Why Should you Convert Blog Readers Into Email Subscribers?

Ever since businesses took to the Internet, Email marketing has been an indispensable part of their digital marketing strategy. This simple yet effective tool has been around for decades now, and it continues to hold relevance despite the flourish of social media. Before we discuss why blogs could boost your email marketing initiative, let’s talk a bit about the importance of e-mail marketing.

Email Marketing - Why It Still Matters?

Email continues to the most important form of business communication, and also the way to stay on the top of the mind of your customers. So what exactly is email marketing? Whenever a business sends an email to a customer, except for replying to their queries or sharing order status or invoices, it can be considered a part of e-mail marketing.

Companies send e-mails to their new, existing, and potential clients in order to drive up customer engagement, and ultimately boost sales. The welcome email you get from your favorite brand when you sign up for their loyalty program is email marketing. The weekly updates you get from your online education platform is email marketing. The mail update regarding the upcoming sales festival sent by a shopping website is also email marketing!

Your social media updates or announcements on your websites are easy to miss. But the emails reach customers directly; most people check their inboxes regularly and it’s a great way of directly reaching out to them.

Moreover, emails can be personalized to make them more impactful. And if you go by the statistics, the return on investment on every dollar spent on email marketing is as high as 122 percent. Hence, it pays to focus on email marketing, and it would be great for your business if you leverage your blog to build your mail subscribers list.

Why Convert Blog Readers Into Mail Subscribers

Blogging and e-mail marketing could make for a perfect combo if you want to keep

your customers engaged. E-mail marketing is a great tool for bloggers who want to grow their blogs. What might not be evident is that businesses can harness their blogs to expand their e-mail marketing efforts.

This post doesn’t talk about the technical aspects of collecting emails through your blog (using forms, placing pop-ups, etc.) Rather, it’s about strategic content creation so that your blog and emails boost each other and help you achieve your objectives.

Blog and Email-marketing are Complementary

Business blogs rely on SEO to improve search engine rankings. Even if your ranking is high, you ultimately depend on being discovered. Someone has to search the keywords, and choose your link over the ones below or above you, and then discover your content. In marketing terms, it’s a push strategy.

E-mail marketing, on the other hand, is a pull strategy. You are directly reaching out to your potential customers, drawing them towards your product and services. You are not waiting for them to visit your website, rather you are taking a step towards them and informing them what’s new happening in your business that's worth their attention.

Blogs Help Create A Mailing List

Your blog is a great place to help you expand your mailing list. People are far less likely to share their email if they are in your company’s physical store. If you have a blog with good visibility, you can easily ask people to leave their email addresses if they want to receive regular updates.

The most popular posts are great for asking people to join your mailing list. Ask them if they want to get instant updates delivered in their mailboxes. Another idea is to offer them a free guide or an e-book in return for their email addresses.

Blog Generates Content For Email Marketing

If your business already has a blog, you won’t need a lot of additional content for email marketing. The feature image and link to the new blog post could be the sizeable part of the email. This is an easy way to send weekly or bi-monthly mailers- depending on the frequency of your blog posts.

Your old but interesting blog posts can also be repurposed for email marketing. Share the link with your subscribers and let them know that you have a gold mine of information that is still relevant. You can also ask the readers to join the conversation and share their views by visiting the blog link. At the end of the month, you can send an email sharing a list of the best blog posts of the month.

Emails can be Converted into Blogs

The emails you have sent to your customers can also be archived in your blogs. If you plan to do so, remember to write the emails strategically. Include SEO in the mail body, and think of your subject lines as headlines for your blog. With minimum editing and the addition of suitable images, the conversion is easy.

This is especially useful if the blog is new, and you have relied on e-mail marketing to offer guidance, tips, or useful information to your subscribers. Such mail content can also be uploaded to your blog, as it helps with the ultimate goal of bringing in more traffic to your business website.

Blog Posts Plus Emails = Content Synergy

Even if you don’t want your emails to be all about your blogs, you can follow a content synergy to reflect your ongoing marketing efforts. Develop an editorial calendar so that your content team works in coordination. Tailor both of them around the same theme to send a strong message to your potential customers.

Email Marketing For Bloggers

Likewise, email marketing is a great tool for bloggers who want to build up a list of loyal readers, rather than relying on visitors who just happen to stumble at their page. If you are an independent blogger who wants readers to visit your blog for every new post, you cannot ignore email marketing.

Use Welcome Emails To Introduce Yourself

Readers relate to a blog more when they know the person who is writing it, and welcome emails are a great way to do that. Whenever a reader subscribes to your blog, send a welcome mail that introduces the blog and the blogger. Statistics reveal that more than 90 percent of individuals go through welcome mail, so it's your chance to tell them what they might have missed out on the website.

Segment Your Subscribers

You can create separate mailing lists based on your reader’s interest. If you have a food blog, you can create a separate mailing list for people who want gluten-free or vegan recipes. Similarly, you can have different mailing list for people who want updates on your blog, and those who want updates about your podcasts. In this way, the mails can be personalized, and the interest of the readers can be piqued.

Inform Readers About New Post

Send automatic updates regarding new posts to your readers on email. Remember, you have to send the link, an image, and a few lines as teasers. Don’t send the entire post on mail if you want people to click open the link.

Point Them Towards Old Post

Email marketing can make help hardworking bloggers do the smart work that they need for growing their blogs. You can lead new readers towards your old posts through your emails. It’s a great way to improve the Click-through-rate of your blog.

Promote Guest Posts

Email marketing is a great way to promote guest posts written by an authoritative figure or an expert. Your mail subscribers are the people who definitely want to spend more time on your blog, hence do update them about guest posts.

Offer Them Special Content Or Discount

Use your mailing list to give special access to additional content to a select list of people. You can also use this tactic for offering discounts. For instance, if you are planning to launch an online course, you can offer twenty per cent discount to members of your mailing list.

Curate Content And Share On Emails

You can also add links to interesting blog posts, news articles, or videos that are related to niche. Sharing curated content shows that you keep abreast of the latest happenings in your industry, and you want to share the best of information with your followers. Also, it’s a great way to earn some goodwill from your fellow content creators.

Conclusion

Whether you write blogs for the love of blogging, or you run one for business purposes, you are set to benefit by having a set of subscribers who read your work regularly. It’s a great way of recognizing and catering to folks who have expressed interest in your work, products, or services. And different automation tools make it easy to build a mailing list and send out emails. What you need to do is be strategic about your digital marketing efforts for blogging and email-marketing to go hand in hand.