Your Newsletter Is An Advert (Here's How to Fix It)

There is a big difference between writing your email newsletter every week to your community and writing it for your community.

If your newsletter is just lots of announcements, which seems like a really logical thing to do — hey, we've got this on — it's almost like an advert that's delivered to your email inbox. And I've written loads of these in the past, so you know, I'm guilty, too.

And then when you write for your newsletter audience or your coworking community, you sort of have to get your radar on.

So you walk around the building all week — and I have done this, and it's worked really, really well — and you have to get into a habit of it. You have to create a capture system, like a notebook or something on your phone, and hear what people are talking about.

And then you sit down with lots of ideas and you write something that is in tune with the frequency of the people in your building.

And this is why sending something on a regular basis is a much better idea, because the more you do it on a regular basis, the more ideas you have.

I kinda always knew this, but in February 2020 I flew to Nashville to do a workshop with Donald Miller, and just after lockdown hit I did an online workshop with Jonathan Stark. Both of them ran daily emails and other stunts with consistent success. As much as I groan at sports and business analogies, it is true: the more shots you take, the better you get.

But I want to jump back to the connection between who you're writing for and why announcements suck.

Especially in the context of a community, a coworking space, or even a regular workspace. We send an email newsletter announcement, and we assume that because we sent the email, everyone has got the information and is going to act on it.

But that email announcement is not a relationship builder. Especially if it is you sending the information you think other people should have, rather than what is most useful to them at that moment in time.

More times than I'd like you to know, I've sat in the same room as all the people who have just received that email. After four minutes, I'm silently angry with all of them because I didn't see them reading the email or waving at me that they got it. And really, why should they?

But part of that is the connection to the wording and context of the email.

That is why being on the frequency, and being really curious and interested in the people in your building, is way more fun and more effective for connecting your community by email.