Beyond the Silver Bullet: Navigating Multi-Channel eCommerce Marketing

In this enlightening episode, Matt Edmundson speaks with Tony Conte, a digital pioneer who's been shaping eCommerce and brand marketing since the mid-90s. They explore why there's no "silver bullet" in marketing and how creating a consistent customer experience across multiple channels is the real key to sustainable growth.

Tony shares valuable insights from Brave Agency's 2023 report on eCommerce marketing trends, highlighting why brands must prioritise customer experience (CX) while balancing data analysis with creative strategy. This conversation offers practical wisdom for eCommerce entrepreneurs feeling overwhelmed by today's fragmented marketing landscape.

Tony emphasises that while digital marketing constantly evolves, the fundamentals remain unchanged - attract, engage, and persuade. The most successful eCommerce businesses take a methodical approach, understanding which channels deliver the best ROI and creating strategies that focus on customer retention through enhanced experiences.

This episode offers a refreshing reality check: instead of chasing the latest marketing fad, focus on telling your unique story and creating memorable customer experiences that Amazon and other giants simply cannot replicate.

For more information and to download Brave Agency's full report, visit brave.agency.

Resources

🔗 Connect with Tony Conte: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tonyconteuk

🔗 Get the report: https://www.brave.agency

🔗 Get the show notes: https://www.ecommerce-podcast.com

🔗 Explore Podjunction: https://podjunction.com

Welcome to the e-Commerce podcast with

me, your host, Matt Edmundson.

Now this is a show all about helping you deliver e-commerce.

Wow.

And to do that today I'm chatting with a fellow Brit

Tony Conte from Brave Agency, and we are gonna be talking

about marketing everything to do with e-commerce marketing,

which I know is a topic we're all interesting 'cause

why would we not be right?

Uh, we all want to know how to market our businesses.

Better.

So make sure you stay tuned for that.

Grab your notebooks, grab your pens.

'cause you're definitely gonna want them.

Now whilst you are doing that, if you haven't done

so already, make sure you sign up for our newsletter.

Yes.

'cause every week we are sending out some amazing stuff.

I. Tips and tricks from the podcast with some of

the bits and bobs as well.

But all the show notes, all the links, they're also in there.

Uh, and so you just get it straight to your

inbox totally for free.

So you can get a hold of that at ecommercepodcast.net.

So make sure you do, and I will see you over there.

Now, before we get into the conversation, I just want to

give a little bit of a shout out to my mate, Darren Hickey, uh,

who connects us from Fellowship.

If you don't, if you're a regular to the show, you

may recognize the name.

Darren was on it back in November.

Uh, and we talked about WooCommerce.

He's a bit of a WooCommerce expert.

Uh, and so Darren introduced both Tony and myself.

And so Tony is here because of Darren?

Yes, he is.

So just say thanks to Darren 'cause Darren's a legend.

Thanks Darren.

Uh, there you go.

Thanks Darren.

Uh, let's meet, uh, Tony, the founder of Brave Agency,

a digital pioneer in brand.

Marketing and e-commerce since the mid nineties

did a decade evens exist?

We don't know, do we?

Uh, in 2000, he launched Brave from his garage with zero

clients and a big vision, an integrated agency where

creativity, tech, and strategy unite for client success.

Today, brave turns clicks into loyal customers and

helps ambitious brands push boundaries and thrive.

And you know what, Tony, the thing that I love is, you've

been doing this since the mid.

Nineties now.

I started my little journey around 1997, about a year

before I got married.

Um, ah, and so, and I started in e-commerce in 2002.

So, uh, I often referred to myself as

an e-commerce dinosaur.

I. No,

not at all.

I don't The dinosaur we Not the dinosaur.

We were, we were the pioneers.

That's true.

If it wasn't for us, then uh, there would be no internet.

No, not no internet, but commerce,

no.

I'm gonna take the internet.

If it wasn't for me and you tiny, there

would be no internet.

Everybody.

You're, you're welcome.

Yeah.

That's all I can say.

We've both, we've both seen the.com

bubble, haven't we?

We saw it.

We saw it burst.

We did.

It came and it went really quickly and everyone's

like, what is going on?

Uh, uh, to be fair, we've seen everything.

I mean, there was no mob mobile phones.

You didn't have to worry about mobile commerce.

There was basically, you just had a website and you can, it

took us a while to even figure out email marketing, you know?

Exactly.

It's like what?

Yeah.

Google just seemed to pick you up because it did.

Yeah.

And then it was a few years later, Google AdWords came in.

So, I mean, all these things, you've sort of seen them come

and a lot of things you've seen come and go, really?

So it's, it is cool that you've been around, you know,

a, a, a, uh, as they say, and you, you've obviously,

you must have enjoyed it.

Yes, it's, has its ups and downs.

Um, been a lot of changes, a lot of challenges along the way.

Mm-hmm.

Um, but the way that everything, I'd say just the way that

people interact with, you know, online channels, uh, just has

changed so much over the years.

Yeah.

Um, but that means that you have to be kind of thinking

about what the next way, shape, or form of, of a,

of a website should be, or in terms of how they're

gonna in interact with that, that, um, advert, et cetera.

Um, the fundamentals are still there.

You've gotta attract, engage, and per, you know, effectively

persuade them to purchase.

It's just that the, the, the, the speed at which

now we can develop.

Um.

Marketing in general.

Online is, uh, is just a, you know, it is just, it, it, it

literally, it is too quick.

Yeah.

For, I think, I think the actual techno, I think we're

finding that the technology is, although it's helping us to

kind of speed up the processes and the analytics et et cetera,

it, it's, it's even faster now.

And obviously with ai it's, it's, yeah, it's balloons

now to a, a crazy level.

So, um, yeah, it's exciting.

It's certainly, um.

I'd say it's not for the faint hearted, for sure.

Mm-hmm.

Um, but yeah, it's, it's been enjoyable.

He says, says

secret gr.

Yeah.

It's funny, isn't it?

Because I, as I'm talking, I'm getting all nostalgic now, but

as I'm, as we're talking Tony, I'm kind of thinking, you know

what, when, when I launched my first website back in 2002,

marketing was literally launching the website, right.

And search engines.

Managed to pick it up.

And there was ma there weren't that many, uh,

websites back then.

So you, you tended to get on page one.

Mm-hmm.

And people were, were sort of, they would buy it and

then they would call to make sure you were legitimate

because they, you know, they felt twitchy about giving you

their credit card details.

But marketing, um, in some respects, as we know it

now, didn't exist that whole, you know, the whole

realm of digital marketing.

But what did exist was the fundamentals, as you say,

so of old school principles.

The website had to attract people, it had to make sense,

you know, uh, you had to deliver a great service.

For those people to come back and buy again.

These things have always been sort of timeless, haven't they?

Even sort of pre-internet.

Yeah.

And uh, one of the things that sort of strikes me about a lot

of e-commerce entrepreneurs, a lot of conversations I have

in essence I can summarize in a single statement, is

that a lot of people are looking for the silver bullet.

Like, if I just pull this one lever, like if I spend

10 grand on Facebook ads or if I do TikTok or whatever

it is, you know, whatever the latest thing is, I'm gonna

pull that lever and it's gonna make me a millionaire.

Right.

Do you, do you get a lot of these inquiries?

Uh, yeah.

A hell of a lot.

Um, we get a, yeah.

I think generally speaking, they think one

channel will save it all.

And, and, um, the reality of it is, is that it's, it.

There's gotta be, there's, there's gotta

be about 10 channels.

You could, there's 10 levers you can pull.

That's just, you know, um, but each one works.

In its own way, but has contributes to

each one, basically.

Yeah.

You can't run, as you know, you can run paid advertising, that's

fine, but if you put your ads in one basket, then your e-commerce

brand, it is only as worth as much as a paid ad campaign.

Yeah.

If you're not generating content or social proofing,

SEO, et cetera, you know, I personally wouldn't buy.

An e-commerce brand, if they didn't have organic

traffic sales attribution attributed to SEO.

Mm-hmm.

Because anybody could, any, anybody can throw money at it.

Yeah.

So.

We, they'll come in and say, okay, we, we need to do TikTok.

Well, yeah, you need to do TikTok, but where's the brand?

Mm-hmm.

Where's the positioning?

Where's the social proof?

And is the product fit for fit for the audience?

You know, so there's, I think it's become, yeah.

I dunno if that answers a question, but Yes.

Lots of times.

Can we just do SEO No, you can't just do seo or can you

do, you know, can, can we just do, um, TikTok shop and forget

about any, anything else?

Kind of, it's possible, but there's a ceiling

on that as well.

So, um, I think it's just got a lot more, um, uh, mixed.

You know, it's now on, you know, multi-channel, I'd say.

Yeah.

Yeah.

You can't, you know, you, that's most of the

conversations now are, we're running five channels.

We think one or two are potentially not

working, or we're leaving money on the table.

Um, and that's where, you know, we would get involved and say,

okay, let's look at the numbers.

Let's look at the audience.

Let's look at the, the attribution, make sure

everything's, you know, fir on all cylinders.

Um, but normally you can't.

There's no silver, no silver bullet.

Now there's no silver bullet.

No, I, I, I would agree.

I think you, you get to a stage where you hear stories

of a somebody on YouTube who managed to pull off a

miracle and then they do a YouTube video about it.

Yeah.

Um, but I, I think for most people,

I. Actually, you are right.

That that digital marketing now is, is, is evolved and is

evolving to such an extent that Yeah, it is impossible, I think

for, for a solo entrepreneur who is doing e-commerce to

keep up with what the changes are and to keep it with a,

like if I was just running my e-commerce business,

we have a team of people.

Yeah, but how would I find the time to.

Do the SEO to do the blogs, the content, the social

media, make the videos, um, do the, run the paid ads,

make sure my email marketing campaigns are up to date.

Do the abandoned cart flows.

Do you know what I mean?

Uh, do my silly dance on TikTok.

I appreciate that's not just TikTok.

Now I'm being facetious.

I've done, we've all done them to be fair, but do

you know what I mean?

There's so much going on.

Yeah.

Um, that it is, I think it's almost impossible

now to try and to try and.

To, to keep up with it as a, as a solo entrepreneur, you,

you, you genuinely need help.

I think.

I think, um, the key is prioritization

because you could just go at all of those, you know?

Mm. All 20 elements that you just mentioned, but

it's prioritizing and putting it in an order.

You know, I think that's the key really.

'cause there's two, you know, and, and looking at

every single channel and reviewing actually what's,

what's the potential return on investment from that channel?

And can I put the investment from that channel

into the next channel?

Mm-hmm.

Or, you know, and then dial everything up.

That's where, that's where I've seen most e-commerce

businesses that are thriving, is that they've, they've had

a clear, um, analysis of all the channels, all the tactics.

Then gone with quite, quite a methodical path there.

Yeah.

In terms of how they reinvest, et cetera.

I mean, some of our early clients from sort of from

2000, 2005, they're really early and they went from

mail order, you know, ordering stuff in magazines.

Cutting all the magazine spend and saying, right, what's

the internet all about, Tony?

And they said, oh, I was thinking, oh God.

Okay.

So basically it's an online catalog, you know?

Um, and okay, well how do I, I'm number one in all the

magazines 'cause I'm spending, you know, 20,000 pounds on

a, on a, every single month.

And mags then was quite, quite, quite significant.

Yeah.

Um.

The ones that kind of not, I'm not saying like they

listened, but the ones that actually started thinking

about this is, this is, this looks like a potential.

This, this is where my mail order's gonna go.

Yeah.

They literally, they literally launched their websites in a

catalog online point of view.

It wasn't actually commerce at that point necessarily.

It was all about getting online.

And they would get the phone calls, get, keep

getting phone calls from it.

Um, and they soon realized that the more they put

into paid ads, it was like.

The more exposure they were getting in magazines.

It's the same principle.

Yeah.

Um, that, that, that worked.

And, and don't forget, uh, Google ad PPC then was

impression based from 2000 to 2000 and it was cheap.

Yeah, exactly.

And it, yeah.

Not like it is now, but yeah.

I mean, the whole, the, the whole kind of click,

you know, pay per click.

Yeah.

Didn't really, I don't think it came in until about two.

I think it was something like 2002, 2004, maybe,

something like that.

But it was all impression based before then.

Um.

But I think it's, it's, it's the fundamentals.

I keep saying it, you know, to to, to various kind of

brands that come on board, especially challenger brands.

Fundamentals of advertising hasn't really changed.

It's just the channel by channel.

Mm-hmm.

And prioritizing.

And prioritizing the numbers as well.

So

let's talk about that.

Um, how would you go about prioritizing?

So here I am, I'm, I'm an overworked, uh oh, overwhelmed

is probably a better word.

Um, e-commerce.

Founder.

Mm-hmm.

Um, it's all, it's, it's okay.

But, you know, I feel like my life is non-existent

in, in many ways.

How do I prioritize, how do I look at what I'm

doing and going right.

This is, this is the best way to prioritize my marketing.

I, I guess, I guess obviously, you

know, we can't control the operational side of a business.

We can, we can, we can forecast sales increases

so they don't buckle under the, under the load.

That's one element.

But in terms of prioritizing, you know, there's quite a

few that we've met, you know, that are seven days a week,

they're in the business.

Mm-hmm.

They've got, you know, mm-hmm.

Um, they've got maybe 10, maybe 20 staff, something like that.

They're constantly in the business all the time.

Um, introducing automation when it comes to, um, a lot of

their activities is, is key.

Yeah.

Um, and helping them, helping them through.

I mean the tech, there's the technical sides of a

website, so you automate a lot of the activity as well.

You know, email automation is one.

Mm-hmm.

So they don't have to do anything manually there.

Um, we take away a lot of the stress in terms of, um,

whether it's content, you know, to content strategy

and actually delivering that, that strategy for them.

So the key is to kind of work out what their strengths are.

And work alongside their them or their existing Yeah.

Um, teams really.

Um, 'cause it is tough to kind of pull away and give

everything to an agency.

And we never say that to a client.

We never say, I don't think anybody should say like,

here's everything crack on.

I think it's the kind of understanding what they should

and shouldn't be doing in house.

Yeah.

At that given moment in time, I'm, and I'm always

one for actually having the conversation to say like, we

wanna get you to the X level.

We want you to be in the position where you can actually.

Get your own team to do X, Y, and Z. We still wanna be

here, we still wanna be helping you run the, the strategy and

the real technical pieces.

But we see you kind of growing your content team

because I think the, the, the, and I, it's a slightly

off tangent, but content has always been king for many,

many years before I was born.

You know, it's always been about.

Um, that's where advertising and engagement comes from.

The, the, the creativity, the content, and it still

is to this present day.

Um, and brands need to bring a lot of that in-house.

Um, comes an overhead.

I. But the control of that, it makes our lives

easier as agencies as well, that we run the strategy.

We, we will share that, that tactic with them and, and come

up with a content strategy.

But everything comes from that content.

SEO comes from content, paid ads comes from, from content

as well, meta, et cetera.

Um, digital pr, it's all content driven.

Um, we see a lot of brands bringing that in-house,

and I, I applaud that.

I'd say I'd encourage it more and more so, um.

But there's no silver bullet when it comes to, you know,

how do we, how do we de-stress a, an e-commerce entrepreneur?

Well, they, they're either surviving.

Mm-hmm.

Because they, they, some of them, well, a lot of them

have launched post covid thinking they can mm-hmm.

Sustain that level of revenue.

Yeah.

Um, and that's where we give 'em a bit of a reality

check in terms of, okay, you're wasting time in that area.

That's, that's not that, that, that's not focus on that area.

Let's go for the, uh.

Low hanging fruit, as they say.

Um, and the quick wins.

Yeah.

And I, I dare say that, but there are quick wins.

Mm-hmm.

There are quick, there still are quick wins.

And that's a, that comes back down to prioritization.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

I

find that actually that, um.

Depending on who you talk to, depends on

where the quick wins are.

Yeah.

So there's no, I can't write a book and say, these are your top

10 quick wins, because it, every business is different, right?

Yeah.

Every business is unique.

Um, but I, I could, I could quite easily write

a book, go, these are the principles of marketing.

Read through this and the quick wins will become obvious.

That, that kind of thing.

It's, um, which I, I, I, I think is, is probably a, a

more successful route forward.

Um.

But I like how you, you talked about, figure out what your

strengths are because I, I have this, um, I have a manifesto,

Tony, because I like manifestos.

Actually, it's just a fancy name for a bit of, a bit

of writing that I did once.

Um, where I, I liken most e-commerce entrepreneurs, I call

them digital Davids, you know, the David and Goliath story.

Mm-hmm.

And I, I, I paint Amazon and Walmart as the Goliath

because, you know, I, I can and make them the bad guy.

And David won the battle with Goliath.

'cause he played to his own strengths.

Yeah.

And, and, and one of the questions I get asked, you

know, a lot, and I'm, I I, I appreciate on the podcast,

I use this for, I get asked a lot of questions and you

can you, but this one I do get asked a lot is like, how

do I, how do I beat Amazon?

Right?

Um, and I think actually you've gotta play to your

strengths is is the answer.

You know, you've gotta, you've got, 'cause the one

thing Amazon can't be is you.

No, they can't be you and your brand.

Hmm.

They can't be your, your positioning.

They can't be your brand.

Uh, what you stand for and, and all that sort of thing.

They can't, they, they don't have your values, they don't

have your tone of voice.

They don't have your ability to tell a story.

Yeah.

You know, they're just a big machine which sells stuff.

Yeah.

But you've got stuff that's got a story and so how do you,

how do you bring that out?

Um, and so I like what you say, you know, play to

your strengths and, and.

Everyone has to think about content, um,

and brand, you're just hitting nail

on the head as well.

Is the, is I I, I've, I've seen a lot of e-commerce brands now

build, building their brand more so than ever before.

So building the personality, getting that personality

in the forefront.

A huge amount of kind of brands that, um, I'd say

90% of them have come to us and actually they've come

to us thinking, oh, I need.

Paid ads, I need meta, et cetera.

Mm-hmm.

And we've like, no, you need to get your story.

Yeah.

Actually above, I'll call it above the fold.

'cause that was a thing.

Yeah.

But you know, it's not in, you know, they're not

selling their story and Yeah.

Um, there's so much more kind of engagement, um, when it comes

to, uh, consumers these days.

Customers these days that they want us, they wanna know

about the founder of a Yeah.

X brand that Yeah.

Is, yeah.

That came from such and such fashion brand originally,

and they stand for X, Y, and Z. Um, a lot of this

information is hidden on websites sometimes, especially

with the independent brands.

They don't think that actually I need to bring that to the, to

the, to the top, um, as a story.

So, so once you've bought into it.

You are kind of, you're, you're bought into their story.

You bought into them, you're bought into the brand.

You bought into the product, and you, you've

basically bought something.

Yeah.

In the checkout.

Out the checkout.

Yeah.

No, no.

It's totally true.

I'm, I'm with you all the way, and I think, you

know, I, I see a lot of websites which are cookie

cutters, you know that Yeah.

They're a carbon copy of somebody else's in their

market because they feel this is what I need to do.

Yeah.

I mean, we were joking before we recorded.

Can you know, can you build me a bango website for.

Five grand or whatever.

It's like no, just no.

Yeah.

Um, but you kind of have this sense as what

my website should be.

Website, uh, website should be Sorry, kids.

The bad ones.

Yeah.

Yeah.

They're the bad ones.

Yeah.

Yeah.

But at, at the same time, this, this tension of

brand of your voice of.

Telling your story?

Well, I think I became more aware of it when,

um, Toms became a thing.

Oh yeah, yeah.

Do you know what I mean?

And you, and you looked at that and you thought, wow, blind me.

They, they've, they've managed to use this brand, this story

so well, um, that it kind of threw the world upside down a

little bit, uh, at that point.

And, and I know that there were other brands around at

the time, but that was the one that stood out for me.

I don't know what stood out for you.

So many can't think now.

Actually, you put me on the spot.

Nah, this is what we do.

This is what we Well, let's, um, uh, take you off that spot.

Let's talk about this report that you guys have put together.

2020 x. Tell me about that.

Yeah, so last year we, we, um, reached out to,

um, CMOs, e-commerce, brand managers, et cetera, and ask

'em to fill out a, a, a survey around their challenges, what

they see next, et cetera.

And, um.

What they see as, yeah, basically what they see as the

next big thing and, and really what they're doing and what

they're not doing, et cetera.

So we collated all this, um, this information together and

the, the general consensus was that everything, everything

seems to be coming from a central piece of work

that they're not doing.

Enough of, but they're aware of, and it's, it's looking

after the, the customer journey and the customer

experience what on whatever platform and the website.

So everyone thinks like customer experience or CX is just the

website, but it's not, it's every single platform basically.

Yeah.

And pretty much everybody knows that they, they knew

they need to increase the customer experience to

increase the conversion.

But they were focused so much on short term wins rather

than looking at the long term strategy, et cetera.

Yeah.

But they know they need to do that, and I think that's

the pressure that, that, that brands, um, are under, you know,

within the report it kind of goes on about what sort of, what

their biggest challenges are.

Where it's, it's, it's.

It's the fragmented of data.

So they're so stuck in data.

They've, they're spending more time in all knee deep in the

data and actually not thinking about the customer experience,

where in actual fact it's, so, it's, it's equally as important.

I, I get data's important, don't get me wrong.

We, we live by it with, with the campaigns that we run.

But that was, that was one fundamental, uh, challenge

that they need to, they know they need to resolve, but

they're not, they're not, they, they're, they're.

They're admitting that they're not doing it fast enough.

Yeah.

They're just not reacting.

Um, so, you know, and game changing kind of insights

that they were thinking of.

You know, the likes of obviously TikTok shop, they,

uh, live shopping as well.

Yeah.

It's something that came up as well.

Yeah.

I believe that as well.

You know, in terms of, I, I agree with that.

I think, um, certain countries out there.

Then China, uh, uh, sort of smashing it from that point

of view, it is coming here.

Mm-hmm.

And it is, you know, basically QVC on steroids online.

It is, yeah.

Yeah.

And I think, um, it's gonna bounce quite high, um, when,

when it really takes off in this, I know it's already

here, but it's, it's, I don't think we've seen,

you know, enough of it.

And I think it's coming and that's the area.

No,

I, I'm, I'm always surprised at how

little it's been done here, considering the success of QVC.

Yeah.

And considering the success of

live shopping in, in, certainly in Asia, like you say.

Yeah.

Um, and I was always surprised that Instagram never figured

out that if it did live streams, you could, it could

have a buy now button on on.

Yeah.

Do you know what I mean?

And, and you could integrate that somehow with social

selling, which TikTok obviously, you know, they,

they, they've done that.

So there's a few, there's a lot of questions I have, like,

why is this not taken off?

But I, I'm with you in the sense that live shopping, I think.

Is gonna become one of those things, which is more and

more of a bigger deal to the point where I've been talking

to the guys in our team, um, like, can we carve out space

in the warehouse to create a studio, like a live TV studio?

It doesn't have to be big.

No.

Um, we have pod, a podcast studio,

obviously down there.

Yeah.

Um, and I'm in the podcast studio at my house.

But having a podcast studio and a live TV studio, I think

those two things are fast becoming like non-negotiables.

Yeah.

If that makes sense.

Yeah.

Um, but so I'm intrigued that you mentioned that.

Well, the other aspect as well is if we're,

we're, if we wanna see, um, I. A survival of retail,

um, independent retailers.

Let's just take them for an example.

As an example.

I see no reason why on their slow days, you know,

whether it's Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, whatever, that

they shouldn't have a popup in their shop of a live.

I. Piece.

Mm-hmm.

You know, out, out the back, et cetera.

That tho those, that those, they can, they can create

that, that commerce mm-hmm.

On those days with their live feeds.

'cause all we're doing with the live feeds is we're

pushing ads to the live feeds.

It's, isn't it, you know, it's as simple as that.

Mm-hmm.

Get a live feed, get an agency, or if

you can do it yourself and promote the hell out of that.

Live feed to that audience, which we know we can

get you in front of.

Mm-hmm.

It's a no-brainer.

Um, and for me, if, if it's an independent retail,

it's thinking, okay, these days are really slow.

We had to get that many sales on, on Mondays, well turn it

into a, turn it into a live shop day and just get a, get a cube.

And get filming or get a counter, whatever it is.

It doesn't matter if you sell ice cream or not ice cream, but

you know, it doesn't matter.

It doesn't matter if, no, I'm gonna sell ice

cream and start doing live show and

I'm gonna use it as an excuse for my wife that I have

to go and eat ice cream.

Exactly.

Exactly.

Exactly.

But I think that's, that's an opportunity I think, you

know, for independent, and it doesn't, it wouldn't cost them

that much to kind of get set up.

No.

Especially like you say,

if they've already got a store.

Yeah.

Whereas I don't have a store for my e-comm sites, it's

just a boring warehouse.

I have to build a studio.

Yeah.

You're right.

I, I think for the, for a lot of people, they don't

actually have to do that.

Yeah.

And, um, you can, you can use what you've got.

You don't, I mean, you know, you don't need the fancy.

I was watching a guy who set up a, a a, a YouTube studio.

Spent like quarter of a million quid on the studio.

You're just like, holy moly.

Um, you know, I think you can do everything on

your iPhone these days.

I think that's, that's, that's a really good

point 'cause I think some of the best raw kind of footage that

you see these days that goes via Royal is off an iPhone anyway.

So

it's interesting, isn't it, how this

sort of, and what works well on TikTok shop and what works user

generated content works well.

It's not polished, it's not like the po I mean these are

just, and you get that best off your iPhone rather than

the 7,000 pound Sony camera.

Yeah.

It's almost as if it's authentic 'cause you've kind of, it's

a bit raw and it's a bit.

Yeah.

It, it definitely is that, and we've, we've, we've had

a lot of success, um, from, uh, user-generated content.

Um, def it's, yeah.

It, it really works.

It, the, the RO the better.

Mm-hmm.

Because it just looks like it's

not, it's, it's natural.

Yeah.

Um, it's authentic as such.

Yeah.

I mean, how long that trend lasts for, I have no idea.

But while it's there, use it because you've, chances

are you've got the capacity to do it in your pocket.

Right, exactly.

So get get on it.

Exactly.

What, um, what other things did your report bring out

that were interesting?

Um, well, I, I'll be honest with you.

Everything was it, you know, everything seems to, it kept

pointing, um, to CX really?

Mm. Um, I think, you know that, that it pretty much.

Cemented, you know, that, um, everyone was aware that

lack of content was key.

Yeah.

They need to bring content in-house to, to, um, yeah.

To, to, to get the kind of.

To get the control, I'd say.

Yeah.

That was, and the brand

voice, isn't it?

The story, the, the tone and all that sort of things,

which you can't outsource.

Yeah, that was, that was really key.

The, the need, like I said, knee deep in, um, data

was, uh, stifling them.

Mm-hmm.

Um, that was another area as well.

Um, just trying to think off the top of my head actually.

The, the, um, but the, the.

I think the customer experience is everything

and they just, they, I think they were Oh, massively.

Yeah.

All sounded like gutted basically.

That they weren't on top of it.

Yeah.

On top of the customer thinking out, you know, I think the

big thing is it was that the fact that they know they

need to be thinking further ahead for, um, longevity.

Yeah.

And sustainability.

That's, that I think is key, especially for a

brand, you know, that.

Is trying to compete in a, in a saturated market as well.

The only way of doing that is thinking ahead and, um,

you know, showing that, you know, the, the showing that

the brand and the, the, the personality is there.

I think, I think off the top of my head is that, you know, I

think it was, but it was about 60%, um, said that, you know,

customer experience really matters to them the most.

But only about, I think there's only 30% are actually

doing anything about it.

Which is fascinating,

isn't it?

Yeah.

But that's, I think that's a common trait amongst,

um, business people, certainly in e-commerce.

Yeah.

I know what I'm supposed to do.

Are you doing it?

No.

Well, I'm busy, isn't I?

Yeah.

Is, is a, is a reality of it all, you know, and it

comes from the top as well.

If you've got a financial, um, whoever's in charge of

finance, you know, if you've got the FD breathing down

your neck and like, gotta get more, et cetera, et cetera,

and, and they're trying to fix cash flow with paid media.

Yeah.

That's generally the, but paid media is going up.

So had you have thought about the customer experience and the,

maybe the content, et cetera.

Back back a year ago.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

It'll be reaping its rewards now.

Yeah.

And that's something that people, that's so true.

You can't, you, you don't, you don't get

that taken away from you.

'cause once you've got built the brand and built

your authority mm-hmm.

Then you've got that stability, then it's about protecting

and growing there again.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Whereas with paid, just throwing money at paid isn't always

just, uh, you know, it's not the silver bullet as such.

It's a bit, it is a bit risky, but don't get me wrong,

it, it absolutely works.

But.

You know, you can't control what Google wants to

charge you for a click.

No.

And it, and you're right, it's only gonna go up.

Yeah.

It's never, I, I've never ever gone into it and gone, oh,

we're paying less to Google.

How nice that, that just doesn't, that just

doesn't compute really.

Um, but I, I, I totally get what you're saying around

the customer experience and, and just making, 'cause

again, this is where I think you differentiate yourself.

This is where, um, you.

Become different to Amazon, you become different to your

competitors, is actually that customer experience.

Yeah.

Um, I mean, I've told the story before on the, on

the podcast, and if you're new you won't have heard the story.

If you're old, you, well, here's a friendly reminder, but um,

I remember when we actually, we had a beauty company,

which I sold a few years ago, but we had a beauty company.

And we were sitting down and we were looking at, we wanted

to understand why customers bought, you know, the average

order value was like 75 quid on beauty products.

Now, of course, I'm a fell, I'm the wrong target

market in, in many ways.

I, you know, I spend four pound 50 and think I've

been overcharged on beauty, as you can tell, right?

So, so the fact that people were spending like 75, 80 quid

just astounded me in many ways.

And, and that was the average and.

We quickly realized that the customer was buying

themselves a gift, a treat.

It wasn't just skincare.

It was like, this is self-care.

This is, um, a, a gift for myself.

This was.

And so we thought, well, wouldn't it be interesting?

And we bought products from all of our competitors to see how

they would, how they turned up.

Every single one of them came in a Jiffy bag, you know, um,

the paled envelopes for those of you who dunno what a jiffy

bag is outside of the uk.

Um, so the, the boxes around the skincare were all bashed up.

Not that I cared because I'm taking the skincare outta the

box and putting it in the bin.

So we, we put the skincare in a box.

I. To protect it.

Um, we stopped wrapping it up in the, you know, the,

the air bubble things.

Um, and we started to use popcorn.

'cause a brand, we wanted to be fun.

We wanted to be seen as eco.

Wow.

So we, we thought, well, let's do popcorn.

Took us a while to figure that out.

We wrapped the whole thing in tissue paper.

So it felt like when you opened the box, you,

you were opening a gift.

Do you know what I mean?

We added a bit of extra stuff to the box.

The whole exercise meant that every parcel cost me

another two pence to send out.

But that's when return purchase rates started

going through the roof.

Right.

And it was just, it was just crazy.

And so we were like, well, this is interesting, you

know, because it worked well, because we thought about

the customer experience.

Yeah.

As in what, what, what do they experience?

What, what do we need to help them feel more of?

Yeah.

For them to really, you know, connect with our brand.

And I,

and I think whether, you know, if you're,

if you're an e-commerce brand and you're running.

All, all the main channels.

Um, I think if you ask each channel, each channel, um,

head and say what, you know, understand the, if you, if

you're understanding the customer experience and

you, and you are in SEO, you have to, you have to.

And I think if everybody understands what that

customer experience is for that brand, then

everybody can work in Unity.

And it all has this compounding, um, effect.

I think because, you know.

Anybody working in SEO, anybody working in paid

anyone working in social, they should understand right now

that there's an increasing competition all the time.

Mm-hmm.

So understand the customer, 'cause that's gonna

win you more hearts.

Yeah.

You know, um, it's, you know, the rising cost of, of acquiring

sales is getting more, but you know, and again, you can

counter that to a degree by.

Customer experience conversion on our website.

Mm-hmm.

You know, if we can increase that, that's gonna help.

Um, making sure that the customer realizes the

customer all the time, it's the customer in the middle.

But, uh, creating the differentiation as well

with your brand as well.

Is it different?

Is, if it's not, then what's the point?

Um, and yes, you can drive new customers.

You have to be, be really good at customer experience.

'cause you wanna drive those repeat sales back again.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And it's all about sustainable, efficient,

you know, efficient growth.

And that comes back down to knowing the numbers,

really efficient growth.

Um, and the FD at the top then is gonna be happy.

Because, and they can, you can for, you can start to

forecast at least when can't repeat customers, can't you?

Yeah.

You can get a pattern, whereas with no.

If you can't forecast, the fts gonna be like

pulling their hair out.

Well, once you've got the pattern, then

you've, you've created value for the business, right?

Yeah.

So I, I go out, I dunno if you do this to me, but I go and

acquire other econ businesses.

Right?

Right.

So I, I do, I I do that and I'm, I'm, I'm a equity partner

in a number of businesses now.

Um.

We're always looking at, once I get involved, I'm

like, how can I increase the value of this business?

Mm-hmm.

Right?

So if it was sold to whoever from private equity down

to, to whoever, um, how do we maximize the value?

And that predictable cash flow is quite extraordinary.

So if I took a business.

As just a standalone business that sold one-offs, widgets.

It would be worth probably at the moment, if I'm

being totally honest, maybe two or three times ebit.

Right?

Yeah.

It's just that's how you would value a business.

At the moment, it's not what it was at all.

Um, but if I took those same customers, made the

same profit, but did it on a subscription business.

Yeah.

As opposed to a one-time purchase business.

Well, I'm starting to get multiples instead of two and

three, I'm starting to get multiples of four and five.

Do you see what I mean?

Yeah.

So I've doubled the business with, or doubled the value

of the business without really massively increasing

anything else because of that predictable income.

Yeah.

Um, and so no, you, you're totally right.

That whole value side is interesting.

I mean, I think, I think I read somewhere

that acquiring a new customer pretty much costs cost you

anything for five to, I think five to 25 times more than

retaining the current one.

Yeah.

So why would you not invest some time in terms of understanding

your existing customers and trying to flog to them?

Again, I. And again.

No, you totally would.

And again and again, I think it's com I think

it's common sense.

You go into a, you used to go into a shop,

you'd get a customer, you get a good customer

experience, you'd go back.

It's just, 'cause it's online doesn't mean it's any different.

Yeah.

Yep.

No, that's very true.

Very true.

Tony, listen, but I'm aware of time.

Oh.

And it is fast approaching, uh, at the end of our

recording session.

So, uh, let me ask you if people wanna reach out, if

they want to connect with you.

I think actually people need to go download

this report, um, yeah.

Which is on your website, so maybe tell

people how to do that.

Yeah, sure.

If, um, well, to, to reach out probably the easiest way is,

um, LinkedIn, uh, just punch in Tony Conte brave agency.

Uh, be able to see my, my profile.

I've got a little lion next to my name because

the lions are brave.

I.

Is that what it is?

Little Leo.

The lions nice

and broken.

That's, that's it.

Yeah.

Um, our, our report is, um, you can download the report

at um, uh, I won't even bother with the www dot 'cause

that's old school, isn't it?

It is, but you've done it now.

So

yeah.

Brave agency.

There you go.

It is funny actually, when it comes to using these non-US

domains like agency do digital, I feel the need to put www

just to make it really clear to the person in front of me that

I'm talking about a website.

Yeah, that's So if it was brave agency.com, you would

never do it, but because it's brave.agency like Yeah.

I, I just feel I need to say www.

Just to clarify, it's a website, just in case you don't know

that agency is a website.

I wonder if some people actually know what WWW stands for.

Do you know what I mean?

We should probably do a, certainly with, uh, I

should ask my kids, kids.

What does www stand for?

I've, I've half of them don't know.

When was the last time you typed in www dot a search browser?

No.

I just don't even remember.

When was the last time you used

the internet there?

A website.

Now there's a scary thought.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Well, that's a whole, whole nother topic of

a whole nother podcast.

It's right there.

It but Tony, man, listen, it's been great to connect

and great to meet with you.

Thanks for coming on and, uh, enjoyed the conversation

and going down, uh, memory lane a little bit.

Cheers.

Uh, with a, another e-commerce dinosaur.

No, pioneer.

But there we go.

What a fantastic conversation.

Huge round of applause.

Let's do this.

Yes.

Massive round of applause to Tony for.

That's enough applause.

Uh, massive round of applause to Tony for joining me today.

Now, be sure to follow the e-commerce podcast wherever

you get your podcast from because we've got some more

great conversations lined up.

And I don't want you to miss any of them.

And in case no one has told you yet today, let me be the first.

You are awesome.

Yes, you are created.

Awesome.

It's just a burden you've got to bear.

Tony's gotta bear it.

I've gotta bear it.

You've got a bear it as well.

Oh yes.

Now the E-Commerce podcast is produced by Pod Junction.

You can find our entire archive of episodes on

your favorite podcast app.

The theme song was written by Josh Edmondson, and as I

mentioned, if you'd like to read the transcript, the show

notes, all that good stuff, they're available on our

website@ecommercepodcast.net.

No www required.

Uh, and instantly you can also sign up to the newsletter.

But that's it from me.

That's it from Tony.

Thank you so much for joining us.

Have a fantastic week wherever you are in the world.

I will see you next time.

Bye.