Email Done Right with Jessica Totillo Coster

Andy Splichal 0:00

Welcome to the Make Each Click Count podcast. This is your host Andy Splichal. We are happy to welcome this week's guests to discuss today's topic which is Email Done Right. Today's guests and ecommerce and email marketing strategist for scrappy entrepreneurs. She teaches actionable steps and strategies to grow and scale their ecommerce businesses. After 20 plus years in retail owning her own multi six figure brick and mortar boutique, and three years as the only employee of a seven figure ecommerce store and having the pleasure of learning from top experts in the digital marketing ecommerce industry. She is now sharing everything she learned the hard way, so you don't have to. A big welcome to Jessica Totillo Coster. Hi, Jessica.

Jessica Totillo Coster 0:45

Hi, Andy, thank you so much for having me. I'm super excited to chat today.

Andy Splichal 0:51

Yeah, we're excited to have you. The intro. It's a long intro. And I love where it says you're an email marketing strategist for scrappy entrepreneurs. Now, how do you define scrappy? I guess we're not talking Scooby Doo.

Jessica Totillo Coster 1:06

No, we're definitely not. Scrappy to me. It's just someone who isn't afraid to get their hands dirty and do the work. Because you know, there is a lot of information on the internet, about how easy it is to grow an E commerce business, just put up a website, run a bunch of Facebook ads, and tomorrow you'll be a millionaire. But that's not really how it works. And the people who understand that and are ready to do the work it takes to build a thriving business, and they're really here for it. Those are my people, those are those scrappy entrepreneurs.

Andy Splichal 1:42

Got it. Got it. And the subject of this episode is email done right? How important do you believe a good email strategy to be in the growth for an Ecommerce company?

Jessica Totillo Coster 1:56

Oh my gosh, it's one of the most important in my opinion, if you think about ecommerce and just marketing in general, no matter what your business is, right? It's really just one big puzzle. And each part of your marketing strategy is a small piece of that. And they all work together. You know, can you have a successful business without all of the things? Yes, you definitely can. Just like you can see the photo in the puzzle come together right as you fit each extra piece in there. But it's not complete until you have all of the pieces. So email marketing is like the net for everything else you do in your marketing, you can be really good at driving traffic and getting people hyped about your new products. But what happens when someone comes to your website and doesn't buy from they just leave like then what now you have to pay to remarket to them. Email is the way you ensure that you get the most out of those marketing dollars and all of that effort, because now you can continue to nurture them and lead them down the path toward conversion. Plus, it's the cheapest form of marketing with the highest ROI. So who doesn't want that?

Andy Splichal 3:11

Sure, sure. Now, customer acquisition or customer retention? Which one do you believe is more important for the growth of a company?

Jessica Totillo Coster 3:22

Oh, I love this question. And of course, the answer with most things is it depends not only on the product you sell, but where you're at in your business journey. So the less often someone needs your product, you can think of a mattress on the extreme end, right, we're only buying those every five probably more like 10 years, even though we should change them out more often. But the more you need to focus on acquisition if you sell a product like that, on the flip side, if you're a consumable product that people buy, often, then you're going to want to focus more on retention. And then it's also going to depend where you're at in your business and what season you're in. So if you're new and still ramping up, you need to really be focused on acquisition. E commerce is a numbers game. As you get more established and you're at a comfortable place, then retention is the name of the game there. But ultimately, you're always doing both it's just where do you put more weight? Right? Where do you lean into more than the other at any given time?

Andy Splichal 4:26

Now we talked about the importance of of email and growing but how do you grow your email list outside of purchases from customers?

Jessica Totillo Coster 4:38

Isn't that the million dollar question, Andy? Before we get into some specific tactics, like let's think about what is in it for the subscriber because email is not a place to just sell your stuff that is for sure a byproduct but email is a place to build relationship hips with your potential customers and relationships are a two way street. So first, you have to get clear on why do they want to be on your list? Like what is in it for them? And what are you going to give them in exchange for their email address that's really intimate, right to allow someone into your inbox. So sometimes that's going to be a discount.

Andy Splichal 5:20

That's what I see most often.

Jessica Totillo Coster 5:22

Yeah, for sure. And their businesses that that works really great for and other ones that it doesn't work as well for I like to think of the path to purchase. So if I'm shopping for a mattress, I'll just go back to that example. And I go to your website, and I'm there for 15 seconds, and you give me a discount. If I haven't already made my buying decision, like that discount is not going to be the thing that puts me over the edge, right. Some other things you can think about are education around the problem that customer is trying to solve with your product. And sometimes it's because they're addicted to the product you sell, and they just want first dibs on everything, right? So be the one on our email list, you get first access to everything we do. And it's going to depend on your business. But that is the first step is just getting clear on that. From a more tactical perspective, you absolutely want to have a pop up, which seems so obvious and simple. But it's pretty amazing how many ecommerce businesses still aren't using one. And usually it's because we're projecting our own opinions about popups onto our customer, right? We hate pop ups. So we don't want to use them because we assume our customers hate them. But at the end of the day, like 99% of the time, pop ups, do they just work? They just do, right? We need to interrupt someone's experience and get their attention.

Andy Splichal 6:53

How much do you test the offer for an email list with your clients?

Jessica Totillo Coster 6:59

Love this, definitely testing for sure. Anytime I'm testing anything, and when I explain this to people, you're gonna have two hypotheses, right, you're gonna do an A B test, I usually will just use the form within the email platform that I'm using set up the A B test, let it choose the winner, once you find the winner, now you need a new test, right? You're never really 100% Sure, like you're never gonna nail it out of the gate. And that's okay. Just keep trying different things. And once you find the type of offer, right, maybe it's a discount, maybe it's a PDF download. Maybe it is just that early access. Once you find that then just do more versions of the same thing.

Andy Splichal 7:53

Yeah, that makes sense. That makes sense. Hey, do you have a preferred email service provider ESP?

Jessica Totillo Coster 8:00

Sure do. Klaviyo is by far my favorite.

Andy Splichal 8:05

Klaviyo, you must be the third or fourth straight guest who has given me Klaviyo as their favorite ESP. It definitely seems to be the pretty girl on the block. Why? Why is everybody liking it so much?

Jessica Totillo Coster 8:17

Yeah, because it is enterprise features without the enterprise price. And I've used a lot of email marketing platforms in my day. They are built specifically for ecommerce. This is not an email marketing platform that just tacked on a couple of ecommerce features right to compete in this space. They were built from the ground up for ecommerce, everything that they do is to help you sell more product and they are constantly innovating adding new features. Like who has ever used a SaaS product that has, you know, in their forum like all of these feature requests from five years ago that they're just obviously never going to implement right? It's like the worst case Klaviyo is always releasing new updates. And their goal is to just help you make more money selling products. That's why I love them so much.

Andy Splichal 9:11

Now do you have a favorite success story of one of your clients using Klaviyo that you are willing to share?

Jessica Totillo Coster 9:17

Sure deal. So when I first started my I actually started my business by accident. We don't have to go into all the history of that but it was really when MailChimp and Shopify broke up and people were kind of freaking out didn't know what to do started talking to them about Klaviyo and then they started reaching out to me and there's these two my first two clients they're the ones that always come to mind and maybe it's just because you know we've got I got a little special place in my heart for them but we did create some pretty cool results. So the first one she had had an expert and I'm I have air quotes you can't see me set up her Klaviyo for her, but they did it wrong. And this CEO was unknowingly sending emails to people who didn't actually subscribe to be on her list. So she was getting a ton of spam reports and overall had really poor email metrics. And eventually, all of her emails started landing in spam, even her welcome email. Wow. So when she first reached out to me, I was a little hesitant sounds like, I've spent all my emailing years staying out of the junk box, like I wasn't sure that I was going to be able to help her. So I agreed to take a look. But I didn't take any money from her just in case. And once I got in there, and I was able to see exactly what was happening. So four weeks later, she was back in the email, inbox and email went on to consistently generate 20 to 30% of her revenue.

How did you get out of the junk box? How did it start? What did you do there?

Yeah, great questions. So the first thing was obviously getting really clear on who was actually in her inbox and finding those people who were most recently engaged, and who are most frequently engaged with her business, and her website and her emails, right. So recency and frequency, those are going to be the most important metrics when you're trying to figure out who's really paying attention to what you have to say. And then we just focused on emailing only those people being consistent and creating really great content to make sure that we were getting really, really good metrics, because the email service providers, Gmail, Yahoo, etc, they're paying attention to all of that. So when you are sending to people who aren't opening, and clicking your emails are the reporting new to spam, that's telling those email service providers Whoa, these people do not want, what this person is sending. And that's how you ended up in the junk box. So we made sure to be really, really careful on who we were talking to build up that engagement. And that's all we did for four weeks. And then by then we started layering a little bit more, a little bit more, a little bit more. And we got out of the junk box and back into the inbox.

I don't know if the numbers are available on what a good open rate is, what in your experience, do you see that you might be worried if you're not achieving a certain open rate?

Yeah, there are actually benchmarks out there. So SendGrid, who, if you guys don't know is an email service platform. But it's also the infrastructure that a lot of other email platforms use as like their technology and back end. So they see a lot of emails. Essentially, the email service providers are looking for an open rate of at least 20%. And that's aggregate. So if you send me an email, and I open it three times, then it's going to count me three times. So they're looking for a 20%, or higher open rate, with the release of iOS 15, where not all open rates are properly tracked, it actually inflates your open rate. So I kind of tell clients to go for a 25 to 30% as your new baseline. Once you get into single digits, you're in trouble. If you have one email that just for I'll tell you a little story about the time, I sent an email on the series finale of Game of Thrones, so I must have been one of four people who didn't watch that show back in the day. So I had no idea it was on. And I sent an email it was Sunday night was always my best performing night. I had an open rate of it was like four or 7%. And I was like what happened? And then I of course I heard everyone in the office. Oh my god, did you watch it? Did you watch it?

Oh, that was a great episode.

Yeah, I was like, I was like, literally the entire world was watching this frickin show except for me. I had no idea.

And so did you find this one poor email hurt your your overall performance or?

no. So that's what I wanted to say. If you have one email that you totally screw up and it just bombs that's not going to automatically put you into the spam box, right? As long as you bounce back to your normal positive results, you're going to be fine. If you are consistently getting those results, that becomes the red flag.

How often do you advise your clients to send email?

It depends a little bit on their business minimum one time a week, generally, and then as many times as your audience will tolerate, honestly. So the more subscribers you have, the more products you have. So the wider product assortment you have typically the more emails that you can send.

Do you send the same email to people who don't open it the first time?

Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, this is like my favorite little trick to get more eyeballs on your message to increase your revenue. And people are so afraid to do this. But if you think about it, like we just talked about the open rate is 20%. Right? That's aggregate, which means the unique open rate is about 12 to 15. Now, before you guys go thinking, well, that's terrible. Why am I emailing your social content gets shown to about 3% of your audience. So this is actually a good percentage of people. But that means 80 plus percent haven't even seen it yet. So don't go like reinventing the wheel all the time, just resend it. Because we're so distracted. As just humans, we have so much going on. everyone's schedules are different. Maybe you sent an email in the morning, but this group of people, they read their email at night and by then your email is buried in the inbox, sometimes people's inboxes look like Twitter feeds these days. So don't be afraid to resend that stuff.

How long after you originally sent it to you send it again?

It depends if it's an evergreen email. So non time sensitive, then it's going to be like a 48 hour type deal. Sometimes like I have clients who maybe will send a weekly newsletter, and they'll send that on Tuesdays, and then they'll do the resend on Thursday or Friday, if it's a promotion if it if it's Black Friday, sometimes I'm sending it the same day, I'm sending two emails a day. So it just depends how important that message is.

Got it. Now, if you had a crystal ball, how would you see the email industry changing over the next 12 - 18 months?

Oh my gosh, it's just gonna get more and more important to your business. Think about the way iOS 14, you know, rock, the digital marketing world, and people who were just relying on the Facebook algorithm to go out and find them new customers all the time, we're like, I don't know what to do now. So you've probably heard this before, but we don't want to build our businesses on rented land. And that is social media. That's paid and organic. Like we need to buy our own home. And that is our website, our email list and our SMS lists. So it's going to be so important, as well, because email and SMS and having them in your ecosystem, that way, is the best way to collect first, or zero party data, which is data that you get directly from them. This is what iOS 14 changed, where Facebook can see what you do on Facebook, they just can't see what you do when you're not on Facebook anymore. So for you, as the E commerce business owner, you need to collect as much data as you can about your people. And so having that email list allows you to do that.

Building your house on rented land. I don't know if I've ever heard that saying, but I really like it. Speaking of rented land that's going to bring right to Amazon. How many of your ecommerce clients are also selling their products on Amazon?

Most of them actually aren't and may not. Yeah, and that. I mean, I think that's also partially just because it's not something I talk about a lot, because I don't have a ton of experience with it. I do know that some people have built their entire businesses on Amazon, and they do wonderful. But then I've also heard the stories of Yeah, I had this great product on Amazon. And then Amazon went and made their own and now I no longer show up in the buy box. So you know, it really depends on the business model that you're trying to create. Most of the people that I work with, these are people who are really passionate about the product that they created, or maybe they built a boutique, but you know, they're creating a lifestyle business to help support their families. And they're really intent on building their own brand and their own website, that kind of thing.

What is a piece of actionable advice you could give listeners who would like to see some quick results with their email marketing?

Yeah, I love this question, which I did have ahead of time. And the thing that I was going to say was to resend your email, so the people who didn't open them.

That's some great great advice.

You stole my answer, Andy? No. But the other thing I can say is just send more email, send more email, I know, we are afraid to send data over sending, right, we think that we're going to be annoying. And the truth is, these are people who raised their hand and said, I want to hear more from you, please tell me how I can solve this problem, or whatever the outcome that they're looking for from your product is. And if you are not emailing them, your competitor is. And if you if people are unsubscribing, it's okay, they probably weren't your customer. Anyway, they probably had zero intention on buying from you, they're doing you a favor, you don't have to pay for them anymore. So don't be afraid to email. As long as your metrics are staying in, you know, those average benchmarks. So you want 20%, open rate, three to 4% ish click rate, spam rate less than point .08. As long as you are hitting those numbers, your metrics are good. You can keep sending email.

Is there an unsubscribe rate you should be worried about?

Yes, there is an it is escaped my brain, which is why I didn't say it. But thanks for catching me in that. I will look it up and send it to you. So you can stick it in the show notes.

So let's talk a little bit more about you. You had a boutique.

I did.

And you transition to an Ecomm company.

Yep.

And now you are coaching.

Correct

How did you go from boutique to Ecomm to coaching?

Yeah, I'll tell you my, my lovely story. So I've been in retail for my gosh, so long. I got my first retail job when I was 16 at Contempo casuals. And I thought I was like the coolest thing ever. It was really exciting. And then I went on to, you know, work my way through that when school for Fashion Merchandising, and I knew I wanted my own business, and the boutique that I was actually working at closed. So the space was open. And I said, I know it's 2008. And we're like in the wake of the worst financial crisis I've seen in my lifetime. But I'm going to open a brick and mortar business, why not? Let's see what happens. And it was actually a lovely, wonderful experience broke, even my first year did over, you know, $650,000 in revenue. And then I decided I no longer wanted to work or live in New York because it was cold and it snowed. So I picked everything up, I moved to LA and went back to work in retail. And at this point, you know, ecommerce was really becoming a thing. But digital marketing and E commerce was not a thing when I went to school like Facebook at that point, I think you still had to have a college email address to even get on Facebook, right. So I really knew that I did not want to get left behind things were changing. And I wanted to keep up. So I just really started inserting myself wherever I could, and learning everything that I could. And then eventually I went to work for this other company I got recruited there, I was in the marketing division of their brick and mortar. And then when we launched e commerce, because I already had this previous experience, and I had been in this company for three years at that point. They brought me over to run e commerce. And I was the only employee for three years. It was my gosh, did I cry so much at that job, but it was an amazing learning experience. And I wouldn't take it back for anything. And you know, like you said in my intro, I got to work with some really amazing high level consultants that the average ecommerce entrepreneur doesn't have access to. And when I started hanging out, you know, in Facebook groups and just in the entrepreneur, entrepreneurial space, it can barely say that word, let alone spell it. I should pick a different word, but I loved being around that energy. And I started to see all of the holes like everything that I was doing and had learned this group of E commerce, you know, entrepreneurs wasn't because they didn't know and I was like, Why is nobody teaching them this? So I see a lot in this space for the super beginner. Here's how to set up your Shopify store, here's how to post a post on Instagram. And then you have a lot for those who have big, huge budgets. But what about the person in the middle? And that's where I decided I can, I can really help this group by teaching them how to read and understand their analytics, how to make data driven decisions, how to take advantage of things like email, and SEO. And that's really how I ended up here. And it's the best job I've ever had.

Got it. That's quite a journey. So tell me on that journey. Were there any business books out there that you could attribute to some of your success?

I'm not really a reader. But I do enjoy podcasts. So I love Marketing School with Neil Patel read his blog all the time.

So you don't have to mention this one just because you're on it, no.

And then I also love Build Your Tribe with Chalene Johnson and her son Brock, and they talk a lot about Instagram marketing, and things like that. So and really just learning from those who have gone before, and trying a lot of stuff and making a lot of mistakes, too.

So I think we touched on a little bit, but what what problems are you solving now with your coaching services for clients and and how are you standing apart from from the competition?

Yeah, I It's funny, because when I started, you know, you, anytime you start a business, whether it's a service, product, informational, doesn't matter, you kind of go in with this like specific idea. And then the market tells you what you actually should be doing. So really, I've boiled it down to my number one goal is helping ecommerce businesses grow their traffic, sales and profit. And while I can certainly and I do share specific strategies that I have seen work, and I know work, you know, just go do this thing. And it will work, what I really want to do is teach people how to figure that out on their own, based on what the data is telling them. And I do you know, there's a lot of people out there on the internet teaching this stuff. And I think everyone has their place, but I don't see them really focusing on the data as much as I do. And that's really where I think I stand out. And making sense, like so many people, they are like, I don't even really log into Google Analytics, because I get dizzy just looking at it. Or they haven't even attached it to their website. I'm like, wait, what, and these are six and seven figure businesses and I'm like, Honey, what got you here is not going to get you there, I want to help get you there. And you do that with data. So that's kind of the basis. And then I really do that through email marketing, SEO, and analytics are are my big three.

So tell me who is the perfect client for your, working with you. Like if they're out there listening, how they should definitely look you up and contact the after the show?

Yeah, so I do have a couple of different services I offer. And each of them has a little bit of a different perfect customer. So for the person who is already doing six figures in their business, they've proven product market fit, they have a handle on driving traffic. And now they're just ready to create a customized email marketing journey, because they know how powerful important it is. But they ain't got the time to do it. That's where I come in, I have a full done for you email automation setup. And that is the person who's perfect for that. Sometimes earlier, people in their business will come to me to get that done as well. You don't necessarily have to be at that revenue mark, it just is going to take you longer to see the ROI, right because the email doesn't work if you don't have people moving through the flows. But then there's also that group who maybe they've been doing email for a while they have an in house team, they're just like, No, I just feel like I could get better results. I'm not really sure what I'm missing. But if someone could just tell me what to do, I would go do it. That's when an email marketing audit comes in. And I kind of dig into all the nooks and crannies and leave you with a prioritized to do list so that you can overall just increase the effectiveness of your email marketing. So those are kind of the two main things. And then I also do one on one consulting if you really need that like hand holding and kick in the butt every week to get things done. But ultimately where most people end up whether they're new to me new to business or my one on one clients, they move their way into my membership, which is monthly support and all that. So that's a great place for just ongoing support. Because, man, does e commerce change constantly.

Andy Splichal

Got it. Now I checked that out a little bit on the website, and I saw that you're kind of position yourself as working with women. And I'm curious, do women prefer working with women because I have a lot of women clients, and I think they liked me, but maybe I'm wrong.

Jessica Totillo Coster

So, here's what I have found specifically in the E commerce space is there are a lot of bros. Right? And so these are the guys that are running ads in front of their rented Lamborghinis at the Airbnb. And that is what the female audience really shies away from so there are definitely some men I have met along this journey who do not fit into that bro. description. And you know, I think the ladies that I work with very much value their opinions. For me, I am not a man hater by any means. I have some male clients,

Andy Splichal

I was gonna ask so you will take men as clients?

Jessica Totillo Coster

Yes, I do. I do work with men. I just there's just not enough I think in the E commerce specific space that are female. So you know, that's just an exercise in marketing friends.

Andy Splichal

Got it. Got it. Now, if somebody is interested in working with you, or learning more about your membership group, how can they reach you?

Jessica Totillo Coster

Yeah, the best place is just go to my website, ecommercebadassery.com You can find all the things that I do, and how I work with people. You can even book a clarity call there. If you're just like, I know, I need help, but I'm not quite sure what that is. We can figure it out together.

Andy Splichal

Well, this has been great. Is there anything else you'd like to add before we wrap it up today, Jessica?

Jessica Totillo Coster

Yeah, I just want to remind everyone to send more email. I can't say that enough. Don't be afraid of being annoying. Remember, you have to repeat yourself because we're all distracted. And we're not paying that close attention to you. And then I also have something special for you guys.

Andy Splichal

Oh, we love special.

Jessica Totillo Coster

Yeah, I'm not going to tell you what it is you have to go to ecommercebadassery.com/andy to find it. But I promise it'll be worth a couple of clicks.

Andy Splichal

Well, that sounds great. Well, thank you again for joining us today.

Jessica Totillo Coster

Thanks so much for having me.

Andy Splichal

For listeners. If you'd liked this episode, please go to Apple podcasts and leave us an honest review. And if you're looking for more information regarding Jessica you will find the links in the show notes below, including the link she just mentioned for the surprise gift. In addition, if you're looking for more information on growing your business, check out our all new podcasts Resource Center, available at wwwmakeeachclickcount.com we have compiled all the different past guests by show topics and and include each of their contact information in case you would like more information on any of the services I've discussed during previous episodes. Well that's it for today. Remember to stay safe, keep healthy and happy marketing. And I will talk to you in the next episode.