The Transcript

Does Email Marketing Still Work?

Voiceover: Rainmaker FM.

You’re listening to The Digital Entrepreneur, the show for folks who want to discover smarter ways to create and sell profitable digital goods and services. This podcast is a production of Digital Commerce Institute, the place to be for digital entrepreneurs. For more information, go to Rainmaker.FM/DigitalCommerce.

Sean Jackson: Welcome, everyone, to The Digital Entrepreneur. I’m Sean Jackson. I’m joined, as always, by the lovely Jessica Frick. Jessica, how the Frick are you?

Jessica Frick: I’m great. How the Jackson are you?

Sean Jackson: Always well, always well. Jessica, where did we leave off from our last episode? What was the question of the week that we were wanting everyone to ponder?

Is Email Marketing Still Relevant in a Mobile-First World?

Jessica Frick: We were wondering why you were so snarky when it comes to email, Sean. Maybe that was just my question. Okay, the official question is whether email is still relevant.

Sean Jackson: Email marketing, you mean?

Jessica Frick: Yeah, email marketing.

Sean Jackson: Of course not, but I want to hear why you think you’re right. What say you?

Jessica Frick: It’s not what I think I’m right, Sean. It’s why I am right. Email marketing is still very relevant because by definition, marketing not only helps you increase your sales but enhance your relationships with prospects and existing customers, and email can accomplish that.

Sean Jackson: But don’t you think that with every martech product out there centered on email, that with so many people finally cluing in after decades that email marketing is the number one most effective tool online for marketing, that with so many people doing it, don’t you think it’s going to lose its pizzazz, just because there’s so much more going to be flooding in?

It used to be bad with spam, right? We used to have to worry about spam. Now, we don’t worry about spam. We just worry about every single thing that asks for our email address that sends us a weekly or daily email of something. Don’t you think it’s going to lose its relevance just because of the volume?

Jessica Frick: Oh yeah, I think that there are some tricks that are played out. You can’t turn around without trying to access something someone online promised you with a post without having to put your email in. Then you know you’re going to get like 25 emails after this. You just unsubscribe with the first one. There’s so much static right now in the marketplace, which is why I think it’s important that email marketing be done correctly.

I think that you need to be invited. I think that spam obviously is still done even with people who know better. We see it all the time in the space, especially with digital entrepreneurs. That doesn’t mean that it’s okay. When done correctly, I think that it has a tremendous amount of value for a digital business.

Sean Jackson: Yeah, I think it obviously has value. This is something that we’ve grown a whole business from, the strength of our email list. The way that we had people wanting to give us that information. The way that we interact. The way that we put it together. But certainly, everyone else is clued-in on it. Every martech solution out there now has some form of intelligent-based email sending.

I think as more and more people adopt it, then the inbox is going to be cluttered up with a lot of things that are going to pull your attention away to such an extent that you’ll be like, “Crap, whatever you’re sending me, I don’t want to read it because I’m just getting overloaded.” But we’ve always had that.

The Trends in Email Marketing You Need to Consider

Sean Jackson: Let me tell you why I push back on the relevancy. I will say this, I think you used to be able to send an email to an opt-in list — someone who opts-in — and in doing so, because there wasn’t a deluge of quality emails, then it was easier to stand out. I think now for your emails to be relevant, you really have to put a lot more time into them.

It used to be very easy, I think, but now to maintain the relevancy, you’re going to have to spend time. I think it’s going to also have to be a function not only of design because of how many people read email on their mobile device, but I also think you’re going to have to be looking to the future, specifically HTML5 video. Now iOS 10 supports HTML5 video in the email program. Now, maybe your email is a video embedded in the email that you send to somebody. Think about that for a second.

Jessica Frick: That’s definitely an interesting thought, Sean.

Sean Jackson: Yeah, because then they’re talking about carousel design, when you can swipe back and forth. I think with so many people reading email now in a mobile device that you’re going to start to see people trying to stand out. That means that you’re going to have to be even more on the forefront. Or you’re going to have to have a very deep personal relationship with the person that you are giving your email address to.

I’ll give a case in point. A lot of people know we are big fans of Dave Pell and his NextDraft daily email letter that comes out. If you don’t go to NextDraft and sign up right now, you’re missing out. He recaps the day stories. I always learn something new, interesting, thought-provoking — whether you agree with his politics or not. It’s not a political thing, but he is going to cause you to think.

Jessica Frick: And if you think Sean is snarky

Sean Jackson: Yeah, Dave is snarky. But at the end of the day, he has a very intimate personal connection with people because he is writing a curated email newsletter with a personal tone of things that really stand out.

Now, I will say this. There’s days I don’t read him, but I will never unsubscribe. I will always peruse it, whether I go in depth or not. I think it’s going to end up, to be relevant, you’re going to have to be a lot more clever, or you’re going to have to be a lot deeper in meaning. What say you?

Jessica Frick: I completely agree. I love theSkimm, which is daily news roundup, but the way that they market via email is also different. That actually makes me want to ask you a question, which kind of sidesteps our question, but it’s still relevant. You mentioned having video or a carousel design. Do you think that it would make email more irrelevant if your email was more interactive, or is the point still to send them back to your web property?

Sean Jackson: I think if your audience is mobile first — which almost all audiences are not every one of them, but a majority of them are — then I think the more interactive the email, the better. We’re coming to expect that in our mobile experience. I certainly think video, which is still the predominant media content outside of text, that on a mobile device the people consume, I would say that you’re going to have to really figure out a way to stay above and beyond and do it in a meaningful way.

But if your audience is still very old-fashioned, text-based, then I think a more rich email, something much more meaningful, not so long actually. That’s another big trend that’s come around because so much people, at least interacting with email on a mobile device, then they’re going to have to be a lot shorter.

I really think you have to look to your audience, realizing that they, in my opinion, are now not going to have to worry about traditional spam, Viagra and credit scores aside, but really thinking about, “Wow, I’m competing for attention, so maybe I have to really stand out to get their initial attention.” And video, in my opinion, would be one way to really stand out in someone’s inbox on their phone.

If you don’t think I’m right, that’s okay, but I will say this. All the trends that I’ve looked at are pointing to the fact that email is still and is predominantly used in online marketing. With everyone cluing in on it, your messaging is going to have to be strong, which means you’re going to have to work harder at it to stay relevant. How’s that?

Jessica Frick: I think you make some very strong points, and I disagree with you less this week than I have in previous weeks.

Sean Jackson: Ooh, well, then we’re going to have to work on a new topic where we could really battle it out. Because we start agreeing on things? Oh my word, that’s going to be a problem.

Jessica Frick: Yeah, I think that it’s important that the message be heard. So long as it’s done right, email marketing is still relevant, but that ability to do it right, that’s where the secret sauce comes in.

Sean Jackson: I think you’re right, and I think it’s just going to get a little harder to stay that relevant. It’s nice that we’re talking about this because, this week, we actually have Darrell Vesterfelt from ConvertKit as our special guest. They’ve really built their whole company on creating a product that helps with email marketing for bloggers. We’re going to talk a little bit about how they grew their company and the tactics and techniques they did as being an email marketing provider. We’ll have Darrell back after this short break.

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How ConvertKit Grew Its Recurring Revenue to More Than $6 Million in Just Two Years

Sean Jackson: Welcome back from the break, everyone. Jessica, please introduce our special guest for today’s show.

Jessica Frick: Today’s guest is someone I’m very excited to introduce and to hear more from. We have Darrell Vesterfelt, who’s head of sales, growth, and business development for ConvertKit. Darrell has worked to help bloggers and authors establish and grow their platforms for more than 10 years. He lives in Nashville with his golden doodle Cooper.

Darrell Vesterfelt: The important stuff.

Jessica Frick: Exactly. Well, I skipped over a whole bunch of other stuff because, if there’s a golden doodle involved, I feel like that’s important.

Darrell Vesterfelt: Very important. Very, very important.

Sean Jackson: Hey, Darrell, welcome to the show. I want to start off with you explaining what the heck ConvertKit is because you guys really came out of nowhere. In 2015, you got started. Then you got some little success, and then all of a sudden, you guys are everywhere. Give our audience a quick high-level view of what the hell ConvertKit is.

Darrell Vesterfelt: Yeah, ConvertKit is an email marketing software built specifically for professional bloggers. What we mean when we say ‘professional bloggers’ is anybody who’s trying to earn money from creating content online. This tool is built from the brain of our CEO, Nathan Barry, who was using other tools like MailChimp and AWeber to sell his ebooks, courses, and all he digital products online.

He wanted a tool that would just take his business to the next level, so he created ConvertKit for himself and then started inviting his friends to use it. It had a slow growth over the first couple of years, and then just in the last few years, we’ve just really exploded. We’re an email marketing tool specifically for content creators — so bloggers, authors, speakers, content creators, freelancers, coaches, consultants, shop owners. Anybody who’s creating online content trying to earn money, we’ve created the email marketing tool for those kind of folks.

Jessica Frick: Now, I’ve seen you guys grow exponentially over the last couple of years. Specifically, you went from a $100,000 to $500,000 paying users in a year. How did you do it?

Darrell Vesterfelt: Yeah, when I joined up in January of 2016, we are at a $100,000 a month in revenue, which was awesome. Just a really great time to come in to the company. I think I was the eighth employee to join. The biggest change that happened when I’ve joined is that we just put a focus on growth.

When there’s a small company — I think you guys know this because you’ve been there before — everybody focuses on everything. Everybody’s doing customer support. Everybody’s focusing on growth and partnerships, and I was one of the first hires that had a single focus when I joined the company. My focus was, “Hey, let’s increase the number of customers we have. Let’s increase the revenue number.” Like you said, we went from $100,000 to $500,000 a month in revenue in just 12 months. I think it was because we took a very specific focus, so that was the first thing.

But I walked into a very lucky situation for a lot of reasons. The biggest one is that ConvertKit had a very, very specific niche focus. That was huge. I don’t even think that we realized how big of a deal that was at the beginning, but I would attribute all of our success and growth in marketing to that very, very specific niche. If you go to all of our competitors, they’re going to say, “We’re an email marketing tool for small businesses,” or, “We’re a tool for any kind of business,” or whatever it might be.

We’ve always had the phrase, “We are email marketing for professional bloggers.” We’ve gotten pushback after pushback after pushback on that because people will say, “Well, I’m not a professional blogger, so it’s not for me.” We’ve stood our ground in that a little bit because we know that the reason that we’re winning is because we’re creating a tool for very specific person. Because we’re creating a tool and a product...