Category: Email MarketingCategory: Email Marketing

I’ve said recently “your newsletter isn’t your permanent address, it’s a delivery truck.”

It’s tempting to build on a platform, but as we know platforms come and go. They can lock you out. Lose your data. Shut down in the middle of the night.

I recently hosted a “let’s work on our websites together” virtual co-working session (see all upcoming co-work sessions here next one is Tuesday, May 20 – it’s free, but RSVP here). We’re updating our bios, moving stuff around, setting up Now pages.

We’re re-using the videos we posted on Instagram (that 95% of our audience never saw), and putting them on our sales pages. We’re making videos that inform and build trust, and putting them next to our BUY NOW buttons.

Videos on our website recreate that vibe of the friendly shop owner who says hello when you walk in. Embedding voice notes to our About page lets the internet traveler know a bit more about who you are.

With our own website, our own zine, our own videos, our own voice – we get to fully show up as who we are, instead of twisting and contorting ourselves onto social media platforms, trying to fit in and appease algorithms.

It’ll take a minute to get people at large to return to websites. Lots of people are happy to just scroll on social media all day, and that’s fine. Maybe they’re not your people.

But if you’ve got a dozen people on your email list, you can send them a newsletter and tell them about the great new exciting work you’ve got on your website.

Because writing on your own site a few times a week isn’t all that different than posting seven times a day on multiple social media platforms. You’re just focusing your energy on your platform instead of someone else’s.

And when you’re constantly putting work on your website, when you sit down to write a newsletter once a week you’ll have no problem thinking about what to send, because you already wrote it.

You’ve already made the meal, now you just need to serve it to people who gave you their email address and said, “yes, let me know what you’re working on from time to time.”

Thank you Mary Thoma, GeorgeAnn, Richard Schulz, Michael Maupin, Ken Seals, and many others for tuning into my “live office hour video” on Substack Live.

I don’t know what to call these. Do they need a name? I just know I like going “live” and helping people out. Shooting the breeze, talking about our lived experiences. It’s a joy, really.

Eventually Mary Thoma dropped a great question in the chat: she’s got a Substack newsletter, and has 4,000 followers on Facebook, and she’s worried about losing that audience she’s built over there on Meta.

I riffed on how only a small fraction (maybe 100–300) are actually seeing her posts, and so you need to do what you can to move your biggest fans off it.

“The vault is still open,” I said, meaning she can still reach those folks (I wrote about this here).

So today you can ask (reply to, DM) your biggest fans to join her email list, which is something she can actually own for years and years. You can build a sustainable career with an email list!

I talked about how I had around 2,300 Twitter followers but only 20 or send ended up subscribing to Social Media Escape Club.

Some people just wanna be on social media!

Mary mentioned that her Facebook audience, “wants to know what I’m doing but doesn’t want to read,” and I said, “Later. Bye.”

I’m not trying to be harsh, but maybe I am! If you’re writing a memoir, then people that wanna scroll on FB for three hours a day might be your target audience!

That’s when Mary mentioned she has 600 newsletter subscribers.

Oh, well then.

So then I mentioned that maybe her energy is better spent “watering the garden” of her 600 current subscribers than chasing strangers. And I think that’s true for a lot of us.

Write the best newsletter you can for the people who signed up for it, and then some of them will the marketing for you.

You don’t need everyone. You need the right people, and you’ll find them (and they’ll find you) by committing to the work you’re meant to be doing.

Full replay below:

CJ Chilvers in response to Matt McGarry’s ‘Why “newsletter ad-only” businesses are dead and how to adapt.’

“I feel like newsletter creators need to be reminded pretty regularly that ordinary businesses have been publishing email newsletters for decades — sometimes for tens of millions of customers — without any ads or expectations of short-term ROI.

It’s more likely those companies have the dominant newsletter model.

Call it Newsletter 0.0, or the “hey, just keepin’ in touch” model. It sounds boring, but boring is usually where the money is.”

If it takes talking about these “traditional ads-in-newsletters” to get to that last point, that’s fine.

As I’ve written recently, your newsletter isn’t your permanent address. For most of us we’re releasing music, making photos and videos, creating art.

The newsletter is the delivery truck to your actual work.

Put something new on your website, and link it in your next newsletter. Your newsletter isn’t your permanent address, it’s a delivery truck. Build an archive of work on your website and link to your stuff from your newsletter!

I’m working with a client who writes magnificent 3,000 word essays. They’re well researched, beautifully arranged, and they’re starting to gain traction and getting paid subscribers.

The problem is; they write a 3,000 word essays every week.

If this were their full time job, this would be great. But it’s a side thing, and side things can easily start to crowd into other areas of our lives if we let them. And when it’s work we love doing, it happens quick, before we even realize it.

Your newsletter writing shouldn’t be a prison sentence. It shouldn’t feel like digging ditches. It shouldn’t be fraught with stress, or like dealing with a horrible boss. None of these things are desirable, and yet so many times we create these situations for ourself.

We get so wrapped up in the moment, in the performance, and we see a sliver of it working, and we lean in.

Before we know it, we’ve painted ourselves into a corner.

But I have good news: you’re the artist. You’re the conductor. You’re the band leader. You’re the director, the captain of the ship.

You got yourself into this situation, and you can get yourself out. Otherwise you burn out, resentment builds, and you’re working this new job for yourself that doesn’t pay the rent.

It’s okay to take your foot off the gas. It’s okay to write one 3,000 word essay 12 times a year.

If you need the extra day of travel time to show up bright and refreshed for a talk or a performance, take it, because otherwise you’re putting on a different kind of show, trying to impress everyone else except yourself.

We’re trying to be our own boss, so don’t be a bad one.

Believe that your true fans will probably stick around. Let the other people leave, that’s okay. There are thousands of people out there today who’ve never heard or seen your work, who have no idea exist.

What then?

What happens when they do find your writing, or your music, or your artwork, but your latest output was from seven years ago?

You crashed and burned because you piled up too many expectations of yourself, trying to meet some un-said protocol, trusting gurus instead of your gut.

The saying “it’s a marathon, not a sprint” doesn’t even apply here because marathons hurt, too, but in a different way.

Writing is still hard work, yes, but it shouldn’t leave you sore.