Email Marketing For Bloggers (What You Should Know)

Email marketing for bloggers

Email marketing for bloggers is one of the most lucrative marketing channels for blogging. Although email marketing seems old school, you would never guess that its conversion rate is more significant than social networking.

Email Marketing!!!! A term that is commonly used every day, every hour in the web marketing field.

Statistics reveal that the average return rate of email is 4200%; if you spend $1 on email marketing, you will receive back 42 yuan—much more than 152% of Facebook advertisements.

Whether you are a person or a corporation that advertise product or share information on the internet, understand what email marketing is. How to perform email marketing effectively? Or the fundamentals of email marketing… 

It is a must-to-know!

To be able to understand properly about email marketing, we would definitely need an entire post, possibly a lengthy course! (LEARN MORE)

When learning about good email marketing tactics, we will have some fundamental concepts, but undoubtedly for each industry, there will be a distinct approach.

So from the viewpoint of a blogger, in this post, I will reveal how I (and other bloggers) are handling email marketing.

Hopefully, via this article, you will learn: What is the basic principle of email marketing? Some essential concepts when performing email marketing, why bloggers need to undertake email marketing…

See also: How to use email marketing to improve SEO.

What Is Email Marketing

Even the term “email marketing” clearly speaks for itself. We use email for marketing!

Do we recall more than 15 years ago, when they began using email services with the suffix @Hotmail and subsequently @YahooMail, then @Gmail till now? You must have sent emails and received a lot of emails, right?

There are emails from friends, family, businesses, and services… all of these actions are labeled email marketing (email marketing).

In summary, email marketing is an email marketing approach to introduce, offer information, or sell services/products! This is also the objective of email marketing.

Read more: What is email marketing and its benefits?

How Does Email Marketing Work?

For email marketing to work effectively, First, we will construct a “list magnet” to attract readers. With this magnet, we will trade their emails with readers, thereby completing a list collection.

Then, over time, there will be a lot of subscribers on our list, not only leaving these subscribers alone but sending them valuable content.

Please provide them with “valuable” stuff, precisely like maintaining a blog.

 Maintain a solid connection with your subscribers in this manner, and your subscribers will progressively trust you since they keep getting your free value.

Humans only purchase from individuals they trust. You have to create a certain amount of trust with your subscribers before you can generate traffic to your blog and make money from your email list.

Readers who download your list magnet will trust you more than followers on social networking networks.

This is because the act of providing an email is relatively private. No one wants their email to be filled with advertising, right?

If a reader is prepared to offer you his email address, it suggests he already has a certain degree of confidence in you.

And clicking “follow” on the social network is easy and risk-free; even if it is not your audience, it may follow you.

The Benefits of Email Marketing for Bloggers

There is a phrase, “Money in the list – money is in your email list,” however, this is not a 100% valid statement.

But in some sense, if you are a blogger without owning a list email is true that you have… lost a lot of money and lost many other things… besides cash!

Why is that?

Why do bloggers need Email Marketing?

1. First: If you have an email list to contact your readers frequently, then you will undoubtedly gain a lot of traffic in a blog.

 Nowadays, the information on the internet is too extensive, so readers have too many alternatives, and they will hardly recall having seen your blog.

But readers typically return to a given blog if they have their email address to provide them with news of changes.

2. Second: An email list will provide you with an additional avenue to communicate and sell off the blog. 

Because when you want to offer anything (product/service) to consumers (here, your readers), an email will frequently come into play quite forcefully. 

Sending them information, introduction, and sales by email and watching their reaction is a very thrilling sensation that only bloggers who own an email list can experience.

3. Third: Ultimately, email marketing is how you transform your non-owned traffic into traffic you own. If you depend on traffic originating from search (google) or social networks, you will not be able to manage that traffic. 

But if you have an email list, you may create traffic to your blog at any moment, and you can direct that traffic to precisely where you want it.

In summary, if you are a blogger, email marketing is crucial since it helps you communicate with your audience better (which implies more effective personal branding), higher sales, and better sales. More accurate traffic guidance!

How To Start Email Marketing?

#1 Choosing an Email Marketing Tool

The email marketing tool is a tool to aid us in executing email marketing.

Suppose you have 1000 email lists in hand; without the assistance of email marketing tools, you want to insert their email addresses one by one into the mailbox. It should be improbable.

The email marketing tool enables us to send emails to everyone with one click, there is no issue of inputting inaccurate addresses, and comprehensive data helps us improve emails in the future.

The email marketing tool I use is Mailchimp.

CovertKit is strong and essentially an email marketing solution for blogs. Especially the portion automating emails is one of the capabilities that astonished me the most.

convertKit offers both a free edition and a premium version.

The free version can construct forms, Landing Pages, gather 1000 lists and send messages to subscribers for free.

 But there needs to be a method to utilize the series mail feature and automation function. But it doesn’t damage the collection list; it’s a terrific start.    

The premium version will be charged differently based on the number of emails. I use the 600-person package, which needs USD 15 each month.

Full functionality is accessible in the premium version. It is pretty straightforward to build “Welcome Series Emails” and “Product Promotion Series Emails” for series emails. 

The automation option assists me in automatically sending emails to readers when they become subscribers.

See also: How to select the best email marketing tools. 

#2 Make List Magnets Start Collecting Lists

After you pick a preferred email marketing tool, the following stage is to draw readers to your email list (also called a subscription list), which is the link to gathering lists.

Many individuals merely add a “subscribe me” form on their website, expecting that viewers would automatically subscribe to your website.

In reality, only readers who love you very much would offer you Email unreservedly. More than 99% of readers will skip this form.

If you want to get readers to subscribe to you, you need to construct a “list magnet” to draw and exchange emails with them.

List Magnet (Lead Magnet), in essential words, is to offer a free item that readers are interested in. It may be “100 restaurant lazy gourmet bags in Washington”, “5-day WordPress handbook”, “Little bourgeoisie’s 30-day diet management Plan,” Table,” and so on.

Think about what your readers need and develop a solution for them. Only in this manner can the efficiency of gathering lists be substantially enhanced.

Here’s how List Magnet works.

Include a free present in an article that your readers will be interested in. In order to give your readers this gift, you need their email, and readers who desire this gift will fill in the email in the form.

You’ll make use of the capability of your email marketing solution to deliver free presents to their emails automatically.

After the readers get the email, they will immediately become your subscribers when they click to grab the free offer.

#3 Create email content

You may wait until your email list reaches a particular size before you start sending emails to subscribers. Of course, you can also begin sending emails to him after acquiring the first subscriber.

Once you start sending emails, you should build the habit of sending them consistently! Let readers gradually learn to know you, remember you, know that you will often emerge to bring value, and then trust you more and more.

You can send an email once a week, once every two weeks, or once a month, depending on your schedule and who your subscribers are.

Choose the timing to send emails according to your audience.

If your readers receive emails during the day, you may send emails at night.

If your readers are office workers, you may send emails during commute time and lunchtime.

A group of people who open an email at 8 a.m. on a Monday will be different from a group of people who open an email at 4 p.m. on a Friday. 

There is no ideal moment to send an email; or the most acceptable time to send an email.

Try it yourself to discover which time point to send the email will obtain the greatest email opening rate.

As for the content of the email to send?

The content of the email is typically little. You can intercept a little notion of an article, utilize another viewpoint, and compose another email to send to subscribers.

When you dig into your subject, you will also have many new discoveries and ideas, which may be published in emails and shared with subscribers. You can also share news, new research, new surveys, etc., in your field.

Only spend a little bit of time composing email content, at least not as long as producing a blog article.

#4 Write a suitable headline for your email

The email’s title is one of the main aspects impacting the mail opening rate. If an email comes into your inbox with the subject “XXX Blog News Email #5”, you wouldn’t want to read it, would you?

The email’s content must spark the subscribers’ interest or fill them with excitement so that the subscribers will be inclined to open it.

You may attempt negative statements such as “Don’t do XXX (something).” This item is generally a myth in your profession; use this subtitle to illustrate the fallacy of this myth.

Time-limited statements may also be utilized, such as “(A product in the field) will be discontinued soon.” Placing affiliate links at this time will normally generate excellent results.

ConvertKit offers a headline AB test option, which enables you to test which headline has a better opening rate in identical mail.

I tried “with and without question marks,” “with and without emojis,” and “with two completely different sentences.”

Use this to test which headlines your subscribers enjoy.

In addition, the email’s title should be brief since if the title is too long, check out the words that should not be shown in an email headline HERE.

Recommended Reading: How to craft a catchy headline.

#5 Automation Settings

Email marketing platforms frequently contain automation functions (if your email marketing tool doesn’t have one, consider a new one).

Automated features may save you a lot of time. It can help you categorize your subscribers. In the future, when you write emails, promote affiliate items, and market your own services, you can send different material to various individuals.

Here’s how automation works.

A reader who downloads one of the list magnets on my site will be forwarded to my Welcome Series emails.

The “Welcome Email Series” will automatically deliver emails I have prepared to subscribers in three to five consecutive days, the substance of which is about various typical questions for novices in my area.

I may also tag subscribers with the necessary tags dependent on the kind of list magnet.

For example, I would classify subscribers who downloaded “107 Niche Ideas” with “Interest: Niche.”

In this manner, the next time I have information, goods, and services linked to the niche market, I can exclusively send them to this group of individuals and anticipate a high email opening rate and high conversion rate.

ConvertKit’s automation capabilities are paid, and if you need help with what to send in your regular emails, I suggest not paying for it.

It’s preferable to wait until you’re definitely sure what your emails will be in the following several weeks before you start paying.

#6 Tracking Data

Email marketing is not only about sending out messages. If you want to utilize email marketing to create trust with subscribers and even generate money, you must actively analyze the success of each email you send.

After you send out the email, specific data will be created in the background of the email marketing platform, and you need to improve future emails depending on this data.

First, the source of email lists is List Magnet. You can view the number of impressions, subscriptions, and conversions of your list magnet from the background.

List magnets placed all throughout your site to determine which works best. You can put it on the homepage, sidebar, at the end of the website, or in individual articles.

I can tell you that the worst impact is to place the “subscribe me” form immediately in the footer of the page.

As said before, post the “subscribe me” form on the website; typically, only those readers who love you the greatest would be prepared to offer you their emails unconditionally.

And only some individuals would slide the website to the bottom of the website page. Thus, this location could be more desirable.

The highest-performing list magnets on my site are pinned straight to my sidebar. No matter how long a post is, the list magnet will remain shown in the sidebar and will not vanish.

If you are now reading my website on a computer, you should also see it on the sidebar.

You may also add popup windows on the webpage.

But remember that popup windows are irritating, so don’t simply put a “subscribe to me” form on the popup window to compel users to subscribe.

It is preferable to include the material you want to deliver to readers on the popup window, and their eagerness to subscribe will be greater.

After the email is sent, there will be two data of email opening rate and click rate to monitor.

Judging from the statistics of emails all around the globe, the average open rate will be 22.9%.

However, since when we initially began our firm, the number of individuals on the email list could have been better, and our target is extremely specific. Therefore, the open email rate must be higher than this amount.

My current email list is roughly 500 persons, with an average open email rate of 67.24%.

If you have inserted links in the email, you should pay careful attention to the click-through rate.

The average click-through rate is 3.7%. If you can obtain more than 5% CTR, you’re fine.

My personal click rate for each email is between 3% and 14%.

The final statistic that must be examined is the “unsubscribe rate.” The unsubscribe rate is not always a negative thing.

If a subscriber recognizes that our material is not suited for him, he will instantly unsubscribe, and there will be an additional place in our email list for the next subscriber who loves us.

Every subscriber who gets my emails will know that they have the choice to unsubscribe from me.

Usually, if there is a promotional product in the mail, the number of unsubscribers on the day will rise.

No need to feel embarrassed about it; we need to generate money to deliver more excellent value to our readers.

You will notice that although the number of unsubscribes grows, some subscribers who trust you will purchase the things mentioned in your emails.

Of course, I want you only to sell things in some emails. The bulk of your emails still needs to continue giving subscribers much value.

My Personal Unsubscribe Rate Is Roughly 6%, And My Aim Is To Maintain It Under 3%.

What Tools Do Bloggers For Email Marketing Need?

To perform email marketing, there will be a lot of tools, but generally, if you are a blogger, you need the following 3 prerequisites to be able to start doing email marketing:

  • 1 blog (because you’re a blogger, of course!)
  • 1 software/tool (to perform effective & professional email marketing)
  • 1 plugin to construct email signup forms and gather email lists (this is not essential as most email marketing tools already have form templates built in, but for a more professional appearance, you may use more)

There are plenty more, but I personally, till now, have only utilized these 3 tools.

Email Marketing Best Practices For Bloggers

Here are some standards to follow while performing Email Marketing

#1. Never purchase or scan email lists.

This is not effective if you want to handle email marketing properly and efficiently.

Many of you are in a hurry to use email scanning tools on forums, fan pages or buy email lists for sale online. This makes your email ineffective and sometimes has the opposite effect, such as a bad brand image in the eyes of customers, even being locked out of your account (on email marketing tools)…

#2. Only send emails to the correct audience

If you follow rule number 1, then rule number 2 has been partly followed very well. You only send emails to those who consent to allow you to send mail (i.e., those who actively subscribe to your email list).

#3. Do not use phrases or pictures tagged as SPAM

Nowadays, most people use Gmail (Goolge’s service), and this service has a very powerful SPAM filter. Thus, to avoid your emails from being routed directly to spam, you need to avoid spam words.

See also: How to avoid your email getting to spam.

#4. Don’t send just picture:

 If the recipient does not turn on the “show full picture” mode for this email, you have not conveyed any message to the customer. 

Moreover, if there is only 1 image, the email will usually be blocked by the filter immediately. 

Therefore, the email content must be organized in terms of layout and words first and still be able to add appropriate images (only 1 image should be used).

See also: How to design images in an email.

#5. When drafting emails, avoid the following: 

  • Sensitive (or deceptive) phrases like porn, sex, viagra, unique, free, discount, promotion…
  • Capitalize / bold/italic all
  • Colorful coloring
  • Contains special characters
  • Using a lot of photos or huge images (slow email loading)
  • Short link (short link)
  • Use various typefaces and font sizes
  • ….

Ok, that’s some essentials you should always put in mind when performing email marketing for your blog!!

Conclusion

Email marketing is a marketing approach that I just began to attempt in the year (2020).

The main aim of email marketing is that it allows you to keep in touch with your readers.

As long as there are no accidents, I will send an email to my subscribers every week, and I will encourage them to reply. 

Readers write back almost every time, some thanking me for sending them such helpful content for free. And most people are asking me questions.

 At this time, you have to seize the opportunity and try your best to answer the questions. This is a great opportunity to increase the trust of subscribers!

Email marketing can create followers better and quicker than social media. Because email is positioned as a more “formal” communication tool, it will be more rigorous when asking questions, and subscribers will spend more time typing out the questions before sending them out.

When I respond, I generally reply longer than the questions they ask, which might make the subscribers believe that I put significant value on them in terms of their “perception.” The iron fans are progressively growing me.

In the last few months, I have been operating email marketing. I have launched an affiliate product and a business (my own consulting service), and the results of both times are better than I imagined—one of the finest methods to generate money.

It doesn’t matter if you still don’t know what material to send to your subscribers, gather the list first, and when you think about what to send, you already have the list in hand to send!