Ep. #1005 - Conversion Rate Optimization Strategies

Andrew Morgans 00:01
What’s up, Hustlers? Welcome back. This is Andrew Morgans, founder of Marknology. Here as today’s host of Startup Hustle covering all things e-commerce and Amazon. And today, conversion rate optimization strategies is going to be the title of our episode. Before I introduce today’s guest, shout out to our sponsor, FullScale.io. Hiring software developers is difficult. Full Scale can help you build a software team quickly and affordably. And has the platform to help you manage that team. Visit FullScale.io to learn more. Today’s guest is a newer friend and a newer colleague. We actually met several months back, talking as fellow Amazon agency owners. Just got connected and said, hey, I gotta get you on the show, let’s connect. Ian Smith, welcome to the show.

Ian Smith 00:45
What’s up, dude? Thanks for having me, man. Appreciate it.

Andrew Morgans 00:47
Glad to have you as well. You’re in Colorado, correct?

Ian Smith 00:50
Yep, yep, Colorado. Used to live in Orlando, Florida, about a year ago. But we just moved out to Colorado about a year ago and we’re loving it. Seasons are starting to change. And I’m getting on a plane in the mountains. I just bought an ATV. I got a camper. So I’m loving the Colorado lifestyle at this point.

Andrew Morgans 01:05
You’re doing the thing. I like it, it looks good on you. Well, next, Colorado is like, you know, based here in Kansas City. I made it out to Colorado quite a bit. So beautiful. And I got a Jeep as well. So I’m like any chance I get to get in the elements, I’m trying to get up there. And it’s super nice to have you on the show. And, you know, Evolve Media being your company dealing with content. You know, today, conversion rate optimization strategies, before we jump into what we do and just get into the brainiac stuff. Let’s talk a little bit about Ian. You know, where do you get started in regards to entrepreneurship and business? Is that something you went to school for? Is it something you just like, you’re like, I want a business? Like, you know, how did you find business?

Ian Smith 01:48
So I went to school for arts and music production at Full Sail University. You know, I was raised in Colorado and moved down to Florida because I wanted to get to Florida. And Full Sail was that art college that I wanted to go to and it took me to Florida. So I always wanted to have my own business because it allows you more freedom with the ability to make more money and manage your time and do the things that you really want to do. So that was always the goal to start a business. But I had to go to the employee route first. So, after college, I was working as an employee doing music production, music engineering, all that kind of stuff.

Andrew Morgans 02:22
Can we talk about that? That’s more my background too. Like, oh, so you went to Full Sail University. Okay, and that’s in Orlando.

Ian Smith 02:30
Yep.

Andrew Morgans 02:30
Okay, sorry. I have some other friends like a sound engineer here locally that does a lot of things like, you know, tracks for movies and all those types of things. Like I call them jingles because I don’t know what to actually call them. But yeah, you know, and I think he went to Full Sail. We used to play music together, like touring the country. And he’s had a lot of success doing that. But it’s something I’d like to know from the outside. So is Full Sail a music school? Is it a design school? Like, what is full sail? Exactly?

Ian Smith 03:00
Oh, they do a lot of stuff. They do game stuff, they do video production, music, they probably do a whole lot more than I even know about web stuff. But it’s a lot like digital arts, all kinds of stuff. Very expensive school. I wouldn’t recommend them. I wouldn’t recommend college anymore at this point at all.

Andrew Morgans 03:19
Okay, so Okay, so you go there, it gives you a little direction, what you wanted to do, you come out of school and you’re working as a sound engineer?

Ian Smith 03:26
Yeah, I was working as a producer and sound engineer, also running a studio and people were paying me hourly to come into the studio, I’d produce their music, I would record them all kinds of stuff. Worked with Justin Bieber, worked with a lot of big names and stuff, but ultimately didn’t love the music I was making, like, didn’t love that genre. And I found that video and photos were kind of grabbing more of my interest. And so I guess I kind of bounced around from music to video to photo and so I have a good understanding of all those. And that’s been my hobby for so long, but I had to pay the bills and those weren’t necessarily paying the bills. So I had to become an employee. And I was a sales guy you know, I sales have always been a natural thing to me and I love the commission on the earning side of things. So yeah, yeah, I got into sales and was doing sales for a lot of different companies. Ultimately got into advertising sales and marketing. And then I still wanted to start my own business. So I finally found this guy that was a young kid like 2223 years old who owned his own multimillion dollar business at the time. And I was like, bro, it was kind of like Wolf of Wall Street where I was like, bro, you’re making some good money. You’re young. We were like the same age at that point. So I was like, bro, I want to work for you. I’ll do your sales and marketing like hire me on and at the time he used to do I don’t even have a budget to hire you. And so I was like, I’ll work for free. So I worked for free for him for a while. And then finally, he could afford to give me a salary. And then we took his company from like 2 million bucks to like, think like $10 million. I was doing some serious sales and, you know, making videos and his whole online presence and stuff, and then ended up starting a separate company with that guy. And I don’t want to mention any names because the relationship didn’t end super well. But basically what happened was, we ended up starting a company, me and six other partners, and that guy was one of those partners, that company did really well, we ended up doing like, I think, $3 million in three months within our first like three months of starting that marketing agency, wow, we were selling products with ClickFunnels, we were selling on Amazon with Shopify, and just moving a lot of product as well as running an agency and doing that stuff for clients. And ultimately, there were too many cooks in the kitchen. And so they wanted me out, I was the main operations guy. So they bought me out, they bought my portion of the business. I then started my agency that I’m in right now, that was way back in 2017. So I’ve been running my agency since then, and doing pretty well. Definitely loving, not having business partners and just being like, you know, solo.

Andrew Morgans 06:17
Yeah, it’s like, yeah, it’s like if I’m, if I win or lose, it’s, it’s by my decisions, you know, that Extreme Ownership part. And it’s just a little bit easier to stomach at night. And you don’t have to do all of the people pleasing, like the people pleasing comes down to partnerships and clients and even if those are still your decision, you know, so I very much agree. I’ve got some partners now. But I’m in my mid 30s, like, you know, and it’s people I’ve known and I’ve worked with, they’re like, you know, I know what I need in a partner versus like, just like, I need a body to help me do this. And then you grow and you’re like, well, in a year’s time. Like, even as a business student, you can learn a lot like, you know, on the fly, and if that person isn’t learning with you, it can get pretty tumultuous, you know. So, yeah, always have a story pretty close to that.

Ian Smith 07:02
Yeah, you know, there’s definitely pros and cons to having partners, like there’s a lot of pros, you know, that they really can help you scale quickly, especially with their connections and their work and stuff. But for me, the cons just outweighed some of those pros. And so I’m just, I’m really loving, having, you know, 100% control and not having to ask somebody if we can do XYZ, and how can I spend the company money. And, you know, it’s kind of nice.

Andrew Morgans 07:29
Yeah, I love that. And you can take some risks, like, yeah, I honestly, even with clients, I work with a lot less investor-based brands, simply because like the decision making is different on that end, and like what we spend on how we spend it specifically around content and branding, a lot of investors don’t completely understand the needs for those things. Like it’s not a long term strategy thing, you know, an investor is like trying to come in, scale it up, exit it, flip it, whatever the case might be. You know, a founder brand or like, you know, a brand that’s been around a manufacturer going direct, like some of those types of projects, they’re in it for the long game. And that’s really where the content of the branding piece comes in. If you need time to build reputation and trust, I don’t care how much money you have. You can churn and make $1 doesn’t mean you’re building a brand, you know, so it’s not the same thing. And I think if you’re like, if you’re really into brand building, that’s a different game. It’s a completely different game, you know, and they both there’s so many ways to make money, but brand building is something that’s not done overnight. And so the mindset has to be I’m making this decision not for what’s best for my pocketbook right now. But what’s best for the brand and you know, you do things like that, which is just a different path if I’m trying to do that with a brand or like you know, a client that’s hired me to do it and we’re not on the same page. It’s just going to be super frustrating as far as Yeah. So tell me about Evolve media. We took your love, you know your history up to like when you created this agency in 2017. Tell me more about it to any of our listeners like is it Amazon? Is it a marketplace only? Is it ecommerce? Is it like, you know, service based businesses as well, like when you started with, you know, marketing that the agency and the younger guy you teamed up with, like, you know, not necessarily what you guys are doing now, but even in 17. Like, how, what did you start out doing and who are you working with?

Ian Smith 09:18
Well, I definitely have gone through some pivots over the last five, six years. That’s definitely been pivoting. So I started the agency, mostly as Ad Management. So we were doing a lot of Facebook Ad Management and I just really niched down into that space working with all kinds of E commerce brands. I’m a big brand builder as well. I love building brands, because that’s the fun part. You know, doing things that build relationships and overall put your company in a certain light like I’m all about that stuff. More about that stuff, then direct response type of marketing, but that’s where I started you know, that was my strength and still is my strength if we need to do that, but I always obviously love brand building more. But yeah, so running Facebook ads, building funnels, was in ClickFunnels, working with a lot of E commerce brands off Amazon. But more of them wanted to like them and kept asking me, Hey, help me build my Amazon presence, help me sell more on Amazon. And I was like, well, Facebook ads aren’t really a great way to do that, like we have no tracking. We have no idea if we send traffic to your Amazon, so we have no idea if they convert or not. So, I was all about tracking conversions, because that’s how you run really profitable Facebook ads if you have that, you know, metric back yeah, if the ad is working based on their conversion campaigns. So over time, the client just kept asking me, Hey, help me build this Amazon, I was like, You know what, there’s obviously some serious demand here, I need to go all in. And I need to listen to what everybody is telling me. And so I started figuring out Amazon Marketing Strategies, figuring out what all they need help with and redeveloping services. And at that time, Facebook was pushing away their advertisers because they were shutting down accounts left and right, like ad accounts, they were making it very hard for advertisers to manage ads and spend money with them. So I was like, you know what, Facebook is causing me a lot of stress. So why don’t we just shift the entire agency over into the creative aspect of things, where we are creating videos for clients, photos for clients, landing pages, and really putting in our creativity, you know, writing copy for emails and landing pages and sales copy and writing copy for Amazon listings, building storefronts, and brand stories. And I was like, why don’t we scale more into that as a service, because that’s honestly like, what energizes me and gets me so excited when I’m helping brands. And that’s where we’re always honest, lending the most value. Because our creativity, I mean, I do think, what we offer, the value that we give, and the quality that we deliver for the price that we’re charging is like, it’s massive, I think that the value is huge. And that’s what’s really helped us scale is because we’re giving really high quality photos and videos for a low price. And it really is doubling conversion rates. Like we’ve got really great social proof and case studies of our clients saying like, we are listing pages at a 10% conversion rate. Now we’re at like a 20 to 25% conversion. We’ve gotten clients into like the 30s, and 40s with their conversion rate, you know, three out of 10, four out of 10. Shoppers will actually convert after we do our product photo shoots, and video shoots and, and create videos for sponsored video ads and revamping all the copy on the listing. So like, that’s really the fun stuff. So I’m just really excited to be in this space with this service offering. Because it gives us more I don’t know more like leverage and value to bring because it’s not, not many other creative agencies can offer and do the stuff that we’re doing in the way that we position our photos and how we, we kind of look at product photos as like an art. I’m like, I was literally just working in Lightroom before this call here. And, you know, I take an artistic approach to how I’m shooting the photos, staging the photos, editing the photos, and then when we put in our infographics and put in that sales copy, it’s just a lot of fun.

Andrew Morgans 13:12
Yeah, I love whenever we deliver a good project, and you know, the brand owner, maybe they hadn’t seen their brand in that light before. Like they hadn’t seen it come to life. Like, in that way. Like they hadn’t even envisioned it. You know, it’s almost like on those reality TV shows when someone renovates the house, and then the homeowners come back in. And it’s the first time they’ve seen their house, like renovated and they’re just like blown away, like, oh my god, I couldn’t believe like, you made grandma’s house, like, you know, this fresh and new and, and they cry and, you know, like, being dramatic, but like, I love that feeling like whenever they see something like that we’ve been able to help them with bring it to life. So I definitely resonate with what you say. So, you know, we talked kind of high level around like, you know, it improves conversion rates 20, 30, 40% Like, you know, if you’re doing it right, if you’re getting the right videos, if you’re telling the right stories, but let’s talk about like some of the strategy that goes into turning that into art, you know? What are some of the things you know, as you’ve evolved from Facebook ads to like direct to consumer like websites, and now you’re on Amazon, focusing on Amazon content there. What does content or conversion rate strategies mean to someone that doesn’t know our world, like to someone just listening in, saying, okay, conversion rate means people buy. But what does that mean that I need to focus on? What strategy should I be thinking about?

Ian Smith 14:33
So I think conversion rate all comes down to maximizing your dollar. So if you’re going to spend any money on investing into a product, running PPC ads, anything, you want to have it so that if 100 shoppers looked at your listing page or saw your product, what percentage of those shoppers are going to actually buy your product, right? And if you’re showing your product in a bad light, your pictures look bad, they’re dark. or they just look amateurish, or they’re, it’s not building trust with the shopper, or it’s not showing the shopper that it will actually scratch that itch. You know, the shopper is not completely believing what you’re trying to tell them, they’re not going to buy. And so that means that when you spend money, whether it’s trying to rank organically, you’re spending money in keyword research and trying to get your your your organic rankings high or you’re spending money on ads, whether it’s Google search ads, Facebook ads, Tik Tok, ads, Amazon, PPC, the better your listing is positioned, you know, I always think of the listing as foundation, the better and stronger your foundation is with the conversion rate in the photos being just beautiful, the more likely your dollar is going to go further, when you spend it on anything, and you’re going to build that relationship better with shoppers, and you’re going to help your brand seem more like a legit brand, you know, give you that authority in the space and get more people talking about you because you seem like a real player, and you’re not some amateur, or some beginner noob you know, you’re gonna be able to convey that your product is is valued worse, and has a higher quality than it actually may have just based on photos and videos. You know, I see it a lot. And I know this may sound bad, but it seems like false advertising. So many times, companies are so good at their photos and videos, that when I buy their product, I’m let down and I’m like man, they did way better job convincing me to buy it than they actually did on focusing on their product and making their product as best as it can be. So obviously, your product has to be good, or else you’re going to let people down and you’re not going to get that consumable factory, you know, recurring buyers and monthly recurring buyers. And that’s what you really need to scale and you’re not going to get their recommendations and you know, people talking about your product if it’s a junk product. So you need to have both a great marketing plan, great photos, great videos that really check all those boxes, as well as a quality product.

Andrew Morgans 17:02
Totally. And before I go to my next question, just a shout out to our sponsor, again, FullScale.io. Finding expert software developers doesn’t have to be difficult, especially when you visit FullScale.io where you can build a software team quickly and affordably use the Full Scale platform to define your technical needs. And then see what available developers, testers and leaders are ready to join your team visit FullScale.io to learn more.

Andrew Morgans 17:24
So you talked about like, you know content, like images and video, checking all the boxes, you know, that you need. What do you think and we’ve talked about success that you’ve had with it. But like for an Amazon seller, or you know, someone who’s thinking about it? What are some of those checkboxes that they should be thinking about when they’re hiring a firm to do it? Or they’re even doing it in their own in house? Is it just lifestyle photos? Is it getting the right models? Is it getting the right lighting? Like what are the checkboxes of good content?

Ian Smith 17:56
So I would definitely say scale. You know, I’m not a huge fan of renders because sometimes it’s hard to set the real, accurate, accurate scale. I’m not a fan of photoshopping your product into stock photography, because scale could be wrong there. And it just, it looks bad. If it looks somewhat awkward, even to the untrained eye, they’re not going to buy it because they’re gonna be like this sounds a little weird about this, I’m not gonna buy it. So, real photos, getting real actors and you don’t necessarily have to pay the big money to hire the actors or to even have people in general, I mean, you can just have hand models, just people that are willing to put their hands out there and hold your product but I definitely am a big fan of the human element of having some kind of human touch in your photos. But as far as the checkbox is okay, the scale is big. Benefits. So many sellers focus on the features and all the little things that their product has. And they’re expecting the shopper to connect the dots with how that’s going to impact their life. And shoppers don’t connect the dots so sellers need to connect those dots for them. As far as this is a feature so you can be warm when you step out of the shower. You know if it’s a bath mat, if it’s a robe, you know, yes, we make our rubs extra soft and heat insulating. So you can, you know, feel great when you get out of the shower and be super warm and microfiber so that you can absorb all that water. And so bring it back, connect that dot for the shopper and really drive at home. Don’t expect them to connect the dots. So features and benefits are huge. You obviously want to mention the features but more focus on the benefits and what value that’s going to actually bring them.

Andrew Morgans 19:41
By making the customer the hero kind of thing.

Ian Smith 19:43
Yeah, making it seem like this is gonna do that for you.

Andrew Morgans 19:47
Yeah, this is gonna make you beautiful. This is going to make you warm. This is going to make you fuzzy, this is going to make you you know walk different posture, okay,

Ian Smith 19:55
Focus, like bringing up the problem but making the product really feel like it’s the solution to whatever problem that they may have. So, focusing on that with your infographics and with your copy, you know, I would say more people just look at images and make the buying decision, they don’t necessarily read the title, the bullet points, and then even the A-plus content copy, they’re just looking at photos. So you have to make sure all your sales copy is in your photos and then duplicate that. So in the main listing images, as well as in the A-plus content, don’t worry if there’s overlap, if you’re saying the same thing in your main images, as well as in your A-plus content, because they may not see all six photos or seven photos, however many have in the main images, and they may see some in the A-plus content. So you have to make sure that you’re doing that. I would say brand story stuff like tell a little bit of your brand. Why are you different? What are your morals, your values? What are you guys focused on? Where do you source your products, you know, nowadays, things are getting a little hairy with China. So I don’t know if people are going to be super enthused that they’re buying and supporting products coming from China. So if you do get even if it’s Vietnam, even if it’s India, any other country, tell people that your products are made there. I mean, Apple basically says their products are assembled in, you know, they say things like developed in California. All their products are made in China, but they’re like trying to say anything they can to make it seem like they’re more of an American company when they’re not. But I’m– So, talking about quality of materials. And then we always like to have a comparison chart where it’s like us versus them. So here’s all the things that we put into our products, here’s our features and benefits, here’s what those guys are going to bring you, here’s the problems you’re gonna run into with those guys, here’s where we’ve made an effort to try to solve those problems so that you don’t have an issue with battery life, or you don’t have an issue with it decaying or breaking down or the color fading or things like that. So us versus them. But yeah, I could go on and on with that.

Andrew Morgans 22:03
No, I think that was great. Like, what are some like so you know, we’ve got video to which I think video can either like, directly validate what’s in the images, or it can be almost something completely different, like your images are all about features and benefits. And then the video is like the brand story or the video can be like an explanation how to or, you know, things that help the listing, like make them make that decision to say yes, I’m gonna buy. You know, from a lot of things I’ve seen over the last 10 years of work in this space it’s like there’s like trends, right? There’s so there’s these trends to like, what people are doing and how they’re doing it? Are they getting real artistic with the eight plus pages? Are they focusing on things like, you know, UGC? Are they focused on like, some high end stuff, there’s always something happening. What do you see as kind of like a trendy way to go? Or is it like some marketing tactics that are happening right now that you think are relevant. So I don’t know if that answer if that’s clear or not, but yeah, basically some trending stuff.

Ian Smith 22:07
So trending stuff, weirdly. Vertical videos, portrait style videos, are more trending than wide video. So that’s a part of the trend because it just seems more authentic and genuine and less commercial and polished. The amateur not so polished videos are just killing it these days. If you had a little tick tock watermark down dancing around your video that may seem like it was stolen from social media, and now it’s being run, you know, as a sponsored video ad or on the listing. So if you can make it seem like it’s going viral, like you have a lot of different people talking about it, that’s always important. Handheld ways of shooting, you know, like, like, you see their arm or you see that they’re within arm’s distance of the camera. I don’t know this, like amateur low production value way of shooting seems to be the trend right now to building a relationship and setting yourself apart from the other polished brands that are going to have this beautiful voice over talent reading it and they’re not going to say any herbs it’s going to be I don’t think that really resonates super well with the consumers these days.

Andrew Morgans 24:12
It’s about trust, like, you know, like, it’s just so much might be less polished, but like I trust that it’s real. I’m not just getting sold something that’s like, you know, an apple and mud. You know what it’s like, this is legitimate, I’m getting it right from the source. I’m like, they’re not polishing it. They’re just shooting it at me straight. And I know there’s still a lot of editing that goes into it, and we know that, but the subconscious mind is like I trust this more. This is like a friend or this is my neighbor. This is whoever likes shooting this and talking to me about it.

Ian Smith 24:41
Yeah, so, a couple of things. UGC, you know, it all really comes down to UGC, user generated content and when you can have a video showing multiple different people taking their perspective and talking about their opinions about the product, that’s really big. But also what we just did recently was a video where it’s not so much about all the ingredients in the supplement, and what those ingredients will do for you, you know, not so much a technical approach but more of like a lofty like, I love this supplement, it changed my life. It completely solved all my problems. Like being more vague and generic with the GC content not trying to make an actor get super technical with it, but just making them say big, lofty things like, this was a game changer. And yeah, over these.

Andrew Morgans 25:32
No, I get it because like, I honestly don’t want to read about a supplement product that has like a scientist in a lab, white coat. Yeah, like a white lab coat, like telling me all the benefits of the product. I know that might seem like it says trust, and it might seem like, Okay, this is a doctor that knows all I think about it’s like, I’m like, this is an actor with the code on, you know, or like, I just, I’m not the same as a doctor. So I’d rather see somebody that’s like my body type in the gym talking to me about not being able to gain weight. And he’s just like, yeah, like, you know, I eat three times a day, I do whatever, I have a hard time gaining weight, like this thing has changed the game for me, like, you know, it’s made me like, you know, gain 11 pounds in two months. And like, that’s gonna relate a lot more with me than any, you know, lab coat scientist or doctor that’s formulated this amazing supplement, which I want, I want a scientist or a doctor to develop the supplement, I want to be sold by the person that feels and looks like me.

Ian Smith 26:30
Yeah, I think it comes down to logical and emotional buyers, you know, I would say, I’m a logical buyer, I would say my wife is an emotional buyer. So when you’re making your videos, and I say videos, because you need to have an arsenal, you need to have an army of videos, you know, 10, to 20 videos, to check all the different boxes and convey your product to these different types of buyers. So you need to have a video where it’s more logical, and you got a white coat guy, and you’re coming across a professional, because that’s going to check all the boxes for those logical buyers. But you should also have an emotional type of video where it’s just a hype man, you know, a hype girl, and she’s just like, oh my god, this is the best product ever. It’s made me do this. And now I can do this. And, and so just being more emotional with it, and how it really changed the game or how it made her step up as a mom and have more of like a personal touch where she kind of gets emotional about her, you know, I was a mom that was really struggling with XYZ. And now I can do this. And so being vulnerable, I guess, is the main thing. So you want to have these different videos in your chest of videos, to be able to Tableau deploy and relate with those different shoppers that are, you know, a male of a certain age, that’s a single guy, but then also a mom of a certain age, maybe she’s a single mom, and she has these different problems and different pain points.

Andrew Morgans 27:56
I love it. I love that you said the emotional piece, the emotional and logical buyer, I would like to believe that all of us are a little bit of both. And you know, what I do know about the brain and how it works is that we as humans, the emotional part of our brain actually responds faster than the logical brain. So you know, you’ll feel something toward an image or a video or a person or whatever, and then your logical brain starts making sense of that. You know, and then you like, you’re gonna justify whether you buy it or don’t buy it or you know, how you feel about it, but, you know, recently spoke on creating emotional connection through content. And just like some of the nuances behind that, like, you make the food look delicious, you look at the coat that someone’s going to spend 500 bucks on to make them look amazing. Like, you know, I wouldn’t look amazing, like, you know, you’re trying to create these connections that I think at first, you know, the web is really still so new in regards to just like buying and selling which is one of the oldest things since the beginning of time, right? But doing it digitally is still new. So we’re still evolving as a culture. And first, it’s like getting products up online, okay, now get products like operationally and supply chain to people faster, okay, and then get, you know, the bottlenecks there and then Okay, now we’ve got competition and it’s not just first to market that’s winning on Amazon. Now we’ve got competition or across e-commerce because there’s multiple people selling the same types of products. Now we have to do that part, that emotional connection part, that content piece, that trust building piece, because it’s not just first first to the game that wins now it’s like we’re all here. The best business people, the best sellers, the best brands are gonna win. So it’s just evolved a bit, you know, and I think we’re definitely at the forefront of trying to lead the way in regards to how to do it best. You know, as we get as we get close to time, like what are a couple tips you have specifically for Amazon sellers who want to optimize their content to gain more conversions. And I know we talked about the checkboxes, we talked about what they can be doing and why. But what are some tips like just real practical advice for someone that’s trying to get started, like, doesn’t need to be just fill all the image gaps and a plus is it like, you know, start practicing so that they get better like what’s a tip you leave people with as a place to start?

Ian Smith 30:12
I would say testing, split testing, always be testing, always be trying different creatives, change your creatives often. I mean, obviously, there’s a balance thereof like, you don’t want to overcharge, and then something was working really great. And then you change, then you’re like, oh, man, now I took three steps back, I gotta change it back. And I gotta figure this out. So, but testing to a certain point where you’re dialing things in, and you’re getting closer and closer to like that perfect place. So testing around with different videos, that you’re creating different photos, you’re creating different people that you’re targeting, how you’re, you’re conveying your product in general with the benefits and…Yeah, but you’re not going to know– you don’t know what you don’t know, right? And you’re not going to know it until you find out, hey, this works great. So how do you find something that is gonna work great, unless you are testing different things If you just stick with one thing that you have found to be working, okay, you know, if anything, it’s going to plateau, if not go down over time, and it will stop working well, so you kind of always have to be trying out new things to try and to be getting better. Because if you’re not trying to get better than most likely you’re going to be going lower sales will be dropping. So, also trying things in a low cost way, you don’t have to spend a bunch of money to get some photos. Buy your own photos, have your own photos in your possession, I think a lot of sellers don’t have their own, sorry, products and not photos, they don’t have their own products in their possession. So like when you have it in your hands, you can simply hold it up with a sunset background in your hand, take a picture of it, and test that as a new image in your A plus content. Grid style images work really great when it comes to main images as well as A-plus content. That’s another checkbox that I always try to have when we’re revamping a listing. It always has a grid style image, they remind people of social media content, everybody, you know, goes to that social media stuff. So you can also put a lot more information and set different vibes with your product by having these grid style images. And I would say when you do this testing, go at it like on a scientific approach where it’s like, you don’t have 20 different variables, you’re you’re kind of saying I’m going to test these variables over x period of time. And then I’m going to look at the results. As far as what was my conversion rate during that time period, I would say a month should be a decent time period. And even that is hard because during the year, not equal. You know, we’re getting into Q4 now. And so we’re definitely not going to see more rational buying than emotional buying. Also, the price point is going to make it big, I meant to say this earlier with logical versus emotional buying. The price point is going to definitely change what kind of buyers you’re getting. Because the higher price point is obviously going to be people that are more logical. Like, maybe they’re 70, 80%, logical, and 20, 30% emotional buy.

Andrew Morgans 33:17
No, that’s great. That’s an amazing tip. And I’ll just add to that to say, you know, the way to test if you don’t want to be changing it live on your listing, or, you know, during Q4, but you want to be prepping and testing and learning all the time. You know, and I’m not an affiliate or anything like that, but pickfu.com And there’s other ones like that. But there’s a great place to put some of your content up. Get Real Amazon buyers to leave you like feedback and reviews on your images. Like did this photo make sense? Did I like this one better than this one? Was this one clear to me? I still had questions about this one. And you can get that kind of feedback. That sunset picture. Oh my god, I love this, like, you know, just made me think of like my favorite hour of the day. Like you know, you’re gonna get feedback from customers that you can’t just get on Amazon from making those changes. So it’s not the right timing or a little bit less risky way of testing but test test test, great tip for me. And all right before we sign off, like where can people contact you and where can they find more about Evolve Media? Where can they get engaged with you?

Ian Smith 34:20
So I have kept it real easy. Evolvemediaagency.com is the longer URL, you know, Evolve Media Agency is our name. So if you just go to emamz.com you can look through our photo portfolio or videos. We’ve got client-specific portfolios where it’s like the different photos and videos that we did for a specific client. We’ve got pricing for video packages for photo packages, you know, our photos, or videos can be as low as $99 for a video if you bought at least five, okay, just one it would be 149 for a video and then we have–that’s the basic video where it’s kind of just like product close ups and B roll shots with music. If you wanted a more elaborate video with crazier shots and a voiceover and a script and stuff, that’s just as low as 499. So $500 for a video. So we’ve got packages, if you buy multiple videos, and we’ve got photoshoot pricing, I think our lowest photoshoot is like, $250 or something like that. And then we’ve got other, you know, services as far as a full listing revamp, completely building up the full listing with a photoshoot, graphic design, copywriting, keyword research, all that kind of stuff. That package is about $2,000 for that, but it’s like a full revamp, I mean, we’ve seen big results of that. So our pricing is definitely affordable. Again, evolvemediaagency.com is the URL and then we’ve got a YouTube channel. So if you want to see some of our YouTube videos, we post a lot of, you know, advice and tips for Amazon sellers. So just go to youtube type in Ian Smith, Amazon, and then you’ll find my channel. There’s actually a couple of popular Ian Smith. So if you just type in Smith, you’re probably going to find them. But Ian Smith, Amazon makes it specific enough to find my YouTube channel.

Andrew Morgans 36:12
Awesome. And thank you so much, guys. I’ll put the contact information in the show notes as well. Shout out again to our sponsor FullScale.io. Do you need to hire software engineers, testers, and leaders? Let Full Scale help! They have the people on the platform to help you build and manage a team of experts. When you visit FullScale.io, all you need to do is answer a few questions. Then let the platform match you up with a fully vetted, highly experienced team of software engineers, testers, and leaders at Full Scale. They specialize in building long-term teams that work only for you. Learn more when you visit FullScale.io. We’re able to do this whole podcast for free and offer all this value all the time because of our sponsors. Full Scale, being one of our major sponsors. Thanks again for them; helping us put on the show. Thanks again to you, Ian. And thanks again to our listeners for tuning in. We’ll see you next time, guys.