The Unstoppable Marketer®

EP 156: Don't Launch That Product Yet

Trevor Crump & Mark Goldhardt Season 5 Episode 15

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Should your brand launch a new product—or double down on what already works? In this episode of The Unstoppable Marketer®, Mark Goldhart and Trevor Crump use Vuori's surprising move into premium denim as a case study to explore one of the biggest decisions every founder faces: product expansion. They break down when expanding your product line creates more revenue, when it weakens your brand, how to think about increasing customer wallet share versus reaching new audiences, and why market research should guide major product decisions instead of assumptions. If you're planning your next launch, this episode is full of practical advice you can apply immediately.

Connect with The Unstoppable Marketer® on Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, X, and YouTube @unstoppablemarketerpodcast, and let us know how you’re telling your brand story this year!

00:00 — Black Friday Planning Starts Now

05:00 — Maximizing Holiday Profitability

08:00 — Vuori Launches Jeans

16:00 — Should Brands Expand?

22:00 — Share of Wallet vs. TAM

29:00 — The Right Way to Launch

Will Viore Kill The Jeans

Trevor

My vote is that it probably doesn't hurt Viore, but my vote is that they phase it out.

Mark

Six too. That's the question. Do you think they phase it out within three years?

Trevor

My vote is that six to eight months from now, it's on their sales site. Six to eight months, I said. I'm fine to be wrong too.

Mark

I'm very interested. I am too. It is different now. Like, I mean, and I think that's why a lot of companies are having a hard time adjusting. Is every year it's different and and just what we're talking about now might not even be relevant in in a year. Yeah, for sure. Everything's changing. It's always changing. That's why we do this podcast, is because things change over time. But I I do wonder, man, like I mean, they could potentially increase their market share their gross revenue by 10%. And then that's the other question is how much market share do they have to capture in the gene space? And I and my my guess is not a lot.

Back From Break And Summer Slump

Trevor

Yo, what's going on, everybody? Welcome to the Unstoppable Marketer Podcast. With me as always, is Mark Goldhart, who's also always on his phone when I introduce him.

Mark

Buenos días.

Trevor

What's up? We're back.

Mark

We're back.

Trevor

That was a nice break. Not that we don't love podcasting. But it was nice not to have to worry about getting things ready.

Mark

Yeah, like we explained, July is a brutal time. Just busy. Self-inflicted busyness, but busy.

Trevor

The agency was also busy. Like normally July's slower. July is a slower time. But I felt like we've got a lot of time. A lot of client work to do. Yeah.

Mark

A lot of yeah, but like we're always out of town. Like I'm always kick off doing stuff.

Trevor

It's the last week or last month before.

Mark

Did school start?

Trevor

No. When does it start? Next week.

Mark

Oh, makes me sick. Summer's. Summer's over.

Trevor

Summer's over. It's ne it's nice though. I'm happy. I'm ready for it.

Mark

Yeah, parents love the end of summer.

Trevor

Had a lot of kids lately.

Mark

A lot of kids at the house? Sick of it? Eating all your food?

Trevor

Yeah, we feed like ten people a day. I get four in the summer.

Mark

It's always fun as a kid though. Yeah. Going to the friend's house.

Trevor

It's nice to be I think what's nice, it is I I wouldn't have it any other way. Like I like that our house is that house. Like the kids are generally oftentimes in our house. They all have friends that they they it it's pretty evenly split. I think that generally means that my wife is doing something right. So shout out. Okay, well, a lot has happened since our last episode.

Mark

When was the last one?

Trevor

It was it was June, or maybe the first week of July. We might have done one in July and then we were like, wait a second. We normally Yeah, that's right. Yeah, we normally don't do this. But um coup couple things. So last week of summer when this comes out, it's probably officially summer's probably officially over, would be my guess when this comes out.

Mark

For kids.

Trevor

Yeah. For kids. And so hopefully some buying behavior and spending habits start to pick back up. You know, just like schedules are off and we're already seeing it. Yes, people.

Mark

We're already seeing in our accounts that things are starting to hum back in place. Hum in a way they haven't.

Trevor

Yeah.

Mark

It's been a little harder to get things to hum.

Trevor

Yes.

Mark

Which we expect that should last till end of September. Yeah. And then October, depending on your business, should be like always, don't be surprised, rough.

Using Shopify Cohorts To Plan Fall

Trevor

Yeah.

Mark

Harder.

Trevor

Yeah. One thing you should look at um over the next, you know, it's it's usually kind of like July-ish and and the months beyond. You should look at your Shopify cohort data and see um who from July on which cohort from a month to month tends to be your best returning cohort in October. Um, and if you start to see like really big signs that people in August, because we're in August now, are when they are acquired in August, they come back at a bare very like high ratio. Just take a look at those because that should potentially start to dictate where some of your ad spend should start to go and how much of that ad spend should start to go into those months, you know, because there are a lot of people who will see a dip uh from an efficiency perspective in October. However, sometimes you don't slow down the way you would normally slow down with a dip because those people come back three or four X anyone else. So just start keeping an eye on those things as you are preparing for Black Friday. I think, well, let's since we're talking Black Friday, let's talk about some things. Now is the time you might be even delayed on this. To if you want to start thinking about a unique, cool gift with purchase, uh depending on what your procurement and processes, manufacturing processes look like right now. Um that's a great way to potentially stand out. You know, anybody who spends over X first 500 people who spend over $150 gets a free XYZ. Yeah. Now obviously you can do that kind of stuff without doing something unique for Black Friday, but I think something unique for Black Friday is always a really good needle mover when people are saying, oh, should I buy from company A versus company B who are selling something very, very similar.

Mark

Totally.

Trevor

So that's a that's a a move you can make.

Mark

Yeah, if there's some levers you can pull to increase AOV, because with the discounting, your margins obviously get worse. Yep. So you know, Black Friday in general is just an interesting thing because it's not that great for a lot of brands.

Trevor

Yeah, when you're gonna go to the city. Yeah, when you pull the curtain back and you look at some profitability stuff.

Mark

Well, also if you look at cohort data, like some brands just have terrible November cohorts because it's just a bunch of people that come and buy on discount and never really come back. Like they don't turn into loyal customers. Yeah. Where others they do. So be try to be strategic about it.

unknown

Yeah.

Mark

And how you think about Black Friday. It's I think if you're a high AOV product, we're in a state where people are looking for discounts. When I say we're in a state, like the economy, buyer behavior. And so I don't think you have to overthink it with that kind of product with Black Friday. Like you like if you're already over 250.

Trevor

Right.

Mark

You know? Yeah. But if you're under that, if your AOV is 50, like really try to figure out how to get people to buy two of it.

Trevor

Yes. How to spend more and get more.

Mark

Yes.

Trevor

Yes.

Mark

Not just one.

Trevor

Probably anybody under 100, I would say.

Mark

Because your profit dollar gets squeezed fast when you're under that. Well, during Black Friday, it's good. It's competitive.

Trevor

So yeah, I like that. In fact, we should probably do a prep for Black Friday slash Black Friday predictions episode here in the next little bit as people are starting to prepare something that maybe drops in September. That'd be nice.

Mark

That'd be good. Let's try it.

Trevor

Stay tuned. Um a

Viore Enters Denim And The Risks

Trevor

couple things. I got so uh my wife gets Viore catalogs sent to her uh sent to our house.

Mark

Do you have to sign up for that or did do they just send it because she's bought there?

Trevor

I'm guessing they just send it. I highly doubt she signed up for it. Maybe. But I something that that's interesting, I just want to get your take on is um I don't have the catalog here with me, but I just pulled it up. Viore, who is the competitor to Lululemon, Athletic Clothing, started out in the men's space.

Mark

They There's still more men, right? I think so. They lean a little more male.

Trevor

I I I believe so. I mean I looked through the catalogs because I like Viore too, and it seems like three-fourths of the catalogue is men, and the other third is for women. Okay.

Mark

So I I would assume they lean that they do, and I feel like they're they're not an overtly male brand though.

Trevor

No, I if I had to bet, I bet it's I bet it was like a 60-40 thing. They started men, though. They started men, whereas whereas like Lulu started very strongly.

Mark

Everyone else started women, right?

Trevor

But my my question for you that I have is they just launched jeans. Jeans. The Viore vintage jean relaxed fit, and it is just legitimate jeans. We'll show us uh just jeans. Yeah. They have like a black wash and then just like your typical denim wash.

Mark

Good old Americana jeans.

Trevor

$198. Like what we've talked about this before when people enter new markets. Like, what what are your thoughts about Viore entering that market? Like, do you think that they'll be successful? Do you think that it just doesn't matter?

Mark

Traditionally, I would say it's not gonna work at all. Yeah. I don't know, like athle leisure, athletic wear has kind of turned into just general wear in a way. Sure. So may maybe now that jump isn't really much of a jump as much as it would have been if Lulu tried it eight years ago.

Trevor

Because they've all got into the business casual world.

Mark

Yeah.

Trevor

That kind of like overlaps with the golf.

Mark

Yes, because it's like golf apparel and business casual are kind of the same thing.

Trevor

Yeah, they're synonymous now with those like athletic-y pants.

Mark

So I'm very I I'm interested. I'm intrigued. I don't know. I'm leaning failure, but okay, I think we live in a different world now than we did even three years ago.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah.

Mark

So I don't know what like how does a consumer view it? I don't know if it could I don't know. I don't think they view it the same way as they used to.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah.

Mark

However, really hard to maintain like who you are in the eyes of people if you're like that's like Nike doing jeans.

Trevor

Yeah.

Mark

Like it would make more sense for Viore to get into shoes.

Trevor

Uh yeah. I would agree with that.

Mark

Than it would to go into jeans.

Trevor

Yeah. I think Lulu tried to do shoes.

Mark

Did they?

Trevor

Yeah, for a season and it failed me like six years ago.

Mark

Yeah, like shoe and like everything is easier said than done. Sure. But the jeans is just interesting because it's like that's not even an athletic. There's like no, it's just clothes. Like that's the only tie-in. It's like you're wearing clothes.

Trevor

Yeah, my wonder or fear or thought is like I don't know what it is. I think the the thing is like, do you when you start doing stuff like that, do you like do you think Levi'd Levi could do athletic? No. Right? But the but like Levi's Levi has heritage though. Like there's like a heritage piece to Levi's that if you did it, it would be like that that seems significantly more shocking. I don't know.

Mark

There is, but like Levi's is a lot more casual of a gene brand than Wrangler. Sure. Like Wrangler is much more on the work wear.

Trevor

Yeah, I don't know.

Mark

I I just work wear.

Trevor

My thing is like, do you when people start to see stuff like that, do they start to think like, oh, are these guys not sharpening in on being like because I think the most athletic, like they're the most focused on athletic wear. Because I feel like Viore has stepped up and I think they've b beat Lulu with material and softness and feel. I think they're they're beating them with fit. Like I I think that Lulu's still a bigger company significantly, if I recall. Like they I think they were like rated or like evaluated at like 40 billion versus the when we last chatted about Viore, they hit like the billion mark a few couple years ago. So I'm sure their billions are higher now, but but they're they're a faster growing company than I think Lulu is, if I recall.

Mark

At this stage, I'm sure.

Trevor

So I'm yeah, I don't know. I I like I don't think Lulu's growing much anymore. I would see that and think, hey, like I've loved your innovation you and what you've done and how you've surpassed nobody probably thought Lulu could be surpassed from like a this is what I want, like the more desirable brand.

Mark

Yeah, like if we're if we're just thinking basics, like first principles, obviously this doesn't look like a good move. But if we're getting a little bit more big galaxy brain about it, which sometimes is not the right way to think about things, you could make an argument that maybe they have keyed in on that people are less brand loyal than ever. And because people are less brand loyal, there is an opening for to to oh to go into something like jeans, as long as you have the right product and you have a good name, and you don't sacrifice quality of other things because of it? Yeah, like maybe it doesn't like again, I'm leaning probably not a right the right fit. Yeah. But here here's another argument. Like men tend to be even less brand loyal.

Trevor

Yeah. They're more agnostic to things.

Mark

Meaning if you're a man, are you more willing if you're already sold on Viore, are you more willing to try their genes? Maybe I become I actually become kind of like I would say yes, like you're more willing to do it as a man than perhaps a woman.

Trevor

Well, in my older in my older age, I want to just buy clothes from one place.

Mark

So it could be a a genius move.

Trevor

We're changing our tune now.

Mark

Well, again, like I said, it if you're thinking of this traditionally, it's feels like a bad move.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah.

Mark

But I think there are some elements in just the way the landscape has changed with the tectonic plates of social media shifting and consumer behavior shifting. Like we're at a time where people are less loyal to specific brands. Right. So could you build in a way like if they're less loyal, that also means that they're you're there's an opening to take over.

Trevor

Yeah, I'll be curious. My vote is that it My vote is that it probably doesn't hurt Viore, but my vote is that they phase it out?

Mark

Six months from the case. That's the question. Do you think they phase it out within three years?

Trevor

My vote my vote is that six to eight months from now, it's on their sales site. Six months from now. I'm fine to be wrong too. Six to eight months, I said.

Mark

I'm very interested. I am too. Because it is it is different now. Like, I mean, and I think that's why a lot of companies are having a hard time adjusting is every year it's different, and and what we're talking about now might not even be relevant in in a year. Yeah, for sure. Everything's changing, it's always changing. That's why we do this podcast, is because things change over time. But I I do wonder, man, like I mean, they could they could potentially increase their market share their gross revenue by 10%.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah.

Mark

And then that's the other question is how much market share do they have to capture in the gene space to make sense. In the gene space. And I and my my guess is not a lot.

Trevor

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Mark

But see, that's why I'm also interested in our jeans are making a comeback right now.

Trevor

I don't like jeans at all.

Mark

That's because you're an older millennial.

Trevor

That's a very interesting point. Matt, so Maddox, you didn't probably you probably just heard muffled because we don't have her on mic. She said she thinks it's brilliant essentially because Viore is so well known for comfort in their clothing that if they are they are Viore putting themselves in a perfect position for those people who don't think that jeans are comfortable now, they can associate jeans. Hey, I always want to wear these, but I hate because I don't like I think jeans look good, but I don't wear them because they are the most uncomfortable pants known to man. Alright. Yeah, she's saying the reviews are good.

Mark

But well, yeah, and to that point, they're not actually f straight jeans. Are they like uh straight up well, yeah, because like the fabric is contains 35% Lyosel and elastane.

Trevor

Do you know your jeans?

Mark

Well, generally, like a true gene is cotton.

Trevor

Oh, is it?

Mark

Yeah.

Trevor

Like a true We gotta get you we gotta get you guys mic'd up over here. Geez. Okay, well, this wasn't meant to be the entire topic of the conversation, but I thought it was very interesting.

Mark

Like obviously a lot of people have like some kind of polyester blend in them now. Yeah. But like a real gene is is cotton.

A Practical Framework For Expansion

Trevor

I bring I bring this up. Let's just close this out here because I we have a bigger topic I wanted to chat about. Um I bring it up because you have so many we have you have so many people who are always talking about how to expand their product or how to expand their audience, um, when oftentimes they don't need to do that. Um you know, you you for example, let's say you have uh you're a women's clothing company and you get a few people who say, I wish you w made stuff for my husband. And you think, oh my gosh, yeah, if women like this, men should like this too. And then you jump into the men's space and you abandon the community and customers you've built um and start putting time and attention into uh menswear, and it can eventually hurt and fold. Um so that same audience who buys from you uh for women's clothing doesn't often buy for you for men's clothing. And so um I think there's just warnings behind it. I think that's why I brought it up was to just like re-engage that conversation that not to say that you shouldn't expand product lines, but to just be weary um and to know that just because you can sell one thing here doesn't mean you can sell another thing over here just because you have an audience. Um I think that like the influ the old influencer model has taught us that that like you could have one influencer who let's say she can sell active wear really, really good, um, but she can't sell hats, you know. But you would think, oh well, people who get activeware like hats, why wouldn't they you know so so sometimes it just doesn't it just doesn't add up. So just because one person can sell one thing doesn't mean that they'll be able to sell the other thing.

Mark

No, but brands should always be thinking about product expansion.

Trevor

For sure.

Mark

Yeah.

Trevor

Totally.

Mark

Just dependent upon it's like it's the double-edged sword.

Trevor

Well, uh oftentimes it's it's not just product expansion, but it's also you gotta be weary of like what is the product expansion also. Does it does the product introduce a potential new customer variable too? I think that's an interesting thing to look at.

Mark

And and also just last last point on this is a lot of e-commerce brands I think struggle to move from like a small niche type audience or product solution to a big TAM company. Because there it's just different approaches. Like if you're trying to go mass market, margins are gonna be different, efficiencies are gonna be different. Yeah. And and I think people usually start off in this like smaller space and then try to get into the other space without the right product approach or thought. But then, like Viore, you know, they have huge TAM with that type of product, just athletic wear. Like they're clearly not tapped out of it.

Trevor

Uh but maybe they are, I guess. I don't know.

Mark

No, but it's worth a risk. Like, I like I like here's what I like. I like that they're taking a risk because guess what? If this fails, no one's gonna remember, no one's gonna know. The average consumer is not gonna be like, oh yeah, Viore failed. They suck. Yeah, no one's gonna care in a year from now if they fail. Or if they succeed, they get they could increase their bottom line by a lot.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah.

Mark

By acquiring or just to simply men, or or just like getting a little more of their returning customers to come back and get it. Because I don't know men's buying behavior if it if they lean men. I wonder if returning customers are different for men versus women with athleisure. Do they buy less? Do they buy the same? Is it more often? Because if it's less, then like, oh well, let's get them back with some jeans. That's the new trend, but they all want comfortable, like Maddox said.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah.

Mark

So I here's what I do love. I love a risk because a lot of companies get a lot of companies would be scared to do this because it wouldn't be quote on brand. So it's worth the risk because they're at the comp I'm sure they can absorb it if it fails.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah.

Mark

But there's a lot of reward there if it works. And I I'm sure they have smart people on staff that have identified some. Some openings.

Trevor

What's the advice like if you're talking like what what should what should brands look out for if like if the product expansion is important to think of? Like what are what are things people should be weary of?

Mark

Well, there's two approaches to product expansion. One is you start with why and who. So like who is your customer and why is this important to them? And does it fit within your your brand ethos? Yeah. Right? Like your values, your vision.

Trevor

Yeah.

Mark

Um with Viore, if that's comfort, if that's style, then then it fits, right?

Trevor

Yeah, that's a great question. Yeah, like if if Viore, if you're getting to the bottom of what they're putting on the city.

Mark

Because like I don't view Viore as like, you're gonna be the best athlete ever.

Trevor

You know, it's just see, I've always viewed Viore as like they're trying to own the athl, like the athletic market, like the athleisure market. But I'm seeing them go into they're they're the key sponsored at all these new tennis events. They're signing tennis athletes. They're like so to me, I'm seeing them, I think I've seen them sign some golf athletes as well recently. Like I'm watching them sign athletes, and so to me, I've always viewed them as more of this athletic, athleisure workout company. But maybe like Maddox said, is like maybe the way they view themselves is like, no, we are the most comfortable clothing on the planet.

Mark

Or is it we are the most functional? Like I, you know, I I don't know what their actual brand motto is or whatever, but so look, I'll as long as it fits within that ethos of who you're trying to serve, then you can try things. Then the the second approach is just looking at what has the biggest market opportunities, where's the arbitrage in the market and opportunities based off of you know market data of what products will work? Yeah, that has to align with you know somewhat your customer base, yeah. Uh so like maybe it's not that crazy for Viore. Seems weird because no one's really done that before. Like, I don't know. Has Nike ever done Nike's done skate pants and not necessarily jeans, but Nike does their skateboarding pants and they have like kind of that khaki material.

Trevor

Like I don't know what the sales numbers on those are, but yeah, but they kind of created Nike SB though that seems like it almost it like I wouldn't be surprised if Nike came out with like a skateboard. Like that wouldn't, I know I know hard good, I don't think they wouldn't. I know they don't do hard goods anymore, but if they were to do that as like a capsule, you know, or a collaboration, I like that wouldn't surprise me.

Mark

But like I like I said, maybe there's something here that there's more than meets the eye. Traditionally, yes, like five years ago, it's like oh yeah, of course that's gonna fail, but athletic wear is now just everyday wear in most people's eyes.

Trevor

Yeah, I mean I'm wearing athletic wear pants right now.

Mark

Most people wear athletic wear every day. I was being teased about it earlier in some way, shape, or form, right? Nike is a what? Are you are they a clothing brand or are they ath athletic?

Trevor

To me, Nike's still a shoe brand.

Mark

So you think they're a shoe brand?

Trevor

Yeah. Even though I know they make clothing.

Mark

They're a lifestyle brand, technically.

Trevor

Yeah. Yeah.

Mark

Right?

Trevor

Yeah. But I still think to them as like shoe.

Mark

So so like well, think about that though. Like, how come Nike was able to go from running shoes to basketball shoes to just everyday shoes?

Trevor

Well, I don't think they would have succeeded if had they not gone like running to basketball to golf to tra you. Like, I think they're not going to be able to do that. But once they became a household name, which they are, I think it made it very easy for them to step into the lifestyle everyday wear because but does it take that much time now?

Mark

Like like I'm saying, like people's people's the way people shot, the way people see things now is different than it was in the 80s and 90s.

Trevor

And it's a lot quicker than it was back then, too.

Mark

Like and and clothing standards have changed in school and work, right? Back in the 80s and 90s, you couldn't just hang out in your Nike sweatpants and go to school, they'd make you change. You couldn't wear yoga pants to work. People do.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah.

Mark

Is the jump back to jeans really that big of a deal? We'll find out. I don't think it is. Like I said, I like the risk because I think there's less of a gap there than there ever has been. So I think again, that's how you look at product expansion. So if you're thinking about product expansion, you're either trying to increase your wallet share of your current customers and be able to expand into more of those types of customers, or you're trying to increase your customer base. And that's another way of looking at it.

Trevor

Yeah, I think I like how you split that. I think that's the right way to split it. It's like you're either increasing share of wallet or you're increasing TAM.

Mark

And they both do. Sure. You can do the both with both, but it's like I think that's a helpful way of thinking about like what's the main thing of this product.

Trevor

Yeah. Yeah. The other thing just to look at too is also like do you need to increase some of those things?

Mark

Like if you sell hats, for example, there's a lot of people that don't wear hats. Yeah. So if you go from hats to it's a stupid example, but if you go from hats to digital watches, that's a way of getting people that maybe don't do vice versa. Or maybe you know that people who wear hats have a high likelihood of also wearing a watch.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah.

Mark

So then you're increasing the the wallet share.

SPEAKER_03

Right.

Mark

Not necessarily getting massive new types of customers. Tangent over.

Trevor

I don't even know if that was a long breakdown of that. And I feel like relatively valuable. Like if we get into our other topic, we might be here for a minute. Do you want to jump into it? What do you think? No. I mean, I like I like the way the conversation went. That was not what our conversation was meant to be.

Mark

No, but I think to wrap it up with products, you do have to understand that you can't just throw in new products into your current advertising mix and just think it's gonna work. So you you you have to think about it as how how are we strategically placing because right now I'll bet you Viore's not really even advertising a lot of genes. I bet it's in their catalog. I bet they're soft launching it and seeing how their current customer base reacts to it. Um, maybe they have a few ads, but I'll bet that the majority of their ads are the same as they were before they launched.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah.

Mark

They're not doing this big old, like, we're a genes company now.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah.

Mark

So they're it's probably a soft launch to see if they can increase returning customers. So wallet share of current customer base. And then if it continues to work, I'm sure they'll go, they'll they'll go harder on an actual acquisition strategy. But a lot of people will throw out this new product and try to change their brand overnight.

Trevor

What's been interesting for for us, right, in Bestie at Bestie Media, we're a we're a growth paid performance marketing agency. That's what we've led with to acquire our clients. We introduced a UGC services to our world, like what, five months ago, six months ago?

Mark

Yeah.

Trevor

And immediately we introduced it, one, because we just knew it was gonna help our clients, but it increased share of wallet for clients. So we launched it to increase share of wallet and to keep it solves a real need that needed to be resolved. So like it was in a cost efficient. Obviously, it was meant for us to make more money too, but we knew that it was going to help clients in turn make more money, right? So when they make more money, we make more money. But what's been very fascinating over the last two to three months is we now have clients that we don't run ads for, but we have landed them through our UGC services.

Mark

Yes. So like expanded customers.

Trevor

So now like we started it with hey, land the client on running their ads, expand through UGC, share of wallet. Now we're landing people just on the UGC side with no intent to run their ads for them. So it's a very interesting thing where you can build something for your current customers, see how they like it. If they like it, then oftentimes what do they do? They talk about it with other people. That turns into an acquisition strategy that then you can start to put more money behind to make it more efficient.

Mark

And current customers are usually a little more forgiving. Like if you soft launch a product and let some loyalists try it, and if you're really smart, you'll just let them try it before you launch it.

Trevor

These are the best jeans I've ever had in my life. Yeah, I've always been a Levi's guy.

Mark

And that's the last thing, like with product expansion.

Market Research And Final Takeaways

Mark

Like, just if you're at a certain level, just pay for the market research. That's true. Don't guess. It's just not worth guessing. Yeah, we recently like don't overthink it. Like you're probably not Steve Jobs.

Trevor

You know, like you're probably not Steve Jobs, you're probably gonna create he's saying he's saying that, like, meaning, you know, Steve Jobs. Customers don't know what they want, they don't know what they want. I'm gonna build it for them because I'm a genius, kind of thing, you know.

Mark

And he was, yeah. But most people aren't. Yeah.

Trevor

And well, since he's been gone, Apple has not done that, right?

Mark

No, and there's they are they continue to grow just fine. Yeah, everyone thinks they're not growing, and then like they're on track to be the world's biggest, most profitable company still. I think they are the most profitable, but really pretty sure, yeah. But the like again, just pay for the market research. Figure out what actually people want and what they're not happy with.

Trevor

Because if you do it yourself, yeah, you can't survey customers on stuff like this a lot of times.

Mark

You're gonna get a lot of false positives.

Trevor

You can do it on basic little things.

Mark

Just like, yeah, just basic NPS product feedback stuff.

Trevor

Yeah like when we were at the when we were at the diaper bag company, we surveyed people like, hey, what products do you want to see from us? And everybody said a wallet, and that made a lot of sense. And we created a wallet and we sold a lot of wallets to returning customers.

Mark

Yeah.

Trevor

And it was it was great. It's like, oh awesome.

Mark

But not to new.

Trevor

No, no. Did we ever acquire a new customer from a wallet? Probably not. So you can do it on little things, but from like directional movement for your brand and your company, pay market research companies. You'll save so much money.

Mark

It's it yeah. And time. It's so worth the money.

Trevor

Um, well, that was a tangent. That was a tangent.

Mark

We have recommendations of who to use for that kind of service, but yeah. Um if you are interested, if you were a brand, reach out and we'll line you up with some prospects. But yeah, just go through the actual market research.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, I agree.

Mark

And sometimes you'll find in the market research, it's like maybe it's just not even worth going like you'll have this great idea, but you get to put rubber to pavement a little quicker with market research, and then you'll you might find out like, man, people just don't really like this idea. Yeah, yeah. Like, here's a prototype. Do you like it? It's like, no.

Trevor

What a lovely conversation. Viore, thank you, Viore.

Mark

Good luck, Viore.

Trevor

Yeah, sponsored to you by Viore's jeans. $198. Tell us how they are.

Mark

Not made out of 100% cotton.

Trevor

No. Good luck. Godspeed.

Mark

But that man, that's another trend that's interesting. The anti-polyester trend. It's small, it's still small now, but will it be in 10 years?

Trevor

That's the toxic stuff, right? Yeah. Yeah. Scary stuff.

unknown

Okay.

Mark

Microplastics.

Trevor

Next week on the Unstoppable Marketer Podcast. Microplastics. Good or bad.

Mark

UFOs.

Trevor

Alright, everybody. Thank you so much. Welcome back.

Mark

The aliens did it. It's good to see you guys. Aliens want microplastic in our balls.

Trevor

We'll see you guys next week. Thank you for listening to the Unstoppable Marketer Podcast. If there's a brand campaign, strategy, or marketing tactic that you want us to review, please DM me at the TrevorCrump on Instagram or TikTok, or at the Unstoppable Marketer Podcast. And of course, if you got value from this episode or if you like it whatsoever, please make sure you're subscribing, you're liking, you're following, and of course go leave us a review.