October Newsletter Ideas: 22 Ideas for What to Send Your List This Month

Ah, October. Did you know that this is one of my favorite months of the year, especially living in Northeast Ohio? The temperatures finally start to drop, the skies tend to clear from their summer clouds (and before the winter rains!), and the leaves turn a distinctive “fruity peoples” conglomeration of colors. Oh, and it’s sweater season! Really, what’s not to love?!

Okay, to be fair, it’s also one of the worst months of the year for traffic in most niches, which is such a gut-kick after the last year we’ve all been having with Google updates left, right, and center. Now, more than ever, email is an essential part of succeeding as a blogger – it’s one of the few ways you can really reach people without an algorithm gaslighting you into feeling like you don’t actually help people with your content. (You do, I promise!!)

As usual, I’m back on my (high?) horse to give you some advice on emailing your newsletter list more – ideally, every single week, all year long! This post is part of a monthly series giving you tons of ideas for what to send your list… As the name of this post and this introduction suggest, we’re focusing on October newsletter ideas!

Ready to unwrap your hands from a cozy mug of tea, crank out a few emails, and start to connect with your audience – your community – in the most meaningful way? Let’s explore all of the ideas I have for what to send your list in October.

Ideas for Week 1 – October 1-7

To kick off the first week of October, you can go for a low-hanging fruit: it’s Pumpkin Spice Day on October 1st! (I don’t know who comes up with this stuff!)

Whether it’s addressing the changing seasons (and what that means for your niche), or sparking debate about the merits of pumpkin spice (or whether it’s a scourge on society), you can definitely kick the month of easily with this topic even if your niche isn’t food. It’s a great “lifestyle” topic that can apply to any niche!

There are a few other topics you might consider for this first week, depending on your niche:

• The first Wednesday in October (also the 1st) is Random Acts of Poetry Day, so you might send your subscribers a poem you love (in/out of your niche), or prompt replies to your email by asking everyone to come up with a funny haiku and then re-sharing the “best” one next week.
• It’s National Do Something Nice Day on October 5th; you could come up with some niche-specific way to do something nice – such as offering a special freebie – on this day.
• It’s also World Space Week from October 4th to 10th. Even if you’re not a space blogger (like me! 🙋🏻‍♀️), you could talk about some fun space fact or unique space object (they have the wackiest names) that relates to your niche.

Ideas for Week 2 – October 8-14

There are lots of options for what to email your list during the second week of October – including a few of those haikus you solicited, if you decided to use that prompt last week… In case you didn’t, here are some other ideas!

This week hosts World Mental Health Day on October 10th and National Coming Out Day on October 11th, which are also deep conversation-starters if they make sense for your community and audience.

The second Monday in October (the 13th, this year) is Columbus Day in the U.S., but I’m more in favor of observing Indigenous People’s Day since that aligns with my blog values. That same day is also National Kick Butt Day, so maybe that makes more sense instead of wading into a potentially political discussion in people’s inboxes. (And to be fair, you might’ve stoked controversy when discussing pumpkin spice the week before, so things might need to cool off!)

Lastly, the second week of October is National Work from Home Week, which might make sense to discuss if you’re in a productivity, work, or B2B niche, or if you’re dreaming of/aspiring to work full-time on your blog (or if you’ve already achieved that!).

As I said, lots of choices here!

Ideas for Week 3 – October 15-21

I have a few ideas to inspire you for emailing your newsletter this third week of the month; I feel like this week is always the hardest one for coming up with a creative idea and staying motivated on the weekly cadence…

First up, October 21st is Back to the Future Day (if you know the movies, you know why!). There are lots of ways you could spin this in your niche, looking back at your blogging journey so far – or forward toward the future.

The third week in October is also Free Speech Week. At least here in the U.S., this opens up a lot of avenues for discussion via email… though again, you may want to tread lightly if you’ve already “poked the dragon” with topics earlier in the month. Maybe then stick with Back to the Future – nobody hates that!

Ideas for Week 4 – October 22-28

The final week of October has a bunch of options as well, but before suggesting them, I want to provide a business-oriented option: share your Black Friday offer now. As I mentioned in September – and in more depth below –, Black Friday is fast approaching, and you want to warm up and prime your list to save money for what you plan to offer them. Use this final email of the month to start that process by telling them your offer and reminding them to budget it in their minds so they don’t forget when Black Friday rolls around.

Not focusing on Black Friday or your own products/services this year? No worries – as I said, there are lots of other ideas for what to send your list in this last full week:

• October 22nd is National Color Day, which seems like a good open-ended prompt for basically every niche out there!
• National Pumpkin Day is October 26th, just a few days before Halloween…
• and National Black Cat Day is October 27th, which really means you could just focus on an early-Halloween prompt for this week’s email, if it makes sense for your niche.
• This also might make sense since National Trick-or-Treat Day is the last Saturday of the month (the 25th this year). (Also, why are all of the areas around me celebrating on the 18th/19th then???)
• Lastly, National Make a Difference Day is the fourth sunday in October (the 27th), if you want another non-Halloween idea; there are lots of ways you could talk about making a difference in your niche, whatever it might be!

Additional October Newsletter Ideas

As a 31-day month, you might need to send one last email in October to stick with your weekly cadence. If you haven’t mentioned Halloween yet and that makes sense for your niche, now’s a good time! (It’s also National Candy Corn Day on October 30th, mmmmm….)

October is also two “months of…:”

• It’s National Learning and Development Month, which could be a good focus during this week, or really any week of October, to email about how people can learn more about your niche – and maybe plug in a few really helpful blog posts to drive some traffic!
• It’s also Self Promotion Month, which really, do I need to say more? Promote yourself: send a blog post! Promote your products or services! Share your social media accounts and ask for follows. People will support you, but sometimes you just gotta ask – and this is a great “excuse” to grow another part of your business.

Bonus: Black Friday Planning

By the end of October, Black Friday is just four weeks away, and that means it’s time to get serious about your promotion plan!

If you followed my advice last month, you’ve come up with at least a few ideas for what you might do for Black Friday. Now it’s time to decide on/commit to a Black Friday offer – and maybe share the details with your subscribers so they know it’s coming and can budget accordingly.

You’ll also want to start setting up whatever tech you need to have ready to make sales/promote whatever you’ve chosen. For me, that means scheduling the details of the sale on the appropriate product in Woocommerce and drafting a bunch of sales emails in Mailerlite. By the time you read my November newsletter ideas guide, you should be pretty much ready to go – or at least well on your way. You got this! 💪

Have any other questions about coming up with October newsletter ideas? Let me know in the comments below!