The cheapest audience you'll ever reach already raised a hand
They gave you an email address once, which makes them the warmest audience you have. A newsletter that actually goes out, or a sequence that follows up on its own, turns that list into your best performing channel.
They downloaded something of yours once, which makes them the warmest audience you have. A newsletter that actually goes out, or a sequence that follows up on its own, turns that list into a channel you can reach any time you have something worth saying.
- SPF says which servers may send as you.
- DKIM signs the message so it can't be forged in transit.
- DMARC tells inboxes what to do when the first two fail.
Get these three right and your mail shows up where people actually read it. Nothing else you do for email pays off this fast.
The plan
How we get you there
Same three stages on every project.
Who this is forOwners sitting on a list they feel guilty about. Usually a few hundred people who liked you once and haven't heard anything since.Nonprofits and centers with a mailing list older than the website. Nonprofit email is its own problem: practitioners, donors, alumni and conference contacts who would read you, if anything arrived.
Clarify
What you're actually saying, and who you're saying it to.
Beautify
Every place you say it: the site, the mark, the print, the email.
Amplifyyou're here
Systems that carry it to the people who need to hear it: search, email and outreach.
Real sends
Keeping their people up to date
Cliff Cottage Inn sends a welcome the day somebody signs up, then keeps the list posted on what is worth coming back for. Same template every time, which is why the next issue takes an evening and not a weekend.
Gillings sends under several mastheads, issue after issue. Every Carolina Public Health goes out with an email whose only job is getting people to read it online, and the rest keep the school's news in front of its people in between.
Why people call me
Three things I hear before anyone hires an email marketing agency
Only one of them is about writing.
We keep meaning to send one
It's been on the list for a year. Every month it loses to something urgent, because nobody owns it and there's no template waiting.
We sent it and nothing happened
Low opens, no replies, and no way to tell whether the writing was weak or the thing never reached an inbox in the first place.
People download it and vanish
Someone hands over an email address for a guide, and then nothing happens for eight months until they've forgotten who you are.
Scope
What you actually get
Set up once so sending the next one is a decision rather than a project.
Deliverability, first
SPF, DKIM and DMARC checked and fixed before anything is written, and verified on a real send.
Email template design
On your brand, readable on a phone, and simple enough that the next issue takes twenty minutes and no fighting with a builder. One newsletter template you keep using, not a new build every month.
Follow-up sequences
A handful of emails that go out on their own after somebody downloads something, spaced so they stay useful and never feel like a countdown. Set it and forget it, in the good way.
Landing pages that collect
One page, one offer, one field more than strictly necessary and no more. Built on your site so the traffic and the signups report in the same place.
List health
Dead addresses removed, bounces handled, and a real unsubscribe that works first time. A smaller list that arrives beats a big one that doesn't.
Segments worth having
Two or three groups you'd genuinely write differently for, not twelve you'll never maintain. Usually the difference between a reply and a delete.
Reporting you'll look at
Opens and clicks are the start, not the point. What matters is who replied, who booked, who downloaded the next thing, reported next to the rest of your numbers.
A written plan for sending
How often, who writes it, and what each issue is for. Decide those three out loud and the newsletter keeps going long after the novelty wears off.
Your list stays yours
Exportable at any time, on a platform in your name, with your billing. If you ever want to leave, including leaving me, you take it with you.
Your emails get built the same way your pages do
If your site runs on Tiffin, the campaign is built in the same place, out of blocks designed for your brand. The email looks like the site because it came from the same set of parts, and there is no second tool to learn.
Blocks
Drag a section onto the page, or press Add. Nothing here is saved.
Tap Add to drop a section onto the page. Nothing here is saved.
An empty email. Drop a block here.
You are receiving this because you signed up at the front desk.Unsubscribe
123 Example Street, Durham, NC 27701
It sends through your own platform, so nothing about who owns the list changes. Tiffin is the CMS that comes with your site, and this is one more thing it already does.
The first hour I spend
Mail that actually lands in the inbox
Before anybody writes a word, I check that your mail is authenticated properly. Most of the newsletters I get asked to rewrite were never read in the first place, and the writing was fine.
What I check first
- SPF, DKIM, DMARCPublished, aligned, and verified on a real send.
- Who else sends as youYour invoicing tool, your booking system, your CRM. Each one has to be authorized or it drags you down.
- What the reports sayDMARC reports tell you who is sending as your domain. Most people have never read one.
- The list itselfOld addresses and hard bounces cost you reputation with every send.
What usually gets blamed
- The subject lineRewritten four times for a message most people never saw.
- Send timeDebated at length, worth a rounding error next to authentication.
- The audience"They're just not engaged." Sometimes true, usually unproven.
- The platformSwitched, at cost, carrying the same broken DNS records across.
I've had to fix this on live domains, including moving one to DMARC enforcement after a spam run, so this isn't theory. It costs less than anything else I'll do for you, and it makes everything after it work.
Process
How it gets set up
Plumbing, then template, then one real send. Sequences come after you've seen the first one land.
We talk
Twenty-five minutes. Who's on the list, where they came from, and what you'd want to say if sending were easy.
The plumbing
Authentication records, the sending domain, and the platform in your name. Unglamorous, and it decides whether any of the rest matters.
Template and list
A template on your brand, and the list cleaned, deduplicated and segmented into groups you'd actually write differently for.
One real send
We write and send an actual issue together, so you see the whole loop once with me there.
Sequences, if they fit
The automated follow-up after a download, written once and left running. Only worth building when there's something worth downloading.
Investment
How pricing works
Phased, so you can stop after the setup and still be better off than when you started.
Setup
Authentication, platform, template, list cleanup and segmentation. Stop here and you own a list that arrives and a template you can use forever.
Sequences and landing page design
The download, the page that collects it, and the follow-up that runs on its own afterwards. Quoted against what you're actually giving away.
Writing it, or not
Some clients write their own issues forever once the template exists. Others would rather I did. Both are fine, and the first one is cheaper.
Grant-funded work. This usually sits under dissemination. I quote against your budget lines and invoice per deliverable.
Questions
What people ask before they hire me
Which email platform do you use?
How often should we send?
Our open rates are terrible. Is that the writing?
Do you write the emails too?
What counts as a list worth keeping?
Does this work for a research center?
The rest of the system
Email needs something to point at
And something worth handing over an address for.
Adrial is my go-to designer for anything my business needs … which is why I have used him for three different companies over the last 20+ years.
Craig WoodCEO, Definian
Let me look at your domain first
Twenty-five minutes. Tell me your domain and roughly how big the list is, and I'll check on the call whether your mail is authenticated properly. That part is free, it's often the whole problem, and you may not need me for the rest.