I spend all day every day dealing with banks, governments and large corporates talking about pretty technical things. I deal with these organizations on their cloud and datacenter strategies which are often very hard, expensive and complicated beasts.
As a result, I take technology for granted. Most of the tech stuff in my online business is pretty easy for me and I’m happy just to roll up my sleeves and get stuck in.
This week though, I encountered a problem where I simply didn’t know how to fix it or make it go away.
On Wednesday, I sent out an email entitled, “Technology Ignorance Is A Disease”. If you want to read it, check it out over at the Casual Marketer blog.
And the interesting thing is, I’m having to tell you to check it out because you may not have read it. The reason? For over half of my email list on Gmail, it ended up in the dreaded spam folder.
I didn’t even notice – I was blissfully ignorant of the entire problem.
It wasn’t until someone pinged me via Facebook Messenger to tell me that I even became aware of the issue.
I spent a fair chunk of the next day when I wasn’t busy thinking about this problem. It was so entirely random, the previous two days worth of email got through perfectly well and then boom.
Very quickly, I realized that I was out of my depth on email delivery. I understood it enough to know that it was way more complicated and intricate than I was going to learn how to fix in an afternoon.
I immediately whipped around my circle of friends to ask for some advice. I knew that Casual Marketer subscriber, Barry Moore (he has a great podcast on Marketing Automation that you should check out) had some knowledge about this topic so I talked to him right away.
Barry recommended someone that I’d also thought of, but his recommendation confirmed it, Chris Lang from “Email Delivery Jedi“. I reached out to Chris and within an hour or two he’d agreed to help me. Most importantly, he told me to keep on emailing.
Chris had a look at a few things overnight and in a fifteen minute Skype call today, he’d made a few comments and given me a couple pieces of feedback that I’m putting into action. I feel better about the whole situation already – it also helps that my Gmail deliverability numbers were good yesterday!
There are two key takeaways from this for you though: first, it’s imperative to know when you don’t know something and get help. I’m a big proponent of casual marketers being DIYers and learning stuff, but there are some things that you just should get expert advice on, even if you have to pay for it.
The second thing is that it’s vital to build your network of contacts. I am pretty busy, but I take time to cultivate relationships pretty much every day. I knew Chris Lang briefly from some FB groups, I’ve known Barry through some online communities for a couple years and I knew Barry had Chris on his podcast. These connections matter!
It’s hard when you’re starting out not having that kind of digital rolodex, so that’s why for my Casual Marketing Newsletter subscribers you get my personal email address and I can help get you in touch with the right people when you need it.
My Foundation Member program for the Casual Marketer Monthly Newsletter is still open. If you join before February 12th, 2016 you will get my paperback book, “No Hyperbole: The New Rules of Online Business” and both January and February issues of the newsletter.