160: Segmentation 101: Demystifying Email Marketing Myths with Tara Dinoski

Unlock the secrets to effective email marketing and smarter audience engagement! 

In this episode, Tara Dinoski, CEO of Indico Digital, shares practical strategies for making email marketing work without overcomplicating it. Learn how to create meaningful segments (hint: start with customers vs. prospects), why overusing buzzwords and gimmicks won’t get results, and how integrating email with other channels like paid media can be a revenue game-changer.

Tara also debunks myths that hold brands back, including the idea that there’s a “perfect” time to send emails or that SMS marketing is always the better choice. Plus, she shares her unique perspective as a digital nomad, balancing client work while traveling the world and building a high-growth agency.

Whether you’re just starting out with email or looking to optimize your current strategy, this episode is packed with actionable insights you can apply today. And for fun, we get Tara’s take on the best Greek dishes and the biggest lessons she’s learned from living abroad.

What you’ll learn in this episode:

• The first step to better email segmentation
• Why “testing just to test” won’t get results
• The smartest way to integrate email with other channels
• How to manage client work while living a digital nomad lifestyle
• Simple strategies to build your email list

Chapters:

0:00 Introduction to Tara Dinoski and Indico Digital
0:38 Strangest client call as a digital nomad
1:59 How location and time zones affect client relationships
3:40 Overcoming fear in email marketing
5:18 The basics of segmentation: customers vs. prospects
7:28 Real-world insights from segmentation (boots and colors example)
9:52 Myths about email marketing: Testing and over-segmentation
12:18 SMS vs. email: Costs, myths, and misconceptions
15:42 The perfect time to send emails is a myth
19:00 Integrating email marketing with paid media
22:55 How reviews power smarter email campaigns
28:12 Life as a digital nomad: Lessons from Greece and Medellín
32:40 Balancing work, travel, and client expectations

No Hacks is a podcast about web performance, technical SEO, and the agentic web. Hosted by Slobodan "Sani" Manic.

Transcript

[00:00:00] Sani: Welcome to no hacks today. We're joined by Tara Dinoski, CEO and founder of Indico digital, a high growth retention marketing agency for DTC brands. Tara is also an avid traveler currently based in Athens, Greece. We'll talk about her journey as a digital nomad and also uncover some unspoken truths in email marketing.

Tara, welcome to the podcast.

[00:00:19] Tara: Thanks for having me.

[00:00:22] Sani: Pleasure to have you on. So you're digital nomad. This is the most important thing I want to talk about. Well, email marketing as well. But since you're a digital nomad, you've lived in Columbia, now Greece, travel to a bunch of other places, I'm sure. What is the strangest place you've taken a client call from?

[00:00:38] Tara: Oh goodness. I get a lot of anxiety before calls because I want them to be very efficient and effective and I don't want any distractions. So I haven't taken them from any weird spots, but I have taken them from a cafe and had, um, some people ask if I was in a club, uh, because the music was so loud.

So it was a cafe. Sort of club, but, uh, yeah, that was actually in Medellin.

[00:01:04] Sani: Okay. That's pretty awesome. So do clients understand ~that appreciate ~that you're taking the time to talk to them, even though you could be doing something else at that moment, or do they just not like the fact that you're not in a boring office?

[00:01:19] Tara: Yeah, I actually really don't speak too much about my physical location with clients because I don't want them to worry. I don't want them to feel like if I'm ~on ~in a different time zone from them that they're going to get any different level of service. Um, being in Greece, the time zone is ~the same.~

Very different from my U. S. Based clients, so I'm pretty much working from two to midnight over here, which is actually nicer for me because I like to have the day to myself and then work at night. Um, so, yeah, it hasn't come up because I don't let it be a concern. ~Yeah, so I think the~

[00:01:59] Sani: that's probably the right approach. I mean, of course, you're not going to brag about it to a client. Look at me, I'm at a beach and we're having a client call because who knows, they might feel bad about it. But yeah, I like that answer also. Today we're talking about a few things about email marketing.

First of all, honest as hesitancy and fear in email marketing. Like I really want to hear about those from you. And then we'll talk about some marketing myths, email marketing myths, integrating email marketing with other channels and why you should not be treating it that way. As a completely standalone thing and wide out probably is the worst way to treat email marketing.

So let's start with hesitancy and fear in email marketing. ~When I, ~when we prepared for this episode, this is the topic that you listed as something that's, that's important that you would like to talk about. So let's go. ~What, ~why do many brands hesitate to, to go full on with their email marketing strategy? 

[00:02:51] Tara: across the most is not so much. Um, underutilizing the full list. Um, in fact, it's the opposite. I think many brands Blast their full list. They don't know much about segmentation. Um, I think a big ~contribute, a ~contributor to fear is buzzwords, right? And if we don't really understand what these buzzwords mean, I think segmentation is a huge buzz word.

People talk about it all the time, but many brands and many high level CMOs, uh, or even CEOs. Really don't understand what that means. So I want to break that down very simply so we can eradicate any fear when it comes to segmentation with the list. So if you don't know where to start with segmenting your list, the first place to start is separating customers, someone who has already purchased from you at least one time versus prospects, people who have never purchased from you.

That is the most basic segments that you should start with for any email marketing program because you'll want to track How is our messaging? Resonating with people who have already purchased from us, and how is it resonating with people who haven't purchased from us for example? I worked for Cut clothing we did their affiliate marketing, but I worked for Thursday Booth Um, and we built their inaugural email marketing program.

And what we found is, uh, they make really awesome leather boots for men and women. And they have the basic standard colors, brown, black, gray, as well as some funky colors like olive and different textures like suede. And what we found when we just started with this most basic segmentation of customers versus prospects.

What we found is, um, prospects were sticking, uh, To tried and true colors, black, brown, gray. They were playing it easy. They hadn't purchased from this brand before, and they were sticking to neutral colors. What we found with customers. Was when we put out a new colorway or a new release, the majority of sales came from past customers.

We've already won their trust with, um, the safe colors and, and safe textures that they know and love. And once we've built their trust, then we can, um, get them to try something new with us, with our new releases. So that was a really interesting and pivotal insight for us to understand Prospects have some fear.

Right. They haven't purchased from us. They don't know what the quality is like. So we need to speak to those specific, um, barriers to purchase for prospects and customers, if they had a good experience, they want more. They want new, they want to add to that collection. So. to just bring it back to the list and having fear about the list.

Um, I think you don't need to go crazy with so many segments just starting with prospects versus customers. Another framework to take the fear out of sending to your list is looking at recency, frequency, and monetary value. So breaking down monetary value, how I like to start is looking at a brand's AOV.

So if your AOV is a hundred dollars per order, A VIP might be somebody who's spending three times as much as that. Have they spent at least ~300 or more? Have they spent ~300 or more in the last 30 days, 60 days, 90 days? Um, so that's layering that monetary value with, uh, recency. And how often are they purchasing?

Have they purchased two or three times in the last 90 days? Breaking out the segments once you've got a feel for prospects versus customers, layering in ~re, ~recency, frequency, and monetary value will also give you strong segments. Um, but like I said, what we see more often than not are brands who are under utilizing their list because ~they're, um, ~they have so many different hundreds of segments and these little, you know, bought, ~belt, ~belts in 2009, like segments that don't necessarily make sense.

So I like to keep it simple. I don't think that you should have more than 10 segments. Um, and one great thing with Clavio, this is relatively new is that you can build. 10, 20 segments, put them all in one campaign, send it, and then after the campaign, you can look at the audience tab and the breakout by audience and see what was the open rate, what was the click through rate, so on and so forth.

It doesn't de dupe. ~Beyond the, uh, ~between those segments, but it's a great starting point to see like, oh, we didn't have any prospects click on this email. Like what is going on? Maybe we didn't talk about our fast and free shipping. Maybe we didn't talk about, ~um, ~our, no questions asked return policy. So, ~um, ~once you build those segments and, and I don't think that you even need to send the email.

different content in the beginning, send the same content and then compare the peaks and valleys between those segments to understand, did it resonate or not? And then put out a campaign that speaks to that data point you just looked at.

[00:08:19] Sani: But what we established is don't go no segments and don't go a hundred or God knows how many segments you need to find that balance. And you need to, well, you need to start by thinking about who it is. You're trying to talk to ~and, and, ~and find that segment and make sure this is not a four people segment or five, six people segment that needs to be like, what's the smallest segment that makes sense.

~If that is even a, like a number that you can have~

[00:08:42] Tara: Yeah, I think it depends, right? It depends. If you're sending out a survey, ~um, ~asking customers, ~um, ~you know, voting on what color that they want to see in this next production line, or if you have parameters like this can't go to the whole audience, then I would say you would want stick to a smaller segment.

Another great way ~to ~to work backwards is to say who shouldn't get this message. Who shouldn't get this message first? ~Um, ~if we're promoting, ~uh, ~30 percent off mattresses, And we haven't had a sale on mattresses in the last 90 days, and our return period is 90 days. Well, we should definitely be suppressing people who purchase mattresses over the last 90 days so that they don't get upset about ~this, ~this offer.

So, I think it's not so much as how big or small the segment is because, ~you know, ~That could vary brand to brand and objective to objective, but just feeling confident in knowing that at the simplest form, separating customers versus prospects will always be a good strategy to start with. It doesn't matter if you're B2B or if you're B2C.

At the end of the day, we're still selling something and we need to understand, is that resonating With the people we have already sold to. And is it resonating to the people who haven't purchased from us yet? Right.

[00:10:10] Sani: That's a great, and the strategy, who should I not be sending this to? I think that's a really, really good takeaway from this segment because number one, it's going to make it easier for brands to get started with good segmentation. And number two, You will not frustrate people that you send an email to, because like you said, if someone bought a mattress, let's not sell them another mattress in 90 days, because it's almost impossible.

They'll buy another one. I like that a lot. So Let's talk about some marketing, email marketing myths. Like this is the segmentation strategy. That's it's common sense, even if it's not always applied, but what are your favorite email marketing? It's like, some people will say, if I sent too many emails, that might annoy the customer.

And if I, you know, maybe I should be doing SMS instead of email, because. Every SMS platform says it's the best channel, even though we don't really know if they're lying or not. We talked about that a few months ago. Uh, so what, what are some of the myths? What, what are, what are some of the, the, let's say most annoying email marketing myths.

[00:11:14] Tara: think the first one ~and ~you and I have bonded and shared some laughs over ~this ~is that, um, ~that ~you can just take what you're doing in email and do that in SMS. ~Um, ~I think as email marketers, and I actually started my career in paid media, ~um, ~with, ~uh, ~managing paid search and affiliate marketing and managing multimillion dollar budgets.

And when you're managing. A multimillion dollar paid media budget. It's very stressful. You're looking at it hour by hour. You're looking at it on the weekends to make sure that you haven't overspent and we have it pretty easy and email marketing in that, um, The campaigns that we put out don't have such an impact on spend.

It doesn't swing ~so, ~so widely as it does with paid media. Um, so it's a bit more contained, but what I don't hear people saying is, Speaking enough about with SMS is the cost, right? We talk about, oh, emojis do great in subject lines and email. But when you start to add emojis and SMS that very quickly Racks up the cost.

And ~when we, ~when I see these best SMS campaigns out that are like paragraphs long, and it's very clear that they just took the strategy that they did from email and tried to shorten it a little bit. Um, you should really be trying to put out the shortest message possible that still gets the point across.

And that isn't going to cost the client thousands of dollars. Um, and with SMS, ~that, ~that cost can go up very, very high. Um, both depending on the country ~that you're, ~of the recipient ~that you're, um, ~that you're sending the message to, the size of the list. I mean, some people have, um, 50, 000, 100, 000 phone numbers on their list.

So if you're sending out a text, that's six credits long, that's going to be really expensive with emojis, um, and everything like that. So I think the, the biggest myth that I'd like to debunk is that you can just take what works in email and do that in SMS. And that's just not the case.

[00:13:26] Sani: Also SMS has the highest open rate. Sure. Maybe, but come on.

[00:13:33] Tara: prove me wrong, but that is also a myth, right? Like you can't track opens and SMS. So I don't know who and why every big ESP and every big platform that sends SMS says, Oh, it's the best open rate. Well, that must be from like self reported data because we don't have a way to track opens with SMS.

I think if we did, it'd be pretty intrusive. Um, I know with WhatsApp, that's ~a myth. ~different like we can see on WhatsApp notifications if they've read it or not, but just plain SMS, we can't. But please prove me wrong. If you have a tool that can actually do it, I'm always open to having my mind changed.

But as we looked, even MailChimp is putting out that they have the best open rates with SMS and it's just

[00:14:17] Sani: great, amazing, awesome for them, but there's a reason even MailChimp and all of the other ones that do have SMS their email, and there's also SMS. They're not an SMS platform. It was so good. They would just drop the email and focus on SMS entirely and maybe have email as an add on until we see at least one of these platforms say we're an SMS platform and we also send emails.

Thanks. I'm not buying any of it, nothing, I just don't want to believe that. What are some other myths? Give me something, something interesting. I mean, this one is, but give me, give me another one.

[00:14:54] Tara: What are some other myths? I think testing just to test. I think that's also another buzzword. Like, this is one thing about working with, uh, my team ~and I ~and our agency is ~we, we don't do buzzwords. ~We don't do buzzwords. ~Um,~

[00:15:06] Sani: let me just stop here. How many trick or treat emails did you get yesterday? With the subject, with the ghost emoji and trick or treat and whatever, because we're recording this on November 1st. 

[00:15:14] Tara: ~yeah, no, at least five, ~at least five. ~Yeah.~

[00:15:15] Sani: I got more, so I need to unsubscribe from some list. ~Sorry, you don't do buzzwords, it's~

[00:15:17] Tara: my inbox very tight. If it is not a marketing email for my clients or for my clients, competitors, I don't want your marketing. ~I, I,~

[00:15:26] Sani: ~you, ~good for you, that makes sense.

[00:15:28] Tara: You're not going to brainwash me. I know your tricks.

[00:15:32] Sani: Of course, you know, better than they do. Yeah, of course. But so you don't do buzzwords ~in, in, ~in Indico. ~That that's, ~that's very nice. And I appreciate that as someone who gets emails daily ~from, ~from brands and from marketing companies.

[00:15:44] Tara: Yeah, so

[00:15:44] Sani: the, what's the other myth?

[00:15:45] Tara: testing is a buzzword, right? And, um, We see this so many times where a client will come to us and testing is so important to them. And then we'll start to build out testing matrices, um, that test ~scalable, ~scalable things like, um, emoji versus no emoji, a short question versus, um, ~Uh, ~a statement or things that can be repeated.

Um, and then, you know, when we go to tech or for example, uh, this is another thing that came up. We were reading customer surveys and, uh, this is for a women's fashion company. The customers were saying, we want to see more diversity with your models. We're tired of seeing the same two, three models. Uh, you know, with the clothes.

So we said, Hey, let's test some new GC versus the model. And there was some hesitancy. Oh, we tested that years ago. It didn't work. And unless a client can come to me and say, we tested it three times last year on this campaign, it was statistically significant. And it didn't work. Then I will say, okay, that didn't work, but I will always advocate to test again.

~Um, ~so I think, yeah, that could also be a myth, which is testing just to test, or if you tested it in the past and it didn't work, I think that we should always be, um, testing it multiple times. And I'm sure that you hear people say like, Oh, I'll try anything once. Um, and, ~uh, uh, ~for me. I've taken the philosophy from work into my personal life is I'll try anything thrice.

I'll try anything three times, within reason, but I'll try anything three times. And I think that's the same thing with A B testing is you need to test it at least three times to reduce the noise and to eliminate any outliers. So yeah,

[00:17:43] Sani: a great perspective. I mean, I've spent years in CRO, so testing is not a foreign concept to me. I like that email is ~taking up, ~adopting testing. ~Let that guess that's the right word. ~It's not at that level as, as it's done in traditional CRO, but I like that it's happening. We tested it and it didn't work is like the worst possible response you can get from a client or from a shareholder, anyone, because.

We tested it and we learned it didn't work because is a good answer. We tried it. It didn't work. ~It is not, ~it is never going to be a satisfying answer because you got nothing out of it. Maybe whoever was testing it did it wrong. Maybe the implementation was messed up, like you need to tell me why it failed.

~To, to, ~for me to accept the fact that, you know, this just doesn't work. ~This, ~this cannot be fixed. Like there are some things that will never work, but yeah, we need to learn that. So testing, ~uh, uh, ~yeah, I think testing should be there in emails. I really do. It needs to be done properly. And like you said, we tried it once.

It didn't work. And ~maybe, ~maybe you're selling, I don't know, umbrellas. And it was 50 degrees that day or 40 degrees that day. ~We'll look, ~whatever. So there's external factors. ~There's, ~there's always implementation, the measurement issues that it could be a ton of different things. ~I, ~I kind of like that. ~I liked it.~

We're talking about testing in email specifically because there should be more of it and I think it should be done ~at a more, ~at a higher level. Like it is ~well in, in, ~in traditional CRO, let's put it that way. And. I don't even think the platforms that allow you the most popular ones, email that allow AB testing.

It's not great. Like it's not, it's not where it should be for it to be scientifically, you know, statistically significant and whatnot.

[00:19:21] Tara: Right. And many tools don't have statistical significance. I think Clavio just only recently added a statistical significance calculator on their A B test. Um, and actually have one last myth for you, and that is that there's a best time of day or day of week to send. I don't know about you, but I've heard Tuesdays and Thursdays at 7 a.

m. ~I've, ~I've heard this from many brands. This is the best time of day to send. And that is a huge myth that I just want to debunk right now. The best time of day and day of week To send is going to be different from brand to brand and one, ~uh, one, uh, ~report that I love to pull for our new clients is looking at their site traffic and site orders by hour of day and day of week.

And I like to look at it. Amongst all channels, I like to look at it with email removed. I like to look at it with paid media removed, ~um, ~and kind of identify some trends. So, ~um, ~we have a client that just came to us. They've been sending at 9am pretty much every day. When we ran this report for them, we saw that actually starting at 4am, they already have 20, 000 site visitors on their site from 4am to 9am.

I mean, by 9am, they're already ramped up to like. I don't know 80, 000 people. So really they could be sending earlier ~to ~to start to raise the conversion rate of that earlier morning pocket. We also see with them a dip during lunchtime, so pretty much 12 to 2 we see a dip and then we see it spike back up, uh, in evening around 6, 7, 8 o'clock.

So for this client what we're recommending are a few different things. One is ~to A B test, um, ~to A B test the two peaks, right? So 9 a. m versus 7 p. m to see like, like they hadn't been sending emails in the evening. Yet they're getting all this revenue and all these orders and all this traffic in the evening.

So clearly people are getting emails in the morning and then doing their thing when they have, you know, their glass of wine at night or, you know, at dinner when they're doing their online shopping. So let's test to see like, Hey, can we shake some more people out in the evening? Let's also test ~the, ~the high versus the low and trying to put some messages out during that lunchtime period to see, like, can we get people engaged?

Maybe it's not, if your email program is really, um, reliant on getting that message out at 9 a. m., maybe it's just sending a text message around lunchtime and seeing, okay, now can we engage this other channel where we see across the site, we have a lull. Thank you. During lunch, so let's start to test that ~I there are other brands for example ~There are other brands like especially I see this with higher AOV items Maybe a thousand dollar AOV type item where ~there are ~Site traffic is all in the evening.

So it's like clearly people are done with their day job. They have some time to do the research for this big ticket price, ~uh, ~product. And they're doing that in the evening or they're doing it on the weekend. So I want to debunk this myth that Tuesday, Thursday at 7 a. m. is the best time of day and day of week to send, because it's different for every brand.

And one way to find it for yourself is to look at your site traffic and order volume by day of week and hour of day, 

[00:22:54] Sani: ~That's a, ~that's a really good explanation. Also, not everyone has notifications for their emails. Like, let's just start with that. Like if you email me at 7am on a Thursday, maybe I'll read that at like 2 45 PM or maybe in the evening, or maybe I'll just leave the email unread until the evening when I can deal with it.

So I think. The lesson should be don't make assumptions that don't read a blog post written five years ago by someone who is not even doing email marketing who told you like Thursdays and Tuesdays. I don't like that. I just don't like doing things because that's the way you should do them. Same thing with LinkedIn and social media.

Like you should post it this time, that time. Yeah, maybe, but you don't know. I don't know. Like we should just test and see what works. I love that. One last work segment here, integrating email marketing with other channels and the risks of not doing it. And why that is, like you said, a silent revenue killer.

So, uh, you mentioned SMS during lunch and sending, like backing up that email that you sent earlier. So what are some other ways you can integrate email marketing with, I don't know, affiliate marketing, paid media, whatever else it is,

[00:24:03] Tara: Yeah. Well, first I want to answer the question of why does this happen? And I think ~that ~this happens because, um, I think there has been a lot of focus on specialists over the past year. ~Where ~we want specialists, we want an email marketing expert, we want a paid search expert. And one thing that I've found that has really served me well in my career, like I said, I started in paid media.

And I specialized in retention marketing, email marketing over the last 10 years. Um, ~and ~because, ~um, ~I have some background. I understand ~what a, ~what CPC is. I understand, um, ~you know, ~impressions and ~the basics, ~the basics of paid media. And because I can speak at a basic level to paid media, ~I can, ~I know as an email marketing expert, Hey, ~uh, ~I should communicate this to them.

For example, the segment of unsubscribed. Right? I'm sure everyone, if you have 100, 000 people on your list, you probably have 30, 000 people in addition to that that are opted out. And I love to take the people who are unsubscribed but are engaged on site. So this is a segment you can build in Klaviyo that says, Suppressed from email, but is active on site over the last 30 60 90 days, and they're viewing things ~are ~adding it to their cart, but we can't touch them, right?

They're opted out. We can't email to them. So one great thing with Clavio is that it integrates very well ~with ~with meta. And we can build segments in Clavio and pass them over to the meta team and they can target with them. So we have seen some success when we share segments with our clients paid media teams of people who are unengaged or we just can't mail to because we don't have consent on email and try to get them engaged with paid media.

~Um, also, ~This is another challenge that we see is clients who come to us and email is their only channel. We can build you the best email marketing strategy and retention marketing strategy in the world. But if you only have a hundred people visiting your site a day, you're not going to see that revenue.

~Um, ~and you're not going to see the results of that. So, ~uh, ~you really do need to have both a acquisition lever like paid media, paid search, Facebook ads, because those are your awareness drivers. You can reach much larger audiences. Then what we can on the retention side, we can only reach you if you've given us consent and we have your email or your phone number.

~Um, ~so I think that you definitely need both a acquisition and retention arm. And then looking at where are, what is the upper limit of a channel? So I can't mail you if you've opted out or you're unengaged, but we can reach you on paid media. So yeah, that's a one.

[00:27:00] Sani: That's great advice. That's really, I mean, going from email to meta, like this is, I haven't, I'm not in email marketing, obviously, but I haven't heard people talk about that because yeah, ~you can, ~you can connect those and you have to be smart about what you can and cannot do with a contact. Like it just comes down to that.

And this is a smart way of just reaching them where they are without getting into their inbox because you cannot do that. ~Type. That, ~that is really, really cool. Let's do some rapid fire questions before we go to the segment. We're talking about your digital nomad lifestyle and just business perspective from a digital moment, like yourself.

No questions asked. You can kill one trend in email marketing right now. What is it? You can't say emojis in,

[00:27:43] Tara: yeah, um, it is very easy for me to answer it. It is trying to get a AI to do your emails. Like, I am ~not anti AI. I'm ~not anti AI. Let's automate it. ~Let's, ~let's make things as ~efficient, ~efficient as possible. But I have yet to see. An AI designed email that comes anywhere close to what our designers can create.

Um, and I've yet to see AI messaging in email that feels authentic. ~Um, ~and that, you know, you can sniff that out pretty easily. There are definitely ways to use AI to make your email marketing strategy smarter and more efficient. But when it comes to trying to have AI do it all and design it and ~rate ~the copy, let's just stop.

And I just want to put this message out there too. ~Um, ~for people who applied to work with us in terms of ~like ~team members, we don't want to see AI. ~Uh, ~resumes, because I can tell that right away, and I just throw those in the trash. ~Um, ~so, if we're throwing AI generated resumes in the trash, I assume your consumers are throwing your AI generated emails in spam.

[00:28:57] Sani: couldn't agree more like I really believe that we are not even using AI enough as marketers humans whatever because It can do so much, but you need to tell it what to do. You need to be strategic about how it does it. AI should be your assistant, not your boss and not someone that does like everything for you.

If that's the approach, you're just wrong. And by the way, I hope you have a printer and you print those applications and you actually throw them in the trashcan because that side, that would be so amazing. But you're completely right on that. And you can tell like when it's AI copy. Maybe we're just too deep in this and we can sniff it out, but it's like a combo over, like when someone is just, you know, doing the thing and they don't know I'm bold now, we know we can tell, we can see like, it's obvious.

You're the one who doesn't know that we can tell. I love that next one. What is the one marketing strategy brands should be experimenting with more. So not something that's mainstream, but something that, that that's underutilized.

[00:29:54] Tara: This is really simple, but I think some of the most

[00:29:58] Sani: I love how you have them ready. Like I sent you the questions and I didn't,

[00:30:02] Tara: Are the most effective this because I'm an expert. That's why I can pick up your feet But it is oh now now you just threw me off now. Now. I lost my train of thought. Oh my goodness Repeat the question again

[00:30:14] Sani: So do one underutilized marketing

[00:30:18] Tara: Underutilized okay, and that is ~reviews ~reviews getting positive customer reviews Is free. Okay. Yes, there's awesome tools out there. Yopo, Kendo, awesome review platforms, but if you have a limited budget, the first place you should optimize is your Google store, Google Maps store, ~that, ~that you could put reviews under that.

Um, I am shocked that we are still getting leads and clients coming through our pipeline who don't have. That are e commerce brands and they don't have reviews set up. And, um, yeah, I think that focusing and just asking, putting a strategy, whether it's, I mean, even if you're a, ~um, ~physical retailer, even just having something at the POS system that's incentivizing a review or a QR code where they can go leave a review.

Um, just by asking, you're going to get a percentage of people who will just give you that feedback anyway. And once you've got a few reviews, some of the most highest revenue driving emails that we've ever put out are just. three to five reviews that we found on a client's website that have a trend. For example, we had a CBD client, um, and when we pulled this time of day, day of week report, which we do for all of our clients, we saw a huge spike in traffic around midnight, 1 a.

m. And after doing some digging with the customer reviews, what we found is many people were taking this product to help them go to sleep, right? So we had. Three to five awesome reviews talking about how this product helped them go to sleep And then we have these people who are up late at night searching for CBD products.

So we said oh these must be insomniacs ~So ~we put together an awesome campaign with headlines speaking to insomniacs. We sent it out at 1 a. m Again, this was a brand that was like 9 a. m. only. That's it. ~Uh, ~we sent it out at 1 a. m. And it was one of the highest opened emails and it was one of the highest revenue driving emails because we found that golden nugget, which is that this product helps people sleep.

We have awesome reviews that talk about that. And then we also have people who have never tried it that are up late at night, looking for a solution, helping them to sleep. And that is the magic. ~That is what ~that is. Marketing magic right there when you can pull an insight, put it together a strategic campaign and then actually see some revenue from that.

So yeah, I think that the most underutilized, um,

[00:32:58] Sani: a really, really good answer. And also at 1am, no one else is sending them emails and they're on their phones because they can't sleep. Like. It's just a perfect match combination of everything. Uh, let's talk about your travels. So you, you have lived in Medellin, Colombia, Athens, Greece. What else?

You're from, uh, US originally, right?

[00:33:21] Tara: Yep. So I, I have the last time I had an apartment in the U. S. was 2021. So I've been pretty much traveling since then. ~It is it kind of exhausting. I, ~Of all the places that I've lived in the world, San Diego, California is the best. It is the best city in the world, uh, and eventually I will make my way back there.

But, um, I do have two digital nomad visas. Uh, one is in Columbia, which I've had for two years. ~Um, and ~I've, Spent probably about three years there, um, on in and out trips. I love Medellin. There's a strong e commerce ~community There there's a strong expat ~community there And then Greece which has kind of been now my second uh, home base.

Um, I just love the beach. So, uh, having, you know, beautiful, um, seasides and sunsets, um, are lovely. But, uh, yeah, I can't wait until I can plant my roots back in San Diego, California, because I think that's just the best city in the world.

[00:34:17] Sani: So it's been three years of nonstop travel, almost with short breaks. I assume. How has that changed you? Because they always say, you know, travel and visiting new places will change you as a person. How has that changed you as, as a marketer and as a business person?

[00:34:32] Tara: Yeah. It has given me empathy. Deeper, much deeper empathy, um, especially being in cities, uh, you know, Medellin and Athens, both cities. have a very high population of English speakers. But when you get into the more rural towns or in situations, um, where, uh, you know, you are not the native speaker, you have a whole lot more empathy for, ~um, ~Um, you know, at least in the U.

S. I know, uh, sometimes there can definitely be some xenophobia and just like, um, you know, not wanting to deal with people because their accents are so heavy. And, um, I just, I don't understand. I don't understand that, but I have so much more empathy and patience because people have had empathy and patience for me.

Um, especially when it comes around language and language barriers. So, yeah, I think that is the biggest takeaway that my travels, um, have given me

[00:35:34] Sani: ~an interesting one. Yeah. ~But I mean, meeting people you don't know and understanding your way of life and them letting you in to that way of life. ~I did. ~That's what we need more. What humans should have more. If you're just staying in one place, okay. San Diego is a diverse city, I'm sure. But if you had just stayed there, you would not be the person you are today.

Like I, of course, you know, that better than I do. I mean, I've lived in how many, four countries now?

[00:35:59] Tara: Mm

[00:36:00] Sani: countries total. And every single one has changed me in a completely different way. And, ~and that, ~that whole experience is who I am today. ~And, you know. ~Some will like it, some will not like it, but ~that, ~that's just who I am because of what I've done.

If I had stayed in my city in Serbia this whole time, ~I would, ~I guarantee you, I would be a totally different person, a completely different person. Uh, yeah, let's talk about, ~let's talk about, uh, uh, ~balancing work and travel because. Time zones, clients, meetings, cafes, all that. And all of the temptations of a place like Greece. I was born right next to Greece. I've been there many times. I know how good it is. Not just the food, but like just the country itself. It's absolutely incredible. So how do you deal with that? How do you handle ~the, the, ~the discipline needed to get work done when there's so much non work to do?

[00:36:48] Tara: yeah, I think I'm definitely not perfect. ~I, I definitely~

[00:36:51] Sani: ~No one is, ~no one is.

[00:36:52] Tara: I definitely had a moment even just a few days ago where I was so hungry. I hadn't eaten all day. It was like already 7 o'clock and I had a client and went to go get some food to go and everything is like a lot slower here, slower pace.

And, uh, you know, I had to just. Take the call as I was walking back to my apartment, um, and keep myself ~off, ~off, on and off mute. And then, of course, when I unmuted myself, a loud motorcycle went by. So ~I, ~it blew up my cover. But I think I just said, Oh, a motorcycle went by. Let me put you on mute for a moment.

And I think we have really awesome clients where, um, I think at the end of the day, any Manager, brand, whoever is your stakeholder that you're serving. ~Um, ~as long as you're doing awesome work and you're resolving any fears or concerns that they have, ~uh, the other, ~the person on the other side shouldn't even know that you're in a different time zone if you're doing it.

Right. Um, but I think it is ~all ~also about balance. I know for me, ~I. ~I need a full eight hours of sleep. I don't have kids. I don't want them cause I love sleep. Uh, and I need that full eight hours of sleep or I'm not going to be my best self and I know for me, ~I, ~I can't do ~like ~Asia ~time ~time zones with our us clients because it's not going to work with me.

Like interrupting my sleep schedule, but here it has been nice because like I told you earlier, uh, I work pretty much from two to midnight. Um, and then I have the days and mornings to myself and that's what I value. Uh, I want my morning time to be for me. So this, Set up has worked really well for my clients.

And I actually, I will be going back to Columbia here in a few weeks so that I'm on the same time zone as all of our clients during Black Friday. I just didn't want there to be any concern or any issues. So I am actually like moving my life ~to ~to be in that. Time zone, um, so that there is no issue at all.

And I think if you have the freedom to do that, then, um, yeah, just always putting the client's needs first, as long as they're getting taken care of. I think it doesn't matter where you do the work.

[00:39:06] Sani: I think it's similar to remote work ~in, ~in big companies. Like why should they care where you are? If the work is getting done, if you're responsive, like if you're being productive and a good team member, ~who cares that that's, I mean, I've been a remote worker for 15, for the last 15 years as, as a self employed person working for a few agencies in the meantime, ~who cares, right?

I don't get the back to office movement and trying to like control people. It just shows you're a bad manager. If the only way you can control them is if you're looking at them through a glass to make sure they're working. Treat them with respect and you might get respect back. I don't know if that's a hot take or not, but that's just the only way to look at this, uh, for me at least.

This was a very interesting conversation. I'm really, really glad we did it. I love, ~like, ~the Nomad lifestyle. I think it's something that everyone kind of wants somewhere in the back of their head, people who have not tried it at least. So, listeners, if you're in a position to try, ~like, ~what I did, This was 2010 when I started working remotely and online.

I just rented an apartment for one month in Estonia randomly. And I went there for a month. And then the next year. Actually came here to Porto for one month just to explore the city ~seat. ~And then that's the month when a new, I would move here eventually. So you never know what's going to happen unless you explore as much of the world as possible.

That goes, uh, meeting people, new places, foods. Last question I think is, uh, what's the best Greek dish

[00:40:29] Tara: Ooh, best Greek dish. I mean,

[00:40:32] Sani: ~has to be? ~Well, come on, you're not just an email expert. ~You, ~you have to know about Greek food.

[00:40:35] Tara: Uh, I mean, okay. ~Hmm. I mean, just~

[00:40:37] Sani: There's a lot

[00:40:38] Tara: think it's just a simple euro is good. Uh, and then ~I love baklava, but I know that that, I guess, comes from Turkey, so it's not necessarily Greek, but, uh, and ~I love the Greek, um, bakeries. ~I, ~I've gained, like, four kilos. I lived above, uh, a bakery, and I gained, like, four kilos in two months, um, from all the snacks.

I even have, like, a little tray of cookies that I'm gonna indulge in after we get done. Uh, so, yeah, I think that the desserts, I'm a, a sweets person, so I really love the desserts

[00:41:02] Sani: Greek cuisine is just insanely good. It is just so, uh, I dunno, it's not pretentious like some other cuisines may be like, it's just, this is the food we just make it good. Like it just, it's fresh. Yes. Uh, very, very close. Do you have one, one last takeaway about email marketing? Someone looking to start working a brand that wants to get into email marketing.

How would you pull them into doing it?

[00:41:31] Tara: so, uh, first is you got to build that list, right? Kind of back to what I said earlier is we can build the best email marketing program for you. But if you don't have a list, um, and you don't have people coming to your traffic, coming to your site to add to that list, then it's not going to work. So I think starting with building your list, getting a pop up on your site, Looking at brand partnerships, if you have people in your network, other brands, you know, you're friends with this founder and they have a much bigger company, then you do a brand partnership where you're doing a giveaway or something, some type of collaborative effort where you're both getting that opt in to build your list.

I think that's, that's really important. number one. And then, yeah, I think Klaviyo has a really, a lot of awesome, like, templates out of the box. And just start with, like, the stuff out of the box and get that running, get some insights, and then you can work your way up to maybe working with a freelancer, hiring someone internally, or working with an agency like us to optimize that and get it to the next level.

[00:42:37] Sani: That's a great answer. So just get started and worry about the details later. But just if you don't start today, you're going to think about starting in six months and you're going to have the same thought process. Okay. Audience. I, I think you learned a lot about email marketing ~and, ~and the myths ~and, ~and how it should be done, how it shouldn't be done.

~And, ~and the emojis in SMS costs more. I didn't know that, but ~that, ~that's something I learned today. So thank you for listening and if you like this episode, of course, rate review, all that stuff, but send it to someone who needs to learn this like that. That's ~my, ~my CTA for each day. And one last question for you, Tara.

What is the one word or phrase you have for yourself six months from now?

[00:43:20] Tara: World domination.