Do You Integrate Email with Your Blog?

Wednesday, November 30, 2011

Blogging has become one of the best ways for companies to casually keep in touch with customers and prospects. Similar to email, a blog is a communication tool that can be used to build a list of addresses to connect with in the future, drive traffic to your website, sell products/services or anything else you aim to do. So why not integrate them?

Here are our a few tips to help:

Include a sign-up form on your blog - surely the most obvious tip we'll give. Use your blog as a tool for users to sign-up for your corporate newsletter. A simple web form works well and I love the idea of asking for the users Twitter name as well!

Include your best blog posts in your actual corporate newsletter. Many struggle to find new content for their regular newsletter. Why not include some of your best blog posts? List a few blog posts of the week/month in your newsletter with a brief excerpt and a link to the full article on your site. Not only will this provide more content for the message itself, it will also in turn create awareness of your blog and grow its readers.

Promote your newsletter in blog posts. If someone is reading your blog post, and makes it to the end, it’s probably fair to assume they could be interested in hearing more from you. So try letting them know how they can read more by subscribing to your RSS feed, following you on Twitter or by signing up to your corporate newsletter.

Add a service like Feed Burner - an awesome little service from Google. Basically, it allows your readers to subscribe to your blog’s RSS feed by email. So the next time you post a new blog they get a message instantly to their email inbox.

Try a share by email link. Most blogs will now include the option for readers to share your post via social media like Twitter and Facebook. But don’t forget email! By adding an "email a friend this blog" link, you give your readers the option of sharing your content with their team or friends in a quick and easy way.

What else is your company doing? Or have you tried any of these strategies and have they worked? Let us know in the comments.

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