🔉Mixing audio with email campaigns a no-brainer?

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Morning, Inbox Hackers. I found this old-school radio ad, which an award winning film maker called the most memorable ever (it uses the forgotten basics of advertising).

Ok. When you feel the butterflies churning in your stomach as you head out to double-digit Christmas gatherings (yikes!),  just remember, lots of folks don’t get invited to a single event. 

Now that I’ve brightened your morning 😁let’s get into it. Today’s Feature Story takes us into the upsides of email marketing for the new year and beyond (market expected to reach $17.9 billion by 2027). A big part of that growth might come from adding audio to your email newsletters and campaigns.

After that, jump on the following sections…

• The Knowledge Base  

• Self Help (get ruthless)

• Facts & Stats 

• Get Hacking (it don’t work, so stop)

Now, let’s get to that Feature Story.

Email Marketing Upsides Heading into 2025

Our Get Hacking section tells us all we need to know about leaning into the power of email in the new year versus other channels.

For now, though, see the email and audio content facts, stats, and predictions below. Then I’ll toss you my take on it all.

BTW, the prediction that email marketing revenue will reach $17.9 billion means 13.3% growth from 2020. 

4 Key Email Stats 

1. The Keywords Everywhere trend data for the term ‘’email marketing’’ shows that the topic remains popular year-round

2. Average click-through rate for emails is 1.89% worldwide. 2.96% in North America 

3. Automated or triggered emails have a click-through rate of 5.7% (Mailpro)

4. Dynamic content in their email marketing campaigns see a 22% increase in return on investment (ROI) compared to those that don’t (Litmus)

Let’s focus on number four.

Most people think of animated GIFs when it comes to dynamic email content. Sure, GIFs get attention and lead to more clicks. 

But audio content is another form of dynamic content that isn’t used nearly enough. It can be personalized easily these days with Google’s LLM Notebook and Eleven Labs making podcast creation super easy - not perfect but pretty dang good.

And you can even use GIFs in combination with audio to draw attention for your email readers that audio content is a click away. 

Now, let’s see where audio content is gonna be trending in the coming new year.

Listening Habits

• Americans spend nearly 20% of their day (4 hours & 5 minutes) listening to audio content across various platforms

• 84% of Americans 13 and up listen to some type of ad-supported audio daily (Edison Research)

• 82% of 18-34 year-olds hear ad-supported audio each day

Examples: Audio Newsletter Performance

• Tortoise (media company) saw its audio audience triple YoY after launching podcasts

• Tortoise's weekly Slow Newscast now has 3 million listeners

• The Washington Post found people were three times more likely to listen to text-to-speech audio version of their newsletter "The 7" compared to other articles with the same feature

source: Pugpig 

Audience Engagement

• 56% of listeners prefer listening to reading (Trinity Audio)

• 67% of audiobook listeners say they "read" more with audiobooks compared to books in traditional text format

• 80% of listeners use audio content as a way to multitask (commuting, exercising, doing household chores)

Content Distribution

• Podcast directories like Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and Google Podcasts reach over 485 million users worldwide

• Daily news podcasts make up just 1% of podcasts but account for 10% of top episodes

• 44% of daily news podcasts take the format of a news roundup or micro bulletin

source: Beyond Words

Monetization and Business Impact

• Audio newsletters have proven to be a solid driver for new subscribers for some publications

• Tortoise reported audio has been their single biggest driver for new subscribers

• Audio newsletters can help combat the "unread guilt factor," which accounts for 13% of news subscription cancellations

Demographic Reach

• Audio newsletters are attracting younger audiences. Tortoise's average podcast listener is 10 years younger than their average member

• Among 18-34 year-olds, radio accounts for 48% of daily ad-supported audio time, while podcasts account for 35%

See the Easiest Way to Add Audio to Email Campaigns?

Daily news sticks out to me as the easiest way to fuse email with audio content. The micro news updates, specifically. Micro — how easy can it get!

There’s no shortage of news, obviously. So you wouldn’t have to become a journalist digging up new info. Be a laid-back curator of endless news instead.

That’s way more valuable to your readers and listeners than being the first to report on “fresh news.” 

What is fresh about today’s news anyway?

• IOS 18.2 released

• Wars abroad

• U.S. Gov’t clueless about drones (and most other stuff)

What’s truly new about any of that? Nothing.

And 90% of the news is not gonna matter to your specific email audience. So do them the biggest favor possible and get Biblical on them - separate the wheat from the chaff (curate) so they don’t have to…

And there’s no extra time commitment from your readers who want to go deeper with additional audio content you want to stick in their ears.

You just read that most people listen to audio while doing other activities. So, they don’t need to “fit your newsletter in” anymore. 

Not if you give them the option to listen to it in their car or on a run or while vacuuming. 

Even if your email newsletter is epic, people will still drop off your list if they get crazy busy. 

Having the option of listening to your email newsletter can keep them from unsubscribing. 

Audio Lasts (forever)

I’ll wrap the Feature up with this. I’ve stayed connected to the same morning radio show for about 37 years. The John Boy & Billy Big Show. Nowadays, I only catch them when I head north and can pick up their Greenville FM station. But they are not forgotten and never will be.

I believe in email - obviously. However, I don’t know of any newsletter (or print magazine) that would ever have the staying power of that morning radio show for me. 

Hey, I could be the outlier here. Let me know what you think about using audio as a one-two punch in your email marketing. 

BTW, I didn’t even get into contrasting video to audio to extend email content. Just know that audio takes less time to produce, correct mistakes, and cut up into smaller clips than video.

Onward…

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Get Pricing & Details

Self-Help

Made some notes for y’all. From a book I devoured Sunday, since my fantasy football playoff game became hopeless.

From The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry:

1. Walk slower. Especially when walking with someone.

2. Make single-task a verb.

3. Having more time would not fix being rushed because we would just add more wasted activities.

4. Isolation weakens. Purposeful solitude strengthens.

5. Share & borrow from neighbors versus buying every new tool & gadget.

Facts & Stats

Bonus: Crumbl Cookies opened 300+ new stores in 2023, and is on track to add ____ more before 2024’s end. Answer at end of email.

Get Hacking

A specific strategy to implement today

Saw the following ad in The Hustle a couple days ago… saying “94.9% of websites get no organic traffic and social media wasn’t much better.”

What’s that tell me? 

🛑That we should spend less time trying to emulate gurus

🛑And stop following their “proven step-by-step” SEO guides

🛑We should also reduce time researching “what’s working” on every freaking social media platform

Now’s where I tell you what we should do instead, right? 

Nope. Simply reducing wasted time on those activities - which HubSpot clearly states are a waste of time - will benefit you without adding anything to your action steps. 

Thanks for reading Inbox Hacking. Please share it with your peeps - it’s sugar-free but stings a bit.

Shane McLendon - Copy Kingpin

Bonus answer from Facts & Stats section: Crumbl Cookies is on track to total 100 new stores in 2024 (The Hustle)