Welcome!
Welcome to this e-commerce agency interview! Today, we had the pleasure of interviewing Spero Conomikes of Rock M Roll Marketing. I can tell you honestly that our conversation was enlightening! We hope this inspires you as you seek to start or grow your own online brand.
Interview with Rock M Roll Marketing
Thank you for joining us for this e-commerce business success story! We’d like to start by getting an understanding of your backstory. How did you come to own your business?
I’ve been in the Digital Marketing business for over 20 years and prior to eCommerce existing. Over my career I have worked specifically in online business growth, with the past 15+ years being strictly dedicated to eCommerce. During Covid, most agencies went remote and I saw the opportunity to create a hybrid digital marketing agency specializing in profit driven eCommerce brand growth. We launched in 2021 and are now a full service Amazon Partner Agency and one of a handful of Walmart Agency Solutions Providers.
Terrific! Now, this article is about profiling successful e-commerce businesses. So – can you share your top 3 keys to running a successful online brand?
- Preparation & Budget- Take the time to properly plan your product launch and to have the marketing budget available to give your product a chance when you do. Too many sellers try to launch quickly and build their products while they are earning revenue as they go. This is probably the biggest mistake. As all search engines are going to gauge your listings by how “retail ready” your product is. So, if you haven’t checked off all the boxes that Amazon, Google and the other AIs are looking for, you will most likely end up at the bottom of the search results and find it very hard to work your way back up. And, if you don’t have a significant enough marketing budget to compete, you will not be able to gain any of your competitors’ market share.
- Create a KPI Dashboard – The most important part of selling your products is measuring your success. It’s important that you know the KPIs for each of the platforms you are selling on, and pull those into a dashboard that you can monitor on a weekly basis. By monitoring your data regularly, you will see trends, find problem issues when they arise and also be able to make realistic decisions for where to effectively spend your marketing dollars for highest RoAS.
- Test, Discover & Innovate – Continuously test your product listings, marketing strategies, shipping & logistics and customer service. There are tools for just about anything you want to test these days. And, using them can give your brand a huge advantage over your competitors that are not. When you find your own weaknesses and successes and exploit them, your customers become aware and are attracted to this type of proactiveness and perceive it as innovative.
Excellent. Now, I’m sure it hasn’t always been that easy. Can you tell a story about one challenge, setback, or mistake that you’ve had to overcome on the road to success? How can others learn from your mistakes?
There isn’t one specific. But, moreso an general challenge / mistake that can be made by almost any business or seller. New sellers often run into roadblocks or make early mistakes from a lack of experience and/or knowledge of how to navigate the complex processes needed to successfully sell a product online for a profit. (especially Amazon) It is very easy in our age of technology to find a product supplier in china, create a private label/brand and trademark it, and ship inventory to your marketplace to sell online. The problem is that there are 20,000+ other sellers doing the same thing every single day. So, unless you have a product that is 100% unique and or exclusive to your capability to sell online, your chances of finding any sort of significant, profitable revenue are very slim. The challenge is testing and ensuring that your product is viable to gain market share. And, the mistake would be trying to go to market with a product/brand you have a personal opinion of it’s capability to sell vs having some solid data to predict the opportunity.
Thanks for that. Now – we want to know what’s next! What new initiatives are you rolling out at your business and what results are you hoping to see?
Online eCommerce has grown so rapidly over the past decade. The days of drop-shipping are long gone, and even big brands are shipping direct to consumers through their own online stores. The marketing channels that are available to brands that have quality products to offer are almost endless. But, the next level of marketing is in Demand Side Platform (DSP) marketing. We are moving into a phase where search platforms like Amazon, Google and others are opening up the doors to buying ad space as inventory. (Like you would a billboard or tv commercial). These channels reach a massive audience. And, brands can spend almost the same as they would in a typical eCommerce PPC campaign that normally reaches thousands of customers at the point of purchase decision, to reach millions of those same shoppers (and more) in various stages of their shopping journey.
Sounds exciting! Any final words of advice for our readers?
Treat your brand and your products as one would a business. Create a business plan, growth strategy and dashboard for measuring your success. The more you plan before you start, the more chance you will have to succeed.
Brilliant! We want to thank you for participating in today’s interview. Hopefully our readers agree that there is a lot to be learned from your brand’s story. What links can our readers use to follow along with your journey?
