Got anxiety around sending emails to your list? It might not be your fault! Or maybe it is. Here are 3 reasons why email marketing feels so hard and how to fix it. Quick tips, I promise.
Transcript
What’s up, fresh Princess of email marketing here, Liz Wilcox, and you’re listening to the Email Sound Booth, a podcast for online businesses who need to remix their email marketing efforts and actually build a list that makes them money—and hey, maybe we can feel good doing it too.
Alright, welcome to episode two. I am so excited to be bringing you the three reasons you hate to hit send on your emails and how to love it instead. Oh my gosh, this is such a recurring theme. Even just yesterday, I was in the Email Sound Booth Facebook group—yep, we’ve got a Facebook group, join that if you haven’t, same name as the podcast. Someone was saying they hit inbox zero at the end of the day and woke up to 27 emails, which just felt super cringy, and they said, “Ah, I never want my subscribers to feel the way I feel right now after getting nearly 30 emails overnight.”
So let’s talk about it. Let’s talk about why you might hate email, why it feels that cringy. Well, number one, just like this person, you have too much dang crap in your own dang inbox. Of course, it’s hard to hit send if you’re thinking about getting 30 new emails overnight. So let’s talk about that. I know you’re an online business owner and there’s a million people just like me, just like Liz Wilcox, trying to grab your attention. And you know what? We’re actually really, really good at it. We hire copywriters, we run A/B tests, we run ads on Facebook and Instagram, and you join our email lists. We join a million bundles and summits, and you gobble that up: “Oh, I don’t need this right now, but she’s giving it away for free, so I better just join the list. I’ll take a look at it later.”
And then later comes, and you’ve got this person in my Facebook group with 30 emails overnight, and that inbox anxiety just starts to build. You signed up for all of these free things, but you have no plan on how to take action on even just one of them. Now, of course, I want you to join my list, right? You can go to lizwilcox.com, hit the hot pink button. Like I said, I’m really good at getting people to sign up for my list, but I don’t want people to sign up if they’re not ready to learn about email marketing and not ready to take action on what I’m teaching.
So here’s what I want you to do: instead of signing up for a million things and feeling that inbox overwhelm all the time, take two times a year—yep, I know you’re probably doing the dishes or going for a walk, but pull out your phone real quick—put on your calendar two times a year to block off an hour of your time and unsubscribe. Seriously, block this off for Saturday and do it while watching your Saturday reality shows. That’s what I do. Block the time off. Just take an hour and unsubscribe. Yes, I don’t care if you still want to hear from that person. If you’ve ignored more than 50% of their emails in the last six months—or heck, the last three months—unsubscribe from their email list. If you really care about this topic and really need it, guess what? You’re going to come back to it later when you have more time.
Just like this podcast, I wanted to start a podcast in December 2023. I got the idea in February 2024, went to Podfest and learned everything, but guess what? I unsubscribed because I realized I didn’t have enough time. And I launched this podcast in September 2024—six or seven months later. You’ll come back to things that matter and people that resonate with you, so don’t be afraid to unsubscribe right now. Put it on your calendar for the second, and I say it with love—curb your enthusiasm. Shout out Larry David and the gang. Curb that enthusiasm, babe! Stop signing up for all the stuff you see at summits and bundles. I want you to take a 30-day fast from it.
Right now—yes, right now—say out loud, “Liz, I promise not to sign up for any free stuff from a bundle or summit for the next 30 days.” Okay, I feel better. Don’t you? Side note: if this gives you anxiety, that’s totally normal, but you’ve got to work on your FOMO muscle. FOMO is not real; it’s just a fear of missing out. And guess what? Your feelings aren’t always the truth. The truth is, if you’re feeling inbox anxiety, you’re doing too much in your inbox. Flex that FOMO muscle—I know you can do it. Trust me, you’re not actually missing out on anything. That person you’ve been wanting something from? They’ll probably offer it again in 45 days in another bundle or summit. I can’t know that for sure, but I kind of know that for sure.
So do this, and you’re bound to start feeling better about sending emails. You’re not getting as many emails, and that inbox anxiety is going to go down. Okay, that was number one. Number two, you’ve been inconsistent, so you haven’t even hit your stride yet, babe.
I’m a runner, and guess what? The first few minutes—heck, even the first few miles of my run every day—are hell. I hate running. Every time I step out to run, it’s hard. It’s sluggish. My lungs burn. It seems like it’s going to take forever to get into it—and sometimes it does—but once I get in my zone, once I hit my stride, I start loving it. That’s what you’re not giving yourself a chance to do with your email marketing. You’re trying it maybe, “Oh, I did it for four weeks, then took two months off because of life.” Then you come back for three months, nothing’s working, now five months have passed, and you hate email.
You can’t just email for a month, take a couple weeks off, come back, try to launch something, and expect it to work. It won’t. You haven’t given yourself time to hit your stride. You must be consistent in your email marketing efforts. Show up every day for your email list. This is more than just emailing once a week. Heck, even if you join my $9 a month Email Marketing Membership, it’s about more than using my templates. It’s about growing your email list, finding a way every single day to get someone to join your email list.
It’s about replying to questions in your inbox, and it’s about working hard to figure out how to get people to ask questions in the first place. Email is just like running—it’s a long-term thing. Keep going, please. You need to give yourself time to find your stride. I want you to genuinely pause here. Are you giving yourself time to find your stride, or are you letting yourself become frustrated before an ample amount of time has passed?
Once you give yourself time, it’s going to feel so good—it might even become addictive. Just like running, once I get out there, I pass a couple of miles, my body feels good, my breath is in sync with my legs, and I want to keep running. It’s the same with email. Once I get into a good stride, I get the right people on my email list, they’re responding, we’re having back and forth, they’re joining my membership, and I feel so freaking good—I want to send an email every day. It’s addictive. So give yourself time to find your stride. Be consistent.
And number three, the last reason you hate hitting send is because you come from a background where email was the bane of your existence. Raise your hand if you have a 9-to-5 or came from one where email equals bad. It’s a trigger. At your 9-to-5, email interrupted your work, or the person sending it was being passive-aggressive. Or maybe no one respected your boundaries, sending emails at six or seven o’clock at night that you had to answer immediately. So now, email equals trigger.
But guess what? I’ve got good news. You own your own business now, or you’re desperately trying to, and here, email equals cash. Email equals connection, customer research, care. It’s totally different now, okay? Take a deep breath. The next time you go to hit send and you’re worried about causing the reader anxiety, remember: that reader signed up to hear from you. It’s not like your 9-to-5. You’re coming from a place of service, not “gimme, gimme, gimme.” Relax, type up that email with a servant’s heart, and hit send. I know someone out there is waiting to read what you have to say.
Alright, let’s recap. You hate sending emails because, number one, you don’t manage your own inbox. Number two, you haven’t been consistent enough to hit your stride. And number three, you came from a crappy boss who made emails a trigger for you. But keep in mind, you are in charge of how much comes into your inbox. If your inbox is overwhelming, you can change it. Don’t give up before giving yourself a fair shot. And remember, you are not your coworkers, and you’re sending emails to people who asked for them. So just hit send.
Alright, thanks for listening. Go out there, remix those feelings, and come back to review this podcast to let me know how this has helped your email marketing game. Talk soon.
