Happy Subscribers

Episode Summary:

Five years is a long time to work with someone, and what I love most about my relationship with Jason Norris is how much he trusts me to do what I do — and how much I've learned from watching him do what he does. Because Jason has a way of thinking about his email list that I don't hear from a lot of bloggers:

He doesn't call it content. He calls it correspondence.

Jason runs RecipeTeacher.com, and his audience is devoted in a way that's genuinely rare. His readers are largely older home cooks who don't just open his emails — they write back! And, not only that, Jason reads and responds to them (sometimes from his kayak).

In this final episode of this year's Foodie Email Series, we talk about what it actually looks like to show up for your audience with that kind of care, consistently — not because you have a content calendar forcing you to, but because you've built a habit that feels good and relationships that are worth maintaining.

In this episode, we cover:

• The morning ritual that anchors Jason's email habit (and why it works so much better than trying to batch everything at once)
• How he built a segmentation system around appliances — Instant Pot, Air Fryer — so his readers only get content that's actually relevant to them
• Why "best damn" has become a signature naming convention his audience genuinely loves
• What authenticity looks like in practice when AI is making everything sound the same
• The growth behind RecipeTeacher: what happens when you pair a deeply loyal audience with an email strategy that's built for the long game

Jason is one of my favorite examples of a creator who stays true to who he is — and who is genuinely willing to try new things, test what works, and never stop investing in quality. His audience has rewarded him for it every single time.

Check out this episode's blog post Episode Resources:

• RecipeTeacher.com
• Read the RecipeTeacher case study
• Listen + subscribe
• Instagram @alleagrummert

Episode Summary:

When I started email marketing as a personal finance blogger, I didn't know what I was getting into. Then strangers — on the other side of the world — started writing back. Not just clicking. Writing back, with their own money stories, their own fears, their own wins. That's when I understood: the inbox is one of the most human places on the internet.

Toni Okamoto understood this too. She's been sending a personal Friday email every week for three years — no AI, just her words — and her audience now replies with 52-year-old wedding photos, asks if she's okay when she misses a week, and buys her cookbooks during a full-send launch week because they genuinely want her to hit her goals.

She's the founder of Plant Based on a Budget, the bestselling author of multiple cookbooks (including the Publishers Weekly bestseller Plant Based on a Budget Quick and Easy), and the co-host of the Plant Powered People Podcast. And in this episode of the Foodie Email Series, she's pulling back the curtain on the email strategy that's quietly one of the most sophisticated — and most human — in the food creator space.

In this episode, you'll learn about:

• Why Toni sends emails every single day — and the segmentation system that means most subscribers only ever see four of them
• The Friday newsletter that's been running for three years, why she never uses AI for it, and the separate inbox she had to create just to manage the replies
• How she launches cookbooks via email without apology — and the mindset shift that made her uninhibited about selling
• What the $5 meal plan taught her about niching down, building trust, and creating products an audience actually wants to buy
• The link trigger setup that tells her exactly who to email and who to skip

Check out this episode's blog post Connect with Toni Okamoto:

• Toni's Instagram
• Plant Based on a Budget
• Plant Powered People Podcast

Episode Resources:

• Book a FREE Discovery Call
• Free Duett Resources
• Join the Duett newsletter
• Instagram @alleagrummert

Episode Summary:

100% email traffic growth. In one year.

That's what happened for Liz Della Croce of The Lemon Bowl after 15 years of sending nothing but RSS emails — and it's exactly why I wanted her on the podcast.

I just started personal training — and I went from finding out about the gym to having my first session on the calendar in under a week. There's something about committing to the right kind of help — and actually getting it scheduled — that makes all the difference between "I should do this" and actually doing it.

I think this happens in business too: we know something needs to change, but we stall on the whole plan before taking the first step.

My guest today, Liz Della Croce of The Lemon Bowl, knew her email marketing needed an overhaul — and just like me at that gym, she committed to getting the right help before she had everything figured out.

Liz has been building The Lemon Bowl since 2010 — a healthy food and travel blog with a loyal community of readers drawn to seasonal, globally-inspired recipes, including the Syrian and Jewish dishes from her childhood. She also hosts Fresh Air Retreat, intimate brand-and-blogger events she's now run 15 times. In this episode — week 2 of the Foodie Email Series — she's walking us through exactly how she got here.

In this episode, you'll learn about:

• Why Liz sent RSS-only emails for 15 years — and the SEO pivot that made them not-so-useful overnight
• The email calendar system behind sending 4 to 5 emails a week — and why giving your email person clear direction changes the quality of everything (including your peace of mind)
• Why she got the Email Strategy Playbook BEFORE hiring an email assistant — and how having a roadmap first changed the way she now delegates
• What she stopped creating for her email list, why she made those calls, and how she figured out what actually got more engagement
• The result: 100% email traffic growth in one year

Check out this episode's blog post Connect with Liz Della Cruce:

• The Lemon Bowl
• Fresh Air Retreat

Episode Resources:

• Kit
• Book a FREE Discovery Call
• Free Duett Resources
• Join the Duett newsletter
• Instagram @alleagrummert

Episode Summary:

The most valuable audience isn't your biggest one — it's your most connected one.

Welcome to the first episode in our Foodie Email Series — where we're diving into how food creators are turning attention into something more meaningful… and more sustainable.

Because, yes —

You can have a growing audience. You can have viral posts. You can have a lot of eyeballs on your content…

…and still feel unsure how that actually turns into revenue beyond ad traffic.

That's exactly why I wanted to bring my friend Melissa from Design Eat Repeat onto the podcast.

Melissa creates food content that does convert — and she's spent a lot of time and investment in her audience in order to get sales on her cookbook and membership. Not overnight, but with time and consistency on social platforms and monthly baking challenges.

Her content leads to connection, which leads to sales — because her list had learned to trust her.

In this conversation, we talk about how she's used email to:

• Build relationships with her readers long before asking for the sale
• Turn engaged followers into subscribers (and subscribers into customers)
• Test ideas with her audience before fully committing to them
• Support multiple offers — like her memberships and self-published cookbook — without overwhelming her list

Check out this episode's blog post Connect with Melissa:

• www.designeatrepeat.com
• One Crafty Pan Cookbook
• Crafty Baker's Club
• Instagram

Episode Resources: Free Duett Resources Other Resources:

Join the Duett newsletter Check out Duett Services Book a FREE Discovery Call

Instagram @alleagrummert

Episode Summary:

You're getting Pinterest traffic. People are clicking, landing on your blog, and then bouncing — no email opt-in, no capture, just visits that disappear.

Eep, that's a wasted opportunity!!

In this episode, I'm joined by Kayla Watkins, Pinterest strategist and agency owner. Kayla and her team help bloggers grow their revenue by repurposing their content on Pinterest — and today she's walking us through the data-driven side of Pinterest most bloggers never touch.

In this episode:

• • Why Pinterest is a search engine, not social media — and what that one mindset shift changes about everything
  • How to see what your audience is searching before peak content-search seasons
  • How to find what Pinterest already knows you're an expert on — and use that data to build lead magnets that are practically pre-approved
  • Why your most-visited blog posts are basically free lead magnet ideas staring you in the face
  • What organic Pinterest strategy actually looks like when you're paying attention to momentum instead of just posting and hoping

Check out this episode's blog post Connect with Kayla Watkins:

• KaylaWatkins.com
• Connect with Kayla on Instagram & TikTok
• Pinterest Trends

Duett Resources:

Join the Duett newsletter

Check out Duett Services

Book a FREE Discovery Call

Free Duett Resources

Instagram @alleagrummert

Episode Summary:

Yeah, I hear it. Me wrapping up work most days by 3pm might sound a little braggy.

Maybe it is. A little.

But I'm telling you about why I'm able to do this because how I got here has everything to do with where YOUR best energy needs to be going too — and I'd be doing you a disservice if I didn't explain.

I just know that if you're the one doing everything, all day, your best brain hours are going to tasks that don't actually need your particular voice, taste, or expertise. And eventually, your best self isn't showing up anywhere — not in your emails, not in your content, maybe not even in your life outside of work hours. 😬

In this episode, I'm telling you how I got to shortened work days, including:

• What had to change about who did what work in my business (aka, it couldn't all be ME forever)
• The lessons I had to learn the hard way about training and trusting a new hire (including one night on my bathroom floor)
• My realization of my own limitations — even as an extrovert — and my need for rest and support
• How prioritizing certain parts of my work allow me to work less (though just as hard)
• What actually changes about your emails — and your creativity — when you protect the parts of your work that are purely yours
• Why all of this matters for creators and service providers who want to be in business for a very long time

Check out this episode's blog post Episode Resources: Free Duett Resources

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Book a FREE Discovery Call

Instagram @alleagrummert

duett.co/hire (job boards, what's worked, + fractional COO referral)

Clariti

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Episode Summary:

If you've been running an online business for any amount of time, you know that every few years, something comes along that shifts everything. The way we create content, connect with our audience, run our businesses — it all gets reshuffled, and we find ourselves recalibrating all over again.

AI is that thing right now. And if you've felt the pressure to figure it out, use it more, use it better, or at least stop feeling behind — so have I.

But here's what I keep coming back to: even as the tools change, people are still craving real human connection. And I think that's actually the opportunity — using AI to simplify the work that drains us so we can show up more fully for the parts that actually build relationships.

That's exactly what this conversation with Andrew Wilder is about.

Andrew is the founder of NerdPress, a Certified B Corporation that handles WordPress support and maintenance for bloggers and content creators. He's been in this space a long time, and when AI started shifting things, he didn't just jump in — he got intentional about it. In this episode, we dig into what that actually looks like in practice.

In this episode:

• How AI tools work as a "subsidy" for your content — and what that means for long-term sustainability
• Where AI genuinely falls short (and why its confidence is part of the problem)
• The "verbal crutches" of AI-generated content — and how to spot them in your own work
• Data privacy with AI tools — what you should never share, even with paid accounts
• Why "staying in your lane" and leaning into your human perspective is the real competitive advantage right now

Connect with Andrew Wilder:

NerdPress

EPISODE RESOURCES:

Join the Duett newsletter

Check out Duett Services

Book a FREE Discovery Call

Instagram @alleagrummert

Check out this episode's blog post

If you enjoyed this episode, you can show your support by leaving a review, subscribing, or sharing your biggest takeaways on your Instagram story! Just remember to tag me @alleagrummert so I can see it.

How many emails should you be sending?

It's a question I hear from content creators all the time, and the honest answer is: it depends.

What I've noticed is that when I encourage people to send more than a few emails a week, there's often a little hesitation — a worry that it's too many, that it'll feel like too much, that their audience will get annoyed and start unsubscribing. But then there are creators on the other end of the spectrum sending daily or even twice-daily emails without batting an eye. With such a wide range of what's possible, how do you actually know what's worth your time and energy — without burning bridges with the subscribers you've already worked hard to build?

That's exactly what I wanted to dig into with Ned Adams of Dutch Oven Daddy.

When Ned shifted to sending daily emails to his list of ~4,500 subscribers, his site traffic doubled. His open rate hit 50%. His click rate jumped to 6.5%. And his unsubscribes? Barely moved.

In this episode, Ned and I dig into what his email strategy actually looks like, why it works, and how his "what do I have to lose?" approach might just be the most honest email philosophy I've heard in a while.

In this episode:

• What Ned's email strategy looked like before daily sends — and the one permission slip he got at Tastemaker that changed everything
• The ultra-simple email format driving all that traffic (one image, 5–10 links, and zero bullet points (!!))
• Why duplicating old emails and tweaking them is not lazy — it's actually smart
• How Ned uses AI to batch subject line options so he always has something strong to send
• Why his "what do I have to lose?" philosophy might be the most underrated email strategy out there

Check out this episode's blog post Connect with Ned Adams (Dutch Oven Daddy):

Instagram

Website Episode Resources:

Kit (email platform Ned uses)

Free Duett Resources

Join the Duett newsletter

Check out Duett Services

Instagram @alleagrummert If you enjoyed this episode, you can show your support by leaving a review, subscribing, or sharing your biggest takeaways on your Instagram story! Just remember to tag me @alleagrummert so I can see it.

Episode Summary:

Today's episode is a little different — I'm sharing a guest appearance I made within the Food Blogger Pro membership, where Bjork Ostrom had their members submit email questions ahead of time. And y'all, food bloggers ask good questions.

We covered a lot of ground: how often you should actually be sending emails, what makes a welcome sequence worth the setup, the surprisingly freeing practice of list cleaning, and what's really behind a subject line that gets opened.

Here are the key questions we dive into:

• How often should you actually be sending emails?
• Why should you spend time on a welcome sequence, and what does it actually do?
• What is list cleaning, and why does it feel scary to remove cold subscribers?
• What helps improve email open rates?
• How can you get the most out of their existing content without creating something new for email?

Check out this episode's blog post

Episode Resources:

Book a FREE Discovery Call

Free Duett Resources

Join the Duett newsletter

Instagram @alleagrummert

Food Blogger Pro

If you enjoyed this episode, you can show your support by leaving a review, subscribing, or sharing your biggest takeaways on your Instagram story! Just remember to tag me @alleagrummert so I can see it.

Episode Summary:

It's never been easier to create content. And somehow… it's never been harder to stand out.

In this episode, I'm joined by Dorie Clark to talk about how to build a reputation that actually makes you known — even when everyone online (ahem, AI) sounds the same. Not only is she a bestselling author, keynote speaker, and one of the top business thinkers in the world, she can help us practically think about what it takes to stand out in a crowded online space.

So what does it actually take to become known for your work?

Not just visible. Not just posting consistently. But trusted… remembered… chosen, when there are a LOT of choices out there?

Here's the good news:

She said that becoming a recognized expert isn't about doing more. 🙌

We talk about the three core elements she's identified after years and years of research and experience and how they work together to build real authority (not just surface-level visibility).

And of course, we zoom in on email — because while it may not be the flashiest marketing channel, it is one of the most powerful tools for building trust and deepening relationships with the people who matter most.

In this episode, you'll learn about:

• You feel like you're "doing all the things" online, but not seeing the traction you want
• You're wondering how to stand out without constantly publishing on yet another platform
• You want your email list to be more than just a place to send updates
• You're thinking long-term about your business, your voice, and your reputation

Fortunately, becoming known for your work isn't about going viral (because who can plan that?).

Instead, it's about being remembered — and trusted — over time.

Check out this episode's blog post Connect with Dorie Clark:

Recognized Expert ToolKit

Recognized Expert Course

Instagram

Website

Episode Resources: Free Duett Resources Other Resources:

Join the Duett newsletter Check out Duett Services Book a FREE Discovery Call

Instagram @alleagrummert