Social Media Is Failing Small Businesses: Why Email Marketing Still Works

👉 Want to skip ahead to hands-on help? Check out these upcoming workshops:

• Holiday Emails That Don’t Make You Cringe (and Still Make Sales) 

• How to Start an Email List: Building Genuine Connections Beyond the Algorithm 

Both are designed for small business owners who are tired of chasing the algorithm and ready to try something more human, sustainable, and effective.

Social Media Exhaustion: What I Saw at a Networking Event

At a recent local networking event, about 30–50 women business owners gathered—most of them solopreneurs or running micro-businesses. We each had a minute to introduce ourselves, and a theme quickly emerged: social media burnout.

• Newer owners asked if they “should” bother starting an Instagram account.

• Experienced folks said their reach had collapsed, especially when they tried to sell.

• The energy was heavy: frustrated, annoyed, tired.

Then a few voices—some of my clients—shared that they’d begun experimenting with email marketing for small businesses. Their energy was entirely different: curious, hopeful, like the first day of school with a new outfit.

This tracks with what I see in coaching. I create both social media content plans and email marketing plans for clients. I even write their first few emails so they can feel what a grounded, useful message is like to send. They’re always surprised when people actually hit reply. Engagement feels different when it’s real conversation instead of likes on a feed.

If you read that and thought, “oh dang, maybe she could write my plan,” you’re not wrong—learn more about my coaching here .

(I didn't get to post a blog last week due to an influx of fall clients settling in and a very full Liberatory Finance series this month. But two weekends ago I got to take my little family of 4 camping for the first time. I was so so impressed with how well it went and we even all slept!)

Why is this happening? (The longer answer.)

Here’s the anti-capitalist read on why social feels so bad for so many and why email often feels better.

1) Platforms are built on your unpaid labor.
Social companies need an endless stream of content to sell ads. You supply that content for free. You also supply the audience: your people’s attention. The platform owns the real asset (the feed and the data), and it rents you access to your own community. That’s why selling in-feed gets punished: outbound clicks and direct sales don’t serve the platform’s ad model.

2) You don’t own the channel; the channel owns you.
Algorithms change, accounts get throttled, features appear and vanish. You can’t reliably predict visibility. That creates learned helplessness (“why try?”) or treadmill energy (“post more, maybe this time it works”). In email, you own the list. Even a small list is an asset you take with you. That stability feels different in your body.

3) The attention factory vs. the letter.
Feeds are engineered for speed: jittery, chopped-up, reward-loop design. That’s not a moral failing; it’s the product spec. It rewards quick takes and penalizes nuance. Email is slower. It invites paragraph-length thought, a beginning–middle–end, an actual point. Long-form asks for a bit of presence, which many of us are craving as an antidote to the churn.

4) The nervous system math.
Short-form keeps you on alert: constant novelty, constant judgment, constant comparison. Creating for that environment can require adrenaline you don’t have at 8pm on a Tuesday after kid bedtime and QuickBooks. Writing an email can be done at a humane pace: draft today, edit tomorrow, send Friday. The work fits real life.

5) Performance vs. relationship.
On social, you perform for the platform’s taste, and your community is the audience. In email, you write to people you actually know (even if you haven’t met). It’s inherently relational: someone can reply, tell you what they need, ask a question, place an order, book a service. That feedback loop is motivating in a way likes can’t touch.

6) Aesthetics as gatekeeper.
Feeds favor highly produced visuals, specific bodies and lifestyles, and time-heavy editing workflows. That’s inequitable by design. Email lowers the production barrier: clear words, a decent subject line, a link. It makes visibility more about usefulness than gloss.

7) Consent and care.
Email is permission-based. People choose to let you in. You can segment, slow down, and respect boundaries. That doesn’t mean you never sell; it means your selling can be honest, steady, and paced—more farmer’s market than Black Friday stampede.

8) The economy we’re building.
If we say we want solidarity economies—where relationships, care, and sufficiency matter—then we need marketing infrastructures that align with that. Email supports durable, two-way relationships and local/regional resilience: you can organize a CSA pickup and sell your workshops and ask for mutual aid—all in one place where people actually see it.

9) My prediction.
I think social media will only become less useful for small businesses. Ads will consume more and more of the feed, until being on those platforms feels like being trapped inside a shopping mall you didn’t want to enter. At some point, “consumers” will stop logging on. Platforms will keep pivoting to video or AI or whatever else, but the underlying truth remains: their profit model is ads, not your flourishing. That’s not a game worth pouring your best energy into for the long haul.

Does Email Marketing Work for Small Businesses?

Short answer: yes.

• Email open rates for small, personal lists often hover around 35–50%.

• My own list of 1,000+ subscribers consistently sees 60–70% open rates (this is what a super-healthy list looks like).

• Click rates are often 2–10%.

Compare that to social media: only about 5–10% of your followers will see a post—often fewer when you’re trying to sell. With email, you start from a far larger base of people who are actually paying attention.

And here’s something algorithms don’t deliver: people reply. They write back with questions, stories, and encouragement. That two-way connection can sustain you in ways a feed never will.

Email marketing isn’t magic. But for small businesses, it’s one of the most consistent and sustainable strategies left.

(What is camping if you don't make s'mores for breakfast? We were supposed to go with another family, but they had to bail last minute and then of course it rained so we couldn't do a campfire in the evening, which naturally lead to s'mores for breakfast.)

Alternatives to Social Media Marketing: How to Start With Email

If you want an alternative to social media marketing, here’s how to get going with email:

1. Pick a Simple Email Platform

Choose something easy: Mailchimp, ConvertKit, Flodesk, MailerLite. Don’t overthink it.

2. Create One Clear Invitation

Add a signup form to your website or set up a landing page. Offline? A clipboard at your events works too.

3. Send a Welcome Email

Introduce yourself, explain why you’re writing, and share what they’ll get. No need to be fancy.

4. Write Like a Human

Forget jargon. Share stories, reflections, or tips. Let your emails feel like letters.

5. Keep It Small and Steady

You don’t need thousands of subscribers. Many small businesses make real sales from lists of 100–300. Focus on quality, not quantity.

6. Try a Simple Holiday Sequence

For your first experiment, send three emails:

1. A warm-up (share the story, preview the offer).

2. The offer (what’s available, who it’s for, how to get it).

3. A reminder (a gentle nudge with gratitude).

This structure is simple, repeatable, and works even if you’re just starting.

Why Email Aligns With Anti-Capitalist Business Practices

• Relational, not extractive. You’re not feeding a platform; you’re talking to people.

• Consent-based. People invite you in.

• Durable. You own your list. No one can take it away with a policy change.

• Values-driven. You can sell in ways that feel steady, not manipulative.

For small business owners seeking alternatives to social media marketing, email offers a path that is slower, more human, and more aligned with the kind of economy we want to build.

Unfortunately, the weekend ended with my littlest getting croup. Never a dull moment I tell ya. We spent 3 hours at urgent care Sunday afternoon. Everyone smelled like unshowered campfire as we littered the waiting room with cheez-its crumbs and grapes while my poor babe wailed in a tiny darth vader adjacent voice.

Want More Support?

If this resonates, I’d love to support you in a deeper way. My anti-capitalist business coaching  is designed for small business owners who want to grow in alignment with their values while building steady, sustainable practices like email marketing.

Ready to Take the First Step?

Join me in one of these upcoming workshops:

• Holiday Emails That Don’t Make You Cringe (and Still Make Sales)  — learn a simple 3-part holiday email sequence you can reuse every year.

• How to Start an Email List: Building Genuine Connections Beyond the Algorithm  — the basics of email marketing for small businesses, explained in a grounded, human way.

Both are accessible, beginner-friendly, and perfect if you’re ready to step off the social treadmill and try something different.

Final Thought

Social media isn’t disappearing tomorrow, but it’s already an unreliable marketing channel. Email, on the other hand, continues to work year after year.

If you’re tired of pouring energy into platforms that don’t care about your thriving, email is a practical alternative. A letter instead of a performance. A conversation instead of a feed. A step toward building the kind of economy we actually want to live in.