Dont Rest
So I was randomly searching the internet the other day, when I came across a site that talked about email marketing.
This site was bragging about how email is the king, and you need to have a list so you can email all the time.
I took the time to read through the site, as I do believe a list of contacts is important. However, having just emails may not be the best approach. Sure, emails are around now, and I believe will be around for a while. But, think about how much competition there is in emails. I don’t count but I am sure I get somewhere between 1oo and 300 emails a day. Most of them go straight into the trash. Now that is a lot of competition.
This site did talk about getting eyeballs to read your content with flashy and catchy headlines. And then following up with quality content. There is no doubt in my mind that content is king, and very important. If you don’t have valuable content, the size of the list is irrelevant. You want to have something that people want to read, are excited to read, and cannot wait to read what is next. But I am getting off subject here.
Back to the email list and the subject of this website that I was reading. I started to question to myself, what happens if there is a new form of communications, where email is no longer valid. If you think about it, if you suddenly stopped using your email, and that is the only way someone could reach you, how would they reach you? What if there was a temporary situation where all emails went down but you need to communicate to your list urgently?
So what is the solution? We need to be nimble and be able to shift on the fly. You also need to start sourcing other contact methods now. Acquire the phone number, Skype, Facebook, mailing address, etc. of your email list. The more ways you can contact someone the better. Another point on this, if someone is willing to provide you with more than one way to contact them then you have a stronger relationship. This will help you create a sub-list of stronger connections. The stronger the connection the easier it is to either sell or ask for help when promoting a product or service.
Besides gathering other contact methods, look at other ways to meet up with people. Look at local meet ups, seminars, lunches, dinners, activities where you actually see people. This is another form of creating community. Don’t just live online live offline too.
Look at your resources. Look at your current ways to communicate to your community. Look at the cost to scale each avenue. Digital is less expensive than in person. However, in person communication will build a deeper and stronger relationship. There is a price to pay for each. I believe the long term investment building an in person community will out play the online community any day.