Email And Owning Your List/Community
Email marketing and newsletters are all the rage. Owning your community is key.
Email can be the bane of many of our lives. It just keeps gathering in our inboxes and sometimes it feels hopeless trying to quell the onslaught. But there is still something about email (both email marketing and newsletters) that works.
As I see it, there are two types of emails: the newsletter and the promotional or informational email.
The latter can seem much more like traditional physical direct mail and is something we're constantly trying to fight to reclaim our inboxes.
The newsletter on the other hand is a different beast.
Enter The Newsletter
Blogs are still here, but newsletters have taken over. Platforms like Ghost, Substack, Beehiiv, and others allow writers to share their ideas with their own community that they control and can move from service to service without the fear of being locked out of a platform.
Newsletters come in all types. But one thing sets the apart from other emails – they are informational and not transactional.
They share a story, message, or tips about a subject.
This is the email people actually signup for and want to get.
The Other Type Of Email
Now on the flip side are the transactional emails. These aren't "evil" per se and can provide information and promotions that people want to get. And guess what they work, often better than those social media ads that seem to know everything about you. (Those, IMHO are Evil!).
Promoting and selling via email isn't new. But the techniques have evolved. And you can clearly see those vendors who have evolved as well.
And you know what? Even with transactional emails you own your audience. No big corporate overlord can keep you from those who want to hear from you.
In the end, done right email can be a powerful medium for sales and information delivery. Done incorrectly your audience, like in all things, will walk away.
What do you think? Do you engage with newsletters and emails differently than you do with social media posts and ads? Let me know in the comments!
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Web Jawn
Nilay Patel
I can see it both ways. AI can be good, but used the wrong way... you get the point.
Automattic · May 29, 2025
This is good to see that the teams at Automattic, the company that does a lot for WordPress, is growing up and coming back to help make the CRM the best it can be. Mary Hubbard, the executive director of the open source project is probably getting Matt Mullenweg to be more reasonable.
Kevin Ryan
Interesting POV. And I tend to agree with Kevin on this, search is going though some sh!t right now. 🤣😏
Barry Schwartz
This could be a cool feature. And no ads?! I'll believe that when I see it.
Tom Webster
Podcasting is unique. And this just proves it. Advertising on podcasts in the right demographic is a great way to get your company or product out there.
BBC News
Man this is a match made in heaven. The fact that any company is willing to go within a mile of Grok is surprising to me. 🫢
Mike Elgan
Mike brings up a good point. And yes, the user is to blame. Use AI to aid you in tasks, not replace you verbatim. IMHO 🙄🤣
James Cridland
Not surprised by the opaque algo, but also not expecting any niche podcasts to show up either. I'll be pleasantly surprised if they do.
Rae Morey
WordPress, the dominant open source CRM is 22. A lot has changed in the last two years since it turned 20. Here's hoping the drama settles down and things get brighter. 🌞
Rae Morey
Even WordPress is getting into the AI game. I mean they should. But, I'll be watching intently to see how things go with it.
Sarah Perez
Yuck! Can be disabled, but still it's opt-out not opt-in.
Ken Metral
I can see this being very handy in call centers and on IVR (interactive voice response) systems.
M.G. Siegler
Things don't look good for Apple right now.
casabona
Great points made by my buddy Joe Casabona about AI and how you still need a human and know what you're doing to really make it work.
Emmeline Berry
Big news that a very popular podcast listening app is supporting a key tag in the Podcasting 2.0 spec to help support your favorite podcasters! Way to go Pocket Casts!
Noor Al-Sibai
Snake eating its own tail!
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Web Find
Joseph Cox
This is a clever way of communicating with your operatives abroad.
I want one. But $3k? Yikes!
Kyle Wiggers
This is cool. I love how it was quietly released as to not take any news cycles away from the main AI models and happenings with Gemini.
Sean Tilley
FediForum is back and I'm excited to be attending as much of it as I can.
Truth! And scary how easy this was to be done.
That's It For This Week! Keep Rocking It!
-Seth
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