The Future of Email Marketing with Natalie Franke

PodcastMarketing

Jul 31

Episode 870: Show Notes

Rarely do we open Instagram and go; what are you going to sell me today? But when you open email, especially your promotions tab, there is a different intent. You use email to communicate, but more than that, you open your promotions tab to see what deals are happening.

Today’s guest is Natalie Franke, a USA Today bestselling author, community builder, neuroscience nerd, and mama bear for small businesses. As Head of Marketing at Flodesk, she leads tens of thousands of small business owners while fostering a spirit of community over competition around the world.

In this episode, we talk about the future of email marketing and where we see this industry going. We dig into whether we think email marketing is saturated, how selling will evolve via email, whether SMS and bot funnels are posing any threat, and surprising fun facts along the way! I know you’re going to get a ton out of this episode and also a lot of ideas for the things you may need to be prepared for in the future.

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Natalie’s Non-Linear Journey to Head of Marketing at Flodesk

For many years, Natalie worked as a photographer, co-founding the Rising Tide Society along the way. Her goal was to disrupt how small business owners were working alongside each other, moving beyond a mindset of competition to one of community and collaboration. She was catapulted into the tech space through a role at Honeybook where she worked for just shy of eight years.

Five years ago, a friend showed up at her house with a box of pizza and a bottle of wine, and she was introduced to Flodesk. Today, Natalie is passionate about applying the power of incredible design that converts to small businesses to help them differentiate their brands and nurture their audience.

Hot Takes on the Future of Email Marketing

Email is a marketing channel that more established business owners not only know about but use to generate a lot of their revenue. Natalie sees her biggest challenge as communicating the value of email to the small business world. She sees a lot of small businesses building their entire marketing channel on social media. While social media is a powerful tool for growing top-of-funnel awareness, you don’t own those platforms.

In 2024, that has become more apparent than ever before. The threat of a TikTok shutdown and Meta’s verification fees are reminders that these are rented spaces, not owned land. You’re also competing against huge businesses for attention on social media. Email has never been more important than it is today.

How Email Marketing Has Evolved Since It All Began

At Boss Project, we’ve seen a lot of correlation between revenue growth and subscriber growth. The same correlation is not happening at all on social! With email, you are paying for a service to unlock the ability to market your own business without restriction. When new technology arrives, most of us default to thinking about all the ways it could go wrong. But what if you saw them as an opportunity rather than a threat?

Email automation allows us to get off of social media and onto something we own. If TikTok shuts down, there’s no way to download all of your followers and upload them to a different platform. But email is different! Natalie predicts that email will become the connective tissue binding all of your digital activities together in a seamless way. She also highlights that there is a different mental intent between opening an inbox and scrolling on Instagram. Where are you most receptive to offers and deals?

The Main Difference between SMS and Email Marketing

We know that SMS marketing has the potential to convert. But most of the time, when we open up our text messages, our intent is not to buy. You’re there, if anything, just to talk to the people you want to talk to. In your inbox, you’re likely to be more open-minded to engage with businesses. It all comes back to why somebody is there in the first place. You have to think about marketing channels as unique places for connection and communication, and not apply the same strategy to all of them.

The way you engage with your audience on Instagram is very different from how you approach them on email. The appetite for sales and conversions remains higher in your inbox than in most other places. It’s not an ‘or,’ it’s an ‘and!’ How can we use these platforms to create opportunities for each other? It stays a little bit under the radar, but when you have conversations with people who are successful in business, you’ll learn all about the power of having access to an inbox.

Why Natalie Believes Email Marketing is Still the Bluest Ocean

All marketing challenges have become a little bit more difficult to penetrate, but Natalie argues that social media has suffered the most. One of her biggest areas of opportunity is educating small business owners about email because it’s not publicly visible in the same way that other channels are. Often, business owners are on a hamster wheel, churning out content, and it’s not directing anyone deeper into a funnel.

It’s important to recognize that people are being bombarded. We’ve entered a new era. It is no longer about inundating the internet with every thought you’ve ever had. Now, it’s about quality. What do you want to say? How are you saying it? How are you approaching the relationship aspect? It’s become about how effective you are at directing people from one point of attention to a deeper point in the funnel. It’s about doing less and doing it better.

Using Personalization to Help You Scale

What we consider to be scalable today is only widening with advancements that are coming down the pipeline. Personalization used to mean inserting a name into an email. Now, we have the power to turn any link in an email into an action. This unlocks so many possibilities for the email marketer! With one click, they’ll be added to a segment or a workflow, be removed from one, or add a tag to their account.

You can start to build a bigger understanding of who your subscribers are and, therefore, personalize on top of that. Personalization is only getting more complex and that will open the door to more people feeling like your content is suited to what they want. Email is so much more personal than any social conversation ever will be because it’s private.

How to Do More Than Just Adding to the Noise

What we’re really saying is: you matter! Who you are and how you show up as a human being matters. All these tools are great. We need them. They help us run the business. But we’ve also started to become a little detached from that initial ‘why’. The fact is that each subscriber is a human being with fears, dreams, and goals, who chooses to give you access to their sacred inbox space. More than anything, be human! It’s about so much more than running a business.

We are in a loneliness epidemic and true connection cannot be emphasized enough. I’m not talking about surface-level stuff, but really getting in the weeds with people; like Natalie’s friend who went off the menu to bake lactation cookies for her while her daughter was in the NICU. Doing things because you truly care earns you loyalty that you can’t buy with a paid ad.

What the Future of Email Might Hold

Sales and strategy are the future of email. Until now, we’ve viewed sales as something that happens outside of email. We see email as a place to build your funnel, reengage with an audience, or nurture them. Then, when it’s time to convert, you take them off email to another platform that you’re also paying for or leveraging. Natalie’s hot take sees email going all the way from contact information acquisition to sales, seamlessly integrated into the process.

She also predicts that email will become the connective tissue that allows small business owners to have everything in one place. Sales integration, email connecting with other tools you’re using, and more visual inboxes are just a few of the things she sees unfolding in the future. Deliverability will become more and more important, and quality wins over quantity every time. Are your subscribers excited to open your emails? Unlike social, where a lot of what you are seeing is being bought, the same can not be said for email.

More Automation We Might See in the Years to Come

Maybe we’ll have more automated learning about what your habits are in your inbox. I think there will be more segmentation but we’ll also be able to reprioritize. Right now, if you send an email 30 seconds after a big brand, they are right next to each other. Will it always be that way? That is yet to be determined. A frontier that will absolutely happen is pay-to-play in your inbox. Google is getting better at identifying what you actually like to look at. If you have not yet started an email list, Natalie and I are here to help! Get 50% off your first year of Flodesk right here.

Quote This

Email has never been more important than it is today.”

— Natalie Franke

Highlights

Natalie’s Non-Linear Journey to Head of Marketing at Flodesk [0:03:21]
Hot Takes on the Future of Email Marketing [0:09:14]
How Email Marketing Has Evolved Since It All Began [0:14:18]
The Main Difference between SMS and Email Marketing [0:21:41]
Why Natalie Believes that Email Marketing is Still the Bluest Ocean [0:26:35]
Using Personalization to Help You Scale [0:26:35]
How to Do More Than Just Adding to the Noise [0:39:15]
What the Future of Email Might Hold [0:45:15]
More Automation We Might See in the Years to Come [0:51:41]

OUR GUEST:

Natalie Franke

Website | Instagram | X | Flodesk on Instagram

Natalie Franke is a fierce advocate for small businesses. She is a Founder, Author, Community Builder, Multi-Passionate Creative, and Mama Bear for Small Businesses. She is Head of Marketing at Flodesk, a leading CRM platform for on-brand marketing emails, sales pages, online payments, and more.