Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Welcome to Within WordPress, the podcast about all those wonderful people inside the WordPress community that you love. With us today is Ritis from Omnisend. Welcome Ritis.
[00:00:16] Speaker B: Hello. Thanks for inviting. Really great to be here with you.
[00:00:20] Speaker A: Yeah, happy to have you. For a lot of people going to the, certainly the, the bigger wordcamps, they may have seen you and, or your booth, your Omnisend booth. But for those who have no idea who you are and what it is that you do exactly, could you please introduce yourself?
[00:00:41] Speaker B: Yeah, sure. And even for those who maybe saw our booth but maybe did not have an opportunity to stop by and to familiarize themselves, say Omnisend, this marketing automation platform that helps mainly those who sell online, either physical goods on WooCommerce, mainly on courses like on Elements solutions, et cetera, digital goods. So we help communicate with the existing customers. So basically usually what happens if you sell something online, you put so much money into marketing, you invest a lot of money. Usually the first transaction is ROI negative. If you lose money, then your customer buys for the first time, which is, you know, so where is the business then? The business is because your customers are repeatedly getting back to purchase again and again. And lifetime value is really what drives your successful business. So you need tool to communicate with those who already purchased from you. And OmniSend is a tool to communicate via email, SMS messages, web push notifications, and automate a lot of this communication. So you can do it manually, just send newsletters always as the most familiar term how we market in general, how people name it. So just newsletter so you can send like triggered messages, the right message at the right time for the right person, just based on the person's behavior. So yep, so that's, that's what we do as a, as a tool, as an Omnisend. I'm, I'm co founder and CEO of this company. So you know, as every CEO does a little bit of everything.
[00:02:19] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. You, you're the wearer of many hats, we call that.
[00:02:23] Speaker B: Yeah, that's true.
[00:02:24] Speaker A: So you co founded this how long ago?
[00:02:27] Speaker B: 10 years ago. Yeah. So Omniscient is celebrating 10 years anniversary this year. Initially we focused on like mainly a little bit like other ecosystems. We are kind of, although the company itself is 10 years but like on WordPress we are rather, rather new. We just one year ago. So we started like investing more into WordPress ecosystem and community because we just naturally saw that there is a really, really great natural traction on WordPress as our customer base is growing organically. So we thought okay, cool, so there are so many online stores. We actually run on WordPress and WooCommerce and other plugins as well. And then yeah, we should maybe be more active here. And we saw that truly can bring value for customers who want WordPress.
[00:03:23] Speaker A: Yeah, I think it's any solution and anyone that has a solution that generally serves a. Let's call it a segment of website owners. It'd be silly to ignore the stupendously Large percentage of WordPress sites out there.
[00:03:47] Speaker B: But you know, there are some silly people as we talk quite many years, you know, really, really not, not kind of putting in enough like attention and effort et cetera. But you know, the risk of competition of course and among platforms as well on which you build websites and online stores etc and others, others were doing really, really well for us and we focused maybe, maybe, maybe too much, maybe a bit too long. But I completely agree so that WordPress is huge. And yeah, it's definitely. I'm super happy that we are now way more active in the community and.
[00:04:27] Speaker A: Well, I think it's a. I've met quite a few of people that work at OMNISEND obviously at WordCamp Europe, WordCamp US. You seem to have a very fun atmosphere among. At least among the people that I've seen. Maybe that's a very special selection. I don't know. But I'm kind of curious. Have you always worked for the web like you said 10 years ago. So what did you do 10 years before that?
[00:04:57] Speaker B: It's a spin off from digital marketing agents. So we used to develop websites on WordPress, not on WordPress et cetera. And we're just basically selling like hours creative, creative solutions and development hours. And then from there yeah we made a search and it's just. Yeah. So made a spinoff as a product and on the fun part. So Remus, I mean you are a fun person. So you join us in our celebration with all those core camps. So we're in the same boat here together. But yeah, but think. I think it's very important, you know, to, to enjoy the work you do and especially kind of in like Asia US where European based. Okay. Not, not all, all of us but vast majority of the team members you met. So we are European based. But yeah. So you know, all those time zone differences, et cetera. It's not, not the easiest thing to be there for a few days, very intense event, et cetera. So why not? Why not to have fun.
[00:06:00] Speaker A: I agree but it's, it's nice to see. So there's, there's companies that, that visit these word camps and they sponsor and you get a good vibe and everything. But sometimes there's companies and booths and people manning the booth just kind of stand out. And I think I'm trying to give you a compliment here that the crew that I've interacted with so far, you know, it's a good vibe. I like it. Which is why I was wondering like you started as a digital agency.
[00:06:29] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:06:30] Speaker A: Many are quite rare in that you made a full pivot from being an agency to actually growing product. Fully product based. Right. I mean there's a left of the agency, I assume.
[00:06:46] Speaker B: No, no. Yeah, yeah. So that cost kind of after the launch of the product. So for two, for two years. For two years we were both running like still agency activities and that was the most profitable years of that agency, which is increased prices, et cetera. Because we understood that okay, there is a bet. I mean there was still the probability and huge probability of losing and maybe not finding a product market fit with a product. But all the signs were kind of showing that we can succeed.
[00:07:20] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:07:21] Speaker B: At the same time it actually took us two years to understand how to monetize the products. So. And I believe everyone who is just like building a product or just launching any kind of business maybe now and is listening to us. So that's probably one of my learnings, you know that usually you expect it to happen overnight, but it does not happen overnight. And it really takes time. I guess with you you had the same experience. I guess you could second that. Yeah. That's with your business it always takes time. Yeah. And more than you expect initially.
[00:07:54] Speaker A: Yeah. We are having the, we having my, my co founder and, and I, Barry, we're actually this week we've been talking about pricing. Are we on the right path for where we want to be and we think the product is worth. And all of that. And, and, and you know we're, we're, we're going to add a lot of extra stuff to scanfully which means there's a way you could say up until this point it's worth that but once we release these things it's worth more. Is that an extra for the existing clients? Yes. No. Do we create premium version of it or you know, and then it's exactly that we're, and we're just a couple of months in. But I don't expect us to be mature enough to say okay, this is solidified now. This is what it is. Two years in. Two, two, three years in. That's what we Keep in the back of our mind. But yeah those, those things are hard. But it certainly sounds like you managed because your, your team is how large now?
[00:08:49] Speaker B: 230 few people.
[00:08:51] Speaker A: That's a lot of folks.
[00:08:53] Speaker B: Quite, quite a lot. And you know things, things changed over time and we started, we started as in agency times where about like 15 people. Few, few of them left when we pivoted fully to the product because we just preferred working as a service provider and as agencies and like project based. Not, not a product just you know, working with one single product. It has, there's always advantages and disadvantages because you know, keep, keep nailing the same product. Sometimes sometimes people who have no clue about like how the digital product is being built ask me hmm, look, you have like tens of developers. Why do you need them? I mean you have a product as like, as like a book. Yeah you wrote a book. Now you go and sell as to why do you need the writers and drag tens of developers constantly, constantly improving and changing and et cetera. So. And building a better and better product each day.
[00:09:47] Speaker A: Yeah, I mean that whole principle of we're done just doesn't exist. So you obviously have to move into more features, more in depth features and all of those things. But a group of 230 people, that's a big group. There's in no way is that a.
[00:10:10] Speaker B: Small group, you know, to have fun with such a group. And by the way, yesterday, yesterday as we are recording, that's probably okay to say. Yeah, that is the 2nd of October now. So yesterday we tried a new concept. Like we called it pause day. So basically we invited as we have this hybrid model. So we have three physical offices. Two in Lithuania in Europe, one is in the United States in Charleston. So we invited everyone to come to the office and to spend day without any work related meetings at all. Just canceled all the meetings and just had a good time together with your colleagues all day in the office. Like the main office in Lens was fully packed. I mean I haven't seen so many people here to work, but yeah, and we just like you know playing foosball and Oktoberfest was a topic. So had some German beer, sausages and et cetera, German food. Yeah. So that was kind of a new, new concept that we tried and I would really, I liked it and people really enjoyed it. So really would. Could recommend already. I could already recommend for everyone. Although we did it only once. We, we are like planning in quarterly cadences. So we do, we do planning on quarterly basis and we had those OKR we use OKRs planning methodology. So we had OKR days but it was more kind of like a formal thing. Okay. That's what we did. That's what we are planning and we tried kind of to search to look after like more like attractive format make it less formal. So I think we've managed to make it really less formal and to have fun together.
[00:11:54] Speaker A: If they're office and they don't have work that certainly sounds very. Not formal. So yeah.
[00:12:01] Speaker B: And that was an obligation to cancel all the work related meetings internal and external as well.
[00:12:08] Speaker A: That's interesting.
[00:12:09] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:12:09] Speaker A: You said okr. What is that?
[00:12:12] Speaker B: Yeah, objectives. Objectives and key results. It's methodology for planning developed by Google some time ago. And yeah so this is kind of like at least among the companies with whom we have some relationship and friendship. So this is kind of quite popular and I like this methodology of. It's like KPI's ish. This is the same, the same key performance indicators. It's just more kind of the idea that when you use okrs planning methodology not, not KPIs you. You. You allow yourself to be a bit more ambitious and you know make moonshots and plans that you know that you probably will not accomplish 100% but you know, if you should big and accomplish 70% you still really, really do a great job. So yeah, I didn't.
[00:13:03] Speaker A: I. I don't think I've heard of it before. I do like the, the moonshot my parents raised me with. If you don't set a goal you're never going to make it.
[00:13:14] Speaker B: So completely agree.
[00:13:16] Speaker A: Don't have anything in mind like where do you want to do? What do you. What do you want to have done at a certain point in time? If you do none of that, how. How will you measure progress?
[00:13:27] Speaker B: Very like the quote that I love of like repeating for people from Alice in Wonderland. Vallis was going and the cat in the tree and then Alice is. And there is a crossroad. You know the two options to go and she's asking so cat tell me which route to go. And the cat asks where you want to go. I don't know. So choose either. I mean initially have to know where you want to go and then they can advise you which route to take. So yeah, so completely agree that you know set setting Googles personal as well as work related is always very important.
[00:14:06] Speaker A: And if I look back at all the goals that I have specifically set like this is where I want to go or this is where I want to be, it's Been scarily accurate that you actually got there. Like, it's.
[00:14:21] Speaker B: Like, just not as fast as you expected.
[00:14:25] Speaker A: No, never, never, never, never.
I remember, like, this 15 years ago, I saw a particular car drive I hadn't seen before. Like, that's a really cool car. Looked it up. Oh, that's an expensive car. However, I really, like, I want to have this car. And I kind of parked it, like, I will have this car someday. I don't know. I don't know.
[00:14:47] Speaker B: You know, Forgot about it. You forgot even forgot about it. Nice.
[00:14:51] Speaker A: Bought it. And I remember I was here and then I saw this car. And then I say to myself, I want this car. And I'm like, ah, okay. This, you know, it's one of those reminder things, like, you did set a goal.
Not as specific as you maybe could have done, but you set a goal and unexpectedly again. So it's. Yeah, I very much believe in that sort of alignment. And the end result is a richer experience. I mean, for me, about. You have to set goals because you have to be ambitious. That's. If you don't, if you're not ambitious, that's fine. I have no judgment on that. But you can also set goals to make the experience richer.
That's completely agree with you.
[00:15:29] Speaker B: Completely agree with you. And you just upload it to your subconscious. And the example of a car is really great. You upload it and subconscious does the job, even though you maybe forget about that dream or wish, et cetera. And Bill Gates once said, and I really love this as well, that people usually overestimate what we can achieve in one year, but we underestimate what we can achieve in 10 years.
[00:15:59] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:16:00] Speaker B: So, okay, now I'm gonna do everything like, boom, fast, ambitious, energetic, et cetera, et cetera. Nothing happens. Yeah. Look back at the week. Nothing happened. But when you look back, like 12 months ago or five years ago retrospectively, you see, wow, the progress is just massive. So, yeah, so that's always half. I think it's always very important for anyone who. I mean, both in business as well as in personal life, just to have those two perspectives, like, really short term, which sometimes could be demotivating and seem like, okay, I'm just as this rabbit going around and around.
[00:16:38] Speaker A: I also think that it builds a sort of perseverance. Like, if you didn't, you'd. You'd have less of a design of where you're going. Because I'm imagining you.
You pivoted. You ended up with a company that had a product that had a match to what the market needed, wanted. You then have to, you're kind of forced into looking into okay, so okay we're here now how do we get to the next place or what does the next place even look like?
[00:17:10] Speaker B: True.
[00:17:11] Speaker A: You have to design that otherwise it's not going to specifically happen. It's just, you know.
[00:17:16] Speaker B: True, true completely.
Do you set goals? Do you set like work related goals in any cadence more formally or.
[00:17:24] Speaker A: No, I journal and I for the, let's call it the larger goals. I don't necessarily journal those but I envision them very frequently and very complete. So it's, it's a matter of how do I feel, where do I feel it and what are the circumstances around it.
What are the conditions I would like this under. Again, if you don't specify it's just going to happen and then great, I have this. But shit, I also have that now. You know, that sort of thing. I try to be as complete as possible and the more I've done it the, the, the scarier it gets in the accuracy the results are which is always like okay, okay so what's next? Like you said, if you, if you find one year difficult, five years may be absolutely perfect and maybe you need to raise the bar way higher for the five year mark versus the one year mark. Yeah, that. Yeah, I most certainly do that.
[00:18:18] Speaker B: Perfect. What are your goals now? Would you like to share? I mean you said the prior to going live like okay, let's, let's make it a conversational and two ways of.
[00:18:28] Speaker A: Really there are two things that I can share that because I generally don't share my goals but there's two that I can share that I in some way I can and I already have. So I want to grow scanfully to the level where we're the go to solution for anybody wanting to have an insight, a full insight into the performance and the health of your site and that's as wide as you can possibly think it. But just like Omnisand is exactly the solution for the types of notifications and messages you send out from the, from your platform. There's for instance patch tech where if you security you're thinking patch tech and there's a whole bunch of companies that work like that. That's what I want to have scanfully be and for it to be the solution that everybody thinks of.
[00:19:17] Speaker B: How's it all named? Nice.
[00:19:19] Speaker A: Good.
[00:19:19] Speaker B: Ambition.
[00:19:20] Speaker A: That's what I haven't specifically done is connected to this is going to take X amount of years and that's mostly because we have a really big view of where we want to be and what features we need for that.
That's just. It's the two of us, right? So it'll happen as fast as it'll happen, but once we hit like sort of pivotal moment, we can. I'll do, I'll be more specific in the rest of the impact. So that's one and the other one is to do with. Within WordPress. So the brand under which this podcast and my newsletter operate, the goal is to add a community to that is revolved around learning to use your WordPress tools. Not one specific tool, but generally how do you build the thing? What tools are you using?
I've had a few conversations about this at WordCamp US and a good example is that everybody knows that at a certain point it's smart to use some version of version control. Most people will use Git and most people will host at GitHub, but most people also don't know that they have a choice. You can use pull request based system of version control, but you can also use something that's called Git flow. And each has its benefit and downside. But if you don't, if you're not familiar with the choices, you're just going to go with whatever is put in front of your face. Most people end up with GitHub and just use the pull request type of stim thing. But for more complex sites or more features, actively developed type of sites, more people working on it type of sites, it makes a lot of sense to have Git instead of just, you know, and that's a, that's a small example, but there's a whole bunch of tooling that we're using from how to use your local development to how do I get it from local to production. There's a whole bunch of stuff we're, we're all doing in some version but we're not being really educated on it much. And I, I really like those things and I really like building that out. So an educational community which is revolving around learning how to use our WordPress tools and I've set an ETA for that by the end of next year to be fully functional. And yeah, out there.
[00:21:35] Speaker B: How many members would you find as a fully functional community?
[00:21:39] Speaker A: A thousand.
[00:21:40] Speaker B: Like, okay, nice. Yeah, because WordPress community, it's like massive, just thousand of them. Nice.
[00:21:47] Speaker A: I think the impact starts with probably a few hundred already. But my goal is to be a fully functional community that sort of starts self sustaining in terms of new subjects and new questions will be asked. And then me just filling them in. And my goal is to not just be me doing the videos. I will plan to hire folks with that. But yeah, so that's. Those are two goals. I'm happy to share.
[00:22:17] Speaker B: Perfect. So thanks for sharing. Now everybody knows. I guess people will help you, especially with a community part. Joining the community.
[00:22:26] Speaker A: I do have one goal that is going to have to be me and just me. But my current deadlift PR is 270 kilos and I want to bring that to 300.
[00:22:39] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:22:40] Speaker A: Nobody can help me with that. That's just me.
[00:22:43] Speaker B: It just. You're very, very personal.
[00:22:45] Speaker A: It's very personal. I'm happy to share this because I share this with my gym buddies as well. So that's fine.
[00:22:50] Speaker B: Okay. Now we have accountability partners, people who will remind you.
[00:22:54] Speaker A: Yeah, but I'm not connecting a timeline to this.
[00:22:56] Speaker B: Okay. Okay.
[00:22:58] Speaker A: No, we'll see. It's going somewhere next year. See how close I get if I. So I've had a tennis arm injury for last six months, so that sort of certainly knocked out of any progress that I had. So kind of got to see what, what the end of this year is going to bring in terms of progress. Yeah, progress works.
[00:23:22] Speaker B: Yeah. First step is to avoid injuries, to be healthy. Fine.
[00:23:27] Speaker A: Until this year. I think this is literally my first proper injury that sustained very long. Oh, sorry. Second. But yeah, it's. It's.
Maybe it's the age. Maybe I'm just getting old and just wanting too much still. I don't know. I'm 51. So.
Is it still feasible? I think it is.
[00:23:49] Speaker B: It is. It is.
[00:23:51] Speaker A: If we're talking goals and if we're talking sharing goals. OmniSend moved into the WordPress market two years ago.
[00:23:59] Speaker B: One year ago. Yeah. Basically last, last WordCamp US was the first that we just attended as a walk in, walk in attendees and et cetera and. Yeah, but just, you know, trying to understand and understand the community, really find people who can help us to understand. Because WordPress is completely different to other ecosystems that we have experience with.
[00:24:24] Speaker A: I would agree.
[00:24:25] Speaker B: It's. Yeah, it's like open source nature, et cetera. And it's really like the. It's very friendly, which we really, really found like so many great and friendly people that really helped us. So thank you. Thank you. Everyone with whom I talked, our teammates talked and then all the advices that you, that you gave to us and then they are so, so invaluable and really to allow us to avoid certain mistakes and to. To how to say, to take the path that is really in alignment of what WordPress is, how it operates, et cetera. So.
But at the same time, it's a learning curve for us as well. Still learning.
[00:25:08] Speaker A: I was going to say, how much learning is there still happening in terms of how. I mean, I guess that there's two different things, right? There's the software, the project, and the things that are built inside the project, whether that's a plugin that you can work with or whatever.
You know, WooCommerce technically is a plugin, but it's a whole solution set.
[00:25:30] Speaker B: Yes. So there's open the plugin already.
[00:25:32] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, exactly. But, but that's a learning curve on its own. And then you have the other learning curve of how does this community work? How do you, how do you present yourself? Because one of the things I've seen new Companies entering the WordPress community or market or whatever you want to call it, and, and when they're used to a very salesy approach, you're not being much welcomed into the community. It's like, okay, great that you're here and maybe you have a cool product, but that approach really doesn't work here.
[00:26:05] Speaker B: So, yeah, that was kind of like what we advised as well since very beginning and you know, like, to, to. To like, really. I see that you like how this approach being fun, being visible, et cetera. But to be honest, like, when we're preparing for our first WordCamp with a booth sponsored, that was this year, WordCamp Asia. So we were a little bit like, concerned how fun can we be and you know, and not to be maybe too standing out, et cetera, because of the, you know, not to look like too pushy to sales, et cetera. But, but I think kind of in general I found like, you know, people, People are nice there and people understand good mood and good vibes and really join and like in, in all three Word camps, I would say like Asia, Europe and us. Although like the audience is different, at least from our learnings a little bit. But, but still, like, everybody was like really welcoming and joined our good mood.
[00:27:10] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:27:11] Speaker B: So celebration. So. But, but yeah, to be honest, like, at first we had some concerns. Maybe we are too, too not aggressive. I don't know how to. Too relaxed. Maybe that would be the right word.
[00:27:23] Speaker A: Yeah, I think the, the, the general concern would be if you're just too salesy. It doesn't matter what kind of sales. If a company is too salesy or too much in the marketing speak. And when I say marketing speak, I basically mean any type of sentences that you use and you listen to and at the end of that sentence you go like well what does that really mean? I know that whatever features you have, but what do I get from that? That's a fine line to walk on to learn where that is in the workers community. You said You've been to three WordCamp Asia, WordCamp Europe and WordCamp.
[00:28:03] Speaker B: Yes, yes.
[00:28:05] Speaker A: Only the last two or all three?
[00:28:08] Speaker B: All three. Yes, all three. This year? Yeah. Yeah.
[00:28:10] Speaker A: And you mentioned there's a difference in crowd and I'm quite curious to learn what you perceive that difference to be.
[00:28:18] Speaker B: So from kind of our point of view at least like yeah in the crowd. So in Asia there were quite many like agencies and freelance developers who just do sell their professional services on WordPress and WordPress we use it WordPress as a tool. In Europe we met like way more people who actually contribute and who are more let's say open source enthusiasts and WordPress as an open source tool enthusiast. And it seems like they are just gathering there and meeting fellow like minded people. Fellow people they like talk way, way more about like the core where WordPress goes, et cetera. And us, us was again like more and more like agencies that have WordPress and utilize press, WordPress as a tool developers, et cetera. Less, less enthusiasts and then more if we could say like more, more commercial minded and business minded et cetera. And more, more talks more like straight to your point about it, you know. Okay, so do you do revenue share et cetera. Let's talk business. Yeah, but I guess it's kind of like you know where what the United States journalists, you know, famous for. Very, very I think you business, business mind. So that's our experience so far.
[00:29:37] Speaker A: I think you hit the nail on the head with. So I haven't been to WordCamp Asia. I don't know the vibe other than I know people who went there and was were very enthusiastic about the event and the event there.
[00:29:50] Speaker B: But us for me like Asia felt like more like us less than Europe. At least my personal take.
[00:29:59] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. And then so I only know WordCamp US and WordCamp Europe.
I don't know if you know but I am one of the co founders of Wordcamp Europe so been there doing it since 2013 and up until last year I always have been part in some way of the organization. So you kind of know what vibe there is and what you want to have and continue and facilitate. I've been to Quite a few WordCamp USS as well. In general the I, I, I share what you just said there's a, there's a more businessy feel to it, more to the point, like, I'm here, show me what you.
Why are you sponsoring? What, what are you bringing?
[00:30:36] Speaker B: Pitch me.
[00:30:37] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, well, I think that probably at Pitch me, what else? Tell me about it. So this is the first year I wore my T shirt that said scandfully. And literally people who I known for more than a decade walk up to you and go like, hey, how's it going? How you doing? Been a while. All of that. And then the very next question after the pleasantries is like, what's that? What is that? What do you do?
Have you not seen me online already talking about it? No, no, man, come on, tell me, what do you do? And I'm like, yeah. And I did the same thing in Europe, in Torino. Way less people asking about that component, which I was like, oh, this is solidifying my assumption on how things are different. Certainly walking around in Portland for a couple of days like, huh, interesting. It sounds the same, it feels the same in many regards, but it's a different crowd. That's always an interesting learning to see. And I bet growing a company like you do, you encounter and have to navigate around all these types of intricacies like this works well here, does not work there. Need to do this. Or how do you keep track of that?
[00:31:49] Speaker B: How, how do we keep track of that?
[00:31:51] Speaker A: Yeah, of.
[00:31:52] Speaker B: It's a good point. I, I mean, so one thing is specialization. I mean at our size we will really can allow ourselves to have people who will look after a little different ecosystem in this case, et cetera. So they kind of, you know, they gain the knowledge and experience how to, how to do that, how to navigate. So probably that's kind of thing, you know, if there is like just one person who is responsible for like everything, then of course it's so difficult to change your like modus operandi. And but if you have this kind of like a bit more specialization, so of specialization. So that's how you can, can do that. And you know, certain people gain certain knowledge, experience, relationship, et cetera. And is this a marketing department primarily in our case? Probably yes. Yeah, it's, I mean and as you kind of nailed it like really well about like challenges. So one is like marketing challenge, how to present yourself in front of the eyes of WordPress community in this case. And the second is like technical, like how to do the best integration. How to.
[00:33:00] Speaker A: That was my follow up question.
[00:33:02] Speaker B: Yeah, make it secure, you know, make it, make it work. Provide the best customer experience like for standalone, for hosted WordPress users, et cetera, et cetera. So there are kind of those two aspects and they go together but at the same time you have to nail both of them. They are equally important. Like technical, technical discussion we had and now we chose this path like you know, we have multiple integrations, we want to really be deeply integrated into the ecosystem and whatever stack you use on WordPress tomnisend could work, could work really, really well integrated and well orchestrated within your stack. So one of the discussions that we had met a lot of people to listen to, ask for advice, et cetera. Shall we make just one super plugin, you know, to cover all the integrations or shall we make many, many, many multiple like smaller plugins? Like we just launched this for example lifter LMS. Yeah. Shall it be a standalone plugin, OmniSend lifter LMS connector or shall it be just one super plugin at Omnisend and then Connect Server? We chose multiple plugins. We'll see in the future. Was it the best decision?
[00:34:20] Speaker A: Would you say that there's a difference in. Because culturally and from a, you know, the general customer walking around at a word camp in US is different from Europe and Asia. Would you say that there's a technical requirement or preference list as well? Like do.
Do the Americans want the more businessy, less ux, more straightforward things as well? Do you get that kind of feedback or no, probably.
[00:34:47] Speaker B: We have never faced it yet. I mean although like the. We are a European company established in Europe and recorded in Europe but like vast majority of our customers are in the United States, half of our business is actually coming from the US so we have team of 30ish people in the state as well present day. But yeah. So you know the product is being built mainly for the U.S. market because the second largest market for us is the U.K. but like really, really far behind the size and magnitude of the US but at the same, but at the same time we, to be honest, we don't like see massive differences in technical needs or technical features or enablement needs. Not only technical but what our customers expect. There are some regulatory differences. Let's say SMS really works well in the United States and Canada mainly because in this case which is superior US regulated it more than Europe and they did it first. So not sure if the European Union will follow or not. So basically the fact that in the United States and Canada it's so easy to unsubscribe from SMS communication so people are more willing to opt in because it's mandatory and it's just a standard. If you receive promotional SMS message, you subscribe to any, any service provider should support the ability to reply with just a stop word and you will unsubscribe. And it's kind of like, you know, the common knowledge. Everyone, every consumer knows. Okay. It's, it's more safe for me to subscribe because it's, it's equal to email in this case. I know that if I'm not willing to receive any more messages from this specific, like, sender from this specific brand, it's going to be very easy for me to opt out. And Europeans are a little bit more concerned about giving my phone number for the brand, for the business because they have some, like, maybe not pleasant experiences, but in a way, sometimes subscribe for SMS communication and there's no way to really opt out. They just keep sending you, keep spamming you, et cetera. Of course, there are brands that apply bad practice. Bad guys are everywhere. So that's probably kind of the main difference. Just adoption of SMS is way high in the United States in comparison to Europe.
[00:37:15] Speaker A: I did prior to workamp us. I did a road trip with. So I lived in the United States in 1990, 91, went to high school there, graduated and one of my high school buddies joined me in my road trip from Kansas City to Portland.
[00:37:30] Speaker B: Nice. Okay.
[00:37:31] Speaker A: And I was shocked by the number of messages and phone calls he got on his phone, which were, I think the vast majority, probably 90, 95% were promotional, like some way or another. Like whether they were asking him to sign for some campaign or get him to vote on this sell of this. And he brushed it off as like, yeah, that's what it is. I'd go crazy if you send me my stuff. My phone is my sea of tranquility. This is how it's supposed to look. No notifications. I'm holding up my phone for those who are not watching, but no notifications. Nothing comes through if I don't want you. And he was like, no, man, this is, this is, this is normal.
[00:38:16] Speaker B: And like, this is how it works.
[00:38:18] Speaker A: But it's, that's true. To hear that you, you confirming this, that we as Europeans, and certainly me as Dutch are very reluctant to hand over my phone number. Like, if a company has a form, I'm purchasing something there and the company has form where they ask for my phone number. Do you need my phone number to purchase this? You don't need my phone number. You have my email address. Because I need the invoice and all that. Why do you need. I don't get it. That is my default thought. Like I'm.
[00:38:46] Speaker B: That's true enough like Dutch and Germans are very famous for that that they really, really. Privacy. Privacy concerned. Yeah if talking about Europeans. Yeah. So that's, that's and what, that's what we see actually like from our customer base etc that people have to say attitude towards like privacy in general are completely like different in different countries. So Asia is probably the most relaxed stuff in Europe is similar just okay, I mean whatever I give away my email address, my phone number I think in the States are somewhere in between et cetera. But in general kind of like GDPR in Europe and regulations in the States they are kind of quite strict but at the same time you know service providers like Omnisend alongside with service providers like, like, like Gmail, Yahoo, Microsoft with its Outlook, et cetera does a really good job by, by filtering all the spam. So and we do that, they do that. So basically, basically your inboxes is left quite clean I would say in comparison to what it used to be like 20 years ago et cetera. There were no filters and basically anyone who got your email address could, could send could true like spam you so so still they're not still there are, there are like enormous amount of spammy messages that are being sent or like initiated to send but just very, very small fraction of those truly landed in people's inboxes. Yeah so. So I think it's, it's again but it's, it's in and it's in favor of this marketing channel because it's still like super effective. Email, sms, most channels that people are optiming, subscribing. That is usually the relationship between the customer and the brand is completely different. You know, I mean by subscribing you say that okay, I trust your brand and, and you know about, about like, about what, what you said about like phone numbers. So that's just you know one advice for listeners. Let's see. The pop ups is the most effective way to collect subscribers. Some people say okay I don't like pop ups. Yeah you know, intrusive et cetera. So but they work and what we advise for our customers is really to make it like two step. So initially you ask for email address, you already get a subscriber and in the second step you additionally ask for phone number or for like push notification, opt in, et cetera, permission to send. So like you know, and a lot of people, yeah less of people subscribe for SMS communication in comparison to the people who subscribe for email communication. So this two step form is really the way to go. You don't scare people with asking too many information at once. And they have an option. They have an option.
[00:41:39] Speaker A: Yeah, I mean I get that. I think if I were to leave a phone number it would have to be a brand that I'm more than happy like you can have all my data, it's fine. I love it.
I, I, I.
There are a few brands where I'm less picky with what I send their way. I'm like I, I, you know, use my data because the more data you have of me, the better my experience with you is and I like what you're doing anyway.
[00:42:09] Speaker B: But I would say I think it's very kind of like you nailed it and then it's, it's very important. And sometimes, sometimes again people ask okay, oh I don't read emails, come on. I don't read newsletters. All of us read but just there are brands, certain brands that we trust that we will purchase from them either way and we subscribe to the communication and we're really happy to receive it. And the habits are different. Some people just subscribe for five newsletters maybe and that's enough of them because they don't want to interact with more brands. But there are some people who subscribe to many, many, many brands, they're kind of more trusting, you know, and more credit for the brand.
[00:42:54] Speaker A: Is that changing over because you've been doing this for 10 years now?
[00:42:58] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:42:58] Speaker A: Have that behavior in general, has that been changing in some way or not?
[00:43:02] Speaker B: No, we didn't see any kind of consumer behavior with okay. With young generation it changes that kind of the more while they are still young they are more in chats but not in email. But then we find a job and that's where we get familiarized with what email is. So basically that's kind of like maybe in the past like any despite of your age. Email was kind of before communication channel. So which is not the case for teenagers now but either way kind of. So we mainly serve those who sell online. So the buying power is not in the hands of teenagers. Still the best customers are like you know, 30 plus the customers of our customers, those, those people have buying power, they spend way more money. Beverage basket side is way bigger, retention is better, et cetera. So, so that's, that's probably kind of the one thing that is changing. The other thing is what is changing which is I think is a very Very good trend. So more and more companies really automate their marketing communication. So instead of just you know, compiling each time new newsletter to what the marketing thinks that he or she wants to tell for the audience is really to like putting all the automations in place. So if there is a trigger but remcos is you know visiting our website, looking at those specific products, cool. We see it, we initiate the campaign and it's being done full automatically. So let's see last year, I don't have statistics for this year yet but Last year in 2023 40% of all the transactions of our customers were generated by automations basically by trigger based messages. What is the best in this case it's only 2% of messages traffic, email plus SMS combined 2% generated 40% of transactions for our customers. So what does that mean that you as a customer and customer consumer you receive less marketing messages but you just received one time, you are really welcoming it and you are happy to complete the transaction.
[00:45:12] Speaker A: You're almost exactly, you want the message. That's interesting.
[00:45:16] Speaker B: Exactly, exactly. So I mean so this is kind of the big vision of since we were inception of Omnisend, you know that some and same day could entire marketing activities could be automated and that means that you know it will be way more relevant marketing, way less marketing traffic which is beneficial for you as a consumer. But of course it comes with exchange of some of your private data because of your email, your phone number, your behavior online. It's being tracked with your permission of course but that's what helps you to keep your inbox in this case cleaner.
[00:45:55] Speaker A: Curiosity because when you say automation. So for instance I have a newsletter, right. So when you subscribe to that newsletter I send out a hi getting to know you, asking to reply if you have questions or you want to share who you are. That's, that's a base one for our scanfully when you sign up you either for the trial, you get a bunch of automations like there's a drip campaign depends on what you click on. I enrich that and if you have that and you get an extra email, you know that's your base automations. Is that the sort of thing you're referring to or are there?
[00:46:29] Speaker B: Yeah, we have very complex things as.
[00:46:31] Speaker A: Well like, like a very confident version of what you could do because so.
[00:46:36] Speaker B: Like is it complex? No, each automation is not like super complex. Like where it comes to a bit complexity then you think you always should think through the customer life cycle. So basically again like those, mainly those who sell online and like scantily and you'll. Yeah so you're welcome upon sign up on first interaction with your product demo whatever so different kinds so of course to welcome that's very important then just one single welcome message. It's okay for the content providers but for products for those who sell online something either service or product or physical products or digital products there is a purpose of this welcoming message and we suggest to send serious not the single messages drip campaign the automations few, few, few, few and yeah they could be educational they could be with very specific call to action to convert it to maybe paying customer et cetera Then then I was like for those who sell online it's very important really like to spot on when the person is engaging with your website. So abundant browse abandonment abundant card so we can identify have you just you know looking at very various pages of your website but didn't even put anything in your shopping cart then you could put something in the shopping cart then this is actually, this is the massive drop that people initiate the transaction, they start the payment but they do not complete the payment. So this is kind of check yeah a lot it's like around 70% or so. So it's a massive, massive drop there. So like the automation there to, to try to, to. To kind of you know to, to to restore at least part of this it's very important. You know people just drop and, and the reasons are so, so, so so different. You know sometimes it's like lack of funds in your cart sometimes cart like you know is not, not not accepted. Sometimes you do it at work and your colleague or your boss comes into your office.
That's it. Why you abandon the transaction.
What do we do? Oh no, don't think nothing. I'm just writing this long email. So like this and with a purchase what is very very important is like again post purchase experience and like where SMS works really well so it's in the post purchase. Okay so thank you for buying. We have this patch, it's on the way ask for we know that you received like you bought like 7 days ago et cetera. So how did you like a product the best what you can do if there is a dissatisfied customer who evaluates like you know 1 out of whatever 5 or 10 to have it connected to your support team if you have one. Yeah and you know reach out practically. Then the human gets in and says okay we saw that you weren't happy with experience, you weren't happy with product you just received. Okay, how can we fix it Et cetera And then, and then after that it's really. If we have a data that Ramkus was purchasing every three months he's not doing this anymore for four months already could be, he could be on vacation. He will be traveling to Workamp. That's very likely. Very. Yeah. But there is likelihood that you maybe chose like another provider to purchase the same things that you used to do from us. So let's do reactivation campaign. We missed you. How are you doing? Okay. This is maybe a special offer for you one off discount. So you know then combining all of those and then could be very, very a lot of different those automations which by itself each of them is not very complicated but when you put it on the full map it really becomes a super powerful tool. Yeah Omnisend we have all set for you. So all the best practice if you sell online all the best practice of the market is embedded in the product. So so that's kind of like again that was our dream or like vision of the product since the very beginning that we have to make it. Andrew, you know I really liked in Torino and Workamp in Europe when Matt was presenting and he showed the slide simple things should be simple and difficult things should be possible about like philosophy of WordPress as a tool. So just made a picture sent to our product people said wow, I like this, I like this. That's how we actually think about building the product as well.
[00:51:11] Speaker A: I like it and I can hear the enthusiasm about it. Obviously it's your company so they're you know you'd expect some enthusiasm but no, but I mean Automations is one of those examples where if you're not familiar with what that actually means in the complexity or is it even complex. I mean there's a lot of potential. We're doing those drip campaigns for the trials and once you're on board we also do another drip campaign so you get to know the product better. So we make sure that you've seen the most important features and understand how to use them.
[00:51:45] Speaker B: Those are examples.
[00:51:47] Speaker A: Yeah those are. But those are base. Right. So there's I think you get a whole bunch of interesting ideas on how to further engage would you say and.
[00:51:55] Speaker B: Even let's say and even like post purchase transaction that's what I advise always like for marketers or like e commerce managers but you know the fact that you show the cure that okay we already packed your, we dispatched et cetera so this is your opportunity not to directly convert the customer that just purchased from you but basically to interact and to bring your brand in front of the eyes of a customer. Yep, many more times. And then you know, just, just, just, you know, that's how marketing works. You have to repeat your brand for, for the customers. And this is a great opportunity. It does not convert right away, but it's, it's very powerful tool in the mid and long term. And this is where, where you can actually send SMS as well. And this, those SMS are super welcoming by the audience here.
[00:52:49] Speaker A: Oh, okay. Interesting.
[00:52:51] Speaker B: No, but I think because they're not promotional.
Exactly.
The brand, not promotional.
[00:52:57] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. I should probably send, ask for people's phone numbers and send out the newsletters or. Hey, did you happen to. I noticed you didn't open it yet, did you? It's probably too creepy, but if I, what I hear from you, it sounds like that's what I, that's something I could do.
[00:53:18] Speaker B: Of course. And our customers do that. Okay. They maybe don't stay that we see that you did not open our email, but they actually filter out only those who did not open email and they send only for them with a message. Look, there is something waiting for you in your inbox. There is a good offer, there is something like your new collection presentation, et cetera. Check out your inbox.
So definitely you can do it.
[00:53:46] Speaker A: So that's already in the works, right? You have that in place. What are some big features you're working on? Like, do you see like a whole bunch of new features as a, do you have a long list of new features you're waiting to implement? How does this work always?
[00:54:02] Speaker B: So the one, the big, big chunk which is coming soon, it's reporting. So we like our reporting was a bit, a bit outdated and not as in depth as our customers ask and expect it to be. So this, still this fall maybe and maybe end of the year still, as always takes a bit longer than expected as we already discussed at the beginning. But yeah, so like absolutely brand new reporting will be in place till the end of this year. So really, really happy, happy to see that this is the most requested by mobile customers too. So there will be more, way more capabilities to analyze everything by different angles, et cetera. That's a big thing. And another big thing is we're working of course, AI it's inevitable, you know, so putting like some little help, you know, to write the copy. It's already in place to convert email into SMS, long text of email into short text of SMS. It helps to write subject lines, the test clients, etc. Yeah, basically so. And that's what we know we tried and that's, that's the learning that we implemented that. Okay, would our customers want for us to. Or AI to compose entire email? No, no. Would, would they like to, to have just a help with like writing, copy, editing images? Yes.
[00:55:25] Speaker A: Maybe a little grammar here and there?
[00:55:27] Speaker B: Yes, yes, yes, exactly. So that's, that's kind of, that is our learning because we, we launched initially this. Okay, we'll compose your email adoption rate was very low. Then we just cut into like small chunks, just assistance here, assistance there, et cetera, which, which is being like way more welcomed by our customers, this approach. So we definitely will continue that. Yeah, yeah.
[00:55:49] Speaker A: I've seen AI solutions that offer to write my newsletter for me. I'm like, how would you. I mean, here are my resources. How do you turn that into. Sure, you can use my tone of voice, but there's no way in hell that you're going to write an email. What I wanted in there in my tone of voice and have. Yeah, it's not happening. AI is as I see it now. It's a brainstorm tool. It's an assistance tool. It's all of these things. It's not a general tool in totality.
[00:56:21] Speaker B: Yeah. So let's. We have like even. Yeah, true. And we have like two free tools, Subject Line Generator and Subject Line Tester. Free of charge. They're free of charge for anyone. You should not be even an Omnisend customer. So. And they're really, really welcomed by, by, by general marketers who do email marketing.
[00:56:42] Speaker A: So on the, on the subject of WordPress and your integrations with you, you mentioned lifted LMS, you mentioned E Commerce. How close are you watching what, what happens there as future developments? Do you need to be even?
[00:56:58] Speaker B: Is that like in WordPress? You mean in the core or.
[00:57:02] Speaker A: Well, of course. WooCommerce.
[00:57:05] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:57:05] Speaker A: Do you have special relationships with the developers of any of these types of solutions in WordPress or how does that work?
[00:57:13] Speaker B: We do have a relationship, but probably kind of more relationship on the business side than on developers. Developers. We kind of just, you know, transaction well while we write integration. Well, we need to maintain the really good core quality of a bunch of forms like WS Forms, Gravity Forms and option monster, et cetera. So a lot, a lot of like integrations where you can collect either subscribers and then use Omnisend to deliver messages or where you can sell something. Yeah. So a lot of tools that really help to sell. So it's usually kind of on quite transactional level that you know, to ensure the best quality of two products working together. But usually you do it once.
[00:58:01] Speaker A: Sorry, on WordPress level itself. Is there any special thing you need to do there or not? Or does that kind of just happen?
[00:58:09] Speaker B: And it is so kind of each platform, including WordPress is a little bit different. So some kind of. I have a capability so how the data is being stored, how can you process it, et cetera. So it varies. It's not kind of like universal thing that, that we did once, et cetera. So on that level it is. You have to definitely adapt it to the platform and in WordPress case, so, you know, there was probably kind of like the biggest challenge is a bit like versions because as everyone. Yeah, we have customers who use like already very old WordPress versions. We have to work smoothly there and the ones who are always, always updating to the newest version and you have to support it for sure just out of a box while it's being released.
[00:58:51] Speaker A: I take it you're also working with Shopify.
[00:58:54] Speaker B: Yes, yes.
[00:58:55] Speaker A: I mean, I take it. I know, I've read it, yeah.
[00:58:58] Speaker B: Shopify, Ecommerce weeks, other platforms. Yes.
[00:59:01] Speaker A: Right. So a good example of you don't necessarily know the version of Shopify it's running on.
[00:59:05] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:59:06] Speaker A: You just have to make it work. Is that a challenge on the WordPress side of things? Because technically we have about three versions per year.
[00:59:14] Speaker B: It's a bit of a challenge. Yeah, it's a bit of a challenge to really, really make all those different versions work smoothly. Yeah. Sometimes it causes, it causes like, you know, some discrepancies in data exchange, et cetera, like how the product functions and apparently like, you know, after digging deeper, what is the reason you realize, okay, this is very specific for this version, but not even like applicable for other versions. So.
So on one hand it's good that basically if there is some kind of malfunction in the product caused by like this specific version. So it does not apply, I'm sorry, to all of the customers, which is good. At the same time it's more difficult to spot them to ensure the quality because you can't test everything with each and single version. So basically you still develop for the newest version and you know, comply, comply with the rest versions. But it's always difficult sometimes. Okay, not always, but sometimes difficult to. Not to break things.
[01:00:21] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, I hear you on that one. I mean, backwards compatibility is of high importance for any version of WordPress WooCommerce as well, but I would say less to some degree. There are breaking changes every now and then. There are also breaking, breaking changes every now and then. It doesn't help either but the team is working, working very hard on improving on that. But I have one final question and that is towards where do you hope WordPress and I'm including WooCommerce in this because I know it's a large part of your crowd. Where do you hope this is going to go in the next couple of years?
[01:01:03] Speaker B: I hope that WordPress will be capable to compete with all those do it yourself editors and platforms which I mean so there's a lot of like talks and basically this narrative is quite, quite not dominating but important in WordPress and I think it is really important. Yeah because attracting like newer generations, like younger generation etc. And then and you know, building the pivot is not the right word but just evolution to go that way to, to be as much user friendly and as much as UX wise smooth UX et cetera for non developers to be capable to use WordPress. I think this is, this is like very important and I see that WordPress is going that way so which is great. So really, really hope that it will continue and it will really timely, timely be able to transform itself.
[01:02:06] Speaker A: So that's basically, that's an interesting answer because basically you're saying the site editor with the blocks and everything for that journey to be even more successful than it currently is in a way that it invites the crowd that we're currently missing that is going elsewhere.
[01:02:25] Speaker B: Well, yes, that's what I would say. Yeah.
[01:02:28] Speaker A: Interesting. And I see that. I think that is the biggest challenge and it's also the, I think the challenge we're not solving correctly at the moment. I've long advocated for having a release of WordPress beat just solely focused on fixing stuff. The only thing is doing is fixing stuff, not introducing anything new fixing stuff. And that includes ux. Because a lot of the UX in our current version and when you're listening to this, our current version is 6.6. There's just like if in the site editor you want to add a menu, you can. My word, that is a horrible experience. Like things like that. Right. Fix those things, make it that everybody really understands. It's intuitive now I don't have to think about I think currently.
[01:03:18] Speaker B: Yeah, so yeah, so maybe just like you nailed it. So ux, UX part. So like fundamentally it's a great, great, a great, very powerful and very, very great good quality product. But UX is probably the biggest challenge for the future and the biggest opportunities.
[01:03:37] Speaker A: At the same time I 100% agree with you. Thank you so much for this interview, for this conversation. I've learned a lot, and I hope our listeners do as well. Thank you so much.
[01:03:47] Speaker B: Thanks.
