Email And Owning Your List/Community

Email marketing and newsletters are all the rage. Owning your community is key.

AI Graphic of a cute dog delivering email through the Internet.
ChatGPT

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!


The Latest From The Entrepreneur's Enigma Podcast

https://entrepreneursenigma.com/alexanderconcepcion

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Web Jawn

Microsoft CTO Kevin Scott on the birth of the agentic web
How Microsoft sees the future of AI agents merging with the open web. 

I can see it both ways. AI can be good, but used the wrong way... you get the point.

Returning to Core
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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.

Search is having a midlife crisis. And it’s glorious.
AI didn’t kill search. It might’ve accidentally brought it back to life.

Interesting POV. And I tend to agree with Kevin on this, search is going though some sh!t right now. 🤣😏

Google Lens coming to YouTube Shorts
Google said that during the beta period, there won’t be any ads.

This could be a cool feature. And no ads?! I'll believe that when I see it.

The Podcasting Advertising Anomaly: New Research on Attention and Gender - Sounds Profitable
For all that has happened in the industry, data like The Advertising Landscape shows podcast advertising… just works. Always has.

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.

Telegram announces partnership with Musk’s xAI
The $300m deal, which will last one year, will see xAI’s assistant Grok integrated into Telegram.

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. 🫢

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I don’t even know why people are asking this question. Of course the user is to blame. Here’s why.

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 🙄🤣

Spotify adds podcast discovery to the home screen
A set of new discovery tools, with an opaque algorithm

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.

WordPress Turns 22: Celebrations, Reflections, and the Road Ahead
From cakes and community meetups to questions about leadership and governance, WordPress’s 22nd birthday comes at a turning point for the open-source project.

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. 🌞

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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.

Gemini will now automatically summarize your long emails unless you opt out | TechCrunch
Google is putting AI to work on your inbox, whether or not it’s something you want to use.

Yuck! Can be disabled, but still it's opt-out not opt-in.

ElevenLabs debuts Conversational AI 2.0 for enterprises
ElevenLabs debuts Conversational AI 2.0 with smarter, multilingual voice agents, RAG support, and enterprise-grade features.

I can see this being very handy in call centers and on IVR (interactive voice response) systems.

Profiles in Courage: Apple Edition
When an event decline is sign of decline…

Things don't look good for Apple right now.

Why AI Only Works When You Already Know What You’re Doing
I’ve written a few times about how my father and brother-in-law have helped me with home improvement projects. They both have so many tools; when we built the fence, my brother-in-law brought his auger, a two-person hand operated drill. It’s an area where I’m nearly completely inept. I don’t know what I’m doing, and I can’t even really think properly…

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.

Supporting Your Favorite Podcasts with Funding
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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!

AI Models Show Signs of Falling Apart as They Ingest More AI-Generated Data
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Snake eating its own tail!


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Web Find

The CIA Secretly Ran a Star Wars Fan Site
The site, starwarsweb.net, was a covert CIA communications tool. It has pictures of Yoda and C-3PO on it.

This is a clever way of communicating with your operatives abroad.

Sign:  AT THE END OF THE DAY, I'D RATHER BE EXCLUDED FOR WHO I INCLUDE THAN BE INCLUDED FOR WHO I EXCLUDE.
Needs to be said.
This is so cool.
Hugging Face to sell open-source robots thanks to Pollen Robotics acquisition 🤖
We’re on a journey to advance and democratize artificial intelligence through open source and open science.

I want one. But $3k? Yikes!

Google quietly released an app that lets you download and run AI models locally | TechCrunch
Last week, Google quietly released an app, Google AI Edge Gallery, that lets users run a range of openly available AI models from the AI dev platform Hugging Face on their phones.

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.

FediForum is Back! - We Distribute
Following community controversy and postponement, the Fediverse’s most popular unconference is back on track. Here’s the details on the next event!

FediForum is back and I'm excited to be attending as much of it as I can.

Source

Truth! And scary how easy this was to be done.


That's It For This Week! Keep Rocking It!

-Seth


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