od·ys·sey (d-s)
n. pl. od·ys·seys
- An extended adventurous voyage or trip
- An intellectual or spiritual quest
Welcome to our mailing list – named the Odyssey to reflect the fact that we, along with you, are on our own extended voyage.
What You’ll Get When You Join The Odyssey
I hate mailing lists…so much so that if you scroll to the bottom, you can read the first email I sent out to our mailing list in 2010. But everyone says you’ve got to have one, so this is ours…
When you join The Odyssey, this is what will happen…
~ You’ll get one email a month – on rare occasions maybe a couple more but you certainly won’t be bombarded with emails from us.
~ The email will contain a “behind the scenes” update of our journey, often in the form of “Lessons Learned” since we’re always, always, always learning something new; it’ll also contain an update from Location Independent HQ (which travels with us wherever we are) – it won’t quite be warts & all but almost.
~ We’ve got a pretty full and exciting launch schedule this year so I will try & let you know about new stuff before we announce it on the blog, Facebook or anywhere else but it might not always happen like that.
Want To Join?
If you’d like to join The Odyssey, please sign up below. You’ll be sent a confirmation email, so look out for that in your inbox and if you don’t receive it within 5-10 minutes, check your SPAM or Junk folder in case it’s gone there. If you still don’t receive it, drop us a line and we’ll see if we can help.
The First Email of 2010
This is the first email you’ve had from us in a long while which, given that this is supposed to be a priority updates mailing list, is not brilliant. I’d like to explain why.
…There have been plenty of opportunities to send out an email to you – if you follow the blog or follow me on Twitter or on Facebook, you’ll know we’ve launched a few new things in the past few months, like Location Independent Parents and Location Independent TV.
Being on the priority updates list, you’d have been right to expect a heads up of these – but you didn’t receive one. It’s partly been a case of just one more thing to try & fit in but it’s also a fact that I personally have always felt very uncomfortable about mailing lists.
As someone who started off following all the IM “experts”, mailing lists were must-haves if you wanted to sell anything online. Woebetide anyone who tried to lauch a product without a decent mailing list.
And so I’d got it into my head that mailing lists are sales tools and that’s how they should be used..but I hate pushy sales tactics & all that IM stuff. I’ve tried crafting compelling emails (not me) and it just felt sleazy. And so I wasn’t sure what to write in these emails without sounding pushy, salesy and all the things I dislike about the whole email marketing thing. So I didn’t write anything at all.
And then I signed up to Chris Brogan’s email list…and saw the light. It is a shining example of how to “do” emails to a mailing list without being sales-y, while still enabling you to build up a list and simply use it as another communication channel. If you haven’t signed up, it’s well worth it.
So going forward, that’s what I hope to do with emails to you guys on our mailing list. And this is how it’s going to work:
- We will send one email out a month, unless there’s something I think you really should get a heads up on and it can’t wait.
- The email will contain a “behind the scenes” update of what’s been going on with us personally & at Location Independent HQ (which travels with us wherever we are) – it won’t quite be warts & all but almost.
- I will also let you know about anything that’s coming up on the radar, as we’ve got a pretty full and exciting launch schedule this year. I will try & let you know about it before we announce it on the blog, Facebook or anywhere else but it might not always happen like that.
If that sounds like something you’d enjoy, then do hang around – and feel free to let me know what you think or if there’s anything else you’d like to read in the mails.
