Overcoming Amazon Challenges with Dylan Rhodes – Episode 49 of the Agency Operators Podcast

Overcoming Amazon Challenges with Dylan Rhodes – Episode 49 of the Agency Operators Podcast Speaker 2: Welcome to the Agency Operators Podcast. Today, I'm joined by Dylan Rhodes of the Parker Lambert Agency. How are you doing, Dylan? Speaker 1: I'm doing great. How are you, Pasha? Speaker 2: Very well really excited for this talk man. I know we've known each other for a little while. So there's a long time coming Before we get started. I know we're gonna talk shop Amazon. I know you guys do other things outside of Amazon, too But as always I'm super curious to hear people's stories how they end up in this world of ours and it's kind of what led you into wanting to Kind of start this company and kind of how it grew like, you know share whatever you feel. Speaker 1: Sure, thanks. So I started my career in product marketing, brand marketing, brand management in the consumer electronics industry out here in the Silicon Valley. Worked for a company called Creative Labs way back when and then moved to Logitech and then I moved to Corsair that makes high-performance PC parts. I've been doing that for a while. And you know, I think a lot of people in the corporate world sort of have that epiphany that they'd really rather just do something on their own. And so sort of with not too much planning or thinking about my future, I quit and then started the agency. And that was nine years ago, nine years, which have gone very quickly. Speaker 2: So that was a very big pivot because digital marketing and running a team to provide that type of service is very different than some of your roles probably at Logitech, right? Or were they more kind of in alignment with those departments? Speaker 1: I was at Corsair where I was working. I had moved to running corporate marketing, which included running our Amazon presence across 12 countries, 12 regions, and running the YouTube channel and producing all the video content. So I had the team. I was very familiar with the process of running a team to create content for the client, which was our internal client. But when I quit, all of a sudden it was all me. So I had to build a new team from scratch. I think everybody who starts an agency or otherwise goes on to freelance or otherwise work for themselves, you hit a couple of walls. And the first one I hit was, Okay, wow, I'm not going to be getting a paycheck every two weeks so I sort of need to figure this out and it took I think close to a year before I was making the same sort of money I was when I was working in the corporate world and it took a lot of long hours but it was worth the investment. Speaker 2: A year is not bad at all. I think many probably wish that they can find a turnaround that fast to go from corporate to working for yourself without any, you know, obviously there's that pause, but then you don't get a break. But the upside from there is just, you know, unlimited, right? And also not to mention, I mean, there's something to be said about the freedom and getting locked up doing something that you love. So on one side, you know, we never kind of leave work, especially if you're working with remote teams, you're always kind of on. And you're fully responsible, but at the same time, you do have the flexibility to kind of be your own boss. So, amazing. So, you guys kind of handle Amazon, but also social and website and all of the things, right? I'm curious, you know, my first question, this is something that I'm constantly researching and trying to keep my finger on the pulse of. How much do all of those different factors impact growth, impact success for an eCommerce brand? Is it possible to just exist on Amazon or you kind of have to have all the things now? Speaker 1: Well, there are certainly brands which exist just on Amazon. They were created strategically just to take advantage of Amazon, and we largely don't work with those brands. I mean, there's a lot of good ones, but what I tell folks is, In most cases, unless you're in that particular niche product line and you have a great price and you can just dominate the category, you will need some sort of off Amazon demand generation, right? So we help a little with that. I call us, we're not an Amazon agency. When I think of an Amazon agency, They tend to be sort of, and you know, I'm not, probably nobody in this audience has this kind of agency, but they tend to be kind of factory style where, you know, we'll do any, we'll do a product page content for $5.99, right? Or have this list of things and they'll do it for you and then you never hear from them again. Right. So I call us, we're a branding and eCommerce agency. And branding is a big part of it, which I'll get to in a bit. Our job is to support the brands in eCommerce no matter what they need. So Amazon is, you know, most of our work, of course, but we work with grocery brands on Instacart. We work with FAIR. We're one of the only agencies I know of that actually has a dedicated team of FAIR experts. We do Walmart and depending on the verticals we're in, fairly recently we've started supporting Chewy, the pet supply site, which has been a lot of fun. Speaker 2: Cool. I see. I'd love to define the whole branding element more. In your perspective, what does that actually mean? I think that's also a definition that has many interpretations and also is ever-changing. I think if you said the word brand 10 years ago, people would look at you completely different than they look at you now. There's more familiarity. What is the way that you guys look at branding? Speaker 1: So the way you define branding if you went to B school and got your MBA is, and this is really the correct answer, it is the sum total of what consumers think of your brand. It's how it looks, where it fits in the market, how the customer feels about your corporate values, maybe your founders or where you operate out of. Essentially, your unique reason for existence and why the customer should buy your brand's product versus anybody else. A more basic definition of a brand, a lot of people tend to think of it as the brand's visual identity, right? You know, the colors, the logo, right? And so when we work with some of the smaller and emerging brands, the first question we ask them is, Well, what you're branding and their branding is their logo, right? You know, and some color schemes. And often some of these small brands don't even have the brand guidelines, which is great because that's something I love doing. We've created brand guidelines for a lot of brands, which is not only, of course, the The visual representation, but then things like the brand voice, right? How do you speak about your products and your customers, right? The USPs, I love writing USPs. And So, yeah, the point is we work with a lot of brands where they are in the whole process of having an entire brand. It's all over the place. We've worked with a really large multinational brand in the grocery space. It's La Costena. They make Latin American food products. Even if you don't buy a lot of Latin American food products, I assure everybody in the audience, they have walked by the local La Costena products in a grocery store, right? Speaker 2: Sure. Speaker 1: They've been around for a hundred years, right? And we, they're multinational. We specifically ran the Amazon presence in the United States. But here's the funny thing. They didn't really have a brand voice for online. In the US, they had never run online advertising, right? They barely had a social media presence. So that was a wonderful opportunity for us where we got to come up with campaigns for Amazon and online, which this, again, this hundred-year-old brand had never done before. We were actually helping define the brand voice for their online communications. That's the part of the job I absolutely love. Speaker 2: That's amazing. That's sort of like a part of the evolution of such an old brand, right, to kind of bring them into this new paradigm of internet where so much is going on, right? You're kind of like helping them to pioneer that new era in their business. So, I mean, every company needs to make that transition, I think, in the U.S. if you're selling any kind of product. It's kind of amazing to know that some of the bigger ones don't even have that, whereas the small guys, that's the only thing that they can do to really compete. They don't have all of those retail connections and all these contacts and all these different distribution chains. That's kind of their only way on Amazon or on their D2C. Also, it's another thing, how important is branding on Amazon compared to branding on D2C? With D2C, you have more, I suppose, flexibility. With social, you have more flexibility. You can do whatever you want. It's open. On Amazon, there are certain specific guidelines and rails that you have to ride on. I've seen brands do a pretty good job within those rails, making it very custom feel and just really defining themselves the same way that they would. It's a parallel between their D2C site and Amazon. The consumer has really changed on Amazon there. I'm really pushing for the branding element. You know, five, 10 years ago, it used to be just like an aggregate of listings. You're just shopping commodities, solving a problem, looking for the lowest price. But now brand discoverability is becoming a lot more prominent. But still, you know, it's just like looking at conversion rate differences on Shopify versus Amazon. I'm curious how much, how important is branding on Amazon now versus just being the best price or having great reviews? How far can you get with just those things? Speaker 1: Well, here's something really cool. So there is a research firm called CIRP, C-I-R-P, and 10 years ago they did a survey to determine This is where people start their shopping for a product. And at that point, it was 60 to 70% started on Amazon. The rest started on Google, right? And they just dropped the new version of the report three weeks ago, and it is now 90%. Amazon. Speaker 2: Wow. Speaker 1: You might hear that and think, well, what about these, this data I've heard about, you know, the millennials, you know, they go to TikTok first and that's true, but in the, in the composite of all shoppers in the United States, 90%. That is why it is so essential to just absolutely check all the boxes and absolutely nail your, your branding on Amazon because For if it's an emerging brand, Amazon is the first place the customer will ever see your brand, the absolute first impression. And yeah, you mentioned all the rails that Amazon has. And the funny thing is, it's kind of an inverted pyramid where We work with a lot of smaller mid-range brands and so we work with the brand and just put so much care into just doing everything that Amazon has to offer. But the very first thing I do, so I have a slogan which is best in class or don't bother with regards to merchandising on Amazon where the very first thing you do is And what you do is you look at the brands you're going to be competing against and see what level of care do they put into their product photography, their carousel infographics, their A+, their store, everything, right? And that's what you have to hit. You have to, right? If you're thinking that you're going to launch your brand on Amazon, but you know what, maybe you don't have the resources to build out all this stuff as good as the other brands, then you have to ask yourself, well, why am I doing this? Why would a customer buy my brand they've never heard of versus similar brand that have done all the work to have this great brand presence? But the funny thing is that, so right now, I can't say their name yet, but we're working with a brand of snack products. Probably some people in the audience have heard of them, but a lot of them haven't, but we're taking them nationwide. It's really fun. So the first thing I did was we go and look at, well, how does Frito-Lay do their merchandising? And I'm sure you've noticed this, the big brands where they're already in, you know, every grocery store in America and the world and you know, probably on Mars, right? On Amazon, they just Don't really care that much. Frito-Lay says, hey, you know what? We're Doritos. You already know Doritos, right? They kind of take a more basic approach to the carousel, whereas when you look at the emerging brands of a new potato chip brand, they are just doing their thing, right? Speaker 2: They're maxing it out. Speaker 1: Exactly, exactly. Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly. I mean, that's the only entry point that they have is just to win on brand. And they might not be the best price. They might have some symbols, you know, this one is organic, you know, and Frito-Lay's is not or whatever, right? There's some of these USPs that they'll kind of lean into. But the way that you truly get attention to those USPs is by appearing more, I would say, modern, more hip, right? That's how you kind of appeal to that new generation, which actually care about seeing colors that pop and it makes you feel like, They get it. It's almost like a tribalism type of thing. It's so funny, kind of just like a side story. When I go to a new town or a new city or a new place with my wife, she's looking for a nice coffee shop all the time. Like, let's try some good coffee in this area. And the way that she judges the coffee shop is by the logo, because that's all you got, right? Like when you're walking down the street. And I'm always thinking to myself, it's so funny to assume that because they've hired a really great Logo designer, somehow that's directly correlated with the quality of coffee that they sell in their shop. But in some ways it's true, right? Because it's like you said, it's the care that they've put into understanding their audience and understanding the style and maybe all the elements that go into that kind of market psychology. To put that attention into their design that will signal to people who understand that, that, Hey, you know, we're one of you guys, or you're one of us and, you know, kind of let's bond together and this is what we're offering. So it works the same way on Amazon, I think. And it's so interesting to see, like, you know, we say that earlier, like these like legacy companies, legacy brands that don't put so much attention into things that they don't feel like are important, but actually they, everything matters, right? Because There's the new wave like maybe 20 years ago everybody knew you but this next generation Maybe it doesn't look at you the same way So you always have to be evolving and changing kind of like you see that with McDonald's You know the way a McDonald's used to look like 20 years ago compared to now I mean now they have some of the fancy places. I mean I if you go to McDonald's like in Europe and You'll see they have all this like wood paneling. I mean, in Europe, they even have people like servers are coming at the table. I've seen that in some places, not that I eat a lot of McDonald's or something, but just like as an example, that's an example of a company that is trying to stay tuned in to what the newer generation cares about and then pivoting and pivoting and pivoting and just following that because they understand that if they don't evolve, they're gonna become more irrelevant. So I think it's the same thing. Speaker 1: Yeah, to your point about the simple way to put it is first impressions count. And on Amazon, it's more of a risk of getting it wrong than doing it right. Because if you've done everything you're supposed to starting with If you have a great-looking logo or providing the adequate care into your merchandising, the customer's not going to notice it consciously because that's what they just expect, being marked 224-7. It's only an issue if you get it wrong. If there's sort of an unforced error, your logo is terrible, If your carousel infographics aren't readable on a mobile phone, that's the time when the customer is going to notice. That's something that even a lot of the big brands get wrong. I just, I want to rant about this for a little bit is always check your merchandising on a mobile phone. I still have an iPhone 13 and everybody laughs at me, but it's because it's a small screen. It's the lowest common denominator. And if I can read the content on my iPhone 13, It's good to go. So that's a perfect example of an unforced error that I even noticed with large brands, which is such a huge opportunity for these emerging brands, right? This big brand, they forgot to make sure that their content is good for mobile users. But that maxim about first impressions count is such It permeates everything in life. I once knew a venture capitalist guy out in the Silicon Valley who said that the first thing he would do when go into a small startup's office, he'd look at the potted plants, right? And if they hadn't been watered, then it's that same thing. You have to wonder what other things are they missing in the attention to detail. And this actually goes... The whole modern science of marketing is, is pretty new, right? Uh, the, you know, less than, you know, what we know today is advertising marketing is less than 150 years old, but these, uh, the actual tests go back to the 1950s. That's when our predecessors started doing the tests and they, they determined that your first impression of a product affects the appeal of the product going, you know, Let me put this another way. What you think of the brand in general is entirely affected by your first impression of the brand. And if it happened to be a bad impression, you're just on the wrong track with your consumers. Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, I would even go as far as to say that as probably from the beginning of humanity, right? First impression of something immediately gives you, it puts that into your mind of like what your expectation is of that thing. You already start drawing some type of interpretation of that thing. It could be first impression on a date. First impression of whatever, right? Of a new series that you're watching or a new food that you're just, you know, trying for the first time. So it's like always like that's imprinted in your mind. So you really have to nail it the first time. And that's the best way is just by kind of like checking all the boxes. You were saying something actually earlier that I thought was pretty interesting. 90% start on Amazon. Honestly, that doesn't surprise me. But the TikTok thing, people are really crazy about TikTok and I'm not huge on it. I've had a lot of trouble getting involved with TikTok. I just find their whole system a little bit difficult to work with. But aside from that, I'd be surprised to see that a lot of people are going to TikTok specifically to discover products. It's like the way I understand TikTok is it's a place that people go to enjoy, relax, have fun. And then as a side effect, they're also, you know, getting targeted with products that might suit what they're, you know, they are the target ICP. I feel like it makes total sense that Amazon is actually the place that people go to solve problems. Like Amazon is like the Google, except it's when you need something to show up at your doorstep, Google. Speaker 1: Yes. TikTok is. Really good for particular audience segments and particular verticals. And so there's a brand getting back to snack foods. There's a brand called Takis. They're Mexican, spicy corn things, right? Everybody knows them, but they were a West Coast thing for quite a while. Until they started showing up on TikTok and then almost overnight, they were on the East Coast, right? Speaker 2: Interesting. Speaker 1: For most of the product lines we work with, will I recommend that we work with the influencers in TikTok? No, the answer is no. But as I mentioned, we're working on the nationwide launch of snack foods. Uh, working with the, the content creators and the paid influencers is a, uh, a huge part of our mix. Speaker 2: Right. Yeah. And that's another thing I'm always like trying to understand like how that dynamic is changing because when influencer marketing came out, it was also a totally different thing. People have become used to influencers in a way. It's just like become a thing that everybody's fully aware of before it was like, hey, this is a person I follow and they happen to love products that I might be interested in. And now it's like, well, you know, it's clear that there's an endorsement, but people still continue to follow, but probably not at the same rate. I'm wondering how is influencer marketing evolving? Curious your thoughts on that. Speaker 1: So, uh, influencer. So there's a lot of, a lot of areas in marketing. Um, influencer marketing management is one of them. Uh, paid social is another where in general there are a lot more agencies that do it that are good at it. I think those sort of niches are something that sounds kind of cool, right? Hey, I like using TikTok or, you know, I like using Insta. So I'm going to start an agency to do it. But it's only the few we found that are very good. We've had more bad experiences than good. And for Parker Lambert, we only want to do stuff that we are good at, right? So we have a partner that we work with on the paid social that we're working with for this new brand. And I am completely happy to let them drive this, right? So if you were to ask me my thoughts about where TikTok and the rest are now and where they're going, I would have to say, you know what? I am not an expert enough to speak about this. Ask me something I know about like Amazon. Speaker 2: Yeah, makes sense. All right, cool. Well, Dylan, this was a great conversation. I mean, is there anything that you wanted to share with the audience? Because I know this conversation was really focused on Amazon. We kind of pivoted all over the place. Just wanted to hear like kind of final thoughts on where 2025 is going with Amazon, you know, just like general idea of like, you know, you're involved with some of these bigger companies or smaller companies. So you kind of get the spectrum. You see this year playing out in a positive way. All these new fees, people are kind of starting to complain about like, you know, what's the read on Amazon as a whole? Speaker 1: Yeah, Amazon certainly seems to be going out of their way to make it difficult for small sellers. And there is the growing anxiety that more and more of sellers Most of my clients on Amazon are from Asia, right? So I certainly understand the concerns there. But on the more positive side, what 2025 for Amazon is, it's all about testing everything. Thankfully, there are a number of third party testing services that allow you to show different concepts to target audiences. It's called Consumer Insights Testing. We got onto this boat pretty early And I absolutely love it. What I tell customers is there is no such thing as too much testing, right? Test four versions of your product. Okay, it's nailed down. We're going to make some changes. Let's test it again, right? And you got to do it because more and more of their competitors are understanding that's what you have to do as well. And this is one more thing where There are the general principles of good marketing, but then you have to understand the Amazon ecosystem and how Amazon audiences, how their brains work, right? And with regard to say, for example, hero images, it's all about that glance view. And we're working with a brand in the supplement space right now. And although they're on brick and mortar and whatnot, Amazon is a big part of it. And what we're learning is that The glance view of that hero image in the offer on Amazon, that is informing our design decisions for packaging. We are literally, we're doing a rebranding for them. And the number one factor in all the little decisions about the packaging, you know, the size of the copy and where the logo is placed, it's all about what does the Amazon consumer think of it first and foremost. And then, you know, the brick and mortar appeal, you know, that's secondary at this point. Speaker 2: That makes a lot of sense. I mean, you have the actual data right there on Amazon compared to like brick and mortar. Some of it is just like, how do you really know, right? How do you test it? You don't have cameras looking at people's eyeballs, but on Amazon, you have all the data. So that actually makes a lot of sense to go there first and then kind of, it seems like almost like a backwards approach, but I guess like once you already have something selling, then you can go back and revise it. Awesome. Well, Dylan, thank you for hopping on today. I really appreciate this convo and kind of learning more about you guys. If anybody wanted to reach out, how do they find you? Speaker 1: Hello at Parker-Lambert.com if you want to speak to me directly. Otherwise, just go to Parker-Lambert.com and my name is not Parker nor is it Lambert. And if anybody knows where we got the name, I would love to hear from you. So send me a note. Speaker 2: You mind sharing that secret with us here? Speaker 1: I'd rather not. About 10% of your audience probably got it right away and they're going, oh, wow, that's a really cool name. It's kind of nerdy, but I like to keep it as a secret. But I love going to Like you, you do the trade show circuit and you do the speaking like at White Label World Expo and it's always fun where I throw that out. It's like, okay, who knows where the name Parker Lambert is from and there's like one guy in the back who gets it. So that kind of stuff makes me happy. Speaker 2: Cool. So I guess it's a mystery to be solved. Take care, Dylan. Thanks everyone for watching. See you on the next one. Speaker 1: Thank you, sir.