Do You Publish Your Email Subject Line to Twitter & Facebook? Consider Changing It…

 Here’s a quickie! I’ve been looking at a bunch of people who are doing a great job publishing their email marketing campaigns out to the web with a hosted version of the email, then using the subject line as their content for Twitter and Facebook.

For the most part your subject line is a great thing to publish, but here is something to think about when you do this. Think about all of the people who see your Tweet but don’t know who you are, what it’s about and don’t want to click on your link.

I’ve seen some of the following Tweets come through recently:

• March Newsletter
• Check Out Our Sale
• Best Buys for March
• Let’s See Your Collection

These are all fine subject lines for an email campaign, especially if your email From Label is recognizable to the list you’re mailing and they are expecting your message.

However it’s a bit different when you put your message out to Twitter and Facebook. There are people that might not be a customer, or be on your list. Heck, they may not know who you are. It’s a perfect opportunity to introduce yourself! You might try this on for those that don’t know you:

• March News from the Hingley Foundation to Cure Ailments
• Check Out Our Jewelry Sale
• Best buys on dog food for March
• Let’s see your collection of antique cocktail shakers

So your subject line is a great START, but make sure when you use your email marketing subject line in your social media campaigns you include your company name or the message you’re trying to get across.

Do you have any good experiences changing your subject line for social media?

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7 Easy Tips to Creating Stellar Email Content

 Once a subscriber opens your email, you’ve got just a few seconds to grab his or her attention. Stellar content can keep them glued to the screen. To help you connect with your readers, we have seven tips to help bolster your email content. 

1. Host a brainstorming session

If you feel like your content is a little drab, host a brainstorming session to help generate some new ideas, says marketer Izabela Socha with Cooking Planit. This company, which is an online site that helps people plan meals, holds bi-weekly brainstorming sessions.

Even if your staff is small, ask everyone – not just marketing – to come to a meeting and toss around ideas. New topic ideas can elevate your writing. And, if you’re a team of one like many small business owners, don’t fret. We’ve got a guide with inspiring ideas and a blog post with even more. 

2. Ask for input

Ideas shouldn’t just come from your staff; they should come from your subscribers, too. Send an email asking recipients what kind of email content they want to see. This gives your customers a voice and gives you more content ideas. Check out the example. This particular online retailer is offering an incentive to participate, which is never a bad idea.

 3. Less is more

With the right design and images, your email doesn’t need a ton of text. A promotional email, for example, may only need the sale details. Take a look at the example below. Notice there’s very little text, but the reader gets the point instantly. 

 

4. Write teaser content

Write short and snappy content, then direct readers to the meat of your content on a blog or a landing page like the folks at Cooking Planit. Tease your readers. Get them to click on your call-to-action button, and lead them to more content, such as specific recipes in the example below.

5. Focus on the reader

When you’re writing, use the word “you” rather than “we.” By doing so, you’ll focus on the customer. Take a look at the example below. Instead of saying, “We offer the following benefits” it says, “As a registered user you can.” The Home Depot focuses on the customer, not the business. 

6. Write with a single goal

As you’re writing, focus your efforts on one goal. Don’t try to cram too many topics into an email. Unless you’re writing a newsletter, the rule of thumb is one topic per email. Keep it simple, like the example below. It’s clear the goal of this email is to introduce recipients to a new pizza.

7. Say it with video

Try adding some video to your next email to mix up your content (you simply include an image of the video and link to where the video is hosted like on YouTube). Whether you record your company’s CEO thanking customers or showing subscribers a new product like the email below does, video is a great way to spice up an email. For a little help creating a video, check out a recent post on this very topic.

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What Is an Email Conversion?

 The success of a business boils down to whether customers buy what you’re selling. In marketing terms: whether they’re converting. And since email marketing programs exist to support the business, email conversions are a critical metric for most programs.

However, in part because email programs have many secondary goals that are unique from the business’s goals, the definition of a conversion has become more than a little hazy, creating misalignments at some brands. To bring some focus to this issue, we asked five experts two simple questions:

WHAT IS A CONVERSION? IS AN EMAIL CONVERSION DIFFERENT FROM CONVERSIONS IN OTHER CHANNELS?

Everyone had a fairly similar definition of a conversion (which we’ve highlighted in their responses below). However, as they expanded on that, things got blurry quickly. Interestingly, everyone agrees that there are a couple of different kinds of conversions—but they don’t agree on what those two kinds are or what to call them. The possibilities include:

micro-conversions and macro-conversions
email conversions and website conversions
direct conversions and indirect conversions
conversions and conversions to sale

Our experts make great points about why each of these distinctions is important.

ALEX BIRKETT, GROWTH MARKETER AT CONVERSIONXL, SAYS:

A conversion can be many things—it’s simply “the completion of a desired action.” That said, there are two general types of conversions: micro-conversions (opens, CTR) and macro-conversions (end-goal conversions like sales and signups). In general, I think many marketers are optimizing for the wrong type of conversions (micro-conversions) because it’s easier and you can see bigger uplifts.

So for example, if you send a bunch of people an email promising them free beer and pizza, you’ll probably get a sky high open rate and quite a lot of clicks. But then when they hit your landing page and find out you only sell socks, be prepared for a massive bounce rate—and lots of burned trust resulting in an eroded brand reputation. That’s why landing page optimization is such a large part of email marketing—if you maintain message match and keep the conversion scent through the funnel, the results are generally better at every stage.

Don’t get me wrong, measure micro-conversions. They can provide tons of insights. But play the long game and optimize for the macro-conversions. In other words, keep your eye on the sales, not the clicks.

STEVE LINNEY, FOUNDER OF EMRKTNG, SAYS:

A conversion is simply an action taking place on your landing page—or any other area of your website—that triggers an outcome you want to track. You define what the conversion is you are looking to measure, such as a new subscriber or a purchase.

For me, conversions don’t take place within the email, but on the website. However, website conversion rate is only one part of the story and you need to make sure that all parts of your email marketing funnel are rocking:

• Targeting your audience | measurement: send number
• Subject line | measurement: open rate
• Quality of message and offering | measurement: click-through rate
• Potential customers on your website | measurement: visitor numbers
• Visitors don’t like what they see and leave | measurement: bounce rate
• Visitors do what you want them to | measurement: conversion rate

A/B testing, refining, and tweaking should be always be happening to ensure you have the best user experience and offering you can possibly give. Keep in mind that testing is never ending as there is always something you can improve to ensure you give the customer the experience they are looking for and you stay ahead of the competition.

ERIN KING, SR. EMAIL MARKETING MANAGER AT LITMUS, SAYS:

Marketers often wrestle with determining the value of conversions if they’re not tied to sales, which can lead to the thinking that if a campaign isn’t making money directly and immediately, it’s a failure. The thing about conversions, for any channel, is that they don’t always have to happen immediately, and they don’t always have to follow a straight line.

Basically, an email conversion can be defined as when a subscriber takes the path you point them toward in your message. For example, if your email promotes an event, a click through to the registration page is progress, but a completed registration is a conversion. If you’re sending a monthly newsletter with links to your blog content, the conversion can be measured by how many of the featured posts are read, or how long your subscribers spend on the blog post-click.

Some emails lend themselves to direct conversions (I promote a product, you buy it). But there’s also value in “indirect” conversions, where your email inspires some other interaction with your site or product.

For example, say I send an email promoting a report download. My subscriber opens the email—and then does nothing. But my email reminds them that there’s other content on my blog that they want to check out. Later on, they visit and read some posts, see a promotion for a weekly email they’re interested in, and decide to sign up for it. Is this conversion the one that the original email intended? No, but the email was still the catalyst that started the subscriber down the path to signing up for a new email list, so it’s an indirect conversion.

APRIL MULLEN, SR. MARKETING STRATEGIST AT SELLIGENT, SAYS:

Very simply, an email conversion is when a desired action takes place as a result of a customer receiving an email from your brand. Many marketers, though, consider an email conversion taking place when email is attributed as the source after a customer makes a purchase or some other action such as registering for a webinar or signing up for a contest. That view is fairly myopic, though. Email is so much more than the final conversion event. It has a critical hand in the revenue-driving process by moving your customers down the funnel toward the website through a series of micro-conversions.

What’s a micro-conversion, you ask? They are all the smaller, desired actions that your customers go through to reach the end goal you had in mind for the campaign. Everything from delivered, opened, clicked, etc. should be considered as conversion events or micro-conversions that all have a hand in a campaign’s success.

In fact, if we really consider where the sale/registration/contest entry takes place, which is on a website, then email’s ultimate conversion event is really a click that passes a customer on to the website. I believe email’s ultimate goal is to sell a click because email isn’t actually the place where the final conversion event takes place (that is, unless you are one of those exceptionally innovative brands that has figured out a good experience to sell right from email without driving customers to your website).

The next time you see an email campaign that has incredible click-throughs, but low conversions, don’t blame email. Unless it over-promised something that the website couldn’t deliver, the email did its job.

JOHN CALDWELL, PRESIDENT OF RED PILL EMAIL, SAYS:

Broadly speaking, conversion means any desired, measurable action taken by prospects and/or customers, irrespective of channel. That was the definition of conversion in pre-internet direct marketing. It’s the broad definition of conversion in email, as well.

A conversion doesn’t always involve money changing hands. A conversion can be filling out a form or downloading a report. This is especially true with high-consideration, high-ticket, long-sales-cycle purchases, such as the business-to-business prospecting that marketing-services providers typically engage in. However, for some organizations, conversion always means a sale. Those are called conversions to sale.

Whether or not conversions involve immediate sales, it is important to measure the value of those conversions on a rolling monthly and quarterly basis. Measure the number of sales that result from the period’s conversions and divide the number of sales by the number of conversions to get the conversion-to-sale percentage.

But remember, any of these desired actions cannot be considered conversions unless they’re a result of some action taken by the organization. You want to be able to accurately gauge your marketing efforts without artificially inflating them with serendipitous leads and sales.

THE RISK OF CONVERSION INFLATION

Our experts make great points and the distinctions they make are valuable ones. But at the same time, it’s easy to see how confusion can arise and conversion inflation can occur.

The risk is that email marketing programs become out of alignment with business goals and objectives so that you may have a “successful” email program that doesn’t contribute to the success of the business. While the conversions associated with a campaign or email can vary from top of the funnel to the bottom of the funnel, the conversions that business leaders talk about and care about exist primarily at the bottom of the funnel.

The easiest way to avoid fuzzy metrics, definition creep, and false equivalencies is to keep track of campaign goals and metrics, but then also translate those results so they match up with the business’s goals and metrics. Keeping your email-centric metrics separate and distinct from your business-centric metrics will ensure that your email marketing will be a success in the eyes of your business’s leaders.

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8 Essentials For An Effective Win-Back Email Campaign

For any marketer, we feel a sense of excitement when we are able to convert a visitor to a customer.
However, only the first half of the battle has been won. The other half is trying to retain those customers by probing them with email newsletters and offers over the span of a few months to a year.
This part is more difficult and usually results in them going inactive and not engaging with your brand as a whole.

The are many reasons why people would go inactive:

• They only bought your product as a gift (it was a one-time purchase)
• They had a bad experience
• You changed your product and they’re just not into the new thing
• Your emails may be getting sent to their junk mail inbox
• Circumstances have changed
• They took a great promotional deal you had on offer, but was never really into your brand

Retaining customers is an important yet challenging task. Don’t worry, many email marketers face this problem too.

Customers will naturally decrease by about 22.5% every year.

So why do we bother trying to retain customers when we can just find new customers?

1. First, it’s a lot easier to sell to existing customers than new ones – 50% easier to be exact. This is because your brand has already done the hard work of establishing a level of trust, so convincing them requires little work.
2. Second, it’s a lot cheaper. It costs between 4-10 times more to acquire a new customer than to keep an existing one.

This is why win-back email campaigns are so important. But how effective are they?

Effectiveness of win-back emails

ReturnPath conducted a study where they analyzed 33 different win-back email campaigns by different ecommerce stores to see how effective they were at turning a non-active customer into an active customer.
Results showed:

• 92% of the emails made it to the customer’s inbox – this means inactive users were receiving win-back emails
• Open rate was only 12% – A respectable number as customers have not interacted with the brand in a long time

However, results showed that slow and steady wins the race:

• 45% of recipients who received a win-back campaign read a subsequent message after the first email
• 75% of re-engaged subscribers had read a subsequent message within 89 days (after the first email), with the other 25% still opening emails 300 days after receiving the first win-back email

image: http://marketingland.com/email-win-back-programs-work-81574

Overall, three quarters of inactive customers could still re-engage with your brand within 90 days

8 Tips to creating an effective win-back email campaign

1. Personalize your emails

Personalization is a must in email marketing and here’s why

• Personalized email messages improve click-through rates by an average of 14% and conversions by 10% (Campaign Monitor)
• 74% of marketers say targeted personalization increases customer engagement (eConsultancy).

Customers will appreciate you using their name instead of “hey you”. It creates more of a personal connection than a retailer-customer interaction.
Here are some ways on how we can personalize our win-back emails:

• Say their name
• Show previous purchase history
• Personalized product recommendations (upsell and cross-sell) based on past purchases

Netflix does it right with their personalization: using the first name, effective copy (note how they use pronouns, e.g. “you” and “your”) and a list of devices they can view shows on. The email also includes a strong call-to-action personalized to the customer, “I’d like to come back”.

Source: allthatiknow

2. Provide a solution

There are many reasons why your customer hasn’t purchased from you in a long time.

Understanding your customer is super important in the world of ecommerce. If we do not understand why they are going lapse, we will just repeat the same mistake over and over again, hoping to get a different result every time.

So Instead of trying to guess the answer, a better way would be to ask them directly.

Inbound adopts for a personalized message request. Maybe Inbound is sending too many emails or irrelevant ones. They provide an opportunity to let the customers decide what kind of emails they want to receive so it’s more personal and targeted. They also send a feedback request at the end to learn what they could do better.

Source: Audienceops

Dollar Shave Club anticipates that customers may not want their razors every month. That’s why they ask their customer if receiving a razor every second month would be better and shows them how this could be done.

Source: Flexmail

3. Segmentation

It’s a fact that your customers will appreciate your emails if it’s related to them.
We can segment our email list to subcategories. This could include:

• How long since their last purchase
• Low, medium and high-value customers – average order value
• Number of orders per year
• Customers that had negative experiences

By segmenting your email list, you can deliver more relevant win-back email messages to each group.

4. Highlight the benefits

Win your customer’s back by reminding them of the value and benefits of your product
Here’s a win-back email by Dropbox to users that have not added or uploaded any files to their account. They remind users to start reusing their service by highlighting the features of their product.

Source: Betaout

Warby Parker sends out an email whenever someone places an item in their shopping cart but abandons it. They know the customer has enough interest to add the product to their shopping cart, so a simple email may be enough to make them purchase the product. They use the copy, “want a better look?” to let customers know the benefits of their glasses – looking great!

Source: essenceofemail

5. Send more than one email

There’s no magic email that will engage every inactive customer. That’s why you should develop a win-back email campaign comprising of several emails. Send different win-back emails over a period of time to try engage your inactive customer. Hitting them from different angles is better than relying on sole email – also great for split testing and gathering data!

Here’s Adidas’ third email in their 3-part win-back email series. They opt for the urgency tactic, reminding them that they have a limited time before the discount offer expires.

Source: Omertia

6. Give them an offer

Why not try to engage your customers by giving them something – maybe a discount or a gift.
Study shows that win-back emails that contained a “$ off” discount performed better than emails with “% off” discount.

A great way use this tactic is to include the discount in the subject line.

Tip: Don’t send your discounted emails in the first email of your win-back email campaign series (e.g. send on the second or third email). Sometimes customers are willing to purchase from emails with no discount so maximize your revenue by saving these for a later series.

If a customer doesn’t respond to your offers, you can maybe send them an even better offer than before. However, this may be risky as customers may catch on and wait intentionally for the better offer – so use it wisely!

Here’s Crocs’ win-back email containing a $10 off discount.

Source: wisepops

Here’s another discount offer – 100% free discount that is. Pinkberry, adds a free yogurt to customer’s account when they have not bought for a while. By offering a bonus or a free gift, you can encourage a person to come back to your store and start buying from you again.

Source: Business2Community

7. Know when to give up

It’s better to have a small but reliable mailing list than a large inactive list that delivers inconsistent results. That’s why part of the aim of our win-back emails are to opt out people that won’t buy from you.

If you tried everything, but your customer won’t budge, sometimes you just have to let them go. You don’t want to keep sending them emails over and over again as it may appear spam-like and may give your brand a bad reputation.

Here’s Fab’s unsubscribe email where they opt the customer out of their mailing list, but leaves them an option in case they still want to stay on. They know the receiver will never buy so there’s no point having them on their mailing list.

Source: Hubspot

Here’s the clothing company, Free People, acknowledging that their customer has not engaged with their emails in a long time and ask if they still want to receive them or not. This may encourage them to engage again, but also make the customer unsubscribe. Either way is fine as there’s no point having a customer that’s never going to buy. 

 

Source: Hubspot

8. A/B Test

Don’t assume one headline copy is going to be better than another. Let data guide your campaign instead of using your own opinion.

The best marketers are the ones that continuously test and optimize their campaigns based on data. Tests could include but not limited to:

• Design
• Copy
• Frequency
• Timing
• Offers

The 33 ecommerce stores that participated in ReturnPath’s study split tested different subject lines like, “we miss you” and “a note from the CEO”. These had read rates of 13%.

What to do next?

Trying to get your customers to re-engage with your brand is never easy as they stopped engaging for some reason. However, with these tactics, you will increase the odds of them re-engaging and buying from you again.

What success have you had with your win-back email campaigns? We’d love to hear in the comments below or if you have any other extra tips, pop it down below too!


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50 unique ideas for your next email

As a business owner, you’re juggling a lot of day-to-day to tasks and may not have time come up with ideas for your next email or promotion.

We’ve put our creative noggins together to create a full year’s worth of quirky and engaging email ideas. Each month centers on a specific theme. Within that month, you’ll find four out-of-the-box email ideas for your small business. Each month also contains a marketing tip to get your creative mojo flowing.

January

This month, celebrate all things quirky by sending out emails around nontraditional holidays.

Peculiar People Day

Celebrating all the unusual, out-of-the-box thinkers that make the world so colorful, Peculiar People Day is the perfect time to get creative. Use this unique day to highlight an unusual or eccentric product that your company makes. It falls on January 10 each year.

Dress Up Your Pet Day

People love their pets. They love dressing them up even more. Encourage your customers to dress up their pets and enter your photo contest. It works especially well for pet stores, but any business should feel free to join in on the fun. The holiday is January 14.

Compliment Day

On January 24, compliment your customers on Compliment Day like Kara’s Cupcakes does:



Or, take a minute to compliment your staff by sending an email invitation to a team-building event like this marketing agency did.

Celebrate Opposite Day

Convince your customers to try something new on Opposite Day. Ask customers to give a product that they wouldn’t normally use a chance. The holiday falls on January 25.

A small business can stand out by sending emails for nontraditional holidays. You don’t have to be literal with all holidays—no need to install a bar to celebrate Margarita Day but you can get creative. For instance, a plumbing business could send an email about Peanut Butter Day and drains moving as slow as peanut butter. It will stand out in your readers’ minds. Check out this site for a full list of bizarre holidays.

February

With Valentine’s Day smack-dab in the middle of the month, focus your efforts on lovey-dovey notions in February. Any business can send emails for Valentine’s Day, not just restaurants and florists. Think creatively for Valentine’s Day content; here we’ve assembled some great examples and ideas.

Generate more email interest

Borrow an idea from zulilly, the mom-centered discount shop. The company sent an email asking customers to “Tell us which brands make your heart flutter, and we’ll tell you when they’re on zulilly.” It capitalizes on the holiday and asks customers to sign up for more emails.

“Fall in Love” partnership

Team up with other vendors in your area and create a shopping event around Valentine’s Day. Ten shops in Brooklyn joined forces and launched the “Fall in Love with Brooklyn” event. Customers were invited via email and given a map to hit all of the participating shops.

Create a shopping guide

Send your customers a list of romantic gifts they can pick up at your business. Apparel and lifestyle retail brand Free People created a “Valentine’s Gift Shop” — a curated collection of items that would be great for best friends or better halves.

Introduce a QR code

Valentine’s Day marketing doesn’t have to focus on flowers and champagne; the holiday comes with anxiety too. Capitalizing on the uneasy feelings of the holiday, Isobar, a UK cell phone company, sent an email to customers asking, “Does he love you?” The campaign contained a QR code that took customers to a promotional website. Try something similar that combines Valentine’s Day with a QR code. They work for some businesses and not for others, so only use if appropriate.

March

Emails around sporting events always draw a crowd. This month’s ideas prove that you don’t need a sports-themed product to capitalize on the craziness that is March Madness. Before using March Madness in any marketing or advertising, make sure you check the legal guidelines to avoid any trouble. Many sporting and other events have very specific usage guidelines.

Run a March Madness promotion

Offer a special March Madness deal. When you think basketball, you probably don’t think office supply store, but online office supply store Shoplet sent customers a list of ten customizable office supplies that connect with the tourney.

“This month, leverage the excitement behind March Madness,” Nicholas Womack, a business developer at Shoplet, says. He encourages other businesses to make a creative connection between their business and the big event.

Start a bracket

Bracketology is all the rage during March. So create a bracket for your brand like we did here at VerticalResponse with our Subject Line Slam Dunk contest. You can ask customers to vote for their favorite products and then pit the winners against each other in a knockout tournament-style battle. Announce the winner with a discount on that product.

Run a photo contest

Send an email to your customers asking them to participate in a March Madness photo contest. Or, try a “Young Basketball Star” competition and ask parents to send in pictures of their kids playing ball.

Video contest inspired by a world record

Did you know there’s a Guinness World Record for the longest time to spin a basketball with one hand? There is. The record is 10 minutes and 33 seconds. Use this awesome record to inspire a video contest. Email your customers and ask them to shoot a video of this rare talent.

April

This month get in touch with your inner videographer and add videos to your email marketing. Need a reason to make a video? Here are a few to get you inspired:

Celebrate YouTube

In April of 2005, the cofounder of YouTube recorded himself at the zoo and uploaded the site’s first video. Tell your customers that you’re honoring this digital anniversary by creating your first video. Pick a topic like thanking your customers, sharing your first product, profiling your first employee or remembering your first office location.

How-to videos

Give your customers simple tips or a few creative suggestions on how to use your products. A boutique could create a video with styling recommendations, while an auto shop offers up simple car care advice.

A video about your services

Bring your products or services to life with a video and email the link to your customers. Shorts company Chubbies is know for their inventive and humorous videos. To showcase a pair of American flag shorts, they sent a pair into space and recorded the momentous event.

Behind the scenes

Give your customers a glimpse at what it takes to create your products or introduce your staff. A behind-the-scenes video is an excellent way to connect with your subscribers on a personal level and nurture your relationship.

May

Celebrate your unique company this month by creating emails about all of the great things your business does.

Start a company newsletter

If your company doesn’t send out a newsletter, start one this month. It’s a fantastic way to keep your customers in the know. You can include a variety of topics in your newsletter. Brag a little when your company wins an award, offer a behind-the-scenes tour or introduce new managers.

Sending a company newsletter is a fantastic way to keep readers up to date on everything happening in your company. Be sure to send it on a regular basis so your readers come to expect it. And we like to keep them fairly short so that our audience can get what they need without having to commit too much time.

Celebrate milestones

If your company hits an anniversary or lands a big client, tell your customers about it. You could include the info in a company newsletter or send your customers a coupon in celebration. Either way, your customers will appreciate the update.

Offer a history lesson

Email your customers a piece of your company’s timeline. Include a call to action button that takes them to your site to learn more. Of course, you’ll have to have a complete timeline created on your site before sending the email. Here’s a good example.

Celebrate mom

Everyone knows a mom who deserves some recognition. And no matter what kind of business you have, you can pay tribute to, or celebrate moms everywhere. You can do a “Bring Your Mom In” special or a “Moms get a special percent off” deal. Arts and crafts retailer Michaels held a Mother’s Day crafting event.

A recap of the year

May might seem like an unexpected time to send a “Year in Review” email, but this kind of promotion can get lost in the holiday hubbub. Instead, send one out in May and invite customers to a friends-and-family sale in honor of all your company has accomplished this year. Big box retailers use this kind of promotion a lot, but it can be effective for a small business too.

June

Ah, warm weather is arriving (unless you’re in the Southern Hemisphere of course). Use this seasonal change to propel your email marketing this month.

Celebrate National Trails Day

Include a list of local trails in the June edition of your company’s newsletter to celebrate National Trails Day, which is June 7. Remember, customers appreciate helpful, usable content, and a newsletter is a good place for it.

Send a summer discount code

Summer is a terrific time to give your customers a little incentive to buy. Menswear company Bonobos encouraged its customers to stock up on summer essentials and offered a discount. Don’t forget to create a clear call to action in your email.

Welcome summer and new guests

Send an email that not only welcomes the warm weather but also welcomes new customers, too. If a customer has bought a new product or signed up for a new service in the past six months, applaud their actions with a well-crafted welcome email.

Summer giving

Team up with your local food bank this summer and get your customers involved. Send an email asking them to bring in canned goods like KinderCare Learning Centers did.

Remember dads and grads

Dads and grads rule in June. Offer special deals for dads and grads and get more customers in your doors in this traditionally slower summer month. Give grads something to spend all their graduation money on or their new found job earnings toward!

July

If you’re in the U.S., get a little patriotic. Use the Fourth as a catalyst for a series of emails.

The perfect Fourth of July party

This holiday is all about getting the crew together for a backyard barbecue. To help your customers host a rockin’ independence party, offer some tips to create the best gathering possible. You can also offer a Fourth of July discount.

Recognize a vet

You don’t have to wait for Veterans Day to honor a vet. Devote a section of your newsletter to your employees who are also vets. Offer a “Vets in the Spotlight” section that talks about their service and their role in your company.

Remember the first walk on the moon

Neil Armstrong walked on the moon in July 1969. In honor of this patriotic event, host a “Biggest Accomplishment Competition.” Invite your customers to add their biggest accomplishment to a growing list on Facebook. Give the biggest accomplisher a company-specific prize.

Made in America email

Take pride in your American-made products by offering a discount. Along with a coupon code, use this opportunity to tell your company’s story and praise the employees who help create your products.

August

It’s all about creating useful content this month. Here are a few ideas you can use to create “tips and tricks” emails.

A watermelon-centered email

August 2 is Watermelon Day. Yes, Watermelon Day. Think up a way to connect your product to this fruit-loving celebration.

Ring in “Work Like a Dog Day”

Celebrate this funny holiday, which falls on August 5, with an email about how productive your product or service can be. Try something like, “Today is Work Like a Dog Day, but you shouldn’t have to work that hard. Here are three tips to be more productive using our products.”

Tips to use your product better

Create a useful email that will help your customers get more out of your product or service. Try sending a how-to email once a month with a useful tip that helps your customers and your business. Serving your customers instead of always selling to them creates loyalty that lasts.

Celebrate Relaxation Day with a reorder email

August 15 is Relaxation Day. It’s a great day to send a reorder email out. Encourage your customers to relax by stocking up on your products. Send something similar to this reorder email from 1-800-CONTACTS.

September

It’s back-to-school time. Use this month to market to both parents and students.

Offer a back-to-school discount

Recognize this is an expensive time for parent shoppers by offering a discount. Corel, a software company, offered a 40 percent discount to customers on its email list. If you offer a service such as a salon, spa or car mechanic, tailor your message for stressed parents or college-bound students

A favorite teacher contest

Everyone has a favorite teacher, so invite your customers to participate in a favorite teacher contest via email. Put a call for nominations on Facebook, and then have your customers vote on their favorite entrants. Award the winners with a prize package from your company.

Last chance sale

If a deal has a deadline, customers are more likely to act fast. While you can use the last chance sale throughout the year, it makes sense to try and cash in on this busy time of year with a last chance sale.

Dorm decorating tips

Don’t forget, college students are returning to dorms, too. Offer helpful tips for the college-bound group. For example, offer tips to create dorm decor that suggests a few products from your shop. Or offer ideas on how to cook ramen in a dorm room, pizza or restaurant deals, or a back-to-school oil change before they set off.

October

From smartphones to social media updates, use this month to spin a few digital inventions into marketing emails.

An email celebrating email

In October of 1971, the first email was sent. Honor this big event by sending an email recognizing this milestone, and ask customers to refer a friend via email. Groupon, the discount site, offers an incentive with its refer a friend program.

Send out a survey

Email an online survey like Prynt, a photo-printing company, did. Tell the recipient how long it will take to complete the survey, too. You can also offer an incentive to participate.

Retro social media posts

When did your company first start using social media? Create an email that showcases your first posts and ask customers to join a conversation about how social media has grown through the years.

It’s important to balance creativity with communicating your core message. Use creativity in certain places such as in subject lines, images or a fun theme, but keep the important information in the email easy to see and read.

November

Let your email marketing reflect the season by creating emails that focus on being thankful.

Create a testimonial email

Incorporating testimonials into your emails, as clothing brand Athleta does, shows your customers that you value their opinions. Also, having a customer attest to the quality of your products often has a major influence on the buying decisions of other customers.

Generate an email stuffed with facts

Thanksgiving is all about the food, particularly turkey. Create an infographic that offers some interesting turkey facts. Think of a way to create an infographic that connects to your business and the holiday.

Focus on cause marketing

Team up with a charity and create emails that center around your do-good spirit. Paper Culture, an eco-friendly stationary and invitations shop, has involved their customers in their efforts to support the environment. They plant trees for every order. And they even let their customers dedicate the trees if they want.

Ask for feedback

After a customer makes a purchase, send a thank you email and ask for feedback. Online comments can bolster the reputation of products. Asking for a product review through email is a good way to nab positive reviews. Here’s an example from Garrett Popcorn.

December

Embrace the gift-giving season with holiday-themed marketing.

Take advantage of National Cookie Day

Celebrate this holiday by offering some holiday cookie recipes in your company newsletter like this bakery did, or give away a free cookie when customers come into your business.

An email full of gift ideas

Coming up with gift ideas is hard. Take some of the pressure off your customers by offering a series of holiday gift ideas. Rather than send one long email with a dozen options, break your emails into smaller, more specific topics. This email from Nike focuses on gifts for runners.

Email a holiday greeting card

You can go as simple or as elaborate as you’d like with a holiday card. You can use free card-creating sites like Punchbowl.

Be a holiday time-saver

During the holiday season, everyone wants the gift-giving process to be easy. Remind your customers that your company has plenty of time-saving ways to purchase a gift. For example, Staples reminds customers that they can reserve an item online and pick it up in the store.

With this guide, you won’t be scratching your head for email topics this year. While we’ve listed over 50 email topics for you, there’s no limit on creativity. Have some fun and see what kind of quirky ideas you can come up with too. Always double check holiday dates to ensure you send your email for the right holiday at the right time. Otherwise, you might be creating your own funny holiday!


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