You are reading 3Bits & Change, Joseph's weekly email about building a direct to consumer business on the internet. Today’s email was written to a Spotify station playing on Sonos in the other room. Follow @josephrueter on Instagram or Linkedin. Follow Vivront.com on Instagram and Facebook. If you haven’t already, subscribe!
Good morning,
I’m learning growth marketing in a hands on way. The discipline moves real fast. It’s powerful for business. It’s going to be worth learning. I’m moving at a slow but steady pace.
Let’s go get those views and sales while we sleep.
I’m fresh to this. I needed a place to start. And, I’m not in the loop. How does one move from knowing generic things about growth marketing tools and approaches to doing specific things with your hands in the tools of growth marketing?
Zero sales have come from Facebook at this point. Ha. So, now what?
Vivront.com is starting from zero too. That makes two of us. Remarketing lists and many other strategies don’t apply. We can plan for them with pixel placement but they don’t matter much now.
What matters now is building the list of customers. So, I’m going to friends with the offer to sharpen knives. After they try I’m offering packages for them to give to their friends to try. There are coupon codes in each package. It’s working to spread the word. Thanks all! This is a problem we all have. That makes it easier to share. But you’re still sharing! Thanks all.
Google My Business is moderately successful right now. Sorta. It’s tilted toward nearby businesses and customers. With shipping that matters a lot less for our model but at least there are views.
The most successful thing so far has been posting on Linkedin about the process and then to follow up with folks that like the posts a few days later. I thank them for the like. That strikes up a conversation and we’re on our way.
But, what about the platforms? Setting up Shopify. Earned media? And then, how are the paid media efforts going?
Bit #1
After starting my first Shopify store and messing around a bit it became clear that I’d move faster if I had a teacher. So, I bought 1000 Sales And Beyond and listened to the videos while out on walks with the dog. I’d come back to the laptop and work on the setup I just listened to. Basic learn and do model here.
It turns out that Shopify is really well built, better than I thought it was. After going through the process I was impressed with then various issues they have anticipated and made rather easy. Still, there were many phrases and controls I wanted to hear someone talk through conceptually and contextually vs. read about. It was faster with the course than without it.
Bit #2
I had thought we needed to win in paid media to grow. Then I started looking at SEO reports. There is a ton of traffic to rank for on and around knife sharpen(er)ing. After some research it looks like it’s possible to get to the point where 3/4 of traffic will come from organic. It’s a slow road but worth it when it works in the future.
So, I put a pause on the paid media efforts, dialing back spend, and started writing. I’ve been writing about knife sharpeners, knife sharpening, near me, parts of a knife, cuts knives make, etc. Then I ran into Neil Patel’s work and his tool Ubersuggest. I think it’s really compelling to think that the lower 1/3 of organic words in a category is where to first attempt to rank when you’re starting out. So, that’s what we’re doing. But, there is work to do.
Check out the Vivront blog here. I need to keep telling myself we’re a content company and feeling like writing for hours on end is a worthwhile effort. I’m learning.
The content is going to fill out a knife skills course for folks to sign up for via email in the modals that fire when arriving at the vivront.com site. Afterall, we want the emails! Come on people. Give us your emails. :) We look like a knife sharpening company… we’re a content company. We have work to do in our signup game. Come learn about knives, sharpening and having fun in the kitchen. Here is the draft of the syllabusl
Bit #3
Each morning I load Google Analytics, Google Search Console, Google Adwords, Facebook Business Manager and Klaviyo to take a look around. I’ve formed some opinions. They’re likely wrong. I think I’m missing things. I don’t know what but there is something(s) missing. So, I’ve gone looking for learning. So far, this paid media effort has lead to zero conversions and the CPC is too high, I think, long term. But spending money is easy.
Each of the platforms have their own training and certifications. I’ve not dug in there yet. Maybe I should. My thinking is that I’d like a view that is platform agnostic to start with. Then I’ll go the platform by platform approach.
Via podcasts on e-commerce I found a community to join in Slack plus a learning management system driven by an agency as the experts and community managers. The community is called Admission. I’m in the process of working through the learning and I’m reading the content daily. So much more to learn.
Maybe after working through Admission I’ll move on to something like Reforge. But, first… I’ll stick with what I have going now.
Sum
It’s been fun starting from nothing and learning, fast. It’s not going fast enough in terms of orders and my desire for speed. But, kinks get worked out daily. So, it’s fine to be on a slow ramp here for now. There is no reason to scale before it’s ready to scale if smoothness is a value.
I’m real excited about the package above. Think of it at your grocery store next to the meat, the vegetables or the cutting boards and candles for $9.99. The code inside is worth more than the price to purchase. It can be applied to an online knife sharpening order. The package comes pre-packed with 7 knife shipping protectors and an all weather shipping bag. Super pumped. Now, think of it for a fundraiser for kids programs or a gift to pre-pay for someone (in a slightly different design) or just as something I’ll give you when we meet for coffee or lunch next time.
A key question I keep asking is what’s the next most important thing to learn/do. Lots to learn, lots to do. Only some of it actually moves the company forward right now. Ads? They don’t currently move the company forward. Hustle in personal relationships? Those work. The key metric needs to be sets sharpened. The story and referrals will grow the business after each set sharpened. So, back at it. Let’s get sets sharpened. Who do you know that you want to give a package like the above? We’ll make it happen.
Change
We’ve taken a few weeks to write content for blog, email sign up and SEO efforts. 4 pages of goodness there now.
We’re on a slow ramp of learning growth metrics and a slow ramp on sets sharpened. But it’s a ramp and it’s going up. Thankful.
We’re iterating a two way shipping package to service contexts like gifts, fundraisers and retail. Looking for pilots. Know someone at a Coop?
Standby for an email Knife Skills class. You’ll need to signup for it. :) Subscribe today in the footer and don’t miss a post.
A slow go of learning TikTok happening here for Vivront. Show your face and give pointers… views go up.
For 16 followers my personal account gets hundreds of views per post. I wonder how many are rubber fingers in an automated factories in Asia.
On Your Way
Here’s to the third week in November! That happened fast. The Beaujolais releases this week. Enjoy!
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About that last email, the death one.
Just a few hours after hitting send I learned that a friend had passed from brain cancer. It happened real fast for time of diagnosis to last Friday.
He was so fun to be with and whip smart. We had numerous adventures out to dinner. We walked the museum halls and streets of Paris together. We drank beers that were obnoxiously huge while the ladies shopped. We hung around water in Wisconsin and Minnesota together. We had really solid times and now they are over. Only memories remain.
In looking back on photos in the last few days I’m struck with sadness and tears. He did not know he had a little over 2 years to live that last time we were on Tonka. He did not know a pandemic was coming and going to mess up +1 year of living. And really, none of us did. None of us know what’s coming either.
Consider living with Memento Mori in mind. I certainly am this week. You could leave this life right now. Make good memories! Make memories that matter, for good.