January 3, 2023 • 50 mins
What's next for your business in 2023 and beyond? If you answered "adding Amazon to my digital business," you'll love today's episode!
Join me for a fun conversation with Laura Meyer, who specializes in helping brands build successful Amazon businesses through her agency and consultancy work. Not only does she know the ins and outs of the biz, but she has also tried and true methods to teach us.
Tune in as Laura breaks down the need-to-knows for adding Amazon as a route-to-market for your business and how you can get started this year.
Click the "Send Krystal a Text Message" link above to send us your questions, comments, and feedback on the show! (Pssst...we'll do giveaways in upcoming episodes so make sure you leave your name & podcast title.)
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Krystal Proffitt (00:00):
One of the things that I have realized
about myself is that I am asucker for a good story. And I
feel like recently, thedifferent interviews that I've
had with creators and businessowners and entrepreneurs is, I
(00:21):
just love their stories like, ohmy gosh, I hope that you enjoy
all the interviews that we dohere on the show, but I have a
super special treat for youbecause today I'm chatting with
Laura Meyer. Now, Laura issomeone that, you know, whenever
her information came across mydesk as someone as I could
(00:41):
potentially interview, I waslike, yes, immediately. Yes,
yes, yes, because Laura has areally interesting background in
that she's helped over 150brands build successful Amazon
businesses, through her agencyand consultancy work. So in
addition to working withconsumer product companies, she
(01:02):
has a passion for SupportingFemale founded and mission
driven companies as an angelinvestor, and advisory board
member. So when she isn'tbuilding businesses, she spends
time with her husband, her oneyear old daughter and two dogs
on their farm in Massachusetts.
We're going to talk about thatin today's interview, but it's
going to be such a good one. Ihope you enjoy. Let's get right
(01:24):
to it. Welcome to the profitpodcast where we teach you how
to start launch and market yourcontent with confidence. I'm
your host, Krystal, Proffitt,and I'm so excited that you're
here. Thanks for hanging outwith me today. Because if you've
been trying to figure out theworld of content creation, this
is the show that will help beyour time saving shortcut. So
(01:46):
let's get right to it, shall we?
All right, rapid podcastlisteners. I'm so excited about
today. Today's guest Welcome tothe show. Laura.
Laura Meyer (02:04):
Thank you so much.
It's a pleasure to be here.
Krystal Proffitt (02:07):
Yeah. So you have such an interesting
business. And I cannot wait tojust dive right in. Because one,
I love to talk about marketing.
Two, I love to talk aboutbusiness. And three, you just
like crack the code on one ofthe biggest Wait, hang on the
biggest, like business thatthere is out there. And that is
(02:30):
Amazon. And I just cannot waitto learn more about everything.
But before we dive into that,like tell us a little bit about
yourself and how you got intothis, like where did this all
begin? Uh,
Laura Meyer (02:43):
yeah. Well, I will say the the beginning of the
journey, I feel like actuallygoes back to my childhood and
how I was raised. So I'moriginally from Michigan, and I
grew up working in my dad'shardware store. So I joke that
I've been a retail really sinceI could walk and talk because
(03:05):
our family vacay like classicjust like, you know, middle
class Midwest, our familyvacations weren't to like Disney
World, or like classic 1990sdestinations. No, we went to the
Ace Hardware shows as our as ourfamily vacation. So instead of
seeing Mickey Mouse, you know, Iwas seeing the lever display,
(03:28):
the ACE shows. But I think thatthe more obvious journey is that
I did work for Amazon corporate.
And I work for their mediagroup, specifically back in
2015. And it was there that Isaw the opportunity and was
inspired to be able to helpbrands tame, or at least take on
(03:49):
the retail beast, and make itmore of an opportunity versus a
threat. And obviously, I thinkthe the tone has shifted in
recent years, but you go back510 years ago, even brands such
as retailers saw Amazon as athreat versus, you know, hey,
(04:11):
this can actually be a hugeopportunity. And those that
jumped on it early, of course,reap the benefits. And what I
love about it is it's verydynamic. It's always changing
things that were applicable andworked even 18 months ago are no
longer delivering those sameresults. And I think that's what
(04:35):
makes digital marketing ingeneral. Such a cool industry to
be a part of,
Krystal Proffitt (04:41):
oh my gosh, I have 1000 questions because I
can tell you that from just thedifferent like, in my small
circle, right, because I mean,let's be honest, I'm a homebody
I don't get out much I don't doa lot of social things. I mean,
who does anymore but
Laura Meyer (04:56):
I should also know I left New York City and you Now
I live on a 400 acre farm withmy husband and our daughter and
two dogs. So it's amazing.
That's amazing. Some backgroundnoise, I'm not gonna lie. All
right,
Krystal Proffitt (05:11):
it's all right. We love it around here.
But I mean, I'm just thinkingabout my small group. That's
pretty tight knit. And I'mthinking my husband wanted to do
drop shipping stuff on amazonbefore, like tested that I have
friends that recently in thelast two years have started
doing like, I think it's calledthe DSP or it's like they have
(05:31):
the fleet vehicles, like I betpeople listening to this right
now know, someone that has triedsomething on Amazon, whether it
was, you know, selling their ownstuff, or working with other,
you know, other companies to getsomething up and going. But with
that being said, what is likethe thing that really drives you
(05:52):
to go all in on Amazon? BecauseI feel like there's some people
that are hesitant. There'speople listening right now that
have small businesses, they havedigital businesses, and maybe
they're like, I don't know if Icould do that, like it feels
scary to them. So is thatsomething that you've
encountered along your journey?
And just working with Amazon orworking with other small
(06:13):
business owners?
Laura Meyer (06:16):
Yeah, absolutely.
So I think there's a commontrend in digital in the digital
landscape in general, which isthe overwhelming lack of
bandwidth that most businessowners have. And whether it's
Amazon, whether it's Shopify,whether it's TikTok, all of
these opportunities requirededicated resources. So I think
(06:40):
really, the question to ask is,you know, what is your
overarching strategic plan? Andwhat do you want your primary
sales channels to be for yourbusiness for your brand, because
now Amazon is a maturemarketplace, where it can't be
an afterthought, it can be, oh,let me just throw some products
(07:04):
up on Amazon and see whathappens. But I'm still going to
be spending 99% of my time onthese other initiatives. If you
want to do Amazon, and you wantto do it, right, you have to
allocate the resources. So whatthat can mean is you can
obviously hire an agency, or afreelancer you like, like if
(07:26):
you're a small business, Upworkis actually a great resource for
that. But my advice is,especially as a business leader,
is to educate yourself first.
And I think it's reallyimportant, especially if you do
go the route of hiring, externalsupport, to make sure that
(07:47):
you're not getting scammed. AndI hate saying that, because I'm
coming from the service angle.
But you know, there's someamazing players out there. But
there's also some not so greatplayers. And you want to make
sure if you're spending thatmoney is, especially as a small
business, that you're gettingthat return on investment. So by
educating yourself taking thetime to get to know the channel,
(08:08):
you can then manage a serviceprovider or manage an employee
to harness the opportunity ofthe channel. And by the way,
this is the case for social thisis the case for Shopify, like,
even if you can No, you know, 2%of what you really need to know,
(08:30):
but it's at a high level viewthat will take you a really far
route is being successful onthat platform,
Krystal Proffitt (08:40):
where you said that about the competitors and
you know, are not necessarilycompetitors, the people that are
doing they're in it for thewrong reasons are in it to scam
people. Is there anything thatis like a red flag to you that
you see that you're like, oh, mygosh, our company would never do
that. Or we would never approachsomebody that way. Like, like,
like, tell us the things to lookout for if we're going to start
(09:01):
researching this, because I canimagine there's 1000 things.
Look, I
Laura Meyer (09:06):
probably should have used the word scam because
that makes it sound like it's aCD industry. There are like I
said, there are some reallyamazing players. I have
fantastic relationships withother Amazon agency owners,
because in a weird way, we'reall in this crazy ride together.
And the landscape is alwayschanging. And there's this weird
(09:28):
camaraderie right of we're alldealing with these wild
curveballs. And also, I mean,there's enough fish in the sea
for us all to really havesuccessful businesses. But in
terms of red flags, I think thebiggest advice and this is
applicable to hiring any vendoris I would always ask during the
(09:53):
sales process, you know, who ismy main point of contact going
to be and can I meet with thembefore we sign So what often
happens in a lot oforganizations is the CEO sells
you, they're superknowledgeable. And then you have
a junior person placed on youraccount, who may not be super
motivated, who may not be asknowledgeable. So like one thing
(10:16):
we always offer is meet andgreets with the account
management team before we getstarted, not every client wants
that, but I always have it as anoption, should they be
interested? I think the otherthing is just asking for
references. I know that's likeseems so obvious. But in this
day and age, do your own duediligence of reaching out to
(10:40):
those references, asking themquestions, asking them tough
questions like, Where could theyimprove as an organization? What
would you change? Like, youdon't always have to ask the
very positive fluffy questionsreally want to get to the meat.
And honestly, like, anotherthing you can totally do is see
(11:01):
who they list on their websiteas clients, go to LinkedIn and
send some DMs to be like, Hey,we're thinking about maybe
hiring this agency, your yourlogos on their website, curious,
you know, if you're the rightperson to speak to, and if they
were a great partner for you.
Krystal Proffitt (11:20):
Now, that's awesome. That's awesome. And I
totally agree, like duediligence for for anybody, you
know, you mentioned, kind oflike social media managers, but
the thing I just kept sayingabout my website, like if I were
hiring someone to do my website,like even some of the most basic
things like we just gotta crossour t's and dot our eyes. Yeah,
I almost said that backwards,but we're good. But you know, we
(11:40):
just have to double check thatthe people that we're working
with are legitimate and knowwhat they're talking about. And
I think it's just like, it's socool that you have this really
unique perspective on Amazon,because everybody that's
listening right now, they'vebought something on Amazon,
they've had an Amazonexperience, like, we all know
that it is constantly changing,you know, they introduce one
(12:01):
click, and like all the otherlike, I can't say their names,
but the other devices that wehave, like there's so many
different things that have comeon the scene in just the last
five years that I can onlyimagine how much it's kind of
gone up and down and all around.
But the thing that I reallycurious about is if someone's
listening, and they're justgetting started, what is the
(12:21):
thing that requires the heaviestlift to even get started on
Amazon? Like, do you need astorefront? First, do you need
your product? Do you need yourlike, what is the thing that
they have to figure out? Beforethey even know if Amazon and
selling on Amazon is a good fitfor them?
Laura Meyer (12:44):
There are so many research tools out there to see
like, number one, is there evena demand for this product on
Amazon. So thinking aboutAmazon, you have to think of it
as the largest shopping searchengine out there. It's not a
traditional retailer wherethere's end caps, there's
(13:05):
merchandising, so if you havethis really unique out there
product, it still getsvisibility. If you have a
product that no one is searchingfor, you won't sell any units
unless you invest a ton inadvertising, and really have to
have that brand awarenessbudget, which let's be honest,
unless you're VC backed, it'sprobably not a reality. Yeah.
(13:27):
And also, as we've seen in thelast year, you know, studying
money without having aprofitable business seems to
that bubble seems to have poppeda little bit which I am a big
advocate for classic businessfundamentals, you can obviously
go in the red for a period butyou need to have a path to the
(13:49):
green. So I think when it whenit when it comes to getting
started on Amazon, number one isthe product is the product, a
good fit for Amazon, if you areselling a haircare line, and
you're supposed to take a quizand it's custom, by the results
of the quiz, you may not be agood candidate for Amazon
(14:11):
because it's not a really acustomizable platform at this
point. If you have a reallyexpensive item, also probably
not a good match. And the otherthing is on the flip side is if
you've ever really commoditizedproduct and you don't have a
unique differentiator is goingto be tough, unless once again
(14:34):
you can compete on price, or youhave a very healthy ad budget.
So I from a fundamentalstandpoint, it always starts
with the product. The secondthing is the inventory planning
and I think for a lot of smallbusinesses. This can be a
challenge because obviouslybuying inventory is a big cash
(14:58):
constraint and And it's theeducated guess of the century
when you're trying to buildthese forecasts of allocating
the cash that you have to buythe inventory and to buy the
right inventory. And then tosell through that inventory. So
you have more cash to buy moreinventory, and so forth. But
really thinking it throughbecause a mistake I've seen some
(15:20):
smaller businesses make is theythink they can just pull their
Amazon inventory from whatthey've projected for maybe
their wholesale or their D to Cchannel. And the problem with
that is, if Amazon does reallystart to take off, then you go
out of stock. And going out ofstock on Amazon is a kiss of
(15:41):
death. There is a rumored sayingout there that for every day,
you're out of stock on Amazon,you lose relevancy by you lose
four days of relevancy. So whatthat means is because it's a
giant shopping, search engine,SEO or Search Engine
(16:02):
Optimization is a huge componentof your visibility and driving
sales. So if you do all of thiswork, all of this marketing, to
get to page one for keywordthat's super important for your
product, and you go out ofstock, you essentially have to
and you're out of stock for along period, you essentially
(16:22):
have to do a relaunch, and I'veseen businesses never really be
able to fully recover from that.
Krystal Proffitt (16:27):
Wow. It's so cool, because I feel like you're
giving us like the behind thescenes like lingo and like the
cool things like, no, yes, yes.
No, this is so good. Because Ithink that having your
perspective because like I said,most people listening only have
the perspective of being aconsumer, or maybe really
looking at Amazon from a digitalmarketing perspective, like, Can
(16:50):
I do this? And I love that youmentioned SEO, I love talking
about SEO on here. It's soimportant. But it's one of those
things that I feel like it'sthis big mystery, because we've
heard for a long time that we'vegot to optimize for Google and
search engines. And I lovetaking some of those same
applications and thinking aboutthem in Amazon as the largest
(17:11):
shopping search engine. And withthat, I'm so curious, because I
actually I was checking out, youknow, I was doing my due
diligence, I was looking at yourwebsite earlier. And I love the
idea of kind of not puttingeverything in your basket when
it comes to Amazon, but havingthat digital marketing, feeding
with your website, and Amazonand all of that. So can you kind
(17:34):
of explain that strategy,because I can imagine the people
listening to this like mylisteners, they're content
creators, like at their core,that is their marketing funnel
for their business. They'redoing podcasts are doing social,
they're doing blogs, they'redoing email newsletters, so they
understand the importance ofSEO, but I can see them right
now. They're like, well, if I'mgoing to talk about on my
(17:58):
podcast, do I need to send themdirectly to Amazon? Do I need to
send them to my website? Like,do you have any input on the
strategy that they could followfor something like that?
Laura Meyer (18:10):
Absolutely. Well, so I think the first thing that
clarify is an Amazon SEOstrategy is very different than
a Google SEO strategy. And thereare of course tactics to
leverage Google SEO to drivemore Amazon SEO interest. So
Amazon SEO is very unit solddriven, in my experience. So
(18:35):
what that means is Amazon'salgorithm tends to reward and
give more visibility to not thehighest revenue grossing
products, but the products thatmove the most units, which to
some brands that's actually verydifferent than a lot of
retailers, right. But Amazonwants that replenishment, build
(18:56):
the addiction, as we've allseen, or experienced ourselves.
And then there's also all of acopywriting and the titles and
the bullet points and thingsalong those lines. Where
everything you do on Google, inmy opinion, I actually think
Google SEO is a lot morechallenging than Amazon. Because
(19:16):
I just feel like there's so manymore level levers that you can
pull. But we are seeingsomething interesting right now,
where external traffic seems tobe weighted more heavily in
Amazon's algorithm, and they'rerewarding external traffic more.
And in fact, they even launcheda program back in 20. I think it
(19:41):
was July 21. Maybe it's a littlebit later in the year, but it's
called the Amazon brand referralbonus, where they'll actually
send you or pay you as thebusiness 10% For external
traffic that you drive to AmazonAnd I'm sure that this is a
(20:02):
tactic on their end because likeevery marketer right now, we're
all trying to figure out how wecan acquire customers
profitably. And Google andAmazon have a complicated
relationship. And Amazon andFacebook have a complicated
relationship. Oh, yeah. So whynot have the brands be the
(20:23):
influencers of the trafficinstead of Amazon going out and
buying that traffic?
Krystal Proffitt (20:29):
So this is so interesting, like we I felt like
we just opened Pandora's box,because like you said, it's
like, all the giants of themedia space, the shopping space
consumerism, like, it all reallycomes down to being a savvy
marketer. And that means so manydifferent than I think being a
digital marketer is acomplicated relationship,
(20:51):
because I feel like you can bereally awesome in one very
specific way, make maybe it'scontent creation for somebody
that's listening to this. Butthey're, they hear SEO, and they
want to pull their head likeunder the covers and say, I
don't want to do it like Ican't. It's too much. It's
really hard. And I think thatit's just going to continue to
(21:13):
evolve and change as the worlddoes. And I'm really curious to
know, like, what do you see asfar as Amazon trends like going
in the future? And I don't knowif that's really a question for
a business owner or more fromthe consumer side? Or maybe it's
one of the two. But do you haveany insight on what we can kind
(21:34):
of expect to see, I mean, thisepisode, like, just a
disclaimer, we're recording thisbefore the holidays. But this is
going to be after the holidayswhenever it goes live. So maybe
you have some insights so thatwe can put into 2023 is holiday,
you know, Black Friday, whatevershopping. But do you have any
insights?
Laura Meyer (21:55):
Yeah, well, I think, to me, it's obvious, but
it's probably new to a lot ofyour listeners, which is that
Amazon is going to become amajor media player as we move
forward. So their media businesshas grown year over year, like,
what their media business istoday is lightyears ahead of
(22:15):
what it was when I initiallyworked there back in 2015. And
it's interesting because youdon't actually think of Amazon
competing directly for the addollars that Google and Facebook
are competing for. But now theyare. And now there's even upper
funnel marketing opportunities,meaning now that Amazon is more
(22:38):
into the streaming channels,they have the relationship with
the NFL, I forget how manybillions or hundreds of millions
of dollars they paid for thatThursday night football deal.
But like one of my predictionsis that as Amazon becomes more
dominant, as a media player, Ithink maybe one day you'll even
(22:59):
be able to buy a Superbowl adthrough Amazon's media network.
And the reason why Amazon hasthe power to be such a leader
here is that they have so muchdata on us in terms of our
shopping habits. In terms of theaddress, the deliveries are
(23:20):
going to like there's so muchwhere Google obviously knows
what you're searching, Amazonknows what you're buying, which
is way more transactional. AndFacebook, you know, they were
able to do a lot of cookietracking as well and building
really effective audience lookalike segments. But what Amazon
(23:41):
has to offer, I think it's justso much more data rich, and will
continue to be able to providevery targeted messaging for
brands. So I think that's oneprediction that is already
showing face that it's going tooccur. But you know, the thing
(24:03):
is Meadows definitely introuble. That's no secret. I
don't think it's unlikely thatAmazon could surpass Meadows
media business if they don't gettheir act in order to be honest.
The other big thing that'shappening and this has also been
a trend for years, but it'sbecoming even more evident is
(24:26):
when Amazon launched as a retailor E commerce business. They
were buying inventory wholesale.
So they took a vendorrelationship. And in the last
five years, the marketplacebusiness model has become more
and more dominant. And thereason this is really cool is it
allows smaller businesses thesame opportunity as a vendor
(24:50):
like one of the big hurdles forbusinesses that want to get into
Target or Ulta or Sephora rot isthat wholesale dynamic where you
spend all this time and moneypitching your product sending
samples, and nothing. Amazonfrom a third party marketplace,
you are in full control. It'sessentially the DTC model, but
(25:13):
with an existing audience, andthat is so powerful in itself.
So I actually foreseen thevendor side of Amazon's business
continuing to shrink in terms ofthe number of businesses working
with vendor, and more and morebusinesses moving to the
marketplace, or what's calledseller central business model.
(25:35):
Okay, I have I have. Yeah, goahead. Go ahead, go. Well, I
think the other third predictionis that Amazon is, they've
always been a huge logisticsplayer for their own channel.
But now they're really likethree pls. If you're a small
business, and you've tried towork with a three PL in the last
(25:57):
two years, there are not a lotof good three peels
Krystal Proffitt (26:02):
out there. So it's fine. But that is real
fast. So somebody,
Laura Meyer (26:06):
a third party logistics partner. So when you
sell things online, you need awarehouse to pick pack and ship
your product out. And PrimeAmazon Prime, what made them so
successful is the two dayshipping. Their infrastructure
for logistics, is world class.
In fact, it's probably out ofthis world, like how
(26:27):
sophisticated it is. And theaverage 3.3 pl is not on their
level. And once again, like Isympathize for a lot of the
three pls because I think thatthey had struggle staffing their
warehouses the last few yearsbecause of COVID. Because of the
just boom, that happened in Ecomm. But a lot of three fields
(26:50):
can be really unreliable. So ifanyone knows of good three
peels, I'm all yours because Iget asked this a lot. And I get
like years ago, I gaverecommendations to a three PL
and it hit me in the butt,because they didn't get
inventory out and they ended uplosing the client. So maybe I'm
just a little extra salty fromthat. But I think that they'll
(27:11):
continue to be a huge logisticspartner, not only for Amazon
orders, but for a lot of onlineorders overall.
Krystal Proffitt (27:22):
Yeah, oh my gosh, like I, I love the talk of
kind of where it's been, wherewe're going like the present
day, but also the future likeit's, it's almost like future
pacing us for what we need topay attention to. Because I know
that there's a lot of peoplelistening right now, it's the
beginning of the year, andthey're thinking about, okay, I
(27:44):
really want to do something bigin my business. And I know that
there's a lot of people that arereally focusing on like, How can
I take my business to the nextlevel? And what does that look
like? And I feel like Amazon isone of those things, because so
many of us are in the digitalspace, like we got into this
because we're like, I don't haveto have inventory, I can have
(28:05):
products that are purelydigital. And so if somebody's
listening to this right now, andthey're thinking, I might want
to try this, but I'm also scaredto invest a tenant inventory,
just like what you were saying,like they have this like, I
don't know how to forecast this.
They've never had any sort ofretail, they've never had a
storefront. They've never donebrick and mortar, like, Do you
(28:26):
have any advice for them? Andhow to approach it without
totally coming up? Like, I mean,without wasting at all? Like, I
know that sounds silly, becausehopefully you're re listening,
you know, better, you knowbetter, you know what a safe
investment is for you. But I'mjust curious if I were coming to
you, Laura. And I'm like Laura,I want to get an Amazon. And
(28:49):
I've got like $20,000 that Iwant to invest in, I want to
find a really good product. Whatwould you say?
Laura Meyer (28:57):
Well, I think the first thing is I always like to
take a step back, right? And asklike, what are the goals for
your business in the next threeyears? And is launching on
Amazon aligned with those goals?
Or is it a shiny object? Becauseas entrepreneurs and I am guilty
of this times over, right, wesee shiny things, we see things
(29:19):
that generate revenue, and we goafter them, but maybe it's not
the right decision for ourbusiness model. So I think
that's the first thing is if youaren't in inventory business,
but you want to become one,making sure that it aligns with
your business model. And I thinklike a great example of a
(29:41):
business that has done this andI guess disclosure I'm a like a
small angel investment in themis a beauty brand that launched
earlier this year called Diorand they were a media and
content company for severalyears. So they built this loyal
audience, they had thisfollowing. And by the way, this
(30:04):
is also what glossier did, too.
And then they introducedproducts, but they made that
commitment, they overhauled thewebsite, like they really leaned
into it. My advice is, if youaren't ready to really lean into
it, and have it be your biggrowth opportunity, or one of
(30:27):
your growth pillars, I alwayslike to think of how to be
between one and three growthpillars that you foster. That
don't do it, right. But if youwant to make that leap, one, if
you have this audience thatyou've harnessed through your
content, you want to make surethat it's going to be a product
(30:48):
that will appeal to thatexisting audience. Otherwise,
you might as well just start asecond entity and do that. And
then finding a good manufactureris not easy, you may have the
best idea in the world. But ifyou can't find the right
manufacturing partner, it willbe really challenging. And with
(31:12):
the example you gave of a$20,000 investment, that right
there is going to limit yourpool of what manufacturers will
take you on. Yeah, and I've donesome negotiations with
manufacturing, I do have my ownmen's undershirt business that
I've run for five years now. Butwhen you work with
(31:36):
manufacturers, it's a mutualinterview. It's not just you
vetting them, they're alsobetting you and if, as a small
business, they're willing totake the risk. And in the last
two years, it's been reallychallenging for smaller
businesses to find goodmanufacturers, because they were
so overwhelmed, because a lot ofmanufacturing moved from
(31:57):
overseas to domestic, right.
Yeah. So I think that's a bigthing. And you know, if
possible, like, really try andavoid buying just like generic
things off of Alibaba,repackaging it, you can do it,
if you have a loyal audience,you can maybe make some quick
cash on it, sell it on Etsy,whatever. But that's not in
general going to be a scalableproduct, or like I would I
(32:22):
talked about earlier, like aproduct that really has
differentiating value.
Krystal Proffitt (32:29):
Yeah. Oh, my gosh, like you just you have so
much like you're a wealth ofknowledge about this. And I like
I said, I could just ask you1000 More questions. But I know
that there is one that everybodylistening has right now. And I'm
sure you have a very strongopinion on it. What do you think
about reviews? How important arereviews on Amazon? Reviews are
Laura Meyer (32:51):
crucial, they are so important. And it's really a
point of frustration for me,because it's it's, it's a double
edged sword, because you needreviews to be successful. But
Amazon really puts limitationson what you can do to generate
reviews. So what ends uphappening, we do everything by
(33:14):
the books. But you occasionallysee these headlines that come
out of, you know, millions ofreviews being removed from
Amazon, because 1000s of sellerswere doing wrongful strategies
to generate those reviews. Soonce again, goes back to my
earlier point is the best way toget a lot of reviews have a
(33:38):
great product have great brandloyalty, Amazon does have the
volume program, which is $200 toenroll per parent products, and
then you can give up to 30 unitsaway for free. That program is
fine. More recently, I feel likethe Viper viewers have like
(34:01):
these this weird chip on theirshoulder. Because we've seen
cases where they get a reallydecent product. And they still
give it three star being likegood product but too expensive.
And then like you got thisproduct for free. Commenting on
the price, it just makes nosense. So I always like to set
the expectation just because youdo the Prime program doesn't
(34:23):
mean you're gonna get the bestreviews. It's it's unique cohort
that's that's a part of the vineprogram. Now there are
software's out there like one ofthe software functionalities
that my company has is where itdoes the automated trigger
requests for the reviews thatwork some but in most cases
(34:45):
people ignore it right, right.
And Amazon now has kind of graypolicy if you can do inserts or
not. So we just advise ourclients it's not worth the rest.
So don't do inserts because somebrands were pushing the envelope
In their messaging on thoseinserts. So yeah, it's a real
challenge. You can't just importreviews from your posts that you
(35:07):
have on your DTSC or some otherrevenue generator to Amazon,
they only accept their reviews.
Krystal Proffitt (35:17):
Oh, this is so interesting, especially I was I
think it was on a LinkedInarticle or something they were
talking about, that your Amazonthird party sellers will be able
to email you. Is that somethingthat was like a rumored thing?
Or is that, like I remember itwas in the context of like,
after you make a purchase, theywould get your email, and I
(35:37):
started thinking about it. AndI'm like, Well, I bought
something that was $3. And itwas like something for our
kitchen sink. I don't care. LikeI will probably never buy that
again, unless it breaks again.
And I don't care about that. Isthis something that was just a
rumor? Or do you have anyinformation about that.
Laura Meyer (35:54):
So what I do know is that during Amazon ik celery,
they announced a program whereon the storefront, if you follow
a brand, they can essentially doemail marketing. But that's more
for product announcements, okay,engagements, less like the whole
(36:16):
review the review thing, I didalso hear a rumor about trying
to that they were setting uplike a live chat function where
brands could like live chat withthe customer instead of Amazon.
But I'm gonna be perfectlyhonest, I don't know a whole
bunch about that. Because withmy business, there's so many
(36:40):
moving parts for small, but wereally try and put the customer
service piece on the brands tomanage because most of the
brands that we work with, theyhave successful DTC, they have
successful brick and mortardistribution. So they already
have a customer service team inplace. We just advise their
customer service team on whatthose best practices are.
Krystal Proffitt (37:03):
Yeah. And that makes sense, especially because
it's, it seems like it's likeyou don't know what people are
doing in Amazon, you could bethe 17th thing that someone has
in their cart, and then they'reactually mad about something
else that's happening on theplatform that has nothing to do
with you too. So it's like kindof seems like a little murky
water?
Laura Meyer (37:21):
Well, and I've definitely seen this over the
years, right, where the brandgets a message from a customer
demanding to know where theirproduct is. Well, Amazon's been
handling the logistics, right?
It's actually not on the brandto know where it is.
Krystal Proffitt (37:36):
I mean, I could just see like 1000
loopholes and different things.
That could be tricky. But that'swhy y'all should hire Laura, if
you're thinking about doingthis, because her business like
that's what it is. So tell us alittle bit about your agency and
what you do to work with brands.
And if somebody's listeningright now, and they're
interested in all asking you1000 More questions, then what
(38:00):
was that? What would that looklike?
Laura Meyer (38:02):
Yeah, definitely.
So my business has continued toexpand in terms of our service
offering, our core. And whatwe're known for is our full
service, Amazon management,meaning we're helping with the
inventory piece, the creativepiece, the troubleshooting
piece, the media buying piece,the SEO, like, the list goes on,
it's very dynamic. And then wealso have our own brand
(38:27):
management software called byhorizon. So I'm very fortunate
that I married a computerscience engineer, so my husband
helped lead that project.
Although now we have a full teamthat's executing on that. And
the goal of this was to reallymake Amazon much more user
(38:50):
friendly from a data analyticsperspective. There, there could
be a whole other podcast. Sowhat metrics you should be
tracking as it pertains toselling on Amazon. But
essentially, we've used thevarious API's that Amazon has,
in order to build our software.
And our goal is to automatebrand management. So helping
(39:10):
smaller businesses that aredoing it themselves have the
same tools that our agency does.
Because typically, for theagency side of the business, you
know, we're working with brandsthat already do a million
dollars a year on Amazon. Andit's our goal to take them to
(39:31):
1015 20 million over a multiyear engagement. So there's that
and then we also do influencermarketing, but specifically for
driving traffic to Amazon. Soalso, we're always building a
Rolodex of content creators. Soif that's of interest, I'll plug
(39:52):
that too. And then the otherexpansion that's super
interesting is just the retailmedia landscape. tape in
general. So Walmart obviouslyhas copy and pasted Amazon's
business plan for theiradvertising, target Walmart, or
sorry, Walgreens, CVS, theypartnered with Criteo to be able
(40:16):
to provide paid searchadvertising on their websites.
So now what we're really lookingat is for our clients with large
media spends, finding that nextdollar of investment where they
get the best return. So youknow, we could spend this dollar
on Amazon, we could spend thisdollar on Walmart, or we could
(40:37):
spend it on Walgreens, CVStarget, and building those media
plans and making thoseinvestments which that's a whole
nother beast, but it's superinteresting.
Krystal Proffitt (40:49):
This is so awesome. Like I said, I just, I
could geek out on all the othermarketing questions and like
just business and I mean, yousaid that about metrics. And I'm
like destice, like who is like,I've like salivating over the
word metrics. I'm like, thatsounds so sexy. Like, it sounds
amazing. And
Laura Meyer (41:07):
talk LTV is the CDR we got it.
Krystal Proffitt (41:12):
Yeah, all the things, all the things. Oh, my
gosh, this is so awesome. Well,Laura, I appreciate all the
things that you have shared. ButI want to wrap up with, I have
some rapid fire questions. Soare you for those?
Laura Meyer (41:25):
I don't know, I'm five months pregnant. So
pregnancy brain so we'll see if
Krystal Proffitt (41:31):
you'll be good, you'll be good. There's
just three and they're supersimple. Okay. The first one is
what piece of advice would yougive to? It's typically a brand
new podcaster or contentcreator. But in this sense, what
advice would you give to someonethat's looking to start on
Amazon?
Laura Meyer (41:50):
Well, whether it's content or whether it's product,
you need to have something thatsets you apart.
Krystal Proffitt (41:56):
Yeah, that's great. That's great. Okay, the
next one is a two part question.
So what is a dream podcast youwould love to be on? And if you
had the opportunity, who is yourdream podcast? Guest you'd like
to interview?
Laura Meyer (42:11):
Okay, I would love to be on Tim Ferriss, because
that is just I mean, and I'msure that's such a basic answer.
But I've been listening to TimFerriss since I was in college.
So I guess I have some legacythere. And who I would love on
my own podcast and who I have amajor professional girl crush on
(42:31):
is Sara Blakely. also probably abasic answer, but I feel like
I've been following herreligiously before. I think she
went mainstream. Like literallybeen following her since
probably, I graduated college aswell. So I also just think she's
so fun and down to earth. Andshe's herself, right she is not
(42:52):
what the corporate world wantsto morph a lot of people into
and I that really resonates withme.
Krystal Proffitt (42:59):
I feel like I want to meet her and say you had
me at tequila and cheesesbecause this is if you don't
know this about Sara Blakely,just go look her up on
Instagram. She's amazing tofollow there. Okay, my last
question is, do you consideryourself a perfectionist?
Laura Meyer (43:15):
No. I mean, my mother would probably say that
because she thinks sometimes I'mtoo critical. But I think one
thing that I've observed just inlife, is you kind of have to
pick and choose what where youare Type A. So yes, there are
certain things where I will be aperfectionist, but I have also
(43:37):
learned in life. Sometimes youjust have to let things go. Like
I did a whole renovation on mymaster bathroom. And I noticed a
month later that the embeddedmedicine cabinets are like we
have his and hers. They're likehalf an inch off from one
another. You just gotta let thatyou just got to live life a
(43:59):
little bit. You know? Initially,it was irritating, but now I
don't. I've moved on.
Krystal Proffitt (44:05):
Yes, yes. Oh my gosh, this is so good. Well,
thank you so much, Laura, forall the wisdom that you shared
today. I know people are goingto be going back and listening
to this. But wait, what didLaura say? Again? Like what?
What I need to go back and seelike what was her
recommendation? But if someone'slistening and they want to work
with you learn more about youwhat is the best place for them
(44:26):
to find you.
Laura Meyer (44:28):
The best place is LinkedIn. That's where I do my
content creation. So pleasefollow. And yeah, you can also
just go to our website envisionhorizons.com. And we have our
inquiry form there. So veryactive on LinkedIn. You send me
a DM I am Sir. I live onLinkedIn.
Krystal Proffitt (44:50):
Okay, awesome.
We will have links to all ofthat in the show notes. But
thank you again so much forcoming on the show today. This
was awesome.
Laura Meyer (44:58):
It was my pleasure.
Thank you for having me.
Krystal Proffitt (45:00):
It was such a good interview, right? It just,
it was so awesome. Like, thewhole time I was listening back
to it. I was thinking, What canI sell on Amazon, right? Because
Laura makes it seem so easy andso fun. And I just I loved her
interview so much. And this isactually something that my
husband says, for a long time,like I can remember, we used to
(45:24):
live in this small town in EastTexas. And I can still like
vividly See, we're standing inour guest room which doubled as
like a guestroom a baby bed,like the crib was in there in an
office like it was one of thosemultipurpose rooms. And we were
like, well, what are we evendoing because we lived in this
small house. But I rememberstanding there. And he said to
(45:48):
me, I think I want to sellknives sharpeners on Amazon. And
I remember thinking, What areyou talking about? Like, what
are you even talking about, andhe has been trying to find
something that is going to workfor what he's interested in
which knives sharpening likethose that didn't pan out. It
(46:09):
didn't work for us. But we'vebeen thinking about this since
2014 2015. And so I can tell youthat having a business on Amazon
is kind of like doing YouTube orcreating content or having a
podcast, it's one of thosethings that I bet if you're
listening to this, you'vethought about it in some
(46:31):
capacity. And if you have andyou want help with it, talk to
Laura, go reach out to her, I'mgonna have all her information
linked in the show notes. Somake sure you go check those
out. But go check out envisionhorizons, which is her company,
and go check out what they cando for you because they've been
named in the top 18 Amazonadvertising agencies from
(46:54):
Business Insider, and theysupport people that are in the
beauty space, baby and healthhousehold brands, but they
really represent people from allcategories. So if this is
something that you've been likenoodling around with that idea,
you're like, I don't know, thatsounds like it could be fun. It
sounds like it would be like theperfect addition, right, the
(47:16):
next channel, or the route tomarket that your product or
services could really benefitfrom like, if you, you know,
because I've thought about this,too. Whenever I was really going
hardcore into podcasting, Ithought, why don't I put
together a bundle on Amazon, andreally just fill it with my
(47:36):
favorite products, and have theability to highlight those in a
really specific way. Now, that'snot me selling my own products.
But it's me taking another stepinto the door of working on
Amazon and creating businessesthat really complement what
you're doing and other aspectsof your business. So fun. Please
(48:01):
go check out Laura. And I hopethat you learned something
today. If not, you reallyenjoyed her story about just
what you can do what you can dowhen you get creative you think
outside the box, and it was justso fun. It was so fun. Thank you
so much Laura again, becausethis was such a great interview.
(48:21):
But that's all I have for youtoday. So if this is your first
time tuning in, make sure youhit the follow or subscribe
button wherever you're listeningto this podcast. And as always
remember, keep it up. We allhave to start somewhere
One of the things that I have realized
about myself is that I am asucker for a good story. And I
feel like recently, thedifferent interviews that I've
had with creators and businessowners and entrepreneurs is, I
(00:21):
just love their stories like, ohmy gosh, I hope that you enjoy
all the interviews that we dohere on the show, but I have a
super special treat for youbecause today I'm chatting with
Laura Meyer. Now, Laura issomeone that, you know, whenever
her information came across mydesk as someone as I could
(00:41):
potentially interview, I waslike, yes, immediately. Yes,
yes, yes, because Laura has areally interesting background in
that she's helped over 150brands build successful Amazon
businesses, through her agencyand consultancy work. So in
addition to working withconsumer product companies, she
(01:02):
has a passion for SupportingFemale founded and mission
driven companies as an angelinvestor, and advisory board
member. So when she isn'tbuilding businesses, she spends
time with her husband, her oneyear old daughter and two dogs
on their farm in Massachusetts.
We're going to talk about thatin today's interview, but it's
going to be such a good one. Ihope you enjoy. Let's get right
(01:24):
to it. Welcome to the profitpodcast where we teach you how
to start launch and market yourcontent with confidence. I'm
your host, Krystal, Proffitt,and I'm so excited that you're
here. Thanks for hanging outwith me today. Because if you've
been trying to figure out theworld of content creation, this
is the show that will help beyour time saving shortcut. So
(01:46):
let's get right to it, shall we?
All right, rapid podcastlisteners. I'm so excited about
today. Today's guest Welcome tothe show. Laura.
Laura Meyer (02:04):
Thank you so much.
It's a pleasure to be here.
Krystal Proffitt (02:07):
Yeah. So you have such an interesting
business. And I cannot wait tojust dive right in. Because one,
I love to talk about marketing.
Two, I love to talk aboutbusiness. And three, you just
like crack the code on one ofthe biggest Wait, hang on the
biggest, like business thatthere is out there. And that is
(02:30):
Amazon. And I just cannot waitto learn more about everything.
But before we dive into that,like tell us a little bit about
yourself and how you got intothis, like where did this all
begin? Uh,
Laura Meyer (02:43):
yeah. Well, I will say the the beginning of the
journey, I feel like actuallygoes back to my childhood and
how I was raised. So I'moriginally from Michigan, and I
grew up working in my dad'shardware store. So I joke that
I've been a retail really sinceI could walk and talk because
(03:05):
our family vacay like classicjust like, you know, middle
class Midwest, our familyvacations weren't to like Disney
World, or like classic 1990sdestinations. No, we went to the
Ace Hardware shows as our as ourfamily vacation. So instead of
seeing Mickey Mouse, you know, Iwas seeing the lever display,
(03:28):
the ACE shows. But I think thatthe more obvious journey is that
I did work for Amazon corporate.
And I work for their mediagroup, specifically back in
2015. And it was there that Isaw the opportunity and was
inspired to be able to helpbrands tame, or at least take on
(03:49):
the retail beast, and make itmore of an opportunity versus a
threat. And obviously, I thinkthe the tone has shifted in
recent years, but you go back510 years ago, even brands such
as retailers saw Amazon as athreat versus, you know, hey,
(04:11):
this can actually be a hugeopportunity. And those that
jumped on it early, of course,reap the benefits. And what I
love about it is it's verydynamic. It's always changing
things that were applicable andworked even 18 months ago are no
longer delivering those sameresults. And I think that's what
(04:35):
makes digital marketing ingeneral. Such a cool industry to
be a part of,
Krystal Proffitt (04:41):
oh my gosh, I have 1000 questions because I
can tell you that from just thedifferent like, in my small
circle, right, because I mean,let's be honest, I'm a homebody
I don't get out much I don't doa lot of social things. I mean,
who does anymore but
Laura Meyer (04:56):
I should also know I left New York City and you Now
I live on a 400 acre farm withmy husband and our daughter and
two dogs. So it's amazing.
That's amazing. Some backgroundnoise, I'm not gonna lie. All
right,
Krystal Proffitt (05:11):
it's all right. We love it around here.
But I mean, I'm just thinkingabout my small group. That's
pretty tight knit. And I'mthinking my husband wanted to do
drop shipping stuff on amazonbefore, like tested that I have
friends that recently in thelast two years have started
doing like, I think it's calledthe DSP or it's like they have
(05:31):
the fleet vehicles, like I betpeople listening to this right
now know, someone that has triedsomething on Amazon, whether it
was, you know, selling their ownstuff, or working with other,
you know, other companies to getsomething up and going. But with
that being said, what is likethe thing that really drives you
(05:52):
to go all in on Amazon? BecauseI feel like there's some people
that are hesitant. There'speople listening right now that
have small businesses, they havedigital businesses, and maybe
they're like, I don't know if Icould do that, like it feels
scary to them. So is thatsomething that you've
encountered along your journey?
And just working with Amazon orworking with other small
(06:13):
business owners?
Laura Meyer (06:16):
Yeah, absolutely.
So I think there's a commontrend in digital in the digital
landscape in general, which isthe overwhelming lack of
bandwidth that most businessowners have. And whether it's
Amazon, whether it's Shopify,whether it's TikTok, all of
these opportunities requirededicated resources. So I think
(06:40):
really, the question to ask is,you know, what is your
overarching strategic plan? Andwhat do you want your primary
sales channels to be for yourbusiness for your brand, because
now Amazon is a maturemarketplace, where it can't be
an afterthought, it can be, oh,let me just throw some products
(07:04):
up on Amazon and see whathappens. But I'm still going to
be spending 99% of my time onthese other initiatives. If you
want to do Amazon, and you wantto do it, right, you have to
allocate the resources. So whatthat can mean is you can
obviously hire an agency, or afreelancer you like, like if
(07:26):
you're a small business, Upworkis actually a great resource for
that. But my advice is,especially as a business leader,
is to educate yourself first.
And I think it's reallyimportant, especially if you do
go the route of hiring, externalsupport, to make sure that
(07:47):
you're not getting scammed. AndI hate saying that, because I'm
coming from the service angle.
But you know, there's someamazing players out there. But
there's also some not so greatplayers. And you want to make
sure if you're spending thatmoney is, especially as a small
business, that you're gettingthat return on investment. So by
educating yourself taking thetime to get to know the channel,
(08:08):
you can then manage a serviceprovider or manage an employee
to harness the opportunity ofthe channel. And by the way,
this is the case for social thisis the case for Shopify, like,
even if you can No, you know, 2%of what you really need to know,
(08:30):
but it's at a high level viewthat will take you a really far
route is being successful onthat platform,
Krystal Proffitt (08:40):
where you said that about the competitors and
you know, are not necessarilycompetitors, the people that are
doing they're in it for thewrong reasons are in it to scam
people. Is there anything thatis like a red flag to you that
you see that you're like, oh, mygosh, our company would never do
that. Or we would never approachsomebody that way. Like, like,
like, tell us the things to lookout for if we're going to start
(09:01):
researching this, because I canimagine there's 1000 things.
Look, I
Laura Meyer (09:06):
probably should have used the word scam because
that makes it sound like it's aCD industry. There are like I
said, there are some reallyamazing players. I have
fantastic relationships withother Amazon agency owners,
because in a weird way, we'reall in this crazy ride together.
And the landscape is alwayschanging. And there's this weird
(09:28):
camaraderie right of we're alldealing with these wild
curveballs. And also, I mean,there's enough fish in the sea
for us all to really havesuccessful businesses. But in
terms of red flags, I think thebiggest advice and this is
applicable to hiring any vendoris I would always ask during the
(09:53):
sales process, you know, who ismy main point of contact going
to be and can I meet with thembefore we sign So what often
happens in a lot oforganizations is the CEO sells
you, they're superknowledgeable. And then you have
a junior person placed on youraccount, who may not be super
motivated, who may not be asknowledgeable. So like one thing
(10:16):
we always offer is meet andgreets with the account
management team before we getstarted, not every client wants
that, but I always have it as anoption, should they be
interested? I think the otherthing is just asking for
references. I know that's likeseems so obvious. But in this
day and age, do your own duediligence of reaching out to
(10:40):
those references, asking themquestions, asking them tough
questions like, Where could theyimprove as an organization? What
would you change? Like, youdon't always have to ask the
very positive fluffy questionsreally want to get to the meat.
And honestly, like, anotherthing you can totally do is see
(11:01):
who they list on their websiteas clients, go to LinkedIn and
send some DMs to be like, Hey,we're thinking about maybe
hiring this agency, your yourlogos on their website, curious,
you know, if you're the rightperson to speak to, and if they
were a great partner for you.
Krystal Proffitt (11:20):
Now, that's awesome. That's awesome. And I
totally agree, like duediligence for for anybody, you
know, you mentioned, kind oflike social media managers, but
the thing I just kept sayingabout my website, like if I were
hiring someone to do my website,like even some of the most basic
things like we just gotta crossour t's and dot our eyes. Yeah,
I almost said that backwards,but we're good. But you know, we
(11:40):
just have to double check thatthe people that we're working
with are legitimate and knowwhat they're talking about. And
I think it's just like, it's socool that you have this really
unique perspective on Amazon,because everybody that's
listening right now, they'vebought something on Amazon,
they've had an Amazonexperience, like, we all know
that it is constantly changing,you know, they introduce one
(12:01):
click, and like all the otherlike, I can't say their names,
but the other devices that wehave, like there's so many
different things that have comeon the scene in just the last
five years that I can onlyimagine how much it's kind of
gone up and down and all around.
But the thing that I reallycurious about is if someone's
listening, and they're justgetting started, what is the
(12:21):
thing that requires the heaviestlift to even get started on
Amazon? Like, do you need astorefront? First, do you need
your product? Do you need yourlike, what is the thing that
they have to figure out? Beforethey even know if Amazon and
selling on Amazon is a good fitfor them?
Laura Meyer (12:44):
There are so many research tools out there to see
like, number one, is there evena demand for this product on
Amazon. So thinking aboutAmazon, you have to think of it
as the largest shopping searchengine out there. It's not a
traditional retailer wherethere's end caps, there's
(13:05):
merchandising, so if you havethis really unique out there
product, it still getsvisibility. If you have a
product that no one is searchingfor, you won't sell any units
unless you invest a ton inadvertising, and really have to
have that brand awarenessbudget, which let's be honest,
unless you're VC backed, it'sprobably not a reality. Yeah.
(13:27):
And also, as we've seen in thelast year, you know, studying
money without having aprofitable business seems to
that bubble seems to have poppeda little bit which I am a big
advocate for classic businessfundamentals, you can obviously
go in the red for a period butyou need to have a path to the
(13:49):
green. So I think when it whenit when it comes to getting
started on Amazon, number one isthe product is the product, a
good fit for Amazon, if you areselling a haircare line, and
you're supposed to take a quizand it's custom, by the results
of the quiz, you may not be agood candidate for Amazon
(14:11):
because it's not a really acustomizable platform at this
point. If you have a reallyexpensive item, also probably
not a good match. And the otherthing is on the flip side is if
you've ever really commoditizedproduct and you don't have a
unique differentiator is goingto be tough, unless once again
(14:34):
you can compete on price, or youhave a very healthy ad budget.
So I from a fundamentalstandpoint, it always starts
with the product. The secondthing is the inventory planning
and I think for a lot of smallbusinesses. This can be a
challenge because obviouslybuying inventory is a big cash
(14:58):
constraint and And it's theeducated guess of the century
when you're trying to buildthese forecasts of allocating
the cash that you have to buythe inventory and to buy the
right inventory. And then tosell through that inventory. So
you have more cash to buy moreinventory, and so forth. But
really thinking it throughbecause a mistake I've seen some
(15:20):
smaller businesses make is theythink they can just pull their
Amazon inventory from whatthey've projected for maybe
their wholesale or their D to Cchannel. And the problem with
that is, if Amazon does reallystart to take off, then you go
out of stock. And going out ofstock on Amazon is a kiss of
(15:41):
death. There is a rumored sayingout there that for every day,
you're out of stock on Amazon,you lose relevancy by you lose
four days of relevancy. So whatthat means is because it's a
giant shopping, search engine,SEO or Search Engine
(16:02):
Optimization is a huge componentof your visibility and driving
sales. So if you do all of thiswork, all of this marketing, to
get to page one for keywordthat's super important for your
product, and you go out ofstock, you essentially have to
and you're out of stock for along period, you essentially
(16:22):
have to do a relaunch, and I'veseen businesses never really be
able to fully recover from that.
Krystal Proffitt (16:27):
Wow. It's so cool, because I feel like you're
giving us like the behind thescenes like lingo and like the
cool things like, no, yes, yes.
No, this is so good. Because Ithink that having your
perspective because like I said,most people listening only have
the perspective of being aconsumer, or maybe really
looking at Amazon from a digitalmarketing perspective, like, Can
(16:50):
I do this? And I love that youmentioned SEO, I love talking
about SEO on here. It's soimportant. But it's one of those
things that I feel like it'sthis big mystery, because we've
heard for a long time that we'vegot to optimize for Google and
search engines. And I lovetaking some of those same
applications and thinking aboutthem in Amazon as the largest
(17:11):
shopping search engine. And withthat, I'm so curious, because I
actually I was checking out, youknow, I was doing my due
diligence, I was looking at yourwebsite earlier. And I love the
idea of kind of not puttingeverything in your basket when
it comes to Amazon, but havingthat digital marketing, feeding
with your website, and Amazonand all of that. So can you kind
(17:34):
of explain that strategy,because I can imagine the people
listening to this like mylisteners, they're content
creators, like at their core,that is their marketing funnel
for their business. They'redoing podcasts are doing social,
they're doing blogs, they'redoing email newsletters, so they
understand the importance ofSEO, but I can see them right
now. They're like, well, if I'mgoing to talk about on my
(17:58):
podcast, do I need to send themdirectly to Amazon? Do I need to
send them to my website? Like,do you have any input on the
strategy that they could followfor something like that?
Laura Meyer (18:10):
Absolutely. Well, so I think the first thing that
clarify is an Amazon SEOstrategy is very different than
a Google SEO strategy. And thereare of course tactics to
leverage Google SEO to drivemore Amazon SEO interest. So
Amazon SEO is very unit solddriven, in my experience. So
(18:35):
what that means is Amazon'salgorithm tends to reward and
give more visibility to not thehighest revenue grossing
products, but the products thatmove the most units, which to
some brands that's actually verydifferent than a lot of
retailers, right. But Amazonwants that replenishment, build
(18:56):
the addiction, as we've allseen, or experienced ourselves.
And then there's also all of acopywriting and the titles and
the bullet points and thingsalong those lines. Where
everything you do on Google, inmy opinion, I actually think
Google SEO is a lot morechallenging than Amazon. Because
(19:16):
I just feel like there's so manymore level levers that you can
pull. But we are seeingsomething interesting right now,
where external traffic seems tobe weighted more heavily in
Amazon's algorithm, and they'rerewarding external traffic more.
And in fact, they even launcheda program back in 20. I think it
(19:41):
was July 21. Maybe it's a littlebit later in the year, but it's
called the Amazon brand referralbonus, where they'll actually
send you or pay you as thebusiness 10% For external
traffic that you drive to AmazonAnd I'm sure that this is a
(20:02):
tactic on their end because likeevery marketer right now, we're
all trying to figure out how wecan acquire customers
profitably. And Google andAmazon have a complicated
relationship. And Amazon andFacebook have a complicated
relationship. Oh, yeah. So whynot have the brands be the
(20:23):
influencers of the trafficinstead of Amazon going out and
buying that traffic?
Krystal Proffitt (20:29):
So this is so interesting, like we I felt like
we just opened Pandora's box,because like you said, it's
like, all the giants of themedia space, the shopping space
consumerism, like, it all reallycomes down to being a savvy
marketer. And that means so manydifferent than I think being a
digital marketer is acomplicated relationship,
(20:51):
because I feel like you can bereally awesome in one very
specific way, make maybe it'scontent creation for somebody
that's listening to this. Butthey're, they hear SEO, and they
want to pull their head likeunder the covers and say, I
don't want to do it like Ican't. It's too much. It's
really hard. And I think thatit's just going to continue to
(21:13):
evolve and change as the worlddoes. And I'm really curious to
know, like, what do you see asfar as Amazon trends like going
in the future? And I don't knowif that's really a question for
a business owner or more fromthe consumer side? Or maybe it's
one of the two. But do you haveany insight on what we can kind
(21:34):
of expect to see, I mean, thisepisode, like, just a
disclaimer, we're recording thisbefore the holidays. But this is
going to be after the holidayswhenever it goes live. So maybe
you have some insights so thatwe can put into 2023 is holiday,
you know, Black Friday, whatevershopping. But do you have any
insights?
Laura Meyer (21:55):
Yeah, well, I think, to me, it's obvious, but
it's probably new to a lot ofyour listeners, which is that
Amazon is going to become amajor media player as we move
forward. So their media businesshas grown year over year, like,
what their media business istoday is lightyears ahead of
(22:15):
what it was when I initiallyworked there back in 2015. And
it's interesting because youdon't actually think of Amazon
competing directly for the addollars that Google and Facebook
are competing for. But now theyare. And now there's even upper
funnel marketing opportunities,meaning now that Amazon is more
(22:38):
into the streaming channels,they have the relationship with
the NFL, I forget how manybillions or hundreds of millions
of dollars they paid for thatThursday night football deal.
But like one of my predictionsis that as Amazon becomes more
dominant, as a media player, Ithink maybe one day you'll even
(22:59):
be able to buy a Superbowl adthrough Amazon's media network.
And the reason why Amazon hasthe power to be such a leader
here is that they have so muchdata on us in terms of our
shopping habits. In terms of theaddress, the deliveries are
(23:20):
going to like there's so muchwhere Google obviously knows
what you're searching, Amazonknows what you're buying, which
is way more transactional. AndFacebook, you know, they were
able to do a lot of cookietracking as well and building
really effective audience lookalike segments. But what Amazon
(23:41):
has to offer, I think it's justso much more data rich, and will
continue to be able to providevery targeted messaging for
brands. So I think that's oneprediction that is already
showing face that it's going tooccur. But you know, the thing
(24:03):
is Meadows definitely introuble. That's no secret. I
don't think it's unlikely thatAmazon could surpass Meadows
media business if they don't gettheir act in order to be honest.
The other big thing that'shappening and this has also been
a trend for years, but it'sbecoming even more evident is
(24:26):
when Amazon launched as a retailor E commerce business. They
were buying inventory wholesale.
So they took a vendorrelationship. And in the last
five years, the marketplacebusiness model has become more
and more dominant. And thereason this is really cool is it
allows smaller businesses thesame opportunity as a vendor
(24:50):
like one of the big hurdles forbusinesses that want to get into
Target or Ulta or Sephora rot isthat wholesale dynamic where you
spend all this time and moneypitching your product sending
samples, and nothing. Amazonfrom a third party marketplace,
you are in full control. It'sessentially the DTC model, but
(25:13):
with an existing audience, andthat is so powerful in itself.
So I actually foreseen thevendor side of Amazon's business
continuing to shrink in terms ofthe number of businesses working
with vendor, and more and morebusinesses moving to the
marketplace, or what's calledseller central business model.
(25:35):
Okay, I have I have. Yeah, goahead. Go ahead, go. Well, I
think the other third predictionis that Amazon is, they've
always been a huge logisticsplayer for their own channel.
But now they're really likethree pls. If you're a small
business, and you've tried towork with a three PL in the last
(25:57):
two years, there are not a lotof good three peels
Krystal Proffitt (26:02):
out there. So it's fine. But that is real
fast. So somebody,
Laura Meyer (26:06):
a third party logistics partner. So when you
sell things online, you need awarehouse to pick pack and ship
your product out. And PrimeAmazon Prime, what made them so
successful is the two dayshipping. Their infrastructure
for logistics, is world class.
In fact, it's probably out ofthis world, like how
(26:27):
sophisticated it is. And theaverage 3.3 pl is not on their
level. And once again, like Isympathize for a lot of the
three pls because I think thatthey had struggle staffing their
warehouses the last few yearsbecause of COVID. Because of the
just boom, that happened in Ecomm. But a lot of three fields
(26:50):
can be really unreliable. So ifanyone knows of good three
peels, I'm all yours because Iget asked this a lot. And I get
like years ago, I gaverecommendations to a three PL
and it hit me in the butt,because they didn't get
inventory out and they ended uplosing the client. So maybe I'm
just a little extra salty fromthat. But I think that they'll
(27:11):
continue to be a huge logisticspartner, not only for Amazon
orders, but for a lot of onlineorders overall.
Krystal Proffitt (27:22):
Yeah, oh my gosh, like I, I love the talk of
kind of where it's been, wherewe're going like the present
day, but also the future likeit's, it's almost like future
pacing us for what we need topay attention to. Because I know
that there's a lot of peoplelistening right now, it's the
beginning of the year, andthey're thinking about, okay, I
(27:44):
really want to do something bigin my business. And I know that
there's a lot of people that arereally focusing on like, How can
I take my business to the nextlevel? And what does that look
like? And I feel like Amazon isone of those things, because so
many of us are in the digitalspace, like we got into this
because we're like, I don't haveto have inventory, I can have
(28:05):
products that are purelydigital. And so if somebody's
listening to this right now, andthey're thinking, I might want
to try this, but I'm also scaredto invest a tenant inventory,
just like what you were saying,like they have this like, I
don't know how to forecast this.
They've never had any sort ofretail, they've never had a
storefront. They've never donebrick and mortar, like, Do you
(28:26):
have any advice for them? Andhow to approach it without
totally coming up? Like, I mean,without wasting at all? Like, I
know that sounds silly, becausehopefully you're re listening,
you know, better, you knowbetter, you know what a safe
investment is for you. But I'mjust curious if I were coming to
you, Laura. And I'm like Laura,I want to get an Amazon. And
(28:49):
I've got like $20,000 that Iwant to invest in, I want to
find a really good product. Whatwould you say?
Laura Meyer (28:57):
Well, I think the first thing is I always like to
take a step back, right? And asklike, what are the goals for
your business in the next threeyears? And is launching on
Amazon aligned with those goals?
Or is it a shiny object? Becauseas entrepreneurs and I am guilty
of this times over, right, wesee shiny things, we see things
(29:19):
that generate revenue, and we goafter them, but maybe it's not
the right decision for ourbusiness model. So I think
that's the first thing is if youaren't in inventory business,
but you want to become one,making sure that it aligns with
your business model. And I thinklike a great example of a
(29:41):
business that has done this andI guess disclosure I'm a like a
small angel investment in themis a beauty brand that launched
earlier this year called Diorand they were a media and
content company for severalyears. So they built this loyal
audience, they had thisfollowing. And by the way, this
(30:04):
is also what glossier did, too.
And then they introducedproducts, but they made that
commitment, they overhauled thewebsite, like they really leaned
into it. My advice is, if youaren't ready to really lean into
it, and have it be your biggrowth opportunity, or one of
(30:27):
your growth pillars, I alwayslike to think of how to be
between one and three growthpillars that you foster. That
don't do it, right. But if youwant to make that leap, one, if
you have this audience thatyou've harnessed through your
content, you want to make surethat it's going to be a product
(30:48):
that will appeal to thatexisting audience. Otherwise,
you might as well just start asecond entity and do that. And
then finding a good manufactureris not easy, you may have the
best idea in the world. But ifyou can't find the right
manufacturing partner, it willbe really challenging. And with
(31:12):
the example you gave of a$20,000 investment, that right
there is going to limit yourpool of what manufacturers will
take you on. Yeah, and I've donesome negotiations with
manufacturing, I do have my ownmen's undershirt business that
I've run for five years now. Butwhen you work with
(31:36):
manufacturers, it's a mutualinterview. It's not just you
vetting them, they're alsobetting you and if, as a small
business, they're willing totake the risk. And in the last
two years, it's been reallychallenging for smaller
businesses to find goodmanufacturers, because they were
so overwhelmed, because a lot ofmanufacturing moved from
(31:57):
overseas to domestic, right.
Yeah. So I think that's a bigthing. And you know, if
possible, like, really try andavoid buying just like generic
things off of Alibaba,repackaging it, you can do it,
if you have a loyal audience,you can maybe make some quick
cash on it, sell it on Etsy,whatever. But that's not in
general going to be a scalableproduct, or like I would I
(32:22):
talked about earlier, like aproduct that really has
differentiating value.
Krystal Proffitt (32:29):
Yeah. Oh, my gosh, like you just you have so
much like you're a wealth ofknowledge about this. And I like
I said, I could just ask you1000 More questions. But I know
that there is one that everybodylistening has right now. And I'm
sure you have a very strongopinion on it. What do you think
about reviews? How important arereviews on Amazon? Reviews are
Laura Meyer (32:51):
crucial, they are so important. And it's really a
point of frustration for me,because it's it's, it's a double
edged sword, because you needreviews to be successful. But
Amazon really puts limitationson what you can do to generate
reviews. So what ends uphappening, we do everything by
(33:14):
the books. But you occasionallysee these headlines that come
out of, you know, millions ofreviews being removed from
Amazon, because 1000s of sellerswere doing wrongful strategies
to generate those reviews. Soonce again, goes back to my
earlier point is the best way toget a lot of reviews have a
(33:38):
great product have great brandloyalty, Amazon does have the
volume program, which is $200 toenroll per parent products, and
then you can give up to 30 unitsaway for free. That program is
fine. More recently, I feel likethe Viper viewers have like
(34:01):
these this weird chip on theirshoulder. Because we've seen
cases where they get a reallydecent product. And they still
give it three star being likegood product but too expensive.
And then like you got thisproduct for free. Commenting on
the price, it just makes nosense. So I always like to set
the expectation just because youdo the Prime program doesn't
(34:23):
mean you're gonna get the bestreviews. It's it's unique cohort
that's that's a part of the vineprogram. Now there are
software's out there like one ofthe software functionalities
that my company has is where itdoes the automated trigger
requests for the reviews thatwork some but in most cases
(34:45):
people ignore it right, right.
And Amazon now has kind of graypolicy if you can do inserts or
not. So we just advise ourclients it's not worth the rest.
So don't do inserts because somebrands were pushing the envelope
In their messaging on thoseinserts. So yeah, it's a real
challenge. You can't just importreviews from your posts that you
(35:07):
have on your DTSC or some otherrevenue generator to Amazon,
they only accept their reviews.
Krystal Proffitt (35:17):
Oh, this is so interesting, especially I was I
think it was on a LinkedInarticle or something they were
talking about, that your Amazonthird party sellers will be able
to email you. Is that somethingthat was like a rumored thing?
Or is that, like I remember itwas in the context of like,
after you make a purchase, theywould get your email, and I
(35:37):
started thinking about it. AndI'm like, Well, I bought
something that was $3. And itwas like something for our
kitchen sink. I don't care. LikeI will probably never buy that
again, unless it breaks again.
And I don't care about that. Isthis something that was just a
rumor? Or do you have anyinformation about that.
Laura Meyer (35:54):
So what I do know is that during Amazon ik celery,
they announced a program whereon the storefront, if you follow
a brand, they can essentially doemail marketing. But that's more
for product announcements, okay,engagements, less like the whole
(36:16):
review the review thing, I didalso hear a rumor about trying
to that they were setting uplike a live chat function where
brands could like live chat withthe customer instead of Amazon.
But I'm gonna be perfectlyhonest, I don't know a whole
bunch about that. Because withmy business, there's so many
(36:40):
moving parts for small, but wereally try and put the customer
service piece on the brands tomanage because most of the
brands that we work with, theyhave successful DTC, they have
successful brick and mortardistribution. So they already
have a customer service team inplace. We just advise their
customer service team on whatthose best practices are.
Krystal Proffitt (37:03):
Yeah. And that makes sense, especially because
it's, it seems like it's likeyou don't know what people are
doing in Amazon, you could bethe 17th thing that someone has
in their cart, and then they'reactually mad about something
else that's happening on theplatform that has nothing to do
with you too. So it's like kindof seems like a little murky
water?
Laura Meyer (37:21):
Well, and I've definitely seen this over the
years, right, where the brandgets a message from a customer
demanding to know where theirproduct is. Well, Amazon's been
handling the logistics, right?
It's actually not on the brandto know where it is.
Krystal Proffitt (37:36):
I mean, I could just see like 1000
loopholes and different things.
That could be tricky. But that'swhy y'all should hire Laura, if
you're thinking about doingthis, because her business like
that's what it is. So tell us alittle bit about your agency and
what you do to work with brands.
And if somebody's listeningright now, and they're
interested in all asking you1000 More questions, then what
(38:00):
was that? What would that looklike?
Laura Meyer (38:02):
Yeah, definitely.
So my business has continued toexpand in terms of our service
offering, our core. And whatwe're known for is our full
service, Amazon management,meaning we're helping with the
inventory piece, the creativepiece, the troubleshooting
piece, the media buying piece,the SEO, like, the list goes on,
it's very dynamic. And then wealso have our own brand
(38:27):
management software called byhorizon. So I'm very fortunate
that I married a computerscience engineer, so my husband
helped lead that project.
Although now we have a full teamthat's executing on that. And
the goal of this was to reallymake Amazon much more user
(38:50):
friendly from a data analyticsperspective. There, there could
be a whole other podcast. Sowhat metrics you should be
tracking as it pertains toselling on Amazon. But
essentially, we've used thevarious API's that Amazon has,
in order to build our software.
And our goal is to automatebrand management. So helping
(39:10):
smaller businesses that aredoing it themselves have the
same tools that our agency does.
Because typically, for theagency side of the business, you
know, we're working with brandsthat already do a million
dollars a year on Amazon. Andit's our goal to take them to
(39:31):
1015 20 million over a multiyear engagement. So there's that
and then we also do influencermarketing, but specifically for
driving traffic to Amazon. Soalso, we're always building a
Rolodex of content creators. Soif that's of interest, I'll plug
(39:52):
that too. And then the otherexpansion that's super
interesting is just the retailmedia landscape. tape in
general. So Walmart obviouslyhas copy and pasted Amazon's
business plan for theiradvertising, target Walmart, or
sorry, Walgreens, CVS, theypartnered with Criteo to be able
(40:16):
to provide paid searchadvertising on their websites.
So now what we're really lookingat is for our clients with large
media spends, finding that nextdollar of investment where they
get the best return. So youknow, we could spend this dollar
on Amazon, we could spend thisdollar on Walmart, or we could
(40:37):
spend it on Walgreens, CVStarget, and building those media
plans and making thoseinvestments which that's a whole
nother beast, but it's superinteresting.
Krystal Proffitt (40:49):
This is so awesome. Like I said, I just, I
could geek out on all the othermarketing questions and like
just business and I mean, yousaid that about metrics. And I'm
like destice, like who is like,I've like salivating over the
word metrics. I'm like, thatsounds so sexy. Like, it sounds
amazing. And
Laura Meyer (41:07):
talk LTV is the CDR we got it.
Krystal Proffitt (41:12):
Yeah, all the things, all the things. Oh, my
gosh, this is so awesome. Well,Laura, I appreciate all the
things that you have shared. ButI want to wrap up with, I have
some rapid fire questions. Soare you for those?
Laura Meyer (41:25):
I don't know, I'm five months pregnant. So
pregnancy brain so we'll see if
Krystal Proffitt (41:31):
you'll be good, you'll be good. There's
just three and they're supersimple. Okay. The first one is
what piece of advice would yougive to? It's typically a brand
new podcaster or contentcreator. But in this sense, what
advice would you give to someonethat's looking to start on
Amazon?
Laura Meyer (41:50):
Well, whether it's content or whether it's product,
you need to have something thatsets you apart.
Krystal Proffitt (41:56):
Yeah, that's great. That's great. Okay, the
next one is a two part question.
So what is a dream podcast youwould love to be on? And if you
had the opportunity, who is yourdream podcast? Guest you'd like
to interview?
Laura Meyer (42:11):
Okay, I would love to be on Tim Ferriss, because
that is just I mean, and I'msure that's such a basic answer.
But I've been listening to TimFerriss since I was in college.
So I guess I have some legacythere. And who I would love on
my own podcast and who I have amajor professional girl crush on
(42:31):
is Sara Blakely. also probably abasic answer, but I feel like
I've been following herreligiously before. I think she
went mainstream. Like literallybeen following her since
probably, I graduated college aswell. So I also just think she's
so fun and down to earth. Andshe's herself, right she is not
(42:52):
what the corporate world wantsto morph a lot of people into
and I that really resonates withme.
Krystal Proffitt (42:59):
I feel like I want to meet her and say you had
me at tequila and cheesesbecause this is if you don't
know this about Sara Blakely,just go look her up on
Instagram. She's amazing tofollow there. Okay, my last
question is, do you consideryourself a perfectionist?
Laura Meyer (43:15):
No. I mean, my mother would probably say that
because she thinks sometimes I'mtoo critical. But I think one
thing that I've observed just inlife, is you kind of have to
pick and choose what where youare Type A. So yes, there are
certain things where I will be aperfectionist, but I have also
(43:37):
learned in life. Sometimes youjust have to let things go. Like
I did a whole renovation on mymaster bathroom. And I noticed a
month later that the embeddedmedicine cabinets are like we
have his and hers. They're likehalf an inch off from one
another. You just gotta let thatyou just got to live life a
(43:59):
little bit. You know? Initially,it was irritating, but now I
don't. I've moved on.
Krystal Proffitt (44:05):
Yes, yes. Oh my gosh, this is so good. Well,
thank you so much, Laura, forall the wisdom that you shared
today. I know people are goingto be going back and listening
to this. But wait, what didLaura say? Again? Like what?
What I need to go back and seelike what was her
recommendation? But if someone'slistening and they want to work
with you learn more about youwhat is the best place for them
(44:26):
to find you.
Laura Meyer (44:28):
The best place is LinkedIn. That's where I do my
content creation. So pleasefollow. And yeah, you can also
just go to our website envisionhorizons.com. And we have our
inquiry form there. So veryactive on LinkedIn. You send me
a DM I am Sir. I live onLinkedIn.
Krystal Proffitt (44:50):
Okay, awesome.
We will have links to all ofthat in the show notes. But
thank you again so much forcoming on the show today. This
was awesome.
Laura Meyer (44:58):
It was my pleasure.
Thank you for having me.
Krystal Proffitt (45:00):
It was such a good interview, right? It just,
it was so awesome. Like, thewhole time I was listening back
to it. I was thinking, What canI sell on Amazon, right? Because
Laura makes it seem so easy andso fun. And I just I loved her
interview so much. And this isactually something that my
husband says, for a long time,like I can remember, we used to
(45:24):
live in this small town in EastTexas. And I can still like
vividly See, we're standing inour guest room which doubled as
like a guestroom a baby bed,like the crib was in there in an
office like it was one of thosemultipurpose rooms. And we were
like, well, what are we evendoing because we lived in this
small house. But I rememberstanding there. And he said to
(45:48):
me, I think I want to sellknives sharpeners on Amazon. And
I remember thinking, What areyou talking about? Like, what
are you even talking about, andhe has been trying to find
something that is going to workfor what he's interested in
which knives sharpening likethose that didn't pan out. It
(46:09):
didn't work for us. But we'vebeen thinking about this since
2014 2015. And so I can tell youthat having a business on Amazon
is kind of like doing YouTube orcreating content or having a
podcast, it's one of thosethings that I bet if you're
listening to this, you'vethought about it in some
(46:31):
capacity. And if you have andyou want help with it, talk to
Laura, go reach out to her, I'mgonna have all her information
linked in the show notes. Somake sure you go check those
out. But go check out envisionhorizons, which is her company,
and go check out what they cando for you because they've been
named in the top 18 Amazonadvertising agencies from
(46:54):
Business Insider, and theysupport people that are in the
beauty space, baby and healthhousehold brands, but they
really represent people from allcategories. So if this is
something that you've been likenoodling around with that idea,
you're like, I don't know, thatsounds like it could be fun. It
sounds like it would be like theperfect addition, right, the
(47:16):
next channel, or the route tomarket that your product or
services could really benefitfrom like, if you, you know,
because I've thought about this,too. Whenever I was really going
hardcore into podcasting, Ithought, why don't I put
together a bundle on Amazon, andreally just fill it with my
(47:36):
favorite products, and have theability to highlight those in a
really specific way. Now, that'snot me selling my own products.
But it's me taking another stepinto the door of working on
Amazon and creating businessesthat really complement what
you're doing and other aspectsof your business. So fun. Please
(48:01):
go check out Laura. And I hopethat you learned something
today. If not, you reallyenjoyed her story about just
what you can do what you can dowhen you get creative you think
outside the box, and it was justso fun. It was so fun. Thank you
so much Laura again, becausethis was such a great interview.
(48:21):
But that's all I have for youtoday. So if this is your first
time tuning in, make sure youhit the follow or subscribe
button wherever you're listeningto this podcast. And as always
remember, keep it up. We allhave to start somewhere
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