But do I HAVE to have a newsletter?

No.

There, that was easy, right?

A conversation I'm always having.

Seriously. In nearly every IdeaStorming session, we have the following conversation.
It's a good thing that so many people ask these questions because then I realize, “Hey! A lot of people have these questions!” and then I can answer y'all all at once. Nice!

Why a newsletter?

The conversation usually starts after I say (this is after we've talked about the whole make-it-easy-for-people-to-give-you-money thing) something like,

“The next step is letting people know  about your thing.

It's easiest if you can let interested people know, on a regular basis. Sometimes this is a newsletter.”

Why is this easiest?

Why is it easier to talk to interested people on a regular basis than to reach people via advertising, guest posts or other marketing?

I have so many reasons I'm making a list:

1. If the person signed themselves up to hear about your thing, you know they want to hear about your thing. It may sound obvious, but this is all the difference between feeling like a spammy mcspamerson and feeling delightful. (This is called Permission Marketing)
2. Convincing new people to like your thing is a lot harder than convincing already-in-love-with-you people.
   It's much easier to get a date with your husband than with the Abercrombie model.
3. When you contact interested people on a regular basis and you provide useful, interesting content (not just sales messages), you build trust and affection.
4. Your Right People want to hear about your thing. They want to buy it. When you tell them about it, they are happy.
   If you doubt this, think about your favorite store. Are you ever sad when they send you something useful or interesting? (Oh, Anthropology catalog, how I love you.)
5. Hearing from you on a regular basis, reminds your Right People that you exist. This is a good thing.
   Have you ever clicked around a website, fell in love, swore you'd come back and then promptly forgot the name of it? Yeah, that happens to everyone! Giving that new person something to do (that is lower risk than buying something) makes sure they remember you later.

But can't I do this without a newsletter?

Absolutely!

You can do it with your blog or with your Twitter stream or with letters. Each of these has there downside (people may not keep up with blogs, your tweets may get lost in a busy stream, letters are time-consuming), but they all work.

If you can not bear the thought of sending emails to your interested people on a regular basis, then don't!

Really.

Nothing will crash or burn or explode. Really.

They why are you always recommending it?

Because newsletters work for me.
They reach the people I want to reach and they build relationships, establish trust, and, yes, turn into sales. With startling regularity.

But it's all about experimentation

You won't know unless you try.
The good news is: it's really low-risk to try.
If you don't like it, you can stop at any time.

If you think newsletters may work for you (or you'd like to try that sales with startling regularity thing) check out my 2 new classes.

• In the first one, we'll cover the hows of writing/sending/making sales with your newsletter, the how-to-make-it-delightful part.
• In the second class, I turn to expert Wendy Cholbi to walk us through the setting up of newsletter software.
  (A lot of people have asked about newsletter software. It is SO MUCH easier than just using your regular email and helps you ensure you don't hit spam boxes. I'll be talking more about this tomorrow).

What are YOUR questions?