HubSpot and email marketing Part II: Electric Boogaloo (HubHeroes, Ep. 28)

[00:00:00] Liz Murphy:

There is literally nothing that gets me more hyped than safe Harbor language and fine print. Am I right guys?

[00:00:07] Devyn Bellamy:

Mm. Legal.

[00:00:08] George B. Thomas: 

I wonder, I, I, I really wonder, I wonder how many people have that memorized and say it word for word the way it is right now, in this moment in time.

[00:00:22] Liz Murphy: 

I don't know, but I'm going to say this once more with feeling quiet. Fives a 10 speaking. I have returned. I have returned. I left you alone for a week. You somehow managed not to set everything on fire, which I was very impressed.

[00:00:36] George B. Thomas:

It was close.

[00:00:37] Liz Murphy:

You also actually managed to have a pretty solid episode, which was exciting and hurtful.
I don't, I don't know how to kind of reconcile

[00:00:44] Max Cohen:

You

[00:00:45] Liz Murphy:

I need to be

[00:00:46] Max Cohen:

managed to have a pretty solid,

[00:00:50] George B. Thomas:

I mean, you guys are all right without me if I do say so myself.

[00:00:54] Max Cohen:

totally it up. Good job.

[00:01:00] George B. Thomas:

Thanks, mom.

[00:01:02] Liz Murphy:

I, I did notice that George was a very good student and said humans about 18 times. So good job, George.

[00:01:09] Max Cohen:

except he said it very

[00:01:11] George B. Thomas:

Hey, I'm here for

[00:01:12] Max Cohen:

Homans, and that was adorable.

[00:01:14] George B. Thomas:

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[00:01:15] Liz Murphy:

was okay. That was adorable.

[00:01:17] George B. Thomas:

I mean, you have to know your place. And so I have come to realize that in, in this galaxy, it's, for me, it's all about the.

[00:01:25] Liz Murphy:

He's now gonna make sure to do that in the intro every single time. So I can't yell at him about it. But George, trust me, I will find something else to bug you about. Just you wait, I'll be out on the davenports in the veranda. But actually, no. All, all kidding aside, here's what I'm gonna say. I really enjoyed the conversation last week to the point.

Dare I say it? We need a part two. We need a part two. I have questions. Okay. Because we are back. That's right. Ladies and gentlemen, anybody listening out there in our hub, heroes universe, welcome to email marketing and HubSpot, part two Electric boogaloo. This time it's personal because in our last

[00:02:02] George B. Thomas:

I love that movie. Oh my God. Mm.

[00:02:05] Liz Murphy:

Newton John and Sylvester Stallone, the buddy cop team. I didn't know I needed. Yeah, Absolut.

[00:02:11] George B. Thomas:

Yeah.

[00:02:11] Liz Murphy:

Fantastic. Anyway, my fellow hub heroes last week laid out a fantastic story about how email has stood the test of time In our marketing toolbox, it has outlived Toby McGuire's, spider-Man, low-rise jeans, Jenko jeans, beanie Babies, Insync, the entire Harry Potter movie saga.

The only thing that is still hanging on, if you can believe it, I had to look this up. Hansen is still a band, so apparently.

[00:02:40] George B. Thomas:

Yeah,

[00:02:40] Liz Murphy:

So I don't know how I feel in saying this sentence. I don't know how I feel in saying this sentence, but apparently email marketing and Hansen, they're, they've got the longevity, which is horrifying anyway.
Emails, shows, no signs of slowing down. It's estimated that this year, 11 billion in revenue will be generated through email. And I don't know about you guys, but that sounds deliciously tasty. And I want that. I want that. So you guys dug into a lot of the strategy in the last episode, right? How folks can go epically right or horribly wrong when it comes to the strategy, the human strategy.

[00:03:13] George B. Thomas:

Yes.

[00:03:14] Liz Murphy:

If you didn't listen to it, cue it up for, come to listen to right after this. But this week we're now gonna dig into everybody's favorite thing, which is the tools, the tactics, the technology. More specifically, how to make email magic using HubSpot. Gentlemen, are you. Are you

[00:03:32] Max Cohen:

Yes,

[00:03:33] Liz Murphy:

Okay. Had no one can

[00:03:34] Devyn Bellamy:

Yeah, I was just, I gave a thumbs up everything, and it's like the listeners are just, I guess they're not

[00:03:41] Liz Murphy:

I know you guys are thriving in an audio only environment. I'm literally like, are you ready? And I was. I was expecting George to do his usual, like, yes, put me in coaching. Meanwhile, you all are just like, yeah, that sounds good. Dance up. I love it.

[00:03:55] Devyn Bellamy:

Yes.

[00:03:56] George B. Thomas:

And your max.

[00:04:01] Max Cohen:

I.

[00:04:02] Devyn Bellamy:

Somebody gave George.

[00:04:03] Liz Murphy:

out that soundboard.

[00:04:04] Max Cohen:

I keep forgetting he has it and it freaks me out every time.

[00:04:07] Liz Murphy:

I didn't. I didn't because when we've, right when we started recording, I said, this is going to be a problem. And then he just smiled and it was really uncomfortable. But with that out of the way, George, how about this? Put down the soundboard, pick up your brain, and I want you to answer this question.

[00:04:23] George B. Thomas:

Yeah.

[00:04:24] Liz Murphy:

what are even the most seasoned users of HubSpot? Missing about how dope the email tool.

[00:04:30] George B. Thomas:

Oh my gosh. Like, okay, so I think everybody, first of all, fundamentally gets in a hurry. When they think about creating and crafting email. And so one of the things that I love to teach is a preview process that one should go through. And in that preview process, I talk about how you can actually look at personalization tokens that you've put in based on the, contact.

You can also preview the smart content that you have in your email. Based on that personalization in those contexts that you can look at the, uh, email in an email service provider that you have, an audience that you know is gonna open it up in seven different ways. and, and so where there's this whole preview process, I don't think everybody misses the preview process.

I think a lot of people miss the preview process, but I have seen, to answer the question, the most seasoned HubSpot professionals. Actually create a list of internal employees and then send the test email to an actual list of employees. Instead of leveraging the send a test email button that lives right up by the actions and previews button, because I preach, I'll preach it till the cows come home.
The only thing you do when you do that is jack up your email analytics because no employee is gonna open a test email the way that an email should actually be opened by the people who give two rips about it. If you're sitting here listening to this or standing here listening to this, or you're on a boat, or you're on a plane, or you're with a fox and you're eating green eggs and hams and you're listening to this, that was a little too far. Just make sure you don't do that anymore.

[00:06:16] Liz Murphy:

I love that you mentioned the preview tool because I'm always amazed by people who don't take the time to do that and I, or a review process of any kind.

I don't care if you're sending the email via smoke signals internally. You never wanna be the guy, gal Guinea pig hamster who's sending out the email where you're excited for someone's canoer skills. If we all remember. Right. Like I'm always amazed by people who do not take the time to actually review the stuff they're sending out because George, you are talking in some ways at five dimensional chess level.

For some of the people I see using the email tool, they don't even bother reviewing it in the first place. There is no QA process, and I'm like, before we can even tell you, these are the different ways in which you can preview it, look at things. The test email part I found really powerful because if you're just opening up the preview link, it's not gonna tell you where something gets. 

[00:07:07] George B. Thomas:

we can hear you, but I'm still stuck on kpu. Kpu. What? What did you

[00:07:11] Liz Murphy:

Okay. There was an episode of Friends back when you would go somewhere and type up a resume, and it was back when Rachel was learning how to get a job and she didn't realize that she had printed up a bunch of resumes that said she had really great compou.

[00:07:28] George B. Thomas:

Ah, man. I went to like a pooper scooper for like the litter box or something. I was just trying to figure it all out there.

[00:07:36] Liz Murphy:

mean, I think that's where everybody who got her resume went to as well. That's kind of the problem. What about you, max and Devin? What do you think? What do you think people are missing? Even if like they're the most seasoned HubSpot pros when it comes to the email tool?

[00:07:47] Devyn Bellamy:

For me, it's the fact that email, within HubSpot and ideally within your strategy is. Part of a larger thing, like it's, it's not a standalone email tool and it's not meant to be used as a standalone email tool. there are so many features that are packed into every tier of HubSpot marketing, whether you're free or starter, you're pro enterprise, whatever, whatever.

One that you're using, the fact that you can have your email integrated into workflows and then have these, uh, automated workflows work off of things that happen with other things. Like if you see someone's interacting with your brand significantly, or if they reach a significant level within the lead scoring, you can automatically send an email.
I'll, I'll never forget when I. Actually on the HubSpot website, this was back, 2015. And I was, I was just drinking all the information in and occasionally I'm getting these emails, saying, whatever about whatever page that I was just on, like it was, and it wasn't saying, Hey, I saw you were on our website.
You should definitely check this out. No, what it was, is it,

[00:09:09] Liz Murphy:

I need an adult. I need an adult. just happened?

[00:09:14] Max Cohen:

get a restraining order.

[00:09:17] Devyn Bellamy:

See, I, I don't need buttons. I, I just do it. But the, uh, the, the thing is

[00:09:23] Liz Murphy:

Whoa, whoa, whoa. I'm sorry. Did you just hip check George and Max under the shade bus ever?

[00:09:27] George B. Thomas:

he really didn't.

[00:09:29] Liz Murphy:

baritone has this.

[00:09:31] Devyn Bellamy:

little bit. I, I flex when I can flex. You know, I, I do what I can.

[00:09:34] George B. Thomas:

He, he flexed, he flexed.

[00:09:37] Devyn Bellamy:

the, the thing is, is that the, the, the email came off as timely and relevant and I came away, or I would have come away with it as, oh yeah, I was just looking at that and Oh yeah, I was just thinking. But, Because I'm a marketer and I know how it works.

I was like, eh, I like what you did there. But, yeah, the, the fact, uh, that the email isn't just about sending newsletters or prospecting, you can do so much more with email within HubSpot.

[00:10:06] George B. Thomas:

Yeah. Devin, you just reminded me of something, uh, I want to hit upon. and, and Liz, I know you wanted to go to Max, but I gotta jump in here for a second because I think one of the things that we deal with is as email markers, we're always thinking like out, out, out, out, out, out, out, out, broadcast, broadcast.

Broadcast and, and so sometimes I think it's hard to get into the user experience mindset, but Devin reminded me of this podcast that I actually subscribed to, and I'll never forget, I needed some time out of the office. I went and walked, you know, my, my. neighborhood and I got finished with an episode of the podcast and I kid you not, it was like, maybe one minute, maybe 45 seconds, but probably a minute afterwards of me finishing that podcast and all of a sudden I heard ding and there was an email in my inbox and it was literally the resources that I would want to have at my fingertips based on the podcast I had just listened to and I was.

Oh my God. Like that to me was just an amazing user experience, a great way to use automation and email in hand. In hand with a podcast kind of strategy.

[00:11:14] Liz Murphy:

I love that. And you're getting to something where I know we're going back to the strategy. George, just go ahead and say humans for me once, buddy.

[00:11:21] George B. Thomas:

Humans.

[00:11:22] Liz Murphy:

Thank you. I love that. I love that. I mean, it's clearly not at Devin's caliber, which he's already made sure we understood, but it's pretty solid, George. Good, good

[00:11:31] George B. Thomas:

Why don't I just talk like this for the rest of the podcast, if

[00:11:34] Liz Murphy:

enough. That's it? No. Okay. That was a

[00:11:36] Devyn Bellamy:

you sound like you're trying to kill Roger Rabbit, so Just like your brother.

[00:11:43] Liz Murphy:

the. I always love how smart we are and always recording on a Friday, always recording on a Friday. Such a smart move. Such a smart move. Now. So the human piece of it, and the reason why I wanted you to break out the humans is when people look at email generally a and say like it's a broadcast channel. I'll tell you what I told one of my clients earlier this week, when you sit down to write an.

Don't create content to broadcast. Create content to connect. Imagine a person is sitting across from you and think about them as once more with feeling George. A. What?

[00:12:25] George B. Thomas:

Human.

[00:12:26] Liz Murphy:

Yes. C. , but you're right. Like if you're treating your strategy and the tool, like a broadcast channel, that's gonna be amplified across the way you create the email.
What emails you think you need to create, how you use the tool. Again, HubSpot is only ever gonna be as smart as your strategy. All right. Who else has thoughts on what even our most seasoned HubSpot, pee

[00:12:46] Max Cohen:

I guess I'm the only one

[00:12:47] Liz Murphy:

are missing

[00:12:48] Max Cohen:

Yeah, I'll go. Yeah. Um, so I, I think we kind of touched on this, but like, thinking about it just past like a selling and a promotional tool, you know, there's so much you can do to support internal processes, um, using that marketing email tool, right? Whether it's.
Internal email notifications, you know, ones that are probably kind of way better than the, you know, boring boiler plate ones you have if you just turn on your, your HubSpot notifications in your settings. so like, just thinking about how like you support the customer experience a little bit more versus just like shove content down their throat.
Right. Um, the other kind of piece of it too is like using it with the rest of the tool, right. And not thinking of email kind of in its own sort of, Siloed piece of, of your experience as a HubSpot user. you gotta remember, like pairing HubSpot with things like the campaigns tool can help you give a much better idea of how emails, the emails that are built to support, all this extra content you're creating and making, whether it's landing pages, workflows, blog posts.

You're doing with social, like whatever it is, like you can see how well those emails are performing when they're supposed to be supporting these other assets that you're building. you know, and then when you start thinking about things like multi-touch revenue attribution and the enterprise. in Marketing Hub Enterprise, and even now today, customer journey analytics, right?
So, you know, you pair something like email with like custom behavioral events. If you're like a email marketer for a SaaS company and you're trying to get people to go out and actually like, try a new. If you have that feature, talking back to HubSpot and saying, Hey, this user did this thing and it fires off a custom behavioral event, well now you as an email marketer at that SaaS company can send out an email to your user base, tell them to go try this new feature and then figure out if they actually did it instead of just looking at your open and your close rate.
Right? Um, so thinking about how you are tactically weaving email in with everything. Versus just emails that are just like, buy something from me. Have you seen this blog post? Here's your ebook. Like, there's a lot more you can do with it. Just break you.

[00:14:56] Liz Murphy:

George. What happened? George, do you need a minute?

[00:14:59] George B. Thomas:

no, I'm good. But just like, first of all, max just like ramped up and then all of a sudden he changed his voice to like this other person and, and I was like,

[00:15:09] Max Cohen:

didn't even use

[00:15:09] George B. Thomas:

Yeah, that's all the bad stuff. That's all the bad email stuff that he just list.

[00:15:15] Liz Murphy:

Maybe it's that new TV fireplace you have going on behind you in your

[00:15:18] Max Cohen:

It must be

[00:15:19] Liz Murphy:

just giving you a whole new

[00:15:20] Max Cohen:

purple light's getting to me.

[00:15:22] Liz Murphy:

Yas energy

[00:15:23] Max Cohen:

I'm yed out over here.

[00:15:24] Liz Murphy:

what are, what are the An yas, no, I'm just kidding. So what are some of the most common mistakes you see people make with the tool? So again, we talk now about the things that people that are missing in the tool, but what are the mistakes that people are missing making?

For example, George, I just know I am ready for you to spit a little bit of fire about people who are still using.

[00:15:48] George B. Thomas:

Well, yeah, I mean there's, there's that the, the amount of, HubSpot hubs that I go into and they have not used Dragon Drop email. and it's like over, what, a year and a half, two years old. Uh, and they're, you know, it's something that they bought from the marketplace or it's something that they, you know, pay a developer to develop.

And, probably still doesn't work in Outlook the way that it should, but everybody's kind of hanging on and doing the best they can, like drag and drop email over templates in that email tool is by far the way that I try to get people to go in. Show 'em how easy it is to build their own templates, multiple templates off of a single email by just dragging and dropping some stuff around.

Not to mention, not to mention, templates don't have saved sections, and the fact that in the drag and drop email tool, you can have saved sections that go across all of your future emails. So if you want an image left, copyright, copyright image, left, two buttons, and two, you know, two columns, whatever. You can literally build the, the brick blocks or legos or however old you are if you know what brick blocks are.

By the way, email me George George b thomas.com. I'm super curious if you even know

[00:16:58] Max Cohen:

that like Roblox?

[00:17:00] George B. Thomas:

Anyway, it's, it's pre Lego. Pre

[00:17:02] Liz Murphy:

Is it the Davenport of Legos?

[00:17:04] George B. Thomas:

It's, it's, oh God, I'm old. Okay. But anyway, save sections. Like you should definitely be paying attention to that and your drag and drop and, and if you're listening to this and you're on templates in your email, , try something new.

[00:17:18] Max Cohen:

Classic template editor, right? Is that what you're referring to?

[00:17:21] George B. Thomas:

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Cuz it's still a tab by the, I'm waiting for the day when that can just go away. But it's still a tab

[00:17:26] Max Cohen:

that love him.

[00:17:27] George B. Thomas:

and if they've not done anything with the drag and drop, it's what opens first. And when I see it open First Max, I literally, I'm like, oh no.

[00:17:35] Max Cohen:

The drag and drop email editor is like, really impressive. from, from the times that I've

[00:17:41] Liz Murphy:

impressive

[00:17:41] Max Cohen:

it's just like, you have so much control, but it's like really only the amount of control that you need, right? Like, it doesn't really let you go overboard. Cause the last thing you wanna do when a marketing email is go overboard, right?

I mean, I feel like that's, Best ways to get into a spam filter is like over design something and have so many lines of code in it and it just be so crazy. You know what I mean? But like for everything that an email needs to be, I feel like it lets you get there really, really easily. 

[00:18:07] George B. Thomas:

I like that you brought up design, but even past design, we as humans. And that was normal, by the way. That was

[00:18:13] Devyn Bellamy:

It was still hot, George. It was

[00:18:15] George B. Thomas:

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[00:18:16] Liz Murphy:

Devin. Don't try to, don't try to kiss up now and make it okay. We remember. We know what you did. We know what you did.

[00:18:23] George B. Thomas:

Listen, we listen, Linda, we as humans, we make mistakes. We make mistakes. I know I didn't mean to hurt you. I didn't really mean you, Liz. I'm

[00:18:32] Liz Murphy:

Who's Linda?

[00:18:33] George B. Thomas:

uh, well check, check the internet. I'm sure you'll figure it out.

[00:18:38] Liz Murphy:

Is it? Is it some other content strategist? Are you?

[00:18:41] George B. Thomas:

no, I don't know what

[00:18:42] Devyn Bellamy:

listen, Linda.

[00:18:44] George B. Thomas:

Yeah. So I digress. But here's the thing. We as humans, this is the best podcast episode ever. Um, we as humans, we, we, we as humans, make mistakes.

And so the fact that in the drag and drop email tool, you can convert a regular email to an automated or an automated to a regular. Like if you started to build that email and all of a sudden you, uh, somebody above you decided, oh, you know what? I don't want to do it as a one-off. I wanna make it a. Back in the good old days, you had to like restart completely over.

Now you just flip it over to the thing that you wanna roll with and go that is thinking about the end user. That ladies and gentlemen, is magical

[00:19:20] Liz Murphy:

What's a. For end user, George.

[00:19:22] George B. Thomas:

human.

[00:19:23] Liz Murphy:

Thank you. Look at him. There he goes. Look at him. Fly Max. You look like you're ready to drop some

[00:19:29] Max Cohen:

Well, I mean, I just, you know, I'm, I'm just still, I'm just still love of the drag and drop editor. Like the, the really cool thing is like when you think. It's an email platform built on top of your CRM too as well. Right? So things like products from your product library can just be dropped right? In videos that you have sitting inside your content management system can be dropped right in.
Right. Uh, just the button builder, like how it automatically takes care of all your like Yeah. Meaning links. I mean, there's, it's, it's just, I don't know. I just think it's, it's really cool and how much control you get over like the sections and moving things around. All that kind of stuff. I just, I like it a lot.

[00:20:06] Liz Murphy:

well, here's the thing about HubSpot and George, you were the one who taught me this, so I'm gonna for once give you credit.

[00:20:13] George B. Thomas:

Oh wow.

[00:20:13] Liz Murphy:

This one.

[00:20:14] George B. Thomas:

My gosh.

[00:20:16] Liz Murphy:

you know, when George, George was the one who showed me, like household, at the end of the day is, is just a C R M. And I think where people get caught up is the quote unquote, just of the CRM.

But what, that's actually what makes it so freaking sexy. A parking ticket that has fine written all over it. Because when people look at HubSpot, they're like, oh, it's a blog tool. Oh, it's an email tool. Oh, it's a this. Oh. I'm like, no, imagine you can take the. The CRM of every single human. You know, beyond the shadow of a doubt that your organization is built to serve and support and elevate and do all of those amazing things.
email is just a tool in that tool belt to to bring your sales CRM to life. And that is what makes HubSpot at the end of the day so much better than a lot of the competitors out there because the other ones actually think, well, we're just a crm, but look at this great wiki we can make No, instead, hubs.
Look at all the humans in front of you. These are the people you're trying to serve across every single hub, you will get a set of targeted tools that will enable you to serve them at across different areas of the flywheel. Look, max, I'm saying

[00:21:26] Max Cohen:

Yeah, let's.

[00:21:27] Liz Murphy:

But, and email. Email is just one of those things.

No, I also am on Team George too, so don't worry. But like that's what get me excited about it. There's no such thing as just a CRM in HubSpot. The other ones.

[00:21:38] George B. Thomas:

I, I love all of what you said. I feel like I went to a little bit of like HubSpot Church for a second, but there's two words. There's two words that you said there that are, are, I just want people to understand how important they are when you attach them to the term crm, and that is Liz, you said serve and. when you come from those mindsets, whether you're creating email communication, a feedback survey, a form for starting a conversation, a k, a conversion, you come from a different place when you're there to serve and support.

[00:22:15] Liz Murphy:

Can I get name,

[00:22:15] Devyn Bellamy:

Yeah.

[00:22:16] George B. Thomas:

Amen.

[00:22:17] Max Cohen:

Amen.

[00:22:17] Liz Murphy:

I love that. Speaking of Amen, George, can you also make sure it's a little postscript to this section. Tell me that thing about sending domains again, that people tend to screw up a little bit just sometimes, which may get in the way of their ability to serve and support.

[00:22:31] George B. Thomas:

Oh God, for all that is holy.

[00:22:33] Liz Murphy:

yeah, I know.

[00:22:35] George B. Thomas:

like, you know how people just never read the manual? Like you get a , you,

[00:22:42] Liz Murphy:

You mean like men who don't like direct.

[00:22:43] George B. Thomas:

You get a new, well, hey, now slow your roll. You get a new, you get a new clock or a watch or

[00:22:51] Devyn Bellamy:

Ikea

[00:22:51] George B. Thomas:

know, a workout, a something and, and it literally has a pamphlet that says, this is how you use it.

And it's like you just kind of throw it to the side. There's a project in HubSpot that is like a marketing setup project in the projects tool. It is literally like the things that you need to do before you think about taking this, uh, Ferrari of a CRM out for a test drive. And, uh, sometimes I've just seen that people like off to the side goes the little thing that you're supposed to like figure out before you go because they've been using HubSpot for three months, six.

Two years plus some of the people that I'm talking about here, and I'll go to their uh, settings. I'll go to domains and URLs and I'll go to email sending domain and it will be empty, meaning for the last three months, six months or two years plus, they've been sending emails and there's been a nice little thing in people's emails saying via HubSpot,

[00:23:46] Max Cohen:

Not if I set your portal up.

[00:23:49] George B. Thomas:

is great

[00:23:50] Liz Murphy:

You tell him,

[00:23:51] Max Cohen:

not if you did onboarding with me. Oh, yeah. That was the first thing. That was the first thing everybody had to do when I was setting you up. All right.

[00:23:58] George B. Thomas:

Bro that I, same. Same, right. For two years when I did HubSpot Onboardings for HubSpot through Impulse Creative, we didn't step foot out of anything else that we were talking about until those setup tasks were done because it's, it's important.
But again, if you're listening to this Go settings, go to Domain and URLs, go to email sending domain, and if it's blank, or if it doesn't have a grain dot, if there's a gray. Chew all your fingernails off. Start to sweat and figure out how to fix your d n

[00:24:26] Max Cohen:

best part is that it takes. Eight seconds to do this.

[00:24:31] Liz Murphy:

Is it timed at eight seconds?

[00:24:33] Max Cohen:

you go in, you type in your domain, it says, okay, copy this thing over to go daddy. You copy it, you paste it into your, what is it? Your, your, you're making a, it's on an MX record. Is it? It's like two CNA or something. Yeah, two CNA or something in your dns.
Yeah. It's literally so simple. It walks you through it. It's, it's not hard.

[00:24:53] Liz Murphy:

Devin, can you just say something that unbreak my brain, because you and I just both witnessed what the, that was just, just un just, just fix my brain.

[00:25:02] Devyn Bellamy:

Sure.

[00:25:03] Liz Murphy:

Tell me something else that people are me messing up with this tool. No, max, you're done. We're good. You

[00:25:09] Max Cohen:

I wanna give the easy wait, wait before Devi goes. Just for anyone listening, not knowing what're doing, you're essentially giving HubSpot permission to email on your domain's behalf. It's all, it's, it's setting emails that look like it's coming from your domain and you're saying, yes, HubSpot, that's okay.
Go ahead and do it, and then it can do it. That's essentially all it is. Anyway, sorry Devin. Go ahead.

[00:25:26] George B. Thomas:

Or, or you're broadcasting to your 50,000 people in your CRM via HubSpot.

[00:25:31] Max Cohen:

that's

[00:25:32] Liz Murphy:

If they even see it, it'll end up in their promo folder. Devin, save me.

[00:25:35] Devyn Bellamy:

Uh, sure. Uh, in a second. I just need to jump on this train too. It's the ultimate in rookie moves, not fixing your domain. It is, it is it. I will judge you 100% absolute amateur hour if that's what you're doing. Uh, fix that. If your says from such and such via and then super long address, that doesn't make any sense.
It's because you messed up So

[00:25:59] Liz Murphy:

Wait, guys, do you hear that? Do you hear the sound of everybody pausing going, oh, Oh snap. And they're like hitting pause and they're like, what was my last email?

[00:26:08] Devyn Bellamy:

Yeah, I, I

[00:26:10] Liz Murphy:

For those of you who have rejoined us, we see you and you should feel ashamed, but fix it and it'll be all better. We're good now. Devin.

[00:26:16] Devyn Bellamy:

judgment, but okay. So. My, um, contribution is people who send multiple cont or multiple emails instead of just using smart content.

[00:26:27] Max Cohen:

Yeah.

[00:26:28] Devyn Bellamy:

you don't have to physically segment it as if you are sending letters to people. What you can just do is create the one email that has content that's relevant to specific people, and then you create lists of those specific relevant people, and then you send to those lists, but you make sure that your content only shows up for the people who it's supposed to.
So you can literally, a red team and a blue team send one email and blue only sees blue information. Red only sees red information. That's the simplest way I can put it. Um, sending out multiple emails is gonna kill your, uh, email health. Uh, it's going to skewer skew your numbers, and it's gonna waste your freaking time stop it.
Um, you can just do it all in one place and. Send it 

[00:27:22] Max Cohen:

And only because you got a CRM behind right? That's another one of the beauties of your email tool and your CRM tool being the same thing. Um, are we on mistakes right now?

[00:27:31] George B. Thomas:

it. And now I.

[00:27:32] Max Cohen:

Were we talking about mistakes or No? All right, go ahead George. Go ahead George.

[00:27:35] George B. Thomas:

I don't know. But here's the thing I, I wanna double down on what Devin was just talking about. Um, imagine what Devin said about the blue team and the red team and now, expand that out to your monthly newsletter where somebody could have picked out of 10 areas of interest.

Six of them. And now they only see the six things that they're actually interested in instead of your long newsletter with a bunch of sections they give no craps about like it is Automagical. Ladies and gentlemen, what you can do with what Devin was explaining.

[00:28:07] Devyn Bellamy:

and the other side of that is from your coworkers standpoint, they're gonna hate you if they have to go back and find an email. If you have 10 sends for every email you send out, you're gonna have a bad time. The only time I ever recommend splitting it up is when we're talking about local. And it just makes sense to have whoever's working in that particular language or that particular region to be the one that owns the translation and the sending of the email.

Outside of that, there are, you can find yourself within hundreds and hundreds of emails, and it's bad data all over again, except this time, it's not your contacts. Now it's your email.

[00:28:48] George B. Thomas:

Oh, oh, you just reminded me of something. I didn't put it in our notes. No, no, no. I didn't put it in my notes, but Devin, you just reminded me, and it's probably back in like what are the most seasoned professionals getting wrong? If I say this and you're like, wait, there's what? Then it's one of the things that, one of the seasonal, uh, or whatever, one of the professionals get wrong.
The fact that you actually can go to an email that you already sent and click on, send to more, that you don't have to clone it and then send a whole new email. Like that, send two more so that all of your analytics stay in one place for one email instead of having like seven emails over time with the same dang information And now your analytics are like everywhere.

[00:29:28] Max Cohen:

Yep. I got another one here. Here. Hold on. Just, and I just need to say this, and I kind of said it in the last episode, but we're gonna say it again. If you spend any time whatsoever getting mad about your previews in any version of Outlook because the margin of the padding's getting messed up, do literally anything better with your life than like spend any more time at all on it.
Just listen, everyone's getting used to emails that look weird in Outlook. It is not worth your time because no one's even gonna notice. And no one's even gonna care about it. The words are still gonna be there. All right. You're not gonna lose the sale cuz your margins were messed up in outlook's. Email client, chill,

[00:30:11] Devyn Bellamy:

weird that

[00:30:11] Liz Murphy:

Max, are you okay? Do you need a

[00:30:13] Max Cohen:

No, but there are a lot of people out there that will spend 14 hours trying to fix that. When no one's gonna look at the email for more than 14 seconds, not worth your time. Not worth your time. Do something better. Go. Go pet your dog or

[00:30:27] Devyn Bellamy:

they're using

[00:30:28] Max Cohen:

Don't do that. Yeah.

[00:30:31] George B. Thomas:

Yeah, they,

[00:30:32] Liz Murphy:

You know,

[00:30:33] George B. Thomas:

some nap time back. Thanks to our boy Max

[00:30:36] Liz Murphy:

I'm gonna say this also. Um, I, I'm also, you guys, I need you to pep it up a little bit. We're real low energy today. I need you to like starting show.

[00:30:45] George B. Thomas:

we'll do what we can.

[00:30:46] Liz Murphy:

also, I have to go back to something that Devin said before. continue on. It's George's favorite phrase that I say that makes him grab the pen where he's like, I gotta tell Noah to cut this out.

Seven. You said something that always makes me think of South Park and I have to say this out loud. You're gonna have a bad time.

[00:31:02] Liz Murphy:

Pizza. French fries. Pizza. French fries. See George, you don't have to cut it out. It's bad skiing. It's only about skiing.

[00:31:09] George B. Thomas:

It's, it's all good.

[00:31:10] Liz Murphy:

Are you sure? Cuz I'm watching you have a heart attack in real time.

[00:31:13] George B. Thomas:

Uh, I'm okay. I'm

[00:31:14] Liz Murphy:

You. Okay? How about this? Do you want me to lobby you? A little easy one to bring you back down to earth.

[00:31:18] George B. Thomas:

Uh, yeah, that's fine. That'd be good.

[00:31:20] Liz Murphy:

Okay. I love the idea of email being used to serve and support the humans. Love that. But we can't make assumptions that the emails that we're creating, even with the best of intent, are actually doing their job.
So what are some of the most effective ways you can measure the success, the me or the failure of the emails that you're creating in HubSpot?

[00:31:40] Max Cohen:

Mm.

[00:31:40] George B. Thomas:

Oh, that is interesting. And I don't know if it's much as a, a, a law because it actually could get pretty in depth, but I do like this conversation. you know, first of. Just realizing that you can look at your email analytics as a whole. A lot of marketers I've seen historically go into one individual email at a time because that's what's on their mind cuz that's what they just did.

Uh, but going to that analyze tab and looking at the last three months, six months, 12 months of what you've been doing. And in that screen there's a scatter. That is my favorite. It's like what you've done really bad, what you've done really right. And when I teach that part of the tool, I'm like, these are things to pay attention to do over and over again.

And things to never say were a good idea. And, and really it, cuz it comes down to what are you going to, what actions are you gonna take based off the data that you can see? Now let me swing back into an individual email to see if you're doing it right. Again, we always have to be challenging our assumptions.
And so my, one of my favorite things on the indi, well I have two, but one of my favorite things on the individual email is actually the click map where I can see do, does the audience I serve like to click on anchor URLs or do they click on buttons? And the fact is, are you not having both in your email to see if they click on one or the other more times than.

Because maybe you should be testing that out. But seeing what they're clicking on is amazing to me. And then I'm a big advocate of paying attention to over time what email, clients people are actually using to open my emails so that I can modify my preview of the email service provider instead of.

Just thinking that HubSpot knows everything and the eight that they give me by default is what I should actually be paying attention to. No, you might have a large audience of people who use Lotus 7.9 still, and you're not even looking to see if it works in that email service provider. Come on.

[00:33:29] Max Cohen:

it's probably all Apple Meal. speak. Hey, speaking of Apple, I think we can. Is it, is it, is it time to stop paying attention to open rates?

[00:33:37] George B. Thomas:

Yes.

[00:33:38] Max Cohen:

That's what I thought. I mean, it's, it's click through. Obviously to me, I don't know Devin, but like, here's the thing. If Apple's opening every single frigging email, why are we even looking at it anymore when it's like, by far the most popular client, isn't it? Or is Gmail on the browser? I'm not sure. I mean, I feel like everyone's got Apple mail on their phone, right. Or Apple mail on their.

[00:33:58] George B. Thomas:

Don't even bring up bik.

[00:34:00] Max Cohen:

Bi me.

[00:34:00] George B. Thomas:

Don't even Bime. Yeah. Bime and Apple and all the things that are happening around email, but, but I, I. I like that Devin fought

[00:34:08] Max Cohen:

All right. Fight

[00:34:09] Liz Murphy:

am fighting back too. Let's be very clear here because, hold on a second. Okay. I understand that the nu let's, let's be clear. First of all, that number has been suspect for a very long time. That is not brand new

[00:34:19] Max Cohen:

But hasn't it gotten like ridiculously more suspect lately?

[00:34:23] Liz Murphy:

max. Max, would you like to hear my response or do you wanna sit there under your fire of.

[00:34:28] Max Cohen:

I'm burning. Hit me with it.

[00:34:32] Liz Murphy:

I love you so much, Devin. I've never seen you make that face before. I wish other people could have seated

[00:34:38] George B. Thomas:

Oh, they can at some point, trust me, but we'll talk about that

[00:34:42] Liz Murphy:

Okay. No. Okay. Anyway, here's what I will say. I don't look at it and say it is absolutely a hundred percent, like 26.7% open rate, but what I will say is like if I know that it's capturing approximately the same amount every time. , whatever that number happens to be. If it starts contracting and getting big and contracting and getting big, I'm still able to spot trends.

Even if I don't know definitively what that number is, I can still see whether or not that number is going up and down. . I do agree that people take a lot like look, if you're looking at your open rate or your click-through rate or anything for that matter, because the privacy rules are wreaking havoc on your ability to trust the numbers.
Some numbers are still getting reported and it still can give you some trend data, even if it's soft, even if it's more in stuff that you have to extrapolate from. But this idea that suddenly every number has absolutely no. I don't buy that. Don't trust that it's absolutely 26.7%. Like that's absolutely insane.
And if you've been doing that at all, guys that changed in like 2015. This is not brand new. That would be my argument.

[00:35:51] George B. Thomas:

so, so I, I agree with you on trends now, max, I do want to double down here though, cuz there is a place where this fundamentally falls apart. with HubSpot, and what I mean by that is back in the good old days, I used to love to talk to sales reps about how they could watch this little widget that would fly out on the right hand side of their monitor and say, Billy just opened your email and it was a, it was glorious.

I would talk about, wait 10 minutes, then reach out and say, Hey, you just happened to be on my mind. I wondered if you had any questions and be real human about it. and now I tell people when that thing slides out, ignore that crap like the plague and wait to see if they reply to your email as a sales rep.
Then go have the conversation that they actually want to have with you because there it just fundamentally is broken. And yes, a lot more now with what is Apple is doing. And there's this thing called Bime that's out there that you need to Google if you don't know about it, where open rates are getting real, real d.
and

[00:36:50] Liz Murphy:

They're getting weird.

[00:36:51] George B. Thomas:

when we're trying to do like any type of automated CRM sales stuff off of it, like you gotta be careful.

[00:36:57] Max Cohen:

I, I just think like, to me it's a lot more interesting to say like, okay, cool, we're looking at click rate in an email. Because if I can get someone to like actually open up one of my emails and then actually click it, I did something really correct. Right? Because like they saw what they needed to see.
And then they made a conscious decision to stop doing what they're doing and actually go check this thing out. And sure, like that's a good metric. But I think what's even more interesting is going and actually taking a look at like the bounce rates of those pages. because if they go and take a look at those pages and they immediately come off of them, that means there is a huge disconnect about what you're promising in that email versus what's actually showing up when you get them there.

And you're measuring kind of how like deceptive you may unintentionally or intentionally be being there. It's kind of the same way where same thing like when you're looking at like how you run. If you're running an ad that's saying like, click here to learn more, then they go to a landing page, it says, request a quote, and they go, well that's not what I expected.

I think kind of like testing that sort of, transfer on how, how much is what they're actually seeing when they clicking, lining up with what you are promising and was that actually valuable to them and did they actually spend any time there, did it get them to convert that? Like looking at the kind of connection of all.

To me is always, I think, just so much more valuable than like, did my, subject line, get them to open up the email, I mean, like, I'm the person who opens up all the emails just to get 'em to be unread. That doesn't tell you anything, you know? So, I don't know, skeptical.

[00:38:23] Devyn Bellamy:

So I, I, I'd like to jump in here with my little, you know, pushback. My thing, open rates are a metric, they are even a performance indicator. I would not make open rates a key performance indicator if I were asking for a report. my thing is always about interaction and engagement. the thing is with open rates in HubSpot, there's a little nif.

Thing in HubSpot where you can just scroll down and see time spent viewing email. And that will give you a lot of insight into how the emails are being utilized. But, open rate and, and the thing is, I wanna preface this by saying it's as, channel manager, as an email marketer, it's really easy to get locked into.
Individual metrics, and just kind of lose the force for the trees. the thing that you want to focus on, you want to take a step back and look at whether or not your emails are generating desired outcomes. Open rate is not enough of a desired outcome unless it's a transactional email about a service update or something.

what, what you should be doing is focusing on. engagement beyond just opening the email. Are people clicking in your email? If you have a hilariously low click through rate, then chances are that your content is not that compelling subject line, you know? Fantastic. Good job. Yay. But the thing is, is that you haven't done your job as an email.

Your job is to get that person to take the action that you're calling them to, or to keep them informed and, and full transparency. I'm not a huge newsletter person. I don't like getting updates. I, I, I don't read them. I don't care. I mean, I'm sure you're a wonderful person. I'm just not gonna read your email.
With the

[00:40:14] Liz Murphy:

Devin, you betray.

[00:40:16] Devyn Bellamy:

with the exception of the Hustle, the single greatest new. I've ever read. I absolutely, I,

[00:40:22] Liz Murphy:

Is that big Sprocket talking? Is

[00:40:24] Devyn Bellamy:

it sounds like it would be, but they appeal to me on so many different levels, both the content, but also as a marketer, you can see what they're doing, uh, as marketers and how they're incorporating, uh, like the video and everything.

It's just, it's just dope. But, back to open rates, open rates are, One small metric in a much, much larger picture.

[00:40:46] George B. Thomas:

There is literally steam coming out of Liz's ears right now. I'm just gonna throw that

[00:40:50] Liz Murphy:

being told that I understand, Liz, you're wonderful, but you'll never be dope like the hustle. That's fine. Devin. I won't remember this forever. It's fine. I'm fine. We're all

[00:41:02] Devyn Bellamy:

somebody, Liz. Somebody thinks

[00:41:05] Liz Murphy:

but not for, not to

[00:41:06] Devyn Bellamy:

No, you are just not, not, not newsletters, just I don't,
[00:41:11] Max Cohen:

Oh.

[00:41:12] Devyn Bellamy:

I love you to death. I'm not, I'm not gonna read the newsletter. Liz

[00:41:17] George B. Thomas:

More shots fired.

[00:41:20] Liz Murphy:

And on that
note, and on that note, we're shutting Devin's

[00:41:24] Max Cohen:

how do we know that you're not here shilling for big newsletter. Do you ever think of that you're a

[00:41:31] Liz Murphy:

I don't know, but let me just grab my skim mug. No, I'm just kidding.

[00:41:36] Devyn Bellamy:

Oh man.

[00:41:37] George B. Thomas:

Oh my gosh.

[00:41:39] Liz Murphy:

as much as this chaotic energy has just really, you know, made my day, it's not like I haven't had my pro heart broken. Now just with a hammer. Thank you, Devin. Just kidding. Hi. If, if people walk away from this episode only remembering one thing about executing email in HubSpot, other than the fact that Devin is meaning what should it be and why?
Devin, you will go last.

[00:42:02] George B. Thomas:

Yeah. mine's real simple. Take your time. That's it. Take your time. Quit being in a hurry. design it right. Write it right. Think of the user experience. Preview. Test, test, test, test. Some more. Test. Take your time. Send.

[00:42:19] Max Cohen:

I am gonna say yes. Take your time. , but don't spend

[00:42:24] Liz Murphy:

you say Ys.

[00:42:25] Max Cohen:

Take your time, don't spend too much time.

[00:42:29] Liz Murphy:

Ooh, here's what I,

[00:42:31] Max Cohen:

Yeah.

[00:42:32] Liz Murphy:

Devin, it's not your turn yet. It's not your turn

[00:42:34] George B. Thomas:

Oh,

[00:42:34] Max Cohen:

Margin and padding paralysis. . That's chill. It's all gonna be okay. It's gonna be okay.

[00:42:45] Liz Murphy:

I'm gonna break. All right. I'm gonna break my own rule. Instead of one thing. I'm gonna say two. Thanks. One, don't forget the humans don't, I don't care how great a tool is. If you're not thinking about the humans you're serving first, you're gonna have a bad time. Number two, when it comes to measuring the success of your emails, don't go in blind trying to let HubSpot tell you whether or not it was successful or not.
Maybe go into creating each email with, I don't know, let's say a. so that way by the time you're getting to the reporting, you know what you're looking for. Devin. Now you may speak,

[00:43:18] Devyn Bellamy:

Thank you, Liz. I feel warm and special

[00:43:20] Liz Murphy:

you're very welcome. You don't, don't do that.

[00:43:25] Devyn Bellamy:

the thing is to remember with email and I, I've said it like a couple times. , email is part of your larger marketing strategy. Your marketing strategy should not be email marketing and statement. That's, that's, that's not a good strategy. I mean, I, I, in this day and age, I can't think of a business model where sending emails alone works.
I mean, unless it's extreme word of mouth. Or you're extremely famous. Like if Ryan Reynolds sent me a personalized email right now, I would read it, I would read the heck out of it.

[00:44:00] George B. Thomas:

I would open

[00:44:01] Liz Murphy:

okay. So it's Hustle and Ryan Reynolds. Got it.

[00:44:04] Devyn Bellamy:

Ryan 

[00:44:05] Liz Murphy:

Got 

[00:44:05] Devyn Bellamy:

could send me anything, like literally anything. I've been a fan of his since Van Wilder, like in, in a, I liked Green Lantern. That's how much of a fan I am of Ryan Reynolds. So anything he sent me, but.

[00:44:20] Max Cohen:

Yeah. Se send nudes.

[00:44:22] Devyn Bellamy:

get an animated green suit, that, that might bring you up to Ryan Reynolds.
Closer.

[00:44:27] George B. Thomas:

Plus one. Plus one up. Vote

[00:44:30] Liz Murphy:

I'm not enough. That's all I'm hearing. I'm not.

[00:44:33] Max Cohen:

are enough, Liz. We love you, but newsletters a hundred

[00:44:38] Devyn Bellamy:

Yes, we love you. You as smart. You is kind.

[00:44:41] Liz Murphy:

But I'm not important. And on that note,

[00:44:45] Max Cohen:

You're so 

[00:44:45] Liz Murphy:

I'm not gonna even,

[00:44:47] Max Cohen:

Just not,

[00:44:47] Liz Murphy: 

I'm not even gonna pretend to be happy right now. You know what? I'm not gonna give you all an AI generated haiku this week. I just want you.

[00:44:56] George B. Thomas:

Oh.

[00:44:56] Devyn Bellamy:

hold on. You, you? No, I've been for a, a week. I've been waiting for the two weeks, Liz, I've been waiting for

[00:45:03] Liz Murphy:

I, I, I know. Go ahead.

[00:45:05] George B. Thomas:

Yeah, cuz God knows I didn't do no AI generated haiku last week. That's for.

[00:45:10] Liz Murphy:

All right, hold on. You shouldn't have asked me to do this,

[00:45:14] George B. Thomas:

Uh, we're in trouble cuz you know it's gonna be about newsletters. It's gonna be a haiku about fricking newsletters. And then she's gonna get the last word because it's like the recording will stop. And where we're headed. Ladies and

[00:45:28] Max Cohen:

What would, what would be in Ryan Reynolds' newsletter The Way, sorry.

[00:45:32] George B. Thomas:

Oh, juicy goodness.

[00:45:33] Liz Murphy:

It has nothing to do with newsletters, a haiku, heartaches, love unre. Devin's affection, distant, lonely heart. Urines on Please leave.

[00:45:45] George B. Thomas:

Wow.