Marketing Experts Reveal Top Strategies To

Arlen:
Welcome to the eCommerce Marketing Podcast, everyone. My name is Arlen Robinson and I am your host. And today we have a very special guest, Reed Carr, who is the founder and CEO of Red Door Interactive. With over 25 years of marketing experience, Reid Carr built Red Door Interactive to be a fiercely independent, nationally renowned, full-funnel marketing agency. RDI was founded to help enterprise clients fuse brand with performance marketing to help them break through creatively and grow market share. With decades of experience in strategy development and brand and performance marketing, Carr specializes in standout creative optimized by a data-driven, full-funnel, multi-channel approach to drive meaningful results.
Welcome to the podcast, Reid.

Reid Carr:
Oh, happy to be here. That’s a mouthful, isn’t it?

Arlen:
Yeah, yeah, you know, you’ve done a lot. I think, you know, we were talking at the beginning, both of us have really been in this tech space for a long time. I think our company OSI affiliate software has maybe got you beat by a couple.

Reid Carr:
Yeah, a couple years

Arlen:
or

Reid Carr:
Yeah.

Arlen:
you’ve got us beat by a couple years.

Reid Carr:
No, you guys got us. We’re at 21 right now.

Arlen:
Okay, got it, got it. So you’ve been 25 years of experience, but the company

Reid Carr:
Yep.

Arlen:
itself is about 21 years. Okay.

Reid Carr:
Yeah, which I don’t know dog years at this point is probably 40, 50 years, isn’t it?

Arlen:
Yeah, exactly, exactly. And when it comes to businesses, you know, it’s,

Reid Carr:
Yeah.

Arlen:
you know, it’s, you know, it’s a blessing to be able to be, to sustain a technology business for this long. So, you know, I’m definitely thankful for, for the journey and to be able to still be at it. Because, you know, as I know, you’ve probably been there as well. I mean, we’ve seen a ton of businesses that kind of came up with us that are, you know, long gone, you know,

Reid Carr:
Yeah,

Arlen:
and so it’s.

Reid Carr:
yeah, it’s pretty astounding and really grateful for every bit of it.

Arlen:
Yeah, definitely. Well, you know, today we’re going to be diving deep on a topic that I’m really excited about. We’re going to be talking about how digital content optimization can increase your brand’s visibility. And so I’m super excited to see, you know, what you’re going to be able to add to that conversation. But before we do get into all of that, once you share just a little bit more about your background and, you know, specifically how you did get into what you’re doing today.

Reid Carr:
Yeah, I mean, at this stage, you know, the majority of it is just running, running red door. It’s been, uh,

Arlen:
Alright,

Reid Carr:
you

Arlen:
mate.

Reid Carr:
know, 21 years of this, uh, as our CEO, uh, executive creative director, um, and. You know, I think everything prior to that is, was, was building up to this point. I went to, I loved advertising. So that’s what I went to school for university of Oregon school of journalism communications, uh, for advertising. And then, uh, started my career at TBWA shy day in LA. I worked on the Nissan account predominantly there. Then went, you know, the web was just taken off. That’s 1999-ish, I graduated in 88. And so, you know, there was a dot-com incubator, a company that was trying to build all sorts of online businesses. And that was that era of, you know, if you build it, they will come. So we were building a whole lot of those real fast. And that was a, you know, it was a lot of experience in a very short amount of time.

Arlen:
Mm-hmm.

Reid Carr:
But that’s when I fell in love with analytics and data and what that could do because, you know, my, uh, my, at school, there’s a lot of training related to what’s called account planning. So trying to find those insights, trying to understand the audiences. And then when you build with, you know, analytic, well, at the time was log file analysis, now analytics, um, you know, you all of a sudden were exposed to all this information on an ongoing basis of where are people going? What are they doing? How did they get there? What are they reacting to? And so I went to, and so at that point, I really thought it was important to make sure that whatever messages we were giving to people were consistent from every touch point. And

Arlen:
Okay.

Reid Carr:
so I went to an integrated agency. I’d never really desired to start my own. I was happy to work for others. Um, and, but at that time I went to an agency and that gave me the opportunity to move to San Diego, which, you know, from LA, I absolutely love.

Arlen:

Right?

Reid Carr:
Um, And the, it was an integrated agency and I can’t see it. These are an air quotes because at that point in time, it was a PR, you know, group, a marketing group or an advertising group and a web group. Imagine like thinking web was just this one person could do that thing. Right. And

Arlen:
Right,

Reid Carr:
so,

Arlen:
right.

Reid Carr:
um, you know, it was basically what I saw at that point was three different departments who really didn’t interact with one another, all just trying to sell to the same person. And so that was the birth of Red Door, was this idea that using data, using insights, identifying how consumers reacting or buyers reacting to what we’re providing to them. What is it? How do we kind of manage that through every part of the touch, every touch point through the overall experience. And that brings us to where we are today. I mean, I think, and I think what we’re going to talk about, you know, it’s all this opportunity to touch. customers, touch buyers, consumers, whatever, it’s B2B, B2C, you know, what point are they in their journey? What is it we need to provide them at that point in time? And how do we move them along this continuum to become loyal customers that’s built on the idea of what does a brand even stand for?

Arlen:
Yeah, yeah.

Reid Carr:
So.

Arlen:
Yeah, good stuff. Yeah. It really sounds like you guys were really just kind of early in on the game, you know, starting 21 years ago when, you know, that kind of whole concept of and what you guys are doing with analyzing where customers are coming from, their touch points. I mean, this was kind of, uh, when you guys started, I mean, that was really kind of pre social media, I guess.

Reid Carr:
Yeah,

Arlen:
And you know, there was some things

Reid Carr:
in that

Arlen:
that were.

Reid Carr:
while, yeah,

Arlen:
Yeah.

Reid Carr:
I mean, it was, you know, it’s funny to tell people now, certainly young people who joined the company of like, yeah, Facebook and Twitter and also wasn’t around yet.

Arlen:
Right, exactly.

Reid Carr:
So, and that was the idea when we named it Red Door, the word interactive part of it was this change from broadcast where we could you could you had you weren’t expecting anything back, you would just broadcast messages and expect people to react to them, you know, make a purchase or whatever. And then we’re seeing message boards and some of these other things that were starting to show up where we’re encouraging our clients to get out there and interact with the consumer, with their buyer.

Arlen:
Yeah.

Reid Carr:
Now I think it’s become somewhat synonymous with digital, but at the same time, it really wasn’t the intent. And I think now we’re back in a new era. I hope we’re in this era now where Brands really do respect their customers in that way and say, I need to get out in the wild and engage.

Arlen:
Yeah, exactly, exactly. And speaking of getting out in the wild and engaging, of course, most of the ways that businesses can do that, e-commerce businesses specifically, is via content and reaching people via

Reid Carr:
Yeah.

Arlen:
content

Reid Carr:
Yep.

Arlen:
and displaying a message. And so I want to see if you can start off by explaining just this whole concept of digital content optimization and really why is it so important for e-commerce businesses today.

Reid Carr:
Yeah, I mean, one thing is important, you know, for, well, to frame it, obviously, digital contents, all the different artifacts that we have that are, that we would call as content, that’s become one big bucket, I mean, in terms of what you might be doing in social, what you could do in blog, you know, blog posts on your website, all the different ways to produce some piece that, that you’re going to put in front of potential buyers. And so. You know, I think it’s always difficult where people want to start at the idea of content and how do we optimize that content without necessarily having the narrative of what does our brand stand for? And we’re big. So we kind of would talk about our process of informed storytelling. So breaking that apart into pieces is where how are you getting informed, which

Arlen:
Mm-hmm.

Reid Carr:
is what are the customers doing? What are consumers doing? Who are they? What do they think, feel and believe? What motivates them and really understand that? So we come from a place of being informed about what their needs are on a day to day basis, which we’ll connect to then what content you need to create and so on. Getting into the idea of the story is what’s that narrative arc that takes someone from not knowing who you are at the top of the funnel of awareness and how do you get to the point where they become a loyal or raving fan at the other end of that spectrum.

Arlen:
Mm-hmm.

Reid Carr:
So where are they in that arc? Because it is a different moment in time at the top of the funnel when they don’t know who you are or what you stand for down to the point where they’re willing to tell everyone and anyone about how great you are.

Arlen:
Yeah.

Reid Carr:
And then the telling component of it is where are you going to tell that story? Where are you going to tell that part of that story?

Arlen:
Mm-hmm.

Reid Carr:
So that’s really where for us, it starts of how do we optimize all that is optimizing. Do we have the, do we know enough about our customer? Do we know where we are with the story and are we, is that resonating? Are we optimizing the story?

Arlen:
Yeah.

Reid Carr:
Does it resonate? And then on an individual basis, yeah, then there’s some real nuanced type of stuff that you can do on a granular level to make it continuously better.

Arlen:
Yeah, yeah, for sure. Yeah, it’s a lot of times I think businesses sometimes they neglect the storytelling aspect of it. I’ve had a lot of other guests on the podcast where we talked about storytelling actually even recently. And, you know, brands these days and you know, any business these days, of course, is going to be eager to get that in sale and is eager to just say, okay, this is us. This is what we do. These are our products. These are the features. you know, come by us, but

Reid Carr:
Yeah.

Arlen:
it doesn’t work like that. You know, unfortunately,

Reid Carr:
Now.

Arlen:
yeah, it’s, you know, the age old saying is always that stories sell, not facts and figures. People wanna be able to connect with a brand these days. I think more than ever, they wanna know, you know, what is this brand about? How does this tie into their needs and their problems? And, you know, how do you convey that as a brand successfully via messaging? And that’s

Reid Carr:
Yeah.

Arlen:
the challenge.

Reid Carr:
Yeah, I mean, facts and figures, oftentimes it justifies a decision they’ve already made. You know,

Arlen:
Yeah,

Reid Carr:
it’s like,

Arlen:
yeah,

Reid Carr:
I want

Arlen:
exactly.

Reid Carr:
to work with you, just give me these facts and figures that I can tell, particularly in like a B2B space, for example,

Arlen:
No.

Reid Carr:
is saying, hey, you know what, I feel something’s right about this, and then they can say, well, and it’s because of this, because of this, because of this, but that wasn’t really why they made that decision.

Arlen:
Yeah.

Reid Carr:
Ultimately it was made and they were justifying what they were doing.

Arlen:
Exactly. They already established that

Reid Carr:
Yeah.

Arlen:
connection and that, you know, this is the brand

Reid Carr:

Yeah.

Arlen:
I’m going with. And then this, you know, the substantiating facts and figures, you know, it’s just, they help, you got to have them

Reid Carr:
Yep.

Arlen:
there. But the end of the day,

Reid Carr:
Yep.

Arlen:
their decision is made. So you’re totally

Reid Carr:
Yeah,

Arlen:
right about that.

Reid Carr:
for

Arlen:
Now,

Reid Carr:
sure.

Arlen:
under this whole umbrella of, you know, digital marketing, there’s a lot under it, you know, there’s a lot of different aspects of it. So wanted to see, can you, you know, really, how does this whole digital content optimization, how does it differ from just the traditional SEO, search engine optimization techniques. And, you know, how does it contribute to that? Just this increased brand visibility.

Reid Carr:
Yeah, well, I mean, there’s a lot of dimension to that, right? So if you get down, someone’s saying, hey, we’re going to focus on SEO. A lot of times you get down to very technical details, page load

Arlen:
Yeah.

Reid Carr:
speed, things like that, which are absolutely important factors. But it’s not where you’re getting into the idea of am I producing the right kind of content for the right people? Are they in when I say the right people? There are certain emotional considerations, perspective attributes. yet on a content level, they might not, for example, search that way. Or, you know, one of the old, an old school example, and this was from a long time ago, but back, um, one of our clients, uh, you know, getting them to start to think and speak the way their customer thinks and speaks. It was pretty, uh, often that they would categorize the stuff they have at an econ level was as apparel. For example, we sell apparel and no one searches for apparel. They search

Arlen:
Right,

Reid Carr:
for clothes.

Arlen:
exactly.

Reid Carr:
They search

Arlen:
Right.

Reid Carr:
for things pretty specifically. Right. So. making these little shifts and nuance in the way they think. I mean, I can’t emphasize enough that you really can’t optimize content. You can do the technical SEO in one form, but it really can’t optimize content unless you know your audience,

Arlen:
Yeah.

Reid Carr:
what they look for. And there are things sometimes people want to tell a customer and the customers just don’t care. They’re not looking for it, they’re not searching for it. And that’s just a different part of the story. Later on… Once they’re there, maybe you do that in a different format. So for example, from a content standpoint, you might say, hey, I’m trying to change this perception about a category, but first and foremost at the narrative arc, they have certain predisposition, things that they know already about a category that you need to satisfy first to get them even to talk to you. And once you move them through the cycle, then it’s gonna get into those, maybe some unique perspective you have that no one else has. And that might be told through a video, it might be told through a diagram, something that really helps to start to shape in their mind why your version or whatever it is you sell is better than somebody else’s.

Arlen:
Yeah, exactly. Exactly.

Reid Carr:
So, yeah.

Arlen:
They’ve already kind of already established just the idea of what’s your brand about, what are their needs, how is your brand going to meet their needs. And then it’s just up to you to kind of craft the whole story around it and how you’re going to enter their lives, solve their problem and do it the best that you can as opposed to the competitors that are in the same space.

Reid Carr:
Yeah, and it’s still a tight relationship with those who have the technical knowledge of SEO, of social, things like that. But you really kind of have to have that balance of, I understand you could technically optimize this piece of content, but

Arlen:
Mm-hmm.

Reid Carr:
that’s not that part of the story. And I want to put that in a different place. So

Arlen:
Yeah, yeah.

Reid Carr:
I think that’s what marketers really have to probably manage the most is to allocate time. There’s so many resources, so much time.

Arlen:
Yeah.

Reid Carr:
You know, how do you allocate resources such that people are focused on? If you’re the SEO person, they’re focused on the right type of content, part of the story down to the folks who are doing the social part and they’re part of that story and what they’re, what they need to satisfy. So balancing all that and being the voice of the customer, um, is, you know, one of the hardest things I think for, um, maybe the non-technical folks to try to manage.

Arlen:
Yeah, yeah, yeah, really for sure. Yeah, I mean, it definitely is a balancing act. You know, we mentioned at the beginning that things are a lot different now than they were, you know, 21 years ago when you started. Now we have social media, we have, you know, a million in one different

Reid Carr:
Right.

Arlen:
channels in which you can kind of get out there and display your messaging and try to connect with your audience. And so these days, you know, how does an e-commerce business leverage just different types of digital content such as the blog post, you know, product description content, multimedia from video to audio, you know, just to improve their overall brand visibility.

Reid Carr:
Yeah, I mean, so as much as things have changed, right, there’s a ton of stuff that’s still the same, right? And the thing that will have, it’s very much category specific too, again, at a consumer level. So if you’re selling e-com like apparel and your value proposition about being the softest apparel out there or something,

Arlen:
Yeah.

Reid Carr:
that’s a tough sell in this environment. So where are you gonna focus that part of the story of the content is what’s gonna get people to see it that way is… One is, your content might be focused on maybe testimonials. It might be certainly people who would validate for others that it’s truly soft. There might be video or imagery that shows things at a detailed level that really articulate why or how at a technical level it is so soft. Whereas, if you’re selling like hardware or something like that or a tool that helps you do something, it’s a lot of video that might

Arlen:
Yeah.

Reid Carr:
show like. interesting use cases or why my product will satisfy a need that you may have that might be different than my competitors. So, you know, it is really important that people again get back down to this idea of what’s that what’s going to convince what what’s going to do the job to move people to the next level. And that’s

Arlen:
Yeah.

Reid Carr:
what I think too many people try to get from, you know, all the way to the top to all the way to the bottom of the funnel in one piece of content or one ad or something

Arlen:
Yeah.

Reid Carr:
like that. And you just some of it is you need to get in the game. You

Arlen:
Mm-hmm.

Reid Carr:
know, what is it gets you in the game? What is it helps you win that game? And what does it get them to that advocacy thing is another piece of content of how do you encourage somebody who is a fan to tell others and how do you give them the right tools, which might include content, uh, you know, words, images, what encouragement, whatever that may be to tell others about the use cases that you, that are really critically important to getting people to convert to the sale and sell. So,

Arlen:
Yeah.

Reid Carr:
you know, I think that the role of the different pieces of content, there is an abundant, there’s just abundance in channels, like as you said, and that the ones that are going to be most important oftentimes are going to be related either to your category or to your true, your value proposition

Arlen:
Mm-hmm.

Reid Carr:
as it connects to and differs, I should say, from, you know, competitors or alternatives, which another thing too. people forget a lot of times that their competitor isn’t necessarily a direct competitor. It might be apathy, their competitor might be an injured, like another way to solve that problem.

Arlen:
Right.

Reid Carr:
And so when we start to back that up and spend enough time with a consumer, which I think when we talk about e-comm brands, for example, is I think not enough of them get out in the wild and observe a customer in a physical environment using their product or…

Arlen:
Mm-hmm.

Reid Carr:
or in a retail and physical retail environment where maybe they don’t have physical retail, their product isn’t sold in physical retail, but you might go observe another product like yours in that category. How do people, are they pulling it off the shelf? Are they feeling it? What is their experience? And so now you can start to think content, what’s going to solve that problem and why do they do what they do?

Arlen:
Yeah.

Reid Carr:
It’s too easy sometimes to sit behind the screen and

Arlen:
Mm-hmm.

Reid Carr:
pretend like you know.

Arlen:
Yeah, yeah, exactly. Ultimately, it just goes down to you got to get it out there, get it in the hands of people. What are they saying? How are they communicating this online in the different social posts? And then from there, craft the message. You made one very excellent point where a lot of times brands craft a piece of content and they want that to serve as just the complete funnel from

Reid Carr:
Yeah.

Arlen:
beginning to end to take people from, you know. the initial brand awareness to all

Reid Carr:
Yep.

Arlen:
the way down to purchasing it. But unfortunately, it doesn’t doesn’t quite work like that. You know, there are, you know, certain cases where you have maybe it can work for certain people where, you know, you kind of hurt you. You hit that person at the right time. They had already been kind of, you know, investigating your brand similar to yours. And then it came across yours. And, you know, it was kind of easy for them to digest what you put out there and say, OK, they see the value proposition in what you’re offering. and they can pull the trigger.

Reid Carr:
Yeah.

Arlen:
That happens, but not that often.

Reid Carr:
Well, you know, another place that happened that we can’t, I mean, it has a lot to do with the type of, is it a major considered purchase? Is it an impulse buy? What’s the risk if they buy you and are wrong about it?

Arlen:
Mm-hmm.

Reid Carr:
You know, a piece of content that that could kind of take someone from top to bottom could be it’s a low cost, you know, low consideration, low risk product. And someone’s like, I don’t like these reddits. Cool. Good enough.

Arlen:
Yeah.

Reid Carr:
Hit submit. Easy return. Whatever those things may be.

Arlen:
Yeah.

Reid Carr:
And I go, cool, sounds good, I’m in. And then, you know, and we do, you know, for example, like a home builder,

Arlen:
Mm-hmm.

Reid Carr:
you’re like, that’s not, they’re not just going to, there’s no input. There’s no one piece of content that’s going to sell someone on,

Arlen:
I think

Reid Carr:
you

Arlen:
you’re

Reid Carr:
know, buying

Arlen:
right.

Reid Carr:
heir dream home. You know,

Arlen:
For sure.

Reid Carr:
it’s going to be a major consider purchase.

Arlen:
Yep.

Reid Carr:
And a lot of that and what people also don’t always think about too, you know, is major consider purchase areas is content that may not even really be yours. It influences their purchase. So in other

Arlen:
Yeah,

Reid Carr:
words,

Arlen:
you’re right.

Reid Carr:
what are the schools like in the neighborhood? What are the, you know, and those are. So when they do that research, are they finding what they need to find?

Arlen:
Mm-hmm.

Reid Carr:
And if they’re not there, how do you help make that happen? Do you help connect people to, because they may need to see it from a third party and not from you. They’re not going to trust you on certain things. So are you making it easy for them to find those third parties that are going to validate a purchase? Are those things like that out even exist? And if not, do you need to create? We’ve had cases where you do have to create an organization of even if competitors. So we, a long time ago, because we benefit of being in this industry for a long time, we had to do work with the wifi, like convince people that wifi is gonna be a thing. So we worked on wifi, Wi-Max, Bluetooth, stuff like that. And commit, like so there was a lot of the Wi-Max alliance and the wifi

Arlen:
Yeah.

Reid Carr:
alliance of all these competing brands. That would create another piece of content to help people talk about the idea of what Wi-Fi is, regardless of who you bought.

Arlen:
Yeah, yeah, exactly, exactly. Yeah, it’s, yeah, really interesting. I mean, there’s just so much into it that influences people’s decision. And

Reid Carr:
Yep.

Arlen:
I think you also nailed it. It’s not necessarily just your content. It’s kind of everything kind of around that. And so you have to be cognizant of all those things that are kind of around, you know, your content piece. And kind of brings me to my next question is really kind of also comes down to when we’re speaking of content. because content ultimately is tied to keywords, what role does this whole keyword research play into digital content optimization and how does e-commerce business identify those best and most effective keywords for their particular niche?

Reid Carr:
Yeah, I mean, that’s this is one of those ones you could spend a lot of time on, right? Is where one of the ones that are most like, you know, as I mentioned, what are the things that people are looking for at a high level? But once you get past all of that, it does get to a little bit more technical detail of

Arlen:
Yeah. Mm

Reid Carr:
what’s winnable,

Arlen:
hmm.

Reid Carr:
you know, compared to competitors, where your quick wins, what are the things are worth putting the effort and time into?

Arlen:
Yeah.

Reid Carr:
Certainly, we do all enterprise level stuff and you’re dealing with some of the best of the best on the other

Arlen:
Mm-hmm.

Reid Carr:
side that are trying to beat you too. So

Arlen:
Yeah, exactly.

Reid Carr:
what is truly ownable and when you get a win, how do you keep the win?

Arlen:
Mm-hmm.

Reid Carr:
And that’s going to be not just that, I mean, you want to win the keywords, but intent, search intent, optimization, where are the gaps, what are the things you need to pay for at a paid search level to balance what traffic you might win or lose? Um, and so, so supporting all of that, obviously at a technical level, then you are at enterprise. It is page, not just that the, um, the, the keyword level, but of the keywords and the ones we know that are ranking, are we doing the things that we can to move to that next level might be, um, you know, accessibility, it might be, um, the page load, uh, page speed load, some of those other very technical details

Arlen:
Mm-hmm.

Reid Carr:
because that’s worth. winning on that key phrase.

Arlen:
Yeah,

Reid Carr:
And

Arlen:
exactly.

Reid Carr:
it’s, you know, when you’re dealing with a real big, you know, enterprise stuff, I mean, you’re just, you can deploy a lot of effort to win on a phrase.

Arlen:
Yeah, for sure, for sure. And then, you know, translating that, you know, if we’re looking at smaller e-commerce businesses, when they’re in this whole keyword space, it can be a little daunting, especially if you’re in a category, a product category, that it’s a super competitive, you know, for example, the supplement space is huge these days. And so, you know, we’ve got tons of these different supplements, the smoothie type. products and so if you’re in that space and you’re a smaller guy, yeah, it’s tough. You know, you did mention though, there still is hope because you do have, you know, some of the smaller hanging fruit, some of the longer tail keywords and things like that, that can still get you, you know, the customer that you’re looking for. But I think ultimately it does come down to, you know, you really honing in on who your ideal customer is

Reid Carr:
Yeah.

Arlen:
and then focusing on that because. to try to compete with some of the bigger players in the space. And let’s say that supplement space, it’s, I mean, it’s, I don’t know, that may just be a losing battle if you’re trying

Reid Carr:
Yeah.

Arlen:
to come up against some of the big guys.

Reid Carr:
Now we play in that space with a very large provider and it is kind

Arlen:
Yeah.

Reid Carr:
of almost there is an unfair advantage against

Arlen:
Yeah.

Reid Carr:
the smaller ones. But then when they’re also playing against other big players, that’s

Arlen:
True.

Reid Carr:
where they’re really duking it out. So,

Arlen:
Yeah.

Reid Carr:
you know, you’re kind of you do really still have to look at that, like you mentioned, the long tail and find out what are you really good at. And then it’s interesting, too. where we’ve also had success, and this again has to do with the resource, like the large enterprise resources, is creating products

Arlen:
Mm-hmm.

Reid Carr:

that are based effectively on what are people looking for, and say, can we invest in producing particular products that satisfy gaps?

Arlen:
Yeah.

Reid Carr:
You know, and there’s a lot of that. I think a lot of people do that on Amazon right now. That’s not uncommon for someone to go find out, find gaps in their inventory and build

Arlen:
Yeah.

Reid Carr:
creative products. that’s inexpensive to do in that way. But when you’re playing outside of that world, it’s maybe a little less common, but for some brands it’s worth it.

Arlen:
Yeah, yeah, definitely for sure. That’s a great, great, great tactic. Um, well, Rita, as we get ready to wrap things up, yeah, I just wanted to see if you could share or highlight just any quick case studies or success stories where, you know, digital content optimization just played a significant role in improving an e-commerce business’s brand visibility and their overall sales.

Reid Carr:
Yeah, I mean, I think one of my favorite ones, and it kind of talks a lot about all the other dimensions that I was talking about. So one of our clients, ASICS, and we won SEO awards for this in particular, but it’s one I think that speaks to what I think philosophically works well for people, which ASICS, Running Shoe Brand,

Arlen:
Mm-hmm.

Reid Carr:
and we built their Supa Nation Pro Nation guides that we’ll talk about. So obviously the issue is like, are you supinating, pronating, overpronation for how your foot strikes on the ground, for running, and creating this guide and building out the many forms of content? At the time, there wasn’t really a lot of content, not enough content,

Arlen:
Yeah.

Reid Carr:
and certainly not from reputable brands in the space about

Arlen:
Hmm.

Reid Carr:
how to pick the right shoe for you.

Arlen:
Yeah.

Reid Carr:
And so as simple as that may sound, certainly today, and even then. Um, really putting an investing in the effort to fix a particular problem through content that to a degree is, I mean, it’s self-serving in the sense that ultimately we want you to buy our shoes, but at that

Arlen:
You’re

Reid Carr:
point

Arlen:
right.

Reid Carr:
it’s also somewhat altruistic because it wasn’t saying, um, you know, our shoes do this. Well, it was like, Hey, this is going to be helpful to you in

Arlen:
No.

Reid Carr:
your journey of, of buying a appropriate running shoe for you. And obviously we can solve, you know, a range of problems depending on how your foot strike is.

Arlen:
Mm-hmm.

Reid Carr:
But generally speaking, I mean, I think that’s for me. So we had a ton of success for that

Arlen:
Yeah.

Reid Carr:
as far as driving traffic. And then it’s our responsibility to then move people. This is why I was mentioning earlier is where are people in that funnel? And then once we get there, we get in the game, then it’s kind of a handoff to a degree. How do we get you from that piece of content over to then obviously… the selector and buying a particular shoe that does meet whatever you learned from that stuff. But there was a lot of content that played out in social, a lot of content that we paid out in a lot of different areas to really solve what a very simple concept that a lot of people who are runners or getting into running face of, are you pronating, supinating, over pronation, neutral, what’s right for me? Because you also look at inventory. If you’ve got a lot of different options, paradox of choice kind of starts to play out too. Like which

Arlen:
Yeah,

Reid Carr:
one of these shoes should I pick? Well, you ultimately end up with none because you’re overwhelmed.

Arlen:
exactly. Yeah.

Reid Carr:
So it’s all just involved too. Yeah.

Arlen:
Yeah, yeah, definitely. I’ve been there and a lot of customers are, especially in our world today when you’ve got so many brands, no matter what it is that you’re buying. A lot of times, you know, there’s what I call buyer fatigue, just doing the research and just trying to figure out what’s going to be best. But yeah, I love that case study because what you mentioned was with Asics. They, their whole goal was to really, you know, solve that problem, you know, how do, you know, how should a foot conform with these particular shoes? What’s the best style that you particularly need? And that can go across the board, not just with their brand. You can apply that content and those, that information to purchasing really any shoe, but you know, they kind of took a gamble and said, okay, you know, we’ll, we’ll leave it up to the customer. We’ll give them the best information possible for them to make the best decision. And hopefully they come our way, but of course they’re gonna be doing things, I know, to highlight aspects of their particular product with the results that you’re gonna see when you’re kinda making that decision. But yeah, that’s good stuff. And a lot of businesses don’t really necessarily take those risks by trying to empower their customers with that solid information

Reid Carr:
Yep.

Arlen:
like that.

Reid Carr:
Yeah. I mean, yeah. And it helps out at a search level, not just even on the site. I mean, I

Arlen:
Yeah.

Reid Carr:
pulled up the numbers on it, it’s a 213% increase in revenue on just from content like that. So I think

Arlen:
Yeah, yeah, good,

Reid Carr:
that’s

Arlen:
good for stuff.

Reid Carr:
a big brand is significant.

Arlen:
Yeah, that is really, really significant. Well, yeah, this has been an awesome conversation, Reed. I love talking to you about this. And I know our listeners have, you know, taken a lot of great nuggets from this conversation as well, and our viewers as well. So I always like to switch gears, though, at the very end here, just to close things out. And so our viewers and listeners can get to know you just a little bit better. You don’t mind sharing one closing fun fact about yourself that you think we’d be interested to know.

Reid Carr:
Well, I think, get a sense here. So I play still in the over 40 leagues, playing three days a week of soccer. I’m a

Arlen:
Okay.

Reid Carr:
team-based player. I love team sports. I love, I figure running a company like that is a team-based sport. So,

Arlen:
Yeah.

Reid Carr:
and I think that exposure and awareness applies on so many levels. So,

Arlen:
You’re okay?

Reid Carr:
it’s fun for me, whether it’s a fun fact for anybody else, I find it pretty fun.

Arlen:
Yeah, for sure. I mean, that definitely is a fun fact. I know, you know, generally when you get up in age and you know, you’re especially with the team sports, it’s

Reid Carr:
Yep.

Arlen:
like, it can become difficult. So yeah, it definitely

Reid Carr:
Yeah.

Arlen:
hats off to you to be able to do that. Soccer wasn’t really wasn’t my sport. Basketball was and so these days, yeah.

Reid Carr:
Yeah.

Arlen:
I mean, other than just doing a little shooting around, I’m not playing any intense games these days

Reid Carr:
Thank

Arlen:
just

Reid Carr:
you.

Arlen:
because of the the wear and tear it takes on your

Reid Carr:
Yeah,

Arlen:

knees and your joints.

Reid Carr:
it does.

Arlen:
But yeah, but yeah, that’s good stuff, man. Thank you for sharing that.

Reid Carr:
You

Arlen:
But

Reid Carr:
got it.

Arlen:
lastly, before we do let you go, if you don’t mind letting our listeners and viewers know the best way for them to reach you, if they wanna pick your brain anymore about content optimization or anything under the sun of digital marketing.

Reid Carr:
Yeah, well, so absolutely look me up on one of the easiest ways, obviously is LinkedIn. So read car, R E I D C A R R. And it’s that in slash read car all one word. So thankfully I got in on early enough to have just my name on there or obviously our website at red door dot biz. And I’m accessible that way as well. So, you know, happy to happy to keep talking.

Arlen:
All right. Well, that’s awesome. Well, thank you for sharing that. We’ll be sure to have those links in the show notes so people can get a hold of you or your team and, uh, you know, see how they can, uh, how, how you guys can help them out. Well, it’s been a pleasure Reid. We definitely loved having you on today. The e-commerce marketing podcast.

Reid Carr:
Absolutely, my pleasure. Thank you.

Arlen:
Thank you.

Podcast Guest Info

Reid Carr
CEO & Executive Creative Director at Red Door Interactive