It might sound crazy, but even in 2021 email still hasn’t run its course. In fact, statistics show that email marketing continues to be one of the best ways of connecting with customers, building relationships and making sales.
That said, it's easy to assume that running out of email marketing ideas is the norm. Sometimes, the well simply runs dry, whether it's down to lack of inspiration or the fact that you've seemingly tried absolutely everything already.
After all, you've already sent tons of emails, right?!
The good news is that, with a strategy and a healthy dose of creativity behind you, it's totally possible to never run out of email marketing ideas.
How? Let's take a look.
Know Your Customers
The golden rule of marketing is to know your customers. If you understand them inside out, you can be sure that you will always have something to write about.
Sounds simple?
It is.
If you take the time to learn absolutely everything you need to know about your customers -- their interests, their problems, and even their daily lives -- you will understand their pain points fully. This will then enable you to create content that piques their interest.
For example, let's say you come across a new frustration of theirs that you'd previously missed. All of a sudden, you've got an idea for a new email.
Or, maybe you hopped onto one of your social media profiles and saw your customers ranting about a new hot issue. Again, there's a new idea for an email.
There are lots of ways you can learn more about your customers, including engaging with them on your social accounts, carrying out surveys via email, and gathering data via your customer support. On this latter point, you can leverage a chat solution that provides customer support to online visitors while at the same time allowing you to get inside their heads by evaluating the questions they ask your bots or customer support team.
You could even check out Quora, Facebook groups and Reddit. These are places where your customers are gathering, asking questions, sharing stories - and looking for answers.
Tweak Old, Top-Performing Emails
Take a look at your email analytics. They will tell you which emails have the best open rates, click-through rates and conversion rates.
What does all this tell you?
It tells you which types of emails performed really well, and which ones bombed.
It also tells you more about your customers and what sort of email content they want to see from you.
Armed with this information, you no longer need to keep generating new email marketing ideas, but can instead tweak old, best-performing ones.
For example, there might be a topic that performed really well. The email got opened, the clicks were high and the conversions were good, too.
But could you dig deeper into that topic? Could you rattle off another, similar email that goes further and helps the end user even more?
Spy on Your Competitors
We've all been told to spy on our competitors when it comes to content marketing. But did you know you can spy on their email marketing campaigns, too?
Well, you can - and it can be a great way to ensure you never run out of email marketing ideas.
Naturally, just the idea of spying on an email marketing campaign sounds tedious. And we won't lie - it is tedious. But by using a tool like Mailcharts, you can learn more about the best-performing emails in your niche, including what's in them, what their subject lines are and when they're sent out.
Then, you can zone in on the absolute top emails and see what you can learn from them. It's just a great way of ensuring you've always got new ideas that are destined to perform well with your audience.
Create a Weekly Newsletter
Many brands send out weekly newsletters to their subscribers. A weekly newsletter is essentially a curated collection of content centered around a single theme, such as your products, services, business news and so on.
By creating a weekly newsletter, you'll be able to come up with new email marketing ideas each week.
How so?
Essentially, since things happen each week at your business, there will always be something to put in a weekly round-up. For instance, it might be the case that your newsletter summarises the latest news from your niche. Or, you might choose to round up your latest blog posts, adding short, brief snippets of each post that let your readers skim them at a glance.
Alternatively, if you're a clothing company, you might want to round-up a specific collection in a weekly newsletter.
It could also be a good idea to segment your email lists so that you send out targeted newsletters to different sets of customers.
Think Outside the Box
It's really important to remind ourselves that the key to a successful email marketing campaign is to not go in for the sale all the time. Rather, the key is to build a long-term relationship with your customers so that they feel valued and that they trust you.
This is why it's smart to think outside the box when it comes to your email marketing campaigns. Ideas will come once you start opening yourself up to new types of emails.
Alongside your email newsletter which can generate ideas all by itself, you should start looking at creating a variety of value-driven emails. These can include:
- Infographics
- Updates about your business
- Links to your latest blog post
- Quotes
- Reach-out emails
- Surveys and polls
- Listicles
- Stats and data
- Case studies
- Storytelling emails
- Seasonal emails
By mixing things up, you'll find it easier to create a continual flow of new ideas.
Wrapping Up
We won't kid you -- writer's block happens when it comes to email marketing ideas. But, as long as you've got a strategy behind you, as well as some inventive thinking and an intimate understanding of your customers, there will always be new ideas that help you deepen customer connections and keep people opening and reading your emails.