Arlen
[00:01:46]
Welcome to the e-commerce marketing podcast. Everyone I am your host Arlen Robinson. And today we have a very special guest, Aquibur Rahman who is the CEO of Mailmodo, an email marketing solution that enables users to send app-like interactive emails. He has marketing experience in inbound and outbound strategies, SEO, growth, CRO, and marketing automation. He has helped many B2C and B2B brands, including early-stage tech startups to fast-track growth using agile and data-driven marketing processes. When Google released AMP emails, Aquib saw great potential in it for reinventing email marketing. This led him to start Mailmodo to help businesses get better ROI from email marketing. welcome to the podcast Aquibur, I’m doing great. It’s awesome. Having you on the topic for today is going to be about your bread and butter, which is a and P emails. And it’s really exciting because I think email marketing is kind of in the midst of a kind of a whole other shift.

Arlen
[00:02:54]
And it sounds like you’re definitely on the pulse of it. So emails definitely. Aren’t dead. I know how to people say, oh, is email marketing still worth it, but I think you can testify to the fact that it’s just evolving. So we’re just in that next evolution of email in more marketing. So yeah, definitely super excited to talk to you and we appreciate you joining us today, but before we dig into the topic of today, which of course is going to be a and P emails, or why don’t you tell us a little bit more about your background and specifically how you got into what you’re doing today?

Aquibur
[00:03:28]
Sure. So I come from an engineering and management background. I started my career at the startups as a analyst, and then I grew as a marketer at my last job was 10. It was as a marketing head at a Indian tech startup called clear tax. After that I was working as a freelancer helping early-stage startups. And at the same time, I was looking for ideas to work and build something of my own. And my inclination was towards marketing SAS at the same time, Google launched tape before email. And I was excited both as a user, as well as a marketer, as a user, because if you see from the very beginning web and email, it started during similar times, but what they started as a, just a static pages or just text and images and links. But today web has evolved so fast and that we are doing a video call or whatever, or internet or web browser, but emails have remained the same, probably the first email that you have got and the latest event that you have got look very similar, right beside the fact that every day 300 billion emails are sent and about 60% of them are from businesses to their users.

Aquibur
[00:04:42]
So emails have remained more as an information dissemination channel, but I could not do as more interactive. So as a user, I was very much interested in this in knowing about it. And as a marketer, I saw you your opportunity because as a marketer, I used to create emails. I used to impede the opener to create et cetera, but I could never agree the conversion rate of emails because when we send email to users, they have to open it. They will click on it, go to a website, then maybe log in there and then do several steps there to complete that desired action actually reduces conversion a lot. So I saw an opportunity that a, we can bring the whole website, like experience within the email so that users don’t have to go through all those steps and they can quickly act. And that increases conversions. So that’s how main model started. And we baked the main model as a no-code platform for marketers to create these interactive app, like emails, where our users can take action and they get higher than Russia.

Arlen
[00:05:44]
Okay. That’s awesome. Well, thank you for sharing that. Definitely. It sounds like, you know, the birth of your company, it kind of comes from you seeing there a need in the marketplace for this, as I mentioned earlier, kind of evolution of emails, cause you said like today, people are still, you know, majority of the emails are just kind of information. They look the same as they did when emails first came out. But do I think you’re on a pulse of it we’re adding the interactivity into these emails is really taking us to that or, you know, next evolution of the, if you know, marketing. So of course with these amp emails, why don’t you kind of break it down for us a little bit more as far as specifically the types of businesses that could use it, what are some basic examples of it and why is it more effective than a regular static email?

Aquibur
[00:06:38]
Sure. So a regular static emails are basically, they contain only text images and links mainly, right? Do you have to take any action? You have to click on a link and go to a site in an app in an email there, you can make things more interactive. You can call various API as you can have forms, Cazale et cetera. Within the email itself, you can inject with the mic. You can take actions right then and there fill a form. You can like whatever you use on a website to do, you can do it. there have been plenty of use cases. For example, in e-commerce emails, we are working on a system where people can check out within the email itself. So for example, if you go to a e-commerce website and you leave certain, I continue ACOG website sends them an email, Hey, Arlene, you left this item in your cart.

Aquibur
[00:07:33]
We would like to purchase it. And they give you some coupon code, this contact, cetera, you have to copy that code, click on the link, go to the Shopify website or e-commerce website and maybe log in there and then complete action. Now we bring the whole Shopify experience, right within the email where people can don’t have to apply the coupon code, the code discord, we, we already applied and they can purchase then and there in other businesses like SAS or FinTech ticket tickets that I can use for lead generation for getting well and relating art reviews, feedback, et cetera, as well. So our, we have like, we have clients at may model from various domains and they use it invited you use cases like besides the use cases that I mentioned, you could also use it for getting simple calculators, like insurance, even calculator or booking meetings with use of example, you can reach out to. I, we do these things for you. Would you like to have a meeting with me? And we can book a meeting with you right within the email. They don’t have to go to a website to do that.

Arlen
[00:08:40]
Yeah. I can definitely see the power in these, because like you said, though, the beauty of these types of emails is that everything is all right there within the emails, all of this interactivity we’re normally prior to this technology and its functionality, there would just be links out into websites, you know, from the website, if you wanted to book I calendar appointment and you click on the link, you would go to somebody’s calendar program and book it that way. Or like you said, in the example of the promo code emails, companies send these all the time, especially e-commerce businesses to use those promo codes. You know, they got a copy of the promo code from the email, go to the business’s website, paste it in there. You know, it’s a kind of a whole process and the power of this AI, these amp emails is that it’s all done within there.

Arlen
[00:09:28]
You don’t have to go to any external browser to complete the action. Everything is all within there, which is very powerful. And I think also why I think this really this type of technology really is going to take off now is these days people’s attention span is as become less and less. People want everything quicker and quicker on an instant. And so if they’re able to do that using this technology, that’s going to be a benefit because the more steps that people have to take to complete something, whether it’s just booking an appointment, whether it’s completing a purchase using a promo code, you know, the less likely they are going to be to complete it. If they have to go through too many hoops and steps for that. So I, you know, the power of it, I think is really, really kind of into this, with this.

Arlen
[01:10:16]
How can a typical e-commerce business use? Let’s say, I’ll give an example. Let’s say there’s a business selling wireless headphones. For instance, there’s sewing a comfortable product, wireless headphones, and that’s basically what they do. Maybe they sell some accessories that go along with it. So their typical customer base is, you know, does anyone interested in getting these wireless headphones to maybe be switching from wired headphones to the, so that’s a typical customer base. That’s really all that they sell for that particular type of company. What would be a particular type of amp email that they could use to help improve their engagement to not only their current customers that they’re, you know, maybe trying to up-sale or support, but also for prospective customers, what would be an example of a type of amp email campaign that would be good for that type of business?

Aquibur
[01:11:08]
Yeah, there can be plenty actually. So number one, like I experienced what the Carter, when an email, if a user has abandoned cart, but haven’t heard some products in a card, you can send them a, Hey, why don’t you check it, check it out right now, we are giving you some discount and they can check it then and there within the email itself, without giving them much friction to go to your website again, second could be that if you are learning some kind of promotion or sales or offers, you can send it to emotional email where you can take a, Hey, we are learning discount on this particular headphone, which we recently launched and they can purchase the peroxide then and there, you can simply transact there. Then if somebody has purchased your product, you can send an email after seven days, Hey, how are you using your headphone?

Aquibur
[01:11:56]
The latest, like you can ask for ratings and you can ask what is working well, what is not working well, et cetera, that could affect their business to improve in those areas. Apart from that, if somebody you can trust, tell as well, somebody more, the headphone, you can send them another, some other offers for them. Hey, why don’t you also buy this along with your headphone? Or maybe if you are in a category where there is a cyclical purchase, you can send them an email. Like, for example, if you’re selling toothpaste, probably people need it every month. You can send an email, Hey, you purchased this toothpaste last month, reorder again, people can simply click the reorder and you can get that data and you can send them the toothpaste. So there are plenty of these such use cases you can try.

Arlen
[01:12:44]
Yeah, definitely. Yeah. I see the possibilities really are endless with this. One of the things that I think really stuck out to me is a use case where they could be used to get reviews because often times that’s something that, you know, mostly e-commerce businesses know they kind of live and die by the reviews. The more reviews, the more social proof that they have, the better, because people are always looking for validation that they’re making the right purchase. What other people say, how many, five, four star reviews do they have? And all of that is very important, but a lot of times it can be a quite a task to try to get those reviews from there your customers, because the bottom line, as I was mentioning earlier, these days, people’s attention span is short and everybody is so short on time. These days, it’s hard to get somebody to do anything extra.

Aquibur
[01:13:30]
Yeah. So we have seen a huge increase in conversion rate, especially for review and rating emails. So what happened, email to you user. And if they see that they have to click and go to your website and maybe log in here to provide your review, the response is much lower, but if you give them an option to relate you then and there for them and it is much easier. So they respond much higher. So we have seen like kind of three X higher conversion rate on an email for reviews and then compared to a normal email.

Arlen
[01:14:05]
Yeah, definitely. I can definitely see that being a very high performing email there these days, you know, many e-commerce businesses already kind of have that in the mist, in their mix where they’re already asking their customers for reviews. But the bottom line is, is improving the performance on those emails and asks where, you know, these ambient, those can definitely come into play to help that out. And one of the things that I was thinking, and you can tell me how this is, can be utilized with amp emails. But one of the things that I see a lot of brands doing these days is trying to create more of a rapport with their customers and kind of lighten things up by being a little lighthearted by maybe doing some type of a game in an email or a contest. I see a lot of gamification days. What are some examples of something like that, where somebody could create like a contest using these types of emails or

Aquibur
[01:15:00]
Yeah, they can make games or this morning it meant tools possibly inside email. Now with Ambien as though you can have something like a quiz about your plan and these five questions, and then something exciting that we can have a spin the way it’s been sent. You get something out of there, people that are interested in these things, we can also be something like a scratch card. So this guide card is basically your statute and you can get some offer a coupon code, et cetera, which you can use in buying the product. So these can be, feel the thing that people can try and they can engage their users.

Arlen
[01:15:41]
Yeah, yeah, definitely. Definitely. Yeah. I like the scratch card idea. Those things are always, so it’s hard not to scratch, you know, even if you get a physical scratch card, everybody wants to just scratch it and see whether it’s going to be revealed. And I can see how that could even be effective via email, you know, the little scratching, just, you know, it’s something about that. That’s just compelling that makes you want to do it. So yeah, the game of vacation is I think really, really big with these emails as well now to make all of this happen. Let’s say I am an e-commerce brand and I’m very interested in doing this. What all do I need to have to make this work? What particular tools and resources do I have to have to make these types of emails work?

Aquibur
[01:16:22]
Yeah. So the one way that you can afford yourself, your tech team, et cetera, who, who work in there, the other way that I do use my tool, which is male model to emails and send it to your users. We have native Shopify integrations with VHB sync your contacts, and we have prebuilt card checkouts, as well as forms, which you can use to send emails to your users directly. So we ours as a no-code builder, which you can drive, like you can have like fully, fully mailed and you’re going to even send it to your newsletter, et cetera, as well. So you don’t have to do much with the legacy MailChimp, like to which you can create emails and send it to your users.

Arlen
[01:17:06]
Sure. That sounds good. I like the no-code aspect of your system as well. These days. That’s what a lot of people look for. They don’t want to have to do, you know, any coding or have to have a developer do it. It sounds like it’s something that’s kind of plug and play where they can simply set it up. So that’s good. That’s good to know that, you know, you’re a tool, the male MODOT is a great option for them, but you know, like you said, alternatively, if they have a developer, these things can be coded. Of course it would be more time intensive. And of course more costs to customizing on these types of emails. But yeah, that’s also a possibility depending on what the brand wants to do now, you know, as we get ready to wrap things up, I keep, I’m always looking for kind of some real case studies so that we can really see what are some other companies doing. You mentioned a few, but in your experience, what are some companies of businesses that you’ve worked with or that you’re just familiar with that have used these amp emails for their email campaigns? And you know, what specifically did they do for these campaigns?

Aquibur
[01:18:10]
So among our clients, fewer, the e-commerce companies are using it for targeted emails and they are getting like at least double the conversion compared to the normally mills that the payment company. And they’re more FinTech and tech companies who are using it for review emails and review and feedback to get feedback on there from the customer. They also allocate PS ratings. So in visit net promoter score. So they do that before SAS few Saska who use this product for meeting booklet prospects. And there are few companies in the FinTech industry who use it to collect more data from their users to Jeanette alone, to compete loan application and insurance applications, et cetera.

Arlen
[01:18:56]
Yeah. I’ve definitely seen examples of all of those. So that’s, that’s really good. I’m kind of seeing how more and more of these companies are using these. You mentioned the net promoter score email. That’s a big one. That’s a common email. If people aren’t familiar with that, that’s where you can rate a company on the scale from zero to 10. And a lot of people are familiar with seeing those types of emails. And so the power or with the associating, these apps, the app functionality with the, that type of campaign is it’s just all right in there. They can quickly and easily click zero or 10 on there. And they did a log, their response. And then also you had mentioned the other companies that are already in the FinTech industry, or even in the insurance industry where I can see this working or even in the loan industry where a lot of times here in the U S this is really kind of the big home buying season right now, a lot of people are buying homes and selling homes. And one of the things that home buyers try to do these days is they, they try to get approved for a mortgage. And the bottom line is everybody wants to know is what is their monthly payment going to be if they purchase, let’s say a $300,000 house based on the interest rate. So I I’ve seen those type of emails where, you know, you just plug in the amount of the house you want to purchase. You can even plug in

Arlen
[02:20:14]
Exactly a PMI calculator. It’ll show you what the principal or the principal, a mortgage interest. And I insurance all of that tied together in the email and so very powerful stuff. So yeah, I can definitely see where this is going, but yeah, I think the future of this is really, we’re just kind of at the infancy. It seems like with this type of technology, but I do see more and more businesses are, they’re going to be adopting this type of functionality because it’s really all about engagement. You want people to be more engaged with your brand and all of the messaging that you send out. So it totally makes sense. Well, I keep, I’ve definitely learned a lot having you on here on the podcast and hopefully our listeners and viewers have as well as we’ve see, this is something that’s, you know, pretty new, but I think a lot more companies now are adopting it.

Arlen
[02:21:00]
And you know, this is something that I think any e-commerce business can at least try at some extent, you know, whether you’re going to do our card abandonment campaign or review campaign, or even just a net promoter score campaign there, the possibilities are in this, you know, so there’s a lot of things that you can do that are just basic to try to keep, get your feet wet with it and see what response that you get. And then just kind of go from there. So all the awesome stuff and appreciate you coming on. But lastly, before we let you go, I always like to switch gears here with my final question. Just so our audience can get to know you a little bit better. If you don’t mind sharing one closing fun fact about yourself that you think our listeners and viewers would be interested to know about yourself.

Aquibur
[02:21:41]
That’s a very difficult question. That is the hardest question that you ask And nothing on double point minus a such. So I come from India. So that might be interesting back. And I think coming on top of my next,

Arlen
[02:21:56]
Oh, no problem. I’m problem. Yeah. I know these days everybody becomes so focused on, on work and essence work can be, it becomes fun because, you know, I can imagine dealing with all of these different types of businesses and seeing what types of campaigns they come up with is very exciting and interesting. And I’m sure you’ve seen a lot. Why you been running your business for sure. So that’s good stuff. Well, great. I keep, well, it’s been awesome talking to you last night before we let you go. If any of our listeners want to reach out to you and pick your brain anymore about these amp emails or any other digital marketing related topics, what is the best way for them to reach you?

Aquibur
[02:22:37]
Email me? My email is at dot com. Okay, great. And probably type it in your subtitle resource up there and on the video as well to repeat is aqu UIB male model.com.

Arlen
[02:22:52]
Awesome. Well, thank you for sharing that Ikea. That’s been awesome having you on, and I definitely encourage our listeners to reach out to you, you know, if they have any further questions, but thank you again for joining us today that e-commerce marketing podcast.

speaker 1
[02:23:08]
Thank you for listening to the e-commerce marketing podcast. 

Podcast Guest Info

Aquibur Rahman
CEO of Mailmodo