Mistakes To Avoid When Building Your eCommerce Brand with Maureen Mwangi

Andy Splichal:

Welcome to the Make Each Click Count podcast. This is your host, Andy Splichal, and we are happy to welcome this week's guest to discuss today's topic, which is mistakes to avoid when building your e commerce brand. Today's guest is a renowned brand growth expert dedicated to teaching product based entrepreneurs the sales and marketing strategies they need to scale with a scientific precision so they can turn their product brands into household names. A big welcome to Maureen Mwangi. Hi Maureen.

Maureen Mwangi:

Hello. So excited to be here. Thank you for having me.

Andy Splichal:

Yeah, we're excited to have you. Thanks for joining us today. Now, let's start with, I mean, brand building is completely different and I would say much more difficult than simply increasing your traffic, especially for product brands. So what do you feel are some of the most important pieces of scaling a product based brand?

Maureen Mwangi:

I would say it's simple. It's two things. I like to keep it simple.

Andy Splichal:

I like simple.

Maureen Mwangi:

First is being the voice of the customer. I think as ceos and founders, we totally forget being the voice of our customer. And what I mean is knowing your customer psychologically at a much deeper level and from a marketing perspective, making sure that every single time you're putting out marketing, you know exactly what the customer mindset is and their psychology is at that particular point in time. Because at the end of the day, you want your content to be a mirror reflection of their behaviors, their beliefs and their values so that you can create connection and you can capture that attention.

Andy Splichal:

Go ahead.

Maureen Mwangi:

The second thing to scaling a brand is actually data. I constantly say that to build a brand that becomes a household name, it all goes back to building it with scientific precision, which basically means looking at your traffic, looking at the products that are selling, looking at what your customers are telling you, looking at your inventory and making sure you're making data informed decision. Because at the end of the day, what you want to do is you want to multiply and amplify what is already working, because I feel like we deviate from a lot of the things that are working because we don't have a good grasp of what our numbers are telling us.

Andy Splichal:

So what do you think the best way is for a company? I guess in step one is to connect with their audience. How do they do that? How do they become the voice of their customers?

Maureen Mwangi:

Market research. My best way to say this is a lot of brands right now have brand ambassadors. Those that they are actively paying and also those that you're not actively paying. Literally just reaching out to your existing audience and asking them for literally five minutes of their time for conversation or sending them a survey is more than enough. Because if you have a list of questions that you want to ask them, just put it out in a Google Document or in a Google form, send it out to them, ask them to give you feedback and incorporate what they tell you into your marketing campaign.

Andy Splichal:

So I've been focusing quite a bit this season with different guests on discussing the customer experience, and it kind of sounds like this goes with that in a way. But in your opinion, how much resources should a company be focusing on customer acquisition versus customer experience?

Maureen Mwangi:

That's a very interesting philosophy. I pretty much say that you have to make sure you worked on your customer experience before you ramp up your customer acquisition. Right? Because I'd rather you bring in very few people while you're working on your experience versus bring a lot of people who come and complain and tarnish your brand. So in terms of if you have a well laid out experience, of course you're going to double up on your customer acquisition because you want a lot more people to come and try your product so that you can eventually scale. If you don't have the experience, then I would slow down the customer acquisition and amplify your customer experience first, because if your customer experience is good, you're going to get a lot of people who refer, other people who talk about your product, and eventually you build that magnetism and that obsession that every brand needs.

Andy Splichal:

So when you start working with a new client, where do you typically find the most potential for growth?

Maureen Mwangi:

Retaining their existing customers. That's usually where I find a lot of opportunity, mainly because I know there are three main ways to grow a brand. You're either acquiring a new customer, you're either retaining those that you've already acquired, or you're reclaiming those that previously bought from you and bringing them back to your brand. As emerging brands or smaller brands, we do a very good job of focusing on bringing new customers, but we really don't think about retaining those people we get. So we're not even maximizing the lifetime value of those customers. So my first area of opportunity is what can we do with the people that we have to get them to buy more or to increase their basket size? Because once you have that, you get a better conversion rate in your business and you know what your baseline sales are from a conversion perspective. And then all you need to do is to just dial it up with newer customers.

Andy Splichal:

So for listeners, what are some actionable steps that they can implement to do just that? Get more sales out of existing customers.

Maureen Mwangi:

What I've noticed, I'm just going to use a few of my clients. First things first. My clients before coming to work with me, never had email sequences that were running throughout the week to tap into the people on their email list. They weren't engaging them. So I would say that's the first part and the first thing that you can do, easiest thing, just go and send three campaigns per week. Talking about an existing product you have talk about what it is, why they need it and how to use it. Trust me, you'll get people buying from you.

Andy Splichal:

So you suggest just implement right away a three step campaign on a new product. What it is, how to use it and why they need it.

Maureen Mwangi:

Exactly.

Andy Splichal:

Great.

Maureen Mwangi:

And don't put it in one email. It's three different campaigns because we try to overload consumers.

Andy Splichal:

Which email typically delivers the best results out of those three? Is it on the third email that they end up buying it on?

Maureen Mwangi:

Why you need the why and the how. Because people really want to know why that product is relevant for them and they really want to know how to use it.

Andy Splichal:

Now, speaking of new products, I mean, sometimes it can be tricky for a brand to add new products because it could cannibalize sales on an existing product. What are some of the common mistakes you see when a company adds a new product and how can they avoid these?

Maureen Mwangi:

The biggest mistake I see when brands add new products is that they add new products within the existing category or the existing audience. If you really want to be successful with adding a new product, you want to make sure it's tapping into a different occasion or a different use case so that you can bring in a different type of audience that would buy that particular product. But at the same time, it's still complementing what you already have in your existing assortment. That to me is what people don't think about. Is it bringing a new household? Is it bringing an incremental customer, because if it brings an incremental customer, it's not going to be highly cannibalistic because it's a different use case.

Andy Splichal:

Yeah, no, that makes sense. Do you have an example of a client you could share who did this?

Maureen Mwangi:

Yes. So I have a client who has been very successful in body care. So let me talk about if you were to innovate in body care and you bring something that's highly cannibalistic, it would be launching a body wash and launching a cleanser or, sorry, a moisturizer versus launching a skincare line. Right. Are you seeing, those are two different segments. That's a different audience. So in this case, one client of mine ended up launching, stepping into a new category, which is skincare, but also she decided to launch this skincare brand for a different market and for a different region.

Andy Splichal:

Got it. And was it successful?

Maureen Mwangi:

Super successful. Very successful.

Andy Splichal:

And what was the crossover? Was there crossover once they.

Maureen Mwangi:

Yes.

Andy Splichal:

You brought in some new clients?

Maureen Mwangi:

Yes, the crossover. So the body line is highly dedicated to people with extremely dry skin. The skincare line is also dedicated to people with dry skin. So the understanding here is if a person has dry skin on their face, they love the product, then you'll just bring them back into your body care system and they can get your body care line that still also addresses dry skin if that's what they also have. So you can see a lot of synergies.

Andy Splichal:

Right. And I think that is really the successful piece of launching a new product. So you're going after kind of a new market, but once you get them, then you can cross sell them into your existing product.

Maureen Mwangi:

Exactly.

Andy Splichal:

That's a great example. So, I mean, everything's been changing, especially with AI over the last year. But I guess as somebody who's working with these emerging product brands on a regular basis, what do you see happening over the next twelve to 18 months, especially when it comes to AI?

Maureen Mwangi:

When it comes to AI, I see consumer demands and consumer behaviors changing drastically, mainly from what consumers expect from a brand. I think we've gotten to a point where technology has taken over, but we're longing for more, we're longing for authenticity, we're longing for connection, we're longing for integrity. If you're a business owner, I think you're going to be tasked with really connecting with your customer at a much deeper level and showing them your values, like them getting to know who you are, because the tech and the AI is taking away all of this. But at the end of the day, it's humans who buy these products and it's humans who are seeking to connect with your brand and you're going to have to give them what they want, right? Because for me, what I say is at the end of the day, every brand wants a community. Without a community, you're not going to have consistent sales. Without a community, you're not going to become a household name. And the only way to build that community is to go the extra mile. And going the extra mile looks like, are you sharing your values? Are you authentic? Are you doing something candid, something personable? That's my perspective.

Andy Splichal:

So that's really interesting. So let's talk about that. You talk about building a community is the way to really become a household name with your product. What kind of community? I mean, you're not talking build a Facebook group, right? What do you mean by building a community?

Maureen Mwangi:

What I mean by building a community is, I mean by building a loyal audience. People who, when you launch something, they're raving over it. Right. That is what I'm talking about. An audience that is hungry for what you're producing, hungry for what you're going to say and is literally going to back you up in everything and anything.

Andy Splichal:

Got it? Now, one of my favorite questions I always like to ask podcast guests, and I'm really anxious to hear your response because of all the different aspects of conversion and brand building and all that. But are there any business books out there that you could attribute to your journey as an entrepreneur?

Maureen Mwangi:

From a business perspective, from a branding perspective, I would say how brands grow by Byron Sharp. From a personal perspective, as an entrepreneur would say the big leap, that's been my favorite favorite book because as entrepreneurs, we do a very good job at not looking at our successes and because when we don't look at our successes, we sabotage our success. And the big leap really brings awareness to when that is happening in your life. I would say those are my top two books that I would recommend for any entrepreneur that is looking to build a brand but is also looking to create something bigger than themselves.

Andy Splichal:

Well, I haven't heard of either of those books, so thank you very much. I will have to add those to my reading list. Now let's talk about your agency for a little bit. What services are you offering your clients and how does it help them scale their brands?

Maureen Mwangi:

I usually offer consulting and coaching. From a consulting perspective, I do work with entrepreneurs as a fractional CMO. What that looks like is I manage their marketing department, managing their team, managing their marketing calendar, managing their content, that they're putting out and ultimately building out their entire marketing strategy for the entire year and we implement it as a team. I also have an incubator program where really teach entrepreneurs my three step framework of capturing attention with their audience, connecting with their community in order to build a brand that becomes a household name, and lastly, converting their shoppers with compelling products that ultimately help them increase their sales. That's an incubator program that is a year long. And we really focus on helping you understand the basics of marketing, what you really need to do from an organic marketing perspective in order for you to set the foundation that will allow you to scale.

Andy Splichal:

Anne, do you have a favorite success story of a client that you could share?

Maureen Mwangi:

I have a lot, but I feel like I really want to talk about this one because I think people think about if they're too old, then they're not. Like their dreams are far away. And this client at the time of working with me was 67 years old, was launching a new emerging product. It was actually led umbrellas. Yes, led umbrellas. Super cool. And she had never had an ecommerce business before. And the minute we started working together, I call myself the queen of helping people create product messaging that actually sells because I feel like people really don't know what sells their product.

Maureen Mwangi:

And if you don't have a clear brand key message, it's impossible for you to sell. We designed that. She knew 100% that she did not want to be on social media and compete with everything that's happening on social media. So we developed a strategy for her to get into retail. And within eight months, she got into retail in the US. And her umbrellas are literally in Myers. It's a retail store in the US. Started off in Detroit, and she's now getting national distribution in the US.

Andy Splichal:

Oh, nice.

Maureen Mwangi:

Yes.

Andy Splichal:

Now, when you get a new client, what are some of the challenges you might face in helping them grow their business?

Maureen Mwangi:

I think the first one is a personal think, and I don't want to sound so harsh. I think people have a dream of being a business owner, but they don't understand what it takes to build a business. Right. So the first one is usually not knowing what's required of them to be very successful. So that actually slows down the progress. And that looks like not feeling good enough, not feeling like they can stand out, especially now. You know, the market is highly saturated. So a lot of people worry what makes me unique, like, why would somebody buy the product? And that literally sort of delays the progress.

Maureen Mwangi:

The other time, the second thing is people wanting things to go so fast. And my philosophy is when you want it to go very fast, it's actually going to go very slow. So if you just allowed it to take longer, the faster the success will become because you'll actually set the foundation right. I feel like the desire to want to move fast makes you want to jump really to things that you shouldn't be doing. Launching ten different products, jumping on paid ads when you're not ready, hiring a team when you're not ready. I'd actually say those are the two main things I see as the challenges.

Andy Splichal:

And why you. I mean, what makes Maureen and Star Ward consulting stand out from others doing this?

Maureen Mwangi:

I would say the whole concept of building brands with scientific precision is pretty much our unique advantage. And also my experience with the larger brands allows me to really know how to create product messaging that sells and that stems from becoming the voice of the customer, have a very good knack at knowing what their customer wants. So tying that voice of the customer data with scientific precision is pretty much what gives us a highly unique advantage.

Andy Splichal:

And who is the perfect client for Star Wart? Star word? Start word. Let me get that correct. Consulting.

Maureen Mwangi:

Yeah.

Andy Splichal:

Who's your perfect client? If they're listening out there, they should give you a call.

Maureen Mwangi:

I would say an ecommerce business owner that's making less than $5 million a year and is looking to double up their revenue.

Andy Splichal:

Great. And how does your fee structure work?

Maureen Mwangi:

My fee structure works in terms of the payment. It's like we decide on what the fee of the project would be, and I pretty much like to do it in equal installments. So if the contract is four year long, we'll make the payment installments. Twelve if it's for three months. Three months, got it.

Andy Splichal:

And how can an interested listener learn more about working with you?

Maureen Mwangi:

The best way to learn more about working with me is to go on my website at ww statwoodconsulting.com.

Andy Splichal:

Great. Well, this has been a lot of fun. Is there anything else you would like to add before we wrap it up today? Maureen?

Maureen Mwangi:

Not at all, Andy.

Andy Splichal:

All right, well, thank you for joining us.

Maureen Mwangi:

Thank you.

Andy Splichal:

For listeners. Remember, if you like this episode, please go to Apple Podcasts and leave us an honest review. And if you're looking for more information on start word consulting or connecting with Maureen, you will find the links in the show notes below. In addition, if you're looking for more information on growing your business, check out our podcast resource center, available at podcast.makeeachclickcount.com we have compiled all of our different past guests by show topic and included each of our contact information. In case you would like more information. Any of the subjects discussed during previous episodes? Well, that's it for today. Remember to stay safe, keep healthy and happy marketing and I'll talk to you in the next episode.