7 Creative Email Campaign Examples ChatGPT Won’t Tell You

I don’t know about you, but I’m kinda getting sick of AI.

For creative purposes, at least. 

Let me explain…

For one, it’s becoming increasingly hard to trust anything I see online. 

And most of the stuff I do see is bad, like really bad.

The ads are uncreative, and the emails I receive from brands sound all the same.  

You know… the “it’s not this, it’s that” language. 

And I’m not the only one who thinks this…

Over the past few weeks, I’ve had several people, even seasoned marketers with over a decade of experience telling me they kinda don’t enjoy what they’re doing anymore. 

Everything is about efficiency, achieving more by doing less, at the expense of quality.

Which brings me to my point…

What happened to the creative process?

Maybe I’ve become the victim of “you are what you eat,” meaning the algo knows how to get a reaction out of me, so it just keeps feeding me the same crap over and over.

Maybe.

Anyway, with so much AI slop out there, I thought it would be a great idea to freshen our minds and talk about creative email marketing campaigns. 

That’s right. 

I picked out 7 creative email campaign angles that Claude, ChatGPT, or your latest Houdini can’t think of.

Don’t get me wrong, some of these campaigns still use AI, but in a way I think is actually useful.

7 Creative Email Campaign Examples ChatGPT, Claude, Or Your Latest Houdini Won’t Tell You

Visual Demonstration

What’s working:

Demonstration is one of the oldest marketing tactics in the book.

In this campaign, Bite, a brand that sells toothpaste bits, drives home a point on how much plastic they actually save. Turns out, if the person who uses toothpaste tubes daily switches to Bite, they’d save 137 toothpaste tubes.

Adding those toothpaste tubes in the email is a super smart idea. 

Specificity Angle

What’s working:

One of my takeaways from Scientific Advertising was that factual, specific statements always beat vague, exaggerated claims. Even better if you can back your statements up with evidence or testimonials.

This campaign by hims here is an example of how to use specificity right. As you can see, they don’t make any vague promises like “lose weight in a few months.” They’ve actually studied their customer base, and said the average user loses 10.5% of body weight in one year. 

That’s really powerful.

History Angle

What’s working:

This email campaign by Hostage Tape is living proof that you can come up with creative ideas out of nowhere, as long as you do your market research. 

I mean, just think about it. The brand sells mouthtapes for people struggling with snoring.

In what world is that connected to Winston Churchill?

It’s not… until it is.

This campaign was sent to me by their copywriter Peter. 

I absolutely love it.

The Group Chat

What’s working:

I can tell you that no one in the history of email marketing has ever been excited to open an FAQ email.

No one’s eyes light up when they see a “Your questions, answered” subject line.

While this campaign by Puresport leans more towards a funny campaign rather than an objection-handling FAQ email, the concept itself can be used as that.

Songwriting

What’s working:

What do 99% of Valentine’s Day, Halloween, and Easter campaigns have in common? 

They’re all SUPER boring. 

I can bet my life’s savings on the fact that, when Halloween rolls around this year, your inbox will be filled with “no tricks, just treats” campaigns.

Carnivore Snax just said the hell with it and created a song. 

My advice is this… when a global event rolls around, and everyone is sending the same emails over and over again, just do ANYTHING that’s different.

Read more: Emails that Sell #24: The Ugly Email (Carnivore Snax)

Problem-Solution

What’s working:

This is a standard “if you have problem X, we have solution Y” type of email. But I think the way it’s framed is really creative. Instead of a generic browse abandonment email, it actually guides you to the right product, which is great if you have a large assortment.

Moments

What’s working:

This final campaign is actually a cart abandonment sample I wrote for Neutonic myself, inspired by Whisky Loot.

I was in the middle of taking a CopyHackers course, so I wanted to practice my chops (a great way to land clients as well btw…). 

The idea behind this is super simple.

List out all the things you can do with your product. Some of them realistic, some of them plainly stupid. 

Then, pick out the best ones and write a cart abandonment email. It’s a pattern breaker, and in the worst case scenario, the reader gets a chuckle out of it.

What’s next

If you found this useful, or you just enjoyed reading about these campaigns, I’m thinking of putting together a resource of creative angles. 

Let me know what you think.