Leigh emailed me with a great question. She wanted to know why her newsletter, which has over 5000 subscribers, generates very few client enquiries for her consultancy.
As Leigh was making a mistake that’s common to lots of newsletter publishers and bloggers, I thought I’d share my answer with you.
Building your list
The root cause of Leigh’s problem, is that she is doing everything possible to build her list. This is the mantra of pretty-much every content marketing guru and newsletter / blogging course out there.
It’s also total, utter bullshit.
The numbers
If the purpose of your newsletter or blog is to generate business leads from prospective clients, then your focus should be on quality, not quantity. It’s about building meaningful, deep relationships with the right people, not shallow relationships, with a wide, vague readership.
For example.
- If you have just 50 engaged subscribers, who value your newsletter or blog and are a perfect fit for your services, you have a valuable list.
- If, like Leigh, you have 5000 poorly-targeted people on a list, who you gained using list building techniques, you’re wasting your time and money.
Get out of the list building mindset
So, make sure you’re not chasing the wrong numbers.
Instead, focus exclusively on earning the attention of your prospective clients. Learn about their most pressing challenges. Then, publish answers and ideas, which will help them. Become a valuable asset, before they need your services.
If you get too few client enquiries from your newsletter or blog, it’s probably because you’re building a list, rather than creating connections with prospective clients.
The message here is simple: Go deeper. Not wider.
The small business owners I work with enjoy far more sales, attract better clients and grow amazing businesses.
If you want the same, here’s exactly how it happens.