Most of us have huge lists of people. We collect names, sometimes just email addresses, like its a hobby. Then we take those names and we write them down and we write all of those people everytime we have something to say. We write everybody regardless of their preference to hear our message, and this effects our messaging.
Today I was reading Seth Godin’s blog post titled, “Infinity – they keep making more of it”. He talks about this very issue and the almost innate desire to grow our businesses and our reach exponentially. If we can reach fifty, or a hundred, or a thousand more people then why not?
When you sit down to create your newsletter or your weekly marketing piece you probably salivate when you think about all the people that are going to “read” your message. But I think somewhere in that creative process you dilute your messaging. You go for broad appeal because you’re sending to a large, varied audience.
But we work in a niche market. We are specialists in our product type. Our messaging should never be broad, and it certainly isn’t meant for the masses. We need to deliver specific information to a very targeted group of people.
So, I ask you to consider getting rid of the parts of your database that you know nothing about. The names that haven’t responded to your emails, or the addresses that bounce-back everytime. If you’re not ready to do this just yet, try this little test. Take a look at the content in your last newsletter and then look at the content to the last email you sent to less than 30 people. You’ll see what i’m talking about and then maybe you’ll be ready to start cutting.
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