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By Alyssa Dulin & Melissa Lambert
4.7
2121 ratings
The podcast currently has 87 episodes available.
In this episode of Deliverability Defined, Alyssa and Melissa answer frequently asked questions about domain reputation, handling spam complaints, understanding the promotions tab, reasons for declining open rates, the implications of blocklists, the impact of unsubscribes, and much more.
In this episode:
Quotes
“Should I resend to unopens? I wouldn't do it with every send. I would do it sparingly and only if you have a really engaged healthy list. Make sure it makes sense for your scenario and know that there are people who are going to receive it twice.” ~ Alyssa Dulin
“These deliverability testing tools, I would almost lean toward saying they can sometimes be more hurtful than helpful in the sense that if you don't know what to look for and you also don't understand how the infrastructure works at the ESP, it can be really confusing.” ~ Melissa Lambert
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Try ConvertKit's deliverability in action
It's now free to use ConvertKit with an audience of 1,000 subscribers or less! Start building your audience and reaching their inboxes: convertkit.com/pricing.
While a lead magnet might seem insignificant, creating a high-quality and high-impact offer requires some strategic planning. An effective lead magnet provides a solution that's both valuable and efficient, which creates trust and lays the groundwork for a loyal subscriber base.
In this episode of Deliverability Defined, Alyssa and Melissa discuss the power of lead magnets to grow your email list and engage subscribers. They share their experience working with top email marketers and highlight the strategies that have helped them gain thousands of new subscribers and a more engaged and loyal audience. They also share tips on how to create lead magnets and what makes them effective.
In this episode:
Key Takeaways
Quotes
"A lead magnet is a great way to provide value upfront. Instead of people just signing up to your email list and they start getting sales emails from you, you're giving them things." - Alyssa Dulin
"When you have a lead magnet set-up, be sure that you have a strategy around what kinds of emails that person will be getting after they sign up, and not to start sending them broadcasts and sequences accidentally." ~ Melissa Lambert
"After the lead magnet's delivered, send an email introducing yourself and make it memorable. Don't just make it a generic bio." ~ Alyssa Dulin
"Depending on the kind of list collection you are using, your subscriber quality can be different. That's not a bad thing. It just means you may have to adjust the way you initially have people engaging or not engaging." ~ Melissa Lambert
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Try ConvertKit's deliverability in action
It's now free to use ConvertKit with an audience of 1,000 subscribers or less! Start building your audience and reaching their inboxes: convertkit.com/pricing.
The creator landscape thrives on connection, and newsletters have always been a powerful tool for nurturing these relationships. However, email marketing is changing. Just as domain reputation has become a crucial factor in email deliverability, the future of newsletters hinges on creators adapting their approach when needed, and practicing effective strategies and best practices.
In this episode of Deliverability Defined, Alyssa and Melissa discuss the future of newsletters. They reflect on the changes in the email marketing landscape over the past few years and offer some predictions for the future. They highlight the importance of mastering both newsletter creation and email marketing strategies to succeed in the email space. Additionally, they suggest how AI could eventually help navigate subscriber preferences and improve email marketing strategies.
Join us as we discuss:
Key Takeaways
Quotes
[10:30] - "The future is people mastering both newsletter creation and email marketing strategies. People who figure out both of those things will be the most successful in the email space." - Alyssa Dulin
[10:48] - "All those people who have crushed the newsletter game could benefit a ton by figuring out what the email marketers have figured out, having their own digital products or services, paid newsletters, or things they are selling." ~ Alyssa Dulin
[22:24] - "Deliverability is going to continue to be harder and harder because senders have to rely on their own domain reputation. It's more sensitive than it was previously. There's more that can upset certain systems." ~ Melissa Lambert
[25:51] - "Even if you are at an email service provider who may be able to sign up your emails with a domain that belongs to the email service provider, there's always going to be a chance in this new era of deliverability where a bad actor could potentially really hurt a lot of people." ~ Melissa Lambert
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Try ConvertKit's deliverability in action
It's now free to use ConvertKit with an audience of 1,000 subscribers or less! Start building your audience and reaching their inboxes: convertkit.com/pricing.
In this episode of Deliverability Defined, Alyssa talks with email marketing expert Tarzan Kay. They discuss the value of building an engaged email list and prioritizing real connections over high numbers. Tarzan shares her strategies to boost email engagement and deliverability while avoiding gimmicks. They also discuss the role of storytelling in emails, improving subscriber relationships, and the importance of self-editing for clarity.
In this episode:
Key Takeaways
Quotes
“What I love about email as a medium, and why I've chosen to make it the center of my business, is because it's relationship building.” ~ Tarzan Kay
“Anytime someone hits reply on an email, that's an opportunity for me to get content ideas. So I'm always looking for the things that they care about and writing emails about those topics.” ~ Tarzan Kay
“Engagement matters so much more than the size of your email list.” ~ Tarzan Kay
“When people see the same thing week after week, they glaze over, they scroll past it. So sometimes I move things around; maybe I'll put the interesting links at the top, maybe I'll put them at the bottom.” ~ Tarzan Kay
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Try ConvertKit's deliverability in action
It's now free to use ConvertKit with an audience of 1,000 subscribers or less! Start building your audience and reaching their inboxes: convertkit.com/pricing.
Many creators understand the importance of email marketing but need help to transform it into a sustainable growth engine. An email course offers a solution that's both powerful and efficient. This strategic approach provides a structured learning experience, establishes credibility, and supercharges audience growth.
In this episode of Deliverability Defined, Alyssa and Melissa are joined by Sean Stewart to discuss how to build an email course flywheel and the benefits of email courses for creators. Sean also explains the four types of email courses: crash course, step-by-step, biggest mistakes, and resources and templates, and provides valuable tips for creating them.
In this episode:
Key Takeaways
Quotes
"Email courses are a great way to create doorways into your world. It's an opportunity that a lot more creators can and should take advantage of." ~ Sean Stewart
"Solving problems for people and building relationships with them is how you create lifelong fans who are going to create that referral flywheel for you. Not only is it the most effective way to grow a business, but it also feels genuine and good." ~ Sean Stewart
"The beauty of email courses is that they let you do that at scale. It's like having this little copy of you who is an expert, who will work 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and welcome everyone into your world with this amazing course where you're teaching and solving a problem for them and building a relationship. And you can do this for dozens of people a day." ~ Sean Stewart
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Try ConvertKit's deliverability in action
It's now free to use ConvertKit with an audience of 1,000 subscribers or less! Start building your audience and reaching their inboxes: convertkit.com/pricing.
Many people find their inboxes overflowing with generic emails and promotional content, all vying to grab their attention. But what separates an email that gets deleted from one that gets opened, sparks engagement, and drives results? Ultimately, effective emails prioritize value over promotion. It's finding and understanding your target subscribers and delivering value that addresses their needs.
In this episode of Deliverability Defined, Alyssa and Melissa talk about the steps and strategies for creating effective emails. They provide practical tips on identifying the target audience, creating a value proposition, and reaching potential subscribers through lead magnets and social media strategies.
Join us as we discuss:
Key Takeaways
Quotes
"A lot of people think about their email as a bunch of random email addresses, and they are thinking about their goals. It's a much better strategy to reverse this thinking and get laser-focused on how to serve your audience. Then, you'll find way more success because you'll be serving people and giving them what they need." ~ Alyssa Dulin
"If you have a lot of engagement on TikTok and Instagram because of the reels you do, but you don't have a newsletter or a website, you are missing out." ~ Melissa Lambert
"Having this lens [a lead magnet and target subscriber] makes your life much easier. Because now, with every single email you send, instead of coming from your goals, you have a human you're writing to in your head when you sit down to write an email." ~ Alyssa Dulin
"We know people at ConvertKit who have smaller lists and are successful. It's not about the list size. It's because they figured out what their audience needed and put that into place ahead of time." ~ Melissa Lambert
Links
Connect with our hosts
Stay in touch
Try ConvertKit's deliverability in action
It's now free to use ConvertKit with an audience of 1,000 subscribers or less! Start building your audience and reaching their inboxes: convertkit.com/pricing.
Domain reputation has been a theme this season. And for good reason. In the world of email, IP addresses and domains have reputations that can make or break an email’s journey. While it might seem a little technical, understanding these nuances can have a big impact on your email deliverability.
In this episode of Deliverability Defined, Alyssa and Melissa discuss the differences between shared and dedicated reputation regarding IP addresses and domains. They talk about the importance of IP and domain reputation, the factors that affect them, and their impact on email deliverability. They also highlight ConvertKit's approach to maintaining a high reputation.
Join us as we discuss:
Key Takeaways
Quotes
[07:19] - "If you care about completely owning the reputation of your email, you want to be low risk, and you don't want any other factor to influence your email's deliverability, you might want a dedicated IP. Your deliverability is all on you 100 percent." ~ Alyssa Dulin
[22:56] - "Your domain reputation is extremely important and can be the cause of emails going to spam. There is nothing your ESP can do about it if you don't clean up your side of the street." - Melissa Lambert
[27:59] - "Helping our customers and senders buy their own domains and figure out their own mailboxes so that they can really own their identity and their mail is helpful to the entire ecosystem." ~ Alyssa Dulin
[31:58] - "We want to be good stewards of email and are also trying to get tooling in place to support that. We've tried to align our tooling with our belief that this is the best way for senders to have autonomy over their domain reputation, and we're going to give you a tool to make it even easier." ~ Melissa Lambert
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Try ConvertKit's deliverability in action
It's now free to use ConvertKit with an audience of 1,000 subscribers or less! Start building your audience and reaching their inboxes: convertkit.com/pricing.
If you’ve ever found yourself in a tangle of numbers, wondering which email metrics actually matter, this episode is for you.
This week, Alyssa and Melissa unravel the tangled web of open rates, bounce rates, click rates, and complaint rates, guiding email senders toward clarity. They discuss why maintaining low bounce and complaint rates is essential, and explore the impact of metrics on email deliverability. They also explore the value of subscriber engagement and the reality of cold subscribers. Understanding these metrics (which ones deserve your attention and how to interpret them) is vital for your email deliverability.
In this episode, we discuss:
Key Takeaways
Quotes
“If I were to give any advice to someone who is experiencing a drop in open rates, it would be to not panic and just start slowly digging into different aspects of why your open rates might be changing.” ~ Melissa Lambert
“Get really familiar with your metrics. What's normal for you? What's a normal open rate for you? What's a normal click rate for you? And spot anything that is abnormal.” ~ Alyssa Dulin
Links
Connect with our hosts
Stay in touch
Try ConvertKit's deliverability in action
It's now free to use ConvertKit with an audience of 1,000 subscribers or less! Start building your audience and reaching their inboxes: convertkit.com/pricing.
In this episode of Deliverability Defined, Alyssa and Melissa explore some creative ways to boost email replies and enhance deliverability. From leveraging engagement signals and building community to using incentive-driven tactics, they share valuable strategies to amp up replies and strengthen relationships with subscribers.
The discussion also touches on the impact of replies on domain reputation and suggests practical methods for handling and organizing replies. As email deliverability continues to evolve, nurturing meaningful interactions through replies is a powerful tool for ensuring your messages thrive in the inbox.
In this episode, we discuss:
Key Takeaways
Quotes
“I think if you can come up with a creative way to ask different questions, people will answer. They will want to answer. People love to talk and they love being able to share their opinions.” ~ Melissa Lambert
“So instead of making people click a button to confirm their opt-in and receive that lead magnet, whatever it may be, you're asking them to reply to your email to get the lead magnet.” ~ Alyssa Dulin
Links
Connect with our hosts
Stay in touch
Try ConvertKit's deliverability in action
It's now free to use ConvertKit with an audience of 1,000 subscribers or less! Start building your audience and reaching their inboxes: convertkit.com/pricing.
In this episode of Deliverability Defined, Alyssa and Melissa dive into the topic of using recommendation tools to grow your email list while maintaining healthy deliverability. They explore the potential impact of using ConvertKit’s Creator Network recommendation tool, and provide insights on how to effectively manage new subscribers.
Balancing list growth with subscriber engagement is critical for email senders. Making a strong first impression with new subscribers through a clear and compelling creator profile, setting up a robust welcome sequence, and implementing automated list cleaning will help keep engagement high and maintain deliverability.
In this episode, we discuss:
Key Takeaways
Quotes
“We often see people who have other methods of subscriber collection, that are not illegal and they're not bad necessarily, but they don't always convert to the best subscribers.” ~ Melissa Lambert
“If you have friends who are newsletter people or they have an email list and they know how to grow their list, that's a great fit. Reach out to your friends, be like, hey, let's form a pod, let's recommend each other. Then every time one of you grows your list, you're all benefiting, which is awesome.” ~ Alyssa Dulin
Links
Connect with our hosts
Stay in touch
Try ConvertKit's deliverability in action
It's now free to use ConvertKit with an audience of 1,000 subscribers or less! Start building your audience and reaching their inboxes: convertkit.com/pricing.
The podcast currently has 87 episodes available.
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