On today’s episode, we talk about the importance of building a relationship with your customer in 2022. The evolution of marketing trends, new IOS updates, and Facebook ad protection have shifted the mindset from front end sales to relationship building. The guys use their own golf brand to add perspective on how the marketing connection has shifted to make it more personal. Learning to build trust with your customer is important now more than ever.

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This is a direct transcript. Please forgive any grammar or spelling errors.

Jason: If you do email the right way, you can create a relationship, you know, with your audience,

Kevin: you have that email, you can communicate them in so many different

Jason: ways. I think when people think about building a relationship, they look at it in a way that like, you know, this person’s going to want to come over and hang out with you.

But really what it means is like just having people on your list. We’ve got to stop thinking about trying to convince people who don’t want your shit

Kevin: to buy your shit. Okay. To send an email that may be wrong, or may maybe controversial with somebody, but you got to see, you got to send it to see

Jason: if, but it’s so true.

Like when you know what your audience, what they want to see, it’s so easy just to put it in front
of them

Jen: You’re listening to e-commerce uncensored with Kevin Monell and Jason Caruso.

Kevin: Hey everyone. And thank you for joining us. On another episode of e-commerce uncensored. My name is Kevin Monell and I’m here with Jason. Before we get started. I want to mention again, this new done for you service, email service that we’re working with. If you need help with email campaigns flows, welcome series, abandoned carts, any of those things you have going on in your email, uh, platform, we want to help.

So

Jason: even if you want to like change platforms to come to class, Or

Kevin: stuff like that too. Yeah. Got a few people, texted us, we’re using active campaign and someone’s using a square and things like that. Um, so we just want to start that conversation with you if you need help. So if you text the word email to 8 4, 4 6 4 3 0 7 4 5, if you’re interested in, you know, learning more about the service that we’re offering.

Jason: Yeah today, we get a lot of, it’s funny because we get a lot of people asking us about email. This is like, and then, you know, Facebook was hot. And then we did a Facebook core email seems to be coming up a lot. And, um, you know, this service I think is really good for those people who are just struggling a little bit to make money with their, with their email or they just want to tweak it a little bit.

So, yeah, I think it’s a, it’s a really cool thing that. We’re helping people out with, but aside from that, um, today’s a pretty exciting day,

Kevin: especially for me very

Jason: exciting day, very exciting day. We have been working on a new product, you know, this podcast, uh, we’ve been doing it for almost five years. I think.

Kevin: This is six years coming up on six years. Yeah. And it’s,

Jason: you know, it’s, it’s hard coming up with topics, you know? Um, it really is, but we started this new business. It’s a golf business. I told you guys about this, or we’ve told you about this and it’s launching today. I’m so excited. I’ve been working on this fricking thing nonstop day and night, and today is the day.

So I’m really excited about that. Um, but it leads us into today’s topic because. You know, we, we are very bullish on Facebook ads. And when I say bullish, I don’t mean in the sense where like, I, I, uh, I’m saying like, it’s the end all be all. It’s the only way any of that stuff. That’s not what I mean, but I’m using it to get attention is, you know, it’s a really effective tool, but, uh, it has been destroyed disrupted by Apple’s.
Um, update. I mean, there’s no, there’s no if ands or buts about it. And it’s amazing how much it did disrupt the marketing sort of world. I’m really surprised that apple hasn’t gotten more blow back from it because I feel like their users, our creators and our marketers, and are these people in business and those kinds of things, uh, maybe.
They’re already there. That makes up a small portion of them. So maybe that’s why they haven’t gotten blowback. But what we’ve found is that the days of making all those front end sales, I don’t want to say that they’re over. It’s just going to be harder or it is just harder to allocate. Or, um, you allocate the sale to Facebook or any other platform because it’s

Kevin: affected everybody.

Yeah, I think that it’s it’s and it’s amazing to look at the evolution as long as we’ve been doing this. Jason. And I think it’s just like the, almost like the, uh, the regular evolution of any kind of marketing platform that becomes more mainstream. Like when the first thing first comes out, it’s like, everybody’s, you know, we’ll see an ad or hear an ad and the.
And they’ll run and go get the product or they’ll go online and go get that product when it’s new. But like as more and more people get involved in it, it becomes like the standard advertising platform, which it kind of is. I mean, if you’re not advertising on Facebook, you’re, you’re not in the place where your, your audience is.
It’s like being on TV or radio. When radio first came out, I was like, when you would hear a radio commercial, you know, people would pull off the road and go buy something. You know, it was that kind of thing. And as it becomes more and more available and people get more familiar with it and people see it more.
When there’s more distractions constantly from them, it just organically changes the way the ad platform works. And I think that’s kind of what’s happening and something that we as marketers and as entrepreneurs and e-commerce store owners have to deal with and kind of work around.

Jason: Yeah. And on top of that, I think COVID also is playing a little bit of a part in some of this as well.

I think. The way people are buying or just, it’s just different. Um, you know, with Facebook at, you know, there’s a lot of drop shippers out there who will sell something on Facebook and it takes 30 days to get to the customer or never shows up because it’s coming from China. And I think the more that that happens, the more that people start to get a little bit more, you know, skeptical, they start worrying a little bit more.
So there’s just a lot of things that happen as an ad platform, such as Facebook evolves and. Um, you know, we’re just seeing like a shift between all the front, you know, because it is really attractive to say, like, let me run an ad on Facebook and let me make millions of dollars on the front end. And you know, now I’ve quote unquote, built a business and you know, really the truth is like those days are kind of, I don’t want to say they’re ending, but they’re definitely coming.
To a halt. Um, I mean, we have clients that on Facebook, we’re getting, you know, 15 X returns and 20 X returns and that kind of stuff is just not seeing as much of it. Um, but what we are seeing.

Kevin: What Kevin. And I think that instead of, um, cause you could go crazy. Facebook can drive you nuts, it can piss you off and you’d be like, Facebook sucks.

You know? Um, it’s not working for me. And I think they could take that approach or just kind of understand the process that this is now, you know, that it’s like Jason said, it’s really difficult to make that front end sale that like just showing somebody your product one time. Isn’t good enough anymore, especially when there’s so many other companies in your niche or similar to you that are shy, dude, I I’m like blown away.
We were talking about this the other day. I w I went down to South Carolina last week. That’s why we didn’t record last week, but I went down to look to South Carolina to, um, to record this, this course that we’re launching today. This. Project that we’re working on. And we were talking about we’re sitting down and I was, I was like sitting on my phone and I was like, I was shopping for a Jeep, like a month ago.
And like, I am still inundated with Jeep dealerships, pic pictures of Jeeps. And it’s just like constant, like, and to put yourself in a position to separate yourself from everybody else, that’s out there doing that. And I think that’s, what’s happening. Everybody’s are advertising on. The similar product to yours.
So you have to be able to stand out and grab that attention and keep it and hold on to it and show people your product and your service over and over again, in order to like, you have to earn that trust. Right? That’s one of the main things that, that that’s, that that customers struggle with when they see your product on.

Jason: Yeah. I mean, I think that that relationship building has always been a thing. I just think that it’s becoming more of a premium as this platform evolves and, you know, I forgot what I was talking to about this. And they were basically saying, I think I was on somebody else’s podcast, actually. I was basically saying like, I don’t really, or we don’t really look at Facebook, uh, at their metrics that often anymore, we tend to use like our other platforms metrics.

And what I mean by that is if we run a Facebook ad campaign, That is B is a lead magnet type thing. We don’t necessarily look at what Facebook is telling us. We go to our email platform, which is Klaviyo, and we see how many people came on the list. For a particular day. So I don’t really need Facebook to tell me, or even to track, or even for Klaviyo to track.
I don’t really need anybody to track that I make a list or a segment, whatever it is in Klayvio and then whatever it is for that day, that’s how many people signed up and then I can just reverse kind of calculate the return. Right. We don’t have to be so. It kind of leads me into what we’re doing these days.
So we’re, we’re tending to get away from trying to do these front end sales. I mean, there are some clients that like want to see those front end sales and that’s, that’s, that’s fine. Like that’s just part of it, but what our own businesses, whether it’s the journal of wildlife photography or, um, Jason caruso.com, which is the golf course, uh, regardless of what it is, We are starting to do, we are starting with the relationship first now and doing mainly everything as lead generation, uh, to.
You know, odd emails, email sequence

Kevin: with an offer. Well, I think even those companies that do need the front end sales are still going to need front end sales, right. In, in a lot of cases, but you still have to be in a position to do that. Like I said, your ad has to be shown to the same person over and over again.

And that just gets so exponentially expensive after you’re showing it to them over and over again, doing your retargeting, which you should be doing. And, you know, front end sales will come. Like Jason said earlier, it’s going to come at a premium. So we like to focus on, you know, being able to capture that relationship with an email or a lead gen, and then just create, create, create a relationship, create relationship through an email address and B and H then you own it.
You know, that’s what that was. That’s what, uh, Klaviyo’s motto was like. Okay. Customer or something like that, right. Or own your relationship or whatever it was. I can’t remember. But once you have that email, you can communicate them in so many different ways and understanding that that relationship will grow over time.
I know you’re not much of a, like a ruckus customer relationship kind of guy, but it’s just a way of phrasing. You know, you need to build that trust over a certain period of time and it’s not going to happen right away.

Jason: Well, it’s not that I’m not a relationship type guy. I’m more of a numbers kind of guy. Like, you know, I like, I like to make money and I like, I like to make money now, you

Kevin: know, and it’s a relationship based on exchange of funds,

Jason: but that’s because that’s all, it really isn’t.

It, it drives me a little crazy that. You know, there are guys out there that believe that you really have a relationship with your list. Um, because I I’m on a lot of lists and I don’t have a

Kevin: relationship with any of these, the guys making good money from the relationships.

Jason: Yeah. I mean, you know, so like it’s not that I’m against it, but I will say that this new golf course that we’re creating has definitely changed.

My perspective and kind of how I see things because you and I have really never had control over what we email and the courses we create and the products we, we really have to take the lead from, from the client. But I have kind of shifted a little bit of my, my thought is that like in, if you do email the right way, You can create a relationship with your, uh, you know, with your audience.
And I know that sounds a counter to what I just said a few minutes ago, but I’m, I am changing my thought on that a little bit because the people who do the emails or do email the right way. Listen and pay attention to their emails. And I do feel like I know them and I do feel like I’ve been taken into their world a little bit.
Ryan Lee is one person that comes to mind. You know, he sends an email every single day and he tells you what he’s doing. And I kind of do feel like I do kind of know what’s going on with him, you know? Uh, And it does have

Kevin: my trust. I think there’s so much you can learn too from your customer that that kind of can reflect on everything you do.

Like when you send an email, if you can see the engagement or you see people opening or clicking or whatever, even responding to your emails, it gives you so much more of an opportunity to, to learn what other things you should be doing in other places. Just because you listened to your customer, listen to the data and let the data drive what you do.
It’s really hard to do that on Facebook. I mean, you put an ad out there, you kind of look at the comments and you get, and that’s another thing that like, with Facebook is like, I feel like everybody thinks everything’s just. Like how many times do we run an ad? Everyone’s like, oh, this is a scam. You’ll never get what you pay for.
Right. That’s not the one. I just, I, I had to like hold myself off from like responding to people like that, but that affects it as well. Everyone thinks that they’re going to get scammed on something online. So they’re hesitant to buy, but when you can, uh, capture an email address, like Jason said it, and then you can communicate with them back and forth and build that relationship, build that trust.
They can see you like. How many times, how many times have you, people have to see you? You have to figure that out to seven, what Tony Robbins says 16, 20,

Jason: which is, is kinda like weird because there’s a, a whole bunch of people on my, on our email list that seen us a thousand times who haven’t purchased,

Kevin: but everyone’s not going to buy either.

You just always have been, I guess it’s just,

Jason: yeah, but you know that, uh, the point is that. Even if you don’t make front-end sales on Facebook and you get an email address you can make, or turn them into a customer over time, it doesn’t necessarily have to be right there. And then, but, you know, I will say like, it’s funny because I’m really learning a lot from.

You know, from this journey, this, this, this golf journey, just learning how to write, copy and learning how to communicate in email the right way and what to say, how to say it when to say it. And it’s really opened my eyes a little bit to just the possibilities. I mean, you can create easily a three to 5 million.
Company just by email. I mean, Ryan Lee talks about creating a lifestyle business for between one and $3 million a year. I mean, I think there’s no reason why it could be 3 million to 5 million. I mean, if you, I mean, we see it all the time on our customers, so, um, yeah, I mean, it’s, it’s, it’s interesting.

Kevin: Just really trusting. I think the main thing is trusting the process. Having patients knowing that, you know, that cell may not come day one. And you may not even know what the right thing to say to your customer is day one or day seven or whatever it is just, you gotta continue to hit them with different messaging, different offers, whatever you need to do to build that trust and, and, and create that relationship.

Jason: It’s amazing what you will learn just by doing. I know it’s like sounds, you know, fufu and. But it’s amazing just doing something over and over, whether you like it or not. We’ve eventually. Get it. And I think, I think, uh, I’m finding that with, with this new golf thing is like, I’m just understanding a little bit more, um, how to communicate an email, how to build that quote unquote relationship.

Because I think when people think about building a relationship, they look at it in a way that like, you know, this person’s gonna want to come over and hang out with you. But really what it means is like just having people on your list, trusting. Trust you and know what’s going on in your life and they just naturally sort of, you know, we’ll trust that over time.
Um, I think that’s when I hear relationship, I think that’s what people mean. Um, like anything else, like on fake, like face value, like our relationship seems deeper than that, but really what it comes down to your list. It’s just the trust thing. Just getting people to trust from seeing you over.

Kevin: It’s hard to, uh, put yourself, you were saying yesterday is like, you were kind of having a, and you said it this morning to trying to put yourself in your customer’s shoes and, and view it as them.

It’s a really hard thing to do. And, but if you can communicate with. You can kind of begin to learn what you need to say to them. And you were even like also even people who know you, you said it to me, you sent a, you sent your lending, your sales page to your buddy mark. And he was like, well, I kind of know you.
So it’s kind of hard to, and you’ve told me this before, so it’s kind of hard to evaluate we’re doing I’m in the same position as mark was it’s it makes it a hard thing, but just getting it out there and communicating with your customer or your email lists can really help you evolve the way you say things.
Anyway, that’s all I got for today. Jason, how about you? Yeah,

Jason: that’s good. I mean, I, I guess, you know, the moral of the story is, um, you know, this day and age, getting people on an email list, shifting your strategy a little bit from heavily front-end sales to try and get people on your list and not relying so much on Facebook or these other metrics that can’t really be tracked anymore because.

Apple has done, um, doing things that you don’t really need apple for, like, and that’s getting people on an email list, sending emails and, you know, monitoring, seeing what the sale is, what kind of sales come out of it? Um, we’ve actually changed our email platform from convert kit to Klayvio for this golf business, because convert kit.
You know, cool as the platform is it doesn’t give you any data on the sales and that’s what we need to see is what kind of data we’re getting from, from each email.

Kevin: Yeah. I think that the point to. To this podcast that we’ve been guilty of it too. Like it’s like something that happens every time, because when you don’t see those returns right away, you can get very frustrating and very hard to start a business, you know, or even our agency side, like our clients want returns.

And it’s really hard to say, you know, well maybe we’ll get an email and we’ll have to wait like 30 to 60 days to see if anything comes back. That’s a really hard thing to do. We’re not saying it’s easy, but it’s just a matter of patience and just sticking to the process. Right. All right, guys. So again, if you’re looking for some help with your email, text, the word email 2 8 4 4 6 4 3 0 7 4 5 to apply basically to work with us.
Sound good. That’s it. All right. Thank you guys so much for listening as always, you can check us out at ecommerceuncensored.com and we’ll talk to you guys real soon later.

Jason: Later.

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