Felix: Today I'm joined by Chase [Navolich], Director of eCommerce and Marketing for PowerDot. PowerDot is the world's smartest muscle recovery and performance tool, and it was started in 2016, based out of San Diego, California, and is an eight-figure brand. Welcome, Chase.


Chase: How's it going, Felix? Thanks for having me.


Felix: Yeah. Excited to have you on. So first of all, tell me about the origins of the company because you joined about a year into beginning of it. But tell us about how the company began.


Chase: Yeah. Absolutely. The company was started in 2016. It was born out of a larger medical company, our now CEO was running the division of that company that was focused on muscle stimulation, and there was just a large emphasis on creating a product that was a little more consumer-friendly. And os he split off, and he started PowerDot in 2016. I joined in 2017, as we started to put an emphasis on eCommerce and expanding our direct-to-consumer footprint.


Felix: Was the larger company a more B-to-B focus at that time? What was the switch, the spin-off to create PowerDot that was more consumer-friendly?


Chase: Yeah. The company itself was focused on consumers and the medical market. But really, where Eric, our CEO, saw a significant opportunity was on product development and revolutionizing how muscle stimulation was administered, especially to a consumer. So the biggest hurdle that there really is in the adoption of muscle stimulation in general is education. And to dive in to a little more of the background of the product, we're an app-based muscle stimulator. And so through our mobile application, we're able to provide the consumer with a ton of education. So everything from pad placement, to just our news feed that has just a ton of information on how to use the product. We have 15 different programs that are kind of out of the box programs, so you can think anything from warm-up, to active recovery, to massage, pain relief. There's basically a program for every type of muscle therapy that you could imagine, and then also some workout programs, as well. So we really wanted to create an application that was extremely user-friendly and lowered the barrier to entry to allow more and more people to adopt the technology.


Felix: Got it. And we had mentioned that you joined about a year later. When you first came on to the company, what were some of the key initiatives and areas of focus that you particularly wanted to pay attention to when you first joined?


Chase: Yeah, absolutely. So we had kind of a distributor network that was set up by our Sales Director at the time, and the business was sort of humming along. There was a couple to lead athletes that were kind of driving the awareness for the business, primarily in the crossfit space, which... there was already some adoption by the community. And really the main initiative was to stand up our direct to consumer business in a meaningful way. That focus over the first year was primarily the U.S. market.
 


So we were already on Shopify at that time. We were just on basic Shopify account, and I immediately jumped in, and immediately started at the grassroots of the business, just kind of cleaning up, looking at site optimization for conversion rate, cleaning that up a bit and then looking at some of the basics around newsletter campaigns, and just setting some of those flows. So that was what we initially did over the first, I would say, six months. And luckily, with a little effort and a really small team, the time it was just myself, we were able to create some significant traction in the company at that point really pivoted, and put a really major focus on our direct-to-consumer business.


Felix: Got it. So you said something earlier about how education was a key component of this. When you do have a product, or you're in a market that requires of education, tell us first how unaware was the target market? How much eduction was required?


Chase: Yeah. So our main market at the time, and it still rings true today, they're athletes. So I think, at the core, athletes understand the fact that they need to recover in order to continue to perform at the highest level. But they're not necessarily aware of the best ways to recover, or get the most out of their bodies. So when you start to talk about electric muscle stimulation, people get thrown off by "electric". "Wait, you want to do what? You want to shock my body? And that's going to do what for me?" So I think that's the biggest hurdle that you have to get people over in the initial stages.
And then beyond that, it's just how do you use the product. Right? It's not a product that you inherently know, and it's a little daunting. You're sticking electrodes pads onto your body, and then you're firing electricity into your soft tissue. And at the end of the day, it's actually a very natural way to go about it, but it's still something that can put people off, or scare people a little bit.
 And so there was a lot of challenges at the beginning to just start to get that adoption, and to break through that barrier. And luckily, we've been able to do that. And both on the user side, so once we've actually captured a customer, pushing them down to our app and allowing them to explore and be comfortable, but then how do we tell that story before somebody becomes a customer, when they haven't seen our app. And that's where, obviously, the direct-to-consumer side of the business is really important. Because we have that ability to further educate the customer in a meaningful way, with video content, and written content, and photos, and landing pages that are dedicated to each different core demo that we're speaking to. That's why direct-to-consumer became so important for us.


Felix: Got it. So when you do have either a product or a market that might have some confusion or, I guess, some false perspectives that there's concern about, "Oh, what are you going to do? Shock my body?" Like, this question? How did you know that that was a question or a concern, or a confusion on your target customer's mind? How did you discover what kind of questions or areas of confusion that you should focus on from an education perspective?


Chase: Yeah. Like I said, part of our team was already in the industry, and the rest of our team that we've built since, we're all former athletes, and still, none of us are competitive athletes at this point, but we're definitely the weekend warriors, and so just by generally understanding the market, we were able to identify that that was a hesitation for people. And then it was really just about finding ways that made sense to correct that issue. So yeah, I would say primarily just through a market research.


Felix: Yeah. That confusion that you talked about is almost like a fear-based confusion, where they don't want to buy something that seems scary. So for that type of objection to a sale, what's the best remedy to make someone comfortable, or at least reveal the truth about your product?


Chase: Yeah, absolutely. It's really just about validation. Right? How do you validate a product that people are fearful of, potentially, or they don't necessarily understand it, or they might not believe in it in general. One of the common terms that we still deal with today is the term "snake oil". And we have tons of clinical research that backs us up, and therefore, we've been able to secure and FDA clearance on our products. As a type II medical device, the FDA clearance piece was obviously pivotal. That's a stamp of approval on a product. But outside of that, it was really validating the product through athletes, and through physicians that have got behind the product, and have become ambassadors for the brand. And they're able to speak to and inspire the next generation, or the next tier below them, which tend to be our consumers.


Felix: Got it. It's almost appealing to authority, or people that have this expertise coming in, and almost co-sign the efficacy of the product.


Chase: Yeah. And it was really co-signing the efficacy of the product in the way that we market the product. So one of the other issues with muscle stimulation, and there's probably a lot of people listening to this that go, "Oh, yeah. I do know what that is." But if you look at some of the brands that have sold it in the past, it's oftentimes packaged as the 6-minute abs, or the cheat code to getting fit, and that's absolutely not how we sell this product.
There are some aesthetic benefits to muscle stimulation, but we're primarily focused on muscle recovery and pain relief. And this is a product that has been used for decades for both of those primarily in a clinical setting, whether you're in an athletic training room, or at your physical therapist. And we've taken that technology and packaged it to where you can use it at home. And obviously, right now, with current times when people don't necessarily even have access to getting the massages that they used to, or going to the physical therapist, or going to the athletic trainer if they're the collegiate or high school, or even the professional level, access is just very limited right now. So by creating a product with similar technology that people could access from the comfort of their home, that knocked down a big barrier for us. But then, it was just, again, about validating it, and we've really done so through a list of athletes that are ambassadors for the brand, and doctors or physicians that additionally are ambassadors to the brand.


Felix: Got it. I imagine this is something that you deal with less and less, but for anyone out there that faces these kind of criticisms from the public at large, that they say, "Snake oil," or "A scam," when you have educated someone that is willing to listen, it's most likely no longer a problem. But when you're posting things on social media or your ads are running, and people are commenting on it, I'm assuming that must have happened at some point, maybe it still happens today. How do you handle that as a business, when you believe in your product, your customers believe in it, but there are people out there, they are in the public, they are often always skeptical. They're still ready to criticize and disparage the product or the methodology?


Chase: Yeah, absolutely. Obviously, often referred to as trolls, but some of them have valid concerns. Right? So I think you're always going to have that, as a business. It can be challenging at times, but we really look at it as an opportunity to further educate. And for every person that asks a question, or comments that something's snake oil, or they don't believe in it, or whatever it may be, there's probably five to 10 other people that believe the same exact way, that just aren't brave enough or don't want to take the time to ask a question. So when those questions are posed in the comments of an ad, we really look at that as an opportunity to not only educate that person, but educate the other group of people that may be potentially viewing that ad, and wondering the same thing. So yeah. We're happy to jump in and start engaging with those people.


Felix: Yeah. I think it's an important point. I think often the reaction, especially when you're a new entrepreneur, where this kind of comment hurts, you're quick to ignore it, or delete it. But the one thing I've always heard is the best kind of marketing is the one where you can join the conversation that's already happening inside your prospects' or potential customers' heads because these are probably common thoughts that are going in people's heads, and now you have an opportunity to address it, where otherwise, if you deleted it or ignored it, you lost that opportunity. So I think you touch on a really important point here.
So tell us more about how this education journey begins. Because you had mentioned that you had the app, where there's a lot of education going on, but you also mentioned that you have the website, where there's a lot of education going on too, but how do they get introduced to wanting to learn more about the product in the first place?


Chase: Yeah, absolutely. A majority of our advertising is done through social, both on the organic and the paid side, so to your exact point, because it allows the community to engage, we found that is a great way to start that process, to make people aware of what we're doing, make people aware that this technology exists, and we've seen that really benefit our brand.
So we continue to do that. We continue to kind of start that journey across social, but as the brand has grown, and as our marketing budgets have grown, we've been able to secure strategic partnerships to bring awareness to the product, as well. So for obvious reasons, the more awareness that we can bring to the brand, and get people interested in at least exploring what we have to offer, the more ability we have, the better ability that we have to educate those customers.


Felix: Can you talk to us a little bit about the goals that each of these levels where... It sounds like you have the social element, organic, and paid, is probably the first touch point that a prospect has with your brand, with your products. Then once they're on your website, inside your funnel, inside your email list, and then eventually, when they become customers, members of the app. What's the goal of each point, maybe starting with the social? What's the goal of that kind of interaction with a prospect on social first?


Chase: Yeah, I mean... Speaking specifically to social, we use social every stage of the funnel. So we're definitely using social as a tool to gain that top of funnel interest, and then funneling people down through education, and then through conversion. And so, if we're speaking specific goals to Facebook advertising, our optimizations are always set for conversions because we know that we need to bring customers into to the brand that have a mindset of converting.
One of the things... We don't need to go too far down the Facebook rabbit hole, but one of the things that I think is overlooked by people often, and especially as data privacy becomes more and more prominent in our industry, allowing Facebook's algorithm to... trusting Facebook's algorithm, which I know is a hard thing to do, but it's very, very important from my experience to trust them and to allow them to find the customers that they know are right for your brand. And so I would say that over the last six months, one of the things that we've really done on that front, is pull back a lot of our segmentation, and go for more of a broad audience appeal at the top of funnel.
So we'll keep it very broad, and always optimizing for conversion, and making sure our content really tells the message that we're trying to get across. And then, as we start to drive traffic in some of our middle funnel, bottom funnel campaigns, they're obviously a lot more segmented, and a lot more focused on pushing people through that final stage of education, and then down into the actual conversion.


Felix: This is an important point that I want to go over because I think this is a trend that I'm starting to see a lot more savvy online marketers taking, which is like you've mentioned, trust the Facebook algorithm more. Rather than you going ahead and doing a segmentation on behalf of Facebook, especially top of the funnel, you are putting the control back to Facebook, and going with the broader targeting. But you're now doing your targeting through the creative that you run inside your ads. So tell us more about that. How does that work?


Chase: Yeah, absolutely. The biggest goal of Facebook advertising at the top of the funnel, one of the largest goals, is to reach more people. Right? The more people that you reach, the larger your opportunity is to capture new business. And so one of the clear set ways to do this is to get our CPMs as low as possible, and so by keeping our audiences very broad, and allowing Facebook's algorithm to do the heavy lifting, we get better rates like that. And we're able to reach more people. And as long as our messaging is specific to what our product actually does and it's not just some click-bait messaging, then we actually get qualified customers, and we know that those people that have clicked in, are one, if you're optimizing for conversion, they are people that Facebook has flagged as people that buy products online and more importantly, through Facebook. And two, you're able to then go back and start to re-target those people with a lot of confidence.
So at the top of funnel, it is very broad. And when I say "broad," I mean it's broad. Like, our audience is... the only segmentation that we do is male and female. And then we'll keep it within our age demo that we know is our hot age demo. But we're not segmenting by engaged shoppers. We're not segmenting by lifestyle. We're not segmenting by any of these segments. The only time at the top of funnel level, that we step outside of that very broad audience is when we do look alike audiences. And so we'll model look alike audiences off of past purchases, and add the carts, and initiate a checkout, and we'll create a variety of different size look alike audiences that we also will go out and target in a very similar way. But oftentimes, those audiences are just as large as our broad audience is, but just a little bit more segmented.


Felix: Got it. So I think the art and science of all of this comes down to the messaging, to the creative itself. So tell us about that. Once you make this transition to go really broad, which sounds like tens of millions potentially that you're targeting, how do you refine the messaging in your ads so that you are attracting the right eyeballs and not having the wrong prospects coming to click to watch and click on your ads?


Chase: Yeah, absolutely. So at the end of the day, it's not like we just said "Okay, Facebook can do a better job at advertising than we can." It's really, I guess, gone full circle and to understanding who your cohorts really are, and what messages make them tick. So we definitely still know who our target audience is. We definitely have done the research to understand what makes those audiences tick, and we then convert those thoughts and those ideas into meaningful creative that is... One, it's eye-catching; two, it's engaging; and three, it gets through the message that we want to get through. And I think that... I guess the advertising world in general went from exactly that to, "Hey, who can growth-hack..." that was a very popular word five years ago, "who can growth-hack the most?"
Look, there are still ways to do it, but I think at the end of the day, most savvy advertisers that are looking to grow meaningful businesses at scale, have been forced back into, I guess, what I would consider the right way to market, and that's to really understand your customer.


Felix: Yeah. It's no longer about what levers you pull. It's about making sure that you take the messaging that resonates. So it comes to this. I think when often entrepreneurs are creating ads, especially for the first time, it's like a blank canvas where they're not sure what to write down, it sounds like you've had a process, at least, of collecting... or understanding your customers and your audience. Tell us more about that. What kind of recommendations or tips you have for someone out there that feels that they don't have a great grasp yet of their audience, and what kind of messaging would resonate? What do you recommend they do to get a better understanding of this?


Chase: Test. A/B test. And continue to refine your message. I think really my main advice would be to not start on Facebook. Don't just open up business day one, no traffic, and think you're going to throw money at Facebook and see a bunch of success overnight. A lot of people come to me and to my colleagues and say, "Hey, look. You guys are doing so great on Facebook, and really digital advertising in general. How do I replicate that?" And when I hear that they have no traffic, and they've had no customers to their store either organically or through other activations, I turn them away from it. It's not smart to start there. But once you do know your customer, it's a very great place that you can scale, almost infinitely.


Felix: Got it. So when you were... or I guess when you give this recommendation to go organic first, are there tactical things you can do on day to day basis to just develop a stronger and stronger understanding of your customer?


Chase: Yeah. Definitely. I think that before you start any business, you should do a fair amount of market research, and look at your competitors, and look at other brands that are in the space, and that are successful in the space, and just understand what they're doing. It's not to say that they're doing it at 100% right, but it'll at least give you a jumping point. And then you can go and you can craft your own strategy based around that. Everyone's lying to you if they say that they're not looking at their competitors and they're not looking at the industry that they're in, and using that to kind of guide them either through innovation or through just a better understanding what that market segment is really looking for. But I'd urge people to do that market research and to make sure that they understand the customer at least at a very basic level before jumping into the brand.


Felix: Got it. And you had mentioned something earlier about how when it comes down to the ads that you create, you guys are optimizing it for conversions. And it begs the question of like... that there are so many... not so many, but that there are different ways to optimize an ad set or a campaign. Why would you ever choose anything other than optimization, or optimizing for conversions?


Chase: The easiest way to think about it is, think about it as a retail store, which by the way, I oftentimes do. I do that very often. I think of our online store as a retail store because it's just traditionally what people are used to. And so when you think about a retail store, you have the people that walk by your store and look in the window, and that's the people that are scrolling through Facebook, right? And then you have the people that walk in, and they're browsing. They're a little bit more than a window shopper, but they have not intention of buying. And then you even have the people that go in, and they start asking questions. And they say, "How much is this? What kind of fabric is this made out of?" based on whatever type of store they're in. But again, they still have no intentions of actually buying it. And then you have the people that are going there with an intent to make a purchase.
Obviously, Facebook's a little bit different because no one's necessarily scrolling through their Facebook with an intent to buy a product that they've never seen before, but Facebook still knows the type of people that will make a purchase. So by optimizing for a purchase, for conversion, no matter if you're looking to convert that person on their first visit or their 10th visit, you still want to drive traffic to your site, that is of people that have an intent to make a purchase, or that are comfortable making purchases online.
And so that's where... Obviously, Facebook can't just give us a huge segment of people that do that, but if you optimize for that, they themselves, and the algorithms can optimize your campaigns to at least only go in front of people that have that intent.


Felix: Hm. So am I hearing that you're saying that you would never optimize for anything other than conversions?


Chase: There's one scenario where I will, and it's lead generation. And that's... the only time that we typically do lead generation is if we're doing some sort of giveaway that we're putting paid behind, or we're looking to grow our email or SMS list.


Felix: Got it. So you had mentioned as well that one of the things that you do is, you partner with these trusted voices, these trusted authorities in the space. Can you say more about this? Tell us about how that program works.


Chase: Yeah, absolutely. So we have a few different ways. We have I guess our athletes that are with the brand, that we use their name and likeness across our site, across our marketing initiatives. And we work with those people on two different fronts. One is amplification over their own media channels. So whether that's their website, their YouTube channel, their Facebook, or just through branding while they're competing in their event.
And then we also take that same messaging or similar messaging, and we amplify it across our own media. So our social media, our newsletter, our website. That piece of it is really the validation piece. But then, whether we're talking about driving awareness, utilizing those voices, one thing that we had a lot of success with, and this ties back to social once again... This is starting like a PSA for Facebook, but it's a great place to amplify those athletes' messages, and a very organic way to reach people with a message that is not from a brand, to start. Because I think a lot of people, when they hear a message through a brand, they're skeptical. They know that that brand wants to sell them a product at the end of the day. But when they hear it from somebody that they either care about, or it's somebody in the vertical that they care about, they're a lot more receptive to that message, or to at least stopping and acknowledging that there is a message.
And so we have found a lot of success taking an athlete, pairing it with a message that is authentic to them, and then amplifying that message across social media.


Felix: Yeah. I definitely see the value in unbiased, or at least less biased, source of marketing.


Chase: Yeah.


Felix: I think one of the challenges that you might face here is that now you have less control over the kind of messaging. Ideally, your brand ambassadors, these trusted partners that you work with all line up with your messaging from the top of the funnel to the bottom of the funnel. But do you find that it's sometimes harder to touch on certain points where you know that you cover a certain type of messaging, a certain type of feature, or benefit of the product that would move the needle more, but you just haven't found a trusted voice or source that has said that themselves?


Chase: Yeah, that brings up a really great point. And one of the things that I think we've done well as a brand, anyway, is our partnerships never start with us reaching out to somebody because we think that they're the right person for it. The only time that we'll do that is if somebody's maybe injured or something, and it's truly, "Hey, we think this product can help you. If it does, let us know. We'd love to get your feedback." And most of our relationships have started either by the athlete reached out to us, or us reaching out in that way. But it's never, "Hey, we want to pay you x amount so you can say exactly this." That's just not how we do business. But by making sure that we start first with people that are actually advocates of the brand, it makes that a lot easier because they understand the value, and they're receptive to helping spread the messages that we would like to spread. And oftentimes, they're coming up with the messages that resonate really well with their audience.
So I don't necessarily see that as a detriment. I see it as a value-add to the business. And then to go beyond that, I said that... in the beginning of talking about this, I said that we worked with a variety of different levels, I guess, of ambassadors. And so the next tier would be the people that we maybe not... We don't necessarily have a hard-bound relationship with them, but they are advocates of the brand, and we do work with them as a true brand ambassador. And below that, we have a ton and ton of loyal customers, that are arguably our best advocates.
So we've set up a loyalty program actually utilizing one of the apps on the Shopify app store. It's called LoyaltyLion. And that program's done exceptionally well for us, so hats off to guys at LoyaltyLion for putting together a really awesome product. We've used quite a few different loyalty programs in the past, and this is the one that's really stuck. But yeah, so we empower our community to spread the word, and oftentimes, when you change people's lives for the better, people that are maybe in chronic pain, or have some nagging soreness, or nagging injury, or they're just recovering from an injury in general, when you start to change people's lives, you'd be amazed at the amount of just natural support that you get. And so empowering those people, and incentivizing those people to share their stories has been extremely effective for us.


Felix: Got it. Can you say more about how you use this app to do all this? You mentioned you tried a bunch of different ones. What was it about this particular app that really allowed you to give a channel, or way to promote and encourage your customers to spread the message of your brand?


Chase: Yeah. I think really one of the main things that I always look for in marketing initiatives, especially ones that require the attention of a user or of a customer, is they need to be simple. Right? Simplicity allows people to easily buy into a program. It's actually very similar to why our product is as simple as it is. It just creates an easier adoption. And so LoyaltyLion really had a simple process, and they were able to kind of bend and work with ass to create a kind of out of the box solutions.
So our product is app-based, so all of our users, any time that they engage with the product, are visiting our app. And so one of the things that we knew we wanted to do was, we wanted to create a landing page of course on our site, but we wanted to be able to push people there from our app. So we built in features within the app that encouraged people to sign up for our loyalty program, and to spread the word with their friends and family. Like I said, it's been extremely successful. The other piece of that is how do you reward those people? Our product, we have some are razor blade model, so you purchase the hardware, and then you have pad replacements that are required after 25 to 30 uses, so that creates a natural product for us to incentivize people with, and really starts to dramatically impact our customer acquisition cost because a free set of pads is a lot cheaper than it costs us to go out and acquire a customer on social media, or through a partnership, or something like that.


Felix: Mm-hmm (affirmative). Makes sense. One other way that you're able to use this built-in... or not built-in, but this customer base that you've grown is through these reviews. And I think you have over a 1,000 reviews through your different products. Tell us about how that happened. How were you able to encourage and get people to leave reviews for the products?


Chase: Yeah, absolutely. So one of the biggest things that we've worked on at PowerDot would be our email marketing flows. So obviously, we have our company newsletters that go out. These are typically blogs that have educational content, but then, we also have a lot of flows that we've built out. And we use Klaviyo as our ESP, which makes it super simple to do so. But we have both pre-purchase flows, and then post-purchase flows. So after you make a purchase, your experience with PowerDot, and your experience with the engagement you get from the brand, it doesn't stop there. So you get a series of emails that are both educational, but then also ask a variety of different things for you to do on behalf of the brand. One of those things is to leave a review for us.
Then we also... going back to the app, we also have a feature within the app, that automatically after your first session will ask you to leave a review, and we've had a very good adoption with that. So finding ways... I think the biggest lesson there... Obviously, not everyone has an app. But the biggest lesson there is, once somebody buys from you, they are arguably more valuable than anybody else to your business. So it's extremely important not to neglect those people because you've already got their money. I would say if anything, it's time to double or triple down on the investment that you've made in that person to turn them from a first-time customer into a loyal customer, and then into a product advocate, as well


Felix: Got it. Speaking of email, even before they are a customer of yours, one thing I've noticed is that when I went to the website was that there was a full page takeover for email signup. This must not have been an easy decision to make. Tell us about that. How did you guys decide to go with this approach for a landing page of your website to be so focused on email collection.


Chase: Yeah. So I think one of the biggest challenges that we had is the organic traffic that... If we know that we're driving somebody from an ad that's talking about pain relief, we know we can segment or funnel that person to a landing page that speaks specifically to pain relief. But because our product does so much for so many different people, we needed a way to really start to segment who those people were. So we made the decision to go to a full page takeover, but make it meaning for the customer. So it's not just full page takeover that says, "Hey, do you want 10% off your next purchase, or your first purchase? Get it by signing up for our newsletter." We wanted it to have more meaning to that.
So if you notice, the first thing it does, it asks you kind of use-case question. What are you here for? What are you looking for? And by qualifying that person, we're then able to better understand who that customer is, and push them to content that either through our newsletter, or through our website, or through our marketing because we've actually tied all of those questions back to our Facebook audiences as well... we're not only collecting website visitors. We're collecting website visitors that have engaged with any of those, and we know who those people are, so we can tailor messages to them. And then we can also tailor larger audiences, or model larger audiences, based off of those people, going back to the look alike audiences.
But yeah. It was a lot... It was scary. But one of the things that we do really well is, we use Google Optimize to A/B test almost every decision that we make on the site, and I think that's something that a lot of people tend to overlook. People want to move so fast. They feel like they know what's right for their brand, so they make a change on their site, and then two or three weeks down the road, they're like, "Man, why is it... Why are things behaving different?" And then you kind of lose track of what you've changed, and you don't know what to go back to. And you just left yourself guessing. So by using Google Optimize, we're able to A/B test those changes, and you're able to know fairly accurately if that decision is the right one for your business. So we did that with the site takeover, and to be honest with you, the conversion optimization based off of that was outstanding. It was definitely the right decision to make, and it's definitely here to stay so much so that we actually look to expand on that experience.


Felix: Yeah. I think that the really key thing that you pointed out that I failed to mention was that you do ask about the use case first. It wasn't just click the email address right at the bat. You really wanted to know why people were here to visit. And you're basically tagging them for a specific use case, like for all your marketing channels?


Chase: Yeah. Exactly. So they get tagged within Klaviyo, and then they also get added to a specific Facebook audience so we're able to go back. The Facebook audience happens whether or not you actually submitted your email as long as you're not blocking the pixel or the cookies. So yeah. We're able to segment in Facebook and then obviously, the next stage of the popup is more of your traditional, where there's an incentive to actually sign up for the email.
Soon, we're also be adding SMS to that, as well, which outside the email has been established as one of our fastest growing marketing channels.


Felix: So speaking of... we'll start with email first. You mentioned that there's a pre-purchase email series. Tell us about that. What are some of the most important email that's sent, when you have someone that's joining as a lead, that's not a customer yet?


Chase: Yeah, absolutely. The most important thing is your first two emails are going to be the most impactful emails on your entire flow. So making sure that those first two emails get your message across, are the most important. So typically, if you're providing some sort of incentive for signing up for your list, people will want that right away. So we make sure that first email in that segment has exactly what somebody had signed up for, whether that's a pdf document, or some education, or a discount, or whatever the case may be. Providing that to them immediately is crucial.
And then the second one is just really starting to get your brand message across that is specific. In our case, because we are segmenting, and we are getting that use case specific to whatever that person had signed up for. That's why it so important for us to understand that.


Felix: Got it. And you mentioned SMS was another channel that has started to grow very fast. How are you collecting the phone numbers for that?


Chase: Yeah. So we primarily use that for abandoned carts at the moment. And then, we also have a list of people that we've collected in a similar fashion. So the only collection that we get is at checkout. But because we've had such success with that program, we're looking at ways that we can expand upon it, and create a similar experience that we have with our email marketing.


Felix: Mm-hmm (affirmative). Yeah, I think one of the key differences with email marketing is that it's had years, or decades really of experimentation, or best practices, which has evolved a bit. But for the most part, there have been best practices that have been applied. But with SMS, it's brand new territory especially for a lot of eCommerce brands. What have you learned so far about this transition? I think, when most people have an email list, and they decide to add SMS, they kind of just try to transfer a lot of practices over from email to SMS, but it doesn't seem to work out as well.
 So when you are adding SMS to your marketing channel, what are the key differences between that and email?


Chase: Yeah, look. I think, in today's world, you can get away with sending a lot of emails. But with SMS, you're being a lot more intrusive on that person's life. Going directly into the messages on their phone, where typically, that's not a space where brands have lived. That's for your friends and family. So being respectable about how you go about that, how often you're sending messages, what time of day you're sending the messages, and then also crafting the messages that feel like it's a text message. You definitely don't want to send an SMS message that has some long form copy in it. It's get your point across, do it in a way that's meaning to the customer, and then be respectful about how you're collecting those phone numbers, and how you're sending out those messages, as well.


Felix: You've mentioned that one of the first areas of focus that you wanted to pay attention to when you first joined four years ago was around optimization for conversion rate. Do you remember what some of those changes were back then? Are those the changes that you would still recommend other store owners to take a look at when it comes to optimizing their website for conversions?


Chase: Yeah. Obviously, optimizing for conversionis the most important thing that you can do outside of then driving traffic to be converted. So we've done a variety of different things. It really starts with messaging and site structure. So how are you funneling people in the least amount of clicks from point A to point B, to a purchase. So we've put a lot of emphasis on that, again, going back to simplifying the site as much as possible. But then also creating those unique funnels for those different segments based off of what people are actually looking for, and making sure that every scenario, you're going from point A to point B, to your purchase. Right?


Felix: Yeah. Makes sense. One thing I noticed on the website was the live chat feature, which I think is powered by the Gorgias app. Tell us about that. Is that often utilized by the traffic that comes to the website?


Chase: Yeah. Totally. So we're actually a pretty small team. There's in the eComm department, we have four people... well, we have three people actually focused on eComm. Then we have a content creator, and then we have two customer service reps. One of the customer service reps is exclusively on live chat throughout the entire day. And there's definitely a lot of usage through that, especially again, going back to the education on the product. It provides a very easy way for customers to quickly get the answers that they're maybe not finding on the site, and get pointed in the right direction. So we actually see a decent amount of revenue being generated.
And what's cool about Gorgias is it tracks all that. It tracks the interactions that you've had, and how those have converted so yeah, we see a significant uptick in customers that interact with the Gorgias app.


Felix: Awesome. So powerdot.com is the website. I'll leave it as the last question. That's looking into the future. So one thing you mentioned too was global channel expansion distribution was a focus for the business. What's in store for the future of PowerDot in this realm?


Chase: Yeah, definitely. Like I said, we started in the U.S. and we've since expanded our direct-to-consumer that we actually own and operate entirely from the U.S. We now are on Shopify Plus account, and we've expanded into all of Europe, U.K., and Canada, and we look to continue to expand now into the Middle East and Australia as well. So yeah, continued international expansion, and a continued focus on increasing conversion and driving more and more awareness for the brand.


Felix: Awesome. So again. Powerdot.com. And thank you so much for coming on and sharing your experience, Chase.


Chase: Thank you, Felix.