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Picture this.
You're a C-suite level executive in Yahoo in 2002, and you are at the top of the dot-com world. You're one of the only players to have survived the bubble burst. You're confident in your strategy of being a "web portal" - trying to be the homepage and starting point for everyone's internet experience, with news, email, chat, games, and other services all in one place.
Search is just a minor feature, right? You license Google's search technology while focusing on the important stuff: selling display advertising and premium services. But when you hear about an offer to buy Google for $5 billion? No way. Why pay such a high price for something that's just a minor feature?
It's easy to look back in hindsight and say "Yahoo should have bought Google." But in the moment, it wasn't so clear. The internet was a new thing, and it's hard to say with certainty that someone could have known how superior Google's search technology was, and how central search would become to the internet.
Maybe your social media strategy is working fantastically well, and you don't see the need to invest significantly in email. I get it. Much as I believe that social media is a gamble, and email is a lot safer and more conducive to building loyalty, how can I argue with what's working for you?
There's no way for me to know, for certain, which direction social media will go in over the next few years. But I think I do know enough to say that email is not going anywhere anytime soon. It was around in the days of Yahoo, it's still going strong now, and it's still the most reliable way of building an audience that belongs to you.
You might decide to leave email on the backburner and continue focusing on social media, and all will be fine and dandy. But... what if something changes? What if the platform you use gets sold, or closes, or is banned? What if the algorithm changes and your reach tanks?
If you don't have a strong email strategy - you'll be stuck scrambling to figure something out before sales drop.
Imagine if, instead of hoping for the best, you had taken a proactive approach? If you'd built a strong list and nurtured a loyal audience through email?
It will be a lot easier for you to recover from the shock of any platform changes.
You can push it off, if you like. It's not urgent.
But every day you wait is one more day in which you're not creating a list that you own, that has your full attention.. One more day in which your leaving your audience in the hands of a fickle and moody algorithm.
What if, instead of waiting, you buckled down on email today? Imagine where you could be in just a few months.
Today is always sooner than tomorrow,
Chavy