How to Win Black Friday & Cyber Monday (#152)
I'm Jim Hoffman and this is If I Was Starting Today, a collection of conversations about half baked startup ideas, growth tactics, and stories from founders, including my own journey as a business owner. All of the content is centered around one question. What would you do if you were starting today?
Speaker 2:Today on the podcast, I'm actually going to share an interview I did on another podcast. It's the Ecwid eCommerce show. The reason why I wanna share this is I think it's really timely for anyone that has a direct consumer brand or an eCommerce store that's looking to, one, do something big for Black Friday, Cyber Monday. I kinda pull back the card on the playbook we're doing for clients. So, hopefully, this is helpful for anyone that's trying to maximize the demand that could be coming your way this q four.
Speaker 2:And then second, I get the playbook on if if I were starting an ecommerce company today, essentially the 22 things I would do to launch it, grow it, and scale it. But it was a really fun conversation with the Ecwid guys. But I hope you enjoyed this episode with them and send me a note if you have any comments or feedback on it. It's at gem@growthhit.com.
Speaker 3:Alright, Reggie. We're back again. It's getting close to that time of the year for ecom where, hopefully, you've been working on your strategies all year, but Black Friday's coming up, Cyber Monday, the holidays. So we gotta get some content out to everybody and get people thinking of their plans. What do you think?
Speaker 4:Yeah. I'm excited. And we have a great guest today. Been in the business for a while, runs an agency, and it's gonna have some good insights for those who are just getting started and or trying to take it to the next level.
Speaker 3:Alright. So let's bring on the guest. Jim Huffman, welcome to the show.
Speaker 2:Jesse Rich, thank you guys for having me. I'm excited to get into it. Really impressed with what you guys have built, so this should be fun.
Speaker 3:Yeah. Well, thanks. We're glad to have you here. We took a look at your agency, and I thought it was an interesting model. Why don't you give us a little history of the agency and how you came to where you are?
Speaker 2:Yeah. Absolutely. I'm one of the many accidental agency owners. Seven years and running now, which is kind of crazy. So growth heads, we are a growth team for direct to consumer brands.
Speaker 2:We're like, alright. I got a product. It's kind of working. Crap. This is hard.
Speaker 2:How do we grow? That's where we like to come in. And so we do kinda full funnel stuff. We like starting with bottom of the funnel, like optimizing a website to increase conversions, do paid acquisition, and, like, email retention strategy type of stuff. And so we've been at it for a while.
Speaker 2:Got lucky to work with some direct to consumer startups in the early days that went on a nice little tear of growth where I got to learn and then started consulting on the side. But it's been pretty fun. And one thing with our agency, if we're such a good growth team, can we grow our own brands? And we actually just finished the acquisition of an ecommerce company, neat apparel. And so we're trying to apply what we know to that brand, which is sweat proof clothes.
Speaker 2:So ask me in three years if that was a good use of funds or not, or if we just burned our profits.
Speaker 3:Perfect. Yeah. You got you're you're already working on the case study. I'm sure this is like a maybe a live case study. So, yeah, we'll check-in with you on that.
Speaker 3:And I think for now, we wanna kinda pick your brain here on strategy, just tactics you would have for people that might be we'll maybe go short term here since it is close to Black Friday on couple ideas that people can apply.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. So whenever we're talking about brands, it's like, alright. Black Friday, Cyber Monday, let's go. What do we do? We're kinda like, alright.
Speaker 2:Let's pause. What is the goal here? And I put into two categories. Is it new customer acquisition? People's wallets are open.
Speaker 2:Let's capture them. Or is the goal profits? It's like, let's look at our existing customer base, get more wallet share. We've already paid to acquire them. Let's use email to grow the profits.
Speaker 2:Right? Because based on those kind of two goals, we have a few different approaches. And usually, when I talk to brands, they say, option c, I want everything. You're like, alright. Okay.
Speaker 2:Cool. So let's play the new customer acquisition game. If we're gonna compete in the knife fight that will be ads of Black Friday, Cyber Monday, where CPMs are going up, you need to arm yourself with the ride activation offer for new customers. If we're gonna play the discount game, you need to do over, like, 30% just to, like, rise up from the noise, or be really aggressive with limited time offers with BOGOs, all of those things. The second thing is, what product do you have for new customer acquisition that is the best representation of your brand?
Speaker 2:Because ideally, if you have a high retention based product, whether it's like fashion or consumables, whatever that is, the product will be the acquisition that leads to retention down the road. So that's something that I'm thinking through with new customer acquisition. Obviously, we have margins with we have inventory of. If we're doing the retention game, I really like to get creative with baking in discounts into bigger bundles. So while they're saving more, you're increasing your average order value.
Speaker 2:Right? Because you've already won them over with the brand, ideally. So those are two things. Like, get your go to market offer right for Black Friday, Monday. The second thing is if we're gonna scale this thing up, when do we start to do it?
Speaker 2:Do you see people do it earlier and earlier, and there's kind of memes going around. Like, oh, we started Black Friday, Cyber Monday in in February. I actually kind of agree with that, because the worst thing that can happen is you do it too late. And people are like, oh, that's awesome. I'd love to buy the thing, but I already spent all my gifting money a week ago on, like, x y z brand.
Speaker 2:And you're like, crap. So we are starting sooner than later, but we'll roll it out to, like, VIPs, to emails, and then go broad. So really think through when to start. We have people that are doing Black November, which is kind of aggressive, but we're doing that or starting, like, at least ten days out from Black Friday. The other thing, this is getting a little tactical.
Speaker 2:In the old days of Facebook ads, we would do like new ads every day with a new offer. The way the algorithm works, that's not a good idea because you need to have your ad run to where it gets out of learning mode and into optimization mode. So if you're switching out and do a bunch of new ads, you're never gonna learn. So what we like to do is this carousel type of ad that talks about all the different offers and things we're doing for the holiday. Or let's say your best giveaway or campaign is, like, 60% off.
Speaker 2:It's like, check out our Black Friday, Cyber Monday deals with up to 60% off. So you have one master ad that can run for the full duration of your campaign. The second thing, have one main landing page where you're rotating out content. That way, you keep it easy from a tactical level. I made the mistake before where you do a bazillion ads, a bazillion landing pages, and you just pass out.
Speaker 2:And so I think simplicity is the key there. But the other thing is, like, factor in the q one hangover, because it is very real. And so as you're doing this strategy, still think through, like, how are we gonna hit our goals in q one? Those are some things that I'm thinking through and considering as we're going through, okay, are we gonna compete in this knife fight? If we do, here's how we do it.
Speaker 2:We have other brands that are like, I'm not playing in this game, and I'm gonna wait till q one when CPMs are lower, and I can create demand a little bit better.
Speaker 3:There's a lot there. I think a couple things I wanted to comment on for people to think more deeply about, like, you mentioned CPMs go up during the holidays, and, like, what that means for people is probably the cost per acquisition you got used to earlier in the year, that all goes up during a couple weeks there. Probably four weeks where everything gets out of whack, and you're wondering, like, what's going on? Yeah. That's what it is.
Speaker 3:Everybody else is trying to advertise. Everyone's pushing more budget into it, so the price goes up. Meanwhile, you're probably discounting your products more, as you mentioned as well. So, like, you're paying more for advertising, and you're actually making less profit, which is pretty annoying. Just the way it is.
Speaker 3:Welcome to ecommerce. But Jim, you mentioned, like, picking the right product to discount. Maybe we can dive into that a little bit more. I think for new customer acquisition, you mentioned a product that most represents your brand, so they'll come back. Like, can you dive into that a little deeper?
Speaker 2:Yeah. Absolutely. We'll go with a few examples. So first, like, make a product that, like, ideally has a low return rate, has a high satisfaction rate, that's already been kind of tested. It's like, okay.
Speaker 2:People like this. We don't have sizing issues, all those things. Because there's nothing worse than having great sales, and then your return rate's like 60%, and then you go into depression mode. Look, I've been there. And so it's like factor that in.
Speaker 2:But as far as a product that's the best representation of the brand, let's see. We had one client that is size inclusive fashion. And people that were different sizes really love the t shirt. And what's nice about it is it's an approachable it's expensive. It's $50, but it's an approachable price in the sense that it's an impulse purchase.
Speaker 2:There were really good margins on it and a low return rate. Counter to that, we also know pants. Like, in fashion, if you win pants, you can win the customer. The issue there are size issues for new customer acquisition, so you'd wanna be very cautious with that. But if you're like Allbirds, it's like the Allbird runners are your flagship product.
Speaker 2:Right? If it's Spanx, it's like, what's the key shapewear product? Because if you're buying for yourself or if it's giftable, you wanna have that thing that has the story to it where you win the room. You know, when everyone's handing out gifts, blah blah blah. And it's like, oh, you got me the Bombas socks.
Speaker 2:Every pair you buy, they give to someone in need. That's amazing. So what can you do that has that kind of, like, in the game of telephone, has the, like, virality or special sauce built into it?
Speaker 4:A question, especially around the gifting. Is there a way to think out or stats as far as price points? Maybe there's white elephant gifts or certain party gifts that are in between $20 and $40 or something like that. And the reason I'm asking that is I'm trying to think if there's a product that's almost like the gateway drug to the next product too, that could be a great way to look at it.
Speaker 2:Yeah. That's a great point. You hit another good point. I mentioned having, like, core landing pages for these campaigns and offers. And some of the best filtering we have is, like, products under $50, under $40, or under a $100.
Speaker 2:That way, you meet the customer where they're at. If you have something that's giftable, that's probably what they're thinking too. Because you're not competing if you're a fashion company. You're competing with other fashion brands. You're competing with other gift options in that price range.
Speaker 2:Right? So I think that's a really good call out. The other thing though is we have some brands where it's more about gifting yourself, where if you can do bundles or sneak away where, hey, buy something for your sister and get it for yourself as well, that can be nice as well. We have really good success when we can do bundles the right way. And you can get creative in how you, like, position it and whatnot.
Speaker 2:But because people's wallets are open, they're a little more price insensitive in q four. And you brought a really good point around, you're gonna be taking a hit on margins, but I like to not take a hit on AOV. I wanna increase that. So it's kinda trying to balance it out a little bit.
Speaker 3:And we could dive into that a little bit more, particularly for people that are looking to maximize profit a bit more. Right? Where new customer acquisitions can be expensive, but I like the idea of bundling or building packages because, yeah, there is a bit of a race to the bottom. A lot of people, 30%, that might be your whole profit margin. You might not be able to afford 30%, but if you have a new bundle that's like, product x, get product y, you include it in a bundle, maybe that's a way to make it look like a better discount and still get the profit.
Speaker 3:Can you dive into a few more examples like that?
Speaker 2:We have some brands where they're like, Jim, we can't take hits on margins. We wanna compete, but what do we do? So, like, alright. Let's not take money away. Let's add value.
Speaker 2:So it's like, okay. Does that mean I have to, like, throw in more products? Potentially. We have a brand where they do fashion and their dresses can have kinda tight margins, but then they have jewelry, which has really good margins. So that's where they can compete when they're pairing outfits.
Speaker 2:Another thing, it it doesn't always have to be a core product to what you sell. We have a brand that's all about travel, and they throw in luggage tags. They actually throw in e products, which are like minimal costs and high high margin, and that goes on top of what you're paying. So the perceived value is really high, but the cost to the brand is really low. Right?
Speaker 2:And so I I think there's ways you can get creative and and play with that. You could even sometimes include access. We've had good success with mystery packs with some brands where you're like, it's it's a big discount, but like, oh, it's a mystery. And, yes, you wanna include products they absolutely want, but you can have inventory you're sitting on, and it's opportunity that, hey, maybe they'll like it, and it's a way for you to kind of, like, sell through that.
Speaker 3:Yeah. I love the add on product, by the way. This is something I'm working on as well, where 10% off is, like, that's cash out of your pocket. Right? Yeah.
Speaker 3:But if you give a free product that has an perceived value of 10%, customer essentially thinks they're getting 10% off, but that free product, maybe you only paid for half of that. So, like, you are in effect giving 5% off, but it looks like 10%. Or, you know, obviously, work with your own margins, but I think it's a good way to offer something up. People need that little extra push to put their credit card in your stores.
Speaker 2:Oh, absolutely. We have this company. They do jammies for pit bulls, and they started throwing in matching outfits for the owner. But it kinda felt like a discount, but they're increasing AOV, and I I just love seeing people get creative with it.
Speaker 3:I think that cuts to the noise too on Facebook, for instance. On Facebook and Instagram, you have to stop the scroll TikTok. You know, like, 10% off, 30% off. Does that really do much?
Speaker 2:I don't People become numb. They get fatigued with it. You you gotta, like, do pattern interruption. You're you're totally right. Alright.
Speaker 2:So we
Speaker 3:talked a little bit about discounting, kind of plans for that. I also heard you mention quite a few, we'll call them email buzzwords there. So knowing that you also handle email, other tips for emails to be
Speaker 2:sent during this season. It's all about pattern interruption. Like, people's inboxes are going to be exploding. So what are the things you can do? So these are some things.
Speaker 2:I wouldn't say they're scalable. You could probably deploy them once in your business life. But one thing to do is the accidental internal email that gets leaked. That is a text email from the founder internally where you're like, hey. What if we gave everybody this free product?
Speaker 2:And you make it look like it got leaked out to the entire email list, and then you send the oops email. It's like, oops. We messed up. But we're gonna respect that offer we talked about. Because guess what?
Speaker 2:Whenever you see a subject line where someone's ignore the last email, you never ignore it. You're like, where did they mess up? Let me go check that out. That's one thing that can be done. I do like doing pattern interruption with text based emails as well.
Speaker 2:Another thing you can do is format an email, like a confirmation email, where it's like, you kinda use the headline with a confirmation type of order, and then inside it's like, this could be yours for this, like, new offer. Again, these could be borderline click baity, and is it on brand for you? If it's not, don't do it. But if we're thinking outside the box and thinking of pattern interruption, those are things that I'm thinking through. But what we're traditionally deploying is I'm a big fan of the launch formula by Jeff Walker, which is around prelaunch, launch, postlaunch.
Speaker 2:And the moral of this story, the TLDR is, the money is in the reminder email. It's amazing how important that is. And I'm not a huge subscriber to just email your list more. I do think people probably aren't sending enough emails, but I'm a big proponent of doing, like, one to two levels of segmentation. Like, do they like men's products?
Speaker 2:Do they like women's products? What geography are they in? If you can use that context, and if you can be smart with your reminders and follow ups during this time, it can work extremely well. Like, there's one brand I won't call out, but it's a big brand. And I love the brand, but their email still has me getting, like, women's clothes.
Speaker 2:I was like, you would have so much more money from me if you just segment to have men's clothes, and you would remind me of these amazing deals you're doing through Black Friday, Cyber Monday. For
Speaker 3:sure. Good tips. Obviously, there's segmentation available on Mailchimp, Klaviyo. So the tools are there for everybody wondering. Yeah.
Speaker 4:And when you mentioned the term clickbait, I think people have almost come to realize, if you said, it's a beautiful day today. Remember when we used to have newspapers? If it said that on there, you would just say, yeah, it is. I'm I'm going to the beach. It's a beautiful day.
Speaker 4:Wouldn't buy the newspaper. How's the same war? Or, you know, some crazy things going on for you to pay attention to it. But that said, I think what people don't want is they don't wanna be bait and switched. They just don't want you to promise them something and then try to give them something else.
Speaker 2:Oh, yeah. And they don't wanna feel bamboozled or misled, because then they're they're not gonna like your brand. So, yeah, I totally agree. It's a fine line, but there's ways you you can definitely have fun with it.
Speaker 3:Yeah. I also heard borderline clickbait. So, you know, that's every now and then, you wanna get a little extra traffic there. There's the kind of this debate of do you send enough email, too much email, etcetera. But there's, like, this one week of the year where pretty much all bets are off.
Speaker 3:Like, if there's a part of your list you hadn't sent to in a long time, the email during Thanksgiving week or the week after is probably, like, it's okay. I'm gonna get three or four emails from Home Depot for, like, fourteen days straight. Right? It's okay if you send once a week to people you haven't sent in a year or so.
Speaker 2:Totally agree. And depending on your price point, we've seen that brands that have a higher average order value, maybe over $200, they need more frequency to see the option, see the offer, go back and forth, consider it. Maybe they need to bring in a spouse or something to make that decision. So you need those. Like, we had one client where we would send emails in the morning, and then we'd send that reminder at night.
Speaker 2:And that night reminder always worked. And we would track, like, wow. They've gone back to the website eight times to see if they're gonna buy these things. And so depending on, like, price point that can impact impulse purchases, you can usually get it off of that first touch. But, no, you're exactly right.
Speaker 2:This is the time where you could have a dormant list where, hey, this is reactivation time. If they're ever gonna convert, it is now, so let's be aggressive. Or it's with the existing customer base that, hey, these people are busy. Let's ensure we're giving them nudges and testing different times of day. Because a lot of times, people are busy during the day, so they need that reminder at nighttime to do it when they have a little bit more space.
Speaker 2:So we're ready to spam people.
Speaker 3:We'll move away from email for a second, we don't get ourselves into trouble. But what are some kind of your playlist of tactics that you have for people we didn't touch up on yet that you might recommend?
Speaker 2:Just in general as opposed to Black Friday, Cyber Monday? Yeah. Absolutely. You hear these phrases in growth, like product led growth, founder led growth. For ecommerce and direct to consumer brands, I'm obsessed with the idea of offer led growth.
Speaker 2:And so what does that mean? So let's go to the bad case of what can happen. Let's say you start a ecommerce website, a rubber band. You've got a cool website. You've got a cool product.
Speaker 2:You put it out there, and no one cares. And the worst thing that can happen is they think it's cool, and they're like, oh, maybe later. There's no urgency. And the reason why people can go wrong is they just think if you build it, they will come. You have to make something and think through the activation offer in mind.
Speaker 2:Because ask yourself, if someone comes to my website, they're skeptical, they're on mobile, they have no time, what could you put in front of them that wasn't like, crap. I've gotta buy this right now. And so I like starting with that. I mean, having an amazing product is a non negotiable. Solve a real problem is ideal.
Speaker 2:But on top of that, how do you pair that with an offer? So let's define offer. What I mean when I say they're like, wait, is Jim talking more about discounts than BOGO's? I am not. And BOGO's buy one get one.
Speaker 2:So the offer is around a few different things. What is the transformation this product gives us? What is the time delay till gratification of this transformation? What's the likelihood I get that? What is the risk reversal so I feel confident in it?
Speaker 2:What's my effort or sacrifice to pull this off, and are there any guarantees? So to give an example, you've got, like, Curology, which is personalized skincare. So they're going after people with acne. Their guarantee was, we're gonna give you the product for free. We're gonna do a customized formula.
Speaker 2:And if you'll like it, your money back. So it's essentially this no brainer offer. Because if you have an amazing product with an amazing offer, you are gonna make your job as a marketer and as a conversion team so much easier. So that's something that I like to think through. So that's kind of like step one.
Speaker 2:Right? The other thing is when people are launching, like, okay. I need to put my brand out there. I would argue you do not need to put your brand out there. You need to put your flagship product out there that is paired with that offer.
Speaker 2:If we look at some of the top consumer brands out there, they launch on the back of one product. Right? Whether it's like Allbirds and the wool runners, Universal Standard and the travel Geneva dress. What is that product that's gonna kinda get you to the promised land? And as you're speaking to customers on the product, another issue I see people make is they talk about the website is basically like, we're awesome.
Speaker 2:Look at this awesome product. The keyword is you. Right? So in your marketing, in the website, use second person and understand the problem this solves or the transformation it leads to. And if it's solving a problem, how can you pour salt in that wound even more?
Speaker 2:Because the more you talk about the problem you solve, the more your product is perceived as a better solution. I think a lot of people don't think to them as much we talk about features and maybe benefits too much. I am more obsessed with what problem are we solving. And if you can take it a step further to understand a use case, that is huge. And my favorite example of selling on use case is probably Spanx, because they created a category with Shapewear.
Speaker 2:Right? So in the book, the 22 immutable laws of marketing, it says, if you can't be number one in your category, create your own. So Spanx is like, alright. We're creating Shapewear. And here's the thing.
Speaker 2:If they went to market and they sold on features or they sold on, like, hey, we are shapewear, people will be like, I have no idea what you're talking about. You're you're panting pantyhose. Like, I'm out. But they sold on use case. And for them, they're like, hey, do you wanna wear white pants and not show a panty line?
Speaker 2:Do wanna wear that silk dress and not be self conscious on, like, how it shows your body? Use Spanx. Those two use cases got them to 8 figures. So, again, when we're launching ecommerce company, it's so daunting. You'd like, oh my gosh.
Speaker 2:I have to do all these things. I'd like, no. Help with your flagship product. Understand the problem you solve. What is that use case where it wins?
Speaker 2:And then pair it with an amazing activation offer. If you do that right, you're gonna have the core things going. So the next question is, like, alright. Got it. I got my amazing product, my offer.
Speaker 2:How do I drive traffic? What do I do? Well, one of my favorite things is think of the order of how you have to acquire people. You need early adopters, you need fast followers, and then you go to the masses. So if we have three different personas, how do we speak to them and where they are?
Speaker 2:So if you go after early adopters, you know how you talk to them? It's through benefits. It's actually nerding out on some of those features. We're just kinda countering what I'm saying until we get to the offer. Because if they're early adopters, they already have a problem.
Speaker 2:They're using other things to solve it. They haven't found your solution yet. Right? So, like, oh my gosh. Like, Spanx, you exist.
Speaker 2:This is amazing. I've been using, like, these other pride. I've been making it myself. Thank you. If it's fast followers, we speak to them differently in the sense that they have a problem, but they don't know how to solve it.
Speaker 2:They haven't nerded out on us. It's like the brand we just acquired, Kneed Apparel. We're going after people that you're in Texas, it's 90 degrees, and you're sweating through your shirt. They want a sweat proof shirt. So it's like, hey.
Speaker 2:Do you want a shirt you can wear to a festival and not look like you just ran a marathon? Use kneed apparel. Right? Wear our shirts. And so if you can speak to use case, and if he can speak to that, that's huge.
Speaker 2:But the question is, where can you find these people online? And with those early adopters and fast followers, I like doing more of a bottoms up approach with community based marketing. And one thing that you can do is I build essentially a database of different communities, influencers, bloggers that will get me to essentially over, like, 50,000 high intent people that I can get in front of. And then I think through, how can I infiltrate those communities or groups in a way where it's all about giving first and just adding value in an authentic way? Because if you come at it salesy, it's not gonna work.
Speaker 2:And so, again, one of my favorite examples of this is Ballin Nursing Shoes. What they did was they ex Nike team that made shoes for nurses, they interviewed 300 nurses. They then connected with every nurse influencer. And on their launch, they record a video. It's a really funny, well done video.
Speaker 2:But here's what's impressive about it. Everyone in the video is an actual nurse or a nurse influencer. So they launched the video. All of a sudden, all these nurse influencers are reposting it on Instagram, on YouTube. They did 1,500,000.0 in sales in forty eight hours by creating that thunderclap of noise by knowing their community and launching on the back of it.
Speaker 2:And so I see a lot of people wanting to take a shortcut just to throw money at ads, which I wanna do that too, but that can be really hard to get ROI positive out of the gate. So doing the scrappy bottoms up stuff, community based marketing can have a big impact. I was
Speaker 3:gonna interrupt you earlier on the offer led growth. I haven't heard that before or left or recently anyway. But I think if I'm a merchant listening to this right now at the gym, sitting at the desk, listening to a podcast, how can you apply that? And I think of think about your homepage, and I bet when you made that homepage the first time, you were thinking about yourself. Right?
Speaker 3:Like, hey, here's my products. It's great. And I think for people that have been around for a while, take a look at your homepage and go through that process of, am I solving a problem here? Is there ways to maybe I change tile number two to really talk about that problem and the the solution, and then get through to the offer. I also think that people are not putting that irresistible offer upfront.
Speaker 3:They assume that they've built this better mousetrap, and where are my sales? What happened?
Speaker 2:Yeah. It's so easy just to be like, my product's awesome. People are gonna convert. Really always be that skeptical person. And one thing, ask yourself, as people go through the funnel, do they always know what that offer is?
Speaker 2:Like, we'll do this very simple thing. We'll have a sticky footer at the bottom where it's like, hey, did you know if you're a first time customer, you get this? And that has been huge. And even, like, with kneed apparel, we're testing some. I'll be very transparent.
Speaker 2:We're doing one around a bundle where we're doing a discount. We're doing another aggressive offer that's like the no sweat guarantee. And then we're doing a free tea campaign if people refer the product. And we're gonna be testing all three to see what's the best thing for activation. Because if I'm about to put a lot of money into paid, I wanna feel that I am black belt and being able to convert them.
Speaker 2:And because we have more of a retention business model where we'll be making money on the second, third, and fourth purchase, I feel okay breaking even on that first purchase. I don't know if I wanna lose money yet, but it's more of a retention play. Whereas if I'm Casper Mattress or somebody where it's more of an acquisition based business model as opposed to retention, where it's like one conversion in a lifetime or a year, I gotta make money on that first purchase. You can still do amazing offers with acquisition based businesses, but it's more around the guarantee risk reversal, free trials, things like that.
Speaker 3:Got it. Makes sense. So you're really focused on that first offer. I think that's good fuel for people's brain there to to think about that irresistible offer. And maybe we can dive into a little bit more of the community management.
Speaker 3:Like, one, hey. By the way, there's nurse influencers, everybody. Hey. How do you So we know there's nurse influencers. So maybe help people think through the process of where's their community or where can they access influencers for themselves?
Speaker 2:So it could be as black and white as, oh, we're making shoes for nurses. Let me find nurse influencers. A lot of times, it's not that easy. So, like, oh, I need to get influencers. I'd have you pause and be like, don't just get influencers for the sake of getting influencers or because they photograph well.
Speaker 2:Because all of, like, TikTok videos have transcripts, you could start to search to see who's talking about the problem that you're solving. And I'd look for influencers around your problem to go after. Because those are the ones that will give a more authentic endorsement that you can go after. And we've tested man, we've failed so many times with influencers, but we've had it work where it's like, is it micro influencers or big influencers? And I've wasted money on both because we thought it looked good on paper.
Speaker 2:Where it had worked is, like, do they have an actual engaged audience where there's proof of buying things in the past? And even if it's a small following that has higher intent, I'm much more interested in that. So those are things I'm thinking through as far as, like, community and influencers. But the other big thing to consider is and you create a movement. Right?
Speaker 2:I mean, if we look at some of the best brands, they're almost cult like. Right? Look at CrossFit and, like, the the movement that has become. You know, Everlane had radical transparency. Tom's shoes was a one for one.
Speaker 2:So are you trying to lean into mission and move? And if so, that's amazing. I will say a lot of people try this, and it's not authentic. So only do it if it's very true to the brand and then what you're putting out there. But that's another way to try and mine, like, who the right communities and influencers are.
Speaker 3:Yeah. We went on too much time left here. Is there another tip you wanna leave our audience with?
Speaker 2:Yeah. Absolutely. I think one thing that I would say is we can sit here and talk about, like, hey. Let's drive traffic through paid, through non paid. One thing I would push you on, the brands that go to the next level of growth, the brands that can break, like, from 500 k to a million, they are able to turn their customers into marketers.
Speaker 2:Right? And so how do you think about doing that? And there's there's a few different ways. Right? We can incentivize people like, hey.
Speaker 2:After the purchase, share with a friend. We'll give you a free product. Sharing your social, we'll we'll give you this. But are you making a frictionless way for people to put this out there and share? Because there's a lot of products I really like where if they nudge me, I would definitely talk about it.
Speaker 2:Right? And so that's something that we're thinking through. Because if you're growing strictly on paid ads, it can be really dangerous because you're dependent on an algorithm. It's gonna get more and more inefficient as you grow. If you can find other channels or if you build the infrastructure to turn your customers into marketers, that's amazing.
Speaker 2:And so that's something that even with, like, me and apparel, that's what I'm starting with. In our first purchase email flow, we're doing a lot of aggressive campaigns to incentivize you to share this with your network. Because I would rather pay my customer or give them free product to tell a friend than give more money to Google and Facebook. So that's something that I think about quite a bit. And there's also ways to do customer services marketing to do this, because customer service is a form of marketing.
Speaker 2:It's like when you go to a restaurant, they mess up your order, then they bring out a free dessert with a candle. You're like, oh, I love this restaurant now. What's the equivalent of that for ecommerce? Even Amazon in the early days, they would say, oh, your product will be there in seven days. And then they'd exit, but I did to get you the product in two days.
Speaker 2:And they would do that for the first purchase. So you had this magic moment. So then you would tell friends. So there's lots of ways to engineer referrals or word-of-mouth. And so those are things I'm thinking through.
Speaker 2:How we can surprise and delight through referral mechanisms or customer service. Because if you win someone over in the first thirty days, you can win them for life. And we don't talk about that user journey in us. Think about the brands you fell in love with in the first thirty days. What did they do to make a delightful experience?
Speaker 3:Yeah. I love that. I think even myself or on this podcast, we talk a lot of acquisition tactics, and you wanna get that first sale. But first sale is really not that profitable. How do you get the second, third lifetime customer?
Speaker 3:Really good, helpful feedback. Reggie, I can see your brain working. Any questions for Jim before we go?
Speaker 4:Oh, I could talk to Jim for hours just listening and loving his input there. I would probably just add something and see if he had any comments on it. The magic of the share button is so underlooked. We always want views. We want comments.
Speaker 4:Want people to bookmark it, save it, but that share is magical. There were plenty video hosting platforms out there before YouTube, but YouTube was able to make that share button very easy. And when you can make something that someone wants to share, and that sounds a lot easier than what I just said. It was just a sentence. Make something someone wants to share.
Speaker 4:That's not a video that's this is how cool our product is. Right? It's something that somebody feels like the friend they share it with is going to laugh, is going to cries. Whatever the thing may be, it's gonna move them somehow. What makes a good movie?
Speaker 4:Just don't let me walk in the same way I walked out. Move me motion. Make me laugh. Make me cry. Make me sad.
Speaker 4:Do something to me. But if I walk out of that movie theater the same way I walked in, it probably wasn't a good movie. It helps whether you're making an ad and they share it, whether it's organic and they share it, no matter how you do it. An email and they share it. If it's something that someone wants to share, it's just magical.
Speaker 2:And that's such a good point, because there's two examples I'm thinking too. There's one brand we worked with where we did a campaign where it's like, if you share this on your Instagram page, we will give you a product. We'll do something. And we struck out with it a bunch because we didn't nail the image. Because if someone's gonna put it on their platform, it represents their beliefs, what they stand for.
Speaker 2:So having something that will reflect them, you need to think if they're gonna post this, how are they now perceived by their friends? Are they looked at as in the know, intelligent, righteous, funny? Like, what is that? And we ended up settling on this really nice piece of user generated content I wouldn't have thought of out of the gate. You got too fancy with the creative, and that's the one that really worked and resonated.
Speaker 2:But, again, that's a one to many share. If it's a one to one share, it's like, what is that, like, language to a friend? And so we've had the best success when it's a personal note from the founder asking, and then they do that. As opposed to there's a lot of tools out there you can use for referrals and shares, but we become numb to those. You're kinda fatigued by them.
Speaker 2:Like, oh, $20 if I refer a friend. Okay. Whatever. You just gotta do that pattern interruption. Something that, like, speaks to this early doctor, the fast followers in their language that they get, where you have your own kind of code.
Speaker 2:That's where it can work. Like, it's not necessarily an ecommerce, but James Clear did one, the author, around getting a secret chapter if you share with a buddy through email, and he blew up his email list with that. And I I always think of that example of, like, what's the ecommerce example of that secret chapter if you share it with friend? I I think you're right on there.
Speaker 3:Yeah. That's some good stuff. Jim, you used the word. It was more like engineering a viral moment, or maybe I mishmashed something there. But, like, yeah.
Speaker 3:Great. You sold something, but how do you engineer the share or engineer the virality? Gives me something to think about. So, Jim, if people are interested in learning more about you, the agency, where should they go to find out more or follow you?
Speaker 2:Yeah. Or just say growthhead.com. There's two h's. I don't know if that was a good idea or not to have two h's. I'm just jim at growthhead dot com.
Speaker 2:But, yeah, hit us up. Always happy to talk ecommerce and growth. We love nerding out on this stuff. And if you wanna watch us fail or succeed in public, we'll see. You can go to neatapparel.com to see what we're gonna try and do with our new brand.
Speaker 2:But, yeah, this has been a blast. It's fun to go deep on this stuff. So I really appreciate you guys having me.
Speaker 3:Yeah. Love nerding out on ecommerce and strategies. I got my mind turning. Hopefully, everyone out there listening is also got their mind turning, and, you know, whether that's to make it a successful Black Friday, or just in the future, you know what to do everybody. Get out there and make it happen.
Speaker 3:Bye bye.
Speaker 1:I'll give a few plugs. First, I send a weekly newsletter each Thursday featuring five articles or tools that have helped me. You can sign up for these weekly updates at jimwhuffman.com. Second, for anyone running a startup, if you need help growing your business, check out GrowthHit. GrowthHit serves as your external growth team.
Speaker 1:After working with over a 100 startups and generating a quarter billion in sales for clients, Growthit has perfected a growth process that's hell bent on driving ROI through rapid experiments. Plus, you'll get to work with yours truly. So if you wanna work with a team that's worked with startups have been funded by Andreessen Horowitz or featured on Shark Tank, then check out growthhit.com. And finally, I wrote a book called the Growth Marketer's Playbook that takes everything I've learned as a growth mentor for venture backed startups and I've distilled it down to a 140 pages. So instead of hiring a growth team, save yourself some money, get the book and you can just do it yourself.
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