274: How to Hyper-Personalize Your Email Marketing - with Abby Hehemann

Autonomous marketing what is that? Is that where an AI can actually take over and run your marketing for you? Can you just turn it on and it learns it gets better and starts to send out the right stuff at the right time to make sure you're getting the best results? Maybe well, I had Abby Hehemann on she's from GetResponse. GetResponse doing great stuff with us. She was able to share how AI can help you when to use it, when not to use it, how to make sure that you are still smarter than the machine. Check it out.

Welcome to Scale your SaaS, the podcast that gives you proven techniques and formulas for boosting your revenue and achieving your dream exits brought to you by a guy who's done just that multiple times. Here's your host, Matt Wolach.

Hello, Welcome.Welcome. So glad to have you here on Scale Your SaaS. My name is Matt. And our goal is exactly that to help you scale your SaaS company so you can find more leads, close more deals and really get an incredible valuation. I'm super excited to have Abby Hehemann with us,Abby, how're you doing?

I'm doing great. How are you doing?

Good. Good. That's I'm so glad to have you here.Thanks for being here. Let me make sure that everybody knows who you are Abby. So Abby is the Director of Product Marketing at get response. She is leading a team of passionate product and lifestyle marketers that educate, engage and activate1000s of happy customers get response is a marketing automation and email marketing software with 350,000 customers worldwide. So Abby absolutely knows her stuff when it comes to marketing. Once again. Thanks for coming on the show. Abby.

Yeah, I'm super happy to be here.

Awesome. So tell me about what's going on lately with you and what's coming up?

Yeah,definitely. So I think with with many, many marketers in the space, and just anyone with an Internet connection, I think is really for the last few months been kind of inundated with,with how the influx of this kind of AI generative AI technology is making our way both into the work I'm doing as a professional marketer, product marketer, but also as somebody working, you know, at a SaaS that's really looking to serve marketers, and how does that kind of work into the, you know, products that we're building and the solutions that we're delivering to customers. So I'd say that's been a huge, huge part of, of mine, and probably most folks that are listening last few months is understanding how this really fits into our world and our ecosystem, and what's actionable now, what's maybe too early, so that's really been taking up most of my personal and professional time, because anyone's scrolling LinkedIn, I think, is also just inundated with, you know, ChatGPT links and, and prompts and, you know,tips.

I totally agree.It's something a lot of people are thinking about something a lot of my clients are coming to asking, Hey, where does this fit? How do we do this? What do we what should we be thinking out? Is it too early? Or too late? Are we already behind? So so many questions happening right now? And what do you think? Where are you in this whole AI? World? What What should people be thinking of if they're leading a company now?

Yeah, that's a good shout. And really what I'm advocating for the most both,again, leading a team and also,you know, working within supplying marketers with a tool that we're embedding generative AI technology within to help them save time is just that be looking in ways where you can be saving time, I think this is where a lot of things, you know,were early automation tools like Zapier and other kind of marketing automation solutions came out, it really came to be what can I do to be more effective and more productive,more efficient with my time. And that is, the kind of toe I'm dipping into, for lack of a better word, in terms of adopting kind of this AI technology myself, is what now can this do to really save some time and help us be more effective and efficient. And that's coming a lot in terms of content creation, content generation, you know, not staring at a blank screen anymore, just like trying to hammer out, you know, 25 emails for kind of an onboarding series that you need to go that could take, you know, days and weeks to create. And now you can at least really get get a leg up on getting yourself started. And then spending more of that brain space and kind of being a lot more specific and strategic with when you're going to deploy this message and to whom rather than the actual just a muscle of creating that first batch of content. And that's really also where it's coming into play and get response actually being a supplier of technology to send the emails and create emails along other marketing materials is to just embed this technology where we really see people get hung up, which is just that blank, blinking cursor. haunting you as you tried to create,create your email or create some of your content. And that's where we're starting. But there's obviously so much more that technology can and will be able to do, but that's definitely our starting point for now.

So cool. And I've seen you talk about hyper personalization with AI. So how,how does that what is that and how does that happen? How can people make that work for them?

Yeah. And to be honest, I think it's Yeah, and you know, again, for right now for something that's still developing, like, I think it's what I think is really attainable for most marketers in the day to day is really to be able to use your time more people are probably too early assigning that terminology of efficiently to be thinking more strategically about how can I be autonomous marketing things that are basically still just creating more customized,specific offers that are super relevant to different segments,you have a lot of time back now.marketing automation, things are actually just still automating And the purpose of that time is to use it strategically, don't you're not wasting it on actual kind of like grammar, copy marketing tasks for you. I think what really levels up this editing, actual key, you know,fingers on the keyboard anymore.autonomous marketing is the concept of, you know,So use that time to actually do some deep thinking to do some deep focus block your calendar to be thinking about how you can predictability, that it's actually predicting and making actually be more effective with specific segments, can you analyze your data more effectively, because one thing proactive recommendations to a marketer like myself, for that I think a few of us marketers are probably most concerned with, is actually feeding your customer data into example of what I should be sending, and to whom preparing some of these third party AI platforms. It's tempting,it all for me. And I just give it the human eye, touch and because it that's one of the ways that I am interested in the future of how I can how AI can keep helping us more approval and hit send. And I really don't think we're there effectively, is actually do something that it's great at,which is, you know, analyzing huge amounts of data that we yet. I really don't think for most marketers, today, there is simply really can't comprehend and actually spit out some recommendations. That's really where I see this going, this the actual technology and ability, that's, you know, at concept of that autonomous marketing is being super predictive, and specific to your customer base. But I know, most our reach to have that access at this point, I think that's where of us should be quite wary, of or leery, let's say, of feeding in your customer data into any third party platform where you it's headed. I think that's where kind of the actual don't have the control over it.So definitely not doing that. So autonomous marketing for folks using marketing platforms will in the meantime, though,definitely using your own internal systems that are, you know, protected within your be expecting in the coming years is to feed the data into your company in your own brain to actually think how can I create much more specific offers for different segments of my marketing automation platform,your autonomous marketing customer base, or, you know,target audience. So I can then platform, and then let it actually crunch the data. This send more specific recommendations to them be more is your trusted platform that you're choosing to actually have like, focused in the way in which you're using the data that you have. So that's like today's world, don't waste time on your data hosted within, and actually have it make some manual processes, let the eye help you generate new content,spend some extra deep work time and thinking about what actually predictions about what segment audiences you should be focusing you're offering this group, and then use marketing automation tools that exist to then where you can, you know, utilize the on what you should be sending,what the actual offer should actual data to personalize, of course, you know, the compose of when you should send it and actually prepare all of demographic details you have,but then, you know, use the purchase data that you have, or the website intent or visitor it for you using that generative content, let you take a look hit data that you have to use that and how you actually trigger your communications.send. And then based on the results, prepare another

Very cool. I heard you mentioned autonomous marketing. Can you just explain for us for our audience what campaign and another campaign that's continuously learning how exactly what that is?the last one did, that's where I think we're headed, but we're That's pretty slick. Love it. And I know definitely not there just yet. I mean, that's kind of the dream,right? Like, just like, you just turn it on, and it goes off and learns and gets better and improves. And that'd be pretty amazing. It would be another kind of barrier to entry that I think is hindering a lot of marketers right now is actually having the time to learn new tools, you have lots, you know,our tech stacks have been growing over the years, and really kind of bursting at the seams. And I know, this year, in particular, folks are really looking closely at their, you know, marketing tech stacks or their tech stacks across our organization to see what's really driving ROI, and cutting that number down. But still, we look around and there's a ton of tools that we need to learn how to use to actually do our jobs effectively. And they have made us more productive in the past compared to you know, before we had a lot of these, you know,marketing technologies when we were doing manual work and, you know, hard physical, you know,paper and pencil types of, you know, marketing and actually executing but now there's the next level of it's actually hindering our productivity at some point because we have to constantly learn new tools. To new platforms, and that takes a lot of time, I think it keeps you've spoken about zero party and first party data being people from being from adopting the most, you know, the latest versions of technology or new platforms just because there's not the time to learn it. And so theoretically, I think with the rise of with accessible autonomous marketing platforms that are kind of easier to understand maybe kind of a chat GTP GPT experience where you type in, in human language, what do you want, it will be able to do it for you without you having to learn a new piece of technology. That's the other piece, I think that would be coming for us.considered most advantageous?Why is that the most advantageous data for marketing purposes?

Well, really,just because, you know, quote,unquote, once you get access to it, as marketers, you own it,let's say in terms of like your email, list, the data that your customers have provided to you,or your leads, right, because whenever we're kind of having to use third party tools, and the data that's kept within those platforms, based on what their visitors on that platform are doing, that they're letting you have a sneak peek into, you have very little control, over accessing that data utilizing it, you know, within your own systems to be able to reach those contexts or you know,those human beings again. And so really, what is the benefit, and you know, why we're still talking about email marketing we're still developing in this tool is because it's leveraging the data that that your customers have provided to you specifically. And so you really ought to do something with it,right? You shouldn't just let it sit. If it's information that has been provided to you, by your customers, through form fills, or other surveys or other information that they provided,but also additionally,information you have about their purchase data, what they're purchasing from you, or you know, what other activity they're doing on your marketing assets, opening your emails,clicking the links in them, what pages are they searching on your website, right to utilize this data to actually then be more intentional, be more hyper personal, right. And really, I just think what hyper personalization means is just being more relevant, more timely to the human being that you're directing your marketing communications to. So a lot of that is timeliness. But then just generally the relevancy of the offer that you're putting in front of them, I love that, what do you see are some of the biggest mistakes that are being made when it comes to email marketing, probably, you know,some folks, it's kind of distilled leaning on the kind of one size fits all, you know,kind of, you know, this is a little bit crude, but kind of,you know, a spray and pray type of strategy where you just really look to go kind of broad and wide and happy to pick up as many fish as you can get in that net. And I just think that's,that's kind of ending I mean,inboxes are so full already,like, more and more folks that are, you know, seeing the value of email, or folks who were maybe a little bit slow to the game to actually start using email marketing are, everybody's in the inbox now, right, it's in there, there's little to no barrier to entry anymore for actually being able to send a lot of emails to a lot of folks.So it's just noisier and so that that methodology is really not going to get you seen, right to just kind of not really put any focused attention on the ways in which you deploy your marketing messages via emails to your customer base, it's just not going to work.

Yeah, it's very true. I've seen a lot of people struggling, and a lot of them have have experienced, you know,a lack of success and trying to figure out how are they going to get into that? Not just in the inbox, I mean, like you said,that's pretty easy, but actually get people to see it and actually respond to it, there is just such a glut of so many different messages, and anybody who has any sort of leadership role in an organization is just getting flooded, I'm sure you know, it, I know it. So it's,it's definitely a struggle.

It is it is and really, and that tactic will then eventually, though, keep you out of the inbox as well,right? Like, once you actually,once the, you know, email providers start to see that no one is actually engaging with your messages, no one's opening,clicking, engaging with them in particular, then they really won't actually place it in the inbox any longer anyways. And so you're landing up in spam folders or in quarantine, or wherever it is, you know, your your email provider is directing those types of mailings as well.So it's really a zero sum game,and you're not going to get anywhere very far. And so what's what's better is to be incredibly timely and relevant once you actually capture the email address. And that specific moment it's it's your moment to shine because it's your in the X in the brain of the person that has provided their email address to you in that specific moment.And that is your golden opportunity to go to reach their inbox relevant to the reason in which they just provided you their email address, signing up for something wanting to get access to something, scheduling a call with you, whatever it is,we're now trained in our brains to check our inbox to for that next step, that next piece of communication, and that's what sends the first signal to the email provider. Yes, this is expected communication. This is valid I should deliver this again and that's that's really what it's about is being relevant and timely at the moment in time in which they're expecting some engagement with you. But then if you send, you know, something, a few days later, we've all moved on, you know, there's lives being led outside of that moment.Truth, definitely truth. So I know you guys have done some studies on email marketing trends, can you can you share with us some of the results of that study? What are some significant email marketing trends that we can expect to see this year? Sure, and this is not particularly new, but a little bit, because I think it takes some time to catch on just like,reporting on open rates at this point is kind of like,unfortunately dead, it's just not really anything you could or should be leaning on anymore,because apples got this mail privacy protection, that they you know, are rolling out,basically. And this, this is impacting in the way open rates are reported. And since we know,Apple is a very huge provider of, you know, how folks actually receive and open their emails or, you know, get emails to their devices, it's just greatly inflating open rates, it's not an actual human being seeing an opening your message that you can count on anymore. And so,again, this goes back to leaning much more on the engagement, the ways in which people are, then once they do physically open your email, how are they subsequently engaging with it,clicking on the links actually going, where you're looking to direct them as a result of your email. So basically, the big thing is that I think we all have to stop really reporting on anybody that's kind of reporting on open rates, in particular, in terms of the kind of micro KPI of the efficacy of their email campaign is really not telling you much. And it really shouldn't be anything that you hang your hat on in terms of really evaluating how effective or impactful your campaign was with how many people it got in front of because you just can't be confident in that number. So that's definitely something you should let you be leaning harder on the clicks that you're getting the the further engagement that you get from your emails, it's definitely a big one, we're all having to wean ourselves off of of that,that glorious, open rate of how many people opened my email.That's one thing. And then pretty much everybody is looking at generative AI for their email content, subject lines, you know, the content generation,inside of your email itself,like this is all becoming table stakes, I would say and folks in terms of people actually creating creating emails.Interesting. And I didn't know that about about Apple in their inflated open rates. So I guess I should stop feeling good about somebody open. That's good.But no, they're inflated. But I would say, don't hang your hat.If you see a CEO. Really, I think they're inflated. I think our numbers were like seven percentage points is kind of the average email open rate is like up seven percentage points,which is not something that feels completely organic,related to actual subscribers.Gotcha. Okay. That's interesting. But I love your advice to focus on what's that next step? Where are they clicking? What are they doing?Are they downloading something or watching something or hitting this page? I think that's really important to be able to track it. I'm not sure that enough people are tracking that. Yeah,exactly. And that also is a good reminder, then to be super intentional about the goal and intent of that specific email you sent, you don't want to send them in four or five different directions, there should probably be, you know, maximum two places that they really could go from that email. So that means it's not going to be shouldn't be super hard for you to track how people are actually engaging with that email and doing what really was the goal of that in the first place,going to a page on your website,logging into, you know, your SaaS platform or checking out this video, whatever it is, you have the capabilities then to monitor how many people clicked and then subsequently further engaged with with whatever it is that you were directing them to?

I love it. So wrapping up, what advice would you have for early stage software leaders and marketing leaders who are looking to grow and scale and use email marketing for that?

Sure, I think you know, I'll start kind of really with like, broad strategies, definitely stay close with your existing customer base, stay close with the people who are happy using your service or solution you're offering. Make sure people on your team and you in particular,have conversations with these folks, you know, a couple a quarter at least definitely,once a month would be great.Make sure you still are speaking their language, you understand the value that your solution is providing. I think that should just be a drumbeat. That's not something that's one and done,that get helps you remain much more effective and much more impactful and relevant with with really what it is you're out there to do. And then subsequently, from there, I would say, use technology in a way in which that makes you more effective and more productive,let's say to actually get things done. So your team can like execute, they can ship they're not they don't have barriers in front of them in terms of actually just executing on your strategy. But then take the time that saved to actually give teams give yourself deep work time, deep focus times, taking all the insights that you're getting both from how your you know, campaigns are performing at scale, but then the insights that you get directly from your customers on a slightly smaller scale, to then make sure you're continuing to be relevant and not just executing like a machine. Because that's, that's what the whole big takeaway is,for most of us watching these AI trends is, let's keep figuring out how we're better than the machines, right? Like, let's keep finding out what makes us all so uniquely human. And what really makes that valuable,because that's how we're going to continue standing out and just leaning on technology, and so far, and how it can help you be more productive and help you meet these strategic goals that you're setting out. As a human.

I love it. That's great. I think that's really good advice for all of us, how can we make sure that we're still better than the machines is, you know.

I'm not letting it keep me up at night,because I know, we do have these things that are uniquely human.And that's what we're all going to keep responding to in terms of marketing messages or sales message, what feels what feels really human and relevant and timely to me, not just something that is one of you know,millions. And I'm saying that as an email marketer who you know,is targeting 1000s of customers,right? We've got 1000s of emails, but we know lots of details and lots of specifics about our audience that they care a lot about, and how can we just leverage tools to get the right message to the right people at the right time? And that's what the technology is great to help us do.

I totally agree.Well, this has been awesome.Abby, I really appreciate you coming on how can our audience learn more about you and get response?

Yeah,definitely go to getresponse.com It's where you know, you'll be able to check out all of our tools, you can try our you know,AI generators for free in terms of creating your emails really quickly. And definitely check out get response on on LinkedIn and Instagram. They've got lots of really cool fun, quick videos and things coming out just to help marketers learn little tidbits and facts on how to kind of up your email and online marketing game. And then you can find me Abby Hehemann on LinkedIn, love to connect and chat through some of these things as well.

Okay, perfect. And we'll put all that into the show notes. So if you're listening,you can see that if you're also on YouTube, you should be able to see it in the description down there. But Abby, this has been awesome. Thanks so much for coming on and sharing all this with us. Thanks for having me.It's great. Absolutely, and everybody else out there. Thanks for being here. Make sure you're subscribed to the show. You don't want to miss out on any other leaders and amazing visionaries like Abby, so definitely hit that subscribe button. That way you're gonna get all the good stuff coming up in the next few weeks. Thank you very much for being here. We will see you next time. Take care.

Thanks for listening to Scale Your SaaS.For more help on finding great leads and closing more deals. Go to Mattwolach.com