No one can argue with the importance of email marketing and the overall effect it can have on blog growth. Many top bloggers will tell you the most important thing when starting a blog, other than quality content, is to start building an email list right away. It’s the best tool to encourage blog growth through return visitors. It’s pretty much impossible having 100,000 visitors to your blog in 1 month unless you don’t have loyal readers returning directly or through your follow-up newsletters. However, there is a new trend starting to take place, which is tweaking the fundamentals of email marketing. What use to be the key elements of a solid email marketing campaign have shifted making it tougher to engage people through simple email messages. With that said…
It’s time to rethink the fundamentals of email marketing and what the key components of a campaign are going forward. Let’s get started…
Know Your Audience
One recent trend I’ve seen emerging is the importance of knowing your audience in relation to email marketing. For example, it’s not enough to simply know who your audience is, but, more importantly, to know what type of content appeals to them. At one point, years back, an email marketing campaign that included relevant content would be sufficient enough to attract return visitors. However, things have changed dramatically, with more value put on the type of content your audience prefers over the other. For example, on my blog, I write content based on link building and search engine optimization. However, shooting general emails on link building no longer produce the same engagement. Why? Simple…
My audience prefers specific type of link building content that is more specific. They prefer email messages directing them to content based on…
- New link building trends
- List-posts
- Recent Google updates – Panda and Penguin
- Income Reports
- Lengthy guides
The point is it’s NOT enough to simply know your audience and the content they like, but to dig deeper and provide them the EXACT value they’re looking for.
Email Frequency = Content Value
Now that you know your audience and the EXACT posts they love to engage with, you have to establish adequate email frequency. Remember, your audience doesn’t only belong to you, but to various other related blogs. This means they’re constantly being bombarded with emails so you have to ensure you’re the one who stands out. I’ve seen a new trend when it comes to email frequency jumping from once a week to once a month. The concept is very simple and has proven to be very effective. For example,
Certain top bloggers will send an email once a month, outlining the posts published on their blog for the entire month. This does two things…
Reduce the amount of emails people are getting to their inbox and secondly, it allows you to stand out by providing “1†solid email message with a list of awesome content. You’ve left the audience to choose what content they would like to read by simply providing them with a list.
Personalization
The emails that stand out the most are personalized and always grab my attention. At this point, not only do the handful of blogs I follow know what content I love, but they present it to me on a first name basis. I’m an old school person and love to call people by their first name, which is why when I see an email sent to me using my first name, I am more likely to read it.
You’ve probably noticed that many of the emails you receive include your first name. This obviously starts from the landing pages that have been optimized to ask for it when you subscribe. Next, you know it’s something of a trend because many ESP providers now give you the option to add the code to your subscription form and messages. This has obviously been around for years, but bloggers are making use of it more now than ever before. It’s also an increasing trend taking place going forward.
Email and Apps
When rethinking your email marketing strategy, it will be a good idea to implement some of the awesome apps provided by your ESP. These apps have been designed to better gather user data and increase overall engagement. For example, PayPal is the world’s preferred payment system and Aweber.com has a cool app that can be utilized so when you receive subscribers, they’ll be added to your email list. Basically, these applications have utilized other important day-to-day websites to gain subscribers through.
If you have a huge email list, then you can install applications that automatically ask for user feedback, user surveys, holds contests, etc. They are also applications to utilize social platforms more efficiently, with the end result being increased social awareness for your brand and/or company.
In recent emails, I’ve seen an increase in the use of applications, which tells me they actually work in gaining subscribers, engagement, and customer loyalty. It’s all about finding the one that works well and tweaking it to better fit your needs.