How to Set-Up Your Blog for Long-Term Success with Email Traffic?

This is a crucial step for anyone who is serious about using their blog to make a long-term living. You need to grow a mailing list.

An active list of email subscribers will help to promote your posts and will hopefully support the products you create in the future. I recommend GetResponse to store your mailing list.

Why is email marketing important?

The most important advantage of email marketing is that you own your email list. 

You are not dependent on any particular social media or search engine. You could get kicked out of Facebook, Pinterest, and Instagram unexpectedly, but not from your email list.

As you can see below, you might get such a message anytime because Pinterest algorithms can make mistakes. It’s too risky to depend on just one platform alone.

Note: You can appeal to Pinterest (and most other social media platforms) to lift such unexpected suspensions. But it’s still risky to depend entirely on social media.

Similarly, Google can make algorithm changes that could significantly impact your traffic.

Let’s take a look at what Google has to say regarding Algorithm updates & traffic drops:

But with email, you own the list. No algorithm updates can take that traffic away from you. 

With email, you can send a promotional content to your subscribers anytime you want. You are not dependent on other platforms.

How is email marketing useful to you?

In the long-term, email marketing is exactly what you need. 

You can email your new posts to subscribers who will visit it directly (as opposed to people discovering your posts through Google and Pinterest alone). This is called as direct traffic.

The more the number of email subscribers, the more the traffic you can drive through email newsletters.

Moreover, you can also promote the products or services that you create in future to your mail list.

Interesting Fact: Did you know that $1 spend on email marketing has a return of $35 and that nearly 4 billion people in the world use email!

Moreover, an average subscriber is worth $36 and more than 32% of subscribers on average open and read every email you send.

Email is bigger than any search engine or social media and the returns on investment (ROI) for email marketing are mind-boggling. It really would be foolish not to take advantage of email marketing.

How to Build an Email List?

Building a list of email subscribers is critical to sustainable long-term growth of your blog.

Let’s see how to build an email list now!

1. Create gripping Lead Magnets:

Lead magnets are resources that help you collect leads (or email signups). 

For example, lead magnets could be eBooks, case studies, checklists, videos, etc.

When offered for free, your readers will signup to collect these lead magnets.

2. Create well-designed Squeeze Pages:

Squeeze pages are pages that are designed to convert your readers to email subscribers.

You promote your lead magnets (like eBooks, checklists, etc.) on your squeeze page.

By signing up to your email list, your readers should be able to download (or access) the lead magnets you created.

Below is a squeeze page created by the Tales of a Backpacker. The lead magnet here is the free e-book ”38 Ways to Travel With No Money”.

A good squeeze page should contain the following:

• A catchy headline outlining the benefits of your lead magnet
• An email opt-in form or a call to action button like ”FREE DOWNLOAD” seen in the above image.
• An eye-catchy image. It’s best if you can create a mockup in the form of e-book covers, video courses, checklists, etc.
• Add social proof, testimonials, and reviews make your squeeze page more authentic.

Another tip is to use FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out) to get your readers to download the lead magnet.

By having a countdown timer or by mentioning that the bonus might disappear soon, your readers will be tempted to sign-up and grab the freebies you offer as lead magnets.

3. Using Exit-Intent pop-ups:

Pop-ups might be annoying, but they are great at generating email leads.

And the best way to use pop-ups while not annoying your readers is by using exit-intent pop-ups. This way, you will be showing pop-ups when your readers are about to leave the blog.

Do not use pop-ups when a reader enters your page or after a little time like 5-10 secs. Use exit-intent pop-ups to provide your readers with best experience.

Below is an exit-intent pop-up generated by Zendesk, a popup builder tool.

4. Provide your long-form posts as downloadable e-books:

We already mentioned the importance of writing long-form content. The longer your posts are, the more information it conveys & the better it is for ranking. But do make sure that your long-form posts are extremely captivating as longer posts tend to feel boring.

When you have long posts (5000 words or longer), you can convert them to an e-book. Since it’s hard to read long posts in a single sitting, your readers would enjoy having an e-book version send to their mail.

5. Hidden/Locked content:

If you have riveting content that people would love to get their hands on, you can make them accessible only to subscribers.

You can show the introduction and initial body of your blogpost that’s captivating and hide the remaining part. By subscribing to your email list, the readers should be able to unlock this hidden content.

Below is an example of how Forbes effectively uses locked content to generate Forbes Premium subscriptions.

How to write the perfect email?

The effectiveness of email marketing essentially lies in the mails you send to your subscribers.

Keep these point in mind while writing the emails:

1. Add a click worthy and catchy Subject line:

Start with an intriguing subject line that captures the attention of your readers.

It should be so catchy that anyone who stumbles upon the subject line should click and open it.

For example, “This is how I increased my blog traffic by 300% in 2 months”. You would probably open and read what’s inside this mail right?

But make sure to include content that justifies the headline. Having an awesome subject line and poor content would essentially make it spam and clickbait. The content should be as good as your subject line.

2. Have an opening that hooks your readers:

It’s the first 3-5 lines of your email that determines whether a subscriber will read the rest of the mail or not.

Make it highly interesting that anyone who reads it must go on to read your whole email.

You can use stories, powerful strategies and tips to hook your readers in the beginning.

3. Write highly valuable content:

As mentioned, the content should be as good as it can get.

Provide actionable tips, your experiences in the form of stories, links to resources you found helpful, etc.

Because if you don’t, chances are your readers will start unsubscribing.

4. Add a call to action near the end:

This is where you convert your subscribers to valuable customers.

The call to action could be a link to your new blogpost, a purchase link to the product you are promoting, a link to squeeze page, asking your subscribers to reply to your mail, etc.

5. Make use of Post Script (PS):

Post script is a simple, but highly effective way to convey a message to your subscribers.

”PS: This awesome offer ends tonight. Take action now!” is a powerful way to remind your readers to take action!

How to get crazy high Open Rates?

Open rate is the percentage of subscribers who open your mail.

Typically, an open rate above 25% is considered good. That is, if 1 in 4 subscribers open and read your email, you have done a good job.

The most important factor in increasing open rates is the subject line. As discussed, you have write catchy and click worthy subject lines.

Other points to consider for getting high open rates are:

1. Sending emails at the right time:

Sending emails when your subscribers are sleeping or when they are busy working would be a poor strategy.

Send it during the day when your subscribers are free.

How to know when your subscribers are free?

You have to do a trial and error. For one month, try sending emails at various times and see which time slot gets the best open rate.

You can try starting with noon time. That’s when people take the mid-day break and are usually free without family or work-related thoughts. You can later try the 6 PM to 10 PM slots & 6 AM to 8 AM slots.

2. Build a relationship with your subscribers:

Do not always send marketing or promotional emails alone.

Share your story with them. Your past experiences.

Your mails will be more authentic this way and people would love to open and read such emails.

Even when sending a marketing email, try to start with a story or include your personal experiences with what you are promoting. That’s the best way to keep your subscribers engaged.

3. Preview your email before sending

At times, a smiley or image or something you added might not load correctly. This can really hurt the open rates.

Make sure to preview the mail before you send it out.

4. Delete subscribers who are not opening your emails

It’s a heartache to delete those subscribers you worked really hard to get, but you should do that often to keep your open rates high.

As the 80-20 principle says, the majority of your income and results come from the 20% of people who open and reads your emails. There is not much value in having a large number of subscribers when they are not reading your mails.

And sometimes when the open rates are really low, your mails might even end up in the spam folder and hurt you more.

One way to ensure a high-quality email list is to use ”Double Opt-in” for subscription. People who take the pain of visiting their mailboxes and confirming the email address are genuinely interested in what you have to offer.

5. Make sure that your emails are not going to spam

Obviously no one is going to open spam mails. 

And your mails end up in spam when your subscribers are often marking them as spam. Thus, it’s critical to make sure that your subscribers do not flag your mails as spam.

How can you ensure this?

• By sending only high-quality email that your subscribers love.
• By not sending tons of emails that irritate your subscribers. You can send an email every 2-3 days. Or with a lower frequency like once a week or month.
• By keeping only subscribers who open and engage with your mails regularly. These engaged subscribers never mark your mails as spam. If people are not opening and reading your mails, they are clearly not interested in what you have to offer. And the chances of them marking your mails as spam are really high.
• By providing a clear ”Unsubscribe” option to your readers. If people are finding it hard to unsubscribe, they just mark your mails as spam.

Why are the best email marketing services to use?

GetResponse: They are one of the industry-leading email marketing companies. Supporting more than 100,000 businesses already, GetResponse is a highly popular email marketing tool worth considering. They offer a 30-day free trial and their plans start from as little as $16 per month.

Constant Contact offers a free trial where you can send up to 100 free emails. And once you grow, be it a landing page builder, advanced analytics, or social media tools, they have a whole suite of resources to help you at all stages of your blogging journey.