5 Great Ideas to Spice up Your Email Content

An email campaign is only as good as its content. What is the point of working hard to grow your email list if you’re just going to send people emails that suck. So in order for your email marketing efforts to work, your content needs to be brilliant.

Having said this, as a fellow email marketing user, I can relate to the pain of having to constantly come up with fresh content as the weeks, months, and even years go by. There is only so much you can put in an email, or is there?

To help you conquer writer’s block and give you some inspiration, here are 5 great ideas to spice up your email content.

Content ideas:

#1 Behind the Scenes

Customers and prospects are quite sophisticated these days. They are interested in your product or service, or the latest discount, but they are probably also interested in your brand and company as a whole. How do you make the magic happen?

So, why not create a behind-the-scenes blog post about your product or new service launch, an event you organized or maybe even how you’ve revamped your office space? This kind of content may seem boring to you because it’s your job, but it can actually be super interesting and relevant to your subscribers who would love to see another side of your business.

#2 A History Lesson

Has your company been around for a while? If the business has been part of your family history for generations or it is soon to celebrate a milestone anniversary (10 years? 20 years?) you can come up with some content around the heritage of the business. How has it changed over the years. How have your products and services evolved?

Email your customers a piece of your company’s timeline or include a call-to-action button that takes them to your site or a dedicated blog post to learn more.

This may take a bit more time in terms of research, but it will be worth it. You might be surprised how interesting it can be and how much engagement this could generate for you!

#3 Positive Change

After the new year, spring time is the next time of the year when most of us try to reinvent ourselves.

We want to shed a few pounds and get our beach bodies on (I know I do!), stop smoking, read more, generally change our bad habits and improve ourselves. And you can leverage this focus on positive change through your email content.

Create content that motivates your customers and encourages them to accomplish personal (or business) growth with your help.

Remind customers of a particular feature or value that you offer that can help them make changes or come up with new and creative ways they can use your service to improve themselves and their lives.

#4 Share a Quote

People love quotes. This is just a fact. I don’t know when our fascination with motivational posters and quotes came to be, but this phenomenon is now a fact of life. Photos with a famous or inspirational quote are some of the most shared content on the web. Companies as big as Virgin leverage the power of quotes, and companies as small as the local coffee shop do too.

Sending a short quote that relates to your business or your product is a great way to put a smile on your customers’ faces and get a few social shares.

For example, if you work in the teaching industry and you have a particular approach to teaching, you can send something like “If a child can’t learn the way we teach, maybe we should teach the way they learn” ~ Ignacio Estrada

Or if you work in marketing, and you have a new service that helps people with their social media efforts, maybe this quote would inspire them to take action: “We no longer have a choice of whether or not we do social media, the question is how well we do it?” ~ Erik Qualman

You can pretty much find a quote on any subject. Just go and look for them!

#5 Share a Negative Review

Yes, you read that right! Unlike what you might have thought, bad reviews are not to be buried in the back garden, swept under the carpet and generally hidden away from customers’ eyes.

Instead, you should showcase them!

Some of the best content can come from a bad review. Tell your readers that you appreciate all feedback and that you’re doing everything you can to make sure everyone has a great experience. The bad review and your acknowledgement of it, as well as a quick explanation of what you did to solve the problem will serve to validate your honesty and integrity as a business.

Realistically, no customer expects that your business is perfect or that every single person out there thinks that you are great, so bringing a negative review to your readers’ attention won’t ruin your reputation or how people think of you. Not in a negative way anyway.

This could also be a good PR move. Chances are your customers will see the negative review sooner or later, so why not you bring it to their attention first. Put a positive spin on
it and transform it into a pantheon of how seriously you take customer feedback

Hopefully these 5 ideas have given you the inspiration to create some amazing content you can wow your reader with it. Don’t forget that email is one of the single most powerful ways you can communicate with customers so getting it right is vital.

I know that most of you are quite experienced with emails, but just to cover the bases one more time, here are some general pro tips for instant email marketing success.

Pro tip #1 Start With a Clean List

Spring clean your email list by going through it and getting rid of emails that you know are no longer relevant.

Pro tip #2 Less is More

Numerous tests have confirmed that when a shorter and longer version of the same email are sent out, the click-through rates for the shorter email are around 30% higher than the click-through rates for the longer one. Shorter emails are perfect for busy subscribers and those who might be reading your messages on the go (think about the size of the screen).

Have a lot you want to share with your subscribers? Consider ways you can share a few things in different emails over a longer period of time. The rule of thumb is that you should always keep your emails to 1 idea at a time.

Read and re-read your content and try to cut out any fluff or unnecessary words. If there is more you need to say, put it in a blog post and link up to.

Pro tip #3 Focus on the Reader

When you’re writing, use the word “you” rather than “we”, focus on the benefits the customer will gain, instead of the things that you offer them.

Get rid of statements like “We offer the following benefits” and replace them with “As a registered user you can…” or “Only loyal customers like you have access to …”

Small and barely-noticeable tweaks like that can make all the difference!

Which one of these email ideas will you be trying out first? Let me know in the comments!