Case study
Imagine writing 60 event emails — on top of creating copy for demand generation, product, and EMEA marketing.
It was doable when Contentstack had 200 employees, says Senior Content Manager Kevin Thomas. When the company’s headcount doubled (in just two years), so did its marketing output.
Thomas needed copywriting support to keep up. But AI and freelancers slowed him down. Email engagement suffered as a result.
That’s when he hired me.
Contentstack grew faster than its creative team and systems and processes.
For Thomas, this meant a Monday.com board overflowing with last-minute copy orders — especially during their annual conference, ContentCon.
AI and freelancers failed to deliver high-quality copy at scale. And email opens, clicks, and conversions soon fell.
Chatbots take work on the back and front end. Thomas would spend five minutes prompting and another 20 minutes editing each email. Even then, the copy was low quality and didn’t sound like Contentstack.
“Jasper and ChatGPT are great, but the email writing sucks,” says Thomas. “A lot of marketing teams don’t have people who are good writers, so they spend hours and hours or use AI to do this, and it just turns out terrible.”
Human copy support added to Thomas’ workload. Freelancers couldn’t get Contentstack’s product, voice, and tone right. Thomas would spend thirty minutes copyediting each email.
“If you have to edit something that some other professional has written, you shouldn’t spend more than 15 seconds editing. Not a good match then,” recalls Thomas.
AI and freelancers weren’t just a hassle; their subpar outputs hurt Contentstack’s email engagement.
For example, software companies have an average email open rate of 28.11% and a click rate of 2.39%. The average open-and-click rate on ContentCon’s promotional emails was 12% and 1.2%.
What do webinar, promotional, and event email campaigns have in common? Conversion copywriting can move the needle on all three. And that’s exactly what Thomas brought me in to do.
Here’s a snapshot of my process:
My first step was to learn about Contentstack and its product: a headless CMS and composable digital experience platform (DXP).
I studied Contentstack’s messaging framework, brand voice guide, website, and solution briefs. That way, I knew what points to hit when writing about the product — in the right tone and voice.
“Auroriele really has a knack for getting the right information about our product,” says Thomas. “I love that she pushes the boundaries with our brand voice because I think our marketing all sounded the same before.”
Next, I mined Contentstack and its competitors’ case studies and G2 reviews. This gave me insights into customers’ top pain points and desires. It also showed me what they love about Contentstack and where competitors’ solutions fall short.
I collected unique and emotionally charged language, so I could write sticky marketing copy.
Then I plugged that voice-of-customer data into proven direct-response copywriting frameworks. This ensured the copy was persuasive without sounding sales-y.
Finally, I used persuasion tactics like fear of missing out (FOMO), social proof, and urgency to make Contentstack’s email offers irresistible.
After dealing with copywriters who couldn’t grasp Contentstack’s product, voice, and tone, Thomas is pleased with my data-driven, strategic approach — and the results. He also appreciates the Loom videos I send explaining my decision-making process for each email sequence because it saves him time reviewing the copy.
“When you’re a small team, you don’t always have time to figure out the best way to approach a campaign. Auroriele is the ideal partner because she takes a strategic approach with minimal direction. She does the research on the backend and sends videos explaining her copy decisions,” says Thomas.
Thomas relies on AI and other freelancers less after engaging me. He even let some contractors go. Now, he uses AI only for the tasks it’s good at — like spinning out headline variations.
“I’m now using AI more effectively. And the quality of our output is way better because we have a qualified human in the spot. When you have good freelancers on your team, it’s like a force-multiplying factor,” says Thomas.
Contentstack’s email clicks and conversions are up. Its creative and campaign teams are more organized and productive. And Kevin even got a promotion.
Email performance improved across the board — from webinars to events and promotional campaigns.
Contentstack’s winter product roadmap webinar emails drove the most registrations they’ve ever had for a non-partner-promoted webinar.
ContentCon promotional emails saw higher open and click rates than the previous year: 40% and 100% (2X), respectively.
Emails for an incentivized G2 campaign brought in over 50 new, positive reviews (in just a few weeks).
Thomas says the creative team’s productivity has increased twofold since bringing me on.
“Because of the quality of the copy Auroriele produces and delivers on time, I barely have to do any copy edits,” says Thomas.
Working with me incentivized the campaign team to get more organized. They plan campaigns four weeks out now, so they can give me enough information and time. If the quality wasn’t there, explains Thomas, they wouldn’t think scheduling ahead is worth it.
Plus, Thomas goes to fewer meetings because email communications are on track.
The cherry on top? Thomas got promoted to senior content manager.
“I got a promotion recently, and I think part of that is due to managing the relationship with Auroriele. Thanks to her always being on time and the copy always being high quality, it’s a box that they can check: Kevin can manage freelance writers. And that isn’t always the case because some relationships with freelancers are like pulling teeth,” says Thomas.
Looking to the future, Thomas plans to expand the partnership, bringing me in for more webinars and event campaigns. He also wants to leverage my strategic approach to A/B test landing pages.
“I would love to stop guessing. I think the way that Auroriele has built up her working process would be perfect for us when we have data to see what’s working and what’s not. It’d probably be more collaborative with us asking her to give expert input on our campaigns’ performance.”
Lastly, Thomas hopes their new CMO goes in a bolder direction, and he knows he can count on me to take their brand voice there.
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