In this episode of the Ecommerce Podcast, host Matt Edmundson interviews Dan Nikas, a former homicide detective turned marketing expert, about effective email marketing strategies. Dan shares insights on personalizing email campaigns, leveraging Google's conversion window metric, and creating consistent messaging across platforms. Learn how to optimize your email marketing efforts and build trust with customers through strategic touchpoints and tailored content.

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Timestamps:

0:00 Intro

5:46 From detective to marketing maestro

11:36 Building brand uniqueness and authenticity

18:25 Personalising email marketing strategies

27:51 Integrating email with other marketing channels

36:59 Crafting effective email content

42:44 Closing remarks and contact information

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Key Takeaways:

1. Leverage your passion to stand out

Dan emphasises the importance of authenticity in marketing. He suggests that brands should leverage their genuine passion for their products or industry to connect with customers. This authentic enthusiasm can help create loyal followers and set you apart from larger, impersonal competitors.

2. Personalise based on the customer journey

Dan advises tailoring email content to where customers are in their decision-making process. Use data like Google's conversion window metric to understand how long it typically takes customers to convert. Then create personalised messaging that addresses common questions and concerns at each stage of that journey.

3. Keep emails focused on one key point

Dan recommends giving readers "one job" per email. People tend to scan rather than read thoroughly, so focus each email on communicating a single important message or call-to-action. This approach is more effective than trying to cram multiple selling points into a single, lengthy email.

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Matt Edmundson [0:00 - 1:56]: Welcome to the Ecommerce Podcast with me, your host, Matt Edmundson. Now, this is a show all about helping you deliver ecommerce. Wow. And to help us do just that, today I am chatting with my very special guest, Dan Nikas from Elite Brands about one of my favourite topics. Yes, email marketing. We're going to get into that, which is going to be fan dabby Dozy. Now, before we do, let me just say a very warm welcome to you. If this is your first time with us here on Ecommerce Podcast it's great that you've chosen to join us today and hopefully you'll get some insane value from the podcast, enough to hit the like and subscribe button and do all of that good stuff. Share it out there. If you are returning and one of our regular listeners, a very, very warm welcome to you. If you are a regular listener and you haven't connected with me on LinkedIn yet and said, how's it come and do that? I would love to hear from you, hear your story or just reach out to me on social media. I'd love to hear it. Just go find Edmundson, you'll see me and I'm there. So do come and connect. Now, let's talk about today's guest, Dan Nikas, a former cheque this out right, A former homicide detective. We should start a true crime podcast, I feel. A former homicide detective turned marketing maestro. As the founder of a global fitness brand and a meta trainer trainer Dan's unconventional approach to advertising and email strategies drive a 20 to 30% of gear, bunches, revenue and turns heads across the industry. His journey from detective to marketing pro should be the subject of a Hollywood blockbuster. I have no doubt. And so I am very keen to get into this conversation. Dan, welcome to the show, man. Great to have you. How you doing?

Dan Nikas [1:56 - 2:10]: Thank you. What an intro. I'm doing great. Makes me sound more exciting than what I really am. Or maybe I'm going to let everyone down. No, I'm not going to let everyone down.

Matt Edmundson [2:12 - 2:33]: Well, let's hope the coffee kicks in and we manage to pick it up. That's the main thing. Because it's fair to say from your accent, if you can't tell, you're from the land down under, as we like to say, which puts you, well, significantly in front of me in terms of time. 11 hours in front of me. So you're in tomorrow, so you're in the future and I'm in your past if I feel I am.

Dan Nikas [2:34 - 2:37]: And the great news is the world hasn't ended, so.

Matt Edmundson [2:39 - 3:06]: That'S Brilliant. If you could tell me what the lottery numbers are though, that'd be amazing. I've still got time to go get the ticket. Yeah, if you could somehow do that, that would be, that would be fantastic. But welcome to the show, man. I have to say, no doubt many people have said this to you, but you are in, I think, the first homicide detective that we have actually had on the podcast, certainly on the E commerce podcast, talking ecommerce commerce. That's a bit of a switch.

Dan Nikas [3:07 - 5:06]: Yeah. And look, it's a great way, look, it's the truth, but it's also a great way for people to remember who I am and they might forget different bits and pieces about you, but if it just clicks with people, they go, you're the guy that used to be a detective and now you do email marketing or metamarketing, whatever it might be, you've got that brand. It's a good intro. It also helps with, I think, breaking down some barriers and some enormous misnomers about the industry that if you're not from an IT or a marketing background, that this just won't work for you. It's, it's a bridge too far. So I, I, it's, it's a cool story. People remember it, but it also, I articulate to them that in fact, when I left high school, I actually went straight into the police, or pretty much straight into the police academy at 19 years of age, never had a trade, never went to university, no other significant work experience, just casual jobs, part time jobs as a young bloke and then was a police officer and eventually a homicide detective for 17 years. I came out the other end, I got medically retired, came out the other end and the fear is, well, what do I do now? And I tell people about this story because like I said, I don't come from an IT background, I don't come from a marketing background, I wasn't in sales, I was doing a job that was so far removed from this and if I can make it work, then so can you. And that's what I like to emphasise, is that, you know, this is, you can learn this. There's so many resources out there, there's so many podcasts out here now like this one, that anyone can do it. It doesn't matter what background you come from or where you are in the world. As we can tell here, it's 7:00 in the morning for me, 8:00 at night for you.

Matt Edmundson [5:08 - 5:46]: That's really, it's a really good point and I Love it. I, I, because everybody thinks you have to be better than what you are to get started. And it's one of those, isn't it, where actually just getting started makes you better than what you are. It's, it's sort of a really weird, not really weird, but it, it's, it's a truism that's never sort of run out, actually. Just get started, you know, Makes you, makes you a lot better. You know, just start going to the gym or whatever it is to start your econ business, to start your side hustle. Just whatever, whatever it is, just start and see what happens. You know, you don't have to have it all figured out, Gez. None of us did. None of us have actually got it all figured out.

Matt Edmundson [6:08 - 6:09]: Yeah.

Dan Nikas [6:09 - 7:19]: And I'll continue to make mistakes. But that's how you learn. We're in an industry that there's components of it that have been around for a long, long time, but there are also a lot of components of it that are brand new. I mean, look at the advent of AI that wasn't around five years ago. To think that that's now the tool that we're using, it's crazy. So, you know, if you don't make mistakes, if you don't just get started, you're never going to catch up. There's never going to be a perfect time to do it. And I tell my team and a lot of my clients and obviously this isn't to the detriment of brands or tone of voice or marketing or whatever it is, but perfect's the enemy of done. Yeah, some clients, and they'll be like, we want this, we want that and we need this and we need that. And I'm like, you know what? If you just get started, we'll figure out a lot of these things along the way. I'm not saying do a poor job and then just try and fix that. I'm saying let's just get started. We've got a good base here, let's get started and we can evolve from there. And that's sort of how I've adopted my whole strategy online over the years, is that I've just got to get started. There's a new social media platform just Have a go at it. Just get started and you'll figure it out.

Matt Edmundson [7:20 - 7:41]: Yeah, I'm totally with you. I think you've just got to have a go, see what happens. You learn, you learn this when you have young kids, don't you? They just get up, they start walking, they fall over and they, they eventually figure it out. And somehow we forgot the simplicity of that lesson. I feel many times, certainly I have, you know, but it's still quite appropriate.

Dan Nikas [7:42 - 7:44]: Yeah, absolutely, absolutely.

Matt Edmundson [7:45 - 7:59]: That's really good, man. That's really. I love it. It's. It, it's interesting that you, you know, you sort of talked about the homicide thing. The reason you tell people that story is it's memorable and it is. It's one of those things that will stick in people's minds.

Dan Nikas [8:00 - 8:00]: Yeah.

Matt Edmundson [8:00 - 8:29]: For a long time and sort of drawing that connection to email marketing. How important is it then for a brand to have something that makes them memorable, that sticks out from. I appreciate in some respects, as a silly question and as I, as it comes out of my mouth, of course it's important. But let's, you know, you've done it intentionally, you've done it deliberately. How do brands do this? How do they draw that out of them?

Dan Nikas [8:30 - 9:14]: Look, it's about continuous messaging and touch points with people. So there's going to be multiple things that make you memorable to potential clients or potential customers. And it's always going to be more than one thing because there's always more than one thing that motivates your customer. It's usually not just one thing. There could be various things that motivate them to take action or to start working with you or to buy your product or to take up your service. So the key is to have regular, consistent contact with people. That's not always just cheesy. Salesy offers, specials, discounts. It's. You've got to take them through a journey.

Matt Edmundson [9:14 - 9:15]: Yeah.