Postcard From The Edge
Postmark 26-001
Greetings from the Electronic Bermuda Triangle, otherwise known as the spam folder!
Population: 102 subscribers and one overly optimistic email marketer.
Minor Victories and Other Misadventures
This week I:
- Wrestled DNS records, AWeber, and assorted blog server gremlins back into submission.
- Put my HR career into witness protection program and removed the evidence from my LinkedIn profile so it now reflects my current shenanigans.
- Developed something resembling a manifesto. Apparently enough wrong turns eventually become a point of view.
- While writing this Postcard in an infusion center, learned that pink noise successfully drowns out Donna Summer’s “Hot Stuff” and Destiny’s Child’s “I’m a Survivor”. Neuroscience gets five stars.
- Welcomed one new email subscriber. Population growth is apparently alive and well. At this rate, i I keep them away from the Bermuda Triangle, world domination will be mine by next Thursday.
- Continued laying a solid runway before buying another solo ad.
What Punched Me In The Face
For months, I thought I was terribly productive.
At last count, I had 102 subscribers.
I was emailing every day.
Writing what I thought were clever emails with solid offers.
Patting myself on the back for my discipline and consistency.
Nobody was reading them.
At first glance, my open rate was 4.57%.
Not great.
But not catastrophic.
Then I filtered out the bot opens.
Zero. As in . . . None.
Minor detail.
So I sent myself a test email.
Then another.
And another.
That’s when I discovered . . .
My emails were swallowed by the spam folder Bermuda Triangle.
Then it hit me. Everybody wants the secret traffic source.
Nobody wants to hear about warming up an autoresponder with plain text emails.
Or email authentication, deliverability, or sending test emails.
Apparently those subjects don’t photograph well next to a gleaming yellow Lambo.
But fundamentals could care less about excitement. They work.
And I skipped some of them.
Mistakes aren’t failures.
Mistakes are tuition.
Expensive sometimes.
Embarrassing. . . usually.
But still tuition.
What hit me hardest wasn’t the zero opens.
It was realizing I thought of my email list as numbers.
Leads.
Subscribers.
Statistics.
An ATM.
Wrong.
Behind every email address is a human being.
A relationship.
Someone with goals.
Problems.
Bills.
Dreams.
Someone who suspects there’s more to life than commuting, paying bills, and wondering where the years went.
Someone quietly betting on themselves.
Which means I have no business treating them like a number on my autoresponder dashboard.
Because numbers don’t trust you.
People do.
Funny how nobody mentions that part.
Wish You Were Here
Before you obsess over subject lines, funnels, AI prompts, click rates, and the latest secret traffic source…
Send yourself a test email.
Actually, send several.
Gmail.
Yahoo.
iCloud.
Then check the spam folder.
Because discovering you’ve spent months talking to yourself is a lousy way to spend a Tuesday.
