MBA1564 Special Guest Lesson: A Masterclass in Email Marketing with Steffen Schebesta

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Thanks for having me, Omar.

Great. Let's jump right into it. Stefan, I want to know, how did you get started with email marketing and eventually help create SendInBlue? How did that all happen? Like, was it something that you were suffering from? I want to hear about that. All right.

Well, actually we got started back in 2011, so I was doing a project, I was freelancing at that time, doing some development work on the site. And we had one customer in Germany who wanted to have a small newsletter software. So we started working on that. And then this basically transitioned into the idea to build a software as a service for customers. That's basically how we stumbled upon this idea. At the same time I had some classes on entrepreneurship in my university, so we were actually building a business plan on top of that. And from there we got lucky kind of finding an investor. It was fun story by the way. If we have time, we can talk about this later. So we started the business and then kind of grew quite organically with minimum investment until we reached about 70 employees, became the leader in the German speaking market in 2017, 2018. But then we really struggled to internationalize. So we tried to internationalize from Germany into different countries across the globe, really. And then in the end of 2018, we decided to join forces with SendInBlue, which now the whole brand is called SendInBlue. But it's really two companies, two European companies coming together and building one bigger company. SendInBlue at the same time was doing exactly what we had been trying to do on the journey German market and became the French market leader in email marketing software. And it really made a lot of sense and we really had complementary offerings and complementary regions where we operated. And so from 2018 we operate as one big company. We're now over 350 people all over the world. We have four offices across the world. One in Seattle, one in Paris, one in Berlin and Germany, and one in India and Noida. So we're really a global company by now and we're about to open another office on the east coast very, very soon. And we've also been quite successful in the North American market over the last year. So it's actually the fastest growing market for our company and we're generating most new paying customers there as well.

I love it. I love it. What I take from your short kind of fast forward founder story is, you know, no one does this alone. You have a co founder, you stumble upon that investor that helped you out. You join for forces with another great marketing company in Europe. And a lot of entrepreneurs when they get started, they don't realize that in order to build a great company, you're going to have to have a great network. And we have to also just kind of not just rely on yourself, but rely on others. A lot of people think it's just like genius mind, Steve Jobs, Elon Musk. No, you know, these guys don't do it alone either. There's a lot of people behind the scenes that make it happen. I really love that. And I want to kind of dive into email marketing and I want to know what does SendinBlue do differently? Like there's so many email marketing options out there, we all know the famous names and things like that and SendInBlue is coming into the scene. What problems are SendInBlue trying to solve?

So we're really, you know, our, our purpose of our company is really to help small and medium sized businesses to digitalize, basically so making sure they have access to the same tools as the big players. So we're really trying to give SMBs the tools that they need to market to their customers. So that's the big idea behind it and how we differentiate. I mean we do offer a lot of services apart from email marketing. So we have, over the years we started with email marketing but then we really moved into a multi channel solution, like an all in one online marketing solution. Apart from email marketing, we offer very powerful automation features where you combine different channels such as email marketing, but also SMS or we do offer retargeting and Facebook ads and a chat feature. So you can combine these channels and really make your automation very powerful and really reach the target audience that you want in a very personalized way. So this is really where we come into play and I think we do offer very good value for money. So it's definitely worth checking it out. But that's so basically where we're coming from. That SMB side that was our initial idea to help the SMBs there.

I like the idea that you not only offer email marketing services, but other marketing services like the Facebook marketing, like the text messaging. Because a lot of us, we're bogged down with all the different pieces of software that we have to plug into our business to make it happen. And it's great to just have one thing to kind of take off our play or a couple things off our plate with one software. So that's really, I like that advantage. It's really cool because, you know, there's a learning curve in learning a new software and, you know, if you can just have your team learn one rather than a few, I think that's, that's definitely a great differentiator. You know, every business is challenging. You know, every business is challenging. But what specific challenges did you face? You know, building SendinBlue.

So I don't know how many times I heard this, but basically every time I go to trade show, I have an interview, it's isn't the email dead? And I've heard this from the very beginning when I started the business in 2011. That's the first thing. What about social media? What about this? Like, there's so many new marketing tools that are always, you know, appearing. And so that has definitely been a challenge to convince prospects that email marketing is still very, very current and it's still working really well. And I mean, if you look at the data, when you invest $1 in email marketing, your average return on investment is over $40. So it's still really, really working well and you can use it as an channel as well as engagement channel and retention channel. So that has always been a challenge. Now it's more going into that direction to really pitch the idea that you can have an all in one solution that you mentioned, where you actually combine these channels and where it really makes sense. So we are trying to push forward new channels and we want to see the adoption on that side as well. So now our pitch is shifting in that direction a little bit, but I think we're doing a good job and we're getting there to convince our prospects that this is a good way to look at it.

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Well, I think one big mistake that you can make is to have a scattergun approach so you kind of send the same content and the same mailings to your whole audience. You don't really try to target and you take your whole list and just send it all at once. And they're a much better approach to this. In the end, you want to keep it relevant. Like you said, we're all getting hundreds of emails per day and we we all only want to look at that content that's actually relevant for us. So make sure if you send out your campaign that you target the right audiences and make sure to send it at the right time as well. And I know you had an episode on this, on how to find this as well, so maybe listen to that again. But it's very important.

Yeah, we'll put it in the show notes.

Yeah, it's very important. Also make sure to personalize your content and that maybe it might sound like this might be a lot of work for you.

Right.

You always have to go into your list and then target or segment, get the right segment, create multiple newsletters and have the right content, so on. Yeah, it sounds like it. But actually if you do it right, if you start, for example, building workflows and automation, then it gets much, much easier. And then you basically only think about it once. You kind of build this whole structure and then you can make sure that your contacts do get the right content. Depending on maybe their past behavior as well. You can automate when these emails are being sent and that they're not. What I also hate is if you get three emails by the same provider in one day, for example. So make sure that you try avoid that. So these are little things that make all the difference in the end. So I can really recommend setting up automation workflows and if you don't have maybe time for that or you don't want to do that for whatever reasons, or you think maybe your list is not big enough, then at least test a bit, Test a little bit. And with different subject lines, AB testing and so on. So that is, I think that can really help to make the content more relevant for your audience.

Exactly. I love it. I gotta ask this question because it's a big controversial topic in email marketing. It's almost like there's two camps like the Sharks and the jets and west side Story or something like that. But how do you guys feel about images and emails? Do they hurt deliverability? Are emails without images more likely to show up in the priority primary inbox than ones with images? I'd love to hear your thoughts on that.

I think images and emails are vital part to the whole experience. They can make all the difference. They can give you a nice call to action and images are their studies. Images are clicked a lot more than regular text links, for example. I wouldn't say you should avoid images at all.

Right.

It's very important to have images in your email, but you should make sure that you have a healthy ratio between images and text in your email. And it's true if you have too many images or worst case you just have one huge image and no text at all. Yeah. Then it will probably not be delivered as well as if you have text in your email as well. So I can really. Yeah, I can really recommend to add some text. It will also help with accessibility. So for screen readers, for example, if somebody wants to listen to the email, then it also helps. It's much better. Also for indexing your customers, they can search for content that you might have sent them before. So you should use images but make sure to use them in the right way as call to actions or setting the mood or for products, of course it's very useful, but don't exaggerate.

I love it. I love it. 2020 has been a challenging year to say the least. How has COVID 19 changed email marketing recently? I know that a lot of businesses have been affected by COVID 19. How has email marketing kind of evolved, changed, helped with this situation?

It's true, Omar. I mean it has changed quite a lot. I mean it has changed all of our lives in the end. So what we've seen in terms of email marketing and I mean it's a whole movement of digitalization. Again, what we've seen is that open rates skyrocketed, so they increased by 20 to 30% depending on the regions, depending on the country. So we have very interesting study on this. And also email volume overall increased in times of COVID So we've seen the volume, more campaigns, more emails in general. And most of them you've probably also received quite a lot of those information. Right. Just what will happen to the business now, what happens to the open times and so on. But also what we've seen, that was also an interesting learning for us. The kind of content that worked really well during these times were asking customers for support for their business, for example, buying voucher codes. And then you get maybe a product later or a service later. So that was, that was very successful. And people want to help you if you're a small business owner and they know you're in trouble. I mean on the e commerce side as well, we've seen traffic increase. So we also saw a big shift towards e commerce. And that also reflects also in email marketing, of course, but in general, maybe. One story that I always find very nice from one of our customers was we had the son of a basically a farmer family and this, these farmers, they would, you know, they go to the weekly market to sell their produce and obviously they weren't able to do this now anymore. So their son had been trying to push the parents to digitize over the last years and they were no, you know, we're told it's not necessary. But then like, obviously they had to do something now. So he really pushed for it and they, you know, he created a, a small e commerce website very quickly. By now, like nowadays it's super easy to set up. They integrate with our software, they send out newsletters on their produce, they even have like SMS transactional monitoring which is pretty cool and like confirmation for home delivery. So actually they went quite advanced in a short period of time. So now they're e farmers in a way. So that was really nice. That was very nice to see. And I mean that's a shift that a lot of SMBs go through at the moment and it reflects how much email marketing is being done or how much online marketing in general.

I love that. But that really shows you that anyone really can do this and get their act together, can really get their email marketing together. If a farmer who is the most traditional type of business or type of field can do it, I think any of us who are running online or even offline businesses can jump right in. I love that.

Well, I think that's the whole idea, right? I think these SMBs or even very small businesses, they should have the opportunity to do that. And it's 2020, so there are tools out there. So if you're not digital yet, just go and do it now. Now is the time to do it. So I really, really want to encourage that.

Yeah, I can't agree more. I want to shift gears a little bit and talk a little bit about, you know, SendInBlue's website is really gorgeous. It's actually really well designed. I have an eye for design. I love great designed websites because it's the beginning of your relationship with the customer. It's their first impressions. I love that. How important is design to the success of SendInBlue? Of the success of any product?

Well, I think it's of course important, right? For us it's, well, thanks for the compliment. For us it's more a way to give great user experience. So we've always been more about user experience than actual design and that's again coming from the idea to enable SMBs to do more and to help beginners to actually start with email marketing and other online marketing channels. So for us it's really the way for us to increase and to have a really good user experience by providing a good Design and making it easy for the users to use our software.

I love it. I love it. So zinninblue actually is known for something more than just email marketing. It's known for its great customer service. And I love brands that really find customer service as a priority. They really make sure they take care of their customers, understanding that retention is really, really important. It costs more to bring in a customer rather than keep one. So what are some tips you can share with our listeners to improve their customer service? What are some of the things that SendinBlue does that you can kind of share that our listeners can borrow and do in their own business?

Well, we've always been focused on great customer service. So we offer 24 hour customer service. Like I said, we have offices across three continents, so it's always been a focus of ours. And we offer customer service in I think six or seven different languages as well. But if you want to excel in customer care, I think the key is to take your customers seriously. In the end, like you said, they're your biggest asset. When they complain or if they don't understand something, then they're usually right. So I think a lot of the best features or improvements that we have implemented in our software come directly from customer feedback. And we take that really seriously. And we also try, you know, to follow up when we fix an issue or improve something. And then we always also try to stay human and approachable. And this way we really try to make them feel involved and almost, you know, part of our team.

I like that. I like that. You know, a couple years ago, a lot of our listeners were emailing us asking questions about gdpr. They were like, you know, what do I do? How do I make sure I'm GDPR compliant with my email marketing, all that kind of stuff. Can you talk a little bit about how you guys have made GDPR a little easier for your users over at SendInBlue?

Yeah, GDPR definitely was a big topic. So for us, I mean, as a European company, we're directly affected, of course. So we, we did everything necessary to make sure our software is GDPR compliant. And again, our approach is to make it very easy for the user to use our software. So almost everything is handled in the background. So everything about data storage, data retention, data deletion, everything that's in gdpr. The only thing that a user should do is, with our software at least, is sign a data processing agreement, which you can find online, and you just sign it online as well and make sure you use a double Opt in, you know, sign up form and then everything else basically handled by us in the background. So it's, we try to make it very easy to stay GDPR compliant.

That's pretty simple, you know, you know, just two steps and you're good to go. And you know, I know a lot of entrepreneurs, they ask this question because, you know, they got a lot on their plate, they got other things to worry about, they got to pay their employees, they got to hire new ones, they have to think of their products. So it's good to know that you guys kind of take care of the headaches of gdpr because even those who are not based in the eu, they want to make sure that their customers that they're serving are also protected. So I love that you guys are making it easy. So I want to wrap up with a real scenario because I know a lot of listeners right now are thinking this in their head right now. They just started a new online business. Okay, what are the first steps in getting started with email marketing? Let's say I have like, you know, a few weekends to work on this. What are the first steps I gotta take?

I mean, the beauty of email marketing is you can always get started. You can, you can get started when you don't have anything except maybe a landing page. So. But I would recommend once you have a website, make sure to put a form on there where people can sign up. Even if it's just a landing page, no content, just put a big box there, ask contacts to sign up. You can already start growing your list from there, but of course you can always start later as well. If you already have a CRM or you have a list and you never really went into email marketing before, then it's still a good time to start. Better late than never. And you can really use email marketing for customer acquisition or for retention. So it's both a great tool to grow the list to acquire new customers, but also to upsell and resell to your existing customers already. So my advice is put a signup form on your website if you don't already have one. If you have one and you're more sophisticated already, then look into automation, look into workflows, look into maybe combining channels and combining information that you have to make that content really relevant and I promise you'll see immediate impact and immediate success. Like I said, email marketing and Omar, you agree it's very, very, very, very powerful tool even nowadays and you'll see a nice return on investment.

Guys, I echo what. You know what, Stefan has just Said, you know, just get that email form on your website. Why? Because you got to get started growing your email list, if you have not already. I remember one time I was speaking on stage at a podcasting conference and I was talking about how we grew our podcast. And, you know, I talked about how we emailed our list. And I remember in the Q and A section somebody was like, you know, it's easy for you to say, Omar, you know, you've grown your list and you can easily promote because you have an email list of thousands. You know, I mentioned, you know, Tim Ferriss and how he promoted his podcast through his email list. And they're like, well, he's got, you know, you know, hundreds of thousands of subscribers. You know, what does that mean for me? And, you know, my answer to them is my answer to everybody today. You know, myself, Tim Ferriss, John Lee Dumas, all these people that have these huge email lists that have grown and they're great marketers. They all started at zero. We all started at zero. We all started with no emails on our list. Right? Everybody starts at zero. So get started by popping that, you know, that embed form, that opt in form right on your website. And you know what, you're going to hear about a great offer as I wrap up today's episode. But you can do it for free even, because Sendin Blue is giving us an amazing deal. They're giving us actually a free month of their premium plan. Hang on. Because I'm going to talk about how you can find out, how you can learn more. And it's only limited to the first hundred people, so you got to make sure you act fast. So if you're an avid subscriber, you're going to definitely grab that. We'll talk more about that as I wrap up the episode. But for now, I want to thank Stefan Chez Besta for being here today. Co founder of SendinBlue. We learned a ton today. Thank you so much. Where can we learn more about you, follow you get more information about the journey of email marketing?

Well, I think a good resource is definitely our block, so make sure to check that out. We have very good studies, white papers, everything on email marketing and other channels as well, as well as on LinkedIn. You can also find me on LinkedIn. Happy to add you for sure. So I think that's the best ways to follow us. Happy to share our content with you.

Great. Thank you, Stefan, for being here today. Guys, hang on. I'll be wrapping up the episode and giving you that special link to the first free month of SendInBlue. What a great discussion with Stefan Chebesta, co founder of SendinBlue. Thank you so much Stefan for dropping all those great value bombs. What a great journey you went on building SendInBlue as well as sharing those amazing email marketing strategies. Guys, if you want to get started with email marketing with SendInBlue for free, go to sendinblue.com mb and you're going to get a free month of their premium plan. That's a plan that comes with 120,000 emails a month. But hurry, go to that link right now because it's only available for the first hundred people. Again, that's sendinblue.com mba. I personally got a chance to check out SendInBlue. It's super intuitive, it's super easy to use. Their customer service is stellar, like I mentioned and it leaves no excuses, right? It allows you just to get started with the email marketing you need for your business. To wrap up today's lesson, I want to just leave you with this takeaway. One thing that I learned over the years in business is that your email list directly correlates to how much money your business can earn. It basically means how many people can I call upon to offer my products and services? How many eyeballs? How many ears do I have? You know, how many people do I have to talk to? For every thousand emails I have on my list, I can see increments in revenue every single time. It's just a numbers game. So you have to work on not only building your list, nurturing your list, making sure that you're serving them with great content. Because that old cliche, the money's in the list is true. Thank you so much for listening to the $100 NBA show. Again, if you want to get started with SendinBlue for free, only for the first hundred people. So go ahead and do that. Right now is sendinblue.com MBA go ahead and do that. We will see you in tomorrow's episode Q and A Wednesday. We have a very, very interesting question about how to shut off your brain. Entrepreneurs brains are moving a million miles a minute. Sometimes you need to shut it off so you can get some sleep. How do you do it? What are my strategies? I get into that question in Q and A Wednesday. Tomorrow. I'll see you then. Take care. Of.

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