Creative newsletter ideas for any business

Email marketing works best when you consistently engage your readers. But how do you keep coming up with great newsletter content week in and week out?

It’s hard! We’ve been doing this for a long time and it’s always a challenge to come up with new email newsletter ideas. So we decided to create a list of all the eye-catching email content we’ve seen over the years!

This is an updated list! We added more ideas to cover all the new email marketing features that are available, and so you can get freshly inspired.

BTW: Don’t miss the bonus section at the end featuring the 3 questions you need to answer to understand how you can fit these newsletter ideas into your email marketing strategy!!

We’ve put together our 100+ best email topic ideas for newsletters to get your creative juices flowing, split into categories based on what you hope to achieve:

• Educating people about your industry

• Sharing news and updates

• Sharing your culture and personality

• Getting customers involved

• Ideas for e-commerce

• Fresh content approaches

Let’s get to it!

You’ve worked super hard to reach this point in your business, and no doubt you’ve picked up plenty of expert tips along the way. You probably have more industry knowledge than you give yourself credit for!

Tap into these insights when brainstorming your next weekly or monthly newsletter topics and share the love with your subscribers. 

1. Give tips and hints to help your audience succeed. Helping your readers should be at the top of your list. Include free advice in every newsletter.

2. Provide tips on what NOT to do. We shared an article of common email marketing mistakes.

3. Create a library of the most valuable industry articles published elsewhere, and share it.

4. Identify what’s trending in your industry and expound upon them. Here’s our list of industry benchmarks and email marketing trends for 2021.

5. Create a checklist or template for something useful and let your readers download it. We created this GDPR checklist for opt-in forms that people loved.

6. Offer a free, downloadable e-book, report or industry news.

7. Create a beginner’s guide to something interesting in your industry. We’ve created a guide to email marketing content and a beginner’s SEO guide among others.

8. Interview an industry expert. People like to hear success stories and learn how they made it.

9. Gather advice from other experts. Pick a pressing issue in your field and ask ten experts to give one piece of advice about it.

10. Share a post from a guest blogger that you admire and give your opinion about it.

11. Create or share an infographic and add some actionable insights.

12. Send a calendar of upcoming events in your company (like webinars or podcasts) or industry (such as conferences and expos). This helps attract a lot of attendees for future events.

13. Answer questions from readers in a ‘Dear Abby’ style email.

14. Review the past. How has your industry changed in the past 5 years? 10 years? Look for milestones for reflection.

15. Make predictions about your industry.

16. Compile a list of the best industry-related buzzwords.

17. Make a list of your favorite industry-related quotes.

18. De-bunk common industry myths.

19. Create a list of the must-follow Twitter/Instagram/Pinterest/LinkedIn profiles in your industry.

20. Inform subscribers of governmental or industry policies and changes that will affect them. The California Consumer Privacy Act was a hot topic for us in 2020, and in 2021 it was all about Apple’s Mail Privacy Protection feature.

21. Review of books that talk about your industry.

22. Share case studies that present how you or other industry experts succeeded.

23. Send a link for the most popular blog in your industry.

24. Create a monthly/quarterly round-up of your favorite industry tools, resources and articles.

25. Curate a list of current job openings in the industry.

Below is an example from Neil Patel. This email is short, simple and to the point—it hooks the reader in with industry news and stats and then uses this to promote his upcoming webinar.

What’s been happening!? Your audience will always be excited to hear about what’s been going on. Whether you’ve released a new product, or started a new partnership, keep your newsletter subscribers in the loop.

26. Highlight something newsworthy in your company. People like to hear good news.

27. Share takeaways from an event you participated in. Even if your audience was there, they’ll be grateful for the recap.

28. Talk about company milestones that you are proud of.

29. Review the tools you use that will benefit your newsletter readers.

30. Share a discovery that your company made to improve.

31. Use a scientific method to run an experiment on your own business. Record the results and share them.

32. Tell a story about something that took you by surprise. We shared the time our Facebook Page was deleted.

33. Let people know about your business partnerships and highlight the benefits.

34. List useful online resources. Where do you go to find the best free photos, advice, tips, and tricks?

35. Publish statistics about your company, products or industry.

36. Give a sneak peek of a new product launch or upcoming services. Make your subscribers feel special by letting them be the first to know.

37. Set up a countdown series for the arrival of a new product or feature.

38. Share what’s next for your company. Give your subscribers a hint of your vision for the future.

39. Publish a presentation you gave somewhere else.

40. Explore the biggest challenge your company had in the last year and explain how you approached it.

41. Share any recent media coverage about your organization, such as articles, documentaries and podcasts.

42. Ask employees to share their favorite feature of your product/service and why they love it.

Check out this newsletter example from Warby Parker—this is a product launch email done right. How could anyone not click?!

Keep your company newsletter fresh by injecting some of your personality into it. The more authentic you are, the more your subscribers will relate to you and what you stand for. 

These content ideas will help you get more personal, and show subscribers what you’re all about!

43. Describe and showcase your company culture. We wrote an article on our parent company’s website describing the remote culture at MailerLite.

44. Share things that you love, or concepts that inspire you. You could include images, music, articles or stories.

45. Write out the principles that drive the personality of your company.

46. Invite employees to contribute stories to the newsletter.

47. Introduce or re-introduce an existing team member that your audience should know (or know better).

48. Write an article on the company’s history. All companies have a story.

49. List job openings. Hire your customers! Why not? If they buy from you, they could be great advocates for your brand, too. Insert a job posting into your newsletter, and see who responds.

50. Share a funny video produced by your employees.

51. Show behind-the-scenes videos or photos of your business, your product in action, a recent event, or happy customers.

52. Give back with community service. Spread the news about your company’s involvement in making the community a better place.

53. Show a ‘day-in-the-life’ reel of an employee.

54. Share topics or issues that are important to your local community.

55. Write about your “BABY” (whether it’s a real baby, a pet, a new project, the car you’ve been restoring for the past two years, etc.)

56. Share your opinion. Is there something particularly newsworthy or controversial in your field?

57. Write a top 10 list of the things you wish you knew when you started your business.

58. Create a list of free eBooks or podcasts that inspire your employees. People love free resources and good recommendations.

59. Share the most popular posts, tweets and pins from your social media platforms. You could embed your social media posts in emails.

60. Talk about a team-building exercise that went really well and what you learned.

61. Share popular Spotify playlists that your team is listening to.

62. Send a list of your employees’ favorite Netflix shows that are currently running.

63. Profile different teams within your organization, and share some of the projects that they’re doing.

64. Share what your employees have been doing for personal development this year.

65. Send a personal message from your CEO.

66. Your customers aren’t your only audience! Send an internal employee newsletter.

67. Share what didn’t work! It’s good to give a realistic representation of your company.

The Remote Company stays on brand and lets readers into its culture and personality by sharing remote employment opportunities, employee stories, and vacancies within the organization.

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Start a conversation with your audience, and fabulous things will happen! Not only does it boost your marketing efforts and generate great content, but it also builds the business-customer relationship. 

Get inspired with 17 newsletter topics that spark conversation with your subscribers.

68. Interview your customers. Customers want to know about each other and how your product helps them.

69. Invite them to take a survey and share the results in your next newsletter.

70. Take a poll and share the results.

71. Run a contest on social media. Giveaways, photo competitions and video challenges are a great way to build hype around your brand.

72. Ask readers to share pictures of themselves using your product. You can include these in your newsletters.

73. “Ask & answer” reader questions is a fun way to get to know your subscribers.

74. Encourage readers to review your products on your website or on independent sites.

75. Tell inspiring, compelling stories about customers who are doing great things, such as climbing mountains, raising money for charity or training for the Olympics.

76. Ask your readers for general feedback about your newsletter. You could use embedded surveys in your emails.

77. Say Happy Birthday. Set it automatically!

78. Share when it’s your company’s birthday.

79. Celebrate anniversaries of when someone joined your email list. You can add a small gift in this email, such as free delivery or a discount.

80. Ask your readers to nominate the best blogs or most influential people in your niche. This can turn into several posts since you can take those nominations and write a “Top 100 Blogs/People in the Industry” post. Notify the winner so that they’ll send some of their followers your way.

81. CreateDevelop a quiz and link to it in the email. Use a quiz-building application such as Online Quiz Creator or use MailerLite’s quiz block.

82. Share customer success stories—highlight how your product or service improved their business while giving them a little promotion as well.

83. Discuss what your customer community on Facebook, forums and your website has been talking about.

84. Give a shoutout to loyal customers and partners.

Aegean Airlines sends out birthday emails to members of their loyalty scheme with a fun, friendly photo of some of their crew.

Keep your customers coming back for more with these e-commerce content marketing ideas. Your online business will thank you for it!

85. Create a list of the most popular products you sell.

86. Share the most useful products you have that people are missing.

87. Introduce a wish list for your products. Let people share it with their contacts for events such as birthdays or weddings.

88. Link to independent testimonials or reviews of your products or services (such as on Yelp or Amazon).

89. Review another company’s products that are complementary to yours.

90. Announce a sale or special online event.

91. Don’t forget other special offers, discounts, and coupons. Promotional emails are still one of the most effective ways to boost sales and bring in new customers.

92. Send a customer satisfaction survey email.

93. Create limited editions. Your email audience will appreciate being the first ones to hear about your limited products and exclusive features.

94. Got a popular item back in stock? Let your subscribers know about it!

95. Select and share products that are connected by the same theme or color.

96. Tell a good story behind the product—we all love to see meaning in things we buy.

97. Share a video explaining how to use your product to achieve maximum effect.

98. Share useful resources that would help your readers choose the right products.

99. Send a purchase confirmation email explaining how long it will take to receive the goods.

100. Offer a click-to-scratch. This is similar to a scratch card. When the reader clicks through the scratch card, they can see a promotion code for your online business.

101. Send personalized emails, based on your customers’ purchase preferences. For example, you could say, ‘because you bought X, we thought you’d like Y.’

102. Share a list of FAQs, so that your customers can stay up to speed with everything.

103. Ask your customers to make unboxing videos that you can share. This is a great way to create hype around product launches and engage customers.

104. Create gift guides based on popular holidays such as Mother’s/Father’s day, Christmas and birthdays.

Just in time for Father’s Day, SpaceNK sends out their men’s gift guide, complete with special offers and the promotion of an online event.

Everyone needs an inspiration boost from time to time, so here are some unique newsletter content ideas to spark your imagination.

105. Embed a video and let people discover your YouTube channel. Newsletter videos can give you a 20% increase in opens.

106. Everyone loves a bit of suspense! Intrigue readers by asking them to click a mystery link.

107. Write about great podcasts that will inspire your subscribers.

108. Create a list of must-watch YouTube videos.

109. Have a chat with a competitor and write about it (with permission of course)!

110. Select weekly themes. Write about a specific topic on the same day of the week, every week. For example, you could have ‘Perfect Moment Mondays‘, or ‘Top Ten Tuesdays’.

111. Write a ’10 commandments of’ or ‘7 deadly sins of’ or ‘5 pillars of’ post (or something else that’s similar).

112. Develop tutorials using text, images, screencasts, videos or audio instruction.

113. Write some ‘How-to’ articles. Think DIY posts, recipes and quick tips.

114. Talk about the weather. If weather conditions are impacting your regular business hours, customers will want to know about it.

115. Bring up holidays. There’s no shortage of holidays that you can celebrate with your staff and customers. In addition to the major holidays, there are also some less serious holidays that customers may like to celebrate with your business like World Martini Day (June 19) or National Puppy Day (March 23).

116. Highlight events that are connected with your business or your audience.

117. Think broader about your content marketing strategy. If you sell wine from Chile, don’t limit the content to just wine. Branch out, and write about cocktails, gastronomy and travel destinations in Chile.

118. Create a welcome email series. This is an easy way to start building a relationship with readers, and you only have to set up the series once! Check out our guide on how to use email marketing automation.

119. _____ in 10 Steps. Show a step-by-step guide on how to do something in a screencast, how-to video or in a series of photos.

120. Say thank you. Businesses don’t say ‘Thank You’ enough.

121. Add dynamic email content via MailerLite to target a small group of subscribers with something cool and quirky!

122. List your worst blog posts and say why they are the worst.

123. Share your most popular blog posts and explain why they succeeded.

124. Re-engage people who signed up for your email list but haven’t been opening your emails. Take a look at these effective re-engagement emails.

125. Do you have an old post that could use a little reworking? Refresh old posts with something new.

126. Interview people that inspire you and share the experience and what you took away from it.

127. Share what you’ve been reading! Include the books and blogs you and/or your employees have been hooked on lately to give subscribers a sneak peek into the brains behind your business.

128. Share your top hacks! These could be industry related or specific to your product.

129. Hype up your latest product or upcoming event with a pre-order/pre-registration alert.

130. Make a huge list of something (like this one)!

Zoom sends out top tips emails to engage their users and help them to use their product better.

1. Is it right for your target audience?

You know your readers better than anyone. Make sure your newsletter ideas will appeal to your audience. Will it add value to their lives?

2. What are your end goals and desired response?

Choose ideas that help you achieve a goal. Your goal can be as simple as reader engagement or more specific like to increase sales. How do you want the reader to respond?

3. Does the newsletter content idea fit your brand?

Not every idea is right for every brand. Think about your core values and personality before trying an idea. Does this content idea align with my values?

Editor’s note: This article was originally published in September 2020, but has been updated with fresh ideas and examples.