Brand Fortress HQ: Amazon FBA Success Strategies
Welcome to the Brand Fortress HQ Podcast, the ultimate resource for mastering Amazon FBA success. Dive deep into the world of e-commerce with your hosts, Jon Stojan, Mike Kaufman, and Matt Atkins—three seasoned Amazon brand owners who have seen it all and are ready to unveil the secrets of their success.
Your hosts each and every week are Jon Stojan, Mike Kaufman, and Matt Atkins. Jon is a former predictive analyst for the Air Force and brings his analytical prowess to the e-commerce battleground. After establishing his own 6-figure brand on Amazon, he founded First North Marketing, a beacon for brands aiming to conquer the Amazon marketplace.
Mike Kaufman is an e-commerce pioneer, having been navigating the online sales sphere for over three decades. His expertise has not only led to the creation of a mid 7-figure brand on Amazon but also birthed invaluable tools and resources to bolster other aspiring brands.
Matt is the jack-of-all-trades in the e-commerce arena, from building a 7 figure meal prep brand, multiple Amazon brands, coaching new brand builders, to helping brands of all sizes grow at Canopy Management. His passion lies in fostering a community of entrepreneurs, offering them the wisdom and connections needed to thrive.
Join us for Tactics Tuesdays, where Jon, Mike, and Matt dissect the real-life strategies propelling their own brands and companies forward. Plus, tune in every Thursday for enlightening interviews with the brightest minds in FBA—transparent leaders and business owners who are shaping the present and future of e-commerce.
With two episodes every week, the Brand Fortress HQ Podcast is your stronghold for insider knowledge, innovative tactics, and inspiring stories. Whether you’re an established seller or just starting your FBA journey, our hosts are here to guide you through the intricacies of the Amazon marketplace. Unlock your brand’s potential and build your own fortress with us at Brand Fortress HQ.
Brand Fortress HQ: Amazon FBA Success Strategies
057: Tactic Tuesdays: Trade Show Tactics & Secrets
Unlock the potential of trade shows to elevate your brand with insights from our guest, Mike, a seasoned Amazon seller who has shifted gears towards this exciting avenue. Discover how transitioning from the competitive Amazon marketplace to harnessing the power of trade shows can become a game-changer for brands, especially in niche markets like professional pool tools. Mike shares his firsthand experience of entering this arena, with a pivotal event in Dallas setting the stage for expanding brand visibility and connecting with high-value customer segments.
Get ready to master the intricacies of trade show participation and learn the clever strategies that can optimize your booth's success. Whether you're dealing with food products or other offerings, Mike breaks down the complexities of navigating venue restrictions and the importance of obtaining the right permits. Learn how to measure your impact beyond immediate returns by engaging customers through sensory experiences, capturing on-site data, and balancing short-term tactics with long-term brand-building strategies.
Find out how partnerships and creative collaborations can amplify your trade show presence and beyond. By teaming up with other vendors and organizing engaging activities like the "Poollympics," Mike demonstrates how to draw attention, build contacts, and boost brand visibility. Get inspired to think creatively and collaboratively, leveraging your expertise and forming meaningful connections that enhance your brand presence not only at trade shows but across various sales channels, including Amazon. Join us for a lively discussion and arm yourself with the strategies needed to expand your brand's reach and profitability.
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Welcome to Brand Fortress HQ. This is another Tactics Tuesday, and today we're really excited to be talking about trade show tactics. So this isn't something that you would necessarily think of with an e-commerce brand, but that's where it's important to branch out beyond Amazon and looking at other ways you can amplify your brand. And this is kind of how this conversation got started and we wanted to share some of our insights as far as what we've done so far. Specifically, I'm going to turn it over to you, mike, because I know that you have a big event, that you put a lot of time and effort into taking advantage of a trade show for your product. So if you could give listeners a little bit of background as far as why you chose this event and kind of what your game plan is going into the event to get the most out of it for your brand.
Speaker 2:Sure, yeah, I think actually that's a good place to start, in the sense that trade show might not be where you end up in this process, but it's where we ended up, and but there may be some other avenue that gets you to that same place. And what I mean by that is what we're finding is our Amazon presence is being, we'll say, diluted by a lot of different factors, not the least of which, of course and we've talked about this a lot a lot of very low-priced Chinese sellers coming into our category, which no violence or anything. It's just the nature of the market, right, it's what's happening. So it's not you know, but but it is what it is, and so it makes it really hard to compete there. If you are a premium price product and, reasonably speaking, if you're trying to build a brand, then in most cases I would say you really would want to be a premium price, you price, you don't want to be selling at that low price point. Otherwise, then, are you really a brand? Yes, you can be, but there should be a difference. Why are they buying your brand? Are they willing to pay more for it? And that's the thing, right. If they're not, then it's not really a brand.
Speaker 2:So the problem that we're seeing there, though, is we, we can't. We we no longer are in a position where we can make massive headway on Amazon, unless we start making significantly more headway off Amazon. We need a lot more branded search, we need a lot more brand awareness for our product in order to then start pulling some different levers on Amazon that we haven't yet been able to pull, and so then it became a question of how do we do that? How are we going to gain that brand exposure off of Amazon and get that branded search up and really reach more households? Amazon was always the play for volume, because there's so many people there. Well, what it came to for us was we sell pool tools, and we sell essentially a professional grade tool that, up until now, we've primarily directed at the residential market through Amazon. Now, we discovered that we actually have sold to quite a large number of pool pros over that, you know, the last 10 years, and many of them are very happy with our product, and so then it was well, okay, how could we really capitalize on the Pool Pro market? What would that do for us if we shifted our focus a little bit there? And so that's where we started dialing in on and it became the situation where, because our warranty is different for residential customers, our warranty has lifetime unlimited free replacement, which means essentially beyond cross-sells and upsells and things like that, once we bring a customer in, at least on that specific product that they purchased, they now become a liability because I have to fulfill.
Speaker 2:On warranties Now we've talked about before. A very small percentage of our customers actually take advantage of them. We can easily accommodate that. It still builds enough profit margin. But it is still true that once they buy that product, for that product anyways, they are now a liability because it's all expense from there on that product.
Speaker 2:With warranties. With a pro that's not the case because we don't do lifetime free replacement for pros. We do lifetime 50% off and there is profit in a 50% off sale for us, which means it's kind of like a consumable. They keep coming back to us for that same product and buying parts or buying that full unit at 50% off and there's profit in that. So for me I was looking at it as okay. This customer is a profit center. This customer over here is a little bit more of a liability once I bring them in. So why not focus here? It's also because they buy in bulk. A lot of our expenses are fulfillment expenses. Well, if I ship in bulk, then I don't have as high a fulfillment expense, so there's more profitability on each individual sale and on those recurring sales. But the interesting thing is as well once we focus on pros, we can then use them as brand ambassadors with their clients, which means we can actually pick up more residential customers as a result of focusing on the pool pro market. So we get both. By focusing on the pros, we have an opportunity to not only bring in more pool pros, but also to bring in more residential customers pros, but also to bring in more residential customers. So it's a long way of saying.
Speaker 2:Then it became how do we get those pool pros? And we really felt like the best way to make sure that we had our name out there and that pool pros started to recognize that we were a serious player in that space was to go to a trade show, and so this is our first trade show. The choice of the particular trade show that we're doing, which is in Dallas, really had to do with just two things. One of them was just opportunity. It was the first one that was coming up. That was a fairly large trade show that we thought that we had time enough to prepare for, and so we just kind of pulled the trigger and said, okay, we're going to do this, and we bought, we leased booth space and then we've kind of gone from there. So that was that's kind of the way that we ended up at this place and how you might end up there as a brand thinking through how do I reach more of my market or how do I reach a new market?
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I think that backstory is so important because one of the things and I mean I've had brands before and we've done trade shows and I think unless you've done a trade show before, you don't understand how expensive and how time intensive they are. So they can be an amazing way to connect with a key audience. So, mike, you did a great job of calling out hey, we really want to go after pool pros, which is why we're at this trade show, and so they can work really well for that. But you do have to take into account that when you're looking at different marketing efforts, it's very different from doing something like Amazon pay-per-click, where you're like, hey, I'm going to test out this audience over here with $100 in ads or something like that.
Speaker 1:When you're talking about trade shows, there's a lot of prep that goes into that. There's a lot of expense when you start looking at, okay, I need to build up my booth, what am I going to have in my booth? Things that you think are easy out of the gate, for example, hey, I'm going to have something, anything that has electricity in your booth. Well, most trade shows and most convention centers, it means that they're going to charge you, usually a couple hundred extra bucks, if not more, just for the privilege of having power and basically somebody coming over there and dragging the extension cord from the outlet in the floor somewhere to your booth 10 feet away, and that's probably going to cost you a few hundred bucks. So things like that.
Speaker 1:I would say my personal experience though at that time I was working with a food brand and so having food at a trade show because obviously wanted people to sample it, that was a lot more complicated than what we could have ever anticipated, because now you know we have to make sure that we're not competing with the venue, because they have their own caterers and that type of stuff and that's all locked in almost any convention center that you'll go to, convention center that you'll go to.
Speaker 1:In addition to that, anytime that you are serving any sort of food item, whether you're doing it because that's what your brand is or I know, mike, you know we've been discussing this over the last couple of months you were talking about. You know, having popcorn at your booth, because you know the smell brings people in and kind of not only do you get the visual, but also you know other senses that you're hitting at the same time, which I think is genius. When you start looking at the logistics of that, though, if, like now, I need a food permit in whatever jurisdiction that convention center happens to fall in, and if that's something that's not within your wheelhouse, then that's another thing that needs to go into that planning in order to pull that off at a trade show. So there's a lot of moving pieces at these trade shows. With that said, again, they can be fantastic if you've done kind of the mental work and the strategy like you talked about. Mike, you know why am I at this trade show and what is it going to do for my brand.
Speaker 3:One of the challenges of this type of marketing essentially is what it is is that when you're spending money on a PPC campaign, you get almost instant feedback on if that worked or not. At a trade show, it's a much more delayed response. I mean sure you might get a couple of people that you're certain, as soon as they leave, are going to go to your website or going to go to Amazon, but it's a lot harder to track that. So while you're spending all of this money in the beginning to get to the trade show and all of the things that surround that that you mentioned, John, it's a lot more challenging to track that, to track the effect of that, than it is with other types of advertising. Now, that's not to scare people away or brands away from doing that. It's just something to take into account that you won't get a nice clean spreadsheet report that you can download to say this many people showed up, this many people came to my booth, this many people purchased.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's definitely the case that it's a very different way to operate. And if you are an individual who essentially started your business online on Amazon or something like that, and you don't really have any other previous business experience with Amazon or something like that and you don't really have any other previous business experience with kind of an offline environment, then it's really difficult to kind of wrap your brain around what that looks like. You know when you're investing all of that money and you don't get that kind of immediate response that is almost assumed. You know when you're advertising online, so you know that's a big aspect of this advertising online. So you know that's a big aspect of this.
Speaker 2:And I think there's two things about it that I think are important to recognize. One is that you won't, no matter what you do, you will not get all of the data back in terms of being able to connect the dots and determine how much return on your investment did you get. You're not going to get all of that data in a nice easy spreadsheet. And also there is a side portion of that that, I think is how can you get as much data or slash immediate result from the trade show to the greatest degree possible. Right, you're not going to get all of it, but what can I get so that at least I can evaluate in some degree how effective was this trade show without having to wait six months to see how my brand awareness improves over time as a result of it? Right? And so I think it's kind of a twofold process. So, for instance, with our booth, you know, and with any booth, I think if you're not doing something really significant to make sure that, a you're generating a list from the people who show up at your booth in some way and giving them a really significant reason to be on your list, and, b finding some way to actually take immediate orders on site as a part of that process, then you're missing out on those opportunities for some immediate, instantaneous feedback on how productive were you right? So make sure that you're implementing that to the greatest degree that you can, while also recognizing you're only going to see a small piece of the success of that trade show in that moment.
Speaker 2:You know, following that trade show or during the trade show, a lot of the result is going to come afterward. And also I would say and this is we haven't even completed our first trade show. So this is what I expect to be true and what I've been told is true by other people who have done trade shows is that it's also cumulative. It's not.
Speaker 2:It's kind of like when you're running ads online, you know that whole idea that most of us know like sometimes it takes five, six, seven, eight exposures or impressions to a potential customer before they actually engage, right. That same thing is going to be true in a trade show situation. You know people are going to see your booth, they're going to see your booth, they're going to see your booth. They might not show up at your booth, or maybe they will show up at your booth but they don't buy. But you're going to have to have this repeated exposure, which means more trade shows or some other way to interact with them, whether it's through your list or whatever that is, so you have more opportunities to sell to that person.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I would just say so kind of along those lines.
Speaker 1:My experience with and again, I'm not saying I'm a trade show expert I mean we did a handful of them with mixed results and what we really learned out of it as far as timing was that first day of the trade show is the most critical, because most trade shows are two to three days long.
Speaker 1:Typically what happens is everybody's super excited, especially you know the beginning of that first day, and when we are able to grab as many people as possible, you know whether that was them trying our product or getting on our email list as part of a giveaway or buying. You know actually buying a product we probably saw about. You know 70% of our activity on that day one and then, if it was like a three day show, we'd see the other 30% kind of dribbled across the other two days. So I think that's the other thing that, at least with my experience, was hey, be prepared to be, you know, very active that first day because everybody's excited and take advantage of that, and then don't be disappointed if it's a three-day show and by day three you're seeing essentially crickets.
Speaker 3:One of the things that I've learned over the course of the years and we can all attest to that is investing early on for your Amazon listing. Investing in great photography, graphic design, awesome copy. That's table stakes. At this point, you have to launch with an optimized listing in order to get any sort of attention or conversion of attention or conversion. What I've learned, being a part of the convention or the show that Mike is getting ready to go to, is that the same is true for your trade show booth. If you go to a trade show expecting to cut corners on your booth like, you're not going to get any sort of, you're not going to get the level of engagement at the booth that you want, and that's.
Speaker 3:I learned that with my meal delivery service.
Speaker 3:Like their first couple, we didn't go to trade shows per se, but we went to CrossFit competitions and you know, the first, the very first one I went to.
Speaker 3:I was trying to cut costs, so I had a table, I had a unbranded tablecloth that I got in Walmart on the way there, and then we had our you know our food warmers.
Speaker 3:But then, as I learned a little bit later on and saw other vendors come to these, these events that I I didn't look anywhere near as trustworthy as those other, those other brands did.
Speaker 3:So as I started to build branding out on, you know, it wasn't just the table but it was, you know, a little bit of a booth and some marketing materials that they could take back. Like then you could actually start to see that not only were people excited to come over and talk to you, but they were actually acting when you gave them something to do, especially when you're serving food, like I learned that lesson really, really quick is that you have to portray professionalism when people are buying food from you, and it took a couple of events for me to learn that. So that's one of the things that Mike and his team are are putting a lot of emphasis on is making sure that the booth is is really sexy and that there's a lot of activities there that people can come, get engaged and be involved in. That it's going to make them remember your brand name.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we. So I. One of the things that I did and I would actually highly recommend this is there was a gentleman that that I became friends with down in Puerto Rico who they do trade shows all the time and they've been doing them for years. So I actually scheduled to go over to his place and have dinner with he and his wife and just pick his brain, you know, for the evening about trade shows and what they've done, what they what worked and what didn't work and what not to do and what to do. And I learned a ton you know from from just talking to him. So if you know anybody who's done trade shows especially of course if they've done it successfully you know I would pick their brain, you know, take them out to lunch or something and really just kind of get an idea of what's worked for them and what hasn't. Might even be worth talking to somebody who didn't have a good experience at a trade show and figure out what did they do. So you know what not to do.
Speaker 2:But we it became obvious from the beginning that if we were going to do this it was really a situation where it was kind of go big or go home. You know, don't walk in there and just you know, throw up a table with. You know, as you said, Matt, you know it's got a tablecloth on it and maybe I've got a few pool skimmers sitting there and you know a couple of people manning the booth. Just you know, in case somebody walks by and decides to talk to you, then you engage with them. You know, we knew we need to find a way to make sure that people want to come to our booth. And what are all of the ways that we could engage this situation, this expo as a whole, to try and accomplish that. So, for instance, we are actively contacting other vendors who are at other booths in the expo, who are in a higher traffic location than we're going to be. We're trying to partner with them in order to encourage them to send people our direction to our booth. So you know, paying a commission, like anybody who purchases through there. Like we're going to give them flyers that they can hand to people, they can come participate in our event. And you know, anybody who buys, they make a commission. You know, whatever, like we're trying to engage those partnerships to bring that traffic because we're not located in a high traffic location, because we got in the expo late. You know there were a lot of people who are already registered.
Speaker 2:We also weren't sure that we could afford to pay for something that was kind of on a main trunk line within the expo. So, you know, we decided to pay a little less and be in a less trafficked area. How are we going to get traffic there? You know we're going to have. So it's important. We're running a competition.
Speaker 2:So we rented two booths, one next to another, 10 by 10s next to each other, so we have a total 10 by 20 space, and so one space is going to be the show booth and the area where we're talking to people. We're intentionally not putting a table up front of the booth. We're leaving that open. There's going to be a small table off to the side where we've got coffee, but then it's going to be open to the booth and we're going to have tables inside the booth where people can come in, just stand and talk to us, and so we're trying to make sure that we don't put a barrier between us and the people in the aisle, so that when they show up they'll just kind of step in and or we can step out. So but on the other side, in the other booth, that's right next to us, and there's no division between we're doing a competition, and so the idea behind this competition is it uses our products in the competition.
Speaker 2:So it's an opportunity for us to put our products in the hands of the people who might actually use it, to feel the durability of the product, to recognize how easy it is to assemble and disassemble, how strong it is, how well the locking mechanism works, all of those things. So we've created the Poollympics, which essentially is we've got five stations, you do the rotation, you can compete in one or more stations and if you, at the end of the day, if you have scored the best in that station, you win that product. So we have some assembly stations. You're going to disassemble and reassemble a pool net, disassemble and reassemble our pool brush and our pool pole, and the idea being to help customers to know, because this is a we have a lifetime warranty, but it's a parts replacement and so we want customers to know how easy is it going to be to replace those parts, Because we all know there are certain things that we've tried to assemble and disassemble and it was just a real pain in the rear. So that's great if you've got a lifetime warranty, but if it's a pain to replace the parts and that's all the company's going to send you, well, maybe, I don't want that. So we're trying to give them the experience not only the people who are participating in the competition, but the audience, the people who are standing in the aisle watching the competition and seeing how people are doing. They get to see how easy and how fast it is to assemble and disassemble our prop and how durable it is.
Speaker 2:We've got a couple of other events that are in there as well.
Speaker 2:So the idea is we've got this competition.
Speaker 2:People have to register for the competition.
Speaker 2:So that's how we're building the list.
Speaker 2:Everybody who competes is going to get a ProTuff branded sun hat, and we're not really skimping on that. We're going to try to do a decent quality hat, and so if you compete, you get something, regardless of whether you win or not. But if you win on your event or on the whole event, there's a number of different prizes that you can win from that. So we're hoping to build the list out of that. But we're going to be walking around. We're always going to have one person walking the expo wearing a shirt that has our Poollympics logo on it, Basically, hey, come, compete, or whatever. We haven't decided exactly what it's going to say but then a QR code that you can literally just scan and it will give you a map to get to our booth so you can compete, and it'll tell you about the competition and what you could win and about our products and whatnot. But the idea is we're trying to take advantage of the whole expo and bring people to our booth instead of just sitting there waiting for somebody to show up.
Speaker 1:Yeah, there's a couple of things that you said there that I think I just want to double click on because I think they're so important. The first is just showing up is not good enough if you want to take advantage of most trade shows. So make sure that you have some sort of hook. And you know, mike, I think you've got a great concept here and I'm really excited. You know, we'll do in a couple months, after you're done with the trade show, kind of a follow-up on this, just to see, hey, what worked, what, what didn't, what, what, what do you wish you'd known? What would you have done differently? You know that type of stuff, but I mean what you have so far. I mean you have at least have a hook. You can't expect. You know it's just like the. You know the old, you know if you build it they will come, type thing. You know just the same with your brand. That doesn't work. It doesn't work at a trade show either. You do need to have something to bring people in.
Speaker 1:The other thing that I wanted to double click on that you were saying that I think is so important, and you know something that we ended up doing and found a lot of success with which is you know, don't be afraid to sell your product at the trade show, because there is such a big difference between someone who is willing to give you an email and someone who is willing to give you their hard earned money.
Speaker 1:Those people that are willing to buy a product for you hard-earned money, those people that are willing to buy a product for you, even if it's just out of curiosity, are worth 10 times more than somebody who's just giving you an email address.
Speaker 1:And there's a lot of different ways you can do that. We had success selling directly at the trade show, but then I think the other thing that we did and again it's going to depend on your brand, depend on your product that was also very successful was you know, we ran a pretty significant discount for people that put in their first order and we actually would ship it to their house, because you know they're flying down to this event and they're staying at the hotel and they don't want to pack it in their suitcase or whatever, and so we would give them a really good discount to buy their first product. Now, the nice part about that was not only was it easier for them, because they didn't have to worry about lugging it home with them. But the other thing is that now we're collecting an email address, we're collecting a physical address, a lot of different customer data that we could use for future campaigns, as opposed to if somebody just bought a product or just gave an email address.
Speaker 3:So I've never personally been to an industry trade show like this, but I have been to a lot of Amazon conferences and if you speak to a lot of the service providers that are in booths and the ones that are actually paying to be at that trade show, where they get a lot of value is in the events around the actual trade show and there's a. There's so much value in that, like the conversations that I have with people over drinks or at, you know, networking events and things like that. That's really where you're able to have a conversation at a booth. You have people lined up we're going to. There's going to be people, you know, in the pool Olympics, like you don't really have an opportunity to as much as you would, you know, breaking bread with someone.
Speaker 3:So that's another thing to pay attention to is you know what? What other sort of outside events are they happening around the show? You know what are the things, how, how can you get involved in conversations with the people that are at the show outside of the actual vendor area? So that's that's another thing to really pay attention to. Is how can you, how can you inject yourself in conversations outside of just at a booth on the other side of a table.
Speaker 2:Well, I think too, you know, like you're speaking of those outside events. So for us, the one thing that we recognize is that there are some pool service companies out there that literally are managing, you know, 2,000, 3,000 pools, which means they have numerous techs out in the field and need a large quantity of pool tools. So, you know, signing one of those large pool companies could be the same as, and they're more, profitable. Remember that because we can ship in bulk, we save a lot of money on fulfillment, we save on Amazon referral fees because we don't have to push them through the Amazon system. So they're a much more profitable customer for us, even on just a few units.
Speaker 2:But if I pick up a pool pro, that's going to buy 50 sets. They're not just buying a pole, they're buying two nets, they're buying a brush, they're buying all this and they need it for 50 different techs. That might be the same profit as me selling to 150 residential customers easy and just one go. And so attending one of these events, say for us, like if there's an after party or things like that where we can network with people, who knows what size of pool pro you know, we might sign in just a half hour conversation with somebody you know and make as much as we would have made you know with with 150 customers, and we get the long-term value out of that because they're going to continue to come back and buy those 50% off replacements. So we have continual value out of that customer and so I would pay attention to that.
Speaker 2:But as an extension of it, your product if you are primarily selling to a residential market right now, it might be worth considering is there a commercial market for your product, and would it behoove you to start thinking about how could I reach that commercial market for this product? Because it's possible that it's the same type of scenario where in a commercial environment they might need a hundred times as much of that product as any residential user does. You already have the product, it's just a matter of marketing it differently and they may be much more profitable than selling to that residential market.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I would say I mean I think because you know, if you look at Accelerate, amazon's Accelerate Conference and some of these other things that where you have a high presence of marketing nerds, you know you see this a lot of really in the weeds marketing folks there's probably an opportunity for some of these trade shows for you even to host your own event and it's probably not as expensive as you would think and that provides another opportunity to have maybe a little bit deeper conversation or to kind of filter which people are your best customers to bring in there. So there's a lot of things. Going to an event is a good start, but also an opportunity to host your own events around these conferences as well could be another way to really engage at a deeper level If you have kind of those, you know, key customers that you're trying to attract and trying to win.
Speaker 3:You know it doesn't even have to be an event.
Speaker 3:I actually over here in my TV stand, right here, I have a notebook that I got at one of the other conferences that a good buddy of mine, abe Chamali.
Speaker 3:He has an Amazon PPC agency. It's a notebook that he sponsored, having his brand name on a notebook, and I see that every time I pull out that notebook I use it as a little bit of a journal of what I did that day and what I have to do the next day. Every time I bring that I see his, his brand name, and you know it takes how many times six or seven times for someone to be able to look at your brand, to be able to make a purchasing decision. In a lot of cases, like, I've gotten that seven times just in pulling out that notebook. So it doesn't always have to be an event, although those are great to do because again, you get that face-to-face contact. But even sponsoring something like swag or having a you know your brand logo on some sort of like sponsoring a lunch or something like that, that one of the networking lunches, like there's a lot of ways to get that another one of those exposures to your target customer at one of these very targeted shows.
Speaker 2:Well, and it just it's a matter of being creative, right, just kind of. You know, think outside the box a little bit. You know, like I was, I was talking about we're trying to partner with other booths at, you know, at the venue to try and, you know, encourage people to come toward our booth. But one of the other things that we're doing is, you know, we're actually attempting to partner with and I think it's actually going to happen is we're attempting to partner with another company in the space. They're not competitive to us, they sell a completely different type of product but to the same market and they are not at this point set up to go to the show. They had considered it didn't buy any booth space, whatever. So we're looking at partnering with them, buy any booth space, whatever. So we're looking at partnering with them, maybe having one of their reps at our booth. But then the idea, of course, would be, if they're going to get that exposure, they would kick in toward the cost of the booth, which is considerable. So it's a way to maybe reduce the expense. And then we're thinking about maybe having some sort of a joint venture there where essentially you buy a pro-tough toolkit. You know, maybe it's two poles, two nets, you know two brushes, whatever, and you get it's. It's a software that this other company offers to pool service companies. We're thinking the possibility of maybe having it set up where you know you buy this kit, you get a month or two of free service from this company and then, you know, maybe we make some sort of you know small affiliate commission on those sales that go through or whatever. But there's a connection there where we both win. We both can utilize the booth, but we can save some money. But you could go in reverse to that too.
Speaker 2:Right, if you don't want to spend the you know tens of thousands of dollars that it might cost you to really show up and have a good presence at you know in space there at a trade show, connect with another complimentary business.
Speaker 2:They don't compete with you, you're not competing with them, but you're selling to the same market and say, look, we would be happy to sponsor a portion of the cost of your booth if you would just simply be willing to give this away to people coming through.
Speaker 2:Maybe it's a notebook with your brand on it, or it's your literature, or whatever it is. Be creative, make it something useful for people, but you pay a small portion of their booth expense in order to get exposure to the same people that are coming through. Be careful with that, because it doesn't help you to do that if you're doing it with a company who's going to set up in the space with just a basic table and a no-brand cover on their table and nobody's going to show up at their booth right Now. You just paid a portion of their booth space and you're going to get nothing. So make sure that you're partnering with somebody who's really going to do something significant at the show. But that is another opportunity if you can think creatively about reaching that same market without having to spend quite so much money.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think you know this is a fantastic topic and I mean I know we're talking specifically about trade shows, but a lot of these kind of you know strategies you can apply to a lot of different areas of your business that are off Amazon and really, you know, continue to grow, you know, on Amazon and off Amazon, because that brand presence presence yes, some of those people you know they're going to buy through your website or other places, but some of that comes back to Amazon in the sense of you know they don't it'll help your Amazon sales as well, because you're going to have a stronger brand and there's a certain portion of people that just would rather buy it from Amazon because they know they're going to get in a day or two and they know that if they have you know any sort of issue that we all, as much as we don't necessarily love it, as Amazon sellers, we know that Amazon is very liberal with that refund policy and customers.
Speaker 1:That does give them a lot of confidence when they buy something that they know if, for whatever reason, they decide when it arrives at their door that they don't like it, that they can just return. It is kind of a you know this effort lifts all boats when you talk about your different brand channels. It's not just siloed in your off Amazon versus on Amazon or whatever it happens to be. So, with that, I think you know this is probably a good place to wrap for this particular episode. Of course, you know, like we mentioned in a couple of months, when I'm looking forward to hearing, you know, the report from Mike of hey, here's what worked really well, here's what I wish I would have known, here's what didn't work, because I think those things are really impactful as well. We'll wrap it up here with what is maybe one action, step or recommendation that you have for brands that are listening, that are looking at whether it's a trade show or something more in-person brand building off of Amazon more in-person brand building off of Amazon.
Speaker 3:Even if you don't participate at the level that Mike is participating at this conference that he's going to, I guarantee you that, no matter what product category you sell in, there is some sort of trade show happening somewhere in the country that is relevant, that people that are the shoppers of your product are going to be there.
Speaker 3:And even just going to an event and looking to see what other people are doing, like get out of your basement, get out of your house, get out of from behind your laptop and go and talk to these people. Like we just talked about from a networking standpoint, like you don't have to have a booth to be able to go to these networking events to talk to people. Like there's a lot of shows that I've been to trying to drum up leads, but I didn't have a booth. It's just in talking to people. So I think my action item would be to find a relevant trade show I guarantee you there's one happening and just go to it and make that be your first step before you jump in with both feet. It's a lot more cost of effective way to kind of test the waters, but it's something that you can do, you know, I guarantee there's a show around you at some point.
Speaker 2:And there'll be a lot of ideas that'll come out of that. You know, not not just the networking aspect of it, but even just seeing what other you know brands are doing at their booths, and you know what you might be able to do at a future event. I guess my action step, honestly, would be probably a step behind that, which is to step outside of Amazon, in the sense of you have a particular avatar that you're likely trying to sell to on Amazon, or at least I hope you are. If you're not, then maybe that should be. Your first step is figuring out who that avatar is, but that doesn't mean that that's the only avatar that is a good customer avatar for your product, and I think that it's valuable to consider what those other avatars might look like and whether there is a different avenue of approach to getting to that avatar.
Speaker 2:Maybe it's not Amazon, but we get so siloed in that that we forget that there's all these other ways to reach a customer base that don't have anything to do with Amazon and, as John rightly pointed out, all of them add to what you're doing on Amazon.
Speaker 2:If you can reach these other avatars outside of Amazon, you get that brand awareness, you get that branded search going on on Google and on Amazon, both of which are going to affect your ranking and your sales on Amazon directly.
Speaker 2:So you know, figuring out what those other avatars might be and what other avenues you might have for reaching those avatars, and considering which of them might be the highest profitability avatars, right, like, some of them might be easier to access but are low value avatars. Other ones might be more difficult to access or at least might take a little bit more creativity figuring out what that avenue is. But if you can figure it out, they're a massively profitable avatar and so I would really encourage you to kind of think about what those might be. And if it's a trade show, then yeah, like Matt, like Matt said, visit one, see what other people are doing, figure out what's creative about what they're doing and then consider how you might step into that space and figure out what the cost might be and how you might attain a list and all of those things.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I wanna build off of what you said, matt, because I think that that's so smart for people that are like, hey, I'm interested in some sort of in-person event, whether it's a trade show or something like that where my target customers are at is go attend one of those events before you even look into having a booth, and then what I would build off of that and maybe you said this and I just didn't understand but, yes, your target customer is there, but also, you know, the bulk of the other businesses that are there are complimentary to yours.
Speaker 1:They are amazing opportunities for collaboration and partnership, and so, you know, go talk to them at their booths and be interested in what they're doing, cause we've definitely, you know, through our marketing agencies and brands that I've had in the past, built some amazing collaborations and partnerships by going to those types of shows and talking to the brands that you know they paid a lot of money to be at that booth. One way that you can, you know, help them kind of return that investment is, you know, finding brands that are a good partnership and, you know, building something together that's going to benefit both you and also that brand that's there at that booth.
Speaker 2:You know, I'll add to that, too, just one little thing before we wrap up, and that is consider what you are an expert on right now.
Speaker 2:Okay, so, if you're listening to this podcast, it's highly likely that you're an Amazon seller. So you are probably an expert not only on your product and your niche, but also selling on Amazon, and so consider how many of the businesses that are complimentary to yours that are at these trade shows, these industry events, that are not very good at Amazon. A collaboration between you and any of those other complimentary businesses might simply be hey, I could really help you with your Amazon presence, and here's what you might be able to do. This is how we might be able to partner. Like, that's something you can offer anybody, because that's an expertise that you have that many people don't have. And so, if you can't think of anything else, like if you're like well, I don't have a large list and I don't have this, so I'm not sure what I have to offer them, right, in exchange for what you have a lot to offer, because there's a lot of people who don't really know much about Amazon and you do.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and it doesn't have to be a super formal partnership. You know I think people get scared of that. You know, partnership word I mean we used to, let, we like to use, you know, like collaboration, you know, because then that can look like a lot of different things. It's not super permanent, it could be a one-off, it could be something that you know develops into, you know, a deep relationship. But it gives kind of that flexibility to take it in whatever direction makes sense for you know, you and the other brand that you're working with.
Speaker 2:Yeah, for sure.
Speaker 1:All right. So with that, I think we've given some great advice for listeners out there when they're looking at, hey, how do I build my, my presence and my brand off of Amazon, and we'll have another amazing episode for.
