I was hoping you'd take a look at these numbers.
I'm resending this to you, Reader, because I got a lot of great feedback from readers and I wanted to be sure you saw it:
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Dear Reader,
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At the beginning of this year, I set several business goals for myself and I started using a simple system to track my progress.
Because my business is new, two of my top goals are: getting more visibility and expanding my reach. Therefore, I keep a spreadsheet of my community growth activities that I update every month. I just love to tally up the gains!
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Now that the first quarter is over (what-the-what?!), I thought I'd share with you, O Loyal Subscriber, how things are looking to date. (And let you know how you can help boost my numbers by engaging with me in other places, if you wish.π)
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As you can see, after the first quarter of 2021, I am just about half way to my community growth goals. Keeping track this way let's me see what areas are getting the best response and what needs more attention.
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You might be wondering, Reader, whether or not all this community-building activity has any impact on my bottom line. Time will tell. But when I started this business I asked myself one very important question:
Does it make more sense to focus on finding clients who will be added to a distribution list or to build a community that I can turn into clients?
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I went with the latter because, although it may be the long game, it's the surest way to build a strong foundation for the type of business model I want to use and will allow me to make this one-woman show scalable.
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Likewise, building community for your organization can either be a strategy or a byproduct. It can be a way to continuously find and recruit new members & donors or it can be a transaction-based afterthought. It can be a means for making connections and providing value or it can simply be a listserv.
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Would your organization benefit from shifting the way you think about and use your database of contacts? What would happen if you used your email list to bring people in rather than push information out?
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I'd love to hear your thoughts about this - drop me a line and tell me your views on email marketing and community building.
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Oh, and as promised, here are the places I'm most active other than your inbox:
- βChangemakers, private Facebook group - join this group to link up with other nonprofit leaders as a resource.
- βLinkedIn - connect with me here to be a part of my professional network.
- βLinkedIn Business Page - show your support by following my page.
- βFacebook Business Page - the more followers, the merrier!
- βClubhouse - connect with me here to talk about nonprofit topics and anything else under the sun! (If you need an invitation, I have 6 available).
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Keep Up the Good Work,
Bernadette
Bernadette Mack, LLC
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