Mailing lists: do you have one? do they make a difference?

[punkarsenic]

I use a mailing list for an event I run and I find it's pretty useful for developing a community, although pretty difficult to get signups (esp bc of gdpr making it a lil more complicated) and i wondered if anyone has found mailing lists to be useful for webcomics?

on one hand, its a way to connect a following across platforms and keep people up to date on various projects - but on the other, it's a bit defunct if you mainly/only work out of tapas or webtoons, which have a lot of notification functions anyway, and maybe things like twitter and instagram kinda take over that function in a lot of ways.

What do you think? Have you come across mailing lists being used for webcomics? Would you say they're useful? Would you ever make one or sign up to one?

[skicoak]

Isn't the follow function on most social media sites fundamentally a mailing list?

That's how I've always perceived it. Especially since it doesn't have to be reciprocal, even though that's how it's often left.

[Klaustasya]

God i've been dying to have a mailing list to attract people to my online shop one day....how do you get one in the first place?

[punkarsenic]

i feel like the difference is a mailing list goes direct into someones inbox, whereas a social media following goes into an aggregated dashboard - so a mailing list is a bit more direct, maybe more personal, and needs to be more carefully curated to make sure youre never wasting peoples time. if you sent out an email abt your lunch, thats annoying, if you post a tweet abt it thats like, whatever.

God i've been dying to have a mailing list to attract people to my online shop one day....how do you get one in the first place?

mailchimp my dude! it gives u the lil signup box n keeps the lists neat n tidy for u, helps u make pretty looking emails too

[Klaustasya]

What is mailchimp XD i'm totally clueless here ahaha

[NanettesClouds]

Another benefit of a mailing list is that people tend to keep the same email for years or even decades. Meanwhile social media sites, as omnipresent as they may seem, probably won’t be around, or work in the same way 30 years from now.

I don’t currently have a mailing list but it’s on my to-do list to set one up after I graduate and start taking all of this comics stuff a bit more seriously

[skicoak]

if you sent out an email abt your lunch, thats annoying,

I'll have you know my emails about my lunches are fabulous! Two have been optioned by Tri-Star Pictures for script development.

And maybe I'm missing something, could you provide a more specific example of how you're tailoring E-mails versus what you'd send to say your comic's Facebook page?

[NanettesClouds]

So - I’m not @punkarsenic but I can answer your question.

An email news letter tends to look like a, well a newsletter. It collects and distributes all of the major developments in your career since the previous newsletter. I haven’t done a newsletter but I have done “monthly” news blog posts on my Patreon if you want to see an example... or you can probably find a newsletter in your inbox.

Meanwhile a social media post is a social media post.

The difference isn’t nessesarialy in the content, but in the quantity and frequency and audience of the medium.

[punkarsenic]

its a website!

Marketing Platform for Small Businesses | Mailchimp

[punkarsenic]

Another benefit of a mailing list is that people tend to keep the same email for years or even decades. Meanwhile social media sites, as omnipresent as they may seem, probably won’t be around, or work in the same way 30 years from now.

good point!

And maybe I'm missing something, could you provide a more specific example of how you're tailoring E-mails versus what you'd send to say your comic's Facebook page?

so, an example insta feed (dont use facebook sadly ) vs an example email feed:

insta:
- photo of a wip
- video of working on it
- my cat
- in the studio
- promoting an update!
- screencap from update
- before and after
- teaser from another project
- etc

daily posts, mostly of little consequence except getting a window into my work life

email feed:
- announcing new project x!
- its the end of the chapter, do you wanna take a feedback survey?
- hello new year, hello new chapter
- website redesign!
- did you know im on patreon?

etc, announcements with more substance and interest, probably one a month tops

potentially you could use a mailing list as an update notification, but i feel like if ur on tapas or webtoons thats a bit moot and if ur on ur own site getting ppl to subscribe to an rss feed is a lot less work for the same results

[StorySeamstress]

I think mailing lists are important because it's a direct line from you to your fans, not dependent on a third party like a social media platform where things might get shut down or your posts might get lost in the update feed. Also, if people have gone to the trouble to subscribe to a mailing list, they're probably enough of a fan of your work to be interested in learning more about/supporting your projects.

I have a newsletter for my other illustration projects (I've done a coloring book and a children's book on Kickstarter and have a several hundred address mailing list from that) and when I recently plugged my Webcomic Patreon to that mailing list, I immediately got a couple of patrons who were fans of my other work.

I'm planning to start a mailing list specifically for Imaginarium with a sign-up page through mailchimp. I'll offer some incentive (immediately get a free wallpaper!--something like that) for joining the mailing list, then only send out emails when there's something big to announce (Kickstarter, new project, etc.)

Incidentally, if any of you DO have a mailing list, what are the incentives you've used to encourage signups? I don't know if the Spaceboy creator is building a list this way, but I know in the past he had a printable paper figures set of his characters available...that could be a fun incentive, too. Hmm... after I rebuild my 2019 buffer I'll have to give it some thought...