Recently, there's been some new people added to this list, so I wanted to take a quick moment to bring both new and "seasoned" readers up to speed:
A few quick points about my work that will give you more context on what you read in this newsletter:
- I'm a full-time high school English teacher at public school in New Jersey with a decade of experience
- I host The EdTech Startup Show podcast, where I interview education entrepreneurs about business, technology, and education
- Education companies work with me to better market their products and services. I help improve their copywriting and content marketing. Here's a case study about my work.
Why an email every day?
Starting in August, I decided to write this email every day. There are a few reasons for this:
- To get better at writing - daily reps make improvement happen fast
- To publish more - I had lots of ideas that I was keeping to myself
- To sell my services - I wanted to keep in touch with folks in the education business and let them know about my offers
I wrote the first email to about 25 people, which included past clients and guests of the podcast. Today, there are 200 people on the email list. This is slow growth compared to the way that big media companies or influencers grow their list. The good thing is that everyone on the list is exactly who I want to be reading my writing: an educator interested in innovation or a professional in the education business. If you know someone who may want to read these daily emails, you can send them to this page.
One other thing that influenced my daily emails was following some of the principles from a guy called Ben Settle. He has a polarizing personality in his public persona, and has said many things I don't agree with. But he shares a valuable system for growing a business through daily email marketing that has been very valuable to me. Check him out if that piques your curiosity.
Why a podcast?
There are so many podcasts out there now that it almost seems cliche to say the words "I'm starting a podcast." However, it has been another decision I'm very grateful to have had the opportunity to make.
As with the newsletter, the podcast started at...0 listeners on day 1. Now, it gets 500 listens per month and is growing each month.
From a business perspective, here is one lesson I learned from the podcast that I had to experience to learn.
If you try to pitch people, they'll be likely to say no to you. However, if you are inviting people, they're highly likely to say yes. In other words, in the past I spent a lot of time pitching people on my services. Of course, I got plenty of "nos" and no responses, then had little to show for it.
However, when asking people to be on the podcast, the overwhelming response is "yes." Then, I build a relationship, learn from a smart person, create evergreen content others can enjoy, and network with people who could eventually help grow my business (and vice versa). I think this lesson can apply to many other businesses.
Lessons learned this year
Writing every day, as well as all of the interactions and client work that has come from it, has revealed a few lessons to me:
- You'll never be sure what works - some emails I think are great get no response. Some that I write quickly and off the cuff really resonate with people
- Consistency is an advantage - a number of people have told me, more or less, that they know I can help them because they see the work I do every day
- Think and learn in public - One year ago, when I first started the podcast, and six months ago, when I started writing daily emails, I didn't know nearly as much as I did now. However, I tried not to "fake it til I made it" and instead tried to ask the "obvious" questions and share I've learned
- Done is better than perfect - The ability to not be a perfectionist, and know that you'll get another chance tomorrow, is unbelievably freeing
- The Internet = Infinite leverage - Because of the Internet, I've been able to have conversations with people and learn from people who otherwise would've been totally inaccessible. This is possible for everyone to replicate, regardless of who you're trying to learn from or get in contact with
Mistakes made:
I initially stated with the "write it and they will come" mentality, which did not lead to getting new people to listen or read my work. This year, I'm trying to specifically focus on business development and gaining partnerships to help me expand my reach.
Aggressive marketing works until it doesn't. The first few months of emails, I used some highly emotional subject lines and stories in my writing. This got more people to open, and even got more people to respond and buy from me, but also led more people to unsubscribe.
For the future
Ultimately, I'm most interested in telling stories about education technology right now and developing theories on how it will go in the future. I also like to educate people on what has worked for me and others in terms marketing and selling an education product or service.
Where that leads me to is is eventually wanting to be a one-man media company. I get the most satisfaction out of my work writing this daily email and creating the podcast. This is also the way to reach the most scale with the ideas I share from me and others.
If you have ideas on how I could expand the reach of the newsletter or podcast, or ideas for the content you'd like to see from me, please reply and let me know.
Thanks for reading. If it wasn't for you, I'd just be talking to myself.
Gerard Dawson
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