Post-Shirtember Learnings

It’s good to try something new; to shake up well-worn patterns and see if a different approach will result in further progress or growth.

This past week I stretched myself by sending daily emails promoting Shirtember, my goofy name for celebrating the addition of shirts to my shop. However, in order to get every last bit of stretching and learning out of this experience, I will close out Shirtember by sharing something I learned in the process.

Daily emails didn’t result in everyone unsubscribing.

That’s the fear, right? After my focus the previous month had been to grow my audience, now I’m going to push the envelope and bug you good people every day!?

While I knew that plenty of businesses send daily emails and it absolutely can be an effective way to communicate with your audience, what if I come across as spammy and annoying?

(SIDENOTE: Idea for a new crime fighting duo SPAMMY & ANNOYING. They batter down the bad guys with unrelenting questions and tidbits of trivia.)

“Don’t let fear be your decision maker.” That is artwork a dear friend made for me which I have sitting on my desk. It’s such a good reminder, cuz sometimes fear makes a compelling argument for taking the wheel.

So while I wouldn’t let fear be in the driver’s seat, I also wasn’t going to muzzle it because I think it can serve a purpose. Fear motivated me to make sure to bring value in sending daily emails.

Whether it was showing new artwork, sending reminders about free shipping, or sharing that I’m (temporarily) finished adding product, each email had a purpose.

Of course that’s not to say that I didn’t get any unsubscribes. But honestly, when I saw that someone unsubscribed it wasn’t as discouraging as I thought it would be.

If what I am sending is not interesting or giving value to someone, then that person SHOULD unsubscribe.

(Whoa, pump the brakes, what the heck am I saying!?!)

In all seriousness, it’s not about the numbers, it’s about finding your audience. When you are building something you need to make peace with knowing that you are not going to be everyone’s cup of tea. (clearly, I’m more a cup of coffee and on some days I may make that coffee “irish”)

It has certainly been a busy couple of weeks and I am proud that I tackled my fear of sending daily emails, plus, I learned a few things in the process. Now I’m ready to move on to a new challenge.

This next one has been brewing for a while and I’m hoping that people will enjoy making use of it. It’s a suggestion that was given to me by one of you fine folks and is more uncharted waters for this gal. Don’t know yet if I’m up for the challenge, but more to come on that later.