Blogging Tips

How many emails do you get everyday from websites or blogs and how many of those do you read?

I receive a large amount of emails form sites that I have signed up to and out of those there are very few that I actually take any notice of. In fact I will often unsubscribe from the website after the 2 or 3 emails if they are not to my liking.

The reason

So many sites send out a weekly or monthly newsletter without too much thought about the content of the emails. I quite often get emails that simply list the last few posts with no images, no styling and just text. This is not attractive or inspiring it certainly doesn’t make me want to follow the links. The email needs to contain a clear call to action that entices the user to click to find out more.

Some things to definitely think about when creating your email is the way it is presented and the type of email it is. There is nothing more off putting than an email than is a just full of pages and pages of text, make sure you keep it short, sweet and straight to the point.

You need to think about how the content will be displayed, either in an editorial format if the email is a monthly newsletter for example or as a postcard style email for getting your information out in a quick concise manor. Personally I like postcard style emails as it gets straight to the point and usually has a nice image to reflect the topic. I am much more likely to click the email if I am presented with the information without having to find it.

Then there is the content of the email it should contain information that you think your readers might find of interest. Depending on your website and what the email is for it doesn’t have to be a business related email it can be something that is fun to share with your readers. Try not to use the newsletter as an opportunity to hard sell your business or they will simply unsubscribe before you can blink.

There are WordPress plugins available that will allow you to send the last few posts in an email but in my opinion these plugins are not what you should be using. They are good in that it can help those who don’t have time to keep track of your site keep up to date but then that is what RSS feeds are for. The emails you send out to your readers need to be more personal and to be visually enticing so images are a must. There are those who prefer not to receive HTML emails so try and make sure you use a system that can send multi format emails. The benefit of using such a system is that they can send both text and html versions of the email and they also allow you to track who opened your emails and what topics are popular.

Knowledge is power

Once you know what links were popular you can then use this information to provide more information to individuals or begin to taylor your website to encourage users to find out more about the topics they have been interested in. This is why it is important to make the emails attractive as you want your readers to click on the links and not just to visit your site but to gain information about them and their interests. Don’t miss the opportunity to find out about your readers, once you know them a little better you can then give them what they want either but enticing them with some free gifts or by using special offers.

Make sure you use the information that is there right in front of you at your finger tips.