The 3 Fundamentals For Creating A Memorable Shopping Experience With Eric Melchor

Andy Splichal 0:00

Welcome to the Make Each Click Count podcast. This is your host, Andy Splichal. We are happy to welcome this week's guest to discuss today's topic, which is the three fundamentals for creating a memorable shopping experience. Today's guest is personalization geek for Optimonk, where they have gone from zero to 40,000 years users and just a few years and have over 500 5-star ratings on Shopify. Their mission is to empower the average online business with Amazon like personalization superpowers. A big welcome to Eric Melchor. Hi, Eric.

Eric Melchor 0:35

Hey, Andy, thanks for having me on the show.

Andy Splichal 0:38

You know, we're excited to have you. A recent topic I've had quite a bit is talking about keeping a hold of your own customers and customer retention seems to have gotten a lot more focus recently for companies, especially as acquiring customers becomes more and more expensive. How, how big of a part, do you see personalization playing in customer retention strategy?

Eric Melchor 1:05

Yeah, no, that is true. I mean, it's gotten a lot of focus recently. But I think the brands that are going to continue to thrive, and do well are the ones that are really able to connect with their visitors and just give them a great experience, before the purchase is made in after the purchase is made. And I know, you know, this isn't just my opinion. If you look at studies, there was a recent study by the market research firm epsilon. And according to them, 70% of consumers think it's worth sharing personal information in exchange for relevant offers recommendations and discounts. So

Andy Splichal 1:43

70%?

Eric Melchor 1:45

Yeah, 70%.

Andy Splichal 1:46

That's interesting.

Eric Melchor 1:48

Yeah, so if you're a consumer, and you bought, let's just say, for example, maybe a blender. And after, after you made the purchase, if the store, if they just sent you like irrelevant offers, like maybe toothbrushes, or maybe just, you know, coupons, after coupons after coupons, well, they're probably not doing a good job at retaining the customer. But if that store sends you relevant communication, maybe ideas on how to clean your blender, or prolong the life of it, maybe even sent you like, like recipes for smoothies, then when the time comes to, you know, maybe give someone a gift, or buy another blender, you know, they're gonna think of you. So I think personalization is huge, not just from from an acquisition standpoint, but also from a retention standpoint.

Andy Splichal 2:36

Now, online retailers, they're always worried about how to compete with Amazon, and I hear it all the time, how do I do it? How do I do it? But with your program, you're suggesting that they implement some of Amazon's strategies into their own marketing? Why? Why?

Eric Melchor 2:53

Well, I suggest that because, as marketers, we've been programmed to think, get the person's email, get the person's SMS, phone number, get the first sale at all costs. And we bombard you know, our visitors to our website with with irrelevant offers. And we just make it a really crappy experience, Andy. And so all of this is at the expense of the shoppers experience. What we're saying is focus on the customer's needs first, and take the long term approach and try to try to imagine and create a journey that is unique and relevant on a personal level, and personalization. It's not just about acquisition, but it's also about better merchandising, meaning, you know, when to present an upsell or cross sell at the right time. It's also about relevant product messaging, and then ultimately, presenting the right offer or the next step that's tailored to each customer at the right time.

Andy Splichal 3:54

Now let's let's talk about creating this memorable shopping experience. And, of course, you can have a good and bad shopping experience of both be memorable. I assume we're talking good. How would you define creating a good memorable shopping experience?

Eric Melchor 4:12

I think there's probably three things that I would, I would say three fundamentals. The first one is just having the right message. So to give you an example, let's say there's a there's let's just say there's Ben, he's 38 years old, and he's about to get married, and he's shopping for a wedding ring. And if he goes to a website that specializes in jewelry, or rings, or whatever, what's the better message for Ben, when a designer diamond necklace or exclusive wedding rings for like 10% off? Obviously, it's the exclusive wedding rings, messaging, that is the better message for her for him for bid. So that's the first fundamental is just having the right message for the visitor. The second one is the right message type. And so what I mean What I mean by that is that, in addition to the content that you read on a website, we're lucky now that there is technology that allows us to implement dynamic content. And that's basically, you know, personalized content that the person is not even aware of on our website. But even if you don't use dynamic content, you can do other things. There's different messaging types. And each has its own degree of assertiveness. For message types that are less assertive, you can use things like teasers, which are those, those little, like pop ups, in the very like bottom left hand corner corner, there's also like, like horizontal bars, that's like at the very bottom of the webpage. But if you want to have something very prominent, that captures the attention of your audience, then you can use things like side messages, or even pop up. So number two is the right message type. And then the third thing I would suggest, is to be human. I think the companies and the brands that convert really well, whether it's trying to get somebody's like a new email subscriber, are the ones that they write or copy is humanize, you know, a good example is reallygoodemails.com. If you go to their website, and you scroll for a little while, there's a little pop up that appears and it says, Sorry for being in a hole and interrupting. But we noticed that you may not be getting our emails curated by us and stuff to make you feel like a better human. But that's the kind of stuff that it's you read it and you think, Oh, well, that's not your traditional corporate jargon, that's somebody you know, somebody actually took the time and try to put themselves in the visitors shoes, and realize, Oh, I'm going to interrupt that visitor, but let me just, you know, acknowledge that and kind of apologize for that in and also just add a little humor to it as well. So the right message, the right message type and be human, are what I believe that three fundamentals for creating a memorable shopping experience,

Andy Splichal 7:02

the right message, the right message type and be human. Yes. So as a retailer, where do you get started? I mean, what are some action items that you could take relatively quickly, to get started with creating that memorable shopping experience?

Eric Melchor 7:21

Yeah, I think the first one is to eat your own dog food, Andy. And what I mean by that is, take a step back, go through your own customer journey, in the eyes of a new visitor in the eyes of somebody who doesn't know anything about you, and has gone to their website, your website for the very first time, okay? And try to spot the moments of where there can be confusion, where there's a little bit of friction. And I would focus on those moments first. And typically, those moments are going to be around your value proposition. And then also just basic, you know, copy that's above the fold. And then even even your, your your offers, like your main offers. After you do that, well, hold on, when you're doing that look for things that, you know, maybe you've got a pop up that appears like in the first few seconds, that's that's not a good experience. So get rid of that. Maybe you've got like a deadline offer that appears to somebody or to everybody on your website. And you got to think to yourself, you know, is this is this the impression, I really want to give somebody who's coming to my website for the first time, I don't know anything about them. And I'm already trying to get them to pull out their wallet. So you know, go through the customer journey in the eyes of one of your customers. The second thing is to go into Google Analytics. And you can practically go under any report and you can find opportunities. So for example, you can look for underperforming pages, maybe they're underperforming because of a low conversion rate or a high bounce rate. You can also look at reports like by source. And so you may discover that, well, you know, maybe two thirds of my traffic is from the States, it's performing pretty well. But a third of my traffic is coming internationally. And when I looked at conversion, look at the conversion rates for international traffic. It's very poor. And so there's things that you can do to really give a personalized experience for your international visitors. Even the frequency and recency report, if more than 20% of your visitors are returning more than 10 times, then obviously you probably want to give those visitors a different experience. And so there's a lot of opportunities that you can find when you are going through Google Analytics. And then finally the third thing I would suggest is attend you know, a workshop, a sort of personalization workshop, or bootcamp, I conduct these every two weeks are free, but I provide a solid understanding of how website personalization works. Second, I give everybody a list of website personalization Opportunities and Ideas which they can apply to their own website. And it's not just a list, but it also, when you go through the list, it prioritizes the opportunity and recommends the solution for each idea. And that is that is ranked on a rice score in terms of reach implementation and effort. And then also you'll get an understanding of the process that we use to optimize our clients websites, and implement the Troodon tribe personalization tactics that we've been implementing for the past couple of years. And then finally, at that workshop, we give out resources and supporting documents that can help make implementation and learning a lot easier. So eat your own dog food, check out Google Analytics and attend a personalization bootcamp or workshop.

Andy Splichal: 10:44

Well, that's great. We'll have to make sure we get that link in there for listeners. Now, let me go back to where do you see E commerce as a whole? I mean, we had a huge spike brought on by COVID on how many people were shopping online, but where do you see ecommerce going over the next 12 - 18 months

Eric Melchor: 11:07

Shoppable videos. And this is I find this pretty fascinating there is there's a company out there. And they're able to leverage existing YouTube videos about products. And they're able to take those videos and add them or embed them to the brand's website. And so you have this like, relevant up to date content about your brand, maybe products that you offer. And so they can put that content on any page that you want, and just embed it. So there could literally be, you know, dozens or even hundreds of different videos about your your products. And you're not currently leveraging them. But there's a few startups out there that are able to do that they're able to match the product with different UGC videos that are out there automatically, and just automatically embed them on your website. And I think, because there's so many people that are on tick tock and discovering different brands out there. It's sort of like a tick tock, tick tock slash e commerce, alignment, you know, marriage made in heaven, what they're able to do. So I think that's where it's going. shoppable videos.

Andy Splichal: 12:21

Interesting. Now do you. One of my favorite questions I like to ask all my guests is kind of a huge reader. But are there any business books out there that you can attribute to your journey as an entrepreneur?

Eric Melchor: 12:35

There's a couple that I always go back to. They've been in my bookshelf for years. One is the Ultimate Sales Machine by Chet Holmes. Have you heard of that one, Andy?

Andy Splichal: 12:43

I have I have that's fine. In your dream client is Chet Holmes, right? Yeah,

Eric Melchor: 12:48

yeah. Yeah. Yeah, that one's a great one. And another one I like is getting everything you can out of all you got by Jay Abraham.

Andy Splichal: 12:55

Yep. I've read that one as well. Yeah, those are, those are great choice. Now, about OptiMonk. What service is are you offering clients to help them increase their sales?

Eric Melchor: 13:10

Yeah, I mean, with optimonk, we, we kind of, you know, we're a personalization platform. But I like to think that there's really four main things that we help you do, we help you improve your Facebook and Google Ad spin, return on investment. The second thing is that we, we give you tactics and strategies, and then also the ability to decrease cart abandonment. The third thing is that we give you different tools and functionality, things like micro engagements, multi step popups, that allow you to grow your email list faster. And then finally, we give you tactics and strategies that you can implement to help, you know, increase upsells, and also increase your average order value. And a lot of that is centered around personalization, we believe personalization is the new CRO. And it's just a great way to one offer a fantastic experience in real time to your web website visitors but to also increase conversions across the board.

Andy Splichal: 14:07

So how's it work? How are you doing this?

Eric Melchor: 14:10

Well, I mean, people have been using OptiMonk, we've been around for over six or seven years, we've got about 30,000 Different companies that use us, a lot of them start with trying to increase their their email subscriber rates. And so that's what we're primarily known for. But we realize from a lot of our clients that they're also looking for ways to increase average order value, and an upsell is and so that's when we started building the personalization platform. And since since it's a fairly new topic, and it's not like, you know, people think, Oh, I've got Google Analytics, just because you turn it on, does it mean it automatically works? There has to be like opportunity to discovery, you know, finding the opportunities that exist for personalization, because every every brand is different. There's there's tactics that you can do if you're getting a lot of good with visitors, or if you're getting a lot of mobile visitors, or if you're getting a lot of, you know, repeat visitors or things like that. So we highly recommend that you can just catch any of our on demand training or attend one of our personalization boot camps that we conduct every couple of weeks.

Andy Splichal: 15:17

So let's hear maybe to make it a little bit clearer. Do you have a favorite success story that you could share of a client that use your service and been able to grow because of it?

Eric Melchor: 15:26

Yeah, yeah. So global ecommerce. I think last year was about five and a half trillion dollars, according to Shopify. And that trend is going to continue going upwards. One of my favorite clients is Woodhouse clothing, they are a US retailer, what I love that they do is that they get a third of their traffic globally. And they they were looking at well, you know, the conversion rates for our global traffic is very low. Now, if you go to their website, and you're outside of the states, so for example, currently, I'm in Romania, if I go to their website, now, after a few seconds, there's a little message that appears, and it just says, you know, we shipped to Romania, you can shop in your own currency, all prices include taxes, and all orders are free, if the order is above 500. ln inlay is the local currency here. And so just that little message, I really, I really think they did a great job with that ever since they implemented that conversion rates really have increased dramatically, but it's a nice message. And it's reassuring, you know, to everybody that's coming in or internationally. That letting them know that they delivered to your location, it just provides a sense of comfort and security, and that they're going to ship the products that you're looking at, and you're not going to waste time and you know,

Andy Splichal: 16:48

yeah, no, that's that's a great example, do you have? What's an example of a personalization pop up like that for? Like, let's say, a US based company who doesn't sell International?

Eric Melchor: 17:00

Yeah, I mean, you know, here's another one, let's just say it's, you know, Valentine's Day is coming up, or maybe it's Christmas or Halloween or something. And people are shopping for gifts for other people. A very simple tactic. Andy, is just having like a little pop up that says, Are you shopping for yourself or someone else? And if they answer someone else, you can just say, fantastic. Here's our most giftable items this season, and take them to the part of the website that's most valuable to them. It's like holding somebody's hand and saying, Hey, no need to waste time, you know, searching for something. Here's the products that if you're looking to buy a gift for somebody, this is probably what you're going to be interested in. So that's like a very low, but it's a very friendly way to welcome somebody and just just let them know that hey, we're here to help.

Andy Splichal: 17:48

Yeah, that's really cool. Does that how long? Are they on a website before that would pop up like that kind of pop up? Do you recommend?

Eric Melchor: 17:56

Yeah, we usually recommend for something like that. Usually, if they've been on the homepage, for at least like 20 seconds, is what we would recommend for something like that. And it's a new visitor, we don't know where they came from, unless we do know where they came from, but usually about 20 to 30 seconds.

Andy Splichal: 18:13

And your service integrates with Shopify. Is there is there any other platforms that works with?

Eric Melchor: 18:22

We integrate with over 100 different platforms? Major e commerce ones like WooCommerce, Magento, but Shopify is the one that we've got a strong integration with, as well as Klaviyo.

Andy Splichal: 18:33

What about big commerce?

Eric Melchor: 18:35

Yes, we agree with them too.

Andy Splichal: 18:37

Now, how does the fee structure work?

Eric Melchor: 18:41

So you know, we give everybody the opportunity to try this for free. There's a free plan. But if you are using more than I believe it's more than 10,000 pageviews. And you want to do a little bit more sophisticated things like run AV testing, then the first plan starts at $39 a month. And then obviously, if you want a little bit more, more advanced features, and you've got a lot more traffic, then the next the next one goes to our growth plan, and what I believe is priced at 79 a month

Andy Splichal: 19:16

Now, our well, and everybody has challenges, but what are some of the challenges that you struggle with and getting results for clients?

Eric Melchor: 19:26

Well, I think, you know, we're still fairly new and the person is personalization space. And so we've been trying to do a lot of education around it. And obviously, there's a lot of people who just like to experiment when things first try to figure it out on their own. And so I think one of the challenges is that people think that again, oh, I'm using this personalization platform. I set it up. But, you know, they think just because you set up Google Analytics doesn't mean you're getting the most out of it, right? You have to know you know what reports to navigate, not necessarily reports. But what experiments and campaigns to em to implement. And a lot of that has to do with our opportunity discovery phase, like going through your own customer journey, diving into Google Analytics, and looking for areas of opportunity, or even getting qualitative feedback from visit visitors on your website. So before you can actually implement any sort of tactics, it makes sense to do your homework first, and do a little bit of research. So that's what we're struggling with a little bit right now with our current customers who, you know, we've opened this up to, we're really trying to get them, hey, come to our bootcamp because it's gonna save you a lot, a lot more time in the long run versus trying to figure it out on your own.

Andy Splichal: 20:42

Now, in the boot camp, are you looking at analytics like Universal Analytics? Have you gone and are starting to look at GA for or where are you on that?

Eric Melchor: 20:51

Currently? No, currently, no. We're we're showing people example, it's like we're, we're representing different ecommerce brands and saying, Okay, this brand is currently doing this. But here's some things that they can do to reduce their cart abandonment rate, or some things they can do, if they wanted to give a provide personalization, to people who are coming in from specific sources, or coming in internationally. Or here's some things that they could try if they wanted to try to increase their average order value. And so we provide a lot of different examples, as well as go into, you know, GA and looking at some various reports, as well.

Andy Splichal: 21:32

But is it? Is it all based on universal? Analytics? Yeah. Now, there's got to be some competition, how what are you doing different than the competitors that you would be the source for for somebody looking to add some more personalization to their website?

Eric Melchor: 21:51

Yeah, so recently, I looked at a lot of our reviews, like on G two, and Shopify, and a third of our people, a third of the reviews, roughly a third, people really like our templates. We have a variety of templates that people can just plug and play. And they're very easily you know, you can fairly easily customize them to your own brand attributes. But templates is what people like about about OptiMonk. I mean, it's just, we've got even templates for like holidays, like the Super Bowl. And so if you want to do like a Super Bowl campaign, we've got various templates that you can plug and play. So that's why people I guess,

Andy Splichal: 22:32

yeah, that's really cool. I mean, the more the easier it is to implement, the more it gets done, I find for sure. And now who is that perfect client for for your company that if they're out there, they should absolutely. check you guys out.

Eric Melchor: 22:49

Ecommerce brands that are currently doing 1 million to 10 million in annual revenue, that would be a perfect client for us.

Andy Splichal: 22:56

Why? Why between one and 10 million?

Eric Melchor: 23:00

Well, I mean, we've got a lot of smaller brands and solopreneurs that use us as well, and you can, but typically, that's we find that we can implement, you know, a lot of really good tactics.

Andy Splichal: 23:13

And because they have enough traffic, if they're doing at least,

Eric Melchor: 23:16

yeah, yeah, it's they've got a lot of traffic. And so we can do a variety of things with that traffic,

Andy Splichal: 23:22

and why not over 10 million?

Eric Melchor: 23:25

Well over 10 million, you probably want to use maybe, well over 10 million. I mean, obviously, it's a much bigger company, our platform is really designed for marketers, it's no coding necessary. It's plug and play, drag and drop. Obviously, for a big, big company that's got a big staff and a big team, they're probably going to want to use another platform that can be a little bit more customized for their brand and for their website. But any large companies can can use us there's there's nothing that prevents them from doing so. But we really designed this, you know, for SMBs and mid market companies.

Andy Splichal: 24:05

Got it. Now, how can an interested listener learn more about you and working with you guys?

Eric Melchor: 24:11

Yeah. optimonk.com and the boot camp is just optimonk.com forward slash boot camp. That's where they can learn more about us.

Andy Splichal: 24:19

Well, that's easy enough. Yeah. Well, this has been great. Is there anything else you would like to add before we wrap it up today?

Eric Melchor: 24:26

No, this has been a pleasure. Thank you so much, Andy, for having me on the show.

Andy Splichal: 24:30

Great. Well, we're glad you could have joined us today, Eric. Yeah. For listeners. Remember if you liked this episode, please go to Apple podcasts and leave us an honest review. And if you're looking for more information, or OptiMonk or connecting with Eric, you'll 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 include each of their contact information. In case you would like more information any of the services I have discussed during previous Episodes that's it for today remember to stay safe keep healthy and happy marketing and I will talk to you in the next episode