As my ezine readers are aware, I recently moved to a new service and a new format for my weekly ezine The Martini Advantage.
It's gotten fabulous reviews (thank you!) — if you don't yet receive it and wish to, you can sign up on the left.
It's also led me to ask a fundamental question:
In today's world, is receiving someone's ezine a "right" or a "privilege"?
While I'm still debating the answer for my business, I'm leaning towards it being a "privilege". Here's a few reasons why:
- I provide a TON of usable, real world content in my weekly ezines, in addition to a coaching activity. In fact, a reader recently told me that she prints them out and uses them as an action plan for her business.
- My ezine doesn't bombard you with promotional info and I don't accept advertising to stay true to my mission for the ezine.
- I put a lot of time and energy into providing quality content and want it to be valued.
So what does this mean?
At this point, I'm not sure, but am thinking it may be something as simple as "If you don't open the ezine at least once a month, you're off the list".
Why would I consider doing this?
- If you're not opening the ezine, you don't miss anything by my taking you off the list and there's no need for me to clutter your inbox.
- If you're on my list, I want you to value the information and the time I put into giving you quality content — it you don't open it at least once in a month, you're not seeing the value. And if you miss seeing the ezine in your inbox, you can always sign up again.
And to reward those who regularly open and read the ezine, they'll get special articles, special perks, special calls, etc.
But what about the numbers?
I've said it hundreds of times…it's about QUALITY, not quanity. What's the sense of having thousands of people on a list if only 30% of them open your emails?
Your list is actually the number of READERS (those who open), not the number who sign up.
I'd love to hear your thoughts on this. . .please leave your comments below. Thanks!