What should go into your next email newsletter?
Trying to come up with ideas is hard. Having to do it every other week or month is frustrating and absurd. (And we should know 😑)
But, at the same time, repetition is not your enemy. Plus, as a marketer, you’re always free to draw from experiences. The newsletter offers that flexibility.
Nonetheless, to give you a head start, we’re sharing 10 email newsletter ideas that you can use to keep your subscribers hooked.
- The Trendy Email Newsletter
- The Not-so-trendy Email Newsletter
- The “Un-corporate” Email Newsletter
- The Helpful Email Newsletter
- The Endorsement Email Newsletter
- The Team Reveal Email Newsletter
- The Expert Interview Email Newsletter
- The Serial Email Newsletter
- The Educational Email Newsletter
- The Storytelling Email Newsletter
1. The Trendy Email Newsletter
Talk about what the world’s talking about. Take inspiration from the latest/upcoming events. You’ll never run short of these.
Take a look at the following newsletter of Atlas Obscura. The talking point? The solar eclipse. But they’ve used the keyword to connect disparate topics.
Read More: A Simple 5-Step Process to Create Awesome Newsletters with SFMC
2. The Not-so-trendy Email Newsletter
Talk about what the world isn’t talking about. Because everyone is the world.
The “Internet of Me” era does not sleep. Every little thing is a major event. It could be something smart. It could be something stupid. But it’s almost never insignificant.
For instance, consider the National High Five day. No big deal, right? It’s not Christmas after all. The world doesn’t light up to celebrate high-fives.
But the Internet does. And you can leverage it. Just like Action Rocket below.
Read More: Explained: How To Create a Newsletter with Sender
3. The “Un-corporate” Email Newsletter
Think of the newsletter as more than a corporate megaphone. It is not always about what you’re doing; it can be about who you are.
Don’t chase after your CEO or hassle the marketing department to “come up with ideas.” The newsletter can be anybody’s space. Even the sales team can participate.
Hugo & Marie talk about the risks of nostalgia in their newsletter (see below). They’re not talking about their brand, are they?
4. The Helpful Email Newsletter
Look at marketing as a form of service. Serve your customers. Help your audience.
Only the newsletter can enable you to do this in a way that’s more obvious than your genuinely helpful products/services.
Sometimes, it’s good to let go of the traditional concept of the newsletter with its unilateral emphasis on events and notifications. In other words, go beyond the ‘news’ part of the term. That’s often what the best email newsletters do.
For example, Sauna House right here.
5. The Endorsement Email Newsletter
How about featuring a brand evangelist in your next email newsletter?
We’re not talking about customer testimonials per se. Because that’s purely promotional.
(If you want to feature testimonials, include just one from one customer. Make it about the customer. Done right, it will resonate with the other would-be customers. In fact, you can create a series where you converse with customers randomly chosen.)
The goal of the newsletter is to engage, start a conversation, and encourage the stories your customers like to tell themselves. Sharing, not selling.
That’s what Musicbed does in their newsletter below.
6. The Team Reveal Email Newsletter
But first ask yourself, Why should anyone be interested? Why are we introducing the people behind the scenes? Why now?
Give them a context.
Maybe your newest product sold out in a week. Or your brand got featured on a Forbes list. Perhaps an A-lister praised you on social media.
Give your subscribers a good reason to want to look behind the scenes.
If you have no particular reason, try and do it in a fun way (see birddogs’ newsletter email below) to balance out the lack of one. Because customers generally don’t expect or even need to meet your team, unless you’re a brand people are really gaga over.
7. The Expert Interview Email Newsletter
Feature an expert on your email newsletter.
The expert could be someone from your own team, someone in your niche, or someone who worked with your company in the past.
Soft Services’s email newsletter below features a chat with a designer who worked with them on one of their products.
8. The Serial Email Newsletter
Start a series. Keep the conversation going. This takes care of the problem of having to come up with newsletter email ideas every week/month.
More importantly, it engages your subscribers more deeply. But you should choose a topic worth continuing on for some time.
And by “some time,” we mean no longer than three weeks.
After all, you don’t want your newsletter to drag on like a novel. Here’s an example of a serial newsletter by Beyond the Envelope.
9. The Educational Email Newsletter
The best email newsletters educate. But it’s important to really want to educate or it will show in your content like a sore thumb. You should be generous.
And newsletters give you the opportunity to be so. You can explain, illustrate, and do everything in between in great detail.
Once again, Soft Services has a fine example of the educational newsletter. Take a good look at their email newsletter below.
10. The Storytelling Email Newsletter
Newsletter email ideas can be hard to come by. But here’s the good news: You can run out of ideas, but you can never run out of experiences.
The best email newsletters also tell a story. Usually, these stories are drawn from experiences. Because, to reiterate, the newsletter can be anybody’s space. You can afford to be vulnerable in your newsletter.
Remember, the target audience of your newsletter is not customers, but readers.
A terminological quibble? Maybe. But it puts things in perspective. For all the promotional links you might add in your newsletter, it’s a space to start conversations, show the human side of your brand. Like this newsletter from Dirt.
Ready for Your Next Email Newsletter?
No need to worry if you’re still uncertain. If you didn’t get much from this post, here are a few key takeaways for your reassurance:
- Your email newsletter need not be something entirely new, never done before
- The best email newsletters are not always about news, events, and updates
- Your email newsletter can be un-corporate, not immediately related to your brand
- In the context of email newsletters, you’re a storyteller, not a seller
- Your email newsletter can be about you, your goof-ups, your embarrassments
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