220 How to grow your business using Online to Offline Marketing | Jessica Malach

Jun 6

Say hello to this weeks guest, Jessica Malach.

She is an expert on the topic of Online-to-Offline marketing, which is designed to translate the growth of online product discovery into in-store sales.

Tune into this weeks episode…

This week I’m excited to introduce you to Jessica Malach, current VP of Marketing & Insights for Social Nature, which is a discovery platform powered by a 1 million natural shoppers.

Jessica is an expert in the area of Online-to-offline marketing, so I can think of no greater guest than her to enlighten us on this topic!

In fact, she literally authored the e-book called The Complete Guide to Online-to-Offline (O2O) Marketing for CPG Brands featuring 50 pages of tips from 17 CPG expert contributors!

If you’re a brand that promotes online and sells in stores, this episode is a must listen.

Jessica and I once worked together at a plant-based supplement company called Vega, and so when I saw her sharing more on this topic of o2o marketing and how the 4 stages could translate the growth of online product discovery into in-store sales , I just knew she was going to be an epic guest.

In this episode we dive deep into…

The 4 stages of the o2o model and how you can begin building through their step by step framework
Tips for enhancing your chances of getting discovered online and how to capture emails on a website
The power of free samples and demos in encouraging in-store purchase
What to do after the sale has been made to continue the conversation with your customers and make them into a brand evangelist
And some of Jessica’s favourite marketing books and best marketing advice
p.s. This podcast was originally recorded for another podcast that I host called The Marketing Hotline, but since that show is on hold we decided to share it with you here on Visionary Life!

Connect with Jessica Malach and Social Nature.

Jessica on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/jessica-malach-she-her-06644316/
Social Nature Website: https://www.socialnature.com/marketing/

Listen on Spotify, Apple Podcast, or YouTube

Let’s connect on Instagram or find out more about Private Business & Marketing Coaching on my Website

Click the image below to tune in to this weeks episode 🎙️

"With more and more consumers choosing to buy items from the comfort of their own homes, it’s essential to educate and market online as much as possible.”

Here’s a sneak peak at my prep notes for the show…

Key Questions:

You’ve pioneered this concept of Online-to-offline marketing, which is designed to translate the growth of online product discovery into in-store sales by bridging two trends: first, consumers are now primarily searching for new products online, and second, the highest volume of retail sales remains at brick and mortar stores.

Therefore, the new way of launching successful products integrates the best practices of digital marketing with traditional retail marketing goals.

Can you share more about why you’re so passionate about O2O marketing and who needs to be learning about this right now?

What is the O2O Cycle?

What are the benefits of leveraging the 4 stages of the O2O cycle?

brands can build greater lifetime value

see a better ROI on marketing efforts across their sales channels.

DIVE INTO THE 4 STAGES...

In your e-book there’s a quote that says "The search for products and services begins online. Amazon is the world’s biggest search engine, with Google right behind it. Instagram is prioritizing purchasing products on its social platform. Consumers want to search, find and learn about products online before they buy."

When did this trend towards online search before offline purchase begin?

The first stage in the 020 journey is Online Discovery

You say that consumers are now looking to online health experts and creators and product review platforms to find out about new products, especially since COVID put a halt on experiential, demos and live events… How can we begin to map out a digital strategy to drive online demand and translate that demand to in store purchase

A big part of Online Discovery is understanding your Target Customer and determining where you can reach them and interact with them.

What I gather is that we need to put ourselves in the consumer’s shoes and start thinking about where they give attention: is it to Reddit, Facebook, Google and Search Engines, Recipe Centers, Digital Community, etc.

How should a brand go about identifying these key places that they need to be showing up on, and what does the execution strategy look like from there?

The second stage of o2o is Offline Purchase, which is converting online demand to in-store traffic through targeted trials and offers

What does this look like and how can we help consumers overcome their perceived risk through trials and offers?
What are some specific tactics and techniques to get them to come in store after browsing a brand online?
Is there an example of a brand that has done this really well?

The third step in the 020 journey is Getting Feedback, or collecting product reviews, user-generated content, and in-market feedback.

You say that we need to be forming a more intimate relationship with a customer upfront, taking them through the development process, and making them feel a part of the brand.

I think it’s so easy to forget about nurturing a relationship with a customer after the sale happens! We often think in a mindset of generating leads and getting a customer to buy, but what happens after that is EQUALLY important!

Where can these feedback conversations happen?
What are some simple ways to make getting feedback part of everyday operations within our brands?
What are some platforms or tools that you’ve seen working well in terms of collecting reviews?

The final step in the o2o journey is amplification, which is about building loyalty and expanding brand reach with the brand evangelists.

You say that this is an opportunity for your brand to create community, find followers, and amplify the voices of your satisfied consumers.

What are some ways we can create and keep community at this stage?
What do you mean by amplifying the voices of satisfied customers? How can we do this?
What about Personalizing future offers?

Final Questions:

Is there any marketing trend or area of marketing you’re currently fascinated by or upleveling your skills on?
Any favourite brands to follow that do marketing really well?
Best piece of marketing advice you ever got?
Marketing book you would recommend?

People + Resources Mentioned:

Alive Publishing
Vega
Yotpo.com - Marketing Platform for ECOMM Brands
Shopify
Psychology of behavioral change
The Hard Thing About Hard Things: Building a Business When There Are No Easy Answers

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Episode Transcript:

You're listening to the visionary life podcast. I'm your host, Kelsey. Rydall, we're hanging out here today because one day, while hiking in Peru, after just having been let go from my dream job, it hit me. There's so much more to life and there's no excuse for not embracing uncertain. And trying new things to really explore our full potential in this lifetime.
On this weekly podcast, you'll hear from successful entrepreneurs, creative thinkers, and visionaries, just like you,
so that you feel less alone
as you pursue everything you want and deserve in this lifetime. This is a space where big sky thinking is welcomed and conversations about daily. Betterment are essential.
So if. Stop living an ordinary life and start living a visionary life, then welcome home.
Hey visionaries. Welcome back to the show. I'm super excited to. You too. Jessica Malick, current VP of marketing and insights for social nature, which is a discovery platform powered by half a million natural shoppers. Jessica is truly a pioneer of this concept that you may never have heard of before.
It's called online to offline marketing. I know there's a lot of buzz words in there online to offline marketing. If you don't know what it is, you're going to have to listen to the episode and if you've heard of it, but you're not implementing it in your business, you're also going to want to tune in and have Jessica enlighten us on the topic.
So Jessica actually coauthored or authored, rather the ebook called the complete guide to online, to offline marketing or as we'll refer. Oh to oh, marketing for CPG brands, featuring 50 pages of tips from 17 CPG expert contributors. So if you're a brand that promotes online and sells in stores, then this episode is a must.
Listen again, if you promote online, but you sell in stores, this is the concept of online to offline mark. So I'm really excited to introduce you to this episode and I'll share more on Jessica in a minute, but first I just wanted to take a pause and say, thank you. Thank you. Thank you to all of you. I just wrapped up my reporting and metrics for the month of may and the podcast actually hit a record number of downloads in may.
So. Gosh, that made my heart swell so much because as you know, I've been doing the podcast for over four years and to see the amount of downloads that came in and just one month, I'm still trying to figure out why there was such a surge. I did start sending out a weekly Thursday email that promotes a past episode.
Uh, but I also think that we've just had some really great guests sharing and getting the podcast into new hands regardless. It means a lot and so much gratitude. To all of you who are reviewing or screenshotting and sharing the show, a special shout out to Brianne. She shared the show recently and Jade, Jade.
Thank you so much. I really appreciate you. So I wanted to show to both of you. Okay. Let's get into this week's episode, Jessica and I actually once worked together at a plant based supplement company called Vega. And so we've stayed connected and you know, the power of LinkedIn, right? I love. Social media for staying connected to all the wonderful people I've interacted with, but she started sharing about this topic of Odo marketing and how the four stages could translate to the growth of online product discovery into in store sales.
So I just knew this was going to be a great conversation. So in this episode, we're going to dive deep into what the four stages of the Odo model are and how you can begin building through their step-by-step framework. We talk about tips for enhancing your chances of getting discovered online, how to capture emails on your website.
We talk about the power of free samples and demos in encouraging instar. We talk about what to do after the sale has been made to continue the conversation with our customers and to turn them into brand evangelists. And we also talk about some of Jessica's favorite marketing books and the best. Advice she's ever received.
So go ahead and click the link in the show notes. If you want to connect with Jessica, I will share her LinkedIn there, or you can find out more@socialnature.com. And I just want to make one little side note. This podcast was recorded a few months ago, and originally I recorded it for another podcast that I host called the marketing hotline, but we are actually on a pause with the marketing hotline.
It was just. So much, a lot to run two weekly podcasts. I was starting to feel like I was just trying to keep. And because visionary life has such a bigger audience and we have a way more established brand. Um, I just wanted to make sure that I wasn't spreading myself too thin. Do you guys ever feel that way?
Like you're spreading that peanut butter away? Thin on your piece of toast. That's sometimes how we feel when we are entrepreneurs, when we're business owners, when we're wearing a lot of hats. So I put the marketing hotline on hold, but I'm still taking time to air all of the episodes on visionary life.
So same amazing content, but this episode will have a bit more of a marketing spin. Is that cool with you? Cause marketing is going to help you find more clients and boost your revenue. So yeah, let's do marketing today. All right. Visionaries. I hope you enjoy it. Don't forget to snap a photo share on your IgE stories and tag me at Kelsey Reidel.
So I see it, and maybe it'll be shouted out in our next episode. So have fun listening to this one. I had so much. Hoarding it, and I will catch you all next week.
Jessica. Welcome to the marketing hotline podcast. I'm so excited to sit down and chat with you today. And my first question that I asked to all of our guests is when people call you and they ring you up and they're asking you for marketing advice, what topics are they usually picking your brain on?
Well, thank you so much, Chelsea, for having me on the show. And that's such a great question. Um, a lot of westerns are, are really around, like how do I scale my business? Like I work with a lot of early stage companies or mid-sized companies and it's always been. Making sure that the marketing strategy is aligned with the overall go-to-market picture and then figuring out like, which channels should I be focusing on first?
Like if I'm a startup, um, if I'm trying to expand, like what channels would be best for me to expand in, and then within these channels, what, what strategies should I be using, uh, from a marketing perspective to, to grow and thrive in these channels. That starts to come out back to, you know, understanding of the overall business growth strategy, what success looks like, what the resources are, and then it begins to map back to the overall brand positioning.
And then how do my products and services align with this? Positioning or my mission. Right? And so it's a lot of alignment work and then connecting that alignment work to being able to measure success and helping people to quickly validate early, as best as we can around. How do I actually establish product market fit?
Um, how can I understand quickly if this is resonating, what kind of data do I need? Or what kind of tests should I be running to evaluate this? And so that's a lot of what. Um, and it is, I mean, a lot more of a data-driven business these days for everybody. So it's about understanding, like what is the right data to make the right decisions?
And it's about asking the right questions I find in the first week.
Um, wow. They come to you with some juicy questions. That's
a lot big questions and that's what it is. You've got to be able to actually figure out, like, what is the right question to ask in the first place? Because what we see is the question, right.
Actually helps you to unearth the solution. So wrong question might actually bring the wrong result in the problem solving part. So question definition is a big part of this entire.
Such a good point now because people come to you with all of these questions. I think the listeners probably wondering, like, what is your background?
Could you give us a super quick synopsis of what your career and what your path has been over the past few decades? Yeah.
So I'm a hybrid. I do have a degree in business and marketing from SFU, and I've been working since I was a kid across a variety of jobs. And when I started to go into marketing, uh, really it was because I figured that no matter what you want to do in your.
Uh, whether it's to inspire social change, to grow company, or just increase awareness in your own community of something that you believe is important. Marketing is a skill that supports change. And so it's from this platform that I began my marketing career and ironically, my first lucky for marketing jobs, it was so hard to find a job that wasn't like a really low pain, entry level admin thing.
So I said, you know what? I think I'm actually going to stop. Sales. So I began my marketing career ironically, on the front line, doing sales and selling advertising and marketing solutions for several years. And I found that that front line experience really helps you to cut to the chase of like what's important to customers and to develop your, your mindful listening, I would call them skills, uh, to, to make sure that you understand how to align your value proposition.
And that's what any good marketer. Needs to do, right? So you, you, you begin to develop this, this natural empathy, which I think I got through that frontline experience. And I began my career in the natural product industry. So helping natural brands win and in the CPG marketplace with alive publishing group.
And so that is a company. Educates consumers in the United States and Canada about natural health solutions. And I worked with them for several years. And then I went on to work with a hyper-growth company at the time called Vega, which is where you and I first crossed paths, uh, healthy. And, uh, they got was, was like a playground for marketers.
So we were in a very high growth phase at the time, uh, at about 26 million and went to a hundred million in revenue over three years. And then the company was sold for half a billion. Um, just thereafter. And so we got to go ahead and try different things and be able to experiment a lot of different marketing strategies, uh, across the consumer journey from digital to e-commerce, to content, to influence marketing and external events.
So that was a really good, um, foundation actually as a marketer to begin to learn and to learn how to test and iterate quickly in a high-gross environment. So that's kind of where I've come from and now I'm with social nature. Uh, which is a combination of tech and CPG marketing. I'd say discovery platform for consumers to be able to find new natural products that are going with their health and lifestyle goals.
And we help them make the change or the switch if you will, to these products through product education and trial. So it's been a fun journey. I've got to dabble a little bit in tech. I've worked with a data company out of New York city that specializes in. Product digitization of data, and then leveraging that data to do personalized marketing across e-commerce channels.
And that's been really helpful, uh, to inform digital strategies and ways to build like the right content and products to connect with target audience. Um, it wasn't a quick background. I hope it was helpful. Yeah.
But I think all of it was very relevant and I love what you said, actually, you know, where you and I first connected was that Vegas, you called it a playground for marketers.
And I love that analogy because I even try to channel that in the marketing consulting that I do right now. Like I want marketing to. Be as fun as it was at Vega and to be as experimental. 📍 I try and bring that approach to everything that I'm doing. Like how can we make this enjoyable?
So that analogy of a playground for marketers, it really resonated with me because I think , a lot of people do look at marketing and they're like, oh, it's just all numbers and data and it's not fun. But I think if we can infuse play back into it, it can be an enjoyable part of your business and it can be, , , life giving when you land on strategies that really do light you up and that really produce benefit and result for the brand.
I love that you said that, I feel like when you're coming from that place of playfulness and that energy that comes there, that's where often our best ideas come from. They might be a little out of the box or crazy even in the moment, but then you start to distill them down. And so without this playfulness, We may not have the level of innovation and risk-taking, that's required to be successful in marketing and business these days.
Um,
yeah, it's that fine balance, right. Bringing that fun and playfulness and still, always reflecting on what's working. So, um, okay. So at social nature, so that's where you are today. You've kind of. This concept of online to offline marketing, which is really designed to translate the growth of online product discovery into in store sales.
And, uh, in your words, you do this by bridging two trends. So first consumers are now primarily searching for new products online and second, the highest volume of retail sales remains at brick and mortar stores. So I love that. Because it's a concept that I hadn't really considered before you guys kind of brought the term online to offline marketing, um, to my awareness, but I'm wondering, can you share more about why you are so passionate about this OTO model and who needs to be paying attention to this right now?
Wow, what a great question. Um, yeah. So I'm passionate about this model, uh, because it's got synergy around it, which when we have synergy, what we mean is, or what we get is we get more efficiencies across our marketing. And we tend to get better results because one activity is feeding into another. Then the online to offline marketing cycle is placing the consumer at the center of the journey.
So we're deeply understanding where they're spending their time, what their pain points are, what they're searching for. And then we're mapping out the online and the offline cycle to align with what these things are. And then we're getting to. Relationships with people directly because we're pioneering this cycle from a digital standpoint.
Why is that important? Because of digital, we can, can, we can continue to communicate after the sale, we can set up email marketing funnels, where we can connect. And ultimately what we're doing, which is really important and CPG, regardless of your category, is to have direct relationships with consumers.
Uh, if you're an early stage company or emerging kind of brand. And you're trying to win on the shelf. You cannot be just relying on in-store traffic and hoping to get noticed it's an absolute risk. And so with the online, offline marketing cycle, what we're doing is we're reading an engine that can create more predictable impact in that store by targeting people online.
And then we'll realize. Offline to where your products are sold. So this helps to build that in-store awareness that we need to get noticed in the first place to start moving our units off the shelf, and then to be able to build these relationships after the sale, to get better data that then feedbacks feeds back into our business strategy, whether that be evaluating the product performance, getting reviews, or even starting to crowdsource like the next big idea from these people that have just gone and tried.
Oh, I love this so much. And I honestly like, could open my cupboard right now and look at a lot of the brands that I purchase on a regular basis. And there is this hybrid of like I'm following the brand on Instagram, or I found them on. Some sort of natural health marketplace or whatever the case is. And then when I was shopping in store, I saw the product on shelf and I already had this baseline level of awareness and I was already very, um, savvy of like what the benefits of the product were and like whether it was for me or.
And so naturally at the store level, I picked it up and bought it, but I'm sure a lot of that came from what happened before I entered the store, which was seeing the brand and interacting with it online and being on their email list or, you know, like there's so many things that go into making a purchasing decision that you're just putting this into words for me.
And I'm finally realizing. This is how we buy these days, right.
A hundred percent. And that's why you asked me who should know this. Well, I think every company should know this because it's a simple model that you can follow and you can structure your activities across. Each of the stages and it grounds it and it makes it, um, something you can take action on.
And it's aligned with what you just said, Kelsey, which is what consumers are actually doing. We're not trying to force a behavior care. What we're doing is we're actually aligning our ourselves and our tactics to behaviors that are naturally high.
So you say it's a simple model and there are four stages.
So can you quickly give us an overview before we kind of do the deep dive on each stage? What are these four stages?
Yeah, so there's four main stages. And the first one is all about the online discovery process. So being able to, first of all, decide like who is my target audience and doing a little bit of like online research, maybe some social listening, a little bit of like online focus groups to get a sense of.
Um, who your audience would be like, where are they spending our time? What are they looking for, et cetera. And then three to build a content strategy around us, online discovery. And so from that, we can generate demand through several different ways. And then we can mobilize that online demand that we generally.
Into the stores for purchase. So that's the second stage, which is the offline purchase. There's different ways to drive the offline sales through that digital funnel. Basically, whether it's a free product offer or a special coupon offer or something that's going to get people's attention. And what's exciting is, is that we're developing this great sales strategy and then it doesn't stop at the sale.
So they bought the products. And then the third part is. Actually having a feedback loop with the consumer after they purchased the product so that you're able to get a sense of like, what was their experience. So you can identify enhancement opportunities, you can capture product reviews, you can set up a contest for user generated content.
And it's all about getting that feedback. And so the final stage is what I'm calling an amplification is how do I then amplify that content? And how do I. Amplify that consumer engagement and that's where we can start to build community strategies. So we can start to engage people. And our next campaigns, we can have them opt in maybe to even like ambassador programs and all kinds of.
Hmm. Okay, amazing. So that's a really good overview of the four stages. And I will just say here for the listener, who is like, I would like this in a visual model. I will, uh, um, link the opt-in page for this amazing ebook that you guys have created, because right in that ebook, you can actually see the visual of what these four stages are and you guys do a great job of breaking it down.
So we'll kind of say that for the person who has. To go super deep on this. Um, let me bring it back to the very first stage. So you say the first stage in the online to offline journey is online discovery. So say for somebody who has a brand new product and they're like, okay, like I know I need to be online.
But I don't necessarily know, like there's so many places I could be showing up and they know they need to have a multi-channel strategy, but they have no idea where to begin. So what are some of the things we should consider in mapping out this online discovery strategy? This episode is sponsored by the visionary method.
The visionary method is a seven step system. That's going to help you create and launch your business successfully. We've had 200 people go through it and it's going to help you to generate your first 50,000 in revenue. Even if you're starting at zero, you can learn more at www.kelseyrydall.com/tv M.
Awesome question. So I think the first thing is best we can, um, is to try to do a little bit of like research first online. So try to be able to connect with people and do some research and really just ask them, like, where are you spending your time? What kinds of things are you looking for? And then be able to map the consumer journey like through actual conversation with people, uh, through doing a little bit of like keyword research.
Social listening is good because if you use a social listening tool, you can start to figure out where conversations are happening and who was most influential in them. And then mapping out that consumer journey, uh, based on this data. And then from there you can create a digital road. Uh, which channels you're going to be communicating in.
And so this could be like a mix of social ads and channels. It could be some partnerships with online communities based on the research that you've done. And then it will be important to have some form of a SEO or content for your site, because ultimately we're trying to, to drive into the site. To capture email and the email acquisition.
Um, I think it's the biggest opportunity actually in this whole model and to do it very strategically. So if we know that we want to be driving offline sales with this, then what I would recommend doing is when we get the emails is having people build an account. If you're not going to see already. Then have a reason why somebody should sign up for the email and be upfront about what your intentions are that you are wanting to invite them into like special product lunches, to hear what they think and getting them to opt in and getting their zip codes or their postal codes asking them, like, where do you typically shop?
Where would you like to buy certain types of products and making this seem like a benefit, right? So they want to give you the data. And from there. The reason this is important is that if we're trying to drive an offline event, we need to know where people live and want to shop. Otherwise we're not going to be as effective, right.
Especially if we're doing a test in a key region and we're not national yet, we're only in a certain sub stores. Right? So from there, that's when you can start to build. These relationships that actually have like the
offline piece start to happen. Cool. Okay. So you've mentioned like one of the most important things is actually capturing their email.
Once they're on your website and you're driving all this traffic to the website, are there any examples of calls to action to get people to opt in? That you've seen to be really successful. Like what exactly should be on that pop-up or that opt-in, that is going to compel a potential customer to give you their email because people are so hesitant these days.
Oh, great point. Yeah. I think it depends on like, What your, what your category is like, what kind of products are selling or what kind of services you offer? So certainly like eBooks and content still work really well. Like if people are searching for advice on a specific kind of topic and they can download an ebook and your ebook invites them to opt and into a community of like minded people where they're going to also get additional tips or maybe invites to like online events or webinars.
Even in a, an invitation to an offline. And then I think that that can be a really good strategy. The other thing could be a straight up offer. So essential nature. Of course, we provide free products for people to try. And so you can test out different ads with like a free sample on your own website. So that can be a quick way.
It's a less, less on brand awareness. It's more conversion driven of course, to get people to sign up so that. Get their free product sample and stem playing, especially in the food business is really important. Uh, hair and makeup skincare stuff is also another strategy there. So a sampling calls to action could be really, really good depending on the category.
Absolutely. And you're right. Like when I think of, again, a lot of the products that line my shelves it's often because I had some sort of test drive of the product, a free sample. And obviously, especially with COVID happening these days, like I think brands need to get more and more creative of how they are providing that free sample.
Cause it might not be at the store level or at a live event, but there's still so many ways to be able to deliver that experiential. Even though maybe the typical demo does not exist anymore. Totally. Okay. So second stage of the online to offline, um, journey is offline purchase. So you've kind of mastered the online discovery strategy and you're showing up in various channels.
And now we're thinking of how we drive that offline purchase, which is. Converting the online demand to the in-store traffic through targeted trials and offers. So I'm curious, can you give us an example of what this looks like and how can we help consumers overcome the perceived risk of buying a new product through trial and through, off.
Yes. So social nature is a good example of this because it's an online discovery platform, um, that provides consumers with the opportunity to try products. So we've got 700,000 more than 700,000 consumers that have signed up. And so we're leading with education, right? They get to learn about the brand stories.
They get to understand why these products are better for them. We only work with natural brands and then they hit to opt in to try the. So having some kind of model where you are providing like an opportunity to try the product, like a free try, uh, can be really good. And so what we'll do is we will have people opt-in to try it and then we'll give them.
A free product voucher that is available at a store that they already want to shop for the product at. So it's a really targeted mechanism because we're not asking people to go into a store that they don't already shop at. And we're not trying to push an offer at somebody that they don't really care are never opted in the first place.
So that, that works really well. And I'll just kind of restate that again. Wait, we lead with education. You get them to operate. And then he makes sure that your offer is aligned with where they already want to go to buy or shop or look at these products, if you can do that. Well, um, that's one of the most effective ways to do that.
Other brands might leverage, like, you know, kind of, um, treasure hunt type things. Like maybe you've got an SMS strategy and you've got. You know, a flash sale or a black Friday type thing. And it's like, Hey, you know, we've got the school offer. Like it's only available this week, keeping it really high offer.
Super cool. And making it feel exclusive, got to get in there during his days. Like reading urgency can be another tactic that works well. Um, I think that would work best if you already have like larger scale distribution where a broader strategy like this could work well, and that geo-targeting maybe is a little bit less
than.
Um, so cool. And is there an example of a brand that has done this really, really well?
So, you know, to be honest, it's hard. A lot of brands are struggling with this in the sense that they, they they're doing like socialized and trying to target them into stores, but they're having a problem measuring the impact.
So it can be difficult if you're a new brand and don't have a ton of distribution, right. If you are a larger. Like I mentioned, then this is a little bit easier because you've already got enough doors and kind of brick and mortar awareness by virtue of being in market to leverage these things. So what we have found, one of our clients actually, uh, sweet nothings, um, they had wonderful success with us and we've got a lot of case studies on the social nature.com website.
So this company had to pivot from food service, uh, during COVID when all of that was shut down and head into the retail market. So they were super new company, like just getting launched and retail. And, um, when we work with them, We found, we got 31,000 consumers that fit their target audience to update in a matter of weeks to try the product.
Wow. And 98% of them were new to the brand and they were in a seven division tests that Kroger. And so this worked really well because this demand was mobilized quickly. As I mentioned before, in that more predictable way to get the consumer to go into the store and try the product. And as they got to try the product that the company got a bunch of data on their pricing model on their experience.
And then Gregor ended up, um, putting them into a 15 division, full rollout after.
Okay. I know what the listener is thinking. How did you get 31,000 people to opt in?
It's not crazy. So wonderful. I think because we build a community in the first place. So this is where like this community strategy, like as best we can, regardless of what size company you are, it does take time to build a community.
It is an investment of course, is having the community ready in the first place. So trying to build those relationships, whether it be like really cool content or. Bringing them into some kind of like online events and things like that, or partnering with other like-minded communities can help you. And then you're able to, to basically.
You know, mobilize that community if you will. Yeah.
Yeah. I'm always thinking like, there's got to already be people gathered who this product would be perfect for. Like where are there already a thousand or 10,000 people in a Facebook group or in a, you know, a big run group in a city or. They've got to already be gathered somewhere.
So how can we just simply partner or show up there? And like you said, mobilize that community that already exists, who would be interested in our brand or in our product.
Exactly. I think community partnerships are so key to growing. And if you lead with value, you come into that community with a nice, authentic intention to bring something of value, you can build some really nice relationship stopped way.
Organically, like things will start to grow, like, because we're leading with that.
it's so true. And you're right. Like the communities that I am part of as a consumer, when the leader of the community, or, you know, when I'm at an event and they endorse a specific product, I already have that trust factor.
Cause I'm like, oh, okay. Like if you would bring that product in front of us, it means that you vetted it. You obviously like it liked the brand already. So I already have that trust built up and it's like getting that referral, which is. Way easier for me to take a referral then to just like go blindly search on Google for a product and then have some sort of trust built up
a hundred percent trust is E
okay.
So now I want to talk about the third step in the online to offline journey, which is getting feedback. And you say, this is really about asking the consumer. What was your experience and seeing is there user generated content coming and getting. Product reviews. So I'm curious, how can we start these conversations?
Like if we know that a certain, a group of people have tried the product they've gone in store, they've purchased it. How do we continue the conversation from there? What are some specific techniques that we can use?
Definitely. So the first part would be. You've heard me talk about this email funnel for a while.
Like during this conversation and specifically I'm trying to be geo-targeted about it. If you have, if you're not national yet, or you have a key region or whatever. So imagine we built our community. We've brought whether it's through partnerships or content or whatever it is, people have. Join our community.
They've let us know that they're interested in our brand and our products and where they shop. So the next step is to give them an offer and it's a straight call to action to go get the products. What you can do is you can actually set up like your email sequences, um, to be timed so that you can follow up with them after you think they would have gone into that store.
So kind of setting up, you know, You know, Janet clicked open on the email, you know, whatever Tuesday, maybe a week later, or two weeks later, I check in with Janet and I see like, Hey Janet, what was your experience like? And we want to time this, uh, based on what we think the product usage period would be.
If it's going to be like skincare, it might be a little bit longer to feel like I can give a review compared to eating a snapper. So we can actually follow up with them because we invited them with this offer and then ask them what was their experience, or please read a review. You can have a review call to action email, go out there and just start to get the feedback that way.
So that's one way you can. And then the other way, because it will just many ways, but that's a good one because it keeps that journey, that consumer journey and that, that entire loop is you can experiment with like on pack stuff. You could have like a QR code in there. That's like, Hey, we'd love to hear what you think.
Like please your review and enter. X giveaway or whatever. Right. So you're leveraging like, or your signage and people are using QR codes now. Like they kind of started quite a long time ago to care. Right. Um, and now like with, with the COVID situation, people got used to using QR. Because of menus, right?
So it's not like people don't use so many more. They're using them all the time now. And people are that behavior has been trained, uh, with people that own smartphones and a large part of the population now, regardless of income does own a smartphone it's become necessary for people. Right? So you think you are codes and like kind of offline, um, calls to action with like a QR or something can be another way that we can start getting this, this conversation.
In terms of collecting reviews. I mean, I know how powerful social proof is, and I feel like every business can benefit from collecting more testimonials case studies, reviews, et cetera. Are there any specific tactics or techniques or tools that you recommend brands use in order to collect more of these types of social proof?
Yes. Uh, Yocto is a really good platform. Is Y O T P. Um, we have an integration with them at social nature, and literally we've caught like 2 million reviews over the last few years. Um, so there's a lot of reviews coming from social nature. And so Jaco is integrated with Shopify, which a lot of people's stores are on.
So that's easy for you to have that, like an integration where after purchase yacht co is going to be prompting. And it also enables SMS messaging as well. So. Through that, that platform not only capture reviews, but then go and like retarget or remarket to people, um, through the SMS channels about like your next school offers.
So I would say. Look at them. Um, the other thing that I'd be looking at, like when I'm looking for a review partner is not just, can you integrate with my website, but can you syndicate my reviews to other channels? Because the part of the social proof, especially if you're a new company and you don't have a massive Canadian just yet, we want to go and have our reviews on the channels that are bigger back to the community.
Partly. Yes. Earlier Kelsey. So you can look for companies that syndicate to like Google and Facebook and, uh, Jaco is one of them. So that would be definitely a company that I went to take a look at. And, um, you can look at them online and you can see who their competitors are and maybe call a few of them and to see which one resonates.
Hmm,
that's such a good tip. And I will link that in the show notes. I never actually heard of that website, so I'm excited to check it out and learn more about it too.
One more thing is the home page of. If you can structure your CMS so that your review feed is coming up there. And then you can ask someone to leave a review.
Then the reviews are like top, top of mind. And they're also building that trust right away with that new web visitor. So that's like a simple thing to do that sometimes people might not do. And it's another way to like, leverage that.
Yeah, I feel like I've seen that more and more on websites. You log onto the homepage.
There's like some sort of little box that pops up in the bottom left corner or it's right on the homepage integrated. And you're seeing that real time feedback, or you're seeing the most recent reviews and something subconsciously happens that you're like, oh, okay. Like my mind's at ease and I can trust this brand.
Exactly. Okay. So now I want to move into the final step of the online to offline journey. And, you know, I just want to reiterate, I love that you've mapped this out for us because I think so often it's easy to just really dial in on like customer acquisition. How do I find new leads? How do I, you know, get more people to try the product, but we totally forget about nurturing them and making them into lifetime customers and really ensuring that they have.
Excellent remarkable experience. And I think like, this is what you guys are highlighting so well. So that final step is amplification, which is about building loyalty, expanding brand reach, and really converting a customer into a brand evangelists. So can you first just crack open, like what this amplification stage is and why it's important?
Yes.
So what we're talking about is scaling our brand and our sales, basically when we say the word amplification and the way we're doing that is through the amplification in a way of these, these customer relationships. So they are the advocates and they are the ones that are going to be helping us grow.
Right. It's very simple, but it's something that we sometimes. Forget about when we just get stuck in numbers as he, as he sat. Right. So what we want to be doing is thinking about like, how can I mobilize my existing customer base? To continue to grow my business. And I know that sounds like very simple. Um, however, if you think about it from a relationship and it's a two way street, it's not just you talking at them, but you starting to invite them into a conversation with your company.
You can start to involve them in your innovation, like set up an innovation lab, invite people. And prototype and test different things, ask them about what different formats problems like really involving them in that, um, is a great way to build products that people actually want. Right. And once you launch them, you can thank the people and report back to them of what your progress has been.
So that's. One way to think about it. And I think other ways are just to continue to nurture them with like relevant content. So asking people what would be helpful to them. Um, and then reading content events, et cetera, uh, that would be related to that can be.
Hmm. I love that. It's really kind of co-creating the future of the brand.
Exactly your customers, instead of just feeling like it's just up to the CEO, it's just up to the founder. Cause it's like, no, it's not. This is now a team effort and we have to get in conversation and work with our customers who are our team moving forward. Exactly so awesome. I mean, there's so much here in these four stages and I know you outline it in like nine simple steps.
So I would definitely encourage people to go download the ebook again, which I'll link in the show notes because you share a lot of tips and I love that you bring in a lot of outside voices, too. There's a lot of quotes from consultants and people. Worked in the industry and just a lot of juicy nuggets packed into that ebook.
So, I mean, thank you for creating that. And I really enjoyed reading it. It honestly is a very insightful piece of content. Let's see. I do have some final questions. Of course, we have a lot of marketers who listened to the pilot. People who want to become better marketers. So my first question is, is there any trend or area of marketing that your currently fascinated by or upleveling your skills in right now?
I am fascinated and always have been, um, the psychology of behavioral change. Like I, I just, I'm so fascinated by it. I have grown up, like I was a national level athlete. I've done a lot of coaching with people in my personal life. As a leader. I do a lot of coaching in my professional life and I get really excited when I see people like make positive changes regardless, regardless of what the goal is.
And so I feel. Marketing and business has the opportunity to do that. Yes. We want to grow our sales. Yes. We have maybe investor targets or stock prices to pay attention to. Um, and when we, we, we align like, you know, business as a force for good, or we have good intentions in what we're doing. It's really easy to create more authentic.
I know that word is so overused. It doesn't even feel authentic to say authentic, but let's just use it for now. Real stuff that people actually are going to relate to. So for me, it's yeah. Really understanding, like what is that, that person's experience and like, how can I help them and what, what needs to happen, uh, for them to take ownership of that changed themselves and want to keep doing the video.
That's super neat. And yeah, I'm very curious to see where you go with all those learnings, because I think that's something that I would love to crack open as well. It's definitely a juicy topic, so much
crazy tech now to measure it. It's a little bit nuts, but yeah, for sure that
could probably be like a 12 month course on this.
And I still wouldn't know at all. Yeah. Um, I'm curious, what is the best piece of marketing advice that you've ever gotten or a piece of marketing advice that you often give to other.
Sure I've got two. So the first one that I love, this one, it was given to me by a VP at a company I worked at a long time ago when I was like, just kind of getting started, um, as a head of business development.
So I was like a young director at the time and he's like, you know, just like businesses. People overly complicated all the time. It's not complicated, like simplify, simplify, simplify. And I think that that's important application in marketing. We really need to just understand, like, what is the product that we're rating?
How does it align with the customer needs and like simplify as best we can, uh, and not let all the technical stuff and all the change, uh, scare us. Like always simplify, go back to like, what's driving the value here. If you follow the value, you're always going to agree. The best strategy. So that's, that's what I would say about that.
And I think that I'm actually using common sense and empathy is key. If we don't have empathy, if you are, if you think that, you know, your product is school out of your super internally focused, and you're not actually market focused or. You're not going to be as successful. So you have to lead with empathy on your external communications and your product development.
And in your internal marketing with your staff, with your colleagues. Great things and build relationships. So that's what I would say about that would be my answer. You kind of
reminds me, it kind of reminds me of a quote, the second part that you shared, um, about like it's common sense. I've heard something before that said before there was marketing, there was common sense.
And for some reason that really resonated with me because I think we make it so complicated, but again, before. Like the word marketing was invented. Like you just thought, okay, well, like what relationships do I already have? Can I present them with this butter that I churned in my kitchen and, you know, be a nice person while you're doing it.
And sometimes I think like, we've got to get back to that simplicity, like you said, Um, you know, not making it so complicated. So those are two great pieces of advice. My final question for you is, is there a marketing book or a business book, or just something that you often refer to as one of, you know, one of the more impactful pieces that you've ever read or books that you've ever.
I love. And this funny, Anna, we had the founder of social nature nights share the same favorite book. That's probably why we get along so well is it's called the hard thing about hard things by Ben Horwitz. And this book is all about like it's grit. It's about building a business when there are no easy answers.
And I love that because I've worked in a lot of startups. I've had my own consulting practice. And what I've learned is. Um, you can't be out there looking for playbooks and somebody to tell you the right way to do something. Yes. There are best practices, a hundred percent. But if you're looking for that ideal solution, like you're not going to find it because things change too quickly.
There's never going to be enough data. There's never going to be this clear signal. You can get decent signals, but it's not ever going to be. A hundred percent predictable. That's just the way businesses and life is. So it's learning how to have a skill, to be able to adapt to that kind of environment and to be able to have the courage, if you will, to take chances like take risks, experiment, experiment, experiment, and don't be afraid to fail failure, being afraid of failure, skills, innovation.
We have to be afraid or not afraid. Excuse me. So go out there and try stuff. And that's what I've done in my marketing career. I've literally done stuff I've never done before. I just made it up and I'm like, I was just give it a try and it works. It works because you use common sense. You go back to what's driving the value in the first place, what are the goals?
And then you create things from there. And so. That book is amazing. It's an, it's an easy read. It's got a ton of war stories, um, from founders of companies and anybody in business, pastor, I would highly recommend it.
Oh, such a good tip. And I'm excited to read that book because I haven't before. And I love what you said.
Like, you know, you have to figure out what works for you because. Anyone could write this marketing playbook and say, follow these 10 steps, because this is what worked for me. But by the time they're teaching it to you, you're going to apply it to your own business and it may not work the same. And then you think, well, what did I do wrong?
It's not that you did it wrong. Marketing is an ever-changing landscape. And what worked for, you know, person a is not going to work for person B. And so you have to constantly be innovating, experimenting, testing, and finding what works for your brand and your business. And I love that, you know, that's a core kind of value of what you do too.
So. Wow. Um, Jessica, this has been so much fun, so much good info. And I feel like our show notes are going to be packed with stuff that the listener can follow up with too. So I'll make sure that everything is inside there. And I just wanted to say, thank you so much for sharing your journey on the marketing hotline podcast and for giving us your time today.
So where can people connect with you? Where can they find out about social nature? Um, anything that you would like to share so that people can stay in touch.
Yeah, so you can connect with me on LinkedIn, like other, my name, and then for social nature, it's social nature.com. And if you want to learn about ways to use online to offline model, to drive trial at retail and collect a bunch of feedback and build relationships with consumers.
If you are a better for you brand in the space, then you can also email marketing at social nature.
Amazing. Thank you so much. And we wish you all the best in your. Thank
you Kelsey. And thanks to the listeners. Uh, this was so much fun and I hope y'all got value out of it. Have a great day.
Thanks for tuning in to this episode of visionary life.
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