September 23, 2025 • 46 mins
Melisa Monroe from Podium shares exclusive insights from a recent consumer survey of nearly 1000 prospective shoppers about projected holiday spending for the upcoming season, revealing data-driven strategies for retailers to maximize their sales.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:19):
Welcome to In the Loop.
Melissa helped conduct aconsumer survey of close to a
thousand shoppers about whattheir projected spending will be
for this upcoming holidayseason and she shares a whole
bunch of the data and insightswith me.
She hasn't even published thisinformation yet, but what I love
about data is it truly is likeball.
(00:40):
Don't lie, you know.
The information is as real asit gets and you can interpret it
to the best of your ability tofind and predict kind of like
the future.
And I think that's a reallycompelling conversation to have,
and Melissa is very interestingabout how she shares some of
these insights about what thisupcoming holiday season will be
(01:02):
like.
So please enjoy.
Speaker 2 (01:15):
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Speaker 1 (02:04):
And now back to the show.
What is up, everybody?
My name is Michael Burpo.
I'm joined by Melissa Monroewith Podium.
How are you doing today,Melissa?
Speaker 3 (02:18):
Hi Michael, so good, how are you?
Speaker 1 (02:20):
I'm doing very well.
I'm so excited to get a chanceto speak with you.
We're going to dive into allsorts of consumer behavior
trends and what Podium's beenadvice that Podium's been
working on and how retailers canlean into it.
Before we jump into that, canyou explain what it is that you
do at Podium?
Speaker 3 (02:38):
Absolutely so.
I am a marketing manager forthe retail space, so my job is
to uncover insights, strategiesand stories to help retailers
keep up and stand out and bringmore people to your business.
So I do all the marketing forthe retail, the jewelry industry
in particular.
(02:59):
I work with differentpartnerships, all the different
customers.
I talk to customers all day,every day, but it's also part of
my job is to understand themarket to then uncover how we
can help some of our customersdo better business.
Speaker 1 (03:14):
It's really interesting because I find that
I am sometimes balancing thefocus on the consumer with, like
, what are people buying as faras jewelry?
And then how am I translatingthat?
And do I need to be like amedian to then explain it to the
retailer themselves?
But it's so funny because theyusually understand better.
(03:36):
But so it's like, can I likegive them just like one nugget
of information that mightilluminate it in a different
light kind of thing.
It sounds like you're kind ofbalancing it in a similar way as
well.
Speaker 3 (03:48):
Absolutely Exactly.
That's exactly what I do.
Speaker 1 (03:51):
So let's talk about this survey that you just
conducted.
Can you kind of set up theconstraints and who you were
surveying and so that we cankind of have like a frame for
how to review it?
And so that we can kind of havelike a frame for how to review
it.
Speaker 3 (04:05):
Absolutely so.
We are in a very differentmarket environment and, again,
podium is all about helpingretailers succeed, helping
jewelers succeed to be bettersmall businesses, and the way
you can do that is withinformation.
And so I took it upon myselfactually to go out and we did a
(04:26):
consumer survey.
We and we asked kind of whatare your buying trends?
What are?
What are you looking topurchase for this 2024 holiday
season?
So that that's going to 2025holiday season.
That's going to include youknow, labor Day, black Friday,
(04:47):
thanksgiving, christmas, newYear's what are you looking at
as a buyer as you're buyinggifts for people?
What does that look like?
So I was very particular in thissurvey because, again, I want
to make sure that all thisinformation can help retailers
sell more jewelry, and how I didthat was I.
We we conducted about.
(05:08):
We got about 830 people 50%male, 50% female.
Ages ages 21 to 85.
And I asked that they made aminimum salary of over $25,000 a
year More, because I didn'twant to survey college students
who needed money.
I wanted to make sure thesewere your buyers, these are your
(05:31):
people who are going to buyjewelry tomorrow, and so we had
a base minimum salary as well,and so I asked them all sorts of
questions of what they'replanning on buying, what kind of
sales they're looking for, etc.
Speaker 1 (05:46):
So really interesting because survey construction and
for people listening at home.
I've built a lot of surveys aswell, and what's fascinating
about them is that it's kind ofhard to know how to ask these
questions without leading, knowhow to ask these questions
without leading.
It's very important that youdon't lead people into, because
(06:08):
we can very easily are just kindof tailoring these questions to
what we already expect orbelieve.
But also sometimes you have toask a question, the same
question, in a different way,because what you can then do is
take the results and run themagainst each other and then sort
of validate whether or not it'sactually true.
(06:29):
So if you ask something in oneframe in like a positive light
and then you ask something inalmost like a not negative light
, you might even say the waythat you look at them might
actually be the same, but thereader might look at it slightly
differently.
So that's very interesting.
When you got those results back,is that like something?
(06:53):
I'm always it's like Christmasunboxing all the results?
Is that something that you hadto run through either like a bot
, or did you have help from adata scientist?
How did you start to kind ofbreak down these results?
Yeah, I had help from a datascientist.
Speaker 3 (07:05):
How did you start to kind of break down these results
?
Yeah, I had help from a datascientist as well as actually my
background.
You know, I was actually in theproduct development world for a
long time in tech space.
So I have the insights of likehow to actually craft a survey
correctly, like the rightmetrics of how to use it, like
you know, and then how to makesure those AP tests are are the
(07:27):
right ones, that you're gettingaccurate data.
So that's actually mybackground, but I did have help
because you know I always liketo have help on those, on things
this important.
So it's great.
Some of this information isgoing to be really a really big
game changer for retailers asthey plan their holidays, their
holiday shopping.
Speaker 1 (07:47):
So we're recording this on September 15th.
So it's always very funnybecause I do this Black Friday
episode.
I should go back and track whenI do the first Black Friday
episode of every season, seasonsix.
So I think that when I startedI was doing it in like November
and now we're in the middle ofSeptember, and next year I'll
probably be doing this in Augustand we'll just keep going back
(08:08):
until I'm doing it in February.
So what kind of insights maybehigh level what did you see from
these survey results and whatyou found to be of interest?
Speaker 3 (08:20):
Yeah, so you are actually your listeners are
going to get.
This is a very exclusiveinformation, so I actually
haven't released this yet, evento like our podium audiences
quite yet.
But you know, I want to give Inthe Loops subscribers the
information.
Speaker 2 (08:37):
I know, I know the exclusive, the exclusive here.
Speaker 3 (08:41):
So very interesting.
So we'll talk about inflation.
We're going to talk about whenpeople are talk about inflation.
We're going to talk about whenpeople are going to spend.
We're going to talk about whatthey want to spend it on.
It's going to talk about whatkind of discounts they're
looking for, or gifts, like whatkind of promotions they're
looking for this holiday season.
Yeah, when they're going tospend, how they're going to
spend and in what ways.
So you know, a lot of times we,you know, we were talking about
(09:06):
the whole customer journey,from when they come in, all the
way to the very end of thatpayment option.
What kind of payment optionsare they looking for?
So I asked all sorts ofquestions.
We have macroeconomics in here,microeconomics in here.
I asked a lot of things when itcomes to consumer spending.
Speaker 1 (09:22):
Now, when it comes, though, to let's start with what
it is that they might want tobe spending it on.
So let's talk about, like,actual jewelry and I always
laugh.
I do a ton of episodes and weseem to focus less on jewelry
trends, which is something thatI'm very interested in, and,
when I went to JCK, I thought itwas so inspiring and so fun to
(09:45):
see all the different jewelrythat was going to be available
this holiday season.
What was your survey showingwas going to be the kind of
trend that people might befocusing on buying for the
holidays?
Speaker 3 (09:57):
Yeah.
So really I I kind of gave thema whole, a whole bunch of
different areas that they couldspend it in.
So not necessarily intospecifics on jewelry, you know,
do you want like a bespokesetting or not?
But more actually on, are youwanting like furniture?
Are you wanting jewelry?
Are you wanting like med spaservices?
(10:17):
Do you think you're going tohave like home improvement?
Are you buying a vehicle thisChristmas, like?
So we kind of went all overareas and what we found is that
42% of consumers said they weregoing to be spending their
holiday budgets on jewelry ingeneral.
Wow, so that's, that's greatfor for the average jeweler out
there.
You have a good percent of themarket wants jewelry for their
(10:40):
loved ones this year.
Speaker 1 (10:42):
Now, is that different across different
demographics?
Because a lot of the times Ithink that jewelers are
expecting that the buyer isgoing to be typically a male
buyer buying for theirsignificant other.
But if they always say, likeyou know, their significant
other usually picks and then thethis guy is going to end up
(11:02):
buying, is that something thatthey can lean into?
For example, I know thatwishlist parties are a big deal,
or guys nights and that kind ofthing.
Is that something that youthink would be backed up by your
survey?
Speaker 3 (11:14):
I would say so, especially as you see men's
jewelry trending right.
I mean, chain necklaces are onthe rise and are continuing to
be on the rise right, which isexciting, and that's exciting
that men's jewelry is becoming abigger deal now, and so I think
that's something to call out.
Actually, you know, as you'repreparing for your Black Friday
this year, your holidays reallynot just Black Friday, but your
(11:36):
holidays you know, making surethose are in stock, making sure
you have those top inventorypieces ready to go, is going to
be ideal for your store.
Speaker 1 (11:47):
Really interesting, and though you talk about men's
jewelry and just like,unfortunately, when I think of
men's jewelry, I do think of alower price point item typically
.
However, with e-commerce, whatwe've seen from our platform is
there was.
With e-commerce, what we'veseen from our platform is there
(12:08):
was last year was the lowestprice point or average order
value that we've seen since Istarted tracking it.
I have data going back to about2020, and we were seeing the
average order value going up andup and up, and I think it
peaked right around the earlierpart of 2023.
And then in 2024, it cooled wayoff, but this year we're seeing
it start to rebound, at leastin the later part of this year.
(12:29):
Is that something that you'restarting to see Like?
What was your survey result?
Speaker 3 (12:34):
So I would say, when it comes to anything that you
have a lower ticket item, whichsometimes that can really make
jewelers, you know, a littlemore disappointed.
However, let's like, look atthe good that's coming from that
, which is you had someone comeinto your store.
So my question to retailers isyou've had someone come into
(12:57):
your store.
What have you done to make themcome back into your store?
And so I think, when it comesto your holidays, your holiday
spending and, um, not yourspending your holiday marketing
making sure that you are sendingthose mass text messages, um,
getting your opt-in list builtout so that you can get people
to come back in, um, whetherthat's like encouraging them to
(13:21):
clean some of their jewelry andthen having them come back into
your store to then takeadvantage of that promotion.
So that's why I love that we'reactually talking about this in
September, because this givesall the retailers this time to
make sure that they'rereengaging those customers that
have had those lower ticketitems.
(13:42):
Encourage them to come back in,encourage them to get a
cleaning, encourage them, givethem some education about the
jewelry industry, have them joinyour marketing lists.
Then from there, you can sendout all of your holiday
promotion, like right now is thetime to prep.
In this survey I actually do askhow often are you comfortable
with receiving marketingmessages?
(14:03):
And it was very interestingbecause over 50% said they would
expect to receive a marketingmessage at least once a month
from a small business.
So that means your peoplewho've already bought from you
once want to hear from you.
They want to hear from you,they want to know, they want to
support local.
Go in and build that marketing,that, that marketing list up
(14:28):
with those people who did buythose smaller items, who did buy
those smaller chains, um, thosespot smaller list items, and
then from there you can see ahuge jump in your holidays
because you've your reach hasbeen more incredible.
Speaker 1 (14:43):
What a really interesting uh insight,
especially when it comes to textmessages.
It's something that we I'mstarting to see used very
effectively.
Just like a personal anecdoteis there's this one apparel
company it's actually ane-sports brand that I'm a big
fan of called 100 Thieves, andwhat's fascinating about them is
I do opt in for their textmessages, and part of it's
(15:05):
curiosity because I would loveto see just like how are they
framing things.
But what's really nice is a lotof times it's not as salesy as
you might expect.
Sometimes it does kind of feellike I'm getting a text message
from a friend Absolutely which.
You know I'm drinking theKool-Aid pretty hard, if that's
the case.
But you know they'm drinkingthe Kool-Aid pretty hard if
that's the case.
But you know they'll tease likea drop.
(15:27):
They have these exclusive dropswhere it's limited printings of
certain things hey, don't missthe drop, it's coming tomorrow
at this time and then it's likea teaser image, and what I
really like is sometimes theyhave the teaser image
exclusively made for the textmessage group, so, as a result,
they're not using that imageanywhere else.
(15:48):
So you might see exclusivepieces or information about the
drop early, but only if you'rein the text message group, which
I find to be really incentive.
Speaker 3 (15:58):
So absolutely, absolutely, and that's what we
find too is if you can segmentyour audience right.
Like you, you have peoplealready bought from you, you
have this loyalty program, youhave people who want to
recommend you and refer you.
If you can build that out andthen do those VIP segmentations
of of whether that's aninventory drop or whether that's
(16:20):
just like something about yourstore, if you're celebrating
your store's anniversary, ifsomething's going on event-wise,
or again if you want to talkabout industry, you become this
voice, this industry voice foryour community, when you really
leverage out that text messagemarketing and I think that's
really interesting.
(16:40):
Again, going back to our survey, we found that text message
marketing has the most influenceon consumers holiday spending.
So we asked you know, do youcare more about in store
displays?
Do you care about, likemarketing emails, social media?
You know what do you care about?
And it came back over and overagain that the people actually
(17:00):
enjoy getting that sale in theirtext.
That is something that theycare about and it's something
that works.
Speaker 1 (17:08):
Really cool to hear it's.
It also very much feels, yeah,like I'm on the, on the know,
I'm in the know and knowing that, uh, I think that the the rate
of acceptance or like um 98% 98%open rate.
Speaker 3 (17:24):
Yeah, so you're looking.
If you're going to compare yourdifferent channels of marketing
as a small business owner, youhave your.
Your email email gets about 33%on average.
You have direct mail, whichactually gets.
Direct mail gets a little bitmore 45%, but your actual, your
um, like the coupon, like the,the people who take advantage of
(17:47):
what that sale is is actuallyless than 2%.
So you might get a lot ofawareness by direct mail but
you're not going to get a lot ofbuys from direct mail where
text messaging actually has a98% open rate and it also has
huge click through rates as well, where you're seeing people
taking advantage.
You know, I have storiesbecause, again, I talk to
(18:09):
retailers every day.
I have stories of people whohave sent out a mass text
message um and in two days havemade over $30,000 of sales in
their store um to their, theirgroup, and so that's that's kind
of incredible numbers.
Speaker 1 (18:27):
Really interesting.
I think that that kind of stuffis something that I hope that
our clients are going to lean inon, and I'm sure that podium is
definitely available to help onthat.
Let's dive in.
What about?
Are you seeing anything relatedto how they're going to buy
things?
I'm very obviously very investedin e-commerce, but increasingly
(18:47):
I've had a kind of a real, areal moment this past year where
I started to realize, all right, e-commerce is not going to.
I thought that every singlestore was going to like lose,
not lose, uh, seed market sharein in-store sales and
essentially have their websitebe their cash register for them.
(19:09):
And I thought that, even if youwere in store, that you would
like basically buy from thewebsite on in store.
So, for example, takingadvantage of a firm basically
through the website.
That's what I thought thefuture was going to be, and now
it's increasingly like the.
We always talk about omnichannel.
It seems like the omni channelexperience is taking going from
(19:32):
browsing online and then goinginto the store and then holding
the object and then being ableto buy, and I'm starting to see
that that is increasingly morepopular and I'm starting to be
like, okay, how can we convertfrom online to in-store.
What are you seeing on yoursurvey for maybe like the
channels or methods of purchasethat you're seeing?
Speaker 3 (19:56):
Yeah, you're definitely going to see.
Here's what we found out.
We found out that consumers aregoing to come into your store
because, especially when itcomes to something like jewelry
kind of what you hinted atearlier, michael they like to
see that tennis bracelet ontheir wrist, they love to see
that ring on that finger, theywant to see that dazzle right,
(20:16):
and that is like a warm andfuzzy that they're looking out
for.
There's some stuff you could do, like virtual try on and you
know different augmented realitythings that you could do with
that, that you could beinterested in with your text
messages, marketing, like youcould link some of that stuff
which could be interesting.
But people are going to comeinto your store, but what
they're also going to do isthey're going to shop after
(20:37):
hours.
They're going to look at yourwebsite, they're going to be
browsing as they're in bedwatching Netflix, thinking, oh
crap, I got to find some holidaygift for this person, and they
are going to look.
So 80% of consumers areactually going to be shopping
from the hours of 8 pm to 2 am.
That means they're browsing andthen they're going to come in
and visit your store after that.
(20:57):
So you do want to make surethat your online presence is
still set up for success.
Right, you want to make surethat you have beautiful pictures
, you want to have a good onlinepresence, but really, what you
really need is a way for whencustomers reach out to you so
say I'm online, I'm watchingNetflix, I see that Michael
Diamonds has just using yourname, I see that Michael
(21:20):
Diamonds has an amazing tennisbracelet that I would like.
And if I reach out to them, Iwant to make sure that I'm
getting responded to veryquickly, whether that response
is, hey, we open again tomorrowat 9am, we'll talk to you then
or if you have an AI salesassistant that could take over
the chat for you.
(21:41):
There's lots of options thatyou can do, but you want to make
sure that, first off, you'rebeing able to be found when
you're online, that your store'sbeing found, making sure your
SEO is up to date.
Second off, making sure yourwebsite looks pretty.
It looks nice because peopleare going to be browsing you
after hours.
And then, third, making surethat you are capturing every
inquiry, whatever it might be,after hours as well.
(22:04):
So utilizing you know, podiumhas an AI sales assistant that
we have just launched that canhelp kind of nourish those,
nurture those customers and letthem know when the store will be
open, or can even like directlyrecommend your inventory if you
want that.
So lots of different options,but making sure that you
(22:26):
understand when the customer isgoing to be looking at your
website and then when they'regoing to be coming into your
store, I think really matters aswell.
As you know, we also found thatwe kind of asked that question
too.
You know, what kind of salesare you looking for?
Do you want like a bundled?
Do you want a bundled sale?
Do you want something that haslike a service, like a package?
(22:48):
Do you want a free add-on?
Do you want a free gift?
Do you want like a limited timeoffer?
What do you want?
A free gift?
Do you want like a limited timeoffer?
What do you want?
And, overwhelmingly, people wantpercentage off discounts.
So if you're, if you as aretailer, are trying to decide,
oh, I need to, I want to do likea free gift for anyone who
comes into the store, um, reallylike, maybe, maybe, look at
(23:09):
your financing and change yourstrategy to how do I give them
an even better percentage offdiscount and skip the gift?
Because that.
That is.
That was overwhelmingly whatour survey told us.
They prefer those percentageoff discounts.
They don't want a BOGO, theydon't want free upgrades or add
ons or gift or a bundled,anything like.
Just give that raw price tothem.
(23:30):
That's what they care about rawprice to them.
Speaker 1 (23:37):
That's what they care about.
I saw something about the humanmind when offered a value
versus a percentage, people,even if that percentage is less
than the value, they will choosethe percentage almost every
time, because they're like themind is like incapable of
rationalizing a percentage in.
You know, a dollar amount isthe dollar amount, but a
(23:58):
percentage it could be anything,and I've seen that increasingly
is like yeah, do you want $100off or do you want 10% off?
And it's like well, obviously,if the thing is over $1,000,
then you want the 10% off, butif it's under $1,000, then you
probably want the dollar value.
Now I I'm choosing 10, I think,and and it sounds a little bit
more snappy too because itobviously incentivizes when you
(24:21):
go with a percentage, you'reincentivizing larger sales
because then the discount'slarger.
I think that that's a reallyinteresting really is.
Uh, what about like thingsrelated to, for example, the um?
It used to be really popular tosell like accoutrements with it
, like, oh, if you buy a ring,you get a like a cleaning kit or
(24:42):
something like that.
Is that something that's stillpopular or is that falling down
the ladder as well?
Speaker 3 (24:47):
No, that's falling down the ladder as well.
And again, that's kind of whatwe found that 50% of consumers
are looking for percentage offdiscount promotions, and then,
on top of that, found that 50%of consumers are looking for
percentage off discountpromotions and then, on top of
that, 77% of those consumers areinfluenced by that percentage
discount.
So, kind of going back to whatyou were saying, michael, like
the percentage off is whatmatters more than, like the
(25:09):
jewelry cleaning kits are coming.
If you come in the day of BlackFriday, you get that free tote.
Like, consumers aren't lookingfor that quite as much, really,
you know, if you look at justwhat inflation's done and the
market environment in general, Ithink we found that you know,
people still want to spend.
They still want to, you know,have a good holiday, but they're
(25:30):
just being different in howthey spend their money.
Those free gifts is not giftsare not quite as drawing to them
.
Speaker 1 (25:39):
Really quite interesting.
But, melissa, we're going totake a quick break and when we
come back I want to talk aboutmaybe sales strategies and some
marketing that people can do totake advantage of these insights
.
So, everybody, stay with us.
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Thanks, and now back to the show.
All right, everybody stillspeaking with melissa monroe
(27:30):
from podium.
So, melissa, one thing Isometimes do I run my own art
business on the side and Isometimes try to relate art with
jewelry, because they're both,I consider, luxuries, which I
feel like the selling and buyingstrategy is sometimes related,
and one thing I've found is thatthe human touch is very
(27:51):
important, especially forjewelry.
People always talk about theserelationship building and how
they're always trying to kind ofnurture these long-term
relationships, especially withtheir VIPs, but even with
first-time buyers, to get themto come back.
We've already talked about textmessaging.
Is there any other ways thatpeople can sort of nurture the
(28:12):
relationships and sort of I hateto say cash in on them around
the most important part of theyear?
Speaker 3 (28:17):
Absolutely.
So we have something in Podiumand, whether you're a Podium
customer or not, this is a veryimportant concept.
They're called drip campaigns.
So you can use a drip campaignto and a drip campaign is
essentially what you would thinkit is right If you're thinking
of like a hose that's just drip,drip, drip, drip and it's going
(28:37):
to be filling up a bucket,right, and your customer is your
bucket and that hose is just alittle drip going in, but it's.
It's slowly but surely fillingup the bucket and once that
bucket is full, they're going tomake a purchase.
So what you can think of a dripcampaign is it's marketing touch
points for your customer allthroughout their life as your
(28:58):
customer.
So that means wishing them ahappy anniversary.
That means reminding them ofyour store sales.
That's becoming a industryleader on jewelry in general.
Right, like what is theindustry doing?
What's lab grown versus?
You know all of all of thatkind of stuff becoming that that
market um leader there.
(29:19):
It's encouraging people to gettheir jewelry cleaned.
It's wishing them happybirthday.
It's it's using that clientelingmethod of a drip campaign and
setting up those text messagingcampaigns right to their phone
that create that customerloyalty, that create that
in-person human touch and I alsoI kind of want to talk about
(29:41):
that human touch so you canactually set up those campaigns.
Because me, if I was a businessI was a small business owner
for about 10 years and that,just if I was to hear a podcast
and to hear someone say you haveto wish them happy anniversary,
happy birthday, you have totell them things, and I would be
so overwhelmed right now.
Don't worry, technology is abeautiful thing, everyone, and
(30:02):
you can utilize it to reallyunlock some amazing stuff for
your customers.
So you can automate these textmessaging campaigns within
Podium.
You can set this up once, haveyour segmented list of your VIP
groups and then it just goes ona timer.
So once you set it, you canforget it and your customer
loyalty is going to becontinuously being built, which
(30:26):
is, I think, huge if you're asmall business owner, if you're
a jeweler, to know that thosekinds of things can be automated
.
But also, number two you know weare in an interesting spot in
the world right now where AI andAI agents are like top of mind,
I think, for everyone.
I think everyone's starting tobe like wait, how do I utilize
(30:46):
this tool?
And so I again ask somequestions in my survey, because
AI is top of mind for consumersas well.
And I was just curious you knowyou were talking about websites
earlier, e-commerce, all thatgood stuff, you know.
Do shoppers care?
Do they care if an AI bot istalking to them?
Speaker 1 (31:05):
Is I in my heart.
I am sort of at this point.
I had a moment where it waslike AI is so cool, and then I
was like I'm going to test andsee if I can find out if they're
AI or human, because I onlywant to talk with a human.
And now I'm kind of back up tothe top where I'm just like I
want the answers to be the rightanswers.
So I guess I don't really care.
Speaker 3 (31:25):
Totally, exactly, exactly, and I'm the exact same
way, michael.
So what we found in our surveyactually is that nearly one in
two shoppers don't mind if thebusiness is using an AI bot to
communicate with them.
So 49% of consumers areactually indifferent or don't
care if the business uses AI,which is really really
interesting, right?
Because if your AI bot canextend your business hours
(31:50):
without making you have to paysomeone's salary, without making
you have to be exhausted fromthe holiday time, if you can
leverage AI to extend yourbusiness hours to keep those
customers engaged, to keep themhappy, that's gonna be very
transformative for your business.
So what we also found was 52%of these consumers are likely,
(32:13):
and very likely, to engage withthe business after hours.
And so if you have an automatedsystem with virtual assistants
available to help right away,you know answering questions,
answering oh, do you do?
You don't do?
Can I set an appointment?
Are you an appointment basedbusiness?
Are you not?
Do you do cleanings?
Do you not Like all thosedifferent questions like that?
(32:33):
You can even get you can get ananswer immediately from someone
texting you at 9 PM at night.
Speaker 1 (32:45):
How, how great is that for you as a business?
I love it.
I love the idea of extendingyour business not even just
hours more like um window.
It's like allowing people to dothat, that browsing, but in a
more of a, a leaned in kind ofway where, yeah, sometimes
people inquire about stuff atweird hours.
And you're totally right withwhat we're seeing on our
e-commerce side of things is, wedo see, the hours of like 9 pm
(33:08):
are actually some of the mostactive e-commerce hours and it's
partially probably because ofthe fact that the store is not
open, so they don't have theoption.
But it's also because you said,people are watching the new
season of Wednesday and theyhave on the side window because
they keep it minimized, they goand they are shopping for
Christmas because they're forholidays and it's just, at the
(33:30):
same time, it's like when youcan start allowing that quality
experience without again havingto be that person.
That's like on the other line,because I know these people,
like I talk with them leading upto the holidays every year and
they are always always, alwaysjust very stretched, rather thin
, and if you can take somethingoff their plate, man, sounds
(33:52):
like a great idea.
Speaker 3 (33:53):
Absolutely Exactly.
And if you can take somethingoff their plate, man sounds like
a great idea.
Absolutely Exactly, if you cantake, you can take that off your
plate so that you can go dothings as a business owner.
That matters more, right?
So, networking, setting upthose you know, understanding
your inventory, looking at yourdata, making great purchasing
decisions, if you can, kind ofyou know, optimize not only your
(34:14):
drip campaigns and your market,your loyalty building, outreach
, but also your window ofbusiness, that's a game changer.
It's absolutely a game changer.
Speaker 1 (34:24):
Just on the topic of drip campaigns, it really has
been super fascinating.
We set up a drip campaign thisyear.
Actually, we launched it inJanuary.
I plan to do an In the Loopepisode, probably after it's
been launched for 12 months,just to break down how things go
.
And what's really interestingis, like you said, it's like a
drip, drip, drip, and the firstone is usually the biggest.
(34:48):
People open the first one most,but then there's some fall off
and then there's some fall offand that's to be expected.
You can.
You can't expect it to grow,because that's just not really
how the dripping is going towork.
It's more that you're stayingin their inbox and staying a
part of it.
And for us it took us.
I logged all of my hours on theproject and Ross actually our
(35:12):
CEO he was very passionate aboutit, so I worked with him on
this project and what was reallycool about it is we just had
our sights set on making onesale and if we could get one
person who would not have made asale to make a sale as a result
of our drip campaign, it wouldcover all of our costs.
Human hours on this project,and I think that for you it's
(35:36):
like how long are you going tohave to spend either working
with Podium or setting it up ontheir own to have this their own
drip campaign?
I think you sit down, you logthose hours and see how long
that would take and thenrationalize it with, like, one
piece of jewelry.
How long, uh, how much jewelrywould you have to sell to make
(35:58):
that time investment worth it?
So something to think about.
Speaker 3 (36:02):
Oh, absolutely, I think.
Um again, when I was a smallbusiness owner, I said they did
the same thing where I was likeokay, well, I have to live off
of four appointments a month.
So like how, how hard is it toget four appointments?
And kind of the same thing, youknow, uh, so Melissa, maybe as
we bring this thing together.
Speaker 1 (36:24):
I've loved looking at data and I love thinking about
the possibilities as a result ofit.
However, sometimes data can beoverwhelming.
You get lost in it.
Can you boil things down tomaybe just a little checklist at
the end for some of ourretailers to walk away with and
maybe start taking action on fortheir own business as they go
(36:45):
into the most important part ofthe year?
Speaker 3 (36:47):
Yeah Well, right now, we're in September, and so you,
the great beautiful thing thatyou are given right now is some
time.
So, from again, some insightswe got from our survey, there's
probably I'm going to say fivethings that I would absolutely
make sure to do.
The first I want to make surethat your online reviews are set
(37:09):
up for success.
You've responded to all of them.
You're the first to be found,you're the first to be chosen,
because consumers they say theycheck their online reviews seven
out of 10 times before theyvisit a local business.
So, making sure that youronline reviews are set up, that
you've responded to everythingand that you can get some more.
You're actually in this windowright now where you have time to
(37:30):
go get some more.
So reach out to your customers,ask them for reviews, build up
your SEO.
That's your number one.
Your number two, your numbertwo would be figuring out your
promotions making sure you cangive the best percentage off
that you can, because, again,80% of consumers are wanting
percentages off this holidayseason.
(37:52):
So, making sure that you lookat your data, look at your
inventory.
Where can you offer the bestpercentage off discounts that
you can?
Number three grow yourmarketing opt-in lists right now
, and what I mean by that?
What I mean by that is we knowthat customers want to hear from
you.
They want to hear from you atleast once a month.
(38:14):
So what can you send today toall of your customers that have
ever walked through your door?
So that's going to be anon-marketing message.
What can you send today?
That's going to be somethingthat could be like a fun fact
about your store.
That could be something like anindustry educational something,
something that'snon-promotional, that you can
(38:34):
send out to all of your contactsanyone's phone number that you
have in your system.
That then you can build youropt-in list, because from there
you encourage people.
If you want to hear about ourholiday promotions, opt in for a
text message, you opt them inand then that's going to give
you a trickle effect into somehuge holiday unlocks, right?
(38:55):
So then, when you send yourBlack Friday promotion in
November, you've actuallyalready done your homework,
you've done the heavy liftingand you've built your customer
base out with thosenon-marketing messages.
Now I would say fourth.
Fourth is take the time and setup an AI agent.
Make sure that you have an AIagent of some sort that is
(39:19):
answering all of your frequentlyasked questions, answering all
the things that when thosepeople are shopping offline,
they're shopping online off ofyour business hours, that you
have someone that can respond tothem.
Speaker 2 (39:33):
That's going to be a huge-.
Speaker 1 (39:35):
Yeah, are you open tomorrow?
Exactly yeah.
Do you have gift wrapping?
All those questions.
Speaker 3 (39:41):
Right, right, what?
Yeah, exactly All thosequestions.
Make sure you can.
Again, you have the gift oftime.
This is your gift of setup.
So use this next month to setup that AI agent to answer all
those frequently asked questions.
Because when you are going tobe in your store with your Black
Friday and it's going to becrazy and phones are going to be
off the hook and you're goingto have so many customers in
(40:02):
there, you are going to be like,oh, my goodness, what am I
going to do?
You can actually have thatpeace of mind that those
questions are getting answeredfor you at all times.
So it's going to make you beable to be with your customers
when you're in the store, butalso when you're off hours.
You have someone else workingfor you.
It's going to pay for itself.
Just do it.
So that's my fourth.
One is to set up the agent.
(40:23):
Last but not least, number five.
Number five is this is going tobe a little different how are
you taking your payments?
So something I haven't mentionedyet in the in the Black Friday
survey is how many people wantto take advantage of a.
You know buy now, pay later.
(40:44):
You mentioned a firm earlier.
How many people wanted to takeadvantage of that layaway kind
of opportunity there.
So what we found is that if youcan be more unique with how you
set up your payments, that canbring more.
You're quicker to cash right.
So in our survey we asked dopeople want, like would they be
(41:05):
trusting of, a payment link viatext?
And it was overwhelming.
We had over 41% of people saidthey would absolutely pay in a
payment link.
What we also think if you'rethinking again about
strategizing your Black Fridayand the people you have, if
you're able to turn your mobiledevice into a mobile kiosk and
(41:25):
then every sales associate canthen become a checkout, that is
going to be a huge unlock foryou as, again, you're navigating
the busyness that is BlackFriday and the holiday season.
So making sure that you canturn that mobile device into
that kiosk, being able to send apayment link and then offering
those auto pays, those buy now,pay later financing options, is
(41:48):
a big unlock for smallbusinesses.
Because what we found consumersplanned to start their holiday
shopping early this year.
They are going to shop thesales and they're still going to
spend.
We have a lot of people.
Speaker 1 (42:02):
Let me pull up the stat Actually we have 75% of
consumers are expecting to spendmore, or significantly more
than they did last year.
Wow, so I think that's good.
That's good news, yeah.
Speaker 3 (42:16):
It's good news.
People are still going to spend.
They don't want their budgetingnow.
They're going to spend, maybe alittle earlier, but they're
going to spend.
They're going to come into yournow.
They're going to spend maybe alittle earlier, but they're
going to spend.
They're going to come into yourstore.
They're going to spend.
But let's use these months nowlet's start this in September to
do some of that back work tocheck those Google reviews, to
grow your opt-in lists, to makesure you have the right
(42:39):
promotions, to build out your AIagents and then to make sure
you have all the differentpayment options that you can for
your store.
All of that will lead to somuch success for those retailers
.
Speaker 1 (42:53):
What a really great little final list.
I think that that's soimportant, just like on the
thought.
You know, I always try to thinkof, like, what are my big
purchases for the year that I amnot locked into?
It's not like my house, my car,but it's like, um, every year I
buy a ski pass and my skipasses they're expensive, but
(43:14):
what's cool is they offer me, uh, to split it up between, uh,
six months of financing for zero, zero percent interest, and
they and I think they basicallydo that to make it so that more
people are able to actually pullthe trigger and buy this.
Because what do they want?
They want to sell ski passesand do they care about making a
(43:35):
little bit of extra money?
No, they care about gettingmore people to say yes.
And I also think that about thenumber, I mean, you have data.
Our data always shows that thenumber one indicator for success
online is having a financingoption at checkout, and it makes
sense.
People want to have theopportunity to split payments up
(43:56):
and for the retailer it doesn'treally matter.
Most of the most of thefinancing, I think all the ones
that we offer guarantee thepayment.
They basically pay you and thenthey take, they buy the they
take the risk.
They take the risk and they buythe loan, so I a lot of times.
It costs zero dollars to evenset up an account with them.
They want you to start offeringthem in store.
(44:18):
I recommend taking the time toset that thing up.
Speaker 3 (44:22):
Absolutely.
I'm with you on that, Michael,as well.
Speaker 1 (44:25):
Melissa, as we wrap this thing up, any final
thoughts before we get peoplegoing.
I know that everybody's goingto get out of this and be fired
up to get started, but any finalthoughts?
Speaker 3 (44:35):
Yeah, my final thought is just start.
Just start today.
I know sometimes it can be sooverwhelming, you know when, as
a small business owner, you haveso many things to do, I
encourage you start usingtechnology, start making sure
you're doing all of yourmarketing activities correctly.
Um, and you know, utilize tools.
(44:57):
Utilize tools like punchmark,like podium, to really come
through.
And um, make your life easieras a small business owner.
Just start.
Speaker 1 (45:06):
Heck.
Yeah, get started today andyeah, hopefully you have a
really amazing Q4.
I know that the Punchmark teamis going to be ready to help you
get these things set up.
If you do end up signing upwith Podium, first of all,
mention in the loop.
Second of all, we do have aspot right in the back end of
your website that allows you toenter your Podium API key super
(45:28):
easy, and that's one of thefeatures of having a partner
like Podium, so feel free to askyour account manager if you
need help with that.
But, melissa, I really can'tthank you enough for coming on.
I think this is super cool andwe'll have to do a follow up
when you do your next big survey, because I love data.
I think it's very interesting.
Thank you again.
Speaker 3 (45:48):
You are so welcome.
Thanks, Michael.
Thanks for having me.
Speaker 1 (45:51):
All right, everybody.
We'll see you next week.
Thanks again for listening.
Bye, all right, everybody.
That's the end of the show.
Thanks so much for listeningthis week.
My guest wasissa monroe, andshe's with podium.
You can learn more about podiumin the show notes below.
This episode was brought to youby punchmark and produced and
(46:11):
hosted by me, michael burfo.
This episode was edited by paulsuarez with music by ross
cockrum.
Don't forget to rate thepodcast on spotify and apple
podcasts and leave us feedbackon punchmarkcom slash loop.
That's l L-O-U-P-E.
Thanks.
We'll be back next week,tuesday, with another episode.
Cheers, bye.
Welcome to In the Loop.
Melissa helped conduct aconsumer survey of close to a
thousand shoppers about whattheir projected spending will be
for this upcoming holidayseason and she shares a whole
bunch of the data and insightswith me.
She hasn't even published thisinformation yet, but what I love
about data is it truly is likeball.
(00:40):
Don't lie, you know.
The information is as real asit gets and you can interpret it
to the best of your ability tofind and predict kind of like
the future.
And I think that's a reallycompelling conversation to have,
and Melissa is very interestingabout how she shares some of
these insights about what thisupcoming holiday season will be
(01:02):
like.
So please enjoy.
Speaker 2 (01:15):
This episode is brought to you by Punchmark, the
jewelry industry's favoritewebsite platform and digital
growth agency.
Our mission reaches way beyondtechnology.
With decades of experience andlong lasting industry
relationships, punchmark enablesjewelry businesses to flourish
in any marketplace.
We consider our clients ourfriends, as many of them have
been friends way before becomingclients.
Punchmark's own success comesfrom the fact that we have a
(01:35):
much deeper need and obligationto help our friends succeed.
Whether you're looking forbetter e-commerce performance,
business growth or campaignsthat drive traffic and sales,
punchmark's website andmarketing services were made
just for you.
It's never too late totransform your business and
stitch together your digital andphysical worlds in a way that
achieves tremendous growth andresults.
(01:57):
Schedule a guided demo today atpunchmarkcom.
Slash go.
Speaker 1 (02:04):
And now back to the show.
What is up, everybody?
My name is Michael Burpo.
I'm joined by Melissa Monroewith Podium.
How are you doing today,Melissa?
Speaker 3 (02:18):
Hi Michael, so good, how are you?
Speaker 1 (02:20):
I'm doing very well.
I'm so excited to get a chanceto speak with you.
We're going to dive into allsorts of consumer behavior
trends and what Podium's beenadvice that Podium's been
working on and how retailers canlean into it.
Before we jump into that, canyou explain what it is that you
do at Podium?
Speaker 3 (02:38):
Absolutely so.
I am a marketing manager forthe retail space, so my job is
to uncover insights, strategiesand stories to help retailers
keep up and stand out and bringmore people to your business.
So I do all the marketing forthe retail, the jewelry industry
in particular.
(02:59):
I work with differentpartnerships, all the different
customers.
I talk to customers all day,every day, but it's also part of
my job is to understand themarket to then uncover how we
can help some of our customersdo better business.
Speaker 1 (03:14):
It's really interesting because I find that
I am sometimes balancing thefocus on the consumer with, like
, what are people buying as faras jewelry?
And then how am I translatingthat?
And do I need to be like amedian to then explain it to the
retailer themselves?
But it's so funny because theyusually understand better.
(03:36):
But so it's like, can I likegive them just like one nugget
of information that mightilluminate it in a different
light kind of thing.
It sounds like you're kind ofbalancing it in a similar way as
well.
Speaker 3 (03:48):
Absolutely Exactly.
That's exactly what I do.
Speaker 1 (03:51):
So let's talk about this survey that you just
conducted.
Can you kind of set up theconstraints and who you were
surveying and so that we cankind of have like a frame for
how to review it?
And so that we can kind of havelike a frame for how to review
it.
Speaker 3 (04:05):
Absolutely so.
We are in a very differentmarket environment and, again,
podium is all about helpingretailers succeed, helping
jewelers succeed to be bettersmall businesses, and the way
you can do that is withinformation.
And so I took it upon myselfactually to go out and we did a
(04:26):
consumer survey.
We and we asked kind of whatare your buying trends?
What are?
What are you looking topurchase for this 2024 holiday
season?
So that that's going to 2025holiday season.
That's going to include youknow, labor Day, black Friday,
(04:47):
thanksgiving, christmas, newYear's what are you looking at
as a buyer as you're buyinggifts for people?
What does that look like?
So I was very particular in thissurvey because, again, I want
to make sure that all thisinformation can help retailers
sell more jewelry, and how I didthat was I.
We we conducted about.
(05:08):
We got about 830 people 50%male, 50% female.
Ages ages 21 to 85.
And I asked that they made aminimum salary of over $25,000 a
year More, because I didn'twant to survey college students
who needed money.
I wanted to make sure thesewere your buyers, these are your
(05:31):
people who are going to buyjewelry tomorrow, and so we had
a base minimum salary as well,and so I asked them all sorts of
questions of what they'replanning on buying, what kind of
sales they're looking for, etc.
Speaker 1 (05:46):
So really interesting because survey construction and
for people listening at home.
I've built a lot of surveys aswell, and what's fascinating
about them is that it's kind ofhard to know how to ask these
questions without leading, knowhow to ask these questions
without leading.
It's very important that youdon't lead people into, because
(06:08):
we can very easily are just kindof tailoring these questions to
what we already expect orbelieve.
But also sometimes you have toask a question, the same
question, in a different way,because what you can then do is
take the results and run themagainst each other and then sort
of validate whether or not it'sactually true.
(06:29):
So if you ask something in oneframe in like a positive light
and then you ask something inalmost like a not negative light
, you might even say the waythat you look at them might
actually be the same, but thereader might look at it slightly
differently.
So that's very interesting.
When you got those results back,is that like something?
(06:53):
I'm always it's like Christmasunboxing all the results?
Is that something that you hadto run through either like a bot
, or did you have help from adata scientist?
How did you start to kind ofbreak down these results?
Yeah, I had help from a datascientist.
Speaker 3 (07:05):
How did you start to kind of break down these results
?
Yeah, I had help from a datascientist as well as actually my
background.
You know, I was actually in theproduct development world for a
long time in tech space.
So I have the insights of likehow to actually craft a survey
correctly, like the rightmetrics of how to use it, like
you know, and then how to makesure those AP tests are are the
(07:27):
right ones, that you're gettingaccurate data.
So that's actually mybackground, but I did have help
because you know I always liketo have help on those, on things
this important.
So it's great.
Some of this information isgoing to be really a really big
game changer for retailers asthey plan their holidays, their
holiday shopping.
Speaker 1 (07:47):
So we're recording this on September 15th.
So it's always very funnybecause I do this Black Friday
episode.
I should go back and track whenI do the first Black Friday
episode of every season, seasonsix.
So I think that when I startedI was doing it in like November
and now we're in the middle ofSeptember, and next year I'll
probably be doing this in Augustand we'll just keep going back
(08:08):
until I'm doing it in February.
So what kind of insights maybehigh level what did you see from
these survey results and whatyou found to be of interest?
Speaker 3 (08:20):
Yeah, so you are actually your listeners are
going to get.
This is a very exclusiveinformation, so I actually
haven't released this yet, evento like our podium audiences
quite yet.
But you know, I want to give Inthe Loops subscribers the
information.
Speaker 2 (08:37):
I know, I know the exclusive, the exclusive here.
Speaker 3 (08:41):
So very interesting.
So we'll talk about inflation.
We're going to talk about whenpeople are talk about inflation.
We're going to talk about whenpeople are going to spend.
We're going to talk about whatthey want to spend it on.
It's going to talk about whatkind of discounts they're
looking for, or gifts, like whatkind of promotions they're
looking for this holiday season.
Yeah, when they're going tospend, how they're going to
spend and in what ways.
So you know, a lot of times we,you know, we were talking about
(09:06):
the whole customer journey,from when they come in, all the
way to the very end of thatpayment option.
What kind of payment optionsare they looking for?
So I asked all sorts ofquestions.
We have macroeconomics in here,microeconomics in here.
I asked a lot of things when itcomes to consumer spending.
Speaker 1 (09:22):
Now, when it comes, though, to let's start with what
it is that they might want tobe spending it on.
So let's talk about, like,actual jewelry and I always
laugh.
I do a ton of episodes and weseem to focus less on jewelry
trends, which is something thatI'm very interested in, and,
when I went to JCK, I thought itwas so inspiring and so fun to
(09:45):
see all the different jewelrythat was going to be available
this holiday season.
What was your survey showingwas going to be the kind of
trend that people might befocusing on buying for the
holidays?
Speaker 3 (09:57):
Yeah.
So really I I kind of gave thema whole, a whole bunch of
different areas that they couldspend it in.
So not necessarily intospecifics on jewelry, you know,
do you want like a bespokesetting or not?
But more actually on, are youwanting like furniture?
Are you wanting jewelry?
Are you wanting like med spaservices?
(10:17):
Do you think you're going tohave like home improvement?
Are you buying a vehicle thisChristmas, like?
So we kind of went all overareas and what we found is that
42% of consumers said they weregoing to be spending their
holiday budgets on jewelry ingeneral.
Wow, so that's, that's greatfor for the average jeweler out
there.
You have a good percent of themarket wants jewelry for their
(10:40):
loved ones this year.
Speaker 1 (10:42):
Now, is that different across different
demographics?
Because a lot of the times Ithink that jewelers are
expecting that the buyer isgoing to be typically a male
buyer buying for theirsignificant other.
But if they always say, likeyou know, their significant
other usually picks and then thethis guy is going to end up
(11:02):
buying, is that something thatthey can lean into?
For example, I know thatwishlist parties are a big deal,
or guys nights and that kind ofthing.
Is that something that youthink would be backed up by your
survey?
Speaker 3 (11:14):
I would say so, especially as you see men's
jewelry trending right.
I mean, chain necklaces are onthe rise and are continuing to
be on the rise right, which isexciting, and that's exciting
that men's jewelry is becoming abigger deal now, and so I think
that's something to call out.
Actually, you know, as you'repreparing for your Black Friday
this year, your holidays reallynot just Black Friday, but your
(11:36):
holidays you know, making surethose are in stock, making sure
you have those top inventorypieces ready to go, is going to
be ideal for your store.
Speaker 1 (11:47):
Really interesting, and though you talk about men's
jewelry and just like,unfortunately, when I think of
men's jewelry, I do think of alower price point item typically
.
However, with e-commerce, whatwe've seen from our platform is
there was.
With e-commerce, what we'veseen from our platform is there
(12:08):
was last year was the lowestprice point or average order
value that we've seen since Istarted tracking it.
I have data going back to about2020, and we were seeing the
average order value going up andup and up, and I think it
peaked right around the earlierpart of 2023.
And then in 2024, it cooled wayoff, but this year we're seeing
it start to rebound, at leastin the later part of this year.
(12:29):
Is that something that you'restarting to see Like?
What was your survey result?
Speaker 3 (12:34):
So I would say, when it comes to anything that you
have a lower ticket item, whichsometimes that can really make
jewelers, you know, a littlemore disappointed.
However, let's like, look atthe good that's coming from that
, which is you had someone comeinto your store.
So my question to retailers isyou've had someone come into
(12:57):
your store.
What have you done to make themcome back into your store?
And so I think, when it comesto your holidays, your holiday
spending and, um, not yourspending your holiday marketing
making sure that you are sendingthose mass text messages, um,
getting your opt-in list builtout so that you can get people
to come back in, um, whetherthat's like encouraging them to
(13:21):
clean some of their jewelry andthen having them come back into
your store to then takeadvantage of that promotion.
So that's why I love that we'reactually talking about this in
September, because this givesall the retailers this time to
make sure that they'rereengaging those customers that
have had those lower ticketitems.
(13:42):
Encourage them to come back in,encourage them to get a
cleaning, encourage them, givethem some education about the
jewelry industry, have them joinyour marketing lists.
Then from there, you can sendout all of your holiday
promotion, like right now is thetime to prep.
In this survey I actually do askhow often are you comfortable
with receiving marketingmessages?
(14:03):
And it was very interestingbecause over 50% said they would
expect to receive a marketingmessage at least once a month
from a small business.
So that means your peoplewho've already bought from you
once want to hear from you.
They want to hear from you,they want to know, they want to
support local.
Go in and build that marketing,that, that marketing list up
(14:28):
with those people who did buythose smaller items, who did buy
those smaller chains, um, thosespot smaller list items, and
then from there you can see ahuge jump in your holidays
because you've your reach hasbeen more incredible.
Speaker 1 (14:43):
What a really interesting uh insight,
especially when it comes to textmessages.
It's something that we I'mstarting to see used very
effectively.
Just like a personal anecdoteis there's this one apparel
company it's actually ane-sports brand that I'm a big
fan of called 100 Thieves, andwhat's fascinating about them is
I do opt in for their textmessages, and part of it's
(15:05):
curiosity because I would loveto see just like how are they
framing things.
But what's really nice is a lotof times it's not as salesy as
you might expect.
Sometimes it does kind of feellike I'm getting a text message
from a friend Absolutely which.
You know I'm drinking theKool-Aid pretty hard, if that's
the case.
But you know they'm drinkingthe Kool-Aid pretty hard if
that's the case.
But you know they'll tease likea drop.
(15:27):
They have these exclusive dropswhere it's limited printings of
certain things hey, don't missthe drop, it's coming tomorrow
at this time and then it's likea teaser image, and what I
really like is sometimes theyhave the teaser image
exclusively made for the textmessage group, so, as a result,
they're not using that imageanywhere else.
(15:48):
So you might see exclusivepieces or information about the
drop early, but only if you'rein the text message group, which
I find to be really incentive.
Speaker 3 (15:58):
So absolutely, absolutely, and that's what we
find too is if you can segmentyour audience right.
Like you, you have peoplealready bought from you, you
have this loyalty program, youhave people who want to
recommend you and refer you.
If you can build that out andthen do those VIP segmentations
of of whether that's aninventory drop or whether that's
(16:20):
just like something about yourstore, if you're celebrating
your store's anniversary, ifsomething's going on event-wise,
or again if you want to talkabout industry, you become this
voice, this industry voice foryour community, when you really
leverage out that text messagemarketing and I think that's
really interesting.
(16:40):
Again, going back to our survey, we found that text message
marketing has the most influenceon consumers holiday spending.
So we asked you know, do youcare more about in store
displays?
Do you care about, likemarketing emails, social media?
You know what do you care about?
And it came back over and overagain that the people actually
(17:00):
enjoy getting that sale in theirtext.
That is something that theycare about and it's something
that works.
Speaker 1 (17:08):
Really cool to hear it's.
It also very much feels, yeah,like I'm on the, on the know,
I'm in the know and knowing that, uh, I think that the the rate
of acceptance or like um 98% 98%open rate.
Speaker 3 (17:24):
Yeah, so you're looking.
If you're going to compare yourdifferent channels of marketing
as a small business owner, youhave your.
Your email email gets about 33%on average.
You have direct mail, whichactually gets.
Direct mail gets a little bitmore 45%, but your actual, your
um, like the coupon, like the,the people who take advantage of
(17:47):
what that sale is is actuallyless than 2%.
So you might get a lot ofawareness by direct mail but
you're not going to get a lot ofbuys from direct mail where
text messaging actually has a98% open rate and it also has
huge click through rates as well, where you're seeing people
taking advantage.
You know, I have storiesbecause, again, I talk to
(18:09):
retailers every day.
I have stories of people whohave sent out a mass text
message um and in two days havemade over $30,000 of sales in
their store um to their, theirgroup, and so that's that's kind
of incredible numbers.
Speaker 1 (18:27):
Really interesting.
I think that that kind of stuffis something that I hope that
our clients are going to lean inon, and I'm sure that podium is
definitely available to help onthat.
Let's dive in.
What about?
Are you seeing anything relatedto how they're going to buy
things?
I'm very obviously very investedin e-commerce, but increasingly
(18:47):
I've had a kind of a real, areal moment this past year where
I started to realize, all right, e-commerce is not going to.
I thought that every singlestore was going to like lose,
not lose, uh, seed market sharein in-store sales and
essentially have their websitebe their cash register for them.
(19:09):
And I thought that, even if youwere in store, that you would
like basically buy from thewebsite on in store.
So, for example, takingadvantage of a firm basically
through the website.
That's what I thought thefuture was going to be, and now
it's increasingly like the.
We always talk about omnichannel.
It seems like the omni channelexperience is taking going from
(19:32):
browsing online and then goinginto the store and then holding
the object and then being ableto buy, and I'm starting to see
that that is increasingly morepopular and I'm starting to be
like, okay, how can we convertfrom online to in-store.
What are you seeing on yoursurvey for maybe like the
channels or methods of purchasethat you're seeing?
Speaker 3 (19:56):
Yeah, you're definitely going to see.
Here's what we found out.
We found out that consumers aregoing to come into your store
because, especially when itcomes to something like jewelry
kind of what you hinted atearlier, michael they like to
see that tennis bracelet ontheir wrist, they love to see
that ring on that finger, theywant to see that dazzle right,
(20:16):
and that is like a warm andfuzzy that they're looking out
for.
There's some stuff you could do, like virtual try on and you
know different augmented realitythings that you could do with
that, that you could beinterested in with your text
messages, marketing, like youcould link some of that stuff
which could be interesting.
But people are going to comeinto your store, but what
they're also going to do isthey're going to shop after
(20:37):
hours.
They're going to look at yourwebsite, they're going to be
browsing as they're in bedwatching Netflix, thinking, oh
crap, I got to find some holidaygift for this person, and they
are going to look.
So 80% of consumers areactually going to be shopping
from the hours of 8 pm to 2 am.
That means they're browsing andthen they're going to come in
and visit your store after that.
(20:57):
So you do want to make surethat your online presence is
still set up for success.
Right, you want to make surethat you have beautiful pictures
, you want to have a good onlinepresence, but really, what you
really need is a way for whencustomers reach out to you so
say I'm online, I'm watchingNetflix, I see that Michael
Diamonds has just using yourname, I see that Michael
(21:20):
Diamonds has an amazing tennisbracelet that I would like.
And if I reach out to them, Iwant to make sure that I'm
getting responded to veryquickly, whether that response
is, hey, we open again tomorrowat 9am, we'll talk to you then
or if you have an AI salesassistant that could take over
the chat for you.
(21:41):
There's lots of options thatyou can do, but you want to make
sure that, first off, you'rebeing able to be found when
you're online, that your store'sbeing found, making sure your
SEO is up to date.
Second off, making sure yourwebsite looks pretty.
It looks nice because peopleare going to be browsing you
after hours.
And then, third, making surethat you are capturing every
inquiry, whatever it might be,after hours as well.
(22:04):
So utilizing you know, podiumhas an AI sales assistant that
we have just launched that canhelp kind of nourish those,
nurture those customers and letthem know when the store will be
open, or can even like directlyrecommend your inventory if you
want that.
So lots of different options,but making sure that you
(22:26):
understand when the customer isgoing to be looking at your
website and then when they'regoing to be coming into your
store, I think really matters aswell.
As you know, we also found thatwe kind of asked that question
too.
You know, what kind of salesare you looking for?
Do you want like a bundled?
Do you want a bundled sale?
Do you want something that haslike a service, like a package?
(22:48):
Do you want a free add-on?
Do you want a free gift?
Do you want like a limited timeoffer?
What do you want?
A free gift?
Do you want like a limited timeoffer?
What do you want?
And, overwhelmingly, people wantpercentage off discounts.
So if you're, if you as aretailer, are trying to decide,
oh, I need to, I want to do likea free gift for anyone who
comes into the store, um, reallylike, maybe, maybe, look at
(23:09):
your financing and change yourstrategy to how do I give them
an even better percentage offdiscount and skip the gift?
Because that.
That is.
That was overwhelmingly whatour survey told us.
They prefer those percentageoff discounts.
They don't want a BOGO, theydon't want free upgrades or add
ons or gift or a bundled,anything like.
Just give that raw price tothem.
(23:30):
That's what they care about rawprice to them.
Speaker 1 (23:37):
That's what they care about.
I saw something about the humanmind when offered a value
versus a percentage, people,even if that percentage is less
than the value, they will choosethe percentage almost every
time, because they're like themind is like incapable of
rationalizing a percentage in.
You know, a dollar amount isthe dollar amount, but a
(23:58):
percentage it could be anything,and I've seen that increasingly
is like yeah, do you want $100off or do you want 10% off?
And it's like well, obviously,if the thing is over $1,000,
then you want the 10% off, butif it's under $1,000, then you
probably want the dollar value.
Now I I'm choosing 10, I think,and and it sounds a little bit
more snappy too because itobviously incentivizes when you
(24:21):
go with a percentage, you'reincentivizing larger sales
because then the discount'slarger.
I think that that's a reallyinteresting really is.
Uh, what about like thingsrelated to, for example, the um?
It used to be really popular tosell like accoutrements with it
, like, oh, if you buy a ring,you get a like a cleaning kit or
(24:42):
something like that.
Is that something that's stillpopular or is that falling down
the ladder as well?
Speaker 3 (24:47):
No, that's falling down the ladder as well.
And again, that's kind of whatwe found that 50% of consumers
are looking for percentage offdiscount promotions, and then,
on top of that, found that 50%of consumers are looking for
percentage off discountpromotions and then, on top of
that, 77% of those consumers areinfluenced by that percentage
discount.
So, kind of going back to whatyou were saying, michael, like
the percentage off is whatmatters more than, like the
(25:09):
jewelry cleaning kits are coming.
If you come in the day of BlackFriday, you get that free tote.
Like, consumers aren't lookingfor that quite as much, really,
you know, if you look at justwhat inflation's done and the
market environment in general, Ithink we found that you know,
people still want to spend.
They still want to, you know,have a good holiday, but they're
(25:30):
just being different in howthey spend their money.
Those free gifts is not giftsare not quite as drawing to them
.
Speaker 1 (25:39):
Really quite interesting.
But, melissa, we're going totake a quick break and when we
come back I want to talk aboutmaybe sales strategies and some
marketing that people can do totake advantage of these insights
.
So, everybody, stay with us.
This episode is brought to youin part by stone algos jeweler
os.
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(26:00):
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(26:22):
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I had the founder on In theLoop a few weeks back and
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(26:43):
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(27:05):
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Thanks, and now back to the show.
All right, everybody stillspeaking with melissa monroe
(27:30):
from podium.
So, melissa, one thing Isometimes do I run my own art
business on the side and Isometimes try to relate art with
jewelry, because they're both,I consider, luxuries, which I
feel like the selling and buyingstrategy is sometimes related,
and one thing I've found is thatthe human touch is very
(27:51):
important, especially forjewelry.
People always talk about theserelationship building and how
they're always trying to kind ofnurture these long-term
relationships, especially withtheir VIPs, but even with
first-time buyers, to get themto come back.
We've already talked about textmessaging.
Is there any other ways thatpeople can sort of nurture the
(28:12):
relationships and sort of I hateto say cash in on them around
the most important part of theyear?
Speaker 3 (28:17):
Absolutely.
So we have something in Podiumand, whether you're a Podium
customer or not, this is a veryimportant concept.
They're called drip campaigns.
So you can use a drip campaignto and a drip campaign is
essentially what you would thinkit is right If you're thinking
of like a hose that's just drip,drip, drip, drip and it's going
(28:37):
to be filling up a bucket,right, and your customer is your
bucket and that hose is just alittle drip going in, but it's.
It's slowly but surely fillingup the bucket and once that
bucket is full, they're going tomake a purchase.
So what you can think of a dripcampaign is it's marketing touch
points for your customer allthroughout their life as your
(28:58):
customer.
So that means wishing them ahappy anniversary.
That means reminding them ofyour store sales.
That's becoming a industryleader on jewelry in general.
Right, like what is theindustry doing?
What's lab grown versus?
You know all of all of thatkind of stuff becoming that that
market um leader there.
(29:19):
It's encouraging people to gettheir jewelry cleaned.
It's wishing them happybirthday.
It's it's using that clientelingmethod of a drip campaign and
setting up those text messagingcampaigns right to their phone
that create that customerloyalty, that create that
in-person human touch and I alsoI kind of want to talk about
(29:41):
that human touch so you canactually set up those campaigns.
Because me, if I was a businessI was a small business owner
for about 10 years and that,just if I was to hear a podcast
and to hear someone say you haveto wish them happy anniversary,
happy birthday, you have totell them things, and I would be
so overwhelmed right now.
Don't worry, technology is abeautiful thing, everyone, and
(30:02):
you can utilize it to reallyunlock some amazing stuff for
your customers.
So you can automate these textmessaging campaigns within
Podium.
You can set this up once, haveyour segmented list of your VIP
groups and then it just goes ona timer.
So once you set it, you canforget it and your customer
loyalty is going to becontinuously being built, which
(30:26):
is, I think, huge if you're asmall business owner, if you're
a jeweler, to know that thosekinds of things can be automated
.
But also, number two you know weare in an interesting spot in
the world right now where AI andAI agents are like top of mind,
I think, for everyone.
I think everyone's starting tobe like wait, how do I utilize
(30:46):
this tool?
And so I again ask somequestions in my survey, because
AI is top of mind for consumersas well.
And I was just curious you knowyou were talking about websites
earlier, e-commerce, all thatgood stuff, you know.
Do shoppers care?
Do they care if an AI bot istalking to them?
Speaker 1 (31:05):
Is I in my heart.
I am sort of at this point.
I had a moment where it waslike AI is so cool, and then I
was like I'm going to test andsee if I can find out if they're
AI or human, because I onlywant to talk with a human.
And now I'm kind of back up tothe top where I'm just like I
want the answers to be the rightanswers.
So I guess I don't really care.
Speaker 3 (31:25):
Totally, exactly, exactly, and I'm the exact same
way, michael.
So what we found in our surveyactually is that nearly one in
two shoppers don't mind if thebusiness is using an AI bot to
communicate with them.
So 49% of consumers areactually indifferent or don't
care if the business uses AI,which is really really
interesting, right?
Because if your AI bot canextend your business hours
(31:50):
without making you have to paysomeone's salary, without making
you have to be exhausted fromthe holiday time, if you can
leverage AI to extend yourbusiness hours to keep those
customers engaged, to keep themhappy, that's gonna be very
transformative for your business.
So what we also found was 52%of these consumers are likely,
(32:13):
and very likely, to engage withthe business after hours.
And so if you have an automatedsystem with virtual assistants
available to help right away,you know answering questions,
answering oh, do you do?
You don't do?
Can I set an appointment?
Are you an appointment basedbusiness?
Are you not?
Do you do cleanings?
Do you not Like all thosedifferent questions like that?
(32:33):
You can even get you can get ananswer immediately from someone
texting you at 9 PM at night.
Speaker 1 (32:45):
How, how great is that for you as a business?
I love it.
I love the idea of extendingyour business not even just
hours more like um window.
It's like allowing people to dothat, that browsing, but in a
more of a, a leaned in kind ofway where, yeah, sometimes
people inquire about stuff atweird hours.
And you're totally right withwhat we're seeing on our
e-commerce side of things is, wedo see, the hours of like 9 pm
(33:08):
are actually some of the mostactive e-commerce hours and it's
partially probably because ofthe fact that the store is not
open, so they don't have theoption.
But it's also because you said,people are watching the new
season of Wednesday and theyhave on the side window because
they keep it minimized, they goand they are shopping for
Christmas because they're forholidays and it's just, at the
(33:30):
same time, it's like when youcan start allowing that quality
experience without again havingto be that person.
That's like on the other line,because I know these people,
like I talk with them leading upto the holidays every year and
they are always always, alwaysjust very stretched, rather thin
, and if you can take somethingoff their plate, man, sounds
(33:52):
like a great idea.
Speaker 3 (33:53):
Absolutely Exactly.
And if you can take somethingoff their plate, man sounds like
a great idea.
Absolutely Exactly, if you cantake, you can take that off your
plate so that you can go dothings as a business owner.
That matters more, right?
So, networking, setting upthose you know, understanding
your inventory, looking at yourdata, making great purchasing
decisions, if you can, kind ofyou know, optimize not only your
(34:14):
drip campaigns and your market,your loyalty building, outreach
, but also your window ofbusiness, that's a game changer.
It's absolutely a game changer.
Speaker 1 (34:24):
Just on the topic of drip campaigns, it really has
been super fascinating.
We set up a drip campaign thisyear.
Actually, we launched it inJanuary.
I plan to do an In the Loopepisode, probably after it's
been launched for 12 months,just to break down how things go
.
And what's really interestingis, like you said, it's like a
drip, drip, drip, and the firstone is usually the biggest.
(34:48):
People open the first one most,but then there's some fall off
and then there's some fall offand that's to be expected.
You can.
You can't expect it to grow,because that's just not really
how the dripping is going towork.
It's more that you're stayingin their inbox and staying a
part of it.
And for us it took us.
I logged all of my hours on theproject and Ross actually our
(35:12):
CEO he was very passionate aboutit, so I worked with him on
this project and what was reallycool about it is we just had
our sights set on making onesale and if we could get one
person who would not have made asale to make a sale as a result
of our drip campaign, it wouldcover all of our costs.
Human hours on this project,and I think that for you it's
(35:36):
like how long are you going tohave to spend either working
with Podium or setting it up ontheir own to have this their own
drip campaign?
I think you sit down, you logthose hours and see how long
that would take and thenrationalize it with, like, one
piece of jewelry.
How long, uh, how much jewelrywould you have to sell to make
(35:58):
that time investment worth it?
So something to think about.
Speaker 3 (36:02):
Oh, absolutely, I think.
Um again, when I was a smallbusiness owner, I said they did
the same thing where I was likeokay, well, I have to live off
of four appointments a month.
So like how, how hard is it toget four appointments?
And kind of the same thing, youknow, uh, so Melissa, maybe as
we bring this thing together.
Speaker 1 (36:24):
I've loved looking at data and I love thinking about
the possibilities as a result ofit.
However, sometimes data can beoverwhelming.
You get lost in it.
Can you boil things down tomaybe just a little checklist at
the end for some of ourretailers to walk away with and
maybe start taking action on fortheir own business as they go
(36:45):
into the most important part ofthe year?
Speaker 3 (36:47):
Yeah Well, right now, we're in September, and so you,
the great beautiful thing thatyou are given right now is some
time.
So, from again, some insightswe got from our survey, there's
probably I'm going to say fivethings that I would absolutely
make sure to do.
The first I want to make surethat your online reviews are set
(37:09):
up for success.
You've responded to all of them.
You're the first to be found,you're the first to be chosen,
because consumers they say theycheck their online reviews seven
out of 10 times before theyvisit a local business.
So, making sure that youronline reviews are set up, that
you've responded to everythingand that you can get some more.
You're actually in this windowright now where you have time to
(37:30):
go get some more.
So reach out to your customers,ask them for reviews, build up
your SEO.
That's your number one.
Your number two, your numbertwo would be figuring out your
promotions making sure you cangive the best percentage off
that you can, because, again,80% of consumers are wanting
percentages off this holidayseason.
(37:52):
So, making sure that you lookat your data, look at your
inventory.
Where can you offer the bestpercentage off discounts that
you can?
Number three grow yourmarketing opt-in lists right now
, and what I mean by that?
What I mean by that is we knowthat customers want to hear from
you.
They want to hear from you atleast once a month.
(38:14):
So what can you send today toall of your customers that have
ever walked through your door?
So that's going to be anon-marketing message.
What can you send today?
That's going to be somethingthat could be like a fun fact
about your store.
That could be something like anindustry educational something,
something that'snon-promotional, that you can
(38:34):
send out to all of your contactsanyone's phone number that you
have in your system.
That then you can build youropt-in list, because from there
you encourage people.
If you want to hear about ourholiday promotions, opt in for a
text message, you opt them inand then that's going to give
you a trickle effect into somehuge holiday unlocks, right?
(38:55):
So then, when you send yourBlack Friday promotion in
November, you've actuallyalready done your homework,
you've done the heavy liftingand you've built your customer
base out with thosenon-marketing messages.
Now I would say fourth.
Fourth is take the time and setup an AI agent.
Make sure that you have an AIagent of some sort that is
(39:19):
answering all of your frequentlyasked questions, answering all
the things that when thosepeople are shopping offline,
they're shopping online off ofyour business hours, that you
have someone that can respond tothem.
Speaker 2 (39:33):
That's going to be a huge-.
Speaker 1 (39:35):
Yeah, are you open tomorrow?
Exactly yeah.
Do you have gift wrapping?
All those questions.
Speaker 3 (39:41):
Right, right, what?
Yeah, exactly All thosequestions.
Make sure you can.
Again, you have the gift oftime.
This is your gift of setup.
So use this next month to setup that AI agent to answer all
those frequently asked questions.
Because when you are going tobe in your store with your Black
Friday and it's going to becrazy and phones are going to be
off the hook and you're goingto have so many customers in
(40:02):
there, you are going to be like,oh, my goodness, what am I
going to do?
You can actually have thatpeace of mind that those
questions are getting answeredfor you at all times.
So it's going to make you beable to be with your customers
when you're in the store, butalso when you're off hours.
You have someone else workingfor you.
It's going to pay for itself.
Just do it.
So that's my fourth.
One is to set up the agent.
(40:23):
Last but not least, number five.
Number five is this is going tobe a little different how are
you taking your payments?
So something I haven't mentionedyet in the in the Black Friday
survey is how many people wantto take advantage of a.
You know buy now, pay later.
(40:44):
You mentioned a firm earlier.
How many people wanted to takeadvantage of that layaway kind
of opportunity there.
So what we found is that if youcan be more unique with how you
set up your payments, that canbring more.
You're quicker to cash right.
So in our survey we asked dopeople want, like would they be
(41:05):
trusting of, a payment link viatext?
And it was overwhelming.
We had over 41% of people saidthey would absolutely pay in a
payment link.
What we also think if you'rethinking again about
strategizing your Black Fridayand the people you have, if
you're able to turn your mobiledevice into a mobile kiosk and
(41:25):
then every sales associate canthen become a checkout, that is
going to be a huge unlock foryou as, again, you're navigating
the busyness that is BlackFriday and the holiday season.
So making sure that you canturn that mobile device into
that kiosk, being able to send apayment link and then offering
those auto pays, those buy now,pay later financing options, is
(41:48):
a big unlock for smallbusinesses.
Because what we found consumersplanned to start their holiday
shopping early this year.
They are going to shop thesales and they're still going to
spend.
We have a lot of people.
Speaker 1 (42:02):
Let me pull up the stat Actually we have 75% of
consumers are expecting to spendmore, or significantly more
than they did last year.
Wow, so I think that's good.
That's good news, yeah.
Speaker 3 (42:16):
It's good news.
People are still going to spend.
They don't want their budgetingnow.
They're going to spend, maybe alittle earlier, but they're
going to spend.
They're going to come into yournow.
They're going to spend maybe alittle earlier, but they're
going to spend.
They're going to come into yourstore.
They're going to spend.
But let's use these months nowlet's start this in September to
do some of that back work tocheck those Google reviews, to
grow your opt-in lists, to makesure you have the right
(42:39):
promotions, to build out your AIagents and then to make sure
you have all the differentpayment options that you can for
your store.
All of that will lead to somuch success for those retailers
.
Speaker 1 (42:53):
What a really great little final list.
I think that that's soimportant, just like on the
thought.
You know, I always try to thinkof, like, what are my big
purchases for the year that I amnot locked into?
It's not like my house, my car,but it's like, um, every year I
buy a ski pass and my skipasses they're expensive, but
(43:14):
what's cool is they offer me, uh, to split it up between, uh,
six months of financing for zero, zero percent interest, and
they and I think they basicallydo that to make it so that more
people are able to actually pullthe trigger and buy this.
Because what do they want?
They want to sell ski passesand do they care about making a
(43:35):
little bit of extra money?
No, they care about gettingmore people to say yes.
And I also think that about thenumber, I mean, you have data.
Our data always shows that thenumber one indicator for success
online is having a financingoption at checkout, and it makes
sense.
People want to have theopportunity to split payments up
(43:56):
and for the retailer it doesn'treally matter.
Most of the most of thefinancing, I think all the ones
that we offer guarantee thepayment.
They basically pay you and thenthey take, they buy the they
take the risk.
They take the risk and they buythe loan, so I a lot of times.
It costs zero dollars to evenset up an account with them.
They want you to start offeringthem in store.
(44:18):
I recommend taking the time toset that thing up.
Speaker 3 (44:22):
Absolutely.
I'm with you on that, Michael,as well.
Speaker 1 (44:25):
Melissa, as we wrap this thing up, any final
thoughts before we get peoplegoing.
I know that everybody's goingto get out of this and be fired
up to get started, but any finalthoughts?
Speaker 3 (44:35):
Yeah, my final thought is just start.
Just start today.
I know sometimes it can be sooverwhelming, you know when, as
a small business owner, you haveso many things to do, I
encourage you start usingtechnology, start making sure
you're doing all of yourmarketing activities correctly.
Um, and you know, utilize tools.
(44:57):
Utilize tools like punchmark,like podium, to really come
through.
And um, make your life easieras a small business owner.
Just start.
Speaker 1 (45:06):
Heck.
Yeah, get started today andyeah, hopefully you have a
really amazing Q4.
I know that the Punchmark teamis going to be ready to help you
get these things set up.
If you do end up signing upwith Podium, first of all,
mention in the loop.
Second of all, we do have aspot right in the back end of
your website that allows you toenter your Podium API key super
(45:28):
easy, and that's one of thefeatures of having a partner
like Podium, so feel free to askyour account manager if you
need help with that.
But, melissa, I really can'tthank you enough for coming on.
I think this is super cool andwe'll have to do a follow up
when you do your next big survey, because I love data.
I think it's very interesting.
Thank you again.
Speaker 3 (45:48):
You are so welcome.
Thanks, Michael.
Thanks for having me.
Speaker 1 (45:51):
All right, everybody.
We'll see you next week.
Thanks again for listening.
Bye, all right, everybody.
That's the end of the show.
Thanks so much for listeningthis week.
My guest wasissa monroe, andshe's with podium.
You can learn more about podiumin the show notes below.
This episode was brought to youby punchmark and produced and
(46:11):
hosted by me, michael burfo.
This episode was edited by paulsuarez with music by ross
cockrum.
Don't forget to rate thepodcast on spotify and apple
podcasts and leave us feedbackon punchmarkcom slash loop.
That's l L-O-U-P-E.
Thanks.
We'll be back next week,tuesday, with another episode.
Cheers, bye.
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