Building, launching and monetizing VIP groups

Quotes

• “One of the ways that we get the people to join the VIP Group is, every first-time customer of Little & Lively gets a personalized video from us. We have a whole system around the personalized video thanking them and telling them if they have any need at all, they can reach us through our very responsive customer service and also if they want to join our VIP Group citing the benefits.” -Jordan“We have a huge uptick from our VIP Group from this and we’re really just trying to push them into the VIP Group, giving them all the sort of value that isn’t a discount value.” -Jordan“So there is some retention marketing going on here which is, you’re getting your first-time buyer and you’re trying to build a real connection with them by sending them a video that is a one-to-one connection. That seems like a lot of labor though.” -Ben “A friend of mine told me about the idea so I started googling around and found the app of Bonjorosyncs with Shopify and they also sync with Zapierso we can actually pull over all of the data that we want over into Bonjoro and it creates a task. Then we have a virtual assistant who makes the videos for us and she’s able to do about 40 of them in an hour So with 100 to 200 hundred customers that we get a day, it’s a pretty decent amount of work that she has to do.” -Jordan “One really cool way that we’ve been monetizing this group is we ask people on theiropinion for the new products that we should launch. We’ll do it as a poll and we give them a few options of products that we are already thinking about launching. Inevitably there will about 20 more responses on the poll and there’ll be hundreds of peoplethat will vote on some of these items and they’ll be items that we can easily produce.” -Jordan“So we’ve asked for their opinion and we’ll actually launch those products and give them early access to those products that they have helped us develop.” -Jordan“Interesting. You’re not only giving early access and doing your gated launch strategy, you’re also using the community to be able to do your product research and then you already know who’s more likely to buy the products so you’re specifically targeting people with the ideas that they had for the products that they want.” -Ben “There’s something we did during COVID time as well since we’ve been around for almost 7 years, we retire most of the graphics that we put on shirts at the end of the season and we did a “back from the vault” series, and we would sell out every single one of those back from the vault launches. Again we gave them early access and generally they are selling out just from our VIP Group.” -Jordan“It works really, really well in fashion because fashion turns over so much. I believe it has worked on 20 fashion brands right now in Mindful Marketing and it never doesn’t work. Every single time, the strategy works because I believe that the psychology is behind it. As long as it is a brand that people love, it works.” -Jordan“Our podcast started because we really wanted to serve e-commerce store owners. We put out content twice a week and one is really tactical. What’s working in marketing, that’s with my business partner and we also talk to founders that have really grown and we recently had an episode with the former CMO of Movement Watches, that was a great episode.” -Jordan“Really, our play is to let e-commerce store owners know that they can actually be profitable acquiring new customers. That there is a way. We’re going through so many accounts at Mindful Marketing to do growth plans or audits and we realized that they’re okay with losing some money to acquire new customers, and this doesn’t have to be.” -Jordan“You can create a full funnel and actually make money on your marketing. We’re really passionate about that and I’m really passionate about profit for e-comm companies because a lot of these e-comm companies are doing $5M dollars a year and aren’t making anything and I think that has to stop. You need to, as an owner, actually make money.” -Jordan“The thing that I appreciate the most, you’ve been able to stay focused on what drives results as opposed to what drives growth. I think, a lot of the times, mostly for entrepreneurs, the goal is to just get established, get customers, and it ends up costing you a lot in the process in that. That’s why a lot of small businesses never make it to their growth phase. Sounds like you’ve found the secret sauce.” -Ben