The Ecom Show

#81 Ben Parr from Octane AI: Zero Party Data - Strategies for Collecting Data and Increasing Sales

We’re delighted to welcome Ben Parr, the President and Co-Founder of Octane AI, to a webinar with our podcast host and CEO, Daniel Budai.

Octane AI is the zero-party data marketing platform for Shopify and Shopify Plus merchants. Its conversational technology enables thousands of merchants to collect zero-party data and use it to optimize conversions, average order value, and customer lifetime value.

If you want to form a real relationship with your customers, tune in to hear Ben teach us everything you need to know about:

✔️ The Problem: Rented Relationships vs Real Relationships

✔️ Zero-Party Data Marketing

✔️ How to Collect Zero-Party Data

✔️ Personalizing Your Marketing

The Problem: Rented Relationships vs. Real Relationships

Ben begins by identifying 2 key problems in eCommerce:1. Shopify brands have been building their business on top of rented relationships.

2. Apple has recently made a change that has completely destroyed the way you were used to doing business.

Before the iOS 14 update and recent changes in data privacy, Shopify Brands heavily tended towards Facebook Pixel in their marketing strategies. Facebook Pixel tracked user behavior and retargeted ads accordingly.

The problem with this strategy is that it’s a rented relationship. Facebook owns the customer contact information, the Shopify Brand does not. It has to pay Facebook to access contact information, essentially renting the relationship with its own customer.

Apple broke this relationship. The new iOS14 gives users the opportunity to opt-out of data tracking. Essentially, this makes it impossible for Facebook to run retargeting ads for iOS users.

96% of U.S users opted out of data tracking in iOS 14.5. The vast majority of people do not want to be tracked. The world of marketing is changing, and it’s time to adapt.

Retargeting ads based on third-party data are going away. Now eCommerce owners need to collect data directly. This is the era of zero-party data.

Ben advises against relying on pixel-based ads and third-party data, that is, rented relationships. Diversify your channels and find new ways of bringing people to your store. From there, focus on building real relationships with your customers using zero-party data. Don’t accept 2% conversion rates in pop-ups, aim for 8%-10% and higher.

Zero-Party Data Marketing

Zero-party data marketing uses data directly collected from your customers via questions. The answers to these questions are then used to personalize the entire shopping experience, from emails to SMS, to the website itself.

Third-party data is collected via several different websites. First-party data is collected on your own website using Google or Shopify analytics. Zero-party is different because it’s collected from data that is voluntarily provided by the customer. This includes information such as size, style, dietary preferences, etc. Such information can only be collected via direct questions. Zero-party data is, therefore, the only way to build a hyper-personalized customer journey.

How to Collect Zero-Party Data

Ben recommends using product quizzes to build deep relationships with your customers. He likens this to an in-store shopping experience. When a customer goes into a store, an associate may be there to ask questions and guide them towards the best product for them. For example, an associate at a skincare store may ask the customer about their skin type, current skincare routine, skin goals, etc. Zero-party data is about bringing this experience online.

Product quizzes are generally loved by customers because they often come to websites without knowing exactly what they’re looking for. The answers to the quiz questions build the customer’s buyer profile which is then used to lead them to the right product. Further, when the right questions are asked, engaged users are more inclined to provide contact information. From there, you can personalize content and products that you send in your campaigns.

The conversion rate in product quizzes is significantly higher than standard popups. As people are keen to receive their quiz results, conversion rates can be as high as 20 - 40%.

Zero-party data is not only fantastic for initial conversions, it can be stored and leveraged for future product recommendations and campaigns.

A conversational popup is a very simple but highly effective way to capture email addresses. Instead of “Enter your email to get 10% off”, “Get 10% off by answering this question” gives your customer the opportunity to interact with your brand and receive a decent product recommendation. The conversion rate is 46 times higher in a conversational popup than in a standard popup.

Personalizing Your Marketing with Zero-Party Data

Ben describes this as the “bread and butter” of zero-party data marketing. Marketing and remarketing are personalized using quiz data on email, Messenger, SMS, and Facebook ads.

A personalized welcome series, for example, is far more effective than a generic welcome flow. If a customer visits a haircare eCommerce store and shares that they prefer to wash their hair at night, their welcome flow would recommend overnight hair masks. Octane AI allows Shopify merchants to send Zero-party data to Klaviyo in order to segment personalized flows accordingly.

The lowdown? The future of eCommerce is in zero-party data: personalized websites, email flows, campaigns, and ads that build a customer journey that converts.

Eager to learn more? Download Octane AI’s free playbook for the definitive guide to zero-party data marketing.

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#80 Florens from Monkeys.Digital: Unlocking Your Growth with Data-Driven Conversion Rate Optimization

You’re not in e-commerce if you’re not thinking about conversion rate optimization (CRO). The world of CRO and omnichannel marketing is often overwhelming, but Florens Bach is here to change that.

Florens is responsible for performance marketing, Google Ads Management, and PPC (pay per click) marketing at Monkeys.Digital. Monkeys.Digital generates an average of 271% ROI for its clients in e-commerce through Google PPC, CRO, and Facebook and Instagram ads. When it comes to racking up those numbers, Florens knows what he’s doing.

Tune in to hear Florens, and our podcast host and CEO Daniel Budai discuss:

✔️ Florens’s Foray into Digital Marketing

✔️ Conversion Rate Optimization: Where do I begin?

✔️ Does Google or Facebook Prefer Bigger or Smaller Businesses?

✔️Florens’s Digital Marketing Mentors

Florens’s Foray into the Digital Marketing World

Florens first entered digital marketing in late 2015. As an engineering student, digital marketing was a world of mystery. An old friend of his floated around the idea of getting into digital marketing so that they could enjoy the freedom of working anywhere in the world. Soon enough, Florens was hooked.

“I really enjoyed working with numbers. I got sucked in and I really like it.”

Starting with Amazon PPC, Florens quickly came to realize the importance of knowing how to spend your money. Fully understanding AdWords, budgets, how and when to purchase keywords, and place bids. Florens and his friend became more interested in understanding how PPC works and fits into the bigger advertising picture than actually selling their own products. That’s what made them switch to Google AdWords.

Florens’s first clients were people on Amazon who wished to expand to Google. Google emerged as a better business model to work on as a PPC agency, as Google clients need maintenance almost every week. Amazon PPC sometimes only requires a one-time optimization.

“We’re just number freaks. We love working with money, numbers, digits, and graphs. Google ads were a perfect fit.”

Every company, according to Florens, needs advertising marketing.

Conversion Rate Optimization: Where Do I Begin?

Before you even begin working on your advertising campaigns, Florens advises, make sure that your website works. Work on driving traffic via ad campaigns from there. Driving traffic to a sub-par website isn’t profitable - your customers won’t convert on a bad website.

Once you have a user-optimized website, advertising will do wonders for your conversion rates. Florens highly recommends using an omnichannel marketing strategy. Don’t just start and stop with Google ads, branch out to Facebook, Instagram, or TikTok and influencer marketing.

CRO is not just about recognizing the final decision to buy, it’s about understanding the full customer journey.

“E-commerce is really driven by data. You can analyze almost anything from its data”

When an e-commerce store has €10 - 15,000 in Google ad spend per month, transferring to 500-1000 clicks a day from Google ads, it then has a critical mass of data from which its owner can understand the leverage of CRO.

“If you have more than 500 to 700 clicks a day with your Google campaigns, have a deep look at where the conversion rate is dropping off or what might be those essential blocks where you can see a difference.”

Does Google or Facebook Prefer Bigger or Smaller Businesses?

In Florens’s experience, the bigger the client is, the more premium the support from Facebook. One of the thresholds for Google is 100k ad spend a month. Google recognizes that once you have a certain amount of ad spend your business must be in a very good space.

Google knows how to make a six-figure business into a seven-figure business. If you are a four-figure business aiming for five figures, it’s much harder to make a profit via Google ads. Unfortunately, there are too many stores to allow for a totally unique selling point.

However, Florens continues, Google will help people who have the potential to grow. A focus on growth is essentially where they make their money.

Florens’s Mentors in Digital Marketing

Florens is a big fan of Robert Cialdini, author of Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion. Florens highly recommends this book to digital marketers as a comprehensive guide to the six principles of influence and persuasion.

Visit Monkeys.Digital or check out their podcast to see what you can do to unlock your growth potential. They’re very happy to respond to any questions and comments. Florens is also on Instagram @florensbach.

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#79 Chris and Miriam Bair form Keto Chow: How to Build a Community Focused Keto Brand in 7 Years

Obsessed with building a community-based brand? Look no further than Keto Chow.

Keto Chow began in 2014 as a personal experiment in Chris and Miriam’s kitchen. Their experiment? To create a keto meal replacement shake that tastes good.

As friends and family became increasingly interested in Keto-Chow, Chris and Miriam began shipping batches to fellow keto-ers across the country. Keto Chow rapidly grew into a thriving community-focused brand with well over 30,000 happy customers.

Tune in to hear Chris, Miriam, and our podcast host and CEO Daniel Budai discuss:✔️ The Keto Chow Story: From the Kitchen to Over 30,000 Happy Customers

✔️ Building a Community on Different Platforms

✔️ The Evolution of Keto Chow’s Recipe and Production

✔️ COVID-19 and Fulfilment

✔️ Can the Online World Replace Trade Shows and Live Events?

✔️ What’s the Secret to Customer Loyalty?

The Keto-Chow Story: From the Kitchen to Over 30,000 Happy Customers

It all began when Chris first visited the ketogenic lifestyle. A weight-loss diet with high fat, very low carbohydrates, and moderate protein. Chris tried out some keto shakes he found online, but they tasted horrible.

“He’s like, ‘I can’t do this. It’s horrible. There’s got to be a better way. And so he just made it up. That’s how we started.”

Their number one focus for Keto Chow: Taste.

“That’s one of the reasons we have so many positive reviews. It tastes really good. It tastes like melted ice cream.”

Keto Chow doesn’t actually have any fat in it. To accommodate for different body types and sizes, Chris and Miriam made every shake customizable: you’re free to add whatever fat suits your taste and body type best.

Along with that, Chris and Miriam have built a vibrant community of people who are looking for a way to make their keto journey easier. Keto Chow has a very active Facebook group and subreddit. Usually, a fellow customer steps in and answers any questions before a customer service rep has even seen them.

Building a Community on Different Platforms

Aside from Facebook and its subreddit, Keto Chow runs a highly popular YouTube channel with almost 18,000 subscribers. They run a live stream every day: from 15- 45 minutes on a Sunday and an hour on Tuesdays. Tuesday’s live stream is all about directly addressing customer questions and pain points.

This is a fantastic session not only for receiving feedback but also for building brand-customer trust and loyalty.

The Evolution of Keto Chow’s Recipe and Production

Keto Chow’s original recipe is still on their website. Chris made it using ingredients you can buy from Amazon. Originally, Chris just posted his recipe for fun for people to use. A lot of people began requesting samples to save the hassle of buying the ingredients. From there, the demand for full meal packages came pouring in. Chris added a WooCommerce shopping cart to the website and Keto Chow grew from there.

“It got to the point where we had to find a contract manufacturer.”

Chris and Miriam tell the contractor how many shakes they need, provide them with what they need, and they do all the mixing and packaging and bring it back to them.

It took a year and a half for Chris and Miriam to find the right person to work with. Initially, their biggest pain point was meeting the contractor’s required minimums. Looking back, Miriam wishes that she aimed for larger minimums.

“We’ve learned a lot about advertising and how to make things move in addition to just being able to not have the fear to put that money down and just go for it.”

COVID-19 and Fulfilment

So what effect did COVID-19 have on Keto Chow’s fulfillment process?

While Chris and Miriam send some products to Amazon, Keto Chow primarily handles its own fulfillment. They told their employees that if they had to close, they would. Luckily, they never had to.

One of the biggest COVID-19 challenges Keto Chow faced was the cancellation of Trade Shows. Chris and Miriam go to a lot of Trade Shows to sell, give away free samples, and organize community meetups. Fortunately, Chris and Miriam had prepared for the possibility of excess inventory and were able to offer giveaways to their customers.

As of November 2021, Keto Chow cannot ship to Australia or New Zealand as the US postal service is not accepting packages for either destination. They’ve also run into some issues with getting stuck in Europe en route to the UK due to Brexit.

Chris and Miriam were, however, able to find a fantastic partner in Canada, Switch Grocery.

“They’re doing a great job up in Canada. And we love working with them.”

Can the Online World Replace Trade Shows and Live Events?

Miriam says that in some ways they can. Online events reach a much larger audience because they save money and time on travel.

One downside, however, is that Keto Chow cannot be tasted online. A taste test cannot be replaced. Online events are great for nurturing their existing community, but Keto Chow’s greatest selling point is its taste.

Chris and Miriam often ask their customers what flavors they would like. It’s a great community-building experience and hub for ideas.

What’s the Secret to Customer Loyalty?

Chris says that it comes down to treating your customers well and having a good product that you believe in.

“We made the product because it was something that we needed. It just so happens that it’s something that other people needed as well.”

Honest marketing has been integral to building Keto Chow’s community. In short: start with a great product, be honest, and treat your customers well.

If you’re interested in what it means to build a brand community, visitKeto Chow’swebsite, YouTubechannel, subreddit, or follow Chris on LinkedIn.

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#78 Roshelle from Yotpo Talks Engagement - The New Way to Improve Customer Lifetime Value

Is your brand-customer communication a bit lackluster? Are you struggling to build a close relationship with your customers? This episode is all about customer retention: establishing, building, and maintaining trust.

Roshelle Savdie is the Associate Product Marketing Manager of Yotpo, an e-commerce marketing platform that offers a full suite of solutions for customer reviews, visual marketing, loyalty, referrals, and SMS marketing. Following a Bachelor’s degree in Psychology and a Master’s in Economics, Roshelle sought a role in the study of human behavior. She found her calling at Yotpo. As a specialist in loyalty and referrals, Roshelle knows what customers care about.

Tune in to hear Roshelle and our podcast host and CEO Daniel Budai discuss:✔️ Zero-Party Data: What is it and why is it important?

✔️ Why do e-commerce brands need engagement-based programs?

✔️ How to create a VIP program

✔️ Roshelle’s advice for Q4

✔️ Roshelle’s marketing idols

Zero-Party Data: What is it and why is it important?

Zero-party data (otherwise known as permission-based marketing) refers to data that customers voluntarily give brands about themselves. It’s not information that brands can acquire from different sources.

Roshelle identifies two advantages to using zero-party data:

1. Brands don’t have to guess

Collecting data directly from the source means that targeted marketing does not have to be based on assumptions or guesses. This allows brands to better communicate with their customers and personalize their shopping journey.

2. Develops trust in your brand

No one likes it when their data is collected and used without their explicit permission. Being clear about data collection and opting for zero-party data is great for building trust.

“You may ask yourself, ‘Why do they give this information so freely?’ It’s because they want to be part of your brand, and they trust your brand.”

Zero-party data reject invasive marketing tactics and instead focuses on creating a better experience for the customer.

Why do e-commerce brands need engagement-based programs?

Engagement-based programs are evolving. Roshelle stresses that engagement-based programs differ from rewards-based programs in that they’re not transactional.

Instead, engagement-based programs focus on relationships. It’s not enough to give away discount codes once in a while. Customers want experiences that make them feel part of the brand.

Gen Z consumers in particular engage with emotional rewards. Princess Polly, one of Yotpo’s clients created a VIP tier system. If a customer is in a certain tier and buys a certain amount, they’re featured in Princess Polly’s social media. Another reward included exclusive access to a VIP Facebook group, encouraging customers to buy further into the brand. Their best reward so far was backstage tickets to a music festival.

Roshelle recalls another brand that gives customers in their highest VIP tier early access to products and sales. This is great for building that brand-customer bond and providing an exclusivity incentive.

How to create a VIP program

So when should e-commerce owners begin setting up VIP tiers? Roshelle says “early on”, even if they’re not going to implement it right away. VIP tiers and loyalty programs require a lot of strategic planning.

Consider:

• What do your incentives mean to your customers?
• What does it mean for your brand to give away these incentives?
• Do your incentives make financial sense?
• How are you going to make sure that your customers feel valued?
• How are your incentives going to develop an emotional customer-brand connection?

VIP tiers are fantastic for increasing engagement, brand community, and customer lifetime value (CTV). Therefore:

“It’s never too early to have VIP tiers. They power your business much faster than if you don’t have them.”

Roshelle’s advice for Q4

Roshelle’s number one piece of advice is: Build a strategy for Q1.

You’re going to acquire lots of new customers during Q4, that’s great. Now you need to focus on retention.

Roshelle’s marketing idols

In two words: authentic marketers.

“I really admire anyone who is on top of all the new trends, people, technology, but are keeping the essence of their brand and who they are. Anyone who has figured that out has all my respect. It’s really, really hard.”

Follow Roshelle on LinkedIn and visit Yotpo.comfor more advice on increasing customer lifetime value and taking your brand to the next level.

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#77 What Do 26 Years of Digital Marketing Teach You? Steve from SiteGeek Shares His Wisdom  

In e-commerce and need some advice? Let’s hear what someone with 26 years of experience has to say.

Steve Hooper is the Managing Director of SiteGeek, a multiple award-winning Digital Marketing Agency. SiteGeek helps companies develop omnichannel marketing strategies and build their in-house marketing team. If that isn’t impressive enough, Steve has over 20 years of digital marketing experience to share.

Tune in to hear Steve and our podcast host and CEO Daniel Budai discuss:✔️ The Biggest Turning Points in Digital Marketing

✔️ The Best Tools to Use in E-commerce

✔️ Why Shopify Themes Alone Won’t Fix CRO

✔️ Advice for Brexit

✔️ Mentors in Digital Marketing

The Biggest Turning Points in Digital Marketing 

In 1994, Steve’s boss at the time, Chris, sent him out to buy a modem. Steve remembers Chris saying, “Hey, this internet thing, I think we better look into that, because I think it might catch on.” Very few people had email addresses, and very few even knew what the internet was. But Steve and his company were way ahead of the game:

“I designed my first website back in late 1995. I think that makes me somewhat of a veteran when it comes to website design.”

So what’s changed and what hasn’t?

Steve sites the introductions of tools such as WordPress as significant turning points in internet history. While it was initially rather complex to set up a WordPress website, the arrival of Software as a Service (SaaS), Shopify, and WooCommerce made it possible for anyone to set up an online store.

One thing that hasn’t changed? Us. Human nature.

“A lot of e-commerce companies forget that they’re still selling to people. They’re not numbers that come through a website, there’s a person at the end of it.”

One of Steve’s top pieces of advice is “Don’t sell, educate.” If someone is educated on what your product is and how to use it, they’re not just more likely to buy, they’re going to come back again.

The Best Tools to Use in E-commerce 

Steve is a huge fan of Shopify. Once you have the resources to get Shopify Plus, Steve highly recommends doing so. He’s particularly impressed by its security. Its security budget is probably equal to one of the top 10 military budgets in the world.

If you’re using WooCommerce, Steve advises total compliance to their PCI questions. Don’t just tick ‘Yes’, make sure that you have the appropriate SSL certificate and everything in place to ensure your security.

For inventory management, Steve uses Cin7. Cin7 links to Shopify and makes it easy to raise purchase orders and track information inside and outside of Shopify. Cin7 further allows building on several channels, including Amazon and eBay for an omnichannel marketing strategy. It also has its own B2B (business to business) portal, which makes things very easy for wholesalers.

Why Shopify Themes Alone Won’t Fix CRO 

While Steve cannot praise Shopify highly enough, he advises against the idea that getting a new Shopify theme is going to fix your conversion rates. First and foremost, you need to understand the data.

Set up split tests where you can and make a list of possible factors that could be affecting your conversion rates. Is your menu structure easy to follow? How easy is it to find products? Are you following up with your abandoned carts? Are you upselling? Above all, make sure that you have a good customer journey and make it mobile-friendly. That’s where your conversion rates will rise.

Advice for Brexit 

It’s no secret that Brexit has had a huge impact on e-commerce, especially for UK merchants. Steve recalls his recent meeting with DHL in Germany. They revealed that about 70% of deliveries from the EU to the UK have ceased. There is a big stop on what’s going across the channel right now.

Steve’s advice to e-commerce owners struggling with Brexit is to explore your various options as thoroughly as possible. Talk to your local department trading industry and the department of international trade. If you find that your biggest market is in the EU, consider third-party logistic warehouses. This allows you to avoid all the current distribution issues in the UK.

Mentors in Digital Marketing 

Steve’s first ever boss, Chris, remains a good friend and mentor to this day. Chris gives him great advice on digital marketing and where it’s headed.

He was also friends with Andy Jenkins, none other than the executive producer on The Blair Witch Project. That was where Andy got started in digital marketing: 284 of the 286 websites about The Blair Witch Project at the time of release were registered in his name.

Steve also turns to his friend Dominic Cummins in California (not the British politician) for business advice.

The takeaway? You’re never too experienced to have a mentor.

Follow Steve on LinkedIn and visit SiteGeekif you’d like to find out more about digital marketing and e-commerce. Steve says he’s more than happy to ask any questions you may have.

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#76 Alan Chen from FreeCashFlow.io Shares the Top 3 Tax Deductions All E-commerce Owners Should Know About

When store revenue is collected as tax, does it still count as a profit? Alan Chen doesn’t think so. We’re doing something a little different for this episode of The Eccom Show: let’s take a look at tax and what you need to know about maximizing real profit.

Alan is the Founder of FreeCashFlow.io, a company that helps e-commerce and online businesses with US tax laws, planning, sales, filing, threshold strategies, and cloud-based bookkeeping. According to Alan, tax planning is the highest ROI activity you can do in your business.

Tune in to hear Alan and our podcast host and CEO Daniel Budai discuss how e-commerce brands can minimize their tax bill and:✔️ When to Hand Over Tax Planning to an Expert

✔️ The Biggest Pitfalls in Business Tax

✔️ Nexus Sales Tax

✔️ The Top 3 Tax Deductions E-commerce Owners Should Know About

✔️ Alan’s Advice for Q4

When Should You Hand Over Tax Planning to an Expert? 

Alan recommends that you seek expert tax advice when your business is making 350k to 400k annual revenue. That’s the stage where there are enough deductions to give you a decent ROI on what you’ve paid to get the service done.

FreeCashFlow.io draws up a monthly or quarterly plan for their clients and calculates what deduction they can take. When April 15 rolls around, they’re going to pay a lot less money.

“I just want people to know that having proper tax planning just equals more money for you. Real measurable value that you see in your bank account that you don’t pay out.”

When Alan says he doesn’t think you should be worried about tax, he doesn’t mean put it on the backburner. He means to hand it over to the experts. Daniel recalls digital marketer Roland Frasier’s advice: spend time with what you’re best at and invest your money into your weak spots.

The Biggest Pitfalls in Business Tax 

Sales tax is one of the biggest problem areas right now. E-commerce sellers face particularly strong state scrutiny for this. And this isn’t exclusive to US sellers - Shopify just rolled out a sales tax dashboard reminding its users that they’re responsible for sales tax liabilities for 45 US states.

The higher your revenue, the more you are affected by sales tax. Alan wants businesses to understand that as they take off, they need someone taking care of sales tax. To complicate matters further, every state has its own sales tax. Some states require payment in a matter of days once a business crosses a tax threshold, others wait until the next calendar year.

That’s why it’s so important to have visibility on when your business is and isn’t going to cross tax thresholds. It’s crucial to be prepared, stay compliant, and avoid paying anything you don’t have to. No matter how much your Shopify store makes, revenue is about net profit and your bank account. Tax payments, Alan argues, are not in your profit.

What is Nexus Sales Tax? 

Nexus = affiliation, or a connection to something. So if you have an office and a warehouse somewhere, that’s your physical nexus to that location. 5 to 6 years ago Nexus sales tax was great for businesses and drop shippers that had no physical location. There was no way for sales tax to be enforced on a location that didn’t exist.

That all changed following the 2018 South Dakota vs Wayfair court case. This changed the game for e-commerce and online businesses because its ruling introduced an economic nexus. An economic nexus is triggered by a concentration of customers in a certain state. If a business ships products work $100,000 to a particular state they are liable to pay sales tax to that state. Now there are two types of nexuses sales tax: physical and economic.

Moreover, e-commerce owners using Shopify are fully responsible for their sales tax. It often is not automatically deducted.

The Top 3 Tax Deductions E-commerce Owners Should Know About 

1. The Home Office Deduction  

This skyrocketed during 2020 when more and more people began working from home. Alan reveals that there are two ways of calculating this deduction.

The first calculation is the simplest but also the most limited. The highest tax deduction possible is only $1500. The second calculation is more complicated but lucrative. The actual expense method. This takes the square footage of your office space as a percentage of your total home. You can take a tax deduction from that percentage. This includes rent, mortgage, or even repair maintenance. The biggest deduction Alan saw from this method is $14,000 - his client runs a phone case business and basically uses half their home as office space.

If you’re operating out of your home, Alan advises, take advantage of the actual expense method.

2. Startup Cost Deduction

The startup cost allows entrepreneurs to claim a $5000 deduction for any cost made up until the point their business is created. This includes product research, travel, work with lawyers or accountants - the deduction rewards entrepreneurs for even thinking about starting a business. Just make sure that you keep documentation.

“So for people thinking about starting a business but are still unsure, now you know that there is a $5000 deduction waiting for you."

3. Celebrate Your Expenses

Paying for expenses in advance significantly increases your tax deductions. Cash coming in is revenue, cash going out is expenses. So prepay for software and take out yearly subscriptions.

Alan also sees businesses pre-purchase inventory to sell in the next tax year. The expense deductible is higher if the revenue hasn’t yet been generated. This takes a lot of planning and forecasting to ensure that business owners don’t end up with dead inventory. Above all else, they need to know that they can sell their inventory.

Alan cannot stress enough how important it is to understand and track your business’s selling trends, profits, inventory, and problem areas.

“Bookkeeping is the lifeblood of any business.”

Alan’s Advice for Q4 

Alan advises that the next two months (November and December) are your last chance to play catch up on tax planning. This is the biggest time of year, the top lines look great, but be aware of your net profit. Collect as many emails as you can, but don’t give away too much. Watch your bottom line.

Follow Alan on LinkedIn visit FreeCashFlow.io to see how your business can make a real profit.

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#75 Audio Marketing is Changing the Game for Small Business Owners. Here’s How.

Audio marketing relies on (you guessed it!) audio for its output. It’s not a new medium, we’ve all heard radio ads, but with the rise of smart speakers and apps such as Clubhouse, it is blowing up. If there’s any time to dive into audio marketing, it’s now.

Arjun Rai is the Founder and CEO of Hello Woofy, an AI driven social audio, media, blogging, and smart speaker marketing platform. Arjun is committed to making it easy for small business owners to automate their marketing strategy and access audio marketing.

Tune in to hear Arjun and our podcast host and CEO Daniel Budai to discuss:

✔️ Smart Speakers: Where Are We At?

✔️ How Do Small Ecommerce Owners Get Started with Smart Speaker Marketing?

✔️ Social Audio and Clubhouse

✔️ Hello Woofy and Its Integrations

Smart Speakers: Where Are We At?

Arjun predicts an exponential increase in audio devices. There are projected to be around half a billion smart devices around the world. Marketing studies show that the audio device industry grew between 30% to 50% in a single year.

It’s safe to say that the audio device industry is huge. And it’s getting bigger. Habits are changing and people are now used to getting what they need on demand.

“The core of the issue is that we need to let the underdogs, the small businesses, be a part of this infrastructure that I’m talking about.”

Arjun believes that the coffee shop down the block should have the same infrastructure to deliver coffee when someone wants to order one on the TV, as well as the ability to stream content to customers. Hello Woofy is all about giving small businesses the same capabilities and opportunities as big companies.

How do Small Ecommerce Owners Get Started With Smart Speaker Marketing?

When ecommerce owners join the Hello Woofy platform, they create an app. Business owners choose their app background, logo, description etc. and Hello Woofy submits it to Amazon for approval.

Once Amazon approves their app, ecommerce owners are able to upload products and services they want to sell, schedule video and audio content, and ping those all-important smart speakers. Customers can access your products and site with a simple mobile scan of their smart speaker or TV.

“You’ll be a part of a broadcasting network, a network that is only going to get bigger and bigger. And then you have the opportunity to collaborate with other small businesses within the Hello Woofy network. 2022 is going to be very exciting for small businesses.”

Social Audio and Clubhouse

Social audio, that is, social media that uses audio as their primary means of communication, really skyrocketed during 2020. What are Anjun’s thoughts about social audio and the rise of social audio platforms such as Clubhouse?

“You’re going to have this massive adoption and then you’re going to have normalisation. I’m on Clubhouse every single day.”

A lot has changed in a short space of time. Two years ago we did not have the prolific social audio capabilities as we do today. Before 2020, there wasn’t the same demand we have now for online conferences, meetups, workshops, and masterclasses. Clubhouse is a fantastic platform for entrepreneurs, coaches, and marketers to run their classes and promote themselves.

Hello Woofy and Its Integrations

Hello Woofy began as a social media platform before expanding to include blogging and audio marketing. Its social media scheduler uses AI to help users complete an optimized post. As soon as you start typing your post, Hello Woofy’s AI completes the post with hashtag recommendations, emojis, and keywords.

The same principle applies to blogs: Hello Woofy can autocomplete an entire blog article and schedule it like a social media post to blogging platforms such as WordPress.

When Arjun and his team realised the extent to which audio marketing was going to take off, they expanded into the field.

And they’re not stopping there! Anjun revealed that Hello Woofy is looking into augmented reality.

“Audio is here to stay. It’s not just about speaking on Club, it’s not just broadcasting on smart speakers, it’s really about driving revenue.”

Hello Woofy’s smart speaker technology, content scheduling, and scannable conversions give ecommerce owners a direct connection to their customers in their living rooms, allowing them to build a DTC relationship.

Visit Hello Woofy or follow Arjun on LinkedIn to find out more about audio marketing and what it can do for your business. Arjun’s inbox is open for any suggestions on what Hello Woofy can do for the underdogs of ecommerce. If you’re interested in owning a piece of Hello Woofy, invest for as little as $100 here.

Something for the bookshelf? Daniel and Arjun highly recommend The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketingby Al Ries and Jack Trout.

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#74 How to Increase Conversion Rates Using Embedded Videos - Without Slowing Down Your Website

Video marketing is one of the most powerful tools out there. But this episode is not going to be about brand awareness and reach. Our guest is more interested in hard conversion and revenue.

Claudiu Cioba is the Founder and CEO of VideoWise, a video shopping app on Shopify that helps brands sell more through the power of video. Claudiu describes VideoWise as more of a video shopping product, not a marketing product. Video marketing, Claudiu explains, is more about increasing or reaching your audience, video shopping is about generating revenue.

For this episode of The Ecom Show, Claudiu joins our podcast host and CEO Daniel Budai to discuss:

✔️ How Claudiu Became a Founder and the Ethos Behind VideoWise

✔️ How VideoWise Increases Conversion Rates

✔️ Honest Attribution Models and Tracking Conversion

How Claudiu Became a Founder and the Ethos Behind VideoWise

Claudiu’s journey into marketing began when he was 20 years old. He left his hometown, Transylvania, to pursue a design internship in New York. Starting from branding and web design, ecommerce companies did not yet have terms such as ‘user experience' or ‘user interface design’.

Claudiu started with HTML and CSS and grew from there, taking every opportunity to work with different startups and companies all over the world. Usually, Claudiu was hired for one particular project, designing or redesigning a single product for conversion, so he never stayed at one company for longer than three years.

When Claudiu was offered a full-time position as a human interface designer at Apple, he politely declined,

“I really preferred my freedom, I was traveling a lot over the past six years. And I prefer that Nomad sort of lifestyle, where you can work from anywhere, enjoy life to its fullest.”

Claudiu brought his love of freedom into VideoWise. With over a decade of design experience, Claudiu founded a company that truly values the work/life balance of its employees. They’re a fully remote company, offer unlimited mental health days, and are very generous with vacations.

That said, the actual product that is VideoWise is somewhat different to how it was in its early days. Its first name was actually ‘V Star’, because of its direct relation to video reviews. The idea first came to Claudiu when he was heading over to YouTube to watch a video review of a product he was interested in. Wait a minute,

“Why isn’t anyone using all this content?”

Businesses should be using this social proof, right? Once V Star was born, it wasn’t long before it evolved into VideoWise. ‘Video’ to make it crystal clear that the company deals with video, ‘Wise’ because they’re very proud of their complex analytics.

VideoWise allows Shopify merchants to find video reviews for all their products, track new videos about their brand, automate video embedding on all product pages, and offer in-video purchases.

How VideoWise Increases Conversion

VideoWise is not the type of company that sells what Claudiu describes as ‘hope conversion’.

“We take a lot of pride in showing real and true ROI for companies only when videos actually sell.”

VideoWise cares about the entire shopper journey. From the moment they’re a visitor when they watch the video and show true engagement, the add to cart, and the moment of real conversion.

VideoWise allows ecommerce owners to import product videos across platforms, from YouTube to TikTok to Instagram, and manage them all in one place. From there VideoWise turns these into shoppable videos. This allows the customer to purchase directly inside the video.

With strict adherence to YouTube terms and conditions and Google’s privacy policy, VideoWise eliminates the risk of copyright infringement. The app is deeply integrated into Shopify and its checkout process, and every video player and widget is customizable according to brand design.

As for PageSpeed? VideoWise takes every precaution to ensure that their videos do not slow down your website. Rather than bluntly add a video to a page, they use ‘lite video embedding’. Bluntly adding a video, Claudiu explains, is one of the worst things one can do for PageSpeed. The video will load with the page and revert to autoplay. Instead, VideoWise embeds a thumbnail, compresses the image, and compresses the video itself. As the video doesn’t load when your page loads, your site continues to load quickly. Only when a user clicks on a video does the player open into a full-screen immersive experience.

“Once you put those videos to work, they’re just going to work for you while you sleep.”

Attribution Models and Tracking Conversion

Claudiu is very transparent about attribution and ROI. VideoWise has two attribution models for tracking points of conversion, stemming from:

1. Influence orders
2. Direct orders 

For influence orders, VideoWise tracks what orders are being made after a shopper engages with the video content in the same browser session. If a shopper watches the video then immediately buys the product, their purchase is defined as an influence order.

VideoWise considers video engagement to be at least 5 seconds of watch time. If a shopper doesn’t watch at least 5 seconds of the video, VideoWise doesn’t consider that to be engagement and doesn’t track it in attribution.

Direct orders, or direct attribution, occur when a customer makes an order inside the video. That's what's so important about shoppable videos. Generally, VideoWise sees most direct orders coming from mobile with a 70% / 30% ratio on mobile vs desktop.

It’s safe to say that when it comes to conversion rates, Claudiu values honest data above all else.

“We’re honest because we see that these videos work.”

Visit VideoWise or follow Claudiu on LinkedIn and Twitter to find out more about boosting your revenue with video.

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#73 How to Scale Your Ecommerce Quickly and Safely   

The top piece of advice you’ll hear from ecommerce experts is: know your tools. And, boy, there is a heck of a lot of them! Let’s talk about turning your business into an automated scaling machine.

Trevor Limis the CEO of Atomatic, an agency that synchronizes ecommerce tools to optimize efficiency and allow business owners to focus on what’s important: growth.

Tune in to hear Trevor and our podcast host and CEO Daniel Budai discuss systemizing your business, scaling your ecommerce, and:

✔️ Making Your Customer Support Team Your Sales Team

✔️ The 4 Levels of Company Autonomy

✔️ Tools to Manage Company Growth

✔️ Hiring Great Team Members

✔️ 3 Ways of Tackling Q4 While Managing Growth

Making Your Customer Support Team Your Sales Team 

Marketing is all very well and good, but if your ecommerce has bad customer support, your customers aren’t coming back. And they’re going to discourage others from doing the same.

So how do we create a customer support system?

Trevor says that many companies turn to scripts and create a Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) to do this. Scripts are fantastic - but Trevor advises against relying solely on strict scripts and SOP. This puts your company at risk of focusing more on the following SOP than actually resolving their customers’ problems.

Team members should not just be trained how to follow SOPs word for word, they need to know how to use them in the right way, equipped with the tools to address individual problems.

Take this a step further to train your customer service team in sales. A good customer experience is an ideal opportunity to upsell. When a problem or request is solved, train your customer service team to suggest complementary products or subscriptions.

The 4 Levels of Company Autonomy 

Before we dive into Trevor’s Autonomy principles, let’s talk about what company autonomy actually is.

Trevor defines company autonomy as a company’s ability to fully function without excessive input from management. That is, every single team member has the initiative to make the right decisions for their company’s growth.

Let’s dive in:

• Level 0: Zero Autonomy. Everything is done manually.
• Level 1: This is a step up from level 0. This is where a company begins making use of tools and software to help automate parts of its business.
• Level 2: Semi autonomous. When your team members are following a set of systems or SOPs to operate tools and software for basic processes.
• Level 3: Fully autonomous. Team members are able to respond to given situations quickly and efficiently using tools, software, and SOPs. They also have some understanding as to how their company will function differently in the future. 

Achieving autonomy, Trevor says, is ultimately about synchronising software and company systems to achieve optimal efficiency.

Tools to Manage Company Growth 

Trevor warns against over-automation. It’s easy to get so carried away with all these different company tools that you forget the most important thing about using them: synchronization.

Atomatic is all about getting everything smoothly running together in harmony.

So what ecommerce tools does Trevor recommend?

Start with a project management tool. This could be ClickUp, Trello, or Monday.com. Plotting your processes in line for your team members to see is crucial to running a business. Project management tools make it easy to see clearly which team member is doing what.

In terms of team communication - there’s no need to make this complicated. Slack and WhatsApp work perfectly well.

Trevor is a strong advocate for Gorgias - a customer service software designed purely for ecommerce. With Q4 quickly approaching, it’s good to think about automating some of those customer service replies the right way. Gorgias makes use of AI and machine learning to not only respond to queries in a relevant way, but even upsell in the process.

Klaviyo, of course, a Budai Media favorite, is a fantastic tool for email marketing.

Trevor’s top tip? Know your tools, and keep it simple.

Hiring Great Team Members 

If you’re thinking about hiring, both Trevor and Daniel recommend beginning the hiring process before Q4. This will allow for enough time for training before your business’s busiest season.

Do bear in mind that things will calm down in Q1 and make sure to hire people with a varied skill set. This means that they can continue to help your company grow beyond hard sales at the end of the year.

3 Ways to Tackle Q4 While Managing Company Growth 

1. If you’re a dropshipper, do as much product research as possible before Q4 officially begins. This is so you don’t waste precious time on product research during such a critical period for your business. This is a time for scaling ads, efforts, and handling the increased number of customers.
2. Look for partners. Look towards multiple suppliers in case communication breaks down or product fulfilment slows down. Have a few back up plans so that products reach your customers on time.
3. Automate Customer Service as much as possible. The less time your team members need to work on the customer service side of things, the faster problems will be resolved. Make sure that all your tools are verified and tested to minimize the possibility of technical issues. 

TL;DR: Know how to automate your ecommerce as much as possible. Keep it simple, and make sure you’re prepared for Q4!

Visit Atomatic or connect with Trevor on LinkedIn or Facebook to find out more about turning your ecom systems into a fully optimized scaling machine.

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#72 Authentic Marketing and Why it Matters: LoudCrowd and UGC  

Social Media floods us with marketing every single day. How are you gonna stand out in the sea of Instagram and TikTok ads? Authentic marketing. And how do we keep it authentic? Three words: User Generated Content (UGC).

Alex Johnson is the Head of Strategic Partnerships at LoudCrowd. LoudCrowd empowers ecommerce owners to connect with their most valuable customers to generate UGC that works. LoudCrowd is trusted by leading brands including GymShark, Revolution Beauty London, and Verb for getting customers beyond the purchase and into marketing. Tune in to hear Alex and our podcast host and CEO Daniel Budai discuss:

✔️ What Brought Alex into Marketing

✔️ What’s So Important About UGC?

✔️ Influencer Marketing

✔️ LoudCrowd’s Approach

✔️ The Best Platforms for UGC

✔️ Tips and Tricks for UGC

What Brought Alex into Marketing?

Alex actually started out in the sports world. A huge fan of football and basketball, Alex became good friends with a marketing grad assistant who was working for the sports department at their college. Soon enough, Alex was getting involved with game day promos and campaigns, event ticketing, and sponsorships: diving into all things sports marketing and keeping it up all through college. Alex was in the marketing world for a while before transitioning into sales, actually working with the CEO and Co-Founder of LoudCrowd, Gary, at a different company, years before LoudCrowd got started.

Alex’s work in live sports events took a turn last year during the COVID-19 pandemic. But Alex was able to make the transition - all the way from marketing, through sales, into media, and eventually into marketing with LoudCrowd.

What’s So Important About UGC?

Alex assured Daniel that around 90% of the social media content comes from brand customers. The top 1% of a brand’s social advocates typically create between 15% to 20% of their content. It’s powerful stuff.

UGC is the most authentic and engaging content out there. It’s going to outperform anything and a brand curates and posts on their own due to social media platforms gating their content.

As a brand gets more and more followers, it becomes harder to reach them. The same goes for influencer marketers. As they become increasingly popular, their content is perceived to be less engaging and authentic.

That’s where UGC comes in. Customers sharing their love for a brand via social media stands out as authentic as it gets. Most of the smart marketers are saying that 90% of customers trust earned media i.e. referrals from friends and family that’s coming through social media. Ads with UGC typically see around four times higher click through rates.

When Apple and Google changed their privacy policies, it became a lot more difficult for smaller direct to consumer (D2C) brands to make returns on their ad spend. LoudCrowd’s solution? Turn your customers into advertisers to build a long-term marketing strategy.

Influencer Marketing

So what’s Alex’s opinion on influencer marketing?

If you have the budget, influencer marketing has certainly been shown to be effective. But Alex believes that influencer marketing is losing its effectiveness. You can only follow so many people that you have no idea why they’re famous and watch them push products. Understandably, most of us assume that influencers are getting paid a ton of money to advertise a certain product. A referral from a customer, especially if from a friend or family member, is going to be a lot more powerful.

“The future of marketing is customer-led”

You’re going to trust a friend, family member, or somebody that you follow on social media more than an empty review. LoudCrowd heavily focuses on incentivising customers to post content on Instagram and TikTok for this very reason.

If you do want to dabble in influencer marketing, Daniel and Alex both recommend beginning with micro-influencers, seeing how that goes, and scaling up.

What’s LoudCrowd’s Approach?

LoudCrowd is, first and foremost, a customer-led growth platform, ultimately helping ecom owners measure and scale UGC. LoudCrowd isn’t an influencer platform and is not focused on finding new people that have never interacted with your brand and creating a ‘follower persona’.

Instead, LoudCrowd creates unique Ambassador programmes for people who have tagged your brand on Instagram and TikTok.

1. Exclusive Ambassador Programme

High-value super fans with a good following, and very engaging content. These are invited to exclusive reward programmes where they get access to high-value credit free products, early access to product releases and content, event tickets, calls with the founder, etc.

2. Loyalty Ambassador Programme

These are for all customers engaged with your brand on social media. LoudCrowd offers spending incentives such as discounts and store credit. This builds a community around your brand and turns your customers into nano influencers that produce authentic content. This creates an entire marketing cycle that encourages customers to continue engaging with and buying from your brand.

LoudCrowd takes on a data-driven approach to incentives. Rewards are based on a tier system, offering greater rewards to those who generate the most valuable content. This increases their lifetime value and optimizes conversion rates.

What Platforms Work Best for UGC?

LoudCrowd has seen incredible success with Instagram. It’s become the ecommerce social media platform. Watchwear brand MVMT became a billion-dollar brand just from Instagram ads.

While Instagram is LoudCrowd’s ‘bread and butter’, they’re also now jumping onto TikTok.

So is Alex concerned about migration to TikTok?

Alex considers Instagram and TikTok to be two strong, but different platforms. TikTok is more music and video-based; Instagram relies more on more static posts - but this is changing with the introduction of ‘reels’ - short videos similar to the TikTok format. Alex certainly isn’t concerned about Instagram dwindling with its billions of users and the response evoked during its 6-hour shutdown. The response wasn’t so much, “Thank God we have TikTok”, it was more so upset at not having access to Instagram.

LoudCrowd enjoys the best of both worlds with rewards for customer engagement on both Instagram and TikTok.

Alex’s Tips and Tricks for UGC

Often, it’s as simple as asking customers to tag your handle to be featured on your Instagram and TikTok. And make sure to actually feature people that do. If you don’t feature your customers, your post instantly loses validity and comprises trust in your brand.

Hashtag data is great, but as Instagram doesn’t consider anyone to own hashtags, it can get messy. So focus on the handle.

When your customer has finished an order, remind them to join your VIP rewards programme on your landing page.

Contests are also great. You’ll see a lot of brands posting “Tag 3 friends to win such-and-such a product”. LoudCrowd goes a step further by launching a photo of customers: to enter, customers post a picture of them with their product with a hashtag or handle that the brand can use to track entries. That way you’re getting hundreds of engaging individual posts - you’re not just tagging three people that will see your post for a second or two.

TL;DR: UGC is fantastic marketing. Use Instagram and TikTok. Test competitions, and check out LoudCrowd!

Visit LoudCrowd or connect with Alex on LinkedIn to find out more about scaling your brand with UGC.

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