We know sending emails to our retail customers is a good thing but it’s hard to know what to send and we often lack inspiration for good quality content. This post is all about ideas for great content you can put together quickly and email your audience.

The focus here is relationship building. Sending boring or sales-y emails can drive your audience away and lose their loyalty. Instead it’s our goal to send interesting and valuable emails that make our customers love us even more.

Here are 3 ideas.

1) Popular blog post

Go back and look at all of your posts historically… were there any that stood out as particularly popular? Is it something that your customers would still find relevant today?

Stick the entire post in an email (or just parts of it if it’s a long one) and send it out to your customers. You might be surprised how many of them haven’t read it already and will find it interesting.

Don’t have a blog? Find a popular post from a blog related to your target market and send them that post (making sure to give the original author credit).

2) Your best FAQs

This works really well as a part of a introductory email series which you can send as a drip campaign after a user signs up for an account on your site or gives you their email.

Customers often have questions about the products they just purchased or are thinking about purchasing. Sometimes they don’t think to ask and don’t have as good of an experience with your products because of this.

Be proactive here and send out your most popular FAQ’s to new customers a few days after they get on your list.

3) Recommended products

If a customer recently browsed something in your store, wait a few days and then send out a few related items often purchased by people who bought the same product or similar products in the same category.

This isn’t a typical sales email and it’s certainly not random. The items you send must be very relevant and personalized to what your customer originally looked at on your website. Make it feel like a friendly suggestion chosen just for them. Make them feel special.

You can make this happen with a number of different automation services available that help you track users on your site and see what they are interested in. Jump on my email list here for details. 

You’ve just turned a sales-y email into something that your audience is actually excited about.

The key to success with any of these emails is offering education and support to your current and potential customers. They should be excited to receive emails from you and the only way to train them to expect this is by sending really great stuff on a regular basis.

It sounds like a lot of pressure, but put yourself in your customers shoes and do a little brainstorming. How can you serve them best?

Create content with heart and purpose. Put some personality in it and always focus on being helpful.

What kind of emails do you send to potential customers? Let us know in the comments.