Are you avoiding sending newsletters to your readers? You’ve been meaning to do it for months and months but it never happens. Maybe you sent an email or two then run out of puff. Perhaps you’ve yet to begin and sending that first newsletter has been on your to-do list for awhile.
There are 4 reasons I see business owners using when they’re resisting sending out emails. There great thing is that they’re all easily solved.
The reasons you’ve been avoiding sending newsletters
1. The tech freaks you out
We each have different levels of comfort with technology. I’ve gone from being a corporate lawyer in a large office with an IT department, to having to figure out all of the tech to make my online business run. There aren’t many mistakes I haven’t made!
Now I’m confident I can figure out any tech issues. None of the questions I want answered are “new”, someone out there has already solved them so all I need to do is find the answer that already exists.
If you feel like you have to find the perfect email provider that will tag this and segment that, when you haven’t asked a single person to join your list yet, then go with simple. You can always upgrade down the track. There is no such thing as perfect software, only the one that is perfect for you right now.
I’d recommend Mailerlite if you’re getting started with email marketing. I’ve tested out the various functions and helped set some of my clients’ accounts. I find it easy to use, with a great visual dashboard. They also have useful tutorials to step you through what you need to know if you want to set it up yourself.
2. “I don’t want to be spammy”
The number one reason I see for business owners avoiding sending newsletters is that they don’t want to be spammy.
The very fact you’re concerned about being spammy means that it’s highly unlikely that will ever be you.
There are certain emails that I look forward to receiving each week. I enjoy seeing them pop up in my inbox and never feel like they’re spammy, even when they’re once a week. They’re interesting, give me tips and pause for thought.
This resistance is very important to address as it can stop you keeping in touch with people who are keen to hear from you. Take a look at the emails you really enjoy receiving. What do you like about those emails? How can you emulate (not copy!) that in your own emails? Are they funny, packed with value or give you a handy reminder that a new podcast episode is out?
3. The perfection trap
Perfection can sneak up on business owners in a number of ways.
It can quietly whisper in your ear that your first newsletter must be utterly amazing, which means you put off getting started for months and months because it never feels good enough.
It can tell you that you’ll never have enough ideas to keep going so why even start. It’ll be too hard. Better to sit quietly in the corner and do nothing.
It can make you spend hours and hours on writing your emails because you have to find the perfect set of words.
Honestly, the sooner you start writing and sending your newsletters, the more time you’ll have to practise. You might feel nervous hitting the Send button for weeks to come. That’s okay, it’s simply means you’re human and you want to do the job well.
Some emails might do great, others might not. People will unsubscribe all the time – that’s the nature of email, it’s nothing personal. All of those reactions are great information to see what your people want from you.
Be sure to put an easy system in place so your newsletters are easy to send and perfection gets shown the door.
4. Each email must be unique
Do you feel that each newsletters needs to be unique to be of any value? That you need to start from scratch, ignoring all of the lovely content you’ve already created, because you read somewhere that your emails must be unique?
Emails don’t need to be unique to be helpful. They do need to be sent.
There is one business owner whose emails I love to get. I’ll see her sharing her podcast on social media but I don’t have time to listen right then. Instead of having to write myself a note or save that post, I’m happy in the knowledge that she’ll be emailing me in the next week with a link to that podcast episode. I appreciate getting that email as it means one less thing for me to remember.
Regularly keeping in touch with our readers is a wonderful way to nurture our relationship with them. After all, they gifted us with their email addresses so the very least we can do is keep in touch with what we’d promised to send to them. You wouldn’t invite people to a party then ignore them would you?
If you ready to stop avoiding sending newsletters and start nurturing your relationship with your audience then book in a free call with me. I’m a total systems geek, who loves to write, and I’d be happy to have a chat with you about getting your newsletters out regularly.
*There may be affiliate links in this post which means if you click on a link and make a purchase I may earn a commission.*
