The “Picasso of Email” puts reply guy over his knee and spanks him black & blue

A few years ago, the great Brian Kurtz knighted your humble daily email horror host: “The Picasso of Email” He also called me the “Jim Rutz of Email” too. And while that certainly won’t add anything to your life in any way, shape, or form... what might add to your business is a lesson about email deliverability that happened in ‘real time’ during that call that anyone reading this can learn from, benefit from, & profit from. Here’s the short version: After a Zoom call I did for Brian’s Titans Xcelerators, he opened it up for questions. And the very first question was from a reply guy. And the reply guy said something about how my emails were going to his spam or junk folder each day, because (according to him) I didn’t have my SPF and DKIM set up for my domain. Now, bear in mind he didn’t ask. He just foolishly assumed as if he knew what he was talking about. i.e., Reply Guy 101. But alas he was embarrassingly incorrect. My web guy (Email Players subscriber Keith Commins) had set those around 2017 or 2018 — a full 3 or 4 years earlier. And even if he hadn't, we would have had to have them set anyway by the time I did that call, since we were in the process of switching me over to BerserkerMail to do the beta testing. And for whatever reason they had to be set right on the platform I had been using at that time anyway. The point? No matter how much you do “correct” in your emails, no matter how stellar your domain reputation… no matter how carefully you avoid words that trip spam filters... and no matter how well you curate your list (when we scrubbed my list before importing to BerserkerMail, it was one of the cleanest Troy had ever seen, if that tells you something)… you’re probably never going to get 100% inbox or primary tab delivery to everyone on your list, if it is of any kind of significant size. In fact, I guarantee you this email is in some spam or promotions folders right now. Why? There are probably hundreds of reasons why this can happen. But I will just leave you with this other true story: A few years earlier, in my old elBenbo’s Lair Facebook group, we got into a discussion about email deliverability. And one of the people in the group was Marc Goldman (whose list scrubbing service is truly excellent — I have used it and I highly recommend it). Marc has been in the email game since 1999, and he understands a lot of the ins-and-outs of email delivery. Here’s what he said about my approach at the time: === …your approach of not giving a shit about being in the Spam or Promo folder is the absolute RIGHT ONE. When you stop caring bout gaming the system and just float content - whether it be in SEO or EMAIL, my theory is that you get points from the bigger providers for being who you are (and you are right - you can stand out a hell of a lot more and since your peeps want to read you and will MOVE you out of the Spam folder that actually matters MORE than any naked ink will. === Immoral of the story? You can listen to reply guys & trolls or you can listen to grownups. But if you want higher inbox delivery I suggest listening to the latter. And if you want to hear dozens more tips, ideas, insights (95%+ of them non-technical, practically anyone can do them — whether seasoned email marketing pro or raw, wriggling email noob) I’ve learned over 20+ years in the game, plus what my biz partner Troy Broussard (Navy Nuclear Engineer-turned-software developer, who has split tested 10’s of millions of emails per month back when he did client work as one of the world’s top email automation specialists… and who has seen, in black & white, what works for delivery and what does not) has learned, see our new course: “Email Down ’n Delivery” In some ways, this is amongst the most profitable email info we’ve ever taught. And we could probably sell it for 100’s of dollars and easily justify that price. But we ain’t selling it for nearly that much. If for no other reason than the simple, shameless, even selfish reason that it became very clear when recording it that the more businesses who buy, consume, use it… the more likely they are to become future BerserkerMail clients. Thus, we’re all but giving it away for chump change. At least, if you get it by the Friday 9/8 at midnight EDT deadline coming up. To learn more use the URL below and read the letter very carefully. Make sure you make an informed purchase. Even though it’s being sold for the cost of having a pizza delivered, you should definitely know what you’re getting, and what the requirements are to use it. Here’s the link: [https∶//www.EmailPlayers.com/deliver]( Ben Settle This email was sent by Ben Settle as owner of Settle, LLC. Copyright © 2023 Settle, LLC. All Rights Reserved. No part of this email may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means without written permission from Settle, LLC. Click here to [unsubscribe]( Settle, LLC PO Box 1056 Gold Beach Oregon 97444 USA