Let’s rewind back to our high school days for a moment. You know that day everyone eagerly anticipates? The day they finally distribute…

the y e a r b o o k After paying to be featured and then again for a copy, it’s finally in your hands. Do you begin on page one? Absolutely not! The sequence is crucial: your own picture first, then the senior superlatives, followed by your teams and clubs, and lastly, everything else. What I’m emphasizing here is our inherent love for reminiscing, especially when it involves ourselves. We relish seeing the outcomes of our contributions and feeling like a part of something grander. With this in mind, let’s delve into crafting compelling year-in-review emails that your customers will actually want to read! In this guide, we’ll explore:

• The reasons behind crafting a year-in-review email
• Strategies for maintaining a customer-centric approach
• A plethora of ideas and illustrative examples to ignite your creativity

Why Compose a Year-in-Review Email?

Besides its general appeal, sharing a recap boasts substantial business advantages. It can:

• Bolster Confidence in Your Business: Showcasing your progress and accomplishments throughout the year underscores your commitment and expertise within your field, reaffirming your customers’ decision to choose you over rivals.
• Cultivate Customer Loyalty: Customers value being included in your successes. Sharing these milestones demonstrates their significance to your community and your appreciation for their support. It highlights your hard work and motivates continued patronage. Expressing gratitude for their contributions reciprocates this sentiment, nurturing a bond that keeps them coming back.
• Minimize Customer Churn: Highlighting customer accomplishments emphasizes how your product or service contributed to their triumphs. This encourages continued engagement and inspires them to achieve even more in the coming year. The following example from emagazine platform Texture demonstrates this by comparing a reader’s reading time to the user average, and even quantifying money and trees saved.

As a Texture user, this motivates me to surpass the average, save more, and contribute to a greener environment next year. (Image source)

Year-End/Year-in-Review Email Inspirations

There are numerous approaches to crafting a year-in-review email. The optimal choice depends on your field, audience, and available resources. Consider these options:

1. Growth Statistics

Present figures that highlight your expansion: customer base reached, new team members welcomed, new locations opened, office expansions, strategic partnerships forged. Steer clear of superficial metrics or potentially off-putting data points like follower counts or upgrades.

2. Notable Milestones and Achievements

Reflect on intangible victories like accolades or nominations, successful events, product enhancements, anniversaries, or significant undertakings like rebranding, website launches, or acquisitions.

3. Individualized Account Reports

People inherently enjoy recognition and celebration of their achievements. Spotify’s Wrapped perfectly embodies this approach, but it can be adapted for any device, app, or account with individual metrics. This strategy is also prevalent among SaaS platforms employing analytics.

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4. Superlative Highlights

Generating comprehensive stats for every account can be resource-intensive and prone to syncing errors or loading issues. Alternatively, analyze behavioral data to identify customer trends. Showcase top-selling products, popular blog content, widely shared social media posts, the most sought-after product of each month, and so on.

5. Noteworthy Industry Developments

Some businesses have access to more captivating data than others. If struggling to formulate something compelling, consider summarizing significant stories or insightful industry statistics. Supplement each with a brief reflection, action taken, or pertinent tip.

Essential Year-in-Review Email Strategies

Beyond standard email marketing practices, these suggestions will elevate your year-end email:

1. Distinct from Holiday Greetings or Promotional Emails

Your year-in-review email should stand apart from festive greetings and promotional campaigns. Greeting emails should exude customer appreciation and gratitude. Promotional emails naturally focus on conversions. Your year-in-review email bridges the gap, conveying appreciation while encouraging continued engagement.

2. Employ the Power of Numbers

You’ll observe that nearly all these examples incorporate numerical data. People gravitate towards quantifiable information.

3. Visual Appeal Matters…

Don’t overwhelm readers with text. Integrate timelines, journey maps, visuals, or even video content.

4. …But Prioritize Mobile Optimization

Consider this visually appealing example by Big Cartel. Although it hints at a page with a potentially more detailed graphic, the email image necessitates zooming and panning, disrupting smooth scrolling.

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5. Maintain Customer-Centricity

Always emphasize the customer’s role! This is effortless when you have customer data or achievements to highlight, but not mandatory. The previous example states:

2015 was a landmark year for Big Cartel – not just for our team, but for the multitude of talented artists who build their businesses on our platform. We thank you for making our favorite moments of the year possible, and for being an integral part of this incredible community. Similarly, Wix’s example below adopts a collaborative approach, stating, “Before we dive into 2018, let’s reflect on the past year’s most memorable moments and our collective accomplishments.”

Image source Frame your successes as shared accomplishments made possible through customer support, product utilization, feedback, reviews, social engagement, and more.

5. Express Gratitude to Your Readers

This step is crucial and often overlooked. While the Wix example effectively conveys “togetherness,” it omits a direct thank you to its customers. It’s assumed the linked post addresses this, but expressing gratitude within the email itself is vital.

Thank you for choosing Texture for your reading needs!

Our achievements are a testament to our incredible community of customers and contributors! THANK YOU!

We commend your efforts this year and express our sincere gratitude for being such a vital part of our growth in 2021.

6. Avoid Disguised Landing Pages

Remember, this email celebrates shared growth. The example below, while aesthetically pleasing, falls short. Despite phrases like “A year in review,” and “Thanks for being part of our creative community,” the copy feels disconnected and concludes with “Haven’t taken a class yet? Start today and join our growing number of students!”, coupled with an enrollment CTA.

Great design, but not a genuine year-in-review. ([Image source](https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Nexusdecode/images-549143589519/main/1722558097445.html; charset=utf-8&description=The%207%20Best%20Year%20in%20Review%20Emails%20of%202017&method=bookmarklet)) The figures could work in a year-in-review, but the language lacks a sense of shared accomplishment, resembling a veiled landing page—a surefire way to alienate customers.

7. Incorporate Actionable Elements

There are numerous ways to make your year-in-review email actionable:

• Offer personalized recommendations based on the provided information.
• Share a concise summary and link to the comprehensive review on your blog—a clever way to boost website traffic.
• For B2C, empower customers to share their personalized stats on social media.
• For B2B, simplify report sharing with their respective teams.

Image source Year-in-review emails are invaluable for lead generation, audience engagement, and customer retention. Unlike holiday thank yous, they can include a call to action, encouraging readers to:

• Subscribe to your newsletter
• Connect on social media
• Browse your online store
• Explore product upgrades
• Continue engaging with your platform

That concludes 2017. However, we’re brimming with excitement to share what the upcoming year holds for creators, brands, and video enthusiasts like Y-O-U. Until then, keep those uploads coming and those screens shining bright.

8. Ignite Excitement for the New Year

A concluding CTA implies a continuing relationship, but a teaser takes it a step further.

Interestingly, 2018 was largely about paving the way for 2019. We can’t reveal everything in store, but trust us—there’s never been a more opportune time to upload and maximize your videos’ potential.

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Exemplary Year-in-Review Email Examples

Let’s analyze some inspiring examples to glean ideas from.

1. SiteGround—Blending Coverage with a Contest

SiteGround’s year in review’s email ingeniously doubles as a raffle for customized Bose headphones. It guides you through a journey of company updates, exciting announcements, and significant milestones, awarding you points along the way. The more you explore, the more points you accumulate, increasing your raffle chances. This approach effectively highlights your accomplishments while engaging customers.

2. Vimeo—Engaging, but Lacking a Key Element

Vimeo’s “Top 18 Hits of ‘18” showcases impressive design:

View the full email here. It’s visually appealing, well-organized, and informative, presenting a blend of content. However, despite its engaging nature, it’s solely focused on Vimeo, lacking customer appreciation.

We’re thrilled for 2019. But before we get ahead of ourselves, let’s acknowledge the momentous events of 2018. Let’s wrap up an incredible, video-filled year with our top Vimeo hits. It’s plausible that Vimeo sent a separate appreciation email, but incorporating it here would be more impactful.

3. Campaign Monitor—Exemplifying Customer-Centricity

Although a blog post, Campaign Monitor’s creative approach to showcasing its annual growth and achievements in a customer-centric manner merits inclusion.

View the full recap here Notable takeaways:

• When presenting platform usage stats, Campaign Monitor empowers customers with titles like “curious subscriber scientists,” “customer experience architects,” “email artisans,” enriching our vocabulary!
• Instead of simply stating that 416,422 marketers used their platform to send 30.7 billion emails across 192 countries, the heading “Your subscribers embraced the inbox like never before,” emphasizes customer significance.
• New feature releases are presented as collaborative triumphs with headings like “You asked, we delivered” and highlighting what customers “utilized.”
• Genuine customer appreciation is evident through phrases like: “When challenges arose, Campaign Monitor customers rose to the occasion,” “You navigated these times with tenacity and ingenuity,” and “We were honored to support you every step of the way.”
• “Our success is a testament to our incredible community of customers and contributors! THANK YOU!”
• Finally, a glimpse into the future:

Anticipate a wealth of new tools, resources, and inspiration in 2021, beginning with our highly anticipated annual Email Marketing Global Benchmarks Report. Watch out for it in early January!”

4. Wix—Concise and (Mostly) Sweet

Wix opts for a concise, attention-grabbing approach, directing readers to their website for a more detailed account.

Image source Again, the full post likely concludes with a heartfelt thank you, but something like “Explore the highlights of 2016, made possible by you!” within the email itself would suffice.

5. Strava—Humorous, Relatable, Engaging

As a cyclist myself, I resonated with this example. Strava utilizes a recap video and a conversational tone to enhance engagement, presenting key figures within the email itself for a fulfilling experience.

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It’s time to relive your 2017 on Strava. You pushed your limits, you persevered, you triumphed (perhaps with some amusing expressions along the way). Check out your personalized recap and congratulations on being a part of Strava’s incredible athletic community.

6. Classy—Highlighting Top Blog Posts

This email kicks off with:

Grow, engage, convert. Fundraising insights and donor relations dominated Classy’s focus this year. In case you missed them, here they are again…the 10 most popular posts from 2016.

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7. Maison Miru—Embracing a Conversational & Approachable Tone

This email exemplifies writing with a human touch. It strikes a perfect balance of emojis, parentheses, puns, and exclamation points, infusing the copy and CTAs with warmth and personality.

Hi Stephanie! We’re nearing the end of another eventful year. We’re incredibly grateful for the opportunity to do what we love. Here are some highlights:

1. We introduced our now-iconic Nap Earrings (Designed for comfortable, 24/7 wear!)
2. Our team expanded! We welcomed two fantastic Customer Care Associates: Bobbi and Sophie.
3. We launched “100 Days of Ear Parties,” an amazing campaign showcasing our creative community of dreamers, thinkers, and makers.

While we can’t guarantee Christmas delivery (pun intended), a gift card is always a perfect choice! No shipping hassles, no stress involved.

And don’t forget to treat yourself for being such a thoughtful gift-giver this year. Self-care knows no deadlines, and you deserve it. With from NYC, Trisha

9. Todoist—A Personalized & Effective Churn Buster

Todoist excels with its “Your Year in Productivity” email, making subscription renewal almost irresistible.

View the email here The email strategically incorporates three CTAs. The first prompts you to view your personalized report, brimming with stats, superlatives, and comparative data that inspire continued platform usage. This is reinforced by the preceding copy:

“How productive were you this year? Did you soar among the top Todoist users, or did you fall behind? Review your 2017 performance and prepare for a more productive 2018.” Subsequent CTAs encourage enrollment in a free productivity-boosting class and offer industry-specific discounts. The only missing element is a thank you! A little customer appreciation goes a long way!

10. LocaliQ

Our year-in-review email provides clients a comprehensive overview of their search marketing achievements, encompassing impressions, clicks, click-through rates, leads, and calls—all complemented by a special 20% discount on an additional advertising solution. We’re quite proud of it!

With LocaliQ as your partner, 2022 was a year of remarkable growth. Here are some of your key search marketing accomplishments that empowered you to achieve your business objectives and thrive. Additionally, we’re offering a special promotion to help you reach your full potential in 2023.

Share Your Year-in-Review Email Experiences!

As demonstrated, year-in-review emails are a powerful tool for driving business goals while engaging and delighting your audience. Plus, they’re enjoyable to create! Which yearly recap emails do you eagerly anticipate? Let me know in the comments! For more email inspiration and templates, explore our collection of copy-and-paste email templates suitable for any business or download our complimentary PDF: 30 Free Small Business Email Examples & Templates. Enjoy!