“If social media is the cocktail party, then email marketing is the ‘meet up for coffee’. The original 1 to 1 channel.” – Erik Harbison, CEO of AWeber.
When it comes to marketing, no matter what your product is, software or an app, content is king. You do not want your leads to feel like they are “sold” something along their customer journey. That is where content or inbound marketing steps in. In which you organically attract prospects and customers through relevant and helpful content. Blogs are a great way to accomplish that, and they produce excellent results as coupled with the right email marketing strategy.
You curated those great blogs where you gather valuable information for your subscribers. However, they remain ineffective unless reached out to a certain amount of readers to engage with them. That is why your email list is so powerful, because it gives you direct access to your audience. It helps you develop a personal relationship with them and create loyalty. Also, with the right email marketing strategy, you hopefully get to monetize your content besides a growing reader base.
Here are 9 useful tips that will help you to promote your blog with email marketing:
#1: Build A Reputation
As a blogger, you must build a reputation for great contents, so that your readers cannot wait for your next blog posts. As hundreds of billions of mail are sent every day, that is your only chance stand out in the eyes of your subscribers.
“Cookie contents” are great for that. They offer practical solutions for your reader’s problems in an appealing format so they are easy to digest. According to Sonia Simone, co-founder of Copyblogger, you should train your readers like dogs. I know how it sounds, but wait: You need to train your readers and every time they take the desired action (engage with your content, subscribe, open your email, etc), you give them a reward, a cookie content. You’re literally training that reader to consume your content, because the content is beneficial and appealing. Once they taste it, they will want more. And once the reputation is set for great contents, your email open rates will skyrocket accordingly.
#2: Choose Your Tool
You can repeat and consolidate your readers with great contents. But you need a killer email strategy to retain and gain more followers. That is why you need to use the right email marketing service, such as GetResponse, AWeber, MailChimp or HubSpot (the one we use). You should know that those marketing platforms do not offer one-size-fits-all solutions. So you need to search for the most convenient platform in line with your needs and what you want to accomplish. Here’s a post that goes through the best email marketing services for small business in detail.
#3: Offer Incentives
Your visitor is already on your site, there with the mere intention of finding more information. They are more than ready to hear more about your product. All they need is a little nudge. You must motivate them to sign up for your email list for more of your contents. You have been feeding them with your great “cookie” contents. But why not to walk the extra mile for your customers and offer them brand-new exclusive contents. Once the desired action is taken, e.g. a newsletter subscription, award your visitor with a free ebook, a free trial, or even a free consultation or a small piece of software. You never know how such a small courtesy would work out in the end.
Here’s a real-life example. According to a post on AWeber: After creating her email list, Courtney Slavik included a pop-up sign up form to her blog offering a free eBook as an incentive. She doubled her email list only after three months.
#4: Use Newsletters
Your readers are busy. As the marketing guru Neil Patel puts it: Getting into the someone’s inbox is the same as paying a visit to their home, you don’t want to barge into. So you must exercise due diligence whilst sending one to your email list. Good news is that your subscribers want to hear more from you. That is why they have subscribed in the first place.
After you decide on the email marketing platform, you must determine the most convenient sending cadence for your newsletters. For instance, you should avoid sending one after each blog is posted if you post more than twice a week. That would otherwise entail an email-overload and possibly annoy some of your subscribers. It is recommended to send your blog digest emails weekly or biweekly if you post once or twice a week. Once you develop a cadence and build muscle memory with your blog digest emails, the process will start to feel like second nature. In addition, although newsletters are one of the most common, they are actually one of the hardest to do right. Here’s a HubSpot post for a number of email newsletter examples.
In addition, remember to add a Call to Action (CTA) button at the bottom of your email so that your subscribers know where exactly to land. You can resort to some of the mentioned newsletter formatting sites to create an appealing CTA design.
#5: Personalize
Dale Carnegie, the author of one of the best-selling books of all time (How to Win Friends and Influence People), says: A person’s name is the sweetest sound. Just over a number of quick arrangements, like including your subscriber’s name in the heading along with some friendly details, you can improve click-through rates by an average of 14% and conversions by 10%. It helps to work up personal connections with your followers and create a sense of sincerity, which your business truly needs.
#6: Social Media for Email Leads
According to McKinsey & Co., e-mail remains a significantly more effective way to acquire customers than social media—nearly 40 times that of Facebook and Twitter combined. However, you can still use social media to generate new email leads. You can inform your followers about exclusive contents available only to those who subscribe to your newsletter. Or, you simply post email-gated content on your social media accounts, so that you prompt your followers to join the club!
#7: Pop-ups and Opt-in Forms
Pop-ups are controversial. They might be even a little annoying. However, when it’s done right, they simply work. People will easily spare their emails if they are neatly designed and appear in the right place at the right time. For instance, you should place your pop-ups in a user-friendly way that they don’t interrupt the reading experience of your follower. Just a tiny pop-up at the right or the left bottom of the site would do the job. Definitely check up on Wishpond to create your optimized pop-ups.
In addition, opt-in forms are great for your readers that are interested in your content and wants more. Design a friendly one and set it up at the bottom of your blog page. Here’s our opt-in form that we use in our blog posts:
#8: Right Email Subject
The email subject is a very tiny detail but remains as one of the crucial determinants of your open-rates. That is the first thing that your subscriber sees. So you need the right one to tempt them to open your email in a split second. Make it attractive, brief and personal. Don’t forget to test and optimize your subject in accordance with your email open rates. Here’s a comprehensive study of Copyblogger on headlines.
#9: Measure Engagement
Once your marketing campaign is set, you constantly need to keep your eyes on the metrics. That applies to email marketing too. Once the weekly digest emails are out, constantly oversee how the engagement rates unfold. Initially, email open rates are crucial because your campaign is pointless unless subscribers open and engage with them. Click through rates are the second most important metric that lays out the percentage of subscribers who click on your links. Besides, unsubscribe and complaint rates are helpful to detect things that are not working with your campaign. Check up on this post on OptInMonster for more of the important marketing metrics. So that you prepare the most effective email campaign to promote your blog, which will hopefully turn your visitors into leads.