Newsletters. Are they really worth all the effort? Part 1

The big buzz out there in marketing land right now is newsletters.

I’ve heard of newsletters before. I even have a newsletter signup in my sidebar, but I haven’t really promoted it on my blog. After all, you read me here every week. Why would you want to get my newsletter?

Admission of guilt: The truth is that even though I had a sign-up, I hadn’t actually ever written a newsletter – so I wasn’t all that worried about it.

Anyway, a few months ago a friend of mine linked me in to a group of sci-fi authors that were joining forces for a massive newsletter promotion. I figured for an entry fee of $10, the worst that could happen was I’d lose ten bucks. And the best thing that could happen was I’d sell a few books, or one of my wonderful 15 newsletter subscribers might win one of the three Kindle Fires or the gift cards they were giving away. So I joined up.

And then the learning process began.

Before the promotion went out, I did something I’d never done before. I felt bad that I only had 15 subscribers to add to the “pool” that would be getting this massive promotion. (Some of the authors had thousands—one had 22,000 subscribers. Crazy)

Anyway, I wanted to pull my weight, so I got on my biggest fan-based social media (Instagram) and announced I had a newsletter if anyone wanted to sign up.

Imagine my surprise when 50 people signed up over the weekend. Say what? That was score number one that I could have achieved at any time I wanted. I just had no idea that anyone would even be interested!

That, in of itself, was worth the $10.00! I only wish I’d known sooner!

So take away number one is that it doesn’t hurt to ask. You might be surprised how many people might actually be interested in hearing from you in a newsletter.

I’m going to split this into two post so I don’t take too much of your time, but you might find the rest of this story very interesting. I know I did!