On today’s episode, Kunle is joined by Deividas Mikocionis, Co-founder and Head of Growth at Sugatan.io – an eCommerce Growth Hacking Agency. Kris Sugatan, the company’s other Co-Founder is also a past guest on the show. The company has grown from having 7 to 70 employees in this period.

After starting out as a facebook ad agency, the team at Sugatan quickly realised that each company has it’s unique requirements. Focusing purely on facebook ads can only take you so far. The company pivoted to an incubator model, where they closely partner with companies to achieve aggressive growth. They believe in being agile and adopting new channels to drive growth. They have successfully taken companies at different stages to $30M+ levels.

Every company is seeking a formula or blueprint for rapid growth. Deividas and Sugatan have put together a formulaic system of growth that is based on some key principles. In today’s episode, Kunle and Deividas discuss the framework for hitting $30M. You will get to hear about key lever points to focus on, how to use product launches and much more.

Here is a summary of some of the most important points made,

• Your team needs to get more specialised as you grow
• You have to be agile with your testing and decision making
• The size of your engaged email list is key indicator of your business health
• Product launches can instantly boost sales
• eMail and SMS rank high in attribution models

Covered Topics:

On today’s interview Kunle and Deividas discuss,

• Evaluating prospect businesses
• Framework for hitting $30M
• Product Launch Strategies
• Maximising lifetime value
• Boosting average order value
• Key lever points

Timestamp:

• 11:37 – What Sugatan does:
  • Started as a facebook ad agency
  • eCommerce incubator
  • Applying a growth formula to achieve aggressive growth targets
  • Never follow a one-size-fits-all approach
• 15:20 – How do they pick clients:
  • Look at current revenue and conversion rates
  • Identify gaps in the business
  • Team members vote on projects
  • Beauty and Health is their main niche
  • Start with a trial period before commiting
• 18:00 – Challenges with growing internationally
• 21:00 – Method of hitting $30M:
  • Takes around 2 years
  • Aim for $10M in Year 1
  • The team needs to be “specialised” as the company grows
  • Facebook ads + creatives + Email + SMS + Product launches
• 25:00 – Product launch strategies for different industries
• 31:28 – How is Sugatan using eMail and SMS
  • SMS is great for direct sales
  • You can judge the health of a business by the size of their engaged email list
• You have to be agile with your testing and decision making
• 34:55 – Maximising Lifetime Value:
  • Build out your email sequences to match the customer’s beliefs
  • Utilise and build assets like groups, forums
• 36:20 – How to use SMS
  • Bottom of funnel channel
  • eMail and SMS usually rank high in attribution models
  • Use email to build SMS lists
• 37:48 – Focusing on First-purchase only?
  • Very difficult to be profitable
• 39:10 – Boosting average order value
  • Test multiple product bundles
  • Use Buzzsumo to find viral content linked to your products
  • Write sales page copy along those lines
• 46:00 – Lever points:
  • Use testing to increase AOV
  • Use ads or creatives to reduce CPA
  • Use /Loyalty programs Email/SMS to Increase LTV
  • Conversion Rate optimisation
• 47:25 – Deividas’ and Kris backstory
• 48:10 – Currently reading: Rational Optimist
• 48:35 – Recommended books:
  • Multiplier (leadership)
  • Siddhartha (spirituality)
  • Eugene Shwartz (advertising)

Takeaways:

• You must be agile enough to adopt new and prevalent marketing channels
• The size of your engaged email list is key indicator of your business health
• Product launches can instantly boost sales

Links & Resources

• Sugatan Effect Podcast
• Buzzsumo
• Shogun
• Facebook group – eCommerce Growth hacks
• Klaviyo
• Loyalty Lion
• Multipliers – Les Wiseman
• Siddhartha – Herman Hesse
• Breakthrough Advertising – Eugene Schwartz

Tweetable Quotes:

“Product launches can give immediate boost to revenue.”

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