If you go to Facebook or LinkedIn, you’ll find plenty of email marketing groups in under a second. The problem is that many of those aren’t helpful: they are mostly littered with spam or barely updated. Yet, there are some very good ones out there, too!
We’ve separated the wheat from the chaff and created this list of proper communities where email marketers can find help, support, and fun.
Email Geeks counts more than 20,000 members and it’s not just a big number. The chats are active, members are helpful.
The community functions on Slack. This online platform with chat rooms organized by topic, private groups, and direct messaging is a common workplace communication channel. Slack keeps Email Geeks a tidy business-like place, albeit one not without fun.
How useful is it? It’s active, so you won’t be left hanging if you have a question. The threadlike structure makes reading faster: replies are attached to the original post, not scattered across the channels. Anyone is free to chip in.
At the time of writing, there are 84 channels (chats with topics), but you don’t have to stay in every one of them. Upon joining, you’re added to the core channels: code, design, events, marketing, general.
You can join channels for more niche stuff like careers discussion, job postings, ESPs, analytics, and so on. Here’s how you do it on Slack:
Can I get expert advice? Yes. Prominent experts in the field frequent the community. Email Geeks hosts experts from leading companies and email marketing services, including ESP providers.
There are company-specific channels where you can chat with specialists from Adobe, Mailchimp, Hubspot, Litmus, and many others.
How fun is it from 1 to 10? Clearly, many members share the idea that email marketing is a lot of fun. People are free to share their jokes and comment on the jokes of others.
Here’s someone starting a thread with a meme. Good friendly email-related humor is what you can often see in Email Geeks.
Admission process. You have to fill out a simple registration form so the community knows you’re a ‘good fit’. It took me less than 24 hours to be admitted.
You don’t have to have a black belt in email marketing to be accepted. Email Geeks welcome anyone passionate or curious about emails, even if you’re only learning the ropes.
Men, look away. Women of Email is a one-of-a-kind community with only women allowed. That’s why below are the words of my female colleague Evgenia who’s here to guide you through it. We won’t show any screenshots here as sharing any content from the Women of Email community is not allowed by their rules.
Country Manager (USA) at Selzy
To begin with, Women of Email is more than a community — that’s an entire certified association. Jen Capstraw founded it in 2016 to “address limited gender diversity among email conference speakers.” To this day, participation is only limited to women who pursue careers in email marketing.
How useful is it? It’s meant for women who seek professional advice, support, and job opportunities. My personal experience: whatever question/request I posted there, I got insightful replies and help from the experts in the group. This community is my go-to place if I need advice. For laughs, too!
Speaking of employment, the place shows value to both job seekers and job givers. Employers have access to thousands of professionals in every niche of email marketing and if you search for employment, around 60% of all posts are job opportunities.
It seems to me that making it a closed community for women only made it click. Not because men are evil (ok, ok, just kidding!) but because a common goal brought people together. Since the beginning, the community only kept growing.
Can I get expert advice? Yes. Remember that the whole thing started because women were underrepresented at email conferences, that is places where experts meet.
Everyone in the community is involved in email marketing as the members share career advice, coding tips, and so on. Actually, expert advice is probably the key feature of the community. Anyone can ask a question and have an expert reply.
Once in a while, there’s a No stupid questions day — participants anonymously ask questions and receive replies.
How fun is it? Let’s put it this way: the community is so welcoming you feel like you’re not online but at a party with friends. And as it happens at parties, there’s a dancefloor where you can go wild, and there’s a table in the corner where serious stuff is discussed. Pick what you prefer.
Admission process. Membership is free but restricted. When signing up you have to prove two things: that you identify as a woman, genderqueer, or non-binary and have professional experience related to email marketing.
It’s recommended to use your full name and provide a URL to your LinkedIn account with a headshot. If these criteria are met, the registration shouldn’t take long.
What happens if you take a red-haired comedy stage hypnotist and a platinum-haired mentalist and put them in one room? A daring and thought-provoking podcast about email marketing!
Rob (red) and Kennedy (platinum) co-host the Email Marketing Show, one of the most insightful podcasts out there. To keep the conversation going, they created a community on Facebook.
How useful is it? While you’re unlikely to get expert advice on how to use ESPs or how to make your code tidy, you’ll probably find the place useful for more basic or fundamental questions about email marketing.
That’s a good place to visit for email marketing newbies but you’ll also find the community useful if you’re into the psychological side of the email game. It’s what they promise and what you get. Read their own description.
Can I get expert advice? Maybe. The community puts more emphasis on everyday conversations and basic tips. However, one of the core goals of the community is to raise awareness for their paid course called The League. Some community members and podcast listeners are part of The League which brings them closer to each other.
Speaking of expertise, Kennedy was our guest in the article about the iOS15 impact on email marketing and he gave some witty answers.
How fun is it? If you still have doubts, it’s very fun. Rob and Kennedy aim to maintain the conversation through comment boosters while the members are allowed to post funny things.
Admission process. It’s a closed community but the admission shouldn’t be hard. Send a request and expect to be accepted within a day.
While we’ve already listed all the best and most useful communities, there are places where you can find value, as well.
Although the community counts twice as many members as Email Geeks it’s nowhere near as active.
They average a couple of new posts per day but the comment section feels dead, even when posters ask a question. However, you may still squeeze some value out of it.
On Reddit, you can sort posts by New (chronological order with the newest posts first), Hot (popular at the moment), and Top. Pick Top, sort by All Time, and perhaps you’ll find some value in former posts and discussions.
The place clearly struggles for attention from Litmus users and readers although some folks persist on the forum.
The thing is, you may find the answer you’re looking for. But if you have a question it might take you a while to get a reply — even if you go the Reddit way and sort by top submissions. Take threads on ESPs: the Most Active here means from 3 years up to 10 to get a reply.
Still, you may want to give it a chance. Some threads average from 20 to 80 comments, written over (many, many) years. You can find gems of threads like Predictions for [email marketing] 2014 or your favorite hack [in coding an email].
A recently created and very active forum all about email marketing. The forum prides itself on being the most active, and it does feel this way with many topics appearing within minutes and fast replies from the community.
Some replies feel like they were written by ChatGPT, but there are genuine people willing to help too. So tread carefully, and you may find some value.
As a community, X (Twitter) is a bit all over the place but this may be the beauty of it. We haven’t found a community dedicated to email marketing on X but searching by hashtags still yields some results:
#emailgeeks — yes yes, it’s them again. Geeks going by this tag attend webinars, share tips, tweet random thoughts.
#emailpeeps — this is a hashtag some active Email Geeks members use, as well. With it, you’ll find many people from all sorts of email marketing niches.
#email memes — we won’t get tired of repeating that email marketing is a fun race! By the way, check out our collection of the funniest marketing memes and laugh it out.
If you find X a bit dull, try TikTok! Because it’s not just dances and voiceovers.
TikTok is famed for its recommendation mechanism. Use the search field for things you’re interested in and start watching clips.
The more you watch particular topics, the more TikTok will deliver them to your feed. This is one reason why we don’t recommend particular accounts but suggest you explore the space. Another reason is most of those accounts aren’t exclusively about emails but digital marketing in general.
Depending on your needs, join one of the following communities.
Email Geeks — for all sorts of email marketing discussions: from general conversations to complicated topics.
Women of Email — for professional support and job opportunities.
Email for course creators — for laid-back conversation.
To mix fun in spare time with knowledge, read on email marketing on Reddit or TikTok.
This article was originally published in January 2022 and was updated in November 2023 to make it more relevant and comprehensive.
