Product update email templates you can paste today
Four product update email templates and a list of subject lines. Plain text, copy blocks, no download form standing between you and a paragraph. Paste into whatever your email tool is and fill the brackets.
Template one
New feature announcement email
One feature big enough to interrupt someone. Send it the day it ships, not the week before.
Subject: You can now [do the thing] in [product]
Hi [first name],
[One sentence on the problem. Use the words customers used when they asked for it.]
Starting today, [what they can do now]. [One sentence on how: the button,
the setting, the command.]
[Screenshot or GIF of the feature doing its job. Alt text that says what it shows.]
It's [on for everyone / in Settings > X / on the Y plan]. [One line on what it
doesn't do yet, if people will ask.]
[Button: Try it] [Link: Read the changelog entry]
[Your name]
[Reply to this email. It goes to a person.]Template two
Monthly product update newsletter
Everything that shipped this month, for people who want the summary. Same day every month, so it becomes a habit and not a surprise.
Subject: What's new in [product], [Month]
Hi [first name],
[One or two sentences on the theme of the month, if there was one.
Skip it if there wasn't. Nobody needs a forced theme.]
THE BIG ONE
[Feature name]: [two sentences on what it does for them]. [Link]
ALSO NEW
- [Improvement, as what a user can now do]. [Link]
- [Improvement]. [Link]
FIXED
- [The symptom people saw, now gone].
- [Another one].
COMING NEXT
- [Only things you're confident about. Cut this section if you're not.]
Full list: [link to your changelog]
[Your name]Template three
Small improvements and fixes email
A batch of small things. Good for a quiet month, or as a reply to the people who reported the bugs.
Subject: [Number] small fixes in [product] this week
Hi [first name],
Nothing flashy this time. A few things that should make [product] less annoying:
- [Fix], thanks to [person] for reporting it.
- [Fix].
- [Improvement].
If something's still bugging you, reply and tell me what it is.
[Your name]Template four
Breaking change or deprecation email
Something is going away or changing shape. Send it early, and send a reminder before the date.
Subject: Action needed by [date]: [what is changing] in [product]
Hi [first name],
On [date], [what is changing, in one sentence].
WHO THIS AFFECTS
[You, if you use X. If you don't use X, you can ignore this email.]
WHAT TO DO
1. [The one-line migration step.]
2. [The second step, if there is one.]
WHY
[One honest sentence. Not "to serve you better".]
Guide: [link to the migration docs]
Questions: reply to this email.
[Your name]Subject lines
Subject lines for product updates emails
The subject line is the only part most people read. Say what changed. Clever subject lines are for people with a much bigger list than mine.
You can now [do the thing] in [product]
[Feature] is live
What's new in [product], [Month]
[Number] fixes you asked for
The [thing] you reported is fixed
Action needed by [date]: [change]
[Product] now works with [tool]The hard part
Filling them in
One email, one job. If the feature announcement also has to carry three fixes and a webinar, the fixes win and the feature gets lost. Describe what the reader can now do, not what your team built. Name the old behavior when something changed. And send it from a person whose inbox someone reads, because the replies to a product update email are the best feedback you'll get all month.
Keep the plain-text version readable. Plenty of developers read email with images off, and an announcement that's one big image says nothing to them.
Examples
Where to see real product update emails
I'm not going to paste other companies' emails here. Two collections already do that properly:
- Really Good Emails, product update category. A big gallery of product update and new feature emails, good for layout ideas.
- Loops, product update email examples. Fewer emails, each with a note on what it does well. Descript's monthly email and Reform's list of upcoming releases are both in there, and both map onto the newsletter template above.
Disclosure
Where the content comes from
Every template above is easier to fill if you already wrote down what shipped. That's the changelog. The monthly newsletter is mostly a changelog with a greeting on top.
Merge & Tell doesn't send email. What it does is write the changelog entry, and the social posts, from each merged pull request, so by the end of the month the raw material for the newsletter already exists. Mine is the updates page on this site. The product updates guide covers the other channels, and the release notes template covers the entry itself.
Honesty
What a template won't fix
A list that never hears from you until there's a launch. People forget they signed up, and the first email in six months reads like spam because to them it is. The template fixes the blank page. The cadence is still yours to keep.
Let the merge draft the changelog. The email is a paste.
You were going to merge the PR anyway.