I just finished listing to this out standing podcast given by Ezra Firestone, an Ecommerce Legend, about all the ingredients for a successful ecommerce business.
Ezra runs a website called Smart Marketer (
http://smartmarketer.com) where you can listen to more outstanding content.
BOOM!! by Cindy Joseph provides natural skincare products for women who want to reveal their beauty with an honest and realistic approach. Former makeup artist turned supermodel, Cindy Joseph created BOOM! with longtime friend Ezra Firestone after realizing there was no pro-age cosmetic line for women. Ezra joins us this week to talk about building a community as the core foundation for future E-commerce businesses.
Topics Discussed:
01:30 – How Ezra went from internet marketer to E-commerce store owner
04:00 – Story of Cindy Joseph’s career as a fashion model at age 49
06:00 – Society’s perception of value in men and women
07:30 – Finding a community and hitting the emotional points of a customer
10:30 – Standing above the noise in the next generation of E-Commerce
12:00 – Diversity of marketing channels for your online store
13:00 – How to build and find a community for your online store
14:30 – What is the collective experience and message of your community?
16:00 – Should you build a community or product first?
17:30 – Tweaking the message as you get feedback from the community
21:30 – E-Commerce sales as a % of all retail in the USA
24:30 – Guerrilla branding and messaging for a business
25:30 – How do you reach customers when they are not on social media
27:30 – PR and how to find a good PR agent
31:30 – Finding your community offline and becoming the leader
34:45 – The internet just makes everything more efficient
35:15 – Logistics of setting up a Meetup event with your community
36:30 – Managing contacts and people you meet at events
38:00 – Email marketing 1.0, 2.0, and 3.0
40:00 – Being in constant contact with your community
41:00 – How video marketing worked for BOOM by Cindy Joseph
42:00 – Natural-quality video blogs without fancy production values
43:30 – Converting social media traffic into sales via Facebook
45:00 – Long-term viability of community-based E-commerce businesses
46:30 – “Can It Be Made” v.s. “Should It Be Made?”
48:30 – Platform won’t be the deal breaker for a business
49:00 – Conversion theory and understanding parts of the funnel
50:00 – Homepage conversion tips for an E-commerce store
52:00 – Google Analytics goal flow methodology and setup
54:00 – E-Commerce conversion analysis case study
55:00 – Should you tweak the top or bottom of the funnel?
57:00 – Importance of tracking your internal website searches and product development
59:00 – Website header and page conversion elements
60:00 – Creating scarcity with time-based discounts on your online store
61:30 – Main banners, tabbed featured products by category, and more
62:00 – Media: Pictures, welcome videos, FAQ videos, quick views
63:00 – Scarcity: Everything should be on sale, featured items, bundled deals
65:00 – Product pages: getting rid of navigation, tabbing it up, cross-sells, Q&A plugins
67:00 – “You might also like”, features, benefits, security logos
70:00 – Checkout page: Congruency, progress bar, shipping calculator, guarantee, trust symbol
73:00 – Future of BOOM by Cindy Joseph and spreading the message
