Nick Lipetzky 💥

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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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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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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Players in the VC world have access to tons of tools like what we're building at They Got Acquired Data. How badly does the lower-to-middle market M&A community want insight on private transactions, bootstrapped company sales, and who's buying? We're about to find out.

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Struggling to scale your ad campaigns? Here’s why. For 12 years I ran an ad agency specializing in profitably scaling ads. Here’s what I learned about why most ad campaigns fail to scale. - *Myth:* You can jump straight from inconsistency to scale. - *Reality:* Consistency is the crucial foundation for scalability. Focus on achieving consistent ad performance before attempting to scale. This creates a solid foundation for growth. Ensure your ads perform consistently over a period (e.g., 3 months) before increasing the budget. Consistency is the stepping stone to scalable success. Want help with your ads for FREE? Join the Flywheel coaching community for our weekly calls and get help with your ads. Join us here: https://lnkd.in/gxJCmfPs Have you faced challenges scaling your ad campaigns? Let’s share our experiences and learn from each other.

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SB Single vs. Multiple Custom Image Campaigns: Surprising Results! My team recently ran a test to see how single custom image campaigns stack up against multiple-image (slideshow) campaigns for Sponsored Brands. The results were not what we expected! Conventional wisdom suggests that multiple images would tell a better story, engage shoppers more effectively, and ultimately drive better performance. But the data told a different story: single custom image campaigns consistently outperformed multiple-image campaigns. This test gave us a deeper understanding of what resonates with Amazon shoppers—and it might challenge how we think about ad creatives moving forward. 📊 If you're looking to refine your ad strategy, check this out: https://lnkd.in/g6-8naKy. To all my LinkedIn connections: if you’re running Sponsored Brands campaigns, you might want to give this strategy a closer look! Let me know your thoughts or if you’ve seen similar trends. #amazon #amazonadvertising #amazonads #itsalwaysdayone

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Establishing an objective point of view on you B2B SaaS firm’s performance is VALUABLE exercise for Founders. Here are 3 lessons I’ve learned the hardway: 1. Identify relevent benchmarks to inform base of all opinions 2. Establish base rates (e.g. monthly average across trailing 12mths) vs focusing on most recent data 3. Prioritize customer retention and net revenue retention. This framework has transformed how I assess SaaS firms. How do you cut through the bias in your assessments?

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Up to series A, all that TAM, SAM, SOM stuff in pitch decks is 💩. Sure, put it in the doc if you must. Lots (and lots) of advice says you should. But I challenge you to find any VC that gives it any more than 3 seconds of attention. Or thinks it is anything other than a work of fiction. And I guarantee none of them has had their investment decision influenced by it. So, whether you put it in or not, don’t spend too much time on it and focus your attention and impact on other things. Such as team, mission, metrics. Pretty much anything else in the pitch deck templates!! #founders #startups #vcfunding

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Episode 💯 of The GTM Podcast just dropped and embraces the notion of ‘building in public’ across our thesis, strategy, and tactics. Scott Barker and I pull back the curtain on the media brand that sits on top of GTMfund: GTMnow. There’s always more than meets the eye to anything. First, why does a VC even have a media company?! GTMfund’s flywheel strategy integrates the fund, community, media, talent, and labs to create a self-sustaining ecosystem that continuously drives value. The fund is at the core of the flywheel. But the fund itself wasn’t enough when getting started. There's thousands of venture capital firms out there. And just like any business, you need to find a way to differentiate yourself... The flywheel does this - and media is a big part of that. Media is a part of that…just how big is big? Everyone is always surprised if I share that there are actually 7 (yes, 7!) objectives of the media company. They all work to support the fund. We dive into those behind the scenes details, along with my personal learnings from navigating an acquisition, the media production process, some tools I'm using, and much more. And OF COURSE, it wouldn’t be the 100th episode if we didn’t highlight the Top 10 episodes on The GTM Podcast! Listen in to see whose episodes hold the record 🏆 Available under 'The GTM Podcast' on YouTube, Apple, Spotify or wherever you listen 🎧

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Here's another great talk from the Liquidity Summit Can your brand make people question everything? Michael Jones discusses how Liquid Death creates tension and curiosity to build a strong following and drive product virality.

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Stoked to share Verbatim's latest case study featuring Onton. The results have been insane: 100,000+ new users per month while saving 30 hours/week 🔥 I first met with Zach H. right after he raised. He was looking to rapidly launch + scale Onton's content engine focused on long-form evergreen assets. From our initial convo, it was clear they needed a partner who could take full ownership of the content workflow. Within a week of onboarding, our team was fully ramped and shipping content across multiple channels & formats. Since going live, the content engine has been highly effective at creating a sustainable inbound funnel, while also building trust with new customers. Zach summed it up well: "Content is a priceless asset for any company. Verbatim pulled all the stops on creating best-in-class content, from their lightning-fast execution and deep understanding of our target audience to their high-quality writing and exceptional distribution." Highly recc checking out Onton -- very bullish on what they're building ⚡

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I've made a concerted effort to collect testimonials from the brands that hire agencies I introduce them to. This is the 2nd time I've helped Mike Kaplan, CMO at AVOXI find an agency. There's a few consistencies among the testimonials I receive. - Speed - Quality If you talk to a few of the RIGHT agencies, the time spent finding the right vendor is drastically reduced. Marketing moves fast. CMO's have a million things on their plates. A long drawn out agency search is draining. Speed kills.

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Don’t discount your product before selling your business. Launching a massive sale of annual plans is tempting. Big sale = revenue bump = inflated valuation. But buyers see through this and either:  • Add a discount based on recent months  • Don’t touch the business. If it’s something like Black Friday, that’s okay... but it's best to avoid discounts altogether when prepping for a sale. #acquisitions #SaaS #founders

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❗More revenue doesn’t always mean more profit ❗ In this video, I break down two game-changing concepts every brand founder needs to know: 1️⃣ Contribution margin dollars 2️⃣ Incrementality (or marginal impact) What’s the key takeaway? If your ad spend scaling strategy isn’t generating more contribution margin dollars, your profits are shrinking—not growing. Let’s unpack an example: A brand jumps from $550K to $1M in revenue by increasing ad spend. Sounds like a win, right? Except… 👉 They actually lost $10K in profit. Why? It all comes down to the break-even marketing efficiency ratio (MER) and the diminishing returns of scaling ad spend. Ignoring these metrics could sink your bottom line. This is where a fractional CFO (like us at Free to Grow CFO) who specializes in eCommerce comes in. We can really help take your ad scaling decision-making to the next level. -- Hi, I'm Jon Blair founder of the DTC Finance and Accounting firm Free to Grow CFO. Want more tips on growing a profit-focused DTC brand? Give me a follow. Want to learn more about how Free to Grow's Accountants and CFO's can help you increase profit and cash flow as you scale? Shoot me a DM. Until next time, scale on! 

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DTC brand founders—when you’re mapping out inventory and ad spend, are you making decisions based on bold targets or realistic forecasts? How do you separate the two? -- Hi, I'm Jon Blair founder of the DTC Finance and Accounting firm Free to Grow CFO. Want more tips on growing a profit-focused DTC brand? Give me a follow. Want to learn more about how Free to Grow's Accountants and CFO's can help you increase profit and cash flow as you scale? Shoot me a DM. Until next time, scale on! 

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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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