Personalised Email Marketing in the Era of AI | Dan Nikas

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.

Dan Nikas [5:46 - 6:08]: No. And I've been in this game for full time now since about 214, 15, somewhere around there. About 2014. 2015. Definitely full time in it by then. And if I hadn't made all the mistakes that I made to start with, I wouldn't be where I am now.

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.

Dan Nikas [9:15 - 11:36]: Call it like a. It's like an omnipresence. So everywhere they go, you are. And every time they see you, hear you, read about you, it's going to be touching on. We'll call them a unique selling proposition or a pillar of your brand or something that makes you different. And usually what we base those things are on is your support tickets and the feedback that customers give you. So each brand's very unique. Every brand is going to get regular questions through from their potential customers, existing customers, repeat customers, how do I do this? Is there a warranty on this product? What is the difference between this product and this product? How Long have you been in business? How many other people have left reviews? How many other people have used this product? So all of these things that people consciously or subconsciously are going to think about when they're considering to take up your product or buy your product or take up your service. We address through multiple channels today talking about email marketing and this is where we get a chance to talk to them about these things. Now, a lot of the time there might be a reason, there might be a customer or potential customer that hasn't quite got across the line and bought something. And if you were to ask them, they might not know the reason why. It's probably. It could be a subconscious reason that, you know, they're not sure whether it will work for them in a particular way or, you know, they're not sure of the quality. They want to know where it comes from, where it's made, how many other people have used it. So we address all of these things and all these points that we've generated from either the experience of the brand owner or the support tickets that regularly come in, sort of like your FAQ section. But we articulate it in emails in a nice way. Whether that's sending them to demonstration videos, sending them, showing them what, the amount of reviews that we've had, people actually using the products, success stories. We own the data, we own the channel, we might as well utilise it and leverage it as best we can. And that's how we make ourselves different. It's not just ads trying to sell stuff to you all the time. We actually talk to people.

Matt Edmundson [11:36 - 12:45]: Yeah, that's. I love it. I. We've mentioned this on the show before, but I. I have this theory about being a digital David. You know, the story of David and Goliath and the young, the small guy taking on the big giant. And in ecommerce you can often feel like that, you know, with Amazon and Walmart and the big guys doing all what they're doing. And I think one of the tools in our arsenal, Font of a better expression, Dan, is. Is actually us. So, you know, Amazon can go get the same product or a similar product, they might be able to do it cheaper, they might offer better shipping. What they can't do is they can't do you. They can't do your brand voice, they can't tell your story, they can't. They can't do the videos that you do, which demo the product and connect with the customers. They can't write emails the way that you write emails. It's. That thing, isn't it? That that uniqueness that is authentically you is one of the standout features that. I don't know, sometimes I wonder if we utilise that enough in our marketing.

Dan Nikas [12:45 - 13:38]: You're spot on. And most of the clients that we work with, and even myself included, we tend to gravitate towards offering products or services in an industry or niche that we're passionate about. You know, and that. That is that David versus Goliath analogy. Goliath doesn't care. Goliath is just trying to get sales, whereas we're actually passionate. We enjoy talking about it. I'm on a podcast at 7 o'clock in the morning on a Friday talking to you about email marketing, because I actually really enjoy doing it. It doesn't feel like work to me. It's not like I woke up this morning, I'm like, oh, man, I gotta go talk to this guy online. Like, I actually genuinely enjoyed talking about it and that's my passion. So if you can leverage that and let people know that, hey, this is what I'm interested in, then that's going to resonate a lot more with them.

Matt Edmundson [13:38 - 13:39]: Yeah.

Dan Nikas [13:39 - 13:48]: Like you said, doing videos, like, I'll share this everywhere because I enjoy talking about it and I know that my audience will enjoy listening to it.

Matt Edmundson [13:48 - 13:49]: Yeah.

Dan Nikas [13:49 - 14:43]: So no different to selling products. Let's just say you're into. You love your coffee. We've got a coffee brand that we work with. You love your coffee. You're not just trying to sell coffee, you know, you're telling them how much you love coffee, you're telling them how you like to have your coffee, you're telling them what your favourite type of coffee is. And inadvertently, you're developing a relationship and touch points and trust with them to the point that they're like, this guy loves coffee as much as me. This is what he really likes. I'm gonna give that a try. It's not just a product landing page on Amazon where they're trying to sell you a bag of coffee. This is an experience and that passion should come through in it, whether it's your emails or your ads or whatever it might be. But you can articulate that passion through your messaging, hitting them at different stages in their journey when they're considering whether to take up your product or service.

Matt Edmundson [14:43 - 15:11]: Yeah, absolutely. It's what Simon Sinek calls the golden why isn't it? It's. It's that. Why are you doing this? You know, the coffee guy, he's passionate. He's doing it because he's Passionate about coffee. Yes. He wants to make money, of course he's in it to make money. But, you know, there's probably easier ways to make money than try and sell coffee, if I'm honest with you, because it's quite a saturated thing to do. But if you've got a passion for that and a love for it, that's going to come through and you're going to beat 80, 90% of the people. It's an obvious thing, right?

Dan Nikas [15:11 - 15:27]: Yeah. And you develop tribes of people. So there's always going to be people that are like, I want to go for the cheapest option coffee's coffee. I drink it because it makes me feel a certain way in the morning. I don't really care what it tastes like, I'm just going to buy it, I'm going to, you know, I'll get my instant. Do you guys have instant coffee still in the UK as well?

Matt Edmundson [15:28 - 15:30]: Unfortunately, so. Yes, yes.

Dan Nikas [15:30 - 15:35]: But there's some people, there's obviously people out there in the market that that's all they want. Yeah.

Matt Edmundson [15:35 - 15:37]: My mum, for example, that's all she drinks.

Dan Nikas [15:38 - 16:09]: They'll scoff at us paying X amount for a bag of coffee or going and buying a coffee from a cafe and paying $5 for a cup of coffee or whatever it might be because you can get it for like 3 cents in a teaspoon. There's always those people and that's fine. But if you develop, if your passion comes through, you'll develop these loyal followers and these loyal followers, they'll be very, they'll become like a family or a tribe and they'll become very brand loyal. But they'll also then in turn become some of your biggest marketing assets as well.

Matt Edmundson [16:09 - 16:09]: Yeah.

Dan Nikas [16:10 - 17:09]: And we're probably pushing off email marketing a little bit, but I see it all the time when we're working with brands and they'll put an ad up and, and someone might come across as a little bit critical of a claim the brand might make, that the product problem the product can solve or the cost of the product or the quality. And what we often see is that in the comments on those posts or ads, the loyal tribe actually come to the protection of the brand and they'll be like, yeah, it might cost more than this, but this is, I get it. For this reason or no, you're way off this, this, this product does do exactly that. You know, I love it. I've been, I've been buying this coffee for X amount of years now. I will not try anything, you know, they will become Your brand ambassadors and also one of your best marketing tools, because that cannot be made, that cannot be bought. That is just genuine people and that shows through.

Matt Edmundson [17:10 - 18:24]: Well, these are the same people that forward your emails on somebody else, aren't they, and grow your business that way. This idea of being memorable, being unique, but being authentic. Finding what affectionately has become known as your brand voice, which is just very posh. Your tone of voice in email marketing. Dan. One of the things that is apparently obvious when I open my email programme in the morning and download the copious amounts of emails that people have sent me during the night is 98% of them are voiceless, toneless AI. Average nonsense. And you can tell it's AI straight away because the word dive will be in there. Do you know what I mean? Or there'll be a phrase with a colon and then. And you can. Everyone spots these sort of AI isms now. So in a world which is saturated with AI and I think everybody is just. It's. And don't mishear me on this, I don't have a problem with AI, I just have a problem with people not using it creatively. It's just become this monotonous, bland, beige tone. How big of an issue is that starting to become with. In email?

Dan Nikas [18:25 - 22:12]: It's huge. Because fundamentally, email, it's been around since the Internet's been around, so it's. It's set up as its main purpose is for you to talk to me and then you. Me to reply to you. It's meant to be personal communication. It's not meant to be, you know, blast sending out the same generic message to 100,000 people. So I think the way to, yes, AI has its place and we use AI to automate a lot of our processes. We use AI to segment people into different categories. We use AI to do so much and then we even use things, you know, that aren't AI, such as, you know, timings and every. A lot of the process are automated. We're fortunate that we can do that. We don't have to be like, we're back in. I don't know. When did the incident start? 1990. Something. Yeah, yeah. Anyhow, we're not. We don't have to sit here and type every email out. There is a lot of automation, There is a lot of. A lot of software that can help us. But fundamentally, the way that we avoid the generic AI blast email style is we tailor the email based on the position that the person is in during that customer journey. So what stage of consideration are they in now, there is a big difference between someone who has signed up to your list and has never taken any action on your websites that indicates that they're getting closer to making a purchase. Yeah, that person, if we break it down, very basically is more than likely problem aware and now they're aware that you're the solution, but they still don't know anything about your brand or your service or your product or who you are. So it's at that stage of the journey that we personalise emails towards them that educate them about the brand, about what it is the product does, about what our services, you know, what problem they solve, how they solve it, how it's different from other people and what other people think of it. That person is getting spoken to in a way that is vastly different to someone who has reached the checkout and for whatever reason entered all their details in and then left the checkout. That person might need some different messaging to the person. Not might does need different messaging to what the person had that all they did was fill in a lead form or fill in your sign up form or your pop up, whatever you want to call it. So the person that's at the checkout, that's where we need to talk to them about different components because they're at a different stage of consideration. So we need to make sure that we're not just pushing out the same message. It's personalised. And by personalised we don't just mean like, you know, hi Matt, you left something in your cart, come back and buy it now. Yes, we've dynamically put your first name in there, but that's not personalised. The personalised component is creating touch points and therefore building trust with that person at the different stages of their journey. Now we all know about the rule of Saturn, so the rule of seven came about way, way, way before the Internet, that we needed to have seven touch points with a prospective customer or client to build enough trust for them to get their credit card out, get their wallet out, get their money out and become a, you know, sign on, buy your product, whatever, take up your service, whatever it might be. With the advent of social media and the glut of content that's out there now, the new research suggests that it's between 19 and 21, depending on the research that you read.

Matt Edmundson [22:12 - 22:12]: Oh wow.

Dan Nikas [22:12 - 25:19]: To have 19 to 21 touch points with a person or a prospect for them to have gained enough trust with us to actually take action, to go through a transactional process with us, and that's a bit of a scary proposition if you're not doing it right. So we know that the fortunate thing is is because of the amount of content there is available out there and the amount of resources and the amount of different channels that we can reach people we can get ourselves to there. But you've got to be smart about it. It's not send the same ad or same email, same email, same email, same over and over and over again. We need to generate numerous touch points that address going back to what I spoke about before. What is the common questions that people ask? What is it that they want to know? What have they possibly not even thought about yet that you can answer for them? And like I said, that's like FAQs that constantly get asked support tickets that are on repeat all the time. The same questions that get asked in the comments on your ads, they are content for your emails that go. We, you know, curate put into a particular automation or flow. We use klaviyo, so we'll call them flows. We put them in the flows and we space them out. And here's a free tip for you that a lot of people don't use. Figure out your average consideration time from your paid media. Now what I mean by that. Take Google for example. Google has a conversion window metric within Google Ads. So basically the conversion window metric says, and look, Google owns, you know, probably 120% of the Internet. I don't know, it's a lot. But fundamentally they know when someone has seen an ad, got an impression of an ad, they then know how long on average it takes for a person to convert post from that first impression. We've got some brands that are up to 35 days high end product. It takes people over a month. And this isn't us thinking it is a lot of the time the brand owner doesn't even know. And this is a furniture company that we work with. It takes 35 days on average for someone to make that decision to go. And yes, some people buy on day one and other people buy on day seven. But on average it takes 35 days for everyone who's converted to actually have converted from the time they first seen it to the time they made the purchase. We come into a brand like that and they're like, yeah, yeah, we've got, for a generic one, we've got an abandoned cart flow set up like great, let us have a Look. You got two emails. One goes out 30 minutes after they've abandoned the car. The next one goes out 24 hours after they abandoned the cartoon and you don't talk to them again. And I'm like, why would you do that? Like, how long does it take people, how long does it take you to make a decision about buying a new couch or sofa, whatever, whatever country and whatever you call it?

Matt Edmundson [25:19 - 25:20]: Yeah.

Dan Nikas [25:20 - 27:12]: How long does it take you to make that decision? They go, probably more than 24 hours. I'm like, yeah, definitely more than 24 hours. What's Google telling us? Google's telling US it takes 35 days. We need to stay in contact with them for 35 days. Does that mean we send them an email every day for 35 days? Absolutely not. But periodically during that time we'll reach out to them and we'll tell them another reason or give them another example or give them another benefit of the product that they might not have known. And that could be. Did you know that if you don't like it, you can send it back on the truck? Did you know that you can remove the covers of this sofa and put them in the washing machine? Did you know that if you get sick of the colour of this, you can order new covers and they will just fit straight on and you can change the whole look of your sofa. So all of these things that you might not get from initially just from jumping on the website, we gotta message all these things out to them. Yeah, and that's the personalization part. We know how long it takes on average for someone to make a decision. We know what stage of the consideration journey they're at. We look at the common questions people ask at that stage. We address them, we create more touch points during it. Every email is another touch point, adds a touch point. Every message we send them is a touch point. That's how we generate those touch points with them. And we've addressed what we want to address during that entire consideration phase. Some brands convert after three days, so it's, there's no point in still sending them something 35 days later in that same flow saying, hey, we're still holding onto your cart, come back. Because we know that there's probably another barrier for them.

Matt Edmundson [27:12 - 27:13]: Yeah.

Dan Nikas [27:13 - 27:50]: If more often than not people have conferred it within 72 hours, it might be a much lower priced point product. If we know people have converted very quickly there, then that's, you know, there's no point continuing that on for 35 days. So this is that, this is the personalization, this is the stuff that AI can't do for you. Yeah, this is talk to the people about their brand voice, talk to them about their ideal customer how long it takes them to make these decisions and write copy around that and time them out correctly.

Matt Edmundson [27:51 - 28:19]: Oh, I love it. I think I've never heard anyone connect email with the Google Conversion Metric before. I think that's quite a unique thing, almost as unique as being a homicide detective. But I get what you're saying and it sounds remarkably sensible, which doesn't really sound a compliment when you say that is remarkably sensible, but actually, it really is. It really is.

Dan Nikas [28:19 - 28:59]: It's. Yeah, this is. And this is probably coming from a very, very different background. I was thinking about things differently when I came into this game and a lot of the things that I did, I thought everyone else was doing. And it turned out, when I talked to people, that I was doing things very differently because. And this is no offence to. To podcasts or courses or gurus or anything like that, because there is a place for all. If we don't have people coming into the game that are thinking of things differently or looking at them through a different lens, then we're all going to be doing the same stuff over and over again.

Matt Edmundson [28:59 - 29:00]: Yeah.

Dan Nikas [29:01 - 29:26]: So I. I would look at things and I'd be like, well, everyone's saying that my abandoned car fly. We'll go back to that example. Should be for seven days. And I was like, why? Like, why. Why should it be for seven days? Why does everyone have to fit within that tidy little box? And I was like, wouldn't it be better if we just sort of figure out how long it takes people to make a decision and talk to them that entire time?

Matt Edmundson [29:26 - 29:27]: Yeah.

Dan Nikas [29:28 - 30:08]: So I was like, well, where can I get this data from? Facebook doesn't have it. Most brand owners don't have it. I didn't know it, like, short of actually, you know, ringing up every person and then saying to them, well, when did you first see an ad? And, you know, when did you actually decide to buy? I mean, most people wouldn't know. I wouldn't know. If you said to me, why did you buy that product? Or when did you first see that product? Or when did you get introduced? I was like, I have no idea. But Google does. Now, is it 100% accurate? It is for the Google platform. It might not be for other platforms, but it's a pretty good starting point.

Matt Edmundson [30:08 - 31:49]: It's a fairly good starting point when you don't know. In the absence of the day, we did this conversation, had a conversation with a chap called Neil Hoynes, who's the chief data strategist at Google and love Neil. Great guy, really Fascinating. Very high up in Google has some really interesting insights and data. And one of the stories he told Dan on the show was about a lady who bought a pair of shoes. Nothing extraordinary, nothing out of the ordinary, just a pair of shoes. And I, I seemed to the. He said it was really interesting when you monitored how many interactions she actually had with the company through email, paid media, organic posts, visiting the website, reading blogs, etc. Etc. He said when you totaled up all of those touch points, there were 236 of them before she bought the pair of shoes. And Neil was talking about this in terms of attribution because he's like, at what, at what point do you attribute that sale? Because at what point did she turn into a consumer? And that was where it was impossible to tell. And we ended up talking about blended roas, which was, you know, fascinating conversation with Neil. Really, really great episode. But the point is tying this back to what you're saying, there are a lot of touch points that need to happen more and more, it seems, before the sale actually happens. And it's not just email. And that's it. There's email, there's paid media, there's organic, there's blog posts, there's podcasts as videos. There seems to be a whole bunch of stuff we now need to do.

Dan Nikas [31:49 - 32:08]: And look, it's. We're talking about email marketing today, but obviously I want to met as global trainers, we do meta advertising, we also do Google Ads. However, the point I make, I want to make is that they all have to work together.

Matt Edmundson [32:08 - 32:08]: Yeah.

Dan Nikas [32:09 - 32:40]: One of the days where we can just put a Facebook ad up and just sell direct to consumer, like without any effort, like just chatting it, like just going out, putting an ad up and selling out of your stock, like that did work for a period of time with Facebook advertising. It was around the time when it was sort of just been introduced and people weren't really aware that they were looking at ads. They just thought it might have been a bit of fate that they were seeing the thing that they kept looking at. And it was like, I just have to have it because it keeps popping up for me.

Matt Edmundson [32:40 - 32:41]: The universe is talking to me.

Dan Nikas [32:41 - 35:06]: Yeah, talking to me. It's karma, whatever it is, I have to have it. They didn't realise it that they'll be remarketed to. They're a lot more savvy now. So, you know, in turn, each of these need to feed each other. So if I had a brand come to me and they're like, we want email marketing, we're like, great. What are you doing with your meta advertising? Not that I want to run it. I'm not trying to say I won't run email without running meta, but I need to have an idea that what they're doing is right. Yeah, for a couple of reasons. The first is that I need to make sure that the messaging is consistent between the platforms. I can't have the meta system telling people one thing and we're telling them another. The next is I need to make sure that the quality of the leads that are coming through from their system are good. Otherwise I'm never going to be able to get the email marketing to perform. The next is, is that I want to be able to feed that data back in from the email marketing back into meta to enrich the data held within platform there to help the algorithm go out and find. So it becomes this flywheel. But yeah, there's a bridge between meta, Google, email, email back to Google, Google back to meta, meta down to, you know, you get the idea it's just a whole system now and those touch points need to be consistent. So there's no point in a person being at a stage of a consideration of consideration where they're close to making a purchase and we're pushing an ad out to that same person introducing the brand to them. You know, like there has to be exclusions and segments and custom audiences so that at different stages of those journeys and this is that personalization, the person doesn't need to know that you sell coffee. If they know you sell coffee, they've already got to the point where they just can't decide which type they want. Well, then you then need to serve content to them that talks to them about the different types of coffee. Not that, the fact that, hey, did you know that we sell coffee? They know that part and that's kind of frustrating and it's. I'll just keep scrolling through that. But if we can have a consistent messaging that no matter which platform they're on, whether they're on, you know, a Google network or if they're on meta or Instagram, Facebook or they're on email marketing, they're getting served with a similar message because of the stage of the journey that they're at and it has to be all connected and if they're just very ad hoc about their paid media, well, there's going to be inconsistencies and our email marketing is not going to work as well.

Matt Edmundson [35:07 - 36:59]: Yeah, no, that's very powerful and very helpful. You know, and I'm as You're talking, I'm thinking, well, here's the detective coming out. Because you're thinking big picture, you're connecting everything together, aren't you? And it's. I was having coffee with a friend of mine, I'd not seen him for 25 years and we were at uni together and we had a coffee last week and turns out Dan, I ended up employing his son without realising it at one of our ecom businesses. He's a student and he came and did some summer work for us in the warehouse. And so I was, oh, brilliant, you know, give me your dad's number. We had a coffee and he was quite high up in the police force here. And I chatting with him last week, I said, one of the questions I asked him is actually, you know, from the murders that happen, how many of them get sold? Because in my head is probably not many. And he says almost of them, just about all of them actually get solved. Because there are some standard principles which we follow and we just keep talking to people until we figure it out. And he says, it's usually someone they know, you know, and. But it strikes me that actually this, seeing the bigger picture, just talking to people, finding out all the information, putting it all together, created quite a successful solve in many a case for, for these guys. So as you're talking, I'm like, I can, I can see why you would, you'd want to do this. Can I ask on a practical basis, you know, we're talking about these touch points in the emails you're sending out. Is it one email, one point? Is that what you're doing? So one email talks about how to choose the perfect coffee roast, another email talks about the difference in coffee. But you're. I'm talking about. You appreciate. I'm a non coffee drinker, so I'm going to talk absolute nonsense, but do you know what I mean? Is it. Are you doing one email which covers 10 points, are you doing an email per point and keeping it clean?

Dan Nikas [36:59 - 37:32]: Yeah. So look, I, I think keeping it clean is the key and this is a constant balance that we have to find with, with brand owners. People don't read, they scan. Probably the simplest way that I put it, and we're trained to do that now because of social media. So I think the latest, the latest analogy that I was told when I was last at Meta offices is that they've figured out that people scroll through the height of the Eiffel Tower worth of newsfeed every day.

Matt Edmundson [37:32 - 37:34]: Holy moly.

Dan Nikas [37:34 - 37:52]: Yeah. And when you think about the time you're there, just scrolling, scrolling, scrolling. You're not reading all of that. A lot of it is scanning. So people don't read, they scan. If we give them too many things to scan all at once, it's going to get lost on them.

Matt Edmundson [37:52 - 37:53]: Yeah.

Dan Nikas [37:53 - 41:37]: So there's. This is the balance that we try to talk to our clients about is that we need to give people one job and that one job is to learn about that particular point or take this certain action or go to it. So we want to give them one job, keeping in mind that people don't read, they scan. So if we give them an email that looks like you remember magazines, like they don't really see them anymore, but they used to have a glossy magazine page and there would, it would be almost like a sales that are disguised as a story, as an article within the magazine, but it would be, it would have so much on it. Now people try to replicate that on email now and they'll try to have five different unique selling propositions in an email that scrolls forever. It's full of images, it looks brilliant, it looks great, but it's not going to serve the purpose. We want to give people one job and that might be to learn about that particular point that we're trying to articulate to them. We can reinforce that one point by sending them through to the website where there might be more information. We're not trying to sell them the house on the email, we're trying to get them to learn and acknowledge that this is one point that they need to know. And if they want to learn more, they can go to the website and learn more about that one point or they can click through and watch a video on that. The email shouldn't do the heavy lifting. The email is to educate them, make them aware of it. The website does the heavy lifting. So that's where we're trying to get them. So the short answer to your question is we try to keep it to one point. There will be other components within an email that do reinforce things like the amount of social proof we might have or the amount of reviews we might have, you know, and we see that in headers and footers, you know, over 10,000 plus five star reviews like that. That is a point that we're making to them that people like the product and they genuinely review it in a positive light. The content of the email might not be that those other little touch points are in there, but not, we don't want them to try and judge too much like, yeah, next Time you're on public transport or you're in the waiting room of a doctor, doctor's office or something like that. Just have a look at what people are doing and this is probably the detective coming out of me again people are filling in moments of time by looking at their phone briefly. You know, I've got five minutes. Bang, bang, bang, bang, bang. If you're sending them something that is going to take more than five minutes to digest or interpret or to read or understand it's probably going to be lost on them because they're filling a gap of when they got to the office and that the, you know, they got to the doctor's office and they're waiting for the doctor to call their name out or they've got five minutes between when they got on the OR until they get off the next stop which is for their train or their bus or whatever it might be. Yeah. Or they're waiting outside their kids school. School bell's about to ring in five minutes they've got a few minutes. We don't just do nothing anymore. We don't just stand there in silence everyone, when you watch them stop and pause and they've got time to spare, they pull their phone out. Yeah, I would say 99% of us do it. I do it too and I know, I'm aware of it. So keep that in mind when you think about how much attention you have, how much time you have to get their attention and to deliver what it is you're trying to deliver. That's why we go that give them one job or keeping in mind people.

Matt Edmundson [41:37 - 41:57]: Don'T read, they scan super powerful. But I'm of the opinion people can't be bored now. We don't like boredom so we fill in the gap. So if my email is boring they are definitely scanning past it. Right. Because we, that the one thing we don't want to do is be bored. We, we've earned the right not to be bored now. Whereas when I was a kid boredom was as part of life.

Dan Nikas [41:57 - 41:57]: Right.

Matt Edmundson [41:57 - 42:26]: And so it's, it's a very, very different world. Dan, listen, I, I, I'm aware of time brother and I feel like I could, I'm just sort of scratching the surface as I always do in these kind of conversations. Let me digress slightly. This is where I ask you for a question for Matt and I'm going to answer the question on my social media. So what's your question for me? Started off with the phrase Matt, my question for you is.

Dan Nikas [42:29 - 42:43]: Matt, my question for you is how do you offer something unique to customers without cheapening your brand through discounts and offers?

Matt Edmundson [42:44 - 43:16]: Very good. Love that question. If you want to hear my answer to that question, come follow me on social media Edmundson on LinkedIn or Instagram and I will post the answer there soon. Dan, listen. Thoroughly enjoyed the conversation man. And like I say, I feel like we're just getting warmed up. I'm just sort of, I'm just always limbering at this point and I'm like, well, I just want to know about this, this and this. There are going to be a million questions. I'm sure that people listening as the podcast have got. So if they want to reach out to you, if they want to connect with you, what is the best way to do just that?

Dan Nikas [43:17 - 43:39]: Look, you can get me at [email protected] I'm very big on replying to emails, interacting with people via email. That's kind of what I do. I've also got a website called elitebrands.org on there. There's contact pages, there's links to all our socials and if you want to learn a little bit more about what it is we do, just feel free to click on one of the links there and ask the question.

Matt Edmundson [43:40 - 44:48]: Fantastic. We will of course put those links in the show notes as well. So yeah, absolutely. Thank you for coming on. Do cheque out elitebrands.org if you want to know more about Dan and what he does, find out a bit more about the whole email marketing thing. What I can tell you is dear listener, when we had because you do the audit thing, I noticed on your website, don't you? Yeah, we had Dan Badai do an audit on our email for one of our companies a few years ago. Transformed an awful lot, let me tell you. So very much worth doing. Do cheque it out. Go cheque out elite brands because I'm sure it'll be a very, very welcome thing for you and give you some really great insight. So do go and do that. But Dan, thank you so much for coming on the show, man. I have pages of notes, old fashioned notes, you know, handwritten notes, you'll be pleased to know. Yeah, I am the very definition of old. I feel like sometimes I call myself the ecommerce dinosaur because I feel like I've been around since the beginning of time on this whole market thing. But it's been an absolute joy, man. Really appreciate your time. Thank you so much for coming on.

Dan Nikas [44:48 - 44:50]: No worries. Thanks for having me on.

Matt Edmundson [44:50 - 45:28]: No worries. Love that. No worries, mate. Deep apologies to Everyone that lives in Australia with my very lousy Australian accent, of course. Like I said, we're going to link to Dan's info in the show notes, which you can get along for free with the transcript at ecommercepodcast.net it will be coming direct to your inbox if you sign up to the newsletter. And of course you can just simply scroll down in your podcast app that you're listening to this show on. Or if you're on YouTube, just go into the description. All the links will be there as well. But a huge thanks again to the Dan for coming on. Stay. In fact, let me do this. There we go.

Dan Nikas [45:28 - 45:28]: Yes.

Matt Edmundson [45:30 - 46:17]: That was fantastic. Now, be sure to follow the Ecommerce Podcast wherever you get your podcast from, because we've got some more great conversations coming up and I don't want you to miss any of them. And in case no one has told you yet today, let me be the first. You are awesome. Yes, you are created awesome. It's just a burden you have to bear. Dan's got to bear it. I've got to bear it. You've got to bear it as well. Now, the Ecommerce Podcast is produced by Pod Junction. You can find our entire episodes on your favourite podcast app. Big shout out to Josh Edmundson, who wrote the theme music. And as I mentioned, everything's on the website at ecommercepodcast.net but that's it from me. That's it from Dan. Thank you so much for joining us. Have a fantastic week wherever you are in the world. I'll see you next time. Bye for now.