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The Unstoppable Marketer®
Trevor Crump and Mark Goldhardt bring you quick marketing and entrepreneurial tips, tricks, and trends for DTC business owners, entrepreneurs, and marketers. These are lessons they've learned through the years of being right in the thick of scaling dozens of businesses. Whether you have an established business looking to grow, just starting your business journey, or trying to become a digital marketer, this marketing podcast will not let you down.
The Unstoppable Marketer®
Ep 141 Weathering the Storm: Strategies for E-commerce Survival
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In this episode Trevor and Mark dive into the challenges keeping e-commerce owners and agency leaders up at night. They explore the impact of AI-generated content, shifting social media landscapes, and macroeconomic pressures on consumer spending. The duo discusses strategies for standing out in a crowded market, the importance of consistent customer touchpoints, and why brands must adapt to new efficiency standards. Despite current hurdles, they highlight opportunities for growth and success in the evolving digital marketplace.
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Setting The Stakes: Harder Before Easier
SPEAKER_01The reality is things are going to get harder before they get easier. I think these downturns often turn into up cycles. If you can bear the downturns and you know how to adjust, even though it hurts, like you will be able to take advantage of a rising tide.
New Studio Banter & Film Lab Shoutout
SPEAKER_00Yo, what's going on, everybody? Welcome to the Unstoppable Marketer podcast. With me as always, in this new setting, Smart Goldhart.
SPEAKER_01I think we need headphones on. To make it look more legit? No, I just think the be nice to hear the distance. There's just a greater distance and the openness.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. I guess I'd have to see it with them on versus not. If you're listening and not like you don't feel like you're like you're almost yelling. We're in a new studio right now. We're testing out a new studio. I feel like I'm yelling. The lovely folks at Film Lab have created a third podcast studio? Two and a half?
unknownYeah, two and a half.
SPEAKER_00Two and a half. So many options. If you're looking for podcasting, connect with the film lab.
SPEAKER_01Because like when you say two and a half baths, that's like I have two bathrooms and then one poop closet.
SPEAKER_00Remember the original, remember the original one we used to record in? The small one? Oh yeah. That's what I'm considering the half. It is a small one. Is it gone? Okay. So only two. Two, but two great upgraded ones.
SPEAKER_01Film Lab. Pod studio, volume two. Yeah. Um how are you?
September Slump: Climate And Meta Shifts
SPEAKER_00Tired. Okay. Tired metaphorically?
SPEAKER_01All of it. All of it. I'm tired of all of it. September was a long month. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00September was a heavy month. I hate meta. September's been a really heavy month. From a business standpoint and from a political cultural standpoint. Yes, all of it. Which probably is why September, from a business perspective, was also a rough month.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_00It kind of seemed like once Labor Day sales ended, things were just tough.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Well, yeah. Right. For a lot of reasons. I mean, you have the overall climate. Just so you guys know, like September was not a good month for a lot of people. It was hard. We have seen it recently turn around. I mean, when this podcast is released, hopefully everything is totally turned around. Well, in time for us to run into October where people start to Yeah, it's gonna get less efficient in October, but like October leads into November, you know, and things get better. But usually September doesn't go down like it did this year. Sure. And so if you experienced a rough September, normal. I don't I don't know if it makes you feel better, but we're here to validate you.
SPEAKER_00It was no, it should.
SPEAKER_01It was hard
Meta’s AI Ad Changes And Delivery
SPEAKER_01for a few reasons. One, the political climate changed uh attention, and it is demonstrable. Like you can you can see it in in the data, but also behind the scenes, meta is doing what meta does and breaking everything in the ad platform. So like if you have a media buyer or an agency and you saw weird things in your ads, it's because Meta auto-opted everybody into new AI uh ad settings. Yeah, like AI creative enhancements is what they're calling them, which is anything from translating your ad into another language, which that one seems pretty cool to me. Sure. That seems pretty useful. It has the potential to be cool, depending on but to giving itself liberty to change the way your ad looks, and and so the the dynamism of it all has just like you can't tell me that that did not affect performance because I've been long enough, I've been around long enough to know that every time Meta does this and they launch a new feature, even though technically that feature shouldn't affect the delivery, it always affects the delivery. Yeah. So yes, Meta threw us a fastball in the midst of just a rough month culturally.
SPEAKER_00So topic today is just like one simple question. What because things have been rough, because we're going into Q4, what is keeping us up as e-commerce owners, as agency owners? What's keeping us up right now? That's what I want to talk about. What's right now for you? What's the number one thing that's keeping you up at night? If you wake up at
What’s Keeping Us Up At Night
SPEAKER_00night and you have to go to the bathroom or get a drink or something like that, and you happen to think about work, what's the thing that's gonna stop you from falling back asleep? Um, there's a few. If you can't, well, let's talk about them.
AI Slop And The Cost To Creativity
SPEAKER_00There can be a few. One is AI slop. Okay.
SPEAKER_01What do you mean? I'm becoming like less sold on the idea that AGI is going to happen, and and now it just looks like all these AI companies are just turning into slop machines for AI videos. And they look pretty good, and like I think they have a purpose, but it keeps me up at night, not so much because it's going to ruin performance or ruin what we do or anything. I just think it's it's just depressing. Like advertisements. However, you feel about ads, it's like at least like like they were human. Like go back to the Super Bowl era of great commercials. Like it was they were incredible commercials because it was like capturing like human connectivity, and and now I don't know, like the AI slot machine of content is just depressing.
SPEAKER_00Specifically around content, you're saying not necessarily AI in general.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, just content. Yeah, like AI content is depressing to me. And I it shouldn't be. It's gonna help my job. Like, if if anyone, it's gonna help us. Sure. But it's depressing, yeah. To think that, like, am I just gonna get on and just see a bunch of AI fake videos?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, it seems like that's just not even fun.
SPEAKER_01Like it does not interest me as a person. No, no, but it probably I don't know. I have I want to have greater faith in humanity that it doesn't get traction because I just don't want us to just be living in a fake AI slot machine. Well, two tricks.
SPEAKER_00Two things, two things to me are happening uh at the same time when it comes to content. And I'm I'm broading it, broadening this outside of just advertisement. I'm just saying content in general, things that are gat gra grabbing our attention. So whether it's an ad, whether it's a piece of organic content politically or whatever, two things are happening. I think number one is you are starting to recognize and see a lot of the AI stuff the way you're talking about, that is just it's just like rampant. It's and it's sloppy, and it's you you need to.
SPEAKER_01And it keeps me up at night because it's so consuming. Like everywhere you turn, it's like, oh, this new model came out with this new content. Look at how great it is. And then, you know, it's usually not half as great as portrayed.
Conspiracies, Deepfakes, And Trust
SPEAKER_00Well, the the second thing that's keeping me up, like if I'm if I'm kind of piggybacking off of the thing that's keeping you up at night, is COVID introduced the idea that conspiracy theories um are you're not a you're not crazy to believe in conspiracy theories. The way like in high school, I remember when I had friends who would say like we didn't land on the moon. I remember being like, you guys are psychopaths. Like I cannot even believe you heard you saying that in public. Like I would have never admitted that. And since COVID, it is it's okay to believe in the conspiracy theories and to and to talk and discuss that more and more. The problem though, with that now is it seems like everything can be a conspiracy theory. So not only are you getting the like AI, everything is fake, but now even the real stuff isn't, you don't know if it's true.
SPEAKER_01And so yeah, it's called what's deep fake.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, what's keeping well, well, yeah, deep fake AI stuff, but also I mean just somebody like getting on by, you know, for example, if you're taking the Charlie Kirk stuff, it's like, you know, there's this whole big wing of people who are like, it was his wife that did it. Like she is the one who set it all up. Oh, and you could and and there's a policy theory going on. And there are t I mean, and and and you you could there's probably 15 different avenues about that, right? Yeah. So what's gonna start to happen, it's happening with me right now, is if you go look at my like TikTok and Instagram consumability, if you go look at my hours, I'm down like 300%. Because at this point, like I don't even care or believe anything that is ever said. Well that the thing is, and that frightens me because I think attention is going to
Where Does Attention Go Next?
SPEAKER_00go off of these platforms.
SPEAKER_01It will, and the only the only uh the only solution is some kind of blockchain cryptography network that can you know everything getting posted is or live just live?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, like content, I don't know. Content streamers, I mean streamers are yeah, does does the Twitchy streaming thing become a much bigger way D2C companies start to interact? Like like Cozy Earth is doing, I know we talked about these guys again, they're doing TV show, but they're doing round three, it starts today. Like it they just got done with they're starting a new one today. But they just I mean, well, how long ago was it? A month, it feels like that they did that bed rot challenge. I'm surprised they're doing it that fast. Started again today.
SPEAKER_01Doesn't that seem like a little quick? It does, but maybe not based off of what we're saying. I just wonder if like the hype if you need more hype for it. Maybe I don't know. But yeah, I don't know either, honestly. So But that is yeah, so keeping you up, I agree with that. That that can keep you up for two reasons is like you need attention on social platforms if you're a small business. Yeah, how do you market? So if the attention is not on the social platforms, how are you getting it? Where are you getting people's attention? Right? The beautiful thing, even though I I have a love-hate relationship with social media, the beautiful thing about social media is it was a uh it was a digital highway, right? Yep, like that's where people were spending their time and they're sitting in a car basically, and like you're the billboards, like you were able to and not just like place a billboard, it's like you were placing radio car ads exactly for the type of person
Helping The Little Guys Win
SPEAKER_01you wanted. Yeah, well, it's like on that hot interconnected highway, digital highway, you were tapping into I'm selling clothes to women, and then it's just like it just picks out every woman.
SPEAKER_00Well, it gave the mom, it gave the stay-at-home mom of three who had this really awesome baby pajama idea that solves a bunch of problems, the ability to launch a business at little to no cost, you know.
SPEAKER_01It was a beautiful thing, but now uh the way people engage on social is different. We've talked about that. So, like that's also what keeps me up at night is what as an agency who helps brands, like our our whole the reason why we do what we do is we like to help little the little guys win. Like we like the David vs. Goliath, like we like we're not down with big corporations, yeah. Like they're fine, like I'm not like you know, it's not like this big moral thing, it's just not exciting to us.
SPEAKER_00It is 10 times more fun, for example, we helped a brand that was at like 500k, and they're gonna do around 10 million this year. Yeah, 500k 18 months ago, and they'll do 10 million this year. Like that's fun. That's fun because you get to know these people and you're like, these are really, really good people.
SPEAKER_01You see people's lives get changed.
SPEAKER_00Whereas like, you know, on the on the bigger side of things, when you're working with somebody who's at $100 million, you don't always get to work with the people upstairs who know everything. Like you you don't get to know them the same way. So that's part of the reason why.
SPEAKER_01If you grow a company that big by 10, 20 million, you know, like some lives, which I don't know, maybe they hire more people, but it's not like not saying that we don't work with brands like that, and we don't like to work with brands like that. No, I'm talking like big, big, yeah, yeah, 100 million plus.
SPEAKER_00Like it's just age ones of the world or whatever.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, like it so we have fun helping little the little guys win, you know, and and agy one's a little guy, actually, like compared to other supplement companies or whatever. So we like we like helping little guys and the do it. So that's what we're excited
Behavior Shift: Friends To Interests
SPEAKER_01about, and that that's what drives us. But um, how is the social media landscape gonna change? People's behaviors on those social media landscapes have changed. Like people don't go on there to really connect with friends, like it was all around friend networks before, right? Yeah, and now it's more of commerce. Well, it's out because it's algorithmically based, people's behavior is more around their interests, sure, not around their friends.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah, for sure.
SPEAKER_01And that's a big change. So now that it's and it's becoming even more interest-based, and now with reels and tick tock, that type of interest-based is just different. It's just different, so it's becoming more of a for lack of a better term, again, like it's like a slot machine already, in a way. Yeah. But the AI slot machine too is just depressing. It just puts another element of depressing element to it where like it makes me sad.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, but I but the good news with that, can I say some good news with that, is I do think there were a lot of people out there who were so worried that social media was gonna essentially become like non-existent, irrelevant as AI creeps in. But I think what's starting to happen is people are like, I think where AI is gonna win for people like us and brands and even creators is how it helps us, maybe um, with the like smaller little processes of getting that content creation dialed. So, so for example, um you're still creating a piece of content, but rather than uh, you know, you or your team having to go in and edit it, AI is editing it the way that you're it's taking out the spaces, it's taking out the ums, it's taking out the stuff that you don't like. It's I think that's how AI is gonna really help content because I think people are starting to see through the crap, you know. Yeah, I hope it, you know, it might help with some, you know, I think that there's a place for it with uh you know, website imagery that like little things like that, but I don't think it's going to sure it's a tool and it's great for what it it can do, but so I think that's good news for a lot of people who were like, okay, we're out of jobs and yeah.
SPEAKER_01The flip side is it could make a premium for human connection, right? And it probably will.
Retention Pain: iOS And SMS Changes
SPEAKER_01Yeah. How do you actually know you're engaging with a person?
SPEAKER_00I think another thing that's keeping me up at night to switch gears has been this whole uh like retention thing that we have discovered, how it's just harder and harder to get your returning customers to come back, especially going into Q4.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, now luckily the iOS update we've been testing with it. So if you listen to our last episode, if you do send a new message to somebody, like they will get a notification.
SPEAKER_00Okay.
SPEAKER_01So just keep an eye on those opt-in rates that make sure they respond.
SPEAKER_00Because if they respond, then it won't it is putting them in the overall inbox.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00So what we're talking about, just in case you didn't listen to this, uh the new what is the iOS, what are iOS update are we on now? It's called iOS 26. Essentially it's a it's treating your text messages that messages you get that you don't know the numbers or have saved in the contact as like promotions. So kind of like how in Gmail you have your inbox, your promotions, your social tabs. That's essentially what's happening with SMS. So SMS has unknown and known. Yeah, has this like really good chance that your SMS is going to significantly dip if you cannot get people to save your pro contact.
SPEAKER_01Aren't saving your contact or responding. So like the opt-in is important.
SPEAKER_00Um that keeps you up at night.
SPEAKER_01Retention has been dipping, and notoriously we are telling especially from the email side.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, and we've been telling people, hey, you need to send out more emails. You know, we always tell people you're sending out potentially one to four emails a day during your sales times. Um, but like now is that not even enough because it just might get put into the wrong folders. So I had a really good conversation with somebody yesterday about this. So there's a there's a
Email Dilution And Direct Mail Tests
SPEAKER_00direct mail company called Postpilot. Um, and they can take all of your returning customers and all of that data. And we had this interesting conversation where he said, Hey, you know, five or six years ago, everyone used to knock on social media followers because you didn't own that.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Meaning at any given time, Zuckerberg changes an algorithm and you no longer can reach those hundred thousand people that follow you, which is true. And so there was this big kind of push to start building your email list, start owning your email list. But now it's like, sure, I can deliver to all 100,000 people, but what is the likelihood that that in you know, of those hundred thousand people, that those emails are gonna go into their actual primary inbox versus their promotions? So yes, I own those email addresses, but do I have the capabilities to get in front of them anymore? And the answer is not really. Whereas direct response, direct or direct mail, there is no regulation around that.
SPEAKER_01You know, there's no filtering.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, like it's not gonna get filtered into like, hey, post office doesn't look at it and be like, oh, because this is a they're gonna sift through their mail, like at least you'll get seen. Yeah. So it's gonna get now, it's direct mail. It's you know, people are used to it.
SPEAKER_01A lot of people are gonna throw it away, but it's no different than in an email inbox.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. So we're testing, in fact, some could say it's much better because you have to touch it to throw it away. Whereas to delete an inbox, all I have to do is click. I don't even have to open that email. I just click and click the click delete.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Whereas I have to touch, physically touch this. So those are things we're testing.
Macroeconomy And Shrinking Demand
SPEAKER_01Yeah, so there's postpilot, and we've seen good success from that. Yep. Um, but the the retention thing is keeping me up at night. And then the last thing that keeps me up at night is the macroeconomic environment. Yeah. It just uh they're revising job reports, you know, it and this has been going on for five years. Like this isn't like all of the sudden. It's just I don't think the the economy is super great. I mean, I don't think it has been for four or five years. And so we do know that the top 10% of household income accounts for 50% of consumer spending now. Which is which is Which is up from like almost 40% five years ago. Which is crazy. So what that essentially means is if you take if you're advertising to people in the below 90% income bracket, or like below the 10 top 10%, so 90% and below would have been accounting for 50%, right? Or 60% of it, and then you just got rid of 10% of 60%. So that's that's a big chunk. What is that? That's like a 25, 20, 20 decrease. Decrease in overall market share.
SPEAKER_00So even yeah, so if your total addressable market is that so did it go down by even though that's your total addressable market, they're not spending money anymore.
SPEAKER_01That's a big deal. It's a huge deal. A lot bigger than I think it looks. Like the graph makes it look like it's not a big deal, but I mean, yeah, when you squeeze that much out of it, it's it's no bueno.
SPEAKER_00I mean, everything that we are saying right now, from the AI component to the retention component to the macroeconomic
Stand Out, Then Repeat Relentlessly
SPEAKER_00household spending component, everything goes back to what are you doing different to stand out? Because that's the only way that you can win in everything we're talking about.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, stand out and well, it's not just stand out once, though. It's stand out and repeat. Totally, totally, like you have to get in front of people. That's why we we're talking about things like postpilot. We're talking about things like hey, how do you just get your stuff in front of people? How do you get people to remember who you are, what your company does? Like, how do you show them who you are multiple times, not just expecting once to hit?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, right.
SPEAKER_01I mean, that just the nature of scrolling has changed in the last 10 years. Like people are just trying to find another quick hit on reels or TikTok of something. It's like, how do you change your content strategy to match that kind of behavior, not just the curated stuff that we used to think worked back in the feed era? Right. Right? We're now in the reels era, yeah.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, and if you ask yourself the question, like, you know, okay, how much time have you spent on social media today? And you're like, okay, I've spent an hour. Can you remember anything you watched? And most most people's answer is gonna be no, which is maybe like a meme or like a funny one.
SPEAKER_01Sure.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah, for sure. But but it's not like a oh hey, it's not like a this brand I saw XYZ.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, you know, yeah, it's not like a TV show. Yeah, like you're not watching a cohesive story across 30 minutes to an hour, it's like people spend 30 minutes to an hour just going through the casino of TikToks.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_01The reality is things are gonna get harder. Yeah, they always do before they get easier, yeah. And I'm I'm an optimistic person overall, so I I think these downturns often turn into up cycles
Q4 Math: CAC, Touchpoints, Momentum
SPEAKER_01for those who can bear it. Yeah, for people who can find bright spots, and the good news is if you can bear the downturns and you know how to adjust, then like even though it hurts, like you will be able to take advantage of a rising tide. Yeah, but the the tide, I mean, that's just this is just business. This is just economics. Like the tide goes in and out in terms of macro, in terms of trends and technologies. But how you position yourself to take advantage of the tide when it's coming back in can set you up to continue, maybe not growing the same way when the tide goes out, but you won't be suffering and hurting and scared.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Well, the other thing is the other thing to consider is like you said, things are gonna get worse before they get better. And what Mark means by that is for example, every year, if you go back and historically look at brands CAC over Black Friday, it seems like it gets worse every year. Still is great, right? Better worse when you're comparing it to the previous Black Friday. Yeah, right? Yeah, better than what it was all year, but when you're just comparing Black Fridays. So a lot of people see performance get worse and they start to hold back. Let's spend less money, let's let's be seen less, is essentially what you're saying when you're spending less money, unless you're finding other creative ways to organically do it. And that can be a big problem for you because what you do now not only can help you now, but also helps you six months from now.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00You know, and so if you're feeling like this situation is bad and you start to lower your touch points, I'm not gonna say lower spend, we're just gonna call it touch points, it'll negatively affect your own. You are going to be much worse six months from now than you thought you were today.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Your ROAS might look a little better. Yeah, your ROAS might look better today, but your company, your profitability, your revenue, your employee headcount, everything is going to be down. So just I think a lot of the reasons why we have we have discussions like this is because we want to give you guys information. We have access to several brands, and
No Silver Bullets, Better Operations
SPEAKER_00so there's there's beauty in talking to agency owners like us because we're not on an island. We're seeing what's happening with everybody. So we're seeing what's happening with brands who are in this $500,000 range, we're seeing what's happening with brands who just launched, and we're seeing what's happening with brands in this $50 million range, you know, and everybody is experiencing efficiency dips. But the brands that are winning are the ones pressing on and saying, okay, cool, let's create a new standard. My CAC used to be 30, now it's 39, okay. Like, how do I adjust? How do we adjust financially for this?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, don't versus the ones who aren't trying to find a silver bullet.
SPEAKER_00Yep.
SPEAKER_01Like there are no silver bullets, so there's no get rich quick schemes. It's gonna be harder than you think. Yeah, you're gonna need a little luck sometimes, but there's a lot of room to grow. Like we we are seeing it even this year. If you've had a difficult year this year, there are brands that we have seen go from literally seen brands go from $250,000 a month to $2.75 million a month.
SPEAKER_00Totally.
SPEAKER_01This this year.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Right. We've we know brands that are having their best month ever last month.
SPEAKER_00For sure. Even though their efficiency wasn't, even though their efficiency wasn't, right?
SPEAKER_01But they are still crushing. And so, yes, there's still money, there's still business. It's just how do you adjust with the content? How do you identify your customers? How do you connect with them if you go back to the basics?
SPEAKER_00And how do you do it different from everyone else? Consistently different. I like that you threw that in there. Well, sweet. I like that. Right, everybody.
SPEAKER_01Well, good luck with uh we gave you what to do with Black Friday. You're coming in on it.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, if you haven't watched the last episode, go watch it because
Closing Notes And Listener CTA
SPEAKER_00we break that down.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00These are the things keeping us up, but there's bright spots and ways to get out of it.
SPEAKER_01There are. There's always something. I mean, it's the ad apocalypse with iOS 14. There's always something happening.
SPEAKER_00Right. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01So this is this shouldn't this shouldn't be new to anybody. Yeah. Unless you just started. Then maybe this feels new, but that was our that was our very first episode. Once or twice a year, there's some stupid meta issue. Like it It's just life.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Become an operator. Get to know your business better. Understand your numbers. Love you guys. Also, if you like this space, let us know. If you're watching. Very curious. Very nice. Very prestigious. If we need to have cigars in our hands. It's very dapper. Alright, we'll see you guys next week. Thank you so much for listening to the Unstoppable Marketer Podcast. Please go rate and subscribe the podcast. Whether it's good or bad, we want to hear from you because we always want to make this podcast better. If you want to get in touch with me or give me any direct feedback, please go follow me and get in touch with me. I am at the Trevor Crump on both Instagram and TikTok. Thank you, and we will see you next week.