Issue #164 All About Email

Hi, friend. 👋

Welcome to Issue #163 of All About Email!

Last week, we discussed Apple Business Connect, Branded Email, and its impact on email marketing. That email blew up, so if you haven’t read it, check it out (and thank you to everyone for their feedback, comments, and interactions on social media).

This week is inspired by a comment from Dan Oshinsky on LinkedIn. It stopped me in my tracks…

Let’s go! 👇

Should You Link Our Your Newsletter?

🚨 Below is Dan’s comment on LinkedIn that stopped me in my tracks. It stopped me because I write long newsletters, as most of you will know (and this one is no exception).

So, what did Dan say…

🧠 Now Dan caveats this with it doesn’t matter to him what you or I do friend, and this strategy might not work for everyone but explains why he always links out.

I subscribe to Dan’s newsletter (it’s brilliant), but a “link out” like I’ve just shared is not what he’s talking about.

💡 Dan talks about long-form content in emails.

Considerations & Advantages of “Linking Out”

Dan explains in his LinkedIn post and comments his reasons for linking our from his newsletter to articles on his website rather than writing the article as a newsletter:

• It’s unlikely anyone will read 3,000 - 5000 words on their phone.

• It’s complex to track how much time people spend reading a newsletter.

• It’s easier to track people's time reading an article on your website.

• When website articles are shared, Dan has different tactics to convert these shares to newsletter subscribers.

“Read time” might not be vital to you friend, and as Dan says above, you must find the metrics that matter to you.

⚡️ Dan has an excellent post on this topic, “25 Ways to Measure the Success of Your Newsletter.”

What If You Don’t “Link Out”

🧠 My newsletter last week was 720 words (short by standards) and performed exceptionally well, but this had more to do with the timely, actionable topic.

While my emails are not 3,000 - 5,000 words, they are frequently around 900 - 1,000 (like this one), and “I would like” people to primarily read them on their phones.

✅ Realistically, I agree with Dan (and my metrics confirm this); not everyone will read my emails on their phones, but many of you do!

Thank you. 🙏

So, if you’re like me friend, and you don’t want to “link out”, what can you do? This is what works for me and might work for you.

As well as sending out your newsletter, create a web version:

• This gives readers a choice of where they want to read your newsletter.

• Potentially good for SEO (depending on your content 😉).

• It allows you (and your readers) to share quickly on social media and subscribe via RSS (if enabled).

• If your ESP (newsletter platform) offers these features, enable comments and reactions to help build a community around your newsletter.

💡 Depending on your ESP and what they provide, you can add an audio version of your newsletter to the web and make it even more accessible.

Beehiv allows me to easily add this audio version, add an RSS feed and create a website hosting all of my newsletters in one place.

⚡️ For the version of my newsletter that lands in your inbox, I:

• Encourage people to reply to my emails (which is often easier than leaving a comment on a website)

• I include an easy share email icon at the top of all emails, creating a pre-filled email ready to send and share with your colleagues.

• A “read online” link to the web version in case a reader prefers to read or continue reading on the web.

• Sometimes, exclusive content for my subscribers is only available in the email version of my newsletter.

❤️ “Hopefully”, between Dan and I, we’ve got you covered, friend.

Whether you write long-form content and want to “link out” or primarily keep the content in your newsletter, or you’re unsure what to do, you’ve got food for thought and sound advice.

That’s it for This Week 👋

⏭️ Next week, I’m going to be starting a new mini-series!! It’s very exciting, and it’s all based on this LinkedIn post:

See you next week! 😀

Sponsorship Opportunities

🚨 If you’re interested in sponsoring the “All About Email” newsletter, you can find all the details in this Google Doc. I currently have “Classified” slots and a Main Sponsor slot available.

Email Marketing News & Tips

This week's excellent and insightful email news & tips:

• Don’t Do That - Wanting to abandon email open rates because Apple is inflating them? (Travis Hazlewood)

• Recap - Litmus Live: Highlights from all four days. (Litmus)

• New Tool Alert - Email Transformer: A free resource that takes a basic HTML email template and (does its best) converts that to a Marketo email template with all the syntax goodies included. (Mollie McIntyre)

• Gmail Annotations - Here's your chance to get ahead of the competition. (The House of Email)

• Call for Speakers - A roster of potential speakers interested in upcoming opportunities (more information). (Naomi West)

• Invest in You - A Guide to Email Marketing for Online Courses. (Email Tooltester)

• Deliverability Tip - How to Diagnose an Unexpected Drop in Open Rates and Engagement. (Inbox Collective)

• Painful for Now - The Future of Deliverability. (Word to the Wise)

• Tricky - From Sweet to Sweeter in CRM: 3 Tricks to Avoid & 3 Treats to Delight Your Customers.
(Action Rocket)

• Apple - Big changes ahead. (Spam Resource)

• Mailchimp Q&A - Ask a Mailchimp Expert Anything (Webinar). (Emily Ryan & Kristy McCarley)

• Audience Analyser - This free tool analyzes multiple Mailchimp audiences, highlighting contacts appearing in multiple audiences with varying subscription statuses. (Gary Eckstein)

If you have a question about this email or email marketing, reply, and I will answer you as soon as possible.

I hope you have a great week! 👋