E212: Emilia Swiecicka

Richard [00:00:00]:
Foreign welcome to episode 212 of the eCom@One Podcast. I'm your host Richard Hill and this week I'm joined by Emilia Swiecicka, Strategic Partnership mailchimp. Now in this episode, Emilia shares her journey from working with global e commerce brands and agencies to helping businesses grow through powerful email, SMS and CRM strategies. At mailchimp we talk about how brands can unlock the full potential of email and why many still don't. It baffles me the shift in consumer behavior and what it means for attention marketing. How mailchimp is expanding the service not just to small businesses, but also fast scaling brands and enterprise level merchants. The power of partnerships and how agencies can do more by working smarter with the right tool set. We also get into how AI of course is changing the way marketers operate, what makes a great campaign and why consistency still beats complexity when it comes to customer engagement.

Richard [00:00:58]:
Emilia brings energy, insight and a ton of hands on experience in this conversation. So if you're looking to build stronger customer journeys and drive real growth, you're going to love this one. Let's get into it. Well, welcome to the podcast. Amelia.

Emilia Święcicka [00:01:13]:
Thank you so much for having me on. Super excited to be here.

Richard [00:01:16]:
No problem at all. Been looking forward to getting you on. We've been talking about it for a while. So here you are at Ecom1HQ. Before we get into all things email, CRM, AI, SMS and lots of other cool stuff, I think it'd be great to tell the listeners how you got into the world of email marketing, e commerce and partnerships.

Emilia Święcicka [00:01:37]:
Absolutely. So I've been in E commerce eight years now. I actually started on the agency side. I met a, I'm Swedish originally and I met a Swedish agency working when I was here for an internship and I thought everything they did was so cool and how, how it all works. I wanted to know more about it, so somehow managed to get them to hire me straight out of university.

Richard [00:02:01]:
That was Uni. Straight out of uni into partnerships.

Emilia Święcicka [00:02:04]:
Straight out of uni. I had a six month internship under my vow here in London and then yes, straight into the world of E commerce and it really is a crash course. You learn so much so quickly and you really get to see if I was on the marketing side and I think you really get to see every piece of the puzzle and how it all works and you start interacting with all these tech vendors and platforms and the world of E commerce was just so, so inspiring. So yeah, a few years on I then moved to the tech Side I've been in payments and since about a year and a half, uh, I've been into it mailchimp and, and the wonderful world of email.

Richard [00:02:44]:
So I think when we met it was at a, one of the big platforms conferences I think maybe four years ago, three, four years ago. And we talk a lot about going to events and you know, representing your brand, you know, to our listeners brand at different events. But obviously we wouldn't have met if we'd both not gone to that event on that day. And obviously since then we've done quite a few different, different events and different partnerships and obviously we're doing some very exciting stuff with you now with, with mailchimp. So I think historically, you know, mailchimp going back obviously when I have my stores, you know, sort of 15 years ago and more than that, you know, over the, you know, many years ago mailchimp was really known as more for small businesses I think would be fair to say, you know, small businesses, you know, small list, few thousands and you know, maybe tens of thousands. But obviously now, you know, got the power of Intuit behind the brand. You know, what's been going on behind the scenes and why is it sort of more of a fit for the mid market and for the e commerce market?

Emilia Święcicka [00:03:43]:
Absolutely. So mailchimp is still very much an SMB brand and we still champion small businesses and really making it easy for someone to start their business on the platform but also then continue on. And Since Intuit bought Mailchimp back in 2021 now there's been a ton of work on the sidelines and behind the scenes to really make the platform shine on things like reporting and automations and really making sure that we can now serve a customer for a lot longer in their journey. But this investment has also gone into the team. We're now a localized team and have people based in the UK and in parts of Europe and Australia and really building out a support system that also caters to businesses big and small. So there's been a huge amount of growth.

Richard [00:04:32]:
So you do your big conference I think last couple of years, haven't you? Some of the team. Carrie Annu looks behind the scenes on the podcast was obviously raving about last year before. No, you just had one recently.

Emilia Święcicka [00:04:44]:
We had one last year and it's coming up again now in June. It's going to be a really great day.

Richard [00:04:49]:
Yeah, I'll even squeeze myself down to London for that.

Emilia Święcicka [00:04:52]:
I think you should felt speakers like Tom Goodwin. This is becoming a bit of a plug now, but Tom Goodwin speaking. We've got Frank Cotton and Jamie Lang. Aisling B is hosting the whole day and it's all about kind of how to make your business flourish and really targeted to marketeers.

Richard [00:05:06]:
Well, we'd love to get Jamie on the, on the show, actually, so we might have to.

Emilia Święcicka [00:05:10]:
There you go. Great.

Richard [00:05:13]:
So obviously, like we said, you know, many years ago, small business is the focus and still very much that is a big market. But now, you know, Ecom1eom, Ecom1 podcast. We're here to talk about E commerce. You know, what's the sort of. Has there been any sort of big shifts in the E commerce sort of market with email that you've sort of seen in the last few months or last. Last year?

Emilia Święcicka [00:05:35]:
Yeah, absolutely. There's. There's so many things and it's constantly in an ever changing space. Right. I think email's a constant that's been around for a long time, but it's also an area that sees so much development constantly. So obviously we, we can't not go. I think we're what, five minutes in, then I'm going to say AI for the first time, AI. But it's probably going to come up a few more times.

Emilia Święcicka [00:05:58]:
I think in terms of developing our platform, we focus so much on making things easier for the user. So whether that's enhanced reporting so that you don't have to go to a million different places, more automations that you can build on and kind of also let AI build for you so that you can very easily continue that personal journey that you're creating for your consumers. But AI is really the theme of it all.

Richard [00:06:24]:
Yeah, I thought we're going to come back to AI because I think there's still the cynics that are listening in that. Oh, all our clients, they get so many emails, you know, emails. It's not all that. I mean, a ridiculous sentence to say on this podcast, but, you know, I think, you know, there's a lot of different options out there, a lot of different platforms and so forth. You know, it just staggers me how many stores are still not really embracing, you know, what would you say to those guys that are still like, oh, it's not really a profitable channel for us, you know, saturated. Our clients are getting hundreds of emails a day. You know, what would you say to those guys that are still a bit maybe stuck in 2019?

Emilia Święcicka [00:07:01]:
Yeah. And look, people love saying that email's dead, email has no value, email's overrated, all these things. But it's still the Most profitable channel out there. And when you look at the ROI numbers in terms of metrics, you see people saying all kinds of numbers. But we like to use the $42 ROI per dollar spent. We can, we can convert that to pounds as well of course or Swedish crowns or whatever currency we're working with here. We're international but as a channel it still touches every part of the customer journey. So whether you're acquiring new customers, whether you're looking to convert someone that's just browsing on the site, or whether you want to win someone back or create loyalty in your customer base and build that community, email touches every part of that journey, which is why I think it's so exciting and something a channel you cannot miss.

Richard [00:07:56]:
Yeah, I think you summed up very well. I think gone all the days where it's just okay, we've got our, you know, somebody didn't check out so we've sent a quick reminder and that's like the, the base, isn't it? That's the starting point obviously there's so much more you can do and you, you touched on that loyalty, that customer lifetime and I think that's the difference when we're talking to the majority of our listeners that are multi seven figure turnover and it can be the difference between success and failure. That extra percent of returning visitors, cost of acquisition, we won't talk about that too much, we've covered that a lot of episodes but obviously it's getting a little bit more challenging unless you're creative with the way that you're, you know, maybe doing your ads or you're very creative with your feed with using different feed technology. But ultimately, you know, if you've got a potentially, if you've got a series of different flows and more focus on retention, lifetime value, you obviously going to see a lot, lot bigger return 100%. So what are you seeing with sort of bigger merchants, you know, where they're obviously in theory they should be trying to drive profitability and profit. Is there anything around profitability that you're seeing with some of the bigger merchants that you could sort of recommend to our listeners?

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Emilia Święcicka [00:09:49]:
I think it's not going to be an original answer. I think a merchant, any size really needs to have full control over their data. And so data comes back to everything that you do and whether you're a B testing whether you're trying a fancy new whether if you're control, you're controlling your data and you know how to utilize it in a good way, that's how you really going to create that ROI and increase your profitability. So if you're running a campaign, if you're not looking at what went well and why that went well, there's no point in planning the next one. Constantly learning and kind of being in control of the, of all the data points and how you get to know your customers and what you ask your customers for and then what you use that data for it when any sort.

Richard [00:10:37]:
Of examples of sort of the actual data. So I'm just thinking, you know, a, you know, a store that's listing right now, they might be doing, you know, five or six million pounds a year, doing you know, 500 grand a month and they're sending, yeah, they may be maybe got all the, you know, quite a lot of the base flow set up, maybe got some, some more fancier retention flows set up. What sort of data should they be specifically looking at if they're trying to improve profitability, retention, customer lifet time.

Emilia Święcicka [00:11:06]:
Absolutely. So say they've got a couple of stores asking their customers where they're based so that they can send the customer something personalized to those particular stores. Or when you're looking at stock levels, what's available in that particular store that you are going to, that you want to do an extra push on or all those things. So it can be quite small and quite.

Richard [00:11:28]:
Tying stock levels into the emails.

Emilia Święcicka [00:11:30]:
Tying stock levels and T mows is a, is another great data point. Yeah, but it doesn't have to be rocket science. I think people think they need to fill in this huge form where when they're coming to the website they get, we haven't got all this data. Let's make sure that we ask people what their dog's name is even though we sell cat food. But really making sure that you make it relevant. And I think that comes back to just making it bite size and kind of starting small and also build from there. So building trust with your customer takes time.

Richard [00:12:02]:
Yeah.

Emilia Święcicka [00:12:02]:
Same with collecting data. They're not going to give you all that data straight away. So start small, show your customers that you're using it in a sensible and trustworthy way and then build on that as well.

Richard [00:12:13]:
So yeah, brand, brand story and bringing brand story into the, into the copy, into the emails. What are your thoughts on that?

Emilia Święcicka [00:12:19]:
I think it's so important when you're building your list and when you're wanting to kind of use that list and build automations and kind of start building that relationship with your customers. You've got to show the value. Yeah. It's not just about having this huge database of customers that you can generate more sales from. What's in it for them? And I think creating community and kind of showing value through other things than just discounts and, and what's new in stock, they're still really important emails and they serve a purpose. But I think you can do so much more when you're building community and retention and really having people create a relationship with, with your brand. That's, that's also what's ultimately going to drive that loyalty.

Richard [00:13:00]:
I think when I'm looking to buy something from a, you know, from a mer, you know, one of the first things I'll do, if it's something a bit quirky, I'll look at the About Us page. You know, I'll have a look. Oh look, this is, oh, they started this business seven, eight years ago and this and this, they've done this, they move from there. Oh they did a few orders and they, you know, they've worked out their garage and now they've got this warehouse and then they move to them. There's about 50 of them now. They're doing really well and they've got, they've really care. Look at their socials and you know, there's lots of good reviews and then the reviews can be brought in obviously. And then there's the, you know, there's the UGC maybe from, from happy customers.

Richard [00:13:33]:
Great. But then you start seeing a lot of that stuff in their emails. The different types of content, the different types of creative. It's just a lot nicer than just buy this, buy this, buy this, buy this all the time.

Emilia Święcicka [00:13:43]:
Which, and it has to be consistent. Right. So if you're this really conscious brand that you're, you're really selling a vision here, you're really selling a way of life. Your emails, your social media posts, everything has to be consistent to that for it to Be all authentic and believable. Right. I think if you get a really cold transactional email after having bought this, this vase or something that you've spent a long time thinking about and that you really think, oh, this is going to fit into my really scandi home and I'm really building this lifestyle around this. You want the experience to really match it all the way to delivery until you place that vase in your living room.

Richard [00:14:23]:
So what's the last thing you bought from an email?

Emilia Święcicka [00:14:28]:
That question? You know, I think it was something food shop. Right. I think it was probably my big brand food shop.

Richard [00:14:36]:
Oh yeah, yeah, just, oh, reminder. Would, you know the five pound off sort of thing.

Emilia Święcicka [00:14:41]:
Absolutely. It probably was. There's a, there's a wine offer on or something too.

Richard [00:14:46]:
Right. So obviously you're dealing with and working with a lot of different partners who've got a lot of different clients. You, you know, you, you've sort of got access to a lot of data, a lot of different clients that are doing. What are some tactics that you're seeing are working well now that maybe are lesser known? You know, I think, you know, we've talked about, you know, work welcome emails a little bit. Well, not, not really, but obviously to do them, you know, and we've touched on some, you know, some keywords of, you know, lifetime value but specifics of what are some very smart merchants maybe doing that are lesser known tactics out there that we could share, you could share with our listeners.

Emilia Święcicka [00:15:22]:
Yeah, and for the second time I'm going to mention AI here. I think we've moved past the point of it just being this gimmicky content creation tool. I think we've moved past the point of people saying oh it's coming for all the jobs. I think now we're really seeing the kind of time saving element and optimization and really making sure to utilize it to build the strength and, and kind of create efficiencies in, in the work. So I think we're seeing a lot of people that really embrace it, save that time so that they can spend time building the fun things or the things that are really going to develop the brand further.

Richard [00:16:00]:
So obviously you've got AI functionality in the, in the platform. What sort of things can you do with mailchimp with AI then it goes.

Emilia Święcicka [00:16:08]:
Through so many different, I think it's in more than 20 of the different features that we do. So everything from send time optimization to content creation to tips and tricks of how did this subject line read? Is it very readable? Is it skimmable the email, should it be longer, shorter? It goes into the A B testing, it goes into pretty much.

Richard [00:16:29]:
So you see every area really?

Emilia Święcicka [00:16:30]:
Yeah, every piece of the platform, which is, which is really cool. And it's learning so much every day. I think something like 50 billion machine learnings across intuit that all power the platform.

Richard [00:16:41]:
I think there's just no excuses anymore is there for merchants because you know, maybe, oh, I'm just not sure what we're going to send today or I just can't think of the subject line or I'm not sure what we're going to. Hang on a minute, stop with the excuses. It's like, come on, it's almost paint by numbers now.

Emilia Święcicka [00:16:57]:
Yeah, exactly. And whether it just serves as inspiration or whether it's actually powering and kind of building the next steps in your automated journey, you can decide on what level of control you want to have. Of course. But I think having that mindset and kind of letting it be part of your day to day is the real shift that we're seeing.

Richard [00:17:14]:
So if we'd drill into that just a little step further, let's say, you know, we've got, we have some big brands that obsess over the podcast. I listen to every episode, so they tell me. I'm not sure if that's true every single one, but maybe, but you know those bigger brands, the, you know, 10 to 30 million pound brand turnover brands, what are you seeing? Maybe they're doing anything slightly different, Slightly, a little bit more like, a little bit more innovative. Obviously they may be using AI but then are they doing like a step further or are they doing a bit more with their loyalty, a bit more with the customer value? Obviously they've got maybe that 1, 2, 3 orders but they're doing some really clever stuff to get that fourth, fifth, tenth order.

Emilia Święcicka [00:17:59]:
Yeah, absolutely. I think the really bigger brands, we're seeing them become a lot more intentional and around the testing that they do, for example. So whether you're driving 50% of the traffic to a pop up form with an offer or and the other 50% without one, for example, and really taking the learnings from that, I think what some of the bigger brands do really well is kind of implement that test and having an almost kind of experimental mindset to, to everything they do and to kind of developing their email marketing strategy and that, that really shines through when, when you also get those different experiences and trying. What's the, what's the look and feel of the pop up form? What's that it could be such a minuscule little change that could be. Have several percentage points of difference in conversion.

Richard [00:18:44]:
Yeah, I think that's a great, great answer because I think people are quite often when they're of a certain size, they're a bit afraid to test, to have an agree a budget to test. And that's where the magic can happen. Because before all of a sudden you're like, oh my gosh, this thing that we spend 5% of the budget on testing, this thing is now the thing, you know, it's now the, the area of the business where we're really focused on getting maybe obsessed about, you know, the, the optimum rate of another half a percent on a massive, you know, a million million views on a site a week or whatever it may be. Obviously a massive change. You're getting that eighth, ninth order and.

Emilia Święcicka [00:19:21]:
Everything can be optimized. Right. I think people underestimate how much actually can be tested.

Richard [00:19:27]:
Yeah.

Emilia Święcicka [00:19:28]:
So for, for who is the pop up form showing up and how big is this discount and in what color is this doing? I think there's so many things that you can test that that can make such a big difference and obviously have a real impact on revenue.

Richard [00:19:43]:
So I think, look, we're coming a lot of ground but I always think like when it comes to literally getting the subscribers is quite often the issue. You know, the pop ups are coming up all over the joint if you're not careful. Any smart stuff with pop up? Well, I say pop ups. Any smart stuff with getting the subscribers at the front end that our listeners need to be thinking about.

Emilia Święcicka [00:20:04]:
I mean you're definitely not leading me to the answer, but I will still talk about pop ups which I'm really excited about to be fair because we launched some new functionality in this area. Our pop up forms have gotten so much smarter. But the truth is pop ups still reign supreme. You have full control of that data whether you're running ads on a different platform, whether you're driving people to your website through a competition or it all kind of comes back to your pop up being that ultimate driver of new list subscribers. And I think there's different ways of doing it. I think as we mentioned before, don't do the long form with all the questions.

Richard [00:20:42]:
25.

Emilia Święcicka [00:20:43]:
Yeah, no one's going to do that. If like it could be enough task for just email address and then you can maybe do a stepped version so that you ask for things a little bit later on or you do that further along in the journey to help someone make some decisions. Or convert. And you can do that in really fun ways as well. Quizzes, little questionnaire on to help them decide what kind of quizzes is a.

Richard [00:21:07]:
Great one, isn't it? Yeah, yeah. It's like gamifying a little bit, you know, and then you're getting directed to an area or a product set that you've given them.

Emilia Święcicka [00:21:15]:
Exactly.

Richard [00:21:16]:
Got their details. You've got the details. Whether it's, you know, makeup style, hair with all sorts of different issues. Really benefit from quizzes.

Emilia Święcicka [00:21:23]:
Yeah, exactly. And just make sure you follow through with that as well. So if you are doing a quiz and someone gets their results, make a copy of that welcome flow so that you know that these customers have made that choice so that you're consistent then in what you're following up on.

Richard [00:21:37]:
Yeah. Nothing worse than saying you're. Yeah. You're after trying to think, you know, blonde dye and you get sent the black dye advert or emails. Yeah. It's not going to work too well, is it?

Emilia Święcicka [00:21:47]:
Exactly. Staying consistent there.

Richard [00:21:49]:
Yeah. So subscribers, we've talked, you know, we talked on that and increasing that, but I think it's still in my mind, like there's obviously a lot of options out there. You know, I'm not going to rattle through the. The different providers of email. You know, an email has become, you know, it's become a very big profit center in reality for a lot of merchants. You know, we joked at the beginning, you know, about people not doing what they should be doing. But I think most of our listeners are using email to a level, you know, and to a, you know, a deep level. But obviously there's a lot of options, a lot of options with different platforms out there.

Richard [00:22:23]:
We've maybe had a couple of them on the podcast over the years. But what would you say is mailchimp's biggest differentiating factors? You know, and why. Why mailchimp? Really?

Emilia Święcicka [00:22:33]:
Yeah. So why mailchimp? So we. There's a few things I like to bring up on when I get asked this question. And we've been around for two decades now and we've built a really strong platform that really focuses on deliverability. And the fact that we've been around for so. For so long, the fact that we've built infrastructure to support this so own servers, making it really easy for our custom to authenticate their domains and kind of do all that work in the background to really keep those deliverability numbers high. And I think that's something that a lot of people don't look at. We're so focused on sending out the emails and campaigns and kind of how many of those emails have been sent and to how many people.

Emilia Święcicka [00:23:16]:
But I think that extra step is always looking at how many ended up in the inbox. So if you've spent money on your ESP platform and not looking at the ROI spend, then deliverability comes into that, of course, and making sure that that's, that's a strong point.

Richard [00:23:33]:
So, yeah, big issue, isn't it, with deliverability? Obviously absolutely key and I think obviously tracking that, monitoring that mailchimp, as you say, got that sort of pedigree history. It's been a big part of the platform for many, many years. And, you know, great. So what's the next one would you say would be the sort of advantage of mailchimp?

Emilia Święcicka [00:23:52]:
So the second thing I always talk about is the ease of use of the platform. So whether you are someone just starting out or whether you're operating as quite a lean marketing team or just have limited time, anyone can pick up the platform. And we offer a lot of tips and tricks within to help you get set up. It's also got so much depth to it now that if you're working with an agency, there's also so much you can do. So it really is easy to use.

Richard [00:24:20]:
But you got templates in there, haven't you, as well?

Emilia Święcicka [00:24:22]:
Templates are a huge piece of the ease of use point there. And because of our sheer scale and size, we're bringing so many features to market all the time. So that's definitely a few of the things. And then obviously affordability, we're super transparent on our pricing and people find our platform really cost efficient.

Richard [00:24:44]:
I think that's the thing I always remember from doing this for a long time, your pricing is exceptional. It was and it still is, you know, it still is. Obviously we've done quite a few comparisons of different projects we've been looking at and very, very, very competitive, which is fabulous, I think. You know, one of the topics we talk about a lot on the podcast and we're obsessed about in our agency and our agency clients at Econ1 is profitability. You know, that is really the driver of why we're all sat here to, to a degree, you know, ultimately to, to build and help build profitable businesses, not just to sell stuff. And then potentially there's not a lot left at the end of the month, at the end of the year, and then we don't sell stuff for long. But I think it'd be good for you to maybe, if you possibly can step us through sort of how mailchimp's been able to improve profitability with certain brands you've worked with. I don't know if you can mention brands.

Richard [00:25:34]:
Maybe you can, maybe you can't, that's also fine but it'd be nice if you could to a degree. Yeah, but I think, you know, it's just such a key driver. It's profitable but it's profitability for all, all the people that listen, all the people in E commerce. I think it's just so easy to sell a lot of stuff but it's obviously building a successful, profitable business is the key.

Emilia Święcicka [00:25:55]:
Yeah, absolutely. And to make the example really relevant to what we're talking about today, I'll stay in the Shopify and kind of e commerce field. So we've got this lovely, lovely brand called the Biker Company. They used to be part of a big franchise. They broke out to kind of build their own identity and build up their brand and they did go through a few different ESP providers before landing on mailchimp and they had. So they wanted to achieve both kind of high ROI on what they were spending and they needed it to be a platform that was really easy to use, reporting to be really straightforward so that they could really see what was working and what wasn't. So when they implemented mailchimp they had, they had quite a large customer list, large subscriber list but it was, wasn't very engaged. So activation obviously came into this as one of the first points of action and they've used functionality from our automations to the reports to our pop up forms to really start getting those customers engaged again.

Emilia Święcicka [00:27:04]:
I think just from launching their pop up there was something like a 25% increase month on month on revenue from just being a little bit smarter about how they approach their email marketing strategy. And yeah they've, they've highlighted that they love the support and kind of, they really make use of a lot of the tools and things that we give and a lot of the, we share quite a lot of tips and tricks on how to optimize. So that's something they've really used and seen some amazing results from.

Richard [00:27:32]:
So they've used quite a lot the different sort of tools, functionality. I think the activation piece where you've maybe got a, a list or a business that's not been doing much with their email for a while but they've been building the list but they've not really been using it, contacting the database smartly. So you've got to be careful, haven't you with that reactivation, activation of a cold list or reactivation of something a group that's not had many touch points for a while for sure.

Emilia Święcicka [00:27:58]:
You don't just want to blast the whole list or the weekly newsletter to like. The more we send, the more they'll engage. No, I think they did it in a really kind of measured way. They leaned on our team a fair bit, they used a lot of our resources and I think they approached it in such a smart way and I've seen something like they've had 50% open rates, their click through rates in the 4%.

Richard [00:28:20]:
What are they sellers?

Emilia Święcicka [00:28:22]:
It's clothing around kind of motorcycle gear and they sell brands like Carhartt in and it's a really nice website.

Richard [00:28:30]:
Oh lovely. I'll have a look afterwards.

Emilia Święcicka [00:28:32]:
Yeah, good for any motorcycle fans out there.

Richard [00:28:36]:
So SMS Pete, what are you seeing with SMS at the moment? What a sort of successful merchants doing with sms.

Emilia Święcicka [00:28:44]:
Yeah, I think the people that are really being successful with SMS are the people that are kind of weaving it into their existing email strategy. It's again not a kind of oh we've got phone numbers, let's send everyone that we can an offer daily and nightly. And I think being really smart about it and kind of weaving it into an automation and kind of finding that combination of email and SMS is where it really gets exciting and also using it for the right kind of messages. Is it a nice little reminder that your order is on the way? Is it a particular reminder about an offer that expires that day that you know that someone's been interested in and clicked on before and kind of again really focusing on know your customer, don't blast.

Richard [00:29:28]:
Yeah, I think again it does surprise me still the lack of SMS as the wallet, the lack of companies that are sending SMS still, you know, no matter what platform you're using, within reason it probably does SMS maybe you know, should, should do and obviously if you're just using email, not using sms which I think quite, quite a few companies still are, you know you, you're pretty much a 100 open rate, aren't you? 99 point, whatever it may be.

Emilia Święcicka [00:29:54]:
Yeah, it's so high and I think, I mean if I look at my own text messages, I mainly get text messages from businesses these days and more wine my friend. Exactly his summer now.

Richard [00:30:10]:
Yeah. So obviously you've got a bit of an inside track to say the least. Obviously you, you've been with, with Melchin for a while now. Obviously I've met your leadership team in, in in London and so forth. And obviously you possibly know a few things maybe that you could share. You know, I'm always keen to get a feel for like the roadmap of the different partners that we work with and the different people we get on the podcast. Is there anything you could maybe share? It's maybe not 100% common knowledge.

Emilia Święcicka [00:30:36]:
Yeah.

Richard [00:30:37]:
That our listeners can be excited for in the coming to a 12 months.

Emilia Święcicka [00:30:41]:
There's some really big things brewing and I won't keep it to kind of small. We do platform updates all the time. So the really big thing I'd like to share about or talk about is the huge vision for Intuit overall. So it's no secret that when Intuit bought mailchimp, there is a bigger plan in place and the real mission here is to support businesses in kind of every aspect of running and growing their business and really simplifying for small to medium business owners. So we're very excited about the platform that we're building that that's encompassing QuickBooks, Mailchimp and everything to really help a business run and grow their operations and really be smart about what decisions they're making and to really increase profitability and all the kind of day to day management of, of everything that is around their business.

Richard [00:31:35]:
Very exciting. More integration.

Emilia Święcicka [00:31:36]:
Exciting. It's. Yeah, we're becoming a platform business which, yeah, there definitely will be more, more shouting about very soon.

Richard [00:31:43]:
Oh, exciting. Watch this space. Well, thank you very much for coming on the show. It's been an absolute pleasure. I like to finish every episode with a book recommendation. Do you have a book to recommend to our listeners?

Emilia Święcicka [00:31:56]:
I do, and it's actually one that I read a couple of years ago, so I don't remember the specifics of, but it stays with me. And it's the Discomfort Zone by Farrah Storr. She's an editor in chief. She's been at loads of different magazines. Elle, Cosmopolitan. And she talks about kind of how important it is to step out of your comfort zone and go into situations where you're not going to be comfortable in order to find that personal and professional growth. And that's something I remember every time I'm going to say no or not do something because I don't dare to. So it's a book that stayed with me for a long time.

Richard [00:32:34]:
I love it. That is a good way to live your life, I think, as it's surprising what can happen when you go, yeah, I'll go to this event, I'll go on this podcast, I'll say yes to this. I'll go do this and then. Yeah, it's a great, great way to live your life, I think. Yeah, push yourself.

Emilia Święcicka [00:32:51]:
Yeah, push yourself.

Richard [00:32:52]:
So buy the book, guys. We'll link it up. We'll link it up and say yes, a bit more. Yeah.

Emilia Święcicka [00:32:57]:
Yes, a bit more of that indeed.

Richard [00:32:59]:
So we've come to the end. Thank you very much for coming on the show. For those that want to reach out to. To you, to Melchin. What's the best way to do that?

Emilia Święcicka [00:33:07]:
Find me on LinkedIn. Yeah, I'm. I've got a fairly uncommon last name, so it should be fairly easy. Emilia Svencitska. And yeah, thank you so much for having me. This is really fun.

Richard [00:33:19]:
No problem at all. We'll link up all the contacts in the show notes and yeah, thanks for coming on the show. See you soon. Bye. Bye.

Richard Hill [00:33:31]:
If you enjoyed this episode, hit the subscribe or follow button wherever you are listening to this podcast, you're always the first to know when a new episode is released.

Richard [00:33:39]:
Have a fantastic day and I'll see.

Richard Hill [00:33:40]:
You on the next one.