PocketList Puts Harrowing Email Deliverability Issues to Rest with MarketerHire

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THE
CHALLENGE

Nick Dazé, CEO of PocketList, and his co-founders are product people. They know the ins and outs of technology and building systems. They can identify the complexities and nuances in code, and in system logic. 

Yet, when the emails for their start-up PocketList, an apartment rental app, stopped delivering to their customers, they knew they had a problem no amount of product or technology expertise could solve. 

“Particularly for us, our email deliverability issues turned into a crisis,” says Nick. “We’re a software product, and one of the most important pieces of that stack are notification emails and push notifications. With low email deliverability, we were in a situation where our notification emails were going to people's spam inboxes. Folks would get a new notification or message on PocketList, and they’d never see it. Obviously that’s very, very bad. It was a very harrowing time.”

The issue, it turned out, was that their team naively began sending a large volume of email without properly warming up. Transaction emails, newsletter blasts, and cold outreach from the same domain without a proper warm up was getting them into trouble.

Earlier in the year, they had hired a full-time growth marketer who was schooling the founders in paid digital acquisition and CRO – but no one on the team had any email marketing experience, nor the technical chops required to solve the problem at hand.

“We immediately put out the feelers to our investors, friends, family – anyone we thought could help. We knew we needed to fix it, and fast. We just didn’t know how.”

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If we hadn't had access to the MarketerHire network, we would have blundered our way through this very serious problem to a degree that may have jeopardized our entire platform.

Nick Dazé

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PocketList

THE
SOLUTION

Justin Turner was then, and still is, the only full time marketer on the PocketList team. He saw an ad on Instagram about MarketerHire, saw the brands using the service, and decided it was worth a shot. 

“The hiring experience is what I like the most about MarketerHire.” says Justin. “They make it very easy to explain your marketing pain points, both now and in the future. Then, you hop on a quick call to explain the exact type of person you are looking for. Next is the process of matching, which is what I’ve been the most impressed with.”  

“MarketerHire has nailed it every time we’ve requested their support. In fact, we have decided to go forward with the first person they've given us on more than one occasion. Not only is the service incredibly accurate when matching a solution to a marketing need, but I also find it to be incredibly quick and frictionless,” says Justin.

Within a couple days, Justin and Nick were introduced to an expert email marketer who got to work, fast. 

“She's been absolutely fantastic, and has truly blown us away,” says Nick. “Kym has helped us go from maybe the second to worst email deliverability rating possible back to being in the best standing possible.”

And she’s been able to do it on an hourly basis, which is important for Nick and his team. As an early-stage startup, they need expert marketing help based on the project –– which makes hiring full-time marketing specialists a challenge. 

“In a parallel universe, we would have prematurely tried to bring on someone as a full-time hire when we did not need them full-time,” says Nick. “As a result, we would have either been wasting resources or would have had an awkward situation only a couple months later where we would have had to downsize. 

“We were able to avoid that thanks to MarketerHire. Instead, we work with our expert marketer two to three hours a week, and have been doing that since February.”

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THE
RESULT

PocketList’s email deliverability is near perfect these days, and they’re continuing to work with their expert email marketer as well as hire additional marketers through MarketerHire. Next on their list are a content marketer, a graphic designer, and an SEO specialist. 

“If we hadn't had access to the MarketerHire network, we would have blundered our way through this very serious problem to a degree that may have jeopardized our entire platform,” says Nick. 

"For fast moving, scrappy, founding teams at early-stage companies that don't have a full-stack and experienced marketing person on their founding team, having access to a vetted network of stellar people is fantastic. Having access to that knowledge in affordable bite-sized and time boxed pieces is super valuable.

"The white glove matching process is super valuable. MarketerHire has really zeroed in on a really big gap that a lot of companies have, especially when they're early on, and that’s true marketing expertise.”

As for Justin, he feels the same. After all, MarketerHire gets him the marketing support he needs exactly when he needs it. 

“When you’re working at a start-up where you’re quickly pivoting, scaling, and growing, working with a company like MarketerHire is an absolute must. To be able to hit the ground running with expert marketing talent when and where you need it the most, I just can’t imagine doing it any other way.”

Key Email Deliverability Insights from Kym van der Weyde, PocketList's expert email marketer:

  • ‍Hire an expert: "Hire an expert before you begin sending. Seriously! It is so easy to ruin your deliverability, and it is so difficult to build back up. Great deliverability consists of many factors — warming up domains and IPs correctly, cleaning and segmenting audiences, and optimizing content for engagement (just to name a few). Hiring a knowledgeable and well-rounded email marketer will set you up for success."
  • Trust that expert: "Nick and Justin from PocketList have been wonderful to work with. From the beginning they made me feel like a part of the team, and have trusted my advice and expertise to improve their email program. They’re building a great product and it’s exciting to be able to play a small part in their success."

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"MarketerHire has nailed it every time we’ve requested their support. Not only is the service incredibly accurate when matching a solution to a marketing need, but I also find it to be incredibly quick and frictionless."

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