I got an exciting reply to my email yesterday:
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Hi!
Thank you for the offer. May I please have a copy of What’s Grown My List Over The Years, Vol. 1-6?
Bob
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I rubbed my palms and grinned at this. “Here we go!”
Bob is not a new subscriber to my Daily Email Habit, which was the condition I had set and clearly stated for giving away, as a free bonus, a guide I’ve created, “What’s Grown My List Over The Years, Vol. 1-6.”
Instead, Bob is both a new and an old reader of this newsletter, who has never bought anything from me, and who I keep unsubscribing from my list, year after year.
Bob first signed up to my list back in 2020. He used to reply to my emails from time to time in a slightly self-entitled tone that always left me feeling put off, though I couldn’t quite place why.
Then in 2021, he replied to one of my emails accusing me of lying. At that point I unsubscribed him, wrote a nice email about it, and then forgot all about Bob.
Fast-forward to 2023. Bob found his way onto my list again. Within a few days, he again sent me a message that had something slyly aggressive and accusing about it.
I unsubscribed him for the second time without even replying, and I wrote a nice email about it.
Then it happened again a few months later in 2023. Same deal.
Finally, Bob resubscribed to my list this past Monday. I was waiting and wondering how long it would take him to reply to one of my emails in some sort of self-entitled, mildly irritating way. It didn’t take long. And so here we are, with me writing a new email about Bob, after I’ve unsubscribed him for the 4th time.
Marketing to an audience is often compared to gardening. The usual biblical analogies apply — you have to prepare the soil, plant the right seeds, tend to them, and be patient.
If you do all those, then those seeds multiply thirtyfold or sixtyfold or even hundredfold. Not only do you get richer as a result, but you get the pleasure of seeing your garden grow and thrive from season to season, and your good work turn meaningful.
Of course, from time to time blights come along, big and small. Sometimes a mole pops up in your garden, and demands a carrot or a beet, for no good reason other than that it wants one, and quick.
My personal policy in that case is to pick up the mole, thank it for tilling and aerating my soil for me, and then place it outside the walls of my garden, so it can come back next season and do its good work again.
But enough mole analogies.
Because the deadline do get “What’s Grown My List Over The Years, Vol. 1-6” is tonight at 12 midnight PST.
This guide sums up 6 list-growing techniques, which I’ve jokingly called “magic list-growing secrets Big Email doesn’t want you to know.” (I’m telling you now, they’re no secrets at all. It’s a joke, so don’t write in and accuse me of lying.)
Instead, these 6 techniques all take time, money, or effort (pick any two). But if you can get a bit of any two of money, time, or effort, and if you apply them steadily, then people start finding you — like Bob the mole keeps finding me, year after year.
If you’d like to try out Daily Email Habit for a month and get “What’s Grown My List Over The Years, Vol. 1-6” as a free bonus, the deadline is nigh: