Turn your blog into a real marketing tool – Part III

E-mail Marketing

Capture your first 500 subscribers

Sending marketing campaigns via email is one of the actions that we like the most at Reinicia and it works very well in Blogs, but to implement them, the first thing you must do is to convert part of your traffic into subscribers to the Newsletter. Normally, the conversion rate is around 1%, that is to say, for every 100 visits to your Blog, one person will subscribe.

To do this, it is important that you place forms throughout your Blog that ask your visitors to sign up and give you their email address. It is very important that you keep in mind that the more information you ask for in the form, the lower the subscriptions will be. Try to ask for as little as possible, such as email address and name if you want. Once you have that information, you can ask for more information in the future. If your subscribers are happy with what you offer, they will be more favorableto give you more informationpersonal.

To implement the forms you can use the forms that the e-mail marketing tools themselves put at your disposal, or you can use tools like Mailchimp for WordPress, which allows you to hook up with Mailchimp‘s mailing service, our favorite, or Sumo Me, which in its free version allows you to request mail via sticky forms at the top or bottom of the browser or via modal windows that pop up when the visitor scrolls down the page. This type of call to action improves normal conversion rates from 1% to ranges between 2% and 3%. That is, for every 100 visitors, you are likely to get between 2 and 3 subscribers, depending on which tools you use, which is double or even triple the normal rates.

To further improve these conversion rates, it is essential to use some kind of lead magnet. For example, a product sweepstakes or some special information, such as theSEO workshop that we have in theReinicia Blog and that by now you probably already know =P

Similarly, you should not overlook other off-line recruitment tools, which, although more expensive, can help you increase your database. For example, if you give an in-person training workshop, you could ask people to sign up. Or if you have a physical store or attend a trade show with a booth, you could set up a display with cards to make it easier for people to sign up.

Therefore, you should take advantage of any contact with your potential customers to attract them to the Newsletter. If you think creatively, you will surely come up with a multitude of ideas to take advantage of any marketing action you carry out to get your first 500 subscribers faster.

Automate your communications

Once you have your first subscribers, you can start sending communications, both with commercial information and any other type of information: informative, didactic, etc. In this sense, it is very important to prepare an automated system to welcome new subscribers. Why? Because the less time elapses between the moment of subscription and the first email received, the higher the opening rate offor that person. But don’t just say welcome, try to offer something more, such as insider information that you have written exclusively for your subscribers, free shipping or a discount for the first purchase in case you have a store or a first consultation without obligationin case you offer services. Anythingthat allows your new subscriber to perceive the value of being subscribed to your newsletter.

In the same way, you will be able to automate the sending of new articles published in your Blog. In this way, you will encouragethe recurrence of your readers’ visits. This feature is available for free atin Mailchimp.  You can read our article on how to create an RSS campaign for your blog with Mailchimp.

Or you can create automatic tutorials by topic with articles you have written. For example, in our case: monographic newsletter on e-mail marketing, SEO, Social Networks, Web Analytics, Hootsuite, Google Analytics, etc. You could send it toto all your readers, potential customers or those who are already customers to improve their knowledge and improve your brand image, since they will see that you know about certain topics and could help you cross-sell services and products. Of course, this type of mailings will help you to get to know your subscribers better, since you will be able to know with greater certainty which topics interest them the most.

And like these examples, there are many more automations that can help you improve the impact of your communications and content. Stop to think about what information your readers might be interested in and consider the possibility of sending them automatically for any event: a new subscription, downloading a document, reaching one year as a subscriber, reading some content from your Blog, etc.

For these tasks, we are absolute fans of Mailchimp, although it is true that most of the automations are only available in its paid version. You also have other tools such as Campaign Monitoror  Mail Relay.

Newsletter campaigns

Periodically, you will be able to send specifically prepared communications to the database. There are many toolsthat we have already mentioned in the previous section. The only thing you will have to dois to synchronize the Blog subscribers with the tool you use. From that moment on, you will be able to send easily to the whole database.

In order to carry out the mailings, it is normal that you prepare a template that will help you to prepare the communications in a quick way. Never prepare a campaign from scratch, because it will take too much time and will not be profitable. Some aspects that you will have to take into account when preparing your newsletters:

• Use a similar aesthetic to that of the web, so that people feel that they are in the place where they need to be.
• Your logo always visible at the top and if you have a contact phone number because you offer some kind of product or service related to the contents of the Blog, include it. And if you don’t have it, it is a good idea to include it for your subscribers.
• Send clear information. Decide if you want to put all the information in the newsletter or if you want to attract traffic to the website.
• Use clear calls to action. Buttons similar to those on the web.
• Responsive templates, i.e., that display well on both desktop computers and mobile devices with small screens.

To decide the frequency and timing of sending, the best thing to do is to test different mailings and, based on the results, adjust your mailings. Any e-mail marketing tool will give you two indicators that, in general terms, will help you make this decision:

1. Open rate: If you increase the sending frequency and the open rate decreases, then you should consider decreasing the open rate again. If it stays the same or increases, it means it was a good decision.
2. Click-through rate: If you increase the frequency of sending and the click-through rate decreases, you should also consider decreasing the open rate again or try to change the contents of the newsletter in some of the mailings.

If you want to go further in terms of the reach of your newsletter, another related idea is to look for other companies that, offering products in other sectors, share part of your target audience, to offer cross campaigns to the database. In other words, you will be able to use your database for public relations and get even more out of it than if you were to use it on your own.

Public relations

As we already mentioned, having a Blog will allow you to interact with other writers in the Blogosphere and meet people you would otherwise never have access to. How? Very easy. You could consider doing interviews with relevant people in the industry. With this, on the one hand you will getextra traffic, thanks to the notoriety of this person, and on the other hand,will allow you to get to know him/her, being able to establish a professional relationship in the future.

In the same way, by writing a Blog, you yourself, over the years, could be considered as a reference person in the sector in which you carry out your professional activity, which could open many doors for you.

And finally, you could try to participate as a Guest Blogger in other Blogs, getting more visibility of your ideas and improving the notoriety of your Blog and your own personal brand.

So now you know, don’t wait any longer and get to work with these two simple marketing tools. In the next article we will explain some additional tools that you can complement with the ones we have already told you about.