Would people miss you? 👤

Hey 👋

Welcome to Neighbourhood Post issue #25 - easy to implement digital marketing ideas straight through your metaphorical letterbox.

I’ve been away for a few weeks. Did you miss me? Don’t worry, I’m back with a good one this week, and it’s all about making sure people notice when you’re not around.

Let’s get to it…

👉 By the way, if you’ve missed previous newsletters you’ll find them here.

📩 And if you’ve been forwarded this email you can subscribe here.

How forgettable are you? 👤

When I started this newsletter, there were doubters.

“You’ll never manage one a week, you’ll abandon it soon.”

They had a point.

I started a podcast in 2022 and a vlog in 2023 and neither saw a second episode.

But here we are, 6 months later.

I’ve surprised myself.

One a week, sometimes written at 11:00pm on a Thursday night, sometimes written on a train to London at 07:58 on a Friday morning (like this one).

The discipline of writing has been rewarding.

For the last three Fridays I’ve taken a planned hiatus: Easter weekend, and a fortnight away at an event.

In the final few days of the event, someone came up to me:

“What’s happened to your newsletter?! I’m waiting for the next one, it’s the only email I look out for!”

It was nice to get the feedback, and it got me thinking about two things:

#1 Would people miss you if you stopped?

If your charity/brand/organisation stopped people would miss you.

But if your digital marketing stopped, would people notice?

Digital has changed a lot over the last few years.

The biggest shift is that people now expect your marketing to provide value in and of itself, before they’ve actually purchased from you or donated to you.

That can be a real challenge, and a good yard stick of whether you’ve got it right is if people care when your social media, email and content stops completely.

I’m not suggesting you stop just to try it out.

Good luck persuading your line-manager on that one.

But if you’re really honest with yourself, when you look back at recent activity do you believe anyone would come up to you and say “please don’t stop sending me those emails, they’re so good!”

One to think about.

But when you do think about it, also consider this second point: when I say would “people” care if you stopped, who do I mean by people?

#2 Who are your true fans?

I have a love/hate relationship with data.

Don’t get me wrong, it drives a lot of what we do, but it can be unhelpful.

For example, if you get a monthly social media reach of 10,000 people, and I ask you how many of those would care if you stopped, what would be the acceptable answer?

I wouldn’t expect them all to care.

I wouldn’t expect 50% of them to care.

You see, digital is optimised for reach and that means we’re always chasing the huge numbers.

The biggest reach, the largest audience, the most eyeballs.

We optimise for breadth, not depth.

Again, that’s important to do and a crucial part of the marketing mix. But in this specific context, when we’re talking about deriving value from content, it’s important we are measuring the right thing.

Within that 10,000 there will be a core group of people who love what you do.

Those are the people who should care if you stopped.

Kevin Kelly coined a concept called “1000 true fans”.

He was talking about the creator economy (artists, musicians, writer etc), but the concept still stands for everyone:

To be successful, you only need a small group of core fans who love you, and would be prepared to continually support you.

In his example, if you had 1000 true fans who took one action a year, you’d hit your goals.

The number of fans is arbitrary and will change depending on the context of your business, but it’s true for everyone; how many true fans do you need to be successful?

Take this newsletter for example.

There are 125 subscribers.

125 of you who work with us, know us or have come across us.

In marketing terms, that’s tiny. But the objective of the newsletter isn’t to grow to the thousands, it’s to provide tangible value to those who open the emails every week.

We’ve met new clients through the newsletter and worked on exciting projects because of it.

So, a few questions to finish:

If you stopped your digital output today, would people care?

When we say people, who are you true fans?

How can you create a digital offering that provides real value to them?

That’s all for now.

See you next week ✌️

What we’re looking at 👀 and listening to 👂

📺 Do you have dopamine sickness? I think we all have to a degree. Dan enjoyed this video from Cal Newport, exploring the sources of our procrastination.

🎧 Lauren has been listening to The End of Charity. A must listen for people working in the third sector, it explores the current global landscape and asks the question “are charities still set up to be the answer?”

Before you go - we’ll never use these newsletters to directly sell you our services, but we’re always here if you need any expertise or support 👍