It’s important to remember that every business is different, with different needs and goals, so what works for some brands might not work for you. However, with these email newsletters for marketing in mind, you’ll be able to funnel the inspiration into a design and message that works.

11 Email Newsletters for Marketing to Engage and Delight Subscribers:

What Makes an Email Newsletter Great?

Before we get into our email newsletters for marketing, let’s take a minute to talk about what it is that makes an email marketing campaign great. In this section, we’ll cover message, design, optimization, and calls to action so you have a better understanding of what you can—and should—include in your own email newsletters.

Message

To create an email campaign that truly speaks to your target audience, you need to have a clear goal for every email you send. Once you have your goal in mind, you can then build your message around that goal, using your mission as a guide. You want to make sure that your message is in line with your brand’s personality, identity, and values, as well as making sense with what you’re hoping to accomplish. It’s a lot to think about, but if you’ve taken the steps to build your branding, or you’re working with a branding agency, that will help a lot.

Design

Email marketers take great care choosing just the right newsletter templates and newsletter content for their email marketing strategy. The design you choose for your email marketing campaign has a lot to do with whether or not your subscribers will pay attention and read or delete and move on. The best designs are those that have attractive visuals to draw the eyes of readers. Emails these days are almost like mini-web pages with images, GIFs, memes, illustrations, and more. Of course, there’s something to be said for a text-only email campaign if your message warrants it. There are tons of free email marketing tools you can use to create a beautifully designed email campaign or newsletter layout that rivals the effective e-newsletters we’ve included here. No matter what design or email template you choose, you’ll want to make your copy readable and intriguing in order to get readers to click-through your links and get the message you’re trying to convey.

Optimization

Optimization can touch on any number of things. For starters, you’ll want to make sure that your email subject lines are short, punchy, and engaging just to get your subscribers to open the email. Email marketers are fond of personalization because it goes a long way towards getting eyes on your email, but don’t just limit it to adding a name in your subject line. Using dynamic content or well-executed segmenting can help you create personalized newsletter content that is relevant and valuable.

Calls to Action

Calls-to-action (CTAs) are the not-so-secret weapon of the best email marketers. CTAs are what tells your readers what you want them to do. If you’re sending an email newsletter marketing campaign, chances are good that you’re trying to drive traffic back to your website. That means your email newsletters should include a CTA that is not only interesting and engaging but tells your readers exactly what to do and what they’ll get if they follow through.

11 Email Newsletters for Marketing to Inspire

Now that you have a better idea of what it takes to create a truly great email campaign, let’s get into our email newsletters examples and why we chose them.

1. Away

Subject line: Serena Williams. Away. Out now. Away is a smart luggage startup dead set on disrupting the luggage industry. Every month, they send a newsletter with news about their company, new products, or information about their products that readers might have overlooked to make their travel easier. In the email marketing example we’ve included here, Away has opted for a vibrant red theme to go along with the red luggage they’ve featured. Additionally, they are highlighting a pretty giant partnership with Serena Williams. Overall, the email’s reds, pinks, and whites are great on the eyes and, despite being so similar in color to the luggage they’re highlighting, the product images look great. As always, Away has a sleek newsletter design with excellent imagery and tons of CTAs to move readers to the Away website where they can complete a purchase. The addition of an image with Serena Williams herself is, of course, huge.

2. Warby Parker

Subject line: Woof If you want to get people excited about something, show them that something alongside a dog. Warby Parker starts this email marketing newsletter off with a little bit of copy playing on their doggie-rich theme. The stars of the show, of course, are the canine models showing off Warby Parker’s sunglasses collection with style. The email includes two main CTAs, encouraging readers to “See more sunglasses” or “See more dogs.” We’ll hazard a guess that the latter got much more action, letting Warby Parker increase traffic to their site and show off more of their product with irresistible product models.

3. NextDraft

Subject line: The Count of Mar a Lago Dave Pell is a Silicon Valley icon, for lack of a better word, and one of our favorite email marketers. His email newsletter, NextDraft, is delivered daily and offers a curated list of the best web content each day, according to Pell. As he puts it, “Each morning I visit about 50 news sites and from that swirling nightmare of information quicksand, I pluck the top 10 most fascinating items of the day, which I deliver with a fast, pithy wit that will make your computer device vibrate with delight.” As you can tell, Dave Pell is a brilliant copywriter. NextDraft emails are simple and very organized and it’s really the copy that makes these email marketing newsletters so engaging. Pell starts off with a compelling subject line that pulls readers into the email that doesn’t disappoint. With such a copy-heavy email, Pell takes advantage of social sharing opportunities by giving readers a chance to share each story immediately, without having to parse the email and scroll to the bottom to find social sharing opportunities.

4. Brighton

Subject: Natural Beauties Brighton offers a great example of an eCommerce email newsletter that resonates with Brighton’s target audience. It includes gorgeous product images, as well as copy that is meaningful to readers. The email is heavy on the CTAs, which is usually something we don’t really like since it can confuse readers. However, Brighton’s CTAs all carry the same goal (getting the reader to make a purchase), so it works perfectly.

5. Audible

Subject line: Your monthly Audible credit summary We love a personalized email and this email from Audible is nothing if not personalized. It’s a simple concept, email subscribers to let them know how many credits they have. In addition to that, though, subscribers can scroll down and see recommended titles based on your listening history. Personalization is probably one of the best email newsletter marketing tactics around and so easy that there’s no reason you can’t make it happen in your own email marketing campaigns. When you consider that 91% of shoppers are more likely to shop with brands who provide relevant offers and recommendations (Accenture) and 80% of customers are more likely to purchase a product or service from a brand who provides personalized experiences (Epsilon), it’s pretty easy to see that skipping out on personalization means leaving money on the table.

6. Bulb Energy

Subject line: Your 2019 green impact report 🌍 💚 Bulb Energy is another favorite newsletter layout. It combines data-driven content and beautifully simple graphics to share personalized (there it is again!) information with subscribers. In addition to the data about subscribers’ energy use, Bulb includes important information that subscribers can use to better understand their energy usage, how it impacts the overall environment, and how it can be offset. This is invaluable information to Bulb Energy subscribers who are interested in what they can do to offset their carbon footprint. You can adapt this to your own audience by using data you collect on their behavior that is important to them.

7. The Hustle

Subject line: Look what you did, you little jerk… We’ve had quite a few visually stimulating emails on our list of email newsletters for marketing so far. The Hustle is an excellent email marketing example of a newsletter that wins on content as well as simplicity. You’ll notice that the email is text-only. Don’t be fooled, though. That takes nothing away from the brilliant content. This email is an example of a welcome email, the first email you would send to new subscribers. Welcome emails are excellent for setting expectations with your subscribers. They can also help you share more information about your brand with subscribers when they’re most likely to be expecting to hear from you. And, with welcome emails, you know they’ll see it. According to GetResponse, the average open rate for welcome emails is 82%. That’s huge!

8. Unsplash

Subject line: Presenting The Unsplash Awards Unsplash is a free stock image sharing platform for artists. Knowing that it should come as no surprise that Unsplash’s emails are visually appealing. Typically, their newsletter templates are filled with curated images that the brand believes will resonate with their subscribers. In addition to their weekly emails with curated emails, every month Unsplash sends news and partnerships. The email design is pretty minimal if image-heavy and serves the purpose of driving traffic from email to the platform.

9. Casper

Subject line: Traveling for the holidays? When talking about epic newsletters, you cannot forget Casper. The mattress company sends simple, visually engaging emails and uses both graphics and copy to share the science behind their mattress and its success. In this email, Casper has targeted subscribers who may have their sights set on traveling during the holidays. But it doesn’t start off trying to sell them something. Instead, Casper uses its newsletter as an opportunity to offer valuable travel tips. Right after the tips, though, Casper introduces its Nap Pillow—a perfect “travel buddy.”

10. REI

Subject line: Member Exclusive: Limited Edition REI Flash 45 Pack for Women REI is a recreational sports outfitter that excels in email marketing. This email has excellent visual appeal and you know who it’s for right from the subject line. Once inside, REI combines great product placement and product images that make the promoted product really pop alongside a meaningful headline that will definitely appeal to all women who have ever had to use a backpack that was built for the stereotypically male body type. In addition to the main promotional, REI includes details about new partnerships and getaways that REI shoppers are sure to enjoy. It’s clear that REI knows who its audience is and how to reach them through segmenting and targeted and personalized marketing messages.

11. Ann Handley

Subject line: TA #72: 🐻 Copywriting Counsel from an Unbearable Campaign; Your 22-Point Content Checklist; Creativity as a Choice. Ann Handley is one of our favorite email marketers who sends long emails. Long emails with long subject lines. And we love them! The emails are absolutely packed full of marketing wisdom from marketing expert Ann Handley. The best part of Ann Handley’s emails is that they’re just so human. In this email marketing example, Ann Handley starts off with a friendly “Hi, Pumpkin” before getting into a very important challenge that has recently consumed social media (Fat Bear Week, not the United States election, though she does get into it briefly, don’t worry). After a fun and engaging intro, Handley gets right into the copywriting tips we can learn from Fat Bear Week. And it goes on from there. Like, really goes on. Ann Handley uses a “round-up” method for her newsletters, culling the internet for marketing and copywriting gold to share with her followers. It’s similar to the highly effective method used by Dave Pell from NextDraft that we talked about earlier. Find out what resonates with your audience and give them that.