The rest of us are all too familiar with that horribly overused expression. As bloggers, we’re told that our primary overruling focus should be on getting people to sign up to our email list. Why? Because it has been demonstrated time and time again that communicating with your readers (i.e. potential sources of income) via email offers the highest return.
I’m not planning on arguing against that fact — in my experience, email is the most effective way to communicate your audience, and an email list is a powerful asset. However, an overruling focus on email signups may not be the best way to grow your blog. In this post, I want to explain why.
Window Shopping
Imagine you run a retail store. On any given day, hundreds of people will walk through your doors — people of varying types. Let’s split them into some broad categories:
- Bouncers: those who peer through the window but never actually make it into the store.
- Browsers: these guys may make it into the store, but after browsing for a while, they leave without spending a dime.
- Thrifty customers: those who spend a little money on a small-ticket item or two in your store. Despite their low spending, they may be repeat (and valuable) customers.
- Average customers: these guys might spend a fair bit in your store, returning regularly.
- Whales: those who buy your big ticket items with little hesitation, and return to do it again and again.
The above scenario serves as a nice analogy for your blog. Each of the above customer types fits potential visitors to your site.
- Bouncers are the guys who (you guessed it) bounce off your site after just a few seconds without exploring further.
- Browsers are those who hang around on your site for a while, but do not interact with your content in any way.
- Thrifty customers might never make a purchase or even sign up to your email list, but they might comment and/or share your content.
- Average customers will sign up to your email list and probably buy one or more of your products at some point.
- Whales are your blog evangelists — people who shout your name from virtual rooftops and purchase everything you release.
Most bloggers focus on a combination of these visitor types, but rarely all five. And therein lies the issue: the key to growing a successful blog is to enable each visitor type to offer value in whatever way they are comfortable — whether that be through commenting, sharing, subscribing or purchasing.
Furthermore, whenever possible, you want to convert bouncers to browsers, browsers to thrifty customers, thrifty customers to average customers, and average customers to whales.
If you’re only focusing on say bouncers and whales, there’s a big black hole in the potential progression that visitors can make when they hit your site. And that’s no good.
Making Your Blog a More All-Inclusive Affair
In an ideal world, your blog should cater for all types. And contrary to popular opinion, doing so is possible.
Many blogging “gurus” will tell you to limit the sign up and engagement options available on your blog in order to increase the likelihood of a reader taking the most desired action: subscribing via email. However, there are people in this world who will never sign up to your email list. They may well be willing to buy your product down the line, but they’re just not interested in being communicated to via email.
I know this all too well, because I am that person. I like to keep my email inbox as clean as possible, so I don’t subscribe to any blogs. But that doesn’t mean I won’t share content and buy a blogger’s product if I think it suits my needs.
Furthermore, I disagree with the notion that we must limit choice when it comes to engagement options. While an abundance of choice can be a bad thing, I believe that most blog readers these days are savvy enough to identify their engagement model of choice and use it as they see fit.
What I mean is this: some people like Twitter and some people like Facebook. Some people like commenting and others like forums. Some people like to receive their updates via RSS and others via email. Your job is to present all of those options so that each person can pick the one they want.
Your visitors won’t be overwhelmed by the number of options because they’ll know what they’re looking for. Facebook lovers will instantly recognize the “Like” button and click on it if they are so inclined, regardless of what else is on your page. It will stick out like a sore thumb to them. And who are we to try to force people to subscribe to a blog in a way that is not their preference? Surely that’s not a recipe for building an engaged audience?
Is Email Still King?
Don’t get me wrong — I’m not hating on email. I love my email lists and consider them the best way to communicate with my readers by far. But at the same time, I don’t see it as my prerogative to tell people how they should follow Leaving Work Behind.
This was demonstrated to my quite plainly by the responses to a request I recently posted on the Leaving Work Behind Facebook page:
The response was encouraging: 36 likes and thirteen comments from people telling me that Facebook is their sole way of keeping in touch with Leaving Work Behind, including:
It makes me think — given that I don’t have a Facebook Like box plainly displayed on my site, how many people who have no interest in subscribing via email but would’ve “liked” the site have slipped through my fingers?
Conclusion
My overriding point is this: it should not be up to us to determine how readers choose to follow our blog. Furthermore, offering multiple signup and engagement options needn’t be overwhelming — it is easy enough to include a subtle widget with some small icons (something which, admittedly, I need to do on this very site — definitely a case of do as I say but not as I do!).
Your blog should cater for bouncers, whales and everyone in-between. Your success is best driven by catering for everyone who wants to engage with your blog. To do any less is akin to asking people to leave your store if they haven’t made a big purchase after browsing for a couple of minutes. You wouldn’t do that as a retail store manager, so why should you do it as a blogger?
Photo Credit: Howard Lake