You are reading 3Bits & Change, Joseph's email about building a direct to consumer business on the internet. Today’s email was written to the soft conversation of others eating breakfast in a cafe.
Good morning,
We’ve started more strategic conversations with former leaders in grocery. TBD on any upside. The aim, however, is to get a better idea of how to deliver more easily for grocery partners. That delivery can be literally when repurchasing and for things like insurance, marketing, talkers and more.
Bit #1 • Another Media Effort
We have podcast media going again with a new partner.
The first attempt was a failure. You might ask, “why go back?”
I can’t shake the notion of a trusted source, in prospective customers ears, talking over and over about the problem, sharing how easy vivront’s solution is and how delightful it is to cook with sharp knives. That mix of inputs has the best chance to overcome awareness, fear of shipping and initial trust hurdles we believe are stopping customers from conversion in other media.
As you might remember, we’ve run paid podcast media in the past. Our experience included:
A promise of 100k impressions in a month of time. We received the full 100k impressions in 2.5 days with no make good. We lost $180 per order.
A rushed read with the mention of a competitor. This was due to host travel and previous biz relationships.
Placed on a cooking podcast
Inserted by servers as a dynamic ad.
A half life shorter than most have when fasting for the first time.
We concluded that if we ever ventured into podcast media again we’d need to do it differently. Here are the variables that are different this time:
Commitment over time that spreads out the impressions making it likely 5+ impressions will be delivered per unique per month during the commitment.
A host that experienced the product personally before the first read + a loose script and an explicit ask from us to speak from personal experience.
Placed on a sports media channel with a content focus on helping game watching hosts (who will be in social environments) win their challenge of making a good spread for watching games.
Inserted as part of the hosts content and as regular sponsored segments, NOT as software inserted ad spots. The relationship is more like that of a partner than a transaction.
Links from secondary media to our page for an SEO beni plus more timeshifted consumption.
The first read was one of an introduction on some ephemeral content. We observed 20+ unique visits to the .com within 2 mins of the live run. Now, we’ll see how the hosts can naturally fold the subject matters together and build trust - and hopefully conversion. We have a 3 month run on this one. Standby for more results as time passes.
Bit #2 • Partner School Knives
In the last weeks we’ve sharpened large boxes of kitchen knives from our partner school district’s school. Think 15-20 knives per box! These are in addition to the funds we send for paying down debts.
It’s been so fun to sharpen these. No really.
Now. Let’s get more partners.
Bit #3 • Is it really about… fear, laziness or something else?
It takes months to put a SKU in a system, BTW. We’ve had our packages at a grocery store for months. We’ve had the approval to go live, for months. Are they live? No. It’s just an SKU, BTW. Not live.
In a separate store… we received feedback this week from the GM that they’re not going to put our boxes on the floor for these reasons:
We’re going to “stick to grocery.”
We don’t want to sell things that require customers to use sharp objects
“It’s about insurance.”
On the spot, on my toes, I immediately asked if they should keep selling produce or anything in the pharmacy and houseware isles.
The objections above are signals. They signal fear? The signal laziness? They signal status quo. They signal do it as it’s always been done operational boxes. I get it. I’ll take these objections and write the next pitch deck for grocery that anticipates these and solves them before they are brought up.
These objectsion are exciting. They’re likely why we don’t seem more sharpening services in grocery. There are some clear hurdles to practice for and to jump over. Here we go.
Sum
We’ll keep testing media. We’ll keep sharpening partner knives. We’ll keep at cracking the grocery nut. Let’s go.
Change
Classes are live on the .com. We’ll be releasing them monthly.
Many of our Japanese Knives are now live for purchase on the .com.
We’ve made a number of improvements to the store to prepare for classes. So far the design intentions for the multi-use space are proving both viable and exciting.
On Your Way
Happy Tuesday out there!
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