Breadcrumbs and Big Ideas is where I say the quiet parts out loud. The broken systems, the bad advice, the things that should be obvious but somehow aren’t.
Always opinionated, (rarely wrong).
3 Reasons “Email Marketing Doesn’t Work for My Business” May Not Be True
If you’ve been writing emails and they still aren’t generating many sales or inquiries, it makes sense to question whether email marketing works for your business at all.
Email marketing is supposed to keep you connected with potential clients, nurture the people who aren’t ready to buy yet, and generate more inquiries and sales from the audience you’ve already worked hard to build.
Won’t Emailing My List More Just Annoy Them?
You want to stay connected to potential clients. You want people to remember what you do. You want to talk about your offers without feeling like you’re talking about some dirty secret you have to apologize for.
But before you even open your email platform, the second-guessing starts.
Didn’t I just email them?
Maybe “just” means three days ago.
Maybe it means 17 days ago and somehow still feel like everyone could use a little more breathing room before you show up in their inbox again.
So you hesitate.
You put off writing the email. You tell yourself you’ll send something later. You wait until you have a really good reason to bother them.
Because underneath all of that is the thought:
I don’t want to be annoying.
And if your own inbox is currently home to 9,482 unread emails, six “LAST CHANCE!!!” subject lines, and a company that appears determined to alert you every time a pair of leggings is 20% off, I understand why you might assume the safest move is to email your own subscribers less.
What I Learned From Bootstrapping My Own Business That Shaped My Done-for-You Email Marketing Service
There comes a point in growing a business when doing everything yourself stops saving you money.
And starts costing you.
You’re not necessarily doing anything wrong. That’s how you got through the startup phase, and you’ve probably gotten pretty good at wearing seventeen different hats.
But now there are clients to serve, decisions to make, projects to oversee, opportunities to pursue, and a million other things competing for your attention.
Email marketing is somewhere on that list.
So you send an email when you can.
Maybe you have a newsletter or send something when you have an offer to promote. You were consistent for a while, and then a client emergency happened, you launched something, or life got busy.
The Reason You Ghost Your List (and How to Stop It)
If “I should really email my list” has been sitting on your mental to-do list for the last three months, I’m sure you can guess why.
Something more pressing always wins.
A client needs something.
You have a proposal to finish.
There’s a meeting in 20 minutes.
So you tell yourself you’ll email them tomorrow.
Except tomorrow keeps moving.
A few more weeks go by, and I should email my list turns into a much more uncomfortable thought:
Is it going to be weird if I suddenly email them out of nowhere?
Behind the Scenes of Full Service Email Marketing: How I Take Email Completely Off Your Plate
The idea of outsourcing your email marketing sounds great. I mean, think about it: you’re doing the part of the work you love, working with clients, and someone else is handling the marketing.
Until you realize you’ve accidentally given yourself another job.
Let’s say you hire a copywriter, but you have to give her the topics and the talking points every month.
You task your VA with scheduling the emails, but you’re responsible for making sure she has the copy, links, images, and instructions she needs.
Maybe she runs analytics and hands you a report full of percentages with arrows pointing up or down. You still have to figure out what it all means and what you should do differently next month.
Technically, you’ve outsourced your email marketing.
Which is fine if the only thing you wanted was to outsource execution.
But if you actually want to stop being responsible for email marketing, you need someone who can take responsibility for keeping it moving without waiting for you to tell her what to do next.
Why Your Marketing Isn’t Leading to More Clients (And How to Fix It)
Maybe this sounds familiar. You’re posting on social media because you know you’re supposed to stay visible. You send emails when you can, or maybe
Quirk & Quill helps small businesses shape clear, confident, gutsy messaging with strategy and copywriting that actually sound like you. Whether it’s branding, content, or campaigns, I co-write with AI (and a whole lot of human intuition) to bring your ideas to life.
I'll tell you mine if you tell me yours.
Will you get sales emails? Yes. You’ll also get insights distilled from almost 20 years of experience that most strategists charge for (and the occasional truth bomb nobody asked for, but everybody needs.)
That’s just how we roll.
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