Happy Subscribers

Lately, I've been getting a little chatty with my coach at the gym. After telling him about all the things I was building with AI (dashboards, tracking metrics, etc.), and even showing him how it works from my phone, he looked at me point-blank and laughed. "Allea, are you becoming dependent on AI?" 😂 "Of course not, Derek, but, um, honestly, I do wonder." I'm so excited to have a friend on who spends (her words) an "obnoxious" amount of time with AI. Prerna Malik is a certified conversion copywriter. She and her husband Mayank run Profitably Yours, which you might know as Content Bistro. She's been building AI into her business since ChatGPT showed up in 2022, and she still writes her own copy, because she loves it. (Same, girl. Same.) In this episode, we talk about where AI actually belongs in your business and your emails, so you keep showing up as a real human while these freaking cool tools do the support work. In this episode: How an AI "focus group" lets you stress-test a launch before your real audience ever sees it Why AI is so good at making you feel productive (and the three-question filter Prerna uses to check if it actually is) My marshmallow-brain fear, and Prerna's very analog answer A cautionary note before you download that free AI skill everyone's sharing (!!) Want to keep learning from Prerna? DM her on Instagram at @profitably_yours and tell her you heard her on Happy Subscribers. She'll send you the replay of her AI team workshop. Check out this episode's blog post Connect with Prerna: Prerna's Instagram Profitably Yours Website Prerna's free skill that strips AI tells from your copy Profitable AI Accelerator (Join Now! Starts November 11th) The Profit Memo (Prerna's newsletter) Episode Resources: Join the Done & Delivered waitlist  Other Resources: Watch Happy Subscribers on YouTube Work with Duett Book Your FREE Discovery Call Join the Duett newsletter Free Duett Resources Instagram @alleagrummert If you enjoyed this episode, you can show your support by leaving a review, subscribing, or sharing your biggest takeaways on your Instagram story! Just remember to tag me @alleagrummert so I can see it.

Episode Summary: Due next week:     ☐ Review Kit's Strategy Audit of our Duett Kit account That was the task sitting in my Asana. I opened it thinking, wait… what is this? It was a full strategy audit of my Kit account from Kit's team. 🤯 It was genuinely joyful to scroll through, because every core indicator came back green: open rate, welcome sequence, list cleaning, creator network, all of it. They also listed out wins, and the one that really caught my attention was about how much my list trusts me, based on my open rate: "That level of audience trust is your most valuable business asset and is worth protecting with everything you do." !!! That's what deliverability is really about. Your subscribers asked for your emails. Our job is making sure those emails ACTUALLY show up, ideally in the primary inbox, not buried in promotions (or worse, spam). So I finally got my friend Alyssa Dulin, Kit's Director of Customer Success, to come on the show. Alyssa got her start in Kit's deliverability department, and this summer she told me something I didn't know: there IS a way to get out of the promotions tab. We recorded this like we were sitting at our usual spot, the Flower Kitchen in Franklin. Tiny tables, one outlet, bring your laptop charged. In this episode, you'll learn about: The one thing your subscribers can do that tells Gmail you're not just another promo email (!!) Why Alyssa still keeps about 1,000 cold subscribers on her list What good open rates look like now that Apple opens emails for people (she gives us a range!) The 30-second check in Gmail that tells you whether your email's foundation is solid One Kit setting to turn on — and one to leave OFF The tool Alyssa built to improve deliverability, and how you can get $10 off a month forever If you enjoyed this episode, you can show your support by leaving a review, subscribing, or sharing your biggest takeaways on your Instagram story! Just remember to tag me @alleagrummert so I can see it. Check out this episode's blog post Connect with Alyssa: Alyssa's Instagram Alyssa's Threads Alyssa's LinkedIn Episode Resources (affiliate links are marked with *): SendGauge* Verify your domain to optimize your deliverability* Google Postmaster Tools*   Kit* Other Resources: Watch Happy Subscribers on YouTube Work with Duett Book Your FREE Discovery Call Join the Duett newsletter Free Duett Resources Instagram @alleagrummert

Episode Summary: It was September, three or four weeks into working with a remote-team consultant alongside my whole team to improve how we operate. And here I was, crying for the second day in a row. I could see so much that could be done. And when I know something needs fixing, I feel responsible for fixing it, fast. That urgency stressed me OUT. So on a call with our consultant, Madi, I told her, "There's just so much." And she asked me one question: "What if you let someone else take on some of these things?" "I'm sorry, huh?" It's like she'd called out my need to do everything myself. 😂 Eight years into running Duett, and it hadn't occurred to me. I'd always assumed it was my responsibility as the business owner! That question is a big part of why 2026 has been my biggest year yet. So for the 100th episode of Happy Subscribers (!!), I'm taking you behind the scenes of what I handed off this year, what letting go took, and what I got back. In this episode, you'll learn about: ➡️ What I invested in this year without knowing what the return would be ➡️ The one thing I thought everyone did, until someone told me they don't ➡️ What happened to my Asana and Slack notifications after a single session with a remote-team consultant (!!) ➡️ Why my team asked me to pause building AI agents (and why the answer had to be yes) ➡️ What it looks like to stop making everything and start directing it Check out this episode's blog post Episode Resources:  Join the Done & Delivered waitlist Watch this episode and subscribe on YouTube  Book a FREE Discovery Call  Instagram @alleagrummert

Episode Summary: It's here. It's Q4 — the season my clients (and you, dear listener) have been working toward all year long. Or at least most of you. For most of my clients and the online creators I know, Q4 is when the traffic shows up. (For healthy living and healthy food creators, it might be Q1. Same idea.) You've spent months on new recipes, how-to articles, photos, pins, post updates and SEO, all to pay off in the highest-traffic months of the year. That traffic is hard-earned. And I want to be in your corner, helping you turn it into subscribers you can build a relationship with — people you can send resources and solutions to, and email your content all year long. Because once you finally have their email address, all that hard work keeps paying off. In this super short solocast, I'm sharing four ways to capture holiday readers and turn them from casual visitors into email subscribers, so you can bring them back to your site, email after email, all through next year. In this episode, you'll learn about: ➡️ The on-post opt-in you can switch from "join my newsletter" to something seasonal (and switch back off in January) ➡️ Why I think this is THE season for pop-ups (sorry, SEO friends) ➡️ How Save This Recipe gets you a subscriber who wants exactly what they came for — plus a Kit automation you can copy straight into your account ➡️ Holiday freebies and opt-in series that give you something new to talk about on social for weeks ➡️ What to do with all those new subscribers once the holidays are over Check out this episode's blog post Episode Resources:  Grab my free Q4 Traffic Guide  How to Set Up a Save This Recipe Form  Kit  Grow by Mediavine (Spotlight Subscribe)  Slickstream Highlighter  Free Duett Resources Join the Duett newsletter Check out Duett Services Book a FREE Discovery Call  Instagram @alleagrummert If you enjoyed this episode, you can show your support by leaving a review, subscribing, or sharing your biggest takeaways on your Instagram story! Just remember to tag me @alleagrummert (https://instagram.com/alleagrummert) so I can see it.

Episode Summary: The day I found out I was an Enneagram 6, I cried for three days. I sat with it and went, "oh, so I keep people close because I'm afraid of being alone." Cool. Love that for me. But then I got to the other half of it. The loyal part. The bubbly part. The part that makes friends with strangers in the grocery store checkout line. And I realized that's not a bug I need to manage — that's just me. I'm an excitable person, and if I had to show up every day as a stoic, buttoned-up "professional," I would shrivel up and die on the inside. Somebody else gave me language for how I already was. And I felt so much relief. Which is exactly what Kristin Lawton does for solopreneurs, and it's what she built her entire welcome sequence to do. Kristin is the chief brand mixologist behind District Brand Bar, and her brand isn't cocktail-themed — it's a bar you walk into. In email form. New subscribers choose how they enter the room, then a base spirit, then a flavor, a cocktail type, a garnish. They come out the other side with a sharper read on their own brand AND an actual drink recipe they can make. There are somewhere between 60 and 100 emails behind it, running on liquid tags/conditional content. It's wildly complex, but so worth it. Her click rate went from 1% to 4% when she turned it on. And the people who play the whole way through? Lifers. Don't worry — Kristin says you don't have to have a crazy theme like she does. (I don't. I have puns and jazz hands.) A welcome sequence can be five emails that introduce you, hand over your best resources, and ask a question you actually want answered. That's most of what we build, and it works — because somebody sat down and decided, on purpose, what a new subscriber should experience. That's the part Kristin and I actually agree on. Sixty emails or five, the intention is what makes it work. What she has me thinking about is the layer on top. What if new subscribers got to DO something in there? In this episode, you'll learn about: Why picking gin over mezcal tells Kristin something real about your brand How you end up with a drink you can actually make The one piece of advice from a friend that sent Kristin back to rebuild everything What happens to the subscribers who don't play along (don't worry, there's a default option) The reason there is no vodka on the menu The Kit buildout in detail, so you can build something like it yourself Check out this episode's blog post   Connect with Kristin Lawton: Take Kristin's Brand Marketing Style Quiz  District Brand Bar on Instagram  District Brand Bar on YouTube  Episode Resources:  Kit Free Duett Resources Join the Duett newsletter Check out Duett Services Book a FREE Discovery Call  Instagram @alleagrummert