If your website is like your home, your blog is like the front porch. I had read this line in the book “Why Blog? Motivations for Blogging” by Sarah Pedersen. So, what does this statement mean? Well, it means that just like the front porch is an extension of your living space and is accessible to everyone, including outsiders, so is your blog. It is one of the most effective content marketing strategies that will help you create brand awareness and ultimately lead to higher conversions. It will allow you to establish thought leadership and portray yourself as an influential brand.
Now, what if you have a beautiful blog in place with insightful resources that no one’s reading? It will be a sheer waste of time and yield no returns for you.
That brings us to the question – “How to draw attention to your blog and get more visitors to read through it?”
The simplest answer is “correct marketing strategy”.
I think the best way to promote your blog and drive more traffic is through email marketing. In case you are wondering how it works, this article will clear all the haze around this topic.
Let’s start.
1. Work on creating helpful lead magnets.
To grow your blog with the help of email marketing, you will first need a list of email subscribers. That is possible through helpful lead magnets. A lead magnet serves as a persuasive element that encourages the prospective customers to share their email address in exchange for their email address and other personal details. Every business will need a lead magnet to generate leads online and find new customers.
Take a look at this example by OptinMonster.
They have given the website visitors two options in order to get their email address.
The one on the left is a resource lead magnet while the second one is an incentive-based lead magnet.
Both these lead magnets will entice the user to provide their email address because they are going to get something valuable in return.
On clicking the “Download Now” button, the user will be able to see a form asking for the name and email address. This form is likely to work well because it is a short form that is not too demanding for the reader.
While these are lead magnets that appear as pop-ups for the visitors, you can also have search-engine-optimized how-to guides or checklists that will attract the visitor from the search engine itself. This is particularly true if you are open to investing in PPC and search ads.
Now that the visitor is familiar with the kind of content you present, he or she will be less hesitant to sign up for your ‘content’ updates. This brings us to the next point.
2. Let users sign up for the blog updates from your website.
More often than not, your subscribers appreciate regular updates with relevant content around topics they are interested in. To tap on this inclination, invite the visitors to sign up for your newsletters that will give them a weekly or monthly update about the blog posts and other recently published resources.
By doing so, you will be able to attract regular visitors to your website, which will, in turn, boost your SEO ranking and drive business growth.
Content Marketing Institute has included a tab known as “Email Updates” on their home page.
When the prospect will click on the link, he or she will be redirected to the subscription page to provide basic personal and professional details. The users can choose the subscription options according to their preferences.
Other than that, they have also included a short form on their blog page. The succinct and engaging copy with the headline “Join Over 218,000 of your Peers!” will surely tempt people to subscribe to the list.
HubSpot has also applied a similar tactic to encourage people to subscribe to their blog. They can either get updates related to marketing, sales, service, or website according to their interests.
3. Send email newsletters promoting your blog.
How will people know that you have published a post on your blog? They would, obviously, not have the time to stalk your website and keep track of all the updates that you make. That’s where an email newsletter comes into the picture.
Notify your readers about the blogs that you have published on your website in the last week or last month, depending on the email frequency.
Here’s how Email Uplers promotes the best reads at the end of every month.
The visuals in the email make it more appealing for the reader and easy to skim through.
Brafton also follows the same principle and sends out a newsletter highlighting their best blogs.
Besides visuals, they have also added a small snippet highlighting what the post is all about. That will make the subscriber curious and bring them to the blog.
4. Repurpose your blog posts as emails.
Recently, I have seen quite a few brands that send out a long snippet of their blog post in their emails. To employ this tactic, you must keep track of all the high-performing blog posts from Google Search Console and Google Analytics. According to the insights obtained through these tools, send out the popular posts every once in a while, with the CTA “Read more”. It will tempt the user to read more and hop on to your blog. Isn’t that a smart idea to intrigue the readers?
5. Organize contests and giveaways on social media channels.
Organizing a contest or giveaway on your social media channels will increase the reach of your brand and aid your lead generation efforts as well. It is possible that contests or giveaways do not fit that well in your business model. For such businesses, you can promote a referral marketing campaign. In either case, you will be able to generate leads and get new people on your email list.
Incentivize the participants so that you have a better participation ratio. Give them exclusive deals and coupon codes to motivate them to spread the word.
6. Include your blog in the ‘social sharing’ links and email signature.
Not every customer that you have will be aware of the fact that you have a blog. To make sure that they know about it, you can include your blog link in the social sharing links along with the links of social platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, Pinterest, Tiktok, and Spotify (depending on your brand personality and niche).
By doing so, your subscribers will not only learn about your social media presence but also know that you have an active blog.
Here’s how Mented Cosmetics has shared their blog along with their Instagram and Facebook links.
For freelancers and small businesses, it is advisable to add the blog link in the email signature.
Couple the link with a click-worthy CTA like “Get some great email marketing insights” or “Grab your daily dose of content writing tips”.
Just like social sharing links in the email footer, having a blog link in the signature will help you increase the overall visibility as it will be there in all your emails.
Take a look at this email signature example to get some inspiration.
Source: https://www.foregroundweb.com/photographer-email-signatures/
7. Include RSS feeds for your blog.
Whenever your prospects subscribe to RSS feeds, they will receive instant email notifications whenever you update your blog. If you want to increase your visibility, this is a great idea for all content marketers out there. There is no need for any manual intervention as it will automatically send the email.
Take a look at this screenshot.
That symbol marked with the curved arrow represents RSS feeds.
Alternatively, you can have a subscription form like this for blog updates.
You only need to ensure that the subscription form is clearly visible to the readers.
Source: WishPond
Wrapping Up
There is so much information overload on the web today. If you want people to consume all that you are serving, you must promote it and advertise it in the right way. Your blog is not an exception. You must be definitely posting your recent blog posts on social media but that’s certainly not enough. Given the competition in the marketplace, you must go a step further and touch base with the users on a personal level. That’s why promoting blogs through email marketing sounds like a great idea that actually works.
The tactics shared here will surely give a new boost to your blog promotion strategy with a noticeable increase in the number of visitors.