9 Innovative Email Marketing Strategies For A Winning 2024

As the new year approaches, I've asked nine innovative thinkers, from Founders to Directors, to share their out-of-the-box email marketing ideas for 2024. This season is often filled with predictions, but rather than simply jumping on bandwagons, these insights emphasise the importance of balancing the allure of trends with the value of innovative thinking. From embracing video to exploring data-driven email topics through polls, their perspectives will hopefully inspire and transform the way you connect with your audience.

• Personalised video email messages

• Nostalgia-triggered email campaigns

• Convenient audio content for commuters

• Real-time newsjacking emails

• Text-based emails

• User-generated content in emails

• Gamified digital treasure hunt emails

• Authentic storytelling

• Data-driven email topics from polls

Personalised video email messages

“Going into 2024, I'm thinking about personalised video emails. Each subscriber opens their email to find a short, personalized video message. Using AI-driven video creation tools like Maverick, you could automate creating these unique videos, where elements such as the script, visuals, and call-to-action are customized for each recipient. It combines the personal touch of a face-to-face conversation with the scalability of digital marketing.

In the cluttered world of email marketing, a personalized video can be a standout experience. It's engaging and memorable and shows your subscribers that they're more than just an email address to you.”

Zephyr Chan, Founder and Growth Marketer, Better Marketer

Nostalgia-triggered email campaigns

“Incorporating nostalgia-triggered campaigns into our company's newsletter and email marketing strategies has been highly successful. By weaving in themes, designs, and references from past decades, we create a unique emotional resonance with our audience. 

This Diwali, we used the phrase "This is your nth Diwali. Remember all your (n-1) Diwali moments and feel good." In such campaigns, we avoid putting our company or promotional content upfront as it hampers the emotional aspect, but it creates strong brand value for the audience. 

Using nostalgia has become a frequent and effective tool in our campaigns, consistently enhancing engagement and creating a sense of shared history with our brand.”

Bhavik Sarkhedi, Growth Head and CMO, Content Whale

Convenient audio content for commuters

“Providing an audio version of content can be useful, especially if it contains a significant amount of information. I often quickly thin out the email blasts in my inbox before I even leave home to go to work. If the content is compelling, I might keep it to read later, but those items almost always get buried and forgotten. 

However, giving me the option to listen to your content on my commute to work makes it easy and convenient for me. Audio is also a very intimate medium—allowing you to connect with listeners much more powerfully than in written form. 

Just be sure to invest in quality! Work with a professional audio studio, or invest in the gear and training to do it right yourself.”

Eric Singer, Executive Creative Director, Coupe Studios Music + Sound Design

Real-time newsjacking emails

“As a healthcare marketer, my out-of-the-box email marketing idea for 2024 is newsjacking. My emails dynamically respond to real-time health news—whether it's breakthroughs, health trends, or expert insights. 

By seamlessly integrating these updates into my campaigns, I provide instant value and position my brand as the go-to source for timely healthcare information. It's more than just email marketing; it's a real-time health companion. 

Leverage newsjacking, and you'll not only engage your audience but also improve ongoing email campaigns, get more clicks, boost brand awareness, and build genuine connections. This ensures long-term success in healthcare marketing.”

Ajay Prasad, Founder and President, GMR Web Team

Text-based emails

“This holiday season, an A/B test was conducted with a promotion. Fifty percent of the list received the usual image-heavy, promotional content-based email, while the other half received a text-based email discussing the promotion with only text and the owner's name. 

The text-based email resulted in a higher amount of sales, despite a lower click-through rate. It was unexpected that this would be the more successful approach in terms of sales. 

For 2024, the plan is to further explore the text-based strategy, aiming to increase the click-through rate, which might lead to even more sales.”

Jeff Michael, E-commerce Business Owner, Supplement Warehouse

User-generated content in emails

“In 2024, we're likely to see more brands eliciting customer involvement by including reviews, testimonials, and even user-generated content through pictures and videos. 

To jump on the bandwagon, encourage users to share authentic experiences and showcase the best user-generated content, creating a community-driven narrative that resonates. 

By incorporating diverse and engaging content types, you'll infuse your emails with dynamic, relatable energy that captivates your audience, setting your brand apart in their inbox.”

Harry Morton, Founder, Lower Street

Gamified digital treasure hunt emails

“In 2024, I'm planning to add gamification features to our email marketing to make it more fun and engaging for our audience. I'm thinking of doing something like a "digital treasure hunt" in our emails. 

People who get our emails would receive hints that lead them to secret parts of our website. There, they could find discounts or exclusive content. This would make people want to keep looking at our emails and also bring more traffic to our website.

To do this, I'll start by designing a series of emails with cleverly hidden clues. These clues will be linked to different pages on our website. I'll make sure the hunt is challenging but not too difficult, so it's enjoyable for everyone. And to keep people interested, each hidden page will offer a reward, like a discount code or a sneak peek at new products.”

Alan Redondo, Founder, Ardoz Digital

Authentic storytelling

“My top out-of-the-box email marketing idea for 2024 is to showcase more realness and authenticity with my audience. Beyond advice and tips, I want to practice open vulnerability about my journey in business and life.

As a holistic coach who supports women entrepreneurs, I think it's powerful to move past the highlight reel we often portray online. Email is a channel where I can reveal struggles or moments of self-doubt, and then share how I work through those sticking points.

Rather than always positioning myself as an expert who has everything figured out, I'm going to send "get real" emails. These will chronicle my difficulties, lessons from failures, and behind-the-scenes glimpses into building my businesses.

My goal is to foster a culture of trust, compassion, and mutual growth within my community. By sharing my humanity—fears, flops, and all—I hope it inspires other women to embrace their journeys wholeheartedly too. There's no need to filter or fake it!

I believe in leading with authenticity and continuing to take risks that forge genuine heart-to-heart connections. While it's scary to move past the highlight reel, owning all our stories is where empowerment lives. I want my "get real" emails to reflect that bravery.”

Mona Kirstein, Ph.D., Digital Strategist, Holistic Coach and Consultant, The Wholehearted Path

Data-driven email topics from polls

“Providing data through email is a fantastic way to break through the noise, and everybody can do it. Leverage your social media profile and groups to create polls where you get a large user base to answer your questions. 

Creating an email with a subject like "Do business owners feel that AI will eliminate SEO?" will resonate much better than "Here's our latest email." It's a strategy few people use, yet it can work significantly better than traditional emails.”

Jason Vaught, Director of Content, SmashBrand