From Our Brains to Yours
The secret for growing a giant list
It turns out that delivering something of value is the secret to building a giant list of supporters, members, clients, etc. Stunning, no?
I was wading through my “get back to this eventually” file today and across this article about the growth of Peter Shankman’s HARO (Help a Reporter Out) email list. The HARO email list grew from 3,000 subscribers to more than 40,000 in less than a year.
You might think he did it by launching a fancy website with video and polls and whatnot. Or maybe you’d think he sunk a fortune into online ads. You’d be wrong in both assumptions. The HARO list goes out three times a day, it’s a plain-text email and Peter runs HARO via a very simple webform, in which you see nothing more than the list rules and provide nothing more than your name and contact information. It started out as a Facebook group.
The HARO is huge because it fills a critical need – connecting would-be sources to journalists. The interface could be more elegant, the process could be more slick, but it doesn’t need to be because it provides value.
As is so often true, delivering true value is a secret of communications success that is easy to recognize, but hard to deliver.
-Shayna
Nice Shayna. Pretty stark contrast between this and the standard “we need your help” emails orgs send out. Congrats on the blog. Hopefully see you in DC next week!