Email is a very old and conventional vehicle in marketing. Even though it can be thought about in a negative light (thoughts of SPAM come to mind), with the right messaging and purpose, email can be a very effective marketing tool to generate traffic and conversion on your website.

Here are 10 reasons how email marketing can drive traffic to your website.

1. Start with a Campaign Strategy

Before you do anything, it is crucial that you strategize your email marketing campaigns. Do you know what topics you want to feature? Will those topics revolve around what your goals are and will they capture your audience’s interest?

2. Build a Blog

If you are thinking it would be a good idea to eblast your mailing list, you should think about starting with a blog first. Let’s face it. Your message needs to go somewhere. It would be a poor idea if you are a B2B or B2C company where you just link eblasts to your product’s page or your services list. A blog should be a compliment to your product or service. It’s not a company diary. Your business will gain credibility if you showcase your products and services by writing as an expert on them.

3. Create a branded template design.

If you value your business and are passionate about it, then it’s a no-brainer that your overall template design should be created with quality, brand consistency and strategic structure. Quality is based on the graphics and code that communicate and showcase the brand. It should be common practice that the graphics compliment the brand in color, font and emotion and the template be coded properly to not look broken on other email platforms. Brand consistency is a HUGE must in that your blog and your eblast template look as if they are duplicates. If they look vastly different, then your readers will lose focus and may become disinterested. Strategic structure is a psychological approach to what the reader will read first. If you just have 1 main section and 2 sub-main sections, then you’re off to a good start.

4. Write with your audience in mind.

This is the most important part when writing about your brand products and services. If you write with your audience in mind, you are providing them value. This in turn creates integrity because you are writing not with selfish motive, but with credible input on reasons why your company can benefit others.

5. Keep it simple and keep it short.

It takes 6-8 seconds to grab your reader’s attention. So, with that in mind, keep your eblast simple and short. If you have a lot to say, then feature the first paragraph and first sentence and a half with a “read more” link. That “read more” link would then go to your blog, in which the reader will then get the chance to read the rest of your article and have the chance to act and browse the rest of your website.

6. Add Visual Graphics and Pictures

Visual graphics and pictures help sell what you have to say. If your message has no graphics or pictures, that can decrease interest quickly. Again, it takes 6-8 seconds to get pulled into a message to read more. The more you compliment your message with visual graphics and pictures, the more you gain interest to finish your article and maybe even comment or convert their experience into a sale.

7. Build your mailing list.

Start your list with your current clients and affiliates. Your main audience will be the baseline in building subscribers. Be sure to write for them and always ask them to forward the eblast to anyone who may benefit from what you wrote. Another great way to add to your mailing list is to incorporate a short subscribe form on your website. There, subscribers will opt-in and expect more from you.

8. Strategize the frequency of your eblasts.

The common question is how many blasts to make a month? Should it be weekly, bi-weekly or just once per month? I know of an email marketer who blasts daily and even though you may think that is absurd, if he doesn’t blast daily, his audience gets angry. You want raving fans, and it is vital to create and maintain their expectation in creating and keeping credibility.

9. Add Call to Action

Call to action is so important. If you do not have a call to action, then you might as well just throw what you say out the window. The reader must know what you want them to do. Create a decision for them to make, whether it’s to forward your article or fill out your contact form to learn even more, or download material or buy a product or service.

10. Measure your results.

Your email marketing program should have a very detailed reporting tool that will show you how well you did on your campaign and how it compared to other campaigns. This is vital for any business. If you can’t measure your marketing, then you can’t strategize on where to make the next step in your overall plan.