Keeping a blog can give a seriously large lift to responses from your emails. Maybe you know this, but you’re just too busy for blogging and email marketing.
Actually, you’re probably not. Write blog posts, and you’ll find your email campaign is taken care of. A blog can actually bring in subscribers, provide ready-made content for your emails and even lend your campaign a personable tone.
A Source of New Subscribers
Blogging means that with every post, you’re adding fresh content to your site. Search engines LOVE fresh content.
Stale, out-of-date content disappoints searchers, so search engines are designed to always provide something new. If you’re continually posting new content on your site (especially if you supplement with keywords), it’ll rank higher so searchers find it.
When those searchers get to your site, they’ll be able to read your fresh content. They’ll also be able to read that sign-up form in your sidebar (you do have one, yes? If not, go set one up, then come back and finish reading.)
And there, they can sign up to your list.
Instant Email Content
Once someone’s on your list, they probably won’t come back to your site often. For the most part, they’ll expect to stay updated through your emails.
That means you can use your blog posts as email content. The easiest way is to set up a blog broadcast, which pulls any new blog posts directly into your email template as a new message. (Like this.)
If you want to have a greater hand in making each email more unique, you can take bits and pieces of your posts and weave them together, writing a message about all your topics together, and drop in links to the various articles as you mention them.
And a Personable Tone
When your email content comes from blog posts, it’s most likely less formal than the average official company broadcast. With this more personable tone, subscribers can get to know you and feel more comfortable with your brand.
And when we’re comfortable with the brand, we’re more comfortable whipping out our wallets.
Easy, Right?
So you see how by adding a blog to your to do list, your list actually becomes shorter? List building, email writing and even traffic generation are scratched right off (or at least require far less time). Turns out, you’re too busy not to blog.
– Amanda Gagnon writes about email marketing for AWeber, a leading email service provider for small-to-medium businesses. For more email marketing tips from AWeber, you can subscribe to their twice-weekly emails here.