Don't make a newsletter or e-book. Make an email course.

Apologies for the clickbait-y title.

But I genuinely do think email courses are massively underrated (compared to the recent trend of newsletters/e-books/online courses), but it largely depends on the type of content.

I made a post a few days ago about email course success stories.

TL;DR - it's made people gain thousands of subscribers, tens of thousands of $'s, and most importantly, hundreds of friends.

Of course when I talk about making friends, I'm referencing Patrick McKenzie (patio11)'s term, friend-catchers.

A "Friendcatcher" is something you offer for free, that helps you catch friends.

But of course, what I didn't address in that previous post about success stories, is why?

Why are email courses so effective?

Why are they better friend-catchers than newsletters/e-books/online courses?

Why should you consider making one instead of the alternatives?

Here's 5 reasons:

1. Email courses meet people where they're at: their inbox.

• People are lazy.

  People don't always open up your e-book in their Documents folder on their hard drive.

  People don't always go to udemy.com or coursera.com.

  But people always check their emails. Every. Single. Day.

  "Ebooks get downloaded and then sit unfinished on hard drives, if they're even started. Online courses also typically require you to go to them: to remember to open the tab, log in, and actually do the thing." - Alex Hillman (@alexhillman) from Ship in Six

• Thus, email engagement (open and click rates) is consistently high.

  Much higher than publishing your content on independent platforms and even social media.

  "Whilst a Facebook post might be seen by 5% of your fans on a good day, an engaged email list can see open rates of 40% or higher." - James Greig from "7 Things You Should Do Before Going Freelance"

2. Email courses establish relationship and trust.

• Students can respond to your emails directly, and engage in conversation.

  This is pretty unique to email courses.

  It's hard for people to get in contact with the creator of that e-book, online course, or video series.

  But with email courses, it's as easy as "hit reply"!

  And as the email course creator, if you take the time to engage, you get to form bonds with your students that will last long after your email course is over.

  This is probably what impressed me the most about Monica Lent (@momoko)'s Blogging For Devs challenge.

  Just check out her awesome launch email:

  

  I've highlighted the gold.

  This light personal touch capped off this short and sweet message.

  It got me to respond, and that kicked off a thread:

  

  I can't emphasize this personal touch enough.

• Nowadays, everyone's trying to build up their mailing lists.

  But this one's different.

  This mailing list is not just a list of people who entered their email and clicked "Sign up".

  They're people who you've personally sent emails to, and spoken to.

  They're much more your people. Your friends.

3. As a result of (2), email courses sell your other products/courses through your established authority.

• At the end of the course, the student should be able to recognize your authority in the subject matter.

  Thus, they are far more open to buying your next product, course, etc.

  "Your email course exemplifies your teaching style and why people may want to choose you over another teacher. It also highlights your authority on the topic, your wealth of knowledge, and what you have to offer." - Ashley Hockney from Teachable

  Having taken the Blogging For Devs email course, I trust Monica as an authority on her specific niche: tech blogging.

  And thus, I'm much more likely to take part of the community that Monica Lent created and marketed after she created her extremely successful email course.

4. Email courses gives you control over pacing and structure.

• You know how best the information is consumed, and you get to control this.

  Sequence the information however you like (from daily to monthly, from seven days to six weeks).

  A university lecturer doesn't instruct their students to read the entire textbook in one sitting, so why do some people just give out their e-books without telling them how to most effectively read and utilize its content??

• People will sign up for newsletters at different times.

  If there isn't an archive of posts, they will miss out on foundational content that can serve as a strong introduction to you, and what you can help them with.

  And yes, Substack does have easily accessible archives, but subscribers are not likely to go through each of them from the beginning at a steady pace, like they would in an email course.

  An email course sets everyone off at the right foot.

  No one gets left behind.

5. Email courses are low cost.

Here are the currently available email automation tools (pricing scales with # of subscribers):

• ConvertKit ($29+/mo)
• MailChimp ($15+/mo)
• Teachable ($29+/mo)
• EmailOctopus (free until 2,500 subscribers and 10,000 emails per month)

To do this research, I studied 20+ email course. Most of the email courses I studied actually sucked, for several reasons.

At the end of the day, I think a lot of content marketing feels trashy because it's way too sales-y.

The ones who approach it by giving out upfront value, engaging people directly, are the ones winning this new age of audience-building and product-building.

Make friends. And the conversions/sales/money will inevitably come.

At least that's my hypothesis. Maybe I'm naive...

What do you think? Would you consider making an email course?