Marketing Experts Reveal Top Strategies To

Arlen
[00:01:46]
Welcome to the e-commerce marketing podcast. Everyone. I am your host Arlen Robinson, and today we have a very special guest Adam Pearce who is the co-founder and CEO of Blend Commerce, the world’s Shopify agency offering an ‘On-Demand Digital Department’. Welcome to the podcast, Adam. Yeah, no problem. Yeah, I’m really excited to talk to you today. We’re going to be diving deep about a particular marketing strategy that I haven’t really covered too much here on the podcast. And that’s going to be talking about growing your list, building your list, using quizzes as opposed to the standard popups. And so I’m really excited to hear about that because that’s something that on my end here, affiliate software, we’ve been doing a lot of things with our email list building, and I’m going to be frantically taking notes as I talk to you because I want to get some things over to our team because we’re, we’re interested in trying some new things to definitely, you know, grow our lists. And I know our listeners are going to be excited to hear about what you have to offer as well, but before we do get into all of that, why don’t you tell us a little bit more about your background and specifically how you did get in to what you’re doing today? Yeah, sure. So my background is

Adam
[00:02:59]
Kind of quite bare, which I know a lot of people in the kind of Shopify ecosystem is. And it’s one of the reasons I love working with the Shopify ecosystem. So after university, after college, I went to be a manager consultant for Accenture and kind of thought that I was going to be kind of go around in flashy, Armani suits and flying business class everywhere. You know, I think a lot, a lot of graduates you realize pretty quickly that that ain’t what you’re going to be doing. So I was extended for three years. It was a great experience. And I worked with some big companies like Barclays capital and stock exchange. And I was kind of working on the financial services industry. But I guess after about three years, I realized that it wasn’t really something that I was finding a fulfilling and B, but I wasn’t actually that great at.

Adam
[00:03:46]
And I decided that, you know, when I was at university, I’d done a lot of work with the kid camps actually in the states I’ve been out in the summer and what’s called a kids camp. So I looked at, and I thought that was when I was kind of at the happiest. So I thought, look, I’m going to go and be a teacher. And you can imagine, you know, like if, if anyone listening has kind of been in a corporate environment or as what say, you know, a major kind of financial center, when you turn around and tell your colleagues that you’re going to go and be a teacher, it doesn’t really matter where you are in the world. You get a few kind of shocked faces. And I did that and, you know, retrained and it was great. And I had a great time and then really kind of, you know, after probably about three or four years of that, I then decided I was missing that kind of commercial aspect.

Adam
[00:04:27]
And I actually went to work for an education app company. And that’s, I guess, where I sort of first started getting really excited about technology and that was, you know, a great industry to be in because I had the education side, I have the business side and I really kind of learned, I guess, my skills in marketing and sort of fast forward on from that, you know, I met my business partner probably about seven or eight years ago, and we’d always talked about, look, we’d love to have our own business. And he started talking to me about five years ago about this thing called Shopify. And I was just like, yeah, whatever, it’s going to be another kind of flash in the pan. It’s one of these tools will come along and it will go. And of course, happily I was completely wrong. And we sort of sat down and said, look, you know, at that time, the word really any Shopify agencies out there that were doing marketing for Shopify stores and also the development side.

Adam
[00:05:18]
And we just say, look, this is something that we want to do. And we failed, you know, it was a good thing to do and pretty much, you know, I, a honeymoon to send work back month later, we’d started up over a kitchen table land that first client and, you know, kind of fast forward today. We’ve got a team of 17 working with some really big brands across the us Canada and the UK, and yet doing a lot of work sickly, obviously on the development and the conversion optimization side, but a lot of work in terms of using Klaviyo and all the different tools. And I think what we’re going to talk about later on and our kind of Klayvio nucleus approach to marketing, that’s quite a story that’s quite a

Arlen
[00:05:57]
Leap. I can definitely see the eyes and the bulging eyes. When you told people that you were going to go from the business, the management consulting to teaching and, you know, working with kids and kids camps and things like that. That’s quite a leap. Yeah, for sure. Because I know a little bit about the world of management consulting. I was actually at a show at HBO show that I used to watch. Right. I guess it shows kind of the horror stories of the management consulting. I think it was called, what was it? Alpha lies. I think it was called yeah. With Don Cheadle and very interesting show. I take it your lifestyle. Wasn’t quite like that.

Adam
[00:06:33]
I know it’s hard, isn’t it? Because when we finished school or we finished college, we have these kind of pretty savvy and ideas of what life is going to be in a particular career. I think, you know, the interesting thing is like, you know, our business partner pizza, he was actually a quantity surveyor before this, you know, I know people that are in acting. I know people that were in sales. I know people that work in food production who have gone into going to be Shopify developers, owners, or Shopify agencies. And I think the big thing to me now, we talk a lot about imposter syndrome. Just you go gone to LinkedIn, you’ll see tons of stuff about, of the imposter syndrome. And I think, you know, looking it is prevalent within our industry, but the great thing is because Shopify is a relatively new industry, you don’t get that kind of gear that sort of old boys club that you get with sort of, you know, financial services. And I think that’s really empowering for a lot of people like me that come into it going, Hey yeah. Well, look, I’m new to this pretty much, but how do I kind of get into that there isn’t that kind of barrier. I think that there, isn’t kind of more established industries, which is why for me, you know, it’s been a really refreshing community to kind of work within, right?

Arlen
[00:07:41]
Yeah, yeah. Definitely very true. Yeah. It’s really hard to believe that the Shopify is of the worlds and these other do it yourself. E-commerce platforms have really only been around, I mean, just the past 10 years or so a little bit more than that. Some of them, and they’re, they’ve really exploded. So you, like you said, the bit, the barrier to entry is not as great as some of those well-established types of industries where they have those YouTube’s old boy networks. So virtually anybody can get in.

Adam
[00:08:08]
100%. Yeah.

Arlen
[00:08:09]
Yeah. So, yeah, as I had mentioned at the top of this recording today, we’re going to be digging deep into using quizzes for your email list building as opposed to the standard popups that most people are familiar with. And, you know, I know you’re kind of an expert at this. And so really what I want to start off with is really why do you think these types of things, these quizzes are more effective than all of the standard popups that most companies are using these days?

Adam
[00:08:37]
Yeah, sure. I mean, look, I think the point that we need to think about here for a moment is that when it comes to using popups on Shopify store or whatever e-commerce platform you’re on, you’re kind of limited in terms of what you can give as a benefit to that. And a lot of the time when it comes to popups, what we tend to do is that we would offer a discount say 10 or 15% off your first purchase. And I think the problem is with that is when you do that as a company, you’re setting the tone for that relationship and you’re going to be having with that customer. And if you’re going to get that discount straight away, does that almost devalue your brand from the outset and all people just kind of gain the, find that process to try and get that discount, their singular purchase and then move on.

Adam
[00:09:19]
And I think, you know, when we think about today’s metrics that we care about, we all care about lifetime value of customers. And we’re looking at when we bring someone in, what are we going to generate from that customer over a course of six months, 12 months, like two or three years as a customer. So when it came to kind of working with quizzes, I think the thing for me is there, number one, it opens up a lot of options for you rather than just saying, Hey, you know, look, sign up and get a discount. We’ll sign up and get, you know, news offers and updates. You can actually give people a lot more compelling off over the quiz. Now you can do this in a number of different ways. You can use software like octane IRA, shop quiz. You can actually build it custom on the site.

Adam
[01:10:00]
But when I say a quiz, what I’m talking about here is basically an interaction on your site whereby you can get key data off somebody as well as their email address. So you’re getting that email address with the popup, but what you’re doing is you’re actually getting more information and you’re able then to give something more value to that person. And that could be recommendations. It could be downloadable PDF. It could also be discounts as well, but there’s a lot more things that you can give and I’d be happy to kind of give you some examples of that as well.

Arlen
[01:10:32]
That would be great. And I think the key thing that you kind of hit was that it’s really kind of more about the engagement increasing that engagement that you’re having with that person, that, that website visitor, if you will, or potential customer, if you will, and gathering a little bit more data from them so that you can then further tailor your marketing efforts specifically to certain segments of people. I think that’s where the quizzes really kind of hit home rather than, you know, we all seen it. Everybody does it, they do the opt-ins for the discounts, which is, which is great because you know, everybody wants a discount, but you’re kind of limited there. And as you mentioned, a lot of times, it’s kind of a one and done. Sometimes people will see that they’re just opting in just to get the head this count and that’s it. They want that one purchase. They use a discount and then they’re on, they move on after they get the discount. A lot of times, you know, they’re hitting that unsubscribed. They’re not looking at, but if you really formulate more of a relationship and then offer more engagement, it’s a little bit different and they can more likely to stay with you. And yeah. So what are some of the other things that you can do with regards to these quizzes and formulating?

Adam
[01:11:39]
Yeah, sure. So, I mean, let’s look at, I guess, two very different examples. What is a, I think about a brand that we’ve recently done this for, and this is a, an apparel brand for men and for women. And they have a lot of different brands that they have on their site. Now, the main challenge is obviously, you know, that when you are a Shopify brand that maybe has lots of different brands or lots of different products, how do you essentially get that person comes to your site the first time to find out which products is going to be right for them? Now, ordinarily you could rely on going to product pages, collection pages, your about us page, finding out more. But if you are lot about apparel brands, what you could do is you could have a quiz on the side, which says, Hey, get your personal style recommendations from us.

Adam
[01:12:25]
And what will then happen is that in that process, when you click on that little box, it’s going to be on the site. You then start asking them real questions. So, you know, maybe number one, are you typically shopping from male or female clothing, which of the following looks from below best represent your style? So you can have different images of different looks. And then you might then start ask them about particular brands that they’ve worn in the past. Now, the nice thing is with all of this data is that you’re actually, when you link in the use of Optane eyes, shop quiz, the Klayvio, all of those data points go over to the profile on your email account for that person. So if you come to our store and you are telling me that you like Armani, you like the smart, casual look, you’re shopping for male clothing, all that information is assigned to your profile.

Adam
[01:13:12]
Now I can actually see things at this point. Number one, I can actually, when you completed this quiz, I can send screen based announced. You’ve given here all your personal style recommendations, and that might be three or four products that we fail you almost like to buy. So you’re, I’m giving you something straight away. I’m giving you a personalized approach. I’m showing you what you might most be interested in. But the other thing is, is that if you’ve also told me that you’re into Armani, I can change the welcome flow to be personalized to your needs. So you might get, for example, a welcome flow that has just Armani products and tells you about our relationship with our money. Whereas if I go on it, I might stay, for example, have one where I’ve set the Saatchi and I would have then been in the email and recommending products that are related to that.

Adam
[01:13:59]
So what it does is that it gives you that first opportunity to try and convert that person in the same way that you would, if you use in the pop-up, but obviously the popper isn’t going to give you the opportunity to sell straight away. But secondly, it gives you a much better chance to actually personalize the marketing Dean from the outset, with that comparison, rather than trying to use data about their shopping habits over a period of time. Whereas this approach, you get data at the start and keep adding to that data and you can keep personalized obviously what it is that you’re offering to that customer. So, but that’s kind of one example do it.

Arlen
[01:14:34]
Yeah, I totally see that. And the power of that, how by just gathering a little bit of initial data and it’s not a lot, cause I know a lot of the businesses that are listening are to try to play devil’s advocate advocate are probably thinking, okay, you know, it’s hard enough just to get somebody’s email, how am I going to get them to answer these questions? And so, but the thing is, those are really just brief questions and it’s really, if somebody is truly interested in your products and services, they will take the time to, you know, give you that little bit of information. And then that data, that little bit of data that you’re capturing at the outset is really going to go a long way with sending the right messaging to that person. Because in your example, as you mentioned, you know, if I said, I liked the, you know, our money, there’s no, no need to do follow up.

Arlen
[01:15:20]
You know, of course I may be interested in some other products that you have, but I initially told you that’s my interest. So you can then tailor your messaging around those particular products. And so it’s definitely a lot more targeted going that route for sure. Absolutely. Now you had mentioned earlier that you guys work with Klayvio, which is a email marketing platform for e-commerce businesses, for those listeners that aren’t familiar with it very powerful solution, and you’ve kind of coined a Klaviyo nucleus approach to email marketing. Why don’t you inviting us and tell us a little bit about that and how does that work?

Adam
[01:15:55]
Yeah, sure. So the first thing is that when it comes to Shopify, you have a wide wide choice of the different SAS and software products. You can use an app. And what we found is that kind of probably sort of two or three years ago is that a lot of Shopify merchants saying, look, what are the best ones for us to use? And I think that’s kind of the first question is, you know, look, if you have lots of apps on your store, ultimately that is going to slow the store store down and that’s going to hurt your conversion. So it was about trying to help our clients understand that question. But secondly, is that when she got those apps, are they actually working as hard as they possibly can for you? And a lot of the time when we think about adding apps to our store or phone chassis, we think about those apps by themselves.

Adam
[01:16:40]
So a great example for this, that a lot of people think about is law seat programs. Now, when you think about a loyalty program, you just think about right, I need to get people in that loyalty program. I need to then basically giving them information back and forwards via the loyalty program and then getting them to buy. Now, if you take the Clairvia nucleus approach, we kind of look at that a bit differently. Now we essentially plays Klaviyo email marketing platform at the central core of what our clients do in terms of marketing. Now, all of that central call, what you will then have are six to seven, other core, essentially best-in-class apps that can work with Klayvio. And some of those include things like recharge subscription payments. You’ve got loyalty line for rewards and loyalty, and you’ve got things like reviews, Daya for reviews.

Adam
[01:17:27]
Now the Claudia Nicholas means that if, say for example, we are using octane and our eyes to pull that data in from a quiz that then sits in Claudio. Well, what we can then do is that we can send some of that information to loyalty lines recharge and tell them what that current customers do. So a prime example here is that you can set up an integration between Play-Doh naughty line, so that every time an goes out to one of your email list subscribers, it will tell them on the top pre header bar, how many points they have in their loyalty program. So by doing that, you’re not just relying on the loyalty program, people log in to that. You’re showing them information within the actual email that you’re sending to you in each time, which then increases the chances that they’re going to use those points and shop with you.

Adam
[01:18:12]
And equally, you know, when it comes to things like recharge, if you’re using subscription, what you also want to make sure of is that, look, if you have an abandoned cart message set up on your site, the last thing you’re going to want to do is if you have a customer that is pop subscription and it happened to be looking at one of the products in that is to say, Hey, come and get 10% discount as pop our abandoned cart message because you haven’t purchased this item. Now they can be pretty annoyed because they can say, well, hang on, I’ve got Dubai from there already. Why don’t you give me a discount on the subscription? And those are the kind of things now that I love at the time, when we think about each of these different apps by themselves, we tend to forget actually the picture that is coming across to your customer. So we just try and make sure that if we are going to use these particular say best in class apps, that they work together and Klayvio is the brain of that particular thing that’s going to happen to then direct all the different marketing messages is going to come across.

Arlen
[01:19:08]
Yeah, I totally understand. That makes a lot of sense because if you’re looking at everything, Klayvio really has to sit in the middle and it has to be the brain because that is where people have the initial interaction with. They’re filling out the quiz, they’re opting in, you’re getting that initial data. And then from that data that you’ve gathered there, then you can determine what other pieces have to be engaged, whether it’s your loyalty program or any of the other apps that you have connected. And that’s the beauty of things. These days is most of the top app app vendors have these types of integrations where they play well with Clavio’s of the world and the active campaigns of the world and all these other platforms. And so it’s, I was telling you before we started, I’ve been in the game for quite a long time now going on 20 years. And so it wasn’t like that back 20 years ago. Yeah. The app integrations back then were a kind of a very tedious process and you had to do a lot of custom coding and it was almost like pulling teeth to get API information from a lot of these vendors and everything was custom, but these days it’s not like that. So yeah, there’s integration. And you mentioned using the clavia as the brain can be effectively done fairly painlessly actually.

Adam
[02:20:21]
Absolutely. I’m the lucky say there are still kind of more advanced things that will need API for, but even just going, you know, if you’re listening in now and you’ve got a Shopify store, just go and look at the app pages, but you have the apps, you have a read look down of the pages and just look at their integrations because I’m sure you will find on there some of the apps that you also use and you will see an integration and the sets of those is relatively simple. You just got to make sure your messaging, your branding that goes into those different emails staff. But the setup side of that, as I say, is it’s really quite straightforward today.

Arlen
[02:20:54]
Yeah, yeah, definitely. Definitely for sure. And that’s really kind of the beauty of this because I know people are listening or are wondering, you know, how do you make all of this happen? But these days, you know, app vendors are cognizant that they have to be able to integrate with these other solutions. So they’ve gone through the efforts to make it pretty easy to do. And that’s always a nice thing, especially for e-commerce marketers and shop owners, because these days everybody’s time is limited. And so, you know, you don’t have a lot of time to be digging through tedious documentation and trying to figure all this stuff out. Well, Adam, as we get ready to wrap things up, I wanted to kind of pick your brain to get some real world examples of some businesses that you’ve worked with that have really been successful or, or just any businesses that you’re familiar with that have been successful using quizzes and this whole Clavio nucleus approach, and really what specifically have they done?

Adam
[02:21:47]
Yeah, sure. So I’ll tell you about different products and we’re actually working with a food product and basically the company that we’re working with, they have a lot of different condiments and products that fits in with different styles of diets. So paleo keto, lots of different diets that are available upon arrival. And obviously some of the products may have worked better with particular diets and others. But the thing is while they have a band of customers who know what they’re looking for, they have a big proportion of pessimists, very interested in these diets, but then not really sure what’s involved. Now, what we’ve actually done with them is that we’ve enabled them to use a quiz where basically you can get a free diet plan off the back of actually entering some information on the quiz. Now, what this does is that it’s kind of giving us some aids, nice papers saying, look, I’m interested in for example, but I don’t really know what I need to do to adopt the key fat diet.

Adam
[02:22:40]
Now, when you get different information from that back point, it will tell you what the goals are, their diet and how they feel, what they want to do. Different foods that they like eating different flavors that they like eating. And at the end of that quiz, what they’re going to do is not, you’re going to get a personalized plan for them in terms of the diet and the actual exercise routines that can go with those thoughts. Well, to give them something that’s very tangible. Now what’s nice about this is that yes, there is a lot of, I guess, what you would say sort of generic information about the donut, but we’re also within that, including references and images of some of the products that this company sells. So by the end of it, you know, if you think about as a customer, you received this plan we’ve been given kind of, you know, your guide in terms of what you need to do.

Adam
[02:23:24]
And then what you’re also saying is that if you want to follow this guide in terms of a lifestyle Harrison products can help you. Now, what’s been great about this, is that not only does it drive great initial sales, it also because it pulled that data, we can use that data alongside the sales information to then tailor what communications that person get. So for example, sometimes someone wants to offer, say, look, they are interested in the key type diet, but then what we can see is that from the purchase value, is that actually that’s changing. So we can re send out that questionnaire. If we think that actually it will, that quiz that we think that it’s appropriate, we can get into retake that quiz and then we can then give them some fresh set of recommendations. So it can be something that doesn’t have to just be a singular sort of static thing you can do.

Adam
[02:24:12]
It can be a dynamic thing we can do over time. So again, it’s just purely, you’re starting that process of saying, look, we’re going to give you something in return, resting, sharing your information with us. And then we can build on that by giving you more and more personalized recommendations. And I think for me, that’s been a real success story because when you are in that particular industry, I mean the only real other ways that you can tap into customer is we’re going to have a discount rate or what’s sending you free samples. And you know, anyone listening here that has got a food business would know how difficult free samples are, because the cost of that, the shipping involved with that. Yeah. The fact that, you know, some products may be need more than a sample size for a customer to really kind of get embedded with that product. It can be quite tricky. So here, what you’re saying is, you know, that you don’t need to do that, but you’re just putting together, you know, a document, a PDF, a web page, that’s going to be really super useful and you can look at the interaction that people have with that. So I think for me, you know, that’s, that’s a really good thing that you could not only use for a free business, but you could also use for a lot of other shop repositories as well.

Arlen
[02:25:17]
Yeah. Yeah, definitely. That’s really the key thing. There is offering some type of incentive for people to do it because as we mentioned earlier, even though you’re really just asking some basic questions and just, it’s not a lot of information, it’s not requiring a lot of time. Everybody, these days is working on kind of hyper speed and is all over the place. And so any extra time spent doing anything, people may be a little leery to do it, but if you do incentivize them for doing that is something simple but useful. Then I think, you know, definitely will go a long way. Like you said, that diet plan a PDF. But I think the key thing is you don’t want to just kind of slap something together just for the sake of trying to offer something as an incentive. You gotta make sure it’s going to add value and you know, it’s well thought out well put together. And it’s something that somebody would truly appreciate if they got it. So, yeah, for sure.

Adam
[02:26:10]
I’ll think, you know, you’ve hit the nail on the head that, because in reality, what we talked about earlier, putting that process together of doing the quiz is not actually that complex still, you’ve got to have a bit of logic and kind of understand what you want to do. But the tech side of it is, is actually pretty simple. Like you said, there it’s about that actual marketing or that collateral, the offer, that thing you’re going to give them. And unfortunately, I think what I’ve seen sometimes is that, like you say, people rushing, look, yeah, we’ll just, we’ll stick a PDF together and we’ll be fine. People will have that if that PDF sucks and it doesn’t have great information in there, you’re going to lose that customer because they’re going to go, well, what was the point? So yeah, it’s gotta be the focus I would say is, look, my, my honest opinion would be build that offer first, build that PDF build that will well webpage first, then go and do your quiz off codes because the problem is the quiz. You know, sometimes you gotta put it together and that’s where it can fail.

Arlen
[02:27:07]
Yeah, yeah, exactly, exactly. It doesn’t take much to put it the quiz together, but it’s the offering really it’s you have to spend time and figure out what’s going to really be of interest to, you know, a wide sector of your customers or potential customers. For sure. Well, Adam, that’s great. I really appreciate you sharing everything. I’ve definitely learned a lot. And it’s interesting that you guys have kind of coined that whole approach. The cloudy is nucleus approach. I’ve never heard anything quite like that, but it makes a lot of sense. How were they using Clavio or any other type of email marketing solution? It has to really act as the brain of the engagement of your marketing activities and everything that you’re going to be doing has to be tied to that. So makes a lot of sense. And so I would like to kind of close things out here by switching gears, just so our audience can get to know you just a little bit better. So if you don’t mind sharing one closing fun fact about yourself that you think our listeners would be interested to know about you.

Adam
[02:28:02]
So I guess my fun fact is that I was talking at her in the show about how I went to welcome kids in the us. And after the kids got bought, she headed down to Miami and did a bit of traveling around at the time, the video music awards rum. And as I was walking past this bar, this car pulled up, the other guys got out and I actually bumped into Scott. Oh, sorry, mate. And it was Eddie Murphy, so, ah,

Arlen
[02:28:35]
Gotcha. Gotcha. That’s cool fun fact. He bumped into Eddie Murphy. Not a lot of people can say that. Sure. Okay, cool. That’s awesome. Well, thank you for sharing that. Yeah. Eddie Murphy now, I guess it’s, you know, is trying to kind of make a little resurgence. It has comedy career back in the scene. So we’ll see what happens here. So I know every time you see that you see him on any type of media, I’m sure you think of that moment where you actually bumped into him. I guess you were lucky as a bodyguard. Didn’t Okay. Gotcha. Gotcha. Well, that’s awesome. Well, thank you for sharing that and I appreciate you sharing that fun fact. And of course for you joining us today and enlightening us on using these quizzes for your email marketing opt-ins and, but lastly, before we do let you go. Yeah. If you don’t mind letting our listeners know how they can reach you, if they’d like to pick your brain any more about this subject or any other digital marketing topics.

Adam
[02:29:34]
Absolutely. So, yeah, I’d love to connect with people on LinkedIn. So you can find me Adam, a PS and that’s pea RC on LinkedIn. And if you want to find out a little bit more about what we do at blend commerce, it’s just blatant commerce.com.

Arlen
[02:29:46]
Yeah, that sounds great. Well, thank you for sharing that, Adam. And of course, thank you again for joining us today on the e-commerce marketing podcast,

Adam
[02:29:54]
All of a sudden,

speaker 1
[02:29:58]
Thank you for listening to the e-commerce marketing podcast.

Podcast Guest Info

Adam Pearce
CEO of Blend Commerce