Season 02 • Episode 04

Nancy Roberts & Ashley Schmitt, YOUAPPI

What happens when you get 4 really good friends together for a podcast episode? A whole lot of fun, giggles, and positive energy! Hang out with us and YouAppi’s Nancy Roberts & Ashley Schmitt for a quick shot of attention and a brief escape from your day to hear us talk about Appy Hour drinks, calls vs texts, aliens, emoticons, and how to rethink your outreach strategies during challenging times when we can’t network in person.


Appy Hour Talk Show • Season 02, Episode 04

Nancy & Ash from YouAppi Transcript

Ariel: Hi Louis.

Louis: Founder of AGS. Hello Ariel Neidermeier.

Ariel: Director of content at AGS. How are you today?

Louis: I’m doing amazing, who’s with us today.

Ariel: We’ve got Nancy Roberts, Chief Marketing Officer from YouAppi.

Louis: And we have Ashley Schmitt, the Senior Marketing Manager at YouAppi.

Ariel: Thanks for joining us ladies.

Louis: Is that correct?

Ariel: Yep.

Nancy: Thanks for having us guys.

Ariel: You’re some of our favorites, we love you so thanks for hanging out…

Nancy: and we love you both.

Louis: Mostly.

Ashley: Most days.

Ariel: Well, this is Appy hour. We try to keep it fun and light, whilst kind of informative. And we’re going to ask you a bunch of questions, I promise they’ll be hyper-relevant the whole time.

Louis: There’s the irreverent part.

Ariel: Yeah right.

Louis: Well, let’s start off with some fun questions Ariel.

Ariel: Fun questions.

Louis: And since it’s the Appy hour, after a long, hard day at work retargeting for brands and apps, what drink do you turn to at the end of the day, to soothe yourself?

Ariel: To soothe your soul, after a long day of retargeting, what do you drink?

Ashley: I usually go for nice glass of red wine, something to decompress and take my mind off things.

Nancy: But it depends on am I buying the drink or you guys buying?

Ariel: Okay, let’s say we’re buying.

Nancy: Oh, okay.

Louis: Top shelf…

Nancy: Well I’ll take a 1942 neat.

Ariel: Yes girl.

Louis: No comprendo!

Ariel: Okay, you’re buying.

Nancy: Oh shit.

Louis: Two-Buck Chuck!

Ashley: House wine.

Ariel: I feel like my drink differs by season, if it’s the summer versus if it’s…

Nancy: Is it an Aperol Spritz in the summer?

Ariel: I do like an Aperol Spritz.

Ashley: How fitting.

Louis: YouAperol Spritz.

Ariel: It isn’t an Aperol Spritz outside in the sun, right?

Louis: Yeah.

Ariel: I mean, I like a Paloma too. A Paloma’s good.

Nancy: Paloma’s are delicious.

Ariel: They’re delicious. Louis what about you?

Louis: Guess it depends on where I’m at or what I’m doing. I’ll usually go with the Moscow Mule or probably a vodka tonic.

Ashley: I’m a vodka drinker.

Louis: Vodka.

Ariel: Yes, girl.

Nancy: I am not.

Ashley: Oh God, Vodka whiskey on a hard day.

Ariel: Is that your mixer? The whiskey?

Ashley: No no, or… Vodka or whiskey on a bad day.

Ariel: Okay, so we are going to start off with some fun, light and loose questions. Feel free to both answer or if someone has a burning answer, to answer first. So first question, what is an app that you can’t live without?

Nancy: I would say Amazon because I order my toilet paper, my dish wash soap, paper towels…

Ariel: It’s dangerous the Amazon app, I feel like I order things I don’t need all the time.

Nancy: I don’t… subscribe and save. I don’t have to go to Costco anymore.

Ariel: Totally.

Nancy: It’s fantastic.

Ariel: Yeah, Ash?

Ashley: I would probably say Spotify. It’s playing at home, it’s playing on my way to work, it’s playing at work where I listen to absolutely everything. So definitely…

[Ariel spills drink.]

Louis: And….scene! Just for those who wonder what the hell just happened Ariel, in typical Ariel fashion by the way, just spilled something.

Ariel: My macho latte, which is also very Ariel.

Ashley: I just had a macho right before coming here.

Ariel: Did you?

Ashley: We started to get on the wrong train this time.

Louis: So Ariel will always bump into something, slip off a stage, spill a drink. She needs a sippy cup for her sippy cup and…

Ariel: I honestly shouldn’t wear white. I just shouldn’t.

Louis: Or you should just have a work of modern art on your shirt.

Ariel: Well, I do carry a Tide to go pen everywhere I go.

Nancy: There’s a reason why we all get along.

Ariel: When you go eat lobster and you wear the bib, I feel like we should always have the bib.

Nancy: I feel like I need bumpers.

Ariel: Do you think that aliens exist?

Ashley: They walk among us.

Ariel: Overall we do believe that there is life out there in the universe.

Louis: It’s been proven that there is life, there’s microbial bacterial life.

Ariel: I agree yeah, but is there intelligent life is what we’re asking?

Louis: Is there intelligent…

Ashley: Is there intelligent life here?

Louis: Yeah, high five. Is there intelligent life here?

Ariel: I don’t think so.

Nancy: I’m more of a Spaceballs fan.

Ashely: Oh, we’ve been jammed.

Ariel: What’s your most used emoji?

Nancy: The wink. I think it lightens up the most serious of topics. I mean, there’s no tone in text, right? Whether you’re texting on your phone or if it’s in an email. Provided, it’s not a professional work email, you can throw in a Winky face in there and everything is okay.

Ashley: I throw smiley faces all over my emails.

Ariel: Yeah, same.

Ashley: Often.

Louis: I do that too, I draw a lot of smiley faces. I never do winks though, I don’t do winks because-

Nancy: I do winks, not in emails.

Louis: … as a guy if I’m emailing a girl I think it might be creepy.

Ariel: That’s true, I don’t think I would like a wink from a dude on a mail.

Ashley: Mine’s more of like the blushing smiley or the upside down smiley-

Louis: I’ve got the tongue sticking out.

Nancy: … Because you never know…

Ariel: I like the upside down smiley, that reflects my life I feel in a way.

Louis: I like the tongue sticking out with one eye closed and one eye wide open. That one or…

Nancy: Or the googly eyes one?

Louis: Yeah I like that one.

Ashley: I do a lot of the eye roll one too, depending on who it’s going to.

Louis: The goofiest emoji.

Ariel: I think a lot of this year has been the facepalm emoji for me.

Ashley: A nice visual.

Ariel: The face Palm emoji and then also I was noticing I’ve been using that tornado emoji a lot too.

Ashley: Wow!

Louis: What’s going on in your life? Oh, maybe we don’t have time for that.

Ariel: Yeah, right.

Ashley: Let the dust settle first.

Nancy: Let’s rumble.

Ariel: Okay so obviously with the pandemic, the way people are seeing each other in the space has changed, we can’t be face-to-face anymore. How has that changed your inbound marketing?

Nancy: So that’s a really good question. Mobile has been such a high touch industry, right? We’re used to seeing each other in person, I’ve seen my mobile friends that live from anywhere from Berlin to Australia to France at least once a quarter. And with the start of the pandemic, I would say that we’ve really had to pivot and think about how do we reach our customer in a different way. We’re not meeting in person anymore. And how do we reach them in a way that is unique.

Nancy (cont’d): There’s so much email fatigue out there right now, it’s a real thing. I don’t know about you, but there are at least 30 to 50 emails that I don’t read a day just because they’re all sales emails and we all have the same strategy. We’re all trying to reach out to each other through email. So at YouAppi we try to think about the individual, the person that we’re selling to. We put ourselves in their place, what do they want to hear? What do they want to read about? We want to put out meaningful and relevant content, so we try to do that.

Nancy (cont’d): We put out two pieces of unique content a week. Talking about very timely issues that are going on in the industry right now. And we also host a lot of virtual events and by virtual events, I don’t mean we’re doing webinars, and we expect like 12 people to call in and listen to our thought leadership piece. Although we have done a great webinar as well. We did a workout series with Adjust. We did four at home workouts with Barry’s Bootcamp and it was a great success. We had over 60 mobile marketers each time we’re sweating, taking care of ourselves, thinking about our own mental health in what we’re dealing with living at work.

Nancy (cont’d): And we’re also hosting recipes for retargeting success, where we bring in a professional chef and he shows us how to make different dishes. We have our second one coming up, which will be a lot of fun. And we’re also trying to think about how to stand out in these emails and the way that we deliver our content. Is it going to be speaking to you in a very professional way? I don’t know about you, but I scan those emails and I gloss right over them. It has to be something that’s very eye-catching, talk to me like I’m a human. Talk to me the way that you would talk to your friends, how do you sell something? It has to be recommended by a friend. So talk to me like I’m your friend. So that’s one thing that I press with the team a lot is, think about your user persona. Who is reading and digesting the content that you’re about to write.

Ashley: Across the board, relevance matters. Whether it’s ads or whether it’s marketing to the people running the ads, relevance matters. It has to be personal, has to be personalized and relevant. Otherwise, there’s not going to be much there to go off of.

Louis: Yeah, then you’re not going to get any pull from that and say, “Well, this didn’t work.” No, you just didn’t do it right. One of my analogies is going up to a piano and trying to play Mozart and wondering why it doesn’t work. You don’t know how to play.

Nancy: Throwing money at things also doesn’t work, by the way. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been offered a hundred dollar DoorDash gift card, just to book a phone call. I refuse that, because not only will they have my phone number, but now they also have my email and I really don’t have 30 minutes to invest in a phone call for a DoorDash card.

Ariel: All right so we are going to play a little game of “This or That,” it’s very complex. I’m going to say two different things and I want you to pick one don’t…

Nancy: At the same time?

Ariel: Yes, at the same time yeah. And pick one and don’t think about it too hard. It’s supposed to just come from your heart. Okay, fire or ice?

Ashley: Fire.

Nancy: Ice.

Ariel: Sweet or salty.

Nancy & Ashley (simultaneously): Salty.

Ariel: Piercings or tattoos.

Nancy: Tattoos.

Ashley: Both. Tattoos probably.

Ariel: Morning or evening.

Nancy: Morning.

Ashley: Evening.

Louis: Judging by your Instagrams I would agree with both.

Ariel: I know it’s amazing, your Instagram is total inspo.

Nancy: Thank you.

Ariel: Okay. Ashley city or country?

Ashley: Country.

Ariel: Nancy, taco or burrito?

Nancy: Taco.

Ashely: Good choice.

Ariel: No cheating. Ashley, analog watch or digital watch?

Ashley: Digital.

Ariel: Nancy, sugar or spice?

Nancy: Spice.

Ariel: Ashley, teacher or student?

Ashley: Student.

Ariel: Nancy, breakfast or dinner?

Nancy: Breakfast for dinner.

Ashley: Mic drop.

Ariel: Ashley, call or text?

Ashley: Text.

Ariel: Nancy, same question.

Nancy: Text. Just don’t call, I will not pick up the call.

Louis: Just don’t call, ever.

Nancy: I think I had 221 missed calls, I just cleared them.

Ashley: Geez. My gosh.

Ariel: I never checked my voicemail. Ashley, sunrise or sunset?

Ashley: Both, sunset.

Ariel: Nancy, TikTok or Instagram Reels?

Nancy: Instagram Reels.

Ariel: Oh really?

Nancy: I don’t even know how to… I don’t have TikTok.

Ariel: Nancy doesn’t tick or tok.

Nancy: I don’t TikTok. I watch the re-runs on Instagram.

Ariel: Yeah, right the reposts on Instagram Reels.

Louis: Or whatever I have to download as a video, then text her and say, “Look at this funny video.”

Nancy: That’s true, that is how TikTok videos are shared with me, they’re sent via text message.

Ashley: Me too.

Ariel: Ashley, work from home or go into the office?

Ashley: Oh…

Ariel: Time’s up.

Ashley: Yeah, I don’t know.

Ariel: Nancy, same question.

Nancy: I like going into the office.

Ariel: See Nancy, you know, I just want to bring something up that I got word of. You and I are similar in a lot of ways and not just the going into the office thing, which I prefer too, because this work from home life is really frustrating me.

Nancy: No, because you’re living at work, you’re not working from home. You are living at work.

Ashley: Yeah, but I like the PJ game.

Ariel: So yeah, it felt like a snow day at first, “Oh, we don’t have to go to school today? Whoa, I can stay in bed for this meeting.” But now I just feel I’m chained to my computer and…

Ashley: It’s tough.

Ariel: Big Brother’s going to know if I even go on a walk, you know what I mean? Or Slack is going to know.

Nancy: You went idle.

Ariel: Exactly. I saw your green light go off. But the other thing I wanted to ask you, because I heard from a little birdie that you might be similar to me about this, there’s an ongoing question that I’ve been asking people. Do you place your coffee mugs right side up or upside down in the cupboard?

Nancy: Upside down.

[Ariel beamingly ecstatically overcome with joy.]

Ariel: That’s great!! …and why do you do that?

Nancy: Because Dust and bugs and things can settle in your cup.

Ariel: Yeah you don’t say.

Nancy: You want a fresh cup.

Louis: I wish you could see Ariel’s face right now.

Ashley: Gleaming.

Louis: The entire season no one agreed with her, she finally found a friend.

Ariel: You’re the only person that has yet to answer that question with upside down. Everyone else… I mean a bunch of, no I’m not going to be…

Ashley: I should send you a picture of my little coffee station in my house. It’s all upside down.

Ariel: Yeah.

Louis: What? Both of you?

Ashley: Yeah.

Louis: Savages.

Nancy: We’re three peas in a pod.

Ariel: Too bad we don’t have an office to organize our coffee mugs in. All working from home.

Louis: Why don’t you go into it like a co-working station and just turn over all the mugs?

Ariel: I will! Not even passive aggressively…directly aggressively!

Ashley: Directly aggressively.

Ariel: Yeah anyways, I think it’s really interesting how everyone does it, but that’s fine.

Ashley: So everyone else doesn’t that you’ve talked to? What do they say?

Ariel: Literally every single person-

Ashley: What’s their rationale?

Ariel: … Right side up and they-

Ashley: Because why?

Nancy: Wait, are they all single men?

Louis: No.

Ariel: Actually no, they’re not all single men, but a majority of them are. So, thanks for pointing out that demo. They say that it’s because it’s easier to stack cups when you do it that way.

Nancy: That’s not true.

Ashley: It stacks the same way. Top to bottom, bottom to top.

Ariel: I’m not even going to make my argument because you’re covering it for me.

Louis: The reason why I do it right side up is because my mugs have funny sayings on them. And when I open up I want to look at them all. So if they’re upside down, then I have to like translate and think, but it’s not as immediately satisfying. It’s open up, I see all the funny little things and I’m okay.

Nancy: So, I’m a creature of habit. I use the same mug for my coffee every single morning. And it says, “Fuck it.” That’s the clever saying on my mug.

Ashley: It’s inspiring.

Louis: We could do a whole podcast on what types of ironic mugs do you have, but we need to wrap up.

Ariel: We do, unfortunately.

Louis: It was so much fun with the YouAppi ladies.

Ariel: Yeah.

Louis: If people want to get ahold of you just go to YouAppi.com and learn how to retarget better?

Nancy: Yes, we have all of your retargeting needs covered.

Ariel: Or catch them on one of their virtual events.

Louis: Or at an App Growth Summit!

Ashley: Don’t worry, ReAppi.

Louis: Ah, boom.

Ariel: Thanks for joining us.

Nancy: I think that was the true mic drop.

Ashley (singing): Don’t worry.

Nancy (singing): … ReAppi.

Ariel: Send us home, ladies! Okay, well thanks so much for coming, it’s always nice to see you.

Ashley: Thank you.

Louis: Thank you.

Ashley: Great chatting with you.

Nancy: Thanks Ariel, thanks Louis.

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