how to reconnect with your audience
It’s been 3 weeks since you’ve emailed your list.
You haven’t sent a newsletter in 3 months.
Or maybe it’s been a year.
Perhaps you haven’t posted on social media in 2 months.
You might have lots of questions about the timing and frequency of connecting with your people.
You wonder how often you should email your newsletter list. Is monthly too infrequent? Is three times a week too much?
There’s only a perfect email cadence for you. You get to choose how often you email your newsletter subscribers.
And even if you feel like you have a “small list” — we all start at one. Even my list is teensy compared with industry standards, and it doesn’t matter as much as you think it might. Whether you have 10, 100, 1,000, or 100,000 people on your list, there’s one truth to remember:
One person reads your email — write to one person — connect with one person.
Keep connecting with that one person and you’ll build trust, let people get to know you, and bring them along on a journey.
Even though you went into business, starting, and growing your email list with the best intentions, sometimes things happen, we get busy, it slips our mind, we miss a week, and then another, and suddenly we wonder — why bother? Or we worry — they’re going to forget all about me!
However long it’s been since you last connected with your email subscribers or your social media followers, it’s all fine.
This question comes up a lot in the Write Like a MOFO community. And it happens to all of us.
We press pause on our business
We pivot to a new audience
We’re dealing with some personal shit and simply don’t feel like it
Maybe we even think we have nothing to say — or nothing important to say — or our message is “boring” (it’s probably not)
I’ve been there, and I know lots of folks who have too.
Know this: no matter how long you’ve been quiet, you can jump right back in.
Most importantly, you can do it without missing a beat.
Please for the love of all things wine don’t do this —
Avoid apologizing for your absence.
First, you only need to apologize when you mess up or make a mistake. Not sending out your newsletter on a made-up timeline is not a mistake.
A summary of what you can skip when you reconnect:
“I’m so sorry I haven’t emailed you in a while” — you didn’t make a mistake!
“It’s been 3 months since I sent you an email. If you were wondering what I was up to…” — most people are not thinking about you all day long, no need to say this.
“I promise that I’m going to email you weekly, starting now — for real this time! “ — if you’re not sure you want to commit — don’t. You have full permission to send an irregular email whenever you want.
What to do instead to reconnect with your people:
Get back in touch, catch them up on what’s new, and dive right back in. If sharing consistently on social media and sending regular newsletters is one of your goals, congratulations, you’re ticking the box and getting back on track. You get to choose.
Here are some fun ways to reconnect with your people:
Share some lessons or some links. What have you learned since the last time you were in touch with your audience? Round it out into a fun list and send it along.
Have a story to tell? Jump in and tell it.
Record an audio saying hello or telling a story, add a few sentences about what it’s about and send it along.
Use some of the copy from your about page and rework it into an email or break into chunks and share on social media
Invite your readers to reply and get in touch. Invite them to share their biggest challenge, or celebrate a win with them.
Round up a handful of your favorite or most timely relevant blog posts and send the links with an introduction to your newsletter. Like this blogging round-up, or this one on creativity.
Cut and paste an old blog post — maybe one of your favorites, add an into an email newsletter, and send.
Connection can feel vulnerable.
Especially reconnection after a pause.
Stepping out and being visible encourages people to see you. Which if you’re worried about being seen can feel wildly uncomfortable.
And, you can do it.
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