My 2024 business word of the year- LIST!
This week, nay this month, I want to talk about something that has been on my mind------>list building.
It's been on my mind because I feel like I have wasted some time this year not channeling attention on social into owned media. Part of it is because my newsletter has been largely experimental and I wasn't ready. (that's changed now) Part of it was the false belief that posting on social was enough.
So in 2024, I am hitting list-building as one of my top biz priorities.
In the next few weeks, I want to talk about.
de-platforming and harnessing attention
lessons from writing (almost) weekly for over a year
how to think about your list (and some old-fashioned stuff to stop doing)
how to design a newsletter around a big idea
This week- let's dig into de-platforming.
De-platforming
De-platforming is the act of getting people to give you their emails by leveraging social channels. In other words- getting them off of social and into your own private universe.
Why would you want to do this? The most obvious answer is "because you don't own the platforms, and you could lose your account anytime."
That is very true, but there is more:
Reason 1
Your posts are only seen by a small fraction of your "followers," so no matter how tight your strategy, your audience will never truly be nurtured as much as they are in this format simply because the algo will not push you to their feed.
Organic reach is getting harder and harder to leverage as platforms push for paid.
Reason 2
99% of people are not ready to buy when you come across their feed (which is why selling in the feed does not work well).
However, many of them will be in 6 months and many more in a year, or two. That is if they know you exist
Reason 3
Your newsletter is your connection to your customers and a great source of data for any and all business growth, new products, news services.
If you have ever tried launching something new into the abyss, you will understand why a list of interested buyers would have been so much easier.
Reason 4
Email is the highest-converting channel of them all. $42 for every dollar spent. That's crazy. Nothing comes close. If anything, this is the biggest reason of all.
So yeah, my (business) word of the year is LIST.
I am switching strategies and re-launching my newsletter in 2024! and doing it on- purpose this time.
I'll share the process in the coming weeks.
Reason 5
When someone says YES to your newsletter, this is a huge deal. It's the first (and not the last) yes on the way to a paying client. A follow or a like on social holds like 1/100 of the weight of signing up to a newsletter.
Reason 6
It's awesome. It keeps you connected to people. It keeps you grounded, and the act of writing gives you a ton of new ideas. Plus you can be yourself!