for how long can you freeze your shopify store

is that no matter what stage your,business is at we've been to a lot of,shopify meetups,we talk to people at these meetups we,get to hang out,we build friendships and we build,community and we know that everybody's,at a different stage,so don't think that you know i'm just,getting started doesn't apply to me or,i'm oh i'm way ahead doesn't apply to me,we're going to be talking about big,picture ecommerce strategy and a lot of,these strategies will apply to every,kind of business,it just depends on what your priorities,are at each stage so you may prioritize,things a little bit differently,like we started selling this product out,of the trunk of our car don't be,afraid to fail inventory management is,about balance get the product out that's,number one i've always preached,sustainable growth so we just started,building community look at the data,product development is everything yeah,we say we're a brick click and pop,but you have to love what you do,i'm scott cunningham i'm the founder of,a shopify partner agency,yada yada yada uh what's some really,cool thing that's happening with us,right now me and my business partner,simon who you're gonna hear from later,we're teaching a course at the,university of alberta about e-commerce,marketing,we're big e-commerce nerds we speak at,all kinds of events,all over the place uh and here's a,little,i'm hovering over us in vancouver that,was the vancouver meetup that was the,best,meetup we've ever hosted we love you,guys so much,so thank you for hosting us and thank,you for coming back today,um a really cool thing i've been doing,lately if anybody's heard of digital,marketer out in austin texas they're one,of the most,influential institutes in the world for,marketing,so this is like the the top people who,teach the top strategies in the world,about marketing we've been uh friends,with digital market for a very long time,we're a certified partner agency,digital marketer and in may they brought,me on as like a coach,so i'm coaching their subscribers on a,lot of the strategies we're gonna be,walking through today,so i just want to give a massive shout,out to digital marketer because i'm,going to show you all about this,customer value journey methodology that,we adopted from our amazing friends over,there,all right so let's jump into it let's,jump into it,at our agency like yeah we like we love,merchants we love you guys we,build great friendships with the,partners that we work with and we,are very methodical with how we approach,business with everyone and we usually,look at a business when they come to us,and we want to know which stage of the,business are they at,and these are usually like the three,buckets that will categorize people in,are they at a crawl so are they just,born,and they're starting to begin to crawl,and they're picking up with a little bit,of momentum,so when we work with the crawl business,they usually come to us and they're like,you know they can't crack that one two,thousand dollars a month,so in all these scenarios customer,acquisition and driving ads and getting,new customers in the door is so,important,but it's very um scary not scary but you,got to be very,methodical and careful with customer,acquisition at the crawl stage,because you need to invest in,acquisition so if you're not doing it,right,you can like sink and hurt yourself so,when you're a crawling little baby you,got to be really really methodical and,careful and look at a lot of data,so that you're growing in the right,direction some of the clients that we,work with they come to us and they're at,a walk so they're already kind of doing,like 25 to 40k a month,and they're kind of just plateauing and,we're like okay so they already have the,customer acquisition thing going on,they're already investing in ads and,traffic,but then they're kind of plateauing so,we're like what can we do to scale them,up at a different level,and we start implementing a lot of the,strategies we're gonna show you today so,like every,thing that i'm showing you today is a,very similar approach that we would take,to any kind of,these three businesses but the third,kind like,there's a lot of companies that come to,us and they're already running like,they're already winning marathons and,they're doing like 100 or 120 grand a,month,and they're starting to plateau and we,deploy a lot of these exact strategies,that we're going to talk about today,and we get them to like the 200 range,and even higher,so the big takeaway from this slide is,that no matter what stage your business,is at we've been to a lot of shopify,meetups,we talk to people at these meetups we,get to hang out,we build friendships and we build,community and we know that everybody's,at a different stage,so don't think that you know i'm just,getting started doesn't apply to me or,i'm oh i'm way ahead doesn't apply to me,we're gonna be talking about big picture,e-commerce strategy and a lot of these,strategies will apply to every kind of,business,it just depends on what your priorities,are at each stage so you may prioritize,things a little bit differently all,right so let's talk about big picture,e-commerce success that's what i was,just kind of touching,on what does it look like okay so who's,ever seen,the movie field of dreams i think it was,like in the 80s and 90s kevin costner,they had this famous line and it's like,if you build it they will come,he has a cornfield and he gets these,whispers in his head and it's like if,you build a baseball diamond the,baseball players will show up,you just got to build it and they'll,come well we have this thing,in the e-commerce space and it's if you,build it they likely will not come,where is everybody and that's not to,discourage anybody,but the truth is you can't expect that,you have,this amazing product you're gonna post,it on your store,and thousands of people are gonna show,up the next day and buy,if your product is that unbelievable,awesome congratulations,that's awesome but most of the time we,have to build a strategy,of how we're going to reach and attract,the right type of buyers to our website,how we're going to get them to buy from,the first time how we're going to build,average order value how we're going to,build customer lifetime value and retain,those customers for a long time,and how are we going to motivate those,best customers to get us more referrals,we need to kind of plan this roadmap far,in advance of ever wasting a bunch of,money on marketing,we don't want to invest tons of ads we,don't want to invest tons in,in branding before we kind of like dial,in this sales and marketing machine,so the sales and marketing machine i,touched on it very briefly in the,beginning here it's the customer,value journey we want to map out eight,stages of the customer relationship,and plan how we're gonna advance the,best kind of buyers through each of,these eight stages,and get them to become a first-time,buyer lifetime buyer and a forever,lifelong customer so you can see at the,very far left this is like a very,freezing cold,audience they don't know who you are so,the whole strategy there is we know,that that awesome buyer is out there but,they're cold they've never heard of us,so we know they have a specific pain or,passion point we know that our product,can transform them,and speak to their aspirational state,but we gotta go find them and we gotta,track them to our website,and if once they go through all these,eight stages which i'm gonna go through,in a second here,you know they they see who you are they,get to know you they get your contact,information they buy,and they go through this whole sequence,then they come out a raving fan of your,business,so we know that with marketing the,biggest expense is getting new customers,in the door,so when we invest in traffic and we,invest in getting new customers we want,to give the,utmost care to offering value to those,customers at every single touch point,and that's what i'm going to show you,right now so that we're going to look at,the customer,value journey from two lenses the first,lens is the customer,what is the customer's experience as,they're going through this journey okay,so at the very first stage here at the,wear stage,this is the first time that they,discover that you can get them from a,pain,to a game so they have something that's,keeping them up at night,or they have some dreams and aspirations,maybe it's fashion,maybe it's a like medical problem it,could be anything anything that you're,selling,it has to speak to a pain and passion,point and this is the first time that,they discover,that you can get them from pain to gain,so they're immediately get their,attention,and they're listening now at the engage,stage this is when they get a deeper,sense of trust and familiarity with,their brand,so they they learned that you can get,them from pain to gain now they want to,do a little bit,more research they want to like get to,know you is this something that is,actually going to help me they want to,like,scope you out do a little bit of,research at the subscribe stage,they're like okay all the boxes check,out i'm,interested in continuing the,conversation so subscribers like okay,i want to know more i'm in to do some,more stuff at convert,this is the first time the customer,commits to giving the relationship a try,they've kind of like this is when it,changes from kind of like tire kicking,to like okay i'm gonna i'm gonna date,this company i'm gonna go on a date,i i like what i saw the conversation,went well what nothing was creeping me,out,i gave him my phone number i'm ready to,buy for the first time over here we'll,talk about that a little bit more,but this convert is so so important and,we're going to talk a lot about it in a,second here,at the excite stage they experience the,value that you're offering,and they become a believer so your whole,brand promise is about transformation,i'm gonna get you to this aspirational,state,at the excite stage this is the first,time they experience your product,and experience the first step in their,full transformation and the lights come,on,and they're like wow this brand is on to,something,this product is amazing okay and then we,go to the next stage here,back up one now they commit to the first,court offer,that they're all in now they've tried it,they're believers they're all in,and you go up this ascension ladder this,is your business model in e-commerce,to build a sustainable e-commerce store,that's profitable we need to focus on,reselling to happy customers and,increasing customer lifetime value,you're gonna you know it's a really,really big hamster wheel if you're just,trying to find the next new customer to,buy once once once,big customer acquisition costs you got,to focus on retain those customers,selling them more products that complete,the full transformation,i know apple's a very obvious example,but like you buy the airpods you buy the,watch it fits my whole like,wearable technology fitness lifestyle,they've completely transformed the way i,live now,and at the very top of the ascension,ladder uh the customer sticks around for,a lifetime and that's what we're always,going for,when you plan your marketing campaign,you're always thinking about getting,that customer to stick around for a,lifetime,and then they're gonna at the advocate,stage they're gonna vote for you and say,yes stamp of approval i believe in this,company i will give a testimonial,at the promote stage now they're,actively telling their friends and,family,network about how you transform them so,if you deliver on your brand promise and,you get them from that pain to that game,they're going to go and boast about it,and that's what you want to do with,every single customer that comes in the,door,now let's look at the e-commerce tactics,along the customer journey,that you as a business owner are,intentionally deploying to advance the,customer,along these stages at the aware stage,you're going to be doing things like,cold facebook and instagram ads,you're going to be doing ads and getting,in front of people for the very first,time and saying i know your pain,if you can drill into that pain so,deeply they're gonna you're gonna get,their attention,it could be with google shopping ads a,lot of phenomenal merchants do an,amazing job with affiliate marketing,influencer marketing how can you get in,front of,affiliates who have similar customer,segments in their network that are not,in competition with you,so affiliate marketing another way to,get in front of your customer segment,all those avenues are leading to the,engage stage,this is where it's a landing page it's,going to either be a pre-sell page or a,product page and this is where you're,going to set up retargeting pixels,so you can initiate some warm,retargeting ads if they leave their,website,a pre-sale page it's kind of like a,long-form educational page that's,teaching people,on your value proposition and your use,cases and why to buy a product page is,the more common one that you see,everywhere,product pages like lowering the risk you,see the guarantees you see the offer,this is where people purchase so you,want to preempt any objections to the,sale here you want to show lots of,testimonials,you want to show lots of different,angles of your products different media,really robust product page subscribe,stage okay so now this is like,at the very minimum if we invested all,this money into marketing,and we got all this traffic and,somebody's gonna leave we need to get,their contact information before they,leave,so a lot of ways we do it is like opt-in,to access an offer,and i'll tell you any in e-commerce our,ultimate goal is the conversion,we want people to go on that product,page and buy so we might not disrupt,them,and ask them for their email but at the,very minimum if they don't buy and,they're about to leave the website,site maybe we have an exit intent pop-up,that's like hey before you go,10 off your card order today so at the,very minimum we want to build that email,list we have a saying here at social,life the money's in the list you always,want to grow that email list from people,who are visiting your website and once,they opt in and you have their email,you're gonna start that's where email,marketing kicks in in full force and you,want to enter them into your,pre-purchased workflows you want to,nurture them until they buy and convert,for the first time,you want to build really robust awesome,abandoned cart workflows that nurture,people until they buy,and like i said all these roads are,leading to the convert stage here,you want them to commit to a first-time,purchase and this is a front-end,offer we want to package up something,that they would be silly to pass,up on now a lot of times like we're,talking about black friday here right,now right we're talking about black,friday,it doesn't always have to be like 50 off,my full,site we do all kinds of different offers,you can get really creative,i actually just hosted a eight hour,workshop with digital marketer in their,lab,at an eight-hour workshop and it covered,54 different offers along the customer,journey,and at the front end offer here it could,be things like free shipping offers it,could be free gift with purchase offers,it could be like free shipping once you,reach a certain threshold offer,it can be like you know all kinds of,different offers um and then,but the goal here is that you want them,to commit during that first visit that's,the goal,if we're gonna invest in traffic we need,people to buy as soon as they get there,so we bundle up something awesome and,then,right then and there we're thinking,about increasing aov the average order,value,what can we bundle cross sell and upsell,to increase that order volume,the very first time and get close to,profitability as soon as possible,and at the excite stage so now we're,thinking about like pre-purchase,email upsell they bought but we say to,them hey we're about to ship out your,products,you want to add something else no extra,shipping it's another opportunity to,upsell,but what can you do on the white glove,treatment side as well this is the first,time a customer interacts with your,brand they get the package in the mail,what does it come in does it come with a,nice little note you got to think about,really really making that,wow factor happen at the excite stage so,all the lights come on for them,and at the ascend stage now you're going,to sell your core product now you're,going to like,at the convert stage the idea is like,you sell a lower ticket item that's not,as profitable so like,with the whole intent to acquire new,customers that you could sell your full,price core,offers to later okay so you sell your,core product here for the first time,and then you're gonna be sending out,like broadcast emails clayville calls,them campaign emails,where it's like flash sales or product,launches or all kinds of things,throughout the duration of the customer,relationship you may want to build like,a really good loyalty program especially,if your business has a lot of,competition,you want to retain those customers with,a loyalty program and ultimately this,top of the descent stage is maximizing,customer lifetime value that's the,number one goal with e-commerce and,we've got to think about that,at the very beginning advocate stage we,want to go and get testimonials and,reviews,we want to get testimonials that we can,put on these product pages down here,so when new customers come in the door,it lowers their risk it builds trust,immediately when they see happy buyers,who have bought from you in the past,and the next one here at promote stage,how do you incentivize your advocates to,go and refer you to people just like,them,you could do referral marketing programs,you can do customer social sharing,like share on facebook and we'll give,you a reward friends and family codes,all kind of ways to incentivize your,best customers,well for you okay now one more view of,the customer value journey,it's all about growing your online store,profitably and sustainably okay so,let's talk about black friday for a,second if you look at this aware engaged,subscribe stage,this is expensive activities you're,committing time resources money,into launching ads building content,creating landing pages,building these email workflows it's a,lot of work building that engine it i,trust me we know,it's a ton of work so we ultimately are,investing here,in customer acquisition but we need we,absolutely,need those traffic like those visitors,to buy when they get there,so this customer acquisition strategy is,all about presenting some,offer where the goal is to offset the,traffic cost,we want to get as close to break even or,better as possible,that's our first goal right here we can,get profitable awesome,okay and then after that everything you,do with that customer you acquired,is more profitable okay you want to get,as close to break even or better here,break better would be amazing but over,here there's no customer acquisition,cost or very little,like if you're doing emails maybe,there's a cost to market to those,subscribers,but there's not a big hefty advertising,cost there's no big,customer acquisition cost associated,with that customer because they already,bought they're already in your network,so it's a lot easier to resell to them,and when you resell to them again and,again again it's a higher profit margin,so that's why like everyone gets so,scared of investing in ads,but it's not as scary if you're thinking,about the full big,picture where you're advertising to,acquire new customers who you can resell,to later,and then they can give you testimonials,that's going to lead to more new,customers buying,and they can promote and get new,customers just like them in your door,okay so black friday cyber monday,priority number one,it's to acquire many new customers who,we're going to resell to later,there's a really fun statistic that,floats around our office,80 to 90 percent of people that buy on,black friday and cyber monday,already know your brand so they're a,warm audience they already know who you,are they've been to your website or,they've fought,so we we want to actually start warming,up audiences,to your black friday campaign far in,advance like september,that's why we're hosting this event so,early on it's now is the time to start,warming up,audiences and you can get them on to,like early access black friday lists,and then once black friday comes that's,when you can start converting all that,warm traffic that you've invested in,warming up for this,big moment okay so priority number one,acquiring a bunch of new customers,that are gonna be in your community,forever that you can resell to forever,priority number two you're gonna have a,ton of customers that are already in,your database,and you're gonna wanna increase the,customer lifetime value of them,you want to resell to them at this end,of the year to increase the amount they,spent with you,that year so that's a big opportunity to,grow customer lifetime value and,yearly revenue from that customer so,those are our two big,priorities with black friday my,colleagues dan and simon are going to,kind of come out here a little bit later,they're going to get very specific with,a few of these strategies they're going,to give you some really good takeaways,that you can apply,and i'm about to bring cassandra in here,but before i do i want to tell you about,something really cool,so our agency is very busy at black,friday,like last year it like our black friday,is like the olympics for us we're,training really hard we're training with,our clients we're testing new,experiments,we have only a certain bandwidth to take,on a lot of new clients so that's not,our goal,our goal is not to acquire a bunch of,customers in black friday but our goal,is to help our merchant community,as much as possible so this year we have,been working really hard,and we're launching three awesome,courses,that we can help as many merchants as,possible have their biggest,holiday season of all time and we're,really really really excited this is the,first time that we've announced it we've,just launched the website like a week,ago,all of us have been working hard on,putting this together and the way it,works is like we have three programs on,the far right here you'll see this,implementer,this implementer one is phenomenal,basically it's six,two hour live training sessions where,we're gonna give you like,we're gonna give you templates,worksheets for your full automated email,series,campaign offers facebook ads google,shopping ads showing you how to build,high converting landing pages,and we have six sessions there's like,four in september there's two in october,and then in addition to that this is the,key with the implementer is you're gonna,meet with us,every single week for group coaching,calls and we're going to put our most,advanced team members dan and simon,there to coach you and you can ask them,about technical implementation questions,you can ask them about like you know any,troubles you're having with,implementation,and they're going to guide you through,it and the whole goal like our whole,mission is to help you have,your biggest black friday cyber monday,of all time with this,and the cost as you can see it's like,475 a month for four months,you're going to need some ad spend in,addition always keep that in mind if,that's like a big hefty commitment we,have,more programs we kind of want to like,build something for our merchant,community give back and help as many,people as we can,the builder one here in the middle this,is like,this one's gonna be two two hour live,training sessions or this or sorry,there's four you could do one two three,four,in september so four live training,sessions where we're gonna show you the,exact same things offer strategies,landing page email,advertising and then we have two,follow-up group group coaching,one middle of october one middle of,november make sure you're on track we,want to go through the weeds with you,we want you to go apply these email and,offer strategies and advertising,strategies,and we want to look at the data and,we're going to tell you how to adapt it,and we want to make this a phenomenal,campaign for you,and then the last one over here it's,like we call this one the last minute,this is like 30 days out from black,friday if you're like what do i do,do i just start advertising on black,friday no we have a playbook for the 30,days before black friday,that we'll walk you through and we have,one there's there's two,two strategy sessions for two hours each,and then we have one group coaching date,on november 10th so we're going to look,at everything that you implemented make,sure everything's in order make sure you,have the best,holiday campaign of all time uh we're,really excited to announce that we hope,to work with many of you on this ivana,is going to share,the link to these courses at some point,here and you'll,i won't go through all these but like,the key ingredients to these i kind of,touched on them already we're doing live,training sessions,so we're going to show you all the,proven promotion and offer strategies,that we've implemented over the years,we're going to give you access to email,campaign workflows high converting land,page templates,top performing advertising playbooks the,group coaching is like the real value,add here,you're going to meet with like the two,of our top people at our agency that are,just going to like be there to commit to,you and make sure that this is really,successful here,you have any implementation questions we,can answer and we're going to stay on,track and hold you accountable honestly,this is,to us our biggest measure of success,this is the olympics,if you want to be on our olympic,training team we need you winning gold,so we will hold you accountable and we,are going to overly commit to making,that happen,and then the third thing resources but,any one of these programs if you want to,join,uh you'll have access to a private,facebook group that's just for the bfcm,group,and you can learn from each other this,part's really invaluable we're getting a,lot of,good feedback from that strategy and of,course we're going to provide you a lot,of worksheets and templates and,everything will be recorded so if you,missed a session we can always send it,off to you,your instructions for that program is my,last slide i'm going to pass over to,cassandra,it's us i'm going to be there teaching,uh dan,and simon who you're going to hear from,are going to be teaching and ivana who,you're also going to be here from,hearing from are going to be teaching so,the four of us are going to be there,committed to making it work we hope to,see you there,and the last thing uh vaughan is going,to share a little link,this is a free resource if you don't,want to take one of those programs we,welcome you to join our merchant mastery,general facebook group,and this is a free resource there's like,800 people in there,any time you have a question we will,eventually get to it so this is like we,have people from shopify and they're,privy and,recart recharging like all these apps,and so many merchants from all over the,world,it's becoming a really good resource a,free resource where you can go in there,ask questions and we'll get you some,help,you

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