Marketing Experts Reveal Top Strategies To

Arlen
[00:00:57]
Welcome to the e-commerce marketing podcast, everyone. My name is Arlen Robinson, and I am your host. And today we have a very special guest Gen Furukawa who is co-Founder of Prehook, a leading quiz platform for Shopify merchants. Gen has been in eCommerce for 10+ years, with the last 7 years in eCommerce SaaS. Prior to Prehook, Gen was part of the founding team and VP of Marketing at Jungle Scout, the leading software for Amazon sellers. Prehook helps hundreds of high-growth Shopify merchants sell more, accelerate list growth, and capture zero-party data with quizzes. Gen also hosts the eCommerce marketing podcast Cart Overflow, where he shares what the best brand operators, agencies, and tech platforms are doing to grow their eCommerce revenues. Welcome to the podcast again,

Gen
[00:01:47]
Arlen, thanks so much for having me.

Arlen
[00:01:49]
Yes. Thank you for joining. We’re kind of res syncing up. We initially intended to record this several months ago, but we set some scheduling issues on my end and decided to finally get together and, and do this. So totally. I’m really, really excited to talk to you because today we’re gonna be talking about data personalization using data, especially for eCommerce business. How do you effectively use the data to personalize the experience and marketing specifically for your customers and potential customers? So it’s, it’s definitely a hot topic today, but, you know, before we dive deep into that, why don’t you tell us a little bit more about, you know, your background and how you got into what you’re doing today?

Gen
[00:02:26]
Yeah, totally. Yeah. I think where you mentioned starting with jungle scout is a good place to start because my two co-founders were also part of the founding team at jungle scout. So they’re both developers. And so collectively we’ve been working together for about seven years. That’s been a great relationship where we, we have a lot of established trust and familiarity, and we spent a lot of time in the Amazon space and realized that we did want to do something on our own, build our own product, and also try stay in the e-commerce space, but focus on Shopify specifically, but the challenges of what Shopify merchants deal with and what Amazon merchants deal with is very different because Amazon is very focused on SEO, where you are creating your listing specifically to merchandise or sell to somebody based on a specific search query. So it might be sunglasses for men or something, for example, and that listing who’s coming to your listing, how you’re gonna be selling it, what benefits and features you’re gonna be putting forward.

Gen
[00:03:22]
A Shopify merchant has slightly different challenges because presumably they have a variety of inventory or SKUs and don’t necessarily know what problem they’re solving for or who they’re selling to. So with a few questions, they can certainly learn a lot about what the customers, who they are, what their intent is, what their challenges, what their goals are, capture a lead, and then recommend a product. So in building, we started building it in 2020 and did a fair amount of research speaking with merchants, establishing that this was a challenge that they were facing a problem that they were facing at that point. Some of the issues of iOS updates hadn’t been released, iOS 14, for example, where the privacy of users was put at the forefront by apple. So brands could no longer track what people were doing on a site outside of their permissions. What this did was it made it harder for brands to run ad campaigns.

Gen
[00:04:19]
So traditionally direct to consumer brands would be able to get their product up, get a, a, a nice website and then run ad campaigns. So it could be on Facebook or Instagram, which are large channels, and it could be very profitable very quickly. But yeah, all that changed with iOS 14, the scope of what we were working with kind of expanded and the urgency of brands to build direct relationships with customers, understand who they were speaking with and kind of move away from the, a strategy of customer acquisition and really focus on building direct relationships with email and SMS. So we’ve been live for maybe a year and a half or so, and have heard great feedback from merchants in terms of how a quiz can help improve conversion rate by simplifying the buying process and gathering leads. So that’s both email and SMS, like I mentioned, and then ultimately the customer data, the zero party data is perhaps most important because it is, it has so many use cases. And like you were mentioning about personalization is the critical foundation to personalization because personalization is only as good as the data that you have or you know, what you’re personalizing towards.

Arlen
[00:05:26]
Yeah, for sure. For sure. Yeah. Thank you for, for giving us that background and kind of where you are at and kind of how we are we’re here today, but yeah, which kinda leads me to my first question, speaking of, of data with regards to personalization, why do you think that it’s really nowadays it’s gonna be the key differentiator for people that are gonna be more successful with their eCommerce marketing efforts?

Gen
[00:05:47]
Yeah, totally. I believe it’s Accenture, both Accenture and segment segments, a customer data platform put out some really interesting data in terms of what customers are looking for and what they’re expecting the dollars, which is often the top priority for a brand is to grow revenue, the dollars, speak to the importance of personalization and what the customer’s expectations are. So for example, a customers will, will not purchase from, or repeat purchase from brands that don’t personalize and will spend more. So have a higher average order value, more repeat purchases, and ultimately a higher customer lifetime value because of those repeat purchases, because of that higher purchase price, if a brand is able to execute. So the data certainly backs up the fact that customers will support brands that make the effort and execute on personalization strategy. But then another interesting wrinkle is what’s called the customer experience gap.

Gen
[00:06:44]
So that’s where customers want a personalized experience, willing to share their data with the expectation that in return, they’re going to have a better shopping experience. They’re gonna be spoken to like an individual as opposed to, you know, blasted campaigns. But the challenge is that brands are not really able to deliver on that promise of personalization. So whether it’s due to the tooling, the software to personalize or the data itself, they’re not collecting the data to around which to personalize campaigns, brands are struggling to personalize. And that’s where the experience gap is. And that’s where personalization can work to set brands apart from the brand that’s sending irrelevant messages, which are doing nobody favors to really honing in on personalization at scale.

Arlen
[00:07:31]
That’s great because I think, yeah, you kind of nailed it as far as where a lot of these brands are kind of falling short with it. You know, you mentioned that we’re kind of all the whole world is we’re, we’re kind of shifting towards the importance of all of this, the zero party data. And then, so, you know, the brands being in control of the data, rather than just relying on these ad platforms and things like that. And so just sort of be control of who their customer is, making sure they have that right. Customer avatar. But I see, you know, like we said, a lot of brands do kind of struggle with, okay, how do they get that right data? And you know, what are some methods of doing it without being? So I guess you could say intrusive, you know, because everybody’s really cautious about giving up data giving information and it’s a fine kind of a fine line. So what, what are some specific methods that you’ve, you know, encountered to get that right data,

Gen
[00:08:22]
The CEO of third love, which is a women’s lingerie brand made a great statement about it is that if there is a promise of exchange of value, then it’s not so much like I’m giving you something, but I’m opening the door to a relationship. So I think to answer your question, it’s most important that upfront there is a promise of value. So for a quiz, for example, it often is premise around learning about yourself because ultimately, you know, as humans, we wanna learn more about ourselves. So there’s this discovery element of a quiz where I’m learning about myself in, in whatever regard the brand is having their quiz focused on there’s an education element. So that is like a really good hook in order to get the data to be exchanged. So it’s less about like on the service level, a quiz is about helping educate or, or making it fun and engaging.

Gen
[00:09:13]
There’s a viral element to share. And that’s more of like the Buzzfeed or New York times type of quiz, less maybe commercial or transaction focus like an e-commerce quiz. But yeah, if, if a brand can nail a good hook, like say for example, a lot of skincare brands will use a quiz. And so what’s the best skincare routine for your current needs or your challenges or, or coffee brands, food and beverage use a lot of quizzes discover the best coffee based on your palette. I mean, those are, those are not like great hooks, cause I just kind of came up off the top of my head. But the goal is to, to kind of like create a little bit of intrigue and curiosity, get them to take the quiz, get them fully engaged then as they’re moving along and they’re kind of like becoming more invested in both in time and the information that they’re sharing, then you’re offering something, Hey, where can we send this personalized recommendation? Or where can we tell you more about what we know based on what you’ve shared with us? And that’s kind of like the perfect hook to get an email, a phone number or whatever else.

Arlen
[01:10:12]
Yeah. Yeah. I that’s great. And what I see though, a lot of times where also where I see brands kind of fail is like you said, it has to be an exchange. If people feel like they’re going to get something, you know, in return for giving this information, then you know, they’re gonna do it. But sometimes I see brands, not really the result that they promise has nothing to do with the data that they’ve collected, where they’re just saying, okay, give us this information. We’ll give you a discount or we’ll give you free product, which is fine and dandy. You know, it’s, it’s fine to do that cuz you know, you are giving the customer something. But then I think the average customer that sees that, okay, the reward is really just free prior. They may just whatever data you’re capturing, they may just fly through it.

Arlen
[01:10:51]
It may not actually be accurate data. You know, they could just be clicking the buttons, you know, selecting options maybe on the quiz just to fly through, to get to that end result, which is the discount, which is the free product. So yeah, I think as long as the brand you’re using that data, compiling a result based on that data, maybe a recommended product bundle based on what they told you. You know, a lot of times these days we, we see these e-commerce brands that do these custom, they’re not really gift sets. I wanna call them. I’m trying to think of the name where let’s say they’re curated boxes of let’s say clothing. They that’s

Gen
[01:11:29]
Real like stitch fix

Arlen
[01:11:30]
Exactly, exactly where you’re getting curated styles of clothing that really match what your style and you know, your personality. And so that type of thing is I know brands like that is really important that they get that right data and they, they see that. Of course there’s an exchange and an exchange there is you getting that right gift box or that, that set that you’re gonna get every month or something like that.

Gen
[01:11:51]
Yeah. I think stitch fix is, I mean, essentially at this point they’re a data science company. They have a great quiz. It’s a requisite for everybody who signs up for their product. I think it’s like 80 something questions at this point. And it is so they’re getting very granular, but they do make it fun. So that one’s a custom quiz. They have a little Tinder style, like swipe left, swipe right on, on whether you like the styles. But if you think about it from kind of like a pure business standpoint, the data is so important because not only are they making money on clothes that they’re sending to you, that business model, they’ll send you box of clothes, keep what you want, return, what you don’t want and you pay for whatever you keep. So obviously they’re making money on, they have a vested interest in making sure that they send products that you’ll like, but it’s also a recurring subscription. So subscription e-commerce. So the retention of a customer is critical in order that they pay X amount in customer acquisition costs, they can’t necessarily afford to send a bad product because then that’s churn. And so a subscription brand, I mean you’re, you’re running a subscription business. Keeping churn to a minimum is critical for the lifeblood of a subscription brand. So that’s where the data exactly as you mentioned, is so key for those type of brands

Arlen
[01:13:03]
Right now, we see that it’s clear for those type of brands, the stitch fixes of the world, how their data is directly correlated to the, the end product that they’re providing their customers. So that, that right, getting that right. Data is key. It just makes sense. Now, if, if you’re not the sticks fixes of the world and you’re, you know, you’re just the average e-commerce brand you’re selling, you know, maybe just different products, you don’t have this bundled set where the data is really tied to what people are purchasing per se, what are some other examples or some other ways that these brands can personalize that end customers experience based on the data that they got that they’ve received to help, you know, be from one, be more engaging with their customers or their prospects, but also to really, you know, drive more sales. What are some other things that they can do to, to personalize the whole experience?

Gen
[01:13:52]
Yeah. Great question. There’s the onsite experience. So that’s kind of like part of the quiz experience where right, if you answer the questions in the quiz, maybe you opt in and opt in, could be optional, then you’re getting a product recommendation. And so that’s really like one of the main value propositions of a quiz is simplifying the buying process. And that’s how the quiz, you know, whether it’s preoc or another quiz can help improve conversion rate and can help drive revenue directly because it’s, it’s simplifying the buying experience. And if you’re putting your conversion rate optimization hat on your CRO hat, the main goal is to simplify the buying process. That means addressing any potential customer objections or reducing the amount of choices so that customers don’t have to think because the more they have to think, the more maybe this like anxiety around choice or what product is best that can stand in the way of a customer adding to cart, checking out.

Gen
[01:14:47]
So that product recommendation is one way that you can personalize the experience. So Arlen you’ve you’ve entered that your skin is this, the challenges you’re facing are that your goals are this here’s the perfect product or even routine that we think work best for people like you. That’s one way another after the post quiz experience off the site is of course, if you capture an email or phone number, the like the welcome flow. So a welcome flow is one of the critical automations that a, a brand would have where you would unfold the founder’s story or why this brand is different, what benefits it offers you, because now you can fill in some of the gaps of specifically what Arlen is looking for and, and what Arlen’s background is, what goals he’s trying to achieve. We can create an automation specifically around that. So, you know, if it were, you know, Clavio or Omni send, for example, you can a add them into an automation immediately after the quiz, and then you can have different segments within that flow.

Gen
[01:15:44]
So there could be a segment, if it’s say a wine brand, for example, it could be as high level as a red wine versus a white wine, or you could get more granular. Like it could be a full body, red versus dry white versus sweet white or whatever. But if you’re creating different flows or automations after the quiz, that’s kind of a, a relatively easy way to personalize at scale. And then when to get even more granular, you can in that flow, you know, what products are recommended for the person based on that, their preferences and what they’ve shared in the quiz, then you can automatically kind of dynamically insert those products into the email. So that’s where you’re relying on the technology of the email service provider, Sola and Omni send, offer this where you’re just dynamically inserting you’re building once, like, Hey, this is your product recommendation. And then you would get a different email than I would get, because maybe we have different responses and therefore different recommended products.

Arlen
[01:16:41]
The email segmentation is, is definitely a great example because like you said, everybody has different preferences. And if you have a, a product catalog, obviously you wanna try to tailor what it is that you’re sending these customers or prospective customers, something that’s, you know, that’s gonna match their interests. For sure. It’s really easy to just send out a blanket email that just highlights products that you think everybody likes, or you think that the majority of your list will be interested in, but unfortunately, yeah, you can definitely lose as far as your, the clickthroughs that you’re getting. And then when people start to get accustomed to seeing these kind of blanket emails that are just thrown together where it’s not really personalized for them, that, you know, they’re gonna glaze over it and they’re gonna be searching for that unsubscribe. But yeah, if it’s definitely something that catches their eye because they know, you know, it’s tailored to them, they say, oh, okay. Yeah, I definitely I’m a red wine person. And I see, you know, every time I’m, I’m getting these emails, I’m, you know, I’m getting specific tailored content that you are around web Ryans and the different types and stuff like that, or, or the information around that preference also is, is very key as well because that information is also gonna help the customer be, make an informed decision. So list segmentation is, is very powerful for sure.

Gen
[01:17:56]
Yeah. As you know, what a customer’s interests are or what they’re may be interested in, you can certainly prime them to buy and then you can educate them. And that’s really like one of the main values of an email sequences that you are kind of like unfolding this narrative of your story or of your brand would be the founder story of the brand story. And, but then if you’re able to educate a customer on what they are interested in, then all of a sudden you’re establishing authority and Robert Aldini who wrote influence kinda like a pillar of marketing and conversion is how you’re able to influence. And one of the six pillars is authority and expertise. So by educating a customer, say on wine, you are establishing yourself as an authority and therefore a customer will look to you and, and have that inherent trust based on what you’ve educated them to them. And so that’s a very critical part of moving them from kind of like the awareness to the action of conversion.

Arlen
[01:18:52]
Yeah, for sure. Definitely. Now again, as we get ready to wrap things up, what do you think are some examples of some e-commerce brands that either you’ve dealt with or you just are knowledgeable about in general that have utilized effective personalization to, you know, achieve, you know, higher engagements grow their business, grow their sales.

Gen
[01:19:09]
Yeah. So one brand is Tix. So I’m, I’m very familiar with them because they’re a pre hook customer, but I think that they’ve done a great job with their quiz for a couple reasons. So just high level context, Tix is an adaptogen brand, basically like a mushroom tea. And so it’s an ancient food group or medicinal use, but a lot of modern consumers aren’t necessarily familiar with how mushroom tea or any adaptogen can be, how it’s consumed, how it can help you and the benefits of it. So their quiz helps identify what the customer’s looking for. So a lot of it will be like, what are the, the challenges you’re facing, whether it is anxiety or sleep or joint pain, there are different Ts that address different use cases, but then also specifically around the products. So they have a lot of products and it’s the quiz is basically one way to help take the, the customer.

Gen
[02:20:01]
I don’t know a lot about it, but I do know what I want at the end and then ultimately offer a recommendation of their inventory most appropriate based on what their quiz quiz responses are. So they’ve, they’ve done really well with it in terms of how they merchandise it on their site. So they have it in their header nav, they have it in their hero image. They have it kind of like as an exit intent popup. So as somebody’s about to maybe close the window, they’ll say, Hey, wait, take a, a one minute quiz to, to find what product is right for you. Yeah. And then also they of course have an email optin in there. So they are getting, I think that is five X higher optins from people who take the quiz. Okay. As opposed to just their standard popup or footer optin and then based on their email flows, they’re seeing a lot of success because they are being more granular with their communication post quiz.

Arlen
[02:20:53]
Okay. Gotcha. Gotcha. Yeah. I, I love that example specifically for brands that have a product that when you take a look at their site, if I were to take a look at that, you know, LE’s website, I may not necessarily know alright, where I would go. Maybe I’ve heard a little bit about this product category, but I have no clue, you know, what would be the right product for me? And I’ve, I’ve encountered a lot of businesses like that. Dealing here with our business OSI affiliate software, we get a lot of eCommerce brands that have really some truly niche products where I, you know, I look at their sites and I’m like, wow, this is, I wouldn’t even know where to begin as far as to pick the product, that would be right for me. And I, I love that the quiz is a great way to, it’s kind of, you’re getting information, you’re getting data and you’re helping them make that an informed decision. So you’re, you’re kind of handholding them along the way. You’re, you’re kind of almost acting as like the quizzes are almost acting like a virtual salesperson. You know, if you think of your store as just like a virtual store, somebody walking up and down the aisles, the, the quiz is really just that virtual sales staff member coming up to the person, asking the questions and then, then leading you down the right aisle to pick that right product. So that

Gen
[02:22:01]
Is exactly.

Arlen
[02:22:01]
Yep. Yeah. So I think that’s, that’s really huge these days, especially with all of these variety of new product categories that are coming up and yeah, I think they, it could really go hand in hand with that. So again, yeah, this has been an awesome podcast. I’ve definitely learned a lot. We see that it’s more than just, you know, gathering data. You’ve gotta gather the right data. You’ve got to make sure that you’re using that, you know, in conjunction with your marketing so that you are personalizing all of the campaigns, not only your email campaigns, your advertising, your marketing, and, you know, just be like you said, being in control of the data, being in control of that, the zero party data so that, you know, you know, how to, how to manipulate it. So, yeah, I’ve definitely learned a lot. It’s been awesome talking to you, but you know, lastly, before we let you go, I always like to switch gears and ask our guests. What’s one closing fun fact that you think our listeners would be interested to know about you.

Gen
[02:22:51]
Oh man. Good question. Outside of time with family, the one thing I love to do is play basketball. I wake up at five 10 in the morning, Monday, Wednesday, Friday, and, and play basketball. And it’s something that I missed during the pandemic. And so it’s like literally a life changing thing for me. Now I’m back out there banging and, and watching the NBA playoffs now. So a big basketball fan. And then I was also coaching my daughter. So maybe pass it along to the next generation.

Arlen
[02:23:17]
Yeah. That’s good stuff. Yeah. I’m a, I’m a basketball, somewhat of a basketball enthusiast. I used to play a little recreational, like in my younger day.

Gen
[02:23:25]
Nice. Okay.

Arlen
[02:23:26]
Yeah. I can’t play too much these days though. I might

Gen
[02:23:28]
Be, I think the magic got the number one draft pick the other day, so, oh,

Arlen
[02:23:32]
They did. Okay. I didn’t seen that. Okay. Wow. Yeah. That’s good stuff. Well, hopefully, yeah, Orlando, you know, they’ve been over these past few years, they’ve kind of struggled, but they’ve been kind of slowly making some inroads into getting a better season, so we’ll see. Hopefully, totally. Yeah. So good. Thank you for sharing that. I appreciate that. And lastly, before we do, let you go again, if our listeners wanna reach out to you and pick your brain anymore about data personalization or any e-commerce marketing tactic, what’s the best way for them to reach you?

Gen
[02:23:59]
Yeah, totally. Just email me again, GE N pre hok.com or find me on LinkedIn or Twitter, both again through Calla. I try to be as accessible as possible. So please definitely reach out and happy to share thoughts, strategies, ideas specific to your brand.

Arlen
[02:24:13]
All right. That sounds great. Well, thank you for sharing that again, and we appreciate having you on today on the eCommerce marketing podcast.

Gen
[02:24:20]
Thanks Arlen. Thanks so much.

speaker 1
[02:24:23]
Thank you for listening to the e-commerce marketing podcast.  

Podcast Guest Info

Gen Furukawa
Co-Founder of Prehook