How do you make your email list fans feel special?

A few years ago I embarked on fan-building campaign that was over the top, even for me. I reached out to everyone on my email list and ask them for their birthday. I also asked them for their physical mailing address. Now, keep in mind most of my subscribers - especially at that time - did not have PO Boxes or fancy offices. They genuinely trusted me with their home address. And every month, I would handwrite birthday cards and mail them to faraway countries, or ride my bicycle to their home down the street.

However, the time has come where this project is no longer scalable and it’s time to bid an end to the era. This article talks about the all the joys and the benefits that I got to experience doing this, and may we all be nostalgic about someday.

THEY’RE SOMETHING TACTILE

Pop of Colour, and by extension me, basically exist only online for the vast majority of my community. As soon as they close the tab or put their phone back in their pocket, I’m no longer real. 

Humans, like many creatures in the animal kingdom, store memories inside of physical objects. There’s a reason music fans still buy CD’s at concerts, even if they have no way to play them. It’s a souvenir.

That’s one of brilliant things about birthday cards - I’m still on the fridge, the desk, the wall, no matter the battery percentage.

IT FORCED ME TO GET TO KNOW MY AUDIENCE

One of the joys that came with handwriting birthday cards was how is forced me to get to know my audience. These weren’t a mass tweet, these were personalized. I would pull up the person on social media (since my fans are artists, these are almost always public), and scroll through their Instagram posts from the past year, to keep up with their achievements and life highlights, as well as get a general sense of their aesthetic taste.

If I didn’t have a clear annual date on the calendar to do this, I’m sure I wouldn’t have been so diligent about keeping up with their lives. Looking back, getting to know my core audience so intimately was one of the huge factors in my success building this company.

I GET A KICK OUT OF MAKING PEOPLE FEEL SPECIAL

A recent article I wrote was about how you can use your love language to make your fans feel special. One of my love languages is gift giving - in my personal life, I adore Christmas, birthdays, and any other occasion to wrap a thoughtful gift and card for my loved ones.

That’s probably why writing hundreds of birthday cards over the last few years came so easily to me. If I hadn’t gotten joy and a sense of self actualization out of the hours spent coordination cards, stickers, tape - and searching the city on a quest for limited edition Leonard Cohen postage stamps, I would have scraped this crazy scheme for a far more efficient one a long time ago.

It was an incredible journey. But after three years, things started to really break down. I always knew in my heart of hearts that this wasn’t scalable. I went from writing a dozen cards to hundreds. The vast majority of my email subscribers have never met me in real life, and I don’t begrudge them one bit for not sharing their addresses with me! Obviously, I destroyed the spreadsheet that contained the information I did have. 

If you liked this little project and want to keep it going, write to me at the address below:

Clarence Charron

Pop of Colour 

PO Box 71015 Laurier West PO

Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, 

K2P 2L9

Colourfully yours, 

- Clarence