The title to this post isn’t intended to be shocking or misleading. Recently I was speaking to a local Nashpreneur who made that exact statement to me on the phone. Bold statement right?
At the time of this post, I have a meetup scheduled entitled, “How To Write Emails That Entertain, Educate And Persuade Your Prospects” so obviously I disagreed with this person’s statement for many reasons…one being that I have friends in ALL KINDS of markets that are using email right now to make sales…including me.
Here is where it gets real interesting though.
Not four hours after my call with this Nashpreneur, I happened to be reading a email newsletter from one of my close friends and fancy schmancy email copy writer, Ben Settle.
One of his email clients wrote in after bringing in $28,000 in NEW business selling apartment space of all things through email. This is a real world example of business to consumer email marketing.
I pasted the email below so you could read it yourself.
********Ben Settle Email Start**********
Below is a note I got from “Email Players” subscriber Jonathan Rivera.
He took my system and has RUN with it. And thus, he regularly keeps eagerly coming back month after month, and sends me new updated testimonials along the way. In fact, he reminds me each month to send his issue “just in case” so there is no delay.
I have several subscribers who do this.
And, it’s awesome how much success they’re having.
Anyway, below is Jonathan’s latest one:
Yo Mr Settle – what’s up my friend.
I’m sorry I dropped of the grid for a while, but it’s pretty much your fault.
In August I redid my autoresponder for my big ticket subscription product (people pay me $600 per month for 1 year) Instead of the 3 emails I was sending in the first 30 days I opted to put the Settle magic to work and upped the anti – sending 12 emails over thirty days.
The results…
I signed $28,800 in new business that month with a list of less than 40 people!
Wondering what people pay me $600 per month for?
An apartment.
Anyone who thinks this stuff won’t work in their business just needs to figure out how to translate it to what they do.
The point to this email is not to swell your head, but merely to let you know I just sent you $97 for this month’s eMail Players - make sure you send it to me pronto so I can make even more money off what you teach me 
Thanks for everything,
JR
********Ben Settle Email End**********
Hmm…$28,000 in new business selling to a consumer through email…not facebook fan page status updates.
Did you know: With Facebooks latest rules, you are only reaching 15% of your followers on facebook unless you pay to be a sponsor?
My marketing junkie buddy and insanely successful school fundraiser, Greg Ramsier, is having similar success because on Tuesday at noon, he had 34 new fundraising leads from sending out emails.
Obviously email is not dead.
Before you think I am kool-aide drinking on email and think it is the best thing since sliced bread or that I am 100% against social media, hold your horses. I am going to give you a VERY big insider tip from me (bringing you behind the curtains of Nashpreneur.com if you will).
There is a reason why I insist people who want to come to Nashpreneurville complete their registration by including their physical mailing address. I plan to mail them a real personal letter with an actual stamp on it.
You see, while most of the herd is trying to rely on social media to bring in manna from heaven, I think to be successful, you need to use ALL mediums that make sense for your market. If your prospect is online, there are a million distractions that are fighting for their attention. You are just one click away from losing them.
When you go offline, you have less distractions because most people think direct mail is dead too (remind me to tell you sometime about the letter I wrote for a client two weeks ago that landed a 15% response rate through direct mail).
Business Success Tip From Tyler Perry
I need to wrap this post up so I am going to leave you with something I just read in the latest issue of Men’s Health magazine.
There is an interview in the issue with movie mogul Tyler Perry. When asked about how he became so successful, one of his tips he gave is “Do the opposite of what everybody else is doing“. Success leaves clues so I would say he is right.
Don’t just automatically do what everyone else is doing. Think through your marketing and make sure that you consider the source when getting your knowledge. There are people who JUST sell marketing and their are people who are in the game living off the results of their marketing.
What are your thoughts on using email?
