854 – Ensure your emails get delivered: Tom talks MXToolBox

Episode 854 - MXToolBox
[00:00:08] Welcome to Screw the Commute. The entrepreneurial podcast dedicated to getting you out of the car and into the money, with your host, lifelong entrepreneur and multimillionaire, Tom Antion.

[00:00:24] Hey everybody! It's Tom here with episode 854 of Screw the commute podcast. Now don't be afraid, but we're going to talk a little bit of geek speak today. But you need to know this because you are currently, if you don't know what I'm talking about today, you are getting screwed on your email delivery and don't even know it. So this is very important. We're going to talk about a tool called MXtoolbox. And I've got Larry my right hand left hand super IT guy. My school graduate. Plus he's got another million certifications on stuff. And he had to dig through all these requirements of these new email providers and fix this for me. I can't fix it myself. I had no idea how to fix it myself, and I suspect most of you don't either. So pay close attention to this, and then you turn it over to somebody that does know. And if they're clueless, hire Larry and and get somebody that knows what the hell they're doing or you're you're going to tank your email. So, um, you know, income from your email. So that's that. This is episode 854. Now we got a whole series going on, copywriting techniques, where I cut down really short episodes, five minutes, seven minutes or so on individual copywriting techniques that if you just implemented a portion of them, you would increase your sales, there's no doubt about it. So they started episode 836. So anytime you want to get to a back episode, you go to screwthecommute.com, slash, and then the episode number. Start at 836 and go one by one and implement those ideas and you will make more money.

[00:02:09] No question about it. I think I threw one in there on ergonomics because I hurt my back from sitting here helping you folks for all these years. And so so I am doing much better on the posture and ergonomics. So I brought an expert on on that. And then of course, we're throwing this one in the middle of the copywriting. Because this is so important because you can have the best copy in the world. And if you can't get your emails through, none of it matters. So this is episode 854. Screwthecommute.com/854. You want to write that down too. So you can pass this on to your colleagues and to your IT people. All right. And if you like our training episodes, all of them are listed at screwthecommute.com/training. And of course if you want help from me, Larry and my whole crew, uh, one on one in my very unique mentor program. It's greatinternetmarketingtraining.com also includes a scholarship to my school, which is the only licensed, dedicated internet and digital marketing school in the country. Okay. And also make sure you grab a copy of our automation e-book at screwthecommute.com/automatefree.

[00:03:16] All right. Larry Guerrera is his name. I can never remember how to spell it. And I've been with him for years and years. I can't remember two R's 2EI don't know what it is, but uh, anyway, he, uh, has been running all the it for my, uh, company since, uh, he graduated from my school and, uh, doing a stellar job. So, uh, Larry, what's up?

[00:03:39] Well, yes, it is two Es and two Rs, so let's get that out of the way.

[00:03:43] Yeah, I can't spell it. Yeah, I always have to. Luckily, it shows up as soon as I put in Larry. Right click on it. So, we're going to talk about this, uh, this MXToolbox a little bit. And then what we got to get into this email stuff. Because if people are clueless about this, they're just going to get screwed and say, oh, well, you know, internet marketing doesn't work. No, you didn't pay attention to this critical thing, and that's why it's not working for you, or at least one of the reasons. So what is mm toolbox. And we'll try to keep this as the least geek speak as possible.

[00:04:23] Yes. Let's do that. Normally we do do that. But in this case I'm going to have to dive just a little bit across the geek line just to make sure that everybody understands what we're talking about.

[00:04:34] As long as they have, like a life jacket on.

[00:04:37] Yeah, something like that. Right. Pull them back.

[00:04:39] To the to the reality.

[00:04:41] They have to be a very good swimmer on top of that. Okay. All right. So let's give a little tiny bit of history. On February 1st of this year, 2024, Google and Yahoo began making it. Uh, the terms they used is. Enhanced, when in fact they're making it more strict. But that's okay. It's just a matter of semantics. What they're doing is they're making it more difficult for unsolicited emails to get through to people's inboxes if they are not verified. All right. Well, it's not no.

[00:05:13] Hold on a second. Now, I'm going to jump in. As the marketer, you shouldn't be sending unsolicited emails to start with. That's not, uh, what we're talking about. We're talking about your broadcast emails to people that have opt in still won't go through if you, you know, because unsolicited, you're basically a spammer. Yeah.

[00:05:31] That's true. However, they do use the word unsolicited in their in their materials for this. So they got so many spammers.

[00:05:38] Because they have so many. That's exactly right. Exactly right. And Tom is correct. We're not talking about the unsolicited version of emails, but even if you're legitimate and you're sending out broadcast emails that that can go to your, uh, the reader's inbox, for example, they will have problems getting there if we don't comply with these new rules, and these new rules have taken effect. It's not like, yeah, it's February 1st. All right. Maybe it's still March or April. No no no no no February 1st. They pulled the trigger. And all of your major email distribution distribution platforms like AWeber, MailChimp, Constant Contact and so on and so on are now pushing all of their users to make sure that they comply with these new rules. Yeah, let me.

[00:06:19] Jump in here again, too, because even as great as Larry is. It doesn't matter. It matters somewhat of the requirements of the system you're using. Because we thought we had it. You know, we were on this a month in advance. We knew it was coming. So we got everything ready. And then boom, the day it hit a Weber had some more specific, um, requirements. And we had to hustle and fix those real quick. And then the emails went out.

[00:06:48] Yes, exactly. So what does this all mean? All right, so this is why we have to dive tiny, tiny bit into the geek side of things. Now, Tom mentioned the tool. MXToolbox. Now it's actually a website. MXToolbox.com. I'll have all this information in the show notes, including links for all the different things I'm going to talk about today. So mm. Toolbox is a very handy tool that allows you to examine what's going on in your domain records. Now just to make sure we're all on the same page. The domain record is the name of your website. So for Tom, screwthecommute.com, the domain is screw the commute. So his domain name which attaches to his website is what Google, Yahoo! and I'm sure all the other major email providers will be doing the same thing now. Now that Google and Yahoo has started this and what this does, it allows them like into Gmail accounts and Yahoo accounts to make absolutely sure that the email that they are receiving is from legitimate, validated servers. And this is why MX toolbox is extremely important, because it allows you to interrogate your domain and figure out exactly what's going on, and to see whether or not you're in compliance. So there are three very specific things I want to mention. These may be things you've never heard of before, or maybe if you have heard of them before, you weren't really sure exactly what they were. One is called SPF, one is called DKIM and the other one is called dMarc. These are all acronyms for the various records that your website domain has to have in order for you to be compliant with the new Google and Yahoo rules. And this is one of the things that MXtoolbox will help you to decipher. Now, if you're not the technical type, if you're even after all this, you have no idea what I'm talking about. This is where you have to turn it over, as Tom mentioned. Uh, earlier to the appropriate tech person so they could follow up with this and get you get you all set up? Yeah.

[00:08:56] Now hold on, hold on a second. So, when he said the Google and Yahoo rules, first of all, we're talking about anybody that receives email is going to follow suit. So just because you say well I don't use Google and Yahoo, well it doesn't matter. Uh, your your emails are not going to all these other places that receive emails are going to follow suit. Everybody follows Google and the same rules are going to apply. So getting this done is going to cover you for most of the other places. And then if you have trouble, you have to dig into that specific email receiver to see what's what's what's the deal. What do I have to do to get through to that particular server?

[00:09:38] Right. Yes. So for Google and Yahoo, at least at this point, they want to be absolutely sure that the people that are using their email services are getting the emails that have been verified, vetted, uh, proven to be legitimate and all that other good stuff. So, yes, even if you're not using a Gmail account, even if you're not using a Yahoo account for you, this applies to everybody because somebody somewhere out there is using a Yahoo account to receive emails and a Gmail account. So that's why these apply. And they have to be looked at by everybody. So the three records that are the three things that I mentioned earlier are part of your domain records. So again, I'll use Tom's Screw the Commute as an example. Under the Screw the commute domain, there are a whole bunch of records that point to mail what mail server we're using, what type of things we're doing within the website, and a bunch of other stuff which allow the website to actually be seen by anybody around the world. Those three records that I mentioned earlier, SPF and dMarc are the ones that these new rules are looking at and to make sure they're there in many, many cases. I've been doing this for years now and under Tom for over seven years.

[00:10:50] In most cases. I find that none of these records, or maybe one of them, are part of a particular clients or customers or whoever it is that I'm working with part of their domain. And invariably I'd say nine times out of ten, maybe even 99 times out of 100, there's always the question of why can't I get my emails delivered to so and so, or this such and such email service? One of the reasons is because you're missing these very, very important records. So what do they all mean. So SPF, the SPF record is like saying, hey, what's what's your street address? What block do you live on? Give me a cross street. So it gives it a general idea like this server is part of this domain, part of this grouping of servers and stuff like that. And that gives it a tiny bit of legitimacy. The dKim record is, I've got the address. I know what your cross streets are. Now, I need to check out your rooms to make sure that I have access to the house and everything else, and I have it with the right key, so the DKim tells Google, Yahoo, and eventually all the other email services. Hey, not only does this server really exist, but it is legitimate.

[00:12:01] Here are the credentials for this server. Here's how I would find it. Here's the here's the key. I need to open the lock in order to send the email and so on. The last one Dmark is also very important because in the event that SPF and DKim have a problem, the dMarc record says, hey, what do I do with this email? So usually you have three choices. Accept the email as is and pass it on. A quarantine it and put it in their spam folder. That's the second choice. The third choice is reject it. And that's obviously the very last thing you want. So we have to make absolutely sure that these particular records are in your domain, that power your website in order to make sure that these emails get to the customers that you're sending them to. Now, once you set this up and your particular service is happy with it, whether it's a MailChimp, constant contact and all the rest of these guys, they all have built in facilities to be able to check this as you're doing it. In fact, I just did one for MailChimp this morning and they have it set up really nice. You click a button, they ask you, hey, what service are you using? Are you on GoDaddy? Are you on this? Are you on that? And it will actually go out there and help you to set all these records up to, to get to get you into compliance.

[00:13:20] And again, if you're really not comfortable with this or you really have no idea how to do this, you've got to turn it over to somebody who's more capable and who's more technically oriented to get this done. This is not something that's coming in the future. It's here already. So you need to move on this as quickly as possible in order to prevent bounced emails to prevent being labeled as a spammer. And and there's a lot of nasty things that come out of it, which I won't go into real detail here, but I, I keep track of Tom servers on a regular basis to make sure we don't get it on get on any blacklists. And a blacklist is one of those lists that says, hey, you're on this list. I can't send any emails out because of that. You got to get off this list. You don't want to be on a blacklist. You don't want to be labeled as a spammer. That's why you need to get these records in and be compliant. And you have to do that sooner rather than later.

[00:14:14] All right. So let's just to recap here, um, we're not just talking about okay. You tell people check your spam folder that kind of stuff. It may not get there at all if you don't take care of this spam folder is bad enough. But if if it just doesn't, if it gets rejected, then all the work you did, all the, uh, to gather that email address and build your list is worthless unless you take care of this and do it now.

[00:14:43] Yeah, exactly. Uh, having people check their spam folders even today. Uh, after all this time of using email just doesn't work. I run into too many cases where people will complain that their emails are not being delivered and all that stuff, and I find out from people that are supposed to be getting them. Yeah, it's probably in spam, but I never check that. I got thousands of emails in there. Well, why am I going to go through that? Nobody is doing that. So you have to prevent that from happening in the first place. And like I said, you have three options overall. The way this the way this is working. The email would be delivered. The email will be put into your spam folder or junk folder or the email will be directed, uh, I'm sorry. Rejected. You want the first option? Obviously, but too many people think everything's working fine and they wind up either in spam or they wind up being rejected, in which case the email is nowhere. So that's why this is extremely, extremely important. Something you need to do now to ensure that your business emails, or any other emails that you're sending will get delivered when you want them to. So that's that's part number one. But even more importantly, and I know that Tom and I have talked about this on a prior podcast, you need to make absolutely sure that you have access. To your domain registrar, which is where you bought your domain and that's where it's being housed. You need to be able to log into that and see if your domain is there, and it has the proper records.

[00:16:10] To many people I run into don't even have the login credentials to look at this, because they have relied on their tech person or persons to be able to do this for them. That's never good. As a business owner, you need to be able to access the domain registrar. You need to be able to access your hosting company, where your website lives, and any other, any other plugins or any other types of services that you use on your website. Very, very important. If you really don't have access to those, if you really don't have those credentials to access those services, that is the very first thing you need to do. Because in the event your tech person disappears, gets hit by a bus, goes off to Jamaica, decides to take a rocket into space, how are you supposed to be able to get anything done if something goes wrong? If your website goes down, if something else breaks, you're not going to be able to do anything until that person either reaches out to you and gets it done or somebody else does. And in many cases, when I say about taking a trip and going on vacation and disappearing, that's no joke. There have been plenty of times where the person is just up and left, and they left a business owner, uh, high and dry. They had no access to anything and they had no idea what to do next. Don't be in that situation. Yeah.

[00:17:24] Hundreds of people over the years have come to me like that. They're just in a they're in a mess. And some of them didn't even own their own domain name. The the web person bought it under their name account and just let the person use it. And then when they disappeared, that person that the business owner couldn't even get control of their own domain name without going and making an I can dispute for 5000 bucks plus an attorney's fees, you know. So so you got to you got to wake up and do this. Now, the upside of all this, folks, is that there'll be a lot of business owners that are clueless with their head up their butt and won't do this. So you may have less competitors out there, right?

[00:18:07] Exactly. Yes.

[00:18:09] All right. Larry, so, uh, if if you need some freelance help, um, tell them how to get a hold of you, Larry.

[00:18:16] All right. The, uh, the best thing to do is actually go to screwthecommute.com/Larry Guerrera and I will have that link in the show notes.

[00:18:24] You should make that Larry G.

[00:18:26] Uh, uh, that sounds more rapperish. I'm not a rapper.

[00:18:31] Yeah, maybe you should be.

[00:18:32] Maybe I should be, uh, a tech rapper.

[00:18:35] Figure out how to spell Guerrera.

[00:18:37] Uh, God, could you imagine a tech? And I don't want to go there.

[00:18:40] Well, it'll be a link in the show notes.

[00:18:41] Put it. Yes. All of these things will be links in the show notes, so people can get more information and they can reach out to me if they need me.

[00:18:48] All right. Sounds good. So, folks, take this to heart. I mean, you do all this work on your business and you depend on email to bring money in. It ain't going to come in as easily or if ever, if you don't take care of this, this deal. So thanks a lot for coming on, Larry.

[00:19:05] My pleasure. Always glad to help.

[00:19:07] Get back to work. Yeah. Larry's also his nickname is Elmer. Tell him why.

[00:19:14] Oh, yes. Um, for those of you out there that are amateur, that hold an amateur radio license, I have had the privilege of Elmering. Tom and another member of our staff, Mark, uh, into getting into amateur radio and getting their licenses. And we've been talking back and forth about antennas, radio equipment, all that stuff. It's just, uh, it's one of those things that adds, adds, um, it enhances your life. Let's just put it that way.

[00:19:42] Well, well, see, the term Elmer, folks, is a broad based thing around the world of a mentor in the field of ham radio. And so I have a mentor, and he's talking to you right now. On with regard to ham radio. I'm a mentor to a bunch of entrepreneurs. And, you know, so you got to keep continuous learning. That's my whole deal.

[00:20:01] So, so yeah. And and just so you know, in the UK they call them chaps.

[00:20:05] Oh chaps I didn't know that.

[00:20:07] Yeah. Good chap. He's a good chap.

[00:20:09] So it's, uh, Elmer's only the United States.

[00:20:11] Well, it seems that way, United States and maybe a few other countries. The term Elmer is not that popular in Europe. Okay. Yeah, I didn't realize that either. It's like. But Elmer is such a good name.

[00:20:21] What kind of Elmer are you? If you didn't realize that.

[00:20:23] Uh, I'm just a US Elmer, huh? I don't know what goes on elsewhere.

[00:20:28] All right, folks, uh, get on this. Uh, seriously. And, uh, pass this on to your IT people and get it done and make sure it does get done correctly. And if you need help, uh, get in touch with Larry. Don't get in touch with me for this crap.

[00:20:41] Yeah, because Tom will just say, get in touch with me, so you might as well just bypass that and just reach out to me.

[00:20:45] Now, if you want to get in the mentor program, then you get, Larry and Mark and Jennifer and myself and Travis and everybody to help you, you know. So check that out at GreatInternetMarketingTraining.com and we will catch you on the next episode. See you later.