Improve your email marketing…

Ever been tempted to buy an email list?

It’s got appeal – instantly adding thousands of new subscribers to your email list, I get it.

But, if you’d rather not read the long version of why you mustn’t, just don’t do it – you’ll thank your future self.

Okay, if you’re still reading, here’s why you don’t want to go down that rocky road…

Email lists that are for sale normally contain what are referred to as ‘spam traps‘.

By the way, unless you’re old, like me (or really into 70s music), I don’t expect you to have understood the subject line of this email! (to make sense of it, watch this YouTube video: Boomtown Rats, 1978 – believe it or not, this was ‘edgy’ for its time!)

What’s a ‘spam trap’?

Essentially, it’s when a knowingly unused email address is secreted inside an email list for the sole purpose of catching ‘spammers‘.

There are two types of spam traps: one that contains a previously active email address, but is no longer being used. These are referred to as ‘grey‘ or ‘recycled‘ traps.

The second type of spam trap is called ‘pristine‘ traps; as the name suggests, these are email addresses that have never been used.

Both trap types are purposely injected into these email lists so that if anyone (including you and me) sends emails to them (from our email marketing platform), they’ll* immediately know that you’re a spammer and you didn’t get the opt-in permission of the people you are sending emails to.

*When I say “they’ll”, I’m referring to ISPs (like Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, etc.) and to companies that track spammers, like SpamHaus and BitDefender.

This is a bad vibe, obviously.

What happens when you get spam-trapped?

Well, the best-case scenario is that your emails get directed to your ‘recipients’ spam folders.

Worst case is your domain gets blacklisted and you lose the ability to send emails from your domain.

You might even get banned by your email marketing platform!

Getting your email marketing back to a ‘clean’ state of play is not straightforward and will take significant help from someone specialising in deliverability issues.

So, the lesson here is – just don’t do it. Only ever collect email subscribers who give you their express permission to join your list.

P.S. The same logic applies to scraping emails from websites – these ‘spam trap’ emails are also placed onto websites to detect this ‘spammy’ behaviour.

Introducing a Kit feature…

Hide selected email sections in your public posts

Have you ever read a post or article that begins with “Hi Reader” (or similar) and you think… “That’s a bit strange for an online article…” (I know I have – especially when perusing many of Kit’s creators and their public posts).

But it doesn’t need to be that way – there’s a switch you can toggle off/on to suit your needs for each section of your emails… let’s take a look at it.

This email that I’m writing now is a case in point – you received it with a couple of sections that will not be seen by anyone reading it as a ‘public post’ (public posts are what appear in your Creator Profile – check mine here if you’re not sure what a Creator Profile is).

(Btw, everyone with a Kit account, free or paid, can also configure their Creator Profile. If you want to see how to do this, here is an article I created for you.)

And if you’re reading this as a public post… sorry, I’ve probably confused you because you won’t see the sections I’m about to refer to! 🤷🏻‍♂️

(Warning… your eyes may begin to spin soon 😵‍💫)

Okay, so I’m getting very meta here… the image below is taken from this email that you’re reading right now – it’s the salutation section from above ☝️

When you click on the ‘Section‘ link (see breadcrumbs at top-right of image), you get a bunch of config options for the section.

The one I’m using is entitled ‘Hide in public posts‘ – when the slider switch is set ‘on’ (i.e. green), then the entire section is omitted from the public post version of the email.

Equally, as you’d expect, with the switch set to ‘off’ (i.e. grey), then it IS shown in public posts.

I use this feature to remove salutation sections and sign-off sections from my public posts.

I do this for two reasons mainly; firstly because I think it’s a bit weird to have an email-styled salutation in a public post, and secondly, because most often (for my emails, at least), the sign-off section often has content that’s more apt to becoming dated and won’t be as relevant for longer-lasting public posts.

For example, in my weekly emails, I’ll often talk about what I have planned for the weekend or refer to upcoming events, most of which would be meaningless 6 months from now!

P.S. If you’re not sure what a public post is, it’s that option you see when you’re sending an email from Kit – a little check-box entitled ‘Publish to web‘;

If you’d like to check out the ‘public’ version of this email, hit the button below;

Tech you might find helpful…

Make your PDFs editable

Have you ever wished you could share editable PDF documents with your workshop attendees or group coaching customers?

And if you’re in the other camp, receiving non-editable PDFs, do you ever print them?

I never do – in fact, I no longer own a printer. 🤷🏻‍♂️

Thankfully, creating editable PDFs is now a dead simple task.

A quick Google search and you’ll find a lengthy list of apps to choose from, but the one I’ve used for a while now is called ‘DocFly‘.

The app started life as a side hustle for UK-based female software engineer, Emily Shaw (and as I have 2 daughters and 2 granddaughters, I say… 🙌 girl-power!), who spotted a gap in the market and decided to use her knowledge to build a solution that would go on to be used by hundreds of thousands of users (like me!).

Without being mean, I think it’s fair to say the app is very much function over vanity – it works well, but the website (and app) has a somewhat dated look and feel.

To make your PDF editable, just click the green ‘Upload‘ button and choose your file. Once loaded into the DocFly editor, you just highlight the areas of your document that you want to be editable, and it does the magic for you!

The image below is what the app looks like on the inside.

Once you’ve made all your sections editable, just hit the ‘Export‘ button, and the PDF will now be editable for your recipients.

If you’d like to give it a go, check it out using the button below; (premium plans start from $2.99/m, however, the free plan gives you 3 free credits per month)

P.S. I’m not affiliated with DocFly – I just find it a useful tool! 😊

Can you stump me with your question…?

Answering questions on email, Kit, or solo biz is my favourite thing to do – hit the button below and ask yours now…