[00:00:00] Jason Wong: What's your hot take as an email marketer?

[00:00:02] Jacob Sappington: AB testing is a rated specifically on camp. In my opinion, this is my hot take.

[00:00:07] Jason Wong: I think the people that blame, iOS 15 as the only thing is just lazy because they just have not thought outside of the box of paid ads.

[00:00:26] Jason Wong: Hello everyone. Welcome back to another episode of the building blocks. Today I am joined by Jacob Sappington, who is currently the partner at Homestead email and SMS. Welcome to the show with Jacob.

[00:00:38] Jacob Sappington: Hey Jason, thanks for having me on.

[00:00:40] Jason Wong: I actually met Jacob two and a half years ago on Twitter. How, how did you, like, how did we meet?

[00:00:47] Jacob Sappington: Yeah, so we had a mutual connection at the time another, you know, a partner at Wonghaus Adrian was helping me run the ship there. At the time I had reached out to him. I said, Hey I signed up for your emails. I think there's some opportunity here [00:01:00] within your account. Let me, let me give you a free audit and see what we can uncover in there.

[00:01:03] Jacob Sappington: And so gave you a free audit and you guys were actually my first client freelancing. So you know, deeply appreciative for the opportunity that you gave me and you know, really happy to see the work that I was able to put in place there, you know, leading strategy for, you know to see you know, the growth that doe has seen you know, prior to me coming on and then, you know, just all the new product roll outs you guys have had the product development just, you know, the what sort of mind for a year you guys are really pressed the needle on you know, cutting edge marketing.

[00:01:33] Jacob Sappington: Like the recent email that you guys sent out was the PD, you know, in the email, there's an Easter egg on these products, find these ones and You know, you'll get a discount in this product. So so yeah, so we, we got introduced, I helped you guys out with your email for a little bit, and then you guys, you know, taking it a level up from there since then, it's been really cool to see.

[00:01:49] Jason Wong: Yeah. I didn't know that we were your first client until like much later, like you came in, swinging with an audit and you literally came in and makes such a huge [00:02:00] change to our retention channel that made me believe in retention channel. Because I was an influencer marketing guy. I was my background and I was, you know, I dabbled in paid ads.

[00:02:09] Jason Wong: Retention has never been a thing that I was of. And I think you set the bar, we're still trying to reach that bar you set by the way. There was a period of time when I think email accounted for 30% of our revenue, you know, like a couple of months. Whereas like, that was the far, whenever I interview new agencies, I said, this is what we did. So like, we've got to look at that. I don't think anyone has ever gotten back to that yet. You can also argue, we have done a lot more net new acquisitions, but I'm always like, look at what Jacob's Sappington did.

[00:02:42] Jacob Sappington: Yeah. Well, hey I'm glad I was able to set that bar for you. And I think that you know, I was preparing for this short call here. I was, I was thinking like, you know 38%, 40%, you know, whatever it is, like that's not attainable without a good product. And you know, the work that you guys have done on social and product development it [00:03:00] makes it a lot easier. So. Yeah, we could, in some things in place that, you know, obviously helped your channel out, but ultimately, you know tactics alone, don't win in email.

[00:03:09] Jason Wong: Really on that same topic. I want to hear your thoughts on like your take on retention because there's this whole discussion online that's like paid marketing is not really what defines your brand . It's not what scales. Right. That's what they say about paid marketing, but really what helps retention marketing? You mentioned product you've mentioned brand.

[00:03:27] Jason Wong: Like what is that thing that is outside of your control as a retention marketer? That brand needs to be aware of to really help you become more success?

[00:03:35] Jacob Sappington: Yeah. As I mentioned that, like, it really comes back to product. Like obviously paid ads work to get people familiar with product. I think like retention channels, like they're really this opportunity for you to like speak with your customer, remind them that you, that you exist to show off new products.

[00:03:49] Jacob Sappington: But at the end of the day the most important thing is you know, product. Ads, you know emails, SMS, like these are all just touch points. You know, it's kind of that [00:04:00] classical attribution issue of, you know, radio, billboard social media, like what really drove that sale. And at the end of the day, like these are all just touch points and, you know, we're trying to smartly layer in these types of points.

[00:04:10] Jacob Sappington: Just again, just remind people why you exist, how you solve their problems, why they need your product and without a good product that just doesn't happen. So so yeah, it really, it really dives into the product.

[00:04:20] Jason Wong: Absolutely. I heard through a little birdie recently, you guys had a big viral moment on Reddit, wants to ask you a little bit more about that. And from my understanding, it wasn't like a revenue driving campaign you guys did.

[00:04:33] Jacob Sappington: Yeah. It actually just happened yesterday. I was filling out you know, preparing for this call and that was something that I thought was really cool was I think that, you know, the owned channel is just an opportunity for you to like build these relationships, you know, talk to your customers.

[00:04:45] Jacob Sappington: And we had a client who sells product to a very popular Netflix TV show for Bridgerton. And they got leaked on Reddit, as you know, they have these fabric swatches for free. So they ended up getting 1200 orders placed overnight for [00:05:00] free fabric swatches. And one person tried to place an order for 200,000 swatches.

[00:05:04] Jason Wong: Holy crap.

[00:05:05] Jacob Sappington: Yeah. And so we, we checked the numbers and we saw that that out of that it was 1200 orders. We had about 400 people who were consented who had signed up for our emails. So we took that segment, we wrote a quick little plain text email, like just poking fun at it like, Hey, glad you found us. No, you're not getting all those swatches, like who's the maniac that thought they're going to get 200,000 swatches.

[00:05:23] Jacob Sappington: Like, what were you going to do with. And then like, we position it, like, Hey, if you actually want to try our gloves, we'll, we'll send you this. We gave them 10% off. As of last night when I checked that again, it hadn't driven any revenue, but I think like having that hought process to like communicating with your customers, even if they're not your ideal customers in that situation. I think that's the thought process more, it means more than the revenue itself.

[00:05:45] Jacob Sappington: There's a small audience of people who didn't care about us, frankly. So it didn't surprise me that the revenue hasn't came from it. But again, I'm more proud of the thought process that went behind it.

[00:05:54] Jason Wong: Oftentimes these things come up much, much later. You're definitely more memorable. [00:06:00] Oftentimes customers don't get an immediate communication back on something that they just did on your site, except for the usual win-back or like abandoned cart checkout. So when they saw this opportunity and they did something and they felt like they got caught, that's memorable.

[00:06:15] Jason Wong: You're like, oh shit, this brand is watching out there. They're looking out for us. What else could they be doing? You know, if they're paying attention, to this, what else could they be paying attention to? And in my head, like, even though that's not a revenue generating campaign, that's still something that keeps you top of mind.

[00:06:31] Jason Wong: And honestly, at the core of advertising and just continuously putting your brand on top of people's mind, and you keep doing that until the end, that's really it.

[00:06:39] Jacob Sappington: And honestly, there's a small chance that our campaign could be screenshotted by one of those 400 people that we sent it to and they could post it on Twitter, Instagram, and they could go viral.

[00:06:50] Jacob Sappington: And then that in itselfcould bring in tens of thousands of dollars. So, you know, it's a shot in the dark. It's kind of a lottery ticket, but again, the [00:07:00] process to talk to your customers like that is really what matters.

[00:07:03] Jason Wong: Absolutely. And that's what I loved about working with you is that we, back when we were working together, we did a lot of out of the box email marketing campaigns.

[00:07:11] Jacob Sappington: Like you remember when we sent that blank template, we send a blank template just to see what it would do. And tons of people were like, Hey, did you mean do this? It's like no, we didn't. We didn't mean to do this, but yeah, I remember that.

[00:07:21] Jacob Sappington: There's a lot of fun things that I did.

[00:07:23] Jacob Sappington: And again, I always look back to every single person that I work with now. It's always a reference. You're like that kid that graduated and the teachers just couldn't stop talking about. Like you have like a picture hung on a wall. Like there's a bar that you set and there's also like the fun shit that you did.

[00:07:39] Jacob Sappington: And like, you know, me, we worked together for over a year. I love doing unconventional stuff because for me, selfishly, it's really fun. I hate doing boring ads. But for you to be a marketer that is also willing to do these things, you kind of have to be a little silly and, and willing to try these things solo. An agency just wouldn't do that for us. [00:08:00] Traditional agencies, right?

[00:08:02] Jacob Sappington: It's tough. Oddball moments or like, you know, off the cuff ideas are always, you know, probably the most fun to execute . It's probably gonna be next to no revenue, but it's definitely gonna be one of my favorites from this past month.

[00:08:13] Jason Wong: I would say, like, I think these things add on it and multiply the intensity of success from future campaigns because people remember you more. They're like, oh yeah, they make me laugh last time. You know, maybe I'll open this time.

[00:08:27] Jacob Sappington: Yep. And I think the client is appreciative. Just like the speed that it took to implement that we were, you knowhe was, he came to us and didn't say, Hey, I had this idea. He came to us and said, Hey, I'm going to be like, getting those revisions back to you. We had this 1200 orders come in. We're having to go through and cancel all the fraudulent ones. And so just there with me, I'm like, Hey, this is, this is a moment right here. Let's, let's do something like this.

[00:08:49] Jason Wong: You're actually that person that taught me to poke fun at our misfortune.

[00:08:55] Jason Wong: You know, when we ran out of products, we sent an email saying, Hey guys, we effed [00:09:00] up and like really acknowledging it, like being public and saying that and being transparent, like you're the person that really made me do that more. And we do that now. You know, when we run out of stock or when we oversold or if there's a product defect, like just poking fun at it and being transparent.

[00:09:13] Jason Wong: And we were kind of early doing that because now brands do that, but we were early doing it because we realized that being transparent is really the key to standing out in the world. All the brands who have this wall of communication we're only gonna text you in very formal type of language. And like, we will sprinkle some pictures here and there.

[00:09:33] Jason Wong: And then you told me like, you know, send them an email, like how you send an email to your friends. We did a lot of plain text emails. You shifted my thoughts on plain text email, and I, and I'm very, very grateful.

[00:09:45] Jacob Sappington: Yeah. Awesome, glad I could do that.

[00:09:47] Jason Wong: I want to touch a little bit more on retention marketing, but not on specific strategies, but more so on your thought process in how this industry has changed recently. But also like the general public perceptions, because for most people [00:10:00] retention isn't something that they learned in school.

[00:10:01] Jason Wong: They kind of jumped into it because of someone like you on their team, but eventually they found the need for it. So what would you say is like a common misconception that people had when they first get into your marketing? For me personally, I was like, I'm just going to set up 23 different flows and then let it fly.

[00:10:20] Jacob Sappington: Yep. And that's, that's the one that we see a lot is like, people are like we need more flows, we need more flows, we need more flows. And yeah, I think that there's something to be said about like respecting the inbox, like not being in the inbox every single day. Communicating, like, you know, just like you know, talking to your customers, like you've already said, like talking to them like they're real people. But yeah, I think that's the big one is that people think that more flows, fixes everything, that more emails fixes everything. And it's, and it's a pretty bad trap to get into. Like, we talked to people who were sending an email every single day for 30 days and you know, maybe that it works, that, you know, you've already removed everyone who's going to unsubscribe at that point. [00:11:00] You're, you know, you have a small list of core people who will really purchase whatever you have, but that list is that that audience that will purchase everything you put out, isn't getting bigger because you know, every single day is just too much.

[00:11:14] Jacob Sappington: And so yeah, the, the big thing that we see is just people thinking that more and more email is the end all be all when you just can't do that if you want long-term success. Anyways, it'll certainly work in the short term, you'll see increased revenue and then eventually you'll see, you know, just the health of your list degrade. So that's a big one.

[00:11:33] Jason Wong: You, you obviously see a lot of accounts. You've seen accounts that posts every single day and you see accounts that are a lot more intentional, less volume, but very, very high quality emails. Do you see that the emails with high volume, like once a day, they eventually exhaust their lists and it tapers off? But like during the times that they do it, they obviously squeeze a lot of money, but then eventually it just dries out. Is that what you're seeing or something else?

[00:11:57] Jacob Sappington: Yeah. Yeah. So that's [00:12:00] definitely part of it is like you're, you're dwindling that list. Like people continue to unsubscribe and at a certain point you actually run out of people who are willing to unsubscribe. At some point you've reached an audience of people who are comfortable having probably like who have probably 30,000 emails in their inbox just chilling. And you know, at that point, people see you in their inbox, but it doesn't mean anything to them. Like it doesn't elicit an emotional response to like, oh, I need to get to us. Cause they know that it's going to be in their inbox again tomorrow.

[00:12:24] Jacob Sappington: So we do see those lists eventually perform worse and worse. And the downside to that is that the long-term ramifications is that you're hurting your overall deliverability. So you're shrinking that audience that cares about what you say. And then eventually the domain providers are going to say, Hey, we see that gmail says, Hey, we see that your people you're saying it to don't open and click your email. You're probably spam. You're just not going to be prioritizing the inbox. And so it's, it's, like I said, it's a really easy short-term trap to fall into because you think more revenue, but that's just not holding the long-term viewpoint.

[00:12:57] Jacob Sappington: And it's also difficult because it's kind of based on [00:13:00] theory. Like I can sit here and say, this is going to happen. But if you sit here and say, well, my unsubscribe rate, isn't going up whenever I increased sends then I, then my audience is fine when it's you're really relying on one KPI to decide your whole entire strategy.

[00:13:15] Jason Wong: Absolutely. I do want to ask you some stuff that would just spice things up. Let's do hot takes.

[00:13:22] Jacob Sappington: Hot takes. All right. Let's do it.

[00:13:23] Jason Wong: What's your

[00:13:24] Jason Wong: hot take us an email marketer?

[00:13:26] Jacob Sappington: AB testing is a overrated, specifically on campaigns. I think whenever you AB test campaigns, you're introducing another variable into the equation. Unless you have a massive list, like if you have, you know, 200- 300,000 higher than, you know, multiple hundreds of thousands, if not more then you're introducing time as a variable that you can't equate for in open rates.

[00:13:49] Jacob Sappington: The other thing is that, although Klayvio now gives us the option to segment out engagers based off of apple privacy protection being true. They [00:14:00] can still get onto your list in other ways, such as, you know, through our engaged segments, they can get on there by being active on site or clicking an email, placing an order.

[00:14:10] Jacob Sappington: And so they could have fulfilled those engagement metrics. But we're still gonna have a higher open rates. And so if I sent a campaign to two groups and AB test it, it might just be random distribution luck. That group A has 20% more apple mail privacy protection users in it. And so yeah, so my, my hot take is that AB testing subject lines is probably not worth your time.

[00:14:33] Jacob Sappington: On flows, you can probably get away with it because it's a more it's a more intent based audience. So we can, we can make decisions on opens and clicks there, but for campaigns, you just add in another variable to it and you can't control that distribution of users.

[00:14:46] Jason Wong: Absolutely. On the same topic of the hot take obviously you're team retention, and you have you, you work in an agency that does pay. Is there like a constant battle [00:15:00] of I'm better than you, or is this let's just work together mutually and I think we can grow together.

[00:15:05] Jacob Sappington: Yeah. So I consider owned channels, like dependent channels. So they are without paid ads, without organic SEO, you know, whatever it is, like my flows aren't going to run.

[00:15:16] Jacob Sappington: Because

[00:15:17] Jason Wong: There's no people.

[00:15:18] Jacob Sappington: Yeah, exactly. In that channel, that those campaigns I'm sending to previously acquired customers, we've acquired using paid. When we look at campaign or when we look at like account health, like we want to see a really healthy mix of campaigns and flow revenue. So like in a perfect world, that's 15% campaigns, 15% flows.

[00:15:37] Jacob Sappington: What that tells me is that we are able to convert people coming to the site, like new with the flows and we're able to convert previous purchasers with campaigns. So yeah, we it's, it's you know, we work together and in tandem and you know, without us their ads aren't as effective. And without them, we don't have our list. So we've got to work together.

[00:15:56] Jason Wong: I love to hear it. There there's sometimes just marketers, such as think [00:16:00] you're not going to live without me and I just think that's such a bad way to think about it. Like diversifying your channels so important when, when this whole iOS 15 thing happened or even 14.5, everyone started blaming each other.

[00:16:14] Jason Wong: And I, in my opinion, this is my hot take. I think the people that blame, iOS 15 as the only thing is just lazy. Because they're, they just have not thought outside of the box of paid ads. There's so many things that they could do way outside of the Facebook ads manager that they haven't explored.

[00:16:30] Jason Wong: And so when that thing went down, their entire ship sunk well, yeah, because you just never thought it would happen to you. You thought you were spending so much money, you have so much data and that you will be bulletproof and then you're not, you know, when the dust settled, it really shows.

[00:16:44] Jacob Sappington: Yeah. And we're, we we're in an industry that moves really quickly.

[00:16:47] Jacob Sappington: And so if you don't make adjustments to 14.5 to 15, to whatever the next privacy protection thing apple puts out like you will get left behind. And unfortunately, that's why we're seeing a lot of [00:17:00] businesses struggle is just because they haven't been able to adjust in a correct manner, I guess.

[00:17:06] Jason Wong: Yeah. Off the topic of email. Now I want to talk to you a little bit more about being a partner. You recently gotI'm not going to say promoted. You joined as a partner at Homestead and before that you were you were doing retention at 4x400 and I always get those two mixed up. Cause they're like neighbors and that'd be a friends.

[00:17:25] Jason Wong: I'm so sorry about that. And then before that you were working with me or maybe you have something in between, right? Or?

[00:17:32] Jacob Sappington: So I, I was doing freelance and then worked at 4x400 full time. And then now partner at Homestead yeah.

[00:17:39] Jacob Sappington: And

[00:17:40] Jason Wong: I, and it's obviously a great progression I'm seeing like that.

[00:17:42] Jason Wong: That's what I think is an ideal progression for really talented marketer. What what's been the biggest difference you're seeing from role to role in terms of your mindset, like how you approach work now as a partner versus just, you know, working for someone else. And also like the biggest difference you're seeing [00:18:00] in your personal growth?

[00:18:01] Jacob Sappington: Yeah.

[00:18:02] Jacob Sappington: I'll address that first one or that last one first, like biggest thing that I've seen in personal growth is just like helping lead a team, like, you know in the past, like I was the person that came to my boss and, you know, frustrated because you know, XYZ went wrong and now I'm that person or one of those people that someone comes to with concerns and, and, you know, whenever workload gets heavy, like, you know, how can we shift priorities around here?

[00:18:26] Jacob Sappington: And so I would say that it's really helped me to help lead better. I think the other part of your question was what's the difference? I guess the biggest difference going from like employee to then like partner is, has been I'm still involved in part of the account day to day at Homestead.

[00:18:42] Jacob Sappington: But again, the biggest part has been being involved in the sales process. You know, being a team lead for our employees, helping them navigate through fires and everything, but yeah, here in the future, I think there's going to be even more leadership opportunities as we grow as a company and really excited for that.

[00:18:58] Jason Wong: I love that you are able to [00:19:00] have that perspective as you know, someone in their position, who's now reporting to you. You're like, yeah, I get that your workload is heavy. I understand cause I was literally in your shoes two and a half years ago. And I think empathy through that experience is so important as a leader.

[00:19:15] Jason Wong: There's so many bad managers. Can't account for how many bad ones there are. And I think the fact that you've been through it makes you a better leader in my opinion. And hopefully that is, you know, maybe I'll quiz some of your direct reports on that. No, it's definitely a whole different game because when you work on someone's account as an employee, there's obviously incentives, which is keeping a job and doing whatever and putting out the fires of the day.

[00:19:44] Jason Wong: And then once you move into a partner level or ownership level, it's like you have to start building fireproof walls instead of just putting out fires. And then you got to do the two things at once, and then you got to figure out how to get more firemen to help out and do those two things. And it does [00:20:00] get chaotic sometimes, but I know you're, you've been always capable of managing workload.

[00:20:05] Jason Wong: I think that's one thing that I've always respected about you. I feel like I just did like a episode just to praise you, but no truly I always tell people, this is what we've done in the past. And I want us to get back to those days. And I actually tell them to like reference your tweets, like read your stuff.

[00:20:19] Jason Wong: And so just want to say like, from a previous, like a former coworker, that that's the impact that you've made at our company. And I don't think I've ever said that to you.

[00:20:28] Jason Wong: Yeah, I

[00:20:29] Jacob Sappington: appreciate that. It sounds like I need to start tweeting some more too. So you guys have more content to go off of.

[00:20:32] Jacob Sappington: Get back up,

[00:20:33] Jason Wong: come on. Our entire company depends on you now.

[00:20:37] Jason Wong: I am so happy to actually reconnect with you. I know we've all been so busy and it's hard to talk because you're living in the middle of a corn field. That was, that was the joke of the entire time that we were working together. You're in Illinois. And his internet was always so spotty during calls, we would just freeze and we would just make fun of them and say, oh man, the [00:21:00] cornfield wifi is not working anymore.

[00:21:02] Jacob Sappington: We recently got an upgrade here at the office that I rent to 300 megabytes per second. So yes, we're getting there. Big, big growth in all in all aspects, I guess.

[00:21:12] Jason Wong: Huge. Well, thank you so much for coming on. Where can we find you? Where can we Homestead?

[00:21:18] Jacob Sappington: You can find me on Twitter @jsappington and then Homestead at the URL is homesteadstudio.co and we do growth. We do retention. We can, you know, some clients choose us for both growth and retention and then they can also kind of pick their services that they want. We have a pretty, pretty wide array of clients, you know, as niche down as, you know, really fancy gloves that are like truly one of a kind, you know, all the way to, you know, more generic stuff like supplements.

[00:21:46] Jacob Sappington: So we, we have a pretty wide array of clients and definitely a benefit, you know, just seeing how, how we think through objections of trying to sell $200 gloves versus, you know, $30 supplements. So yeah, we're available for [00:22:00] growth and retention.

[00:22:01] Jason Wong: Love that. Well, thank you, Jacob. We'll see you soon. All right.

[00:22:04] Jacob Sappington: Thanks Jason, good to talk to you.

[00:22:06] Jason Wong: You just heard an episode of the building blocks podcast. If you like what you heard subscribe below to keep hearing conversations that I have with brilliant marketers, founders, and innovators on how they built their best ideas. Now if you want to learn how you can turn your best ideas and build something massive out of it.

[00:22:20] Jason Wong: Visit my website bbclass.co or follow my Twitter at @eggroli

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