Welcome to the fifth iteration of my Q&A on all things digital. Ask any question below and I’ll answer over the Sun-Mon. If I don’t know, I’ll do my best to point you in the right direction or state that I don’t know.
This Q&A will be open for 48 hours and I’ll be answering them intermittently throughout Sunday-Monday.
Questions asked tonight will be answered tomorrow when I get back to my computer. (Headed to the airport soon)
1. Highly dependent on the product. Market where your customers are. Dog sweater vests is going to have an entirely different marketing strategy than creatine. You're (likely) going to want to focus on brand awareness and hence social. However, if you're selling charging cords, brand awareness is almost useless since it's a commodity. There's no one size fits all marketing strategy.
2. Very similar to #1. Depends on the product. Start with what your competitors sucks at and is a pain point. This could be anything from CX, price, prestige, formula, etc. This needs to show through in your marketing and sales copy. Take hair brushes that promise "no more tears". They're playing on parents annoyance of their daughter crying and whining every time they have to brush her hair.
3. If you can find a local manufacturer with close to similar prices, go local. You're going to have less chance getting rugged, *less* supply chain issues, and less of a communication barrier. Unfortunately, most of the time, local manufacturers just aren't an option for a lot of products.
Social marketing seems reasonable. One thing I struggle to get grips with is how to grow a brand social account from zero followers, what would your strategy be? Moreover, what kind of content should a brand social post in your opinion?
This is going to be highly dependent on your product/brand positioning. Am I selling hamburgers or supplements? Jack in the Box makes fun of Mcdonalds on Tik Tok. Supplement brands are more lifestyle and aspirational on Instagram. Trojan makes sex jokes on Twitter.
Start looking at what other brands are doing, figure out where your audience is, and start doing whatever it takes to get exposure.
I recently set up an ecommerce store (ran successful demand test with paid traffic) and am waiting for my product to be manufactured (expected to arrive late November). What should I be doing in the meantime? I assume trying to get organic traffic with social posts/blogs. But anything else I should prepare before I start running paid traffic again?
If the website is already built and the proof of concept is there, you're good to go. There's a few things you can do if you're twiddling your thumbs. (I'd know more with knowing the product)
1. With the social traffic, start collecting emails for the launch. You can incentivize email collection with a discount for the signups that happen before launch.
2. Start collaborating with blogs/social influencers/accounts. So when you launch, you get do a major push and get as much exposure as possible.
3. Get your shipping and CS process down. You're going to have customer service issues/product issues, figure out how you're going to handle them now. Is product tracking built seamlessly into your process so customers aren't emailing you "where's my product?"
4. Along with #3, plan your post purchase customer experience. What emails are you going to send them. How are you going to follow up and upsell/repeat purchase? How are you going to incentivize them to leave reviews, be brand evangelists for you, and keep them engaged.
5. Get your cart abandonment flow set up to pull customers back in that didn't pull the trigger.
Realistically, how long does it take to setup a website. Even with no knowledge (assuming you aren't 60), if you bang your head off of the keyboard, it shouldn't take but a week. (excluding the content creation)
Etsy - I don't know. Never used it but I have a friend that does well accounting for the fact that she does *0* marketing for the product.
Amazon - You're going to have the same (worse) problem as with a website. You still have to create all of the enhanced brand content, get reviews, and get organic rankings.
While you can rank quicker on Amazon than you can on Google (if you know what you're doing), conversion is still heavily dependent on reviews and content. If you go the paid ads route with no reviews, your conversion isn't going to be great, so your test won't be as valid.
So as a test, no I don't think you should just test on Amazon with a new account/product. If you plan to sell on .com and Amazon (*you should*), then definitely get started with Amazon before the site is live.
Completely possible dependent on your goals. There are 3 avenues ranked in terms of risk reward profile.
1. Get connected with some small-scale PE guys that are buying brands to run and flip. When I say small-scale, I mean their funds are in the single 7 figure range or low 8 figure range. May have to get a series 7 to be considered an “accredited investor” for this. Depends on your NW.
2. Partner with someone that knows what they’re doing and looking for capital to acquire a company and run it. Hypothetically someone like me. I’m not looking for capital atm though. You’ll get a bigger share of the pie for your $$$ but it would be a smaller brand so there’s more risk.
3. Find someone that has gotten traction or has a lot of potential in their product but just needs an infusion of cash to grow. More risk but also more reward.
Each of these avenues is (mostly) going to be a different social circle of people you’ll be targeting. Define how much risk you’re looking to take and target accordingly.
#1 will get you more “passive income” with a big payout at the end while #2 & #3 are more about the payout at the end.
For a content / review site, what's the best cost-effective way to scale up content writing. Any legs in fiverrs and online contractors to re-write and summarize amazon reviews for orginal content?
I've found good writers/reviewers on Fiverr and Upwork. I've also found a ton of trash. You just have to keep testing out new writers in your price range to find a good one.
You can make money from Amazon review site, but you're likely to make more money from something that has a higher commission.
I recently quit my job in mortgage because I was making 100k but working 9 to 10 hours a day.
Currently I have about 30k saved up and would like to start an ecommerce brand. Should I look for another job or go straight into ecommerce? If the answer is get a job, what is the best way to find a high paying sales job? I have 4 years of sales experience.
You should 100% get another job ASAP and not eat into your savings. 9-10 hours a day seems normal for a corporate job, so I don't know how easy it's going to be for you to find something that much better.
$30k is what you should have to start an ecommerce brand while the job is paying your bills. You can do it for much less but that's the ideal number.
As for landing a high paying sales job, I have no experience in that domain so can't give you an answer. I would advise utilizing your network but I'm going to refer you to BowTiedSalesGuy for that.
How should I think about having categories and tags on my site?
It know each category and tag you set up on your WordPress site will have its own page. I've read you don't want to go overboard with tags because you could have a bunch of extra tag pages that might not be relevant. On my site, I started with a bunch of tags and have since removed them.
I was planning to have a category for each product category in my niche. How do you know if your categories are too specific or too broad? What is the primary long-term goal of establishing these categories?
I only use tags on 1 site I have and it's because I personally need them to filter at a level that categories can't do.
I'd stick to categories and build a semantic tree of what your site is about and have level 2 or 3 be the categories.
Too specific or too broad is going to be based off of how many articles are in each category compared to the others. If one category has 3 articles and another 50, the former is too specific.
In my mind categories serve two purposes.
1. Structure of your site. Being able to filter and divide the site into sections that makes coherent sense and usable for your users.
2. Parsing topical authority of your site down further into niche sections of topical authority for Google. "Doing it for the SEO"
Assuming you don't have a very solid marketing strategy in place for launch. I'd start connecting with websites, influencers, email lists and start striking deals for them to get brand awareness for your product.
If you mean specifically the website, get the website in front of as many people as possible to get feedback. Check the user flow to make it as appealing (copy/salesy) and easy to check out as possible. Relentlessly go through the buyer process to make sure checkout, martech connections, shipping, and CS is ready for launch.
Starting today would be dependent on how much money saved, current income, and knowledge. With no money, low income and zero knowledge, I'd go get a (remote) job in house at a larger ecommerce brand. This assumes you can't get a high paying job in sales. (90k is not a high paying job in sales)
Start an affiliate (or lead gen(harder)) site and learn everything you can about the digital market. Utilize the agencies that work for your company to your advantage and try to find others that also run sites. Many are working at agencies/in house waiting for their projects to get big enough to jump ship. (Do not tell people that you want to escape corporate America to find those people)
Once the affiliate site is off the ground, you've learned a bit, and you've got some money saved up, go the ecommerce route.
As for niche;
Affiliate - Something you know well enough that you can pound out content. Preferably related to software. They have higher payouts than some Amazon affiliate site.
Lead Gen - Same as above. Niche matters less here though. High ticket=high commission.
Ecommerce - High ticket/low competition if it falls in your lap. Ideally you want to go to something that's going to be a repeat purchase and build a brand. Lotion, dog treats, supplements, shampoo, anything that is repeat purchase and you can build loyalty.
I’d like to learn more about Lead Gen, what’s the best source of information to go to?? Is there a community out there you’d point towards? Seems Reddit ect have a lot of people just trying to push courses ect thanks
Best source of information to learn lead gen, like a recommended community? So much trash out there I want to know where the pros went to start out their knowledge base
1. What would be your recommended marketing strategy for a new ecom product?
2. How should I go about the differentiation side of an ecom product.
3. In terms of manufacturing an ecom product, would it be wise to look into alibaba or local manufactuer?
1. Highly dependent on the product. Market where your customers are. Dog sweater vests is going to have an entirely different marketing strategy than creatine. You're (likely) going to want to focus on brand awareness and hence social. However, if you're selling charging cords, brand awareness is almost useless since it's a commodity. There's no one size fits all marketing strategy.
2. Very similar to #1. Depends on the product. Start with what your competitors sucks at and is a pain point. This could be anything from CX, price, prestige, formula, etc. This needs to show through in your marketing and sales copy. Take hair brushes that promise "no more tears". They're playing on parents annoyance of their daughter crying and whining every time they have to brush her hair.
3. If you can find a local manufacturer with close to similar prices, go local. You're going to have less chance getting rugged, *less* supply chain issues, and less of a communication barrier. Unfortunately, most of the time, local manufacturers just aren't an option for a lot of products.
Social marketing seems reasonable. One thing I struggle to get grips with is how to grow a brand social account from zero followers, what would your strategy be? Moreover, what kind of content should a brand social post in your opinion?
This is going to be highly dependent on your product/brand positioning. Am I selling hamburgers or supplements? Jack in the Box makes fun of Mcdonalds on Tik Tok. Supplement brands are more lifestyle and aspirational on Instagram. Trojan makes sex jokes on Twitter.
Start looking at what other brands are doing, figure out where your audience is, and start doing whatever it takes to get exposure.
I recently set up an ecommerce store (ran successful demand test with paid traffic) and am waiting for my product to be manufactured (expected to arrive late November). What should I be doing in the meantime? I assume trying to get organic traffic with social posts/blogs. But anything else I should prepare before I start running paid traffic again?
If the website is already built and the proof of concept is there, you're good to go. There's a few things you can do if you're twiddling your thumbs. (I'd know more with knowing the product)
1. With the social traffic, start collecting emails for the launch. You can incentivize email collection with a discount for the signups that happen before launch.
2. Start collaborating with blogs/social influencers/accounts. So when you launch, you get do a major push and get as much exposure as possible.
3. Get your shipping and CS process down. You're going to have customer service issues/product issues, figure out how you're going to handle them now. Is product tracking built seamlessly into your process so customers aren't emailing you "where's my product?"
4. Along with #3, plan your post purchase customer experience. What emails are you going to send them. How are you going to follow up and upsell/repeat purchase? How are you going to incentivize them to leave reviews, be brand evangelists for you, and keep them engaged.
5. Get your cart abandonment flow set up to pull customers back in that didn't pull the trigger.
6. Remarketing tags and audiences set up.
Damn, I'm digging through the archive for good Q&As as I'm now building my LP to test demand and I keep finding gold like this - you are a legend!
Awesome, thank you for the actionable advice
If you are trying to start an ecommerce brand, is it worth it to test product on Etsy/Amazon while you are working on getting a website setup?
Realistically, how long does it take to setup a website. Even with no knowledge (assuming you aren't 60), if you bang your head off of the keyboard, it shouldn't take but a week. (excluding the content creation)
Etsy - I don't know. Never used it but I have a friend that does well accounting for the fact that she does *0* marketing for the product.
Amazon - You're going to have the same (worse) problem as with a website. You still have to create all of the enhanced brand content, get reviews, and get organic rankings.
While you can rank quicker on Amazon than you can on Google (if you know what you're doing), conversion is still heavily dependent on reviews and content. If you go the paid ads route with no reviews, your conversion isn't going to be great, so your test won't be as valid.
So as a test, no I don't think you should just test on Amazon with a new account/product. If you plan to sell on .com and Amazon (*you should*), then definitely get started with Amazon before the site is live.
Question from someone that emailed instead of posting publicly. Some details removed.
"I'm >50 with an income over 200k a year. Have full pension upon retirement. Want to get into e-commerce, as an investor, not so much as a manager.
Main goal passive income.
Is this possible? If so, what avenue would you take if you were in my shoes?"
Completely possible dependent on your goals. There are 3 avenues ranked in terms of risk reward profile.
1. Get connected with some small-scale PE guys that are buying brands to run and flip. When I say small-scale, I mean their funds are in the single 7 figure range or low 8 figure range. May have to get a series 7 to be considered an “accredited investor” for this. Depends on your NW.
2. Partner with someone that knows what they’re doing and looking for capital to acquire a company and run it. Hypothetically someone like me. I’m not looking for capital atm though. You’ll get a bigger share of the pie for your $$$ but it would be a smaller brand so there’s more risk.
3. Find someone that has gotten traction or has a lot of potential in their product but just needs an infusion of cash to grow. More risk but also more reward.
Each of these avenues is (mostly) going to be a different social circle of people you’ll be targeting. Define how much risk you’re looking to take and target accordingly.
#1 will get you more “passive income” with a big payout at the end while #2 & #3 are more about the payout at the end.
For a content / review site, what's the best cost-effective way to scale up content writing. Any legs in fiverrs and online contractors to re-write and summarize amazon reviews for orginal content?
I've found good writers/reviewers on Fiverr and Upwork. I've also found a ton of trash. You just have to keep testing out new writers in your price range to find a good one.
You can make money from Amazon review site, but you're likely to make more money from something that has a higher commission.
I recently quit my job in mortgage because I was making 100k but working 9 to 10 hours a day.
Currently I have about 30k saved up and would like to start an ecommerce brand. Should I look for another job or go straight into ecommerce? If the answer is get a job, what is the best way to find a high paying sales job? I have 4 years of sales experience.
Thank you!
You should 100% get another job ASAP and not eat into your savings. 9-10 hours a day seems normal for a corporate job, so I don't know how easy it's going to be for you to find something that much better.
$30k is what you should have to start an ecommerce brand while the job is paying your bills. You can do it for much less but that's the ideal number.
As for landing a high paying sales job, I have no experience in that domain so can't give you an answer. I would advise utilizing your network but I'm going to refer you to BowTiedSalesGuy for that.
Okay thank you again!
How should I think about having categories and tags on my site?
It know each category and tag you set up on your WordPress site will have its own page. I've read you don't want to go overboard with tags because you could have a bunch of extra tag pages that might not be relevant. On my site, I started with a bunch of tags and have since removed them.
I was planning to have a category for each product category in my niche. How do you know if your categories are too specific or too broad? What is the primary long-term goal of establishing these categories?
I only use tags on 1 site I have and it's because I personally need them to filter at a level that categories can't do.
I'd stick to categories and build a semantic tree of what your site is about and have level 2 or 3 be the categories.
Too specific or too broad is going to be based off of how many articles are in each category compared to the others. If one category has 3 articles and another 50, the former is too specific.
In my mind categories serve two purposes.
1. Structure of your site. Being able to filter and divide the site into sections that makes coherent sense and usable for your users.
2. Parsing topical authority of your site down further into niche sections of topical authority for Google. "Doing it for the SEO"
I’m starting e-commerce store selling supplement product.
Getting product created and ready to distribute is main focus right now.
What are the highest ROI activities I can do right now with regards to the e-commerce site while I create the actual product?
Thanks for all you do grinner.
Assuming you don't have a very solid marketing strategy in place for launch. I'd start connecting with websites, influencers, email lists and start striking deals for them to get brand awareness for your product.
If you mean specifically the website, get the website in front of as many people as possible to get feedback. Check the user flow to make it as appealing (copy/salesy) and easy to check out as possible. Relentlessly go through the buyer process to make sure checkout, martech connections, shipping, and CS is ready for launch.
If you were starting today with nothing, what path would you take and what would be the first few steps? Affiliate? Ecom? Content? Niches?
Starting today would be dependent on how much money saved, current income, and knowledge. With no money, low income and zero knowledge, I'd go get a (remote) job in house at a larger ecommerce brand. This assumes you can't get a high paying job in sales. (90k is not a high paying job in sales)
Start an affiliate (or lead gen(harder)) site and learn everything you can about the digital market. Utilize the agencies that work for your company to your advantage and try to find others that also run sites. Many are working at agencies/in house waiting for their projects to get big enough to jump ship. (Do not tell people that you want to escape corporate America to find those people)
Once the affiliate site is off the ground, you've learned a bit, and you've got some money saved up, go the ecommerce route.
As for niche;
Affiliate - Something you know well enough that you can pound out content. Preferably related to software. They have higher payouts than some Amazon affiliate site.
Lead Gen - Same as above. Niche matters less here though. High ticket=high commission.
Ecommerce - High ticket/low competition if it falls in your lap. Ideally you want to go to something that's going to be a repeat purchase and build a brand. Lotion, dog treats, supplements, shampoo, anything that is repeat purchase and you can build loyalty.
Repeat purchase and loyalty is key here.
I’d like to learn more about Lead Gen, what’s the best source of information to go to?? Is there a community out there you’d point towards? Seems Reddit ect have a lot of people just trying to push courses ect thanks
I have friends that do lead gen but no best resource for you. I'd check out BowTiedKumQuat's recommendation.
What would you like to know?
Best source of information to learn lead gen, like a recommended community? So much trash out there I want to know where the pros went to start out their knowledge base
Dan Kennedy is your number 1 resource.