In Reviews We Trust

Special Ep. 18 - REVIEWS.io x Klaviyo x Penny Black

November 10, 2022 Callum Mckeefery Season 1 Episode 18
In Reviews We Trust
Special Ep. 18 - REVIEWS.io x Klaviyo x Penny Black
Show Notes Transcript

This week's episode is a special edition of the In Reviews We Trust podcast, in which show host Callum McKeefery, CEO of REVIEWS.io is joined by guests from Klaviyo the email marketing platform for eCommerce,  and Penny Black the personalised Ecommerce packaging specialists.

Douglas Franklin, Founder and CEO of Penny Black, and Jordan Bouchier-Lee Strategic Partnerships Manager (Technology Platforms) at Klaviyo, join Callum McKeefery, CEO of REVIEWS.io to discuss the importance of building and leveraging long-term trust through customer experience. They also discuss the concept of packaging as a marketing channel and using it to extend customer experience to create moments of delight, whilst simultaneously gaining insights through data. They explore this concept further into all ways of adding value to the customer experience beyond interaction with the product and sales process. They discuss the possibility of shaping and tailoring customer experience based on understanding who the customer really is, and the importance of knowing who your true advocates are and where to find them in order to leverage and amplify their power of voice.

Links:

LinkedIn:
Callum McKeefery
Douglas Franklin
Jordan Bourchier-Lee

Show notes:
REVIEWS.io
Klaviyo
Penny Black
Warby Packer
Amazon

Books:
Why we sleep
The Martian

REVIEWS.io is a leading online review platform. It's used by over 8,200+ fast-growing brands. To find out more please go to:

www.reviews.io
Find us on: LinkedIn

Ep. 18 - REVIEWS.io X Klaviyo X Penny Black

[00:00:00] 

Callum: So on today's podcast in reviews we trust, I have some really interesting guests. This is our first in-studio recording. I have Douglas Franklin from Penny Black and Jordan Bourchier-Lee from Klaviyo, right? Normally I'd introduce the guest and say, Hi, this is Jordan. I'd introduce what he does, but because Jordan's ti job title is so long, I'm gonna let him do it.

Go on Jordan. 

Jordan: so I'm Jordan. and good attempt with a second. Second name. 

Callum: Yeah, I went for it.

Jordan: It's a long French second name that means butcher. 

Callum: Oh, right. 

Jordan: Not as eloquent as, uh, 

Callum: so now I'm gonna call you Jordan Butcher. 

Jordan: Jordan Butcher. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Or Lee-Butcher. 

Callum: Yeah. 

Jordan: So, I'm a technology partnerships manager at Klaviyo. Yeah. Official title is Strategic Partnerships Manager of Technology Platforms in EMEA. but essentially Technology Partnerships Manager. what that essentially means is I work with tech [00:01:00] partners, to better understand how to integrate into Klaviyo, to provide use cases that add value to both our customers and also how we go to market with tech partners as well.

Callum: Yeah, Yeah. And we also have Douglas. Douglas, can you introduce what Penny Black does and how you came to be the CEO? 

Douglas: Sure. So I'm Doug Franklin, yeah, founder and CEO Penny Black. And what Penny Black is the newest marketing channel that you may or may not have heard about yet. Right. so what we do is we bring in digitization and personalization into, the real world, using Penny Black.

So, you know, currently, your marketing channels that you would think about. You've got your, your text, you've got SMS, you've got our text, WhatsApp, but there's a moment that hasn't been captured yet, and that's the unboxing moment. And what we do at Penny Black is we allow you to bring that same level of personalization from those other channels to that moment.

Callum: Yeah. So I've heard so much about Penny Black from our other partners. So one of our, we have a partner in common, [00:02:00] which is, PAASE Digital. Yes, we do really well with those guys. They're an elite gold special partner of Klaviyo and I know they've done a partnership with you. We work with them really closely also.

and they kind of introduced your product to me probably six, or seven months ago. and it was really interesting learning about the product and bringing in this physical, real-world aspect. To data, and, and customizing people's experience right down to the unboxing and how data is used in that unboxing.

So can you just go through slightly how you integrate? 

Douglas: With Klaviyo. Yeah. So the current Klaviyo integration is, I mean, we, we, we take all the data you'd capture through flavor. So all the segments are the current use case we're working on at the moment. So any segment you're creating in fao, you can use those same segments in Penny Black, right?

So whether it be a first-time customer or a loyal customer, put all that data through. Into Penny Black and they can send these, on your communications or marketing tool. At the moment, they open [00:03:00], their package. That's how it, works. The other use case, I guess is in the data we capture at that unboxing moment.

So once customers are engaging with their communication, we can then send information back to Klaviyo. 

Callum: So how are you capturing that data from the unboxing? Are you doing QR codes? Are you doing URLs in there? How are you doing it? 

Douglas: Yeah, it's a QR code, so it's a trackable QR code. 

Callum: Awesome. Yeah, so people use QR code. What do they do when they open it? What, what's, or is it the interaction with the box? How, what's the, 

Douglas: It's as they scan the QR code. Yeah. That's what we'll track. So the QR code will take them, to a variety of different places. 

Callum: Right. So their website, But you've, You've got tracking on that, 

Douglas: Correct, yeah. 

Callum: QR code that goes back. Right. Okay. That's really interesting. I mean, we spoke about doing something where you could. Put a review QR code in and they could scan that and that takes them to leave a video review and they could video the unboxing or, you know, do a TikTok from the unboxing, you know, really popular.

Get some marketing from [00:04:00] the engagement. And then we could send the data back to Klaviyo say, Right, this person's reviewed. And then that goes into it now, a different segment and we kind of getting the data all around, I mean, There's so much now, there's so many data points on, on customers. how do you, how do you deal with GDPR?

You know, like, because obviously, you are, you are sending the data to them. You've got a data agreement, but it's the, Yeah. Your, data agreement is with the provider the same as sort REVIEWS.io data agreement. Yeah. Makes sense. Makes sense. 

Douglas: It's like a Yeah. I mean, the way we think about it, it's like this, you, you describing, you've got this sort of virtuous cycle of reciprocity, of, of data 

Callum: Yeah.

Douglas: Between all these platforms. I think that's important because. You know, if we're talking about, you know, customer data, there, there's, there's the customer experience, and then there's why do you want a good customer experience? Because you wanna develop long-term trusting customer relationships, right?

Yeah. And so to get that trust, it's a long-term journey. So customers wanna get used [00:05:00] to the fact that they're sharing this data with you and how's that data then being used to improve their customer experience? And I can see all these touchpoints. Adding up to create this real virtuous cycle. I think that we, we, we’re seeing, so linking up reviews, linking up the data on trivia, linking up the data Penny black and ga Yeah.

Using that is only gonna enhance customer experience. 

Callum: No, I, I think bringing data into sort of the real world like we were talking about earlier, bringing into packaging, but also bringing into like physical pos and bringing, you know, physical mail and things like that is, is gonna be huge. And I think that's something that's untouched at the.

But it's gonna get more and more because obviously, you get so many emails, but if something now arrives through the Post for you, it's a unique experience. You can create this experience for. From the brand to you. and I think that's, you know, gonna start happening a lot more. You've got the holiday season coming up, and I think to break through the noise, you've gotta do things a bit differently.

Douglas: Correct? Yeah. It's a quieter moment, right? [00:06:00] It's a, it's a, it's a, it's a quieter moment. It's not to say you don't have all your, other channels, but what you'll learn is you know that this is used together with the other channels. You, you have. Different people have a different propensity to how they want to engage with, technology.

Over time, you'll start using, Hey, that segment of customers loves receiving this kind of physical communication, Right? And you'll start learning, Hey, we can, So for that customer, you know, we're gonna send them the unboxing communication. Yeah. That customer might actually start seeing, actually email works best.

So you'll start building, building those things up over time. 

Callum: It is such an interesting space, such an, you know, amazing space. So from Klaviyo's point of. What's a client that's using data really well at the moment? What's somebody who, you know, you look to and go, right, this brand's killing it at the moment.

They, they're using all the data points and they're doing it in the right way. 

Jordan: yeah, that's a really good question. I think there's kind of two, there's kind of two brands that come to mind that they just. When you think about customer data, I don't just think about as like all these different [00:07:00] data points and pulling that into a sort of single customer view.

That is what happens. 

Callum: Yeah. 

Jordan: But I think about it more as replacing the idea of just having those customer data with the phrase of. Better understanding of the customer. 

Yeah.

And I think that's really sort of important thing that I always kind of go back to as a kind of, a summary of when I think about who's doing it well.

and there's a, there's one example. they are, they're like the UK's largest online fishmonger, for example. 

Douglas: Yeah.

Jordan: And, They use the interactions that the customer has with their brand. They pull in all of the kind of usual stuff like product data or what kind of stuff. and what they do is they basically reflect their marketing.

Journey on that. So for example, if you go in and buy sea bass.

Callum: Yeah. 

Jordan: the experience you are gonna then get is post-purchase. You are then gonna get marketing material that revolves around recipes for sea bass. You're gonna get that type of product that you've bought and all the different kind of aftercare or inspirational bits of content.

Callum: Right. 

Jordan: Probably use leveraging UGC as well to show that other [00:08:00] people have done similar things 

Callum: Are doing this. Yeah. 

Jordan: And I think that's a really interesting way of doing it. And they. They take that understanding of the customer of something so simple as they've bought CBAs. Yeah. And they've made that customer experience completely different.

when it then comes around to sort of sale time or to that point of where you wanna then upsell that customer, guess what? They hit you with pro products that are similar to the product that you bought before, or the other customers who did buy that product went on to buy. Yeah. So that's one example I thought was, really, interesting I think, and

I'm, I'm really bullish about, sort of Penny Black as an additional channel. 

Callum: Yeah. It's a new channel. It's, Yeah. It's, and it's, it's probably the oldest channel, but all of a sudden it's the new channel. 

Jordan: Yeah, exactly. It's, it is the channel that's probably not been leveraged and utilized as much as 

Callum: Yeah.

Jordan: As, as others. And I think that when you start thinking about this very simple sort of case study of a fishmonger that sells a customer sea bass and then starts to communicate with 'em after. Mm. And you start to think about all these potential ideas of, well, actually, what if those [00:09:00] recipes were in the box?

Callum: Yeah. 

Jordan: or what if those recipes or what if, or content or the inspirational content around that was in the package that it came. and I think that things like that, I, I don't think brands, I don't think a lot of brands do that very well.

Callum: Yeah. 

Jordan: And I was sort of, I was, I did a session last week with a, a couple of our customers about this.

And I think that when we start thinking about the situation, we're at the moment from like a sort of macroeconomic perspective. 

Callum: Yeah. 

Jordan: You know, with in person. Great. Yeah. Covid, it's kind of old news. and so, but now we're starting to see all the kinda knock-on effects of that and sort of consumers' spendings going down, all that kind of stuff.

Yeah, definitely.

And so no matter what you sell, I'm going a bit, I'm going a bit of rant here. 

Callum: No, no, it's cool. Go, go ahead. 

Jordan: No matter what you sell, whether you sell luxury sofas, whether you sell sea bass whether you sell, whatever it may be, there is a moment in which that customer considers your purchase.

Callum: Yes.

Jordan: Whether they say, I'm gonna buy this, or I'm not gonna spend my money on this, I'm gonna buy it [00:10:00] or I'm not gonna buy. And that little consideration purchase for some brands like the luxury sofa, is several weeks. 

Callum: Yeah. 

Jordan: for some, it's very impulsive. It's, it's almost seconds, but no matter what you sell, cuz of the current way that consumers are thinking about and double taking on whether they spend a penny or save a Penny.

Callum: Yeah.

Jordan: That consideration pressure just got a little bit longer. and so I think that brands really have to start thinking about it. Adding value beyond the product. And I think that an example of this, this online fishmonger who gives recipes for sea bass when a customer buys or even engages with sea bass.

Callum: Yeah. Because not, I love this because normally, They just go, Here's the product. Yep. It's the end of our relationship. Maybe I'll send you one email and it comes around to, you know, the holiday season. But apart from that, you're on your own. and now they're doing more. I, I love that and I love that it's a fishmonger that's doing it.

Jordan: Yeah. But you know, that's, it's got the fast fashion course, streetwear. 

Callum: Yeah. I love, I love that, that it's not some. New York Tech, overly cool [00:11:00] brand. You know that it's not Warby Parker it is just this, this UK-based brand doing this. And I think that's the interesting bit. I think that you've gotta see, you're gonna see smaller brands kind of innovating a little bit more, and I think they've got to actually differentiate themselves and they've gotta do more.

Hmm. They've gotta do more in these little moments. In, the purchased journey that they can delight the customer. We always talk about reviews, you know, make sure you delight the customer and you collect the review from the customer at the moment of delight. So we ask, when we talk about, you know, collecting a review.

I. Consistently tell our clients, find out what your customer's happiest point is. Mm. And that's gotta be when you get, they get that email or they get that, WhatsApp or SMS asking them for the review. [00:12:00] Now we can change things a little bit more with Penny Black. And we could say, Well, actually the moment of delight is that opening the box and doing that experience.

Leave the review via QR instead of doing it via email. You, you'll probably still send the email and you'll still send the SMS, but that's probably the nearest moment of delight. 

Douglas: Mm-hmm. 

Callum: and I think that's gonna change a lot of things. I think we've, we've gotta expand that moment of delight through, like you are saying, getting printed material into the people.

Douglas: I love the way you said that expanding that, that moment of delight. Cause that's In fact, what we've seen happen, we've actually got a, a mutual customer who's doing exactly this, right? They, it's very niche, product and what they send, they've got, well, a variety of products, but when they send, you know, a specific type of product and it's a tea brand, is they sending someone a, a green tea, you get a recipe specific.

For that type of tea right Now, what's really interesting about extending this moment of delight is what we are actually seeing coming through with the data is that because these things are designed well, they're on brand. People aren't just going like picking it up, open box and [00:13:00] throwing something in the bin gets pinned on their fridge.

And then you see them engaging with this content 2, 3, 4 times over and over again because they keep going back. It's really nice saying they're proud of saying they keep on their, their, So it is, it's opened up a whole new world of how to engage customers and gather data and insights and engage with them.

Improve the experience. Yeah, no, I'd love 

Callum: to see the stats to see whether those tea brands actually collected more user-generated content and how much increased word of mouth on social media. You know, I mean, direct communication back to the brand, how many, whether it, you know, triggered more visits back to the brand's website and via email, whether they engage more with the email.

So I'd love to know what that's where It's gonna get interesting to know, right? This small change in packaging made this change in our, in our, in our journey. It created meant more UGC. The knock-on effects were not just X it was also, we got [00:14:00] Y, Z, and all the other letters of the alphabet. 

Jordan: You make a really interesting point, which I just wanna kind of touch on, because UGC.

Yeah. 

Such a powerful, massive channel to feed the insatiable content beast. 

Callum: Yeah. Well, you've gotta, you need thousands of bits of content a year now. You can't just go and produce one great video. 

Jordan: Yeah. 

Callum: You know, one great advert, you, you've gotta. With it's almost fast fashion content is fast fashion and probably, I don't know many brands that have got enough dollars to keep up with creating this content. You have to get your customers 

Jordan: It can be free.

Callum: Yeah. That's it. You've gotta get your customers involved in creating it and it's free. 

Jordan: Yeah. But, but so going back to this idea of like shaping the customer experience based on who the customer is. I was talking to someone and they worked in an ad agency, you know doing TV commercials and all this kinda stuff. 

Callum: Yeah. 

Jordan: Very beautifully shot kind of.

Callum: Yeah, polished!

Jordan: Polished, Perfect word! Polished. And, I was, I was saying to like this person, I was like, Oh, that's really interesting. What are you working on? Blah, blah, blah. and I was [00:15:00] like, Do you do much with other channels at TikTok? And she said, No, no. TikTok is just not a good channel for what our creative agency does. we're more like the sort of John Lewis adverts or, if anyone knows kinda like Rafa or specialized, they do very like, beautifully looking beautiful content. and I was like, Oh, you know, and TikTok's and we were kind of talking TikTok's very much like, just sort of point of view, organic in the home or just it's, it's very like, It's very gen, Gen Z, you can put that Gen Z. 

Callum: Yeah. 

Jordan: But it's authentic. It has this kind of, that kind of nuances to it. And then I was kind of, you know, this conversation, I was going off and, and I was saying it's very much that's the kind of the format of the content that's being consumed.

And there that's content that works on TikTok. And I've seen this all throughout LinkedIn where it's like, this buddy, this video versus this video. And you've got kind of one which. Polished one, which is like robotic voice, point of view, all this kinda stuff. 

Callum: Yeah. 

Jordan: And the robotic voice one performs unbelievably well compared 

Callum: authentic.

Jordan: Authentic. But then you think I'm sitting down at this, in [00:16:00] this, in this, in this pub, and I'm talking to the person at the, ad agency, and then I don't get it. You know, I'm, I'm more, I care more for the polished content than the sort of the point of view TikTok content. And then I'm just, and then, you know, that kind of got me thinking, working at Klaviyo and thinking about this kind of things.

But even when it comes down to like preference of channel, what we were talking about. Yes. It's also a preference of content. Yeah. And so it's like, yeah, we have email, SMS, you might use WhatsApp, you might have, direct mail or kind of like in package marketing, you might also have, all the other sort of paid channels.

and not everyone's gonna engage in all those channels. No. But to make things a little bit more complex and, and not complex in a scary way, is that when you do find the channel they do engage with, what type of creative do they now engage with? And so this is something which I don't think marketers and brands have nailed yet.

Callum: It's difficult to, it, it's difficult to understand, and I don't think they're getting enough feedback. To actually know [00:17:00] what channel and what type of marketing is really the one pushing through. Mm-hmm. , I think at the minute we're doing a lot of spraying and praying. Yeah. but I do think I, from what I see on a, you know, I see all the brands coming through, all the Gen Z brands coming through.

They're just breaking through, with this fast content. they're not, you know, marketing dollars. Ads are more expensive than ever, ever. 

Jordan: Mm-hmm. 

Callum: And they're making their customers do the work now and they're making their customers reach, do the work. So we have a really good solution within reviews that io that actually we.

Ask people you know, about their Instagram channel to verify their reviews. And then we'll go and look at their Instagram channel and we'll see how many followers they've got and everything else, and what sort of stuff they post. And then we share that data with Klaviyo. and we can see now not every customer has the same power of voice.

Jordan: Mm. 

Callum: You know that Unfortunately, that's the world we live in and we've seen that [00:18:00] some customers are so much more powerful than others, and it's about engaging with that brand advocate. So if we see somebody who's written a five-star review, it's a great review. They've uploaded an image and everything else, and then they're massive on TikTok, that's the guy we push that data into Klaviyo.

That's the guy or girl that. That brand should be engaging with and harnessing their power. They should be sending them free products and saying, Hey, there was a TikTok. Hey, there was an Instagram video. And the brands that are doing that are growing so quickly because they're not blowing all of their budget.

They're really laser-focusing their budget on brand advocates. They're not going out and getting these fake. Influencers, they're actually getting influencers that have actually made a purchase and already written a review and then having that authentic experience. And that's the difference. And it, it, it's, it is becoming, Where you, you are a brand, consumers are seeing through these paid influencers.

Jordan: Yeah. 

Callum: And that's what I'm [00:19:00] noticing. 

Douglas: And do you think this is the difference though, I guess, between brands who are, are really committing to and being brave and taking that long-term view? This is about us. Really understand. I'm not saying we're gonna understand customer data.

Callum: Yeah. Actually doing, Yeah.

Douglas: We actually are doing, we actually, we're committing to it. We're taking the long view. 

Callum: Yeah. 

Douglas: We realize that it's gonna take time to build up a good view of this customer. Right. It's not gonna happen on day one. 

Callum: It doesn't.

Douglas: It might happen on day, 720 on it. But you know, iteratively, they're building up that, that profile by getting them to buy more, share more data, and it builds rather than brands that say we're doing it.

But actually, you're just in that acquisition. 

Callum: Closest to the customer is always one. 

Douglas: Yeah. Mm-hmm.

Callum: If you can get a customer to come back to your store regularly, or if you can understand that customer, it's that thing where Right. I madly started off working in a nightclub. That was my best. 

Douglas: Not this one?

Callum: No, not, not this. This used to be an old nightclub, but no, not this one. So my dad, you know, had a nightclub and he passed away on, had to run in. And one thing he always taught me was like, really understand the people who are coming in [00:20:00] and make to get them coming in. Every week you have to know what they all want, and everybody wanted something different.

It was a real weird thing. It was only a small club, three, 400 people, and I kind of worked out really easily over a period of time what he meant. 

Douglas: Yeah.

Callum: For you to do. You know, he passed away and I sort of took over and. I kind of worked out what everybody's favorite drink was. What? I had people come in exactly the same time of night every Saturday night, every Friday and Saturday night, and I kind of worked out because I remembered everybody's name. You know, it was really important for me to, like, when they came in, I was like, Oh, I know this person. I Jack, you know, like you, you know, Come on, let's look after you. This way. By knowing your customer better, I was able to better serve them, and they became more loyal to me and that's something that's followed on through, you know, now what I do with the reviews and, and what I kind of try and mentor e-commerce brands and talk to e-commerce brands, [00:21:00] like what we're talking about now is getting closer to that customer and you're getting close to that customer via the data cuz you're not meeting them in per person anymore.

They're not coming into your shop, they're not coming into your store where you're building that relationship. You're looking them in the eye, but actually, you're learning all of that. Without knowing that person really Now, yes. But it, it's, kind of, I used to be who was in the clubs, I would be like, Right, well this person brings 50 people he's the most popular guy in girl in town. And yeah. And I was like, Let him, you know, but, but that's almost where we've got now, and this is kind of what we're saying now, You know, you've got these brand advocates, but you've, if you're not doing anything with. It's a real lost asset and you've gotta harness the power of these, these advocates.

And that's something we are really passionate about, reviews, but you've gotta so do that properly. You've gotta use the dates within Klaviyo and you've gotta know what's going on there, but also you've gotta push it through to what's delivered through the door to that person. I, I really think not [00:22:00] enough brands are.

Understanding who the most powerful customers are. 

Jordan: I, I think 'cause I try. I agree. I agree. And I think about like, I imagine a brand listening or watching this, whatever, would say, Yeah, but you know, I need to try sales. Yeah, I've got quarterly goals, da da, you know, this kind of stuff. and I, I, valid, valid, valid point, valid kind of, not an objection, but it's a valid sort of front of mind point to have.

And then I just think about, If you don't do that and you don't understand your customer, create an experience which is in line with what they expect or what they should be getting. 

Callum: Yeah.

Jordan: You're kind of, you're kind of giving up tomorrow's revenue. 

Callum: You've given up tomorrow's revenue, but also you're on that wheel of you've gotta push more money into paid advertising to keep the wheel spinning, to keep your business going.

Jordan: Or go on like blanket sales. Yeah. Which means you're selling your products.

Callum: You're, you're either gonna discount or you're gonna throw more money at paid. 

Jordan: Yeah. 

Callum: So Google and Facebook become richer and you essentially become poorer and you end up competing on prize more. [00:23:00] 

Jordan: Mm-hmm. 

Callum: and not on experience.

And that's the problem. 

Douglas: And, but they're not mutually exclusive of all of them because you've gotta acquire the customer. It's about having that long-term view. It's actually, we wanna retain these customers, we wanna retain them, we retain them. So yes, there'll be that acquisition engine, but it's okay.

But actually where we want to go is, is retaining these customers in the long term. So I mean that eye on the future whilst trying to build that up now. 

Callum: Yeah. And it's building customer loyalty. 

Douglas: Yes, exactly. 

Callum: Yeah. Definitely. So you worked, I know from your CV you worked previously talking about loyalty, you worked at Loyalty Lion.

Jordan: Yes. 

Callum: So, yeah, I mean it, And that obviously plays into that. You're obviously seeing that with Loyalty Lion that, you know, you had, that you, you knew about that creating loyalty and keeping that customer rewarded so they kept engaged with the brand. 

Jordan: yeah, and I, I just think, I mean, this is quite a sort of timely time to talk, talk about it. Cause we've got, Black Friday coming up. 

Callum: Yeah. 

Jordan: But it, for me, it's, it's always been. It's always been strange that brands will pull levers to get [00:24:00] sales through the door. Like you said, pumping a hell of a lot of money into paid ads or discounting heavily. Obviously, Black Friday has a kind of cultural expectation of discounting, so I'm not saying you shouldn't be doing that, but.

When you start to use this kind of like myopic strategies of like, let's achieve the short term, let's not think for six months in the future. 

the kind of, the, the things that you do is you alienate the customers who talk about discounts specifically here. Have paid full price, for your product, alienating customers who have gone through quite a long consideration journey to get your product.

And then boom, the next message they get, 

Callum: Flash sale. 

Jordan: Flash sale or whatever. Or even just an upsell or whatever. 

Callum: Yeah. 

Jordan: And so it's like, actually you should add value around that whole experience, every single touch point and to the kind of the economics of it. You know, I'm trying to hit these numbers, blah, blah, blah, blah.

It. If you're a brand and you're gonna do a 50-50 % Black Friday sale, and I'm not saying don't do this, but you've gotta get double the amount of customers. And even when you get double the amount of customers, you're still earning [00:25:00] less than if you just got half the amount of customers at full price.

Yeah. You're still buying that product at, at, at a unit cost twice. Yeah. And so it's like, these are the kind of things that, I really think about when it comes, when, when you think about sort of custom loyalty and you think about creating a personalized marketing experience. Yeah, just think about that customer, not just as the root to next sale, but think about that customer for the next three, four years.

Yeah, 

Callum: definitely. We've been working with a brand massive fashion brand, one of the high-end fashion brands, one of the biggest in the UK, probably one of the biggest in Europe. and we've been doing something with them this year to do. So they don't wanna do a blank Friday sale like normal, that they're gonna be really selective this year.

And they're actually gonna do something the day before for p brand advocates for people who have left them a five-star review, in the last two years. And they're gonna give those people access to [00:26:00] a code to go in and it is sort, sort of like a secret sale. Mm-hmm. just for their brand advocates. And I thought that was a bit different.

Yeah. Than what I've seen previously. I thought that was quite interesting day before giving it and going, actually this is the sale but we're only gonna do it while advocates. 

Douglas: That's really cool. I mean isn't that, That's a much cooler way of doing it. Cause they know normally if to Jordan's point here, you get that, you know, double your people to paint 50% off.

Then they drop you like a dentist. Not only have you discounted your product, but you've also only got them once and they're gone. Yeah. Where is that, Right. The smaller select group, you're really rewarding. What are the chances that they're gonna buy again and again from much 

Callum: higher, isn't it? Yeah. And they're kind of rewarding them for that feedback.

Not, you're not allowed to incentivize for feedback, you know? We don't agree with that, so much, especially on company reviews. You're not allowed to incentivize at all because that's against Google guidelines and we need those reviews to go into Google. but this is a way of kind of building a.

Club. Similar to how you would [00:27:00] with a loyalty program. Yeah. yeah. And, it has become interesting. What mistakes do you see brands make around data? 

Jordan: I think that I don't think they understand what we as providers. Experts. Yeah. Calling yourself an expert is quite a, quite, quite a thing, isn't it?

It's a weird thing. It's a weird thing anyway, but I don't think they understand really what we mean by data. I think the brands really need to understand what, again, going back to this kind of, this useful tactic of replacing data with understanding the customer. Yeah. And that is just like the technical.

Part of understanding it. Yeah. And so I think that brands don't understand it, and I think that's one thing they do. And I think that what brands should be doing is they should sit down and they should think If I could understand my customer and I could ask my customer questions, what? What would I ask about them?

What do I wanna know about them? Yeah. That's gonna help me in my job to sell them on why my brand is good, or sell them on why [00:28:00] these new products are, good or, you know, whatever their kind of objectives are. and then once they've got an understanding of that, they should one, look at their data sources and they should try and gather that from.

Callum: Yeah. 

Jordan: First-party data. If they're trying to, and I'll give a quick example of this. if a marketer who is working for a kind of multi-category, almost like a sort of department store where they sell, you know, a little bit of everything, if they said, we'd love to understand. What our customers are interested in.

We'd love to understand whether they like the pet products we have or the men's fashion that we have or the homeware that we have looking for, you can capture that.

Callum: Yeah. 

Jordan: That is all accessible through behavioural data that they are giving you. as long as you capture it, on-site every time they interact with your brand.

And I think that's kind of one thing is like this kind of idea of like first-party data providing you with this rich insight into that customer. And the second thing is that zero-party data. once you understand what you want to know about your brand, if you can't capture it because it's not an interaction or it's not a [00:29:00] behavioural thing that you can, that you can measure, just ask them.

And you don't have to bombard them at checkout with 20 questions. Good. Yeah. Every interaction you have with them, ask 'em a different question.

Callum: Yeah. 

Jordan: One more question.

Callum: Yeah, I agree. That's, that's what they should be doing.

Jordan: Because that is gonna get brands to a position where they truly better understand their customer.

Yeah. And. It's not data anymore. Yeah, 

Callum: I think micro surveys, like surveys, like what we're talking about there, it is gonna be the way forward in 2023 or you know, I think it's there now. I think the big, you know, some great brands are now doing these micros surveys to back up their knowledge of the customer already, to learn out that a little bit more and to join together these dots.

For me, I, I think that if I was working at that, I think people, nobody owns it. That, that, that's my point, is that people are too busy. Marketing, sales, you know, in the C-suite, but nobody seems to own the data at [00:30:00] the minute. They're just like, Oh, it's a nicety. 

Jordan: Yeah.

Callum: And they're not trading it as an essential part of their business, 

Jordan: and then it never gets done.

Yeah. yeah, I agree. I agree. And I just think that it's like I'm biased. I, I work with integrations, at Klaviyo, but, I and our partners have spent. Hundreds, if not thousands, if not tens of thousands of hours, making parts of that data capture on that syncing of data and that unification of data. Yeah.

So easy. Yeah, and people, I was at a, I was in, I was in Berlin and I was, I was doing a kind of a workshop with a load of eCommerce agencies there and. I was with, REVIEWS.io's, sort of German, GM. 

Douglas: Yeah. 

Jordan: And we kind of did this presentation around kind of how you can pull data into Klaviyo and how you can yet leverage it for different customer experiences, blah, blah, blah, blah.

And at the end, the agency. Put their hand up and said, Oh, you know, we, we use this help desk and I don't see this in the platform. And so I said it, Have you integrated it? And they were like, Oh, I don't know. [00:31:00] And I said, My one takeaway, if you forget everything else, I say, Yeah. When you next get, your account or your client's account, whether your merchant or agency or whatever, look at your tax.

Integrate it into Klaviyo. Yeah. Even if you don't even use that data, pull it all in. Let it sit at that Jordan's, you know, profile level. Yeah. That is, that is already accessible and you can already start to leverage that. for the other stuff, asking questions, owning data, owning data capture, all of that kind of stuff.

I would agree with you. I think that actually if no one is responsible for it, that makes it really tricky to actually action. Yeah. But yeah. 

Callum: With Penny Black, do you, obviously you've got a great business, you know, and, and you've got a great product. But what's the biggest objection when you go into a brand and you go, Hey, I can help you with this packaging idea, and I can, you know, you are already using Klaviyo, you're already using REVIEWS.io, but you, I, I really wanna show you what Penny Black can. This is what I can help you with. What's that biggest objection? 

Douglas: Yeah, the, I mean the first one is trying to get people to see it as a marketing [00:32:00] channel. I mean, I think that was the first thing is people like you have something to do with the fulfilment or, or printing. Like, no, no, no. This is your digital marketing channel.

It's the same flexibility. So that was the first one. And the second one is like, how does it work? Right? So what, what, what do I have to do, you know, to get this set up? And actually, that's why I explained to them the expertise that Penny Black's, are built up. So, the reason why we partner with Klaviyo is it's, they've got, they've got the data knowledge, right?

We, we're not, the data experts. 

Callum: Yeah.

Douglas: What we do really well is that connection. Being able to send something in real time to a fulfilment centre in the middle of nowhere, and get it printed to go in your box, in, in, in, in a sort of like real-time. 

Callum: Yeah. 

Douglas: I've been trying to explain that process, to brands and how that works. And the answer is you don't have to worry about it. That's what we worry about. 

Callum: Right. So how do you do a demo on your product platform? Because obviously, you've got this physical bit with reviews. I can go in and go, Well, there's a demo. Did like X, Y, Z send you a review request or a review? We've seen the whole process. Klaviyo's a bit similar. Go in, you can see a customer and you can send an email, but. Your product is physical. So how do you [00:33:00] do that? 

Douglas: We send them samples. Right. Okay. That's the best way to do it. So like, yeah. What, do you want to look at? So, and, customers can, some customers request us to do samples 

Callum: Yeah.

Douglas: In their brand, you know, for a specific use case, and we can send them to them or we can send, you know, sort of like some mockups, whatever it might be. But that's the best way to communicate, the physical nature of it. So yeah, that's how we do it. And then videos, videos. Just show the steps in the process and show how it works.

I mean, it's saying to get your head around you can you, you can see it early on when people are like, What? I don't understand. Yeah. And yeah, you’re going back here. 

Callum: I was, yeah. So I was thinking about the business, I learned about Penny Black before this and I learned about it obviously before when I got introduced to the brand.

I was like, It's a great product, man. I just wonder how they're gonna go get over this thing of what, You've got a physical thing and you've got a digital thing and showing it altogether. Right? And don't, don't be wrong. What's your perfect client look like? 

Douglas: Ah, we've got many. So Shopify, Klaviyo. So they've got, 

Callum: Yeah, so that's two attributes.

Douglas: Huge. Shopify Klaviyo, I mean, I think volume plays an important part. I mean, with this is cuz you know, it's, it's not like email or text. We can [00:34:00] send, send loads out. It's obviously generated by it by a purchase. I think brands doing five to 10,000 plus orders a month is a good profile. 

Callum: Yeah. 

Douglas: But you really start seeing the value.

and are you global yet or are you just UK? 

UK and Europe. UK and Europe at the moment. Yeah.

Callum: Okay. And you got plans to go into America?

Douglas: We've got worldwide plans, right? We do. No, I mean, I think.

Callum: Well you've just done a raise, so you got enough money now. 

Douglas: Yeah, we do. And I mean, I think. The way it works is we go where, you know, we set up, a core part of our propositions, obviously being able to work with fulfilment centres.

Callum: Right.

Douglas: and fulfilment centres of course operate globally. So once we've integrated once it makes it a lot easier for us to expand internationally. So, yeah. 

Callum: So I, I see a great, obviously you, you know, Shopify is putting a lot hell of a lot into logistics. 

Douglas: Yes. 

Callum: That's the big thing that they're really. That's the only way they can really take it to Amazon in this last-mile thing. And you know, conquering third-party logistics. And I think your brand alongside that could grow almost you, you are that they're the shark and you are the little fish underneath that becomes the medicine. 

Douglas: Yeah. That's exactly [00:35:00] right. Right. Because we see, you know, Amazon's all about, you know, I mean they, they do in one sense a good customer experience cuz you know it's fast, right?

So you get it the next day, but it's in this. Brown box, right? That just turns up. 

Callum: Yeah. 

Douglas: Where we want to players in, in a different space where it's about customer experience. They don't get a brown box. They give a nice, you know, open their package and there's a nice communication that's hyper-personalized, that feels more like, you know, Shopify, you know, and, and, and that's why we're playing that in that space and where we, you know, working towards That's exactly what we, we intend on.

Callum: Yeah. I think the market's huge for you guys. I think you've got a really unique product and a really unique take on the market. I, I could, I can definitely see more and more brands looking towards your product in the future. So at this part of the show, I kind of ask, basically I wanna learn what I should be reading, what I should be looking at and doing.

So I try and learn from my guests and we talk about, Hey, what have you been reading, watching podcast newsletter? Book, movie, anything that's inspired you when you think our customers or [00:36:00] I'd like to learn from 

Jordan: I'm gonna, I, I'm gonna give you two options. 

Callum: Okay. 

Jordan: Two paths. The first is gonna be, the first may change your life.

Callum: Okay. Go. 

Jordan: The second may change your professional. 

Callum: I'm gonna change my career?

Jordan: Not career. I was gonna say career. And then I was asking...

Douglas: Professional outlooks. 

Jordan: Your professional outlook. 

Callum: Ok. 

Jordan: One that potentially changes your life, one that potentially changes your, sort of your professional sphere. 

Callum: Okay. 

Jordan: A or B, what would you, what would you go for?

Callum: I've gotta go with A. 

Jordan: Okay, so this is, a bit left field. 

Callum: Okay, go. I love left field. This is, is why I asked this question. Cause I want, you've gotta, you've gotta widen your expansive learning and that's what it's all about. 

Jordan: a book called Why We Sleep. 

Callum: Okay. 

Jordan: By, Matthew Walker. And I'm gonna butcher this summary, but I'll give it a go.

It's basically about, well, what it says on the tin.

Callum: Why do you sleep.

Jordan: Reviews, does reviews, and why you sleep, tells you about why you sleep. But it is about why you sleep and that's like such a, such a trivial trust is a trivial thing, right? 

Callum: Yeah.

Jordan: It's, we sleep [00:37:00] Oh cuz we wanna, you know, recuperate. but then you actually kind of frames it in this way of, we sleep a third of our time.

Douglas: Yeah. 

Jordan: Every animal sleeps and sleep is the most counter. A counter evolutionary thing you can do for a third of your life. You fall down, you close your eyes and you are not aware of all the dangers and ills around you.

Yeah, it should If, if sleep was not a third, If not a third if it was not such an important thing to take up a third of our life, 

Callum: Yeah.

Jordan: We should not do it. And those who didn't sleep would've survived and those who did would've died. Yes. and so if you sort of frame it in that perspective.

Callum: In the evolutionary.

Jordan: In the evolutionary world of kind of survival of the fittest and kind of, you know, weakness kind of dies off sort of thing. It kind of goes into all the things around sleep and it is just it when I'm not gonna ruin the book for anyone who wants to.

Callum: So what do they recommend? What? What are they recommending on hours? Cause I've always been interested, cuz as a kid I can remember, and I'm showing my age here, Margaret Thatcher saying she only men should only sleep seven hours,[00:38:00] women should sleep seven hours, Men should sleep six, or something like that, which was, I was terrified of this cause I was like, I love sleep.

Douglas: Yeah, Yeah. 

Callum: And I'm like, that's six hours. And I'm a man. 

Douglas: That's way, way... 

Callum: And I'm at school and I'm like, that. I tried it and I went, Oh, 

Jordan: If Thatcher was wrong about some things, she was definitely wrong about that fact. 

Callum: Yeah. 

Jordan: Not that I'm this kinda like pseudo sleep scientist now. 

Yeah.

After reading this book. 

Callum: No. Yeah. You can't just read a book and be there. But

Jordan: I mean, sometimes... 

Callum: I do wanna learn from it. Maybe I've not got time to read the book.

Jordan: but it's, it's eight hours and what it does is it walks through the reasons why we sleep and all this kinda stuff. And, and the mechanism behind it. You remember more, you're a better learner. You comprehend things more.

You deal with emotions better. You, lose weight, you gain muscle. You are able to think at a high level. It's, and when we think about that idea and people sleep at different times during their life, and when we think about that whole idea and how people, and I think this is why it's kind of relevant to, to this kind of professional sphere as well, is because there is such a culture of like grind [00:39:00] hard and all this kind of stuff.

Callum: Yeah, I was gonna say this. There's this big thing on Twitter, but now there's this counterbalance thing that there was. They're all saying now don't hustle hard, sleep more. And that's the latest thing on, seems to be on Twitter.

Jordan: But it's, and so there is that whole kind of like hard work, hard sort of...

Callum: Hustle! 

Jordan: Hustle culture. And then...

Callum: 20 hours a day 

Jordan: Cancel culture of like, you know, that that's, yeah, fun, fun arguments. I like seeing it on Twitter and LinkedIn. but it's, with sleep, it's just such a simple thing that people just, neglect. And there's one thing that. And people probably listening to this, and maybe even you might be thinking, Oh, you know, whatever.

But they, there is a mass experiment that they've done. 

Callum: Yeah.

Jordan: And the mass experiment is where they can measure the sleep of about 3 billion people. And they do it twice a year. In the southern hemisphere. Sorry, Northern hemisphere. 

Callum: How? 

Jordan: The clock's changing. And so when the clocks go forward, people generally tend to lose an hour.

Callum: Yeah. 

Jordan: Because they don't plan ahead. 

Callum: And then what [00:40:00] happens? The world falls to pieces. More people ran on social media. What is it? 

Jordan: The heart attack rate spikes. And we are thinking about macro 

Callum: Yeah. 

Jordan: Units, right?

Callum: Yeah. 

Jordan: Because all of the physiological effects of lack of sleep, blah, blah, blah. When you compile it to, you know, 4 billion people or whatever that number is, when they have one hour sleep, you'd literally see the heart attack rates go up and when the clocks go back so

Callum: Yeah. 

Jordan: When you gain an hour.

Callum: Yeah. Yeah. 

Jordan: The, heart attack rate drops for the next 24 hours. 

Callum: That is insane. 

Jordan: It's just good for your mind and your body, and I think that a lot of people don't...

Callum: oh no. I love sleep. Big fan. 

Jordan: So that is my massive tangent away from eCommerce.

Callum: I love that. I love that. And I think there is this culture of, you know, Elon Musk sleeps at the end of the desk, you know, hustle hard, you know, drive a Lamborghini, you know, get involved in crypto and don't sleep. And I think it's mainly bullshit by people who really haven't done that, but say they've done it [00:41:00] to, to get there. 

Jordan: Mm-hmm.

Callum: I'm, I'm a big fan of sleeping. Probably said it already. Yeah, I like it. I like that you got me and you. 

Douglas: I'm like literally thinking like, 

Callum: I know me. Look, me and you have got a big one. You know I've got, Oh my gosh. Oh. I mean, Yeah. How do you top that? 

Douglas: Well, I, I'll try. I'll try. So, I'm gonna, I'm gonna stick to the left field, right? Yes. I should say something's gonna change your life. 

Callum: Yeah.

Douglas: So I'm gonna go with The Martian. Have, I mean, if you haven't read the book, have you seen the movie, you know, with Matt Damon when he gets stuck on, on Mars? Right. You know, and so the reason I'm picking this, it's, it's for me, you know, it's the perfect sort of analogy really for, for building a start, starting a business, a startup, right?

Yeah. 

So, and, and what it takes to build a team. Right? and at Penny Black, we're actually, we actually call ourselves the everyday astronauts because of this book so if anyone joins Penny Black this is the book you, you read The Martian. and the reason is right, I say if you're an astronaut, you thought [00:42:00] thinking about it as an analogy.

For, you know, the type of person you want or the culture you want to go. If you think about an astronaut, first thing is, you know, it's the best of the best top of the class. You don't get a D in maths and you know, go, go to space, right? So that's the first thing. So you've got these, you know, high achievers, ex me by the way, my team high achievers

Callum: But you're hiring the high achievers.

Douglas: Yeah. Hiring the high achievers. Yeah. That's a job in itself. So you've got like this group of high achievers. Second thing is they're mission-focused, right? So you don't go to space if you, you know, to collect a paycheck. Right? I'm sure most astronauts would do it just like we want to go explore and do something.

Callum: Yeah. 

Douglas: That's never, never been done before. I think the third thing is around perspective. The good thing about astronauts, right? You know, you always see them looking back at the earth from, from space, and it's always calm and gives you perspective and helps you be calm and remain just relaxed when everything around you might, might seem like it's, falling down.

And then, you know, I guess if anyone finally I'll, I'll, I'll get to the point. Yeah. if anyone's ever seen [00:43:00] those sort of, any space move, right? There's always a fire in the hole and they have to like, you know, fix something with like a paper clip and a toilet roll. if they have those on spaceships, they don't have toilet roll actually, but they've got to like, you know, But it's a perfect analogy.

You know, you, you know, time's running out. You've got limited resources. You've gotta solve big problems quickly or else you die. And for me, that's kind of like a startup, right? That's what it takes. 

Callum: That's definitely a startup. It's building the plane on the way down, isn't it? Yeah, exactly. It's how do you, you know, you've gotta do that.

Douglas: Yeah. So for us, that's what it's about. So we're trying to build this culture around the sort of like concept of, you know, if you did I say just that perfect analogy of what's, you know, awesome team would be is like being an astronaut. That's what’s up? Being an astronaut. 

Callum: I love. I love that. That is awesome. That's, you know, great analogy for being involved in a startup, especially, especially one that's, doing something like you are where it's, it's quite a frontier space. You're kind of developing the tech as you're going along. No one's gone out and done it before. You're, you know, you are making your own way.

Yeah, I [00:44:00] do like that. Honestly, both of those Answers were brilliant and it just shows what great guests you are. Thank you for joining me today on the podcast. It's, you know, been brilliant to have you both in the studio and hopefully our listeners enjoy it. Thanks, guys. Thank you so much. 

 

Callum: Thank you for listening today. In reviews we trust is a bi-weekly podcast where I hope to be bringing you advice and insights from brands that are taking the e-commerce world by storm.