Felix: Today I’m joined by Trevor Crotts from BuddyRest. BuddyRest sells the best dog beds in the world for better sleep and better adventures, and was started in 2011 and based on Wichita, Kansas, welcome, Trevor.
Trevor: Thanks for having me.
Felix: Yes. Tell us a little bit more about your background, and how you came about this business idea to start a business like this.
Trevor: Yes. So I've been an entrepreneur since a young age. I'd start off with the whole ongoing thing that everybody talks about, but we got into eBay business in the mid 2000s, and really, kind of cut my teeth on learning how to sell online, primarily through eBay. And then I went through a bunch of different companies, different organizations, and my background was really as a corporate trainer. So I learned pretty quickly. What really filled my cup was not just selling products, but teaching people how to sell a product. And I was actually working in the mattress industry for one of the major mattress companies, and I was selling and teaching people how to sell these products. I have a big dog and I always been a big dog person. I've had a dog since I was a kid. And being a single guy with this big dog, he's my best friend. His name was Buddy, his name is Buddy and he's still around.
Trevor: But we saw, and I say we, me and a friend of mine, named Jordan, who was working in the mattress industry with me, saw an opportunity because when it came time for me to look for a product for something that was going to be supportive for Buddy because I knew firsthand how important sleep was and how it had made a big difference in customers, and really had improved the quality of life, I realized there's nothing out there for dogs. There was some orthopedic dog beds out there and memory foam dog beds, but none of them were really memory foam. None of them were truly orthopedic. They all were basically like the same foam that you find in a shipping situation, that crappy foam that no one wants to lay on. And it's not the same stuff you find in a mattress. And so I saw an opportunity to do something because when I was doing this research, we really found out that big dogs, oftentimes they live about three or four years or less, they have a much shorter lifespan than their smaller counterparts. And the reason is because of painful joint problems.Big dogs suffer from painful joint problems, is the number one reason why they're euthanized as they get old. The quality of life goes down the hill.
Trevor: So knowing all this and knowing about my expertise in the mattress industry, I saw that opportunity to create a business and do something for my dog Buddy, as well as the millions of dogs out there, and a proactive way, give them the best types of support, the best comfort they can have, and that's why we started BuddyRest in 2011. Now, with that, we decided to not just create the best supportive bed based on scientific principles and when we do use tactile pressure mapping, we used all the same technologies and the same materials over in the human mattress industry. But we also sought to create the best bed in every single way. So a more durable bed that's going to last longer, that's going to need to be washed less, and a bed that is made in USA that people could get behind. So that's what we've endeavored to do and that's where we really got our start.
Felix: Got it. So lots of these features that you're talking about you want it to last longer, be more durable, has to be washed less frequently. Did you have all of these features right from the start or there were these iterations on the original product?
Trevor: Well, the product that we have on the market today obviously has a lot of iterations. But originally what we started with is, we really looking for, how can we reinvent what dog beds actually are? And like I said at the time, there was really nothing out there that was supportive, or durable. When people thought of a dog bed, it's generally thought of as something made overseas, that's cheap, they get smelly and dirty, wash it once or twice, you throw it away. It's a disposable mentality. We were looking for something that was going to be a little bit more durable, last a little bit longer than that, and really provide the value that we knew could be provided out there. So we sought out the different types of materials right out the beginning. What was the best materials we could find? Give you an example. Most people use a commercial nylon when they saw their products together on almost any commercial sewing business. We found kevlar thread, which was a lot more expensive to use than commercial nylon, but it was actually five times stronger at the seam than any other dog bed out there, and we knew that that was going to really contribute to the long term durability.
Trevor: And we also knew that producing a high quality American made mattress was going to be more expensive. And so we needed to make sure that the value was there from a customer standpoint, and so instead of just being more supportive and more comfortable, and also being a proactive measure to help guard against long term joint problems, it needed to be more than that. It needed to be something that was durable and something that people could justify spending that more money on. And so, initially, we sought out all the best materials we could find and we really built the product from a standpoint of meeting those value propositions, and then we kind of reverse engineered it, as far as how can we find the right materials to fill those needs?
Trevor: I think oftentimes, when it comes to product development, and people are developing products, they make the product and then they try to figure out, now, how can I go sell this? And I'm not saying there's anything wrong with that strategy, but that's not the strategy we take. We look for product market fit. How can we sell a product and then how can we make a product to really fit those needs and really solve those problems? And I think that's the number one thing to understand starting with our dog beds, but permeating throughout everything in our organization today is everything is solution based. How can we solve a problem? We're not the best at making the cool funny bow ties that go on the dog's collar or the the fluffy, stylish dog bed with the latest trends. We're in the solution business. We solve problems for pets and pet people and we enrich the bond between pets and their owners. And that's really what our focus is, especially when it comes to product development.
Felix: Yes, I think this is important, which is that you start with the promise almost first and then think about the ideal product that you want to create, and then go back and figure out how to fulfill on that promise. How to create that product that fulfills on that promise. But how do you know what that promise should be? How do you figure what is the product market fit to begin with?
Trevor: To be fair, you can do a lot of different product research. You can see what the competition looks out there, you can fill out a main competitive matrix system, and figure out kind of where you fit in there. But at the end of the day, you just have to put the product out there and see what the market says and then adjust from there. I think that's actually one of our massive advantages, especially for up and coming young Shopify entrepreneurs, your big advantage in this business is that you're not a big slow corporation. If you have a product and a product idea, you can bring it to market pretty quick and get an answer, or you can find out if it's going to be a win or not. And you don't have to buy a container load of products oftentimes, you don't have to wait six months to a year, you don't have to be stuck with a lot of inventory. So, I mean, the key is, is to be lean and be fast and be agile and be ready to reiterate on the product.
Trevor: For us, we look at that as one of our big strategic advantages versus a lot of our competition is that we are quick, we can come up with a product to market, we have an in-house photography studio in our facility here, we can have that product listed on one of our web properties by the end of the day, and we'll know whether it's a hit or not, but the market will tell us whether people want to buy it or not. And maybe we need to make some adjustments along the way. And we believe in kaizen principles and continuous improvement, and making sure that the product can always improve and we can always improve upon how we sell it. But really, the secret to success, I think, is just taking those shots. You have to take as many shots as you can. We aim for the fences all the time, and to be fair, we fail a lot. The key is that we continue to swing the bat, we continue to try to hit that home run. But to continue on that analogy, we hit a lot of singles and doubles and there's nothing wrong with that. Sometimes you don't have a hero product that blows everybody's socks off, but there's still a place for it. And maybe it's just one iteration away from being that hero product, maybe it never will be. For us though, I think the biggest key is just to keep taking those swings and hopefully eventually you get a couple over that fence.
Felix: So you're basically talking about like taking real shots, not theoretical shots by just doing research or pontificating on whether this idea will work or not. And you say, to put the product out to the market and then adjust from there, like that's the approach that you like to take. So for BuddyRest, how small or big of a bed that you place early on, how much time do you put into it? How much investment? How many products were you actually shipping with at first trying to sell?
Trevor: Yes, that's a great question. So along the same lines, obviously you have to take that initial shot, that first step is probably the scariest out of all of them. And for us we started off with one product, one dog bed, and we took it to a local show. And to be honest, it was a mess. I mean, we had a banner with a website behind us, the website wasn't working. I was upset because I was on the phone with these developers I'd hired, they were freelancers. I told them this is our big day and it was just a mess. But what we did get is even though we didn't have even another product to sell people, but we got some validation from the customers and at least a little bit of confidence that, hey, people are interested in this and we have something here. And so we went from there, we built a couple products, we got that website finally built out, and about a month later, we got one sale. And her name was Anne Grossman. I remember it very clearly because Anne Grossman was our first customer and she also was our fourth and fifth customer. She came back and bought another bed and another bed. And those first couple weeks... By the way, shout out to Anne Grossman wherever you are, I appreciate you. I don't know what you're doing or who you are, but thank you.
Trevor: But the fact is, we found that one customer, and then we found another customer, and then another customer. I think people these days, especially with how glamorized the Hollywood approach to entrepreneurship is, they think that I've got to go and get this product and go raise a ton of money and put the product out there and really make sure it's a refined high quality product versus looking for putting something that's minimal or viable out there and actually testing the market out and seeing if it's going to work. Really, sometimes the best way to do it is just to go try to find a customer, and then try to find a second customer, then a third and build from there. That will give you the confidence and the validation to pour more time and money into it. And I think that's what really happened for us.
Felix: So you recommend at first just trying to get customers one by one, rather than trying to think of too much about, how do I scale this up?
Trevor: I mean, it's a measured approach, but the fact is, you got to find one customer to start. I mean, everybody does. I don't care if you want to sell a billion dollars of the products or if you just want to support a lifestyle business that allows you to go surfing on the weekends, whatever your definition of success starts with one sale, one customer. So everybody starts at that same place. Obviously, we all want to focus on these big scalable products, these big scalable businesses, because that's really what moves the needle and that is where the excitement really is. But at the end of the day, we need to find that first customer, build that first product out, get some validation, prove out that product market fit before you start to pour some gasoline on that fire.
Felix: Got it. So you mentioned that you first tried to sell this at the trade shows, tried to sell in person, and you got some feedback out of that. Do you remember some of the changes that you made to the product or to the business or to the marketing based off of that initial feedback?
Trevor: Absolutely. Yes. So one of the first things we heard was that our products are so expensive. And to be fair, we weren't in the business of making the cheapest product out there. We thought, okay, if we're going to make the Rolls-Royce of dog beds, Rolls-Royce probably doesn't apologize for their price. Maybe it's just not for everybody, but we really thought that if you have the features and benefits that really make sense, and you can explain it and articulate it in a way where people can understand it's an investment in the health of their animal, it's a long term investment in the health of their animal that it's a lot easier to sell. And what we found out is that, even though everybody told us that no one's going to spend money on a dog bed like this, maybe not everybody but a lot of people told us that, but nowadays people are spending 70, 80, $90 on a bag of dog food. Nowadays, some people are even cooking their dogs their own meal every night. And nowadays, sometimes people even have those raw diets that are really popular. And I'm not here to judge pet people because us pet people, there's all sorts of levels of crazy pet people on the spectrum and I probably fall somewhere in the middle.
Trevor: But if you look at what the market says, is that things change, and sometimes you can put a product out there and make small changes or sometimes you can put a radical product out there. And sometimes you need to listen to the customer base and the people around you, and sometimes you need to forge ahead and see if you can validate it on your own without them. And I think that's kind of what we did. We got a lot of feedback, initially, as far as price point goes, and quality and we did definitely take that and put into consideration, but at the end of the day, we put it out there to a wider audience and really look to validate it ourselves.
Felix: So when you do have a product that is more of an investment, higher priced product compared to what's out in the market, what should you be focusing on when it comes to your marketing to essentially show to the customer it is worth the investment?
Trevor: Sure. I love that question because I think that is so important to what we do here. But educating the customer. You got to educate the customer especially if you're in a new market or you have a new product. It doesn't matter how great the product is if you can't articulate what the value is to the customer and more specifically, not what the value is, but what the benefit is in a personal way to that customer. So we always talk about here with our team, tying features to benefits in a personal way that the person can, you can turn that light on, they can see how this would benefit me in my life. And a lot of that is that educational standpoint. When we first started with BuddyRest, we had a wholesale strategy. We wanted to be in pet stores across the United States, and even though we knew that we were going to be the most expensive dog bed on the shelf, we thought with the innovation that we had, that we could really change people's minds just like dog food, and we were the tip of the spear. We were just the first.
Trevor: And what we found out even though we did have some success, I mean, I think we were in something like 500 stores in the first two years. What we found out is the reorders weren't there. And when we really cracked down to it, we realized that part time summers, high school employee wasn't able to articulate the value of why somebody should spend the money on our product. We did a great job at the trade show or over the phone talking to the store owners, and maybe the store owners could do it to some extent as well, but the reorders just weren't happening and wasn't moving through the stores. And so what we recognize is that our product was much better served online. And that's why Shopify is a great opportunity for people these days is because you can do a lot of educating to the customer up front, you can teach them a lot about the product and you have to do the marketing in a really nice crisp way where the product images are big, and you can really find a way to show them the product, and that's a really awesome thing.
Trevor: And one thing I think that's worth mentioning is, I'm working on a new program with a European company that is called ScanShop, and you can learn more about it at scanshop.us. And what it is, is a piece of equipment, the quality is unmatched as a really exciting piece of equipment that is basically can take any product, scan it and render a 3D model completely automated. Right now the big problem with 3D models is that they're not really sustainable for most young businesses because they are expensive, you have to have a 3D modeler. You can't really scale it. If you had a whole catalog it would cost a fortune and take forever.
Trevor: Well, we're taking the 3D modelers out of the equation, and really automating it. So much of Shopify is democratized the website building for everyone, we're doing the same thing with 3D models. What's great about 3D models going back to that question about the educational piece is that by being able to really show the product from all angles and even throw it into AR in some situations, which you by the way on BuddyRest.com, we have several of our products as an example, where you can drop it into AR and see how our dog bed look in your living room. It really does bridge that gap between shopping online or shopping at the store. Being able to really educate the customer up front, give them those experiences online and allow them to see the product as much as possible, and obviously write some great copy that talks about the features and the benefits in a unique way is, really I think the secret to success.
Felix: Yes, I see here that you have listed these features were easy to clean, waterproof, temperature neutral, antibacterial. How did you learn that those are the features to emphasize and to put a forefront basically on one of the first places that your customer will see your products?
Trevor: Well, I mean, first and foremost, I'm a dog person. So I looked at what was important, for me most importantly was the support. Obviously, I want my dog to be comfortable, but nobody likes doing the laundry. Nobody wants a stinky, smelly dog bed they constantly have to wash. And also people are tired of buying stuff that's temporary and has to be thrown away. Knowing all those things, what personally mattered to me, and then basically putting it out there and talking to a lot of other people and validating that these are issues that everybody wants to do away with. It doesn't take rocket science to figure out that people don't want stinky, smelly dog beds, and people don't like doing laundry, and people want something that lasts. So I mean, a lot of it is just applying some common sense logic to it, but a lot of it is just being in the market myself and knowing what is important to me.
Felix: Make sense. So now you mentioned that you put the product online back when you first started, how are you driving potential customers to the product at first? How were you going to get those first early sales?
Trevor: We spend a lot of money and CPC upfront, and when I say spend a lot of money, the fact is when you are a young company, you don't have a lot of money to spend. And so if you're really selling for survival, like we were in the early years, you don't have a lot of money or time to deploy in the long term game as far as like the SEO and building the blogs. Those are all super important and I wish that we would have focused more on them early on, but we literally were pouring money into Google AdWords and selling to survive. We needed to get a certain return on ad spend in order to continue to make the cycle work. Luckily, we did a pretty good job with that. Myself, I was the one that ran those ads in the early days. I spent a lot of time trying to figure out how to run the best ad, how to optimize it and I just became a student of the game, and that's what everybody needs to do. As you can't afford to focus on everything.
Trevor: Obviously, in this day and age, everybody knows at this point the kind of age old entrepreneur topic of doing what you're great at and doubling down on that. I do believe in that, but it's not always that easy. You don't always have the ability to hire freelancers. So you should become competent in certain areas. And if you do have the ability to be good at something like PPC, or like SEO, dive into that face first, really learn. Now we have all of the world's information at our fingertips. It's an amazing opportunity that has never been here before. So use that. Instead of spending Saturday afternoon watching Netflix or watching funny cat videos, learn and teach yourself and become better, and continue to reiterate on that and pretty soon you'll become a master, or at least very serviceable that you can pour back in there. So that's what we did, primarily with PPC in the beginning. Over the years, we've really started to focus more on the SEO, social standpoints and we've kind of built out a robust system of assets and content, but in the early days, it was definitely pay per click.
Felix: Got it. You mentioned that you wish you focused on SEO early on. So that's the kind of thing that pays off long term. So you mentioned that nowadays you do focus on that, and I believe you mentioned to us in a pre-interview about how your main property has grown over the last, I think you said 25% every two months. Tell us more about this. What is your approach to content marketing and SEO to get this kind of growth?
Trevor: The secret is really putting out great content. And putting out great content means a lot of different things, but to me, what I think it means is putting out content that's relevant to your audience that people really want to read, and understanding how to monetize that content. Super important. So for us, we have a staff here, we publish... our goal is 10 to 12 blogs a week, which is a lot. And that's a heavy goal. We have numerous properties now. I mean, we started with BuddyRest, and we built or bought multiple different brands now that allow us to have a really good approach to the pet industry in general. But not just basically putting out that content, but making sure it's quality. Google obviously wants to provide the most relevant search results. And so you need to think about that, don't just be keyword stuffing, don't just be throwing random articles that nobody wants to read.
Trevor: The other thing that I think is kind of scary is that, nowadays AI is able to write and that's only going to get better and improve more. And so I think now more than ever, we need to really focus on legitimizing our own content, seeking out people who are high quality and experts in certain areas and really building a moat against that AI disruption. And so once you've done all that, and you have great content and you've got great traffic, then you really need to focus on, how do I take this top of the funnel traffic and get them deeper into the funnel. And so we do some free samples, we do a lot of lead magnets, and we just look at, how do we nurture these customers long term, because we're always thinking about the lifetime value of the customer not just trying to make that transaction today, which is quite a bit different than what I was talking about when we started with BuddyRest and were selling to survive day by day.
Felix: So the content marketing system that you created to put out 10 plus blog articles. Tell us more about that. What is the process, that maybe someone out there might not have a team working on it, but maybe it's still adoptable for their own kind of solo entrepreneur approach to creating a system where you can churn out great content? So what is the system that you guys have for yourselves?
Trevor: Well, the first thing I would suggest would be to get some tools to use. I mean, tools are kind of hard in the beginning because they obviously are an investment. Don't just be writing articles that you think people want to read. Do the keyword research. Moz is great. We like SEMrush here. We do the keyword research, finding out what are the opportunities to rank for? Because you could be putting out the best content in the world, but if your domain authority is terrible and there's a major player sitting on that content, you're not going to crack that egg. So knowing where to pick your battles is super important. Sometimes I look at things like with smaller companies, you can't just fight them on the open field. We need to do a little guerrilla warfare here. And the way we do that is you use those tools to find where those key words opportunities were, maybe it doesn't have the best traffic, but if you can pick up 10 or 15 of those spots, you can kind of moneyball your way into really getting some decent traffic.
Trevor: First step, get the tools, finding the right keywords, and then focusing on building that content out around those keywords, but making sure that it's not just about the keywords, it's about great content that people want to read. Second, I would say is definitely finding out, once we have that traffic, going back to what I was saying earlier, what do we do with it? Because if a customer just reads a couple of sentences, and then they bounce off your site, they're not really a customer. They're just somebody that's on your site and gone, and you'll never see them again. So how do we capture that traffic? How do we get them into a some sort of workflow? How do we nurture them? That's really what you need to focus on.
Felix: Got it. And you mentioned that that's what you mean by monetizing that content. How do you take someone that's just coming by as a visitor to your site and over time include them in your kind of marketing funnel so that you can eventually turn them into a customer? And you mentioned lead magnets and I'm assuming when you say free samples, that goes along with the cost of lead magnets. So tell us a little more about that. How do you take someone that's just kind of doing a drive by coming to your site, reading one blog? How do you make sure to retain them as a prospective customer?
Trevor: Sure. I think the word around here that we use a lot is compelling. It has to be compelling. There's so much content out there these days that you have to stick out in the crowd, it has to be compelling. And so the lead magnet would be whether infographic or a white paper, whatever it is, it has to be compelling and it has to be tailored to the actual page that people are on. So if we have a lead magnet about dealing with dogs arthritis, but it's only been throwing up on a page that talks about what you should look for in your new puppy, it's really not matching that audience up. So understanding what the audience is there for is super important. Understanding the customer journey, what their intent is, what are they looking for.
Trevor: And a lot of the time they're not looking to buy something, so you need to not be focused on trying to sell them something all the time. Rather than always trying to kick down the front door with a sales message, or some scarcity or some FOMO, sometimes it's better just to walk through the side door and grab a plate out of the cupboard and sit down eat dinner. It's kind of a silly analogy, but really, the idea is that you want to be that smart friend that they come to for advice, not that pushy salesman. And if you can find a way to where you can kind of join them on their journey and help them along the way with information and providing a lot of value up front, when the time for their needs is there and they want to buy something, you're going to be the first person they turn to, and you're going to be right there sitting next to them ready to sell them whatever they need to buy. That's ultimately what we're focused on, I think here is trying to put compelling content that it really gets them in the flow and gets them familiar with who we are and what we do.
Felix: Got it. And just for anyone out there that might not be familiar of lead magnet is, just giving them additional value like content with a white paper like you mentioned in exchange for their email a lot of times. So you mentioned that you want to have the lead magnet customized or personalized for each blog post that they're reading to make sure that's congruent with the reason why they're on your page to begin with. So do you have different lead magnets for every single blog post or can some of the magnets be reused for different blog posts that are covering similar topics?
Trevor: Yes, I think the lead magnets can be reused for different blog posts with the amount of content that we're putting out on a regular basis, it's difficult to just focus on creating a lead magnet for every blog as well. So, I mean, there's some crossover where you can reuse these different things. One thing we've had a lot of success with on one of our properties is the free sample, just pay shipping, which the shipping cost covers the cost of the sample. It's a great acquisition strategy. The only thing that you need to worry about is it is great because you're capturing their email, they're actually inputting a credit card in, so they are familiar with the site, they're kind of crossing over that threshold. But at the same time, you got to be careful about people that are looking for free and encouraging discount behavior, that's something we want to try to avoid, in this case, so if you got the right offer, something that's been really working well for us.
Felix: So you seen like the free plus shipping types of customers are less likely to actually become returning customers. Is that with the kind of behavior that you're seeing?
Trevor: I think that's probably typical across the board is that people that are looking for free stuff are going to be less likely to be a customer, but I will tell you, I guarantee you, they're much more likely to be a customer than someone that would just click back on the page and never come back. So for us, I think that's the balance you need to look for.
Felix: Got it. So now that you have their email address, whether it be through the free plus shipping or some other type of content based lead magnet after they come to your site, what do you email them? What is that part of the marketing funnel once you have their email? What are you sending them?
Trevor: So you need to understand what the intent was generally when they came into the site. Were they coming through through PPC, were they coming through just organic Google search that brought them to some informational page on a blog. And once you understand that, and you capture their email, you can kind of segment it down from there as far as understanding what kind of message to send to them. Generally speaking, we look to nurture the long-term value of the lead and not just try to sell them all the time. One thing that I think really works good is being able to provide value and saying, hey, you were interested in this, there's some other stuff you might be interested in, and then almost as an afterthought, PS, we're running a sale today on this product that you might be interested in for a 30% off. That's, I think, a nice subtle way of combining both strategies and still being able to sell because as much as we want to talk about delivering value and not being too pushy, at the end of the day, we all want to put dollars into the register. And there's a finesse full way to do it. Doesn't always have to be that overhand shot, sometimes you just need to be able to drop one right over the net.
Felix: Right. So you mention that you need to understand where the customer is coming from, where they are in their buying decision. Does that mean like if they're coming to you through PPC, it means they're probably more ready to buy and they're probably more likely to move on, or you could probably be more aggressive with the selling versus someone that's coming for more informational purposes, and then you kind of hit them with more content and more, I guess, one side of value before you start asking for the sale?
Trevor: Absolutely. Understanding what the intent is of the customers is super important. So yes, somebody who comes through a Google AdWords situation is going to have a much stronger buyer intent, so somebody who is coming through for example, Google Shopping, you can be sure that those people have a much higher opportunity to convert them than somebody that's coming through just long tail organic search. And you're also paying for that. So if you're paying per click, you need to understand that there is an opportunity there as well. So, yes, having a tailored message depending on what the intent of the customer is, is super important.
Felix: Yes. So what are the tools or systems that you use to help keep track of all this to be able to segment your customers in this way?
Trevor: We use a lot of different things. From a standpoint obviously, there's a lot of apps and stuff that you can plug in to Shopify, although I think people suffer a lot of the time when I look at other Shopify sites from where you're looking for that next best thing that's going to change the game, so you have to be really careful because a lot of those apps will leave a lot of code on your site and slow things down, even after you've deleted them, which is something I think it's important to know. But for us, for our standpoint, Klaviyo is in my opinion the best email company there is, with the whole MailChimp, Shopify fallout, we made a switch to Klaviyo and we're not looking back. It's great for segmenting customers. It's great at scaling on those relationships and really being able to deliver personalized value. The problem with Klaviyo for a lot of companies is, it's a lot more expensive. But if you're willing to make an investment and email marketing as part of something that is effective for you, then I definitely think you should jump on that train because it's definitely making a big difference for us.
Trevor: Basically, pairing Klaviyo with Privy has worked really well. Privy offers a lot of the same features from a standpoint of pop ups and whatnot than Klaviyo does, but it's just much more robust with some of the design aspects and some of the A/B testing that's important. In addition to those two channels, obviously, we're big fans of a lot of the Shopify apps that we use or the bold apps, big fan of those for our total stack. Besides that, those are the main core products that we use on a daily basis.
Felix: When it comes to Privy for these kind of pop ups and email capturing, what are some of the A/B tests that you guys have run in? What are the, I guess, results of some A/B test that seem to have really helped with increasing the conversion rate of getting those email opt ins?
Trevor: Sure. So with Privy, you do have a lot of different options to test and a lot of times when people think about A/B testing, they typically think of like, should I do the blue button or the red button, and although that type of stuff is important, a lot of it is really focused on different types of offers, for buyer intent, does this buyer... Sometimes you're surprised. And then if you think the buyers come to the site, they're going to respond to this. And if you put out a couple different offers, you can really see what options they like and really optimize for that. So one thing that we've been surprised for us is on some of the free sample, just pay shipping offers that we've done. One of the samples that we didn't think was going to be near as successful blew the other one out of the water, and we would never know that unless we were able to A/B test those customers. It was the same traffic coming to the same page with two different pop up offers coming to them. And that's the kind of value is delivered by a program like that.
Felix: Now, when it comes to your website, what are some of the pages on here that you guys spend the most time working on A/ B testing and optimizing? What are some of the most important pages for you as a business?
Trevor: I think the most important page is definitely the landing page that comes through from paid traffic, which we're in the middle of working on every single one of those pages. We're heading into the Black Friday season. But going back to what I mentioned earlier about Kaizen principles, we can always optimize, always improve. The landing pages are super important for us. From the PPC stuff, I would say first and foremost, just because you're paying for that traffic, you need to make sure that when it arrives, you have a compelling message that's going to articulate the value of your product in a unique way that raises their perceived value and makes them want to buy the product right then and there. I guess secondary would be, obviously the homepage is pretty important. A lot of people like to look at that, but the landing pages on the blogs, being able to show the blogs and also being able to sprinkle products in there in the right way, that's super important. And not just putting products in there randomly but putting products in there and if possible, including star ratings for social proof and also sale prices. If you're able to put whatever program you're using, if you're able to produce strike throughs and show the sale price, I think that's super valuable too as far as from a tactical standpoint that might help someone today.
Felix: These landing pages, are they the product pages or something more specialized? Are they something other than a product pages?
Trevor: Well, that depends on where the buyer intent is, and the traffic that's coming in. But for a lot of, I guess, what I'm referring to for the main landing pages is we have a couple of main landing pages, but one of them is going to be like the Why BuddyRest page. It's going to really articulate who we are, what we do, why we're different, why they should buy our product, and then it kind of takes them on to the customer journey as far as selecting a product from there. That is something that depending on what you're looking at might be one or five or six different options because we're constantly trying to optimize it. That's that and really, that changes that quite a bit.
Felix: Got it. So you drive a lot of traffic to a page that talks about the value proposition of features of your product?
Trevor: Absolutely, yes. So from a paid standpoint, that's where we focus most of our energy on. When we first started, I think lots changed in the last seven, eight years, but when we first started, we put all the traffic to our homepage, which I think is a common mistake for newbies is that you think that your homepage has to do all the selling. Really, I think the homepage is there for navigation, for validation. It's not necessarily the main sales page. So I would definitely recommend having a landing page that's really going to be curated and tailored for that audience, depending on what their intentions are. So if they're coming in looking to buy a particular type of product, and you think that based on whatever avatar or whatever customer research you've done, you think that there are hot buttons, or are what really matters to them are these features versus these features, you need to really emphasize those features instead of talking about everything. And on the other hand, you need to have a second landing page that focuses on the other features because what really matters is not just the features, but the features and how they're tied to benefits in a unique way.
Trevor: And so oftentimes as salespeople, or even myself sometimes, you talk about features, features, features, but really what matters is not features, but benefits, and what really matters is how those things benefit the audience, because if it's a feature and a benefit that doesn't matter to the customer, then it's really nothing. Right?
Felix: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Trevor: So having features and benefits that are on a landing page that's specifically tailored to the audience, whether it's based on how they're coming onto the page, or where you're targeting them. I think it's super important.
Felix: That makes sense. So are there lots of different variations of these Why BuddyRest pages?
Trevor: Yes. So we have a few different variants of everything that we A/B test on a regular basis that allows you to basically come in. Are you more concerned about the health of your animal? Are you more concerned about a "made in USA product?" Are you more concerned about long-term durability? What really is your hot button, or what are you looking for, and how do we really emphasize that as the focus? I think we do mention all of the features and benefits in kind of a unique way on every page, but we emphasize different things that we think the audience will find more compelling than others.
Felix: Now, once they make it to this, Why BuddyRest page, what is the call to action off of that pages, is like to a product or like what's the next step that you like them to take?
Trevor: Well, that depends. We do a couple different things on the Why BuddyRest page. Ultimately, we want to get them into a product, but we don't want to get them into the wrong product. So depending on what kind of challenge they have, depends on where the customer journey takes them next, because some people are going to be looking for one of our more chew resistant products, maybe they have a dog that's suffering from some sort of anxiety, or is a puppy, and so they're looking for something that's going to hold up over time. Maybe it's somebody that's looking for that orthopedic bed, maybe they have a dog that's in pain or a senior dog. And so depending on what that is, is going to take them on a different journey as well. A lot of the time trying to find that right path for them is really the key. So we do a lot of different call to actions as far as, do you want to look at all the beds? Are you looking for the beds that are designed for extra durability, and to resist chewing and scratching? Do you need more education as far as helps a lot selecting a dog bed. We do have a call to action for that. And a lot of it's about having a combination of social proof, having a combination of validation, and then getting them into the category that makes the most sense.
Felix: Got it. So you mentioned a couple times about this focus on cost improvement and ties and principles, and you mentioned to us how important it is to adopt this mentality of done beats perfect. So is this a lesson that you learned the hard way and where did this mentality of done beats perfect make it into your life?
Trevor: I've always been a done beats perfect kind of guy. I don't think I could probably get that binocular when I was a kid. But I always thought that moving fast and getting things done quickly was always the best way to accomplish it. And when you get into entrepreneurship, perfectionism really is the enemy of accomplishment. I've seen it a million different places. It's one of the major questions I asked in every interview. People oftentimes when I as, are you a perfectionist? They think that the answer I want to hear is yes, because it means that they do great work that's perfect, but that is the absolute wrong answer you can provide if you want to work in our organization, because our key competitive advantage is the fact that we can move quick, and that we can get things done, and that we can reiterate on it. Doesn't have to be perfect the first time.
Trevor: And as far as where did I learn that? I don't know. I think it's just ingrained in who I am. Luckily, I wasn't born a perfectionist, because I don't know where I would be if that was the case. But being able to put out an MVP and being able to reiterate on it is super important. I think those who aren't perfectionists, who can get away from that as quickly as possible and just really focus on execution, I think you're going to be much better served than trying to constantly work on the most polished product because you can get a lot more done by moving quick and breaking things.
Felix: Got it. So what tips do you have for entrepreneurs that are too much of a perfectionist and should be thinking this way more where done beats perfect?
Trevor: The unfortunate thing is oftentimes the best product isn't the one that wins. We've seen it a million times in our own business because now we have a lot of competition with knockoffs and cheap imitations. And specifically like on Amazon, for example, sometimes just having those... the best product isn't going to be good enough. And I will tell you early on when we had the competitive advantage of being the only ones out there in the space, having a great product will cover a lot of flaws, whether that be from a standpoint of logistics, you are being able to deliver on time, but at the end of the day, you need to be able to execute quickly, innovate quickly, and be able to keep one step ahead of the competition. If you can't do that, while you're working on that perfect product that may never see the light of day. Your competition has already taken massive amounts of market share for you.
Trevor: So my suggestion would be, find people who aren't perfectionists around you that you can maybe delegate because I'm not so sure, I think a lot of time it's ingrained in us. Find people that you can delegate to, that can execute and let them do their thing. Don't micromanage. In our organization, we look for people who we can point in direction and tell them the what and the why, and maybe not exactly the how, but that hill over there, we need to take it because of this reason and go, and they figure out how to get there on their own. That's the type of people that we value and that's the type of people that execute and get things done. And if you are a perfectionist, I highly recommend finding some of those people and putting them around you.
Felix: Because you spent so many years in ecommerce. Now, what do you see as the future of ecommerce or what are you looking forward to seeing?
Trevor: Ecommerce is a really interesting landscape right now. It's super exciting to be part of it. Obviously more people than ever feel comfortable shopping online. And we're always on the lookout for opportunities and technology that will help increase conversion rate, improve customer user experience. One thing I'm super excited about is 3D modeling. I think 3D modeling is going to be one of the massive opportunities, especially in the next year or two, Shopify is just basically starting to scrape the tip of the iceberg. One thing that we're involved in, I actually have a separate company that's a joint venture partnership with a company in Germany. The German company is called Scanblue and they have a really amazing technology that is able to take any product and create a high quality 3D model of it and at scale. The quality is unparalleled, the cost is as affordable and you can really do full catalogs.
Trevor: And so we're partnering with them as we have a company called ScanShop, and you can actually learn more information about at scanshop.us where we have one of their high quality machines landing in the United States, it's going to be the only one of its kind. And we can take products, scan it into the 3D model, and put that on the web. Why that's super exciting is because it's going to bridge the gap between shopping online and shopping in a store, because you're able to now see the product firsthand, and you're going to be able to turn it on all its access. A lot of people have already seen the 3D models. That's really cool for us, like on buddyrest.com and some of our products, you can even drop it into AR on your phone and see what our bed looks like in the living room, and helps make a buying decision. And we're excited about that because I think the conversion rates are going to go through the roof when we're able to deploy these 3D models across everybody's websites.
Trevor: It doesn't take rocket science to know that the bigger and better quality the image that you can show articulates the better value. There's a direct correlation there for the customer to know that that image, by being able to show that detail increases the conversion rate. And so by being able to give them this really unparalleled user experience is super exciting. Why it's really solving a problem and why I want to get involved in it is because currently 3D modeling for most of the quality's just not there. It's all really done by hand, but it requires a 3D modeler to create them. And it's really not able to be accessible to most Shopify customers and Shopify audiences because they're not able to pay and wait for the turnaround time and pay for the high prices of these 3D modelers. So what's super exciting with this partnership and with scanshop.us, is you're able to go on there and you can submit the products and we can follow up, you can send us a product, we're going to be scanning these and putting them out there at scale. So we can do full catalogs, the quality is going to be unmatched. It's going to be incredibly disruptive. And that is absolutely the technology that I think is going to make the most impact specifically for Shopify owners over the next year or two, and not only just ecommerce in general.
Felix: Awesome. So buddyrest.com is a website, B-U-D-D-Y-R-E-S-T.com and I'll leave you this last question Trevor. What needs to happen for the rest of this year or in the rest of this year for you to consider this year a success?
Trevor: We've been very blessed this year, where success isn't measured by the last couple months of the year, although this is the golden quarter and everybody has a lot of high expectations. We do sell most of our products this last quarter, we outsell all the other quarters for sure. So we want to execute on our game plans. We want to make sure that we have our marketing tight. We want to make sure that we're driving those sales and moving the needle, but this year, we've been really fortunate to win some amazing awards. We worn a World Branding Award, we flew to a palace in Vienna, Austria and got this really prestigious accolade.
Trevor: We've impacted a lot of animals in a lot of different ways. We've got our other brand Natural Doggie, which is naturaldoggie.com that is doing incredibly well with CBD and supplements. And what really is validating for us... when I think about success, I think about impact. What's really validating for us is not the awards and not the dollars that we can at the end of the day, but really, the impact that we've made on the pets around the world and when our head hits the pillow, yes, we are business, but we can feel really good about what we do. And so my suggestion to other people is, do what you believe in, do something that feels good. It's great to make money and make profit, but it's better to make a difference. And for us, if you can find a way to do both, I think that you've got something that you can feel really great about and it can be satisfying for your cup at the end of the day.
Felix: Awesome. Thank you again so much for your time, Trevor.
Trevor: All right. Take care. Appreciate it.