Email marketing can accommodate many different types of emails. One of those emails (probably the most well-known) is a newsletter. While you will see some people categorize all email marketing messages as “newsletters”, not all of them fit into that category. Newsletters can be described as regularly sent emails to subscribers, generally promoting educational content, news, stories and various articles. Let’s take this opportunity and learn more about how to find ideas for your email newsletters.
The Purpose of Email Newsletters
Newsletters should be aimed to keep your subscribers engaged and informed. They are a perfect gateway to building relationships between your email recipients – whether that’s your leads or customers – and you, or your brand.
Think of newsletters as something that your audience should find valuable, interesting or even entertaining. Knowing the purpose can help you find ideas for your newsletters. Therefore, you should try to avoid being too “salesy” – there are also other types of emails that could push for more sales. Read more about how to write good newsletters here.
How to Find Ideas?
Generating newsletter ideas can be a challenge, especially at the beginning. However, it will get easier once you’ve established a routine and get to know your subscribers more. To help you out, here are some pointers on writing content for your email newsletters.
Content Roundup
Email newsletters can be a perfect space for a content roundup. You can use snippets of your recent blog posts to encourage your subscribers to read more. Even adding social media content highlights to attract more followers to your social media channels helps. You might be working on many different types of content – you can indeed repurpose it for your newsletter.
Here’s an example of the “featured posts” roundup from Wistia:
Source: Wistia email, featured on Really Good Emails
Asking For Feedback or Including a Poll
Suppose you don’t have separate customer feedback generating emails and automated workflows. In that case, you could ask for customer feedback in one of your newsletter sections. That said, it shouldn’t become the primary purpose, but having a dedicated section in one of your newsletters can help you learn about your audience.
You can also use the space for various polls; just make sure it flows nicely with other pieces of content in your email.
Offer Advice and Share Your Expertise
Newsletters should be engaging and, well, in some way, should help your readers. Thus, offering advice can help drive that engagement and build relationships with your subscribers. Whatever your niche – you are the expert. So share that knowledge and expertise!
Here’s a nice example from Hinge – this email content shares tips for voice prompts with their unique audience. Your email newsletter could contain a section dedicated to knowledge sharing, so get some inspiration from the example below. And always try to direct people to your landing page or a dedicated content page that contains more information and more visual assets.
Source: Hinge email featured on Really Good Emails
Holiday Greetings or Event-Related Letters
Is your newsletter coinciding with a well-known international or local holiday or event? You could mention it and write content that would fit the occasion. In addition to Black Friday and Christmas that comes shortly after, you can use other fun occasions that aren’t well known, such as International Cat Day, Siblings Day, or even Eat What You Want Day! Just make sure they fit your brand.
Engage With Contents
If you’re running a contest, you could mention it in your newsletter to drive more engagement. While you could make it a hero content piece, you should also have other valuable and relevant content. Your subscribers should be able to easily recognize your newsletter and not see it as a contest update email.
Webinars and Events
Looking for more content to add to your newsletter? If you are organizing or participating in any events (virtual or not), you could highlight them in your newsletter. Add a section called, for example, “upcoming events”. Again, this probably shouldn’t take all your newsletter space, but putting some spotlight on this type of content can boost your email engagement (and hopefully generate your event registrations too!).
Share the Successes of Your Customers or Answer Their Questions
If you need more content ideas, you can add examples of customer successes. Remember, sales aren’t the goal here, so share content as customer wins, not your business wins. Alternatively, you can have a little section for a Q&A. Do you regularly get similar questions and inquiries that just keep popping up? Try to answer them for all your newsletter readers.
Here’s a great email example from MacPaw – they’ve added a Q&A section seamlessly into their email template:
Source: MacPaw email featured on Really Good Emails
Lots of Content Ideas for Your Email Newsletters!
Hopefully, you’ve found these content tips helpful. Just remember, at least for one email, you can stop pushing for sales and focus on brand and customer relationship building. Share your knowledge and expertise with your readers. Let them enjoy receiving and reading your newsletters. And stay creative!