Speaker: 00:00:07

Welcome to the Mesmerizing Marketing Podcast, where we take a deep dive

Speaker: 00:00:11

into the latest marketing trends, tools, and tips, and provide you with

Speaker: 00:00:16

the top resources you need to thrive and make your marketing mesmerizing.

Speaker: 00:00:22

And now here's your host Dimple.

Speaker: 00:00:25

Dang.

Speaker: 00:00:35

Hello everyone.

Speaker: 00:00:36

Welcome back to the Mesmerizing Marketing podcast.

Speaker: 00:00:39

And today I'm excited to be here with Shair.

Speaker: 00:00:42

He's a managing director at Smart Panda Labs, and we're gonna be talking about

Speaker: 00:00:46

some very interesting concepts when it comes to marketing and converting and

Speaker: 00:00:52

just increasing the conversions that.

Speaker: 00:00:54

Clients are getting from their website.

Speaker: 00:00:56

So tell us a little bit more about, your background Shair, how you got

Speaker: 00:01:00

started at Smart Panda Labs, what you do for them, and we'll start there.

Speaker: 00:01:05

Sure.

Speaker: 00:01:06

So got started with Smart Panda Labs about 13 years ago now.

Speaker: 00:01:09

Used to work in a corporate side of things for a number of different brands, large.

Speaker: 00:01:15

Really at the start of the internet really becoming an important thing

Speaker: 00:01:18

just to keep part of the business in.

Speaker: 00:01:20

Over the years of helping organizations start to use the

Speaker: 00:01:23

internet the right way, ran into.

Speaker: 00:01:25

, a lot of frustrations that still exist today in terms of getting

Speaker: 00:01:29

internal teams and resources aligned to create the kind of experience

Speaker: 00:01:33

that people really demand online.

Speaker: 00:01:34

So trying to get marketing to work with product, to work with it, to

Speaker: 00:01:38

work with operations, and out of that frustration and came the broke the

Speaker: 00:01:42

smart panel labs in terms of trying to get companies to help build that

Speaker: 00:01:45

foundation and framework for success so that they can, they can really drive.

Speaker: 00:01:50

A good digital customer experience is that that generate revenue and save costs.

Speaker: 00:01:54

Yeah, that's, that's great.

Speaker: 00:01:55

And that's much needed nowadays because, you know, a lot of companies can

Speaker: 00:01:59

invest in digital marketing, invest in website and do all of these things, but

Speaker: 00:02:05

they're still not getting conversions.

Speaker: 00:02:06

And I think there's, there is a little bit of art and science to

Speaker: 00:02:09

getting, you know, conversions on a website, on a landing page.

Speaker: 00:02:14

A lot of it has to do with even ad copy, but you know, when you really

Speaker: 00:02:18

wanna get scientific, there's so many different factors that impact, you know,

Speaker: 00:02:21

what converts and what doesn't convert.

Speaker: 00:02:24

So, you know, for our audience, like tell us a little bit more about what exactly

Speaker: 00:02:28

Smart Panda Labs does and, and you know, what type of companies do you work with?

Speaker: 00:02:35

Sure.

Speaker: 00:02:35

So, I'll kind of answer that in reverse order.

Speaker: 00:02:37

So we typically work with companies, enterprise organizations.

Speaker: 00:02:41

in the earlier stages of digital transformation.

Speaker: 00:02:43

So they know they need to have a really modern digital customer experience,

Speaker: 00:02:47

but they don't know how to get there.

Speaker: 00:02:49

They know that they can see the destination, but they're not sure

Speaker: 00:02:52

what path to take to get there.

Speaker: 00:02:53

So we help them navigate that.

Speaker: 00:02:55

And, and ultimately what we focus on is you talked about ads and and

Speaker: 00:02:59

having good advertising, we focus on what happens after the click.

Speaker: 00:03:03

So a lot of time and attention and, and money is spent on

Speaker: 00:03:06

advertising and that's certainly, I.

Speaker: 00:03:08

. But unfortunately as marketers we sometimes get so focused on advertising.

Speaker: 00:03:12

We think every problem is an advertising problem.

Speaker: 00:03:15

And when you really think about it only seconds are spent interacting with an ad.

Speaker: 00:03:19

Most of the customer's time is spent after the click.

Speaker: 00:03:22

So what is that experience they have on the website with

Speaker: 00:03:25

the landing page or the app?

Speaker: 00:03:26

What's that communication that's happening with email or sms?

Speaker: 00:03:30

What's happening to drive them ultimately to conversion and then building

Speaker: 00:03:33

a relationship to drive lifetime.

Speaker: 00:03:35

And that's where Smart Paint allow focuses.

Speaker: 00:03:37

It's thinking about communications, thinking about marketing automation,

Speaker: 00:03:41

thinking about experimentation, personalization, all those elements

Speaker: 00:03:45

that happen after the click that drives conversion and lifetime value.

Speaker: 00:03:48

Yeah, that's great because obviously, you know, people can get clicks.

Speaker: 00:03:52

They can, you know, do paid ads on Google through PPC campaigns.

Speaker: 00:03:56

They can get organic.

Speaker: 00:03:57

But once they get the click, if the, you know, potential client doesn't stay

Speaker: 00:04:01

on that website and they leave, it's not gonna translate into a conversion.

Speaker: 00:04:06

It's not gonna translate into a sale.

Speaker: 00:04:08

So my question to you is, what are some of the most common mistakes you're

Speaker: 00:04:12

seeing, these businesses and companies make when it comes to, you know, their

Speaker: 00:04:17

website are, are their landing pages like, What do you think they could improve?

Speaker: 00:04:21

When you go to them or they come to you and you're looking at their website, what

Speaker: 00:04:24

are some of the common mistakes you're.

Speaker: 00:04:26

I think that to talk about big buckets that usually fall in one or two buckets.

Speaker: 00:04:31

It's usually about usability, so just a poor user experience.

Speaker: 00:04:35

So, the way the page is laid out is an intuitive in terms of

Speaker: 00:04:38

what you want the person to do.

Speaker: 00:04:39

So you think about looking at the page and what that major call to action is.

Speaker: 00:04:43

If the pages even locks a call to action, is it very clear what the

Speaker: 00:04:46

next step is to go in the process?

Speaker: 00:04:48

We see a lot of problems with that.

Speaker: 00:04:50

And then the other issue that we usually find is around persuasion.

Speaker: 00:04:53

How are you building value?

Speaker: 00:04:54

How are you giving them the appropriate information at the right time?

Speaker: 00:04:57

So we talked about the fact that what, what happens after the

Speaker: 00:05:00

click is critically important?

Speaker: 00:05:01

Well, if the messaging and the imagery and the ad drove the click, how are

Speaker: 00:05:05

you e continuing that story and how are we playing off that messaging?

Speaker: 00:05:08

How are we playing off that imaging on that landing page so that

Speaker: 00:05:12

ultimately drives people all the way through that conversion process?

Speaker: 00:05:15

So it's usually around usability.

Speaker: 00:05:16

Not being very clear and concise about the path that you want people

Speaker: 00:05:20

to take, and being able to make it very explicit as to what needs

Speaker: 00:05:23

to be done on the page to do that.

Speaker: 00:05:25

And then again about persuasion, about having the right content

Speaker: 00:05:27

in the right place so people can be able to educate themselves

Speaker: 00:05:30

and, and then ultimately convert.

Speaker: 00:05:32

Great.

Speaker: 00:05:32

You're saying that, you know, when someone's on a website in terms of

Speaker: 00:05:35

usability, you know, they're not sure, well, what action are they supposed to

Speaker: 00:05:39

take next because it's not clearly defined or maybe there's too many options and

Speaker: 00:05:44

then that creates a bad user experience where the user is confused, well, should I

Speaker: 00:05:49

click here or should click here, shouldn't I go to this page or, or that page

Speaker: 00:05:54

and by then nothing's happening because, you know, the potential client is just

Speaker: 00:05:58

like, well, I don't know what to do, so I'm going to just do nothing And pause.

Speaker: 00:06:03

And I think this is where, smart Piano Labs comes in, is you're coming in, so

Speaker: 00:06:07

you're, you're gonna take an assessment.

Speaker: 00:06:08

You're gonna say, well, this is how we can improve the user experience.

Speaker: 00:06:12

You know, this is how we can improve conversions.

Speaker: 00:06:15

And, you know, when it comes to usability, what are some of

Speaker: 00:06:20

the, fall pauses that you've seen?

Speaker: 00:06:21

And it's like, no, no, don't do that.

Speaker: 00:06:23

And you've see it all the time.

Speaker: 00:06:25

Probably the, the number one thing that we see is you're giving

Speaker: 00:06:28

people too much information.

Speaker: 00:06:30

You're giving people too many choices.

Speaker: 00:06:31

You kind of throw everything in the kitchen sink at the one page.

Speaker: 00:06:34

And people don't like that.

Speaker: 00:06:36

It's, it's a bit counterintuitive cuz you think, well, I'm gonna give

Speaker: 00:06:39

them all the information they need in order to make this decision.

Speaker: 00:06:41

I'm gonna give them.

Speaker: 00:06:42

All these choices and they can click to this page and learn about

Speaker: 00:06:44

this aspect of it and this page, and learn about that aspect of it.

Speaker: 00:06:47

But what happens is people tend to get kind of paralyzed.

Speaker: 00:06:50

It's, it's too many choices, it's too many things to do and end

Speaker: 00:06:53

up, it ends up causing confusion.

Speaker: 00:06:55

So, very much what you alluded to just the fact that packing too much into one

Speaker: 00:06:58

shot instead of keeping things very, very simple and very, very straight.

Speaker: 00:07:03

Yeah.

Speaker: 00:07:03

Yeah.

Speaker: 00:07:03

They get paralyzed by fear and then that complexity just, you

Speaker: 00:07:07

know, makes them take no action.

Speaker: 00:07:10

And that's not the best you know, resort to go to.

Speaker: 00:07:12

Let's, let's talk about, you know, we talked about usability.

Speaker: 00:07:15

Let's also talk about.

Speaker: 00:07:17

in terms of, you know, the customer experience, like when they come

Speaker: 00:07:21

to a site you know, that customer experience is also, I think, how they

Speaker: 00:07:25

feel when they land on a landing page.

Speaker: 00:07:27

And I think that can come through imagery, it can come through the tone that's

Speaker: 00:07:32

used in the content, the way that the content is written, how it's speaking

Speaker: 00:07:36

to that audience, and is the you know, resonating with that content or not.

Speaker: 00:07:40

So what have you seen when it comes to.

Speaker: 00:07:44

Content and ad copy and imagery.

Speaker: 00:07:47

We've seen that the continuity of content and ad copy and imagery

Speaker: 00:07:51

is typically worth worse, best.

Speaker: 00:07:52

It, it reinforces the message that kind of drove the click and it reinforces

Speaker: 00:07:56

the fact that the customers in the right place going along the right path.

Speaker: 00:07:59

And we mean that very, very literally.

Speaker: 00:08:01

So if you had a particular image, a.

Speaker: 00:08:04

Maybe it's a vacation.

Speaker: 00:08:06

In, in the, in the ad you had a shot of people at the beach.

Speaker: 00:08:09

Having a shot of people at the beach on the landing page reinforces that if there

Speaker: 00:08:13

was a particular line of copy about, you know, save $50 today on your package.

Speaker: 00:08:18

Then the landing page should say, save $50 on your package.

Speaker: 00:08:22

It should immediately reinforce what they saw in the ad so they

Speaker: 00:08:25

know they're in the right place.

Speaker: 00:08:26

This is the same message I just saw.

Speaker: 00:08:28

Okay, great.

Speaker: 00:08:29

This is what I'm looking for.

Speaker: 00:08:30

Give me some information about the package, and now I'm informed

Speaker: 00:08:33

enough to take the next step.

Speaker: 00:08:35

Yeah, so there needs to be consistency in the story that it's telling.

Speaker: 00:08:38

The images should match up with the ad copy and it should just all, you

Speaker: 00:08:43

know, flow together and tell a story.

Speaker: 00:08:45

And sometimes, you know, when websites don't have that and things

Speaker: 00:08:49

are not connecting, it's disjointed.

Speaker: 00:08:52

And that's the same experience that the end user's getting and the end

Speaker: 00:08:55

user is gonna end up leaving that website and going to their competitor's

Speaker: 00:08:59

website and therefore, That, you know, company has lost a potential client

Speaker: 00:09:05

that could be worth for some of these corporations, millions of dollars, right?

Speaker: 00:09:09

So where you come in, like, you know, tell us like some of the industries that,

Speaker: 00:09:13

that you guys work with and maybe you can share a case study, maybe the one about.

Speaker: 00:09:18

The vice Roy Hotel because, you know, they're a well known brand

Speaker: 00:09:22

and I've actually been to their locations in la so familiar.

Speaker: 00:09:26

But tell us a little bit more about an actual case study and how you

Speaker: 00:09:29

took this hotel and you really help them change the way that they were

Speaker: 00:09:34

representing themselves online and how that increased their conversions.

Speaker: 00:09:39

Sure.

Speaker: 00:09:39

So it's really about kind of understanding again the usability

Speaker: 00:09:43

of the experience and looking at things from a customer's perspective.

Speaker: 00:09:46

. So for Vice Roy at the time, they were kind of tipping their toe into

Speaker: 00:09:50

experimentation and testing, and they kind of need to prove out the ROI of it.

Speaker: 00:09:54

That if we invest in an experimentation program, it's this gonna drive results is

Speaker: 00:09:57

is gonna ultimately drive revenue for us.

Speaker: 00:09:59

Unfortunately we were able to prove that out.

Speaker: 00:10:01

So, an example of simple copy on a button.

Speaker: 00:10:04

An an early point in the process of, of converting and actually

Speaker: 00:10:08

register reserving a hotel room.

Speaker: 00:10:10

Someone might see a button that says book.

Speaker: 00:10:12

, well, you're not actually booking right now that very early in the process

Speaker: 00:10:16

there's probably several steps before you're actually booking the room.

Speaker: 00:10:20

So just changing the copy on that button to be more an, a more accurate description

Speaker: 00:10:24

of what's happening in that process.

Speaker: 00:10:26

Something like start your reservation, which is really more accurate description.

Speaker: 00:10:30

We saw that drive more through, pre through into the conversion funnel.

Speaker: 00:10:34

And then ultimately were more revenue from the.

Speaker: 00:10:36

Being able to create a dedicated campaign landing page that consolidated some of the

Speaker: 00:10:40

key points of information people needed in order to convert versus just kind of

Speaker: 00:10:44

driving people generally to the site or to a general property page was also something

Speaker: 00:10:48

that drove more revenue for the company.

Speaker: 00:10:51

. So there was all these opportunities just to improve

Speaker: 00:10:53

the usability of the experience.

Speaker: 00:10:54

Yes.

Speaker: 00:10:55

To make it more accurate to get what we consider to be low hanging fruit.

Speaker: 00:10:58

I mean, these are people who kind of want to do this.

Speaker: 00:11:00

Basically we're just helping websites get outta their own way and, and

Speaker: 00:11:04

allow those people to do that.

Speaker: 00:11:05

So that's before you even talk about trying to persuade people to do it,

Speaker: 00:11:08

these are people who want to do it.

Speaker: 00:11:10

You just try to kind of move these barriers and allow 'em to move forward.

Speaker: 00:11:13

Yeah, I love that.

Speaker: 00:11:14

And I think there's a whole psychology behind all of that.

Speaker: 00:11:16

It's like, oh, you know, start your reservation versus book your

Speaker: 00:11:20

book now or book your reservation.

Speaker: 00:11:21

Because book now means like right now you're gonna have to pay, or

Speaker: 00:11:25

you're going to have to, you know, do the complete the transaction.

Speaker: 00:11:28

Whereas start just means, hey, , you're going through the process.

Speaker: 00:11:32

You might maybe change your mind to, you know, a different booking or different

Speaker: 00:11:36

type of room that you want, but it, it's a little bit softer and I think it's,

Speaker: 00:11:41

, how do those words impact, you know, how someone is receiving that information?

Speaker: 00:11:46

How are they thinking about it and, and how does it make them feel?

Speaker: 00:11:49

And if The goal, I think, is to make them feel comfortable throughout

Speaker: 00:11:54

the customer journey and to feel.

Speaker: 00:11:57

not stressed out to feel relaxed and like, you know, feel like they're in a

Speaker: 00:12:01

safe space where whatever transaction they make on that particular website,

Speaker: 00:12:06

that they're gonna have a good user experience, that they're going to get

Speaker: 00:12:10

exactly what was promised to them.

Speaker: 00:12:12

You know, like that's through the landing page, the words and, and the content.

Speaker: 00:12:17

And I think the disconnect sometimes is, users go on a website, they purchase

Speaker: 00:12:22

something and they don't get what was promised to them are the right, the funnel

Speaker: 00:12:28

of the actions don't go as expected.

Speaker: 00:12:32

And so that was a great example, you know, that you shared.

Speaker: 00:12:35

Thank you for sharing that.

Speaker: 00:12:36

What else, can you tell me in terms of like the different services

Speaker: 00:12:39

that Smart Panda Labs provides?

Speaker: 00:12:42

You know, for different corporations and, and companies and, and

Speaker: 00:12:46

anything else that you do besides what we already talked about.

Speaker: 00:12:49

Sure.

Speaker: 00:12:49

So again, we, we talk about the fact that people need time

Speaker: 00:12:52

in order to make a decision.

Speaker: 00:12:53

They need the appropriate information.

Speaker: 00:12:54

So some of what we do isn't just saying, okay, what's that experience

Speaker: 00:12:58

when someone comes to the website and how do we drive them through the.

Speaker: 00:13:01

, but also how do we give them an opportunity to say, well, I,

Speaker: 00:13:04

I kind of need to learn more.

Speaker: 00:13:06

So a lot of what we do is around communications, marketing automation,

Speaker: 00:13:09

people signing up for, for emails or for triggered campaigns so that perhaps

Speaker: 00:13:14

if they're not ready to actually put their credit card in, perhaps

Speaker: 00:13:16

they're willing to give you the email to get some additional information,

Speaker: 00:13:19

and then you conduct them over time to get to that point of conversion.

Speaker: 00:13:22

Then subsequently after the e, after the person actually makes that, that purchas.

Speaker: 00:13:26

, now you're able to go back to them.

Speaker: 00:13:28

Now you have some information about their experiences, what they like,

Speaker: 00:13:30

what products or services they're interested in, and now you're able to

Speaker: 00:13:33

market to them again down the road.

Speaker: 00:13:35

Use that inform.

Speaker: 00:13:36

to get greater lifetime value from that person.

Speaker: 00:13:38

So get 'em a chance to come back to become a, a more loyal customer.

Speaker: 00:13:42

So it's not just about the experience on the website itself, which we certainly

Speaker: 00:13:45

help with in terms of experimentation and personalization, but it's also

Speaker: 00:13:49

about those communications that can be triggered as well, whether it be from

Speaker: 00:13:52

email or from from SMS or, or other channels that can help to continue to

Speaker: 00:13:57

nurture and, and build those relat.

Speaker: 00:14:00

Yeah.

Speaker: 00:14:00

Relationships are so important.

Speaker: 00:14:02

And sometimes when someone's making a big purchase, it's not, you know,

Speaker: 00:14:06

it doesn't happen instantaneously.

Speaker: 00:14:07

That has to be nurtured and they have to consistently, you know, learn

Speaker: 00:14:11

more about that product or service.

Speaker: 00:14:13

And then you know, working their way, you know, into that funnel of, okay, I'm

Speaker: 00:14:17

interested, and then I'm like, mm-hmm.

Speaker: 00:14:19

who I'm like researching.

Speaker: 00:14:20

And then it's like, okay, I might do this, but I'm not quite ready yet.

Speaker: 00:14:24

And then it's like, okay, I'm ready.

Speaker: 00:14:26

To pull the plug and, and go forward.

Speaker: 00:14:29

And, you know, collecting email addresses is a great way to stay top of mind and,

Speaker: 00:14:34

and also just let you know potential clients and existing, even customers

Speaker: 00:14:39

know what is it that's new and exciting in the land of, that organization?

Speaker: 00:14:45

What have they been working on that, And that's a way to stay

Speaker: 00:14:48

top of mind and, and communicate.

Speaker: 00:14:50

The audience can be really excited about?

Speaker: 00:14:53

so thank you so much for sharing that.

Speaker: 00:14:54

And what about like, you know, do you have any other case studies that are

Speaker: 00:14:58

memorable where you're really proud of, , where you're really proud of the

Speaker: 00:15:01

results that you got for the client?

Speaker: 00:15:04

Yeah, there's one that, that, that stands out to me in particular, and it's because

Speaker: 00:15:08

of the, the way it kind of all developed.

Speaker: 00:15:09

So this was a client that, again, was trying to improve certain aspects

Speaker: 00:15:13

of their, their conversion process.

Speaker: 00:15:15

It just so happens that it was a travel client as well.

Speaker: 00:15:17

And it's interesting with experimentation it's, it's more about

Speaker: 00:15:21

learning than it is about winning.

Speaker: 00:15:22

Most tests that you run are gonna lose.

Speaker: 00:15:25

But with each loss you, you learn more and then eventually you get that big

Speaker: 00:15:28

win, that kind of that big payoff.

Speaker: 00:15:30

And I remember the very first experiment we ran for them, it was actually very

Speaker: 00:15:33

similar to the one we did for a vice where we kind of changed the copy on the button.

Speaker: 00:15:36

But in this case, the test actually lost very quickly within a couple of days.

Speaker: 00:15:41

We had confidence that, that changing that copy on the button, making it a

Speaker: 00:15:45

bit less committal, the thing we has did for Viceroy for this other travel

Speaker: 00:15:48

client was received very poorly by their audience and, and started to lose money.

Speaker: 00:15:53

So that kind of told us two things.

Speaker: 00:15:54

Number one, don't change the copy on the button . But the other thing it really

Speaker: 00:15:58

told us, That part of the experience matters a great deal to the consumer.

Speaker: 00:16:03

It's just we didn't, we didn't tweak that part of the experience,

Speaker: 00:16:06

the right way to move them in the direction that we wanted to.

Speaker: 00:16:08

. So we tried something a little bit different.

Speaker: 00:16:10

Instead of changing the copy on the button from saying, book now to

Speaker: 00:16:13

start your reservation or whatever, we changed it to, we kept the,

Speaker: 00:16:17

the, the copy of saying book now.

Speaker: 00:16:18

, but then we added some microcopy below the button that said, your

Speaker: 00:16:22

credit card will not be charged.

Speaker: 00:16:23

So maintain the copy just gave some context to what was happening

Speaker: 00:16:27

and, and what wasn't gonna happen.

Speaker: 00:16:29

A and keep in mind at this point, , the person hadn't entered the credit card.

Speaker: 00:16:32

But just by adding that micro copy, we saw a huge lift with confidence

Speaker: 00:16:36

in convergence, the exact opposite.

Speaker: 00:16:38

That was the winner in the experiment.

Speaker: 00:16:40

So here we had this loss going in, this read a large loss, but it educated us

Speaker: 00:16:45

enough that we were able to tweak the experiment and now get a big win that

Speaker: 00:16:48

would drive, obviously, incremental revenue for the long term for them.

Speaker: 00:16:52

So it just, I, I love that example because it, it just shows.

Speaker: 00:16:56

experimentation again is really about learning and using the

Speaker: 00:16:58

learnings in the right way so that you can get the long-term win.

Speaker: 00:17:01

And that's what people have to commit to when it comes to experimenting.

Speaker: 00:17:04

You.

Speaker: 00:17:04

You've gotta know that most of them are gonna lose, but as long as you're learning

Speaker: 00:17:07

along the way, you're gonna end up driving nice wins for your For yourself.

Speaker: 00:17:11

Yeah.

Speaker: 00:17:12

I love that.

Speaker: 00:17:12

And of course, like, yeah, with experimentation, yeah.

Speaker: 00:17:14

It is something that it's gonna take time to test different aspects

Speaker: 00:17:18

and different factors and different buttons, different ad copy.

Speaker: 00:17:22

, all of that.

Speaker: 00:17:22

But I love that by changing in to say, your credit card is not going

Speaker: 00:17:26

to be charged at this time, that is such a big confidence factor

Speaker: 00:17:30

where someone can say, oh, okay.

Speaker: 00:17:32

I trust this brand now because, I can keep moving forward.

Speaker: 00:17:36

I don't have to be like, oh my God, I'm gonna have to pay for this right now.

Speaker: 00:17:39

Maybe the person doesn't have funds, or maybe they're not positive that they might

Speaker: 00:17:44

need to switch or cancel the reservation.

Speaker: 00:17:46

So by having those little almost like trust factors along the

Speaker: 00:17:50

way that are coming in to just go inside of their, their mind.

Speaker: 00:17:55

I think it's giving them that level of comfort to move forward and make

Speaker: 00:17:58

that transaction and, and that's very instrumental cuz it may seem like a little

Speaker: 00:18:02

thing to say that, but what's huge is like the impact that it's having on the

Speaker: 00:18:07

mindset of the person who is shopping.

Speaker: 00:18:11

Exactly.

Speaker: 00:18:12

It, it's, it's really about transparency, right?

Speaker: 00:18:14

It's just about saying, look, this, when you do this, this is

Speaker: 00:18:16

what you can expect to happen.

Speaker: 00:18:18

Like, we're not, we're not hiding anything here.

Speaker: 00:18:20

We're not trying to trip you.

Speaker: 00:18:21

This is, this is a reasonable expectation of what is or what

Speaker: 00:18:24

isn't in this case gonna happen.

Speaker: 00:18:25

And just saying that, that expectation, giving that transparency increases

Speaker: 00:18:29

confidence in the entire process.

Speaker: 00:18:31

It allows people to move forward and move through the

Speaker: 00:18:33

process and ultimately generate.

Speaker: 00:18:35

Yeah.

Speaker: 00:18:36

Yeah.

Speaker: 00:18:36

That's great.

Speaker: 00:18:36

Transparency is so key.

Speaker: 00:18:38

Thank you for sharing that.

Speaker: 00:18:39

And besides like, let's say, you know, like the hotels and hospitality industry,

Speaker: 00:18:44

what other industries have you guys you know, worked with or liked to take

Speaker: 00:18:47

on clients where you see that there is definitely a need for your services?

Speaker: 00:18:52

Yeah, we've done work with with real estate, healthcare higher education.

Speaker: 00:18:56

Not that we don't work with all industries, cause we certainly do,

Speaker: 00:18:59

but we, we seem to gravitate toward a lot of industries where it's a

Speaker: 00:19:02

higher consideration purchase perhaps a higher dollar, greater financial

Speaker: 00:19:06

risk, sometimes greater emotional risk.

Speaker: 00:19:08

But the way I like to refer to it is, it's when you're gonna buy

Speaker: 00:19:10

something that you can't take back.

Speaker: 00:19:12

You know, you, you decide you're gonna do an outpatient surgery

Speaker: 00:19:15

at a, at a certain facility.

Speaker: 00:19:16

You know, once you commit to that, you know, you, you can't return that.

Speaker: 00:19:19

Right.

Speaker: 00:19:20

You book a, you book a vacation.

Speaker: 00:19:22

once you go on that vacation, you stay at that resort and you go to

Speaker: 00:19:24

that cruise, like you can't take that back to the store, right?

Speaker: 00:19:27

So that higher level of emotional and financial risk certainly breeds a, a bit

Speaker: 00:19:31

of a longer journey in terms of purchase, but more opportunities to be able to

Speaker: 00:19:35

optimize those touch points throughout that journey and move people through.

Speaker: 00:19:39

Yeah.

Speaker: 00:19:39

What about, I mean, do you guys like also do those for like auto

Speaker: 00:19:42

dealerships we certainly do.

Speaker: 00:19:44

So we've done both e-commerce, so the purchase online, but we've also done

Speaker: 00:19:47

a lot of work with lead gen as well.

Speaker: 00:19:49

So just simply generating the lead, but trying to obviously drive quality

Speaker: 00:19:53

leads through the process so that when it gets that, that offline

Speaker: 00:19:55

conversion, so buying the car at the, at the auto dealership or you know,

Speaker: 00:19:59

renting the apartment or buying the.

Speaker: 00:20:01

, you're able to get someone who's more likely to convert because you've

Speaker: 00:20:04

driven quality through the process.

Speaker: 00:20:06

Okay, great.

Speaker: 00:20:08

And how do you see artificial intelligence impacting, you know, what Smart Panda

Speaker: 00:20:14

Labs is doing, and have there been any talks about incorporating AI into,

Speaker: 00:20:20

you know, your platforms and what you.

Speaker: 00:20:23

Yeah.

Speaker: 00:20:24

I definitely think there's a huge impact.

Speaker: 00:20:25

I think AI adds a lot of speed to the process that allows us to, to iterate

Speaker: 00:20:30

faster in terms of the decisions that it's able to make without the need for direct

Speaker: 00:20:34

human input into every single decision.

Speaker: 00:20:36

The key there is building the route foundation so that we're able to flow

Speaker: 00:20:40

through accurate, consistent information to inform the machine learning so

Speaker: 00:20:44

that it can give good recommendations.

Speaker: 00:20:46

So that sometimes is a challenge for clients.

Speaker: 00:20:47

We have to kind of help them make sure that we're getting a good flow

Speaker: 00:20:50

of solid, accurate data into the system to be able to leverage the ai.

Speaker: 00:20:54

But it's definitely something that we kind of get to along the way.

Speaker: 00:20:57

So it's kind of something we kind of baby step along.

Speaker: 00:21:00

We don't jump straight into ai.

Speaker: 00:21:01

Most, most companies can't.

Speaker: 00:21:03

Again, you need the foundation and then the right framework, the right

Speaker: 00:21:06

data, the right processes in place.

Speaker: 00:21:08

Then once you do that, then you can start leveraging AI on top of that to

Speaker: 00:21:11

begin iterating and, and moving to that, that framework faster, creating a faster

Speaker: 00:21:15

cycle of experimentation and wins.

Speaker: 00:21:18

Yeah, that makes sense.

Speaker: 00:21:19

And in terms of, all of the testing, everything that has to happen, what's

Speaker: 00:21:24

like a reasonable timeframe that you tell, you know, clients like, we need

Speaker: 00:21:28

to work together, you know, for, for this long, at least to see some of

Speaker: 00:21:33

the data come in and make, you know, intelligent assumptions based off that

Speaker: 00:21:38

data on how we move forward, what changes we need to make for higher convers.

Speaker: 00:21:43

It, it usually depends on the traffic.

Speaker: 00:21:44

The more traffic they get, the faster we can learn on things, the

Speaker: 00:21:47

faster we can iterate, get results and, and kind of move forward.

Speaker: 00:21:50

And then obviously other factors like, you know, what technology do they have

Speaker: 00:21:53

in place to be able to experiment, to be able to drive change and so forth.

Speaker: 00:21:56

But I'd say typically about three, three to six months for them to see,

Speaker: 00:22:00

you know, solid, reasonable results to say, yeah, this, this is making sense.

Speaker: 00:22:03

We're, we're getting a return on in this investment.

Speaker: 00:22:05

This is something we should move forward with.

Speaker: 00:22:07

Just like anything else in marketing, we don't believe experimentation,

Speaker: 00:22:10

personalization, automation, those things are, set it and forget it.

Speaker: 00:22:13

They're not one and done.

Speaker: 00:22:14

There's a continual process here that needs to keep running.

Speaker: 00:22:17

The market keeps changing.

Speaker: 00:22:18

People keep changing.

Speaker: 00:22:20

Competitors keep changing.

Speaker: 00:22:21

Therefore, it forces you and your brand, your product to keep changing, to keep

Speaker: 00:22:25

iterating so that you can keep up with.

Speaker: 00:22:28

So it's a constant process, but a good three to six months, you start getting

Speaker: 00:22:31

that process going, that, that wheel turning and you're starting to see

Speaker: 00:22:35

positive results from what you're doing.

Speaker: 00:22:36

Yeah.

Speaker: 00:22:36

Change is great because, I mean, and, and it's important to recognize that

Speaker: 00:22:40

things do change, you know, very quickly, especially, and even the way consumers

Speaker: 00:22:44

behave and the way consumers shop.

Speaker: 00:22:46

I mean, when you think about.

Speaker: 00:22:48

You know, the past, over two years that we've been in this pandemic, people's

Speaker: 00:22:52

buying habits have changed people's habits of even how they, you know,

Speaker: 00:22:56

where they work from, how they dress.

Speaker: 00:22:59

Like, a lot of things have changed and, and I think that that has to be

Speaker: 00:23:03

accounted into, everything because how people used to buy and shop.

Speaker: 00:23:07

Let's say two years ago, or even six months ago, or even three months

Speaker: 00:23:11

ago, may not be the same today.

Speaker: 00:23:13

And that is why as an organization, you know, companies also need to

Speaker: 00:23:18

realize that because the world is changing so quickly and the way

Speaker: 00:23:22

people shop online is changing.

Speaker: 00:23:24

the way people interact, you know, with different websites and different

Speaker: 00:23:28

social media platforms that they also have to be open to, to change.

Speaker: 00:23:33

They have to be open to, you know, test different things out, and they have

Speaker: 00:23:36

to see what's working and what's not working because if they're doing the

Speaker: 00:23:40

same thing that they've done for 10 years, maybe it did work 10 years ago.

Speaker: 00:23:45

But if they're not really growing substantially, maybe they're just staying,

Speaker: 00:23:49

you know, static or growing 1% every year when they could be growing, you know, 25%,

Speaker: 00:23:55

that's, you know, that's a game changer.

Speaker: 00:23:57

That's huge.

Speaker: 00:23:57

And, and I think that it's these little tweaks where that could result in, you

Speaker: 00:24:02

know, an extra a hundred thousand dollars worth of revenue for, for an organization.

Speaker: 00:24:06

It could result in half a million dollars of additional revenue based on making.

Speaker: 00:24:11

You know, adjustments and tweaks.

Speaker: 00:24:13

What is, what is an example of, you know, someone that you guys have

Speaker: 00:24:16

worked with who were noticed, like a big jump in terms of their online

Speaker: 00:24:21

orders or sales or conversions based on a specific change that you made?

Speaker: 00:24:26

Yeah, we worked with actually a luxury real estate brand

Speaker: 00:24:29

related a couple years back.

Speaker: 00:24:30

And we saw some, some really noble changes there in terms of what we were able to do.

Speaker: 00:24:34

To really, again, optimize on the traffic they were driving already.

Speaker: 00:24:37

But improve that through personalization.

Speaker: 00:24:39

So ran an interesting campaign where we kind of looked at where people were

Speaker: 00:24:43

coming from geographically and used that to help more quickly surface,

Speaker: 00:24:48

okay, well if you're in the New York area, then more than likely you're

Speaker: 00:24:51

interested in the properties in New York.

Speaker: 00:24:53

If you're in the Chicago area, more than likely you're interested in the

Speaker: 00:24:56

properties in Chicago and so forth.

Speaker: 00:24:57

So just taking the information that was already on the.

Speaker: 00:25:00

, but using what we know about them to be able to surface the information that's

Speaker: 00:25:04

most likely, most relevant to them.

Speaker: 00:25:05

And they saw great results from that, not only in driving more leads, more

Speaker: 00:25:08

appointments for, for people to, to speak to a leasing agent, but in

Speaker: 00:25:12

driving the quality of those leads.

Speaker: 00:25:13

So that conversion from lead to lease was able to increase

Speaker: 00:25:17

by means of doing that as well.

Speaker: 00:25:18

And that's really critical, right?

Speaker: 00:25:20

Because it's, it's not hard to drive traffic.

Speaker: 00:25:22

It's not even hard to drive leads, but to have quality, to maintain it,

Speaker: 00:25:25

to increase that, That's really where the power comes in of, of really

Speaker: 00:25:29

maximizing what you're able to do.

Speaker: 00:25:31

So, that was an example of a client we worked with where we saw a great

Speaker: 00:25:34

opportunity there just by surfacing the most relevant information.

Speaker: 00:25:37

Okay.

Speaker: 00:25:38

Thank you for sharing that.

Speaker: 00:25:39

I love that.

Speaker: 00:25:40

And what is there, is there anything new and exciting that you guys are working on

Speaker: 00:25:44

for, you know, for 2023 or even upcoming for 2024 that you're able to share with?

Speaker: 00:25:51

Yeah, so one of the things that we're really working on is, you know, trying

Speaker: 00:25:53

to do personalization across multiple channels simultaneously, right?

Speaker: 00:25:57

So it's one thing to personalize an experience just when someone

Speaker: 00:26:00

lands on a particular page, or maybe we're sending an email.

Speaker: 00:26:04

, but how does the ad lead to personalizing the page lead to someone filling

Speaker: 00:26:09

out their email information and then carrying through that personalization?

Speaker: 00:26:12

So when they get that email communication that's personalized to them, and then

Speaker: 00:26:16

they click on that email communication, go back to this site, that's personalized.

Speaker: 00:26:18

So how do we keep and maintain that, that personalization all the way through

Speaker: 00:26:23

the process using each respective data point that we pick up to, to

Speaker: 00:26:26

further narrow and, and personalize it.

Speaker: 00:26:28

It's really getting closer and closer to that, that one-on-one

Speaker: 00:26:31

feel, which ultimately makes people more likely to, to convert and buy.

Speaker: 00:26:35

So there's a lot more complexity to that, right?

Speaker: 00:26:37

A lot more systems that need to talk to each other.

Speaker: 00:26:40

A lot more planning that needs to go into place to do that.

Speaker: 00:26:42

But we try to help companies mature and, and move toward that.

Speaker: 00:26:46

That's, that's some of the fun stuff that we're looking forward to doing.

Speaker: 00:26:48

I think that's gonna be huge because I definitely see, you know, need for that.

Speaker: 00:26:52

Like, for example, like if there's a real estate, you know, company

Speaker: 00:26:55

that has offices nationwide, right?

Speaker: 00:26:58

But then we know that, you know, with different cities and different, you know,

Speaker: 00:27:02

climates and different LO locations, there's different needs, there's different

Speaker: 00:27:06

behavior in terms of what the clients, you know, have maybe even different times of

Speaker: 00:27:11

the day that they're obviously, you know, looking online for, for this information.

Speaker: 00:27:15

How they're searching.

Speaker: 00:27:16

So I think that's, you know, that's gonna be huge.

Speaker: 00:27:19

Mm-hmm.

Speaker: 00:27:19

. And my other question is, you know, as I keep looking at the name Smart Panda

Speaker: 00:27:23

Labs how did you guys get this name?

Speaker: 00:27:25

Like, was there a story behind the name?

Speaker: 00:27:27

You know, I wish there was I feel like I should make one up.

Speaker: 00:27:30

I could like get, ask this question all the time, . But there really wasn't you

Speaker: 00:27:33

know, we talked early on, you mentioned the fact that, you know, words, words have

Speaker: 00:27:37

power you know, words have a connotation.

Speaker: 00:27:38

And, and I think we just came up with words that we kind of felt

Speaker: 00:27:41

just sounded the good together.

Speaker: 00:27:43

Like there was a good rhythm to the show.

Speaker: 00:27:44

Those words.

Speaker: 00:27:45

Of course we're marketers at heart, so anything memorable is always good and

Speaker: 00:27:49

Handle Labs has proven to be itself, you know, to be something very memorable.

Speaker: 00:27:52

So, we'd like to tie into that factor as well.

Speaker: 00:27:54

Yeah, I would say it's definitely memorable.

Speaker: 00:27:56

That's actually one of the reasons why I agreed to have you on my shows,

Speaker: 00:28:00

because when I was re, you know, I get a lot of requests and then I

Speaker: 00:28:03

research and I see if it's a good fit or not, and then the name just struck

Speaker: 00:28:07

me as if I've heard of it before.

Speaker: 00:28:08

I've seen it before.

Speaker: 00:28:10

I know it.

Speaker: 00:28:11

and, and then it's like, it made me think of like a panda bear that's

Speaker: 00:28:15

actually smart, and then a lab and the bears in the lab and he's concocting

Speaker: 00:28:19

all of this, you know, secret sauce to, to help you know, companies

Speaker: 00:28:23

and organizations make more money.

Speaker: 00:28:24

It was like storing my head.

Speaker: 00:28:25

I was like, okay, yeah, smart pan lives.

Speaker: 00:28:28

I, I liked that.

Speaker: 00:28:29

And then I looked on the website, of course.

Speaker: 00:28:30

So thank you for sharing that.

Speaker: 00:28:32

And I'm wondering, you know, do you have.

Speaker: 00:28:36

A life quote or a marketing quote or some type of quote that you know

Speaker: 00:28:41

that really is one that you have, you know, kind of adopted into your

Speaker: 00:28:46

life or, or that you like to share.

Speaker: 00:28:48

I think the one that always kind of resonates with me is, and,

Speaker: 00:28:51

and I can't remember who said it.

Speaker: 00:28:53

I, I remember where I read about it, it was a book by Seth Godin,

Speaker: 00:28:55

where I read about the quote, but I think it was a professor at

Speaker: 00:28:58

some, at some school that said it.

Speaker: 00:29:00

It's that people don't buy quarter inch drill bits.

Speaker: 00:29:03

They need quarter inch holes.

Speaker: 00:29:05

And the reason I like that quote is because it always makes me think that

Speaker: 00:29:08

it's, it's not about the product that you're selling with a particular.

Speaker: 00:29:12

it's about the need that that fulfills, that that person has, you kind of need

Speaker: 00:29:15

to take it at least one step or maybe two or three steps further into like, what,

Speaker: 00:29:19

what is this really doing for the person?

Speaker: 00:29:20

Cuz that's what you're selling.

Speaker: 00:29:22

The drill bit is like, who cares?

Speaker: 00:29:23

Let's this drill bit.

Speaker: 00:29:24

It's that I need to hang this picture and I need to drill a hole to do it.

Speaker: 00:29:28

And, and I need this piece to, to accomplish that.

Speaker: 00:29:30

Right.

Speaker: 00:29:31

, really focusing marketing on the goal, what the person's trying to

Speaker: 00:29:34

accomplish and not just on the product.

Speaker: 00:29:36

Maintaining that kind of, that mindset and that focus is, is something

Speaker: 00:29:38

that, that always helps me do.

Speaker: 00:29:39

So that's always one reflect.

Speaker: 00:29:41

Yeah.

Speaker: 00:29:42

Thank you for sharing that.

Speaker: 00:29:42

I love that.

Speaker: 00:29:43

That's yeah, that definitely vibes and makes sense.

Speaker: 00:29:47

And is there anything that we didn't talk about that you wanna

Speaker: 00:29:50

share in, you know, pertaining.

Speaker: 00:29:51

Smart Pan Labs or anything that you're working on recently

Speaker: 00:29:54

that we didn't talk about yet?

Speaker: 00:29:55

No, I think no, I think this was great.

Speaker: 00:29:57

This was, this was super thorough.

Speaker: 00:29:59

I think you really kind of hit on the fact that, you know, there are a lot of

Speaker: 00:30:02

enterprise companies that are not doing some very, very basic things and we

Speaker: 00:30:06

love helping companies figure that out.

Speaker: 00:30:08

And, and probably the one thing I can think of is just helping companies re.

Speaker: 00:30:12

They need to have the right mindset that when people think about the

Speaker: 00:30:15

kind of experience they're gonna have with a brand, they're not comparing

Speaker: 00:30:18

you just to your competitors or just to other players in your industry.

Speaker: 00:30:22

They're comparing you to their ideal of what the online experience should be.

Speaker: 00:30:27

And that ideal is being set by leaders like Google or or Amazon, and that's

Speaker: 00:30:31

what they're expecting on your site.

Speaker: 00:30:32

And the.

Speaker: 00:30:33

You know, maybe other players in your industry in real estate or

Speaker: 00:30:35

healthcare aren't delivering that.

Speaker: 00:30:37

People don't care about that.

Speaker: 00:30:38

They don't, they don't parse it that way.

Speaker: 00:30:40

They don't, they don't say, well, you know, they're just in real estate.

Speaker: 00:30:42

So I don't expect this to be like Amazon.

Speaker: 00:30:44

They expect everyone to be like Amazon.

Speaker: 00:30:46

They expect everyone to give them, you know, meaningful recommendations.

Speaker: 00:30:48

They expect every, every buying process to be very easy, cuz that's

Speaker: 00:30:51

the standard that's been set.

Speaker: 00:30:52

So really helping companies understand that is an important first step in getting

Speaker: 00:30:56

that, wrapping their heads around that to say, this is why you need to invest.

Speaker: 00:31:00

because you need to move forward because that's the standard you need.

Speaker: 00:31:03

. Yeah, that makes sense.

Speaker: 00:31:04

Cuz the bar's been set high and people, you know, they're gonna expect nothing

Speaker: 00:31:08

less and that's what they're used to.

Speaker: 00:31:09

And when they, they become accustomed to that, to them it's

Speaker: 00:31:12

like, it's not any big deal.

Speaker: 00:31:14

It's like they expect that wherever they go.

Speaker: 00:31:16

And, and that's the mindset that the organizations need to

Speaker: 00:31:20

have is like thinking of how.

Speaker: 00:31:23

our clients, , thinking what, what's going through their mind right now when

Speaker: 00:31:27

they're going on a website and what are their expectations and, and all that.

Speaker: 00:31:31

And taking that, you know, into you know, factoring that in basically.

Speaker: 00:31:34

Yeah.

Speaker: 00:31:35

Yeah.

Speaker: 00:31:35

So tell us so tell us also Shamir like where you know, our audience in

Speaker: 00:31:39

terms of where they can reach you.

Speaker: 00:31:41

Like give us like the website for Smart Pan Labs and then any social media

Speaker: 00:31:44

handles where they can follow and connect.

Speaker: 00:31:47

Sure, yeah, so definitely smart Pan labs.com is our, is our main website.

Speaker: 00:31:50

We can learn about more about us and what we do.

Speaker: 00:31:52

And for me personally, if you, if you find me on LinkedIn, I guarantee there's

Speaker: 00:31:56

not another Shair Dover, so on LinkedIn.

Speaker: 00:31:58

So you shouldn't have a hard time finding.

Speaker: 00:32:00

He'll post on there quite frequently about my, my thoughts and feelings, the mindset

Speaker: 00:32:04

that I think enterprise marketers need to have, especially if they're in those

Speaker: 00:32:07

early stages, and give you a great chance to, to see if what I'm saying, you know,

Speaker: 00:32:11

really resonates with you or you don't like it at all if we're not a good fit.

Speaker: 00:32:15

Love it.

Speaker: 00:32:16

Love it.

Speaker: 00:32:16

I will link all of that information in the show notes and thank you so much

Speaker: 00:32:20

for being on the Mesmerizing Marketing Podcast and I look forward to seeing

Speaker: 00:32:25

what you guys are up to in the near.

Speaker: 00:32:28

Awesome.

Speaker: 00:32:28

Thank you so much for having me.

Speaker: 00:32:30

Thank you.

Speaker: 00:32:30

Thank you for listening to the Mesmerizing Marketing Podcast.

Speaker: 00:32:33

If you found this episode valuable, please subscribe to the show so

Speaker: 00:32:37

you don't ever miss an episode and also share it with your friends.

Speaker: 00:32:40

Dimple would be so grateful if you could take a minute to leave

Speaker: 00:32:43

a review and visit the podcast website to check out all the latest.

Speaker: 00:32:48

At www.mesmerizingmarketingpodcast.com.

Speaker: 00:32:52

That's www.mesmerizingmarketingpodcast.com.

Speaker: 00:32:56

And follow Dimple on Clubhouse.

Speaker: 00:32:58

Her handle is Marketing Expert and also join her mesmerizing marketing club.

Speaker: 00:33:03

Also on Clubhouse for live rooms, on top marketing strategies for

Speaker: 00:33:07

entrepreneurs and business owners who want to mesmerize their marketing.