Ecommerce Evolved Page 2
Avoid Channel Dependence .................................................. 238 Take it Slow ........................................................................ 240 Breach Consumer Ecosystems ................................................ 240 Traffic Temperature............................................................. 241
x Cold Traffic ........................................................................... 242
Warm Traffic ......................................................................... 243
Hot Traffic ............................................................................ 243
Conclusion ............................................................................. 244 Chapter 8 Summary ............................................................. 245
CHAPTER 9: Front-End Marketing........................... 247 Why Traffic Is Not Your Problem .................................... 248
Combating Your Bounce and Abandonment Rates ....... 250
Active Advertising ................................................................ 251
Customer Acquisition .......................................................... 252
Prospect Acquisition ............................................................ 253
A New World of Online Promotion ................................. 254
Campaigns and Content ...................................................... 255
Stumble Upon ...................................................................... 257 Reddit .................................................................................. 257 Twitter ................................................................................. 258 Outbrain .............................................................................. 258 Owned Media (Traffic You Own) ......................................... 258 Retargeting............................................................................. 259 Leveraging Traffic with Retargeting .................................. 259
1. Cart Abandonment Promotion ......................................... 261 2. Specific Product Promotion ................................................ 262 3. List-Building Promotion ................................................... 263 Email Marketing ................................................................... 263
Email Away ........................................................................... 264
Creating the Content............................................................ 266
Always Track Your Emails ................................................. 267
Dealing with Unsubscribes ................................................. 268
Types of Email Campaigns ................................................. 268
The Indoctrination Campaign ............................................... 270
Specifics ................................................................................ 270
The Welcome Email ............................................................. 271
The Core Offer Campaign..................................................... 272
Specifics ................................................................................ 273
Tips for Featuring Different Products in Your Core Offer Campaign ............................................................................. 274
Bucket Promotions................................................................ 275
Default Promotion Vault .................................................... 276 Types of Default Promotions ............................................. 278 1. Holiday-Based Promotions ................................................ 278 2. Commercial Date Promotions ........................................... 278 3. Brand-Related Promotions ................................................ 278 4. Charity or Cause Promotion ............................................. 279 5. Niche-specific Commemorative Day Promotions................. 279 Building Your Promotional Calendar................................ 280 Conclusion............................................................................. 281 Chapter 9 Summary ............................................................. 282 CHAPTER 10: Back-End Marketing .......................... 283 Customer Life Cycle ............................................................ 286 The Four Phases Of A Customer's Life Cycle................. 287 Granular Segmentation........................................................ 288 Back-End Active Advertising ............................................. 291 Repeat Purchases: The Focus of Back-End Active
Advertising ............................................................................ 293
Back-End Retargeting Promotions .................................... 294
Core Retargeting Promotions for Existing Customers... 294
1. Dynamic Product Ads...................................................... 294
2. Customer Reactivation ...................................................... 295
3. Active Advertising Support ............................................... 296
xii Email Marketing on the Back End .................................... 296 Four Types of Campaigns................................................... 296 1. New Customer Campaign................................................. 297 2. Targeted Offer Campaigns ................................................ 298 3. VIP Campaigns............................................................... 299 4. Win-Back Campaign ....................................................... 300 Defection Times .................................................................... 300 Techniques for Winning Back Customers .............................. 301 Invest in Your Campaigns .................................................... 303 Ignored Email Real Estate .................................................. 303 Receipt Email....................................................................... 303 Shipping Notification or Tracking Link Email .................... 304 Conclusion ............................................................................. 305 Chapter 10 Summary ........................................................... 306
FINAL THOUGHTS ................................................. 307
Quick Win Philosophy ........................................................ 307 Jump to The Front of the Line .......................................... 308
ABOUT THE AUTHOR ................................................ 311 xiii
DEDICATION
To my mom, for never letting me settle and always pushing me to succeed.
To my dad, for showing me early on that being an entrepreneur was possible.
To my sister, for reminding me to live life on my own terms and for leading by example. To my wife Tabitha, for putting up with my crazy ideas, allowing me to chase my dreams,
and always reminding me of my true worth.
And to my kids, Peyton and Paxton. You are my why and you remind me every day what life is all about.
xvii
INTRODUCTION
Hey, my name is Tanner Larsson and I am a self-admitted serial entrepreneur. I have started, co-founded, built, sold, scaled, bankrupted, and/or succeeded with over two dozen different companies in my career.
I have personally produced millions of dollars in revenue for my own ecom companies and over $75 million in revenue for companies I’ve partnered with, advised, or consulted for. Through this, I have experienced the myriad pendulum swings ecom businesses go through during their life cycle.
Going backward a bit, by profession I guess you could say that I am a window cleaner since that was the only “real” job I held before moving into the business world (ironically, by starting my own window-cleaning business). I tell you all of this to help you understand who I am and why I am writing this book.
I started selling physical products online back in 2001, when eBay first started growing. At the time I was still cultivating my offline business, but the entrepreneur in me couldn’t resist the allure of sellin
g things online. I immediately fell in love with it, and with the idea of being able to reach people all over the world.
I dove in headfirst and within a few months I had become a Power Seller on eBay, selling hundreds of products a day. It was at that point that I realized that my online business OWNED me and that I hated my life. My house had turned into a warehouse full of products and packing materials. Even worse, because in 2001 automation technology that we take for granted today either hadn't been invented or was outrageously expensive, I was working long hours manually printing labels, packing product, weighing packages, and standing in line at the post office every single day. It was a nightmare.
At that point I shut down my eBay business and started selling digital products that could be automatically delivered to the customer via download. After dealing with the hassles of eBay, information marketing seemed liked a fairytale. That same year I launched my first information product, a “how to” product about starting your own window-cleaning business. It wasn’t a bad product for a first attempt, and I made a slight profit. But more importantly, I learned a lot from actually doing it. I learned firsthand about sales funnels, email lists, copywriting, conversion rates, and tracking your metrics.
I made lots of mistakes in the beginning and spent a ton of money, but it was all part of the learning process. It was also where I first learned about “modeling.” I started looking at everyone else's websites, studying what was working and what they were doing to sell their products, and I decided to start modeling my business on what they were doing. I created similar products, wrote similar sales copy, made similar graphics, and then I held my breath and waited for the money to pour in.
It never did. Despite all of my stuff being VERY similar to what was working for other businesses, I was barely making enough to cover my expenses while they were raking in money hand over fist.
Honestly, it pissed me off, but luckily instead of throwing in the towel, I became a student of direct response online marketing. It took me several years to figure it all out, but finally, I realized there was more going on than met the eye in these other businesses.
In my ecom education company, we call it the Iceberg Effect. Two thirds of an iceberg’s mass is hidden below the surface, unseen to the world. In online business, it’s much the same: Two thirds of what makes a business successful occurs underneath the surface.
As I said, it took me years to figure this out. Once I did, my business went from barely breaking even to making millions of dollars per year in less than 12 months.
During this journey, being the serial entrepreneur that I am, I never stopped dabbling in ecommerce. As technology improved over the years, more and more of my time and energy went into selling physical products online.
This time, however, I took what I had learned in my information marketing business and applied those same direct response principles and strategies to my physical product brands, which was practically unheard of in the ecom industry. And as a result my ecom businesses exploded, my clients’ businesses exploded, and suddenly everybody wanted to be my friend.
Fast forward to today. My ecom businesses are generating millions of dollars a year and are growing as rapidly as I will let them (you’ll learn about sustainable growth rates later on in the book). Big-name companies pay me exorbitant sums to consult for their businesses. I also have the honor of consulting for and being an advisor to some of the fastest-growing ecom brands on the internet, and my ecom education and coaching company has helped thousands of students build their ecom stores in every market imaginable.
Why I Wrote This Book Let me start by saying that I firmly believe that ecommerce is the business. Thanks to advances in technology, online globalization, and ease of access to manufacturers and suppliers, combined with the fact that as humans we love to buy things (and lots of them), ecommerce is one of the best businesses you could ever be in. Everything that was once a major barrier to entry into ecommerce has now evaporated.
Unfortunately, it’s still an antiquated world that hasn’t kept up with what is actually working in an online business. Most ecom business owners are still doing things in the same way they did in the early dotcom days. They focus their entire business on a storefront and think of ecommerce as nothing more than putting up an online catalog with a bunch of products and hoping those products sell.
It’s that surface gloss from the Iceberg Effect. New entrepreneurs and business owners coming into the industry are all jumping in using training and information that’s ten years behind, and I want to change that.
Ecommerce Evolved is my way of effecting that change. Maybe you’re just getting started in your ecom business. Maybe you own a business that’s already running, but it’s not doing well. Maybe your ecom brand is already the leader in its space. Regardless of where you are, I want you to read this book and think, “Holy crap! I’m not even doing a tenth of this stuff!” I want to show you how your business has limitless possibilities, or if you’re new to the world of business, how simple it really is to build, grow, and scale a successful ecom business.
Why This Book Is Different There’s no shortage of marketing or business advice out there, some of it good, some of it bad. Some of it works for some businesses but not for others. In many cases, the only way to know for sure is to try it out for yourself.
And therein lies the problem (which Ecommerce Evolved solves). When they don’t know exactly what to do, most people wind up all over the map trying, testing, and hoping something works. And that can burn through a ton of time and money before a solution emerges.
Let me give you a quick example. Suppose you approach a car and start pushing it. It doesn’t move, and when you look to your right you see another, smaller car that looks like it weighs less and might move more easily. So you abandon the first car and start pushing on the second. Meanwhile, another person (your competition) comes by and starts pushing the car you left behind.
After several moments you realize the second car isn’t going anywhere either, and you spot a third vehicle, an Audi R8 (those lightweight frames must surely make the Audi weigh less). So you leave the second car behind and start pushing the Audi.
Meanwhile, the other person is still pushing on the first car. At first it’s not moving, just like when you tried to push it. But slowly and gradually, it begins to inch forward. It moves just a little bit at first. Then it moves a foot. The person keeps pushing, and the momentum starts to build. Now it’s moving even faster and covering more distance.
You stop pushing the Audi to look at the first car. Now you’re even more determined to get a car of your own moving forward, so you start on a fourth car that looks promising.
But the first car is picking up speed now. You’re getting frustrated, so you look for lighter and lighter cars to push. But now you are tired and you eventually decide to call it quits.
When you turn to look at the first car, you notice both the first car and the person pushing it are nowhere in sight. That analogy can be applied to your business as well. When you spend all your time and money chasing strategy after strategy, you’re not able to stay focused on your business or your goals.
When you have a proven plan–a system–in place, you’re positioned to grow your business both over the short term AND the long term. That person pushing the car had a proven plan, simple as it was, and they stuck with it.
Now if that person had had a tow truck, they surely could have moved it along much more quickly and with less effort on their part. But they had to start somewhere.
I want you to be that second person. My goal in writing Ecommerce Evolved is to give you both the proven plan AND the tow truck to build, grow, and scale a wildly profitable ecommerce business.
Four Distinctions That Set This Book Apart
1. The Vital Few In the 1940s Dr. Joseph Juran recognized a universal principle he dubbed “The Vital Few and Trivial Many,” which proved that roughly 20 percent of what is done is responsible for 80 percent of the resu
lts.1 In recent years this has become known as the Pareto Principle and has proven true time and again in business. As the car analogy suggests, there are many different ways you can spend your time and money trying to grow your business, but it’s important to focus on the right ones. Ecommerce Evolved simplifies that, since what you’ll find in the following pages IS the “vital few”–the strategies, tactics, and methods that will deliver 80 percent of the results and catapult your success.
2. Zero Theory You’ll find zero theory inside Ecommerce Evolved. Most business authors write their book based on hypothetical theories because they have no practical experience in what they are teaching.
1 (2009). Joseph Juran. The Economist. Retreived from http://www.economist.com/node/13881008 The difference between me and most of my competitors is that I actually do this stuff every single day. I use every single strategy, tip, trick, and tactic I’m about to share with you on a daily basis to grow my ecommerce companies. I currently operate brands in three different major markets and I’ve used this stuff in dozens of other markets, from survival to supplements to kitchen accessories to heating and air conditioning products. Through Build Grow Scale (my ecommerce education company) and Black Label Mastermind (my elite ecommerce focus group for seven and eight-figure business owners), I also get to work with and advise hundreds of other businesses in practically every niche you can think of.
Everything you’ll learn from Ecommerce Evolved is based on 100 percent real world, from-the-trenches results.
3. Evergreen Training Chances are you’ve purchased a book or training that taught a method that became extinct when Google or Facebook or some other platform made a change. The content and training contained inside this book is evergreen and will not go out of date. What you learn in Ecommerce Evolved is timeless and will still be as relevant 10 years from now as it was the day I wrote it.