Hey friend,
I hope you’ve recharged over the holidays and are ready to build new habits and skills this year.
Yesterday’s lesson gave a brief overview of what to expect this week. In today’s lesson, we’re exploring why learners would care about our email courses.
That means you, as everyone who creates online, is a learner in some sense.
Nobody was born with their skills. Maybe you took in-person classes to improve your writing, or you’re a self-paced course fan. Regardless, you’ve likely experienced an email course before. And with the rising popularity of these courses, you’ll probably see dozens more when you learn from fellow makers online.
If you’re still skeptical that email courses are great for learners, please stick for a few minutes as I dig into my main reasons for loving them:
- Email is already a habit you can build on.
- Email is personal because it gives you direct access to teachers.
- Email is a convenient format to learn from and store long-term.
Let’s have a look at each:
Email is a habit
I’ve mentioned this before, and you’ll hear me say it a lot more: email rules because it’s already a daily habit for billions of internet users.
Because email is already so ingrained, it’s perfect for what James Clear calls “habit stacking,” using one habit to kickstart another.
The idea is simple: you change an existing habit slightly so it reminds you of a new habit. In the case of email, we’re already checking it daily, so we only need a teacher to craft attention-grabbing emails so we can learn new skills and habits.
The more you read emails from one person, the more that becomes a habit. Before you know it, you’re checking your inbox specifically for this one person’s emails. Both learners and teachers want that level of excitement, as it makes it much more likely the learner will succeed.
Email is personal
Every email is an invitation to the reader to connect with the writer.
You wouldn’t believe how many close friends I’ve met via email. Just because they took the time to read my ramblings and share something insightful with me, we started a friendship around topics I often can’t discuss with my family or other friends.
Another reason why I love that emails are private is because they take the pressure off the learner.
When majoring in Spanish in college, I often felt ashamed when asking for the fifth time for an explanation about the same point. It felt like I was holding the rest of the class back.
But with email? I feel much less self-conscious when emailing pesky questions (especially when I’ve paid for the email course).
Email is convenient
Emails are great because they don’t require any fancy hardware or internet connection.
Most internet-connected devices can display email, making it one of the most accessible content formats. If you can’t see well, you can use a screen reader. If you tend to forget (like me), tons of annotation and note-taking tools work great with email (and plain text in general).
But emails are convenient in more ways.
For example, I often save up email lessons during the week to study them on the weekend. But even if the course creator decides to quit after sending the email course, the content will be patiently waiting for me in my inbox.
Try that with a video course; if you haven’t broken some copyright laws by downloading them, you’re sore out of luck when the creator decides they don’t want to pay for a course platform anymore.
Email being plain text and on your device makes them much more convenient to learn from.
Recap and what’s next
That’s it for today! Before we get to the writing prompt, let’s summarize why emails are great if you’re learning new skills or building habits.
Email is a habit for most internet users, which makes it the perfect tool to “stack habits” on top of.
Email is personal because you can ask questions or share feedback privately by hitting reply.
Email is convenient because it’s mostly plain text and you own the content once it hits your inbox.
But emails are not just great to learn; they’re also great to build an audience. That’s what we’ll get into tomorrow.
Let’s learn from each other
Here’s another short journaling exercise, but this one is to share with each other:
What is the best email course you’ve ever taken?
Please take a moment to think back to what made that email course so great.
If you feel comfortable, share your answer as a comment or reply to this email and send it to me privately. I’m always looking to learn, answering every comment and email.
Let’s find some gems together!
—Ramses
