you’ll love this
11. The product you wanted is on sale ⏰
12. Here’s a treat for you
13. We found savings on items you want
14. How could you say no? X for $20
15. Last chance ? Price drop on your favorites
16. We saw you checking out X. Now it’s on sale
17. Final hours to save on your favs
18. Hurry up, X is on sale
19. OMG! We dropped the price
20. Huge price drop on X

When writing price drop email subject lines, don’t hold yourself back. You need to sound bold, convincing, and confident because these emails are meant to hijack users’ attention and bring them to action.

12 price drop email examples you’ll absolutely want to copy

Get inspired by our price drop email examples and the actionable tips that come with them. These examples will help you find the right language and finetune your own messaging. In addition, you’ll pick up subtle design tricks and ideas for your future campaigns.

Add an atmospheric photo

If you want your email to stand out from the crowd, avoid primitive stock photos or illustrations that say “big sale” and nothing else. The use of generic images will inevitably make your price drop email look spammy, cheap, and suspicious, and you don’t want that.

Take a look at the visuals Forever21 is using in its price drop campaigns.

This price drop email looks fresh, aesthetically pleasing, and on-brand, even though it’s a simple sale announcement. It contains tons of CTAs, but they don’t conflict with one another. There’s barely any text — the image and the headline say it all, and the reader can discover the details by clicking on one of the featured links.

Use epic visuals

You simply can’t go wrong with high-quality renders or product close-ups. Go ahead and include the most flattering and captivating product photos in your price drop emails because it’s your only chance to make your target audience pay attention to them.

Don’t forget to briefly mention your product’s specs and advantages, especially if you have a variety of similar items in stock. Spare your recipients the trouble of doing manual research and tell them everything they need to know about your discounted products. Your goal is to help your customers make a split-second buying decision, so make sure to put your CTA button front and center, like in this example.

Add a sense of urgency

A discount on itself isn’t always enough to make cautious customers place an order. They might still postpone the purchase until the very last minute, so you also need to introduce some time constraints to make sure they actually act on your offer.

You can drive urgency by including a countdown timer or a clearly stated deadline in your price drop email, just like Honey does.

The idea here is to let your customers know that the price drop is only valid for a short period of time and that they must decide now. Use scarcity marketing tactics to boost your sales and make the whole shopping experience more thrilling for your audience. If they see a limited-time offer, they’re likely to get competitive and derive more joy from that purchase.

Show the price difference

To prove that your price drop is legit, you need to demonstrate the difference between the original price and the new offer. When your customers see the price comparison, they quickly understand how much they can save, so you don’t need to overexplain your offer.

Notice how Pinterest’s CTA button copy says “Take a closer look” instead of “Buy now!” — this subtle touch makes the whole email appear less salesy. Also, the headline nicely encapsulates the whole message so that the user doesn’t have to guess the new price or read the fine print.

Provide reassurance

Sure, you want to get rid of the discounted items as quickly as possible. But, chances are, you also want your customers to be satisfied with their purchases and stick with your brand long-term. That’s what it pays off to stay transparent and helpful in your price drop emails — let your customers know that you’re there for them should they run into problems.

Brooklinen, for example, openly states that its birthday sale is completely risk-free.

Pay attention to the neat structure of this price drop email. The bullet points help communicate the main advantages while keeping the body of text skimmable and nice to look at. Also, the typeface used for the headlines matches the style of the logo.

Offer close alternatives

By focusing on one specific product, you exclude other options, which may not always work to your advantage. If you put multiple products on sale, let your customers know that they have several options to choose from.

Columbia does exactly that.

The brand also builds suspense by not revealing the new price of the main featured product, which encourages the recipient to visit the website. Nevertheless, the details of the offer are disclosed at the bottom part of the email.

Target abandoned carts

Pair your price drop emails with abandoned cart emails to target your customers’ needs with laser precision. More than half of consumers abandon their shopping carts, and you can win them back by offering them the same products at a lower price.

Check out this elegant price drop email example.

Just like in the previous example, the final price is intentionally concealed to incentivize the user to visit the website. What’s also great about this email is the fact that the products are displayed next to each other and form a finished look. This gives the customer an idea of how the items of their choice will look together.

Use bold colors

Don’t make your price drop emails too shy or unassuming — celebrate your sale and share that excitement with your subscribers through positive colors, playful typography, and vivid illustrations. The principle “the more, the merrier” certainly applies here if done tastefully.

This price drop email is surprisingly bright yet minimalistic. The first thing that catches the eye is the bold headline, which communicates the essence of the offer. The email also features the exact deals without boring the reader with the details.

Don’t sacrifice your overall aesthetic

Stick to your brand design guidelines even when creating short commercial notifications such as price drop emails. Try to integrate your brand colors or other branding elements in your layout — your recipients need to be able to recognize your company at a glance.

Here’s an example proving that price drop emails can and should be visually attractive.

As you can see, this brand doesn’t miss the chance to showcase the examples of photos one can take using this particular film brand. By reminding your customers why they should buy a specific product and what they can achieve with it, you’ll make your price drop email more engaging and meaningful.

Let your brand values shine through

Sure, every business has occasional sales and special offers, and your competitors do, too. But how do you cut through the noise and make your price drop announcement heard? Try focusing on the green side of things, meaning, making your offer more sustainable. Think of the positive social or environmental impact your brand can make. Perhaps, you could donate some percentage of revenue to a local charity or partner up with a grassroots organization.

This price drop email example ticks all the boxes — it’s eye-catching, to-the-point, memorable, and impactful. The brand openly demonstrates its sustainability awards and eco-initiatives instead of beating around the bush or using vague, generic phrasing. All in all, Fussy provides a great incentive for its customers to act while the prices are still low.

Help your customers find what they want

If you have a site-wide sale, it makes sense to guide your customers and help them make the most out of your offer. For instance, you can include a small quiz or create curated collections, depending on how many items you have on sale.

What if your customers aren’t ready to purchase from you despite the price drop? In that case, you can show them the products that would make perfect holiday gifts and motivate them to shop for their loved ones.

Top up your offer with unbeatable shipping options

Do you provide free shipping or deliver overseas? Don’t forget to mention that in your price drop email — your audience may not even know about your speedy or affordable delivery.

Take a look at this unusually candid, fun, and straightforward price drop email.

Liquid Death doesn’t mind explaining why they now offer lower prices and what’s in it for them. You can do the same to distance yourself from the competition. Mention attractive delivery options and explain why you decided to drop your price — your customers will appreciate your honesty.

Create, automate, and send price drop emails like a pro

Did you know that you can create powerful marketing campaigns for your business even without any coding or design skills? Check out SendPulse, an all-in-one marketing automation platform with a beginner-friendly interface and a versatile toolkit.

Here’s a quick overview of what you can do with SendPulse:

1. Pick a customizable template from our library and fill it with your content.
2. Import your mailing list and segment your audience to target the right group at the right time.
3. Use our visual automation builder to create effective trigger flows.
4. Schedule your emails to avoid manual errors.
5. A/B test your campaigns to find out what works best for your audience.
6. Analyze your subscribers’ activity and improve your campaigns as you go.
7. Collect your customer data and store it in a single place.

We also offer you an intuitive chatbot builder, a CRM, a website builder, an online course creator, and a pop-up builder. The best part is, you can try SendPulse for free!