The Ecommerce Influence Podcast: Advanced Acquisition And Retention Strategies For Fast-growing Online Brands

This Is A Special Episode – The Recording Of A Live 'Ask Me Anything' With Joe Valley On How To Sell Your Online Business, Recently Offered Inside The Brand Growth Membership. Joe is the author of The EXITPreneur's Playbook. He's a buyer and seller of many online businesses and the president of Quiet Light Brokerage. He’s an expert on how to sell for max profit.  If you listened to my earlier episode with Joe this AMA session takes those concepts and goes deeper, which is what we do in the Membership. The podcast is just a glimpse into what we cover in the Brand Growth Membership. We’re giving you a sneak peek inside the Brand Growth Membership with access to this Ask Me Anything session because we just launched a brand new version of our membership and it’s KILLER - check it out here.  I hope you enjoy this session and if you want to check out more of the Ask Me Anything sessions and trainings we have in the membership... we’re offering a 21 day trial for just $1.  Go here to sign up. (only available until D

Launching a first-of-its-kind product comes with challenges, but Pela has always been a creative first-mover. They’ve had massive success and fun educating consumers and keeping their mission to combat climate change positive.  This episode’s guest is Pela CEO Matthew Bertulli. Pela makes compostable phone cases and they just launched a new product called Lomi that went viral on Kickstarter.  Matt and his team at Pela are forward thinkers and Matt share’s how that’s led them to success, what it was like to go from bootstrapped to venture-backed, as well as what he’s excited about for the future of eCommerce and environmental products.   This is an excellent episode with somebody who is in the arena building things and very passionate about his work.  Episode Highlights: 3:56 How the Lomi Kickstarter went viral  5:15 What exactly Lomi is  10:17 Educating consumers about environmental products & the problems with Facebook  14:52 Using storytelling to build word of mouth momentum  15:28 What Lomi stands for

We’re looking out to the (near) future at some very creative opportunities for eCommerce in NFTs. These ideas could help circumvent some of the margin pressure and economic challenges brands are facing today.  This episode features Taylor Holiday, the founder of Common Thread Collective. Before running an eCommerce agency he had his own D2C brand so he brings a ton of knowledge from being on both the brand and the agency side of eComm business. Taylor is an NFT enthusiast and has some brilliant ideas about NFTs and their place in the changing sphere of eCommerce.  In this fascinating conversation, you’ll learn a ton about NFTs -- what they are and how you might be able to use them to combat margin pressure in your eCommerce brand.  Episode Highlights: 4:37 Taylors large business vision  6:23 The difference between running a brand and running an agency  7:30 Complexities around cash flow management & human relational problems 9:40 The importance of your product to the success of your brand  11:20 What the

Was Facebook ever really performing as well as we thought - or was our attribution model just wrong? A post-purchase survey will tell you where people are actually hearing about your brand.  If you're spending money on Facebook you know it's incredibly hard to figure out where your customers are coming from. Matt Bahr, CEO of Enquire Labs, has a way to help you better track attribution with a post-purchase survey.  I stumbled across Enquire a couple of years ago and thought they were super interesting because their simple survey really helped us figure out what was effective marketing and what was not. In this episode, we talk all about what they're doing and how they’ve helped brands figure out attribution in the midst of the chaos of iOS changes.  It's an excellent episode and you’ll get a lot of interesting tips for running successful marketing.  Episode Highlights: 3:58 Matt’s timing of building a post-purchase survey app  6:31 How Enquire came to be  10:22 Where brand’s think sales are coming from vs wh

Cryptocurrency is the financial system of the future. Ready or not it’s coming and as an eCommerce founder, there are opportunities you could be taking advantage of now.  This episode is part of a series on cryptocurrency and decentralized finance (DeFI). My guest, Nat Eliason, has been a guest before as an SEO expert but in the last year he’s made a trajectory shift and moved into the space of web3, and specifically DeFi.  Nat talks about why he made the shift, what he’s so excited about and why, as a business owner, you should care. We go into the basics of DeFi and how people are getting hedge fund style returns.  If you know nothing about cryptocurrency, this episode is for you - Nat has some simple ways you can start earning money today.  Episode Highlights: 5:04 Nat’s shift from SEO to DeFi 6:28 What is DeFi and why is it important 9:22 How DeFi levels the playing field and gives individuals with small capital access to high returns 12:34 Examples of high returns  14:49 What a stablecoin is  16:05 The

You might be surprised how lessons learned from over a decade on a SWAT team apply to building a highly successful lifestyle brand.  Todd Lamb, CEO of PureLife Organics, was a police officer for 17 years, as a SWAT team leader and then canine officer. When his wife started having health issues he turned to natural remedies and found an incredibly successful protocol that helped her heal. He wanted to share this protocol with others and thus, Pure Life Organics was born.  Today, the business Todd built from the ground up is well on it’s way to 9-figures. In this episode - Todd shares his wisdom about paid traffic and expertise in creating offers. He talks about how his team systematically worked to make native ads work and how they're testing at a budget of $10k to $15k a week to get results. There are some great nuggets here about native ads, copywriting, and creative strategizing. Enjoy! Episode Highlights: 4:29 Lessons from working as a canine officer  7:31 The idea behind Pure Life Organics  12:47 Todd’s

Would you quit your day job and move to Miami to sell your new product while playing on the beach? Sounds like a dream and this founder made it a reality, with a lot of hard work, motivation and talent.  This episode’s guest is Chris Meade, the founder of Crossnet, one of the fastest-growing games in the US.  Chris has been on an incredible journey from quitting his job at Uber to moving to Miami to sell his dream game on the beaches. Crossnet has grown incredibly fast due to an organic viral video and word-of-mouth marketing with live events and influencers. In just a few years they’ve gone from selling 2-5 nets a month to an 8-figure business.  Crossnet started as DTC and has expanded into big-box retail and Chris shares some of the opportunities and challenges that came with that shift.  This is a great founder's story and an inspiration if you have a product idea. I hope you enjoy it!  Episode Highlights: 4:21 What exactly is Crossnet 5:09 How the idea of Crossnet was born  7:36 Getting people to care ab

How is your pop-up game? Email capture strategies to increase conversion are one of the single most important things you can do to grow your eCommerce business and if you’re using the same old “discount for email” strategy you’re missing out on potential customers.  This is a tactical episode with how-to steps you can use to improve your email capture strategies to increase conversion right now.  John Ozuysal is the Head of Growth at Optimonk, a platform where you can create unique, interesting pop-ups and overlays to drive more sales and capture more emails. As we all have holiday marketing top of mind, I thought it would be a great time to bring John in to share what they’re seeing success with right now and provide some inspiration as you determine how to integrate pop-ups and overlays into your Q4 strategy.  One of the things that they've been experimenting with is conversational pop-ups and John shares how they tripled signups and boosted revenue by 25% using this method. We also cover customer value opt

If you hate what you’re doing - can you stop doing it? How can you stay engaged and keep your business ventures fun? Plus, using video sales letters for viral launches. Andrew Drish is a good friend and we have spent countless hours talking about business, life, and relationships. So - I'm excited to bring him on the show and share one of these conversations with you.  Andrew was behind The Foundation, which was a very successful accelerator for developers building software companies. In this episode he shares the story of how he pulled off its 7-figure launch, completely automated, with a video sales letter that went viral. From there - Andrew shares the story of how he completely burnt out and then came back to entrepreneurship with a whole new approach. Over the years, Andrew has extensively studied top-performing video ads (Purple Mattress, Squatty Potty, etc) and he shares his winning formula that you can apply directly to your own video creative (hint: it’s more about the script than the visuals). This

We’ve all been saying it - the world is crazy right now. So - I’m sharing what’s top of mind for me going into Q4 and 2022 including the very real energy crisis in China, opportunities to make 6+ figures flipping NFTs, and what the heck to do with paid social in Q4.  This episode is a solo cast. I wanted to check in and talk about what's been on my mind as we prepare for Q4 and ultimately start to make our 2022 business plans.  I’m thinking about how to optimize Facebook and Instagram for Q4 (after a crazy year). I’ve been doing daily journaling and it’s given me a great perspective on where I’m at in my business and life. I’m also talking about how the energy crisis in China will likely impact business and why you should be paying attention now. Plus, I’ll share some new exciting things to come on the podcast with an NFT series.  I'd love to hear from you on Twitter. What are you thinking about? What's exciting to you right now? Let me know what you’d like to hear more about on the podcast.  I hope you enjoy

What could you do to make your website better, your ads stronger, and ultimately increase sales? Try one of these expert tips from an agency owner who’s interviewed over 150 eCommerce founders and marketers. Chase Clymer is the host of the Honest Ecommerce podcast and also co-founder of the Electric Eye Agency. In this episode, we’re talking about mistakes that eCommerce owners make with their website and advertising and how to make simple improvements to avoid them.  Chase and I also discuss ideas for Black Friday/Cyber Monday marketing, user testing your website, and how to actually run A/B tests.  Lastly, Chase shares his Brand Scaling Framework philosophy and the 3 KPI’s he bases everything on.   This is a great practical episode with expert tips and takeaways to implement today.  Episode Highlights: 3:28 Why Chase started the Honest Ecommerce Podcast  4:53 Expert tips from 168 interviews with founders & marketers  10:02 How Chase went from punk rock band to eCommerce 11:44 The Brand Scaling Framewor

The pandemic forced many owners to shift from brick and mortar to eCommerce. Some succeeded, and some did not.  Today’s guest was one of the successful -- she doubled her brick and mortar business revenue in 2020 by implementing Shopify, Klaviyo, and a seamless in-store and online rewards program.  Mandy Buterra began her journey as an entrepreneur at age 50 when she started Wren and Wild a brick and mortar business featuring clean beauty and aerial yoga, in Bend, Oregon. Her business evolved and she was building a good customer base, then COVID hit.   Instead of panicking, Mandy taught herself eCommerce and joined our Coalition membership. Listen to this episode to learn how she’s now hitting sales highs and doubled her revenue in the last year by transitioning her brick and mortar to eCommerce.  If you’re in the transition or considering turning your brick and mortar into an online store this episode is filled with good tips about how to integrate the two business models. If you’re already running an eComme

Are you building to sell? You should be. Even if selling isn’t your main priority it will make you a better business owner and it will make the value of your business higher. This episode has the details of how to do it.  Joe Valley is the author of The Exitpreneur’s Playbook and a buyer and seller of many online businesses, both on his own and now as a broker with Quietlight.com.  Joe’s book is designed to help you get maximum value for your online business and in this episode we go deep into his vast knowledge of building to sell. He answers a ton of questions you should be asking when you’re thinking about selling your business, what multiples to look at for eCommerce, plus he shares mistakes you might be making now and how to prevent those BEFORE you’re getting ready to sell.  It's an excellent interview and Joe is truly an expert in building to sell. If you’re ever going to want to sell your business or have thought about buying a business in the future you’re going to get a ton of value in this episode.

Building a business is filled with amazing highs and big lows. Despite some tough blows in the early days, one eCommerce founder kept his commitment to his personal health and family and found success on the other side. Jay Campbell is the owner of Aseir Custom, and in this episode he shares his wild journey of building a business. We go deep into what he's learned through major manufacturing issues and how he managed customer experience after that. We discuss how he unlocked massive growth working with influencers. We also talk about Jay’s commitments to his family and personal health and how for the last 5 years he has taken a trip with his wife every 8 weeks.  Aseir Custom went from about $16k / month in sales in February 2021 to hitting $250k in August 2021. The journey has been anything but linear and there’s a lot to learn from this story. Jay has a great mindset and he shares the raw truth of his experience going through incredibly challenging times while seeing rapid growth in the business simultaneou

Is TikTok the new frontier for social advertising? How to get reliable Facebook ad performance data post iOS 14? These are some of the questions The Social Savannah is answering for us today. This episode features Savannah Sanchez a media buyer and owner of The Social Savannah. Savannah started her advertising career at large agencies working on Facebook ad accounts.  In 2019 she left to create her own boutique agency helping eCommerce brands with their paid social advertising.   She is a prolific creator of ads and creative as well as an optimization expert. She has cracked the code of TikTok ads and continues to be a top creator of winning Facebook creative.   In this episode Savannah and I discuss how to get started with TikTok ads, the key metrics to be tracking on Facebook post iOS 14, how creative strategies should vary between social channels, and some of the tools Savannah uses to track metrics across channels. Savannah also shares her vast knowledge working with TikTok influencers and what you can do

In this Greatest Hits episode we're revisiting a conversation about market disruption and big goals. JT Marino shares the story of his dream to build a company that would disrupt the mattress industry. JT Marino was the co-founder of Tuft & Needle, and this is his story of bootstrapping his way from nothing to the largest online mattress retailer in the world. JT, who is now the Chief Strategy Officer for SSB Phoenix, joins us to share his incredible story. We talk about why customer-centricity was one of Tuft & Needle’s core principles from the beginning, and the role it played in their eventual merger with Serta Simmons. JT shares his thoughts on the importance, as a founder, of having an intimate understanding of how every aspect of your business works, and why they decided not to take any outside investments when they first started out. This is one of my favorite founder interviews we’ve done and I hope you enjoy it! Episode Highlights 4:58 Introducing JT Marino 6:47 How the friendship and partne

We’re bringing back this Greatest Hit with 6 quick wins you can execute today to grow your business immediately.  I get asked for my growth checklist for eCommerce businesses all the time so I'm bringing back this episode with Andrew Foxwell on how to grow your business with 6 tactical and quick wins you can implement today. We're sharing the tried and true things we know work from Facebook ad set up to email segmentation, and website optimization to customer acquisition. I guarantee these tips will help you generate sales and you'll see results immediately. Enjoy! Episode Highlights 3:59 Quick Win #1: 4-6% Lookalikes based off pixel value. 5:21 Quick Win #2: Identify previous customers who are likely to spend again, but who are no longer on your email list, and hit them with remarketing. 6:57 Quick Win #3: Integrate your Klaviyo audiences with Facebook. 8:08 Quick Win #4: Turn great text reviews into video reviews. 10:48 Quick Win #5: Use bid caps to ensure your Facebook ads are being shown. 12:39 Quick Win

Positioning your brand correctly is the most powerful thing you can do to attract and retain customers. Effective copywriting is how you do it.  My guest on this episode is none other than The Email Copywriter, Chris Orzechowski, and he’s here to deliver massive value about copywriting, positioning, and marketing strategy.  We talk about how to think about copywriting, ways to improve your emails, and different styles of email campaigns and flows. We go deep into positioning and ways to unlock advertising angles for your brand that are probably already inside your own head if you’re passionate about your business and products.  Chris is a member of the Coalition, our community of 250+ eComm founders, and recently did a training on How to Make Your Emails Irresistible. It’s one of our most popular trainings so definitely check it out. If you’re interested in joining the Coalition to access this training and more like it, sign up here.  Episode Highlights: 4:08 How Chris became The Email Copywriter  4:54 Why

I have worked with hundreds of different companies at various stages of growth, from pre-launch to multi-million dollar acquisitions. In this Greatest Hits episode we're talking about scaling a brand and what it takes.  This is the first episode in our scaling series, where we’ll talk about each stage of growth and the challenges you're going to face as you scale up your business from zero to 8-figures. In this “zero to launch” episode where we’ll address some of the questions you’ll face when you’re determining how to launch and going from an idea for a product to actually getting sales. If you enjoy this episode be sure to go back and check out the other core episodes in our Scaling Series that will give you value whether you're at the beginning, already making 7-figures, or somewhere in the middle. Enjoy! Episode Highlights 5:04 Why we decided to do a scaling series. 9:12 The most important thing when you’re just starting out? Feedback. 10:29 Knowing what your community looks like is critical for scaling.

In this episode we have a handful of quick and easy wins that have been tested and proven to increase revenue. If you’re looking for a win that also saves you time - it’s in here.  Lisa Byrnes is a marketing and business coach. She's also a member of the Coalition, our community of 250+ eCommerce business owners and experts.  After 17 years managing multi-million dollar brands, Lisa left her corporate job and started her own marketing business to support emerging eCommerce business owners (specifically women) build their marketing strategy and fulfill their own dreams.  We’re talking tactical easy wins for emerging brands ($10k - $50k) and this episode is filled with great action items that won’t take much time but could have a big impact on your business.  Enjoy! Episode Highlights: 4:47 Why Lisa started her coaching business and her focus on female entrepreneurs 7:33 The biggest mistakes emerging brands make 10:10 Strategy: marketing towards a persona instead of a demographic 13:17 Common website mistakes