5 proven email ideas you can send your subscribers—with examples

Now that you decided to grow and nurture your email list, the question of But what kind of emails should I send to my subscribers? may cross your mind.

The answer is simple: The kind they like to read.

Duh? Who hasn’t thought about that yet, right?

But that’s the truth. And your goal should be to do whatever you can to find out what they like. You need to be willing to experiment. Especially when you’re just starting with email marketing.

Over time, you will learn what your readers like—and don’t like—and you can use this knowledge in your email marketing strategy.

Until then, as a starter, here are a few email proven ideas you can send to your subscribers.

Freebie delivery email

The quickest way to grow an email list is by creating a freebie that solves your ideal client’s pain point and seamlessly integrates with your paid offers.

If you’re unsure what kind of freebie to offer your subscribers, check out my recent blog post where I give you 30+ great ideas.

Once your freebie is ready, all you need is an open-worthy email to deliver it any time someone opts into your email list via your signup form. You do that by adding the freebie delivery email to a workflow that fires off on autopilot.

With Flodesk—my go-to email marketing platform—you can create gorgeous lead magnet delivery emails within minutes with their drag and drop email builder.

For example, I created the below freebie delivery email on Flodesk using only their available email building blocks. It features an imaginary brand called Trevelian.

The Trevelian freebie delivery email template contains a space for the business name in the header area, then a layout block followed by an introductory text paragraph, leading to another layout bock with the lead magnet image and title.

Cute little down-pointing arrows (a small GIF image) guide the reader’s attention to the most crucial part, the Call-to-Action button: Download Here.

The email footer has an About section you can use to briefly talk about your brand. Adding your Instagram feed preview and social media channels serve as further social proof.

Welcome new subscribers email

If you don’t offer a lead magnet yet, just a generic newsletter signup form, the welcome email is the first email you send when someone new joins your list. Again, the best is to handle this via an automated workflow.

And as for the email content: what to offer your new subscribers instead of a freebie?

The below Barnais Welcome email template I created on Flodesk gives you an idea you can implement yourself.

First of all, be thankful for any new subscriber you get. And next, share your most popular blog posts or any free resources you already have on your website or social media channels.

If you have an upcoming free (or paid) event, webinar, workshop, you can promote it too. But the catch is that as this email is sent out via a workflow, you need to update this welcome email after the workshop signup window has closed. Because you wouldn’t want to invite people 6 months from now for a webinar that already ended.

Newsletter email

The most common email type is the newsletter email. It’s perfect for sharing the latest news, announcements, blog posts, upcoming new events. Whatever is happening in and around your business.

Use your newsletter emails to keep subscribers excited and interested in seeing that there is always something new you’re sharing about without selling them something.

The below Trevelian newsletter template example I created on Flodesk features a seasonal newsletter—a summer holiday round-up—offering an exclusive downloadable to subscribers and a teaser to the latest blog post.

Remember to treat your subscribers as royalty and surprise them with small free gifts once in a while that’s only shared with them. It can be PDF guides, checklists, discount coupons, exclusive giveaways—whatever suits your business.

Challenge invite email

Organising 5-days, 7-days or even 30-days long challenges can help you strengthen the community spirit among your subscribers by doing something together.

The below Barnais challenge invite email template is sweet and short. Letting participants know when the challenge starts and when the challenge emails will be sent. Also, encouraging them to join the private group where they can connect to others and support each other during those 7-days—and beyond.

As challenges typically run during a specific timeframe and as you may want to send out the challenge emails at the same time every day, the best is to create and schedule them ahead via your Emails dashboard in Flodesk (and not via a workflow).

Sales offer & promotional email

Email marketing, like any kind of marketing, is about making a sale. Anyone who signs up for your email list knows that they will get an offer from you once in a while.

The only thing to keep in mind is to thrive for a healthy ratio of promotional, sales emails and regular non-sales emails. Make it 80% education, inspiration, connection, and 20% selling as a rule of thumb.

Your offer can be a new product or service that you’re launching and sharing it with your email list first. Or you can run a flash sale that’s exclusively available only to your subscribers. The promotional Trevelian email template below follows this pattern with a limited, today-only offer.

What kind of emails do you like to read as a subscriber? Let me know in the comments.


For even more Flodesk email template designs visit my Pinterest board. And if you’d like to get any of these templates set up in your Flodesk account for a small fee, just send me a message and let’s talk.

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