Why I unsubscribed from your blog

“The money is in the list.”

“Build a subscriber list, they are really engaged readers, and when you want to sell them something, they will buy.”

“My biggest regret? Not starting an email list when I started the blog!”

Familiar?

These phrases were running through Billy Blogger’s mind last June. So he girded his loins, got out his plastic, and signed up to Aweber.

Then he designed and wrote an E Book, and used it as a subtle bribe to get more people to sign up to his subscriber list.

I visited his site in August. I liked what I saw in his two most recent posts. So I hit the RSS feed. And then I read some archive stuff. “This is good!” I thought. So I gave him a precious gift. My E mail address.

Welcome to Billy’s Blog!

Within a few moments, I had a very nice welcome email, and the E Book, which turned out to be better than I expected. We were off to a great start!

Since then, I’ve had an email from Billy every week. They are what Aweber calls a “Blog broadcast.” They aggregate his RSS feed into an email as a reminder to readers who might have missed the week’s posts.

He’s put some real effort into the design, which is good, and matches his own branding.

Goodbye!

But I look at the site most days anyway through RSS. So after opening the first two emails, I then got into the habit of archiving them. This week I just had too much email to deal with, so I unsubscribed from Billy’s list, and several others which were basically doing exactly the same. “What’s the point of filling my inbox with emails I don’t read?”

So when Billy does make an offer to his subscribers – next week, next year – I won’t know about it. It could be my loss, but it will most definitely be his.

What do you give subscribers to your blog?

Some other stuff you might like:

1/ Billy Blogger and his 2010 objectives

2/ Why bloggers need to invest in design

3/ Eight ways to get more page views

Hans Hageman said:

I read it all in one sitting. The profiles highlighted some remarkable people – remarkable in their vision and persistence.

There was inspiration and there were practical pointers. I refer to it whenever my pace slackens.

Now in Paperback!