#AskGaryVee Episode 35: Email Marketing in Today's World

I say email is not dead. Do you think email will
be more or less relevant in three to five years? – Madison, great question. For me three to five years
is always hard to predict that way out, but I’ll get to that part, and before I actually
answer this question, I just wanna give a huge
shout out to the VaynerNation for supporting this show. I’m really enjoying it. I was super bummed about Friday night, so I apologize, I think I
tweeted that I was gonna have it. I let some people down, I
hate letting people down. Email is definitely not dead. I would say that email right now I like marketing in the
year that we live in. So, I would say right now that
email is a very killer app. Now are open rates at 90
percent like I had in 1997, absolutely not, but is it an
own channel that you control and don’t have to be at the
mercy of all these other platforms that you can
market to your people, for sure, I think we can’t
be naive to the fact that Google made changes with
Gmail about a year ago if feels like now, or within
the year where we went to a promotions tab. I see
Stunwin shaking his head. Steve, were you affected
by the promotions tab, were you part of any email lists that you noticed went there? – Oh yeah, absolutely. – Here’s the punch line question. Show me, punch line question. Here’s the punch line question. Do you feel that some of
those that got switched to the promotions tabs, you’ve
actually fallen off ’cause they don’t go to your native in
feed and you either unsubscribe or you just don’t pay
attention to anymore? – Totally gone, yeah,
probably five or six emails. – That’s my concern,
so what’s happening is, do I think email will matter
in three to five years? For sure, I think it’s in play. It’s a channel, it’s not going anywhere. Do I think it’s dead? Absolutely not. Do I think it will be more or
less valuable as a marketing engine, I will go with less
valuable in three to five years. It will still be very valuable
’cause it’s one of the best channels, but it will be less valuable. That whole marketers
ruin everything line that I use a lot, that’s
what this is all about. Platforms come along. They have value, and then
we market against them and then consumers kind of push off. It’s cops and robbers. It’s cat and mouse. Over and over and over again. And we’re living in a
process now that we’re into the second decade of email
being ruined by marketers. – [Voiceover] Troy asks, “I
work in two different spaces.

– [Voiceover] Troy asks, “I
work in two different spaces. “How do I use social
media platforms so that “I’m not confusing my audience?” – Troy, this is a very simple question. You adjust to the platform at hand. So we’re very detailed on this show. For Twitter, the way
you don’t confuse them, if you’re talking about
two different things, I’ll, uh, business and
wine talk is you create two different channels and you
have an @winelibrary account and you have an at
@garyvaynerchuk account, Gary Vee, and that’s what I did, or
you just become so branded in both that you feel
comfortable being, kind of, a renaissance man or woman, and you can go that route. But you have to react to the platform. So on Twitter, you just
create two different accounts, and you promote through them. On Facebook though, the
targeting capabilities allows you to just be yourself and
talk to people that act, you can plan, to people
that are 25 to 45 that are into wine and you put out a wine content, and they will like that, and you know, 22 to 27 that are into
podcasts, and you do that, and then they want you
to talk about that thing, so Facebook gives you the
flexibility to target. You know, Twitter does not. And so you’ve gotta adjust. YouTube channel, do you have
two channels, do you have one. This is something we’ve talked about ’cause we wanna chop up
every answer into a question. As a matter of fact, let’s link
up the first one we put up, right the tennis thing. One here. And so, you know… The real answer to this
question, Troy, is you’ve gotta adjust to the platform’s
capability to drive home the fragmentation or
the one channel process, so you go place by place. Pinterest, you can create a board, right, you can have an account, you
can create different boards and on certain boards
you put out content about whatever the hell you’re doing, and whatever the hell you’re
doing that’s different, so you, Tumblr, you can
create a bunch of different kind of, blah, blah, blah .tumblr.com, so that gives you flexibility. So I’m giving you very detailed
answers here, my friend. It’s not super hard, you have
to have the right strategy per the platform based on
the flexibility of that platform to deliver the story. – [Voiceover] Michael asks,
“How do you define hustle?”

– [Voiceover] Michael asks,
“How do you define hustle?” – Michael, this is funny
because show his face. ‘Cause I can see him grinning. This was the first question– What are we 35 in five? This was the first question
of 150 questions that I can see from the corner of
my eye he literally said, “How do you define hustle?” ‘Cause he could see this (laughter) I mean this is a challenging question. So first of all, it’s
different for everybody, right, but I would say hustle is to me, is that when you have
passion around something, that you were squeezing
every last bit of the juice out of the orange, right. To me, hustle is maximizing
the energy you’re putting into somebody. I’m blown away by people
saying that they’re hustling and they wanna achieve these great things, and then their actions don’t match. It’s like saying you
really wanna lose weight, while eating a Big Mac, right? So to me, hustle would be
putting all your effort into achieving the goal at hand, and for me, that means
making every minute count. Hiring a full time assistant who is… Friday night didn’t happen because I was hustling every minute, like if I miss my 15
minutes to tape this show, I’ve missed my 15 minutes
because there’s so much hustle in my day there’s no, you know, there’s no like… There’s no hanging out. There’s no time we’re like,
if I could do like one joke with you guys as I’m
walking in between meetings, we find that to be a rare
acquaintance situation, like occurrence, not acquantance. Hustle is putting it all in a line. Hustle is waking up one
day, the day before you die, and you realizing you gave it your all until the parenting of your children, the building of your businesses, the philanthropy you wanted to do, whatever you define, it’s just, you know, all in, emotionally
and executionally. In theory and strategy, and in execution. – Hey, Bridget Willard here
from you too can be a guru

and #guruminutevideos. I finally have a question for
Gary Vee and the VaynerNation for #AskGaryVee Show. One of my people asked
me, “Out of curiousity, “what do you really get from
having 10,000 followers?” So, I’m differing to you, and your wisdom. And remember, ♍ You too can be a guru ♍ – That was a nice voice at the end there, some real talent in the VaynerNation. Oh, by the way, there will be no show on Thursday because AJ and
I are going to Cleveland to see LeBron’s first
game back in Cleveland against my New York Knick’s, and so I’m excited about that. And it’s a little public
service announcement. Also, if you’ve not been paying attention, I’ve been writing my ass off on garyvaynerchuk.com so check that out, please click out. I’d love in the comments,
as a matter of fact, in the comments question of the day, what do you think of
garyvaynerchuk.com website? Pros, cons, your thoughts, your two cents. Your three cents, if
you wanna roll that way. To answer this question, you too can be a guru, by
the way, I wanna address that real quick, we kinda
addressed that recently. You can be a guru if you
actually got guru skills. You can’t just say you’re
a guru, that’s number one. And then to answer the question, that is the wrong question. What is 10,000 fans get you? Nothing or everything, I don’t know. If you have 10,000 fans who 9,000 of which buy every, buy 48 copies
of your book when you’ve put it out on Twitter,
well then that sounds really valuable. If you’ve got 10,000 fans
’cause you bought them on some weird Ebay auction because
you wanted to act cool amongst your friends and
when you post something nobody gives a rat’s ass, I
would say that’s less valuable, and so the question, my friends,
is always the wrong thing. So what everybody gets confused about. I could care less about
the top line awareness, though it matters, right? What do like 14 million people
watching this video mean? Means I got more at bats of
people to get into my content, into my world, find value
in me, thus creating the beginning of a relationship,
which then may lead to something, but life is long. It’s a long trail. Only is one follower of 10,000
really change the course of your business or personal life, right? And so, that’s the wrong question. The right question is what
are you trying to achieve? See, my friends, I’m a reverse engineer. Let me say it again because if you haven’t figured
it out in the seven years that you followed me, I’m
gonna say it one more time. As a matter of fact, Zak, show Zak’s face ’cause I’m gonna tell him
something right to his face. Zak, I need a t-shirt that
says, “I’m a reverse engineer” and as you know, I never
scrutinize the creative, and I’m always like, great,
this one I’m gonna care about because I wanna wear it every God damn day because that’s who I am,
I’m a reverse engineer. Whether I need 10,000 followers or I need to, every decision
is predicated on what am I trying to achieve? Both long term and short term, and that’s the key, my friends. One of the things you have
to do is you have to balance both your short term goals,
and your long term goals. So, I wanna buy the Jets,
and so a lot of things that I do I leave tons
of money on the table because I think it would hurt my brand or my perception of my
opportunities where I don’t feel good about it and I feel
like I could burn a bridge. A bridge I may need to buy the Jets. The same token, I need
build VaynerMedia to be a huge company so I can
afford amazing employees like this to scale content like this. So, it’s all strategy, but
I’m always thinking about why, why, why, why, why, why? It all has to be reversed engineered. So why do you need 10,000 fans? Maybe in 2007 you needed
10,000 fans or the value was. You were one of the only
people with 10,000 fans and everybody thought you were cool. Even people just followed
me because I had a lot of followers back in 2006
and seven and eight. And that gave me leverage. They then paid attention to me, lucky for me I don’t even
know why I’m doing air quotes right now ’cause that’s how fired up I am, but lucky for me I had
something good to say. Whether it was about wine, and that’s a basketball, whether it was about, get me some wine. Somebody get me a bottle of wine, is there any wine here? Whether it was about wine, whether it was about business. I don’t know why this represents business. Yes, get it to me, hurry. Whether it was about wine, whether it was about business, and so… 10,000 fans or anything else you do. Why do I need a medium account? Why do I need a million fans on Facebook? Why should I be marketing on Snapchat? It’s all strategy. For me, I market on Snapchat
because I wanna learn the platform because I
wanna always be ahead because I want to earn the right for you to spend these 15 minutes with me, and the only reason you’re
spending these 15 minutes with me, and yes, I’m very attractive, and yes, I’m massively charismatic, but it’s because I’m
providing you with value. I’m saving you time to
spend the hundreds of hours that I and my organization spend to give you the punchlines
of what you need to know to navigate through a
2015 marketing world, and that’s it, and it’s that simple. So, the value’s a stupid question. The right question is, what
are you trying to accomplish, and is Twitter the platform
that can help you accomplish it? If it is, now you start
understanding what the value would be. My friends, is that it?

– [Voiceover] Aimee asks, “A
professor once said to me, “it’s better to be a big
fish in a small pond, “do you agree?” – Aimee, this, you know,
I’m gonna be very upfront on this question, this is a
good way to bang out the show. That sounds like a loser professor to me. It’s small time thinking. I don’t subscribe to it. There’s a lot of
practicality in it, right? It’s a lot easier to be the
most successful business man in St. Louis, Missouri, than
it is to be in the world, right, so I understand the thesis. But honestly, that to
me is very conservative, not in my DNA thinking. That could be great
advice for a lot of people who are delirious and think
they’re better than they are, though I love to drive through self esteem and optimism, and I
think early in your life, you should absolutely
shoot for the highest stars that you can. I think as life moves on, and time moves on you need
to become more practical. You’ve got bills, and kids,
and all those kinds of things, but to start off one’s
career in the first 20 years, call to your 40, to be in that thinking, I think that limits. There have been so many people who’ve hedged and settled in their lives, and honestly, I’m not the
kind of character that’s going to play in that kind of sphere. I’m going in a different direction. It’s what comes natural to me, but it’s also because I
think I can be the biggest and the baddest in any game I play, It’s just how I’m wired. I think this comes down to it’s probably very good advice to some, and it’s probably
atrocious advice to others, and this is why I continue
to say if I could inject anything into anybody, it
would be self-awareness because it would help
you answer this question because for a lot of people,
it’s probably really solid advice from me, and from
many of you watching this, it’s crap advice. All right, now I can wrap up the show.