Building An Email List

I used to have a list of over 400 people.

I know it’s not some snazzy list with thousands of people, but it was a lot to me!

The problem was, I was never sure what to say to all those people. They wanted to hear from me, but I was never sure what to say. If I’m in front of a group of people it’s so much easier – you tell a joke, they laugh, then you do your thing and can tell from the looks on the faces in the crowd if what you are saying is working.

When it’s not working, it’s easy to change it up. But you still need to know three things.

1. What do you say to your email list?
2. Do you know who the people are on your list or are they just email addresses?
3. Especially for VAs – Are the people on your list potential clients or people that want to learn how to be VAs?

I couldn’t answer these questions, so shut the whole darn thing down. I sent a goodbye email and got a few “but why?” responses but by and large no one really noticed…and if I’m not having an impact, I need to fix it or walk away.

You can’t fix everything.

What I do know is that next time I start an email list (because you can always change your mind and do it right the second time!) I’m going to use Ali Brown’s methods. She’s not called the Ezine Queen for nothing – she knows newsletters.

I want to make sure that next time I start a newsletter or ezine I do it the right way from the start – not hodgepodge – I think that was what caused me to fail last time. Plus she tells you what to say. I love that in a product!
I think that Boost Business with Your Own Ezine would be a great way to get on the right track with ezines.