Building Your Blog with Your eNewsletter

As a blogger, you aim to have steady traffic to your site. Take a peak at our latest tips for building your blog with your eNewsletter.

Newsletters should be an important part of your blogging schedule. Whether you send your newsletter weekly or monthly, it is a direct way to connect with your readers. If you are not using this type of tool, you need to strongly consider it.

Newsletters should be an important part of your blogging schedule.

I didn’t start a newsletter until a couple of years into my blogging. My readers actually started to leave comments on my blog and in my social media channels asking me for a newsletter! It was just something that I knew I needed, but didn’t have the time the tackle. But when you readers start to specifically ask you for something, it shows how important it really is.

Email newsletters are a great way to get your message directly to your readers

You can’t guarantee that your readers will see your Facebook message, your tweet or your Instagram photo…but you know for sure that your email newsletter was delivered right to their mailbox.

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Having access to readers email is a big deal and shouldn’t be taken lightly. When you launch a newsletter for your website you should never abuse their email. Do not spam them with unnecessary emails. Do not sell their emails (yes it does happen).

I read over at Food Bloggers Central something that stuck with me…what if all your social media disappeared? Where would you be? People get locked out of Facebook, it happens. Your Pinterest account can be hacked and all your users deleted. It happens. You need to establish a direct connection to get information to your readers. I do see a spike in my traffic when my newsletter goes out on Wednesdays. I like Wednesdays!

What types of newsletters are there?

  • Depending on the email program that you use, you can set it up to email on a certain day/time of the week and include a snapshot of each post. I like this because, the readers get a glimpse of the post but have to click over to your site to read more.
  • You can set up a monthly newsletter which highlights what happened on your blog during the month.
  • If you are launching a new ebook, running a special or have a particular post that you want to draw attention to, you can send a special email newsletter.
  • Some bloggers send special newsletters that contain an “email subscriber only” recipe. A recipe that isn’t posted on the blog.

Is the number of email subscribers I have important?

While that is a great question, the answer is divided. I would venture to say YES and NO. Yes, you would like a good number of subscribers, but you also want a HIGH open rate and HIGH click through rate. If you have 50,000 subscribers and only 2% open the email and .05% click through to your site, you have a lot of “stale” subscribers. SmartInsights.com report that across all industries the average open rate for email campaigns is around 23% and the click-through rate is 3 % for 2015.

Mail chimp gives percentages each time a campaign is sent. I love that. It tells me where “that email newsletter” ranked compared to the national average as well as MY average.

I can tell you that every few months, I go through my email subscriber list. I run a search to see who has not opened an email of mine in the last two months. When I find that list, I delete those subscribers. I had been sending an email to them saying “your email subscription is about to expire.” Then giving them a “call to action” to click through. But now, I save that time (remember using your TIME WISELY) and I just go through and delete out the users that aren’t participating. People subscribe to your emails and then never open them. If you are on a paying program for your email newsletter there is NO need to be paying for people who are not opening your emails! After I did my first purge, I saved myself $40 a month. I currently have a rate of open/click through of over 35%. While this number is a great one, I am trying to grow it even higher!

I used to get upset when people would unsubscribe from my emails. I do not any more. Life happens, no problem. Those people who unsubscribe are not interested. That is okay. I am looking to connect with like minded people; people who want to connect with me. If we aren’t a good match, I’d prefer they unsubscribe. Less clutter for them in their inbox and it cleans up my user list. It does not mean they do not like YOU. It is not personal. Make sense? Just look at those who unsubscribe from your email list as people who are not the perfect fit for your blog.

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Let’s talk! Leave me a comment telling me if you have an newsletter for your blog? What type of program do you use? How do you keep it fun for your readers so they keeping opening and reading your email? Any tips to share?

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