George Kao explains a lightweight process for sending email newsletters by repurposing existing content (copying a snippet of a recent article, linking to social posts and videos, and offering a product at the bottom). He argues against creating exclusive newsletter content, says newsletters should be a convenience service rather than the sole audience-reach strategy, and provides benchmarks (his own open rate and industry averages) to support his points.
Chapters
A question here about newsletters. How many of you feel sometimes tired for having to keep up your newsletter rhythm? Well, I'm not raising my hand and I will tell you why my newsletter, my email newsletter takes me 10 to 15 minutes per week to send out. So usually 10, sometimes not even 10. Only 10 minutes per week to put the newsletter together and send it out. Why? Well, I will go ahead and show you why. It's because my newsletter, I'm going to go and show you on the screen right now. You can see this page on my website. If you go to my website and, and go to newsletter archive, you will, you will, you will see this exact page. But if you click on these, these newsletters, right, what I do is I basically copy and paste the beginning of a recent article and then I give a link to where to read it or where to watch a video about it. Okay? And then, same thing. And then I, I have a recent Instagram post. I basically give the title of it, I give a link to it. I have a recent YouTube video, I give a title to it, I have a link to it. And then I, I sell something at the bottom, I sell something. And then I always say, I always welcome your feedback. This is why it takes me 10 minutes. It shouldn't even take me 10 minutes, right? It takes me 10 minutes just to gather the links and put it in here. The mistake that I see too many people making. You should not be writing exclusive content for your email newsletter. Please stop doing that. Stop writing content for your email newsletter. Stop it. Why? Because it's, it's. Why are you hiding that content only for your newsletter subscribers? Well, George, it's because newsletter is the most reliable way to reach my audience. You're going to tell me that, right? And I'm going to tell you wrong. It's not true. Because email has algorithms, just like social media has algorithms. Did you know that Gmail, Hotmail, Yahoo, Apple Mail, all of them will surface the emails and they will hide the emails that you don't open very often, right? They put it into spam or they put it into promotions or junk or whatever. And many of them have automatic algorithms to help you. Help you. They're trying to help you. So, but even if your emails come all into one inbox, how many of you raise your hand, receive a bunch of newsletters you never open? How many of you? Be honest. All of us do. So how reliable is it to reach your readers through email newsletter? Let's be honest about it, versus when you post on social media? And that article or that video is really engaging, is really helpful or inspiring or interesting to your viewers or your audience. Guess what happens? It reaches way more people than your email newsletter. Think about this. People don't. People are so myopic, so overly focused on email newsletter because they heard from some marketer, the email newsletter is the most important asset in your business. And I say that's B.S. that has not been true for 10 years. Okay, stop. Stop with the myth. It's not true anymore. What's most important for your audience is, is not your email, it's your relationship to them. And you need to meet them where they're at. I. Okay, let me explain. There are some people, I subscribe to their email newsletter and I never open it, but I see their YouTube video and I watch it. How many of you that's true. You see their YouTube video, you watch it. Email newsletter, you're like, oh, I have so many emails. I'm looking at emails from my, you know, my mom and my, you know, my clients and my what, right? Or you follow them on Instagram and you know, you see them, you like seeing them on Instagram. But when they send email newsletter, like, ah, just another e. So many of us, that's true. You, we meet our audience where they're at. So please, everybody stop writing for your email newsletter. Whatever you're writing there should be on t. Social media. It should be on social media. And your email newsletter should be considered a service, a free service of convenience for your audience in case they say, well, I would also like to receive emails from you. I would also like to receive emails from you. Not, oh, I'm going to receive emails from you. I'm going to unsubscribe everywhere else. That's not true. They're going to go on YouTube, they're going to go on Instagram, they're going to go on Facebook or wherever they go. And you're, you're going. They're going to see you there. So therefore be much, much lighter about your email newsletter. Now you might say, george, your lame email newsletter, what's your open rate? I will tell you. Well, let me ask you. What, what is your open rate? I have 5,000 subscribers. What about you? I'm not trying to compete with you. I'm just telling you, the smaller your audience, the higher your open rates. And people tell me, well, George, I have, you know, 300 people on my email list and my open rate is 60%. Like, that's wonderful. But wait until you have 5,000 subscribers. You know, how many you're going to have? What's your open rate going to be? 20 to 25%. That's average. Okay, let me say this again. When you get into thousands of subscribers, your average email open rate will be about 20, maybe if you're lucky, 30%. What about my lame email newsletter? My open rate is 50 to 60%. 5,000 subscribers email subscribers. So my open rate is double the industry average. My industry average, it's double two times as as. George, how can that be your email newsletter? So lame. Exactly. People like my lame email newsletter format. Please copy it so you can save lots of time and stop being tired writing your email newsletter. You should not be tired. You should be like, oh my gosh, I get to send my email newsletter. It's going to take me 10 minutes from start to finish whatever I'm writing. That should be called content creation time, not email newsletter time. You should be putting that stuff everywhere, online, everywhere. Facebook, you know, Instagram, medium.com, linkedIn. I mean wherever. Your blog. Obviously don't write for your email newsletter. That's if you want a successful email newsletter like I have. Follow my lane method, follow my light method. Really. You see. And then the last thing I'll say is if you're worried. Oh, but George, I get a couple of unsubscribes. Every time I send email newsletter, I get a couple unsubscribes. That's normal. You have to understand, you have to normalize it. The average, Let me explain. The industry average unsubscription rate is about half a percent point three, 0.3 to 0.5% unsubscription rate for every single email. No matter how charming you are, no matter how great your email newsletter is, you will still get 0.3 to 0.5% unsubscription rate. Why? I don't know why. It's just statistics. Everybody experiences this. I don't care how good award winning your email newsletters, you're still going to get 0.3 to 0.5%. If you're lucky, maybe you'll get 0.2%. Maybe it's extraordinarily good. You get 0.1%. So for example, let's say you have, I don't know, 1800 people on your email newsletter. So 0.3, 0.5% will be, sorry, 0.5% will be nine, nine unsubscribes per newsletter sent. Do you have nine people unsubscribe every time you send? Oh, you have fewer. You should be proud of yourself, you're getting less than average, meaning people like your newsletter more than they like other newsletters. Okay? So I hope this is helpful. Go lightly. Do not be tired. There's no need to be tired, okay? You just create. You're already creating YouTube videos. You're already making content elsewhere. Just put them in your newsletter. That's all. Right? That's all. And don't worry if people unsubscribe. They unsubscribe for more. Many, many reasons. Don't listen to them. Now, if your newsletter unsubscription rate gets to 1% or higher, then you should pay attention. Then you should find out why. But under 1%, especially around 5.5% or less, you really, really should, should not be worried at all. So I hope this is helpful. Oh, and I say one more thing about the newsletter. The reason why I link, I link it to. Again, like I said, I have very high open rates, meaning people look at my newsletter, they like it. They like the fact that they open it and it's so short. They get to see, they get to make a choice what they want to go look at. And then when they click on it and they go to the social media to interact. Wonderful. That means their interaction on social media helps to spread the content farther. It's such a good idea. I don't know why everyone doesn't do it. Please follow my I, I, I have not seen a better newsletter format than mine. Honestly, if you see a better one than mine, let me know. They're probably spending way too much time and energy and they will burn out. I will never burn out with this one. Okay? So I hope this is helpful.
