Guess What? Your Customer Does Matter

So this weeks blog post comes with a recent experience.  I booked a trip on Booking.com and made sure to make every reservation refundable as I knew my trip was subject to change.  Sure enough, I ended up having to change one of my five reservations.

Upon visiting the site I was unable to cancel the reservation.  When I contacted them, the reply was that it was non-refundable, but they would see what they could do.

To make a long story short, after having to follow up several times over a month, and getting no real answer, I finally got the response that is summed up by "It is not our problem."

I have had to run my own customer service, managed customer service teams and know the damage that can be done by a customer that is not taken care of.  I had thousands of dollars in bookings on the site and that was treated with a "sorry for your frustration, good luck."

Here is where companies always seem to make a huge mistake.  Now if they were to get my trip refunded, let's say it costs them the entire $800 for the reservation.

Now, I don't know their fees, but what will it cost them when I never book on their site again, and I make sure everyone I know stays away from their site.

You NEED to take care of your customer.  There are times when you want to strangle the person on the other end of your emails.  Complaints can seem unreasonable, refunds hurt, but nothing can hurt your company more than bad public relations.  The moment you have people walking around talking about what a scam you are, and not to trust your brand, you are losing WAY more money than a few customer issues here and there.

Regardless of being motivated by profit, you need to look at the long term affects on your company.  Are you in this to see a big number this week, or this year?

This may be redundant to a lot of you.  I once heard the number used in the restaurant industry is for every one bad experience, 205 people hear about it.

Imagine that! and this was before social media and the power a voice has now.  All it takes is one person with enough frustration to want to spread the word and it can crush even a large brand.



Above is a tweet promoted by an individual that was not compensated for lost luggage.  He spent $1000 to promote this tweet and it got the attention of the world.  News stations, websites, bloggers, influencers all spoke about him around the world.

Do you think British Airways should have just handled his situation and been done with it?

The power of your customer is larger than it has ever been.  Everyone has a huge voice now and it is your job to make sure they do not use it against your brand, even if you may not feel they are always in the right.

Building a Brand versus Getting Direct Response

Marketing has become extremely easy to track.  Measuring your ROI from your marketing spend, especially online, is available to everyone.  I have seen this cause a shift in the way people market.  Most brands I speak with are looking for their CPA.  How much do they spend, and how many customers or how much revenue does that bring in?

The issue is, the long term goal of brand building is suffering more and more.  Here, I will outline the benefits and tactics of building a brand versus driving direct response.

Brand Building

Building a brand is the backbone of any long term, consumer facing business.  What is the lifestyle around your products?  Why do I want to give your company money? The most important questions consumers ask and the only way to answer is with a strong brand.

If you want to:

• Build long-term customer engagement
• Bring in evangelists
• Create a long-lasting company
• Increase long term revenue
• Engage your customers on an emotional level

Then you need to focus on building a brand identity.

The issues with focusing on building a brand are:

• Lower immediate ROI
• Higher risk (with the results being more long-term, you are generally going to spend more money before seeing results)
• Hard to track response

Direct Response Marketing

Direct Response is marketing done to make the the largest immediate ROI.  It is extremely tempting for companies to focus on these marketing channels because they can see the affect to their bottom line immediately.

If you want:

• To increase revenue in the short-term
• Show immediate growth
• Closely gauge your financials and ROI
• Lower your risk

then direct response is the way to go.

The issues are:

• The long term benefits of direct response are much less
• Customers are generally driven to purchase your product, but are less emotionally engaged, which means less likely to return or share
• Does not create an identity for your brand, which hinders long term customer engagement

Conclusion

When deciding whether to build a brand or get direct response, make sure you understand the value of both.  Most companies can benefit from a mix, but if you are in it to create a long lasting product and company, do not sacrifice building your identity, for your immediate returns.

For any questions or comments, please feel free to email erik@hawkemedia.com

5 Ways to Build your Network

We all know the cliche "It's not what you know, it's who you know," but how do you get to know those people?  Here are my 5 tips to building a great network.

1. Be great at explaining your value
A lot of networking is done through people talking about you and introducing you.  The best way to get this done is to make it really easy for someone else to communicate who you are and what you do.

If you do a good job of concisely explaining your talent or career, then others feel confident speaking about you, and are also able to identify situations where you should be introduced.

People love to connect each other.  Just make it easy for them to do so.

2. DON'T go to networking events
Networking events are generally places for people with no connections to meet other people with no connections.  Mark Cuban does not go to "networking events."

Parties, benefits, dinners etc. are fine, but anything that calls itself a networking event is generally not a good place to build a solid network.

3. Offer something first
Once you initially make a connection with someone, offer them something.  Most good connections are used to hearing what they can do for other people, but offer them something in return.

If you are good at marketing, maybe shoot them a decent idea about marketing their company.  If you are good at building technology, give them something technological that could really help them.

Once someone sees that you have smart things to say, they are going to want more.

4. Keep in touch
Do not be afraid to stay in touch.  Check in through email regularly, follow up about setting that face to face, people don't mind hearing from you.  Be confident that you have something to offer and stay in contact.  Most well connected people are busy, and it is usually helpful if you follow up.  Don't take no response as a sign of a lack of interest, they are probably just swamped.

5. Don't be afraid to ask
Tell the people around you what you need and what you are looking for.  People seem to always be afraid of looking like they are "using" someone or that they shouldn't ask for help.  When was the last time someone asked if you could introduce them to a friend and you were bothered by it?

Always remember, people inherently love to help.  Do not be afraid to tell people around you what help you need.

If you want to discuss this further please feel free to email me at erik@hawkemedia.com or visit HawkeMedia.com

4 Perils of Hiring Developers

Hiring a developer in house, or outsourced can be one of the most difficult tasks when getting into the tech industry.  As someone that has no tech background, I have made my share of mistakes that have cost me dearly.  Here are 4 big things to look out for when hiring a developer.

Not Skilled Enough

Many developers seem to think they can do everything and anything.  I have rarely heard a developer tell me that they don’t think they can accomplish a task.  Given unlimited time, they may be right, but if you have hopes of seeing your project complete any time soon then this can be a problem.

Make sure when hiring a programmer, that they have done a similar project.  You can even take it a step further and ask for a recommendation from that former client and see if they dealt with any problems.

Not Fast Enough

A CTO for one of my past companies said it best “when managing developers, your job is to have a number that sits above each developers head.  That number is a multiple.  If they say the project will take a certain amount of time, you need to multiply it by the number above their head.”

When working with any developer, understand that their time frame is rarely accurate.  It is hard to know what that multiplier is, but assume there is one and always assume the project will take significantly longer than you have been told and allow for that when planning your time line.

Business Savvy

This is a developer, not usually a businessperson.  Never assume that a developer understands the logic of what you are trying to do.  You need to hammer out every little detail of the project.  Get as basic as mentioning that “Home Button” actually links to your “Home Page.”  Do not leave anything left to assumption, that is where you don’t get what you want and your bill starts to increase.

Transparency

I have heard MANY horror stories about programmers when there wasn’t transparency.  Recently, I had a company approach me who had a developer “working” for 2 months and then quit.  Turns out they had done nothing and now their hopeful launch date was a month out with no development work done.

To avoid this situation, when you hire a developer, take the opportunity to learn a little and ask for them to use project management software and monitor what they are doing along the way.  It may take a little time, but you will save a TON of potential headache later.

www.HawkeMedia.com

4 Great Ways to Get Press

Today, I had the good fortune of being on a Google hangout with some great start up minds to discuss getting press.  Here are 4 great takeaways to get your site press.

1. Compelling Story
Nothing is more important in getting press than having a compelling story.  This doesn't mean one story, about us or mission statement that makes your company interesting.  This is a different story depending on the audience.  If you are pitching TechCrunch, your story is going to be very different from even another tech blog like Mashable.  It is going to be EXTREMELY different from a blog like Thrillist.

The key is to write the article for the audience of the journalist you are pitching.  A lot of times they will actually use what you write, or part of it.  The easier you make their job, the better.

2. Strategic Partnerships
Another great way to get press and attention is to partner up with other companies that are commonly in the press.  An ambitious example is to get a tech partnership with google, or maybe your fashion company can now be seen on Nordstroms.  These kind of names offer the same thing having a celebrity does, brand recognition.  Journalists LOVE to write about recognizable names, so if you can align with them, it can really help.

You also get the added benefit of grabbing the attention of your new partners audience.

3. Guest Blogging
Being an expert on another blog can help you reach other audiences and write in a way that attracts the attention of the audience you are trying to get in front of.  If you have a fashion company, writing for a big fashion blog as a guest expert in your line can grab you other audiences.

4. Keep it in house
If you are just starting out, don't go hire a big PR firm.  Though they do have the rolodex and connections, no one can pitch your company better than you.  A lot of journalists love to hear directly from the source and not their publicist.  While you are still trying to break into the press and start your "drum roll," do it yourself, or have someone close to you do it.  You will have a much higher chance of actually getting seen, because your passion will come through.  You are also much more likely to really pursue press and push harder, because you live with the direct benefits.

For any questions or to discuss more please feel free to email me at erik@hawkemedia.com

7 Tips That Allow You to Run an eCommerce Company from Anywhere and as a Side Job

I get asked a lot if it is really hard to get an ecommerce site off the ground.  With all of the tools out there, as long as you don't have outrageous expectations, getting something going is extremely easy, capital requirements are light, and you definitely don't need to jump in full time.

Here are 7 tips that can really help you enter the ecommerce industry while minimizing your risk.

1. Find a partner

FOCUS, you are just creating an ecommerce site.  You do not need to open a shipping facility, a manufacturer, a design group.  Your focus is your website and marketing it, so find a partner for your product.  Let's say you want to get into the coffee business.  Find a great coffee grower and create a relationship.

Find that partner that does everything else:

• Growing
• Shipping
• Packaging
• Warehousing
• etc.

Offer them incentive to handle your product as well.  Obviously, you will already be purchasing product from them, but also offer to pay a slight premium for shipping, warehousing etc. so that they can make a little extra money off their existing operation.  You can always make a shift later if the costs get too high and it makes sense, but for now, it is a lot more beneficial to eliminate any extra overhead than to maximize your Gross Margin.

This allows you to cut costs such as:

• Staff
• Facilities
• Office Expenses
• and many other items that come with running a fulfillment operation

Your partner can also offer you a lot of knowledge as they most likely have much more experience in your products industry than you do

2. Use existing platforms

The world has become saturated with awesome ecommerce platforms that are ready to go out of the box.  Shopify has been the easiest, out of the box, in my experience.  Find a platform that suits you, and get the thing up and running.  Choose existing templates, add simple addons and plugins, and get going.

You are not starting a technology company!  So stop trying to create new technology.

3. Start Small

You are creating a side business to start, you are in no rush.  Start with a small run of your product and test it.  For example, if it is coffee, try selling 300 bags and see how it goes.  Don't invest 10s of thousands of dollars and hope for the best.

Put your site up and sell a minimum.  You can use scarcity to your advantage.  See how your friends and family react to the product, then tweak it, then try marketing a little bigger, tweak again, nothing happens overnight and use the luxury of the fact you haven't jumped in full force to be calculated and grow organically.

4. Get Terms

You do not need to be putting much cash upfront, and since you haven't raised any, you probably don't have much.  Get net terms and only extend yourself as far as you are confident you can make the money before the money is due.

If it is for your product, get net 30 terms (meaning you pay 30 days after you receive the product) and then only take on as much product as you can sell in those 30 days.  This allows you to make your money, before spending any, and creates a self sustaining business without large capital requirements.

5. Don't quit your day job

This is a side job until the money is pouring in! Don't tell me you "have to give it your all" and "this is your passion."  If you can maintain without the businesses cash-flow, this allows you do make decisions on for the benefit of the growth and prosperity of the business, not your personal bills.

Without you as an addition to overhead, you can run extremely lean, which means your business has a significant higher chance of success.

Also, if your day job pays well, it can provide growth funding for your business.

6. Get Interns

You have created an opportunity.  You have a product, you have a platform, you are ready to go.  If the growth starts to exceed the amount of time you have to put into it, start bringing in interns:

• They will work for cheap (even free)
• They will learn a ton because it is so hands on
• You can create a situation where they can make a career for themselves if they grow well
• You are running so lean, payroll shouldn't be an issue if you have a decent product
• Did I mention you are creating a huge opportunity for them as well?

7. Let it grow organically

This is a great way to decide where to put your money.  Before you go out and market this, and pump money into growth, just let it grow.  Tell your friends about it, see which ones actually buy, get feedback, really learn why your product is selling.

Then the next step is favors and connections.  If you have friends, see if any have a way to help you gain some exposure, don't be afraid to ask for help.

Create a budget for marketing based on revenue, that way your business can self sustain.

If you have any more questions, please feel free to email erik@hawkemedia.com

Men vs Women, 6 Key Differences in eCommerce Marketing

Are you trying to decide whether you should target men, women or both with your new product?  I have something shocking to point out.  The buying habits of men and women are DRASTICALLY different.  Your entire strategy has to change to attract one or the other.  Here are six key differences to look out for depending on who your audience is.  Please remember this is based on my personal experience, and you are entitled to your own opinion in the matter.

1. Cost per Acquisition
When it comes to women, they love what's new and exciting.  With the right marketing position and branding, it isn't that difficult to get them to try your product.

On the other hand, men are very set in their ways.  It is hard to convince a man to try something new.

The result of this is a higher CPA.  It takes less marketing to get women to try a product than it does men (this is obviously a broad generalization, but assuming everything else is equal).

This means it takes more upfront cash to get a male customer base growing.

2. Lifetime Value
This is where men make up some ground.  As easy as it is to market to a woman and get her to try your product, one wrong move and they will never forgive you.

I have had very different experiences marketing to men.  At Swag of the Month, we could send someone the wrong size, a color they stated they hated, and make countless mistakes.  The response would usually be something a long the lines of "can you just make sure this doesn't happen again."  They wouldn't even ask for a return or exchange most of the time!

At Ellie, we saw average lifetimes of about 4 months.  At Swag of the Month, we were seeing around 14 months!  Once men like something, they are a lot harder to lose.

This allows you to invest more up front, but eventually you will make higher returns (see my last blog post on key metrics).

3. Emotion vs. Logic
This all comes down to the way you position your product.  To get the best response, women want to see the emotional appeal.  They want to know the lifestyle behind the brand.  How is this product going to make them feel.

Guys shopping habits are much more logic based.  You need to appeal to why they need what you are selling.  Why does it make sense to purchase this.

Lifestyle can come into play for both, but men are going to think about it as a "why do I need this?" and women will usually think more as to "how is this going to make me feel?"

4. Social Media Strategy
This has been surprisingly tricky.  Women love to look at products.  You can push your actual brand all day and engage them on the lifestyle and product images (especially in fashion).

With men, you have to almost sneak the product in.  Guys are not on social media to look at pictures of fashion, just as much as they don't go to the mall to browse.  So with this in mind, you need to actually engage them on their interests.  Post about things guys will want to read and see, and then connect it to your product (but not too much).  Social media is a much more delicate thing when it comes to men.

5. Product Navigation
Basic rule here, girls love to shop and guys want to get in and out.  A men's site needs to have a tight funnel and focus them on getting exactly what they want and getting out.  Girls want to browse and look through products.  Girls are looking to spend much more time on the site.  A small product line and focused navigation is better for guys and a wide selection and user friendly interface for browsing (like fab.com) is much better for girls.

6. Customer Service
This is a big one.  When Swag of the Month had 1000 subscribers, we would get around 30 emails per month in customer service.  When Ellie hit 1000, we were getting about 1000 emails per month.  This goes back to the "men never stop and ask for directions" thing.  If women have a problem, they let you know it.  They want acknowledgement, validation and help.  Men are a lot more forgiving, want to handle it themselves, but they also don't give you the opportunity to make a problem right as often.

So think very hard about who you want your customer to be and how you model your business based on that.

The 5 Key Metrics to Analyzing your eCommerce Business

Many eCommerce sites are completely missing one or more of these key metrics.  The most important data points about your business.  Without knowing each and every one of these points, there is no way you can know if your business is sustainable.  Make sure when starting out, you are tracking every one of these metrics so that you know if you are going to survive, let alone make money.

CPA (Cost in Marketing to Acquire Each Customer)

CPA is your main marketing metric.  You calculate this by taking your marketing spend and dividing it by newly acquired customers.

i.e. Let’s say you spent $150,000 in marketing in the month of July.  Now let’s say that you got 7,500 new customers during July as well.  You would calculate your CPA as 150,000/7,500=20.  Your CPA during July was $20.  That means that for every $20 you spend given everything stays the same, you will get a new customer.

LTV (Lifetime Value)

Now that you have your CPA, it is extremely important to know your LTV.  LTV is measured by the average amount of revenue generated by a customer in their lifetime.  When analyzing this, it is also important to know how long this lifetime is usually as well (do they spend mostly over 3 months, 6 months etc.), that way, you can then calculate an estimated ROI taking your CPA and your LTV.

Let’s say that using the same case as above, the LTV of your customer is $200 over 6 months.  Now you know that, if all things remain constant, if you invest $20 in your business, you will make $200 over 6 months.

Gross Margin

This is where a lot of ecommerce businesses aren’t looking.  You have your LTV, but that is just based on revenue.  What percent of that do you actually take home after your cost of goods?  To calculate this you take your retail price, let’s say it is $50, and then you take the cost it takes you to get it out the door, let’s say this is $20.  You take 50-20=30, then 30/50=.6 which means your Gross Margin is 60%.

This means 60% of the revenue coming in actually goes to your business and the other 40% goes to cover the goods you are selling.

Overhead

Keep your overhead low!  All the costs of running your business other than your goods.  Your employees, office, equipment, anything at all that you are spending money on to keep your business open.  Make sure you know what you are spending (this may seem obvious, but you’d be surprised how many people don’t know this number).  Taking the case from above, let’s assume that your overhead is $50,000 per month to pay yourself, your employees, your office rent, equipment and all of your business expenses.

Profit

Don’t let anyone tell you this number isn’t important.  You want to make money and this is where you do.  Focus on getting your “bottom line” or Profit up by make sure to keep your costs under control as well as growing your revenue.

Now let’s look at the examples.

$20 CPA

$200 LTV over 6 Months

60% Gross Margin

$50,000 Monthly Overhead

$150,000 spent for 7,500

This means:

You will make $1,500,000 in revenue over the next 6 months (7,500 customers x $200 LTV)

$900,000 after your Cost of Goods are covered (1,500,000 * 60%)

Your overhead will cost $300,000 over the next 6 months (50,000*6)

After 6 months you will end up with $600,000 (900,000-600,000)

So if you invest $150,000 in marketing, it will take approximately 1.5 months to make that money back (150,000/(600,000/6 months)) and then you will make approximately $450,000 profit over the remaining 4.5 months.

Recap

CPA, LTV, Gross Margin, Overhead, Profit

Know these key metrics and you will know how to analyze your business.

Why Is My Ecommerce Site Not Making More Money?

Through my years of consulting and building ecommerce businesses, the most common problem I see is a lack of understanding of “The Funnel.”

The Funnel is the name for the different levels of customers that eventually result with some percentage purchasing.

There are 3 levels to the funnel – IMPRESSIONS – LEADS – CUSTOMERS

Step 1 – Impressions

Impressions are the top of your funnel.  These are all of the people who have seen or engaged with your brand in any way.  There are many ways to get impressions to your brand:

1. Advertising – Advertising in any way can increase your brand exposure and therefore your impressions a ton, but it usually comes with a cost.  Advertising refers to any channel in which you are pushing your brand in front of people.  This can be online sponsorships, media buying (banner ads, billboards, tv, radio etc), really any channel to just blast your brand out there.  Keep in mind, even though this costs, it can really help push the rest of your “top of the funnel” strategy.
2. Word of Mouth – This would be any form of people talking about your brand.  You can incentivize this by creating referral programs and other rewards for talking about your brand.  There are arguments on both sides though, that incentivizing can create less of a brand loyalty as they become motivated by the incentives, instead of just sharing your brand organically.
3. Publicity – Getting high level influencers such as publications, blogs and even influential individuals to notice and share your brand.  This is an incredible source of impressions because it comes with brand validation and trust.  Most people trust the reputation of the editorials they read and therefore trust what is written.  If TechCrunch writes about how amazing your new product is, most of their readers tend to at least gain some level of trust.  There are not many better ways to help push someone through your funnel.

Remember, if you miss this step, you will constantly just be retargeting your existing customers and never building your customer base.

Step 2 – Leads

Once you have this impression and interaction, the next step is converting that person to a “Lead.”  Someone who you can validate and retarget to push through your funnel.  There are a couple ways to generate leads:

1. Contact Information – One way to generate leads is to get their contact information.  With ecommerce, the most important piece is their email address.  Nothing converts Leads to Customers more than an email address.  The idea is to entice an individual when they receive impressions from you, whether through advertising, word of mouth or publicity, to give you some level of personal information so that you may continue to contact them on your on accord.
2. Cookie Placement – A great advantage to being a website is that when someone visits your site, you have the ability to place a “cookie” on their computer.  There are several technologies to then retarget these specific people with unique ads.  These ads can be focused on converting a Lead into a Customer, instead of an Impression into a Lead.  A simple strategy like this turns a website visitor from an impression to a lead.

Remember, without creating leads, you will constantly have to drive new traffic to sell and will be missing out on building a recurring customer base.

Step 3 – Customers

This is where you make your money.  You now have tons of impressions, some percentage of leads and now you need to convert.  Using banner retargeting from your cookie placement and email retargeting from all of the emails you collected will help drive traffic, you should be consistently converting leads that had not initially purchased.

Now that you have all of these customers, it’s time to increase your “Life Time Value” or in other words, the total amount a person spends with you in their lifetime as a customer.

You can do this by consistently (but not so much as to annoy them) contacting them and providing value above and beyond what they had purchased.  If it’s something they need more than once, contact them regularly reminding.  If by purchasing your product, it indicates they would like other products as well, show them those.  You can also offer discounts and other incentives, but tread VERY CAREFULLY as this can really hurt your brand and cause you to constantly have to discount to bring back consumers.

Follow these steps and you will see a much higher return on your web traffic and a faster growing business.

If you have any questions or comments, please feel free to email me at erik@hawkemedia.com

6 Truths About Using Facebook

Paying for likes on your facebook page is NOT going to skyrocket your business growth!  It is a common misconception that facebook is the most important marketing channel in this marketing age.  While it is important to HAVE a facebook page, it’s not going to drive you a significant amount of new users to your site.

Here are the correct ways to use facebook:

1. The best users are the organic ones

Stop spending money to grow your facebook page.  The days of it increasing your credibility ended when you could buy 10,000 Filipino likes for $50, everyone can see how many are actually engaging anyways.  You do not want your page saying “54,000 likes, 126 people talking about you.”  Those likes have no benefit anymore.  You want to encourage your customers and fans to like you so that you have a forum for them to communicate directly with you publicly and spread your message.

You only gain credibility from activity.

2. It is not a Billboard, it is a relationship

Most brands seem to love to just blast their fans with sales and images of their products.  The people on your page should already know who you are (unless you ignore the advice in step 1).  That means this is an opportunity to create a relationship and brand.  Make your posts engaging and more in line with your brands lifestyle.  No one wants to see “This is our product” posts.  An example: If you have an active wear line, don’t just make constant posts about the fact that you are an active wear line.  Talk about things that surround the lifestyle of someone that wears active wear.  Healthy Eating Habits, Great Workouts, and then highlight specific products in there, but explain why they are great.

Talk about things as if you are a part of an interest group with your friends around the lifestyle of your brand.

3. Communicate Directly with Customers

Facebook is an opportunity for your customer to feel like they will reach you directly as a brand and be heard (because it is public).  Take advantage of this opportunity and show all of the observers how you are great at handling customers questions and requests.

WARNING: Be wary that every mistake you make can end up being splattered on your facebook, so make sure this is being monitored closely and managed quickly.

4. Bring a Personality to your Brand

Create your voice and your personality.  People hate corporate language and bland statements from the brands they love.  Whoever is posting on your facebook, make sure they have a voice and personality that matches your brand.  Are you a men’s tshirt company? Be a man when you post, crack jokes, talk like a human being and people will gravitate more.

BE HUMAN

5. Encourage Active Social Media Users to be your Ambassadors

There are many great ways to encourage sharing among your fans.  You really can just bluntly ask your followers to share certain posts (just don’t overdo it).  A great strategy is to find influencers that fall in line with your brand and work out collaborations to expand your visibility on Social Media.

It is very important to know who the players are in your space and who the influencers are.

6. Create Long Term Relationships

By following these different directions, this allows you to create long term personal connections with customers that will fight for you, continue purchasing from you and spread your message.

Harness that opportunity and treat them well, you will reap the rewards.