How To Leave Amazon and Set Up Your Own Website + Brand

welcome to the ecommerce podcast with matt edmondson a show that brings you regular interviews tips and tools for
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[Music]
hello and welcome to the ecommerce podcast with me your host matt edmondson all of this week's notes and links can
be found on our website at ecommercepodcast.net forward slash
now if you've tuned into the show chances are you're an amazon seller who's considering or maybe looking for a
way out turns out you are not alone there are thousands of sellers who are making the
switch to their own websites every day and with good reason it's the future of
e-commerce and in today's show our guest lauren gonzalez is going to show you how
to make the transition and how to set up your own website and brand so don't go anywhere
hey there are you a business owner here at orion digital we know firsthand that running an ecommerce business can be
really hard work as the online space gets more competitive it is becoming even more
challenging to stay ahead of the curve we totally get it so we want to help you succeed by offering a wide range of
services from fulfillment marketing customer service and even coaching and consulting just so that you can do what
matters most save yourself the time and the money and let us handle the day-to-day tasks this way you can run
your business without having to worry about the boring stuff so what do you say are we a good fit for each other
come check us out at oreodigital.com and let us know what you think
thanks for joining us on the ecommerce podcast it's great that you are here now
whether you are just starting out or maybe you're like me and have been around a fair few years doesn't matter
you're in the right place this show is all about e-commerce it's all about how
to grow your ecommerce and digital business and to do that every week we
mix great show sponsors with great show guests who have got all kinds of insights and helpful nuggets tidbits and
all that kind of good stuff that can help us adapt and grow online and this week we are talking with
lauren who has been crafting visual brands for over a decade she started out
her career working as a creative director in-house at our hollywood publisher no less oh
yes and now she's gone to on to co-find her own company prince of pm uh she did
that six years ago with her husband and britney a business partner she is passionate about inspiring e-commerce
and amazon businesses to create a connection between themselves and who they were made to serve which in turn
increases their business growth but she doesn't just stop there because why would you lauren also believes in
uncovering each person's business purpose so that they can be motivated to bring about a world of meaning and
sustainability sounds fantastic want to know more i definitely do here's
my conversation with lauren so lauren thank you for joining me here on the ecommerce podcast great to have
you how are we doing oh it's so great to be here matt thank you very much for having me
i'm doing well yeah that's awesome now we um we had a fascinating pre-call
and and the reason um if you're listening to the show this is and you're new to the show you may or may not know this we do something here called a
pre-call which is where we talk to the guests for like minutes figure out what we're going to talk about on the show and then we record the
podcast separately it's just something that we've always done here and something we will continue to do and on our pre-call
and the thing which i remember that stood out to me uh was the whole i mean the whole title
of this podcast how to leave amazon and set up your own website and brand it's like hang on a minute we even said this to you i think i have
in all the years that we've been doing this and no one has ever come on the podcast talk about leaving amazon we've had plenty of guests talking about how
to do amazon and how you know how e-commerce businesses can make the most of amazon
you're a little bit different lauren you're you're telling people to get off uh amazon in some respects so
um and i i really enjoyed that conversation so i'm looking forward to this so let's start at the top um
why would you tell uh somebody to get or why would somebody want to leave amazon
yeah so what i like to think about or explain to people regarding this whole subject of
the uh love hate relationship that a lot of brands start can have with amazon is
you don't necessarily need to give up your presence there but you probably if you're an amazon seller the
last few years have been a bit challenging there's been a lot of logistics uh restrictions and
more and more and more people coming onto the platform the competition has really risen and it just becomes the
profit margins start to decrease and it becomes a bit more challenging especially for those brands that um you
know they have maybe a lot of products and they they're trying to see okay what's the next level i can get to
so i have found that a way to really really just take your
brand to the next level see what other possibilities there are in the e-commerce world is to start shifting
that focus onto other other platforms like shopify that's your own site
getting yourself and maybe a lot of sellers already do on amazon have a shopify site but they're not
utilizing it to the maximum amount they can or really know what to do or say or
or even what presence to have on social media and how do they use this whole great big thing called the internet
their focus has been so much just amazon and and there's a whole world out there
aside from that yeah no that's really i mean that's there is such
sensible advice um and something that i i know i've had many conversations with
many people over the years about this whole idea that actually if you're solely relying on amazon you could be in
for a world of hurt right and uh there's plenty of stories out there in the world
about how maybe things didn't work out exactly as the brand predicted they would when they're on amazon and
amazon's just going to do what amazon wants to do and i i'm they're very successful at it their whole goal is to
make their business work and not necessarily make your business work so you can't be surprised when things like that happen right
exactly and i mean then you get into the higher cost of storage and the limited
amount of of actual inventory that amazon is is letting different brands have in their storage
facility so then you have to go and find other storage and the i you know talking
about the manufacturers the chinese manufacturers that then start to sell in
the different marketplaces and they don't have the same costs that a brand a third-party seller would have
and so then cutting the price in half making the the price wars and all that goes with that is just
not fun and relying solely on one platform for your livelihood
can be scary sometimes because you know just like you said they don't necessarily care about
you they care about making more money and and making the customer have the best experience so they're all about the
customer not necessarily about the sellers so that's that's that's what i've seen
now you mentioned this um thing i've heard this a couple of times come up and i think it's probably worth just asking
a little bit about it and that is this whole idea of inventory or inventory depending on whereabouts in the world
you are um okay and the logistics yeah the logistics problems that um amazon
are having just to explain what is going on there and why costs are going up and why people are having to find other storage
well there's been a lot of situations with i mean the shipments
it's really kind of goes back to the shipping costs and the different tariffs and things that have i've seen at least
from the logistics standpoint of getting things from the manufacturers a lot of things are manufactured in china and
getting them over to the us there's been delays there's been stops on that and different hoops that
people need to go through and then you actually get to the storage because there's more and more
sellers coming amazon can't hold everything and so they start putting restrictions and restrictions and
restrictions and let's say you're selling a lot and you're about to sell out then you have to have the delay of
okay so now you have it stored at some logistics company you now have to get that
those uh inventory somehow to amazon and hope that all the moving pieces of the
contacting your logistics company having them find your inventory having the shipper the amazon truck or whatever the
the shipment company is that's going to get it between the logistics company to the amazon warehouse is going to get it there in time all before your product
doesn't run out on amazon and then you have to start all the way over in terms of ranking and hope that a bunch of
other competitors didn't come in there in the mean in the meanwhile and and root you out so
that's that's kind of a little overview of what i've seen happen for clients yeah it's quite fascinating isn't it
that almost the way i've heard it um and i don't think covert has helped but amazon in some respects has become a
victim of its own success um and also with the reduced staff that
people were you know that everywhere including amazon experience during covid they've not been able to deal with
people's stock or inventory or inventory very very well and this has caused massive problems and headaches for
people and um it doesn't it feels like it doesn't it's not going to get resolved any time
soon if i'm honest with you so now you've got the restrictions and maybe the increased cost of storage um for
stock to think about with amazon so that's um that's one of the the reasons um
you know people might be sort of looking elsewhere at the moment i think i think like you say though beyond that for me
the fact that i am relying on a single platform which is totally outside of my control for my business
that would if i'm honest that would terrify me you know i might be making good money today but i have no idea what's going to
happen tomorrow and what decisions they're going to make and and having been in businesses where a single
decision made by a supplier of some kind can radically change and alter your life
yes it's good to look outside right so um so you you work with uh amazon sellers
and uh people that are on amazon to build brands outside of amazon um and i
can understand if amazon is all you've known the the rest of the internet the other is a big daunting crazy
uh world which is just as competitive which has just as many problems but um
but also a lot more opportunities so how would you what are some of the things um that people need to think about if
they are solely relying on amazon and you're like okay you guys this is the first thing that we need to think about what would that be
yeah so the first thing is really getting into who what are your goals as a company
really going back to the basics the the foundation of why did you start what is
that reason that ignites you and and really drives you to have this business
what what makes it what is your purpose so as an example of this because i know that that can sound a little bit um
in the in the air of like not tangible if you let's say we had a client that was a supplement company so they were
selling on amazon and they had good ranking they had good reviews but they looking to really find a market outside
so they started to look at and we had helped them to see like why did they start this company to begin with and it
went back to the fact that they themselves had this problem with uh
their gut wasn't working and they were feeling tired all the time and they really really wanted people to
know that they don't have to live this life of feeling tired all the time and relying on caffeine and and maybe some
other drugs or things to actually get by during the day but there's actually a more natural way of life that they can
find and so that that's like that that passion that ignited them and that took
them to a point where they were able to see okay so these are our goals we want to reach as many people in this specific
um age group and this specific type of person that we can actually help and it
became something bigger than just making money but really about this purpose that drove them to get their message out
there so that that's number one um is really auditing the brand seeing
is are you just do you just have products with cheaper prices or is there actually
something behind this brand that can really resonate with somebody
that's uh you see here's the thing now it was instantly starting to talk about branding um which i think is fascinating
and the reason why i think it's fascinating is i'm going to piggyback um
uh your uh advice slightly here lauren if i'm honest with you uh whenever i whenever i work on my own sites whenever
i work on setting up a new business or if i'm coaching anybody the first place i always start is the brand the branded position of the of the company and
understanding what that is and so obviously it's right if we both agree that's just the way it works right
so so um but i'm curious that you're
you are starting here with this why did you get into business in the first place and you contrasted two two business
owners you contrasted the one that had a good reason as to why they got in like the supplement company versus the person that got in um just
because they had a product and it was cheaper price and they didn't really have that big sort of why or brand position
so a little slight side detour here why do you think um why do you start here why is brand so important why is
understanding the why so important well there's a few points to this is
first and this is something that is hard sometimes and people forget is that the people who are buying products are real
people and i feel that the advent of social media and the and
just the internet sometimes can really dehumanize people and we think just with
algorithms and uh ad clicks and ppc and keywords and we forget that actually
you're there to help that person get a better life or solve something or help
them in some way and so going back to the human connection i feel that there's just often a
disconnect between the brand and the customer in really understanding them
and really having the right perception that they want to be known for and and i mean i think anybody in life
like any any business owner wants to look back on what they've created and know that they actually were able to
help somebody and and yes make a lot of money at the same time but it all comes
back to well how did i actually give somebody or a lot of somebodies some real help in their own lives
that's a very good point and i like that phrase the dehumanization of uh of
people with social media and i have to agree i think it has i think um i think it's quite fascinating how we've
reduced people down just to a series of we'll have numbers to out like you say algorithms and uh
and that fascinates me because i think again bringing this back to amazon one of the ways that i think you can because
i get asked all the time and lauren i don't know if you get asked this question and we'll riff on it if you have um how do i compete with somebody
who is on amazon right so if i was a supplement company i'm like well this guy over here is killing it on on amazon
and amazon is sending out of you know all worldwide sales how do i compete with that i'm a much smaller uh company
over here and for me the answer is always like in brand as in um the one thing amazon
doesn't do is it doesn't have your brand it doesn't have your personality and you can really make that shine on your
website you can bring that out it becomes like a strength it becomes your advantage i think to sort of take on
uh amazon i don't know if you found that yeah that's beautifully said it and it's
amazon what you're really relying on when you're selling there is the trust that amazon has built with customers i mean
that they have amazing amazing trust they have created a brand that is
incredible um i actually used to when i was years old i used to buy um books
from amazon way back when they you know jeff bezos first started in the s and they were solely focused on books and
they're right from that beginning point they had such incredible customer service and and customer
support that um i was able to i loved actually i would always reply to
their customer service emails i would i just it was very funny that i ended up getting into really working with amazon
sellers in in my actual business because the but back from that point i had
always this this excitement this um this feeling when i would get a box from amazon and it was always nicely packaged
and and i feel that they have had such uh grown this brand
because they really really invested in the branding and now all the sellers are
able to actually benefit from what amazon has created i mean as much as the love hate relationship without amazon
there there's no third party sellers so that's something that i think that amazon itself
has really given and so you can't if you want yes you have the brand um you know
the a plus content having brand registry they allow you to have videos and and they allow you these little pieces of
showing your brand but yes absolutely your brand can shine so big and you can expand so much the
possibilities are endless and we can get into those um in a bit about what you can do off of amazon even to drive
traffic back to amazon and kind of work both ways so yeah that's what i'd say on that yeah
no it's very good listen uh we will get into those in just a few minutes let's just uh take a brief second though uh we
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[Music] hey there are you a business owner here
at oregon digital we know firsthand that running an ecommerce business can be really hard work
as the online space gets more competitive it is becoming even more challenging to stay ahead of the curve
we totally get it so we want to help you succeed by offering a wide range of services from fulfillment marketing
customer service and even coaching and consulting just so that you can do what matters most save yourself the time and
the money and let us handle the day-to-day tasks this way you can run your business without having to worry
about the boring stuff so what do you say are we a good fit for each other come check us out at oreodigital.com and
let us know what you think
big shout out to our show sponsors make sure you do check those guys out um as they enable us to do what we do and have
fab conversations with people like lauren and let's jump straight back into it lauren um we're talking uh about all
things amazon and building your brand um off the amazon ecosystem and and why
that's perhaps a good thing and why you should think about doing it um
so if we're if we sort of start with trying to understand why like you know why did we get into
business what's that all about um what what else do we need to think about as a as a business coming off what
are some of the strategies some of the things to to get our heads around so you need to really understand your
target audience your customer who is the customer because people say oh well it's
everybody everybody i want everybody to buy my products okay well
if you're trying to talk to everybody you're going to end up talking to no one because there are so many different types of
people on this planet so and and a lot of them fall into different categories that have similarities similar problems
similar situations in life and you have to know what are your ideal customers
frustrations what are their challenges what are they running into what it what motivates them to actually do something
about it and when you can understand that you can then build your own brand personality to be
human to be like a friend to them to figure out should you be motivational
should you be helpful should you be exciting or entertaining you have to
find what is the brand personality that's going to resonate with your ideal customer and it's you have to define it
down to the type of person and and not just um that it's everybody
yeah that's a really good point i i remember um i remember thinking about this we had a
we had a particular brand um uh we had a website called jersey jersey beauty company
and uh it was a business that we sold um recently and it was it was it was one of our big e-commerce businesses turned
over i think we if i had it all together i think it was like maybe yeah how was it million us
dollars worldwide i think it was a lot of money that was shipped out and i remember this whole thing with
jersey beauty company and i was like oh man alive this is you know the first website
and it completely took off the but the first website i designed right and i am i am
i am the complete opposite of our target audience right i just i
just am uh at our target audience um you know female for one uh and so
uh over the years our website platform grew and things change but the one thing that stayed consistent and stayed
constant was that i designed and had a big input in the design of all of our
websites and then a few years ago um i i it wasn't until i got my head
around i'm sitting there thinking right who's our target audience and i'm i i'm i'm i'm researching it and i'm
looking at it and i'm like dude of our customers are female why is
there a man doing the website design just please answer me that question and yes
matthew you may know a lot about websites you may know a lot about e-commerce but fundamentally uh let's
think about our target audience here and i contacted a friend who lives in dallas and he employs um
most of his design department actually a female or at least they were at the time i don't think that's still the case and um he redesigned
uh well his agency redesigned our website using his female designers and let me tell you the design they came up with
was nothing like i would have come up with but you know what the designers who designed it
were my target audience and you know what the just that simple fact radically changed our um conversion rate
online i mean radically changed it amazing really and so i i that's when i understood the
purpose and power of understanding your target audience and then
bringing that into everything you do like you said with your tone of voice for me with website design and all that sort of stuff
have you seen any examples yourself of where this has been super powerful yeah i love that example of the women um
i have seen this with many different niches i'll give you an example of a specific one which is baby brand
and um this is something that uh the the actual owners
were not they actually started uh we started them on the right foot um because they
came to us early on and um they were able to really they actually were not parents
themselves that that was kind of the funny disconnect and uh me as a parent i
really understand what parents need i actually then was able to do we were able to do a lot of
research more into okay what what did they want their actual messaging to be what was their values what was the
purpose for their brand and i had to really get them to see it wasn't just about them these these you know young
uh year olds who didn't actually have a family it was really about the parents
why would the parents even care about their products was it because they were
cute or was it because it was actually they felt resonated with the message of their brand so once once we actually got
them to really it was hard because you know it's it's their baby this brand that was really their own baby and and
getting them to just disconnect themselves and really see their brand as its own entity its own personality and
that was going to drive the sales of their own products because their their products then could be
actually softer they're they're they had some harsh colors and some really just harsh um tones it
was more like um talking to a uh some sort of a year old instead of
actually talking to a parent and at the beginning stages of a of a mom's journey everything that is about softness and
and really caring and love and you just are in this bubble of happiness about how cute everything is
and soft and and you want something that's going to be caring and really reflective of how you feel you're not
going to buy from something that's harsh and and and bold so it was a very interesting thing to see
that shift um we did their their whole brand and they were able to actually
have incredible conversions i mean on and off of amazon they they are still we're still ranking very
high um even a year or so later for these type of products because it we gave them that softness and and the
actual brand personality and the colors and the fonts everything was tailored for
that specific target audience it wasn't for some people who didn't have kids it had
to be for the new parents that were in that beginning stages and feeling the emotions and connecting with those
emotions so similar to that uh i think brand owners tend to think oh what do i like but
that's not the right question you have to say what is your target audience like that i lauren i think is the key it's
not what i like it's what what connects with my target audience and i i like that i like i like how um how you
put that there so and if you're taking notes just double underline that last statement and then just think about that where your business is concerned
so we've um we've looked at uh our target audience what what what's
the next stage what do we need to do next well now it's really creating the fixing
the gap between where your brand is and where your audience is and figuring out
that roadmap so that's then when you create your brand story your messaging
what kind of tone of voice like we were saying what is the color scheme gonna be
what's the mood of your brand what is the fonts gonna look like definitely the logo what's the style
your packaging it all needs to be aligned and we like to do something that
is really after filling out all the information and creating the story is to
do the connection between your messaging and your actual values your goals everything to actually put it into the
physical universe with products and the logo is to do something called a mood board where you get to really get the
style of the photos the colors what what visual aspects actually represent the
brand and and have all those different messages in them in a visual way because
we know a photo is worth a thousand words and if you choose the right style and you really stick with that in
everything you do in your brand you're going to actually then be able to clearly convey to your design team to
whoever you your photographers to your packaging designers you're going to be able to make it so that everything is
cohesive every piece of content everything on your website is all aligned to this one message this one
story and people are going to start to remember you they're going to want to come back to you and it it makes it so
that you're not just some disconnected um you you know i i know that there is a
trend where there's they get this um umbrella company and then they just have branch out into tons of different niches
and maybe be making great money that way but you're not going to be able to grow a brand in the way i'm talking about and
really have that loyal customer base if you don't make sure this branding is on point to that to those different things
yeah no that's great and you've used a couple of words you've thrown in there which i want to circle back to if that's okay
i'll just dig into a little bit more there one is um i've read it down here in my notebook uh
values and the reason why i want to circle back to this is i remember the design process with um when we redid the
jersey side um i remember them the very first question
amongst the very first questions they were asking me is what are you what are your values as a company um
why is that important because for a lot of people i think it sounds like a bit like you said earlier a bit untangible a
bit nebulous but why is that why is that important why do i need to think about that
yes this is a great question and it's a it can be challenging sometimes for
people to understand without an example so i'm going to actually explain it with an example and um there's a company that
is called paper culture have you ever heard of them they're okay they sell they sell basically
greeting cards you can buy them customize them mainly for wedding invitations and
christmas cards holiday cards and such but they have actually there was a time when i
was really using another company i was using a company that was um cheaper than
them that um and i i just that was what i would use every year for my holiday cards i would design it and then upload
and they would print it so one day i got advertised paper culture and they they um said this thing about every order
plants a tree and i went and actually looked at them and i looked at their site and their
site was not just about percent off buy me now buy this now it actually told
the values of what they believed in and they believed that everything that they put out in the world actually should not
detract from the the planet it should actually help them and this like it
really hit me as a very interesting concept that they used recycled
paper they um every single time that i ordered something it always planted a tree and they actually showed where they
were planting trees and how they were doing it and how they had staffed people to do that so these values that actually
were they were not for everybody not everybody cared about these things necessarily but they didn't care they
wanted to actually attract a very specific type of person who cared about those values and would want to buy from
them and pay extra money because it was every order was planting a tree and it was
aligning with that recycled paper and they did great quality too so that's an
example of how powerful values can be to actually allow a customer to want to pay more to
be retain retain them i mean i never use anybody else now for years and and and
then actually um leave another competitor that's a direct competitor and and actually
has cheaper prices so yeah there that's a real life example of values
that's brilliant and i i and this is where again coming back to the whole amazon thing this is where you
can really win against them because you're promoting your values and um it's interesting you talk about
that because i see now count countless websites telling me if i order i'm going to plant a tree and i'm a bit bored in some
respects it sounds wrong with that message but um i think what i like about what you said
there is actually the company is demonstrating their values and so we're doing a piece of work at the
moment on a website and one of the the values of the company is sustainability they've got it written on their website
but it it just sounds so dull and dreary and
boring and i think the way you were talking about uh was it paper culture the way you were talking
about that site that brand you are excited about it you are a repeat customer you are now an evangelist for
this company because the way that they they they sort of connect their values
with you was obviously much more um missionary if you like do i mean it
seems like there's a lot more passion and energy in the way that they approached it and demonstrated it to you
so how do we how do we take something on a piece of paper which we're passionate about the
topic of sustainability for example and stop it being just another word just another thing lost in the ether and get
it to a place where this is so exciting for whoever's visiting our website and
they connect with it and they resonate with it and they join with us on our quest yeah great question so i'm going to use
a totally different example which is let's say you are a brand that sells kids toys
and your values and what gets you super excited is about actually
having kids go and explore the world and go outside and be outside rather than
inside on devices and and you really are passionate about that and those are your
values as a brand so you could actually on your site instead of just having this
pop-up that says get off if you sign up for your email address which it does get people on your email address but
instead go the extra mile of um if you i we created this this actual uh
some sort of a guide some sort of a downloadable free downloadable that they can do that actually shows
people and kids gives them maybe some actual examples of scavenger hunts that
they can do outside or activities that they can do outside like great activities that you can do with your kid
in your backyard and and your the toys that you sell are maybe like uh hunting
like little um magnifying glasses for kids looking for bugs bug sets and and
um do finding all these cool kits that get them outside then you can actually have articles blog articles on your site
that actually give step by step of the cool thing about ants or have you ever
talked to your kid how to talk to your kid about making um an ant hill or how do you create a volcano outside out of
mud and and give lots of cool just content because people are going to trust you a lot more that you actually
care about this subject and you are showing it you're selling products that align to it and it just kind of that
that's something that maybe specific parents and grandparents would really care about others won't there's always
going to be a specific target audience that would and you don't care about the ones that don't because your values are there for those that actually do care
about the subject of getting your kids outside in the backyard more rather than the inside so
and that's that's powerful because actually the ones that do resonate with your value my experiences
and um i i unless you disagree with me here lauren and these are the people that are going to
come back to you time and time again these are going to become your ambassadors your evangelists your your your missionaries for wanting a
better expression these are the guys that actually are going to be your your best customers your ideal customer profile and all this sort of stuff so
you can use your values in a way to identify who those are going to be with your content and market to them
differently send them different email sequences and onboard them in a very different way yeah i think that's really
powerful so that's values and i'm getting values and again i'm sort of as you're talking
i'm tying that back into the why of the company why am i doing this it has to be more than just
i want to be the dominant player in this market it's like that's just really dull and uninspiring
for any potential customers right they're not going to come to your website and go oh i'll buy from you because you want to be the biggest and
the best no awesome let me help you do that they they have to be captured by something which is much more uh
much more interesting which is much more magnetic right the other words uh that you said
although albeit two words uh lauren in your in your in your explanations there was this idea of creating a mood board
now this uh i little uh electrons in my head were just
lighting up uh when i heard this phrase because it's been a while since i've heard the idea of a mood board and i think any guest has mentioned this on
the show because it's very analog uh this idea of a mood board and what do you mean and how do i go about creating
one in a way that's going to help me sure okay so what i always do for this is i look back
at what created with the brand story what are the values what are some key
words that actually represent your brand personality so let's say you're taking
the example of a baby brand that's for new moms maybe sell baby blankets so the
keywords could be soft caring loving motherly um
you know like like a baby new um i'm trying to think of other words but
let's just take those ones specifically and and then what i think is a really good just exercise is just put them in
google put them in pinterest and then search images related to that find find
um i wouldn't go like stock images like you know very generic stock maybe look
on unsplash that's a website that does free uh image downloads and they're very organic
type of images and and that and i think that when you actually draw on images that
are real life but a really nice photography you just download a bunch of these so it could be you find a lot of
mother images some baby images that are in this kind of tone that you want to be the
caring the the um soft the motherly the the newness and then you put all these
images into an actual file i use in design because i'm a designer
but you can use something that's like canva i mean you i don't i'm not familiar with canva but you can just put
together images even a pinterest board saving everything to a pinterest board and and having and you'll start to see a
certain rhythm or certain uh commonality and color tones that you chose that help
that you feel represent this and what i like to do is actually choose the color palette for your brand from these images
and sometimes you might need to leave some out because maybe the colors don't align but i feel that
there's nothing like real life like real images to represent the concepts best to get you
into the right style in the mood and you don't have to stick with you know those specific images that you're going to use
in your brand it's really for the inspiration and tying together those keywords to actually visually show how
is this going to actually show up in in the world how's it going to actually how's it going to be what am i going to
put on on my website what styles what can i give my photographer to to give some inspiration about what i want how i
want my photos to be taken and how i want to show these emotions between a mother and a baby and and that that
really helps to open up the door and i think gives tons of inspiration instead of just coming up with it all in your
head and looking at another brand and saying i like that come like use real life organically that way
and find those images and and it might take a while to search for it but it's going to pay off so much in the long run
to really help cohesi co put your brand into cohesive um whole
yeah no that's very good advice and again something i've done i actually use keynote
okay yep yeah i destroy all the images in keynote why come on on and a keynote document and they're great because you
can refer back to them good so uh and i actually i think you're right i
think investing a day or two just to go through images uh of keywords related to your uh industry related to your values
related to your ideal customers is just a beautiful thing you'll see the colors you'll see that there'll be a
consistency in colors what types of fonts make sense um i i add in their questions like where
do they hang out you know what where do they go eat what what and where do they go shop
you know and it and and you're and you throw those different things in there and man you you very quickly build something that's really unique
so i've built i've got to that stage where um i understand my why uh i've done my
values i've done my mood board i've i've done i understand who my target audience
is i've i've i've got my colors i've got my logo i've got my brand we are good to go
um i launched the website and then
nothing right so how do i how do i actually get people to my beautiful website if all i've ever done
is sell on amazon yes this is the million dollar question and
the cool thing about branding is it makes those marketing efforts from this point on much easier so now what the my
favorite strategy to do is something that is really what what um seth godin
in the purple cow it's a great book if anybody has if you ever read it it's really amazing as a brand owner to
understand this point because you look for the sneezers and what that means
it's a funny concept is the people there's always going to be people in a
specific niche that are interested in trying new things they're interested to
actually buy new products and be the first in a specific for a specific brand and try it out and
you got to find those people and then those ones are going to sneeze it out to
others so it's this concept of of the the spreading just like i mean
we're obviously mid are at the end of this pandemic and we know the the power of sneezing
for you know getting getting germs out there and viruses it's literally you want to be spreading this concept your
your products in that same way so where you find these people well that's where the research what you will have done in
the brand stage of your target audience is who do they listen to who are those
industry leaders in that specific niche so everyone will have different ones and everyone will have specific platforms
that they sp they listen to some niches will prefer podcasts some will prefer blogs they will only read blogs some
will prefer youtube videos you have to find what is the specific platforms they watch they listen to they follow and
then go contact those industry leaders some people call them influencers you can call them anything you want but what
they are is they have they can't just be somebody who who wants to be that or calls themselves
that they actually have to have in their following those exact
ideal customers you want to buy your products so you can get in contact with them you can then go and be on their
blog post do a whole guest blog for them do a guest post do an a podcast interview do a youtube and actually talk
about what your product is and not just about the benefits and how amazing you are talk about what it does for them
because people in the end of the day care about how it helps them not about you or how amazing you are so that's
that's a real um it's it's a powerful strategy that i feel uh is kind of only
half done a lot of time and half-assed and not really taken to the extreme or
they try a little bit and maybe it doesn't that one specific influencer didn't have the exact idea of people and
then they give up but if you take it and you keep going and you're proud of your brand and you stand on your values and
your story and you talk about it people are gonna start noticing you they're gonna start buying your products they're
gonna tell other people you're going to get invited other places and you're going to start spreading great in a crazy fast way
in a that that you won't be able to do with paid ads because yes you should also get in front of
people with paid ads i'm not saying that those are not a great way but using content and then creating your own
content and starting to build up your own following and your own email list by like i said giving a downloadable
something that's free that would actually resonate with them that's a it's a pain point that solves it give
them weekly content through email i mean i this is this is the age of content
marketing the new age of marketing and pr it's not just about how much ads you can do or how cheap you are people want
to be connecting on that human level and know your story and your values so
there i went on a long a long rant there but yeah no no no you you rant away you enjoy
that soapbox because when you were talking about that about reaching out to the people uh with
the audiences um it immediately came to my head uh how i think it was you lauren and correct me
if i'm wrong how did you get on this podcast let's just let's just examine that you reached out to us right did you
use an agency or did you contact us directly i i contacted you directly actually yeah i i
i looked up podcasts in the e-commerce space and you came up and i and so and and
this i find so when you're talking about contacting the influence i'm going well here's a lady that's actually that's actually taken her own medicine uh
formed for better expression because i would venture to say that most of the guests we have on the show have
some kind of agent that reach out to us and contact us i remember when we first started doing the podcast we had to beg people to come
on to the show because we were an unknown show uh and now we must get i don't know emails a day from
people saying this will be a great guess for your show check this person out and i feel for sadaf in the background trying to figure out who we should have
on the show the thing that i remember about you was you didn't do that um and neither did you send me a a dear
sir please put me on your podcast kind of thing you it was obvious to me that you'd taken a little bit of time here to
think about who we were and what was going on um and so you are obviously
if i can if i can put it this way taking your own medicine like i said and how's it how's
that working for you yeah you know it's it is really important i feel and it's it has
worked great i mean i've been on many other e-commerce podcasts as well um
because and and summits because i understand
this industry and when you take i mean as an example when you take your specific
niche as a seller as a business owner of e-commerce products and you understand
that industry and you actually don't just like you said write these cookie cutter messages put me on your podcast
put me on your podcast you actually understand each person and you listen to them you read their blogs you understand
their business and you see how you can benefit their specific audience and actually help them because just like a
sell a buyer doesn't want to just hear how great you are and doesn't want they're not there to just help make you an amazing seller and
rich you have to also do that for those those industry leaders you have to make them better and and show how what your
content what you can bring to the table is going to help them look better is going to help their audience do better
so it's definitely i've really enjoyed talking on podcasts and educating and
helping in this ecommerce space and it's definitely helped to i mean that's not why i'm
doing this i'm doing it to actually help others but it does help get people's attention on okay so what
does this person do and go to their website oh wow okay so this is what they do
they're talking and living and breathing it so you know let's check them out or whatever and that can happen to any
product you have so yeah it's a good win-win situation i think is what i would call it
yeah no it was very good very very powerful example i think and um so
okay so i'm going out there i've got my website i'm hustling i'm i'm trying to contact the influencers the industry
leaders and and help them i'm looking at content marketing i'm providing value
um but there's something in the back of my head here lauren saying that that all takes time um so for example you come
coming on this show that's not been an instant thing right and we're recording this now and the go live date is
different so you're talking about a medium term strategy here aren't you talking about something that is about
six to months would that be a fair assumption i think it could be faster than that even i mean you could
six to months is probably safe on the safe side to not expect some overnight success especially
products you have to build up a lot because you need to get a lot of attention on your brand but it doesn't
have to take to months and the cool thing is if you are selling on amazon and you're doing well in amazon
and you start doing these strategies on the side i think that it can you can
just start now like start today doing it don't wait and and it'll start to benefit your
amazon listings because you also will get recognition for your brand and when people search your brand then they're
going to find your amazon products too but it also will be predicting the future and i think there's something
that amazon has spoiled us with itself going back to actually kind of funny going back to the
source is this instant gratification we get sometimes same day delivery but that's not how businesses work
that's not how new platforms work you have to build up um the search engine optimization i mean you could be being
found for let's say you write an article every week or an article every few days
about whatever the keyword your ideal audience is searching for on youtube or google that actually they're looking for
for help with like the supplement brand uh how do i stop feeling tired if you then came up as a in a blog content and
you're explaining why people feel tired what happens and what is the solution and then it's your product that's that
takes time to build up with that search engine optimization but it can be so powerful
and and give you tons of value coming in the like you said six months a year two
years three years that's where you start really starting to build up that brand the brand presence yeah
so you're talking here aren't you a sort of a transition where you're saying right i'm doing this over here on amazon
and it's doing okay but i want to build my off amazon brand for want a better expression and that process needs time
it needs investment and it's going to take time to build that sort of traction from your experience then
um is there is there a magic number for example um
let's say i'm turning over a million a year on amazon um is there a is there an expectation
that over the next year or two i should be expecting of that sort of turnover on my actual website
well i think that there could be um one one big part of that and big player
in that is loyalty from customers and you know that it it costs a lot more
to attain new customers than it does returning so i feel
it could go s it just starts to snowball if you keep putting out new products you
keep nurturing these customers it the numbers are infinite what they
could be i mean amazon unfortunately doesn't let you keep those email addresses you have to
go through all sorts of hoops and they change the rules all the time yes you can put your email you can get people on
to your site no you can't yes you can you know all over the place and and i think right now it's very strict so
the the point is that yes it could be you could be seeing um a improvement
but then it could just go to percent you could just start really building that up because you're gonna be
getting these new loyal customers and you could use the power of ads if i feel that branding makes your ads much more
effective because you're going to be using correct messages rather than just shouting and you're going to know
exactly who to target but i'm always a big fan of of natural like people finding you organically more those are
going to those are going to be obviously a lot cheaper to acquire um so did that answer the question
i guess i didn't give an exact number but yeah i i think it does in some respects
and i think uh for me i guess i'm i'm a very crude uh sort of person in my
in my thinking in that if of e-commerce sales go to the amazon website
then of the e-commerce sales don't right and so you you ca
my head i'm kind of thinking well if i turn over a million on amazon and i've got competition on amazon
could i take this you know the same concept and actually have a goal then which says right i'm now going to turn
over a million on the web as well i'm going to double my business because they're kind of where sales are i
think it's sort of i don't think it's a hard and fast rule lauren i'm not gonna lie but i'm like that's just my simple
crude logic at work which goes well i i've done it here i could do it there and it you know it it's not necessarily
that straightforward it is a bit more complicated than that but i think it gives you a good indication of is there a market out there for me
and what sort of revenue could i expect in say the next two to three years to justify the expense of building this
brand you know you've got to put a business case forward for it yeah and that's very true um and i've
i've definitely seen people be able to double their profits and actually build
more and and get more brand recognition that's a big point is you get way more brand recognition
faster that way then because when people see you on amazon they think of the amazon brand more so but that doesn't
mean that after you've built this huge brand that doesn't then mean that you can't go and actually uh find on on
amazon what are how can you adjust your listings how can you adjust your a plus content how can you adjust your actual
product listing to align more with this story and so i think that they help each other i think that amazon can help to
feed your ecommerce business the outside because people may want to start buying from you specifically maybe you offer
something specific in their packaging or or they can get a loyalty program with you or something like that and then you
can also be driving sales to amazon so i think it just the bigger you grow off of amazon the the more money you can make
in both respects and and that and that's why i don't like to say to exit amazon
entirely if you don't want to because it's it's something you're relying on it's just the branching off and one
other thing is that if you're ever looking to sell like you said you were you sold your your company your
e-commerce company you they are going the aggregators the investors whoever you end up selling it
to they are going to want to know you have a brand presence and that's going to majorly escalate your value as a
brand because they don't have to then put in all the work you've already built the loyalty you've already built the brand yourself
so that's another benefit very good point yeah yeah yeah very and and actually a very helpful one um
laura listen i feel like we're just as always the sort of scratching the the tip of the iceberg
here and um and uh but time is against us in some respects so
how do people um well before we get into that i guess what is one thing maybe your closing piece of advice the one
thing that you wanted to say that maybe hasn't been said that that's going to help people sure so
i guess it's really just um the the persistence factor
and the goals and really having your goals clear of what in years from now
what do you want to be known as as a brand where do you want to be as a brand do you want to still just just be on
amazon or do you want to have a bigger presence do you want to be able to have a brand household recognition as a name
they think about that and really know that what you do today and persisting
towards that is what's going to get you there i mean most people on econ that are selling on amazon you had to persist through a lot to get to where you
already are now a lot of work so you just keep that same tenacity that
same persistence the same drive and you can get that brand built wherever you
want it to be and and don't think that there's too many already out there because nobody has told your specific
story your specific brand that you want to create fantastic
very good top tip advice there and lauren if people want to reach out to you if they want to connect with you
what's the best way for them to do that yeah so we are principium studio so principium is actually latin
for uh foundation or origin so we are the foundation of brands i didn't know that that was going to be my next
question what does principium mean yes it is latin my husband is actually he's from mexico
and he loves latin uh words and we wanted to have some sort of uh foreign concept foreign word to
represent our brand so that is we are excellent it is a great word yeah so
principiumstudio.com is our website and um yeah you can you can follow us always on facebook and instagram at principium
studio fantastic and we will of course put all the links uh that you have given
throughout the conversation today in the show notes which you can also get uh but lauren listen i really appreciate
you coming onto the show and sharing uh your expertise with us we don't get to talk about brand an awful lot on this
show and so whenever i get an expert on to talk about it i get very excited because i think it's such an important topic so thank you for coming on and
sharing your your wisdom with us it's been a pleasure matt thank you so much for having me
well a huge huge thanks to my very special guest lauren gonzalez she was
lovely lovely lovely lovely i really enjoyed the conversation that i had with lauren
and actually i carried on talking to her when we finished the recording and just had a wonderful time uh so do connect
with her and of course if you can't remember the links or you you you were not able to take the links down
to connect with lauren just head on over to our website ecommercepodcast.net forward slash
where you can find the links the notes and the transcript from today's show you're not going to want to miss it
right and of course if that's not enough good stuff next
week we get to talk to orgy johnston on how to grow your ecommerce brand using
drumroll please youtube videos oh yes we are going to crack the youtube chestnuts uh next week
so if you've been pondering this or if you've been struggling with youtube definitely tune in and to wet your
whistle here is an excerpt here's all here's what i'll say
you're creating a youtube video you're not creating a documentary you're not creating a feature film so the main goal
is to get it done and get it up online so the first two to three are gonna be hard
after that just document and create and recognize that you have a process and you need to follow your process and go
through it step a b c three and you'll get better you know and video is going to be better than video one
i am really looking forward to this one some great tips coming on youtube you're not going to want to miss it so make
sure you like and subscribe to the podcast wherever you get it from uh whether that's the audio version or the
video version on youtube and in so doing when it's released you'll be notified which is a beautiful
thing yes it is and of course if you enjoyed this week's conversation with lauren then please do give us a rating
wherever you get your podcast from really helps us and i'd really appreciate you doing that
as i said at the start of the show all of the notes links and transcripts to today's show are online and you can get
them for free just visit our website ecommercepodcast.net forward slash
and they will be there thanks for listening make sure like i
said you come back next week to check the conversation out with orgy it's going to be fantastic so that's it from
me have a fantastic week wherever you are in the world enjoy your ecommerce business i'll be back again very very
soon bye for now
you've been listening to the e-commerce podcast with matt edmondson join us next time for more interviews
tips and tools for building your business online