✍️ What I’ve Learned Writing This Newsletter for 2½ Years

Hello, !

Of all the marketing advice you might hear me give to small, local businesses, the most important is "build an email list and use it."

Today I want to share what I’ve learned - good and not-so-good – after writing and sending 65 editions of this newsletter.

I had a simple and selfish reason for starting this newsletter. I wanted to prove to myself that I could write about online marketing consistently. Except for one month in 2021, I’ve done that every two weeks.

Of course, the newsletter has another purpose. I am devoted to helping small businesses learn and understand online marketing. And instead of a regular blog or consistent posting on social media, the newsletter has been my tool to do that.

I still have a long way to go toward fulfilling that purpose. I can’t help too many small businesses with a mailing list of 28 (including a few family members).

On this newsletter journey, here are some of the things I’ve learned:

There are some loyal readers among you. More than half of you open the newsletter after you receive it.
I’ve lost a few subscribers, but that doesn’t bother me. I don’t want the newsletter to be unwelcome debris cluttering up anyone’s inbox.
The small subscriber list hasn’t discouraged me from writing. Occasionally, I get nice replies, and that helps keep me going.
Some of you are early risers. Many of you open the newsletter before 6 a.m., and most of you open it before 8 in the morning.
You are not much for following links. I don’t include many links to outside sources in the newsletter, but when I do, almost nobody follows them.
It’s not as difficult as you might imagine to come up with topics. Lately, I’ve actually been planning topics a couple of months in advance, and that’s made it even easier.
On the other hand, writing the newsletter has allowed me to continue a lifelong habit of waiting until the last minute to begin writing. For most of 30 years, I worked under daily newspaper deadlines. I’m deadline dependent, you could say.
I’ve learned some technical skills along the way – how to use my email management system (Active Campaign); how to use Grammarly as an AI editor (although we still argue about the Oxford comma); and how to use a QR code on my business card to encourage subscriptions.
The subscriber list doesn’t grow automatically and if I want more subscribers, I need to promote the newsletter differently. I had hoped (imagined?) that over time, subscribers would share the newsletter with others who would be interested and then become new subscribers. That hasn’t happened. It has occurred to me that the content might be the problem, but not one of you has called my baby ugly.
The newsletter won’t generate any revenue if I don’t ask people to buy something. Sounds obvious, I know, but when I started, I thought this email might eventually generate revenue somehow. I’ve rarely used it to sell. (But I can still help with Google Analytics 4.)

Thanks for being part of the newsletter family, .

Jargon: Customer Persona

How well do you know your customers? Marketers are big these days on creating "customer personas," which are semi-fictional representations of ideal customers.

Personas typically go beyond basic demographics like average age, gender, and income. Those can factor into a persona, but there’s more. Marketers often assign a name to a persona and dive into what this "person’s" life might be like. How tall is he or she? What kind of clothes do they like to wear? What kind of pet, if any? Where do they go on vacation? Favorite TV show? What kind of music do they like?

Marketers will fill in all these details for a persona while looking for clues about the types of marketing that might be most effective.

Creating personas helps marketers recognize that customers or clients are more than just statistical averages. We create marketing to connect with people, not with statistics.
As you’re building your next marketing plan, think more deeply about who your customers are. Then think about the types of marketing that might work best for that person.

It’s OK to have more than one persona. Good marketing rarely is one-size-fits-all.

Until Next Time

The next newsletter arrives Aug. 15. Sheesh, it’s almost time for local schools to get started.

And speaking of school, I’m laying some groundwork to teach some classes about online marketing for small business owners. Let me know if there are any particular subjects you’d want to learn about. Stay tuned!

Until next time, be grateful. Be generous. Be patient. Love.

If you enjoy this email, please share it with anyone who might also enjoy it. If you’re reading this because somebody shared it with you, get your own subscription.

Thanks for spending some of your time with me,. I appreciate you.

Mark

(Some links in this email might be affiliate links, which could generate small commissions for me at no extra cost to you.)