I’ve tried to consistently keep a newsletter many times over my 8 years of blogging. And I just couldn’t do it.
So I eventually gave up on trying. But the more and more social media takes over our lives, the more I want to focus on my website and growing connections with the audience I already have. And that’s where the newsletter idea popped back into my mind. I don’t really consider myself super creative. I kind of always just went with the flow, didn’t really put a ton of effort into trying to be creative. But writing. I could write for days.
I love writing and I love making connections. So a newsletter honestly makes PERFECT sense for me. Over the last few months of being at home, I’ve actually turned to my inbox more than ever. I LOVE newsletters. I obviously make sure only to sign up for newsletters that I truly want to read. And that’s what I want The Casual Corner to be for YOU.
why i started the casual corner
I started
The Casual Corner
because I wanted to make sure I was giving my audience another chance to really connect with me. I really think I have an amazing audience and I feel very lucky about that. I wanted to make sure I was providing something valuable — even if that meant just allowing us to connect more!
I also wanted to be creative. Since I just CANNOT get on board with videos, Reels, or TikTok, I figured a newsletter would be a great space for me to be creative and step outside my comfort zone of blog posts and
Instagram
. While I’m already pretty personal around here, I get
even more personal
over on
The Casual Corner
.
so, what is the casual corner?
The Casual Corner
is a place where you’ll get to know me, Dana, on an entirely different level. When you first sign up for
The Casual Corner
, you’ll receive a Welcome series, where I tell you a little more about myself, share personal stories of how I got to this point today, and what you can expect going forward. From there you’ll receive 1-2 EXCLUSIVE emails per month. This can be a whole range of things: tips, tricks, personal stories, and ways we can truly become Internet besties! My very first exclusive email goes out
THIS WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 26th!
So make sure you
sign up
!!! I would quite literally LOVE. YOU. FOREVER.
And if you’re already signed up, I LOVE YOU FOREVER.
long form content = connections
I think over the years, I really learned that CONNECTING with your audience is what makes YOU unique as a blogger/influencer/whatever you want to call it. There’s a lot of successful people out there who don’t give a shit about who follows them. And that makes me a little sad. I want people who follow me to
know
about me, and I want to
know
about them.
One of my biggest realizations was that I’m good at connecting with my audience because I actually do care. I noticed whenever I was putting out long form content on the blog, I would get a much larger response from people. That’s when I really started combining my outfit photos with longer, more meaningful content. There’s SO much I want to say and DO around here, and I think the newsletter provides that cool, exclusive platform for me.
you control your list
Between TikTok news and Instagram glitches, there’s more than enough reasons why you should create something other than a space on social media. Although it likely will not happen, Instagram can shut down TOMORROW. And a lot of people would be stuck with absolutely nothing. I’ve heard too many stories about people who put A TON of effort into their Instagram accounts, only to have them hacked and deleted (PS: You better have 2-step authentication on ALL your platforms).
I’m still in the process of really learning about newsletters, but there’s SO much you can do. Segmenting is my new favorite thing because it will allow me to tailor content for subscribers and give everyone what they want. It’s actually all very interesting. When people trust you with their email addresses, that means they really want to hear what you have to say. So with that, comes a job to provide valuable content for them. Having an email list allows you to dig deeper into analytics, see what your super loyal readers/followers are loving and not loving, and give them some special attention.
Since I’m so excited to be talking about newsletters, I’m going to do an entire post about how I design and edit my newsletters in a new-to-me platform!