Podcast Archives - The Good https://thegood.com/insight-category/podcast/ Optimizing Digital Experiences Mon, 06 Nov 2023 15:18:13 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.9.4 Revisiting and Refreshing Our Company Values with Jon MacDonald and Natalie Thomas https://thegood.com/insights/refreshing-core-values/ Thu, 01 Dec 2022 14:59:32 +0000 https://thegood.com/?post_type=insights&p=102280 Listen to this episode: Subscribe to the show: About this episode: What makes a company different from the rest? The core values at The Good reflect who we are and what’s important to us. In this special episode, Jon and Natalie return to discuss how they came up with our core values and why they’re […]

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About this episode:

What makes a company different from the rest? The core values at The Good reflect who we are and what’s important to us. In this special episode, Jon and Natalie return to discuss how they came up with our core values and why they’re critical in our day-to-day operations.

In this episode, you’ll learn things about: 

  • What being a B Corp-certified company means for us 
  • How The Good came up with our core values
  • How our core values affect the direction of the company and its employees
  • Why EOS was a good fit for us and how it helped us implement the core values 

Learn more about Jon and Natalie here

Want to be a guest on our show? Have feedback or ideas for how we can improve? Send your thoughts over to podcast@thegood.com. We’ll be keeping an eye on that inbox. 🙂 

The Ecommerce Insights Show is brought to you by The Good, a Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO) consultancy specializing in helping ecommerce businesses accelerate their growth through better research, testing, and design. Learn more about our team, our work, and our services at www.thegood.com.

Episode Transcript:

[00:00:00] James Sowers (Director of Marketing): So here’s the question. How can you, commerce leaders make sure that they are producing a great product, providing a world-class customer experience responsibly managing the finances and still reserve time, energy and resources for marketing their products. My name is James Sauers, and you’re listening to the e-commerce insight show.

[00:00:16] The podcast that gives you a specific, actionable advice for growing your e-commerce business. Every Monday, you’ll get a conversion rate optimization tactic that you can implement quickly to make your business 1% better. Every single. Every Thursday, we sit down with industry experts to go deep on a specific aspect of running a successful e-commerce business.

[00:00:34] It’s the perfect blend of learning and application, which means that you maximize the value of every single minute you spend with us. We’re just as committed to growing your business as you are. So if you’re looking for a partner to help you crush your revenue goals, you’ve come to the right place, roll up your sleeves and grab a notepad because it’s time to get to work.

James Sowers: Um, all right, so let’s just dive right in. I think the purpose of our conversation today is to talk about, you know, an exciting new change that we’ve had here at the good and rolling out some new core values.

And we’ve been talking for awhile about doing a little bit more content around, you know, our organizational culture and how we think, how we run our business, how we collaborate as a team now, a distributed team, which is a relatively recent development as well. So. Um, you know, a lot of good stuff we want to cover today, but maybe the best place to jump in is kind of like starting at the beginning.

Right? The origin story of the good. And I know one of the big things that we like to talk about and, um, promote is our status as a B corporation. I know that comes with a whole host of upsides, but also a whole host of maybe not obligations, but commitments, right. That we’ve made to, um, satisfy the requirements of being a certified B Corp.

So. I, I don’t know what your timeline is with the B Corp designation, uh, Natalie, but maybe I know John was there for it obviously. So how did that come to be? Like, when did we decide that we wanted to pursue becoming a certified or registered B corporation? And what was that decision making process like?

Jon MacDonald: Well, it was one of the things where we were already doing a lot of the tactics that get deployed for B corporation. And the more that. I looked around at, you know, it’s one thing for a company to say, we do all these great things and we care about the planet and our people more than profits essentially is what the sane is for B corporation.

But it’s one thing to have that verified by an independent third. And to get that certification. So as we’re interviewing more people, the, in looking to grow our team, the more I realized that they’re hearing the same things from all these companies. And I was looking at how do we, how do I, can I go to somebody, look them in the eye and.

This is, this is real, like it’s been verified by a third party and we’re held to these standards and they’re going to check in on us every couple of years to make sure that we’re improving that we’re not just saying this is what it is, and we’re never going to touch it again. So you have to live it.

And that’s what I really liked about B corporation, um, being in Portland, of course, um, it’s, it’s, you know, fits really well with the Portland culture overall and they have a very big, uh, B corporation. User group here, if you will. And that was something that, you know, I knew a handful of people in that group and, you know, I started talking to them about what we could do and how that worked, and then, you know, ended up going to get certified.

Now that process took us nine to 12 months just to get certified. The process is pretty deep. You have to go through a massive question. Several it’s like a hundred and some questions, and then you have to provide proof for each of your answers. And then they have an audit where they randomly you seemingly randomly anyways, pick out some questions that you answered and ask you to further verify that, or they’ll verify it with third parties.

So it’s not something that you can easily. And it’s something that you do have to live. And that was what we really liked about it at the time. Um, and you have to consistently recertify every two years, I believe two to three years. And, um, they want you to improve your score every single time. So not only do you get certified, but you get scored and you earn points for a whole bunch of different categories.

And so they really want you every time you recertify, you have to add additional points. 

James Sowers: Interesting. Uh, anything to add on there finally from, again, I don’t know when you came in, if we were already kind of firmly established and certified and evaluated at that point, or if you were part of the, kind of the decision making process, um, what was it like from your perspective?

Yeah. 

Natalie Thomas: When I joined the good four years ago, we were already a certified B Corp. And I asked the same question that I now get asked in interviews all the time, which is what does it mean to you to be a B Corp? And for me it means, you know, we actually have made commitments and we stand by those and we continue to live by them.

Um, and actually if you go to the good.com you can see in the footer around our B Corp certification. Um, we get scored in certain areas and we score really high on kind of the quality of life stuff for our employees. So things like offering maternity, um, paying a living wage, having benefits, things like that.

Um, as well as, you know, just little things that we do around the office. So, you know, we have a recycling bin that seems like really small, but it’s a commitment. Other people haven’t made. We haven’t. For trash, we don’t have staplers in the office. So there’s all these little things that kind of stack up.

And what I love about being a B Corp is that like attracts, like it really attracts, um, mission driven companies and mission driven individuals to us. And I hear all the time kind of on the same topic in, um, you know, everything from cover letters, to interviews with potential candidates that they’re attracted to our B Corp status and they’re attracted to our core values.

So I think it really helps us be. You know, surrounded by people that we want to surround ourselves with and work with the kind of clients really appreciate not just what we do, but our approach. 

James Sowers: Awesome. Uh, yeah, I can say as somebody who just did the hiring for a new marketing coordinator or a marketing manager that was universally among candidates, one of the first things they called out is I, you know, why you’re interested in the position I saw, you’re a B Corp.

That means a lot to me. Um, and some of them have wants so far as to look us up at the school. The scores are publicly available and you can see like where somebody is at and maybe, uh, even historically like where they’ve been in the past few years. So candidates right now on the, in the talent pool are doing their homework.

And, um, this is something. Uh, I hate the term moves the needle, but this does make an impact on their decision making process. And it can be the difference if you have two equal opportunities, um, maybe the B Corp status could be something that pushes somebody over the edge to accept your offer. So, and that works with clients too.

I’m sure we have clients come through the door who will also be corporations or just mission-focused organizations. Uh, the commitments that we made resonate with them. So, um, really cool. And, you know, I, the first time I remember hearing about a B corporation was on pat Flynn, smart, passive income podcast, and I had to be on how old the B Corp thing is, but it was a few years ago, at least.

And, um, he was interviewing somebody who was basically one of the first, like few dozen B corporations to be certified and was very, uh, early to that trend. And I just remember thinking this is so cool, right? Like it’s different from being a nonprofit. It’s more like a for-profit organization with a social mission.

And that’s really cool. And someday I’d love to work for one of these companies. And then you fast forward, like six or seven years and get to interview at the good and like, it was a big part of my decision making process too. So, um, really cool part of our history. And I think that’s like the broader mission.

And I don’t know the sequence of events if like we already had core values established before we became a B Corp or vice versa. But I think where that ties into our conversation today. Okay. That’s one aspect of how we want to do good in the world. Um, another aspect of how we kind of. Put these things into practice is through the core values that we have at the organization.

And I know recently, um, we rolled out a new set of core values, but we did have some that served as a foundation for let’s call it like the first chapter of the goods life cycle. Right. Um, so I’m curious, like John, going back to that day where we came up with that original set of core values, what was that experience like?

Um, you know, maybe what precipitated the need for core values. You hear about it a lot in business school. If you went to business school or case studies or something like that, like. Um, but it seems kind of like lip service in a lot of ways. And I’m sure that, you know, we had a different approach to it.

So if you go back to that day, we were setting up that first set of core values who was involved, you know, why did we feel the need to put these things on paper? And then how did you kind of come up with that first handful of, of, uh, you know, ideas that we really aligned with and want to embody? 

Jon MacDonald: Yeah, this is a great question because.

One of the joys over the past year has been working on these new core values. It was really enlightening. Um, and it really did help think about where we want to be moving forward and who do we want to attract and even more. So who do we want to repel and, you know, start looking at who’s applying and do they align with these core values or do they resonate in the same way?

We have folks who are applying and are mentioning the B Corp status. One of the things that we always look for is do they mention the core values? Did they do their homework? We put them up on our website publicly. Are they interested in those core values at all? Do they resonate? And you know, a lot of our questions that we asked during interviews along the way are framed around the core values.

And so that’s something that, that is become a valuable. I don’t know. I don’t know a gate for us, if you will, was hiring. When we originally did them, uh, it was years ago now probably a decade ago, sat down and said, okay, where do we want to go? Who do we want to have on our team? And what are some things that we want to make sure resonate with the team moving forward?

And one of the things was we really want folks who are going to. Think bigger, but we didn’t want to say something like think big. It was really around, um, finding opportunities in all of these challenges that come up every day and work situations and then taking actions to make those better. And so the more we looked at that, the more we decided on, on be a force for change as one of our core values.

And so the process was really more. What are the sentences that we want to imbibe, you know, to have, uh, our team and body. And, you know, we thought about each of these. And then we came up with the term or the slogan that goes around with that. And we wanted to keep it to three or four most because the challenge is that so many people have these little quippy.

Core values that nobody remembers or, you know, I’ve known and businesses that, that have 10 of them and they stand up a daily huddle and make people recite all 10, or they just do like pop quizzes on it. And it’s like, you know what? That’s all BS. And the reality is if you don’t, well, if your team can’t remember, then you have too many or they just aren’t meaningful.

And. Really wanted to keep it to a handful. Um, so our old ones were be a force for change, make improvements, not excuses and inspire by example. And these were all things that, you know, we had, um, really wanted to, as a leadership team at the time, made sure that the team that builds up around us, uh, you know, it could be an example.

James Sowers: Yeah. Um, I love that. And I’m glad you pointed out because I’ve been in organizations where they literally make somebody like recite a core value or something like that. Part of the mission statement at the beginning of the meeting, or cite an example or something like that. And it’s like, yeah, I can see how that feels like a tangible representation of, of culture.

But ideally I think the more important point is you use them as kind of that gate or that filtering system during the hiring process. And you find the goal is to find folks who naturally embody these core values who already have that ingrained in their DNA. And then when they come inside the organization, Presumably they operate that way naturally.

And then, um, to steal a phrase from a little bit later in this episode, maybe you hire fire promote based on kind of those principles, right? The ones that really stand out, um, are more likely to be elevated into a higher position, get a raise, get more responsibility, whatever the incentive is there, the, the reward system.

But, um, yeah, I think it’s less about like, can we all hold hands and recite the core values together and more about like, Are we the type of people who already embody this and are we holding each other accountable to doing that day in and day out? Because it’s easy to kind of lose your way when life gets busy or hectic, or you have a tough day, like, um, can we, can we help each other out through that?

Um, Natalie, where did you come in in terms of the, I know you were here for the first set of core values, obviously. Cause those just recently changed, but like how much exposure did you have to those and were they part of, um, you making the decision to join the team? Cause it was sometime after those were established, you came on and then, um, started full-time here.

So what was your exposure to that first set? That’s a good 

Natalie Thomas: question. I don’t know if I, if I was one of those people that mentioned them in my application or cover letter. Um, but they definitely made an impact when I first started. And, um, I think, you know, there’s something that we have on posters all over the office that we really embodied.

Yeah. We mentioned, um, at meetings and, you know, it’s like an opportunity to bring them up any opportunity to bring them up in, uh, a client meeting. We do, um, because you know, if we get feedback, that’s really hard to hear. Um, Hey, one of our core values is making improvements, not excuses. So we’re able to really quickly say like, you know, there’s a checklist for how we should handle things.

And we’re always kind of checking against that. Like, does this match our core values? What is the way. Best way we should respond. So we had them created, um, they were created before I got here, but we had them, um, kind of succinctly shared in physical paper and we would just move those around our desks. I think everybody had it on their desk or taped above their desk or floating around somewhere.

We also have posters in the office and. I’ve heard this rumor. I don’t know if this is true. That means vendor row used to have his simplicity mantras, like somewhere around the studio and he would move this one poster here or there. So you never got used to it being in the same place. We kind of have the opposite where they had been on one wall since we got into the new office.

And I think it was just really comforting to kind of walk by those every day and be constantly reminded and, um, just have them right up on the wall. Like we’re not trying to hide them from anyone. We all have agreed to kind of live by the standard. 

James Sowers: Yeah, really cool. So if we, if we fast forward a little bit, well, not really a little bit a decade, right?

We’re we’re here sitting here in the last, uh, maybe six to nine months and we’ve kind of hit. Um, turning point, maybe this kind of evolutionary step milestone in the, in the business where, you know, we want to raise the bar, um, grow in a lot of ways, right? Uh, maybe that involves head count revenue number of clients we serve impact in the world, whatever, uh, you know, toward that B Corp mission, we kind of realize it sounds like that, um, where we want to go and where we’re at today, like what got us here will not get us there.

Right. And so there are a bunch of conversations that happen. Um, one is around kind of like managing the organization and the team here and breaking down our goals into bite-size steps that we can achieve. But part of that was kind of like, Hmm, maybe we take another look at these core values. Right. And, um, is there.

A similar evolution that needs to happen with these because, uh, as you change kind of the, the goal or the objective, there might be different people that you need on the team to get you there or different types of people or people with different types of predispositions. So, um, my recollection is. Uh, we first realized that in order to get where we want to be, we’re going to need some kind of structure and operating system, um, around making that happen.

And, um, we fell into one that had kind of this core values review built into it. So, um, I know I kinda came in midstream to that process. It seemed like it was kind of already underway. So maybe John enlighten us in terms of like how we got involved with, um, w with Ellie, if we want to give her a name and everything and the, the EOS system, and then how that led to revisiting the courses.

Jon MacDonald: Yeah. So one of the things I’ve been really conscious of as we’ve continued to scale and grow and move very, very fast is to, um, have some organization to that. And one thing that can kill a business fast-growing business very quickly is to, um, a run out of cash because you’re moving so fast. You’re not keeping tabs on things and you’re, over-investing.

And B it’s just how, you know, I always tell the team here, if there’s one constant, if the good it’s change and the problem with that can be that it can overwhelm some folks when you change things so quickly. So wanted to make sure we had some organization and structure for that change and that we were doing it intentionally.

It wasn’t just a, Hey, look, this week, this is not working out. So we’ve got to make some changes here. I really wanted to have some structure to that and. Well before the pandemic. So we hit this at a perfect time. Um, you know, we came in and was okay, but there was a bunch of different systems out there.

I’ve used scaling up in the past, but I, you know, in talking to a bunch of folks, um, through different business communities, EOS or entrepreneur operating system is, is really the way to go. And, um, it really brings scaling up down to earth if you will, right. Scaling up is great for corporations. VC backed, you know, with a hundred folks maybe are bigger, uh, EOS is better for, for service businesses for smaller companies.

And it really seemed like a good fit for us. So, uh, you know, went out and I hired Ellie, um, who is our implementer for EOS and kind of coaching us through that process. Uh, had a lot of, uh, history with Ellie over the years through EO, which is another. Same letters almost but different it’s entrepreneurs organization, which is a, a business group.

So both Natalie and I knew Ellie through that and had been coached by Ellie through different training, et cetera in EO. Um, so after we met with her and she was like, look, I’m not going to be the person who is like, you have to check every box with us. We’re going to check the boxes that make sense for you.

And we’re going to mold it into what, what makes sense for your business and what you, where you want to go. And so we went through that process, uh, part of that initial process of her six months or so of, of onboarding EOS is to take another look at your core values. After you’ve done a lot of the upfront work of defining where you want to go.

And we, as a leadership team, the three of us sat down and said is our current core values going to get us where we want to go? Or is it time to refresh those? And. In my opinion, you know, were they good core values? Yes. Um, where are they going to get us? You know, everybody be bought into them and get us where we need to go, maybe not.

And so, uh, it was a really interesting process of us all sitting down with LD coaching and, um, and I really tried to take a back seat and just listen to what everybody else’s opinion was there. So, uh, because I knew what I wanted, but I wanted to make sure it was, uh, uh, Something that that involved everybody and that everybody was.

James Sowers: Um, Natalie, did you have any reservations or any thoughts in the back of your mind? When we first sat down and said like, okay, we’re going to take a look at the core values that you’ve known for four years and are well-established and people are naturally, like, parenting’s not the right term, but they’re, they’re saying them in meetings naturally.

Right. Because it’s been kind of ingrained in us and even just the idea of kind of like potentially wiping those out, replacing them with something totally new. That’s not what Ellie was suggesting, but that’s a feasible outcome. Right. You could end up with something totally different. Um, you’re out the organization much longer than I was when we started having that conversation.

So did you have any like gut reaction, you know, that before you kind of filter it for political correctness or try to like adjust it for the audience, which you need jerk reaction? Like, no, don’t touch them. They’re so good. Like, my team loves them or like, was it the opposite? Was it like, oh, this is such a needed change or was it somewhere in the middle, right.

Natalie Thomas: Yeah, I think you’ve probably heard a mix of both from me and those meetings and our facilitator, I will say to her credit early bird, like she. Came, she, she brought us into that room with an understanding that like, these don’t have to change. We’re just going to evaluate what’s on the table today and take a look at whether or not these even need to change.

And I think there have been exercises in the password. John has asked the team to revisit those when they weren’t changed. And so we knew that these, you know, they are working for us, but when I really thought about it, I thought. I realized that make improvements, not excuses was the biggest thing that people reference on a regular basis.

Um, and I think the process of looking at them and evaluating our core values was really intuitive to me. And it was basically for better or worse. Like you look at some of the qualities that your team embodies that, um, you know, are helping them do their best work. Like what about them is. Making sure that they can just leverage their skills to the best of their ability.

And they really fit in here and they produce an amazing quality of work. And, you know, we brought in elements from our team that we love so much and looked at them. Skills distilled them or qualities, if you will distill them down to a really small list and then compare those to our core values. And we felt like there were some things missing.

And I will say, like, there was definitely some consternation, it feels like kind of, I didn’t want the team to get the sense that they were having the rug pulled out from under them. But when we really looked at it, we said, look, these are aspirational core values. The core values. Crafted at the end of that experience, weren’t things that we wanted to live up to.

They were things that we were already doing it. And so I felt like it was a really great practice to just explore. What about our culture and what about our community ethic? Good. Do we really value? And we want to help raise up and say, this is our standard. Um, so. I definitely had reservations, but at the end I feel like we came up with something really strong, um, that really speaks to where we came from as well.

We didn’t lose a lot of the elements that we loved from the previous core values, but the current ones, I think just have a little more specificity to them. And, um, they ring true in the Workday, Dan and yeah. 

James Sowers: Yeah, I think it’s worth noting that we kind of ran the same process with every aspect of the business.

It’s like you have an arbitrary revenue goal. Okay. Where did that come from? Is that even the right target or is that too ambitious or not ambitious enough? Right. So we’d looked at that and then we look at it. Right. We look at our ideal client profile and like, we think we know, right. But do we actually know, let’s talk it out.

And like, your interpretation is different from mine. And like, maybe we need to come to the middle or maybe I realize I’m wrong and you were right. And let’s get that on paper. So we’re all on the same page. Like lots of healthy debate around various aspects of the business and core values was just one of them.

Um, I think one thing we knew if nothing else, right. We knew that going to a distributed team probably required a little bit of a refinement of the core values, just because you’re going to have to, it just layering in an element. Independence ownership, autonomy. Like I don’t know that that was necessarily in the first set is probably really important to have in the next set.

Um, you know, a lot of organizations are going remote right now. And so I would say like, if they don’t have that aspect, they may want to consider it because it is something that, like I said before, you can hire based on to find the right person. Um, and I think that’s part of the exercise is like who’s already on the team.

That’s an A-player, who’s crushing it. And what are some of their characteristics activities that they do? What makes them stand out? That we like and want to embody, like, how do we find more of that? And then who are the team members that contractors full-time, whatever that didn’t work out. And what are some of the personality traits?

What are some of the decision-making aspects? What are some of the things that like made that negative outcome happen and how do we filter for that? How do we avoid that happening again? And you kind of put those two things together and that’s, that’s kind of the recipe, uh, for coming up with some core values that hopefully, um, do the right thing, but.

Your point is very astute in that, like it’s easy for the team to say we’re getting new core values. That means like, what if I don’t like them? Like, what if I don’t align with them? And it’s like, well, if you start from first principles and you say like, what are the best reflections of the team we already have and what makes us great then it’s very unlikely that that’s going to happen unless somebody has like, perhaps an inaccurate interpretation of themselves or something.

I don’t know. I don’t know how that works out. Um, but let me think about this. So w what I remember from the process was basically, um, we had the past core values. In the back of our minds, obviously, but from what I remember, it was like, we were almost encouraged to start with a blank page and just start to kind of like brain dump.

All right. Let’s all take 30 minutes to ourselves. Go off into a room and brain dump. All the things that we think are values that we have that we like in the workplace, what our coworkers, I think we even put names to coworkers in the past. Right. And like what made them a great coworker and what made these people over here?

A not so great coworker or manager. Let’s just dump all those on the page. Then let’s put those things together in one Google doc, let’s see which one gets mentioned the most let’s keep that or whatever. Like, let’s see which one’s an edge case. Maybe that’s just a John experience or a James experience or Natalie experience.

And then we kind of see some trends and then we try to start to bucket those things together and topical area, I mean, is that you guys remember Glenn? I think it was kind of like a step-by-step process, right? It was like word vomit and then filter into categories and then kind of refine that until you get to a manageable set of just a handful of Corvette.

Yeah, that’s 

Natalie Thomas: what I remember. And I love taking a really messy list of things and then categorizing them and then forming neat and sentences about them. I would say that like, if you had to define strategy by just one practice, that would be it. So this was an exercise that I really enjoyed. I think it would probably make it.

Other people uncomfortable, but for me, yeah, it was just, um, really intuitive to go through the process of creating a list of, you know, desirable and undesirable activities or traits you could have, um, in a colleague and putting those all out on paper and defining like what we do and don’t want. And as we went through the process, again, our facilitator was so great.

She said, yeah, Um, she really guided us into understanding like that we were unique and that we were defining what was unique about us. Cause I felt like, oh, well, if anyone goes through this process, they’re going to put the same things on the good and bad list that I would. And that’s of course going to turn into really similar core values between our company and another.

And she said, that is absolutely not true. And that every industry and business has unique challenges. And a unique culture and that’s why these never turn out the same. And I was pleasantly surprised at how, yeah. These didn’t stack up. Um, you know, one for one compared to some of the other, uh, examples that we looked at as part of our

James Sowers: John, you have anything to add to kind of that. I dunno, making the pottery, you kind of thing. You put the clay on the thing, you spin it around, you kind of shape it until it turns into something usable. Right. That’s how I describe the experience. It’s more like a 

Natalie Thomas: 3d printer. Ceramicist 

Jon MacDonald: it’s just every time somebody describes making the pottery like that, I just think it ghost that movie.

Um, so yeah, I’ll do John’s. Yeah. So I think it was a good opportunity for us to. Work in a fourth one, which we did, which was impact over income. And the goal there was, if we’re really living these values around B corporation, et cetera, kind of tie that together. We need, we need to mention it somehow on our core values.

Um, and so we came up with, uh, impact over income and our company exists to eliminate bad online experiences, not just to make a profit. Our success allows us to invest in people and communities. And so I think that that’s something where if you. Want to be part of a greater good than that. You’re going to resonate with that.

If you are all about yourself and you’re working here just for the money, then likely not gonna resonate. Um, and that doesn’t mean that, you know, again, part of that is we invest in our people. So, you know, taking some of that profit and making sure that it goes back to having the team who’s the right team.

Okay. Well, and, and able to invest in their lives otherwise outside of work, too. And so I think there’s a lot of ways to look at this, but I do believe that it was key that we, I found this fourth one and ended up here and that, um, we were able to identify this hole in our prior quarter. 

James Sowers: Yeah, I think one element of that particular core value that stands out to me is the part, the sub component, basically where we say we’re advocates for people who aren’t in the room.

And I I’m always reminded of, I think it was Jeff Bezos at Amazon who always has like an empty chair in the meeting and that’s supposed to represent the customer. And so like the customers in all these conversations and part of this decision making process, I think we have some element of that where like our, our role working with our clients is to kind of be the advocate for the customer, the end user of the site, and maybe steer away from.

Strictly financially motivated things like maybe it does make more money, but maybe it’s a very poor user experience or something like that. And, and try to be an advocate for the customer in that regard, but even outside of the workplace, like being advocates for underserved communities, um, and demographics that maybe don’t have as much opportunity or access as others can we do well in our role at work so that we can do good in the community, both in the Portland area and anywhere else that our team members get involved.

So that, that kind of sub-component of impact over income was really important. Uh, to me personally, I’m glad it made it through to the, to the final version because, um, I do think it is something that’s like, it doesn’t all have to be about work, right? It’s about who you are as a person and what you stand for and what you identify with, and that makes you more effective at work, right?

Like that’s, that’s something you can draw from when, uh, like I said, maybe you’re having a bad day or you’re just not feeling super inspired. It’s like, okay, well, at the end of the day, I get to make somebody’s life a little bit better because of what I’m doing here today. So, um, that’s all you need to kind of like put on a happy face and keep moving.

Right. Um, I don’t have anything to add. I know this is a very impactful core value from the final four, which I’ve never called it, that it sounds kind of cheesy, but, uh, the final four that we came up with, uh, anything on impact over income you want to add, and then maybe we’ll just go through the other three and we can, we can close it out there after reviewing the.

Natalie Thomas: Yeah. And kinda over impact over income. Let me start that over. Yeah. Impact over income. My gosh, I can I say it right? Obviously we need to remember our core values in order to be able to talk about them. Um, impact over income to me is really about that, that person who’s not in the room, right. I think, you know, we’re all coming up in the age of user centered design and the experience economy.

And this really just speaks to making sure that we’re not designing deceptive user experiences or dark UX as it’s called. And it’s funny that you mentioned the Amazon example because I think they are a great example of, you know, that they got sued. I think for they’re like a nine step cancellation process that has a lot of.

Different kinds of buttons that might confuse you along the way. Um, and it probably does make them more money, but you know, it’s not something we would advocate for us though. We’re always trying to find the outcome that, you know, treats users with dignity and respect and that I would want my mom to use while she’s on the internet, you know, and she’s the person who doesn’t feel comfortable in a lot of online spaces.

And so for me, that empty chair is my mom and, um, a lot of other people and that impact over income. Just really drives home that, um, there are people who need support from people like us and tech. Isn’t just about getting the users and keeping them engaged and then, you know, squeezing every last drop out of them that you can, it’s really about making sure that we’re approaching this, um, in a way that matches our value.

Jon MacDonald: Yeah, that’s a great point. One thing that’s not really said explicitly in this core value, but I think is there is conversion optimization could be used for evil in a sense that, you know, you could really have a view. Um, optimize site by making it a pain to unsubscribe, like you mentioned, right. Or, you know, having all of these, um, I guess we’ll call them like black cat techniques that you could use.

Right. And I think that, uh, one thing I love about this core value is it, if we’re living this core value, we’ll never go to those tactics. And that’s a, I think that’s a nice safeguard. 

James Sowers: Yep. Totally agree. Okay. Let’s go. Let’s go through the other three that we came up with. Current day version of our core values.

And, um, if you have anything to share, feel free to jump in, but, uh, the first one would be around owning your experience. And, um, to me, the most impactful statement under this one is, is, um, we all carry our own weight and we seek to inspire others by example. Right. Um, I think that kind of touches on the earlier point I made about if we’re going to be a truly distributed workforce, we’re going to have contractors and full-time employees spread all around the world.

Um, we’re going to have to have some. Ingrained, you know, sense of autonomy and ownership over the overall success of the business, or at least our area, our team, wherever we, wherever we live day to day between nine and five. And part of that is like, you need people who naturally want to take ownership over kind of their focus area.

And, you know, when they see something that could be improved, Take action and improve it. They don’t necessarily need like permission within reason, you know? And, and so, um, I think at the end of the day, it’s like, Hey, if you want to have professional development work, if you want to make a big impact in the work that we do, if you want to serve clients, um, to the best of your ability, like the person ultimately who owns that outcome is is you.

And so, um, that, that’s what jumps out at me about this one. I don’t know if you guys have a different perspective or, um, if you kind of want to take a different angle on it, but that’s the one I think is most impactful for me here and own your expense. 

Natalie Thomas: Yeah, I can jump in on that one. I think the most interesting and important thing to me about the own, your experience core value is that we find opportunity in every challenge.

And I think as a team, we seek out others who. Look at look for problems, but then approach them with a solution oriented mindset. We just got feedback today from a client that said really appreciate your solution oriented approach. And I think what that means is we don’t really invite people into the room just to call out the negative or bad experiences or the holes and the flaws and the way we do things, we invite that kind of criticism.

For sure. But the essential aspect of own your experience to me is that we look for opportunities, not just issues. 

Jon MacDonald: Yeah. I’ll add to that, that, you know, it’s really about taking ownership when, when there’s a challenge and if, you know, you see there’s a problem to fix it and that’s where it’s, you know, carry your own weight.

Right. It’s if, you know, You know, if you see a leaky faucet, fix the faucet, don’t let it drip. Right? Like you’re there just take the extra two minutes and turn it off. Right. Um, and I think that it’s, it’s one of those things where it’s really easy to. Have team members who are just there and are, are following everybody else and are doing a great job at their, at their role and what they should be doing on a day to day.

But they’re not taking that extra step to make things better. And. To me, this is all about if you’re having a challenge, find a way to, to, to, you know, raise the issue, but raise the issue with, Hey, here’s some ways I think this could be resolved or if you don’t know how to fix it, raise the issues of this is the outcome I’d like to see.

I would like, you know, to change it in this way. Um, and then the team can gather around and help you figure out how to get from, from a to B. But it’s really about that taking ownership and, uh, making sure that people are taking steps to, to positively influence that. 

Natalie Thomas: Yeah. And I think that just shows how much we respect our employees.

They rarely ask for permission, but regularly asked for strategic feedback and folks are really willing here to take problems into their own hands. And we really value peer review. So we’ll bounce ideas off of each other left and right. But ultimately nobody really needs to ask permission to make a decision here.

There are a lot of, um, uh, really smart people in the room and. Love when they can use that to the best of their advantage and make decisions that positively impact others without needing to stop and wait. 

James Sowers: Yeah. And I think that the best people know where their scope of competency is. Right. And they know when they’re like comfortably outside of that, like they’re stretching and they know when like, okay, if I make a wrong call here or I experiment too much here.

That could potentially result in a negative outcome and they know to reach for help. Right. That’s, that’s kind of this, um, humble kind of personality that I think a lot of us bring to the table naturally at this team, at least I’ve always referred to the good as the quiet professionals. I mean, I’ve only been here for nine months now or whatever, but like that’s, that’s kind of the, the character that I picture in my head is like, that’s the mantra of the Navy seals too.

Like, you don’t really see too many of those guys on TV doing a bunch of interviews. In movies, whatever. Um, they’re just kind of going about their business and, you know, they’re really good at it because everybody in the world talks about them. Right. But they’re not necessarily out there talking about themselves.

I think the best team members that embody this kind of like, um, you know, own your experience aspect are people who are extremely talented. No, where they’re extremely talented. No one they can stretch comfortably, but also know when to ask for help or when to get a second opinion or when to seek out more information.

If they don’t have access. To that end. I think that’s why this became a core value because we want to hire more folks like that. We want to hire more folks that can be autonomous, but within safe guard rails so that they don’t compromise the experience for our clients or their end users, I guess, is how, how I would describe.

Um, maybe the next one I’ll kick over to you, Natalie. Cause I know you said it was tossed about most often in, um, like team meetings and you have the biggest team of here inside of the organization. So we carried over pretty much, um, almost word for word, make improvements, not excuses. And you know, I think there’s the one aspect of that that I’ll call out is this 1% better everyday concept because we liked it so much.

We put it on a t-shirt. Um, but I do think it is. It is a really strong kind of like sound bite. Um, that kind of embodies what we’re going for here is like, let’s just get a little better every day and let’s help our clients do the same, but what’s your personal interpretation of make improvements, not excuses and, and how it’s been, um, you know, displayed by the team throughout the years and how we hope to see it continue to be displayed, like going.

Natalie Thomas: Yeah, well, we have a few favorites sayings here at the good and one of them is it could be further optimized. So I think part of that is just, again, looking for opportunities. We look at mistakes, not away from them and look for opportunity to improve. I think, um, You know, that’s the nature. And the spirit of optimization is that our eyes are really open to opportunities to prove ourselves wrong.

And so I really value working on a team that feels like it’s okay to say, I don’t know, but let me find out. And I can’t tell you how many rules. I’ve been in, whether that’s a college classroom or a meeting, and someone says, some says an answer to something that feels a little off the cuff and maybe not right.

It just to close the issue down. Um, we don’t do that here. You know, we’re always looking to find kind of that, that next truth that helps us open up our perspective and improve on the work we’re doing. And we stay really curious, which is what I think this is about.

James Sowers: Anything to add to that, John? 

Jon MacDonald: Well, for me, the biggest part of this is, uh, that we hold each other accountable to grow through practice, not to perfection. And this really does go hand in hand with that 1% better every day. Right? And if you’re not familiar with, with that, uh, looking to James clear and atomic habits, great book, um, great principle there.

And we did put it on a t-shirt. So if you’d like a t-shirt let, let James know and we’ll get, but the reality, they are very soft. Yes. Uh, the reality is that it’s really easy to be a perfectionist. Um, it’s draining on everybody around you, but it’s easy for. Me as the leader of a company to, to manage perfection and people idolize that Steve jobs type of asshole leadership, I don’t have it or put it, uh, it can get things done, but then everybody is afraid of you or, you know, are they really getting things done because they think that’s the right way or it’s just what you told them to do.

I would rather the team here be. Uh, non, uh, autonomous in, in getting their jobs done. And what I mean by that is that, you know, I want to hire the, you know, the best person for the role and let them do the best work of their career and not get in their way. I don’t want to be like, Hey, here’s exactly what you need to do every minute of the day.

And when, what that means is people are going to mess up. There’s going to be issues, and we’re going to have challenges around that. As long as people are looking to make improvements and not excuses. I’m good with that. If somebody messes up and then they say, you know what, that did not work out how I wanted it to work out, but I now learn something from that.

And I think this goes back to the culture of optimization in general. There’s really no loser test. Every test that happens that that doesn’t meet the metrics that you were hoping to out of that test or that optimization, you still learn something. And you learn, you know, to go down a different path at the very least.

Um, but there’s always, uh, a lot more takeaways there. And so I think it’s the same thing for, for the culture here, which is just hold, hold, people accountable to growing and outside of that, um, know that things aren’t going to be perfect. People are going to mess up and that’s okay. Things aren’t gonna go to the way we thought they’d go.

Uh, and we just need to roll with it and improve it. So it does it better now. 

James Sowers: Yep. One of the points you just said there, that, that jumps out at me is. Getting better through practice, not perfection. I think like part of the exercise we did here was I think we self evaluated, um, against these values and we’re like, okay, how would we score it?

Right. Did we end up in the right place? Uh, and one of the things that I know I need to work on is that perfectionism almost where it’s like, I don’t want to put anything out into the world until I think it’s like polished and pretty and sparkling. And I know that. People in this conversation and outside of this conversation, I’ve said like, James is good enough, right?

Like ship it. We have, we have like the ship at pear emoji in the slack channel. It’s like ship it, man. It’s good enough. Let the world see it. And you can continue to get better, but it doesn’t have to be perfect right out of the gate. So, um, I just say that to say, like, if anybody’s listening to this and they’re like, okay, if you don’t satisfy all four of these requirements, you can’t be hired here.

Like that’s not necessarily how it works. It’s, it’s a spectrum. Right. And even me sitting here looking in the mirror, I’m like, yeah, I don’t really check the box for that one yet. But the point is. That’s why you have people around you, right. Who are good in that better in that area than you are to help you improve.

And then there’s somewhere else that somebody else is struggling that maybe I can bring some experience to the table and help them improve. Um, so I just caught that from what you said there, and just wanted to call that out. Cause like, yeah, it’s not, it’s not about, um, a hundred percent checking the box when you’re hiring or trying to find a new team member or anything like that.

It’s more about. Do we did we cover most of the bases here. Right. And, um, in general, are we the type of person that will contribute to the mission and be a positive addition to the team and not a distraction or, um, you know, a drain on the energy or anything like that? Um, yeah, so they’re 

Jon MacDonald: not looking for perfection, right?

Right. We’re not looking for somebody who’s perfect in all four of these that’s, that’s unattainable, not realistic, but we’re looking for somebody who strives. No, and I think that’s really the thing. 

James Sowers: Yeah. Um, your team me up there. So we’ll get into the last one here. Strive for clarity, right? Keywords strive, strive.

We’re just going to transition right into this one. Um, admittedly, when I was going through the process, this one was the messiest one for me. Cause I interpreted it a bunch of different ways. I was like, okay. Is it strive for clarity amongst team members? Right. And is this like a communication thing or is this strive for clarity in terms of understanding a problem before you recommend a solution or some kind of an approach?

Maybe it’s a blend of the two. Right? Um, but, but I really like this one at the end of the day. Mainly for this phrase, like we’re not afraid to say, I don’t know, but let me find out. And that’s kind of, Natalie touched on that a little bit. Like you have somebody who answers a question in class and like, they just kinda want to sound smart or they’re afraid of like, not answering the question, thinking people will think they’re dumb, but really like the mature person says, you know, I’m not well-read enough on this subject.

I haven’t done my research. I don’t have an informed opinion. So I can’t really share anything with you right now, but I’ll get into it. I’ll ask my friends, I’ll ask my coworkers and I’ll get back to you. Um, that’s just one aspect of this, but that’s the one that jumps out at me as like being humble enough to say.

I don’t have an answer for you now, but I know where to find one and I’ll bring it back to you as soon as I can. Okay. 

Natalie Thomas: Yeah, I agree. I think, 

Jon MacDonald: go ahead, John. Well, I was gonna say one thing that, that you brought into this, Natalie, um, was that we have strong opinions, loosely held and. That is something that I see, uh, our team act on every day.

It’s, you know, especially an optimization, you may have a, uh, a variant that you’re cheering for, but it’s probably not going to win. I mean, I think that’s, you know, the reality, uh, that you don’t determine what wins in a scientific process. Um, you know, the data does, sorry to cut you off, Natalie, what were you, what were you going to add?

I 

Natalie Thomas: think it answered a meeting. Can you. No. Okay. Um, what was I going to say about this? I think strive for clarity as a core value really feeds into everything else we do. It’s hard to make improvements without being really clear about what went wrong the first time you did it, or what needs to improve.

And so really just that mindset about being proactive rather than reactive and looking for ways to get ahead of issues before they become one. Um, again, it’s just super gratifying and liberating. To be among a group of people who say, I don’t know, but let me find out. And that strong opinions, loosely held bit is really enables us to defer to the expert in the room.

All of us come from really different backgrounds from, you know, teaching to marketing and human computer interaction and user experience research. We have someone from an applied clinical research background. There’s always someone in the room who might know a little bit more on a subject. That’s not your area of expertise.

So we have those strong opinions, but we defer to the experts when appropriate. And in order to do that, we have to be really clear about what we’re seeking. So I think it’s that strive for clarity bit really empowers us to do the rest of them. Great. 

James Sowers: Awesome. Uh, totally agree. Um, maybe, maybe, uh, kind of wrap things up and put a bow.

And, um, we went through the four new core values. Um, Give me a two minute overview here, John, of like, or Natalie, if you want to chime in how, how are we going to continue to like walk the walks in terms of not just these core values, but our B corporate commitments and stuff. We’ve done a lot, uh, to date over the last decade, but now that we’ve kind of made this step forward and we’re ready to pursue those big lofty goals, how do we embody these values?

How do we incorporate them in the day to day operations here at the good, how we’re using them to, um, evaluate new team members and performance of current team members? What do you take into your teams as you, as you go back and leave here today and implement these things? 

Jon MacDonald: I think just to start with the simple stuff I’m having new posters made with all of these, um, to, to have them up in our office space, um, and be able to, to share them in a graphical format, not only on our website and, uh, do some more t-shirts perhaps things of that sort.

So that’s the easy part. Um, one thing is we’ve also, um, continued to work on our hiring process and ask questions that are, that are based around these so that, you know, we’re always improving that and always refining it and making sure we’re finding people who match and align with these. And, uh, we also do something here called the good cop.

And this is a quarterly award that the team votes on each other and they nominate a peer. And when they nominate a peer, they have to nominate them, uh, with examples of how they’ve lived, the Corvette. And each quarter that person gets to, um, hold on to the cup, if you will, it’s an actual trophy and their name gets engraved on the, on the trophy.

So eventually we’ll, we’ll have a Stanley cup looking trophy here. And then in addition to that, um, you know, they get, uh, $500 in cash. And so it’s just a nice little extra bonus, but the goal here is so that the team. Recognizes when others are living the core values and that kind of helps bring it through every quarter and bring it back up.

Oh yeah. You know, I have to nominate somebody or I want to nominate somebody. I’m trying to think about what happened to her last quarter. That was my team members and my teammates that, uh, would really make a lot of sense to, to be nominated. 

Natalie Thomas: John. I know you got to go. I can add to that in the two minutes after.

James Sowers: Yeah, go ahead. And, and then I can do like a wrap up, like voiceover later. Yep. 

Jon MacDonald: All right. Awesome. Thank you both. Yep.

James Sowers: What are we doing to get shirts, but you know, we’ll do whatever we can do. 

Natalie Thomas: Uh, we need that empty chair in 

James Sowers: the room. I know. Yeah, we do. 

Natalie Thomas: Um, okay. What are we doing to continue to square valleys? Um, we’re making a series of commitments. So, um, we’re looking at the commitments we have made and how we’re trying to improve our processes.

I think, you know, one of those big things is removing bias from the hiring process by using these core values as a rubric. Um, we’re also involved with Portland means progress, which has asked businesses to make a series of commitments to racial equity in the workplace. And, um, I think, you know, just looking back.

The Ms. Van der Rohe example, like finding little ways to interject these in areas that surprise people, um, and kind of break them out of their element and remind them in maybe a new context is a way that you can bring core values into the workplace in a way that’s really creative, strong, interesting, and makes people kind of think about them differently and push the boundaries there.

So always looking for opportunities to inject these into the regular work. 

James Sowers: Awesome. Um, you know, I think in my seat and marketing director, I’m going to try to also get them out into the world in some ways. And so taking some of these key messages that we believe in, and we, we try to embody and, and putting them into our marketing messages or landing page, copy our ads, whatever we’re going to do, and maybe start to communicate some of our products and services in a way that’s like, Hey, let us help you get 1% better every day.

You don’t have to be perfect tomorrow. Let’s just get a little bit better every day or, um, Posting something on social media that kind of debunks, one of those dark patterns and says, Hey, you don’t have to have a discount. Pop-up just because they work. Right. Like they do work, but you can still win in in other ways and grow your list this way.

That’s more, um, morally sound, maybe right. Or a better end user experience and kind of respects the customer instead of just holding their attention for ransom for a 10% discount coupon or something like that. So, um, doing the best we can over here, but, but we’ll see, we’ll see, um, I’m excited to see where it goes and.

Yeah, I guess I’ll do the voice over wrap up at the end, but thanks for, thanks for taking the time out of your data to record this. And I appreciate your thoughts and perspectives.

James: Hey everybody, this is James again. And before you go, I just wanted to invite you to join one of the coolest things I get to work on. As director of marketing here at the good it’s called the e-commerce insiders list.
And it’s a private version of this podcast feed that gets you access to tons of additional bonus content, like extra interviews, Q and a sessions, website, tear downs, and anything else we can dream up. It doesn’t cost you anything but your email address. And we promise to always respect. This is just our way of forming strong relationships with our listeners and making sure that we produce content that is actually valuable to you and to your business.
If you’re interested, you can join the rest of the e-commerce insiders by going to the good.com/podcast and dropping your email into the form at the top of the page, we’ll follow up with directions for how to access the private feed and you’ll be off and running. Like I said, this is one of my favorite things that I get the opportunity to work on because it lets me interact directly with e-commerce founders and leaders just like.
If you’re interested, I’d love to see your name pop up in my notifications until then keep an eye out for the next episode of the e-commerce insight show. And we’ll talk to you soon.

The post Revisiting and Refreshing Our Company Values with Jon MacDonald and Natalie Thomas appeared first on The Good.

]]> How to Streamline Customer Support to Improve Efficiency (& Customer Experience) with Nicole Baqai https://thegood.com/insights/nicole-baqai/ Thu, 17 Nov 2022 18:29:47 +0000 https://thegood.com/?post_type=insights&p=102227 Listen to this episode: Subscribe to the show: About this episode: Providing customer support can be exhausting, time-consuming, and even scary at times. This week, Nicole shares that it doesn’t have to be. By streamlining your customer support channels into one place and having a ‘universal inbox’, you can not only improve your brand’s efficiency […]

The post How to Streamline Customer Support to Improve Efficiency (& Customer Experience) with Nicole Baqai appeared first on The Good.

]]> Listen to this episode:

Subscribe to the show:

About this episode:

Providing customer support can be exhausting, time-consuming, and even scary at times. This week, Nicole shares that it doesn’t have to be. By streamlining your customer support channels into one place and having a ‘universal inbox’, you can not only improve your brand’s efficiency in addressing your customers’ concerns, but you can also create a better and lasting relationship with them. 

In this episode, they also talk about: 

  • How to tailor customer support strategies based on your audience
  • Why it is important to create a personalized experience for your customers
  • How other brands are using customer support as a differentiator vs as a tool just for handling tickets
  • How to turn negative experiences into positive ones through great customer support setup

If you’re interested in increasing your efficiency and providing the best support for your customers, then this episode is for you.

Learn more and Nicole and her resources here:

Want to be a guest on our show? Have feedback or ideas for how we can improve? Send your thoughts over to podcast@thegood.com. We’ll be keeping an eye on that inbox. 🙂

The Ecommerce Insights Show is brought to you by The Good, a Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO) consultancy specializing in helping ecommerce businesses accelerate their growth through better research, testing, and design. Learn more about our team, our work, and our services at www.thegood.com.

Episode Transcript:

[00:00:00] James Sowers (The Good): So here’s the question. How can e-commerce leaders make sure that they’re producing a great product, providing a world class customer experience responsibly managing their finances and still reserve time, energy, and resources for marketing their products? My name is James Sas, and you are listening to the e-Commerce Insight Show, the podcast that gives you specific actionable advice for growing your e-commerce business.

[00:00:20] Every Monday you’ll get a conversion rate optimization tactic that you can implement quickly to make your business 1% better every single. Every Thursday we sit down with industry experts to go deep on a specific aspect of running a successful e-commerce business. It’s the perfect blend of learning and application, which means that you maximize the value of every single minute you spend with us.

[00:00:41] We’re just as committed to growing your business as you are, so if you’re looking for a partner to help you crush your revenue goals, you’ve come to the right place, roll up your sleeves and grab a notepad because it’s time to get to work. Hey Nicole. Thanks so much for taking time outta your day to come on the E-Commerce Insight Show and talk to us about all things customer support.

[00:00:58] It’s kind of an area of interest for me because as a marketer, I think it’s an overlooked gold mine of, you know, customer sentiments and even marketing messages and copywriting phrases and things like that. We’ll get into that a little bit later on, but before we do, I wanna get into a little bit about your background and, uh, maybe a couple of sentences about what you’re working on today, what you’re doing at Gorgias, and what gets you excited to fire up your laptop in the.

[00:01:18] Nicole Baqai (Gorgias): Thank you, James for having me. It’s super cool that we’re able to meet through Twitter. I just started getting on Twitter this last year, so it’s super exciting to see that the power of the tool, actually, how many connections I’ve made through it and meeting like-minded individuals, so. My name’s Nicole Bka.

[00:01:33] I’m the senior partner manager at Gorgias. I, um, usually work around the East coast. I’m based outta New York City. I traditionally work with most of the digital marketing agencies, development agencies on the East coast to educate them on what Gorgias does, how it’s fitting for a lot of their brands and the clients that they work with.

[00:01:50] And then I also, you know, speak at other events and educate on Gorgias as well at trade shows and panels and other in person, well now more virtual events than usual. 

[00:02:00] James Sowers (The Good): Yeah, it sounds like a dream job to me. I mean, always different things going on and just being creative about how to connect with partners and connect with vendors and things like that and, and strengthen those relationships and ultimately, I guess, drive results for the, the growth goals that have been set at gorgeous.

[00:02:14] I’m assuming it all has to translate into new accounts and new users and things like that. So it sounds like a fun, a fun line of work and. You know, as you know, customer support is changing day by day, just like your role, I’m sure. And that keeps things challenging, keeps them interesting. One thing that I’ve noticed is that like with every new platform, the next TikTok or whatever it is, or clubhouse a few months back or whatever, that seems to be like yet another inbox, right?

[00:02:35] So people who are specializing customer support or at a smaller brand, if you’re a founder, still trying to wear multiple hats, like you’ve got the traditional channels like phone, email, sms are pretty established, but then you’re gonna have every social media inbox on top of. What are your feelings or what are you hearing from the market even about brand owners and leaders at e-commerce brands trying to manage like the volume that comes through all these different channels and how does gorgeous fit into that as a, a tool in the toolkit, so to speak?

[00:03:01] Nicole Baqai (Gorgias): Yeah, absolutely. And I think I, you know, forgot to intro exactly what gorgeous is, but gorgeous for, you know, those that are listening. Um, We’re an e-commerce help desk, so we aggregate all your support one place. So email, chat, Facebook, phone, all the channels that you just mentioned to really streamline your support in one place.

[00:03:16] And I think customer touchpoints are everywhere now. The entire landscape of the way we communicate with brands is changing. So what you know our founders sought out to do is, is, is have this one encompassing tool. that allows you to aggregate all those channels in one place and all those touch points so you can switch between flows.

[00:03:32] If someone’s writing to you on Instagram DM and then you see that they have a Shopify order as well, now you can actually identify that’s a customer. I think what’s really special is oftentimes I’ll talk to, you know, Founders and they’re kind of growing their company and they’re like, Oh, we don’t need, you know, a customer tool that it’s that advanced yet.

[00:03:48] And I’m like, Yeah, but, but you do, because at the end of the day, if you’re going between Facebook and Instagram and managing all your, out of your Gmail, you’re actually like losing a lot of time and you’re not really working as efficiently as you could be versus, you know, implementing this tool streamlining at all in one place.

[00:04:03] And now you’re actually as a founder who has limited time able to, to prioritize and focus on the really urgent matters. We also have AI and machine learning components as well that help you identify which are the more urgent matters, which are the most, you know, angry customers, uh, versus those that are not as angry.

[00:04:19] Maybe you can get to them a little bit later, um, where before you lose that customer opportunity. So I would say it’s a very. It’s a really amazing tool for small brand owners. And then also of course, you know, these bigger companies that have maybe 10, 20 customer service agents. And I, I don’t think it’s one size fits all.

[00:04:36] I think it totally depends on, you know, what the needs are, how many volume of tickets you’re getting, and if you wanna handle that on your own without a tool, totally fine. I just think most likely, once they see like our capabilities, they’re really excited and realize how much time they could be saving.

[00:04:51] James Sowers (The Good): Yeah, that’s great. I mean, this concept of a universal inbox, like I want that for my personal life. You know, I have text messages and, and my wife’s in there and then occasionally coworkers are in there and like friends from college and stuff. But then I’ve got Slack next to that. Then I’ve got Twitter dms, which is how you and I coordinated this conversation.

[00:05:05] Like just in my personal life, I’d love to have one place to go and just kind of manage, re reply to continue those conversations cuz it’s really easy for stuff like that to you open up a text message, it gets marked as red. You forget to come back to it because you’re at the gym or something like that, and that’s just gone.

[00:05:19] That person’s like, Well James, its being a jerk. You know? And you definitely don’t want that kind of experience. So if we translate that to a business setting, it sounds like Gorgias really solves that problem where it’s like brings all of these things into a single application. You visit that, or maybe you live in there, right?

[00:05:33] All day. If you’re a customer support specialist or a founder that’s passionate about supporting customers, and it just kind of streamlines a lot of those workflows, I would guess that most people probably come to you at the point where they’re considering. Hiring a team member, right? Whether it be a VA or a full-time team member.

[00:05:46] It’s like if you’re thinking about hiring a person, it might also be a good milestone or a good like decision point to consider hiring a tool that can still help you be more efficient. How do you weigh that? Or like, do you see anything among your customers where it’s like they choose one or the other?

[00:05:59] They either don’t sign up for gorgeous and they hire a person instead, or they just hired a person and they need to give that person the tool to get their job done. Yeah, 

[00:06:06] Nicole Baqai (Gorgias): I think, I think it’s a mixture, right? So these, there’s, you know, some scrappy, more bootstrap founders that will be working out of that on their own.

[00:06:13] Then it’s like kind of. Founder that’s just now hiring someone, but they need something for them to work out of, right? So it’s like this perfect tool for them to actually, you know, track productivity, track revenue. We have live agent statistics, put KPIs to that actual new hire. And another beautiful thing that we have is we have partnerships with a lot of outsourcing agencies.

[00:06:31] So BPOs, which are call centers that actually work outside of our tool. And so let’s. You know, a brand actually wants to outsource their support ends up being cheaper. They don’t have to have someone full-time, so they end up saving money so they could hire someone part-time through the agency recommendations that we give them.

[00:06:47] And these, these agencies are a hundred percent well versed and gorgeous, know exactly how to work out of the tool. They already know how to pull statistics and all the analytics that a typical brand would enjoy. And so that’s another option that you can, you can recommend to a lot of these brands that are, that are looking to optimize their customer.

[00:07:04] James Sowers (The Good): Yeah, I love that angle because you see that happen with like Clavio or like an email marketing tool. It’s like we have this database of certified clavio experts and if you don’t have the funds or it’s not the right time for you to hire a full-time marketing specialist to run your email program, you just work with one of these consultants on, uh, a contract basis.

[00:07:21] They already know the tool. They come in and teach you about the tool. So by proxy you’re getting some education and some training there as well. And then if you do hire a full-time person, you kind of have those SOPs, that documentation, that playbook already set up. It sounds. You guys are doing a lot of the same stuff over at Gorgeous, where it’s like we work with these agencies, we vetted them, we trust them.

[00:07:37] If you need a human resource to come in and help you out that already knows gorgeous, it can help you learn gorgeous as well. Just reach out to one of these folks and we think you’ll have a good experience. 

[00:07:45] Nicole Baqai (Gorgias): Yeah, and we’re happy to make those introductions. I mean, we have those great relationships. We have recommendations for who we would, you know, depending on the client size, depending on.

[00:07:54] Tickets they get how many, you know, what type of brands is, maybe it’s a skincare company. We have specific agencies that are really specialized in skincare. They learn your brand voice and so they’re pretty much an extension of your brand without you having to now train someone and do the big lift on your own.

[00:08:08] And I think it’s honestly, especially now that we’re so remote, it’s, it’s very, be a very beneficial 

[00:08:13] James Sowers (The Good): path. Yeah, totally agree. And, uh, you know, you can’t overstate the efficiency of finding that right fit person faster because somebody’s already done the legwork because you could hire two or three people and, and for whatever reason, they’re not a good fit before you land on the one that ultimately is.

[00:08:27] So the cost savings, the time savings, the peace of mind that comes with like jumping straight into a good provider right away, I would say, can’t be overstated. The one thing that I wanted to take this conversation toward is like, gorgeous is the home for all of these different channels, all these different inboxes.

[00:08:43] It’s kind of like your 360 degree view of customer support across wherever your business is operating, right? I’m curious that like as new channels come in as you have like a Twitter DM inbox versus an email inbox versus, you know, phone and voicemails and things like that. Like are you seeing brands start to customize how they approach customer support by channel?

[00:09:04] Or maybe even like if somebody contacts you by email but they don’t get a response within an hour and they’re inpatient or whatever, they go to live chat on the site and now you’ve got one person across two different channels. Like how does gorgeous make that more efficient and that handoff and that cont continuity, I guess is w hat I’m thinking about.

[00:09:19] Nicole Baqai (Gorgias): Yeah, I think that’s a great question. I think it’s different, right? Because every channel is gonna have a different type of customer, right? I always like to talk about my mom. My mom’s a caller. You know, she’s a dedicated phone person. She doesn’t wanna deal with email chat. She thinks it’s all spam, right?

[00:09:32] Whereas myself, I don’t wanna talk to someone on the phone. I wanna chat, I wanna sms. I want it to be quick and easy. And so I think a lot of these brands kind of have to get really clear on who their customer is, right? Not every brand is gonna cater to, you know, mothers and another brand is gonna cater to, you know, a different generation or younger generation.

[00:09:51] I think it totally depends on the brand, but I will say we are seeing with all these different channels, a lot of brands are tailoring their strategies around, Okay, what is this specific channel? We talk about this term called conversational commerce, which is pretty much, you know, these one-on-one interactions between an individual and a brand that are instantaneous.

[00:10:09] Those are typically referred to as chat channels or SMS channels. Twitter is a great example. We just launched our Twitter integration and there’s a different type of, Conversation that goes around. I think we can all attest to that on our personal lives, right? There’s a different way you’re gonna email someone, there’s a different way you’re gonna speak with someone.

[00:10:24] And so for sure, I think we’re, we’re definitely seeing that these brands are tailoring the way they’re communicating to, to the specific channel that they’re, they’re testing out. And sometimes they even realize, okay, we know our consumer phone isn’t for them, so let’s not do phone. Let’s focus on sms.

[00:10:38] Let’s double down on SMS because we know that’s where our consumer is gonna is, has the highest conversion rate. So, I think that’s a great way to test new channels, but then also double down on the channels that you know are working for you. 

[00:10:50] James Sowers (The Good): Yeah, I think that’s really smart. I think that the nice thing about things being a little bit more digital today than there were say a year ago or five years ago, whatever time horizon you wanna use is like, you can introduce different, different types of multimedia, right?

[00:11:01] So I just saw an example the other day. I wish I could remember the brand, but it was basically like, it was a like a women’s apparel brand. And the customer support team member was physically holding up products like in their apartment and saying like, Here, let me, let me take a video for you. Put it right up to close to the camera.

[00:11:15] You can see kind of the, um, the quality of the material and some of the finish. Like, is it shiny? Is it Matt? Is it, how stretchy is it? Like they were stretching it out and it was like, I’m helping you. Replicate that in-store experience that you can’t have right now, so that you don’t have to make a purchase and then, you know, submit a return because it, it wasn’t quite what you wanted.

[00:11:33] So they’re handling that on the front end. I just thought that was super novel because it’s like, you can’t do that over the phone. Right. And, and it’s really hard to do that over email unless you can embed a video. So if there’s something like live chat with a recording feature in it, or if you’re doing it right there through like Instagram DMS or something and you can record a quick video, like that’s, that’s next level to me.

[00:11:50] And I think that ultimately that probably has an impact in conversion rate in sales as. Absolutely. 

[00:11:55] Nicole Baqai (Gorgias): I think the more personalized you can get with your audience, the more you can make them feel like they’re making. A purchase with a friend versus a purchase with this brand that just wants their money, for example.

[00:12:04] Even though I don’t think all brands are like that, I’m just saying the end goal is course conversion, but if you can somehow walk them through this guided process of making them really build trust with you, I think it makes it that much special because not only are you now converting the customer, but you’re probably retaining them as well for a repeat purchase.

[00:12:19] So I think. I really like that example that you gave because it’s how do you mimic this in-person experience online? Just cuz we saw a lot of these brands are moving online every day. Right? With Covid, everyone stayed at home. We saw a huge increase in our customers as well. I think we three Xed the amount of customers over Covid just because everyone was, you know, launching their stores and it became of task of how can you actually mimic.

[00:12:42] Experience that we’re so used to having in person online while still, you know, maintaining that trust. It’s been super exciting to see how different brands are using customer service as a, as a differentiator versus, you know, just seeing it as this tool that just gets them through their tickets and they just wanna get through, get through those customers instead of, you know, really doubling down on the response and figuring out ways, if someone’s having a bad experience, how to turn that into a positive.

[00:13:07] James Sowers (The Good): I think that’s a great point because, you know, especially early stage brands, a lot of times they look at customer support. I, I can say this because I managed a brand at one point and I always looked at customer support as like I equated to the Sunday scaries, right? Like you’re, you’re sitting there Sunday, you’re watching Netflix or Game of Thrones or whatever you’re into, you’re like, Man, I got this mountains to-do list at work tomorrow.

[00:13:25] And I just like, really don’t want to start behind the APO or whatever. You look at the customer support inbox the same way you’re like, I see 15 tickets in there, so I kind of wanna get in there on Sunday night and get a head start. Cause I know more are coming on Monday or whatever. And so it becomes to be like, This cost of doing business or this necessary evil or whatever, like you just feel like you have to do it and it’s not anything you get energy or like you learn from, or you look forward to.

[00:13:46] Whereas the, the most sophisticated brands, the brands that are performing the best, I would argue, look at it as, as you described it, as a competitive differentiator. So like how do you advise brands to like make that leap? Right? Is it just something that has to come with experience or is there something.

[00:14:00] Brands can do specifically to, um, you know, take customer support from, like I said, a casa doing business to something that separates them from competitors or separates them from alternative solutions. 

[00:14:10] Nicole Baqai (Gorgias): So I would say most of the brands who are doing really well on, on online have a, uh, a really nice customer service setup, or not nice, but a really effective customer setup.

[00:14:20] And what that means is they’re treating. Success team or their customer care team as their sales team. So the nice thing with Gorgias is you can actually track revenue within our tool and you can see, you know, the percentage that are converting at what response time and how much additional dollars is that driving for you.

[00:14:35] So I think something really, or a best practice is put KPIs to your success team, right? See why are they converting more one week over another week? Is it, are you offering something different? Is it a promo code? Is it the way that the customer service agent is speaking? Test different things out, and I think that’s how you’ll find out, you know, what is gonna be really successful for your brand.

[00:14:53] But absolutely, I think the best way to stand out and the way to win is for sure having great customer experience. I think there’s, I, I forget exactly what the number was, but there’s a study that shows, you know, majority of individuals actually expect good customer service. I think we all have this like, entitlement to good customers service.

[00:15:08] You know, the customer’s always right. It’s this culture of, Oh, you lost the item, Well, we’ll ship you a free one. But I, I do think that makes a huge difference and, and it’s easier. To deliver quality customer service over and over again. Maybe eat a little bit more cost and, and have, uh, or retain customers versus, you know, giving one bad experience and then you might have lost that customer forever.

[00:15:29] So I think it’s really different. You know, you should have core values and of course, you know, build your entire strategy around those core values of how you wanna deliver. Maybe you’re not focused on retention, maybe you just wanna get, acquire new and new customers. Um, which I wouldn’t say that’s the best strategy, but I think that is one strategy.

[00:15:45] but I think the, the most important piece is gonna be how can I turn this negative experience into a positive one so that maybe this customer didn’t have a good experience once, but he had that good customer experience afterwards that he was like, You know what, I’m gonna give it another shot. 

[00:15:57] James Sowers (The Good): Right. I, I feel like for some reason in a brick and mortar setting, if you have a bad experience, it’s tied to that person like that, that salesperson wasn’t very helpful or very kind to me or whatever.

[00:16:07] You don’t necessarily attribute that to Kohl’s or wherever you were at. Right. But for some reason, as we go fully into e-commerce and like all of your shopping’s being done online, it seems like I hear more and more folks say like, Never, never shop with Allbirds because they have awful customer support.

[00:16:21] And it’s like, well, you know, at the end of the day, that’s probably just one or two people you’re interacting with. And like, yeah, there’s an opportunity there. For some more training or some more guidance like internally for the brand. But it does feel like the bar has been raised for like what is good customer support, customer success, whatever you wanna call it.

[00:16:36] Like the bar is higher. And so just doing the basics right correctly isn’t gonna be the differentiator. It’s like going above and beyond and some of the stuff that I’ve seen, Again, man, bad podcast host. I should just have these, these lists or these examples listed out in my, my talking points. But I saw somebody that was like, Hey, we give every customer support person like a budget or an upper limit.

[00:16:54] Or it’s like if you need to solve a problem inside of your worldview and you don’t want to get a manager involved or supervisor or anything like that, like anything below this dollar amount, just do it. Like whether that’s refund, whether that’s send a replacement product, give a discount code up to 20%, whatever you wanna do.

[00:17:08] Like your job is to make sure that this person. Feels heard and feels respected and has an outstanding experience and like the upper limit on getting someone else involved in that decision is here. But I think below that, like feel free to just do it. And I think that kind of like empowerment is one step in terms of like making yourself, making customer support.

[00:17:25] A differentiator for you is like, you know this, this independence, this autonomy. This trust, It’s like you are the frontline sales people, the frontline support people, the representatives of our brand, and we trust you. And so here are the resources we’re giving to you to do your job effectively. Like go forth and do good, right?

[00:17:40] And if you find the right people, I think they’ll execute on that as you intend. 

[00:17:44] Nicole Baqai (Gorgias): A hundred percent. I also think, I like to relate it to this example is Zappos. I think, you know, many years ago Zappos had great customer service because, and I think they still do, but I think what’s interesting about them is if you asked for a specific shoe and they didn’t have it, they would send you to a different website and that creates like this really great brand affinity to the brand.

[00:18:04] And I think. That allows you to stand out. Right. I think they were able to crush it so well just because, you know, part of part of it was customer service, but that story has rung true now and I think I heard it from someone else who told it to me and I was like, Wow, I’m not gonna ever forget this. But I think, you know, that creates like this word of mouth marketing.

[00:18:19] It creates a really positive brand experience and it creates this ability to actually wanna, you know, Have a relationship with this brand. So I think there’s a lot you can do there, you know, with making yourself stand out and like you said, you know, is it a discount? Is it a specific budget? Is it, you know, hey, we don’t care if we lose this customer, let’s just give them a good experience and send ’em to another website.

[00:18:38] I think that is, That is super unique and that’s really a value add as a brand. And now you’re building this community versus just being this, you know, website that has brands where maybe you can find competitor websites, but now you know you’re building this community of the of loyal customers who wanna come back and they wanna purchase from you.

[00:18:54] And you’re, if you can somehow reward them in that way, most likely you, you’re gonna end up doing really. 

[00:18:59] James Sowers (The Good): I think it all probably comes back to the golden rule, right? Like treat others as you would wanna be treated. Pretend that you’re in the customer seat asking for help, asking for a problem to be solved and just do what you would want to have done in your situation.

[00:19:10] Because the truth is like you are buying things online, I’m sure you are like everybody is these days. And so when you go through a bad experience, you know what that’s like. Like it’s easy to, in the day to day hustle and bustle of running a business, it’s easy to lose sight of like, wow, we’re not providing that great of an experience here, so let’s try to do the right thing.

[00:19:25] I wanna go back to one of the points you mentioned earlier, which. Metrics and tracking performance and like, I think the, the default there is like, yeah, we measure response time and we’re really fast. Like, okay, that’s, that’s awesome. But again, that kind of feels like table stakes to me. The fact that you mentioned like you can attribute revenue directly to customer support as a channel.

[00:19:44] Right. That was really intriguing to me because I think like most folks just look at customer support as almost like a cost center, right? Like, or, or we’re trying to, like, we’re trying to not lose too much money in the form of refunds or broken products or unhappy customers or whatever. But almost, I don’t think they look at it as like a revenue driver, like a great customer.

[00:20:01] Support can sell more product, can cross sell, upsell, increase customer lifetime value, improve word of mouth, like it sounds like you have some measurables around that. So are you able to talk to like that financial upside type of thing and how a tool like gorgeous might help somebody train their team and empower them to make a meaningful impact on the bottom line and not just kind of, You know, respond, not, not be reactive, right?

[00:20:21] Be proactive in terms of maybe not pushing product, but um, helping customers in a way that ultimately helps ’em find a sale when otherwise they wouldn’t have, they would’ve abandoned because there was nobody there to support. 

[00:20:30] Nicole Baqai (Gorgias): Yeah. Well, I actually do think pushing product or upselling is something super key with, with, with your success team.

[00:20:35] And that’s why I talk about, you know, treating your success team like your sales team. And of course you don’t wanna be like overselling them, but I think there’s a strategic way to be, you know, do an upselling experience. For example, if someone, you know, got, let’s say a broken ring. I think we have this example from one of our jewelry companies.

[00:20:52] and instead of just being like, Oh, we’ll replace it and send you new one, they’re like, Hey, we can replace this. Or, Here’s a premium ring a little bit more expensive, but we’ll give you a discount on it as well. So now what they ended up doing is the other person was like, Great, I’ll replace it for the premium ring.

[00:21:05] I get it at a discounted price, but you’re still making a little bit more than you would’ve if you had just returned and replaced the other one. So I think there’s, you know, that sort of strategy. I also think there’s a strategy around. I think we found over Black Friday, Cyber Monday when the response time was under 10 minutes, the conversion rate was 28% higher and it drove an additional like $22,000 of support.

[00:21:26] I think it was a thousand tickets, sorry. So a thousand pre-sale tickets, which are customers that haven’t purchased within 30 days or entirely. New customers, I think, are they on 300 converted when the response time was quicker. So I think the faster your response time, the more likely. You are going to have a conversion, and then we actually found that jump to 50% when the response time was under two minutes.

[00:21:46] So now you can actually see that response time is directly correlated with conversion rates. So response time should be, you know, should, should go down. And then also your overall strategy should be very specific. And then also setting KPIs to different agents who, which agents are converting more, which are converting less.

[00:22:01] How can you upsell that customer and, and give them a really great customer 

[00:22:06] James Sowers (The Good): experience? Yeah, the first thing I thought was, if you can filter this down, either by channel that the message came through and or the agent that was, was handling the message, then there’s a lot of learning in there. It’s like, Hey, Stacy’s doing really great.

[00:22:18] She’s killing this. Like, let’s get her to cross train her teammates or share case studies or whatever makes sense. Like maybe we have a, a weekly lunch and learn, or a couple times a month, and like whoever’s really crushing it in terms of like driving sales through their support interactions. Put together a quick little talk, like 15, 20 minutes and just talk about what you’re doing or like walk me through a specific example with a potential customer, the issue they had, how you addressed it, You know, and we can kind of try to reverse engineer like why that resulted in a sale.

[00:22:45] I think just that level of detail. And then if you can also do that across channels and say, well, we convert much higher through customer support when they come in through TikTok or Instagram, like a visual platform versus like email. And so what can we do there in terms of setting up our templates or whatever to um, replicate that kind of at scale.

[00:23:01] Nicole Baqai (Gorgias): Yeah, I think, um, so templates are what we call macros. So, Figuring out ways to work and be really, really quick to respond is gonna be through macros or automation and that a lot of the brands that we talk about with automation are like, Oh, we don’t wanna sound like a robot, or We don’t want, We feel like it’s gonna take away personalization, but it’s actually the opposite.

[00:23:19] The nice thing with our tool and. I don’t think they realize what the other customer service tools is. Actually, you can embed different Shopify variables in your response. So you can say like, Hey James, here’s your order information. Here’s your tracking. You ordered X, Y, and Z. Have a good day. Love Nicole.

[00:23:33] You know, or an emoji with Nicole. That is how you can create these templates and respond in a. You know, an automated, with an automated response, but not have it feel like it’s not personalized at all. You actually increase the amount of, or how quickly you’re responding. And then you’re also still remaining very personalized.

[00:23:50] You’re getting to that customer in time. So I think that’s, you know, one way to really focus on is using automation. And while we can’t automate a hundred percent of the the test, you can automate the most repetitive ones. So at least we can actually figure out the intents or the sentiments and intents are gonna be what is.

[00:24:05] Purpose of the message and sentiment is gonna be what is the tone is an angry customer, is a positive customer. And when you’re setting up those responses, or you know those rules is what we call them based on a tone or an intent, you’re actually being really smart about how you’re responding to those really repetitive inquiries.

[00:24:22] Where is my order as the number one most asked for question? So if you can automate that up to 40%, now imagine how much time you have left to actually respond to the other. Urgent matters that don’t need that repetitive template that you’re copying and pasting probably from a Google spreadsheet. So yeah, there’s a lot of strategy there that you can incorporate into, you know, your customer service strategy.

[00:24:43] James Sowers (The Good): I think that sentiment analysis is, is a really great point because, um, and I don’t wanna overstate what the tool can do, so feel free to walk me back here. But what I was thinking is like with your, Where’s my order example? So where’s my order example with a green happy face sentiment is like, Where’s my order?

[00:24:57] I’m, whatever. I’m hoping that it will get there in time for my son’s birthday, right? And so I’m like, there’s nothing, there’s no exclamation points in there or whatever. It’s just like I’m being proactive about it, asking about the timing, and just wanna make sure it’s gonna ride by this certain day. So if that, Automated response goes out, but then somebody on the team who’s an actual person reads that.

[00:25:16] They might reach out and say, Hey, I upgraded it to expedited shipping. It’s gonna be there in two days or whatever. It’s gonna be there in plenty of time. Whereas like, Oh, where’s my order? With a red angry face sentiment might be a bunch of explanation points. Like, Where’s my order? It’s a week late, I’ve got no updates.

[00:25:29] You know, like I’m guessing that there’s some kind of like, Artificial intelligence and machine learning that’s scanning that text and saying like, this person is generally unhappy, so don’t send the default, like happy order update kind of with the, the order details in there, like get a human involved so that you can come in here and kind of smooth things over.

[00:25:46] Now I’m just describing that based off of intuition. Is that accurate or is there a different approach going on inside? A gorgeous. ? 

[00:25:51] Nicole Baqai (Gorgias): No, I think definitely, you know, when you identify negative comments, for example, on social media, you can go ahead and hide those negative comments so that you can review them in your own time versus it impacting your brand image.

[00:26:01] I think that’s definitely very key, is a key component of like why we say, you know, sentiment analysis is important. Or for example, if someone’s like, I wanna cancel my order. You wanna cancel that order before it ships, right? Because if you don’t cancel it before it ships, now you’re gonna have to deal with a return and you’re gonna lose cost on that return.

[00:26:17] So I think that’s another example of like why you wanna prioritize that. Another way is like structuring your team in a sense that’s, you know, you might have someone who’s specifically for social media and then someone who’s specifically for support and then someone who’s maybe I’ll tier two or tier three who are know exactly different return policies or know how to work.

[00:26:35] More intense customers or maybe you wanna team specifically for loyalty customers. That’s all possible. You can create, you can assign different teams, you can set up different views. You can make sure that certain agents have access to only specific views. I think it all depends on kind of who, what your customer subset is.

[00:26:50] But I think like if you can get really specific with your customers and tie them to a specific team, that creates a great, you know, customer 

[00:26:57] James Sowers (The Good): experience. Yeah, I think that’s, that’s an astute observation. And like to your earlier point about automating certain repeatable processes, but also personalizing them.

[00:27:06] Like, I think there’s a lot of the same viewpoints around email marketing where it’s like, I know email workflows and automations can make me money while I sleep. Right? But we’ve all received one of those that didn’t work quite, quite correctly, and it says, Hey, first name or whatever, and you’re just like, Oh man, look what this company’s doing.

[00:27:20] So, I dunno, my, my personal take on that is, If automation when done correctly, this is specifically in the email context, is great. Um, as long as you always have a human ready to jump in, right? And so like I try to set the expectation, at least with a lot of our agency marketing efforts is like, Hey, this is an automated email, but I’m always on the other side.

[00:27:38] Like, if you reply to this, it comes right to my personal inbox. Like, you’ll talk to James and I’ll be here to address whatever question or concern that you have. Right? So I, it sounds like gorgeous or similar tool. Oper operates in the same way, where it’s like you can automate those repeatable processes.

[00:27:52] 70% of the time or more go exactly the same way, but at the same time, you, based on this team structure and who you can tag that specialist in whenever they need to come in and provide that personal touch. Whether it’s a good experience and they wanna really hammer it home or it’s a not so good experience and they wanna come in and smooth things over.

[00:28:06] Totally. 

[00:28:08] Nicole Baqai (Gorgias): I think it just depends on, on the way that you’re structuring your team and how you’re, how you’re thinking about customer experience. Because if you don’t have customer experience in mind and that’s not something that, um, a brand cares about, it’s gonna be really easily reflected in, you know, the templates or the, the quality of service.

[00:28:24] And like I said, with us it’s, it’s never high first name. It’s Hi James. Like in embedding those different variables. 

[00:28:30] James Sowers (The Good): Talk to me about some of the, We talked about some of the secondary impacts of customer support. We talked about how it can be a sales driver in in the right cases. Are there any other areas like I’ve seen some folks pull actual product development out of customer support interactions, like, Hey, we have this unmet need here, and I think if we launched this new product that’s pretty complimentary to what we already have, then that would be a good fit and that is value that has been sourced.

[00:28:50] An investment made into customer support or customer success. Have you seen any other examples of, like we talked about it being a cost center, not necessarily a revenue driver. Are there other positive secondary impacts of having a top shelf customer support program? 

[00:29:03] Nicole Baqai (Gorgias): Yeah, and I think what’s cool about Gorgeous is we, our slogan is Turn your help center into a profit center, right?

[00:29:09] Cause I think like how you mentioned cost center is how it was traditionally viewed, but there is so much profit that you can drive as, or as I spoke about in the previous examples. But I think one example is great is reviews are really key. Sometimes, you know, we integrate with Yapo and a Kendo and we can pull different reviews and if someone’s writing in, Hey, do you have this?

[00:29:28] So, for example, we had a customer that had a lavender candle. Most majority of the time, the flavor that was getting asked, requested the most was a Rose Rose candle. So what the, what the brand ended up doing is they created like this, this rose candle. Then they also created a rose lavender bundle, and were able just, Based on that customer service feedback, figure out, okay, wow, we actually realize we can find new products and launch new products.

[00:29:50] And the skews actually did really well with that because they took the customer feedback, realized what the customers wanted, and actually built product for their customers. I think oftentimes brands are like, Oh, we know exactly what our customer wants. Sometimes they might not. And the way that to really find that is actually listening to what’s going on in your customer service team.

[00:30:07] Another example is sometimes on social media, brands will be like, What flavor do you wanna see next? And then they’ll take polls and then you can tag, you know, which flavor is got the most number of tags. Maybe it’s blueberry versus raspberry. Let’s check how many times blueberry was mentioned and tag every time blueberry is mentioned.

[00:30:23] And now look at the report. blueberry and raspberry and make a decision on what flavor we should launch next. Those are great examples of, of how you can use that product feedback to actually iterate on new tools and also just improve as well. I, another example is I had purchased from a swimwear brand and they had a huge outage.

[00:30:42] In fact, I think like their warehouse set on fire was something really crazy. And of course, you know, rather than having angry customers right. They, they were so proactive that they actually sent a proactive email and they’re like, Hey, you might be emailing us about your order. Unfortunately, we had this, um, happen, so orders will be delayed for another six weeks.

[00:31:00] If you don’t want your order, feel free to respond here and we can cancel it now. If you wanna keep your order, there’s nothing left to do on your side. Just understand it might be a little delayed, and I think that proactive communication is really, really necessary. Same with if you have an automated response that says on chat, if you’re talking about delaying my issue, let’s, let’s like create a really personalized response so that you can mitigate and get ahead of all those customers that might be angry and actually realize, you know, I think no, an update is better than no update at all and no communication because then you’re gonna just, you know, upset customers and they’re not gonna wanna purchase from you.

[00:31:32] James Sowers (The Good): For sure. I think that like ultimately what it comes down to is like customer support needs to have a seat at the table in whatever team meetings that you have. Like that’s the biggest faux PA I’ve seen in my experience is like customer support exists in the silo and they manage their tickets and they assign their tags or whatever and they do their thing and they’re great at it, but none of that ever leaves that team and goes over to marketing or goes over to sales or goes over to product development.

[00:31:54] Even the development side of things for the website and messaging and stuff and how the pages are structured. All that stuff needs to permeate out. And so I always love to see like team huddles where customer support has a representative there and they’re talking about voice of the customer type stuff.

[00:32:07] Like, here are three positive things and three negative things we heard this week, and here’s one trend that we’re seeing, or whatever, like some keyword that just keeps popping up in seling. Let’s talk through that because I might not understand or I might not. Know that, um, Rose is a new scent that we could offer, right?

[00:32:22] But I hear Rose all the time, and if I bring that to the team meeting, they go, Well, we actually have one, like kind of half baked, and we didn’t quite get the recipe right. We could just pull that off the shelf, blow the dust off, hand it to our manufacturer, and we could roll that out probably in three months.

[00:32:32] So why don’t that we make that our, our fall product launch, right? Or whatever. But that’s only gonna happen if like, Customer support isn’t just, again, this cost of doing business or this cost center, it’s, it’s a value added piece of the puzzle and they have a seat at the table and they get an opportunity to speak and share their thoughts.

[00:32:46] I dunno, that’s the biggest misstep I’ve seen. I’m not sure if that aligns with, like your experience. Uh, you work with brands a lot more than I do these days in this capacity, but yeah, I hate to see that happen. So I’d love if anybody takes anything away from this conversation to just say, give him a roll.

[00:32:58] Right. Give him a seat at the table and let him. Yeah, 

[00:33:01] Nicole Baqai (Gorgias): 100% I think, and I think it’s becoming more and more and more widely adopted just because we lost a lot of that physical interaction in person or in a retail setting. So, Everyone has to be creative around how can I engage with my customer? And you know, when they’re running a bunch of ads, you know, there’s, that’s one way to actually acquire new customers.

[00:33:19] How can I really engage with them? Is it having a conversation with them on chat? Is it swiping up on a Facebook ad and bringing them into a Facebook Messenger funnel and actually talking to them? I think there’s a lot more you can do now to really build that trust and, and you know, that’s one thing acquiring customers, but how are you retaining them?

[00:33:35] How are you actually getting them? To convert and is it maybe walking them through that customer service flow and, and, you know, customer experience is, is more than just support. It’s actually being able to be proactive and upsell and turn a conversation into an actual, you know, revenue driving experience.

[00:33:51] And I think that’s, you know, have, has shifted, you know, tremendously in the last year and continues to grow. We’re seeing, you know, an app TikTok being, you know, a huge trend or we’re seeing video conferencing being a trend or video customer support. So I think there’s a lot. That’s happening and a lot new channels that are gonna be developing.

[00:34:08] And so the future of customer experience is gonna be so, so vast and so widely thought of then just a customer’s cost center as kind of how we were talking about earlier. 

[00:34:18] James Sowers (The Good): Yeah, Well, as it gets easier to, to pump data in from other places. I know you talked about a couple of integrations earlier, but like even just your email marketing tool of, I’m thinking Octane AI has like these shoppable quizzes now, right?

[00:34:29] And so like if someone takes a quiz on the very front end of your sales funnel and gets a personalized recommendation for a skincare product based on their needs, you pipe that all into gorgeous and that person later, like they still haven’t bought, but they’re on your live chat on the site asking questions.

[00:34:43] That that agent or that customer support representative hopefully can have that data in front of them and say, Okay, well let’s just walk through your quiz together. Like how cool would that be? It’s like, I have your quiz right here in front of me. Let’s walk through your responses together and I’ll help you get placed with a product today.

[00:34:55] And you know, I’ll give you 10% off just to give it a try. Or I’ll send you like a test bottle along with it of this secondary product like you buy this one, I’ll send you the test bottle. Try something else with it. Maybe you’ll like that the next time you’re ready to make a purchase. But I think to your point, This is all just gonna improve customer experience over the long term.

[00:35:10] And as we have tools like gorgeous work better and more collaboratively, and then we empower people with more information about the customer, it’s gonna help us kind of personalize that experience. Which I guess leads me to my question in a long-winded way of like, You work with this stuff day in and day out, your benchmark’s probably pretty high and you probably are more aware or, or more, uh, noticed more often a positive experience or a negative experience.

[00:35:32] So, I don’t know which side of the scale you wanna lean on, but I’m curious if you had an experience recently with customer support for something you’ve purchased that was either really good or really bad, and what should the listeners take away from it, whether it’s something to improve or something to, uh, sustain if they’re already doing it.

[00:35:45] I have 

[00:35:45] Nicole Baqai (Gorgias): a bit of both. So one airlines, I guess that’s for everyone. I always having a terrible experience because they’re asking for my confirmation number 10 times. Then they, I, they transfer you and they transfer you and transfer you. And I think the nice thing about, you know, e-commerce and Shopify is like, okay, you put your email in, they already have your information in front of you.

[00:36:01] They have your order number, they have your history. So I think that’s, you know, one experience that I always think needs to improve. And then another one, I recently purchased from, um, a website and rather than just waiting until the return was processed so I can get the refund, they actually offered me a credit.

[00:36:18] They’re like, Hey, we’ll give you 10% more of what you purchased with the, if you, you know, use the credit now versus just taking the refund. And so then I ended up buying a bunch of other stuff that I probably didn’t need. But it, honestly, it was a great experience cuz I could, you know, I had to already exchange a few items and reorder.

[00:36:34] For a different size. Plus now I actually got a little bit more money from them to actually purchase more. So it was kind of felt like a win-win. So I think that’s a great experience of how can I be creative? How can I make sure I’m not losing that customer and actually, you know, upselling them right there when they’re still engaging with my brand.

[00:36:49] James Sowers (The Good): Yeah, I love that example because I think the traditional mindset around customer support is like a big call center. Phone trees like, like you described with the airline, where it’s like probably somebody in a developing nation like trying to jump in and they don’t have complete information. So you get passed around a lot or whatever, and it’s just a very negative experience.

[00:37:05] But the future of customer support or the folks who are doing it really well right now have that kind of empowerment and they have savvy, sophisticated people in those seats and they’re able to think creatively on the spot and come up with a solution like the one that you. Which basically keeps that person in your brand like ecosystem, right?

[00:37:21] And instead of processing return for a product that wasn’t right and giving them a hundred dollars back, you give ’em $110 now to buy something different. And maybe that’s just like, Hey, I’m just returning this cuz it wasn’t the right size. So if you’re gonna gimme 110 to go buy the right size right now, like I’m all over that, right?

[00:37:34] So I think that’s, that’s a really great example. 

[00:37:37] Nicole Baqai (Gorgias): Yeah. And then you end up buying something more, spending a little bit more too, which is kind of, you know, counterintuitive to, I mean, I think they know exactly what they’re doing, but I do think it creates a great experience and so can’t argue that. And I, it clearly left an impression on me that I’m telling this story,

[00:37:51] James Sowers (The Good): Yeah, for sure. I mean, in, in our line of work, we’re always looking at biases and psychological, uh, things. And it’s like there’s this law of reciprocity where like if you do a small favor for somebody, they tend to pay you back with an even bigger favor without being asked. So that small favor of. You paid a hundred bucks, here’s 10 more dollars to keep shopping with us and, and replace it or buy something else.

[00:38:09] That person will go buy something for $150. Right? Because you were so kind to give them $10 they weren’t expecting. Then they have this affinity with you and the brand. They go back into the store and they’re like, Well, I guess I, I guess I could get two pairs, right? I was gonna get the one pair anyway.

[00:38:21] And I kind of liked how they looked and how they felt. They just weren’t the right size. So let me get two pairs now, and then you just kind of close, you basically doubled. Order value right there, or that customer lifetime value. So yeah, these things, these things work in mysterious ways, but they come out positively when you work ’em the right way.

[00:38:34] And I think that’s really the summary of like customer support is, is a place to, um, amplify your growth really, versus, uh, cost centers has traditionally been viewed. I think that’s a central theme here today. A hundred 

[00:38:44] Nicole Baqai (Gorgias): percent. Yep. That’s definitely, I feel like I was hitting on that theme throughout the entire, their entire conversation.

[00:38:51] James Sowers (The Good): I think we got our episode title I, I’ll go work some options here and I’ll pass it around the 10, what they think. . Okay, cool. Uh, well before I let you go, Nicole, thank you so much for taking time outta your day. I appreciate it. Especially on a sleepy Monday. I know things can be a little bit of a drag and.

[00:39:04] Yeah, I’m, I’m adequately caffeinated. That’s why I, uh, feel so comfortable here behind the mic today. But I really appreciate you taking the time to join us. Before I let you go, is there anything that you wanna share with folks in terms of how they can follow you, how they can follow your journey or what you’re working on at Gorgeous.

[00:39:17] Anything you wanna share? 

[00:39:18] Nicole Baqai (Gorgias): Yeah, absolutely. They can always email me nicole@gorgeous.com, and surprising that no one else has. There’s only one other, Nicole, but I got the nicole@gorgeous.com domain, so that’s exciting. So they can email me if they have questions after listening to this. We also have an offer for, uh, the podcast listeners today, so hopefully you can include that link somewhere in the, about, about this podcast section.

[00:39:39] They’ll get their second and third month free. They just have to mention this podcast and, or they can email me as. 

[00:39:45] James Sowers (The Good): Awesome. And uh, yeah, we’ll include that, that special link in the show notes if you wanna go check that out, second and third month free when you sign up today. So Awesome. Thank you Nicole, so much for sharing a little bit about gorgeous with us, but more specifically teaching us how to be better at customer support and, uh, really appreciate your time.

[00:39:59] We look forward to having you back on the show sometime soon. 

[00:40:01] Nicole Baqai (Gorgias): Awesome. Thanks for having me. Have a good rest of your week. No, Sleepy Mondays for me, . 

[00:40:07] James Sowers (The Good): Hey everybody, this is James again, and before you go, I just wanted to invite you to join one of the coolest things I get to work on as director of marketing here at the Good.

[00:40:14] It’s called the E-Commerce Insiders List, and it’s a private version of this podcast feed that gets you access to tons of additional bonus content, like extra interviews q and a. Website, teardowns, and anything else we can dream of. It doesn’t cost you anything but your email address, and we promise to always respect your inbox.

[00:40:30] This is just our way of forming stronger relationships with our listeners and making sure that we produce content that is actually valuable to you and to your business. If you’re interested, you can join the rest of the e-Commerce insiders by going to the good.com/podcast. And dropping your email into the form at the top of the page.

[00:40:46] We’ll follow up with directions for how to access the private feed, and you’ll be off and running. Like I said, this is one of my favorite things that I get the opportunity to work on because it lets me interact directly with e-commerce founders and leaders just like you. If you’re interested, I’d love to see your name pop up in my notifications.

[00:41:01] Until then, keep an eye out for the next episode of the E-Commerce Insight Show and we’ll talk to you soon.

The post How to Streamline Customer Support to Improve Efficiency (& Customer Experience) with Nicole Baqai appeared first on The Good.

]]> The Power of Email Automation (And Personalization) with Lexie Bennet https://thegood.com/insights/lexie-bennet/ Thu, 10 Nov 2022 15:18:16 +0000 https://thegood.com/?post_type=insights&p=102055 Listen to this episode: Subscribe to the show: About this episode: Why is it essential to set up automated flows for your email marketing? This is what Lexie Bennet, an independent email marketing consultant, talks about in this week’s episode. She also shares her latest passion: pop-up and post-flow quizzes that greatly impact personalizing your […]

The post The Power of Email Automation (And Personalization) with Lexie Bennet appeared first on The Good.

]]> Listen to this episode:

Subscribe to the show:

About this episode:

Why is it essential to set up automated flows for your email marketing? This is what Lexie Bennet, an independent email marketing consultant, talks about in this week’s episode. She also shares her latest passion: pop-up and post-flow quizzes that greatly impact personalizing your brand’s email content. 

We also discuss flows versus broadcast emails, Lexie’s tips on copywriting, different types of email flow you can focus on, and the importance of personalization. 

In this episode, you’ll also learn: 

  • How post-flow and pop-up quizzes help with personalization and shipping concerns 
  • Why audits are important in correcting and optimizing automated flows and triggers
  • Why you need to dedicate time and effort to set up your automated flows
  • How to do pop-ups correctly so they’re helpful instead of annoying 

 Learn more about Lexie and her resources here

  • Connect with Lexie on LinkedIn
  • Follow Lexie on Twitter
  • Say hello and reach out through her email  

Want to be a guest on our show? Have feedback or ideas for how we can improve? Send your thoughts over to podcast@thegood.com. We’ll be keeping an eye on that inbox. 🙂 

The Ecommerce Insights Show is brought to you by The Good, a Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO) consultancy specializing in helping ecommerce businesses accelerate their growth through better research, testing, and design. Learn more about our team, our work, and our services at www.thegood.com.

Episode Transcript:

[00:00:00] James Sowers (The Good): So here’s the question. How can e-commerce leaders make sure that they’re producing a great product, providing a world class customer experience responsibly managing their finances and still reserve time, energy, and resources for marketing their products? My name is James Sas, and you are listening to the e-Commerce Insight Show, the podcast that gives you specific actionable advice for growing your e-commerce business.

[00:00:20] Every Monday you’ll get a conversion rate optimization tactic that you can implement quickly to make your business 1% better every single. Every Thursday we sit down with industry experts to go deep on a specific aspect of running a successful e-commerce business. It’s the perfect blend of learning and application, which means that you maximize the value of every single minute you spend with us.

[00:00:41] We’re just as committed to growing your business as you are, So if you’re looking for a partner to help you crush your revenue goals, you’ve come to the right place, roll up your sleeves and grab a notepad because it’s time to get to. Hey Lexi, thanks so much for taking time out of your day to join me and come on the show.

[00:00:56] Really excited to get into all things email marketing. I know before I joined the Goodest Director of marketing and started wearing like a dozen different hats. Email was my sweet spot. It’s where I love to play. I think it’s still a huge opportunity for a lot of brands, so I’m excited to get into the more technical aspects of what you do.

[00:01:11] But maybe to kick things off, just give us a couple of sentences about who you are and what kind of clients you serve right now, and maybe a project or an activity that gets you excited to fire up your laptop in the. Yeah, thanks 

[00:01:21] you. 

[00:01:21] Lexie Bennett (Email Marketing Consultant): I’m so excited. So my name is Lexi Bennett. I’m a Clavio email marketer for DDC Brands using Kon, Shopify.

[00:01:29] And I focus on, or specialize in setting up like branded custom email flows, all those like automated journey, like customer journey messages you get. And what I’m really excited to be working on right now is I’m helping a brand set up their post quiz flow with like all of the. Custom data that they entered into the quiz and like setting up something that’s really personalized and useful and helpful.

[00:01:54] So that’s what I’m like psyched about right now. That’s 

[00:01:57] James Sowers (The Good): awesome. I’m really excited to get into the relationship between quizzes and the emails that come behind those results because I think that’s a relatively new development. I would say there’s a big player in the space, Octane AI that really kind of shook things up, at least from my perspective.

[00:02:09] Can’t wait to get into the technical details there, but I saw in my research, because I’m a great podcast host and I do that kind of thing. Two things I wanted to point out. Lexi Bennett, fantastic name makes me think like you should be sitting behind a news desk somewhere and like, just like telling us the hot stories of the day.

[00:02:24] Hopefully that’s not offensive to you, but I was like, Oh, Lexi Bennett. That’s like, that’s like a newscaster from teenage Mu Mutant Ninja Turtles or something. Very, very good name, very strong. But I also noticed they have a passion for travel and I’m curious like. Professional life if people who love to travel have really had a, a rough couple of years, so to speak.

[00:02:39] With all the restrictions like you’ve been to, sounds like 20 countries counting, what have the last couple years been like for you and, and how has that affected you? How have you kind of molded your life in work around that change? Yeah. 

[00:02:49] Lexie Bennett (Email Marketing Consultant): I love travel. My whole family’s like really big on traveling and I spent.

[00:02:53] So I tried to like ride out at least some of the pandemic abroad . So I escaped. I actually moved to the country Georgia last year. It’s like between Turkey and Russia. And I spent a couple months there and then I also spent a couple months with my parents. They live in Abu Dhabi, so I spent the last year abroad.

[00:03:11] I actually like just got back to the states and I’m like buying furniture and getting settled and settling in. So I didn’t like explore and like get to know the country super well. It was really just, Just writing out the pandemic there. So I went like hiking and, you know, worked on email and it’s a really like nomad friendly country, so they like let you set up a visa and like just work there and it’s super easy to live there.

[00:03:35] So love to travel, love to live abroad. 

[00:03:38] James Sowers (The Good): Wow. Is someone who’s barely left the continental us. I, I’m a little overwhelmed. It kind of makes me anxious to hear how far and how often other people travel, but that’s a really cool story. Especially like you’re gonna visit your parents in, in that area. Like, uh, Abu Dhabi, I think you said.

[00:03:51] Not everybody can say that, so it’s just an interesting bloodline that you’re coming from there. So that’s really, that’s really cool. Awesome. Well, that, that’s kind of you as a person a little bit. Let’s get into more about your work. You said you have a recent client project that’s like post quiz email experience.

[00:04:05] Tell me a little bit more about that. Like is that kind of reflective of a typical engagement for you or is that more of a special project that, uh, is outside of like your wheelhouse, so to speak, or something new? You’re dabbling. Yeah, 

[00:04:14] Lexie Bennett (Email Marketing Consultant): I’ve worked with octane quizzes and post quiz flows before, but they just updated that now you can like dynamically populate like the products that are on the results page, where before it like just linked the results page.

[00:04:27] So every time like a product went out of stock, which was very often the last. Two years with all the like, crazy shipping delays and like pandemic issues. I’d have to like go update the flow and we had a bunch of emails in this flow, so it was like just not realistic. So now that it like dynamically populates, it just makes everything easier and more flexible.

[00:04:46] So I’m going in and like cleaning that all up and resetting everything up. And, uh, that flow for this client is their second highest performing flow in terms of revenue. And that’s like before any of the cool stuff is set up, like before all the personalization and like, here are your custom results and here’s like a nice message about like why we gave you this.

[00:05:08] So I just feel like it’s the tip of the iceberg for them right now and I’m, I’m really excited about that. 

[00:05:14] James Sowers (The Good): Yeah, there’s always energy around when you have something that’s working well already and for whatever reason you see even more opportunity. On top of that, there’s probably. Balance of like I’m a little scared to touch it cuz it’s working so well right now, but also like I feel pretty confident we can make this thing even better.

[00:05:29] So did you have any of those feelings? Did you have any of those? Like, do I really wanna dive in here or do I wanna maybe test quizzes on a different flow or something like that? Or with a different client and then bring it back here? Cuz I don’t wanna break something that’s working. 

[00:05:40] Lexie Bennett (Email Marketing Consultant): Yeah. Well they’ve, I worked with them for a while.

[00:05:42] They have like a lot. The foundations just set up and like buttoned up really nicely. So we’re at the stage where we can kind of get into the more nitty gritty, like get into the weeds and do more technical stuff. But like the focus is definitely on, like making sure you have all of like the core emails going out and then you can kind of like just it up and make it more fun.

[00:06:02] But I’m excited for this opportunity cuz I like selling in a way that’s really helpful and like solves people’s problems. And I just experienced this, I’m gonna give you an example. I, so I just moved into this apartment. I have no furniture cause I’ve been living abroad the last year. So I’ve needed like, Everything.

[00:06:18] Like I just showed up with clothes, books basically. So I went shopping and I got a new couch and in the store it was like a really good experience. They were so helpful and like I showed them my mood board. I’m like, I want something that looks like this. This is my budget. And they helped me pick something out and then they’re like, You know, we’ve got a rug that goes really well with this.

[00:06:38] Here’s a chair. And I like ended up leaving the store with like half my living room. And I was really happy about that because like the sales associate even helped me find a discount code I could use. Like I left feeling really good and having way more of my problem solved than I was expecting to get solved.

[00:06:55] And then of course, as soon as I placed my order, I just got bombarded with like these awful emails, , that were like, buy this, like baking sheet that had nothing to do with like what I needed. , like just salesy, like, you know, like really catalog e kind of emails. And I unsubscribe like as soon as all of my furniture arrived.

[00:07:16] And it just made me think like, I think emails can be more like in person sales associate, like where someone’s helping you out, like guiding you through what to get, what’s helpful. They’re finding discount codes for you, like you feel like an insider. You feel like, like you came and you got a lot more than you even expected.

[00:07:35] Like really helpful. And that’s what I see for these kind of post quiz flows where someone’s already there, they’re giving you information, they’re showing you a problem that they want help with, but now you have the time to go say, Okay, here’s all the information you gave me. Here’s what can help you also, this works great too.

[00:07:53] And you can solve like more than just one little problem for them. So that’s like the attitude that I’m going into and I’m setting up post quiz flows or just all the flows in general, is how would I talk to someone and treat someone in person rather than like these kind of annoying sleazy sales emails where you just like blast someone with a discount code and there’s no personal 

[00:08:16] James Sowers (The Good): connection.

[00:08:17] Yeah, I love that because we talk about on the convers rate optimization side, like the golden rule of e-commerce, right? Treat others the way you would want to be treated. And a lot of times that comes from our retail brick and mortar in-store type of experiences. And when they go really well, they’re notable, right?

[00:08:31] Because so many of them are poor. Like you don’t get an associate, they’re too busy to help you and you’re just kind of wandering the store trying to find what you want. Or maybe they’re not as knowledgeable as you’d like or something like that, or, Listen to your needs. They offer you the baking sheet when you clearly came looking for a couch or whatever.

[00:08:44] Like when those things happen in real life, we, we roll our eyes, we leave, we we abandon cart. Basically we leave without purchasing, right? So how do we take those and bring them into a digital environment in an e-commerce setting? Quizzes are one of the great ways to do that. And as a recent development, or at least Octane made it popular, put it on my radar like I love them, especially for certain brands and product lines.

[00:09:02] It’s like when it needs to be personalized based on needs or use cases or sizes or something like that, like a quiz is a great way. Collect that data and then pipe it into your tool of choice, Clavio, and that’s where you get into segmentation and personalization. So definitely wanna get into those cuz those, I think those are more like advanced level tactics.

[00:09:19] But first I wanna get into this, this blocking and tackling as I call it, like the fundamentals. You’re like, quizzes are great. I love working on that. That’s kind of a new and exciting thing for me. But like so many brands could probably just benefit from a basic audit and um, kind of an inventory of like what you’ve already, what boxes you’ve already checked and where the opportunities.

[00:09:35] And let’s just get those to like minimum viable effectiveness, right? And then from there we can continue to iterate and improve over time. So maybe describe that in the, in the sense of like, I know you offer some audits, I know you do like some strategy work outside of just quizzes. So what does that look like and like what are some of the common oversights or misconceptions you see when BRA that brands have related to email marketing?

[00:09:54] I’m a freelancer. 

[00:09:55] Lexie Bennett (Email Marketing Consultant): I work with two brands consistently, like month over month. But then I. Cycle out like a third brand where I just do their flow setups, like total done for you. And that starts with an audit. And by far, the most common thing that I see in audits that I perform is not having all of the flow trigger set up correctly.

[00:10:15] So people could be going through multiple flows at once, like especially the welcome flow and abandoned cart flow. Shopify and Clavia just updated a few months ago where if someone abandoned carts but they check that box, like Send me newsletter. That puts them in the abandoned cart and the welcome flow at the same time.

[00:10:32] So you could be getting two emails in one day, or you could get an offer here and an offer there that are different, like that’s very annoying and confusing for a customer and like an easy mistake for a brand to make. So yeah, number one issue I see when I’m performing audits is just all the flow triggers, if they have their flow set up are like overlapping or they’re forgetting to exclude past customers or, you know, just simple things like that.

[00:10:55] So just cleaning that up is just like an easy low hanging fruit. And the easiest way to do that, if you’re like not super familiar with it, is literally to draw it out on paper, like draw out a little map of like all the flows and all the triggers, and then you can see like, oh, these two overlap. Or someone is like not getting an email for three months and then they’re getting 10 emails in this wind backflow, like all of a sudden out of nowhere.

[00:11:22] So yeah, 

[00:11:23] James Sowers (The Good): draw it. , right. For anybody watching the video, I have a six foot whiteboard peeking in over here on my right hand side, and I have for our agency, filled that up with flows for all the different, like they hit a, a blog post, they download a PDF report or white paper or something. Then do we drop them right onto our newsletter?

[00:11:41] I don’t know. Or do we wanna like nurture them a little bit and potentially try to sell our book or whatever And there’s this escalating like product here. I think the same thing is true of eCommerce. It. Be mindful of the entry point, but also like where that entry point drops them in. And you don’t want them going through two or three different flows at the same time because that’s gonna overwhelm them.

[00:11:58] It’s gonna lack relevancy, it’s gonna lack timeliness. And then what do they do? They click the unsubscribe button. And if that’s not set up properly, there’s no way for them to say, I just don’t want this type of email. You know, they just completely, universally unsubscribe and you’ve lost that lead forever unless you find a way to creatively like recapture them later.

[00:12:15] Right. 

[00:12:16] Lexie Bennett (Email Marketing Consultant): Yeah, that would suck. So just cleaning that up I think does a lot for the customer side. Like the experience is just so much nicer. And then when I start building out emails and flows, I focus on the high traffic emails the most, or like the first impression emails because you can like study all these like subject line hacks or like this cool idea or that cool idea, but at the end of the day, , your emails are like built on trust with your customer.

[00:12:43] If they know you and they trust you, like they’re excited to get content from you, they’re excited to see what’s new. They’re excited to open your emails, and that trust is really established, like in the first. Few emails really sets the bar and they’re like, Oh, this is really helpful. This is worth my time.

[00:13:00] This is worth opening. Or like, Oh, this is just random crap. I don’t need to open. So I know it’s exciting to get like, Oh, I’m gonna build this super complex birthday flow, let no like go back to. The most trafficked emails, like the first welcome email, the first abandoned car email, the first post-purchase email, and really perfect those and set the standard of like, this is the kind of content you can expect to get in your inbox from me.

[00:13:28] This is gonna be worth your time. And if you set that up, like really are thoughtful and useful and helpful and like couch sales associate lady like, like get on her level. If you’re like that, then you’ll see overall. The tide kind of rise across all of your email marketing when that trust is established?

[00:13:46] James Sowers (The Good): Yeah. When I see email marketing consultants, freelancers, agencies, when I see them talking about like AB testing, subject lines, I start to think that like, That that account is at risk, because at that point, you’re trying to eek out the last 1% of potential, right? Presumably, you’ve already worked through it.

[00:14:01] There’s so much more on the front end, blocking and tackling basics like email structure, post purchase emails, delivery, timing, like personalization, segmentation, like all that stuff comes before subject line because I, I, I just think it can be way more impactful. To your point, you’re building a relationship with somebody and so if you haven’t checked that box, the subject line doesn’t matter, right?

[00:14:18] You, you have to have that fundamental. It’s just like any other interpersonal relationship, like there’s this basic level of trust and interest and affinity that has to happen, and then everything else can come after that. But until you solve that, you gotta keep working. Right. I wanna get into the high traffic areas.

[00:14:33] You, you listed a few, and maybe we have some specific advice around each of those, but before I do that, we’ve talked a lot about how you focus on flows versus what I would call broadcast or more one off emails like we’re having a sale, we launched a new product. You’re focused on kind of that customer life cycle stuff.

[00:14:47] There’s some kind of triggering event or activity that a customer took, and then there’s an automated, presumably series of emails that comes out after that with certain logic and stuff behind it. Why did you decide to focus there versus a lot of practitioners? They do both, right? Or maybe they just do the broadcast emails, the sales emails, the promo emails.

[00:15:05] They’re happening all the time, right? And so you can get a client locked into like a recurring kind of engagement that way. Why did you choose 

[00:15:11] Lexie Bennett (Email Marketing Consultant): flows? Brand owners have like a million things going on, and everything is urgent it feels like. And flows just always get put off, like optimizing them or just setting them up or double checking that they’re correct or improving them like that, just as like as important as that is and as fundamental as that.

[00:15:32] That’s always like on tomorrow’s to-do list and then tomorrow’s and then tomorrow’s and tomorrow’s. It’s like never today. So I do those cuz like that’s what I focus on and I have a lot of fun with it. And I love like creating all the maps. Like I love mapping all of that out and thinking like, how can we both be most helpful?

[00:15:50] And I love designing emails, like, that’s really fun for me and that’s what I can thrive and be good. But it’s the thing that like brand overs want to do. But they’re like, Oh, but first I need to fix this how you Shopify bug. And then this TikTok went viral and now I need to like help ship orders till two in the morning.

[00:16:06] Like there’s just so many more urgent things. So I build flows because it just gets put off . 

[00:16:14] James Sowers (The Good): Yeah, I think that’s really smart. And the reason I ask that question without leading is like, that’s where I used to focus. That’s where I would focus if I did it again, primarily for the point that you cited, but also because you build it once and it sells for you forever, 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year, and you don’t really have to pay it anymore than whatever your Clavio bill is, right?

[00:16:30] So if you can get it nailed down, I think it’s one of the high impact areas compared to broadcast emails where like, that’s kinda like a hamster wheel. Like every week I gotta figure out, It might be easier, like less cognitively demanding to figure out what’s the subject line, what’s the offer, what’s the product, what’s the product image, you know, template, whatever.

[00:16:44] Like there’s six things you have to have, but you could probably solve that in an hour, right? But to build a highly sophisticated welcome flow, like that takes time. And so I think people just gravitate toward the quick win versus like the heady kinda, I gotta close the room, get on my whiteboard and figure these things.

[00:17:00] And if they never make time for it, it’s smart to hire someone like you to take care of it for ’em. So I think that’s a very astute decision on your part to, to focus in that area. Now when you’re rewriting, uh, those emails, You, Where do you start? So you listed a few, uh, it’s probably post-purchase, abandon and cart.

[00:17:14] Welcome sequence. I’m probably missing a couple, but like if we were to click down into one of those, I think most people are aware of abandoned cart, even though it might be neglected, right? They know they need it, but maybe a welcome flow or post-purchase flow is talked about a little less frequently.

[00:17:27] So do you have any advice for somebody and like one of those other like less highlighted welcome sequences or automated. Before 

[00:17:33] Lexie Bennett (Email Marketing Consultant): I start anything, love to talk with the customer service team or whoever runs social media and checks the dms. They know all the T, like they know , what the questions are asked.

[00:17:42] They know like what customers are struggling with or where they get lost or what they want next. So just kind of like gather what people need to hear and then welcome flow and post purchase flow. Most of the time, like people just set up like one email in there or very standard typical emails and there’s a lot more that you can do with that.

[00:18:02] When someone just joins your mail, mail list or they just purchase, you know exactly like where their head space is at, and you can talk to them where they’re at, as if they were a person like actually coming into your store. You know so much about them just from like their recent behavior. And I think of a post purchase flow, like a second version of a welcome flow.

[00:18:21] So I do a lot of like brand introduction content, like story behind the scenes, um, tutorials on how to use your products. Images from other customers giving advice or tips. So not just like, Thank you for your order. Like that’s great, like make sure you have that too. But you can go, like most of my post purchase emails flows are like six to eight emails long, even rather than just like one or two because there’s so much you can talk about also, like right when someone purchases and they don’t have their product yet.

[00:18:54] You have their undivided attention. They are like waiting on their order. So that’s your chance to like really win them over and teach them that email is a good channel to have a relationship on. Uh, so yeah, welcome flow, post purchase flow, really like building those out, telling your full story, providing a lot of value, and going above and beyond there will set everything up really well.

[00:19:17] James Sowers (The Good): The worst customer experience for me is when I buy something and I literally don’t hear from them until it shows up at my door. Like there’s just radio silence, especially if it’s something that requires a little bit of education or like, you know, it’s a tool or something, or like a skincare product, like you’ve never used it before and you wanna make sure that you’re doing it right or fitting it into your routine, applying it at the right time of day, whatever it takes, and like to have silence in that.

[00:19:38] That key period just feels like a massive oversight for any brand and inside of. You almost always get like purchase confirmation, shipping confirmation, like these transactional emails. And so many of those are just the default template Shopify or whatever platform they’re on. It’s like this very bare bones, Here’s your order number, here are the products that you ordered.

[00:19:55] Here’s your subtotal, here’s tax, here’s your total. And it’s like, Man, put some personality in there, right? Like, I don’t know if you do that, but I always think like, this is such a huge, what’s the open rate on this? It’s gotta be like at least 70%, right? Like people wanna see that they got the coupon, they claimed, or they just wanna check like when the delivery date is so they know if they’re gonna be home or they’re gonna be at the lake house or whatever.

[00:20:14] Like to leave those as these sanitized, like very sterile templates just feels like something that is super common. And I’m always surprised when I. Yeah, though it’s 

[00:20:23] Lexie Bennett (Email Marketing Consultant): good to like have those up, but you can do a lot more with them, I think. Um, Mud Water does a really good job in their post purchase, like transactional emails especially.

[00:20:33] They have a lot of personality and like helpful information and like, like. FYI’s about like the product. So yeah, I love personalizing transactional emails and just making them more branded, more helpful. You know, putting something in there just makes you like, Oh, I’m really excited to get this product.

[00:20:50] Or like, this is the most frequently asked question that we get, so here’s . Let’s just answer it right out of the gate, you know? So definitely, yeah. I’m working on personalizing that for a acne care brand that I’m working with right now and their. Requires a lot of educational content. So we plugged in a bunch of tutorial videos and links to like helpful content so that they are using the product correctly.

[00:21:15] They get the best results out of it, and that also sets expectations of when they can see results. Because I, I can’t remember where I read this, so I’m just gonna like wing it, but I saw somewhere that brands customers that develop connections with brands like Sincere Connections have. A way higher lifetime value than even someone that just had a positive experience.

[00:21:40] So you can deliver on a product like your, your product can solve their problem, but if you’re not developing a connection where they feel like valued or helped out, then. They can also just go find something else to solve that problem, . So you can really stand out by developing connections with people.

[00:22:00] And I think you can do that in a transactional email. You can do that in your post purchase flow where you’re sending them stuff that’s just above and beyond and showing that you really care. That like. They’ve traded money for this. Like you really care that they have a good experience, they get what they wanted.

[00:22:16] And uh, yeah, just back to the golden rule, like treat people like you would when they walk into the door. Like that’s the mentality you need to have when you set up emails and the rest just kind of comes naturally and from like practicing it a lot and like learning what works and what doesn. 

[00:22:31] James Sowers (The Good): Yeah, I think like, you know, if you walk into a retail store and an associate comes up, they’re probably not going to throw an offer in your face right away, right?

[00:22:39] If they’re any good at their job, they’re not gonna be like, We got 20% off today and it’s on women’s wear or whatever, and like, Here you go, here’s your coupon. Like sometimes that happens and usually when it happens, it’s like not the best experience, right? Like, I don’t even know what I’m looking for.

[00:22:51] But the best sales people, I think, come up and say, Hey, what can I help you find today? And then there are like three more questions after. What’s going on in your life? Oh, that’s unfortunate. Like, tell me more about that. How does that feel? Or like what’s your timeline for making this decision? Do you have a budget?

[00:23:03] Like they’re asking all these question. And it’s, it’s very heavily like focused on learning, right? Versus presenting. And then at the right time, they introduce a couple of solutions or whatever to pick from. I think like when it comes to email, a lot of times someone’s first experience, it’s just getting blasted in the face with like all these different offers and products and it’s like, well, how do I know that you even understand my problem, right?

[00:23:22] Or, or what I’m trying to solve here? Or the ideal outcome that I have, Like you haven’t asked any of that about me and considered that before presenting a product or a solution. That feels like something like if you can replicate that in-store experience that positive in-store experience online, you’re gonna be head and shoulders above your peers, I would think.

[00:23:39] And you know, I wanna get into some ways to do that. I think personalization is, is one of those segmentation kind of goes hand in hand with that, I would say. But before you get into that, I don’t wanna gloss, gloss over a great point that you made about talking to the customer support team, talking to the social media team, if they have a sales team.

[00:23:52] Talking to the sales team. I’m curious like. That’s my favorite place to find after talking to actual customers. That’s my favorite place to find like copy for the actual emails. So I’m curious, when you get those folks on the phone, what kind of questions do you ask them? The team members that interface with customers most frequently?

[00:24:07] Like how are you dragging that information out of them? Right. Yeah. I love 

[00:24:11] Lexie Bennett (Email Marketing Consultant): to ask for what are the 10 most frequently asked questions that you get? And they can usually like list those right off the top of their head. Like, Oh yes, I get a billion dms about. So what are like the 10 most common questions?

[00:24:22] Like what do super fans say? Like why are they excited about something? And then what are the most common complaints? So just kind of getting the spectrum of like FAQs and then what’s good and what’s bad, and learning to answer that in emails. So you set expectations like with this acne product. If you tell people that it’ll solve your acne in seven days, like they’re gonna be really upset because it doesn’t, it takes 60 full days.

[00:24:48] So walking through expectations with someone being like, Here’s what you can expect to see by this day. You know, here’s how to make sure you turn it into a habit. Here’s three tips for turning a routine into a habit. Like set an alarm, like tie it to brushing your teeth. So it’s like habit stacking, you know, like giving.

[00:25:06] Practical advice, I get those ideas from talking to the customer service team or talking to customers or reading all of these reviews and just seeing like once this product enters their life, like how does that practically, Like what does that practically look like? And speaking on that level. Another thing for connecting with customers, especially in a post purchase flow, a lot of times brands center all, all the messaging around themselves, like that’s really easy to do and that’s.

[00:25:35] The default and copywriting is so hard, , but I’m learning more and more like what works and what doesn’t. And it helps most of the time when I just like turn off my marketing brain and just like think about like one friend to another. Like what would I text them if they were asking me about this product?

[00:25:51] Like that helps. , but we’ve been switching a lot of post-purchase copy to be about the customer. Like, Hey, you just purchased this item that tells us that you’re this type of person, you like to do this. You believe in these values rather than like, as a brand, these are our brand values. You know, it’s the same.

[00:26:10] Message is just a different angle. And Pete, like you were saying earlier, like people wanna feel seen, not just sold to, and switching your copy to be like, This is who you are, right? Like this is what you believe in. Oh, like we do that too. Like we’re with you as opposed to You’re with us. US has really helped people like stay engaged in post purchase emails and build that customer.

[00:26:35] James Sowers (The Good): Yeah, totally agree. I think that too many brands, it’s important for the people and the story and the personality of the brand to come through in any kind of customer touchpoint. But I always say like, you can’t be the hero of the story. The customer is the hero of the story. So you are trying to.

[00:26:51] Convince them or, Or just help them be confident in the fact that like if they wanna get from where they are today to somewhere in the future with some ideal outcome, they’re the ones that are gonna make that happen. And you’re just here to support them. So like it could be as simple as instead of your immediate post purchase email being like the founder’s story, say like, Hey, if you’re getting this email, you’re probably struggling with X, Y, and Z.

[00:27:13] And then after that say, I was too. And that’s why I started this brand. Like just a little tweak like that starts with it. It. Lowers everyone’s guard because you get them nodding, right? It’s these little micro commitments. Yes, I am struggling with dry skin. Yes, I do have blemishes. Yes, I am getting rid cued at school or whatever the case may be.

[00:27:29] Oh, you were struggling with that too. Like there’s the affinity and there it’s like I don’t just wanna buy from whatever this acne brand is like. I wanna be friends with the founder who’s telling me that she was in the same place as me 10 years ago, and she solved her problem with her own product. I think just that that little switch can make all the difference in, you know, I’m not a copyrighting expert, but like you only get that by talking to the customer support team, by talking to the social media team and having that be a two-way street.

[00:27:53] It’s not just like, Hey, we have this new product here. All the specs, here’s the best customer for it. So when you talk to somebody, make sure you present it to them. If they fit these criteria, it needs to come back too. Like what are you hearing on the street? What’s changing? Because customer preferences always change and that can bring up all kinds of things.

[00:28:09] Not just email marketing, but new product ideas. Um, different experiences and so very astute observation by you. Uh, that’s my long-winded way of saying like, I love what you’re doing there, and I think other folks should replicate that, whether they’re gonna do it in house or work with a provider like you.

[00:28:22] One other way to build affinity with a customer is personalization. And I know you’ve talked about kind of collecting this data with a front end quiz, so maybe we can start with that as the example, but like, Okay. I think a lot of brands are figuring out how to set up those quizzes and how to filter customers down into the right product or products for them.

[00:28:39] But how do you transfer that data into an email marketing experience? 

[00:28:43] Lexie Bennett (Email Marketing Consultant): Yeah. There’s a couple different ways to collect zero party data. Like Octane AI quizzes are my favorite cuz there’s just so much that you can get out of that that I think it provides the most value for your customer. But also in the Clavio popup, you can ask a little question that like a multiple choice they can select from.

[00:29:00] So like for the acne brand, I have the. Are you a teen struggling with acne? Are you a parent buying for their child or are you an adult struggling with acne and in the welcome flow, there’s just a different way to, like, we spoke with estheticians and like people that sell this product in real life, and they’re like, Oh yeah, parents have these type of questions, and teenagers have these type of questions, and then adults want to know this type of stuff.

[00:29:22] So instead of like one welcome flow where everyone gets the same content, Now we have three different paths that they can go to where the base content is the same, but instead I’m like, Hey, parents, you know, like, here’s why your teen has acne. Here’s how this like product solves it. Here’s like three tips to help them.

[00:29:39] Just changing the language a little bit. And that’s not even like from a quiz. That’s from a one single question on a pop. That you can set up within Clavio. So that’s an easy way to just start personalizing your emails. You can also like ask them questions in an email and then set it up in, in Clavio that it tags what button they click, and then you can segment based off of that.

[00:30:02] But yeah, quizzes are my favorite because you get the most data and you can ask all the good questions. I’d love to ask like especially what’s your concern? What’s your hesitation, what’s your problem? And then, Walking back from there and teaching them how this product helps them solve their problem. So brands like skincare brands, I work a lot with skincare brands, , they’re my favorite to work with because they have so many products uses and different products are appropriate for different skin concerns.

[00:30:33] So setting up a quiz flow that like, okay, you are struggling right now with oily. This ingredient from this product does this exactly like this will solve that for you. And like, here’s why your skin is this way. Here’s how to help it long term. Like it’s more than just like, Here’s a product. Let me just like slap this on an email and send it to you.

[00:30:54] It’s educating them so that they feel like. , they’re really clever. They’re really smart. Like they solved a problem I think in June. The nail polish brand does a good job of this. They teach you like how to paint your nails, so it looks like you just came out of a salon and like, I’ll watch those videos and then have like wonderful nails afterwards and I have to like take pictures and send all my friends like, Look what I just did.

[00:31:16] Like wow, Like you, you know, like I feel like the hero of my story there and I’m a huge fan of all the June for that. So yeah, using personalization. Here’s exactly your problem and here’s how you can solve it and here’s like how it works. That I think is just really fun. 

[00:31:34] James Sowers (The Good): Yeah. It keeps your job interesting, right?

[00:31:36] And, and if a brand tries, it’s in house. Like there’s never a boring day when you’re trying to, Again, I need a six foot whiteboard for a reason, right? As soon as you start talking about personalization, you get multiple variants and it’s like, yeah, this email sequence is probably 60 to 70% the exact same content, but that remaining 30 to 40%, that’s been person.

[00:31:52] Is critically important to get right. You don’t wanna mess up the logic, You don’t wanna send oily skin recommendations to somebody who has dry skin because somewhere along the way you botched it. So that’s why, again, you map it out, but when you get it right, it’s incredibly powerful just for that, making somebody feel like the hero of their story.

[00:32:08] And, and, you know, it’s, it’s, it’s intuitive when you think about it. Like, if I’m buying this for myself, I’m a teen and I’ve got an acne, acne problem, I want a solution right now. Like, I want my acne gone today. But if I’m a parent buying for my student, knowing that. That’s not realistic. Like it’s not gonna go away tomorrow.

[00:32:25] So like maybe equip me with some talking points about how like, Hey, I got this to help you out. I just want you to know it’s probably gonna take a couple of months for it to really go away, but if I’ll help you, stick with it and we’ll get through this together and then I think you’ll be in a better place.

[00:32:37] Like that little bit of like support and resource allocation to that parent like means the world. And if another brand’s not doing that, I think that gets you the sale. But it comes from personalization and knowing who you’re talking. The way that you do that is you collect it through quizzes. So I think like if somebody’s sitting here and they’re overwhelmed, they’re like, Wait, I gotta do multiple variants and I gotta do personalization and, and I gotta segment my emails and only send ’em to certain people.

[00:32:59] Like, yeah, it can make your, your head spin a little bit, but that’s why, like, taking it slow, getting that blocking and tackling, right, Getting the fundamental, you know, workflows set up with just the essentials and then continuing to improve over time, maybe with the help of someone like you. I think that’s the right approach.

[00:33:14] Don’t try to be perfect right outta the. Like, let’s just do the fundamentals and get those right, And then do more advanced tactics, like layer those on top as we learn more about our customers. You know, I wanna do like a little bit of an awkward transition into like, you know, one way to collect that data is through quizzes, and sometimes it’s introduced through popups.

[00:33:30] So I know like, and, and that’s also just a list building. Like how do you get people into these experiences, Right? We talk a lot about popups from a conversion rate optimization perspective. It’s like back to that in-store experience. If somebody just shoves a clipboard with a survey in front of you and says, I got a 20% off coupon, if you fill this out.

[00:33:44] Nobody likes those, right? Or if you do, I don’t know. I don’t, I don’t understand your perspective on the world if you like that, but I try to avoid those folks, right? So when I hit a site and within five seconds I see a popup with a discount asking for my email, like, I don’t even know anything about the brand yet.

[00:33:57] I don’t know anything about your product. I don’t know if you can help me. Like, it’s just too early. And I’m not against popups, I’m against popups that are implemented in a poor way. So I think I saw through my research, like you explicitly helped design, uh, an effective popup. Pair as well with the email experience that you’ve designed.

[00:34:12] So I’m curious how you think about those and doing those in a way that’s like respectful for the customer, but also serves the business goals of like growing their audience, right, and getting people into the sales 

[00:34:20] Lexie Bennett (Email Marketing Consultant): funnel. Yeah. A popup is an interruption, so you wanna make sure it’s, you’re interrupting them in a way that’s very helpful, like you would if you were in a store and someone came up to you mid browsing.

[00:34:32] It should be relevant and it should be useful and it should help you at where you’re at. So delaying your popup or maybe only having it show up on product pages, so they would have at least like scanned through the homepage first helps like make sure like people are like actually entering it and interested and they want the content, like they want the value that you’re promising them.

[00:34:54] If you give them their email. So I always put a delay on popups and then I love to ask a question. People like to tell you about themselves. Like people love to take quizzes about themselves. And so like the acne question, just one question increased our conversion rate on that popup, I think from like an 8% to an 11% just in a week that we added that one question on there.

[00:35:16] And the design was the same. Everything else, it was just like, if, are you parent, teen, you know? So asking a question really helps or maybe telling them exactly what they’re gonna get if they sign up for emails. So sign up for emails and then we’re gonna give you a tutorial on how to use this, or we’re going to give you a recommendation on what we think your style would match if you select that you like, have a minimal style versus colorful.

[00:35:41] So, yeah, I quick win that I always do with popups is just like adding a, a proper delay. So the interruption comes more at an appropriate time and then asking a question and then delivering on that question. When you send them their first welcome email. And like you were saying earlier, like it’s really easy to get overwhelmed with like all the different options that you can do, but once you’ve like set up those foundational emails, like the high traffic email, , you have a welcome flow going out.

[00:36:08] That’s when you can say, Okay, if I have one question to my popup, I can just do, you know, the base content is 70 to 80% the same. We just changed the wording a little bit or a couple of the images and set two different welcome flow pathways from one question and a popup. So yeah, that’s my popup philosophy.

[00:36:25] James Sowers (The Good): Yeah, it’s an iterative approach, right? Because it’s like to your hearkening back to your story earlier about buying a couch. Somebody introduced a, a coupon to you near the point of sale, right? You had already gone through all that exploratory conversation, the product recommendations, you’re like, Yeah, I’m in on that.

[00:36:42] I, I’ll take that one too. This is starting to look to good together as an assembly, and then they’re like, By the way, would you like 20% off of your purchase today because you’re over a certain amount or whatever, And it’s like, Yeah, I would like, I’m already this far in the process. But if they would’ve done that outta the gate, Be like, this is my first time in the store.

[00:36:56] Like, I’ve been living internationally. I don’t even know, like I haven’t been to a Pottery Barn in forever, Right. Since I was a kid. So like, let me figure things out first. You know? So it’s all about the offer first and foremost. But then second to that, I would say probably the timing and the way that it’s presented and being respectful and, and having some, uh, some clarity around like, when is the right time to introduce your offer, right?

[00:37:16] Based on customer. Yeah, 

[00:37:18] Lexie Bennett (Email Marketing Consultant): and people ask me like, Should I put the code in there or should they have to open the email to get the code? And I understand like thinking behind that, but to me, like the ultimate goal is the sale, not that they open the first welcome emails . So I always put the code in the popup itself so that can shop directly from there.

[00:37:36] And they don’t have to like leave the screen, like they can continue in the window shopping and then include the code in the welcome email as well if they haven’t yet purchased by the time they get it. That post purchase flow is also a welcome flow in and of itself. So sometimes brands will message me and they’re like, Oh no, we have to like hide the code in the email so that they have to engage on email.

[00:37:59] I’m like, Okay. But the point is they purchase not, The point is that they open an email . So yeah, I know there’s like no right answers. Like there’s lots of different ways that you can do things. But like personally, that’s what I’ve found most successful is just including the code and the success message of the popup, and then building that, like nurturing that relationship in the post purchase 

[00:38:21] James Sowers (The Good): sequence.

[00:38:22] Okay. So a question for you. The clients that you typically work with based at the size that they’re at, what does their marketing team usually look like? Are they hiring you because the, the founder’s still doing everything? Are they hiring you? They’ve got one marketing person who’s already wrapped up in broadcast emails, sms, social media, probably the little customer support, like all kinds of stuff or like, um, what does that team look like and how do you fit into that?

[00:38:43] Yeah. I usually 

[00:38:44] Lexie Bennett (Email Marketing Consultant): work with brands doing like two to 3 million a year in sales, and so they have a bit of a marketing team set up. And everyone there usually feels like there’s so much to do. , which I relate to. I worked in house for a startup for a year and I loved it, but also like you learn a lot really fast because there is just.

[00:39:05] An overwhelming amount of work to do. So usually there’s a social media manager, there’s some sort of marketing director, cmo, and then there’s the brand owner. So there’s usually like a few people. And so sometimes there’s some clavio content that’s set up, but they’re not really taking full advantage of it.

[00:39:22] Um, they’re definitely running paid ads, but maybe they don’t have a proper like abandoned cart flow set up. So they’re kind of like a leaking ship. So I work with brands that. things are rolling. Customers are happy. There’s like a lot that’s growing and going well, and they’re at the point where they want to like really solidify customer journeys.

[00:39:42] On your whiteboard, like they want to tidy those up and make sure that they’re like the best possible experience for customers to go through. Cause customers are, you know, they can be really forgiving. You can send them content and especially when you’re a small brand, I feel like you can get away with making a lot of mistakes cuz they really see you as like another human.

[00:39:59] But especially as brands like Start to Grow, they want to make sure they have those like personal connections that you could have done maybe back, way back in the day when you were like on Etsy where you could. Personally message someone, but now that’s just like not possible and you still want that type of messaging.

[00:40:16] You can set all of that up through these like triggers and flows and clavio. So yeah, that’s the kind of teams that I work with. There’s a few people, everyone’s super busy and email always gets pushed off, or they have maybe some clavio default flows, but it just kind of looks. Not as nice as their super fancy website that they just rebranded with

[00:40:36] So I get emails like on par with their website and on par with like, the way they wanna treat their customers and the quality of their product. 

[00:40:45] James Sowers (The Good): Got it. Awesome. Thank you for that. I just wanna validate my assumption because I’m guessing if you, uh, it is basically, it’s nobody’s dedicated job to be thinking about the email marketing experience all the time.

[00:40:54] It’s, it’s fractional. So the divided attention, I’ve got other things on my. And they’ve hit this kind of like milestone or this decision point where like, okay, we need to take email marketing seriously and more specifically like the evergreen kind of automated workflow type of emails. And that’s when they engage someone like you.

[00:41:10] So let’s say, uh, those people are sitting in a room right now and they’re listening to this and they’re going, Yeah, this is great, but I don’t have a whiteboard big enough to cover all the different flows and stuff and personalization and segments and all these different journeys that you’ve talked about today.

[00:41:23] So how do we like get started? How do we take one step forward? How do we just get a little bit better? Where would you recommend that that team focus their attention? Maybe it starts with an audit or maybe there’s a specific workflow that pretty much everybody can make improvements on. Like what advice do you have for that?

[00:41:37] Buy 

[00:41:37] Lexie Bennett (Email Marketing Consultant): your product, purchase it, and then as a customer, like with a different email like that you don’t have associated with your brand already, buy your product and then see what it feels like. So sign up for the newsletter purchase after a couple days and see like what do you get? What feels odd? Oh wow.

[00:41:55] I get two 15% offers like back to back. That do, they’re totally different, you know. So just experience it as a customer. Like you would like a hot jar map on a website. So just watch it and you’ll start to like take notes really fast of things that you wanna change or update or improve on. And, um, yeah, focus on the high traffic emails the most, and it’s, it would be really fun to like develop like a 16 email flow, post purchase cert like sequence.

[00:42:24] And that’s great. You should do that down the line. But just focus on the ones that get the most traffic first. Build that trust and then. Just do like one or two a week, like adding an email in here and there, seeing what performs and in an audit. Yeah. The thing to look at the most are definitely all the triggers.

[00:42:43] Clavio support is also really helpful. Um, cuz sometimes like the, if then statements are like kind of confusing or don’t come naturally to people, just message them and be like, just to make. non-customers are, are receiving this flow, right? Like customers are not this, this is correctly segmented out. And then once you’ve like set up a few, like you get the hang of the language of it.

[00:43:05] But yeah, just double check your triggers, see who’s getting what, and then focus mostly on your high traffic. Emails is what I’d advise. 

[00:43:14] James Sowers (The Good): Awesome. I love that advice for buy your own product or, Or even like have somebody in your family buy it and just look over their shoulder and wait for them to get the confirmation email and see what it looks like in their browser.

[00:43:22] Right. Cause even your unique experience, like you might have a cookie in your browser or something from working on the admin side of things that. That compromises the actual like organic experience of a nu to file customer. My reminder to go check the stuff for this podcast cuz a little behind the scenes, we had some issues getting connected here today because one of the URLs for the recording studio was apparently locked up for some reason.

[00:43:40] So I need to go through my own, like what does my intake form look like? What does my confirmation email look like? What are the calendar events getting set up properly? Like that? That’s my reminder that it’s not just applicable to e-commerce brands, it’s applicable to me as well and, and other business types.

[00:43:53] You know, I think we’ll wrap it up there. Lexi, thank you so much for sharing all this knowledge. I think folks have plenty of notes to go off and take action on. Before I let you go, I’ll give you the soapbox for a second. Is there anywhere where somebody can go to follow your journey, follow your work, maybe get in touch about working with you?

[00:44:07] Now we’re in the future. Where would you like to send folks to after, before we let go? Today? 

[00:44:11] Lexie Bennett (Email Marketing Consultant): Online, I’m in two different places. On Twitter, I’m kind of like in the weeds asking questions like interacting in people’s threads, like trying to figure out how to do my job better. And then on Instagram I post, um, on stories almost every day.

[00:44:25] Like I usually post literal screen recordings of me designing emails or setting flows up. So if you wanna basically like watch behind my shoulder, build emails, you can follow me on Instagram. And on both channels. I’m the Lexi Bennett, so that’s where you could find me. And if you wanna work with me, there’s links on my bios for everything for how to 

[00:44:44] James Sowers (The Good): do that.

[00:44:45] Cool. Yeah, I’m definitely gonna, uh, follow you on Instagram. I’ve been trying to avoid it because it’s not nearly as like, filtered as my Twitter experience to productive content. It’s more like guilty pleasure, like. Cat pictures or whatever, and it’s because I can’t find a whole bunch of business folks on there that I can actually learn from.

[00:45:00] Uh, so I’m gonna go check out those Instagram stories. Thanks for sharing that, and thanks for taking time outta your day to join us here and really appreciated, um, all of your insights and, and had a great conversation. So thanks so much. We’ll look forward to having you back on the show sometime soon.

[00:45:12] Lexie Bennett (Email Marketing Consultant): Thank you. Thank you so much. 

[00:45:14] James Sowers (The Good): Hey everybody, this is James again, and before you go, I just wanted to invite you to join one of the coolest things I get to work on as director of marketing here at the Good. It’s called the E-Commerce Insiders List, and it’s a private version of this podcast feed that gets you access to tons of additional bonus content, like extra interviews, q and a Sessions, website, teardowns, and anything else we can dream up.

[00:45:32] It doesn’t cost you anything but your email address, and we promise to always respect your inbox. This is just our way of forming stronger relationships with our listeners and making sure that we produce content that is actually valuable to. And to your business. If you’re interested, you can join the rest of the e-commerce insiders by going to the good.com/podcast and dropping your email into the form at the top of the page.

[00:45:53] We’ll follow up with directions for how to access the private feed, and you’ll be off and running. Like I said, this is one of my favorite things that I get the opportunity to work on because it lets me interact directly with e-commerce founders and leaders just like you. If you’re interested, I’d love to see your name pop up in my notifi.

[00:46:07] Until then, keep an eye out for the next episode of the E-Commerce Insight Show and we’ll talk to you soon.

The post The Power of Email Automation (And Personalization) with Lexie Bennet appeared first on The Good.

]]> Creating a Work Environment for Success – Q&A with Jon MacDonald and Natalie Thomas https://thegood.com/insights/jon-macdonald-natalie-thomas/ Thu, 03 Nov 2022 14:52:00 +0000 https://thegood.com/?post_type=insights&p=102004 Listen to this episode: Subscribe to the show: About this episode: In this special edition episode, we’re joined for a Q&A by The Good’s very own Jon MacDonald and Natalie Thomas. Our questions have been sent in by some of our followers, and we’re taking time to sit down and answer them.  We discuss the […]

The post Creating a Work Environment for Success – Q&A with Jon MacDonald and Natalie Thomas appeared first on The Good.

]]> Listen to this episode:

Subscribe to the show:

About this episode:

In this special edition episode, we’re joined for a Q&A by The Good’s very own Jon MacDonald and Natalie Thomas. Our questions have been sent in by some of our followers, and we’re taking time to sit down and answer them. 

We discuss the latest news and trends in ecommerce and CRO, what’s been working for us at The Good, and what the shift to working remotely has been like for us. This week’s episode also covers a lot about our experience over the years, the changes we’ve gone through and the leadership style at the company. 

In this episode, you’ll learn things about: 

  • What the current state of ecommerce looks like after the pandemic
  • How remote work is working for us   
  • What automations have helped in improving our workflows
  • What marketing secrets are helping our blog rank well on Google

Learn more about Jon and Natalie here

Want to be a guest on our show? Have feedback or ideas for how we can improve? Send your thoughts over to podcast@thegood.com. We’ll be keeping an eye on that inbox. 🙂 

The Ecommerce Insights Show is brought to you by The Good, a Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO) consultancy specializing in helping ecommerce businesses accelerate their growth through better research, testing, and design. Learn more about our team, our work, and our services at www.thegood.com.

Episode Transcript:

[00:00:00] James Sowers (Director of Marketing): So here’s the question. How can you, commerce leaders make sure that they are producing a great product, providing a world-class customer experience responsibly managing the finances and still reserve time, energy and resources for marketing their products. My name is James Sauers, and you’re listening to the e-commerce insight show.

[00:00:16] The podcast that gives you a specific, actionable advice for growing your e-commerce business. Every Monday, you’ll get a conversion rate optimization tactic that you can implement quickly to make your business 1% better. Every single. Every Thursday, we sit down with industry experts to go deep on a specific aspect of running a successful e-commerce business.

[00:00:34] It’s the perfect blend of learning and application, which means that you maximize the value of every single minute you spend with us. We’re just as committed to growing your business as you are. So if you’re looking for a partner to help you crush your revenue goals, you’ve come to the right place, roll up your sleeves and grab a notepad because it’s time to get to.

[00:00:52] John, Natalie. Thanks so much for joining me today for this harebrained idea that I have one of many I’m sure to do kind of a quarterly Q and a with the leadership team here at the. I think the context here is really just, we crowdsourced some questions that folks have about how we run the agency. Maybe about conversion rate optimization, e-commerce growth, anything related to, uh, you know, the world that the three of us live in day to day.

[00:01:15] And, uh, I just thought it was an interesting opportunity for us to be. Transparent about what we’re working on, how we think about things, how we solve problems and that kind of thing. And, you know, people like reality TV. So this is kind of in the same vein, just in an audio format primarily. So yeah, maybe a quick introduction from the two of you, for anybody who doesn’t know, they know me as the host of the show.

[00:01:34] So James director marketing here, but John let’s start with you and then we’ll go over to. 

[00:01:37] Jon MacDonald (Founder/CEO): Founder and CEO, the old school here. 

[00:01:41] Natalie Thomas (Director of Client Services): My name is Natalie I’m, director of conversion rate optimization strategy here at the good then creating my own problems and then solving those problems here for the last 

[00:01:50] James Sowers (Director of Marketing): four years.

[00:01:50] That’s my preferred strategy is just to keep creating problems, just job security, right? There’s something else that needs to be handled. And John doesn’t want to do it. So that keeps us. 

[00:01:58] Jon MacDonald (Founder/CEO): As long as the two of you solve the problems. I’m good with that. Yeah. Yeah, that 

[00:02:01] James Sowers (Director of Marketing): sounds good. Cool. So let’s just jump into some questions here.

[00:02:05] There’s no real rhyme or reason to it. Again, they were crowdsourced primarily from Twitter, but also some slack DMS. And, uh, I guess I’ll be the facilitator or the host here. And some of these questions feel more appropriate for certain participants than others. So we’ll start by directing one that John, this question was basically around what’s the current state of things with e-commerce, as it pertains to the global pandemic and some of the.

[00:02:24] Economic shifts that we’ve seen in the last year or so, are you still seeing strong demand for e-commerce brands? And I think where this question is coming from is basically as the sales leader at the organization, having most of the conversations with those decision makers at bigger brands, how are their businesses doing?

[00:02:39] What are they worried about? What are they coming to us with? And, uh, do you think, like going forward, we’re in a strong position to sustain some of the growth that we’ve seen or, um, is there maybe some cause for concern on the horizon? 

[00:02:49] Jon MacDonald (Founder/CEO): I think it’s. Up in the air at the moment, I can tell you I’m hearing day to day.

[00:02:56] Demand is not waning e-commerce is here to stay in terms of the boom that happened, right. It was here to say before the pandemic, but during the pandemic, it really took off. It had a lot of demographics who weren’t used to buying, or weren’t as sure about buying on e-com and they jumped right in. And that demand was only tapered really by supply chain issues.

[00:03:17] And those are starting to lose. Uh, there’s still a massive line at the port and Los Angeles here in the United States and a few other places around the world. But I will say in terms of Yukon business, I’m hearing that, that everybody had a great holiday, uh, for the most part. And it’s still super expensive to advertise.

[00:03:37] And for us, that’s actually a benefit, sad to say, but it’s true that when costs CPCs go way up. And people need to get more return on that ad spend optimization is one of the best tools that they can deploy. And that’s where we can come in. I’m also hearing though on the flip side of that, you know, everyone’s concerned a little bit about the economy right now this week at the beginning of the year has just been kind of trashed for the markets.

[00:04:04] But the reality is that I don’t think the day-to-day person is feeling. Beyond inflation. So I think inflation is hitting the day-to-day person. Right? Gas costs, more groceries, cost more. But outside of that from a business standpoint, I don’t think it’s hitting most businesses just yet. 

[00:04:22] James Sowers (Director of Marketing): How does that compare to what you may be hearing from clients who are already working with Natalie?

[00:04:25] You’re hearing some of the same things or are they really focused in, on kind of the work we’re doing for them in the projects and tests we have. 

[00:04:31] Natalie Thomas (Director of Client Services): The clients that I think are fairing the best are the ones that are pretty diversified. So if we’re still hearing about supply chain issues, it’s from folks who can’t get a certain kind of metal that they need in order to produce their product.

[00:04:42] And they’re really only living in one vertical. So those folks are having to be extremely creative about how to both bring folks in fulfill, and then make sure that they’re driving traffic to the products that are in stock rather than products that are out of stock or, um, on, you 

[00:04:57] know, 

[00:04:57] James Sowers (Director of Marketing): shipping. Yeah, that’s kind of aligns with what I’m hearing marketing conversations that I have.

[00:05:02] Most people are generally optimistic and if they have a supply chain issue, it’s like I have more demand and I can’t get the supply fast enough. So there’s trying to get creative and do pre-sales and stuff like that. Or sell gift cards instead or something. Capture that demand while it’s there and just help with the supply chain catches up.

[00:05:17] So it sounds like generally we’re still on that upward and to the right trajectory. So we’ll look forward to seeing that continue for the rest of the year and keep a close eye on it. Let’s see. So the next few questions are more about agency life, and then we’ll come back to the e-commerce industry and what we do specifically.

[00:05:33] The next one again is for John. What’s your best list? So we got hindsight is 2020, right. And so what’s your best advice for someone who’s either just starting an agency today or maybe somewhere in that first year? Like I know the good is over 12 years old now if I’m remembering correctly. So yeah.

[00:05:47] Didn’t always look like it does today, but I’m sure you’ve learned a lot over that time. So what advice do you have for the future? Jon MacDonald is sitting out there. Well, I think 

[00:05:54] Jon MacDonald (Founder/CEO): the first thing you need to do is it all starts with positioning and you have to have a niche focus and become experts in that focus.

[00:06:03] And if I tell the story all the time that it took us about 18 months, almost two years to really. Like go all in on optimization. And we were an e-commerce development firm when we first started, that was kind of the game. And we did optimization and I realized it was a commodity because it really, it just is.

[00:06:24] Unfortunately now there’s other stuff you can add onto it. You could be the best at it, whatever, but all those are really fringe and really hard to prove. So in a lot of clients aren’t going to buy just because of that. Right. So it’s interesting. I think that the first. But an agency should do starting out is narrow that focus and have really good positioning where they do specific X thing for specific Y market.

[00:06:51] And if we had went all in from the get-go on optimization for e-commerce. I think we’d be two years ahead. So that’s the biggest kind of regret from that. If I had any, although I learned a lot going through what I did with the commodity market, I know not to go back there. I’m always saying no about expansion opportunities and things that clients ask us to do for them.

[00:07:14] And I’m like, we’re not a good fit for that because I know it’s a commodity or it’s just not as easy as it sounds or the client might think. So I think having positioning is the first key and that’s where. Agency starting out fail because they just, they start by an ex subject matter expert coming in, who can do the work quite well and is tired of doing it for somebody else and not reaping the rewards.

[00:07:39] And so they go and they start doing the work again, and they basically have started themselves. Instead of a business and they end up really just focusing on getting more billable hours or things of that sort instead of the high overarching strategy, which really began to a 

[00:07:59] James Sowers (Director of Marketing): positioning. Yeah. And I think, you know, from the outside looking in, I don’t do any of the client work here, but some of what I see being communicated from Natalie and her team, we do a lot of that on behalf of our clients.

[00:08:09] And we advocate for them to have stronger positioning. Right. And you can’t be a solution for everybody in your market. If you’re running a test, if it’s a headline or something like that, tailor that to the specific audience, try to talk to one person, not a hundred different people, right? Um, maybe a mis-characterizing that?

[00:08:22] What do you think, Natalie? Is that what you’re seeing? 

[00:08:24] Natalie Thomas (Director of Client Services): I would agree. I think that there is a really strong relationship between the product that we’re delivering and how we’re trying to explain what that is. Being able to say, I have a really good understanding of who this strategy is for. That’s one of those personas, maybe an e-commerce operator, and maybe they’re really own the data.

[00:08:46] And they’re really excited by numbers and they want to get a little more context around one part of that. I think being able to communicate to a person with a really strong need and having a really specific way that that’s fulfilled and an angle, a perspective on that. I mean, anybody can do what we do, but are they going to do it in the way that we do it?

[00:09:04] We don’t believe in dark patterns or deceptive user experience design, we would never create a cancellation flow. That’s so confusing that you might get sued like Amazon has. So I feel like our perspective is another added part of how we approach things in that positioning. And we’re always trying to communicate that through our marketing efforts.

[00:09:25] Yeah. 

[00:09:26] James Sowers (Director of Marketing): I love that. Love that perspective. We’re talking about something that we’ve learned over the last decade or so. I think it’d be a good point to introduce something we’re still learning, which is transferring or transitioning into more of a remote setup. I know historically the good has had a footprint there in Portland and pretty much a hundred close enough to a hundred percent of the folks were coming in there into the office and working together.

[00:09:45] We always had contractors and stuff like that, supporting us, but. More recently, the world has kind of forced us to like a lot of folks to go more into a hybrid model. So we still have a lot of folks there locally located in Portland. We still have an office space, but we’re kind of in this transitory phase where I’m sitting here in Cleveland, Ohio, we’ve got folks in Lima, Peru.

[00:10:00] We’ve had folks in Chicago and that’s only going to continue to be more diverse as we continue to grow the team. So we haven’t always been remote friendly, so to speak in the definition that most people use it today. But at the same time, like that’s the direction we’re heading. I guess the question here from the audience is like, how are we taking something that has been traditionally a brick and mortar kind of establishment and bringing it into more of a hybrid or a remote friendly workplace.

[00:10:25] And just making sure that those relationships are still strong, everybody’s still feels heard and appreciated. And the fact of the matter is we still need to get the work done. So what have been the challenges? Are there learnings there alone? You should direct that a specific person that host, I don’t know, I’ll say Natalie, you have the biggest team, right?

[00:10:39] Technically John sits on top of the entire company so that you could argue that point, but I would say like you have the biggest team and it’s still largely locally based. So as you have new team members come in from the marketing team, or otherwise that are remote, like what has been something you’ve learned or something that you think would be helpful to the audience?

[00:10:57] Natalie Thomas (Director of Client Services): Yeah, well, let’s take a step back and just understand that I think we’re still a Portland business and that has always been part of our positioning that we’re in the community. We’re a B Corp we’re dedicated to. Doing good as if you will. You know, when we have volunteer events there for businesses and communities 5 0 1 C3 or small nonprofits that are really important to our team and are really close to our heart.

[00:11:21] And those usually happen to be Portland establishments like Portland backpacks. I will say though, that having a remote team has made us get really creative in terms of how we’re continuing to. Think about being Portland based. I think making sure everyone feels really included in those volunteer events specifically, but as well as during the onboarding process has been really important to us.

[00:11:46] We had a really good foundation that set us up really well for remote work. We were already on zoom. We were already on slack and we already had a process in place for. Well, how do we make someone feel included when they’re in their first day, 10 days, 30, 90 days of working at the good. So we have things like an onboarding buddy, someone that you can just go to and be like, Hey, I actually don’t really know how to use the espresso machine.

[00:12:09] No one ever taught me on my first day or, Hey, is it cool if I post this in this channel in slack? Or is that for a different kind of channel? And it’s kind of about making someone feel like there are no unwritten rules. We want to have everything really above board and. Making sure that people know both, you know, the snacks are for them.

[00:12:27] If they’re in the office and that they can ask this kind of question in this kind of channel just helps that sense of inclusive. So I think it’s definitely challenging. I mean, it takes a lot of creativity. Like I said, to get that whole team to feel included and to still feel really like we are Portland based, but we find ways to make 

[00:12:46] James Sowers (Director of Marketing): it work.

[00:12:47] How about you, John? You’ve been here for the entire ride. I know. Made the decision or were forced to make the decision to go more remote or more distributed. So how has that experience been for you so far? 

[00:12:56] Jon MacDonald (Founder/CEO): Well, I’ll say first of all, it’s been lonely in the office. I’m the only one here and in a large headquartered office all by myself every day.

[00:13:04] But I will say we’ve always been remote from. We haven’t been remote first, but we’ve been remote friendly. And I say that because a we’ve never had a butts in seats culture. We don’t track time. Right. We’re not checking in on people. We hire adults and we help them do the best work of their careers. And.

[00:13:25] I expect that when we bring people in, they’re going to want to be part of the team and contribute, and they’re not going to take advantage of it. And in fact, the peers on the team will not let you take advantage of it because that’s going to fall back on them. And so we kind of have had a culture. It doesn’t matter when or where you work, as long as you’re getting your stuff done, nobody cares.

[00:13:47] So that transition was not really an issue now. Yes. We have a headquarters here in Portland. It has a physical office. How long we have this? I don’t know. I mean, we have a lease, but I mean, after that is a question, I don’t know the answer to, I will say. That I think that won’t replace us, always getting together over a couple of times a year is a bigger team.

[00:14:08] I think that those in-person interactions are still important and we’ll find a way the budget that we spent on this office every month will likely go to flying everybody someplace and putting them up for a few days, a couple of times a year. So. That’s likely what it’s going to transition to, but regardless, I also think, you know, we’ve for 99% of our clients, we’ve never met them face to face.

[00:14:32] And that was true before the pandemic. So our clients don’t care. We never skipped a beat with the clients. They had no idea. And again, I think that all goes back to our positioning. We’ve been, so well-defined in what we do and what. Experts in that because we see the same problems over and over and over, because we’re focused on this industry and this challenge that clients come to us for that they don’t come to us to have buddies.

[00:14:58] They’re not looking to be friends with us and like want to hang out and go get drinks. They’re looking because they have a serious pain point and they know we can S we can solve that for them. I would say remote friendly has always been part of it. Remote first has not been, and that’s been the change and I’m kind of happy with how the team has handled it because we’ve hired adults.

[00:15:18] Everybody’s done extremely good job with it. Yeah. I 

[00:15:21] James Sowers (Director of Marketing): think that’s the biggest learning point for me or the biggest observation I’ve had. I mean, we have these touch points that. Uh, keep the conversations flowing and, and keep, uh, break down the silos, so to speak. So we have a tool called 15 five. That is kind of like a weekly pulse check.

[00:15:34] We still have a huddle. Every Friday. We have coffee chat every Wednesday, which is like a no agenda. We can’t even talk about work. That’s the rule, right? Come in and talk about anything but work. So there’s like little micro touch points that I think a lot of businesses are doing. The biggest learning for me is actually on the front end and in hiring and onboarding.

[00:15:50] It’s like all of a sudden you have to, if you’re going to have a specific position that is remote first, that’s maybe a different kind of person that really embraces kind of like autonomy and independence. And a lot of people say that they’re okay with that. But if they’ve never actually. Worked remotely full time.

[00:16:07] It can be hard to really know if it’s a good fit for you. Like I like to be alone. I like isolation and to sit on the couch and read or whatever, but like, that doesn’t mean I want to be single. Like if I had to live by myself 24 hours a day, every day, eventually, yeah. I would get lonely. Right. So there are different, there’s a spectrum of like independence and autonomous.

[00:16:24] And some people may say, yeah, I can operate fine in this 12 by 12 office from home all the time with nobody to interact with. But then when you get in there month, one is fine. Month, two is fine all the way up to nine or 10, but then somewhere along the way, it’s like, man, this really, for whatever reason, doesn’t feel fulfilling.

[00:16:40] And I, so, so I think there’s like something on the front end in the hiring where like ideally experience in a remote setting is kind of the best indicator. But one of the things I really loved is when I came on, John asked me to fill out basically like how to work with James document. Right. And there wasn’t really an official template, but yeah.

[00:16:55] Here are my preferences. Like here’s how I look at the world. Here’s how I manage my schedule. Ideally, day-to-day, here’s how I like to communicate asynchronously. Here’s how I like to receive feedback. And you put that stuff on paper and it’s not like here’s the way I do things. So now John, you have to bend yourself in half to accommodate that.

[00:17:11] Or vice versa. It’s more like let’s independently read this about one another and figure out where we already kind of align. And then where we don’t align, let’s work out some kind of common ground. Right. And I think that went a long way. That’s something I asked Caroline to do when she joined the team and I would make it a permanent state front end, new member is basically like, what’s your ideal day look like?

[00:17:29] What is your ideal work-style look like, how can I be a good manager to you? And here’s how I like to manage a team and let’s figure out how that works. Not just in a remote setting. Overall, like, how do you like to, how are you most effective and how can I play a role in supporting that and sustaining that feel free to re react to that if you want, or I’ll look for the next question out of the group here.

[00:17:47] That seems to make sense. Well, I mean, I, 

[00:17:49] Jon MacDonald (Founder/CEO): I shared a how to work with John document too, and I think that’s been really helpful. And I just wrote down a note to share that with everybody who joins the team moving forward, because I think it’s important to, you know, Everybody to know, you know, Hey, if I don’t respond to you right away, that doesn’t mean I don’t like you.

[00:18:07] Right. I mean, I think that there’s, it’s helpful to set that ground up front. Right. And I think that it’s important. You again, as adults, we all have preferences. We all know how we work best. And so it’s great to communicate that upfront. And that was why I asked you to put that document together, knowing that you were one of the first on the leadership team to be remote.

[00:18:30] And I wanted to make sure that. So I’ve really deep into that immediately. And that seemed like one of the best ways to do that for me. 

[00:18:38] James Sowers (Director of Marketing): Okay, cool. So one more about kind of agency life, and then we’ll transition over into e-commerce or CRO specific type of questions. This one’s all about EOS or the entrepreneurial operating system.

[00:18:48] We could have an entire episode just on our experience through that, but I get this question so much. I want to at least touch on. Today. So I think that basically the question here is like us is getting popular or was already popular and we jumped on the bandwagon. I’m seeing it all over Twitter, you know, should we implement this at our e-commerce brand or whatever the business model is?

[00:19:06] And I’m like, yeah, we went through it. It would take me 10,000 words to tell you everything I know about EOS. Or it would be like a 30 minute video and nobody wants to watch that, but maybe in a nutshell, like we’re coming up. I think we just had our one-year anniversary of officially like kicking it off, starting with the leadership team and then starting to introduce it to the rest of the company.

[00:19:24] So maybe from your perspective, let’s jump over to Natalie. Since we just had a big response from John, like I know EOS was new to you and we were lucky enough to work with a great facilitator to kind of start that process. I had been through it before, so I think it’d be great to get a fresh perspective from you as like just initial reactions, checking in.

[00:19:42] Yeah, I would say the 

[00:19:43] Natalie Thomas (Director of Client Services): most valuable thing that, well, maybe there’s two things that are the most valuable that have come out of EOS. For me, one is the idea that I think we already had a culture of this internally, but just putting it down on paper and saying it out loud has been really helpful that the leadership team, we go into a room, we argue it out and we come out aligned.

[00:20:03] And I think that’s really what. Clear what our goals are. Whenever we go into a strategy session and coming out with a really clear vision that’s well articulated and painted super clearly. And that we’re all agreed on has been really a great driving force in the last year. I think the other thing. I really appreciate about just having gone through EOS.

[00:20:29] You know, part of the process is just identifying, discussing, and solving problems and you have a whole dedicated meeting to that once a week, once every other week, just with your working. And for me, that solving piece is really crucial. I think we have a really strong culture of the good at the good of improvement.

[00:20:49] And so identifying and discussing problems was never an issue for us. We were always good at it and we. Try to look at our issues and not away from them. I think we’re all really good at admitting when we could do something better. And that’s part of that, like culture of optimization kind of bleeds throughout the company, both to what we do for our clients and internally, but in terms of handling our own issues, We have a lot more traction for how to solve those and accountability than we’ve ever had.

[00:21:20] And I think that’s come from those bi-weekly or weekly. Check-ins just saying, what are we working on right now? What’s that stuff in that important, but not necessarily urgent category that we really need to be dedicating time to. So for me, that’s the best thing I’ve gotten out of it. I mean, the process itself, you know, you can read a book.

[00:21:37] I don’t need to explain it to anybody. If you’re really interested, you can look into how it’s done, but that’s what I’ve gotten on. 

[00:21:43] James Sowers (Director of Marketing): Yeah. How about you, John? I think you brought it to the table originally through a EO or some other referral source and said games you’ve been through this. What was your reaction and that kind of thing.

[00:21:51] So, yeah, as the champion of the effort, what was your. 

[00:21:54] Jon MacDonald (Founder/CEO): Well, we’ve done a competing type of system called scaling up or used to be called Gazelles when we did it years ago. And I found it really helpful at the time, because at the time we were growing really quickly and we wanted some structure. But I also quickly found that it was formulated for companies doing like tens to hundreds of millions and bigger, and it left out a lot of the stuff that a essentially a smaller company needed.

[00:22:25] And so. That was always my complaint with it and why we stopped doing it because it was just putting processes in place that the team was like, I could just go talk to them and be done with it. And I’m like, yeah, that’s true. Why are we having a meeting about this and why? You know, so it was adding complexity.

[00:22:40] EOS, I feel like, is much more about. Getting shit done quite honestly. And that’s where IDs comes in. As Natalie said, that’s where it’s just facilitating communication in a way that’s not really getting in the way, but a lot of the concepts are actually straight up stolen from Gazelles and scaling up quite honestly.

[00:23:00] And I actually saw Verne Harnish, who is the founder of Gazelles and scaling up, wrote the book, Rockefeller habits, et cetera, all where all that stuff. And he spoke to my master’s course at EO, where everybody was talking about EOS is like the new thing they should all be doing. And Verne Harnish came in and kind of let a three hour talk.

[00:23:23] That was amazing. He’s a very, very good speaker, lots of great insights, but he straight up, somebody asked him, well, what do you think about EOS? He’s like why I told the guy who started EOS. Just if you’re going to steal my program and just, just say it’s a derivative of my program. He’s like you straight up stole like half of the IP and turned it into something else.

[00:23:44] And I actually, that intrigued me because I was like, yeah, I loved half of that, but I hated the other half. So I’m going to look into this. And so that’s really where it came from, was looking into it. And I don’t think Vern’s upset by any means. He realized this there’s a gap in that lower SMB marketplace, if you will, outside of the larger corporations, which he’s really going after with his program.

[00:24:08] So I don’t think he’s upset. I think he’s more said that in jest, but at the same time, It’s true. And I think it’s been really helpful for a company of our size. 

[00:24:17] James Sowers (Director of Marketing): Yeah, I think so too. I, I always like in ELs too, like having a personal trainer, it’s like, yeah, a lot of people know they need to eat right. And exercise.

[00:24:25] But if you just go into the gym and workout, whatever muscle groups you think is right. Or you do whatever cardio you think is, right. Or you do you meal plan, like it’s much better to have a system and a process and an experts based system. Here’s your workout plan for the next three months, right. And here are the days broken out exercises, sets, reps, weights, everything based on your goals.

[00:24:43] Right? And so the meal plan is the same thing. Like you have this nutritional goal, I already did all the work for you. You just need to follow the program. And trust me in 90 days, we’ll have made progress. Right. So that’s how I describe it. It’s like it’s structure. And for me really, I love the forcing function that comes along with it.

[00:24:58] It’s like you can have three to five rocks in any given quarter and that’s it. And so like, it’s really easy if you. Follow EOS or you don’t commit to following EOS or some similar system to say, well, at the beginning of the quarter, we thought these three to five things were important, but this thing popped up midway.

[00:25:12] And so we swapped one out and then you just kind of like lose your way over time. Right. You start to wander away from the path. But EOS to me is like, you’re falling, you’re tracking this data. You’re commit to doing these three to five things in your area of expertise over the next quarter. You know, we don’t deviate from that.

[00:25:25] And if something. Support that, and it’s still not done. That gives you kind of like this justification to say, no, that’s a distraction for me right now that doesn’t align with my rocks. We’ll table it for next quarter, or we’ll find the right time for it. But right now I got to focus on what I got to focus on it.

[00:25:39] And as somebody who is subject to shiny object syndrome, that really helped me out. Cause I’m definitely more prone to saying yes, So if I can have a system of Elena and be like, Nope, doesn’t fit in with my rocks. You know, then that makes it, it makes me feel less guilt about shutting 

[00:25:50] Jon MacDonald (Founder/CEO): something down.

[00:25:51] Right? Yeah. I was just going to bring that up and say, that’s been, I think one of the biggest, helpful things is it’ll helps eliminate shiny object syndrome as much as possible. And James even had some comments when we first started it like, well, what if things change in the middle of the quarter? And it’s like, Well, that’s, you’re getting pulled in that direction from shiny object syndrome, less about actually needing to change in most cases.

[00:26:12] And I’m that same way. And I think Natalie balanced as you and I out in a really great way when it comes to that always saying, Hey, is that really what we need to focus on and, and questioning that. So EOS definitely provides a space. For Natalie to be able to do that, which is really helpful from my point of view for you and I, so, yeah, 

[00:26:31] James Sowers (Director of Marketing): totally agree.

[00:26:32] Okay. Let’s talk about e-commerce industry at large, a little bit like most industries it’s subject to these hype cycles where you’ll see the hot new thing come in and either quickly burn out or stick around and really take off. I would say fast was what, an example of that, right? Fast kinda like burned, hot and heavy for awhile and then physical.

[00:26:47] So, what are you seeing out in the market now that for better or for worse might be one of those impending hype cycles. Maybe we’re in the early stages of it. And you’re just hearing a lot of buzz and a lot of energy around it. That could be a technology, uh, that could be a new app or extension for a marketplace.

[00:27:02] It could be a strategy that people are using to grow their business. I guess I’ll turn this one back to you, John, from the sales perspective, and then Natalie, we’ll go to you. If we’re hearing anything from clients, things are experimenting with their successes. They’ve had, 

[00:27:12] Jon MacDonald (Founder/CEO): I’m not hearing about it in.

[00:27:14] Sales conversations yet, but I see it all over. Social and that’s e-commerce brands wanting to get into NFTs and I just don’t get it. It makes no sense to me. Here’s the thing. Maybe I’m just old and a curmudgeon or, or whatever. I’m all for web three in general. Like, I don’t have an issue with that, but as an e-commerce brand who, you know, you really are dividing your focus away from selling a really good product to trying to chase that quick money of doing an FTE release and.

[00:27:48] Shopify has had to respond to that and support it on their platform. So they’re coming, rolling out support for entities because they keep getting asked about it. I think that’s the new thing. That’s like, Hey, you know, it could be cool for a larger brand to do a little bit of NFTE stuff and just, you know, be a participant in that.

[00:28:06] Is it going to deliver real value? Probably not for 99.9% of the brands. It’s not, you’re not Nike. Right? You can’t release NFTs with all of your sponsor athletes and do some big things and then go spend, uh, several hundred million dollars to go buy a company that’s going to help you release all this stuff.

[00:28:25] So. I think that’s the biggest challenge that we’ll see. And I also second to that, I think is this whole metaverse with, you know, we’ve seen Walmart do where they put a whole bunch of patents on shopping in the matter of furs where you can literally put on your helmet and go shopping in a Walmart store and pick things up off the shelf and buy them.

[00:28:47] Sounds pretty cool. How reasonable is that going to be? I don’t know who, I mean, the whole point of going online is it’s quicker and easier than going shopping. If I want that experience, I’m going to go to a retail store. So I don’t know how much that’s going to play out over time. Again. Maybe I’m just not forward thinking enough.

[00:29:04] Oculus is an amazing thing. I’ve had a lot of fun playing with them, but do I want to go shopping in a Walmart virtually? Not at all. I don’t even want to go shopping at a Walmart to begin with, why am I going to do it virtually? So I don’t know. I think those two issues right now and FTS and, uh, and shopping in the metaverse are the two 

[00:29:22] James Sowers (Director of Marketing): biggest.

[00:29:23] Yeah, I think about NFTs and Twitter and Twitter is like, we just want to be able to edit tweets and mark RDMS is unread and Twitter’s like, here, you can have NFT profile pictures and look, they’re hexagons with rounded corners and everybody’s like, we just want these features over here. Please. Can you just give us what we’re asking for?

[00:29:39] And I think sometimes. Maybe it’s encompassing some of the distraction element that you described there, which is like, you’re great at selling apparel or whatever you’re selling. And, uh, to deviate from that kind of feels a little bit like that shiny object syndrome we talked about earlier, Natalie, anything from clients that you’re seeing that might, uh, be in support of the NFT.

[00:29:56] Cause the John just put out there anything totally different. I dunno. 

[00:29:58] Natalie Thomas (Director of Client Services): I feel like I’m back down on earth and John’s telling me what’s cool in space. 

[00:30:06] Jon MacDonald (Founder/CEO): Yeah. 

[00:30:07] Natalie Thomas (Director of Client Services): Um, in terms of hype cycles, I mean, I hear a lot of our clients and potential clients talking about personalizations, and I think it’s really exciting to think about treating your customers like individuals and having worked in customer service and specialty coffee and fine dining for so long.

[00:30:25] I think the idea of making sure that that experience on the web and shopping on the web feels as personalized as in real life is extremely appealing. But in general, the folks that I’m hearing it from are usually a pretty far ways off from actually being at the level of wanting and needing to make those personalizations.

[00:30:43] Usually there’s a lot of optimization that can happen before that point. And when you get to the point of personalization, that’s because you have a robust testing program it’s because your site is really highly optimized. You have everything kind of in line with at least where close to where you think it could be.

[00:30:59] Personalizations or that next level where you’re customizing the content in a way that I think is just a little more advanced than the folks who are really biting onto them. Another thing that I’m hearing from sort of bigger ships, if you will, the cruise ships of e-commerce is just that they need insights faster, which is why we’re doing a lot of rapid testing on.

[00:31:22] Clients’ sites and with their customers, we’re trying to find ways to make the research and validation process a lot more agile and work in smaller cycles. Then AB testing can sometimes allow. And I think that. Is it a problem of sometimes the politics or the limited resources or the bureaucracy of what it actually takes to get an AB or multi-variate tests live with such a large organization.

[00:31:50] They’re trying to find ways to kind of circumvent the, um, order of operations there and get insights faster. So we’re learning to be extremely lean with some of our research and validation process. 

[00:32:02] James Sowers (Director of Marketing): Yeah, I’m really excited about where rapid testing could go. And, um, if anybody’s curious, John, on one of our other podcasts drive and convert, John did a summary kind of, of where we’re at in our thinking around that driving convert.com/ 47.

[00:32:15] We’ll get you there for a little bit more context about what not always just talking about. The one I’ve seen is his video. And I don’t know how it’s going to shake out, but I’ve seen a lot of tools and agencies now kind of offering video right there in the purchasing process. So you could have two examples that I’ve seen.

[00:32:29] One is customer support via video. So you can query somebody about a product right there, and theoretically they’re calling in from their apartment or from the office or whatever. And they’re basically FaceTiming you and say, Uh, which one are you looking at? Okay. You’re looking at the red top. Let me hold that up for you.

[00:32:44] Let me get some light on it. You can see exactly what shade it is. Let me stretch it out. You can see how it’s going to fit. I’ll show you the texture of the material up close to the camera, and basically like serving a sales function there and I’m helping somebody make a decision. I think that could be super powerful as a brick and mortar tends to be trailing downward and more people are shopping online.

[00:33:01] The one thing they miss is that physical ability to touch and feel a product, especially something that they’re going to be wearing or ingesting or something like that. So I think that’s cool. The other thing I saw recently was like right there on the PDP, you can basically click play on a social media asset that was produced by like an influencer or a user generated content.

[00:33:18] And they’re physically wearing the sunglasses right there on the PDP. And you know, some of these things like that, I’ve seen it Warby Parker or whatever. They basically take a cutout, a transparent cut-out of the glasses and put it over your face. Like you can turn your camera on or whatever. I’m like, yeah, that’s great.

[00:33:31] But it’s like imperfect that doesn’t it usually it’s not reality. The scale is off or whatever, but to watch a 32nd video of the same pair of glasses and the same finish physically on somebody’s face, they’re turning their head. They’re acting naturally. Like that gives me a much better sense of how that fits into my life and what I’m expecting to get out of it.

[00:33:47] So, yeah. I’m excited about the prospects of video as kind of a, something to test for the conversion funnel. They’re specifically at the point of sale. So, all right. Uh, let’s jump back over. I think the one thing I wanted to make sure we get into, I thought this was kind of a fun question. We’ll go back to Natalie here for this one.

[00:34:02] What is one common mistake or misconception around your line of work? That if you could wave a magic wand and erase it from the world would make your life better. 

[00:34:09] Jon MacDonald (Founder/CEO): So a lot of brands who come to us come to us because they are conversion rates, not that high, or they just feel. This is something that they know they need to invest in.

[00:34:21] Right. They have some optimizations that they need help with, but they look at us and they think that it’s just us making some small tweaks to the site and it’s best practices that are all out of articles that they’ve read online. And so a lot of the misconceptions I hear as part of having a lot of those sales conversations from folks that come in.

[00:34:42] Is that what we’re going to do. And they’re always blown away by the amount of research that we do that we diagnose before we prescribe. And I think that that’s a misconception around conversion optimization in general, from a large portion of e-commerce brands. It really, I keep hearing this over and over.

[00:35:02] It’s like, well, what are you going to do? You’re just gonna make a few tweaks to our site. It’s something we can do overnight. And they’re not basing any of those thoughts on actual. They’re just saying why, you know, why wouldn’t I just go follow all the tips you put up on your site? And I was like, well, you don’t, you should consider those, but you should test them.

[00:35:21] And that usually is a turning point in the conversation. So I think the biggest misconception, if I could summarize is just that what we do is just make some initial tweaks to the site and then they’re done the reality of what we do is. Deep dive into the data, tracking every click and movement that’s happening on their site and helping them to use that data, to understand how to improve the customer expects.

[00:35:44] Which in turn leads to better conversion rates and 

[00:35:48] James Sowers (Director of Marketing): et cetera. Yeah. It’s not a checklist, right? There is no one size fits all playbook for optimizing your site. And it’s, we’ve tried to form that 

[00:35:55] Jon MacDonald (Founder/CEO): checklist for how many years now. I mean, when Allie came in four years ago, I was like, okay, I want your fresh perspective on what this checklist could be.

[00:36:03] It seems like. So what, there’s no checklist. I’m like there has to be, we’ve got a system monetize this, we got to have a checklist and it’s like, no, every time we do commercial growth program, it’s customized for the site. We’re doing it for now. We have a process that we follow. We have some guideposts that we know, and we have things that ways that we do things that really accelerate the success and the results, but what tests we’re going to run, that’s going to be based on the data specifically from the client.

[00:36:34] Not from what we’ve learned with other people. Yeah. 

[00:36:37] James Sowers (Director of Marketing): And what that brings back to me is that, that personal trainer example, which is like, you can work with a firm that says they’ll run hundreds of micro tests. Right. And yeah, sure. You might get results or they might say, yeah, we have a standard process.

[00:36:49] We run all our clients. We get grades results from sure. Go ahead and try that. But would you rather like wing it in the, in the weight room or whatever you’re trying to pursue, right. Or would you rather have a coach? Whether you’re trying to learn how to sing or play piano or paint or get fit? Like you want some, an expert that is going to come in and first do a diagnostic.

[00:37:03] That’s the important part is where are you at today? And what are your goals and how far are we apart from those and then maybe what assets or resources do you have at your disposal. And then how can we put a plan together that realistically gets you closer to your end goal? But the phrase we always use is like, you’re always optimizing, never optimized, right?

[00:37:21] And so I think that’s kind of the mentality here, or the misconception is like, you’re never really done. You might achieve your goal and then set a new milestone, but you’re always experimenting. You’re always running new tests. You always have new information or customer preferences change. So. It’s kind of, uh, you know, it’s, the beauty of our work is like been back to job security.

[00:37:37] Like there’s always something to work on. You never really have everything done, but at the same time, like if you come in thinking that you can just pull a few levers and get more money out of the money machine, like it doesn’t always work that way. Not only do you have a perspective on this, I’m sure this ties into your line of work.

[00:37:49] So yeah, I think 

[00:37:50] Natalie Thomas (Director of Client Services): the way I would respond to that is that one of our favorite phrases here at the good is it can always be further optimized. So as we’re looking at a website, it’s not that it’s bad. It could be further optimized. And I think some of the best clients that we work with are the folks who are always looking to get 1% better.

[00:38:12] And the misconception comes from folks who say, aren’t we done? Aren’t we done testing? Isn’t this like, good enough. It could always be further optimized. And that happens because user convention or web conventions change, user mental models, change trends, change the market changes. The quality of your product might change.

[00:38:35] Your competitors might change. Your competition might change. So there are so many factors going into how we might want to describe display a product that we really need to stay. On top of our game, in terms of how our understanding, how to optimize a site, there’s no one answer. It could always be further optimized and that’s that spirit of getting 1% better every day, or trying to make these tweaks over time.

[00:39:01] And it’s not to get to that one solution. It’s because we’re really hungry for what’s the best right now. Version of this site. 

[00:39:09] James Sowers (Director of Marketing): Yeah. You know, it starts to sound like hotel California. At some point it’s like, people work with us and they can never leave. Right. Because it’s never done, but I don’t think that’s really the angle, like clients part ways with us, for all kinds of reasons.

[00:39:19] Like they shift to retail. Right. And they don’t want to prioritize e-commerce anymore. Or there are a number of reasons why they, they bring it in-house and they’ve learned enough from us to hire an expert and maybe we help with some of the training and they hand off there. But the fact of the matter is like, Once you’re done with high school or even all the way up to a PhD, like you’re not done learning.

[00:39:35] There’s so much more, even, even PhD is a big part of what they do is research and continuing to learn even more to expand kind of the universal, shared knowledge around their area of expertise. So that’s the same mentality I think with CRO is like, there are always ways that you can be improved and then that 1% better.

[00:39:49] It’s always out there as something you can chase. So maybe a couple more questions here to wrap things up. One that I kind of liked that I think we might have conflicting opinions that we’ll have to work out here is where do you think brands and marketers should go for inspiration, direct competitors, indirect competitors, or people totally outside of their industry.

[00:40:07] I know that in the book. Putting your blinders on that’s. Why race horses have blinders. Cause you’re not supposed to look to your left and right. A house, somebody else’s running the race, you’re supposed to follow your own program and kind of look internally for that kind of thing. But at the same time, I’ve read books where they say, copy your competitors, because if they are already established and you’re just starting out, it can help you close that gap really quickly and get on par.

[00:40:27] And that’s the point at which you can start to innovate and start to run your own race. Maybe I’ll throw this one over to John first. Do you have a perspective on where marketing leaders and e-commerce leaders can go to look for inspiration? Should it be competitors or should it be more of a holistic approach?

[00:40:40] I think 

[00:40:40] Jon MacDonald (Founder/CEO): that you should look at your customer base and the challenges that they’re having first and foremost and solve for that. And secondly, I think that if you do look at competitors, I’m not suggesting you ignore the competitive landscape. I’m just saying you don’t blanket copy them. And so maybe you look at that and it becomes something that you decide you want to test with your customer base, if, and when it makes sense to do so.

[00:41:09] The challenge with the statement is, and the reason that we talk a lot about the race horses wear blinders for reason is that if you start looking left and right at your competitors, and that’s all you’re doing, you’re not going to run straight ahead and you’re going to lose the race. And so I’m a firm believer that you should pay attention to your customer base and do your thing and do it extremely well.

[00:41:31] Run as fast as you can, straight ahead at your consumers. Now, if you’re going to run at your competitors, then you’re always going to be chasing the competitors and you’re never going to get. So what’s the point. 

[00:41:42] James Sowers (Director of Marketing): Yeah. You’ll always be a step behind, right. I try not to overuse the sports analogies, but even like you’re playing basketball or football.

[00:41:48] Like those guys always glance over their shoulder when they’re making a big play to see if there’s somebody coming up from behind them or from the side. And they’re going to take a big hit or there’s somebody going to block their shot or whatever, they steal a glance, but then they look back at the target ultimate.

[00:42:00] And they’re still trying to get done what they were looking to achieve in the first place. So maybe that is a good representation of what you’re saying is like, it’s good to be aware of competition and make note of what they’re doing, but if you let it dictate your own strategy for too long, then you’re always a separate tube behind.

[00:42:14] You’re never really creating separation. Not only anything 

[00:42:16] Natalie Thomas (Director of Client Services): to add there. Yeah. I would just say, I totally agree with John, like everything should come from the angle of understanding what your customers need, what they’re looking at. If we do look at competitors, it’s more. Non-standard verticals. So I really like taking ideas and inspiration for what to test from industries totally outside of your own.

[00:42:36] And that’s because it helps you tap into what your customers or your users might be seeing in other places, whether that’s on the web or in person. I mean, we get inspiration from just walking on the sidewalk and picking up a penny. It doesn’t have to be from a website, right. We’re always looking for that next idea.

[00:42:52] That’s gonna win another million dollars. And so those can come from anywhere, but I think it’s most inspiring when they come from something completely outside of your industry. And it’s not just reinventing the wheel. It’s really looking for. Another way to align to user expectations, but add that surprise 

[00:43:10] James Sowers (Director of Marketing): and delight.

[00:43:11] Yeah. I love that point about getting totally outside of your industry, customers, competitors, whatever. A lot of people advocate for positioning like John did at the beginning of the conversation. And I fully support that specifically in my world, in the marketing world. Like I’ve always benefited from being a generalist or having like a diverse set of interests because I’ve worked on.

[00:43:28] Software products I’ve worked on educational or informational products. I’ve worked in e-commerce. And I like to pull lessons from each of those and apply them to a different context. And sometimes that’s where the true innovation comes from is like, wow, software is light years ahead of e-commerce in terms of customer onboarding.

[00:43:42] So like, it won’t look the same, but can we take some. Nuances and touch points. And can we repackage them into kind of your conventional e-commerce checkout experience with post-purchase experience and like, how can we replicate the success that they’ve already had? That’s not really a competitor. That’s drawing inspiration from another area and applying it to your area of expertise.

[00:44:01] So I love that you called that out because yeah. And then there are tiers to it, right? So like, I would always. A piece of data from a customer who’s openly paying me money or opening their wallet to contribute to my mission over a competitor or overcome some kind of like generalists or so that’s just me.

[00:44:15] I, I guess you guys would probably tend to agree with that, but I’ll let you to speak for yourself. 

[00:44:20] Natalie Thomas (Director of Client Services): So chances are, most of us aren’t doing something so unique that no one’s ever had to solve a similar problem. Which is why going into other verticals can be inspiring. I mean, if you’re an auction site and you’re having a hard time getting your customers to add their credit card to their account so that they can actually make a valid bid on a product, think about who else has had a similar problem.

[00:44:42] I mean, the banking industry has dealt with that forever. Sure. You can create an account, but putting in that $200 to activate it is a hump that. Single bank has had to get over. So in terms of putting your blinders on, yeah. Great. Put your blinders on, but also know that you’re not the first person to solve this problem ever.

[00:44:59] And so there are places you can look for inspiration. 

[00:45:01] James Sowers (Director of Marketing): Yeah, totally agree. Okay. Uh, maybe we’ll bring it home with one last question. I think this one’s stemming from the fact that when I asked for questions, I included that we almost doubled revenue this year. And so it was a really good growth year.

[00:45:10] There was a lot of stretching happening in a lot of different ways. So I think somebody posed the question, looking back over the last year. What was your biggest success? And also, what was your biggest challenge? I thought it’d be fun for us to answer this individually, Natalie. I know you’ve got notes in here and I’ve got some notes, so I’m open to whoever wants to start.

[00:45:25] Maybe we’ll give John some time to think about it and we’ll come around to him last. I 

[00:45:28] Natalie Thomas (Director of Client Services): think my biggest challenge remains the same, which is getting the right people in the right seat or. Concerned with our team and making sure that they’re kind of doing their best work growing in their skill set, evolving, learning, growing.

[00:45:42] And so I need to go to the team thoughtfully, but I also need to put people’s skillsets to use in ways that are nourishing and interesting to them. And in ways that support our clients. So it’s always a balance. Plugging those pieces into the right spot. And if I solve this, I’m going to package it up and sell it because I assume a lot of other folks are having the same challenges in growing a 

[00:46:03] James Sowers (Director of Marketing): team.

[00:46:04] Totally agree from my seat. I think my biggest success here, they kind of go hand in hand, but, um, you know, historically we’ve been very focused on content marketing and attracting traffic through written material in the last year or so we’ve added audio and video onto that. Uh, people are experiencing that right now.

[00:46:18] And, um, we’re also doing. Guest events and things like that. So the diversity of traffic generation or traffic acquisition channels has really expanded. Uh, but we only added one new person to the marketing team and we’re leaning on a lot of contractors support there. So kind of casting a wider net, so to speak with, uh, effectively the same amount of resources or very close has been a good win for the marketing team here.

[00:46:39] And then the biggest challenge I’m going to call out this maker versus manager identity crisis. As I call it. As you, as you started to get a team, like when you’re a marketing team of one with some support from everybody else inside, it’s easy. You’re just, you have to be a maker. Right. But as you start to grow a team behind you, um, there is that manager time that creeps in.

[00:46:56] And I always identify as a maker if I’m not in there, like creating landing pages or writing emails or reviewing blog posts and publishing them or recording podcasts episodes, like I feel like I’m not contributing to the overall mission of the company. There’s equal importance on mentorship, professional development, more project management or reporting and strategy work.

[00:47:14] Like that’s all valuable too. And so I can’t be the only one out there who is struggling a little bit with letting go of that worker bee mentality and going into more of a strategic advisor kind of role. So that’s mine. How about you, John? From the, uh, the head honcho? How are things looking? Oof. Well, 

[00:47:28] Jon MacDonald (Founder/CEO): I would say the biggest success over the past year has definitely been when we’ve grown as fast as we have been able to, you know, predicting revenue and having goals around revenue is, you know, you’re, it’s a crap shoot.

[00:47:42] You’re just guessing in a lot of cases because you’re just, you’re like, Hey, providing this train and, and we’re going to slow it down if we feel like we need to or want to. Right. Because not all revenue is good revenue, but I would say that. Being within $13,000 of our goal this year was a really good success.

[00:48:00] It was heartbreaking in some ways, cause I was like, oh, we’re so close to hitting that goal. And then, you know, I think I had several people remind me, like you hit your goal, right? Like the reality is if you can guess within 13,000 at the scale that you guys are at, then that’s a hell of a win. So I would consider that a success.

[00:48:16] And the reality is this year we’ve been, we have a goal and it’s not to grow as fast it’s to grow more meaningful. And utilize the gains that we’ve had over the past year. I think the biggest challenge for me this year is more just around keeping the wheels on the bus as we go forward. There’s so many things that we could could be doing.

[00:48:38] And so many ways we could continue to grow. That if we did them all, then it would just overtax us and we’d collapse. So it’s figuring out what are the best opportunities and which ones do we want to go after? And where are we going to put our energy? Because when it comes down to it, work-life balance is a big thing for us.

[00:48:59] It’s a huge culture point for the good. And if we attacked every single opportunity that’s in front of us this year, We wouldn’t have any life in that work-life balance. So I’m a huge fan of us picking our battles and going after them. And I think that’s the challenge for me right now. It’s really? Which ones are we going to go after?

[00:49:20] Which. It’s actually a good thing. I think I like those types of challenges. 

[00:49:25] James Sowers (Director of Marketing): Yeah. It’s much better to live in a world of abundance and scarcity. Right. So if we have like a, what is it, uh, uh, riches of options or something like that, like, there’s probably some psychological term where like there’s so many opportunities and you’re always worried about the opportunity costs of going with one over another.

[00:49:38] Right. So just being very diligent and harking back to our conversation around dos, hopefully that’ll help us really focus in on the ones that are most important and kind of leave. The rest for next quarter and next year, whenever they fit in. All right. So I want to respect your time. We’ll wrap things up here.

[00:49:51] Thank you so much for joining me today. We didn’t get to everything. We’ve got a handful of questions that we didn’t have time to tackle. So we’ll save those for the next round. And if anybody listening has more, they want to add podcast@thegood.com is the place to drop those and we’ll make sure they get incorporated in the next one.

[00:50:05] If you have any parting words, I’d love to hear them, but otherwise, thanks so much for joining me today, John and Natalie, we’ll do another one real soon. Hey everybody, this is James again. And before you go, I just wanted to invite you to join one of the coolest things I get to work on. As director of marketing here at the good it’s called the e-commerce insiders list.

[00:50:21] And it’s a private version of this podcast feed that gets you access to tons of additional bonus content, like extra interviews, Q and a sessions, website, tear downs, and anything else we can dream up. It doesn’t cost you anything but your email address. And we promise to always respect. This is just our way of forming strong relationships with our listeners and making sure that we produce content that is actually valuable to you and to your business.

[00:50:42] If you’re interested, you can join the rest of the e-commerce insiders by going to the good.com/podcast and dropping your email into the form at the top of the page, we’ll follow up with directions for how to access the private feed and you’ll be off and running. Like I said, this is one of my favorite things that I get the opportunity to work on because it lets me interact directly with e-commerce founders and leaders just like.

[00:51:02] If you’re interested, I’d love to see your name pop up in my notifications until then keep an eye out for the next episode of the e-commerce insight show. And we’ll talk to you soon.

The post Creating a Work Environment for Success – Q&A with Jon MacDonald and Natalie Thomas appeared first on The Good.

]]> The Power of Social Proof and Data-Driven Decisions with Kate Cannova https://thegood.com/insights/kate-cannova/ Thu, 27 Oct 2022 19:31:59 +0000 https://thegood.com/?post_type=insights&p=101973 Listen to this episode: Subscribe to the show: About this episode: In this episode, we talk to Kate Cannova, the Chief Business Officer at Wheelership. Kate is responsible for making sure WheelerShip achieves their goals of providing affordable and quality solutions to drivers that get them back on the road, fast.  We talk about the […]

The post The Power of Social Proof and Data-Driven Decisions with Kate Cannova appeared first on The Good.

]]> Listen to this episode:

Subscribe to the show:

About this episode:

In this episode, we talk to Kate Cannova, the Chief Business Officer at Wheelership. Kate is responsible for making sure WheelerShip achieves their goals of providing affordable and quality solutions to drivers that get them back on the road, fast. 

We talk about the biggest challenges they’ve faced including how they navigated the lockdown and the supply chain issues caused by the pandemic. Kate also shares the importance of data and how it helps her team make the right business decisions.

In this episode, you’ll learn about things like:

  • How WheelerShip navigated the challenges brought on by the pandemic
  • Why data is crucial in decision-making and inventory management
  • How to manage your products on different platforms or channels 
  • Why social proof works and how it can help when you have new customers

So, if you’re interested in learning about data driven decision making, avoiding channel conflict, and the power of social proof when it comes to getting new customers to trust you, then this episode is for you. 

Learn more and Kate and her resources here:

Want to be a guest on our show? Have feedback or ideas for how we can improve? Send your thoughts over to podcast@thegood.com. We’ll be keeping an eye on that inbox. 🙂

The Ecommerce Insights Show is brought to you by The Good, a Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO) consultancy specializing in helping ecommerce businesses accelerate their growth through better research, testing, and design. Learn more about our team, our work, and our services at www.thegood.com.

Episode Transcript:

[00:00:00] James Sowers (The Good): So here’s the question. How can e-commerce leaders make sure that they’re producing a great product, providing a world class customer experience responsibly managing their finances and still reserve time, energy, and resources for marketing their products? My name is James Sas, and you are listening to the e-Commerce Insight Show, the podcast that gives you specific actionable advice for growing your e-commerce business.

[00:00:20] Every Monday you’ll get a conversion rate optimization tactic that you can implement quickly to make your business 1% better every single. Every Thursday we sit down with industry experts to go deep on a specific aspect of running a successful e-commerce business. It’s the perfect blend of learning and application, which means that you maximize the value of every single minute you spend with us.

[00:00:41] We’re just as committed to growing your business as you are. So if you’re looking for a partner to help you crush your revenue goals, you’ve come to the right place, Roll up your sleeves and grab a notepad because it’s time to get to work. All right, welcome to another episode of the E-Commerce Insight Show.

[00:00:55] Today I am joined by Kate Canova. She’s from Wheeler Ship, and we’re gonna talk about what they do over there. Actually, maybe that’s a good place to jump in. Uh, maybe gimme a couple of sentences about, you know, what you do at Wheeler Ship today, who you guys serve, and what your role is there. Yeah, 

[00:01:07] Kate Cannova (Wheelership): sure. So, um, Wheeler Ship is a leading eCommerce retailer and a wholesale distributor of replacement automotive parts and accessories.

[00:01:16] So we don’t sort of deal in like things that spin and flash and you can’t see any of it from space or anything like that. This is more like. This is the wheel on my car. I hit a pothole, I got in an accident. I need to replace it. I want it to look as good as new. So we provide affordable solutions for drivers so that they can get themselves back on the road.

[00:01:37] Oh, nice. 

[00:01:38] James Sowers (The Good): So it’s not the spinners, right? It’s not a a statement piece? No spinners, 

[00:01:41] Kate Cannova (Wheelership): At least not yet. I mean, at this point there’s nothing, there’s no lasers, there’s no spinning. Unfortunately, we don’t have anything that’s like purple, which, you know, is personal favorite of mine. But it’s really sort of the, the idea behind it is to minimize the disruption to the consumer’s life and just be able to get them back in the car, back on the road at a price that they can afford with a really good quality product and a lot of really strong customer service.

[00:02:06] Um, believe it or not, most drivers don’t know a lot about their own vehicle. So I think, you know, this is sort of a, it’s a generic but also sort of specialized marketplace insofar as that. You know, a part has to fit. You know, there’s some requirement for compatibility, right? So all of that’s really important.

[00:02:26] But consumer confidence when purchasing is not necessarily high. So the guidance we provide, the way we communicate to our customers is super important because they need to know and feel really good about what they’re buying, that it’s gonna fit, it’s gonna work, it’s gonna last, it’s gonna look good.

[00:02:42] That’s what we try to do. What’s 

[00:02:43] James Sowers (The Good): your role in, like what do you play at the organization? Like what’s your responsibility there? Sure. 

[00:02:47] Kate Cannova (Wheelership): So my title is Chief Business Officer, which is really just kind of a catchall for any sort of important thing that needs to get done. Got it, got it. I make sure it gets done.

[00:03:00] pretty much. So we’re actually a family owned and operated business, so I would say, you know, from an organizational structure perspective, we might not necessarily be tradit. My husband is the owner of the company. He’s the president and ceo. He founded it almost 12 years ago. And so, you know, I always say like he’s all of the things on the inside of the car that makes everything work.

[00:03:23] So he leads logistics, supply chain, transportation, IT infrastructure, He runs our distribution center, all of that kind of, you know, nuts and bolt stuff. And then I’m all this stuff on the outside of the car, , that makes it look pretty , you know, So I deal with customer experience, marketing, sales, HR, culture initiatives, all that kind of stuff.

[00:03:44] Cuz his background is in automotive industry. And my background is actually in client services market. I was a VP at TBWA for like a decade before joining Joe here at the business, 

[00:03:56] James Sowers (The Good): so. Got it. So it sounds like you make all the promises and he has to honor all them , 

[00:04:02] Kate Cannova (Wheelership): Sort of. Sort of, sort of. I like to think that I also help deliver upon them, but I do, you know, it is kind of my job to think about strategy and growth and expansion and diversification and all of that kind of stuff.

[00:04:16] And yes, he helps operationalize those things. Okay, cool. 

[00:04:20] James Sowers (The Good): So I, I did some internet sleuthing. Sounds like you have a theater background. Unless I got, I got my channels mixed up. So how does somebody who has studied theater land, I mean, maybe marriage is the answer here, and it’s as simple as that, but what was the journey from, you know, performing on stage or helping produce those performances to landing at an automotive, uh, OEM manufacturer?

[00:04:40] So, 

[00:04:41] Kate Cannova (Wheelership): first of all, you’ve outed me here, . 

[00:04:43] James Sowers (The Good): I’m not gonna ask you to sing. Don’t worry about that. That’s not 

[00:04:45] Kate Cannova (Wheelership): coming. So, yeah, please don’t. So first of all, I just wanna be really clear that I have not been a performer for many, many, many years purposefully. So, you know, I came to a realization in my somewhat young adult life that I was never gonna have the required level of talent to be on stage, which is fine.

[00:05:05] I started my own production company. I mean, it’s like a gazillion years ago now. I started producing in 2000. Three. Oh my God, I’m dating myself. And it’s funny because, you know, I, I always spent my life in corporate America. I worked in consulting, I worked for a big advertising agency. You know, I, I sort of, even in my freelance life, I sort of had that same set of clients, you know, pharma companies and e-commerce companies and marketing clients, all of that kind of stuff.

[00:05:33] And in 2019, after, you know, spending a year at, uh, you know, a decade at tbwa, I was like, you know what? I think it’s time for me to just like cut the corporate umbilical cord and go out and live my best creative life and I’m gonna run my production company and everything’s gonna be great. And for three months everything was really great.

[00:05:51] And then the pandemic shut the entire live experience industry down. So no more Broadway shows to produce, no more events, no more. Used to do like a lot of trade show booths for corporate clients. So, you know, those sort of customer experience, trade show and convention booths, and. Wheeler ship was in a period of transition at that time anyway, and so it just seemed to make sense given my background in consulting and marketing to help Joe work through that transition.

[00:06:23] And you know, at the time I didn’t have anything else to compete with that because my entire other side of my life was completely inoperative, which I guess allowed me to really focus on, you know, the second decade of leadership and helping Joe kind of navigate that transition, really plan for, for what was to come.

[00:06:46] I mean, at that point, you know, the business was 10 years old and it really was just kind of the perfect time to pause, pump the brakes. Here’s one thing you’ll learn. There is no shortage of idiom in the car space. So , we pumped the brakes a little bit and looked and said you. What’s really the best path forward for the company.

[00:07:06] We really should just sort of tear everything down and really evaluate and look forward. It’s our tenure anniversary. We have a major change in leadership. You know, the whole world has flipped on its head like this. There’s no, never waste a crisis, right? There’s no better opportunity to really do some self-reflection and say, Are we doing the best that we can for the business, for the employees, for the customers, and for our communities?

[00:07:30] And so, you know, we took that opportunity to make some personnel changes, to make some strategy changes. We did a total corporate rebrand. We made a lot of investment in IP and IT and infrastructure. We started looking for more space cuz you know, even our physical footprint is growing. So it may not be like the most natural progression, and I would be lying if I said that, You know, I still don’t have that other half of my life, which I do.

[00:07:59] You know, I’ve got a couple of of things opening on Broadway in a matter of mere weeks, so I don’t sleep a lot. But what we do in production, and I mean what we are, are, are, we’re basically CEOs like you’re the CEO or a coo, you know, of a creative venture. But it’s all. Hiring and firing and marketing and crisis management.

[00:08:20] Let me tell you, like , a lot of, a lot of producing is about crisis management, relationship management, investor relations, So all of those sort of hard and soft skill sets are essentially applicable to what we do here at Wheeler Ship. We have both a, a consumer facing side of the business. So I’d say maybe 70% of the business is really retail driven, direct to consumer.

[00:08:44] And that happens either through our native platform or via a marketplace like Amazon or eBay. And then the other 30% of the business, maybe 35 now, is really driven by wholesale customers and that runs the full spectrum. Everything from your mom and pop auto body shop that might be ordering a single part for a customer whose car is up in their shop all the way through to the national retailers who sort of are placing orders all day, every day, all the way up to like the big time guys where we’re pushing, you know, 350 or 400 units out the.

[00:09:16] You know, to a single, a single distributor. So, you know, you really have to be sort of thoughtful about, you know, your channel mix and you know how you communicate differently to these different channels and how you manage all of those relationships. Especially in times like these, where the supply chain 

[00:09:33] James Sowers (The Good): is man, a lot of different angles.

[00:09:35] I want to go there. I mean, the first thing is, I was thinking about this, um, when one door closes, another door opens, right? The popular saying, and it’s like, well, it’s unfortunate that you were kind of chasing your passion or whatever, and the world had other plans for you. I was just thinking about, my son was born November, 2019 and he’s never been to a live show.

[00:09:51] I took my daughter to Disney on Ice cuz she’s old enough to appreciate that. He’s, he’s too, So he might have gotten it a little bit, but like just these little performances and like classes where they go play instruments and ballet and stuff like that. He’s never really been to anything like that because we’ve been in the heat of a, a pandemic and it was all pretty much shut down or it was too risky and we weren’t comfortable.

[00:10:08] So yeah, it affected a lot of lives, you know, and it’s, but it sounds like you landed in a good place. So sometimes what I was gonna say there is like, without that kind of, uh, catalyst to push you into a period of transition, like you could have the wrong people in the room for another few years, right? If this doesn’t happen.

[00:10:23] Or you could have stuck with a strategy that led you down the wrong path, and you could be in a very different place today. But it sounds like despite all of the adversity and the variability, like you landed on your feet, and it sounds like you folks are in a good position right now. But that’s not to say that like we don’t still have challenges, right?

[00:10:37] If I think about the last year or so, e-commerce, there’s a lot going on. You had covid 19 yet. Supply chain issues, you’ve got privacy and Facebook ads aren’t what they used to be. You know, it’s more expensive to run. Those costs of goods are gonna go up with inflation taking hold now. Of course you’ve got international turmoil over there in Europe and that’s affecting a lot of businesses differently.

[00:10:57] So, you know, not to twist the knife or anything here for you, but like how, how has wheel shift navigated all these ups and downs, right? Cause I’m sure you’ve had some wins in there as well. So how do you guys look at changing environments like that, and how does your team react when something goes RY in that supply chain?

[00:11:11] Kate Cannova (Wheelership): First of all, it’s a very good question. I will quickly, quickly say one thing is that our son is only four. So yesterday we went in, we went into a store and he, like, he wanted to buy something, so he went up to the, the cash register and he paid with a $10 bill. And I realized that that was actually a fir like, I was like, this is ca, this is what we call cash.

[00:11:35] Like this is money. This is a $10 bill and this is how you pay for things when you go into a store. Because he really, you know, so I get that. It’s definitely, it’s definitely very weird to be the parent of a young child. In this kind of situation. So it’s hard to 

[00:11:50] James Sowers (The Good): explain that this piece of paper has no value, but this one has lots of value.

[00:11:54] Don’t, don’t tear this one. Don’t write on this one. Don’t do anything bad to this one. Yes. Do 

[00:11:58] Kate Cannova (Wheelership): not draw a dinosaur on this one. Like, don’t do it. Yes. So it’s a really great question, and honestly, I could write a book on everything that the business has had to navigate and overcome over the last couple years.

[00:12:10] And I don’t know, maybe I will , maybe someday, and I would be lying to you if I said that. There weren’t times when, you know, things get really scary, especially like early on when the country really first shut down and millions of cars came off the road and businesses were closed and people were told to stay in your houses.

[00:12:28] You know, we had a couple of weeks there that were just like, we didn’t know. We didn’t know. Sales would just dry up completely. How long were people gonna be off the road? We didn’t know if we would have enough employees who would feel comfortable coming to work every day. We weren’t even sure early on whether or not we were allowed to operate because you know, we operate in different locations and at that time, each state was kind of doing its own thing about who is allowed to be at work, who wasn’t allowed to be at work.

[00:12:57] So there were a lot of questions early on, but you know, I have to say we’re like super grateful and super lucky that we really only had a couple of weeks that were super wonky. But the team here really came together and they decided it was really the employees, especially those who staff our distribution center.

[00:13:19] We really have them to thank for the fact that we were able to push through to a place where we were on more solid footing because they love each other and they’re very loyal to each other. And to my, my boss, Joe , you know, And they decided together that they were gonna figure it out, that they would hold hands, take a deep breath, and they would figure out a way to get to work.

[00:13:40] You know, there were no vaccines. People were afraid to get on public trans. I mean, it was the kind of thing where like Joe was literally like running carpool. Like he would go and pick all the employees up and drive them here so that nobody would have to get on a bus or anything like that. So they decided that they would figure out a way to keep the lights on.

[00:13:57] And they did, unfortunately, as, as you know, because of what you do and with your clients, you know, cross functionally, cross sector 2020 for all e-commerce businesses wound up surprisingly kind of going gangbusters. And you know, for better or worse, we were the beneficiary of that, especially since for a very long period of time people were not flying, People did not wanna get on mass transit.

[00:14:25] So, you know, we were seeing a lot of changes to the trends in our sales data. Average order values going up. Some of the seasonality that we see in automotive really sort of flattened out different way to flatten the curve. So instead of that seasonality, you know, people were buying more sets, people were winterizing earlier, people were taking more road trips, people were buying second vehicles when they hadn’t initially planned to.

[00:14:55] Then the new car market kind of got a little crazy and you know, the used car market went on fire because people were having a hard time getting new vehicles. And oftentimes when people buy a used vehicle, the first thing that they wanna do is replace their wheels cuz it has the biggest sort of visual impact on the quality of a car.

[00:15:12] So I’d say from a sales perspective, thankfully we have not really experienced a ton of volatility. I would say to your earlier point, the vast majority of pressure that we feel. And swing that we feel is on the operational side of the business. Unlike many of our competitors or our co-opetition as we like to call them, unlike many of them, we actually manufacture and import our own goods.

[00:15:36] So we basically control our supply chain almost from end to end, just about until we like put it on the FedEx truck or the U or the UPS truck or the postal service truck to, to go out. We do everything prior to that. So things like cardboard prices and the cost of aluminum and the cost of shipping container and the 27% tariffs that were imposed by the former administration that still have not been reversed.

[00:16:03] All of those things obviously add a ton of operational pressure. When it comes to the cost side, obviously there are a lot of ways to navigate those things and demand forecasting, budgetary forecasting, strategic planning, being really thoughtful about, you know, inventory and production. All of those things are great ways to help mitigate and manage all of that.

[00:16:24] But of course there’s always gonna be things that are out of your control. Especially like when it comes to things like, and here’s the interesting of the thing about it, cuz you know, we have monthly staff meetings and you know, we really like to share a lot of stuff with the employees here because, you know, it helps ’em sort of feel ownership into, you know, the business.

[00:16:41] And it helps ’em kind of understand the critical role that they play in our survival. And it’s sort of funny, I was joking with them at a meeting not all that long ago, that , it’s like, here’s today’s lessons on geopolitics. Like this is why your job is impacted by a military coup in Ghana. Like, and then you have to, you know, kind of explain all these things because there’s always going to be something that’s out of your control, right?

[00:17:04] Like massive ship getting stuck in the Suez Canal or a military coup, or now this absolutely unprovoked horrendous aggression by Putin in Ukraine, which hits very close to home for us because our entire dev team is there. You know, we have employees here who are from Ukraine, whose family is still there, you know, But all of these things that are outside of your control, they do have an impact that you have to manage around.

[00:17:32] But it’s not like we have control over foreign trade policy, right? So it’s like, okay, in the absence of being able to just reverse these tariffs, or not have to pay these custom duties, what can we do? And what can I do specifically as the person who’s in charge of our marketing and how we’re allocating resources?

[00:17:50] Like how do I take a step back and really think to myself, okay, so like what levers do I need to be pulling in when and what am I gonna be doing right now that’s mission critical versus what I should be doing six months from now and 12 months from now and 18 months from now, and so on and so forth.

[00:18:09] And those decisions include things. What does my marketing spend look like? What is that? What should the allocation be? You know, which of my marketing tactics are dependent on inventory versus the marketing tactics that are really more about brand equity and exposure? Where do I turn the dial up versus down based on what I know about my supply chain, when my inventory’s coming, what replenishments look like?

[00:18:35] So it’s sort of my job to think about, okay, well, in the absence of being able to control global macroeconomic things, what decisions can I make sometimes down to a skew level, right? To optimize. Our planning. Right? Because it’s not, I mean, we work with many manufacturing partners. We work with many shipping companies and freight forwarders and trucking companies.

[00:18:58] There’s always a lot of moving pieces. So sometimes, you know, you’re looking literally down to the skew level and saying, What is the sales plan for this item for the next six months? And you know, I would say like, again, coming from the marketing background, sure there’s always long range planning.

[00:19:16] There’s always a budget. You know, there’s always a scope of work that you’re working through with your agencies. But I would say prior to the pandemic, I’m not necessarily sure that long range planning was happening to that degree. However, because of all these uncontrollable things, you know what used to be a 30 or 40 day turnaround, you can’t rely on that anymore.

[00:19:41] Right? Because you know, the lead time on the supply chain is, Really fluid and unreliable. So it is important to be looking at your overall spend and allocation and channel strategy like much further down the road, I think, than normal. 

[00:19:56] James Sowers (The Good): Right? It’s almost like a cultural element where you have to hire folks who are adaptive and resilient, right?

[00:20:02] Like that has to be a character trait that you bring to the job because that’s just the world that we live in now. Like we run this leadership program in this business management program called the Entrepreneurial Operating System. I don’t know if you’re familiar with it. They call it eos All time do.

[00:20:14] How do I get an invite to that ? It’s a certified program. There are like facilitators that help set it up at your company and stuff, but like part of this is, uh, one three in a five year plan and it’s like, We go through this exercise and like generally I’m a big fan of the program, but I’m like five year plan.

[00:20:28] Like I don’t have a five month plan. I don’t, I barely have a five day plan. Like things are changing so much. It’s like we can put it on paper all we want, but we still have to have the right people in the room that say, Hey, let’s just agree this is the direction we’re heading. But odds are it’s not gonna be a straight line and we’re gonna wander, or somebody’s gonna shove us off path and we’re gonna have to either course correct or change the plan.

[00:20:46] Right. But there’s value in like having a plan. There’s also value in. Accepting the fact that it’s not gonna look exactly how you wrote it down, and you’ll find a way to get there no matter what happens. Right? But you’re in it together. And those are some of the themes that I heard when you were talking about there.

[00:21:00] It’s like you’ve got strong company culture, you’ve got team cohesion together. We’re gonna navigate this. And you know, especially in, uh, I think a lot of people think that e-commerce is just pay for Facebook ads, sell product, give product to customer, customer tells friends, sell more product. Like it’s not that simple, especially when you’re talking about global supply chains.

[00:21:16] You’re talking about multi international, like political and economic, you know, scenes that you gotta navigate. Like it’s all over the place and there’s way more, uh, to this business than a lot of people give credit. So kudos to you and your team for. For making that happen. You know, one of the things that jumped out at me there is like, okay, so you’re talking about having a marketing plan down to the individual skew almost.

[00:21:35] And one of the things that’s always impressed me about OEM parts and stuff like that is like if I go to the mechanic shop down the street, I got a 2015 Subaru legacy. Like they have the hubcap there in the building and I’m like, how do you have that? Like with all the different makes and models on the road right now, how do you either have it on stock or on hand or can get it in two days or something like that?

[00:21:54] That’s always impressed me. So I imagine that as somebody who sells wheels for all different kinds of makes and models and years and finishes like. How do you manage such your big product portfolio and like how do you track inventory? Maybe part of that is you own the, the manufacturing process from end to end almost, or, or you have a really strong hold there.

[00:22:11] But it just blows my mind that you can keep track of all those different skews and know like what’s in stock, what’s outta stock, where we should put, give more attention over here cuz this one’s outta stock, so let’s offer, this is a replacement. Like how do you juggle all that complexity? 

[00:22:22] Kate Cannova (Wheelership): Yeah, so it’s a really good question and I’m not going to give you a very straight answer.

[00:22:27] I’ll tell you 

[00:22:27] James Sowers (The Good): that . Okay, fair enough. You gimme the best 

[00:22:30] Kate Cannova (Wheelership): you can. I can’t exactly tell you how the sausage is made, but what I can tell you is Joe and I both are big data nerds in different ways, but big data nerds, especially from my background through consulting and then in advertising and promotion, like every decision that I make is data driven.

[00:22:55] And Joe is similar in that he’s a big data and numbers nerd as well, but he also has the added layers of having an accounting degree. So he like understands numbers very well and he’s also a coder . So when he gets his mind on like, Oh, well I wish I had something that could do this, or I wish I had something that could tell me that if it doesn’t exist, he just builds.

[00:23:21] So when we look at, you know, demand forecasting or things like that, like every single decision that we make is based on actual data. So one thing that you’ll notice about us is that from a total skew count, we are minuscule compared to many of our competitors. Some of that is because most of those companies are just drop shippers.

[00:23:42] They list a bunch of stuff and then when somebody buys it, they go located somewhere and they have that person ship it to your house. That’s not really the core of our business is, is nothing like that. We are manufacturing product, importing it, and then selling it. So you’re right in that there’s like a massive sort of in operational investment, there’s a lot of overhead involved with deciding even what our SKU should look like.

[00:24:06] The good news is, is that there’s Joe and there’s me, and then we have a team of people who are equally nerdy about data and also equally nerdy about cars. And you know, between the leadership, the ship team, Like all of their combined years of experience. It’s like over a hundred years of experience in automotive parts, which is really significant.

[00:24:29] So we look at, okay, how many cars are on the road? What are those cars? You know, what is the life cycle? How are these products made? Some wheels are constructed this way versus that way. And sometimes the way that things are designed, it primes them for being less stable because, you know, maybe this fancy design and it’s made in a certain way and it looks great, but if you hit the smallest pothole that thing’s done and it can’t be fixed and now you need to buy a replacement.

[00:24:57] Right. So, you know, we’re looking at industry wide trend information. What kinds of cars are on the road? I’m gonna take a step back. First of all, one thing that’s important to know is. car manufacturers are only required to make replacement parts for a certain amount of time after they release a car, and then after that, they’re gonna stop making that investment.

[00:25:20] So, you know, there’s a whole universe of cars out there that need support when it comes to parts replacement. So, you know, it’s sort of developing a funnel the same way you would for any other thing. You’re looking at what’s the total universe of cars that are on the road in the us and then of those which are prone, you know, you look at all the, which are popular of those, you know, which are prone to having issues with this part or that part, you know, and so on and so forth.

[00:25:51] So we look at historical sales data, we look at overall industry trends. We also look at the competitive space, right? So a lot of what we sell. Is exclusive to us, and I can’t talk too much about that whole process, but you know, there is some proprietary stuff that’s done in the manufacturing process that means that we are bringing skews to market first.

[00:26:16] So we’re first to market and we’re exclusive, and that allows us to kind of corner, you know, certain pieces here or there. There’s the spaghetti approach, which is very popular in the automotive space, right? Because you know, it’s highly genericized, it’s highly fragmented, and then there’s sort of a more targeted approach.

[00:26:35] We have just elected not to do the spaghetti approach, sort of a quality versus quantity kind of situation. I think that’s probably all I can share about 

[00:26:45] James Sowers (The Good): that . Fair enough. No, I think that’s a great answer. And you know, I think it’s part of the competitive advantage that you have from the sounds of it, is that like, not everybody has those skills and competencies in house to crunch those numbers, to design a self-service inventory management system or, uh, do that kind of heavy lifting in terms of the popularity of the car and the age of the car and the proclivity to be damaged in a relatively minor like incident.

[00:27:09] You know, all those number, nobody’s doing that legwork, Right? Effectively, nobody, I’m sure somebody else out there is nerding out just like you, right? You, that’s, you, you have peers in that regard. But for the most part, like you said, they’re drop shippers. They want the easy money. They just wanna like buy five of everything and try to sell ’em out, right?

[00:27:23] And it’s, you’re taking a much more, um, like a, a sniper rifle as opposed to a shotgun. And it just feels like a decision point that like, to me it seems like a really large product portfolio, but when you compare it to other, like automotive parts dealers, I’m sure it really isn’t. And um, that’s just me not being as deeply entrenched in the industry as you are.

[00:27:43] The one question I guess that came to mind there is like, you know, you’ve got these products and you’re selling them, you’ve done your research, you feel like you have the right things in the store, you’re selling them direct to consumer, sounds like about 70%. And then some retail or wholesale kind of angle for the other 30%.

[00:27:59] I also think I saw some results on Amazon. So like one of our most popular articles is around channel conflict and often it’s way more profitable to sell direct to consumer than retail or Amazon, cuz everybody wants to take their cut with every step along that process. How do you think about that? Cuz that’s a decision point that a lot of e-commerce leaders need to make is, should we continue to sell direct to consumer and maybe forego all this other business that’s out there because people are actively searching on Amazon for the same thing.

[00:28:24] Or is it better for us in the long run to maybe hike prices a little bit to account for the Amazon cut and get our products listed there as well? Because that’s an active marketplace with a bunch of demand built into it. I 

[00:28:34] Kate Cannova (Wheelership): have a lot of sort of consumer product experience, and I think that, you know, typically cannibalization across channels is a really common challenge for whatever reason in this world here, I don’t wanna speak for other auto companies or whatever, but for us, we’re very thoughtful about what gets put where.

[00:29:00] And to be honest, you know, a lot of the marketplace decisions were made much earlier than my tenure here. When the company first started almost 12 years ago, they did not have a website. The only platform that they had was eBay. So they were exclusively selling on eBay for quite a long time. Until, you know, several years in, they made the investment in their own platform.

[00:29:26] So I definitely think that starting out in the marketplaces, it’s sort of, it’s hard to then wean yourself off of that. And I think early on when I joined the organization in 2019, early on there had been some discussion about, well, do we wanna stay on the marketplaces? You know, is it worth the investment that we’re making?

[00:29:47] Right? Because not only is there time that needs to happen for people to optimize listings and make sure the photos are the way that Amazon wants them, or make sure you know that we’re meeting the SLA when responding to eBay messages and so on. And so, There’s also sort of this burden of being a seller on these platforms that requires you to swallow like a pretty big philosophical pill, , if you don’t wanna make yourself crazy, you know, because you have to accept returns that you would never ordinarily accept.

[00:30:20] You have to give people refunds that you would never in a million years actually refund if you controlled your own business. You get scammed. All the time. All the time. We’ve had people send us back everything from used clothes to vintage Elvis records to a really beautiful set of blue cobalt, blue ceramic planters.

[00:30:44] They were supposed to send us back some Tesla wheels, , but they sent back planters instead, which we now plant with geraniums every summer, and we put in the yard. And when you go to Amazon and say hello, like, you took this money, and then they, you also took the product and then you gave them a refund and then they kept the product and they sent us a bunch of planters and Amazon’s like, Oh, well, like sorry, you know, A to Z, you know, whatever.

[00:31:10] But there, there’s a lot of headache. There’s a lot of headache dealing with it, right? So you have to actually make that decision that like, I’m gonna allow this to be part of my business and I’m not gonna let it make, like, keep me up at night. Right? You are completely correct in that, you know, the pricing structure has to be different.

[00:31:26] The profitability model is different. You know, you have to make an assessment, like, do I wanna list every single skew here and on eBay and on Amazon, and so on and so forth. I think one of the keys to our success on the platforms, at least in recent history is I mentioned earlier, you know, we’ve made a big investment in IP.

[00:31:49] We went through a complete corporate rebranding. All of our stuff is now trademarked and all you know, so that allowed us to file for Amazon Brand Registry, and essentially what that does is it removes all of the pirates from being able to sell off your list, you know, off of your listings, the listings that you created.

[00:32:06] That’s the biggest sort of struggle, I think, as a seller. Because that’s what Amazon’s designed to do. Right? And eBay’s kind of the same way, the whole point, or eBay’s a little bit different, but like the whole point of Amazon is like it’s comparison pricing for the shopper. So you put in one thing and they don’t want 50 listings to come up.

[00:32:24] They want one listing to come up, and then everybody who sells it. And then the consumer has the choice of who they wanna shop with, what price do they wanna pay, how long is the shipping, and so on and so forth, which I guess is great for the consumer. It’s not great for the small business person who created the listing, who’s copyrighted photographs that Amazon says they now own the copyright for because you’re selling on their platform, they’re using to sell all of that kind of stuff.

[00:32:51] So by disallowing people from selling off your listings, it really helps strengthen the marketplace offering. And then you just have to be thoughtful about what you’re putting up there. Like there’s stuff that we have in stock that I’m telling you we cannot keep on the shelf. The second we get stock, we’re like sold out almost immediately.

[00:33:11] There’s no need whatsoever for me to put any of that stock on a marketplace, but you have to remember, like people are different kinds of shoppers. Like there are people who want a nice, beautiful, branded, equity based retail experience. They want something that looks flashy. They want something that’s ev easy to navigate.

[00:33:33] They want something that feels like this is a legitimate company with infrastructure. To go back to sort of the skew count and how we decide what to carry, part of the reason why we’re thoughtful about that is because what differentiates us from a lot of people out there is the level of customer service or and care that we provide.

[00:33:49] Right. So when people call us, it’s not just like, what’s my tracking number? Or like, where’s my order? You know, this is a technical, there are technical specifications that are, are required, right? So the people that answer our phones know the answers to those kinds of questions. So basically, like there are different kinds of shoppers, there are people who are eBay shoppers, there are people who are Amazon shoppers.

[00:34:12] It doesn’t matter what they’re looking for, the first thing they’re gonna do is go to that platform or that marketplace and search for the thing. And many people are like that. Like I think, you know, with eBay maybe especially, and I go back and forth, don’t get me wrong. Like you have a, a young kid at home.

[00:34:29] Like when I first had my son, if I had not had Amazon like all night long, I mean, I can’t even tell you the, like, Amazon felt like a lifeline to me because it was like the only thing in the world that was also up at three in the morning where I could get whatever I needed. And then of course, you know you’re in that haz in the next day.

[00:34:47] A fishing pole shows up at your New York City apartment and you’re like, What did I do last night? The same thing. But there are people who are like, I’m an eBay shopper. For me personally, I will never buy anything off eBay ever. It’s not my jam. I find it confusing. I find the platform just to look. I can’t find what I’m looking for.

[00:35:04] I find it counterintuitive. I find it hard to navigate. I don’t trust 90% of the, of the listings that I see, but for some people, like that’s a hundred percent their jam. So when they’re looking for something, they’re going straight to eBay. So it’s really just about how do I wanna diversify? What does my channel mix look like?

[00:35:21] How much effort am I putting in here? What am I willing to lose in order to to participate in terms of money, human capital, sanity, whatever it is. Like what am I willing to lose to participate? And then, Like, what is the skew mix look like? What part of my catalog am I putting where? So we’ve been very lucky in that we haven’t really found an experience where we’re creating unnecessary problems for ourselves in terms of competing with our own 

[00:35:48] James Sowers (The Good): business.

[00:35:50] It’s interesting cause I kind of went through that experience the other day. I, so I saw an Instagram ad for sunglasses, right? And I don’t buy, I have one pair of fancy sun glasses. And I wear them everywhere, but I was wearing ’em on my in-laws boat and now they’re getting rusty at the Hing. I’m like, Great.

[00:36:03] Now I’ve got like, they got wet from being on the boat or whatever, so I’m like, I need a pair of beater sunglasses that I can just wear whatever and not care if they fall in the water, whatever. They’re like 20 bucks. So I found this brand called Knock Around, and it was an Instagram ad, click through a go to their website, and I’m like, All right, these look kind of cool.

[00:36:17] They’re like, 25 bucks shipped to your door. Let me check these out. The first thing I did was like, Let me see what’s going on on Amazon, because to me Amazon means I might have ’em tomorrow, or I’ve kind of been conditioned to know. A lot of brands will take kind of their last five pairs of something and send ’em to Amazon and just try to sell ’em someday.

[00:36:34] Maybe that because they’ve got new ones coming in the door and they wanna put those on the front of the website. So I’m like, maybe I’ll get a good deal on Amazon because it’s the last few pairs, or I can get ’em tomorrow and I’ll just have this problem solved. So I went there and it ended up that like I didn’t like the styles they had available on Amazon cause there were only five.

[00:36:48] So I went and bought one full price. But that’s kinda like the consumer behavior. Things always are interesting to me because like I think of eBay as a place to get a really good deal, but I think of eBay as a place to go for like an auction. And I’m like trying to get in when there’s three minutes left in the auction and steal something for like 25 bucks because nobody else bid on it or whatever.

[00:37:04] So it’s just like this mentality that you’re in, you know, it’s like, I don’t know, I would go to eBay to buy uh, Michael Jordan rookie card cuz I just, I feel like that’s a place where people sell cards and they 

[00:37:13] Kate Cannova (Wheelership): auction ’em off. They sell things that they find in their own addict. So like, you know, if you’re gonna sell on eBay, then you’re also, you gotta like invest in a storefront.

[00:37:20] You need to look like a legitimate business. But a hundred times a day we get an outreach from somebody that’s like, I’d like to offer you X number of dollars for this, this item. And I’m like, that’s not how we work. So you have to sort of, there’s a lot of like consumer education that sort of needs to happen, you know?

[00:37:37] I think the thing is for us is like we are, yes, we’re retail and yes we’re dtc, but it’s a little bit different, right? We don’t sell sunglasses. We don’t sell cashmere sweaters. You know, it’s not like we have one sweater that comes in 15 colors and three neck lines, and you can choose like what best suits you and whatever.

[00:37:56] Like it’s not a perfect one to-one ratio, but it’s essentially a one to one ratio. This is the car that they drive. Here are the things that are compatible with this car. So when people come to us, you know, we’ve already cleared the hurdle of the fact that they’re pretty much not browsing necessarily.

[00:38:11] They might be doing comparison shopping from a pricing perspective, but they’re not necessarily like browsing for something that they may or may not buy. Usually people come to us cuz they need something and it’s usually needed like pretty urgently. So, you know, they’re sort of getting onto the, the highway already in the fast lane in terms of like the consumer purchasing journey.

[00:38:33] So for us, like, you know, we don’t necessarily need to do kind of like a lot of superfluous convincing. The things that we need to be convincing about are, is this product safe? Will it fit on your vehicle or in your vehicle? And if something goes wrong, will there be an actual human being that you can talk to that will help you figure it out?

[00:38:58] You’re 

[00:38:59] James Sowers (The Good): not in the business of demand generation. You’re in the business of demand Capture. Demand is out there. People have a need for it. Like if I go into the dentist, if I crack my tooth and I go to the dentist and they start giving me a cleaning, I’m gonna be upset. I be like, Look, you see the crack? I just fix the crack.

[00:39:11] I need the crack fixed. So that’s kind of the business that you’re in. It’s like, I busted a rim. I need a new rim. Do you have one that’ll fit my. Is it gonna last me more than six months before it breaks again, assuming I don’t hit something. All right, sign me up. You know, what’s it cost? I mean, 

[00:39:25] Kate Cannova (Wheelership): there’s a reason why there’s like this trope out there about the used car salesman, right?

[00:39:31] You know, everybody’s had that experience where you go in for an oil change and you leave with an oil change, an air filter, a timing belt, a new set of windshield wipers and partridge and a pair of tree. Like, we’re kind of like the target of industries, right? You go to Target for like a sced candle and $500 later you’re like, What the hell did I buy?

[00:39:48] It’s the same thing in the auto industry oftentimes. Like there’s this idea out there that Are you ready for it? You ready for it? Go ahead. Go ahead. That you’re gonna get taken for a ride. Nice, nice. Thank you. You know, is it counterfeit? Are you trying to sell me? You know, am I allowed to curse on this podcast?

[00:40:05] I don’t know. Yeah. But like, are you, are you gonna sell me some piece of shit that’s gonna explode in two days? Or like the paint, you know? It looks okay now, but I take it to the car wash once and now all of a sudden all the paints come off. Things like that. So we’re battling sort of that perception. The perception of the fake, the perception of the counterfeit, the perception of like the smarmy used car guy.

[00:40:27] So we’re kind of, that’s like the biggest challenge for us. It’s not so much, you know, is it a matter of preference, You know, is it a matter of taste? Like none of that is really right. You need something and you wanna be sure that the thing that you’re using to fulfill that need is kind of legitimate.

[00:40:46] And to go back to kind of something that you said earlier about, you know, culture and team and all that kind of stuff, there’s been a huge lift and a massive push over the last two years since like mid 2020 on. To really define those things and invest in those things. I mentioned earlier there was a, like a wholesale leadership shift here prior to my really joining the organization full time, and it was totally necessary for the evolution of the business.

[00:41:18] You know, I think in small businesses, especially whether they’re family owned businesses or not, if the leadership team is not aligned, like they need to be aligned in short-term vision and they need to be aligned in long-term vision, and if they don’t see the future of the company in the same way, then there are a lot of hurdles that you’re never gonna be able to cross.

[00:41:40] So, you know, a lot of initiatives swirl the drain. A lot of stagnation happens, you know, with staffing, the culture starts to die, right? Because everything feels stuck. It’s like inertia, right? So having that transition, it like opened kind of the dam and then the water just started flowing and all of a sudden we were able to do things like invest in the team, invest in the people, build that culture, and a lot of sort of that soft stuff like company mission, company vision, company values, the importance of brand equity, the importance of actually having a marketing plan, the importance of customer engagement.

[00:42:27] Customer experience. The prior philosophy was very transactional. You know, the lifetime value of a customer is a single purchase at $175, and I never need to speak to that person again. Okay? But that person who bought that one thing drives a car, car has four wheels. So at the bare minimum, that person is worth at least.

[00:42:53] Four wheels. And then during the average lifetime, a normal driver will drive anywhere from three to five cars. So all of a sudden that four wheels became 20 wheels. And that person has, I don’t know, a spouse, a partner, a kid, you know, a neighbor, a friend, a colleague, whatever it is. So the idea that a single human is worth a single purchase and a single interaction, and then the customer relationship just dies as a marketer, I’m like, Are you kidding me?

[00:43:22] Like you have left so much on the table. And the thing is, in this space with how fragmented is, with how generic it is, with how, and I don’t mean this pejoratively, but with how unsophisticated the consumer bases, right? The vast majority of people, they don’t know anything about the parts in their car, how they’re made, why they’re necessary, how they fit, all of those things.

[00:43:43] So what do you have? What do you have as the company to give confidence to those people? You have to invest in the equity of the brand. They have to be able to know when they see our logo, when they see our website. These are real people who care about their customers, who care about the product. Like that equity becomes the biggest differentiator in your business.

[00:44:09] You know, Joe started this company and I was like in a total, frankly I was in a total panic about it at the time cuz it was like 2008, 2009. You know, I worked in consulting at the time. I’m literally looking out my office window as they’re clearing Lehman Brothers out into the street. I’m like, Jesus, oh I can’t say Jesus.

[00:44:28] I’m like J I’m and Jay, this is not great. You know, so, and here he’s saying, I wanna leave my job and start a company. And I’m like, what kind of company do you wanna start? Cuz like, this feels like not a great time. To leave a second. Yeah. 

[00:44:41] James Sowers (The Good): It’s not real estate. Okay. We don’t want real estate. Yeah. Nothing in real estate around that time.

[00:44:44] And 

[00:44:44] Kate Cannova (Wheelership): he’s like, Well, you know, this is the business that I wanna do. And I said to him, I was like, That sounds like a terrible idea. There’s no way that people are buying this many car wheels. It’s, there’s no way . Now, of course, I’m now eating my words, you know, 15, almost 15 years later. But that was really why he started this business because, you know, in 2008 and 2009, people were losing their jobs.

[00:45:09] They were losing their homes. They were more reliant on their cars than they ever had been before. Well, maybe not ever, but you know, there’s definitely, you know, the reliance on having a vehicle really 

[00:45:21] James Sowers (The Good): increased when Uber was coming around the corner so that the cars became livelihoods for a lot of folks 

[00:45:26] Kate Cannova (Wheelership): when you Absolutely.

[00:45:27] That definitely eventually happened, you know, But at the time, and I, I desperately wish that I could say that things were different now. , but they’re not. But at the time, an unexpected expense of $250 in a family’s monthly budget puts them in a position where they’re deciding between groceries and prescriptions and diapers.

[00:45:50] I mean, what a banana’s position to be in. And if you need that car, because that’s how you get to your shift. Like that’s how you make your paycheck. That’s how you get your elderly parent to the doctor. That’s how you get your kid to school. Not having your car is extremely disruptive and can have real consequences on a family’s life, right?

[00:46:10] So the idea is why shouldn’t we give people an option? Why should they have to go to the dealer and pay five x the cost this insane markup when we could deliver the same exact quality, same specs, same materials, same manufacturers, same everything except for the price so that they can get back to on the road, get back to their lives without completely.

[00:46:35] Like breaking the bank. Right. And you know, here we are, here we are, you know, more than a decade later. And nothing about that situation has really changed, unfortunately, you know, And we’re doing the best that we can. Like, we try so hard to keep the prices as low as we can. And for a long time we absorbed and we absorbed and we absorbed, you know, as costs went up and up and up.

[00:46:57] And unfortunately, eventually you get to a point where you just can’t absorb it anymore. And then you start to see prices going up, up, which we’ve seen across every sector. And now we’re in a real inflation situation, which, you know, is an actual economic thing. And I think it’s, it’s unfortunate, , it’s unfortunate in a lot of ways, but you know, we’re not Tyson Foods.

[00:47:20] We’re not seeing our profits go up 40% while the price of chicken goes up 60%. You know? So our margins are just as tight as they ever were because we’re trying to stay true to who we. You know, we’re trying to stick to that mission, to stick to that vision, to live by those core values, which everybody here, like that manifests itself like on the daily, That’s how we hire, it’s how we operate, it’s how we show up in the world.

[00:47:50] You know, when we’re out there on, on Facebook, even though, like I’m telling you, we are the worst at social media. Like we produce a lot of content, but we’re not good at like the followers and the engagement and you know, I only have so much time and I’m like, okay, I liked two things today, but like when you see us on, on Facebook or on Instagram, like that’s exactly who we are.

[00:48:09] That’s exactly who we are. And for better or worse, we like social media for sure. But for us, it’ss, and I don’t wanna like jinx it, but it’s so incidental to our business, like from an ads perspective, from a revenue generation perspective, we do not rely on social channels at all. What we do in terms of social media, how we leverage those platforms is really to lend credibility to the overall brand, to legitimize the company across platforms.

[00:48:39] Because for the most part, and you guys know this cuz you know you’re our agency, but you know, the vast majority, not the vast majority, but a significant proportion of our traffic comes in from a direct, you know, Google ad for a specific skew that drives right to a pdp. So when that happens, somebody’s like, Well, I’ve never heard of this company before.

[00:48:59] Like, the website looks pretty good, looks pretty pretty, but you know, how do I know if these people are legit? Right? So what do you do? You go to Facebook, you go to Instagram. Is there somebody who’s actively posting content? Like, does this look like, you know, people are actually here, they go to the internet.

[00:49:15] We’re very blessed to. Customers who really love us, like, you know, we have a ton of trust pilot reviews, they’re, you know, mostly five star reviews. Same thing with Google. Like we have very strong ratings. So that’s how we leverage social more so than like a facility for actually generating sales. Do we get some sales?

[00:49:33] Sure. Is it our core sort of business? No. Do we feel devastated by the new kind of iPhone security Apple? Like No, not really. You know, cause we’re not really hanging our hat on that kind of thing anyway. You know, I think before I joined the organization officially, they had not made a Facebook post in seven years.

[00:49:52] Wow. 

[00:49:53] James Sowers (The Good): That’s scary. I mean, it doesn’t have to be Facebook, but like to have an abandoned property of any kind for that long, little scary. So I think like what I’m hearing there is like, we’re 

[00:50:03] Kate Cannova (Wheelership): investing with your agency. We’re investing in Facebook remarketing. I am shocked. You know what, I’m putting this on y’all.

[00:50:11] I’m putting this on you guys, we’re investing in Facebook remarketing and we’re doing this, we’re doing that. And nobody bothered to say, You guys, you’re spending money doing these things. You’re optimizing this, you’re driving to that, you’re spending money on these ads. But like you realize you haven’t put any content up here in like seven years.

[00:50:27] Like this looks so janky, like somebody should do something about this. You know what I mean? So it’s pretty funny. . 

[00:50:34] James Sowers (The Good): So listen, the one, the question I was gonna ask is like, hey, if you could go back to Kate the day that she walked into Wheeler ship, right? Like you got emotions reeling, the theater thing isn’t working out cuz the world just snatched that away from you or whatever.

[00:50:45] Like, but you’ve got this exciting new thing, you’re walking into a company that has a lot of energy around it, maybe some problems, right? That’s okay. I was gonna say, hey, what did, if you could leave a note on that version of Kate’s desk a few years ago or whatever and just give a piece of advice or whatever, what would that note say?

[00:51:00] But I think you kind of just answered that, right? Like what I heard was. Focus on your own audience. Take a stance, have a mission and core values that you can always draw from and adhere to, and then stick to that and try to embody that in all the different things you’re doing. Whether that’s marketing, operations, customer support, product development, whatever.

[00:51:17] I don’t wanna take words outta mouth, but I mean, you kind of just, That’s what I’ve would’ve loved to hear as a response to that anyway, which is basically like have an identity, right? Like have a mission, have a personality, a brand personality, have something you stand for, have a cause that you believe.

[00:51:31] And just try to like lace that into everything that you’re doing on a day to day basis. And that’ll take care of itself because your customers will love you. You’ll produce products that actually solve their problems because you listen to them and what they were asking for, you got it to them at the right time, with the right message, with the right price.

[00:51:46] And if they fall in love with you, they’re gonna tell their friends and their friends come back to you. And then you’re not as reliant on Facebook or organic search or you know, any other traffic acquisition channel. So I don’t wanna see what you’re thunder. Maybe you have another piece of advice for yourself a couple of years ago, but what you just said for the last like five minutes or so sounded really good to me.

[00:52:04] Kate Cannova (Wheelership): I mean, sure. All of that sounds great. I mean, I definitely think that like perseverance and tenacity and stick to itness are like super important. I mean, I think two years ago, especially given the fact that this has been everything but a normal set of circumstances for the two years, like maybe what I would’ve said to myself is like, you will get through it.

[00:52:26] Like you just have to keep. Going forward. But I think really like my biggest piece of, like my biggest, I don’t know if it’s a piece of advice or like, you know how I would sort of characterize it is that like everything, all day, every day has to be about how you’re showing up for other people. Whether it’s like me as a human being coming into this office, whether it’s us as a team and how we engage with one another every day at work, whether it’s the business and how it engages with the consumer or with our long-term distributor clients, how we manage those relationships.

[00:53:08] The core thing you always have to come back to is, right now, in this moment, am I showing up the way that I wanna show up? Like, can I look back at whatever I’m doing in this moment and say like, I’m a hundred percent okay with how all of that went, whether the outcome was what I wanted it to, or. Can I feel good about how I showed up in that moment?

[00:53:31] Did I lead with empathy? Did I listen actively? Did I give someone else the opportunity to feel lifted up? Right? Like we, Joe and I really believe in servant leadership, right? Like that’s the philosophy. That’s the approach that we take, and we try to push that through in terms of how, you know, the company interacts with the public.

[00:53:52] And that has to also account for, you know, the relationships that you have with your agencies and your partners. Because, you know, at the end of the day, everybody’s goals are supposed to be the same. So when I come to you guys and I say, Listen, I think we’re doing really well in these three areas, but I have a real concern that we’re falling down somewhere over here.

[00:54:14] And I’m trying to work it out, but I don’t know if I totally see it. Like, I need you guys to take one step up, one step back and tell me what I’m not seeing. Right. That’s why you have a partner. That’s why you have an agency. That’s why you have, you know, this or that, the other thing, because even if you think you know what you don’t know, like the, you have to be surrounded by other people who are smart and who, you know, are experts in their own field.

[00:54:40] And the thing is, like, I was on the agency side for so long, and so I think that makes me very sensitive to how I show up for my agencies as a client, right? Because I, I’ve been on the receiving end of it. You know, when things go well, it’s the client’s win. When things go bad, it’s the agency’s fault. And I’ve lived through that

[00:55:02] So that’s not ever how I wanna interact with my people. So, like, my perspective is that if you’re gonna engage a partner who’s an expert in an area that you’re not, the best thing that you can do is listen to them. It doesn’t mean that you take it hook, line and sinker. . So it’s like when I show up for those meetings, I wanna show up prepared.

[00:55:19] Do I have questions? Have I thought about what it is that you guys brought to the table the last time that we talked? And am I gonna take every recommendation, you know, at face value and say, Sure, no. Am I gonna say, Yeah, I totally agree. These are some quick, easy wins. We don’t need to talk about it. We don’t need to test it.

[00:55:36] Let’s just run with it. We probably should have done it ages ago. Yeah. And I’m also gonna say, You know what guys? I just don’t know if I buy this one or, it’s not a priority for me right now. But it’s never the kind of situation where I’m like, Where is this? Why is this? You didn’t this, I didn’t get that.

[00:55:54] Like that’s just not the environment. It’s just not the environment that A, I wanna participate any in anymore. And B, after 20 years in corporate America, it’s an environment that I refuse to create within these four walls. And then also with every partner that we work with, I just won’t do it. So that’s what I would say all goes back to how you wanna show up.

[00:56:18] James Sowers (The Good): And I find that typically that’s the folks that maybe aren’t as invested in the areas of their job that they should be, right. And they’ve got all this extra time to shoot poke holes in what their agency partners or whatever kind of partners they have are doing, whether it’s wholesale or something like that.

[00:56:31] It’s like, well there’s probably, probably something higher value you could be doing than, uh, trying to figure out like what’s wrong on this side of the business. But I don’t know. It’s a case by case basis. Right. But I think, I think your point. Incredibly valid, which is like, be mindful of how you show up in whatever you’re doing.

[00:56:44] And whether that’s a meeting with an agency partner, a wholesale partner, an internal team member, the leadership team, even to the degree that like, when I hang up with you today, I’m gonna go, my kids are gonna be home from daycare. I’m gonna be like, look dad mode. Right? Like, I’m not a marketing director, I’m not an entrepreneur, I’m not anything right now, but dad and husband and I’m gonna put that mask on or that hat, or whatever you wanna call it, and, uh, just go be present intentional about what they need from me for the next few hours.

[00:57:08] Right? And so I love that advice, uh, especially for giving it to yourself, right. A few years ago when you started back at this journey, I think 

[00:57:15] Kate Cannova (Wheelership): like when you own a small company, you don’t necessarily get the privilege of like taking off the business owner hat and putting on the mommy hat. Like, at least now, right now.

[00:57:25] But what I would say is that like I definitely, my perspective has evolved leaving corporate America leaving. You know, a company that had like 700,000 employees worldwide and you know, with billion dollar scopes of work and all that kind of stuff. And coming here to be with Joe in this family business because when you look around, I know everything about every single person who works here.

[00:57:50] You know, I know their spouses, I know their kids, I know all that kind of stuff, right? So when you look around at those people, it’s just a different perspective because every single decision that Joe and I make, or that our leadership team makes, has a very real consequence and impact on every face that we see every day.

[00:58:11] So that’s a tremendous amount of pressure, right? And like if you want your agency partners or your vendor partners, or your suppliers or your accountant or your legal team or whoever it. Like if you want them to care as much about what happens to the people in this building as you do, then there’s a certain way that you have to come to the table as a partner.

[00:58:35] There’s a certain respect that needs to happen, and that goes up to and including what you’re talking about, which is there’s a time when your clock shuts off and you need to go and put on that dad. And I have to say, Okay, so I’m gonna write James this email, but I’m gonna choose send later so that it sends tomorrow morning at 10:00 AM his time.

[00:58:56] Not my time . Right? Cause you’re three hours earlier than me. . Right. 

[00:59:01] James Sowers (The Good): You know what I mean? Well, I’m not actually, I’m actually in Cleveland, so Yeah. So I’m, I’m on the East coast. Yeah. You know we have 

[00:59:07] Kate Cannova (Wheelership): an office in Akron. You should go hang out with other people. 

[00:59:10] James Sowers (The Good): Yeah. I think it was just getting set up the last time you and I talked.

[00:59:12] It was a while ago. It was a few months ago. 

[00:59:14] Kate Cannova (Wheelership): Yes. Now it’s chugging and it’s very blue . It’s very blue . 

[00:59:20] James Sowers (The Good): Cool. Well, listen, I wanna respect your time as well. I know you’ve got a lot going on, producing Broadway shows and running a business and raising a family. So I don’t wanna take up too much of your day, but before I let you 

[00:59:31] Kate Cannova (Wheelership): go, is this the time for Shameless plug?

[00:59:34] Can we do a shameless plug? Okay. Shameless plug. Yes. 

[00:59:37] James Sowers (The Good): Yes. I’m dealership.com. 

[00:59:40] Kate Cannova (Wheelership): We’re here for you. Whatever you need. But also guys, Theater and art is important. Broadway is open. . Come to New York, come to the theater. Come see Funny girl. We’re we’re opening in just a few weeks. Come visit the Museum of Broadway this summer.

[00:59:57] We’re opening at the end of the summer. Support your local artists, . It’s all important. All those good things. Buy local. Buy family. Buy small business. Be good humans. Wear a mask, wash your hands, , 

[01:00:11] James Sowers (The Good): all that stuff and go follow Kate Canova. Okay. Go follow Kate Canova. Give her some followers. 

[01:00:15] Kate Cannova (Wheelership): Yeah, you know what, I actually have a website now so you can visit my website, but really follow Wheeler.

[01:00:20] You know, I try really hard to make our Instagram cute, so like please follow us . Um, so that may be some of the other that my mother will like, like the posts . 

[01:00:32] James Sowers (The Good): Awesome Kate. Well thank you so much for your time today and dropping all those knowledge bombs on us. Uh, we will be sure to plug all of those shows and the museum and your Instagram and all your personal accounts in the show notes so that your audience is just gonna blow up.

[01:00:46] I do appreciate your time today and you sharing the Wheeler ship story with us. Of 

[01:00:49] Kate Cannova (Wheelership): course. Happy to do it. Thank you so much for having me. What a treat. 

[01:00:54] James Sowers (The Good): Hey everybody, this is James again, and before you go, I just wanted to invite you to join one of the coolest things I get to work on as director of marketing here at the.

[01:01:00] It’s called the E-Commerce Insiders List, and it’s a private version of this podcast feed that gets you access to tons of additional bonus content, like extra interviews, q and a Sessions, website, teardowns, and anything else we can dream of. It doesn’t cost you anything but your email address, and we promise to always respect your inbox.

[01:01:16] This is just our way of forming stronger relationships with our listeners and making sure that we produce content that is actually valuable to you and to your business. If you’re interested, you can join the rest of the e-Commerce insiders by going to the good.com/podcast and dropping your email into the form at the top of the page.

[01:01:32] We’ll follow up with directions for how to access the private feed, and you’ll be off and running. Like I said, this is one of my favorite things that I get the opportunity to work on because it lets me interact directly with e-commerce founders and leaders just like you. If you’re interested, I’d love to see your name pop up in my notifications.

[01:01:47] Until then, keep an eye out for the next episode of the E-Commerce Insight Show and we’ll talk to you soon.

The post The Power of Social Proof and Data-Driven Decisions with Kate Cannova appeared first on The Good.

]]> Effective Email Marketing for Abandoned Cart Recovery with Dave Rodenbaugh https://thegood.com/insights/dave-rodenbaugh/ Thu, 20 Oct 2022 17:16:16 +0000 https://thegood.com/?post_type=insights&p=101941 Listen to this episode: Subscribe to the show: Apple Podcasts Google Podcasts Spotify Overcast Pocket Casts Castro Breaker Castbox Subscribe via RSS About this episode: In this episode, we talk to Dave Rodenbaugh, the founder of Recapture.io, about the best practices when it comes to email marketing and how he has helped brands with abandoned […]

The post Effective Email Marketing for Abandoned Cart Recovery with Dave Rodenbaugh appeared first on The Good.

]]> Listen to this episode:

Subscribe to the show:

About this episode:

In this episode, we talk to Dave Rodenbaugh, the founder of Recapture.io, about the best practices when it comes to email marketing and how he has helped brands with abandoned cart recovery. Most merchants are worried that by using email marketing, they may annoy their customers rather than encourage them to buy products. Dave discusses some tips on how to create sophisticated and tasteful emails for your marketing strategy. 

In this episode, you’ll learn things about: 

  • What has changed with email marketing throughout the years 
  • The difference between building relationships with customers and spamming customers  
  • How to apply the “Ladder of Emails” concepts to your marketing strategy
  • What other brands are doing to innovate email marketing

Learn more about Dave and his resources here

Want to be a guest on our show? Have feedback or ideas for how we can improve? Send your thoughts over to podcast@thegood.com. We’ll be keeping an eye on that inbox. 🙂

The Ecommerce Insights Show is brought to you by The Good, a Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO) consultancy specializing in helping ecommerce businesses accelerate their growth through better research, testing, and design. Learn more about our team, our work, and our services at www.thegood.com.

Episode Transcript:

[00:00:00] James Sowers (The Good): So here’s the question. How can e-commerce leaders make sure that they’re producing a great product, providing a world class customer experience, responsibly managing their finances and still reserve time, energy, and resources for marketing their products? My name is James Sowers, and you are listening to the e-Commerce Insight Show, the podcast that gives you specific actionable advice for growing your e-commerce business.

[00:00:20] Every Monday you’ll get a conversion rate optimization tactic that you can implement quickly to make your business 1% better every single. Every Thursday we sit down with industry experts to go deep on a specific aspect of running a successful e-commerce business. It’s the perfect blend of learning and application, which means that you maximize the value of every single minute you spend with us.

[00:00:41] We’re just as committed to growing your business as you are, so if you’re looking for a partner to help you crush your revenue goals, you’ve come to the right place. Roll up your sleeves and grab a notepad because it’s time to get to work. Dave, welcome to the E-Commerce Insight Show. Super excited to have you on board today and talk all things email market.

[00:00:57] That’s something that in a previous life I was an email marketing consultant, so near and dear to my heart, especially automated sequences, life cycle, emails, trigger based stuff. So really interested to nerd out with that, uh, with you about that a little bit. But, um, before we get into that, maybe give us a couple sentences about who you are and what you’re working on these days and what kind of clients and customers you serve.

[00:01:15] Yeah, 

[00:01:15] Dave Rodenbaugh (Recapture.io): sure, sure. So my name’s Dave Rodenbach. I am the founder of recapture.io. So we do email marketing for eCommerce and we support a variety of platforms, uh, WooCommerce, Shopify, BigCommerce, Magento, Easy Digital download, some other smaller ones. We’ve been around since 2015. I acquired the business in 2016 and kind of our sweet spot is in-house marketing teams who really crave.

[00:01:43] Simple tool that’s easy to use, quick to get stuff done, because a lot of in-house teams, they’re really busy with a lot of other promotional stuff, and so they want to have something that just makes their job easier, right? Pre-create content, uh, easy to use, editor, that kind of stuff. And, you know, maybe they don’t have a budget for agencies or to, you know, deal with a more expensive tool.

[00:02:04] So that’s kind of the brands and stores that we end up working with a. At Recapture here, we serve, you know, a wide variety of verticals here, fashion supplements, nutrition, clothing, outdoor equipment, all different kinds. I wouldn’t say that there’s any one that, uh, we do more than the others, 

[00:02:22] James Sowers (The Good): so, Yeah, that makes sense.

[00:02:24] And I imagine supporting a platform like Easy Digital Downloads, you get into some of those info product spaces too, where. Be something like courses or educational material, something like that as well. So truly the full breadth of what we would call e-commerce, not just physical goods, which is kind of where we play as an agency, but you’re covering the whole spectrum it sounds.

[00:02:41] Yep. There’s a lot 

[00:02:42] Dave Rodenbaugh (Recapture.io): of folks on Easy digital downloads that are like selling their own WordPress plugins or themes or you know, whatever digital things. There’s, uh, memberships. We have some membership sites as well under Restrict Content Pro and paid Memberships Pro, so they do more course stuff around that.

[00:02:56] So yeah, kind of the whole gamut 

[00:02:57] James Sowers (The Good): really. So you’ve been working on this for a while now. I think you acquired the tool back in around 2016, you said It’s been in existence since 2015. So you’ve had it inside of your umbrella or your sphere for a while now. What is something that you’re like working on now that kind of has you excited, right?

[00:03:11] Like what do you, when you fire up your laptop in the morning, I’m guessing you’re probably not itching to answer some customer support tickets. It’s probably something else, bigger picture that you’re looking forward to. So what is that for you today? What’s your motivator? Well, uh, 

[00:03:21] you 

[00:03:22] Dave Rodenbaugh (Recapture.io): know, this might sound a little weird.

[00:03:23] I actually do enjoy answering customer support tickets. Maybe it’s just me in particular, but as a founder, I really like connecting with customers. So like one of our missions here at Recapture, or one of the things that we say is like, you know, part of our mission statement is that we want to make.

[00:03:41] Merchants more successful. So when I log in every morning, you know, I wanna find out what merchants are doing and what they’re struggling with, and I wanna make it better for them because if it’s better for them, it’s probably better for a lot of other people in the platform. So, you know, that part always kinda jazzes me up a little bit.

[00:03:55] I don’t like dealing with grumpy customers, nobody ever does. But you know, I don’t really get a lot of those on recapture, which is kind of cool. But in terms of. Things that we’re working on right now. You know, we, we have a set of core values here and one of those core values is simplicity. And this is why we work with that specific set of in-house teams that are looking for simple tools as opposed to something that’s a more complex workflow based.

[00:04:17] You can trigger anything, You can make anything happen, but then you also have to spend a ton of time learning it. Right? So we recently tried to figure out, because we had a request from one customer that has a huge number of stores with us. They were like, We wanna do AB testing. And I, you know, my initial reaction was, Oh geez, AB testing, man, this is really hard, , this is gonna be a mess.

[00:04:38] And he’s like, This is really important to us. Can you figure out a way to do it? And I was, Yes, we’ll figure out something. I don’t know what that’s gonna look like, but we’re gonna figure it out. So I sat down with our, our development team, tech lead developer, qa, and we kind of hammered something out and figured out, you know, how we could come up with something that met his needs without being overly complicated or hard to use or something like that.

[00:05:01] So we’re just getting to a point where we’re just about ready to release that. So, uh, you know, that’s kind of exciting to put it in his hands. See how he uses that on. Uh, you know, several dozen stores and then release it to the larger customer base because I know this is something that some other customers have been asking for too.

[00:05:21] So, you know, finding that, that balance of how can I take this complicated feature and make it so simple to use that anybody can really engage with it, That’s something that kind of excites 

[00:05:30] James Sowers (The Good): me. Awesome. Yeah, I think that’s really smart because I mean, we use HubSpot as kind of our marketing hub here, and I, when I heard that, when I came on, I was like, Oh gosh, HubSpot can do anything you want, but it can do anything you want.

[00:05:42] Right? And, and sometimes figuring out exactly what you want it to do and what you need it to do. Out of this massive, you know, database of features and, and toolkits and things like that is hard. So I think there is beauty and simplicity in a lot of ways. So I think it’s really smart. And when you talk about AB testing, of course, as a CRO firm, like that’s music to my ears.

[00:06:01] That’s what we like to do on the optimization side of things. But what I’ve noticed, and maybe some unsolicited product ideation here, is that a lot of folks. Teach you how to do AB testing the right way. They just build the tool and they let you AB test, but then you have people trying to do a subject line and body copy at the same time, or subject line and a button CTA at the same time.

[00:06:19] And it’s like, well, those two things can nullify each other in terms of the validity, the outcome. So the simplicity maybe is like, if you wanna ab test subject lines, that’s all you can tweak in these two emails. We don’t even let you tweak the body copy, or we don’t even let you tweak the cta. We force you to just test one thing because that’s how you’re gonna get the most reliable result.

[00:06:36] Uh, I don’t know if you’ve gone down that path, but that’s what I was thinking when I heard simple AB testing is like, not necessarily hold their hand, but almost like, you know, just kind of put, put guardrails up so nobody can get too far off the, off the trail there. 

[00:06:47] Dave Rodenbaugh (Recapture.io): It’s funny that you mentioned that because that’s exactly how we set this thing up.

[00:06:51] So I come from, uh, I have a physics. Degree. And so like it was beat into my head for every single physics lab that we ever did, like test one thing at a time. If you test two things at a time, you will never know which one is the one that you could tie your result back to, because now you have to separate those tests and you can like do things like, you could say, test four things at a time and then test them two and two, and that way you can say, well, which group is the one that was more impactful?

[00:07:16] But you still have to get it down to like, what was the one thing that really did this? Cuz that’s what, you know, physics is all about. So I kind of carried that into this here. And we basically said, look, you can test subject line, you can test the body, you can test the cta, that’s it. Pick one, test it, and then run that test.

[00:07:35] And then we also had to like do the other part of it with the hard part of the AB testing, which is get it to statistical significance, right? Because some people would be like, Oh, I wanna test this for four hours. It. What if you only get two customers coming through? Like that’s not, no, you, you failed your p test there.

[00:07:52] So like, you have to guide ’em in different ways as well to make sure that they run a, a good, valid test and at the same time that you collect the results in a way that is fair for the whole test and make it easy to use on top of all that. So yeah, I. It’s kind of a brain burner. If you are deep into the whole notion of AB testing.

[00:08:14] A lot of other platforms give you enough rope to hang yourself and your closest friends at the same 

[00:08:19] James Sowers (The Good): time. For sure. Well, before we whip out the statistics textbook and get real nerdy on it, I want to go back to like the bigger picture side of things. Because you’ve been with Recapture for a while. It’s becoming increasingly uncommon, I think, to have somebody find something to work on and stick with it for a few years.

[00:08:33] Even these days, it’s a lot of like, Let me build something, sell it, flip it, get acquired, whatever. So I’m curious if we go back to 2016 ish when you acquired the company, what was it about recapture specifically or eCommerce email marketing in general? I don’t even know if it was eCommerce focused at the.

[00:08:49] I’m trying to go back in my own memory banks, I don’t even know if Clavio was around or privy or some of these other players in the e-commerce email marketing space. It seems like recapture could have been an early entrant there. So what was it about either the tool or e-commerce, email marketing in general that appealed to you so much?

[00:09:03] You’re like, I think I’m gonna buy this product and I’m gonna make this, you know, a big, uh, significant investment of time and energy over the next few years. 

[00:09:09] Dave Rodenbaugh (Recapture.io): So it’s funny that you mentioned the whole flipping and you know, quick turnaround and stuff like that. So in 2015 I had already been buying and selling various smaller products since about 20 10, 20 11.

[00:09:22] So I’d been kind of doing that for five years. I was searching for, I guess what you could call, not really a forever product, but uh, you know, let’s get together for a long term product. And, you know, I tried a lot of smaller stuff. I even tried to like build my own SAS at the time in the customer support space.

[00:09:42] Failed miserably, spent $50,000 on it, blew up in my face. Didn’t do market research. I mean, there’s lots of bad things, but, so having learned a ton of lessons, I was kind of looking for something that was. A long term fit for me because I wanted something I could grow. I was kinda looking for a way outta freelancing.

[00:10:00] And I also wanted something that in terms of demonstrable ROI, so that I could show a customer look. You use my tool and you pay me this much, I will hand you back this much more money. Like I wanted a huge ROI in things because I had worked on another couple of WordPress plugins and the ROI was a lot fuzzier.

[00:10:22] You know, people had to want this particular product. It was for business directory or classified, and then, you know, they used it, but. There wasn’t a long term relationship you had with them there. Sometimes their directory was successful, a lot of times it wasn’t, cuz they didn’t really know what they wanted to put in there.

[00:10:38] And it was more about the content. So for me it was like I wanted to find something that could clearly demonstrate the month over month, year over year, we are providing tons of value to you. So that immediately attracted me, of course to the e-commerce space cuz there’s tons of stuff like that. And that also sort of brought me to the concept of you wanna be kind of close to the.

[00:10:58] So, you know, I saw other friends of mine who did SAS businesses where they were doing like accepting payments or they’re handling churn, or they’re doing, uh, SAS metrics for Stripe, stuff like that. So all of those folks were close enough to the payments and the, the, how the customer was handling their money on a day to day basis that they could clearly see.

[00:11:22] Value that was coming out of that tool, and so they wanted to pay for it every month, and I’m like, I kind of want something like that because those tools have the longevity, those two tools tend to have lower churn and they tend to be, you know, easier to sell to customers because I can just walk up and show like, Hey, look, here’s your analytics.

[00:11:40] This is how much money I made for you. This is how much it costs. Look, there’s a huge discrepancy between those and you are clearly getting. 10, 20, 30 times the value that you are paying me. I like that because it makes the customer feel good about using our service. It makes me feel good about making their business better, and that’s, you know, one of our goals here at Recapture is to make people’s stores more profitable, better make their business better.

[00:12:06] James Sowers (The Good): Especially with the smaller, or I like to call ’em emerging brands, right? Like smaller and medium sized brands. Founders still pretty involved, or they have a small team and it’s people wearing multiple hats. It’s really refreshing to be able to directly see the impact of a test because you don’t have a whole lot of extra money to throw around on a failed experiment in the marketing realm, right?

[00:12:25] So to have something like email where you can draw, maybe it’s not a solid line, but it’s certainly not a dotted line, right? It’s something in between, Uh, it’s bigger dashes, right? It’s a dash line where it. I’m pretty sure that this email funnel is driving more revenue for our store. And even if attribution’s on a hundred percent perfect, let’s call it 70% accurate.

[00:12:42] Like I know that this tool’s paying for itself, that’s not always the case, uh, with some of the other tech stacks. So I think it’s really smart to kinda attach yourself, as you said, close to the money. That’s why we think about cro. It’s like even if our, we run this test in this very controlled environment.

[00:12:56] With a specific set of, uh, sub-component of your traffic, then let’s annualize that and say, if we apply this a hundred percent of traffic, we’re gonna earn you a hundred thousand dollars this year. Even if we’re off by 50%, that’s still a great outcome for you compared to what you’re paying us. And so they stick around longer because we’re driving results and we can point 

[00:13:13] Dave Rodenbaugh (Recapture.io): directly to that.

[00:13:13] Those are the kind of businesses that I think have the most longevity and long term viability that you can just keep demonstrating your value over and over again. And the customers love that, you know, And a lot of times if they go to a different platform, they can compare what, what they got on that platform with your platform, especially on email marketing.

[00:13:33] And sometimes we get customers that come back. They’re like, Yeah, I tried this other one. I didn’t like how it worked. I didn’t like the ROI I got, I got a lower conversion rate. I got this, I got that. You can’t do that if you don’t have clear. Demonstrable value there. So yeah, that’s definitely something I love about this.

[00:13:48] So 

[00:13:48] James Sowers (The Good): what kind of changes have you seen in the last few years? I mean, I know I don’t expect you to cover chapter by chapter cuz these things are changing every quarter at least. Right? So, but in general, you know, philosophically at the highest level over the last few years, maybe it’s a mentality around email marketing.

[00:14:02] Maybe it’s a level of sophistication among founders or customers that are coming through your door. Maybe it’s a competitive landscape, but like how has have things changed since the day that you bought recapture to where we sit here today in terms of you like market dynamics and the way that you’re thinking about email marketing or way that founders are thinking about email 

[00:14:17] Dave Rodenbaugh (Recapture.io): market.

[00:14:18] Now that you’ve asked that question, it’s kind of funny. There’s really kind of a split. There’s like a ton of stuff that’s changed and there’s a ton of stuff that kind of hasn’t, and that’s very odd to happen at the same time and almost at the same rate because I, you know, I look at when I’m kind of mentally thinking about all of the stores that are on recapture.

[00:14:37] There’s definitely a split. Like there’s definitely a set of merchants who are now more sophisticated about email marketing than they were six years ago. Like today, I can go and talk to somebody and say, Abandoned cart recovery, and I don’t have to explain that. You know, six years ago it was not as ubiquitous.

[00:14:55] Definitely. Eight years ago, 10 years ago, you really had to convince somebody why they wanted to do an abandoned cart recovery. So that shift has been very positive cuz now I can come in and say, Look, we do abandoned cart recovery, we do winbacks, we do post-purchase emails, and a lot of merchants get that.

[00:15:13] But at the same time, we’ve had so many merchants that are now coming on board with this, especially during covid that are new and they don’t have that familiarity or. I think there’s another set of merchants where they’re kind of afraid of email marketing, like they view email marketing as basically a spam fire hose, and they’re only willing to like turn it up just a little bit because they’re afraid they’re gonna annoy their customers, and I don’t think they truly realize.

[00:15:41] That, you know, there’s a huge difference between making sure that your customers are informed and engaged and you know, trying to create a relationship with them and build your brand and be helpful, provide value for them versus, Hey, here’s another discount code. Hey, here’s another promotion. Hey, here’s our sale this week.

[00:16:00] Like, I think they just equate the two of those and say it’s the same. It doesn’t matter. So there are definitely those kind of merchants too. But yeah, I mean the level of sophistication that we’ve seen over the last six years has definitely increased and I really, I really appreciate that cuz it’s fun to sit down with a merchant and they say, All right Dave, I want to do this and this and this, and we wanna segment by this and we want turn these things on, but we don’t want these other things on.

[00:16:27] And how can you solve this other problem over here? And I. Cool. I don’t have to go over a lot of basic stuff with you. Let’s just dive right into everything that you’ve got versus having to educate a merchant from scratch. So that I think has been one of the, the positive things. Yeah, it is 

[00:16:42] James Sowers (The Good): interesting. I even see that, you know, just hanging out on Twitter is the, the best brands or the digitally native brands, especially like they’re way up the ladder I guess, in terms of sophistication.

[00:16:53] And they’re talking, they have dynamic quiz funnels that gather information, first party data about a consumer, and then they use that for segmentation and they send tailor to campaigns around that person’s needs, or they make a product recommendation, stuff like that. They’re talking about welcome sequences and they’re talking about anniversary pitches that are a date triggered by the time that they made their first purchase and stuff like that.

[00:17:12] And I’m like, I love to see that. That’s great. I didn’t see any of that a few years ago. But at the same time, we have folks come through our door and I’ll run a test purchase when I’m auditing their checkout flow. And I’m like, I barely get a shipping confirmation email or something like that. Or it’s like just the standard Shopify template that has the most basic things.

[00:17:28] I’m like, this email has a near 100% open rate. Like do something a little bit more with this, please. So there is still so much opportunity there and you know, it’s disappointing, but at the same time it’s kind of encouraging because it’s like if you’re doing this well and you’re on our radar with so many.

[00:17:44] Fundamental email marketing strategies, unaddressed. Then for someone like you or an email marketing consultant, it’s like, Well, yeah, let’s just come in here and pour gas on the fire, cuz you’re not, you’re not doing the basic blocking and tackling, let alone the more advanced stuff so we can get you buttoned up.

[00:17:56] And there’s huge ROI right outta the gate. Basically. There’s 

[00:17:59] Dave Rodenbaugh (Recapture.io): so many things that merchants have to struggle with. You know, when they set up their brand new store, they’re trying to. Figure out all the logistical stuff there about inventory management and shipping and, and all of those things. But at the same time, they’re probably trying to figure out, do I have product market fit?

[00:18:13] Do my customers really want what I have to sell? Is it working for them? Is is it ideal product for what their, their pains or their needs are? And then add to that, the email marketing, you know, which is again, like you said, gas on the fire. So, you know, some of the merchants that are more successful that come to your agency or that you end up using recapture.

[00:18:31] I see them as the ones that have the product market fit and they’re, you know, kind of like, all right, well I know I should be doing a abandoned cart, so I guess I’ll just use your tool. Sure. But they don’t understand like, Don’t just send one email. Hello. You gotta do the money’s in the follow up here.

[00:18:45] And it isn’t annoying to them to send three of those. And then it isn’t a problem to delay that coupon code to the very end. Like don’t hammer them with the discount codes. Don’t devalue your brand so much upfront. You know, just subtle things like that. So in some ways it’s fun and I feel like I get to hand.

[00:19:04] I get to hand somebody a tool that is building their own house and suddenly they didn’t realize, Oh my God, a screwdriver, I can use that to put screws in instead of this hammer over here. Wait, I had no idea screwdrivers existed. This is amazing. It’s like, Yes, absolutely, please. Now you can build a better house over there.

[00:19:22] You know when I see that aha moment with the merchants and then they look. You know, they’re getting that boost of revenue that feels really great, and I’m sure it feels equally great when you’re working with a brand and you, you hand ’em that first report and you’ve done all the CRO work and it’s like, Hey look, you had a 25% boost over here from this test.

[00:19:39] And they’re like, Wait, what , We can do that. That’s 

[00:19:43] James Sowers (The Good): possible. Yeah, especially when you start with customer research on the front end, which I’m sure is the same way in email marketing. People don’t just jump in and start writing emails based off of their gut. I’m sure there’s customer research and there’s analysis of the data and how folks are using your site and what products are buying and stuff like that.

[00:19:56] And then you’re aggregating that and looking at trends, and then you interview the founder and you get their language and you pepper all that together and you start writing emails that way. I think that’s where you get the best results is when you start with, um, customer insights first, and then layer in some data layer in some brand elements.

[00:20:10] Put that all together and you have something that kind of resonates with your, your ideal customer profile, basically. So we think about kind of historically, maybe a few years ago, it was a lot of promotions, right? It was a lot of like, You’re on this hamster wheel. I think of email marketing where it’s like, what are we promoting this week?

[00:20:26] Is it a new product launch? Is it a collection, a fall collection? Is it a special offer? Is it a partnership with some other brand? Is it the founder story, Whatever. It’s just like, what’s our email this week? And sometimes it’s like, what’s our email today? We’re sending out a daily sales email because that’s the only thing we know about email marketing.

[00:20:41] But now, When this more sophisticated, uh, stage where it’s like you’ve got these activity based things, you’ve got lifecycle emails, you’ve got post-purchase flows, a lot of this stuff runs automatically or it’s triggered by some kind of action taken by the consumer. So now that we have kind of these two different worlds, I’m imagining the right answer is, you know, it depends, right?

[00:21:00] For the brand and, and what your goals are and what your audience is like. But truly it’s like you probably can’t let go of either one entirely. So what do you think is the right mix of promotions versus, I’ll just call them like automated campaigns or workflows. I don’t know what terminology you like to use with recapture.

[00:21:13] We can stick to that, but what’s the right balance of like manual one? Email blasts, as people call them a lot versus more automated, trigger based, activity based stuff that kind of happens in the background automatically. 

[00:21:25] Dave Rodenbaugh (Recapture.io): Recaps, bread and butter always started out as a ban and cart automations, and then we added on a bunch of other stuff afterwards.

[00:21:31] You know, we got winbacks and post purchase emails including, you know, welcome emails and review reminders. And educational content and stuff like that. And then one of the last things that we added last year was actually the, the promotional emails, the broadcast stuff along with sms. And you know, so obviously my answer to this question is gonna be biased in regards to if you don’t have those automation set up already.

[00:21:57] That’s pretty much a priority because I won’t say that email is an ATM cuz I know that, that some people think of it that way, but there’s also money on the table that you’re leaving just by doing the things that you should do to follow up with your customers. Customers appreciate it when. Coming back to them and making sure that things are okay, and I don’t care whether it’s a customer support interaction, it’s an abandoned cart recovery email, it’s a post-purchase educational flow.

[00:22:28] All of these things show if you are writing them correctly, if you’re using the voice of the customer, if you’re using, you know, some of your brand nostalgia, mojo, whatever you wanna call it, and making sure that you know you are providing some value to the customer There. These things work. They’re very effective.

[00:22:47] And so, you know, one thing that I, I find that I fight a lot is that merchants have, you know, less sophisticated merchants, I should say, have an aversion to using too much email. They think that like, one abandon cart campaign is enough, and I’m like, Mmm, no, I’ve got data that says the opposite. So like, let’s go with a data driven approach here and maybe expand that a little bit so when you don’t have automations in place.

[00:23:12] you can go and do the broadcast, but it reduces your overall efficiency so much. It’s kind of effective, but it could be better, right? So it’s the automations that make your store more efficient at bringing people in, at keeping them there, at collecting the user generated content, social proof, stuff like that.

[00:23:34] Making sure that they’re successful with the product, making sure that you get their needs and their questions answered by sending them FAQs immediately after you purchase or sending them shipping notifications so they’re not. You know, wmo, where is my order? Because that kind of stuff just wastes your customer support time.

[00:23:51] If you can be proactive about that stuff, customers are happier, happy customers come back and make more purchases. So getting those automations in place is so important, and I really don’t care what actual platform you’re using. Those automations make a huge difference. So if you don’t have the automations in place, broadcast all you want and send those promotional emails, but honestly, you’re still leaving even that much more money on the table.

[00:24:19] So for me, it’s automations first, promotions second, and then the promotions kind of depend on where you’re at. In terms of your stores annual revenue and level of sophistication, like you should not put every single automation in place. If you’re making less than a hundred thousand dollars a year. It doesn’t make sense.

[00:24:38] It’s not worth your time for all of those things here. So that’s where I’m thinking on these. 

[00:24:43] James Sowers (The Good): Use the phrase, uh, email, like an atm. Like I’ve heard people say that a lot and they’re, I’ve even heard people literally say, When I need more money, I send more email. Right. And to me that’s a little, that’s a little cringy.

[00:24:53] But I will say that like purely by the numbers. Yeah. If you send more emails, you probably will make more revenue. Just that’s just math. Like you’re just sending more emails and more people are reading it and things like that. But is that treating your customer with the respect that you want? I don’t know so much, but I will say, Uh, my gut feeling is people don’t necessarily dislike receiving a lot of email.

[00:25:11] We already, for the most of us, receive a lot of email from all the different areas of life that we’re operating in. People hate receiving poor emails, poor emails that don’t resonate with what they need and what they care about. And so it’s not necessarily a bad thing to send a lot of those broadcasts, but it is a bad thing to do it without segmenting who’s receiving them.

[00:25:28] And if you’re sending me stuff about women’s wear and maybe I wanna buy something for my wife, but I probably don’t, that’s probably not my default. I’m probably shopping for myself or whatever. Or if you send me. A supplement ad for something that is, uh, runs against like a dietary restriction I have, well, that’s not relevant to me at all.

[00:25:42] So the more those emails I get, the more I will start to ding your brand reputation in a negative manner. But I think when it’s done tastefully, sure you can send all the email you want as long as you’re respecting the customer at the end of the day, 

[00:25:53] Dave Rodenbaugh (Recapture.io): right? Again, it’s about providing value, like your example of women’s wear.

[00:25:57] If you’re not segmenting your broadcast list to make sure that you’re sending the right promotions to the people who care about. , you wasted your time and you’re gonna have a lower open rate. You’re gonna have a lower conversion and click rate, and you’re gonna annoy your customers. You’re probably gonna have a higher unsubscribe rate and eventually, you know, they’re just gonna start ignoring you in the inbox, and that’s obviously not what you want to get to.

[00:26:19] So it’s fine to send those emails just. Keep ’em relevant, keep ’em valuable. And that’s why you wanna be very careful about what it is that, that you’re sending. That’s why I like the automations, because they’re always triggered on some previous action. You know, with abandoned carts, it’s, they went to your site, they did something, they put it in the cart, and they walked away.

[00:26:38] That’s a reason to reach out and talk to them. Or if they complete an order, that’s a reason to ask for a review, or if they, you know, completed their order. That’s a reason to send ’em a shipping notification. But communicate with your customer at points that they care about as much as the ones that you care 

[00:26:55] James Sowers (The Good): about.

[00:26:55] Right. Yeah. And I would say maybe the compare and contrast between the broadcast and the automations is broadcast tend to not be segmented and they’re bad because they’re not relevant. But automations can go awry when they’re over segmented and you get the segmentation wrong. I’ve seen that happen, and, but it really, what it comes back to is relevance, right?

[00:27:15] If this isn’t relevant to me, then I start to think it’s a bad thing, but as long as it’s relevant to me, as long as. Bought a coffee subscription and you’re offering me a grinder or something like that that is relevant, like maybe I don’t want the grinder and that’s okay. I’m just not gonna buy the upsell to the grinder, but I’m not gonna be like, Why are you sending me this?

[00:27:30] You know, like, I get why you sent me this because it goes with what I just bought. It’s when those two things go in different pathways and don’t make sense cognitively that you start to get, like, you start to trip and follow over yourself basically with the, with the automations, 

[00:27:43] Dave Rodenbaugh (Recapture.io): right? Complexity I think plays a lot into this here.

[00:27:47] I’ve seen brands go both ways, right? Where they just oversimplify it and they don’t send enough email. But then there’s the other side where they overcomplicate it and like I had one brand that had 38 abandoned cart email campaigns, and I’m pretty sure they were not a seven figure brand. And I’m like, Yeah, that might be overkill, guys.

[00:28:06] Like, Yeah, you wanna dial that back a little bit here? Like, why do you really need 30? Separate campaigns and they were segmented all over the place. It wasn’t just like they had a heavy follow up there. I still think they had five follow ups, but they segmented the hell out of it. And I’m like, there is a point of diminishing returns on that and you can be targeted, but at some point you can get too targeted, I think.

[00:28:27] And then it’s really confusing to debug on top of that, so, yeah. 

[00:28:31] James Sowers (The Good): Well, and there’s a lot of technical debt. It’s not really technical debt, but there’s some kind of maintenance debt with that where you have to constantly go back and make sure. Do we even still sell this product? Do we even still serve this segment of the market?

[00:28:40] Let’s erase this entire branch of the campaign because we don’t serve them anymore. Whatever. If you don’t do that, then, then things start to look bad. I was thinking about, you mentioned one of your core values is simplicity. Right? One of our core values here at the good is uh, 1% better every day continuous improvement.

[00:28:55] And so I’m curious in the spirit of helping our listen, To get 1% better today. When we talk about these automations, maybe this ties into your ladder of emails context, uh, but like, what are the fundamentals? The, the basic blocking and tackling, the obvious wins, low hanging fruit, whatever you want to call it.

[00:29:10] All these different, um, euphemisms, but like where should somebody start? Let’s say that they’re just using templated abandoned cart stuff, which is, you know, one email that gives a discount code or something like that, or says, Hey, don’t forget you left this in your cart. Like, I know, I know I left it in my cart.

[00:29:23] Thanks for that. But yeah. Where do you recommend brands start if they wanna take advantage? Not just of features that recapture has, but conceptually these automated, these trigger based emails, uh, that I kind of consider like a foundational revenue stream so that you can afford to experiment with some of those broadcast things.

[00:29:39] Dave Rodenbaugh (Recapture.io): Sure, sure. So looking at all the different brands that have been on recapture over the years, and we’ve got, you know, almost 7,000 customers on the platform, what I’ve noticed is that the successful ones tend to up level their sophistication. Not all at once, but depending on like how much they’re selling and what they’re trying to sell.

[00:30:01] The generalizations that I sort of figured out when I was going through this, I’m gonna pull up some notes I’ve got here, but if you’re doing like, and these are all annual figures, so if you’re doing like under a hundred thousand a year as a brand and that’s gross revenue, I would say that you pretty much wanna keep your email marketing.

[00:30:19] Simple but complete. And so here’s what I mean by that. So I think that, you know, you should absolutely, positively have abandoned cart and abandoned checkout all the time. Like that’s just a, a given no matter what level you’re at. That’s free money on the table. Those customers are the most likely ones to convert.

[00:30:38] You know, here on recapture we tend to get about an average. You know, between eight and 12%, depending on the vertical boost on the revenue. So if you’re not doing that, like that’s really where you wanna do, and you should send like three of those, in my opinion, based on our data. If you send just one, okay, that’s better than zero.

[00:30:55] But if you send up to three, we’ve found that you recover at least a hundred percent more than the folks that send just one. It typically goes much higher than that, but that’s usually the way that we. To bill it. So aside from those, what else should you have? If you’re sub a hundred thousand, you definitely wanna welcome series for non buyers to help give them an idea of what your brand does, why you’re there.

[00:31:17] You know, founder note. Et cetera. Some educational content, easy to put in there for a series, right? And some kind of a basic post purchase sequence. Hey, thanks for buying from us. We really appreciate it. Maybe ask for a review if you want. And then on top of all that, you’d wanna do some kind of regular promotion campaign.

[00:31:34] Uh, I would say that depending on the vertical that you’re in, it could be anywhere from weekly to monthly. And, you know, maybe it’s just a seasonal thing that you’re doing, but if you’re on more of a consumable pattern, then you know, weekly stuff would probably work a little bit better. And that’s sort of like the very basic level, uh, of a store.

[00:31:54] So you gotta be running like those five things, four or five things. If you’re between a hundred thousand and half a million, you wanna do everything I just said. You want to add things like brows, abandonment, you probably wanna start adding wind backs cuz now you have enough customers that you wanna go.

[00:32:11] And especially if you’re in the consumable space to say, Hey, come back and, you know, reload your subscription or buy this other thing again. Or, Hey, we’ve got these new products to promote, use the wind backs to do that. That drives up your, uh, aov, it drives up your LTV and the, the customers who’ve already bought from you.

[00:32:29] Five to six times more likely to buy it than a brand new customer. So that’s just easy, low hanging fruit there. Then you probably want to add some other stuff like upgrade, post purchase orders, so like, you know, cross sell, upsell, some order notification flows in there, because now if you’re doing more than a hundred thousand a year, There’s definitely a lot of stuff going on.

[00:32:49] There’s more logistics in your backend, so you wanna make sure that your orders are packed and shipped and delivered and notify what the customer, where the customers add in that whole thing. Cuz it’s probably now not something that you’re doing on a daily basis where you can ship it out and the customer gets it in a few days.

[00:33:04] Maybe it takes a little bit longer now. Keep the customer involved with those notifications. And then I would say, you know, you wanna up your promotional campaigns, maybe if you were going monthly now go weekly. If you’re going weekly, maybe do more than once a. I don’t know. Kind of depends. And then if you’re going like half a million to a million, you wanna do everything that I just talked.

[00:33:26] But now you wanna get really into your segmentation. And you know, this is kind of a controversial thing. I know people like to segment earlier than this, but I also find that people kind of suck in segmentation. The problem with segmentation is that you have to understand who you’re sending and why you’re sending that to them.

[00:33:45] And I feel like it takes a long time for brands to really get that information. And it’s not until you’re somewhere in that half a million to a million range that that level of sophistication becomes obvious enough that you can do segmentation and make it super valuable at the same time. So that’s when I recommend that you really push that harder.

[00:34:06] So you just take everything that you’ve already done and start segmenting it better so that you’re getting the right things to the right people for the right. And then, you know, maybe you want to up your promotional campaigns. Once you get above a million a year, then you want to go for a heavier cross sell, upsell.

[00:34:23] And then, you know, maybe you’re upping those promotional campaigns on top of all that. But again, it’s, it’s about the segmentation. It’s about the value you provide. And it doesn’t just have to be, Hey, we have a sale. Hey, we have a sale. Hey, we have sale. Hey, we have another sale. You know, it’s like, don’t do that.

[00:34:40] Like, you gotta be more creative with your promotions. So, you know, things like send out referrals, you know, do you wanna tell your friends about us? Or you know, maybe there’s some seasonal stuff that’s relevant to your brand, or maybe it’s free product with purchase or last chance to buy a product cuz you’re discontinuing it.

[00:34:56] Or here’s a best seller’s email, here’s a birthday email. Like, there’s so many d. Things that you can promote without actually saying, Hey, here’s a sale and a discount code, cuz that’s robotic, That’s boring. People get really bored with that stuff. So, I mean, that’s what I, This is what I mean by the latter of emails.

[00:35:13] And you know, honestly, if we call this the standard eCommerce playbook, I still see that tons of brands do not follow the standard eCommerce playbook. And that’s why, you know, agencies like yours and services like mine can come in and say, look. You do this, you’re gonna make so much more money, and it’s so easy to demonstrate that 

[00:35:33] James Sowers (The Good): value.

[00:35:34] Yeah. And it’s not, it’s not a criticism of any of the decision makers. I mean, what they’re being asked to do, especially at smaller brands, is, is everything. I mean, finance, uh, accounting, logistics, supply chain, product development, market research, customer support, marketing, all this stuff is usually just a handful of people, sometimes more heavily weighted on the founder, especially in the early days.

[00:35:53] So to not have email market. Buttoned. Uptight is not a criticism at all, but when you’re ready for it, it is an area of opportunity that might have a higher confidence interval than some of the other things you might experiment with. On the marketing side, at least in my opinion, it’s like I would probably in those early days, it’s all about demand generation or demand capture.

[00:36:13] You’re trying to get people to your site, expose to your product, expose to your brand, understand the story, but pretty quickly after that, you want to. Retain more of that, that attention. Right. And email marketing and some of those triggered campaigns can be a great way to do that. So it’s not really a criticism, but it’s like at some point as you grow and as you mature and as you have more resources, this is one of the smarter investments you can make, 

[00:36:34] Dave Rodenbaugh (Recapture.io): I think.

[00:36:34] Yeah. And to the criticism point, like. The other observation that I’ve made a lot in speaking with people on the support side, which is one of the great things about a founder, is I kind of get to see like store owners, you know, the in-house marketers and, and different roles that that use our tool. The person who is usually tasked with email marketing.

[00:36:53] Isn’t just tasked with email marketing, like they’re also doing the demand generation. They’re also doing the social media. They’re also doing the customer surveys and the research, like this is one tiny sliver of their job, and so they’re already over tasked on all the other things, especially if they’re early on in that demand generation takes up a huge amount of their time.

[00:37:13] The email marketing, they know it’s something that they have to get done. One of the things that I’ve. Uh said is that email marketing always ends up on store owners top five list, but it never hits number one because there’s always something that is, is going above that. Whether it’s logistics or customer support or product development or you know, inventory management, whatever it is, it doesn’t matter.

[00:37:35] They know email marketing is important, but it’s never the thing that bubbles to the top of that list, and so anything you can do to make it easier to help them get it done. To walk them through best practices to show them how to do the testing or to do it for them, like you guys do it. The good, All of these things are huge wins for merchants.

[00:37:54] So 

[00:37:55] James Sowers (The Good): yeah, I agree. Uh, what I love about the latter concept that you shared in those break points with the revenue is that, to me it aligned pretty well with three kind of KPIs and like I said, that first stage, that very early stage. You’re just trying to get eyeballs on, on your thing, on your website, on your product, on your brand.

[00:38:10] So that’s kind of the priority. And then it sounds like as you move into that middle stage, it’s more about increasing, What I would say is like aov, like how do you get folks to buy more from you? How do you increase conversion rate? How do you convert more people into customers? And then a little bit of that cross sell, upsell, bundling, whatever, that kind of thing.

[00:38:26] But then as you get into that last rung of the ladder, that sophistication is really about lifetime value and it’s how do you get somebody to buy from you again? Make a second purchase, How do you get them to tell a friend? How do you get them to buy for somebody else? Like how do you turn them into a brand advocate?

[00:38:40] So I love that, like it’s tied to the revenue, but in terms of the email marketing activities, it seems like a level of sophistication where it’s like, okay, drive traffic to site, convert traffic to customer, and increase AOV and then increase lifetime value and turn one customer into 2, 3, 4 customers from that single touch.

[00:38:57] Dave Rodenbaugh (Recapture.io): It also speaks to the fact that if you’re trying to make email marketing work, trying to do it all at once is basically the way to make it not work. , because there’s some complexity to each of these things, and you can keep ’em simple, but you have to, like, you can’t build a complex system by starting from a bunch of complex, smaller systems.

[00:39:17] You gotta start. Small, simple working things. And so you gotta get one campaign dialed in and then move on to the next one. And once you’ve done that, then you move on to the next one. And then, you know, by the time you’ve got seven of those campaigns working, now you have a complex email marketing system that is now working for you.

[00:39:33] But you would never just start out from scratch and write all seven of those campaigns. That’s a recipe for a disaster. You’ll never manage that. Right. The same 

[00:39:42] James Sowers (The Good): way that you wouldn’t start developing a product and you wouldn’t place an order with a manufacturer after talking to 10 customers, Maybe a hundred, right?

[00:39:48] Ideally closer to a thousand. And you need, you need a bigger pool of data to have, uh, confidence in whatever decision you’re making, whatever product you’re creating. You wouldn’t just dive in head first into email marketing events, invest a bunch of time out of the gate when you could do one or two of those things.

[00:40:02] Go back to supply chain, go back to customer support, go back to accounting, and then, you know, get better over time. I think that’s kind of the spirit of what, what you’re sharing here. Interesting. I love that. Uh, I love that methodology. I guess with the latter concept, like the 1, 2, 3, I think, and I’ve seen so many brands that are.

[00:40:17] In the level three in terms of revenue, but not doing some of the level one kind of automations like I have bought from a very established brand. And from the point, the day that I bought to about a week later when I received the product, the only thing I got was the order confirmation in the shipping confirmation.

[00:40:33] That’s it. I got nothing else about how to use the product, you know, the benefits of the product. No testimonials, no FAQs, nothing like that. And then even after I received it, never got asked to leave a review, never got asked to, you know, come back and buy again. Nothing, and it’s just like, again, to my point earlier that I see that as opportunity because if you’ve gotten this far, and if you’re a six, seven figure brand that is still not doing those things, then imagine, you know, the revenue opportunity that they’re leaving on the table by not having some of these.

[00:41:00] Yeah. 

[00:41:01] Dave Rodenbaugh (Recapture.io): Oh yeah, totally. Money left on the table. I just keep saying that again and again about email marketing. Depending on your level of sophistication, there’s always some money that you’re leaving on the table there. You just have to know what it is, how to fix it, and when to do it. 

[00:41:16] James Sowers (The Good): Have you seen any like creative uses of email marketing?

[00:41:18] We’ve got, and maybe it’s one of these examples that we shared, and maybe it’s just a case study around somebody who’s done well with segmentation or something like that. But we know that once you get through kind of that blocking and tackling phase, once you get into the higher levels of sophistication, I’ve seen people do some pretty impressive things in tandem with email and SMS or email and quizzes.

[00:41:35] So you work with these folks day in and day out and listen to their strategies. Are you, They’re more sophisticated customers that you’ve had the opportunity to like learn from and, and the ways that they’re applying email in their. Yes. 

[00:41:46] Dave Rodenbaugh (Recapture.io): So the two examples that come to mind. So the first one is from a brand that works with recapture and they do aquarium supplies.

[00:41:54] And what’s interesting about how they do this, they actually do this through segmentation. So they have a variety of things that they sell, including basically fish drugs. So you know, your fish gets sick, they sell you the things to make your fish not sick, right? Well, they segmented on this one antibiotic.

[00:42:14] So, When this antibiotic goes into a cart, The guy was telling me, Well, the only reason they have that in the cart is because their fish has X, Y, Z disease, and I forget what it was, but it’s basically like a very serious thing, like they need to get this treated within a week, or the fish is in big trouble.

[00:42:32] So he knows that as soon as he sees that product in an abandoned cart. He can hammer them with abandoned cart email. So he does this at an incredibly high frequency. I think he sends out like five or six emails, and it’s at like two hours, four hours, six hours, eight hours one day. So five emails and a 24 hour period.

[00:42:54] It had an amazing recovery rate. 36% boost, 36% of the customers. Converted. Usually we’re talking about what, five to seven on the clicks rates and you know, one to two on the conversion rates, 36% conversion rate insanely high. But that’s because he understood his audience, he understood the pain and he understood the timing, and he was able to totally nail that with.

[00:43:20] That sequence. I’m not saying, you know, if you just heard, Oh, if I send five emails to my customers in 24 hour period, I will have a 36% conversion rate. You were not listening . That’s not right. It doesn’t work for everything. He knew it because of a spec. Thing with his customers and it was very successful.

[00:43:39] So like segmentation, extremely powerful. But that is knowing your audience and knowing their pains, not just like dumb demographic data. Oh, this is, uh, women from 25 to 34 that drive Volvos in Maryland. No, this was deep understanding of his, of his product, his audience, and the pain that they were suffering.

[00:43:59] Right. Then I love that example 

[00:44:00] James Sowers (The Good): because I think. People might gloss over that and say, Well, that’s just, that’s just an aquarium supply company. Like, I can’t replicate that. I sell pacas or whatever. And it’s like, but you can, because people are already doing this in the ad world. Like if I land on your site and I look at a certain paa, I’m gonna get retargeting ads for that exact parca if you’re doing your job right.

[00:44:19] And so it’s, it’s kind of the same thing. It’s like, Hey, I know that you’re looking for this and I know you have a specific use case, so let me show you an ad to try to get you to come back to the site. This is a similar concept. Like I know if you’re shopping for this product, you have a very specific problem or a very specific challenge, or a very specific question goal you’re trying to achieve.

[00:44:35] Let me tastefully continue the conversation about that, because there’s a reason you’re shopping for this, right? And I know that reason, and I have something that I can help you with. So I think like a lot of brands out there, at least the ones that I talk to, they’re like, Well, you know, ads are getting more expensive and we wanna do some more kind of owned marketing and stuff like that.

[00:44:53] But we’re just not sure where to jump in on content. Like that’s where to jump in on content, you know, write the article about that disease and the definitive guided treating that disease. And by the way, we sell this medication and then when somebody abandons cart, drop that article in there, drop the whole body, write in the email and say, Hey, I saw you were looking at this.

[00:45:08] You probably have some questions. We did our own research. Here’s the study. Here’s exactly how to treat it. You don’t have to use our product, but we sure hope you do. That kind of thing. I don’t know, I just think a lot of brands are like, I wanna get into content market. Or I want to like make FAQs matter, but I don’t know how to do that.

[00:45:23] I think that’s a great example of it, and it’s something that we can basically lift and shift from the ad. Yeah, absolutely. 

[00:45:28] Dave Rodenbaugh (Recapture.io): So going with your Paka example, I was just, when you were saying that I was like churn away in my head and like what I would do for that. So obviously there’s like, I would see that there’s two main times of the year that you would probably be selling paass, and it depends on whether you’re northern hemisphere or southern hemisphere.

[00:45:43] So you want us. Segment your buyers to understand are they coming from South America and Australia and are they in colder climates like, you know, Chile or Argentina or New Zealand where they’re trying to buy these things in, you know, May or April or something like that right before the winter hits? So you know, you could have a park of buying guide and make sure that you’re promoting that to those customers during those periods.

[00:46:04] And do the opposite with Northern Hemisphere in like October, November, right before the holidays, right? You have to understand when it is your customers are buying that thing, and then make sure you put it out there at that time to provide that value for them. So again, it’s understanding your audience at a fundamental.

[00:46:21] James Sowers (The Good): Yeah, for sure. Uh, sorry I cut you off. You had a second example there too. I think you were gonna share. Yeah, 

[00:46:25] Dave Rodenbaugh (Recapture.io): so this one is, uh, it’s kind of funny because I would say the reason this has gotten more effective is because we’re just being blitz creed by tons and tons of sophisticated. Highly designed email and that is the unreasonable effectiveness of plain text emails.

[00:46:45] So I see that plain text emails work extremely well when you have like personal note from the founder. And I use this with my own sas. So that’s how I know that this works extremely well. So we actually dial down. You dial down the rhetoric. You don’t put graphics in there. It’s just, Hey, humans talking to other human, you know, here’s some, you know, personal story or here’s, you know, thanks for using our, our brand or what, whatever it is.

[00:47:12] But you know, you just, you talk at a very basic human level and these emails, Really have an impact. You know, it doesn’t have to be the thing that you were spending hours in Figma and coming up with the ultimate fancy graphic designs with the perfectly styled brand colors in your, your html, like none of that that matters sometimes, but sometimes just send them an email that has some nice words in it that isn’t overly fancy that.

[00:47:41] Talking to them as another human being. And those emails I’ve found to be unreasonably effective. So that’s the other tactic that I would say, you know, that people need to be doing more of that, just being more human in emails in general, but using the plain text email kind of sets you aside in a very crowded, brightly colored, fancy, inundated inbox.

[00:48:04] James Sowers (The Good): Yeah, I think there’s a lot of pressure to have these highly designed emails, especially with physical goods because you’re like, I wanna put a product photo in there and a gonna put a product photo in there. I need to wrap it in some pretty frame and stuff like that. And like interactive elements. And I get it.

[00:48:17] We’re talking about tangible things that people are gonna hold or wear or consume or something like that. But to your point, like there are certain touchpoint. You want it to feel like a one-on-one conversation. Founder letter is a great one. Even the abandoned cart email, like, what if it had James at whatever your website is here?

[00:48:34] She’s just like, Hey, James, from the customer support team, I saw you were checking out this product. Uh, just wanted to let you know that it, it’s a great one. Uh, this has 500 plus. Five star reviews and you know, it’s one of my favorites. Here’s a picture of me wearing it, whatever. Like, I’m not saying manufacture those things, don’t make it up.

[00:48:48] But if it’s genuinely, like you have team members that love that product, drop a photo of them in there in a plain text email and just say, Here’s me wearing mine. I love it. And be genuine about it. And I think that can be the personal connection you need or some of those post-purchase emails where it’s like, Hey, this is James personally and or the founder, and like your stuff’s on the way.

[00:49:04] I’m so excited to have, uh, your business and I really appreciate you giving us a try. I made this because of xyz. Here’s my story. I think you’re gonna love it too. If you have any questions at all, reply to this email and somebody on my team, or I’m gonna get back to you. And that can really make the difference between you and unnamed brand X, Y, Z competitor, just because you took the time to form a personal connection instead of constantly trying to extract money from them, right?

[00:49:26] You’re trying to relate with them on a personal level, right? 

[00:49:29] Dave Rodenbaugh (Recapture.io): When you’re working with corporate brands, you will never see this. You’ll never see, you know, an email from the founder of Home Depot, , or Creighton Barrel, or any of those large corporate entities. So this does set you aside, especially if you know you’re a DTC brand or you’re just getting started, or you wanna, you know, stand out in the inbox.

[00:49:49] All of those suggestions that you just said are exactly the kinds of things that I think are unreasonably effective because they look different. 

[00:49:56] James Sowers (The Good): Totally agree. All right, Dave, I wanna respect your time. So I have one more question for you and then we’ll let you get outta here with whatever message you wanna.

[00:50:02] Uh, with the audience, but you have this unique position where you’re sitting on kind of the software and tooling side of the world. There’s also the brands, then there are the agencies or the consultants, or the advisors. I feel like a lot of times there are these silos in between those units and it’s like the brand likes to blame the tool because attribution is off, or deliverability is off, or performance isn’t where they want it to be.

[00:50:20] The tool likes to say, Well, you’re not using us properly. You didn’t follow the training, you don’t have your settings tweaked just right. So an effort to kind of. Deconflict, all of those, uh, notions. What is maybe one thing that you wish brands or merchants knew about what it’s like to try to build tooling for eCommerce?

[00:50:36] And maybe it’s something that’s particularly hard that a lot of people don’t understand, or maybe it’s something that, like, if you just looked at it this way, you wouldn’t have as much friction with the tools that you’re using. That 

[00:50:45] Dave Rodenbaugh (Recapture.io): is a very difficult question and you know, I 100% sympathize with the merchant perspective because you are trying to pull in multiple apps, multiple things to fill holes in whatever platform you’re on.

[00:50:59] I don’t care whether you’re on Shopify or Big Commerce or WooCommerce or Magento, it’s the same problem all around. You’re trying to make sure all of these pieces are put together in your store. You want all of those pieces to work well together, and oftentimes they don’t. , and that’s super frustrating.

[00:51:14] You want ’em to share all kinds of information and oftentimes they can’t. So I get that. As a merchant, you’re trying to cobble together something that works for your store and your needs, and we don’t always provide that. So the hardest thing I think, from my side as a vendor here is that. I wanna make sure that the initial experience is as frictionless and as intuitive and easy for the merchant as possible.

[00:51:46] But the problem is I don’t always make our product meet where the merchant is at. So sometimes there’s super sophisticated merchants and they totally get it right out of the bat. There’s like brand new merchants that have never used this before and it’s very hard to meet both of them. At the same time with the same information, especially when you’re coming at me and all I know is here’s your store name and you know, over some time I might know some other stuff, like do you have a high sales volume or do you have no sales volume, or do you have a low sales volume?

[00:52:16] Like that doesn’t come out right away. It doesn’t come out fast enough for me to start tailoring information, cuz I know you just need to get it set up and get going and there. There’s a short window that people take to evaluate stuff and sometimes, you know, I see it’s funny, I will, People will install recapture and then six minutes later they’ll be like, App is not performing well.

[00:52:36] I’m like, You could not have sent a single email in six minutes. You can’t even abandon a cart in six minutes. So I know you didn’t really test this. You just got frustrated because something wasn’t easy for you to use. And so what I would say is, From the vendor perspective, you need to make sure you’re reducing friction at every point.

[00:52:56] You need to make your onboarding seamless. You need to make that documentation obvious. You need to have things like videos that train anybody at any level, but at the same time as a merchant, I think that, you know, if you run into something, it is hugely valuable to tell the vendor, Hey, I couldn’t do X.

[00:53:16] Maybe not all vendors are gonna say something and respond to you because customer support’s not the same for every single vendor out there. But if you tell me that, I’ll be like, Really? Oh, I had no idea. Well, let me take a look at that and if there’s a problem, I will fix it immediately. Like that is a huge priority of ours to make sure our platform is reliable.

[00:53:37] That’s another one of our values. So if you could just communicate with the vendor and say, This didn’t work for me. That’s why I can’t use your thing anymore. That’s hugely valuable to me, and I can make the tool better for. Or you if you wanna come back. So I would say that those are the things that we really wanna balance here, mostly about communication and I think that the vendors can get better at communicating in customer support too.

[00:53:59] I saw some cringy customer support interactions this morning on Twitter that somebody was like, Oh, I’m so glad I sold my shop if I app, And I was looking at their customer support and I’m like, Yeah, if I saw somebody talking to me like that, I’d probably be a little mad too. So . 

[00:54:14] James Sowers (The Good): Yeah. Yeah, I totally get it.

[00:54:16] I mean, I, the thing to remember is building software is incredibly hard. Building an e-commerce brand is incredibly hard. Nobody gets into it to try to swindle folks outta money. Uh, for the most part, folks have good intentions and if things don’t go well, they’re emotionally invested in fixing it and helping make it right.

[00:54:30] So, to your point, the communication is, is the best part. And I would say not just the bad stuff, like communicate the good stuff cuz uh, software. Creators don’t hear nearly as much praise as they probably should for the things that they put together. That that just cuz when something works well and it just works, you almost don’t notice it.

[00:54:45] I would say be gracious with your, with your praise too. Not just the criticism because uh, we’re all trying our best out here. Right. So Dave, thanks so much for your time today. I’ll let you, uh, get back to the rest of your day, but before, uh, we hang up here, where would you like to point folks for more information?

[00:54:58] I know you’re at recapture.io so maybe I’ll do that part for you cuz I just approved, I did my research, but, uh, is there anything else you’d like to plug or any message you’d like to leave folks? Sure. 

[00:55:06] Dave Rodenbaugh (Recapture.io): So if you’re interested in connecting with me on Twitter, uh, and we’ll put this in the show notes I presume, but I am at Dave Rodenbach and I spend most of my time on there, kind of, you know, checking out other brands.

[00:55:18] And I’m always interested, especially if you’re a brand a. Out there, you know, what you’re doing with email marketing or what you’re struggling with or what you’re selling, like that’s always something that I’m curious about. So connect with me on Twitter. I’d love to have conversations with you there if you’re interested in checking out.

[00:55:35] Recapture again, you know, we do email marketing for brands that do in-house stuff that wanna keep it simple. Can’t afford an agency, don’t wanna deal with an agency. Just want it easy to do and get it done quickly. We have amazing customer support and we really do care over here. So check us out@recapture.io.

[00:55:53] Come install us and give us a try. Yeah, 

[00:55:55] James Sowers (The Good): give Dave a she, folks. He’s, He’s good people. He’s good people. Thanks so much for your time today, Dave, and drop in some insight. We could do a whole other episode on that ladder concept, cuz I was about to go deep on segmentation and what does an abandoned cart sequence look like as a best practice?

[00:56:08] What does a post purchase flow look like? Uh, there’s a whole workshop in there and you’ve probably already created and you got it sitting on your Google Drive somewhere. So we might have to do a follow up at some point, but really appreciate the time you did give us today and, uh, we’ll hope to have you back 

[00:56:18] Dave Rodenbaugh (Recapture.io): soon.

[00:56:18] Thank you so much for having me on today, James. This was a lot of fun. 

[00:56:23] James Sowers (The Good): Hey everybody, this is James again, and before you go, I just wanted to invite you to join one of the coolest things I get to work on as director of marketing here at the Good. It’s called the eCommerce Insiders List, and it’s a private version of this podcast feed that gets you access to tons of additional bonus content, like extra interviews, q and a Sessions, website, teardowns, and anything else we can dream of.

[00:56:41] It doesn’t cost you anything but your email address, and we promise to always respect your inbox. This is just our way of forming stronger relationships with our listeners and making sure that we produce content that is actually valuable to you and to your business. If you’re interested, you can join the rest of the e-Commerce insiders by going to the good.com/podcast and dropping your email into the form at the top of the page.

[00:57:01] We’ll follow up with directions for how to access the private feed, and you’ll be off and running. Like I said, this is one of my favorite things that I get the opportunity to work on because it lets me interact directly with e-commerce founders and leaders just like you. If you’re interested, I’d love to see your name pop up in my notifications.

[00:57:16] Until then, keep an eye out for the next episode of the E-Commerce Insight Show and we’ll talk to you soon.

The post Effective Email Marketing for Abandoned Cart Recovery with Dave Rodenbaugh appeared first on The Good.

]]> Making Email Your Best Salesperson – Samar Owais https://thegood.com/insights/samar-owais/ Thu, 27 Jan 2022 16:00:00 +0000 https://thegood.com/?post_type=insights&p=97828 Listen to this episode: Subscribe to the show: Apple Podcasts Google Podcasts Spotify Overcast Pocket Casts Castro Breaker Castbox Subscribe via RSS About this episode: In this episode, we talk to Samar Owais, an email marketing strategist and copywriter focused on serving ecommerce clients. She helps clients like Workamajig and Copyhackers as well as agencies […]

The post Making Email Your Best Salesperson – Samar Owais appeared first on The Good.

]]> Listen to this episode:

Subscribe to the show:

About this episode:

In this episode, we talk to Samar Owais, an email marketing strategist and copywriter focused on serving ecommerce clients. She helps clients like Workamajig and Copyhackers as well as agencies like Longplay Brands and Fix My Churn increase conversions, boost sales, and fix the money-leaking gaps in their emails. You’ll find her geeking out over emails all day long on Twitter and every Wednesday with her subscribers in the Emails Done Right newsletter.

We talk about the important role that email marketing plays in ecommerce growth, as well as Samar’s best advice for making sure that email becomes one of your highest-performing sales channels. She has plenty of real-world examples from her experience boosting overall revenue and revenue share for her clients.

In this episode, you’ll learn about:

  • Email marketing for software companies vs. e-commerce brands
  • Samar’s take on the statistic “A healthy Ecommerce business generates 30-50% of its revenue from email.”
  • Leveraging email strategies if you’re moving away from influencer marketing and advertising
  • Discounting and other alternatives to build a list
  • The fundamentals of a sound email marketing strategy for beginners
  • The effectiveness of Welcome Sequences & Post-Purchase Sequences
  • Email marketing trends and best practices

So, if you’re interested in learning about how to build a customer-centric email marketing strategy that not only grows your audience, but also presents subscribers with relevant product recommendations in a way that respects their inbox, then you’ll want to listen to this.

Learn more about Samar and her resources here:

Want to be a guest on our show? Have feedback or ideas for how we can improve? Send your thoughts over to podcast@thegood.com. We’ll be keeping an eye on that inbox. 🙂

The Ecommerce Insights Show is brought to you by The Good, a Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO) consultancy specializing in helping ecommerce businesses accelerate their growth through better research, testing, and design. Learn more about our team, our work, and our services at www.thegood.com.

Episode Transcript:

[00:00:00] James Sowers: So here’s the question. How can you, commerce leaders make sure that they are producing a great product, providing a world-class customer experience responsibly managing the finances and still reserve time, energy and resources for marketing their products. My name is James Sauers, and you’re listening to the e-commerce insight show.

[00:00:16] The podcast that gives you a specific, actionable advice for growing your e-commerce business. Every Monday, you’ll get a conversion rate optimization tactic that you can implement quickly to make your business 1% better every single week. Every Thursday, we sit down with industry experts to go deep on a specific aspect of running a successful e-commerce business.

[00:00:34] It’s the perfect blend of learning and application, which means that you maximize the value of every single minute you spend with us. We’re just as committed to growing your business as you are. So if you’re looking for a partner to help you crush your revenue goals, you’ve come to the right place. Roll up your sleeves and grab a notepad because it’s time to get to work.

[00:00:52] Welcome back to the e-commerce insights show today I’m joined by summer. Had a long conversation about how to get that right. Hopefully I didn’t screw it up cause we did. We talked about it 30 seconds ago, but somewhere maybe to kick things off here before we get into the meat of our conversation today, which is about email marketing, strategy, production, tips, tricks, hacks.

[00:01:09] I hate that word, but stuff that you’re seeing out there in the wild and want to communicate that to our audience before we get into the technical stuff, maybe give us a couple sentences about who you are and what you do professionally. Yeah,

[00:01:18] Samar Owais: for sure. Thanks for having me. First of all, and you pronounce my name perfectly, so that’s a win, I’m an email strategist and copywriter for e-commerce brands who are looking to boost their email revenue by focusing on their customer’s journey and building brand loyalty.

[00:01:36] Right. Alongside right. So I am not a good fit for brands that want to boost their email revenue, but are not interested in focusing on the customers and putting them first. And these days, my main focus is on solving slightly trickier email problems for my

[00:01:51] James Sowers: e-commerce clients. Okay. Curious, how would you quantify slightly trickier?

[00:01:55] Is that just a level of complexity or is that a sophistication around maybe segmentation, something like, I feel like it’s the

[00:02:01] Samar Owais: situation they find themselves in. So there’s this one client. They have one of the most engaged brands I’ve seen in a long time and they’re an apparel brand and they do these limited edition.

[00:02:12] Print releases every Tuesday, right? And their prints are sold out within 24 hours a lot of times. And so they already making 30% of their revenue from their email, but that’s not the problem that they’re facing. Right. Making revenue. Isn’t the problem that they’re facing their problem is that they’ve got over 80,000 email subscribers.

[00:02:32] Who’ve never bought from them. And so they want to engage them. They want to encourage them to make that first purchase. And we’re working on a strategy these days that a finds out why so many of their email subscribers are not buying from them after like getting on their email list and be engaging them and encouraging them to make that first purchase.

[00:02:54] These problems excite me because it’s the kind of stuff that keeps me up at night. Right. there has to be a way around it. Why are so many people choosing not to buy. And so that’s one, the other is slightly more run of the mill where this brand launched last year, they’re a health supplement band. They didn’t focus on emails at all, but they still ended up with a list of 25,000 customers that they’ve never engaged and they wanted to make the most off the whole holiday season.

[00:03:25] Black Friday is coming up. It’s just around the corner. And so they reached out to me saying we a want to engage them B we want to make the most off the black Friday season. Right. And so I was like engaging a dead list around the time when every brand is waking up and sending marketing emails, that’s going to be a tough one.

[00:03:43] So we created like a whole. Strategy for them that we’re executing. And it’s going to be really interesting to see how that performs and what I like best about projects. Like these is that clients understand that it’s an experiment, right? It can either fail or it will be a huge success. And they’re okay with that.

[00:04:00] And I find like those are the perfect kind of project for me because I love working on them. I love that brands are, you know, willing to take a chance.

[00:04:08] James Sowers: Yeah. That’s a great place to be for you as the consultant, because it’s not like a problem that the. Marketing managers worrying about it’s like a problem the founder or the CEO is worrying about are the CMO depending on the size of the organization.

[00:04:18] So that’s definitely a great place to play or to add value as a consultant. So kudos to you for being at that level, because I think a lot of people get mired down in the, like, what are we going to do in terms of emails for this promo campaign that lasts seven days? Like, that’s kind of like the foundational level.

[00:04:32] This is more. Hi strategic. So congratulations.

[00:04:35] Samar Owais: I almost never do promotional campaigns. It’s niche projects like these or life cycle emails, promotional campaigns. I just took on a black Friday project for that client that I was telling you about. I don’t think I’ll be doing

[00:04:46] James Sowers: that anytime soon. Yeah. It’s a lot of stress, especially around this time of year.

[00:04:49] So maybe what’s one project. I know you just talked about a couple, but is there something else that jumps out at you as something that you’re working on is maybe coming around the corner or you’re a work in progress that you’re excited about? That’s like, got you excited to open up your laptop or fire up the computer in the morning.

[00:05:02] Samar Owais: Absolutely. So this is more like a passion project and something that I’ve not talked about before. Right? So I’m a very visibly Muslim, you know, strategists and there aren’t many of me around you don’t see people like me in the industry. And so, and I’ve been working as a freelancer and running my own business for almost 12 years now.

[00:05:21] And so it’s a conversation that I. Felt was very important to have, especially this year when things have just kind of come to a head and I used to brush it under the rug. I used to be like, nobody’s going to be interested in that. But over the years, so many people have reached out to me and said, how do you do it?

[00:05:38] Right? And as my visibility has grown this year, as I’ve stepped beyond my comfort zone and shown up more online, I have found that it’s. Easier just to speak about these things. And so I am, and so we’ve got a very provocatively named show called Muslim, a Jew and a freelance podcast where my co-host is a Jew.

[00:05:57] I’m very obviously the Muslim. And we talk about how different our experiences are, even though our backgrounds are extremely similar. Right? So my cohost is a Jew she’s from, you know, her ancestors are from Morocco’s. But she’s lived her life in Canada and she’s white, but English is not her first language French is, but nobody asks her that question.

[00:06:17] And almost everybody asks me, but how is your English? So good. Right. And so I’ve always been polite about it and said, um, I went to like a really good school and my parents were crazy about us getting a good education. But the simple answer is that I went. To African school, that’s it? That’s the answer.

[00:06:34] And so, you know, people don’t really realize how inappropriate questions like these are. So with my show, I hope to a normalize talking about this stuff. And I know that people who care about this stuff are just too scared to ask these questions. Right. And people who don’t care about this down just. Ask these tone deaf questions.

[00:06:53] And so we want to make this a normal conversation to have where people who are interested are not worried about asking and offending and the people who don’t know or just don’t care. It’s just, you know, if it gets into their ear, if they become more informed,

[00:07:07] James Sowers: all the better. Yeah. I mean, as a 32 year old, upper middle class white guy sitting here, like I want to listen to the show because I feel like my heart’s in the right place.

[00:07:15] I want to do the right things, but I’m afraid of starting a conversation in the wrong way or asking a question in the wrong way. And so any additional exposure to. People who are talking about their personal experiences and places where people who look and sound like me have gone wrong. I want to learn from that.

[00:07:30] I don’t want to make that mistake myself, you know, so kudos to you for launching a platform like that and being willing to put yourself out there and spread that message, because I think it’s critically important. And as we’re seeing in the U S especially earlier this year, like we had some major events around.

[00:07:42] Racial inequality and racial injustice. And I just can’t say enough about adding momentum to, uh, moving in a positive direction in that front. So kudos to you for putting that out there as a great passion project. And I’m sure it’s a great release from kind of the more technical, like if you get into the weeds, you’re writing emails or landing pages or ad copy or whatever for a week, and you just want to step out and have like a casual conversation with somebody who I’m assuming you’re a pretty good friend with, um, that’s gotta be a great way to release intention too.

[00:08:07] It is. It absolutely is. Awesome. So if we pivot back to the professional side of your life, I did a little bit of research and I gathered that you also work with some software companies in addition to working with e-commerce brands. And so I’m curious, have you seen any overlap between those two industries?

[00:08:21] Like, is there something that historically the software industry does really well, that would also work well for e-commerce, but most people aren’t doing it or is there something that maybe they’re both doing well and that kind of surprised you, that it’s working for software and e-commerce at the same time, anything jumped out at you there.

[00:08:36] Yeah.

[00:08:36] Samar Owais: So I pull a nod of my e-commerce strategy from my SAS experience. Right. And one of the things that SAS gets right is mapping out the user journey. And that is easy to translate into emails because if everything beyond email is already mapped out, it’s easy to figure out where email can fit in. So I find that e-commerce brands don’t often focus on the email journey of their customer and subscribers enough.

[00:09:01] You know, they see conventional advice, like create a welcome sequence for your buyers and your non-buyers, but they don’t stop to think that fine creating a welcome sequence for non-buyers is perfect. Right? The welcome sequence is like the perfect introduction, but what about buyers? Because they will be getting the post-purchase email sequence at the same time.

[00:09:22] And if that’s the first time they’re getting on your list and they’re also getting the welcome sequence at the same time. Whose purpose by the way is to encourage the second purchase that just confuses and sends two different types of messages. And so if you’re mapping out your customer’s journey, if you’re asking and you know, if you’re paying attention to where they are mentally with what their expectations are, then it just becomes a lot easier to create the kind of emails that build brand loyalty.

[00:09:47] I’m just wild with customers. And so I feel like SAS does that brilliantly. And it’s also an easier sell for SAS businesses for e-commerce. I have to do my convincing

[00:09:57] James Sowers: yeah. More education around that. Right. Cause they’re just not a default behavior for them. It’s something that they have to learn from your experience with the other industry.

[00:10:03] So that’s something great that you bring to the table. And I think that, like, when you talk about that, Journey mapping exercise. Like I’m assuming you mean you physically have to like draw this out, right? Like on a whiteboard or some kind of digital white boarding solution. Now, if we have to own a piece of paper, like you can just talk about it.

[00:10:17] You have to like show the funnel. So it’s like, okay, somebody comes in and hits the website is not a customer subscribes to our email list. What happens next? Okay. Somebody came from a Facebook ad, buy something, gets their post-purchase confirmation. Right? And then what happens next? Like you have to show these things in parallel, and then you say, okay, well, if they’re in this sequence, we don’t want them in this one.

[00:10:36] And then that has implications. When you go to your ESP and it’s like, exclude these folks with this tag or whatever, if you don’t physically map that out, then mistakes will be made, right? Like people get too many emails. They’ll miss emails entirely. And either way you’re turning away customers and leaving a sour taste in their mouth, or you’re leaving money on the table because you’re not presenting them with the offer at the right time.

[00:10:54] Is that fair to say?

[00:10:55] Samar Owais: Yeah, absolutely. So what I do is when I sign on a client and I’m mapping out their life cycle emails, we get on a call. One of the things I found early on is that clients and e-commerce brands don’t have the time to fill out these Lindy. Questionnaires. Right. So I don’t send them anything.

[00:11:08] We get on an hour long call after the contract is signed. And I asked them all the questions I need to ask live. And I literally map it out on paper right there. And then, and then I tell them, I’m going to finalize this, create a digital version of it. And you know, if I have any more questions, we’ll hop on a quick 15 minute call and get clarification.

[00:11:26] Other than that, we’re going to. Hop on another call and then walk you through and see if there are any gaps that we’ve been missing. So it takes time. There’s no denying it. And it takes a lot of questions by the end of that one hour call. I have question fatigue. My client has answered fatigue, but we have.

[00:11:46] A customer email journey than whilst they’re customers. Right. So any email subscribers, so it’s worth it in the

[00:11:52] James Sowers: end. Yeah. I don’t expect that we have a lot of listeners who haven’t started yet. Most of our listeners probably already have something. Underway in terms of email marketing. So doing something like this can be a great forcing function, right?

[00:12:03] Like I imagine if you map it out and you’re with your team and you say, okay, what happens after they received this email? And everybody looks around the room and goes, well, I don’t really know. Then you fire up your ESP and you go look right. Like maybe the sequence just ends, or maybe there’s an email there you don’t know about.

[00:12:15] And so like, it forces you to be. More thoughtful and intentional about these touch points, because somebody might not have looked at this for months or years and they don’t even know what happens next. And so is this pretty reflective of your audit service? I mean, I was thinking about getting into that a little bit later, but if it’s convenient now, it sounds like that you jump into an existing email marketing strategy and kind of break down the areas of opportunity and the things that are doing well.

[00:12:37] Is this kind of like an example of what that’s like? Yeah. So an

[00:12:40] Samar Owais: audit is basically me going into the ESP and a figuring out what emails they’re sending. And I have like this list of almost 30 points that I go through it, but I get into deep into the nitty-gritty. But the first thing I see is the strategy, right?

[00:12:54] And that means taking like a 30,000 view of the entire email sequence and see what are the gaps that were missing. And the easiest way I found to find these gaps is by asking two questions, right. What happens if the subscriber or customer does what we want them to do? B what happens if they don’t do what we want them to do?

[00:13:12] Where do they go? What messaging do they receive? Right. And so it’s the second question often that gives me the gaps and shows me what is missing and what can be improved. And if you do nothing else, just ask yourself these questions. As you are auditing your emails and the answers will start coming to you.

[00:13:28] If not answers, then ideas on how to improve it.

[00:13:31] James Sowers: Right. That makes a lot of sense. So I hear the statistic tossed around a lot and you actually threw it out earlier. A lot of businesses can expect to make, I don’t know, 30 to 50% of their revenue from email. The rest comes from SEO, organic traffic, paid ads, influencers, whatever else they’ve got going on.

[00:13:46] So first I was going to ask if that number’s valid, but since you threw it out earlier, I’m guessing that you’re pretty on board with that. So do you think that that number is going to change in any way in the future? Or are you already seeing a change with some customers like ad costs increase? Are they giving you.

[00:13:58] I’m

[00:13:59] Samar Owais: glad you asked me that question because I’m actually not on board with that statistic, to be honest, because I feel like that’s the wrong thing to focus on. It doesn’t matter how much revenue you’re making from your emails, right? The question you need to be asking yourself is how can we improve it?

[00:14:14] So whether that’s 30%, whether that’s 50%, there is always room for improvement. And I use that statistics because that’s. The starting point of a conversation with my clients. A lot of the time, right? Every time I get on a discovery call, every time I sit down with them, that’s what they say, Oh, we’re only making like 8% and we want to jump to 30% and they use the 30% specifically because they’ve heard that statistic so much.

[00:14:38] And my answer is almost always let’s focus on boosting their Avenue before we focus on how much we boosted, because a lot of times, every e-commerce brands wants the best email marketing that they have. Right. Understood no brand out there is thinking, Oh, can we just coast by, they all want to do the best, but there have a lot of limitations.

[00:15:01] Sometimes it’s budget. Sometimes it’s manpower. Sometimes it’s simply that they’re too small or too new. And so we have to take all of that into consideration and then move from there.

[00:15:12] James Sowers: Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. It sounds a lot like the advice we give folks around their conversion rate it’s and they’re like, what’s a good conversion rate for me based on my industry or my product or what my price point, whatever.

[00:15:20] And it’s like, well, it’s one, that’s always improving, frankly. Like if you’re at 1% today being at one and a half percent tomorrow, that’s a good conversion rate. It sounds like you’re saying the same thing in terms of. Share of overall profit or revenue for email. It’s like the best number for you as one that’s better next month than it was this month.

[00:15:35] And so what are some of the things like at a high level, I’m not asking for specific tactics that you’ve done for your clients, but like what are some things people can do to increase that share of the overall pie? So to speak that email takes up. So like if they wanted to move off of. Facebook ads because they’re getting expensive.

[00:15:51] What can they do with their emails? Short of just like send more email to kind of take back some of that revenue for the own channel that is email. Yeah. So

[00:15:59] Samar Owais: two things essentially, and they both need to happen simultaneously one, grow your email list and be focused on your life cycle emails, focus on your customer’s email journey.

[00:16:08] Right. And I feel like I’m harping on and on about email journey and customers. But it is just so important. And I feel like revenue and customer email experience goes hand in hand. And so just really focused on growing your list, completely completing your life cycle emails. Like all of them starting with the primary ones, which I call the moneymakers, the welcome sequence, the abandoned cart, abandoned checkout post-purchase upsell, cross out, nurture everything.

[00:16:33] And then focus on that and then move on to your weekly emails and then your campaigns, right? Don’t just send a campaign. Anytime you want to boost your revenue. The campaigns need to have a rhyme and a reason and focus on instead of like sending out a new campaign, just like think of ways that you can boost your AOV average order value.

[00:16:53] And that can be done by. Post-purchase upsell or cross sell, or just even if you have the kind of product that takes time in shipping, and you have a post-purchase email that says, Hey, we’re putting together your order and it’ll be shipped on so-and-so day. I think dollar shave club messing up the name, I think, but they do a really good job where they send out an email saying, we’re putting up your order together.

[00:17:15] This is what else goes well with this. Do you want us to include it? And it’s just one of the ways you can increase the average order value, focus on that. And I think it’s a very smart decision to move away from influencer marketing and advertising. But again, I understand it’s a big chunk of the e-commerce world, so I don’t disagree.

[00:17:35] James Sowers: Listen, I don’t fault you for coming back to customer experience again and again, because it is so important. I mean, when we were in brick and mortar retail, Customer experience is part of that too. It just looks different, right? It’s like, how is your store decorated? What kind of feeling do they get when they walk in the store?

[00:17:49] How, how for your associates? Like how has everything laid out? Is it intuitive to find the men’s versus the women’s versus the kids? That’s all customer experience. And what we’re doing right now in 2020 is we’re trying to transfer some of that. To online. And the fact of the matter is like the touchpoint that we have instead of face-to-face conversation like you and I are doing right now is primarily email SMS landing pages.

[00:18:07] That’s what we have to work with ads. So like it’s an important part of everything that we do. So definitely think it’s like fundamental to keep bringing it back up because it is about like, How does your customer feel and how often are they hearing from you? And in what context that makes the difference between a sale and an unsubscribed.

[00:18:22] Right? One thing that jumped out at me there is like, you’re talking about building your list. How do you think about growing your list in terms of presentation and incentives? Because a lot of things that we see are like the default pop-up with 10 or 20% off your first purchase. And to me, I’ve always said that kind of feels like hitting the easy button.

[00:18:37] Like somebody was just lazy and they’re like, we need to grow our list. And I’m sure it works, but like, what’s your personal opinion on discounting as a way to grow your list versus maybe some alternatives.

[00:18:45] Samar Owais: I am very against discounts to be honest, but I also realized that it’s the fastest way to build a list.

[00:18:52] Right? So if the brand comes to me and they’re fairly new, unlike decide on a threshold. So as soon as we hit this many number of email subscribers, we’re going to turn off. The discount and think in terms of providing value. So free shipping is something that works out really well. If you can do that or for that, that’s, that’s also like a form of lazy marketing, but it’s the kind of marketing that works.

[00:19:13] And we tested it out with any commerce project that I was working on, where they had a free sample pack. It was a beauty brand and they were selling, um, the tripod. For like just free I’m you just have to pay shipping, right. It did not sell well, but when we flipped the offer and made the trial pack $7 and made the shipping free, it’s sold like hotcakes.

[00:19:33] And so it just goes to show, find out what’s important to your audience. And a lot of times brands just, you know, calculate shipping at the end. So customers get sticker shock at the end, like, Oh my God. $24 for delivery. No, thank you. And they X out, right. Find a way. Quizzes are a great way to build your email

[00:19:52] James Sowers: list as well.

[00:19:53] Awesome. Yeah. We just talked to Ben Parr from octane AI about shoppable quizzes as a marketing strategy and that some of the conversion statistics they threw out around that were just incredible. So yeah, I love that recommendation as an alternative to discounting. It’s like, let’s get a quiz, let’s start learning more about our customers and then maybe present them an offer if it’s right.

[00:20:09] But. Use that to make them feel like appreciated and recognized, and then sell them on the email list where you’re going to follow up with more information or recipe guides or whatever you want to do to add value versus just like cutting your margin. Yeah.

[00:20:21] Samar Owais: And also like if you were in a brand that is just gung ho on discounts offer it, but after your website, visitor or subscriber has done something for you, like if they’ve taken a quiz.

[00:20:32] Give them an order discount, like 15% off if they buy from the result page, from the results that are coming in on the results page, I put a timer on it, add scarcity. There is so many things we can test and do, and just have fun with it. Honestly, if you start thinking of it as having fun, trying out these new ideas, it just becomes less stressful.

[00:20:50] I

[00:20:50] James Sowers: find. Yeah, anytime you can lay fund into a work. I think life gets better overall. So love that advice. That’s true. Listen. So let’s assume somebody is not really doing much with email marketing right now and they have the rest of this year. So we’ve got what 45 days left, I guess, in this calendar year.

[00:21:05] And they want to get something off the ground, right? They’re not expecting best-in-class kind of performance. They’re just like, I want to get the essential items out there into the world. Because I’m not doing anything with email marketing right now. And some are telling me that I’m leaving money on the table.

[00:21:16] So I heard you say the money makers, maybe it’s those. And I know we could do an entire episode just around those. So maybe we don’t get into the expert level tactics, but at a fundamental level, like, what are they, which ones do you recommend starting with and what do people need to do to get things right out of the gate, at least as a starter?

[00:21:32] Samar Owais: Yeah. First thing, forget about black Friday. It is too late for that. And. We’re at a hail Mary level of like black Friday emails. So that’s just adding stress to your life that you don’t need. Right. But the rest of the holiday season is still there. Now, when I say customer experience and customer journey, think of your customers, right?

[00:21:52] What is more important to them right now? We’re in a post pandemic world. Everybody’s stuck at home. The smart ones. And we, you know, in some cases we haven’t met our loved ones in a long line, right. So gifts are the perfect way to show that love. And if you are a brand that wants to. Capitalize on that and make some sales, then just speak to what’s important to your customers or your target audience and start creating emails around that.

[00:22:17] Right. Don’t wait until December 15th to start sending holiday emails, start talking about the importance of family, of the importance of, you know, showing. People we care about you from now do gift guides. Also just share customer stories. I find those emails work so well, you know, did you get an email from last year where somebody said, Oh, your order was delivered on time.

[00:22:40] It made such a huge difference, et cetera, et cetera. Find those, highlight those. Make your brand personal and show that you care about them and just start

[00:22:48] James Sowers: sending those emails. That makes a lot of sense that you call it out customer stories. There that’s one that I usually throw out as something that software companies do.

[00:22:54] Right. But e-commerce, doesn’t do so great at like, we put reviews on the product page, but it’s five stars, a generic icon because we don’t have the person’s picture. And then it says like James S and the review and that’s it. But like, Tell those customers stories, because if you look at the case study page for any popular software tool, it use like Klayvio Shopify, go look at the case, study page and look how detailed and thoughtful those stories are and how they’re communicating the value of the tool and that person’s, or that company’s life.

[00:23:18] We can do that with e-commerce you just got to get your customers on the phone or get them to somehow document their story and then get permission to tell that to other customers. And that’s where you get. I see a person who looks like and sounds like me, and is having the same problems. If their life is better after buying this product, then mine probably will be too.

[00:23:34] And then I’m going to make the purchase. So I don’t know if you agree or disagree with that or have anything to add there, but I’ll give you the form.

[00:23:39] Samar Owais: I totally agree with you. And I did this once with any commerce client, right. But they didn’t have any way to talk to the customers. The timeline was too short, so I was like, send me your most detailed.

[00:23:50] Reviews right where you feel like people have lived there and share their entire life story. Right. And I took those and turn those into emails and they did so well, even if they don’t make as many sales as you hope they do make that personal connection. And as you continue to do this over time, it will just strengthen that bond and people would start trusting

[00:24:10] James Sowers: you.

[00:24:11] Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. When you go in to work with a client, we’re talking about customer journey, we’re talking about knowing your customer and aligning with their needs and their desires and the goals that they have for their life or whatever. I’m guessing you come into a fair amount of organizations and they don’t have a whole lot of existing material around that.

[00:24:25] We’ve never interviewed a customer, or we interviewed somebody it’s been over a year. And so when we added a new product line and we don’t serve those customers anymore. So like I’m guessing the answer is probably going to be. They hire you to do that. But if somebody wants to kind of start doing that now, so that they’re prepared when they come to hire someone like you, what can they do to get in touch with their customers?

[00:24:43] Like how can they collect that data, the quantitative and qualitative and use it to inform all their marketing strategy, not just email.

[00:24:50] Samar Owais: All right. So there’s this one question that I always ask, no matter how, what industry I’m working with and what kind of customers I’m talking about. Right. And that question is what was going on in your life when you did whatever they did.

[00:25:02] And that kind of just brings the customer back into whatever was happening around that time. And they get into storytelling mode. And I feel like that is the best mode to get your customer in when you want feedback from them. And so I get a lot of. Good material from that. And I treat e-commerce customer research the same way as I treat SAS.

[00:25:24] Right. My first instinct is always to go and talk to the customers and just get them on a quick 15, 20 minute call and just get to know them. I don’t ask them questions like. What did you like about the product or the business or stuff? I just want to get to know them, find out what’s important to them so that the emails I create speak to whatever is important to the customer.

[00:25:45] Right? So yeah, the focus is always on the customer and less on the right.

[00:25:50] James Sowers: That makes sense. And so I’ve found when I do customer interviews, Typically once I’ve done like 10, I kind of start to hear the same stuff over and over again. Or at least like 80% overlap. It does that number ring true with your experience too?

[00:26:01] Is that maybe a ballpark we can give founders like get on the phone with 10 customers and maybe if you offer multiple product lines, maybe it’s 10 per product line, right? Men will have different experiences from women and everybody else or whatever. But in general, 10 per category, 10 per product line is probably a good goal.

[00:26:15] And then you have a pretty good sense of what is important to them and what it means for how you communicate with them, through your website, emails, everything else you’ve got going on. Is that true? Yeah, absolutely.

[00:26:24] Samar Owais: Yeah. I find my experience is the same. Okay,

[00:26:26] James Sowers: awesome. So, listen, I know I saw a case study for you, uh, specifically around a welcome series.

[00:26:30] And you’ve mentioned it during this conversation too. So I’m wondering if we could maybe click down into that a little bit for the listeners in terms of like when you’re building this welcome series and you have this. Post-purchase welcome series. That’s separate from just a generic, joined your audience in some other way.

[00:26:44] You’re a magician at this. I think I saw something like $120,000 of revenue generated from a single welcome sequence in a past interview. We don’t have to go. That was an entire conversation, but what’s the high level overview of like, how are you able to achieve that kind of result for a client of yours?

[00:26:56] Samar Owais: I treat my welcome sequences. Like SAS businesses treat their onboarding email sequences. So it is a journey, right? So I think about solving problems, getting them quick wins, and also familiarizing them with the brand. Right. And so when I interview customers and I find out what’s important to them, then I kind of build out an email sequence that takes them on a journey.

[00:27:20] Right. And so the welcome is. It’s a boilerplate welcome email. And then we talk about what’s important to them. The brand story is also important. If you want to make that connection, right. You know how you meet somebody for the first time and you ask each other’s name and then you find out what they’re doing, what’s important to them and stuff like that.

[00:27:36] It’s them getting to know you level. And I kind of find that four to five emails are not enough of that. So my welcome sequences for non-buyers especially is always pretty long. So I think the longest I’ve written is 16 emails and gone up to even 22. But again, We also like segment, right? So I also don’t believe in segmenting, just bypass your non-buyers.

[00:27:59] Right? So for this health supplement company that I’m working with, we are segmenting based on their health problems. And that means that the welcome sequence is asking them what is important to you? What health problems are you suffering from that brought you to this brand? And so they will click a link or they will, you know, do something that will tell us what they’re interested in.

[00:28:18] And then the email. Sequence just segments. And then if somebody says, Oh, I have gut health problems that I’m trying to solve. Then we send them emails just related to that. If somebody says joint pain, then we send them emails related to that. And so the minute you introduce segmentation into an email sequence, it just gets long.

[00:28:37] And I know that this number shocks a lot of people, but really it’s segmentation. And anytime you introduce segmentation to an email sequence, it just gets longer and longer. That

[00:28:46] James Sowers: makes sense. I’m so glad you added that, because that was going to be my question to you is like somebody is going to hear 16 emails and go, Whoa.

[00:28:51] Like somebody signs up on Monday and everyday for the next 16 days, they’re hearing from me that doesn’t feel quite right. But the difference is you’re doing almost like a diagnostic you’re taking that quiz concept. We talked about earlier. And doing it through email and you’re saying, all right, which of these is your biggest health concern right now?

[00:29:04] Right. And you say gut health. Okay. Well then that person gets three more emails, but they’re all about gut health. That’s three of the 16, but they’re not getting the other 13. Right. So it’s like, it excludes them from everything else. And what I love about that is it ties into kind of this whole concept that we’re talking about, where it’s like.

[00:29:19] The more, you know, about your customer, the better alignment you can have between your messaging and their needs. Right? So if you, during the welcome sequence collected that they have gut health issues, right? Then you can use your email service provider to apply a tag to their personal profile, or they have different terminology for it, but let’s just call it a tag.

[00:29:36] You tag them with gut health. Okay. And then maybe further down the line when you’re doing some kind of promotional or you have a new gut health product, you just send it to all the gut health people. And that’s going to increase your open rate, your click rate, your purchase rate. Everything’s going to go through the roof because it’s targeted and the people who don’t have gut health issues, aren’t even seeing that message.

[00:29:53] So, I don’t know if that was like, on your mind there are you seeing, I guess people leverage the segmentation from the welcome sequence into other areas of their business down the road, like just maybe that’s technically, or maybe that’s conceptually, like, how are they using that data?

[00:30:07] Samar Owais: As you mentioned, product launches, right.

[00:30:08] And promotional campaigns. So the black Friday strategy standpoint I was talking about is heavily into segmentation. So we’re only going to send the promotion about gut health, to the people who have told us that they bought gut health supplements before from us or in the list. What we did with them was we send, created a waitlist.

[00:30:26] For black Friday. Right. They’re getting more perks. And within that somewhere, we kind of ask them like, what kind of supplements are you most interested in buying? And so that is data that we’ve collected and that is data that is going to help us push even more personalized emails to them. Yeah. So I kind of always go conceptually first and then my, leave it to my client to figure out the tech side of it.

[00:30:48] And if they come back and one of the things that I do is I ask them like, what’s your tech stack? And I don’t make recommendations because I mean, I have no idea what limitations the brand is facing and they’re not always comfortable sharing that. And so my favorite kind of client is somebody who will sit with me on a call and I will tell them, I want to do this, this, this, and this.

[00:31:08] Can your tech stack handle that? And if they say yes, great. If they say no, okay, then you’ll find a workaround or we’ll do something else. If this is completely not doable. So yeah, just focus on that,

[00:31:21] James Sowers: honestly. That makes a lot of sense. So if we think about like, what we’re talking about now is kind of an automated sequence, right?

[00:31:27] Or it’s, trigger-based, it’s triggered by activity, the signup, and then you get this welcome sequence. We’ve also touched on some of the more one-off campaigns, like newsletters or a black Friday promotion or something like that, where you just send it once and then that’s the end of it. Right. How do you think about the balance between those two things in terms of share of the overall email marketing activity?

[00:31:46] Right. Should it be. 20% one-off emails and 80% automated campaigns, or is it closer to 50 50? Like, what’s your personal opinion there? So

[00:31:54] Samar Owais: I always say, you need to have a newsletter, right. And that would be either two times a week or once a week. It doesn’t matter. It’s the consistency that matters. So that is something that needs to be there no matter what, right?

[00:32:06] Because there are pockets of time in between when you’re not running campaigns. And there are, will be customers who are more interested in getting the information and building that relationship with you. And so those weekly emails do the job of building that connection, even when you’re sending out promotional campaigns.

[00:32:21] Right. And brands usually have the calendar for their promotions. I mean, at least that’s been my experience. They at least know what their big days are. Right. So CBD brands make a big deal out of CBD day national CBD day. Or like there was a email I wrote for like an oyster, hot sauce, and they made like this huge promotion out of national oyster day or whatever it was.

[00:32:41] And so you usually know what that is. Right? So around that time, if you are running a really heavy promotional campaign, you can maybe reduce. Actually, no, I don’t recommend that the weekly emails need to go out every single week. The only thing I say is if you’re running promotional campaigns, suppress the people who are still receiving your welcome sequence, because you’re also selling in that welcome sequence and you don’t want to do too.

[00:33:06] Uh, promotions, right. Especially if the discount percentage or whatever your offer is.

[00:33:11] James Sowers: Yeah. And you can put a time delay in there too. Right. So it could be like, they just signed up for the newsletter, keep them out of marketing emails for 30 days, or they just bought from us. Don’t send them another sales pitch for 14 days, whatever makes sense for your business.

[00:33:22] But that way you don’t kind of, this is not a good feeling, right? Like I just bought from you, especially if I paid full price and then you send me a sales or a discount for the exact same product. That’s probably not going to be a good thing. Cause I’m going to go to your support. I’m going to ask for a refund or I’m going to do an exchange or something, and that’s just like another headache for you.

[00:33:37] So let’s just pop those folks out of your general marketing cadence for a certain period, whatever you’re comfortable with, feels like the best advice there. If somebody wanted to go out into the world and see a brand who’s doing email marketing well and just kind of subscribe or purchase from them and just learn from all the different emails that they get to their inbox from that brand.

[00:33:54] Is there somebody who comes to mind is someone you’d recommend, maybe it’s a. Former client of yours because you good work. Right? So maybe one of your former clients or active clients. Yeah,

[00:34:02] Samar Owais: it’s actually a current client of mine and they’re not your mainstream brand. Right? So they’re a Muslim apparel brand.

[00:34:08] They sell the jobs, which is, you know, the head scrap that I’m wearing. And they’re the run I was telling you about that. I do live in a Prince every week. And so what I love about their email marketing is I’ve been stocking them for a few months and they were like on my dream client place, but I couldn’t find any loopholes.

[00:34:23] Right because their email marketing is so strong already until they came to me with a very niche problem that they have. Right. And so, anyway, so they’re a brand that I really, really admire because they have got it down to a science, their customers, target audience are. Passionate about them. They are passionate about the cause, which is empowering Muslim women and feeling comfortable, varying the hijab no matter where they are in the world.

[00:34:49] And so, you know, their emails, I think they send out like three emails a week. One is the sales email that comes out every Tuesday. The other is an email up there and blog ground up. And, you know, any interviews that they’ve done that comes out, I think every Thursday and then one is from their CEO or somebody else.

[00:35:06] Right. And so I know every time I see like newer from auto job, I will know that’s the marketing manager or when I see Melanie from auto job, I know that’s the, that’s the message from the CEO. And that gets opened immediately. Cause she doesn’t email often and it’s. You know, her emails are incredibly well-written.

[00:35:25] And so it’s just, that’s a brand that I’ve read or read admire. Like, even though it’s not mainstream and the product they sell is not of interest to you, but just sign up for the emails. To be honest, they don’t send a lot of emails, but the ones they do are just incredibly, incredibly well-written and well-designed.

[00:35:43] James Sowers: Awesome. We’ll link to that in the show notes so that folks can go sign up for that. I’m curious. One thing that I caught from your description, there is the usage of names and maybe even faces in the, from field, right? Like this is from somebody at the organization who happens to be the CEO or the COO.

[00:35:57] Do they use branded email too? Or like, how do you think about when somebody should send something from, I dunno, Acme shoes versus James at acne, right? What kind of emails lend themselves to maybe a branded from. Name, and then what emails lend themselves to more of a personal touch?

[00:36:12] Samar Owais: Yeah. So sales email is going to be from the brand right as they are in the case of auto jobs.

[00:36:16] So anytime I see it, it just says auto job in the front name. I know that there’s a ceiling in the email and that’s cool because the jobs that will be applied for me. So the more the merrier and I always open those emails. Right. But anytime that. There is a name in the front name. I know that it’s a personal message.

[00:36:32] And so it could be as simple as telling us that they have released a new blog post or they released a new interview or something. And, you know, so, but I know that the copy is going to be personalized. It’s not just going to be sales copy. I feel like that’s a good way to

[00:36:44] James Sowers: go. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense.

[00:36:46] And you know, one piece of advice that I give founders is like occasionally drop in and send a manual email. I know it’s scary and nobody ever does it, but send a manual email to a new subscriber. Or a new customer and just say, Hey, I’m James, I’m the CEO here. One, one tool that I’ve seen people use as a tool.

[00:37:01] I don’t know if you’re familiar with it. You can record little bit welcome messages and you can get it triggered by anything that’s powered by Zapier basically. And it’s like new Shopify purchase trigger an alert for James. I record a quick bond Juro and I say, Hey summer, thanks so much for purchasing from us.

[00:37:15] A CEO here just wanted to. Show my appreciation for your business or whatever. And when you get your product in a couple of days, I’d love to hear what you think about it. Reply to this email. And we got it like that kind of like personal touch. It doesn’t take a lot, do do a couple of those a day, do 10 of those a week, whatever it starts to build up and over time, they’re like, Whoa, can you believe I got an email or a message directly from the CEO like this?

[00:37:34] Brand’s awesome. And they’re going to tell their friends and other people are going to buy from you too. So that’s my unsolicited personal advice around that is like use the personal touch, but also send manual emails. Nobody wants to do it because they don’t have the time, but it’s worth the investment over the term.

[00:37:45] I think. So, listen, I think the last fundamental shift that I’ve seen in email marketing is this, this concept of the automated campaign, right? So there was from one-off emails to drip emails or automated campaigns that happen. And then maybe after that, there was another one around personalization and segmentation.

[00:38:01] Is there anything that you would quantify as like an emerging trend or maybe a strategy that’s kind of gaining some momentum? That’s got you excited, anything that really is like going to shake up the email marketing space that the listeners here could be kind of ahead of the curve on, from what you’re seeing with your client work.

[00:38:15] Yeah. So

[00:38:16] Samar Owais: because I’m dealing with niche, email projects that these are these brand specific email problems, essentially I’m seeing. And like, this is something that I also like talk about with my clients is kind of like a concept that we don’t leave any non-subscriber behind. Right. So if they’re not engaging, we need to find out why.

[00:38:35] And it’s kind of like tied into the whole email marketing strategy, but just focus on that. And again, it ties into that email experience, customer journey thing. And I feel like I talk about this so much because I don’t find a lot of brands. Focusing on it. And so, yeah, I feel like the day that becomes mainstream is the day that I feel like my

[00:38:56] James Sowers: job is done.

[00:38:56] So very practically, like what should folks be doing? Should they be identifying? Like, I know a lot of ESPs will identify inactive subscribers, right? Like they’re not opening your email. They’re not clicking your email or whatever. A lot of folks will tell you to just prune those, those people, those subscribers.

[00:39:09] And they’re never going to buy from you. So why pay the extra or whatever to have them on your list just for the vanity metric. But is there something that somebody can do? That’s a little more. Thoughtful, like trying to re-engage them. Is it one of those manual outreaches? And it says like, Hey, I noticed you’ve been subscribed for a year.

[00:39:23] Haven’t bought from us. Don’t read much of anything. How can we better serve you? Like, is it just not a good fit? I don’t know. What do you recommend there? Yeah,

[00:39:29] Samar Owais: absolutely. So here’s what I do. Right. And you know, I’ve written enough, win-back email sequences, but everyone back email sequence I’ve written is just offering people a discount to come back to them.

[00:39:41] And I feel like, again, that’s lazy marketing. We’re still not getting to the root of the problem, which is why did the desk engage? Was it something we did? Did we go off brand completely? Did your life situation change? And we did adapt. And so you don’t just talk to your customers, find out, send a quick short survey, even if it’s just a one question survey, get them to engage, right.

[00:40:04] And keep your expectations realistic. If you have a big segment of. The primers that are unengaged, you conscious send it to like a small segment and hope that you’ll get answers, right? You have to send it to a bigger segment than usual and then hope to get responses. Right? Because the hardest part I find is getting people who are unengaged to respond to you and so patience and a lot of effort.

[00:40:29] But if you can get just 10 to 15 people to respond to you and find out what’s going on, you’ll be in a much better position to make informed

[00:40:37] James Sowers: decisions. That makes a lot of sense. And then after that, if you’ve gone through that process, that sequence and they still aren’t engaging, then maybe it’s time to prune them.

[00:40:44] Right? Because the fact of the matter is like open rates, click rates, those all dictate like your deliverability and how many people receive your messages. So you want to keep your reputation up there, but you want to exhaust all options in terms of not necessarily converting the person to a customer, but understanding them right.

[00:40:57] And making your overall strategy that much more effective because you went to the extra links to learn more about their problems and why they’re not engaging. Cool. Thank you so much for coming on the show today summer, I had a really great time learn about email marketing with you, and I know the folks at home did too.

[00:41:10] So before I let you get back to the rest of your day, I’m sure it’s evening over there and you’re ready to wind things down. Where can folks go to learn more about you and what you’re working on and just gain more of these insights through wherever you’re publishing.

[00:41:20] Samar Owais: Yeah. So three places. One is my website, which is somewhere west.com.

[00:41:24] The second is my email newsletter, which you will find on email. It’s done right.com. And the third place is Twitter, which is where I hang out all day, every day. And again, it’s twitter.com/summer.

[00:41:36] James Sowers: Awesome. That’s how I heard about you. And that’s why I’ve been passively observing what you’re working on for the last couple of years.

[00:41:41] And that’s how we got here today to have the conversation. So definitely go get somewhere. I follow on Twitter. And all those other resources, we’ll link up in the show notes and make it easy for you. So it’ll, you don’t have to wreck your car, trying to type it in, wait until you get home or work or wherever you’re going and have that link in the show notes.

[00:41:54] And we’ll be good there somewhere again. Thank you so much for coming today and taking time out of your day to join us in and talk about all things, email marketing. I know we could have gone an extra hour. Maybe we’ll have to have you back through a more. Technical conversation, but hopefully it wasn’t too painful for you.

[00:42:06] And we look forward to having you back some day for your interesting, not at

[00:42:09] Samar Owais: all. I enjoyed it. Thank you for having me. Awesome.

[00:42:12] James Sowers: Hey everybody, James, again. And before you go, I just wanted to invite you to join one of the coolest things I get to work on. As director of marketing here at the good it’s called the e-commerce insiders list, and it’s a private version of this podcast feed that gets you access to tons of additional bonus content, like extra interviews, Q and a sessions, website, tear downs, and anything else we can dream up.

[00:42:30] It doesn’t cost you anything, but your email address. And we promise to always respect your inbox. This is just our way of forming strong relationships with our listeners and making sure that we produce content that is actually valuable to you and to your business. If you’re interested, you can join the rest of the e-commerce insiders by going to the good.com/podcast and dropping your email into the form at the top of the page, we’ll follow up with directions for how to access the private feed, and you’ll be off and running.

[00:42:55] Like I said, this is one of my favorite things that I get the opportunity to work on because it lets me interact directly with e-commerce founders and leaders. Just like you. If you’re interested, I’d love to see your name pop up in my notifications until then keep an eye out for the next episode of the e-commerce insight show.

[00:43:09] And we’ll talk to you soon.

The post Making Email Your Best Salesperson – Samar Owais appeared first on The Good.

]]> Why Brands Should Invest In Content Marketing – Kameron Jenkins https://thegood.com/insights/kameron-jenkins/ Thu, 20 Jan 2022 16:00:00 +0000 https://thegood.com/?post_type=insights&p=97597 Listen to this episode: Subscribe to the show: Apple Podcasts Google Podcasts Spotify Overcast Pocket Casts Castro Breaker Castbox Subscribe via RSS About this episode: In this episode of The Ecommerce Insights Show, we sit down with Kameron Jenkins, a digital marketer who specializes in content marketing and SEO. Kameron is currently the Content Lead […]

The post Why Brands Should Invest In Content Marketing – Kameron Jenkins appeared first on The Good.

]]> Listen to this episode:

Subscribe to the show:

About this episode:

In this episode of The Ecommerce Insights Show, we sit down with Kameron Jenkins, a digital marketer who specializes in content marketing and SEO. Kameron is currently the Content Lead at Shopify where she leads a team that focuses on audience growth and session growth on the plus and retail blogs. We talk about putting together content marketing strategies for ecommerce brands, how to build a team and everything else you need to get started with your own content marketing strategy.

In this episode, you’ll learn about:

  • Team structure, roles and budget for content marketing strategy
  • Privacy concerns and cost per acquisition – investment in content marketing
  • Distributing content efforts across TOFU/MOFU/BOFU for new brands
  • Writing articles that will rank and drive traffic
  • Minimum viable SEO for startups

So if you are interested in learning more about content marketing and SEO, then this episode is for you.

Learn more about Kameron and her resources here:

Want to be a guest on our show? Have feedback or ideas for how we can improve? Send your thoughts over to podcast@thegood.com. We’ll be keeping an eye on that inbox. 🙂

The Ecommerce Insights Show is brought to you by The Good, a Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO) consultancy specializing in helping ecommerce businesses accelerate their growth through better research, testing, and design. Learn more about our team, our work, and our services at www.thegood.com.

Episode Transcript:

[00:00:00] James Sowers: So here’s the question. How can you, commerce leaders make sure that they are producing a great product, providing a world-class customer experience responsibly managing the finances and still reserve time, energy and resources for marketing their products. My name is James Sauers, and you’re listening to the e-commerce insight show.

[00:00:16] The podcast that gives you specific, actionable advice for growing your e-commerce business. Every Monday, you’ll get a conversion rate optimization tactic that you can implement quickly to make your business 1% better. Every single. Every Thursday, we sit down with industry experts to go deep on a specific aspect of running a successful e-commerce business.

[00:00:34] It’s the perfect blend of learning and application, which means that you maximize the value of every single minute you spend with us. We’re just as committed to growing your business as you are. So if you’re looking for a partner to help you crush your revenue goals, you’ve come to the right place, roll up your sleeves and grab a notepad because it’s time to get to work.

[00:00:56] Kameron welcome to the e-commerce insight show. Thank you so much for taking time out of your day. I know it’s earlier in the morning for you, so we’re going to get you bright eyed and bushy tailed. Hopefully you got coffee on one side, get some water on the other one to stay hydrated. Uh, but I really appreciate you taking time out of your day to join us, to talk about all things, content and SEO.

[00:01:11] I know you’re the content lead over at Shopify, and I’ll let you tell us a little bit more about maybe a couple sentence overview, who you are, what you do, and what’s got you excited to fire up your laptop.

[00:01:21] Kameron Jenkins: Yeah, thanks for having me. Um, yeah, my name is Kameron Jenkins. I like you said, I’m the content marketing lead at Shopify or one of them.

[00:01:28] I lead a team who focuses on audience growth and session growth on the plus and retail blogs specifically right now. So that’s our main directive right now. One thing that has me excited is building the team. So it’s a fairly new team in formation and we’re kind of doing things that are very foundation building.

[00:01:45] So. Excited to do that. I’ve gotten to do a lot of hiring and onboarding and process building and set up. And you wouldn’t think that at Shopify, because it’s been around for a while, but new team new start and it’s been really exciting. Yeah,

[00:01:58] James Sowers: that’s awesome. I definitely wanna get into that. Cause I know team building is one of the topics I want to cover for our audience.

[00:02:03] I know a lot of folks probably. Aren’t too far along in the process, or maybe haven’t even started with content marketing. So they’re going to be like, Hey, who do I get to do this? Maybe I’m a solo founder. I’ve got to wear a lot of hats already. Maybe I’m not the best writer. So how do I make that happen?

[00:02:17] Really interested to get your experience and your expertise in that area. So maybe to go a little bit deeper on your background, I did a little bit of research. I saw it kind of started with this creative agency experience and then have moved more recently. To kind of the software or the platform world focusing on B2B.

[00:02:31] Tell me a little bit about the journey and how you landed at Shopify. Right? Every big recognizable brand, large team really establish great opportunities. So congratulations on that, but maybe just like the high level overview of your last few years and why you’re attracted to coming to Shopify, maybe that’s you get to build your own team.

[00:02:46] I’m sure that’s a big part of it, but what else is great about.

[00:02:49] Kameron Jenkins: Yeah, definitely. So I did start in the agency world. I pretty much right out of college, got a job at an agency and I was there for six and a half years. So I spent a long time there and I really liked my time there. I think one of the things I liked about it was I was surrounded by like people.

[00:03:04] So I think one thing about in-house is that sometimes you’re making the. One who does what you do, especially in startups, or if you’re at a bigger something like I am now you have the chance to be surrounded by more people that do what you do. But I think at an agency, it was really cool to be able to kind of.

[00:03:20] Wrote with a company as well. It started small. Um, I think I was like employee number 50. And when I left, they were like 700, 800 people there. So I got to grow. The company, ended up leading a team in my last couple of years there, um, as leading with that SEO and content arm or one of them there. And so that was what kept me there a long time.

[00:03:38] I really enjoyed like going from, you know, kind of building up my skills in SEO and content. You know, steering the ship, so to speak. So that was really fun. And the reason I left was, I don’t know if listeners are familiar with MAs, but it’s a pretty big, like, you know, voice in the SEO space and the content marketing.

[00:03:55] And so I saw an opportunity to leave for a position at MAs. They kind of positioned it as, Hey, if you loved teaching people about SEO, like we have a content marketing position open where you can do exactly that. And I was like, sign me up. This sounds great. So ended up working out. I joined there, it was a contract position.

[00:04:13] So I fully assumed I was going to go back to my agency after that actually, but my agency reorg and et cetera, I didn’t end up working out. So. Started on my own. I was doing a lot of consulting and freelancing and one of my clients ended up hiring me full-time and so I was back again and the kind of like in-house SAS content marketing space.

[00:04:33] So MAs right. To modify, those are two kind of like SEO, SAS, and so back-to-back experiences there. And then, yeah, I landed at Shopify after someone from Shopify slid into my DMS on Twitter. So it was kind of one of those situations where they’re like, Hey, we’re building. The retail side of the business, and we need someone to kind of own content marketing there.

[00:04:53] It seems like you have experience running teams and building out content programs, which I did. So it seems like a really good fit shop if I was doing really exciting things at the time. So I was excited to kind of join and see that growth.

[00:05:06] James Sowers: Yeah. Yeah. And they’re still doing a lot of exciting things. I mean, Shopify unite just happened lots of big announcements there.

[00:05:10] So, uh, congratulations you for a hitching, a, uh, grabbing a seat on the rocket ship, basically, you know, I’m sure there’ve been a lot of changes between kind of the B2B side of things. And not that you work directly with brands now, but Shopify at large, a lot of people think of them as a B to C company, which are really not, but, you know, there are a lot of brands represented there and I’m sure.

[00:05:29] As you write about the retail space or Shopify plus, especially you’re starting to interact more with those brands and figure out how they’re using Shopify, what they like about it, maybe what could be better, that kind of thing. So what is kind of that transition been like for you in terms of learning a new space in e-commerce and maybe even getting a little bit more distribution between that B2B and B2C mindset, like talking to customers, not just other brands, other company.

[00:05:51] Yeah,

[00:05:51] Kameron Jenkins: it’s definitely interesting switching industries, for sure. I mean, like you can have skills as an SEO and a content marketer, but you kind of have to relearn everything from scratch when you switch industry. So that was one thing that I, I was expecting, but then realizing it and actually being in it as a different thing.

[00:06:07] So just kind of building that foundational knowledge of a different industry. That’s a big learning curve. So learning how to guess I’m still in B2B, but learning how to talk to people who are in the commerce space. Physical in-store or selling online or a mix of both. That was definitely a big transition for me.

[00:06:25] And I loved it. I mean, it’s definitely exciting to see how Shopify is helping people along that journey. Like you can see people who started like selling in their garage in their spare time and are now on Shopify plus thirties and like enterprise scale merchants. And it’s fascinating to see how, you know, that growth can happen on a platform like Shopify.

[00:06:44] So I’ve been really excited about. To be a part of that. You don’t quite see that same side of exciting levels of growth in B2B, at least always in mind.

[00:06:54] James Sowers: Yeah, I think B2B is ahead of e-commerce in a lot of ways, like customer research, email marketing, kind of those post-purchase experience like flows.

[00:07:02] We’ve talked to some experts about that, and I might even love content marketing in there. I feel like the software world has been leaps and bounds ahead of e-commerce in terms of leveraging se. Leveraging content has kind of this long-term play foundational lead generation aspect. More of what I hear in the e-commerce basis, pay for ads, you know, place, product with influencers, get referral relationships going, that kind of thing.

[00:07:23] Where do you land on that? I know you don’t interact with brands a whole lot, so I’ve got that caveat there, but like, do you think it’s kind of underrepresented in terms of the broader marketing strategy? Or do you think it’s about right? Or maybe I doubt there’s too much emphasis given to it. So I’m guessing it’s going to be one of the other two, but what’s your perspective now that you’ve been at Shopify for what?

[00:07:38] Nine months or so? Yeah, I think

[00:07:40] Kameron Jenkins: it makes sense, actually. I mean, when you think about a lot of software, maybe not all software, but a lot of software, the buying cycle is a lot longer. And when you get into businesses with a longer buying cycle, you need to do more convincing. You have a funnel that you need to move people down.

[00:07:54] Whereas a lot of products, not all of them, but again, a lot of products they’re very much. You see it, you buy it. And there’s not much of a consideration phase, again, that differs depending on your price, plane. And if you’re trying to disrupt an existing industry where you’re in commodities versus more custom boutique type of products, like there’s lots of differences there, but I think that’s one of the main reasons why B2B may seem like a head of e-commerce when it comes to content marketing and SEO.

[00:08:22] It’s kind of by necessity. I mean, they’ve had to, uh, deal with people that have, like, I know my last company and, you know, things like Shopify plus the buying cycles really long it’s months and months long, whereas a product is a little bit more transactional, which is a pretty good fit for ads. So I think it’s kind of natural not to say that content marketing can’t help e-commerce brands at all, but I think that’s what I’ve seen is like the reason why B2B might seem more advanced in their using content marketing more than, than.

[00:08:51] James Sowers: Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. I mean, even for a higher ticket item, you pretty much know how you’re going to use it. Right. And how it applies to your day to day life, how you’re going to get value right away. Whereas on the software side of the platform side, it’s like maybe I’m going to write a check over the next year for thousands of dollars, even tens of thousands of dollars for some software.

[00:09:08] It’s like that’s a more discerning purchase process. Really understand how to use it because it’s more complicated than a backpack or even some kind of like scooter, right. A couple thousand dollars screw to that. You’re going buy. Like, I know how to use that. Pretty much. I’m going to get in, started up, ride it around where my helmet, that kind of thing was software.

[00:09:24] It’s like, I want to make sure that I’m going to be able to apply this to my business and get something out of it because it’s a more significant investment. Right. So it’s got more of this like funnel approach on the software side. If you were to put yourself in the perspective of an e-commerce brand, like, would you even bother as the content lead to break it out into top of funnel, middle of funnel, bottom of funnel, or would you really focus on like those purchase intent keywords kind of lower volume, but more relevant?

[00:09:48] Kameron Jenkins: Yeah, I think, you know, and I hate to say it depends, but I’ll clarify. It does kind of depend on your business model. Like I think in general, like the, like you said, the more complex a product is, or maybe a brand is trying to disrupt an industry where people are just loyal to like a specific product and they don’t really, it’s like you buy clean expert tissues and that’s what you buy.

[00:10:09] But if something like DTC tissue company came around and they’re trying to disrupt that industry and might take a little. More content marketing to do some convincing and you might want to focus on more. Hop mid funnel keywords, but yeah, I think like top mid bottom funnel keywords, or like categorizing them that way.

[00:10:27] I know some people take issue with it. I do think it makes the most sense when you go like talk about longer buying cycles, but yeah, when it comes to like, e-commerce, I would just focus on things like, yes, that are close to your product. That’s your product pages, your category pages. But if you’re especially trying to reach people who.

[00:10:44] Need some disrupting and, and are very loyal to something else. Or you want to do some kind of like thought leadership around, like, I know branch transparency is really important and for e-commerce businesses right now, you might want to do some like content marketing and thought leadership around why that’s important.

[00:10:58] Um, you need to communicate that in a longer form way. That’s probably, I think just as important as your more transactional keywords, for sure. That’s just on what you’re trying to do.

[00:11:08] James Sowers: Right. That makes a lot of sense. I mean, maybe there’s some world consumable goods, like nutrition or maybe self care items that need a little bit more education around how to use them.

[00:11:17] But for the most part, it’s like let’s dial in those product pages and style in those category pages and try to rank for those categorical terms that I think folks would use in that search field, right. To try to find a solution to their problem. I’m curious when you think about content marketing and you can describe this in the context of what you’re doing at Chubb.

[00:11:33] How do you think about the relationship between content or SEO? I’ll just lump those two together and other separate disciplines, but let’s put those two together as kind of a functional area of the business. How do you think about those in relationship to all the other marketing and growth efforts that are going on pay per click?

[00:11:45] I’m sure Shopify is running ads, you know, that kind of thing. Where do you envision yourself sitting amongst like the broader marketing or growth strategy?

[00:11:53] Kameron Jenkins: Yeah, it’s really, it’s a good question to ask because I think. Because we look at all of our channels, like on a plate in front of us, where do we see them all almost as equal, whereas they do perform like they’re tools that perform different functions.

[00:12:06] And so when it comes to keeping sea and other types of page by advertising, I definitely see those as more like immediate, you need immediate returns. You need that to turn on and off quickly. We have a lot more flexibility. It’s in a lot of ways more attributable you say, this person clicked on this ad, bought this product.

[00:12:23] It’s very like Bing bang, boom. You can kind of tie it all together. When it comes to content and SEO, I definitely see that as more of like a, you know, a longer-term play, something that can help lower your customer acquisition costs. Something that can do a lot of brand building, not to say I can’t do growth because if you do SEO on your product pages, that’s obviously a little bit more transactional, similar to.

[00:12:44] Uh, PA dad, the difference being it doesn’t stop when you stop paying for it. It’s definitely something that can keep increasing after that initial investment. So that’s one reason that it’s a great way to lower your customer acquisition costs in a world where costs are constantly rising for things like ads and on the platforms we’re advertising on or in a lot of cases becoming less effective.

[00:13:08] And so I think it’s, it’s nice to have like content and SEO in the long game running in the background. Then it’d be like your support net and safety net, even when you paid up.

[00:13:18] James Sowers: Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. And, and, you know, I think there’s a higher likelihood that someone who comes in through an article is going to join your mailing list or something.

[00:13:25] They become more of an owned audience. I kind of hate that term because it makes it, it kind of implies you own the people, you don’t own the people, but like you have ownership over managing those relationships versus paying for ads. And once that dollar, once that campaign is run, the dollar is gone. The person, if they didn’t convert is also gone for the most part.

[00:13:41] So I like, I like content has a longer term play there. During your time at Moz and modify when you’re on the software side of the house, which you still are, but where did your leads come from? If you had to distribute like other marketing channels and content, how much lead or prospect acquisition, or even sales did content account for if you’re in your best estimate versus some of those other marketing channels in a software.

[00:14:03] Kameron Jenkins: Yeah. So at MAs I think the biggest difference is the price point of the products. So Mazda is a little bit lower of a price point. And in that sense that it was really effective to do content marketing is really effective to do SEO, and they did a lot of community building as well. I think a lot of people, in fact, to know.

[00:14:21] More for their blog and their videos, then they do that their software. So funny enough, but I think like you’re playing a volume game when you’re talking about like lower price points. It’ll like start free trial type of software. You just, not a lot of people in there to try to start a free trial, whereas you have some.

[00:14:39] But if I, or Shopify plus it’s a higher price point. It’s definitely something that you don’t need as much volume. You want to focus more on those, like very intentional keywords, more bottom of the funnel thought leadership. You don’t maybe need as much content you need, like less, but thought leadership, more particular kind of explainers.

[00:14:57] Your product, which won’t be as high volume, but you don’t need it for something that, you know, you have like a very strict qualification criteria for your customers. So you don’t need a lot of volume to get, to get what you want. So I think that’s like the biggest difference I saw there on the software side was just like, what’s the price point?

[00:15:14] How many people do we need to fill kind of our funnel and that differed between, you know, a starch retrial type of business model and like a, Hey, talk to sales 10 business.

[00:15:24] James Sowers: Yeah. I think where that question came from is like, I think about the last year and the shock that happened to the economic system around the world, really due to COVID.

[00:15:31] And even now we’ve got Facebook, privacy concerns and iOS privacy concerns like cost per acquisition is going up in some of these paid channels. And I bet a lot of businesses are sitting there saying, man, I really wish I would have invested in content and SEO a long time ago because I’d be reaping those benefits now in terms of.

[00:15:45] Foundational traffic eyeballs to my site, a safety net of sorts. I know you mentioned that on a podcast with Amanda Natividad for a growth machine. So like, did you go through any of that experience? I know that was kind of 20, 20 straddled your time at Botify and converting to Shopify, I think. So.

[00:16:01] Did you see any of that on your side or even among the customers for the businesses you were working.

[00:16:05] Kameron Jenkins: Yeah, definitely. I mean the software company I was at free Shopify definitely struggled. And that was because of a lot of their customers, particularly they had customers in the travel space, which is not a time you can do about that.

[00:16:20] Right? Like the travel space has just hit were really, really hard. But I think we found that, you know, a lot of those customers, the ones who weren’t super diligent about focusing on that side of the strategy definitely got hurt the most and that, you know, by consequences. The business that I, within them up.

[00:16:36] Cause they, you know, were like, Hey, we got to cut all of our vendors. We have no money. We’re laying off our staff. So we felt the, you know, the residual consequences of them not investing as heavily in that side of their strategy for sure. But yeah, it wasn’t as direct. It was kind of like we saw our customers suffering for those reasons.

[00:16:53] James Sowers: Yeah. Yeah. So yeah, maybe we’ve, we’ve built the case for investing something into content and SEO is kind of this safety net or a longer-term play a foundational lead acquisition strategy. So I’m curious, when you came in to Shopify, I’m guessing they already had some progress on at least the retail blog and the plus blog, because those were fairly established businesses.

[00:17:13] Let’s assume that you come in and there is no team. And they’re like, we want to launch a new blog for retail. Where would you start content strategy wise team wise, like as the leader of that function inside of the organization. 62nd game plan.

[00:17:26] Kameron Jenkins: Yeah. So I did kind of do that to a degree. Yes. The retail blog existed, but it had been a little dormant for awhile.

[00:17:33] So I did kind of come in with yes. Some legacy content. There’s like a different strategy there, but really coming in and just deciding like, what is the retail content strategy? Like blink slate. What should I do? So I first started and would always recommend starting by talking to all of the necessary stakeholders, which I would consider people like your customer success team at Shopify as a merchant success team, getting to know the actual people that we want to bring in talking to sales.

[00:17:58] What are your disqualification criteria? What are the. Retail fit merchants, getting to know the merchants through the lens of like people in sales and product marketing, getting to know the product through product and product marketing. Those are some of the most important foundation setting things you can do.

[00:18:14] Cause you really want to build your content strategy around who your customers are and what your product does for them. What benefit it delivers for them. And when it comes to setting up like an SEO focused content strategy, which is what I was going to do on a retail, because we do it’s very heavily self-served.

[00:18:32] Even though we do have a sales team for that as well, we did want volume and we did want to build up that side of the business. So it was really important to do a lot of keyword research. We did keyword research around things that our merchants told us around things that our product did. So in that way, we’re not just researching random keywords.

[00:18:49] It’s very keywords that are very relevant to things that we heard from the mouths of our customers and things that are directly related to what our product does. And so that was kind of the. Staff. It was really necessary to get to know our products, get to know our customers and then build a strategy around that based on keyword research.

[00:19:06] But again, through the filter of things that our customers actually wouldn’t care about and things that our product had an answer.

[00:19:14] James Sowers: Yeah, that’s really smart. Cause I think that a lot of people assume, you know, I started this business, I had the problem, I solved my scratch, my own itch. I know my customer.

[00:19:22] Right. And that’s probably the case, but customer preferences change over time. You add new products, you attract new customers that are in like adjacent niches or industries or communities. And so I think it’s important to always go straight to the source. Right. Because. The easy route is to hop in H refs and put in some competitor sites and figure out what they’re already ranking for.

[00:19:40] And just try to target those same things. Like that’s cutting the corners, but you miss a lot of the nuance and the context, like if you ever sit down and ask a family member to search for something and say, just open up Google and find me like the biggest elephant that ever lived, you’d be shocked at what they type in and how they describe it in their brain.

[00:19:56] And that’s like, you’re not necessarily going to get that kind of like detail from just by looking at HF. So I think it’s really smart to go straight to the source and talk to the customers, whoever they may be in your case, that’s merchants, in a brand’s case, that’s actual consumers who have bought the product.

[00:20:08] The next best thing I think is customer support and sales, which you mentioned as well. So that’s kind of the, the tip for the listener is like, if you can’t get customers on the phone, you don’t have the right incentive or it’s hard to get their attention in a survey. Just one. Go to customer support and sales.

[00:20:21] They’re the frontline leaders in that area. And they probably know it’s not the best source of material, but it’s the next best. Right. And that’s where you’d start. So, so you have kind of these topical ideas, right? And I’m guessing I’m picturing like a mind map and you’re like, okay, they’re big five or six big categories that everybody wants to know about.

[00:20:35] And then branching off of those that are like sub categories of each one. How do you translate that into actual keyword research? And do you target. Hi competition, high volume keywords that everybody else is targeting, or do you start with kind of lower competition, but maybe ones that have more commercial intent or they’re really focused on a specific thing.

[00:20:53] How do you distribute your time and effort across those?

[00:20:55] Kameron Jenkins: Yeah. So I would say if you’re in a business setting where you have like a tighter qualification criteria, like maybe more enterprising, like that’s something where I tend to start a little bit more niche in the keywords and a little bit longer tail.

[00:21:09] So there would be less volume, but more highly relevant. And then I would maybe, you know, branch out from there and go start from like the more niche, like lower volume, but high intent keywords. And then. So up the finalist from there. If you’re trying to get a lot of volume, I definitely think that you would want to go for keywords that do have the highest volume, but again, You have to have that net and that filter of like, okay, we’re catching things, more filtering out things that we know doesn’t match our audience.

[00:21:34] So yes. Do the keyword research, but keep in mind your target customer, because something could have really high volume, but it might not be relevant to who, you know, your customers are. So that should definitely get filtered out when you’re doing your keyword research. But again, it’s kind of like, I would take a different strategy.

[00:21:49] If you needed more volume versus you needed, you have like a strict qualification criteria, which again, I think is a little bit more of like a, a B2B mindset to be in. So if you’re trying for volume again, like yes, go for keyword volume, but always make sure to filter out the things that aren’t relevant, because you’re going to get frustrated.

[00:22:06] Your traffic increasing, but your conversions not necessarily increasing at the same rate or even close to the same rate. So you’ll notice that I think over time, if you’re doing it right, you’ll see that your sessions are gaining traction, but your conversions are also gaining traction if you’re doing it right.

[00:22:22] That kind of should be the thing that you see in your day.

[00:22:26] James Sowers: Yeah, I see that even on the agency side, running our content function is like traffic generally has been up into the right consistently over the last few months, but I don’t really report too much on that metric. I want to see traffic to key pages, service pages, free landing page, tear, down requests, you know, stuck score quizzes that we have, these proprietary things that we do.

[00:22:43] I want more signups. I want more conversions on those. And so I’m in Google analytics, paying attention to those numbers. Not necessarily. Top line traffic, because all website visitors are not created equal. In that regard. I’m guessing in your role, you do a balance of more commercial intent. Maybe isn’t the right word, but specific pieces around trying to get a sign up, right.

[00:23:01] A free trial or something like that. Someone to, to join the retail where the Shopify plus space. And then there’s also this more thought leadership where it’s like the goal is the read, the share the engagement. So, how do you distribute your time between those two efforts? Because I think a brand owner would be experienced in the same thing.

[00:23:15] Like how much of my content should be sell, sell, sell, try to get you to buy this product because I’m writing a detail about it versus how do I educate you about skincare in general, sustainable manufacturing practices, whatever the case is.

[00:23:26] Kameron Jenkins: I definitely say that when you’re first getting started, I would focus on that more.

[00:23:30] And it’s like, not like sell, sell, sell, but more closer to that type of content where you’re really trying to sit at the bottom of the funnel and move people. Right. For that a transaction, if you are a little bit more mature and you’ve been doing that and you want to see what more you can get, then I would say, yeah, expand to that more top of funnel stuff and get a reader.

[00:23:48] On my team right now on the plus blogs and the retail blogs, we kind of have one of each. So we have someone doing like thought leadership, very like very top of funnel, like feature stories, that type of stuff. You have someone doing like the SEO, the volume play like educational content. And then we have people doing product focused content.

[00:24:06] So we kind of have people sitting at like every stage doing their thing and each stage kind of funnels people readers to the next. So say for example, we have like an SEO educational article. The CTA will probably go to something a little bit more mid funnel, like a product, like a feature explainer or a feature, how to, so they kind of all like hand off to each other, like pass the Baton to each other, to move people down our funnel.

[00:24:32] So I think it’s important to have a little bit of each, if you can, like, that’s it, you know, I would say maybe your most. Stage, if you have the resources to do all of those things, you’d ideally have someone plugged into each of those spaces, passing the Baton to the next phase of content so that it seems more natural for them.

[00:24:49] Sometimes when you’re reading content, it can seem a little jarring to have like a whoa, okay. By now, right in the middle of some thought leadership. So I think being a little bit more nuanced about that and gently guiding people through your funnel through things like soft conversions. It doesn’t always have to be like a buy.

[00:25:04] Now it could be like a learning more. It can be subscribe. I think that’s a really good one and maybe an undervalued one where you get people’s email address, they subscribe to your content, you can nurture them. You now own that audience and you can kind of send them via email, any kind of message you want.

[00:25:20] So we tend to do that as well. We have subscribed to our blog and then through that, we kind of have more educational content, but also we’re kind of trying to nurture them toward a conversion through our email

[00:25:31] James Sowers: lists. I think that’s another reason it’s important to start with that customer research and get those big bucket categories.

[00:25:37] Cause then you can, this is almost a whiteboard exercise, right? I got a big six foot whiteboard over here to my side, but I’m like, all right, here are the categories. Okay. Under each one, what is the thought leadership content related to this? What is the more transactional content? What is that kind of middle of the funnel where we don’t necessarily want a hard sell, but willing to get them into our network.

[00:25:53] Somehow, that kind of thing. You start to map these out and then you open up your favorite tool and you start to drop them onto a calendar. And all of a sudden you have. Intentionality around when you’re publishing pieces and that helps you distribute the love right. Across all the different categories you want to, because if you’re, you’re kind of winging this and you’re sitting down with your team and like, what are we going to write about this week?

[00:26:11] And you just get in a room and try to figure it out. That is more of a scattershot, like shotgun approach. Right. And it’s just not as effective as more of a sniper rifle, like target, we’re writing about this topic. It fits in. Like we know based on what we’ve mapped out. We’re going to check all the boxes eventually.

[00:26:23] And there there’s a systematic way to doing this. Would you say that’s fair? Is that something that you do when you’re planning out your content calendar for the Shopify blogs? Is that a strategy you use?

[00:26:32] Kameron Jenkins: Definitely. I definitely see it through more of like a mental grid then, you know, it’s funny, like when we’re talking to people, other people at Shopify or people who aren’t on a content marketing team, it’s a really common to hear that.

[00:26:44] I don’t know how you guys keep thinking of ideas. Like, and it’s that amazement, because I think if you were just sitting down in a room every week and going, like, what should we write about everyone? Like, and trying to do like an ad hoc approach to that. Then I think that it would seem like you’re pulling stuff out of nowhere and it might not be.

[00:27:02] Organized, you might run out of ideas faster, but when you have that kind of mental map of like, okay, here’s our funnel, whatever that might look like for you. And here are the topics that we want to own. There’s so many ideas. I mean, he would almost never run out of ideas to write.

[00:27:15] James Sowers: Right. And in an e-commerce setting, I mean, you wouldn’t do that with your products.

[00:27:18] You wouldn’t just like create a product because you think it needs to exist. Hopefully you would talk to customers. You’d find the need. You’d like validate whether or not you can actually manufacture it and find the right material sources and all that stuff. Like you would just go to market every week with a new product, without anything, any evidence to back it up.

[00:27:32] Right. So treat your content marketing the same way, I guess, would be my advice. So let’s say we’ve got our strategy and our keyword research down. How do you go about writing a piece that like has a good chance of ranking? Where do you start using. Articles that are already ranking for that term and kind of try to reverse engineer their success and then build your plan based off of that.

[00:27:48] Or like what’s Cameron’s approach to writing a piece or getting someone else to write a piece that’s actually going to rank on the first page and drive traffic.

[00:27:55] Kameron Jenkins: Yeah. I typically start with, so depending on what your keyword is, I try to just build the outline first. I think that’s really. Once you have that kind of research outline, you can kind of plug in things in there that make it unique and stand out.

[00:28:07] And the answer to queries really well. But I start by building the outline so that I actually know where I’m going and make sure all of my bases are covered. So when it comes to building the outline, I typically take the main keyword. I plug that into a keyword research tool, and then I see what related things people are asking.

[00:28:22] So if it’s about inventory management, I guess what are the main questions people have about inventory management? Learn that through keyword research, you can also not only keyword research, of course you can absolutely listen to your customers and see if they have the same questions needed to have more nuanced questions you can plug in onto your outline as well.

[00:28:41] It just depends kind of what channel you’re going for. I’m speaking through the lens, mostly of SEO, but there’s definitely room for other types of content and other types of distribution channels. But I would definitely take the approach of like, okay, what’s our main thing that we’re talking about here.

[00:28:55] And what kind of like sub questions do people have within that category? And using that to build out my outline. And then once I do that, yeah, definitely. I want to answer that question as best as I possibly can, because that’s what it takes to rank, right? Like Google wants to serve up content that best answers those queries.

[00:29:12] So I’m not going to focus on, you know, including this keyword a certain amount of times or making sure I plug in keywords in like special places. I’m going to mostly focus on answering that question to the best of my ability and making this different and unique from anything else. On the first page. So baseline table stakes, answer the question, but then to rank and do well, go above and beyond by including things that only you can include.

[00:29:36] So you are unique POV as a brand floats that only you can get from thought leaders, either in your space or adjacent to you plugging in proprietary data. That’s another way like to make content stand out. So yeah, kind of starting with that baseline table. Here are the main questions. People are asking, answer those, but then kind of like making it unique and your own by including things like data quotes, like things that only you can kind of talk about when it comes to this.

[00:30:03] James Sowers: Yeah, I love that. And it reminds me like when we do tear downs of websites and we see an FAQ section, we always say, Hey, the frequently asked questions. Section is where a good content goes to die. Like take those questions, reformat them as a statement and make them a headline, a four section on your product page.

[00:30:18] And that’s it. Like you proactively address the question so you don’t need the FAQ. So. Or if you have it down there at the bottom, it’s repetitive, but you’ve already addressed the question of higher to kind of incentivize that purchasing decision. It sounds like a similar strategy here where it’s like, do your keyword research, talk to your customers, you’ll get questions out of that.

[00:30:33] You get those search queries, but then kind of re-engineer those as statements and those become kind of your section headings. And that’s how you build your outline. And as long as you address those reliably, and then later. Kind of that proprietary stuff that only you can produce, whether that’s research or, um, data analysis, customer testimonials, you know, whatever manufacturing processes, like your unique spin on things.

[00:30:52] That’s, what’s going to separate you from what’s already ranking and hopefully help you climb up into the top five where everybody wants to be. Yeah, absolutely. Awesome. Okay. So we write the piece. How do you think about promotion and distribution? How do you get it out into the world? A lot of people just hit publish.

[00:31:05] They might send it to their email list. They cross their fingers. Like maybe they send out a tweet or two, you get this big spike right. Of readership, right on day one and day two. And this long tail kind of dry. Do you do anything at Shopify to try to like, get some more bumps and have it looking more like a rollercoaster and less like, I guess a ski slope or one of those ramps, right?

[00:31:20] Like you don’t want this big dramatic drop-off and then a flat line you want kind of consistent traffic over time. So how do you think about distributing your content and extending the life cycle?

[00:31:29] Kameron Jenkins: Yeah, I mean, that’s kind of the beauty of SEL and why I like it so much is that Google is your distribution channel.

[00:31:34] You can do no work. And it’s just there when people Google that keyword that you targeted it around. So with SEO, instead of that, like initial spike, and then you kind of see it. You should see if you’re doing it right. You should see an up into the right, like gradual growth. And now that will decay over time.

[00:31:50] You know, Google wants to keep their search results fresh and your information can go out of date. Your competitors are kind of always buying for your spots. You might start to see decay over time, but in general, the life cycle of your content should be like a slow and steady, gradual up into the right kind of growth versus like it’s spice.

[00:32:07] And then it drops off. Other distribution channels. Now that’s not to say that, like when we write content focused on earning traffic for, from Google organic, that we don’t distribute other ways. Like we also want to get as much out of it as we can. So we will put it in like our prospects newsletter. We will put it on social media.

[00:32:25] Other places that we know our audience is, but if we are writing something for the express purpose of ranking in Google, That Google is our distribution channel. And that’s what we are relying on primarily. And the beauty of that yet is that it just keeps earning traffic over time with the, after your initial investment.

[00:32:44] So you don’t have to keep constantly like doing work to get that traffic. It’s like you did the work upfront and now you planted the seed and now the tree is going to grow on its own. I mean, I’m going to water. I’m going to make sure it like is maintained, but generally it’s going to keep growing. So I think that’s what I liked the most about, um, content focused on search.

[00:33:02] You know, people Googling or doing the work for you, they’re finding the content, but yeah, that’s not to say that other distribution channels aren’t important. Like I said, I managed a team of people that do more than just SEO focused content. They do thought leadership, in which case that’s, it’s become really important for us to put like a little bit of paid spend behind boosting those on social media.

[00:33:21] Organic channels are really important as well. Email newsletter to our own audience. That’s been really effective for those types of things. Pieces. So yeah, we do definitely do other types of distribution, but yeah, with SEO content people, Google does a lot of it.

[00:33:36] James Sowers: Yeah, that’s the beauty of SEO, right. And it keeps happening for the lifetime of that article.

[00:33:40] So I definitely want to get into how you track the performance of each piece or the content marketing effort at large. But first, if we’re going to use SEO as kind of, um, our defacto distribution strategy, right? This is kind of a black hole learning how to do SEO. But for the listener, if we wanted, there is kind of like a minimum viable set of activities you can probably do to make sure every piece is in the best position to rank possible.

[00:34:03] What is your advice for folks around that? Because I know it’s probably not as simple as like, make all the lights in the Yoast, SEO, plugin green, like maybe it is, but there’s probably something a little bit more intentional and strategic you can do to check those boxes, to make Google happy and put yourself in a good position to have that piece.

[00:34:20] Right.

[00:34:21] Kameron Jenkins: Yeah. I definitely think that it’s funny. There are definitely those things that you can track and everyone kind of wants to make your channel trackable, like Greenlight, Greenlight, and you know, you’re taking all of the boxes and that feels really good, but that’s kind of like the, you know, you’re making it work.

[00:34:36] It’s just not broken. You have to also like go above and beyond, not above and beyond. So this is also table stakes, but I’ll say this, that when it comes to writing for search, it’s mostly about taking something that has searched man finding a query that has demand people are actually searching for it.

[00:34:52] And then answering that question with content, that’s pretty much it. I mean, yes. You also want to make sure like your title tag is descriptive. Like, cause that’s what people are going to see in the search results. You’re going to want them to click on that, right? It should be descriptive. It should be appealing to click on.

[00:35:06] So you want to focus on that stuff as well. The things that use will tell you to do have those versus not having them. There are technical things like making sure your page, isn’t no index because then Google will not show it because you’re telling them, don’t put this in your index. Like there are technical things like that that would be barriers to entry, but the most important thing, when it comes to writing content, that’s going to rank.

[00:35:27] Pick a topic that has demands and answer that question really, really well.

[00:35:32] James Sowers: Yeah. You want to be somebody’s favorite piece or the most informative piece on the subject matter. And that’s really the differentiator between, because those are the pieces that somebody is going to share, right? And then you get back links, which are also a ranking indicator.

[00:35:44] And so if you do your very best work and you serve your customer, just like every other aspect of your business, you’re probably going to end up in a pretty decent place. At least that’s what I’m hearing from you. Awesome. So we published, we did our technical SEO, whatever we’re going to do. And the last question I have for you is how do you track performance?

[00:35:59] I think maybe the important mindset shift here is like, if you’re used to, if you’re an e-commerce brand used to seeing results in hours, maybe ad campaigns or days we’re talking more like weeks or months for SEO, probably. Right. Unless you have some really established authority and you can start ranking really quickly because of that.

[00:36:13] But what’s your, your advice for kind of maybe tracking the return on investment. So there’s two pieces of this. There’s like, how is the article performing. In terms of traffic. Right. But there’s also, how is it performing? How do we make sure it’s actually attracting customers, not just readers. And so how do you think about those two problems separately?

[00:36:28] Kameron Jenkins: Yeah, I would definitely say like one of the. Things that I see that I would caution against is looking only looking at your traffic in aggregate. It’s not bad. We look at our traffic in aggregate, but we don’t only look at our traffic in aggregate. So I think that’s where people tend to come up with the assumption that like, oh, SEO takes a really, really long time, like three to six months.

[00:36:48] And it’s like, What do we mean by that? What are we actually looking at? So I think it’s really important to look at your traffic on a page level basis. So if you write an article, how is that article doing, not your site overall for one keyword, you want to make sure that you are tracking on a page level basis.

[00:37:04] Because if you’re say you have like one keyword you want to rank for, and you’re publishing all of these blogs, you’re like, oh, why isn’t it moving the needle on this keyword? It’s like, ’cause, you’re not really writing those blogs for that specific keyword. You’re writing those articles for, you know, specific queries that are different.

[00:37:19] So you want to actually look at the performance of those individual pages and I think you’ll see a lot more success, um, that way than you will, if you’re just kind of looking at like a handful of keywords and seeing like, oh, how is my site performing against these keywords? Or how’s my traffic doing over.

[00:37:35] But yes, it does take time for sure. Not something that you should expect. I think if you are updating existing content and we tend to see returns a lot faster, so if you have content, that’s not really doing that well, but it’s existed on your site for awhile. We tend to see that those perform well in a couple of days or less, even sometimes just depending, obviously on the quality of, of how you’re doing that.

[00:37:58] In general refreshed content that’s already existed has a higher or a quicker rather return on investment than brand new content, because that does take time. And it also depends on the authority of your domain. So I know a lot of people joke about the fact that like, oh, content marketing at Shopify is probably easy because your domain is so strong.

[00:38:16] Yes. And no it’s different depending on what section of the site you’re writing on. If you’re kind of verging on a new keyword versus something that your site kind of already is very established for. I think that also plays a role. So if you’ve not done any kind of SEO or content marketing before, yeah.

[00:38:31] You do have a lot more ground to cover before you probably see those. Yeah. When it comes to actually like revenue, when tying that to the other side of the point where it’s like, we don’t want just sessions. We want people actually converting on our site. I definitely recommend whatever tool you use for this.

[00:38:48] I think a lot of people defacto kind of just use Google analytics. That’s great. If you do. I think it’s really important to set up your goal conversions for a non e-commerce site, but it’s, e-commerce conversions for an e-commerce site. So set those up so that you can actually see in your Google analytics or.

[00:39:05] Which channels are driving the most revenue. Like you can actually see that in Google analytics, if you set it up. So I would definitely recommend doing that because then it’s attributable it’s, you know, obviously not looking the same way as, as paid advertising does where it’s like someone clicked on this and that person converted, but you can see in general, This content and this channel is driving X amount of revenue.

[00:39:26] Um, and that’s really important. If you want to keep maintaining your investment in a channel, you have to prove that it’s actually making money. You’re not just setting up.

[00:39:34] James Sowers: Yeah, you probably have to make your peace with some level of ambiguity here too. Right? Because attribution isn’t perfect for any marketing channel.

[00:39:40] I mean, even Facebook attribution, they over-report, or under-report all the time. And if you publish an article, it’s not necessarily, if they don’t buy right there on the spot while they’re reading, but they see an ad for you later, then that purchase gets attributed to the ad. But the article played a role in that.

[00:39:54] Right. And that might be. All the education they needed, they just needed a more direct call to action through the ad to actually make that purchase. So I think it’s got to, you got to do your best to quantify it, but know that there’s probably a lot of other sales happening that you don’t have visibility on.

[00:40:08] Right. Because it’s not easy to track that back all the way back to an article and you have multiple touch points that you have with a customer.

[00:40:13] Kameron Jenkins: Nothing is perfect. And I will say to you that. Multifocal attribution’s against you like assisted conversions as well. Which again, it’s super important, but yeah, you’re right.

[00:40:23] Like just going into it with the expectation that nothing is perfect in terms of attribution, but we can get.

[00:40:28] James Sowers: Yeah, and more swings at the bat. And the form of more visitors to your site generally tends to make sales increase over time. And some portion of that is probably attributable to the content efforts.

[00:40:37] So I would think so, at least. Awesome. So we talked about strategy, we talked about kind of the process of actually putting content out into the world. I’m curious about your team when you came in and set things up, it sounds like you had a great deal of autonomy and independence to make that whatever you wanted to make it.

[00:40:50] So I’m curious, what does your team look like in terms of roles, number of people, what they’re working on, that kind of thing. And even down to, if you want to get into the tech and the tooling and the software you use, that’s a hundred percent okay, too. But I’m thinking if somebody else wants to stand up a content marketing function at their e-commerce brand, what does that look like at Shopify and maybe what’s transferable to the e-commerce world?

[00:41:09] Kameron Jenkins: Definitely. So my team currently, our content marketing team. Fairly large in terms of content marketing teams. So I would say that this is probably like the most fully fleshed out version of a content marketing team. So take it for what you will. We definitely have different arms for different kind of functions or goals that we want to achieve.

[00:41:27] So I’m overseeing the program. That’s responsible for audience grows. So we want to grow our number of qualified, obviously visitors to our plus and our retail blocks. So that’s what my team. We also have teams that are responsible for more of like the conversion side of things. So people who are doing like gated, uh, eBooks and webinars and more of those like campaign like conversion campaigns.

[00:41:51] Projects. We have a social media arm. That’s also under content marketing. I know that’s not always the case that every company, but social media is under content marketing for us. We have a video producer who does video content and we have, um, which is fairly new, but a product focused arm of our team.

[00:42:07] That’s more focused on like feature adoption. They obviously are like helping us with our growth goals as well. You obviously want that top of funnel content to be relevant to the product. So we work really closely together. These two groups. So that’s kind of how, like the team is structured in terms of like, here are the different programs and they each have their different goals.

[00:42:24] And then under my program, we have two people focused on the plus blog. Two people focus on the retail blog and we have people focused on SEO content and have people focus on like that thought leadership to have type of content. So my team really sits at like the top of the funnel and we have two main kind of ways you do that thought leadership and kind of like SEO, organic rankings type of.

[00:42:47] James Sowers: Yeah, man, that sounds more like a media company. In some ways, it sounds like you’ve got like some, some branch inside of MTV that you’re working with or something he knew you got videographers and multimedia content and graphic designers and stuff. So a spoil of riches right over there for Cameron at Shopify.

[00:43:02] But I think like in terms of, if you were to do like minimum viable content team, or like, what are those essential roles for the early stages? Assuming a founder doesn’t want to also be the content marketing. I imagine you need some kind of project manager and at least one writer. Right. But you know, how do you think about that?

[00:43:16] If you were starting up at a scrappy e-commerce brand today, and you want to go back to that startup world that you used to live in, what would you advise the founder to do in terms of just getting the essential stuff?

[00:43:24] Kameron Jenkins: I would definitely start with someone who could own content marketing. So like a single person, who’s a content lead.

[00:43:30] Whether that’s like head of content, content, lead, whatever you want to call them, someone who’s in-house who has experience running a content program. They’re going to kind of serve as like your primary editors, someone who’s going to build your content calendar. Who’s going to manage those systems. And it’s going to kind of control your content strategy.

[00:43:48] They’re going to build it and decide like what gets published, what doesn’t. And I would say when you’re first getting started, that person is probably going to, it’s probably wisest to outsource a lot of the actual writing to trusted freelancers. So, um, I know that’s what I did in the beginning before we had people in house on site.

[00:44:05] It was me. And then I found vested freelancers. I would brief them in on basically like, Hey, these are the things we want to write about based on our strategy. And I would kind of Dole those out to the freelancers and manage that at the time I was using air table to manage the program. And it was kind of like a dual editor, project manager, content strategist type of role.

[00:44:26] And I think that’s what I would look for if I was like an e-commerce founder and I wanted to get into content. That’s the kind of person that would be looking at.

[00:44:34] James Sowers: Yeah, it sounds a lot like an air traffic controller, right? Like the planes are the writers and this person just sitting in the tower saying, okay, you’re clear to take off you.

[00:44:40] Hold on. It’s not your turn yet. Right. All right. This one’s coming in for a landing. Now we’ve got to publish that one. They’re just kind of managing traffic. Right. And making sure that the wheels run smoothly, I guess. So to speak, I’m curious, where do you go to find writers? Right. Shopify slid into your DMS.

[00:44:54] And that’s where the real recruiting happens on Twitter. Right? Maybe not in a job posting on LinkedIn or indeed how you recommend finding qualified writers that have experience and that maybe fit within a budget. Right? Because the best ones have probably been offered great jobs at Shopify or a company like that.

[00:45:07] So assuming that they are not doing stuff on the side of moonlighting, if I wanted to find a freelance or a contract writer to help me out with my content marketing, where should I be?

[00:45:15] Kameron Jenkins: Yeah, I definitely was lucky enough to kind of be connected with a few freelance writers, right from the get-go. And then they typically have really good at networks of other trusted freelance writers.

[00:45:26] We’re very aligned with their philosophy. So if you find one, you’ll find many kind of thing. I would definitely recommend if you are looking for a freelance writer, finding someone. Specializes in the type of content you want to do as well as the industry, the industry is really important because I think maybe even more important than type.

[00:45:43] And I’ll say, for example, like if you’re doing SEO content, you might not need someone who specializes in SEO content. Cause you’re going to brief them in on the outline. Here’s exactly what you need to do. You want someone who has connections and hands, uh, knowledge of the industry that you want to reach, which is something that’s much harder to teach because you can break them on, on the other type of thing.

[00:46:03] So I would say places like Twitter and LinkedIn are great places to search for people like that because often freelance writers will describe themselves that way. Like, Hey, I specialize in SEO, SAS. Like that’s what I would have said when I was at Moz or. Or, Hey, I specialize in e-commerce freelance writing and you can usually find networks of people that way, and they can recommend other people to you.

[00:46:24] So that’s definitely what I would recommend. Additionally, you can look at places that you admire for their content marketing and see who writes for. It’s another great place to find people. Like I know one of the things that I did when I first joined Shopify and it was working on the retail blog was I looked back into some of our archives and I was like, wow, these articles are performing really well.

[00:46:43] Who wrote them? It was a freelance writer like, Hey, are you still available? Let’s bring you back on. So I would definitely recommend, um, finding at least one or two trusted people. Then they usually have networks of people who are like-minded.

[00:46:56] James Sowers: Awesome. So it takes a little bit of like work, a little bit of like hustle, but once you find those first few key team members, they generally know somebody and can make referrals.

[00:47:04] Then you expand out from there is what I’m hearing. Awesome. So to go back to my air traffic controller analogy, I want to bring this thing in for a landing of just a couple more questions for you. If somebody is listening there and they’re not running the company, Maybe their marketing lead and they want to start doing content in any commerce context.

[00:47:20] What advice do you have for them in terms of like making that pitch to the founder, right. Building the case for content as something that’s worth investing in and can actually drive more sales for the business. I know you didn’t have to do that Shopify. They were already bought in, but if you put yourself in that position, what advice would you give to somebody who has to go pitch content, marketing and SEO as an effort to their founder or their.

[00:47:38] Kameron Jenkins: It’s a great question. I think it can be hard. It can be difficult to make the case to someone who’s maybe a little bit more like closed off to the idea and they, they aren’t necessarily bought in. I would probably start by saying that like, Hey, if we want longevity, this is something that we should invest in.

[00:47:56] You need your short-term plays and you need your long-term plays just in business in general and content marketing and SEO can definitely falls into that more. Long-term place. So I think that’s something anyone can understand, right? If you put it into that category, like, Hey, we’re doing paid ads, we’re doing influencer stuff.

[00:48:11] We’re doing the more like short-term stuff. We’re not doing anything on the longterm play side of things. They should understand like, oh yeah, we need to be building brands. We need to be building our established strategy or longevity or long game strategy. As well, so hopefully they’d understand that. I would also kind of maybe tell that person like, Hey, cost per acquisition, like ads, ad prices are always going up.

[00:48:34] We want to lower our customer acquisition process. Something like founders and, you know, people who are more on the finance and business building side of things will always understand like, definitely. Lower our customer acquisition costs, but I would say that, yeah, content marketing fills that need as well.

[00:48:48] That’s definitely something that can help in that area. So we don’t want things that are just going to increase our customer acquisition costs. We’re going to want marketing strategies that help lower that over time. And that’s definitely where kind of content fits into that journey. So yeah, those are maybe like the two things I would say.

[00:49:02] It’s a great for the long game you need both, and it’s also great for lowering your customer acquisition.

[00:49:08] James Sowers: Yeah, it’s about balance, right? Short-term versus long-term and also like, yeah, we’re investing spend in Facebook or other kind of channels, but we also want something that we own is kind of a redundancy, something to fall back on.

[00:49:18] So I think that’s a really compelling case you built there. Thank you for that one fun question. Before I let you go. Is there like a technology or a trend that’s maybe out on the horizon for content and SEO that you’ve got your eye on, that you’re excited about that might shake things up a bit and make your job more interesting or make you more effective in your.

[00:49:34] Kameron Jenkins: I’ve definitely seen a lot of, you know, people talking about like the machine learning side of things. I think any industry, it gets advanced enough when people start talking about like how to automate it. And I think that makes maybe some people a little scared, like, oh, am I going to be automated on the job?

[00:49:48] I would definitely tell content marketers like, no, but that could probably help them move faster. There are a lot of different technologies. I know that build like automatic briefs. I think for me, I’m one of the. Skeptic side of that in the sense that like, I would still want sound like manual, like oversight of that, but at least it could like speed up a lot of that process and you can do like the final 10% of the human intervention that needs to happen to actually make it good.

[00:50:14] So I think there are a lot of technologies out there that are just making it easier for content marketers to move faster and scale faster. I would just caution against over-relying on those things, because that that’s, when content can kind of get commoditized, everyone’s using the same tools, then content might all start to look the same.

[00:50:31] That’s definitely not what we want. So I think that’s also the exciting challenge to like, how do we strike the balance of using these tools to make us move faster, but not give up the uniqueness and the things that make our content special and actually effective. So that’s going to be a really interesting challenge for content marketers.

[00:50:48] I think in the next couple of.

[00:50:50] James Sowers: Yeah, that’s really insightful. I’ve played around with a couple of those and I find that for long form stuff. It’s good to get words on a page. Right. And just get you some clay that you can mold. And so maybe it makes you a little faster in that. But I don’t think it’s there in terms of like replacing humans.

[00:51:02] So if you’re a freelance writer listening, like don’t worry, your job is still intact in my opinion, at least. But I think they are great for coming up with like headline options and ideas for ads. If you’re going to boost an article on Facebook or something like coming up with that, copy, you know, you have one version of the title that’s published on your site, but in the SEO metadata, without getting to know.

[00:51:19] Like you can show different things in the search results, or you could build a Facebook ad and like, if you want five different headline options to test really quickly, those tools are great for just like coming up with those for you. Right. Cause some people aren’t feeling super creative, especially after you just, you know, dump 2000 words onto a page if your heart and soul.

[00:51:32] So really stewed observation that I’m excited about those tools too, and I’m sure they’ll just continue to get better. Right. Awesome. So Cameron, thank you so much for your time today and sharing all your expertise and your experience with us. Where can folks go to learn more about you personally and or to follow your journey?

[00:51:45] Building the content team over there at Shopify focused on retail and Shopify. Yeah,

[00:51:49] Kameron Jenkins: Twitter’s probably the best place right now. I have a website it’s very out of date. Don’t go there. But my Twitter handle is Kammy underscore Jenkins, Kammy, spelled K A M M I E underscore Jenkins. That’s pretty much where I hang out these days and publish stuff about content and what I’m doing at Shopify.

[00:52:05] And when I’m thinking about

[00:52:06] James Sowers: the. Awesome. So what I would say is set up alerts for Kammie on Twitter and get all of the updates. And that’s where you get the content marketing insights passively. You could check them whenever you want. It’s almost like a blog, but not quite right. Awesome Kammie. Thank you so much for your time today.

[00:52:21] I really appreciate it. And look forward to having you back again, soon to get maybe into a little bit more of the 200 or 300 level SEO type stuff. Cause I’d love to help folks kind of evolve over time, but we need them to get started first and we gave them that foundational insight and material to get started today.

[00:52:33] So thank you for.

[00:52:33] Kameron Jenkins: Yeah, thank you for having me.

[00:52:36] James Sowers: Hey everybody. This is James again. And before you go, I just wanted to invite you to join one of the coolest things I get to work on. As director of marketing here at the good it’s called the e-commerce insiders list, and it’s a private version of this podcast feed that gets you access to tons of additional bonus content, like extra interviews, Q and a sessions, website, tear downs, and anything else we can dream up.

[00:52:54] It doesn’t cost you anything but your email address. And we promise to always respect. This is just our way of forming strong relationships with our listeners and making sure that we produce content that is actually valuable to you and to your business. If you’re interested, you can join the rest of the e-commerce insiders by going to the good.com/podcast and dropping your email into the form at the top of the page, we’ll follow up with directions for how to access the private feed, and you’ll be off and run.

[00:53:19] Like I said, this is one of my favorite things that I get the opportunity to work on because it lets me interact directly with e-commerce founders and leaders. Just like you. If you’re interested, I’d love to see your name pop up in my notifications until then keep an eye out for the next episode of the e-commerce insight show.

[00:53:33] And we’ll talk to you soon.

The post Why Brands Should Invest In Content Marketing – Kameron Jenkins appeared first on The Good.

]]> How To Scale Ecommerce Growth With SMS Marketing – Lisa Popovici https://thegood.com/insights/lisa-popovici/ Thu, 13 Jan 2022 16:00:00 +0000 https://thegood.com/?post_type=insights&p=97594 Listen to this episode: Subscribe to the show: Apple Podcasts Google Podcasts Spotify Overcast Pocket Casts Castro Breaker Castbox Subscribe via RSS About this episode: In this episode of The Ecommerce Insights Show, we sit down with Lisa Popovici. Lisa is a Med School graduate turned to tech and the Co-founder of Cartloop, a conversational […]

The post How To Scale Ecommerce Growth With SMS Marketing – Lisa Popovici appeared first on The Good.

]]> Listen to this episode:

Subscribe to the show:

About this episode:

In this episode of The Ecommerce Insights Show, we sit down with Lisa Popovici. Lisa is a Med School graduate turned to tech and the Co-founder of Cartloop, a conversational SMS marketing app for ecommerce brands. We talk about the benefits of SMS marketing as a long term investment to improve customer experiences.

In this episode, you’ll learn about:

  • The business value of real-time human interaction for a better customer experience
  • The power of personalized cart recovery
  • Cartloop as a relationship management tool for brands
  • Treating abandoned carts as an opportunity to understand shopper’s intent
  • Cartloop client success stories and case studies
  • Qualities of a great customer relationship agents and how to find one

So if you are interested in learning more about driving revenue using real-time customer support for your brand with limited budget, then this episode is for you.

Learn more about Lisa and her resources here:

Want to be a guest on our show? Have feedback or ideas for how we can improve? Send your thoughts over to podcast@thegood.com. We’ll be keeping an eye on that inbox. 🙂

The Ecommerce Insights Show is brought to you by The Good, a Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO) consultancy specializing in helping ecommerce businesses accelerate their growth through better research, testing, and design. Learn more about our team, our work, and our services at www.thegood.com.

Episode Transcript:

[00:00:00] James Sowers: So here’s the question. How can you, Congress leaders make sure that they are producing a great product, providing a world-class customer experience responsibly managing the finances and still reserve time, energy and resources for marketing their products. My name is James Sauers, and you’re listening to the e-commerce insight show.

[00:00:16] The podcast that gives you a specific, actionable advice for growing your e-commerce business. Every Monday, you’ll get a conversion rate optimization tactic that you can implement quickly to make your business 1% better. Every single. Every Thursday, we sit down with industry experts to go deep on a specific aspect of running a successful e-commerce business.

[00:00:34] It’s the perfect blend of learning and application, which means that you maximize the value of every single minute you spend with us. We’re just as committed to growing your business as you are. So if you’re looking for a partner to help you crush your revenue goals, you’ve come to the right place, roll up your sleeves and grab a notepad because it’s time to get to.

[00:00:52] Lisa welcome to the e-commerce insight show. Super excited to have you on the podcast today and learn about what you’re working on at cart loop. Maybe what you did before that a little bit, and what you see coming up in the future for e-commerce. So maybe before we get into the meat of the conversation, It helps you hear two or three sentences about who you are and what you’re working on.

[00:01:12] And what’s got you excited to fire up your laptop every day and get to, yeah.

[00:01:15] Lisa Popovici: Hi James. Thanks for the invite. I’m excited to be here. I’m uh, I’m Lisa I’m co-founder is Cartloop. We are a conversational text marketing platform that helps e-commerce brands drive extra revenue and recover more abandoned. By texting with choppers in real time.

[00:01:33] So we have a team of real people that interact with customers through text messages, uh, in real time. So it’s the human to human interaction. And I like to describe Cartloop as both your sales and support team and just one. And a little bit about myself. I previously started and graduated from med school.

[00:01:52] So my background is very non-stereotypical and as her desk, I basically turned three commerce and then to tech. So while I was studying medicine, I started to e-commerce brands as a side. I was learning everything on my own and with the help of my co-founder. And then in 2018, I sold my last friend and decided to start a fast company with my co-founder.

[00:02:18] And I think like, to answer your question, what gets me excited every morning? I think the fact that we’re still in early stage startup gets me excited every day, because things are pretty dynamic. Yeah. You just cannot get bored. And especially when we’re launching new products or new members are joining the team, which is currently happening and gets Cartloop.

[00:02:41] And also this month, it’s pretty exciting for us as we’re allowing a bunch of very cool and requested.

[00:02:48] James Sowers: That’s awesome. Uh, I love to see products that have kind of that operational cadence of shipping features regularly, even if they’re smaller, because it’s always good as a custom. When you’re paying that monthly subscription to see the product get a little bit better every single month, maybe multiple times a month.

[00:03:03] So kudos to you. I know that’s not easy to do to constantly ship on time and make those improvements, but it sounds like you’ve got a great team helping you out there. You know, I’m curious, you mentioned that there’s a lot of momentum basically in the e-commerce space and I think. Kind of enjoying some of that.

[00:03:18] Some of that was forced by the COVID pandemic, of course, but I don’t think it’s going away at least not completely. And so we’ll continue to ride this wave and e-commerce will continue to grow. That’s part of what you said interests you in this space. What interests you specifically in like abandoned cart, recovery or SMS?

[00:03:34] So, because I know your previous product was an email marketing tool. If I’m not mistaken and you’ve also been on the brand side, so there’s gotta be a reason that you fell in love with recovering abandoned carts specifically. Yeah. Yeah,

[00:03:47] Lisa Popovici: that’s a good question. So part of how Cartloop was born was basically through our experience as brand owners, we were experiencing a lot of abandoned carts back in.

[00:03:59] I dunno, it was 2015. When we started, we were experiencing a lot of abandoned cars and we were very frustrated. We just couldn’t find the reason why people were abandoning. We were very, very surprised at how much revenue we were losing due to those abandoned carts. And a question kept circling back in our heads and, you know, Google Analytics things are caused drive, or just saying like, like a percentage part of the story.

[00:04:27] And we decided to actually start sexting our, our abandoned shoppers. Right. Back then there were, I’m not sure if there were any SMS tools. So what we did, we were gathering like manually gathering all the phone numbers from Shopify and that we use WhatsApp to actually manually test them, text them. And we were saying something like, Hey, Sarah, notice you left something in your cart.

[00:04:51] Any way I could help or how can I help you complete your order? Yeah. We got a very high reply rate and people are actually very appreciative because we were reaching out to them in a very friendly and personal way. And they actually told us, most of them told us, like, what was the reasons behind their abandoning?

[00:05:11] And then it got us thinking that traditional marketing ways were just not enough anymore. Sending only emails or one way marketing blast, or just relying on external marketing channels, such as paid advertising just made us actually miss out on capturing those real leads. So this is part of how Cartloop was born.

[00:05:33] And also what unique about Cartloop is that it’s that human to human interaction happening in real time. And the fact that we are not treating SMS as a traditional channel or a profit only channels. The way we see SMS marketing is as a long-term investment, that’s built the best customer experiences and also a long-term relationship.

[00:05:59] James Sowers: I think that’s really smart. I mean, you know, as a software founder now that every customer that churns is painful and so on the e-commerce brand side, every abandoned cart that you see come through Hertz, you’re like, why, why, what was wrong? Right. Like, why was I not good enough? Right. There’s something like that.

[00:06:15] And so abandoned cart recovery conceptually makes a lot of sense because obviously you want to capture as much of that value as you can. You want to serve as many customers as you can. Email alone might be highly effective, but if you’re only doing email, you’re almost certainly leaving money on the table.

[00:06:30] And I think the way that you present it to the market where it’s not necessarily just a revenue channel, it’s a relationship building channel. It’s a lead nurturing channel, right? People don’t look at their customer support, help desk solution and say, how much money is this making? Right. They see it as a way to maintain relationships with our customers and uncover information that has impacts elsewhere in their business.

[00:06:54] Right. I think for the listeners, if you’re a brand owner, this is my opinion, but I would put cart loop in that same bucket where it’s really a relationship management tool. That’s human power that just happens to have kind of a sales and a conversion upside to it. Would you say that’s an accurate kind of perspective to have on the tool?

[00:07:12] Lisa Popovici: I actually like your approach to. Yeah, definitely.

[00:07:17] James Sowers: So what do you think that most brands get wrong about cart recovery? Maybe we’ve already talked about one example, which is like, if you’re only sending emails and that’s it, you’re probably not doing enough. You know, a lot of people are still in that stage where they’re trying to do it themselves.

[00:07:31] They might be on a limited budget. They have a very small team, whatever. And so they’re trying their best, but what are some of those common missteps that they’re making that maybe carte loop addresses or maybe they can address with other tools or other tactics?

[00:07:45] Lisa Popovici: I think the biggest mistake would be that brands don’t treat abandoned cart as an opportunity to understand their shoppers better.

[00:07:54] And to find out who their shoppers really are, what they need, what are their expectations and why they opted in for your emails or texts in the first place. So they just, you know, most mentioned, most brands want to see those carts being recovered as best as possible. And they most mostly push out promotions and discount codes with no intention of offering like personalized, real value.

[00:08:21] If one day they would recover all those abandoned cars, they will feel satisfied. They will feel happy, but then the next day, the abandonment rates would be the same or maybe even higher because they didn’t really find out what was the root cause of those abandoned carts. And that’s must be a sign that something is off.

[00:08:39] Something would need adjustments in their business, and something must be upsetting. Those shoppers that are continuing to abandon their carts and. The way, I see a bet on cars as an opportunity to reach out at that exact time to find out why they abandoned and simply just ask, how can I help? What seems to be the problem, or just like being there in a very friendly and human way, because if you act like a human, your shoppers will act the same.

[00:09:08] And yeah, I think this is, uh, the biggest problem that I see right

[00:09:12] James Sowers: now. I tend to agree with you. I mean, I’m an email marketing nerd. That’s where I like to be. That’s kind of one of my specialties. So sometimes I’ll abandon a cart just to see what their sequence looks like. Especially if it’s an established brand that a lot of people see.

[00:09:25] Be fans of, and you know, I’m surprised by how many, just take this. Right. I’m surprised about how many, just take this off the shelf template. And it’s like, okay, within five minutes I get a 10% discount or free shipping offer. And then within an hour, I get a reminder about that. Right. And then maybe one day later, I get something else.

[00:09:43] The most standard kind of cookie cutter experience. And to your point, it doesn’t get to the root of why I abandoned the cart. Now I’m an isolated case because I’m just curious, and I want to see their campaign, but some shoppers are bending in cart because of price or they’re concerned that something’s not going to fit them or they’re buying it for somebody else.

[00:10:01] And they don’t know if that person’s going to like it. Right. There are a hundred different reasons why somebody would have abandoned a cart. An email alone is not going to get you the answer to that question. Right. And I think that a human powered text messaging solution like cartloop offers a little bit of a different upside to it in that there is a real person talking to that customer.

[00:10:21] In the moment that they abandoned that cart, right within minutes, probably saying, Hey, what’s on your mind. Like what’s holding you back. How can I help? And I think the key here is that replicates the brick and mortar retail shopping experience that we’re so used to where it’s like you walk in and somebody says, good day, sir.

[00:10:37] Madam, like, how can I help you? Right. How, how can I help you find what you’re looking for? Answer any questions you might have. And that’s really hard to do online when somebody’s shopping experiences, self guided SMS. Pre-sales support abandoned cart recovery. That’s a great kind of situation to try to replicate some of that real-world experience.

[00:10:56] Absolutely

[00:10:57] Lisa Popovici: agree. And it’s very convenient for shoppers. I mean, they can answer at their own pace. They can get back to that conversation. And perhaps, I don’t know, six months of further down the way they can ask another question if they want to purchase something again, because they have that dedicated phone number allocated to that breadth.

[00:11:15] So they can’t even save it in their contract.

[00:11:21] James Sowers: That’s really convenient. So obviously you’re a fan of this platform, this channel, however you want to characterize it. Uh, I saw on your homepage, you’ve got a five X ROI guarantee. That’s a really strong stance to take for any tool. What makes you that confident in the value of your service that you’re going to deliver at least five X returns to your customers.

[00:11:41] And maybe this can be communicated through like a customer success story or a case study or something like that. Like what kind of results are brands seeing and why does that motivate you to kind of make this five X ROI guarantee? That’s a pretty strong statement.

[00:11:57] Lisa Popovici: One way texts, for example, so automated texts, which do not offer the possibility for shoppers to reply. So they are pretty much a missed opportunity to convert shoppers into brand enthusiasts and using tools that enable two-way communication and conversational campaigns. For example, such as clever tools, they are adding a whole new layer of personalization.

[00:12:20] I would say they open an entire world of possibilities. You can do interacts with quizzes surveys. You can just engage, nurture, and provide content free content, anything that you want within those conversational texts. If we look at some recently released benchmarks on SMS, I just recently read the latest benchmarks and the average conversion rate is 9.1%.

[00:12:47] So this is for automated estimates, marketing men, 4.1% conversion rates. So it’s kind of the average conversion rates for abandoned cart. Tech is 20%. So basically double. Twice as high as the automated texts. And also our average ROI is 25. The confidence that we’ve got, um, on our homepage was due to our merchants that were experiencing that results are seeing that those metrics in their dashboard.

[00:13:19] I can talk about some of our most successful, um, brands that includes Livo sclera snacks, China on biotic game. But if we take Livo for example, uh, we also have a case study published on our website for Rebo. We crafted a very personalized text that goes out after 30 minutes after the shopper abandones a cart.

[00:13:41] And it sounds something like this. Hey James, this is Emma from Liebow. I saw, I see we’re taking out our product. One of my personal favorites anyway, I could help. So we are just offering help, not being pushy. We don’t push any discount. We don’t push any sell. It’s a very casual, friendly human message. And they’ve got some ads are living with.

[00:14:01] And they have experienced. So this was in, um, 30 day time frame or 20 X ROI, 38% reply rate, which is pretty high for SMS. And they have collected just through the, through the checkouts point. They have collected over 30 new subscribers. And some of the other benefits were the fact that the team had to allocate like lethal to no additional efforts, uh, for providing this kind of support to their shoppers.

[00:14:31] They saw sales within 24 hours of installing Clara and their shoppers. Um, increased a lot due to Eastern support. And also there are a lot of first time visitors, first time buyers that were a bit hesitant because they didn’t know the brand. They didn’t know him to trust me. And being there, like having a person to actually provide us assistance and any kind of answer to any kind of question really helps with those hesitant first time buyers.

[00:15:02] I believe they saw a decreasing customer support tickets by 21%.

[00:15:09] James Sowers: That’s really impressive. So there are a lot of, kind of secondary benefits to launching something like this, which is reduce customer support volume. I definitely wanna get into that. I want to go back to the statistics you shared for just a second.

[00:15:21] So when you define conversion in that sense, so you said 9% for kind of the automated SMS marketing, but this two way kind of conversational SMS marketing and support has, I think 21 is the number you cited or somewhere around 20. So when you define conversion there. Is that an actual sale or is a conversion, a reply to the message is a conversion, an email sign up areas at some blend of these goals.

[00:15:46] Lisa Popovici: Yeah. So the way we ask for good sales is if that shopper who receives our texts uses the discount code provided by us, or click on the custom, you are. So these are the two ways that we attribute tell. So if he uses either the discount or the link, he will be basically that will be a recovered cart. So we will consider that as a sale.

[00:16:09] James Sowers: Okay. So they’re either claiming the discount code, which is definitely a sale, or they’re visiting the link in the message, which takes them back to their cart. I’m guessing, which is kind of a, a revisit, right? That’s a different type of marketing KPI, but it’s still valuable, right? To get someone back to your site to at least consider a purchase.

[00:16:26] So then, uh, related to the other information you shared, you shared a couple of company names for client success, stories or customer success stories. I’m curious. Are there any industries or product types that lend themselves more to this kind of abandoned cart recovery? Like I’m thinking, you know, something that needs to be fitted to a person, maybe like a custom suit or something you might have.

[00:16:50] Questions about that, that really having a person to talk to pre-sale can benefit. Uh, I don’t mean to steal your thunder. So are there any industries or products that you think are a better fit for a solution?

[00:17:01] Lisa Popovici: I honestly think that this works for any kind of niche. We have all kinds of niches from fashion to food and drink like beverages tools, gadgets, all kinds of niches.

[00:17:15] So, but of course, for example, if you have like a skincare brand, there will definitely be way more questions than if you have like one product. But I think it works for all kinds of. You know, if people have questions or at least they have issues like payment issues, technical issues. Some, some people don’t even know how to add the discount code in that scene, that box at the checkout.

[00:17:39] So if you just help them, it only takes like 30 seconds. They will actually go for day and complete their order. So sometimes it just takes like a, a small effort from your.

[00:17:51] James Sowers: Yeah, they just need a nudge right there on the fence. They’re really considering the purchase. And there’s just one thing standing in their way.

[00:17:56] If you can come in and remove that you’ve got yourself a sale makes a lot of sense to me. I’d like to ask a question about the staff. So this is human powered. Um, this isn’t kind of a, a chat bot, as I understand it, or any kind of artificial intelligence, there’s a real person talking to a real person.

[00:18:10] And so tell me about your staff. And I don’t want you to give away your secret sauce or anything like that, but like what makes them great at what they do? Right? Because I’m thinking either somebody who’s considering. Signing on with cart loop is going to want to ask that same question. I’m handing off basically sales and customer support to an outsource service.

[00:18:28] I want to make sure it’s high quality, but also if they’re not ready to do that yet, and they’re going to kind of roll this themselves and try to do it with the founder or the founding team, like what kind of personality traits or approaches to those conversations, make somebody great at communicating with customers this way.

[00:18:43] Right?

[00:18:48] Lisa Popovici: Quality, you have to have it to be empathetic, uh, and to be as human as possible. And don’t be afraid to show your personality. So this is what we, we tell our agents. We tell our, our members from the support team, don’t be afraid to show your personality, talk as if you are talking to your friends, but to circle back to your initial question, people, the people behind Cartloop.

[00:19:11] Extremely well-trained or some of them are actually at Amazon customer support reps and everyone loves Amazon support service, and they have years of Shopify experience and also customer support experience, and they know how to manage any kind of situation or in a human friendly, but still professional way before we start officially working with.

[00:19:35] An agent. We, we, we go through, um, two weeks of training and testing things out, showing different kinds of use cases that we’re tackling at Cartloop with all kinds of customers, because every single customer is different. So then definitely.

[00:19:54] James Sowers: So they’ve got a really strong background in customer support anyway, through big established brands like Amazon. So they’re familiar with, e-commerce familiar with helping customers out, finding that perfect fit. And then the key there, I guess, is to be empathetic and put yourself in the customer’s shoes.

[00:20:09] And, um, maybe there’s a little bit of patience in there too, right. Because you know your product inside of. If you’re doing support for your own product line. And somebody has a very basic question that could be frustrating, but remember, they’re coming at this from a blank slate. They, they’ve never known your brand.

[00:20:22] They’ve never known your product before. They might not even know your category or industry. So patience is probably the key, I would guess. So we touched on this a little bit earlier. There are some secondary and tertiary benefits to this, right? Like the direct benefits. Hey, somebody abandons a cart. They decide not to buy you, reach out to them within 30 minutes, you provide great support.

[00:20:39] They end up buying awesome. Right? We all want sales. Sales are great. What are some of the other use cases for what comes out of those conversations? Right? Like what can I learn in a conversation with a customer like that and apply elsewhere in my.

[00:20:52] Lisa Popovici: Yeah, that’s a great question. So the buyer, the best parts of having a real humans handle customer interaction is the fact that they can solve almost, I would say, 80 to 90% of the most common issues without having to involve the support team or the development team or the.

[00:21:11] And what our life agents do is tackle all kinds of use cases, such as provide assistance when shoppers have technical issues, family issues, product related information, uh, shipping and delivery questions. Product recommendations up, sell, cross, sell you name it. And I mean, these are use cases that are usually handled by the bread’s customer support team via email tickets, which can say even couple of days to reply to our two shoppers to actually get to reply.

[00:21:40] And for shoppers is also a huge benefit is extremely convenient. They get that personalized shopping assistant experience. They get a single point of contact. They get that cause consistent number to get to text at any time, they basically save a lot of time, which they would otherwise spend on before tickets or live chats.

[00:22:01] And they have that, you know, that inbox, anxiety that all of us have, but now it can be reduced if you’re actually talking through SMS and basically they get that real time instant support, which is, I would say very, very important. And for the merchants, if you, if you look from the merchant’s perspective, they get tons and tons of insights from those shoppers that are abandoning.

[00:22:25] They can see the main reasons why shoppers were abandoning their cars and they can basically improve their business according to those problem issues, whatever

[00:22:34] James Sowers: it might be makes a lot of sense. I mean, I think this probably has applications across the board. It’s going to reduce that customer support workload, and it’s going to help you build out your frequently asked questions or your help desk or whatever.

[00:22:45] But also, I bet you find some nice one-liners to pull over to the marketing team or put in your Facebook ads or, you know, you might find some ideas for new products, right. Where it’s like, Hey, I love this, but I’d love it. If it came in this color or it had a different scent or flavor or whatever, it’s like, you just take all those copy and paste them into your idea board, and then you take it to your next product development meeting and you’re off and running.

[00:23:08] So I think it’s. And I think what’s happening right now is especially let me phrase it this way. If we flash backward a few years when you’re still running your e-commerce brands on the side of going to med school, because you know, you’re crazy and you just don’t like to take time off now I’m kidding.

[00:23:23] But if you go back to those days, like you said, this was a problem for you, right? Like this is kind of a scratch your own itch type of situation. What was happening in those e-commerce businesses that made you say, like, I need to go find this or I’m going to build it right. Because it’s this painful, it’s this annoying it I’m leaving this much opportunity on that.

[00:23:43] Tell me what that felt like, because somebody out there is listening and they’re probably in that same situation. And they’re saying like, okay, this is an indicator that maybe I should start looking for a solution like this. It’s a great

[00:23:53] Lisa Popovici: question. Never thought of it this way, because I always wanted to go beyond just owning an e-commerce friends.

[00:24:01] I knew I wanted to build something way bigger. That would impact more people and help more people. So when I found out that when I find myself dealing with this problem, I’d be a bedroom. And then in class, I just thought that I started researching. Of course, I saw that a lot of people were dealing with the same problem and it’s, I think.

[00:24:21] It’s the most frequent problem. That’s my to deal with on a daily basis. And, and this is basically how it started, uh, you know, that first we wanted to tackle this problem, but it was, it was more like not relying on external marketing channels. That’s why we wanted to create an email marketing app. That was our initial idea.

[00:24:42] But. That’s base was way too competitive. We were first time founders. We’ve made a couple of mistakes and after trials and errors, uh, we decided to move to cloud. And we saw this gap in the, in the SMS space, which is adding that two month patch to SMS and keeping SMS as personal as it’s been so far, because we are using it every single day with the most intimate channel.

[00:25:09] So we want to keep it the same. Branson and their customers are interacting with each other. So that was basically my

[00:25:18] James Sowers: thinking. That makes a lot of sense. Yeah. And I think, I feel like it’s one of those things where people might feel like they’re already doing this, right. They’re like, Hey, I have an abandoned cart, email campaign.

[00:25:28] I’m already doing this. Or I’ve got a, one-way kind of. Broadcast SMS channel. I’m already marketing to people that way, but I think Cartloop is a little bit of a unique spin on it in terms of it’s like blending those two worlds. And so it’s probably less about like frustration with your current situation and just knowing, like there’s more opportunity out there.

[00:25:49] If you’re recovering 13% of abandoned carts. Now you might be able to double that with something like cart loop with kind of that personalized support.

[00:26:02] Pretty much. Yeah. Okay. So if somebody is out there today and they’re like, ah, I kind of want to do this myself. Like, is that something that’s even possible? Like, can I, as the founder, let’s say I’ve got two other team members just like I hired my wife and, uh, or whatever. And I’ve got a part-time marketer helping me.

[00:26:17] Like the three of us are willing to hop in here and do this kind of two way chat with somebody. Is there a way to kind of test drive the concept first and then I’m sure at some point they’ll realize that. Hey, this is taking way too much time. I can’t be texting people all day. I have other areas of the business to focus on.

[00:26:34] If I had a tour service to help me do this, that would save me a lot of time and energy and still get the results. So is there a way to kinda try it yourself before you buy it?

[00:26:46] Uh, either one, I mean, so basically I’m thinking like if somebody wanted to use tools that are out there or the tools they already have, or something like that to replicate the cart loop experience. So basically to provide human centered sales support to try it first. And then when they kind of run, they prove the concept that run short on time.

[00:27:07] They’re realizing they need to focus their attention elsewhere. Then they buy a cart loop to basically have that done for them. But let’s say that they’re skeptical of. You know this as another, yet another marketing channel for them. They want to try it themselves with in-house resources and then make a decision to sign all the cart loop.

[00:27:24] How would you recommend somebody kind of test drive it in that way?

[00:27:27] Lisa Popovici: Yeah, a couple of tools that offer that possibility of doing your own like one-to-one interaction, but you would have of course, to allocate your own support team resources, time by debt to actually providing that service and to be. I’m I’m very, I’m very curious.

[00:27:45] If any brand would allocate like 24, 7 of their times actually be there for all of the abandoned shoppers. It depends. I mean, it depends on your traffic. It depends on the size of your brand and the stage you’re in. But in terms of the building, like the service internally will be very difficult because.

[00:28:03] Need to have that, that technology behind and also the team of trained experts or trends, customer support reps behind. Yeah. So either, either use a tool that’s already existing, but you have to know that you have to put more effort than you think. Or, yeah, just try to like Cartloop, uh, for free. There’s also a pre-trial I mean, most to have free trials, so you can see like how they experienced what actually look like.

[00:28:31] And also we were thinking to include the possibility for my chance to actually be hands-on as quite a little bit as well. So they using their own support teams to engage with their own

[00:28:43] James Sowers: subscribers. Okay. So you can kind of supplement the cart loop staffing with. As you’re available. So it’s like, Hey, I’ve got a free hour.

[00:28:51] I’m the founder. I want to stay in touch with my customers. So I basically say I’m online. Start funneling a few conversations to me and I can, I can just hop in for an hour here and there to stay in touch with kind of the market. Yeah. That makes a lot of sense. That’s really cool. It looks like the growth plan is at $29 a month.

[00:29:07] Plus 10% of cart loop revenue. It’s not going to break the bank. And to your point, like if you’re a small team that. Would be doing this themselves. I mean, you’re probably already working nights and weekends just getting packages out the door, right. And chasing down other issues or working with suppliers to get more product or whatever you’re doing.

[00:29:25] So $29 a month, plus 10% of revenue. Kind of feels like a no-brainer at that point, especially because like that unlocks 24 7 support, which is certainly not something that most of us want to do given we sell things globally now. Right. And so there could be somebody across the world that needs support right now.

[00:29:41] And, uh, I’m trying to get my beauty sleep. So it kinda feels like a no brainer when you put it that way, which I’m sure is the intent. Right. So if. SMS and email off the table because you’ve already built or are currently working on tools to solve those two areas. What would you work on? I mean, you’ve got the brand background, you’ve got the med school experience.

[00:30:02] You’ve got SMS and email. If we take all that off the table. Kind of build yourself a new job or go look for one today. What tighten a problem? Would you try to tackle?

[00:30:11] Lisa Popovici: Oh, if I were to remain in the e-commerce space, which I love, I love the e-commerce space. I think I tackle research because I hate going to the post office.

[00:30:22] It’s very unpleasant for me because. Where I live right now. There’s no such thing as happy returns or loop or those convenience solutions. So that’s why I love what loop is doing in this space. I think it’s a huge loyalty driver. And basically if you’re using like tools like loop or happy returns, you can offer like a similar customer experience as Amazon.

[00:30:47] So that’s amazing. With Amazon. I think there, they have the easiest experience, both for customer support and return. So this is one of the things that I might be interested, uh, getting into before, before Cartloop, I actually had a lot of ideas around like help them fitness nutrition apps, because I’m very passionate about those as well.

[00:31:11] Yeah, I think these are the things that I would

[00:31:13] James Sowers: be interested. Well, returns is certainly a big problem to try to solve. I know I hate going to the post office too. I’m fortunate enough to have a wife who, if she minds that she doesn’t complain. So she does all of our returns, but definitely something we’re tackling because.

[00:31:27] As e-commerce continues to grow and we see unprecedented consumption and purchasing naturally returns are going to go way up. And I think it’s becoming a more prevalent consumer behavior to say, I’m not sure which one I want. So I’m just going to buy all six and I’m going to return five. Right. And so like just the nature of.

[00:31:44] Processing those returns both as the consumer and the brand who has to kind of accept those products back and restock them. That’s a big problem. So maybe you’ll be glad you chose SMS. Cause that, that sounds like a tough one to solve. And I don’t know that the answer there is going to be easy for anybody who gets involved.

[00:32:00] Okay. So I’ve got one more question for you before we let you go. But is there any emerging trend or technology you see kind of out there on the horizon? If you project out maybe five years down the line that you think is going to make a big splash in e-commerce or that has. Wow. So in

[00:32:14] Lisa Popovici: a commerce. Hmm. I believe honestly, that I’m very passionate about SMS at the moment.

[00:32:21] And I think getting started and the market is fragmented and this means brands will and already have quite a few options. But the question is how long until they realize they cannot treat SMS, like any other channel, because most of them are treating it like email or they’re just using it for transactions.

[00:32:41] Transactional purposes. And I think being such an intimate channel, it has a huge potential, um, further down the line. And I think, as I said, it’s just getting started and we will, we will be seeing a lot of, a lot of interesting things in the SMS space, such as, for example, moving the entire web experience to text.

[00:33:04] So imagine being able to shop through text to do anything through. From your, I dunno couch or, or, uh, bedrooms is purchasing anything you like talking, getting answers, getting that assistance. So making it very similar thing convenient other than SMS, I, I have to think about it.

[00:33:26] James Sowers: I mean, there’s a lot of opportunity out there and I think, I think what you said is smart.

[00:33:29] I mean, I’m picturing. I don’t even know what that experience would look like. Like I would text somebody and I’d say, show me your top three bestselling men’s jackets or something like that. And then I get, you know, image, tiny images with links to each one and pricing or something like that, tap on it, go shop or something like that.

[00:33:45] Or it’s like, okay, I want option two. And then they send me like a checkout link and maybe it uses shop pay, or apple pay or Google pay or whatever. And it’s like, You literally just tap that and, and you’re, you’re done. And the product’s on its way to you because everything’s store. To make the purchasing experience that seamless through SMS is, is kind of scary.

[00:34:06] Good. You know, if it, like, if it goes like that, it’s like you could really blow through a paycheck fast if it was something like that.

[00:34:16] For sure. For sure. Awesome. Well, this has been a fantastic conversation. Thanks so much for sharing your story and sharing the story of. And what it’s doing for e-commerce merchants. I think we’ve established through this conversation that anybody out there who’s on the fence about it as an additional kind of revenue recapturing stream should probably go ahead and at least test drive it because the investment is modest, but the returns are potentially very big.

[00:34:40] And like you said, some folks are, you said your average, I think is 25 X. The promise is five X. So it feels like a safe bet to me, it feels like a number. Hopefully somebody goes to cartloop.io I believe is where you guys are still hosted. So we’ll check that out anywhere else that folks can go to learn about you, Lisa, and what you’re working on and just keep track of your journey as you guys continue to grow.

[00:35:00] Yeah, I’ve

[00:35:01] Lisa Popovici: been pretty active recently on Twitter, so you can find me at least.

[00:35:06] James Sowers: Awesome. Well, thank you so much for your time today. Uh, we’ll have to have you back maybe in a year and see what Cartloop’s been up to and what other new projects you have, because I don’t know. I got the sense, like when, when I asked what you’d be doing instead is a different career path that you might’ve already had something in mind.

[00:35:19] Like, I dunno, fall on. Tell him that yet. So we’ll see what new features, new products, new companies, whatever you’ve got going. And a little bit, but thank you so much for your time today. I really appreciated having you on and enjoyed the conversation.

[00:35:31] Lisa Popovici: Thank you.

[00:35:33] James Sowers: Hey everybody. This is James again. And before you go, I just wanted to invite you to join one of the coolest things I get to work on as director of marketing here.

[00:35:40] It’s called the e-commerce insiders list. And it’s a private version of this podcast feed that gets you access to tons of additional bonus content, like extra interviews, Q and a sessions, website, tear downs, and anything else we can dream up. It doesn’t cost you anything, but your email address. And we promise to always respect your inbox.

[00:35:56] This is just our way of forming strong relationships with our listeners and making sure that we produce content that is actually valuable to you and to your business. If you’re in. You can join the rest of the e-commerce insiders by going to the good.com/podcast and dropping your email into the form at the top of the page, we’ll follow up with directions for how to access the private feed and you’ll be off and running.

[00:36:16] Like I said, this is one of my favorite things that I get the opportunity to work on because it lets me interact directly with e-commerce founders and leaders. Just like you. If you’re interested, I’d love to see your name pop up in my notifications until then keep an eye out for the next episode of the e-commerce insight show.

[00:36:30] And we’ll talk to you soon.

The post How To Scale Ecommerce Growth With SMS Marketing – Lisa Popovici appeared first on The Good.

]]> Effective Email Marketing Strategy For Ecommerce Brands – Nikki Elbaz https://thegood.com/insights/nikki-elbaz/ Thu, 06 Jan 2022 16:00:00 +0000 https://thegood.com/?post_type=insights&p=97533 Listen to this episode: Subscribe to the show: Apple Podcasts Google Podcasts Spotify Overcast Pocket Casts Castro Breaker Castbox Subscribe via RSS About this episode: In this episode of The Ecommerce Insights Show, we sit down with Nikki Elbaz. Dubbed “the Queen of Emails” by many, Nikki is the copywriter behind emails for brands like […]

The post Effective Email Marketing Strategy For Ecommerce Brands – Nikki Elbaz appeared first on The Good.

]]> Listen to this episode:

Subscribe to the show:

About this episode:

In this episode of The Ecommerce Insights Show, we sit down with Nikki Elbaz. Dubbed “the Queen of Emails” by many, Nikki is the copywriter behind emails for brands like Shopify Plus, Resident Home, Four Sigmatic, and more. She was previously the Head of Email for the Copyhackers Agency, her micro-agency helps SaaS and ecommerce brands hit that elusive $1:$40 ROI. We talk about the value of a well-written and well-planned email workflows that is often overlooked by most ecommerce brands.

In this episode, you’ll learn about:

  • Leveraging evergreen workflows/sequences to drive significant revenue
  • The relationship between SaaS and ecommerce
  • What are people in SaaS doing with their subscription strategy
  • Nikki’s Sequence Test Drive email strategy
  • Email marketing missed opportunities by brands

So if you are interested in writing effective emails to drive revenue for your brand, then this episode is for you.

Learn more about Nikki and her resources here:

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The Ecommerce Insights Show is brought to you by The Good, a Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO) consultancy specializing in helping ecommerce businesses accelerate their growth through better research, testing, and design. Learn more about our team, our work, and our services at www.thegood.com.

Episode Transcript:

TEIS – Nikki Elbaz – Email Marketing Consultant

[00:00:00] James Sowers: So here’s the question. How can you, Congress leaders make sure that they are producing a great product, providing a world-class customer experience responsibly managing the finances and still reserve time, energy and resources for marketing their products. My name is James Sauers, and you’re listening to the e-commerce insight show.

[00:00:16] The podcast that gives you a specific, actionable advice for growing your e-commerce business. Every Monday, you’ll get a conversion rate optimization tactic that you can implement quickly to make your business 1% better. Every single week, every Thursday, we sit down with industry experts to go deep on a specific aspect of running a successful e-commerce business.

[00:00:34] It’s the perfect blend of learning and application, which means that you maximize the value of every single minute you spend with us. We’re just as committed to growing your business as you are. So if you’re looking for a partner to help you crush your revenue goals, you’ve come to the right place, roll up your sleeves and grab a notepad because it’s time to get to work.

[00:00:52] All right, Nikki. Well, thanks so much for coming on the e-commerce insights show. Really excited to have you here to talk about all things, email marketing, you know, A lot of people are providing consulting services in a lot of agencies out there. I think a lot of e-commerce leaders and brand owners are familiar with email marketing and know the value of it.

[00:01:10] Surprisingly, I think a lot of folks still get it wrong. So I’m really excited to have you on the show to kind of set me straight if nobody else, but I’m sure that everybody else will get value out of it. Maybe before we get into some of the technical stuff, what’s the 62nd overview of who you are, what you do for your clients and maybe like a project or something you’re working on right now that gets you excited to fire up your laptop in the more

[00:01:28] Nikki Elbaz: yeah.

[00:01:29] Pleasure to be here. Thank you. I definitely love talking about this stuff. So if nobody gets anything out of it, I will get something out of it. Okay. So we are a very, very small micro agency, like a micro micro agency, um, where we, um, work, uh, on email for SAS and e-commerce and something that I just recently like neurons fired in the brain like, oh God, that understanding is how much.

[00:01:53] The two industries will feed off each other for me, where I will take best practices in one industry and then start applying them to the other industry because each industry has their own standards and defaults. And it’s just a cool way to be a little more well-rounded and just see interesting new ideas and insights and things to test and play with.

[00:02:15] Um, so. I always kind of was like, oh, I really shouldn’t eat down into one of them. Why am I doing two? We should really do one, but I couldn’t let go of either of them. And I’m kind of like, Hey, that’s cool. We’re doing bold. And it’s beneficial. It’s a good thing. So we mostly focus on automations just because that’s what I love doing.

[00:02:31] That’s where I feel has a lot of impact what a lot of people are not working on, but we will have some spillover we’ll, we’ll do campaigns because once we’re handling it, you know, we’ll just end up doing a routine or kind of thing. Um, and do the campaigns as well. But that’s kind of like the front door is okay, let’s work on our post-purchase nurture, let’s work on our abandoned cart, things like that.

[00:02:51] So that’s what we did. It’s kind of funny to be talking about a SAS one on an e-commerce podcast, but they are an e-commerce focused brand Shopify plus partner. And I’m just really excited about it because the project is for Elevar, which is a GTM like tagging it’s like fun data stuff, you know, where just kind of making sure that your data is accurate and you’re using like, you have clean data, basically, because there are so many pieces of tech that we have as e-commerce merchants, you know, that are all talking to each other, but are talking to each other along.

[00:03:24] Um, so just making sure that all that, especially with all the new privacy laws of iOS 13 and all this like good stuff, you know, just making sure that everything is accurate across the board. And so we’re working on it in activation sequence and it’s just very exciting because they’re such an awesome brand.

[00:03:42] They really listened to the merchants. They’re just so nice. Like. Really really awesome people and their customers are so happy with what they can accomplish. So it’s kind of fun because I’m on the other side of it as well, like using the data and saying like, oh, all my clients should be using Elevar. Um, so that we can, so it’s kind of like full circle, sort of.

[00:04:04] I feel like I’m talking a little bit of, but it didn’t make any sense

[00:04:08] James Sowers: at all. No, I get it. It’s always good to work with a great team to like the interpersonal aspects of client work often get overlooked. Right. But it’s like, the product has to be interesting. The subject matter has to be interesting, but also the people have to be good folks to work with, or else it’s not going to work for either party.

[00:04:24] Right. Like either they’re going to fire the consultant of the consultant’s going to fire them. So it’s great that you found a home. Was it Elevar is that, am I pronouncing that right? Yeah. It’s great that you met them and it seems like a match made in heaven so far. Maybe, maybe we’re still in that honeymoon phase.

[00:04:37] Maybe we will, maybe we’ll find some blemishes down the road, but probably not. They sound like a good team. We have been working

[00:04:41] Nikki Elbaz: together since last year, August, I think. So this is a new project, but we have been working for awhile. So I think we’re past maybe, maybe not. Maybe it’s still, we need that year to get out of the honeymoon, you know, and also that, well, that’s a really good point that you touched on it.

[00:04:56] That the great team also. Filter down into the product because you know, the same way they’ll listen to me as a consultant. They’re listening to their customers too. And like, especially their field is changing so much right now. Like all the data laws are really changing and they have to be on top of that and listening to what’s happening and changing based on that, which I can’t imagine is easy.

[00:05:16] It’s really like, you know, you made a great product and it worked really well and it was awesome. And now you have to reiterate and just, you know, and they’re just, they’re going with it. So yeah,

[00:05:27] James Sowers: we all have to be really, um, flexible and adaptive and these stays right now with everything going on and uh, in the world and in business, especially e-commerce.

[00:05:35] So it’s kind of crazy. You know, you said you focus on the automated sequences, definitely want to get into those later. But I think one thing that jumped out there is the relationship between SAS and e-commerce, which is maybe not immediately intuitive to a lot of folks, but I interviewed valgeisler on the show, which I’m sure, you know, and I said the same thing to her.

[00:05:51] I’m like, man, the software is so far ahead of e-commerce in terms of certain areas, right? Like they’ve been operating on a subscription model for a long time. And now the thing that people are banging the drum about in the e-commerce world, Get customers through a subscription, get them to some kind of membership community-based thing, get that recurring revenue foundation.

[00:06:07] So you’re not constantly trying to like replace revenue from one-off purchases or whatever. So it’s like, if you look at the SAS world, they’re so familiar with increasing customer lifetime value, focusing on retention and managing. Getting that expansion revenue, getting people to upgrade to new plans.

[00:06:22] Like it doesn’t translate one-to-one in the e-commerce world. Like you’re not getting somebody to go from a basic plan to a premium plan usually, but there is something like if they’re buying your foundation, you also want the concealer or whatever. Like, I don’t know anything about makeup, but you want to kind of like, you want to increase the overall value of that customer.

[00:06:38] And one of the best ways to do that is through email. So I think your point’s very astute is like, if you’re struggling with email marketing strategy or you’re running out of ideas that you feel like you’ve kind of like captured all the value, you can just subscribe to a few SAS newsletters or sign up for some free trials and just see how they communicate with you.

[00:06:52] Cause a lot of that stuff can be kind of tweaked a little bit and applied in an e-commerce context and can really make a big difference in terms of customer engagement, but also financials. Right.

[00:07:01] Nikki Elbaz: Especially since we were just talking about delivery, it’s very interesting. We ran an upgrade sequence for them back in January, where they were changing based on all the data laws they upgraded, they did like a, um, a version two.

[00:07:14] So they upgraded all their, all their merchants to version two. So we were trying to get people to upgrade and we made a mistake in terms of pulling people out of the sequence once they upgraded. So they were still getting emails, even though they upgraded and a lot of the merchant. Emailed back and said, Hey, I’m getting these animals, but it’s okay.

[00:07:33] I’m actually learning a lot from them. These are really interesting. Like we really care about email marketing and we’ve been like studying up and it’s interesting for us to see the emails that you’re sending out. So that was so cool to hear, but it’s really true that, you know, it’s such an easy way to learn about marketing is just to watch emails and see what people are doing and, and yeah.

[00:07:53] Across the industries, what are the SAS people doing with their subscriptions? And how can we start? You know, especially because like you said, they’re two steps ahead, you know? So how can we start playing around with that? So like, things like, I know that, uh, ProfitWell, they’ve been running all sorts of fun DTC shows and everything, but even reading their other emails where they’re trying to get you to subscribe to their product, that’s going to give you some interesting learnings as well.

[00:08:16] So yeah, definitely great ideas.

[00:08:19] James Sowers: So I was going my research, like a good podcast host before this. And I went to your site and what caught my eye is you have this section in the hero area where it’s like, do you want to test drive a sequence? So you sign up for my newsletter, I’m guessing. Or they get on some kind of email list, segmented, whatever that you have.

[00:08:34] But I’m curious, like without, you know, spilling the secrets that you have in there. Cause I’ve never really seen that before. Like I’m an email marketing person test drive my sequence and just see how like I manage my audience and my community. Can you give us like a high level overview of like what that is?

[00:08:47] That’s more of a curiosity, you know, I guess you could call it an ice breaker, but I saw that during my research and you know, before we get into the meat of the conversation, I’m just like, what is this all about? You know? And I could subscribe and find out, but unfortunately I saw it like yesterday and so I wouldn’t have time to get all the emails.

[00:09:00] So w what’s the deal there? Why did you put that together? And what’s the goal? That’s an awesome

[00:09:04] Nikki Elbaz: question. So yeah. So many people were coming to my site and then wanting to hire me and having like a whole bunch of conversations about around hiring me, like what, you know, all the questions you have when you’re considering to work with a consultant.

[00:09:18] So I was just kind of like, why don’t we just automate that? Like, this is what I do for everyone else is automate all these conversations. But beyond that, because yes, exactly. Like, it’s not like I’m trying to automate the relationships, you know, we were going to have good client relationships, but yeah, it was very much.

[00:09:33] Like the questions of like, you know, can we see a sample as like, well, every, I think this is really what started. It was every industry and every brand is so not industry, every brand and every company and every, like, they’re all so nuanced in terms of who their customers are. And, and so many times I would send a sample and they’d say like, oh, but we can’t have that voice and tone, like, do you do this kind of voice and tone?

[00:09:55] Like we’re much more buttoned up can be like, you know, so they would just be this like conversation around samples. That was just, okay, fine. Let’s scratch the, customer’s like, just see how I work in terms of like, how I will write for you and how I default to the strategy and something interesting is you mentioned that you won’t, you wouldn’t be able to get the emails in time.

[00:10:16] So one thing that I did was that instead of it being a drip of one day, one day, one day, you can click and just get. On your schedule because that’s something that really frustrated me, always with e-courses was I would sign up one day and then like, I wanted that information now I didn’t want to wait five days for you to drip it out, just because like, that’s the best practice we send out one email a day.

[00:10:37] It’s actually still there from Brennan Dunn. He had an eCourse where like you could click through and just get all the emails when you actually want them. So I thought that was a really cool strategy. So yeah, it’s kind of just like a little test drive. Exactly. Like it was also sort of from this whole idea of, you know, every SAS, founder is now trying to move to product led growth, where you can test it out yourself and without getting on a demo and.

[00:11:00] You know, without actually, you know, having that conversation, just do a little bit of testing it out herself, trialing it out yourself. Um, so I was like, okay, how could you trial a sequence? Okay. Let’s write one and then let’s see how you like it. So that was kind of like a bunch of the thoughts around, around that test drive.

[00:11:17] Um, and then yeah, at the end you can choose to, or maybe at the beginning you can choose to be in the newsletter. I don’t remember if I set it up in the beginning or the end, you know, and then yeah, you’ll, you’ll get the rest of the newsletters or not. If you just want to see if you want to hire me, then you could just take the test drive too.

[00:11:30] So it’s a fun

[00:11:31] James Sowers: experiment. It’s really smart to use the, choose your adventure kind of model, because especially if the context, I mean that just accentuates how important it is to know your customer. Because like, if you know that these are clients who want to see a sample of your work, like they probably just want to rifle through six or seven emails.

[00:11:45] And like you could have just put that in a Google doc and said, here’s a welcome sequence. I wrote for my own business, like. But that doesn’t really feel as polished as like, at least getting them in, into their inbox. Like seeing the emails, how they’re designed, maybe they’re plain text or whatever, but like just seeing a real, tangible example and then, okay, well I got one, I want the next one right now and right now, so they can still like move through that at an accelerated pace and knock it all out in less than an hour.

[00:12:08] Right. They could just rapid fire click through that and I’m sure they get delivered pretty much right away. But it’s just so much more impactful, I think, than dropping it in a Google doc and just saying like, here’s, here’s something I wrote for myself. So here’s an example of my work. Right. I think by putting them in that experience kind of helps them forecast what that would look like for their customers.

[00:12:24] Right. And how they would be guiding their own experience. So that’s super smart. Great, great play there. I like that strategy.

[00:12:30] Nikki Elbaz: I think that’s also like, yeah. I just like default to like, okay. List, list, email, you know, like it didn’t even cross my mind like, oh yeah. I could make a portfolio, but it’s like no emails,

[00:12:43] James Sowers: you know, I think it’s a great example of, of your capabilities.

[00:12:45] So, um, I think that was super, super savvy. Let’s talk about email marketing. Right? I think, like I said before in the e-commerce space, I think people get the value of human marketing. Like you hear a lot of people out there, like if you’re not getting 30% of your revenue in an e-commerce context from email as a channel, then you probably have room for improvement.

[00:13:00] So let’s talk about that. But at the same time, I buy a lot of products and I still have some really bad email experiences, right. People are using off the shelf, confirmation emails produced by Shopify, WooCommerce, whatever they’ve got used as the platform. There’s no followup post-purchase so it’s just crickets until the product shows up at my door.

[00:13:17] And then even after that, I’m not pitched for a review. I’m not pitched for a referral and none of that kind of stuff. Like there’s just so much more opportunity out there. And I’m curious if you have a perspective since you work in the industry, why that might be like when folks come to your door, Hey, I don’t know the first thing about email marketing or is it I’m too busy?

[00:13:31] I haven’t touched it yet. Or what’s kind of holding founders back because there’s some brands out there doing a really great job and maybe, you know, some of those, and we can share some of those today, but there are a lot of brands that are just kinda like just coasting right. And leaving a lot of opportunity on the table.

[00:13:43] So, so why do you think that is if they understand the value, but aren’t quite executing on that. What’s the gap there what’s causing that kind of gap between the knowledge and the execution?

[00:13:52] Nikki Elbaz: I feel like it’s a few things. I feel like definitely the busy-ness is that’s always, you know, a, a good reason. Um, but I think also there’s a little bit of a gap of understanding what it means to get to that 30%, you know, where.

[00:14:08] Can I just do it with these out of the box templates that Shopify has given me the Klaviyo’s give clique Klaviyo is getting me, um, will that do it for me? Um, and you’ll read a lot of blog posts that say, yes, that does work. You just need to have the pieces in place. Like, you know, if you set an abandoned cart reminder, you know, two hours after, which is what the recipe is in Klayvio, um, you’re going to recoup whatever the status, uh, I don’t know, 27% or something like that.

[00:14:38] Uh, and if you set another one that it ups to 43%, um, and this is true to some extent, whereas having something in. It’s going to, it’s going to move the needle for you. It definitely will. Like that’s how powerful email is, is that if you do bare bones basic, you will see results. It’s amazing. I love it.

[00:14:58] It’s fabulous. Um, but I think there’s a gap of understanding how, when you customize, how much of a difference is going to make it, how it’s going to just bring things up even more. Um, so I think, I think that’s definitely like, you know, You’ll see a lot of best practices around just the basics because the basics do, do good work and then understanding how it can get even better.

[00:15:24] That’s where I feel like is the gap of the knowledge, um, to the point where a lot of the, like our leads will, who come in are just, you know, like, okay, can you just write something for us? Um, and not understanding, you know, that we want to be talking to the customers. We want to be, you know, seeing that customer journey, we want to be strategizing and customizing and doing a little bit more beyond just like taking the template and making it more snazzy.

[00:15:49] Um, you know, so yeah, I think that’s, that’s probably where the gap is.

[00:15:54] James Sowers: Yeah, I think we see a lot of the same stuff in optimization where like, people are like, I know conversion optimization or CRO is important. I read about it all the time. I see these case studies of companies that committed to it and saw these big lifts, but I don’t know how to do it.

[00:16:07] Right. So I just don’t do it at all. Something like that. And it’s like, I’m afraid. I know if I do it right, it can make a big impact. But if I make a bad decision, I can actually lose money. I can lose customers. I can reduce the size of my list, whatever. So I think maybe there’s the same thing going on with email where it’s like, I know I read about all these brands right here on podcasts, how great they already email.

[00:16:23] And I just don’t know how to replicate that for me. And that’s where somebody like you would come in and help guide them through the process. Maybe do that customer research on the front end, that kind of thing. And like kind of brainstorm that out, map out the sequences and that kind of thing. So the other thing I think is holding a lot of folks back, cause they think email marketing is just newsletters and sales campaigns and promotions and stuff like that.

[00:16:42] And that’s definitely. But like you said, at the beginning of the show, like you specialize in kind of these automated evergreen sequences, welcome sequence, abandoned cart, post-purchase whatever it might be. And there’s a lot of money to be made there too. But a lot of tools and platforms will give you kind of an off the shelf solution for that.

[00:16:57] And it’s fine. But even they would probably say we never intended this to be your solution forever. Right. Once you get to a certain size. There’s a level of sophistication that should probably come with that. Right. So if we weigh kind of the one-off promotional type of stuff, I’ll just call them sales emails versus kind of the more customer journey focused, you know, automated sequences.

[00:17:16] How would you distribute? Like, I don’t know if it’s really opportunity or revenue potential or whatever, but like, if you a brand owner, where do you divide your attention in terms of like 80% to campaigns and 20% to workflows or, you know, switch those numbers are somewhere in between. Like what do you recommend a question?

[00:17:33] Nikki Elbaz: See, I tend to look at it as the newsletters are. You’re always doing them and you always have to keep turning them out and turning them out. Whereas your automations, you set them and you can’t forget them. You can never forget anything. You can never set anything and forget it. I don’t know why that’s even afraid.

[00:17:51] It’s first of all, foundational forever. And then, you know, you just revisit it and optimize it going forward. So I feel like the effort. Should be a lot more intense in the automations because that’s, you know, it’s also, it’s, it’s where your touch points are. So you’re seeing that customer interest right away.

[00:18:12] And so it’s following that journey, you know, if your customer. Showing interest and taking actions. Then you want to be following up with that. Whereas your campaigns, they’re just kind of on your schedule. So campaigns are wonderful. You should definitely be sending them and they will be giving you great revenue.

[00:18:31] But I feel like if you have to choose between them, then more efforts should be put into the automations. And then the campaigns will kind of. Get them based on that’s another cool thing is that you could be pulling pieces from your automations and just kind of repurposing them something. That’s very interesting.

[00:18:48] I do these e-commerce playbooks. And so I just pulled different examples and kind of, so it’s like just a basic walkthrough of like what you’re trying to accomplish with this sequence, you know, nitty-gritty things to like be putting into place. Um, and then I do like a whole bunch of tear downs of all the different types of emails you can put into that sequence.

[00:19:05] Uh, and then I tear down like a full sequence and one thing that’s very interesting for me when I’m looking at these emails, looking for examples to be tearing down is, you know, I just like type in, let’s say a brand name in my inbox and just look at their different emails. And some companies it’s very hard to tell which ones are the post-purchase emails and which ones are their campaigns because they do their post-purchase so well that they have like similar ideas within their campaigns.

[00:19:32] And you can, because like, it’s me just looking at it. You know, from two years ago when I bought this product, um, you know, I, I’m not remembering exactly when I got them and all that. You can really see that they’re mimicking certain things like, okay, they had this campaign about this, you know, myth that somebody has about their product and that shows up in their post-purchase as well.

[00:19:51] So there’s a lot of like back and forth in between that you can be playing around with it. So I didn’t quite answer your question, but I feel like automations are very foundational and you should make sure to have them in place, both from your customer’s experience side of things. And then also for you as you’re developing.

[00:20:08] What you want your campaigns to be, so that they’re not just 50% off sale. I mean, okay. No one does a 50% of sale sale sale sale. So like, what are some thoughtful things that you can be doing that are not just content that are sales emails that will get that sale, but are beyond just a discount or a promotion and are more, you know, walking them through objections or educating them about your product or things that are a little more strategic that you will naturally be able to pull from your

[00:20:37] James Sowers: automated.

[00:20:39] Yeah, from my seat, it sounds like the campaigns or the promotional emails are more of a volume play. Right? That’s like being present in the inbox, staying top of mind, nurturing those relationships frequently, right. Being on a consistent cadence. Maybe you hear from us every Thursday or something like that, but then the automations are.

[00:20:55] More like targeted lots of work upfront, but once they’re launched, like they’re pretty reliable. So it might be like comparing a shotgun, which sprays all over the place to a sniper rifle, like very targeted. We’re going to dial this in. It’s never finished, but we’re going to get it to a point where we’re comfortable with it, launch it, and then set a reminder to come back every quarter, every six months, whatever, and look at it and see if it’s still fresh and relevant.

[00:21:16] Um, I heard a couple of tactical things in there. I think that you didn’t necessarily say, but I’m going to throw some ideas out there and you can react to them. One would be create a burner. And email account and subscribed to a bunch of stuff. Maybe not just competitors, but people have similar products.

[00:21:28] Like if you have a product that’s reusable like a consumable, good makeup, food, whatever, find some other folks who aren’t necessarily in your same category, but have a similar product subscribed to all their stuff, maybe purchase one product and just filter all those emails into one place. Um, you can set filters up in Gmail for the brand name or the, from address or whatever, and kind of get those into folders.

[00:21:47] And then you can just go back and look over the last year. Like how have they communicated with me and what can I take from that? And maybe apply to my business. I mean, I hesitate to tell folks to do that blindly. Right? Think about it. Think about your customer. Think about what’s important to them.

[00:21:58] What’s working for one person might not work for you, but that’s an option. And then the other thing I heard is this interplay. You know, the automated campaigns, the workflows and the sales promotional emails, and kind of like blending those two, taking something from the campaign, putting it into a weekly email or vice versa.

[00:22:13] The other thing I would throw in there is your content marketing. If you’re blogging and you’re writing to solve customer needs and educate customers, if you’re seeing a lot of traffic, if you’re seeing a lot of engagement comments on those articles, or they’re getting shared on social media, that might be a signal like ding, ding, ding, let’s put this in our post-purchase flow.

[00:22:28] Let’s put this in our welcome sequence. Like something about this is written in a way that people like it and they seem to be engaging with it. So let’s put it, you know, somewhere in that customer journey, either right before the sale to get them to the sale or right after the sale to make them feel good about it and get them buying again and tell them.

[00:22:42] Uh, that’s something that stood out to me, but I don’t know how you feel about either of those ideas, the build, the burner inbox, or the share content marketing insights with the email side of the house as well, a

[00:22:50] Nikki Elbaz: thousand percent super insightful. Yes, absolutely. You know, the burner email idea. That’s like my number one strategy.

[00:22:56] Anytime anybody says, you know, like, okay, how can they learn more? And obviously there are places where you can like officially learn, but just subscribing to emails is just, it’s gold. You’re just seeing so many different ideas and yes, you have to evaluate which ones will work for your brand and which ones won’t.

[00:23:12] But it just, it just opens up the doors to a lot of ideas and creativity and just things that you won’t think of. I actually just found this service called mail charts, which, um, you know, you’ll see a lot of curated emails. These companies that just like curate emails, like here’s great emails and you can type in, you know, subscription emails and they’ll just pull up a bunch.

[00:23:32] So we all share some similar, but what I really like about male charts that I don’t like about the other ones is that they give you a lot of context, so you can actually sign up. It’s not cheap, it’s a hundred bucks a month, but you can assign up and see the journey. So instead of buying all the stuff and seeing all the post-purchase journeys, they will give you all of those journeys and you’ll see, you know, like post-purchase, here’s what they did.

[00:23:54] Here’s what they did post purchase, you know, here’s that whole abandoned car sequence. It’s just like seeing like tons of. With all the context of that. So it’s also similar to, you know, the other ones that, where you have to kind of understand the context and like getting into your inbox is definitely, definitely the best, but, you know, we can’t just buy everything just to see all the emails.

[00:24:16] So I thought that was a really cool angle where you get a little bit more of the context and you get to see the interplay between things. It was just cool. You know, and like, I love reading these emails cause it just gives so much. So much, so many ideas, there’s so much like just food for thought kind of stuff.

[00:24:33] So if you are hesitant to create an email and get a whole bunch of Carlson, there’s another option. So, yeah, cause that’s definitely the biggest, oh man. Like I have to get more emails to inland my inbox. Like, no,

[00:24:45] James Sowers: it’s funny. People will say that, but it’s like, oh, if only there was a way for you to have a separate inbox that wasn’t cluttered with all your actual important stuff.

[00:24:52] Like if only you could just create a separate account, just one more password, right. And then you have all that in there and you can set up filters and everything. Um, the other thing I was going to say is, it’s funny how, like, if somebody decides they want to start a garden or like, they want to refurbish a car or something, like you go to the library, you go online, you research, you learn how to do it, and then you do it.

[00:25:08] But with email, like people don’t do research. They don’t like go research. How other brands are doing it. They just kind of like throw something in a Google doc. And then they put that in a pretty email and then they launch. I hope this works right. But it’s like, there is a lot of information out there.

[00:25:21] You just gotta, gotta do the legwork. And like we talked about earlier, brand owners, especially for smaller brands are very busy. And so I don’t fault anybody. Who’s like trying to get minimum viable, email marketing going, but at some point it’s probably good for someone to take the time to actually do that kind of like market research and get some ideas going and then bring that back to the team and figure out what’s right for.

[00:25:40] So very, very astute observation there. I’ve got a question for you about email design. So you straddle this kind of e-commerce and SAS clientele. I feel like in the SAS world, it’s much more accepted to have kind of plain text or text-based emails. Whereas like on the e-commerce side, I see a whole lot of very stylized, like big pictures, lots of brand colors and flourishes, and like these little elements it’s not plain text by any means for the most part.

[00:26:06] Now, when you work with your e-commerce clients, are you advocating one way or another and is maybe a sales promotional email designed a little bit differently than one of those workflow emails, those automated sequences that happen based on a trigger or some kind of customer. I’ve I’ve come a long way

[00:26:19] Nikki Elbaz: with this.

[00:26:19] This has been like a journey for me because I came in through the SAS side of things and I see all these e-commerce emails. And I was like, you can’t do that. You know, don’t, you know, like you need plain texts. That’s, that’s what people will read. That’s what people will feel personal. Like you can’t just have pictures and then listening to the brand owners saying like, well, we did these photo shoots and like, people need to see the products.

[00:26:40] And like, and I was like, oh yeah, they actually do you’re right. That people do buy with their eyes and, and, you know, so coming to this idea of the marriage of images and text, and that Playtex is not always the best fit, especially in e-commerce. So it’s been an interesting, you know, just understanding that each industry does have their defaults for a reason, but then seeing, okay, how can we bring things up a notch?

[00:27:07] Because yes, those campaigns that are just pictures, 50% off, nothing persuasive to them, that’s not going to do as well as something that. Some text to it that, you know, has some strategy of compelling people to buy it and moving them towards that conversion. So definitely you’ll see a lot more with the automation side of things.

[00:27:31] You know, the, the workflow emails, you definitely want to be doing a lot more of the person leading legwork. So you want to leave room in your designs for the copy and not just like squishing it in, you know, um, or like sticking it in a Jiff that you can’t even read. Cause it’s moving too fast and things like that.

[00:27:49] Um, but definitely, you know, where, whereas a campaign is. Sometimes more cell base. And that, that is the persuasion is the fact that it’s a discount. People like discounts, humans, like discounts, you know, you can get away with that. You can’t get away with that forever though. So that’s again where, you know, you kind of have to keep pulling back in and adding in more copies to your sale emails and being more strategic and not just discounting or bonusing or all that kind of stuff.

[00:28:15] So, yeah, I think images are great and e-commerce people do want to see what they’re going to buy. Most e-commerce brands have beautiful pictures, but just making sure that you are giving more than just a sale sale flyer. I call them flyer emails where it’s just, it’s just a flyer. That’s all it is, you know?

[00:28:33] Um, You want to respect the fact that you’re in someone’s inbox and that you’re not just being promotional. You are promotional. You can be promotional. People want to know about brands that they love, but that you’re just giving a little bit more value. And it’s a funny thing. When people talk about giving value.

[00:28:51] Very often, especially if they’re opting in on a, you know, a lead cap that is a discount, then what is the value? The value is the fact that they’re getting sold to, they want to get sold to they’re interested in your product that is value, but where you’re giving value in a sense that you’re helping them make their decision, that you’re helping them choose the right product, that you’re helping them choose the right sale, even, maybe not the sell, but the next sale.

[00:29:13] So, yeah, that’s kind of like the interplay between images and copy is, is making sure that there is that interplay that it’s not just images. It’s not just plain text because that’s not going to work, but, you know, making sure that there’s that balance

[00:29:25] James Sowers: there. Awesome. Yeah. Maybe it’s worth testing too, right?

[00:29:28] Like I want to get into testing a little bit later after we talk about some of these sequences, but testing, one thing that I love to see is immediately, post-purchase a plain text email from the founder or from some kind of senior leader at the brand just saying like, Hey, thanks for buying. It means the world.

[00:29:41] Here are three things you need to know since your product is on the way, like when you get it clean it this way, or whatever, like test it in this order, that kind of thing. Just a little personal touch there. And it’s, and it’s from them. Ideally, if you reply, it goes to them or it goes to, you know, some inbox is managed by their assistant.

[00:29:55] Whatever’s going to happen. But like, I like that kind of plain text, personal touch immediately. Post-purchase uh, that’s just one example, but maybe it’s worth experimenting throughout these different types of emails. Like obviously if it’s a sale or it’s promoting a specific product, you got to see the product in some way, but there are some engagements where it’s like, maybe it makes more sense for it to feel like it came from a person who’s just checking in and seeing how your experience with the product went now that you have received it.

[00:30:19] And it’s been a couple of days, right? Like maybe that’s the personal touch and I don’t need a bunch of graphics. I just need, you know, James in my inbox. Hey, how’s it going with that new sweater? Is it fitting? Okay. Like here’s the details about returns? What do you think about the material? Just remember you want to care for it this way, so it doesn’t fade or, or, you know, tear or a chatter or anything like that.

[00:30:35] Um, yeah, I just think it’s worth experimenting. So I definitely want to get into like things that you test in email a little bit later and how you set those up. But maybe before we do that, let’s talk about some of these sequences. Cause we’re talking kind of the blend of the two promotions campaigns and also like automated sequences or workflows.

[00:30:49] If you come into a client account, is there a certain. Place it, you know, I can just dive right in here and almost always make progress and get a quick win. And cause you want your clients to kind of retain you over the long-term. Right. So it’s like, I know 90% of the time when I jump in, they’ve got the standard abandoned cart sequence that offers a discount right away an hour later.

[00:31:06] And then it’s got these time gates that like everybody’s experienced, like my wife’s conditioned to automatically abandoned her shopping and wait for the email. Cause it’ll come within the next hour and then use that discount code. So like consumer behavior has adjusted to this it’s so, um, it’s so much of a recipe, right?

[00:31:20] Like a repeatable process. Uh, I don’t know if that’s the one where you would jump in, but is there a place where, you know, like I know if I jump in and I create a sequence or improve this existing sequence, I’ll get that first client win. And then we make real progress in months, two, three, and four, but I got to kind of earn my keep in that.

[00:31:34] Yeah, definitely.

[00:31:35] Nikki Elbaz: So it’s funny. Cause I always default to like, we should really do the abandoned cart first because of this, because so many people are conditioned to this and because there’s so much data out there on how abandoned cars are. So, you know, giving those notifications are still, it’s still lucrative, but what I’ve seen actually more and there’s less data out there and you know, the blog posts of the world is optimizing their post-purchase because that is harder to track and harder to, whereas with the abandoned cart, that recipe does decently well enough that it will make more of an impact to customize the post-purchase that like the basic template post-purchase does.

[00:32:15] Like, eh, and then once you customize it, it does like great. Whereas the abandoned cart template does like, oh, okay. And then customizing it. It does it great. So then gap of two. Great. And then okay to great. I’d rather focus on the post purchase and I think that’s because of. They’re already a customer they’ve, they’ve become a customer.

[00:32:35] So you know that they are wireless and. They’re open to more conversation. And also that you can follow that journey really well. You know, like, you know, when the item left the warehouse, when it’s getting to them, when they’re probably starting to use it, when they’re probably reaching that like aha moment.

[00:32:53] So really being able to like follow through with that is going to really help them continue on the journey with them. And that’s something that I don’t see a lot in post-purchase miniatures. What, besides the repeat purchase are you trying to accomplish? You know, and like the repeat purchase might be that goal and that’s totally fine.

[00:33:11] That’s a great goal. You are in the business to make money in some of our products, but like, what are some other ways that you can get them to that repeat purchase? You mentioned something previously, um, you know, get them, getting them to join your community, getting them to read your blog posts, just getting them in your ecosystem so that they’re not just a customer, but a brand advocate.

[00:33:28] So moving them through these goals, to all these different little micro goals until they get to that final. Okay. I am going to do a repeat purchase, you know, hitting that goal. Um, there’s like so many different touch points that you can follow through with the post-purchase that it’s just like a really fun, great way to optimize and get the customer to just feel happy about your brand.

[00:33:53] And, and it’s a good win for the clients. And it also. Kind of that foundational thing that I was saying before, that can feed a lot. Once I start reading all the blogs and I’m like pulling which ones to put into the post-purchase, then I have all this information and now it’s like, okay, let’s, let’s do the welcome secrets now because, oh, I want to pull this.

[00:34:10] And, you know, and it just kind of like feeds all that. It becomes very, you know, foundational.

[00:34:15] James Sowers: Yeah. That makes a lot of sense. Cause I can imagine it’s one of the more robust sequences too. I mean, if you think about it, you make a purchase and it takes a few days to get to their home. So that’s automatically a week and you can touch base with them several times throughout that process.

[00:34:28] Maybe one of the emails I love to see there is like an FAQ email. So take your FAQ page that nobody reads and turn those into actual emails and say like, Hey, your product’s on the way. I hope you’re excited. You probably have a question about this and here’s our best answer for it. And so it’s like, okay, yeah.

[00:34:40] When I get it, I can’t wait to dig in there and, you know, get it set up properly or whatever I gotta do. Um, but then after they received their product, you can check in and see how things are going and see if they have any questions or they need to return. That’s a great relationship building tactic there.

[00:34:54] And then further down the line, there are all kinds of things you could do. You could ask for a review, you could get them to join kind of your referral program to get rewards for sending other customers your way you could pitch them on complimentary products. Right. But what I love about post-purchase and I’m glad you brought that up as kind of like the place you’d love to play first is because.

[00:35:10] There’s never a higher sentiment between a customer and your brand then right after when they buy, that’s the biggest commitment I can make in that moment. And I’m saying, I like your brand and I at least want to try it. Right. So why wouldn’t you make some of your most compelling offers or like make your most personal kind of like educational, nurturing value-based propositions right there in those immediate days, following that because like, I’m just feeling warm and fuzzy and I haven’t like gotten the product yet, so there’s no chance I’ve had a bad experience yet.

[00:35:36] And I’m in this kind of like middle ground where I’m excited to get it, but I don’t have it yet. And I’m feeling good about the purchase, but if you just kind of like allow crickets to set in, and maybe there’s a shipping delay or something like that, like all of a sudden I’m like, I don’t even remember ordering this.

[00:35:49] Right. I don’t remember like what it was about or whatever. And if you don’t use that space, then you run the risk of like losing a really strong connection with a customer who could buy from you again, or could tell a bunch of friends about you. And I just think that’s a really big missed opportunity. I don’t know the majority of brands that I interact with.

[00:36:06] Like aren’t even touching that. And so I think it’s really smart that you said let’s jump in there and, um, take advantage of it and then use that as kind of like the foundation or the raw material to go back and look at a welcome sequence and abandoned cart or something like that, your point about that

[00:36:19] Nikki Elbaz: emotion, you know, like yeah.

[00:36:21] Anytime by something. And then I see that in the inbox, it’s like, oh my things, you know, it’s, it’s that excitement. And anytime you can get emotion in your inbox, in your customer’s inbox, it’s like a huge opportunity. So yeah, that’s definitely like a big difference between, you know, an abandoned cart or a, even a welcome to the email list.

[00:36:40] Obviously, you know, they give you their email address. That’s something that’s valuable, you know, that emotion isn’t going to be high after that post purchased. Definitely. Yeah.

[00:36:47] James Sowers: Yeah. Okay. So let’s talk about one of those other two. Do you want to get into the welcome sequence or the abandoned cart? Where, where do you like to go next?

[00:36:53] I mean, the abandoned cart is kind of like, I don’t want to say. It’s established, but most people it’s like two or three steps maybe. And there’s always a discount at the end or maybe right at the right away. It depends on how you manage your brand and whether you want to be like a premium brand or like how you lead.

[00:37:07] But I feel like that one’s a little bit more established, so maybe we don’t even need to address it. But like, I just think a lot of brands give the discount right away and I’d like to see them at least reserve it for the end and be more of a hail Mary. Right. First one is maybe why I don’t want to do your job for you.

[00:37:19] So how do you feel about abandoned cart sequences? Let me get your thoughts and then maybe I’ll chime in. If I hear anything that, uh, I feel differently about, or I’ve had a different experience with. Oh, cool. Yeah. I’d love to

[00:37:28] Nikki Elbaz: hear that. Yeah. I think the biggest, biggest problem that I have with abandoned cart sequences, that they typically have no information to them.

[00:37:35] They have no anything to them. It’s just a reminder, you know, it’s like, Hey, you forgot something. Hey, you forgot something. Hey, you forgot something. Here’s a coupon. So often it’s not that I forgot to abandon my cart. I mean, listen, that definitely will happen that, you know, you get busy and all that kind of thing, but many, many, many times.

[00:37:53] The fact that you just, you’re not sure about something, you know, you’re like, is this really a good product for me? Is that like, can I, do I want to pay shipping on this? Or, you know, how long is it going to take to get something there’s, there’s just questions, you know? And he said, you’re going to cart.

[00:38:06] There’s often the questions surrounding it versus just like, oh, I forgot. So great. Send out the forgot one. You reminded them. Wonderful. You know, let’s hit some objections that people might be having. Let’s talk them through and help them reach a conclusion. So, you know, either that could be like that FAQ email that you mentioned or breaking it up into a few FAQ emails, you know, just pointing them to a piece of content that could answer the question.

[00:38:29] Have helping them get in touch with support, you know, that’s another great opportunity. And that’s actually something by the way that I think SAS can learn from me conversations, having that live chat there, you know, we asked an some investment, but people who have questions before they’re going to purchase.

[00:38:42] So helping them through that. So those are like the kind of like basic, you know, and then test it, like, see what happens if you don’t offer a discount at all, like throughout the sequence, you know, and just what what’s going to happen there. And then yes, definitely. Don’t just throw out a discount right away.

[00:38:57] You know, we don’t want to condition our customers to do that as much as I love discounts, you know, but yeah, definitely waiting until the end. And also even that, you know, like that three day, five day kind of thing, uh, what would happen if you waited a week? We are very much, we want our stuff right away when we want it.

[00:39:13] But sometimes if it’s something that people are really thinking about, Or something that wasn’t just like an impulse buy something that they can wait on. You know, what happens if you late a week? Well, they actually want it more because they’ve been thinking about it for the week or because they were just kind of browsing then and other kind of like, yeah, I still want it, like, imagine that.

[00:39:33] The beauty of that full week, wanting it a whole week later, that means it’s not just this impulsive decision. It’s, it’s something like, oh yeah, I want this. And I want to try that and how much, how they’ll look forward to that and build that relationship a little better. So there’s all sorts of fun things you can test with this.

[00:39:48] Um, but just kind of thinking more from the customer side of things where they’re not just like, oh, I forgot. Or, oh man, I left my credit card at home, you know, just it’s that decision around buying, what’s going into that decision. And you as a founder should know that and probably do know that, especially if you’re talking to your customers, you know, what, what went into the decision of buying the product?

[00:40:08] James Sowers: That’s a really cool idea for extending kind of the life is I think everybody thinks about abandoned cart sequence, like this last two or three days, right? You get one an hour after you abandoned 24 hours and then maybe 48 or something. And that’s it. And that’s all they do. And that’s cause that’s like the off the shelf arrangement.

[00:40:22] But man, what if you extend that, especially for high ticket products, like what if you extended that a month? And it’s like, you get a few right away in that in the immediate week and then it’s silence. And then three weeks later you say like, Hey, still dreaming about that fender guitar. Like you deserve it, treat yourself or something like that.

[00:40:35] Like some kind of mess. Cause you know, like they’re still thinking about it if they were shopping for it, like, um, shopping for something expensive, like a guitar or a computer or something. Hey, are you still having trouble with your laptop? Does that thing need an upgrade? Like we’re still here and here’s some questions about that.

[00:40:49] I think that’s super savvy. That that’d be really cool. I think

[00:40:52] Nikki Elbaz: people probably think that their newsletters will take over for that. So like, what do you mean I’m still top of mind? My newsletter will do the job for me, but yeah, it would be so much more targeted if it’s actually addressing the fact that your laptop still doesn’t work and you need

[00:41:06] James Sowers: a one-to-one and one-to-many like, They’re sensitive to that.

[00:41:09] Like you can tell, I mean, it’s, it’s obvious in some ways, but in other ways, it’s like, if it just says, Hey James, are you still frustrated with your laptop? Like I notice were browsing for this new MacBook pro or whatever. Like, I don’t know if yours is broken or running slow or whatever, or you’re looking for a gift we’re still here and here are a few things you should know about it.

[00:41:26] And if you want to pick up your purchase, like it’s right there for you waiting. Um, if this is a better time or whatever, like you got your tax return or something, I dunno. If you got like, you know, there, there are a hundred different reasons why somebody might buy a month later and it’s totally valid to like, you don’t want spam them.

[00:41:38] You don’t want to do it every day for a month, but like give them a little break and then bring it back around and say, is this still on your mind? And if you have any questions, I’m happy to answer them. Or if the time is right now or you’re ready to commit. Peer pickup where you left off. And I think, I think that’d be super, super savvy.

[00:41:52] Um, there was something else that you mentioned there that I wanted to dig in on. Oh, so like, what do you think about in the abandoned cart sequence sharing somewhere in there sharing, like here’s how other people use this, right? Maybe it’s your team doing like a quick little 62nd YouTube video using the product or it’s like customer reviews, but it’s like, um, segmented based on what was in their cart.

[00:42:12] And it’s just like, okay, so maybe it’s FAQ, maybe it’s cow, can we help like hit reply and our support team will step in and then it’s like, here’s why Stacy from Wisconsin loves this product and here’s her review or here’s her using it? Something like UGC. I think that is kind of under utilized to almost never see that.

[00:42:28] And I’m just wondering, like you have 397 reviews on your product page, like use that to help somebody buy in an abandoned cart sequence context. Right. That just feels like a missed opportunity. Yes,

[00:42:37] Nikki Elbaz: definitely. I’d love for a few emails there. So it just reading the reviews, like all of a sudden. Why can’t it look, of course, I need to buy this, you know, like I’ll be convinced, you know, even just writing the emails.

[00:42:49] Yes. It’s definitely what I will see often is just like a waterfall of reviews. Like here’s what other people have to say, make your decision based on this review review, if you were good. Um, which is definitely fine. It works, but yeah, creating that story and more around them and it doesn’t mean just like one customer story, but kind of just making it a theme of the email.

[00:43:08] So like, if you know that people hesitate because of reason X then choosing the reviews that are around that and creating the narrative of the email around that idea because yeah. People trust other people more. So just getting an even just, you know, hearing people work through their hesitations, you know, like if you have a review, that’s like, well, I wasn’t sure because of whatever, you know, that’s, that’s very powerful.

[00:43:32] It’s like hugely helpful to help you. Moved past the hesitations they have and get there. Definitely.

[00:43:39] James Sowers: Yes. Awesome. So let’s cover this last category really quickly, the welcome sequence. So I’m picturing this as somebody’s sign up to your newsletter. Like every site in the world has one of those discount.

[00:43:48] Pop-ups I just want the 10% discount code or whatever. Give me your email. And then there’s some point between that. And when they fall into kind of like your regular weekly newsletter marketing email cadence, is that what you’re thinking when you say welcome sequence? And if so, what are the most important aspects for that, for the brands that are executing it?

[00:44:03] Well, not necessarily, you know, the default that a lot of brands put in place, which is probably one or two emails and then drop them into the sequence. Right.

[00:44:10] Nikki Elbaz: So it’s kind of similar to the post-purchase in that you are following that customer journey, you know, they just gave you the. Email now, what do they want?

[00:44:18] What do they want? So they didn’t buy, but they’re telling you they’re interested. So there’s kind of like a few options of what they want and what they’re interested in, what they’re thinking. And you kind of want to be matching that and, okay. So if you have a really expensive product, is it that they are, you know, just kind of wanting to learn more and just like mitigate some risks.

[00:44:40] So what can you do about that? You know, can you educate them? Can you, um, have them join a community where they’ll talk to people and just, you know, work through that idea. So just kind of like following, like what what’s happening here? Like, why are they subscribing, but not buying? Are they just not ready?

[00:44:56] Or they just, you know, an email marketer who wants to read your emails, you know, just kind of. Walking through, like what’s what’s happening and talking to your customers to your subscribers is a very helpful way of understanding why they just, you know, subscribed, but didn’t buy. And then yes. Obviously if they’re looking for a discount, then you know, they just want the discount.

[00:45:16] Um, and then, so what can you do if they just want the discount? What can you do to keep them interested in. Your emails because you want them to continue reading your emails. So some cool things are just, you know, like asking them, like just doing a survey, like, you know, oh, Hey, you know, what, what would it be helpful for you showing up in your inbox, you know, or not a survey.

[00:45:36] Right. But like, here’s the different things that we can be offering you to kind of a self segment or, and they don’t even need to know that it’s a self segment or it could just be like, Hey, I, here’s a few blog posts for you to read which one here they are. And then tracking the clicks, you know, which one did they express interest about?

[00:45:52] Um, and then just, you know, segment them that way. So kind of allowing that also to help you help them, you know, like just putting them into the proper segment based on, on their engagement. So there are a lot of similarities between the post-purchase, because you’re kind of continuing that like friend loyalty kind of thing.

[00:46:09] Like you’re trying to get them also the same way. A post-purchase often you’re trying to get them to a repeat purchase. So the welcome you’re trying to get them through that purchase. So there are some similarities there, but. Like you said you should be saving like your good stuff for your post-purchase people.

[00:46:24] Um, and also your post-purchase people already bought. So you’re training more to activate them and get them excited about the product and using the product. Whereas with the welcome people, you’re trying to get them to feel like they really need this product. They want this product, you know, more around the hesitation versus around the benefits.

[00:46:41] Obviously you’ll was taking the benefits too, but just like working through that journey.

[00:46:45] James Sowers: Yeah. Yeah. I have a little bit of a background in kind of the info product space or like digital products, like eBooks courses, that kind of thing. And I know there are some tools on that side of the house that would allow you to put a link in the email.

[00:46:56] And if somebody clicks that link, they get a certain tag and then that segments them down a different journey. They get a different set of emails from somebody who clicked the second link. Is that something that exists in Klaviyo or some of the more popular e-commerce tools or is it more like you would have to get somebody out of their inbox to a type form or a survey or some like that?

[00:47:12] And then based on how they answer the questions for the survey, you can use a tool like Zapier or something to connect the two dots there. So I’m just wondering how segmentation works. Uh, it seems like the welcome sequence is probably the best place for that. Like what’s holding you back or what questions do you have?

[00:47:24] Is it, is it price? Is it unsure about the features and specifications? Is it, you know, I’m worried about fit or, you know, colors or materials or something like that, or I have an allergy and I’m worried if like the ingredients are gonna something like that. Like letting somebody pick the one and then you have kind of four lanes of emails that somebody could go down.

[00:47:40] If they say allergy, they get three emails talking about, you know, the nutritional makeup of your product and the allergies that definitely don’t work. And the allergies that you might want to be cautious about, whatever, like, um, is that possible in some of the more popular tools that are really focused on e-commerce like a Klayvio or a drip or something.

[00:47:56] Nikki Elbaz: Honestly, you could do it as simply as tagging, you know, that they click and they get a tag and then the tag will then trigger the next one. It’s really like a low tech way of segmenting your lists. Like you just, you know, and even it looks low tech, I mean, with e-commerce you can make it look a lot nicer, you know, you just, you know, make some pretty like visuals or buttons or whatever, but often you’ll see the self segment or is that just like a line of blue underline texts, you know?

[00:48:19] And it’s, it’s so good tech, but it works, you know? Um, but you, you triggered it an interesting thought in terms of e-commerce quizzes. So they’re gaining in popularity and they’re so interesting because they allow for so much segmentation. I don’t see it happening and. Very frustrating for me. Um, you know, I’ll take a quiz and I’ll like answer all sorts of like interesting things just to see like, what happens next?

[00:48:42] You know, are they going to segment to me this may, if I say I have allergies, if I say I have a PA, then what happens? And nothing happens. And it’s so frustrating because it’s so easy to segment based on these quiz answers. Like that’s the beauty of the quiz. Like, yes, you’re trying to help. Make a decision and you want to recommend a good product for them, but you’re collecting all this amazing data too.

[00:49:02] So use the data, you don’t collect that data and then use it to start, you know, giving those emails based on, you know, their responses. So it’s just another like really cool entryway point. Like if you, if the people are coming onto your list through a quiz, that’s like a really interesting, welcome sequence that will give you so much value so much because you’re collecting so much data on it and it will be so segmented and relevant, um, that it will just perform super well.

[00:49:27] And I should start recommending this to my clients. Okay. Nope.

[00:49:32] James Sowers: Feel free to jot that down. That sounds like one of those situations where the marketing leader or somebody on the team is like, we got to understand our customers better. And so let’s run a survey and let’s collect this data, but they never connect the dots.

[00:49:41] Like how does that impact email? How does that impact customer support? How does that impact SMS? Like, or even it’s like, this will help us create better products because we know what percentage of our customers have dry skin versus oily skin or males versus females or whatever it is. Yeah, that’s super important, but let’s also like, think about how we talk to them about those issues and bring them around in the marketing, because that’s going to move the needle on sales faster than creating a new product.

[00:50:04] We all know the product development cycle is like months, right? So like creating a new products. Great. You should definitely do that, but you know what? To have a faster impact, email SMS website, copy content marketing, like take that data funneling into all the relevant tools so that you can. Segment and contextualize those elements because they’re going to generate a return a lot faster.

[00:50:22] It’s going to be a better use of that, that quiz functionality. Awesome. I got just a couple more questions for you if you have the time. The one thing that I wanted to make sure we get in is, is testing, right? So like obviously as a conversion optimization firm, we do a lot of testing and we have some strong opinions about that.

[00:50:36] But in the email world, I always hear subject line, you know, test subject line, test, body, copy, length, test CTHS. Um, and you’re looking at things like open rate, click through rate, that kind of thing. But like, I don’t know, the tracking on those things can be so messy, like people with ad blockers or whatever, don’t always their opens don’t get triggered and then they they’re it’s it can be a mess.

[00:50:56] Maybe if that’s the foundational 100 level, maybe that’s where it stops. Maybe that’s all, there is a test. I am highly skeptical that that’s what you can test an email. I’m sure you have some other thoughts, but like when you’re working with clients, what kind of things are you testing and how are you setting those up?

[00:51:08] Like, is it something that the layman can do with a help desk article? Or is it something that they need an expert like you to come in and help them? Because it’s fairly sophisticated? No, I would say it’s not

[00:51:17] Nikki Elbaz: sophisticated. I feel like email is so well suited for testing, not from the technical side, like you said, there’s, there’s, it’s hard to collect the data on the tests because of all these issues.

[00:51:28] Because you’re sending so many campaigns often, nobody’s going to be noticing all of them and be tracking everything. So you could kind of like sneak in all these tests and your customers are not really going to be noticing that you’re doing all these tests and you’re collecting all this stuff. So I feel like it’s, it’s low risk, you know, because you’re like, well, hold on.

[00:51:46] No, I can’t change the hero on my website because XYZ, you know, like it’s, it’s so much more of like a bigger deal to test something big. Whereas like, if you’re sending out a whole bunch of newsletters, like if you’re honestly, like, I think a great strategy that I might start doing is, you know, okay.

[00:52:01] Client sites on, they want to get started. What’s our first step. Well, let’s just start testing things and see what the audience responds to the best way to start doing that is with the newsletters you’re sending out for them out. So often it’s just going to give you that fast data really quickly. If people are not really going to be noticing and like.

[00:52:19] Shaping at the fact that like your brand voice changed because you were just testing this brand voice. Um, so it’s, it’s like a kind of low risk, quick way of testing a whole bunch of things off the bat. So it’s definitely like, uh, testing with email is lower risk and yeah, I test way more than just subject line and button copy and all this kind of stuff.

[00:52:40] You know, you want to be testing your hypothesis of, you know, take your post-purchase nurture. You should create two split versions of your post-purchase nurture and send some purchasers down one path and one down another, because you know, maybe they don’t need to hear email number three. It’s not going to help them do a repeat purchase.

[00:52:59] Maybe actually, you know, email six should be moved up, you know, like all these different things that you’re going based on some theories that you’re creating based on talking to your customers, watching your customer journey, all this kind of stuff, but is it actually doing well? So. Doing your post-purchase and then revisit any yet, you know, in three months like, oh, did they do a repeat purchase?

[00:53:20] How many repeat purchases in the past three months? And then revamping it, like, why not start from the get-go with two different theories and see how that goes? You know, there’s just, there’s so many variables with everything that like everything, test everything, always

[00:53:34] James Sowers: be testing. Yeah. I think that’s the sentiment that I was hoping you’d get at.

[00:53:38] And I think the point here is like, start with the hypothesis that like have a purpose behind the test. Like if you’re just throwing stuff at the wall, then you never actually know what works or what doesn’t because you don’t have a system to track it. Right. You don’t even know what the test was or why you ran it.

[00:53:51] Like, you almost need a journal and you say like, okay, in June, we’re going to test, send time or something. We’re going to localize it to the person’s time. We’re going to test morning, noon evening. Um, that kind of thing, but like even that’s fairly basic, I mean, to your point about the sequences test leading with a discount in the abandoned cart, I run that compared to something that has the discount at the very end, with a little bit more nurturing and then compare, you know, over 30 or 60 days, like see what that does to customer value, average order value, conversion rates.

[00:54:16] I’m like that, like see which campaign performs better. And then maybe just turn it on as, as the default or even just the sequencing of those post-purchase emails. Do you start with the FAQ or do you start with a letter from the founder or do you start with like here’s, um, basically the specifications from the product detail page just delivered an email form as kind of like a nudge.

[00:54:34] And just to remind you like of what’s coming up to your door and what you can expect and things like that. So I think the point you start with a hypothesis have some kind of an idea. What you’re expecting to see right. Hypothesis is if we use personalized subject lines, that open rate will increase and then see if that happens.

[00:54:48] Right. But if you’re just kind of like winging it, then you can’t really expect big time results because you just kinda, I don’t know, you, you don’t have much of a system behind it and you don’t really know why you’re testing. You’re just kinda doing it for the sake of doing it. And I just don’t think that’s effective in any area of the business, especially email.

[00:55:03] I think that’s

[00:55:03] Nikki Elbaz: a cool point where you were saying, you know, can any lay man do this themselves? And I think one benefit that we have as an agency doing it is that we will create these kind of like little mini presentations before like, okay, here’s our hypothesis. This is what we’re working towards. Sign off on it, just this work for you.

[00:55:18] And then we’ll go and do the work. And then we will have a post-mortem and see like what happened. So. I think it’s really important if you weren’t doing this on your own, that you do that as well, so that you have that like clean. Okay. Here’s what we tested. Did it work like that clean process instead of just like, yeah, let’s assess and oh, I read this slug pause and let me do that.

[00:55:37] And I know I was talking to my friend and he did this and let me test that, you know, just that it, that you, you have that, that reasoning and the hypothesis, and then, you know, the scientific method basically, you know, like go back to

[00:55:49] seventh

[00:55:49] James Sowers: grade, right? Yeah. I would say open up your, your task manager, your project manager.

[00:55:54] Hopefully it has like the Kanban set up the Trello style setup and you have like the idea backlog. So none of those things get lost. I’m great. I’m glad you read that blog post. It does sound super awesome. Let’s let’s put it in the backlog and let’s get it scheduled, but then have active tests and then have completed tests.

[00:56:06] You know, that’s kind of like your retrospective review and see how things went, manage it that way. Cause if you even concurrent tests can really. If you run into things at the same time, even if they’re in separate sequences, like, I don’t know, somehow that customer journey can connect and you can really kind of trip over your own feet there.

[00:56:20] So it’s important to know, like what’s actively running when it’s going to stop, how long you’re going to let it running and then make the time on your calendar to go back and look at the data. And. How things actually played out because they might support your hypothesis and that’s great. And then you just kind of make that the default and you turn them live and funnel a hundred percent of the customers through that, but maybe it invalidates your hypothesis and you’ve got to go back and you’ve got to run a different test and you’re like, okay, send time.

[00:56:42] Didn’t do it. I got to do something like the, from email address. And do I make that a person? Or do I make that from the brand? You know, or something like that. Like you just start over and, uh, unfortunately there are no shortcuts, right? You just got to kind of experiment until, and like we used this, we always like to say, you’re never fully optimized.

[00:56:57] You just kind of always optimizing, right? Like we’re just trying to get 1% better every day. You’re never really done. Unfortunately, that’s part of entrepreneurship and part of just marketing and e-commerce in general. So yeah. Really appreciate your insight there. I’ve got one more question for you. If somebody is listening to this and they’re like, great, I get the value.

[00:57:12] I want to do it. I’m not doing a great job of it myself, but I’m ready to make a move. There are two kind of scenarios. It’s like, okay, I’m going to jump in here and do the best I can. Or I’m going to hire somebody to do. And then the other scenario is I’m just going to call Nikki because she sounds really smart and she’s got a lot of great ideas.

[00:57:26] So I want to work with her in each scenario. What would you like to see a founder do so that they kind of like maximize their chances for success? Right? Like if they’re going to DIY at what should they read first? What should they, you know, where should they focus? Their effort is probably an 80, 20 rule.

[00:57:39] And then if they’re going to work with a consultant or an agency like you, what should they have kind of in place before they come calling?

[00:57:45] Nikki Elbaz: It’s a fraternity DIY and I’m biased towards my playbooks. That’s basically what they’re for, you know, seeing and hearing people saying like, okay, so I’ll just do it properly.

[00:57:55] Or just reading blog posts that the wrong, you know, they would say like, here’s how you set up an abandoned cart and me saying like, okay, that’s, that’s how you take your recipe that already came with your ESP and just plug it into place. Like, I don’t need a blog post to read that, you know, what can we do to make it even better?

[00:58:11] So just, you know, that, that’s why I created that really. So obviously I think that’s a great idea, but if you want to really DIY it, talk to your customers and walk through that journey. So you use all the data that you have, you know, your, your Facebook ad stuff, your, your GTM layer, like all the different touch points, like see how they’re spending time on your website.

[00:58:31] And then what happens after that? All the, like, just map out that customer journey. And be matching everything to all the touch points. So it sounds complicated, but you know, what assets do you have that matched to each point that they are in? So an asset could be a discount. It could be a blog post. It could be an FAQ page.

[00:58:53] Like what do they need to hear at each point? What do they need to do at each point? And just help them through that journey? Something I once heard was like, never send an email that doesn’t have a inaction, like not necessarily a call to action, but like something that they can do to continue the journey.

[00:59:13] So I think that’s a little like fanatic that you should never send an email like that. I think there are instances when you will, but you know, let’s say that that post-purchase confirmation, um, you know, you just guys just published an awesome blog post on that. Where, like you want to continue that journey.

[00:59:29] Don’t just send that confirmation email and that’s it done? You know, what happens next? What can they be continuing to do it? That’s, that’s the whole, like all these different automations, that’s the whole point. It’s just getting them through. So just mapping that all out and, you know, helping them through that journey.

[00:59:44] So that’s, that’s the DIY away, but really just like, just start, like, just do it and, and have that Trello board of all the different, you know, tests that you’re testing. See what works. What’s not working, what can be improved, but like just starting is so important because email is so powerful and just, just do it.

[01:00:04] That’s what I would

[01:00:05] James Sowers: say, Nike had it. Right.

[01:00:09] Nikki Elbaz: And they paid what they pay like 30 bucks for that, a tagline, or was it for the logo? And it was the logo, the tagline ashamed of myself that I don’t know

[01:00:19] James Sowers: this. I don’t know that either. So don’t feel bad.

[01:00:24] Nikki Elbaz: And then in terms of hiring, I would say, you want to know what you’re trying to accomplish.

[01:00:30] Like what metrics are you working for and what you have to offer, um, you know, in terms of like that, that customer journey. So what’s interesting is that you can discover all this with whoever you hire. You know, and, and that should honestly be a guiding point for you of, you know, like, do we want to hire these people?

[01:00:52] Are they actually going to do good work for us? You know, what’s their process, you know, can they talk to our customers and discover this for us? Should we be doing it ourselves? Can we trust that we can be doing it ourselves? Which I actually think that most founders can be trusted because they are, they live and breathe the brand, you know, like there’s so much in there, but like how can we evaluate whether we will be doing a good job and unbiased job, you know, what will my agency be doing with this information?

[01:01:19] And just kind of like laying out the foundation so that the work could be good in terms of knowing what you want to accomplish and what you have to offer in terms of like your, your Intel basically.

[01:01:28] James Sowers: Yeah. Uh, I think that’s a great answer. And you know, the only thing that I can even think of, you know, from the agency perspective for what we do is like, just have a certain amount of time that you’re definitely going to commit to this cause results generally don’t come tomorrow, right.

[01:01:40] Or even next week. Like they take some time, especially if you’re doing your job. Email is probably one of those areas where you can see more of an immediate impact. Cause you’re already sending it, you know, on a weekly cadence or whatever. And like you can kind of make an improvement, maybe see a little uplift in sales from a promotional emails.

[01:01:54] I mean, but a 50% discount in there and you’ll see an increase in conversion rate. So that will definitely happen. But, but the reality is like, you should probably commit to this. I don’t know what your timeline is, but at least like 60 or 90 days, I would think to get in there, take a look at the sequences, do some customer research, like figure out what you’re already tested and worked or didn’t work, you know, come up with a hypothesis, that kind of thing.

[01:02:12] Like these things take time. But oftentimes at least in our business, it’s like the first 60 days might not look great, but the next 60 days sure do. And it’s kind of like this compounding effect of like all the legwork done upfront gives you the context and the nuance that you need to do a really good job from there on out.

[01:02:29] And then you have those kind of indefinitely because you took the time upfront to lay the foundation. I don’t know if that’s the case for your business, but I wanted to share that cause like from our perspective, that really helps too to have reasonable expectations around. How long it will take to see kind of that significant impact from the investment.

[01:02:44] And just knowing that like you’re playing the long game here, right? You started the brand for a reason. You wanted to make that your life’s work at least for some amount of time that’s measured in years probably. And so why would you only give any agency or consultant 30 days to prove their worth? You know what I mean?

[01:02:56] Like. So that’s my feedback, but I don’t know if you have any reaction to that. Absolutely.

[01:03:00] Nikki Elbaz: There’s the learning curve where you have to understand, you know, what the audience has already been experiencing and, and letting them take the time to adjust to the shifts and the changes, you know, so obviously any new leads coming in, um, you know, they’re not going to be shifting any changes, but still just changes take time, but failure is not failure.

[01:03:19] It’s just, yeah, let’s be all cliche. Right. It’s just a stepping stone to learning or, um, you know, but, but it’s really true. It’s a cliche for a reason, you know, where, yeah. It, these things do take time. Like you can sometimes often see, you know, amazing results off the bat, but sometimes it’s just, it’s just like that you have to get there.

[01:03:39] Uh, you need a little more, or your hypothesis was wrong and we need to just go back and find something new to work through. It’s an amazing metric, not metric. It’s an amazing. Service like email is, is incredible. Like it’s, it’s a great driver of revenue and you just have to have the patience to get there if it’s not working right off the

[01:03:57] James Sowers: bat.

[01:03:59] Totally agree. Well, Nikki, thank you so much for your time today. I know this conversation has been a delight for me and we didn’t even get into segmentation or any of the more advanced stuff. So maybe we’ll have to have you back to talk about that and really nerd out on email marketing. But I know you’re at Nikki elbaz.com and twitter.com/nikki Elba.

[01:04:15] So I’m very jealous of both of those things because I have neither of my.com nor my Twitter handle. Um, so as a marketing guy that breaks my heart, but I, you know, I was late to the game. I wasn’t always a marketing guy, but, um, is there anything else that you want to share with the audience promote? Uh, this is kind of your opportunity to, to be up on the pedestal and just share whatever message you want before we say.

[01:04:33] Nikki Elbaz: Okay, so message and promote, promote my playbooks. nikila.com/email-playbooks, I think. Um, yes. Yes. That is

[01:04:43] James Sowers: the way,

[01:04:46] Nikki Elbaz: you know, I think they’re awesome. I price them pretty low so that they could be accessible to companies that are just getting started with their email marketing efforts. Um, and they’ll just like foundational good stuff to be thinking about when you’re sending your automations in place and then message.

[01:05:03] Yeah, the Nike just do it. Like I’m such an advocate for email that you just like, just start and don’t worry about the fact that you’re not sending it often enough or you’re sending it too often or you’re, you know, you’re dropping this offer or you’re, you know, you didn’t do that in the best practices that, and you know, there’s, there’s so many voices that we can be having about how we’re doing it wrong.

[01:05:23] We’re not an expert, blah, blah, blah, but just start and just do it. And like it’s an area where intention and action. Just go so far. So just, just go, just do it.

[01:05:35] James Sowers: Awesome. Great advice. Tried and true when Nikki, thank you so much for coming on the show today. Like I said, we’ll have to have you back really enjoyed it and um, yeah, just appreciate your insights and email marketing and all things, business and entrepreneurship and e-commerce so thanks for joining us.

[01:05:49] Nikki Elbaz: Thanks for having me.

[01:05:51] James Sowers: Hey everybody. This is James again. And before you go, I just wanted to invite you to join one of the coolest things I get to work on as director of marketing here. It’s called the e-commerce insiders list. And it’s a private version of this podcast feed that gets you access to tons of additional bonus content, like extra interviews, Q and a sessions, website, tear downs, and anything else we can dream up.

[01:06:09] It doesn’t cost you anything but your email address. And we promise to always respect your inbox. This is just our way of forming strong relationships with our listeners and making sure that we produce content that is actually valuable to you and to your business. If you’re interested, you can join the rest of the e-commerce insiders by going to the good.com/podcast and dropping your email into the form at the top of the page, we’ll follow up with directions for how to access the private feed and you’ll be off and running.

[01:06:33] Like I said, this is one of my favorite things that I get the opportunity to work on because it lets me interact directly with e-commerce founders and leaders. Just like you. If you’re interested, I’d love to see your name pop up in my notifications until then keep an eye out for the next episode of the e-commerce insight show.

[01:06:47] And we’ll talk to you soon.

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