How Ambitious Brands Engage Their Audience and Build a Community

Welcome to Unrolling E-Commerce with AdRoll.
On today's episode
How Ambitious Brands Engage Their audience
and Build a Community.
Goodboy: ‘We talked to her customers in a way that encourages people to share their feedback
and kind of let us know what's going on,
because obviously they're like, the pulse of our business.
We really want to know like how these products are working.’
AlgaeCal: ‘Growing a community around your buyers.
Your buyers are going to have a voice
and if you don't listen to that voice is going to be really hard
to retain, from a community perspective.
And with a demographic they tend to love calling in we do get a lot of great.
That's a great feedback, but great information
to help the rest of the company.
So in marketing we get a lot of ideas from
what the customers are phoning in with’.
Leon & George: ‘What can we do to make our customers feel like we’re there for them?
You know, it's not like you just buy our product
and we’re gonna forget about you’.
Customer engagement and customer retention go beyond customer service.
This in this digital age,
it's hard to believe we can all feel disconnected from others.
This goes for personal relationships
as well as business relationships.
Building a community provides people with a feeling of belonging
and a network of other people they can connect with.
That's why so many Brands today are investing
in the creation of communities
for their customers, employees, and fans.
When brands invest in community,
they transition from an everyday brand to a human brand, one that
cares deeply about the people who support them,
work for them, and interact with them.
Goodboy makes personalized supplements that support
your dogs overall well-being and health conditions.
They have an online quiz to help you figure out
what supplements your pet needs.
Co-founder and CEO Karri Sap explains how
they built customer trust.
Goodboy: From the onset, we really wanted
to be a super transparent brand.
So I think in the pet space historically there's been I have a lot of
pulling the wool over a customer's eye,
but you know,
there hasn't been a lot of transparency within where things are sourced,
what ingredients are included in products.
It's just kind of been like this is
what this does and we're just really not going to tell you anything else,
but you should just trust us. So for us,
it could be really just didn't want to do that.
So we have a super open line of communication with our customers
and we really lead with transparency,
so we want our customers to know where everything is sourced.
You know where everything is made what ingredients were using?
Why are you using them? So you really just kind of want them involved in the process
and that's kind of always been our stick from day one.
We talk to our customers in a way that you know encourages people to share their feedback
and and kind of let us know what's going on
because obviously they're like the pulse of our business,
you know, we really want to know like how these rocks are working and you know,
the positive impacts. They're sitting there's just like a good I think a good example.
We have a write-in portion on our quiz.
It's basically a place that if we haven't covered anything you
as a dog owner can submit answers
or suggestions or what not to let us kind of let us know things that like,
maybe we aren't privy to so I think it was Is maybe one
or two months after we launched
so probably early January we were getting a lot of feedback
that a lot of dogs were having meat allergies
and meet sensitivities.
So I guess that was just something that really never crossed our
minds and I think it's just dogs on her having an uptick especially in mixed meat allergies.
So we kind of took that information and we were able to reformulate one of our best selling.
Ducks and we excluded all the meat products from from that formula.
So just by listening to our customers
and kind of like keeping our finger on the pulse of like
what people are saying whether their customers or whether they're people that have just,
you know gone through our quiz and you know,
maybe that was the reason why they didn't purchase from us
because they needed something a meat-free option.
We were kind of able to take that and really pivot quickly.
So that was kind of a success story.
I think of really listening to Customers
and and kind of listening to
what they have to say and really taking that in
and being able to implement those changes quickly LG Cal has
pioneered the multi nutrient approach to bone health.
It's the first company to popularize a plan
as a calcium Source in a world of limestone calcium supplements
sem manager Jasper discussed how algae calls
demographic shaped the way they communicate with their customers Joseph programs.
Nothing too complicated. I mean we run the usual email marketing,
but we do have Have we do have a great guy working on we're kind of really tailored feel to it.
So really you're getting the content you kind of want in a sense.
Don't ask me how I don't really know how it works.
But somehow it comes out like that
and again really over the power of a tunnel is just at least a phone
so I can imagine you have a fully staffed call center open seven days a week
and with our demographic they tend to love calling in and that's why we have that channel for them.
We do get a lot of great not just great feedback,
but great information to help not just Help the rest of the company.
So in marketing to get a lot of ideas from
what the customers are finding in
with and not just sorry and I'll just email marketing to that you get,
you know, a lot of emails to us directly. That's how we kind of have a real
basically almost like a real-life connection
because we are communicating with them basically on a daily basis,
but is there such a thing as being too accessible to your community and customer?
I think when we found is that there's this fine balance with phone and being too accessible almost,
you know, like you definitely the most important thing there is just being It's
just having human connection rather readily available
because sometimes it's just not just sometimes better to stalk someone on the phone,
but on the other hand, you know, sometimes you don't need so many people calling in.
So I think we've kind of found that good balance again,
I guess going back just getting our demographic in mind.
A lot of people just want that easy connection.
So that's why we make that available. But yeah,
I mean, we also get a lot through email, you know, but overall phone I think key.
I mean that's honestly like a lot of times.
I just want to call somebody like ‘hey,
can I fix this? How do I do this?’ There's not too much thought
they're just I guess convenience in a sense.
How about using education
as a tool to connect your customers? Renee from Leon
and George, a houseplant delivery service, uses multiple ways to connect
and engage with their customers.
Renee: I think it's all about like offering the value to people
and so like I said that a lot of that for us is education and you know,
what can we do to make our customers feel like were there for them?
You know, it's not like you just buyer. A product
and you're going to forget about it or we're going to forget about you.
So one of one area that I think is really can be really impactful is email marketing.
So that's you know, creating email specific to what they purchased for example offering,
you know, if you purchased a monstera plant,
like now you're going to get
a drip campaign all about your plants.
So like little by little you can learn more and if you're not just shoved this like massive,
you know book of information, but it's kind of keeping them engaged in.
And also offering value and not just you know asking them like oh here
here's another email like you're like buy more,
you know your we try to like give twice and then ask so so in that sense,
it's like kind of staying top of mind for them. But and also like ensuring that like,
you know, they can trust us is like a source of information
and support another area that we have added has been a lot of work,
but we noticed that people really love it is Online chat system.
Like I said, we're really small teams. So managing that is sometimes tricky but we you know,
we we found that people really love it.
We've gotten such great feedback, you know, people got can ask all types
of questions there about which plant they should
get or you know,
or even about their order I think for some groups of people ordering online,
especially a perishable product can be a very scary or like,
how can I trust this brand and so,
you know, I'm like a human sort of a human interaction like that is is
really helpful grunts style is a veteran owned
and operated clothing brand Rory Collins explains that the company is more than apparel.
They bolster a lifestyle that has built a brand with a 5 million plus strong community.
We like to stay in front of our customer base has
as much as we can and not just from a sales perspective,
but also from from our story and our voice perspective.
We have a lot to say and we like to put it out.
There and then we you know, we have quite a large following throughout social right around five five
and a half million people
and then we also have a pretty large email list that comes to
us for people that subscribe to our emails and we typically put out an email nearly every day.
I would say probably six to eight times a week.
Actually we put we put emails out obviously to segmented audiences,
but and then You do run SMS campaigns
as well or SMS campaigns are typically kind of a what we consider to be like our VIP campaign.
So a lot of the times SMS will get opportunities first.
So we'll put out certain products that are going to go out on the
site SMS will get kind of first dibs on
those and then we also have our grunts ow club
and grunts Owl Club is our subscription based Community.
They have a Facebook group. There are part of and a Facebook page.
There are part of and then they also have,
you know, very specific discounts
and and whatnot good style has been hugely successful at listening to their community
and speaking to them as individuals.
So from a community perspective, it comes to the brand first.
Obviously there needs to be the ability to retain a community within the within your brand.
I would say there are certain products
and Brands out there that Likely wouldn't have a huge Community following Moore's more
so than their buyer following but for us,
you know for grunts out club, which we try to make that as kind of fraternity asked as possible.
We engage within that community on a daily basis.
We have people within that community that Outreach for us.
We have brand ambassadors for our It's our club that are often,
you know posting in grunts all Club posting about grunge style.
I think really from an engagement point of view.
Everybody has something to say
and a lot of Brands don't listen which our best to listen to our customers in terms of not just
what they want.
But who they are as individuals
and relate to them as individuals and continue to put product out that they're in.
Stood in obviously but also share what's relevant to to them specifically if we have a
community of people that we know are super interested in Outdoors.
Maybe we share articles that have to do with you know,
these are the best the 13 top places to camp in the United States
and we'll even do photo shoots around that as showing us at those locations things of that nature.
So we put ourselves in the same shoes as them I think growing a community around your buyer.
Your buyers are going to have a voice and if you don't listen to that voice,
it's going to be really hard to retain from a community perspective.
Thank you to Goodboy, AlgeaCal, Honest Paws, Leon
and George, and Grunt Style for sharing their experiences for this podcast.
You can find links to all of the companies featured in the show notes.
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