Talk Commerce

Brent: Welcome to this new year today, I have ghetto Yansen and he is with Spriker and I'm very excited to talk to him ghetto. You are the global business and technology. Evangelists for Spriker and which in the blue room or the green room, we talked about that you're the Ben marks of Spriker or the Ben marks of shop where, or the benchmarks of Magento or whatever. 
 

Brent: However you want to say that. Why don't you do a better introduction than I just did. And maybe tell us what you're doing day to day and, one of your passions in life.  
 

Guido: Oh, I have many passions brands. One of wishes now a Spriker indeed. Yeah, my background's in the. I guess to try to compromise a bit that I have a background in psychology and what a usability part of of psychology optimizing a web shop off the debts. 
 

Guido: The study itself at university I'm done. I don't feel that old, but at university that didn't have a lot of online things going on. In terms of examples. So that was mainly about the usability. I could think of thing machine or a way, finding an airports how that works. But I always applied this to align to e-commerce and in, started out with things like mumbo and. 
 

Guido: Wait maybe I am old mama Joomla and a, and I switched gears to to e-commerce and Magento in 2008. That time when we were all playing around with cameras and virtual mark, and those kinds of things that Magento came around, which was this magical thing that was way ahead of its time. And we all add a great fun, I think playing around with that and did that for, 13 years. 
 

Guido: And I think that's also like 20 10, 20 11 that I met you. I think we met at a. It was the Moscone center in San  
 

Brent: Francisco. Could be, yeah. Yeah. The fabric comm X dot commerce.  
 

Guido: This will all be beeped  
 

Brent: out with the knee, right? Yeah. In fact, I was just going through all my supplies. I was going through my old video just getting stuff, getting my mat cleaned up and I found of a video of the, in the intro or the, welcome from the. 
 

Brent: PayPal slash Magento slash whatever eBay people. Yeah. And it was us coming out of the conference center and they all, there's huge. Just all the employees lined up welcoming, everybody to the event. So it was definitely a well thought out event and it was fun how could you go wrong? 
 

Brent: I don't know if if the outcome was what they had expected, but it was fun. And then. A fun event, 2011, definitely.  
 

Guido: Yeah. Events were a fun ride. Remember those events were fun. Now we had a lot of fun with that with Magento organized, a lot of stuff. For Magento we had the Mimi, Japan and Netherlands kickstart this whole global movement of Magento events. 
 

Guido: And I've been lucky enough to to attend many of those those firsts, which are the best I think, to go through like those first events in a country where. People have heard each other's names online on slack or on the forums, but never met in person. So all those awkward first meetings, or those are great to to, attend to. 
 

Guido: And yeah, I and it's also a, the Magento ecosystem is also where I met Boris the founder of Spriker and currently co CEO of Spriker. I think we met sills. 20 11 20 12 had a Magento agency. And some six, seven years ago when you started with we kept in contact and yeah, I would have lost a year. 
 

Guido: I was working at a Magento merchants actually. And he approached me and said, Hey, we're growing like crazy at Spriker and we need someone like you doing community stuff. Spriker we need something like that. So to support that. I don't think you actually build this, build a community. 
 

Guido: I The community is there and does its own thing. That's what we see, which has the rights. But we need someone from Spriker to facilitate what's happening out. There are very similar indeed to what's. What bandage. And before that, around though, we're doing a Magento. So yeah, that's the,  
 

Brent: yeah. 
 

Brent: And I, I did I've interviewed my Miquel Turk for both Spriker and it's an interesting and fun platform and one of the. I had made early on was about the who 15 and how we're working on getting sub one second times. And he laughed at me and he said, yes, Spriker, we're working on sub 400 millisecond times or something like that. 
 

Brent: It is an interesting platform and I'd love to dive into it a little more, but first let's I know that you have been involved with. In conversion rate optimization, I think from an e-commerce standpoint, that is one thing that is often overlooked, especially. A lot of clients will come to a technology partner and they'll say, Hey, I want to build a fantastic website. 
 

Brent: Then they leave those either the technology partner doesn't focus on that or the client doesn't see value in that. So can we maybe just have a brief conversation around, what does it mean for conversion rate and why is that? And so why is that even more important than the platform you're on or the store build that you're doing or any of those. 
 

Guido: I think the conversion rate optimization traditionally it's in the name. It's, a bit limiting. It's the oldest Christian in the Ciroc community. Let's first define what it is. So Euro it's about a practice of semi or semi-truck. Practice or figuring out what works for your online store which usually involves doing user research talking to users, doing surveys, translating those into a hypothesis on what could work and what's, where you expect to be a better for, your store. 
 

Guido: And then validating that through experiments. Usually that's, an AB test. That's, very short description of of, Shiro these days. And I think one of the things that was holding back Shiro, it depends a bit on the depends a lot on the area you're in the business you're in, but for many companies it's, relatively easy to say what the ROI is for buying more ads, buying Edwards. 
 

Guido: This is what I put in. This is what I put out. That's, very straightforward and that's something that then people try to apply to Shiro and that doesn't really work zeroes more. Often long-term strategy, trying to figure out what worked for your customer. And it's really hard to say at the end of the day, at the end of the year what came out of that? 
 

Guido: Exactly. Which is also a bit counter-intuitive because we're doing an AB test. So we can exactly say, this is what version a is doing. This is what version B is doing, but. The course of the year, like if you do three aunts or a thousand experiments what's your contribution? I don't know. And that's that's, sometimes hard for managers to get into and also it can also mean that you're not even growing, but it can also mean that you're not going down. 
 

Guido: So your conversion rate stays the same. Your number stays the same if you're in a declining business like a couple of last years with, if you're in a, in a. Selling holiday houses, like booking.com. It's going to be really hard to increase refresher rates or to, or avenue. But you really need a team like this to understand. 
 

Guido: Okay, what are people still buying? What are the, changing consumer behavior to last year's? And companies that do CRO well those are the ones that can survive th...

• Cody notes that they work with D2c brands. 
• Cody mentions that the mission is to educate brands on the right way to do influencer marketing.
• Cody says there are influencers that have zero social following and their job is to get influencers to rally around their brand. Cody talks about how influencers are choosing to represent you as much as you are trying to represent them. Cody mentions that there’s a long-term consistent vision and mission for that relationship.
• Cody and Brent overview whether social media platforms have changed. Cody talks about how there’s more access into their lives through social media. Brent notes that the market has grown for influencers by the fact that you can become an influencer by going to your iPhone and embracing a brand, taking pictures, and pushing that.
• Cody talks about how the ability to create content consistently has made it easier for influencers to become influencers. Cody notes that people end up buying fake followers or trying to speed up the process. Brent says the goal as an influencer would be to influence a idea to promote it. Cody notes that there's always at least one influencer in your space.
• Brent mentions that if a business is looking for help from influencers, they could be an influencer. Cody says they want to get the product into those influencers hands. Brent notes that they follow hoka and see reviews for shoes online.
• Cody says if the influencer is not thinking of them, they would be outreaching them, dm-ing them, or emailing them to get ahold of them. Cody mentions that if they are a runner, a consistent runner, and they’re putting out captivating content, they will attract running brands. Cody notes that the best way to scale is just the more people that have your product, the more relationships that are going to be able to build.
• Cody says working with genuine advocates is the best way to scale. Brent notes that they find something defective or not great about the product. Brent says they should think about the customer experience with their influencer marketing.
• Cody notes that they want a longterm community of influencers that are talking to their audiences consistently. Cody talks about how the time is transactional one-off posts with influencers. Brent notes that brands constantly are trying to hit this, like one-off drug.
• Cody says if brands are investing in tech talk, that’s something they need to be doing. Brent talks about how it’s easy to create content for multiple channels.
• Cody notes that they identify 500 influencers on a month to month basis, get them the product they search after they get them, and see their organic performance. Cody says they run facebook and instagram ad accounts. Cody notes that their role is to keep growing the business as co ceo.
• Cody says they want to be judged on sales. Cody mentions that a lot of the leverage of influencer marketing is starting. Cody says they’re measuring the amount of content. Cody mentions that the metta dashboard on facebook is giving you all the metrics. Cody talks about how you’re not going to see direct, this came from this influencer.
• Brent mentions that it’s an invite type of thing where you’re identifying people that are generating certain amount of content or influence in that industry. Cody notes that most merchants and brand owners that come to them are looking for a lot of ugc or creative, and therefore leveraging that content within facebook. Cody says they’re producing a pool of people that have proven to post free of cost without us even asking.
• Brent and Cody say that the best influencers are people that the product and brand fits into what they’re already doing and talking about. Cody notes that most of the time, what they catch them off guard with is that we’re not asking for anything in return.
• Cody mentions that when they get the product, they feel obligated to return something to the brand. Brent says they see more and more influencers saying they purchased the product. Cody mentions that stats show it doesn't make a difference.
• Cody says apple has made it harder for facebook to track checkouts, add to carts, and the reporting. Cody notes that the roas is down 50%. Cody mentions that ios 15 has been with email updates. Cody notes that certain effects on email marketing will be in display through apple.
• Brent asks what would they overview to a brand if they would like to get started on influencer marketing. Cody says they’re ready for influence marketing because it’s the same thing you want that first impression, second impression, and third impression to be awesome. Cody notes that they’ve worked with startups all the way from the m and m's of the world.
• Cody mentions that their sweet spot is top line revenue of two to 30 million, and they've worked with b2b brands before. Brent inquires if there is any difference between promoting their product and sending a physical item to influencers. Cody notes that they have an influencer marketing course called influencer blueprint.
• Cody says they give away all of their templates and communication flow and worksheets budget, calculators, and everything in between. Cody notes that they’re active on twitter at cody widdick and instagram at cody widdick. Brent says they are an influencer marketing consultancy agency.

• Dick says they're the founder and CEO of online growth systems, and they compete competitively in parkour. Brent asks where do you think the future of commerce is going. Dick notes that the next iteration of commerce is v commerce or voice commerce.
• Dick says Siri is going to integrate with commerce. Dick notes that they're going to get a commission on every dollar that gets sold through Siri. Dick mentions that voice commerce is going to be big, and a lot of ecommerce companies have seen traction in those areas. Dick talks about how you can optimize your current ecommerce site to be integrated with voice buyers. Dick says virtual and augmented reality is going to be the future of commerce.
• Brent mentions how coaching and business coaching can be done virtually. Brent says the next thing coming from voice reality is voice commerce. Brent notes that merchants worry about Alexa looking at the amazon store first and the rest of the list. Dick mentions that the best way to optimize for SEO is to write it in a way that people would speak. Dick talks about how you want to make sure you're ranking for keywords that are written the way people talk.
• Brent mentions that google has consistently changed what they look for. Dick says a good way to test this is to bring out your own phone. Dick mentions that field test it. Dick talks about how blogs are a great way to do it, writing articles and having that be a part of the process. Dick mentions that the third way is a frequently asked questions page, which is powerful for voice search engine optimization.
• Brent notes that ten years ago they worked on midwest hydroponics, and they built an faq section. Brent mentions that if they are going to write a blog article, make sure they link to the product they want them to buy. Dick says the manual way to do it is to look at your website and identify how many links are on each page. Brent mentions that you can integrate different features to add something like one to three different articles that they could read thereafter.
• Dick notes that bucky supply was successful before they started helping them, and they were successful after. Dick mentions that Ryan, one of the co-founders of Bulk Reef Supply, was an expert and came up with his own tank food. Dick says if you want to get momentum, do take the amazon playbook.
• Brent talks about how merchants don't always look at being the leader in their community, and that bulk reef supply has done well by getting down into that community from the ground up. Brent notes that there are other companies that are building communities that are keeping people involved. Dick talks about how youtube is exclusively marketing to other people who are consuming youtube, and they only charge you for the volume of what you're using it.
• Brent discusses the idea that in the past lost leaders would physically sell something. Brent notes that they’re trying to get people to do the same thing. Brent mentions that a lot of smaller business owners forget that if they have a tool like Magento or BigCommerce, a lot of those things are built-in. Brent talks about how it’s important to understand getting people to sign up for a newsletter. Brent mentions that google analytics is a great tool to determine where they’re going and where they’re exiting.
• Dick notes that ecommerce clients created a brand new product category. Dick says there was a different marketing approach to get the product in front of customers. Dick notes that they would create a video that's less than a minute long and put it on social channels. Dick talks about how you got 30 seconds in an elevator to pitch to an investor, and you got less than 10 seconds on your Instagram feed. Dick mentions that you need to capture attention quickly and communicate the value they're going to get and give them that call to action.
• Brent talks about how to look up Entrepreneurs' Organization for advice. Brent notes that there are many opportunities for small business owners to get knowledge. Brent talks about how right now is the best time to be in ecommerce because you have the same tools the big companies have. Brent says you can list your products on amazon and utilize their network to get products.
• Dick talks about how a lot of ecommerce companies should consider subscriptions. Dick says everybody is familiar with dollar shave club, and that's a company that's competing for a commodity, it's disposable, and your lifetime value is greater. Dick mentions that you can put a unique spin on this and make an e-commerce brand or ecommerce company with a monthly subscription. Dick talks about how part of the value is that you don't know what you're going to get every month.
• Brent notes that the fish of the month club was a great model to get people interested in a product. Brent talks about how entrepreneurs are a different breed and don't always act the same way. Dick notes that the Entrepreneurs Organization has an accelerator program for companies that are between $250,000 in annual revenue and a million in annual revenue. Dick talks about how it's a great way to learn a lot.
• Brent says Andrew Dunman was one of the partners at bulk reef supply. Brent notes that it’s been a great conversation and look forward to the next one.