Kath Pay: 0:02 So I was doing an audit for this new client, and I’m checking out what it is that they’ve been doing. And I was really excited to see that they’ve been doing some testing. So that’s fantastic. As I delved in more, I realized that they were testing everything, just using the open metric. And they were then optimizing their results based on that. And then you go and look at and they were recording all the other data too, by the way. So they had it all at hand for me to go in and do some calculations and all this other stuff. And then I said, “Okay,” so basically, you chose, in fact, the loser in revenue, and you’ve been optimizing for the loser in revenue, the winner in opens, but the loser in revenue, and you have lost X amount of money over this period.
Hillel Berg: 0:49 Today in Inboxing, Kath Pay, best-selling author, educator, business owner at holistic email marketing.com. Welcome back to another episode of Inboxing. Hello, Berg, your host, today we have a very special guest, long veteran of the email community and say one of the founders, maybe men, she’s 20 years now. So it’s really special. And she’s recently written a book, which is a bestseller on Amazon. And it’s not so surprised because she’s been also a teacher. So teaching email, she knows how to really do it all. So without any further ado, please welcome Kath Pay. Kath, welcome, Inboxing.
Kath Pay: 1:35 Thank you. Thank you very much for having me. And thanks for the lovely introduction too.
Hillel Berg: 1:40 Oh, for sure. We’re really honored to have you here. So do you want to tell us a little bit about your story?
Kath Pay: 1:46 What got me into email marketing, it’s a long story. So I’ll try and keep it really short. But essentially, I was running a web design agency back in Australia and we had a client who has a need for, we’re talking 1998, right. So, she had a need for connecting with her database by email. So, actually, my team and I created the essence of what was to be email. And pretty soon, we took over all of our clients on to what we bought out all our clients onto it, they all thought it was fantastic. We went, “Oh, I think we’re onto something.” So, that’s exactly what ended up happening. So email ended up taking over my web design agency, I couldn’t do both. So I kind of fell into email, which and yeah, so I never kind of thought I’d be here or it was never a plan. I mean, when I was in college, email doesn’t exist. So, it was just something that happened and it was very fortuitous. And I just absolutely adore email still, even after 22 plus years, I am still in love with what it has to offer the consumers, what it has to offer the marketers and the brands and it’s changing enough for me to actually still be thrilled by it, still to go, “Oh, there’s something else happening,” sometimes it’s not even a tech change, right? It’s not even a new innovation, either. It’s how the consumers are actually using the email. And yeah, just said change and habits and everything. Because I’ve been through it all, through that the time when email was unbelievable. It was so successful and then the spammers clued onto it went, “Oh, okay, we can make some money here.” And so they went made lots of money. And then suddenly, email became equated with the word spam, so I’d say, “Oh, yeah, you know, go and introduce myself at a networking meeting. I’m an email marketer.” “So you’re the spam that sends me this.” And that’s how I bet on that... The DMA email marketing counts for over 10 years and we really, really tried to sort of overcome that issue. And I think the whole industry did. So, we’re now seeing, it’s in the golden period, because consumers love email and it still is delivering the highest return on investment over any other term. So that was me in a nutshell.
Hillel Berg: 4:27 Right, and just to draw it out a little bit like I talking yesterday to, hopefully an upcoming guests is Dan Schinsky. And he was telling me, he [introduce me] I didn’t know about this thing was, substack. You familiar with this?
Kath Pay: 4:42 No.
Hillel Berg: 4:43 But it’s basically, its dependent writers, and they’re doing newsletters and a subscription service business subscription service. You find what you love. It’s almost like podcasts. I think that’s what’s kind of happening now. Like all these daily email, companies that are created to just send the emails in in a niche and gain popularity and so it’s amazing this sort of resurgence, especially with COVID. And I noticed that it was an article in The New York Times even talking about the new social network, which is not really new and was saying about our email is having sort of a resurgence during COVID. So, it’s dynamic. And there’s always new opportunities and it’s really, such a wonderful channel, and I feel blessed that I’m part of it, and the community is wonderful. And everything you said really resonated. Yeah, let’s move on. Alright, so when you open your inbox, what makes your blood really boil?
Kath Pay: 5:39 Okay, so I’m not that extreme. But, I dislike the brand centeredness of many of the emails that I see. And I think because of that, I actually feel more for the marketers and the brands themselves, because they’re missing out on a trip, they’re missing out on a huge opportunity. The way, this is part of what I was saying to you about the changes within the consumers, back in the old days, you can send out anything, we have a sale or buy this and people were buying it because it was novel, it was new, it was exciting. Whereas now they’ve got so much choice. And so you really, in order to stand out to the inbox, you need to be making sure that you are speaking directly to them and you are giving them the benefits, not just the facts of what it is. So, it’s a real simple thing. It’s basically you take the item, that you’re selling, say shoes, “Alright, we have shoes on sale.” Okay. And then you say, basically and... What you’re basically doing is you just wanting to convert it so that it ends up being, why should they buy it? Yeah. And so therefore, instead of saying, “We have shoes on sale,” you’re actually converting it flipping around from the consumer’s perspective because the consumer, like I said, we all know about the triage, right? We’ve all heard about the triage, how people go in and we’re all probably experienced it ourselves, we go through, we scan, we go, “Yep, delete, delete, delete,” then we go, “Okay, I’ll look at that one now. I’m going to save those ones for later on, might highlight them,” so we perform triage. And so that’s when you need to really get their attention. And the only way you’re going to get their attention is basically by actually speaking to them and their needs, as opposed to you and your needs. And I’m going to talk about this later on, because it’s in some of the other questions.
Hillel Berg: 7:44 For sure. Next question you’ve mentioned, you haven’t really been sending emails for a while, but maybe you do talk about something, a mistake that you made, maybe even building your business or something related that could fit.
Kath Pay: 7:57 Oh, my goodness, I did a lot of business mistakes, that’s for sure. But I think that’s for another episode. [Inaudible 00:08:02]. Yeah, if anyone was self-consultancy and I want some advice or what not to do, not advice, but yeah, what not to do. I’m the person to contract. But I guess one of the biggest mistakes I’ve seen and it was with a client. So I was doing an audit for this new client. And I’m checking out what it is that they’ve been doing. And I was really excited to see that they’ve been doing some testing. So that’s fantastic. As I delved in more, I realized that they were testing everything, just using the open metrics. And they were then optimizing their results based on that. And then you go and look at and they were recording all the other data too, by the way. So they had it all at hand for me to go in and do some calculations and all this other stuff. And then I said, “Okay, so basically, you chose, in fact, the loser in revenue, and you’ve been optimizing for the loser in revenue, the winner in opens, but the loser in revenue, and you have lost X amount of money over this period.” Now, that’s not to say that open metric isn’t good to use at some stage, right? Particularly if you’re a publisher and that’s what you’re rewarded on. Or in one case, I’ve written a case study on this, one of our clients had a really bad deliverability problem. And so we were just basically going well, we need the ISP to like us. So we need to be focusing on the opens once we get up to a good place. So we’re going to convert and we’ll be focusing on the conversions as being our success metrics. So there are times and places for it, but yeah, so that was a huge learning mistake... Opportunity.
Hillel Berg: 9:50 Sure. Yeah, just touches on that point, then like, yeah, open rate is overused and we’ve talked that I think when I talked to Nicky Elbows that came up about when you’re talking about the five things, just like the opening metric is a good metric, but it’s just one piece of a big puzzle. And that’s exactly it. You have to really see what is going on, if it’s better to just, to get someone to open the email, you’re testing the subject line, but you’re testing the copy and testing the rest of it and seeing what’s really bringing the quick and the result that you want? That’s what it’s all about.
Kath Pay: 10:25 I’ve been meaning to write a blog and you’re motivating me to do this now. And the basically, you’re gonna hear about me the word holistic, but basically, let’s start reporting holistically, let’s start looking at all of them and seeing what they’re delivering, because often you will have little anomalies. What is what is causing that? Well, then you probably won’t know the so you could guess, you’ve probably come up with some good theories. Okay, let’s go and create some hypotheses and then delve into that and find out exactly what it was that actually caused that anomaly. And is it just an anomaly? Because it could have just been an anomaly on that particular time, date, product and all the rest of it? Or is there actually something more to it? And if you see it happening a couple of times, it could be something more to it. So yeah, so start looking and reading. I think that as email marketers, because we’re so pushed for time, because we’re on this kind of like, we’re under budgeted, under resource, all the rest of it. We don’t necessarily delve into the data and metrics and our reporting as much as we possibly should. And so I think because of that, then we don’t get to take away the learnings that we could, as well. So just a bit sad.
Hillel Berg: 11:44 So off the top of your head, what are Kath Pay’s top five email marketing tips?
Kath Pay: 11:49 Oh, my goodness, this is probably gonna take half an hour. I will try give five. Okay, so my top five email marketing tips, the first one would definitely be start with the strategy. And don’t start with technology. And don’t start with tactics. So don’t sort of say, “Oh, okay, so I read a blog. And I’m going to start with a welcome campaign.” I mean, that’s a great place to start when you’re doing your lifecycle email marketing programs. But what you need to do is you need to ensure that everything else is going to be tying up in so that way, you actually include that in as a tactic in your strategy. But don’t just go off and do it as a standalone Island, it needs to be connected and sort of working all as one to create that lovely customer experience for your customers, it needs to all be tied in together. So you need to have an overarching strategy for your email marketing program. And the reason why not to start with technology, is technology, again, fantastic, gives you lots of ideas, you go, “Oh, we can do that. Look at that new feature, fantastic.” Again, just do the same thing, slot it in. But only then if it actually helps you to achieve your objectives. There are lots of fantastic features in technology that you will get excited about, you go, “Oh, I can’t wait to use that and everything.” But if you actually create your strategy, you might end up saying, “Actually, it has no place in my strategy, because it’s not going to help us to do anything apart from give me a bit of a fun time setting something up and seeing if it works,” you know what I mean? So that’s one thing, start with your strategy. Second one would be helpful marketing, which is what I was referring to earlier to help for marketing is really just changing your mindset. But more than that, changing your messaging, your design, everything, your strategy, everything so that helpful marketing is underlying your entire strategy. Then helpful marketing, in essence is to simply if we can understand that our customers are on our list for a reason they’ve signed up because, they want our product, but they like our brand, because they like our blog post, whatever the story is, right? So they’ve signed up for a reason. And what we need to do is ensure that we are actually delivering to their needs. If we can help them to achieve their objective, then we, by default, achieve that, it’s really, really simple, as opposed to what most of us do is, “I’ve got to sell product. So I’m going to push out my message and say we’ve got....” So, going into that because also because we are our push channel and the fact that we’re a push channel, it’s really easy for us to push out messages. It’s actually it’s obvious, but I think that the problem is and that’s why we get a lot of fatigue, email fatigue and everything because we’re just pushing out our buy, buy, buy or sell, sell, sell messages, rather than actually going, “Why did our customers sign up?” And then sometimes it’s just as simple as changing it like I said, benefits rather than features. It’s about wording it. It’s about using that personalization, and then the helpfulness really comes through because we’re focusing on the customer instead of focusing on us. And it’s just the same as, seriously, it’s just the way I pictured is I’ve got two sides of the same coin. We’ve got our goals or our objectives, we’ve got customers objectives, if they achieve there, we achieve our goals, because it’s the same thing. And all we have to do is walk around the other side, take them by the hand and say, “How can I help you today?” That’s it. Really, really simple. So that’s helpful marketing. Another one would be, of course, split testing, any split testing, but doing it scientifically, using a hypothesis, really drilling into the results, putting out your what the actual result was and then putting in your recommendations, testing it multiple times, using the same hypothesis, so that you aren’t just finding out it was an anomaly. And that you have got statistically confident, assuredness about the results. And then putting those findings, particularly if you’re doing things about motivations. So your consumers motivations, your consumer is going to be, they’ve got the same motivations, whether, they’re reacting by email or landing page or search or social, they want to buy a product or they’re interested in downloading a white paper, whatever. So they’ve got the same motivations. Because they’re the same humans, regardless of what channels you’re using. So start to sort of, yes, so start using that as your basis for your testing. And then you can roll out the results to all of your other channels. And for them to continue and keep on developing and refining that. But it’s testing via email is incredibly cost effective, it’s encrypted. It’s very efficient and all the rest of it. So again, I’ve been talking, talking and talk about this, because I’m very passionate about that. But I’ll stop there. Okay, so email, what else was there? Growing your list is another thing, which I think is absolutely essential because without a list, you’ve got no one to mail to... So growing your list is really essential. And I think that there’s a lot of missed opportunities with marketers. And that, again, a lot of the things that I’m coming up and saying, I’m holding the email marketers blameless for many of them, it’s because of the constrictions, it’s because of the current, in this...
Hillel Berg: 17:30 Marketing directors.
Kath Pay: 17:34 Yeah, often it is, we’ve done surveys on this and the website team own the email subscriber form. And that’s why it’s put at the bottom because it doesn’t help to serve them and their objectives at all. So they’re de-prioritizing it. Whereas, of course, email team are in charge of growing the database, but they’ve not been given the tools to grow the database, the main tool being the form on the website and also the formula ecommerce shopping cart as well, they don’t own that either. So it’s really, really funny, they given that as a remit that said KPI. That’s one of their key ones since the growth of the database, but they don’t have any ownership over it. So it’s completely bonkers. Yeah, so try and look for, if you don’t have ownership over it, then you have to be really smart. Buddy up with them. See if you can actually team up, explain, “Hey, I can help you, you help me, I’ll help you.” But also, there’s lots of different ways of doing it as well. And just make sure you go through the entire customer journey, go through the website, try and make them as personalized as possible. You’ve got wonderful exit intent, popovers, everything like that. So that’s a really, really, key well as far as I’m concerned. And then basically, lifecycle marketing, I adore lifecycle marketing. And that is because, seriously, if you set it up well and I don’t mean set and forget, I’m set and continually optimize and nurture. And for that reason, you also want to be having this sort of like permanent AV split streams, within your AV testing, within your marketing automation programs. So that they’re continually optimizing once it comes statistically significant as far as volume goes, you take your learning, style up a new hypothesis, go again. But the actual lifecycle messages themselves, they can bring in I’ve got one client, they bring in over 50% of the revenue, even though they’re just a fraction of the volume, these guys work a treat. And I do know that there’s a lot of limitations or restrictions or challenges for email marketers to set these up. Usually just because of that time constraints and lack of resources and budget and everything but seriously, they will help you in the long run, even the short run, so it’s well worth doing it. And one of the things I always say, because I know how challenging, there can be the setup, just start small. If you go to welcome program, don’t wait until you’ve got your five email welcome program, put in number one, and then go in and you can be testing and optimizing as you put in number two and number three and number four and then number five. So by the time you’ve got five in, you’ve actually got some learnings along the way and you’ve been refining and optimizing, rather than having nothing in place until it actually set up, so, that’s more So then my five, I think.
Hillel Berg: 20:42 Yeah, that was good. Just, yeah, that last one start small, it’s really a life tip. [Inaudible 00:20:50] running, run a mile, run kilo meters, doesn’t matter and do it, just start very small. It’s a very big, [James Clear Atomic Habits], get in the mindset, just start, starting is the hardest part. Anyway, alright, the flip side of that would be what would be the top pitfalls everyone’s fallen into?
Kath Pay: 21:07 I think, again, what I was saying about what I don’t like.
Hillel Berg: 21:11 Branson, brand centric.
Kath Pay: 21:13 Brands centric, [Inaudible 00:21:14]. And that is a very obvious pitfall, that’s an easy to fall into pitfall. And again, it’s a case of, I mean, we do talk about it, there’s the last couple of years, people are talking about being more customer centric. And I’ve been talking about customer experience now for about eight, nine years. So that’s all part of it, right? So you can’t give a good customer experience, if it’s all about you, it’s like having a conversation with someone. Are you going to have a great conversation, if I’m the only one that’s talking and I’m only talking about me and my needs and what I’ve done and everything? That is going to happen, is it? So you’re not going to have a good experience. So, it’s a natural thing with customer experience. And I think we just need to become more customer centric, less brand centric and I understand that makes people fearful. But at the same time, if you go back to the basic logic, again, of what I was saying, with help marketing, you take care of their needs and they’ll take care of you. It’s just the way it is. So I think that’s the one of the big things. I think another one would be what I referred to earlier, too, about starting off with tech, I say that in probably 80% of the cases, I see that a company won’t put a strategy in place until they’ve got the technical platform in place. And I’m like, you’re going about it the wrong way you create a strategy, based upon your business goals and your business objectives, then you create the marketing strategy, then you create the... So basically, what they’re doing is they’re saying, “Okay, we’re going to choose the tool, and then we’re going to create a strategy based on the tool.” It’s like, totally backwards. And like I said, I see that all too often. And then it doesn’t have to be as extreme as that. But like I said, someone will see a nice tool, a nice feature. And they say, “Oh, yeah, I must have that,” or they read a case study and everything like that. And I mean, I think, I certainly agree it, again, I’m not blaming marketers too, it’s because what’s happened is that in our industry, aside from a few independent consultants and agency people, such as myself, who are, I’m agnostic as far as technology goes, and so I tried to educate as best I can, from an agnostic perspective, from a more strategic perspective, but the market is just filled with articles and how to and everything by the vendors. And these guys would take it upon themselves. And I’m not saying they’re doing it just for the [Inaudible 00:24:05]. So obviously, wanting to educate so that they can sell it.
Hillel Berg: 24:09 Is gonna offer their tool.
Kath Pay: 24:10 Yeah, obviously. And that’s fine. But it’s at the point where it’s the majority of information that’s coming out, as opposed to the majority of the information being more educational or less biased, shall we say? And so less technical or less tool oriented. And I’m not blaming that the ESPs for doing that. I mean, when I was in ESP, I did the same thing. It’s logical, of course, you’re going to do that. So I’m not saying that that’s a bad thing. I’m just saying that. It’s just turned out that most of the marketers get their knowledge from vendors and vendors lead with technology. Therefore, the outcome is that marketers are now leading with technology because of that. Does that all make sense?
Hillel Berg: 25:01 I think so. I think it came across. All right. So anything emails changing or even has changed in the last, let’s say, two or three years? And then in over the next 12 months, what do you think is gonna happen?
Kath Pay: 25:13 Well, okay, yeah, well, like I said, in the last three years, it has changed. I mean, we always come out as a, a whole bunch of us will come out with our predictions for the next year and everything like that. And some of them have been frustrating, because we haven’t seen them taken off, like one of them was there was one year, many years ago, when we also, dynamic content, that’s what’s going to take off and dynamic content, essentially didn’t really take off. The [watch] to do the personalization did, the use of dynamic content, they were still doing manual segmentations and everything to achieve this similar effects. And that’s ended up being I believe, because dynamic content and how it was, didn’t give them that confidence of knowing that the right message was going to the right person. And also, the results were harder to read, as well. So we don’t always get it right. But that was happening. And that was all about personalization. Personalization comes under the guise of segmentation, targeting, dynamic content, now we’ve got all the one to one personalization, we’ve got AI, all that kind of stuff. So personalization have pretty big player there. And you’ll see that come up every year, for sure, because we’re still not there. I think in the next year or what I hope, in the next year, email marketers in particular, but marketers in general too, I guess, are very much going to be positioned and ready to be nimble, to be understanding the changes in society, understanding the changes in their consumer, understanding the changes in their customer data, and the customer’s buying habits and shopping habits and all the rest of it and making changes accordingly. And to do that, of course, you need to be looking at your own data and understanding your own customers and all the rest of it, and reading everything, reading everything in the news, but also attending webinars, reading as many blogs as you can, books, all the rest of it, to really give you that overall, so that you’re not getting that micro perspective from just your vision, that you’re also understanding, because then that’s also going to give you the potential ideas of what’s going to happen next. So you may not be facing it at this particular time, but someone else is facing something now and you go, “Okay, we’re going to, if this happens, then we’re poised and ready to deal with it if it happened.” So I think it’s really just about marketers being flexible and nimble, nothing really to do with email marketing, except for on the basis that email marketing has now become one of the most dependent on channels and tools within the pandemic. So at the moment, we don’t know what’s going to happen. We really don’t, as far as the vaccines and countries going to be traveling again, it’s everything can be back to normal by q3, q4, no one knows anything. So be prepared for the unexpected. That’s all I can say. And I would love to be able to give you some more specific advice. But yeah, I think that will take too long.
Hillel Berg: 28:38 That’s pretty good. I wonder what do you think about I mean, I’ve noticed and we talked about this with few other guests video in email marketing, is starting to take off more?
Kath Pay: 28:48 Yeah, for sure. See, the thing is, all right. Video in itself is a fantastic medium, when you think from a perspective of it’s in how people learn. People learn visually, people learn orally or they’re also could be kinesthetic learners. So what that simply means is that they like to type and make notes and all that kind of stuff. I’m a cross between a kinesthetic and also a visual. So I like to see things, I like to read. I’m not very good with the oral. As soon as you tell me something, I’ll forget something or if I read it, I’ll remember it. So that if you think about video, video is all three. People have the power to pause, write notes, fast forward, backtrack and everything like that. You’ve got the visual, you’ve got all the rest of it. So it’s a fantastic medium and it is a great way for people to be learning and being engaged with, email that tied in with it. It’s a great match, but it’s the same it’s serving the same purpose really with social. So Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, how do they communicate with you? They use email, don’t they? They let you know you’ve had some likes, they let you know. So they’re using email. So it’s the same. So video of still reliant upon, if you put a video up there, you could put on YouTube, people will find it, for sure. But, if you’ve just got a video sitting on your website, you need some sort of traffic driven, so you either don’t pay a lot of money for with PPC or something or else, it’s much more cost effective way as using email. So, yes, video, but then I think you might have also been referring specifically to video playing in email or you just say, promoting video through email, whether?
Hillel Berg: 30:46 Yeah, I’d say not necessarily, like I know, videos, don’t play an email, generally. You [can’t] lie on email, playing in email. In my own email marketing, I was connected to where they can watch it, it’s always a link, but it looks like it might play in the email, but I enjoy talking about their, I saw, there’s some companies that popped up, brochure, I don’t know the names of other ones, but basically getting companies make it easy for marketers to just make a quick video. And somehow, I’m not really sure exactly how it works. But I know, it’s like something that’s gaining traction. And recently, I know a client of mine has used something like that for non for profit, where they’re able to make, “Thank you videos,” and that like somehow when they made the video triggered, I think maybe they made the video in the platform. And then it triggered, like the platform knew they got a donation. And they got the information and recorded a quick video, “Thank you so much,” so and so and then it went into a template and sent back to the person who just made the donation.
Kath Pay: 31:46 Yeah, I mean, there’s some great things out there, there are a few providers like live clicker I mail, these guys actually enable you to have your video playing. But of course, we couldn’t be playing this in the email, you wouldn’t want to play this in the email that’s going to be too long. And an email is because it is that push channel means that messages are coming in continually. And so they might easily get distracted, jump off, don’t listen to the rest of it. So that’s why a lot of the times you only want a very short video in the email, just enough to whet their appetite, still take them over to where that actual email, video is on the landing page, because you’re on a pull channel now. So it’s a lot quieter and you can concentrate, so basically your needs are met, and so are your consumers. So you’ve got that factor. And then it was interesting that you were saying about that not for profit one, because I’ve actually, my years and years of teaching, I’ve come across some fantastic examples. And it never really, really took off. And I think it’s because of the expense. Because again, email is still, even though it’s like the highest return on investment channel. It’s still under budgeted. But some of these examples were phenomenal. And they actually can personalize in the email. So how it [inaudible 00:33:08] off, so in that particular case, they could just have the person’s name. And that’s going to be maybe in a card or something that’s in the video when we thank you and it comes through. And it’s lovely, so that they’re getting this lovely personalized video, which is specific to them. But of course it’s automated.
Hillel Berg: 33:27 Yeah, looking to do that now for that client, because they don’t have a welcome series yet. You know, but I’ve been doing for a long time. So I just came on. Yeah, that’s I’m looking for a way we can do, just hold the sign, take that picture and then put someone’s name on that site like “Thank you, Kathy.”
Kath Pay: 33:45 There’s quite a few providers out there that will make your life easy.
Hillel Berg: 33:48 Yeah. And we were doing stuff like that in 2015. So I know in 2021, definitely there should be a simple way to do that.
Kath Pay: 33:56 Yeah, to show.
Hillel Berg: 33:57 So for people just starting out, would you say like, how should they get started?
Kath Pay: 34:01 Okay, so starting out, I am going to kick off with my number one tip was create a strategy. So that’s it, you need to create a strategy because when you’re creating that strategy, you’re going to be able to go through and see everything from the big picture, you’re going to go through and understand everything, you’re going to be listing all of your objectives, all of your needs that you need to be meeting. And then it’s going to be actually developing and the whole idea with the strategies that it’s meant to be an ongoing, living, breathing document. That’s, as you’re amending and changing your program, it’s also amending and changing and it’s feeding you with new ideas and everything. So definitely strategies a big thing. And then of course, get your tech in place. It depends on if you’re starting up big or if you’re starting out small, will depend on that. I mean, again, we could be talking for hours about choosing in a vendor. Yeah, but essentially, my rule for choosing a vendor is go with what it is that you... After you’ve created your strategy, identify what you need and then go and choose a vendor based upon that. Don’t sort of go, “Oh, I think I’m going in five years’ time, I’ll be doing this as too far ahead,” look for up to three years, what is it that you think you’re going to be able to do? And deal with that, because otherwise, you could be paying a lot of excess, money in features that you’re not actually using. And the way it is, the big systems are more complex to use. Anyhow, the more complex the system is, I would love to say that there’s an amazing system out there that was incredibly complex and easy to use, there isn’t. There’s a lot of mid players who are incredibly advanced and very, very easy to use. And I’m a huge fan of those. And I personally would much prefer to ride one of those out as far as I could until I had to get to the big place. Yeah.
Hillel Berg: 36:10 What opportunities do you think marketers are missing out on when it comes to email?
Kath Pay: 36:15 Okay, so what opportunities, I think, okay, we’ve driven the brands centric a bit around, so, but I think, and also the AV testing, huge, huge, huge missed opportunity. But the most people that I know, if they are doing AB testing, they’re doing subject lines, only they’re using their platform and it’s basing it on the open rate, again, go in and have a look and see if that’s actually the metric you want to be using, I have done hundreds of tests on this. And on no occasion have I found that it actually delivers higher conversions, it delivers higher reach, higher opens, it’s the name, alright, but if you actually wanting conversions, not always. So just go and make sure, that basically, your success metric needs to map back to your objective. Just kicked as a rule of thumb. So yeah, AB split testing, they only do the subject lines. And if they do it, they don’t do it with a hypothesis, so there’s lots of missed opportunities there. Because if you think about it, in this year and last year, I think this is going to be a year of learning. But that’s it, learning about our customers and learning about how they’re changing and everything. And one great way of doing it is besides observing and drilling into the data, it’s actually doing tests. So, be prepared to do that. And that way you won’t be left behind. And also be prepared to... These tests are not just for survival for this year. But also understanding that the world is going to change after the pandemic, how we do many things will be different, including shopping. So, a lot of the things you’re finding out could be not just for this year but for the future as well. So it’s well worth doing an AB split test, or 50 to find that. Yeah, what other opportunities? Like I said, I think about the missed opportunity with ownership forms, missed opportunities with personalization. Again, I think it’s one of these things with personalization. We’re all sitting there. And the weird thing with personalization, too, is that we want to do personalization. It’s kind of like, “Okay, I get that. But why do you want to do personalization?” So you need to drill down into it and personalization, the reason why most people want to do personalization is because they want to increase the revenue, right? And why does that increase the revenue? Because they’re actually enhancing the customer experience. That’s it. So that’s really what they want to be doing, I want to increase the customer. So in your strategy, you’d put one of your objectives to increase the customer experience to enhance it. And then one of the tactics would be to use personalization. Or that could be the strategy. And then one of the tactics could be more specific about how to actually do it, whether you use technology or not. So I think a lot of us are sitting there and we’re waiting, when we don’t have time, we don’t have the data because everyone’s thinking we have to be personalizing based on informed data, which is the data that the customers give to you, which is totally wrong. You don’t need to but that’s nice. You can use lead data for personalization. But behavioral data is fantastic. And behavioral data is easy to use, particularly when you are using dynamic content or your life cycle marketing ones.
Hillel Berg: 39:48 I’m just saying that the platforms connect often with a plugin and when you have your website connected with your platform with... You know, opportunities galore.
Kath Pay: 39:58 For real time, relevant personalization, it’s easy to achieve with one of those third party suppliers. And you don’t have to worry about your database, you don’t have to, it’s easy to do. So again, I think that is a huge missed opportunity, because they think it’s in the too hard basket, we want to do it. But we [pass] and I think there are simple, again, start out small, start small. And the thing that I do a lot with my customers is to help them to build business bases. So the business base here will be, “OK, let’s go and do some more manual type of small little bits of personalization.” And see if it actually delivers the return on investment, see if it gives you an uplift. If it does, you’ve now got a business case, to go and ask for more funding, so more budget because then you can actually go and say, “We predict we’re going to get X amount more revenue, because of this particular functionality or this tool” or something like that or “Because we need an extra team member.” So always, fall back on those business bases. And that just need to you to do a bit of testing and dedication. And again, that’s investment of your time and effort that it will pay off.
Kath Pay: 40:38 Okay, you’re a recent author. I can’t say the same. So what got you to write a book?
Kath Pay: 41:30 Okay, so my all my years of email marketing, so about 10, 12 years ago, I became a consultant. And I was one of the first consultants out there. So, it was a fun thing. It was because I was one of the first ones, it was really, really busy and everything, but one of the things I loved to do most of all the speed test, I was actually teaching, because the reason why I became a consultant was because of a real half the marketer. So with everything, all the hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of magnets that I’ve taught over the years with all the forums that I belong to, with all the pubs, I think that I had and conferences I’ve attended, and everything, I realized that there still is a lot to learn that there’s still a lot that’s not being addressed within the industry. And in some of it that is out there is I think I would call misinformation as well. So I think from my perspective, I wanted to do a bit of correction on some of that. I love the [inaudible 00::42:29] I’ve hake sort of best practices, which are no longer best practices, but they’re still touted as being best practices, and they can be very, very destructive actually, to the marketers, so basically, I wrote it for the marketers, I’m just trying to sort of have a more permanent stamp on rather than just sort of writing blogs and everything because I do write a lot of blogs but I didn’t know just sort of seemed more official. So, I also everyone kept on saying, “When are you writing your book?” So I’m like, “Okay, okay.” So, but that wasn’t the main reason I wasn’t being peer pressured into it.
Hillel Berg: 43:15 All right. So going on that. So why is everything holistic? What’s this?
Kath Pay: 43:22 All about? Okay, so back when I actually, I was sitting there one time with my then partner, business partner, Tamara Gila. And I said to her, I said, “I’m so frustrated, I’m so frustrated with everyone talking about multi-channel and Omni channel, because it’s so brand centric.” I’m a big believer in naming things well. So if we’re doing for me a welcome program in a lifecycle marketing, a welcome series would actually call the first purchase program because your main aim isn’t just to welcome them, that’s one of the, off sides, you roughly welcoming them, it’s a natural thing to do. But the main thing you want to do there is to be selling to them, is to get them to make their first purchase. So they have a first purchase and second purchase and all the rest of it. So the reason why because it helps you to stay focused on what the objective is. So basically, you’re putting your objective of the email. So if we go back to the multi-channel and the Omni channel is in such a thing as Omni channel within how they like to tout it, those names, they’re very brand centric, they’re about how we as marketers can make the channels work together. The consumer isn’t in that picture at all. It’s all about “we, the brand,” it’s about “our messaging” and everything and that was incredibly, not offensive to me, but I’m just going that’s just wrong. So I feel we need something that involves the customer, consumer, because that’s what we really should be focused on. And so in Australia, I’m an Australian, and over there, we have most of our GPS or a lot of our GPS, also holistic practitioners as well. So you can go there, and they might give you a few home remedy drops, as well as a prescription or instead of prescription or something. So I’m very sad with the whole holistic approach, and I went, “That’s really what we want to be doing, we want to be looking at the channels holistically, we want to see where email fits in within the customer journey, we want to be focusing on the customer, looking at them and looking at their needs.” And so it all came together, I just went, “That’s the phrase that we need. That’s the terminology.” And so therefore, I created the holistic email marketing philosophy. And that’s what underpins the book, hence the name. So essentially, I called the consultancy and the book after the philosophy, not the other way around. And that’s really what it’s all about, the holistic approach, it’s huge, that kind of testing, AB testing approach that said that we share the findings out across other channels, we call that the holistic testing approach as well. So it’s like everything, because a lot of what we do, like I said, we’re focused on emails and emails can make us if we only focus on the email and we understand, the majority of the time, we’re not actually getting our conversions from the email, email is still just the driver of traffic to the landing page where the conversions happen. But how many email marketers do you know actually have permission or have the ability to do the landing pages as well? We’re still talking the minority. So most of them will just be taking them to a product page or something like that, that someone else has gone and done. And this is where we can start to get really disjointed with our email marketing, because we’ve refined our email and we’ve tested it and lovingly changed it and amend it and everything. So it’s a work of art, beautiful. And it’s getting great open rates and everything. And then we go and take them to this landing page or product page or something and there’s no continuity there whatsoever. So there’s a huge disconnect. And then when we actually find out that it’s not converting and that’s because of the disconnect. And so the holistic side, also takes care of that whole customer journey as well, making sure that we are going all the way through that journey, with the same messaging, the same visuals and all the rest of it, and making sure that that is an optimized experience. So holistic email marketing is much, much more than email marketing, it really is just all about the customer journey, using multiple channels, but we call it email marketing, I love email marketing and email is the backbone. It’s the channel that keeps on bringing the customers back again, and it’s the customer service channel. It’s the one that’s there. And despite what anyone says, it’s not going away.
Hillel Berg: 48:19 Their specific channels, like you find that email pairs well with, like you talking about being holistic. So I mean, they like something on Facebook, they get an email about that?
Kath Pay: 48:31 Yeah, I mean, yes, you can make the channels work together like that, if you want. I personally like to use them for different purposes. But that, again, will depend on, that will vary according to the business and their objectives and their audience and their products and everything like that. So there isn’t just a curious one formula. This is what you do with email and social. And here’s another formula [inaudible 00:48:55]. That things like what is excited, which is very irregularly used or rarely or if ever, other than me, is using keywords and PPC terms on your landing page. And connecting that with your nurturing. So this is great for b2b. This is great for, I actually did this with, the example I tend to use a lot is, things like Dyson and they’ve got businesses there and they’re wanting to put them in all of their bathrooms or hand dryers or something like that and all of their bathrooms. And what they do is they do a search term and they just go, “Hand dryers.” Because they’re just literally starting out. They don’t know anything yet. They just know, “I need hand dryers.” And so that’s a very top of funnel search term. So then you create a landing page with hair dryers and some other top of funnel search terms. And so people will go there, they’ll click on, it’s either a PPC or you could do it with your organic search as well. It goes there to that page. And then when they go and say, “Oh, I want to find out more,” then you take them on a complete and utter top of funnel, mid funnel, bottom funnel, nurturing, sort of series, right? So you’re educating them through email. Now, however, if they come through and they give you a mid-funnel term keyword, then they’re going to take them to the mid funnel optimized page, and then you’re just going to hit the mid funnel through the bottom funnel. And if it’s a bottom funnel one key phrase, then you just do that. So what that means is that you’re actually going to end, you’re personalizing there, they are nurturing and you’re actually quickening up the speed because it means that the bottom funnel don’t have to go through all this information that they’re just interested in, they just want to get to this, they want to see how it works. They’ve got different needs to those at the top of the funnel. Because top of the funnel is just beginning of the journey. So things like that that is a good way of doing it.
Hillel Berg: 51:06 Okay. All right, what are your favorite brands? Who’s doing the stuff that you’re talking about?
Kath Pay: 51:14 Okay, so a brand that I do like, is Soaking Sleep. And I like that from the perspective of exactly what I was saying. And actually Printer Picks, one of my clients, they also do it as well, so it’s lovely. They have the email and then they build a dedicated landing page for it. And so there’s no disconnect. They’re using the same imagery, the same offer, the same wording, the same colors, and everything like that. So, you do not get to the landing page, “And so what am I doing here again,” you’ve had that experience, right, you click on an email, you get to a landing page, you just got, “I can’t remember why I’m here,” because there’s nothing there that carries over. So they do a great job with that. And another one is Secret Escapes. I have been huge admirers of theirs. And they’ve actually been a client too. And they are using AI and doing a one to one personalization on their emails, but also varying, up deferring it so that you’ve also got some surprise and delight ones, you’ve also got some lovely, they’ll be doing it so that you’ve got just a regular newsletter. And they might actually then just be sticking in and number one or number two position, maybe a holiday that you’ve looked at recently. But they don’t do it as an official browse abandonment email. And they’ve got those ones, but they’re more date oriented. But this is just, so it’s a bit of a, “Oh, I am looking at that. Yeah, I’ve got called away. Oh, yeah. Don’t click on that again.” So, incredibly effective. Really, really nice. So, I think probably, [don’t think I’m really hard] to impress. Because I don’t have a huge list of them. There are lots of brands that are doing a decent job. There’s a lot of brands that I know, ones that are working with whom they’re going to be doing a phenomenal job at the end of the day, but it’s still gonna take a while. Yeah a lot of it.... And the bigger they are, the longer it take as well.
Hillel Berg: 53:24 Oh, for sure. [Inaudible 00:53:25] the big brands you feel doing a horrible job?
Kath Pay: 53:29 Oh, I’m not gonna say that. And then you are going to say, [inaudible 00:53:33]. You really suck at it. So call me, okay, because you need my help. I’m not gonna do that.
Hillel Berg: 53:46 We did this already.
Kath Pay: 53:48 Yeah, we did that.
Hillel Berg: 53:49 We did that already. Okay. All right. Well, lifecycle marketers...?
Kath Pay: 53:58 Lifecycle, yeah.
Hillel Berg: 54:02 What are your favorite ones?
Kath Pay: 54:06 So okay, I love them all. And the reason why I love them all, not just because of the success that they are. But the reason behind it is because they’re a great experience for the customer as well, provided you do a great job. They’re innately timely, because most of these ones are actually triggered by something the customer has or sometimes hasn’t done. And so they’re often timely, they’re incredibly personalized, even if you don’t actually put a product in or reference it, just the fact that you’re emailing them about that particular timing or something is very, very personalized. And at the end of the day, if you think about it, they’re innately helpful. So most of them are there and they coming undone. I don’t want to say guys because guys, these two people possibly thinking its trickery, that’s not trickery. But the obvious one is, of course, a Ben Cart is, “Hey, you left something behind. Was there a problem? Can we help? Get a customer service number,” or “If you just got called away, here’s your...”
Hillel Berg: 55:20 One takeaway.
Kath Pay: 55:21 Great customer service, great customer experience, easy, an incredibly helpful. One of the ones I really like, though, is the Price Drops, I get excited about. So they could be sensors again e-commerce, but it doesn’t have to be it could be a b2b. But with e- commerce, a lot of the e-commerce sites have got, your favorites list. And so you’re kind of on your wish list or something like that, you don’t put it up and then they can be sending you a Price Drop, “Hey, we knows, this is on your wish list.” [Inaudible 00:55:57] exactly or that they saw that you browse to that you looked at it, maybe you added to the car, but you took it out whatever. And so that they’re sending you and saying, “Hey, we know that you’ve had your eye on this, it’s now on sale.” How lovely that is, you know.
Hillel Berg: 56:15 Alright, I think this is our last question. And then you can freestyle if you want.
Kath Pay: 56:19 Okay, what’s up for business versus email marketing? So yeah, we’ve been here many, many, many, many times, we had Facebook Messenger, we’ve just had, how many ones that we went, they’re going to kill email marketing? And they haven’t they still, some of them disappeared. Some of them survived. But none of them have taken over email marketing, I think all, different channels. I mean, we had it with social, socials gonna kill emails, like social and email worked really well together, they’re not going to... One not going to kill the other. And I think what happens is that over time, they end up, their strengths just come forth, and you end up finding out, “Okay, so this is really good for,” so I think, as far as WhatsApp goes, everyone goes great, “We’ve got direct access to a person, we can send really personalized messages to them and everything.” And I think, I mean, WhatsApp certainly has proven itself in my books, as far as customer service, I think is a great customer service to, a chat with, [inaudible 00:57:30] sky in the UK, Virgin Airlines, so it’s heard right, that’s really, really excellent.
Hillel Berg: 57:40 Ministry of Health, a Corona issue, a Corona WhatsApp...
Kath Pay: 57:46 But as far as marketing goes, people have privacy issues with emails, in marketing emails, promotional emails, in their email inbox, hence, why Gmail and Yahoo and all the rest that have created those tabs, so that you’ve got that separation for their one to one personalized, “I know you and I’m getting a message directly from you,” versus the marketing ones, because that’s what people want. The consumers are basically said, “This is how it works. So this is what we would ideally like.” WhatsApp is even more of a personal inbox than email. It’s more of a one to one, so I just don’t know. So I mean, I will be watching it, I will definitely be watching it because I’m not going to go, “Oh, no, that’s crap and set aside” or anything like that. Definitely be watching it and see if it can work in. If it does do anything, it will be working in conjunction with email, I’m sure. You know, who there reads? You can read a long email, but are you going to read a long WhatsApp message? No, it’s still going to be there to get your attention and to sort of whet your appetite rather than give you complete nuttier, a lots of information. So, you know,
Hillel Berg: 59:07 Final thoughts.
Kath Pay: 59:09 Oh, my goodness. [Inaudible 00:59:11]. You shouldn’t let me freestyle. I could be here for another two hours.
Hillel Berg: 59:21 You can make it like I forget which program it was, but it always ended with like, I think it was, I mean, I grew up in America. So [dead line]. They have [deadline] in Australia also.
Kath Pay: 59:31 Oh, I really!?
Hillel Berg: 59:32 I think it was [dead line.] Yeah, one of them. And then our final Thought for the Day. It was always like... It was an actual thought, it wasn’t like a few hours. It was...
Kath Pay: 59:42 Okay. Yes. Just one thought.
Hillel Berg: 59:49 Yeah.
Kath Pay: 59:47 Okay. So, my one [port] thing, I guess is because we’re all still very, very, I mean, as a consultant, I’m getting lots of inquiries. So I can see that this year everyone is really wanting to get their heads together, get their plans together, make it all happen for 2021, a lot of people still don’t know what is actually happening. I know that a lot of brands are struggling and other brands are exceeding their goals, they’re doing really, really well. So I think my main takeaway here then is to be staying alert, staying alert, staying aware, being as proactive as possible, but also being reactive. So being reactive and that just means being poised and being agile. So I think that’s basically what I’m telling most of my clients, everyone that I speak to, is reiterating as well. So it’s really just a sort of state informed and agile.
Hillel Berg: 1:00:52 Yeah, Kath Pay, thank you so much for joining us this week. And, please keep in touch and we’ll see you hopefully.
Kath Pay: 1:01:05 Amazing. Thanks so much.
Hillel Berg: 1:01:07 Thank you. Bye, bye. Alright, that’s our episode for tonight. Thank you to Kath Pay again, for really an amazing episode. And thanks for the producers of this episode. And just a good night to everybody. This has been Inboxing episode five. You can find us on all your favorite Stitcher, Apple podcast, Spotify, wherever you listen to your podcast. You can find us there. And if you enjoyed the episode, please subscribe and rate us.