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101 Newsletter Ideas To Engage Your Customers & Make Sales

Sending regular email newsletters is incredibly important. Not only does it keep your customers engaged but they’re also a great way to generate sales. 

You, like most merchants, likely already know this. 

This issue isn’t that you don’t see the value of sending newsletters. It’s that you’ve simply run out of newsletter content ideas. 

That’s why we’ve put together this list of over 100 newsletter ideas to serve as inspiration for your future emails. 

Our 10 favorite newsletter content ideas

1) Announce sales or any promotions you’re running

This is a no-brainer. If you’re holding a sale or any kind of promotion, you’ll want as many people as possible to know about it to maximize your sales. 

So in addition to posting about your sale on social media, sending a newsletter is a great idea to ensure your subscribers also know about your sale.

If you really want to engage your subscribers and build brand loyalty you can share exclusive offers through your newsletters that aren’t available elsewhere.

2) Share your top-performing posts from social media

The great thing about digital marketing is that your various channels, email, social media, etc., can support each other. 

And one way to do this is to share some of your top-performing social media posts. 

This not only showcases the best aspects of your social media profiles (which will entice some subscribers to start following you on your socials) but also makes for extremely engaging content. 

3) Highlight positive feedback and reviews you’ve received

People trust honest reviews from other customers more than anything you’ll ever say or do. 

That’s why it’s so important to constantly be asking for reviews from your customers

And after you’ve started collecting positive feedback, it’s important to share it with potential customers. 

While many merchants do this by just adding reviews to their website, you can take it a step further and dedicate the occasional newsletter to sharing positive feedback. 

You can do this by simply just straight up sharing reviews like Outer has done in their email below. 

sharing feedback newsletter idea

Or another idea would be to focus on reviews customers have left for a particular product. Especially if it’s a new product that would lead itself well to newsletters along the lines of “Our New [Product] Is Getting Rave Reviews” or “Check Out What People Are Saying About [Product]”. 

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4) Answer some frequently asked questions

Customers will always have questions and you likely get asked the same ones again and again. 

So why not preempt the questions and give your customers the answers before they ask? 

Doing so not only saves you time from constantly responding to the questions, but is also just good basic customer service. 

That’s why you likely already have an FAQ section on our website. What most merchants haven’t realized however is that this can also make for some great content for newsletters. 

Not so much the “what is your phone number?” or “what hours are you open?” kind of questions, but questions related to your products. 

For example, if you sell workout equipment you could dedicate a newsletter to answering common questions about which products work well with particular exercises or which products are good for beginners. 

5) Share any milestones your store has achieved 

Whether you’ve just served your 1,000th customer, been in business for exactly 5 years, or just shipped your 10,000th order, any milestone your store has achieved is worthy of celebration. 

Creating a newsletter to share this kind of news will help build a community around your brand and is another great way to demonstrate ‘social proof’. After all, if you’ve sold so many products, people must like what you’re selling.

Care/of does a great job of sharing their one-year milestone in their newsletter below.

milestones idea

6) Announce new products and services

If you regularly introduce new products or services, then you have a gold mine of great newsletter content ideas. 

And if you don’t regularly launch new products or services, then the odd time you do will make for even more engaging newsletter content.

By announcing these new products and services to your newsletter subscribers, you’ll also increase awareness and boost sales. So it’s a win-win. 

7) Open up and share something genuine

Customers appreciate openness and honesty. So a great way to build up the relationship with your customers is to open up and share something personal. 

This could take the form of struggles or hurdles you’ve had to overcome to get where you are now, a personal story about why you decided to set up your store, or by sharing some lessons you’ve learned like Tattly has done in their newsletter below. 

lessons learned newsletter

8) Case studies

Just like with positive feedback and reviews, sharing case studies also act as social proof for your store. 

But unlike simple reviews, case studies enable you to go deeper and talk about how your products have made an impact on your customers’ lives. 

This means they also give you the opportunity to spruik your products and educate your customers about the features and benefits that come with using them. 

9) Gift guides

Another great way to promote your products, especially some of your lesser-known products, particularly in the lead-up to holiday sales periods like Black Friday or Christmas is with gift guides.

In addition to letting you straight up recommend products in a not overtly salesy manner, you’re also solving a pain point for many customers: not knowing what to buy as gifts for friends and family. 

When putting together your gift guides, you either group products by price range or by who they’re most suited for (mothers, fathers, children, husbands, wives, etc.) Or you can do both like P&Co has done in their email below.

gift guides idea for newsletters

10) Any behind-the-scenes content

Another great idea for engaging newsletter content is providing your customers with a perspective of your store they haven’t seen before. 

Whether it’s how you pack and ship orders, where you design new products, or even where you create/manufacture your items, people tend to enjoy any behind-the-scenes content. 

Sharing this kind of content also helps humanize your store and makes it easier for people to build a relationship with your brand. 

Use these newsletter ideas for your own store with SmartrMail

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Other great ideas for your email newsletters

So those were our top 10 favorite newsletter ideas but there are dozens of more ideas well worth exploring, including:

  • Share any news stories about your store
  • A message from your founder or business owner
  • A monthly recap of what’s been happening (new products, services, etc.)
  • Share any recent awards your store has been nominated for and/or won
  • Any updates that impact your customers
  • Share little known uses of your products
  • A tip-of-the-month style newsletter
  • Sneak peeks of upcoming new products or updates
  • Product how-to videos
  • Listicles (top 10 lists of products for summer, winter, a particular holiday, etc.)
  • Ask your customers to participate in a poll or survey 
  • Share any recent studies related to the products you sell or problems they solve
  • Any statistics related to your store, products, etc.
  • Any infographics you think your customers would appreciate (You can create using free infographic templates)
  • Quotes you think your customers would appreciate
  • A round-up of your most popular blog posts from the past month
  • A round-up of your most popular videos from the past month
  • Transformation stories of your customers (before and after stories)
  • Free resources like guides and ebooks
  • Share some quick tips on how to use your products
  • Inform customers of your upcoming events 
  • Inform customers of any other upcoming events in your industry
  • Recordings of past webinars
  • Team member features to personalize your store
  • Introduce your newest team members
  • Interview one of your customers
  • Interview a thought-leader or influencer in your industry
  • Share guest posts you’ve written for other sites
  • Share interesting facts about your business, industry, or products
  • Let people know about any job openings you have
  • Recommend some articles from other sites 
  • Recommend some podcasts to listen to
  • Talk about how you overcame past hurdles
  • Open up about mistakes you’ve made in the past with your store and how you’ve improved
  • Share some common mistakes people make when using your products
  • “This day in history” style newsletter
  • Celebrate the “National Day of…”
  • Ask your customers for any feedback or suggestions they have
  • Talk about your referral program
  • Remind people how your business is different (and better) than your competitors
  • Share some positive news (related to your store or not)
  • Summarize complicated concepts, news stories, etc. relating to your industry
  • Share some ‘life-hacks’ that involve your products
  • Educate your customers about a new product 
  • Announce a Q&A session with your customers
  • Create a challenge for your customers to win a reward
  • Let your customers in on an industry ‘secret’ 
  • Share some memes you think your customers will enjoy 
  • Talk about what you’re doing for the environment
  • Make some predictions for what you think the future holds
  • Share trending social posts (whether they’re yours or not)
  • Share your Spotify list
  • Let people know about your podcast
  • Let people know about your Youtube channel
  • A Dos and Donts style newsletter
  • Expert tips most people don’t know about
  • Talk about any new features and how customers can take advantage of them
  • Take a trip back in time and share something you published ages ago
  • Give a shoutout to other companies in your industry you’d recommend
  • A “Surviving [insert holiday here]” Guide
  • Encourage your newsletter subscribers to ask questions
  • Talk about what’s been in the news recently
  • Experiment with a plain-text style newsletter
  • Share some exclusive deals just with your newsletter subscribers
  • Share a quiz or some trivia
  • Create and share a gif of your products in action
  • Provide tips on how to maintain and repair your products
  • Curate great content from all over the internet
  • Talk about what’s been happening in your local neighborhood
  • Recommend something, anything (TV shows, recipes, books, etc.)
  • Share some user-generated content
  • Include an advice column
  • Remind people about upcoming events and holidays
  • Recap past events for people who missed out

Wrapping up

You now hopefully have plenty of ideas and inspiration for your future newsletters. 

The only thing to do now is actually to start creating the newsletters. And this is the most important step of all. 

Especially considering how important it is to consistently be sending your customers newsletters. 

So don’t put off sending newsletters any longer! 

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