8 effective tips for more organic traffic through e-mail marketing

Blogs and other content-focused sites can all profit from newsletters and other mailings. In this article, the e-mail marketing experts from Newsletter2Go show how you can make the most of the synergic effects of e-mail marketing.

1. Create a relevant newsletter distributor

E-mails are the most popular channel for distributing online content. You make it easy for your readers when you send them interesting content in each newsletter. And this content can be forwarded more easily.

But, in building the registration form into your website, you should pay attention to the following:

• In Germany and in many other countries, a double opt-in process is recommended to make sure the recipient really wants to participate.

• The double opt-in ensures that only human recipients who are actually interested register for your newsletter.

• You should absolutely avoid purchased mailing lists. The origin of the addresses is unclear, and there’s no way to know if the recipient is even interested in your topic in the first place.

Figure 1: The newsletter application for the New York Times

Practical tips for registration forms:

• Communicate the contents of the newsletter in the notification (e.g. company news, offerings, product innovations, or events).

• Clearly explain the advantages of newsletter subscription (e.g. exclusive information, special offers, or curated news).

• If possible, limit the mandatory details to just the e-mail address.

• Use the application to segment receivers according to optionally-mentioned interests.

• Use a form generator and a form that directly imports new registrations into your newsletter software.

2. Use incentives to generate leads

A popular way to generate new recipients is to offer incentives that can be downloaded in return for newsletter registration. Their effectiveness cannot be denied: newsletters are up to 40 times as effective as Facebook and Twitter together at generating new leads.

Figure 2: A free eBook is offered as an incentive.

Incentives should be seen as an additional service offered exclusively to those who subscribe to the newsletter. Depending on the target group, business model, and goal, you could offer, for example, guidelines, eBooks, white papers, or coupons.

It is self-explanatory that the download must be relevant for your target group. It should also offer so much added value that not viewing it would constitute a loss. Here you can make use of the so-called "Fear of Missing Out" (FOMO). The advantage provided by the incentive must be attractive enough that no reader from your target group would want to miss out.

3. Improve reader retention

To be honest, only a few readers will spontaneously return and consume your content. So, do yourself a favor and deliver the content directly to their mailbox via newsletter. The art is to present the content succinctly and, at the same time, interestingly enough that your readers will click through to your website. Naturally, this caters primarily for direct access.

The added value of higher reader retention and larger proportion of returning readers is somewhat more complex. Basically, quality factors are increasingly incorporated into the ranking. Included in this are read time, bounce rate, and repeated visits. The more regular, interested readers you have for your site, the more these factors count. Your site will rank better and will thereby attract new visitors.

4. Establish yourself as a topic leader

One goal of your newsletter should be to firmly anchor yourself in your reader’s opinion as a top expert and go-to person in your field. So, pick topics that you really know well and tailor your knowledge to your readers.

If you do this, your readers will remember your engaging content for a long time. But they will probably not search through your last e-mails to read past articles. Instead, many will turn directly to Google to look for the articles they want to re-read.

Ideally, these readers will trust you so much that they don’t just search for your content, but input your brand name right away. This will lead them to the goal more quickly and will also strengthen your brand.

5. Profit from the on-site engagement of your subscribers

From experience, newsletter subscribers engage more actively with your website content than the majority of visitors. There is a definite interest – after all, they registered for your newsletter voluntarily. You can thus assume that they want to stay up-to-date.

Figure 3: Social signals on the OnPage.org blog.

In this case, an active discussion means that newsletter subscribers will click more frequently, will stay on your website longer, and will leave more comments or social signals. This engagement tells Google that your content is relevant, which in turn will lead to better rankings and thus to more traffic.

6. Encourage social engagement

A high social engagement is, in principle, another side effect of more visits by newsletter recipients. Not only will the activity on your site and the number of backlinks increase, but also the content will also be distributed on social media more frequently. In this way, the scope of your content will increase – another positive factor influencing ranking. Tools such as OnPage.org thus integrate social engagement in the form of social signals directly into the website analysis.

Figure 4: Measure social signals on the OnPage.org module focus

This additional reach will help you gain new readers. This will encourage them to subscribe to your newsletter and will turn them into regular visitors, thus completing the circle.

7. Activate the link potential of your readers

Optimal newsletter presentation with relevant content will not only encourage your readers to regularly visit your website and turn to you more and more - the greater the added value is for your reader, the more likely they are to recommend it in the form of citations and backlinks.

Tip: It doesn’t hurt to encourage your readers to actively cite your content. For example, you can gently encourage recommendations on the target site: "Was this interesting? Share this article with your customers".

Figure 5: The readers of OnPage magazine are actively encouraged to share on Twitter.

Extra tip:
8. Increase your scope through stand-alone campaigns

At first glance, stand-alone campaigns with a purchased reach seem less effective than a targeted pathway to organic traffic. Nevertheless, its strength lies in generating new leads beyond your narrow target group, if desired.

With a stand-alone campaign, you essentially make use of the newsletter distributors of other sites. Many portals, magazines, and blogs send their own newsletters and offer advertising positions in them. Your content should, of course, be relevant for the readers of these newsletters.

A stand-alone newsletter works like this:

The sender is the usual sender of the newsletter, for example, a news portal. Your content is embedded into the newsletter design and takes center stage. The great advantage lies in that you will profit from the trust of the sender’s readers. You can count on very high opening rates.

Tip: Use the potential of a stand-alone newsletter for lead generation by incorporating a download link in the newsletter. This link will lead to a landing page where readers can download the advertised content by providing their e-mail address. Here, you can simultaneously gather consent for the newsletter.

If you choose the right content and present it attractively, you can gain more than a hundred new e-mail addresses with your own stand-alone mailing within a short time. In this way, your newsletter reach and the potential for more organic traffic will grow.

Conclusion

A newsletter can help you increase your scope in many ways. At this point, we would like to repeat the golden rule for all newsletter distributors once again: Send content that is relevant for your subscribers. The most beautiful newsletter and the largest distribution will not bring you any added value if you do not address the interests of your recipients.

If, however, you send relevant content to an interested distributor, this should have a positive effect on your website. In any case, your rankings can profit from better onsite engagement, higher reader retention, and stronger social engagement. In this way, you will gain sustainable organic traffic.