Newsletter Story Ideas (And How to Use Them)
If you’re writing a newsletter that goes out at least once a week, and not just when the inspiration strikes, chances are, you’ve struggled to know what to write.
But the real problem isn’t that you have nothing to write about, you just don't know how to write about it in an engaging, entertaining way.
Here’s the solution — using stories in your newsletter.
Storytelling is all the rage these days (as it should be). But why should you tell stories? What stories should you tell? And how do you actually tell them?
Well, in this article, you’re going to learn the answers to all these questions, PLUS leave with more than 25 newsletter story ideas for your next newsletter. Read on!
Why you should tell stories in your newsletter
First, let’s go through some statistics about storytelling:
Personal storytelling (as well as gossip) make up 65% of our conversations.
According to research, storytelling increases products’ value by almost 3,000%.
Customers who like a brand’s story are almost 60% more likely to buy from them.
People are more than 22 times more likely to remember a story-based fact than a regular one.
While these stats tell us that people are more likely to be engaged by storytelling, they are also a great way to differentiate yourself from others in your niche because your stories are uniquely yours.
And there are only so many ways to share helpful tips and tricks before you start boring yourself and your newsletter audience.
But stories?
Those never get old.
And in a digital world where the average worker receives more than 100 emails a day, sending emails that stand out is vital for preventing your readers from clicking the dreaded unsubscribe button.
Newsletter story ideas
And what stories SHOULD you tell? There are honestly an unlimited amount of stories you could tell in your newsletters, but here’s some ideas you can use:
Places you’ve been
Concerts/shows you’ve attended
Restaurants you’ve tried
Trips you’ve taken
Museums you gone to
Art you’ve consumed
Shows/movies you’ve watched
Books you’ve read
Music you’ve listened to
Art you’ve created yourself
Conversations you’ve had
Times you’ve changed someone’s mind
Times someone has changed your mind
Times you got angry in a conversation
Times a conversation made you cry
Inner thoughts
Regrets you have
Things you're embarrassed about
Things you’re afraid of
Times you made a mistake
Things you’ve bought
Things you bought that you regret
Things you’ve bought and love
Things you’ve bought and broke
Things you’ve bought that are getting old
Business-related stories
Behind-the-scenes discussions amongst team members
The evolution of an offer creation
A recent study/article talked about in your industry
Before and after client/customer stories
Positive messages received from clients/customers
A look back to the beginning of your business
The story behind your mission
How to tell these stories in your newsletter
Now, we’ve gotten to the place that is possibly the toughest part. How to tell your stories.
As you can tell from the newsletter story ideas, pretty much everything can have a story.
And everything can be entertaining if you fill it with your thoughts and maybe even some humor (if that’s part of your brand voice).
The trouble is how to tie it into whatever business-related thing you want to share (products, blogs, etc).
The easiest way to do this is typically to start with an offer, find a good story in your mental filing cabinet, and then tie the story with the offer.
Here’s an example of how to do this.
Start with the offer
Let’s just say that the offer in question is a new blog post you want your subscribers to check out. Maybe you’re a blogging expert and the blog is titled, “How to update a blog post for SEO.” The blog is about how blog posts can get traffic for years, but after a while, Google starts to prioritize the new ones.
Instead of writing a whole new blog, why not update the old?
The goal of the email is to promote this new post and get more eyeballs on it.
Find the lesson/theme
One of the best ways to find a story to tie into the “offer” we want to write about is to understand the lessons of the offer.
So, what are the lessons of this offer (the blog post)?
Let’s say the main lesson is that we don’t always need to start things completely over and that old things can be refreshed and be just as good as new.
So, if we’re starting with the offer first, we’ll need to go through our mental files of stories that happened to us that we can tie into this.
Find a story and tie it in
When it comes to what story we’d want to tell in this email, the lessons of this blog tie in well with the “things I’ve bought but have gotten old” story example.
Now, we just need a specific story.
Maybe you have a story about finding your mom’s old coat in her closet, only to realize it was vintage Channel!
Tell this story, then tie it in with the theme of “old things are secret gems,” and plug your blog post.
Story + offer = amazing, engaging newsletter.
Two things to keep in mind when telling stories
Write conversationally
When you're writing to the subscribers in your email list, remember to write in a conversational way. They gave you their email, so you’re practically best friends! Forget the big words and complicated sentences and go for the language you'd use in a conversation with a friend.
Personalize your emails
A big part of writing effective storytelling emails is writing to ONE person. So, make sure you have your email automation system set up so that you’re personalizing your emails with segmentation and using your subscribers’ names.
No one likes to feel like just a number, which is exactly how they’ll feel if you just write the same emails for every single person on your list.
Want to learn more?
Are you going to start mining your brain for newsletter stories now? Hopefully, this blog post has given you some ideas to start! And if you want more tips on email marketing, copywriting, blogging, and more, check out the posts on our blog! Here are some of our favorites.
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