The Ultimate Guide to Email Teasers (2023)

Writing a great email teaser is one of the ultimate goals of effective email marketing. Whether you’re launching a new product, building traction for your latest event, or announcing an upcoming sale, anticipation is key in ensuring you build hype - that’s where email teasers come in.

Email teasers are perfect for building hype and making sure a new release goes viral. Apple is great at this - while their new iPhones launch around September, you can guarantee they’ll be drip-feeding their subscribers with teasers at least a few months beforehand to build traction.

So how can you create an effective email teaser campaign, and what are the key points to bear in mind to make it successful? Don’t worry - beehiiv is here to talk you through it.

What Is The Purpose Of Teaser Email?

The main purpose of a teaser email is to build anticipation and traction for a new launch. Brand owners want as many people as possible to be ready to purchase whatever it is they’re selling, and teaser emails allow you to generate hype before a big launch.

Teaser emails also help to keep your audience engaged, giving them plenty of time to get excited about your latest launch and ensure that they’ll be in a good position to purchase.

Email Teasers (How Do They Work?)

The main focus of an email teaser is to build anticipation around an upcoming launch. This could be for a new event, if you have an events business, or launching a brand-new product for your range.

Email teasers can even be used to build hype around a sale - think of Amazon, for example. They’re always seen hyping their Amazon Prime sales in the weeks before the sale launches. This ensures that by the time the sale comes around, all of Amazon’s subscribers are aware of it.

By keeping customers in the loop regarding an upcoming launch/event/sale, you’re ensuring not only that they know about it, but also that they may even have put their hard-earned money aside for when the launch takes place.

How To Do A Teaser Campaign?

So the question on everyone’s lips is, how do you build a successful email teaser campaign? We’re here to talk you through some of the key steps in creating a teaser campaign, ensuring you’ve got all the main points covered so your next email teaser is a roaring success.

Purpose

The first step to bear in mind when creating an email teaser campaign is its purpose. The purpose behind your campaign is vital when it comes to email teasers, as you need to be sure of what you’re building anticipation for prior to starting the campaign.

Think about why you want to generate hype - for example, this could be for your next product launch, a big sale you have coming up, or perhaps an event you want your subscribers to attend. Then you can think about the main focus - i.e. selling tickets, purchasing a sale item, or pre-ordering your latest product launch.

Anticipation

Building anticipation for your email campaign is arguably the most important element of a successful email teaser. The whole point of sending out an email teaser is to generate hype, and there are a few key ways in which you can do this.

Anticipation can be generated by giving hints about a new release, making sure you’re not giving away too much information but enough that your subscribers become interested. You can also play with timing, ensuring your audience knows when the next teaser will be announced to build more anticipation for whatever you’re advertising.

You could even introduce a countdown timer to generate interest and indicate to your subscribers when they’ll find out what the teaser’s about. More on this later.

Timing

Another important element to email teasers is timing. Ultimately, you want your audience to be fully hyped by the time the purpose of your teaser comes around, so setting up a campaign in plenty of time is vital.

We recommend starting to build an email teaser campaign at least a month before your event/sale/product is launching. This gives you time to start leaking information about your launch, ensuring that all of your subscribers are in the loop and gently starting to build anticipation.

You’ll also want to make sure that you’re increasing the number of teaser emails you’re sending out as whatever you’re advertising is drawing closer. A good example of this would be to send out teasers declaring there’s one week to go, and then counting down the days before the big announcement.

Call To Action

The final step in planning your email campaign is to decide on a strong Call To Action (CTA). While building traction is important, you don’t want your teaser campaign to just be about exposure.

For example, you could encourage your audience to sign up for your mailing list to ensure they’re kept in the loop with all the latest updates regarding your launch. You could set up a specific mailing list for your launch, enabling you to measure your campaign and promote it.

You could even set up an early bird list to give your subscribers first access to whatever it is you’re teasing. People love being the first to know what the big secret is, so this could be a great CTA for your next teaser campaign.

The layout of your email, including your CTA, is also an important factor when writing an email teaser campaign. Check out our blog for email layout tips to engage your audience.

How Do You Do A Teaser Announcement?

Once you’ve scheduled your teaser emails, you’ll want to start thinking about how to announce whatever it is you’ve been teasing.

There are a number of ways you can do this. Focusing your announcement email around content ideas, such as ‘the time has finally come,’ or ‘it’s the launch you’ve all been waiting for,’ are good places to start - essentially, you want to make sure all the hype you’ve generated throughout your teaser campaign is put to good use.

Make sure to include a strong CTA within your teaser announcement email - this should clearly show your audience where they can purchase what you’ve been advertising, and how they can get involved with your brand.

Examples of Great Email Teasers

So what are examples of great email teasers? We’ve compiled our favorites below to give you some inspiration for your next email teaser campaign.

Apple

Apple is the King when it comes to email teasers, with their new iPhones known for their extreme hype and excitement months before release.

Here’s a great example of one of their latest email teasers. The below email teases the launch of the next iPhone by allowing subscribers to pre-order the latest model, and ‘get the prep work done’ to ensure a quicker checkout once the phone is released.

This is clever, as it essentially provides early access to subscribers and ensures orders before the device has even officially launched.

Zizzi

Italian restaurant Zizzi is great at their email teasers, putting a main focus on their subject lines.

Using a teasing subject line of ‘Psst… something NEW is coming,’ sparks curiosity before the email has even been opened. This intrigue is continued within the email, with congruent content of ‘Psst… save the date!’ included prominently and encouragement for subscribers to guess what might be coming.

This builds hype and announces to Zizzi’s audience that something special is in the pipeline. Featuring a blurred image is also clever, as it provides a sneak peak without actually revealing what’s to come. A great way of building intrigue!

Pawfit

Our next favorite email teaser is from the pet brand Pawfit, a company that specializes in pet GPS trackers.

The below example shows how Pawfit has teased their new Pawfit 3 product, with a ‘Pawfit 3 is coming!’ graphic to build anticipation. They’ve also told users ‘to keep an eye on [their] inbox for details’ to make sure their subscribers are eagerly anticipating their next launch.

Sephora

Another great ‘coming soon’ style email teaser is from beauty brand Sephora, with anticipation built around their first UK store.

They’ve got great messaging to build hype, with ‘Something beautiful is COMING SOON’ featured at the very top of the email, and ‘9 days to go’ building anticipation around the store opening shortly.

Sephora has also teased the location of the store and the launch date, giving subscribers exclusive information as to the details of the UK store.

Graze

Our final email teaser example is from the health food subscription company Graze. These guys have cleverly teased an exclusive offer for subscribers by using intriguing language, such as ‘mystery’ and ‘reveal,’ to encourage curiosity and build anticipation around their mystery offers.

They’ve also used a luring subject line of ‘it’s time for another mystery offer,’ encouraging users to open the email to find out what the next mystery offer is.

For more subject lines that get emails opened, check out the beehiiv blog.

How Do You Write A Good Teaser For An Event?

The events industry is well-known for successful email teaser campaigns, as events companies are keen to build traction before an event to ensure as many people as possible purchase tickets and show up.

We’ve detailed below a couple of top tips when it comes to writing a good teaser for an event.

Countdown

As mentioned earlier on, a digital countdown is a fantastic way of building hype for an upcoming event. This shows your audience how many days are left until your event, showing how much time they have to buy tickets and ultimately start getting excited about your event.

You could also feature a countdown on your website, with a ‘Coming Soon’ landing page with a countdown detailing when the event is taking place.

Plan Timing

When writing a teaser email for an event, planning the timing of these teasers is super important. Not only do you want to give your audience plenty of time to buy tickets, but you also need to make sure you’re drip-feeding your subscribers with exclusive details reminding them of why your event is the place to be.

It’s also worth making sure you plan a ‘last minute’ style teaser email to go out just before your event starts. This is a good way of generating a few more ticket sales for subscribers that haven’t yet made a purchase. Content based around ‘last few tickets left’ or ‘almost sold out’ are good messages to encourage users to get involved.

How To Get Started (Wrap-Up)

Hopefully, you now feel fully clued up on how to plan and create email teaser campaigns, as well as some great examples to draw inspiration from.

So what are you waiting for? Sign up with beehiiv today to start building your very own teaser campaign! It’s free to sign up, and there are great features that would be perfect for email teasers such as dedicated email blasts, A/B testing for subject lines, and promotional offers/trials.

Get started with beehiiv and sign up for free today!