Podcast

Learn from Fast Growing 7-8 Figure Online Retailers and eCommerce Experts

EPISODE 270 45 mins

The Go-to-Market Strategy that Grew Bootstrapped Swag.com to $10M+ in 3 years



About the guests

Jeremy Parker

Kunle Campbell

Jeremy Parker is co-founder/CEO of Swag .com , top eCommerce platform for purchasing promo materials people actually want to keep. Swag's distribution platform allows companies to order swag and send to 1 address or to thousands at once, allowing companies to engage with remote employees, best customers and leads.



On today’s episode, Kunle is joined by Jeremy Parker, Co-founder and CEO of Swag – B2B eCommerce marketplace for promotional products. Jeremy shares the company’s growth story since being bootstrapped in 2016 to becoming the fastest growing promotional product company in the US.

 

After having started off doing door-to-door marketing, they have grown to having over 5000 B2B clients, many of which are enterprise-level companies. Leveraging their awesome brand recall they have built a robust platform that provides a retail eCommerce experience at a bulk B2B level. It is no surprise that Swag .com has achieved 2000% growth in a 3 year period, and are actually growing during the pandemic while competitors are struggling.

 

In today’s episode, Kunle and Jeremy discuss what it takes to grow and scale a B2B eCommerce business. You get to hear about sales and marketing strategies, managing complex operations and getting your user experience right. This is a great episode you don’t want to miss!

 

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

    • Automating distribution is a differentiator
    • Brand recall makes investing in your brand worthwhile
    • Having a robust platform can help you pivot
    • Build your UX around boosting customer confidence


 

Covered Topics:

On today’s interview Kunle and Jeremy discuss,

  • Investing in your brand value
  • Managing complex operations
  • Product Strategies
  • Scaling your marketing
  • Perfecting UX

Timestamp:

  • 10:00 – What Swag offers:
    • Customised promotional products
    • Get products as per your brand colours
    • Products are pre-tested
    • Have over 5000 clients
  • 14:02 – Growth Trajectory
    • 2016 – $350,000
    • Launched the platform in 2017
    • 2020 – Heading for $11M
  • 14:50 – How Swag’s functionality made pivoting easy during Covid
  • 16:05 – Sales Strategy:
    • Reinforcing opportunities for Company culture
    • Providing products that people will want to keep
    • Offer Premium brands never offered as promo products
  • 18:05 – Landing the domain name
  • 19:50 – Operations set up:
    • The site offers products from over 100 vetted suppliers
    • Deep integration with suppliers to access real time inventory numbers
    • Takes less than 3 minutes to checkout
    • Products can be shipped to you or held in your “swag closet”
    • Control your distribution to be either one-to-many or one-to-one
  • 24:05 – Product Strategy
    • AOV is $2000, upto $4000 since Covid
    • Each product has MOQs
    • The UI/UX is designed to provide retail eCom experience at a B2B level
  • 26:30 – Marketing formula:
    • Started with going from office to office
    • Moved to Google ads after acquiring initial customers
    • Moved to Content marketing after acquiring 200 customers
    • Leveraged the brand recall of the business name with retargeting
  • 29:10 – The case for having a memorable brand name
  • 30:50 – Getting suppliers to white-label products
  • 34:00 – 95% of orders are serviced by intercom services
  • 35:10 – Marketing Automation:
    • Try not to annoy the customers
    • Send monthly newsletters or occasional mailers
    • Hubspot CRM
  • 36:10 – Tech stack
    • Fully custom platform
    • Have a team of 14 developers
  • 38:10 – Built a strategy and process to ship worldwide
  • 39:25 – Using UX, product and website design to boost customer confidence
  • 40:52 – Lightning Round

Lightning Round:

  1. Q: Are you a morning person?
    A: Yes, I am up early and take a 1 hour walk before starting work
  2. Q: What are 2 things you can’t live without?
    A: Family, Computer and notepad
  3. Q: What book are you currently reading?
    A: Shoe Dog
  4. Q: What are your 3 indispensable tools for managing business?
    A: Intercom, Hubspot and Dialpad
  5. Q: What’s been your best mistake till date? A set back that’s given you the biggest feedback?
    A: Fulfillment centre troubles

Takeaways:

  • Brand recall is your company’s best business card
  • Automating distribution is a key differentiator
  • Design all your content and UX around building customer confidence

Links & Resources

Tweetable Quotes:

“Our UI/UX is designed to provide retail eCom experience at a B2B level.”

Facebook Group • Continue the Conversation

The eCommerce GrowthAccelerator Mastermind Facebook Group has just launched.
It is a community…

✔️ for founders and experts passionately involved in eCommerce
✔️ for the truly ambitious wanting to make an impact in the markets they serve
✔️ for those willing and open to help and share with other members

Here is where to apply to join the Facebook group
>>http://bit.ly/ecommercefb<<

———–

SPONSORS:

This episode is brought to you by:

This episode is brought to you by Klaviyo – a growth marketing platform that powers over 25,000 online businesses.
Direct-to-Consumer brands like ColourPop, Huckberry, and Custom Ink rely on Klaviyo.

Klaviyo helps you own customer experience and  grow high-value customer relationships right from a shopper’s first impression through to each subsequent purchase, Klaviyo understands every single customer interaction,  and empowers brands to create more personalized marketing moments.

Find out more on klaviyo.com/2x.

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About the host:

Kunle Campbell

An ecommerce advisor to ambitious, agile online retailers and funded ecommerce startups seeking exponentially sales growth through scalable customer acquisition, retention, conversion optimisation, product/market fit optimisation and customer referrals.

Learn from eCommerce Entrepreneurs & Marketing Experts


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