Life Coaching Newsletter V Blog

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I have now been doing my newsletter side by side with my Blog for almost 4 months.

I started the blog first and have really enjoyed doing it as it gives me the flexibility to write about whatever takes my fancy (not just Life Coaching) with no real obligation to anybody or anything.

It is more stream of consciousness type writing with little structure or direction other than what is in my head at that particular time.

I guess in retrospect I thought that I ought to start a newsletter rather than actually wanting to start one. I had read so much stuff on viral marketing and the importance of capturing peoples e-mail addresses that I thought if I didn’t get on the bandwagon soon I would be left behind and ultimately end up sleeping under a cardboard box and eating out of garbage bins.

I wanted my newsletter to be different to other peoples, I wanted it to be informative, educational (a lofty aspiration I admit) and not be used purely as a revenue stream.

I have cancelled almost all my newsletter subscriptions over the last 12 months simply because they had become on the whole nothing more than advertising mediums that I had given my consent to be sent.

So with that in mind I spent a lot of time thinking about what articles would add value to people and then making sure I delivered them in a way that was hopefully easy to read and understand.

This was time consuming to say the least. March’s newsletter took me over 3 days to do! That’s right, 3 days for something that probably took about 12 or 15 minutes to read from start to finish. It was at that stage that I became unsure that a newsletter was sensible use of my time.

Newsletters are great in one respect, you get to see how many are delivered, how many people open them, how many click-throughs you get and you can bask in stat heaven should you so wish. With Blogs (or at least my Blog) there is none of that; I have no idea how many people read my blog.

I get the occasional e-mail or comment left behind so I know it is getting read by some people but to be honest it could be 5 or it could be 500. The real question I have to ask though is how much do I care? Well the ego in me cares a lot and wants more and more readers from more and more countries, it wants to feel justified that the work done is worthwhile to some people.

The other part of me though doesn’t care, it is happy to know that it is trying to provide value or assistance or whatever else you want to call it but does not need the safety net of being told over and over again how important or appreciated it is.

On reflection I think I prefer the latter side of my character. I know I sometimes have an inflated ego as many people do but I’m not comfortable with having to continually feed it. I get more inner satisfaction out of writing my blog and feel less restricted when doing so. S

o for that reason I am going to suspend my newsletter and concentrate my writing solely on my blog and a self development book I have just started to write.

So I will go back to writing for unknown people with little or no feedback and hope and trust that some of the people enjoy reading it as much as I do writing it.