017: Tactics Tuesday: Product Inserts & Building a List

Speaker 1: 0:00

Welcome to Brand Fortress HQ podcast. This is another Tactics Tuesday, and what we're going to be talking about today Is really diving in on the post purchase process and customer engagement Everything from inserts to qr codes to nfc tags all those important things that we all know in building a brand where you really have to have a connection with your customers. So we're talking about how you do that in the world of amazon and kind of beyond. So, with that said, I'm going to turn it over to Matt actually, because this is a conversation that we were having a little chat about and so if you can kind of give some perspective as far as the conversation that you were having and how that connects with that, post purchase engagements for customers.

Speaker 2: 0:42

Yeah. So I mean you know that's a big part of the conversations that we have internally and on previous episodes. Mike has built such an incredible post purchase system and it's been iterated on so many times, like even down to how to get people to scan the qr code and where to put that qr code. So you know I I work with some, some brands. One question that a brand that we're getting ready to launch on amazon Is how do we, how do we get the contact information from the people that are buying our product on amazon? And you know there's a lot of ways, there's a lot of things, a lot of a lot of things that people have tried to do that. And you know I like Mike's methods so much that the conversation that I had with Mike was how can I implement the way that you Basically have to interact with that qr code? How can we do that with this type of a product? So that was kind of the start of the conversation Is is you know where? Where can that qr code go? But then also, on the backside of that, you know it's, it's. It's not a brand that works Well, it's not a type of a product that works well with a warranty? Um, it's not. It's bottled water, that's. That's what the brand is so like. There's no warranty to add to anything like that. So really it was kind of kicking the ball around on some ideas of how how do I incentivize people to give us their email address for a brand like that, where it's mostly a commodity and it really comes down to the, the audience building, like what are the types of things that are important to that audience and how can we help them build? How can we help the brand build a community around the audience that they're targeting? So that was how the conversation started with Mike.

Speaker 1: 2:28

Okay and I think this is a great way to approach this in the sense of and there's not a one size fits all. So yeah, we've talked quite a bit about um Mike's process and a fantastic processes built using the warrant, you know kind of a warranty as um one of those incentives for building that audience and being able to engage with them. But it kind of depends, every brand's a little bit different and you know we talk about it in the after purchase A blueprint course that we have where we offer a few different ways that you can, you know, build an insert and kind of build that customer engagement, um, based on what's available for your brand and I think, especially looking at that of like, what are customers really going to care about? And, um, maybe even combining a couple of things sometimes is what it takes in order to get that engagement. So I'm curious, um Matt, did you guys come to any conclusions Um, based on, you know kind of the ideas that you were kicking around?

Speaker 2: 3:33

Yeah, I mean one of the things that we talked about, they so it's a it's a conservative themed bottled water brand. So the water is not anything special, it's just, you know, reverse osmosis water, but they're basically there's funny sayings on the water bottle that are very Republican or conservative themed. So one of the things they have this kind of funny like a trigger spray that actually fits on the top of the water bottle. That's one of the things that's. I mean it's for them. It was just kind of funny. You know, that's the whole. One of the whole things about that Democrats are easily triggered, I think, is the whole joke around that. But yeah, I mean it's a really cheap, cheap product that you can screw to the top of the water bottle and it's. It's funny. So that was one of the things is, you know, what can we offer as a lead magnet or a free product? That's one of the things that people have used in the past for a way to get email addresses. So that was one of the ideas that we have. That's something that they already have access to. They already have these triggers. The other thing that we were kind of talking about is you know, one of the things that Mike does is a giveaway. He does a monthly giveaway and he uses that as a way. One of the ways that people can get more entries into the giveaway is by inviting other people and those kind of community type building things. So that's the other thing that we kind of started at. That very started the conversation like what, what are the types of things that we can give away or include in the giveaway that matters to this? Their avatar, or millennial conservatives, that's who that's really who they want to target. So you know again and this is something that we talk about a lot is a big part of being able to do things like this is really understanding who that consumer is, and that's kind of what I walked away from that conversation with Mike on is that I really need to start learning more about conservative millennials, because I mean, I'm obviously not a conservative millennial. So, like, what are the types of things that are important to that person? So that's really kind of what I walked away with from that conversation with Mike is it's time we have to, it's time for me to dig into who that person is, what's important to them. You know, what kinds of things could we use as an emotional trigger to get them to give us their email address. So just basic brand building, and we I think there was this was a topic of conversation just a couple of weeks ago is just how important it is to really understand who your consumer is.

Speaker 1: 5:55

Yeah, and I mean I think that there's some interesting points that I'm curious. You know it's got my head spinning as far as you know. I wonder if you did you know some sort of like you know funny stickers or you know bumper stickers or something like that, where it's not super expensive for the brand but it's something tangible that the you know customers, that's kind of like a value add.

Speaker 3: 6:20

That's a really good idea. Yeah, I do Like one of the things and this is something that oftentimes, when I'm having a conversation with an Amazon seller who maybe is you know, tried inserts and it didn't work, you know, or doesn't think it will work, you know, whatever is that, it doesn't just come down to understanding your target customer well, but also that's a piece of it. Obviously, you have to understand them, but it's also you know, not only what are they thinking in general and what do they value, but what are they thinking at that moment when they open your product, like when they receive the package in the mail and they open the box, or they open the package or whatever. Like you know, depending on your product and depending on who you sell that product to, you know, there is a very specific thing that that individual may be thinking at that moment when they open the package, or feeling or wondering or questioning, and so if you can get in that mindset of what are they thinking at that moment, you know, like, maybe your product is something that's not necessarily super self-explanatory, so in that moment they're thinking, okay, I just opened this up, I don't know what to do with it, so maybe it's an assembly video. You know, maybe it's a. You know how to best use it, maybe it's. You know how to trigger a snowflake. You know if you're, if you're selling to a Millennial conservative right? So it's one of those things that you know you are. You have to get in the mindset of what are they thinking in that very moment. I think that helps. And then, of course, obviously, the other thing you know that the man I were talking about is how do you make sure they have to interact with it? You know, I received a product not too long ago and there was a little insert card in there that had a QR code on it for me to scan. However, I didn't know it. You know, like I took the product out of the package, I never even noticed the insert card. I just happened to see it as I was about to throw away the package. So I pulled it out and I scanned the code. But how many of their customers don't even notice that that insert tag is there and don't scan it? I would say it's probably half, you know. So now, all of a sudden, your response rate on that offer whatever it is, I don't care how good the offer is is half what it could be, maybe even less than that, and that might be enough for you to say it's not worth it, you know, whereas if you were getting the full response rate that the offer is worth anyways, then you might say, well, no, this is working pretty well. Maybe this is something that we should iterate on and we should split test, you know.

Speaker 1: 8:50

Yeah, and I think that's probably one of the obstacles for brands, and I guess I'd be curious to hear what you guys, what your input is on this. It seems like the hard part about this is you really have to be thinking ahead when you're looking at this post purchase process, especially if you're looking at selling on Amazon or really anywhere where there's long lead time, because in a lot of cases, if you have somebody else packaging your product, you have to have that insert ready and have them actually apply that insert or hang tag or whatever it is that you're using. Or even in the case of the water bottles, it might be something where you have to actually incorporate it into the label, where you have a QR code and something enticing for people to scan. So what are your guys' thoughts on how brands should think about planning for this post purchase engagement with customers?

Speaker 3: 9:46

I think in the early stages, if you don't. So this is something Matt and I were talking about. In regards to this brand. There's an aspect of it where you don't necessarily know at the front end what is going to actually incentivize them enough to get the kind of response rates you're looking for, and so one of the things that you could do, and probably should do, is to keep the upfront offer generic. So in other words, you could say scan this QR code for a mystery gift worth X number of dollars, and then you could have multiple different gifts that you test. They're all worth that same general amount. But then on your landing page so they scan the QR code goes to this landing page and it's a split-tested page, so each person gets a different page. Maybe there's four different items. Which one of those gets you the best response rate from the landing page? Well, once you know what that is, then it gives you a better idea of how to iterate further. Then you could take the insert and you could swap it out and actually put that item on there, or a generic description of that item. Now you have four different ones that are different versions of that Like. Ok, it's this type of thing. We know that's what they want. Which specific version of it do they want? Is there a color variation? So I think ultimately, split testing it is going to be the best road forward. And if you don't know, take a guess and take four different guesses and split test it first. Then keep it generic on the front end with the QR code and just make sure that you give it a value. Don't just say, scan here for a mystery gift, scan here for a mystery gift worth X number of dollars, something At least. Give them a value that they can attach, that they can hang their hat on.

Speaker 1: 11:46

Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. Then, once you do some of that testing, you can really narrow down what's going to move the needle without having to have 10,000 or 100,000 units that now have a certain sticker or something built out of the design that you've got to run through packaging.

Speaker 3: 12:02

A couple other things on that. I think that one is, and there may be other services, but there is a service out there that we're actually considering ourselves called skew drop, and one of the things that skew drop actually helps with. It's almost a secondary thing, but at the same time it's pretty useful. So skew drop is they do your warehousing in China instead of warehousing here in the US. Whereas maybe you typically ship all of your items in and you store them in a staging warehouse in California or something, and then they go from there to an Amazon warehouse or other 3PLs or wherever you're sending stuff for fulfillment, Skew drop reverses that. They basically become your staging warehouse in China and they have fairly quick shipping into Amazon warehouses direct. But what it basically allows you to do then is their pricing, the way that their pricing structure works in terms of shipments. You don't have to send in quite as much inventory at a time to get an actually pretty decent rate. So, whereas you might currently be shipping from China in container loads and fairly large quantity in order to get a good price not just from your manufacturer but also on the actual cost of shipping, Skew drop can give you a pretty similar price on a considerably smaller LCL shipment. So what ends up happening then is brands will ship smaller amounts at once, so maybe they'll ship every week or every two weeks instead of shipping every month or two. But what happens with that is you don't have to have as much inventory sitting at skew drop warehouses, like you don't have to bring in a whole container at a time. You can order in smaller quantities from the factory, send them into skew drop and then you're shipping in. So it gives you a better opportunity for turnover. So when you're doing testing, if you're split testing, you can have smaller batches going into skew drop with whatever the QR code or insert is that you have, and then you can change it out more quickly so that you don't have, like you said, an entire container of one particular insert that now you've got to sell through all of that before you can retest again.

Speaker 1: 14:18

Hmm, hmm, that's a really good idea actually for people that want to test, because I mean, I think, a couple of things that I take away there. I mean one, like you said, having that flexibility in your supply chain, especially when you're kind of figuring this out, is super important, so that way you don't have to wait, you know, six months in order to do another test. And then the other thing is just, you know, really testing some different offers. You know, I don't think for this particular brand, but there's other brands you know we've worked with in the beauty space where, like you know, a free birthday gift worked fairly well. Now, what was funny about that was everybody's birthday was about a week after they ordered the product. So Right, you're sure right. How accurate that was my birthday's coming.

Speaker 3: 15:01

It was a whole other thing.

Speaker 1: 15:06

But you know, even though people felt like they were getting, you know they were getting something out of it in that process and were willing to give an email address and ultimately got you know, the company ended up getting what they wanted out of it.

Speaker 3: 15:21

One thing to be careful of too most of the time and I've mentioned this before, but it's worth mentioning again and that is that because we think our product is so great, then we make the assumption that giving somebody a discount on their next order of our product is an amazing offer. You know, like maybe it's 50% off, you know whatever it is, which is a great discount, right? But if I don't actually know that I like your product yet, like I'm new to brand, right? I mean, if you're trying to get them on your list, chances are they're new to brand. So if they don't know they like your product, why on earth would they care that you're going to offer them 50% off the next order, right? So I don't think that's a good offer, and I think that's where a lot of Amazon sellers start and it's where they stop with inserts. They assume that the post-purchase process just doesn't work for their product because they offered the biggest discount they could, you know, feasibly offer and they didn't get any response out of it. And I would say, most times the reason you didn't get that response is because they don't even know that they want the discount and by the time they do realize they like the product. They've already thrown the insert away or lost it, you know, or whatever. So don't ever start with that as being your insert. You know structure If it's a discount on a future order, you know at least. If you're going to do that, combine it with something else. You know whether it's a giveaway or a mystery gift or whatever you know like. Make sure there's some other reason for them to actually click that button and give you their email address.

Speaker 1: 16:47

Yeah, yeah, and I mean we've seen this play out and I think that's an important point is is that like, okay, like the discount off? Again, it can work if it's a large amount and if it's for a product that is quickly consumable. So if it's something that they're going to use, you know, in a week or over the course of a month where they're going to reorder, that can work a little bit better.

Speaker 3: 17:10

But again, you're only going to get those customers that are interested in reordering and you know they may not be able to use the insert card and who you know like, right all of these things that play into that process, right?

Speaker 1: 17:22

Well, that's why I want to just double click on that giveaway, because it's not only I think the way that you do it is really good, as far as you know, and taking like your company as an example, where you know it's a product of like. If I buy a pool pool and again a high quality one I'm probably not buying one for a few years and I may not need anything else for my pool. But if I'm entering that giveaway to win $1,000 worth of prizes, well, I can probably find, you know, $1,000 worth of stuff to buy for my pool, you know, for free, if I end up being the winner. So that part of it makes a lot of sense. And I think it's also important for you know, folks that are listening to this is that you don't have to start it at $1,000. You know, if you're a smaller brand and you know you don't have a ton of volume yet, I mean, people are very happy to win $100 or $500 worth of free product as well. So, you know, don't think that you have to have a huge prize in order to move the needle. And you know, also, there's something kind of that people like about winning stuff even more than discounts. So, even though it ends up costing you less in the long run, I think you know, most of the time what I see is a better opt-in rate from something like a giveaway, as opposed to just offering a discount and a course. The best option is to see if you can, you know, kind of combine two or three things together so that way you can get, you know, that best combination of things to really drive people opting into your email list and being able to build that relationship with them.

Speaker 2: 18:57

Well, one of the things that we've talked about in the past are, like, not even, not even things that cost the brand any money. I mean you can make relationships with other brands. I think one of the things that we were talking about maybe a couple of months ago it was like you know brands that were complimentary but didn't offer anything. Like you didn't sell anything that they were selling. So, like if we take the barbecue, my space, the barbecue accessory space, like if I partnered with someone that made a barbecue sauce or made some sort of a rub, a dry rub or something like that, where it's it's a product that is a subscribe and save type of a product that this brand would be happy to give away you know, 100 or 500 units of their barbecue sauce because they're giving it away to someone who's clearly interested in that category. So I mean you could even find things that don't cost you anything. It's just a partnership with another brand that they're offering something that you can put into your giveaway, the grand prize of your giveaway, like it doesn't have to be something that you paid for. Maybe it's a partnership, maybe maybe it's, you know, something that someone else offers that doesn't really cost you a whole lot of money, but the perceived value is a lot higher.

Speaker 1: 20:06

Yeah, I mean that's the other thing is. There's a lot of stuff in that spectrum, because the other thing that I think about in that case, matt, that if you found the right partner, I wonder I've been found the right brand to test this with. But I wonder if you did like a free with shipping type of thing, so that way the brand is not out, you know actually shipping the product, but the customer gets, you know, say it's, you know one of their spice rubs or something like that, like one flavor, for you know three, four bucks or whatever that costs to ship.

Speaker 3: 20:40

Well, and I think the other thing that's important there is, like, if what you're giving away is a physical product right, you know, and it's, and we should back up right, like there's two scenarios here in terms of what Matt's talking about. So either it's like a giveaway, drawing, and so maybe you know they're winning something, and maybe there's some partner company that you could partner with where you know there's a larger giveaway, or it's everybody gets this item, like everybody who registered gets the item. In which case, if it's a physical product that has to be shipped out and not just like a discount or something, the one significant benefit that people don't think about is you're getting their physical address too. So then you have the opportunity for postcard mailings and any other kind of you know thing that you might want to do, which, because that's kind of out of vogue right now like you actually probably would get better response rates out of that sort of thing, then you might have, you know, say, five or 10 years ago, when that was still kind of being done. Now it's not really being done so much. So having that physical address is kind of a big deal. So if there's a way for you to give away a physical item. You know that's that's kind of important. As an example, we don't give away a physical item but, again, warranty if somebody's going to take advantage of a warranty, we're going to need their address because we're going to have to ship them something right Now. Technically we don't need that address until they actually file a claim. But, interestingly for us, 90% of the people who actually register their warranty with us give us their physical address, even though it's not required. We ask for it but we don't require it. They could submit it without it and 90% of them provide us with that physical address when they register. So you know it's something to think about. If you want to use some additional, you know alternative options, let's say, for marketing to your customer base that a lot of other businesses aren't doing these days.

Speaker 1: 22:31

Yeah, yeah. And again, I think this comes down to, you know, the discussion that we had before about testing, and one thing I want to put in there is you know, you don't have to make the testing super complicated. I mean, we've done this with a static QR code where we just, you know, change the forwarding address on it, so that way, you know, we could A, b test different landing pages and that type of stuff. So you know, there's a lot of different ways that you can do this and really test, because in a lot of cases, you know, you might have a good, good guess at what's going to work best. But I would say, you know, at least for me, half the time I'm surprised and the offer that I think is going to outperform ends up not doing, as well as something that you know I would say, yeah, probably not going to work.

Speaker 3: 23:14

So I'm always surprised by what works better, especially at the front end, right, you know, like I mean, as you get to know your brand and you get to know your audience better, that only comes through conversation with them. You know, like, as they interact with you on social and as they respond to your emails, and you see which emails you get resonance with and which ones you don't, you start to learn the language. Right, you start to learn that customer better. At the front end, you only know them in a very basic way. You know, like you might be able to suss out who you think that customer is and what their demographic profile looks like and all that kind of thing, but you're not going to know them as well as you will two years down the road. Once you've had those interactions, and because you don't know them that well, it's a very good chance that the thing that you think is going to resonate with them isn't actually the thing that's going to resonate, which is why you want to test it. I think it's also important, like in this conversation, like you know, there's the high level thinking about it, right, in terms of, okay, try and know your audience, make sure that you're split testing it. You know, put, put structures in place that allow you to iterate as quickly as possible through those testing phases. But there's also, then you know, some of the practical like nuts and bolts kind of things. Like you know one, make sure that whatever the insert is, or hang tag, or whatever it is, they have to interact with it in some way. As if you can, if there's a way, make sure they have to interact with it. Secondly, like you were just mentioning, john, with the QR code, a lot of like, and we made this mistake too. So if you use a service out there that manages dynamic QR codes, in other words, so that you can change where that QR code is going to point at any time, then now you're locked into that service, you have to keep paying them monthly, because now you've got those QR codes circulating out in the wild and if you want to be able to change the address for them, you have to keep paying right. So an alternative to that is I don't know if Shopify has this, I assume they do but like WordPress, there's there's free plugins for WordPress where you can basically create URLs on your domain and point them wherever you want and change where they go wherever you want. So what I would do and this is what we do now is we use that plugin. We set up a short, you know domain name with you know a short extension on it. We have the QR code point there and then we can go into our WordPress plugin anytime we want and change where that's being redirected to, so we don't have to continue to pay for a service to have a dynamic QR code, but we have the same result, you know. And then you've got the question of do I want a QR code? Do I want to use an NFC tag, you know, do I want to do you know something you know? Alternatively, like that, that's a conversation to have and really to kind of think through.

Speaker 1: 25:57

Yeah, and I think you know really it's about iteration. So if you're not doing anything right now, you know, start somewhere and then you, you know, once you got the basics, see what you can do in order to improve that you know opt-in rate as you go. And I think you know, just as we wrap this up, what I would encourage people just to double click on is think about the offer you know what you're offering. Now, if you do have you know, some sort of post purchase process, and think about how you can make that offer even more powerful by you know adding, you kind of stacking those offers to make it just absolutely, you know, a no brainer for your customers to opt in. Because in almost every case you're going to see, by combining offers, you're going to see a lot better opt-in rate than if you just have, you know, one offer or one component trying to get those customers to engage with that opt-in.

Speaker 3: 27:00

And don't get discouraged if you don't have very good response rate at the beginning. You know, I mean, that's the whole point of split testing. Don't forget that. That's the whole point, right? I mean, and some of the split tests that you do, you may find that you double or triple the response rate. You know, like that's not a frequent thing, but it happens, you know. So if you get a 5% response rate or even a 3% response rate, well geez, that's still more emails than you had before and you have somebody to market to. But don't expect that it's going to be. You know, stay at 3%. As long as you continue to split test, it's going to get higher, and the higher it goes, the more value you have in that list.

Speaker 2: 27:32

So and to give the listeners an idea of how high you can get that mic, what's your current opt-in rate for your offer now?

Speaker 3: 27:43

Our opt-in rate is closing in on 30% right now.

Speaker 2: 27:47

Which is, I mean, do the math on that. It's fascinating and it took time, like I think I remember from a previous conversation that when you put made the QR code, the hang tag, like your opt-in rate skyrocketed once you figured that out.

Speaker 3: 28:02

So I mean it's not going to be. When we did it as a hang tag that they had to remove in order to be able to actually use the product, we instantly doubled our registration rate.

Speaker 1: 28:14

Yeah, yeah, and I want to make sure that we keep sight of that when we talk about this process. At the end of the day, it's about building that powerful email list where now, mike, I mean you're adding tens of thousands of emails a year to your list that you know, we've talked about it before. That opens the gates to do you know all kinds of things, from product development to you know, driving sales to you know, engaging with that audience at a deeper level, or purchases of other products that are, you know, part of your brand, that are complimentary to maybe you know some of your hero products but have way better you know margins than maybe what your hero product has. So it just opens up your capabilities as a brand. Once you have that relationship with your customers, that is really hard to duplicate by, you know, just having a listing on Amazon and relying on Amazon and Amazon ads in order to get in front of them.

Speaker 3: 29:12

Creates a lot of peace of mind too. Honestly, you know, I mean if you're a seller and you don't have a list, you know like every day, you know there is this looming, you know, concern. You know what happens if Amazon shuts down this hero listing or shuts down my account, you know, or whatever, and it's not as if that's not a concern, like it could still happen. But if I've got 35,000 people on an email list who all love my company and love my brand, like I, can still make a living on that. You know I might not make as much as I make right now, you know, being on Amazon, but but I can still make good money with a list like that, you know, if I treat them well. So it creates a lot of peace of mind, I think.

Speaker 1: 29:48

Yeah, and I think that's, you know, one of the big reasons why we talk about this process and why, you know, we offer that free blueprint course on the after purchase funnel so that way, people can really start the ball rolling on this If you're not already doing this and see how you can start implementing this for your brain and really go from that, you know, zero to having a process in place and see and start building from there, because we think it is, you know, so important for brands to have this For sure. All right, with that we'll wrap up this episode. Thank you everybody for listening and we'll be back next Tuesday with another Amazon Tactics Tuesday.