How New Balance Warrior Increased Online Sales By 9% (with Jonathan Lacoste)

Tim: Some of my favorite discussions about digital marketing involve massive companies involving single digit percentage increases that result in an additional seven figures or more in revenue for the company. So for some companies, a 9% increase in online sales might not be a massive uptake but for new balance warrior it made a significant impact on their revenue. Today’s guest is Jonathan Lacoste from Jebbit, software platform designed to help businesses create micro content that converts. Jonathan shares his primary tactic that resulted in such a change for New Balance Warrior and tells us how to apply it in our own businesses regardless of what type of industry we’re in.

I’m Tim Paige, the senior conversion educator here at LeadPages and this is ConversionCast.

Hey Jonathan, welcome to ConversionCast. Thanks for coming on the show.

Jonathan: Not a problem, thanks for having me, Tim.

Tim: Absolutely. So we have a fun one for a pretty big client that we worked with. Tell us the results that you were able to get for this client.

Jonathan: Yeah, absolutely. So for little context, we were working with the Warrior Brand of New Balance. Warrior is kind of the specialty hockey in Lacrosse brand for the New Balance company. One of the really exciting challenges that they put in front of us was to use their content marketing efforts to try and drive the higher ecommerce conversion rate. So I think that’s probably everyone you talked to Tim. One of the top two or three goals they’re trying to figure out right is how do we increase online sales for all of this content that we’re creating.

Tim: Exactly.

Jonathan: So using our technology at Jebbit and I could go into a little bit about what that does later, we were able to achieve over kind of a six-month period of time a 9% higher conversion rate on their ecommerce site and conversion was defined for them as someone actually taking a product and putting it in their cart and checking out. So…

Tim: Nice.

Jonathan: …obviously at the end of the day that’s the most core ROI we can try and drive and deliver right, revenue.

Tim: Yeah, absolutely. You know just one thing to point out before we go to the next thing is that people many times we can have a tendency to hear a number that feels like it’s kind of small like 9% and go well 9% increase it’s not that much. When you’re talking about the volume that New Balance does even in this case New Balance Warrior is that’s a huge increase. 9% in actual sales conversion is a big number. Anybody would be happy with a 9% increase in sales but I just wanted to point out how big that is. And note that I guess to head off anybody’s concerns that well 9% doesn’t seem like it’s a big deal so this doesn’t seem like a big impact. Does that make sense?

Jonathan: It absolutely does and I’ll share a quick story as well. I was in front of one of the our agency partners recently and their top digital technologist made a funny remark right on this subject. He said any time a technology company comes in and touts an extremely high conversion rate or increase or decrease in these metrics, I always get a little bit skeptical because either the scale was so small or either they’re working with a client that really hadn’t fine-tuned things, he was saying that it’s really actually hard to drive incremental improvements with how sophisticated some of these larger brands are now.

So he was saying his client has a 2.5% on site conversion meaning out of every hundred people on average 2.5% will make a purchase. He said if you can bring that from 2.5 to 2.75 I’m a rock star.

Tim: Absolutely.

Jonathan: So I think sometimes you’re absolutely right. We do get a little bit carried away in these triple figure increases in growth rates but at the end of the day it’s about coming in each and every morning and figuring out what can you do to move the needle in the business. Sometimes that’s just 1% better.

Tim: So that’s exactly right and you may find if you are a smaller business that hasn’t fine-tuned what you’re doing this 9% for them might be one of those big numbers for you. But you never know until try it and that’s what we’re all about. So I love that. Why don’t you tell us a little bit about who you are and what Jebbit is all about and that kind of thing?

Jonathan: Yeah, absolutely. So to be honest I’m 22 years old. I dropped out of college about four years ago. I was attending Boston College with my cofounder and we were regular internet consumer shoppers. Right? I say that because the reason we started this company was because we had the same exact problems and pain points that most of your listeners probably have. Consistently bombarded with ads and content right? almost to the point where we call that content shock. So fast forward many years we ended up starting this company in school raising a couple of million dollars venture capital and having the good opportunity of really making a go for it. So fast forward since today and Jebbit is a software as a service marketing technology company. So basically what that means is big brands are using our software to create what we call micro content. So we kind of have this philosophy at Jebbit that with content shock, with the idea that when you’re on Facebook brands are fighting for your attention just as much as that funny cat meme your friend is posting.
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When brands finally do capture your attention, they really need to make the most of it. They need to make the most of it quickly. So the way that content and websites are setup today, it kind of makes consumers do a lot of the heavy lifting still. You know they have to wander around, find some of the products they are looking for. It’s not 100% personalized but that’s the way the internet is going. So that’s kind of a long way of saying our software tries to take content and really break it down into these micro experiences to get what they want quicker and prequalify themselves so the rest of there is more personalized.

Tim: I like that a lot and I think that that clearly is going to tie into what you did for New Balance. So why don’t you tell us a little bit about that specifically what you did to get that 9% increase?

Jonathan: Yeah, absolutely. I mean I think one of the things that frankly I get caught up in some other folks in digital get caught up in sometimes is going back to our roots and remembering for how hundreds of years people have purchased items and products right? You want into a store and what’s the best experience? It’s when that clerk or person already knows you by name, knows who you are and kind of has an understanding of what your interests are and can make a clear and precise recommendation that you trust. How can we take that to the digital sense. That’s kind of in a very long term thinking, that’s what we’re trying to do with any of our ecommerce partners but specifically with New Balance Warrior in this instance.

So with warrior they were coming out with a lot of new products. SO every time they came out with a product launch say a new pair of shoes or a lacrosse stick or a hockey glove, they were pushing paid content out through all the usual suspect channels as you would imagine right? Paid, social, display, email search, etc., but they would attach our micro content on the backside of it. So after you click through the warrior experience looks a little bit different. Instead of just landing on a homepage, the content might be more focused around the series of questions to better understand what your interests are Tim. So I’ll give you an example. So let’s say you’re really in too hockey and you click on one of their posts instead of just dropping you on the hockey page and letting this anonymous user who ends up being you wander around to try and find the product the focus of the first 10 seconds of the interaction is around let’s figure out who this individual is and what is most interesting to them. Those questions are going to change depending on who comes to the site and who doesn’t.

Basically, depending on how you interact the warrior has a better understanding of maybe we should recommend this product, or oh maybe you know, this [Indiscernible [00:07:46] would be of interest. It just gives them a little bit more context not only in that moment but the goal is in the future, remarketing opportunities whether it’s through Emil or display. It’s all about putting relevant offers and content in front of you. So that’s what we really try to do.

Tim: I love it and so is it asked in kind of the form of a survey whether it’s the sequential steps or just all in order?

Jonathan: I kind of but it’s really different than that. I think the survey has such a negative connotation because no one likes taking them right? I mean when was the last time you took a survey monkey right? I mean I don’t even open those emails. But what everyone takes is those buzz feed experiences, right? What city in Europe are you, what Disney princess are you right those absurd things.

I think…

Tim: I’m Jasmine by the way.

Jonathan: Are you? I was going to say I’m Cinderella. So I’m…

Tim: [Laughs]

Jonathan: But people inherently enjoy those experiences because it’s something in it for them. It’s this idea of value based exchange. I’m going to spend time doing this but I’m going to get something in return. It doesn’t always have to be a promo code. So back to your original question, yeah a lot of the times they are displayed as kind of questions or prompts but they’re not displayed as surveys. It’s in native. It’s kind of embedded natively within the content experience. So imagine if I can use a funny example Tinder for brands right. You get to their website, you’re on your mobile phone and you get to swipe products or interest left and right and then kind of quickly builds or recommends a profile for you. That’s kind of how it’s posed to the consumer coming to the site.

Tim: So how would somebody if they’re hearing this and they go I love this but I don’t know, I sell training program on how to lose weight or whatever, whatever it is. How do they apply this in what they’re doing? They go I want to do this, I want to know more about people I’m sending these ads. I want the things that I’m marketing to them to be based on them and speak to them directly but how do I even do that? Where do I begin to do that?

Jonathan: Totally. So I think to be honest it starts way before you even consider a technology like Jebbit or other technology. I think it gets to your central approach and strategy of content marketing which is who is my customer, what are their big pain points, what is my solution or product solve for them? Once you figure those three things out, all of your content marketing should be focused on that. Once you get there, I would say almost the hard part of it half the battle is done this conversation we’re talking about is okay, once you get to the point where you have like a weight loss solution as you mentioned how do I better explain why my weight loss solution is better than potential other products out there that the shopper might be comparing or what are the benefits of using my weight loss product not just short term but long term and continuing to cross sell other products to my consumer. I think that’s where you can get into the micro content approach and really breaking it down and taking a data driven approach.
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But if you don’t have an idea of who your customer is, what their main problems are and what benefits you solve for them then any additional work after that might not be as focused and fruitful.

Tim: Right. So you have to have a starting point to begin with some understanding of your customer which that shouldn’t be your main problem right now. Hopefully you should have some sense of what problem your customer is trying to solve and who they are. But then from there, you know using the micro content, you can then figure out what comes next, what to market to them later, how to position them together with the right content that will speak to them and show them all those things that you were mentioning.

Jonathan: 100%. I mean I don’t know how kind of your behavior is online but I’m starting to get a little bit bratty I’m noticing online. You know, everyone is expecting things instantly right? I’m using Uber. I’m using Uber to get around and get a car right now. I’m listening to Spotify to listen to any song in the world I want right now. I’m using all of these kind of on demand very personalized tailored products that when I get to an experience that isn’t like that I kind of get annoyed quickly.

Tim: Totally.

Jonathan: It’s too bad because it’s very difficult for all brands to get to that point but I really think that’s what at the end of the day my [Indiscernible [00:12:07] content is trying to do is just provide a more focused relevant approach for all consumers.

Tim: One other question I have before we close this out is what might a piece of micro content look like based on once you found out some information about them what’s that content look like?

Jonathan: I think the beauty of it and not to dance around your question is that it can really depend on the channel and the actual type of content that’s there. But I’ll give a few examples. So micro content on mobile might be as simple as instead of sending someone to an entire eBook or an entire webpage, taking the most relevant pieces out of it and breaking it down into context so that when someone arrives they have something very simple and focused that you interact with as opposed to a hundred different directions that they could go in which seems counter intuitive but if you lead someone down a very simple path that’s why you see a 9% increase in conversion here in this case study we’re talking about today.

Another example might be on video. Instead of just having a 30 second spot, why not overlay it with some type of interactivity whether that’s questions or whether that’s kind of prompts to choose your own adventure and what you actually end up seeing is consumers will engage longer because maybe all 30 seconds of that video ad aren’t actually relevant to each individual consumer. Maybe second zero through five and 22 through 30, are really the most important. so it’s all about giving control and kind of shifting the power back to the consumer so they can engage with our content and how they want to.

Tim: I love it and this is really cool. I love hearing about this and you know, what a great way to focus on not only how to get more people to buy but how to get them to buy more and again and again. So I love it Jonathan. Thanks so much for coming on the show. I appreciate you sharing this.

Jonathan: Hey thanks for having us Tim, really appreciate it.