Tips & Tricks ??
Alright Product People! This week the newsletter is focused on Tips & Tricks--quick ideas and workflow hacks. Whether you have a product in market, are looking or an idea, or are in the creation process (or have an agency), there's gems for you!
More product playbooks are in the works too, I've got back-to-school, watches & watch accessories, plus some seasonal themes, and and a total walkthrough of using the Pietra platform, all in progress!
?? Pinterest ??
I've been using Pinterest a lot, and loving it. I make boards for categories like brand identity, retail merchandising, packaging etc, and then per project or brand I'm working on. I've found that using this heavily has made the algorithm really give me great content I value when I open the app, which is a super useful feature. I break down my workflow with some example boards?on Youtube.
?? Looking for product ideas? ??
These TikTok accounts curate viral products, they're awesome.
Hat tip to the awesome?@jimmyfarley00?for this list, his TikTok course got me started on the platform, recommended!
My go-to recommendation on looking at these accounts and their content is to ask a few critical questions:
- What about this product makes it viral and exciting? How can I apply that same idea to a niche I'm interested in?
- How could I take this same idea and make it considerably better?
- If I offered several of these products together in a store with a common design or theme, are they serving the same customer?
- How could I create the type of content that these brands create for my own products?
Most of the things taking off on TikTok or trending/viral products sadly tend to be low quality. I think there is longevity in finding the actual good ideas here that aren't just gimmicks, and making genuine, long-lasting high quality versions backed by brand, story, strong customer support, and grouping together natural upsells. Stop fighting the idea you need something completely original, everything is iteration, especially in ecommerce in 2022.
?? If you're thinking of a new brand ??
If you don't have good money to invest, take your time to make your own identity.
If you’re trying to build your own identity Envato Elements is $200/yr has literally everything: Graphics, icon, fonts, patterns, photos. I've had a subscription for years, and have made lots of quick "MVP" brands that a full design team has later fleshed out.
Just needs ideas, direction and taste.
Your setup guide for a brand MVP:
Pro tip: If you're trying to make your own logo, take an exact logo you like and bring it into?Photopea?(free Photoshop), then use your own font/icon and place it exactly over it so you nail spacing. Spacing is often the biggest differentiator between pro designers and amateurs.
Obsess about product and build a true lineup:
This is a framework to think about product development.
Hero SKUs (a SKU is a "stock keeping unit" or individual product variant)- Your top sellers that drive demand
Secondaries - Less popular but revenue driving related products
Attachments - Add-ons/upsells to hero & secondary SKUs +
Bundles - Multiple things bought together for a discount
Loss Leaders - low price products that may not make much, if any, money, but bring in considerable amounts of new customers to sell your other products to
Limited Editions - Colorways and infrequent releases, holiday specials etc
Collaborations - Partner products with other brands
Partner exclusives - Versions of your products (colorways, aesthetics, bundles) specifically for specific retailers.
领英推荐
Start building SEO from moment one. In fact, start it from before moment one.
SEO takes time, and often feels useless, but it is the absolute definition of what is described in this chart. If you write a blog a day about whatever you want to build on a Wordpress site with Yoast (free) installed, until you're ready to launch, you might just launch with a subscriber base and organic traffic ;)
Hat tip:?Visualize Value
Building an SEO plan
Use tools like?Answer The Public?to look at what people are searching for around your product, and build content to answer those questions.
Build backlinks via cold outreach, guest posting, pay-to-play & PR.
Then never stop.
Build your brand as a community
Don’t let pre-conceived notions on advertising or social media content hold you back from performance.
Follow the data, remove yourself from what ads, content, campaigns or styles you think work
Challenge your ad performance partners too:
Is this really as good as we can get?
Are we constantly testing our ads, copy and landing pages?
? If you have a existing agency ?
Agencies should be devoting 10% of hours to building owned products and productizing internal tools and processes.
This goes for marketing, contract engineering, web, copywriting, social… everything.
With this new generation small agencies spawned by (great) programs like Client Ascension, they should be considering this from the beginning. Large agencies likely can't pivot to this fast... but they should.
During my time at?Guinn Partners,?Gel Blaster?initially came out of our R&D and internal development time. Would have been hard to make it exist if leadership hadn't prioritized sacrificing time that would have been client hours.
Digital products featuring your regularly used processes, key excerpts from education presentations etc is also underrated. Modify things to make them more accessible, remove anything to proprietary, and help enable others in different niches. Everything is less competitive than you think ;)
More on this concept, and some links to help in a future agency-focused newsletter.
?? If you have an existing brand ??
1. Ask your customers to send themed videos
Everyone is obsessed with user generated content, and rightfully so, but there's an extra power in specifically asking customers to play a role in a greater video campaign, where you're controlling the narrative and engineering something fun and viral. This?Warren Lotas example is... not something I'd recommend, but a perfect example of viral (and fits the brand).
2. Test your price points
I highly recommend creating unlisted products at different price points on our ecommerce site to send traffic to and monitor in your testing groups.
You’ll be surprised that with a few tweaks you can either make way more margin… or move way more units. I've bad multiple tests where we've raised price and conversion has stayed the same. Not testing is leaving money on the table. The same goes or "suite spots", where a product is just a little cheaper but all of a sudden velocity hits. Don't go with your gut, test with ads.
Appreciate you reading, and stoked to see what you create!
– Oren
P.S.
Check out 2 newsletters from my best friends Colin & James
NanoFlips - Learn the art of buying, growing and selling websites:?https://www.nanoflips.com/
Free Smoke - A Cannabis Business newsletter by Colin Landforce:?https://freesmoke.xyz/