In Reviews We Trust

Ep 6: How to drastically increase email conversion rates: Chase Dimond

May 26, 2022 Callum Mckeefery Season 1 Episode 6
In Reviews We Trust
Ep 6: How to drastically increase email conversion rates: Chase Dimond
Show Notes Transcript

In this episode Callum is in discussion with Chase Dimond, founder of Structured. Chase talks about his top tips for developing multi million email marketing campaigns that convert. Mentioning the brands who are on top of the game with their custom campaigns and starting a new revolutionary SaaS company that aims to be the Canva of Email design.

Episode links:
Chase Diamond:
linkedin.com/in/chasedimond/
twitter.com/ecomchasedimond

Callum McKeefery:
linkedin.com/in/callum-mckeefery-1086b47/
https://twitter.com/callummckeefery

Show notes:
www.structured.agency/
www.emailup.com/
reviews.io
linkedin.com

REVIEWS.io is a leading online review platform. Its used by over 8,200+ fast growing brands. To find out more please go to:

www.reviews.io
linkedin.com/company/reviews-co-uk/


Callum: So today on our podcast, the in reviews we trust podcast. I have with me chase diamond. Chase is, the co-founder of structured, chase operates multiple newsletters. I seriously don't know where or how he finds the time to do them.

He's also just launched a brand new SAS product. I'm super looking forward to this episode. If you don't already follow chase on Twitter, make sure you do. He talks about email marketing, deliverability, and just really provide some great insights on how to hit that inbox with your email marketing and to get the most out of it.

Chase, thank you so much for being on today's show. 

Chase: I'm pumped to be here. How are you? 

Callum: Good. Very good. Very good. 

So chase, how did you find your way into this world of email marketing? 

Chase: It's a long story, but I'll try to make it short.

Uh, at the age of 13, I was diagnosed with Crohn's disease and at 13, I didn't actually know it because I was sick for an entire [00:01:00] year. So after being sick for an entire year, I took it upon myself as a 14 year old to learn love marketing, to learn kind of non-paid marketing. So I started doing kind of fundraising and awareness for this charity and I was sending emails to friends and families, and I was buying ads in the papers and I was organizing restaurant fundraisers.

Right. So email kind of started then, and my marketing journey kind of started through that. And throughout high school and throughout college, I had different jobs and internships and I was doing cold email and I was doing kind of email outreach. So I fell in love with email as a channel in my teens and kind of reconnected with it

I guess you could say in high school and college through jobs and internships. And then right after I graduated college, I used email like in a really interesting way. That's very different than what I do today, but I was using basically cold email to acquire massive amounts of users, whether that be newsletter, subscribers, or users for like, uh, ed tech platforms.

So when I graduated college, I was building an [00:02:00] education technology platform that connected students at college campuses with others in their classroom to make learning more collaborative. So that's a really fancy way basically saying I connected people at the largest campuses. So that way they could create study guides and share tests and share notes and quizzes.

And we went to the college directories and we found all these students emails, and we would just send them personalized emails saying wanted to let you know at UCLA, you know, at USC or whatever school it was, we built this organized drive, where if you upload your documents, you can get access to other student's documents in your class.

And it almost built a social network for college students. And then from there, I took that same skillset and I built a travel series, which grew it to 500,000 email subscribers in 10 months by essentially aggregating data off of Instagram for when people used hashtag travel or people that followed Nat geo or for people that basically tagged places like Bali, we would get their emails and we'd send them highly personalized emails, basically letting them [00:03:00] know, Hey, so that we both follow Nat geo and that you're based in Irvine wanted to invite you to join this travel newsletter and it's Facebook group for folks like yourself.

So long-winded, it was from the disease kind of fundraising and awareness all the way to jobs and internships, acquiring users. And now over the past four years, uh, specifically done e-commerce EMR. One of my buddies saw that, like the writing was on the wall, you know, GDPR was coming, California

privacy was coming, cold email in a fashion that I was doing was kind of this gray space. So I transitioned to opt-in email marketing, all white hat, very by the book today. That's kind of the short version that's long. 

Callum: Wow. Wow. That's an incredible journey. I love reading your content. I think your contents original, um, what's the best performing piece of content you've done so far on the newsletter? 

Chase: Well, first off, thank you. And then to answer the question, I have this guide on welcome series for non-buyers. So essentially, like if you think about an e-commerce brand, we all [00:04:00] acquire subscribers through forms, whether that's a, pop-up some kind of flyout, some kind of embedded form, or even a format checkout.

So there's multiple ways in which people actually enter onto our list for the, for the first three, I mentioned like the pop-up to fly out the embedded form. That's people typically entering our list that will then trigger what's called a welcome series for non-buyers. And I've talked about this four-part email sequence that we send at our agency, or essentially the first email is sent right away, uh, welcoming people to the list, delivering any kind of offer or discount that you promised in the pop-up.

So most brands are offering some kind of percentage or dollar off or something like a free shipping. So we want to make sure that we deliver that and that's kind of like email one. And then if email one, if they don't convert. Email two is really going to be around like kind of like what's in it for me. Right. So everyone is self-serving.

We all want to understand, like, how can this brand serve me? So this is where you want to address kind of like the quality standards of your brand, how you're different and how you're better than competitors, [00:05:00] and really what your subscribers going to get from being a customer of your brand. So, one example that I think of is this company called magic spoon and they sell cereal, right.

And their cereal supposed to be keto friendly, high protein, low carb, right. And I think from memory in their welcome series, second email, they have like this really strong graphic us versus them. And us, it shows like three grams of net carbs, thumbs up, and then it shows like their competitors have like 21 grams of net carbs, thumbs down.

So just within a graphic that paints the picture of like how and why we're different as magic spoon, right? How, how they're different and why they're better. You can eat cereal that tastes great and is better for you. And you could probably do it every single day. We all love cereal. We all typically eat breakfast.

So it's like, that is just addressing what's in it for me as a subscriber. And then if people still don't convert, the third email you want to send is all about social proof and really highlighting your popular products. So, you know, we've been featured in men's health or we've been featured in fast company or Inc [00:06:00] magazine.

These are our popular products. Here's what celebrities or influencers say about us, right? We really want to hit the social proof and kind of showing people what product or products they should start with. And then the last email, if we can't get them to convert, we want to focus on getting them further ingrained into our community.

Things like join our Facebook group, join our slack group, hit reply and ask us a question. So you asked what the article was and I went on to explain it, but essentially it was a four part email sequence about the welcome series. 

Callum: No, it's super, super interesting. I love these sequences and I love the, you know, the psychology behind them, they're so interesting.

So on that first stage of that sequence in where they're capturing that, that email address. So there's various solutions that, that, that can capture the email address at that stage. Uh there's Clavio's solution, push owl, various other ones out there. Which one do you recommend? Do you recommend one in particular or do you recommend [00:07:00] several, depending on who the retailer is? 

Chase: Yeah, I don't think there's like a one size fits all. I think my answer is a little bit tailored. I'm biased because I run an agency and we have a hundred clients. So for us to have it all native within Klaviyo is really nice because having to change platforms and content between different accounts is really confusing.

Like, if one accounts using Klayvio and another accounts using, I don't know, octane AI or someone else is using privy, or someone else is using just UNO. It's just a lot to manage as an agency. Like we are having them to in theory, manage 50 to a hundred different platforms outside of Klayvio. So for us personally, Klayvio, I wouldn't say it's the best of them all, but it gets you 80%, 90% of the way there.

And it's good enough. And it's just way easier for us to manage as an area. For a brand, you know, Klaviyo's great because it's baked into the cost of your platform, but there's also other great platforms out there. You know, if you want to do quizzes, which are great ways to kind of serve people, personalized products, there's things like octane AI, you know, there's regular forums like [00:08:00] privy or just UNO or wise pops.

Right. So there's a bunch of ways you can do it. 

Callum: What about SMS? Do you get involved in SMS marketing or do you stay away from that? 

Chase: Yeah, 

it's interesting. Like, uh, I'm an email guy through and through been doing it for a long time.

Uh, we have started offering SMS as a service. It's not something I personally know a ton about that being said, like, I think SMS is easier, but it's more delicate. So it's easier because you don't have to have long form copy. You don't really have to have design and whatnot. Uh, it's more delicate in the fact that like, if you break like compliance and you don't have people double opt in, and if you don't have a way for people to opt out, the fines are really, really hefty.

So it's a great channel because of the immediate scene. Typically like the VIP is like the 10 or 20 or 30% of the people on your list out of the best people are the ones that are joining it. So the click click-through, and then the revenue per recipient is really strong. But I think you have to have email and SMS. I don't think it's a conversation of like, which one do you need in most cases in almost all cases you need both, [00:09:00] right? Obviously you're just starting out and your small and you have limited resources. I probably would start with email, but I would be collecting phone numbers.

So that way, when you want to do it, you have it. So at the very least start collecting phone numbers, but the best case is that you're leveraging email and SMS in tandem. 

Callum: Yeah, no, w I kind of give the same advice, you know, walk before you can run, um, stay away from SMS. And so you're fully up to scale and, you know, be careful with it.

We collect reviews, via SMS, and the conversions really, really high, but you have to be careful because of the spam. You don't want to get flagged. It is difficult if you do get flagged. Um, and it's a bit more intrusive.

Chase: Quickly follow up on that. Like the cadence that we're sending for most of our clients on email is a minimum of two. And I wouldn't say a maximum of five, but like two to five is probably like per emails per week is typically the number of emails that we're [00:10:00] sending per brand .

 It depends on the given week. It depends on what people sell. You know, if you only have a single skew, it's harder to send five emails in a week. You just want to have enough to say, or for brands that have large lists that have tons of skews that have tons of cool things going on, you know, 3, 4, 5 emails a week

isn't, uncommon. Right? And obviously we're, we're leveraging segmentation. So the same person doesn't receive necessarily all five emails with SMS, to your point. It is really delicate. You want to leverage it to obviously maximize the revenue and engagement, but you don't want to take advantage of it to the point where like, you're getting a lot of unsubs in most cases we're seeing like a weekly or every other week kind of SMS be the right cadence.

Right. Anything more than once a week, it's kind of an over. And again, it depends on the brand. Um, I, again, not an SMS expert by any means, but like, from what I've seen, our team do a lot of the contents that kind of fun and cool, and people really build like that bond, that brand. So it's like, we're sending like playlist emails out and we're sending like recipes and we're sending out [00:11:00] tips and tricks.

Right. And then some products and some sales. Right. So if we're sending, let's say four SMS that are campaigns in a given month, you know, two might be kind of like fun, engaging, uh, brand building, community building, and then one or two might be like product or, and, or sale. Right. So that's kinda how we think about it.

Callum: Yeah. 

Community's hot right now. And I use, you know, that that's the, probably the hottest topic in e-commerce right now. Everybody's talking about community. How do you, you know, get a loyal customer to stay loyal to you? How do you get them to talk to other, potential customers and other customers as a whole.

Who do you see out there? That's doing it well, who's doing email marketing well and using email marketing to build their community and really put their hands around them? 

Chase: Yeah. I think there's a couple brands that these guys are not a client, but, uh, Ali pop, if you have seen them. 

Callum: Um, I, yeah, I follow him on Twitter.

Yes. Brilliant. Yeah. [00:12:00] 

Chase: Yeah. Ali pop, I think has done a really great job from like nailing the product to nailing kind of the email marketing to nailing like the customer experience and journey. So I think Ali pop has done a really great job. I think that's one of the brands that we work with. Um, I mean, there's a lot, I think this brand called Judy has done a good job.

They do like the kind of emergency preparedness type kits, kind of like the emergency ready type kids. Yeah. I think they've done a great job. Yeah. Just like the nature of that product. It's a very like kind of niche, special type of person.

So I think the affinity towards a brand in that space is high already. And Judy has done such a great job with mixing in products, content education. So I think, yeah, one non-client is only pop and one client would be Judy. Um, there's probably a lot of others, but like, those are the first two that come to 

mind.

Callum: Yeah. I love Ali pop. I think their branding is so good. You know, what the, what they've done is to differentiate themselves in a really crowded marketplace is, [00:13:00] is amazing. Um, you know, you know, they're selling out every time I look at his tweets, he's like, oh, we've just sold out again. Even that's brilliant.

He's just creating more and more demand, more and more eyeballs. It it's fantastic marketing. 

Chase: Um, one or the brand actually started cut you off. One of the brand that comes to mind is the guys from cross net, they've basically invented a sport, right? And they've been a client of ours and a buddy of mine for three years now.

I mean, they invented a sport from nothing to an eight figure brand, right? They're online, they're in retail. They're going viral on Tik TOK that are hosting tournaments. And those guys are doing all the right things to really build a sport, like their dream is that like, people are playing cross net in like the Olympics or in, in the world cup or something.

It's like, it's, it's pretty cool. 

Callum: So on deliverability, that's probably the biggest thing. When I think about email marketing, deliverability is it was always is a big [00:14:00] issue.

 Hitting people's inbox, but actually hitting the right part of the box, but then still it being strong enough to get opened. You know, you can hit the box, but it looks boring because it's passed every spam filter going, you know? It's. How do you make it interesting and deliverable.

Do you have any insights on that? 

Chase: Yeah, I mean, this is a very timely thing to a lot of brands right now are having issues. Like, I don't know if it's Klayvio I don't know if it's Gmail, I don't know what's happening, but a lot of the brands I'm talking to a better kind of coming to us or saying like, we're just having a massive deliverability issues.

Um, and there's five, there's five things that determine whether someone opens your email or not. One is the, from name. So is the from name familiar, is it recognizable? Right? So it could be, you know, REVIEWS.io or it could be you or it could be, it could be me, right. It could be chase or chase diamond.

Yeah, that's the from name and then there's the subject line. Right? Most people are familiar with the subject line [00:15:00] there's then the preview text. Right. So if you think about your email inbox from left to right, you have the, from name, the subject line and the preview text also called preheader text. And it essentially is like a second subject line.

So you want to take advantage of those. Those are the three things that you kind of have very easy control over. The next one that you have control over is, well, when do you send it? you're sending it eight AM PST. Are you sending it at 10:00 AM local time? Are you sending it at 6:00 PM EST? When are you sending it?

That also impacts whether someone's going to open or not. And the last one to your point is where do you land? Are you in the inbox? Are you in the promotions or are you in the spam folder? Right. So those are like the five variables that you kind of have some control over. You have control over staying out of spam.

You don't necessarily have too much control over inbox or promotions. Obviously there are things that you can do to try to route them to the inbox, but there's never a silver bullet or a guaranteed. And what are those things? So one is if you're starting out or even in general, if you run into deliverability issues, you want to make sure that you're only sending campaigns to your most engaged [00:16:00] subscribers.

So if you're having issues, you want to start with like a 30 day engaged. People that have opened or clicked or purchased or been active on your site in the last 30 days, right? Those are the people you want to send emails to over a couple weeks. Really build back that trust and that reputation and get that high engagement.

We want people to open. We want people to click. You do not want them to unsubscribe. You do not want them to mark it as spam and you do not want emails to bounce. So that's the campaigns. The next part is the flows. You really want to make sure that you have the high engaging flow set up the welcome series for non buyers.

The abandoned checkout, the customer thank you, right? Like those are really high engaging flows that 50, 60, 70, 80% of people even, maybe potentially more are gonna open. You want those to run and you want any low engaging flows, things like a sunset on engage, which is just basically a breakup series.

These inherently are people that don't open. Don't click don't buy. So the open rates on those are going to be low 3, 5, 7, maybe 10%. So, if you have [00:17:00] deliverability issues going on, you want to pause the low engagement flows and make sure that the high engagement flows are running. So those were kind of like the quick tips and like what you have to look out for and the things that you have to do to hopefully at the very bare minimum hit promotions.

But ideally you're in the, uh, you know, the inbox. 

Callum: Yeah here at reviews, we send hundreds of thousands of emails every day, review collection emails be on behalf of our clients. And yeah, timing, timing is essential. I love that you spoke about timing. Um, we've done so much testing on timing. We don't want to get it there too early, before breakfast, we want to get it after the most people have had a coffee, you know, have done their first inbox check of the day. We want to get that out of the way and we want to land in, just after that really

 It is such an interesting space. And, you know, companies like yours are needed in the Chrome on [00:18:00] your, your insights, especially for first time, founders are essential, I think. Um, and it's fantastic you've shared them

Chase: thank you. No, I appreciate that. One other thing to add that I think is very underrated that people don't talk about. So for example, like, um, on their Friday newsletter, which is a newer series, I'm thinking 10 or 11 weeks in, it's a series called Alex on my inbox. And it's not about that, but the point I'm trying to make, is like I send that email every single Friday at 8:00 AM local time.

Right? So you kind of build like this pattern, this habit of people receive that same ongoing newsletter on the same day at the same time week over a week, right? I'm in a week, I think it's a 10, right? So 20, 30, 40, 50 weeks in you kind of build this subconscious pattern that they're going to receive that email from you every single Friday at 8:00 AM their time.

So they're going to go look for it, right? And for whatever reason, if you're not in the inbox, if you're in a spam or if you're in the promotions, they're going to go, look for it because you've created this pattern. You've created this consistency in this bias towards them enjoying that content and having that [00:19:00] experience.

So I think when you have an ongoing newsletter ongoing series or something that you're going to do every other week. Um, if you can develop the same day in the same time week over week after you find what the right time is, that is so underrated. And I don't think anyone talks about that or thinks about that.

And I'm very meticulous about doing that. And I will not miss Friday 8:00 AM local time. Like I'll do whatever I can to make sure it happens. 

Callum: Why did you choose Friday? 

Chase: So I sent on Monday for my initial newsletter. So every Monday I've been doing that for, I dunno, two straight years. I haven't missed a single Monday. And then I was like, I want people to start and end their week with me. So what makes the most sense I want to do Monday and Friday.

So it kind of was just this thing where like, people are starting my week with me. Let's have them end the week with me that way I stay top of mind in the weekend. I want people thinking about my newsletter. I want people reading my newsletter over the weekend and then Monday morning, I want them to read my newsletter again.

So it was just kind of something I thought about. I don't know if it's the right approach, but so far it's been, it's been good.

Callum: [00:20:00] No, no. I love that. I love that they start the week they end the week. It's those psychological little things that make all the difference

What do you thinks? What's the big changes you're seeing in the marketplace over the next 12 months? What do you think is going to change? How do you think things evolve? 

Chase: Yeah, it's interesting. Um, I think the biggest issue that people are running into now and will continue to run into is deliverability.

Right? So obviously we talked about that, but just with Google algorithm updates with certain platforms, like that is a massive issue to making sure that like, you were very consistent with who you send to no batching and blasting, right? Like, you know, be batching blasting potentially only works during BFCM right outside of BFCM you want to be meticulous and you want to be very good about sending to the right audiences.

So I think that's one, two is this concept of like delivering experiences via email, right? And, and that's like the way it's not necessarily how your email looks at the part of it, but how your email [00:21:00] makes people feel and the way in which people can actually take action directly within an email. So there's this concept called amp and it stands for accelerated mobile pages.

And essentially that's the technology that's available on the web on landing pages. You know, people can scroll between products, you know, they can fill out surveys, right? They can transact that technology actually is available on email, but I have seen virtually no one using it. So I think the ability to like fill out a review via email, being able to fill out a survey via email, being able to make a purchase via email, you know, being able to RSVP to an event via email.

But I think leveraging the technology that's available and that's improving to deliver experiences directly within the inbox is, is way better. You know, if someone can re review their product directly within the email, which again, you can do that today, but a lot of people aren't doing it. 

Callum: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I have a bit of experience with this.

You can do it. We find deliverability becomes harder. [00:22:00] Once were asking for them to write a review within the inbox, because there's so many different email clients on so many different devices, each one's different. We, we kind of find that conversion is actually better with a straight link for writing a review rather than leaving a review within the email.

Um, I know a couple of our competitors really pushed that feature, but when we do side-by-side tests with companies that are already using it, and then, you know, we say, well, just try a link. And w you know, we'll, we'll run a AB test. It's a shame, but I, you know, I've not tried it in the using amp. We're just doing it, you know, really with, with JavaScripts at the moment.

And yeah, conversions, it's not as good. A really isn't as good yet and might be a better experience. So I don't know, like, cause I think if it was a better experience, more people would use it maybe. But [00:23:00] yeah, so yeah, I've not, I've not thought of that, about that with amp. 

 So you think that's going to more and more companies are going to be using that in over the next 12 months? 

Chase: Yeah, I do. I think, I think there's a few reasons why people aren't. I think one is the lack of awareness of it. I think a lot of people aren't familiar with that, um, two like, again, not every, uh, ISP, like not every Google Yahoo, not everyone supports it.

There are some that do and some that don't. So for some clients you'll have amp emails and other people you'll have a fall back that will be more static to what you're kind of saying. So I think that's part of it. I think like that there's a few big ones that support it and there's a few big ones that, that don't, um, there are a little bit of technical, I guess kind of capabilities required slash there are a couple .

Um, pre-recs that you have to get approved and you have to go through the process, and not to be promotional, but I'm building kind of, as you alluded to in the beginning and email design tool and amp is going to be a future of that. So I, that, I'm also very, I'm drinking the Kool-Aid I'm a little bit biased, but I think because building something that increased the [00:24:00] experience, I think amp is something we're excited about in a future version.

I'm a little bit more interested in it. 

Callum: So tell us about this brand that you're, you're launching. 

Chase: So, um, I bought a domain called email up.com. So email up.com and essentially like the thesis around it and why we're doing it. So at an agency we've got like 15 or 20 full-time designers.

It is really expensive and it's really hard to find good people that are able to create these really nice emails. And on the backside of that, we typically custom code and HTML, all the emails that our designers make. And we've got 15 or 20 people on an implementation kind of development team. So between building emails, just design and then coding emails, we've got in the ballpark of like 35 to 45 employees.

So of the 70 people that we have on our email squad, you know, more than half of them are just like design and coding, that doesn't factor in marketing, that doesn't factor in account management, that doesn't factor in copywriting. So our expenses just on that piece alone are so expensive. So for a long time, I've been [00:25:00] thinking about like, how can we solve this problem?

And the problem is like, you have to design typically on something. Uh, Canva or Figma or sketch or an illustrator. And then you have to either take the image and upload that into the ESP, which is not a great practice, or you have to like slice and dice it. Right. Which then again, still takes time. Like what if there was a way just to create a beautiful email that had pre-built templates that you could choose from that were best in class that you could literally with the click of a button export those directly into Klaviyo or Omnisend or MailChimp, et cetera, or just export the HTML and go to whatever platform is. So long winded,

my thesis and my goal was to solve something for agency. And I saw a lot of demand for it in the market. So it's something that we're going to be selling publicly as a SaaS business, much like you guys sell your idea software at reviews, 

Callum: So are you going to be launching as an app in the Shopify app store, or are you, or are you going to be sitting outside of that ecosystem?

Chase: So, 

uh, kind of both. So it's going to be outside the ecosystem, but [00:26:00] we will have an app on Shopify. So that way people could dynamically import their products from their Shopify stores. So we have the app in submission at the time of this recording, but by the time this is live, it will be ready. That way people can, you know, show, I want this collection, this email, or I want this product and this email without actually having to do the image.

So we will have an app, but it will be just a platform that you go to and it will play nice with any ESP. And the whole goal is can we help you create beautifully designed emails that are high converting in a matter of minutes? And then all you have to do is when you're done click one button and it goes into your ESP, there's no more time having to custom code it.

There's no more time of having to slice and dice it. You don't have to use an image. So that's kind of what we're solving. It. It's a pretty big issue. It's going to save people , hopefully time and money. 

Callum: It's huge, absolutely huge. I think it's going to be a massive, massive success for ya . Yeah, I'm surprised really.

I mean, I know there is, you know, there's a lot of templates out there you can get in, there's some flow templates and everything else, [00:27:00] but I've not really seen anybody go into the detail of, you know, apart from. Within the likes of, of MailChimp or, or even Klaviyo to an extent I know they have a couple of templates, but, uh, they're quite basic.

I'd imagine yours are going to be light years ahead of what they're doing. 

Chase: That's exactly 

the goal. The goal is how do we make best-in-class templates and how do we roll out templates ongoing around holidays around made up holidays around events. So like we were planning on doing that and Klayvio does a great job and other people do a great job.

But they're first and foremost, they're a deliverability platform. They're a segmentation flows campaigns. They're not an email design platform. So we're going to specialize in focus and we're going to specifically focus on e-commerce. Um, and we have some cool things coming where we're going to, you mentioned before, like how the email looks and renders across devices.

There's the platforms out there that do that, but they're expensive. And they just do that. We're going to integrate that into our platform. There's tools out there that allow you to do countdown timers, and you have to pay for those. So what we're going to basically do is we're going [00:28:00] to build all the tools that you need for email design, uh, you know, how to create gifs, looking at your email in dark mode, you know, being able to create amp emails, being able to see how they render across dozens of devices and being able to integrate countdown, timers all in one.

So we're going to have different apps and integrations all within the platform. So that way we're going to consolidate your billing. You don't have to pay for this tool. That's $200 a month. You don't pay for this tool. That's $15 a month. You don't have to pay for this tool. That's this for the price of 49 through $99 a month in most cases.

That's gonna be our plans. You get more than you're actually paying for, with all those tools alone. 

Callum: Yeah, no, I'm, I'm looking forward to seeing it. I think the adoption will be huge. I think you'll corner quite a bit of the market very, very fast. Clearly you've got, you know, with your newsletter and with your Twitter, you've got a route to market there that you're going to exploit and you're going to get thousands of signups I'd imagine really quickly.

So are you in beta or at the moment with this right today? Or are you [00:29:00] going into beta 

as we speak? 

Chase: So at the time of recording, uh, we are in alpha. So we have about 10 people in an alpha they've been using over the past, like three or four weeks. And then in a few days from now, we're going into a private beta and we're doing kind of like an interesting model where, um, I had people fill out this kind of survey on how do they build emails today.

What are the platforms that you use as your email provider? What are the tools in what you do it? What is your role in the team? Right. In most cases like on our team, it's only designers that are doing design, but at a lot of other brands and agencies, it's a copywriter or a marketing person or an account manager, that's having to hack it together and it's really difficult.

And then I'm asking them, you know, what are the other tools that you're using? People are using countdown timers, and they're using quizzes. So now I'm trying to think about like, okay, how do I build a platform for not just designers and how do I in the future build integrations with the platforms everyone named.

So what I did is I sent an email out to those folks, letting them know that they could join the private beta. They're going to get a early access, [00:30:00] B at a special discount, and they're going to actually get like a, a demo and a walkthrough. So in a few. We have five one-hour call set up and we're expecting about a hundred, 150 people from that group to be on these calls.

It's gonna be very intimate, very high touch. We're going to download the platform, uh, answer any questions and then onboard them pretty much on there. So we're kind of taking like this course webinar approach and applying it to SaaS in a way that's very gated. We want to make sure that like, you know, an alpha, a lot of stuff broke right in for the beta we've patched up, you know, as far as we're aware, 80, 90% of it, but inherently, there are things that are going to break.

So how do we let. You know, 50 people versus 500 people, right. That way when the 500 people get in, it's a better experience. So, this is a double-edged thing. It's, it's part of it is like, we want to kind of have like this exclusivity feeling. Cause then people want it more. But on the other end of it, it's very strategic in terms of like, by the time that it actually rolls out to the public, instead of having 25 email templates at launch [00:31:00] for the private beta, we might have 100 templates.

 Instead of, you know, talking about, we might have a gift creator in the future, we actually will have the gift creator. Right. Like, so when we actually do roll out, the platform is going to be like, battle-tested, they'll never be perfect. Right. But it's going to be so much further along. So those, those are kind of the two reasons it's no, I, 

Callum: really pause.

Sure. Yeah, no, I like it. I think it works massive. I mean, that's what a beater should be. It shouldn't be open to everybody. It shouldn't be their free for all. It should be your testing sensor. And I honestly don't think you can test when you've got. Uh, huge numbers in there you know we do it in a similar way. We, you know, when we go into beats, we'll go into a private beta with like 50, 25, 100 people, um, and then roll from there and then we'll go into open. Um, and yeah, it just works well. 

. Honestly, you've been fantastic guest. I knew you would be. I really appreciate it. Um, if [00:32:00] anybody is not following chase on Twitter, make sure you do. I'm going to pop his Twitter handle in the show notes. Seriously chase,

thank you so much for being on today. Um, I wish you all the best with your new solution. I'm going to be following closely. Yeah. Loved having you on. It's been brilliant. 

Chase: Thanks so much for having me. Appreciate it.

Callum: Thank you for listening today. In reviews we trust is a bi-weekly podcast where I hope to be bringing you advice and insights from brands that are taking the e-commerce world by storm.