What are Email Newsletter Types?
There are many different email newsletter types worth considering that you can choose from to create your monthly cadence. Newsletters are bucketed around the main action that the communication is trying to achieve, the format of the content and the behavioural triggers needed to activate the campaign. You do not need all of these emails in your repertoire but your email marketing plan will likely revolve around a selection of email newsletter types that fit your purpose.
Creating your Newsletter Formula
There are pros and cons to all of these email types. To select the best mix of emails for you you should consider:
- Your goals
- The value you wish to provide
- A conservative estimate of what you can stick to – it’s best NOT to overpromise!
Create your monthly email formula by selecting the right types of emails from above. Add these to your content calendar and pressure test against your buyer persona to ensure you’re providing value!
The Welcome Newsletter – the Essential Newsletter
There is one email that IS mandatory though and that is the Welcome. You need to know your formula first in order to set up your Welcome newsletter. Once you do, you can create a cracking one by following our Welcome Email tips.
Other Email Newsletter Types
Beyond the welcome email you should consider creating a formula of emails either in separate format or combined (although be war of combining too many types in one email as this will confuse your audience). Below are some commonly used email types to spark your ideation.
The “ICYMI” in case you missed it (per post, weekly)
Often set up to automatically send to subscribers, ICYMI emails are a great tool to increase website traffic and return user traffic over time. They are powerful only if used alongside other exclusive email content. Only sending ICYMI emails run the risk of making your updates appear overly self-promotional. Typical cadence can vary from every new post update, to weekly to even monthly. Most commonly these are sent out daily or weekly – but this would depend on your posting schedule.
The Editors Note (Narrative driven, weekly, bi-weekly, monthly, quarterly)
These are far less common as standalone emails these days but can be useful. The overarching purpose here is to bring you closer to your audience through sharing an inside scoop. These emails are often text driven rather than image based and can flit from topic to topic. Typically these emails can be hard to build engagement if they’re too long and wordy. Moreover there is a greater need to hit on the RIGHT topic, time and time again, in order to maintain engagement.
The digest (bi weekly, monthly).
These emails tend to be long and have a clear structure with purposeful sections. They often take longer to create. Consider these types of emails if you have a lot you want to achieve but are poor on time each week. Don’t be fooled though, these do require consistent creative promotion throughout the month. As they are longer in format, it can be tricky to get people to read all of it. Therefore it is not advisable to send these too often as your audience might become fatigued. Because of the reduced cadence these aren’t the best for building rapid momentum in your audience.
Edits or single action series (e.g. curated list of links and products or an agony aunt series)
These emails tend to be short, to the point and therefore more regular. They revolve around a singular action such as to Shop, Reply, Share etc. With these you can build momentum at a quicker pace so long as you are consistently providing value. With these it can be easy to bombard your reader therefore keep it simple.
The announcement
These are the only emails that aren’t a series. They work in their own right and do not have a regular cadence. These work well when you are promoting something and want to nurture your exclusive newsletter audience by telling them first. This can include exclusive partnerships, discounts, life events. These types of emails work again only when there is a regular cadence of other emails being sent. These require your audience to take notice therefore if this is the only email they get from you in months, they might flag this as spam.
EComm Newsletters
If you’re running an eCommerce platform or selling your own products online, you might want to consider some of these eComm newsletter types to add to your mix. For more advice on how to navigate Ecomm newsletter communications, we suggest reading our e-Commerce email campaign best practices.
New Product Announcements
You’ll need these emails to provide your audience/consumer an announcement of new product launches exclusively via email. These are often combined as part of a targeted promotional campaigns and or/personalised recommendations.
Payment confirmation & tracking
These emails allow the consumer to track and confirm payment, and follow the product journey up until delivery These are essential to provide reassurance post transaction. The digital communications component of a customer journey is vital for developing a positive view of your business in turn encouraging consumers to re-purchase.
Abandoned Cart
IN a world where consumers are distracted every minute, abandoned cart emails can be a great way to push potential drop off consumers to reengage with their commercial activity. This can be even more impactful when used alongside your products in basket are nearly out of stock notifications.
Personalised Curated Product Listings
These are a great way to demonstrate your businesses understanding of your consumer. Furthermore, these can expedite returning purchases within a short time frame. Even if purchases haven’t been made upon second visit post purchase, the exercise of checking products on your site is a behaviour that should be pushed straight away. In doing so you encourage your own consumers to become return users, and eventually naturally return consumers.
Coupons or Promotional Campaigns
These emails work in tandem with other types of eCommerce emails (as mentioned above). The purpose of these is to provide a discount, most commonly limited time, as part of a campaign. These emails are short and sweet with clear visuals the provide the code. There could also be some suggestions of where to use said code at the bottom of the email, so long as the recommendations are concise.
Case Studies/Testimonials/UGC
This content revolves around taking thoughts via reviews and testimonials, case studies and content generated by your audience/consumer to establish buying community trust and push consumers to purchase. Consider this your case study and social proof phases of your sales funnel, essential to communicate credibility. Note these differ to feedback emails, which uses an embedded feedback survey form to generate the content for you to share forward.
Behind the Scenes
Designed to humanise your business and establish supply chain trust, sharing behind the scenes content via production journeys, non-customer facing team member stories or even targeted advice works to build craftmanship mentality. This is essential when selling a luxury product.
How-To
As an extension of the previous email, How-to’s can aid to provide value longevity for your product or even push slow to purchase customers to purchase. The key elements required here is an easy to follow a clear CTA driven format.
Subscriber Management Newsletters
In order to better manage your subscribers for optimal retention it’s advisable to incorporate a number subscriber management campaigns into your repetoire.
Update Preferences
To avoid un-subscription and allow for segmentation, you can send your audience emails to update their preferences in order to allow your consumer to control their communication cadence.
Unsubscribe Email
Don’t leave an un-subscription on a dead note. You can use the last email to incentivise your audience to come back, leave a funny note or even check-in to see if they’d rather update their preferences instead of leave.
Examples of Emails Newsletter Types
If in need of some further inspiration for effective email campaigns across different email types, check out our bookmarked email examples in our 60+ Best Email Templates Selections.
