Read the transcript
You moved my email from Kajabi to Kit, and it was such a scare. And not only that, we changed domains. And I knew I wanted to do that. I put it off for two years. I’m like, oh my God. Right. And you carefully helped me to warm it up and then moved it over, and still have me slowly warming it up. So that was huge, hugely helpful. Email is so important. The first time I had to do that, I’m like, I like the number, 5,000 or whatever. Now I recognize that it’s more important to have people that are actually there than just big fat numbers of dead leads.
Overview
Becca Jacobson is a sobriety mentor for women over 40. She helps women change their relationship with alcohol through one-to-one mentoring, her programs and her podcast, Sobriety Snippets for Women Over 40. Her email lived in Kajabi. She wanted it in Kit, and she wanted it sending from a new domain. She'd known that for two years and kept putting it off, because a move like that is easy to get wrong.
We did both: the platform move and the domain change, with the new domain warmed up carefully before her list went across.
"You moved my email from Kajabi to Kit, and it was such a scare. And not only that, we changed domains. I put it off for two years."
The situation
Two changes at once is where a move like this usually goes sideways:
- A new platform. Everything has to come across from Kajabi and work in Kit before anyone notices.
- A new sending domain. Inboxes don't know a new domain yet. Send a whole list from it on day one and a lot of it lands in spam.
- A list that had grown for years. Plenty of the addresses on it weren't reading anymore.
What we did
- Set up the new domain properly first. Sender records in place before a single email went out from it.
- Warmed it up before the move. Small, steady sending to the people most likely to open, so inboxes learned to trust the new name.
- Moved engaged subscribers first. The people who open and click went across first, so their opens, clicks and safe-sender marks built the domain's reputation for a couple of weeks before the rest followed.
- Kept warming it after. The new domain is still being warmed slowly, rather than switched to full volume overnight.
One thing worth saying plainly: a cold-email warmer is the wrong tool for a move like this. The warm-up that counts comes from your own readers opening and replying.
A smaller list, and a better one
The move was also a chance to stop carrying dead weight. Becca's list came out smaller and cleaner, made of people who actually read.
"Now I recognize that it's more important to have people that are actually there than just big fat numbers of dead leads."
How it felt on her side
"I felt really, really heavily supported working with you, and safe. Because in this online business world, if you're new, there's a lot of voices out there and it gets scary. And I've been burned a few times. And I just felt very safe with you."
"You were always there when I had a question, and just showed up and went above and beyond. It feels really good to be looked after."
What it shows
- A platform move and a domain change can happen together, if the domain is warmed before the list moves.
- Engaged readers go first. They're the ones who teach inboxes to trust a new sender.
- A smaller list of real readers beats a big list that doesn't open.
Putting off a platform move or a domain change? That's a good first conversation.