Shownotes
How do you get noticed in this fast changing , product launching environment. Are celebrities the answer? Are the major influencers 15 minutes of fame up? Seems so. Seems like getting to the RIGHT audience not matter how small is the key to gaining traction from Instagram influencers. William breaks down the past, current and likely future of this marketing strategy.
Mentioned:
Stackinfluence – William’s Marketing firm
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Here is transcript- It is automated so it is not perfect but it does seem to get better over time.
William: [00:00:00] Google used to be really effective, but now there’s so much competition and depending on your niche, it’s really hard to kind of get up high on Google rankings. Um, and depending on, you need a huge advertising budget to really dominate the first page as well. Facebook has become a good strategy but also becoming very competitive.
Cool voice guy: [00:00:21] Welcome to the ecommerce momentum when we focus on the people, the products, and the process of incomers selling to your host Stephen Peterson,
Stephen: [00:00:35] if you’re ready to set up a strong, reliable accounting system when it’s a real strong foundation for your business. Well, we think we have the answer for you. If this is from accounting, we will go, you’re here listening to us on this podcast. We set up a course and it’s called Amazon accounting. Simplified. Yup. Simple. And we only say Amazon yet it’s really all across ecommerce. We’re talking about integrating quickbooks into your existing or new ecommerce business and new is great because you could set it up right that way, but if you have an existing business, how do you integrate, how do you get quickbooks online specifically? How do you get set up in there? Well, we have modules. There’s over 48 modules that will walk you through each one of those steps. I’m going to talk about cost of goods and I didn’t even talk about it.
Stephen: [00:01:16] We’re going to dive in, parse it, peel it back and help you understand what it takes. How about chart of accounts, setting up the right accounts, ones that you can use to make decisions. We’ve had hundreds of clients and we come up what we see at have seen as the best practice and I think that’s going to be the best thing for you. Reconciling 10 99 from paypal and Amazon. Good luck. Challenging. Well we’re gonna. We have modules, unique modules for each of those because they are unique. And so vendor management, accounting for Amazon loans. It goes on and on. I’m just skimming the top. There’s 48 plus modules and more will be added over time. It’s going to help you get up, get set up or get caught up with strong foundational accounting books. Um, we use it to help make decisions. We use it to help predict cash.
Stephen: [00:02:02] And cash pinch points. What you’re going to have, if you’re buying inventory and you’re waiting to get paid for it, you’re going to run out of cash at some point. Wouldn’t it be great to know? You know, it’s not great that it happens, but it’s great to know when it’s gonna happen so you can plan for it. You can make different decisions based on real solid information, historical information that you keep building. That’s part about quickbooks online is our CPA signs right in and does his tax voodoo right through the system and so I don’t have to hump it over there and we can get a little better rate by doing that. So how do you find out more about it? And again, you should look into it. AMZ accounting, simplified.com forward slash, podcast I’ll say it again, amz accounting, simplified.com forward slash podcast check out all the different modules.
Stephen: [00:02:44] Checkout what you can do if you really want to get your house in order. If you’re really looking to get that building block established and then locked in place and then you can build from there, then we recommend the courts. It’s time to get the listings right. So should you do, you should get your images right, right. So amazing freedom has a program to help you do then and we’ve used them. It’s phenomenal what they can do. You gotta go look at this. So you’ve got two amazing freedom.com forward slash photos and take a look at the examples of what you can do with an image you take and you give them some sample images. Um, some simple images. And then what they do is they take and insert them with lifestyle, uh, photos. And so all of a sudden you’re going to see an example of what a plain image looks like and then what it can be enhanced to.
Stephen: [00:03:31] Why is this of value to, while you’re in the wholesale business, and guess what? You want to add value to the brand. And this is just a simple way to do it. They offer all those kinds of services. Scroll down to the bottom. If you really want somebody to help really improve this service and you want to bring value to that brand because you want to exclusivity the services that they offer for listing enhancement will blow your mind. So again, it’s amazing. freedom.com forward slash photos take a look at what you can do for your brand that you’re trying to get. Add an important member to your Amazon teams. Solutions. Four ecommerce. Yep. Solutions Four ecommerce. Karen Walker’s team helps manage our Amazon account. We pay full price just like everybody else. We’ve been using it for a couple of years. And the reason is is because of the results.
Stephen: [00:04:19] We modify a lot of listings, especially in wholesale because we’re trying to enhance that listing, right? We’re trying to help the brand. And so guess what? That’s the type of service that we get from solutions for ecommerce. So it’s solutions, the number four e-commerce dot com forward slash, wholesale and you can get $50 off her service. Go try it, give it a shot and say, hey, could you help me get this listing in line? And guess what? That allows you to go out and develop relationships with wholesalers and then the work gets done by Karen and her team. I can’t recommend it enough. We use it again. We pay full price solutions, the number four e-commerce dot com forward slash, wholesale save 50 bucks. Get that important part of your team working for you so you’re looking for an advantage to help you Wu brand.
Stephen: [00:05:07] Well, one of the tools that you can use this scope, you could check out their product and then check out their competitors and find the keywords that are competitors are using and check out theirs and see that they’re not, and then say, okay, I’ve got an idea. Let me do this. Let me enhance your brand. That’s the thing you can bring to the marketplace. When you can enhance the brand, you’re going to win that account, so try it. You get a free trial, but seller labs.com forward slash, scope use the code omentum and save 50 bucks. It’s a free trial. Try it and see if you can enhance the brand. Welcome back to the ECOMMERCE momentum podcast. This is episode 380, William Gassner now William, uh, works for a marketing firm that really focuses in on Instagram influencers and what interested me, and quite frankly, the reason I had him on was the current status of influencers and launching a product and a brand specifically.
Stephen: [00:06:01] And I think he does a really good job of helping me understand it because quite frankly, I didn’t. Um, but he really broke it down in simple terms that I can understand and really gives some good examples of what it takes to build a brand today, um, through this kind of network and the costs. I mean, he’s pretty open with the costs and, and, you know, some people would say it’s expensive. Some of the brands would say, man, I’d, I’d spend that every day if I could to get the recognition right. So it depends on where you’re at in your business. Um, but he also gives you some free advice on how to do it. And if you’re not doing it and you’re, you’re launching a brand and you’re trying all the tricks and you’re trying to sneak the algorithm on Amazon and you’re doing all that stuff and you’re not seeing the results, quite honestly, this is, this is, I used my George Foreman example, but his endorsement sold a heck of a lot of those grills, right? People felt connected with him and they felt real. Um, that’s kind of where we’re at. And it’s pretty interesting for him to say that a thousand person, a person who has a thousand Instagram followers could have a lot of influence if they’re the right people. And that kind of makes sense. So I think this is a neat opportunity for us to dig a little deeper and what it takes to build out that brand. And I think William does a great job on it. Let’s get into the podcast.
Speaker 4: [00:07:19] Yeah.
Stephen: [00:07:19] All right. Welcome back to the congresswoman a podcast. We’re excited about today’s guest because I think the subject is so current and, um, I think, uh, having an expert talk us through some real life examples of what’s happening out there in the private label influencer world. I mean, this is very, very current. Lots of people talking about it, but I want to find somebody who’s doing it so we can really get some great advice. I want to welcome William Gassner. Welcome William [inaudible].
William: [00:07:46] How’s it going, Steven?
Stephen: [00:07:48] Going really well. Really well, we’re both on the east coast, uh, today. Uh, usually a California guy and I’m always on the east coast. Um, but today we get to talk at a reasonable hour. Uh, I was thinking about that. I’m like, Oh man, what time is it where he is? But fortunately you’re here. Okay. So, so let’s talk about this. So walk us through your background of how you become, you know, something you know, in marketing, but I mean, how, how you get involved with Amazon that did, you know, it’s relatively new, so you have to have a history way back.
William: [00:08:20] Yeah. So honestly, for the past decade, I’ve been actually making websites myself doing freelance work and also selling my own ecommerce products. Um, oh yeah. So a few different products I’ve been selling randomly started selling my first product actually when I was 13. Um, which kind of got me into the whole game selling at some farmer’s markets and art fairs. Um, but then since then have evolved into a few different other product industries and started selling them with a few of my buddies who actually have now become my cofounders of, uh, our company’s stock influence. So,
Stephen: [00:09:01] well let’s, let’s just stop, take a second cause I’m thinking about this. So when you, before you started the company, you, you created products and you were selling products, I assume on Amazon or any of the other platforms, whatever, right. Or even out on Google. Um, what were some of the challenges you ran into? Cause, I assume hence the reason the company came along. But I’m just thinking about what you ran into because it’s, it’s gotta be squared or cube now because years ago it was easier to sell than it is today because of competition and data and all the rest of that stuff. So I’m just trying to understand what, what got you thinking this way?
William: [00:09:35] Yes. So what are the biggest issues? Honestly, is driving traffic to either your website or Amazon listing when we were selling on Amazon. Um, and that’s kind of how we actually got into influencer marketing in general is getting some of other social media profiles to really promote for you and bring in traffic, um, was a great strategy that helped us really succeed with a lot of these product brands. Um, and yeah, because Google used to be really effective, but now there’s so much competition and depending on your niche, it’s really hard to kind of get up high on Google rankings. Uh, and depending on, you need a huge advertising budget to really dominate the first page as well. Um, Facebook has become a good strategy, but also becoming very competitive. Um, so that’s really how we got into influencer marketing in general was we found really a lot of success with it. Um, and the ability to really increase our online traffic and, and