7 Essential Elements for Engaging Product Update Emails

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Idealetter

#28

28 March 2025, Fri

Written by Jyothiikaa M D

How to Write Product Update Emails

If you are a SaaS brand, periodically updating your customers with newly released product features is necessary. This is usually done by sending out a product update email once every month or so.

Writing a good product update email is vital to getting your users to discover and adopt new features.

They seem simple enough; all you have to do is tell the users what new improvements you have made, and that’s about it. Right?

Not quite.

Many product update emails seem like boring announcements that users usually ignore, or worse, if they do read them, they don’t understand what you're talking about.

In this edition of the Idealetter, we will discuss how you can write effective product update emails that provide your users with value and encourage adoption.

7 Things to optimize in your product update emails

An ideal product update email is easy to understand and useful to the reader.

To do this, it should clearly communicate the following:

What is the new feature/update
How will this feature help your users with their pain points
Where is it located in the product, and how can they use it

It should feel like a quick, helpful chat between you and your user. Keep your focus on maintaining clarity, helping the user understand the updates, and encouraging them to adopt the feature. You can effectively do that by paying attention to the following basic elements:

#1: Subject line

Let’s start with the first thing your users see in their inbox when you email them– the subject line.

Your subject line must indicate that the email is a product update email and perhaps provide a sneak peek at the updates. Here is an example of one of our product update email subject lines:

“🚀March Product Update: Create segments using AI”

Here are some more product update subject lines that different brands have used:

Readdl - “🎉 Meet Spark 2.0 and love your email again”
Product Hunt - “48 new updates for [your name]”
Slack - “Integrate your email feedback directly into Slack!”

If you want more subject line ideas for your product update email, make sure to check out our AI subject line generator.

#2: Header/First fold

Next, let's focus on the first thing they see after opening the email- the email header.

In this section, you'll have to establish the intent of this template so that people reading it will easily understand its purpose.

Firstly, you'll obviously need to have your logo.
Next, you'll need a title. Most brands use something like “What's new in (company name)?” as this establishes that this is a product update email.
Then, you can choose to add the month or date of when that email is going out. This is not a necessary detail but can be nice to have in case people want to refer back to the email, as it makes it easier to search for it.

Additionally, you can have some design elements that remain constant and can be used in every product update in the future. It'll help capture users' attention and make it easy to establish your brand identity, like Coda has done below. 👇🏼

#3: Introduction

The first paragraph of your product update email can feature a quick preview of the email's contents, like a teaser that gives the user an idea about what to expect in the email.

This section can include the most anticipated feature that you have released or highlight any particular pain points that this update seeks to address, like the product update email below by Miro.

However, often, not a lot of people may read this part, so make sure that you keep it short and sweet.

#4: Major updates (hero features)

Now, in a month, we'll have many features and updates rolled out. But we can't bombard users with everything in the email. So, how do you choose what to share, and how should you share it?

First, when I write product update emails, I segregate all the features into hero and non-hero features.

Hero features are those features that are the most impactful for the users or the features that the majority of users have requested.

In a single product update email, I try to share only around 3-5 hero features to keep things simple and not make the email too long and boring.

Now that you've segregated what you should write about. Here's what you should include for every hero feature.

How to write a hero feature to help users understand it

Each hero feature should-

Have a clear title that tells people what the feature is and its use case.
Go into more detail in the description, on how it works, where it's located in the product, and how it'll help the users.

(Tip: Use the same terms that you use inside your product. But also don't use too much of industry niche terms. The idea here is to explain the technicalities clearly without unnecessary jargon.)

After the description, include a mini demo using GIFs, annotated screenshots, or carousels to clearly show where the feature is located and how it works.
After or before the image, you can include a “Learn More” button that takes the user to a more detailed help doc on the feature. This is useful when introducing a complex feature that cannot be fully explained in a couple of paragraphs.

Here is an example of a hero feature in a product update email from ClickUp. 👇🏼

#5: Additional improvements

Now, in addition to your hero features, you've got some minor enhancements and bug fixes that could benefit your users but do not warrant a whole explanatory section.

You can add them in a small section after the hero features and list these updates in bullet points, like how we have done in our product update email shown below. 👇🏼

#6: CTA button

In the hero section, you've added a CTA to read more about the feature. But now you need them actually to adopt the feature.

So, either at the end of the email or after each hero feature, you can ask them to “Try out the feature” and link it to your login page.

Or if you have a specific product page, you can directly take them to that particular product page, like how Semrush has done below. 👇🏼

#7: Teaser for next big announcement

If you are working on a major new update or gearing up for major changes in your product, you can include a teaser to build up excitement, like this email by Canva. 👇🏼

Sending product update emails is only one part of your larger email marketing strategy. Check out our previous edition to see which fundamental emails you'll need to set up when starting out with email marketing.

In the next edition, we will cover all the basics of what you need to set up to start sending out your marketing emails.

That’s all, folks! I’ll see you next month with more tips and ideas. If there is something we can do better for you, please let me know by replying to this email.