Today, blogging remains a powerful and critical tool that allows bloggers to connect with audiences. Many small blog owners also use blogs to educate customers, share their experiences, and build communities.
And to further these goals, it’s critical to use blog email marketing. Doing so ensures that you build a relationship with your readers and ensure that your blog content gets traction.
And that isn’t all; aside from making and managing content, you must also build a relationship with your audience.
The best way to do this is through blog email marketing.
Historically, email marketing conversions statistically beat both search and social media marketing combined.
In this post, I’ll share how to do email marketing for bloggers. And we’ll look at what type of emails you should send to your audience. Let’s go!
1. The Confirmation Email
When someone subscribes to your list, you should send them a confirmation email. This email should ask users to confirm that they want to join your list. They click a button doing so, and they’re finally added to your list.
This seems like an extra step, but having this setup has one major benefit. That is, it trains your subscriber’s email provider to inbox your communications by letting it know that your emails are not spam or promotional.
It also lets you engage your audience and build a sense of familiarity and deliberation in their contact with you. Once your subscribers confirm that they want to join your email list, direct them to read your blog or take some other action.
2. The Welcome Email
When someone joins your email list, you should send them a welcome email. It’s a powerful opportunity that many people forget to use in email marketing.
Just thank your reader for taking the time to sign up. In fact, 76 percent of people expect to see an email welcoming them after signing up as a subscriber.
The content of your welcome email should introduce the subscriber to you and your blog, and provide an overview of the types of emails they can expect from you.
A welcome email is different from a confirmation email in that it should be less formal and more personal. You may also want to include a link to your best blog posts so that the subscriber can get a better sense of your work.
This is also a great opportunity to give them additional information about your brand or how they can access their content for signing up.
Start the email with the word “Thanks.” Why? It turns out that “thanks” and “thank you” are some of the most important words to subscribers when they sign up for an email list. Terms like this are designed to give human qualities to your business, which promotes rapport between your business and customers.
The welcome email is absolutely vital to any marketing campaign. There’s more data to back up this claim. OptinMonster reports that app creators who use a welcome email as part of their process for new customers see a retention rate of 71 percent.
3. The Expectation Email
When we start doing business with a new company, we have expectations. Your blog readers will expect the same from your blogging brand, too! It turns out that not providing the customer with expectations, and by default, a wonderful experience, is likely costing you a ton of money.
One survey revealed that 86 percent of people are willing to pay more for a product if they get a great experience in the process. You can improve the chances that they have a good experience on your blog and continue shopping with you by setting some expectations as soon as customers start subscribing.
The following example from Asana combines their welcome email and expectation email together. Let’s take a look.
A welcome email that sets expectations for the near future by Asana
As you can see, this is a simple and effective blog email that lays down exactly what new subscribers can expect when they sign up. They will receive great tips over the next few days. It showcases how Asana leverages their blog
This helps people and keeps readers engaged with the brand.
4. The Freebie Email
Everyone loves getting something for free. A psychological look at people’s reaction to the word free is telling. An MIT study came to this conclusion:
“The word free gives us such an emotional charge that we perceive what is being offered as immensely more valuable than it really is.”
You can probably see where this is going. Any blogger worth their weight will have something for free that they can offer their customers. If they don’t, there’s always the opportunity to create a freebie from scratch. Virtually anything given away for free has an increased perceived value. This is where your marketing skills kick in.
There are plenty of things you can give away as a blogger to your subscribers. Some of the most common trends are to create unique listicle-style articles in your niche, offer your latest podcast transcribed, free trials, or even create a ‘top secret” checklist for everyone interested in your niche.
Make your call to action in this email ‘hit reply’ and have readers email you with the answers to questions such as hurdles, general questions, or tips they would like to hear more about in your consultation. When the emails flow back and forth like this, it builds a rapport with the subscriber that will keep them around as long as you’re putting out new and valuable content.
You can also direct your readers to your contact page and title their message “Free (Product/Download/Trial)” and answer the questions in the body of the message.
Here is an example of a blogger email offering a free download in its newsletter.
IndieHackers does a clever job of incorporating blog-like content in its newsletter with a free download offer
Notice how they made the download offer seamless by incorporating it with content about social proof. They also link the download to a clear outcome i.e. using social proof for better conversions.
5. The Exclusive Content Email
One type of blogger email you should make is the ‘exclusive’ email. This is content just for your subscribers. There are a couple of reasons to use this type of email when reaching out to subscribers:
First, delivering exclusive content to your subscriber’s inboxes is the perfect reason for them to decide to engage with you in the first place. This goes back to the freebie email as well. People have a greater sense of value if they are getting more than your latest sales pitch. By providing something of value to your readers, you’re increasing your trustworthiness and improving the odds that they engage with your website.
Secondly, creating custom content for your subscribers means you can save the list of content (depending on how many pieces you have) and create an automated email for your customers. Here’s an example of an automated email from WPBeginner.com.
WPBeginner’s automated onboarding email guiding people where to start and making the most out of the blog
This website sends a series of automated emails that guide readers through new tutorials and ideas every day. This information is exclusive to people who sign up for this content and want to learn more about starting with WordPress from zero and learning from the experts.
The blog email is direct, addresses a problem, and offers useful tips. This is a great format to follow if you want to engage readers.
6. The Helpful Email
The best way to get readers to stay committed to your brand is by building trust. Nothing builds trust like offering help. You can apply this same logic to readers who sign up for your email list.
Try to think about the different ways your blog helps customers. There are always going to be questions about the topic you’re discussing, regardless of your niche. It’s your job to proactively consider the questions that may come up in your readers’ minds and address them in the form of a helpful email.
As an example, let’s say you’re in the marketing business and trying to figure out how to reach more customers. You visit a website run by a group of personable, helpful people who provide great content. But you still have some questions. They then encourage you to sign up for their email list for more marketing tips.
A couple of days later, you check your inbox and see an email from the trusted website saying, “Oh hey, I just found this awesome tip, and I thought you’d enjoy it!” Wouldn’t that establish trust and make you think, “These people understand my struggles?” You’re going to want to bring that same assurance to your customers.
7. The newsletter anniversary email
Starting a newsletter is a big achievement, and so is getting your first hundred subscribers and making it to your first newsletter anniversary!
Send an email to celebrate your newsletter’s anniversary and tell them how much you appreciate them. This email should include a recap of the past year’s blog posts, any major accomplishments you’ve achieved, and any other news or updates you want to share.
This email is a great way to show your subscribers your gratitude for their support. You can also share important milestones or achievements you plan to reach in the year ahead. And you’ll create proof that your audience is a member of a thriving community. Such a step builds a positive impression and ensures your subscribers stay subscribed.
WPBeginner turned 14 and sent this content to its blog subscribers via email to celebrate
8. Feedback request email
Asking for feedback is the best way to know how your audience feels about you. And the more you know, the better content you can provide to help your audience.
You could learn what topics appeal to them or what they want insights on with some feedback. This is a great way to engage your audience and keep them invested in your future posts.
Create Blogger Emails That Win
These tips should give you a great idea of what kind of content your subscribers want to see in their inboxes. As your blog grows and you forge a connection with your audience, you’ll begin to notice trends in their behavior.
You can put this to use in order to keep developing killer content for your subscribers and have a successful blog viewed by hundreds of thousands (potentially millions!) of people.
