How do you balance the frequency and quality of email and social media posts?

Getting started with email marketing can be daunting and the first place a lot of people try is to get high numbers. In my experience as a sole trader or small business then quality trumps quantity. Having people who truly love what you are sharing makes for better engagement and sales. Sharing your knowledge, behind the scenes peeks, answering questions and giving your wisdom for free creates a more engaged list who, when you do a little selling (about 20% of your efforts here) already know and trust you and therefore more likely to buy what you offer. It's a marathon, not a sprint. I think the 'overnight successes' we see so often in the digital world are a misconception of the hard work and many failures that went before.

Social media marketing is a tool and not the easy, quick way to make money that it used to be when it started (that ship has sailed). It is now a very competitive environment. Concentrate on being truly helpful and sharing your wisdom to build trust in your audience and do not over-promote.

Consider breaking down your learnings in carousel posts. Other things to consider: - Slim your text, keep slimming until you can’t slim anymore - First sentence of every post is your fishing hook - Respond to every comment

An important distinction is that you don't "own" your social media followers; you're very much at the mercy of the social platform. Social media is an amazing, low-cost tool for building an audience. But you should always be converting that audience to your email list. This is important to reduce your risk of losing the audience you worked so hard to build. Risks include: * Hacking * Algorithm changes * Whims of the audience * Etc. And don't forget that, in general, someone needs to hear your message 7+ times before it "sticks." So don't worry if you're repeating themes/topics across social and email.

I absolutely agree. For me, the first place to start is on your own platform with your own terms (your website). Nail your target audience and what drives them and what troubles them. Then, build great content that is really useful and fascinating to that audience. When you share it with your fans on social media and email they will be able to refer back to your website too and find out more. Make them thirsty for the insider info of your knowledge and experience!

If you're a small business, my advice is to choose a frequency, then publish the best content you can while meeting that cadence. And "best" should be defined by what resonates with your customers. And "customers" are defined as your *actual* customers, not some speculative ideal. You may not have the bandwidth for testing and measuring, but here's an easy benchmark: if your real, live customers are thanking you for your emails, you're doing things right.