“I’m leaving you.”

Yep. Three days ago – the day after Valentine’s Day – I said those words.

Or rather, I wrote them.

Those three words formed the subject line of perhaps the most inspired and (more importantly) most opened email that I’ve ever sent to the good people on my mailing list.

The line was so damn effective, that whenever anyone replied to the email (more on that later), I absolutely shit myself at having to deal with the threat of “I’m leaving you” flashing up in my inbox. The ‘Re:‘ at the start of each subject line delivery just didn’t catch the eye anywhere near as securely as the three little words that followed it, and so I went right ahead and assumed that someone was sending that statement to me.

Enjoy a sip of your own sweet medicine, Jo – you wiley, emaily minx…

It was perhaps bloody typical that this declaration to my mailing list last week was the most opened and responded to email I think I’ve ever sent to subscribers, because the email itself was actually to inform everyone that I’m binning the email list in its entirety. There’s some psychology there, for sure, that if you want people to start taking notice of and/or valuing something you offer, threaten to take it away from them.

But of course, much as I love a good bit of psycholinguistic wordsmithery in my skillset as your copywriter of choice, I’m not big on threats that I can’t follow through on. Just ask my child or my husband. Don’t ask my cat, though. I never carry out any of my threats with him. ‘Threat‘ is the wrong word, however. I wasn’t using the fuck-off phrase to test the waters, or to make a point, or to drive any kind of marketing ploy. In fact, by the time you’re reading this, I’ll have already cancelled the direct debit to the software provider, so the list is pretty much gone whether I change my mind or not. I’m now a whopping 26 quid richer per month. But this wasn’t about the cost. It was about the lack of love.

That lack of love was nothing to do with my subscribers, of course – perhaps you were one of them, you gorgeous human? I just didn’t love the medium. Let me be clear – I can write bloody anything. Any purpose, any topic, any channel. It’s my one discernible skill. But when you’ve been doing this as long as I have, it’s important to only write what you love (or can grow to love or be paid to love). I don’t believe anyone who says they love writing emails. They don’t. They love the result (if they get one). And don’t lecture me about nurturing and funnels. I did this whole ‘attract and retain clients’ thing long before I had a mailing list, and I’ll do it again long after, too. Even with a LinkedIn ban, should I get one again. I’m more interested in getting paid to nurture other people’s funnels, thanks. Snigger.

Since launching Jo Blogs as a ‘newsletter’ here on LinkedIn just three weeks ago, so many of you have signed up so that you can read the things I actually want to write about. In other words, you want to get stuck in with enjoying something that I’ve written for pleasure (because even writing discursively about icky, tricky, or contentious things gives me joy). Writing emails to people on my list in the hope that they’d a) even see it, and b) exclaim, “Yesssssss, another email to add to my admin!” in response to receiving them, however… I can’t say truthfully that I loved it.

You see, I’ve always been upfront about the fact that I never really open or take notice of many of the emails I’ve subscribed to myself, so it seems wrong to expect that anyone would take the time and energy to pay any attention to mine. I loved that people had trusted me with their email address (the data equivalent of a first-born child), and believe me I was always beyond thankful for everyone’s support, but it came to the point on Valentine’s Day (Patron Saint of Email Lists, I believe), where I just didn’t think I could fill people’s boxes with anything of real use or joy anymore (if I ever did in the first place?)

I mean, really… it was rare I emailed the list more than once in a month anyway, and when I did, chances were that I was in some way trying to say to anyone who opened it, “Look at this thing I do/ sell/ run – come throw your cash at me in return for all the glory it offers!”

I really didn’t enjoy doing that at all.

As a writer, I’d hope that every time I write something on any public forum – like this piece you’re reading right here – it’ll assure you that as well as being a half-decent professional copywriter, I might also be fairly alright to work with as a person, too. But writing an email to you for the sake of ticking off an item on a marketer’s hit list? It’s forced, and it’s felt by everyone.

I know, I’m the worst business owner ever. A blog for another time!

And so, I decided to get rid of my mailing list completely and save myself some admin as well as heartache along the way. Everyone had told me I needed an email list in case LinkedIn ever died or I got banned (again), and I completely understood the need to build a castle on my own sand, or whatever the phrase is. But the way I see it is this. If people already know to some small extent who I am, they quite like what I do, and at some point they might care to work with me, say nice things to/about me, or recommend me as the copywriter hired by people with great taste in copywriters, I’d like to think that the second I disappear from LinkedIn, they’ll figure out a way of finding me or contacting me in some other way. If you really want to find someone, you’ll find them. It’s literally Chapter One in the Stalker Handbook.

As I always did with every single one of my emails, I encouraged people to hit reply and send me a message in response to Saturday’s declaration. When it came to replies, I would always read them, I would always be grateful for them, and I would always reply to them. This occasion was no different, and the responses were as eye-opening as they were heart-warming. Sure, I was re-assured that people were feeling good things about seeing my name pop up in their inboxes, were reading what I was writing, and were enjoying my random-ass musings, but having said that… it’s survivorship bias, isn’t it. I definitely lost subscribers over the years. Was it something I said? Quite likely. But even more likely, people just don’t care to open emails – especially if it becomes clear that you’re only writing them to make some kind of link to a product or a service. That’s exactly what I was doing (because that’s the point of a fucking mailing list), and whilst many a guru will tell me to stuff my funnel in this way, I did okay stuffing it in business for the many years I ran one before I’d even thought about having… a list.

That dramatic pause was there because when I said it in my head it made me think of Miranda Priestley threatening her publisher in The Devil Wears Prada.

I’m going to have to go watch the whole film, now… I’ve completely lost my train of thought.

So.

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