How do you know when you are ready to scale your product business? That’s the topic of today’s discussion with our guest, Natalia Chappell. Natalia is a digital marketing specialist with over 10 years of experience in the luxury fashion and lifestyle industry. She helps brands scale up by balancing free and paid channels to achieve top-line growth and a healthy bottom line.

In this episode, Natalia explains what scaling up means, how to determine if your business is ready to scale, and practical strategies for sustainable growth. We explore key indicators of readiness, such as identifying where growth is stalling, increasing average customer spend, and attracting new customers. Additionally, we discuss the importance of adapting to new platforms like TikTok Shop and the rise of experiential marketing.

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Welcome to the bring your product idea to Life podcast.

This is the podcast for you if you're getting started selling products or if you'd

like to create your own product to sell. I'm Vicki Weinberg, a product

creation coach and Amazon expert. Every week I share friendly,

practical advice as well as inspirational stories from small businesses.

Let's get started.

Hi. So today on the podcast, I'm speaking with Natalia Chappell.

Natalia is a digital marketing specialist with over ten years experience within the

luxury, fashion and lifestyle industry. She helps brands scale up

through finding a balance between free and paid channel mixes that deliver top

line growth and a healthy bottom line. So Natalia is on the podcast

today to talk about scaling up. She's explained what scaling up

means when you know you're ready for your business to scale and the

practical things that you can do to grow your sales in a sustainable

way. So I would love now to introduce you to Natalia.

So hi. Thank you so much for being here. Thank you so much for

having me. So, can we start with you? Please give an introduction to yourself,

your business and what you do. Of course.

So I'm Natalia and I've got over ten years experience

in digital marketing, primarily focusing

in luxury, fashion and lifestyle, as that's where

I have recently left at

THD where I was heading up the marketing team. And now I am

a marketing digital specialist doing

consultancy and freelance, which has been very exciting and a

big journey. But I have spent the

past many years working with household name

brands from Rixxo, Gannii,

some of this candy brands, all the way to La Crueset and other

brands as well as menswear Represent and some other ones,

and focusing on digital marketing as well as actually doing some

offline moments too. So a bit of an octopus,

as some may say, and really kind of focusing

on bringing the business revenue as well as making

sure that that's very efficient. And I sort of try and focus

on that free to page channel mix and making sure that that's really,

really healthy. And I know we'll talk on that in the episode,

but that's sort of my bread and butter to make sure that a business

is healthy in driving that revenue stream through

marketing channel means. Thank you so much for

introduction, Natalia. So I have invited you on here to talk

about scaling up. So what does scaling up

mean for you? I think for me it means,

you know, understanding that you as a

business owner, as someone who has produced

a product or done a service, is sort of ready

to drive that increment, not just the

incremental revenue but really go beyond that and it being

extremely profitable and scalable to the point where you

are driving more revenue beyond the money that you're

spending. And I think that so many businesses coming

out of COVID have really, really seen a huge opportunity

where you can bring product to life, to customers by

having pop ups and doing things that are taken away from

that. Just being a digital business and really, actually

continuing to drive that awareness so that you scale up

through driving quite a substantial revenue stream to

your business and awareness, but actually a really, really

profitable and efficient way of being.

That's kind of what I always think of

when I talk about scaling up. Thank you. So part of it

definitely sounds like it's about maybe doing more things or doing more

of certain things and doing things differently as well. So I guess it

encompasses lots of different things. Yeah. Thank

you. So before I ask you, okay, what are the things that we could be

doing more of differently, etcetera, let's start with how would

you know when your business is ready to scale up? Because

obviously some of us are in the startup phase and

that's obviously different. How do you know when you've reached a point where,

okay, now I should be thinking about scaling up? So I really

think that, you know, analyzing your business and really

looking at the data and the numbers, they might not be the sort

of coolest of things to do, but we absolutely have to do those to

recognize what the numbers are telling us and the data, and

it can be really top line and basic really doesn't have

to be overly complicated, but really

where you feel that you are growing, but maybe

it's a bit of a stagnant way and

really thinking, okay, you're getting a consistent but stagnant stream

of traffic, of leads,

of revenue, and really thinking, okay, I'm ready now

to take it up a notch and really continue to

accelerate it. That's where a lot of businesses

will be at that stage where you're not just

going from zero to 100, you've already

gone through the finding your feet and having

relatively small numbers and sort of being ready

to inject a little bit of marketing spent into it

or whatever it may be that is required for you to

actually take it up there to drive that sort of

revenue stream through. Thank you. So it sounds

like this is when you're through the startup phase. You're at a point where you're

getting consistent sales, whatever level that might be,

but you're not really seeing growth. You're seeing perhaps sales

you're happy with, but there's no growth month on

month. Perhaps you're sort of, I don't know if ticking over is the right way

of saying it. I think I look at it as that sort of

consistent but stagnant. I think that stagnant word is something that you

feel as though you are sort of seeing every month

because of wherever those leads are coming

through and that sales are coming through, you are seeing it being consistent

but not just growing at double digit growth and so on,

where you can really think, okay, I need to

accelerate this. That's definitely how I would say a business

recognizes that they are ready because whatever it is that you're offering

the customers, they're coming back and, you know,

they're definitely finding your product and your business and wanting

to or are in need of that

product, but you're somehow not just getting it in front of

enough people. And I think that's when you recognize that actually you need

to, you know, you're ready to scale up your business.

Makes a lot of sense, but it sounds like at that point, you know that

your business is viable, so you're making enough sales that, you know, yes, people like

my product. Yes, it's, it's good. But as you say, you're just not getting

it in front of enough people. So that's a really nice way of thinking about

it. So if we identify, okay, we're ready to

scale up, what kind of areas should we be focusing on

when we're looking to scale? So I would say that there's a

couple of areas that you should

absolutely look at as a starting point. You know, you should recognize

that as a business, you will

have enough data to be able to unpick it and

recognize where your strengths and perhaps some

weaknesses are. That's sort of my starting point

of, okay, you know, what is the traffic that I'm getting?

What is the sales? What is my av. Of my product

and therefore, what is my conversion? And from then on,

you are able to really forecast, I

suppose, on what you would anticipate for that

growth to be, and then you

understand where that is coming from. So you can

then say, okay, right, how many new customers versus perhaps returning

customers do I have? And so what the balance is there?

Am I getting more returning customers? If so, fantastic

people are coming back and getting my product time and time again. I need to

go and find more of those people and acquire them and make them

into returning customers. We all know that the more

returning customers we have, the more profitable the businesses.

So it's extremely important that we recognize that as an opportunity

because it gets us that incremental revenue. And what it does do

is allows us to spend more money on acquiring those customers, which is sort

of the dream way of doing any business. And so it's

really understanding what is that balance between both? You

know, am I just acquiring new customers and

not really retaining? And that can be fine if your business

isn't really one that customers don't often come back. But

then is that an opportunity to, you know, potentially think of

a product whereby you can come back for

something later down the line and those look, windows will be different for

every business. You know, a customer may come back. If it's something

that's replenishable. Customers will come back more frequently, of course.

And so that's definitely the second piece, I would say that's really quite

important. Test and learn. Very

passionate about that one. I think it's extremely important that

as any business, however big or small

you are, you continue to really, really test and

learn. And it can be a really small scale. It

doesn't have to be huge because you will hopefully always get

enough of any data that will pinpoint you to understand

whether it was a successful campaign or whether your email you

sent out was worthwhile or whether you should do something

and continue to test. I absolutely think that any business that

doesn't do it becomes complacent quite quickly and

because you do something and aren't really looking

at understanding why you worked or didn't.

So I absolutely feel extremely passionate about that.

And I think that that's a really, really important one. And I suppose another

one that I think for a lot of digital businesses out there, you

know, Shopify is amazing. It's allowed us to take the product

to customers and it's a really seamless experience. But

what we often forget is that coming out of COVID people

love experiential stuff and it can

be really quite simple. It doesn't have to be expensive,

but, you know, the kiosks, the things that are

pop ups, they are really, really growing. And it's quite a huge

trend in marketing and it is something that people,

we thrive to be able to go and see and it can just be a

stand in somewhere in London or at an event. And it

really is important that you take that product, physical

product, if you are offering that as a business to

customers, you can get to chat to people. It's a really good way of getting

feedback there and they're on the spot and it's a nice way of

bringing that piece of something

that you're offering to a physical experience as well.

So these would be my sort of takeaways for

scaling up and really kind of driving your business

forward. That makes a lot of sense. Thank you. And coming back

to one of the first things you said about data, I think,

yeah, that's really important, isn't it? Because I think if you don't know your numbers,

you don't really know where you're starting. And I suppose coming back to my question

about what do you focus on? Knowing the numbers will probably give you an

indication of where it is to focus your efforts. So, for

example, I'm thinking that sometimes I work with clients,

for example, who, the number of people actually looking

at their product pages is very, very good, but the conversion rate is

low. So that obviously gives you an area to be focusing

on because why they're coming to your page. Brilliant. Why aren't they

buying? And then you can sort of start looking into what needs to be done

differently. Yeah, absolutely. And to your point

there, more and more

businesses recognize that the product description page is

actually where the customer lands more likely than on your

homepage. Why is that? Because a lot of the

marketing activity that can be done online can be done through

PPC, through order retailers as well. And

so often when you've made the decision that you're looking for a product

and then you're typing it up and happened to land on something,

absolutely must make sure that that product description page is really,

really there to encourage the customer to convert. And I

always think of it as a way of, you know, you walked into

a store and there's nobody there to greet you or ask

whether they can help you with whatever you're looking for.

So naturally, if there isn't a good service, you'll just come back,

turn around and walk back out. And that's what happens with those.

And until you analyze it, you won't know where

that difficulty is because actually you could be spending

all the money on marketing, driving traffic to your website. But if it's

not converting to your point before then,

you need to be recognizing that either you're spending

money on targeting the wrong amount of the wrong

people and therefore you're misleading them with a product that maybe

is too high for them to want to spend. So what your marketing

spend is at this point actually not worth

the money, and then they land on your site, see the

product, aren't interested because it's too high of a

price point and bounce back. And then you realize actually

that causes damage to your organic rankings because Google

recognizes that you're getting quite a lot of people to site, but

they aren't converting, which would suggest that that is not a

product of relevance to them. So there can be quite

a lot of damages and tangles if you're not doing it right. So

absolutely always making sure that you look at the data to then understand

what you need to do next is really, really vital for your business.

And that sounds like that applies to the data for any advertising you

might be doing as well. And

how would a business recognize whether,

where and how to advertise? I suppose I think some

businesses that I work with, they don't start thinking about

advertising until they're ready to scale up. So maybe the sales and

traffic they're getting so far is organic. And then they get to a point where

they think, okay, we can now afford to put some money behind marketing because

we've hit a level where that was viable. Where would you suggest

someone that starts. So I would

be, I mean, look, I have,

you know, I really love the fact that channel specialists

are there to be able to say, you know, I'll come in and

just do paid social. And often you

have people that just say, I'll just do pR. But actually

it's really important that as a business you recognize that it isn't

just one channel that will drive your business. And

I really feel strongly about looking at things in a

holistic and a 360 approach. It's really

important that you balance it out. You know, anyone can say great, we'll

spend 1000 pounds on paid social every month, but that

might actually in the end break your business because you

are just getting revenue stream through that 1000 pound and

that's all you rely on. You really have to balance out that free to

paid channel mix. And to your point about there may

be organic traffic and organic revenue stream that a

business is getting, that's great and that should definitely be

something that you continue to accelerate. And so

understanding that at smaller scale, if you did

paid social and you start small and then you

continue to grow it, I always think that looking at things from

a lower level and conversion, it's really,

really good because you're looking at a customer who's

shown an intent on purchasing and it could be

as simple as setting up a retargeting campaign on your paid

social and therefore anybody who's visited your

site but hasn't yet converted you are just targeting

those users because they've already shown unintended that they are

willing to purchase your product but may not be ready because

it was mid month that they looked at you and payday isn't quite

yet happened. Or it could just be that they're

interested in it, but they need to do a little bit more research. If you

do that retargeting piece, which is relatively

simple to execute, it would then mean that hopefully you

will convert them. But thinking, do I spend

100 pound on that versus 100 pound

on just looking at getting new people to site?

Well, I definitely would spend that 100 pounds on retargeting because

otherwise you're getting loads of traffic. But unless your email

database is big, where people have signed up and you can get

them to sell to convert, then it is a

lot more difficult at that stage. So whatever stage you are at

as a business, you've really got to recognize that

maybe small spend volumes where it's

not too risky. And getting those people to convert would

allow you to drive incremental revenue and hopefully therefore you can kind of,

you know, continue to upscale it in driving that little bit of

traffic too. That's really helpful. Thank

you. And you mentioned as well that as well as, say, paid. So sure. You

should also be thinking about PR and looking at things

holistically. What's the reason for that, Natalia? Because I

think a lot of people might be listening and thinking, oh gosh, I've only got

time to do one thing. Why do

you believe that we should be focusing on the whole piece?

Because for a sustainable business, or for a business

to be sustainable, you need to recognize that

your sort of ability to

scale up at a rate where you can really, really grow on

top of it is to make sure that you're not just relying

on one source of aspects, income. You know,

really you're strategizing it in

different means. And so, you know, there's no point spending

5000 pounds. This is extremely high. But, you know,

sort of saying we will get our products in every single magazine

from a PR point of view and in front of every press

individual who will write an article. But then you land on site

and the website is rubbish and no person wants to convert because it doesn't

marry up. Your website doesn't marry up to whatever, you know,

the magazine looks. You have to make sure you do

both. Same with, you know, if you're then landing

loads of people on site, but you're not looking at retargeting

them and really going after the user behavior there through

your, you know, your paid social, then that feels

like almost a wasted investment because you've got that

person landed on site, but you're not quite ready to chase

them, to get them to convert. Similarly, if you just relied

on, for example, affiliates, you know, a

really, really well converted channel, because

you get somebody a discount code, and in this day and age,

when the economy is looking a little bit more

tricky, everyone is feeling the pinch. So naturally

a discount will convert. But if you just did

affiliates and that was your full channel mix, then

that is not sustainable. And there will be a point where you hit the glass

ceiling because you've just got customers that you've acquired,

you've spent money on, but they're not willing to come back and buy with

you again because you've taught them that the only way of coming to you

is by discount. So you've got to really balance this out.

Similarly with email, you need to continue to grow your database and speak

to your customers. And I understand it feels really overwhelming and

I'm sure everyone's listening and thinking, wouldn't we all wish we had more hours in

the day? And I hear it and I think

that's why you absolutely have to prioritize, which is why we're going

back to that data piece as well. What is it that your data is

telling you and where can you have those quick wins? But balancing this

out for that holistic channel mix will really help you to

think, okay, well, let's prioritize this this month and then next

month. Always great to have 30 days worth of

data because it feels enough for you to have some tangible

results and then you can do it bit by bit. It doesn't all have to

be done suddenly at once, but it certainly does keep you

busy. And, you know, I admire everyone who is trying

to do a couple of channels at a time, but that will

always give you a much more sustained and

longevity in your business. Thank you. That makes a lot of

sense. And I think as well, a lot of what you're suggesting are things

that might take work and time initially,

but then ongoing, not

saying it's done. Like, for example, getting your website up to scratch

if it's not already. Yes, that's a lot of work. But once it's done, that's

something you don't have to be thinking about, not every day, of course. You still

need to be keeping an eye on the data. And the same with,

I guess, lots of types of marketing campaign. It takes a bit of work to

set up and test, but once they're working for you again, you can't just

set them and forget them. But I think a lot of the work is kind

of in the front end of things, isn't it? So once things are

running, there's a lot more maintenance, which takes a little bit

less time and thought as well. Yes, I think,

yeah, absolutely. You've really summarized it very well. And we think about

influencers and content creators and

UGC, which is kind of becoming quite big on TikTok as

well. And you think, well, of course, to start with, to

encourage somebody to potentially talk about the product

that you sell may be a little bit more tricky. But

as you grow with that, and if it's a really nice and

effective way of getting new customers, and it has been proven to be

much more authentic in getting new customers, which is why it's

grown so substantially over the past couple of years,

somebody else who is a content creator will see

that so and so is producing, you know, is making

that content. And you will then actually get people reaching out to you to say,

I'd love to get involved in this. So, you know, to your

point, absolutely. There is an initial setup of a

little bit of time and effort, but as you get going, it's then small

tweaks that you need to be making and it hopefully will always grow

legs and continue to get better.

Thank you. And so just got a few more questions before we

wrap up, if that's okay. So once you're starting, you're

starting to scale up.

This might sound a really silly question, but I'm going to ask it anyway because

I like to ask the silly questions. And once you start scaling up

and seeing different, is it something you can always be building upon?

I'm assuming that scaling up isn't something that happens once. I'm assuming we can always

be scaling what we have. Yeah, so

absolutely. You know, scaling up, you just need to keep

adding on top of it and recognizing that

it's okay if something doesn't work. I always think of it as, you

know, people think failure is the worst thing that can

happen, but actually what it does do, it's allowing you

to take the moment to think what isn't working.

We all love the growth and if we can get double digit growth every

month, we will love the fact that that

is the best thing thats happened to our business. But what we dont tend to

do is take the moment to think what we could be doing

differently. And so it kind of goes back to that test and learn point again,

that no matter how well you feel your business is growing,

taking the time to test and learn to recognise that maybe

you need to introduce a new product or that you need to

adjust your offering ever so slightly to continue to

accelerate. And businesses always evolve,

and those that don't are, unfortunately, the ones that are in

a bigger risk of becoming complacent and

unfortunately not being around. And that's what

I think digital really, really offers for all of us. But

also, let's not forget that you have to be looking at it from a really,

really full picture. And so continuing to analyze

data and adding on whether that's a new

product introduction or a service is extremely important.

And yes, for sure, you know, you don't just sort of

scale up and think there isn't anything beyond that. But naturally, that

might be growing legs sort of sideways

rather than outwards. That makes sense. And

I think, as well, coming back to what you were saying earlier about TikTok, there

will always be new opportunities as well, because I would say five, maybe five years

ago, I couldn't put a time on it. I don't think many people

were selling products via TikTok, or maybe they were, but I don't think it's as

big as it is now. And so I guess that's something else

to consider as well. And I don't. I'm not talking about jumping on every bandwagon,

but what I mean is, I'm sure that as time goes on, the opportunities

will be different, will grow, there'll be channels that become more popular, less popular.

I mean, you spoke earlier about how face to face and getting your product in

front of customers in pop ups at the moment is a bit of a trend.

Hopefully that will always be a bit of a trend, because I think there's something

really nice about getting your products in front of people.

But presumably these things will change. So even if you feel you're doing

very, very well, there will always be other opportunities.

Absolutely. And yes, you know, you

can't be so, so set in your waist, too, that you say, well,

TikTok isn't for me. If you're a business owner,

no matter your age, you must be willing to try

that new platform. If you're not on it yourself, it's a lot

more difficult to recognize what the trends are. And to

your point, absolutely no advert business. The

next trend is relevant for. We've got

tennis court. That's a huge trend at the moment. You think,

well, I'm not selling anything that's tennis related, but

actually, how is it that it taps into so

many different people's lifestyles? Because

it's not just about somebody going and playing tennis and you selling the tennis

balls or a racket or piece of clothing. It

encompasses a whole idea of where does that customer go?

What do they do, how do they behave? What do they like to

buy, cook, and which shops they shop in? And

it's that whole piece about thinking just beyond that trend.

Wellness is obviously really huge. People are really,

really into running at the moment. You see all of that all

over TikTok. If you have a product that you may not

thought your product is, you know,

is doing extremely well and you find your niche, well, how about

you try on TikTok shop? Because actually that's where your audience is. And

it's really, really, really crucial to your point to understand that you're always

staying on top of it because there are always new things that are coming

up. Marketing is ever changing. Digital marketing

is hugely vast, and if you're not willing to stay on top of

it, then again, you will fall behind quite quickly. And I get it, it's

overwhelming. You know, I wasn't on

TikTok recently. People still think it's just about

dancing. It absolutely isn't. There's so little of that,

and it's very different to Instagram. So you have to be

recognizing that the strengths that are there on those new platforms that are up

and coming is something that you're willing to try for your business.

Because if you don't try it, you want to know if it works.

And if it doesn't work, that's okay. You move on to something else and go

back to sort of your roots. But it is really, really

important that you continue to stay on top of things. That's

really good advice. Thank you. And actually, after a long time of resisting, by

the time this podcast goes out, I think I should be on TikTok.

Yeah, I haven't posted anything, but I will. That's my. My goal

for this year is to just embrace it, because I think you're right.

You know, you can tell yourself, I'm too old. I don't want to learn another

thing. But actually, it's just excuses, and we

all learn plenty of other things as we go along.

Absolutely. And I'm really, you know, I'm excited to hear you say this

because I'm really passionate about people sort of willing to try new

things. I think you step out of your comfort zone and putting

yourself out there, whether you may just to start with music

for the people's information is great. And I personally

have found a lot of informative information

there, and I now use it as a little bit of a search

engine. They have said that it's become

the new SEO for people typing in the best places

to visit in Barcelona. And why? Because it's authentic. You

don't find yourself on a website where you feel like, well, you're definitely

not going to get that room. And yes, it poses risks to

businesses that aren't willing to adapt. So thinking

quite widely there, if I was booking.com, i definitely would be thinking,

okay, how can we tap into where those people are looking for

now? Because that's what you should be doing. And I think always as a

business, you must be adapting. So I'm very excited to

see and hear that you are going to be on TikTok, and I

absolutely will be giving you a follow and supporting

you along the way as well. It's a bit of a journey and you

do find yourselves crawling quite a lot and it becomes addictive.

But it's great. I love it. Amazing. Thank you.

And thank you so much for all you've shared. Natalia, I have one final question

before we finish, which is, what would your number one piece of advice

be for a business that's ready to start scaling up?

I feel like I've said it quite a few times, and so

I feel extremely passionate about

testing and learning. I really do. Look at your data

I used many times before

an analogy of Lego, and it's a picture

of how to build a house with your

data. And it's a really, really

important thing to do, because without it, you're not able to

understand what's working for your business and what is in, and if it is

working, how you can accelerate it. And if it is, what

have you learned from? I suppose, the failure

and how can you adapt to do new things

for your business? Because ultimately, you want to continue to drive

and accelerate and succeed. And that without test and

learn, I don't think you are able to ever do that. That would be my

biggest piece of advice. Look at your data and test and

learn with everything because that's when you'll find your strengths and

continue to accelerate those. That's brilliant. Thank you. And,

you know, I think when things are important, it is worth saying them more than

one time as well, because I think that is a really important

thing for people to hear. So thank you. Thank you for everything you've shared.

No, thank you so much for having me. And, yeah, I'm looking

forward to seeing you on TikTok. Thank

you. Thank you so much for listening. Right to

the end of this episode. Episode. Do remember that you can get the full back

catalog and lots of free resources on my website,

vickywineberg.com. please do remember to rate em review this

episode if you've enjoyed it, and also share it with a friend who you think

might find it useful. Thank you again and see you next week.