Don’t know what to write about? 24 ideas for your next creative business newsletter, blog, or social media

Do you find it difficult to come up with ideas about what to write about in your newsletter, blog, or on social media? Are you worried about boring your readers?

Staying in touch regularly with your potential clients is crucial if you want to get more sales – especially online. Consistent, useful emails and social media posts will build up know, like and trust and improve your profile.

Emails are a particularly useful marketing tool for driving more traffic to your website, for building your relationship with potential and existing clients, and for raising your credibility and profile with them. Blog posts on the other hand, are great for publishing relevant and educational content on your website to make it more specialised and for showing your expertise. They are a good starting point for helping increase your ranking with search engines.

Here are 24 creative and useful content ideas for you to write about which your audience will love to read.

1. Why did you start your creative business?

Was there a special reason you became your own boss? Who or what inspired you? Is there a bigger purpose behind your creative business? Your audience will love to read more about your personal motivations and life, and writing about the origin of your creative business is a great starting point whilst also giving you more focus on your why.

This would make an interesting introductory read in an automated follow up email (or auto responder) when people sign up for your mailing list.

2. What’s your creative business name?

Why did you give your business this name? What’s the story behind the name you have chosen?

Naming your business is a bit like naming your baby, and readers love to hear more!

This can be a great insider topic for social media and in emails and could also work as content for an automated response when new people sign up to your email list.

3. Where do you live and work?

Are you in the middle of Hackney or Shoreditch, or in the middle of nowhere in Wales? How does your studio or location influence your creative work? People find it fascinating to see what your studio looks like, pictures of you at work, or of your surroundings. I have worked with many Scottish creatives and it’s wonderful to see how the Highlands or islands influence their use of colour, texture, and materials.

Write an email or extended blog post about where you live and work, and how that specifically impacts on your work and business.

People love to see the provenance of your work and where you create. They are often jealous of the life style of the creative! (oh, if they only knew!). You can share your favourite local places, eg/ walks, cafes, shops and galleries, almost like a tourist guide. Shouting out local businesses is also a lovely things to do!

Let’s face it … who doesn’t love to have a little peek into other people’s lives!

These behind-the-scenes images and films are very popular on social media too. You could even add this to your website’s ‘About Me’ page. We love how glass artists Stephen Gillies and Kate Jones of Gillies Jones share pictures and details of their workshop and surroundings in the North York Moors National Park, and how their environment influences them daily.

4. Who are your role models or heroes?

Who truly inspires you? Are they other creatives in your field, long gone poets, bio-scientists, or world peace campaigners? Was it your grandma who taught you how to knit or who stood up for herself and said it as it was?

Write a blog post or email with your selection of five role models. What is it about them that you particularly admire? How do they compare with each other? And what are the lessons you learnt from each of them?

Or maybe you could do a Q&A or short interview with your role models and publish that on your blog?

Writing about your inspirations makes for great content for your readers, and can give real insight into your inspirations and values too. You can also spice up your ‘About Me’ page with details of your inspirations. We love how pet artist Jo Scott has created a really memorable ‘About Me’ page that way. 

5. Review an exhibition, event, or book.

Do you want to share your inspirations, passions, and values a bit more? Do you want to add a bit more creative content to your blogs or emails?

• Write a book review and share that with your subscribers and followers. Will it be a technical, creative, historical or business book? How can you share your own inspiration, values, and knowledge with your readers?
• Or create a purely photo-based blog post about an exhibition that you found inspiring.
• Or share pictures of city visit or quiet walk. Especially useful if you don’t like writing!
• Or if you have exhibited at a craft fair or trade show then writing a blog post about the event can be a great follow up email after the show.

These type of review blogs can be useful if you want to become an expert in your field, or if you want to start curating or writing more too.

We regularly review books on The Design Trust blog that are relevant to creative business owners. You can find our favourite creative business planning books here and our selected time management books here. 

6. Share your creative process.

Do you find it difficult to write anything at all? Then think about using video, images, or podcasts even.

Short videos of you at work are extremely popular on Instagram, Facebook, TikTok and YouTube Shorts.

Keep them short – up to 3 minutes is perfect.

You don’t have to show everything and give all your technical secrets away! Many potential customers might not realise what is actually involved in creating your lovely handmade products and would love to see how you do what you do!

If they don’t understand the knowledge and skills required to create beautiful, high-end craft products, then how can they value what you do?

7. Show designs and products in process.

Share with your potential clients how you get inspired. How you sketch out your ideas. How you create prototype‘s or select the right materials. Or get your colours or glazes ‘just’ right.

When you are getting ready to launch a new collection, create a series of emails or blog posts that *slowly* reveal the collection step-by-step; from sharing your initial ideas 6 weeks before the launch, to revealing some prototypes and the collection name a month in advance, to the final products and launching them as a collection.

8. Share your passions, quirks, and geekiness.

People buy from people … especially when it comes to creative products and services.

Share with your audience what you are really passionate about. Show your personality. Dare to be a little different and stand out!

What excites you about your specific craft, your themes, your materials, or techniques?

Did you choose your craft? Or did your craft choose you?

What is it about ceramics that you really love? Is it the combination of science and art? The possibilities of glazes? The unpredictability of the process? That every single time you open that kiln door you aren’t sure which ones will have survived? Or do you love the fact that human beings have been making pots for over 10,000 years?

Do you spend hours making your work? Relentlessly? Bickering away?

What is your work really about? What stories do you want to tell? What’s the bigger purpose of the creative work you do? What do you want to change in the world through your work and your way of seeing?

People love to buy from passionate people. Share your enthusiasm widely and with zeal. Show that you care. Create an impact. We need more passionate creatives in the world!

9. Share in-depth case studies of your commissions

This is one of my favourites! And it’s one of the most effective marketing tools you can use. Especially if you write up detailed case studies and then promote them regularly via social media and in your email marketing.

Methodically tell the story of how you work with your commissioners – from start to finish. Set the scene and talk about a specific person, a couple, or a business that has commissioned you. What was the design brief? Talk your reader through all the different stages. Your meetings or phone calls. The changes you made as you went along. Some of the challenging parts. And finish with showing the end result and some quotes from your commissioners. This is not just about the final piece, but about the process, what you may have learnt, and what they liked about working with you. 

Include images of some of your sketches or prototypes.

A detailed case study like this can give great insight into HOW you work. What’s actually involved? How friendly or accommodating are you? Share your specialist expertise and your creative process.

It’s also a great way to share quotes and testimonials from happy clients. It’s always much easier to get other people to sing your praises, then doing it yourself!

Writing up detailed case studies is great for commissions, but also for workshops, or if you provide design services to interior designers or other business clients.

A good case study can give a unique insight into HOW you work, is more memorable as a story, and builds trust along the way.

10. Introduce your stockists and retailers

Are you promoting your wholesalers? Adding a simple stockist list to your website is a good start, but you can take this even further by introducing some of your favourite stockists or retailers in an extended blog post or email. Add several images with the display of your products. Talk about the gallery or shop owners, and why you are proud to be working with them.

Small independent retailers and galleries are finding it really tough right now, so a bit of extra TLC from their suppliers (i.e. you!) will be much appreciated! PLUS some of your clients might not want to wait until your next event or don’t want to shop online because they want to see your work in the flash, so directing them to your trade partners is a great thing to share.

Working with good shops and galleries is a brilliant booster for your credibility and profile too!

Check out our blog post with our 20 favourite creative lifestyle bricks and mortar shops across the UK.

11. What is special or different about you?

Let’s face it … it’s a pretty competitive market out there! Sometimes you need to spell it out a bit clearer to your potential clients: What makes you different or special? Remember being niche is good!

What is special about you, your team, your business, or your products?

Do you only use ethical materials, are you an extremely good thrower of tall thin vessels, or are you the only maker of traditional shaker boxes left in the UK?

One of my clients used an oak tree that was 200 years old for a piece of furniture recently. And he didn’t mention that in any of his marketing communications! It was such a shame because ‘little’ details like that make a huge difference to the perception of what you do, the care for your materials, the longevity and inherent history you create, and how people will remember you.

12. Ask your clients questions

Get your clients more involved with your business by asking them questions. It’s an excellent way to really get to know who your followers and subscribers are! 

Although, I personally think you have to be careful with asking a broad group for feedback, it can be interesting and very useful if you do this in a more targeted way, aimed at your ideal clients rather than your best friends. The Design Trust regularly does surveys for example, around specific challenges that our creative business clients face. Their answers often give us ideas for new online courses, workshops, blog posts, or interviews for our Business Club members.

Instead of asking your audience to vote on the possible new colourways or your new logo, I would instead get them involved at an earlier stage. For example, ask them about some of the challenges or issues for your kind of products or services, ask them which craft events or trade shows they attend, or which specific blogs or magazines they read, or the podcasts that they love. What are their specific questions or worries about purchasing your work or commissioning you? This works especially well if your products are rare or expensive purchases as potential clients will have more questions and will need more reassurance.

What is stopping your ideal clients from buying from you? If you can find the answer to that and remedy it, then it’s much more likely that you will start getting better sales.

You can ask them by email and they respond directly to you, or via comments on social media, or in comments below blog posts. Or why not include a short survey that you create in Google Drive to guarantee confidentiality.

13. Answer your client’s questions

This is one of the most useful and successful ways to generate ideas for what to write about in blog posts and emails!

If you write a blog post with their question and your answer, it’s a great way to positively impact your SEO. Use your client’s question as the title of your blog post, use the keywords in the URL, and repeat it a few times in your post. As other potential clients might have the same question and put it in their search engine, the chances of them reaching your website will be increased.

Plus, if you are helpful towards your future customers and answer their questions, that makes you a much more trusted creative business owner.

One of the biggest reasons why The Design Trust website gets more than 50,000 visitors each month is because we answer many questions for our creative business clients through this Q&A format. Many other creatives had similar questions and found us that way on Google. Once your blog becomes more established around certain consistent key terms then the traffic to your site will increase exponentially. 

14. What’s important to you?

Share your values, bigger vision, and purpose with your audience.

It’s very likely that your ideal clients have the same values as you are. For example, if you are interested in eco-friendly fashion then it’s likely that your clients are too.

Write about your favourite topics from different angles as this will increase the likelihood that you will reach the right people. For example, think about including last minute gift ideas for eco-friendly mums for Mother’s Day, and insights into your supply chain and manufacturing partners, or recommend other eco-friendly small businesses that are related to what you do.

By writing about your key values in different ways you will get spotted easier, and your SEO for those keywords will improve.

A great example of how important values can be for a creative business is furniture designer Sebastian Cox, whose website shows his opinions around sustainability.

15. Share useful tips and recommendations

How can you become less boring and salesy and more useful for your readers? Share some practical tips or resources that you know of that might be super helpful to them! It will increase their trust in you, plus it makes you more knowledgeable too.

For example;

• If you design and sell contemporary engagement and wedding rings then you might like to recommend other small independent creative businesses for brides, such as letterpress designers, make up artists, local photographers, wedding dress designers, and florists.
• Does your silver jewellery need a bit of after care to avoid it getting black? Then send a follow up email after their purchase with details on how to look after their jewellery.
• Do you own a small independent shop or gallery? Then share top tips on your blog posts on where to find nice local restaurants or boutique hotels. They might even return the favour!

The Design Trust‘s blogs and emails are full of recommendations! You can check out our favourite online places to sell your craft & design here. 

16. Give styling tips on how to wear or place your work

People often find it difficult to imagine how your jewellery would look on them, or whether your prints would look good on their wall. So … show them!

Pinterest is full of styling tips and advice on how to wear statement jewellery or a scarf, on how to hang pictures on a wall, or create beautiful ceramic collection displays. Think here too about broader challenges that are indirectly related to what you do. eg/ about how to dress a Christmas tree or table, or how to wrap a present beautifully.

American jeweller Megan Auman has various styling boards on her very popular Pinterest account which very cleverly show her jewellery pieces off and then how they can be worn in different situations.

This is another great image-based solution if you don’t like writing and a great opportunity to add some different and helpful images to your social media accounts

17. Make the most of events

One of the most common mistakes I see is that creative business owners only send out one (or not even one!) email to promote an event they are showing at.

And often they send it too late.

Creative selling events are one of the best opportunities for selling creative products, but also a great opportunity to promote yourself and your brand – even to people who might never be able to visit!

When preparing for a craft fair or tradeshow, it’s crucial that you don’t just share one email or a few social media posts at the last moment. Events are one of the best opportunities for staying in touch with your audience in a friendly, non salesy way. Not just for the people who might be able to attend, but also to raise your profile and credibility to all your contacts.

I advise my clients to create a series of emails in the run-up to a show, like this…

• announce that you are doing a particular show (6 weeks before)
• talk about your new collection that you will be launching at the show (4 weeks before)
• share why you created this collection and its name (3 weeks before)
• ask if anybody needs a VIP  or special discount ticket (2 weeks before)
• show getting ready for the show with packing up and boxes sticking out of your van (2 days before)
• share the chaos / process of setting up your stand (1 day before)
• reveal the final result: the launch of your new collection and your stand display (on launch day)

Don’t forget to email or share on social media after the show with a follow-up of what your bestsellers were, and make it possible for your followers to download a price list or wholesale catalogue. Just in case they missed you. This isn’t spam, this is being friendly and useful to busy people.

The reality is that if you only send one email, it’s very likely that your clients will miss it. By telling a story, it’s more likely that your subscribers will open your email, and they will become much more engaged and involved in your business journey. 

18. Make it more personal for trade buyers

If you want to increase your wholesale orders then individual and personalised emails work best. Don’t send a generic email that you also send to consumers.

Handpick the stockists and retailers you want to work with, research them, make sure they are a good fit, get a contact name, and send a personal email.

If you want your social media to attract trade clients, then you can try tagging them in a relevant post. But only do it once, or at most twice. Don’t become annoying!

And don’t just hope that they will follow you in return if you follow them! Stop broadcasting so much, and instead spend much more time on your trade client’s social media timelines and engage with them there. Ask questions. Give detailed comments and compliments. Yes: Make it social media!

19. Highlight a ‘Product of the Week’

Shine a light on a specific product or service that week or month.

Why did you design that product?

What was the inspiration behind it?

What name did you give it?

What’s special about it?

Make this post ideally relevant to the time of year. For example, a nice cosy woollen blanket post in October. Or gift ideas for teachers in July.

Include a gorgeous image at the top of your email to attract attention straight away.

And maybe you can offer something special. eg/ free postage and packaging on that product that week or combine it with another product to create a special ‘Set of the Month’.

This is a simple but effective marketing approach for promoting a product that you have got quite a bit of stock of, without putting it too bluntly in the sale!

20. Do a timely post or email

Make your emails and blog posts more relevant and newsworthy!

Become more aware of WHEN your readers are most likely to buy. What are their reasons for them buying from you?

Of course this is useful around Christmas when you can share some last minute gift ideas for busy mums or garden lovers.

But get a bit more creative too!

What are the key gift giving moments for your clients? Think about different religions.

What about ‘Back to School’ or ‘Hurray Spring is Here’.

Or join in with popular TV shows, trending music, or the news.

What about ‘Love a Tree Day’, National Stationery Week, or World Chocolate Day. We don’t know who makes these days up … but you can find a whole list of them here.

Think about how your clients might feel right now. For example, in January people want to start new habits or courses, and this might be a great time to launch planners or workshops. In March, people might like to do a little spring clean and get some new cushions or prints on the wall. When it gets colder they will be looking for scarves, cosy blankets, or candles. Add a little happiness in their timeline or inbox that connects to how they want to feel. 

Make sure that your subject line is catchy, interesting, or useful to your potential clients.

Don’t just call your newsletter a newsletter … let’s face it … nobody will want to open that!

21. Be useful

Who wants to receive emails that are boring, spammy and overly salesy? Nobody!

Who wants to read boring blog posts? Nobody!

Start to write blog posts and emails that are useful to your ideal clients!

Give them practical advice and last-minute Christmas wrapping ideas or gift suggestions for difficult people.

Talk about the Pantone Colour of the Year and share trend advice about the latest fashion or interior colours for the next season.

Promote other creative businesses, resources or books you like. About half of our social media posts are about promoting other organisations, opportunities, events that are relevant to our clients. Less than 10% of our social media posts are about selling our online courses, workshops, or memberships. And if you want to sell, then keep it simple and include a link directly to the relevant page. Yes, social media is a great tool for driving traffic to your website!

22. Invite others to write for you!

Don’t like writing? A really good way around this is to invite guest contributors for your blog posts.

Or why not interview others you find interesting and that you know your readers would love to hear about?

Or create a so called ‘wrap up blog post’ where you ask 3 – 5 contributors to respond to the same question or challenge. These blog post can be very popular and easy to create. Check out this blog post where three creatives shared how they use email marketing in their creative businesses as an example.

Be clear in what you want the focus to be of these guest blog posts, and avoid overly spammy and salesy posts. Also ensure that the content is original, as most search engines will punish you into lower rankings if your content has been duplicated.

If your guest writer is well connected or known and promotes thee blog post to their audience then you will get more and better traffic too!

Who would you approach to write for you? And how can you convince them that it’s a good idea for them too?

23. Take part in a social media challenge

Do you want even more ideas on what to write about in your emails, blog posts, or on social media? Why not take part in any of the popular social media challenges that do the rounds regularly.

One of the most popular ones is Joanne Hawker’s #marchmeetthemaker which takes place in March. Most of these challenges last a week or a month, and each day there is a prompt for you to create content around.

Just be careful that they won’t take up too much of your time. Some of these social media challenges attract mostly other creatives, and therefore might not do anything for your sales. But they can be a great opportunity to meet other creatives and become part of a bigger creative network!

24. Less writing. More images.

If you don’t like writing, why not making your content more visual?

Focus on great images in your emails. A fantastic photograph often says it far better than a long email. Be sure to link your images to where you want people to go on your website. We’re all so used to clicking images and it’s the easiest way to drive traffic to a product page, a shop, or a blog post.

Keep it simple.

Did you like our 24 creative ideas on what to write about for your next email newsletter, blog post, or on social media? Did we give you lots of ideas? Or have we missed a topic that has worked really well for you? We would love to hear from you in the comments box below.  And if you found this blog post useful then do share it with others. It’s really easy to copy the URL and spread the love. Thanks.

Want even more email newsletter ideas? Here are our own favourite creative newsletters to inspire you!