When it comes to growing an audience and driving consistent traffic to your website, there’s nothing quite as useful as a big ol’ email list.
How useful is it? Sine Meet Edgar began, we’ve sent hundreds of editions of our weekly newsletter – and since we launched this blog, those newsletters have been responsible for driving more than a third of its traffic.
(So yeah, email is a lot more than just a way for your weird uncle to send you his political conspiracy theories.)
No matter how big your email list grows, though, it won’t do you any good unless you know what to actually send people.
Do you need some newsletter content ideas to liven up your communications with your subscribers? Then keep on reading.
5 Newsletter content ideas to keep your audience engaged
What are the ingredients of an email newsletter that your audience can’t resist opening? What can you send them that’ll make them click week after week?
Don’t worry we have you covered with some deservedly popular email newsletter content ideas:
1. Updates to your site
Back in the day, you probably had all your favorite blogs saved in your bookmarks folder.
You probably also had a mailbox crammed full of free trial discs from AOL. Point is, the Internet has changed.
Now there are a million ways for content to come to you. You don’t have to bother periodically checking your favorite sites to see if they’ve updated – because they’ll just let you know when they do.
That’s what you have to do for your own fans.
Promoting your latest blog post via email might feel a little redundant, or even like you’re going to annoy people.
“They obviously already know my blog exists! They don’t want me bothering them with an email every time there’s a new post – they’ll find it on their own!”
The thing is, though, they kind of DO want you bothering them, and they probably WON’T just find your latest post on their own. Your business is your life, so you spend a lot of time focused on it – but for most of your fans, it’s just not something they think about that often unless somebody reminds them to.
The idea that people will just magically find your content on their own is one of the biggest myths in marketing.
Read a little about content marketing, and you’ll come across the term “magnetic content” a lot. Magnetic content is content that’s so good, it just pulls people in. An “if you write it, they will come” sort of idea. All you’ve gotta do is write something really great, and boom, your work is done! It’s like magic.
Problem is, content isn’t a magnet.
It’s an electromagnet.
An electromagnet is super strong, but only when you turn it on. Otherwise, it just sits there like a big useless lump.
Your blog content is an electromagnet – and sharing that content is how you switch on the power.
Sharing it on social helps, but those updates are way too easy for the people in your audience to miss. You need to send newsletter content to pick up the slack.
Emails like the ones Product Hunt sends to its subscribers! Want to keep up with their latest? You don’t have to go crawling through their site every single day – they’ll send you the highlights via email
Help Scout does the same thing with their emails. Their blog has a lot of fans here on Team Edgar, but none of us know to check it until they send the email promoting a new post. (You can always tell when the email goes out, because we’ll all start talking about the latest post simultaneously in Slack.)
Even our own blog traffic typically gets an enormous boost on the day we promote a new post via email. Take a quick look, and you can probably guess which was newsletter day:
Don’t be shy about using your newsletter to promote your latest and greatest content. Your readers will thank you for it!
2. Announcing what’s next
The people on your email list haven’t just demonstrated their interest in what you have to say – they’ve shown you a serious amount of trust.
Someone’s email address is a serious gift, and you should repay it by giving that person the inside scoop.
Don’t believe it? Imagine this.
When you’re at Bath & Body Works scoring a sick deal on Sweet Cinnamon Pumpkin gentle foaming hand soap, and the cashier asks you to enter your email address for coupons, do you hesitate? You love autumnal-scented bath products, but your email address is sacred.
Giving up your email address isn’t always an easy choice – so if someone has given you theirs, the least you can do is make it worth their while.
(And you don’t have to do it by offering lucrative deals on hand soaps, either.)
Clue your subscribers in on what’s coming up. You already know that they’re interested – if they weren’t, they sure wouldn’t have subscribed!
Our weekly newsletter often gives subscribers advance notice about upcoming events and deals, including those offered by us and those being offered by other people. Sometimes we share stuff in our newsletter that we literally don’t share anywhere else!
Another of our favorite newsletter content examples; travel blogger extraordinaire Amanda Williams uses her monthly newsletter to tell her blog’s readers about her upcoming adventures:
And once again, Product Hunt uses their newsletter to make sure subscribers always know about upcoming events:
When someone gives you their email address, reward them with a little insider info – they’re interested in what you have to say!
3. Curated content
The people in your audience don’t have time to read dozens of articles and blog posts every week all about one subject. You’re the expert – curate the best of the best and serve it up in an email. It’s one of the simplest ways to nail your newsletter content strategy.
That’s what Hiten Shah does in one of our faves, SaaS Weekly. He puts together a list of links to insightful content – content that he didn’t write– and shares it with his subscribers. He even breaks it down into categories, so you can easily pick out the articles most relevant to your interests.
It doesn’t matter that you didn’t write all the content you’re linking to – point your audience toward reading material that will interest them, and they’ll keep opening your newsletter to see what you’ve got for them time after time.
4. Unique content
You’re noticing a trend by now – your newsletter should provide people with stuff they’re not going to find somewhere else.
Not on your blog. Not on your social media.
Just in that one place.
One of the ways you can do that is by writing something special for the newsletter, and for the newsletter alone.
It doesn’t have to be huge or complicated, either! Hiten Shah adds a Tip of the Weekto each of his newsletters – a one-or-two-paragraph exercise you can do. We actually do the same thing in our own newsletter:
It doesn’t take much time, but it can add a lot of value to your newsletter. We’ve even noticed that in our case, at least, a lot of our readers take the advice we offer – so keep an eye out for next week’s tip, “Send five dozen cookies to Edgar Headquarters.”
Create a newsletter content calendar with ideas of tips and advice you want to share with your audience. That way you’ll never run out of stuff to say when it comes round to writing your newsletter!
5. Personal stories and testimonials
People love to see how you can solve their problems for them. One of the best ways to do this is by using real-life examples.
Perhaps a segment of your audience needs a final push to convince them to use your product or service. Give them a little help in making the decision by giving them some solid social proof via your newsletter.
Check out how this SaaS business uses their newsletter to highlight how much time they are saving clients:
You can use your newsletter to highlight your product benefits and how people love using them too! Sharing testimonials or customer stories is a great way to connect with your reader and show how you help real people solve the same struggles they have.
Write a catchy subject line
If you want people to open your newsletter, you need to get it noticed in their inboxes.
The key to this is writing a catchy subject line that will make your newsletter irresistible.
Try experimenting with different subject lines to find out what your audience responds to best. You can learn all about A/B testing subject lines here.
Don’t forget to give your subscribers ways to get more – and less
Whether your newsletter’s readers want a whole lot more of you or a whole lot less, you should make it as easy as possible for them to get it.
(And don’t take it too hard if they want less. Happens to everyone.)
For those who have an insatiable appetite for more you, make sure you have all your relevant social links right where they’re easy to see. For those who need just a teensy bit more space, on the other hand, make sure they can unsubscribe with the click of a mouse.
Let’s look at Product Hunt one last time for a perfect example of each:
Social? Check. Unsubscribe? Check. And our personal favorite: they allow you to fine-tune just how often you actually get their emails, so you can control how often their updates show up in your inbox.
Not giving your readers an easy unsubscribe option is a surefire way to get yourself flagged as spam. When that happens a lot, your delivery rates can drop. People who want to stop seeing you in their inbox will make it happen one way or the other, so you’re better off just allowing them to unsubscribe on your own terms.
And the most important thing…
The biggest thing to remember when you’re coming up with newsletter content ideas and fine-tuning your copy?
There’s no one perfect way of doing it.
Sure, there are lots of things like these that you should seriously consider including – but that doesn’t mean there’s a perfect template out there that everyone should use!
Experiment with what you offer your readers on a regular basis. Try new things, and see which ones resonate with them – and which ones don’t. The more you can tailor your emails to your audience, the better they’ll respond! Do you have any ideas for newsletter content we missed? Let us know in the comments!
