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What’s the Real Difference (and Which One You Actually Need First!)
If you’re a creative and unconventional content creator or online business owner just getting started, email can be confusing AF, right?
Most creative entrepreneurs blur the two types of email together. They hit “send” on their latest update and think they’re doing email marketing, when in reality, they’re just sending a newsletter.
I did this too, when I started my first e-commerce biz in 2008. I had no idea how freakin’ vital having a thriving email list was to my business.
But when I launched my second business as a freelance social media manager, I didn’t make that same mistake.
And I’m definitely not going to let YOU make it either, cygnet!
Because your business is only as strong as your email list. FACT!
Knowing this difference in email can change the way you attract, nurture, and sell to your audience.
One builds connection. The other builds conversions.
And when you use both intentionally?
That’s when your business starts feeling effortless and aligned to the alternative lifestyle of self-reliance and FREEDOM that you’ve designed.
So today, I’m going to break down the difference between email marketing VS newsletters, in plain English, with simple examples to help you decide where to start (and what to focus on first).
Continue reading, OR if you prefer listening while you make your skull-shaped soaps to sell, click below for the podcast version 🪄☠️ 🎧💫
Prefer to watch instead of read? Watch the YouTube version here (and catch more off-the-cuff email marketing examples😉)🪄 📺💫
Why Both Matter for Building a Magical Brand Online 🪄💌
At first glance, email marketing and newsletters might seem like the same thing. They both land in your subscribers’ inbox, after all.
But what they do for your business is completely different.
So let’s start by defining exactly what the difference is between email marketing VS newsletter writing.
Email Marketing = Strategy 🪄🌪️
Email marketing is the sales system behind the scenes.
It’s what happens when you set up automated sequences designed for turning your lovely readers into lovely BUYERS.
Sequences such as your welcome sequence, retargeting sequences, reengagement sequences, or free offer sequence.
They are basically sales funnels that guide people toward a specific goal, like buying your course, booking your service, or joining your membership.
It’s goal-driven, data-informed, and usually happens automatically once you’ve written it. That’s what makes them a part of the ‘get sales while you sleep’ type of marketing.
The kind that you really wanna have to make your marketing feel like magic.
And makes YOU feel like a money-making Marketician.
Think of it as the architecture of your digital business: the part that quietly turns curiosity into cash.
Newsletter = Relationships 🪄💌
A newsletter, on the other hand, is the human connection.
It’s your regular, value-driven communication with your audience, usually done on a weekly or fortnightly basis. Once a month at a minimum.
Newsletters are where you share ideas, podcast or YouTube episodes, inspiration, personal life updates, and the occasional behind-the-scenes look at your creative process.
It doesn’t always have to sell something, either.
Most email newsletters are just there to connect, educate, and build trust.
They help keep your name landing in inboxes and actually being opened because readers like what you have to say.
How to Stop Mixing Them Up and Start Using Them Like a Marketician!
Now that we’ve got the email marketing VS newsletter DIFFERENCE outta the way, let me illustrate what they each look like…
If you were to literally draw a picture of each of them, a newsletter is going to look like a TRAINTRACK. 🚂
Every ”track” on the train track is an email that simply guides someone further into your brand’s world.
The whole point of having a newsletter is to just keep them on track, riding through your world. Easy-peasy.
Email marketing is going to look like a WAVE. 🌊
The purpose of the wave is to carry your readers through cycles of value emails followed by sales emails.
Repeat, repeat, repeat.
Here’s where the magic happens: your newsletter and your email marketing are meant to work together.
Your newsletter keeps your audience engaged, entertained, and educated. They can literally be about anything!
You could write about your new puppy, the new software you’re using, how you learned how to edit in Photoshop – anything. There are only a few tips for writing good newsletters to keep in mind when you start them:
- Make them enjoyable and worth your reader’s time.
- Write about things that you know your reader WILL be interested in or relate to, if it’s not directly about them.
- Train your reader to click within emails. Always send them a link to a funny video, an old piece of content, or a surprise free download. This keeps things not only entertaining, but it also encourages ongoing curiosity, which will help you when you are ready to sell.
Your email marketing automations step in when someone’s ready to take the next step.
Once you’re readers are on that train, happily chugging along week to week, and your email open rates are SMOKIN’, it’s time to connect the track to a wave.
Now this wave may be running independently on its own, as well.
It may start from a Facebook Ad or a link within a blog post, directly selling a thing.
You can either start with a weekly newsletter to get used to writing emails, or you can start with an automated sequence.
It doesn’t REALLY matter, but if you want to start SELLING sooner than later, get a wave set-up ASAP.
Here’s what it’ll look like when the two are working together:
- Someone subscribes to your list because they liked your freebie or read one of your blog posts.
- They start receiving your newsletter weekly: your podcast episodes, your stories, insights, and useful tips.
- Over time, they grow to trust you and your work (yay!)
- Then one day, they get an email invitation to check out your newest course or service. Because they already know and like you – and because you’ve trained them to be curious about all the crazy or funny or helpful shit you write about – they CLICK to check it out.
- The click takes them into the Wave – the sales cycle. They receive a number of sales emails over a few days or weeks. They either buy or don’t buy, but either way, their clicks determine if they will get swept further into the wave or remain on the train track. Not everybody on your newsletter is going to be curious or ready to buy enough to want to click into it. They remain on the train. You can either make them go through it or make it optional. Or, you may segment your newsletter audience so that some unqualified or disinterested people skip that email altogether. You just let them skip over that particular track on the newsletter trainline.
That’s how email newsletter influence turns into income.
You don’t have to hard-sell every week. Not at all.
The automated systems quietly do the work because you’ve been showing up consistently with your newsletter.
Which One Should You Start With: Email Marketing VS Newsletter?! 🤔
If you’re new to building your list or haven’t emailed it in a while, start with a newsletter.
Newsletters are the easiest way to re-establish connection and build consistency.
Give it a juicy name and make it feel like an event.
Something fun that promises exactly what your ideal customer is looking for in the world.
Whatever you do, don’t call it ”newsletter.” That’s already boring AF.
Just get into the habit of writing weekly email broadcasts and work on those open rates. If you can get them above 18%, you’re doing GREAT. 18% is nothing to spit at, hombre.
But you’re far from a sharp-shooter, so keep working on your subject lines. Those are the most important things to get right if you’re a noob. Do some A-B testing to work out which subject lines get the best response.
If you hit over 40% open rates, you’re a money-making Marketician, cygnet.
Once you’ve got a rhythm going, say, one click-packed email a week, you can start layering in email marketing strategies like:
- A welcome sequence for new subscribers
- A product launch sequence
- A re-engagement campaign for inactive subscribers
What Software Should You Use For Your Email Marketing VS Newsletter?
Software helps a lot here, so you want to CHOOSE WISELY.
Good email service providers give you lots of insight to see what people are opening and clicking on.
Shit software never lets you know where people are in your sequences, and suddenly stops working with all of your beautifully designed templates and sequences that you spent two years building, forcing you to abandon the entire platform and start all over again right when you’re open rates are hitting an average of 43%. Don’t ask me how I know! 💩
Just use a well-established one and avoid the start-ups, ok? Choose one that you can grow with for years to come.
I recommend:
- Go High Level (what I currently use and ADORE 😍) – great for coaches and freelancers
- Kit -MADE for writers who live to write and want to write for a living
- Systeme – a very affordable all-in-one marketing choice
- Active Campaign – mostly just for email, but very reliable and robust, especially for e-commerce.
These software choices allow for both train + wave emails.
Sometimes you won’t know what platform you’ll like best until you’ve actually sent a few emails on it.
I was once with a platform for less than a week because they had an annoying, flashing ”SAVE” bar at the top of the email that bloody ”SAVED” non-stop.
My ADHD brain could not handle the flashing bar, so I immediately moved off it.
In Summary (aka the end of the email train line, lol)
When people say “email marketing,” they usually mean any kind of email they send, but the real power comes from understanding the balance between the two different types:
- Use your weekly newsletter to share your ideas and build your brand voice.
- Use email marketing to automate sales and scale your business.
The combination helps you create a business that feels more human and more profitable.
If you need help setting up either, join my upcoming mini-class, ‘Inbox Alchemy: Send Magic, Not Spam.’ 🪄💌
I’ll help you get over your fear of writing emails and building automated sequences. (They can be FUN to build, trust me)
I’ll also show you how to create a wave and connect it to your weekly newsletter.
And even how to build them out so you can walk away from writing emails for weeks at a time if you like, while your emails sell while you sleep, YEA BABY!
Make it FUN for you, for freakin’ real.
Because what are we even doing here if we’re not having FUN while we’re making money, right?
Boring is for office jobs, not working for ourselves!
Click here to join me.
OR
Sign up to MY newsletters below, The Inner Sanctum, to ride my train of new weekly blog/YouTube/podcast episodes, inane funny shit, and actionable business and marketing advice to help you build a self-reliant AF alternative lifestyle. 🤘
