February is all about Valentine’s Day. Work ahead with these February email newsletter ideas for food bloggers and food content creators.
However you feel about Valentine’s day, there’s no escaping it when you’re a food content creator! There’s just not that much going on in February. We’re still well into winter in the northern hemisphere with few options for seasonal produce and the busy food holiday season behind us.
But, there are other things put in your emails and you can write about Valentine’s day in a way that works for you and your audience.
REMINDERS:
Super Bowl is February 8th this year – a great time to do appetizers, game day recipes, slow cooker dishes like chili that can stay simmering throughout the day.
Valentine’s Day is a Saturday this year – people may be more likely to want to do something a little extra special in the kitchen than on a busy weeknight
Ramadan runs from February 17 – March 19 in 2026. You can start to drip out Ramadan content in mid- late February if this is popular content for your audience.
Easter and Passover are in early April in 2026 so you will have to do a little extra brainstorming to fill your emails for the rest of February and early March.
VALENTINE’S DAY
There are multiple ways you can write about Valentine’s Day when it comes to food.
Make it about the kids – focus on school treats or a special dessert or movie night at home
Create Valentine’s day dinner menus from your recipe catalogue
family dinners
decadent romantic dinners for two
budget friendly romantic dinners
Chocolate – desserts, how to make your own, making them together, taking a class
Wine pairings – for that dinner menu you created above! Or how to set up a tasting at home
Galentine’s day – a great alternate take on Valentine’s day. How to throw a girl’s night party and all the food the goes with it
Turn Valentine’s Day into a day of spreading love and kindness to everyone instead of a romantic day. Suggest food gifts to make for neighbours or service providers or ways to make the day about beloved family and friends.
Budget-friendly Valentine’s Day. Filet Mignon and lobster are not on a lot of budgets this year. Neither is eating out. Suggest budget and pantry friendly ways to make the day special.
The anti-valentine – if Valentine’s day is really not you thing, embrace that too. You can talk about that with your readers and what you do instead (if anything) I guarantee you’ll have some agreeing with you!
BUDGET CONSCIOUS CONTENT
As mentioned above, groceries are expensive right now and vary widly depending on location. With a lot of economic uncertainty playing out people are finding food challenging. Ingredients that have traditionally been considered “budget friendly” like ground beef, are no longer affordable for many people.
Keep this in mind when making budget friendly claims for your recipes in emails. It can be frustrating for a reader to be excited for an affordable recipe only to see it includes ingredients that have increased wildly in price. It can also appear tone deaf.
Incorporate that into your content in whatever way fits your audience: ingredient swaps, minimizing food waste, tutorials, shopping tips, pantry planning. It might be as simple as just acknowledging that you recognize shopping is challenging for a lot of people right now.
PANTRY CHALLENGES
In a similar vein to budget conscious content, pantry challenges can be a great option this time of year when seasonal produce isn’t amazing.
Focus on recipes that use canned foods, frozen foods and pantry staples
challenge readers to “shop their pantry”
talk about the importance or rotating food to avoid waste – February is a great time for a pantry cleanup
using the food in our emergency kits and restocking them (more food rotation)
SEASONAL FOOD
citrus
kale
cabbage
leeks
pineapple
mushrooms
forced rhubarb
root veggies
TAILOR YOUR FEBRUARY NEWSLETTER CONTENT FOR YOUR EMAIL AUDIENCE
As always, these are ideas to help you brainstorm. Adapt them to fit your audience and your niche, which you know better than anyone else.
Remember that your email audience may be different from the audience that finds you through search.
Focus on what your newsletter subscribers respond to. If you have the data available in your newsletter marketing platform, look at which content they responded to this time last year. Then create newsletter content that’s a good fit.!
Now’s the time to get started. Plan out your February newsletter calendar and batch write your emails. Schedule them and you’re good to go!
Want More Tips?
Want more email tips? Subscribe to my monthly newsletter! Each month I write an exclusive newsletter full of tips, tricks and ideas for food content creators and their email lists!
As we turn the calendar into a new year, January can offer up a slower pace for food content creators. But, there’s still a lot of great email newsletter content ideas for food bloggers!
January is a month where it’s really important to have a good handle on who your newsletter subscribers are. There are a lot of ways to approach January content so think carefully about how you want to proceed.
HEALTH AND WELLNESS
January is often viewed as a “fresh start” in terms of health and wellness. If you’re not a health professional proceed with caution here. Avoid reference to weight loss or restrictive eating – unless that is your audience! (Ie if you’re a keto content creator, then obviously you will focus on Keto content because that isyour audience). Remember that the words you choose, and how you use them, matters.
You can try focusing on:
whole foods
lighter, simpler meals
mood boosting foods
moderation over restriction
inclusion of foods over exclusion of foods
nutritious snacks that fuel us through the cold and outdoor activities
foods that promote a sustainable environment
implementing small changes that make us feel more alive and vibrant
OTHER ‘FRESH STARTS’ TO FOCUS ON
There are lots of other fresh starts to explore in January that don’t focus on restrictive eating or diet culture.
pantry/kitchen clean-up and organization strategies
focusing on kitchen sustainability
evaluating kitchen tools/containers/dishes/appliances – what needs repair, what can be sold or given away, what needs to be disposed of (don’t forget you can recommend items and use your affiliate programs**)
minimizing instead of maximizing
BUDGET BOOSTERS AND KITCHEN WASTE
There’s always a bit of a spending hangover after the holiday season and 2025 looks like it won’t be an exception. How can you address this in your emails?
budget boosting foods
budget friendly recipes
food swaps that reduce grocery bills
how to avoid kitchen waste (which also helps with budgeting!)
meal planning and prep (less like to waste food if you plan and prep)
MEAL PLANNING
With a fresh start to the year, a lot of people make the decision to embrace meal planning – whether it’s to be more organized in the new year, to better manage their food budget, to hopefully spend more time with family or as a form of self-care.
meal prep weekly menus
meal prep guides and tip
meal prep for different types of diets or family sizes (singles, couples, young kids etc)
meal prep for various appliances (air fryer, Instant Pot etc)
this is also a great time to promote meal plan templates or other digital products you might have or to offer a freebie to help build your list
SEASONAL FOOD
root veg, squash, winter greens
kiwi, persimmons and pomegranates
citrus season is still in full swing
soups and stews
comfort foods
salads with bulk
bulky grains like barley, buckwheat, bulgar, farro
smoothies and bright, vibrant breakfast ideas
VALENTINE’S DAY
Start dripping out Valentine’s day content in your emails in the last week of January – earlier if this is a good fit for your audience. A few quick ideas…
TAILOR YOUR JANUARY NEWSLETTER CONTENT FOR YOUR EMAIL AUDIENCE
As always, these are ideas to help you brainstorm. Adapt them to fit your audience and your niche, which you know better than anyone else.
Remember that your email audience may be different from the audience that finds you through search.
Focus on what your newsletter subscribers respond to. If you have the data available in your newsletter marketing platform, look at which content they responded to this time last year. Then create newsletter content that’s a good fit.!
Now’s the time to get started. Plan out your January newsletter calendar and batch write your emails. Schedule them and you’re good to go!
** remember that you cannot use your direct Amazon affiliate product links in your emails but you can link to blog posts that contain Amazon affiliate links and you can link to your Amazon influencer shop. Check the rules of any other affiliate programs you use before including your links.
Want More Tips?
Want more email tips? Subscribe to my monthly newsletter! Each month I write an exclusive newsletter full of tips, tricks and ideas for food content creators and their email lists!
A detailed list of August food observances makes it easy for food content creators to brainstorm blog and email content ideas.
If you’re a food content creator and you’re looking for ideas for August content for your email newsletters or social media channels check out all of these August food holidays. There’s lots of ideas here and you can use them to brainstorm recipe ideas or come up with fun food videos for your YouTube channel. They also give you a great opportunity to share content from your archives.
There is quite literally a day for almost any type of food so you should be able to find suitable topics for your food blog’s niche!
Many of these observances are based on dates in the United States but are often celebrated in the food community at large. I’ve tried to note where a month, week or day is tied to a specific country other than the USA. And where a day is observed globally, that has been noted as well.
Some food observance dates do shift from year to year but these dates should be current for 2024
Want more email tips? Subscribe to my monthly newsletter! Each month I write an exclusive newsletter full of tips, tricks and ideas for food content creators and their email lists!
A lot of the food bloggers and food content creators I work with ask me if they need a lead magnet to help grow their email list. So let’s talk about it – are lead magnets worth it, or not?
Let’s start with the basics. Before you decide if you want a lead magnet or not, let’s answer the most important question first…
WHAT IS A LEAD MAGNET?
If you’re not 100% sure what a lead magnet is, let’s start there with a quick introduction.A lead magnet is an incentive that you give away to readers or visitors to your website in exchange for having them sign up to your email list. Quid pro quo!
A lead magnet doesn’t have to be complex, in depth or fancy. An ideal magnet should be low effort for you to create and high value for the person signing up for your list.
Do not confuse what you consider to be high value with what your reader considers high value. This is a common mistake content creators make.
You’re the expert. When we’re the expert or when something comes easily or seems obvious to us, it’s easy for us to forget that’s not the case for others.
Sometimes, high value may be as simple as saving somebody time (anything that saves me time is extremely high value to me).
I’m not going to get into a comprehensive list of lead magnet ideas here – I’ll save that for the next post But if you’re considering creating a lead magnet or two, think about what you can quickly and easily provide that makes life easier for your readers?
DO I NEED A LEAD MAGNET FOR MY FOOD BLOG?
No, you do not need a lead magnet.
I get asked this all the time and no, you really don’t. You can still build a good, healthy list without a lead magnet.
But… (I always have a “but”, right? 🤣), you will have to work harder to get subscribers and it will be a slower process.
Signing up for a newsletter is generally not the reason people land on your site and it’s not going to be top of mind. With or without a lead magnet, you’ll need to make it top of mind for them. And with no incentive, you’ll need to work harder to do that.
Make sure people have lots of visual queues to sign up on your website with popups, inline forms on individual blogs posts, text links and sidebar boxes.
You’ll need to ask people to signup via your social media channels – and make it easy for them to do so. Create an easy landing page URL where the only thing people can do is sign up for your list. (This is mine – and for what it’s worth, I don’t currently have a lead magnet!)
The upside of this? People who do sign up for your list will be there because they really want to hear from you – and that, my friends, is the basis for a healthy list!
THE #1 REASON PEOPLE TELL ME THEY DON’T HAVE A LEAD MAGNET
The biggest reason I hear for not having a lead magnet (and I hear it again and again) is that “people just sign up to get the freebie and then they unsubscribe”.
This doesn’t cut the mustard with me.
If you don’t want to have a lead magnet, don’t have one. That’s totally fine.
But if you have a lead magnet and you wind up with a net increase in subscribers every month, the lead magnet is doing its job. Why would you ditch it?
If you have a net decrease in subscribers then sure, get rid of it. And then you probably need to dive deeper into why you’re losing more subscribers than you’re gaining every month. Because, it’s probably not the lead magnet!
PEOPLE WHO UNSUBSCRIBE AFTER GETTING THE LEAD MAGNET
Yes, some people are going to sign up for your list, grab the freebie and run. That’s life. Just like they land on your website from google, get the recipe they wanted and wave buh-bye. How many of us drop into Walmart to buy the loss leader in that week’s circular and then get the heck out of there?
We all do stuff like this from time to time when it comes to the businesses we interact with.
If your lead magnet is low effort for you, then it’s really not a big deal if somebody unsubscribes after they get your lead magnet.
Let them go.
They were never going to engage with your emails anyway and they wind up costing you money instead of making you money.
But, the people who do this are almost always the minority. It just feels like they’re the majority because they’re actively letting you know that you’re not for them and that always sucks. (think about how we obsess over the one negative or ignorant comment on a recipe but disregard the dozens of positive comments??)
THE OTHER REASONS PEOPLE UNSUBSCRIBE SHORTLY AFTER GETTING YOUR FREEBIE
It’s more likely that people unsubscribe from your email list after getting your lead magnet for one of these reasons:
they read it and realized your tone or style is not for them
the lead magnet didn’t deliver what it promised
they were inundated with multiple emails from you in a very short period of time
your send frequency is too high for their tolerance
your list onboarding is clunky
The first? Well that stinks but, we can’t be for everyone. We shouldn’t even try. Having a unique voice and a strong point of view will help you stand out and build a strong following. But it will also turn some people off. And that’s ok!
It wouldn’t hurt, though, to have a few friends or food content creator peers review your lead magnet and your initial emails to see if maybe the tone is coming across awkwardly or your humour or words are falling flat.
The other reasons? Those are all things that are fixable! But it’ll mean you need to sit down and have an honest talk with yourself about what you’re doing.
⭐️ Are you delivering what you promised in the lead magnet? ⭐️ How many emails did they get from you in the first week? 1? 3? 7? TEN??? ⭐️ Were you up front about how often they can expect to hear from you in the welcome email you sent them? ⭐️ Did they have to jump through hoops for the lead magnet to drop in their inbox? (and yes, you should be using double opt-in)
THE LAST WORD ON LEAD MAGNETS FOR FOOD CONTENT CREATORS
No, you don’t need one.
But having one will help you grow your list faster – especially if it’s something your ideal subscriber values.
If you have a lead magnet and you’re getting a net increase in subscribers every month, it’s doing it’s job. I would keep it
Don’t worry about unsubscribes so much as long as you’re growing, your open rate is steady and people are engaging with your email content.
I’ll be back soon to talk about the kinds of lead magnets you can offer that will be easy for you to make and highly valued by your audience!
Want More Tips?
Want more email tips? Subscribe to my monthly newsletter! Each month I write an exclusive newsletter full of tips, tricks and ideas for food content creators and their email lists!
A detailed list of May food observances makes it easy for food content creators to brainstorm blog and email content ideas.
If you’re looking for ideas for May content for your food blog’s email newsletters or social media channels, or you’re wanting to brainstorm recipe ideas or come up with fun food videos for your YouTube channel, check out all of these May food holidays. You’re sure to find something that gets your mouth watering – there’s suitable topics for every kind of food blogger and food content creator.
Many of these observances are based on dates in the United States but are often celebrated in the food community at large. I’ve tried to note where a month, week or day is tied to a specific country other than the USA. And where a day is observed globally, that has been noted as well.
Some food observance dates do shift from year to year but these dates should be current for 2024
Want more email tips? Subscribe to my monthly newsletter! Each month I write an exclusive newsletter full of tips, tricks and ideas for food content creators and their email lists!
