How to Use Data to Create an Email

During last week’s email marketing webinar we showed an example of an email that was a blog digest. I thought it was a great idea and want to explain how you can use HubSpot’s Blog Analytics data to create a similar email. You can create a blog digest every month or every quarter.

Obviously, the first thing you need to have is a blog. If you’re not blogging, then I recommend watching and downloading all of the Content Camp blogging resources.

Go to Blog Analytics, under the Analyze tab, and sort your blog articles by visits. Find a couple of your most read blog articles, copy the URLs, and add paste them into your email.

You can also sort by the number of comments or inbound links, which are good indicators of how engaged your audience was with the article.  You could go one step further and look at the number of social media shares your articles received, which is another strong indicator of how popular the article was.

Keep the email short and to the point. Start with an intro sentence that is consistent with the subject line and explains the email's value.

Then use bullet points and copy over the title of each blog article. Link the title of the blog article and then create a call to action for each article. Keep the call to action short and to the point, like a meta-description.  Here’s an example.

Hi Mark,

This month’s blog digest is all about how to use email marketing to educate your leads and close more business.

• 5 Types of Emails You Need to be Sending:  Learn five emails you should be sending to your leads and customers. Read the article.

• 3 Things Every Email Marketer Needs to Test:  Understand what things you should be testing to increase your click-through rates and conversions. Read the article.

A blog digest is a very simple, yet powerful email that will help educate your list. Use blog data to send the most popular and relevant content to your list.

Do you already send a blog digest to your list? Do you like the concept?