Issue 07
Nathan Gibson · about five minutes
List building is collecting email addresses from people who want the next note, so you can reach them again. A post moves down a feed. A search visit can happen once. An address is a way back to the same person without hoping they wander in again.
They type it on purpose
The address counts when the person entered it for this list. The form says what they will get. They submit it. An address you copied, bought, or guessed is not a list. It is someone else’s contact, and they did not ask you for a note.
Take the name they give you. An alias is allowed. The email has to be a real address that can receive mail. If it cannot, you have no way to write to them. Reject that signup and do not save it. A fake address looks like growth and produces no readers.
One reason to be on it
Tell them the reason in the same place they type the address. The next article. A note when a step on an offer changes. Pick one reason and keep it. A list with no promised note is a drawer of names.
Write when you said you would. A short note still counts. A month of silence, then a sudden demand, teaches people the list was a trap. They will not open the next one.
You have to be able to use it
Store the address, and store that they asked. When they say stop, take them off. When the address bounces, take it off. A list you cannot mail does not bring the next reader back.
A list of people who never asked will draw complaints. Those complaints get the later notes blocked, including the notes to people who did want them. The size of the list is the count of people you can still write to.
This club’s list
Membership here is a name and an email. There is no monthly fee. The email has to be valid, or the signup is rejected and nothing is saved. That list is how the club can reach a member again.
It is not a promise of pay. Pay still comes from a company, after a new person finishes that company’s steps. The list lets you tell members what those steps are. It does not create the payout by itself.