The Fireside

I almost never play video games.

But there was a time where I would watch playthroughs of games that had a great story (eg The Last of Us)

In my mind, it was like watching a longer movie.

And I always used to watch this specific YouTuber playing these games, because I enjoyed his commentary and his personality.

That's great. But then he did something that made his viewers stick with him even more than before.

He started releasing these 'Fireside Chat' videos every 1-2 weeks.

In these videos he'd just have either b-roll from a quick-action game (eg Call of Duty) or a GIF with a fireplace... and he'd just talk about how life's been lately.

He'd talk about his weight-loss efforts and all the new recipes he discovered because of it.

He'd talk about his martial arts lessons he started.

He'd talk about all sorts of things — like he was sitting by the fireplace with the viewer and just... chatting.

This made the feeling of him being your friend even stronger than before. And of course, when a new game comes out, who are you going to watch playing it?

Of course you'll watch your friend!

Now, I don't think he had thought all of this through so much. He just wanted to connect more with his audience.

(Or maybe he HAD thought it through, in which case he's a genius for making it seem so natural and casual).

If you're building an email list for the long term, you can (and probably should) do the same thing.

It doesn't need to have a strict schedule — although you could establish Fireside Fridays or something — but every now and then, you could send an email that's just a Fireside chat to pull your subscribers deeper into your world.

Like I said, just like many other Email Archetypes, this is a long-term play and you won't see the results from Day 1, but that doesn't mean it's not worth doing.

In fact, it's the opposite — the ones that take the longest to work are often the ones worth doing the most.