Wellness Newsletter Ideas Readers Will Love
Deciding to send a wellness newsletter is the easy part. The challenge is knowing what to send. While the goal is clear – delight subscribers by providing engaging content – coming up with new ideas, send after send, can be exhausting. That’s why we’ve put together 15 practical and engaging wellness newsletter ideas to help you connect with your audience and keep them coming back for more.
1. Themed Wellness Challenges
A well-structured wellness challenge can inspire and guide your subscribers and increase their engagement with your content. One example is Apartment Therapy’s annual Spring Cleaning Cure, which invites subscribers to join them on 10 tasks throughout the month to refresh their living spaces.
After deciding to launch a wellness challenge, plan an announcement two to three weeks before the challenge begins. This schedule allows your readers more time to get the details and sign up. During this pre-challenge period, after the announcement but before the challenge begins, share examples and testimonials so your subscribers understand why it will be worth participating.
Unless your challenge incorporates current events and news, work to have all your content written and your emails designed before launch day. Then, regardless of whether you have a five-day or 30-day challenge, nothing will stand in the way of getting the content out that you promised. You can use your email service provider’s campaign scheduling or journey-building features to let you set everything ahead of time so you don’t have to be entirely hands-on for the entire challenge but still see daily engagement with the content.
2. Exclusive Expert Interviews
Connect your readers with experts. You’re probably already in touch with many professionals your readers would love to hear from. Think through people you admire, or search your LinkedIn newsfeed for ideas about who you can interview for your newsletter.
When you reach out to your guest, share how long you expect the interview to take, when you want to send the newsletter, and how many people it will go to. Your expert might be delighted at the additional promotion as well.
Consider asking experts about new studies or treatments they have come across recently. Guests can also share stories and cases they have experienced that might be similar to what your audience is experiencing. In the newsletter Salt + Yams’s interview with DeJa Love, CEO of the Black Women’s Wellness Agency, Julia Craven crafted questions about DeJa Love’s history, company, and personal experiences.
Be sure to take care of your experts! Follow up an interview with a sincere thank you note, and send them the final product when it’s ready.
3. Personal Stories of Transformation
You want your readers to be inspired and motivated by your newsletter, so let them share in the success of people like them. Reach out to your connections who have experienced positive wellness transformations to see if they would like to have their stories told in your newsletter.
You can also engage your readers by asking them to share their experiences. By highlighting fellow readers, you also grow your social proof – the trust that builds when readers see other people engaging with your content. Your readers will relate to your stories and build a stronger bond with your newsletter.
4. Wellness Book and App Recommendations
As a professional in this space, you likely have an overflowing bookcase of wellness-related books and have tried out multiple apps. Consider regularly publishing your recommendations in your newsletter.
Include brief descriptions of the featured books or apps and give your readers an idea about the audiences that may enjoy them the most. If learning curves or hard-to-find resources exist in an app, give your readers the scoop on the best way to navigate it. Consider including a particularly engaging quote as a little sample for books and other types of content.
5. Wellness Product Reviews
Just as your readers trust your recommendations on books and apps, they will appreciate your feedback on wellness products. Share your review of a product you’ve tried that you would like your readers to know about. Make sure to include the features, benefits, and any potential drawbacks. If you can include an affiliate link or discount code, your readers will appreciate the savings and be happy to be able to support you in your work.
Nessie Sightings provides an excellent example of how to feature product reviews. Alongside longer review pieces, as shown in the example below, Nessie Sightings includes a “what’s in your bag” interview spot and highlights loved brands.
6. Behind-the-Scenes
Everything you put in your newsletter should help build a relationship with your readers. One way to help them feel connected is by sharing behind-the-scenes moments. You can share your own wellness journey or highlight the experiences of your team members.
Funny, dramatic, or thoughtful scenes will bring your readers in and allow them to feel that they are seeing your authentic self. Your subscribers will grow more comfortable with you, as if you were an old friend, and do what they can to support you.
7. Weekly Inspirational Quotes
Inspirational quotes are a quick win. You can use them as a weekly segment or pop them in when short on content. Quotes are easy to find or create and simple to style, and readers love the hit of motivation it gives them.
You can go deeper and encourage readers to reflect on the words and apply them to their lives. You also can explain how it applies to your own life.
Once you find a quote you want to use, you can use Canva or another easy content creation tool to put your branding or photos in the background.
Here’s a great example from The Assist newsletter.
8. Ask the Expert Q&A
Another opportunity for your readers to actively engage with your newsletter is by submitting questions for an Ask the Expert segment. When you ask subscribers for questions, provide a few examples and give them a deadline to submit.
You can have an ongoing list to add and pull questions from or collect questions specifically for experts with specializations. To provide a better experience, respond to your readers, automatically or personally, to thank them for their questions and acknowledge that you received them.
9. Exclusive Discounts and Offers
Everyone loves a deal. Consider partnering with other wellness brands to get your readers exclusive discounts in exchange for highlighting and showcasing their products.
Brands can offer various arrangements, such as taking a certain percentage or dollar amount off or featuring a buy one get one offer.
You can also work out a deal for some of the proceeds to go to a related nonprofit.
In these situations, the brand gets more publicity, your readers can save, and you or a supported organization may also earn a commission. Win, Win, Win!
10. Spotlight on Mental Health
A wellness newsletter is an excellent opportunity to highlight the importance of mental health. When written sensitively and backed by additional resources, mental health content can give readers the tools they need to maintain their emotional well-being. Consider sharing coping strategies and techniques alongside in-person opportunities.
Mental health content can also allow your readers to build confidence to help others.
Here’s an example of resources shared from the Waltham Forest Council newsletter.
11. Quick and Easy Self-Care Tips
Readers are more likely to continue to open an organization’s newsletters if they achieve a quick hit of endorphins from your email. So give them a quick win! Give your readers an easy way to practice self-care they won’t treat like homework.
If you make these tips a consistent theme, consider trying to fit them into your subject line, such as “Quick tip of the week: Categorize your Calendar with Colors.” You may find you get the highest open rates with this compelling content. Plus, it’s an opportunity to remind your readers about the benefits of consistent self-care practices.
12. Wellness Events and Workshops
An email newsletter is one of the best ways to keep your events on your audience’s radar. Plan to include upcoming events in multiple newsletters so readers can be reminded of them more than once. Don’t forget to build some “add to calendar” buttons so readers can save it to their devices with one click. If you’re selling tickets, use a countdown timer to encourage your readers to reserve their spots quickly.
You can choose to feature only your events or various programs your subscribers may be interested in. They can be online or offline, local or national. When you highlight an event, let your readers know how participating can expand their wellness journey.
Here’s an example of how the Healthy South Dakota program incorporated an event into their newsletter.
13. Mindfulness Moments
The email inbox can be chaotic, and you may find your newsletter sandwiched between BREAKING NEWS and LAST CHANCE sales. Break up that chaos by sharing simple mindfulness practices. You can discuss the benefits, encourage readers to try it out right away, or support them to find those moments throughout the day. A newsletter featuring this section is also an opportunity to remind your readers how mindfulness can contribute to their overall well-being.
14. Recipe of the Week
Your busy subscribers may not be deliberately going out to look for healthy new recipes each week, but finding one in their inbox could be a delightful experience. You can inspire your readers to try something new and remind them of the value of a balanced and nutritious diet in their wellness journeys. You can also ask readers to share photos and reviews if they make your recipe and feature that content in the next recipe newsletter.
15. Interactive Polls and Quizzes
Give your readers a fun opportunity to engage with you through interactive polls or quizzes related to your content. Not only will they learn something new and feel delighted at the chance to play along from their inbox, but they will likely end up on your site, where you can direct them to additional information.
Most email service providers don’t have a way to build an interactive poll or quiz within their interface, but you can accomplish this by linking to a Google form or creating multiple “answer” pages on your website that you can link to from buttons on the email. When you can, share how the reader did compared to others – either on your answer page or in the next edition.
Use These Wellness Newsletter Ideas in Your Next Edition
Don’t let a lack of creativity stop you from delivering a fabulous newsletter to your audience. These different content options will motivate and delight your audience. One note of caution: consistency is critical. If you say you will provide a recipe every Tuesday, do it.
Fostering a meaningful connection with your audience is not just a goal but a necessity. While email newsletters are an essential part of a marketing strategy, emailing, for emailing’s sake, erodes trust and puts you on the path to low open rates and high unsubscribes.A thoughtful newsletter incorporating these ideas will deliver value to your readers and build trust, but it can be time-consuming to do well. Let Content Journey focus on your email marketing strategy if you need a hand. We understand mental health and wellness marketing. Allow us to get to work on the next edition of your newsletter and leave you the time to focus on your clients. Contact us today to learn more.
