Came a question from an interested reader:
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“I noticed a while back you don’t post every email of yours on your blog. Why not? Is there a strategy or bigger picture reasoning behind not doing so?
Been wondering about that for a while now.”
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Great question.
But before I can answer that directly, I have to clarify something first, just be sure everyone’s on the same page.
See, the purpose of any single blog out there is always the same: to attract readers.
Forget where they come from, what they’re looking for, how they got here, or anything else that might confuse you. For now, the only thing that matters is that every single blog shares the same purpose of getting attention and attracting readers.
Now, that’s only the first degree purpose.
Behind wanting to “attract readers” there’s another purpose, always. Even people who write for the joy or art of it such as fanfics or what have you still have the second-degree purpose of feeling a sense of accomplishment and, most importantly, approval from others when they see other people are reading their stuff.
This “second-degree purpose” might differ from business to business.
In my case, that’s to build my email list. After all, my email list has been, and will forever remain so however long I continue doing what I do, at the center of my business. It’s what powers everything else and makes everything I do possible.
So, naturally, the only reason for me to even host my blog is for people to stumble upon it one way or another, check it out, enjoy what they read, and, this is the crucial bit, ultimately decide to opt-in to my list.
At that point my blog effectively loses its functionality for that specific person… but that’s ok because the only purpose of my blog was to get people to opt-in to my list, which it, at that point, did successfuly.
This brings me back to the original question.
Why don’t I publish all of my emails on my blog?
Well, think about it yourself. If I did publish every single email on my site, why would anyone even bother subscribing to my list? All they’d gain would be the “convenience” of not having to check my site manually. At most they’d lose out on some gift or a lead magnet I give to people who opt-in. But none of that is making much of a case, at least not a strong one.
No, there needs to be an air of mystery, intrigue.
People need to be excited and curious to want to find out more, to discover everything there is to discover, to get all of the privileges, known and unknown, of being an actual subscriber to my list, not just an incognito reader on my website.
There are other reasons, of course, but this is definitely one of the most important ones to realize.
As for best practices of what to do when people finally opt-in to your list, you might want to check out my flagship course, Email Valhalla, to get an answer to that question: https://alexvandromme.com/valhalla/