Drive Insane New Customer Acquisition with Your Hero Product

11 Jan

Guest: Taylor Frame

Meet Taylor Frame, the go-to guru behind Focus Funnels, a powerhouse in the eCommerce growth world. With a knack for turning over 100 brands into six-figure success stories and juggling a whopping $300M in ad spend, Taylor's the wizard who transforms eCommerce challenges into triumphs. He's all about honest, transparent strategies that empower entrepreneurs to take their businesses and lives to the next level.

Here’s a summary of the great stuff that we cover in this show:

In the ever-evolving world of eCommerce, understanding the intricacies of customer acquisition is akin to finding a compass in a labyrinth. Taylor shared his insights on crafting acquisition funnels that don't just function but flourish.

The Three-Step Funnel Formula

Taylor distilled the essence of an effective acquisition funnel into three fundamental steps:

Ad Content: The lifeblood of any funnel, ad content encompasses the copy, creative, and messaging. It's the initial handshake, the first impression, the start of a conversation with your potential customer.
Media Buying Strategy: This step is about precision targeting – ensuring your message reaches the right audience. It's a blend of art and science, requiring both creativity and analytical prowess.
Landing/Product Page: The final step, but by no means the least, is where your customers land – your product page. Taylor advocates for building these natively in Shopify, citing simplicity, effective data tracking, and enhanced conversion rates.

Simplicity As The North Star

In a realm often muddled with complexity, Taylor champions simplicity. He believes that the most effective strategies are those that are straightforward and easy to understand. This approach not only makes it easier to implement and manage your funnel but also ensures that your message is clear and resonates with your audience.

Data-Driven Decision Making

Data is the cornerstone of Taylor's strategy. Every decision, every tweak in the funnel, is backed by data. This method ensures that you're not just shooting in the dark but making informed choices that lead to tangible results.

Sustainability & Scalability: The Endgame

Taylor's insights extend beyond immediate sales. He focuses on building sustainable and scalable strategies, ensuring that the funnels not only work today but continue to drive growth in the future.

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Matt: [00:00:00] Well, hello and welcome to the e commerce podcast. My name is Matt Edmondson and this is a show all about helping you deliver e commerce. Wow. Yes, it is. And to help us do just that today, I am chatting with Taylor Frame from Focus Funnels about revolutionizing e commerce. No biggie then. We're going to be talking about focused at a focused acquisition funnels, uh, and all kinds of good stuff today.
Yes. We're going to be talking from Taylor frame from focus funnels. We're going to get into funnels. I'm looking forward to this one because we've not really talked about funnels that much on the show before. So this is going to be very exciting. But before we jump into that, let me, let me remind you, uh, if you haven't done so already to subscribe to the newsletter, all you've got to do.
Is go to ecommercepodcast. net, put in your name, put in your email address. And when we get the show going, uh, when it [00:01:00] gets launched out, we send you an email with the notes, with the links from the guests. They all come to you. It's all easy peasy. You don't have to jot things down. It's just all there. So make sure you sign up for that.
And of course, if this is your first time with us, um, a warm welcome to you. It's great. We're getting so many new listeners at the moment. I am super stoked. So welcome to the show. It's great to have you on with us. Yes, it is. And before we get into it, let me just say that this show is made possible by the fantastic eCommercecohort. com. E commerce cohort is a monthly membership e commerce membership that you can be a part of. Uh, and in there, all kinds of great stuff happens. Let me tell you, uh, they have expert workshops every month. Which is awesome. Uh, we also have the live recording of the podcast. Yes. So if you love the e commerce podcast, you can join e commerce cohort.
You can watch the live recording. We stream it out on a very special private link on YouTube. You can comment, [00:02:00] you can ask your questions, you can do all that sort of stuff. So just saying hashtag just saying. Why not come and join us in cohort e commerce cohort. com that's available to you and prices start at just 14.
99 a month at the moment. So check it out, see how you get on. Now let's talk about Taylor frame. The go to guru behind focus funnels, a powerhouse in the e commerce growth world. Oh, yes. Now with a knack for turning over a hundred brands into six figure success stories and juggling a whopping, jaw dropping, eye watering 300 million in ad spend.
Oh, no small change there then, uh, Taylor's the wizard who transforms e commerce challenges into triumphs. He's all about honest, transparent strategies that empowers entrepreneurs to take their businesses and their lives to the next level. Taylor, that's one impressive, uh, intro [00:03:00] dude. Uh, welcome to the show.
How are we doing today, my friend?
Taylor: Today is beautiful. Excited to be here. Thank you so much for the, uh, the great intro.
Matt: Well, it's good to have you on the show. All the way from sunny California. I was just bemoaning before we hit the record button that at the time of recording, it is like minus four degrees where I'm at at the moment. And it's, uh, that's centigrade. Uh, and it's what, 60 degrees where you are in California right now.
Fahrenheit, obviously not centigrade. Um, I don't know what the two figures are translated, but it basically is a lot warmer for you than it is for me.
Taylor: Yes, I think. Yeah, it's definitely nice weather out here. This is the best time of year to be in California.
Matt: Okay. Okay. I was in California in. When was it, April? April? No, June. That was beautiful. That was stunning, actually. And, um, hanging out with the one, I was talking to you about Jared, Jared Mitchell. I was hanging out with him and his family in California. And, uh, go on the beach, watching him surf because there's no way I can do it. But it was [00:04:00] great to be there in a beautiful part of the world. So thanks for coming on, man. Are you in like a log cabin or something? It's got that kind of log cabin kind of vibe going on.
Taylor: Yeah. Yeah. So this is an office that I built in my backyard. I've been working from home for the last 10 years actually in my career and our agency is actually all remote. So we, we source talent all over the U S everyone's remote, which is really cool. Um, one of our big tenants is like, Hey, when you work here, we want you to live your absolute best life.
And so that increased like with increased flexibility and work from home options. We have a disposal. We allow people to, you know, move in and out and structure their day and their life so that it can optimize everything. And that's a big part of what I've done by working in, you know, here at the house, I can pop in, be with the kids, help my wife with things and still be very present, but also get the things done that I need to.
Matt: 10 years, man. You were like [00:05:00] well ahead of COVID times then.
Taylor: Yeah. I mean, when COVID hit and everyone's like, Oh, we got to work from home. I'm like, this is nothing new for us. We've been doing this forever.
Matt: This just took it in our stride.
Taylor: Yeah. COVID it was funny. We, we were incredibly busy as an agency during that time because everyone started shopping online.
Matt: Yeah. Yeah.
Taylor: And so that was, everyone was out baking bread and I was like, man, when do I get to bake some bread? I don't have any time to do any of that.
Matt: Yeah. I just got, I'm too busy working. What's wrong with it? The world has gone mad. No, it was, it was very much like that, wasn't it? With, with, um, with when, when COVID hit, we sold one of our e commerce businesses sort of mid pandemic because everyone was just, you know,
Taylor: frothy.
Matt: yeah, it was just crazy for online businesses.
It was like, oh yeah, every other business in the UK had to shut down unless you were a medical company or an online business, right? It was just, uh, incredible times, incredible. Well, this is, This is my shed, by the way, uh, that you're, you're streaming into right now. Um, I also [00:06:00] built a cabin down at the bottom of my garden.
I did mine about six years ago. They're not about ten years ago. Uh, all made with recycled wood from an old warehouse that we, we moved warehouse. And so I took all the old wood shelves and built this cabin out of it. Uh, cause you do. As you do. Ha ha ha.
Taylor: Yeah. As one does, you know, super funny. You mentioned that the windows that are in this house, this is actually a door that I turned sideways. And it is from the house that I grew up in, in old town. Old Town Pasadena. I grew up in Pasadena, which is outside of Los Angeles. Um, and these doors are from 1919.
Matt: Wow.
Taylor: And so they're over a hundred years old, which is kind of cool. The house I grew up in and then, you know, my parents demolished it and built some larger house, but, uh, save the doors. And now they're here in my shed.
Matt: That's fun. So if you have a move from that house, you've got to take those windows with you.
Taylor: I've got to take the whole shed with me. Yeah. Which is going to be really problematic. Yeah.
Matt: First of all, [00:07:00] problems just sound. I don't quite know what I'm doing. Uh, that's fantastic. The, the, um, the working at home thing though, uh, and working with a remote team, uh, and the fact that you've been doing that for 10 years, very ahead of your time. Right. Um, and I, I, I mean, that's a whole separate podcast we should maybe do, um, on, on how you've done that successfully, but your company, uh, focus funnels, how did you get involved in that?
What, what started that? Um, it's just, I'm really intrigued because it's, you know, Russell Brunson and I connect with click funnels, you know, is the first time I'd ever really heard of it, but, uh, I'm curious how you got into it.
Taylor: So I was working at a big, you know, fortune 500 company that was selling to a bunch of really large e comm shops. So I had clients like I was one of their sales reps. So I was working with like restoration hardware and gap and, um, men's warehouse, just massive online retailers. And as I, that's kind [00:08:00] of how I got exposed to e commerce, you know, The principles, the theories, and I was on the marketing side at that point, selling them marketing technology, and so that's how I kind of dip my toe into the water, and then from there, I realized that there was just a massive group of underserved ecom shops that were in that small to medium business range.
Right. And they couldn't afford these enterprise level tools that I was currently selling, but I was like, there's gotta be a way that I can tap into this market, serve these entrepreneurs and help them live a really good life. And so through common connections, I got connected to my current partner, uh, and him and his wife, they were running.
Literally kind of like a freelance shop, uh, called focus funnels at the time and I partnered with them and I said, Hey, I think we can really do something here. And so for about a year and a half, I worked two jobs. I worked, you know, in corporate America full time. And then in the mornings and evenings, I would side [00:09:00] hustle at focus funnels, getting us clients, bringing in a lot of kind of enterprise level.
You know, expertise, experience, systems, processes. And from there we started to create this momentum. And after about a year and a half, we were making enough at Focus Funnels that I could leave my corporate job and still support my family. So we made the jump. And from there, it's been. It's just been an amazing journey.
Matt: Yeah, sounds like it. Are you still business partners with the original company?
Taylor: Yeah, we're still my partner and I we've been going it's almost seven years now strong, which is awesome
Matt: Fantastic. Fantastic. So Just for those that might not know just explain briefly what focus funnels is.
Taylor: Yeah, so we are an e commerce growth agency Uh, we really focus mostly on e commerce brands But we've also worked with anybody that needs to take someone on a customer journey And so funnels is just a fancy [00:10:00] word for take somebody through a process that gets them to know your brand or service and then get them to take some sort of concrete action. And so we have become funnel experts at helping e comm shops, coaches, consultants, local businesses, scale their services and scale their revenue. Uh, what makes us really fun and a little bit unique is we are, we're full stack. Meaning we look at the whole customer journey from the content to the creative to the copywriting to the media buying strategy all the way down to the landing pages or the website all the way through to nurture marketing, whether that's SMS or some sort of engagement marketing.
So we really look at that whole flow and optimize the entire customer journey where we find that a lot of our competitors will focus like just on the media buying or just on the creative. They just do the website. And you have huge misses when those are [00:11:00] broken out in your industry. You need to look at the full funnel to really get the true optimization.
So that's what we do for EcomShops.
Matt: so the I mean it's fascinating listening to you talk about this Taylor because I love this whole phrase of the customer journey, you know, understanding the customer journey and taking customers on a journey. I'm a big fan of this kind of language. It sort of floats my boat, for want of a better expression.
Um, and so I'm intrigued, uh, by that process. Um, do you predominantly work with established e com brands or if people are starting out, do they come to you? Is it, where's your sweet spot?
Taylor: So we actually service a pretty broad group of customers right now. Um, probably 20 percent of my customers are brand new startups doing less than 50, 000 a month in Shopify revenue and then probably 40 percent [00:12:00] of my customers are in the 100 to 500 K range of monthly revenue. And then I've got a subset of customers that are doing well over, you know, a million to 7 million a month in, in revenue.
So I kind of, we serve all three of those segments.
Matt: you got a wide range, haven't you?
Taylor: brands. Yeah, the interesting thing is there's, there's different triggers you have to hit at those different stages of growth. Um, but our favorite ones are the brands that are doing like 50 to 100k a month, have a great product and they're like, we're ready to really grow this thing.
And those are the brands that we can have just meteoric success with.
Matt: Yeah. Yeah. Because they've got, it's interesting, isn't it? I, I'm always aware that when, I mean, we, we talk a lot about, you know, people that are starting e commerce businesses on this show, because I want it to be accessible. You know, I, I, if you're [00:13:00] starting out in e commerce, I don't, I don't want you to listen to an episode and go, well, none of that applies to me.
Therefore I'm out, Matt. Thanks, but no thanks. But I'm also aware that the majority of the listeners are in that. Right. They've been doing e commerce for a little while and they are, you know, they're, they're wanting to grow. They've, they've got a good customer list, a couple of thousand people, at least, you know, they're, they're ready to start making some changes.
So let's talk about that a little bit. This is your expertise, Taylor. So I come along to you, I've got. I don't know, 50 to 100, 000 people, uh, 50 to 100, 000 people, 50 to 100, 000 bucks a month in revenue. Um, and you, you, you're, you're talking about the full stack. What are some of the things? Some of the triggers, some of the key things I need to think about in that, in that, uh, income bracket.
Taylor: But the first thing that we do when we partner with a brand like that is we start to look historically at the last three to [00:14:00] six months of sales data and we start to say, okay, what are people consistently buying from you for the first time? And this is, uh, people call this a trip wire. I kind of like to call it.
You know, a tripwire is like we're trying to trick someone into the brand. I don't like that phrase as much, but technically that's what it's called is a tripwire. Uh, we like to call it just an offer that really gets people sold on the value that you provide. As a brand, right? So step number one is we have to find out what is your trip wire or your hero product That people are always coming in to buy for some shops That's super simple because you know, they have five SKUs like we know what the hero product is Some shops have hundreds of SKUs.
It's a lot more technical You know, especially in fashion and apparel, it's like a dress company. We work with a lot of dress brands. It can be really difficult to know, okay, what is my hero product? And, and there's seasonalities and then trends inside that. [00:15:00] So we're really good at helping brand owners first and foremost, identify what's that core product that we need to build your brand on.
So that's step one. Step two is we then start to formulate how is this product solving a problem? Whether it's a dress. Or a baby swaddle or a new pair of pants or a jewelry brand Every brand solves a problem. Most people just don't know how to formulate that Uh that that framework of problem solving in a way that gets people to purchase stuff
Matt: Yeah.
Taylor: So we're really good at that.
We walked the client through it. So we've identified that hero product. Then we start to identify, why should I spend money on this product? Out of all the options in the e com world, why should I buy this one? Step three is we then build an acquisition funnel based on that finding. And, and now we can start to get data.
We can start to say, all [00:16:00] right, we're going to test three different hooks. Like let's take a dress. For example, we're going to build three different, uh, sales hooks around this dress. One, it fits every body style to it's made with really high quality products. So it's going to last a long time. Uh, three, it's really flattering.
You're going to look damn good in this dress. Right? So we've, we're going to test those three different hooks all the way down from the content and creative into the media buying strategy, all the way down to make sure that the landing page and product page echoes that customer journey. Same message, right?
Matt: Yeah.
Taylor: And now we start to test that and maybe it's the fact that this dress fits a lot of body styles. Maybe that's the selling point. We'll test that and it's all backed by data. So step one, identify that hero product. Step two, why is this product unique? What problems does it solve? Step three, test those theories.
Back them up with data. Now we can start [00:17:00] to scale and here's why we focus on a singular or a set of core products At the start for these brands is now we can get really granular On what is my cost per acquisition? What's my roi on this one product and now we can take that all the way down to the cost of goods sold The the lifetime customer value right now.
We have an actual Funnel that translates into the business and is backed by data. So the minute that we go above a certain cost per acquisition on this one dress, we know we're not profitable. Well, now we can fix it and we know exactly what to fix. All right. Either the sales hook is broken or the media buys strategy needs optimization, or there's something wrong on the website. Right. And so by focusing on a very set funnel, now we have the data and the insights to make informed decisions as opposed to being like, well, we don't know why people are buying stuff. Let's just run a different campaign. [00:18:00] Does that make sense?
Matt: Yeah. So, and I'm living it and I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm sort of sat here nodding, uh, sort of listening to you talk thinking it's interesting that you pick the hero product. So what I like about this. Um, Taylor is you've, you've vastly simplified. So if I have four, I mean, the beauty company I sold had over a thousand SKUs, right?
But there was definitely one product that accounted for the majority of, you know, you, you definitely saw the, um, what's the word? The Pareto principle. Uh, you definitely saw that in, in some of the brands, you know, you had one brand that outperformed the other brands. And in that brand, you had one product that always performed.
So it's a case of you're put, you're perfecting this funnel around that one. hero product. Um, there's a few bits of terminology that I want you to define if that's okay, um, just to help us get our heads around this. So, um, but I, I'm loving this principle because like I say, it simplifies. And I, I'm a simple man, Taylor.
I like, I [00:19:00] like simple. So yeah, I think most men are not stereotyped too much, but I, I, you know, um, uh, uh, so simple works for me and I, I, I, I'm, I'm living this. Um, so you, you talk about, um, build an acquisition funnel. Um, you know, you understand what is, what, why people are buying that product, which is a, you know, it sounds just rolls off the tongue.
I understand why people are buying this, but it's not actually that straightforward necessarily, but we can, we can figure it out. Um, but, uh, build an acquisition funnel on this finding. When you talk about an acquisition funnel, just walk me through what that is. Let's define that. Um, so people can conceptually understand what you mean if that's okay.
Taylor: Yes. Yes. So we have kind of, we haven't patented the term, but we call it a focused acquisition funnel. It's a play on our name. Focus funnels. But it also describes exactly what we're building. So an [00:20:00] acquisition funnel is a mechanism to acquire new customers with proven data and hopefully profitability. So think of it like a machine. That continues to run and when you think about it like this, it's, it's now a system of your business and that's why we go with hero products or stuff that's more evergreen because we want this acquisition funnel to be running 24 seven. 365 days a year and it has one job It's to acquire a new customer as profitably as possible. That's why it's called an acquisition funnel We're not trying to sell the same product to your existing customers Right the heart of every ecom shop is new blood We need new humans in this brand. And so what we do is we come into a brand and we say, all right, [00:21:00] you're most brands are pretty good at selling to their existing customer base.
Like most brands are pretty good at that. If you're doing 50 a month, you've really gotten pretty good at selling to your core customer brace. You're selling them out, but what they don't understand what most brands struggle with is I need new people,
Matt: Yeah.
Taylor: but I need those new people. At a relatively either profitable or a break even, and that's where people fall apart.
So this acquisition funnel, it's just a mechanism of acquiring new customers as profitably as possible. Yeah, yeah,
Matt: And is that, so let's say, um, I sell for the sake of argument, 10 products, um, one of them is doing super well and I have a Shopify site selling my 10 products, right? And um, the acquisition funnel, are you using Shopify? Are you creating that? Cause in my head I still, rightly or wrongly, Taylor, I still have things like click funnels over here, you know?
Taylor: yeah.
Matt: Just is it, [00:22:00] is it, is it like that in your thinking? Is it a separate thing? Is it built on the Shopify site? I might, is that confusing people? It's like, no, we're going to do something over here. It is one product. They buy one, they buy three on an offer bump or something, but that's, that's what we're thinking about.
Taylor: So, so think of a funnel in three steps. There's the ad content that we're going to use in the advertising. So that's the copy, the creative, the messaging, right? Then think of media buying strategy. So this is the techniques that we're using to serve this to the right human.
Matt: Yep.
Taylor: And then at the bottom of that, think about the landing page or the product page. So for most of our customers, we build everything natively in Shopify.
Matt: Okay.
Taylor: There's a couple reasons for that. One, it keeps things really simple. Two, the data tracking and the attribution is a lot easier to manage. Right? We don't have to buy a bunch of expensive, complicated tools. [00:23:00] And three, we found that Shopify product pages rank and convert better than using some sort of third party app or tool that optimizes your landing page. That when you look at like eCom trends, there's a reason that certain things are set up the way they are. For example, Amazon, like Amazon has tested millions and millions of variations. They have unlimited budget to test. conversions. Why does their site look the way it looks? It's because that works the best, right?
So what we've done is we've taken a lot of those principles that are tried and true And we just apply them at scale for our brands.
Matt: Again, the thing I like here is it's simple. So you're, you're, you're building funnels in effect on the same system on, on the same platform. And so there's no separate systems because every, I think if you're turning over 50 [00:24:00] grand to a hundred grand a month, my first problem is going to be, well, if I'm over here on click funnels or whatever the, you know, I'm supposed to be using, um, how do I get the data from that into my warehouse management system?
You know, there's all kinds of problems all of a sudden, isn't there?
Taylor: Totally.
Matt: So the landing pages that you're building, I'm super curious, right? You've talked about how the messaging needs to be consistent between the content, the media buying, and obviously the landing pages are three steps of the funnel. And we've talked about that before on the show, you know, this consistency of messaging makes a big difference to conversion, to everything.
It just, it just works. What do you see well, uh, working well at the moment where landing pages are concerned? Because I think people break out into a cold sweat. It's like, well, I've got to design a landing, but what do I do? I don't know. And so it's like, what do you, what are some of the things, I mean, obviously I'm, you're not going to tell everyone your IP.
That's totally fine, but some of the principles that, you know, you've seen working well, Taylor.
Taylor: Yeah So [00:25:00] what we find is that most product pages They need to be designed as mini websites
Matt: Okay. Mm-Hmm.
Taylor: And what it means is like, look, if you have a really compelling founder story, that's a core part of why you built what you built. Like, let's say we work with a lot of female entrepreneurs. That's like actually like 80 percent of our customer base is female owned and operated e comm stores.
And a lot of those women have developed products based on some sort of experience in their own lives. Um, a lot of it has to do with, we work in a lot in the baby space. So, one of my favorite brands, uh, they make these really intuitive, super cool, uh, nursing bras. Well, nursing bras are, uh, one, usually very poorly made, two, they're typically clunky and don't work that well.
And so they've like really innovated, and these are women that have had multiple kids and tested all these different designs, and so like, they're brilliant nursing bras. On the product pages, we tell that story. [00:26:00] So when you hit the product page, because most people are shopping on their phones, they don't like to click around.
Matt: Yeah,
Taylor: There's a reason that there's no clicking on Instagram. It's swiping and scrolling. So that's what, that's once again, Instagram has unlimited money to test this stuff. So when you go to a product page, you want it to be a long scroll. And the second theory or strategy I'll share with you, with everyone is answer the questions that the customer is going to have before they have the question. So with the nursing bra, for example, there's a ton of questions that come up. One, how does it work, right? How does it fit? How is the sizing? Um, can you show me like, how does it work with different body styles? And I, you know, I'm going to be nursing versus pumping. Those are two different strategies of feeding children.
How is that accounted for? So we've built really long product pages that go through all of these things. So by the time you scroll through this product page, [00:27:00] we've answered all your questions. We've educated you on why this product is so amazing, we've talked about key psychological triggers that get you to purchase.
So by the time you go through that product page, you're purchasing that bra.
Matt: Yeah. Yeah.
Taylor: So once again, it's like, it's simplicity.
Matt: Yeah. Well, it's keeping it, I, I think, uh, the thing that I love about this, um, and again, it's something that I, we've mentioned a multiple times, well, I certainly mentioned it multiple times. If you are, if you think about the webpage that you've put together from the point of view of a new customer. Which is why on the show, like why on the e commerce podcast, I'm always asking questions like well, if I'm new to e commerce or I'm starting up a business, what does this mean?
And we'll get into this in a little while. It's because I'm aware that actually people coming are not going to have a clue what SEO means or CRM, right? And so it's on us to then explain what that is because You know, it just makes it accessible for everyone. So what you're doing is you're, you're putting yourself in the customer's shoes, who's come to your website, they don't really know what [00:28:00] you stand for or why you're doing what you're doing.
And so you're answering those questions, you're helping them, you're giving them all the information that they want. So they're much more likely to buy it's a it's a it's a pretty straightforward strategy in a lot of ways, isn't it? But it's it's amazing how many people don't do it You know, I'm
not don't get me wrong I'm not saying I'm the words expert in this field at all because there are I'm just as you're talking I'm thinking oh, we should probably change that on our website
I'm still learning
Taylor: thing, man. I get so frustrated looking at a lot of the gurus in our space that talk about this stuff and they talk about so much complexity and they confuse so many people. And look, you can have a lot of complexity and sophistication when you're doing one to five million dollars a month in revenue. Pretty much any time before that, you can keep your shop very simple, but you have to be effective. You This is where, where people miss, right, is [00:29:00] you have to do simple things, but they need to be very well done.
Matt: Yeah.
Taylor: And that's where we come in is like, we come into so many brands that have, that are doing amazing momentum, but they can't crack this code because they're just confused.
They're trying to do too many things at once. They're over complicating everything. The marketing strategies that we use are not new. These are things that have been tested for 200 years.
Matt: Yeah. Yeah
Taylor: But what's rad is when you apply them properly, And you execute them with the right way and you have an eye on the data.
They work. And like, that's where, that's why we've been able to spend so much is because brands will come on to us and be like, well, look, I only have like five grand a month to spend. I'm like, yeah, maybe for the first month, but once we prove this, you're going to get every one you can to pump through this thing.
Matt: Yeah.
Taylor: go
Matt: Let's crank this bad boy, because why would you not, right, if the results are coming out there?
Taylor: works. Like, [00:30:00] yeah, man.
Matt: I love, uh, nothing to do with the funnels side of things, but I just, I love that you felt comfortable to use the word rad. That's rad. Um, I just, I, it's the first time I think I've heard that on this podcast.
It's a, it's a first. So funnels and rad. Rad funnels, maybe. I,
Taylor: I mean, I'm, I'm a product of my environment. I grew up in Los Angeles. I, a, I'm a beach kid. I grew up with, you know, punk rock and skateboarding and it's just, it's just hard. I can't get rid of it.
Matt: No, no, and neither should you. It's, it's remarkably charming and I think it's, um, it took me straight back to the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, you know, that kind of thing. So, uh, that's brilliant. So, a question that I've got for you then, Taylor, on this. We're building the site on Shopify. We've got a landing page.
So the ads coming to, um, I'm just looking at a product here. Let's pick a product because I have lots of products on my shelves. So there's a product here, right? This is called [00:31:00] Sudaria. Um, it's a face serum. Okay.
Skincare. Oh, yeah, these are great. Um, and this is actually a secret hush hush. I mean, by the time this podcast, well, no, actually, this is, this podcast is coming out sooner than I expected.
In January, February next year, we are, we are relaunching the Sudaria brand. Um, it's, we won't go into too much detail, but it's a secret. Um, and so I'm kind of curious, right? I've got my Shopify site. I've got a product page that is, um, You know the general product page on the website. Am I then building a separate landing page for each of those three hooks?
So in effect, you can buy the product on that landing page without going to the key product page, if that makes sense. This is just one of those terminology things I just want to clarify.
Taylor: yes, yes, okay, so, this question is, it depends on how much money you have,
Matt: I just love that [00:32:00] answer! 4. 50, maybe 5. 00, let's go with exchange rate. Mm hmm.
Taylor: me, let me quantify that, is, a lot of brands come to us and they're like, I want to do these really crazy A B tests, and I'm like, alright, well whenever we're doing these type of tests, they burn through budget and they cost money.
Matt: Mm hmm.
Taylor: Right? So if we're going to be testing like three different landing pages, that costs money and potentially one or two of those landing pages are not going to work.
So if we have some wiggle room, then we will build multiple landing pages with different hooks and we'll test those. If we don't, if the brand is really tight and, and we just don't have the wiggle room to spend extra money. What we'll do is we'll test one hook at a time,
Matt: Mm
Taylor: and the, the lot of the testing has happened in the ad sets on the creative on the ads, and then the landing page, we, we echo those different call outs in the different sections. [00:33:00] So, now we can test, like, let's take your face serum, for example. Let's say one of the hooks is it's all natural, we don't want to put chemicals on our body anymore. So, if we're using that hook, our ad creative is going to be all about all natural, but then when you hit that product page, at the top, we'll change the header, you know, the main hero image and a lot of the stuff on those all natural things, but then it's business as usual.
Now we're going through a bunch of the different selling hooks, right? Let's say our selling hook is this reduces wrinkles on your skin in 60 days. Like we see noticeably different with this Space Serum. Well, we're going to test that, a ton of different types of hooks in the ad sets. And then once again, we'll come back to that product page if budgets really depends on how much budget the brand has. If we can build multiple pages, that's more effective. But it's also, once again, going back to simplicity, you don't have to do that.
Matt: Yeah. No, I love that. [00:34:00] And again, it's a simple answer. And I, again, it, it just reminds me that as people, we, we look sometimes for the most complex solution first. Uh, and actually the, the, what I'm loving hearing is no, no, we're going to take the product page. We're going to design the product page around a hook that we're going to test.
We're going to test that hook and then we'll see how we get on. And we're going to move to the next one and we're going to test that. And that means we're going to change. The product page which is your landing page and we're just gonna until we figure out which one's the best one unless you've got Deep pockets in which case we'll do three at once and well, it's not a problem at all
Taylor: Yeah, we can, we can test multiple things. I, here, here's something I see over and over again, is people are acting like they're multi million dollar eCommerce shops, and they're doing 100k a month. It's like what, like you don't, you don't need to act like that. Like, you don't have to roll out new product every three months, right?
You're doing 100, 000 a month, there's unlimited upside for you if you can crack the code on two or three of your core [00:35:00] products. So focus. Like we just love to chase shiny objects and, and this is actually another like huge pain point for me is I look at brands and they're lulled into agencies that are selling these shiny objects.
Matt: Yeah.
Taylor: And most of these agencies are awful, like they don't deliver value, they can't scale, they're not managing that much money. And like you look at an agency like us, we keep things really simple. And when we get on calls, like I'm not using complex marketing terms to make people feel silly or like they don't understand this stuff, but it's the simplicity that allows us to manage like three, 300 million in ad spend.
Matt: Yeah. It's a fair chunk of cash, by the way. And
Taylor: a lot of money,
Matt: Mr. Google and Mr. Facebook are very happy with you. Thank you. They, I think is what they're saying. Um, but yeah, it's fine. No, I, I, I, I like the, I like simplicity. Simplicity works for me and you can, you can measure things quite well. So you've got your funnel.
Uh, up and running. Your [00:36:00] acquisition funnel is working super well, man. Um, lifetime value is going up because our follow up campaigns are great. You know, we're getting people back to buy more products, et cetera, et cetera. Um, do you then move on to product number two? Uh, the second best selling product, or you just literally, no, we're just going to focus on the hero product and just put all our eggs in that basket for now, dude.
Taylor: Yeah, so, so, once again, it depends on where we're at in this stage of the brand.
Matt: Mm
Taylor: for a lot of these ones, really focusing on that hero product is, is nine times out of ten the best place to focus, right? If we can get a profitable purchase on a new customer,
Matt: hmm. Mm
Taylor: we've cracked the code. We need to run, I mean, Zane, you know this, like, dude, if you
Matt: gold. It's the, it's the, it's the, it's the Holy Grail, isn't it? It's what Indiana Jones was chasing for in the crusade. Uh, you know, the last crusade, it's just, it's what he was after. You know, how do I get a profitable first customer?
Taylor: Yeah. Now, for a lot of our brands, we'll [00:37:00] start to stack in additional funnels. It is, they'll come to us, we'll crack the code on that one and, and they're scaling and getting some good stuff. And they're like, all right, what's next? I'm like, well, let's do it with your second best selling product or your third best selling product.
Right. So then we just, I look at it as a hub and spoke model where. The hub is the eComshop and we're trying to build as many entries into this brand as possible. But once again, we keep it, we, we usually tap things out at like five to seven acquisition funnels because once again, we have to make sure that these things are constantly
Matt: hmm. Yeah.
Taylor: Um, and so that takes a lot of effort and time and testing and things break because eCom breaks. And so we typically tap it out with there with like our top selling customers, but like those customers are doing, you know, 5 million a month in revenue,
Matt: hmm.
Taylor: right? So they have budget where we're able to spend and spend to fuel these funnels.
So once again, it matters on where you're at in that journey. Yeah,
Matt: it's, it's in, [00:38:00] it's, it's, One of the things that always astounds me is just the amount of work involved to keep your ads working well. It's not like, it's not a case of set it and forget it, is it? It's not like, I'm just going to set that over there. That's we'll set a budget. It'll work now for the, for the rest of, you know, until Christ returns, it's fine.
Um, kind of thing. Um, You, you, this, you keep coming back, you keep editing, you keep updating, you keep monitoring it. Some of the really profitable ones stop being profitable after a while. That level of monitoring and having hands on in there, um, is something that I think you have to, you have to do daily, don't you?
You have to be in there every day, um, which is, which is a big deal, I think, and it's one of those things when you choose an agency, actually, these are, these are some of the questions I'll be asking like, how often are you in there monitoring this stuff, you know?
Taylor: so for most of our customers, once again it depends on the budget, um, we find that most [00:39:00] campaigns need to bake for 24 to 48 hours before we really know if it's a winner or a loser. In that time we are making a ton of tweaks, but also we're coming to the table with vast amounts of experience on how to scale campaigns.
So a lot of times people, you know, I'll be in a sales call and people are like, well, you know, my uncle does Facebook ads. I'm like, oh, yeah,
Matt: That's awesome. I do Facebook ads. I've done them in the past. I'm never doing them again, but I have done them.
Taylor: So I love that. I'm like, oh, really? Like how, how much budget is he managing? And how many accounts is he doing? And, and so one of the things that's a big misunderstanding is one, we're managing massive amounts of budgets. Every single month. And two, we're doing this across multiple niches of 50 plus customers. So we have a really good sense of what is exactly working. [00:40:00] And the minute we find something that's working, we apply that to all of our customers. Right? So there's massive amount of insight and, and knowledge transfer that's being applied to these accounts. And that's a huge benefit of hiring the right agency, right agency.
Matt: Yeah. It is.
Taylor: And so that's a big part of us is it's like really high customer service, but then two, it's in the account making the tweaks, making the changes, but with, with expertise and skillset behind it, not just throwing spaghetti at the wall.
Matt: Of that analogy. Uh, no, totally. I mean, when we, Uh, I can tell you for the beauty business that I sold, we did all our own internal advertising. We made a decision, um, to go to an agency, um, and we weren't spending loads. We were spending maybe 30, 40 grand a month with Google. I mean, it's some people that might be loads, do you know what I mean, is,
Taylor: That's still healthy.
Matt: and so we decided to switch to an agency.
Well, geez, the difference [00:41:00] when we pick, we pick in the right agency. It was like. These guys, the level of expertise was so much bigger than what we had, you know, Um, we sort of started doing Facebook ads and Google ads when you, when anybody could do it and make money, you know, it was back in the day when it was a piece of cake.
I'll just do that. Um, and then like everything, it gets complicated and you need experts, don't you? And, um, so I understand this process now for, um, For companies which have, you know, you've got a bit of money, you've got a bit of budget, you can have a bit of a play. I'm setting up a new skincare brand. I'm launching my skin serum.
Let's assume I've not got any experience. Let's assume I've not really got any budget. What, if I'm starting out in eCom, what should I be thinking about that's different
Taylor: Yeah. Yeah. So this is a, this is a tough one. There's two levers you can pull. One lever is I invest money,
Matt: hmm.
Taylor: right? The [00:42:00] other level is it's sweat. Right? You've got money or sweat. And when I think about sweat, I think about street hustle. This is literally going door to door online and trying to get people to purchase your product and leave, leave you reviews.
So you're DMing people, you're doing all the sweat equity stuff because we have an amazing set of tools. You don't have to buy ads at the beginning. It makes it way easier and you learn way faster. But once again, it's, it's these two levers. Do I want to pull the sweat lever or do I want to pull the money lever? And so when you're thinking about starting a new brand, it's like, how can I get momentum and prove my model as quickly as possible? And what, what I mean by that is we are people buying this is my price point. Where it needs to be. Am I solving a problem? And is it repeatable? And if you can, if you can answer those questions, then you've [00:43:00] got something and now you can pour some gas on that fire, right?
So as you're starting out, you first need to find out like, okay, is there anyone willing to buy this product that I'm creating in the marketplace? And if you can do that, especially organically and get some momentum from friends, family, Instagram posts, all this stuff, influencers, then boom, you've got something and then you can start to really invest in, in growth.
Matt: hmm. And how do you, um, let's say I come to you and say, listen, Taylor, I, I just, I can't be faffed with a direct message. Cause like you, I was working a full time job. This is my side hustle. You know, I'm, um, I'm thinking about all these other things. So I'm going to invest some cash, right? I've got, I don't know, 10 grand.
I'm going to throw 10 grand at it. Um, where do you, where do you start with a site that is new, that has no reviews, no real track history? Um, I think I, I guess the reason why I'm asking this is, I think it's just good set expectations for [00:44:00] some people. Sometimes do you know what I mean? And, and, and, and so I don't know if you've got an experience of that, you know, uh, how do you literally build from that?
No email list other than my mum and my dad are on it maybe. Do you know what I mean? It's that kind of, um, it's that kind of position.
Taylor: So, so we've built a lot of brands like this and you're looking at least a six month runway. Before you start to see some, some real momentum and by, by I said real momentum, meaning we're doing like 10 to 15K a month consistently. We're getting new customers in the brand. You know, we've got all the kinks worked out on the messaging, the product, the fulfillment, you know, everything's kind of humming.
You wanna give yourself six months at least. And that's if you are really diligent on it. Um, I think a lot of people come into this and be like, look, I'm gonna put this thing online, and people just show up. You, you, you have to. And that's just like, I, I always shake my head. I'm like, who told you that? [00:45:00] Um, you, you have to find a way to acquire customers. And so like, that's the biggest thing. Whether you do it with sweat or whether you do it with money, you've gotta figure that piece out at the beginning.
Matt: Yeah. And I, I like that. So six to nine months, really, you've got to be willing to go invest a bit of time in this for six to nine months. And you're going to start to see that you see the problem we've, we have Taylor is there's people on YouTube going, Oh, I did this and I made 10 grand overnight. And you're like, yeah, you're the one in the 20, 000 million people that actually managed to do it and made a video out of it.
But the, the other. 20, 000 million people. Yeah, that just didn't work, did it? No, no. You were the lucky bugger, is probably how we would say it in the UK. Um, but it's, it's, and so we have this sort of these false expectations that actually if I do this, then if I build it, they will come, you know, the field of dreams type thing.
Um, and if I'm, I'm, I'm slightly. Full Disclosure, Full Integrity. [00:46:00] When we started our beauty business online, that's exactly what we did, but this was at a time when that actually worked.
Taylor: Totally.
Matt: Doesn't anymore. Um, and so, um, yeah, having those sort of realistic expectations, it's going to take a bit of time. It's going to take either sweat or it's going to take some, you know, a bit of cash to sort of throw at some things.
You can learn it yourself. You're probably better off getting an expert in if you can afford it from day one. Your return on investment is just going to come quicker, I think. Um, but even then it's no sort of guarantee, uh, of success, is it? How early Um, in the conversation, do you get involved where people are creating a product?
So let's say, um, I want to create a new face serum, um, and I've got a few ideas. Do you get involved in the product creation with some testing and you can go to the market and test a few things? So we think this might work better than that, or is it, um, no, we, we sort of, once we've got the product done, then we come to you.
Taylor: Yeah, [00:47:00] it's, it's once you got the product done, you come to us, we can, we can guide on some things around like how you're thinking about that product, but it's mostly just from a marketing perspective. Once again, we're very focused on. New Customer Acquisition, Scaling Ecom Brands. That's like our bread and butter.
We're really, really good at that. And we try to stay very strictly in those bumpers, right? So if someone comes up and says, Hey, I want your help on like, thinking about the marketing strategy, I'm going to develop this product. Like, yeah, we can do that, but that's not our core expertise, right? Is you want to come to us when you're like, Hey, I've got this brand.
We're getting, we're getting a little bit of momentum. Now I want to take this thing to the moon. I'm like, all right, buckle up. Let's
Matt: yeah, that's gonna get bumpy, Dorothy. It's in, I'm a, I'm a big fan of the, um, I use that phrase a lot, I've noticed tonight, just listening back, um, I, I'm a big fan of the new customer acquisition idea. We had on the site, [00:48:00] on the site, on the podcast a little while ago, a chap called Oliver, Oliver Spark from, um, uh, the analytics company, and it's totally escaped my mind, I'm just very sorry, Oliver, it'll come back to me, uh, but Oliver was the CEO of a company called The White Company.
Um, here in the uk. Um, I dunno if actually it's international, but it's a big deal. It's a big, massive, massive company. Turns over hundreds of millions here in the uk and he was the CEO for a little while and when he came in, he took it from like 5 million a year up to, I think he needed to get it up to 60, 70 million a year quite quickly.
I mean, it was quite a big jump in scale. And he said the one thing that he did. Um, was he relentlessly focused on new customer acquisition? So he understood, um, he, he spent a bit of time figuring out how many new customers he needed to reach his target goal. And actually his whole analytics suite is based around this single concept.
Um, and, uh, uh, it's the point where I actually full disclosure. [00:49:00] Um, he's been, he's done a bit of stuff for us behind the scenes on one of my eCommerce sites because I was really curious after that conversation to see what it was like. And so I can't give you the details yet because frankly, we've not had them, we've not had that conversation, but I know that they're working on some stuff for us right now. Um, but I, I really loved his whole focus on like, well, Matt, you want to get this company from say 3 million to 5 million. That's easy to say, but what that actually means is you've got to go and get 28, 426 new customers. How are you going to do that? Right. And so this new customer acquisition thing is such an important thing.
Um, and, uh, I, I, I love the, I love the focus on that. Listen, um, Taylor, I'm aware of time. I already sucked the life out of you so far. So, uh, I'm kind of, I'm intrigued. I, and I'm sure people are intrigued by what you do. Maybe you want to find out more. Um, maybe look at some case studies, which I'm sure you'll have on your website and all that sort of stuff.[00:50:00]
If people want to reach out with you, if they want to connect to you, what's the best way to do that?
Taylor: I appreciate that, Matt. So go to focusfunnels. com. Uh, Focus Funnels and funnels with an S at the end, focusfunnels. com, and we have everything right there. We've got case studies, we have descriptions on what we do, and then there's a, we even have a little podcast with some of our,
Matt: Oh, fantastic. Yeah,
Taylor: and engage with there.
Uh, and there's a site, a part of the site that says hire us, and uh, on that you can submit some information and set up a call with my team. And here's one thing I will say. We are very open and honest about whether or not people are a good fit. Like if you come to us and you're not a good fit, we're going to tell you that. Um, and so one thing I say on, on all of my, my podcasts is like, set up a call with us. Just come chat with us. We do not do pressure sales. We're not going to guilt trip you into [00:51:00] anything. But if we do feel like we've got something, when we're definitely gonna be like, let's do this together, like let's build something together.
So, but no, no matter what happens is you're going to walk away from a conversation with my team, uh, with a lot of knowledge, insight, and better educated so you can make the right choice for, you know, whether it's a partner that you need. So focusfunnels. com hit us up. We'd love to hear from you.
Matt: fantastic. And we will of course link to Focus Funnels in the show notes as well, which you can get along for free with a transcript, uh, on the website or in just. If whatever podcast system you're listening to this on, it'll be in the podcast notes. Uh, just go check that out. Um, but listen, totally. Thanks.
Great to meet you, man. And thanks for coming on the show. Um, love what you guys are doing. Love the simplicity of it. I'm, I'm, it's just, it's just nice to just draw it back to the simple principles of marketing. Um, and so thoroughly enjoyed the conversation. Uh, love what you guys are doing and, uh, yeah, big shout out to you, man.
[00:52:00] Appreciate it.
Taylor: Pleasure. Thank you so much.
Matt: Wow. What a fab conversation that was. Also a big shout out to the sponsor of the show, of course, eCommerce Cohort. Remember to check them out, ecommercecohort. com. Go have a look. Come join us in the Mastermind, in the membership. Why not? See what's going on. Now be sure to follow the eCommerce Podcast wherever you get your podcasts from because we've got yet more great conversations lined up and I don't want you to miss any of them.
And in case no one has told you yet today, let me be the very first person to do so. You are awesome. Yes, you are. Created awesome. It's just a burden you have to bear. Taylor's got to bear it. I've got to bear it, you've got to bear it as well. Now the eCommerce Podcast is produced by Aurion Media. You can find our entire archive of episodes on your favourite podcast app.
The team, the wonderful, beautiful, just all round amazing team that makes this show possible includes The talented Sadaf Beynon, the extremely funny Tanya Hutsuliak, our theme song was [00:53:00] written by Josh Edmundson, and as I said, if you'd like to read the transcript or the show notes, visit the website, eCommercePodcast.
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I'll see you next time. Bye for now.[00:54:00]