Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
(upbeat music)
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- Welcome to the Females Across the Pond and Beyond podcast.
Hi, I'm Clara.
- Hi, I'm Angie.
We're here to share all things email and beyond.
We go through the trials and tribulations
of running your own business,
being your own boss and sending your own email marketing.
- As email marketing experts,
we're dedicated to helping small businesses thrive
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so they can have more freedom in their business.
- Ready to get started?
Let's dive into the episode.
(upbeat music)
- Hello, everyone.
Welcome to another episode of the Females Across the Pond
and Beyond podcast.
We're so excited to dive into this one.
We are going to talk about those email marketing platforms
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that we think are the best for small business owners
and ones to maybe stay away from.
Or maybe just giving you a clearer picture
of the pros and cons of each
so that you can decide for yourself
what you would like to use for your email marketing platform
or if you're already on one,
if you would like to possibly switch over,
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which we see a lot of small business owners
end up doing, which is totally okay too.
But before we dive into that, Clara,
you wanna give us a little rundown
what's been going on with you
and for the past few weeks since we got together.
- Yeah, good, it's summer here in the UK.
(01:31):
I was saying earlier that we went to a comedy festival
at the weekend and it's great to see live comedy
some really great comedians.
You just don't do that.
Well, I haven't done that in ages,
so it was really nice to do.
Was that in London?
- No, instant orbans, so let's say an hour from London,
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but it was really, it was nice.
It was great to be outside
and it's just been busy with like,
I'm trying to think what I've been doing.
It's just been quite hectic,
but that's one of the things.
And then yesterday we went to a jazz festival.
So a lot of music and comedy and live events.
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How about yourself?
- Yeah, just, you know, I was telling Clara
that the whole family had gotten sick
about a couple of weeks ago and to that kind of just derails
everything when that happens, taking care of kids.
So yeah, we're just kind of getting back into the swing
of things we are going on vacation next week.
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So we're just kind of getting ready,
getting everything ready to go to the beach
and making sure we have everything for the boys.
That's just kind of been the number one priority
and then looking forward to taking a little bit
of time off from work if I can.
That would be so nice.
I know.
- I know.
- Some of the things like all of Olga's stuff,
which is incredible.
(02:58):
- Sunday.
- Yeah. - That's a goal for sure.
- Yeah, definitely.
Definitely.
- We're getting there, right?
Clara and I are both at the point in our business
where we are starting to offload and hire more contractors
and take the implementation of things off of our plate
because we find that running our business takes
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is a full time job in itself.
- 100%.
- Yeah.
No, it's a nice feeling.
But I hope you have a wonderful holiday.
It'll be so nice to get away.
- Thank you.
But let's get into these email accounts
because as email marketers,
Clara and I both find ourselves in new email accounts
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or in multiple email accounts,
depending on what our clients are using.
So we've had to learn a lot.
And we kind of have our own opinions
on what we think has been the best for our clients and why
and for some, there's different reasons than others.
And we know that choosing an email account to work
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inside can kind of be intimidating
for small business owners, right?
I mean, you don't really, you don't know what you don't know.
It's kind of like buying a house for the first time.
You don't really know what to look for in my opinion
until you're in it and then you're like,
oh, okay, like I realize this, you can do this
and I can't do this and then by that time you're living
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inside the email account and, you know,
typically you just keep pressing word with whatever you have.
Do you have any thoughts around that as far as like?
- Yeah, I think it's a big decision
if you are choosing an account to move
or a platform to move across to from where you are currently.
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I think it's something that you shouldn't just decide
on day to do unless you've got a tiny audience
in which case it doesn't really matter.
But there's kind of things you need to consider
if you have a fairly decent sized audience,
you can't just move everything over
and switch everything on overnight, it takes time.
There's various reasons for that.
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But there's also, you know, like we're gonna go through this
in this episode, but you've got to really think about
what is it you wanna get from the platform.
So we'll jump into that for sure, but yeah, it's a big decision.
- Yeah, it is.
And, you know, my clients are always like,
how do you decide or how would you decide?
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And one thing that I always say to them is,
I think that you should, if you can,
open up a free account in like a couple different email accounts
because if you're a small business owner,
the most important part is if you're gonna be doing your emails,
you need to feel comfortable inside the account
doing your emails. - Their emails.
- Yeah. - Yeah.
- You shouldn't take on something that's just too big for you,
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you know, like you need to be able to feel comfortable
with what you're taking on,
particularly if you're gonna be paying for it.
- Sure. - Heck yeah.
So, okay, let's go over maybe, okay,
do we wanna just go into these different platforms
and then talk about what we like
or what we thought the pros and cons are.
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And then we'll wrap it up with, you know,
how to maybe decide which one is for you at the end.
- Yeah, I think so.
I think the one thing just to consider
before we dive in is like, what is your objective?
Like, what do you wanna get from the platform?
Are you launching a course?
Are you looking to sell products?
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Are you looking to sell a membership?
You know, what is it that you want to do
and how big is your audience?
So these are things to be really clear on before you dive
into something that's shiny and new, which all of us do,
but with email platforms, you wanna be really clear
about that, so, but yeah, let's dive in.
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- Yeah, 'cause there's different platforms
that are better for some things than for other things, right?
- Exactly.
- It's not like a one size fits all.
So yeah, let's get into what they could be.
Okay, I wanna start off with one platform
that I think has a really, really, really good marketing
and does a really good job of attracting small business owners
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in and that is FlowDesk.
I have a few clients who have been on FlowDesk.
I don't think I'm working with anyone right now,
but that is a very popular one
that I think a lot of small business owners gravitate to
because the emails are pretty
and it seems really easy to just work inside.
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Have you worked inside FlowDesk at all, Clara?
- Once, but a long time ago,
I know aesthetically their emails look great.
Like whenever I see if I'm part of an email flow,
I can, you can tell if they're a FlowDesk email,
like they generally look really nice.
But I haven't for a while, so yeah, be good to hear your thoughts.
(07:59):
- Yeah, I mean, I think as far as the ease of writing
an email and sending an email, it's, yeah,
it's very easy to do that in FlowDesk.
I can see why it attracts small business owners,
new business owners, new people working within the account.
Yeah, the GUI, as you would say,
the graphic user interface is very easy to follow and understand.
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But I think with what kind of find,
which happens a lot in sometimes email platforms
and sometimes even website platforms,
is that you'll find that there are these platforms like FlowDesk
that have really pretty templates and really pretty layouts.
And that's like their biggest selling point is that,
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you know, you'll have the best looking emails.
But as an email marketer, I know that that is the thing
that matters the least when it comes to email marketing
is how your email looks and I hate to break it to you.
I know that that's what everybody wants to focus on
is the look of the email.
When really, you know, it's about copywriting,
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I mean, we see plain text emails just like taking off
and doing so well.
So those have no design aspects, let us type email.
But what really makes a difference inside email accounts
and what can really help you scale and grow is having access
to your data, easy access to your data and analytics.
And also the capability of really curating
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a personalized experience for your subscribers
based on like flows and automations triggered by their events.
And I have to say about FlowDesk as you get deeper into,
as you grow your list more and you want to segment more
and you want to create more flows
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and you want to create more of a personalized experience,
it's just not going to be able to support you.
I recently did a migration of a client
that had 50,000 subscribers in their FlowDesk account.
We moved them over to Clavio.
They immediately started seeing an increase in their sales
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because we could do things like a banded cart checkouts,
because we could do browser bandedment flows,
because we could really do, we had a lot better data
as far as like a welcome flow to a sales flow
and things like that.
So it just really goes to show that even if it's like a pretty email
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platform that gives you pretty emails,
that's not the thing that's going to convert into dollars
for you, especially as you grow.
So that's kind of been my experience with FlowDesk.
They've done a really good job.
Like they redid all of their analytics platforms,
so it is a bit deeper, but it's still very, very limiting
in how you can grab analytics and grab the data
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on what's working and what's not working.
So yeah, I would just take that into consideration as well.
Yeah, I've had that about FlowDesk.
I mean, it's a long time ago that I last used it,
but I think people do base a lot of decisions
on how pretty the emails are.
We need to be looking at actual functionality,
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like what can you actually do?
If you can't do an abandoned cart,
then that's a big no-no-no-and-mind.
That's a big money spinner for a lot of people
having an abandoned cart, so it's just really important
that let's just look at the functionality.
If design and branding is important to you, yes, you can have that,
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but we also want you to be able to deliver a level of automation
as part of that as well.
So these are things to be considering for sure.
And I think at most small business owners,
or you might be listening out here,
I don't even know what an abandoned cart flow is.
Like, I don't know what all this stuff is,
which is totally understandable.
And that's why it's so hard to kind of talk
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about different email accounts because you don't know what you don't know.
And that's what tends to happen is you sign up for an email account
because you're just looking to send emails
and then you don't realize that actually, like,
the big sales and like, you know,
the fact that email marketing is the number one sales channel,
you know, marketing sales channel online,
that all comes from a little bit more like automations and flows
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and just a little tag more advanced stuff
that when you're first starting out, you probably don't know.
But as you, it's not really that hard,
you will, you know, start to learn this stuff.
So that's why it's like, okay,
it's good for you to just hear this now.
So that maybe, you know, as you look into other email accounts,
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you can be like, okay, what are the flows capability?
What are the automation?
How is the integration with my website?
Like, is it going to speak to them when someone, you know,
abandon's a cart and all that stuff to look into?
Yeah, definitely.
All right.
Should we move on or do you have any more thoughts?
Okay.
We're going to talk about MailChimp next.
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MailChimp, I think, is one of those platforms
that a lot of people also gravitate to.
They do a really good job with their marketing.
Again, they have a really great brand as far as how they speak
to their clients and they speak to their customers.
But I don't think MailChimp would be my number one choice
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personally for an email marketing platform
because I find it's really difficult to work inside
even as an email marketer who is used to, you know,
going into the tech, a back end of accounts,
like the placement of where things are in MailChimp
is just very, very confusing for me.
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But on the flip side, MailChimp does have a lot of capabilities
that you wouldn't find in FlowDask.
They do have a lot of like very good integrations
with websites.
They can do a band and cart flows.
They can do all of the bells and whistles.
They can do personalization.
They can do flows based off of different triggers.
But I find that for like the average small business owner,
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it takes them a lot longer to set things up inside MailChimp
because of the back end of it.
It's just a little confusing.
Do you have any thoughts?
I think MailChimp have got a big advantage in the sense
that in the UK, certainly, they're like huge,
they're actually advertising on TV for the first time,
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which I've noticed. - Wow.
Yeah, that's big.
I don't know if they are on the date, not yet.
I have seen advertisements, but I don't know if it's on TV.
So they started to advertise on TV here,
which I've not seen any email service provider do to that extent.
I actually did go to the MailChimp conference
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a couple of months ago.
What they are launching was really interesting.
They are looking at something called AI segmentation,
which I don't know if it's called that,
but basically they are going to start using
an intelligent segmentation where the platform decides
the segment that you should be emailing.
I don't think this is going to be now unique to MailChimp.
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I think the other ESPs will be figuring this out
and having their own version rollout,
but I think MailChimp will quit,
pretty quick to deliver that.
And I've also launched SMS as well for the first time.
Oh, good.
So I think there are definitely pros and cons to MailChimp.
I agree with you.
And I do think that there are some refinements
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that MailChimp needs to make in their kind of user interface.
However, I think looking at their roadmap,
there are some really interesting things ahead
in terms of where they're taking things
and for small businesses.
And I do think they're also starting to target
slightly bigger businesses now as well.
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So it's not necessarily just the small business owner
that they're after to help.
But I think with any platform,
it's like Angie said earlier, just go on
and sign up for a trial, a free trial,
and just see how you get on,
because some people might find that they get
on really well with MailChimp or they find they don't.
(16:24):
So before you commit to anything financially,
certainly sign up.
And remember, under a certain amount,
it's usually, I mean, it varies by platform,
but certainly if you've got a smaller list,
a lot of these platforms are going to be free.
We'll say that with a big caveat
that most of these are free.
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If you've got a smaller list,
but as you start to grow, they will start to cost.
100%.
So take advantage of that while you can.
And yeah, but I would say, as far as advanced features,
MailChimp has all the bells and whistles.
So you can rest assured that if you grow and as you grow,
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then you will be able to take advantage of those things
that are really going to help scale your company with that one.
So definitely want to consider.
All right, let's move on to, I feel like these are all mine
and then we'll get into yours.
Convert kit.
Have you worked at all in ConvertKit, Clara?
You have?
I have, yeah, not as much as the others,
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but I do like it.
It's interesting, right?
Because you, it's certainly more for bloggers or people
that like aesthetically, it's similar to blow desk
in a sense that you have these beautiful emails.
So people, you know, I find that bloggers, creatives, anyone
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in that kind of space find ConvertKit really aligned to their business.
And they have like the creator side of things
where you can community where you can like promote your newsletter.
You can also help other people promote their newsletter
through yours.
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Like they have that feature where like if you subscribe
to their newsletter, then that'll offer other newsletters
that are similar that this person might like.
So like you can get more signups and more subscribers
just through there, just through other people
subscribing to other people's newsletters through ConvertKit.
And yeah, they just have a lot of like really great,
(18:30):
yeah, like you said, community style features for creatives
and service providers.
And I think for memory, they rely on tags though.
They're for sending.
So lots of tagging.
Yeah, so you have to have a, so tags in all the tags is basically
a category that you assign to a certain number of people.
(18:51):
So let's say that you have a bunch of people
that have bought from you, that maybe they're past clients.
That's a tag.
So rather than going in and having a list
and separate list for each type of client, let's say,
with ConvertKit, you send to all,
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but you send basically to a tag if that makes sense.
So your tagging system needs to be really clear
as to who you want to target, because that's how they set up.
So tagging is really important in ConvertKit.
- Yeah, and I do think that the user interface
is very easy to follow in ConvertKit.
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That's what I like about ConvertKit especially,
is that the way that everything is laid out
really makes a lot of sense to me as a user.
And I also like the ease of just being able to,
like you can grab anyone in a tag
and you can do like bulk actions where you like
ignite them into a flow or sequence
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or send them an email.
And so like all of these very easy actions that you can take
if you do have your tagging set up well,
which it's not a lot, especially if you're just starting out,
you probably don't have a lot of tags for people.
So it can be very simple,
but it is easy to like segment with that.
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And it is easy to create, I do also like they have this,
these features called visual automations
where you can really see the customer journey
and you can really map out the customer journey very well
when they come onto your, like say they subscribe,
then you can say, okay, if they subscribe from this form,
then I want them tagged with this
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and then I want them to go into this flow
and then I want this tag to be taken off of them.
And so you can really map out someone's individual personalized
journey depending on what it is that they do on your site
or through your emails.
And I really like that feature as well
because it's very easy just to kind of like coordinate
and set that up.
(20:57):
And. - Yes, I like that as well.
I like that feature.
I do think it is more suited to creatives
and there's nothing wrong with it.
It's just being, remember we talked at the start
that being aware about what your needs are as well.
- Yeah, it's, yeah.
- I see it as creative type people,
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people that run membership, that kind of thing.
- For my client, it has a good integration with Podia.
So we get, like all of her courses are on Podia.
So we get all the people coming in
and we're able to send them the correct communication
depending on what, you know, what they buy through there.
So that's also something to look at.
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Like does it integrate with the course platform
that you're using whether that's like Podia or Kajabi
or whatever it is, you know,
and how do they speak to each other?
One thing I will say that I don't really like about ConvertKit,
I think they could do a way better job
with their data and analytics.
They kind of, they're kind of like all over the place.
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Like the data for the landing pages is like in the landing page
section and then like the data for the campaigns,
like you have to individually click on the campaigns.
I don't like that.
I like a platform that gives me like a reports data,
like menu, that's all based on that
where it has everything right there that you can see.
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And they're kind of, it seems like they're kind of using
like a secondary, I don't know software
or whatever called insights to kind of help with that,
but even the insights platform, I'm like,
"Eh, this isn't really giving me a lot that I can work with."
So that's definitely a downside of ConvertKit in my opinion.
- Yeah, it's fair.
And I think a lot of people that are starting out may not be
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so worried about analytics, but I know.
- I'd say, but I'd say actually it is important,
even if you feel like, even if your list is tiny,
like you do want to know easily,
you want to get some insights as to how they're performing,
how your list is performing.
So you don't need all the bells and whistles,
but you certainly want to be able to know,
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are your emails performing or not.
Just a note on integration,
we talked about that, we touched on that word a couple of times.
So what we mean by that is something called
native integration in email platforms is basically
when they have a native, so they have a setup
already within the platform that allows you to connect
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to other platforms with ease.
So you don't have to create kind of separate integration.
So an example of where there isn't a native integration
would be where you have your email platforms
such as ConvertKit and say your website
that don't speak to each other,
you'd need to have some connection with the two.
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So you might use Zapier, for example.
- Yeah.
- So be aware of that.
And one of the things to think about the questions
that should go through your mind is,
do I want my email platforms to connect to my website
and do they have a native integration for my website?
So you would have been looking at their integration list
as to whether your website's on there.
(24:13):
- Very, very, very important.
- That was so important.
Okay, let's move on to braze.
I don't know much about braze,
I've never worked inside of braze,
so I'm gonna hand this one off to Clara.
- Yeah, so this is more for those
gale up type businesses.
So if you are a small business owner,
(24:34):
I would say this is something maybe to aim for in the future.
It's very powerful in terms of the capabilities.
The kind of original thinking with braze is its mobile first.
So they actually designed for app originally
and it's kind of grown around mobile.
So the very pro mobile,
(24:56):
you can deliver SMS through braze as well.
I would say that the ability to personalize at scale
is huge for braze and hence why with that comes cost.
So it is more expensive.
However, the ability to email and do dynamic
(25:16):
and amazing things with personalization
is one of its selling points.
I'd say one of the considerations to make,
I don't wanna say you can't necessarily
but considerations is before you start working on braze,
you need to make sure your data's in a really good place
(25:38):
because whatever you put into braze is what's gonna come out.
So in any projects I've worked on with braze,
there is work to kind of get your data in a really good place
before you can move forward with all the amazing,
they call them canvases in braze,
but essentially a canvas is an automated flow.
(25:58):
So it can be very powerful as to what it can do.
You can scale, you can use SMS.
The cons would be that it's costly.
So it's more designed for those with bigger lips.
You're already generating revenue
but these are people who are looking to scale.
So braze has that function.
(26:19):
If you think of all of these as cars,
this would be a kind of a car that you'd wanna be
getting into once you've done your test
and you already know how to drive
and you're ready to go on those bigger roads.
So braze is one for the future if you're a small business owner
but certainly more suited to those
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that have a much bigger list and are ready to scale.
- Perfect.
Yeah, I think that's what you're gonna find with a lot of these.
A lot of these like with the beginner ones
that we've talked about like flow dust,
convert to male chimp, they're easy for people to maybe get on
but as you scale and grow, you would want to find a platform
(27:06):
that can really support scaling and growing like that
and braze is one of them.
Maybe not so friendly to hop on right in the beginning
but certainly want to migrate to.
When you have a smaller list
and it's easier to migrate, right?
- Yeah, exactly.
If you've got a bigger list and you're migrating to braze
(27:26):
it's usually that you'll need some help with that
because there's some complexity around migrating.
You have to very briefly,
we could do a whole episode on migrating in itself
but you have to warm your IPs which basically means that
your IPs are new when you move over to a new platform
(27:47):
and therefore if you were to send all of your volume to that IP
it will set off alarm bells
because you're basically suddenly pushing a lot of volume
to that IP address.
So we need to do it slowly and build up your volume
so that you don't cause any kind of concerns
around spam filters.
(28:08):
There's a lot more to it than that
and we will do an episode on migrating.
- Yeah, one day if you're interested
but yeah, that's braze.
What about bravo?
So bravo used to be called sending blue,
sending blue and they, I would say,
are similar to, "So I've worked with a client
(28:29):
who sold subscriptions through bravo."
Again, I wouldn't start off with bravo.
I'd say they're probably your second platform after you
been established for two, three years.
There's some good automation around bravo
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but I feel personally that the reporting is quite limited
in terms of the capabilities
and also the automations around bravo
are quite limiting as well.
So I think it does a lot of what you need it to do.
It's just a case of making sure that you are
(29:15):
buying into the right platform for your business
and making sure, and to be fair on bravo,
they offer a lot for free.
So there is certainly an opportunity to sign up to their,
to their free account and certainly,
give their platform a go and see whether it's something
(29:35):
you want to try.
I think actually for most of the ones we've talked about
trying before you buy is actually...
- Try before you buy.
- Yeah, take a test drive.
- Yeah, it's a car analogy, right?
It's just making sure that you are happy with what you're choosing
because it can be difficult and with bravo as well,
(30:00):
one other thing to mention is that they charge
for emails sent rather than contacts.
So most of these platforms are charged for subscribers
but what bravo do is they basically charge you
for the number of emails you send.
So if you want to do,
if you want to be one of those group on type businesses
(30:21):
where you're just emailing every day,
bravo might not be a good choice for you.
- Right.
- Okay, well, I've never worked inside bravo
so that's really good to know.
But yeah, I mean, another one of those
that maybe not right off the bat
but definitely maybe later on something to consider.
Let's switch to another one that we have a lot of big,
(30:44):
big winners do have onto which it is a good one
for beginners, Mailer Lite.
- I love Mailer Lite and it's actually my go-to recommendation
for those just starting out.
And the reason for this is there's a lot you get for free.
So we talked about Mailtimp earlier,
(31:04):
there's certain automations you have to pay for
but with Mailer Lite you actually get
all of your automations for free.
So it's up to 500 subscribers that you get
amazing functionality so you can run your welcome emails.
You can actually do e-commerce through Mailer Lite.
I would say if you are, yeah.
(31:26):
I would say if you are just starting out
and you're either a service provider or a product business
Mailer Lite is a really good shout.
If you've got over a thousand subscribers
you might find that some of the capabilities
particularly around the landing page
which I know that they've literally just updated recently.
You might find some of it maybe a bit limiting
(31:48):
but I would say overall it's a really great place to start
and you get so much for free.
And the support that you get for Mailer Lite is brilliant
like they do respond.
- Well, but I think we can actually say that
about Brevo actually to be fair on them,
their customer support is brilliant as well.
- So those kind of work kits, they will say that
can really be good too.
They have a chat that they'll just
(32:09):
be right on it.
- Yeah, I love that because I hate having to just wait
for someone to get back to me for days
but yeah, Mailer Lite are on it and I think yeah,
there's a lot you can do for free
and I think it's just a very friendly user interface
and it's simple and it doesn't overcompure Kate
(32:32):
so very much my go to for anyone just starting out.
- Yeah, that's very cool.
I've only worked in one Mailer Lite account
and I think like it's sometimes it's really hard as us
who have worked inside all of these different accounts
and we're so used to seeing like all of the bells and whistles.
(32:53):
Mailer Lite to me I think was a little bit harder
for me to navigate because I'm just so used to like
the ease of sometimes these more advanced accounts.
So I was like, oh man, I'm not getting this as quickly
as maybe I would but I think if I was a small business owner
and I didn't like, you know, have all of this other access.
(33:15):
Yeah, I probably would have had a better experience
with Mailer Lite.
- Yeah, I send my emails from Mailer Lite
and I actually feel like you do actually get a lot for free
but also even the first subscription tier
is like nine dollars a month is hardly anything.
So it's a really important thing.
- Yeah.
(33:36):
- All right, well the last and certainly not least
is my favorite ClayVeeo.
That's honestly I'm on ClayVeeo.
I'm a service provider.
So ClayVeeo is typically for e-commerce, right?
It's a very, you know, very good platform for e-commerce
especially if you're on Shopify or WooCommerce, big commerce.
(33:57):
They have really good native integrations
with those platforms and they do work really well with them.
- Yeah, definitely.
So I would say if you're a website, if you're an e-commerce website
and you're on one of those platforms,
you're gonna wanna be on ClayVeeo
over anything else.
But I will say one thing that I like about ClayVeeo is there,
(34:19):
they get when you pay for it.
It's like, I think what you said was it Brevo
or maybe it was Brace where the automations are included
so whatever you pay for, you get all access to everything.
It's not like MailChimp or you have to, oh, Mailer,
it's not like MailChimp or you have to upgrade your spending
(34:42):
to get flows and automations.
ClayVeeo, you do have access to all of that stuff
right away as well.
- Yeah, I actually am working with a client at the moment
who is quite a big user of ClayVeeo
and what I really like about them is their reporting.
- Oh, it's amazing.
- It's really good.
(35:02):
- The benchmarks.
- Yeah, so you look at the benchmarks tab,
I look at that all the time.
- Yeah, so you get something, so benchmarks,
basically they take into account your type of industry
and then they provide you with what others like you
are, how they're performing
and they benchmark your performance against this.
So it can either be a good or bad thing for you,
(35:24):
but you get to see where you're performing.
And just generally speaking, they're reporting
is a really good quality, I think.
- The reporting that you can a one pull
as far as like, you know, CSBs is amazing.
They have a dashboard that you can customize.
(35:46):
And you can put, okay, I wanna watch this flow
and I don't wanna maybe see the conversions
of the flow, I wanna see the click rates
or whatever it is, you can customize the dashboard.
But then also like inside the automations and inside
like the campaigns menu, you do get a good overview
of analytics that is easy to read as well.
(36:07):
I love that you can go inside of a flow
and you can see the individual emails
and like their open rates and click rates
and conversion rates right there and like one snapshot.
And so if a flow is not performing, you can be like,
oh, it's this email and it's the click rate
or it's the open rate, you know,
you can just be like more narrowed in
on like where you can improve.
(36:28):
- Yeah, it's, I would say like it's definitely
one of the best for reporting.
I personally prefer it for e-com type businesses
because of the amazing integration we like Shopify
and other e-com websites.
But yeah, the reporting is high up there
in terms of quality, you get to really see what's going on.
(36:51):
You know, you can really drill into what's going on
with a flow or a campaign and it just helps
you make those decisions.
So if you're kind of, if you're just starting out,
personally, I'd go for mail a lot if you have no list
but if you've got some form of list
and you've got products to sell personally,
I would go for Clavio as a way to really start
(37:15):
to accelerate your sales.
- Yeah, the one thing I like about Clavio is, you know,
you could, I mean, I know like they could start on my,
like if they were e-commerce, they could start on Clavio
and then they could stay there in scale forever
and ever and ever.
That's the one thing I do like.
- Yeah, it might be, yeah.
(37:36):
- Yeah, so you don't have to worry about any migration, you know.
- Yeah, if you're a service provider, I'd say,
and you're starting out, say mail a lot,
I think if you're starting out and you've got Shopify,
then yeah, it makes sense to start on Clavio
and the support is really good.
The chat button, if your stock is really buckets.
(37:56):
I don't know if they, I seem to always get through
if I ever need to see it.
- Oh, thank you back to me within the same day.
Like I have clients who will reach out to me and be like,
Angie, my, you know, such and such button isn't working
and like I end up kind of going back to them
and being like, you'll honestly get faster response
(38:20):
and you'll get someone who will go inside of your account
for free to fix it.
You know, like it's gonna take me a few days to get to this
and I'm gonna have to charge you for it.
Like the support will help you very quickly.
And like, sad for me to get business away,
but that's just the truth of it.
- Yeah, exactly.
It's, I think it's like, you know, like we said at the start,
(38:43):
like really weighing up what's important to you.
If you are someone who wants to response quickly, like I am.
- Yeah.
- Look at the customer services,
the customer support that you get.
I actually found it, we haven't mentioned one today
which are not the biggest fan of his Sengrids
and they actually hired their customer support tab
(39:04):
because they don't want as many people to contact them.
It's so hard to find.
- That's, that's kind of, it's like Squarespace too.
Squarespace has emails and it seems like
they'll do everything in their power
to get you to not contact them.
- I'm not keeping on Squarespace emails.
I've worked with a client that I've been working on.
- Oh, it's horrible.
Don't do Squarespace emails.
(39:24):
- It's all for.
- It's awful.
- But yeah, it's like, customer service, I think,
is important because you want to get to those questions quickly.
You want answers.
You don't want to feel like you're completely on your own.
So.
- And you also don't want a customer service rep
who's gonna be like, go to this article.
This will help you because I hate that
(39:47):
because I've already done that.
And I'm reaching out to you because I don't know what to do.
Your article is not helpful enough.
- Yeah, exactly.
It's frustrating because it feels like, you know, I'm still stuck.
So.
- Yeah.
- Quality of customer support, looking at reviews,
those sorts of things, making sure that you are
(40:12):
signing up to a platform that you really feel comfortable with.
I remember you don't have to stay with them.
If you really, you know, these trials are supposed
to give you an insight into what suits you
is the pricing right for you.
Is it easy to use?
Do you feel like actually overwhelmed?
Like, for example, if you're a small business owner
(40:34):
and you start with braids, I'd say, you're in the wrong car.
Like that's completely, it's like having just passed your test
in getting into a sports car.
Like, it just doesn't make sense.
And you have all these gadgets and buttons
and you don't know what to do with them.
And actually, you don't need them in the start, at the start.
So, I would get into something much more simple
(40:56):
that you would find easy to use in the beginning.
Trust me, it's horrible feeling overwhelmed
if you're buying something and you don't need all of the features.
You're just wasting money.
So, buy something, buy into something
that's right for your business.
- Absolutely.
And then if you have like a gut feeling
(41:16):
that you got into an email account and you're like,
oh, I don't feel comfortable in this.
Or like, this feels intimidating.
Or this feels hard.
Or like, I can see I already have limitations
with the things that I want to do.
Don't be afraid to move over as soon as possible.
If that makes sense for you,
(41:36):
because it's a lot easier to migrate
to the smaller list that you do have, I will say.
- Yeah, I mean, I'm on a project at the moment.
It's taken six months to migrate.
So, it's a much bigger list, obviously.
But you just want to make sure that you are choosing a platform
that really works for you.
(41:58):
And speak to people that are doing similar work to you
and what they use.
But the trials is such a great way to get a feel for the platform.
- Yeah, you really got to get in there.
You really got to get in there.
You got to open it up and you just got to spend
a little bit of time in there.
It'll be well worth it because remember the ROI
of email marketing is what?
$36 to $1.
(42:19):
So, it is well, well worth it to set up
an email marketing account that is going to help
your business scale because that's exactly what it can do.
So that's what we want it to do.
- Yeah, and all of this is absolutely worth it.
It may feel like, oh, God,
I've got to sign up to all these things.
But this is such a crucial way for you to grow your business.
(42:41):
However big or small, even if you already have a list,
this is how you continue to build sales, repeat purchases.
If you are just starting out,
this is a really important strategy for you
to wrap your head around because if you're not thinking
about how you're going to grow your business,
if it's just relying, you know,
(43:02):
we've talked about this before,
but if it's just relying on say social media,
you're limiting a lot of your business potential,
you're stocking yourself from growing.
So even though this may feel like a lot,
it's actually not, it's pick two or three platforms,
trial them for a month, see which one you like,
play around with them,
(43:23):
and then, you know, make that decision.
Don't get choose to call up and not make a decision
after a month, you know, you just want to be
really strict with yourself after a month,
you know, which one am I going to go for?
So hopefully that's been helpful for you all.
We've covered them, we covered quite a few of the main ones
haven't we, Angie?
(43:44):
There are others though.
There's so many.
So sorry if we didn't cover the one year on,
definitely reach out to us to see if we have,
you know, an opinion, if you're still like,
oh, unsure, you know,
either or any other email marketing contractor
is going to be able to give you like some good advice
onto where they think they should be,
you should be because it really does depend
(44:05):
on your particular business,
what you're selling and where you're at.
Yeah, absolutely.
So yeah, I think that's all right.
Thank you, everyone,
and we will see you on the next episode.
Thanks everyone.
Bye.
You've just listened to females across the pond
(44:26):
and beyond podcast with your hosts, Clara and Angie.
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Is there something you want to hear about
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Until next time.
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(44:48):
Thank you.
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