From Humor to AI: Marketing Tactics that Resonate
The Juice is visiting the doc! Today we’re chatting with , the voice behind , a natural body care brand sold in major retailers including Walmart, Target, and Ace Hardware.
(upbeat music)
- My name is Jess Servion,
and I'm super excited to bring you my new podcast,
The Juice With Jess.
This podcast is gonna be about everything
in your customer's journey.
We're talking acquisition, awareness, making that purchase,
retaining that customer, bringing them back around,
and everything in between.
This is gonna be all about delivering dope brand experiences
and talking to some really amazing people
who are in the customer experience space,
the marketing space and everything in between.
(upbeat music)
Welcome back to another episode of The Juice
with me, Jess, your host.
I am super stoked, as I am every fucking week,
to bring on my homie, Scott Wicken,
who leads copywriting at Dr. Squatch.
Scott, tell the crowd who you are.
- When I'm Scott Wicken,
I lead copy at Dr. Squatch, just like you said.
- This is the best copy that we've ever said.
- Yeah, it's the way we're done.
That's it, it's a wrap.
- We're over.
- Yeah, pleasure to be here
in the presence of such a legend.
But yeah, I've been in creative for digital creative
for going on 13 plus years.
- Shit, yeah.
- In a range of different capacities.
The majority of which is direct consumer brands,
high growth lifestyle brands.
In another lifetime, before that, I was in finance,
and that's a fun career transition story.
But copy is kind of the core of what I do.
I've also worked in various capacities
for men's clothing brands,
a range of different CPG brands, fitness, technology.
I was a creative director for a men's clothing brand
for about four years.
I was in the freelance space for three plus years,
and then I've been with Dr. Squatch for about three years.
And yeah, personal care space is really exciting
and interesting right now.
So yeah, it's a pleasure to be here.
- Thanks.
Well, let's start there, man.
'Cause now I'm really interested
how you ended it from finance
into like this creative e-commerce.
- Yeah, yeah, it's a good story.
You know, I think coming out of college,
I like many folks got a straight up business degree.
And kinda didn't really know what I wanted to do.
And I think the bigger point was more
I didn't really know myself.
So I worked in commercial estate finance
in various capacities for almost eight years.
And kind of every year that I went along,
I got a little more unsatisfied,
a little more unhappy,
and a little felt a little more out of place.
And once I started kind of working on myself
and learning a bit more about myself,
and what I was good at,
what my strengths and weaknesses were,
and ultimately what I wanted to do for the rest of my life,
it just kind of became clear
that this really was not it for me.
And my time in finance was a really great experience.
I learned a lot of very basic skills,
how to show up to work on time,
how to lead a meeting, how to write a new email.
- To details. - Basic stuff, no sales.
So certainly it was very formative for me.
It ultimately was kind of a round peg
in a square hole sort of situation.
And I hit a certain point where I was like,
I need to make a change.
And quit my job, started over,
spent a little bit of time soul searching,
and really just kind of wanted to focus on,
figuring out like what I love to do,
and how that would ultimately translate into a career.
And as cliche as it sounds,
I read a great career book.
I still think about it all the time.
It's called Life's a Bitch, and then you change your career.
And-- - I'd love to read that.
- Nice little book, nothing super crazy about it,
but it just had some really thoughtful exercises
that guide me down a path of kind of figuring out
what I was into.
And that's really what stuck with me was this one question
that still is like seared in my brain.
It was don't think about what your next career is.
It was what do you love
and what do you wanna be around all the time,
and make a list.
So I made a list, and it was not finance and spreadsheets,
although those things are great.
And I certainly still use a lot of the business skills
I learned as a young buck in finance to this day.
I really value the importance of data
and can crush a few numbers when I need to.
But that was really where it started.
And I made a list, and it was creative things,
art, food, fashion, creative things.
And I was like, okay, this is it.
So again, a lot of cliches here,
I really just started doing some creative things
to kind of get my brain moving, get my body moving,
get thinking about where I was at.
And I started a blog as one does.
And--
I started a podcast.
Yeah, right.
This was like, you know, about a little bit back in the day.
So starting a blog in this time was like starting a podcast now.
So that's like definitely the corollary, to a great point.
And yeah, just started writing.
I think as I wrote, I realized that I was an English minor
in college, kind of more just like because I liked it.
And I kind of, and I was like, oh, I really like this.
I enjoy this.
I feel like I'm good at it.
And then I was like, okay, how do I turn this into a career?
So I started thinking about creative industries.
Econ was really kind of taking off at that point.
And I just started hustling.
Did a lot of free work.
Tried to build my portfolio with random stuff.
Social media posts, blog posts, kind of some like--
At that point, I really learned what copywriting was.
That it is business-oriented, marketing-oriented words.
So emails, all that sort of stuff.
So I started doing kind of some a little bit of like,
just practice work.
And yeah, did a couple quick freelance jobs.
And then got my first job working for women's shoe and accessory
band called Soul Society back in 2012.
Yeah.
And a woman who is still a great friend of mine
and a mentor or source of advice.
She was my first boss there.
She took a chance on me.
And I'm forever grateful for her for giving me the opportunity
to like this, you know, dude comes in.
He just never-- he clearly has maybe some talent,
but doesn't really have like a resume.
And she took a chance on me.
And I'm forever grateful for that.
And was kind of off and running from there.
And built up my career from there,
expanded kind of in more of the creative direction,
creative strategy, worked in production,
photoshoots, campaign development,
more of the kind of brand marketing stuff.
And then, yeah, I've been kind of back to copy the last few years.
And it's been a great experience.
I think that's really fun.
Like your path, right?
Like we actually have a really similar path of like,
well, I went to art school and then I ended up in finance.
And then I ended up in like all these like very like stuffy things.
And I'm just like, not good at stuffy.
Yeah.
I like was saying this on another episode.
I got fired from like an office manager job.
The lady was like, listen, you kind of suck at this.
And I'm like, damn.
Hard advice at the time.
Yeah, it was like, okay.
Honestly, the best advice because then I became very detail-oriented because of
it, right?
But I think that's really rad.
I think like creative people don't get a lot of credit.
Like creative minded people, right?
Yeah. Like I think when it comes to the world of business,
we like, we don't think like so in a box.
We think very outside of the box.
And we think about like solving problems in very different ways.
Absolutely.
I think it's a great point.
And it is a mindset shift.
I think the challenge and one of the things I personally pride myself on,
as I'm sure you do as well, is how do I harness my creative capabilities,
skill set experience, but also given that I do what I do,
how do I approach the creative with the business mindset?
Because that is certainly important.
We can't just out here, those of us in pure creative that are working in econ,
sales, marketing, whatever it is, we have to be able to come up with good
creative
that inspires, resonates, but also it's got to convert, right?
And whatever that metric is, whatever situation it is,
the creative has to do that as well.
So creating good, creating, good creative.
The copyright, it really has a way with words.
Creating good creative just in and of itself is not enough to really be good at
your job,
whether it's copy or whatever, graphic design, customer, you know,
there's creativity and everything, engineering,
but it's really got to be able to meet those business goals.
Yeah.
And I think, and that is a big part of how I think about my creative work
personally,
not just at the execution level, but certainly at the strategic level as well.
And being that I'm a little bit further on in my career,
I obviously have had the chance to work on all of our strategic elements and
different things.
And I think that's a really important part too, is like, great,
we need to come up with some creative for this, but we need to think
strategically.
We need to get conversion, revenue, whatever those metrics are.
And that's a big part of it.
I think what's really important too, like when you're thinking of creative,
right, like you're thinking of creative and it's not just words of creative,
it's not just designs, like these are all pieces of it, right?
But really in the world of like E-com or even in the world B2B,
you are creating these things, but really what you're creating is for the
customer's journey,
right?
Absolutely. Right? Like there's different pieces of it.
So it's like, so think about it, like performance creative, right?
The ads you see on Instagram, Facebook, whatever, channels, right?
There is a piece of creative work that goes into it,
whether it's a static image with some beautiful copy or it's like a motion of a
video, right?
That is a piece of creative that you're speaking to that customer in that
journey, right?
So that's acquisition.
Then there's like the CRM pieces that email SMS, like, and we're going to get
into that
because this is the SMS king.
So, but...
Lord, not a king.
Okay, Lord, Lord.
Or low level government function.
Okay, the drama.
Drama.
We're not self-deprecating around here, okay?
Anyway, but my point is I think you hit a really good point about the fact that
creative
creative does have a business function, obviously, right?
And I think like, and as marketers, like I'm a marketer before I'm actually a
customer
experience person.
I love customer experience because I'm dealing with a consumer journey, right?
We all have a little CX in us.
We just don't...
Absolutely.
We just like think it's just support all the time, you know?
Absolutely.
I think it's a really great point.
And I think that's a perfect sort of reframing of kind of my point there was
like,
I think of myself, I'm certainly a marketer.
Yeah.
My output is creative driven, but you know,
there's all kinds of other output.
But certainly like, I'm a marketer at heart.
I have my...
The usage of my output is for marketing.
And that's really important to think of yourself as a marketer,
think of yourself in the business mindset.
Because, you know, ultimately that's what it's about.
And I think that's a really great way to think about it.
We're all marketers.
I think every opportunity from, especially CX, every first interaction on the
growth side,
the acquisition side, that is, like you said, using your word to start a
journey.
And that's a sales opportunity.
Yeah.
If you want to put like a more direct term on it.
But yeah, that's what marketing is all about is like that first step or down
the line or
solving problems, it's all kind of marketing.
Yeah, absolutely.
So switching gears a little bit because I do want to talk about Squatch just
briefly.
And given you leave the copy, my guy,
I want to talk about Squatch's tone of voice.
I think it's really sick.
Yeah.
I love it.
We appreciate it.
Certainly team effort.
The brand voice was established very early on our founder,
by our founder.
So I was fortunate to come into a situation where you had a lot of really smart
really talented people developed it.
And I think, yeah, for me, I looked at it like this is an opportunity to sort
of like
continue on, you know, help execute on it at different levels and, you know,
sort of grow it in places that makes sense, be a steward of it, where it makes
sense,
define it, where it makes sense.
I worked on our sort of internal brand book, and that was a really fun project
that I was,
you know, again, a big team effort there, but that was a great project that I
was fortunate
enough to be a part of.
But, you know, I think ultimately getting to work for a brand, and there's many
you know, unique, fun brand voices out there, but getting to work for a company
that
has that type of brand voice is really fun.
And, you know, it really has been a great educational process for me, and, you
know,
really informed a lot about how I think about, you know, brand voice and tone
in general,
from a creativity standpoint, how can we use it effectively, how it can, you
know,
how it can, you know, it can be ineffective.
But, yeah, ultimately it's really fun.
So getting to a really fun challenge too.
And I think, you know, ultimately, I think we're in a time now where, you know,
brand has never been more important in many ways.
And I think it's obviously how it works in different spaces, industries,
product classes
is a distinction, but ultimately there's so much noise out there, and customer
acquisition is so
tough, especially in direct consumer now, that certainly brand voice is a
really key area where
companies can differentiate themselves, put their product in the hands of
people
via clever and unique ways.
So I think it's a really interesting time to be on the brand side of work in
general.
And I think brands now are really taking that more seriously and kind of making
sure that
it's consistent throughout their entire customer experience, whether it's
acquisition, retention,
customer service, social certainly.
Every aspect has got to be consistent and interesting and innovative.
And I think it's a really fun time out there.
It's a really tough time, but I think you have a lot of really smart,
innovative people doing really, you know, cool and clever things with their
marketing.
So it's very fun. And also, I think it's a big, you know, I think it's also a
time where a lot
of people are trying to do it. And I think the key thing that I think about a
lot is I think
certainly it can involve humor, cleverness, jokes, off the wall creative,
whatever. But I think
it really starts for me, at least when I think about it, really starting kind
of back a step
and thinking about who is your brand? What does your brand stand for? And then
from there kind of
developing what your brand voice is. And that's, you know, if I'm working on,
you know, brand
voice projects, that's really something I think about a lot. And I think it's,
you know, I don't
think there's one size fits all for brands. I think a lot of brands see the
success of
companies that use humor in their marketing. And they want to add that into
their marketing
naturally, because it's a great way to stand out and it can be effective. But I
think that's,
it really starts more before that in developing an idea of who the brand is,
what it stands for.
And then figuring out if humor makes sense or, you know, or memes makes sense
or whatever it is.
I think that's a big thing that I think is important to consider as you're
thinking about
your brand voice. Because, you know, for us, I think, you know, I think a lot
about not just
kind of how we do it, but why we do it. And that was kind of part of a lot of
the work I did
originally was really thinking about establishing sort of that why behind the
how. Obviously,
the how is important. Like what that looks like practically in your SMS in your
email.
All that kind of copy. But ultimately, like, what is it for? So I think taking
some time to really
go through that process and developing the brand voice is not just looking at
the output. It's
really looking internally, doing all those things in, you know, internally as a
first step to really
develop. This is who we are. This is what we stand for. And then, yes, like how
you how your tone
and voice and your output of all from there is sort of the next step. But you
got to figure out,
like, who you are. And maybe you decide like, Hey, we don't dreamers not for us
. We need to
focus on what makes us special who we are. And then we kind of develop from
that.
Yeah. And I actually think a lot of brands like don't get that right, like in
the steps
perspective of it. Because I think, you know, you come out the gate and you
want to be like that
funny brand and you want to like, hatlet it have a personality. And I think
like, by all means,
every brand, every company should have a personality. It's fun and punchy and
like,
get people across the line. But like, not everybody is fun and punchy.
Yes. You know, I think ultimately, it's like another way to look at it. And
this is like,
such an overused term. But like, it's like authenticity really is still a thing
. Like,
I know that that is like, truly a word that just gets thrown around for
everything. But
that's really what it is. And it is really is the best way to describe what you
can do from a
positioning standpoint is like, be authentic, right? We're figuring out how to
be more authentic
or, and that starts with kind of internal understanding of your brand, what you
do.
Yeah. I think, I think you're absolutely right. I think it's a bit of
authenticity. But I also
think it's, and I don't see a lot of brands doing this in the beginning stages,
developing your
customer personas. Totally. Like, I think it happens after the fact. Totally.
And I, and I think
what also happens, because I see a lot of founders doing this of a brand, right
? They're like,
I have this product and I'm going to put this product out. And I've done all
the research about
the product. But then I've skipped the step of consumer research. Like, not in
the consumer
research in the sense of like, taste and like, or feel, or is this going well
in the consumer
research of actually like, who is my customer? Right. So then you find yourself
marketing or
creating a voice that has nothing to do with your product. And it's not all the
time,
but I've seen it enough where I'm like, don't skip that step. Like skip, find
the step of who
your audience is to then develop that brand voice. Absolutely. And I think that
can really,
you're totally right. And I think it's definitely a step that I think more
brands need to think
seriously about and really do the work on. And it's hard because exercises like
that,
you know, in the initial branding process. And it doesn't, you know, obviously
it's good if it
starts in the beginning, but you know, many brands go through a rebrand or a
retooling and like,
that can be an important part of that too. So it doesn't always have to be in
the beginning,
but it is an important step because you know, you want to think about those
things like,
who we marketing to, like you said, how, what needs is our product serving,
what problems are
we solving with our product? But also it's great if our product is solving a
problem,
you know, serving a need to, to a community that wants it. But if you're not
conveying a way that
connects with them ultimately, then that's really where you can kind of fall
short. I think figuring
out how to connect with your customer base, your audience is really the core
about. And it's going
to be tough to connect unless you're authentically know who your brand is, what
your brand is about.
Yeah, absolutely. And you know, to your point about the customer journey, that
connection in the,
in the beginning, whatever that, whatever that is, whether it's an ad, whether
it's a SMS,
whether it's a promo email, developing that connection right from the jump is
really the core to,
you know, getting people in and getting them to, to create that limerance with
your brand for sure.
Yeah, absolutely. I think we can go so many different places in this subject.
But I actually
really want to get into the subject of the SMS Lord subject.
So self-appointed. Hey, let's talk a little bit about CRM.
Well, first we're going to start an email though, because I actually have a
question for you.
So how do you in copy, because I struggle with this, how do you make an email,
not so like transactional
promo like, and like transition that copy into like, no, you like, I'm talking
to you like,
you're my home, man, you need this soap. Yeah, it's sick. You know, yeah, it's
a, it's a great
question. I think two things. One, I think having talented people that know
your brand can execute,
like, I'm sorry, that's not a flashy answer, but that's truly what it is. Yeah,
I think that's a big
part of it. It's brand obsession. Brand obsession. You have people that that
live and breathe their
brand also have talent and experience. I think that's important. But I think
too, I think it really
starts maybe a little bit earlier on. I think it starts, you know, from a
strategy perspective,
really thinking about, especially with email and certainly with SMS and other
avenues,
you know, thinking about it's never just about one email, right? Yeah, it's
about a campaign,
a collection of emails, a collection of SMSs, your marketing effort for a
particular product,
a promo, whatever it might be, really is the sum of many parts. And I think it
's really important
to consider that as you're thinking about, like, for a retention scenario, for
example.
Yeah. And I think that's really important because, you know, having good
segmenting and good strategy
around a campaign, looking at all the parts, looking at your different audience
segments,
who you're marketing to and how, I think that sort of like foundational, unsexy
stuff is really
where success starts. Yeah. And understanding that and knowing that you're
solid there,
then puts your creative in a position to be its most successful. So, but going
then to your
question about copy, I think it's really about thinking about a couple of
different things. One,
you know, you haven't established brand, you have your authenticity, you have
people that
understand how to market your products, you know, find that balance of humor
and education,
product information. And I think ultimately thinking about it really
conversationally,
again, that's a, you know, like authenticity, you know, the conversational
nature of copy
specifically is kind of a thing that's talked about a lot. But it's truly the
key,
and especially as we get into more one-to-one sort of marketing like SMS and
then what's
up and even forms of social media, you know, that conversational aspect is
really, really core
and really able to translate your marketing into conversational copy is really,
really important.
So I think thinking about it from that standpoint, and then also, you know,
like you said, really
knowing your audience, knowing what they respond to, like, are they audience
that really responds to
bare bones, informational, just get me to the page again. Yes, if that's so
great, if they,
if you have established a relationship with them where they appreciate your
humor,
they appreciate your content, it's not every email is transactional, you got to
focus on that too.
And I think that kind of goes into the point when I was thinking about looking
at things holistic
as a campaign, your set of emails can be a range of different, you know,
constructions. You have
some content, you have blog posts, you have humor, you have product information
. Ultimately,
if they're receiving your email or your SMS, like they know who you are for the
most part,
they know how to get to your website, right? So you don't need to, like, you're
not solving a
mystery with them, you're really convincing them to get there, right? How are
you doing that? Yeah.
And I don't think, and I think certainly there are, there are a lot of
opportunities that you do need
to sell. Sense of urgency is obviously like a critical component if you're
looking at a promo
specifically or a limited edition product. But people know how to get to your
website, right? So
you've got to get them to want to go there. And that's sort of where a little
bit of the magic
lies, right? And whether you're intriguing them with beautifully designed
graphics, whether you're
intriguing them with clever copy, you're reinforcing their love of your brand,
what they love about
your brand in the context of an email, that's really, really where it's at.
Yeah. Okay, let me ask you this question. This actually has nothing to do with
copy at all.
But I remember, I have an opinion about this and maybe it's because I'm a
creative, I don't know.
And I do think that text-based only emails can sell, but I also, but like
straight up,
I'm such a slob for good creative. I love a good design, I love a good color
scheme. I'm like,
oh, it's just like, I love it. But I realized that like, that doesn't always
sell, right?
And people really combat me on this one a lot. But like, how do you find a good
balance between
text only? So every day dose, for instance, every day dose is only text, they
're text-only emails,
right? In Jack's voice. And I've actually asked Jack this question, I was like,
why do you do that?
And he's like, they crush. He's like, people want my voice. And I'm like, okay,
but you also have this beautiful creative, like, why don't you add? Then he's
like, I know it works.
Yeah, I think that's a great point. And again, he knows his brand, he knows his
audience. And that's
not to say there are spaces to try new things. But you got to put yourself in a
position to,
as you look at your creative and your marketing, you got to double down on what
works, find some
avenues to try new things and experiment and try and gain customers, new
audience, followers,
whatever that case may be. But yeah, like, I think you have to approach, you
know, you always
want to be innovating on that. But if you have something that works, double
down on that,
iterate off that, find new ways to do that similar thing that's working until
it doesn't.
And then you got to chuck it and try something new. Yeah, I think plain text is
really interesting.
I think we're really, especially with email, we're really in a like, noise
driven environment,
like inboxes have never been more crowded. Deliverability has never been harder
. And how you stand out
amongst like the promotions folder, where you land. I mean, even a lot of
people have purely like me,
I have all of my brands that I follow, I have them filtered in different
folders. So really
standing out, really standing out is very hard. And obviously you've got to
have an email in the
email perspective, you got to have your subject lines. Yeah, on point. Yeah, I
think that's where
like, that should be like, yes. But I think internally from a tech standpoint,
it is,
it is a new experience. And I think given just the visual nature of text, it
really,
if they open it, their engagement with it is going to be a little bit deeper
because they're not just
scrolling a visuals and then they're off, right? Because it's text, they have
to actually read it.
Right. And I think that sort of just like by that nature creates a level of
engagement,
especially if they've already gotten two, three, four emails from you in the
course of a campaign,
and depending on the segment, and they open it up and like, whoa, this is not a
nicely designed
beautiful email, which certainly that's super important. But it's just
something different. I
think breaking up that noise, that is a very, very good tool to break up the
noise. Yeah, I agree with
you. And I think that's really important. Like I said, in the context of today
's email marketing
world. Totally, absolutely. I totally agree with you. But like, and maybe this
is just because like,
I'm such a psychopath about customer journeys, right? But when I think of a
really good creative
email with like images on it, I think of it as like a funnel. That's like, you
have your subject
line, you have your header, then you have like your contacts, and then you have
your ender, right?
And it's like beautiful for anybody viewing. I'm making a hourglass shape right
now, you know,
funnel motion with hands. But I totally get that. Like I get that some
marketers don't agree with
that. But like, I think it just varies. I think it varies by your audience and
your brand. And
for somebody who really loves creative, think about your creative as a funnel.
Don't just like,
throw things on a screen and be like, cool. And especially, you know, with, you
know,
we're driven by such a mobile environment now, if you're not designing your
emails specifically,
and your communications and your websites, mobile first, you know, you're
already behind the game.
And I think that's really critical. And that certainly changes the way you
approach your
design, of course, but certainly your copy as well, and how they work together
and are integrated
in not just the email environment, but in the mobile email environment. And I
think that's a
really critical thing to think about too. But yeah, and again, I think it's all
about standing out.
I think it's all about testing and segmentation to your old thing. Oh,
absolutely. You know,
as you get into it, you're really finding different segments in your audience.
Some may
respond well to beautiful design. Some may respond to like, just the facts, you
know,
give me that promo, whatever it is, get me to the site and you're done.
Some, you know, I think the text gives you a little bit more personal
interaction.
You get an opportunity to like speak as a person, a founder, a persona, a CX
rep, whatever the
personas that are using your email. And I think a lot of audiences really
respond to that vibe,
especially if you know, it's more of like a high LTV segment, where you're
really trying to create a
little more personal touch with that experience for them. And you know, I think
, you know, approaching
it like a conversation and approaching it like someone you're sending an email
to someone you know,
for the right audience can can do really, really well, especially if they don't
need convincing about
who your brand is to them. Yeah, they are in the high LTV audience, a very
engaged segment.
They're like, yeah, dude, we know what's up. Just just tell me what's good. You
know, tell me like
what you got, your product promo, you know, give me a little bit of like give
me a heads up,
make me feel a little special. So I think yeah, that personalization aspect,
again, it really
comes down from thinking about your segments and thinking about your audience
and thinking about
your campaign, holistically. Yeah, absolutely. Let's switch gears to SMS real
quick, because I
keep saying like, we're gonna get there. We're gonna get there. This is also my
favorite. I think I
recently posted on LinkedIn, I recently posted on LinkedIn, like a poll about
like email and SMS.
And I just remember somebody being in my threads being like, no way. I hate SMS
. And I'm like, all
right, dog, like that's cool. I know I'm like, why? I was like, you're most of
these people,
most of your consumers in anything, right? Like whether you're a sass company,
whether you're a
brand, most of your fucking consumers are mobile first. Absolutely. And so it's
like, I love SMS
because you can get like quick punchy, right? And you can get quick and punchy.
And like, what's
really tight about it is you can be in somebody's hand. And I love like, I mean
, we can nerd out,
like I love building flow paths. I love building like two, like one on one
conversations, but
from a copywriter's perspective, how do you make that copy hella punchy? It's,
yeah, it's a great
challenge. It's a really fun challenge. As we've talked about, I love SMS. I
think it is. We're
just scratching the surface in terms of opportunity for it to continue to
become a tool. If your
SMS program is not near or already outpacing your email revenue, I think, you
know, it's,
you know, you should take a hard look at that ultimately. I think it's very,
you know, obviously
varies depending on your product, your market, your audience. So there's a lot
of room to wiggle
there. But I think the power of SMS is huge and only getting bigger. Yeah,
especially as we come
to deliverability challenges with email. Absolutely. Like I said, touch on
earlier, we talked about
the noise in the inbox. I think it's just a great way to differentiate. And
like I said earlier,
I think it's a really key opportunity to have a one-on-one conversation with
your customer.
Absolutely. And that is really interesting because it is a totally different
way to interact.
And it gives you a lot of opportunities to converse with them. Obviously, you
use it as a promo tool,
just like you would email certainly. New product releases, promos, all that
kind of stuff. But from
there, how you then continue to develop your audience directly and then make it
more specific to SMS,
I think is really the fun challenge, right? And I think the, however you go
about it,
I think there's different ways to tackle that challenge, whether you're
creating an SMS-only
persona, you're using it as a CX tool. I think, you know, you're the, you know,
the chat bot queen.
And I think we're only scratching the surface of ways to create automations for
not just,
you know, not just, you know, customer service-oriented interactions, but
personalization
and recommendation opportunities, which I think is another core thing that
really, certainly,
you can do a lot of that with email. And your email program should be doing
that already.
But I think you've got even more opportunity to do that because of the one-to-
one nature of
SMS. Absolutely. Absolutely. I think the other thing to hit on too, and you
briefly touch on this,
but like, and there's tools out there that like have teams behind, I like to be
a little tool
on X-ray right here. So like, there's tools out there that have people behind
the scenes that are
responding, right? Like to those avant-garde emails, like all that stuff. And
that, and it
crushes because I have it, I have it across like some of my clients, right? But
outside of just
like the SMS marketing tool piece, I also want to see more customer experience
teams across brands
involved in SMS. And I think we are. I think we definitely are. I think there
needs to be
tighter integrations between the SMS tools and the help desk tools, right? So,
you know, customer,
I mean, this at the end of the day, this is a customer podcast, right? Customer
actually has a
really tight integration with Twilio and WhatsApp. And I think that crushes,
dude.
Yeah, absolutely. And I think from, again, to kind of circle back to your
original point about
copy and brand, you really want all of that experience to feel consistent and
cohesive. So,
every interaction your customer has with your brand should feel obviously
nuanced depending on
the situation, but certainly consistent and cohesive relative to tone. And I
think that is,
especially in the context of SMS where you have very tight character limits for
the most part,
that's a big challenge. And I think that's really where kind of the magic comes
in is,
you know, you've got 90 to 117 characters depending on what platform you're
using.
Shout out all the SMS platform people. You know who you are. Yes, you know who
you are.
You all are probably listening to this.
But yeah, that is a challenge. And I think to me, when I think about it
personally,
the creative challenge, I love, like, I like the restriction to me, like, and
again,
this is like me really nerding out. Like when I can dial in something and I can
get a hopefully,
in my mind, a powerful, thoughtful, funny, goal achieving message in 100
characters,
that to me is like, hell yeah. And I think, and I think also, as you build that
out,
then you really set yourself up for success with flows. Because I think that's
one thing we,
you know, you didn't touch on is like, yeah, certainly with email, but the flow
opportunity is
afforded to you, you know, not just in SMS in general, but working in concert
with your email
is really interesting, whether it be win back, whether it be replenishment,
whether it be,
you know, and again, and how you're, you know, to sort of watch your customer
service.
Yeah, I see some brands, man, like on those flows, sorry, I really like cut you
off.
No, it's okay. I just want like, I see some brands in like that flow process,
like,
dog, I've saw, I've seen one flow with like 17 emails going through every
single flavor of a
product. And I'm like, yeah, why? Yeah, like, that's not going to sell you.
That's going to sell you
probably in the first five emails. Yes, I was just going to say, you got to get
it done in a couple.
Yeah, but after the 12 others is like, you're just annoying me in my inbox now.
Yeah. And I think, you know, I think a lot of it comes down to timing too, you
know, and, and who
your people are. And, but yeah, but I think now the opportunities to do some of
that, that like
regular interaction and create that relationship with your customer, the SMS is
really important.
Cause like we have relationships with our friends, our peers, our family, the
text.
If you can thoughtfully integrate that in a brand, in a brand way that, you
know, certainly,
you know, people are going to look at it differently. But if you can integrate
your,
you know, yourself into those sort of text based relationships and make it feel
authentic in a way
that, you know, really keeps your customers engaged with you regularly in
little bites. Yeah.
And it's not just that they're in front of their computer, they're on their
phone and traffic,
looking at email or whatever. That's a really compelling opportunity to, you
know, continue to
deepen your relationship with your customers. Yeah, absolutely. What's your
thoughts on like
the founder voice, like in text, though, not an email, just like in text? I
think it's, I think
it's a great question. I think it's highly brand dependent. Yeah, I agree with
you. I don't think
it crushes for everybody. I don't think it crushes for everybody. I think 10, 8
, 10 years ago,
I think we're the founders of XYZ. We're telling you about our products was
like a really common
tactic. And I think worked really well. I think that is what the audience
wanted in sort of like
somewhat of a nascent industry and a lot of new product categories were being
developed.
And I thought that was really important. I think now, I think you need more
than that.
But also, I think depending on your company, depending on your brand, depending
on who your
audience is, I think, again, it's all about figuring out what your audiences
are going to
respond to from an authenticity standpoint. Your audience really connects. You
mentioned every
day dose if they're really connecting with you as a founder and your founder
story and they're
responding to that, the numbers don't lie. You got to just be like, okay, the
numbers are telling us
where we're going, whether it's sales, whether it's engagement, they're going
to tell you where
to go. Ultimately, you certainly have to make space to try new things and fail.
But the numbers
will tell you where you need to go, what's working and what's not working. And
whether going up
down or stagnating, then you need to make your decisions in terms of where you
want to go.
Yeah, absolutely. And when you talked about engagement and engagement metrics,
and I want to just point this out that I think as marketers, we constantly look
at engagement
metrics or CTR rates, click-through rates, all these things and revenue from
the tools that
we're utilizing, the marketing tools that we're utilizing. But I think a very
untapped area is
actually looking at your CX. I mean, granted, I'm like, I am this person. So
these are the things
that I look at. When I look at feastables, how I knew that we needed to do this
chatbot and do
these pathways is because I could see what was happening in the customer
service channels.
And so I was also comparing not only everything that I was seeing in our SMS
tools and our email
tools, but I was also comparing everything that I was seeing in our customer
service tools as well
and creating a holistic engagement metric. Yeah, totally. I think it's such a
great point.
And I think, to your point, figuring out how to deepen that relationship
between your CX and
your marketing arm is really important. That is your front lines. And not just
your front lines,
because you could argue that acquisition is certainly front lines. This is a
deeper level of
engagement because these are people who have either actively bought your
product or are
actively very hardcore thinking about buying your product or engage with you on
a deeper level
where they're asking questions. So I think that truly is the front lines of
figuring out really
what's going on with your audience. Obviously, Instagram comment section is one
thing.
Social is one thing. Other forms of communication is one thing, but truly your
CX and
is a way to get insights about what's going on with your customers, one,
whether relative to
problems and issues, or ultimately, hopefully you have a good relationship with
your customers
on there, shouting you out and letting you know that you're doing a great job,
or they're
giving you opportunities for new ideas by saying, "Hey, I would love it if you
guys came up with this,
made this product or whatever." And certainly that's not an easy thing, but at
least it's really
tapping into in real time what is going on with your customer base at a very
deep level. And thinking
about how to, thinking about CX as a crowdsourcing mechanism for your products
and your marketing
and how you're connecting is a great way to do it. Whether it's a product's
landing really well,
there's issues with delivery or whatever it is, you're really learning at a
deep level what's
going on with your customers and I think how you translate that interaction
into other opportunities
is huge. One question that I have for you because you are in copy, right? What
's your thoughts on AI?
Yeah, a great question, hot button issue, the amount of friends that have
texted me like,
"Hey, like, say goodbye to your job, AI is here." Yeah. No, I think it's a
great question. I think
it's a fascinating issue, true. I think to me, I look at it as this is a tool,
right? I think
certainly we're all going to be replaced by robots in one way or another in 50
years. We're not there
yet, but to me, I look at it as this is a tool to make me better at what I do.
How do I figure that
out? How do I welcome change and use it to my advantage to help me do a better
job? I personally
don't think that obviously I'm biased, but I think AI has a long way to go in
many respects
relative to copy. I think it is astounding in certain areas and I think it
should be used as a
tool in those areas. I think it's just like anything, like any piece of
technology, it's not to be
feared, it's to be embraced, it's to be mastered, it's to be used as a tool to
make you better. I think
I personally don't look at it as a replacement for my writing. I think about it
as a tool to create
things at scale or to create variants for testing for large volume of copy that
can be iterated on.
I am still admittedly a novice. I'm trying to learn more about it because I'm
looking at this as
a challenge. I personally don't think it's a replacement for tight, effective
brand marketing
copy, but it's a great tool for SEO driven content that doesn't need to get a
lot of eyes, but it's
going to juice your search or creating options at scale, things like that. That
's why I look at
it. Certainly it's a little crazy and to feel like there's robots that are
doing my job, but again,
I think about we can't sit around and say it's kind of a fact or whatever. It's
here. For me,
I'm approaching it like I want to learn as much as I can about it, figure out
how it can make me
better. I can use it as a tool in ways that makes sense. I don't think it's
that effective of a
tool at the moment for my day to day or for any good copywriters day to day. I
think does it give
certain people a cost-effective way to achieve things if copywriting is not
their strong suit?
Sure. I think as pure writing, I think it's more a tool for specific things.
I think it remains to be seen like where it goes. I think it's an interesting
tool to have at our
disposal. I think that's how everyone should look at it. Whether you're crunch
ing numbers,
writing, copy, design, photo retouching, everything helps us move faster. I
think we should look at
it as an assistant. I forget who coined that phrase, but that was really a ref
raming of AI as an
assistant and to help you do certain aspects of your job better and quicker. I
think that's really
where it's at. Again, I'm trying to learn more about it. What is the phrase? It
's like,
"Keep your friends close and your enemies closer." I guess. Something like that
. I see robots.
Well, man, I feel like we can be vibing all day long, but unfortunately, we are
at the end of the
road like a Boyz to Men song. I got to stop quoting that because that was in
another episode.
Anyway, Scott, tell the homies where they can find you. You can find me on
LinkedIn. We can
connect. We can do all that. Scott Wicken. You can see my work at Dr. Squatch
and other places.
But yeah, it's been such a pleasure to join you here and talk all things copy
and SMS.
And yeah, it's been a blast. Thanks for coming on, man. And I will see and talk
to you all next
Thursday, Toodles. Hey, wow. You made it to the end of the episode. That means
that you like me
and I like you, which also means you should subscribe to this show.
[no audio]