One of the highest leverage tasks you can do for your ecom business is send emails. Emails build rapport and make sales better than any other marketing channel.
But how frustrating is it to sit down to write your email, only to stare at the blinking cursor for hours because you don’t know what to write about?
I get it. I’ve written millions of words over the last 15 years — blog posts, emails, ads, you name it. I know what it’s like to stare at a blank doc, feeling as if the blinking cursor is mocking me. ”What do you mean you don’t know what to write about?”
::blink:: ::blink:: ::blink::
But because I had deadlines to meet, I had to learn how to come up with topic ideas and angles to write about. I’ve gotten pretty good at it.
Here are a couple of my favorite tactics for coming up with unlimited email ideas to write about.
Answer Your Audience’s Questions
This is one of my favorites tactics because if one person is asking the question, you can bet other people are wondering the same thing.
For example, my audience are ecom and DTC brand owners. Some of the questions I’ve been asked lately include:
- How do I come up with ideas to write about for emails?
- How do I suppress subscribers?
- Can I prevent individuals from receiving automations?
- Why aren’t opens and clicks being tracked by Klaviyo?
Writing the answers for most of these won’t be difficult given my experience. And for the questions I don’t have much experience with, I can research it. That would help both me and my audience.
The same probably goes for you. Odds are you know your product inside and out. You know the challenges your audience faces and how they can overcome them. So you could probably answer a question in 20-30 minutes, an hour tops.
It won’t even feel like work. It might even be fun.
To get started, brainstorm and dig up all the questions you’ve received from your audience and put them in a doc. Then answer one question per email.
Google Search Console
I assume if you have an ecom or DTC brand, you have an online store. And if you have a website, I’m going to assume you have it connected to Google Search Console (GSC).
If you don’t, you should.
What I like about GSC is you can see all the “queries” searchers are typing in — the queries Google is showing your website for.
These queries are great for writing blog posts and other content for, if you haven’t already. If you’re ranking well for a query and don’t have a dedicated page targeting it, odds are you’ll rank even better with a dedicated piece of content.
And if you already have the article written, or plan to write one, the focus of your email can be to point out the pain points or challenges your audience has, then get them to click through to read about it on your site.
Or, you can just answer the question in an email if a blog post or page doesn’t make sense.
Social Media Comments
This, like the last two tactics, will provide you with all the email ideas you could ever write about. Here’s what you need to do. Go through your social media posts and YouTube videos you’ve published and read the comments. What questions can you answer? What comments require a longer reply? What complaints can you address or rebuke?
Another idea — go through your competitor’s social media accounts and do the same exercise. On top of email ideas, you might discover ideas for how to make your product better or just learn more about your audience.
With this exercise, you can’t lose.
Summary
Writing emails should be one of the cornerstones of your business. But to do that you need stuff to write about.
Coming up with an unlimited list of email ideas takes a bit of effort but is dead simple to do.
- Answer all your customer and prospect questions — aim for one per email.
- Look up all the queries in Google Search Console. Write about the most relevant ones in your emails.
- Use social media comments, questions, replies, etc. from both your accounts and your competitor’s.
If you use these three tactics, I have no doubt you’ll come up with all the email ideas you’ll ever need.