#8. Most Common Mistakes In Email Marketing And How To Fix Them | Podcast

Andriy  0:00 

You can find project manager, doctors, lawyers, but there’s so few email marketing experts in the entire world. People typically tell me, Oh, you’re the guy who spam emails.

Alissa  0:10 

Hahaha, yeah.

Andriy  0:11 

If you don’t know where you stand, you don’t know in which direction you should move.

Alissa  0:38 

Hey everybody. Welcome back to Email Einstein, Alissa and Vira here with a very special guest. We are email marketers at an email marketing agency called Flowium. We are so passionate about email marketing, and because we love what we do, we want to share our insights with you. Flowium is one of the fastest growing email marketing agencies in the world. We specialize in providing a premium, full service e commerce, email marketing experience for all of our clients. Our service is tailored specifically for your business and is designed to help increase your online retail revenue by 20 to 50% we deliver the right message to the right person at the right moment, which is what we’re all about here at flowium. Vira is going to hit us with our Pro Tip of the Week, and then we’re going to get started with our very exciting episode for today,

Andriy  1:27 

just starting with email marketing and Klaviyo, learn the ins and outs of Klaviyo in a week or less with our step by step. Course, no stress, no confusion, no nonsense. Go to Klaviyo master.com to learn more.

Vira  1:43 

Hey, everyone. Vira is here, Alissa, this part was deliver the right message to the right person at the right moment gets me every time I love it. I just love it. So Pro Tip of the Week today is for people who are either just starting with Klaviyo or starting with email marketing from scratch. So either you’re like moving to cloudy or from other platforms, or you’re starting from scratch, this will be really, really interesting for you. So in order to ensure that your campaigns are delivered to your customers, you need to warm up your list first, and the easiest way to do that as by building those like automations that have high engagement rates. So examples of automations with high open rates and high engagement rates are your welcome series, your exit intent flows, your abandonment card flows. So before you start sending any like campaigns to your customers, start with the flows. Believe me, it will help you with your sender’s reputation a lot. So this was kind of like a little pro tip of the week. And we are finally, finally, are excited to introduce our guest for today. So Alissa, you can take it from there.

Alissa  2:54 

So we are very excited because we have a very special guest on with us today. I promise I am not brown nosing when I say this, because our guest also happens to be our boss, mine and Vira’s boss. He is the brains behind the Flowium operation, and one of the master Jedis of email marketing, or as we would call here on the podcast, the email marketing Einstein himself, aside from being a master of email marketing, he is also a seriously impressive CEO with an incredible story. He’s a great boss to work for and work with, and he also has a cool accent. His story, again, is really, really interesting. So buckle up, because you’re in for a wild ride for today’s episode, welcome Andriy Boychuk, I wish we had like a little applause in the background, like woooo.

Vira  3:43 

I think we can do this. Watch me Alissa: Yaaay.

Vira  3:44 Hey Andriy, how do you like your How do you like your introduction?

Andriy  3:56 

I love it. I love it. Actually, I have to downplay it a lot, because you spoke such highly about me. I mean, when I introduce myself, I never use those kind of words

Vira  4:08 

Master Jedi is really you never used? Interesting.

Andriy  4:13 

Einstein. Like, I’m not even, like, stand by Einstein. Like, even, not even close.

Vira  4:19 

Yeah. This is not a very Ukrainian last name. So Andriy before we go to all the serious questions and everything, we usually do this little blitz questions, like around with six random questions. So I’m gonna shoot you a really quick question and you just answer without, like, thinking just the first thing that comes to your mind. Okay, so Staten Island or Brooklyn?

Andriy  4:44 

Staten Island.

Vira  4:46 

Dughters or sons?

Andriy  4:47 

Daughters, actually I have two daughters.

Vira  4:56 

Your idea of a perfect Sunday breakfast?

Andriy  4:59 

Pancakes.

Vira  5:01 

With?

Andriy  5:01 

With Nutella. The entire Flowium team, like loves Nutella.

Vira  5:10 

What we’re gonna get you for Christmas? Nutella. Nutella subscription. Book you’re currently reading?

Andriy  5:19 

The massive middle.

Vira  5:22 

Oh, I’ve never heard of this book. Interesting.

Andriy  5:25 

Like it’s thicker than Bible, so.

Vira  5:27 

Wow, cool. Amazon or Shopify?

Andriy  5:33 

Shopify, 100%.

Vira  5:34 

Klaviyo or Active Campaign?

Andriy  5:37 

Klaviyo. However it depends.

Alissa  5:42 

I knew that.

Vira  5:44 

That was very expected. Andriy, I feel like it was a great, great warm up. So now let’s get, let’s get to serious questions. So, Andriy, how do it all start? What’s your origin? Let’s, let’s go back, like 10 years or 15 years, you are an immigrant. You came to Canada to sorry, you came to the States with your parents when you were teenagers. So tell us about that time. What’s your origin, and when did you immigrate to States, and how was it?

Andriy  6:13 

Okay? I can tell you everything except the part. I came to Canada because I didn’t, yeah, so I was 15, almost 16 years old, and I came to the US because my parents, I didn’t have a choice at that moment. So they went here, and I just followed. I with my sister, and this is how I came here, like I went to community college, the typical stuff. Just went to community college and started a job. However, my job was a little bit unique. I first I was working moving company like so, moving people from one place to another place, like their furniture and stuff, moving huge buildings, apartments and so forth. So I did that for three years while going to community college and downplaying my smartness. So typically, it takes two years to finish Community College, and it took me almost four years because of my English I couldn’t pass English tests, but I didn’t. I’m very persistent, yeah, and after that, my friend, like invited me for a job. I had no qualification, only desire. So it was engineering firm, and I always dreamed to be architect, and I knew how to draft, but I knew how to draft in like with pen and pencil, not in the computer. So they gave me tasks and told me here the program called AutoCAD and draw us, like circle, line and something. And I had to figure out on the fly how to do it, and I did it. This is how they hired me.

Vira  7:53 

You didn’t need any, like qualifications or anything. Wow. That’s interesting. I know really well about all this like AutoCAD and 3d max and all this good stuff, because my husband Andriy as well. Different Andriy. Just a quick note.

Andriy  8:08 

Different Ukrainian Andriy.

Vira  8:10 

Different Ukrainian Andriy. He’s an architect as well, well. He was an architect. He’s in E commerce right now as well. So I know this programs really were really well, because I was helping him was his assignments when we were, like, back in university so.

Andriy  8:23 

Funny story about the program. So when I started, I was so into this program. I was working, I believe, 10 to 14 hours a day because we were busy at that company. I was like, I’m so eager to learn and to succeed in that company. So sometimes I had dreams about drawing, like, drawing in that company and doing projects. Like I was waking up Saturday morning, like, okay, at that moment, it was my girlfriend. She told me, like, where are you going? I said, like, I’m going to work. And she said, Saturday I like, Oh, I forgot. So into into my job that, like, I was like 100% present dedicated.

Vira  8:23 

Wow, when you’re in, you’re in, yeah?

Alissa  8:24 

Seriously, wait, so Andriy when you moved to the US. Did you move directly to New York? Is that where you is that where you ended up?

Andriy  8:23 

Yes.

Alissa  9:16 

Okay.

Andriy  8:23 

Yeah, and we were in Brooklyn, Brooklyn first.

Alissa  9:16 

Okay, cool. And that’s where you’ve kind of been pretty much your entire time that you’ve lived here in the States, right?

Andriy  9:22 

Yes, then I moved for one year to Queens and after that Staten Island.

Alissa  9:27 

Okay, cool. Queens is so I actually immigrated to the States when I was five, and Queens is where we started. That’s where we my parents and I started living. So I kind of know the area. Now I’m a Florida girl, so I’ve forgotten all about that. But cool. Okay, so you were at an architecture firm, and then obviously, because of your dedication and how and how much you were kind of persistent, and you were determined to succeed, you kind of climbed to the top, and you eventually worked as a project manager over there. Is that right?

Andriy  9:54 

First of all, it was because, if my ex boss listening to it, it’s not architecture firm. It was technology consulting. We were like low low voltage engineers. So I was like drafters and senior drafter, then I become designer, then, like, they even model me in design, then project manager, then Senior Project Manager, and when I reached that level, I left. I quit the job.

Alissa  10:20 

Okay, why did you, why did you quit once you reach, seems like you, like, really reached the top, and then you were like, Okay, I’m out of here.

Andriy  10:28 

I didn’t see any logical next step in that company, like, maybe to become a partner or something like that, but I didn’t want to stay in that, in that industry. Like, it didn’t excite me. It excited me what I achieved, but the industry itself is it was not my calling or my passion.

Alissa  10:47 

Gotcha. Okay.

Vira  10:48 

Cool. So you leave your fancy job in Manhattan and you get off on this idea of creating the resource for immigrants. I am maybe skipping to the next portion of this of your life, because that’s actually when I’ve met you for the first time. I’ve met you as the owner or the CEO, or whatever the name of the immigrant parad. So tell us a bit about that resource, and tell us a bit about that time.

Andriy  11:17 

For the last three years, before quitting my job, I was, in parallel, developing online community for Ukrainian immigrants who live in the States or planning to come to the States and to adopt this I mean different life, because life here is 100% different from life in Ukraine.

Vira  11:33 

Yeah.

Andriy  11:34 

So I was building that resource myself. I wrote, like close to 400 articles, like close to 100 videos, and I quit my job because I thought that I can make a living with that platform or that website. And at that moment, I was married and we had one year old daughter. And I mean my expenses. I mean to support family. My expenses went a little bit higher. We live in New York City.

Vira  12:02 

Yeah.

Andriy  12:02 

I mean, in New York, not the city, so, and I believe we had 6000, 5 or $6,000 savings, and it took me three months to hit the bottom, start spending everything, like on credit cards were going negative. So then I realized, like, there’s no way I can make money with this platform, with this website. And I started figuring out what, what can I do next? Like, What? What? Sorry, not, what can I do next, but, like, how can I make money? How can I support my family? It was not about like, my calling, my passions. It was about survival. And one thing that I was doing in this company, the Ukrainian organization, as we were heavily focused on email marketing. And when I start looking for jobs on like, first on Upwork, I saw that email marketing people are paying, like, close to $50 per hour for email marketing. I’m like, come on. Like, like, everybody knows how to do it. It’s like, it’s so easy, like, it’s just like second nature. And somebody paying like, $50 and I remember, like, taking the first job, they paid me 50, $50 and it took me like, eight or 10 hours to do so you can do the math, how much I made per hour, yeah. And this is how it started.

Alissa  13:19 

Okay.

Vira  13:19 

That’s exciting.

Alissa  13:21 

Yeah.

Vira  13:21 

And that resource, just like to make a quick note, that resource, immigrant parada, it’s a really, really great resource, and it’s still existing. And how I learned about it, I basically started googling something random, like how to build a good credit history in the States or something like that. And your resources from your website were always, always at the top. Because if you think about it, there’s not so much like information in the internet in Ukrainian. So, I mean, that was a great platform, but what you’re doing right now is, I don’t know my personal opinion, so much cooler.

Andriy  13:53 

Thank you. Thank you.

Alissa  13:55 

So, okay, so let’s go from Okay, so you were like, Okay, let’s start doing email marketing, you’re starting to take jobs into up on Upwork. And then what happened from there? Like, how did you build this, this rapidly growing empire called Flowium and how did that all start?

Andriy  14:11 

I don’t like the word you use at the beginning of podcast called boss. Like, I don’t consider myself boss, but I like the word you just use empire.

Vira  14:22 

So you you’re emperor.

Alissa  14:26 

Emperor of the Empire.

Andriy  14:30 

I like this, like no, I consider myself leader, but not boss. So how did it get started? So I mean, I was surviving, so I was doing any kind of project I could like, like $5 $10 $20 $500 so like any project comes to somebody except my offer, my proposal, I just did it like.

Alissa  14:52 

Wow.

Andriy  14:52 

I was working close to like another, like 14 to 16 hours per day.

Alissa  14:57 

Oh my Gosh.

Andriy  14:57 

Just to even, sorry, not even break even. Even just break even with my expenses, but not even considering the considering the depth. And I did email marketing for everybody, for dentists, lawyers, coaches, e commerce, so I serve any kind of company. And like, fast forward few years when I made enough money to survive. Then I started realizing, like, what I’m really good at. And after analyzing all those projects, and even you can go to Upwork to share how many projects I did, I didn’t make as much money, but there’s crazy amount of projects like I did. So I figure out that E commerce is where I do the best. So I start, like, slowly focusing on that niche, like email marketing. Email marketing only for E commerce. So I did everything myself, and then I become popular, more and more popular than and it’s just organically grew up from like being freelancer to building organization, building agency,

Vira  15:54 

And correct me if I’m wrong. But you’ve started from Active Campaigns. That was the platform that you first was introduced to correct because you were working with, like, different clients, and not only e commerce.

Andriy  16:07 

Oh yes, yeah. So yeah, Active Campaign was and still the preferred software if you’re not E commerce, but if you e commerce, we work only on Klaviyo because, I mean, we personally believes the best email marketing platform for E commerce, but if you’re like dentist or a lawyer, I do not recommend Klaviyo. In Flowium, like for our agency. Since we are agency, we are service based business, we are not E commerce. We personally use Active Campaign.

Vira  16:35 

Cool. Cool.

Alissa  16:36 

Okay, cool. So as you’re moving along, you’re figuring out email marketing is where you’re where you’re at, but your strong suit and email marketing is E commerce, email marketing, and then you start this agency. But you really weren’t even, you didn’t really even have the attention intention originally to start what Flowium has really transpired into. I mean, from my understanding, when you started, it was like, Okay, I’m gonna take on clients, and I’ll be my own kind of Flowium company. But then as you started to become more popular, you were like, Oh my gosh, I need help hiring people. And it’s growing. It’s growing, and now it’s kind of become what it is.

Andriy  17:11 

Now when you look back, it’s like, so organic, and it’s so like, smooth. It was transitioning from one thing to another, and, like, organically growing. But at the time, it was not as clear. Like, what am I doing? Like, when I start freelancing, I create this website called Email Marketing NYC. I had no clue. Like, I just created the website because I have, like, everybody has websites. Created one. And like, What name should I use? Like, I didn’t even think two minutes. I didn’t invest two minutes to create a name. I just like, Okay, I do email marketing, and I live in New York City, those two things are cool. So I put them together. A domain is available. Pay $12 and.

Vira  17:54 

Oh really? I thought you did, because you were some kind of, like, SEO genius or something. Because when you, like, literally type in email marketing New York, that was the first thing that was popping up. I started with SEO purposes. Oh, wow.

Alissa  18:14 

Wow.

Vira  18:17 

Yeah.

Andriy  18:17 

So yeah.

Vira  18:18 

I wasn’t, I wasn’t the fan of that, of that name, honestly, it was like.

Andriy  18:23 

You have a cool story.

Vira  18:24 

Yeah, like, when you’re when you’re, like, on this conferences, and everyone is like asking you, hey, what’s your company name? Or, like, where are you from, and what are you guys doing? And this is kind of, like, the main sort of things that you were like discussing, right?

Andriy  18:39 

Icebreaker.

Vira  18:40 

This is really icebreakers. This is the way that you connect with people. And I had this and I had this company name on the badge, and it was Email Marketing New York, so people literally didn’t have to me to ask anything, because what you’re doing email marketing, where are you from New York? And, like, this is almost like, too descriptive. I wasn’t a fan of red mate. I wasn’t the fan at all.

Alissa  19:04 

But it worked out. Definitely worked out.

Vira  19:07 

Yeah, great.

Alissa  19:09 

That’s awesome. Awesome. Cool. I love hearing your story. Andriy I’ve heard it maybe a million times, and I’m like, every time I hear it, I’m like, wow, it’s like, I’ve heard it for the first time. It’s really cool. Really, really cool.

Andriy  19:19 

Thank you.

Alissa  19:20 

So with regards to email marketing, as we kind of transition our questions over to, like, the logistics of email marketing and things like that, like, what do you what would you say were like, one or two of the biggest challenges or obstacles that you faced when you first started email marketing

Andriy  19:34 

Explaining to people what I do, people outside of the industry, people typically tell me, Oh, you’re the guy who spam emails.

Alissa  19:43 

Haha. Yeah.

Andriy  19:45 

And when we, and we, when we had that name, Email Marketing in YC, I receive actual bunch of calls from, like, older generation and calling me like, Oh, can I buy from you? Like, 50,000 of email subscribers. So I’m like, I’m not selling anything like.

Alissa  20:03 

Oh my gosh, that’s hilarious.

Andriy  20:05 

I have 20,000 off emails I scrapped from somewhere, from different website. Can you blast them? I’m like, No sir. I don’t do this kind of service. So it was the personal challenge, in terms of like, professional and maybe for listeners who listen that it was understanding the power of email marketing. So everything I did before, it was powerful. But what we do now and when I start like developing Flowium and developing strategy, understanding how, how we can send relevant messages, and I know you love that term, send relevant message on big scale. So yes, we send one message, but everybody receive a different kind of content in that message. So it was a challenge as well as a opportunity to learn and not improve but Master.

Vira  20:56 

How do you now explain to your parents and grandparents and your older relatives with what you do, because I’m still, I’m still having a hard time.

Alissa  21:04 

Yes, me too.

Andriy  21:06 

Actually, we working with Nata and Anastasia, like on our marketing marketing department. So I told them, like, I have four year old daughter. She asked me, like, what do you do? And I have no clue.

Andriy  21:20 

We now we have this challenge. And they like, we are all three of us working together to trying to figure out, like, how to explain in easy terms, because nobody knows what they do. Like, all my friends, they asking, and like, at the end of the day, when we have a few beers and like, just tell us they know me for so long, and they still they have no clue what I do.

Vira  21:47 

I feel it’s the struggle for all of us. So yeah.

Alissa  21:50 

Yeah.

Vira  21:50 

After you explain it to your four year old, just give me the definition. I’ll use it for my grandparents and my parents and everyone. So apart from your like, own challenges and mistakes, what were the other like sources of learning for you, like, where did you get this information when you first started? Any like, courses, YouTube channels, anything like that.

Andriy  22:14 

The biggest mentor or the biggest resource for me when I started, it was at Flynn. Vira, you know, I love Pat Flynn from Smart Passive Income, and he has that ebook that he wrote, like decades ago about email marketing. So I took that book and basically I built email marketing strategy based on that like, based on that book. And one thing I learned, especially if you are listening right now and you have any kind of agency. Do not explain strategies in a Word format. Try to put it in diagram. Try to show it people how it looks like. So people are better visual learner or like they understand better in visual format than in tax so when I read Pat’s book, it was tax base only, and I transformed that book into diagram, and I sold that diagram to like all kinds of businesses over and over and over and over and over again.

Vira  23:09 

And we are still using those diagrams to this day.

Andriy  23:13

Yeah. But at that moment, it was version 1.0 and right now it’s like version 1345.

Vira  23:21 

Yeah. And by the way, guys, right now we’re using this tool called Miro. We started using it when, like, maybe two months ago or something, and it literally changed the way we do things. So if anyone, anyone is looking for some kind of, like visual tool, this is the one to try. So.

Andriy  23:38 

And it’s, I don’t think they sponsors or not.

Vira  23:41 

Not at all. This is not an edge, but dear Miro, if you want to sponsor us. I’m your girl.

Andriy  23:49 

By the way, I was invited to Miro, Washington, DC, to talk about how we use Miro in our agency.

Vira  23:56 

Okay, so maybe they actually can sponsor our podcast one day.

Alissa  24:00 

Yeah, that would be great.

Alissa  24:04 

So, um, Andriy, what are some kind of when? So I guess this is applicable for when you started in email marketing, but then also with all the knowledge and experience that you’ve gained over time, what have been the most typical email marketing mistakes that you’ve commonly seen with either clients when they’re starting out with email marketing, or even non clients. So like, when you subscribe to an email newsletter list, what are some typical kind of mistakes that you see companies or people make when they’re doing email marketing?

Andriy  24:35 

So the first thing is, like, strategic challenges, people create email marketing automations, like, on the fly? Oh, I heard about abandonment card. Let’s put abandonment card. Oh, I heard win back. What is win back? Doesn’t matter. Just put it in our system. Like, or climate is so good. They have, like, flow library. Let’s just add those flows, and we are all be successful. Just imagine how they build houses. So they have a blueprint. They have architects. Have engineer to put everything on the paper before they start building. So we are email marketing consultant specialists, like freelancer who, like whatever you call us, like we create those kind of strategies. So the most common thing I see clients, they don’t have any clue what they have and what is the strategy behind it. So this is the most common mistake, number one. Second thing is, like, analytic deficiencies. Okay, I sent this campaign. The open rate is 55% and like, click through rate is 15% is it good or bad? It sounds good, but maybe it’s bad, I’m not sure. Like, and if you don’t know where you stand, you don’t know in which direction you should move. Or like, do, do I really need to invest in email marketing or not? Or on another end, I had some clients who like, we were prospecting, and they like, oh, I have a 1% open rate, and we are very successful. Like, I don’t think we need your company. I’m like, okay, it’s fine, but, like, 1% is it’s not even like we consider open rate. So analytic deficiencies is a huge thing. Also, like technical difficulties, you need people who know what, like what they do from strategical perspective, but as well as from technical so to put those automations together and troubleshoot them. It’s technology, and there will be nothing perfect. There will be mistake. Is there technical glaciers or human mistakes? But somebody needs to be responsible, and that person, typically, there’s one person in the company who responsible for everything and email marketing, and that person doesn’t have enough hours in the day to complete. That’s why they do it quickly and do mistakes. So the third mistake I see a lot in companies, and the last thing to hire, hire right? People try to when you have time, just look for email marketing expert. Google it. You can find project manager, doctors, lawyers, but there’s so few email marketing expert in the entire world, not only us, but like, they don’t teach this stuff in college, high school. It’s, it’s like, you cannot get the degree. I think we’ll be providing soon certification for those kind of experts, but this will be Flowium certification. But anyway, you cannot get degree. So how do you look for that kind of people? And how can you check they are real and they have results? So those are four main challenges that I see all our clients face with those four challenges, or one of the four.

Vira  27:31 

Yeah, and I feel like often people don’t understand the return they can actually get on email marketing. So I think the number, and Alissa correct me if I’m wrong, it’s 38 to one. So for every $1 you spend on E commerce email marketing, on average, on average, you are getting like, $38 back. So that’s why it’s like so important to find the right people. And yes, Andriy just like you said, it’s not that easy to find the people who are specializing in email marketing. There are a gazillion of jack of all trades who are doing everything, and they can say, hey, we’re gonna do you with the branding, the messaging, Facebook ads, email marketing, everything. But I think this is the power of our company that we are very, like, narrowly specialized on email marketing, for e commerce. So that’s that’s a big one.

Alissa  28:26 

Yeah, yeah, for sure. It still applies. Andriy what you said that you had gone through years ago when you were starting out in email marketing. There are tons and tons and tons of job listings on Upwork asking for email marketers. It’s nuts. I still get, like, the notifications sent to my Upwork, like, hey, we found all these new jobs that apply to what you do. And it’s like 50 new listings looking for email marketers. And I’m like, holy moly, don’t people see this? And think, like, I got to learn this skill so I can take advantage of all these open jobs. It’s nuts. It’s really nuts.

Vira  28:56 

Yeah.

Andriy  28:57 

And I told you this morning, like, even story that we are prospecting one client. And the funny story that that person like trying to get bits from different companies, and all those companies and those resources all recommending us. And I’m like, this morning, I made a joke that we have, like, monopoly in this industry.

Alissa  29:18 

Yeah, well, it’s rare, and it’s rare to have a company that specializes in the way that we do with E commerce specifically, but then also you have these really large scale email marketing companies that it works very similarly to how the corporate world works, where a client makes a request and it’s like, well, you need to put through that request, and then we’ll get back to you in two weeks about that request, because it’s just one big machine, whereas for us, what we do is we really tailor In and focus on providing not only the high quality email marketing service, but then also that really tailored, specific, personalized, intimate kind of relationship with the client, where they make a request, and sometimes we can even do it within, like 48 to 72 hours, if, if it’s if they catch us at the right time, you know. So it’s nice because there’s that personal. Kind of like mom and pop shop aspect to what we do. But then also, there’s high quality work that comes along with it that you see these other kind of corporate, these more large scale corporate organizations kind of doing. So, yeah, it’s, it’s, we definitely have a monopoly to a degree.

Vira  30:16 

Yeah, I feel like people don’t understand that email marketing can really be like, exciting, right? People get excited about Facebook marketing and about Google ads, but email marketing, I feel like people don’t understand that it’s still very much alive and it’s thriving.

Alissa  30:33 

Yeah, no, for sure. For sure.

Vira  30:35 

Yeah. So Andriy knowing everything that you know about email marketing. About e commerce, email marketing specifically, what is the key message you want all e commerce business owners to hear about email email marketing.

Andriy  30:49 

Just be relevant. Like one person opens your email, they want to read it and not just archive it and move it to the next one. And to be able to accomplish it, you need to understand who is your recipient is.

Vira  31:03 

Yeah, it’s a big one, relevant, right message to the right person.

Alissa  31:08 

I love that word, relevant. It’s like the only word we say.

Vira  31:11 

I think we overused it. We should get the patent for that word.

Andriy  31:17 

There are actually two words like relevant and big dogs.

Vira  31:21 

Oh yeah, big dogs.

Alissa  31:22 

Big Dogs. We love relevant, big dogs.

Vira  31:25 

Relevant big dogs is our favorite send them over our way.

Alissa  31:33 

Okay, so Andriy with regards to and actually, I’m, I would like to know this too, as someone who works at Flowium? Where do you so like, kind of going at, like the goals and plans, where do you sort of see Flowium in like, the next five to 10 years? What other resources or services do you want Flowium to eventually provide, kind of like in an ideal, perfect world?

Andriy  31:54 

Sure. So right now we are, like 99% service based business and 1% educational platform. So moving forward, maybe in five years or 10 years, we want to be 50/50, so 50% service based business and 50% educational platform, so people can learn from us and either open their own agency or add service to their own agencies. So this is the goal, and in the future, I’m not sure, like, how far from today, but we want to add additional owned marketing channels to our services, like direct mail, SMS and yeah, and others.

Alissa  32:35 

Yeah, SMS is a big one. That’s one that’s people are like, getting all buzzed up about and they’re like, Okay, how do we do it? Like, everybody, slow down. Let’s focus on one thing at a time.

Vira  32:45 

I thought Andriy, you’re gonna say something fun. Like, in five years, we’re gonna have the headquarter with the roller coasters.

Andriy  32:56 

So right, right now we are, like, I believe in nine countries. So tell me, like, maybe you have ideas, how can we get together and we’ll be in one place?

Vira  33:05 

Well, I heard Canada is nice. Yeah, it’s not bad. I heard it from a friend.

Alissa  33:16 

It would be cool to have, like, a company wide retreat at some point. I think that would be awesome, but we’d have to find like a maybe we’ll all go to like Switzerland or something, because they’re pretty they’re pretty neutral, right? Yeah. So I feel like that’s like a neutral spot for everybody to meet, no matter where you’re coming from.

Vira  33:30 

Switzerland is not bad at all. So Andriy talk about, talk a little bit about all of the resources, like the educational resources that we are having right now with Flowium because I feel like that’s a big one. And you don’t necessarily have to hire us if you’re like a small business, or if you’re just starting, if you just want to learn more about the E commerce, email marketing, but we do provide a lot, a lot of good, cool courses and information and stuff like that. So talk about this side of the business.

Andriy  34:02 

Sure, I don’t know, like maybe it’s my personality, but I love to share, and I love to share what I know, and almost for free. But sometimes people don’t want free stuff. They want to pay, so that’s why I charge money. But this morning, I checked that we have hundreds and teen videos on YouTube about Klaviyo, email marketing and everything that we do, and some strategies like case study about loyalty program. Just type in in YouTube, Flowium loyalty program, I break down the actual strategy we use for one of our clients, and they pay us money to do that, and I’m just shared for free. So you’re free to check it out and just copy what I showed you. So I’m big on the sharing, and so YouTube won this podcast. I believe what episode is this? Like, eight or seven?

Vira  34:54 

Episode Number eight.

Andriy  34:56 

Yeah, yeah. And we have, like, now we work. Working on creating blog posts. We create like, we have different cheat sheets, so we sharing a lot of content as well. We will be offering soon small packages, like, if you want to hire us only for a loyalty program, or you want us to do the order, it will be smaller packages and affordable for any kind of business so small or big. So it doesn’t mean like you have to hire somebody us or anybody else. There’s bunch of free resources already. Yeah, sorry. Probably Did I answer your question?

Vira  35:31 

Yeah. And by the way, guys Andriy have mentioned this, that we already have eight, at eight episodes of this podcast, and we do have a lot, a lot of cool stuff that are coming. But if you’re just starting with email marketing, I feel like our podcast number six, or episode number six, about the three easy ways to build a massive email list, would be a really good one to go into relisten. So if you’re just starting that’s that’s your that’s the way to go. And also, another cool resource that we do recommend to use is our actually our community. We do have a really cool email marketing community, and to join the community, just type flowium.com/community and we’ll be happy to see you there.

Alissa  36:15 

Yeah, for sure. Andriy thank you so much for today. This was so fun, and.

Andriy  36:21 

And see you in one hour.

Alissa  36:23 

Yeah, right, right, right. See you at the meeting in an hour. No, it’s It’s cool because it’s like, it’s nice to, sort of like, hear the story and the background. And it’s nice because you also kind of get to share your heart behind the company and, like, what you really want to see this kind of flourish into. So it’s nice. Like, I think one of my favorite things about working with Flowium is aside from the work, which I love, but also it’s nice that we are so open about sharing information with others, even if people aren’t paying clients, or even if people aren’t employed email marketers with us. It’s nice because there are so many resources, and it’s now kind of almost gone. So over the top, where, like now, Klaviyo themselves are starting to use some of the resources that we provide, and we’re just very freely sharing. And it’s it’s a really nice environment to be part of, because everyone’s just really eager to learn. There’s tons of educational resources available, and we’re more than happy to kind of share that with everybody freely, which is really, really cool so.

Andriy  37:19 

I agree. Just to add to that, what you just said, I like to connect with kind of competitors of ours who do the same thing and share why. I mean, I believe in healthy competition, but there are so many e commerce businesses, and because of covid, they it’s like rapidly increasing, and there’s no way one company, or even like all those companies who on market right now, can handle all e commerce retailers.

Alissa  37:45 

Right there’s plenty, plenty of business to go around. Awesome. So guys, make sure that you keep sending through your community questions to us by using the link in the description or it’s just flowium.com/ask as we start to receive more and more community questions, we’ll start to answer one question at the end of every episode every week. Make sure that you subscribe and share this podcast with your friends. And like Vira said, if you do want to get involved in a community, make sure that you join us at flowium.com/community super engaging, super fun, as we kind of talked a lot about throughout this entire podcast, everyone is in the mode of wanting to learn and wanting to share their knowledge with everybody. So there’s no like, I’m an email marketer, and I have I want to join this community, but I’m going to be kind of weird and stingy and not share information. That attitude is just not found in that community. Everyone is really open. People want to gain information, and they want to share everything that they know. That’s a big reason why we started this podcast in the first place. So like Andriy said, we like healthy competition, but there is a lot of E commerce business to go around. So there’s, there’s plenty to share.

Andriy  38:59 

Agree.

Vira  39:01 

Yeah, definitely. And don’t forget to subscribe to our podcast. We do have exciting new email marketing podcast every week, and next week episode, we’ll be discussing the newsletter. So Alissa, you can, you can tell us a bit more about the next podcast.

Alissa  39:19 

So the infamous newsletter, and we’ve kind of touched on the newsletter in our first, very first episode, really briefly, newsletter, that term sounds boring and it sounds like people something people don’t read, kind of like a newspaper these days. But we’ll be providing you all with ways to spice up your weekly or monthly communications with your subscribers, which is it’s, again, really huge to make sure that you’re providing relevant communication and regularly engaging with your subscribers so they remember that you’re there. You’re kind of Top of Mind. So make sure you don’t miss next week’s podcast episode, because it is important, and that newsletter is a crucial part of your marketing strategy.

Vira  39:59 

So thank you. Guys, thank you Andriy for coming. First of all, we’re super happy to have you, and thank you for listening. Everyone, stay tuned, and we’ll see you or hear you or talk to you next week. Bye.

Andriy  40:11 

Thank you Alissa, thank you Vira. Bye.

Alissa  40:13  

Thanks Andriy. Bye, everybody.