Elastic Email is being used by lots of different people. We have great enterprises, small ambitious businesses, and talented freelancers all across the world, who are a part of our platform.
Without them, we would have a really hard time making it work. Showing appreciation is really important to us. That’s why we wanted to give you a case example of a business that is using our products and why.
Table of Contents
- What is DailyStep?
- Who is using DailyStep.com?
- Where are the customers coming from?
- Why Elastic Email?
- What’s the first thing that most people forget to do before sending emails?
- What advice do you have for anyone trying to build their own business?
So we contacted one of our users with an invitation to tell us about their experience with Elastic Email. We were ecstatic to receive an extensive reply telling us about their business and experience with our company. And who is this customer you might ask? Let me introduce you.
What is DailyStep?
DailyStep English is an online English learning system providing both daily audio lessons and other kinds of English courses to subscribers. DailyStep English was launched in 2008 by Jane - the founder.
She realized that her students’ speaking and listening skills were usually at a much lower level than their reading and writing skills and used her own classroom methods to fix these issues. Later she developed them into online exercises on her website, DailyStep.com, so that English learners worldwide could use the lessons.
The idea is that you learn a little each day but you learn it perfectly. A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.
Jane runs many aspects of the website herself – so you could call her a solopreneur– although there are several other members on the team now. DailyStep.com has an excellent developer called Vijay in admin, email assistance from Brodie and Brendan and Jane’s husband who helps to write and record some of the lessons. Apart from that, DailyStep.com expands and contracts as needed – sometimes there is a team of professional actors to voice the materials, and sometimes there is someone for a few months to help with creating content. Additionally, she’s very mobile - working using mobile, tablet, laptop, and of course, microphone.
Who is using DailyStep.com?
Customers come from all over the world and they are all English learners or English teachers. They come to DailyStep.com because it is simple to use, and very effective.
DailyStep Lessons are inspected and certified by the Continuing Professional Development Service (CPD) so after completing a course, members can get an internationally-recognized certificate that they can add to their CV or Resume. This is a major reason why some members use DailyStep. Other members are taking exams such as IELTS so they use DailyStep to get higher exam scores. Others just want to improve conversation and listening skills.
Where are the customers coming from?
Most of the traffic comes organically as lessons are popular and widely recommended by word of mouth. DailyStep English ranks very highly for some topics on search engines such as Google. We additionally run multiple social media channels and advertise using Facebook and Google re-marketing.
Why Elastic Email?
DailyStep.com has been using Elastic Email since April 2018 for all their transactional emails (lessons, reminders, blogs and so on) and also for all marketing emails. They made the decision to try Elastic Email after reading reviews online about it's ease of use and attractive pricing for the volume of emails she needed to send.
Over the years I had tried many other systems, such as SocketLabs On-Demand, GroupMail, SendinBlue, MailChimp, Atomic, and Amazon SES. I had also run my own mail server, which was definitely the cheapest way to do things but also took up a lot of my precious time and mental focus.
When I started using Elastic Email, I was attracted by the ease with which I could build templates, sort and segment email lists, and by the price of course. I have over 96,000 engaged users on my mailing list, and I email them all once or twice a week, so with other mailing systems costs could quickly spiral out of control!
Elastic has helped me to reach the goal of maintaining regular contact with my members, with minimal but effective amounts of time spent on mailing list hygiene, and my goal of keeping my mailing costs down.
What’s the first thing that most people forget to do before sending emails?
Make sure your domain name is correctly verified when sending bulk emails, otherwise, your emails will end up in the spam box or not delivered at all! Elastic Email makes this process really simple.
What advice do you have for anyone trying to build their own business?
Be optimistic and keep at it. There are bound to be times when things don’t go your way. But if you have the right idea and the right attitude, you can make it work. If it is a new kind of business, always have a backup plan like other freelance work to keep you going at the beginning.
You need to learn a lot of new skills – many more than you bargained for when you started your business! But fortunately, there is a huge amount of advice online. Just ask Google or YouTube and someone somewhere will show you how to do it.
It’s important to keep fit and make time to relax away from work. Running your own business can be stressful as well as rewarding. Your mind will be clearer if you eat well, sleep well, keep fit and enjoy life. This will make it easier to concentrate and come up with creative ideas - both essential parts of running a business.
I love the Elastic Email interface. It is a pleasure to use it. It is definitely the easiest system I have ever used. The Elastic Support is great as well - my questions are always answered promptly and the team is so helpful.
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