S10 E6 Make email the backbone of your marketing – maintain control. With Jeremy Gray

Sahil Lavingia in his book “The Minimalist Entrepreneur – How Great Founders do more with less” Twitter, YouTube, Instagram, and Facebook can take away your business at any time by changing the algorithms, shutting down your account, or making you pay to turn up. Social media is a great place to gain distribution but you are building on rented land. Once you have social media followers, start building an email list. Email is a peer-to-peer network giving you a direct line to your customers. This is not controlled by anyone but yourself, not at the mercy of an algorithm or whether you spend money. The author’s position is that when someone gives you their e-mail address they are your friend, not a stranger. But it is very easy to lose that friendship. You would not spam your friends so you should not spam these contacts either. I have had some bad experiences recently. Look I get it, a business owner has spent time to develop a piece of useful content, or to produce a YouTube video. If I want more, then I buy the additional information such as an e-book, with my email address. And I know I will get some follow up e-mails and if they are not to frequent and add to my knowledge, provide inspiration, or entertain me that is fair enough. But sometimes I find I have opened myself up to a barrage of emails that are thinly disguised sales pitches. That’s not what I signed up for. I unsubscribe and no longer consider the sender my friend. Just as described in Season 8 episode 41, for any type of content you produce, ensure your emails first educate, second inspire and finally entertain. And only send out an email when you have something useful to say.