The New Year is the one holiday where people want to hear from brands. They are planning, setting goals and looking for a fresh start, and an email that helps with that gets read. The trick is timing. The week between Christmas and New Year's Day is quiet, and the first full working week of January is busy.
Below are 12 New Year marketing ideas for 2027 that work by email, from the year-in-review you send in December to the Lunar New Year and Valentine's Day campaigns that follow in February. There are also the key dates, a send schedule and a short checklist to run before your first big January send.
New Year 2027 key dates
| Date | Day | What it means for your emails |
|---|---|---|
| December 25, 2026 | Friday | Christmas Day. Finish your year-in-review sends before it. |
| December 26, 2026 | Saturday | Boxing Day in the UK, Canada and Australia, and the start of Kwanzaa (to January 1). |
| December 31, 2026 | Thursday | New Year's Eve. Last-chance offers and countdown emails. |
| January 1, 2027 | Friday | New Year's Day. Short greeting only, or nothing. |
| January 4, 2027 | Monday | First full working week. Fresh-start and planning campaigns. |
| January 18, 2027 | Monday | Martin Luther King Jr. Day (US). Also the third Monday of January, which marketers call "Blue Monday". |
| January 28, 2027 | Thursday | Data Privacy Day. A good reason to send a preference and privacy update. |
| February 6, 2027 | Saturday | Lunar New Year, the start of the Year of the Goat. |
| February 14, 2027 | Sunday | Valentine's Day and Super Bowl LXI on the same day. |
Sources for the February dates: Royal Museums Greenwich (Lunar New Year) and NFL.com (Super Bowl LXI). The full year is in the 2027 marketing calendar.
1. Send a year-in-review email in mid-December
Show customers what they did with you in 2026: orders placed, hours saved, emails sent, courses finished, whatever your product measures. Personal numbers make these emails worth opening and sharing. If you cannot personalize, send a company version with your biggest launches and what customers asked for most.
Send it between December 14 and December 22. After that it competes with last-minute Christmas offers and out-of-office replies.
2. Thank your customers and clients
A short thank-you note with no offer attached is the easiest win of the season. Agencies and B2B teams can send it from a real person, with a plain-text layout and a line about the year ahead. There are examples in Happy New Year emails to clients.
3. Run a New Year's Eve countdown
If you sell online, December 31 works as a deadline. Close an end-of-year sale, a price increase or an annual plan offer at midnight and send two emails: one on December 30 and a short reminder on the morning of December 31. Keep the subject lines plain and the deadline in the first line of the email.
4. Keep New Year's Day light
January 1, 2027 is a Friday, so most people are off until Monday. If you send anything, make it a short greeting with no hard sell. Save the real campaigns for the first working week.
5. Launch a fresh-start campaign on January 4
People start new habits, budgets and projects in the first week of January. Tie your offer to that. A fitness brand can sell a 30-day plan, a software company can offer a setup call or a template pack, and a course creator can open January enrolment. Lead with what the reader wants to achieve in 2027, not with the discount.
6. Give away a planning resource
A planner, checklist, budget template or content calendar is useful in January and easy to share. Use it to grow your list: offer it on your site and in social posts, and deliver it by email so new subscribers confirm their address. Our 2027 marketing calendar is an example of this kind of resource.
7. Preview what is coming in 2027
Customers like to know what is next. Share your product roadmap, new services, event dates or the theme of the year. A preview email also gives you a reason to ask a question ("What should we build first?") and collect replies, which helps your sender reputation.
8. Ask subscribers to update their preferences
The New Year is a natural time to ask what people want from you. Link to a preference page where they can choose topics and frequency. Fewer, more relevant emails lead to fewer spam complaints. Data Privacy Day on January 28 is a second chance to send this with an update on how you handle their data.
9. Clean your list before the January volume
Many senders mail their whole list in the first week of January, including people who have not opened anything in months. That is how a good December turns into a spam folder problem. Before you send:
- Send a re-engagement email to subscribers who have not opened or clicked in six months or more, and stop mailing the ones who do not respond.
- Remove hard bounces and check doubtful addresses with an email verifier.
- If January volume is much higher than your normal week, ramp up over several days. The IP warm-up plan generator gives you a daily schedule.
The mailbox provider rules also apply in January. Gmail asks senders to keep the spam rate reported in Postmaster Tools below 0.3%, and senders of 5,000 or more messages a day to Gmail accounts must support one-click unsubscribe (Gmail sender guidelines). Yahoo asks for a spam rate below 0.3% and for unsubscribes to be honored within 2 days (Yahoo Sender Hub). Outlook.com requires SPF, DKIM and DMARC for domains sending more than 5,000 emails a day (Microsoft announcement). You can test your domain with the SPF and DKIM checker.
10. Run a January sale or a "new year, new plan" offer
Retailers can clear stock after the holidays. Subscription businesses can offer an annual plan discount for the first two weeks of January, when many people set their budgets for the year. Give the offer a clear end date, such as January 15, and send a reminder the day before.
11. Use January themes that fit your audience
Dry January and Veganuary run for the whole month and suit food, drink, health and wellness brands. "Blue Monday" on January 18 works for a lighthearted pick-me-up offer. Martin Luther King Jr. Day on the same date calls for a respectful message, not a sale. Only use a theme if it fits what you sell, or it reads as filler.
12. Plan for Lunar New Year and February 14
Lunar New Year starts on Saturday, February 6, 2027, the Year of the Goat. If you have customers in China, Vietnam, South Korea or Singapore, or in Asian communities elsewhere, send greetings and offers in the week before. Red and gold designs are common, but check local customs before you use any symbol.
A week later, Valentine's Day and Super Bowl LXI fall on the same Sunday, February 14. Send gift campaigns early in the week of February 8 and keep game-day emails short. The Valentine's Day week-by-week email guide has the full plan.
A New Year send schedule
- December 14 to 22: Year-in-review and thank-you emails.
- December 26 to 29: Boxing Day and after-Christmas offers, or a pause.
- December 30 and 31: New Year's Eve countdown and last-chance emails.
- January 1: A short greeting, or nothing.
- January 4 to 8: Fresh-start campaign, planning resource and 2027 preview.
- January 11 to 15: January sale reminders and the re-engagement series.
- January 18 to 28: Themed sends and the preference update.
- February 1 to 12: Lunar New Year and Valentine's Day campaigns.
New Year subject line ideas
- Your 2026, in numbers
- Thank you for a great year
- Last day: this price ends at midnight
- Happy New Year from all of us
- Your 2027 starts here
- New year, new plan (and 30 days to try it)
- Here is what is coming in 2027
- Still want to hear from us?
- Happy Lunar New Year: welcome to the Year of the Goat
For more, see New Year email campaigns that convert, or generate options for your own offer with the AI email subject line generator.
Still working on Christmas?
Christmas comes first. Start with Christmas email campaigns, then the last-minute Christmas marketing tips and Christmas email signature ideas for your own inbox.
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