10 Types of Emails that Your Subscribers Will Love + Real Examples

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If there’s one thing that most digital marketers agree on, it’s that email’s not dead.

According to Statista, email marketing should earn $9.62 billion in total revenue by the end of 2022.

To get yourself a larger slice of that billion-dollar pie, you need to know which type of email to send and when.

In this post, we dig into various types of emails, their benefits, plus some successful examples you can copy for yourself.

Let’s get started!

1. Why are there different kinds of emails?

Happy subscribers are key to a successful email strategy, so you need to give them exactly what they want to keep them this way.

In terms of email marketing, you need to have different kinds of emails, ready and waiting, to provide subscribers with different content.

Practically, this means that you’ll need to send them emails that:

Introduce your brand identity and build awareness
Build your authority and show that you’re trustworthy
Promote your offers
Communicate relevant business updates and industry news
Get feedback from subscribers about your products
Confirm purchases and deliver digital products

And more!

Remember, your email subscribers are individuals that are interested in what you have to offer.

Building a trusting relationship with them is essential to converting them into paying customers and making sales.

Email personalization is something that any online business owner, or email marketer, can’t ignore.

According to research:

91% of online shoppers will only make a purchase if you personalize their shopping experience
72% of those consumers will only shop with brands that personalize their messaging
70% of millennials (a massive proportion of online shoppers) are turned off by impersonal email blasts
Email personalization improves click-throughs by 14% and conversions by 10%

Luckily, having an arsenal of different emails on hand is a great way for you to add that very necessary personal touch to your communication.

We’ll dig into all the varied emails that help you send curated content to your subscribers, but first, let’s look at the 4 most common kinds of emails.

1.1. What are the 4 main types of emails?

Generally, these are the 4 main kinds of emails that get sent:

1. Transactional emails

2. Broadcast emails

3. Triggered emails

4. Personal emails

As an online business owner or even a freelancer, you’ll find yourself sending emails that fall into each of the above categories.

However, the majority of your marketing messages will probably fall into either triggered or broadcast emails.

Sometimes, emails are also classified based on their tone:

Formal — Legal and financial notifications fall into this category
Semi-formal — Most internal emailing and some B2B marketing emails are semi-formal
Informal — Almost all marketing emails are informal, to make them sound more relatable to the recipients

Depending on your business, your niche, and your audience, you’ll need to gauge what tone is appropriate.

Remember, to keep your subscribers engaged, you’re going to have to experiment with different strategies and shake things up before you get it right.

Now, let’s dive into the more specific kinds of emails that you should consider including in your email marketing strategy.

2. The 10 types of emails you should be sending

While other blogs may claim there are more than 20 different emails that you should be using, we’ve narrowed it down to 10 that are the most effective:

2.1. Welcome emails

The best place to start is always the beginning, and what marks the start of your relationship with your subscriber is often a welcome email.

When new subscribers join your list, you should send those welcome emails within 24 hours of them joining to make them feel important to you.

This is a great opportunity to introduce them to your brand and business and let them know what content you’ll be sending, how often, and other important details.

Here’s an example of a welcome email from Guru:

Source: ReallyGoodEmails.com

The subject line for this email is, Welcome to Guru! Let's get started 😎

This email is effective for several reasons:

The subject line invites new subscribers to take action immediately
Emojis also help emails stand out in crowded inboxes
Bright colors hint at Guru’s branding and make them seem futuristic and interesting
Shorter copy ensures readers don’t get bored
A single call-to-action (CTA) makes sure readers click-through and don’t get distracted

When you’re crafting your first welcome email for your new subscribers, why not try a few of these tactics out?

2.2. Lead nurturing emails

This type of email is closely linked with your sales funnel and is all about guiding your subscribers along the customer journey.

Because lead nurturing campaigns are integrated with sales funnels, they are also automated.

Here are some of the benefits of using email campaigns like this:

Save time with automation and have the emails send themselves once you've set up the rules and tags
Send targeted content to your subscribers that lead them toward conversion without lifting a finger
Re-engage subscribers who might have gotten distracted and put them back on the right path

With email marketing tools like systeme.io, it’s easy to set up automated sequences like this:

systeme.io’s easy email campaign setup

As you can see, a simple set-up gets all that curated content you work on, in front of the right people at the right time.

If you want to learn more about creating lead nurturing emails and sequences, click here.

2.3. Newsletters

Nearly every business sends out some kind of newsletter — from your child’s school update to the weekly deals at your local deli, they’re everywhere.

They’re an excellent way to build brand awareness and keep your business in the minds of your subscribers.

According to branding specialist, Philip VanDusen, to create a successful brand you need to make sure you can be recognized, remembered, and revered.

When creating your newsletters, don’t forget that every element needs to be on-brand and work toward those 3 principles.

There are a couple of rules when it comes to this sort of email:

Stick to a schedule — Whether it’s a monthly newsletter, or even bi-weekly, don’t be late or you’ll disappoint your audience and lose subscribers
Don’t be boring — Sending the same newsletter to your entire audience might lose them, so experiment with dynamic content sections tailored to their interests

Newsletters are also a pretty nifty way of sending your subscribers company news, fresh content, insider tips, or even pointing them to your social media platforms.

You can see how easy it is to achieve this by looking at Shaping Design's weekly newsletter:

Source: ReallyGoodEmails.com

Shaping Design sends its audience weekly newsletters on industry news and company updates.

This message could also be classified as an announcement email, about the impressive promotion of a contemporary within the design field.

Newsletters are about more than that though — educating your customers and providing value is what will win them over.

2.4. Re-engagement emails

With average attention spans sitting at 8 seconds these days, it’s no wonder that some of your subscribers stop opening and responding to your emails.

Maybe their inbox is sitting in the 100’s or they’ve just returned from a vacation, but you need to win them back.

That’s where a well-placed re-engagement email comes in.

By targeting your inactive subscribers you can:

Remind them of the valuable content you have to offer
Encourage them not to forget about your brand
Re-engage them with a new deal or freebie

A little encouragement can go a long way, as you’ll see in this YNAB re-engagement email:

Source: ReallyGoodEmails.com

The friendly tone and simple copy combine to make a short-and-sweet, unintrusive email.

Adding emails like these to your strategy will lead to more engaged customers and subscribers in general.

2.5. Cart-abandonment emails

According to Statista, the rate of people who abandon their carts without making a purchase is 79.8%.

Cart-abandonment emails invite subscribers to complete their purchase using:

A gentle reminder of the purchase they may have forgotten
A discount code or free offer to incentivize them to complete the purchase
A little humor to gently push people to get back to shopping
A sense of urgency with an expiring deal to get them to buy now

NOMAD makes cart-abandonment emails fun:

Source: ReallyGoodEmails.com

They also add an extra incentive with subject lines like Nomad Gear is Selling Out Quick.

Keep your customers on their buying journey — you’ll convert more and make them feel valued beyond just the sale.

2.6. Milestone emails

Another way of personalizing your email recipients’ experience is through a milestone email.

By celebrating their progress, wins, and anniversaries, you’ll be:

Sending them insightful and highly relevant content that makes them feel important to you
You’ll build a positive basis for your relationship with your audience and turn them into loyal customers

Grammarly is famous for their funny and charming milestone emails:

Source: ReallyGoodEmails.com

Not only does this email make the recipient feel special, but they also feel proud, and will likely share this achievement on social media.

That means you’ll have your reach increased by your own customers too.

Grammarly also always sends an anniversary email, even to its free users, which you can check out here.

This is definitely a tactic worth stealing for your own email marketing strategies and campaigns.

2.7. Survey emails

The best kinds of email campaigns are interactive, and get your contacts to actively engage and respond to you.

One way of achieving this is through the survey email, where you invite email recipients to participate in a survey or review.

Looking at MeUndies’ survey email, you’ll see that simple is effective:

Source: ReallyGoodEmails.com

A survey email like this one could help you:

Get a better understanding of your target audience
Build toward a long term relationship with your subscribers
Gather positive reviews to use as social proof from your customers
Use subscriber feedback to improve your user experience overall

You could create your own surveys using Google Forms, send a review request, or use online tools like Survey Monkey.

2.8. Launch emails

Letting your email list know about a new product or service you’re launching is essential.

Since the subscribers on your email list are already interested in your content, you should tell them first about any new offers that might help them solve their problems.

Launch emails can also inform your contacts about an upcoming event you’re hosting, and share the invitation or just the booking details.

This product announcement email from Panic combines 2 things:

Source: ReallyGoodEmails.com

The headline is direct and so is the CTA — their brand new code editor for mac just launched, a cause for celebration.

However, they cleverly acknowledge that their list isn’t as fresh and clean as it used to be and make it easy to unsubscribe.

By using product announcements like this to also clean up your list, you can kill 2 birds with one stone, and keep only your most engaged contacts.

2.9. Promotional emails

Most of your marketing emails might fall into the broader category of promotional emails.

These are emails, or sequences, that you use to continuously promote your business and sell your products.

Here are some different tactics to use in your next promotional email marketing campaign:

Tell your brand story — Your current and future customers will relate to your business on a more personal level
Share the success of past customers — This makes current subscribers excited to see what your business can do for them too
Celebrate the achievements of existing customers — Making your current customers the star of the show will encourage customer loyalty
Reward subscribers with a free gift — Create content that’s relevant to select subscribers and give it to them for free, they’ll love you for it

This email from reMarkable is the first in a series that gets sent out to new subscribers and customers:

Source: ReallyGoodEmails.com

Not only are they educating customers, but they’re continuing to promote their product and provide key information about their brand.

They’ve also cleverly made this email marketing campaign feel like a personal letter from the CEO, even though it’s probably been crafted by a group of email marketers.

Here at systeme.io, we use the following email sequence to run promotions to our email list:

1. Share an opportunity — Here you’re pointing your subscribers in the direction of something new that they’d be interested in

2. Answer an objection — Remove any doubts your potential customers may have about the promise made in your first email

3. Tell a story — Explain how you achieved the same success that you’re promising and that your contacts are looking for

4. Announce a bonus — This bonus should be valuable and address another concern or doubt related to your offer

5. Tell a client success story — Prove that the results you promise are achievable by sharing how another customer achieved success

6. Add another bonus — Add even more value to the initial offer so that the value is greater than the price

7. Announce the end of the launch — Create a sense of urgency in your potential customers so that they are more likely to buy

8. Final email — Send this email in the final hours of your offer and emphasize that the deal is too good to miss out on

This simple structure is what we use to generate $2,500/week consistently, by selling to our email list.

Take note of the copy in emails like these, and create campaigns that do the same for your brand and your business.

2.10. Transactional emails

This last kind of email you need to have stored up your marketing sleeves is less about your subscriber list and more about new customers.

Transactional emails are there to guide your happy customers through the checkout process.

These emails can include:

Purchase confirmations
Order summaries
Thank yous

These emails form a necessary part of getting customers through your sales funnel, and setting them up is pretty straightforward

It’s important to send these emails quickly so that you don’t leave your customers waiting.

Here’s an example of a typical transactional email from Taylor Stitch:

Source: ReallyGoodEmails.com

Transactional emails like this are an important part of your sales cycle, so don’t neglect them.

3. How to implement your email marketing

Now that you know what kinds of emails you need, you’ve got to choose the right tool to help you build them.

You can check out our comprehensive list of email marketing tools here, or you can stay on this post and save yourself the trouble.

The best place to build campaigns that result in the most engaged customers is with systeme.io.

3.1. Send marketing emails with systeme.io

systeme.io logo

Here’s why we know systeme.io is the best in the business when it comes to email marketing.

First of all, getting your systeme.io account is free and it stays that way for up to 2,000 contacts.

You can send unlimited emails to your contacts, and you can create an automated email campaign, even on our Free plan.

Our email builder, just like the rest of the systeme.io platform, is intuitive and super easy to use.

You can create any type of email with our software, by simply clicking on the email creator in your account you’ll be given 3 options:

1. Newsletters

With systeme.io you can create emails, one at a time, using our easy email creator:

systeme.io’s email creator

Simply fill in the details, choose either our visual editor or our classic editor and click on “Create” — it’s that easy.

The visual editor creates an image-based format for your email, while the classic editor focuses on text-based emails.

Once you’ve created the email itself, you can add your copy, select which contacts you’d like to receive the email, and add links to the other pieces of your valuable content.

Use our email creator to set up a review request or even your thank you and welcome emails.

There are also a few more advanced options to edit your subject line, add attachments, and drip your email content:

Some of systeme.io’s email options

2. Campaigns

On top of single emails, systeme.io also allows you to create completely automated email sequences.

All you need to do is prepare the copy for each email and create them inside the email campaign creator, just like the newsletters.

Once they’re ready, you can schedule the campaigns and let our software take care of the rest.

This is a great place to create promotional emails and your lead nurturing campaigns.

Our campaign dashboard also gives you easy access to all individual campaign and email data:

systeme.io’s email campaigns

This is helpful information you can use to improve your next email campaign.

3. Statistics

Finally, you’ll get access to a useful overview of all your email marketing efforts over time.

Systeme.io’s intuitive email analytics dashboard gives you everything you need to monitor your email KPIs and metrics:

systeme.io’s email analytics

With this data at your fingertips, you can keep track of what parts of your marketing campaigns are working, and where you need to improve.

If you want more detail on how to measure your email metrics, click here.

Not convinced yet that systeme.io is the way to go?

Keep reading, we’ve got even more to offer you.

3.2. Systeme.io’s features and pricing

Systeme.io goes beyond just email marketing — it’s a complete, all-in-one marketing solution.

We have a score of other features to help you build and grow your online business:

Sales funnels — Guide your website visitors along their customer journey toward conversion
Websites and pages — Create a landing page and anything else you need to build your web presence
Online courses — Turn your skills and experience into a passive income by creating courses
Affiliate marketing programs — Reward people who refer new customers to your business
Ecommerce — Become a dropshipper or sell your own physical or digital products and services
Business automation — Use rules and workflows to automate repetitive business processes
Blogs — Post unlimited blog posts and send relevant information and SEO strategies to grow organically
Evergreen webinars — Run webinars that’ll continue to make sales for you

Not only is our platform packed with all the tools you need, but it also comes at an unbeatable price.

Along with our completely Free plan, which gives you access to everything you need to get started, there are 3 pricing options:

systeme.io’s pricing

The Startup, Webinar, and Enterprise plans are built to give your business exactly what it needs, as it grows.

You could even save yourself an extra 30% by opting for one of our annual payment options — plus you can get your entire business migrated to our platform for free if you choose this billing period.

Click here to find out more about systeme.io’s plans and what you can achieve with them.

4. Conclusion

There are many different types of emails that you’ll need to create and send to build your audience and maintain a strong relationship with them.

From building the welcome email you send to your first subscriber, to celebrating your audience of thousands — you need a platform that fully supports your email marketing.