The E-commerce Leader

[00:00:00] Michael: There are some more sophisticated things coming out where you can actually start to do display network type advertising, but by the time you’re spending that kind of money and learning that kind of system, I’d rather be outside the Amazon ecosystem
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[00:01:12] Michael: So then the six out of nine,
[00:01:15] Jason: yeah. Number six is a newer. One, technically that is just on fire and that is, be sure to capture their phone number so that you can do texts and SMS marketing campaigns. Now, this is made possible inside of Shopify very easily.
[00:01:32] In the checkout process, you can require a phone number or you can make it, an option. Element, but, or you can have it turned off. And so you want to look in your Shopify settings to make sure that it’s, I would say optional, I wouldn’t, I wouldn’t make it required, but when you start to do that and have it be optional, you start to build a list of phone numbers.
[00:01:52] And there’s a great app that many of our clients are turned onto now that are just crushing it with. And that’s called SMS bump, the SMS bump app, is a fantastic tool for abandoned text checkout, or abandoned checkout texts. So if a customer has the phone number in your data, they abandoned their product in their cart.
[00:02:17] They’ll get a text that says, Hey, just wanted to make sure you didn’t, you know, you know, the internet didn’t go down, you know, I would say, say whatever you want, but here’s the item. You know, so that you can complete your. Those work like crazy. The conversion rate on those texts are literally crazy.
[00:02:34] And text-based marketing is a pay to play system. So you actually pay for every text that is sent. And that actually is a really interesting, because we have some clients who are like, I spent $14 and made $4,700. You know, like these, these, ROI is on this text-based stuff and SMS bump is ludicrous. And so, you definitely want to get that rigged up.
[00:02:59] And so having that abandoned. Checkout text SMS. Marketing is, good to go, for Shopify owners and is just gold. And so there’s, there’s that? Yeah.
[00:03:10] Michael: I liked that a lot that, obviously you can only work some of the magic that I think capturing phone numbers also possible. If you have a website and your Amazon focus, you’re going to have less power.
[00:03:18] You certainly can’t do abandoned carts re-targeting but you could do, you know, some form of targeted, you know, SMS systems
[00:03:25] Jason: that leads us right to number seven, my man, which is the next thing you can do once you have phone numbers is you can do what I would call broadcast. And so broadcast texts are the one-off campaign texts.
[00:03:38] They’re not tied to any abandoned checkout thing. They’re just a, Hey, how do you do everyone? Who I have your phone number? And you’ve given it to me and I can text you something. We just launched our new product. I only have 180 of them and they’re going like hotcakes, here’s your link or whatever, you know?
[00:03:56] And it’s like, whatever, Brent, you know, special broadcast now. Because there too, your whole list can be more expensive. So, you know, like the one-off, abandoned checkout one that we just talked about a moment ago, that’s one text message to one customer about a specific thing. And so the ROI is stack up like, oh my gosh.
[00:04:13] I mean like so much money, but if you just broadcast your whole phone list, let’s say you’ve got a thousand people in there. It’s basically a standard. Direct response, marketing metrics. How many of them click through to the product? How many of them convert? How much money did that add up to? And is that more than it costs to do the campaign itself?
[00:04:34] On the texting side. So it is a pay to play performance, kind of based system, but, you know, do what we recommend to our coaching clients is that they try to do something like one special, broadcast text. So you don’t, you don’t, you don’t want to bomb people with tons of stuff because you’ve got the abandoned checkout thing running all the time on autopilot.
[00:04:56] And then if you’ve got a special thing, like a new product, maybe once a month, you do a big campaign to the whole text list. And, that is, gold they’ll of course, be coming to your site on their phone. But nonetheless, it’s a returning visitor and it Def definitely improves your conversion metrics.
[00:05:13] Yeah.
[00:05:14] Michael: It’s interesting that the returning visitor things, I suppose, sort of all translate in the Amazon world, but with a slightly different angle on it. I mean, in this case, this would be a fantastic way to, to launch on Amazon cause logical Madison’s always expensive anyway, but what you’re really trying to do is use the algorithm so that it, you get SEO and that’s how the economics works rather than the cost of acquisition, new customer versus lifecycle long-term customer value metric is.
[00:05:36] So, in that case again, I would say that if you, you know, unless your SMS marketing is remarkably expensive, that may well be worth doing as well. If you’ve got a good offer to put up to a list, and it’s not so much returning to your site, but it is kind of still an engagement of the people on your list.
[00:05:51] Isn’t it? So there’s a, there’s a. There’s some similarities. And again, anything which you can do to launch effectively on Amazon is incredibly valuable not to mention reviews, which you can try and get outside of the Amazon sort of very controlled ecosystem. So for both those reasons, again, an SMS list, just like any other list of prospects is, is of great value in the right situation.
[00:06:10] I think
[00:06:11] Jason: I’ll tell you my number one hack for Amazon only sellers. I would absolutely, and it doesn’t matter if it’s RA or wholesale. Private label. I would absolutely. If that was my game and I was starting out today, I would be running a contest every week on a site like Wishpond raffle, copter, Viper.
[00:06:32] You don’t, you don’t have to have a Shopify site run, a contest, giveaway something, have the entry methods, be email opt-in and text SMS, phone number opt in. And if you had any social media accounts, you could have opt-ins related to those as bonus items. And. Literally you do all of the text-based work and the email-based work all focused on your Amazon sales channel.
[00:06:56] You can do everything we’ve just described if you just run a contest. And so then you’ve got a list of both phone lists and email list and you’re off to the races. It really gives you massive control over the, what we call traffic stacking in our nine mountains of traffic training. That’s. There’s no barrier to entry for that zero zero barrier entry.
[00:07:19] You could have a contest set up literally in the next hour on any of those sites. There’s it’s not technical. It’s not expensive. There’s no barrier to doing that. And it will radically improve your Amazon sales outcomes. If you start sending traffic targeted traffic. To your products.
[00:07:36] Michael: Yeah, amazing. I would presume as well.
[00:07:38] The SMS is a much less crowded channel for marketing messages than email, partly because it’s paid to
[00:07:44] Jason: play it again. That’s why the results are so incredible is because people get very few text messages and you don’t want to be the person that pushed them over the edge, that they then re you know, resent and hate you.
[00:08:00] You don’t want to be that person. You don’t want to push it what you want to do. Be there to support them. They abandoned the checkout. You wanted to make sure they still have the opportunity to buy the product. Boom that’s okay. Or once a month you’ve got something special, put it in front of them, you know, gentle and not pushy way.
[00:08:17] I think that’s reasonable. So, but yeah, that’s the reason their results are so incredibly high as people’s inboxes. Are literally hilarious. I mean, Michael, do you know how many emails I have in my inbox right now?
[00:08:30] Michael: I have no idea, but I can guess a thousand,
[00:08:33] Jason: 61,906. Okay.
[00:08:37] Michael: So you’re on the money box frequently.
[00:08:41] Jason: Yeah. I’m not even joking. 61,906. People’s inboxes are stuffed. There, their text messages. Aren’t okay. So anyway, you guys get the point. I, you know, I don’t need to sell people on text marketing, but,
[00:08:54] Michael: but I think you probably do in the sense of people aren’t doing it. I think that it’s actually, because it’s paid to play, it puts people off.
[00:09:00] That’s really good because it’s putting everyone off so you can get the economics to work for you. That’s I think that’s really powerful. Yeah. So we’ve got, then we’ve got two left. I think I might buy marketing. So what’s number eight ways. By the way, it goes, we were talking about ways to get, repeat visitors or returning visitors to your site in essence.
[00:09:15] So what’s number eight for those.
[00:09:17] Jason: So these last two are more, pay paid based, or, you know, marketing spend based. So, number eight is set up Google, text based ads. Now, the reason I love people to start with Google text-based ads is you’re answering a question that people are actively searching for.
[00:09:35] So, so people are looking for, you know, you know, greenhouse roofing material and your ad pops up and says by our greenhouse roofing. Those text-based ads are old school, but they’re not interruption marketing. They are answering the hungry crowd with the, you know, here’s the plate of food type idea. That to me is a great way to, you know, increase traffic to your site.
[00:10:05] But then the thing about it is the more you do that in your niche or industry. You will find returning customers that are searching for stuff and the opportunity for them to know, like, and trust you and come back to you is, you know, is clear and obvious. Now I think it was point number two, we said pixels.
[00:10:25] So you can also set up through, you know, the Google ad platform, your retargeting. Now the retargeting ads can be in the display network, so they can be image ads that are all over the internet so that when people go to various websites, they’ll see your website again, through the, you know, because you’re retargeting them.
[00:10:45] That’s a fantastic opportunity to get that second visit third visit fourth visit. So that’s the, that’s the eight idea.
[00:10:52] Michael: I like this. I’m just, again, trying to think about somebody who sells primary on Emerson’s can make this work. I mean, it’s just a bit of a tricky one, isn’t it? Because obviously the cost upfront and then justifying that it’s going to be hard to do.
[00:11:03] If you do it in one burst to boost a launch, you could do that. I think you’re going to have to accept that. The breakeven points is going to be pushed back by that. And I probably would be wary of doing this quickly, which is another reason why ultimately, people who focus on Amazon primarily, or most of the ones that I know that are serious are all building their own direct to consumer site.
[00:11:21] But none that all of them, I mean, some of them with more success than others, but these are reasons why longer term you want to be. Multi-channel I think because the operative opportunities in these channels different really.
[00:11:32] Jason: And Amazon in the market, Amazon marketing platform tools doesn’t have any equivalency to this type of stuff, I suppose.
[00:11:38] Does it just, not that I know of product,
[00:11:41] Michael: they’re expanding it all the time. There are some more sophisticated things coming out where you can actually start to do display network type advertising, but by the time you’re spending that kind of money and learning that kind of system, I’d rather be outside the Amazon ecosystem because in the end, what you’re doing is pushing people back towards a platform.
[00:11:57] That tends to offer them other people’s products. The say, you know, as quickly as possible. So I’d rather it spend the money. Even if it’s a term play, pushing them back towards your own site here. I mean, whereas if you’re building a list of people and you’re then pushing them to Amazon to buy it, you’re still building a list you can nurture.
[00:12:13] So I think that. You know, this is the thing really, that, that strikes me always building our own assets above all. What we’re talking about today is building our own marketing assets, the backend of which some of which they only work on Shopify, but a lot of the time they work on Amazon as well, but the asset is the marketing and the relationship and that return visit is a sign that we’ve got that relationship, I guess.
[00:12:32] Isn’t it really? That there’s a good reason why they should come back. Yep. Okay. So that’s that’s number eight. One line one left. Number nine.
[00:12:40] Jason: What do we do? Number nine is easy. Facebook. Facebook retargeting once you pixel them. Then you’ve got an opportunity to put your brand and your products back in front of them.
[00:12:50] Now I have this last on the list and I do think this is a priority order. You know, this would be the last. On this list that I would do because it’s expensive and it doesn’t work that well. In fact, we, we studied this in our own site pretty well, and I’ve told this story before, but, what we discovered after we did a retargeting, you know, analysis was that, it was easier for me to get a first time visit.
[00:13:12] To my website than it was to get a second time or third, you know, to get the re-targeted, returning customers cheaper and easier, which is super depressing in a way, if you think about what that so much people are less likely to come back to the sec, the second time than they are the first time when they’re looking for something, that’s like what you think you have for them.
[00:13:33] But nonetheless, retarded. Clearly an option and it can work for many websites and many products. It’s definitely a way to stay top of mind, even if the customer doesn’t return to the site, you’ve put yourself in front of them in a way that, they could now, you know, you, maybe they see you on Facebook, with your retargeting ad and then they just, you know, go to their browser, open a tab and go to your site.
[00:13:58] So you never know what the knock on effects are of those types of display. But, but yeah, that’s the, that’s a simple one and, you know, I would, I would clip off the budget quickly and, and, monitor it closely to make sure that you don’t get. Spend a ton of money on that, but there you go. That’s the 9th one.
[00:14:18] Michael: You’re not the only person to find that by the way, easier or the economics make more sense to get a one-off visitor than to get returning visitors. I’ve had Amazon based sellers who focus on Facebook ads, but only for launch. So say the same kind of thing. They tried building. We tucked in this, I guess, on their own websites or interstitials stays page that belongs to somebody else.
[00:14:37] But that’s. You can pixel people on and, yeah, they’ve had the same experience. So maybe when you’re on an interruption marketing mode and you’re on Facebook, people are just driven by impulse and maybe that results of very busy behaviors, I guess, you know, so I’m always, I’m never. Comfortable with those kinds of interrupted marketing things, they work, but there’s a different mentality, a different arts of art.
[00:14:59] I think isn’t that. And then any other things that you’ve talked about today? I think totally. Yeah, because everyone else has come there because they’re looking for something specific. So yes. So yes, don’t do this in a hurry folks. We’ve got nine things. That’s the ninth thing. So let’s recap in the priority order so that the earlier it comes in the less, the more likely it is to work for people by this
[00:15:18] Jason: department.
[00:15:19] Here’s the whole, summary. 60 seconds. So the exercise here is to improve your returning customer or visitor rate on your product or website. And there are nine ways you can do that. Here we go. First of all, get their email address. Second of all, pixel them with both Facebook and Google pixel third, get them to buy anything on their first visit.
[00:15:42] Even a free item that’s run through the checkout is incredibly valuable for give them structured reasons to come back. Like annual events, weekly events, things that are planned that they know they can hear about. And, and come back for a number five, give them special one-off reasons to come back.
[00:16:00] That would be your typical items on sale, new product, launch, a contest, that kind of thing. Number six, set up text SMS marketing, get their phone numbers in the checkout process. And number seven, do one-off broadcast. Where you, you know, send them special items. Oh, number six was a abandoned checkout flow, for the text SMS.
[00:16:23] Number eight is set up Google text, ad word campaigns, to get people who are super hungry to come to your site. And you know, that they’re the right people. They’re highly likely to come back a second time as well. And you can then of course, retarget through Google ad systems, and number eight.
[00:16:40] Do retargeting again, through, Google and number nine is re-targeting through Facebook. Okay. So that’s the sloppy redo of the sixties.
[00:16:49] Michael: That’s cool. I’ve made decent notes ever. Folks you’ll find them over at the e-commerce leader.com. So when I make notes, I confused Jason, without messing with your outline here.
[00:16:58] So Jason, obviously, you know, you’re, you’re showing, what’s getting your, your amazing shops with Shopify slash direct to consumer world. So if people want to get more coaching from you and I know Kyle Haimer is also. You know, your partner in crime there, how do they figure it out? Is it winning on Shopify still?
[00:17:12] I know you guys are rebranding. Where do they go to these
[00:17:13] Jason: days? It’s still winning on shopify.com currently, but when you’re listening to this in the future, it will likely redirect to our new brand that we’re rolling out in the next few weeks. We hope. And so, yeah, go check us out there. You’ve got application forms for coaching.
[00:17:27] You’ve also got other resources and tools like our nine mountains of traffic, and our small groups, that kind of thing that you can check out there.
[00:17:34] Michael: And, as ever folks, if you want to check us out and you can always go to the trustee, podcast apps, apple podcasts, Google podcasts, Spotify, whatever it is.
[00:17:43] But we have a new place where you can connect with us, which is on the e-commerce leader on call-in app CA LL and N I N as it sounds, that’s very exciting because you can actually pop in there and we could even potentially do things like get you on the show briefly to ask questions or whatever.
[00:17:56] I guess Jason w so far we’re doing, we’re focusing on a fun new format, which is a four way chat, isn’t it? But we’re hoping to get people in there and lit a little bit more interactive.
[00:18:05] Jason: Yeah. It’s a fun dynamic. It’s a, you know, four, four of us round table conversation. They’re faster episodes. You know, we’re trying to do them in like, you know, 12 to 15 minutes, hot topics, hot takes on one thing.
[00:18:16] So the one we dropped, earlier this week was, Kate Chaddick and Chris green talking about. Q4 strategies for retail arbitrage, you know, so there’ll be very micro, specific topics and yeah, it’s a good time.
[00:18:28] Michael: Yeah. So folks, that’s the new place to check us out, just remain to me and say, Jason, this has absolutely been your episode.
[00:18:34] And, you know, as ever I’m an owner, if you’re a, you know, fantastic, tips there, because I think that there’s so much power in the stuff you’re doing, and you’ve got so many great results, not only for yourself now, but for your clients say some exciting things to go over. So thanks, man. That was great stuff.
[00:18:49] Thanks
[00:18:49] Jason: man. It’s an honor
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