Join now to get my FREE guide: The Local Business Customer Leak Checklist and get practical tips you can use to attract more customers, build more trust, and stop losing sales you should've had.
The day 20 million people lost their audience
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Reader question, Remember when Twitter went dark in Brazil back in 2024? One day it's there. Next day, poof, gone. Now imagine you're a business owner who spent years building 50,000 followers. You wake up Tuesday morning and your entire customer base vanishes into thin air. That's exactly what happened to thousands of businesses. Every minute you spend building someone else's platform is a minute you're NOT building your own business. Facebook changes the algorithm? You're screwed. Instagram shadowbans you? You're toast. TikTok gets banned in your country? Buh-bye. But an email list? That's YOURS. No tech billionaire can take it away. No government can shut it down. No algorithm can hide your messages. When you own the list, you own the relationship. When you own the relationship, you control your income. Here's how to start building your insurance policy right now... 1. Put an email signup on every piece of content you make Social media post? Put "join my email list" call to action in the comments. Blog article? Gatekeep your best tips to send out in your emails. Video? Tell people to email you for the transcript. 2. Give people a real reason to hand over their email "Join my newsletter" is weaksauce. Try "Get my 5-minute daily business tip that local owners use to add an extra $2,000 in monthly revenue." Specific beats generic every time. 3. Email regularly Dead email lists are worthless email lists. 1 to 2 emails a week is all you need to stay top of mind. But, you wanna email customers after a purchase, and immediately after they join your list. 4. Use email to drive traffic back to social media, not the other way around This flips the script. Instead of begging social platforms for reach, you're using YOUR platform to boost theirs. The Brazil situation isn't an anomaly, it's a preview. Platform dependency is business suicide in slow motion. Smart business owners learned this lesson years ago. The rest are still crossing their fingers and hoping Mark Zuckerberg stays in a good mood. Which one are you? Mike “divorce the algorithm” Downs PS - The best way to get people on your list is to use bait. A checklist, guide, tips, calendar, etc. Use it as an incentive to get people to join. And here's where a lot of businesses f&%! it up. Make sure you have a welcome sequence of 3 to 5 emails that go out over the course of 2 weeks. This'll do the heavy lifting, build trust, give you a chance to tell your story, and stay top of mind. |
The Barstool Breakdown
Join now to get my FREE guide: The Local Business Customer Leak Checklist and get practical tips you can use to attract more customers, build more trust, and stop losing sales you should've had.
You plan the event, pick the date, work out the food, drinks, entertainment, tickets, and whatever else needs to happen. Then promotion starts. You print flyers, hang them around town, drop a stack at the coffee shop, post the event on Facebook, share it again a few days later, and maybe throw a few bucks behind the post. Then you wait and pray people actually show up. I’ve done it. Back when I managed a restaurant here in town, we planned a special Italian dinner that should’ve been a big...
Smartphones are making people more and more stupid. People aren’t dumb. They’ve outsourced thinking. Why wrestle with a problem when Google will spit out an answer in 0.3 seconds? Why strain the brain when YouTube will happily autoplay the next How To video until your eyes glaze over? It reminds me of Short Circuit. Johnny 5 reads a book in seconds, pauses, and says… “Need more input.” That’s most people now. Constant input. Zero output. And sure, access to information is nice. Incredible,...
Yo Reader, I used to spend a lot of time doom scrolling. At this time in my life I was always tired, and it got bad around 7pm. Every day like clockwork. One day, I was chillin at work before the dinner rush scrolling Facebook. I came across an ad that grabbed my attention immediately. “No weights, no cardio, just X3” I’d been looking for something to replace the gym and this was perfect. The last time I'd went to the gym there were 3 girls in there that may as well have been naked. As soon...