2X eCommerce Podcast

On today's episode, we interview Derek O’Carroll, CEO of Brightpearl, a cloud-based ERP for retailers and wholesalers. So Brightpearl carried on research on the root causes of low TrustPilot reviews for retailers and balled it down to poor post-purchase customer experience caused by poor backend processes. 

We talk about, 

• Every customer who leaves feedback is now an influencer - and every potential buyer is ready to be influenced.
• Delivery, service, refund and returns were the most predominant terms used in 1-star ratings
• Digital native brands undergoing channel expansion should watch cash flow, margins, inventory and deliveries.
• The difference in revenue between merchants with an average of 3 stars and 5 stars with a 30% increase in lifetime value revenue
• Focus on the operational aspects of your business
• Get very clear on the experience you want your customers' to have using a workflow for starters

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FACEBOOK GROUP...CONTINUE OUR CONVERSATION

The eCommerce GrowthAccelerator Mastermind Facebook Group has just launched. It is a community...    ✔️ for founders and experts passionately involved in eCommerce  ✔️ for the truly ambitious wanting to make an impact in the markets they serve ✔️ for those willing and open to help and share with other members   Here is where to apply to join the Facebook group >>http://bit.ly/ecommercefb

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On today's episode, we are joined by Anmol Oberoi, Founder of Emitrr - a voice commerce platform for eCommerce merchants and also an Amazon Partner for voice commerce.

We talk about,

• Core voice commerce concepts and why now is the right time for eCommerce merchants to start adoption. 
• Amazon's Alexa's current dominance in the voice space
• Quantifying voice commerce outside of Amazon's domain
• The convergence of voice and display screens with devices such as Echo Show
• Current limitations of Alexa outside of the home environment
• Stages of the customer journey, merchants should consider voice commerce
• Best practices for designing voice UI?
• The current size of the voice commerce space and what lies ahead in the future

Anmol also talks about five fundamental pillars to your voice commerce strategy,

1. Focus on the user as real estate is limited 
2. Environment and context awareness
3. There is no hierarchy in Voice
4. Linguistics
5. Focus on delivering short responses

It is a tactic and strategy-packed episode!

 

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FACEBOOK GROUP...CONTINUE OUR CONVERSATION

The eCommerce GrowthAccelerator Mastermind Facebook Group has just launched. It is a community...    ✔️ for founders and experts passionately involved in eCommerce  ✔️ for the truly ambitious wanting to make an impact in the markets they serve ✔️ for those willing and open to help and share with other members   Here is where to apply to join the Facebook group >>http://bit.ly/ecommercefb

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Our final KlaviyoBOS interview was with Eric Bandholz, the founder of men’s grooming company, Beardbrand. Eric shared marketing strategies that helped him scale his brand and discussed how embracing owned marketing has helped him build a thriving business off Amazon. 

Here is a summary of what was discussed: 

• They are bootstrapped and decided to be creative in order to drive traffic through
• YouTube is Beardbrand's major top of funnel traffic source with 1 million subscribers and just over 1,000 episodes so far.
• They nurture traffic with mid-of-funnel and bottom-of-funnel retargeting
• YouTube is not looking for high production content - they are looking for authenticity
• BeardBrand Alliance - is a new YouTube channel that they intend posting only 'How to' videos
• Eric is an embodiment of the brand, he is passionate about telling their story 
• They are also in bricks-and-mortar stores but not on Amazon, eBay or Jet.
• No traffic source generates over 25% of sales
• Email acquisition is a central focal point
• Email marketing accounts for 15% of sales and they set up their automated flows since 2015

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FACEBOOK GROUP...CONTINUE OUR CONVERSATION

The eCommerce GrowthAccelerator Mastermind Facebook Group has just launched. It is a community...    ✔️ for founders and experts passionately involved in eCommerce  ✔️ for the truly ambitious wanting to make an impact in the markets they serve ✔️ for those willing and open to help and share with other members   Here is where to apply to join the Facebook group >>http://bit.ly/ecommercefb

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Another KlaviyoBOS interview with Jon Palmer, Marketing Director at HYLETE, an innovative community built, backed, and driven fitness apparel brand, with 20-40% YOY growth, 50% of revenue tracked via Klaviyo Click, 80% average open rate on flows and powered by 200+ behavioral flow emails.

We talk about how Jon's team us Klaviyo as CRM that glues otherwise siloed customer touchpoints into a coherent and personalised customer journey flow. 

Here is a summary of what was discussed: 

• Pass data from all customer touchpoints to Klaviyo with Klaviyo's API
• Touchpoints HYLETE integrate include SMS, reviews, their loyalty program, customer service and referral marketing
• They are able to power their winback campaigns with data from loyalty programs e.g. sending emails to customers that have points about to expire.
• They send out referral program applications to customers that have given them 5-star ratings
• They use surveys, quizzes and forms to enrich their customer data
• They send direct mail postcards to unsubscribers, low engagers and cart abandoners that have provided their postal details

 

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FACEBOOK GROUP...CONTINUE OUR CONVERSATION

The eCommerce GrowthAccelerator Mastermind Facebook Group has just launched. It is a community...    ✔️ for founders and experts passionately involved in eCommerce  ✔️ for the truly ambitious wanting to make an impact in the markets they serve ✔️ for those willing and open to help and share with other members   Here is where to apply to join the Facebook group >>http://bit.ly/ecommercefb

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In this KlaviyoBOS interview with Erich Hellstrom, Chubbies' own creative email expert extraordinaire, we learn about how Chubbies incorporates their brand values and internal culture into both their email newsletters and email flows. In fact, at every customer touchpoint, you can distinctly identify a Chubbies message, as their voice and tone is witty and fun all round. 

Here is a summary of what was discussed:

• The first principle is scheduled consistency - they achieve this by sending out their 'weekender' newsletter every Friday,
• Relevance: their apparel is most likely to be won over a weekend or holiday and so deliberately send out their newsletter on Fridays,
• They have a stand-up comedian in their creative team,
• They test email subject lines like crazy and incorporate sender name, subject line and email preview line to write really funny emails that get people to open their emails more,
• They have an app and so do push-notifications through their app and send 3 notifications a week! 

 

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FACEBOOK GROUP...CONTINUE OUR CONVERSATION

The eCommerce GrowthAccelerator Mastermind Facebook Group has just launched. It is a community...    ✔️ for founders and experts passionately involved in eCommerce  ✔️ for the truly ambitious wanting to make an impact in the markets they serve ✔️ for those willing and open to help and share with other members   Here is where to apply to join the Facebook group >>http://bit.ly/ecommercefb

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In this interview with Reza Khadjavi, CEO of Shoelace. He tells us why the era of paid advertising arbitrage is over and how marketing should evolve with the rising cost of CAC and the need to serve the right messages at the right stage of their customer journey.

Here is a summary of what was discussed:

• The early 2010s was the golden age of Facebook and Google advertising which gave rise the direct-to-consumer boom
• Brands made profitable sales on the first transaction which is very difficult to do now
• Brand is important to drive retention
• How do we do brand? Storytelling (Outdoor Voices tells its customers that they do not need to be athletic to use their gear)
• What role does paid advertising play?
• How do you use paid advertising at the mid-funnel and bottom-funnel with effective retargeting 
• Get started with storytelling - who is the customer and how does their life change when they buy from us?

 

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FACEBOOK GROUP...CONTINUE OUR CONVERSATION

The eCommerce GrowthAccelerator Mastermind Facebook Group has just launched. It is a community...    ✔️ for founders and experts passionately involved in eCommerce  ✔️ for the truly ambitious wanting to make an impact in the markets they serve ✔️ for those willing and open to help and share with other members   Here is where to apply to join the Facebook group >>http://bit.ly/ecommercefb

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So back in Season 3 Episode 49, I interviewed Jan Soerensen from Nosto about the role of artificial intelligence in eCommerce personalization.

I got to catch up with Jan at Klaviyo:BOS '19 and we had a chat about how agile e-tailers are merging onsite personalization with their email flows and campaigns.

Here is a summary of our discussion:

• Personalization powers product recommendations, product bundles as well as 2-point predictive segments,
• Image tracking recognition is making improvements in ecommerce personalization
• Nosto can serve dynamic content and product recommendations to Klaviyo emails
• The next development of onsite and offsite segmentation will be AI understanding and creating segments for marketers
• At the moment we have Predictive segmentation in place assisted by data science and marketing teams,
• Verticalisation: fashion and beauty are the most innovative verticals
• SKU count: personalisation is not limited to high SKU counts. DTC brands use personalisation for the creation of onsite funnels e.g. VIPs or returning customers see different 

 

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FACEBOOK GROUP...CONTINUE OUR CONVERSATION

The eCommerce GrowthAccelerator Mastermind Facebook Group has just launched. It is a community...    ✔️ for founders and experts passionately involved in eCommerce  ✔️ for the truly ambitious wanting to make an impact in the markets they serve ✔️ for those willing and open to help and share with other members   Here is where to apply to join the Facebook group >>http://bit.ly/ecommercefb

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Interview #2 at KlaviyoBOS '19 with Jeremy Horowitz from the Messenger Mastermind Podcast. Jeremy talks about the pressing importance to invest in owned marketing channels, with his favourite being email, Facebook messenger, push notifications and SMS.

Here has a very interesting take on execution,

• Don't repeat the exact message across messaging channels
• Use a follow-up chain approach i.e. level SMS follow email with a message like 'did you get our email?'
• Owned marketing is significantly cheaper than paid, invest in these channels early on.
• Map out your plan in a coordinated way, time of day, time week, message
• 2-4 week cadence
• Cross-pollinating lists - send email to get SMS subscribers
• 7-10 cents a message - SMS
• 1 cent a message
• Get email addresses, cell numbers, messenger and push notification subscriptions from customers.

Follow Jeremy:

Podcast: https://messengermastermind.co

Agency: https://erebral.com/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeremyhorowitz1/

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FACEBOOK GROUP...CONTINUE OUR CONVERSATION

The eCommerce GrowthAccelerator Mastermind Facebook Group has just launched. It is a community...    ✔️ for founders and experts passionately involved in eCommerce  ✔️ for the truly ambitious wanting to make an impact in the markets they serve ✔️ for those willing and open to help and share with other members   Here is where to apply to join the Facebook group >>http://bit.ly/ecommercefb

★ Support this podcast ★

So this is interview #1 at the Klaviyo:BOS 2019 conference with Will Critcher, Head of Direct Marketing, Death Wish Coffee. 

Will explains,

• Death Wish Coffee's newsletter strategy
• Their Monday 8 am morning emails
• How they only engagement with 350,000 from over 500,000 subscribers
• Huge open rates at 33%
• How Death Wish Coffee times content
• Why click rate is the most important metric in emails (pay attention to this one)
• How to talk to customers

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FACEBOOK GROUP...CONTINUE OUR CONVERSATION

The eCommerce GrowthAccelerator Mastermind Facebook Group has just launched. It is a community...    ✔️ for founders and experts passionately involved in eCommerce  ✔️ for the truly ambitious wanting to make an impact in the markets they serve ✔️ for those willing and open to help and share with other members   Here is where to apply to join the Facebook group >>http://bit.ly/ecommercefb

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So I am back from Boston after what was a pretty much an insanely exciting 2-day experience at #KlaviyoBOS ’19 conference.

The focus of the conference was on harnessing the power of #OwnedMarketing to effectively control your brand’s narrative, its story, as well as controlling your customer experience.

I was invited over as an official podcaster to cover the event and got the opportunity to interview and listen to founders and lead marketers at some leading direct-to-consumer brands like Beardbrand, Hint Inc. Death Wish Coffee Company, Kopari Beauty, Chubbies Shorts, HYLETE Athlete.

The recurring theme that has underlined their sustained growth beyond 1-time customer acquisition efforts has been their,

✔️ intentional ownership of their voice, identity and voracious energy to own and tell their story ✔️ understanding and full ownership of their customers' journeys ✔️ genuine drive to build customer relationships with relevant messaging ✔️ deep understanding of customer segments and do not treat all customers the same ✔️ use of #Klaviyo as a central CRM that is fed data from other customer touchpoints in order to drive more personalised messaging

I’m going to be focusing my marketing efforts more on developing customer relationships and customer lifetime marketing because that is where maximum value resides. You really get to execute your brands WHY when you seek to nurture long term relationships with customers. You are also not platform-dependent, which makes a lot of brands volatile.

Tell your story, be authentic, vulnerable and human. Act on first-party data and actions taken by your customers.

Build a legacy.

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