Ecommerce ft. Robbie Fitzwater

 You're listening to the Radcast.
 If it's radical, we cover it.
 Here's your host, Ryan Alford.
 Hey guys, what's up?
 Ryan Alford, welcome to the latest edition of the Radcast and the first in an e-commerce
 series that we're just starting in.
 We thought, you know, who else?
 I mean, I can't think of anyone else, Robbie, that I would rather have on for the start
 of the e-commerce series than Robbie Fitzwater, good to have you, Robbie.
 It's good to be here and I can't think of anybody else.
 I don't want to have on for the start of the e-commerce series.
 Yeah, it's a blast to be back.
 I always love this and yeah, get a talk shop about marketing like there's something
 better.
 Yeah.
 Well, Robbie is a professor at Clemson in digital marketing.
 He's been on the episode a lot.
 He's been a mainstay.
 It will be a mainstay for us as a wealth of knowledge.
 He consults and is kind of our go-to strategist for e-commerce and all things digital marketing.
 So, you know, I'm going to fluff you up, Robbie, because hey, you deserve it, man.
 You know what?
 Ryan, I'm going to come out of here.
 Somebody after this is going to have to take me down a peg or two.
 Somebody like Mike, you guys can be way up here when it needs to be like casually down
 here down here.
 But I appreciate it.
 It's a, again, working with good people and had on fun projects.
 So it's always a fun thing and workings like solving puzzles.
 It's always something new.
 I know exactly.
 So, the state of the state of e-commerce and really, you know, I think, you know, we talked
 pre-episode making this a really functional and tactical discussion and strategic.
 It's not just tactics, but about what brands and companies that might be listening can
 really take away as we lead into the holidays and key opportunities for brands within e-commerce.
 You know, using your perspective on a lot of kind of current projects, stuff that we're
 doing here, it radical together and some other projects that I have going on.
 But wanted to really just tie, you know, kind of dive in from a real day-to-day standpoint
 of things that people can be looking at.
 So just glad to have you on.
 Yeah.
 It should be fun.
 And like, again, kicking around ideas, it's what I'm here for.
 And again, you guys probably are seeing it too, just kind of like that kind of weird
 lead up to the holidays.
 Everybody is kind of thinking about what they're going to do because it's going to be different
 than most other years.
 And for a lot of organizations, if they have a brick-and-mortar location in an e-commerce
 presence, they may be wondering how they can transfer more their revenue or more their
 volume into the e-commerce space because they may be projecting a little bit lighter sales
 on the brick-and-mortar side.
 And trying to plan for that, it's probably better to start right now than October and
 November because September's already here and we're like, we're going to be halfway
 through September soon.
 So a lot of things thinking about is like, how do you get ahead of a lot of that work?
 And really, thanks strategically about how am I going to plan for the holidays where
 we're going to have something really effective and seamless and smooth during the holidays.
 But also for the e-commerce presence, but also how do we take what we do on the brick-and-mortar
 side that kind of differentiates us?
 And how do we bring it into that e-commerce space where we can use what people look at
 as our core value as a great differentiator even in the digital space?
 So how do we take our in-person shopping experience where we may have great salespeople who
 help you with style consultations, with application of makeup, all of those things?
 How do we take all that great knowledge that we have in-house and bring it to them in
 a digital experience?
 Because we're not going to necessarily have them visiting in person in the same way
 they may have in the past.
 And thinking about that ahead of time where you can plan a strategy where you're not spending
 a lot of money on ads right in the middle of the holidays when you are when ad costs are
 going way up and trying to get ahead of that audience building.
 So like kind of like three phases of it that I've thought about and kind of work through
 with groups is how do you think about that first transition from where you were at brick
 on the brick and mortar side to more volume on the e-commerce side?
 And kind of going back to where what makes you unique and what makes you valuable.
 Like offering opportunities for scheduling consultations for high ticket items and giving
 people the chance to purchase those items and get the high touch handholding and the
 like expert consultations they need for those high dollar transactions.
 And that's like taking where you would normally have the in-person to like how do you schedule
 a private zoom with one of our sales team, schedule a private zoom with one of our style
 consultants?
 And I feel like the groups that are doing that and starting to think and get ahead of
 that are going to be the ones that are going to be able to win a lot of those holiday purchases
 because people don't want to go into the store but they still want to have that same empowering
 experience.
 And at end I literally was reading this morning Ulta their revenues down 95% year over
 a year but their e-commerce sales were up 200% and you said make up but perfect example
 and of that exact scenario you're laying out.
 Built their business on brick and mortar for the most part they have e-commerce there
 that's been in the background not a terrible experience but they need to be doing exactly
 what you're saying because again they got to write that ship.
 I mean it's compensating for the major loss that they're getting in store but also it
 gives them an opportunity to kind of scale that experience like take your rock star like
 who was like the best person in Ulta?
 How do you take that rock star and like put them like give them a spotlight to shine and
 really allow them to kind of scale that experience in so many ways and then allow people to dive
 deeper into like this really intimate experience in the store that they would normally get in
 the store on a zoom call and you're going to have less people just sitting around kind
 of waiting for what to waiting for something to do because you're going to have people
 queued up kind of wanting more and wanting more insight that's where kind of that real
 magic is going to happen and then you can understand what products you're working with
 them that you think they would enjoy it what products they made what products are going
 to fit for them what products are not and if maybe if you're companies sophisticated enough
 you're putting that into a CRM where you can keep track of hey you were looking at this
 you liked this and then follow up with them afterwards so there's lots of easy opportunities
 that opens up but it kind of allows those businesses to transition from where they were
 so dependent on brick and mortar to where they have a lot more differentiated differentiated
 positioning in the market and they're probably a lot stronger and being able to handle
 they can weather a larger storm now next time something like this may come around.
 Do you think brick and mortar thing I mean you know while we're kind of down that rabbit
 hole it just strikes me that I don't want to say 2020's loss for brick and mortar but
 I just don't see you know with COVID still around enough whether no matter how you fall
 politically or anything else and the election all the way in November you know like I don't
 think we're going to suddenly no matter what happens whether it's politically motivated
 it's obviously a real pandemic and other things happening I feel like the brick and mortar
 comeback isn't going to happen this year. No no and like 2022 that the golden age for brick and
 mortar but right now it's not and like not plan and planning for it and like planning and hoping
 it's going to be is like you can hope it like that's that's not a strategy and controlling what
 you can control and what what you can improve on is probably going to set those groups up for
 success later on too because great you have a great brick and mortar presence but how is your
 e-commerce presence and how does that transition. So you're doing the work you'd already be doing
 you're just doing it five years ahead of time and right now again like we've talked about in
 previous episodes of this this just is accelerated so many things that you've just got to prepare
 for this in the same way you were working on getting an e-commerce presence in March this is
 the way you're planning on handling your holiday shopping in in in September for the holidays.
 And I love that that idea that you had you know with finding your rock stores because I could
 literally see you know the experience in e-com being like and not just one rock star but think about
 you know we'll use all those the examples but you know they set up like their 10 rock stars that
 that cover a lot of demographics and segments you know and they become your not that is your
 digital sales risk but kind of you're just digital personalities you know that you leverage
 on site in social media you have you know some kind of interactive chatting that takes place
 whether it's zoom calls whether it's within the platform if you have that set up again leverage
 technology that's out there and on the shelf if you need to to make the holiday happen and think
 about it long term is within one app one app one experience but again how do you tee up those
 segments in those those rock stars across the stores in the brick and mortar I think that could be
 huge for a lot of different segments. So like there's suddenly taste makers there suddenly like you
 suddenly have a group of influencers working for you with your business who you you've got you've
 given a platform and a power like that's just a win win win for everybody and the people that love
 doing that like they're gonna love doing that and getting to say hey you may not be helping 10
 people a day in the store but you're gonna help hundreds of people thousands of people outside
 that you may not never even realize like millions of people potentially like like especially in the
 cosmetic space like those the views of those that content goes so astronomically high but those
 are so easy to do because like they're just extending kind of what they do in person to a digital
 space and hopefully they have fun with it just as much those are the people that really kind of
 care about it and passionate about it that just love helping people and it doesn't matter if it's
 face to face or online so that those are where some really opportunities are and especially during
 the holidays like doing that early so you're everybody's gonna be doing a lot more sales-related
 messaging during the holidays you need a lot more content to break that up so you don't just
 seem like a used car lot like sale sale sale sale sale you need some content to kind of have in
 between so it doesn't it's not so heavy-handed that you just kind of burn out your audiences it's
 it's kind of that's gonna be another piece it's like finding a balance because you really can't
 just say all sales messaging like the holiday weekend like like like Friday Cyber Monday weekend
 there is gonna be more messaging than you probably ever normally have during during the year
 but you can't go sales sale sale heavy when you don't have any content to kind of break it up
 because everybody just gets overwhelmed by that flood and when you're the person that can have like
 some sales messaging add some value sales messaging add value that's a group that's gonna win
 because they're not so heavy-handed and they're kind of still building relationship while still
 kind of extending the extending that communication and relationship with a brand so like planning
 for more content around that time because you need it and your holiday gift guides those are great
 to use around that time and like again on the email side I do this with a lot of groups is like
 planning for lots of stuff that we're gonna be able to use and probably recycle even around that time
 but you need a strong base of content to consistently be messaging with because everybody's gonna
 get so burnt out by Friday afternoon with with sales messaging the by Saturday morning you better
 be leading with content because that's what's gonna break through the noise at that point in time
 and how you can differentiate yourself by not just being so heavy-handed
 yep and you know how many times that having you know been experienced this at different levels
 either directly working in retail working with retail clients or larger brands
 I can count I mean I can't even count on two hands how many times they've stressed over
 the ability to scale their best people in their best stores because you know I can
 Sam who does awesome at the XX location I wish I had a hundred of them
 well here's your opportunity to scale you know it's like it's it you know this is how you again
 like you said can I serve 10 or 20 customers on a store how do you leverage Sam to now sell
 you know hundreds you know independent on the brand and this isn't just exclusive to make up
 and alter this could be an indie company any vertical you know for leveraging your best people
 so I like I like makeup and cosmetics as an example though because makeups and cosmetics is like
 this um it the experience is so amazing and the lifetime value of those customers is so high
 and that's so much where some amazing innovations happening like I'm I'm I'm a man I don't
 wear makeup but I follow makeup companies because they're doing so many amazing things like Glossier
 like don't even get me started I will go on at Glossier like rampage like my wife uses Glossier
 now because like I talk about it so much um because they're amazing and I'm like I'm like I'm like
 I'm like send me their email send me their emails and they're brilliant like it's awesome it's
 human it's interactive and everything they do is just just spot on amazing but that's where so much
 of innovations happening because it's a dog fight for that high lifetime value purchaser who
 wants to want something really unique really kind of the speaks to them as a person
 but they're hard to win over so you've got to set up you've got to consistently elevate your game
 as far as experience goes and you have so many other players that are doing it well that
 have deep pockets that want to do it kind of that same level and I think that's where kind of
 it drives in so much innovation in that industry same thing in supplements you know I mean
 in distance supplements it's very similar it's it's it's it's it's it's like I love the business
 wars podcast I listen to business wars podcast a lot because like Pepsi needs a coke needs a Pepsi
 to make it better like it like Nike needs an adidas to make them better and those industries that
 are pushing themselves really far are the ones that are really innovative and doing great things
 and that's kind of where I think a lot of people can learn something from like where do you take a
 non-relevant industry to your your particular case and how do you borrow some of the magic that
 they're doing in market that they're having a marketing and bring it into your own because that's
 where those like real wins are going to come from not from looking at your competition and seeing
 what they're doing and even in one of my classes for like digital audits I have them pull in
 like pull in different accounts or different businesses that they can use as inspiration for
 in a non non parallel industry that they can use inspiration for improving a given business
 that they're focusing on. Yeah I love it so transitioning a bit to and we've kind of blending
 things in here but there are things that you would you know recommend as we're coming up on the
 holidays obviously with the brick and mortar overlay we just talked about but any tactical advice
 you know for companies or people listening like you know as the holidays are here you need to be
 preparing you know where would you where would you counsel people kind of listening as how to
 really maximize the holidays are coming up given the climate I mean there's so many kind of
 variables going you've got the election you've got the covid climb you've got other things and none
 of those are crutches but you know with all of that in play what's your counsel to people is they
 kind of think about ramping up for the holidays on the e-commerce side build your lists get your
 list ready to go and that's like that's the yes your email list probably email list your SMS list
 your retargeting lists um those lists are going to be your best friend come November because
 you don't want to be getting you don't want to be paying for new people coming in the door
 for the first time during the holidays your ad prices are going to be so high and astronomical you
 can't rely on that first time purchaser so how do you take your current lists really serving your
 email audience and really make them get them on board with what you're doing and again get them
 ready to purchase because they're probably going to be making their their kind of like share of
 wallet decisions early so be messaging around the holidays and getting getting them to opt in
 early and making sure you're taking care of your your repeat customers like they're your best
 customers because they are and getting your list ready so I tactically trying to build a pre a
 VIP list ahead of time so starting in starting in early November messaging and saying hey we are
 kind of like we know everybody's preparing for the holidays we wanted to offer this as an
 opportunity um sign up here for our VIP for our VIP holiday list for an extra discount on
 addition to the holiday savings you're going to get and early access to all of our holiday savings
 so like to both those things in conjunction making them really feel like rock stars but you also
 have your opt-in audience who are playing like hey I already have like this much of my budget
 that I'm going to spend I'm going to a lot 25% here and I'm making that decision way early on
 because I know that that's going to be an easy case and I'm going to get the most savings
 and the most value from that because like again you kind of have to play the discount game
 I try not to play the discount game during the most of the year but this is the time of year
 that that's kind of what you need to do we again in the states we've trained everybody to expect
 high discounts around that time of year and that's when they make purchases but for those discounts
 you're also going to be losing margin and that's when you don't want to be paying that high
 acquisition cost when you're on on a low margin sale so for the business case it doesn't make a
 lot of sense and when you can get those people opted in early you can build your pre-order list
 and by the time you actually send them their codes they're ready to go and they're going to be like
 again purchasing right away so getting those lists built early and building a VIP list ahead of time
 messaging your customers with like what what you're going to have available what you're really going
 to what what's going to make your your holiday holiday event unique and that could be like a
 bigger discount or that could just be kind of a free gift to loyal customers around that time
 so taking care of your best customers and then finding a way to get them to purchase afterwards
 so like I I'll take Klavio build a bounce back flow where they if they purchase once within the
 Black Friday Cyber Monday window you have a flow that basically serves them an email right after
 two days after Cyber Monday that says hey just in case you missed anything during all of the
 holiday madness here's a discount for like again probably five to ten percent less than
 than your deepest Black Friday discount but here's a discount just in case you need to get
 anything extra so you can possibly get an extra sale out of that so there's a lot of tactical
 things you can do and then planning on for your for your audience lists get your audiences built
 early use content to get people to your site so you can possibly retarget during the holidays
 because those retargeting lists are going to be a lot cheaper than paying for the straight-up
 acquisition on something else so your retargeting list is going to be your best friend around that time
 even if somebody hasn't purchased that's still going to be a more profitable transaction for you
 than a a bloated acquisition cost of a new purchaser I got a good one for you okay I'm a company
 and I've got a great social following but I haven't been doing a great job of getting my list
 together I'm behind on my CRM tactics but I've got thousands of followers on Facebook and
 Instagram how do I how do I transition followers into my list okay and that because I'm coming up
 it I'm teaming up because you know we're we're dealing with this with some brands I think that's
 a common challenge for brands that are a little behind with building their customer lists even though
 they feel like you know they're on those rented platforms as we always call them you know yeah you're
 renting space you don't own it yeah so taking those lists and bringing them over granted a big
 follower count is and how long that follower count has been around like that doesn't that those
 are going to be large variables that play into it but again you should hopefully be able to
 get transition probably half of your active audience right now and I'm seeing half of your active
 audience being like feel that comment like comment share engage with your brands continuously
 you should be able to transition a large portion then like you're naturally not going to have like
 your whole audience subscribe to your email list but transitioning is many as you can over
 around the holidays like planning on it early how do you give them the same incentive like offer
 them offer them offer to treat them like your best customers because they've been part of your
 community saying hey we know the sounds we don't want to be we don't want to be too forward and we
 don't want to be to present presumptuous but we think you're some of our best customers like how do
 we how do we kind of get them over saying like hey here's an extra an extra discount on top of
 what we're already going to be doing for our for our consistent holiday sale because they probably
 come to your holiday sales before so offering them a higher level of incentive it's going to offer
 them a reason to get into an opt-in list and like again you can we kind of been trained you don't
 have to like drive them but get them over with some kind of incentive that could be just like like
 early early access to holiday discounts not like a higher level discount but giving them some
 high level of incentive that's going to give them kind of a financial reason or some level
 of like exclusivity that's going to make it unique enough for them maybe saying like hey I'm part
 of the like the the we'll take like we talk about soap club like I'm part of the soap club VIP
 list like I am going to have like access to the most exclusive soaps this holiday season because
 I opted into this list so if you give them kind of some reason for a financial benefit or some
 reason for exclusivity that's enough incentive to pull them over don't be doing a ton of sales
 messaging when you're trying to do that that's a conversion itself getting them from one channel
 to the other but find a way to sort of mix that into your content mix where it's like the GaryVee
 jab jab jab right hook like that's what you're asking for in terms of a conversion because when
 you're planning on using your social channels to convert a ton you're not going to get the return
 you'd really like because if you're too sales heavy you're going to have people disengage you're
 not going to have a you're not going to have an active active fan base or active community but if
 you were able to kind of do it judiciously get them over to an email list and then try and get
 them to convert to a lot more accurate way of like taking them down the customer journey that
 they're going to understand because it's like building a relationship you've got to kind of you
 have to go on your first date you got to go on a second date you got to have a first case you
 got to do all those things like just look at it in the same case but planning on building that into
 your marketing cadence after the holidays too so you're continually building your lists and treating
 them like the rock stars they are because like again the the rest like the the service industry like
 has known this for years like your best customers you take care of them because they're your best
 customers and they bring in so much money so much revenue for your business so
 how do you rule out the red carpet for them from social to email to conversion
 love it good good and again I used to be a again I still am a very big proponent for social
 like I I have found it I have founded rationality around social right now because
 I emails closer to the value chain than social is in a lot of cases I spent the majority of my
 career in social but the same rules apply it's just one step closer to the value chain it's like
 how do you get people to come back and purchase again yeah exactly and you know it's so funny you
 use the relationship comparison but it's true how many brands want to get married on day one
 with their customers and you know hey you got a date you got to yeah and have that first kiss you
 know and if somebody if somebody wants to get married on day one you like like what advice would
 you give your friend like hey I want somebody wants to get married on day one like go down
 hey run for the hills that person is crazy like that's probably the case but again
 not thinking about everything is like a value transaction like like earn earn credibility
 earn trust earn respect and be able to like build it over time because it's probably a slower game
 for some some people and some people like if they're bottom of the funnel like if they just need to
 make a transaction that's great you serve to purpose you met you you had a transaction on Google
 shopping but if you're able to kind of build that over time and and earn those earn earn that revenue
 they're probably going to come back and they're probably going to come back again and they're probably
 going to tell their friends and where your 80-20 rule kind of plays plays into this like that 20%
 is going to be your 80% later on so if you can turn more more people into that 20% that
 base row is really a lot bigger and I'm just a believer in that yeah so um you know I know
 we've both dealt with some transition in conversions from different platforms and is
 you know as e-commerce goes um you know and being a podcast that tries to show uh no preferential
 treatment but I think we've both learned that making some decisions on the front end for brands
 or as an agency working on behalf of a brand is just vital um in the platform they choose
 based on the goals just based on the realities um and both kind of you know us being you know
 Aris being a Shopify partner now um I don't mind you know you know touting them and and the growth
 they've seen and had and the integrations and everything else but um having dealt with a little
 bit of a painful not painful it's been successful but maybe painful for the brand you're working on
 love to get your perspective on on that so so yeah I was again before the show we were talking
 about kind of transitioning in migrations and recently had a group move over from a big
 commerce site to Shopify and was a really exciting example of of what happens when things work
 smoothly work consistently and kind of how it raises at the level of every other bit of their
 marketing so again you could have a great marketing you get a great marketing on the organic side
 on the email side on the paid side but if you're bringing everybody into a subpar experience
 they're probably still going to convert but if you can give them a great experience that they're
 going to convert at twice the level um that's a real win for everybody and building it building a
 platform on a building your operations on a stable platform is huge so that's like where Shopify
 is growing and expanding um that's kind of one of your biggest advantages is like you you may not
 have that like personal touch with every Shopify rep and they do do a lot to work to scale that um
 but they've solved so many problems already and they know kind of what problems retailers and merchants
 fall into and they're able to solve that so quickly because they have like a basically a solution
 system at scale and when you're on a system that's meant for high level conversions high level of
 interactivity um basically you can focus on what's going to make your business the best as opposed
 to the nuts and bolts the nuts and bolts systems of a of a system that may not necessarily work
 as efficiently um so like from big commerce to Shopify like I will never look at big commerce
 the same way it's just like like big commerce is like very very far down in my books right now
 about to the Shopify because it's just so much better than everything else um it's like we talk to
 like you're driving a you're driving a your big commerce site may look beautiful and it's and like
 kind of gorgeous um but it's under the hood it's like a golf cart engine and doesn't necessarily
 the work the same way as it is something you really want to so like if you're driving across the
 country you don't want to be driving a golf cart you want to be driving at least the sedan or
 a sedan you could you could improve on and make a little bit better and make a little bit more
 comfortable um you don't want to trigger out too much because that'll blow it on the site but like
 you get my analogy it's trying to find a way to find a way to have something to scale with you
 it's going to serve the function you want to and like going from a big commerce site to seeing a
 Shopify site convert twice the level um it's it's exciting and like again the next the next the
 next fun problem you get us all is like how do we scale our warehouse suddenly and like we can't we
 can't get enough we can't get stuff out the door fast enough and which is again a good problem to
 have but it's a it's a situation that having a and a stable platform makes a big difference and
 having a platform that converts at a high level it just makes everything better yeah um like
 sorry go for it yeah the comparison to like you said when you sign up for these no matter
 what size yours or brand it means one thing for a small business that has very little resources
 much less of medium to large brand but having to worry about when you sign up for these platforms
 is my site speed good is my shopping cart functioning properly am I converting you know like
 getting hung up from cart to to check out to shipping like if you're having to worry about that on
 your platform it is just so contrary to the nuts and bolts that you should be focusing on which
 was you know product plate pro you know price promotion everything that's that's what you need
 to be focused on not the uh you know checkout system of of the platform you that's what you're
 paying for you know to get that uh you should have you so yeah you should never be searching for bugs
 and when you're searching for bugs that's when things are a problem because you're you're trying
 to find out you're trying to dissect what's going on it's not working on your site because your
 conversion rates fall into the tubes and like I've seen like had this happen where like they're in
 like big commerce analytics would just poop out for a week or two and not come back for a little while
 and it suddenly came back up and um again why did that happen and kind of got a little bit
 radio silence from the other end but having a system that's going to be more stable and more
 secure for you is going to make a huge difference and again I'm sorry for the big commerce crew
 that it's on the other other side of this like just just cursing my name right now but it's just
 it's a tough position and when when Shopify is coming in with a platform that can do it so much
 easier and so much better it's just the the the solution that I'd look for because you you do
 focus on the things that make you create and that you get to do marketing again and when you're
 not thinking about like how to how to like make the system work um you can make your marketing
 better and you can make your operations better and you can make your user experience better um and
 that's what's going to kind of differentiate those brands because like getting having a system
 in a cart that check out that having a checkout system that works a table stakes like nobody cares
 about that um it's the things the things that you have to go kind of above and beyond to do
 they're going to be the the separate it's going to be what separates you from others in that
 industry yeah exactly and uh I don't know I we've gone through migrations from a square space
 size to an e-commerce site don't even talk to about the square space but uh you
 commerce might be it's probably better than square space yeah yeah yeah just square space for
 anyone listening and you're you're just moving into e-commerce choose wisely on the front end
 because it's twice as painful and costly to redo it the second time and and again with any
 migration like you're gonna lose like if you're a big site and you've had you you've the bigger you
 get on your organic side the more organic traffic and the more the larger portion of your revenue
 that's coming from organic um the more painful it's going to be because you're going to have some
 drop in organic with any major migration because the site Google is going to index you differently
 so the earlier you do it the more financially viable is for your business um because you're not
 going to be worrying worrying about like recovering all that organic revenue afterwards um and like in
 this case like this is a case where we had saw no organic drop really because the site was performing
 so much better that it's it's head and shoulders above where it was in the past so really no
 no drop in organic revenue in this case but normally you're going to have some drop and it's
 it's always kind of a crapshoot to try and make those work out smoothly um I had again in the
 in a previous career in a previous life uh as director of marketing for a large e-com um had some
 gray hairs from a large migration but when you get it done right and you get it done early it's
 going to be really helpful for you in the long run and you're not going to be trying to fix small
 things all the time it's going to be wasting your time and effort and it's kind of spreading your
 team thin where it doesn't need to be it's kind of a final segment here anything you know on the
 on the platform side or you know I don't want to say new bells and whistles but you know whether
 is Facebook or Instagram or um you know the things they're doing with shopping anything you know
 news and noteworthy just for maybe a tech or platform or digital marketing standpoint
 so like I'm always if there's a if like again as a marketer and I'm always kind of a believer in
 like like like you need to go with where the attention's going like you need to not be in love with
 you need to not be in love with the platform you need to be in love with the attention that get
 the platform drives and like if people are spending two or three hours a day on a platform um
 understanding how to understanding why they're there and what's keeping them there um is always
 important so again thinking about that from that from the technology standpoint like the shopping
 side of things like there's huge opportunities in like the Instagram shopping the Instagram
 shopping as an opportunity for a business because like you already have such a large audience
 spending time there engaging there if you can make that shopping experience native to the
 platform they're already spending two hours a day on um for anybody anybody in that certain
 demographic window that's there that's a huge huge opportunity so like not going in like full
 full steam ahead with like trying to go and like first touch um like trying to open up some
 subtlety with like a first touch that's a little bit more brand focused it's supposed like shopping
 but once you can kind of open up the door for a shopping focus experience there on the second
 third touch like those open up a huge door for opportunities and allow people to kind of
 shop in a native experience that's going to be similar to what they're getting anyways
 and the seamless use of that um i think i'm kind of excited to see more groups kind of jumping
 on board with and experimenting with and if nothing else just the experiment the experimentation
 side of things because if it's a new ad unit it's probably going to be undervalued it's not going to
 be probably weighted as heavily as some others and going into some more like retail um like some more
 a high not high ticket items but items that are a little bit more aesthetically pleasing i think i
 feel like will be kind of fit into that area really well like a peril um again cosmetics probably
 fits into that category really well too um all of those things that you're trying to dissect what's
 going on um and the groups that can do a great job on the creative side too and trying to make it
 that experience on that instagram shopping good and smooth and seamless um are going to be the ones
 that are going to be the ones winning there too so probably underserved ad unit right now as
 terms of pricing goes so maybe a little bit cheaper or undervalued and then kind of exciting
 because it's something new that's going to be native to the platform that people are already
 spending all their time on yeah love it well man i always appreciate your insights i know
 everyone listening does and um you know let's keep fighting the good fight for uh shopify
 yeah yeah and and i'm like yeah i once like i i was like in full transparency i would stock
 and shopify i'm like i don't need to say that i don't nobody's going to i could or not make
 in financial decisions off of my advice if they are either um but it's uh it's yeah putting my
 dogs in that fight right now um again have a lot more faith in shopify but um everybody's tried
 to figure this out it's still the wild wild west um yeah and everybody and we just had a bunch
 new people coming to town on the e-commerce site so the wild wild west got a little bit wilder
 i know um focused on your lists get ready for holiday make the right platform choices
 experiment great insight man really appreciate you hey it appreciate you this is always fun
 there's always a pleasure get to talk to a really brilliant marketing mind um but what's kind of
 what's the biggest thing in your radar right now though right and like i you've been asking me
 questions what's the biggest thing on your radar right now uh honestly it's it's kind of
 i've tried to stay out of the not negativity but the political and you know socio-economic
 outcome of covid combined with your movements can i'm with stuff i'm kind of like ready for some
 it's so i think distracting for people right now um that you know i think everybody's kind of
 searching for you know we talked about the new normal next normal and all that kind of stuff
 you know i think i'm ready you know to see the plane land a bit on whatever normal looks like
 you know in in the in the consumer space of all that that's impacting you know like i
 feel like there's just still so many like you felt like there was going to be some planes landed
 by now and i still feel like there's just a lot of things dangling and in some ways that doesn't
 necessarily impact business in marketing but i feel like it is right now a little bit because i think
 it's hitting the mindset of brands and marketers um because they're not i don't think they have the
 um they're not as committed to one path or another right now they don't have the confidence
 i feel like there's a lack of confidence right now because there's a lack of consumer
 a behavior that might be typical yes please i move to e-commerce yes brick and mortar is
 struggling with covid um and so my mind is is like wrapping my head around where all of these
 paths go and the impact that they're going to have on all of these marketing channels as we move
 forward you know and so again we're doing a lot of tactical day-to-day work for brands and
 companies we're doing a ton of you know we probably have 10 e-commerce builds going on right now
 for clients which is big for us you know and so we're in the tactical every day nuts and bolts
 of getting brands up to speed on e-commerce optimizing lists creation all of that's going on but
 i think my heads are a little bit more in the clouds right now of of kind of thinking and
 observing on where this is going to make the best recommendations for clients kind of moving
 forward is that makes sense yeah and how do you how do you like as as an agency you're not oh
 again not the one just doing like the nuts and bolts tactical things like you're the one kind
 of advising the director of marketing you're advising advising those groups and how to position
 their business for success long term and kind of like that's as marketers like that's we need to
 be focusing on those things too not just the nuts and bolts tactics because again if you're in the
 bit if you're in your business you can't always see everything at a 10,000 foot view and that's
 what you have your partners for yeah so i think i've had my heads more in the clouds lately not
 playing in the clouds and being aloof but more kind of keeping my my ear you know to the ground
 kind of seeing where things are going next and trying to kind of build what's you know what's
 first quarter 2021 look like what's you know not because we don't need to make hay with holiday
 but you know what is that going to look like and how do we best position and you know obviously
 if you're brand building you need to always be brand building brand you know we practice
 and preach content development and purpose driven marketing all those things but you know it's
 just such a powder cake right now for like everything's so black and white like there's no acceptance
 of gray and so and i think it's kind of a dangerous position that that i want to see is kind of
 get out of i want to see more grays and painting with that brush a little bit more so it's interesting
 times but you know i'm also excited by it because i do know that you know as marketing changes the world
 changes everything's changing um and like you said it's oh there's always a puzzle to solve
 it keeps us it keeps us young and it keeps us it keeps us entertained and engaged and like you can
 maybe live an interesting times yeah exactly it's cool and that's that's a good insight that's
 again thinking about thinking thinking down the line six months from now it's not easy to do but
 it needs it's it's it's as a marketer you need we need to be thinking about those things
 yeah yeah good on you yeah and you know my last take away is you know help helping B2B brands
 think more like B2C that's on my mind right now as we're working with mini and a lot of them
 are taking that space but i still feel like that is the biggest white space area in in marketing is
 B2B thinking like B2C B2B moving to e-com you know yes i know there's 10 decision-makers and not
 one when you're buying toothpaste but like you know i'm gonna keep being that drum with the brands
 that we're working with and kind of moving down that channel people consume content as people
 already why don't they consume content as a business they're they're gonna they're the same
 person when they're at home or when they're at work um and even if there's like the little
 more buttoned up how do you take that same approach and communicate the way people want to be
 communicate with i think that's that's an area you're spot on there there's that's an area that's
 just under under under represented right now yeah and we know we're working together with you know
 several company projects are right down that path you know so we get to practice what we preach
 and it's fun getting to see them kind of like come to life in that area those areas because like
 those are where some big wins are available and yeah they're the for so many of them that that
 futures right there for them to be for them to be had and it's just kind of whoever's gonna move
 first in that industry is gonna gonna gonna gain that competitive foothold in wherever that
 where that that vertical is yeah cool man well hey guys really appreciate everyone listening
 today's episode go follow Robbie Fitzwater on LinkedIn you'll see a lot of Robbie's content lots of
 great insights and lots of good book recommendations and podcast recommendations which I appreciate
 from time to time uh always something new always trying to come up with something new and have fun
 and you're you're you're on the other end with with great content yourself so yeah we gotta we
 have a practice for preach around here you know so cool man really appreciate it and thanks for
 everyone for listening you can fall along for all of the episodes all of our episodes are at
 theradcast.com or you can follow us on Instagram at the.rad.cast you can fall along with any of my stuff
 look me up Ryan offered on LinkedIn and you'll see Robbie and I going back and forth on lots of
 stuff there's lots of old episodes for things that Robbie and I have covered Robbie gives a lot of
 great tactical advice on e-com and digital marketing and all right Robbie I guess we'll see everyone
 next time see you guys see you guys around and yeah tune into this e-commerce series there there's
 some cool things in the pipeline don't worry um I'm the appetizer the real meals coming next oh that's
 not true we're we're having staked the entire series just different flavors thanks man yeah
 you're waiting next time okay to listen to full episodes or to contact us visit us on the web
 at the.radcast.com or follow our host at Ryan offered on Instagram thanks for tuning in