The Missing Layer in Your Marketing - Why Email Alone Isn’t Enough in 2026

Good morning. Good morning. Happy Monday. I want to talk about something today. I want to talk about a possible missing layer in your marketing today. We're going to, we're going to talk about that today. Let me know that you're here. I'd love to say hi to you in the chat. My eyes are just feeling wonky this morning. My eyes have been watering nonstop. You know, allergies are blooming. And so I was like, I'm just going to give my eyes a breather today and put the glasses on this morning. Here's what we're going to talk about. I want to ask you a question this morning, and I want you to give me an honest answer in the chat, in the comments. If I were to send you right now, if I were to send you an email and a text, which one would you respond to fastest? If I were to send you an email and a text, which one would you respond to the fastest? Um, are we having some problems on the Facebook? Hang on, you're on Facebook. Let me go look. I've got to go see. Looks like we're having— I only see YouTubers, so I want to make sure Um, no one's seeing me on Facebook. Hold, please. I thought so. I'm on the wrong— I'm on the wrong— I'm on the wrong Facebook. I'm on Framed. I'm on Framed. Okay, hang on, let me see. I picked the wrong one. Here we go. Let's see if I can, um Let's see if this will work, if I can pop into the how-to page. I was unframed. I was unframed. Listen, I'm gonna just tell— I'm just gonna tell you, I'm, I'm tired this morning. Um, I ran into the wall getting ready this morning. I also drove to the warehouse and, um, I was unframed. I know, I think I'm off. Will you see if I'm off now? Amber just came in here and she's like, uh, you're on frame. I'm like, I know. Let me make sure I'm off. Let's see, do we see me on the How to Start page yet? That's what I need to know. It says I'm there, it says I'm live. Let's refresh. I don't know where I'm at. Um, uh, I don't see me in— there I am, I'm in the feed. Okay, I walked into a wall this morning. Also, um, I got to work And I park in my parking spot like I do all the time, 3 days a week. And I forgot to put my car in park. Thank the Lord above that I didn't drive through the window of my warehouse this morning. I don't know what's wrong with me today. I'm overwhelmed. I'm overwhelmed with life right now. And things are just not clicking for me this morning. I'm going to be fine. Everything's going to be fine. Just know that if you have days like that where you just feel like, What is going on with me? I'm exhausted. I went to Abilene and back Friday night for a soccer game for my daughter. That's a little over 2 hours. Stupid that we have a district that you have to drive that far for games. Then Saturday morning we got up and drove to Lubbock and back, um, see my son. That's 3 hours away. I'm just exhausted from the weekend. That's all. I'm gonna be fine. I'm gonna be fine. Okay. Here was the question. I asked the question. My YouTubers are here, they heard it. I'm going to ask it one more time. If I were to send you an email or a text right now, which would you respond to first? Okay, which would you respond to first? Sierra says text. Shawna says text. Jackie says text. Nikki says text. Takia says text. Text. It's overwhelming. Text. Text is overwhelming. So I want to ask you, when is the last time you sent a text to your audience? I was working on a brand new lesson for this week. It's going to drop on Wednesday in the Launch Your Box library. It's called Messaging Marketing. And there's something there, and it's messaging in more than just text. It's SMS, you know, that's text. It's two-way text, so there's platforms that let you text and then text back. DMs— how many of you avoid the DMs? Don't message me in the DM. There's broadcast channels. Like there's so many options for messaging marketing right now. And what I want you to see is that email— amazing. Email's amazing. But I also need— let's be realistic. It's 2026. When I got up today, I'm avoiding my email like the plague right now because I know I got to get focused for my live. And I know that the minute I open email, work has to start. Right? I mean, do you guys feel like that? I try to avoid it on the weekend too, because I know the minute I open email, the work issues are going to be in there and I'm trying to avoid that when I'm off. Am I right? And so for me, if I get a text from one of my favorite brands, how likely am I to open that immediately? You're going to see the text first. You're going to respond to the message first. You're going to be excited to have that. So here's what I want you to think about. Email is powerful and that doesn't go away, but it cannot be your only touchpoint. We're missing conversations that turn into sales because we're missing a connection point. Now we have connection in email, and you know I'm a big email lover. I send a weekly newsletter. It's called the Hot Mess Newsletter. I send it every Sunday, and my focus of that email is personal. I do sell in that email, but it's related to something personal going on. So that email is primarily for open rates. I want to share. I want to build a connection. My email yesterday was about my visit, visiting my kids, um, at college yesterday and how that feels as a mom and, and all the things. I tell stories in that email. We have to do the same thing. We have to communicate in different ways. Right now, messaging marketing is huge— DMs, SMS, two-way text, private Facebook groups, you name it, we need to be doing it. So when was the last time that you've ignored an email? Daily. My answer is daily. I ignore texts too. Don't get me wrong. Listen, I ignore texts too. Can y'all see this bubble? 370 unread texts. It's fine. I ignore them too, but I'm more likely to respond on a text. Email provides long-form value. Okay. Storytelling, sales sequence, messaging, SMS, DMs, two-way broadcast channels. Those are quick touchpoints. Those are reminders. Those are conversations. Those are accessibility. It's not about doing more. It's about adding layers. Adding layers. Okay, so if I send an email to 20,000 people, I'm going to follow it up with some sort of messaging marketing. That might be a broadcast channel message, that might be an SMS message, that might be DMs, answering the DMs. Your customer isn't just living in their inbox. She checks her messages while she's in the carpool line. She checks her messages when there's a commercial on that she can't fast forward. She's scrolling Facebook and DMs before she goes to bed or when she wakes up. She skims email when she has more time. Okay, and so what I want you to think about is how you can Add this layer to your marketing. Send your email, post your content, hope they see it, right? Send an email, support it with a message. That could be a broadcast channel, that could be an SMS. And if you have two-way Invite a reply, create a conversation. We can do that in the DMs really well. We do that with ManyChat. We can put a keyword in. ManyChat is on fire right now. I talk about it in the brand new lesson. So I could say in this lesson, type the word message and I'll send you blah, blah, blah, blah. Don't do that because I don't have anything connected, but I can do that with ManyChat. That creates a conversation. It's automated still, but it creates a conversation. Then I can jump into that conversation. I want to and further that conversation. What it does is it makes you feel accessible. It makes our businesses feel accessible. Do you know how many customer service things are in my two-way texting? It's easy way for them to get answers. And so we want to send the email, but we also want to follow it up with the messaging. And it doesn't have to be all the messaging. In the lesson, I break down all the different types of messaging marketing, and I'm challenging you to pick one that you're not doing. And so that's what I want to talk to you about today, because buyers often need reminders. They may have questions about sizing and shipping and restocks. They respond well when they have quick access. Example: I'm trying to make a dentist appointment for my son yesterday. I go to their website, I find their thing, it's book an appointment. I want to do it online. I want to do it now because of the type of appointment that I need for him. Emergency appointment. That's a whole nother story. I have to now call them. Now this gets pushed off. Now this— now I have to carve out time today, sit down and call someone. But if I had ability to just text them, and get a reply back. We do this at the salon. So my, my blow dry bar, we have an automated system where it's called messaging AI. And so basically when someone calls and say my stylists are with people, they don't, they don't leave their current client to answer the phone. We don't do that. The phone rings, they're all busy doing blowouts. And it goes to our messenger system. It replies, "Hey, sorry, everyone's busy at the moment. What can I help you with?" "I wanna book an appointment." "Okay, great. What day would you like to come?" It's talking to them. But here's the best part. When my stylists are done with their people, they can go check the AI, see the conversation, and jump in. "Hey, this is Sarah. I saw you're trying to book on Wednesday. Here's what I have available. Let me know if you want." Boom, appointment's booked. Confirmed and moved on. Nobody has to pick up the phone. Nobody has to go check an email. Nobody has to do anything because messaging— like, let's be honest, how many people here in this chat would rather respond to a text or a message versus picking up the phone and calling someone? Me, all day long. I'm more likely to respond to a quick message than reading an email and also picking up the phone and calling someone. Our brains have such a short attention span right now that we prefer messaging over every other communication because we can do it on our time. We get a response back on someone else's time, and it's right at our fingertips because we have our phone in our hands 24/7, most of us. A lot of us. If you don't, I'm— I want to be that person someday. But that's the position that I'm trying to make clear to you, is that we have this device in our hand, and when we get a message, a DM, and a text, I'm going to look at that. Oh, Sarah's having a sale today, 40% off the entire store. Cool. While I'm sitting here waiting on— so at the doctor's office, let me browse her sale. That person may never check the email until the next day. So we just have to push it out and it doesn't need to be pushy. Like if you're sending me a text every single day, I'm going to unsubscribe from that, right? As a lot of you probably would. But if you're my favorite brand and I send you a text once a week, twice a week about what's going on, first dibs, something's happening, come join me live, something like that. You're more likely to see that than seeing it in an email after the fact. So I want, I want you to think about this. If you're not currently collecting phone numbers, let's do it. Get into your email system. If you're using Klaviyo, SMS is built right in. If you're not answering your DMs, you're leaving money on the table. Dedicate time a day to go check your DMs. Or better yet, if you have a VA working for you, have them check your DMs. If you have somebody working customer service, hey, once a day, I want you to go check Instagram and I want you to go check Facebook DMs. Okay. And it doesn't have to be something— look, I'm not telling you to be tied to your DMs 24/7. I don't want that. I don't want that for you either. What I'm telling you is there's an opportunity to message someone that would never email, never call you, never go to your website to look that up. And you're thinking, the sizing chart's right in the description. Don't tell them that. Send them the picture of the sizing chart. Don't make them go on a scavenger hunt to find what they're looking for. If they're interested enough to DM you checking on this, how it fits, give them the information so they can make, make the purchase. Remember, our attention span is low. We're not going to send them on a scavenger hunt to go find the sizing chart on our website somewhere. But if you take an hour a day, 30 minutes a day, and go through your DMs and answer people, perfect. And if typing's a lot, a voice, voice DM, they'll be surprised that it's actually you. We need to layer in messaging marketing. We need to layer in where, where people are at. Email isn't dead. Do not hear me say that. But at some point, it's not enough. We just need to add a layer to this, and it doesn't have to be a lot. I sent out a text for you to join me on this live. We sent out a broadcast message for you to join me on this live. If I don't do that, I have 5 people live with me. It's a reminder. You guys know I'm live every Monday. It's a reminder that I'm here. It's a reminder that you might want to come hang out with me. There's no pressure. It doesn't have to be about sales all the time. It could just be about what you're doing. Come watch the unboxing. Come pack an order with me. Check out my whole store is 40% off during warehouse liquidation today. Like, whatever that is, we've got to put it in front of them and we've got to get visible and we have to send reminders. Not annoying. So if you text me every day, I'm unsubscribing. But know that the people that are, that are subscribing want to hear from you. They want to hear from you. I want to know when Bath and Body Works has The $3.50 soaps, I'm going to stock up. Like, please text me. Let me know that. I may not see it in my email until after it's over. I want to know. So the people that are on your text list want to hear from you. And don't worry about the ones that unsubscribe. They don't want to hear from you. Cool. Wednesday morning, the new messaging lesson drops. I'm talking about SMS. 2-way text, ManyChat, broadcast channels, all the things in that lesson. Now I got— let me pull something up real quick because I got some shoutouts today that I want to share because sometimes we just need to be inspired by other people and people are winning at things right now. So help me celebrate these people in the chat. Kelly, listen, if you're in Launch Your Box and you haven't seen Kelly's post, you need to go look for it. Okay. Kelly launched and got 69 subscribers in less than 24 hours. Y'all, Kelly's killing it. Kelly is killing it. Go look for her post because it's incredible. Jen reached 10,000 followers on Facebook this week. That's awesome. That's going to unlock broadcast channels for her. Chelsea is seeing increased engagement on her social media right now. Rebecca has been hosting Journaling Week and having huge success. I'm so excited for her. Jess had a live video this week that reached over 1,000 views, and for her, that's huge. That means we're getting visible. We're getting visible, y'all. And listen, these wins are not all about getting subscribers. They're about winning in different parts of your business. And I just want to share that with you because people are making progress right now, no matter what's happening with the world right now. Long story short, the world shut down 7 days before my launch of Launch Your Box back in March of 2020. I didn't stop. It felt, it felt weird selling in that moment, but I had everything planned out. I had everything scheduled. I launched. I got 100 members. It was my very first launch in 2020. I know the world feels weird right now, but I don't want you to pull back. I don't want you to stop. We need something in our feed that's that's not news. We need something in our feed that's light and fun. We need something for us to look forward to. So I don't want you to stop right now when the world feels weird. We— that's when we have to push forward further. All right, all right. I will see you guys later this week. And if you're in Launch Your Box, your, um, your new lesson drops on Wednesday morning. All right, y'all have a good week. I'll talk to you soon.