Archives for October 2015

5 Ways to Make More Money from Your Customers without Actually Selling Them Anything

October 12, 2015 by influexwp 1 Comment

It’s generally agreed that it’s far easier to sell more to an existing customer than it is to acquire a new one. And while I won’t digress into why some folks don’t mine their existing customers as much as they could, what about the idea of getting more money from your existing customers without actually get them to buy more?

Almost seems too good to be true.

Well it is possible. Totally legit. Not just the flick of a switch – not much ever is – but certainly shouldn’t take 6 months to implement.

Below are 5 ways to do so:

1. Retry billing

For those of you with multi-pay options or with continuity models, I’d suggest taking a look at your processes to see what happens when a customer’s credit card doesn’t go through. For soft declines (soft typically meaning insufficient funds, etc.; as opposed to a hard decline which can mean a lost or stolen credit card, invalid number, etc. – for hard declines, pull those out and jump to collections below. They won’t go through.) As for soft declines, are you trying again? How often are you doing so? I’ve talked to marketers who retry those declined credit cards anywhere from 3- 20 times. Certainly, it’s not free to do so – your merchant provider charges you per attempt (and then you pay your percent on a successful transaction), so you have to do testing and some math to see how many attempts you can try and still remain breakeven – just remember that breakeven is relative to incremental margin, not revenues. Too many people do this analysis relative to revenues and totally overestimate the number of attempts.

Not only should you test the number of attempts, but you should consider the frequency between attempts – every day, every few days, 1x per week? Again, I’ve seen people do all of the those. The rationale for every week is that, assuming it was a reject reason like insufficient funds, you’re banking on your re-try happening after the customer gets paid. (And if you think that’s sneaky, well, it’s also not cool for a customer to buy but not honor their agreement to pay.)

To execute this strategy, you’ll need to pull together your marketing, finance and IT teams to make sure everyone is coordinated.

2. Following up with declined credit cards

Concurrent with a retry attempt can and should be some form of communication to the customer. This can be an email or a phone call, informing them that their credit card didn’t go through. Depending on whether it’s a multi-pay instance vs. a continuity, obviously your messaging can be different – the former is about paying for what they’ve already received versus the latter is about not discontinuing the subscription, service, product, etc.

Certainly, email is cheaper than the phone, and contact rates on phone calls are never especially high, but depending on your price point, that phone call could ROI if you have a 4- or 5-figure price point.

3. Account Updater

You or someone on your team should be digging in to the reason codes for credit cards that decline. You should also work with your merchant provider to make sure you are entirely clear on what each code means, especially the one called “other”, which for many folks is over 10% – so not insignificant. But you need to know what each one means to understand what type of action you might be able to take.

One of the reasons that cards decline is that the expiration date of the card has passed. A customer might have purchased something to be paid over 3 months. The initial payment was in July, but the credit card you have on file shows an expiration date of July. The initial payment went through but presumably the following ones didn’t.

Well, it turns out that there is a service called Account Updater, whereby you can send the info for cards that have this expiration date issue to get the expiration date updated. And the beauty is that you only get charged for card numbers that actually get updated. Depending on your partner and your status, you can get charged anywhere from $0.06 to $0.18 per updated credit card. Now, no matter your price point, that shouldn’t be that hard to ROI.

There are only certain banks that participate in this service, so it won’t be 100% of the expired cards, but this has added significant dollars to the companies that use it. You should reach out to your merchant provider or gateway provider to discuss how to implement this.

4. Collections

You can take the above measures and you’re still not going to collect everything that customers owe you. So the next step is to employ a collection agency to pursue the funds on your behalf. Typically these agencies keep roughly 33% of the funds they collect, but this is money you were not going to collect.

I will say that I know some marketers who choose not to send anything to a collection agency because they don’t want to go to that level of interaction and relationship with their customers, even if their customers are the ones who broke their end of the promise. This is entirely a business decision you must make. There is no right or wrong answer, but at the least you want to be intentional about your action (or inaction).

5. Lower your return rate

Sure. Sounds simple enough. Just like saying that if only you increase your conversion rate on your site from 3% to 4% (just 1 percentage point increase), you’ll make a ton more money. Except that it’s actually a 33% increase to go from 3% to 4%. That’s a HUGE increase. But it doesn’t mean you don’t try to make incremental, or even step-function, improvements.

As such, one of the first things you need to do is understand the actual reasons customers are returning your product and/or asking for a refund. This really should be a joint responsibility between customer service and marketing – at least to own understanding of the reasons and metrics. And then other groups – depending on the reason codes – might be engaged to help address the issues. Clearly, just getting the data is the first step. And depending on what platform you’re on, it can be a huge step. But understanding returns and refunds goes well beyond saving any individual sale. In this day and age, unhappy customers are voicing their displeasure all over social media. (And as we all have experienced, unhappy customers are much more likely to post than a happy one. Check out this link to see some stats about what impact being satisfied or not can have on a customer and your business – http://www.helpscout.net/75-customer-service-facts-quotes-statistics/.)

Addressing unhappy customers – and more importantly the reason(s) for their displeasure – can eliminate or at least mitigate barriers to acquiring new ones. That is likely even more valuable than saving that sale.

If you don’t know or can’t easily get the answer from someone in your organization about the top 5-7 reasons for returns and refunds, it’s an investment worth making. It might be simply having someone pull a report, or it might require systems work and training with your customer care agents. Either way, it will pay itself back in spades.

There you have it. 5 (amongst a bunch more) ways you can make more from existing customers without asking for another sale. If you’re the type of person who just lives for the sale but doesn’t enjoy (or bother) with these types of operational issues, acknowledge that. And then either task someone within your org or bring someone in to do so. More on this in a coming post.

Please leave a comment below because I’d like to hear what you think.

The 13 Things DRTV Marketers Should Know about Digital Marketing

October 12, 2015 by influexwp 3 Comments

For the most part, the days of “do you factor in online sales when you run TV media” questions are generally over. And so most traditional DRTV marketers have a website that primarily receives traffic driven thru TV media. But what many DRTV marketers don’t do well is drive cold traffic online. Below is a smattering of what I’ve learned with my time with some of the top digital marketers out there.

1. The pace is totally different, and you’ll likely have to battle ingrained cultural norms to be successful

I combined 2 points which I think are actually the 2 most important and the 2 biggest challenges DRTV folks have when it comes to digital. Everything online is faster than in the TV world. That’s not an attack on the DRTV world – almost like criticizing an oil tanker for not having a smaller turning radius. That’s because the process of putting something up on TV just takes longer. It has to be higher quality, historically stations only aired tapes (it’s gradually getting better), and as a result the cost of switching tapes is not free like it is when you want to switch SEM copy. Plus, if you lived in a world where you sent paper materials to your customers, that just exaggerated how “just right” everything had to be.

This results in certain types of cultural norms and business processes, frankly that were necessary to save money, avoid mistakes, etc. But in the world of online marketing, very little has to be perfect. Far from it. Not to mention, newer companies have the advantage of new technologies. You can literally get an online store up and running in a couple hours with Shopify. Google Analytics provides free tracking and analytics tools. WhatRunsWhere allows you to see what banner ads your competitors are running – to the point that you can download them and build your own.

But more than anything, people starting in digital media today just expect to operate at a fast pace. And the cost for DRTV folks comes both in opportunity cost, not to mention in trying to attract partners and employees from the digital world who are not frustrated by the “normal” pace within these organizations.

I can’t overemphasize this point enough. Just as some larger traditional companies have established new offices in Silicon Valley, it might be worth a new space (or at least part of the office) to allow the digital folks to do their thing.

2. Remember that cold traffic to your site from online media is probably not nearly as qualified as it is from your TV marketing

One of the huge benefits of running media on TV, especially long-form, is that you get the opportunity to educate, inform and excite your potential customers before they get to the landing page. As such, traditional landing pages for DRTV marketers don’t have to do as much selling as providing some additional and supporting info, and then to get out of the way of allowing a customer to purchase.

Driving cold traffic from online media to a site is akin to getting someone to click on the program guide. That’s just the first step. Depending on where they’re coming from, the content on the page – whether written, images, a video, or something else – needs to then do the job that the infomercial did. That’s because the customer is in a total different state of awareness. You can’t just put a buy button at the top of the page. Just because a customer doesn’t click doesn’t mean they aren’t interested; it’s just that it’s the wrong sequencing. My friend Perry Belcher (one of the sharpest guys out there) really taught me this lesson.

3. Online video (especially YouTube) is different than TV video

TV viewers expect a certainly level of quality, and are accustomed to a certain pace. Same with online viewers. Except that those 2 are different for an online viewer than a TV viewer (even if it’s the same person). For example, using multiple cameras for TV is normal, but on YouTube, while there are certainly some exceptions, direct-to-camera is the norm. And whereas a TV viewer expects clean cuts from one scene to another, online, consumers have become accustomed to somewhat choppy edits – if the result means less dead air and getting to the point faster.

Not to mention the form factor of mobile – people just can’t read as much on their smartphone as they can when they watch on their 40-inch flatscreens. This sounds like an obvious point, but check out how many videos you watch on your phone that have copy that is unreadable. And to those that say they didn’t realize or intend for consumers to watch it on their phones, well, that’s partly the point – consumers are doing things on their terms now more than ever before.

4. You need to learn a new language, but just like a foreign language, don’t try to learn it all at once

The following is a list of some of the more commons terms in digital marketing today:

SEO, SEM, Email, Affiliates, display, Social (FB, Twitter, Pinterest, YouTube, I/G, Periscope, Snapchat), VSLs, long-form vs. short-form sales letters, retargeting, drip-campaigns, reputation management, auto-responder sequences, exit pops, webinars, content marketing

Hopefully, many of those are familiar to you. And while you don’t have to know and use every single one of those, it’s about learning what different types of strategies and tactics are out there and then deciding which one(s) are relevant for your business.

Note: If you don’t have the foundations of SEO, SEM (especially brand search), retargeting (both thru Google and Facebook), and basic email marketing in place, I’d get those squared away first before touching anything else. The reason I say that is your TV media is already affecting those buckets, so I’d get traffic from your TV media sorted out first before adding new media.

5. You need to go hang out with new people

Just like learning a foreign language, you need to start going to the places where the people who are speaking this new language are hanging out. The beauty (and at times overwhelming part) is that there are a ton of conferences and events. One thing to note is that most of the events are content-heavy – where you spend most of your time in educational sessions, as opposed to in suites simply meeting folks. Traffic & Conversion Summit is one of the best events out there. There are a ton of affiliate events such as Affiliate Summit East/West, LeadsCon, etc. And NewsCred just put on one of the better content marketing events recently – what was particularly great was that I couldn’t make the event in NYC but they live-streamed it for free.

6. Sharing of information happens in a different way, especially amongst marketers

This point extends from the one just above. One dynamic that I’ve been utterly blown away by in the digital marketing world is the extent to which people share information. And I’m not talking about general statements such as “we use SEM to drive our traffic.” But I’ve seen folks break down the exact ads they ran, the funnel they run people through, how they retarget non-converting leads, their metrics, and much more. And in rooms where direct competitors were present. It’s pretty amazing. That’s a big part of what makes the educational sessions so highly-attended. There is high-quality content being shared. You may need to learn this new language, and fortunately there are tons of resources and people out there willing to teach you – sometimes even for free (see my prior post on podcasts – http://goo.gl/PH18xE).

2 highly-recommended resources I’d suggest:

-Digital Marketer – www.digitalmarketer.com – their blog is excellent and their DM Lab is unreal cheap ($39/month) for great content. At the very least, join their email list.

-Neil Patel – probably one of the best content marketing guys out there. If you go thru his posts, he will pretty much teach you content marketing to a level of detail that you didn’t expect – he posts in a couple places – http://neilpatel.com/blog/ and http://www.quicksprout.com/blog/ .

7. You need to buddy up with Google and Amazon

Two particular relationships that have to be built are with Google and Amazon (especially if you’re in the physical products world – see my prior post about Amazon – http://goo.gl/KFQBMG). Presumably you have been doing this anyways but it warrants repeating. Neither of them is going anywhere. They are big gorillas that are not afraid to push people around. But they are also HUGE drivers of traffic and revenues. And so a strong relationship there can make a big difference.

8. Facebook should probably be a 3^rd required relationship

I’m amazed that people still aren’t running ads on Facebook. At the very least, it should be used for retargeting. But I know people running 6-figure media dollars each week on Facebook. Profitably. Certainly, Facebook, just as Google has done, has started tightening up their compliance on what they do and don’t allow, but that just means being creative and adapting. And pretty much to be expected – each new property usually allows almost anything and everything to attract as many people as possible, and then once they’ve hit some sort of scale and feel like they can push back on advertisers (or just users in general), they start doing so. But re: Facebook, it’s essentially a monster database marketing tool. Not just for killing time…

9. Don’t stress about perfection in the way you do with TV (and print)

Already mentioned this above. But it bears mentioning a second time. Most everything can be pulled down and changed if you don’t like it. Find a way to get tests up as quickly as possible. Ad copy tests, images, landing page tests, back-end tests. Wherever you have traffic is where you should be looking to test. Just make sure you prioritize your higher points of leverage and that tests are kept apart, even if one is on the front end and the other is on the back end.

10. Your digital marketing employees and agencies aren’t nearly as focused on the phone channel as you are

It might feel like I’m being critical of DRTV folks. Far from it. Many have had a level of success that you have to appreciate. But this post is about an area where most DRTV marketers have fallen short and how to make improvements, not about talking about all the things that have been done well.

That being said, one area that deserves mention – because of implications on the digital side – is the phone channel. Most DRTV marketers show a toll-free number on the screen (BTW, at least on TV, you should be using 800 numbers – not as important on your site, but definitely on TV). As such, they (you) probably have a sense of the value of the phone channel. Most digital marketers don’t have that experience. So how and where you can add in the opportunity for people to respond via phone, even if it’s not primary, is where you’ll have to be mindful.

11. There are analogues to PI media

In the online world, they’re affiliates, who you pay per order, lead, or whatever is agreed upon. Just be aware that fraud is much much worse with online affiliates than PI agencies (where in my experience it was rare). If you’re going to work with affiliates, you have to have someone watching for fraud. And while in the DRTV world, PI is considered an add-on, there are plenty of online marketers who drive traffic almost entirely through affiliates (working with ClickBank, CJ, Share A Sale, and others).

12. Technology can make a big difference

And likely if you’ve been around for a while, yours is outdated. That doesn’t mean scrap everything and start from scratch. It doesn’t mean go spend $5MM. But it does mean that you should explore what’s out there (this article is 3 years old but it’s even more true today – http://goo.gl/EJz65h).

13. Your digital folks need to know what the rest of your business is doing

Whereas people only call an inbound telemarketing phone number after seeing your spot or show, pretty much anything can drive someone to your site, social properties, etc. A mention on a news program, an inadvertent Tweet, a user-generated video that goes viral. The company’s website and social properties need to be recognized as downstream of pretty much everything else. So while they might be in a different part of the building, they need to be kept in the loop. And they need to communicate effectively with the rest of the organization.

It’s been exciting to see how some DRTV marketers have embraced the digital world. My fear is that others continue to ignore it or simply choose to reject it. But just as companies are starting from scratch these days, it’s totally reasonable for traditional DRTV folks to build up their digital marketing capabilities, even if it feels like it’s from scratch.

There’s a lot of really cool stuff and opportunities out there. And it’s only growing.

Please leave a comment below because I’d like to hear what you think.

The Top 19 (Yes, 19) Things Digital Marketers Should Know about TV

October 12, 2015 by influexwp Leave a Comment

Online and TV marketers remind me a bit of rocks stars and movies stars – many wish they were the other. Movie stars don’t get the immediate rush from a crowd screaming their names like rock stars do when they’re on-stage while rock stars often live a life on the road versus movie stars who are gone for specific periods of time (and TV stars who rarely have to travel). A few years ago, I would have said they were stuck, but that’s changing a bit – at least for rock stars trying their hands at movies (not sure I recollect too many movie stars going the other direction).

As for online and TV marketers, it’s not a simple task, but growing into the other’s domain is possible and seemingly an aspiration for the other. As it’s gotten cheaper and cheaper to get a business going online, there are an increasing number of online-only companies that are exploring TV media.

Below is a list of some of what I’d tell them:

1. The scale and exposure of TV is still pretty remarkable

Sure, videos, memes and post go viral online, but there is still this sense that you can get to a different sort of scale on TV than online. And TV still provides a different sense of fame and exposure that is pretty impressive.

2. The Demise of TV has been grossly overstated

Everyone keeps talking about TV going away, people unplugging, Hulu/Netflix/Amazon taking over. But here’s the thing, there are still a ton of people watching TV. The satellite and cable subscriber numbers are still pretty health: DirecTV – 20MM; Dish – 14MM; Comcast – 22MM; Time Warner – 11M. TV isn’t going anywhere anytime soon. There’s still just way too much you can push thru satellite and cable than you can’t on an Internet connection, let alone wifi.

3. TV media is not as expensive as you think

I once spoke to a group of digital marketers and mentioned that we can test a new show for $25,000 of media. I was immediately asked if that was per airing and then how many airings we ran. When in actuality that was the total test. I never realized just how much confusion there was on TV media – yes, some airings are $70K, but those are by far the exceptions. Airings can vary from $25 to several thousand dollars, and so for $25K, you can get a good read assuming you pick the right media.

4. TV Video is different than online video

This may or may not be obvious, but it bears mentioning. For starters, TV viewers expect a certain type of quality while online viewers, especially those on YouTube, have come to tolerate and almost expect lower quality video. Not to mention the pace of content has to be different. Online, if someone doesn’t like your content, something else is a quick click away. Yes, you can easily click the remote on your TV, but I think we have all experienced much less patience with poor online content than with TV. At the same time, digital marketers with experience using online video are used to telling people a story in a certain way; importantly, everyone watching starts at the same place. Contrast that with TV where viewers may switch to a channel at entirely different times. So tactics such as pattern-interrupts are almost non-existent on TV (with the exception of this brilliant one this year, but that was only because Chevy knew most everyone was watching – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sVmHxm_hFLY ). Bottom line, make sure the content matches the media.

5. The pace of testing is different

By far one of the biggest differences between TV and online is just how much quicker you can test (pretty much anything) online while TV takes much more time – getting a master finalized, tapes made (more short-form is finally going digital), waiting for the airing, etc. As opposed to digital where you can literally get ads up within an hour or two of making the decision to do so.

6. You’re likely not a TV creative director so don’t behave like you are one

Many internet marketers are used to figuring things out themselves. It’s really quite impressive. But TV production is a different ballgame. And because of the implications on timing mentioned above, you have to take slightly better shots than you might ordinarily get away with online. Find good people to help you out.

7. Production is really hard

If you can’t drive response, the rest doesn’t matter. For reasons that I still don’t fully understand, the number of really good producers isn’t that big. These last 2 points may sound like you should then avoid TV. That’s not necessarily the case. But it all comes down to driving response. Just like if you can’t get someone to click on an ad, conversion rate doesn’t matter. The point here is while you can get away with something ugly and bare bones online, it’s a lot harder to do on TV. So you’re very likely going to end up needing a partner. Don’t expect that you can do it all on your own.

8. Understand the difference between short-form versus long-form

Not surprisingly, long-form (everyone says 30 minutes but in reality it’s 28:30) is more often used for products and offers that require more explanation and/or are higher-priced. Versus short-form (15 seconds to 5 mins) which has been better for lead-gen, trial offers, etc. And typically better for retail, though some of the housewares folks have used long-form to drive retail as well.

9. Be aware of how TV media is bought and managed

Both absolutely have a relationship component to how they are managed but short-form is more bought in a more fluid and liquid environment – you essentially put in a bid and if you have the highest price, you’ll air. It feels much more like a market economy. Long-form on the other hand is typically bought monthly and while you can pre-empt someone in a slot, it’s a lot harder and not nearly as real-time relative to short-form. Both are typically bought through agencies – on the long-form side, that’s more related to those monthly buys. Not too many marketers are willing to take that risk. And though not 100% necessarily on the short-form side, agencies can help with understanding the market environment, rates, etc. Plus, it’s important to know that there are essentially no self-service platforms, no analogues to a DSP/DMP, etc., so it’s just a lot to try to manage internally. Suffice to say that the TV industry hasn’t been nearly as fast-paced from a technology perspective as the digital world.

10. You can optimize yourself to $0 of spend if you manage it exactly the same way as you do online

Online is much more of a game of constant tweaking, moving, adjusting, trying new creative, new landing pages, etc. Not to say that you should stay in TV media when it’s not working, but a Tuesday 3am airing on ABC Family will likely behave differently than a Wednesday 3am airing on the same network – so while one might not work, the other may. And so you can’t be as knee-jerk to pulling media, not to mention you also can’t scale at the flip of a switch. But you absolutely can scale – again, these distinctions are about pace more than anything else.

11. You likely are not 1-and-done with your online tests, so don’t be that way with your TV testing

I’ve come across way too many digital marketers that say that they tried TV once, it didn’t work, and so they didn’t go back. I just don’t get this mentality because many thing onlines don’t work the first time around – testing and tweaking is just what the direct-response business is about.

12. And so, you should expect to fail the first time around

The implications are to plan both from a time and budget standpoint.

13. You need to hang out with new people

Just as online media has gotten more and more specialized – so much so that you almost need partners (or employees) for each media form, the same can be said for TV – whether it’s production folks, media agencies, networks, and call centers (we’ll get to the importance of the phone channel in a sec). Events like the ones the ERA (www.retailing.org) and the DRMA (http://www.responsemagazine.com/) put on are places to make those connections. (Full disclosure – I’m a Board member of the ERA.) And not surprisingly, the DRTV folks have a culture of their own. You’ll need to spend some time learning the lay of the land.

14. The phone channel as a response mechanism is really important

It’s good to see that more and more online marketers are adding phone numbers to their websites, not just for customer care, but for driving sales. (And let’s be very clear, a customer care agent is very different than a sales one.) Very few TV marketers are 100% drive-to-web. Part is a historical data one – you can have unique numbers per airing and so can know how each airing worked (at Beachbody, we managed roughly 20,000 toll-free numbers). It’s also the case that if you’re doing it right, the phone can be much more effective than online. 70% qualified lead conversion rate vs. 5% conversion rate. And upsell take-rates up to 50% higher. Not to mention some folks, particularly non-millennials, still like to speak to someone when ordering. Even when you factor in the cost of management and the agent’s time, you will almost always generate higher revenues from a call than an online visitor.

15. Claims

The good about TV is that it gives you exposure. The bad, at least for those pushing the limits, is the same thing. While the FTC is getting better at cracking down on sketchy claims online, they still acknowledge it’s a huge challenge and that online marketers can get away with claims that would never fly on TV. So you need to make sure to get some legal advice when it comes to your claims for TV spots. Not to mention, many networks have their own review processes to approve ads before they run.

16. Your offline and online teams need to be aligned and coordinated

We live in an age where everything affects everything. There are no silos. This point goes well beyond your offline and online media teams in your organizations and as they extend to external partners, agencies, etc.

17. Attribution

By far the biggest challenge in the DRTV world is understanding attribution – what TV spot drove which orders online. There are a few companies trying to help address this issue – mostly from an analytical perspective. As for myself, I think there is no 100% solution but some combination of analytics and a Shazam-type technology that will improve the murkiness. Unfortunately, promo codes and “/tvoffer” urls only work so well. Not to mention promo codes can have a detrimental effect to the extent the consumer forgets the code and thinks they truly need the code for the special offer; they may just move on to the next thing. All this to say that there are some ways to manage through this – for example, looking at a recent historical baseline pre and post a TV flight. And running enough media that a change in results would be more than just noise. Not perfect, but getting TV to work is worth it.

18. Just like everything else, there are not absolute truths

You kinda just have to pick smart partners, start with best practices, and then expect to test.

19. The fundamentals are the same

Having a good product makes things easier (and frankly, I can’t stand when people are knowingly and continually selling a crappy product), but certainly without good marketing, most of the time, it won’t matter. So just as with online, it’s about creating demand then driving traffic and closing the sale. As for the back-end after that initial lead capture or transaction, well, that’s an entirely different topic….

This list may look long and complex. But if you think about how many components there are to digital marketing, you’ll acknowledge that each media has to be learned and has its own nuances. TV is not like print advertising (no offense…) – it’s still huge and can be a huge source of traffic. You just need to know that there is more to it, as there is to everything.

In the next blog post, what the DRTV folks should think about when it comes to digital marketing

Please leave a comment below because I’d like to hear what you think.

Why You Need to be Selling on Amazon

October 12, 2015 by influexwp 4 Comments

Let me sum up as quickly as possible.

If you sell a physical product and are not selling on Amazon, you are losing money. Plain and simple.

Sure, there are implications and things to manage through, but if you want to make more money with your physical product business, then getting it up on Amazon is as close to a guaranteed way to do so as anything else. Particularly, if you are already selling direct-to-consumer.

The reason is not complicated but is multi-fold. For starters, there are a ton of people out there (myself included) who are Amazon buyers. What that means is that I’ve been known to see a product on another site, then I’ll check to see if it’s available on Amazon – if the pricing is even pretty close, I’ll buy it on Amazon rather than the other site (even if it’s a brand like Nordstrom which touts phenomenal customer service). My credit card is already in the system, I’m Prime so at worst I get 2-day shipping (and many times it’s same-day). How do you compete against that? You kinda don’t. You acknowledge and accept it and figure out how to benefit from it. Consumers are going there, and the forces are way bigger than any of us.

I’ve seen both first-hand and from countless marketers how Amazon is incremental to your business. Sure, maybe 2% of the business is cannibalized from your website, but I’ll give that up for the other 98%. And it is correct that you don’t own the customer – you get the customer info but you are not allowed to use that info to market to those customers. So, you can get more revenues and not own the customer? Ordinarily there is more nuance to it, but when it can add 10%-20% more revenues, those are not numbers to scoff at.

For direct-to-consumer marketers, the best way to get up and going is thru Amazon’s FBA (Fulfillment by Amazon) program, which essentially means you get your inventory to Amazon, which makes you eligible for Amazon Prime (again, do not underestimate how big a deal this is – many consumers only buy from Prime sellers). You can set up the listing, you control pricing, etc., and when someone orders, Amazon ships the product directly to the consumer. And for the most part, Amazon manages customer service issues, though you absolutely need to monitor reviews and feedback – it is your brand so that part you have to own.

For wholesale marketers who have their products sold in retail, it’s not as clean – and I’ve heard plenty of complaints – but again, it’s worth the effort. Amazon wants parity with other sellers, so if you’re available in Nordstrom or Dick’s Sporting Goods, for example, just as those folks get to set pricing, etc., Amazon wants to do the same. As such, you’ll likely, though not always, be managed through Amazon Retail – which means that Amazon will buy your inventory wholesale – and then they will manage most everything else from that point on.

How can you tell the difference as a consumer? See the 2 screenshots below:

In the first, “Fulfilled by Amazon” means it’s FBA. The “sold by” is the actual business selling the product. That is different than the brand of the product, which is just below the title. (Also notice that this product is available for same-day delivery if I order it before noon.)

In this second screenshot, the product “ships form and is sold by Amazon.” This is Amazon Retail. You’ll also notice that with Amazon Retail listings (other than a limited number of exceptions for FBA), the description field is a lot more elegantly designed with html, and there can be videos alongside the images at the top. There are benefits that Amazon Retail has over FBA.

Now, whether the items is FBA or Retail, that doesn’t mean there aren’t other sellers. Owning the Buy Box – essentially being the first seller to show up – takes work. Conversion rate, price, customer service, etc. are some of the factors that affect who shows up first. And if you’re a Retail partner who also sells as big name brick-and-mortar retail locations, it’s likely you’re going to see those same sellers on Amazon (or 3^rd parties that took product off the hands of your wholesale partners). As such, I’ve known plenty of people who have complained about pricing issues (lower than preferred) on Amazon. There isn’t a perfect answer here, but if you have a reasonable amount of sales, you’ll likely get an Amazon rep who I would suggest building as strong a relationship with as possible – just know that people move around at Amazon every couple years, so this is a moving relationship…

Couple other items of note. Amazon’s internal boundaries as well as their technologies have set up a bit of a wall between FBA and Retail. It’s the same company and it looks like it’s happening in the same place, but this is just one of the legacy things happening there. Next, when it comes to reporting, Seller Central (for FBA) is significantly better than Vendor Central (for Retail). Again, just a legacy thing.

Bottom line, Amazon is only getting bigger and stronger. Better to embrace that fact and the relationship sooner.

Not to mention it’s very very likely going to make you more money.

Please leave a comment below because I’d like to hear what you think.

The most valuable free education available

October 12, 2015 by influexwp Leave a Comment

In a world dominated by social media and video, it seems incredible to me that, separate from direct interactions with people, my greatest daily educational source is recorded audio. Or more affectionately termed, “Podcasts.” Think, on-demand radio programming.

Podcasting has been around for years, and in the last year, it became more mainstream with a single podcast called “Serial,” but I’m amazed at how few people know about podcasts and certainly how few people realize how much amazing content is available. For free. And for those who don’t know, podcasts are essentially recorded audio files (video in rare cases), that you can download thru iTunes or your smartphone – typically there’s a show host, and the formats can be everything from interviews to stories, the same person speaking to a new speaker each week, business-focused to entertainment. Even to get going, it requires pretty minimal resources, cost and time.

Especially in a town like LA, where the average commute length is 30 minutes, there is a good amount of downtime that can be better utilized for folks who want to learn something – as opposed to texting while driving, for example. And of course commuting isn’t exclusive to LA. Even if you have a 15 minute commute (which I do), that is still plenty of time to get great listening in, and even if a podcast is longer, I just resume on the way home or the next day.

In the business category, many folks I know use podcasting the same way they use their professional Facebook page – it’s just another source of attracting an audience. The plus for their listeners is that they have to produce really good content to build and maintain their audience. Because the audience has to listen to a podcast from anywhere from 5 minutes to an hour, the content has to be good to keep people’s attention, as opposed to a social post, where it takes 5 milliseconds to scan a post, but even if it’s no good, there’s another opportunity right afterwards. Not so with recorded audio.

As for what I listen to, these days I’m heavy on business and marketing-related podcasts. My favorites include:

Russell Brunson’s Marketing in your Car – he literally records these 10-12 minute episodes driving to and from work
Ryan Daniel Moran’s Freedom Fastlane – particularly good for Amazon sellers, but he has expanded well beyond Amazon for broader entrepreneurial content
Startup – a podcast following a startup trying to build, of all things, a podcasting network
The Tim Ferris – focused on top achievers
Brad Costanzo’s Bacon Wrapped Business – another solid one, typically of successful business owners

Bottom line, especially if you’ve got your own business, this is the best and cheapest way to get access to some amazing people and to hear their secrets, lessons, etc. And if you “only” want to listen to comedy, sports or science content, there’s very likely a podcast for you.

One trick I should pass along – just as I do with some online videos, I rarely listen to podcasts at normal speed. There’s an option to listen at 1.5x to 2.0x. Which means you can get thru even more than you thought.

There’s a good reason why you were not invited to that meeting

October 12, 2015 by influexwp Leave a Comment

There’s a line near the end of the movie Apollo 13 when one of the engineers at flight command tells Ed Harris’ character (the Flight Director) that the capsule is a bit lower than desired for their re-entry. The engineer asks whether they should tell the crew, to which Ed Harris inquires whether there’s anything anyone can do about it. There isn’t, so Ed Harris responds, “Then they don’t need to know, do they?” It’s a great example of recognizing that there is information that, while interesting, may not be actionable and would in fact be a distraction to the people on the team.

Especially in today’s age of unprecedented access to information, it’s easy to want as much information as possible, whatever the topic. In particular, oftentimes people want to be included on something, whether in a meeting or in an email, without their being a real business benefit (translation: it’s often about our egos). But allowing people to focus, or sometime it’s a matter of forcing people to focus, is the best thing for the organization and the individual. (There’s obviously a balance point between excluding someone for good reason – because the right people are already in on the conversation – versus excluding someone who has an important and valuable perspective on a topic.)

At the same time, more information might make us feel like we understand the business better, but it might turn out that there are really only a few key pieces of information – whether quantitative or qualitative – that truly are important. If a few metrics, for example, aren’t in line, then the supporting ones may just not matter. Similarly, there can be a significant cost to gathering information – in resources, technology, time, and potential to our customers. Sometimes, we may even unknowingly detract from the customer experience in our search for better info (e.g. imagine a sales rep in a clothing store asking you about each and every item of clothing you tried on after each fitting – that would get you more information than asking after all the clothing was tried on, but would also likely be an annoying customer experience. And yet we do things like this all the time in other contexts without realizing it.)

Both of these issues – being excluded from certain conversations or looking only at certain pieces of information – require a certain amount of competence, communication and trust amongst the rest of the organization. Not everyone, and that includes you, needs to be a part of every conversation. And not every piece of info has to be present to effectively manage a business. Note this doesn’t imply that no one is doing so and that everyone in the organization is hand-off – a topic I’ll discuss in a future piece.

But assuming that the right people are looking at the relevant info and the appropriate people have entered the conversation, less may actually be more and better. And realizing that you weren’t invited to a meeting may be less a cause for consternation and in fact a relief.

Archives for October 2015

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