#60. How To Turn Your Customers Into Loyal Fans Through Email | Podcast

Alissa: 0:16

Today we have Shianne Smalling with us here from Andie Swim. She is the rock star that is like absolutely crushing their email marketing.

Vira: 0:49

Hello everyone and welcome to Flowium Podcast. We are email marketers at an email marketing agency called Flowium, and we are very, very passionate about all things 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, and we specialize in providing premium full-service e-commerce email marketing to all of our clients. Delivering the right message to the right the right moment is what we do here. And I’m really excited about our today’s guest because I know that she is just as much of an email marketing nerd as we are. Alissa, take it from here.

Alissa: 1:35

Oh my gosh, our guest, low-key and also high-key freaking out because for those of you who have been with us since the start of this podcast, you’ve always heard me talk about this brand. I am very obviously and loudly obsessed with this brand. They are called Andie. They sell bathing bathing suits and like swimwear. That sounds really like anticlimactic. It’s not because it’s honestly the best bathing suit that I’ve ever owned in my life. And I can say that because I own 3 of them. So this is not an exaggeration. This is not a drill. This is real life, guys. So today we have Shianne Smalling with us here from Andie Swim. She is the rock star that is like absolutely crushing their email marketing. I get the emails in my inbox. Every week, and I literally screenshot and then send it to everyone over at Flowium. And I’m like, you guys, if you have not subscribed to these emails yet, you need to, and also buy a swimsuit while you’re at it. So just a quick, like, debrief about Andie as, like, a whole, as a company, and, and who they are. So they basically work to provide the internet’s best swimwear shopping experience based on their core values values, which are support. So the cool thing is that their staff, everyone who works on the team, is very in the know about the struggles of swim shopping. So they basically created this company that’s all about you as the consumer, which is great, right? We love to hear that as consumers. So when you need a swimwear expert, a try-on cheerleader, or a kid-friendly vacation recommendation, they’ve got you covered. And quite literally, so I bought one bathing suit for my honeymoon, another bathing suit when I thought I was like all cute, fun, and married, and then another bathing suit post-baby. So they literally had me covered at all of these different stages of my body. So I’m about it. And then their other two values, quality and fit, and then also peace of mind. So they’re really focused on not only providing a great experience for you, but also just an incredible bathing suit that’s going to be very high quality, which I can definitely back, and then also fit you really well, which I can also back. And then also peace of mind, knowing that you’re not like falling out in weird places or like looking kind of awkward or feeling uncomfortable in what you’re wearing. So in either case, I’m blabbing, I digress. Guys, please say hi to Shianne. And Shianne, can you say hi to all of our listeners out there?

Shianne: 4:24

Hi everyone. I’m so glad to be here speaking with you both today. I am really excited to kind of dive in and I’m so excited that you love Andie kind of as much as I love Andie. It’s so nice hearing firsthand, like exactly what we want customers to feel and like people that come to our site to really feel. It’s like nice hearing like exactly what you said, like we’re meant to fit into each part of like person’s kind of journey in life, whether it be like pre-baby, post-baby, honeymoon, like all of these parts, like take Andie with you every step of the way kind of thing. So I’m really excited to hear that that’s your experience.

Alissa: 5:00

Yeah. Yeah.

Vira: 5:01

No, I hope I’m going to join your Andie family soon because I’m getting myself one. Yeah, that’s for sure.

Shianne: 5:07

You have to.

Vira: 5:08

Do you guys deliver to Canada?

Shianne: 5:10

Yes, we do. Yes.

Vira: 5:12

Yeah. I’m getting myself one. Just in time for a Canadian winter. Which starts in like 2 days. That is very true. We actually have a blitz Q&A for you, just like short questions just to get to know you better. So just like answer the first thing that comes to your mind. Okay. And your ideal vacation?

Shianne: 5:36

My ideal vacation would definitely be on a beach laying out. I’m not a big like get in the water person. I’m a very big like lounger. So just like laying out, having music playing and having like, whatever cocktail that I brought in the cooler. That is my ideal vacation vibe.

Alissa: 5:52

I love it.

Vira: 5:54

Sounds totally like Alissa’s vibe.

Alissa: 5:57

1000%. 1000%.

Vira: 6:00

One piece or a bikini?

Shianne: 6:02

I originally— so I’m 26. And when I was younger, I definitely opted always for two pieces because I felt like one pieces were a little bit more grown up. But I’ve found that I’m really into one pieces lately, especially I feel like they can be like almost as like sexy as a two-piece in a sense. So I’m definitely leaning to more, more towards one-pieces at this point. Yep.

Alissa: 6:26

I’m with you there, Shianne, for sure.

Vira: 6:29

Favorite frozen cocktail?

Shianne: 6:31

My favorite frozen cocktail? Definitely a strawberry daiquiri.

Alissa: 6:36

Oh, the dream. I feel like you’re like my soul sister here. You’re like speaking to me. You are fully speaking to me right now. Okay. So when you’re laying out on that ideal vacation, Do you prefer to read a book or listen to music?

Shianne: 6:50

I definitely prefer to listen to music. I feel like reading in the sun sometimes gives me a headache unless it’s like just a quick magazine flip through. But yeah, I’m definitely more of a music person.

Alissa: 7:00

Oh, okay. Yeah, I’m the same. Okay. What is your favorite Andie style?

Shianne: 7:06

Ooh, my favorite Andie style is actually, I think, the Jetties one-piece that we just launched, I think like a month ago.

Alissa: 7:12

Oh yeah, I know the one you’re talking about. I know the one you’re talking about. I love it.

Shianne: 7:16

It’s like the Amalfi, but it has like this beautiful, like crisscross back. It’s— yeah, it’s definitely my favorite style. Yep. Yep.

Alissa: 7:22

Okay. And then this last one, we ask all our guests this. It’s a very bizarre, like, inside joke that we have on all our podcast episodes. But mattress or socks?

Shianne: 7:32

Mattress or socks?

Alissa: 7:37

Okay. Yes, I would choose the same thing. Everyone chooses mattress. Wow, we really are twins separated at birth. I’m very much enjoying the direction of this. Okay, cool, cool. I love it. Okay, let’s get into the, like, the serious stuff now. Like the really juicy stuff.

Vira: 7:53

Yeah. Tell us a bit more about yourself before we go to all of the serious email marketing questions. Like, how long have you been with Andie and what you do and what’s your role? Tell us a bit about yourself.

Shianne: 8:06

Okay. Yeah. So I’m the CRM specialist at Andie Swim. I’ve been with the company since last March, March of 2020. I actually started 2 weeks before lockdown happened. So 2 weeks before the pandemic officially hit, I started at Andie and then I was I was in the office for about 2 weeks and then we went remote. And my role at— yeah, it was kind of crazy. It was kind of like hit the ground running. I manage our email marketing strategy and also our SMS strategy.

Vira: 8:32

So you are the mastermind behind the mastermind behind the emails and SMS. That’s awesome.

Alissa: 8:40

Did you guys start with SMS as soon as Klaviyo launched it, or did you guys use something else beforehand?

Shianne: 8:45

So we actually use Attentive. So we use Klaviyo for emails and then we use Attentive for SMS.

Alissa: 8:50

Okay, cool. How long have you guys been doing SMS?

Shianne: 8:53

I think so. We were doing SMS before I started, so I believe in 20— Yeah, so we were doing SMS starting, I believe, in 2019.

Vira: 9:00

Wow, that’s interesting.

Alissa: 9:03

Okay, so you guys were kind of like some of the OGs in the SMS space, which is very, very cool because now it’s like all the rage, everyone’s doing it, but it seems like you guys were in that space for a really long time. Okay, very, very cool. What were you doing before you went over to Andie? Like, how did you get into the email marketing world?

Shianne: 9:21

So I actually worked at FreshDirect. Before I started working at Andie’s. So at FreshDirect, I was the marketing coordinator and among my responsibilities was actually doing emails. So that’s kind of was my introduction into emails. I managed the email calendar for the office side of FreshDirect. So FreshDirect is an online grocery service, just kind of give you a little background. And they deliver to both residential addresses and office addresses. And I worked on the side of the business that delivered to office spaces.

Vira: 9:48

Wow. Okay.

Alissa: 9:49

So the reason why I’m like prodding a little bit into your background is mainly because I’m like, so how did you get so good at emails. Like, I’m trying to— I want to understand what your secret is, but it seems like you were just born with it.

Shianne: 10:00

Born with it. Well, I do a lot of research, a lot of articles. I’m always in the Klaviyo Help Center. Klaviyo is actually a very helpful email tool and kind of helping you with your strategy and also just following a lot of different brands and just getting a sense of like what, what’s out there in the competitive space.

Alissa: 10:20

That’s awesome. That’s super cool. So in terms of like with email and then also social media websites, I know you guys do paid as well obviously ’cause your ads come up literally everywhere for me. Where does email fit within like all of that for your team?

Shianne: 10:35

Yeah, what I love about email is that it fits in on kind of both sides of the customer journey. So it fits in on the side like before you’ve ever made a purchase on the prospect side. So a customer can like see an ad on social media, click through to our site, sign up for our email list but not convert right away.. But then that first email that they get as part of like our welcome flow where we’re actually introducing them to our brand story, kind of providing that additional like touchpoint for them, introducing them to our brand, getting them to be more bought into our story. I love email because it’s like a channel where you have the opportunity to share all the information about your brand that you want and also to be able to kind of direct customers to the products that you want them to be most interested in before they’ve made their first purchase. So I love email because it exists on that side of things, but also on the retention piece. So like you can get customers after they’ve made a purchase with you, how do you get them to come back? I love email because that’s— it fits in on that side of the customer journey as well, that post-purchase experience that can kind of be tailored to what a customer bought on their first order.

Vira: 11:32

Right. We call it the lifecycle. Like internally we call it email lifecycle for a reason, because that’s pretty much your entire relationship with the customer. The email is there when you first meet, when you have your first cute interaction, when they purchase the product, after they purchase the product. Yeah, that’s, that’s how I feel about it. What’s your favorite favorite flow? I don’t know if it’s a good question to ask because you can’t pick favorites, but I have my favorite one. But what’s your favorite flow? The one you can’t live without? The biggest, I don’t know, moneymaker maybe for you guys?

Shianne: 12:34

Oh, let’s see. That is a tie definitely between the welcome flow and the cart abandonment flow. The cart abandonment flow is probably my favorite because it drives a lot of revenue and it’s like a very high-intent flow. So it’s like it hits people like right when they’ve already browsed our site, added products to their cart. They’re like almost there. And I love that it’s like that touchpoint that gets them right over the edge.

Vira: 12:58

Right. Do you guys offer the discount right away in your cart abandonment or do you wait?

Shianne: 13:05

So actually for our strategy, only customers that are— have never purchased with us before actually get a discount in their cart abandonment flow. And it’s just— that’s interesting. Yeah. And it just echoes the welcome offer. So you don’t get in it because what I like to do is not like train our customers to kind of expect a discount. Yeah. So if you know that every time you like abandon a cart in 15 minutes or 30 minutes or an hour, you’ll get an email like with a 15% off code, like you’re just going to shop that way all the time.

Vira: 13:33

That’s what I do usually in all of my favorite stores. I’ve never purchased the product right away. I just like put it into the cart, leave it there for like up to 24 hours and see what happens. And that’s what I trained my entire family to do. My grandma, for God’s sake, does it right now. That’s Like the perks of having a grand grandchild that is a marketer in the family, right?

Shianne: 13:56

Yeah. Yeah. It’s like as marketers, we know to shop that way, but it’s like, I don’t want to train our customers to do that same behavior.

Vira: 14:03

Right. So you basically have two separate abandonment cart flows or like two separate branches of abandonment cart flows, right?

Shianne: 14:10

Yeah. We have two separate branches of the abandonment cart flow. So prospects get one branch and they’ll get echoed their welcome offer. And then existing customers will get just version with urgency messaging, but no, no discounts.

Alissa: 14:24

That’s so interesting. That’s great. I love that. And it is, I agree with you, Shianne, on like the training side of things. Like it’s not ideal to be training your customers to be expecting these discounts or anything. So yeah, it makes a lot of sense. Makes a huge amount of sense. So in terms of like the cadence of your emails and how often it is that you’re like emailing people with either within a flow or campaign-wise, how often is it that you guys send campaigns? Campaigns and what is like the primary type of content that is going out or that you’re focusing on specifically when you do send them out?

Shianne: 14:56

So our email campaign cadence changes depending on whether or not we’re in season. So in the summer we definitely send a lot more emails than we do say like in October, in late September. So during the summer I try to get an email out at least at minimum 4 times a week. And that’s like on the very low end of the scale, but like sending more emails doesn’t necessarily mean that as a customer, you’re going to get one email every single day. I’m just making sure that a campaign is going out every single day. So the way I kind of make sure customers aren’t getting bombarded with emails is just through segmentation. So I’ll be sending out very specific content that I think will speak to different customer groups throughout the week.

Vira: 15:35

Right. Wow. That’s interesting. And what’s your strategy for like a slower season? Because I do have a lot of clients whose products are also kind of seasonal. So how do you approach it?

Shianne: 15:47

So During, I feel like during our off season is actually when planning out the content calendar gets really fun because we get to get a lot more creative with our messaging. It’s not just purely based on like product launches or sales or things like that. We get to really kind of focus on more like community building and like more like softer content pieces. So we’ll send out things like how to style your Tulum 3 ways, like styling it as a bodysuit, like showing examples of how maybe our fit experts will wear their in, if you like to do yoga or things like that. We’ll send out, last year we actually sent out a newsletter just purely based off of like giving people ideas of like how to enjoy the outdoors before it starts to get really cold out, different national parks that they can visit, things like that. So like trying to keep it like being able to drive revenue, but in a softer way, keeping in mind that people aren’t necessarily like swim is no longer top of mind for people in the fall, but making sure that if they do need a swimsuit, they are still getting like emails from us to keep us top of mind. So the email cadence, I think in the off season, I dial it back a little bit to maybe just like 2 to 3 times a week, like a couple of times during the main week. And then at least one email over the weekend.

Vira: 16:52

Okay.

Alissa: 16:53

Interesting. That Tulum campaign that you’re talking about, that actually got me. I purchased off that email ’cause I saw it and I was like, wow, it’s not just a bathing suit. This is amazing. And then I bought it. It wasn’t the best fit for me. And then that’s why I exchanged it for the Malibu. But that was the reason why I made the purchase in the first place is because of that email that went out. So you said that email and I’m like, wow, they got me with that one.

Shianne: 17:17

That’s so great. And what I think I love about our suits is that they can be worn them kind of in two ways, especially our ribbed fabric. I feel like if you don’t want to wear it to the beach because it’s a little bit thicker, I think you can definitely easily wear it as a bodysuit and it fits so well. So sure.

Vira: 17:31

Yeah, right. For sure.

Alissa: 17:32

Right. So you had mentioned, Shianne, specifically about like segmentation, what’s kind of like one of your go-to segments that maybe isn’t something typical that’s found within, like, that’s found commonly within a brand?

Shianne: 17:44

So one of my go-to segments, especially during the, the busy season, is our 30-day engaged segment. So I go after anyone that has opened an email in the past 30 days or clicked an email in the past 30 days or been on our site in the past 30 days and I send them an email just— but hasn’t purchased, like I send them email campaigns, like certain types of email campaigns that I feel like would be relevant for someone who has come to our site or has been opening our emails within the past month, but just hasn’t converted. Cause that just shows me that like they’re thinking about swim, but they may be, they may just need a little bit more of a reason. So for example, we just sent like a summer travel essentials email that I sent out to that group of people. Because I feel like if you’re coming to our site in the past 30 days or if you open an email in the past 30 days, you probably need a swimsuit. And if you haven’t purchased it yet, like this email might give you like kind of a reason.

Vira: 18:35

Gotcha.

Alissa: 18:35

Do you usually kind of change like how often you would use that particular segment based on the season? Like in the winter, you kind of slow down with that segment and expand it at all?

Shianne: 18:45

Yes. So in the winter, I actually would expand the segment out to say like a 90-day engaged or 120-day engaged. Yeah. So that I’m making sure I’m bringing in people that were interested in us in the summer. Like giving them a reason to kind of purchase with us in the winter.

Alissa: 19:01

Yeah. That’s very interesting, actually.

Vira: 19:03

Do you guys have any flows, say sunset flows, where you like unsubscribe people who are inactive or who are not engaged anymore? Is that something that you do?

Shianne: 19:16

So that’s not something that we do currently, but what I do make sure that I do is avoid emailing people that aren’t actively engaging with email, right? So I have an unengaged segment that I created. And for those people that have an open email with us, I defined it as 120 days. Like if you haven’t opened or clicked an email in 120 days, I put you in the unengaged segment. And what I do is because Klaviyo and Attentive have like a relationship, like a tie-in, I’ll pull that segment into Attentive and I’ll text them instead of sending them the email.

Vira: 19:47

Oh, okay. So where does SMS fit in that big picture? How often do you send and like what kind of of content do you send?

Shianne: 19:55

So yeah, so for SMS, I’m a little bit more careful about like sending out too many messages per week. So for SMS, I like to send SMSes over the weekend. So I might send out like maybe 3 SMSes for the week. I’ll do one on maybe Thursday or Friday and then like 2, like one on Saturday, one on Sunday, or like I’ll alternate that way. But like my SMS calendar usually starts like Wednesday onward. So if I send that one on Wednesday, I might do another one on Friday and another one on Sunday.

Vira: 20:21

Yeah. You want to be a bit more careful, right? With SMS. And then they’re still getting used to the idea.

Shianne: 20:27

Yeah. And then the content I like to send out over SMS is a little bit more like conversational. So, and I like to give them more of like a use case to shop, like, hey, like Saturday, like for example, like Saturdays are for shopping, but if you needed another reason, like here’s, here’s our 25% off sale that’s happening right now. So I’ll use like messaging like that. That’s a little bit more what you would naturally see come into your text message inbox.

Vira: 20:51

Okay, that’s interesting. That’s interesting, Shan, because I know that a lot of brands are actually using SMS for promotions only. So they basically send like a discount code or something. But I like the way you guys do it. It’s pretty cool. And I like the whole idea of it being more like conversational.

Shianne: 21:11

Yeah, I think because we have the email channel that’s already really strong and we have like a more like salesy voice over that channel. I think it’s like nice for SMS to be a different way to reach our customers. And I think because it’s such a direct channel, you can do a little bit more like community building and a little bit more handholding.

Vira: 21:28

That’s very cool.

Alissa: 21:29

So Shianne, when you got started, this is kind of going back, I guess, to like your own personal experience with the brand. How easy did you find it to kind of like step— because do you, do you write the copy and then also design the emails too?

Shianne: 21:41

So we actually have a copywriter that we use. For the emails. And then currently I’m writing the copy for the SMSs. Okay. But for the emails, like I provide copy direction and I’ll also provide like the, like overall, like what we’re hoping to accomplish with the emails, like the strategy. And I’ll say like what products we want to feature in the email. And then our amazing design team will take that information and kind of make it into a beautiful email that hits your inbox.

Vira: 22:08

Awesome.

Alissa: 22:08

So would you say that since you started, the brand voice and kind of look and feel have evolved evolved at all since you took on?

Shianne: 22:15

I think, yeah, I think since I’ve started, we’ve definitely made a few changes based off of the tests that we’ve run and just the kind of messaging that works best for our customers. I think we’ve gotten a little bit shorter in the amount of copy that we’re sending out over both email and SMS. We’re a little less, I think, wordy in our storytelling just because a lot of people, we found that a lot of people weren’t actually reading everything and weren’t actually making it to the bottom of emails. So taking that feedback, we kind of tailored our copy accordingly.

Alissa: 22:43

Interesting. Okay. How did you pull that kind of feedback? Were like customers reaching out directly to you guys to let you know?

Shianne: 22:50

No. So the cool thing about Klaviyo is that you’re able to see with each campaign, like how far down people scrolled in terms of like the links that they clicked. So it’s not exactly a heat map, but if you have separate links in the beginning of your email versus the bottom of the email, then you can kind of see the percentage of your customers that clicked the different links.

Alissa: 23:10

Cool. So that’s something that you guys analyze and kind of look into pretty regularly just to make sure that like the entirety of the email is being taken into consideration.

Shianne: 23:18

Exactly. And then making sure that whatever content is the most important is getting put up at the top.

Alissa: 23:24

Okay. Very cool. And then in terms of like customer feedback, I’m sure you guys get a ton of it. How does that, do you ever like take any of that into consideration when it comes to like reformatting or I guess restructuring how it is that you’re emailing people and what it is that you’re emailing them?

Shianne: 23:40

Definitely. Customer feedback is super, super important in like putting the email strategy and the SMS strategy together, particularly last year during the height of the pandemic when like obviously like on our end— sorry, you’re fine, you’re totally fine. That was hard to get out. Yes, on our end we were trying to drive revenue, but like we also didn’t want to kind of alienate the community that’s obviously dealing with this pandemic that we’re all in the middle of. So we took the customer feedback we were getting from the standpoint of like sending getting too many emails, not taking into consideration what was going on. And we took that and we made sure that our copy was a lot softer in terms of just saying like, hey, we’re here with you, like bringing ourselves more to the forefront so that you’re seeing that we’re actually people behind the brand and not just like this robot company that’s just trying to sell you swimsuits. We’re like real people that are trying to like keep our dream alive in a sense. So that’s a way that we took our customer feedback and kind of changed up our messaging, especially during the pandemic. Also taking into consideration people that were saying that we were sending out too many emails. We kind of— I made sure that I dialed back on like my segmentation and just made sure that people weren’t getting too many emails in a given week and also too many text messages. Got it. Got it.

Vira: 24:54

How do you usually collect that information? Do you just like receive the responses from your customers or do you have some sort of like surveys to understand better what your people like and what they don’t like?

Shianne: 25:05

So the great thing about our community is that they’re very proactive and vocal with our customer service team. So the customer service team, our fit— our team of fit experts, they actually provide like most of the feedback that’s coming directly from the customers. And we have Slack channels internally where we can see all that customer feedback. So that’s where a lot of it’s getting kind of funneled into me.

Alissa: 25:27

That’s awesome.

Vira: 25:28

Wow.

Alissa: 25:28

That’s great. And that’s a really handy way for you guys to all be connected and like, it’s almost like live, live and direct, which is really, really cool. Yeah. So actually, no, this is not a question. This is more of or just a statement, just to add to what you were saying about like being very responsive to like what’s going on in the world and your customer base and everything. There was actually a super cool email that you guys sent out. And this is one that’s always stuck in my brain last summer where obviously no one was traveling. People weren’t going on their typical summer vacations. So you guys sent out a campaign that literally linked to a YouTube video where at different parts of the YouTube video, it would take you on like a different vacation with like different sounds and stuff.

Shianne: 26:02

Oh, right.

Vira: 26:03

You even shared that email with us, Alissa.

Alissa: 26:05

And I send it to everyone. I forwarded it to everyone. I was like, you have to click this because it’s like a virtual vacation. I love this brand. You have to check it out. So you were talking about that and that email literally came to mind and I was like, yeah, that’s very true. And I did notice last summer how I sound like a total stalker, but how the voice definitely did change. Like the tonality of the emails definitely did change in terms of the pandemic and like how it is that you were addressing customers. So very, very cool.

Vira: 26:30

I like that you guys are very like genuine in your emails. Yes, you are. Obviously everyone understands that you’re trying to sell the suit, but you’re still very like, genuine and kind and you connect through your emails. That’s what I really, really love about what you guys do.

Shianne: 26:46

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Vira: 26:47

Totally agree. Yeah. Shianne, tell us about some behind the scenes. So much of e-commerce actually is about like testing, A/B testing, what works, what doesn’t. Do you have any like unexpected surprises that you’ve experienced along the way? Maybe some things that you thought will work and they wouldn’t or vice versa.

Shianne: 27:08

So one really interesting test that we did last year was for our sales subject lines. So what we tested out was leading with the discount code in the subject line versus just saying like the name of the sale in the subject line. And what I was super surprised by is that the winning variant was actually the version that didn’t include the discount in the subject line. Yeah. I was super surprised that customers are responding way more to just seeing the word sale in the subject line versus actually seeing the discount. And my My, my hunch is that that could have been because during like last year everyone was sending out a sale every single day. Right. So people could have just gotten tired of seeing percentages off in their inbox.

Alissa: 27:48

Yeah.

Shianne: 27:49

So yeah, but that was a really interesting learning. I’m like, guys, people are opening the emails more and we don’t even tell them what sale we’re running.

Vira: 27:56

Right. They are curious to see what’s in the email. Yeah. I know one of our fellow Flowium account managers, what she did, she actually created this secret discount code. So until until you use that discount code, you don’t know what discount you will get. And the click-through rates on that email, they were through the roof. So that’s just like something, something maybe we, we should try, Alissa.

Alissa: 28:23

Yeah, that’s a really great idea. It’s interesting about the percentage of discount that, that doesn’t work. But yeah, huh, that’s very interesting. You’re saying some stuff here, Shianne, that I’m like sitting here, I’m like, I just need to sit and process this for a second and think about what you just said because that makes a lot Sense.

Vira: 28:38

No, Shianne, seriously, I’m taking notes here. If you guys hear me like scribbling in the background, that’s what I’m doing. I’m like literally taking notes.

Alissa: 28:46

It’s the scribbling in the background. That’s very, very interesting. Have you guys— oh, go ahead. No, go ahead. Go ahead. Go ahead.

Shianne: 28:52

I was going to say it just let me know that sometimes like, like everything is kind of worth testing. Like, cause I could have just said like, no, percentages off always works in the subject line. Like that’s just common sense, but it’s like everything, like you can’t really assume anything about your customer base because different customer bases just react differently and like the different product offering that you’re having is just, it’s a different customer behavior than you might be used to. So everything is just kind of worth testing out.

Alissa: 29:18

Love it. Shianne, firstly, thank you so much for being on here today with us. This has been not only like a dream for me, cause I love you guys, but also like very insightful. And it’s just cool to hear about a brand that’s doing so well within the email space that just is like pretty genuine about what they do and just has some pretty awesome insights So thank you so much for all of that. Our last question to you is if you have like one bit of advice that you would offer to any e-commerce brand out there in terms of email marketing and like what’s one thing that they could do that you think would really help level up what they’re doing, what would you say?

Shianne: 29:56

Ooh, this is a really good question.

Vira: 29:58

This is a loaded one too.

Alissa: 30:00

Just putting you on the spot here.

Shianne: 30:02

Yeah, like, ooh, this is a really loaded question.

Alissa: 30:04

We want all of it. We want all of your genius and all of your email marketing knowledge in one sentence. What would the sentence be?

Shianne: 30:10

And you’re like, yeah, this may sound like super generic and like, well, obviously, but I’d say definitely just listen to your customers. Like, these are— listen to your existing customer base. By listening to your customer base, I mean like very— really look at the data and like what it’s telling you. And like, don’t look at it from like an emotional perspective where like, I really wanted this email to work. Like, I’m going to— I’m going to like, I’m going gonna twist the story and say like, oh, it didn’t work because X, Y, and Z. Like, no, like pay attention to like your click-through rates, pay attention to your conversion rates, pay attention to like if you have an email service provider that allows you to see where people are clicking on emails, like pay attention to that sort of information and use it to inform your strategy. Also, definitely listen to your customer service team and what they’re telling you and like how the customers are responding to the messages that you’re putting out into the universe. Because it’s like, if you’re hearing firsthand from your customers what they want to see, it’s like, why would you not send that to them?

Alissa: 31:07

Right, right, right, right.

Shianne: 31:08

So I think that’s really the main thing is just making sure that however you do it, whether it’s like looking in your organic social accounts comments or like setting up time with your customer service team regularly or creating Slack channels for feedback, definitely just make sure that you’re, you’re listening to what the customer is saying.

Alissa: 31:26

I love it. It’s listen, what you said to a degree is true. Like, yes, this is kind of obvious, but I love the way that you phrased it where it’s not just like, learn about your customers. Thanks. It’s very like, you need to— the emotional aspect, that’s a big thing, you know, because like for us who are like, when we create an email, we’re like, this is my baby. I like created this beautiful brainchild and now it’s going out into the world. And then people like either don’t open the email or they’re not clicking through it or whatever it is. And then come to find out like your emails suck for your customer base. It’s hard to hear, but it is information that you need so that you can actually improve and do what your end goal is. So I love I love that. I love it. And I love the fact that you guys were willing to like roll with the punches. So when you figured out like, oh, our emails are too long, we need to shorten them. Yeah. Sometimes that’s like a, oh, but I love these emails. It’s a worthwhile thing because it helps you actually like perform the way you want to. So yeah, I love it. I think it’s perfect, perfect, perfect advice. Perfect advice. And the other thing that I will, and I hope that for everyone who’s listening, they’ve just kind of picked up on the fact that when you are a genuine brand who is genuine with your customer base and you’re able to really level with your customers and provide the stuff that’s important to them, it’s not even just about being relevant to like the times or whatever it is, but you talk to them about things that are important to them, you’ll do well. So in the same way that Andie is able to do this, Shianne’s able to do this for the brand, but you also have that ability to do that for your own brands or for the brands that you’re working with. So just be real. That’s the, that’s the key. That’s the key here in life. Be real.

Vira: 32:57

Thank you so much for coming to our podcast, Shianne. Honestly, so much good information, so many good insights. Thank you so much.

Shianne: 33:05

Thank you so much for having This has been such a great, a great time.

Alissa: 33:09

Thank you. Thank you. And guys, for those of you who are listening, as always, don’t forget to subscribe and share this podcast with your friends. If you like what we do, as always, we ask that you leave us a review. If you send over a screenshot of your review to myself or to Vira via email, we will make sure to get you a pair of Flowium socks. So make sure that you do that. If you have any questions at all that you’d ever like us to feature on our podcast episodes, or like, you know, of someone who owns an e-commerce brand that you kind of fangirl over like me, send them over, send over your feedback, send over your suggestions to flowium.com/ask. We are always open and happy to have whoever we can here on this podcast to share their insights, much like Shianne was able to today on today’s episode. So yeah, guys, reach out to us. We love hearing from you.

Vira: 33:57

Thank you. And come back next Tuesday because next Tuesday we’ll be talking about increasing your sales through two-way communication with customers. And that’s something that we partially talked about today. But next time we’re going to talk about it even more. So come back next Tuesday. Thank you for listening. Leave us that review and get your cute socks and we’ll see you back next Tuesday.