eCommerce Evolution

KetoBrownie (now rebranded as Sinless Snacks - https://www.sinlesssnacks.com/) started where a lot of great food brands start - in the founder’s kitchen.  Nick Raccuia’s story is a great one, full of insights and inspiration, successes and failures.  It includes nailing product development on a few products and failure with other products.  It covers periods of near burn out followed by the power of partnerships and strategic investors.  

Now Nick’s company produces two of my favorite sinless and guilt-free snacks: the original Keto Brownie and the Sinless Snacks cereal bar.  

Here’s a look at what we cover:

• Knowing your customer is the key to product launches. Learn from NIck’s product successes contrasted with a few painful flops.
• The benefits of a strategic investor and how to find them
• Not launching on Amazon soon enough
• Packaging and transit issues
• How obsessing over your customers and products leads to wins

While getting free PR for your brand isn’t easy, it’s not impossible. And the rewards can be huge.  Great companies and CEOs have always understood this. From Steve Jobs to Walt Disney to Richard Branson and others. Free press can be worth millions to your brand.   And you don’t have to be as dynamic as Richard Branson to get free PR.

Ali Karsh is the co-founder of LVPR, a PR company that works exclusively with cool DTC brands like NATIVE, Cloud Paper, Everyday Humans, and many others.  

In this episode, we condense Ali’s 15+ years of PR experience into a power-packed interview.  We cover the most important topics so you can start getting free PR now for your brand.  Here’s what we discuss:

• When’s the best time to engage with media?
• How to craft a compelling founder story that the media is eager to share?
• How the pandemic has made getting PR easier (and harder)
• LVPR’s 5 Rules for brands it works with
• What is commerce/affiliate PR and how it’s changing the PR game.
• Plus more!

Justus Murimi is a guy that once you meet him you’ll likely never forget him. Why? Justus is one of the best askers of questions that I’ve ever been around.  I first met Justus at Ryan Daniel Moran’s lake house in Austin Texas. It was a meeting of eCommerce investors. I was part of a group discussion with Justus and he was asking insightful question after insightful question. Then I had a chance to spend some time with him and we immediately hit it off. He has a knack for understanding entrepreneurs and helping them get unstuck.  He’s the Community Manager for the One Percent with Ryan Daniel Moran.  He’s also the head coach of the Incubator.  Every week he’s coaching, teaching, and mentoring eCommerce businesses at every stage of growth.  

I LOVE this topic.  While we don’t get super tactical, I believe this episode could prove to be one of the most helpful we’ve ever published.  

As entrepreneurs, we're all prone to getting stuck. And it’s not just a one-time deal. Depending on the stage or growth your business is in, you could get stuck for a variety of reasons. In this episode, I turn the tables on Justus and fire probing snd insightful questions his way. Here’s a look at what we cover. 

• How early-stage entrepreneurs are most likely to get stuck. 
• How to overcome overthinking and gain a new frame on failure
• Where growing businesses get stuck and how some entrepreneurs develop a messiah complex. 
• Where business owners fall short when preparing for an exit. 
• What role does fear play in getting stuck and getting unstuck

Who doesn’t love eating cookie dough with a spoon?  Having a tasty product that customers crave is helpful. That’s part of the reason DoughP (pronounced like dope) has been so successful.  But for the real reason behind DoughP’s amazing growth, look no further than the co-CEO team of Kelsey and Is.  Not only are they co-CEOs, they’re also married.  And they produce some addictively good cookie dough that’s shipped directly to your door 

There’s a lot we can learn from DoughP both from a branding and eCommerce growth perspective.  

Here’s a look at what we cover:

• When you get your branding right, marketing becomes easy
• How to detach and make unemotional decisions
• How to be fun, relevant and also have a serious mission side to your business
• How and when to pivot 
• How to scale operations from $50k per year online to over $350k per month in one year.

Amazon has always been a jungle for sellers.  Battling sabotage from unscrupulous competitors, protecting yourself from listing takedowns, and avoiding account suspensions are all enough to keep you awake at night.  So how do you protect your Amazon business from all the forces trying to kill it?   My advice is to learn from and get to know former Amazonian Chris McCabe. Chris used to work at Amazon in the policy enforcement team. Now he works daily with sellers to mitigate issues and fight suspensions. 

He’s been so effective at helping sellers that he’s been awarded the nickname ECommerce Chris. He’s also the host of the podcast, Seller Listing Solutions, and speaks at leading Amazon events like the  Prosper Show.  Chris is a guy you need to know. 

Here’s a look at what we cover:

- Top reasons listings get taken down and what’s in your control.  

- Reasons for listing takedowns that most sellers don’t know about. 

- What it was like working at Amazon 

- The leading reasons for account suspensions and how to protect yourself 

- Top strategies for brand defense and fighting sabotage. 

- The best strategies for preventing problems and getting listings and accounts reinstated.

Tom Worcester is a tremendous success story.  Grit, determination, and the ability to pivot he has in spades.  He started his eCommerce business lunchboxpacks.com in 2018 to cater to the festival and event-going crowd.  He hustled and used in-person marketing at events to help his theft-proof hydration backpacks (think a camelback, but with security features).  The products took off.  Then the pandemic hit.  No festivals. No in-person events.  But Tom knew his customers still craved community.  So he continued to build community and he helped build another business - Create with Carousel that helps eComm brands build great video content.  

Here’s what we dive into:

• How to build community online for an ecomm brand in record time with a unifying topic 
• How to positively create echo chambers for your brand
• What hooks you need to use to build community
• Creating incentives to grow your community
• 3 layers of a product to consider when you craft a video ad…most people only think about the first two layers
• How assuming you’re wrong can help you get it right with video ads
• When and how to best use CTAs in your video ads

We’re all but guaranteed to see another record holiday season on Amazon this year. But that does not guarantee that you will have a banner holiday season. This year is sure to be challenging for online sellers. More shopping will take place in stores than last year during the height of the pandemic. Ad cost are also on the rise. Combine all of that with increased competition and you see why success this holiday season won't be easy. Getting the most from the Cyber 5 and beyond will really boil down to three things:

1. Covering the basics. Proper inventory levels. Understanding  key selling dates and Amazon’s deadlines. Getting the right badges. Having listings optimized.  Without the basics in place, you’ll be seriously behind this holiday season. We’ll help you get ready.  
2. Getting an edge. This year is sure to be uber competitive for Amazon sellers. Do you have your lighting deals and coupon strategies ready? How’s your storefront, A+ content, and Amazon posts?  Is your Amazon ad strategy primed and ready? We’ll uncover the tips you need to get an edge.  
3. Going full-funnel and leverage what’s new. This is the year to go full-funnel with your Amazon advertising efforts. It’s also the year to fully leverage new offereinces from Amazon including new sponsored brand video targeting, Amazon’s customer engagement  beta, new display options and more. Plus, it’s time to consider a few off-Amazon strategies that only a tiny percentage of sellers are leveraging.  

We cover it all in this episode. Check it out and then share this with your team and other sellers you know who might find it helpful. 

Are you fully prepared for Holiday 2021?  This year is sure to be unique.  While eCommerce is still growing, it’s growing at a slower rate than last year.  Stores are opening, and, for now at least, shoppers are spending more money on experiences than they were during the height of the pandemic.  So how can you maximize your online holiday sales this year?

In this episode, we listen in to the recording of the recent webinar we hosted that covers 7 ways to have a record holiday season including:

• How to leverage the latest YouTube ad formats to get more exposure and more conversions at a lower cost.
• What you’re likely missing with your current search and shopping ad structure and how to fix it.  
• Why now is a great time to consider Google Smart Shopping Campaigns
• How to deliver the right holiday message at the right time
• How to combat rising ad costs
• Plus more!

With iOS 14 and privacy updates throwing advertisers for a loop and increased ad costs making reaching your ad goals harder than ever, scale on Facebook may seem illusive. 

On today’s episode, I wanted to hear from an up-and-coming Facebook ad manager and co-host of the Rich Ad, Poor Ad podcast Dyland Carpenter.  Dylan specializes in eComm media buying and is fanatical about testing, experimenting, and finding ways to scale ad accounts.  Here’s a quick look at what we cover in today’s episode:

• Common mistakes keeping you from scaling with Facebook ads
• Why creative is everything and how to approach creative testing
• Finding the winning campaign formula - learn how Dylan uses controls and tests to always be leveling up.
• Thoughts on iOS 14 
• Budgeting for scale and how to be aggressive without breaking the algorithm 
• Plus more!

Are you ready to crack the YouTube ads code?  Ready to learn how to win now and into the future even as privacy issues are causing media buyers to pull their hair out?

Here’s the Audio from a recent, wildly popular webinar I presented at.  We had just over 2,000 people attend to hear our Winning Formula for Scale for YouTube ads for eCommerce.

This presentation is fast-paced and full of practical tips and examples.  Here are 3 reasons to listen:

• Learn how top eComm brands are profitably spending $500k per month on YouTube ads.  Many were spending $0 on Google ads just a few months or years ago.

• Diversity.  In a world of tracking issues, algo updates, and constant uncertainty - you need to diversify your customer acquisition channels.
• Understand how creative, campaign, and audience strategies work hand-in-hand to deliver stellar results.