How to Add Amazon to a Digital Business

What's next for your business in 2023 and beyond? If you answered "adding Amazon to my digital business," you'll love today's episode!

Join me for a fun conversation with Laura Meyer, who specializes in helping brands build successful Amazon businesses through her agency and consultancy work. Not only does she know the ins and outs of the biz, but she has also tried and true methods to teach us.

Tune in as Laura breaks down the need-to-knows for adding Amazon as a route-to-market for your business and how you can get started this year.

Transcript

Krystal Proffitt: 0:00

One of the things that I have realized about myself is that I am a sucker for a good story. And I feel like recently, the different interviews that I've had with creators and business owners and entrepreneurs is, I just love their stories like, oh my gosh, I hope that you enjoy all the interviews that we do here on the show, but I have a super special treat for you because today I'm chatting with Laura Meyer. Now, Laura is someone that, you know, whenever her information came across my desk as someone as I could potentially interview, I was like, yes, immediately. Yes, yes, yes, because Laura has a really interesting background in that she's helped over 150 brands build successful Amazon businesses, through her agency and consultancy work. So in addition to working with consumer product companies, she has a passion for Supporting Female founded and mission driven companies as an angel investor, and advisory board member. So when she isn't building businesses, she spends time with her husband, her one year old daughter and two dogs on their farm in Massachusetts. We're going to talk about that in today's interview, but it's going to be such a good one. I hope you enjoy. Let's get right to it. Welcome to the profit podcast where we teach you how to start launch and market your content with confidence. I'm your host, Krystal, Proffitt, and I'm so excited that you're here. Thanks for hanging out with me today. Because if you've been trying to figure out the world of content creation, this is the show that will help be your time saving shortcut. So let's get right to it, shall we? All right, rapid podcast listeners. I'm so excited about today. Today's guest Welcome to the show. Laura.

Laura Meyer: 2:04

Thank you so much. It's a pleasure to be here.

Krystal Proffitt: 2:07

Yeah. So you have such an interesting business. And I cannot wait to just dive right in. Because one, I love to talk about marketing. Two, I love to talk about business. And three, you just like crack the code on one of the biggest Wait, hang on the biggest, like business that there is out there. And that is Amazon. And I just cannot wait to learn more about everything. But before we dive into that, like tell us a little bit about yourself and how you got into this, like where did this all begin? Uh,

Laura Meyer: 2:43

yeah. Well, I will say the the beginning of the journey, I feel like actually goes back to my childhood and how I was raised. So I'm originally from Michigan, and I grew up working in my dad's hardware store. So I joke that I've been a retail really since I could walk and talk because our family vacay like classic just like, you know, middle class Midwest, our family vacations weren't to like Disney World, or like classic 1990s destinations. No, we went to the Ace Hardware shows as our as our family vacation. So instead of seeing Mickey Mouse, you know, I was seeing the lever display, the ACE shows. But I think that the more obvious journey is that I did work for Amazon corporate. And I work for their media group, specifically back in 2015. And it was there that I saw the opportunity and was inspired to be able to help brands tame, or at least take on the retail beast, and make it more of an opportunity versus a threat. And obviously, I think the the tone has shifted in recent years, but you go back 510 years ago, even brands such as retailers saw Amazon as a threat versus, you know, hey, this can actually be a huge opportunity. And those that jumped on it early, of course, reap the benefits. And what I love about it is it's very dynamic. It's always changing things that were applicable and worked even 18 months ago are no longer delivering those same results. And I think that's what makes digital marketing in general. Such a cool industry to be a part of,

Krystal Proffitt: 4:41

oh my gosh, I have 1000 questions because I can tell you that from just the different like, in my small circle, right, because I mean, let's be honest, I'm a homebody I don't get out much I don't do a lot of social things. I mean, who does anymore but

Laura Meyer: 4:56

I should also know I left New York City and you Now I live on a 400 acre farm with my husband and our daughter and two dogs. So it's amazing. That's amazing. Some background noise, I'm not gonna lie. All right,

Krystal Proffitt: 5:11

it's all right. We love it around here. But I mean, I'm just thinking about my small group. That's pretty tight knit. And I'm thinking my husband wanted to do drop shipping stuff on amazon before, like tested that I have friends that recently in the last two years have started doing like, I think it's called the DSP or it's like they have the fleet vehicles, like I bet people listening to this right now know, someone that has tried something on Amazon, whether it was, you know, selling their own stuff, or working with other, you know, other companies to get something up and going. But with that being said, what is like the thing that really drives you to go all in on Amazon? Because I feel like there's some people that are hesitant. There's people listening right now that have small businesses, they have digital businesses, and maybe they're like, I don't know if I could do that, like it feels scary to them. So is that something that you've encountered along your journey? And just working with Amazon or working with other small business owners?

Laura Meyer: 6:16

Yeah, absolutely. So I think there's a common trend in digital in the digital landscape in general, which is the overwhelming lack of bandwidth that most business owners have. And whether it's Amazon, whether it's Shopify, whether it's TikTok, all of these opportunities require dedicated resources. So I think really, the question to ask is, you know, what is your overarching strategic plan? And what do you want your primary sales channels to be for your business for your brand, because now Amazon is a mature marketplace, where it can't be an afterthought, it can be, oh, let me just throw some products up on Amazon and see what happens. But I'm still going to be spending 99% of my time on these other initiatives. If you want to do Amazon, and you want to do it, right, you have to allocate the resources. So what that can mean is you can obviously hire an agency, or a freelancer you like, like if you're a small business, Upwork is actually a great resource for that. But my advice is, especially as a business leader, is to educate yourself first. And I think it's really important, especially if you do go the route of hiring, external support, to make sure that you're not getting scammed. And I hate saying that, because I'm coming from the service angle. But you know, there's some amazing players out there. But there's also some not so great players. And you want to make sure if you're spending that money is, especially as a small business, that you're getting that return on investment. So by educating yourself taking the time to get to know the channel, you can then manage a service provider or manage an employee to harness the opportunity of the channel. And by the way, this is the case for social this is the case for Shopify, like, even if you can No, you know, 2% of what you really need to know, but it's at a high level view that will take you a really far route is being successful on that platform,

Krystal Proffitt: 8:40

where you said that about the competitors and you know, are not necessarily competitors, the people that are doing they're in it for the wrong reasons are in it to scam people. Is there anything that is like a red flag to you that you see that you're like, oh, my gosh, our company would never do that. Or we would never approach somebody that way. Like, like, like, tell us the things to look out for if we're going to start researching this, because I can imagine there's 1000 things. Look, I

Laura Meyer: 9:06

probably should have used the word scam because that makes it sound like it's a CD industry. There are like I said, there are some really amazing players. I have fantastic relationships with other Amazon agency owners, because in a weird way, we're all in this crazy ride together. And the landscape is always changing. And there's this weird camaraderie right of we're all dealing with these wild curveballs. And also, I mean, there's enough fish in the sea for us all to really have successful businesses. But in terms of red flags, I think the biggest advice and this is applicable to hiring any vendor is I would always ask during the sales process, you know, who is my main point of contact going to be and can I meet with them before we sign So what often happens in a lot of organizations is the CEO sells you, they're super knowledgeable. And then you have a junior person placed on your account, who may not be super motivated, who may not be as knowledgeable. So like one thing we always offer is meet and greets with the account management team before we get started, not every client wants that, but I always have it as an option, should they be interested? I think the other thing is just asking for references. I know that's like seems so obvious. But in this day and age, do your own due diligence of reaching out to those references, asking them questions, asking them tough questions like, Where could they improve as an organization? What would you change? Like, you don't always have to ask the very positive fluffy questions really want to get to the meat. And honestly, like, another thing you can totally do is see who they list on their website as clients, go to LinkedIn and send some DMs to be like, Hey, we're thinking about maybe hiring this agency, your your logos on their website, curious, you know, if you're the right person to speak to, and if they were a great partner for you.

Krystal Proffitt: 11:20

Now, that's awesome. That's awesome. And I totally agree, like due diligence for for anybody, you know, you mentioned, kind of like social media managers, but the thing I just kept saying about my website, like if I were hiring someone to do my website, like even some of the most basic things like we just gotta cross our t's and dot our eyes. Yeah, I almost said that backwards, but we're good. But you know, we just have to double check that the people that we're working with are legitimate and know what they're talking about. And I think it's just like, it's so cool that you have this really unique perspective on Amazon, because everybody that's listening right now, they've bought something on Amazon, they've had an Amazon experience, like, we all know that it is constantly changing, you know, they introduce one click, and like all the other like, I can't say their names, but the other devices that we have, like there's so many different things that have come on the scene in just the last five years that I can only imagine how much it's kind of gone up and down and all around. But the thing that I really curious about is if someone's listening, and they're just getting started, what is the thing that requires the heaviest lift to even get started on Amazon? Like, do you need a storefront? First, do you need your product? Do you need your like, what is the thing that they have to figure out? Before they even know if Amazon and selling on Amazon is a good fit for them?

Laura Meyer: 12:44

There are so many research tools out there to see like, number one, is there even a demand for this product on Amazon. So thinking about Amazon, you have to think of it as the largest shopping search engine out there. It's not a traditional retailer where there's end caps, there's merchandising, so if you have this really unique out there product, it still gets visibility. If you have a product that no one is searching for, you won't sell any units unless you invest a ton in advertising, and really have to have that brand awareness budget, which let's be honest, unless you're VC backed, it's probably not a reality. Yeah. And also, as we've seen in the last year, you know, studying money without having a profitable business seems to that bubble seems to have popped a little bit which I am a big advocate for classic business fundamentals, you can obviously go in the red for a period but you need to have a path to the green. So I think when it when it when it comes to getting started on Amazon, number one is the product is the product, a good fit for Amazon, if you are selling a haircare line, and you're supposed to take a quiz and it's custom, by the results of the quiz, you may not be a good candidate for Amazon because it's not a really a customizable platform at this point. If you have a really expensive item, also probably not a good match. And the other thing is on the flip side is if you've ever really commoditized product and you don't have a unique differentiator is going to be tough, unless once again you can compete on price, or you have a very healthy ad budget. So I from a fundamental standpoint, it always starts with the product. The second thing is the inventory planning and I think for a lot of small businesses. This can be a challenge because obviously buying inventory is a big cash constraint and And it's the educated guess of the century when you're trying to build these forecasts of allocating the cash that you have to buy the inventory and to buy the right inventory. And then to sell through that inventory. So you have more cash to buy more inventory, and so forth. But really thinking it through because a mistake I've seen some smaller businesses make is they think they can just pull their Amazon inventory from what they've projected for maybe their wholesale or their D to C channel. And the problem with that is, if Amazon does really start to take off, then you go out of stock. And going out of stock on Amazon is a kiss of death. There is a rumored saying out there that for every day, you're out of stock on Amazon, you lose relevancy by you lose four days of relevancy. So what that means is because it's a giant shopping, search engine, SEO or Search Engine Optimization is a huge component of your visibility and driving sales. So if you do all of this work, all of this marketing, to get to page one for keyword that's super important for your product, and you go out of stock, you essentially have to and you're out of stock for a long period, you essentially have to do a relaunch, and I've seen businesses never really be able to fully recover from that.

Krystal Proffitt: 16:27

Wow. It's so cool, because I feel like you're giving us like the behind the scenes like lingo and like the cool things like, no, yes, yes. No, this is so good. Because I think that having your perspective because like I said, most people listening only have the perspective of being a consumer, or maybe really looking at Amazon from a digital marketing perspective, like, Can I do this? And I love that you mentioned SEO, I love talking about SEO on here. It's so important. But it's one of those things that I feel like it's this big mystery, because we've heard for a long time that we've got to optimize for Google and search engines. And I love taking some of those same applications and thinking about them in Amazon as the largest shopping search engine. And with that, I'm so curious, because I actually I was checking out, you know, I was doing my due diligence, I was looking at your website earlier. And I love the idea of kind of not putting everything in your basket when it comes to Amazon, but having that digital marketing, feeding with your website, and Amazon and all of that. So can you kind of explain that strategy, because I can imagine the people listening to this like my listeners, they're content creators, like at their core, that is their marketing funnel for their business. They're doing podcasts are doing social, they're doing blogs, they're doing email newsletters, so they understand the importance of SEO, but I can see them right now. They're like, well, if I'm going to talk about on my podcast, do I need to send them directly to Amazon? Do I need to send them to my website? Like, do you have any input on the strategy that they could follow for something like that?

Laura Meyer: 18:10

Absolutely. Well, so I think the first thing that clarify is an Amazon SEO strategy is very different than a Google SEO strategy. And there are of course tactics to leverage Google SEO to drive more Amazon SEO interest. So Amazon SEO is very unit sold driven, in my experience. So what that means is Amazon's algorithm tends to reward and give more visibility to not the highest revenue grossing products, but the products that move the most units, which to some brands that's actually very different than a lot of retailers, right. But Amazon wants that replenishment, build the addiction, as we've all seen, or experienced ourselves. And then there's also all of a copywriting and the titles and the bullet points and things along those lines. Where everything you do on Google, in my opinion, I actually think Google SEO is a lot more challenging than Amazon. Because I just feel like there's so many more level levers that you can pull. But we are seeing something interesting right now, where external traffic seems to be weighted more heavily in Amazon's algorithm, and they're rewarding external traffic more. And in fact, they even launched a program back in 20. I think it was July 21. Maybe it's a little bit later in the year, but it's called the Amazon brand referral bonus, where they'll actually send you or pay you as the business 10% For external traffic that you drive to Amazon And I'm sure that this is a tactic on their end because like every marketer right now, we're all trying to figure out how we can acquire customers profitably. And Google and Amazon have a complicated relationship. And Amazon and Facebook have a complicated relationship. Oh, yeah. So why not have the brands be the influencers of the traffic instead of Amazon going out and buying that traffic?

Krystal Proffitt: 20:29

So this is so interesting, like we I felt like we just opened Pandora's box, because like you said, it's like, all the giants of the media space, the shopping space consumerism, like, it all really comes down to being a savvy marketer. And that means so many different than I think being a digital marketer is a complicated relationship, because I feel like you can be really awesome in one very specific way, make maybe it's content creation for somebody that's listening to this. But they're, they hear SEO, and they want to pull their head like under the covers and say, I don't want to do it like I can't. It's too much. It's really hard. And I think that it's just going to continue to evolve and change as the world does. And I'm really curious to know, like, what do you see as far as Amazon trends like going in the future? And I don't know if that's really a question for a business owner or more from the consumer side? Or maybe it's one of the two. But do you have any insight on what we can kind of expect to see, I mean, this episode, like, just a disclaimer, we're recording this before the holidays. But this is going to be after the holidays whenever it goes live. So maybe you have some insights so that we can put into 2023 is holiday, you know, Black Friday, whatever shopping. But do you have any insights?

Laura Meyer: 21:55

Yeah, well, I think, to me, it's obvious, but it's probably new to a lot of your listeners, which is that Amazon is going to become a major media player as we move forward. So their media business has grown year over year, like, what their media business is today is lightyears ahead of what it was when I initially worked there back in 2015. And it's interesting because you don't actually think of Amazon competing directly for the ad dollars that Google and Facebook are competing for. But now they are. And now there's even upper funnel marketing opportunities, meaning now that Amazon is more into the streaming channels, they have the relationship with the NFL, I forget how many billions or hundreds of millions of dollars they paid for that Thursday night football deal. But like one of my predictions is that as Amazon becomes more dominant, as a media player, I think maybe one day you'll even be able to buy a Superbowl ad through Amazon's media network. And the reason why Amazon has the power to be such a leader here is that they have so much data on us in terms of our shopping habits. In terms of the address, the deliveries are going to like there's so much where Google obviously knows what you're searching, Amazon knows what you're buying, which is way more transactional. And Facebook, you know, they were able to do a lot of cookie tracking as well and building really effective audience look alike segments. But what Amazon has to offer, I think it's just so much more data rich, and will continue to be able to provide very targeted messaging for brands. So I think that's one prediction that is already showing face that it's going to occur. But you know, the thing is Meadows definitely in trouble. That's no secret. I don't think it's unlikely that Amazon could surpass Meadows media business if they don't get their act in order to be honest. The other big thing that's happening and this has also been a trend for years, but it's becoming even more evident is when Amazon launched as a retail or E commerce business. They were buying inventory wholesale. So they took a vendor relationship. And in the last five years, the marketplace business model has become more and more dominant. And the reason this is really cool is it allows smaller businesses the same opportunity as a vendor like one of the big hurdles for businesses that want to get into Target or Ulta or Sephora rot is that wholesale dynamic where you spend all this time and money pitching your product sending samples, and nothing. Amazon from a third party marketplace, you are in full control. It's essentially the DTC model, but with an existing audience, and that is so powerful in itself. So I actually foreseen the vendor side of Amazon's business continuing to shrink in terms of the number of businesses working with vendor, and more and more businesses moving to the marketplace, or what's called seller central business model. Okay, I have I have. Yeah, go ahead. Go ahead, go. Well, I think the other third prediction is that Amazon is, they've always been a huge logistics player for their own channel. But now they're really like three pls. If you're a small business, and you've tried to work with a three PL in the last two years, there are not a lot of good three peels

Krystal Proffitt: 26:02

out there. So it's fine. But that is real fast. So somebody,

Laura Meyer: 26:06

a third party logistics partner. So when you sell things online, you need a warehouse to pick pack and ship your product out. And Prime Amazon Prime, what made them so successful is the two day shipping. Their infrastructure for logistics, is world class. In fact, it's probably out of this world, like how sophisticated it is. And the average 3.3 pl is not on their level. And once again, like I sympathize for a lot of the three pls because I think that they had struggle staffing their warehouses the last few years because of COVID. Because of the just boom, that happened in E comm. But a lot of three fields can be really unreliable. So if anyone knows of good three peels, I'm all yours because I get asked this a lot. And I get like years ago, I gave recommendations to a three PL and it hit me in the butt, because they didn't get inventory out and they ended up losing the client. So maybe I'm just a little extra salty from that. But I think that they'll continue to be a huge logistics partner, not only for Amazon orders, but for a lot of online orders overall.

Krystal Proffitt: 27:22

Yeah, oh my gosh, like I, I love the talk of kind of where it's been, where we're going like the present day, but also the future like it's, it's almost like future pacing us for what we need to pay attention to. Because I know that there's a lot of people listening right now, it's the beginning of the year, and they're thinking about, okay, I really want to do something big in my business. And I know that there's a lot of people that are really focusing on like, How can I take my business to the next level? And what does that look like? And I feel like Amazon is one of those things, because so many of us are in the digital space, like we got into this because we're like, I don't have to have inventory, I can have products that are purely digital. And so if somebody's listening to this right now, and they're thinking, I might want to try this, but I'm also scared to invest a tenant inventory, just like what you were saying, like they have this like, I don't know how to forecast this. They've never had any sort of retail, they've never had a storefront. They've never done brick and mortar, like, Do you have any advice for them? And how to approach it without totally coming up? Like, I mean, without wasting at all? Like, I know that sounds silly, because hopefully you're re listening, you know, better, you know better, you know what a safe investment is for you. But I'm just curious if I were coming to you, Laura. And I'm like Laura, I want to get an Amazon. And I've got like $20,000 that I want to invest in, I want to find a really good product. What would you say?

Laura Meyer: 28:57

Well, I think the first thing is I always like to take a step back, right? And ask like, what are the goals for your business in the next three years? And is launching on Amazon aligned with those goals? Or is it a shiny object? Because as entrepreneurs and I am guilty of this times over, right, we see shiny things, we see things that generate revenue, and we go after them, but maybe it's not the right decision for our business model. So I think that's the first thing is if you aren't in inventory business, but you want to become one, making sure that it aligns with your business model. And I think like a great example of a business that has done this and I guess disclosure I'm a like a small angel investment in them is a beauty brand that launched earlier this year called Dior and they were a media and content company for several years. So they built this loyal audience, they had this following. And by the way, this is also what glossier did, too. And then they introduced products, but they made that commitment, they overhauled the website, like they really leaned into it. My advice is, if you aren't ready to really lean into it, and have it be your big growth opportunity, or one of your growth pillars, I always like to think of how to be between one and three growth pillars that you foster. That don't do it, right. But if you want to make that leap, one, if you have this audience that you've harnessed through your content, you want to make sure that it's going to be a product that will appeal to that existing audience. Otherwise, you might as well just start a second entity and do that. And then finding a good manufacturer is not easy, you may have the best idea in the world. But if you can't find the right manufacturing partner, it will be really challenging. And with the example you gave of a$20,000 investment, that right there is going to limit your pool of what manufacturers will take you on. Yeah, and I've done some negotiations with manufacturing, I do have my own men's undershirt business that I've run for five years now. But when you work with manufacturers, it's a mutual interview. It's not just you vetting them, they're also betting you and if, as a small business, they're willing to take the risk. And in the last two years, it's been really challenging for smaller businesses to find good manufacturers, because they were so overwhelmed, because a lot of manufacturing moved from overseas to domestic, right. Yeah. So I think that's a big thing. And you know, if possible, like, really try and avoid buying just like generic things off of Alibaba, repackaging it, you can do it, if you have a loyal audience, you can maybe make some quick cash on it, sell it on Etsy, whatever. But that's not in general going to be a scalable product, or like I would I talked about earlier, like a product that really has differentiating value.

Krystal Proffitt: 32:29

Yeah. Oh, my gosh, like you just you have so much like you're a wealth of knowledge about this. And I like I said, I could just ask you 1000 More questions. But I know that there is one that everybody listening has right now. And I'm sure you have a very strong opinion on it. What do you think about reviews? How important are reviews on Amazon? Reviews are

Laura Meyer: 32:51

crucial, they are so important. And it's really a point of frustration for me, because it's it's, it's a double edged sword, because you need reviews to be successful. But Amazon really puts limitations on what you can do to generate reviews. So what ends up happening, we do everything by the books. But you occasionally see these headlines that come out of, you know, millions of reviews being removed from Amazon, because 1000s of sellers were doing wrongful strategies to generate those reviews. So once again, goes back to my earlier point is the best way to get a lot of reviews have a great product have great brand loyalty, Amazon does have the volume program, which is $200 to enroll per parent products, and then you can give up to 30 units away for free. That program is fine. More recently, I feel like the Viper viewers have like these this weird chip on their shoulder. Because we've seen cases where they get a really decent product. And they still give it three star being like good product but too expensive. And then like you got this product for free. Commenting on the price, it just makes no sense. So I always like to set the expectation just because you do the Prime program doesn't mean you're gonna get the best reviews. It's it's unique cohort that's that's a part of the vine program. Now there are software's out there like one of the software functionalities that my company has is where it does the automated trigger requests for the reviews that work some but in most cases people ignore it right, right. And Amazon now has kind of gray policy if you can do inserts or not. So we just advise our clients it's not worth the rest. So don't do inserts because some brands were pushing the envelope In their messaging on those inserts. So yeah, it's a real challenge. You can't just import reviews from your posts that you have on your DTSC or some other revenue generator to Amazon, they only accept their reviews.

Krystal Proffitt: 35:17

Oh, this is so interesting, especially I was I think it was on a LinkedIn article or something they were talking about, that your Amazon third party sellers will be able to email you. Is that something that was like a rumored thing? Or is that, like I remember it was in the context of like, after you make a purchase, they would get your email, and I started thinking about it. And I'm like, Well, I bought something that was $3. And it was like something for our kitchen sink. I don't care. Like I will probably never buy that again, unless it breaks again. And I don't care about that. Is this something that was just a rumor? Or do you have any information about that.

Laura Meyer: 35:54

So what I do know is that during Amazon ik celery, they announced a program where on the storefront, if you follow a brand, they can essentially do email marketing. But that's more for product announcements, okay, engagements, less like the whole review the review thing, I did also hear a rumor about trying to that they were setting up like a live chat function where brands could like live chat with the customer instead of Amazon. But I'm gonna be perfectly honest, I don't know a whole bunch about that. Because with my business, there's so many moving parts for small, but we really try and put the customer service piece on the brands to manage because most of the brands that we work with, they have successful DTC, they have successful brick and mortar distribution. So they already have a customer service team in place. We just advise their customer service team on what those best practices are.

Krystal Proffitt: 37:03

Yeah. And that makes sense, especially because it's, it seems like it's like you don't know what people are doing in Amazon, you could be the 17th thing that someone has in their cart, and then they're actually mad about something else that's happening on the platform that has nothing to do with you too. So it's like kind of seems like a little murky water?

Laura Meyer: 37:21

Well, and I've definitely seen this over the years, right, where the brand gets a message from a customer demanding to know where their product is. Well, Amazon's been handling the logistics, right? It's actually not on the brand to know where it is.

Krystal Proffitt: 37:36

I mean, I could just see like 1000 loopholes and different things. That could be tricky. But that's why y'all should hire Laura, if you're thinking about doing this, because her business like that's what it is. So tell us a little bit about your agency and what you do to work with brands. And if somebody's listening right now, and they're interested in all asking you 1000 More questions, then what was that? What would that look like?

Laura Meyer: 38:02

Yeah, definitely. So my business has continued to expand in terms of our service offering, our core. And what we're known for is our full service, Amazon management, meaning we're helping with the inventory piece, the creative piece, the troubleshooting piece, the media buying piece, the SEO, like, the list goes on, it's very dynamic. And then we also have our own brand management software called by horizon. So I'm very fortunate that I married a computer science engineer, so my husband helped lead that project. Although now we have a full team that's executing on that. And the goal of this was to really make Amazon much more user friendly from a data analytics perspective. There, there could be a whole other podcast. So what metrics you should be tracking as it pertains to selling on Amazon. But essentially, we've used the various API's that Amazon has, in order to build our software. And our goal is to automate brand management. So helping smaller businesses that are doing it themselves have the same tools that our agency does. Because typically, for the agency side of the business, you know, we're working with brands that already do a million dollars a year on Amazon. And it's our goal to take them to 1015 20 million over a multi year engagement. So there's that and then we also do influencer marketing, but specifically for driving traffic to Amazon. So also, we're always building a Rolodex of content creators. So if that's of interest, I'll plug that too. And then the other expansion that's super interesting is just the retail media landscape. tape in general. So Walmart obviously has copy and pasted Amazon's business plan for their advertising, target Walmart, or sorry, Walgreens, CVS, they partnered with Criteo to be able to provide paid search advertising on their websites. So now what we're really looking at is for our clients with large media spends, finding that next dollar of investment where they get the best return. So you know, we could spend this dollar on Amazon, we could spend this dollar on Walmart, or we could spend it on Walgreens, CVS target, and building those media plans and making those investments which that's a whole nother beast, but it's super interesting.

Krystal Proffitt: 40:49

This is so awesome. Like I said, I just, I could geek out on all the other marketing questions and like just business and I mean, you said that about metrics. And I'm like destice, like who is like, I've like salivating over the word metrics. I'm like, that sounds so sexy. Like, it sounds amazing. And

Laura Meyer: 41:07

talk LTV is the CDR we got it.

Krystal Proffitt: 41:12

Yeah, all the things, all the things. Oh, my gosh, this is so awesome. Well, Laura, I appreciate all the things that you have shared. But I want to wrap up with, I have some rapid fire questions. So are you for those?

Laura Meyer: 41:25

I don't know, I'm five months pregnant. So pregnancy brain so we'll see if

Krystal Proffitt: 41:31

you'll be good, you'll be good. There's just three and they're super simple. Okay. The first one is what piece of advice would you give to? It's typically a brand new podcaster or content creator. But in this sense, what advice would you give to someone that's looking to start on Amazon?

Laura Meyer: 41:50

Well, whether it's content or whether it's product, you need to have something that sets you apart.

Krystal Proffitt: 41:56

Yeah, that's great. That's great. Okay, the next one is a two part question. So what is a dream podcast you would love to be on? And if you had the opportunity, who is your dream podcast? Guest you'd like to interview?

Laura Meyer: 42:11

Okay, I would love to be on Tim Ferriss, because that is just I mean, and I'm sure that's such a basic answer. But I've been listening to Tim Ferriss since I was in college. So I guess I have some legacy there. And who I would love on my own podcast and who I have a major professional girl crush on is Sara Blakely. also probably a basic answer, but I feel like I've been following her religiously before. I think she went mainstream. Like literally been following her since probably, I graduated college as well. So I also just think she's so fun and down to earth. And she's herself, right she is not what the corporate world wants to morph a lot of people into and I that really resonates with me.

Krystal Proffitt: 42:59

I feel like I want to meet her and say you had me at tequila and cheeses because this is if you don't know this about Sara Blakely, just go look her up on Instagram. She's amazing to follow there. Okay, my last question is, do you consider yourself a perfectionist?

Laura Meyer: 43:15

No. I mean, my mother would probably say that because she thinks sometimes I'm too critical. But I think one thing that I've observed just in life, is you kind of have to pick and choose what where you are Type A. So yes, there are certain things where I will be a perfectionist, but I have also learned in life. Sometimes you just have to let things go. Like I did a whole renovation on my master bathroom. And I noticed a month later that the embedded medicine cabinets are like we have his and hers. They're like half an inch off from one another. You just gotta let that you just got to live life a little bit. You know? Initially, it was irritating, but now I don't. I've moved on.

Krystal Proffitt: 44:05

Yes, yes. Oh my gosh, this is so good. Well, thank you so much, Laura, for all the wisdom that you shared today. I know people are going to be going back and listening to this. But wait, what did Laura say? Again? Like what? What I need to go back and see like what was her recommendation? But if someone's listening and they want to work with you learn more about you what is the best place for them to find you.

Laura Meyer: 44:28

The best place is LinkedIn. That's where I do my content creation. So please follow. And yeah, you can also just go to our website envision horizons.com. And we have our inquiry form there. So very active on LinkedIn. You send me a DM I am Sir. I live on LinkedIn.

Krystal Proffitt: 44:50

Okay, awesome. We will have links to all of that in the show notes. But thank you again so much for coming on the show today. This was awesome.

Laura Meyer: 44:58

It was my pleasure. Thank you for having me.

Krystal Proffitt: 45:00

It was such a good interview, right? It just, it was so awesome. Like, the whole time I was listening back to it. I was thinking, What can I sell on Amazon, right? Because Laura makes it seem so easy and so fun. And I just I loved her interview so much. And this is actually something that my husband says, for a long time, like I can remember, we used to live in this small town in East Texas. And I can still like vividly See, we're standing in our guest room which doubled as like a guestroom a baby bed, like the crib was in there in an office like it was one of those multipurpose rooms. And we were like, well, what are we even doing because we lived in this small house. But I remember standing there. And he said to me, I think I want to sell knives sharpeners on Amazon. And I remember thinking, What are you talking about? Like, what are you even talking about, and he has been trying to find something that is going to work for what he's interested in which knives sharpening like those that didn't pan out. It didn't work for us. But we've been thinking about this since 2014 2015. And so I can tell you that having a business on Amazon is kind of like doing YouTube or creating content or having a podcast, it's one of those things that I bet if you're listening to this, you've thought about it in some capacity. And if you have and you want help with it, talk to Laura, go reach out to her, I'm gonna have all her information linked in the show notes. So make sure you go check those out. But go check out envision horizons, which is her company, and go check out what they can do for you because they've been named in the top 18 Amazon advertising agencies from Business Insider, and they support people that are in the beauty space, baby and health household brands, but they really represent people from all categories. So if this is something that you've been like noodling around with that idea, you're like, I don't know, that sounds like it could be fun. It sounds like it would be like the perfect addition, right, the next channel, or the route to market that your product or services could really benefit from like, if you, you know, because I've thought about this, too. Whenever I was really going hardcore into podcasting, I thought, why don't I put together a bundle on Amazon, and really just fill it with my favorite products, and have the ability to highlight those in a really specific way. Now, that's not me selling my own products. But it's me taking another step into the door of working on Amazon and creating businesses that really complement what you're doing and other aspects of your business. So fun. Please go check out Laura. And I hope that you learned something today. If not, you really enjoyed her story about just what you can do what you can do when you get creative you think outside the box, and it was just so fun. It was so fun. Thank you so much Laura again, because this was such a great interview. But that's all I have for you today. So if this is your first time tuning in, make sure you hit the follow or subscribe button wherever you're listening to this podcast. And as always remember, keep it up. We all have to start somewhere