3 Go-To’s When You Run Out of Email Ideas
How many different ways can you write an email promoting your product? Or for that matter, promoting anything?
After a while it may seem like your emails to your lists are all sounding the same, and that’s probably because they are.
But you can shake things up by incorporating ridiculous holidays into your email marketing.
1: Annual Holidays
Do a Google search for crazy holidays and you’ll find lists that cover the entire year. For example, just take a look at these holidays during the first 4 days of January:
January 1 – New Year’s Day, National Hangover Day
January 2 – Run Up The Flagpole And See If Anyone Salutes Day (I am NOT making this up)
January 3 – Fruitcake Toss Day, Humiliation Day
January 4- Trivia Day, National Spaghetti Day
Let’s say you want to send an email to your list promoting your paid “How to Market Online” newsletter, or anything else for that matter. Here are a few email ideas for these 4 days:
New Year’s Day: It’s the new year AGAIN, are you doing any better than you were last year? If not, it’s time to take action and subscribe.
National Hangover Day: HEY AM I TALKING TOO LOUD? If you’re hungover from all that partying last night, I have the perfect remedy. This year, make so much money that you can spend next New Year’s Eve on an exotic vacation instead of drinking too much at your friend’s party. Here’s how to do it.
Run Up The Flagpole and See if Anyone Salutes Day: I have an idea I want to run up the flagpole and see if you salute. Because this is THE national day to get creative and consider new ways of doing things, this is also THE day for you to make a real change in your life, if you’re willing.
Fruitcake Toss Day: Ancient tradition held that fruitcake – much like a hot potato – could be passed from person to person until January 1st. But if you were caught still holding fruitcake at that time, you had to store it away until the next Christmas season. What antiquated ideas are you still holding onto that you haven’t thrown out? I’d like to propose something, just between you and me, that might rock your world but it sure tastes a heck of a lot better than fruitcake.
Humiliation Day: Believe it or not, National Humiliation Today is NOT a day to humiliate others. Rather, it’s to recognize the negativity of humiliating anyone, including yourself. Maybe you’ve been beating yourself up because you still haven’t achieved your goals. In fact, maybe you’re not any closer to your goal than you were a year ago today. If that’s true, then here’s what I propose…
Trivia Day: In honor of National Trivia Day, here are 3 trivia questions for you to answer. Fair warning, Googling is not going to help you with these. But if you hit reply and send me your answers, even if you only get one right, I will send you a copy of last month’s newsletter for FREE, just so you can see how awesome it is. And I’ll even send you a special 50% discount, good for exactly 24 hours.
Spaghetti Day: National Spaghetti Day is the perfect illustration of why online marketing is so darn confusing. Imagine you’re at your favorite buffet restaurant where you fill your plate with a heaping helping of fresh-made spaghetti noodles. Then you slather on your favorite sauce, and maybe add some grated cheese or a couple of meatballs. So far, so good, right?
This big plate of yummy goodness represents your marketing funnel. But guess what? You don’t know how to make homemade noodles. You love the sauce but you’re not sure what spices are in it. How are meatballs made, anyway?
Marketing funnels are a lot like your plate of spaghetti. You know a good one when you see it but building it from scratch is an entirely different ballgame.
Okay, you get the idea. Take a holiday – any holiday, the more ridiculous the better – and find a way to relate it to the product you are promoting.
2: Months – There are plenty of month-long ‘holidays’ too.
January is national Blood Donor Month. Maybe you can offer incentives and discounts to people who donate blood.
February is “An Affair to Remember” Month. If your niche is relationships or dating, you can get your readers to send you their stories.
March is National Nutrition Month. Are you in the health niche? How about busting nutrition myths and fallacies all month long?
April is National Humor Month. Almost any niche can use more humor. A niche-appropriate joke every day for a month could train your readers to open every email you send.
And so it goes. Every month has a dozen or more month-long holidays or observations, some of which are pretty bizarre and almost all of which can be used to start conversations and give you enough email fodder to last through the entire year.
3: Make up your own
This is my favorite one of all. Let’s say you’re in an obscure niche, or maybe something highly specialized. Why not make up your own holidays? You might even start a movement to get the holiday of your choice recognized by the appropriate authorities. Use a hashtag, get people involved and create lots of free publicity for your blog, book or product in the process.
And whatever your made-up holiday might be, don’t think it’s too bizarre because it’s probably not. Here is a list of what I consider to be some of the stranger holidays for comparison to your own creation:
January 13 – National Rubber Ducky Day
February 11 – National Don’t Cry Over Spilled Milk Day (again, not making this up)
March 8 – Be Nasty Day
April 6 – Plan Your Epitaph Day
May 14 – Dance Like a Chicken Day (I’m still not making this up)
June 25 – Take Your Dog to Work Day
July 4 – Sidewalk Egg Frying Day
August 27 – Global Forgiveness Day
September 11 – Fight Procrastination Day
October 3 – Virus Appreciation Day (Seems pertinent)
November 19 – Have a Bad Day Day
December 11 – National Ding-a-Ling Day
Then there’s March 2 – Dr. Suess Day. Just imagine the poems you can write to your list…
I Love My Job!
I love my job. I love the pay!
I love it more and more each day.
I love my boss, he is the best!
I love his boss and all the rest.
I’m happy to be here, I am I am.
I’m the happiest slave at the firm, I am.
I love this work. I love these chores.
I love the meetings with deadly bores.
I love my job – I’ll say it again – I even love those friendly men
Those friendly men who’ve come today, in clean white coats to take me away!!!
[Insert your offer to teach them to build their own business here]
Strangest holiday of all? That award might go to the Tinku “Punch Your Neighbor” Festival. It seems the Incas worshipped a goddess who demanded blood to ensure a good harvest. The people in the Bolivian village of Tinku took this literally and you can imagine the rest of the story. In your email you might paint a picture of someone ringing their neighbor’s doorbell and without a word of greeting, punching their neighbor and then going home. Find a way to tie in your product and I guarantee this will be the most memorable email your readers receive all week.
To get started on holidays real and imagined, you might check out this rather extensive list here:
http://www.holidayscalendar.com/categories/weird/
And for both daily holidays and month-long observances, you might start here: