November 5, 2024 • 40 mins
Launch strategies have changed in the last couple of years as Amazon has changed their rules. Ready to understand your product launch strategy and master the art of audience building? Join us as we explore groundbreaking techniques with Matt, an expert in launching new brands. Discover how engaging with trending communities like biohackers and the sober curious can pave the way for a successful product introduction even before it hits the shelves. We tackle the challenges of balancing taste and effectiveness in product formulation and navigate the shifting dynamics of influencer partnerships to ensure your brand thrives in Q4 2024 and beyond.
Unlock the secrets to Amazon success without relying on fickle algorithm hacks. We dissect the controversial "honeymoon period" myth and present an alternative: driving sales velocity through a passionately engaged audience. Learn the power of cultivating a brand community that withstands platform changes, ensuring your product launch isn't just a fleeting success but a foundation for sustainable growth. By strategically partnering with non-competing brands, you can tap into new customer bases and elevate your brand's perceived value, fostering loyalty and better margins.
Explore the potential of Amazon's Creator Connections and the surprising impact of deal sites over traditional influencers. Despite its invite-only status, this program has enabled brands to achieve staggering sales figures with simple, strategic moves. As we wrap up, we celebrate the contributions of Matt and Mike, and invite you to our live LinkedIn sessions for real-time engagement and insights. Join us each week for more strategies to build a robust brand identity and pave the path to long-term growth.
🚀 Transform your brand on Amazon by building a powerful customer list with the After Purchase Funnel Blueprint course. Click here to get the full course for free.
➡️ Ready to go deeper into your Amazon FBA journey to accelerate your success? Get your hands on ALL of the Brand Fortress HQ resources, mentorship, and knowledge base by visiting us at BrandFortressHQ.com
⭐️ Want to help our show grow so we can continue bringing you the very best of guests and actionable content for your Amazon FBA business? We'd greatly appreciate if you took two minutes to give us a five star rating and review. Thank you!
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to the Brand Fortress HQ podcast.
And today we're live and inaddition to that, we're also
talking about something that isimportant for any brand in order
to continue to grow, and thatis product launches, especially
in Q4, what those look like nowin Q4 2024.
Obviously, launch strategieshave changed a lot in the last
(00:21):
couple of years as Amazon's kindof changed the rules and then
also some different features andthat type of stuff.
That as far as what Amazonallows.
So for this topic, I'm actuallygonna start off hand it over to
you, Matt, as I know that youguys are getting ready for a
launch on a new brand.
Maybe what are some of thethings that you guys are
thinking about as part of yournew brand launch that are
(00:43):
different from when you didlaunches a couple of years ago?
Speaker 2 (00:47):
I think the biggest thing now for me.
I've always been about buildingaudiences.
That's always been and ithasn't been building audiences
myself, as we've talked about alot of times on this podcast
before.
I also leverage other people'sexisting audiences and so pretty
much every brand that I've everlaunched on Amazon, starting
with our very first productlaunch, there was some sort of
(01:08):
an audience for us to be able tosend to the Amazon platform to
help kind of grease the skins alittle bit For our new brand.
We don't have an audience.
We don't have another audienceto leverage, although we're
going to use a lot ofinfluencers and affiliates and
things like that.
But we're doing, we're kind ofhaving a pre launch type of a
(01:30):
audience building exercise wherewe're building the brand out in
the open.
I go, I post a video about oncea week on things that we're
dealing with where we are in theprocess.
A lot of it's been sampling thedrinks that we've gotten from
our manufacturer up until thispoint.
So I'm kind of building it outin the open on my own socials
(01:57):
and then we have a social mediaagency that is also just posting
informational, educational typestuff about the ingredients
that we're using and this wholekind of sober curious
non-alcoholic or alcoholalternative trend Actually it's
more of a trend now and I thinkthere's a lot of opportunity for
us to tap into that market.
But then also we have somefunctional ingredients in our
beverage as well and that's awhole other segment of the
market the whole biohackers whoare into adaptogens and that
(02:20):
kind of stuff.
So for us it's all about we'rebuilding the brand out in the
open to build kind of apre-launch list.
My goal is to get 500 people onthat pre-launch list that are
excited about the brand, thatare exactly in our kind of
demographic and who are excitedto buy the product at full price
when we launch.
So we're kind of taking a buildthe audience first approach for
(02:41):
this particular brand and I'msuper excited to see what the
results are going to be when welaunched in January.
Speaker 3 (02:47):
Do you think, matt, that an available avenue for
your brand?
Because it's kind of in thatsemi-biohacking kind of arena.
There's a lot of recentpodcasts and whatnot and pretty
significant YouTube channels andTikTok profiles and whatnot and
pretty significant.
You know YouTube channels andTikTok, you know profiles and
(03:07):
whatnot that are very dialed inon that.
You know biohacking.
Do you think you could get youknow an interview or something
on one of these biohackingchannels or something and see if
you could leverage that to kindof build out an audience or
just utilize their audience,partner with them in some way?
Speaker 2 (03:22):
A hundred percent and that's going to be a big part
of this particular brand ispartnerships like that.
One of the big things thatwe're waiting on right now is we
haven't finalized theformulation yet.
There's still a couple ofthings.
I mean for us there's twothings that are important.
First of all is the taste andsecond of all is the buzz, and
the ingredient that we're usingfor the buzz right now is kava
root, which has a very bittertaste, and we if it doesn't have
(03:46):
the buzz, then you know a lotof our target market.
Who are the younger who aredriving this kind of sober,
curious alcohol alternativemovement are the younger
generation, like generation z, Ithink they're called.
I think that's the youngestkind of in college age.
Those are the ones that aredriving it.
So if they don't get a buzz, ifthere's not a noticeable effect
from what we're from our drink,then it defeats the whole
(04:09):
purpose.
So the problem, the challengewith that adding more kava to
get that buzz is the bitterness.
So there's some things thatwe're playing around with to
kind of help make that buzz alittle bit more potent but still
maintaining our kind of healthysegment that we're trying to
make sure like we're not addingsugar, things like that.
So that's the biggest thingthat we're waiting on is
finalizing the formulation andthen also the different flavors.
(04:32):
At the same time, we've alreadykind of got our branding nailed
down and we actually havesamples canned samples that are
on the way from our labelprinter, so we're going to be
able to be able to make contentwith our actual cans.
That's kind of the biggestthing that we're waiting on to
kind of go that route.
Right now we're just kind ofbuilding more brand awareness.
We've got about 50, 60 peopleon our email list now, which is
(04:54):
a good start.
But yeah, so those types ofpartnerships in the biohacking
scene is a big part of ourstrategy for when we get ready
to launch.
Speaker 1 (05:05):
Yeah, I think that what you said there that I
really would encourage thelisteners to take away is
yesterday or, excuse me,yesterday.
Last week, on our TacticsTuesday, we really talked about
building an audience and how toleverage that audience.
Launches is probably one of themost highly valued areas where
you can leverage that audience.
So I think this connects reallywell to what we talked about
last week.
So I really encourage listenersto go back and listen to that
(05:27):
episode where we talked aboutbuilding audience.
Whether you already have a brandor you know, you're essentially
starting from scratch and youknow what channel you want to go
on, whether that's email or,you know, social media.
I think there was a lot of goodinformation in that last
tactics Tuesday on kind of howto build that audience, and I
think you know today in talkingabout launching.
Well, I guess I'll ask you guysyou know we were talking about
(05:48):
a little bit before we hitrecord you know Kevin King, who
obviously has a lot of influencein the space.
One of the things that he putout recently was that
essentially, the honeymoonperiod for new products is dead
or no longer a thing.
I guess I'd love to get yourguys' take on what do you think
of that perspective when youthink about launching new
(06:09):
products?
Speaker 3 (06:10):
Well, I would say one .
I don't know if it's actuallydead or not, but I would say
that I haven't read that recentposting from him, so I don't
know the details of how he'scome to that conclusion.
I trust Kevin King that heknows a lot about the category,
so chances are, at a minimum, itmust be less effective or less
(06:33):
useful than it has been in thepast.
I would say that likely is true, and, ultimately, I think that
we do need to, as Amazon sellers, as much as we need to use the
platform in the best way that wecan, based on how Amazon's
algorithms are working andwhatnot.
I think that it's importantalso, though, as an Amazon
(06:55):
seller, to try and implementstrategies that are somewhat
algorithm agnostic, let's say,but algorithm agnostic, let's
say, so that when Amazon changestheir algorithm, you don't have
to completely revamp yourstrategy for how you're
launching products or how you'remanaging your brand or how
(07:15):
you're.
You know like, yes, there'sgoing to be tweaks, there's
going to be changes, you knowthings are going to happen, but
if everything is just kind of ahack, if everything is based on
manipulating the algorithm insome way versus just good
business practice, then you havea problem, because you're going
to have to change strategiesall the time and that's really
tough.
And so that's why anotherreason why coming back to that
idea of you know of thoseaudiences is so critical,
(07:36):
because it really doesn't matterhow Amazon changes their
algorithm or how some othersocial platform changes their
algorithm.
None of that matters.
If you have an audience, youhave an avenue to sell product,
and so I think that's really acritical piece of that is just
recognizing how valuable that isand how much it allows you to
(07:57):
transcend, let's say, all ofthose little nuances and, most
of the time, make good use ofthem.
But back to the honeymoon thing, if that's not as valuable as
it used to be.
And just for clarification foranybody who maybe doesn't even
know what that is, it'sbasically this period after you
launch a product where, to somedegree, amazon favors your
(08:19):
product or at least gives itmore exposure than it might
otherwise give it, without verymany reviews and without any
sales history and whatnot.
It's kind of this idea thatAmazon doesn't know.
Maybe your product is great,maybe it's a tremendous asset to
the category, so they want togive you some more exposure to
see, because of course, that'sgoing to be in their best
interest, because if it is,they're going to sell more of
(08:40):
that product.
So they give you the benefit ofthe doubt.
Maybe that's not true now,maybe they don't do that, or
maybe it's not to the sameextent.
So if you don't have that, wellthen these partnerships and
these you know communitybuilding, you know strategies
and whatnot, become that muchmore critical, because you can't
count on Amazon to give youthat exposure.
But they will give you exposureif you can send traffic volume.
(09:04):
That is one thing that Amazonit's guaranteed.
If you can send traffic volumeand especially sales volume
through your listing, you willgain more traction within the
listings and you're going togain more exposure.
So it is the way, it is themechanism that you can guarantee
that exposure, even if thealgorithm is no longer favoring
(09:26):
you as a new product.
Speaker 2 (09:28):
So there's a lot of talk, there's a lot of people
that think they know Amazon's A9algorithm and, like you said,
mike, the one thing that is forcertain, that there's no
argument about, is salesvelocity increases your organic
rank.
The other thing that increasesyour organic rank, which is very
explicitly not allowed based onAmazon's code of conduct, is
(09:51):
search find buyers.
Those are another thing that,without doubt.
I don't think there's anargument in any seller's mind
that sending when we used to beable to do that, send traffic to
your listing searching for akeyword, buying it from that
keyword, and when you did that,that also very much increases
your organic rank.
And one of the things that Ireally want to pound home and I
think we do it a lot, but thiswhole podcast has really been
(10:13):
around it in the early goings iswhen you have an audience that
you're able to send to yourlisting.
Those are the two things thatare guaranteed sales velocity
and sending external tribe.
Now, people that are in youraudience are usually going to
search branded search for yourbrand, brand name, but if they
don't and they search for aparticular keyword, that
audience searching, thataudience being sent to Amazon,
(10:36):
whether it's with an attributionlink or they're searching for
your brand name.
It's going to increase yoursales velocity, and so for us
and brand launches like thereason why I want 500 people on
an email list before we launchis I know what happens when
you're able to send 200 peoplebuying your product on day one
on the launch, whether or notthere's a honeymoon period and,
by the way, real quick thatactually was.
(10:58):
Kevin King was mentioning astudy that Danny McMillan did,
and if you know anything aboutDanny McMillan, he is probably
the biggest nerd when it comesto Amazon's algorithm and things
of that nature.
So this was in data that he'sbeen collecting for years and
years that and I think that Ihaven't read the article either,
I've just kind of read it at ahigh level I think he's saying
(11:19):
that it never really existed.
I think he's saying thatthere's no evidence that the
honeymoon period actually everexisted.
Now there are things that youcan do to, like I said, increase
your organic rank, and it usedto be.
There were tactics that youcould search, find, buy and the
rebates and all these rebateservices and things like that.
It certainly increases yourorganic rank, but I think what
(11:41):
that thing is saying is it goeseven further that not only is
there not one really now, butthere really hasn't ever been.
And so it goes back to what yousaid is sound business practices
, like building an audience,isn't just a buzzword.
The brands that win areactually worrying about their
brand, as opposed to justselling random products on
(12:06):
Amazon.
It's because of how powerful ishaving a community is and again
, we talk about this all thetime, but it's that much, it's
that important.
That's why we talk about it allthe time, because the power of
an audience, especially on alaunch, launching a new product,
it's one of the biggestbenefits that you have as a
brand owner when you have anaudience that you can leverage.
Speaker 1 (12:28):
Yeah, and what you guys are saying and I just want
to double click on that becauseI think it's so important is you
know we could get into theweeds and have, you know, an
argument about the technicals ofis there a honeymoon period?
How much is it?
How has it changed over thelast couple of years?
And while that might be reallyinteresting to Amazon marketing
nerds and Amazon nerds ingeneral, the reality of it is
that if you have an engagedaudience and a strong brand, if
(12:52):
you look at first principles, ifyou take that as a first
principle, then really itdoesn't matter, because you've
already solved that problem andyou're not reliant on how the
Amazon algorithm is going tochange.
Whether it's, you know, nowthere was a honeymoon period and
now there isn't because of AIor whatever it happens to be, it
becomes irrelevant because youlook at the first principle of I
(13:13):
have an audience that's engaged, that wants to buy my product,
you know.
The other thing that I think isreally important and kind of
the change that's been made isis that you know if you don't
have some sort of audience orsomebody to buy your product at
launch.
One of the other hard things todo is to offer any sort of
coupons or discounts.
So Amazon has made it to whereyour product has to have a
(13:34):
reference price.
So if you want to start out andsay your ideal price is $50,
but you're willing to discountit down 10%, 20%, 30%, 40%,
doesn't matter, you have to havea reference price in order to
start, otherwise Amazon won'teven allow you to do any sort of
prime deals or coupons oranything else, to run any
special promos on your listing.
(13:56):
So you have to have some peopleinterested or that are willing
to buy your product atessentially full price right out
of the gate.
Now, how many people in orderto get a reference price?
Again, there's differentopinions.
I've seen everything from threesales and we were able to get a
reference price on a product to.
(14:17):
I've seen up to 10.
And I'm sure, depending on whatcategory you're, in and all that
type of stuff, it's going tovary.
But again, if you look at firstprinciples, if we have an
audience, if we have people thatyou know are interested in the
product and interested in thebrands, you know being able to
sell, you know that first, 10,20, 30 products at whatever you
(14:39):
know is a reasonable price foryour product really puts you in
a much better position than ifyou don't have that.
If you're just relying onAmazon, you're going to really
struggle right out of the gatein order to get some sort of
traction and to get that Amazonflywheel going.
Speaker 3 (14:53):
Well, it gives you a lot of flexibility too, because
then, whereas on Amazon, thediscounting of your product in
order to get sales volume movingand get your conversion rate up
discounting of your product inorder to get sales volume moving
and get your conversion rate up, it has to be a coupon or
promotion or whatever, so it hasto be money, it has to be money
back.
The difference with a list isthat you can provide them with
(15:22):
additional value that they'renot getting on Amazon, so you
don't have to go down thediscount route.
It could be a rebate, it couldbe whatever, but remember that
what we're talking about here,in terms of this reference price
point, is that you wanna saleat full price, and probably
multiple sales at full price,and again, don't know exactly
how many, but chances are it'sprobably 10 or less for most
categories that you might get,but you need those full price
(15:44):
sales.
So if you have an audience, youcan easily have some sort of
either a rebate system wherethey go, place the order at full
price and they get a rebate onthe backend from you, but you
can also do, you know, like youprovide them with a free report
or some PDF guide or someadditional product that you can
ship to them super inexpensively, and so it feels like a $10 or
(16:06):
$20 or $30 discount, but it onlycosts you maybe $10 or whatever
it is.
So there's a whole lot offlexibility in terms of how you
provide let's back up A discount.
Essentially, all that a discountdoes is it means that they've
gotten more value for the moneythat they spent, and in this
(16:27):
case it's because the value ofthe product is, say, $50, but I
only spent $40 or $30, right,there's a mismatch between the
value point and the price point.
Well, you can create thatmismatch differently.
It doesn't have to be adiscount If the value of the
product is 50 bucks and they pay$50, but then you give them an
(16:48):
additional $20 value for someother product.
Well, now they got $70 of valuefor $50.
So it's just I like having thatflexibility, and when you have
a list, you can do all sorts ofthings with that list to
generate that sales volume andto provide additional value that
you might not be able toprovide otherwise, and so I just
(17:08):
think that's a really criticalpiece of that puzzle we lost
John.
Speaker 2 (17:12):
Do you think we lost his?
Do you see him?
I?
Speaker 3 (17:14):
don't know, so we'll just keep going and we'll
pretend that we didn't lose him.
So, yeah, I think, on thatpoint of that reference point, I
think the other thing is toremember that reference points
are also valuable forstrikethrough.
And if you can getstrikethrough then of course you
can get better conversions onthat listing.
And so, again, setting thatreference point with full price
(17:38):
purchases at whatever that pricepoint is that you want is
really critical, because thenyou can get the strike through,
then you can do discounts if youwant on Amazon's site, and it
just provides you with a lot ofavenues for that additional
volume.
I was also going to go back tosomething that you mentioned
earlier, matt, and I don't knowif this is where John wants us
to go or not, but I find itinteresting, and that is when
(17:59):
we're talking about audiencesthese days, because everything
is social media.
I think that the assumption thatmost sellers would make when
they hear that is you need tobuild a social media audience or
you need to find a social mediaaudience that you can partner
with.
You know whoever owns thataudience, but it doesn't have to
(18:21):
be social media.
Obviously, email is one way youcould build a list.
People have been building emaillists for ages.
It obviously works and it's anavenue that you could walk down.
But the other avenue isremember that, ultimately, what
you're looking for is just atarget audience to sell to.
Well, there's a whole bunch ofother brands out there that sell
(18:41):
to the very same targetaudience that you sell to, many
of whom are not competing withyou in any way.
They just happen to sell to thesame person.
So they have an audience.
They've got customers.
If they're an establishedbusiness and they have customers
that buy their product, wellthen they have a bunch of people
in your target demographic thatyou want to sell to, that you
(19:02):
could sell to.
So affiliate partnerships withthem, where they run an ad to
their list or to their customersor to their community, is an
excellent way to be able topotentially send that volume of
traffic through Amazon at thatoriginal launch point.
And there's very little expenseto you.
(19:25):
I mean, you pay an affiliatecommission.
Well, so what?
You're going to pay ad dollarson Amazon's platform, and this
is external traffic.
You can run it through anattribution link and save your
10% of the referral fees.
So really, that's a verywin-win kind of scenario of the
referral fees.
So you know, really that's avery win-win kind of scenario If
you can take what might've been20, 30, 40% ACoS or normally
(19:46):
when you launch a product itcould be as much as 100% ACoS
and instead translate that intoa 20% affiliate commission to a
partner and save 10% on thereferral fee.
Like there's massive benefitsthere in terms of the amount of
volume that you might be able tosend through and they're going
to be super appreciative.
They get to make money on yourlaunch.
Speaker 2 (20:06):
Yeah, well, a couple of things that I love about that
.
First of all, I love what yousaid about when you have an
audience, you can increase thevalue of the offer as opposed to
providing them a discount.
I am a huge proponent ofincreasing value.
I like to sell on the high end.
(20:26):
Of every category that I sellin, I'm at the high end of the
price point, so that's how Ifixate my prices.
I want to be at the high end.
How can I provide enough valueto make it a no-brainer for my
customers?
So what I love about so firstof all, that's, first and
foremost, increasing value is amuch better way than racing to
the bottom in terms of price.
(20:47):
It's a much different game andit's better customers.
You have better margins.
You can play a completelydifferent ballgame when you're
at the higher end of a pricepoint and margin.
But what I also loved aboutwhat you said, which goes along
with that margin, but what Ialso loved about what you said
which goes along with that is apartnership.
A good strategic partnership canincrease the value of your
offer without costing you anydollars, and a lot of it's just
(21:11):
perceived value.
Let's take your pool brand, forexample.
I mean having a relationshipwith someone that has a pool as
a software for pool serviceproviders.
You're not competing with thattype of a brand in any way,
shape or form.
They're definitely talkingabout, they're definitely
talking to the same person, butnow you have a whole nother
(21:33):
value add that you can talk toclients about when you go start
to expand into the pool promarket, then that's another
conversation that you can haveis hey, we have a partnership
with this tool.
What are you guys using for yoursoftware?
And it's not even a hard pitch,it's just hey, like you, you
probably use a software tomanage your business, and if you
don't, why don't you?
And here's some that we have arelationship with.
So, like you're talking aboutaffiliate commissions, you're
(21:56):
talking about getting in frontof their audience with emails
and on their socials and thingslike that.
But you're also talking aboutincreasing the perceived value
of your offer without having tospend any dollars yourself.
But I mean, how much could thatincrease if that software saves
that pull service business?
You know X amount of dollars orX percent every single month.
(22:17):
I mean they're going to, intheir mind, attach that to you
who they got their pull toolfrom, and you know that's.
That's a whole.
Nother way to get a customerfor life is is by providing
value like that.
So you're increasing the valueof your offer instead of
dropping the price.
Speaker 3 (22:30):
Yeah, for sure.
And in a situation like that,you know, like, you set up a
partnership like that, as longas it goes well, that
partnership would likelycontinue.
And so if you have anarrangement like you were saying
, you know where we're workingon this full service software
company.
If you have an arrangement withthem where, okay, if we send
you business, everybody we sendyou gets a 10% discount, you
(22:54):
know across the board orwhatever that is right, then
that's again additional valueadd for our customers because if
you sign up directly with them,you're going to pay X.
If you're one of our customersand we direct you over there,
then you save 10% a month, youknow, on whatever that is.
But likewise, from theirperspective, like if you're
pitching this to somebody as apartnership opportunity, don't
neglect the idea that you canoffer their customers a discount
(23:18):
on your product.
Remember referrals, if it's anexternal traffic source, you can
save that 10% referral fee.
So, off the top, you've got 10%to offer right there, you know
off the bat.
And if you want to do anaffiliate commission plus, you
know a slight discount, you canstill do that because, again,
remember, you're saving addollars.
These are zero ad dollar, youknow sales.
(23:40):
So whatever you would havespent on ad dollars to get that
person to buy your product, youcan afford to pay that in an
affiliate commission.
So you could offer a 10%discount plus a 20%.
You know, if you're paying 20%A cost on your sales, you've got
30% to work with there, youknow.
So you can offer that to themas well.
So then now that's their valueadd to their customers.
(24:00):
Hey, you sign up for ourservice.
You can buy ProTuff toolsanytime you want at a 10%
discount, right off, you know,right off the top.
So you know there's a value addon both sides of that and
that's the way a partnershipshould be.
But it creates that situationwhere it's a very you know, you
scratch my back, I'll scratchyours.
Speaker 2 (24:21):
And you never know where that might go.
Yeah, another thing that kindof goes along with that that I
know that John wanted to talkabout was and he kind of touched
on it was influencers andaffiliates.
You know, like for me that wasone of the first things I did
with my first business, the mealprep business.
We kind of targeted not kind ofwe were all in the CrossFit
community.
Everything that we did, all ofour marketing, our logo,
everything, every piece ofcommunication that we had, was
(24:42):
very targeted to the CrossFitcommunity and at the time we
were, you know, we started thatbusiness in Denver.
There were three pretty popularCrossFit athletes in the Denver
area that were already athletesat gyms, that were drop-off
spots for us.
So that was one of the veryfirst things we did, even before
there were joint brands and allthese other kind of affiliate
influencer platforms and thingslike that we we were able to
(25:04):
leverage, I mean and for us itwas we offered them free food.
So the margins on our, themargin on that cost, getting
them to go in front of their,our, their audience, like they
would compete at a localcompetition.
They'd have our food, I'd havea big giant logo on on the back
of their shirt and all it costedme was the food that they were
eating, which I mean that's.
(25:24):
It was nothing compared to theamount of dollars that we were
spending on facebook andinstagram and all those other
places.
So, especially nowadays where wehave platforms like brands,
where you can find these contentcreators and even if it's just
a content creator that doesn'thave necessarily an audience
(25:46):
like those, are those initialreference purchases that we're
talking about.
When they go to buy one of yourproducts to make content for
they're making a purchase onAmazon I don't, I've never
worked with those, but they'regetting some sort of a
reimbursement, and even ifthey're not getting a
reimbursement for the product,they're getting commissioned on
any, any that they sell.
So those are your referenceprices.
So, influencers, because ofplatforms like that, the cost of
(26:07):
an influencer I mean five, sixyears ago, even a short five or
six years ago, when someone saidthe word influencer, I think
what most people had in theirbrain was things like the
Kardashian sisters or an NFLfootball player, where it costs
hundreds of thousands of dollarsto engage with these people.
But now, to be honest, I thinkthat you can get better
(26:28):
engagement frommicro-influencers with 10,000
followers and if you have 10 ofthem that have followers that
are very specific, like this iswhat we're going to look for for
Gio the alcoholic seltzer.
I mean, we're looking forpeople that have about 10,000
followers we want 100 of thesenot just 10, but 100 of these
that those engaged followingsthat they're going to post at
(26:49):
the same time on launch day, soyou get the benefit of those
very engaged eyeballs who listento what their influences.
They're influenced by what thepeople that they who they follow
on social media tells them todo and products that they do.
So I think that's anotherreally, really important thing
to keep in mind nowadays is thatthese influencer platforms are
really easy to use.
(27:10):
There's a lot of influencersthat have existing audiences
that are just waiting to givethem or to show them products
that they know that they'regoing to love.
So that's another veryimportant tactic nowadays when
you're launching new products.
Speaker 3 (27:23):
Yeah, for sure and honestly, if you don't want to
use any of those platforms,amazon's creator connections can
be a good place to start.
There's a lot of responses thatyou get that aren't
particularly valuable, but ifyou set it up right so that you
send them to an external formand you get them to register so
that you can talk with them moreand evaluate like we have them
(27:45):
sign through Creator Connectionswhen we do a campaign there
they would go to an externalform and on that form we're
asking them all sorts ofquestions about what platforms
they're on, what their followercount is on each of those
platforms, what their totalvideo views is.
You know those sorts of thingsso we can gauge.
You know, like, how big arethey, what kind of?
(28:06):
You know where are they?
You know we can go check outtheir profiles and stuff.
You don't get that necessarilydirectly through creator
connections and you, of course,don't have a direct email
connection to them either.
So if you get them to registerthrough your form whether that's
hey, you know we'll send you,you know free samples or you
(28:27):
know whatever that is you canget them to register over there
and and that's actually been apretty good source for us even
of finding some good influencers.
We've actually got a number ofreally good partners that we're
starting to work with.
That came to us, that thatdirection.
Speaker 2 (28:37):
So so real quick.
I think it's important becauseI think that I don't know how
many people have seen anysuccess Like I.
Personally, I went.
It's because it's all about theeffort that you put in and I
didn't see the same success thatyou did.
But the last time you looked atCreator Connections, what's the
amount of revenue that thoseaffiliates have brought in?
I think that most listeners aregoing to be astounded by that
(29:01):
number when they hear it.
Speaker 3 (29:03):
Yeah, let me take a quick peek, because I haven't
looked at it for a short bit.
It's just kind of been runningin the background for a while.
Let me take a look at where weare right now.
I know that the last time Ispoke with you which has
probably been like about thisissue was it was like $80,000 in
revenue that we had brought in,and that's as of a couple of
(29:27):
months ago.
It might not have changed awhole lot since then because our
season, of course, becausewe're full products, our
season's ramping down, so, butif I can manage to get signed
back into Amazon I'm not surewhy I'm signed out, I will tell
you, but it's been.
You know, like I honestly wasincredibly shocked, honestly, by
(29:53):
what we were able to generatethere.
And I will say, you know, kudosto Josh Hadley.
Josh, yeah, josh, yeah, josh.
You know his using his SOP forcreator connections made a huge
difference in in what we wereable to, what we were able to do
(30:13):
there.
And so, you know, definitelycheck out Josh.
You know like he's a, he's agood guy and he knows what he's
talking about.
You know what I say?
That I'm in creator connectionsright now and it is not showing
me.
Oh, here we go there.
It is for a second there.
I thought our, our campaign hadstopped.
I was like I thought I sent it.
(30:34):
So yeah, so our, let me go downhere.
We now have about a100,000 insales that we brought in you
started in.
April right yeah, we started inApril.
We've got about $100,000 insales and our spend is $14,000.
When you say spend is that thecommission that you paid?
Yeah, that's the total amountthat it costs us.
(30:56):
That's the commission.
Speaker 2 (30:58):
So you're offering what a 15% commission-ish or
something like that?
Yep, yep.
So you're offering what a 15%commission ish or something like
that?
Yep, so 15% commission,$100,000 in sales.
What's your tacos right now?
Do you know about essentiallyyour overall tacos, is it?
It's under right about 15%?
Yeah, it's in that range, yep,yeah.
(31:18):
So I mean, that's fascinatingand, like I said, I think most
people listening are going to beastounded by the number of
sales.
And what fascinates me I thinkwe talked about this last time
is that it's not even really aquote unquote influencer.
Speaker 3 (31:31):
It's more like a deal site that has deal sites that
have generated most of that Forus yeah, yeah, we did get some
really good influencers out ofit who did generate some decent
sales, but the biggest amount ofsales that came out of creator
connections was actually nottruly influencers.
They were deal sites and Ican't remember exactly what they
were, but, yeah, they were justyou know, like you know best
(31:52):
reviews or you know things likethat.
It was just something like that.
There were like two different,two different sites that signed
up as as affiliates for usthrough the creator connections
and they generated I think thosetwo generated like half of
those sales, yeah, which?
Speaker 2 (32:07):
is crazy.
Anyways, John, it's good to seeyou again.
Speaker 1 (32:10):
I had some technical difficulties where my internet
went out for probably about halfthis discussion, so I apologize
that I missed it, but it soundslike you guys were talking
about Creator Connections, whichI'm also a big fan of, in the
sense of I feel like this isthat's one of those kind of
hidden gems within Amazon whereI mean worst case scenario you
set up a campaign and nothinghappens with it and it costs you
(32:33):
nothing and they you know theydon't take a ton of time to set
up.
Best case scenario.
I mean, like you talked aboutMike, $100,000 in sales and,
more importantly to me, that'sthe equivalent of a 15% ACOS,
and I think most people at thispoint would be very happy with a
(32:54):
15% ACOS on their Amazon ads.
So having that from aninfluencer is fantastic.
And then, like you said, we'vedone this with a couple of
clients and have the sameexperience where, even if we
haven't made massive sales withit, just being able to connect
with them and then produce somecontent out of it has been well
worth the effort.
Speaker 3 (33:13):
For Creator Connections, yeah absolutely,
and it's you know.
I mean the nice thing is, likeyou said, it doesn't cost you
anything.
I mean it's different than whenyou sign up for some of these
other sites out there that offeryou that opportunity to connect
with influencers.
A lot of them have a monthlyfee plus whatever you're paying
to the influencers.
So creator connections being azero cost type scenario, you got
(33:36):
nothing to lose.
You might as well try.
Speaker 2 (33:39):
They're not letting new brands in right now, which
is so frustrating.
To create a connection, oh,connection, oh yeah.
Speaker 1 (33:44):
I'm glad you brought that up really I wasn't aware
with uh, they're putting you ona waitlist clients where we
couldn't see it on the dashboard.
And we contact, we reached outto amazon and they're like yep,
this is an invite only programand we're not letting anybody
additional in.
There's nothing that you can doin order to get your brand in.
So if you're in, good for you,you know, utilize it to the best
(34:06):
you can.
If you're not in, sorry.
I think this is one of thosethings that maybe Amazon,
another six to 12 months,decides to open up again, but
for now, apologies to thoselisteners that we just described
this strategy that you can'tuse.
Speaker 3 (34:20):
But if you happen to be somebody who's tested Creator
Connections in the past and youdidn't think it really
performed, I would encourage youto try again and I would
encourage you to see if you canfind I don't want to spill the
beans on it because Josh, it'shis baby.
He does have an SOP for CreatorConnections and it's tremendous
.
This is what generated this$100,000 in sales for us is
(34:40):
using his SOP, so I highlyrecommend it.
So seek him out and you can getthat from him directly.
Speaker 1 (34:47):
All right, well, guys , I think that, well, I guess
we'll end up withrecommendations that you guys
have for one action step fromthis episode.
Seeing how I missed about halfthe episode, I'm going to do the
technical issues.
I'm going to bow the technicalissues.
I'm going to bow out on thisparticular episode.
But when you guys look atlaunching Q4 2024, where we're
at today, what's maybe onetakeaway that you guys would
(35:10):
give listeners.
Speaker 2 (35:11):
I think my biggest one is don't.
Hacks are fun and they're sexy,but if you build a business
around what Amazon's algorithmis currently doing, then you
have a short, very short-sightedview of of how to build a brand
.
Not just build a brand like andthat's one of the things that
we building a brand not havingamazon blinders on is the way
(35:35):
that you need to build a brand.
And if you're only focused on ahoneymoon period and you think
that that's like the end all beall of launching a new product,
I think you should sit back andtake a real hard, listen to some
of our episodes and learn whatthe actual way to build a brand
today is.
And it's not short term hacks,like I said.
(35:56):
We just talked about a hack forcreative connections, but I
think overall, having the longvision of building a brand,
having good products and makingsure that you're getting contact
information for your customersis the best you can is how you
build a brand in 2024.
Speaker 3 (36:15):
Yeah, I guess I would say if you don't already have a
community whether it's onsocial, whether it's an email
list, whatever if you don't havea direct community that you
have a direct communicationchannel with that you can
communicate with, then I wouldencourage you to stop and think
(36:38):
about what the best potentialavenues forward for you are to
generate that community.
I will tell you if you arelooking at like, if you're
getting ready to launch aproduct, don't do not launch
that product until you have acommunity.
In my opinion, I don't thinkit's actually your best road
forward and I think that if youdevoted even a little bit of
(37:02):
effort to this, you would find acommunity that you can tap into
, whether it's another brandthat you can partner with,
whether it's, you know,influencers that have their
communities that you can tapinto, whether it's, you know,
building out an email list withsome sort of lead gen, you know
type system, you know whateverthat is.
There are a dozen differentways that you could build a
(37:25):
community that you could launchto, and I can almost guarantee
you if you put anywhere near asmuch effort into building that
community as you do inmaintaining your current brand
and whatever products you mightbe selling already.
Then you could build acommunity that would be valuable
for a launch in a very shortperiod of time.
I mean a month or less.
(37:45):
You know, maybe two weeks if youhit the right partner, you know
the right company that you canpartner with and, honestly,
don't be afraid to communicatewith multiple different
potential partners at the sametime, because many of them are
going to say no, they're notgoing to see the value in it,
even if there is a valuecomponent.
But some of them are going tosay no, they're not going to see
the value in it, even if thereis a value component.
(38:07):
But some of them are going tosay yeah.
So if you reach out to 10different you know influencers
slash.
You know other brands that arein your category, selling to the
same target market I can almostguarantee you at least one or
two of them are going to respondback and say hey, yeah, I think
we're interested in that.
You know, let's move forwardwith that.
You know, let's move forwardwith that.
So it doesn't take that much,it's just committing to it.
You know, maybe that's what Iwould say Commit to building
that community and finding a wayto do it, there is an avenue
(38:30):
forward for you.
And if you have that community,even if it was just 500 or
1,000 people, that is massivefor a product launch.
I mean, unless you're sellinginto a category that sells
millions of units a month,you're like having 500 people on
a list or a thousand people ina community that will buy your
product.
That's gold man.
Speaker 1 (38:48):
Yeah, absolutely Well .
I think that's a fantasticplace to wrap for this episode.
Matt Mike, thank you so muchfor carrying most of the weight
on this episode, as I had sometechnical issues and I would
just encourage our listeners tobe back again next Tuesday.
So we're live every Tuesday onLinkedIn where you can ask us
questions live.
In addition to that, everyTuesday we're going through, you
(39:10):
know, different tactics thatwe're learning, either from
launching our own brands,growing you know, million dollar
brands or you know, workingwith other brands as well, on
Amazon and beyond, in order to,you know, really build a strong
brand that's going to bebeneficial not only today and
whatever algorithm Amazon has,but kind of that fortress that
protects you going forward andreally has something of value in
(39:32):
the long term.
Welcome to the Brand Fortress HQ podcast.
And today we're live and inaddition to that, we're also
talking about something that isimportant for any brand in order
to continue to grow, and thatis product launches, especially
in Q4, what those look like nowin Q4 2024.
Obviously, launch strategieshave changed a lot in the last
(00:21):
couple of years as Amazon's kindof changed the rules and then
also some different features andthat type of stuff.
That as far as what Amazonallows.
So for this topic, I'm actuallygonna start off hand it over to
you, Matt, as I know that youguys are getting ready for a
launch on a new brand.
Maybe what are some of thethings that you guys are
thinking about as part of yournew brand launch that are
(00:43):
different from when you didlaunches a couple of years ago?
Speaker 2 (00:47):
I think the biggest thing now for me.
I've always been about buildingaudiences.
That's always been and ithasn't been building audiences
myself, as we've talked about alot of times on this podcast
before.
I also leverage other people'sexisting audiences and so pretty
much every brand that I've everlaunched on Amazon, starting
with our very first productlaunch, there was some sort of
(01:08):
an audience for us to be able tosend to the Amazon platform to
help kind of grease the skins alittle bit For our new brand.
We don't have an audience.
We don't have another audienceto leverage, although we're
going to use a lot ofinfluencers and affiliates and
things like that.
But we're doing, we're kind ofhaving a pre launch type of a
(01:30):
audience building exercise wherewe're building the brand out in
the open.
I go, I post a video about oncea week on things that we're
dealing with where we are in theprocess.
A lot of it's been sampling thedrinks that we've gotten from
our manufacturer up until thispoint.
So I'm kind of building it outin the open on my own socials
(01:57):
and then we have a social mediaagency that is also just posting
informational, educational typestuff about the ingredients
that we're using and this wholekind of sober curious
non-alcoholic or alcoholalternative trend Actually it's
more of a trend now and I thinkthere's a lot of opportunity for
us to tap into that market.
But then also we have somefunctional ingredients in our
beverage as well and that's awhole other segment of the
market the whole biohackers whoare into adaptogens and that
(02:20):
kind of stuff.
So for us it's all about we'rebuilding the brand out in the
open to build kind of apre-launch list.
My goal is to get 500 people onthat pre-launch list that are
excited about the brand, thatare exactly in our kind of
demographic and who are excitedto buy the product at full price
when we launch.
So we're kind of taking a buildthe audience first approach for
(02:41):
this particular brand and I'msuper excited to see what the
results are going to be when welaunched in January.
Speaker 3 (02:47):
Do you think, matt, that an available avenue for
your brand?
Because it's kind of in thatsemi-biohacking kind of arena.
There's a lot of recentpodcasts and whatnot and pretty
significant YouTube channels andTikTok profiles and whatnot and
pretty significant.
You know YouTube channels andTikTok, you know profiles and
(03:07):
whatnot that are very dialed inon that.
You know biohacking.
Do you think you could get youknow an interview or something
on one of these biohackingchannels or something and see if
you could leverage that to kindof build out an audience or
just utilize their audience,partner with them in some way?
Speaker 2 (03:22):
A hundred percent and that's going to be a big part
of this particular brand ispartnerships like that.
One of the big things thatwe're waiting on right now is we
haven't finalized theformulation yet.
There's still a couple ofthings.
I mean for us there's twothings that are important.
First of all is the taste andsecond of all is the buzz, and
the ingredient that we're usingfor the buzz right now is kava
root, which has a very bittertaste, and we if it doesn't have
(03:46):
the buzz, then you know a lotof our target market.
Who are the younger who aredriving this kind of sober,
curious alcohol alternativemovement are the younger
generation, like generation z, Ithink they're called.
I think that's the youngestkind of in college age.
Those are the ones that aredriving it.
So if they don't get a buzz, ifthere's not a noticeable effect
from what we're from our drink,then it defeats the whole
(04:09):
purpose.
So the problem, the challengewith that adding more kava to
get that buzz is the bitterness.
So there's some things thatwe're playing around with to
kind of help make that buzz alittle bit more potent but still
maintaining our kind of healthysegment that we're trying to
make sure like we're not addingsugar, things like that.
So that's the biggest thingthat we're waiting on is
finalizing the formulation andthen also the different flavors.
(04:32):
At the same time, we've alreadykind of got our branding nailed
down and we actually havesamples canned samples that are
on the way from our labelprinter, so we're going to be
able to be able to make contentwith our actual cans.
That's kind of the biggestthing that we're waiting on to
kind of go that route.
Right now we're just kind ofbuilding more brand awareness.
We've got about 50, 60 peopleon our email list now, which is
(04:54):
a good start.
But yeah, so those types ofpartnerships in the biohacking
scene is a big part of ourstrategy for when we get ready
to launch.
Speaker 1 (05:05):
Yeah, I think that what you said there that I
really would encourage thelisteners to take away is
yesterday or, excuse me,yesterday.
Last week, on our TacticsTuesday, we really talked about
building an audience and how toleverage that audience.
Launches is probably one of themost highly valued areas where
you can leverage that audience.
So I think this connects reallywell to what we talked about
last week.
So I really encourage listenersto go back and listen to that
(05:27):
episode where we talked aboutbuilding audience.
Whether you already have a brandor you know, you're essentially
starting from scratch and youknow what channel you want to go
on, whether that's email or,you know, social media.
I think there was a lot of goodinformation in that last
tactics Tuesday on kind of howto build that audience, and I
think you know today in talkingabout launching.
Well, I guess I'll ask you guysyou know we were talking about
(05:48):
a little bit before we hitrecord you know Kevin King, who
obviously has a lot of influencein the space.
One of the things that he putout recently was that
essentially, the honeymoonperiod for new products is dead
or no longer a thing.
I guess I'd love to get yourguys' take on what do you think
of that perspective when youthink about launching new
(06:09):
products?
Speaker 3 (06:10):
Well, I would say one .
I don't know if it's actuallydead or not, but I would say
that I haven't read that recentposting from him, so I don't
know the details of how he'scome to that conclusion.
I trust Kevin King that heknows a lot about the category,
so chances are, at a minimum, itmust be less effective or less
(06:33):
useful than it has been in thepast.
I would say that likely is true, and, ultimately, I think that
we do need to, as Amazon sellers, as much as we need to use the
platform in the best way that wecan, based on how Amazon's
algorithms are working andwhatnot.
I think that it's importantalso, though, as an Amazon
(06:55):
seller, to try and implementstrategies that are somewhat
algorithm agnostic, let's say,but algorithm agnostic, let's
say, so that when Amazon changestheir algorithm, you don't have
to completely revamp yourstrategy for how you're
launching products or how you'remanaging your brand or how
(07:15):
you're.
You know like, yes, there'sgoing to be tweaks, there's
going to be changes, you knowthings are going to happen, but
if everything is just kind of ahack, if everything is based on
manipulating the algorithm insome way versus just good
business practice, then you havea problem, because you're going
to have to change strategiesall the time and that's really
tough.
And so that's why anotherreason why coming back to that
idea of you know of thoseaudiences is so critical,
(07:36):
because it really doesn't matterhow Amazon changes their
algorithm or how some othersocial platform changes their
algorithm.
None of that matters.
If you have an audience, youhave an avenue to sell product,
and so I think that's really acritical piece of that is just
recognizing how valuable that isand how much it allows you to
(07:57):
transcend, let's say, all ofthose little nuances and, most
of the time, make good use ofthem.
But back to the honeymoon thing, if that's not as valuable as
it used to be.
And just for clarification foranybody who maybe doesn't even
know what that is, it'sbasically this period after you
launch a product where, to somedegree, amazon favors your
(08:19):
product or at least gives itmore exposure than it might
otherwise give it, without verymany reviews and without any
sales history and whatnot.
It's kind of this idea thatAmazon doesn't know.
Maybe your product is great,maybe it's a tremendous asset to
the category, so they want togive you some more exposure to
see, because of course, that'sgoing to be in their best
interest, because if it is,they're going to sell more of
(08:40):
that product.
So they give you the benefit ofthe doubt.
Maybe that's not true now,maybe they don't do that, or
maybe it's not to the sameextent.
So if you don't have that, wellthen these partnerships and
these you know communitybuilding, you know strategies
and whatnot, become that muchmore critical, because you can't
count on Amazon to give youthat exposure.
But they will give you exposureif you can send traffic volume.
(09:04):
That is one thing that Amazonit's guaranteed.
If you can send traffic volumeand especially sales volume
through your listing, you willgain more traction within the
listings and you're going togain more exposure.
So it is the way, it is themechanism that you can guarantee
that exposure, even if thealgorithm is no longer favoring
(09:26):
you as a new product.
Speaker 2 (09:28):
So there's a lot of talk, there's a lot of people
that think they know Amazon's A9algorithm and, like you said,
mike, the one thing that is forcertain, that there's no
argument about, is salesvelocity increases your organic
rank.
The other thing that increasesyour organic rank, which is very
explicitly not allowed based onAmazon's code of conduct, is
(09:51):
search find buyers.
Those are another thing that,without doubt.
I don't think there's anargument in any seller's mind
that sending when we used to beable to do that, send traffic to
your listing searching for akeyword, buying it from that
keyword, and when you did that,that also very much increases
your organic rank.
And one of the things that Ireally want to pound home and I
think we do it a lot, but thiswhole podcast has really been
(10:13):
around it in the early goings iswhen you have an audience that
you're able to send to yourlisting.
Those are the two things thatare guaranteed sales velocity
and sending external tribe.
Now, people that are in youraudience are usually going to
search branded search for yourbrand, brand name, but if they
don't and they search for aparticular keyword, that
audience searching, thataudience being sent to Amazon,
(10:36):
whether it's with an attributionlink or they're searching for
your brand name.
It's going to increase yoursales velocity, and so for us
and brand launches like thereason why I want 500 people on
an email list before we launchis I know what happens when
you're able to send 200 peoplebuying your product on day one
on the launch, whether or notthere's a honeymoon period and,
by the way, real quick thatactually was.
(10:58):
Kevin King was mentioning astudy that Danny McMillan did,
and if you know anything aboutDanny McMillan, he is probably
the biggest nerd when it comesto Amazon's algorithm and things
of that nature.
So this was in data that he'sbeen collecting for years and
years that and I think that Ihaven't read the article either,
I've just kind of read it at ahigh level I think he's saying
(11:19):
that it never really existed.
I think he's saying thatthere's no evidence that the
honeymoon period actually everexisted.
Now there are things that youcan do to, like I said, increase
your organic rank, and it usedto be.
There were tactics that youcould search, find, buy and the
rebates and all these rebateservices and things like that.
It certainly increases yourorganic rank, but I think what
(11:41):
that thing is saying is it goeseven further that not only is
there not one really now, butthere really hasn't ever been.
And so it goes back to what yousaid is sound business practices
, like building an audience,isn't just a buzzword.
The brands that win areactually worrying about their
brand, as opposed to justselling random products on
(12:06):
Amazon.
It's because of how powerful ishaving a community is and again
, we talk about this all thetime, but it's that much, it's
that important.
That's why we talk about it allthe time, because the power of
an audience, especially on alaunch, launching a new product,
it's one of the biggestbenefits that you have as a
brand owner when you have anaudience that you can leverage.
Speaker 1 (12:28):
Yeah, and what you guys are saying and I just want
to double click on that becauseI think it's so important is you
know we could get into theweeds and have, you know, an
argument about the technicals ofis there a honeymoon period?
How much is it?
How has it changed over thelast couple of years?
And while that might be reallyinteresting to Amazon marketing
nerds and Amazon nerds ingeneral, the reality of it is
that if you have an engagedaudience and a strong brand, if
(12:52):
you look at first principles, ifyou take that as a first
principle, then really itdoesn't matter, because you've
already solved that problem andyou're not reliant on how the
Amazon algorithm is going tochange.
Whether it's, you know, nowthere was a honeymoon period and
now there isn't because of AIor whatever it happens to be, it
becomes irrelevant because youlook at the first principle of I
(13:13):
have an audience that's engaged, that wants to buy my product,
you know.
The other thing that I think isreally important and kind of
the change that's been made isis that you know if you don't
have some sort of audience orsomebody to buy your product at
launch.
One of the other hard things todo is to offer any sort of
coupons or discounts.
So Amazon has made it to whereyour product has to have a
(13:34):
reference price.
So if you want to start out andsay your ideal price is $50,
but you're willing to discountit down 10%, 20%, 30%, 40%,
doesn't matter, you have to havea reference price in order to
start, otherwise Amazon won'teven allow you to do any sort of
prime deals or coupons oranything else, to run any
special promos on your listing.
(13:56):
So you have to have some peopleinterested or that are willing
to buy your product atessentially full price right out
of the gate.
Now, how many people in orderto get a reference price?
Again, there's differentopinions.
I've seen everything from threesales and we were able to get a
reference price on a product to.
(14:17):
I've seen up to 10.
And I'm sure, depending on whatcategory you're, in and all that
type of stuff, it's going tovary.
But again, if you look at firstprinciples, if we have an
audience, if we have people thatyou know are interested in the
product and interested in thebrands, you know being able to
sell, you know that first, 10,20, 30 products at whatever you
(14:39):
know is a reasonable price foryour product really puts you in
a much better position than ifyou don't have that.
If you're just relying onAmazon, you're going to really
struggle right out of the gatein order to get some sort of
traction and to get that Amazonflywheel going.
Speaker 3 (14:53):
Well, it gives you a lot of flexibility too, because
then, whereas on Amazon, thediscounting of your product in
order to get sales volume movingand get your conversion rate up
discounting of your product inorder to get sales volume moving
and get your conversion rate up, it has to be a coupon or
promotion or whatever, so it hasto be money, it has to be money
back.
The difference with a list isthat you can provide them with
(15:22):
additional value that they'renot getting on Amazon, so you
don't have to go down thediscount route.
It could be a rebate, it couldbe whatever, but remember that
what we're talking about here,in terms of this reference price
point, is that you wanna saleat full price, and probably
multiple sales at full price,and again, don't know exactly
how many, but chances are it'sprobably 10 or less for most
categories that you might get,but you need those full price
(15:44):
sales.
So if you have an audience, youcan easily have some sort of
either a rebate system wherethey go, place the order at full
price and they get a rebate onthe backend from you, but you
can also do, you know, like youprovide them with a free report
or some PDF guide or someadditional product that you can
ship to them super inexpensively, and so it feels like a $10 or
(16:06):
$20 or $30 discount, but it onlycosts you maybe $10 or whatever
it is.
So there's a whole lot offlexibility in terms of how you
provide let's back up A discount.
Essentially, all that a discountdoes is it means that they've
gotten more value for the moneythat they spent, and in this
(16:27):
case it's because the value ofthe product is, say, $50, but I
only spent $40 or $30, right,there's a mismatch between the
value point and the price point.
Well, you can create thatmismatch differently.
It doesn't have to be adiscount If the value of the
product is 50 bucks and they pay$50, but then you give them an
(16:48):
additional $20 value for someother product.
Well, now they got $70 of valuefor $50.
So it's just I like having thatflexibility, and when you have
a list, you can do all sorts ofthings with that list to
generate that sales volume andto provide additional value that
you might not be able toprovide otherwise, and so I just
(17:08):
think that's a really criticalpiece of that puzzle we lost
John.
Speaker 2 (17:12):
Do you think we lost his?
Do you see him?
I?
Speaker 3 (17:14):
don't know, so we'll just keep going and we'll
pretend that we didn't lose him.
So, yeah, I think, on thatpoint of that reference point, I
think the other thing is toremember that reference points
are also valuable forstrikethrough.
And if you can getstrikethrough then of course you
can get better conversions onthat listing.
And so, again, setting thatreference point with full price
(17:38):
purchases at whatever that pricepoint is that you want is
really critical, because thenyou can get the strike through,
then you can do discounts if youwant on Amazon's site, and it
just provides you with a lot ofavenues for that additional
volume.
I was also going to go back tosomething that you mentioned
earlier, matt, and I don't knowif this is where John wants us
to go or not, but I find itinteresting, and that is when
(17:59):
we're talking about audiencesthese days, because everything
is social media.
I think that the assumption thatmost sellers would make when
they hear that is you need tobuild a social media audience or
you need to find a social mediaaudience that you can partner
with.
You know whoever owns thataudience, but it doesn't have to
(18:21):
be social media.
Obviously, email is one way youcould build a list.
People have been building emaillists for ages.
It obviously works and it's anavenue that you could walk down.
But the other avenue isremember that, ultimately, what
you're looking for is just atarget audience to sell to.
Well, there's a whole bunch ofother brands out there that sell
(18:41):
to the very same targetaudience that you sell to, many
of whom are not competing withyou in any way.
They just happen to sell to thesame person.
So they have an audience.
They've got customers.
If they're an establishedbusiness and they have customers
that buy their product, wellthen they have a bunch of people
in your target demographic thatyou want to sell to, that you
(19:02):
could sell to.
So affiliate partnerships withthem, where they run an ad to
their list or to their customersor to their community, is an
excellent way to be able topotentially send that volume of
traffic through Amazon at thatoriginal launch point.
And there's very little expenseto you.
(19:25):
I mean, you pay an affiliatecommission.
Well, so what?
You're going to pay ad dollarson Amazon's platform, and this
is external traffic.
You can run it through anattribution link and save your
10% of the referral fees.
So really, that's a verywin-win kind of scenario of the
referral fees.
So you know, really that's avery win-win kind of scenario If
you can take what might've been20, 30, 40% ACoS or normally
(19:46):
when you launch a product itcould be as much as 100% ACoS
and instead translate that intoa 20% affiliate commission to a
partner and save 10% on thereferral fee.
Like there's massive benefitsthere in terms of the amount of
volume that you might be able tosend through and they're going
to be super appreciative.
They get to make money on yourlaunch.
Speaker 2 (20:06):
Yeah, well, a couple of things that I love about that
.
First of all, I love what yousaid about when you have an
audience, you can increase thevalue of the offer as opposed to
providing them a discount.
I am a huge proponent ofincreasing value.
I like to sell on the high end.
(20:26):
Of every category that I sellin, I'm at the high end of the
price point, so that's how Ifixate my prices.
I want to be at the high end.
How can I provide enough valueto make it a no-brainer for my
customers?
So what I love about so firstof all, that's, first and
foremost, increasing value is amuch better way than racing to
the bottom in terms of price.
(20:47):
It's a much different game andit's better customers.
You have better margins.
You can play a completelydifferent ballgame when you're
at the higher end of a pricepoint and margin.
But what I also loved aboutwhat you said, which goes along
with that margin, but what Ialso loved about what you said
which goes along with that is apartnership.
A good strategic partnership canincrease the value of your
offer without costing you anydollars, and a lot of it's just
(21:11):
perceived value.
Let's take your pool brand, forexample.
I mean having a relationshipwith someone that has a pool as
a software for pool serviceproviders.
You're not competing with thattype of a brand in any way,
shape or form.
They're definitely talkingabout, they're definitely
talking to the same person, butnow you have a whole nother
(21:33):
value add that you can talk toclients about when you go start
to expand into the pool promarket, then that's another
conversation that you can haveis hey, we have a partnership
with this tool.
What are you guys using for yoursoftware?
And it's not even a hard pitch,it's just hey, like you, you
probably use a software tomanage your business, and if you
don't, why don't you?
And here's some that we have arelationship with.
So, like you're talking aboutaffiliate commissions, you're
(21:56):
talking about getting in frontof their audience with emails
and on their socials and thingslike that.
But you're also talking aboutincreasing the perceived value
of your offer without having tospend any dollars yourself.
But I mean, how much could thatincrease if that software saves
that pull service business?
You know X amount of dollars orX percent every single month.
(22:17):
I mean they're going to, intheir mind, attach that to you
who they got their pull toolfrom, and you know that's.
That's a whole.
Nother way to get a customerfor life is is by providing
value like that.
So you're increasing the valueof your offer instead of
dropping the price.
Speaker 3 (22:30):
Yeah, for sure.
And in a situation like that,you know, like, you set up a
partnership like that, as longas it goes well, that
partnership would likelycontinue.
And so if you have anarrangement like you were saying
, you know where we're workingon this full service software
company.
If you have an arrangement withthem where, okay, if we send
you business, everybody we sendyou gets a 10% discount, you
(22:54):
know across the board orwhatever that is right, then
that's again additional valueadd for our customers because if
you sign up directly with them,you're going to pay X.
If you're one of our customersand we direct you over there,
then you save 10% a month, youknow, on whatever that is.
But likewise, from theirperspective, like if you're
pitching this to somebody as apartnership opportunity, don't
neglect the idea that you canoffer their customers a discount
(23:18):
on your product.
Remember referrals, if it's anexternal traffic source, you can
save that 10% referral fee.
So, off the top, you've got 10%to offer right there, you know
off the bat.
And if you want to do anaffiliate commission plus, you
know a slight discount, you canstill do that because, again,
remember, you're saving addollars.
These are zero ad dollar, youknow sales.
(23:40):
So whatever you would havespent on ad dollars to get that
person to buy your product, youcan afford to pay that in an
affiliate commission.
So you could offer a 10%discount plus a 20%.
You know, if you're paying 20%A cost on your sales, you've got
30% to work with there, youknow.
So you can offer that to themas well.
So then now that's their valueadd to their customers.
(24:00):
Hey, you sign up for ourservice.
You can buy ProTuff toolsanytime you want at a 10%
discount, right off, you know,right off the top.
So you know there's a value addon both sides of that and
that's the way a partnershipshould be.
But it creates that situationwhere it's a very you know, you
scratch my back, I'll scratchyours.
Speaker 2 (24:21):
And you never know where that might go.
Yeah, another thing that kindof goes along with that that I
know that John wanted to talkabout was and he kind of touched
on it was influencers andaffiliates.
You know, like for me that wasone of the first things I did
with my first business, the mealprep business.
We kind of targeted not kind ofwe were all in the CrossFit
community.
Everything that we did, all ofour marketing, our logo,
everything, every piece ofcommunication that we had, was
(24:42):
very targeted to the CrossFitcommunity and at the time we
were, you know, we started thatbusiness in Denver.
There were three pretty popularCrossFit athletes in the Denver
area that were already athletesat gyms, that were drop-off
spots for us.
So that was one of the veryfirst things we did, even before
there were joint brands and allthese other kind of affiliate
influencer platforms and thingslike that we we were able to
(25:04):
leverage, I mean and for us itwas we offered them free food.
So the margins on our, themargin on that cost, getting
them to go in front of their,our, their audience, like they
would compete at a localcompetition.
They'd have our food, I'd havea big giant logo on on the back
of their shirt and all it costedme was the food that they were
eating, which I mean that's.
(25:24):
It was nothing compared to theamount of dollars that we were
spending on facebook andinstagram and all those other
places.
So, especially nowadays where wehave platforms like brands,
where you can find these contentcreators and even if it's just
a content creator that doesn'thave necessarily an audience
(25:46):
like those, are those initialreference purchases that we're
talking about.
When they go to buy one of yourproducts to make content for
they're making a purchase onAmazon I don't, I've never
worked with those, but they'regetting some sort of a
reimbursement, and even ifthey're not getting a
reimbursement for the product,they're getting commissioned on
any, any that they sell.
So those are your referenceprices.
So, influencers, because ofplatforms like that, the cost of
(26:07):
an influencer I mean five, sixyears ago, even a short five or
six years ago, when someone saidthe word influencer, I think
what most people had in theirbrain was things like the
Kardashian sisters or an NFLfootball player, where it costs
hundreds of thousands of dollarsto engage with these people.
But now, to be honest, I thinkthat you can get better
(26:28):
engagement frommicro-influencers with 10,000
followers and if you have 10 ofthem that have followers that
are very specific, like this iswhat we're going to look for for
Gio the alcoholic seltzer.
I mean, we're looking forpeople that have about 10,000
followers we want 100 of thesenot just 10, but 100 of these
that those engaged followingsthat they're going to post at
(26:49):
the same time on launch day, soyou get the benefit of those
very engaged eyeballs who listento what their influences.
They're influenced by what thepeople that they who they follow
on social media tells them todo and products that they do.
So I think that's anotherreally, really important thing
to keep in mind nowadays is thatthese influencer platforms are
really easy to use.
(27:10):
There's a lot of influencersthat have existing audiences
that are just waiting to givethem or to show them products
that they know that they'regoing to love.
So that's another veryimportant tactic nowadays when
you're launching new products.
Speaker 3 (27:23):
Yeah, for sure and honestly, if you don't want to
use any of those platforms,amazon's creator connections can
be a good place to start.
There's a lot of responses thatyou get that aren't
particularly valuable, but ifyou set it up right so that you
send them to an external formand you get them to register so
that you can talk with them moreand evaluate like we have them
(27:45):
sign through Creator Connectionswhen we do a campaign there
they would go to an externalform and on that form we're
asking them all sorts ofquestions about what platforms
they're on, what their followercount is on each of those
platforms, what their totalvideo views is.
You know those sorts of thingsso we can gauge.
You know, like, how big arethey, what kind of?
(28:06):
You know where are they?
You know we can go check outtheir profiles and stuff.
You don't get that necessarilydirectly through creator
connections and you, of course,don't have a direct email
connection to them either.
So if you get them to registerthrough your form whether that's
hey, you know we'll send you,you know free samples or you
(28:27):
know whatever that is you canget them to register over there
and and that's actually been apretty good source for us even
of finding some good influencers.
We've actually got a number ofreally good partners that we're
starting to work with.
That came to us, that thatdirection.
Speaker 2 (28:37):
So so real quick.
I think it's important becauseI think that I don't know how
many people have seen anysuccess Like I.
Personally, I went.
It's because it's all about theeffort that you put in and I
didn't see the same success thatyou did.
But the last time you looked atCreator Connections, what's the
amount of revenue that thoseaffiliates have brought in?
I think that most listeners aregoing to be astounded by that
(29:01):
number when they hear it.
Speaker 3 (29:03):
Yeah, let me take a quick peek, because I haven't
looked at it for a short bit.
It's just kind of been runningin the background for a while.
Let me take a look at where weare right now.
I know that the last time Ispoke with you which has
probably been like about thisissue was it was like $80,000 in
revenue that we had brought in,and that's as of a couple of
(29:27):
months ago.
It might not have changed awhole lot since then because our
season, of course, becausewe're full products, our
season's ramping down, so, butif I can manage to get signed
back into Amazon I'm not surewhy I'm signed out, I will tell
you, but it's been.
You know, like I honestly wasincredibly shocked, honestly, by
(29:53):
what we were able to generatethere.
And I will say, you know, kudosto Josh Hadley.
Josh, yeah, josh, yeah, josh.
You know his using his SOP forcreator connections made a huge
difference in in what we wereable to, what we were able to do
(30:13):
there.
And so, you know, definitelycheck out Josh.
You know like he's a, he's agood guy and he knows what he's
talking about.
You know what I say?
That I'm in creator connectionsright now and it is not showing
me.
Oh, here we go there.
It is for a second there.
I thought our, our campaign hadstopped.
I was like I thought I sent it.
(30:34):
So yeah, so our, let me go downhere.
We now have about a100,000 insales that we brought in you
started in.
April right yeah, we started inApril.
We've got about $100,000 insales and our spend is $14,000.
When you say spend is that thecommission that you paid?
Yeah, that's the total amountthat it costs us.
(30:56):
That's the commission.
Speaker 2 (30:58):
So you're offering what a 15% commission-ish or
something like that?
Yep, yep.
So you're offering what a 15%commission ish or something like
that?
Yep, so 15% commission,$100,000 in sales.
What's your tacos right now?
Do you know about essentiallyyour overall tacos, is it?
It's under right about 15%?
Yeah, it's in that range, yep,yeah.
(31:18):
So I mean, that's fascinatingand, like I said, I think most
people listening are going to beastounded by the number of
sales.
And what fascinates me I thinkwe talked about this last time
is that it's not even really aquote unquote influencer.
Speaker 3 (31:31):
It's more like a deal site that has deal sites that
have generated most of that Forus yeah, yeah, we did get some
really good influencers out ofit who did generate some decent
sales, but the biggest amount ofsales that came out of creator
connections was actually nottruly influencers.
They were deal sites and Ican't remember exactly what they
were, but, yeah, they were justyou know, like you know best
(31:52):
reviews or you know things likethat.
It was just something like that.
There were like two different,two different sites that signed
up as as affiliates for usthrough the creator connections
and they generated I think thosetwo generated like half of
those sales, yeah, which?
Speaker 2 (32:07):
is crazy.
Anyways, John, it's good to seeyou again.
Speaker 1 (32:10):
I had some technical difficulties where my internet
went out for probably about halfthis discussion, so I apologize
that I missed it, but it soundslike you guys were talking
about Creator Connections, whichI'm also a big fan of, in the
sense of I feel like this isthat's one of those kind of
hidden gems within Amazon whereI mean worst case scenario you
set up a campaign and nothinghappens with it and it costs you
(32:33):
nothing and they you know theydon't take a ton of time to set
up.
Best case scenario.
I mean, like you talked aboutMike, $100,000 in sales and,
more importantly to me, that'sthe equivalent of a 15% ACOS,
and I think most people at thispoint would be very happy with a
(32:54):
15% ACOS on their Amazon ads.
So having that from aninfluencer is fantastic.
And then, like you said, we'vedone this with a couple of
clients and have the sameexperience where, even if we
haven't made massive sales withit, just being able to connect
with them and then produce somecontent out of it has been well
worth the effort.
Speaker 3 (33:13):
For Creator Connections, yeah absolutely,
and it's you know.
I mean the nice thing is, likeyou said, it doesn't cost you
anything.
I mean it's different than whenyou sign up for some of these
other sites out there that offeryou that opportunity to connect
with influencers.
A lot of them have a monthlyfee plus whatever you're paying
to the influencers.
So creator connections being azero cost type scenario, you got
(33:36):
nothing to lose.
You might as well try.
Speaker 2 (33:39):
They're not letting new brands in right now, which
is so frustrating.
To create a connection, oh,connection, oh yeah.
Speaker 1 (33:44):
I'm glad you brought that up really I wasn't aware
with uh, they're putting you ona waitlist clients where we
couldn't see it on the dashboard.
And we contact, we reached outto amazon and they're like yep,
this is an invite only programand we're not letting anybody
additional in.
There's nothing that you can doin order to get your brand in.
So if you're in, good for you,you know, utilize it to the best
(34:06):
you can.
If you're not in, sorry.
I think this is one of thosethings that maybe Amazon,
another six to 12 months,decides to open up again, but
for now, apologies to thoselisteners that we just described
this strategy that you can'tuse.
Speaker 3 (34:20):
But if you happen to be somebody who's tested Creator
Connections in the past and youdidn't think it really
performed, I would encourage youto try again and I would
encourage you to see if you canfind I don't want to spill the
beans on it because Josh, it'shis baby.
He does have an SOP for CreatorConnections and it's tremendous
.
This is what generated this$100,000 in sales for us is
(34:40):
using his SOP, so I highlyrecommend it.
So seek him out and you can getthat from him directly.
Speaker 1 (34:47):
All right, well, guys , I think that, well, I guess
we'll end up withrecommendations that you guys
have for one action step fromthis episode.
Seeing how I missed about halfthe episode, I'm going to do the
technical issues.
I'm going to bow the technicalissues.
I'm going to bow out on thisparticular episode.
But when you guys look atlaunching Q4 2024, where we're
at today, what's maybe onetakeaway that you guys would
(35:10):
give listeners.
Speaker 2 (35:11):
I think my biggest one is don't.
Hacks are fun and they're sexy,but if you build a business
around what Amazon's algorithmis currently doing, then you
have a short, very short-sightedview of of how to build a brand
.
Not just build a brand like andthat's one of the things that
we building a brand not havingamazon blinders on is the way
(35:35):
that you need to build a brand.
And if you're only focused on ahoneymoon period and you think
that that's like the end all beall of launching a new product,
I think you should sit back andtake a real hard, listen to some
of our episodes and learn whatthe actual way to build a brand
today is.
And it's not short term hacks,like I said.
(35:56):
We just talked about a hack forcreative connections, but I
think overall, having the longvision of building a brand,
having good products and makingsure that you're getting contact
information for your customersis the best you can is how you
build a brand in 2024.
Speaker 3 (36:15):
Yeah, I guess I would say if you don't already have a
community whether it's onsocial, whether it's an email
list, whatever if you don't havea direct community that you
have a direct communicationchannel with that you can
communicate with, then I wouldencourage you to stop and think
(36:38):
about what the best potentialavenues forward for you are to
generate that community.
I will tell you if you arelooking at like, if you're
getting ready to launch aproduct, don't do not launch
that product until you have acommunity.
In my opinion, I don't thinkit's actually your best road
forward and I think that if youdevoted even a little bit of
(37:02):
effort to this, you would find acommunity that you can tap into
, whether it's another brandthat you can partner with,
whether it's, you know,influencers that have their
communities that you can tapinto, whether it's, you know,
building out an email list withsome sort of lead gen, you know
type system, you know whateverthat is.
There are a dozen differentways that you could build a
(37:25):
community that you could launchto, and I can almost guarantee
you if you put anywhere near asmuch effort into building that
community as you do inmaintaining your current brand
and whatever products you mightbe selling already.
Then you could build acommunity that would be valuable
for a launch in a very shortperiod of time.
I mean a month or less.
(37:45):
You know, maybe two weeks if youhit the right partner, you know
the right company that you canpartner with and, honestly,
don't be afraid to communicatewith multiple different
potential partners at the sametime, because many of them are
going to say no, they're notgoing to see the value in it,
even if there is a valuecomponent.
But some of them are going tosay no, they're not going to see
the value in it, even if thereis a value component.
(38:07):
But some of them are going tosay yeah.
So if you reach out to 10different you know influencers
slash.
You know other brands that arein your category, selling to the
same target market I can almostguarantee you at least one or
two of them are going to respondback and say hey, yeah, I think
we're interested in that.
You know, let's move forwardwith that.
You know, let's move forwardwith that.
So it doesn't take that much,it's just committing to it.
You know, maybe that's what Iwould say Commit to building
that community and finding a wayto do it, there is an avenue
(38:30):
forward for you.
And if you have that community,even if it was just 500 or
1,000 people, that is massivefor a product launch.
I mean, unless you're sellinginto a category that sells
millions of units a month,you're like having 500 people on
a list or a thousand people ina community that will buy your
product.
That's gold man.
Speaker 1 (38:48):
Yeah, absolutely Well .
I think that's a fantasticplace to wrap for this episode.
Matt Mike, thank you so muchfor carrying most of the weight
on this episode, as I had sometechnical issues and I would
just encourage our listeners tobe back again next Tuesday.
So we're live every Tuesday onLinkedIn where you can ask us
questions live.
In addition to that, everyTuesday we're going through, you
(39:10):
know, different tactics thatwe're learning, either from
launching our own brands,growing you know, million dollar
brands or you know, workingwith other brands as well, on
Amazon and beyond, in order to,you know, really build a strong
brand that's going to bebeneficial not only today and
whatever algorithm Amazon has,but kind of that fortress that
protects you going forward andreally has something of value in
(39:32):
the long term.
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!