ONE TIME FLINGS - GOOD OR BAD? 👀

When it comes to ecommerce the love needs to last. Brands need to encourage customers to keep coming back for more! A one time purchase is simply not enough to keep your store going strong.
If you're not doing these things to engage your customers you need to start:
1. Creating an attractive loyalty program.

2. Capturing hearts through video storytelling.

3. Getting personal with essential email flows like "Winback" and "VIP."

IN THIS WEEK'S EDITION:

• What marketers should focus on in Q2.
• Fake News.
• How to choose a pricing strategy.
• The Great Gatsby...
• Round up.

WHAT MARKETERS SHOULD FOCUS ON IN Q2

Consumers are beginning to emerge from their indoor winter cocoons as spring rolls in. For brands, this is an opportunity to sell both products and experiences.

• If you're in B2B it's the perfect time to go hard with your sales efforts.
  
  Why now?
  
  Well in Q3 workers are usually distracted by the holiday period with PTO and family commitments. This could slow down your momentum.
  
  
• In the ecom space? Here's what you need to know...

1. It's the end of tax season. So your customers might see an influx of cash from tax refunds, meaning more spending power!

2. Shoppers are on the lookout for gifts for moms, dads and grads! Make sure you have your bundled products ready!

3. Look out for a dip in sales in the weeks leading up to Memorial Day. This is a major sale period where shoppers plan to get their must haves at a discount.

FAKE NEWS

This week in the Startup Booster session we met with Nicole Gloza from Etha.

In recent years, misinformation has run rampant around the globe but especially within the United States. At the same time political polarization within the US has grown. The parties and those who support them have never been further apart. As a result the space for a middle ground is disappearing, there is a loss of connection, and a lack of faith in the media.

Enter Etha. At Etha they aim to restore people's faith in the media, get back to democracy, hold politicians accountable, and provide credible news, the proof of where stories come from, and the lifecycle of a story as it evolves. Etha will do this through providing an interactive news platform that is curated by AI and crowdsourcing. You’ll be able to agree or disagree with statements made by politicians, rate world leaders, and see where the information contained in quotes or soundbytes really comes from, among other capabilities.

This was a really exciting session, I think we can all agree that misinformation needs to be reigned in. Etha has ambitious goals and they are one to watch in this space.

From a business perspective:

• Etha currently has 6k active users, but the potential in the US is in the tens of millions
• If monetizing API is the main vertical, Etha could become a validation tool for news delivery mediums focusing on honesty, non-bias, and the truth.
• It was suggested that Etha refine their financial investment requirement to a much higher number than the original 1M.

From a marketing perspective:

• Marketing is a self identified pain point for Etha, despite an incredibly polished product.
• It was suggested to make use of a guerrilla marketing campaign focusing on subreddits that cover more “extreme” issues where there are already 20-100k users to promote the platform.
• Marketing and user acquisition should take more of a center stage moving forward.

The potential for Etha is huge. They have an incredibly polished product currently that is not only aesthetically pleasing but incredibly culturally relevant. They are positioned to take on the major issue that is misinformation in the media. If you live in the US head over to https://etha.one/ to check them out. Their app is available in the AppStore and on Google Play.

HOW TO CHOOSE A PRICING STRATEGY

In last weeks Mastermind we discussed how you should never place the price game and how all entrepreneurs work for free...

What we learned:

• Never play the price game. The price game is charging less than what you are worth.
  
• Causes clients to see you as cheap and low quality. Charging less attracts low quality clients - they demand more of your time and don't value your expertise.
  
• You aren't motivated to do your best work. By charging less, you aren't incentivised to do your best work.
  
• When starting out, charge the amount to cover living expenses then raise your prices over time.
  

​Remember all entrepreneurs work for free:

• When starting a business there are many time you need to work for free. whether that means cold calling, networking, marketing, brainstorming, all entrepreneurs work for free before their business makes money.
  
• Sometimes making business connections are more important long-term than charging for services.

Paid opportunities:

• Paid position at Furlough as a Youtube Manager.
  
• There will be upcoming positions as Discord Moderators for other servers.
  

​Check the opportunities channel for more details.

THE GREAT GATSBY...

Have you seen the film or read the book?

Sure you have, but this is a bit of a different story...

This story is about a young brand that is bringing luxury fashion back to its feet.

Literally.

Gatsby Shoes (last week's guest from our Brand Audit session) is looking to reunite men with classic & contemporary footwear.

In the short time they've been operating, they were able to crush the 7 figure threshold using what we like to call "a starter strategy".

They were able to scale quickly with their premium products and were overwhelmed by the amount of value we were able to provide during our action-packed session.

A quick recap for those who missed it:

Site: The promotion strategy needs to be redone (always on 50% off sitewide)

SEO: Create collection pages to drive traffic (currently not using any)

Google Ads: Using a pretty basic setup and not currently capitalizing on its full potential (playing the Google Ads game from 2-3 years ago)

Facebook Ads: Not running any lead gen campaigns or retargeting to warm customers

Email Marketing: Setup proper triggers in flows (to make sure the right emails are reaching the right recipients)

"The goal is $100k a day before 2022 ends... The value from this session will probably get me there."

- Gabe, Founder of GatsbyShoes

Want to witness the power of growth through collaboration?

Join us in the #Furlounge this Thursday @ 2 pm to listen in on some high-value insights!

If you're a brand looking to get your 2022 action plan, then send a message to one of the community managers in the Furlough discord to join the waitlist (Spots are LIMITED).

ROUND UP

Get ready to experience this weeks best bits from our community:

MINDSET A little known productivity hack for perfectionists.

EMAIL MARKETING What the community thinks of the new Klaviyo branding.

ECOM How beginners can start to understand the shipping process.

SEO What questions are involved in an entry level SEO interview.