Kris Hughes 🪓

Social Media Content Creator

Zanate Marketing

* Fractional marketing for growth-stage companies that drives revenue.
* B2B focus, but we're chameleons -- we meet you where you are.
* Focus areas: cold and warm outreach, organic traffic engines, thought leadership, social media management and company story development.

Founder | Fractional Marketer

Gallium Solutions

* Fractional marketing director for a rapidly-growing government grants consulting company.
* Building out a warm and cold outreach engine to consistently drive leads.
* Executing a content strategy to consistently increase organic traffic and niche authority.
* Developing the company's social media presence to amplify thought leadership.

Fractional Marketing Director

Prospology

Working with Prospology.com as a fractional brand strategy coach to help the medical writing community's students develop a strong presence on LinkedIn and a storytelling strategy that supports the growth of their freelance medical writing businesses.

Brand Strategy Coach

Several Clients

* I'm a LinkedIn ghostwriter for 3 founders: The owner of a CRO consultancy, the owner/CEO of a SaaS company, and my friend who runs an eCommerce growth consulting company.
* As a ghostwriter, I publish a total of 36 posts per month on these accounts and do 30 hours a month of community cultivation work to help drive more interest for my clients with their ideal clients.
* The goals are to increase profile views, attention on content, and cultivate leads for my client's business.
* LinkedIn Ghostwriting has been a core service offering of Zanate Ventures since I founded the company in March 2020.

LinkedIn Ghostwriter 👻

Point One Navigation

Helping to develop and manage the content pipeline operations for a major precision navigation company with clients across industries like agriculture, drones, and self-driving cars.

Content Operations Consultant

Optimist

Fractional managing editor for Optimist's link building project, Juice.

Responsible for progression of articles through developmental funnel from topic generation to writer assignment, to the final product that's ready to be pitched to guest post websites to land links for our clients.

To date:
* Overseen hundreds of articles through the editorial and publishing process, all of which required my topic generation and editorial touch
* Managed a team of writers across timezones and around the world which has helped Juice become profitable in less than a year and maintain that level of profitability to date

Managing Editor

Mayple

* Working as a freelance email marketing consultant for Mayple via their contract with MailChimp/Intuit. 
* Audit MailChimp client email accounts to find areas for improvement through health checks. 
* Present on findings and implementations to solve gaps in use.
* Conduct implementations based on these identified gaps and report to clients.
* Occassionally continue with Mailchimp clients following process as an email consultant.

Email Marketing Consultant

CB Company

Social media ghostwriting and niche community building for the CEO of a series of cannabis industry events held each year in Switzerland.

Audience & Income

Member

DataHawk

Content Creator

Coaching ambitious freelancers to build better businesses.

Developing a strong marketing program isn't easy.
A couple of roadblocks stand in the way.
Some have to do with time, and others, resourcing.

Here's the typical scenario for many companies:
* They're doing some marketing content and storytelling now and then.
* They may occasionally fire off a cold campaign, or run some ads.
* Their marketing is 'good enough,' but they know it could be better.
* Marketing responsibilities are split between several different people.
* Who check the 'task boxes' begrudgingly.
* And the resulting work is disjointed at best, or confusing at worst.

For these companies, marketing is anything but strategic. Or the strategy is made of sticks and string when it should be concrete.

Things can be different, though.

Our work as Fractional Marketers helps these companies:
* Tell a more cohesive and powerful story
* Identify their core audience and create a marketing narrative that resonates
* Find the right channels to develop so effort isn't wasted
* Execute quickly on short-term opportunities and lay the foundation for long-term growth and sustainability 
* Install and execute on repeatable, predictable processes & strategies that continue to move the needle

We offer three options for engagement:

* It all begins with our Marketing Tune-Up. Over 30 days we'll take a 'look under the hood' of your current marketing and find 2-3 opportunities for quick wins that we can work on together. 
* Your investment for the Marketing Tune-Up is directly applied, to one of two monthly retainer options if you choose to keep working with us, the Scale plan and the Soar plan.
* Under the Scale plan we're developing warm and cold email outreach, an organic traffic engine, social media marketing, and thought leadership content to have things firing on all cylinders.
* Under the Soar plan, we become your marketing team, hiring freelancers from our network and going full-speed ahead to help you pour fuel on the fire of your marketing momentum.

You get two of us at Zanate—me and my wife Julie—who bring a combined 30+ years of experience in content, marketing, and storytelling to the table to help your portfolio companies custom-craft and execute a content strategy that's right for their unique situation and niche.

The cost?
Less than half the annualized cost of a typical full time Chief Marketing Officer, on the high end.

Interested to learn more?
It all starts with a free Marketing Strategy Call to set the table.

DM me or book 30 minutes here:
https://savvycal.com/krishughes/marketing-strategy-call

Founder --> Ghostwriter & Content Creator for Growing Coaches & Solopreneurs

Karen Grill

Strategies to Help Your Emails Land in the Inbox | Speaker | Email & Funnel Strategist for Coaches, Creators and Service Providers | Business Coach | WI Native

Helping Coaches, Consultants, and Service Providers Master Email Marketing Strategy and Deliverability

Whether you’re setting up your first email list or struggling with an existing one, the key to success is ensuring it’s built and maintained the right way.

I’m Karen, a Business Coach and Funnel Strategist with over 15 years of experience helping businesses unlock the power of email marketing. 

I specialize in setting up email lists with strategy and precision—and auditing existing lists to fix what’s not working.

If your emails are landing in spam, your open rates are down, or you’re just not sure where to start, I’ll help you build or refine a reliable email marketing system.


Here’s How I Help:
➡️ Email List Strategy & Setup:
I’ll help you build or refine your email list the right way, with a focus on audience alignment, segmentation, and proper authentication (SPF, DKIM, and DMARC) to ensure your emails land in inboxes.

➡️ Email List Audit & Troubleshooting:
I’ll audit your existing list to uncover gaps in deliverability, engagement, and segmentation. From checking blocklists to fixing technical issues like authentication, I’ll make sure your email infrastructure is optimized for maximum results.

Imagine This:

Your emails consistently land in your subscribers’ inboxes, not spam.
Your open and click-through rates improve with each campaign.
Your email list is aligned with your audience, and every email you send has a purpose.
Whether you’re starting fresh or optimizing what you already have, I’ll help you turn your email list into a powerful tool for connection, engagement, and growth.

DM me today to get started.

📌 WHAT OTHERS ARE SAYING
"My email list is a money maker.  I depend on it heavily to do a bunch of things.  And when the deliverability and bounce rates just climbed up I was alarmed.  I tried to fix the problem myself, which ended up making things a bit worse.  I had to shelf my list for almost a month.  Karen swooped in and was able to correctly diagnose the problem, which turned out to be a bit more complicated (Go Daddy, Gmail suite, old email ownership).  She gave me a great plans to fix, restore and get it back.  And BOOM.  I'm back online making cash with the list.  Thanks Karen!"  ~Doug Lawson

Let’s make your email list work for you.

DM me today to get started.

Founding Member

A business and social community centered around growing your brand, building your network, scaling your business, and establishing trust

I had a bodyguard growing up.

And he happened to be a giant black cat.

His name was Squeaky.

My parents got him before my brother and I were born, and from that moment on, he chose my dad as “his human.”

He would curl up on my dad’s chest, sleep on him whenever he sat on the couch, and follow him everywhere.

So when two noisy little kids suddenly arrived…
Squeaky was not thrilled.

He was big, aloof, independent, and politely indifferent to us most of the time.
He’d leave the room the second we entered.

But whenever one of us got hurt or started crying…
everything changed.

Squeaky would sprint across the house
plant himself between us and our parents
and refuse to let them near.

Growling.
Hissing.
Doing the full bodyguard routine.

We learned fast that if we wanted comfort from our parents,
we had to stop crying quickly
or the black-cat-security-team would activate.

Looking back, it makes me smile.
The cat who barely tolerated us
was the one who protected us the fiercest.

Love shows up in unexpected ways.

Sometimes the quietest ones watch over you the most.

Did you ever have a childhood pet with a huge personality like this?

(Instead of Black Friday - I decided to do Black Cat Friday 🐈‍⬛)

Two clients came to me recently with totally different email problems.

One didn't have an email list - too overwhelmed to start.

The other had been emailing… but his open rates tanked and he couldn’t figure out why.

Different situations.

Same root problem:
The foundation wasn’t strong enough.

Because in 2025, email is no longer “just create an email list, send and see what happens.”

You need the right setup.
The right strategy.
A sending rhythm.
Clean segmentation.
Warm domain.
Clear purpose behind every email.

Otherwise your list quietly stops performing… long before you ever realize it.

That’s why I released two Email Strategy Kits today.

One for getting your email list set up correctly…
and one for optimizing the list you already have so you can land in more inboxes.

So if your plans are to use an email list in 2026 - make sure to get the foundations correct (so you don't need to hire me later).

If you want the details, DM me “KITS” and I’ll send you the link.

My inbox has been flooded this month.

"Our emails are suddenly landing in spam." 
"Someone is spoofing our domain." 
"Our open rates dropped 40% overnight."

Here's what's happening:
Gmail is cracking down harder than ever. 

I'm seeing more spam placement in the past 30 days than the previous six months combined.

And it's not just poor setup anymore - it's businesses with authentication that used to work fine suddenly getting flagged.

Why now?

Gmail tightened enforcement. 
Probably before Black Friday.
SPF and DKIM that were "good enough" last quarter aren't anymore. 
DMARC at p=none? 
You're essentially inviting spoofers to impersonate you.

The businesses reaching out thought they had a "content problem" or that "engagement dropped a little."

No. Gmail never let your emails through.

If you're seeing this:
- Check your DMARC policy (p=none won't save you)
- Review your SPF and DKIM records NOW
- Monitor your deliverability weekly, not monthly
- Look at your DMARC reports 

This isn't a trend. 
It's the new baseline.
Your emails are either authenticated properly, or they're invisible.

What are you seeing in your inbox placement lately?

Every minute, hundreds of millions of emails fly across the internet.

And Black Friday pushed that into overdrive. 
Cyber Monday does it again.

If your inbox felt impossible this weekend, you weren’t imagining it.

Across the industry, sending volume spikes so fast that filters tighten, inboxes overflow, and even great emails get buried.

This isn’t a content problem.
It’s a visibility problem.

When billions of emails hit inboxes in a 48-hour window, everything shifts.
Engagement looks different.
Deliverability behaves differently.
Authentication issues that were quiet last week suddenly show up.
And small sender reputation dips turn into bigger ones.

Most business owners don’t realize how much holiday sending impacts their list.

They look at open rates or clicks and assume something went wrong with the message.

But often, it’s the environment around the message that changed.

If your numbers look strange today, or if your emails felt quieter than usual, it doesn’t mean your list is broken.

It means it’s recovering.

What surprised you about your inbox this weekend?

P.S. Stay tuned - I have something coming to help you understand exactly what to look for once this Black Friday and Cyber Monday surge settles.

When someone unsubscribes…

It feels personal.
It feels like a loss.
But it’s not.

An unsubscribe is almost always a win for your email list.

Why?
Because people who never open your emails don’t help your deliverability.
They hurt it.

Email providers judge you based on engagement.

If you keep sending to subscribers who haven’t opened anything in months, inbox providers assume your emails aren’t wanted - and you get pushed closer to spam or promotions.

So when someone unsubscribes?
Your list gets healthier.
Your engagement goes up.
Your deliverability improves.

And a healthier list → more visibility → more revenue.

Unsubscribes aren’t rejection.
They’re maintenance.
They help you reach the people who actually want what you send.

A smaller, more engaged list always outperforms a large, disengaged one.

Treat every unsubscribe as someone clearing space so your business can grow.

Do you review your list regularly - or are you still hanging on to every address “just in case”?

When Someone Unsubscribes...

I subscribed to 25 random email lists last week.

Over 80% were set up wrong.

Not "a little off." 
Not "needs improvement." 

I mean -  incomplete authentication, broken SPF records, missing DKIM, DMARC stuck at p=none, and zero deliverability monitoring.

Most of these businesses have no idea their emails are disappearing before they reach the inbox.

Here's what nobody tells you...
Email authentication isn't a one-and-done setup. 
It's ongoing maintenance.

New tool? Update your SPF. 
New sending platform? Reconfigure DKIM. 
New domain? Restart warmup. 
DMARC reports? Review them weekly.

And p=none doesn't protect you - it just lets anyone spoof your domain while you "pass" DMARC tests and Gmail watches.

Your email performance isn't a content problem. 
It's a setup problem.
If you don't maintain it, you lose it.

Is your email setup one of the 80%?

Most email lists don’t plummet overnight.

They fade quietly.

Here’s what I mean:

People think deliverability issues happen suddenly.
They don't.

What actually happens is much slower and far more subtle:
You miss a week.
Then you miss two.
Then you send something random to “catch up.”
It feels off.
Your audience feels it too.
Open rates dip.
Your ESP notices.
Your domain reputation softens, inch by inch.
Suddenly you’re in promo.
Then spam.
And you don’t even know when it happened.

Every list has a rhythm.
When you break it, the list breaks with it.

This isn’t about “sending more.”
And it’s definitely not about sending “better content.”

It’s about:
- sending with intention
- understanding your sending patterns
- keeping your domain warm
- maintaining predictable list health
- building trust through consistency
- and having a clear purpose behind every email you send

The lists that grow are the lists that follow a rhythm.
Not a schedule - a rhythm.

P.S. If you’re not sure where your own rhythm broke, I still have a couple of Email List Gameplan spots open. Happy to send details.

taplio

The Battle

Kris Hughes 🪓

Karen Grill

Followers

Posts

Engagements

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taplio

The Battle

Kris Hughes 🪓

Karen Grill

Followers

Posts

Engagements

Likes

Performance Score.css-goub6s{font-size:var(--chakra-fontSizes-md);font-weight:500;color:var(--chakra-colors-gray-600);display:block;margin-top:var(--chakra-space-1);}Karen Grill's LinkedIn Performance

Ready to grow your LinkedIn presence?

Performance ScoreKaren Grill's LinkedIn Performance