97 newsletter content ideas for your next email

This article brings all the most eye-catching ideas we’ve seen during this time. It includes plenty of ideas we’ve used, as well as many that weren’t quite right for us, but may be suitable for your business. 

Keep reading to see the list. You’re sure to find something that will wow your subscribers and keep them coming back for more.

We’ve put together our 90+ best email topic ideas for newsletters to get your creative juices flowing. The list is split into categories so it's easy to find ideas that fit your business.

• Educational content email ideas

• B2B newsletter ideas

• Company and product news email ideas

• Email ideas that showcase your company culture and personality

• Employee newsletter content ideas

• Customer-focused email content ideas

• E-commerce email content ideas

• Real estate newsletter ideas

• Other newsletter ideas

Let’s get to it!

Your product helps people with a specific problem, whether it’s a software tool that makes scheduling social media posts easier or a sunglasses brand that helps you look stylish in summer. 

People who are interested in your product want to solve this problem, so share content that helps. 

1. Create a beginner’s guide to the problem your product solves. Include information about how your product can be part of the solution.

2. Provide tips on what NOT to do so people avoid making mistakes. Our email marketing mistakes article is a good example of this.

3. Create and share a library of the most valuable articles published that week or month that are related to the problem your product solves.

4. Make your educational content visual by creating an infographic. Be sure to include actionable insights people can use right away.

5. Interview experts to hear tips about how they think about the problem. 

6. Write blog posts on relevant topics and summarize them in your newsletter. Include a link to generate website clicks. 

7. Create and share helpful resources that people can use to solve their problems. For example, at MailerLite we promote our newsletter, automation, website and landing page templates that anyone can use to start marketing their product quickly.

8. Share links to help resources—like your community and knowledge base—so people can find answers to their problems independently.

9.  Create expert roundups that include advice from multiple people about a particular problem. Customers will get multiple points of view on how to think about an issue. 

10. Share links to helpful presentations, podcasts, videos or blog posts you’ve published around the web.

B2B newsletters typically focus on industry-related content and problems faced by people in the field. Here are some ideas you can use to engage your B2B readers.

11. Identify trending industry topics and create emails around them. Ask your subscribers to share their opinions too. This list of email marketing trends is a good example of this type of content.

12. Create a checklist or template for a common industry challenge. We created this GDPR checklist to help people create opt-in forms that work while staying GDPR compliant.

13. Offer a downloadable e-book or report that provides more information on a particular industry challenge. 

14. Share case studies and testimonials to show how your product is helping other businesses. 

15. Use your product data to provide useful insight into your industry. For example, we share email marketing benchmarks to help people measure and compare their campaign performance with others. 

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

17. De-bunk common industry myths.

18. Promote a webinar that teaches people about challenges in their industry. Zapier uses its newsletter to promote a webinar about how to build no-code apps.

19. Create a list of the must-follow Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, and LinkedIn profiles in your industry. Be sure to let the people you feature know you choose them—they may share your newsletter with their audience if you do. 

20. Inform subscribers of governmental or industry policies and changes that will affect them. In our newsletter, we’ve shared articles that keep people up to date with the California Consumer Privacy Act and Apple’s Mail Privacy Protection feature. 

21. Curate a list of current job openings in the industry. Updating this regularly can be a good way to keep people opening your email over time. 

Your email newsletter is an effective way to tell people about your company and product. Focusing on your biggest updates and highlighting how the changes are relevant to the recipient can lead to engagement and sales. 

22. Share your latest products and collections. Include all the information people need to make a purchase. E-commerce product boxes make it super easy to add images, descriptions and product links to your email. 

23. Share takeaways from an event you participated in. Your audience will be grateful for the recap. 

24. Highlight recent or soon-to-be-released product updates. Present them in a way that makes people excited to try them.

25. Share things you’ve learned while running a business to help your audience improve. Make sure the learnings you share are relevant to your audience. At MailerLite we share the things we learn about email as this is what our subscribers are interested in. We wouldn’t share learnings from the product development team, even though we’re sure they have plenty of useful insights.

26. Let people know about your business partnerships and highlight how they benefit the subscriber.

27. Set up a countdown series for the arrival of a new product, feature or sale. In the below email, Unisports Running used a timer to clearly highlight how long subscribers have left to take advantage of its sale.

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

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

30. Share any recent media coverage about your organization, such as articles, documentaries and podcasts. When we ranked number 1 in EmailToolTester’s deliverability report, we shared the news in our newsletter. 

31. Ask employees to share their favorite product features and why they love them.

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

Keep your company newsletter fresh by filling it with your personality. The more authentic you are, the more your subscribers will relate to you and what you stand for. Just make sure the content is relevant to your audience. 

33. Share articles, videos, or social content that highlights your unique company culture.

34. Share images, music, articles or stories that you and your team love.

35. List job openings. Hire your customers! Why not? Your subscribers already understand your brand, product and industry, so could be a good fit if they have the required skills. Insert a job posting into your newsletter and see who responds.

36. Share images of your employee’s pets. Everyone loves cute animal images, so share your team’s best ones, like we did in a recent newsletter.

37. Showcase your business’ human side by sharing behind-the-scenes videos or photos.

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

39. Show a 'day-in-the-life' reel of an employee.

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

41. Create a list of free eBooks or podcasts that inspire your employees. 

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

Sending an internal employee newsletter is an effective way to keep your staff up to date with your business. We’ve got a full list of employee newsletter content ideas with examples from our own newsletters. Here are some of the best ideas from that article.

43. Welcome new hires by sharing a profile with their position, start date, and some fun facts. 

44. Celebrate your employees’ achievements by highlighting them in your internal newsletter. 

45. Promote blog and social content to give engagement a boost and keep people up to date with the types of content you are creating.

46. Profile different teams within your organization, and share some of the projects they're working on.

47. Share company news and updates, whether that’s policy changes, event promotions, product releases, or anything else relevant to the people in your organization.

48. Highlight important conversations from your internal messaging platform. This is a good way to increase visibility of your most important discussions.

49. Send surveys to collect employee feedback and use it to make the experience of working for your company even better. 

50. Share popular Spotify playlists or Netflix shows that your team is enjoying. It’s a good way for people in your company to get to know each other. 

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

Start a conversation with your audience and fabulous things will happen! Get your customers involved in the content creation process to generate ideas and build stronger relationships. 

52. Interview your customers to show how your product helps them.

53. Invite customers to take a survey and share the results in your next newsletter.

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

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

56. Ask for reader questions and share answers in your next newsletter. Do this every week and you’ll generate endless topics to discuss.

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

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

59. Ask your readers for feedback about your newsletter or product. Use embedded email surveys to make giving feedback as easy as possible. You can also use the answers to segment your subscribers. 

60. Say Happy Birthday. Set up a birthday email automation to do it automatically!

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

62. Ask your readers to nominate the best blogs or most influential people in your niche. Share the answers in your newsletter and on your other platforms.

63. Develop a quiz and link to it in the email. MailerLite’s online quiz maker makes this super easy to do.

64. Share customer success stories—you’ll highlight how your product or service improved the customer’s business while giving them valuable exposure to your email list.

65. Share content and discussions from your community or social groups. This content is likely to be interesting to your target audience and acts as a way to generate community signups.

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

66. Create a list of your most popular products.

67. Introduce a product wish list. Let people share it with their contacts for upcoming events such as birthdays or weddings.

68. Link to independent testimonials or reviews of your products or services on websites like Yelp or Amazon.

69. Announce a sale or online event. Use special offers, discounts, and coupons to promote your product and bring in new customers.

70. Send a customer satisfaction survey email.

71. Got a popular item back in stock? Let your subscribers know about it, like Away does in the newsletter below.

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

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

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

75. Share useful resources that will help your readers choose the right products.

76. Send personalized emails based on your customers’ purchase preferences. 

77. Share a list of FAQs with all the information customers need to know about your product.

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

79. Create gift guides based on popular holidays such as Mother’s or Father’s Day, Christmas and birthdays.

Real estate newsletters can use many of the general ideas in this article. But there are also plenty of specific content ideas that work for these businesses. Here are 6 real estate newsletter ideas you can use to promote your business. 

80. Create area guides or what's on listings to get potential buyers excited about the area you sell in.

81. Share industry updates and articles with a note about how they impact your buyers and sellers. You’ll position yourself as an expert and there are tons of publications that write about real estate that you can draw content from.

82. Buying or selling a house is the biggest deal most people will ever make, so it’s essential that your subscribers trust you to do a good job. Show that you’re the right fit by sharing testimonials from happy buyers and sellers.

83. Share your latest listings to generate interest among your subscribers. The MailerLite real estate newsletter template has a pre-built listings block that you can customize with your own images.

84. Create guides that help people prepare for buying or selling their house. Highlight factors that can impact price, documents people need to gather, and tips for the bidding or negotiation process.

85. Highlight recently sold listings. This acts as social proof that you’re an effective seller while also generating a fear of missing out among potential buyers.  

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

86. Embed a video in your newsletter to promote your YouTube channel. Create a list of must-watch videos so people who want to dive deeper have a list of content they can interact with.

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

88. 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.

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

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

91. Highlight local or online events that your audience will find interesting.

92. Think broader about your digital 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.

93. 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.

94. Share your most popular blog posts and explain why they succeeded. Or, refresh old posts with something new.

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

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

97. Write a huge list (like this one)!

Now you’ve read our guide you should have plenty of ideas for your next newsletter. Use these 5 best practices to narrow down the ideas to the ones that best fit your brand and subscribers.

1. Use data to choose interesting topics 

You know your readers better than anyone so make sure the newsletter ideas you choose appeal to your audience. If you aren’t sure which ideas will resonate, look at past newsletters to see which ones generated the best responses. 

Here are 3 email marketing metrics that highlight the types of content that resonate:

1. Open rate: If an email has a high open rate, it suggests the content in the subject line was particularly appealing to your subscribers. 

2. Link clicks: Look through your past newsletters to see which links generated the most clicks. Create content similar to the pieces that got a reaction. 

3. Website and social analytics: Look at your website and social analytics to see the type of content your audience responds to. If people like a particular social post, there’s a good chance that something similar will also work well in your newsletter. 

Head to the Campaigns section of your MailerLite dashboard to see the open rate of all your newsletters. Click on a particular newsletter to see the subject line you used and information about what people clicked on.

2. Consider your newsletter goals

Your email marketing strategy should have a specific goal or set of goals. Make sure the ideas you choose push towards these targets. 

For example, while it can be fun to write personal stories in your newsletter, if your goal is to generate sales, you may get better results if you stick to e-commerce content like product blocks and countdown timers. 

If you’re unsure about the type of content that will lead to your goals, use A/B testing to create multiple versions of your newsletter and see which performs best. You can use the learnings in your future newsletters. 

3. Think about brand consistency when choosing content

Not every idea is right for every brand. Think about your core values and personality before trying an idea to ensure you give people what they expect from your brand. 

Try to be consistent with the type of content you produce. This ensures people know what to expect whenever they receive your email. If people feel they receive totally different content in every newsletter, they may be less likely to open your emails. 

Creating a template with the MailerLite drag & drop builder can also help your branding. Using the same logo, font, design and colors in each campaign ensures you create a consistent experience for your subscribers. Read this article for more on designing great-looking newsletters. 

4. Keep organized with a content calendar

Set up an email marketing content calendar if you continually find yourself struggling for ideas. Spending an hour or two planning content for the next few months will give you clarity about the types of content you send and means you won’t be rushing to find ideas. 

You’ll also be able to plan your content based on your product plan or important dates which can lead to more relevant ideas. Click here to download our free content calendar and start planning your campaigns today. Your future self will thank you! 

5. Don’t limit yourself to this list

We’ve provided plenty of ideas in this article but there are limitless possibilities for creating email content that is specific to your brand or business. 

Read this article for our guide to finding content ideas of your own, or check out our monthly newsletter ideas articles for seasonally relevant inspiration. 

Here are our August and September ideas articles, or use our site’s search feature to find idea articles for any other month.

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

Do you have more ideas? Please share in the comments. We'd love to add more ideas to the list!