Issue #263 All About Email

Hi, {{first_name|friend}}. 👋

Welcome to Issue #263 of All About Email!

Last week was a cavalcade of thoughts that came out of my brain after a heavy week.

This week, it’s about “email gremlins”…👹

Let’s go! 👇

Last week, my buddy Luke posted on LinkedIn about his email gremlins, and no, not these guys (and I’m nervous about the new movie 🙏).

This might be a familiar story to you, or one of your clients; so let’s read on. 👇

Luke runs Let’s Talk Shop (I am a subscriber), an e-commerce newsletter with:

🚨 However, he hasn’t sent an issue in over two years.

Luke’s reason for sending will sound familiar to all of us.

He loved writing it, but he hated building it.

He’d rather spend 3-4 hours on a blog post than 20 minutes fighting a drag-and-drop editor and a fragile HTML editor.

🥺 Subscribers dipped, growth stalled, and the habit died.

So Luke asked LinkedIn: what are you using to streamline the process, and how do you simplify the heavy lifting every time?

Luke has been on Mailchimp for about five years. It was the most accessible option when he started.

He’s actually comfortable in HTML. He’s in it almost all day.

💡 What he doesn’t want is the step between a nice clean draft and a properly built email.

What I told Luke will help others, so I wanted to share it.

🚨 Sort your deliverability basics before any workflow tricks (especially after not having sent an email in so long).

Authenticate your sending domain, ideally on a subdomain, and use a provider you trust. A streamlined workflow is pointless if the email lands in spam.

I use beehiiv (and recommended it to Luke), and I love its MCP connection. It lets you connect Claude or ChatGPT directly to your account, so the AI can help format and write the email.

Kit is another good option that I recommended to Luke.

Getting it working in your current tool is usually the fastest way to get started again, and it's wise to work with what you have.

However, in Luke’s case, I reminded him that Mailchimp’s newer editor limits custom code and has strict styling rules.

Once you get things started again, if you feel (as in this case) your provider is limiting you, you need to look at other options.

Mailchimp has a new (and limited) MCP, but it also has a more robust Claude connector, so hopefully that will help Luke in the short term.

🧠 I shared my own flow with Luke, and this may look familiar (I’ve talked about it before):

It’s a repeatable workflow, and that’s the point, and it’s exactly what Luke needed.

Both ChatGPT and Claude know my newsletter intimately, and they know the beehiiv functionality.

💡 The AI tools know the beehiiv editor and how to style things.

I can give them specific style guides and instructions through an agent skill, and it just relieves a lot of the workflow because the agents can build my dictated emails exactly how I want them.

One caution on the AI route. Handing layout and formatting to an assistant is a great use of it.

🚨 But always check the email in your editor and the rendered email in real inboxes before you send.

A template that looks fine in a preview can still break in the wild.

Three people jumped in, and their answers all point the same way. Nobody recommended a shinier tool.

💡 They all recommended a simpler process:

It’s another short week for me, but one of the main reasons (if my pre-order is fulfilled) is that I'll be taking time off to play the remake of The Ocarina of Time.

It’s the first game I’ve bought in about ten years, and I am really excited!

🚨 If you’ve dragged yourself back to a neglected list, or found a workflow that makes building issues painless, hit reply and tell me.

I’d love to share the best answers in a future issue.

🎉 And if you’re in ecommerce, go and subscribe to Luke’s newsletter before it relaunches: Let’s Talk Shop.

Give him a reason to hit send.

That’s it for this week, {{first_name|friend}}. 👋

Simon

Every week, as I write this newsletter, I’ll share the track of the moment to create an unbelievably eclectic playlist just for your inbox.

🚨 If you’re interested in sponsoring the “All About Email” newsletter, you can find all the details in this Google Doc.

This week's excellent and insightful email news & tips:

If you have any questions about this email or email marketing, please reply, and I will get back to you as soon as possible.

I hope you have a great week! 👋