How Andrew Youdarian Grew His Online Community To Over 1000 Members
In the podcast:
01:57 – Guest Introduction
05:12 – Stunt Marketing
06:42 – Drop Shipping
08:54 – What Changed in Drop Shipping & E-Commerce
14:37 – Key Ways He Built His Membership Site
17:41 – Digging Deeper with Stunt Marketing
21:01 – What Would Andrew Do Differently Today
23:58 – What Would Ilana Do Differently Today
25:42 – Pain Points to Address to Build Likeability and Trust
31:16 – Perspective on Specific Niches
Andrew Youdarian, founder of ecommercefuel.com has grown his online community to over 1000 members. In this episode, I interview Andrew to find out exactly how he did that. Hint: he did it in some pretty unconventional ways.
Ilana:
Welcome to today’s episode, I have a very special guest called Andrew Youderian https://www.ecommercefuel.com/. You might have heard of Andrew before because he runs a very, very popular ecommerce membership. But Andrew has done lots of really interesting things online, which is why Iโm so thrilled to have him as a guest on todayโs show. So welcome to todayโs episode, Andrew.
Andrew:
Yeah, thanks for having me on. This is a traffic and marketing is gonna be fun. I appreciate the invite.
Ilana:
Yeah, itโs awesome. The pleasure is definitely mine. So I am fascinated by peopleโs journey. And you know, I guess I can relate to ending up somewhere that I never dreamed of. So you and I, both our corporate escapees, being that we used to live in the corporate world. And now we are in very different territory. So do you mind giving us I guess, a brief background about who you are and what youโve done? And I guess letโs touch on kind of what you do now a little bit.
Introduction
Andrew:
Yeah, absolutely. So it was fun. When we met in Miami, weโre able to share some kind of corporate war stories and in similar histories, and so I got a college went to the finance world that making world for a couple of years. And glad I did it, learned a lot, but quickly decided I did not want to do that for the next 10-20 years. And so I quit, I wasnโt quite sure what I was going to do. I had three options, I was looking at becoming an options trader on my own doing fashion photography, or starting an ecommerce business. And thank goodness that I chose the ecommerce business.
And so about 2008 and launched an ecommerce business selling radio equipment, ran that for a number of years and along the way started a second ecommerce company selling Trolling Motors. And then 2012 with both of those running in the background realized nobody was talking about ecommerce from a from a non corporate non, you know, massive fortune 500 perspective, and so started writing about it. And that kind of turned into a community for experienced store owners.
And so Iโve since sold those other two businesses. And now I focus full time on Iโm running our community where we put on events, weโve got about 10,000 members in the community. And we try to add value through live events. Every year, we have a you know, a conference for our members. Play it a discussion board kind of an in house private forum where all of our members talk and share whatโs working, whatโs not. And then some software weโve built to help our members try to find what tools and what SaaS companies and contractors work well for their businesses and which ones to avoid. So thatโs thatโs kind of a story in a nutshell.
Ilana:
Yeah, interesting. And sure, youโve definitely seen transformations and iterations over the years of when you had your own ecommerce stores to kind of what ecommerce store owners are doing now. Can you kind of touch on, I guess, your experience of growing the Trolling Motors website? And I guess, how you grew it to the level that it was and other strategies still relevant now?
Andrew:
Yeah, so my background is on the marketing side is largely and I would say two things. SEO based and kind of guerilla marketing, kind of crazy, unusual, stunt marketing more or less, I would say. So the Richard Branson style. So thatโs Iโve seen big wins from that and big wins from long term SEO efforts. So both of those brands on the ecommerce side where weโre kind of just old school SEO, writing a lot of articles guest posting, making connections, influencer marketing back in, you know, before it was a term in 2009, or 10.
Remember, we gave away probably, it was a cheap site, and we gave away probably, you know, maybe $1,000 worth of equipment, and they sent us, oh, my goodness, probably $100,000 plus a free traffic over the course of a couple of years. And this is what it was much easier than it is now. So thatโs kind of my background is old school SEO to build up both of those sites, both of their traffic. And one of the things was they were both drop ship sites in the, the margins werenโt phenomenal, which makes it hard to buy traffic. And the lifetime value was also not phenomenal, which also makes it hard to buy traffic. So SEO was really the only way to go.
Stunt Marketing
Ilana:
Interesting. So you know, running a community of 1000 odd members, you would hear a lot of discussions about what people are doing now to grow their ecommerce brands. Do you find that those strategies of SEO and what you were doing the stunt marketing? Do you find that your members are doing that kind of stuff still? Does that still work? Or is it getting way, way harder, that that kind of people are moving to other areas?
Andrew:
I SEO still works. But I think the moats that people have built up around those combined with the fact that Google is continually diminishing the organic reach of traffic is it makes it much harder, Iโd say itโs exponentially harder than it was 10 years ago, I think, interesting creative, different people are things that you can do still works pretty well, I think it probably works as well as it used to, because thereโs so much noise out there that if you have something thatโs crazy and different, it can kind of cut through that noise.
So that that can still work. But I think the SEO side is itโs just gotten hard, itโs not impossible. I know people that still invest in, you know, if you start investing in it, and you do it consistently for 12, 24, 36 months, youโre going to see where youโll definitely see results in ROI. But itโs nowhere near what it used to be.
Drop Shipping
Ilana:
I mean, I remember back in the day way before I started in the PPC journey, I used to also kind of be in the publishing and SEO space. And I mean, I used to be able to rank in a few hours, but man, those days are long gone. You know? (laughs) you think of where itโs come and come from and you know, what you could get away with back then in the in the early days, it just doesnโt fly now. So you know, running your membership with so many ecommerce businesses, you would see such a cross section of, I guess, the types of ecommerce businesses and and their forms of marketing. So you mentioned that drop shipping was not such an all in sales, not such a great model, but the margins were good. And people still doing drop shipping websites these days. Do you see that?
Andrew:
Yeah, good question. So I did a big report this last year called the state of the merchant a couple months ago and pulled 400 plus store owners average revenue, I think was about 3 million. And, and itโs a third year Iโve done it. And so itโs interesting, because I can look at some trends over time. And one of the trends is today, this year was the number of drop shipping companies from year over year, you know, over a 12 month period got cut in half 50% drop, which is crazy. So, definitely, itโs getting harder, more people in manufacturing companies, companies that had their own in house branded product they created was that by you know, 30% plus.
And so a lot of those people, then that the channel, the type of business model is shifting to that for reasons that, you know, I think fairly obvious, but itโs so but but that being said, there are still niches where it you know, it can work, I think itโs really hard to get a drop shipping model business model, correct, because youโve got to kind of someplace where you can add value while youโre at the same time selling someone elseโs product.
So if youโve got really deep product selection, that Amazon doesnโt have really the product expertise, and youโre somehow able to convince people to even once they know what they need to buy from you that can work or if you have proprietary distribution agreements for manufacturers who arenโt selling on Amazon back and work potentially, it still can work. Itโs just itโs tricky to, to find the model and make all those things line up when it does, itโs great. You can run a business from anywhere. You have zero capital investment and you know, it can be a great model, but itโs tricky to get it get all the stars to line up right for in 2019.
What Changed in Drop Shipping & E-Commerce
Ilana:
Why do you think that? What are some of the variables that have changed that have seen a 50% drop in the variables not kind of add up? What do you think has changed in 2019? Now that wasnโt the case years ago,
Andrew:
I think thereโs two things the biggest ones Amazon, Amazon solid distribution and a lot of drop shipping sites. There, you know, youโre a middleman right, the value you add a great drop shipping site, they can still survive in 2019 is adding a lot of value and other ways I can talk about super deep selection that no one else has, or expertise or you know, world class website with education. But a lot of them are just, you know, websites with kind of reselling existing products. And if you want to buy a product, you know the name of the product, and you want to get a fair price from someone you trust relatively quickly.
Like where you go? You go to Amazon, and so thatโs just destroyed the drop shipping, shipping world. The other thing too is, is selling online has gotten easier. So if Iโve got a brand that Iโve spent a ton of time and pain and energy and sweat and capital to build, and Iโve got my own in house proprietary product, theyโre still value it potentially for some people and having dealer networks, but thereโs a lot of value for the same brands and selling direct and capturing the margin for themselves, right? And so when it takes, itโs not that difficult to spin up a Shopify site and sell direct a lot of people are going that way too. So I think itโs , youโre getting pressure from both sides.
Ilana:
Interesting. So what do you see, given your exposure to so many ecommerce businesses in all these different industries? What would you say is their biggest struggle in 2019? From a traffic point of view, as a product point of view? Whatโs the biggest struggle?
Andrew:
Thatโs a great question, and Iโd say the biggest struggle is probably Amazon for most people, Iโd say Amazon and traffic in general. With maybe a one behind that being regulatory issues,like sales tax. So an Amazon and traffic kinda kind of go hand in hand a little bit, you know, so many more people are going to Amazon and Amazonโs the ultimate โfrenemyโ, you can, you can really build a business there that, that does well, that scales incredibly quickly. But you also are giving up the keys to your house in some sense, and that you donโt own the customer. You depend on them for for all your traffic year, youโre building your own asset, youโre leveraging someone elseโs, and that can be taken away through suspensions or fees going up or, or you know, any number or Amazon deciding to as they often do, see which one of your products are selling the best and making their own in house brand or or house label brand and, and competing with you.
So I think thatโs a big one. I think trafficโs another one because you have three companies that own 80% plus of the web traffic online. And itโs crazy you know. and they all have all three of those increasingly are making you pay to access that traffic. I mean, organic reach on Facebook is not even a thing anymore? Like if you post something to your fans, can you? I mean, if you have, if you have 1000 fans, you might have how many views? I mean, you know this one better than I do Ilana, how many fans? Do you think if you posted something and you have 1000 fans on your Facebook page that would actually see it without paid promotion? 50? 40?
Ilana:
I was gonna say 50. Yeah, is strictly a pay to play platform now. Itโs crazy.
Andrew:
Itโs nuts. So that is really difficult, because ad costs from that report, for merchants of that size are going up roughly 15% per year, every year, thereโs some good things too, in terms of conversion rates seem to be going up and revenue growth seems strong and margin seems steady. But on the paid side, like your traffic, itโs scaring people.
And I think people are increasingly noticing like, this is like this is hard this year, and looking out three, four years. So like, what am I going to do when I have to pay 40%? More for traffic? And I? Yeah, so I think thatโs so traffic, Amazon. And then the third one is just sales tax. I know youโre in Australia, the sales tax issue in the United States is just an absolute disaster. And thatโs causing a lot of pain and headaches for people and itโs scaring them too.
Ilana:
Yeah, itโs interesting, you know, talking about those three behemoth companies, Google, Facebook and Amazon owning 80% of the web traffic. I mean, I know from running so many ad campaigns that you know, those three companies are the judge and the jury when it comes to traffic. I mean, who are you to dispute what Google or Facebook tell you in terms of the data of how much you paid for a click, you canโt dispute it, thereโs no way of verifying it. I know when Iโve run lots of campaigns to act from Facebook, letโs say to Amazon, and Facebook tells me I got this many link clicks at a certain cost per click. And then I go in the back end of Amazon, and the numbers are wildly different. Itโs you know that these guys, these companies are the judge and the jury in terms of the data they provide, which is pretty crazy when you think about it.
Andrew:
Yeah, it is crazy. And I mean that the model that Google rolled out with, I donโt know if they were the first one, they must have been one of the first if not the first of an auction based system for advertising was really brilliant, because itโs a great pricing strategy, because they can extract all of the surplus value from the market, right? Like when you didnโt have many people on, it was cheap all the days that Oh, miss the days of AdWords for five cent clicks, because thereโs nobody on it right.
And so that was the most people you know, that was the market price. But itโs a really brilliant system, from their point of view, and I got to credit, whoever designed it, but it doesnโt leave a whole lot of surplus on the table, because people will pay just enough, you know, that almost pull all of their margin all their goodwill, all of their profit out of there. And itโs, itโs brilliant for them, but itโs tough for merchants.
Key Ways He Built His Membership Site
Ilana:
Definitely. So letโs talk a little bit about your how youโve grown your ecommerce full membership, because 1000 members is an amazing achievement, Andrew, so well done on getting to that level of success? What would you say are some of the key ways that you have built that membership? Because building membership is not easy? So what are some of the ways that youโve done that?
Andrew:
So I think one is just taking a really long term approach. The first year, the community, I started a blog that I spent blogging on for a year before I started the pot, before I started the community and, and taking a long term approach, I think is really important for something like that I didnโt have any network to speak of in the ecommerce space, a few friends that were doing it but you know, less than 10. And, and so I spent a whole year doing nothing but writing really in depth articles and trying to build relationships.
And I spent the first two weeks of I launched the site and then spent two weeks sequestered in a cabin in Arizona, eight hours a day doing nothing but writing a guide and how to pick a niche, which has become pretty woefully outdated at this point, you know, but at the time, I felt like it was a fairly something I felt like I could have charged 100 couple hundred bucks for and the idea was to give it away for free to help drive traffic. And so yeah, big one was just putting out as much value as I could for a year to build connections, build traffic, and build a little bit of a reputation. So that was a big one. The last blog posts were really long, very in depth. And yeah, that was that was kind of the foundational part of it.
Second one, I think was word of mouth. When I think about today, where we get most of our, our leads, like whenever people sign up for our community, our paid community, itโs, they tell us where they came from. And two, there are two that stand out probably attribute to 70, or probably 80% of our referrals, and one is the podcast, I think podcasting is still a pretty good place to be able to connect with people and market your business. second oneโs word of mouth referrals.
And just those two I on the podcast, I think you can unless you build rapport with people at a, you know, at scale in a way thatโs pretty unique. And word of mouth referrals, I have the fear theory that, obviously that those are the best kind of, you know, the best kind of advertising in the world. But I donโt think people focus on a great product and word of mouth referrals. And I think as online marketing channels get so packed, and crowded and expensive, like weโve been talking about having just a rock solid, phenomenal product that people can recommend, I think itโs gonna, people are going to start focusing on that, again, more in terms of just especially on marketing jargon perspective.
And the third one is kind of some of those marketing stunts, I donโt know how much you want to get into those. But anytime you can do, thereโs been two or three things Iโve done that have been very different and unique and all scary. But they I think they got some pretty big visibility, at least for a short period of time, which, which helped with link building, building up the authority of the ecommerce domain, and also maybe getting the word out there to people.
Digging Deeper with Stunt Marketing
Ilana:
Well, you definitely piqued my curiosity with number 3! (laughs) So well done there. You must be a very good writer. So maybe do you want to kind of give us some ideas of what you mean with that sort of guerilla kind of marketing? start marketing?
Andrew:
Yeah, I think anything you can do thatโs totally unusual and different, and puts you in a position of vulnerable is, is good for marketing. And so Iโll give you a couple examples.
One, my trolling motor business, the way I sold, that it wasnโt a real big business, and I decided I wanted to sell it to focus on the other two. And I thought, you know, I could just sell this and kind of go on my merry way. Or maybe thereโs some potential here from from something I could do fun on the marketing side. So I thought like, how can you? How could you sell a business in a way that would get a lot of attention and be unusual. And so the idea came up with was to do a totally public sale, everything about the business public, from the you know, the traffic to the financials to the profitability, a few things, I kept private, you know, like our best selling items, things where people could just completely rip off the niche, but for the most part, pretty visible, very visible sale process. And then I ran a reverse auction. So I said, Iโm going to start the business at x price, I think I sold it 485,000 bucks, every day, or every week, I donโt get a bid, Iโm going to lower the price by $10,000. And the first person to bid on this and accept the price. Itโs going to get it and so was able to write it up, it was unusual in those kind of those kind of two regards, it was really scary too.
Because ultimately, like you could sell a really expensive asset. And if nobody bids on it, I mean, it can drop them, you really lose your you lose a lot of money. Anyway, having a little bit an email list and Hacker News and a few other things was able to do that and really blew that up and got a ton of great backlinks. A lot of discussion. Itโs you know, itโs something was probably one of my most of my most popular blog posts ever. And I think the ripple effects from from that really helps with marketing in a tremendous way. So things like that you can do that are kind of crazy, totally unorthodox, and obviously, very basically was positioned a niche by niche. But usually I feel like some of the I donโt know if youโve heard this before, but the best content outline, you gotta be careful here. But a lot of times, like the best stuff, the stuff that does the best for you get the most traction is using stuff youโre the most scared to hit publish on. And I think thatโs to some extent true.
Ilana:
Thatโs really interesting. So did you have a reserve price or a floor price that you were willing to not go under? We willing to go down to like $10?
Andrew:
I did. So it was like I think it was about $100,000 plus or minus right around there. So I did have a reserve price on it. But it was way below if I sold it for that. I mean, it would have been rough, I would have been a terrible, terrible place to sell it at. So I did I did have a little bit of insurance on the downside.
Ilana:
Interesting. Iโm just curious, would you do that again? Like was it that effective that youโd probably do that again? No, I guess having done that is the kind of thing that you kind of have to do something different.
Andrew:
I think it would depend on the size of the sale for the size of so there, I was willing to take the risk and willing to give up the information and potentially scare off some buyers who some people saw it and love the approach. Some people are like, I donโt want that business. Thatโs totally been, you know, aired out in the public. No, thank you.
If the business was in the same size, I would potentially consider doing it again. If it was meaningfully bigger, like letโs say, you know, two to three x bigger or larger, I will probably be a little more careful about especially given that Iโve done it know, it you would depend.
What Would Andrew Do Differently Today
Ilana:
Interesting. So let me ask you this question and might be a bit of a tough question. If you were starting your ecommerce fuel membership from scratch now in 2019, with a sort of no email list or no traffic, whatโs something that you would do in 2019? That taught to start it from scratch? Like if you were starting again? What would you do? Sorry, if thatโs an unfair question. (laughs)
Andrew:
No, no, itโs a great question. I thinkโฆdo I have? Do I have a network of people? Or am I starting in my like you? Do I have ecommerce experience. I have a network?
Ilana:
Yeah, I donโt know. Yeah, yeah, youโve got ecommerce experience, but then a small network, letโs say.
Andrew:
A small networkโฆ I would go to my network, go to a conference, try to get as many people as I knew, first, I try to round up a list of all the ecommerce sellers, I knew that had meaningful businesses. And Iโd reach out to them and say, โHey, I want to know like, whatโs the biggest pain point youโre experiencing? Whatโs the biggest thing that’s thatโs hardest for youโ or I look into the resources of just trying to figure out what the biggest struggles are online. And then I would probably try to identify one or two things, and then spend an entire month trying to create the absolute best resource in the world, for whatever that problem was, like, maybe its sales tax, you know, sales tax, we talked about that, or traffic, sales tax could be one, or maybe you just go through and you write, you know, maybe itโs a book, maybe itโs a resource, maybe itโs.. you create something that can solve a massive pain point for people. And you give it away for free with your branding on it to a website, that that you control and have some opt in.
Or maybe you just give away part of it for free and have an opt in very similar to what I did to start ecommerce. So I think Iโd focus on giving away as much value as I could and trying to build a name for myself for that specific site. And gives much reputational authority and link authority by giving things away for free as I could and have a you know, at least, I think probably commit to probably a year or two now because itโs gotten harder. So I probably cheating because Iโm just recycling my what I actually did is that totally cheating?
Ilana:
Not at all! And I think thatโs actually really relevant and honest, because it was effective. And itโs interesting, like from an ad point of view, we do a lot of strategies that weโve been doing for five plus years that still work. Now, it doesnโt have to be new, and it doesnโt have to be innovative. If it works, then why reinvent the way like so, you know, in our agency, we do new stuff. But we also do classic tried and tested stuff that still works like why would we not do that it still works. And so I guess the same applies for you and for what youโve done and how youโve grown your membership and your business.
Andrew:
What about for you? Like if you were starting the business, again on the agency side, or on the training side, and just starting from scratch? What would you say? Either that or actually even maybe even more interesting than what you mentioned? Thereโs a lot of things youโve done for five plus years of work like what are some of those are like old school tactics that youโre still doing that still are effective today that were so effective, you know, 2014 or 13?
What Would Ilana Do Differently Today
Yeah, so I guess, on the agency side for clients, even though Iโm doing less and less of that now. The stuff that still works is sort of a classic retargeting campaign or remarketing campaign, itโs like, itโs tried and tested. And we can do it with my eyes closed, pretty much. And I guess very traditional forms of lead generation still work really well, especially probably more so in the non internet marketing industry.
So, you know, not trying to sell people how to run Facebook ads, for example, maybe youโre in the playing guitar industry with the people who are learning guitar and not familiar with click classic online marketing strategies, like Product Launch Formula all that kind of stuff. I mean, that was invented, you know, 10 plus years ago, and I still see it work today.
But you know, it takes on lots of different forms. The concept is providing a whole bunch of value to people up front, and then asking them to take the next step, which is kind of like what you talked about, you know, whatโs the biggest pain point? can I provide that for free for people, when, in the attempt to build likeability and trust and value and then getting people to take the next step. Itโs, itโs the same thing just dressed up slightly differently. And itโs putting in front of the right people?
Pain Points to Address to Build Likeability and Trust
Andrew:
Yeah, I mean, itโs, itโs kind of silly to say, but yeah, like the old formula, just deliver a ton of value first, and you get so much more trust from people. It hasnโt changed in a decade. I, one of the things I hate the most is, is one of my biggest pet peeves is inbound emails from people saying, like, Hey, I have this SAS service that I do would work great for you. Can we spend 15 minutes on a call to see if itโs the right fit? And Iโm like, No, I do these emails ever work? No, absolutely not.
But you know, if people have if you have a really good offer, and you say, I know this about you, I know this is a massive pain point, we do have to hop on a call, hereโs the solution for it, you can just have it over time. And people do that once or twice and or even once. If itโs great enough, then the level of rapport and trust you build out of the gates when you do the heavy lifting and the heavy work ahead of time, like it just it helps a lot. I wrote a post this really old digging it up. Itโs called the stalkers guide to guest posting, and it kind of talks about how, like, why so many guest posts, Iโm sure you get these to like the guest post articles that people send are so atrociously bad that itโs, I mean, it is so bad. But if you do it right, with a great pitch email with a great content, and you have the authority to build rapport and authority, it still works really well. But just itโs done so badly. So much of the time.
Ilana:
I think people are so focused on their own ulterior motive, they cannot transport themselves into the mind of the person receiving whatever it is theyโre sending them to think, well, if that were me, how would I feel, you know, theyโre so focused on what they are looking for, what their goal is, that just comes through, you know, with this, like LinkedIn request of, you know, trying to, you know, get you on a call, like, Did I ever express an interest in your product or service? No, you know.
Andrew:
And I think weโre all guilty of it at some level, maybe just in different ways. Like, I remember one, thereโs one ecommerce store owner, I was I was talking to, and we, for some reason, we were chatting says I was helping her out with something. And I started, we started diving into her business and, and just a phenomenal product with incredible margins, like in out of this world conversion rates. People just ordered this stuff over and over and over.
And I, it was like, the perfect ecommerce business and I started drooling. And Iโm like, Oh, I, you know, this is amazing me. And I think what I said to her at one point was like, Hey, if youโre ever looking for like somebody who, you know, you want to bring us an advisor and investor, Iโd be happy to letโs talk about that.
But this was like on the first phone call. Totally. It was like asking, you know, itโs like going on a date and asking someone to marry you after you know, before we even the check comes right like, and I was so eager, so much opportunity that I couldnโt help myself and completely blew any chance that the right move there would have been to help them for two to three months, show them that I can meaningfully help with my advice and with my actions, improve the business. And then maybe you talk about that after months of work. But I so itโs really everyone does it at some level. Iโm not any, you know, less guilty of other people. But itโs really hard to hold yourself back.
Ilana:
Totally. I know exactly what you mean. And especially when youโve been around this space for a while where some people hit on niches or niches, like inadvertently, and they donโt realize, as you say, like, what an amazing business theyโve got in the margins are like insanely good, they donโt realize and so when you have the lens that is got exposure to so many different businesses, and you can go hang on a minute, you donโt even realize what youโve got here. Thatโs kind of feel quite exciting.
So I know exactly from a client’s point of view. And I see clients come to me and their industry converts like crazy, and theyโre like, theyโre getting you know, 50 cent leads, and you know, hundreds a day and they think, Oh, is this good? Iโm like, Are you crazy? This is amazing! (laughs)
Andrew:
Yeah, thatโs cool for you to I always think buddyโs interesting, because my sister was, you know, a banker for a while and she nobody, people do not talk about money candidly at definitely not you know about how much they’re making unless theyโre like family or insanely tight friends, or very a typical and the lens, which, you know, a banker has just looking at a bank accounts at the different people that walk in is kind of like what, what you having some substance, being able to look at peopleโs ad spend accounts and seeing what type of industries work well, what businesses work well, which donโt, itโs, itโs a fascinating view that so few people have.
Ilana:
Itโs true. And to be honest, thatโs largely why I went into the agency type work to get exposure to lots of different industries. And let me tell you, in the seven years that Iโve run my agency, I have seen so many weird and wonderful industries that I never, ever would have to be a business, you know, like, from people running membership sites for a specific type of subject taught at school, to all these like, you know, hypnosis, training, etc.
I mean, Iโm saying it all my husband laughs at me, because heโs like, Iโm working on this is, of course, you are like this would ever dream that thatโs an industry, you know. But um, itโs amazing. I guess thereโs the saying goes, the riches are in the niches of American saying, never true. You know, and Iโm sure youโve seen that in all the ecommerce businesses that youโve seen come through your membership, like, how many weird and wonderful industries there are out there to have a business.
Andrew:
Itโs crazy, some of the applications that we get you read and you just go, you have got to be kidding me. This is this is this $5 million selling, selling gold plated pipe cleaners for ceremonial? You know, like, itโs insane. I question for you. And I know you canโt, you got to be sensitive to your clients, and you can you know, name websites, or even super specific niches, but broader niches kind of categories?
Are there are their categories like, you know, like health and beauty sporting equipments at a broader level? Is there a category that you have seen can be a great choice from a conversion and from a lifetime value? And from a cost per acquisition standpoint, is there a category where you would advise people to stay clear, and absolutely donโt get into in terms of marketing and in competition, if you had it, because you such, itโs such an interesting view on the analytics of so many companies.
Perspective on Specific Niches
Ilana:
Yeah, um, so as somebody, I guess, who has specialized in buying leads online, hopefully, at a profitable level, then definitely, you know, a recurring aspect is such a huge advantage. So, if youโre selling something where somebody buys it over and over again, be it a product, or even a service, that gives you huge amounts of flexibility in terms of how much you can afford to pay for that first lead, you know, we all know that somebody whoโs bought from you once before is more likely to buy from you again. So if youโre selling something where there is whatโs called a back end, or a recurring aspect to it, that opens the door, so many doors for buying traffic, because you can afford to pay quite high for a customer.
So maybe businesses will lose money on the front end, or the first time they buy that customer because they know they make it back in month two or three and, and then theyโve got a long standing customer if they provide a really good product or service. I do also find that the non internet marketing industries work so well.
And especially if youโre very clever in your in your ads and your strategies, people are not aware. So lots of we online memberships work very well. So teaching some kind of musical instrument or content that some out of the make money online kind of space also works extremely well. But yeah, I have, I have done so many weird things that I never dreamed would be an industry. And I wish I could kind of talk about it. Well, more publicly. But yeah, obviously, I am bound by confidentiality of my clients, which I totally respect. But I find these people stumble upon them by going into rabbit holes, you know, they so they that they pick one thing, and then they do that, but then that leads them to something else, and then they go hang on a minute, this is the thing that I want to focus on it and sort of had they not started, then they never would have ended up at that final destination, you know, sort of the whole pivot process. Just quite interesting.
Andrew:
Yeah, itโs crazy. Itโs a cool perspective. Youโve got I, I, Iโm jealous. I wish I had it.
Ilana:
Well, he kind of do with running your membership, seeing all the other fine, people are quite cagey about what they sell, or they an open book.
Andrew:
No, theyโre pretty open. And so one of our requirements for membership, apart from the revenue guidelines is you have to be, you have to be candid about Yes, you donโt have to tell everything youโre doing under the sun, but you have to be public about at least one qualifying revenue generating high six or seven figure business and itโs gonna, itโs gonna be a real name, your real picture, your real real storefront on there, and none of this like, you know, โDrecar47โ username stuff, because like, you want to talk about real stuff, you want to know who youโre dealing with. So people are pretty, pretty open about it.
But at the same time, open, you know, theyโll theyโll share their website and their details, whatโs working a lot of times, but in terms of full, full revenue and conversion rate numbers and campaigns, things like that, not quite at that detail. So itโs, I do youโre right, I have a really, I have an interesting perspective.Itโs always really cool to see what, what, whatโs going on. But yours is just a little deeper, I think.
Ilana:
Well, because I actually get cost per acquisition data. And Iโll never really delved out into when I started growing my agency and delved into sort of first iteration into sort of we industries, I was like, Whoa, what is going on in this industry? You know, like, off the charts, I can, you know, some fit, especially passion projects, people are really passionate, and they like to share ads like crazy, youโre like theyโre commenting hundreds of comments, hundreds of shares. Health and wellness is a big one, certain types of like diets are really big. So yeah, I guess some, itโs all about kind of whatโs a value to people that really drives in and what problem youโre solving for people at the end of the day really.
Andrew:
I would guess cars, automobiles, especially like in the performance side or the niche side of cars and off road vehicles. Thatโs one that I have. See, I again, I donโt know if they havenโt seen that done with the X ray vision that you do, but from things Iโve observed from my behavior from other peopleโs behavior, sometimes some of the niches were just people just common sense goes out the window. Itโs insane what people will pay for stuff when they get passionate and excited about.
Ilana:
Definitely, and I would say, the dog space. That is really true. I recently got a puppy and now Iโm getting kind of excited. Itโs like, you get dog people and then you got normal people. Youโre not normal. That sounds bad, but you get some crazy dog people. So pet is also a really, really big one. Iโm mindful of the time Andrew so where can people find out a little bit more about you and what you offer? And I guess obviously specifically ecommerce is where can people find out more information about what you offer people?
Andrew:
Yeah, thank you. So ecommerce fuel is the name of the community itโs a private community for seven figure plus store owners. So if youโve got a business that is doing that level or maybe slightly below if you as long as youโve got a proprietary product and selling not exclusively on Amazon thatโs thatโs our membership community.
So you can learn more about that if youโre in that, in that part of the world is your business, ecommercefuel.com. And then I also do a weekly podcast where I talk about all things ecommerce, so chat with people about a lot of United States, what about paid traffic and the display network? We talked about that manufacturing, sales, tax tariffs, different shopping carts, anything, if youโre in the ecommerce world that you and I like to geek out about?. So itโs just called the ecommerce fuel podcast. You can get that anywhere you get, you know, this podcast, so and thatโs those are the two best places to find me.
Ilana:
Awesome. And I can definitely vouch for both of those, your podcast, and Iโm not a member of your community, but I know lots of people who are who absolutely rave about it. So definitely check that out. Andrew, thank you so much for taking time out of your day to come on our show. Iโve certainly enjoyed it. And yeah, look forward to chatting to you again.
Andrew:
Yeah, it has been a lot of fun. Thanks so much. Appreciate the invite.
