{
  "$type": "site.standard.document",
  "description": "Email is the only audience you own — here’s a four-step plan to start your newsletter today with Buttondown, invite your first ten subscribers, and send your first issue.",
  "path": "/articles/today-you-start-building-your-email-list/",
  "publishedAt": "2019-03-30T05:00:00.000Z",
  "site": "at://did:plc:jznynyzgerlqmdbbj33o7wfs/site.standard.publication/3mnll3icujb2z",
  "tags": [
    "Marketing and Growth"
  ],
  "textContent": "The only sustainable way to build an audience is through your own email list.\n\nYou shouldn’t build an audience on Twitter or Instagram.\n\nYou shouldn’t rely on your LinkedIn connections.\n\nDon’t even think about relying on Facebook to build an audience of your fans.\n\nCompanies and applications change hands all the time. Features are added and removed from apps every day. Facebook and their family of apps went down today.\n\nThat’s an alarming experience. What if you’ve spent a year or three building up your audience on Facebook — and now you can’t reach them?\n\nWhen you build your audience on someone else’s platform — like Instagram, Medium, Twitter, Facebook, Vine, Youtube... — you’re taking an unnecessary risk because you don’t control your connections on that platform.\n\nThe platform controls those connections.\n\nWhat happens when the platform goes down? Gets acquired? Shut down? (hello, vine!)\n\nSnap.\n\nYou’ve lost your audience.\n\nWith email, it’s a completely different experience.\n\nWith email, you are the owner of the list of your fans, followers, audience: your subscribers. These are the people who have said: “I want to hear from you!”\n\nIf you decide to switch email platforms, all you need to do is mash the big ol’ EXPORT MY SUBSCRIBERS button, and you’ll get a nice and tidy export of your subscribers.\n\nAfter that, it’s as easy as importing your list to your new platform of choice.\n\nThen, continue to send your emails.\n\nYou can’t do that with Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, or LinkedIn.\n\nYou can with email marketing.\n\nWith email marketing, you own your audience and connections.\n\nHow should you get started with building your email list?\n\nButtondown.Email\n\nButtondown is:\n\nThe easiest way to run your newsletter\n\nand:\n\nIf you just want a place where you can copy and paste some Markdown or HTML, send it to a bunch of people, and be on your merry way, confident that it looks good and nothing explodes — this is the solution for you\n\nButtondown is an excellent product. The founder and I had a call to talk about email and Buttondown. It was terrific to connect with someone who is passionate about a frictionless, pleasant email experience.\n\nI’m recommending Buttondown to you today because I believe it is the easiest way for you to get started with email marketing. And I believe that cultivating a skill in email marketing is one of the most impactful and important things you can do for your business and your marketing.\n\nThe email marketing skills you start cultivating today will pay off for you and your business 1, 3, and 5+ years down the line.\n\nYour Homework: Sign up for Buttondown!\n\nIf you’ve been waiting to get started with email marketing, get started today.\n\nButtondown is free (and also has a $29/mo professional plan). The free plan is great to get you started.\n\nButtondown.email\n\nStep 1: Sign up for Buttondown\n\nGo over to their website https://buttondown.email/ and sign up.\n\nStep 2: Set up your newsletter\n\nGo through Buttondown’s onboarding. Configure the settings for your email newsletter: your name, the newsletter name, and other details.\n\nStep 3: Invite your friends!\n\nSend a personal message to 10 of your friends, colleagues, or connections on social media.\n\nAsk each person if they’d like to be on your new newsletter.\n\nIf they say yes, send them a link to a page with your Buttondown Email Form so your subscriber can sign up for your newsletter.\n\nStep 4: Make the clackety clack noise\n\nFocus on writing some text and sending it to people. Forget about complex automation or workflows.\n\nHere’s a template you can copy, customize, and send (I recommend replacing the ‘THING, THING, and THING’ with your topic(s) of choice) to invite your friends along for the journey.\n\nHeya! I’m writing a short, weekly letter about THING, THING, and THING. Would you like to read it when I send it out? Having you as a reader would mean the world to me.\nIf you don’t want to receive it, that’s fine, just hit reply and let me know.\nIf you’d like to get my weekly letter, just hit reply and say “Heck yeah! What next?”\n\nNow, go and sign up for Buttondown.email.\n\nExcelsior!\n\nKai",
  "title": "Today? You start building your email list"
}