What have we found to expand your email knowledge today?

Here are a few of our favourite links from across the email and business world, carefully curated just for you:

Find of the week ⭐

If you missed Tuesday’s Email Tools TLDR, consider this a sign!

Our friend, Bryan Harris from Growth Tools, shared free access to his list of over 300+ content creators looking to partner and cross-promote with our readers!

Collaboration is still one of the best ways to grow your list and business, and this list keeps growing, so don’t miss an opportunity for exclusive access:

Grab Bryan’s Rolodex of 312+ Partners for Collaboration Here.

We’re also constantly on the lookout for new resources, news, tools and links, so hit us up if you’ve got something valuable to feature!

There’s already been a swathe of upcoming AI inbox changes.

And it’s only mid-February!

You’ll likely have been living under a rock if you haven’t seen what Gmail’s already been up to (AI summaries, AI inbox and a heap more), but we’re predicting a heap of development in this arena from many inbox providers in months to come.

And for email senders, we’re going to need to incorporate this into our thinking and planning.

The reality is that a solid strategy, good engagement and all of the other inbox practices we preach remain the foundation for showing up when it matters, but you can still gear your plan towards where things are going.

Today, we’re covering four quick elements to get you thinking in that direction.

Let’s see how good of a bouncer AI really is, shall we?

The new norm, unfortunately, is that emails are likely going to get summarised before they get read.

If your “point” is hidden behind long warm-ups, tons of images (with no solid ALT text), or generic “fluff”, AI summaries are going to struggle to motivate why your emails should be read.

This is where your intros (essentially, your first 2 lines) become as important as those LinkedIn hooks the bro marketers always go on about.

Here’s something we’re working into our plan:

If your first lines don’t make sense out of context, neither will the AI summary.

Future you will thank you for this one, because some emails aren’t meant to be consumed immediately (though most should be).

They’re often those set up to be called on later (think Aragorn in LOTR who rocks up when it matters).

These often take the form of templates, swipefiles, checklists, and more, but if readers can’t find your emails later, you’ve lost that future value.

And AI is slowly going to transition into an inbox helper. We sure as heck want to use it that way to find resources and all the stuff we intend to one day use, so how do you make it easy to find later on?

This is where giving your emails a searchable “spine” is going to help.

Here’s a quick test: If someone searches their inbox for “welcome playbook”, or “pricing email”, or “Black Friday guide”… would your email(s) show up?

Inbox AI pays attention to relationships.

Those basics you need to get right to stay in the inbox (Consistent engagement and good sending) tell AI systems that you, as a sender, matter.

The more this happens, the more often you’re likely to surface over time.

If you’ve been here for a while, you’ll already know these signals matter for staying in the inbox, but over time, these are also soon going to matter to visibility.

Focus on your engagement.
Get folks to reply when it matters.
Ensure you’re adding continuous value to your audience.

If you’re one of those ambiguous/ mysterious storytellers, you may want to rein it in.

As much as humans reward clarity, explaining things clearly to AI is also going to help it help you.

If your email needs a backstory and multiple metaphors to land your point, AI is likely going to swipe left…

We’re doing something in these emails to test this before we send it your way:

It’s a little extra effort, but if anything stands out or remains unclear, we’re adjusting as we go.

Bonus: We’re using Gmail’s summaries to see what those look like on send-days too, which also helps. These still change randomly, but the core elements tend to remain.

Remember, you can still be fun. Just make sure you’re understandable first.

The goal isn’t to “beat AI”, guys. That’s a losing battle filled with empty hacks.

The real goal is to make your emails so clear and useful that AI can do what it’s designed to do:

Help your reader get to the good stuff faster.

Pick one of the four sections above and give it on your next send.

Keep what’s working. Ditch the fluff. Rinse and repeat.

We’re keeping close tabs on where AI is going, so lots more from this journey to come - We hope you stick around for that 💌

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You might have missed this floating around the net and LinkedIn a month or two ago, but it’s too ridiculous not to share…

Honestly, if this were us, someone would be catching hands (without mediation).

Curious if anyone stuck around after getting something like this?