What to Send Your Email List: Email Marketing Tips for Bloggers

Email marketing is a must have for bloggers who want to make money. These tips for bloggers will help you figure out what to send your email list to create engaged relationships and enthusiastic shoppers.

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What should I send to my email list? This is the most frequent question bloggers and business owners have about email marketing. The key to answering this question is found in an understanding of what marketing is and why you’re doing it.

What is email marketing?

Email marketing is a targeted way to reach your readers, directly in their email inbox. You add a form on your website inviting readers to join your list. Once they subscribe, they’ll receive your email broadcasts and sequences.

The email marketing service you sign up with collects and manages your subscriber list. I use and recommend ConvertKit. If you haven’t started yet, read this post to learn why email marketing is important for bloggers and how to start for free.

Read Best Email Marketing Services for Bloggers

Marketing, email or otherwise, is how you share and promote what you are creating, and earn money. Marketing isn’t always about selling though. Good marketing starts with a clear audience, content and offers that solve a problem for your readers, and a trusting relationship.

With every email bloggers send to your list, you build a relationship with your subscribers by helping them get to know, like and trust you. As that trust builds, your readers will be ready to purchase your products, services or affiliate recommendations.

Read Top 10 Email Marketing Questions for Bloggers Answered

What should bloggers send to your email list?

So what should you send to your email list? Content that serves your subscriber, written in a way that the reader is getting to know your style. Don’t send emails just to announce a new blog post. That’s very impersonal and wastes an opportunity to connect on a deeper level.

Write each email with a sense of intimacy, as if you’re writing to one person alone with a hot tip you know they’ll love. Mix up long emails with short ones, and see which get a better response.

Don’t add too many images, if any, to your emails. Emails with lots of graphics are more likely to be flagged as spam. They’ll also appear too commercial to the recipient. Keep things personal instead.

How do I email a blog post?

Most bloggers who start a subscriber list think it’s only good for alerting readers to when a new blog post is published. In fact, this is the very bare minimum of what your email list is for.

In order to stay consistent with sending emails to your list, you may sometimes send a broadcast that only shares a new blog post. When you do have a new post to share, include a friendly introduction and part of the blog post.

If you create all of your content with clarity around who your reader is, sharing part of it in an email will still have a somewhat intimate and personal feel. Copy and paste the beginning of the post into the email and then add a link or button to invite the reader to continue reading the post.

Ideally, you can share part of the blog post in a way that gives your email subscriber value or even a quick win, without having to click through to the post on your site. If the post is of interest, they’ll click through to read more.

You may sometimes create an email broadcast that includes a round-up of related posts where you share links to different posts on your blog.

How to use broadcasts and sequences

There are two main types of emails you’ll use as part of your email marketing strategy: broadcasts and sequences. The type of content in both is inherently different.

You’ll use email broadcasts to send:

• Time-sensitive or seasonal content
• Personalized emails sharing your message
• Promotional emails
• Product or course launches
• Affiliate partner launches

You’ll use email sequences for:

• Evergreen launches or promotions
• Funnel sequences
• Welcome sequence to nurture new subscribers
• Email courses

What are your readers looking for?

Services like Google Analytics provide information about where your readers come from, what page on your blog they landed on and where they were on your site when they joined your list. That data, and demographical information, will tell you a lot about your audience. 

Use that info to create more content on the topics that get the most traffic.

Read Easy Set Up for Google Analytics on WordPress

As you send emails to your list, ask questions and encourage readers hit reply and write you back. As they begin to reply to you, pay attention to what they’re saying. Make note of any questions they ask – that’s all new ideas for fresh content, for your emails, blog posts, social media, podcasts, videos, and more.

Join groups related to your niche, and pay attention to what people who fit your ideal reader avatar are asking about. What are the main problems and concerns they talk about? How can your content solve these problems for them?

Ask your list what they want to read

Your readers’ actions can tell you a lot: which posts are most popular, which optin forms convert best, which products or affiliate links get the most clicks. Notice which emails are opened most often.

You can also ask your readers directly what they are most interested in receiving from you. Send your readers a quick survey. It’s easy to create one with Google forms. You’ll get some good data you can use, plus you get your readers to interact, which helps them feel included and important. Bonus: when your emails get clicks and responses it improves your deliverability for future emails.

If you have a Facebook group, create a poll to see what your members are most interested in. And be sure everyone in your Facebook group is invited to join your list, and all your subscribers are regularly invited to join your group.

The answers and info you gather about your target audience will help you connect with your readers on a deeper level. The better you know your subscribers, the more effective your email marketing will be. The better you know what your readers want, the easier it is to craft effective emails consistently.

Email marketing prompt ideas for bloggers

For more ideas of what to send your email list, you can use writing prompts to get inspired. Always be sure to relate them directly to your specific reader and their specific needs.

Here are a few email marketing prompts to get you going when you’re stuck:

• Top 3 questions about ___
• What I wish I had known when I started
• A day in the life
• A book/podcast/article/video I recently enjoyed
• How to save more time or money ___
• My most embarrassing mistake
• What I earned from ___ (TV/movie reference)
• My favorite tool/resource you should get
• The top 5 most popular posts on the blog
• A case study about a client or customer
• How I stay motivated
• Easy how to tutorial that gives your readers a quick win

Play around with these ideas and see how you can relate them to your specific blogging niche. Keep a running list of prompts like these to turn to when you are at a loss for email content ideas.

Read Top 10 Email Marketing Questions for Bloggers Answered

Learn from the experts in your inbox

Subscribe to your favorite blogger’s lists and pay attention. Notice the subject lines that make you open an email, the frequency and length of emails, and the ratio of content vs sales emails that she sends.

Notice the type of content they send, what they write about, how often they share an offer or affiliate recommendation.

You can learn a lot by paying attention to what the pros do and adapting the best of it to fit your own unique style.

The Best Email Marketing Course for Bloggers

If you’re ready to start making money with email marketing, Krista Dickson’s course The Hot List will get you there!

When I first opened this course, I was blown away! It’s insane how much high quality content and valuable bonuses she’s included!

The Hot List is an online self guided course you can follow at your own pace. It covers:

• how to create an optin freebie your readers want
• the six most irresistible freebie ideas
• the 5 C’s of high converting landing pages
• create tripwires that make you money while you sleep
• the secrets of successful sales funnels
• how to plan 30 days of content in 10 minutes
• 52 binge-worthy newsletter prompts
• how to craft must-open subject lines
• using social media and Pinterest to grow your list
• how to monetize your list and make money

The Hot List includes a load of solid bonuses too, like videos, swipe files and over 70 templates. It covers everything you could ever want to make email marketing a gold mine for your business.

This course is perfect for you if you’ve started a list, but it’s not growing well or making any money.

It’s also an excellent course for the serious beginner, who hasn’t started email marketing yet. If you want to get it right from day one, this course is for you! First, grab your Free Trial for ConvertKit and then get yourself enrolled in The Hot List.

What type of content works best for your email list?

Have you noticed the kind of content that gets the most engagement from your list? What ideas from this post will you try in your next email? Share your questions and ideas in a comment below.

More Posts You’ll Love

• Why Email Marketing for Bloggers Matters (and How to Start for Free)
• 7 Effective Ways for Bloggers to Connect with Readers
• How to Increase Email Open Rate: Tips for Bloggers
• Quickly Find Blog Post Ideas for Beginners
• Affiliate Marketing Basics for Bloggers Who Want to Make Money
• Top 10 Email Marketing Questions for Bloggers Answered