Thanks to Lauren Meyer of Socketlabs for suggesting that Valentine’s Day was a good time for folks to share why we love email so much. Want to see what other folks are sharing? Look for the #DearEmail hashtag on Linkedin.
It should be clear to you by now that email is my favorite thing about the internet. I’ve been involved in email since 1997, starting with building spam filters and blocklists, sending double opt-in signup emails since 1998, and blogging about email since 2001. I’ve been helping marketers build and grow their email lists, guiding on best practices, and explaining how to get mail to the inbox for a long while now.
My love letter to email is a breakdown of the top three things I love about email.
FIRST: IT’S A CHANNEL WHERE THE GOOD PEOPLE (AND GOOD PRACTICES) WIN
Email marketing best practices are called that for a reason. They’re the practices that lead to email marketing success. Every once in a while somebody new parachutes in and exclaims that we need to throw out the best practices of permission and engagement. They’ve got it half right, in that we shouldn’t be afraid to learn more about how to better market products and services and better connect with our subscriber base. But they’ve got it half wrong in that definitely the wrong idea to throw away what we know works and leads to success.
Spam filters are predicated upon trying to keep inboxes free of unwanted mail. Sending wanted mail means you’re more likely to have long term inbox success. Be loved, be wanted, and be good, those are the core tenets when it comes to email marketing success. I love that about email.
SECOND: EMAIL IS AN ALTERNATIVE TO CLOSED, PROPRIETARY CHANNELS
Youtube, TikTok, and Instagram, they’re all popular content creation platforms. Beloved by many who use them to connect, share with and market to millions of people. But these channels can and do regularly shut down creators for a whole bunch of different reasons. And if one of these content creators only has that single method of connection to their user base, being de-platformed means that everything comes to a screeching halt. (And do you remember how the US came within inches of banning TikTok recently?) No more connection, no more marketing, no more revenue.
Many creators have figured out that email is the best alternative way to connect with their audience. If you’ve watched any videos or reels in 2024, then you noticed, as did I, that a ton of these content creators now ask you to come sign up for their email newsletter. Why? Because if they get kicked out of whatever current platform they call home, they’ll still have an alternative way to connect with their viewers.
I saw this over and over on Youtube in 2024. Jacob’s Life in Vegas, The Deal Guy, Tom Scott, just to name a few of the content creators I follow, have all created email newsletters. There are Youtube videos on why every creator should have an email newsletter. Kit and other platforms have whole use cases that attempt to entice creators into creating email newsletters. Why? Because it’s such a smart move.
THIRD: THE BARRIER TO ENTRY FOR EMAIL IS LOW
If you’ve got something to say and you want to share with the world, you can head on over to Ghost, Beehiiv, Substack or any number of other platforms, create a free account, and start sending email newsletters before the end of the day. You don’t have to know much about any of this whole email technology thing to get started.
If you sell products online and you want to remarket to your buyers, there are a ton of email marketing platforms out there that allow you to get a quick and easy start. And if you outgrow any of those SMB easy-start ESPs like Mailchimp, AWeber, Constant Contact, GetResponse or Klaviyo, there are fancier marketing automation tools with integrated CRM support, broader multi-channel “Marketing Clouds” and supportive MTA platforms and services / technology partners (like SocketLabs!) who can assist those with more specific needs.
In short, it’s easy to get started in email, and if needed, later scale up, if you need more marketing and automation complexity.
BONUS: THERE’S NEW STUFF TO LEARN ABOUT EMAIL TECHNOLOGY ALL THE TIME
But the technology side of things can get complex – think more of what platforms have to know versus what Joe Email User has to know. It gets a little fuzzy and the more an email marketing manager can know about email technical requirements the better off they’ll be, but that’s also why we have deliverability experts who can assist and help keep track of and explain those updated sending requirements.
And those sending requirements (and technical challenges) do keep growing and evolving. I’ve been doing this thing a long time, and I’m STILL learning something new nearly every day. From email deliverability best practices to Yahoo and Google sender requirements, to email authentication and DMARC domain protection, to the latest oddball technical glitch we’ve run across with mailbox providers caching the Public Suffix List, there is always something new and interesting to figure out or learn about.
And I love that about email. It may be a mature ecosystem, but it’s not a dead one.
Thanks to Lauren Meyer of Socketlabs for suggesting that Valentine’s Day was a good time for folks to share why we love email so much. Want to see what other folks are sharing? Look for the #DearEmail hashtag on Linkedin.
It should be clear to you by now that email is my favorite thing about the internet. I’ve been involved in email since 1997, starting with building spam filters and blocklists, sending double opt-in signup emails since 1998, and blogging about email since 2001. I’ve been helping marketers build and grow their email lists, guiding on best practices, and explaining how to get mail to the inbox for a long while now.
My love letter to email is a breakdown of the top three things I love about email.
FIRST: IT’S A CHANNEL WHERE THE GOOD PEOPLE (AND GOOD PRACTICES) WIN
Email marketing best practices are called that for a reason. They’re the practices that lead to email marketing success. Every once in a while somebody new parachutes in and exclaims that we need to throw out the best practices of permission and engagement. They’ve got it half right, in that we shouldn’t be afraid to learn more about how to better market products and services and better connect with our subscriber base. But they’ve got it half wrong in that definitely the wrong idea to throw away what we know works and leads to success.Spam filters are predicated upon trying to keep inboxes free of unwanted mail. Sending wanted mail means you’re more likely to have long term inbox success. Be loved, be wanted, and be good, those are the core tenets when it comes to email marketing success. I love that about email.
SECOND: EMAIL IS AN ALTERNATIVE TO CLOSED, PROPRIETARY CHANNELS
Youtube, TikTok, and Instagram, they’re all popular content creation platforms. Beloved by many who use them to connect, share with and market to millions of people. But these channels can and do regularly shut down creators for a whole bunch of different reasons. And if one of these content creators only has that single method of connection to their user base, being de-platformed means that everything comes to a screeching halt. (And do you remember how the US came within inches of banning TikTok recently?) No more connection, no more marketing, no more revenue.Many creators have figured out that email is the best alternative way to connect with their audience. If you’ve watched any videos or reels in 2024, then you noticed, as did I, that a ton of these content creators now ask you to come sign up for their email newsletter. Why? Because if they get kicked out of whatever current platform they call home, they’ll still have an alternative way to connect with their viewers.
I saw this over and over on Youtube in 2024. Jacob’s Life in Vegas, The Deal Guy, Tom Scott, just to name a few of the content creators I follow, have all created email newsletters. There are Youtube videos on why every creator should have an email newsletter. Kit and other platforms have whole use cases that attempt to entice creators into creating email newsletters. Why? Because it’s such a smart move.
THIRD: THE BARRIER TO ENTRY FOR EMAIL IS LOW
If you’ve got something to say and you want to share with the world, you can head on over to Ghost, Beehiiv, Substack or any number of other platforms, create a free account, and start sending email newsletters before the end of the day. You don’t have to know much about any of this whole email technology thing to get started.If you sell products online and you want to remarket to your buyers, there are a ton of email marketing platforms out there that allow you to get a quick and easy start. And if you outgrow any of those SMB easy-start ESPs like Mailchimp, AWeber, Constant Contact, GetResponse or Klaviyo, there are fancier marketing automation tools with integrated CRM support, broader multi-channel “Marketing Clouds” and supportive MTA platforms and services / technology partners (like SocketLabs!) who can assist those with more specific needs.
In short, it’s easy to get started in email, and if needed, later scale up, if you need more marketing and automation complexity.
BONUS: THERE’S NEW STUFF TO LEARN ABOUT EMAIL TECHNOLOGY ALL THE TIME
But the technology side of things can get complex – think more of what platforms have to know versus what Joe Email User has to know. It gets a little fuzzy and the more an email marketing manager can know about email technical requirements the better off they’ll be, but that’s also why we have deliverability experts who can assist and help keep track of and explain those updated sending requirements.And those sending requirements (and technical challenges) do keep growing and evolving. I’ve been doing this thing a long time, and I’m STILL learning something new nearly every day. From email deliverability best practices to Yahoo and Google sender requirements, to email authentication and DMARC domain protection, to the latest oddball technical glitch we’ve run across with mailbox providers caching the Public Suffix List, there is always something new and interesting to figure out or learn about.
Comments
Post a Comment
Comments policy: Al is always right. Kidding, mostly. Be polite, please and thank you.