A 2025 YouTube solo presentation by Omar Zenhom (host of the $100 MBA) arguing that email newsletters are the new social media and the best channel for building and monetizing an audience. The speaker contrasts email vs. social platforms (control, attention, conversion), cites statistics (average opens ~30–40%, Campaign Monitor ROI 4200%), presents a three-part newsletter format (idea → recommended action → further learning), gives a three-step plan for beginners (lead magnet, teach on social, weekly consistency), and promotes his "Three Things" newsletter with signup directions. The tone is instructional and promotional, aimed at business owners and creators.
Questions this video answers
2025-06-30
4200% (quoted as $42 returned for every $1 spent).
About 30–40%.
Around 5–10% of followers.
About 15 times a day.
Chapters
Email newsletters are not just making a comeback. They're becoming the new social media. And if you're not taking this seriously yet, you're missing out on the most powerful way to build and monetize an audience today. Before we dive in, I want to answer the question, why email so powerful? Well, email is not like social media. With social media, you just kind of thumb through your feed and you can easily miss messages, right? Usually go to social media when you're waiting for your Uber or something like that, but email is something that you have to deal with. Your inbox is basically the last sacred place in your digital world. In your inbox, you have a bunch of emails, and you got to do something with them. You got to either open them and read them, or you got to archive them or file them. You can't just ignore them. And this is why it's like a gold rush right now to get people onto their email list. Let's get real. Social media platforms don't care about you as a business owner. They care about keeping people on their app, not sending them to your website, not getting you more leads. They are interested in keeping people busy on their app. App, watch time, view time, scroll time. That's all they care about because that's how they sell their advertising. They're not interested in showing your post to everyone that follows you. Even if you have a hundred thousand followers, that doesn't mean you have a hundred thousand people seeing your posts. Often it's 1 to 3% if you're lucky. Now, you know what does have 100% deliverability? Your email list. Okay. People check their email more than they check any other platform. Statistically, the average adult checks their email so 15 times a day. Let's go deeper into some stats. The average email open rate is about 30 to 40%. If you're doing it right, compare that to Instagram Organic reach. It's around 5 to 10% of your followers. And that's if you're pumping out incredible content and Instagram is incentivized to share your content. But more importantly, email converts. According to a study that Campaign Monitor did, email Marketing has an ROI of of 4200%. That's $42 for every dollar spent. That's an ROI I will take every day of the week and twice on Sunday. It's incredible. Just let that sink in. For every dollar you spend on email marketing, you're making $42. The truth is that people are actually really burnt out on social media. It's noisy, it's Overwhelming. It feels like everyone is yelling at each other. But when somebody opens your email, you have their full attention. One on one in 2025, we're seeing a resurgence of quality content in inboxes. Substack is absolutely booming. We're seeing creators like Paki McCormick building seven figure businesses just from newsletters. Big brands are treating newsletters like their own private social media channels. Because they are. When I launch anything, a course, a new episode of the podcast, programs, events, a webinar, it's not social media that drives revenue, it's email. Lets break down the three reasons newsletters are so effective. Number one, control. You own the list, you don't own your followers. Okay, you have to remember that, that you are kind of working on borrowed land when you're on social media. But when you have an email list, that list, that contact list is in your control. Instagram can ban you tomorrow. TikTok can disappear just like vine did. Or be banned in a country, your country. Right. Your email list is your direct line to your audience. You need to have control over that. And that's why email rocks. Number two, attention. The inbox is a sacred place. If someone gives you their email address, they're giving you permission to show up in their world on their terms. You can build a real relationship with them, they can build trust with you. When you're not competing with memes and cat videos and political rants, you have a lot more of a deeper connection with them. And that leads me to number three, conversion. You don't need to be an entertainer, you just need to be valuable. When it comes to email. If you can deliver value consistently in someone's inbox, when the time comes to offer them something that they need, like a product or service they'll buy because they already trust you, you've already built that foundation. But what about social media? Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying stop posting on social media. Use social media to build your newsletter to drive traffic to the opt in to get onto your email list. That should be the only job of social, to be honest, to turn the attention from social media to your email list. So in my opinion, my advice, your tiktoks, your reels, your YouTube shorts, those are just trailheads. They're just ways to get people to down the path, a path that leads to your email list because your newsletter is where the real relationship begins. Through your newsletter you're going to build deeper connections. You're going to go deeper with people that actually value what you have rather than trying to kind of gather a crowd of people that are going to forget you two seconds later. That's social media. So what should you actually send in your newsletter? I'm going to give you my format, my three part format. You could just steal it from me and and you can actually sign up for my newsletter. I'll tell you later about that and you can just take a look at how I do it. But I use this format. You should use it too. One, you can send them a quick idea worth thinking about, something valuable that shifts their perspective. Number two, give them some sort of recommended action, some homework, a tool, a step, a challenge that they can try this week. Number three, something to learn. A link, a post, a resource, a podcast episode for example. A that is something that is useful for them to dig in and learn further from you. That's exactly what I do in my newsletter. Like I mentioned, the newsletter is called Three Things Newsletter. Not a fancy name, right? It's designed to help business owners grow without any kind of fluff or overwhelm. If you want to sign up, just go to 100- MBA-NET. Sign up for any of our freebies or guides and you'll be part of the newsletter automatically. You'll get it every single week. And you could take a look at my format and just use the same thing. What if you're starting absolutely from scratch? Then you're in the perfect position. Here's a three step plan for that. You want to create a lead magnet as step one. Something valuable enough for people to pay for it. Like a template, like a guide, Something that allows them to get a win quickly. 2. Post content that teaches. Use social media to help people and point them to their newsletter. Make that link in your bio your newsletter and then be consistent. Send something every week your newsletter, even if it's just one idea. Build trust and consistency with your audience. Another good example of a great newsletter is Seth Godin's newsletter. It's very short, it's very sweet. Sometimes his newsletter is like three sentences. But it's impactful. If you want to build a real business, not just a personal brand that fades with the algorithm of the day, you need to build your email list. Email is not dead, is just quietly powerful. Think of it like compound interest. The more you invest in your email list, the more you send out great content, the more you are investing in your business. And listen, this is going to take some time. You won't see massive results in one week, but in a year's time you're going to start seeing a list of thriving buyers, not just followers. Before I go, I want to leave you with this. Anytime you start something new like a newsletter, it's going to be hard. It's just the truth. That's how it is, right? You're starting from zero. But guess what happens the next day? You work on it. It gets a little bit easier. You're not starting from scratch anymore. You wrote your first newsletter, you have a few emails on your email list, and then a month later you have a hundred emails on your email list and you've sent a few newsletters. And you're getting some momentum. You're starting to feel more confident getting started. Just that initial traction is the hardest part. So just take one step forward and take my advice. Do the steps I shared with you today. Thanks again for listening to the $100 NBA show. Again. If you want to sign up for my three Things newsletter, to see my newsletter as an example, just go to 100- MBA-NET. Sign up for any of our free guides and you'll get access to the newsletter automatically. Thanks again. And until next time, keep moving forward. Keep taking action. That's how you build confidence. That's how you start believing in yourself. You could do this. Take care.
