The Knowledge Trust Matrix for New Customer Success | Matt Edmundson

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Matt Edmundson: Welcome to the eCommerce Podcast. My name is Matt Edmundson and you are listening to episode number two of our miniseries that will help you create your eCommerce Black Friday strategy. Yes. Even in August. Oh, yes. Uh, it is great that you are with us. Thank you so much for joining us. We are gonna just have a bit of fun here in August.

A little bit different, uh, to the usual stuff if you've been a regular to the show. Now. Last week we talked about creating compelling offers. This week we are looking at something just as important as our offer. That's our strategy for new customers. Now, black Friday is one of those things that is a brilliant time for new customer acquisition.

Forgetting and attracting your first time customers, the lifeblood of anybody's business, right? But I think you've gotta have a good strategy for how you handle, uh, these customers if you want to keep them [00:01:00] in the long run and maximize their lifetime value. So we're gonna get into what that means because.

Honestly, I think it's pretty cool. I genuinely do. Uh, and even we're gonna be looking at onboarding sequences that you might want to use during Black Friday. We are gonna be looking at all those kind of strategies. Now, again, if you were with us last week or the week before, you'll know that there's some changes.

A foot Oh yes. To the eCommerce Podcast. We are still going to do, uh, expert interviews. They start up again in September. Um, but during August we're doing this miniseries where we're giving you some of the content that used to be behind our paid membership wall. Our paid membership has now turned to a free membership part of our desire.

To just bring high value content, which really helps people grow their e-commerce business. Uh, and that's what this is all about today. This is actually part two of a five part, uh, teaching. I did, uh, [00:02:00] on Cohort about Black Friday. Uh, if you haven't heard the last two episodes, do go check them out. Uh, it'll explain everything in much more detail.

The first episode we talked about implementation and the changes that are coming up. Uh, in the last episode, like I said, I talked about how to create compelling offers. This week's format is pretty much similar to last week. Um, we're gonna go through the content, we're gonna play the section from Cohort, and then I'll be back, um, just to out the show really.

Um, so yeah, I'm gonna play that teaching session just as I did. Uh, in, in Cohort, uh, if you're a visual learner. I am. Uh, why would you not be? I, it's just how I learn best, I suppose. Uh, do check out the YouTube videos. Now. I know our YouTube channel is tiny. It really is tiny. We're trying to grow it, so do make sure you subscribe on that.

Some of the stuff that I talk about in this session, there's some really great slides as well. Um, so do check out the YouTube channel. If you're on YouTube's Great, warm welcome. Leave a comment. Say, how's it. Uh, I know that 99.9 something percent of people that [00:03:00] consume this content on EP is done on audio.

Uh, and so yeah, we'd love to grow the YouTube channel. So if you're on YouTube, come check us out. Uh, it would be great to see you on there, right? I think that's it from me. Let's listen to me talk about the next section, how to use, uh, this strategy to help you with Black Friday.

Okay, jumping straight back into it. First time buyer strategy for Black Friday. Let's have a look at that. Let's have a look at what's involved with that. Now, obviously when it comes to Black Friday, you are gonna be hopefully growing your first time buyer, uh, numbers. As in the amount of people that are buying from you the first time should increase dramatically over Black Friday weekend.

Uh, over the, well, actually Black Friday is now two weeks. We'll talk about this a little bit more in a minute, but over those few weeks, you should hopefully onboard a whole bunch of new customers. And so let's have a think about that. Now, the key aim, uh, for me, whenever I get a new customer. Is to think about the relationship [00:04:00] with that customer, right?

I am there to try and build a relationship with them. I'm not there to pillage them. I'm not there to take advantage of them. Uh, I'm not running the kind of website which says I want as much profit out of you 'cause I never want to see you again. So I don't care about that. For some people, that works for me.

That's not what I'm trying to do. So whatever your key aim is, write that down for me. It's, um, building relationship. And to build relationship, you need two things, okay? Um, you need knowledge and you need trust. And there is, in fact, uh, we're gonna come across. It says at some point, I have no doubt. Um, a little graph I like to draw, called the knowledge.

Uh, actually no got that the wrong way around. This is trust and this is knowledge Now. What we tend to find with customers is when we classify them, when someone buys from us, um, for the [00:05:00] first time, usually their trust is low. Okay? So they're, they're solely low on this scale, okay. Of trust because they've never really bought from us before.

Um. Knowledge, they may or may not know exactly what it is they want to buy, right? So with the beauty business that we had, we, a lot of our first time customers knew exactly what product they wanted to buy. They researched it to the hilt. And so a lot of our customers were over here when they first purchased from us.

And so I needed a strategy which took them over to here, because this is where your best customers live. The high knowledge, high trust customers. Um. If we have customers with low knowledge and low trust, I mean, that's hard work. So again, I need a strategy to get them to go up and if I've got customers with high trust, but no knowledge.

Down here, obviously I need to get 'em up there. These are the people that are referred to us, usually by their friends. They trust you, but they don't really know what it is they want. Um, and so we call this a knowledge [00:06:00] trust graft. So when it comes to building relationships with people, like I say, I'm interested in knowledge, I'm interested in trust, and one way.

To build trust with first time buyers is user generated content. So make sure there is UGC on your social media and on your website from previous customers telling them how amazing you guys are. Right? So UGC uh, knowledge landing page. How do we increase knowledge? I would suggest your landing pages that first time buyers are gonna go onto, so your homepage, your product pages, um, the specific links from any paid media that you are doing or any social media out there goes to a landing page that is geared around the thinking that perhaps I have to help them increase knowledge.

Now the way most landing pages are laid out, if you think about it, um, so you have your typical landing page, we have an image. And then we have some text, and we have a button here which [00:07:00] says Buy now. So if I know I want that, that's usually within the first folder of the screen. If it's on desktop or the same on mobile, I'm out.

I'm like, PO gone. Those that have no, no real knowledge tend to scroll down. And so in this section here, I want to add stuff which increases knowledge about, um. Maybe about how to do handwriting, uh, but I want to increase knowledge, um, on how to make the right decision for you. Like, is this product right for you?

Uh, so with the supplements, why should I take this? What should I take it with? What time of day should I take it? Um, is there anything I shouldn't take it for? If I have any medical conditions, blah, blah, blah. So I wanna put that information in a way that makes sense on the landing page for that product.

Okay. Live chat. If you don't have live chat on your website, I think you should probably do that over Black Friday weekend. That's a great way to induce trust, right? So if I'm on the website, I'm a new visitor, I've got a question, I can go straight to [00:08:00] live chat and somebody is there all weekend. Just chatting away, helping people, uh, make some decisions.

That's an awesome thing, right? I mean, that is an awesome, awesome thing. So, uh, get live chat on your website. Another way to increase knowledge for first time buyers buying guides work, really, really. Really well, especially, um, gift buying guides. Like it's, people are buying at Black Friday for Christmas gifts, right?

So if your, if your product can be a little bit gifty, this one doesn't tend to be so much as a gift. 'cause people tend to buy this for themselves. I don't, I, I dunno if I've ever bought supplement. I mean, I've given supplements for anybody, but would I buy them for somebody? Possibly, but it wouldn't be massively high on my gift list for other people.

Um. But there are sites where gifts are a big deal, right? And so you can put on your website, like, um, a gift buying guide for Christmas, like, uh, gift buying guides for him, gift buying guides for her, which promote your products and talk about, [00:09:00] you know, what the right way to do stuff is and how you do gift wrapping and all that sort of stuff.

For me, it's not so much gifts, but I could put on their guides like, um, how to, how to. Get the best Omega-3 that money can buy and what and why you should do that, right? All that sort of stuff. So guides are a great way to help people. You build trust through on-ramps. What do I mean by on-ramp if you've not come across this phrase?

Um, I believe it's our American cousins that I have to thank for this phrase. Uh, so if you have. Uh, a large road, like a motorway or a freeway. Often there is a smaller road which sort of joins that. So I'm on this smaller, smaller road and I'm sort of coming up and this here is called the on-ramp where it sort of takes you from a smaller road to a bigger road.

Not every single one of our customers is ready to buy. They don't come to the website and instantly appear here. Some of them are here. So how do we get them to take this journey? How do we on ramp them? Uh, how do we get them in? [00:10:00] The most obvious way for me is, uh, through email. Um, or we can do things like, uh, PDF downloads.

One of the best sites that I saw, I wish I could remember the name from it, but I thought it was genius when, um, they talked about, uh, house plants. You may have made me heard this mention, uh, you may have heard me mention this before, where I needed to buy a house plant. I'm notorious at killing house plants.

I haven't got a clue what it is I want. Haven't got a clue if it's gonna be alive at the end of the first week. And so I was on their website, not entirely sure, but at the bottom they had this really clever thing. Click here to get our free guide, 10 steps on how to Not Kill Your Houseplant. I was like, that's me.

I need that. I signed it with my email and they sent me a series of emails telling me how to look after the houseplant. I felt so much better. As a result, they on ramped me. Really, really well. We've done this in the past with guides, which we talked about before. So when we did skincare, skin buying guides, uh, skincare, buying guides, how to figure out your skin type, uh, how to [00:11:00] choose the right products for you, we had samples so you could try things before you got to it.

There's all kinds of ways you can on-ramp people, so have an on-ramp strategy for your customers. And to do that, you just need to think about the journey that they're gonna take. Some people are ready to buy, some people aren't. What's the journey I can take them on that gets them ready to buy? Let me do that.

And the key to Omran, by the way, uh, if you can't get the sale, you get the email address or another form of contact, whether it's a mobile number or what, but if you can't get the sale, get the email address. Onboarding with knowledge. Um, so again, this is similar to On-Ramp, but it's like, um, we'll talk more about this next week actually when we talk about customer retaining.

But onboarding is such a great way to increase lifetime value, uh, to increase a customer's knowledge, to get them coming back. So let's say they come to your website and they've bought a product, uh. I bought Omega-3. I should have like a five part six part, seven part email series. And once they bought that, I send them over a few days.

So by the time they get their [00:12:00] product, they know everything about Omega-3, why it's good for them, why this particular one is the best one on the market. It is the much notes, uh, why it's sustainable, why it's just, you mean all of these things. So by the time they get it, they're super, super excited. I've onboarded them really, really well.

Again with email campaigns. Trust. Tell your story. Well, okay. Uh, again, um, I, you're gonna hear me mention this time and time again, right? Uh, when I do stuff, but this is such an important thing. I often draw this graph like this. So imagine this is how much, um, you. Care about your story, right? What I mean by that is you care about your story.

You care about your company, you care about the way the logo is, the way the colors are on the website. You care that you started in 1972, um, and your dad did the whole thing and then you took over. You care about that story, right? Because it's your story and you are passionate about that. The trouble is.[00:13:00]

That's how much the customer cares about your story. They really don't. They really don't. I just, they don't care about your logo. I mean, if it's nice, it's great. They, I've never gone to a website and gone, oh, I'm gonna buy off this website. 'cause that logo is stunning. Right? We're not Nike, we're not Apple.

Let's be clear. Um, what tends to happen though is if I draw this out, that's how much the customer cares about their story. Okay. Just saying. So you as a business, um, when you tell your story, well, you are telling your story, but you are understanding where it intersects with a customer story. And you are speaking right here.

Okay? So tell your story. Well, in a way that resonates with your first time visitors. It makes them think, I want to do business. They're the same value set as me. This is a great company. They're authentic. Love what these guys are doing. Tell your story well, okay. So that is our first [00:14:00] time customer strategy.

Some top tips there. Let's get into our next video. Uh, how to do an existing customer strategy. Alright, before we do that, work on your new customer strategy, get some stuff written down, and then come back and I'll see you in there.

Well, there you go. The knowledge trust matrix. I hope that made sense to you and gave you some ideas for your own Black Friday planning. Let me just say epi, I'm going to give you a, a, a sneak, uh, of what's coming up in episode five of this mini series. The way we did this on Cohort is we did four teaching sessions once, one per week, and then we did a q and A where we answered people's questions that came in as a result of what we've done so.

Uh, make sure you stick around for that. So if you've got some questions, do check that out because it, there's a good chance somebody else has already asked it. Uh, and we cover that in the q and a. Now that's episode five. Next week is episode three. This is all about how our strategy for existing customers today, we talked about new customers.

Next week we're gonna talk about existing customers, so make sure you've liked, [00:15:00] subscribed, and done all that sort of good stuff. Uh, to stay connected to it. 'cause it's gonna be all about, you know, maximizing value from your existing customers on Black Friday. How do you avoid the trap of giving your best offers to your new customers while your loyal customers kind of, well, they feel ignored or like something's not quite right.

We've all been there. We're gonna talk about that many other things next. Week. It's the flip side of what we've covered today and just as important actually for your overall Black Friday success. Uh, so yeah. Quick reminder to subscribe to the newsletter at ecommerce-podcast.net if you haven't done so already.

Uh, we are releasing more. Content from the eCommerce Cohort vault, uh, over the coming months. And it will go through the newsletter first. They get early news newsletter subscribers will get early access to everything. We're not necessarily gonna put everything onto the podcast. Some of it we will, some of it you'll have to, uh, just go and access the extra content on the website, uh, ecommerce-podcast.net

do go and [00:16:00] check that out. Everything's gonna be on there. Part of our desire, like I say, is to bring some really cool content. Uh, that's super valuable and super helpful. We're no longer charging behind the paid membership. It's all free. Plus we are introducing, yes, we are, we are introducing, uh, the groups where you get to sort of.

Meet once a month on Zoom, um, or Google meets or whatever platform we decide to use at the time. Uh, the fellow e-com entrepreneurs and get to meet them, get to know them, build friendships, but also get to talk about e-commerce, what people are finding difficult, what people are finding easy, what you think about what they're doing has and what they're, think about what you are doing and we just learn and grow in all of this together.

So, yes. It's gonna be fun, and I would love to hear about how you are actually implementing this stuff. Which strategies are you planning to try? What questions do you have? I would love to know. You can connect with me on LinkedIn. Just head over to linkedin.com/in/mattedmundson or reach out to me through the [00:17:00] ecommerce-podcast.net website.

Uh, I genuinely love to hear from you. I'd love to hear your feedback about this kind of content, what's working, what's not working, uh, but that's it from me. You have a fantastic week wherever you are. Hope you're enjoying your summer. Um, and I will see you next week for episode number three.

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