Expert Marketer Steven Black joins today’s Lunch With Norm to discuss why building an audience is MORE important than the product itself. In today’s show Steven explains how building a tribe of raving fans can have huge benefits to Amazon seller. We also dive into simple steps to start this process. With over 15 years of experience as a Marketer and over 10 as a Teacher, Steven has helped hundreds of companies ranging in size. He is also an expert on the dark arts of buyer psychology.
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Episode: 215
Title: Norman Farrar Introduces Steven Black, Serial entrepreneur
Subtitle: “Audience Building is BETTER than Product Picking”
Final Show Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5WjsmmHqzRs
On today’s Lunch with norm we have Steven Black, expert digital marketer joins today’s show to talk about why building an audience is MORE important than the product itself. Steven has over 15 years of experience as a Marketer and has helped hundreds of companies from startup to 1B+ monsters with retention and content marketing to create their own audiences.
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Norman Ferrar 0:01
Hey everyone, it’s Norman Farrar, aka the beard guy here and welcome to another lunch with Norm, the Amazon FBA and Ecommerce podcast.
Norman Ferrar 0:19
Alright still on the road in Fort Lauderdale. And I think the next time you’ll see me, I’ll be. I’ll be broadcasting live in Edmonton, Alberta. So anyways, today we got a great show, we’ll be talking about how audience building is better than product picking. And we have our guest today who’s an expert in this. I saw him in Austin, and he blew me away, and he’s an expert in the dark arts of buyer psychology. So he is the marketer for overfit. He’s been a marketer for over 15 years. And he’s worked with a ton of companies from startups, all the way up to billion dollar monsters. I can’t wait to talk to him. And before we do, though, just a quick shout out, I want to give a shout out to our sponsors. zee.co. Sorry for the I think I had one too many cigars last night. But anyways, I’m going to do the best I can. Alright, so zee.co is looking to leap into the low looking to leap from local to global with your ecommerce business, you can with the help of zee, Zee’s brand new app. That’s right, you can track live shipments with push notifications, get detailed lead times for each stage of your shipment, and store all compliance and VAT reclaimed documents in the palm of your hand. All while listening. The Buried guy. Anyways, more information, contact zee.co. And that’s at Zeed.co. And you know what? I say that all the time because I’m Canadian. But it’s zee.co. All right. Where is the Kelvinator?
Kelsey 2:05
Hey, hello. Hello is like the studio you’re at?
Norman Ferrar 2:09
I like it. I can. Yeah. Kelsey, why don’t you have a studio like this for me back home?
Kelsey 2:14
I know I did. We got those black panels that I know. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. I think we need to up the budget a little bit. And then we can do that.
Norman Ferrar 2:26
I’ll just deduct it from your wage. Perfect. Perfect. Just like coffee. There we go. Cuz you don’t really get paid.
Kelsey 2:33
That’s right. Fun fact about lunch with norm. I don’t get paid. But welcome everyone. Welcome Abud, Rosalyn, we got Marina. Good morning, everyone. We had Simon also a Facebook user. I believe that’s probably right. Oh, well.
Norman Ferrar 2:55
Buddy. Wi Fi.
Kelsey 2:57
Yeah. So I am moving in today. So apologies for my Wi Fi. If I’m stiffer. If I’m
Norman Ferrar 3:04
if you were processional you would have handled that before the call.
Kelsey 3:06
Yeah. But yeah, smash those like buttons. Share this out to your friends and family who are interested in Amazon and E commerce. And we can just jump right into it. Well,
Norman Ferrar 3:18
first, I got to give a big shout out to Rosalyn Jessica, Jessica Rabbit. So we were able to get together at a really great dinner here in Miami. And it was just great meeting her again. So and we got to meet a lot of lunch with Norm and private label Legion member. So it was really cool.
Kelsey 3:39
Awesome. Also, we did get a new Patreon member, so I just wanted to quickly shout them out. Thank you, Russ for being a part of the Patreon. And yeah, we really appreciate it. If you guys are interested in our patreon you can visit lunch with Norm calm and go over to the membership area and you’ll be able to find that.
Norman Ferrar 4:03
Oh, okay, so what do you got to say to close this up?
Kelsey 4:07
Alright, so just enjoy the show. We do this every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. If you’re new and watching. This is a place where you can ask your questions in the comment sections. We’ll read them out. We’ll do a q&a session at the end of the podcast. And yeah, enjoy. We have a prize giveaway too. So stay tuned for more information about that.
Norman Ferrar 4:28
All right, fantastic. So if you do have questions, throw them over in the comment section we will get to them. So sit back, relax, grab a cup of coffee, and enjoy the episode. Welcome, Mr. Black. How are you sir?
Steven Black 4:43
Hello. Hello everyone. I am having some trouble hearing over. Give me just a second. Sure. I’ll come up for it.
Kelsey 4:57
Can you hear me Steven? All right,
Norman Ferrar 5:03
I can’t hear anything. So all
Kelsey 5:05
right, am I just?
Norman Ferrar 5:08
Oh, you could go into your camera, see the gear box? Go into camera mic. Because you can’t hear me. Kelsey, can you do some interpretive dance for me?
Kelsey 5:22
Yeah. So I’m going to message Steven, on the private chat. And,
Norman Ferrar 5:28
and while you’re doing that, we’ll talk about networking. So, you know, while we’re, while we’re talking about this, in meeting Roz and meeting, one, Donna, and everybody that was there, that’s the importance of getting out there and going to these events. Now, there’s free events, and we ended up at Carlo LVRs, his event, and no charge, it was free, and got to meet some really cool people, especially a couple that has actually heard lunch with Norm podcast, and they’re from Turkey. So that blew me away. So anyways, they’re going to be here for three months. But really just got to know a lot of people.
Kelsey 6:13
And we we are good to go. Steven can hear us now. Oh.
Steven Black 6:20
So sorry about that.
Norman Ferrar 6:22
Hey, no problem. Okay, so we fixed the problem. Yes. See, if this was a year and a half ago, I’d be on the floor sucking my thumb in the fetal position. I’ve learned to handle these things.
Steven Black 6:36
I’ve had my issues on Lives before.
Norman Ferrar 6:38
Oh my gosh, yeah. You know what I don’t know about you. But for for some reason. clubhouse. So if guests don’t know how to link, like, get into clubhouse, there’s a major problem. Try figuring that one out. When you’re doing the talking. You’re hosting, you’re trying to talk. I mean, that’s crazy. I can handle this because Kelsey can do everything in the background. Alright, so Steven, let’s talk a little bit about you. Who are you? What do you do?
Steven Black 7:07
Well, for those of you that don’t know me, my name is Steven black. I have been a marketer for about 16 years now on and off the Amazon platform. I’ve had brick and mortar businesses. I have multiple online stores on and off the Amazon platform, and have done consulting for hundreds and hundreds of businesses ranging from startups to billion dollar companies. And I’m all about building an audience retaining an audience selling an audience over and over and over and over again, I am audience obsessed. And I let them tell me what to sell them and how to sell them and why they want to buy it. So there you go.
Norman Ferrar 7:43
That’s too quick. Now I got to figure out another question. Well, I’m to the point.
Steven Black 7:50
I’m a pretty open book.
Norman Ferrar 7:52
Alright. Fantastic. So, you know, when when I was in Austin, you were at you were speaking at the billion dollar seller Summit. As the first time I heard you speak, and it was fantastic. Thank you, you know, the information, the notes that I took, probably one of the most probably, yes, I would say the most action points out of any speakers that I was, you know, scribbling down. But anyways, let’s talk about that. So when you were there, you were talking a bit about building an audience? On off Amazon, you want to start with that? Where and when should you start to build an audience?
Steven Black 8:33
Well, where and when. I’m going to handle that in reverse, okay, in my opinion, when is before you have a product. Always, always, always, always I know that’s completely backwards from everything you hear in the Amazon space. And the reason is, because our goal, especially when we’re moving into spending a chunk of capital, on resources, and and, you know, inventory to send into the Amazon platform, we want to do everything that we can to try to pick something that we know people are going to want. And I’m sorry that you can look at any amount of sales data that you want on similar products. But until you actually take the time to talk to the end users and get in their heads and figure out where the underserved segments of the audience you’re aiming to serve. until you figure out what those gaps are. You’re not doing everything that you can to optimize your chances on picking a good product. And for me, a good product is not one that sells. That’s not an idea. For me a product is I want to define the audience that I’m aiming to serve. And I want to know them so intimately, that I can figure out the things that they’re regularly talking about amongst themselves. What are they complaining about? about what are they saying is already working? And what are they saying is not, and kind of develop something that will fill that gap. Because when you do that, not only do you know the audience, you can optimize your listings, with the things that they’re talking about in a way that they understand that the product is good for them. And you see a gap and you’re servicing a gap that your product picking competitors are never going to see. So that’s why I say when to start an audience. Now, if you haven’t done that, and you started with a product like all of us do, and I learned this same as everybody else. It’s a tough lesson to learn. I always start as if I have a product, somebody says, Okay, well, what do I do with an audience? I have a product, okay, great. Instead of thinking about finding people online, that are okay. I can’t find like a group of people who talk about my product, no, find a group of people that are enthusiast about a subject within which your product would be used. For evil, even if you sell something mundane, like you sell blanket baskets. Like, it’s gonna be hard to find a bunch of people talking about blanket baskets, really go on Facebook and look up the Facebook decluttering pages and groups, right? Hundreds of 1000s of people. Whoa, whoa. And for me, everybody always asked the next part of the question, where is the best place to find an audience, always Facebook, and Facebook, over Instagram, over over Pinterest, over YouTube over Twitter over clubhouse over all the other places? Why? Because Facebook has been around long enough, especially back in 2019, when they changed the newsfeed algorithm to groups. Facebook is is a platform where people are used to talking to each other. So there’s nothing stopping you because it’s free to do go in those Facebook groups go in those Facebook crazy pages and lurk. Don’t say anything, because you don’t know the language yet. It’s like real, like you wanting to get into photography, and you don’t know anything about photography, you start reading the magazines until you start becoming familiar with the concepts and the language. Okay, go in those Facebook groups, because Facebook groups, let me change the name for you. Focus Group, you don’t think I can’t go in there and say I sell to these kinds of people, the people that are involved in these topics, and then these spaces and and these problems are the end users I want. You don’t think I can’t spend some time learning about the things they’re talking about and indexing some of the phraseology that they’re using and figuring out what they’re really trying to aim at. And I can’t go back and optimize my Amazon listings. Now, when they see my listing versus my competitors, listing, my listing speaks to them. Because it’s in a language that familiar with seeing. As opposed to, here’s the features I have, here’s the features I have, here’s the features I have, that’s totally different. Totally, totally, there’s so there’s something very simple that anyone listening can do. Extremely simple.
Norman Ferrar 13:16
You know, and right off the bat, that’s a nugget. You know, if you can do that, and you can, like you say lurk, not stalk but lurk. But get that language down, get to know your audience. You know, there’s a variety of different ways of getting into these groups. But one thing, I just for myself, do not go in there and promote No, you know, don’t be the guy that’s in there just promoting their product. First of all, you’ll probably get kicked out. And second of all, you’ll just be one of them. The voters,
Steven Black 13:50
right. And the other thing is you have to realize people buy from people, no one cares about your product. And if you’re only pushing your product, you haven’t differentiated by forming a relationship and familiarity as they voice in the space. Because here’s the trick. If everybody on Amazon is competing for the click and for the purchase, there’s three phases to the buyers journey. There’s pre purchase, purchase, and post purchase. If all you’re optimizing for are high, buying intent, keywords on your listings, you’re optimizing for purchase. And your listing is a message that people are receiving when they click OK, I can read it. That’s a message I’m getting. What you have to realize is some of us who have a relationship with people who don’t mind going into the space and being helpful and figuring out what questions people are asking. We take advantage of all the levers we can pull by helping people with the pre purchase phase. If I want you to think about something everybody listening, here’s another nugget coming so get your pens ready. We only go online for four reasons. That’s it literally We have problems. We have questions, we have roadblocks. And we have a result that we’re trying to seek, and we’re researching how to get the result. It’s really that simple. Think about the reason all of us hang out in the Amazon Facebook groups. We want to know how to sell better. We have various problems and questions and roadblocks. And the result equals more sales, more conversions, better team management, whatever it is, it’s the same with everything. If not, if you don’t have a problem or question or roadblock, you’re going to go about your day. That’s literally the only reason people go online, those four things. So if I know their problems or questions or roadblocks, I can then figure out if my product is a good fit, to deliver the result that they’re seeking. And if you’re only trying to talk about what features you have, but you’re not in your real competition to me, because I know things about the audience that you’ll never know.
Norman Ferrar 16:00
Right? There you go. Very nice. You know, there’s, there’s some audience building tools out there, apps out there, there’s one that comes to mind that I would recommend, but there’s a whole bunch I wouldn’t recommend. I don’t know if you’ve ever heard of this one tool called spark Toro by Rand Fishkin,
Steven Black 16:20
I have heard of it, I have not used it. Very good,
Norman Ferrar 16:23
I would highly recommend anybody listening to check it out, you could learn to learn a bit more about who your audience is, who is listening to other people in your niche. And you know where to find these people. And it’s an eight minute training that can really help you out. But let’s take a look at the steps now. So if you’re not too familiar with going out and finding it audiences, is Facebook, another group? What can people do to kind of streamline it and feel that they’re more accepted into the group?
Steven Black 16:55
Sure. Okay. Number one. What I want you to think about as far as finding people, okay, if you have a message that you’re trying to get to people, well, we don’t want you preaching to an empty church. That’s a good what’s a good way of phrasing that? So how do we find the churches where everybody’s hanging out, so to speak, take the keywords that are niche related or problem related, okay, that you’re using on Amazon, right? Like if I sell scuba diving equipment, or a scuba diving photography, accessory, or something like that, right, some little camera attachment as an example, right, just some random as my Amazon product. I can take the term scuba, or scuba diver as a broad thing. We wouldn’t think to put that in a big campaign on Amazon. Why? Because it’s overly broad. It’s not a high intent, product based keyword, is it? No. But how do Pete What do people call themselves? How do people identify their problem? What short two to five word phrase are they using? Go on Facebook and search that on your desktop. And then just look for pages and groups with engagement and go like like like join, join, join and shut up. Because think about it. Anyone listening to this? Anyone in any of the Amazon groups? This is a foreign language that we all learned. Maybe it’s in your native tongue is English or whatever it be. But it is a foreign language. When you talk about private label and retail arbitrage and seller, Central and inventory limits, that’s a totally foreign language to most people. And we didn’t know that when we got into the space. Did we know how did we learn it? By going in these Facebook groups and taking it from people who were contributors, guys, you are participating in an online digital magazine. All of your spaces that you within which you sell, have the exact same thing going on, go and learn those languages, and then use that language on your listings. And you’ll convert higher if you get nothing else from what my big mouth says do that you make a lot more money. It’s that simple.
Norman Ferrar 19:13
When we were at a BDS test, you use and I just thought it was brilliant. Just using the scuba diver as an example. Yeah, and how you layered it and how you layered it and I’m sitting there going, oh my gosh, I gotta hire you. You made it sound so simple.
Steven Black 19:34
Well, think about it. Think about it, when we all got related back to everything for everybody. When we get into the Amazon space. You know, even if you’re a year in, you learn so much. And just participating in this space and figuring out different things and mapping out all the different pockets that you have to learn. And we have different specialists that we like to listen to for different topics. Right. Like Steve Simon’s I was listening to one of his podcast talking about Logistics the other day, and it’s just Oh, my goodness. That’s the guy. But think, did we think about that when we first got in? No. Yeah, we were trying to think about what is what is X W shipping versus DDP? What is is that the thing? What is we didn’t have any idea? All that is, is you learning the language of a space within which you want to participate? Okay? It’s the exact same when you want to find what’s going on with your audience. Alright, there’s a good question flashed up on the screen here. What’s the biggest issue when building an audience, the biggest issue that people have is consistency. In sparking conversations, the thing that people get wrong, is they think they need to be an expert. You don’t need to be an expert, you need to be able to know enough to spark conversations. If I’m in the photography space, people are going to want to talk about gear, people are going to want to talk about different types of photos, or different types of things that are doing landscape photography, or portrait photography, or architecture, photography, or underwater photography or nighttime photography, those are all different little sub genres. Think about Amazon, we have our private label, guys, there’s a whole contingent 1000s of people that just do wholesale, hugely different. We have people that are single product, we have people that are multi market, we have people that have multiple brands, or these are these are all different little pockets with a similar language, but you can’t involve in any of them unless you start reading and start participating. So when you want to go in, approach it the exact same way. You want to learn the language enough to have conversations, because it’s not about you talking to them in a lecturing kind of way. It’s not what you want. Now what you want, okay, what you want, is you want to be a dinner host. So let’s talk about scuba as an example. We’ll keep it we’ll keep it simple. Keep it consistent. If I’m going into the scuba diving group, and I’ve spent a month there reading the conversations, trying to learn what is scuba diving all about. Okay, I’m trying to sell this thing to these people, because I found it as a good product. And I developed it I spent 1000s of dollars getting it to Amazon. Whoa, what am I going to do? Okay, well, let’s go into scuba diving. And let’s learn to talk to these people. Am I going to talk about my product? No, that’s not what they’re at dinner for. If I have a bunch of scuba divers over for dinner, as the metaphor goes, what are we going to talk about scuba diving? Am I going to talk to them about my great insights about scuba diving? And while of them with my lecturing? No. I’m going to say hey, you guys. Yeah, I’m I’m no expert, maybe I’m I’m, my favorite thing to say is I’m new here. Even if I’m not even if I really have researched something, like sometimes I’ll research something for a year before buying a product, if I have to put out a lot of capital for it. I really, really, really want to make sure I know. If I’m going to go 10s of 1000s of dollars deep on a product and development and everything else, I’m going to know them better than they know themselves. Right? Because I’ve made that mistake before I spent a lot of money I got wiped out a couple times. So what you want, as I’m going to go into the scuba diving space, I’m gonna say Hey, guys, I’m a little new. Pardon me, but some of you guys that have been here a minute what’s what’s the difference between open water and Advanced Open Water certification? Like I’m, I’ve only been on a few dives, like I’m trying to figure out my next path here. Can you guys kind of give me some insight, this is kind of what I’m into. Even if I’m not, even if I’m only a product seller, I might be interested in taking that I might take someone else’s comment I saw on another page. That was a new comment. Or I might find a longtail phrase on Google and say, Oh, this is a question people are asking on Google or Quora.
Steven Black 24:01
And I can put that in a Facebook group full of enthusiasts that have found themselves because all they like to do is talk about scuba diving and say, Hey, guys, what’s the difference between open water and Advanced Open Water? I mean, I can I can read it on the website. But what’s what’s the real deal? Because like, I just want to go underwater and take pictures. And all you’ve you’ve put it in the floor. Now your dinner guests in the group are going to go bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla, and what have you done? You let them tell you what’s cool about it. You let them give you all the phraseology, you let them give you all the things they enjoy what you can use as benefits on your product page. All that phraseology. And you can also give them a psychological bit of candy because now they’re significant amongst their peers. And what if I do that two or three or four times a week, and I’m the new guy that’s just a happy rabbit in the pen and just liking and commenting and trying to interact before you know it. I’m the squeaky wheel that gets the grease. I’m just a happy enthusiast in the space. And if they look at my profile, and they happen to see I’m linked to this scuba page, they’re gonna say, What the hell is that? Are they gonna message me, they just are friending me and following me. So Ooh, let me check his page. And I might have some content that I’ve curated because I’m running my own digital magazine for the space. And now when people find me, they become part of my tribe. And when they become part of my tribe, guess what I can do? I have a relationship with them. I can retarget them with my ad offerings, even if I linked directly to Amazon, like an Amazon affiliate page, or something silly like that, even if it’s my own products. But the point is that they have familiarity with me. And it’s pretty easy to get 1000s of people to do that in a short space of time. So there you go. You know, there you go.
Norman Ferrar 25:53
I don’t know if you’ve thought about this, but just listening, and how you can just peel back the onion, right? Have you ever thought about doing that to create interest in Amazon posts? or Amazon
Steven Black 26:07
live? Okay, yes or no? Yes or no? With thank you very, very much. That’s very nice of you. And I tell everybody that I meet in the Amazon space, I’m a marketer who happens to sell on the Amazon platform, not a regular Amazon seller, I’m I came in backwards, I was a marketer for over a decade before I went to the Amazon platform at all. And I use it very, very differently than most people have it set up anyway. To your question norm on on setting it up for amazon posts. Yes. The hiccup that most people have is that they’re there, they have to realize that Amazon posts is one vehicle to deliver a message, the hiccup about it is that you’re delivering it within a certain segment of where people are on the buyers journey. Okay, and you have to realize what that is because then you can optimize the message that you’re giving in your posts. When people hit the Amazon. When people hit the Amazon pages, right, when they’re browsing, the listings, and all of that kind of thing, they have already done their product research to a point they know they want to buy something, as opposed to hiring someone or doing a DIY as the resolution to their problems. Okay, that’s, that’s the idea. They say, Okay, I’ve resolved myself I’ve researched I have to buy a product. Let me look at Amazon, probably the best chance. Amazon is Google, because it functions the exact same way with search intent. And it shows results matching their intent in the moment. Okay. So on your posts, what do most people put in their Amazon posts? What are they talking about? product features? Why is my product feature better than the other product features? Well, if everybody’s talking about product features, now everyone’s wallpaper. But instead of telling people about product features, what’s stopping you from saying how your product features directly benefit the end user in a way they can understand in a language they have used describing something? And one of their social media channels that they frequent? That’s how you use Amazon posts. Yeah, absolutely. Because you can do that. And if you want to really direct people, you can direct people to say, you know, if you have an audience going on one platform, say, hey, also follow us over here or something like that. And you can direct them to Amazon posts. And that’s great. But that takes honestly, 10s of 1000s of people to really make something of it. And from what I’ve seen, yeah, you might get some conversions from that. But the amount of engagement you’re getting on your posts is not going to directly relate to brand lift per product, SKU per keyword on the platform itself. Which is what most people are after some like, okay, there’s a trade off here. It’s more of an on platform brand awareness in the moment thing, because if people are on the platform looking and they see your Amazon posts, they take the time to check it out. While they’re in product comparison mode. So use it to help them better relate to why your product is going to help solve their problems, as opposed to being just another feature for them to consider against all the others change how they compare. Because if everybody else is product, rich, product rich product Rich, I give you these five benefits, or sorry, these five features for this money. No, well, I’ll give you these eight features for this money. No, I’ll give you these 10 features. Well, who cares if I have six or five or six features, the same as the middle of the road there? But I can help you better understand how to use it and why it’s going to benefit you. And nobody else is talking about that. Well, good luck to everybody else.
Norman Ferrar 29:57
Right. But I really liked like what He started talking about the differences between diving, right? The open water diving. Would the seller not see that and go, Wow, this is different. It’s it’s not feature. It’s not benefit. But it’s information that nobody else is giving me on the platform.
Steven Black 30:19
Yeah, that think about it if you we all buy things on Amazon, all of all of us sell on Amazon, but all of us buy things on Amazon. When you go to a listing, and it’s technobabble keyword, jargon stuff, you go, Okay, I think I kind of understand this. And you have to kind of go on Google and see what you’re really hunting for. And you go on YouTube, and you look at reviews of people actually using it and blah, blah, blah, okay, great. Well, if you’re talking in a Facebook group, to your buddies about something, and you see an Amazon listing that uses like, insider buddy kind of language, we go, oh, oh, okay. That kind of speaks to me, I understand, you’re going to automatically have that I can tell everybody why, like in 10 seconds, here’s why. If you go to a listing, that you intuitively understand exactly what they’re talking about, you’re mentally going to have the reaction, when I have the set the same is when I ask you what’s two plus two you go for, you don’t have to think I don’t want them to think I want them to react. But if you have to read the listing and understand what the features actually are, and infer how those are going to benefit you, as an end user, you’re going to have the same mental reaction is if I asked you what 17 times 38.6, you go, ah, hold on timeout. Let me let me read let me consider this. I don’t want them to consider, I want them to know, when you walk by something in the in the retail world, you might say, Oh, that’s pretty cool. And you might walk by something else and go, Oh, not fair. Gotta have it. Why? Because something about it intuitively speaks to you, in a way you don’t have to think about. If you use people’s language that you find all over social media. On your listings, you’re gonna you’re gonna convert more, I swear, it is a face it is it is a focus group. It’s like in the old times before we had the internet, because I’m that old too. If people wanted to get inside the heads of people like psychotherapy wise, they would put a group of like people in a room that are all end users of a product and ask them questions about it. Because they would gain insights from it and better optimize their ad campaigns. It is not any different. The difference is it’s easier. It is Facebook groups are literally an archive set of conversations amongst enthusiast as end users currently active in the space if you are not using that as a gold mine. You’re not even you’re not even relevant competitor. Like you’re bringing gummy bears to a gunfight. Just stop. You don’t stand a chance.
Norman Ferrar 32:58
Well, you hit me a gun gummy bears. So before we get too much further into this, yeah, forgot to talk about the giveaway, which is awesome. Let’s talk about it. What, what are you providing?
Steven Black 33:12
Okay, so I have, I have a giant big masterclass program of a couple 100 hours of monstrosity of all marketing things. But I have something I’ve put together specifically for the Amazon crowd. It’s called Amazon audience launch training. It’s really short training. It’s like 10 videos systematically on how to build an audience. That’s what I taught everybody at billion dollar seller Summit. And then an extra set of videos beyond that, like for three or four or five videos on how to launch products to that audience that you’ve built. I provide templates, I tell you how to make the content, I tell you what kind of content to make, I tell you how to do all of it, step by step by step, all you got to do is just fill out the stupid calendar and do the thing. It’s something you could even handle your VA. So everything we’re talking about. Yeah, it’s really, really straightforward. We’re gonna give that away to one lucky winner here. Perfect.
Norman Ferrar 34:03
So can Kelsey join to? Yeah. Oh, perfect. Okay, so Kelsey, get in there and add your name. But alright, so if you’re interested in that, which everybody should be, its hashtag will have Kelsey, if you want another chance, another entry, take two people. And what would be really awesome is if they commented, anyway, let’s get to that. And the other thing I need to or I want to do is I’ve got a quick shout out to our sponsor solarize summarizes a comprehensive solution for your everyday business needs. It’s everything you need to grow and scale your business in one click for more information, contact Deema and his team over@solarized.com. Alright, now while I was saying all of that, there was something I was going to say and now He completely forgot.
Steven Black 34:59
I’m all about Well, I see a couple of fun questions. Okay, the stream there. So while you’re thinking about that, shall I address those? Let’s do it. Okay. There’s a really good one. I buta robe. Malik says, let’s say I sell women’s beauty products. How do I engage with Facebook groups? When I’m not the target audience? Brilliant question. Brilliant, brilliant question. You don’t engage them until you know how to speak their language. Simple as that you can absolutely join. And if people are questioning you, you can say, hey, I have I have a sister. And we’re opening a beauty brand. And I want to get to know the needs of what women really need. And here’s a here’s something for you. Whom are you trying to sell your women’s beauty products to? The answer is not women. Remember, your messaging, including your offers, have to resonate with the end user, according to their needs, not what you think and that helium 10 data is never going to tell you this. This is a perfect example. If you sell women’s beauty products, are you selling them to brides? Or are you selling them to women athletes? Those are two hugely different needs to hugely different listing optimizations to hugely different types of creatives. Right? Are you selling them to women who live in drier climates, or women who live in humid areas? Those are entirely different. Why? Well, when you spend time, and women’s makeup groups, and you listen to them prepare on how to travel, they change the products that they’re using with their makeup, depending on where they’re going. Depending on where the climate is and where they’re traveling. Aha, you don’t get that just looking at the Amazon platform, but they talk about it all the time. You don’t think I can’t use that if I’m selling women’s beauty products, and one’s a little more water based and one’s a little more oil based. You don’t think I’m going to talk about how they’re going to travel and how they’re going to use it in that listing and destroy anybody else that doesn’t use that. Like, yeah, we can all be friends, and I’ll help you out. But let’s, let’s make no bones about it. If you’re in my space, I want to take your head off your shoulders, and then I’ll buy you a beer afterward. And I’m going to use everything I can I’m gonna let my audience tell me why they want it. That’s a simple example right there. And you can or you can just say, Look, I have a sister, we’re opening we’re trying to really figure out, you know, we’re trying to really figure out what girls really need because we want to develop this. And what you can find is maybe you don’t know the answer to the question I just asked on what sub segment of the women you’re trying to service. But if you spend a little bit of time with them, you’ll find out which one of those gaps is under serviced. And that means no competition. That means they are the ugly duck. They’re the Black Swan. No one is paying attention to them at the at the ball. They need a date, they need a relationship, they need someone to speak for them and provide for them. Go get them. They just waiting to give you the money I gotta do is listen. This that’s why I say when do you build an audience before anything else?
Norman Ferrar 38:27
Right? What about like when you when you’re looking at this information? Are you looking at when you’re building this audience? Are you going to be reeling these people in to become an influencer or a Brand Builder for you at the same time a brand ambassador? Nor are you just looking for people to engage with
Steven Black 38:46
the squeaky wheel gets the grease? If you here’s the thing, remember I talked about everybody has problems, questions and roadblocks are going online to solve. That’s the pre purchase phase. If I’m curating information to help them answer those questions. That’s a hilarious question. By the way, the screen there. If if I’m curating information if they ask a question, can I go research at some can I find can I become an enthusiast of the space a member of the market right next to them? If I’m providing consistent answers and consistent content and consistent Hey, guys, I found this or what do you think about that, and I’m the host of the dinner party fostering all the conversation for everyone else but letting them do the talking. The I’m going to become their favorite pretty quick. Now what will happen is your message will of course resonate higher with some than others. And what will happen is, is because you’ve developed that relationship, some people are of course going to buy and if you start your own space, those buyers that you had a relationship with beforehand will become the most Main ambassadors for you, because you’ve provided a space for them to continue being enthusiasts, right? That’s the post purchase phase. Think about this. And I’ve taught this to like 1000s of 1000s of people. If my insert, as an example, in my, in my Amazon package, doesn’t talk about, here’s this discount, or here’s customer service. What if I talk about this big world of enthusiast, and people in their space sharing stories and tips and tricks on how to best use blah, blah, blah. And you open that, instead of a piece of paper, maybe it’s some kind of amazing fold out, or it looks like a credit card that you’re going to scan a QR code off the back of it looks important. And it talks about a talk, it talks about the relationship that we’re going to have, it’s an expected ecosystem you just bought from a you didn’t realize, baby we’re dating, come and get me, right? And you’re either gonna say, Okay, this company is full of garbage, you’re gonna check it out and say, Whoa, they have this and they talk about this, and there’s these people talking about that, and it’s not salesy. What are you doing, you’re, you have set up a system to where you control the customer experience. And guys, I’m sorry, but that is the ultimate differentiator, I can get any factory to copy any product feature. Maybe I’ll get in patent trouble. But I can copy a product feature. You cannot copy customer experience, if I have a place where I’m the hub of that space, and everybody can keep coming and getting information. The information is my having conversations with them pre purchase. And it’s a post purchase experience as well, because now they can be interacting with everybody else and learn more and go further into their space, and help people and feel useful, which we all need being isolated for the last couple of years. And guess what that’s gonna keep them coming over and over and over again. Here’s the fun part that we don’t talk about. Everybody on Amazon wants to boost their profits. Everybody in marketing wants to boost their profits even off of Amazon, all the Facebook ad buyers, I know how many people really keep track of their lifetime value per customer. Yikes. What if I said, because I’m so audience obsessed, my lifetime value is sitting right now, around 10 times what my initial average transaction value is. Whoa, what? So if I know that I say my initial transaction value is say $100 is a round number, that eventually over the course of 18 months to two years, it’s going to be 1000 averaging per head? Don’t you think I can’t be more aggressive getting people up front? Don’t you think I can do things and create an experience and go deeper on things in ways that people just looking to optimize the next keyword are not even going to be thinking about? You think you’re going to compete against that? Have a good time. So again, what you can look outside of Amazon, when you want to start looking at Facebook ads, and all this kind of thing. All you’re going to hear is creative and offer and this and that. But let me ask a deeper question. who competes with Disney World? who competes with Disney? No one. Do you know why? Because it creates a customer experience. Even a small one gives you a creative monopoly. If everybody is throwing products at people in these endless advertisements we get all day long. It gives us the right to push back and say no, I don’t want that. Oh my god hide that advertisement. I don’t want that. Oh, it’s so annoying.
Steven Black 43:39
But think about it. When you want to buy something, don’t you usually ask other friends you have in the space? Hey, what do you think about this? Have you tried this? Would you recommend that? What’s stopping you from being part of that space and putting in the time there so that now your recommendations even if it’s for your own products come across as referrals. If you have your own page in your own group, and you rotate your offers every month or every six weeks through your page and your group because they know it’s sponsored by your brand, because you’re giving people so much in the way of answering their questions outside of product offers. That familiarity makes your offers come across as referrals as opposed to just cold offers, and you’re going to convert way higher, you’re going to retain way more and the cool thing is, is everybody who’s not ready to buy yet gets to see those conversations that you’re having with everyone else and they gauge that as to what it’s like to do business with you. So when the time comes for them to buy something they’re much more inclined to do business with you power having an audience it’s pretty straightforward
Norman Ferrar 44:52
to do any talking I could just sit here and let’s
Steven Black 44:54
all right. And and for everybody asking about my lighting and my camera and everything you It’s absurd. You don’t need all that I have, it’s so silly. I’ve had this for years and years and years, I create so much content that I have full frame Sony DSLR. Over here, I have proper lighting, I have a computer that you know, could launch a space shuttle, you just, there’s all of that. So I just because I do so much, like I think I’ve produced this year alone in 2021. I mean, I’ve probably made 350 videos already this year. Wow. Yeah, it’s it’s silly business for all the different stuff that I have going on. But that’s the whole point. If you’re gonna do that much, then it’s worth going that deep because you have to be clear. But if not, guys smartphone will do it. And that’s the thing. That’s another tip. If you’re going to try to be trying to make content, you your your content, you do not want to be an expert. This is not the point, unless you’re genuinely an expert. Like the only thing I will talk about Afro as an expert point of view is marketing. That’s it, I’m not gonna talk about supply chain and logistics. That’s not my area of expertise. I get it, I can do enough of my own. But I’m gonna, I’m gonna tag out on that one. I’m going to talk to Steve Simonsson. On that one. You can have it go talk to that guy. Marketing, I got it. Scuba diving, I’m in the space, but I’m not an expert. So I’m going to talk about it as an enthusiast. I’m going to ask questions, I’m going to be flawed, I’m going to be normal. Because people can relate to that, can’t they? But if you’re the squeaky wheel that gets the grease, you’re everyone’s favorite person at the party. If they ask questions, and you are the answer, they’re going to start following you. Before you know it, you got a couple 100 people following you for just that topic. It’s time to make your own page. And now you own the conversations. As long as you keep that content consistent. They’re going to come back and continually read that magazine. magazines have product advertisements, that’s what magazines actually sell is ad space. Okay, it just so happens when you have your own audience, all the ad spaces are for your own products. There you go. Good, fun stuff different different than what a lot of people talk about. But this is, yeah, it’s
Norman Ferrar 47:11
great stuff.
Steven Black 47:12
This is how I got here’s how I go about it. So.
Norman Ferrar 47:14
So Kelsey, what’s the next question?
Kelsey 47:19
Okay, well, we have so many the come in. Let’s, let’s see. What is this from? Ahmed? What is the strategy for someone who’s starting with off Amazon Marketing for the existing brand and how to decide which platform is best bang for the buck?
Steven Black 47:35
Gotcha. Okay, you decide which platform is the best bang for the buck, based on the skills required to make that platform work for you. Okay, for me, Facebook pages are always going to be the best always going to be the best. The reason is because I can just use a smartphone and Canva and make that work. I don’t need any special skills or any special equipment. I can make a topic not a brand, a topic related Facebook page that people can instantly identify and say, Okay, this is for me. Pretty straightforward, right? Like, if, if you have a Facebook page that says beard bros, we would know exactly who that’s for. Okay, yes, it’s just for me, or it’s not. Okay. And maybe you sell beard oil. That’s great, great. But you wanna make a topic related page, and you want to rotate content through that every day about something in that space. So I mean, they can relate to tips and tricks and lifestyle, this and that, and blah, blah, blah, pretty straightforward. Now, what do we need beyond that a Facebook group versus a Facebook page, a Facebook group, you’re going to convert more, but they’re slower to grow. And you cannot make custom audiences for retargeting with a Facebook page, as you get followers to the page who are genuinely engaged in the space. Right? You can make custom audiences based on engagement on your page that you can retarget with your offers and because they know you, they’re going to convert higher. Now what do we need beyond that? Let’s talk about Instagram, Instagram, I need a little bit of keyword research because the hashtags and I’m going to need some visual composition skills because I got to make my photos and my images stand out. Great. Let’s talk about Pinterest. I need everything that I just talked about. Plus SEO skills. Pinterest is not a social media platform. Pinterest is a search engine. Yeah, and it’s kind of like Instagram a Google had a baby. Okay, but Pinterest. Also on your pins, you need to link back to something. Okay. And Pinterest. Everybody talks about, oh, the power of Pinterest for your products. Yes. But if you think about the power of Pinterest to answer people’s problems that lead them into a product decision. Now you’re pulling on a lever of profit there for optimizing your conversions that nobody’s really thinking about, you can do a lot more with your pins based on that. What if we go beyond that? Okay, what about a website and a blog? Okay, well, everything I just mentioned, including advanced SEO skills. And if you have under 25,000 followers on your Facebook page, don’t open a blog. You’re not big enough yet. There’s a rule. If you want to go real deep, and you want to go to YouTube, everything I just mentioned, plus all the video stuff. So where’s the best bang for the buck? Facebook is always going to be the best start because there’s already 3 billion people on it. They’re already organized themselves into topic groups. That’s primarily how the news feed is serving you based on the groups that you’re in. Okay, if you want to see more about the audience, you want your audience to come to you join the groups. And now your your feed will be littered with all the information you would need to read to learn about your groups. Give yourself some self study time and learn about your groups that way. Learn about your space that way, let the information come to you don’t go chase it for crying out loud. And then as you learn, you’ll know enough to start answering some people’s questions. And guess what, they’ll start following you get a couple 100 Start your own topic page, you’re off to the races. And once you do that, it’s pretty easy to figure out which messages are doing well. Pump those up a little bit. And by the time you get to 1000 people, you’re ready to start rotating in your product offers. And guess what? It’s pretty easy to build an email list off of that, too. What do I put in my email? All your best hits content from your pages. There you go. That’s how you do it.
Norman Ferrar 51:48
Just laid out for everybody. There you go. That’s how easy it is.
Steven Black 51:52
It’s a lot of work. But when you do it, and you figure out how easy it is to let your audience decide for themselves and start chasing you. I mean, it’s silly business. I have pages that get over a million engagements a month. Wow. What would that do for your business? You really think I’m worried about competing and everything else? The way that that everybody else is on Amazon and everywhere else. I’m like, Give me a break. Do you think I’m going to suffer the cost of the ad auctions right now in q4, when everybody is only reliant on paid ads, and worried about their accounts getting suspended or, or this or that, or limited, blah, blah, like will if I’ve spent 18 months in a space. And I started with one product. And now I have five because I recognize more need and I involve my audience in the product development. And they were all ready to go for like an iPhone launch each time. I can launch and rank whatever I want. Because I have people there ready to go for it. I’ve already built a relationship with them. And they just, the more I go on providing an experience for people in that space, the more they’re going to want to bring their friends.
Norman Ferrar 53:02
That’s what I like about what you’ve been talking about. And you know, I was joking Oh, that’s how easy it is. But once you understand the formula, and this isn’t something that you when you when you’re taking a course you can’t how to sell a product. You don’t get how to build the audience, and to the way that you’re teaching it right now, and you’re talking to us about it. It’s layered. And this is over time you can build a loyal following. People will search you out, they want to hear from you. And that’s a lot of different like you were saying about the paid advertising.
Steven Black 53:39
Yeah, well, I mean, you have you have to use both. If you’re really serious about it, even if you start with, say your first or second product, okay? Where are you going to find the ideas for complementary products that are going to work, you’re only going to be able to stretch so far to come up with different product features. If you have an audience, you have a captive group of people, giving you feedback telling you what they really want. You can say, Hey, guys, I hear you’re always talking about XYZ. And, you know, I hear some of you talk about this. And then you say you don’t like this, and we’re thinking about developing something like XYZ. But it also has blah, blah, blah, because you keep mentioning this, this this, now you’re talking with them. They’re involved in the product development process. No one else is seeing that that’s not on Helium 10 yet to even research. Do you know why? Because it’s an underserved segment of the market. And they’re only talking to you about it because you’re the only person that knew to ask. I’m in over a dozen spaces like that. How’s that for diversification? Huh? Yeah, yeah. So if you want to sell more products, you don’t concentrate on selling more products you concentrate on serving more people. Your products sell themselves obliquely, that’s the easiest way to scale. You think Disney is focused on selling merchandise? No. They’re focused on making sure they have an aspirational, culturally relevant story for every flavor of little girl under the sun. Because when the little girls see that, and they see themselves in the animation, they say, I want to be that. And all of us because of parent guilt, go out and buy our daughter’s everything under the sun for merchandise. Disney is so big for customer experience, that we don’t realize they’re their theme parks are literally immersive customer experience centers where you go and buy merchandise. That’s how that works. Why do you think they have themed hotels on property? It’s an immersive customer experience. So that you can experience that aspirational content, and live your dreams out vicariously through what they’ve provided, and you go and buy the merchandise. So you can extend that feeling a little more. Why? Because that’s a need we all have. They’ve tapped into it. How about that? You can’t model that? What do you think magazines are? They’re gathering an audience. And the more subscribers you have, the more valuable your ad space is. They don’t sell magazine subscribers as a monetization model, they sell ad space. If you can answer people’s questions, if you can curate the content that you know, your audience wants to find, you’re going to get subscribers to your digital magazine. And they’ll buy from you because they can talk to you. That’s why I like Facebook so much. It’s a conversation, conversations, drive conversions. And I’ll be able to optimize with phraseology on my listings, that maybe it doesn’t show up as his high search words and all this kind of thing. Yeah, why does Why does mine convert like wildfire? You want to drive external traffic. That’s the big buzz that I’ve been talking about for forever. But now it’s starting to become relevant for everybody. Okay, how you going to get those external people to really convert? It is a language we’re using off the platform. The only reason that the keywords show up is because that’s all they really know, to kind of drum up a result near what they’re hunting. aged people enough people use the same basic idea, well, oh, there’s a high volume keyword. But that doesn’t necessarily mean that’s the phrase that’s going to absolutely resonate, the more they go, Oh my God, that speaks to me, I gotta have it. But they’ll talk like that amongst themselves. And you can join that conversation any time. There you go. All right. Next question. Next question.
Norman Ferrar 57:51
We’ll take a couple more.
Kelsey 57:54
All right. Yeah, this has been great. Andrew say I’ve never heard norm so quiet.
Norman Ferrar 58:00
Oh, sit back. And just No,
Kelsey 58:03
no, it’s people are loving you, Steven. That’s amazing. You guys
Steven Black 58:08
get me going on. This is my favorite thing to talk about all day long. I can’t help myself. Awesome.
Norman Ferrar 58:12
I’ll have to get you back to it’s gonna be a podcast.
Kelsey 58:18
I want to do this as a two parter. So this is from Simon Simon saying it’s so simple. I’m surprised that everyone is doing it. And like, why isn’t everyone doing this? And following up to that? It makes perfect sense. There’s a formula it takes time, right? In reality, how long does it take to build a worthwhile tribe that will bring you real profits? So how long does it take? And why isn’t everyone doing it?
Steven Black 58:41
Okay, I’ll answer it reverse first. The reason everybody isn’t doing it is because they’re afraid of learning something new. And it’s a hell of a lot of work. And it only feels like work because it’s something new. Simple as that. I don’t know how to make photos. I don’t know how to write. I don’t know how to talk to people online, in a way that’s persuasive. Who says you have to be persuasive. That’s the misnomer. You have to talk to people help answer their questions. Pretty straightforward. Okay.
Steven Black 59:10
Um,
Steven Black 59:12
and then, I mean, think about it. All the people in the Amazon space that we all know that are service providers. How do we talk to people, like normal people? And because we provide answers to their questions, they seek us out of service providers. So there you go. Second part of the question. How long does it take to make real profit? Okay. It usually, I mean, if you’re doing it all organically, it can take a couple of months before you really start building some traction. If you use if, once you identify what your audience really cares about, and you can find a message that reflects them as your own topic on your topic page. You can test those messages with advertising. You can boost those with page post engagement. on Facebook. And once you find one that resonates, it takes off, and you get a bunch of followers to your page, but then you have to actually provide them with consistent content. Right. But once you’re, once you’re, you know, 1000 or 2000 followers, and you’re providing regular content, you’re good to go. It’s just going to grow from there. So that’s, that’s really all it takes. I mean, I’ve done this with people to where they’re like, Okay, we’ve, we’ve identified an audience that we want to, that we want to serve us great. Where where’s the gap? Cool, we figure out a product for them, it’s going to take three months to develop and get here. Great. That’s all we need. Let’s rock and roll, we can build an audience, we can build an email list, I can get a couple 1000 people involved ready to rock. And that way, if we launched that audience, what say we get 5% of them to buy on day one, that’s 100 People at full price. Usually, that’s going to make some waves and have an impact. And then they’re going to go back into the page and group of people that are already familiar with them. And they’re going to talk all about it. And so any stragglers that are unconvinced from day one, they’re going to come back in and buy behind that as you fill new people into the audience space that see new content and go through the process. Now they’re going to trip up on all these product reviews. So where can I get that? That looks great. Oh, we’ll just go over here. Pretty straightforward. Pretty straightforward. I’ve been doing it for over a decade.
Kelsey 1:01:37
Awesome. Awesome. So the next question is going to be I’m not sure if you dive into YouTube at all, but maybe it’s an off topic, any tips on how to engage with people on YouTube, how to use a tool YouTube videos, for example, people don’t seem to communicate much they’re
Steven Black 1:01:55
got it. How to if you want people to engage on YouTube, usually, a shorter videos like like under three minutes, like almost like a YouTube short as a tip, or quick how to or providing a template or something like that works really, really well. On getting the engagement up on YouTube in the comment section. Okay, as far as watch times go, if you provide something that is a process, but it’s not an overly long video, they’ll go back and rewatch it multiple times. A good tool to use to research topics and keywords and all of that kind of thing for YouTube channels is Vid IQ. That’s a good one to check out. That’s the one that’s one of the ones that I use. And I’ve used for a long time. That’s a good one to check out search term phrases to check out analytics and all of that kind of stuff. Another good one is Tube Buddy. And that’s okay. I like vid IQ a lot though. It’s been really really good for me. So there you go. Better than to buddy. It’s different. I used I would use them differently to to buddy I like to use for like AV testing my thumbnails and batch changing things and all of that kind of thing more like a maintenance kind of thing. And I’ve used them interchangeably. But the one that I keep I keep using the bulk of the time is Vid IQ. Okay? No, I mean, they’re both wonderful. I just, I’ve used vid IQ more. It’s just it’s really that simple. It’s kind of like saying, for video editing, do you use Premiere Pro or DaVinci? Resolve? Will? It just they’re both very similar. But I mean, there you go. They just which one do you use more? So, okay,
Norman Ferrar 1:03:44
yeah. All right. Do you have time for one more question? Yeah,
Steven Black 1:03:47
throw it at me. Absolutely. All right,
Norman Ferrar 1:03:48
Kelsey, pick it last day
Kelsey 1:03:52
we’re we’ll dive into maybe Amazon live with Tony, do you feel Amazon live is successful? And should we spend more time on it?
Steven Black 1:04:02
Amazon live you if you if you want to use it the way home shopping network would function so to speak. Your message is going to be about your product on an Amazon live. Okay. The key is if your message is going out, you need enough people online and around that message to be able to make it really resonate. Because if you’re on Amazon live, maybe you have an unbelievable you know product message and you’re doing an amazing live, fulfilling 10 people looking at it. Right, but if a live pops up on Amazon, on your listing, and there’s like 300 people watching the live because you’ve told your tribe to come and support you for a minute to get more people in help you Catching the visual here. Right? That that will work more effectively. So just like anything else, maybe you have good content in the way of the live. But if you don’t have the distribution numbers as far as people watching it. And you can prime people like that, too. Like I’ve had somebody who wanted to do more with Amazon, on their on their live channel, and they want to do something for Black Friday in terms of differentiating themselves, and they’ve started an audience, they started recently, they’ve been selling for a couple of years. And they said, How do I do the audience thing, dude, because you talk about it all the time. And it’s starting to really work. Okay, cool. Tell people, you’re going to run a Black Friday special, but you’re going to announce it on your Amazon live. And you leave the link on your page, and they have to go there to find it. What do you think that’s going to do for engagement on your page during peak time? vs. Lightning do this and special then and yeah, the parade of crap on the inbox? Yeah. Yeah, that’s, that’s how I would go about it. But if you can’t get people there, you know, it’s like, it’s like being an amazing musician, but not being able to get anybody to come to the concert. Right. So that’s, that’s what I would think about. So it can be a good tool. But you have to use it as that as a tool. And I would say that’s more of a specialist tool. Because when people watch lives, they’re not watching it for a product announcement, unless they’re anticipating a product launch. And there’s a lot of buildup, usually involved with that in terms of content and engagement and everything else. Okay. So that’s, that’s where your audience off of Amazon would come in. If you wanted to use that as a tool on Amazon. The good news is, is nobody’s using it like that are like very, very few. I can’t say nobody definitively, but very few people are using it to that effect. But that’s how that set up. They want people to come in. And guys, the reason that Amazon is giving you these tools, is because Amazon has unbelievable computing power. And they know based on dwell time on certain keywords on the listings and the conversion values that you’re giving per customer. Even as a shopper, they can guess the lifetime that you’re going to be on the platform, and based on the range of things that you’re buying how much you’re going to spend overall. So if you’re bringing more people to the platform, and increasing the dwell time like that, they’re going to put you higher in the rankings, because you’re providing them more customers that are eventually going to buy even more from the platform. That’s the real power of external traffic. That’s the reason why everybody’s discovering, oh, it ranks so well. You don’t have to do as much as all the other stuff on the platform. Why? Because if you’re bringing fresh blood to the platform, or you’re bringing people back in, they’re more likely to buy more things of various variety on the platform itself. And you’re going to get rewarded for that.
Norman Ferrar 1:07:58
There you go. Very good. Thank you, sir. You’re very well right now, there was a question here. If people don’t win today. Can they sign up for your course somewhere?
Steven Black 1:08:10
Yes, absolutely. And it’s again, this is this is not my big masterclass. A lot of people are not ready for that one yet, because it’s a big monster. But this is a short one that we’re talking about all about audience building. If you want to know the details, step by step of everything that I said. Go to a MZ audiences.com. And if you want you can join my Facebook group, they put a link there I have that pinned as as a video on exactly what it is in the Announcements tab. And if you can message me to on Facebook and I’ll send you all the information it’s totally totally fine. If you guys have questions about it. You can grab me in the group tag me you can DM me you can whatever you want, I’ll happy to answer everything. It’s videos pulled from my masterclass little cherry picked ones to help people figure out the audience building process. Because they need to figure out something to be able to rank because a lot of the other stuff that they were using or we’re trained to use, it’s not going to work anymore, especially after what’s going on the recent weeks. So okay, just want to provide people a better way.
Norman Ferrar 1:09:12
Yep. So we’ll post that. And by the time we do that, it should be we’ll have Kelsey
Kelsey 1:09:21
Alright, so it is time for the wheel of Kelsey. So here we go. Steven, I hope you enjoy this
Kelsey 1:09:43
thank you everyone who is entered. I’m just going to double check make sure I didn’t miss anyone. All right. I think we are good to go.
Norman Ferrar 1:09:51
Did you get your um there?
Kelsey 1:09:53
I did not. I feel like if I win, they’re gonna definitely say the wheel is rigged. Anyways, if you are the winner of today’s episode, please email me Kate at lunch with norn.com Especially you YouTubers. I cannot reach out to you, you have to reach out to me. So here we go. 321 That is key at lunch with Norm. I’m gonna put it in the comment section too. And it looks like the winner is Elena galley.
Norman Ferrar 1:10:25
Oh, fantastic.
Kelsey 1:10:27
All right. So congratulations, Elena. I believe you are a YouTuber. So I’m going to try and find you right now. But uh, yeah, awesome. Thank you, everyone who participated. And come back for our next episode, we’ll have another giveaway for everyone. Or, and
Norman Ferrar 1:10:43
just to restate that, if you are on Youtube, you have to contact Kelsey to at K at lunch with Norm calm, because there’s really no way of reaching out. That’s it, sir. You survived your first lunch. Oh,
Steven Black 1:10:58
there’s so much fun, so much fun, happy to come back anytime and help any way that I can
Norman Ferrar 1:11:03
offend that any you know what, when you were fixing your audio problem, I just started to talk about the importance of networking. And you and I basically bumped into each other in the hallways and started talking. So you know, we would never have met well, we might have somewhere. But this is the power of networking.
Steven Black 1:11:27
Yeah, absolutely, guys, and the things that I have been able to do over the last 10 years. And the people that I know and my network. If you if you looked at it like a normal person, it’s silly. And when you know people and you talk to people, you can find ways to do business with people. If you have 20 friends, and you can’t do business with any of them, you need new friends. You need to find people who are into the things that you’re into, and you can find ways to to to network. And here’s the here’s the best phrase that I’ve that I’ve ever heard for networking. A network is where you can figure out how to hire out someone’s process for a gap in your systems. That’s a network
Norman Ferrar 1:12:17
intro. I never heard it said Yeah. i
Steven Black 1:12:20
There’s a very, very smart person that told me that one, but he’s like, what’s your network for an I was like, like minded people that Nope. If you have a gap in your systems, and you need someone with a knowledge base, you can hire them instead of coming up with your own system. Use their process. I was like, that’s a network. That’s how you use a network. Different way to look at it when I did that. Everything took off to the moon.
Norman Ferrar 1:12:41
Very good. Okay, sir. Oh, one last question. What kind of camera are you using?
Steven Black 1:12:47
I am using a Sony A seven s two with a Tamron 28 to 75 set at F 2.8.
Norman Ferrarr 1:12:57
For all the camera we go I’m not going to repeat that.
Steven Black 1:13:00
But yeah, Sony A seven s to set at 4k 30 frames a second with a Tamron 28 to 75 millimeter f 2.8 lens into an Avid Media 4k capture card in my computer. And I have a key light and Affilaite over here. And my mic my mic is just using a simple mic today. I don’t have my big mic out right now. I’m using a razor siren X cardioid USB mic. There you go. That’s all the technicals for all the gear heads in the in the crowd. So fun stuff.
Norman Ferrar 1:13:38
All right. Thank you, sir. Thank you for coming on. We got to have you on again. Yeah. All right, Steven, we’ll see you later. Thank you. Alright, everybody. Well, thanks for joining us today. I told you, I sat in the audience and just was filling out notes about what Stephen was saying. So who got it was Elena, you are going to be blown away when you see the content on the site. So congratulations again. And I think that’s it. Kelsey, who do we have on next?
Kelsey 1:14:11
We have Brent Sadra. Nick. i Okay. Yes. So he’s going to be talking about let me see, just gotta quickly check. So Brent will be talking about or it’s my notes, how to budget for the q4 and beyond and the keys to success when it comes to budgeting. So that’s going to be a good episode. That will be on Friday at 12pm. Eastern time. So come back. We’ll have another giveaway for everyone to enter for the we’ll have Kelsey and yeah, it’s gonna be good. Can’t wait. And if you haven’t yet, please smash those like buttons. Give us a thumbs up if you love Steven anyone and back goes those thumbs up. I noticed there were some questions Just about favorite tools and everything. So I’m gonna put those over into our Facebook group lunch with Norm Amazon FBA ecommerce collective. So go over there someone from our community will all pitch in and help answer those questions for you guys. And yeah, that was great. If you are interested in our membership program, we do offer full private group sessions with me and norm so norm handles the Amazon ecommerce business. I’m more of the social media group sessions and then we also have a monthly guest lesson that comes on and we also do SOPs, monthly SOPs, giveaways, all that fun stuff. So definitely check that out. That’s lunch with Norm calm and just click on the membership button. But that’s all right. Not for me.
Norman Ferrar 1:15:49
Yes. Okay. And I guess another guy I met just last night again. Krisha furling. So I wanted to give him and global wire advisors a big shout out why global wire devices is a leading digital investment bank focused on optimizing the business sales process. For more information, please contact Chris and his team over at global wired advisors.com. So I’m still going to be a day away from my regular podcast booth. But I think we’ll we’ll have it in a hotel room and hopefully the Wi Fi is okay. If not, Kelsey will do the podcast. I think Kelsey, are you nodding?
Kelsey 1:16:35
We’ll see. We’ll see. I’m sure we’ll figure out something. All right.
Norman Ferrar 1:16:39
All right, everybody. So join us every Monday, Wednesday and Friday, Eastern noon, Eastern Standard Time. Thank you for being part of our community. I couldn’t do this without you and enjoy the rest of your day.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
