Running a food blog isn’t easy. You must come up with scrumptious content regularly to get traction on the web. Sending out a newsletter every now and then can get the word out and expand your subscriber list. In this blog, you’ll learn what constitutes a good newsletter and how to promote it using multiple digital marketing tools.
If you’re thinking of starting a food blog, know that it takes a lot of time and effort to get a sizeable audience. But if you already have a food blog but are struggling to find new subscribers and readers, one solution is to send out a food blog newsletter every week or fortnight. However, it’s not as straight and uncomplicated a process — you need to pay attention to the nitty gritty to make your newsletter stand out. Here are the best ways you can make your food blog newsletter more impactful.
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What constitutes a “good” food blog newsletter?
First things first, you need to figure out various elements you want to include in your weekly or biweekly newsletter. This is highly subjective and depends on your target audience. For example, if your food blog is focused on a healthy diet, keep your newsletter restricted to healthy meal plans, keto diet, etc.
Secondly, make sure your newsletter isn’t just some big block of text but a balanced blend of text, visuals, charts, and other elements. The core aim of it is to provide value to the reader in an engaging and least time-consuming way. Lastly, your newsletter should never be fluff — it should always include something your target audience could gain value from. If you don’t do this, you’ll lose the interest of your audience, and worse yet, they will unsubscribe.
The trick to sending newsletters
Normally, newsletters are emailed to your subscriber list — people who have subscribed for it via your website or social media pages. These are the people who have voluntarily given you their email addresses in the hopes that you will provide them with regular updates, the best meal plans, or various exotic dishes of different cuisines.
The problem with emails is not everyone opens them. How many have you opened in the last year? Just because someone subscribed doesn’t mean they’re going to religiously read your emails and newsletters. That’s why your email’s subject line should be so compelling that it convinces the reader to open your email. You can use these email templates to make your message visually appealing and compact.
Email marketing needs more than just a subject line
Now that you’ve crafted the perfect subject line for your email newsletter, it’s time to focus on the nitty-gritty details. First and foremost, what will you write in the body of the email? Our recommendation is to just post the newsletter on the email body. That’s because most people don’t trust opening attachments due to virus threats. If they see your entire message at first glance, it improves the likelihood they’ll read through it.
Make the headline pop out. For instance, if you’re running a blog related to a healthy diet and want to remind your readers about the benefits of running daily, the headline could be “Running is a Gift,” bolded and in big font. This would immediately catch the reader’s attention, and they’d want to know how much they should run daily. Can they walk instead? If so, how much?
Once you have finalized your email, you can send it to your subscriber list. If it’s your first time running an email marketing campaign, we suggest using PosterMyWall, which lets you craft your email with its online graphic design tool and does all the hard work — all you need to do is upload your subscriber list; it’s that easy!
Market segmentation is key
Your food blog may have a wide target audience. Maybe you have a sub-segment of healthy diet plans and another one for fast food lovers, Italian food, Mexican dishes, and so on. That means if you send one newsletter to everyone, you’ll only be catering to one tiny segment of the audience and ignoring the others. In that case, you’ll probably lose subscribers over time as your readers feel you’re sending them irrelevant newsletters.
Therefore, you need to segment your audience and send them newsletters relevant to their interests only. That means you’ll have to craft multiple newsletters — one for keto diet maniacs, another for fast food lovers, and others for Italian and Mexican food fanatics. You’ll have to put in a lot of work, but that’s the best way to sustain your subscriber list without having it trimmed down in the long term.
Don’t miss out on CTAs
A call-to-action (CTA) is a must-have when sending out your newsletters via email. A CTA basically brings the point of sale to the reader instead of having them probe through your website to find a particular landing page. For example, if you’re asking the reader to check out the latest keto recipes on your food blog, insert a CTA with a hyperlink to the specific webpage they can find these recipes.
Make sure the CTAs are worded very clearly, like “click here to check out our latest Italian pasta dishes” or “find easy 15-minute Mexican recipes here,” with the corresponding hyperlink to your food blog or YouTube video. CTAs also make your newsletter more engaging and help your blog, website, or social media pages get more traffic.
A final piece of advice
Last but not least, you can promote your food blog on popular social media platforms like Facebook and Instagram. Social media can significantly increase your outreach if you keep your audience engaged and post your blog articles or YouTube videos.
Make sure you write catchy captions in each post that pique the reader’s curiosity, making them go to your blog. The more people that visit your blog, the more your subscriber list will increase. You can also post a separate link on your social media pages and other Facebook groups, asking people to subscribe to your newsletter.