The Secrets to Retaining Customers With Email Marketing

Welcome to the eCommerce podcast with me, your host, Matt Edmundson, the eCommerce podcast is all about helping you deliver eCommerce.
Wow. Now I am super excited with today's guest, who is Daniel Budai from Budai Media.
And we are gonna be talking about the secrets to retaining customers with email marketing.
But before we jump into that, let me suggest a few, the eCommerce podcast episodes to listen to that are also gonna hit.
This amazing topic of email marketing, try Gabrielle Rapone's, why everything you
know about email marketing can be wrong. That was a great conversation with Gabby, uh, and another one,
my, fantastic conversation with Jessica Totillo uh, about how to
convince customers to buy from you instead of your competition.
Now, this episode is brought to you by the eCommerce Cohort. which helps you to deliver eCommerce Wow to your customers?
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Now all of that said, and without further ado, let's jump into this. Here is my conversation with Daniel.
Intro to Daniel
Well, I am here with the amazing Daniel Budai. Daniel always has a knack for business.
He's always had it. It's it's always been there, but it wasn't until he started learning about marketing
and eCommerce that he truly found. His calling now as a former geology student, can you believe it?
Right? Uh, he never would've guessed that he would've ended up owning a seven figure
marketing agency, Budai Media now, Daniel realized early on that most e-commerce business professionals lacked the skills
to implement emails professionally. Can I get an amen? We all know what he's talking about, right?
And that's why he founded his agency Budai Media with the sole purpose of helping eCommerce brands build strong relationships with customers.
So these days Daniel spends most of his time drinking Americanos , which I, I don't do.
I'm not gonna lie, uh, and running Budai Media. Uh, but when he is not working, you can find him playing, guess what of
all sports, basketball and spending time with his wife and two kids. He is a family man, but he also loves his coffee as well
as traveling around the globe. Daniel. Great to have you on the show. Thanks for joining us. Great that you are here.
Yeah, I'm really happy to be here. And I love the introduction and I love the energy that you really,
you know, everyone can feel. So, yeah, I'm really happy to be here. Oh, good. Thanks man. Yeah, I, I, uh, I dunno what I'd be like if I drank
coffee, maybe it's be a bit too much for the world to handle.
So where are you? Whereabouts in the world? Are you. so at the moment I'm in, uh, Hungary, Budapest mm-hmm . And since COVID, you
know, in the last two years, I was mostly here before I traveled a lot in the US
and, uh, in Asia and actually I'm planning to move to Poland for one month because
I'm really interested in their culture. And, um, yeah, I just want to see Krakow, Warsaw and those cities.
So that's my next plan this summer. Oh, wow. So you, you do like to travel, you do like to get.
um, I would say I'm not like a, you know, crazy digital nomad mm-hmm when
I stopped being the geologist guy. As you said, when I finished the university, I had around half a year
when I traveled like crazy, you know, every week I moved to a different place, but I realized after six months
it's really hard to focus on your business. Yeah. And of course you don't have to, if you don't want to do it, but
I wanted to scale this business. And nowadays I spend at least three, four months in one city in the last
two years, actually here in Budapest. And, uh, yeah, but I still like traveling I'm and I'm
planning to do it in the future. Yeah. Very good. Very good. So how did you go from being a geologist to a email expert?
Daniel's journey into eCommerce
What was that journey? Cuz that's not, that's not standard textbook, is it? It's not written in any sort of career progress manual that I've come across!
Yeah. Yeah. So I also have my podcast, the e-comm show, and I always ask these questions from the guests.
From older guests, because I can hear so many interesting stories and here's mine. So I studied geology and earth sciences here in Budapest, in
Hungary for almost six years. And I finished my Master. And back then, around the oil prices dropped mm-hmm and
quite the opposite then now. And, uh, it was really hard to find a job with geology and
find a job in the oil industry. So, okay. I was like, let's try to, you know, make some money and let's enjoy what I do.
Um, so actually my first job after university was a call center job.
I was a customer support agent and I oh, wow, really hated that work, you know? Yeah.
So I spent there seven months, but at the same time, in my spare time, I,
uh, started learning copywriting and I got a few small clients through Upwork.
This is how I started out. And then I was lucky enough to quit my job after seven months and I
could get bigger and bigger projects. And at some point I realized that copywriting is fun.
I really like it. I think it's the core of marketing and understanding psychology and, you
know, marketing, but ultimately just not for me, I prefer building a team
or, uh, thinking about strategy also. I'm not a natively speaker, so.
You know, it would take a lot of my time to pick up all of those skills.
And I just decided to hire copywriters and I started delegating the job and
focusing on sales and managing my people. Mm-hmm and then I think this was around and what I also realized
is, what if instead of just copywriting, we create the whole strategy.
We build the whole strategy for businesses. Mm-hmm . At the same time, I got contacted with a really big eCommerce business.
It, I think, I think nowadays it's a mid eight figure eCommerce business. And back then it was huge for me.
And we started working together and just naturally I started, you know,
emerging into eCommerce more and more. And yeah, I, I, you know, after like one, two years, I could see
that, okay, I can hire people. I can manage them. Um, eCommerce is fun and it's a really profitable business
for, for everyone basically. Uh, you, you know, you can scale it quickly.
If you have the right people. So just naturally I niche down into eCommerce. I hired people in like two years.
Oh, wow. And by I think we had almost people, few people left and
yeah, now we are actually, at some point we had more than people. Now we scaled a bit back to mm-hmm and clients around clients.
And that's where we are now. So fantastic. Still, e-commerce not just email marketing, but retention, marketing.
So we help clients with loyalty programs, SMS marketing,
even physical mail sometimes. So that's what we do nowadays. Yeah. Yeah.
Fantastic. Well, I, I. That's quite coincidental because the two topics we are gonna be talking about
today, uh, we're gonna get deep dive into this, um, retention marketing. I think the title of the podcast this week is the secrets of retaining
customers with email marketing. So we're gonna get into all of that. I also want to grill you a little bit, uh, um, Daniel, about how, you know, uh,
how you grew your business and the lessons that you've learned, I guess, in that. Um, because I think scaling rapidly scaling is something that I think a
lot of our listeners are gonna, you know, if they're in eCommerce and their business rapidly grows, I think there's some something to learn there.
So we're gonna get into that, but first let's get into this whole, uh, retention, uh, retaining customers.
Retaining customers with email and SMS
So you talked about doing that with email, with SMS. Um, is that something then that you've evolved into over the years.
Um, that your agency has been growing, that you've sort of got more and more into this whole retention, uh, specialty.
Definitely. So at the beginning I started with email copywriting mm-hmm and for mostly for eCommerce businesses.
And then, uh, what I also realized is that, okay, email is, is a great marketing channel, but what if we go maybe one level higher and we think a bit
more holistically about the eCommerce. and that's why we started doing, uh, SMS marketing messenger marketing.
And I think the logic behind those channels is really similar to email mm-hmm and direct response marketing ultimately, and also loyalty programs.
So we focus on retaining the customers. And also we just recently we started measuring metrics such as
average time between two orders. Customer lifetime value, historic lifetime value, and future certain
tools can help you with this. Um, for example, Klayvio and really measuring these metrics
and reporting to the businesses. So they will know how much they can spend on ads on the front
end side to acquire one customer. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And I think, especially small e-commerce businesses, they ignore these numbers
and they don't have this mindset and that's where we come in place and we can educate them and help
them. So the customer lifetime value, the historic lifetime value. And another one you mentioned there was the average time between transactions.
Um, mm-hmm and, uh, different people call this different things, don't they? But one of the things that interests me about this is, um, this is
one of those metrics that I think has been hidden for a while. Uh, people have not really talked about the average time
between transaction that much. Uh, but if you're in a business that, that thrives on repeat customers,
Yeah, which fundamentally is a great eCommerce business to be in then tracking this metric, I think, starts to become quite important.
Average time between transactions
What is the average time between transactions? What have you noticed? Um, or what insights have you gained, I guess from just looking at that single
metric, what does it tell us when we, when we do start to measure it? Hmm. Yeah. So, as I said, we are still in the early phases, but just yesterday we had a
call with our account management team. They ask the same question, like, okay, Danielle, we are measuring
it, but why, how should we use it? I think one guy asked this in the team because you know, reporting is,
is good and, you know, sometimes we can have a big ego on numbers like I'm able to measure this pretty cool, but why should we measure this?
Yeah. Um, what decisions can we make based on these numbers? That's the ultimate question.
And we went through these numbers. I think customer lifetime value is crucial to know how much you
can spend on your, on traffic. Sorry, customer acquisition.
Yeah. I think the prime example is Starbucks where one coffee is, I don't know,
four, $something like that, but there customer lifetime value
is more than $so, Wow, I did not know that that's insane.
I think that's a prime example and. I think that, um, returning customer rate is, you know, close
to %, like %, or once you go to Starbucks, you will come back.
Even if you hate Starbucks, because sometimes you just need a coffee quickly. So, um, you know, but, um, I would say if it's an extreme
example, but AOV is like $$Lifetime value is $and Starbucks really knows this.
So they know that they can spend one, two K to acquire one customer.
That's totally fine because they will get this money back later. Mm-hmm so I think that's the ultimate example.
And, uh, I think most people, they would be happy to have a brand like Starbucks,
um, smaller businesses, smaller brands they don't have this huge difference between the AOV and the lifetime value.
Mm-hmm but still, uh, let's say your AOV is bucks. Your lifetime value is $then that's five times more and you become
more confident to spend more on ads. Yeah, customer, let me just clarify.
Actually, if you're listening to the podcast and you're like, what is AOV? If you're new to eCommerce, AOV just stands for average order value.
That's the amount that an average person typically spends when they're on your website. So, um, sorry to interject there.
Daniel, just clarifying terminology. I think it's important. Yeah.
Um, yeah. So that's lifetime value and then average days between orders.
I think it's really interesting to see different segments, especially on an email list.
For example, I think yesterday we checked the US pet brands, um, and the whole
list they had something like days. Between two orders on the average, the whole email list, which was
more than two hun people. Mm-hmm but the VIP list, which was only a few thousand people,
the average days between two orders, it was like days. Yeah. Which is times different and that's, you know, huge difference.
And, uh, if the business really needs money quickly, then they should target the VIPs first.
Yeah. They buy really frequently. So yeah, no, that's very true.
And actually, I think it informs your marketing efforts. Not just that, I mean, I I understand that customer lifetime value helps
inform how much I can spend on customer acquisition or CAC, the cost of customer acquisition, isn't it.
Or customer acquisition costs. Uh, if you're new to e-commerce, you'll find there's a lot of three letter, three letter acronym, just all over the place.
We just like to use them all over the place. Um, and CAC is probably my favorite one, given what it means here in the UK.
Um, but, um, but yeah, you, you know, you've got these sort of these, these metrics over here, but this.
Uh, days between transactions, I think is a really interesting metric from a marketing point of view, because actually, if you go, if you're a business and you're
saying, well, typically it takes days to get someone to buy a second order. What can I do to get that to be days?
What can I do to get that to be days? Um, because you're selling to existing customers and you're trying to increase
the frequency, uh, at which they buy. And I remember, I remember sitting down in a meeting.
Well, I was in a conference led by the copyright genius actually, uh, called Jay Abrams.
This was a long time ago. This was maybe year, not years ago. I'm not that old. Geez.
Um, but it was This was years ago. Right. And I'm setting in this conference and he said, there's only three ways that
you can grow your business and it's always stuck with me said, number one, you can increase the amount of customers that you have customer acquisition.
We like to call it now, number two, you can increase the amount each customer buys from you, average order value.
And number three, you can increase the frequency with which they buy from you. As in, you know, you can increase the, uh, you can reduce your
days down to the days. And I think. it's for me, it's one of those untapped marketing potentials.
Isn't it just to look at that number and segment customers and go, well, these guys order between and days, but these guys order between and a hundred
days, what, what do I need to do to get them to be within the days guys? And thinking about that, I think is a really interesting idea.
And it opens up some really interesting opportunities. Is that what you guys were doing yesterday?
um, yeah, so actually let's introduce one more, uh, acronym, which is, uh, RFM.
Yeah. Because you just, I think you just talk about it, like, uh, recency frequency and monetary.
Yeah. These three. Yeah. And I think that's huge. It's really powerful, but I talked to a few industry experts on this and
I think it's useful about subscribers. So if you have a big list and smaller brands, I think they don't need this kind.
I, I, the mindset is good. Definitely. They should think about it, but they shouldn't measure it too, too much, you know?
Um, it's just enough to know the lifetime value or start calculating that maybe average days between orders.
Yeah. But I think that's enough. And once they get to you know, higher level, let's say they have
multiple hundreds of thousands of subscribers, even millions., Then they definitely need this RFM segmentation.
That's you just mentioned, I know tools that can measure it quite well, and
they can segment the customers based on this, like people who buy not frequently
once a year, but then they buy, I don't know, $worth of product.
Which is a high number for most stores. So, or, or people who buy frequently, but low value or maybe the window shopper.
So you can create a lot of segments. But the other side of the equation is don't over complicate things.
and, uh, which we have a tendency to do. I, I, I have to exactly.
I know because we tried it with a few clients, this RFM segmentation, and I
could see it's just too early for them. So yeah, we, we tried to still, you know, keep things simple.
Mm-hmm so. That's my cents on this. No, it's good. I mean, I, I have to be honest with you.
We use RFM segmentation with our customers. Mm-hmm um, on our eCommerce websites. And I think it's really insightful, uh, the information it gives you, but we,
we have a lot of customers and we can, you know, we can extract some meaningful data, but I, I do think the principles of grow your customers grow the average
order value and increase the frequency in which they buy as marketing ideas are,
are sound, Do you know what I mean? And, and, and they, they do make sense and you can track those three things.
You don't have to go to the expense of some, uh, RFM segmentation software yet,
but you should be aware of them, uh, I think, and, and, and, and track them. So what tools can we use to track things like customer lifetime value,
Tools to track CLV and other metrics
average order between average time between orders and stuff like that?
So we use, we used reveal before. and I think we already discussed this earlier, uh, and is really good.
We are really happy with it. And I also know that, uh, they use it with a few big like enterprise
level companies, like DACA loan in Romania and those companies, they have millions of subscribers.
Mm-hmm so it's, it's a really solid tool to use. We use Metrio or Metrilo with one skincare company.
They are smaller on Shopify, but they are big on Amazon. Yeah. So I think that email list is a few tens of thousands of people.
Mm-hmm , but these guys, since they already have a big Amazon business, they,
they are, uh, they are new on Shopify, but they are not new to eCommerce. So they really started the business, the Shopify business
with a really good mindset. And they wanted to measure these metrics, uh, from the first day.
Yeah. So we use these. I would say these two, and then we also use Google analytics to get certain data.
We can get cohorts from analytics, but, um, honestly to it, it took a lot of time
to get the right data up from analytics and also analytics will change soon.
Yeah. So change it again. Yeah. Yeah. I would say this to and material, if you want to get started with
RFM. No. Great, great. And we will, of course link to both of those in the show notes. If you wanna get hold of them, um, we are gonna, I tell you what I'm gonna do now.
Don't go anywhere. We're gonna be right back in just a few seconds where Daniel, I gonna carry on our conversation and get into some of the specifics about what
we can do to build customer loyalty. Uh, don't go anywhere. We'll be back in just a few.
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We were talking before the little break there that, um, you know, about RFM segmentation, about tracking certain, uh, ideals and metrics, which is great.
And what, so we've, we've got our metrics in place, which we are tracking those. What are some of the things that I can do then to implement, um, using, you know,
How to implement retention strategies on email and SMS
The strategies, which you use day in, day out with email, SMS and messenger. I think the three you mentioned mm-hmm what are some of the insights
and strategies we can use then to, um, build, uh, customer loyalty,
increase our customer attention? Yeah. Great question. So I think it also depends on the, a AOV for sure.
And also what niche you are in. So there are certain industries, but, but it's really hard to
build on loyalty. So let's say expensive jewelry or furniture companies that, uh, the average
days between two orders, it's really high. It's a high number. You know, you don't buy a k, um, necklace every second week, obviously.
So, um, first week, you know, we have to take this into account. I think where's crucial is, uh, consumable.
And, uh, I think around % of our clients, they also sell consumables.
So baby products, pet products, food, uh, fashion, skincare, beauty brands, hair care.
Yeah. All of these. And, uh, I think their loyalty is crucial.
So first of all. I think everyone should think about using less discounts because , I think
it's just so you know, it's, it's so mainstream and in a negative way.
So yeah, nowadays consumers, they are smart. So not just marketers, but many people they know if they just abandon
the cart, they will get a discount. Yeah. Within one day. Yeah. People are smart.
And, um, there are much better ways to, you know, to either get
more subscribers or get, uh, more loyal customers and subscribers. So you can try something like a free sample product.
Mm-hmm, , I'm a really big fan of it. And what I can see is that, uh, pop-up subscription rates are almost double,
sometimes triple if you have a free sample mm-hmm and I know it takes some investments, so maybe a new business cannot afford this, but once you
get some traction and the good cash flow, then you can think about it. My, uh, favorite example is, uh, Lumin skincare.
It's an Australian company. I also use the product and if you go to the website, you will, you can get
a free product sample mm-hmm . And I think you can even pick from. Different products.
Yeah. Based on your skin type, I think. Yeah. So that's really smart. People love those.
Um, yeah. So yeah. Free, free sample. I would say that's the best really?
Um, yeah, we did that. We did that with Jersey company. The.
Which was a website. I sold one of my e-commerce businesses I sold, but we did that. If you, if you came to our website, you could just order free samples.
You didn't even need to order a product. We did charge I think, a minimal fee for shipping and handling, but it was
really interesting, you know, the people that came and ordered the free samples, half of them were a waste of time. And I mean, this would all due respect.
A lot of them were just freebie hunters, uh, which is why we actually started to charge for shipping and handling to just reduce the freebie hunters.
Yeah. Um, Then the other thing we started to do was the sort of, um, the
tester packs where you paid, like, I don't know, a minimal fee, like five bucks for, you know, a tester pack.
But if you ordered from us, um, you got the $you know, we gave you a five pound gift voucher to spend on the website.
Um, and we, we tested both those things and the free sample thing worked really, really. Really well, yeah, very high converting.
And then as long as your email sequence afterwards was good, which we'll get into, you know, um, they, they converted quite well.
And how did you recognize the, the hunters, the gift hunters?
You just, it's one of those, isn't it? You J because somebody's purchased from you a sample pack, a purchase from you
or ordered from you, a sample pack. You just have no idea about that person, what you could tell um, uh, was you
could, you could track say, uh, let's say you were running paid media, a paid
media campaign, like a Facebook ad to that free sample to generate new leads.
Um, you could test which ads brought in the best customers, you know, and which, which audiences bought in the best customers.
And so you could track those kind of things, which was really helpful. Um, and we found that actually, if somebody put, um, Somebody came across
it and they would share their, the link to, um, I don't know, like mum's
net or some kind of forum like that. Um, then depending on the forum that they posted it on would also depend
on the quality of customer that you would get as a, as a result of it. But we just solved the problem by just charging a fee of like, I
think it was like three pounds, two pounds, pounds, something like that for a shipping and packaging.
And so that solved most of the issues right there. That's a good tactic, indeed.
Yeah. So not completely free, but almost. Yeah, but almost, you know, the product itself was free.
We just decided to pay shipping and handling, but we didn't charge like bucks shipping and handling because that would just be outrageous.
Do you know what I mean? It was like a minimal fee, but enough to stop the, and we tested different levels to stop the, you know, the freebie hunters.
Customer loyalty and Book recommendation
yeah. Speaking about loyalty because this, this is just a small part of it. So I really recommend the book to everyone, which is
never lose a customer again. Okay. I just, I just had the author, Joey Coleman in our, uh, podcast
and more, more will come with him. But I think I should keep that secret now.
So yeah. He's a great guy. Yeah. He, he is really, I think.
Probably he's the, one of the best in the world when it comes to loyalty, customer loyalty. Um, and it's not just about software or whatever, but psychology,
like how this works and yeah. So check out that book.
I really recommend that. And besides you can use tools such as JPO stem Dota.
My favorite is loyalty lion, which is actually a UK company. and those are all great to create VIP tiers for, for your most loyal customers.
They can, uh, you know, collect their points and they can use them in a, in different creative ways.
You can also connect this with SMS and play view. Mm-hmm with email marketing, so you can set up different smart flows to
communicate with your loyalty members. And yeah, so about tracking, you can also track the numbers that actually
these guys, they are really valuable. They are times more valuable than your average customer, and
you can see why it's so important. So these are the best tools that we use.
And I would say, try to come up with creative ideas, how to
retain those loyal customers. And don't just use discounts, but. , you know, I think big brands are actually pretty good at this
like Nike Adidas. They offer you even live meetings.
Uh, if you hit certain points, I know brands who, who do it. I think Jim shark is going into this direction as well.
So. Try to be creative and, uh, come up with great offers and you can
steal ideas from these big brands. So what are some of the things that you, I mean, you've mentioned the free samples thing.
More retention strategies
Um, what are some of the other ideas that you've seen work really well? That are what you'd call.
Well, they're just not discounted basically. They're a bit more creative. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
I will be honest. So actually my team know, knows it better. Um, yeah, if you want, I can send you a short list, uh, of, of the best
ideas, but I think everyone should be really conscious about their brand and
their audience and what they offer. Yeah. So, yeah, and even can work out pretty well.
If you can manage that, uh, we mentioned free sample and, uh, Yeah.
I know someone who holds, uh, Facebook lives mm-hmm and uh, people can
participate in the Facebook live. Yeah. Or even ask questions. It's a keto brand.
Yeah. So these are just a few ideas. Yeah. Yeah. That's fascinating. I'm seeing this live streaming thing more and more, and they're starting
to call it live selling now, which is, or live commerce, which, it's gonna
be an interesting thing coming out. So, um, what sort of, what sort of things could I use, um, with emails, for example?
How to use email to build customer loyalty
So how do I can, how can I use my emails to build customer loyalty? Mm-hmm
. . Yeah. So first of all, I would, uh, recommend everyone that you should have solid email flows cause automations, they usually have higher revenue
per recipient than campaigns. Mm-hmm because flows are triggered by certain behaviors.
So it's not just automated, but the targeting is solid. Like, yeah, it it's, it's hard to achieve something similar with
campaigns within my campaign. And, uh, build the right type of flow.
So everyone needs a new customer flow, have a separate flow for new customers,
make it long with many emails and just try to introduce your brand to them.
Um, you can also send them some instructions how to use the product,
especially if it's a more complex product, maybe furniture mm-hmm If it's a t-shirt probably you shouldn't do it.
And then to put in a T. Yeah. Maybe how, how to wash the t-shirt.
Yeah, maybe that's a better one. Yeah. Yeah. so, yeah, you never know.
Um, what we also do once they get the product, then, uh, we send them
a survey and we try to upsell more. Uh, and then we collect the fresh customer reviews and you can
send it out as an email campaign. Mm-hmm and actually it converts really well in most.
And then have separate flows for your VIP customers where, you know,
it's more warm hearted, let's say. And, uh, you can even ask their opinion about your products.
Like what do you think about our products and not just product, but okay. What do you think?
How should we become an even better business brand? Uh, how, what direction should we set, uh, with our product development?
So, uh, VIP flow and then you can set up different flows for, for, you know, in
connected with your, with your loyalty program, like redeem your points. This is how you can use them or refer us to a friend.
Um, so there are different flows for, for loyalty as well. Yeah.
Yeah. That's very good. I mean, and they're all. I mean, all the stuff you've mentioned, there is all fairly straightforward setup.
Isn't it? In systems like Klayvio or active campaign or, um, you know, whatever platform you
use, I think MailChimp do them as well. Um, but there, do you have an email platform of choice?
Daniel's email platform of choice
I mean, you've mentioned Klayvio a couple times. Is that the one that you use? Yeah, Klayvio %.
In the past, we worked with some merchant. We tried, I think at least five other platforms.
Mm-hmm we tried drip internally. We use HubSpot for BB and then sand grid, I think.
Yeah. But still Klayvio is our go to choice. Yeah. So if youre an e-commerce then Klayvio yeah, yeah,
yeah. It's actually, we're using Klayvio at the moment. Um, and it's, I've just got my through my first.
little while of using them. We we've tried a whole bunch of other ones and I, and the other one I like is Omni send we've had, we have Omni send on the podcast, actually the
guys from there and they, they do it. Great. Yeah. Cause they integrate also with SMS messaging don't they? Omni send. Yeah.
Um, does Klayvio integrate with SMS or is it just email only for those that don't know,
So Klayvio can do SMS as well. However, we tend not to use it.
Mm. And we use other tools like SMS bump, pre card post, because
there are certain limitations. So I think it's still only available in, uh, English speaking countries.
So not in France, Germany, right. Or, you know, other European countries.
Um, that's one limitation also. I think campaigns could be better.
Um, Yeah, I, my go to choice would be recard now, but this landscape
changes almost every month. So before we use SMS bump with most clients, now we prefer recard.
So yeah, it's, it's always about the features, I would say. Yeah, I'm not envy of these guys to be honest because they, they,
it's a kind of rat race, you know, Yeah, it is. And they're always trying to like out do each other on features aren't they
and the latest thing and, um, yeah. And what happens. And then of course, apple come along and screw everything up
with some latest iOS change. And then it's like, oh, back to drawing board again. Thanks guys. Yeah. Um, , we've seen that.
Uh, we've seen that a lot. So, um, so that's, I mean, there's some top tool tips there and we
will, of course put the links to those tools in the show notes. If you want to know those in terms of, um, I get that, that you
know, that we need to, in terms of customer loyalty, we, we, we want
to increase our average order value. We want to increase our lifetime value. We want to increase the, or decrease the amount of days between transactions
increase their order frequency. Uh, and we want to be creative in doing this. We don't just wanna keep giving discount after discount after discount,
because that's just never a great way to win long term with e-commerce. So I've gotta set up my email sequences and my, um, or flows as you
called them where a certain action is gonna trigger a certain event. And I've got, I've got these different, uh, emails, uh, all set up, um,
all the different flows working. And there's, you know, we've talked about flows a lot on the podcast. Um, And a flow could be anywhere from probably three
emails up to maybe about seven. I think it depends on you and your brand, I suppose. Um, what sort of things, should I be thinking about in terms
of design of those emails? Because I tell you what, um, the flows I get, like we've got
a, a, a vegan supplement brand. Vegetology one of our, our websites. I understand the, the flows that I have to send to customers to make that work.
Right. I I've got my head around it, I guess. What sort of, how should I lay it out?
How to design email campaigns
How should I design it? I dunno if you've got any thoughts on that? Yeah, that's a really important question.
And, uh, I can see people fighting over this topic , you know?
Yeah. We should definitely. Yeah. Yeah. Especially when it comes to designers and copywriters.
So yeah. Um, I would say it really depends, and I know everyone has this answer, but
let me give you some insights on this. You know, what we can see is that many times plain text emails, without
any design, they convert amazing especially if it's a warmhearted email. Yeah. From the CEO when I started my career, I used these emails a lot, you know,
um, I made up some story that I'm traveling to a conference now and I have
half an hour to give you a discount. mm-hmm I remember those emails in the early days and they converted really well.
Yeah, but what we realized after a while. So, you know, there are fashion brands, skincare brands, all of these gym brands,
let's say where design gym shark is a really good example, I think, or Nike.
So their design is crucial because this is what sells. It's not about the copy. It's not about how you write the email.
Of course it's important, but that's a really small part of it. Design is the most, I.
So I think the business owner and the, the marketers in the team should know,
okay, what really sells these products? Are we design focused or more like copywriting focus?
And probably, I would say most brands, they should be copywriting focused because direct response just works.
You know, if you are a good copywriter, you will sell your products. Yeah, but there are those cases when it's a lifestyle brand or there is
some reason for that, then design becomes much more important than copy. So you just, maybe let's, uh, talk about an example.
So you just mentioned this, uh, vegan brand that you have, and, uh, I'm curious,
what do you think about this brand? Like, is it design focused or more like, you know, good offers.
Good copy. Uh, if I'm honest with you, Daniel, I'm trying to do all of it.
Uh, I'm trying to, what I've, what I can tell you is we do the emails where they're very well designed.
Um, And it's, it's hard to make, um, a tablet look pretty right.
Is, is so, you know, you have to do the lifestyle shots and the lifestyle photography. Um, but one of the things that I do like to do, although I, I, I
don't actually make up the stories. I, as the MD of that company, I do like to email just a plain text email.
Okay. And, um, or at least a minimal email, you know, like a, a with very minimal graphics, like.
Here's an update or here's something, you know, and, um, whenever
I've sent those out, certainly with our existing customers, you always always get an overwhelming response in terms of, because it
it feels like a normal email. Yeah. Normal. As in, it's not a promotional email, there's no real heavy graphics in there.
People respond, people just hit the reply button and they, they answer you, whatever question you've asked, Do you know what I mean?
And they, yeah. And it starts to engage them in a conversation. Um, and I actually really like that to the point where, um, I've said to the
team, I'm like, how do we do that more? Really? Yeah. But if you, but if you did only.
It's a good question. Isn't it? It is a really good question. Could we do just something like that?
Uh, I dunno if I'm that brave, if I'm honest with you. yeah, yeah, yeah. Or, or let's let, let me ask you differently.
So, uh, why do you do the nice design emails? I think it's I, again, I like to mix it up.
And so, um, if we have, for example, a new product, uh, which comes out on,
uh, so we're just about to launch, um, a sleep tablet, for example, mm-hmm,
, it's something that helps with sleep. Yeah. And so, um, You want something that is well, you know, good copyright,
but I think also your, your showing as well as telling aren't you, and I think a picture paints a thousand words in situations like that.
And so for me, some kind of lifestyle photography, even just somebody sleeping in a bed soundly, it implies so much that just from that single picture, you
know, so, um, we would, we would use
uh, images when, when we feel like it helps enhance the story. Makes sense.
Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Actually then, uh, I think what you're talking about this, you
know, picturing how the product works, what, what's the benefit. That's also quite direct response because if you think about even the old direct
response ads, they had images or yeah. Or drawings, they were really similar, but they had a purpose, which.
Showing how the product is used. Why, why it's good to use it. It's not because it's nice or whatever.
So, yeah, I think, uh, you know, if you can see this, then maybe you
could try that, okay, this month we will send more plain text emails. Next month we will try more design emails and then just
change the ratio, um, of those. And.
Yeah. After five minutes for me. Uh it's it sounds like you should try more, um, copy based and you can use
images, but it's not a bad, nice design. It's not like Gym shark. So yeah, that's what I would try for.
Yeah, no, I, I totally agree. And it's something on our, on our roadmap to do, because I think, um, the simplicity of those emails just encourages conversation and,
and that's actually quite nice. Mm-hmm and so. um, yeah, that's all, it's funny.
Isn't it? How these things come and go, you know, right at the beginning, I remember all you could do was plain text emails.
Yeah. And then we started doing HTML emails and they became all graphic space and everyone loved them.
And then we could put video and emails and, and now it's coming back round. So it's like, actually it's understanding the right tool for the right job.
At the right time. Right? So, uh, listen, I, I think we could keep talking about this, but one
Daniel's key lessons learned in building and growing a business
thing that I did say we would touch on, um, that I, I, I wanted touch on because I'm aware of time is just.
the fact that you built an agency quite rapidly to, um, you know, and had to hire
a whole bunch of people quite quickly. Um, and you know, you started yourself as a freelancer on Upwork.
Uh you've I'm guessing you have gone and recruited people from places like Upwork in your agency.
Um, so what is somebody's listening to the show? Their business has grown in scale. And what are some of the key lessons that you've learned?
sure. So first of all, hiring is, is crucial.
Hiring is a kind of inverted sales or inverse sales.
Many people say not many, but. Think Alex homos said this, actually. And I really like this quote because you are hiring clients as an agency,
but you are so, or sorry you are. Yeah, you are acquiring clients basically to increase your business, but also
on the other side, you need people who deliver the work and you also. Acquire them.
So it's, it's, you know, and it's also about people. So sales and hiring is pretty close to each other.
Um, always look for talent people. They always look for clients, but they don't always look for talent.
And I think that's a huge mistake. Um, and what I just realized recently, and yeah, I think this is huge.
So people come first, like it's not about strategy, not about marketing,
not about copywriting, but people because good people, they can create good strategy marketing copywriting.
So, you know, it's really about people in your team and get being connected
with good people, talented people. Um, I, I think those are my recent.
Learnings, but of course along the way, I learned a lot of things. Um, I, I learned, um, I, I read a lot of books about management and leadership.
I think I read more than books on this topic. Wow. So I, I really like this topic, actually.
I'm thinking about, uh, making a course or some kind of mentorship program or whatever.
I really enjoy teaching this. Yeah. Uh, topic.
Also, I think it's undervalued, you know, like you can find a lot of marketing courses everywhere, but you cannot find any about creative management
or good leadership in eCommerce. So, yeah. Um, I would say, yeah, these, these are the few takeaways.
Um, I can get more specific if you want. No, I think it's interesting. Isn't it?
Because I, um, I know you've got your podcast, the ecom podcast, which is a great podcast and everyone should go and subscribe to it.
And again, we'll link to that and show. And in fact, uh, it's, I've been on your podcast. It's not great because I've been on it.
I irrespective , it's a, it's a great show. One of the things that I found Daniel, and I dunno if again you found the same
thing, when you go onto other people's shows, right, and they interview on
their podcast, they want to know things like, we want to know, like, how do I do emails that increase customer loyalty, but as I've done today,
I'm like, well, hang on a minute. There's also this other side. There's also this other story. Um, in terms of your you've had to rapidly scale and grow your business.
Well, that's not really eCommerce, but that's stuff we definitely want to know about because yeah, we're facing similar sort of stuff in our own business.
And so, um, I find it fascinating, know this whole idea of leadership and challenges and how you deal with them and like you, the whole thing intrigues me.
And I'm, I'm not doing a course on it. We're actually starting a second podcast. But by the time this episode comes up, that may well be started.
I don't know. Um, but where do you go to find good people?
Because that, I think that's one of the key questions people have is like, how do I go and hire group, it's great to go and get talent, but where do I find?
Sure. So as you mentioned, I started hiring on upward because that's how
I got hired as well at the really. and then we had the chance to work with, uh, I will mention her name.
So, so Angela Muong she's from South Africa, but she lives in California or?
Yeah, I think she lives there now. Mm-hmm, , she's a big traveler and, uh, she's amazing with, uh, with hiring.
So I think her professor was, uh, cheeks and MI high and he
wrote the book flow, which is a really well known psychological. So she, she is, you know, she's really good with hiring and with, with people.
And she helped us at the, at the beginning. And then we started using LinkedIn ads to find good talent.
Just recently last year we started looking into more niche platforms
like designers, B hands and dribble mm-hmm and then developers.
I think that is a Shopify platform just for Shopify devs. And, uh, yeah, we just, you know, indeed I think in the us it's huge.
So we just started looking into more platforms and uh, now we use all of them and our
HR guy, uh, our head of culture. That's how we call him. So he takes care of the whole process.
But what I would recommend to everyone is that try to have a person in your
team who is your head of culture, your HR person, and, uh, someone who really takes care of the teams, mental health a bit as well, not just
hiring and, uh, yeah, I think that's, that's really, really important area.
That's actually really, really important, uh, who looks after the team's mental health, because it's, it is becoming a bigger and bigger issue.
Um, and definitely one, we need to get involved with one of the things that I like about what you've said, and it's kind of like a bit of an under current you've,
you've mentioned it a couple of times is whenever you want to know something, you tend to go and find an expert in that field and either
get them onto your podcast or work with them in some kind of mentorship.
um, is that kind of one of your life philosophers? Like, let me go and learn from other people.
Yeah, I think that's really important because it can speeds up the learning process. So if you have to learn everything by yourself, it it'll take a lot of time.
And, uh, it's interesting because I just talk to a guy who, who is more successful than me in business, let's say, and he learns everything by himself.
And I'm really curious where we'll, we will be in Yeah, so it's possible, but it's really hard and you must be smart.
Learn quickly, all of that. So I'm a bigger fan of, uh, hiring people or if you cannot hire at least
to hire a consult and then that person will tell you the of that area.
Yeah. Because if you have to dig out the information yourself and learn it by yourself, that takes the most time.
So. Yeah, no brilliant. I like it. I like the, uh, you, you come across Daniel as a very humble guy, actually.
And I quite like that. And, and the willingness to learn from other people is a, is a good sign of that. So, um, listen, thank you for being on the show.
Thank you for sharing your wisdom and insight. If people wanna reach out to you.
Connect with Daniel
People want to connect with you? How do they do that? What's the best way. Yeah. So check out our website, the budaimedia.com.
And I ask you to put the link into the description because Budai is my name and I know it's difficult for some people.
We also have our Facebook group it's, uh, top written top eCommerce retention, marketing.
You can find it. And I think these, these two are the main channels, the two main ways. So the, the website, Budai the Budai Media group, which is B U D A I, if
you wanna know how to spell it and the, the Facebook group and like dang requested, we will, of course put all of those links in the chat, man.
Our show notes, just gonna be full of links this week. It's just one. Uh, of links, but you can get that, uh, full free at the
website, uh, eCommercepodcast.net. Um, Daniel just quickly tell folks about your podcast.
Sure. So the e-com show and I launched it almost two years ago. I think we will have the second, the third year we have started next month
and, and, uh, we just had our episode with Ezra Firestone and, uh, Basically,
I invite eCommerce business owners, agencies, marketers in this field.
And I ask them to talk about their, uh, you know, mindset, how they
started their journey in eCommerce. And we also share valuable tactics strategies, what to implement
tips and hacks, all of that. And, uh, make sure you check it out if you want to learn more.
Yeah the income show do check it out is a great show. Uh, and very helpful. I.
eCommerce entrepreneurs. And like, we talked about the best way to learn something is to go and learn from somebody who's done it before. Uh, just, you know, putting that out there.
And this is why I love this show because I get to talk to people who have expertise and insight in these areas like Daniel.
And, uh, I've got again, pages and pages of notes, uh, to talk to the team about, which is wonderful.
So. Daniel. Thank you so much, uh, for being with us really appreciate it, but, and
always great to reconnect with you. Uh, yeah, appreciate it. Uh, have a, have a fantastic day in, in Hungary.
Thank you. I wish the same two of you and to every listeners. So there you have it.
Wrap up with Matt
What a phenomenal conversation. Huge. Thanks again to Daniel for joining me today.
Uh, and also a big shout out to today's sponsor-. the eCommerce cohort do head over to eCommercecohort.com for more information
about this new type of community, which you can join at amazing rates.
Now be sure to subscribe where you get your podcast. Because as always, we've got some great episodes, uh, some great
conversations lined up, uh, and I don't want you to miss any of them. And.
In case no one has told you yet today. You, my friend are awesome. Yes, you are.
Now the eCommerce podcast is produced by Aurion Media you can find our entire archive of episodes on your favorite podcast app.
The team. The fabulous team that makes this show possible is Sadaf Beynon Josh Catchpole,
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So that's it from me. Thank you so much for joining us. Have a fantastic week.
See you next time. Bye for.