Brian and Cory discuss ways you can target your existing customers to make more money. Top tip: your existing customers are a gold mine!
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Machine Transcript – 5 Ways to Make Money From Existing Customers
Brian Krogsgard 00:05
Hello, and welcome to another Commerce Journey webinar. My name is Brian Krogsgard. I’m here with my business partner, Cory Miller. Hey, Cory.
Cory Miller 00:12
Brian Krogsgard 00:15
Black Friday is near. And you know, one of the best ways to have a successful holiday season is to leverage your existing customer base your existing email list, we’re going to talk about, honestly more than five ways to make more money with your existing customers. This is some of the easiest money that you can make, because you’ve already attracted the attention of these folks before before we get into all the details of our tips. Today, we want to thank our partner for this and all webinars at Commerce Journey. And that is GoDaddy Pro. It is quite simply the easiest way to get your eCommerce website up and running. You can go to commercejourney.com/go-webinar to check out their amazing deal. And I mean, it is the most affordable way to get your store on the internet, period $1. Three months, you get all kinds of stuff included a lot of WooCommerce extensions, they run WooCommerce for you on a manage WordPress install; it’s truly an outstanding and unbeatable deal. And then after your three month trial for $1, it is an extremely affordable product as well. People are loving it. We’ve been getting good feedback on that. So thanks so much to GoDaddy Pro for being our partner on all things we do at Commerce Journey. Go to commercejourney.com/go-webinar. Now Cory, let’s dig in ways to get more money from existing customers. We said five in the title, we tried bundling them together, we got more than five. Cory, can you walk us through some of the key points of what makes these existing customers such a goldmine for our stores?
Cory Miller 01:54
You said it in the beginning, Brian, and that is you know, it is tough work to get to the customer at all. and i, you and I are in this zone right now trying to get customers in our various projects. And it’s tough work. It’s a lot of time, especially for a new business. But I’ve learned, as you know, especially through my previous business that once you get a customer, they are definitely a gold mine is a put here. And I think it’s overlooked though I think a lot of entrepreneurs, a lot of businesses, eCommerce shops even think, Okay, I’m gonna deliver this product. And don’t think even broader over the years, you know, we’ve got a lot of friends in the WordPress space that say like, Cory, Why do you have so many products I go, because one, I get bored easily. But number two, I like to make money. You know. And when you have a window of opportunity of a business that’s working that customer people have paid and voted for the validity of your business with their pocketbook. That is hugely important. And so oftentimes, even with your existing marketing for an existing business, I say start with your existing customer email list, because those are golden, and most businesses don’t even utilize them.
Brian Krogsgard 03:10
Yeah, for sure. And, you know, we talk about email a lot on here. But we talk about email a lot, because it is the primary way to interact with those customers. Think about it just logically, this is just a good preface for the tips that we get into wins your opportunity to have a discussion with a customer. If you are relying on them to visit your website, well, they have to think about you and they have to visit you, they’re probably not going to do that your store is not big enough to be top of mind for them day in day out. But because they’ve transacted with you and probably opted into those emails in some fashion, or often into your newsletter for the tips that you’re gonna provide, they’ve invited you to initiate the contact. So you have that open invite from your customer to initiate contact, and it’s your obligation for the profitability of your store to take advantage of that opportunity. And to give them a call via via email. you’re checking in on your customer, you’re letting them know what you have going on. They’ve already told you in the past that they are interested in you because they’ve bought from you before, you’re simply letting them know, hey, there’s more where that came from. And that’s why it’s important to not only contact them, but also strategize. How are you going to take advantage of the opportunity you have, once you get their attention, you know, a certain percentage of the time they’ll open the email and see and you want to take advantage of that. So what we’re going to talk about today are the things that you can put in front of them in that moment of reengagement call you have anything to add to that part of it before we get in the first tip.
Cory Miller 04:56
You think about it and it’s like when you put money with something you’re putting trust. In in that business, you know, and that that’s such a significant, you’ve crossed the threshold into trust. Now, maybe it’s not absolute trust or anything. And by the way, not every customer is going to get buy more from you. But we’re just saying the likelihood of them doing that is even greater. And, but I wanted, I want to emphasize a point you said to which is, email is the core strategy. When someone and specifically a customer loves me, and they’ve traded dollars for value, and ended up on your customer list. So valuable I, I protected our customers over 10 plus years, and I themes, my former business, and we grew the list as big as we can put the customer list, that was the thing, I, you know, we could probably lose things in our business sites could go down or whatever, but that list of customers was gold. That’s what eventually someone bought our business from us, they value intensely, the customers, there’s just such a center point to it. And as you start to, you know, one key I want to say before we get into this specific strategies and tactics, is when, when they’ve crossed the threshold of giving you money, they’re on your customer list, and you’re thinking about all these, all these options and opportunities for growing your business through existing customers, once you think about the relationship, and I want you to get close as you can to the customers to sense that what they really need. So they’ve gone past the comm transition from prospect to customer, they’re part of your customer community. That’s what I call all of the projects I’m involved in is somebody who’s given us money. They’re my community, they’re, they’re under my care, and supervision. And it behooves you to ask, what are your challenges? What are your opportunities and think about those people? Because you’ve crossed the threshold. Now you can serve them more and more. And we’ll share some ways Brian and I have both used that leverage set to provide more value. I’ll always give the caveat real quick, Brian, which is, I believe in making money, I believe if you’re doing good in the world purpose for things, products and solutions, helping people make people’s lives better. You should do well, you should make a bunch of money.
Brian Krogsgard 07:17
Yeah,
Cory Miller 07:18
it should be dependent on how much good you’re doing in their lives. I really want to accentuate that point before we get in…
Brian Krogsgard 07:23
Yeah, real quick. Before we go to Todd had a great question. Since we, you know, reiterated the email component here, which is, how much permission do we have to send emails to a customer list versus an opt in list? That’s going to depend on a few things. One, it could depend on where you live, like some countries, for instance, I think Germany has stricter rules on who and how you email people than others. For the most part, though, a lot of websites have a check opt in to get marketing emails, in addition to transactional emails, now you have the right to send transactional emails to your customer within the window of the purchase. So your your purchase receipt, your confirmation of delivery, your post purchase request for a survey, even it’s the type of thing that fits in kind of that transactional realm. Now, if you keep emailing them for months and months, I’d say best practice. Now legality is maybe a little different story, it could be legal best practice should be that at some point, they actually OPT it into your marketing emails, in addition to your transactional emails. And at the very least, your Terms of Service, if you don’t have an opt in, should say that you will, you know, you may utilize their email for marketing purposes. And if that’s the case, you should never have any flexibility in terms of other ways you use that list, it should only be for that website, etc. So it’s kind of a feel thing with some legal ramifications depending on your country of origin. And particular, for the most part, you should have probably an auto opt in type of thing in the in the purchase, though, that is checked when they when they check out. If you don’t, then I would look up your terms of service. And just be careful with that because you can get into some funny situations. But for the most part, we’re talking about people who’ve opted in not just sending, you know, transactional based emails, which are triggered because of prior purchase. All right, so let’s get into the first tip. And the first tip is you want to make it easy for them to buy more. So, Cory Have you taken advantage of bundles before?
Cory Miller 09:34
So you know, my, you could probably answer this. You saw I’ve handled everything. It was about three months into the business. We were starting to produce one off products called themes, WordPress themes, and someone says like by our third or fourth theme, do you have a bundle? And I was like, Huh, I don’t? Well, that one strategy, and I shared that with dozens of entrepreneurs. Afterwards, still talk about it. Think about this. You’re not creating In the new product, all you’re doing is saying I have three of these products, I’m going to put them together, slap a little bit of a discount on it and say, here’s a bundle, you will be surprised. I’ll tell you our profit margin, our business went next level. Because bundles, we made a significant amount, any amount of money that our accountants would look at and go, what is this item, it’s called toolkit. And I go, all it is is reselling different products in a different way, for more money. I love bundles, because it’s not a ton more work to put them together, or the press a little bit and offer him.
Brian Krogsgard 10:37
Yeah, and when you talk about a bundle, usually from a technical standpoint, that ends up meaning. It’s either one product, or at the very least it is one click to add multiple products, it kind of depends on your platform and your store, your extension, whatever. A great way to think though, of what I consider a bundle Amazon does the frequently purchased with and I run it all the time, especially if I’m buying like electronics, and there’s some cord or something, sometimes I’ll realize, Oh, I need this very specific type of adapter cord because it shows me the frequently bought with. And then I just click the Add all three to a cart because I got whatever it’s another 10 bucks for that cord. I don’t want to have to wait another three days because I don’t have the right cord. All these people bought bought it with that in mind. So that can be a bundle too. It doesn’t have to say this is a bundle, or it doesn’t have to say this is all one product. You can structure that in a variety of ways. But essentially, you’re encouraging people to buy multiple things at once. and preferably with one click while they’re doing it.
Cory Miller 11:45
So So. Yeah, you know, think about it like this. Sorry, I had a computer glitch, and it totally blanked me there. But it’s fun. The one click upsell, you’re offering convenience with the like you said with the Amazon thing. Here’s a cord that goes Oh, yeah, I bought that in the bundle. But the premise here with all we’re talking about is you you have done all the tough work to get a customer, how do you keep with the premise, do good dwell, okay? That you’re trying to expand the amount of money the customer gives you in your business from not just one single transaction to multiple and bigger multiple, and bundles are the way to kind of rock it up your customer lifetime value. You hear that a lot. And that’s why one of many reasons I love it. But your convenience thing? How many times have I done that to this mic sitting in front of me was, you know, a bundle? Like the XLR cord? Same thing? Oh, yeah. The idea that it’s like putting batteries with the toy.
Brian Krogsgard 12:45
Yeah, and we’re gonna move on across sales here. And the reason I mentioned that with bundles is because bundles and cross sells can end up being very similar. Cross sells are more consider the type of thing where maybe it’s not as direct of a correlation. So a bundle might be here’s this microphone and this microphone stand, you know, like the button and the core and the cable that comes with a microphone. Well, the people I bought this from they just locked in all of those things. A more traditional cross sell might be something that’s not directly associated with the, with the product that I’m buying, but it might be these headphones. Okay, so the cross sell is like, Oh, well, if you’re going to be talking into a microphone, maybe you also need headphones that are appropriate for a podcaster or, you know, people doing online seminars. So that’s more of what I put in the cross sell territory. It’s a similar associative product, but it’s kind of a different is a, it’s not part of the same package. It’s a different product. But in terms of how you market them, they’re pretty similar, you might put it on the product page, where they’re, they’re grouped by kind of a category relation. If you have a lot of skews, this is a great reason to put categories that are really granular because your cross sells will often be based on, you know, category Association. So you’re putting relevant cross sales, you’re not saying, Oh, you bought a microphone, here are some crayons, or like, whatever, you know, you sell this very different and then the first product.
Cory Miller 14:17
Okay, think about cross sells like this with two words. And you’ve used a couple two, but adjacent products and complimentary products. And plus, we can go back to slide one, two, cross sales could become bundles, licking your product, your sales data and say, Man, I see when people buy this, they typically also buy this. So there’s a cross sell opportunity. And there’s a bundle opportunity there. But think about Jason Todd was saying in the chat, so I need more products to do bundles. Absolutely. And we’re going to get to that don’t steal my thunder, Todd. But yes, and I want you to think about adjacent and complimentary and think about the customers journey just like Brian, you were saying, Okay. If someone buying this headset, or this microphone? What are they trying to do? What are they trying to accomplish in a macro level in their life? And then that’s the fodder, like that’s perfect fodder for creating new products across sales, bundles. But in all of this be a data hound look in the data and see what people are doing. So for instance, in my past, Brian, it was, okay, you bought built, you bought a WordPress backup plugin, the adjacent the complimentary supplemental market could be you may also want a security plugin. And our data saw that to like, and so how do we kind of increase that turn that up to cross sales through bundles.
Brian Krogsgard 15:44
Alright, and now we’re gonna move on to something this is distinct, because it’s upsells. This is typically going to occur when you have a some kind of variety in in the product itself. Now this could be as simple as take the product and monogram it that’s very common, especially with independent eCommerce stores, you might sell the product and then you sell a monogram. Another version might be you have two products and one is like a little more premium, if you will. So take our headphones, oh, well, this one has plastic components, upgrade to the one that has, you know, all natural leather and metal components or something like that. So you have two distinct products. And essentially, even if there’s not a huge quality difference in what you hear, there’s a build difference, or there’s an aesthetic difference that you can assign a price to. So maybe your base is $100. And the upsell is a model that’s $180. And some percentage of your customers are always going to opt for that even though the manufacturing cost might be $10 different. Or it could even be as simple as it’s a different color. You know, like you put it in space gray or you know, some kind of, you know, some kind of color that’s going to appeal to people. And it’ll enable you to charge more for it. That is more of an upsell. So your vertical in the same product line, you’re not you’re not talking outside product lines, anything like that. Now, Cory, what I think you might have some examples of this, as well whether software or with the Vida Bars, which we want to get into the bars to some of these things, because right now, but with upsells, what you really want to do here is make sure that you’re offering an upsell that increases your profit margin not just increases your revenue. Because the key and an upsell is to be able to enhance your profit margin with a secondary benefit of bracketing your lower product. So you’re making your cheaper product if you will look more affordable because it’s side by side with your more expensive product. And that more expensive product is always going to be the one that some people go to there’s a certain class of buyer that they go to that one. But for everyone, it will make the lower priced product look more affordable. Alright, what do you got to add to that one, Cory.
Cory Miller 18:05
I love upsells. Because again, it’s just trying to more money, customer spin more value you’re offering but you had a key there, which is make sure you’re also making money and not losing money on the deal. So getting the customer to spend more with you because you’re providing more value, but also maintaining the profit margin there. So I think about you put all the ingredients out on the upsell for a second you say okay, my base product is a shampoo bar, okay? Like the Vida Bars, and in the go to checkout and an upsell could easily be, you know, a three month supply instead of a one month supply. Or it could be also get this is probably a lame example, but like a brush or you know, a little tray or something, just think about whatever product you’ve got what is all the value could you could provide for not a lot more work on your end. That’s the best way. That’s the best way to think about these upsells. So, you know, my specific past example with my company was we had a two site license for the software product in the in the cart sale, we could try to upsell the 10 or the developer bundle which I can’t remember what it was might have been limited. Well, again, we’re not doing any more work. The carts done the work. It’s just saying By the way, you know for this price difference, you can get the 10 site. So think about how you can package think about the value that you can put together and up get that you know monetary value up the ladder. And the cart by the way is the place to do this. There’s so many services Brian have seen out there that are doing so good with giving you the technical options to do this kind of stuff. And it’s smart.
Brian Krogsgard 19:50
Yes. A lot of this depends on what is the category of product is it a digital product is it a perishable product Is it a physical, you know, last forever type of product we talked about last forever, you know, like the premium components. You talked about something where the upsell is based on time. So how much access do you have, get three years worth instead of one year’s worth get 10 websites worth versus one website worth. Another one that, especially for people that have higher dollar products, you could consider things where it’s like, an extra warranty, for example, where you know, statistically, hey, if we charge $100, for this warranty, you know, added protection warranty, car companies are like the, you know, they’re the kings of this. But again, it’s popular with electronics and stuff, you may not even offer the warranty, you may be insurance or something that you pay for. But you get essentially a kickback of 30% of the revenue, every time that warranty is purchased. There’s a lot of ways to structure what your upsell looks like. Cory, I’m glad you brought up the place to do it being the cart, because that was the other thing I wanted to highlight. We just talked about bundles, cross sells upsells. And we earlier talked about email. Well, some of these have more appropriate places than others. And you could advertise some of these in a receipt, a transactional email, if you use a custom transactional tool like jilt, if you go to commercejourney.com/jilt. You can set up custom receipts so that every time someone buys product x, the receipt will have a link to products. Why? Because it’s often something they’ll realize after they purchase, oh, that would have been great to purchase as well. But sometimes a receipt is not the best place to put it. There could be like the upsell scenario between the two headsets, you don’t want to advertise the premium headset with some marketing that makes them feel like ooh, I should have just purchased that instead of the one that I purchased instead, like you want them feeling good about what they ended up going with and what they ended up choosing. So you do want to be careful with where and how you market those. And also with regards to the cart, you already got them to put a product in the cart. So you don’t want necessarily to do the upsell to the higher end one in the cart, you want to do the additive product, you want to do the cross sell once you get to the cart, not the upsell, once you unless the upsell is adding time or something like you just mentioned, because that’s a different type of upset. But you see what i’m saying with that nuance. So you don’t want to do anything that’s going to prevent them from checking out.
Cory Miller 22:33
What what occurred to me as you’re touching all this is how much entrepreneurs leave on the table. This is stuff that you just offer it just like that. I love the beauty of the buyer microphone, I need the cord to go with it. That’s money left on the table, that you could be servicing your customers better for things they need. You know, I By the way, Brian, I this microphone used to just get and I got I’ve recommended that somebody else sees psychologists in Colorado, and he got it. And then when he went to pick it up, he realized he didn’t have the cord. So he missed that. Well, that’s just pain and frustration for him right now. So it’s a convenience factor. It’s all that. So I love your your thoughts on that.
Brian Krogsgard 23:17
You know, there’s a couple things, why not talk about the number one seller and all of the world for what they do. And some of it because they can get away with it. Granted, because it’s a premium product you look at when you buy an iPhone, guess what else do you have to buy, this does not come included, you have to buy the case. And they you know that they have incredible markup on this tiny little leather case that you buy for like 50 bucks. They’re making a ton of money on that. I would actually be curious Cory, what percentage of their overall profit is in the iPhone itself, versus the case the extra chargers, these things that every single one of us knows we’re getting absolutely built on when we buy it direct from Apple. But guess what we buy it direct from Apple more often than not, because we know it’ll fit we know it’s compatible, yada yada, yada, yada. All these things and those are their versions of upsells that are sometimes you can just look at the top companies in the world and steal their ideas for how best to upsell, cross sell, etc.
Cory Miller 24:20
The classic and this is kind of bundle cross up so I guess but the classic example is the economists always used the marketing examples, but they sold the print edition for let’s say it was 50 bucks. Okay, they sold the print plus digital edition, I’m probably gonna butcher this for like $60 and it was negligible. It’s like really, all they did was and they got more people to upgrade to this just by putting one thing. So I was going to say in that when you’re looking at your product, maybe you have an existing product and you go I could actually take this out and offer two packages. I could take this feature out of this one offer it for a little Little bit higher, add it to this package make that a little higher. But just like the economists just a little bit higher, more value and showcase it, a lot of the things we’re talking about are price negotiation, whether it’s actually happening face to face or over email, all it is, is price negotiation in the mind of your customer. And it’s ways to showcase value. So I think about this, what thing can I take out, but out over here, and maybe tip the scale to actually showcase that’s worth a lot to me, I want the print, and I want the digital edition or I want the case to you know, so I love those. Again, it just goes back to psychology and how our brains work. And, and but if you stay with the principle, do good dwell.
Brian Krogsgard 25:46
Alrighty, the next one, one of the best ways to get sales also has the potential at times to reduce the way people value your product. So it’s something that needs to be done with nuance. But we’re going to talk about coupons and discount marketing. Now we’re talking about doing this with existing customers today, this is not brand new customers existing customers want it, let’s go ahead and get one of the ways right out off the table right away. You don’t want to send someone a coupon for something they just bought without a coupon. So that’s like one of those things to avoid. Because what will you get, you’ll get an email back saying, Hey, I just bought this, but you gave me a coupon for 20% off, I would have saved 50 to $50. If I’d utilized that coupon, can you apply it? after the fact? You don’t wanna do that? You’re literally just pulling profit off the table. But Cory, you’ve taken advantage of coupons. How can you apply coupons and discounts for people who’ve already bought from you before, in a way that smart and it’s going to get them to buy more, but hopefully not ask you for coupons for stuff that they already bought without buying something new.
Cory Miller 27:01
This is gonna blend a little bit to other scenarios. But you see that the goal is just how do we help customers spend more with us and get more value in return. But to me, I think about existing customers and coupons. If I roll out a new product or do something else, I want to send an email and say, because you’re a beloved part of our customer community, we thank you so much. I want to offer you a really nice discount. It’s only offered available to you. It’s a great way to do that one, you’re getting to go back to your base and you’re giving them you’re taking away an objection. You know, yeah, and you’re saying, Okay, one I’m emphasizing, thank you. But second is, I’m making it really, really easy for you to buy a current product and you’re extending that customer lifetime value. Yeah, we use it a lot because people humans, myself included need deadlines. We need to take we need reasons to buy to kind of okay, I don’t know if I can spend that while there’s a coupon. Oh, I can. In fact, I don’t know about you, Brian, I’m waiting for Black Friday, because I want to take part of some massive deals that are happening. But and by the way, they probably weren’t products that would buy ordinarily or need right now. But I go man, I’m gonna take it right now and use it. So yeah, you know, totally eliminate,
Brian Krogsgard 28:19
I just, I honestly, I just bought a couple things on Thursday or something. And then right after I click purchase, I was like, Man, these are definitely going to be like 25% off next week, I can’t believe I didn’t wait or think about that. But you’re totally right. And sometimes this is just verbiage and how you get this across. So you’re thanking them for their purchase. And then you want to hit them in that time period where they remember you the best. So probably in the first month or so since they previously bought, especially depending on the type of product. But let’s go with that a month. And you’re saying, Hey, we want to say thank you for being a customer, here’s 15% off your next purchase. You can even qualify it, here’s 15% off your next purchase of $100 or more. So now that you could be hitting them in a way to where you’re enticing them to come back and to come back and bigger. So they’re not only going to spend with you again, but they’re going to spend more than they spent last time and you’re incentivizing them at just these levels. Or you could have we’ll get to this in a minute. But yeah, so a discount marketing card not to skip ahead. I know. So that those are some of the things that you can do with coupons that are really kind of no brainer type of stuff. One of the things that you want to make sure though, is to try to get that coupon applied to something new, not something old, especially if they were already willing to pay you the price that they paid for the product the first time.
Cory Miller 29:52
So I’ll give you one quick example. I forgot about Brian, but next week and you guys are hearing about it first but so the Vida Bars.com We really wanted to say thank you to our past customers. And so we’re doing a really nice discount on for Black Friday. But here’s what we’re doing. We’re sending it to customers an hour earlier, because we roll out our, we’re going to run out. So we’re going to say a couple things in the demo, we’re gonna say thank you for being a customer. You know, these are scarce, you got it first. And here’s the big discount. And so that’s again, we’ll talk about this in a second, because this is where we’re all jumping ahead, right.
Brian Krogsgard 30:33
But it has to do with increasing loyalty and saying you’re special to us. But that’s a one way we’re using the discounts to say at a time, you’re getting this before anybody else on the planet, because you’ve already bought with this, we thank you so much. That’s another way to use coupons to we don’t want to go long. So we’re gonna have to hurry. One more caveat, you don’t want to set the expectation that there’s always going to be a coupon. That’s one more thing about the prior note is it I call this the Bed Bath and Beyond effect, right? You, you’re like, I’m never gonna buy something from Bed Bath and Beyond unless I have that blue card with 20% off on it, because I get them in mail all the time. Now, if your tactic is to say, We want you to know, you’re always getting 20% off, that’s fine. But if you’re not trying to sell stuff for a discount all the time, then you need to make sure that you don’t offer the discounts in a way that dilutes the primary value your regular price. So you need to make those discounts feel special. Even if you end up kind of offering the discount in some capacity all the time, like a smart buyer will always get the discount, you don’t want them to feel like that discount is built in from the get go because that could make it a little more difficult in the long run because you’re diluting the primary value of your product.
Cory Miller 31:50
Where has this happened on a webinar recently that…
Brian Krogsgard 31:53
… a lot drop off.
Cory Miller 31:56
Okay, this this, Brian is my favorite.
Brian Krogsgard 31:59
Yeah, go for it,
Cory Miller 32:00
…because you know, my backstory, new products. So, again, I think entrepreneurs leave a ton on the table in this category, because they go, this is all we do and just what we do, but they don’t think about the customers journey and what the customer is trying to do and those adjacent complimentary supplemental type things. So early on in our business, in our software business, I stayed as close as I could to our customers the entire time, but early on. And I noticed people were asking with our themes, which are just templates for a website, basically, WordPress themes. They were they were they were having problems, the biggest theme I saw was they needed, they wanted to customize the themes, that one part of that was we need to build features in our products to make that part easier. But the other thing, we started looking around going, there’s not really good training on CSS for web designers, or budding web designers, I should say. So we created a new product, our training side, which for 10 plus years was amazing and helpful in so many different ways and made his money and more money and did a lot of the things we’re talking about here. So I love this. Because if you just stay close to your customers and serving them, there’s probably something along the path of what you do for them, you are just one stop in the path they are trying to get here, you’re here, your product just helps them get here a little faster, better, whatever cheaper, maybe there’s probably something around this fear on their path. If you think about it, that you could go, that’s a potential new product we could build or do and again, increase customer value. Customers, I’ll just say real quick, Brian, are the best ideas for products and services, customers, existing customers, they’re the best, the best ones not necessarily asked. But yeah.
Brian Krogsgard 33:49
So well, they, you’ll probably find out the next best thing to sell based on the feedback that you get in the first place. Totally. And, and they will, they will let you know, it could be in your reviews, it could be in you know just responses or support requests. So it’s important to pay attention to those things. You could just be in community, or like I didn’t trying to figure out, go stalk yourself on social media, and figure out how are people talking about my product? And or, like, do you see pictures of your product in use? You might you might find like, man, every time I see this, they’re always doing XYZ like, you know if there is an office product that they always seem to be like a podcaster. Man, maybe my microphones really are best with podcasters and not with singers. I’ve seen I don’t even know how many of these microphone companies start to come out with podcast specific packages for their products because they like it clicked all of a sudden after years and years of their there’s tools being used by podcasters. They were like maybe we should make some additional stuff that’s specifically for podcasters. So I always find that interesting when it takes them a long time. to like, get the picture, the sooner you do that job of figuring out how are people using my product? And how can I add something new for them, the better off and the more profitable that you’ll be. Alright, let’s go ahead. Unless you have one more thing I might have gotten your brain.
Cory Miller 35:16
I do have one more thing you did. And I just thought about this when you said that about the podcasting kit. And I don’t know exactly what category this goes under, I think kind of new products and kind of bundles potentially, is, sometimes we would, okay, here’s the example, we would build a theme, WordPress theme. And we would put it out there and we would call it something. And I noticed this really interesting thing. Just because we put a new label on things, people would things would sell more. So the the rudimentary sample I have for you, that’s just amazing. probably still pinch myself, Brian, is we’d say, okay, we just built the thing, all I would do is repackage it, rename it really. And I just said real estate thing.
Brian Krogsgard 35:58
I was about to say, food bloggers or something like that.
Cory Miller 36:02
And wedding thing, those cells, you’d see it long the site and they would pick and you’re like, all we did was put a different name on it. So I put here new packaging, or new positioning sometimes can help you hit a different market. Now, you want to be careful how you do that on your sales page and things like that. You don’t want to confuse people at all, you’re trying to do the opposite. But maybe there is that market, like you said with podcaster. And go. This is often for podcasters. But it doesn’t speak directly to them. And that might be a way to rename, reposition repackage your products as well.
Brian Krogsgard 36:32
Yeah, and maybe there’s just a little tweak that you can make, that’s going to get the job done on something like that.
Cory Miller 36:37
I’m all about the little tweaks with big impact.
Brian Krogsgard 36:41
Cory, you, you skipped the loyalty one, I want to talk real quick about it, we’ll we’ll go fast.
Cory Miller 36:48
Oh, whooops.
Brian Krogsgard 36:49
So… a tip on increasing loyalty, I’ll be quick, we got to go fast here. Just show your appreciation and that the customer has value. And you can do it directly through email. And you can do it also through like achievement stuff we talked about Jill earlier, you can send something that’s an email that’s triggered when they spend X number of dollars or X number of purchases, and you just send them a little thank you note, it could literally be a thank you note of how much you appreciate them with a small coupon like we talked about before. If you want to go bigger, if you want to go deeper, you can give them some kind of badge, maybe they’re in a special club, you know, like and say, hey, you’re part of the XYZ product elite, congratulations. Part of being elite is we want to send you some stickers. And you could have auto fulfillment for sending them stickers that they’ll put on their car or whatever or their you know, their their desk or their briefcase or their laptop, and they’ll market for you. It’ll just encourage them to like you more. And also maybe retain and be your customer for longer because you did something cool, you send them some cheap swag. A couple of things like that can really help you increase loyalty. One other quick tip would be if you actually get them engaged on social media, maybe you have a Facebook group, or maybe you have a forum for like this is also really common with like tech products, you have a forum for using the product, things like that. Or if you get them involved there, those can increase loyalty as well. Cory, I know you have a ton of stuff on loyalty, but we Oh yeah, go for you got one minute, one minute.
Cory Miller 38:24
One of the cheapest ways to get customers more committed is just to all these strategies and tactics to increase loyalty by surprising and delighting people and saying, by the way, surprise, 50% off this, or surprise here’s a private group for you. I put in here, that identity and belonging, that is so key. And it costs next to nothing to just simply say you said I think it was like elite or pro it just to say I saw one thing company and WordPress, say they had a Facebook group was something like Web Creators Community. Well, instantly if I’m a freelancer, developer, whatever I can go, that’s me. But you just that company just for next to nothing allowed me to go That’s me. I identify, that’s my identity. And now I can belong to that group and participate. loyalty is one of the cheapest, most effective things you can do for your business for your customers to grow it.
Brian Krogsgard 39:22
And you totally just tuck them under your wing to you know, it’s a great one. All right. We have other content on subscriptions. We have a blog post that we will Cory, or I’ll find it in just a minute. subscriptions are a great way to increase your revenue and your multi-purchase revenue so that you’re going to get them automatically getting your stuff especially if it’s things that are consumed or perishable. Something like that. So the Vida Bars I know this is a big deal for y’all the way you’re planning your growth. Cory we’ll talk about that and I’ll go grab the link.
Cory Miller 39:56
Yeah, just a way to make it more convenient. give people more Access, you know, take away obstructions in what they’re trying to do. So with Vida Bar, for instance, we actually wanted to start out, I wanted to start out this way rolling out, we were worried because our production support, it’s the problem we actually have, which is a great problem to have is we can’t produce enough to sell. But some subscriptions are a way to say, continuity of income for you is the big plus, but for them, what’s in it for them, it’s convenient, you know, I, I bought this little filter from our refrigerator. Because, you know, once every three months or something, that little red light, I’d be like, okay, now I have to go find it on Amazon, I have to go do it. And every time there’s this subscribe, that they’ll just send it to me, you know. And what they’re trying to do is say, we know this is a pain in the butt, here’s an easy way to relieve that, now they get recurring income, can, they can forecast that out they have it, you know, and I get convenience, and potentially access to, those are way to build in value for your products.
Brian Krogsgard 40:59
One quick thing if you have a physical product, and maybe part of it is something that needs renewal. I noticed this, I’m not saying I love it. But Simple Human is a company that they make trash cans, okay, and other household goods, well, you buy their trash cans, so you spend $100 on some fancy trashcan, well, the thing that is the subscription, you know, ends up being subscription based or renewal base for them is that the bags that fit that trash can are actually proprietary to their brand. Because it’s a non standard size. I’m not saying like if you can do that in a ethically, you know, positive way or, you know, you have to pitch for why your proprietary thing is better. Adding a proprietary perishable component can increase your lifetime revenue in a big way, selling to those same customers, just a random aside that I thought of while we were talking there. Alright, let’s go on to the next one, which is bulk volume and sales. This can be so simple and beneficial is depends on the type of product. Oftentimes, when someone buys one of the something, they need five of something, I’ll point to one right here, I wish I could buy these in bulk from Apple, I was looking for this thing for weeks. And honestly, this is the type of thing that I would just buy five of when I go to buy something online. If you have small, more commodity like stuff, it might be advantageous to be able to offer that in volume. And you get a little bit lower profit margin, but you sell many at one time totally depends on the product, the Vida Bars, you’ll have a great example of this. That’s not a commodity product, but it is something where it’s consumable. So instead of saying here’s one bar, you can say, Here’s half a dozen bars, and you get them all at once you they get a little cheaper price on a per unit basis. And you get more money up front, which is always something that we want, right, Cory?
Cory Miller 42:55
Oh yeah. Yeah, again, that’s a great scenario to people. And that’s where staying close to the customer helps. So knowing like, there’s an instance, why don’t have them doing that, I can’t imagine the markup on those cases you talked about, and also the dongles and all that stuff, they’ve got to be making incredible like, that’s paying for a ton of ton of Apple’s infrastructure out there. And think about it’s easy to source.
Brian Krogsgard 43:20
And it doesn’t have to just be those commodity products, it can be fun stuff to know, like I bought my my coffee. And if I buy two at a time, I get $1 off, you know, something like that, like, and I might be tempted to do it. And every time you can get more money up front, you want to take advantage of that, if it’s a small hit to your overall profit. Yep, that gets us in to kind of an iteration of the same concept. But this is more official, one of the first eCommerce websites ever built. We built in wholesale. Like as soon as she launched it. So this was a she actually made iPhone cases with custom monograms and stuff, but it would be just like a Kay, right like, and she would sell these wholesale to people like a boutique store. So she had some business that was like someone comes they buy a case for themselves. But where she ended up making most of her money was she would sell 50 cases at one time for a 30% discount to somebody who had a custom login as a wholesaler. That is fantastic. And then they become a reseller of her products. They’re not experts in her product. Maybe they run you know, this boutique store with all kinds of stuff, but she specializes in the things that are cases or plastics like those types of monogram, not maybe things that are stitched something like that. That was so beneficial for her because it gave her extraordinarily steady order income with you know, maybe there were some limitations on the profit margins, but it was steady income. We always want steady income. Cory you and I do this. With post status. We offer team deals. We don’t make as much money per person on a team deal. But somebody comes in, they’re buying at least 10 seats for their company. And we’re selling it once we’re selling it to the manager or the CEO or somebody like that. If we offer it individually, we may make 25 30% more revenue, but we have to sell it 10 times, we’d much rather sell one time to a team, even though we’re making less money on a per unit basis. So that’s another example of how wholesale can work. If you can create wholesale relationships, it becomes a relationship management thing, and then you get regular recurring revenue from those wholesalers for a long period of time.
Cory Miller 45:39
And it meets our metrics. You know, our sponsors want to know there’s more people a part of the membership community there, but a resale hosts wholesale white label, we put these words here because we want to evoke creativity in what you’re doing. But think about resell, white label and even wholesale, your help and maybe, yeah, but what you’re doing is you’re saying somebody else is going to take this weight and this cost in this. so time consuming thing called marketing and they’re going to take our products, we’re going to source them, we’re gonna make our profit margin, but they’re going to take that cost and effort off of us and do it to our clients. We’re waiting to get here with Vida Bars if we can ramp up our production salons hair sauce, one of them is my cousin goes I want bars I need bars and because they want to sell well strategically we go okay right now we’re making more money and we’re trying to just meet the current demand but there’s going to be part we probably hit a little bit of the demand we go okay, now it’s time to turn to the wholesale route you know, reset white label type market and go Okay, now that spreads our brand, we’re going to take less money, but they are doing all the marketing for us for free.
Brian Krogsgard 46:53
And better yet add exclusivity to that reselling as well. So this I only this one place in the whole town can offer these. The Aveda salons you can only place if y’all ever heard of Aveda, it is the greatest I don’t want to call it a scam because it’s a great product. But it is the greatest exclusivity resale thing ever. These salons are like hey, we’re the only salon a 10 mile radius that offers Aveda products. So you go get your haircut at that salon because that’s the only place in town where you can buy those extraordinarily expensive high quality Aveda products. And then it becomes this marriage of like, hey, yeah, we’re a certified Aveda reseller. I think about this with some products too. Like a like Yeti. This is the certified seller of Yeti coolers in Alabama. And it’s like, and yetis are premiere and three times the price of a regular cooler, but you know what people are gonna love it. And you create those associations between your premium product and their high end place of selling. We’ve been talking about physical, these exist online to there are curators of fine goods, you know, I think about these like fine home goods and they curate the best products and you want to be the provider for the the premium products because you’re associating yourself with this positive reinforcement of premium quality. It’s exclusive, you’re letting them resell it, they’re getting half your profit, you do not care because it’s associating you with something and someone who probably has a bigger reach and a more generic outlook than you and you’re very specific, focused product.
Cory Miller 48:34
Well take for instance, Todd in the chat has been buying that Yetis from the Ace Hardware store in the past two years for Christmas. Yeah. So here’s the thought on this resale white label wholesale. Take this and say you’re trying to sell what you’re doing to somebody else. You could you could use these other ideas and say, What if you took my Yeti, you know, I’m Yeti, and I’m trying to I’m selling you the mic. But you offer ideas to them and say what if you package that with a screwdriver set or I don’t know, whatever it is, you know, it’s like dirty Santa’s season right? coming up. But you could use this to help these other ideas we’ve given you today to help your resellers wholesalers, the people that white label, just want to make one note real quick white label is so fun. That’s what we did was software products. And Todd does it in his business to core product that you can do but he gives a white label version that costs them nothing to do but he extends and makes a bigger value because he allows you to take his branding off it and use it in your business that’s plug and play products for other people. So think about your products, can you make them plug and play easy as possible to offer to their customer base, just by allowing that option. Maybe you charge more for that. These are so good. And by the way, I want to say on all of these products, you have to make sure we don’t know your business you do. We’re giving you creative ideas to think about it.
Brian Krogsgard 49:56
Make sure they’re right for you. We’re trying to get your your your wheels spinning. And shout outs are our partner on this GoDaddy Pro, the pro and GoDaddy Pro is one of the primary people they sell to common is agencies. And they’re actually offering white labeling to someone, if you own an agency. Well, you’re offering hosting and all the, all the stuff that this giant, you know, quality support company GoDaddy can do, you’re bundling in that in your little agency business. And that’s a huge market for them to be able to tackle with GoDaddy Pro. So just another example of how you can offer white labeling, you can do that small scale, big scale. And you know, it’s all about relationships when you’re doing reselling white labeling, wholesaling, that is a very relational business. And some people are just experts at the relationship management that can turn into long term revenue.
Cory Miller 50:50
I’m so glad you mention our great sponsor, but they are a perfect example of the white label. They’re thinking about who their customers are freelancers and agencies. people that do this for a living and they’re going okay, what do they need, what makes their life better? And they’re doing it through the pro and by the way, first next year, cool stuff coming, can’t talk about it, but awesome stuff coming. And I did talk to Todd through our Facebook group. He’s in on the webinar today, and we talked about his awesome business and I love everything he’s doing. He’s already done white label. He’s doing some of these things, but I hope he likes like Goodwill’s, you’re definitely turning into what he said.
Brian Krogsgard 51:28
Awesome. Hey, that’s what we got. If y’all want to continue churning out ideas with us do it with us on Facebook, you can go to commercejourney.com/facebook for that. If you want to check out GoDaddy Pro go to commercejourney.com/go-webinar, get that amazing deal. It’s been our absolute pleasure being with you here today. Join us on Commerce Journey. In your Commerce Journey. We want to help you sell more, sell better, have more fun with your eCommerce store. It’s been a pleasure, Cory. We’ll talk to everybody next time.
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