Typically the blog promotion process looks something like this: blogger writes and publishes a blog on the company website, posts are shared in social channels, and if there is space, certain posts are featured in newsletters. Blogger waits for Google to index blog, and hopes for a favorable position on the search results page. Fin.
And you can often squeak by with this strategy. But taking a proactive and more strategic approach by marketing your blog with email marketing—or a blog digest—can help increase your pageviews, improve your organic search results, and enhance reader engagement.
The following post covers the steps required for creating and sending out a blog digest (based on my personal experience!) so that you can promote your blog and build a blog digest into your content marketing and email program.
You will first need to decide what tool you will use to send your blog digest. We use SendGrid’s Marketing Campaigns (can you blame us for being biased?) so that we can custom build a weekly email that provides a more visually appealing email that reinforces our brand.
If you’re looking for help with design and templates, check out SendGrid’s free email marketing templates so you can jump in right away and start building your campaigns.
After you’ve decided how you will send your blog emails, determine how often you will send the digest emails. Some options include:
After each new blog is published - not recommended if you post more than a couple times a week, in order to avoid email overload.
Weekly - for example, every Wednesday at 10 am EST. This option is great if you publish more than once a week.
Monthly/bi-monthly - this would be a good option for content programs that publish one or fewer blogs each week.
Once you develop a cadence and build muscle memory with your blog digest emails, the process will start to feel like second nature. For more on finding your perfect email cadence, check out, Fighting Email Fatigue: When is Your Email Frequency Too High?
Now it’s time to craft your content! This will include a personalized subject line, preheader text, headline, body copy, and CTA copy.
Keep in mind that depending on your marketing program, your email marketing list and blog subscriber list may consist of different audiences. Generally, if somebody signs up for your blog digest, they are more interested in educational content over promotions and emails that include coupons, upsells, and generally more salesly content.
Blog subscribers are certainly a lead, but they may be a lot further off from converting than somebody who has requested to talk to your sales team. So your content should reflect that distinction. Some tips to keep in mind while writing your email copy for your blog digest:
Be conversational - the blog subscriber list is your community and those who value your content, so keep it conversational to keep them engaged.
Shorter is usually better - quality always wins out over lots of copy. You don’t need to present every last detail in your emails. Save some content for your landing page (or wherever your CTA is directing them to).
Make sure you have a solid editing and pre-send process in place!
Once you’ve started sending blog digest emails, you can start to tally your engagement metrics such as opens and clicks and make appropriate changes based on how your recipients respond to your content.
And once you get comfortable with tracking baseline metrics, you can start to look at additional metrics such as your click to open rate (also known as your relevancy metric). These engagement metrics allow for an additional validation of our content and whether it’s valuable and resonating.
You’re likely spending a lot of time writing and publishing content for your company blog. Neglecting a blog promotion strategy misses a potential valuable touchpoint with your users and prospects.
When executed properly and measured consistently, a blog digest provides an additional way to promote your content, engage your users, and measure your efforts to help you become more efficient and confident in your work.
Looking for other ways to optimize your content and email marketing efforts? Check out our 2018 A-Z Email Marketing Guide that is chock full of tips that will bring your email program to perfection.
