July is where a lot of brands get lazy.

The big summer sale is over. Prime Day took charge last month. Half your customers are on vacation... so the default response is usually the same: send fewer emails and wait for the next big promotion.

But after digging through hundreds of campaigns from June, that's not what the best brands are doing.

They're finding better reasons to show up.

This morning, we're breaking down eight ideas brands are using right now to stay relevant without relying on another discount.

Also inside:

→ Sometimes the problem isn't your emails. It's everything underneath them.
→ Knowledge drop: The retention metric most brands never measure
→ 🇺🇸 This week we're America-maxxing (offer inside)
→ DTC wins: A K-beauty lip oil just crossed 200 million TikTok views

Sometimes the problem isn't your emails. It's everything underneath them.

MUSS knew their open rates were low. What they didn't know was why.

After switching from Klaviyo to Omnisend, the team uncovered deliverability issues they didn't even know existed, brought email and SMS into one platform, and stopped making marketing decisions based on guesswork.

The results:

• Open rates increased 41% year-over-year

• Revenue per recipient grew 13%

• The entire migration took one day

The biggest win wasn't a metric, though. It was finally having clear answers about what was working, what wasn't, and what to do next.

→ Read the full story

*Sponsored

Knowledge drop

Repeat purchase rate gets all the attention, but Jimmy argues there's a more important metric hiding underneath it. In this post, he breaks down why shortening "time to value" can have a bigger impact on retention than any email flow or promotion.

8 Email Ideas Worth Stealing for July

July can be a weird month for marketers.

Prime Day dominated June. Summer vacations are in full swing. Open rates can get unpredictable. And for a lot of brands, the temptation is to either lean entirely on discounts or simply send less.

But after spending the last month digging through the DTC inbox, one thing became clear: the brands getting attention aren't necessarily sending more emails. They're finding better reasons to send them.

Some turned restocks into full-blown campaigns. Others built emails around seasonal moments, founder stories, cultural events, or customer milestones. In many cases, the product wasn't even the most interesting part of the email.

If you're planning your July calendar right now, here are eight ideas worth borrowing.

1. Turn a Restock Into a Campaign

One of the easiest opportunities to overlook is sitting in your inventory report.

Throughout June, we saw brands like Barebells, HUMANTRA, and Dippin Daisys dedicate entire campaigns to products coming back in stock. What was once an operational update is now treated like a launch.

It makes sense when you think about it. A customer who joins a waitlist or checks back repeatedly for a sold-out item is telling you exactly what they want. That's some of the strongest purchase intent you'll find anywhere in your database.

Instead of sending a single "it's back" notification, consider building a sequence around the return.

Ideas to test in July:

• Tease the return before inventory arrives.

• Give waitlist subscribers early access.

• Highlight customer reviews and social proof once it's live.

• Send a final reminder if inventory starts running low.

A restock already has built-in demand. Your job is simply to make the moment feel worthy of attention.

2. Build Around Summer Moments

One thing we saw repeatedly throughout June was brands tying products to what customers were already doing.

Traveling. Heading to the beach. Packing for long weekends. Spending more time outside. Looking for ways to stay cool.

The product often wasn't the lead story. The occasion was.

And that's what made the campaigns feel relevant.

Customers don't wake up thinking about your SKU, they wake up thinking about their plans. When your email connects naturally to those plans, the product becomes easier to sell because it feels like part of the solution rather than the center of the conversation.

Ideas to test in July:

• What's in my beach bag

• Summer travel essentials

• Mid-summer reset

• Products our team is taking on vacation

You don't need a major promotion to make these campaigns work. Often the seasonal context is enough to earn attention on its own.

3. Let the Calendar Do Some of the Work

The best brands aren't waiting around for Black Friday-sized moments anymore.

They're turning smaller occasions into reasons to show up consistently.

In June, we saw brands move seamlessly from Father's Day into Fourth of July planning, summer travel content, and seasonal product collections. There was always another relevant conversation waiting around the corner.

The takeaway isn't that you need more holiday emails. It's that your marketing calendar should extend beyond major sales events.

Look for opportunities like:

• National holidays

• Seasonal milestones

• Sporting events

• Cultural moments

• Community celebrations

• Brand anniversaries

The more reasons you create to show up, the less pressure each individual campaign has to carry.

4. Borrow Attention From Culture

Creating demand from scratch is difficult; but connecting your brand to something people are already paying attention to is often much easier.

We saw brands like Malbon tie campaigns to the U.S. Open and artist collaborations, while Wild partnered with Disney. Neither company fundamentally changed its product offering. They simply found ways to make their products part of larger conversations.

Questions to ask yourself:

• What is my audience paying attention to right now?

• Which creators, events, or communities overlap with our customer base?

• Is there a conversation happening that our product naturally fits into?

The goal to find the trends that already align with your customers' interests.

5. Send an Email From a Real Person

One pattern we continue to see across high-performing brands is the shift away from purely brand-led messaging.

Throughout June, brands like Ghia and HUMANTRA regularly sent emails that felt more personal. Sometimes it was a founder sharing a story. Sometimes it was a team member talking about a routine, a product they loved, or a lesson they'd learned.

The common thread was simple: it felt like a person was talking to you.

Cause let's face it, customers trust people more than logos. And that's especially true when inboxes are crowded and promotional messages start blending together.

A founder email won't outperform every campaign. But it can create a different type of engagement that product-focused emails often struggle to generate.

Ideas to test in July:

• A founder's summer routine

• Products your team is currently obsessed with

• Lessons learned halfway through the year

• Behind-the-scenes product development updates

• Customer stories told from a human perspective

These emails are particularly useful during slower promotional periods because they strengthen the relationship without relying on an offer.

6. Use Product Launches to Reach New Customers

The smartest launches we saw in June weren't really about introducing a new product.

They were about expanding the audience.

Dippin Daisys used a Mommy & Me collection to speak to a different type of customer. Touchland used multiple campaigns around body sprays to create an entry point into a broader category.

The product mattered, but the bigger opportunity was who the product allowed them to reach.

That's a useful way to think about launches heading into July.

Instead of asking, "How do we sell this new product?" consider asking, "Who does this product help us reach?"

Ideas to explore:

• Bundles designed for a new customer segment

• Limited-edition collections tied to a different audience

• Starter kits for first-time buyers

• New product categories that complement existing customers

The best launches create new demand. They don't just create new inventory.

7. Make Discounts Earn Their Keep

Discounts are still everywhere.

The difference is that the best brands are asking more from them.

Native used tiered discounts to increase basket size. Tropicfeel rewarded customers for buying multiple items. EADEM turned its offer into a customizable bundle.

In each case, the discount served a larger purpose than simply generating conversions.

That's an important distinction because margin gets harder to protect when discounts become the default answer to every marketing problem.

Before adding another promotion to your calendar, ask what behavior you're actually trying to encourage.

Ideas to test in July:

• Tiered thresholds that increase AOV

• Build-your-own bundles

• Buy more, save more offers

• Category-specific promotions

• Loyalty member exclusives

The strongest discounts don't just drive purchases. They shape how customers purchase.

8. Give Customers Something Bigger Than a Promotion

Some of the most memorable emails we saw in June had nothing to do with a sale.

Ghia celebrated its sixth birthday. cocokind highlighted a charitable initiative. Other brands shared company milestones, community achievements, and mission-driven updates.

What made these campaigns effective wasn't the announcement itself.

It was the reminder that there's a real brand behind the product.

Customers often subscribe because of what you sell. They stay because of what you stand for.

That doesn't mean every email needs to tell your origin story. But occasionally giving customers a reason to care beyond the transaction can make future promotional emails much more effective.

Ideas to test in July:

• A company milestone

• A customer success story

• Community highlights

• Charitable partnerships

• Mid-year reflections and goals

Not every campaign needs to generate immediate revenue. Some campaigns generate the trust that makes future revenue possible.

Why These Ideas Matter: Relevance Wins Attention

At first glance, these ideas seem unrelated.

But they're all solving the same problem.

Customers have more choices, more distractions, and more marketing messages competing for their attention than ever before.

The brands that stood out in June were the ones that created genuine relevance; giving customers a compelling reason to pay attention, engage, and care.

As you build your July calendar, that's probably the question worth asking before every send: Why should someone care about this email today?

The brands that answer that question well tend to earn the click.

🇺🇸 This week we're America-maxxing.

Hot dogs.

Fireworks.

Questionable amounts of domestic beer.

And investing in assets that appreciate... like eCom Email Certified. 😉

Inside are 175+ lessons covering the skills every retention marketer eventually needs to learn: flows, campaigns, segmentation, deliverability, AI, copywriting, and more.

And our $500 off offer expires tomorrow.

So enjoy the long weekend.

Then when the fireworks are over, the leftovers are gone, and it's Monday morning again, you'll have something more useful than a mild sunburn and a cooler full of empty cans.

You'll have a playbook you can hit the ground running with.

Last chance → Save $500 with code MERICA

DTC wins:

Nooni's Applecherry Lip Oil has racked up 200M+ TikTok views, and the brand is capitalizing with a Prime Day deal at $9.60 (36% off). It's already on shelves at Ulta and Target across the US, Canada, and the UK. Truly a dream trajectory; they hit a viral moment that turned into real distribution. If you've got a SKU catching fire on social, the move is to build the email funnel around it now, not after the hype cools off.

Annnnd that’s a wrap for this edition! 

Thanks for hanging with Chase and me, always a pleasure to have you here.

If you found this newsletter helpful (or even just a little fun), don’t keep it to yourself! Share ecomemailmarketer.com with your favorite DTC marketer. Let’s get them on board so they don’t miss next week’s drops.

Remember: Do shit you love.

🤘 Jimmy Kim & Chase Dimond

PS - Your next best customer might be reading this right now. Want in? Email Jimmy to sponsor this newsletter and more.

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