Whenever I step away from my phone, it seems like I almost always come back to email notifications – multiple of them. In fact, the average office worker receives 121 emails per day.
With the sheer volume of email flying around everyday, it can leave content creators at a loss on how to catch their subscribers’ attention. It can be easy to run out of original newsletter ideas when you’re trying to consistently push content, and we get that.
When a subscriber opens your email (IF they open it), they’ll discern pretty quickly whether anything is of value or interest to them. In this blog are some ideas you can put into practice to up your game so that your newsletter never disappoints.
We have even more ideas that are specifically about boosting more revenue that you can view here. However, in this blog, we’re focused on newsletter ideas for content creators that you can incorporate in just about any newsletter, regardless of your niche. Plus, there are plenty of examples included and linked throughout.
1. Industry news your audience cares about
Chances are, your audience trusts you to give them news. It’s always good to include news that you can write about or comment on. But additionally, it can also paint you as an authority on a topic even when you share industry news written by someone else. This still works in your favor and keeps your audience happy when they get your newsletter.
Here’s an example from a newsletter I subscribe to about email and web design.
Source: reallygoodemails.com newsletter
This email featured a number of articles that were relevant to me. I clicked on a couple – and I even navigated to their website eventually (the ultimate win).
2. Interview or spotlight an individual
People love to see other people on their screen – and they love stories, too. This idea is great because you can take it a couple different ways – you could promote a product, guide or course on your website, or you could simply build some intrigue about this person. The key here is to balance promotion with information that actually matters to your audience. The email not only should include information about your product, but also interesting information about this person’s story, including their background or how they found success, for example.
Here are a couple of examples I received in my inbox. If I were to do this idea, I might share a bit more information in-content about the person before directing them to click – the photos below were excerpts from emails with other content included in them.
3. Share a list of online resources – helpful or fun
As I shared above, your audience likely views you as an authority on all things related to your niche. If you can find something that they would find helpful, or even just interesting, and compile it, you can help your audience keep coming back even more. For instance, if your audience loves to travel, why not compile a list of sales you’ve tracked happening across airlines in the upcoming months?
But, you don’t have to keep it so serious – here’s an excerpt from a newsletter I subscribe to – Scott’s Cheap Flights – and even though the bulk of their email featured their own links, down here they feature “cool stuff we like.” For me, this makes me excited to open their future emails because maybe I’ll get recommendations for books or see cool photos about a passion of mine.
4. Share quick tips
Quick, digestible tips go a long way. You can come up with just about any topic on which pointers are appreciated. These are easy for your audience to read. Bonus: when your subject line offers something like “3 easy tips…” it’s almost guaranteed to get more clicks. Here’s an example from an email from Yelp.
This is one of our favorite newsletter ideas because of how easy it is to absorb the information and associate it with the sender. You make yourself such an asset when your audience can expect this type of intriguing and interesting content from you. A slight variation of this newsletter idea that works great: any kind of fun facts or statistics you can share — “5 Facts about…. that will surprise you.”
5. Q&A or other interaction with readers
What’s one way to encourage your readers to keep coming back? Allow for interaction! If you promote a Q&A newsletter and say that you’ll be answering readers’ questions in the next edition, not only will that provide value to your readers, but it will also help you gain insight into what’s interesting and important to them.
6. Letter from the editor
You can always try a more personal approach. In a letter from the editor, you can outline what content you thought was most important or most interesting. You can share it in a more personal sense and maybe even include some information about yourself. This once again appeals to how people like hearing about other people.
Here’s an example from yours truly, Ezoic!
Wrapping it all up: Why newsletter ideas matter
Newsletters can be tricky to put together and keep intriguing over time. Ultimately, readers see through emails that are only meant for sending links and nothing else. Just as important as getting traffic to your site is giving your audience something valuable that they want to learn more about. It can be a winning strategy to switch up the ways you present your content. Give your readers different things to look forward to. Even if your regular newsletter is a straightforward roundup of your recent articles, why not try getting personal, sharing helpful resources, or even inspiring them with success stories to switch it up every once in awhile?
In 2022, email’s average return on investment was 40%. With rates like that, it’s worth it to invest in creating high quality, creative content. We hope this helped spark some new ideas for good emails. Linked below are some past blogs and other resources we think are particularly helpful with building out good newsletters.
