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The Coming Email Storm

No one ever expects to be the cautionary tale…until they are.

Here’s a story: Two entrepreneurs, bright-eyed, bushy-tailed, ditch their day jobs for the entrepreneurial dream.

They start a staffing company, and boom—it’s a gold rush. In under a year, they’re pulling in over a million dollars. Office space leased, staff hired, the whole nine yards.

But then, the plot twist. Like many before them, they leaned hard into cold email outreach. It was a gold mine, until suddenly, it wasn’t.

A slight drop in replies—nothing alarming, right? So they doubled down, sent out more emails. Classic mistake. That’s when a hiccup turned into a full-blown code red.

Fast forward a few weeks, and it’s a digital ghost town. Emails? Blocked. Spam folder? New residence. Revenue stream? Bone dry. Staff? Gone. Office lease? Still draining their pockets.

They reached out for help, scrambling to fix it, but hit a wall.

Turns out, understanding email service providers (ESP) is like reading ancient hieroglyphs without a Rosetta Stone. The rules are murky, enforcement’s a wild card, and the consequences? Brutally unfair.

This is the norm now, a tale as old as time, but with a digital twist. Business owners, knee-deep in desperation, throwing cash at a problem they don’t understand. By the time they find us, they’re running on fumes.

Cue the doomsday clock: Google and Yahoo dropped a bombshell—new email sender requirements.

The internet lost its mind, then shrugged it off. Classic denial.

“This will only affect spammers, not me.”

“These new requirements will be impossible to meet, there is no way they will go through with it.”

“This is totally unfair, Google just sprung this on us. They aren’t giving us enough time to prepare.”

“This will absolutely devastate email marketers.”

This person got it. They understood the magnitude of what’s coming.

But here’s the kicker: these requirements aren’t new. The majority of them have been stated email best standards and practices for over a decade.

More than a sufficient amount of time to adhere to them.

To say they have been sprung on us is ridiculous.

Well, during Black Friday week, the tone changed.

In early November, we started monitoring online conversations about the new sender requirements. As you can see, as we are getting closer to the February deadline, the chatter is picking up.

The above graph shows an 11,741% increase (and rising) number of conversations online about the impact of the new requirements before and during Black Friday (the busiest email period of the year).

It correlates with the spike in the number of people reaching out to us last week about emails not getting delivered. The biggest increase in inquiries we’ve experienced in 5 years of being in business.

The overarching theme we see in this online chatter can be summed up in one word…

FEAR

Remember, email is the OG of online communication. It’s the undying zombie of digital communication. Sure, it’s got competition. Social media, WhatsApp, SMS. But it’s the king of the hill, and it’s under siege.

Here’s the grim reality: The email ecosystem is a battleground. Spam is the ever-present enemy. Email accounts are being abandoned at record rates.

Spam accounts for approximately 50% of all emails sent, and it is rising every year.

Big Tech’s not playing around. Google, Microsoft, Yahoo—they’re the gatekeepers of email, and they’re clamping down. Hard.

They know this will be very painful for a lot of businesses, but taking these actions is well overdue.

It’s about the bottom line—billions on the table.

Google, Microsoft, and Yahoo control approximately 85% of all the mailboxes in the industry.

Their approximate annual revenue from providing mailboxes is $21.4 Billion in the areas of Advertising, Premium features, and Partnerships.

The business email market has an estimated value of around $29.85 billion.

The email industry is projected to grow at a rate of 6.2% annually, potentially reaching around USD 54.65 billion by 2033.

This is a perfect storm, and a problem for the email industry they can’t ignore.

I hope I have your attention.

You’ve got a ticking clock. Eight weeks to dodge the bullet. This isn’t just about your marketing emails. It’s every single email you send.

Me? I’ve been there, done that. My inbox was a war zone. Now? It’s a Zen garden. And I plan to keep it that way.

I’ve been in the email trenches for over 20 years (the last 5 years specializing in email deliverability). I’ve seen things you wouldn’t believe. And for a limited time, I’m your guide through this hellscape.

Welcome to “Email Shield: Protecting You Through the Storm of Email Compliance Reforms.” This isn’t just advice—it’s survival.

It’s consulting plus a newsletter. You have unlimited email access to me to get quick answers to your questions, and you will have a lot of them. Plus, a monthly newsletter with breaking news updates, a survival guide, a beacon in the chaos.

The first issue is FREE, with no further obligation.

It’s your playbook. Your map through the minefield.  An expanded, 30-page issue with foolproof, step-by-step instructions on implementing the new sender requirements.

The first issue of the newsletter is designed to ensure your email reaches your recipient’s primary inbox, with no interruptions, when the new sender requirements are enforced in February.

Important Note: The number of spots for unlimited email consulting and the monthly newsletter are limited, and by invitation only. The first issue is yours to keep, as my gift to you. For those who receive the invite, you will see why I’m doing it this way.

You’ve got a choice. Be the lone email that finds its mark, or be lost in the digital void.

This is your moment. Grab it. Because in this new world of email, it’s adapt or perish.

Don’t be the one wishing you’d known better. Be the one who did.

Take action. The clock’s ticking.

Type “I’m In” in the comments and I’ll DM you the link to the first issue.

P.S. Please share this newsletter with business owners you know. They will thank you for it.

Every company that has engaged us that has been in email crisis has said virtually the same thing:

“I wish we would have known this before.”

It’s a hard thing to live with, to know you could have prevented someone from disaster, and didn’t have the opportunity to help.

To get access to the first issue, leave a comment saying, “I’m In.”

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Google Has Officially Declared War On Spam

Here is how it will affect everyone using email for sales and marketing.

Since 1999, I’ve used email as my primary method for client acquisition in the B2B space. What’s coming may have the biggest impact on how we use email that I have ever seen.

We have an email spam problem, and everyone knows it.

Email remains, far and away, the most used—and depended on—communication platform online.

The average person spends between 321 to 352 minutes a day on email.

Over 5 hours per day!

That’s 10X longer than on Facebook and 600X longer than on LinkedIn.

Nothing else comes close to the time spent on email.

Feel free to fact-check me.

No decision maker on Earth checks their LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Twitter, or messaging platforms as often as email. Slack might be the exception, as some people are obsessed with it.

So the news of Google announcing its war on spam should get your attention…because it will affect you.

We Saw This Coming Over 2 Years Ago

The only question we had was, “Why did it take so long?”

For two years, we felt like Chicken Little (the sky is falling).

We’ve been telling clients sending email blasts that it would die suddenly (because that’s what spammers do, and AI can’t tell the difference), so they needed to build workflows and behavior-based segmentation.

Drip emails are more friendly to the mailbox providers. They require less server resources, and thus inbox better…

while email blasts mimic what spammers do.

Everyone Has An Email Account

More people are likely to have an email account than a bank account, television set, or even a car.

Email is a major profit center for mailbox providers. And they have no plans of giving that up.

Yet, unwanted emails—mostly marketing emails—are the primary source of negative sentiment about email.

And that is bad for business for mailbox providers, because:

1. Unwanted emails take up server resources (which costs money)
2. They create a negative user experience (bad for the brand)
3. They reduce ad revenue as users spend less time lingering on email

Spam is an existential threat to the cash cow which is email, so active measures will be put in place to save it.

And don’t think Google will be the only mailbox provider doing this. They all will.

Some people are making this out to be a cold email issue. It’s not.

It’s an email issue.

Here is where you are vulnerable:

• If your spam complaint rate is above 0.1% (1 in 1000), you’re going to run into a problem.
• If your unsubscribe rate is above 0.5%, you’re going to run into a problem.
• If your bounce rate is above 2%, you’re going to run into a problem.
• If your SPF, DKIM, and DMARC (setting the protection policy to quarantine or reject) are not properly authenticated, you’re going to run into a problem.

And most people are not in compliance with the above requirements with their emails (optin and cold email).

With optin email, you are going to need to build workflows based on behavior segmentation.

That means you’re going to have to plan email campaigns and be much more strategic.

If you come up with an idea, or topic, and send an email blast, your list will soon be worthless (because your emails will not be delivered to their inbox).

Cold email will have another set of problems, too numerous to go through here…but I will cover them.

If this makes you nervous, it should. It is a big deal.

If you’re not nervous, that’s on me. I failed to articulate the seriousness of the situation.

This is a developing story, and for that reason, I’m launching a private podcast this month, so you will be prepared.

I will be covering topics privately that I will not discuss publicly. Topics you will want to know.

I haven’t decided on a name for the podcast yet, but if you use email in your sales and marketing process, you would be well advised to subscribe.

If you’re interested, leave a comment or DM me. When the first episode goes live, I’ll let you know.

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Prepare to Be Amazed at These Facebook Check In Case Studies

“How many people walk by a penny they see on the ground? Almost everyone…while the person who made their fortune by picking up loose change is laughing all the way to the bank. The same is true of those taking advantage of Facebook Check Ins.”
~ Ed Forteau

Facebook Check In Marketing–done right–is an incredible word-of-mouth marketing machine.

It checks all the boxes of persuasion you will find in Robert Cialdini’s great book, Pre-Suasion: A Revolutionary Way To Influence And Persuade. Don’t have time to read it and discover the magic of pre-suasion? Watch and learn…

All of these Check Ins are just part of our daily life. None of the businesses are clients of mine. We don’t share client campaigns.

We did these Check Ins without the owner knowing. We wanted the results to occur naturally. If the business saw the Check In and engaged us, we would respond the way we always do…ask them to play on Facebook with us! A couple of the businesses did see our Check In, and joined in the fun.

All of the businesses picked up new customers from our Check Ins. And that is part of the point we are trying to make. Check Ins result in more sales, even when the business is unaware of them. But they result in a lot more sales when the business gets involved.

Over 99% of businesses have no plan to leverage Facebook Check Ins. Those 1% of businesses who do have a plan are like the person who collects the loose change. They are laughing all the way to the bank.

This case study was conducted in Kalamazoo, MI.

Full Disclosure: We mostly used my wife’s account to do these Facebook Check Ins. She would be considered a social media influencer. She has a greater than average number of Facebook Friends. And she is a Yelp Elite. Together, we co-publish a travel website: WanderingEducators.com. She likes writing reviews, so adding a little extra to her Facebook Check Ins is natural.

I, on the other hand, do not have a large number of friends on Facebook. In fact, I have well below the average number of Facebook friends. Interacting with friends on Facebook just isn’t my thing. And yet, many of the Check Ins I do exceed most businesses’ best performing post in terms of engagement and reach.

Facebook Check Ins work. It is as simple as that.

This case study documents just how effective they are.

“The average Check In (done right) will outperform over 90% of your Fan Page posts, in terms of Engagement and Reach. Just think about that.”

~ Ed Forteau

We all know a good coffee shop (or two)…

Rose Gold Coffee Company

Coffee shops can truly leverage Facebook Check Ins. This coffee shop does a really good job on their Fan Page. There is lots of engagement on their posts, yet this Check In outperformed them all.

We did this Check In the day before my wife’s birthday. By combining a birthday with a Check In, this post turned into a home run. This single Check In was seen by thousands of people. 40 Likes, 22 Comments.

Rose Gold has games you can play. The one in the pictures are the game we had specifically gone there to play: Chillin’ with Bob Ross. Several of our friends had asked what we were doing. The conversation started on the post, and moved to Messenger. Now several of our friends are new customers of Rose Gold. (Imagine if they also sold games!)

Rose Gold only needed to set the conditions for people to Check In, and the rest just happened naturally.

Does your business do Birthday Promotions? You should. Combine them with a Check In promotion, and you’ll have a real hit on your hands.

Note: This doesn’t just work for coffee shops, donut shops, bakeries, and cafes. Any location where there is a waiting, or sitting, area (doctor’s offices, dentists, auto mechanics, oil change, and the like) is a perfect stage for an interesting Check In…provided the business creates the right conditions.

And then, there was more…

Rose Gold Share

I shared the Rose Gold post and another 15 people liked it, with 6 more comments. Thousands more people saw this post because I shared it.

The hashtags caused it to show up at the top of the Facebook Search Results. It was only temporary, but a handful of Check Ins like this each week would cause them to stay at the top of the Facebook Search Results whenever someone is looking for a good coffee shop in town.

The owner told us that week was busier than usual. He didn’t know we had a hand in that.

With a little incentive, you can get people to Like, Comment, and Share every Check In Status Update from your customers…easily multiplying their reach tenfold.

You may have noticed from our articles that we really like donuts. Read on…

Sweetwater’s Donut Mill

Sweetwater’s has a great reputation for creative donuts, in addition to the standards. Plus, their billboards are on point. But let’s get to the Check In:

There are so many great things going on with this Check In that it is overwhelming, but let’s try anyway.

1. The 33 Likes resulted in 33 friends sharing the post with their friends.
2. 9 Comments. This food cue caused people to ask about the specialty donut of the day. We told them it was delicious, because it was. A few of our friends went there to try the Champagne Donut. No one drives to a donut shop and buys just one donut. A few people thanked us for reminding them about Sweetwater’s Donut Mill. They forgot about them, and just needed a friendly nudge to go back. (Who forgets donuts?!)
3. The recommendation. When a friend recommends a business, you tend to take notice.
4. When you see 415 other people who have recommended that same place, you really take notice.
5. All that activity caused our favorite donut shop to dominate the Facebook Search Results.

Of course, this works well for anyplace that sells food. But they also had scarcity in play. That donut was only available that day, and then it was gone forever. That caused people to take immediate action. Stop whatever they were doing. And drive to the donut shop.

All that from just one Check In.

These guys are sitting on a promotional goldmine and don’t even realize it.

Listen to the music…

Crescendo Academy of Music

A music academy is a far cry from a restaurant, but Facebook Check Ins work well here, too. 24 Likes, 3 Comments, and 1 Share, resulting at least one donation to the Crescendo Academy.

Note: we didn’t ask anyone to make a donation, but they did anyway. And one of our friends who made a donation doesn’t even live in Kalamazoo, but in Chicago.

We all need a mechanic, and for some reason, we are all searching for mechanic recommendations. Look no more, Kalamazoo…

Master Mechanics

This is our favorite mechanic. Exactly the type of auto mechanic you’re looking for…an honest mechanic with fair prices. Finally!!

We brought them donuts, as a thank you for the work they did on our cars last year. Jamin, the owner, was taken aback.

Master Mechanics does a great job with their social media with lots of Google, Facebook, and Yelp 5 Star Reviews. Lots of people love–and recommend–them. You’ll notice there are No Recommendation numbers showing up on this Check In. A missed opportunity.

Even so, this Check In Status Update made Jamin money in a couple different ways. He ended up getting an $800+ repair customer (my wife’s aunt who saw the post, and was looking for an honest mechanic). Sweetwater’s Donut Mill was tagged (our Check In JV Strategy), and they LIKED the post, getting it more local exposure. And the post ranked well in the Facebook Search Results for a few days, probably resulting in more new business (but that is unconfirmed).

Side Note: Our Check In Joint Venture Strategy is designed to leverage the influence of other businesses. It works really well.

Jamin has an active Facebook Fan Page and posts regularly. Yet, this Check In outperformed his best post. That isn’t unusual. If fact, it is typical. Because of Facebook’s new algorithm, friends’ post will have a far greater reach than Fan Pages. Getting your customers Checking In is the only way to get the kind of reach with Facebook that we used to see 5 or 6 years ago.

Who doesn’t love vinyl?

Green Light Music

This is a great example of what happens when the business gets involved with the Check In. This business actually joined the conversation, so we decided to engage with them even more. This brought others into the conversation, resulting in 27 Comments and 33 Likes. My wife also tagged the Minneapolis radio station that is known for one full channel devoted to their local boy. It didn’t hurt that the subject (Prince) is both popular and that facebook has many Prince gifs available. Gif tag is a real thing, my friend.

Talking to your customers in real time results in immediate dividends (besides our purchases). Two people who jumped into the conversation came down to shop, and discover their own treasures. Others hadn’t known about this record store, and thanked us via text (sometimes with photos of what they had purchased). Vinyl records are back in style, and now a lot more people in town know about this cool record store.

Side Note: Getting the business involved in the Check In conversation is a powerful strategy. We call this our Facebook Fairy Strategy. This was just one Check In. When you get 15-20 people to Check In during a day (like running a promotion), drawing others into the conversation and will fill your business with new customers.

Think about it: the average Facebook user has 338 friends. And each Facebook Check In goes out to ALL of them (as well as the public!). If you have 20 customers Check In, approximately 6,760 of their friends will see it. A proactive approach by the business would be to draw as many of those people as possible into the conversation. Here is an opportunity to talk to interested potential customers before they even enter your store. When you do that successfully, the result is a record sales day (excuse the pun).

Good morning, my love!

EdForteau.com

This Check In was done in response to me saying, “Good Morning” to my wife. People don’t come here to meet with me. And I have a grand total of 2 Facebook Fans (one of which is my wife. It’s the classic tale of the shoemaker that doesn’t have any shoes). I love Facebook, but Linkedin and Twitter are a better fit for our digital agency.

Side Note: I do have popular Fan Pages in the Health niche. 17k, 16k, and 3k, respectively. I’m not a hypocrite. For the right type of businesses, adding a decent number of Fans is important. Please don’t judge me. I don’t believe in throwing away money just for appearances, and neither should you. Okay, Let’s move on.

I think Facebook Check Ins fits like Cinderella’s slipper for local businesses. It makes perfect sense.

Having said that, this Check In is a great example of how you can turn any Check In into more business. A couple of the people who Liked the Check In are potential clients. I didn’t reach out to them, because they are friends. I don’t mix business with friendship.

The point of this is: don’t let having only a few Facebook Fans, or not even having a Fan Page at all, stop you for leveraging Facebook Check Ins. Once your page is properly set up, you’ll start seeing results the instant you start your first Check In Marketing Campaign.

My wife really loves coffee (she even wrote the complete guide to Kalamazoo coffee shops)

Yelp Elite Event with Water Street Coffee

I told you she loves coffee. Jessie waited all year for the monthly Yelp Elite event that featured local roaster and coffee shop mainstay Water Street Coffee. She loved this event so much that she posted it to Instagram, too (what business doesn’t love cross-social promotion?).

You want that kind of passionate person checking in. They are at your business for a reason!

This Check In had 41 likes and 2 comment threads. Even more, though, she got texts from local friends asking what foods she had tried, liked, and would recommend. She mentioned to our daughter’s accompanist what she loved from that evening. His wife used to work at Water Street, before their baby came, and he said he couldn’t wait to tell her (and her former management colleagues there). Small world!

The power of a Facebook Check In goes way beyond what is visible on Facebook. It’s like an ocean–the surface is a miniscule part of the whole.

And then…

The Good. The Bad. And The Ugly.

My wife and I aren’t in competition. I’d lose every time. Remember, social media, from as a consumer’s prospective, is her thing, not mine. I see Facebook as a business tool.

Having said that, here is my Check In of the Yelp Elite event. It was taken as people were signing in. I’m not a Yelp Elite. I just tag along to keep her company (read: when she isn’t butterflying around talking to everyone).

Considering my Facebook friends almost never hear from me, 8 people Liked the Check In, and 5 people Commented on it. If I were a betting man, and I am when it comes to marketing success, I would guess this Check In reached at least 1,000 people. Not bad for the Facebook Grinch.

Who is using the power of pre-suasion?

Check Ins are happening all around you. Are you part of it?

Now let’s look at the Facebook Check Ins around the Kalamazoo area…

By Playing The Check In Game!

Look at some of these Check In numbers around Kalamazoo, MI.

This was fun. I felt like Magnum P.I. I drove around town, parked in front of businesses, and took screen shots of these Check In numbers.

The numbers are really eye-opening. I’ll stop talking now, so you can absorb the power of my detective work.

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Compete, And Win, Against Anyone

When you work with us, you will have the tools and confidence to compete, and win, against any competitor.

It’s David vs. Goliath…And We Give You The Slingshot

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Top 10 Reasons Your Customers Love Facebook Check In

Do you ever wonder why your customers love to check in via Facebook?

Wonder no more: our Facebook Check In Fairy has the answers.

They’ve been trained by the Jedi in the use of social media

via GIPHY

2. They want to track their day

3. Sharing is caring

via GIPHY

4. Your space is so inviting, with plenty of cool photo opps

5. You’ve got an interesting thing or deal for them to share

6. They want to make their friends envious

7. They are addicted to the adrenaline rush of comments, likes, and WOWs

8. You’ve made it easy for them, with free wifi

9. Our actions define ourselves to others–people want to be seen as having fun, getting out and about, and doing interesting things

10. Your business is amazing, and your staff is so friendly that they want to share it with their friends–and invite them to come down and join in the fun

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Why do social media?

“Social Media Marketing is taking up too much time without any noticeable financial return. Why do it?”

That’s what Betty used to think. Now she knows better.

Betty and June were roomies through college. They studied hard and supported each other through everything. Every summer, they worked at Betty’s father’s business. June was full of excellent ideas she shared with Pops.

After graduation, Betty still worked at the family business. To no one’s surprise, June got an offer at a Fortune 500 Company.

Although their paths diverged, of course they stayed in touch. A weekly Skype coffee date was their touchstone through growing pains, relationships, and kids.

Lately, Betty felt stretched by running the family business. Pops retired; it was solely in her hands. She marveled at June’s vitality–she seemed to have no stresses! She had quit her high-paying job, was in business for herself–and doing quite well.

On one of their weekly calls, Betty asked June for advice. She’d pondered what June had done for the family business, all those summers ago. Betty noted that she’d been trying many things to grow the business, including social media, with no success.

June laughed, saying just one thing led to her successful business: Steadfast consistency–using social media every day to grow her business.

The work she did on the first social platform returned $3 for every $1 spent. She added another platform, whose sole goal was to support the first. Her ROI increased to $7 for every $1 spent, then added two more platforms and saw her ROI continue to increase. She can now reach tens of thousands of people with a simple push of a button.

Betty remarked she’d tried that, but after a few weeks, things always came up or got in the way. Life events always seemed to stall her efforts.

June reminded her: the secret to success is based on an unwavering commitment to the task–60 minutes a day, without fail, to grow her business in surprising ways.

Now, June and Betty laugh at that initial statement. “Why do social media?”

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