00:00.031 –> 00:04.999
[SPEAKER_00]: The digital platforms are where millions of people are consuming their media each day.

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[SPEAKER_00]: So being as visible as you can on there and having 10 people talk about you in a week instead of one big person on paper.

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[SPEAKER_00]: This sort of feminine effect at that over time really builds up.

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[SPEAKER_01]: It’s the e-commerce master plan podcast.

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[SPEAKER_01]: Here to help you solve your marketing problems and grow your e-commerce business.

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[SPEAKER_01]: Cutting through the hive to bring you inspiration and advice from the e-commerce sector and beyond, here’s your host, Chloe Thomas.

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[SPEAKER_02]: Hello and welcome.

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[SPEAKER_02]: It’s great to have you here.

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[SPEAKER_02]: Thank you for hitting play and choosing to listen to one of our inspiring guests.

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[SPEAKER_02]: Me and the team get so much joy when we see you guys raving about us on social or enlist or blogs.

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[SPEAKER_02]: So it’s only fair to repay that by giving a little shout out to the person who has kind enough to shout about us.

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[SPEAKER_02]: So.

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[SPEAKER_02]: Thank you, Gemma Longman for sharing your feedback.

01:00.044 –> 01:02.010
[SPEAKER_02]: Yes, Gemma Longman, I’m talking to you.

01:02.070 –> 01:05.901
[SPEAKER_02]: Thank you for sharing your feedback on our chat with James from Kirk.

01:05.921 –> 01:07.707
[SPEAKER_02]: So glad you love that episode.

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[SPEAKER_02]: And most importantly, thank you for listening.

01:10.484 –> 01:31.142
[SPEAKER_02]: In this episode, we’re revisiting a past guest story, but instead of interviewing the founder of Seep again, we’ve got their new head of growth joining us, talking about how they’re kicking off 2026 with super successful marketing and growth activity, how he balances acquisition with retention.

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[SPEAKER_02]: We’ll also be talking about how he is planning on capitalizing on the big influx of new customers.

01:38.470 –> 01:42.014
[SPEAKER_02]: They had last year when they appeared on Dragon’s Den.

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[SPEAKER_02]: Lots of interesting stuff alternative advertising strategies.

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[SPEAKER_02]: If you are focused on growth and marketing this year, this is a must listen.

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[SPEAKER_02]: Make sure listen to the end of episode because you also don’t want to miss out on my guest’s top tips.

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[SPEAKER_02]: And now to introduce our special guest, Ed Hamilton is the head of growth at CEP, a certified B-Corp selling eco-house cleaning tools.

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[SPEAKER_02]: Founded in 2020, there are now on target for £10 million in sales this year, via their Shopify store, plus Amazon and wholesale, hello Ed.

02:19.880 –> 02:21.802
[SPEAKER_00]: Hello, lovely to meet you, thanks for having me on.

02:22.362 –> 02:27.808
[SPEAKER_02]: Very cool to have you here, how did you end up in the marvelous world that is Ecommerce?

02:28.480 –> 02:36.192
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, I’ve always been in the advertising world, always loved marketing, media, I’ve got started in a media plan and buying agency.

02:36.672 –> 02:42.801
[SPEAKER_00]: Quite a big one actually part of the Omnicom group and worked on some, yeah, quite a big global, amazing brands.

02:43.102 –> 02:45.566
[SPEAKER_00]: Love it at the time, it felt very glamorous.

02:45.926 –> 02:48.870
[SPEAKER_00]: I grew up loving watching mad men and things like that.

02:48.891 –> 02:50.573
[SPEAKER_00]: So I’ve always been a very,

02:50.553 –> 02:53.717
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, very, very part of the advertising industry and loved it really.

02:53.737 –> 03:06.392
[SPEAKER_00]: And then I took the plans to move to a deep sea brand, a much smaller start-up scale up brand, and sort of fell in love with the ability to be adjarl and to contribute day-to-day and be quite scrappy.

03:06.512 –> 03:10.737
[SPEAKER_00]: And yeah, loved getting to know how to grow a revenue of a brand, really.

03:11.358 –> 03:13.140
[SPEAKER_00]: And then I came across Seap and Laura.

03:13.520 –> 03:19.868
[SPEAKER_00]: And yeah, I was immediately quite inspired by her story and what she’s built and the brand she’s built.

03:19.848 –> 03:29.702
[SPEAKER_00]: And, you know, a lot of people will say sponges and clean soils aren’t particularly gone resected to be in, but what’s really exciting about it is that we, everyone washes up.

03:30.163 –> 03:34.369
[SPEAKER_00]: And therefore, you can have the ability to touch everyone in the UK if we wanted to.

03:34.389 –> 03:38.194
[SPEAKER_00]: So I really feel quite excited about the opportunity that we’ve got in front of us.

03:38.731 –> 03:44.581
[SPEAKER_02]: It must have been quite the contrast going from the big madman agency world to a start-up.

03:45.041 –> 03:55.719
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, I had my career path went from Barkley’s bank to high street retailer to ever decreasing size of business to now it’s me and a hand from a freelancers.

03:57.301 –> 04:02.550
[SPEAKER_02]: I found like, I love the dynamism and they’re getting your hands dirty and everything of the small business.

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[SPEAKER_02]: I’m guessing because you haven’t gone back to Madman world, you’re fairly similar.

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[SPEAKER_00]: I did, I really enjoyed it.

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[SPEAKER_00]: I liked the fact that you make your own luck and you can get stuck in and go and change or has it on a website and it’s live in five minutes and then suddenly you’re seeing people react and behave off the back of those things you’ve made in the website and it felt like a complete opposite end of the spectrum where you’d be planning and talking about particular campaign for three to six months with these big global multinational brands and I just quite loved and fell in love

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[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, you can make your own luck and being controlled of a thing that quickly.

04:40.167 –> 04:48.643
[SPEAKER_00]: So it was a big change, and, you know, culturally, a big change, you really have to roll your sleeves up and be willing to get stuck into all kinds of jobs.

04:48.763 –> 04:51.548
[SPEAKER_00]: But that suits my personality anyway.

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[SPEAKER_00]: So I do think it is good for some people and bad for others, perhaps.

04:58.229 –> 05:04.014
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I think that’s one of the things you find in your career what size and style of business you actually want to be at.

05:04.034 –> 05:06.857
[SPEAKER_02]: And life is so much better when you find the right one.

05:07.277 –> 05:08.979
[SPEAKER_02]: But we’re not here to talk about career paths.

05:09.239 –> 05:13.222
[SPEAKER_02]: We’re here to talk about sleep and what you’re up to at sleep at the moment.

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[SPEAKER_02]: You are the head of growth.

05:15.124 –> 05:19.688
[SPEAKER_02]: You’ve been there for the time this podcast I was going to go to live about six months, I think.

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[SPEAKER_02]: And you are clearly doing pretty well because you were willing to put live on LinkedIn

05:28.216 –> 05:35.596
[SPEAKER_02]: Starting in that role six months ago, how did you go about setting yourself up for success?

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[SPEAKER_02]: I guess what I’m trying to ask is what are the key levers you wanted in place?

05:39.888 –> 05:44.200
[SPEAKER_02]: It’s head of growth to make sure you had that success in the short term.

05:44.770 –> 05:46.092
[SPEAKER_00]: Well firstly I’ve been very lucky.

05:46.252 –> 05:49.577
[SPEAKER_00]: I had joined the brand at the time when they were very much on the up.

05:49.697 –> 05:54.424
[SPEAKER_00]: We this time last year sort of fed March 2025.

05:54.524 –> 05:55.546
[SPEAKER_00]: We were on Dragon’s Den.

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[SPEAKER_00]: And since that point Laura and the brand have gone from strength to strength and become a bit more famous and got more.

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[SPEAKER_00]: More customers and therefore develop from there and I sort of think come September October time They’d gone through the the hump of Juggins down.

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[SPEAKER_00]: They’d sort of reap the rewards of most of the benefits of that and then it was back to Okay, let’s how do we how do we get going again and we tested a few things and when I came then we started to ramp up Addspend for the first time in a couple of months and and really see where their levels were and we found that

06:29.742 –> 06:47.565
[SPEAKER_00]: people resonated with the out to people resonated with Laura’s story and we just kept on optimizing from there and managed to be sort of on the lucky brands you can keep on spending and not necessarily see a drop off of the efficiency and we’ve ridden that way of now and you know you’re now in a place where how do you keep that momentum going and

06:47.545 –> 07:12.456
[SPEAKER_00]: we’re not probably here today to talk about the depth of the matter algorithm that is changing fast so we’re trying to stay ahead of that and fuel that engine as much as possible has been what I’ve been focused on for the past sort of four to six months and yeah so far so good but obviously they will come up point where things aren’t quite as easy so we’re trying to stay ahead of the curve and spot the opportunities for the brand is what I’m doing at home.

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[SPEAKER_00]: And it’s meta your, your go to the bulk of your worry arena is, but it, and it’s a blessing in a curse right because when you have some winners and do sort of

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[SPEAKER_00]: go from strength to strength for matter, you can easily get lost in that bank revenue and that’s always going to be there forever like that.

07:35.862 –> 07:39.147
[SPEAKER_00]: And you know, things move so fast, it’s not going to be the case.

07:39.227 –> 07:45.376
[SPEAKER_00]: So we’re really trying to diversify spend to find new channels that can help us grow.

07:45.396 –> 07:51.164
[SPEAKER_00]: And also focus on retention because we’ve acquired so many customers since dragons then this time last year.

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[SPEAKER_00]: We’ve now got a huge amount of bigger lifetime.

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[SPEAKER_00]: customers based and we ever had before.

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[SPEAKER_00]: So how can we get those people back?

07:58.075 –> 08:03.823
[SPEAKER_00]: How can we really focus on getting people to come to a second purchase far quicker than they ever did before?

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[SPEAKER_00]: All of those things can actually help growth as well.

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[SPEAKER_00]: I think when we talk about growth, everyone typically focus on acquiring customers and actually growth comes from so many different forms and I think it’s an easy important to not forget that.

08:15.869 –> 08:20.974
[SPEAKER_02]: I think you mentioned that so many questions I could ask you off this edge.

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[SPEAKER_02]: Right, so the first one, though, is you mentioned that you’re using Laura’s story as a key part of your Facebook ads.

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[SPEAKER_02]: And we often hear, you know, use the founder story, use the founder story, but so often brands fail to do it or fail to make it monetize.

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[SPEAKER_02]: How have you approached that?

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[SPEAKER_02]: Have you leveraged off the dragon’s den, have you leveraged off the founder story?

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[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I think Laura is not someone who wants to be on camera, so it’s not something that necessarily comes natural.

08:52.992 –> 08:58.625
[SPEAKER_00]: She’s not here saying I want to tell my story and that’s how the brand can be famous, but people resonate with it.

08:58.885 –> 09:03.696
[SPEAKER_00]: People appreciate that she was in the cleaning aisle in Tesco.

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[SPEAKER_00]: and saw that you had eco spray, eco detergents, toilet rolls, but the actual cleaning essentials, the tools, accessories that you used to clean your home with, every single one of them hadn’t been sustainable, applied, and it was still full of plastic, and every sponge that you had was full of plastic, every cloth was full of plastic, and she felt that that needed to be changed, and people resonated that, because the research out there is developing all time.

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[SPEAKER_00]: So it’s her story, but it’s also a story that clearly is out there to the master’s and people care about it.

09:38.512 –> 09:43.562
[SPEAKER_00]: And that’s what we’ve sort of tapped into the fact that it’s her telling it that people can resonate is really worked.

09:43.602 –> 09:49.933
[SPEAKER_00]: And then frankly trying to showcase what is out there, like what you are using right now.

09:49.913 –> 10:04.391
[SPEAKER_00]: you shouldn’t be, you’re doing harm to yourself, you’re doing harm to the planet, and it’s not to sort of scare among the people that’s the opposite of what we want to do, that just trying to represent, you know, this is a problem, and we’re trying to, we’re here to change that, and hope that you can support the brand in doing so.

10:05.172 –> 10:11.500
[SPEAKER_02]: Nice, it was both kind of like the, the value’s mission of the business as well as, you know, getting the founder out in front of people.

10:11.986 –> 10:18.476
[SPEAKER_00]: And I think it also, like so many brands, Captions who all let’s tell a founder story and they force it.

10:18.656 –> 10:31.075
[SPEAKER_00]: And actually what we’ve tried to do is really go with what fills natural, what people are resonating with, why customers bought us in the first place when you weren’t spending on matter and then tried to try to do it in a more organic moment.

10:31.544 –> 10:36.570
[SPEAKER_02]: And you mentioned as well that you’re using Meta both for group.

10:36.590 –> 10:38.071
[SPEAKER_02]: I was because you’re going to fall into the trap.

10:38.092 –> 10:39.053
[SPEAKER_02]: You warned us about earlier.

10:39.073 –> 10:40.594
[SPEAKER_02]: I was like growth and retention.

10:40.654 –> 10:43.358
[SPEAKER_02]: No, about acquisition and retention.

10:44.559 –> 10:47.783
[SPEAKER_02]: Is that via the creative that you’re trying to make that distinction?

10:47.843 –> 10:49.705
[SPEAKER_02]: Is it literally you’ve got different campaigns?

10:49.725 –> 10:52.068
[SPEAKER_02]: You’re trying to do some targeting as much as you can.

10:52.108 –> 10:54.210
[SPEAKER_02]: These days with Meta on different audiences?

10:54.562 –> 11:08.389
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I mean, most of us spend these about acquiring customers, but really, most of our customers come to buy our hero product, which is our sponge gara and everyone else doesn’t know what else we offer them.

11:08.509 –> 11:14.882
[SPEAKER_00]: So it’s basically about product selection and putting in front of people the sponge gara because that’s what people come to see before.

11:14.862 –> 11:23.082
[SPEAKER_00]: but then targeting them with different products with range exploration in order for them to come back and make more changes in their home.

11:23.122 –> 11:29.597
[SPEAKER_00]: So if it starts with the spums and it turns into the the cluster they’re using and other accessories that might use around the home.

11:30.050 –> 11:37.899
[SPEAKER_02]: I love the fact you mentioned that because I find so many brands treat all products equally rather than realising.

11:38.099 –> 11:44.646
[SPEAKER_02]: That’s our acquisition product and this is our customer lifetime value product base, if that makes sense.

11:45.387 –> 11:55.939
[SPEAKER_02]: Was that something that I’m guessing, given what you’ve just told us, that’s always been obvious with C. Is it something that you are forever reiterating into the marketing activity and the growth activity?

11:56.493 –> 11:57.394
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I’ll be honest.

11:57.694 –> 11:59.897
[SPEAKER_00]: I didn’t like it when I first came in.

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[SPEAKER_00]: I was sort of advising Laura to think, you know, we need to change this.

12:04.001 –> 12:12.690
[SPEAKER_00]: It’s a devil that we’ve got one product that leads most of our acquisition and that’s a dangerous game to play and what I’ve come to learn is that’s fine.

12:13.111 –> 12:19.918
[SPEAKER_00]: You can have a hero skew that most people buy that what you’ve got to do a really good job of is the retention and

12:19.898 –> 12:40.624
[SPEAKER_00]: Sarah, I’m sort of things you’ve got to tell people what else you do and I think it’s it’s about trying to understand making people fall in love with the brand and what the brand stands for and what we’re trying to do from a mission point of view and that will make someone come back and explore over products and trial and products but there’s you sort of don’t hide away from the fact that there is one thing that people are coming in for originally.

12:41.245 –> 12:43.211
[SPEAKER_02]: And you mentioned the CRM there.

12:43.271 –> 12:45.677
[SPEAKER_02]: So let’s stray away from ads if we can.

12:47.061 –> 12:51.875
[SPEAKER_02]: Is that an area where you’ve been doing a lot to increase that with those retention races?

12:52.015 –> 12:55.525
[SPEAKER_02]: Is CRM your biggest lever on the retention ray improvement front?

12:56.416 –> 13:16.247
[SPEAKER_00]: It is, but it’s our ambition this year really, how would say last year was a growth year from off the back of Dragons Den and it was very heavily new customer base, was where the revenue was coming from and that will be the case this year too, but we also want to make that pivot and start getting a larger proportion of people coming back for a second third time.

13:16.227 –> 13:27.162
[SPEAKER_00]: So we’re doing quite a few initiatives there from launching subscriptions for the first time and trying to get people to explore more of the range and that is led by E-MalonCRM in the main.

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[SPEAKER_00]: That’s the hope anyway.

13:29.002 –> 13:41.341
[SPEAKER_02]: With that CRM work, and this is something I often mal myself, are you finding that the most important impact on getting those repeat purchases and upgrading people to the subscription packages?

13:41.502 –> 13:48.292
[SPEAKER_02]: Is what happens kind of immediately post purchases, those seven to 14 days after they purchase their first product?

13:48.793 –> 13:54.402
[SPEAKER_02]: Or are you finding there’s a lot of wealth in that long tale, because of that dragon’s then bump?

13:54.382 –> 14:00.570
[SPEAKER_02]: that came before you started or just in general, how do you wait those two pieces of CRM activity?

14:01.411 –> 14:09.420
[SPEAKER_00]: So there obviously is an initial opportunity to make someone really feel great about the purchase they’ve just made.

14:09.841 –> 14:19.933
[SPEAKER_00]: And we’re trying to do that by telling the story, getting people to believe in the mission and that will hopefully lead them to exploring alternative products

14:19.913 –> 14:35.627
[SPEAKER_00]: immediately and pretty quickly after that first purchase so that was one area but we actually have a very long lead time on our sort of from first to second purchase and that’s because the the sponges that we sell that’s been our acquisition driver have been a year supply of sponges.

14:35.607 –> 14:42.160
[SPEAKER_00]: So that is every D to C brand’s worst night, they’re on poker, but actually we use that to our advantage.

14:42.180 –> 14:45.126
[SPEAKER_00]: That means that there is an intention to repurchase again.

14:45.186 –> 14:46.008
[SPEAKER_00]: It runs out.

14:46.128 –> 14:49.013
[SPEAKER_00]: You know exactly when it runs out and you can plan around that.

14:49.474 –> 14:52.821
[SPEAKER_00]: So it’s about a year now from when we were aired on Dragons Done.

14:52.841 –> 14:56.929
[SPEAKER_00]: So there’s a huge bulk of people who are ready to purchase again for a second time.

14:56.969 –> 14:57.430
[SPEAKER_00]: And

14:57.410 –> 15:08.145
[SPEAKER_00]: Even though it seems like a long time for a one year sort of between first and second purchase, as long as you build the business economic around that, you can plan and make it perfectly work together.

15:08.446 –> 15:15.200
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, if you get that solid and consistent, then you have a very good idea of how much product you need to buy.

15:15.220 –> 15:16.081
[SPEAKER_00]: Exactly.

15:16.422 –> 15:27.805
[SPEAKER_02]: And I would argue that the longevity of the product fits rather nicely with the values of the business and manufacturing it to be our only last month would be detrimental in the longer term.

15:28.021 –> 15:28.682
[SPEAKER_00]: Exactly.

15:28.762 –> 15:41.115
[SPEAKER_00]: And I think fundamentally people, again, you hear deed, sea brands, whatever sector it is that you need second purchased inside the first 90 days and you need to be doing XYZ on the LTV and all that sort of thing.

15:41.135 –> 15:52.127
[SPEAKER_00]: And actually, just take a step back for a minute, what is right for your business and for your product and for your custom base and build the economics off of the back of that rather than forcing something.

15:52.167 –> 15:53.809
[SPEAKER_00]: I really feel strongly about that.

15:54.143 –> 15:59.458
[SPEAKER_02]: And I suppose there’s also the angle that gives you 12 months to cross-sell as well.

16:00.301 –> 16:07.461
[SPEAKER_02]: There’s quite a clear window where there’s only one message to give in the sales sense, which is here’s some other products that might help you.

16:07.542 –> 16:08.223
[SPEAKER_00]: exactly.

16:08.363 –> 16:13.789
[SPEAKER_00]: And what’s the beauty of the brand for us is that people are using it every single day.

16:14.390 –> 16:21.337
[SPEAKER_00]: And therefore, you have a touch point and a sort of thought going into someone’s brain that, oh, yes, this is the brand I use for my cleaning.

16:21.838 –> 16:25.662
[SPEAKER_00]: So how can we, how can we therefore play off that and use that to our advantage?

16:25.702 –> 16:28.045
[SPEAKER_00]: And we’re very lucky in that respect and hope for you.

16:28.065 –> 16:34.512
[SPEAKER_00]: That is why people are coming back because they’re thinking about as much more than, you know,

16:35.048 –> 16:47.140
[SPEAKER_02]: And let’s pivot back to the world of ads, because you mentioned about how matter is constantly changing and you never know when something’s going to fall off a cliff, be it the whole of matter or be it, a another kind of hero ad campaign.

16:48.081 –> 17:04.617
[SPEAKER_02]: Am I allowed to ask you, are you willing to share with the audience some of your kind of alternative backup plans to matter other things maybe you’re testing or you’re thinking of testing to make to give you that little bit of stability

17:05.407 –> 17:06.228
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, of course.

17:06.328 –> 17:11.213
[SPEAKER_00]: And I mean, nothing is unique, particularly, and I imagine most brands are thinking about these things.

17:11.273 –> 17:24.767
[SPEAKER_00]: But Google is easy first step, like with diverseifying spend by looking at Google’s demand gem product, YouTube, like other areas to build reach and visibility and get eyeballs on the brand.

17:24.907 –> 17:27.630
[SPEAKER_00]: It doesn’t have to always be in matter that you run video ads.

17:27.810 –> 17:29.912
[SPEAKER_00]: And I think people forget that sometimes.

17:29.892 –> 17:36.745
[SPEAKER_00]: simply how can you get eyeballs on the band and reach and Google has an amazing, quite cheap alternative to do that.

17:37.326 –> 17:40.773
[SPEAKER_00]: So it doesn’t have to always be through search-based advertising.

17:41.314 –> 17:43.378
[SPEAKER_00]: So that’s one way and then

17:43.510 –> 17:53.042
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, a buzzword last few years, but influences and doing it in a way, which it’s not about generating sales necessarily from the influence of channel.

17:53.142 –> 18:04.856
[SPEAKER_00]: It’s again about building eyeballs on the brand, visibility, getting reach, getting people to organically talk about your products rather than, you know, paying extreme amounts to get someone to feature you.

18:04.876 –> 18:13.146
[SPEAKER_00]: We’re trying to speak to micro influences in the main and people that want to support your you as a brand

18:13.126 –> 18:17.233
[SPEAKER_00]: and getting those to spread the words really, that’s how we’re trying to do it.

18:17.754 –> 18:24.926
[SPEAKER_02]: So more long-term engagements with influencers than here’s 10 grand, do me one post and then we’ll never talk again to other stuff.

18:25.147 –> 18:31.458
[SPEAKER_00]: Exactly, like we as a small brand, every penny matters and we can’t afford to do that.

18:31.578 –> 18:37.328
[SPEAKER_00]: So therefore, how can you do it in a way which, you know, the digital platforms are where

18:37.308 –> 18:39.854
[SPEAKER_00]: millions of people are consuming their major each day.

18:40.155 –> 18:54.692
[SPEAKER_00]: So being as visible as you can on there and having 10 people talk about you in a week instead of one big person on paper, it’s I think this sort of bomb an effect at that over time really builds up.

18:54.976 –> 19:06.932
[SPEAKER_02]: So Google go to, but not just Google keywords and Google shopping campaigns, but actually explore the massive amount of opportunities there are within that Google ads platform that you’re right.

19:06.952 –> 19:11.999
[SPEAKER_02]: I think so many people fail to actually go beyond PMAX these days.

19:12.780 –> 19:16.444
[SPEAKER_00]: Exactly, and it’s pretty ungrammerous.

19:16.484 –> 19:22.232
[SPEAKER_00]: I think people always just think it’s, you know, an nice tag on to a campaign will spend,

19:22.516 –> 19:42.304
[SPEAKER_00]: 5% of budget there and actually it can be quite powerful if you look at fish step back and invest in something over time and CD the effect because people are aren’t consuming their media in the way that we buy that media and everyone needs to remember that like people switched from Instagram to YouTube to whatever it might be within seconds on their phone.

19:42.524 –> 19:47.832
[SPEAKER_00]: So therefore trying to build up different areas and different channels to get that reach is important.

19:48.537 –> 19:52.907
[SPEAKER_02]: And what’s your theory on in-house team or agencies?

19:52.947 –> 20:02.027
[SPEAKER_02]: Are you doing this with a team in the business to do everything, create everything, run everything, or are you picking the best of the best in agency land?

20:03.250 –> 20:07.660
[SPEAKER_00]: Having been agency side, I think I might be biased, but I believe that

20:08.112 –> 20:26.796
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, agencies are often demonised, but I think you get the benefit of really skilled talented people working on multiple brands at any given time and therefore learning, seeing how different brands are instructing what trends alike, what sort of correlation you can make is a really powerful thing.

20:26.776 –> 20:37.391
[SPEAKER_00]: having it in house, I definitely think we will do that one day, but right now it doesn’t feel like the right place to be when we’re still on sort of a growth trajectory trying to learn as much as we can in the one the way to do that.

20:37.411 –> 20:47.586
[SPEAKER_00]: So I think yeah, I think agencies are perfectly placed to sort of lead this new wave of adds buying in an algorithm-based world.

20:48.140 –> 21:03.018
[SPEAKER_02]: At least do another big attack change, AI search, GEO, EXO, whatever we may be calling it, and the whole people buying from directly on Gemini or chat TBT etc.

21:04.039 –> 21:15.733
[SPEAKER_02]: How much of your brain bandwidth are you giving to that at the moment or is it just there’s too much to do day to day that we’re just going to ignore that until it develops a bit more.

21:16.642 –> 21:23.208
[SPEAKER_00]: Being honest, I think it takes a lot of brain bandwidth in terms of how we’re going to find a solution for this.

21:24.229 –> 21:27.211
[SPEAKER_00]: But in terms of execution, we’re not quite about stage yet.

21:28.112 –> 21:29.293
[SPEAKER_00]: And I need to get here quickly.

21:29.313 –> 21:37.060
[SPEAKER_00]: We have quite a few conversations if we could about how we can sort of be disciplined with our time to learn and develop and train.

21:37.360 –> 21:42.705
[SPEAKER_00]: And let’s just engage with AI and a daily basis to understand what the capabilities are.

21:43.305 –> 21:46.328
[SPEAKER_00]: Small things like how can you generate

21:46.308 –> 21:52.958
[SPEAKER_00]: you know, 100 static ads per month via AI instead of having to make every single one manually.

21:53.399 –> 21:54.761
[SPEAKER_00]: That is something that is possible.

21:54.921 –> 22:08.241
[SPEAKER_00]: So let’s go and try and find a way to do that and likewise from a shopping point of view, making sure you’re really covering the basis of good quality content on site, doing sort of SEO basics really, really well.

22:08.482 –> 22:11.286
[SPEAKER_00]: I think it’s going to empower you to be featured in

22:11.266 –> 22:13.309
[SPEAKER_00]: in AI search platforms much more.

22:13.329 –> 22:16.173
[SPEAKER_00]: So that’s our bread and butter right now.

22:16.213 –> 22:18.056
[SPEAKER_00]: We’re trying to do the basics really well.

22:18.176 –> 22:23.644
[SPEAKER_00]: Was forcing ourselves to spend a couple of hours a week on how can we find solutions for the future?

22:23.664 –> 22:27.290
[SPEAKER_00]: I don’t have a better answer than that right now.

22:27.310 –> 22:35.822
[SPEAKER_00]: Unfortunately, but I think a lot of people will probably be overwhelmed in the same boat as me, but hopefully in the next few months I can try and crack it and maybe we can revisit that question.

22:38.485 –> 22:43.379
[SPEAKER_01]: E-commerce most at last is supporting by some of the greatest companies in the E-commerce sector.

22:43.499 –> 22:53.929
[SPEAKER_01]: Here’s a reminder of who they are.

22:56.221 –> 23:04.535
[SPEAKER_02]: Okay, I love this section because because me and our listeners some really quick ideas for taking our businesses to the next level, I promise I’d know more questions about AI search in any of this.

23:05.016 –> 23:07.279
[SPEAKER_02]: And Ed, are you ready for the top tips?

23:07.900 –> 23:08.902
[SPEAKER_00]: Next to it.

23:08.942 –> 23:10.164
[SPEAKER_02]: Okay, the book top tip.

23:10.184 –> 23:16.795
[SPEAKER_02]: If everyone listening to this podcast, I agreed to take Friday off and read a book to make their business better, which book would you recommend?

23:17.281 –> 23:26.396
[SPEAKER_00]: So that’s your new book, Recommended by a friend a couple of weeks ago called Growth Leavers and how to find them by Matt Lerner and it’s a new book.

23:26.437 –> 23:32.607
[SPEAKER_00]: It’s a new book to me, not a new book in general, but yeah, it has a really good message that

23:32.587 –> 23:42.580
[SPEAKER_00]: 10% of initiatives drive 90% of business outcomes, yet people focus on so many small things day to day and get consumed by lots of things that don’t drive business outcomes.

23:42.600 –> 23:51.452
[SPEAKER_00]: So it really helps us sort of strip back the clutter, focus on your north star and understand how you can really deliver against that north star day in doubt.

23:51.472 –> 23:55.557
[SPEAKER_00]: So I’d recommend anyone who’s in sort of growth world to have a look at that.

23:55.925 –> 23:59.255
[SPEAKER_02]: nice, a bit of mindset as well as everything else.

23:59.395 –> 24:08.702
[SPEAKER_02]: It’s always so critical to a growth space, traffic top tip, which marketing method to either prize above all others or think doesn’t get the press it deserves.

24:09.155 –> 24:28.024
[SPEAKER_00]: We actually talked a lot about this and I didn’t think we would, so I’m going to mention it again, I’m forward to me, but I think email as a channel, everyone obsesses over subscribers and how many how big your database is, then do a pretty poor job of engaging said database and generating traffic to site.

24:28.004 –> 24:35.513
[SPEAKER_00]: So I think as much as, you know, email has become this sort of known to be a spam channel, and I totally disagree with that.

24:35.533 –> 24:47.228
[SPEAKER_00]: I think brands, there are lots of brands doing it really well, and it can be a superpower when done in the right way, and drive really hot, warm, traffic to sign on a day to day basis.

24:47.288 –> 24:52.915
[SPEAKER_00]: So yeah, I think people just need to spend a bit more time and less

24:53.367 –> 24:55.250
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I think I totally agree with you.

24:55.290 –> 24:57.053
[SPEAKER_02]: There is so much potential by email.

24:57.073 –> 25:08.490
[SPEAKER_02]: There’s a much less noisy channel than, you know, the talk about email is so much less noisy than the talk about meta-rads and therefore we all end up getting obsessed about our ads when we should be clearly as obsessed about our email.

25:08.510 –> 25:10.954
[SPEAKER_02]: So I think that’s a great, a great traffic talk tip.

25:11.255 –> 25:17.845
[SPEAKER_00]: A brand I used to work for actually did completely turned off the redspend because it wasn’t working financially.

25:18.566 –> 25:22.251
[SPEAKER_00]: And we focused solely on retention by email and it actually worked really well.

25:22.351 –> 25:26.197
[SPEAKER_00]: It helped to sort of take away all the stresses that you have from paid.

25:26.798 –> 25:31.024
[SPEAKER_00]: And look at things that you can control and email absolutely is the channel for that.

25:31.044 –> 25:31.705
[SPEAKER_00]: So I agree with you.

25:32.126 –> 25:34.309
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, stress reduction strategy.

25:35.639 –> 25:40.307
[SPEAKER_02]: 100% stop the advertising and focus on the email.

25:40.347 –> 25:46.678
[SPEAKER_02]: Tool top tip then, maybe a collaboration tool, a social media plugin, a phone app or just a way of working.

25:47.058 –> 25:51.606
[SPEAKER_02]: Is there a cool little tool you use that makes you and your team more efficient from day to day?

25:52.278 –> 26:06.466
[SPEAKER_00]: I struggle with these questions because I don’t have, I feel like I use a very typical text that myself personally, but I’m speaking to sort of the D to C operators here, but I’ve called out no commerce, which is a post-purchase survey tool.

26:07.428 –> 26:08.851
[SPEAKER_00]: And I love it.

26:09.092 –> 26:13.240
[SPEAKER_00]: And I literally look at it every single day because it allows you to get

26:13.220 –> 26:27.304
[SPEAKER_00]: thousands of responses per week on a couple of questions about how someone’s consuming the media where did you hear about us and that stuff really powerful is live data, how often did you get that sort of data from customers day in day out?

26:27.985 –> 26:36.460
[SPEAKER_00]: So yeah, I would recommend if you don’t have a post-post survey to get one because they’re cheap and easy and it also is an amazing way to get daily powerful data.

26:36.811 –> 26:41.296
[SPEAKER_02]: It’s a nice antidote to the nightmare that is attribution.

26:41.616 –> 26:49.585
[SPEAKER_02]: And obviously it’s not perfect because the customers probably come through 20 different ways, but the thing which stuck in their head is the reason they purchased.

26:50.205 –> 26:55.131
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, it’s like a 10x factor on whatever that channel is in terms of its potential impacts.

26:55.151 –> 26:56.913
[SPEAKER_02]: So, yeah, love that.

26:56.933 –> 27:04.641
[SPEAKER_02]: And yeah, I think if I had one, I would be a little bit obsessed with the results to first thing in the morning, check what people are saying.

27:04.621 –> 27:10.188
[SPEAKER_02]: The carbon top tip, what’s your favourite way to reduce the carbon footprint of an e-commerce store?

27:11.270 –> 27:18.980
[SPEAKER_00]: I think we, in the space we’re in, in the sustainability space, we can feel quite passionate about this and go on quite a lot of rants about it.

27:19.000 –> 27:27.792
[SPEAKER_00]: But I think looking at the entire journey from product conception to delivery is important and trying to do small bits really well each day matters.

27:28.193 –> 27:30.055
[SPEAKER_00]: So an example of that is,

27:30.035 –> 27:50.001
[SPEAKER_00]: we’ve stayed with Royal Mail for our distribution in the main for certain matter of years because, actually, the whole country is getting deliveries from Royal Mail which, therefore, we are making a small but important impact there by not using alternative career companies and small things like, I think people would obsess over carbon footprint and

27:49.981 –> 27:58.120
[SPEAKER_00]: If we did that as a brand, we would invest in plastic, which goes against our mission completely, because there are low carbon footprint ways to have plastic packaging.

27:58.681 –> 28:02.590
[SPEAKER_00]: So I think it’s just one part of the sustainability process.

28:02.823 –> 28:09.090
[SPEAKER_00]: and we also invest in a great charity called on a mission, which is essentially like reforestation projects.

28:09.130 –> 28:20.003
[SPEAKER_00]: It helps to look at the procurement impact of your business and invest in people’s livelihoods and quality projects around the world that help to add carbon back into the world basically.

28:20.063 –> 28:29.775
[SPEAKER_00]: So yeah, I think not the best answer, but I think looking at the end to end process of your business and see how you can make small changes, I think they will add up.

28:30.211 –> 28:58.092
[SPEAKER_02]: I don’t think that’s about answer at all because I think that your point about using the most common career, you know, I live out in the sticks, like way out in the sticks and I often think maybe the sustainability solution to delivering to us is to have a hub and one van that comes round for all the careers because it’s like there are not enough people out where I live for it to be worth

28:58.072 –> 29:02.537
[SPEAKER_02]: every, whoever else fancy’s coming for out for a drive around the countryside.

29:02.938 –> 29:04.219
[SPEAKER_02]: It seems absolutely mad.

29:04.560 –> 29:05.761
[SPEAKER_00]: It’s so, that’s a great place.

29:05.801 –> 29:07.143
[SPEAKER_00]: That’s a really good business idea.

29:09.085 –> 29:15.433
[SPEAKER_00]: I think, yeah, like, it would be cheaper for us to use in every or someone else than oil mail.

29:15.613 –> 29:22.682
[SPEAKER_00]: That is true, but it also has an impact and it would go against the values of our business if we were to make that decision.

29:22.722 –> 29:23.843
[SPEAKER_00]: So I think it’s important.

29:24.042 –> 29:30.352
[SPEAKER_02]: And there’s the customer service element of the Royal Mail deliveries because you rarely hear someone running about their Royal Mail Postman.

29:30.813 –> 29:31.253
[SPEAKER_00]: Exactly.

29:31.273 –> 29:32.055
[SPEAKER_02]: Has to be said.

29:32.656 –> 29:33.177
[SPEAKER_02]: I’m Ed.

29:33.317 –> 29:34.939
[SPEAKER_02]: Thank you for being an awesome guest.

29:34.999 –> 29:39.807
[SPEAKER_02]: Before we say goodbye, could you please at the listeners know where they can get in contact with you and find see?

29:40.411 –> 29:53.427
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, of course, go to our website, theseepacumphony.com, nice and easy, and at theseep company on Instagram, and got some great cleaning hacks and all sorts of things that hopefully people will enjoy.

29:53.467 –> 29:58.673
[SPEAKER_00]: And yeah, you can find me on LinkedIn, Ed Hamilton is my name, so yeah, thanks very much.

29:59.555 –> 30:00.556
[SPEAKER_02]: Awesome to have you on the show.

30:00.576 –> 30:02.939
[SPEAKER_02]: Thank you so much, Ed, for sharing so much insight with us.

30:02.979 –> 30:04.080
[SPEAKER_02]: We really appreciate it.

30:04.641 –> 30:05.642
[SPEAKER_00]: Thank you for your time.

30:11.512 –> 30:12.314
[SPEAKER_02]: So there you have it.

30:12.434 –> 30:19.087
[SPEAKER_02]: That’s what head of growth and a fast, fast growing D to C brand here in the UK is focused on right now.

30:19.648 –> 30:30.330
[SPEAKER_02]: Taming the beasts that is the ever lasting beast, hopefully that is meta ads, but also taking advantage of Google really doubling down on CRM and

30:30.310 –> 30:37.378
[SPEAKER_02]: devoting plenty of brain space to the world of AI search, whilst getting those foundations right, really cool to get to talk to Ed there.

30:37.418 –> 30:42.864
[SPEAKER_02]: Let me know if you’d like us to get them on the podcast again in six 12 months time and see how that’s all evolving.

30:43.025 –> 30:44.486
[SPEAKER_02]: Please let me know if you want us to do that.

30:44.987 –> 30:52.515
[SPEAKER_02]: You can get your hands on the notes from this episode, including the top tips and links to what we’ve mentioned by heading over to ecommercemasterplan.com.

30:53.076 –> 31:00.064
[SPEAKER_02]: You can also go straight to the correct

31:00.044 –> 31:08.685
[SPEAKER_02]: When you get to the website, why not add yourself to my email list so you’ll get my newsletter each week and updates about episodes and all other kinds of cool stuff we’re up to.

31:09.447 –> 31:15.943
[SPEAKER_02]: Now if you like this episode then make sure you check out episode 448 for more seep.

31:15.923 –> 31:23.513
[SPEAKER_02]: That’s when I got to chat with the founder Laura Harnett about how she took the business to 1 million pounds in the first 12 months.

31:24.054 –> 31:25.035
[SPEAKER_02]: Really cool episode.

31:25.096 –> 31:29.121
[SPEAKER_02]: Lots of the kind of foundational story stuff of Seap and growth stuff in there too.

31:29.161 –> 31:29.882
[SPEAKER_02]: That’s episode 448.

31:29.942 –> 31:42.319
[SPEAKER_02]: And if you want more on home where’s businesses, ECMP.info such home for those on the website, and ECMP.info for such

31:42.299 –> 31:43.941
[SPEAKER_02]: lots of for you to listen to there.

31:43.981 –> 31:48.808
[SPEAKER_02]: Now thank you for tuning into this and every episode of the e-commerce master plan podcast.

31:48.828 –> 31:59.723
[SPEAKER_02]: I bring you a new one every week so I want to inspire and help e-commerce business owners to succeed and thrive with their businesses, including progressing, progressing even along the path to net zero.

31:59.783 –> 32:05.071
[SPEAKER_02]: So if you know someone this show can help, please tell them to listen to the e-commerce master plan podcast.

32:05.571 –> 32:08.155
[SPEAKER_02]: Have a great week and don’t forget to keep optimizing.

32:11.290 –> 32:14.726
[SPEAKER_01]: Thank you for listening to the e-commerce Master Plan podcast.

32:15.188 –> 32:20.473
[SPEAKER_01]: Find out more at e-commercemasterplanned.com slash podcast.