Marc Viale

Email Marketing - Old but Still Powerful (when done correctly). The "start" of email marketing is generally considered to be in 1978 when Gary Thuerk of Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) sent the first mass email to around 400 potential clients via the ARPANET, marking the beginning of using email for marketing purposes. New Study Reveals What Your Customers Like About the Marketing Emails You Send ... 1) Presonalization 2) Timing - "Timing is an essential element of every email marketing campaign for consumers regardless of personalization or content, according to Litmus, but the majority of marketers, 51 percent, still need more than two weeks to produce a single email." 3) Balancing brand building and short term "... stated goals and actual priorities in marketing departments. While customer retention appears as the second most common marketing goal in the State of Email in Lifecycle Marketing, it fails to make the top five when marketers rate goals by importance. This short-term focus is reinforced by consumer behavior: 78 percent of respondents rank promotional offers and discounts as a top three engaging email type, with Gen Z particularly responsive with 66 percent ranking it first." Other key data points from The State of Email in Lifecycle Marketing and the consumer survey include the following: - Less than half of marketers use customer retention, lifecycle and onboarding emails, with most marketers focusing in on promotional content instead. However, 55 percent of marketers use email to make sales. - Newsletters are the second most-used email type but are only used by half of all marketers. - The top two marketing priorities have remained the same in recent years, automation and personalization. However, automation takes the top spot this year, with more than a third of marketers wanting to create more triggered emails. - Consumers receive emails from the same company daily, with 67 percent saying they receive too many. Baby boomers at 81 percent are most likely to say they receive too many, while less than 50 percent of Gen Z agreeing. - While only 17 percent of consumers would share location-based data, nearly 50 percent are willing to share their name, basic contact information and purchase history. - More than half of email recipients, 64 percent, put exclusive offers based on loyalty status in their top three most valuable email elements, and 63 percent value product recommendations based on past purchases. https://lnkd.in/ekgSGBwB

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Check out our recent case study for a Shopify website We teamed up with Pinkergreen (who assisted w/ UX & design) Outcomes from work? Conversion rate up ⬆️ 60% Avg order value ⬆️ 7% Upsell value (within 45 days) $8100 SEO up ⬆️ Bounce rate ⬇️ Check out the full case study below with more info on process & outcomes

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I’ve never really told you all what I actually do for a living, so here you go Pisgah Peaks Ventures builds & manages fractional marketing team for SMBs that are doing under 10-15 M ARR. The teams could be anywhere from 2 to 20+ individuals. Hiring for PT marketing roles can be a big drain on small businesses. They're unsure of who to hire, how to train, and they def don't want to manage them. This keeps costs in check (no office space here!) + avoids costly benefits / W2 wages. Perfect clients for us? B2B companies with 1-2 internal marketing team members Dispensaries with 2-5 locations. Soloprenuers who are scaling from 6 > 7 figures. A few years ago we started investing into other small businesses & at this point have equity in a handful of other SMBs. The goal? By 45; be able to live off the proceeds of our portfolio and golf 4X a week. To my network.... Tell us What do you do? Why do you do it? Post in the comments!

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I'm about a quarter into my salon purchase; here's the good / bad / ugly 👇 Context: I purchased 25% of an existing (15+ year) salon in January. I have right to purchase the remainder of the biz within 2 years for a predetermined price (based on rev levels). The salon did ~ 750K top line (peaked at 1.1 m top line in 2019 i.e. pre-COVID); but grew each of the last 2 years. My process to get to know folks was pretty simple; spend time there. No additional meetings (no one wants extra meetings). Good: - It hasn't been too time consuming (the biz has a manager + strong leadership on staff). Some weeks I spend 0 hours on it; others it's a half-day or so. There are some email chains that go back & forth. But generally fairly hands off. - We had a distribution in Q1. It had to go to pay legal fees for the business acquisition. If you look at it on a rate of return on cash invested; it was about 4% of total cash invested into the biz. If this rate continues (which it should improve; as Q1 slowest); then I'd expect to realize (in year 1); between a 17-20% return on cash invested. You would be hard pressed to find this kind of return anywhere else. - The staff has been very welcoming. They appreciate some new insights & have been helpful as I learn the biz; I also get free haircuts; which is a nice perk! (Yes I tip them) - The biz continues to be profitable (without much in way of major changes) & January is one of the slowest months of the year (cold weather + post holiday slump = slower times) - One of the biggest items to improve top line is just # of staff. We have a few empty chairs still (~100K per chair); so hiring 1-2 new staff this year should help us grow. Bad: - There is a lot of work to be done before we can focus on growth. The salon needs a facelift, there is some issues w/ rising rents (& deciding what to do), the systems are dated (i.e. using paper for everything) - The marketing program is virtually non-existent; a few print fliers here & there, but nothing in the way of a marketing motion. However; with the foundational issues; it makes no sense to spend good $ on marketing until foundational is set. - Things move slow. This is a mix of reasons. #1; both owners have other biz & main owner has a FT job. We could move faster; but hard to do so in a few hours a week. #2; the biz has been around for 15+ years. It's been through the recession & COVID; even though folks say they want change; implementing that change takes longer than realized. Ugly: - Being a minority owner is a dance. You can't make sweeping changes without consensus. You don't control the purse entirely. You're trying to appease staff & the primary owner at the same time, but their perspectives & goals are completely different. It has caused me some stress. - There's a fair amount of politics at a small salon. It can be a lot of unpack & wade through at times. Net/Net Anyone who says "owning a biz is passive income" is mostly full of it IMHO.

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Wondering what's new in the world of early-stage innovation research? Katie Sheehan's team has helped many brands use conversational research to better explore unmet needs and whitespace territories, understand their real potential in the market, and refine ideas. Register for the next Reach3 Insights masterclass webinar featuring Katie and Matt Kleinschmit to hear what they're learning and best practices you can use right away: https://lnkd.in/gwrpUxga #innovation #marketresearch #productresearch

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Do you own a B2B consulting firm? Here's what you need for your business: - Clear & concise website - Messaging that speaks to pain points - Technically sound SEO for website - Clear value prop Check out some of our most recent work where we helped a Charlotte based Fractional CTO firm revamp their site & messaging & dial in their technical SEO. Hit us up if you're curious about elevating your digital footprint!

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A couple months ago we profiled 102 life science eCommerce websites for companies between 51-10,001+ employees. The key findings with my commentary are as follows: - Amongst smaller to midsize enterprise companies, Adobe Commerce, or Magento was one of the most commonly used eCommerce platforms. Most of these are legacy Magento open-source free license because Adobe Commerce is far more expensive with still a weaker value proposition to Magento. - WooCommerce was commonly used in companies with less than 200 employees due to open-source free license. - As organizations get larger, we see the ERP system they use often times driving the eCommerce platform selection likely due to perceived advantages or strong enterprise software upsells (e.g. SAP Hybris). - We start seeing more usage of modern composable eCommerce solutions based on MACH (Microservices, API, Cloud, Headless) and JAMstack (JavaScript, APIs and Markup) such as commercetools and BigCommerce. - Then we see a ton of legacy custom solutions which are either super dated and scary to refactor/upgrade. Other custom solutions in principle are similar to what commercetools and other composable eCommerce solutions provide, but are largely homegrown. Overall, my recommendation is to take this data with a grain of salt. It shows you proven solutions that can work at different company sizes, but I generally will say that you should be moving towards headless, composable platforms. There's a number of them out there. It's vital to have a game plan also on how to chunk out your migrations and upgrades into prioritized steps that mitigate risk but allow for swifter deployment cycles. Also, don't be too pressured into using something like SAP Hybris just because you're on SAP ERP, etc. There's often times much more perceived value than true ease of integration. I believe when it comes to eCommerce and technology within the life sciences industry, Supreme has the most experience of any agency in the world by a long shot. Feel free to reach out if you'd like to chat more (www.supremeopti.com)

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I get so busy and focused on the fires that I sometimes forget to share our recent wins! - Relaunched a vertically integrated MSOs website with improved UX & SEO components. We built a custom blog that categorizes key learning pathways and improved the location pages to attract more local map pack rankings - We launched an engagement with a well known Shopify theme company that has over 10K themes in use. We’re helping their small team build brand awareness within the Shopify ecosystem through thought leadership content, outbound to build partner program & Linkedin paid distribution of helpful content - We’re launching a workshop funnel for a well know Fractional CTO in the Charlotte area. We went soup to nuts from the ground up on defining the program and then built it, built account lists and are now launching distribution to attract qualified leads - We’re rebuilding a SSOs website in a hot licensed market. We’re aiming to relaunch 11/1 with updated UX, reduced clicks to add to cart, optimized SEO and a host of other features that will improve conversion rates - We’re close to wrapping up a sick D9 hemp beverage website and will launch next month. - Our partner company / SaaS client has hit a big milestone of 2 M ARR (up almost 80% from when we began engagement) - We helped improve CTR on a monthly newsletter we send for a client by over 350% by further segmenting the list & refining the design & content for the newsletter - We built a funnel for our pool cleaning business that attracted 20 leads this past weekend & will be launching our paid program (NextDoor, Meta, Google) this week to further build the company’s pipeline of qualified leads. - We helped increase a brick n mortar / e-commerce hemp business in NC increase their organic clicks by 200% and grew online sales to best month to date - We are wrapping a rebrand & refreshed website for a large Canadian extraction company and will be shifting focus to top/mid funnel marketing activities to drive pipeline & our rebuilding their Hubspot setup to improve sales cycles & lead > opp conversion rates. - Helping 3 companies prepare for MJ Biz Con through marketing strategy, assets, event planning etc. - Built (at no cost) a website for an Asheville business owner to help capture donations to support artists in the River Arts District through donation aggregation. - Launching a KY physicians medical card business through website, branding and now GTM through SEO, biz partnerships, and paid media Helping small businesses is our passion and while it’s not always perfect we know we’re making a ripple. That’s what matters

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FOMO is something every brand needs to master in different parts of the customer journey. We've gone from 0 to $80M in the last 5 years. This is what we've learned in the 3 easiest ways to induce FOMO. ✔ Push UGC Not in the standard influencer usage of UGC. Encourage your buyers to share stories, reviews, and photos featuring your products. Here’s the plug-and-play setup: 1)  Create a page on your website dedicated to customer stories.  2)  Social Media Campaigns (make a hashtag)  3)  Contest and Giveaways - Host a contest where users share photos or videos of them using your product for a chance to win a prize. ✔ Leverage Social Proof Include it in your copy. People love reading about the success stories of others, especially first-time buyers. Garners trust for the brand + makes them feel confident that if it worked for others, it’ll work for them too. Do it through email, SMS, ads, or any other content that you push out to your audience. ✔ Create REAL Urgency There’s a few ways you can do this, 1) If you say there are only ten pieces left in stock – once the ten pieces are sold out, you MUST say SOLD OUT. 2) Limited-Edition Products Change up the packaging, sell it only in-store, or the countless other ways to run a limited-edition item. 3) The Countdown Timer Stick a live countdown timer on the page where you’re running a limited-time offer. The reason this method is so effective is because it’s something about actually visualizing time running out that makes buyers start running around like headless chickens. Alright so urgency, social proof, UGC What am I missing?

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The party's over for B2B CMOs who enjoyed the free-flowing budgets of the pandemic boom. Here are the top 3 concerns Mark Emond talks about in his Forbes piece: • Growth in a slowdown: How to drive results now with lean teams and tight budgets? Cutting through the noise is a major challenge. • The measurement mystique: CMOs are still wrestling with how to properly show marketing's ROI in complex B2B sales cycles. • AI anxiety: There's excitement about AI's potential, but a lack of strategy for implementation and team training. #AI #B2BMarketing #B2B

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New Rule (Bill Maher Voice).... If your Pricing page doesn't have numbers on it, it's not a pricing page. It's a packaging page. Mark and I discuss - and he's clearly fired up 🔥! In this episode of #TheUnexpectedLever, Mark dives into why transparent pricing is essential for building trust, keeping buyers engaged, and weeding out low-intent prospects early. Hear his passionate take on how upfront pricing saves everyone time and creates stronger B2B relationships on the new episode of #TheUnexpectedLever If your product is worth it, why hide the cost?

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Some products just don’t work for scaling DTC profitably. Why? The unit economics needed to scale profitably aren’t there. One example that comes to mind is the vast majority of food and bev products. If your product mix has low AOV and high (shipping + fulfillment cost)/AOV, chances are you won’t have enough room in your contribution margin before marketing to afford the CAC you need scale through DTC advertising channels. There are some exceptions to this rule, but generally speaking, the products that crush DTC have higher AOVs and higher margins before marketing, allowing sufficient CAC budget to scale. Do you agree?

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Calling your company ‘the Tesla of ______’ is the clearest sign you haven’t thought about your own brand positioning. And it’s the easiest indicator to your customers that you have no idea what problem your product can solve for them. In fact, I see a version of this almost daily, along early stage startups. ‘The Uber of ice cream’ ‘The Tesla of toilet paper’ ‘The Apple of cookware’ And I’m positive I’ve never seen a successful company using one of these taglines. So if you’re planning on calling yourself the ‘Tesla of protein powder’, please don’t. No one will understand what you mean, except yourself. #branding #marketing #startup

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What does Pisgah Peaks Ventures do? We build fractional marketing teams, but there is more to it than that. I've waffled on positioning for a while I landed on the tagline "We build fractional teams for the price for 1-2 FTEs" But I knew my website needed an update (been a couple years since one) I don't like to use the word agency. Too many biz owners have been burned . Agencies deliver projects. They don't necessarily "join your team" For more developed companies; sometimes this works just fine. We also custom quote things vs put companies in packages. We save smaller companies from: - W2 wages - Benefits - Training - Equity Nothing wrong with FTEs; but when you're trying to scale a marketing program; you can only hire so many generalists. I've been working on a website revamp & I wanted a short / concise video that conveyed our value prop to visitors. I knew David Pascaru & his firm Purely Imagined from LinkedIn from several years. (This is a great example of why staying active on LinkedIn has value; as I wasn't in market for years; but as soon as I was; he was first person I thought of & closed a deal without much in the way of "sales") He & his team helped me take my vision & create a sleek & easy to understand explainer video that will live on my new home page. Check out the video below & excited to share my updated site later in the quarter.

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Lex Friedman was spot on. The next decade in AI is going to be a wild ride, and as marketers, we're right in the middle of it! ChatGPT launched in November 2022, and in just a year and a half, it's already changed the marketing game. Now, with the release of ChatGPT-4o, things are about to get even crazier. Here’s what I’m most excited about with ChatGPT-4o: → Visual Intelligence:You can now upload images and content to get insights into what clicks with your audience. This is a treasure trove for anyone creating organic content or looking to boost performance. → Creative Brainstorming:ChatGPT-4o is like the ultimate brainstorming buddy. It can help you generate endless creative ideas based on your input – perfect for any creative person, even if it's not quite ready to replace copywriters or fully integrate with design tools yet. → Emotionally Intelligent Chatbots:The future of customer service is all about personalization. ChatGPT-4o's improved emotional understanding is making chatbots more effective at connecting with today’s info-hungry customers. It's still in development, but it’s clear where things are headed. The big picture is clear. AI is honing in on data, content creation, and natural human interaction. It’s exciting, but it also makes me think – how do we prepare the next generation for this future? PS: What are your thoughts on ChatGPT-4o and the future of AI in marketing? And how can we make sure humanity benefits from this amazing technology?

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Snag grew their DTC from $0 - Over $30m+ in 3 years. Here’s how they did it: ➤ Problem-Focused Conception While out shopping, Brie realized her tights were slipping down. Growing frustrated, she asked some friends of hers if they experienced something similar. Turns out every single one of her friends had the same issue. This was natural fuel for her to look into things further. ➤ Data = Unfair Advantage Brie didn't have a background in marketing. Instead, her data-oriented mind gave her an advantage by looking at things a little differently. She ran a Google Survey of 3000 women to find out who else struggled to find a pair of tights that fit. The answer? 90% of 3000 people. Bingo. Opportunity validated. The data also showed how: → The market was commoditized → Men made most of the product purchases (Crazy right?) → Most women accepted poor fitting tights as the norm This inspired her to really look into solving this problem, and her search for suppliers began. ➤ Knew the numbers Before launch, Brie’s focus to really get a grip on her numbers really paid off. Since the sales were through DTC, she knew she needed: → 25% of revenue back into marketing → First-order profit → Small seed round to fund initial stock order Armed with the validation from the survey and some strong number-crunching, Snag launched. They cleared £300k/mo in under a year. The emphasis of being profitable from the first order was key to allow her to scale forward and further invest in marketing. ➤ Applied Zero-Party Data & Customer Service This is where Brie’s data-oriented approach really shone a light on how Snag scaled rapidly. The pandemic caused havoc for many brands, including Snag. Over 60% of the business disappeared overnight, and they went into negative. They had Facebook debt that had to be paid. Fast. Or Snag would die. That’s when Brie turned to her customers for answers. Her customers suggested a brilliant offer: 2 tights for the price of one, but the second pair gets sent in 6 months. The offer worked - Snag survived. And eventually thrived. This was a genius idea to help relate to her customers. ➤  Applied the ‘3-Piece’ DTC Law Finally, Brie understood the fundamental law of DTC. → Commitment to customer service → Great product experience → Solve a big problem Since all 3 were checked, the rest was down to semantics, unit economics, and following marketing fundamentals. ➤  Final Thoughts As a data analyst, Brie’s final words of advice were super impactful and really hit home. Yes, data is important, but it’s even more important that each data point is an actual human being, not just a number on a spreadsheet. Combining the importance of data with the understanding that each data point is a human is a brilliant formula for growth. What else would you add?

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When I started out in marketing I was really sensitive. Really thin-skinned. I was wounded by feedback (especially late feedback) that was anything less than a pat on the head for being great. I was incapable of hearing criticism of any work I had done as anything but a damning of my character. I realize I don't come out very well in this story. That's ok. This isn't really about feedback. It's about learning to collaborate. Because somewhere - I honestly don't know where or when - I learned to listen (a bit). I don't think I'm perfect at it (who is?) but I stopped bristling at an alternative approach and started to rule it in. Is that idea valid? Is it better than my original idea? I've heard some things about how some really successful companies operate on a 'best idea wins' approach. In other words, it's not hierarchical, anyone with a good suggestion can put it forward. Sometimes the people that cause the most friction are the ones that get the most done because they spark us all into action. If you want to dive into better collaboration without the huge emotional journey I highly rate Neil Stoneman's post tagged below. Also tagging Hilton Barbour as someone who (dare I say relentlessly?) challenged me back in the day and made me stand on my own feet to better defend my views but also accept an outside view. #b2bmarketing #b2bstrategy

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Leveraging a CFO to proactively manage the financial health of your growing DTC brand doesn't feel like it matters until you have an "Oh, Sh*t" moment, and your financials fall apart. Then it will matter to you for the rest of your life. And you'll never scale a business without a CFO again.

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How do you *really* know if podcast ads are bringing in net new customers? Sure, pixel attribution can capture 70% more podcast-attributed conversions.... But how many of those are truly incremental? Well, Podscale® partnered with Podscribe to find out... "For the large brands we work with, understanding the net-new impact of podcast ads has always been a challenge—especially when they’re spending big on other channels, too." - Natalie Kovac, CEO Podscale® Using Podscribe’s “always-on” incrementality testing, Podscale® was able to finally measure which podcast ad conversions were incremental. Meaning... They wouldn’t have converted without hearing the podcast ad. The Findings? INSANE!  ➡ 58% of conversions driven by podcast ads were incremental, meaning these customers were genuinely net new.  ➡ Up to 2.56x Incremental ROAS, securing over two and a half times return for every dollar spent on ads from net-new customers. ➡ Podcast ads drove a massive +$3.9 million in incremental revenue for some of the fastest-growing DTC brands. Want to see the full story? Check out the case study to learn how Podscale® and Podscribe made it happen → https://lnkd.in/g8_cp4v4 #podcastadvertising #incrementality #dtc #podscribe

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