15 ideas for your e-commerce email newsletter

Disclaimer: This post may contain affiliate links to products or services that I recommend. I may receive a commission should you sign up through my link (but at no additional cost to you). I only suggest products and services that I wholeheartedly support and believe in and have either used myself or have used on behalf of a private client.

You’re now committed to sending regular emails to your subscribers but when you sit down at your laptop your mind goes blank. You wonder what the heck to send other than a picture of your product with a BUY NOW button. Not to fear, after you’ve read this post, you’ll have ideas coming out your jaxy!

15 ideas for your e-commerce email newsletter

You’ve got so much to do with operating your e-commerce store, so email marketing may have not been one of your top priorities, but if you’re ready to start sending regular emails to your customers and subscribers, you’ll want an easy, go-to plan to create content.

And what better than having a digital vault full of ideas to pluck from to turn to when you’re coming up against the cursor tormenting you with its blink, blink, blinkety-blink. So, just for you, here are 15 ideas if you’re  wondering…

What to write in your e-commerce newsletters

1. Your vision / missions for the future

Your products make a difference in the world, and I have no doubt you’re very passionate about that fact. It’s probably why you started your ecommerce business in the first place. 

Customers who care about what they use like to know whether the brand cares about the same things as they do. If this is a shared value, it makes for happy customers who will come back for more, so it’s important to share the mission you have for the work you do.

Sharing common values and world views means they see your brand as an advocate for what they believe in, yet if they don’t know the vision you have for the future because of the methods you use, or the brands you collaborate with to make a better future then they can’t get on board with your message.

So tell them all about your vision, your message and your mission to create customers for life.

2. Story of how you started your brand

It may surprise you, but customers like to know how the products they use came to be. Especially if the origin story is exciting. It also allows customers to see the journey your brand has taken from a seed of an idea to what it is now. 

They can then see themselves as being part of that journey because every purchase they have made or will make adds to the story and your brand’s success. 

It also let them see who is running the show and feels like they’re getting behind-the-scenes access making them feel special. Share your journey, your story and the cast of characters that brought it to life. This is how connection is made, which creates relationships and eventually they’ll want to buy everything you create. 

3. Method of how you create your products

Whether you make your products yourself, you have them made or you or you curate them, each product has a story of their own. 

Since your products do  good in the world, there will be something special in the manner in which they’re made or some secret method that allows the products to make a difference. Find ways to highlight this, so your customers can see the product’s story.

4. Why your products are unique

The positioning of your product is the key to making it stand out from all the others available on the market. You must define what makes yours different. 

What makes it more effective, better for the customer, better for the planet? Dig deep to find out how to communicate this in different ways.

5. Explanation of an ingredient or material you use

Your product is bigger than the sum of all it’s parts, however you or the maker of your product has chosen the materials or ingredients specifically for a purpose.  Why not shine a light on those elements to highlight something special about your product?

Your customer needs educating about all the little things that make up your product so they can see why they’re been chosen and why your product is not just some “throw it all together” type of thing that they can buy anywhere off the shelf.

6. Benefit of your product

I’m sure you understand about the differences between features and benefits but in a nutshell the benefits are what your product enables your customer to do once they’ve used it, as opposed to the manner or method in which that is created. eg. Feature = caramel vegan topping. Benefit = make you feel like you're indulging (when it’s actually really healthy).

Highlighting different aspects of the benefits of your products will allow your customer to see what is possible for them. There’s transformation available to them through using your product. Even if it seems like a tiny benefit, it can be positioned as a huge transformation for someone, so don’t sell yourself short on what your products can do.

7. Customer testimonials

The power of proof will always sell. Hopefully you have a system for collecting feedback from your customers so once you’ve received them, don’t just stick it on your website… repurpose them in email or even build a case study around it to highlight what your products are capable of.

8. Anticipation

If you’ve something coming up like a promotion or a new product release, use this email to prime your customers to be on the lookout for something coming. Get them excited and eager to receive the announcement from you. Incorporate these types of emails into your promotional strategy to gain momentum for your promotions.

9. FAQs from customers

No doubt you’ll have received questions from customers over the time you’ve been in business. Be sure to record these questions in some digital file (Google Docs is great!) so that you can refer back to them. You can of course use this to build an FAQ area on your website, but you can repurpose them in email and give your answers a more personal touch just because you’re communicating in email.

10. Transformation (Before & After)

People buy to either solve a problem or achieve a desired goal. Either way, there is a before and after story to be told about what this could look like for your customers. Use this to your advantage to tell a story. This doesn’t have to be a real story but a “what could be” if they use your products. 

11. Poke at the pain

Highlighting your customers current situation by poking at the problems isn’t necessarily unethical (although it can be viewed as so). People are more likely to take action on moving away from an undesired state than to move towards a desired state. 

This is fact, backed by psychology.  So reminding them of what they’ve been putting up with or suffering doesn’t mean you’re tormenting them, you’re just showing them that you have a solution and that it might be a good idea for them to change their current state if they’re not happy with it.

12. Paint a picture of life after using your products

A similar thing to the before and after idea, but with this you future pace your customer to help them imagine what life will be like for them once they’ve used your product.

The key to this is to get specific on the benefits of your product which is why it’s great to do regular customer research into what they think of your product and the difference it’s made to their lives.

13.  Reframe beliefs

Your customers have a predetermined idea of what they like, what they don’t what they’re skeptical of and a boat load of objections for why they won’t part with their money. If you can find the secret key to reframing their beliefs around what’s possible, then you’ve struck gold.

This is not about convincing them that they need something they don’t, but really understanding the conversation going on in their head to know what’s holding them back. They will need some coaching to help them see their situation from a different perspective to allow them to start seeing your product as the solution they need, without the obstacles preventing them from buying.

14. Agreements of beliefs /  Failure not their fault

To help them see you as an advocate you want to show them you understand their situation and that even if other products have failed them before, it’s not their fault. 

Perhaps they’ve been duped by clever marketing and bought products that haven’t worked. Showing them that you understand that they may be skeptical of your products builds trust, and positioning your brand as the one that will work this time!

15. Common enemy / Join forces

If there is a common enemy that you stand up against, for example let’s say you create natural, holistic tinctures and remedies, your customer will most likely be on board with the idea of embracing all things natural since they’ve been attracted into your world because of the nature of your brand.  Then a common enemy might be the big beauty companies who use chemicals or toxic ingredients. Positioning your brand and your customers as a joint force brings camaraderie to the relationship you build in email.

Now that you have 15 ideas to work with, let’s see how we can turn that into enough content for your email strategy for 52 weeks.

How to plan out a year’s worth of content

Let’s just say you plan on sending 2 emails every week. I personally recommend 3 emails a week for ecommerce businesses, but you can work up to that. And even if you only choose to send once a week if you follow this method, you’ll have content for two years.

So for two emails a week, you’ll need 104 emails for the year. Now you can take the above 15 ideas and turn them into content for more than 2 emails per week by creating 8 variations on each idea. This gives you 120 emails to play with.

Some of those variations will be easy to do, especially if you have a range of products available.  Whilst others might need to break down the bigger picture into smaller pieces so you can write about it in a variety of different emails.

For example, take idea number 2 – Your Brand Story. You could break it down like this:

1. The full story overview

2. How you came up with the idea for your business

3. Where you started from and where you are now

4. A challenge you had to overcome

5. A time you nearly gave up

6. The turning point in your business

7. Give a nod to someone who has been instrumental in helping you build the business to what it is now

8. What you would do differently (or not)

Every email is a sales email

Remember that every email is a sales email. You may not be directly saying “buy my thing” but you are building connection and the Know, Like, Trust factor as you send out these emails, which makes for a great relationship.  

As one of my sales mentors once said “friends buy from friends”. When your readers feel like they’re your friends because you’ve built that KLT factor, they become your biggest cheerleaders, advocates and customers for life.

And if you do want to say “buy my thing” in every email, you can always use a P.S. as a mention to your product, with an appropriate segue from what you were talking about in the content of the email.

Also, when you edit your email before sending, you may find an appropriate place to link some copy that seems relevant to a product. For example, let’s say you’re writing one of the emails for your brand story like above, it could look something like this...

“...and that’s how I came up with the idea for my first ever product, Bye-Bye Cow’s Lick. Who’d have thought my daughter’s messy fringe would inspire my e-commerce store?!” [Link to your product].

OR

“... I was working well into the night, every single night, for nearly a year, but it was all worth it to create incredible products that my customers love” [Link to your category page].

If you mention a product or even hint at something that could be linked to a product, then link it! It’s not a direct ask for a sale, but it gives your customers the opportunity to buy.