Content + Commerce

Content Plus Commerce Host: Blake Puryear Guest: Michael Pomposello On this episode Blake is joined by Michael Pomposello of the Blue Polo Interactive and they talk about customer acquisition. [00:01:37] - Background of Blue Polo Interactive [00:05:28] - Small pond influencers vs big pond influencers [00:12:20] - What is your Hero story [00:15:02] - Diversifying acquisition tools, analytics on influencer reach/interaction [00:18:12] - Customer Acquisition in the eComm space [00:27:43] - Predictions for 2020, changes coming in the paid media/influencer space Quotes from the Episode: “We should all be putting our thoughts out there, taking different approaches, testing and figuring out what works for the industry as a whole to give the industry longevity.” [00:05:45] “Starting to babysit Adwords and Facebook a little more than ever before is really crucial to driving acquisition.” [00:21:38] “Go diversify, find ways to do acquisitions in a way that is more cost effective than just working with Facebook and Google.” [00:28:35] Links: Blue Polo Interactive - https://bluepolointeractive.com Shopify - https://www.shopify.com

Content Plus Commerce Host: Blake Puryear Guest: Scott Buchanan On this episode Blake is joined by Scott Buchanan of the Ripen Agency and they talk about eCommerce web accessibility. [00:01:10] - Background of Ripen Agency [00:02:06] - Go to tools, software [00:05:15] - What is your Hero story [00:07:36] - eCommerce Web Accessibility, things people miss [00:10:30] - Stakes for accessibility, ground floor basics that you should be doing [00:15:02] - Content, keeping copy plain and accessible Quotes from the Episode: “If you’re trying to build an inclusive marketplace that is non discriminatory, you want to make available to as broad an audience as possible.” [00:07:46] “One of the rawest areas that stills needs treatment in the whole industry is how to make videos fully accessible.” [00:13:28] “Anybody who is abled is in some sense only temporarily abled, to varying degrees, we will probably all, at different points in our life go through points that are less accessible.” [00:16:26] Links: The Ripen Agency - https://ripen.com Magento - https://magento.com BigCommerce - https://www.bigcommerce.com Shopify - https://www.shopify.com Scott Buchanan Twitter- https://twitter.com/thescottsb Scott Buchanan LinkedIn- https://www.linkedin.com/in/scottsb/ Link to: https://a11yproject.com/checklist/ Helpful tools and resources provided by Scott Buchanan: Tool to get a feel for what it’s like to have various disabilities and build empathy: http://labs.antigravity-systems.com/accsim/ Article covering the latest state of the law around web accessibility lawsuits (in the US): https://www.jdsupra.com/legalnews/how-businesses-can-defeat-website-33311/ My recommended site scanner is the one by SiteImprove. It provides more helpful guidance and explanations in my opinion than the other alternative tools out there: https://siteimprove.com/en-us/core-platform/integrations/browser-extensions/ The other one I use regularly is Accessibility Insights, built by Microsoft for Chrome & Edge, but using the same core engine (axe) that’s used by Google’s Lighthouse. I just find the interface & results easier to use than Lighthouse or the main axe plugin: https://accessibilityinsights.io/en/

Content Plus Commerce Host: Blake Puryear Guest: Isaiah Bollinger On this episode Blake is joined by Isaiah of Trellis Commerce [00:01:01] - Background of Trellis Commerce [00:09:25] - Preferred tool set, what do you build with? [00:14:19] - Headless commerce [00:21:29] - End users, non traditional ways of brands leveraging headless [00:24:40] - What is something coming you think might catch people by surprise? Quotes from the Episode: “There might be a platform that you could argue is better than them but they are not going to have the community, all the resources online...” [00:11:32] “If you are not building headless first, you’re missing out on an experience that could be truly novel and super interesting.” [00:16:40] “The headless paradigm is that now you’re decoupling the front end from the back end.” [00:17:18] Links: Trellis Commerce - https://trellis.co Magento - https://magento.com Shopify - https://www.shopify.com Wordpress - https://wordpress.com

Content Plus Commerce Host: Blake Puryear Guest: Will Perry On this episode Blake is joined by Will Perry of Reason Agency [00:01:05] - Background of Reason Agency [00:02:40] - Go to tools, software [00:04:01] - What is your Hero story [00:07:45] - How Reason Agency uses their eCommerce growth formula to increase traffic, decrease cost per acquisition and drive revenue for brands [00:13:28] - Blunders brands make on their product pages [00:22:05] - common pitfalls brands make [00:26:29] - Transitioning into traffic that you own vs traffic you depend on [00:33:07] - What is coming umping the paid or digital social area that might catch people by surprise Quotes from the Episode: “When you’re scaling and increasing ad spend that quickly in that short amount of time, it’s really changed the way that we approach tracking and how we’re looking for ways to improve tracking.” [00:04:56] “If the message is bad, the marketing will fail.” [00:07:52] “At the end of the day the goal and the responsibility of Facebook or Google or YouTube is to drive traffic, it’s to highlight and promote that sales message and that offer. The goal of the website is to convert that traffic into a conversion or a paying customer.” [00:14:16] “It’s about being able to optimize or refine or improve at the appropriate stage of the funnel.” [00:18:37] “He who spends the most to acquire a customer always wins.” [00:26:09] Links: The Reason Agency - https://reasonagency.co Klaviyo - https://www.klaviyo.com Shopify - https://www.shopify.com ClickFunnels - https://www.clickfunnels.com One click upsell, Zipify pages - https://zipify.com/category/oneclickupsell/ Google Docs - https://www.google.com/docs/about/ The 16 Word Sales Letter - https://www.amazon.com/16-Word-Sales-LetterTM-multi- million-dollar-possible/dp/1088742785/ref=sr_1_1? keywords=The+16+Word+Sales+Letter&qid=1576934211&sr=8-1

Content Plus Commerce Host: Blake Puryear Guest: Nathan Otwell On this episode Blake is joined by Nathan Otwell [00:01:07] - Nathan’s background [00:05:52] - Paid media campaigns, go to tools [00:08:40] - What is your agency “hero” story [00:13:49] - Paid media, traditional in-store vs eCommerce [00:20:32] - Coming trends in paid social that will catch people by surprise Quotes from the Episode: “Big brands can actually use Facebook and instagram ads the same way that they would buy any other type of media.” [00:04:00] “Let’s say your drop off is like 60% between your collection page to your product pages, well that means your collection page isn’t converting very well.” [00:06:51] “Facebook and Instagram is the equivalent of dropping this physical location store into the biggest shopping mall in America.” [00:14:46] “The power of retargeting and the power of loading your product feed into Facebook and having those carousel display ads is a core foundational of any brand selling online.” [00:20:04] Links: Hot Jar - https://www.hotjar.com Facebook Pixel, explained: https://www.oberlo.com/blog/facebook-pixel https://www.linkedin.com/in/nathan-otwell-b1a976a5/

Show Notes Content Plus Commerce Episode 11 Host: Blake Puryear Guest: Alex Zachman On this episode Blake is joined by Alex Zachman of Old North Collective [00:01:25] - background of Old North Collective [00:04:00] - go to tools, toolsets for side builds, store builds, marketing, and analytics [00:07:56] - stop doing just search engine marketing [00:10:04] - leveraging non traditional marketing tactics to hit the Gen Z and millennial audience [00:18:21] - value of partnership between agencies and platforms [00:22:40] - What are some coming trends that will take people by surprise Quotes from the Episode: “If I do something by gut or feeling, I am doing it wrong.” [00:03:33] “Advertising online typically is below 50% trust, mail if you do it well is 80 or 90% trust accuracy.” [00:08:40] “When you are looking at non traditional social platforms, advertising ends up being a lot less expensive.” [00:11:07] “The more personal you become with communication, the less you need to communicate.” [00:14:48] Links: Old North Collective - https://www.onc.design Quantcast Measure ([https://www.quantcast.com/products/measure-audience- insights/)) Fullstory ([http://www.fullstory.com]) Qualtrics ([https://www.qualtrics.com/](https://www.qualtrics.com/)) What is Omnichannel? ([https://loyaltylion.com/blog/omnichannel-ecommerce](https://loyaltylion.com/blog/omnichannel-ecommerce)) Popeye's Chicken Sandwich ([https://www.forbes.com/sites/michelinemaynard/2019/08/28/the-popeyes-chicken-sandwich-now-sold-out-is-a-65-million-marketing-win/#3f20495579d6](https://www.forbes.com/sites/michelinemaynard/2019/08/28/the-popeyes-chicken-sandwich-now-sold-out-is-a-65-million-marketing-win/#3f20495579d6)) Voxie SMS Messaging ([https://www.voxie.com/] Headless Commerce ([https://www.digitalcommerce360.com/2018/12/05/what-is-headless-commerce-and-why-it-is-growing-in-popularity/

Content Plus Commerce - Episode 10 Host: Blake Puryear Guest: Graham Lubie On this episode Blake is joined by Graham Lubie of Accorin [00:01:04] - Background on Accorin [00:03:17] - eCommerce trends that have come and gone [00:05:15] - What are your “go to” tools? [00:07:09] - Selecting the correct platform/technology for the customer [00:08:30] - what is one of your “Agency Hero” stories [00:11:19] - planning on complexity, grinding through details, and how to do thing the right way in eCommerce [ 00:16:50] - What are some coming trends that will take people by surprise Quotes from the Episode: “Fundamentally, eCommerce is complex and it’s difficult for people to switch off of platforms easily.” [00:03:20] “In order to deliver world class service you need two things: 1) a world class platform. 2) a world class team that is expert in that platform. “ [00:05:27] “You just have to grind through the details sometimes, there are no shortcuts.” [00:13:45] “Spend twice as much time upfront in analysis and you can get through it a lot faster and a lot more efficiently.” [00:16:28] Links: Accorin - https://accorin.com Magento - https://magento.com Shopify - https://www.shopify.com Sales force commerce cloud - https://www.salesforce.com/products/commerce-cloud/ overview/

Host: Blake Puryear Guest: Brandon from NuEthic On this episode Blake is joined by Brandon of NuEthic [00:00:57] – Background of how NuEthic was started [00:03:31] – Favorite tools for building eComm sites [00:07:05] – How to navigate which of the sale top bar apps to choose [00:11:29] – What is your best “Hero Story” [00:13:47] – Tactics to increase site speed [00:15:45] – Growing trends in the next 1-2 years Quotes from the Episode: “We just try to fill out what the customer’s needs are and find the best platform to fit them.” [00:06:19] “Shopify is in the business for reoccurring revenue and that is one thing that is great for Shopify but I don’t think it’s necessarily the best thing for a small business. [00:07:10] “There’s a lot of different little tweaks that you can do to a site to save on speed and loading optimization times.” [00:14:36] Links: Nu Ethic – https://nuethic.com Magento – https://magento.com Big Commerce – https://www.bigcommerce.com Woo Commerce – https://woocommerce.com Shopify – https://www.shopify.com

Content Plus Commerce Episode 8 Host: Blake Puryear Guest: Brandon Kirkland On this episode Blake is joined by Brandon Kirkland of Epic Shops [00:00:57] - Background of Epic Shops [00:03:02] - “Go to” tools to use when building out a site [00:05:50] - Custom maintained plugins , the importance of CRO, the history of epicShops, building custom plugins & software for your ecommerce platform [00:08:52] - The importance of all web devs to understand CRO [00:12:01] - Best “Our agency got to be the Hero” story [00:14:29] - Coming trends that may surprise. [00:14:49] - Automating and segmenting, creating custom shopping experiences Quotes from the Episode: “How can I get the majority of the benefit for the minimum of the features.” [00:07:32] “I can make your site beautiful but I’d rather make you rich.....remember it’s the customer that we have to think about.” [00:10:45] Links: Epic Shops TrustPilot TrustSpot Remarkety Hubspot https://www.epicshops.com https://www.trustpilot.com https://trustspot.io https://www.remarkety.com https://www.hubspot.com

Content Plus Commerce Episode 7 Host: Blake Puryear Guest: Brandon Doyle On this episode Blake is joined by Brandon Doyle of Wallaroo Media [00:01:04] - Background of Wallaroo Media, full service digital agency [00:03:25] - SEO/SEM in regards to eComm, go to tools [00:05:17] - Hardest part of agency model and workarounds/solutions [00:07:37] - How to Scale Your eCommerce Brand Through the Increasingly Competitive Paid Advertising Landscape [00:12:24] - “Our agency got to be a Hero” story [00:13:58] - Trends in the next year [00:14:12] - Celebrity Brands, Kylie Jenner, etc. and Influencer Founded Brands is what's next Quotes from the Episode: "We try to become true partners with then and invest in their success and helping them scale.” [00:05:22] “To be the most effective at marketing and advertising you need to be doing a full funnel, comprehensive approach.” [00:08:33] Links: Wallaroo Media Moz Ahrefs SEM Rush https://wallaroomedia.com https://moz.com https://ahrefs.com https://www.semrush.com

Content Plus Commerce Episode 6 Host: Blake Puryear Guest: Ben Herman On this episode Blake is joined by Ben Herman of Mad Fish Digital [00:01:09] - Background about Mad Fish Digital [00:02:49] - Differences of working with B-Corp brands from a strategy perspective [00:03:36] - Tool sets, favorites to use and why [00:04:49] - Approach to last touch attribution [00:05:59] - Trends in the SEO/SEM realm, good or bad [00:08:24] - Shoppable content, why is it effective/important [00:12:08] - Best “Our Agency is the Hero” story Quotes from the Episode: “Starts with understanding the goals of what a client is looking to accomplish and what we are looking to track.” [00:04:51] “Anyway that a brand can more seamlessly connect a product to a user in their research phase is going to be beneficial.” [00:08:28] Links: Mad Fish Digital Visible Bright funnel https://www.madfishdigital.com http://www.visiblesystemscorp.com https://www.brightfunnel.com

Content Plus Commerce Episode 5 Host: Blake Puryear Guest: Adam Butt On this episode Blake is joined by Adam Butt founder of Noticed [00:01:17] - Background of how Noticed was started [00:04:21] - Go to tools for building out a site [00:05:40] - Personalization trends [00:08:33] - Defining your brand, guidelines, marketing profiles, and digital strategies [00:09:19] - Common headaches when managing a site build [00:13:02] - Best “Saving the Day” story for Noticed [00:16:24] - Growing trends in the next year Quotes from the Episode: “One of the challenge we have with some of the brands, especially the ones that are growing really quick, is not really having the brand defined.” [00:08:19] “If you're a small brand, hire an eCommerce manager.” [00:09:54] Links: Noticed https://www.noticed.com Yotpo Swell Nosto https://www.yotpo.com https://www.swellcx.com https://www.nosto.com

Content Plus Commerce Episode 4 Host: Blake Puryear Guest: John Ostler On this episode Blake is joined by Jon Ostler from Eight Bit Studios [00:01:07] - Back ground of Eight Bit Studios [00:03:15] - Dev work + Design, full service agency [00:05:25] - Go to tools, collaboration software [00:06:25] - Benefits to collaboration tools, creating good design systems [00:08:09] - Common headaches when managing a site build and creative solutions to get around obstacles [00:11:32] - Eight Bit Studios shining moments Quotes from the episode: “It‘s like a holistic approach, by tearing down those barriers you’re gonna create and end up with a better product.” [00:04:32] “Do you have a subject matter expert that really understand the crux of the problems that’s trying to be solved?” [00:12:14] “We’ve got a lot of developers that are ready to challenge UX and design assumptions right away.” [00:16:32] Links: Eight Bit Studios https://eightbitstudios.com Figma https://www.figma.com Jira https://www.atlassian.com/software/jira

On this episode we will talk about building on the web and building eCommerce digitally. We are joined by CEO & co-founder of Magebit, an eCommerce agency, Arturs Kruze. Magebit: Arturs initially started as a developer, developing website for himself such as gaming websites then started working with various agencies building landing pages to complex systems. Finding Magento he realized it had a learning curve and you hate it until you love it but the benefits exceed expectation. With co-founder Krystaps Rjabovs, Magebit was founded 5 years ago as a full service agency specialized in Magento and now has a grown rapidly currently with a team of 55 full time employees based in Latvia. Magento: Magento is flexible, you can achieve anything and easily implement emerging technology into the platform. Customization is easy. Not only can you build but you can also maintain it in Magento and is developer friendly “The flexibility to be able to, for any clients use case, basically adapt and meet their needs without swapping platforms or learning something new” [00:04:15] AMP’s vs PWA’s AMP = Accelerated Mobile Pages (fast loading websites) PWA = Progressive Web Apps Are PWA’s the next big thing and whatever happened to AMP User friendly and fast. AMP’s were thought to be next big thing but google has implemented so many limitations that are too harsh making them no easily usable PWA’s are a current hot topic and Magento is already implementing their own framework, in reality it will be the next big thing, while not for everybody, for many business they will be a big conversion booster Quotes from the episode: What is the hardest part of building on eCommerse? “You have to understand there will be difficulties and you have to be able to adapt fast and act in the moment” [00:06:42] Do you do AB testing or side improvements? “Some of the biggest gains for some brands have been in testing product page layouts, not even testing checkout, a lot times it is the product page that can be the biggest lever and make the biggest difference” [00:09:48] What is a trend in eCommerce or the agency Life that you are working in that you think is going to be kind of hot in the next year? “I don’t think there is a single trend but one thing that I think is worth mentioning is personalization. That has been happening for quite a while already and there are new companies popping up with new personalization systems in place that can use machine learning or artificial intelligence for bringing the best possible customer experience to the shopper.” [00:14:44] Links: Magebit https://magebit.com Magento https://magento.com

On this episode Blake is joined by Yuri Kurat of the New Normal Agency, a Seattle based software services agency. [N]ew Normal Agency: From 2008, Yuri worked for a development company and after 5 years there he decided start his own project, the New Normal Agency, co-founding the business with Alex Tinyaev they began with the a goal of building custom eCommerce implementations. What tools do you use: Depends on the clients needs. One of the biggest things that we discovered for agency space is when the client comes to you with what they need which seems uncomplicated but when you start talking about it there are questions that they had not thought through but you know that develops from a simple idea into something that requires special treatment. The cost of doing business in the online retail space has gone down which makes it easy to run a business but makes it more complicated to implement something technically. Amazon: A real threat. Companies that were sold to Amazon are spun as a success story for example Zappos or Diapers.com but they were “Amazoned”... meaning, if amazon can come into your space and offer razor thin margins they can run you out of town. eCommerce Challenges: As an agency what are some of the common challenges you face, where you feel you are in the trenches working against yourself, the platform or the technology you’re working with. People are seduced by the idea of residual income. They don’t want to sell something once. They want to emulate the dollar shave club and keep customers coming back. What we find is there is not enough education or understanding around what it takes to go from a simple online business to subscription. Loyalty Programs: In the past few months [N]ew Normal has been narrowing their niche of expertise into loyalty programs. 8% of customers identify as being loyal to a brand Exemplars in the space: Starbucks & Southwest Airlines Starbucks is data driven, you don’t need to interact with anything else because you can do everything through their app. The trick is personalization and making you customer feel like they are the only customer for you. Analyze what they buy at what time, take all that metadata and privide personalized offers to them. If you are a brand selling one kind of item, how do you get customers involved in your loyalty program? You have find other ways to get their attention. iPhone wallet cards, build an app that send push notifications to gather usable metadata. Once you find out what else is important to your customer you can market to that. Quotes from the episode: “Everybody wants to do retail but more so its residual income. They want to be able to build subscription models and the subscription has to support and integrate with shipping companies and reverse logics, ex. refunds” [00:02:57] “Half of the success of subscriptions is that people set it and forget it. It is a lot of the way you make money. So if you give them a chance to opt out or renew you’re going to lose a lot of business.” [00:10:55] “It takes 5 to 25 times more money to gain a new customer than to keep an old one.” [00:13:10] Links: The [N]ew Normal Agency https://newnormal.agency

On this episode Blake is joined by Chad Fisher founder of BTOWN Web, a Seattle based software services agency. BTOWN Web was founded 7 years ago. 6 years ago they shifted focus to Shopify and became Shopify experts, 3 years ago they became Shopify plus partners BTOWN Web focused on being a jack of all trades to accommodate where their clients were coming from Building sites: We focus on what are the pain point brands are dealing with. When we are engaging with a brand it is often because they are looking into changing platforms. We have to get into the hard core moving raw data. From a design perspective sketch and photo shop to build actual sight. We have to look at what is the problem the brand wants to solve. What do you see as some of the challenges of building a great eComm experience? In terms of difficulties of the actual buildout. Technical components, connectors, functionality. Soft skills and things around the project are typically the problems that arise . Proper project management on both sides: communication, expectations, scope What do you think is something that might catch people off guard in the next year and a half? It is ok to sell and be a renter on other platforms, it is ok to do physical retail. Understanding how to make that seamless and efficient as possible so I can connect with my customers wherever they are. The pitfalls are not understanding the technology, not having the right partner to help navigate these challenges or not offering a product or connecting with the customer because you have hit a bump in the road by not understanding the technology. Quotes from the episode: “The evolution or life cycle of a brand. Unless you are doing over $5 million in sales you can get away with using your eComm platform as a light ERP”. [00:07:15] Links: BTOWN Web. https://www.btownweb.com