2X eCommerce Podcast

My guest on today’s show is André Morys; the founder of Web Arts AG - one of the largest and a leading world class Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO) agency based in Frankfurt, Germany. With leading global brands like: C&A, Konica, Minolta, Sage Accounting, O2 and Monsoon as clients. If you have attended any major Conversion Rate Optimisation conference in Europe, then you will most likely have heard André on today show speak. I met him and his team earlier this year at the Digital Elite camp run by Peep Laja (Episode 15) in Estonia; where he spoke about how Neuromarketing can be applied in Conversion Rate Optimisation... a hugely insightful talk! André approach to Conversion Rate Optimisation is deep rooted in the social sciences. André’s and Web Art’s CRO methodology is founded on: Behavioral economics, Neuromarketing, Game theory (gamification), Social psychology and Consumer psychology ★ Support this podcast ★

If you haven’t implemented an email marketing strategy for your store yet, you’re missing out big time. A properly-implemented email marketing campaign can lift revenue by as much as 50%. With that sort of potential, it boggles my mind how many mid-tier etailers that don't do email marketing. My guest on today’s show is John McIntyre who is also called the Auto Responder Guy - for good reason. John runs an email marketing consultancy focused on the implementation of advanced email marketing programs for a wide range of businesses including online retailers; using sophisticated behavioural re-engagment funnels. He is also going to kindly share his consultancy’s email marketing process they use for their ecommerce clients (which I will be sharing in the show notes). You will be able to use this process as a checklist either by yourself OR hand over it to a staff member to implement John McIntyre also runs quite a popular podcast called The McMethod Email Marketing Podcast. ★ Support this podcast ★

How should you structure your marketing campaigns for the upcoming holiday selling season? On this episode of the 2X eCommerce Podcast Show, I shed a 6 step framework to use to sell more this holiday season for: - Black friday - friday after thanksgiving - Super saturday - Panic Saturday is the last Saturday before Christmas - Cyber Monday or Green Monday - 2nd monday in December - best sales day in december according to eBay - Boxing Day - December 26th post christmas sales in the UK/Ireland The six areas I expand upon in this episode are: 1. Own mindshare 2. Finalise or test discount offers 3. Prep up for gifting 4. Psychology - surprise and delight 5. Gift centre - landing pages 6. Email automation This show is brought to you by 2X Consulting Ltd ★ Support this podcast ★

When it comes to Ecommerce Loyalty programs; one SaaS company seems to be leading the pack: Sweet Tooth (https://www.sweettoothrewards.com/). They deliver some of the highest quality content on customer retention and customer lifetime value. A name seems to pop up everytime I read their brilliant content: Alex McEachern; a customer retention expert and one of the top ecommerce loyalty marketing experts around. He is runs the Sweet Tooth blog and has immense knowledge in the domain of customer retention and customer loyalty. Alex talks us through the importance of having a clear understanding of your Average Order Value (AOV), Repeat Transactions and Customer Lifetime Value (CLV) by Segment. ★ Support this podcast ★

What is the single most important thing I should be doing right now to prepare for the upcoming holiday selling season? The single most important thing to do right now is to have a thorough analysis of your performance from last year's holidays; for Black Friday, Cyber Monday and pre-Christmas. Outline and section out your analysis as follows: 1. Stock control and management, 2. Traffic 3. Marketing & PR 4. Marketplaces 5. Website Sales, Discounts and Offers 6. Fulfilment 7. Financials This show is brought to you by 2X Consulting Ltd ★ Support this podcast ★

I talk with Nate Holzapfel, the founder of Mission Belt, a micro-adjustable belt that was successfully pitched and funded by Daymond John on the US TV show Shark Tank. We talk about the effect of Daymond and Shark Tank on business; prior to show, Mission Belt sold $39,000 in 3 months and after the show, $1million in 3½ weeks, and now turns-over multi-million dollars ever since. We discuss this company’s “right fit” team and it's hiring culture in Utah. We are also privy a range of juicy social media and marketing tips and golden nuggets of wisdom from this 36-year-old who has “made the mistakes of a 75-year-old man.” ★ Support this podcast ★

Selling other brands is a challenge but can still be rewarding. This is a follow on talk from episode 30: What Kind of Ecommerce Business Are You Building? Where I provided the only two routes to selling online: Sell products from a range of brands Vs designing, inventing, developing, manufacturing and sell ‘direct-to-consumer’ (D2C). In this episode, I explore various tactics you can employ as a merchandiser of a range of brands to thrive. Sign Up to My Newsletter on: http://2xecommerce.com This show is brought to you by 2X Consulting Ltd ★ Support this podcast ★

Aihui Ong 爱慧 (pronounced as I-WE) is the founder and CEO of a Silicon Valley based subscription ecommerce snack business most of our U.S listeners will have heard off: Love With Food. For as low as $10/month, Love with Food provides organic or all-natural snack boxes on a monthly subscription basis. These boxes tend to be packed with hard to find snacks that are typically not in grocery stores - its like a discovery engine that helps its health conscious customers find new healthy snacks; while at the same time is a Market Research Platform Organic Food brands. So it is like a Birchbox for Organic Snacks. Love with Food is a fast growth ecommerce business and the sort of venture I love featured here on 2X eCommerce. - it 6Xed revenue in its first year of business - then 2Xed in its second year. - and is set to almost 2X again…in 2015 ★ Support this podcast ★

Today’s show is particularly quite exciting: that is because if you are signed up to my newsletter, you'll know by now how I bang on about how fundamental repeat customers are to achieving ecommerce success - and how repeats customers are truly the lifeblood of most ecommerce businesses. So, I did some digging around for Ecommerce customer retention platforms and came across Ometria (https://www.ometria.com/); a predictive Ecommerce Customer Lifecycle Marketing platform that helps mid-tiers retailers drive and increase customer retention by helping them identify: - Their hero customers, - Repeat vs News customers, - Lapsing periods between sales, - Key customer retention metrics at both a granular customer level as well as in segments and holistically After identification of these metrics, it segments your database and sends highly customised and targeted messages to each customer. This interview is with a co-Founder and the CEO of Ometria; Ivan Mazour. I quiz him about how to go about scaling a mid-tier ecommerce business armed with both customer data/insights and personalisation. ★ Support this podcast ★

There are two major routes in the business of online retail, you either: Sell products from a range of brands and in other words ‘curate’ a range and offering of products for your target market. You’d most likely be a specialist i.e. like a store selling only high end headphones, or wooden floors or affordable leather goods. Margins are typically slim in this instance and you’d find that Amazon dominates a significant number of verticals. You need to dig deep to position your store as a specialist store with a deep offering and brilliant customer service. Design, invent, develop, manufacture and sell ‘direct-to-consumer’ (D2C) - a tough slug as you might need to constantly refresh and update your offering. You’d most likely need to seek partner manufacturers, designers, etc. The difficult part is taking your product to market. If you have a look at the products on Kickstarter or Indiegogo, you’d find that they are all D2C businesses attempting to use crowdfunding to lunch their businesses. Because you control the entire value chain, margins are a whole lot wider here. ★ Support this podcast ★