Grow your email list guys.
List building is a fabulous form of convenience marketing for bloggers and readers.
Bloggers send out updates quickly and easily. Publish a post. Publish a newsletter or quick email update. Hit the send button. Easy peasy.
Readers get your latest posts and products and services delivered directly to their email inboxes. Sweet deal.
Win-win, right?
Of course it is.
But I have seen a trend growing among new and established bloggers that handcuffs them, as to all of the wonderful channels available online for connecting with new readers.
This trend also creates a dangerous attachment that could bite you in behind if something happens with your email list.
Heavy Attachment to Numbers
Most bloggers make the critical mistake of being heavily attached to numbers.
Nowhere does this nasty attachment rear its ugly head more frequently than through this list building obsession.
The money is not in the list.
The money is in your:
- willingness to follow your passion
- generosity
- creativity
- offering of value
- willingness to build your blogger friend network by promoting other bloggers freely
- prosperity consciousness
- non-resistance to money
- willingness to do most things from love versus from fear
One of my readers bought all of my blogging tips eBooks – that is over 60 eBooks folks – after finding me via Sound Cloud. This was back when I registered like 6 listens per podcast. No joke. The money appeared to be in Sound Cloud but was really in the generous service I offered through both my podcasts and my eBooks.
One of my readers bought my blogging audio course after I sat down with the individual one to one and met them offline. The money appeared to be in the offline meeting, but really, was just the product of the blogging advice I offered, and of course, was in the blogging insights offered in the course itself.
My friend Alonzo Pichardo met me through a mutual friend. He saw me mentioning old school rap on Facebook. We connected. Then he graciously asked me to chat with him on his wildly successful YouTube channel through a series of videos online. Now the videos have collectively received over 220,000 views.
Folks buy my stuff or hire me through my emails. Folks buy my stuff or hire me through about 50 channels online.
This is why it is beyond important to act abundantly, to do things from love and not to get heavily attached to 1 channel of communication – list-building – over the billion to infinite channels of communication available to all of us.
Do you honestly feel people say: “I will only buy this through my email?”
I have never, ever, ever joined an email list in my lifetime – save one for a little bit – and I have never, ever, ever purchased anything through an email list.
I see something I like. I see something I want. I buy it. I see value in it. I buy it. I can buy it on Mars. I don’t care.
Every human being is this way. They see something they want. They feel the value in the offering. They see the benefits of the offering. They buy it.
This is why focusing on list-building only is a terrible mistake; closes you off from the abundance of online channels through which you can serve people and make money.
Another reason why attaching heavily to list-building can kill your blog: putting all of your blogging eggs into one basket is dangerous because if you trip, and drop the eggs, all the eggs will break before you get to market to sell those suckers. Spam filters may change. Or perhaps you break an autoresponder term or service. All of your email newsletters go to spam, or junk.
Bye bye blog.
Bye bye online business.
Attachment Dissolving Practice
Prune every email subscriber who has not opened your email in 1 month. Or 2 months.
Let go non engaging people to make room for engaging folks who gobble up your emails within seconds of publishing.
Engagement with human beings counts most, through any online channel.
Build an email list.
Reap the benefits of having an engaged list.
Just don’t get heavily attached to your email list.
Video
Watch the video as I discuss this concept.