If you’re a seasoned blogger or have only recently picked up the digital pen, you may not be aware that email marketing could help you reach a much bigger audience.
A huge audience, in fact.
Blogging is all about building a relationship with your readers. You need to draw them in, and impress them with content that matches your enticing headline. Then, publish posts that begin to establish an unbreakable bond between you and your audience.
It’s not easy, though – no matter how great you might be at expressing yourself with words.
Thankfully, email marketing can help you build and retain that important audience for your blog. Here’s our favourite tips for doing just that:
Add a newsletter sign-up form to every post
This one is simple. Add a call-to-action (CTA) at the end of every blog post you write. Ask the reader to enter their email address to be notified when you next publish a post.
You’ll be surprised by how many people willingly offer you their email address. That means you’ll start to build a list of engaged readers – ethically.
Make your opt-out process ultra simple
It might sound odd to make it easy for people to leave your blog newsletter list, but one of the cardinal sins of email marketing is to make the process tricky.
Always use your email marketing platform’s ability to offer a super-simple opt-out process. If it doesn’t have one – switch platforms!. That way, you’ll demonstrate that you have your subscribers’ best interests at heart and avoid any complaints that might lead to you being blacklisted.
Say “thanks” (automatically or manually)
If someone signs up to your mailing list having read one of your blog posts, say “thanks”.
You can set this up as an automated response from your email marketing system. However, if you’d rather do so personally – go for it!
The more you go out of your way to thank new subscribers, the quicker that layer of trust will establish.
Provide blogger content upgrades
One brilliant way to monetise your blog is to offer content upgrades.
This is content above and beyond the blog posts you publish each week. It might be in the form of an eBook, podcast or video download, but whatever it is, pop it behind either a paywall or additional email subscription.
The latter option is usually the best one to go for when you’re just starting out, because that free bonus content is more likely to gain traction and be shared by people who come across your blog. You can always flick the ‘money switch’ later down the line!
Write your email content as you do your blog
A classic mistake sometimes made by bloggers who use email marketing to amplify their work is forgetting to keep the tone consistent.
If you receive an email from a blogger, and the copy is dull and uninspiring or completely at odds with the style they use for their blog, you’d be forgiven for consigning it to the trash.
Treat your email copy as you would your blog copy; this is still you, remember.
And finally: check your stats!
So, you’ve started to build a great little following that has signed up to your email marketing list and you’re regularly syndicating your blog content via that medium.
But how do you know if it’s effective?
Thankfully, most email marketing platforms include a tonne of analytical features that enable you to dig deep into the performance of your e-shots. Ignoring this stuff is a mistake, because it’ll show you which emails garnered the most attention and which blog posts received the healthiest number of click-throughs.
Those stats will inform your blogging strategy going forward – don’t ignore them!
