Has this happened to you?

Step 1: You sit down to try and create your next newsletter or email

Step 2: Your mind draws a blank on what you should write about / feature

Step 3: You finally put together a list of ideas, but they’re either lame or boring

If you haven’t gone through this, you will at some point. But the bottom line is that you still need to come up with good content, even if your mind is not cooperating at the moment. So, how do you find good email campaign content for your HTML newsletter or sales email?

Three words: Customer service data

Think of your customer service data as your “get out of jail free” card when you’re plum out of good ideas. You can either sit down with your customer service reps or open up the program that tracks customer complaints, responses and suggestions.

Here are the questions you want to ask – and answer:

What are the top three customer issues with your Website? Answer these questions in your campaign. Maybe there’s an easy solution you can give subscribers to avoid any headaches on their part.

What are the top three products or services receive the most complaints? Is it because they’re being used wrong? If so, send an email showing recipients, step by step, on how to avoid this problem.

You may need to be a bit creative when answering these questions to avoid sending a basic FAQ. Try packaging it as an educational experience, titling your email something like, top “three ways to use lawnmowers more efficiently” or even “Navigating our forums: 5 easy steps”.

True, it’s not sales content that you’re sending, but your recipients will appreciate the data. If you do your job correctly and your subscribers see that you’ve eliminated a problem that’s been holding them back from purchasing something, you might see a nice up-tick in sales that originate from your email or newsletter campaigns.