Hey,

Everyone is in a different place with something like email marketing, so I’m going to cover a range of topics this summer for those beginning with email (or just befuddled!), intermediate users looking to level up, and a few for the experts as well.

I’ll make sure there’s something in each email for everyone.

This week we are covering a more advanced topic but let me throw some meat into the beginner cage first.

Don’t Be Afraid Of Email!

I was a little surprised to see a recent survey of authors showed that around half of authors either haven’t started a mailing list yet or have less than 100 subscribers.

If you haven’t started a mailing list yet, I suspect that’s down to not realizing the full power of email marketing, and how it can allow you to forge amazing connections with your readers, and how this will turn your email list into a sales-generating machine. Read more on the unique power of email marketing here.

But if you have started your list, and just haven't got going yet, then you’ll get lots of tips here over the summer. 

For now, I recommend watching a livestream I did in November which covered lots of basic topics like how to write compelling emails, the ways in which you can increase that subscriber account, and common mistakes you must avoid. Warning: the picture quality of the stream gets corrupted part way through but the audio is solid throughout. Just pretend it’s a podcast (or that I am some form of shapeshifter). Watch my stream How To Sell More Books With Email here.

Final bit of advice for beginners: don’t panic! There’s a lot to learn, but you don’t need to do it overnight. Take your time, take it piece by piece. Explore all the free resources above (which also link to even more resources). Want a great book on the topic? Newsletter Ninja by Tammi Labrecque is amazing. Read my totally biased review of it here.

Slaying Myths Around Email Providers

Today we are going to slay one of the biggest myths around email and save you from making decisions which are only going to cost you time and money for rather questionable upside.

We all want to get our emails into readers’ inboxes but sometimes the debate around that is ill-informed, and I see authors making huge decisions like switching provider based on what can only be described as a misunderstanding of certain technical aspects.

I regularly see such debates around which email marketing service is best – well-intentioned debates, I should stress, but misleading nonetheless. I watch authors posting about some frustrating issue they are having with emails not being delivered, or open rates falling, and pointing the finger at one company or another.

Many of these discussions miss the point because if you are using a reputable provider then successful delivery of emails is mostly down to you.

Your sender reputation, your subscriber list, your email content. 

The differences between providers – when it comes to delivering emails – is way overplayed. But let’s talk about those providers for a moment.

I currently use ConvertKit and MailerLite for different things and I recommend both.

Both of those links are affiliate links but let me be brutally honest here: the differences between those two companies vs. all the other other competent, established, legitimate providers like Active Campaign, Mailchimp, Constant Contact, Aweber etc. etc. is going to be minor when it comes to the all-important task of delivering your emails safely.

That’s not to say there aren’t big differences between some of these companies in other areas – there are!

My point is that the discussion around which company is better in terms of delivering emails is wrong-headed, because what you are doing matters way more than the particular company you choose. 

Your sender reputation, your subscriber list, your email content.

I also don’t necessarily recommend all the providers mentioned above for different reasons (like price, features, ease of use, and so on). But in terms of delivering emails specifically, the main email companies are all broadly similar.

I do recommend MailerLite and ConvertKit because that’s what I use. And I chose them because I think they are the best at what they do, with the most useful features at the best price, and so on.

I’ll detail the differences between the two in a future email or video, but the short version is that MailerLite is cheaper and easier to use (for beginners especially) and has a more accessible interface.

ConvertKit is more robust in my experience, with less technical issues and more complex automations, plus more tools for people who want to do things like sell direct from their website, or who get into more advanced email marketing generally.

Both are solid choices, though, with an excellent set of features which will cover most author needs. 

The two of them are far superior, in my opinion, to more well-known services like Mailchimp – which I used for years but no longer feel comfortable recommending. And both have solid free plans where you can test them out before having to pay anything.

MailerLite’s free plan is especially generous in terms of the features it gives you access to (whereas someone like Mailchimp gives you such a hobbled feature set that it makes it very hard for beginners to grow their list – so don’t be seduced by the marketing). But ConvertKit has also greatly improved its free plan over the last year (which was needed – it was very limited in the past).

Enough about providers for now. The takeaway there is if you are using a reputable one, then you can probably safely assume that they are doing all the technical bits on their side to ensure safe delivery – and doing a reasonably good job of it too.

The real variable here is you. Your sender reputation, your subscriber list, your email content.

In other words, if lots of your emails are dropping into Promotions, the problem is not with your provider, but with something on your side of the fence. Changing provider won’t fix that.

(For various boring technical reasons, changing provider can sometimes result in a temporary bump or dip in open rates, but that’s not what we’re talking about here.)

If lots of your emails are dropping into Spam, the problem is almost certainly not with your provider, but something, again, on your side of the fence. Changing provider won’t fix that either.

I’m not saying you should never change provider, but I am saying that doing so won’t fix these problems and this is a mistake I see authors making regularly. They see a dip in opens, or a subdued book launch, or a spike in unsubscribes, or whatever, and they blame the provider. And then they go to the trouble of switching provider… and run into the same problems again, invariably.

So, one of the things I’m going to do over the next few months is identify common problems that authors have with email, and give actual solutions, not just lazily tell you to change provider.

But if you want some tips in the meantime on how to increase the open rate of your emails, then watch this video.

Dave

P.S. Writing music this week is Talking Heads with Big Country.