Attendees
Andrew King – Founder at EmailStack & EmailLove
Chintan Doshi – Head of Email & CRM, at Mavlers
Transcript
[00:00:00] Chintan: Stop migrating or moving towards a new platform. If as a brand, if I’m not migrating to a new platform, what would be done to boost my delivery rate? Firstly, I would check, that you have de
[00:00:10] Andrew: Im and DMA and, and all of this deliverability set like SPF records. You should check that first.
[00:00:16] Chintan: What is your recommendation and the point of view on having a preferences versus.
[00:00:21] Chintan: Also having an unsubscribe option, rather
[00:00:22] Andrew: than having you link to a preference center on a landing page, ask the question in the email
[00:00:28] Chintan: how they can focus on generating new subscribers,
[00:00:31] Andrew: making sure you’re sending to the right, the right content to keep
[00:00:33] Chintan: those people engaged. Go to strategies which, might have an effective segmentation.
[00:00:38] Chintan: Right? And then also getting the best out of that segmentation.
[00:00:40] Andrew: Most of the year, I’m not interested in buying running shoes, but at some point I’m gonna become engaged and need some new running shoes. If brands can identify that without having to send me an email every single month, I think that’s probably gonna be the, the future of, of segmentation.
[00:00:56] Chintan: The content is the king. Right. What would be your, your take or, or suggestions on, [00:01:00] on how the, the brands or marketers Right consistently can optimize their email content and making sure that they don’t lose the brand voice?
[00:01:11] Chintan: Today we are thrilled to have, the great Andrew King with us. Andrew is the mastermind behind the two big brands, email stack and email love. And, he has dedicated his journey transforming email marketing with. Different than innovative solutions. with over a decade of experience the industry working in industry giant like, DocuSign, campaign monitor, Andrew brings a unique perspective to email marketing and starting from deliverability to design and he has helped many, brands, businesses with his consultation and innovation.
[00:01:44] Chintan: And, we have invited Andrew today. To help us tackle the biggest email marketing challenges, which, multiple brands and agencies are, are facing today around deliverability, making sure how to increase the engagements of your email and, marketing automation channels. [00:02:00] how to optimize the content to get better performance.
[00:02:02] Chintan: In terms of ROI, in terms of email metrics, I. So get ready for some good insights and valuable offerings, which we will get from Andrew. Please join me in welcoming Andrew. Hey Andrew. Thank you. Thank you for having me. What a nice intro. Great. Perfect. So lemme start with the, the biggest challenge, right?
[00:02:20] Chintan: With Black Friday and Cyber Monday coming. Right. we know it’s this season time is, is nearby, many of the brands who has certain concerns about that deliverability. Right? So, would love to hear from you on how email marketers Right, can overcome spam filters because that is a biggest concern, right?
[00:02:37] Chintan: Which marketers and automation, campaign managers has, and how to improve this sender. Reputation because that those are the current challenges, how to manage these spa filters. Mm-hmm. And taking care of, their reputation. Right? Because there are brands who are migrating from one platform to another marketing automation platform might not be aware about the IP performing and all such issues.
[00:02:57] Chintan: So what would be your, recommendation?
[00:02:59] Andrew: My [00:03:00] recommendation would be to maybe hold off on migrating to any. Any new platform right now, until after Black Friday, cyber Monday, if you can. Mm-hmm. I, I think now is probably that one of the highest sending volumes, of the year. And so you may not want to migrate, to a new platform and, and begin warming up ips at this point in time.
[00:03:21] Andrew: What I think you should be doing is actually warming up your existing ips and your existing, volumes that you’re sending. If you are planning to start sending. You know, two, three, maybe five times per week over. The Black Friday, summer, Monday, Thanksgiving period. you don’t want to suddenly start doing that, that week.
[00:03:42] Andrew: You want to ramp up to it gradually and you should be probably begin e either of you have not begun already. You should begin probably late October, to do that. So don’t just suddenly stick, go from one email per week to five emails per week. You need to gradually build up to that. Got it.
[00:03:58] Chintan: Interesting, interesting perspective.[00:04:00]
[00:04:00] Chintan: One other area regarding increasing the number of sends, right. Many brands who are not doing heavily in terms of email campaigns or marketing right. misses out on increasing the sends before the Black Friday, cyber Monday. So the normal, send out the normal, normally don’t target too many users or email addresses or, or profiles.
[00:04:19] Chintan: Right. But during the Black Friday assignment, they want to target everyone. Right. And that increases the, number of cents. Mm-hmm. What would be your advice for those specific people? Because. Starting it in November, right when Black Friday, nap Cyber Monday is almost on the watch. Might not be the right time in, in my understanding.
[00:04:34] Chintan: And, and what we observed in two our clients, you should start something by September and October just to make sure that email clients are having that visibility.
[00:04:42] Andrew: Yes, exactly. And ideally you should be doing some kind of segmentation. You shouldn’t just, I, I would. Probably advise you not to just start suddenly sending to your entire list more frequently than you have been.
[00:04:54] Andrew: I, I would, ramp it up by segmenting your list based on, user engagement. [00:05:00] So targeting the, the most frequent and engaged, openers and clickers and, and website browsers on, on your website. Mm-hmm. first and then. Gradually building that up, up until the week of, of Black Friday, would be my advice there.
[00:05:15] Andrew: Great. so yeah, they’re just suddenly sent to everyone at once in that, that Black Friday to the Monday week.
[00:05:21] Chintan: So just to make sure that Black Friday, cyber Monday is the best opportunity for them and they don’t want to lose it by affecting the delivery date. Right. one thing which you mentioned that.
[00:05:30] Chintan: Stop migrating, or moving towards a new platform. Right. Which was your initial thought on this pointer? If as a brand, if I’m not migrating to a new platform, what could be done to boost my delivery rate so that before Black Friday, cyber Monday, my inbox placements are on a, on a higher range.
[00:05:45] Andrew: Firstly, I would check, that you have d Kim and Dmar and, and all of this deliverability set, like SPF records.
[00:05:53] Andrew: You should check that first. Right? Mm-hmm. Like, make sure that, that you have that set up. There’s a number of websites out there where you [00:06:00] can check if that’s set up correctly. yep. Came across a new one, the other day called about my email. So that’s about my.email. you just plug it, you just actually send them an email from your ESP.
[00:06:15] Andrew: And then it will tell you what you have set up. And that’s a really, I, I thought that was a really great, tool. it’s very clear if you have set things up correctly and they give you a little bit of guidance. if you haven’t, that’s really the first thing you should do is make sure you have those, those DNS records set up correctly.
[00:06:31] Chintan: Yeah, the authentication is, must have bang on. But in terms of, uh. The subject lines, right? Making sure that what type of things to be covered right there. Again, you don’t add this type of words or keywords into the subject line to make sure that, the spam filter sketches your email. Right. How, how we avoid that part.
[00:06:48] Andrew: I mean, I personally don’t worry too much about I. The keywords in subject lines. I think if you, if you have a free offer and you want to include the word free in your subject line, [00:07:00] that’s, that’s fine. I think it becomes a problem if you are using your subject line as clickbait to mislead people into opening their email, and then they are disappointed when they open it, and then they’re more likely to mark you a spam.
[00:07:12] Andrew: I think that’s when it becomes a, a bigger issue. Right. So it’s not necessarily the key, the words that you’re using or the key words in the subject line. It’s. How you’re using them? I wouldn’t, worry too much about that. I would test different subject lines. last Black Friday, one brand huckberry used an all emoji subject line.
[00:07:34] Andrew: The whole subject line was just emojis. Mm-hmm. And, you know, it didn’t say anything. It was just like, emoji blocks and different colors. If you look at in your inbox, that really stood out. Like I was like. What is that like? Although it didn’t say anything, it got me to open and I bet their open rate on that email was much higher than usual.
[00:07:54] Andrew: Interesting approach. Interesting approach, right? More, I’m not saying you should do only emoji. Yeah. By the way, I’m not saying [00:08:00] you should only do emoji subject lines. I’m just saying, test it. It can be innovative and it’s not necessarily about
[00:08:07] Chintan: No, definitely you should not copy one. Brand who has done it in past, right?
[00:08:12] Chintan: You should make sure that you innovative, right? But, but making sure that you bring value to your subs base, right? That’s the, the key of mm-hmm. Marketing. Yeah. Moving away from delivery. Right. The next thing is a bigger concern, with new advancements from a tech perspective in email client, how, how to manage the low open rates, because there is a huge debate going on that better to rely on open rates, not rely on open rates.
[00:08:34] Chintan: What should the metrics, but. If there are brands who are facing low open rate side, what could be your recommendations so that they are well prepared and, and making sure that they work on, the subject lines?
[00:08:45] Andrew: Yeah, so I’d still believe. You should look at open rates. I, I don’t think you can disregard the metric completely because it’s inflated or it’s, you know, it’s not a true, number.
[00:08:56] Andrew: I think directionally it gives you a good idea of how many people, [00:09:00] like week to week are opening your email. That’s how I look at it. I think the, my newsletter, I, you know, I often get between 38 to 45% open rate. Just directionally, I know that people are opening it and it’s a, it’s a pretty good rate, even if it is inflated a little bit.
[00:09:17] Andrew: And so if you have low open rates, potentially you have deliverability issues, maybe you’re going into the spam folder. So again, checking that you have all that authentication set up. And then assuming you do have authentication set up, it could be the content I would look at. Like, do people want to receive what you’re sending them?
[00:09:35] Andrew: Are you just sending. Promotional offers in every single email. I know personally if, you know, there’s definitely brands out there that just send me 40% coupons and discount codes every week. So what I would think about what kind of value added content can you send your subscribers, you know, and on my website, email up.com, that’s the big focus is, curating content ideas for email marketers [00:10:00] because.
[00:10:01] Andrew: You, you might notice on the website, most of the emails aren’t promotional. They’re not just discount codes. It’s, unique and innovative ideas that you can include in the email. Like one example that I added, the other day was from Phil’s coffee and they had a pick a path. So it’s just like a, it’s like a graphic, but it’s like a really interest, like it’s really fun content idea that I’ve noticed a lot of brands doing recently where.
[00:10:24] Andrew: It’s like a diagram and you, you basically answer questions and follow the diagram down. So stuff like that, even if you’re like a coffee shop mm-hmm. That kind of content I think, will increase your open rates. ’cause it’s, it’s engaging and interesting for the reader.
[00:10:39] Chintan: Got it, got it. What role the subject line would play, because you, you mentioned about few strategies, right?
[00:10:44] Chintan: which a brand should implement to increase the, in the open rate, but what, role does the subject line plays and how much important it is in terms of, testing out. On getting a better open rates, because initially it was more of subject line and preview text of Preheader. Mm-hmm. [00:11:00] but now the innovation on the email clients, right.
[00:11:02] Chintan: You can preview the email without opening it. Mm-hmm. So how much the subject line is important now,
[00:11:08] Andrew: I personally think it’s, it plays a big role and I think it can, definitely move the needle in terms of how many opens and, and conversions you end up getting on your email. Mm-hmm. it’s kind of the, the gateway that determines if someone actually opens and, and engages with you.
[00:11:23] Andrew: So it is, I I think it’s very influential. It, it’s kind of like a. An art and a science to, to it, right? It’s, it’s hard to know exactly what’s gonna work with your audience. So I think testing different, different ideas and different lengths, different emojis, different types of subject line is probably the, the way to figure out what’s gonna work with your audience.
[00:11:45] Andrew: Again, it’s, it’s not like a one fit. One size fits all solution. I can’t just say like, you know, it should be five words long, include one emoji and, you know, be in this, this format. It’s not, it’s not quite that simple. But I, I would look at like, what stands out? Just go to your [00:12:00] inbox, go to like, look at all the emails you receive, like all, what’s stands out to you.
[00:12:04] Andrew: I, I definitely think, ’cause you know, I, I obviously look at a lot of emails. there’s definitely. Certain subject lines that, that catch my eye more than others. And it could be the length, it could be a use of emoji, it could be certain words within it. I personally don’t love the 50% off. That’s it. Like discount link.
[00:12:25] Andrew: I think you can get a bit more creative than, than that. although we’re gonna see a lot of that over Black Friday.
[00:12:30] Chintan: Yeah. So that, that is the least someone can expect. Yeah. But nowadays, 50% off and expecting a, a high open rate is, is like, is. It’s not possible at all. Right?
[00:12:41] Andrew: Exactly. Exactly. You definitely need to get more creative with it.
[00:12:44] Chintan: Yeah. You, it’s, it’s time to be creative. It’s time to be, different. Right. That’s what the sub step is expecting, because they are expect, they’re getting a lot of emails in the inbox, the promotional ones, and the ones which are going to be stand out and different. It’s always going to get that [00:13:00] open and clicks, right?
[00:13:01] Chintan: So yeah, great advice on that. Andrew, other point, which is also a debatable discussion right now, currently going on in the, the email or influencer world is how many emails are too many on, on this season time? Right? Because there are brands who are like sending 4, 5, 6, 7 emails for on Black Friday, seven Monday at bombarding the, the base, because.
[00:13:22] Chintan: They want to earn their revenue and mean that’s totally fair, that you want to earn revenue, but, how many emails are, are, are too many. Right. In your perspective, ’cause you have seen multiple brands, multiple emails, right? You’re into this industry. What is your thought process on that?
[00:13:36] Andrew: It’s a tricky one ’cause I, I totally get the brand perspective of wanting to be top of the inbox on that day.
[00:13:44] Andrew: and the reality is the more emails you send, if you’re getting into the, the, the inbox, you’re probably, going to. Get more conversions and, and revenue potentially then, like if you just sent one email, right? Like, I think that’s just the reality. And so I think it comes down to your [00:14:00] segmentation strategy and, you know, removing the people that you know, really don’t want to receive that, that email.
[00:14:06] Andrew: So like, if they’re not engaging, if they, if they haven’t opened at 12 months, do not hit them two or three times on Black Friday. Like they, I don’t think that’s, that’s gonna work for you and that’s gonna probably hurt you. Deliverability of anything. So I think, a lot of the ESPs now have onsite engagement metrics like Klaviyo.
[00:14:26] Andrew: I think you can segment based on like, if they’ve been on the website. and a lot of tools will identify this. So I think it’s more about looking at who’s on the site, who’s engaging with you, and then hitting those people more frequently than, than just going after everyone, like sending five times to the entire list is.
[00:14:47] Andrew: It’s not a good idea. and I think you’re probably gonna see a decrease in, in deliver deliverability rates, if you do that. So I think today with like the, the analytics and like the, advanced segmentation capabilities of many [00:15:00] of these email platforms, you should be. Trying to be a little, a little bit more smart about it.
[00:15:05] Chintan: So definitely you, you need to make sure that you don’t affect your delivery rate because first Black Friday 700, there’s still email marketing, right? Which you need to continue, right? It’s not like the end of the email market. Right? Right. That, that needs to be remembered moving forward. Right. as we talked about that, how many emails are too many emails?
[00:15:23] Chintan: You, the brand also wants to make sure that they don’t change that. On their is. Right. Based on your experience, the, the connected question, which I, which I feel should be asked here, is around how to make sure that they reduce their unsubscribe rate, right. And, and make sure that the, those subscribers are engaged for a long term.
[00:15:40] Chintan: What are your strategies or suggestions for brands to make sure that they. Have the, the lesser un and how better engagement from the subsist.
[00:15:49] Andrew: Yeah, so I mean, in general it comes down to your, your segmentation and, and content strategy. So making sure that you are not hitting people, that aren’t [00:16:00] engaged with you too frequently.
[00:16:01] Andrew: I think it’s okay to send to them. just send fewer emails than you would your engaged list. And then just being smart about, you know, looking at who’s on the website, who’s abandoning, who’s actually engaging with you in, in other places, and using that in your segmentation. And then also making sure the content isn’t just.
[00:16:22] Andrew: Sales, sales sale, like, I think obviously it’s gonna be pretty much like that over Black Friday, so Monday. But you need to have a, a broader content strategy for your email platform. It’s, it’s kind of like social, right? Like social media. You’re not just gonna add discount codes to like Instagram or Facebook, you know, you have to be thinking about how to engage the audience, on those channels.
[00:16:45] Andrew: And I think email marketers should be thinking about it that way as well. It’s like, how can I keep. This list engaged and what kind of content do they want to engage with and what, what do they want to hear from me? So I think even if you’re just a, if you’re a retailer, if you’re an e-commerce, there’s [00:17:00] plenty of good, like interesting content ideas to keep, to keep the engagement up.
[00:17:05] Andrew: Yep.
[00:17:05] Chintan: Good. So. Def Fade is something for the brands to retrospect on how they’re approaching the subscribers in terms of number of emails, but also making sure that, they don’t reach out to people who are already engaged and, and, and moving them to the journalist, right? Because they would unsubscribe at some point if they’re seeing too many emails, right?
[00:17:23] Chintan: But. One thing which I have experienced, and, and, you might have also experienced that many of the brands are still not aware of the preference center, right. For preferences. What is your recommendation and, and the point of view on having a preferences versus also having an unsu step option because there are possibilities that.
[00:17:42] Chintan: The subscribers in your list wants to have certain preferred communications. They don’t want to hear from you every now and then. They only want to receive specific site, specific set of content. do you see preference, incentive might play a good role to decrease your unsubscribe rate?
[00:17:57] Andrew: Yeah, so I, so in my newsletter I have a.
[00:17:59] Andrew: [00:18:00] Both. I, I definitely am an advocate for having a one click unsubscribe. In any case, I, I don’t like it when a brand sends me to a preference center, and then I have to figure out how to unsubscribe, or I have to uncheck from every, every email I’m unsubscribed to. I, I definitely don’t like that, but I think o one strategy that I’ve seen recently that I think Sony, did was rather than having you link to a preference center on a landing page.
[00:18:27] Andrew: They asked the question in the email, so the email was something along the lines of like, what type of photography do you do enjoy? Is it like outdoor photography portraits? you know, like, I, I don’t remember all the options, but basically you click on a link in the email in that updates your preferences and they then they know.
[00:18:48] Andrew: Through your click what you’re interested in. So I think that’s a really interesting idea that, I’d like to see more brands implement because I think you will get some people clicking through the preference [00:19:00] center and filling it out. But the number of people was typically pretty low in my experience.
[00:19:06] Andrew: So I think looking at in eem ways to capture that data inside of an email is probably the the way to go, in my opinion. As well as have like in conjunction with the one click unsubscribe, if they do want to be fully removed.
[00:19:19] Chintan: No, no, no. Definitely a great recommendation that you, we, you turn your preference into your, into a preference email campaign, right?
[00:19:26] Chintan: Whatever you, you term me. But it’s like knowing your is in a better way. So something around that as a campaign is a good idea. Rather than using a preference, you’ll get more inputs from your audience. The other. Question, which I would love to understand. Right? And, and this is more towards the new HML marketing metrics, right?
[00:19:43] Chintan: Which, which are currently getting discussed across, across the brands that how they can optimize their call to actions, right? to drive a higher engagement. So you are able to get placed into the subscribers inbox. That is the core, right? Deliber, you are able to make sure that people open your [00:20:00] emails, that is the core of your subject line and preview text.
[00:20:02] Chintan: But then after doing all this thing, the, the ultimate game is of making sure that they click. CTAs and, and that’s where brands might not be aware of what our strategies or thought process should be there. Right. On what type of CTAs should be there, where it should be there, what would be your recommendation for improving the, with the call to actions?
[00:20:21] Andrew: Yeah. I’m, I’m definitely an advocate of having a single customized CTA, ideally. Mm-hmm. High up in the email above the fold, ideally in a, in a button format, and ideally saying something a little bit more interesting than shock now or. Learn more or something, something generic. I, I definitely on email love look for CTA examples where they have thought, what, what do they want the subscriber to do or the customer to do?
[00:20:50] Andrew: Creating a CTA that kind of directs directs ’em to do that, in a creative way, I think makes, makes a difference.
[00:20:57] Chintan: I would love to take this question forward and [00:21:00] also would love to answer, because initially the, the, the trend was more towards that. Okay. Having make sure that CT is above the fold, right.
[00:21:06] Chintan: ’cause that should be visible. subservice might not go on, to click on your cities and then the personal people would reduce. Do you still feel above the fold still makes a lot of sense. Or if it’s out of the market now,
[00:21:19] Andrew: like, I mean, I personally like it when it’s above the fold and when I see emails that are really nicely structured with like a, some kind of hierarchy of like a headline and like a piece of text and a, a button above the fold.
[00:21:30] Andrew: I personally like it, although maybe that’s like legacy. Thinking these days, but, I definitely still think that kind of format works well. Although at the same time, like with mobile devices and the way that people, are reading emails, having some that is, is scrollable and, you know, easy, easy just to, to see that multiple C CTAs further down the email is also important.
[00:21:55] Andrew: So not necessarily like a, a must have, but, yeah, I, I [00:22:00] still. Personally, like having the, the CTA above the fold and you know, highly visible.
[00:22:06] Chintan: So above the fold is still in the game, right? That’s what you asked.
[00:22:10] Andrew: I personally,
[00:22:10] Chintan: I personally think, so.
[00:22:11] Andrew: That is my opinion.
[00:22:12] Chintan: Would love to also hear from you on No.
[00:22:16] Chintan: The other area of, outside email, right? Because, brands normally focus on sending campaigns or automations, workflows, right? But many times they forget about getting new subscribers, right? Or subscriber acquisition as a, as a strategy, right? Mm-hmm. based on your experience, right, in the, in the email industry so far, right?
[00:22:35] Chintan: How do you approach right in, in terms of solving the challenge of growing sub list or subscriber equation, whatever you term, right? and making sure that you retain those subscribers, right? Because brands are not focusing currently on, on how they can increase the subscriber base because you, when you send a campaign, you are always churn certain percentage.
[00:22:52] Chintan: Percentage of your mm-hmm. But it’s also important too that you bring in new audience. New subscribers. What is your [00:23:00] recommendation on, on your, based on your experience that how they can focus on generating new subscribers and, and making sure that they, they get the best out of it?
[00:23:08] Andrew: Yeah, it’s definitely important.
[00:23:10] Andrew: I mean, I know even with my own email list, you know, every time I send an email I’m like, ah, I’m gonna lose like a certain number of, a certain small percentage of those people. You need to make sure that you are adding more than you are losing, otherwise you are, you know, you’re gonna have a leaky bucket.
[00:23:24] Andrew: And so, yeah, part of it was like. Sure you’re sending to the right content to keep that people, to keep those people engaged and so that you are reducing how many people you are losing. I think the other important mentioned is. How can you improve and increase the number of people that you are acquiring?
[00:23:41] Andrew: And so popups still work. I, I have a, you know, I wish they didn’t work. I personally, you know, sometimes they can be annoying. I know that from personal experience, you have like the GDPR popup and then you have the signup popup and sometimes they overlap and you’re like, how do I even sign up? [00:24:00] I think you need to watch stuff like that.
[00:24:02] Andrew: I think what innovative companies are doing is they’re looking at more interesting. Signup forms that are positioned more as like a quiz or more as like asking a question and collecting data through a, either like an embedded form or a, a subtle popup
[00:24:20] Chintan: that
[00:24:21] Andrew: that comes up at some point when they’re, they’re browsing the website.
[00:24:24] Andrew: I think that can work really well and you can also. Use that data to like customize like your segments, personalize the welcome program that you send them, you know, you can use that further down the track. So I personally think that’s, that’s the future is collecting some of this data. It’s like, it, it could be preference data.
[00:24:43] Andrew: It could just be like an interesting question that you want to ask and you collect the email address at the same time and ask ’em to opt into email. That’s how you do it, these days is, uh. Through this more innovative like popup forms rather than just to sign up for, get [00:25:00] 10% off. Enter your mobile phone number to get another 5% off.
[00:25:05] Andrew: I, I think you can be more creative than that.
[00:25:08] Chintan: Definitely it could be creative because I recently came across a brand, right, where I was having a spin bill, then I was having 35%. Oh yeah. Yeah. And then also having a loyalty program pop up, right? So it’s like you’re confusing a subscriber, right? It’s good to have options, but then too many options are always killing the mood and, and the interest of your subscribers.
[00:25:27] Andrew: You gotta watch that, you gotta test that. You gotta, you don’t want multiple popups coming up on the website at the same time. That’s, that’s a really bad experience on email. Love. We actually, we don’t use Google Analytics. We don’t track cookies, so we actually don’t have A-G-D-P-R popup. You may have noticed, because we don’t, we don’t track that information.
[00:25:46] Andrew: but we do have an email sign up form and I have been thinking I need to improve that by. Having some kind of embedded quiz or interesting question, to ask, or maybe it’s, maybe it’s personalized based on [00:26:00] what they’re browsing. Like they might be browsing like the welcome email category. so how can I customize a popup or ask them a question based on, on what they’re looking at on the site?
[00:26:09] Andrew: And I think that could be applied to e-commerce, to publishing, to almost any, any vertical.
[00:26:16] Chintan: Good. Yeah. So definitely it’s, it’s, it’s good to get those insights that okay, rather than having a simple popup of. A discount percentage of dollars off. It’s better to have some questions or quiz. Right. Which makes, it generates the curiosity for the sub right to fill out.
[00:26:31] Chintan: It’s, it’s like having the different experience and also making sure that you get the information right as, as a brand about your sub. Mm-hmm. Might help you in terms of segmentation and future, right. About that interest and choices. But yeah, a good, good option, which we, we learned from you today. Let’s move forward.
[00:26:47] Chintan: Right. And, and, and come to the actual picture of, first Nation. Right now. It’s not more about having that first name or subject line personalized, right? You have been working with multiple, and you have been also consulting multiple [00:27:00] brands right? In, in past and now, right? Mm-hmm. What, what, what? Tools or what personalization strategies you would recommend because there are, there are tools in the market or who provides personalization at a different level, right?
[00:27:11] Chintan: It’s not about only the first time and the email addresses, right? It’s also about going beyond, beyond that. So what tools or, or, and tools and segmentation or personalization strategies, right? Which you recommend, to the brands, to make sure that they. Make this up service feel special.
[00:27:28] Andrew: Yeah. So it, it’s funny ’cause when I first started in, in email marketing, setting up things like a personalized cart, abandonment email took, could, could take six months to like, create and set that up.
[00:27:40] Andrew: it took a long time and now all of that stuff is now out of the box for, for many, like, pretty much for anyone that wants to do it right with platforms like Klaviyo and Shopify does a lot of this stuff for you. I think that’s. Table stakes these days is merging in what your products you’ve browsed, recommended products, [00:28:00] abandoned products, that that kind of stuff is expected these days.
[00:28:04] Andrew: And I think we need to move even beyond, beyond that to looking at personalization based on what someone’s actually interested in, what we know about them. And that kind of goes back to like collecting that, that preference data in a smart way or collecting that. Quiz data upfront and then personalizing your programs based on that later on.
[00:28:24] Andrew: So I think it’s, you know, you can create almost like, I wanna use the word like whimsical experiences, just by, you know, merging in some of that data or showing that, you know. Who you’re sending an email to, I think is, is how I would describe it. You know, a, an email from Starbucks that, Emily or Ryan added to email Love recently had a banner at the top and it said, you’ve been a Starbucks rewards member for nine years.
[00:28:52] Andrew: You signed up and, and this year that was like the message, it didn’t really. Direct you to do anything. But I loved that. Like, I was like, wow, [00:29:00] they like really know me. Like, and then it made me think like, oh wow. Like I have been a member for like a long time. Um. Yeah, I think it may make, I think it makes you feel special and 99% of the emails don’t do that.
[00:29:14] Andrew: So if you can, if you can do something like that, you’re already, you know, doing better than, than most brands. Right.
[00:29:20] Chintan: What, what are your go-to strategies right? In, in terms of, the segmentation? Because the, the basic segmentation which brands are normally aware of is like. Active openers, active non openers, right?
[00:29:30] Chintan: Because these are the, these are like the core, right? You, you should go beyond this, right? If you want to understand and, and, make our sub success feel special with the type of content, right? We feel that as, as agency, we feel that we should go beyond, the, the basic active openers and non openers segmentation, that there should be types of segmentation based on industry.
[00:29:49] Chintan: What, what, what do you feel? Right? Because. As a, as a, as a email market or email consultant in the industry so far. Audience segmentation is a crucial part of, of your, of your email marketing strategy. [00:30:00] And there are, there are brands who, who are playing it pretty well and there are brands who are not able to leverage it in, in an a right way.
[00:30:05] Chintan: What are your strategies or, or go to strategies, right? Which, might have an effective segmentation. Right. And then also getting the best out of that segmentation.
[00:30:13] Andrew: Yeah. So the, it’s really interesting space right now ’cause there’s a lot of, uh. Startups and, and new companies using machine learning and, and AI to really enhance segmentation.
[00:30:25] Andrew: And it’s getting super smart. I was talking to a company last week, called Arita and they can basically use machine learning to identify when someone is most likely to open and engage with your email and buy from you. And then if you are not, they remove you from the list temporarily. They basically track your, your, behavior in other channels on the website, and then they can bring you back into the list at the right time.
[00:30:54] Andrew: So I think that’s the future. I think that’s what we’re gonna see. ESPs probably build out into [00:31:00] their segmentation, but that kind of thing is possible today in that, that’s what I think is probably the future of, of segmentation. It’s not just do they open? Do they click? It’s looking at. Holistically, you know, are you engaged with the brand at any level?
[00:31:16] Andrew: And then should we, you know, determine using that data to determine if you should send an email. Most of the year, I’m not interested in buying running shoes, but at some point I’m gonna become, I. Engaged and need some new running shoes. And so brands can identify that, without having to send me an email every single month.
[00:31:34] Andrew: I think that’s probably gonna be the, the future of, of segmentation.
[00:31:38] Chintan: Got it. Yep. So that, that’s, that’s the future. And, and what we are learning from, the clients and, and the process we are talking is, uh. And I’m not sure how much you are inclined towards it, but email is, definitely our, our biggest channel, right?
[00:31:52] Chintan: Giving the best ROI. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. But email getting connected with other channels, right? Because it’s a multi-channel marketing. Now that’s also a debate. I’m sure you’d be aware [00:32:00] of ESP versus map email service provider getting converted to a marketing automation platform, right? Mm-hmm. So. Multiple channels.
[00:32:07] Chintan: So how, what is your belief in that? Do you see that email is not the, the channel which can stand on its own and they need a multiple channel support or you see as, as a, as a add-on is an helping channels, right. Which can, which can increase the overall ROI. What is your perspective?
[00:32:22] Andrew: I think we’re still not there.
[00:32:25] Andrew: I think it still operates in a fairly siloed way for most companies out there. But I think maybe the, maybe the largest brands with the biggest budget and the most. Advanced like marketing automation capabilities are able to do it, but I think that’s like the top 1%. I think if you’re like, MailChimp, you’re on Klaviyo, you’re on one of these platforms, you.
[00:32:48] Andrew: You’re definitely not doing that much like you, you’re sending an SMS, you’re sending an email. Yep. You have a, so you have a separate social team that’s doing what they’re doing. right now I think it’s still very, very siloed and disjointed, but I [00:33:00] think it’s kind of like what I talked about when I, when I began my career, like sending an email was super hard.
[00:33:05] Andrew: I think doing crop proper cross channel marketing that’s integrated and like smart. It’s super hard today, but I think, again, I think machine learning and AI is probably gonna change that, and I think the platforms are going to get a lot smarter with that, in the coming years. But I still, today, I still think it’s fairly disjointed.
[00:33:23] Chintan: Mm-hmm. So, but do, do you feel that industry is moving towards the marketing automation platform side and, and then moving away from the ESP one?
[00:33:31] Andrew: Yeah, from what I’ve seen, that’s, there’s definitely a move towards. AI driven multichannel platforms rather than just a email. Like, no one’s building basic MailChimp competitor.
[00:33:42] Andrew: Like, you know, no one’s really building like, just a, just an email platform. It’s, they’re building a, a multichannel, you know, marketing, marketing automation platform. I don’t think you’re gonna see anyone saying like. Hey, send email like you can, it’s the only thing you can do with, with this platform these days.
[00:33:58] Andrew: I don’t think anyone [00:34:00] wants that, or if they do, there’s already hundreds of platforms that do that today.
[00:34:05] Chintan: Yep, yep, yep. Totally. Great. the last thing, which I, I would like to hear from you is regarding the content, because everything boils down to content, right? You have mm-hmm. deliber rate, the, the best open rate.
[00:34:19] Chintan: The best click, click through rate. Right, but what’s that in the, in the email, the actual content, right. That’s what the, the in information, the subscribe is looking forward to. And, and that’s why is that content is the king. Right. Would be it in email or outside email? What would be your, your take or suggestions on, on how the, the brands or marketers Right.
[00:34:38] Chintan: Consistently. Can optimize their email content. Right? And, and making sure that they don’t lose the brand voice because they want to make sure that their brand voice also intact and also optimize and experiment in the content side in email. What is your take in that?
[00:34:52] Andrew: Yes. Typically these brands are already creating a lot of content, whether it’s for social or for their blog or [00:35:00] for, you know, various other channels, right?
[00:35:02] Andrew: So I would look to that. If you’re an email marketer and you’re stuck with what to create. For your email, simply look at the blog, look at what your social team is doing. that might give you a good idea of what types of content resonate with your audience. Mm-hmm. or even looking at like what, you know, what are the top.
[00:35:22] Andrew: Facebook or Instagram posts for your company. maybe that exact piece of content doesn’t work or translate to email, but you could probably take some inspiration from it and create something similar for your email campaign. So I think that would be the first step. and then building out a content calendar, looking at things like the upcoming holidays, planning it all out, and building up that repository so that you’re not like.
[00:35:47] Andrew: On the hamster wheel constantly trying to think of, of like the next content idea for your, for your newsletter or for your email. I think that’s, that’s probably the, the way to do it. and then looking at, obviously [00:36:00] looking@emaillove.com, we have, we, we, we obviously try to focus on interesting and engaging content ideas.
[00:36:07] Andrew: That’s what I would recommend doing is taking a look at our website and, uh. You can actually create a collection and you can, you can save those ideas in your own profile if you want to as well. But yeah, I, I think that’s, I think again, like you said, it’s super important and you can’t just be sending a 10% discount or 20% discount every single week.
[00:36:27] Andrew: You, you need to be doing something a little bit more advanced than that these days.
[00:36:31] Chintan: Got it. Yeah, because we at also face similar challenges with the brands, right? Who are using chat GP or just taking the content from their website, creating a campaign, and then then sharing it across, but not having much value for the subscribers.
[00:36:43] Chintan: Right? So. Something, which the brand should definitely hear out your advice right on, on, on making sure that how they can club both the, their brand voice and also the content of which they’re planning for your, for the subscriber base. Great. As you are here, right? We’d also have to take the opportunity to ask a bonus question, right?[00:37:00]
[00:37:00] Chintan: Sure. and, and again, you, you’re referred about, and talked about ai, ai, ai, and everyone is just talking about ai, right? Mm-hmm. how do you change, how do you think AI is changing? The email marketing domain. Right? Because it has changed, different industries, right? Not only email marketing or marketing channel, but it has also changed multiple industries so far.
[00:37:22] Chintan: What is your take in about AI and how is going to, how is going to influence the, the email marketers, upcoming email marketers, existing way marketers, because there are platforms, right, who are moving towards that AI and machine learning. Mm-hmm. coming out with ideas and solutions around. Creating segmentation based on ai.
[00:37:43] Chintan: You just run a prompt and you have a segmentation. Mm-hmm. You just run a prompt. Mm-hmm. You have a, a journey created, right. Or a workflow created. Right. Is it there to, help email marketers or it is, it is a boon or it is a curse? What is your perspective? Yeah. Yeah,
[00:37:58] Andrew: so I, I think of it. [00:38:00] As like the industrial revolution where, where it’s gonna be like a little bit painful for some people.
[00:38:06] Andrew: Some people may, they may lose a job because of ai, but I think ultimately the jobs in email marketing and in the marketing space will evolve rather than disappear. I don’t see AI completely. Taking over marketing and, and email marketing. I think email, email marketers will still be there to basically use AI to enhance their programs and basically get, I think it’s gonna make us a lot better at, at what we’re currently doing and what we’re trying, what we’re trying to be do, what we’ve been trying to do with email for a long time in terms of segmentation, in terms of personalizing emails, all of that.
[00:38:44] Andrew: I think can be enhanced with ai. And then in terms of like production, I think AI will be used to maybe take some of the, the pain out of producing an email. So rather than, you know, trying to spend five hours fixing white [00:39:00] lines and outlook or trying to debug some, some issue, in some niche email client, I think AI will.
[00:39:08] Andrew: That for you or help you in some way, build an email that looks beautiful and has great content. and you as the marketer, will focus more on, focus, more on like the content ideas, creating the content, creating the offers, you know, creating the, the segments. I think the marketer will be driving that rather than, you know, focusing on some of the more painful production that, you know, that we had to deal with in the past.
[00:39:33] Chintan: Yes, totally, totally aligned with your point of view, because you been also part of the, that part of the world who was focusing on making sure that emails are perfect? Right Rendering, perfectly identifying work is in the code, right? If it’s not entering perfectly in the outlook. And now with ai. You don’t need to spend time, right?
[00:39:49] Chintan: Yeah, I can. And help you identify it in, in minutes and seconds. So you have seen the time, right? Mm-hmm. So you’re able to relate the most. Great. So thanks for such [00:40:00] a wonderful thoughts, inspirations, and strategies. Andrew, it was really great having you here and I’m sure the brands, the email marketers who are going to see this are going to take many learnings and inspection.
[00:40:12] Chintan: From the discussion.
[00:40:13] Andrew: Thank you for having me. I really appreciate it. Those were some great questions. You can ask me. Invite me back anytime. I’d be happy to chat again.
[00:40:21] Chintan: Sure. Perfect. Would love to connect you, with you again. Right on, on a different topic, on a different note, and make sure that we give, give it back to the community by, by sharing our insights.
[00:40:30] Chintan: Thanks. Perfect. Thanks Andrew.