WWN 15: The Important of Being Emailing

A few months ago I deleted my email list.

I had three thousand six hundred subscribers and I junked the whole lot. More or less.

Actually, I’d probably gathered over ten thousand but I was cleaning my list aggressively for months before.

(I do NOT recommend you do this by the way, dumbest idea of all time.)

But there I was…

…near enough four thousand subscribers that I was emailing near enough daily and one day I decided enough was enough.

So I scrapped it.

I moved platforms.

I rebuilt everything.

I kicked nearly three thousand people off my main daily list.

Why?

Because I’d built it the wrong way.

This newsletter is my attempt to get you to avoid the same mistakes…

…Because I made so many.

I’d used the wrong bait, the wrong methods, I’d focused on the wrong things and I never even knew what I was doing.

It required radical change to fix.

And by the end of this, you’ll be protected from wasting all the time I wasted.

Before you do though, let me remind you…

My “Sweet Revenge” bonus offer for Email Crusaders gets burned like my list did at midnight Eastern US time, that’s in a few hours by my reckoning.

So even before you read this, I recommend you click here and go read the shoddily put together google doc that explains the staggering offer.

Else you might be too late.

But maybe you’re wondering why you even need to email?

I remember when I was starting on X-Twitter back in the day when it was just Twitter, someone told me not to bother with email until I had at least 2,000 followers.

Thankfully I ignored them and started collecting names.

(And now I’m taking revenge on them as you’ll see in the bonus offer for Email Crusaders).

Some of those names are still on my list even after the great purge, but I didn’t really start using my list until I had tens of thousands of followers.

That was the biggest mistake I made in business. I talked about it in an email I sent out earlier this week for those that got it.

But for those that didn’t, let me tell you:

Start emailing!

Start it now, as soon as you finish this newsletter.

Start it even if you can’t afford or aren’t interested in Email Crusaders.

Why?

Well, I’m going to say this loud and clear:

The only purpose of social media is always to build your email list.

There are other benefits to a strong social media presence, but your only purpose is to be building up the email list that brings YOU freedom.

Because social media is slavery, email is the path to freedom.

Why?

Because you own it. What many people don’t realise is that swapping a 9-5 job for a social media business is just swapping one boss for another one. And at least here in the UK, the day job is far safer. Elon could fire me far easier than my old boss could…

Email is the way to get freedom

And there are three things you need freedom from in your business.

First, freedom from banning billionaires.

Right?

I mean, Elon is probably better than most but if you trust him to have your best interest at heart then…

I’ve got a Neuralink brain-chip to sell you!

You need to understand your social media account is not yours.

…X-Twitter, instagram, facebook, tiktok, I don’t care what it is.

You are building your social media sandcastle on someone else’s beach and that means they make the rules.

Which means they can ban you in a split second just because they don’t like your politics or your language, or your tone.

I mean heck, two years of Elon and X-Twitter still gives me a “most people aren’t like this” warning whenever I use the word ‘idiot’ in a reply.

(Idiots…)

Social media can ban you in an instant.

But you OWN your email list.

Yes, your ESP can kick you out, but you can just import into another one and keep going without a hitch. Those wonderful people who give you their email address?

They’re your audience, not Zuckerberg’s audience that you’re borrowing for a time.

And even if you never get banned, the billionaires that own the platforms are one hundred percent setting the rules for what gets seen or not…

…Which again, email protects you from.

If you like reading my stuff on X-Twitter, it only takes one algo update for it to disappear from the For You feed forever.

But if you give me your email addres, you’ll get all my emails. Or at least 99% of them.

(Thanks for that, by the way. No really, I appreciate it a lot.)

You’re in control.

I’m in control.

But algorithms got nothing to do with it - and that’s what you want.

Imagine you rolled a dice every time you saw your friend and only said hello if you got a 5.

Nutty, right?

But that’s what you’re doing to your customers if you only communicate on social media. You’re leaving it up to chance and the algo just to see if they hear from you.

Now, this isn’t your usual “muh algo” rant.

I think that’s just silly. If you’re bothered by the algo, learn to play the algo.

But what you must understand is that the social media algorithms aren’t aligned with what you want.

Think about it for a minute.

The algorithm is based on averages, right? The average person likes politics, hot takes, what happened memes, and so on.

But…

…is that YOUR audience?

If you’re a psychology expert teaching people to have better relationships through applied psychology - do you want the average person on the street who doesn’t even know what psychology is and is on their fifth one night stand that month…

…or do you want the married mother of three who wants to strengthen their relationship for the long term?

If you’re a fitness coach who has a killer protocol to help powerlifters add big numbers to their lift, do you want the average person who’s basically sedentary and can barely lift the tv remote…

…Or do you want actual practicing powerlifters?

I know I don’t want this Write Way list to be filled with the average person who doesn’t care about writing at all…

…I want people who have something to say and want to learn to say it better. I want people with drive, who care about their craft, who are willing to work and apply themselves and so on…

…not the average person that the bottom-feeder Content Creatooooors chase on social media.

Now you have to cast your net wide and make the most of the algo in order to get those people who are your real audience.

But when you find them you need to take them off platform somewhere that you control what they see and not the algo.

Because your audience is not average, not if you’re doing this right.

So why filter for average?

That’s not what’s best for you and it’s not what’s best for your audience either.

YOUR people WANT to hear from you.

So give them a way to reliably get your best insights, and pay attention.

Which brings us to the third thing, because even if your billionaire keeps you on the platform and his algorithm shows your post to someone, you still got a problem…

…most people on social media are brain-dead scrolling, right?

They’re just there to numb their existence with dumb takes and memes. It’s mindless, zoned out, one thumb on the screen and the other picking up crisps, dead-brained scrolling.

Which is fine but…

…then you jump up in their face asking them to actually THINK about something and you’re a pain in the ass. Because the post before you was a political hot take and the next post is a “what happened?” meme and they don’t have the mental bandwidth to switch gears for yours.

Aaaaaaaaand it’s gone.

Scroll on.

With email, your audience has invited you in as a guest. And you’re sitting there with them, and if you’re interesting and funny then they’re happy to have you.

And when someone has invited you in, and they’re glad to have you, then you’ve already made half the sale. They’re really listening.

Keep that and the results will follow.

I’d go into how to do that but that’s far better covered in an intensive ten day cohort like Email Crusaders. I’d cease to be a welcome guest if I ran this issue to five thousand words explaining!

So if you’re interested in building that kind of list, click here, check out the bonus offer, and sign up for Email Crusaders. We start next Wednesday but the bonus offer closes tonight at midnight.

And for Craftsman’s Corner, a rare bonus video below…

Exclusive to current subscribers: