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Everyone wants to grow their business, but not everyone has the time or patience to learn all the ins and outs of marketing, sales enablement, and making the most out of a CRM such as HubSpot. Join the Web Canopy Studio team, a HubSpot Diamond Partner Agency, as they chat about various topics all designed to help you grow your B2B business.
Tom Andrews (00:02.947)
Catch you later.
Tom Andrews (00:08.887)
We're still sounding okay.
Tom Andrews (00:18.233)
Yeah!
moment of truth.
Elliott Sitkins (00:24.526)
Seems all good still.
Tom Andrews (00:24.779)
Yeah, we're there. We're still here. All right, superb. Thank you, Jason. Right, deep breath and let's go. I'm gonna have to try not to speak really fast because when I'm like, there's like a natural time limit. Okay.
Hey and welcome back to the show. Elliot Sitkins here on your first podcast on the Web Canopy Studio Show, or at least your first one with me. And very, very exciting podcast today because Elliot is a genius here at Web Canopy Studio. Super smart guy and we are talking about email marketing. Before we talk about that Elliot, do you want to just give a brief introduction about yourself?
Elliott Sitkins (01:06.026)
Yeah, like I said, my name is Elliot Sikkens. I am a strategist here at Web Canopy Studio. Work on the execution of a lot of backend campaigns. Of course, a lot of that revolves around email as digital marketers, whether it's the main thing or just something we do in the background for re-engagement, delivering assets, those kinds of things. Everyone loves an exciting email nurture campaign, but they are effective.
Tom Andrews (01:29.647)
certainly are and as part of your role as a strategist you do work on the various things can you just explain if listeners are thinking ah email it's now that's so 2010 why should they focus on email and put the time into mastering it
Elliott Sitkins (01:47.102)
Yeah, I mean, at the end of the day, everyone still uses email. Uh, of course, you know, everyone talks about the last thing you want is another email in your inbox. You know, there's email fatigue and yes, those are all things to keep in mind and be conscious of when you're, when you're working on your email strategy. Uh, but at the end of the day, everyone that works online has an email address and they check their email regularly. And so if you're using it effectively, it's really the, one of the best ways to get in touch with your audience. You know, even if you have the best offer in the world.
people still need to see it. And you can work on SEO, you can work on things in your website, but sometimes there's nothing better than just sending it right to them.
Tom Andrews (02:22.735)
Absolutely. And I also feel that it's more bottom of funnel than things like social and blogs as well. It feels more personal. And when somebody actually goes into their inbox, whether it's Gmail or whatever inbox service they use, they're actually in more of a buyer's frame of mind. Whereas if they see your post on Instagram, there probably aren't many people that are thinking, Oh, I wonder what B2B offer I can, I can book a call for today. So
Yeah, like you say, email is super, super important. Let's talk about some general email marketing best practices, because yes, it's kind of how long is a piece of string because there are different kinds of emails you can write and different tactics and strategies do all work. But there are some best practices. So do you just want to talk about some of those?
Elliott Sitkins (03:11.582)
Yeah, absolutely. So like we were saying, there are some downsides to email marketing when it's not done properly. But I think when it's done properly, it can be very effective. I think one of the biggest things is to email like a person. I know that sounds pretty obvious, but with the exception of very, very few brands that have a ton of brand equity, no one wants to hear from a company. They wanna hear from a person. And so treating your emails like a person, especially now with
so much AI content out there, if it even sounds a little bit robotic, people are going to ignore it completely. So seem personal, seem relatable, you know, be friendly as much as your particular industry and brand voice allow it, you know, have a little fun, be relatable. I think that's really the biggest thing is just be conversational. Don't be the least bit spammy. Yeah. And, and make sure you're providing value is the other big thing, you know.
It's managing that equity. If you build up equity, the more value you provide your reader. And then at some point, you do need to ask for something in return. Ask for them to take some kind of action. And so just finding that right amount of balance, of providing value and asking.
Tom Andrews (04:20.255)
really interesting way of looking at it talking about the equity almost like a piggy bank if that's what you call them in America so you just you deposit that money and then when you've deposited enough you can then take it out and have that big payday but if you get greedy and try and have that big payday before depositing enough then yes excuse me you're sort of gonna fall a little bit flat on your face you fight
Elliott Sitkins (04:26.538)
Yep, exactly.
Elliott Sitkins (04:43.402)
Yeah, and that goes right into the other thing I was gonna mention too with email health, of like keeping your email healthy, because there's no way to guarantee that an email's gonna end up in a primary inbox, but the healthier your email sending domain, the less likely you are to go to spam or to go to promotions, folders, and things along those lines. And so, the more you wear out your audience, the more likely you're gonna get unsubscribes, you're gonna get lower open rates, all those things are gonna hurt your email health. So making sure to keep track of your email health.
Tom Andrews (04:47.863)
Mm-hmm.
Elliott Sitkins (05:11.582)
and keeping it healthy is going to be a lot better for deliverability and effectiveness.
Tom Andrews (05:16.775)
us super cool and how and again various ways and I know when it comes to deliverability a lot of people think they know what they're talking about but the rules and the gatepost seem to shift all the time but are there any absolute do's and don'ts when it comes to email health just to give you the best chance possible of staying out of the spam and even the promotion folder
Elliott Sitkins (05:40.146)
Yeah, I mean, the biggest thing especially for spam is just to avoid, you know, if you're, if you would ignore your email, probably don't send it, you know, kind of those things that if it looks like it could be a scam, so, you know, avoid big like free in the subject line, even if it is a free offer, generally try to avoid some of those kind of words, you know, don't make it sound too good to be true. You know, obviously, there's a lot of softwares out there that can help like HubSpot that we use.
that will help you monitor your email health and give you recommendations on things you can do. Obviously, personalization to a certain extent is gonna help with open rate. Don't over-exhaust your email audience. Don't send them way too many emails way too often. And if people get unengaged, then stop sending them emails. And then of course, just the regulation things, like make sure there's an unsubscribe link in your emails and those little details as well.
Tom Andrews (06:35.119)
In terms of length, have you noticed length plays, a, have you noticed it plays a factor in whether something goes to the promotion folder or not? And b, just for general email marketing purposes, let's just assume it's going into your primary inbox and somebody's opened it. How long do you generally recommend an email should be? Or does it completely in your mind depend on the offer or whereabouts in the life cycle somebody is when reading your email? What are your thoughts on that?
Elliott Sitkins (07:04.914)
Yeah, I'm not sure I've noticed a big difference in length on deliverability. But again, that's really hard to tell, you know, from the person sending. You can tell if the email got delivered or not, but it's hard to know where it ended up, whether it was in a primary inbox, in a promotions folder or whatnot. Um, but as far as length, uh, yes, it definitely depends on, you know, the purpose of the email, the life cycle stage of that, but generally I think shorter is almost always better. I think.
Uh, people have so much to say, uh, and you know, I'm sure it's all good things, but I think it's way too easy to write way too long of an email and it's much better to be concise. You know, like we said, people do get a ton of emails. The second you open an email, especially if it's one you weren't expecting, if it goes beyond, you know, the top half of your screen, you're probably ignoring that. So I think the key is say just enough to get them interested and also keep in mind that.
extremely rarely, probably never are you actually converting in the email directly. You're usually asking them to book a call, email you back, go to a link and convert on a landing page. So all you need to do in the email is get them to take the next step. That's all you're selling is the next step. And so sometimes less is more in that, A, they'll actually read the email, but also if you leave them wanting a little bit more,
then maybe they're gonna go to the landing page and see what's there and then you can try to get them to convert there or they'll book a call because they wanna find out more. If you tell them everything right in that email, maybe they think it's not quite for them when if you can get them on a call, you can convince them that this actually is the answer they've been looking for.
Tom Andrews (08:48.911)
Um, that's crucial because the amount of people I speak to or you not even speak to the amount of emails I've seen in my own inbox where they try and sell their service or their product right up front. And like you said, you're busy unless it's somebody in the, the more online marketing world to use, maybe look up to as a guru. And then maybe those sorts of people you are willing to read a slightly longer message, but if it's just a B2B service, for example,
You don't really have any real affinity towards the person sending that email. So when you see their name or the subject line, yeah, okay. You might open it, but it's highly unlikely. If you're out with your friends at a bar that you're going to think, Oh, look, like Tom Andrews and Elliot Sikkins have just emailed me to talk about this new service they've got. But see you later guys. I'll speak to you in 60 seconds. No, you, you might just, you might just go to the toilet quickly on the way back. Open your email.
see the subject line, all that looks interesting. And then if it's like a very short and sharp, these, these are the benefits. This is what you're going to get. Then you might think, okay, I'll maybe click to the landing page and come back to that later, or let's say you're not at a bar situation, you're just at home. You might click and then hopefully buy or book a call now. So in terms of the copyright and side of things, we've spoken about the length and given some general overview tips, should we say about the copyright?
Are there any specific tactics that you would recommend when actually writing an email? Would you like, generally, do you like to write from a person as in I, or do you like to write from the company as in we, I have my thoughts on this, but curious to hear yours.
Elliott Sitkins (10:33.918)
Yeah, I definitely always lean towards writing from the person as much as possible. You know, like I said, trying to be relatable and suddenly a person. Um, obviously there's certain transactional type emails, I guess you could say. Where you can write from the company. Like if someone's downloaded a free resource, you can, you know, if you're delivering that resource, just, Hey, thanks from the team, you know, those sorts of things, but, uh, but yeah, any marketing emails, I definitely try to be from a person as much as possible and then if possible, make that reply to address.
the person that you're emailing from. Um, I think that makes it much more relatable. Uh, and then, you know, when you have called actions, if you can make it instead of saying, you know, book a demo or buy now something that sounds more, um, you know, absolute or, or more, there's more pressure on it. Make it more casual and to say, Hey, let's book some time and talk. You know, I'd love to, I'd love to hear about your issues, you know, make it just sound like a conversation because.
Realistically, most of the time, you aren't going to book that demo right away, or you aren't going to try to sell on that first call. It's going to be a discovery call. You're going to want to learn more, hear more about their issues. So you can craft a better demo and sales presentation. So go ahead and be transparent about that. Just say, I want to hear more about your issues. I want to see if we can be a solution for whatever problems you're facing.
Tom Andrews (11:50.575)
And in the email itself, how many calls to action would you generally recommend within the email? And have you noticed that putting too many calls to action can actually trigger the spam filters?
Elliott Sitkins (12:01.938)
Uh, yeah, absolutely. Too many links, uh, can often be a bad thing. Uh, so I definitely, I'll often link the same resource a couple of times just to make sure they don't miss it. You know, usually towards the top of the email and towards the bottom. But the key is you should only be linking to one resource. Again, very few exceptions. You might want to link to, to give them multiple options, but generally you want to have one clear call to action. Uh, cause even just two or three different options can lead to decision overload.
You know when you're trying to make a snap decision someone spending 30 seconds reading an email They're not it's not a you know highly intensive thought process for them You want to give them one clear option give them a yes or no? They're much more like getting a very if you give them three options, you know I don't know which one I want to do right now. They're just gonna leave and never come back to email So yeah, you could link it a couple different times if especially if it's a slightly longer email But make sure it's one clear call to action per email
one definitive action you want them to take. Make it easy to say yes.
Tom Andrews (13:03.607)
seen this quite a lot lately, again, with in the guru space with people selling courses. I'm not a massive fan of that space, but I follow some people in it anyway. And a few of those recently have started putting in more course to action. And I'm like, no, that's just, that's just stupid. That's not gonna work. And they do it because they think, oh, well, not everybody might like this offer. But if I put in three different offers, I'm going to have a bigger net. But what you said there was spot on. And if you think about it,
I'm sure everybody listening to this has been in a similar situation where you're at a restaurant and maybe you're looking at the dessert menu and there's loads of desserts there and you think it all that looks good or fancy ice cream or but the cheesecake looks really good. Oh, but then are like the crumble, whatever you call Apple crumble over there. That looks really good. And then you start going back and forth in your own mind. And eventually you think, do I actually need anything? Like, do I actually need dessert?
Whereas if you can just make it a yes or no decision, you're more likely to get it. So if ice cream was the only thing, then the question becomes, do I want dessert? And at that moment in time, you're like, yes, I do. I love ice cream. So you absolutely spot on that information overload and decision fatigue is a real thing. And that is in my, my opinion, the worst, the biggest mistake I see companies make in emails.
Elliott Sitkins (14:18.517)
I think.
Elliott Sitkins (14:23.91)
Yeah, I think that's a very good analogy for that. I haven't thought of that one, but, cause yeah, and I think like even myself, I fall guilty to like when I'm writing an email off and think like, maybe this call to action is a little more aggressive. Why don't we, you know, then after we say, schedule some time with me, then you can say, or, you know, if you don't wanna do that yet, you know, check out this free resource, or you try to offer something like, that seems like a smaller ask. But when you do that, it's then like, best case scenario, they're gonna say,
Oh, I can do something that requires less effort. I'm just going to take that action. Now it's going to pull people away from the action you really want them to take. Or worst case scenario, it's going to lead to decision overload. They're not going to take any action, you know, so often you want to do that. Cause you're like, well, you know, I'm going to get a better click rate, but really then they're going to be clicking on something you didn't want them to in the first place. So yeah.
Tom Andrews (15:11.599)
Great point. Yeah, that's a really good point. And something I've actually never thought of, but yeah, that is super. I think as well, when it comes to newsletters, this is the only situation where maybe I would recommend having multiple links if it is just a typical newsletter where it's okay, this is what we've done this month. We've done this and it will say a little section of what you've done. And then maybe a call to action relating to that. And then it will maybe be talking about something else and it will link to another blog post.
Elliott Sitkins (15:30.036)
Mm-hmm.
Tom Andrews (15:41.655)
There may be a little advertisement or a sponsor, and then it will link to that. That for me is the only kind of email. You might even disagree with that, but that is the only kind of email where having more than one call to action and link that is acceptable. But in most emails that you're going to be sending date like daily or every other day or weekly, whenever I'd probably stay clear.
Elliott Sitkins (15:54.887)
Yeah, I think.
Elliott Sitkins (16:02.59)
Yeah, I think that is a fair point for sure. And I think it also brings into the discussion of like, like stylized emails versus non stylized emails. I think that's kind of similar to, you know, where it's like, obviously if you're an e-commerce company that's just sending like a marketing blast that's this highly stylized email and you're like, you know, it's spring season buyer button up short sleeve shirts or our shorts or our swim trunks, you know, that can be different. I completely side tangent. I think a lot of e-commerce companies do.
way too much email marketing and they're just stuck in everyone's motion folder, no one ever reads it. But obviously we deal more with B2B and I think that there is still a time for those newsletters, those monthly or quarterly updates or whatever that are these nice stylized emails that maybe have a few different links to them. But if you're sending a conversion focused marketing email with one clear offer because you've got a new event coming or you've got a new product that you're trying to launch.
Tom Andrews (16:34.706)
Yep.
Elliott Sitkins (16:59.126)
those don't need to be as stylized because you want them to feel more personal and those should just have one clear call to action.
Tom Andrews (17:07.407)
And I would say as well that even though I've just said that about newsletters, personally, if I had to just choose one style of email, I would never even bother sending a newsletter. I think the more personal emails are generally packed way more punch and generally way more effective. I think people send newsletters because they've become more popular over the last couple of years. There's more, I won't say who, but there's a popular podcast out there who, like one of the hosts built their entire business.
on a newsletter and I think a lot of people are just like, oh, newsletters, they're really cool. And they do have, they do have their benefits. But if you're thinking, oh, newsletter versus a more personal looking email, I'd go for the personal looking email every time. Just quickly in terms of design, where you've said they, you don't want too many images, do you think you should have any images at all in most emails or would you just go plain text? Obviously you use HTML for tracking purposes, but.
Would you make it look like a plain text email?
Elliott Sitkins (18:09.682)
Yeah, generally speaking, I would go with plain text. Again, obviously if it's e-commerce, you need to show a product, go ahead and include an image there. And I think that there is a case to be made for breaking the cycle and trying to be different. If you wanna include like a GIF or a short video or a funny, like a meme, in the right context, of course, I think there's a case to be made for that to break the cycle. But just as far as like...
let's be honest, do you really need your company logo at the top of an email that, you know, of every email, you know, again, sometimes branding is important, but sometimes it's almost more valuable just to appear more like a one-to-one email, you know, when possible.
Tom Andrews (18:56.343)
Fantastic. Well, I know you've got a meeting in one minute time, so I'll let you go. But listeners, don't worry. You will have more of Elliot Sitkins very soon because next time Elliot's on, we are going to be talking about making the most out of HubSpot with your email marketing. So that is going to be a fantastic episode. And when you combine that with the tactics we've gone over today, then wow, you have some very good results to look forward to. So Elliot, thanks a lot and we'll see you soon.
Elliott Sitkins (19:24.29)
Thanks Tom.
Tom Andrews (19:26.903)
Right, Jason, right, Elliot, I'll let you go to your meeting. Catch you later. Yes, Jason, if, um, yeah, if.
Elliott Sitkins (19:30.155)
Yeah.
Tom Andrews (19:38.935)
We trying to think, there was a bit in there where I was like, I think there was a little bit in there where I was sort of stuttering a bit and like, went over my words. I was tempted at the time to be like, Oh, Jason cut that and I was trying to think of what to say. If it doesn't look bad on camera, then leave it in. If not, maybe just cut out some of the arms. But if you leave it, I'd rather just stay as rule. And then I'll save you editing time as well, unless it looks like stupid.
case get rid of it but yeah I'll do the I'll do the intro now
Tom Andrews (20:15.767)
Hello and welcome back to the Web Canopy Studio Show. I'm your host, Tom Andrews. And today we have a very exciting episode as always, because Elliot Sitkins is joining the show and we are gonna be talking about email marketing. I'll cut that.
I'll start again, probably too long.
Tom Andrews (20:41.239)
Hello and welcome back to the Web Canopy Studio Show. I'm your host, Tom Andrews. And today we are joined by Elliot Sitkins, who is here to talk about email marketing. Buckle up and let's begin. Sweet, I'll send this over to you. Boy, it'll be in the main pool. All right, cheers, man.