Category: ICYMI

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Celebrating Five Years of Growth and Success: Lessons from Building Our Consumer Goods Marketing Agency

Celebrating Five Years of Growth and Success: Lessons from Building Our Consumer Goods Marketing Agency 

We’re raising a toast to our five-year biz anniversary, y’all. Time flies when you’re making dreams come true! (That is, ours AND our clients of course!) 

And, man how it’s FLOWN by… During those early days you could find us coworking out of our favorite local coffee shop, Cosmic Coffee, cranking out work while sipping on lattes and riding on the buzz of the fellow work-from-homers, contractors, and creatives using the same space to help make their dreams come true (or less dramatically, simply just getting shi* done).

Now, we’re surrounded by a talented team of hardworking marketers, have helped dozens of brands generate millions in revenue, and work on the same amazing brands, albeit a few more on our roster.

What started as a theoretical question over a sushi lunch break from our previous day jobs has evolved into a thriving, growing agency, and we’re thankful for the journey.

As we reflect on the past five years, through all the failures, successes, and overall growth – we’re excited to share some insights that have shaped who we are and how we work today:

**1. Embrace Innovation and Adaptability

The only constant in digital marketing is change. Whether it’s adopting new strategies or marketing channels, keeping up with emerging trends, or exploring AI technologies, our ability to pivot and evolve has been vital in achieving results for our clients.

**2. Building a Strong Team is a Non-Negotiable

From just the two of us to a powerhouse team, our agency’s growth has been propelled by the incredible individuals who share our vision and live our mission to build better CPG brands. Investing in the right talent and nurturing a collaborative work environment can make all the difference.

**3. Relationships: Cultivate, Nurture, Thrive

At the heart of our success lies the relationships we’ve cultivated with not only our clients, but the strong network of CPG professionals we’re lucky enough to surround ourselves with in our hometown of Austin, TX. Taking the time to truly understand the journey, values, and goals of our clients and course members has helped us lay the foundation for impactful marketing strategies, and being a part of this tight knit consumer goods community has truly allowed us to grow year over year.

**4. Harnessing the Power of Systems and Training

One of the most significant lessons we can share is the importance of setting up systems and providing comprehensive training for our team. When we launched, we stressed the importance of standardized processes to streamline workflows and ensure consistency in our deliverables especially as our team grew. Developing a range of highly effective systems and standard operating procedures (SOPs) have become integral to our efficiency and training.

**5. Continuous Learning and Evolution

The past five years have been one long learning experience. Staying curious and committing ourselves to personal and professional growth is something we try to instill in all of our teammates. Whether it’s taking an occasional course (we provide a $1k yearly stipend to anyone who wants to take a course), seeking out mentorship, or devouring the latest marketing news like we haven’t eaten a good meal in days, our dedication to evolving alongside this fast paced industry has been instrumental in getting us to five years (and beyond)

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And with all of that – we’re happy to offer you our meticulously crafted systems and SOPs to help train YOUR teams and elevate your marketing game so that you can celebrate your continued success.

Something that was lacking in some of the in-house positions we’ve had was proper training and (any) systems – so if you’re finding yourself in the same boat, check out our collection of training materials so that your marketing teams can feel set up for success.

The lessons we’ve shared here are a testament to the dedication, hard work, and passion of all the people we’re lucky enough to work with and alongside.

To our clients, team members, and partners, thank you for being a part of this journey. Here’s to five years of growth, and to the next five.

Alison + Karin

Ready to create a 7-figure Consumer Goods Brand without wasting money on strategies that don't work?

Then it's time you join the Consumer Goods Growth Course & start driving the results you've been wanting!

Book a call with us now & learn how you can start making consistant, 7-figure sales!

Book a call!
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How to Execute Killer Holiday/BFCM Promos

promos
promos

How to Execute Killer Holiday/BFCM Promos

 

Turkey Day is right around the corner (YES, in the marketing world it is!), so it’s time to start preparing a killer Black Friday, Cyber Monday (BFCM) marketing plan. That’s right – it’s not too late to improve upon any existing plans you have in the queue or start a campaign from scratch.

And instead of winging it, we want to make it easy for you. We’re going to walk (or Turkey Trot) you through step-by-step on how to decide on your promo offer AND how to execute it.

Let’s get right into it!

How to decide on your promo offer:

 Step 1:  Test promo offers ahead of time for big sales seasons  

  • Don’t start with a Black Friday promo offer cold turkey! We don’t recommend testing new offers on Black Friday/Cyber Monday. Testing a new offer can be a hit or miss, so do it ahead of time! For example, if you want to run a tiered offer for BFCM, we’d highly recommend testing a smaller threshold offer during a different holiday sale (for example:  Labor Day) to determine which tiers would work best. Then, you can replicate the offer later on with different pricing thresholds. 
    • If you have a new business and don’t have much sales data to work off of, you can start with building email leads and test segmenting offers. To determine what’s going to work with your audience you can run an email A/B test with a % off offer vs. a $ off offer. The winner of this test can help you determine which type of offer would be good to move forward with.

Step 2: Determine your Promo Profit 

  • In order to give your customers a juicy discount, you’ll need to determine your Gross Profit Margin first. To get this, use the formula: (Net Sales – COGS) / Net Sales. Then, you’ll need to pull your average order value (AOV). Once you know your Gross Profit Margin and AOV, you can play with various offers such as percentages or dollars off and see which offer will fit within your profit margins. 
    • If you don’t have a true idea of what your AOV is, you can instead base this profit margin off of COGS alone to help determine what’s doable for your brand.

How to execute:

Step 1: Set clear goals (and debrief from last year’s promos)

  • It’s so important to look back at your previous promos (if you ran them) to see how they performed and what you can improve on. During debrief from last year’s promos, we found that our top performing promos are:
    • Tiered
    • Bundles
    • Free gift w/ purchase
    • Seasonal, small-batch, and limited edition offerings 
  • We set primary goals of a percentage increase in YoY sales and secondary + tertiary goals (that help us reach our primary goal) of:
    • Increased AOV % via ads
    • Increased ROAS % via ads
    • Increased email revenue %
    • Increased email CTR %

Step 2: Make an irresistible offer

  • Don’t forget a vital step BEFORE you deliver your irresistible offer… SERVE your audience!! Give them value, establish trust, and provide the best user experience possible, not just once, but in the months leading up to your big promos. Then you can hit ‘em with that juicy promo! (See Step 1 for promo ideas!)
  • Consider an early bird campaign because:
    •  1. People love feeling like they’re VIP/getting something exclusive and
    •  2. Get those sales in before folks get picky with where they’re spending their money.
  • Research and decide on your web stack or web apps that you’ll need for the promo.
    • Examples: an announcement bar, a cart upsell app, a sales page builder, etc.
      • If you’re running a tiered discount, try this helpful Shopfiy app: Tiered Discounts– it does operate using codes but it applies it to the cart automatically and stacks to create awesome tiered discounts.
        • We’ve found that the mid-tier code usually gets the most redemptions and the higher and lower tier codes aren’t used as much – this can help with AOV if your pricing thresholds are set higher!
      • For bundle discounts, we like to use Bundler – this allows you to create mix & match bundles AND stack discounts on top of them.

Step 3: Create scroll-stopping content

  • Give someone a reason to stop and read/watch your content! Use bold colors and clear headlines that detail the main reasons why someone would want to take advantage of the offer.
  • Draft up several emails, social posts, and social ads to support the promo campaign (the amount of each will vary depending on your audience size and what you’re currently doing).
  • Another thing to consider is how the offer is presented. This can make or break the potential of getting a sale. For some, 15% off is less attractive than a $ off offer! Testing, like we mentioned, will help you determine what your audience responds best to. 
  • Creating a sense of urgency is also the tur-KEY (When will we stop with these? It’s hard to say.) to your promo messaging! Someone is more enticed to buy if they know a sale ends in 24 hours vs. a week long sale. Keep hyping that scarcity and time limit until the sale is gone for good! 
  • An app like Countdown Timer Ultimate can really get the message across that this sale is ending SOON! Add this to your main website page, cart, and product pages to create that sense of urgency.

Step 4: Test everything!

  • Ensure that your website is optimized, and fast! You can run a speed test (for free with Google’s PageSpeed Insights) and install an app, like Lucky Orange, to see if there are any site issues that could bring down your conversion rate.
  • Audit your email automations, ad campaigns, and social to ensure that everything is firing correctly & email deliverability is good, ads are optimized, and social bio descriptions are optimized for search and clicks to website.
  • Make sure your promos are SIMPLE and CLEAR! 
    • Provide your audience with promo details when applicable (start and end date, codes needed, products included, etc.) Try to utilize automatic discounts or sitewide sales at a static discount to avoid the probable misspelling or user error that comes along with using promo codes.
  • Test the checkout flow and press GOOOO!

By implementing the strategies above, we increased sales 80% YoY for a beauty brand we work with and we’re looking to make some more gravy this year!

If you’re looking for even more tips and tricks to make your holiday promos the best ever, our *new* BFCM Kit makes it easier for your business to have its most profitable holiday promo yet! The BFCM Kit includes social, ads, and email templates, promo checklists, and a total BFCM execution plan.

Let’s make Q4 the best sales quarter yet (without all the stress)!

Ready to create a 7-figure Consumer Goods Brand without wasting money on strategies that don't work?

Then it's time you join the Consumer Goods Growth Course & start driving the results you've been wanting!

Book a call with us now & learn how you can start making consistant, 7-figure sales!

Book a call!
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Listicle of Our Favorite Holiday Promos

Listicle of Our Favorite BFCM and/or Holiday Promos

Holiday planning in July? You betcha! July is a GREAT time to start planning a successful holiday promo execution! Q4 can be a stressful time for everyone looking to wrap up the year strong, so we want to help get you started (early!!) on executing your perfect Black Friday Cyber Monday (BFCM for short) or holiday promotions.

Where to begin? We got you! 

Step 1: Set clear goals (and debrief from last year’s promos if you ran them)

Step 2: Make an irresistible offer

Step 3: Create scroll-stopping content

Step 4: Test everything!

Now to get your ideas flowin’ we’ve listed some real life examples of CPG brands that executed some killer holiday promos.

MaryRuth’s Organics: A straightforward BFCM campaign!

MaryRuth’s Organics has some quality e-commerce focused marketing… If you haven’t already, scour their website, sign up for the email + SMS, check out their ads in the Facebook Ads Library, follow them on social, and take a look at the robust work they do with affiliates and influencers. Guaranteed you’ll learn something!

In 2022, they employed a straightforward 25% off sitewide discount and sent emails daily. Outside of the 25% off sitewide – they boasted UP TO 30% off sitewide in all subject lines and some headlines to promote their discounted bundles. Bundles are great for increasing AOV and promoting during holiday shopping since it allows people to try multiple different flavors and/or products (or share the variety with their loved ones).

4 email subject lines:

Email 1:

Email 2:

Poppi: CANCEL Black Friday (but not really at all)

Poppi put a little spice on their BFCM promo by saying they were CANCELING it. But not really because the founder explains in this video posted on Tuesday, November 15 (Black Friday was on November 25) that they’re still providing a sale but making it *exclusive* to email and SMS subscribers… More sales AND more email + SMS opt-ins? YES, please!

But then, to no one’s surprise, they still did a Cyber Monday 30% off deal.

Important note: you can see from some of those comments that Poppi didn’t complete our “step 4: test everything” well enough… Looks like the instructions on how and where to get the 30% off for Cyber Monday weren’t clear and that likely lost them some sales (and created more customer service inquiries than expected). Don’t forget to include all terms in your marketing assets, test the promo on your own website (and have others test it, too), and make it as EASY as possible for people to purchase!

OUR PLACE: Give back while getting sales.

If you’re a brand that has several sales a year and you’re not keen on sharing an additional discount during BFCM, consider a Giving Tuesday campaign like Our Place did last year!

For every purchase made on their site from Giving Tuesday (November 29) through the end of the year, they donated meals through three different food banks. Not only are they living up to their mission of “connecting across the kitchen table” – they’re also getting those sales.

The holidays are all about giving – and if you have a really strong community and a lot of retargeting opportunities (retargeting your leads and audiences who *already* know your brand via channels like email + advertising) – then a campaign like this can be quite the money maker.

Ritual Supplements: Keep the party going through the New Year! 

The holiday season + new year is HOT for people focusing on their wellness, and Ritual jumped on that by sharing back to back promos.

They launched their BFCM deal early (November 18, the friday before Black Friday) and promoted bundling (again, to increase that AOV! ← which is great for established brands but may be harder for emerging brands that don’t have an established sales and customer base yet). They offered 40% off when someone bundled with one of the SKUs, which also likely helped drive trial to one of their newer, popular products, Symbiotic+! 

Then on *actual* Black Friday through Cyber Monday – they posted daily to promote the bundle deal utilizing Reels (for potential higher reach) + a meme.

Butttttt it doesn’t end here!

On Christmas day, Ritual took a break with a “BRB post”, but came back swinging on the 26th with their New Year’s 30% off sale to promote new subscriptions! Keepin’ those good vibes and sales going.

 

Trouva: Create a gift guide
“Gift guide themed emails see a 48% higher transaction rate than purely promotional emails,” (Campaign Monitor). This!

Put together a compelling gift guide based on any number of details, like gender, price point, or product color. Don’t forget to have fun with it to set your post apart from the crowd! Here’s a short list of some of our favorite gift guide titles from PopSugar:

“13 Unique Gift Ideas For the Dad Who Says He Wants Nothing”
“30+ White Elephant Gifts So Cute, Everyone Will Be Fighting Over Them”
“Psst, Santa — All We Want For Christmas Are These Sweet Treats From Target”

Here’s an example from Trouva (a curated marketplace for brick and mortar independent shops) of a gift guide based on sustainable products.

Trouva

Cards Against Humanity: Make a statement

Okay – this one’s a little crazy, but hear us out!

Back in 2013, Cards Against Humanity took the opposite approach to BFCM. Instead of decreasing their prices, they increased them by $5 across the board.

Cards Against Humanity

“Amazon [was] hesitant, but green-lit the price-rise and sat back incredulous as the card game’s sales actually increased year-on-year. The ‘sale’ was widely shared on Twitter and Tumblr, was the top post on Reddit and was widely covered in news outlets the world over,” (Our Social Times).

amazon data

———

It’s the mostttttt wonderful time of the year* why not make it even better by watching more SALES roll in. 🤑

And if you’re ready reading this and are HYPED to kill your BFCM or holiday promos but need help executing – book a call with us HERE to see how we can help you! 

We only have THREE agency spots available for new clients in Q4 – so book a call ASAP if you’re wanting to see those sales 📈.

Any questions? Drop ‘em in the comments for us!

Ready to create a 7-figure Consumer Goods Brand without wasting money on strategies that don't work?

Then it's time you join the Consumer Goods Growth Course & start driving the results you've been wanting!

Book a call with us now & learn how you can start making consistant, 7-figure sales!

Book a call!
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Create More Behind The Scenes Content

content
content

Benefits of behind the scenes content

Video is the elephant in the room for any founder who hasn’t jumped in front of the camera yet!

We have spoken with so many brand leaders who are not comfortable getting in front of the camera and we completely understand. It can feel awkward and foreign but we assure you – it doesn’t come off that way to the consumer! It comes off as connection, especially if you’re interacting in an engaging way.

Here are some ideas for you to show up this week:

▪️ What are your most FAQ? Shoot a Q+A OR Green Screen Reel/TikTok

▪️ Give a behind the scenes look into your day-to-day with Stories and Reels/TikToks (This could simply look like a sped up video of you packing orders with a block of text across it.)

▪️ Share a recent win in Stories

▪️ Take a look into your past content and zero in on the highest performing posts. How can you repurpose those topics into video content that will positively serve your followers and customers?

For those of you who are more timid to get in front of the camera, here are some tips:

1️⃣ DISCOVER accounts and founders who show up often and get inspired! (We love how the founder of Poppi always shows up to share their mission and brand wins.)

2️⃣ PREPARE your shot list and write down prompts to make it easier while filming

3️⃣ PRACTICE makes progress! (No one wants to see perfection…)

And once you’ve created some founder forward video content – tag us is in the comments so we can go hype you up!!

Ready to create a 7-figure Consumer Goods Brand without wasting money on strategies that don't work?

Then it's time you join the Consumer Goods Growth Course & start driving the results you've been wanting!

Book a call with us now & learn how you can start making consistant, 7-figure sales!

Book a call!
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Spy On Your Competitors

Spy on your competitors
Spy on your competitors

Why You Need to Spy on Your Competitors to Achieve Business goals!

Here’s the tea ☕️ on how to spy on your competitors’ ads and improve your content + results…

One of the *best* ways to optimize your own ads is to spy on competitors to help you understand what they’re doing with their ad creatives + copy.

Step 1: Find competitors

If you don’t already have a list handy – you can easily find competitor brands by going to the biggest brand in your space’s Instagram and click on the little person outline with the + sign that’s to the right of the “Follow” and “Message” buttons. (This may vary depending on if your app is updated or not.) Clicking on that little icon will bring up “Suggested for you” accounts.

Create a Google Sheet and just start listing all of these brands, their Instagram + TikTok handles, their website URL, and any other relevant information.

It’s extremely important to know exactly who your competitors are, big and small, and keep tabs on what they’re up to!

Step 2: Competitor spying 

It all goes down in the Facebook Ads Library AND the TikTok Creative Center! You’ll actually get to see every campaign your competitors are currently running!

For TikTok ads – you’ll want to add in parameters to look at US-based, eCom businesses to get inspired!

For Facebook Ads – you’ll want to search for a specific competitor.

We are looking a lot of times, at the biggest brands in your space – and we’re learning from them, because they most likely have spent thousands to millions of dollars testing and finding what is resonating with their audience and getting the most conversions. So we’re going to use what they’ve been testing and creating to get started on the right track quicker!

Take note of:

✷ What types of creatives they’re running? (Are they mostly video or images, or what ration of each? Are they using UGC, testimonials, native looking ads, or are they highly designed?)

✷ What kind of copy they’re using? (What pain points are they addressing and solving for? Are they offering any discounts, if so what is the %? Are they using long or short copy, etc.)

✷ Where are they sending people? (Are they sending to their product collection page, or are they sending to a particular product? Or are they sending to a separate landing page?)

✷ What are their longest-running ads? (Meaning they’re likely high converting!)

And that’s it! Keep on spying 👀 and get those ads optimized!

Ready to create a 7-figure Consumer Goods Brand without wasting money on strategies that don't work?

Then it's time you join the Consumer Goods Growth Course & start driving the results you've been wanting!

Book a call with us now & learn how you can start making consistant, 7-figure sales!

Book a call!
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Four Essential Email Automations

Email Automation
Email Automation

four essential email automations to increase e-commerce sales

Email automations (aka email automations, email flows, evergreen sequences) are emails that are automatically delivered to folks based on their activity on your site.

These emails you can “set and forget” (well, not technically FORGET because you should be checking in on them to make sure they’re converting well and up-to-date but you get the gist) so that your email flows are working hard for you in the background while you’re busy with other important biz building activities.

Here are four email automations to increase e-commerce sales! 👇🏼

👋🏼 Welcome Flow – This email flow welcomes new leads and offers them a first time discount to get them to purchase!

🛒 Abandoned Cart Flow – This flow is triggered when someone puts an item in their cart but doesn’t check out. They’re showing you they’re interested, and you want them to come back and purchase ASAP!

👀 Browse Abandonment Flow – This flow works the same as the Abandoned Cart, but instead it delivers when someone abandons a product page but doesn’t add the product to their cart.

🤝 Win-Back Flow – Depending on the shelf life of your product or how long it takes to consume, you want to send a reminder to your customers to come back and purchase again.

We’re all about working smarter, not harder, so let’s lean into email automations to optimize our email marketing and keep generating that revenue!

Ready to create a 7-figure Consumer Goods Brand without wasting money on strategies that don't work?

Then it's time you join the Consumer Goods Growth Course & start driving the results you've been wanting!

Book a call with us now & learn how you can start making consistant, 7-figure sales!

Book a call!