Yesterday I started the hard launch email campaign for churnOn.com. I sent emails to family, friends, and some professional contacts announcing the site and asking for people to sign up for the blog. I give myself a C- on the email that I drafted as the cover email. I think it was fine for people who know me well, but not great for casual acquaintances. Here is some feedback that I got that I thought was constructive.
Be sure you make your blog something that's useful to others. Your tag line on the site starts to do this. Be sure to demonstrate that in your writing. Then, I can't tell from the email or when previewing the two sites why I might follow what's going on, or the difference between the sites or what you want me to do having visited them. It's clear you're in the process of expressing yourself and sharing your life-learnings. It's not clear what your readers are going to get. Certainly, there's an explicit value proposition -- hey, you can learn from me -- but I'd suggest you carefully reshape your voicing in your communications to be "service" oriented rather than "let me tell you about my full life and perspective." My suggestion is to revisit your purpose (end goal) for each site and your social activation writing and perhaps even the tenor of your book. In the end, while it's OK simply to have a place to share your thoughts, I sense you're expecting more productivity or result.Also, here is a timely blog post from Jonathon Fields, one of the self-branding sites that I have been following. There is a fine line that I am walking in trying to self-brand for the primary purpose of finding a new business opportunity, but also make it interesting enough that 'churnOn' might turn into something unique, marketable and monetize-able.
Check out a few changes that I made to the home page this morning, after thinking about the feedback above. What do you think?
Stay fit,
Dad
