Your customers are influencers. How the company, ManyChat, taps into them as extension of their Marketing team. Create business-driving benefits after the purchase.
THIS EPISODE AT-A-GLANCE
- Why are brands overlooking their company's customers?
- The structure and community of ManyChat
- Tips from Anna to help engage your customers further
Links mentioned in episode
- Exclusive ManyChat offer: You can try 1-month of ManyChat Pro completely free - just go to manychat.com and click “Get Started.” Once you sign up for your account, all you’ll need to do to unlock this offer is use the code “PODCAST.” This is a limited opportunity though, so be sure to sign up before all of the offers are claimed.
- Connect with Anna on LinkedIn
- Learn more about Anna at annadigital.co
- Go to ManyChat.com
Full Podcast Transcription
Anna Tutckaia:
Also, on the marketing side of things, we work with community a lot. So for example, for all of the online events, educational webinars, educational workshops, or bigger summits. Lately, we had a Instagram summit for 25,000 attendees. We partnered a lot with our community to help us build content.
Sarah Panus:
Hi, my name is Sarah Panus. I have spent the last two decades driving digital content for billion dollar brands. Now I help content marketers build winning brand storytelling strategies and reduce feelings of overwhelm and confusion. Join me as we discuss strategy, creativity, confidence, and building a better connection with your audience. Think of this as a creative content marketing jam session mixed with chicken soup for the soul. This is the Marketing With Empathy podcast.
Sarah Panus:
Hey, Hey, kindred speakers. Welcome back to another weekly episode of the Marketing With Empathy podcast. I'm your host, Sarah Panus. And today we are speaking with Anna Tutckaia from the company, ManyChat. Anna and I are gonna discuss ways to transform your customers into an extension of your marketing team. Sounds pretty good, right? But first, who is Anna Tutckaia? She is, well, she's a really interesting person. I think with a background that's filled with a lot of resilience and smarts.
Sarah Panus:
When I was reading through her bio she's a self-made marketing mother of two and an international entrepreneur who's run successful businesses on two continents. Now as head of digital marketing at ManyChat, the world's leading chat marketing platform, and we'll learn a little bit more about that today. She's helping reshape the marketing strategies of nearly 2 million businesses around the world. Anna approved her skills as an entrepreneur when she successfully launched a chain of farm to table grocery stores in a far off port city in Russia. But when she sought to start a new life with her family in the us, her business ambitions met an unexpected roadblock. And this is where I think her resilience and smarts really comes in. Thanks to her immigration status. She was barred from collecting a paycheck, let alone starting a new business in the us, turning an obstacle into an opportunity.
Sarah Panus:
She refocused her attention on a latent talent that she discovered while running her previous business, which was marketing. She took an unpaid internship at wearable biometric startup, Lumo, body tech, and soon her innovative ad campaigns were driving 80% of the company's revenue. It's pretty dang good intern. Isn't it so impressive were her results that as soon as her work visa was approved, she was promoted directly from unpaid intern to head of the entire digital marketing team. Her smash success was a Testament to her deep knowledge and skill, but also armed with a secret. She was also armed with a secret weapon of ManyChat, their suite. And we're gonna learn more about their suite of automation tools and it really became this indispensable part of her digital arsenal, even helping her power, her own Silicon valley based marketing agency. Sue, when ManyChat asked her to lead their digital marketing team in 2019 couple years ago, she didn't think twice for a marketer. There's nothing better than, you know, marketing or product you really believe in. So we're gonna hear Anna's tips to help you transform your community into an extended marketing team after a word from our sponsors.
Sarah Panus:
All right, welcome to the show, Anna.
Anna Tutckaia:
Hi Sarah. Thank you so much for having me.
Sarah Panus:
Absolutely. So Anna, I, I just love your backstory. I do think I know I mentioned it a lot of resilience and smarts. It's so exciting to hear your success journey and you were gonna talk about customers and making them part of an extension of marketing teams, which for my audience, you, we have all sorts of brand communication content, marketers that are listening right now, who would love to figure out better ways to engage their customers, to help their customers do more even more for their business and to better engage and connect with them. So I've heard you say that a company's customers are the most overlooked marketing resource. What is it with customers that you think brands are overlooking?
Why are brands overlooking their company's customers?
Anna Tutckaia:
I think it first starts, you know, with a goal and objective of every company, right? Which is normally driving growth and driving sales. And very often when I speak to companies, that's their, you know, thing that is top of mind and a lot of companies overlooking, you know, what happens next after this desired, you know, conversion after this desired purchase. And I actually think what comes next is the most important part, you know, of the every interpreter of every marketer, you know, that launches the campaigns because think of it as, you know, filling a huge bucket, you know, with water, which is what you do with driving customers in right, by using ads, by using influencer campaigns, any partnerships, whatever you do on the marketing side of things, but then having this bucket, you know, full of holes, right. And letting water pour away. So what we want to do, you know, with community building is making sure that our bucket is stable and can feel, you know, as many customers, as many water as possible. And that helps you really, you know, to take the customer that you already have a ma make this customer happy and think what else can I provide, you know, to this customer. So they stay with us longer and also bring in way more customers themselves. So they basically become your extended marketing team.
Sarah Panus:
Yeah. And I wanna talk more about your own community of brand ambassadors at ManyChat, but before I get into that and hearing like your own example and what you guys do, tell us a little bit more about ManyChat first, just lay the stage for us, for our, for those of us who are unfamiliar with your company,
Anna Tutckaia:
I'm happy to do that. ManyChat is a chat marketing platform and we work with small and medium businesses and help them to build automations on platforms like messenger, SMS, email, and Instagram. Instagram is a huge hit, especially for, you know, those who use this channel to promote their products and services. And what ManyChat does it is allows to, you know, automate all your DMS allows you sell directly on Instagram, allows you to increase your conversion rate. So you're not, you know, sending traffic outside of Instagram to your homepage or landing pages where like what normally the conversion rate is not, not over than 5%. Right. And then like all this traffic is lost, but actually have these directed connections and communications on the platform itself that you can optimize and that you can optimize and sell directly through the platform.
Sarah Panus:
Oh, gotcha. And are, do you work with all types of companies or do you specialize in any certain industries and types of brands that you work with?
Anna Tutckaia:
No. All sorts of companies use ManyChat. A huge focus is on agencies that run services for their customers, a huge focus on e-commerce because again, like all around telling how to sell smarter, more efficient, but also a lot of local businesses use ManyChat too.
Sarah Panus:
Great. Okay, good. So now that we have a little bit more of a background on what you do and what your company does at ManyChat, let's dig into your community then of ultra loyal brand ambassadors that you've activated at ManyChat. I'd love to hear more about it. So can you tell us more about your community? I'm curious, like how it's structured, who's in it, you know, what you do with them? Like tell us all about it.
The structure and community of ManyChat
Anna Tutckaia:
Yeah, absolutely. So very early on, at ManyChat, we decided that we want to bring the community of our customers and bring them together. And we build a Facebook group currently it's over 1000 people in this Facebook group of amazing smart marketers entrepreneurs who share their secrets, you know, how to grow their companies, how to use the product, but also connect with us as a company, you know, to get the latest updates, to help us build the product. We tend to go to our customers a lot when we're doing any user research when we want to make sure, you know, we understand where the product is going, but then also on the marketing side of things, we work with community a lot. So for example for all of the online events, educational webinars, educational workshops, or bigger summits lately, we had a Instagram summit for 25,000 attendees.
Anna Tutckaia:
We partnered a lot with our community to help us build content. You know, so a lot of them were our speakers. A lot of them were leading the workshops and teaching our prospects on how to do automation flows on how to, you know, specifically use the product or grow their companies within the specific industries. So we do that a lot. And we also, on our side of things, we power, you know, the community with all the knowledge, you know, they need to become better, you know, users, but also to become educators. We power them with coupon codes so they can share with their students or they can share with their audiences. And very often we help them, you know, spread the word by building this co-marketing campaigns with them.
Sarah Panus:
I love that. And I wanna follow up on something that you just said. Tell me, you said you had any, a summit with 25,000 attendees. Is that what you said?
Anna Tutckaia:
Yeah. Wow.
Sarah Panus:
Tell what, where and was it was in person. In person or virtual?
Anna Tutckaia:
No, no, it was virtual.
Sarah Panus:
Okay. Okay. I was gonna say holy cow, but still, that's really impressive. And I love the idea of tapping into your owners, your users to teach it to other people. That's, that's like the most amazing it's a great testimonial. It's a great word of mouth. Like the actual people who are using it. So can you just tell me a little bit more about how that worked, cuz I think that's a great idea for folks listening who have customers that actually could be in more of like a teacher or, you know, answer type role, like how you did that. I would love to hear more on that.
Anna Tutckaia:
Yeah. I think the first step here is really getting to know your customers really well. So once we figured that a lot of our customers are in the educational space, so they teach other marketers, you know, and how to build growth marketing strategies, or they teach marketers on how to build automation for their businesses using ManyChat. We basically put together all those educators in a smaller subgroup, right. Where we spend a lot of time together, first of all, figuring out what they need and how can ManyChat help them, but then also learning a lot from them. Right. So as a company, it's impossible for us, you know, to know everything you know, about all the industries about all the geolocation. So we rely heavily on this group. So for instance, when we were putting together content for IG summit, right, we knew, okay, we needed a certain amount of educators in e-commerce space. So we reached out to those, you know, whom we knew were experts in this field, within our customers. And then same for like agencies, same for like restaurant businesses, so on and so forth. So I would say that's the most important thing. First of all, knowing them then making sure, you know, you are in continuous communication with them, but then also providing them the opportunity, you know, to be your voice when it's needed.
Sarah Panus:
Mm yeah. And that's really key with the community. Isn't it? I mean, it's like you create a community and it's not really a community if there's not ongoing engagement. So it sounds like you do an amazing job with that. Your company, your team does because you knew, and you can segment for when moments like your Instagram summit happened and you need certain educators in certain industries, you can go to that community to find them. So I actually think that's a great example of another way that people can, that companies can tap into their owner base. Had you found, I'm curious, you know, in communities you know, what works best to engage your community? Is there any types of activities or things that you do with that community that tend to work better than others?
Anna Tutckaia:
I would say the first and most important thing is providing that safe place, right? Where you have a certain set of rules and guidelines, right? So everyone has an opportunity to share, you know, their information and they know that they will be heard and they will be listened to. And no one, you know, will basically bully them or, you know, leave any negative feedback or negative comments. So we stay on top of the game there. So we have admins, you know, who run the community and who make sure that the environment is always positive there. So that's the first and most important part. The second part I would say is constantly providing content, interesting content that community needs to engage, you know, them with this, with conversations to engage them, you know, with newest information, you can provide them either about your product or about the industry or about, you know, the geolocation you are at that is, you know, important for your products or services.
Anna Tutckaia:
Then I would say outside of content to make sure you understand what content your community needs, right. You need to always ask them. So for example, we like on a monthly basis, we have our questionnaire to our community where we ask them, okay guys, what are your needs? What do you want to learn more? What do you want us to share with you more on, you know, regular basis? Because you never know, right? Normally you are isolated, you have your goals and objectives, like as a team you are working towards, but it's very important to actually, you know make this pulse check and go back to your community and ask these questions.
Sarah Panus:
Yeah, definitely. And that plays in a big role within this podcast. We talk about marketing with empathy. It's having empathy for your owner base in this instance and, and having a, having a dialogue and not having it just be a one way where you're just pushing, pushing, pushing product stuff with them, you're asking, you're engaging them. You're, it's a two way street back and forth. And so that, that it actually creates a community. So good job doing that.
Anna Tutckaia:
Yeah. And also community members, at least some of them they want to be heard. Right. So thinking, how can you award them, you know, for being a part of your, your community, can you invite them to your, you know, Instagram account and do lives? You know, can you create a webinar where invite some of the community members, you know, to have an interesting discussion together and then share with your audience, with the rest of the audience, this material everyone really wants, you know, to be heard, to be seen and for their ideas, you know, to be shared.
Sarah Panus:
Yeah. And I'm curious, why did you guys decide to do it in a Facebook group versus another platform?
Anna Tutckaia:
Since our first product was messenger automation, all of our customers were on Facebook and it was just such an easy, you know, thing for, you know, for us to do, but then also for customers, you know, to be at. So I would say whenever you are thinking, where do you want to create your community? Think about your customers again, like getting back to your customers and asking them, where do they hang out the most? You know, what would be the most convenient for them and then create the space there.
Sarah Panus:
Okay. Anna, you've been giving us some great tips and it's really helpful to hear, you know, how other companies do it. So that's why I love having folks from companies on to share what do they do, cuz it gives us all different inspiration for our own companies. Are there any other tips we haven't, you haven't already mentioned that for everyone listening right now would help them think about or about how to engage their customers more.
Tips from anna to help engage your customers further
Anna Tutckaia:
Yeah, I think we've already, I mean, we've already discussed a lot about engagement, you know, how to engage. I would also want to talk about how to bring users inside your community, how to bring customers inside your community, because the bigger the community, you know, the bigger the engagement people start to engage, you know, with themselves. And then there is always this buzz happening. So a lot of the times when I use the product very lately, you know, I got to know that, oh, they actually have the community. So I would say it's very important to keep reminding your users that there is this place where they can enter and all the benefits that they're getting from both the brand itself and then also connecting with others. So we do it through all the marketing, you know, channels possible. We do it through the website.
Anna Tutckaia:
When you go, go to ManyChat.com, you see it right on the homepage that we have our Facebook community that we are very proud of. We always include this an hour welcome email series where, okay, if you have questions, you know, or if you want to get to know the latest product updates, or if you want to connect with like-minded folks, you know, join the community, we also have it in product. And then also in support, you know, it takes time for the support team to get back with the answers. So we always say in the meantime, go to our Facebook group and see if you can find answers there. So it helps, you know, with this organic growth. And if you are, if you're doing ads, you can also do it on the paid side of things. I don't think it works from, for the cold audience, but for the warm audience, you know, you can create filter out those, you know, customers that are not, let's say in your community and run, you know, ads, inviting them to join.
Sarah Panus:
Smart. Okay. That's great. So tons of great tips there, things to think about with your own communities, folks, and then Anna, any watch outs, like anything that you've done, that's totally bombed and not worked or things that you've seen others do where you're like, Ooh, don't do that. It doesn't work very well. Anything like that? You, you wanna highlight?
Anna Tutckaia:
That's interesting. I think the biggest one that we actually trapped into is not being active on the community ourselves. I think at some point, you know, there was, you know, we had this big, you know, lively community, we decided, okay, like we can actually decrease the amount of hours we spend there ourselves. And it wasn't good. So the engagement rates, they go down, you know, immediately, once you do that. So you need to be constantly there connecting, communicating, sharing content. So that's, I think the biggest, the second one is I think it goes with everything, you know, in business promising and not delivering. So if you are asking something, if you're asking your community, what content do they prefer, or what online events do you want us to, you know, create for you do that, yeah. So always deliver what's promised and better over deliver.
Anna Tutckaia:
Right? And the last one is not setting guidelines and you know very specific rules, what can be done and what cannot be done. I think it's something that you will always get back to and, you know, add to improve something you will be removed, but that should be always there because a lot of people will come back to you and ask why, you know, Anna want like, did that post? Why can't I, so for example, why can't I share, you know, my educational training when we, you know, don't allow users to, you know, sell and promote a lot of their services, we don't want it to become, you know, an ad platform. Yeah. So having this guidelines is very important.
Sarah Panus:
Definitely. Okay. So you've covered a lot already, but is there anything else that I haven't asked you about yet that you wanna add or do you think we've covered it all?
Anna Tutckaia:
I think we we've covered, covered it all. Like in marketing, in business, I always, you know, it all comes down to basics, like knowing your customers really well, asking questions, delivering product that answers, you know, their needs and then doing everything possible, you know, to keep those customers with you, you know, with the brand and by constantly nurturing them, taking care of them, you know, connecting them together. I think that's the key. Mm,
Sarah Panus:
Beautiful. Okay. So as we're gonna be wrapping up here, I would love to tell everyone how they can find you online, where should they go to connect with you and learn more.
Anna Tutckaia:
I'm on LinkedIn as Anna Tutckaia, and you can also go to annadigital.co and learn more about myself. And also there is a place to connect with me there. Perfect.
Sarah Panus:
And then ManyChat is where would you like people to connect, to learn more about if they're interested in chat, marketing, how should they find out more? There
Anna Tutckaia:
Absolutely go to ManyChat.com
Sarah Panus:
And you'll find all the information there. Okay. I'll make sure I put all those links in the show notes folks. So if you're driving and out and about, and can't write that down right now. No worries. Just click the link on the show notes and this podcast description, and you can find those.
EXCLUSIVE MANYCHAT FREE TRIAL OFFER
I'm excited to share that Anna and the ManyChat team have a free offer for all of my listeners. You can try one month of ManyChat pro completely free. Just go to ManyChat.com click get started. Once you sign up for your account, all you'll need to do to unlock this offer is use the code podcast. This is a limited opportunity though. So if you're interested in chat marketing, be sure to sign up before all the offers are claimed. So that was wonderful. So thanks again, Anna. Thank you so much for coming on to share more about what you do with us.
Closing Remarks
Sarah Panus:
Hi fives for finishing another episode. When faced with an obstacle, you’re the type of person who gets better instead of bitter. I hope you feel creatively inspired and invite you to check back often for more goodness from me and my guest. If you want more actionable advice and inspiration head over to kindredspeak.com for show notes, all discount codes from today's episode, and to sign up for my newsletter. Subscribe now to the Marketing With Empathy podcast on Apple Podcast, Spotify and wherever else you get your podcast. And if you'd be so kind, will you please leave me a review. This helps my podcast get noticed by others. Keep smiling.
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ABOUT SARAH PANUS
Sarah Panus is a brand storytelling marketing strategist, Minnesota mom, and owner of Kindred Speak, LLC, a remote consultancy that helps corporations attract upper-funnel leads that drive bottom-funnel results through storytelling. Her mission is to add value to the world by humanizing brand+consumer connections. Her online courses teach content professionals inside corporations think like Editorial Directors for their brand to drive stronger results while enjoying their jobs more. She’s spent the last 20 years helping brands including Sleep Number, Starbucks, Nestle Waters, Christos Bridal, Game Crazy, Cone Inc, and others, speak a kindred language with their audiences, driving brand advocacy and millions in revenue and brand engagements. Learn more at www.kindredspeak.com. Follow Sarah on Instagram and LinkedIn.
