Laura Nelson Interview – “TikTok allows brands to get super creative when marketing their products”

Laura Nelson is an “Automator” responsible for creating content that brings leads and conversions.

Her favorite marketing technique is email marketing. She just gave a talk at this year’s WordCamp Europe in Porto, teaching the audience how to create a paid newsletter subscription in WordPress (excerpt).

Her love for email marketing started at MailPoetwhere she was responsible for the marketing strategy.

My first experience with WordPress was in 2011 when I was at university – I used it to start a blog about video games, where I would post reviews and analyze the pros and cons of games I enjoyed playing. Unfortunately at that time I had no idea about security and maintenance and it was hacked so I had to abandon this project 😅

But shortly after graduating, I landed a job in digital marketing at a very small creative agency specializing in WordPress websites, and that’s where my professional career at WP began. 😊

Oh good question! That has changed a bit for me in the last few years. I used to think that success was tied to fancy job titles and seniority, but I soon realized that pursuing that so-called “success” didn’t make me happy. But now I define “successful” as enjoying what I do on a daily basis and knowing that somewhere I’ve made a difference.

I’m going to give an annoying marketing answer now – “it depends.” 😅 It really depends on who your audience is and what kind of products you’re marketing. But saying that, I will almost never recommend email marketing as an effective technique for marketing a product.

It’s such a versatile channel, and there are so many different ways to use it at every stage of the customer journey. I would recommend setting up a “Welcome Email” after a customer’s first purchase from your store – you can use this email to thank them for their purchase, introduce your brand and other products related to their first to promote purchase.

Then, try to personalize your email marketing based on your customers’ interests and purchase history whenever possible, rather than just sending a generic email to your entire audience.

I would also like to mention TikTok here – #tiktokmademebuyit is real! TikTok allows brands to get extremely creative in marketing their products to their target audience and offers a unique way to connect with customers.

I have two key pieces of advice – both may sound obvious, but they’re the two mistakes I see most often in newsletters! For a newsletter to be effective, it should:

Include only the content you promised when you signed up. For example, if you encouraged subscription by saying, “For weekly javascript programming tips and tricks, sign up for our newsletter!” Don’t start using your email newsletter to sell your web development services or share content unrelated to this topic. It will only annoy people and make them more likely to unlink from your newsletter. Instead, keep things to the point, make sure you always add value, and try to position yourself as a reader and really think about what they want to get in a newsletter.

Add an unsubscribe link. This is a legal requirement in most countries and so important for your reputation. Of course, you want people to stay on your list, but the way to do that is to make sure you’re consistently delivering value — not by making it impossible for them to opt-out of receiving your emails. I’m still shocked at the number of emails I see without this, and it’s a surefire way to lose your audience’s trust and respect.

I’m sure you’ll get a different answer to this depending on who you’re talking to in MailPoet. 😅

But for me there was a very big change – after a few months I was moved to another team (the WooCommerce marketing team) instead of being a dedicated resource for MailPoet.

I was the only person in MailPoet to switch teams completely, and I won’t lie, that was pretty scary at first! However, it has been such a positive change for me – I love collaborating with other marketing enthusiasts!

Culturally, I think MailPoet and WooCommerce (plus Automattic as a whole) were pretty similar anyway. So the biggest challenge here was going from a 13-person company to one with almost 1,300 employees when we came on board.

My cat yells at me for food. 😂 Just kidding! Our words have so much power and to have the opportunity to spend my days creating writing that can inspire, educate or excite really fills me with joy. Being able to make an experience better or clearer for someone through the use of lyrics is a challenge I enjoy and enjoy.