8 Unexpected Email Ideas to Surprise Your Subscribers

1. EMPLOYEE PROFILES

Huge brands have been using genuine staff to market for decades, an idea that can be seen in IBM’s “I am an IBMer” campaign:

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You don’t have to be as big as IBM to use this approach. Anyone can benefit from putting a more human, real and relatable face out there.

An email campaign centred around your clients’ specific account managers can be a great way to make clients feel special.

You could even send a profile of a random member of your team - maybe the employee of the month?

2. BRAND STORIES

Like you might send a press release to news agencies, email is a perfect way to tell a recent brand story.

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If your story is about the release of a new product then you’ll probably be emailing subscribers to advertise anyway, but why not try to talk about it from another perspective?

Explain the development or research process, the challenges your team faced and your hopes for how it will perform.

With the exception of newsletters, subscribers don’t expect brand updates without a hard sell – so pleasantly surprise them!

3. ANIMATED GIFS

In case you didn’t notice, I think gifs are amazing. Nevertheless, I’m sure your customers aren’t expecting an email campaign made entirely from the moving files.

Therefore, why not try sending a Funny Gifs for Friday campaign? Maybe an instructive gif showing how to use a certain product.

Moving pictures catch the eye and are often shared feverishly on social media.

4. PHOTOGRAPHY SPECIALS

Have a budding paparazzo in your office? Give them a bit of free rein with their iPhone around the place, and use the resulting images to give your subscribers a light-hearted insight into your work culture or any events from the past week.

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5. QUIZZES & COMPETITIONS

Silly, fun and educational quizzes have recently experienced a resurgence on social media, as well as for sites like Buzzfeed.

Why not give a little entertainment to your subscribers by building a quiz and inviting them to take part by email?

Nothing needs to be at stake (there doesn’t need to be a prize!) but quizzes and games are a surefire way to encourage clicks and positive engagement.

6. SAY HAPPY BIRTHDAY!

A lot of retail brands send emails wishing the subscriber happy birthday. So why not get in on the act?

You might not be able to offer each customer a free bottle of prosecco, but if they’re already receiving several messages with restaurant deals and clothing vouchers, coming at it from a different direction would be extremely beneficial.

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7. MARK A CUSTOMER ANNIVERSARY

In much the same way as it’s easy to mark a customer’s birthday with an automated birthday email, why not mark an anniversary with your company? Use the first time they ever purchased from you or first signed up to your service and send them an email celebrating the date!

Offering something for free – like a discount – at the same time is a great way to mark the occasion and to encourage them to make another purchase.

Plus, they almost certainly won’t be expecting it!

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8. VIDEO TUTORIALS

Did you know that over 6 billion hours of video are watched on YouTube each month? You can capture some of this engagement by releasing your own, branded video tutorials.

Launching them by email is the perfect way to get directly to the people that want to watch them. Plus, if it’s a tutorial video (with no hard sell) people will find value in the clip and be pleasantly surprised it isn’t yet another sales campaign.