Why I Don’t Do ‘Autoresponder’ Emails

Another question from last week’s multi-email “half-marathon”:

Josh – is this email part of a campaign or do you write broadcasts?

Also, do you batch write your daily emails? Or write daily?

I get this one a LOT, often from subscribers who’d written in with questions and were excited that I’d answered them “on the air,” so to speak.

Most of the emails I send are “live,” i.e. broadcasts rather than canned autoresponders.

The only exceptions are my welcome emails and any email courses you might sign up for.

I do this for a couple of reasons.

(These are highly relevant to anyone who’s debated between autoresponders and broadcasts, so listen up!)

First of all, writing a killer autoresponder series is HARD.

You never really know what’s going to resonate with your audience.

By doing lots of broadcast emails, I get realtime feedback about what lights my subscribers up.

For example, that multi-part series from last week generated a ton of enthusiastic replies, both on the format and the topic (outsourcing).

Later if I want I can take the best of the best of my broadcasts and put them into an autoresponder, and I’ll KNOW that I have a strong series.

Second, writing regularly keeps me sharp.

That’s why I choose to do an email every day rather than writing them in batches once a week or once a month.

Sure in theory that would be more “efficient.”

Just like it’s more efficient to go to the gym once a month for 18 hours rather than training for 30 minutes a day.

Steady, habitual practice is the route to mastery.

And writing emails is a highly profitable skill—one well worth mastering in my book.