Writing great email copy ain’t worth jack if your emails don’t make it to the inbox. Here’s a quick run down of the critical things you need to improve and track your email deliverability. I learned a lot from reading boring technical articles online and from speaking to Ev Kontsevoy of Mailgun w…

We made it through the first year folks! April 1st, 2012 John and I started full-time on Customer.io. In January 2012 we set a goal: Have 5 people paying us $10 per month by April 1st, 2012. And when we hit that number, so began our journey on the Long Slow SaaS Ramp of Death. If you haven’t seen…

You’re done writing the copy for your latest marketing email in Microsoft Word or a Google Doc. Your boss has reviewed it, and you’re getting ready to send. From one WYSIWYG editor to another WYSIWYG editor. Something about your email now looks a little funky, but you go ahead and send a test to …

Imagine presenting your company on stage between someone who launches satellites in to space, and someone who has a device on their head that reads your brain waves. Yesterday, Customer.io was 1 of 3 companies from the “Demo Pit” to present on stage at the Launch Festival. There are 195 fantastic…

Last night there was a packed room at the class “How to write emails people will read” at General Assembly. We went way over time deep in conversation about email. They eventually kicked us to the curb to continue the conversation. It still blows my mind when people introduce themselves and say t…

Every time you write an email to your customer, it’s an opportunity for you to get feedback and strengthen that relationship. But as your business starts to scale, how do you handle the volume of reponses? You might be tempted to switch your email address to “noreply”. Please don’t do it. Sending…

One of the great things when you get a big group of people in a room (virtual or otherwise), is a great sounding board for ideas. Last weekend, I put on the “Email Bootcamp for Startups” along with Patrick McKenzie @patio11 and Joanna Wiebe @copyhackers. It was an intense 2 day virtual bootcamp w…

Did you start sending a surprise personal email like the ones I mentioned a few weeks ago? I did! I’m excited to share my results with you. I ended up tweaking both the first email someone gets and the surprise personal email they’ll get later. First, send a welcome email When people sign up for …

Screwing up gave us the opportunity to write an apology email to our customers. Our screw up affected just a fraction of our customers. But each of them received a personal apology. Over the weekend I was reflecting on how we handled the situation and learned that Subway was caught selling “Footl…

…the subject line and the first line of the email. Like peanut butter and jelly, your subject line and first line belong together. And if you pair them well they can work wonders for your open rates. First, let’s look at a bad subject line + first line You’ve probably seen what a bad first line l…