Mirror in my hand, who's the fairest in email land?

You ever stare at your email draft like it’s a haunted mirror? You’re like, “Show me something good,” and the mirror’s like, “How about anxiety?”

We get it. The pressure to perform, to be clever, to summon something new. But can we all collectively admit that another “carving out deals” or “brewing up savings” isn’t groundbreaking? Somewhere out there, a marketing team is earnestly debating whether “spooktacular” should have three exclamation points or four instead of just going into the dumpster.

Fun fact: “Spooktacular” was in ad copy as far back as the 1940s, proving marketers have been recycling ideas longer than we’ve been recycling plastic (or that candy we hate but keep putting back into rotation for trick-or-treaters).

But you know what’s really scary? Opening your inbox in October. It’s a graveyard of emails all wearing the same costume of orange gradients, bats, and “limited-time” offers that look like they were designed by one of the kids from Addams Family.

Writing to your audience doesn't have to be hard. It’s just people talking to people… except one of those people is a brand pretending to be cool, and the other just wanted a 10% off code and accidentally sold their soul to your mailing list.

So if you still have time to tweak your Halloween emails – and we pray you do – here are a few that actually finish the month strong with no mandatory puns required. (Your readers will thank you. Your designer already has.)

Less boo, more woo.