30 content ideas for your email newsletters 2020
How to create a brilliant Mailchimp newsletter that your audience will want to read
As part of running my Mailchimp training sessions, I speak to a lot of business owners who want to use email marketing to stay in touch with their customers, but either aren’t quite sure what to actually email them about, or are finding that very few people open or engage with what they send.
Adding value
A bit like social media, the trick with successful email marketing is to add value and create engagement content that is what your customers want to read. And that’s not necessarily the same thing as what you really want to tell them (i.e. how amazing you are and how they should buy from you). If your audience gets used to your emails having useful, interesting and relevant content, they’re more likely to open and read the promotional bits you send them too.
Use your blog as the starting point
Often the starting point will be your blog - create the bulk of the content there so that you can repurpose and link to it from both your email marketing and social media, all while making your website more likely to be found by Google.
This also means that you can keep your newsletters short, sweet and easy to read while
still giving your audience access to the full content and
get data as to what links they are clicking to your emails to help you get an even better understanding of what works and what doesn’t.
How much should you include in your newsletter?
As a rule of thumb, I’d recommend selecting 3-5 bite-sized content boxes in your newsletter. Make them a short and sweet taster and give each one a link to the webpage where the reader can find the full information relating to it e.g. a blog post, an event page, a youtube video, a product page etc.
What should you call your newsletter?
In short, don’t call it a newsletter when referring to it to your customers. Even if your news happens to be of interest to them, the chances are it’s not a priority and they have a ton of other stuff that they need or want to do before reading your news.
So instead of calling it a “Newsletter” in the subject heading, give them an idea of what it actually includes to tickle their tastebuds.
The 5 most important components to your e-newsletter
Your contact details including phone number, website and email - right at the top
Your logo (and maybe incorporate a photo of you to help them relate to your business more)
Your website menu - or at least a semblance of it. Click here to read my blog on why to include it and how to create one in Mailchimp without programming skills.
Next comes a short, personalised introductory paragraph. Do this before using any other images as it will help your newsletter display properly regardless of the email client it’s opened in (e.g. Outlook, Safari, webmail etc). Include your main point and a call to action with a link in this section in case a reader doesn’t get any further.
Then create 5 distinct sections, one for each content item. They could be separated by dividers, or created in text blocks with borders and different coloured backgrounds. However you format it, keep them short, sweet with a bold heading for each section that can be skim read, and a clear link taking the reader to your website destination.
30 Content ideas
Well, obviously this has a lot to do with your audience and your business, but here’s a list of ideas that you could pick and choose from, and then tailor to be relevant to what you do and your target audience’s needs and demographics:
your latest blog
top tip
word of the month
interesting fact or statistic
product review - yours or someone else’s
case study
tutorial
riddle
giveaway / competition
customer testimonial or review
quote
special offer code
product of the week
seasonal / festive idea or style guide
free download / printable
news / current affair / development / change that’s relevant
joke / meme (use with caution in case you have an odd sense of humour!)
comic strip
recipe
special offer from another business (exclusive if possible!)
a great product from another business (can you have an affiliate link to benefit from a share of any resulting sales?)
an interesting blog from another website (a great way of giving a positive vibe to your emails that shows you are more interested in your audience than in selling to them)
next event (maybe with an early bird / access promotion?)
meet a team member
behind the scenes
planner for the month ahead
charity fundraising total
a story behind an order or piece of work you’ve completed (with permission of course)
gallery of the month - orders you’ve sent out / photos you’ve taken / gardens you’ve dug / customer images
weather forecast.
What do other companies and influencers with your target audience send out?
Another good idea is to make a list of businesses and influencers that have the same target audience as you - particularly when they have a huge following and are clearly getting things right - subscribe to their lists and see what sort of things they send out. I’m definitely not suggesting you copy them, but they can help to give you other ideas of what’s grabbing your audience’s attention.
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