If you have any familiarity with Digital Marketing , you’ve probably heard the famous phrase “Content is king.” Beyond that, some people add, “and outreach is queen.”
This shows how the Content Marketing strategy has become popular. And along with it, many companies are betting on Email Marketing to complement the “formula for success”.
Despite this, most professionals still do not master all the concepts and practices related to the two strategies. And that is quite understandable: both require a high level of planning and only bring results in the medium and long term.
With this in mind, let’s explain how to actually work with these two practices and maximize the chances of success, clarifying:
- What is Content Marketing?
- What is Email Marketing
- How to use Email Marketing in your content strategy
- Good ways to optimize your results
Ready? Let’s go!
What is Content Marketing?
Content marketing is directly related to the creation of high-value content for:
- attract and engage a particular audience;
- create a positive image of your brand;
- increase the possibilities of business generation .
In order for you to truly achieve these results, your Content Marketing strategy needs to have clear and measurable objectives, well-defined processes and a record of this information.
Only then will your company be able to evaluate the performance of the strategy as a whole and quantify how much it influences the final result.
To start your planning, you must answer the 3 questions:
Why invest in Content Marketing?
This question will help you set your goal . This varies from company to company, but some of the most common goals are: generating leads, increasing brand reach, educating the market, gaining power, lowering costs, etc.
Once you know your goals, you can set up a KPI , or key performance indicator. This will help you measure whether you are meeting your goal.
For example, if you want to increase brand awareness, you can define the KPI as the number of site visits or brand referrals; if you aim to help the sales team, you can track the results by calculating the number of leads generated or the cost per contact, and so on.
After establishing these criteria, you can take the first step in relation to the content to be produced. Start with the following question:
Who will you do?
In this step, keep in mind: it is impossible to please everyone , so you must develop your strategy around the characteristics of your specific audience.
This saves you time from wasting time with people who don’t have your company profile, helps you produce content that really has value for your audience, and makes it easier to choose the channels and formats to use.
To answer this question, use the buyer persona concept , that is, create a fictional character that represents your company’s ideal client and document it . This way, you can work with more specific information and facilitate the overall development of the strategy.
Rock’s great character generator can help you with this task.
Finally, think about the last question:
How are you going to do Content Marketing?
Here you must define what content formats you are going to produce and on which channels you are going to distribute them.
Whether it’s text, video, image or audio , remember to make that decision based on your persona’s preferences.
From there, you know everything you need to get your hands on the cookie jar, but since we want to talk about Content Marketing and Email Marketing, let’s focus on blogging and, of course, email.
To help you understand how the two work together, let’s clarify some basic concepts.
What is Email Marketing?
Communication between companies and customers is related to the practice of Email Marketing by email.
Email is not dead and continues to be an important part of the marketing mix .
Your content can be divided into three classifications:
- Transactional emails , which are automatic confirmation messages for any type of transaction, such as purchasing airline tickets, hotel reservations, downloading applications and petitions.
- Promotional email focuses on revealing something, even if it is not directly related to sales. For example: offers in clothing stores, distribution of free ebooks, disclosure of discount coupons, etc.
- Relational email aimed at building a relationship with the public and increasing the connection between the brand and the consumer. A good example of this type of email are newsletters and welcome messages based on company contacts.
Although all of them are important for your Email Marketing strategy, in this post we will focus on relational messages, which are the ones that can help you build a relationship with your audience and help you buy traffic to your blog.
So, without further ado, let’s get to the main point of this article:
How to use Email Marketing in your Content Marketing strategy?
After you have mastered the initial processes of your content production, that is, you have already chosen the goals and KPIs, created and documented your persona and configured your blog, your strategy enters a new stage where things begin to gain scale .
With a consistent level of output, you can generate more traffic to your blog and attract new readers. From there, the focus should shift to the forms of “loyalty” of the audience and start a more stable relationship.
And it is at this moment that Email Marketing can become the key point of your strategy.
To do this, you will need:
- create a contact list;
- plan how to communicate with her;
- measure results to evaluate your performance;
- look for opportunities for improvement.
And how to do all this in the following topics? Let’s go!
Creating your email list
As they say, “the money is in the list,” meaning most of the people who represent a business opportunity for you will be part of your contact list.
And it’s extremely important that you start building yours early to master the early stages of your content production.
To do this, simply include a field to capture email addresses on your site. The options are many and you can choose the one that best suits your brand and audience.
Some examples are:
Featured box
You know that front bar that some blogs have? It has a prime location and attracts a lot of readers’ attention, so it can be a great place to include an invitation to your subscriber list.
Sidebar
On a slightly more discreet note, the biggest benefit of sidebars is that they remain visible even when the user leaves the home page.
In other words, it is a frequent reminder for people to sign up for the list and receive news via email.P
Through blog posts
Whenever possible, you can include a call to action in the middle of your blogs, such as those that allow a relationship with your Email Marketing strategy.
At the end of the blog
If someone reads your blog post to the end, chances are they liked the content, right?
There’s nothing better than taking advantage of the moment to make your invitation!
The same goes for the footer, i.e. the bottom of your site. Those who land there take a good look at what you offer and may be more willing to join your contact list.
Top bar
The top bar is a constant invitation to visitors, as it is in a privileged position and on every page of the site.
In Rock we use a lot of capture type and we do it through the Hellobar .
Pop ups
A bit controversial, the pop-up can help you in your mission to capture emails, but it can be frowned upon by users who feel that their experience has been interrupted.
That’s why many tools allow you to configure the exact way in which the pop-up will be displayed: after 15 seconds of reading the page? When the user is about to close the page? It’s up to you!
That is to say, there are many options to start your list. It may seem complicated for those who have no affinity with the technical part, but nothing that a Google search can’t help you solve.
The important thing is to build your list and never buy email addresses.
Never. Never.
And there is a very logical explanation for that.
Why you shouldn’t buy an email list?
While it may be tempting to start your strategy with 50,000 contacts instead of gradually, purchasing email lists can spell disaster for your business .
First, because this can be an illegal activity . With a purchased list, there is no way to be sure that your contacts actually authorized the disclosure of their personal information to third parties.
Secondly, no matter which contacts you choose to buy, there is no guarantee that those people actually have any interest in your product or service. And worse, they may see your messages intrusively and mark them as spam.
Additionally, you don’t know the origin or validity of the addresses. If they are fake, it can increase the occurrence of transmission errors known as “bounces” that, in the long run, ruin your deliverability and weaken your strategy.
And as if that’s not enough, you can buy emails that are actually spam traps.
Spam traps are long-abandoned email addresses that are used by email providers such as Gmail, Hotmail and Yahoo to identify and penalize senders of unwanted messages, i.e. spam.
Bottom Line, Never Buy Mailing Lists!
It could be, but a list built the right way will bring you more feedback and engagement. Of course, if you have a coherent strategy and use all the tips below.
Planning your shots
After including subscriber capture points, it is time to start designing your communications strategy. To do this, you must set yourself 3 questions:
Who is your person?
Do you remember that at the beginning, when you decided to start a Content Marketing strategy, you had to establish one or more personas for your company?
Yes, now is the time to go back to that document and reflect:
- How does this person use email?
- What kind of language do you use on this channel?
- How often do you access your inbox?
- What time should you be most receptive to this type of communication?
It’s questions like these that will guide you in composing your messages and taking the next steps in planning.
How to organize your editorial calendar?
You’ve probably created an editorial calendar for your Content Marketing strategy, so now it’s time to include your Email Marketing practices.
It is important to define the frequency of sending emails and the space between them to avoid readers feeling overwhelmed.
Another thing to keep in mind is holidays and vacations. Usually the results are smaller on these days, but you can take specific actions before the date in question.
And to find out if your calendar is helping your strategy, it’s best to keep an eye on your metrics.
What content will you cover?
People came to your site, consumed your content, and liked it enough to leave their email to receive news.
Now is the time to continue this positive experience and demonstrate your worth.
Curating your best blog posts and sharing them via a relevant and informative email is how you build your authority and strengthen your relationship with your audience.
Measurement results
It is important to track your results and costa rica mobile database understand how your strategy is working, to see if it is really achieving your goals.
To do this, keep an eye on the following metrics:
List size
Studies show that a company’s mailing list shrinks by 22.5% per year due to job changes, creation of new addresses, unsubscribe requests, etc.
Therefore, provide monthly support and keep your contacts active and participating.
Delivery rate
Delivery rate can tell you about the quality of your contacts and email marketing practices.
Normally this value is higher than 95% and a different value deserves investigation.
Opening rate
The open rate indicates how many people actually accessed the body of your email and are likely to have read the content of it.
That is, for your strategy to actually be successful, this is the second challenge you must overcome (the first is getting the message delivered, and preferably into the inbox).
The more engaging your email subject, the more likely you are to get a better open rate.
From clicks
This metric indicates how many people received the email, how many times they opened it, and whether they actually clicked on the links you put there.
The higher this number, the more efficient your strategy will be, as it shows that you have been able to spark the reader’s interest and convince them to visit a particular page.
Cancellation rate
Here’s a reminder: all emails must contain an unsubscribe link.
There’s no reason to keep someone on to pay attention to how those stories are your list if they have no interest in consuming your content. This only “dirties” your metrics and destroys any positive image you’ve already created or the possibility of future contact between your company and that person.
This measure will provide powerful insights into the type of content they share, as well as the frequency of their posts.
Conversion rate
Do you remember that Content Marketing aims to attract a specific audience to create a positive image of your brand and increase your chances of generating business?
Yes, conversion rate is the closest metric eu phone number to “business”.
Each email will have a goal. Some of them will be simple like “driving traffic” to the blog, which can be calculated by click-through rate.
However, others will have a larger challenge such as “encourage the download of an ebook,” or “stimulate a purchase.” In these cases, the conversion is calculated separately, when the user actually completes the desired action.
That is, how many people received the email, opened, read, clicked and downloaded the ebook “actually” or “bought your product.”
To make the calculation, consider:
| Number of people completing the desired action x 100 total number of clicks on the CTA |
This value will show you if your message is conveying the right idea to the reader and encouraging them to take the action you want.
