My most asked email marketing question in interviews is...

What do you predict is going to happen to emails in 2025? What should we pay attention to?

And this year, for the first time ever, my answer is different than it ever has been in the past.

In the past, my answer has always been, segmentation. And it still is the number one thing you can do to get into more inboxes.

But the question was, what do you think is going to happen to emails in 2025? And that's an easy one for me because it's already happening now.

Email will outperform social media as your most powerful tool for driving sales.

Bold statement I know. What do I even mean?

So, today is March 18. How confident are you that your favourite social media platform is showing your content to more than 10% of your followers? How confident are you that when you post something, it's getting shown to the same number of followers as it was in 2024? How confident are you that your own social media algorithm is showing you the content that you came for, instead of the content it wants you to see?

Now let me ask you how confident you are that your social media channel ad spend is going to bring you the returns you need to remain profitable all year long? How confident are you that the social media platform you're using has your profit in its best interests?

For those in here who write spicy, or political, or queer stories...how confident are you that social media channels are ready to organically amplify your message? Or are you worried that your accounts will be shut down at random moments, suppressed, and even worse, removed altogether?

There is a solution to the uncertainty of putting most of your eggs in the social media basket and that's email marketing.

You're here, so I don't have to go over the reasons why, other than to shout about the main reason it needs to be a major player...

You control the marketing system, from delivery to conversion.

You can put what you'd like inside. You can send it to some or all of your list. You can take it with you if you change platforms. You can see who sees your content and what they do when they see it.

Essentially, you get hard, reliable data that you can then turn around and use to make profitable business decisions.

So now we get to the 'what can you do' part. You may have noticed a rise in offers coming into your inbox. Or favourite social media personalities are more than ever, moving you off of social media and into their newsletter.

That's step number one.

Make it easy for social media followers to move from your socials into your newsletter with a link in your bio, with a constant link in your stories or with TikTok, it's a constant in the description and when you can offer it, it's part of the link in your profile.

Wherever you've got the audience captured, you're consistently sending out the value-driven message of how amazing it will be inside your newsletter.

The next thing you need to do is to welcome them in a customized way. If they came from IG, it's "Hey, so glad you hopped off of IG for a minute to subscribe." If it's TT, same. FB, same. No matter how they got there, connect the dots and then nurture them with value.

I like to keep the social media subscribers segmented. They are likely there with a different preference for how they are sold to than a warm subscriber who came via your book's backmatter.

You get in and you get out and you create an email structure for a skim reader. Lots of bolding, emojis and italics moving the eye along the path you want them to take. And throw in visuals as well.

So you see, it's my opinion that it will become harder and harder to convert followers into buyers on social media in 2025 and it will become more important than ever that your email marketing system is a well-oiled, experiential machine.

Over the next few months we'll be visiting this experiential machine because it's such a key piece to successful marketing in 2025. And secondary pro tip: consider starting your direct selling system. Get it ready to go so that when you can flip the switch, you can start to move those sales in house. That would have been my second answer to what is happening in 2025. More authors than ever before are selling direct. It's time.

Let's talk next week about the email experiences your readers are looking for!

Until then,

Holly

What's Holly Up To?

I'm working on my first-ever Klaviyo For Authors course. This one won't be so massive it feels overwhelming. We're going to hit the most important parts and then set you free to implement what you learn.

We'll teach you: setting things up, benchmarking, flows, campaigns, segments, lists, products and more. But most importantly, we'll be teaching you why your emails using this platform for this audience MUST be different than you're used to in the brand-building newsletter game.

I'm really, really excited. It's been a while since I've been this excited about a course. I love using Klaviyo!

Grab it now at the pre-order price for March and April ahead of its May release. I'm going to try to release some content early in April only for the pre-order buyers, so get a deal AND learn ahead of the class!

​

​

​