Is email marketing art or science?

If you’re right-brained, you probably think email marketing is an art. If you’re left-brained, you probably think it’s a science.

If you’re an email marketer, you know it’s a masterful combination of both art and science.

Let’s jump into the nuances of what this means, why it matters, and how you can benefit.

But before we do, a quick history lesson…

The history of email marketing is quite fascinating.

• 1971: The first email was sent by a guy named Ray Tomlinson, between two computers connected by a 3-meter cable (what a badass).

• 1978: The first spam email (wait, I mean marketing email) was sent.

• 1990s: With the advent of webmail and email clients, email usage expanded to the general public and became a popular form of communication.

Hotmail was one of the first free web-based email services to be offered to the public in 1996. With AOL Mail and Yahoo Mail as quick follows (LMK if you ever had one of these emails? I did!)

With the rapid growth of personal email usage, resourceful business people quickly realized email could be a cost-effective way to reach a large audience.

And the rest, as they say, is history. As well as this history lesson for the week.

So back to the art vs. science argument…

Is email marketing just copywriting in email form? (Yes & no)

The art form of email marketing is indeed copywriting.

The most important part of your emails is your words.

The value you’re providing through your words can’t be denied.

You can tell a good copywriter from a bad one.

The fact of the matter is, that copywriting is an extremely difficult skill and requires the 10,000-hour metaphor to master.

When you do master it, it’s an invaluable skill that can earn you a boatload of money.

But there’s also a science to email marketing.

This includes email jargon such as email cadence, audience segmentation, personalization, a/b testing, and analytics such as open rate, click-through rate, conversion rate, etc…

Let’s do a quick around the horn to define these terms…

• Cadence: how frequently and on what schedule you send emails.

• Audience segmentation: slicing your audience into smaller tranches based on demographic or psychographic characteristics.

• Personalization: being personable… using data points you’ve collected on your audience such as name, company, location, etc. to make the reader feel you’re speaking directly to them.

• A/B testing: testing two or more variations of a specific component within an email (e.g. Subject line A vs. Subject line B) to learn what your audience responds best to.

• Analytics: we’ll leave the analytical definitions for another time.

I can keep going, but the email marketing language is long and nuanced, almost as confusing as the English language.

Next, you’re probably asking yourself…

Will AI replace email marketers?

NO. I’m bullish on the case that the best human copywriters will always be better than the best AI copywriters.

I mean, we can all tell when something was written by AI.

Human emotion, humor, and connectivity make you and I flat-out better copywriters than AI (for now… que “The Joker laugh”).

AI chatbots can enhance your email marketing workflow and productivity for research, idea generation, and proofreading. But not replace it.

Why email marketing matters.

If you want to build the life of your dreams through online entrepreneurship, email marketing is an essential skill to master.

Email marketing is not only the most affordable marketing channel but also the most effective channel.

Some data to prove it:

• ROI: According to a study by Omnisend, the average ROI for email marketing is $36 for every $1 spent, which is an impressive 3,600% return.

• Conversion Rate: Email marketing campaigns have an average conversion rate of 4.29%, compared to social media campaigns at 1.81%.

Also, a major key to this whole conversation is…

You OWN your email audience.

Your email list is the only audience that you have full ownership over.

What about your X audience? Nope.

Your Instagram audience? Nope.

Your YouTube audience? Nope, again.

Unfortunately, at any point, those platforms can de-platform you and [poof] your audience is gone.

So treat your email audience like family (Hey FAM).

How you can benefit?

I truly believe that email marketing is the most underrated skill in business.

That’s why I’m going DEEP. And that’s why I recommend YOU go DEEP as well.

Don’t know how to get started?

Read to the end of this email for an exclusive, FREE, one-time offer to help you get started.

Marketing skill of the week.

If it’s not obvious already, email marketing is the skill of the week.

Let’s break down the core pieces of structuring your emails.

1. Subject Line: Your audience’s inboxes are crowded. The goal is to get your email to POP out of the screen when scrolling their inbox.

2. Preview Text: Similar to a subject line, but provides more context to the email content.

3. Hook: The first sentence or two should hook the reader to keep reading.

4. Value: Put yourself in the reader’s shoes and think, “Why is this helpful and how can I implement this into my life, today?”

5. Call to Action: What action do you want the reader to take?

Mindset Jujitsu

Now for the moment you’ve all been waiting for…

One-Time Offer

I’ve covered a ton in this letter.

But this is only the basics.

Unless you PERSONALLY know how to:

• Spot problems in your email marketing strategy

• Write content that educates and inspires

• Convert email leads into paying members

You’re going to waste a lot of time feeling lost.

But you COULD be making money from email marketing.

And you COULD be escaping your dreaded 9-5 (like I did).

Every day you aren’t making progress is another day you COULD be living the life of your dreams.

That’s where I can help…

I’m offering a one-time FREE email marketing audit. 

I’ll audit your entire email marketing program, from start to finish. Don’t have one? That’s okay, I’ll help you craft one.

All you have to do is subscribe to The Mark From Marketing Letter and reply to the welcome email with “Email Marketing Audit”.

I’ll get back to you ASAP with more information.

But here’s the thing…

I’m ONLY offering 1 spot.

I promise you it’ll fly off the shelves in under 48 hours.

And the next email marketing audit won’t be FREE, so if you’re interested I suggest you act fast!

As always, I love to chat with you guys! Reply back to this email or DM me on X (@markfrommktg) with any questions, feedback, or to simply kick it.

Thanks for being here.

Talk soon,

Mark