Why Smart Bloggers Should Focus On Email Marketing – Examples

If there is one piece of advice I would give to my younger blogger self, it would be:

Focus on email marketing.

I would tell myself to build a targeted email list, and not to miss out on any opportunity of getting readers onto that list.

Whenever I meet budding bloggers, I often find them asking questions like:

  • How do I get traffic to my blog?
  • How do I make money from my blog?
  • How do I grow my blog’s following?
  • etc.

At the end of the day, most bloggers want more traffic (and many want more money). If you also feel the same, it’s time to understand the power of email marketing.

I’m writing this post after 2274 days of blogging, and I only started email marketing at a later stage of my blogging career. This is one of the biggest regrets that I have, as I now realize the importance of an email list.

For years, I used Feedburner to let my readers subscribe to my blog updates, which I now know was a mistake.

Having a professional email tool helps in many ways:

  • You can control when to send an email newsletter.
  • You can schedule follow-up emails and new subscribers will receive these emails automatically.
  • You can personalize emails using the name of the reader. (Personalization is one of the most powerful aspects of email marketing.)
  • You can export your email list and use it for retargeting.

Before I get too in-depth, let me share some of the benefits of email marketing for a blog:

  • You “own” the subscribers. “Own” means that you can reach them anytime (everybody checks email). I have over 57K followers on the ShoutMeLoud Facebook page. But I can’t control who is going to see my updates. There are times when I want specific posts to reach out to everyone, and I can’t do that with social media marketing. But I can do that with email marketing.
  • The traffic I get from email blasts is quite high, and posts are being seen by a lot of people. Here are the stats from my email marketing software (I was using AWeber) with the over 5K+ highly targeted users on my email list.

email reach
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  • If you do the calculations, every email I send is being opened by at 1,200 people (25%), but the CTR on links varies. Since I’m still the getting hang of email marketing, there will be a lot of growth in the very near future.
  • You can also get people on a waiting list before launching something new. Having a landing page on the site, you can accrue interested customers before the launch. So far, 618 people are subscribed to the ShoutUniversity newsletter, and once it’s launched, I have a hyper-targeted list of (at least) 618 readers interested in the course. Even if the conversion rate is 5% from that list, that will mean 30 people enrolling for my paid membership program. This means about $6,000 in direct revenue.

The practical implications of email lists are limitless, but there’s a catch:

Your email list should be targeted, and your email newsletter should be engaging.

With the growth of the mobile web, email marketing has become even more important. Earlier, people waited to go to their computers to check emails. Now, everybody has access to emails in their palm.

According to Always Connected:

Email is the #1 most popular activity on a smartphone (78% check email on their mobile phone).

Most popular Activities on Smartphones
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Challenges While Using An Email Marketing Tool:

One of the biggest problems I faced when starting out with email marketing services was understanding the tricks and techniques associated with the program.

I signed up for AWeber, and I delayed adding an email subscription form for a long time. Thanks to advancements in the WordPress plugin ecosphere, we now have various plugins to get this job done.

Another significant challenge is sending engaging emails to your subscribers. Many marketers suggest you treat your email list as a vehicle for selling stuff, which is not the right way to go about it.

Your email list is the biggest asset of your blog, and all of those subscribers are people who love your blog. These people are also your brand advocates, so your goal should always be to give them something extra.

If you are looking for a cheap solution, I would suggest not to focus on email marketing at all. That’s the cheapest way to do it.

But if you are one of those smart bloggers who understand the importance of an email list, you should start by investing in the right tool and the right techniques.

From my experience, here are the best email marketing software available. Choose the one that works best for your budget:

Even if you are not ready to invest a lot, I would recommend you at least take a free trial of AWeber, and follow the below guide to create and grow your first list.

Over the next 30 days, send out two emails every week, and you will be amazed to see how your engagement skyrockets!

Subscribe on YouTube

 

Are you using email marketing for your blog? What are the challenges you are facing? Let me know your experiences in the comments below!

Don’t forget to share this post!

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Authored By
A Blogger, Author and a speaker! Harsh Agrawal is recognized as a leader in digital marketing and FinTech space. Fountainhead of ShoutMeLoud, and a Speaker at ASW, Hero Mindmine, Inorbit, IBM, India blockchain summit. Also, an award-winning blogger.

11 thoughts on “Why Smart Bloggers Should Focus On Email Marketing – Examples”

  1. Alex

    Hi Harsh, wow they are some impressive stats! You can definitely tell that you have segmented the lists well! It’s definitely no surprise now that more and more people are using mobiles to open emails. That’s why it’s absolutely paramount that people test their email designs – making sure they render correctly on different devices and clients. I wonder what the future has in store for emails – do you think smart home devices will soon be allowed to open emails and read them aloud? …Now that would be an interesting dynamic!

  2. Nisha Garg

    Hello,
    Very Interesting blog, Internet Marketing is very useful to grow our business and their strategy is very unique to connect the people. Digital marketing is fast growing in today’s era and one of the most obvious benefits of email marketing is its lower cost compared to mainstream marketing channels. I also came across a blog (inbox blueprint 2.0) which share quality post on email marketing.

  3. Genifer

    Recent exploration shows that 67% of marketers around the world rated email marketing as the most functional marketing technique in 2012. But it takes skills to construct a successful email advertising promotion so that your target audience essentially opens your email when it hits their e-mail inbox.

  4. Akash Yadav

    Thanks “Harsh” for this great post and I will try “Awber” soon. Also I want to ask “What’s the best way to increase subscription”.

    As always enjoyed and learned something new from “ShoutMeLoud”

  5. Karthik

    Hey Harsh,

    The post is really informative. As most people say, Money is in the list. People take this seriously as it can generate good amount of money. Just to add to the above points, you can even get your own self hosted E-mail server.
    Use Sendy along with Amazon web services and the combination is really powerful also the cost incurred would be very less than compared to 3rd party services

  6. Danish Kamran

    It’s one of the best blog for Email Marketing. I am confused which one to use. You have given the example of Aweber, Bloom, Lead Pages etc. but lot of other blogs suggested to use pop up domination. How much you rate that plugin. Or if possible can you review it or give any idea about it?

  7. Yatin

    Hi Harsh
    I also think that email marketing is the best option for targeting your readers. Your infographics say it all. In all social platforms, there are many distraction in the form of other posts, images and videos. Email is like a personal message on the facebook where the sender is targetting an individual user.
    But, for a beginner like me, it is not possible for me to sign up for Aweber and leadpages. So, I have started with MailChimp free option. Do you have any alternative to leadpages?

  8. Raza Nagori

    Hey Harsh Again a Awesome Post i was also not Focusing on Email Marketing and i was also Using feed burner it,s not much good to Engage Peoples on New Blog Post so now i am Thinking to Aweber i have heard alot about it 🙂

    Thanks for Sharing This Post with Us.

  9. Rohit Singh

    Nice post Harsh I think that email marketing is most important, no matter if nobody is reading your blog post but the loyal subscribers will definitely read so we must try to increase our email subscribers as this will generate continues and steady flow of traffic to our blog as well as income.

  10. Tanmoy Das

    Hey, I the point about the power of email marketing, but I want to know how can I make my viewer so that they subscribe. As I really hate pop up an email subscription. It’s very annoying and I don’t like to force my viewers.

    1. Harsh Agrawal

      @Tanmoy
      That’s a very good question, and I had the same question. From my experience these are the things which would help:

      1) Add email subscription box after blog post.
      2) Have an Email Subscription box in the sidebar
      3) If you can also add the email subscription box at the top on the homepage.

      The best thing you can do to increase your subscriber is by offering them something for free (Lead magnet). An eBook which is highly related to your niche. I suggest don’t mistake the free word here, as your target should be building the email list for the right audience. So make sure whatever free stuff you are offering, it’s more targeted and will attract right people!

      You will see all the implementations which I mentioned above here at ShoutMeLoud in coming days! 🙂

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