How to build long-term subscribers

Broadly speaking there are two things you can write about when emailing your list:

1. Things that immediately help your reader

2. Things that challenge them, or jolt them awake

You need both types, but they belong in slightly different places. The things that immediately help a reader are what entices them onto your list in the first place. Successfully challenging their thinking is what keeps them subscribed over the long term.

As time passes, I’ve become less interested in the former, and more interested in the latter. Things that immediately help someone are usually tactical, and quickly expire. It’s hard to get to the truth of a situation when you’re outlining a seven step process.

How then, do you jolt someone awake?

You point out the thing they’re not seeing. The thing that’s lurking in their blind spot.

Because as much as we like to believe otherwise, we all DO have a blind spot. Assumptions we’ve made, or things we think we know that actually we don’t.

What’s in your reader’s blind spot? That’s the thing to focus on.