Blogging in the Margins: 10-Minute Tasks for Blog Newsletters

The quick blogging tips, 10-minute tasks series is tackling blog newsletters this week. Here are 10-minute tasks for blog newsletters you can do today to move your blogging business forward.

Myself and most of my clients blog in the margins – fitting in just a bit of blogging here and there.

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10-Minute Tasks for Blog Newsletters

This focus is quick blogging tips for blog newsletters. You can find all of the tips in the 10-minute tasks series here.

Better yet, get all of the 10-Minute Blog Tasks published here AND more than 80 additional tasks (and more grow-your-business focus areas). The Blogging in the Margins book is now available on Amazon!

Because we need boundaries, I chose tasks which can be done in just 10-minutes but would love to hear from you. How do you fit newsletters and building this valuable channel into the margins of your life?

Do you:

• pre schedulenewsletters?
• limit your calls to action within your blog emails?
• write a post and then write a promotional newsletter?

Newsletters can be a consistent source of traffic in a Pinterest-driven world, a steady source of income, or a segmented group of loyal followers. Optimizing them with these 10-minute tasks for blog newsletters can be a focus for anyone at any time.

Update: Facebook Group Questions

One of the best things to come out for group owners is the questions feature! You should utilize this captive audience time to ask if those members who are actively seeking to join your group might want to join your newsletter.

It just makes sense. So, take 10-minutes and create a couple of questions before promoting your group.

Get a Consistent Schedule

Send newsletters weekly (at the least). If you don’t have a regular newsletter, you’re not optimizing the channel. You know this, so take 10-minutes and sketch out a schedule for your blog’s newsletters.

If you can add value, send a newsletter. This value could be your newest post, a great find your readers will love, or even a link to a discussion topic on one of your social media channels.

Remember: having a list won’t move your business forward; using your newsletter channel will.

Create (or Adapt) a Welcome Sequence with Automation

With email service providers like MailChimp and MailerLite making automation FREE, there is no excuse not to use this invaluable marketing tool.

Map out your automation welcome series if you don’t have one. In general, your welcome sequence could be as simple as:

1. Send the opt-in or free resource (if you have one).
2. A follow-up email about your opt-in. Try to personalize it by asking them their perception, problem, or solution they implemented. Include your image within this email to help build that now-cliché “know, like, trust” factor.
3. Your third email (also with an image of your happy face) could be introducing them to the rest of your site. Are there more resources your readers find invaluable? Do you have some popular posts you could share to highlight your personality and what they can expect from you?
4. Ask for something (a response, a survey question, a sale, etc.).
5. Move them (automatically) into your regular or segmented newsletter feed.

Just remember to model your sequence off the golden rule of ‘selling:’ give, give, give, sell. These days, it’s hard to find more value than credit card requests…

Give them more value than what you ask of them.

Increase Open Rates

The basics of a blogger’s email marketing strategy should be to serve more than you sell.

It seems we’re inundated with selling these days – it seems the balance is all out of whack. We need to get back to balance. To do that, we must consider what our readers want and need.

Don’t resort to tricks, clickbait titles, or relying on retargeting or resending every campaign subscribers don’t open. Change HOW you serve them and watch your open rates increase.

Increase blog newsletter open rates by creating a pattern of service and well, just read the article for the actions to take.

Big lists don’t matter, engaged ones do.

Increase Click-Through Rates

Whether your email goal is to increase page views, affiliate sales, or product sales, focusing on click-through rates is always time well-spent. If they aren’t clicking, why are they on your list?

I know big newsletter numbers were once “THE thing to get,” but that is complete bull.

Clean your list at least twice a year.

Once you have a clean list of engaged subscribers, now you can start to work on improving your click-through rate. If you don’t know where to start, try a couple of these 8 techniques to increase click-through rates for blog newsletters.

Create a plan to provide value and your clicks will increase.

Analyze a Gap in Your Sales Sequence

If you have a sales sequence (or many sequences) running, how often are you analyzing your statistics? Where do people click and take action, click but take no action, or even unsubscribe?

It’s hard for us to see how our own sales copy is performing, but ask yourself: are you sending too many sales emails without providing value (from the potential customer’s perspective)?

This can be one of the most lucrative 10-minute tasks for blog income. Dedicate some time to really digging in.

Get More Tips

Bloggy buddies are always sharing quick blogging tips with other, right? Well, now you can join the Elevate Everyone group on Facebook. We’ll have tips, questions, and helpful interaction on 5 to 10-minute quick tips for blogging! Come join us!

Takeaway and Action

Use at least 2 of these 10-minute tasks for blog newsletters this week and move your business forward in the time you’ve got to work with.