In a conversation with a prospect-turned-new client earlier this week, we were discussing the *best* methods for selling to prospects via the web. Naturally the conversation included blogs and ezines/mailing lists.
The client had a great question:
How do you use a blog to drive people to sign up to your mailing list so you have their email and can keep in touch with them regularly?
It’s such a great question because it hits on two vital aspects of blogging and internet marketing that people don’t always realise.
The first is the aspect of using a blog to improve your online marketing; in my experience (both my own blogging experience and from watching the progress of clients with blogs) the people who use a blog most successfully to promote their businesses are the kind of people who also actually enjoy blogging and writing.
Effective blogging is not easy but it doesn’t have to be hard – what does help though is if you enjoy it. And if you don’t, then it’s going to feel like one more marketing chore that you feel you “have” to do and then berate yourself for not doing. That’s why it works for me – because I enjoy it and I personally find it a less pushy medium to connect with potential clients. But it doesn’t always work for everyone – and particularly those people who don’t enjoy it.
The second interesting part to the question is the relationship between blogs and mailing lists. Do you need both?
Traditional internet marketing wisdom says that the money is in the list; every single email address you have is effectively someone’s permission to contact them – which is a powerful tool. But let’s look at blogs…every subscriber you have is effectively someone saying “Yes, I like what you write so I’d like to be updated every time you do”. So in effect you have 2 different sets of subscribers saying the same thing – “Yes, please I’d like you to keep in touch me”.
There are a few crucial differences that you need to be aware of however:
- With mailing lists, you know the name and email address of the subscriber (as long as they’re being truthful); with blogs, you don’t always know the name and email address of the subscriber (unless they’ve subscribed via email and they’re being truthful)
- Many of the mailing list services enable you to get a rough idea of how many people actually open your emails; with blogs you have no idea whether people actually read each of your posts.
So does the name thing really matter other than being able to personalise an ezine or email sent from a mailing list, so that you address the subscriber personally? I’m not so sure it does now that most people know the emails aren’t written personally from you to them but are likely going out to hundreds or thousands of others. The big benefit of mailing lists and ezines over blogs is that you do have far more accurate stats about whether people open and click on anything in your email.
So if both sets of subscribers are saying “Yes please do keep in touch” – you now have their attention. And that’s the crucial thing.
In both cases you have a subscriber who has paid enough attention to you, said “yes” to you on one level and is potentially willing to pay you more attention in the future. Do you want to divide that precious attention between two different mediums?
(BTW – a blog and a mailing list can be used very effectively to promote a business in combination but only if each has a clearly defined role and strategy).