We are excited to share this in-depth conversation with Rose Hamilton, founder of Compass Rose Ventures, an in demand agency that uses data-driven strategies to help brands scale. Rose brings a unique perspective, honed through countless deep dives into consumer psychology, helping brands understand how consumers are thinking, how they’re shopping, and what ultimately influences their buying decisions. In this episode, Rose shares some of her latest findings, revealing surprising trends related to TikTok, ChatGPT, brand loyalty, micro-influencers, and much more. Read the full transcript below.
Episode 31 of The Seller’s Edge – Rose and Jonathan talk about:
- [00:00] Introduction to Rose Hamilton
- [00:49] Customer Listening Labs
- [02:37] Surprising Consumer Trends
- [06:27] Shifting Demographics
- [09:36] The Impact of the Pandemic
- [11:44] How Are Consumer Expectations Changing?
- [13:04] Alignment of Marketing & Supply Chain
- [15:19] Potential Challenges for Brands
- [18:57] Customer Loyalty Considerations
- [26:30] Consumer Values vs. Buying Habits
- [28:54] Smart Influencer CollaborationsÂ
- [31:33] Unpredictable DemographicsÂ
- [34:52] Development of 2-Way Content
- [38:21] What Should Sellers Prioritize?
- [41:43] Reactions to Artificial Intelligence
- [45:46] Recap and Closing Remarks
Key Takeaways:
- Conduct Regular Consumer Research: Brands should invest in qualitative studies every six months to keep their finger on the pulse of shifting consumer behaviors.
- Leverage Emerging Platforms: Optimize content for visibility on TikTok and ChatGPT to capitalize on their growing role in product discovery among younger demographics.
- Offer Subscription Options: Adopt subscription-based models to increase customer retention rates, as consumers increasingly prefer “set it and forget it” solutions.
- Build Authenticity Via Micro-Influencers: Collaborate with trusted micro-influencers who have engaged followings on social media to help drive conversions.
- Enhance Operational Readiness: Regularly audit and evaluate supply chain processes to ensure scalability aligns with marketing efforts; avoid bottlenecks that might hinder growth.
Full Transcript of Episode:
JONATHAN: I know that you recently conducted some consumer behavior research and have some data. I’m curious, like what was the scope of that? What were you looking at? Tell us all about it.
ROSE HAMILTON: Well, you know, listening labs, qualitative research is one of my favorite things. And it’s something that we do quite a bit at Compass Rose, especially when we go into an engagement and a company’s trying to scale, trying to turn around, trying to launch a product. This is one of the things that we usually begin with because we really want to talk to the target customer. We want to understand who that prospect is and what’s in their hearts and minds. The beauty of this kind of research is it allows our target audience to put their brain on video for us to actually hear how they’re thinking. The nature of the types of research we do is we’ll do the one on one interviews and you get themes and so the sample size is not hundreds. We don’t actually need hundreds to get to the themes. One of the most recent ones we did was within the vitamins and supplement space. And because of what we learned out of that, I again will say, I highly recommend people conduct these kinds of studies every six months because consumers are changing their patterns so quickly. With technology changing, the only thing constant now is change. And if you’re not on top of the hearts and minds of the consumer who you’re trying to reach, you’re not gonna know how to get to them. Like where they’re hanging out, what they’re thinking, what’s their motivation, how are they shopping, what is their shopping pattern? So yeah, we’ve focused a lot in the vitamins and supplement space specifically because it’s so competitive in today’s day and age. And pricing has now become such an important part where the landscape has lots of competitors and lots of different price points. And so figuring out where to position your products within them has become very, very important.
JONATHAN: Yeah, I mean, I know that E-commerce was just like the gold rush was for supplements, just because I know of the margins and to be able to source them and all of that. I’m curious, from your research and your data, what were the three most surprising things for you that you found?
ROSE HAMILTON: Well, first and foremost, it is the advancement of ChatGPT and TikTok. So depending on which age range you’re talking about, we talk to people in their 20s or 30s or 40s, their 50s and half of people. When we’re watching and studying how they go to find a product and research it, they’re going to TikTok to discover there is the new search engine they are going to chat to discover because ChatGPT has access to all the Internet space. And so why go to Google when you can go to ChatGPT and also get the AI Advancement of Recommendations. And depending on how sophisticated you are with your prompts, that is where businesses actually need to be showing up. And even though you don’t hear a lot about it for consumers that it’s the new engine. And while Google is important, you know meta is important, that’s not where the discovery is actually happening. So if you have any shot at people getting to know about you, that’s the place that you got to be. So that was number one. And then secondarily loyalty is at an all time low. People are seeking deals, especially in the vitamins and supplements space. There’s like no question they’re looking for new brands who have discounts and most importantly they’re looking for samples, they’re looking to trial the product and they’re looking for a subscription. The set it and forget it. And even though that’s been a around a long time with Amazon, it’s more important now than ever. So you know, that I think is just so interesting to watch that whether or not you have subscription model is now becoming a determination as to whether someone’s going to shift their loyalty over to you and how you’re thinking about discounts. And consumers are sophisticated so it’s not going all the way through the cart. You need to be able to show your value and showcase what makes you unique right up front on those product detail pages. So super fascinating to watch. And then the third thing is authenticity. I mean it’s just at an all time high. Influencers are somewhat trusted, but even influencers are not. The big name celebrities are not as trusted now as the micro influencers. And so there’s a real element and an aspect around who you have representing your brand and the storytelling that goes along with it. So it’s not just who’s the face that’s talking about it, but what’s their following and how active are their followers on really going and discovering and following their advice. So that micro influencer piece has now become more important than ever.
JONATHAN: I’m like looking around my apartment to see if you guys have like cameras on me because I totally fall within all of these things. I feel like a couple of years ago I thought I was so hip and edgy because I figured out the whole Reddit thing so I’d go there to get all of like my product details. And now it’s absolutely like TikTok. There is no brand loyalty. That’s absolutely right because I’m huge into supplements and I will absolutely just go to the one that is the most trusted and has a good deal. And yeah, I don’t trust big name celebrities, but I do trust micro influencers. If I see a big name celebrity, my automatic thought is that person is getting paid to do that.
ROSE HAMILTON: Yes, a lot of money probably. And if they’re paid, they will say whatever it is that they feel that they need to say to accommodate whoever it is they’re representing. So it’s, it’s fascinating and I think it covers across beauty. We see it there, we see it. Vitamins and supplements anywhere that’s consumable. Pet, I mean all of it now, I mean even some of the pet products, the importance of those micro influencers, I knew that 10 years ago, but it’s just the consumer’s caught up in such a large space now that the way you go to market has utterly completely shifted and changed.
JONATHAN: Yeah. And then as far as like measuring deltas, like, is there a specific demographic that you’ve seen shift more than others? I mean, considering what we’re talking about, I would imagine it’s the older demographics probably.
ROSE HAMILTON: Well, it’s women in their 30s and 40s for sure, because they are now recognizing that they can live better, happier lives and can age more gracefully because there’s so many wonderful products to help along those lines. So that’s a spot where targeting marketing towards people in their 30s and 40s, it’s the new, new now. So I’d say that’s a generation to really look at. And also because women in their 30s and 40s are recognizing, it’s the halo effect almost of when I was working in the hair growth space, when people started to understand that there are products that would help them not only grow their hair better, but would impact their sleep, it would impact how their digestion was functioning. And in the concept of your hair speaking to you, when women got a hold of that, they really started to take a look at it and there was a halo effect. And I think the same thing’s happening within the vitamins and supplements space because a category like creatine as an example is growing more than 100% year over year. Why? Because women, women in their 30s and 40s are recognizing you don’t need to be a bodybuilder to need creatine. It can actually help you build the muscle that you need help you stay strong, help your metabolism move at a faster rate when you maintain more muscle. So that’s another thing that is now it’s the halo effect. Kind of like the halo effect of understanding you can do things to help your hair grow, you can do things to help put muscle on. And it doesn’t mean you have to be crazy bodybuilder to need some of these products. So I think that’s one the Gen X and boomers, they’re embracing it. But how can I put it? It’s not just young men who are embracing it. So there’s the bro factor of the bodybuilders in the gym, but there’s also this advancing in aging where even in my gym I’m looking around seeing more and more people in their 40s and their 50s coming to the gym with different goals and different focus. And so even there, looking at vitamins and supplements, I mean it’s the buzz all around the gym. What’s everybody taking? What’s your. So I think you’ve got something going on there. And then Gen Z almost entirely looks at social media and almost entirely looks at TikTok. And so you’ve really. Especially for Gen Z, we’ve got to look at the ChatGPT component that if you don’t have a strong digital footprint, you’re not going to get picked up in ChatGPT. So where it used to be that retailers or manufacturers or brands could just say well we’ll just distribute through retail stores. Well now you’re not even going to be in the consideration set for the Gen Zs if you’re not, if you’re not building your digital footprint because as it gets built, ChatGPT is feeding it in and when people come to ask about a different topic and to get educated, you want to be able to surface and show up. So I think that that’s a pretty important thing. So just depends on the generation, how they’re looking at it and how their minds have shifted a little bit. But it’s across the board.
JONATHAN: That’s crazy. And then I mean as far as like pre pandemic consumer behavior versus post pandemic consumer behavior, like what are those most drastic shifts and trends? I mean you already called out TikTok I imagine that’s like a huge one. ChatGPT Obviously, but I’m curious, obviously less people are probably in retail but any other insights there?
ROSE HAMILTON: Products that allow people to have better mental health apps that are surfacing now. So it’s not just products but it’s, it’s the people are willing to invest in something that’s going to have them live happier, better, joyful days. And that is an angle that I think Covid brought everybody in the house. Right? Brought everybody and brought everybody in to slow it down for a minute. And that slowdown has actually stimulated more growth in vitamins and supplements because people are more educated and they’re consuming more digital media and that’s where they’re getting their answers on things to be looking at and considering in their feeds constantly in social media. So I think that that connection to the phone and that it’s, it’s. Everybody’s so dialed into that now really is different. Since pre Covid, it’s hard to get people to even put their phones down. I was in my. I have a local chiropractor who is just phenomenal. Their office is just something else. And in their office they’re, they’re always having tips of the day, which I just love, and guidance to help you with your nervous system and how to think about things. But interestingly, they adopted a policy of no phones when you’re in there. Like when you’re waiting to get adjusted, Nobody can be on phones because they’re acknowledging the mental health state of people that occurred during COVID and how it has so much impacted people that it’s like you can’t be away from your phones. But what you actually need is the calming, the slowing. Take a breath, take a minute. And I think that that is something that’s here to stay now post Covid because people have gotten introduced into it and so now staying away from the phones and getting away and doing things that take care of mental health, I think are, it’s here, it’s here and people are paying a lot of attention to it.
JONATHAN: Yeah. And so, like, how are our consumer expectations around online shopping experiences evolving or changing?
ROSE HAMILTON: Well, that too is very interesting. So if I’m a manufacturer and I distribute in many places, one would assume similarity in pricing. But that’s not always the case as we’ve done some of our research and we’ve watched and studied. Consumers may go to Amazon. So you need to have a presence on Amazon because it is a search engine. But they may then get their education on the manufacturers or the brand’s website. And they may actually then go to Walmart as an example and buy the product. So there is a journey here that I think it used to be assumed you’re either DTC or you’re retail. You might be Omni. Maybe you don’t need to Spend as much time on your direct to consumer business, or it’s a marketing channel, or it’s a sales channel. But I think gone are those days because if you don’t show up in multiple places, your chances of being discovered are less and less. And I think that that’s the big piece is it’s not, you know, marketers will talk about how marketing’s more complicated. I would argue, yes, it’s more complicated and you need to be really focused on it. But I would argue supply chain is going to be a thing because if you’re more complicated in your supply chain and you’re in multiple places, the focus on how you’re forecasting and being able to make the connection happen, you can have some of the best marketing campaigns in the world, but. But if you don’t have the product distributed in the right places and you’re getting more complicated in distribution and you’re growing and you’re scaling, you risk falling off the shelves. And I can tell you, so many people will come to me and say, rose, I think I have a marketing problem. Like, we’re just not growing. But then as we dig in underneath the hood and we’ll go in with operations, technology, finance thinking, marketing thinking, we’ll look at the whole enchilada and normally uncover, yes, you may have some challenges with positioning, that may be true, but you may have other things across your operating stack that as you’ve been growing and scaling, you don’t even realize you’ve got muscles that maybe haven’t been used in a long time. And now as you’re trying to put more demand into them, they’re not ready to scale. So the inside of a business is equally intriguing to me now as I look at how, just how brands are evolving, you’ve got to have as much focus, if not more so, on the operations side of the business and the forecasting and the finance as you do on the marketing side. And you oftentimes don’t hear about that. But I think especially with tariffs and costs going up, it’s more and more important for every person in the business to understand the profitability at the product level. And it is more important than ever to bust the silos down. Because from what I’ve experienced, when I look at the inside of a company, as they’ve grown, more people have been added and you could have redundancy across reporting, across all kinds of things we find that need to be streamlined because sometimes you need to take a pause to go faster, and that’s pretty important. That you look at the back end as much as you do the front end.
JONATHAN: Yeah. That is absolutely something I found at every single company I’ve worked for. I mean, it’s just like, it’s a cultural thing, I think, and just the way that we’ve built companies, I’m thankful to be where I am now because as an employee as well. Right. Because you get to like shine a little more. But those silos, it’s interesting how that’s become more and more and how it affects the product. Yeah. And then are there any warning signs or potential challenges that brands should be preparing for?
ROSE HAMILTON: Oh yes. Oh yes. So going back to the supply chain conversation, as demand grows, as consumers are looking, they’re not loyal. So if you don’t, if you don’t have. I’m going to put it this way, I call it a retention ready acquisition plan. As in if you’re not thinking the moment, you’re spending that dime on whatever ad you’re doing, if you don’t have the back end set to capture the information, to deliver on the education, to keep the person on the product, to keep them engaged with the brand, if you don’t have those things, do not spend a dime over here on meta. And it’s fascinating to me how I will look at brands that have spent all this money on advertising and they say, we think we have a marketing problem. And I say you do, but let’s look at where it is. When was the last time we looked at new customers, subscribers, lifetime value? Do we even have these metrics to be able to look at? And they seem so obvious, but they’re just not embedded in many companies. And so once you start to look at where customers are coming from and how profitable are they by channel, and you look at their lifetime value and you look at the products that they’ve come in on, you’re going to quickly find you got to have inventory there to support. Subscription like that is super, super, super important because the moment you’re out of stock, you’re not getting that customer back. I mean, I’ve lived through it many times, so always thinking about once we’ve acquired this customer, then what? How are we keeping them engaged? What else are we offering them? How are we thinking about serving them? Not a once and done situation. And so I think that. Acquisition ready, I’m sorry, retention ready acquisition. Thinking in an organization across the whole company is important. It doesn’t matter if you’re on product innovation or if you’re in operations and finance because you need to Be thinking about that whole customer journey and not just looking at like just the numbers in a P and L in terms of revenue. You’ve got to look beyond that. And I think the other part is that as prices continue to skyrocket, things continue to be expensive. We know loyalty is so hard to get. The focus on educational content is super important because that’s what’s going to build trust and making sure that you view yourself as a brand, as an educator. And your value add has to be like you’re the one place where somebody can get X because you’re the expert at it and really deciding what’s your one thing you want to be expert at. And then build and wrap your entire content strategy around it so that you’re known for that. Because if you get too far out and you have too many things going on, you’re not going to stand for anything. So I think now more than ever is that focus on educational content. And any time that you can really talk about the authenticity and the transparency and how you’re building products, that is what consumers are looking for. Like they’re checking the ingredients panels, they’re looking, they are more and more so now than ever. And so really thinking through my watch out is think through all the way where you’re sourcing, where the ingredients are coming from. Should you be using a co packer? Should you have your own manufacturing facility? Like these are questions that need to be answered sooner in the life of a brand versus later because they can really impact things in the long term. Especially if it’s a brand that’s looking to exit at some point and is looking for a strategic exit. There’s some of these really strategic conversations that need to be watched out for. Especially now when prices are increasing, consumers are less trusting. You’ve got to build that trust. And then I’d say the last part in the we’ll just use the retention ready acquisition plan is thinking through loyalty and I don’t mean just points, but it’s getting I go full circle back to the consumer, your target consumer. What do they value? What is it that you can offer that becomes a loyalty program? Like as an example, if you’re a vitamins and supplements company, what kind of an app might you have that fits into their daily lives? How do you encourage them to continue taking the product and be able to watch their own journey and see that they’re transforming? So how, how do you think about your loyalty planning? I put it that way in terms of what are you giving this value add that Causes people to say, yeah, they could have had a bump in the road, maybe they were out of stock one month, but who cares? Because they’re such an amazing brand and they’re delivering me and they’ve done this science study, whatever it may be, or they’ve brought me this doctor that’s an expert at the thing, the pain point. They’re solving, whatever it may be. That is what I mean by loyalty. Not just, you know, you get $2 for every time you spend 10. I think there’s that unique thinking around retention is incredibly loyalty, incredibly important.
JONATHAN: For sure. I think Chewy is always the example I go back to with customer relationships because they’re so good at it. I mean, the handwritten notes are good, but I love, like, I have friends whose pets die, which means like when they inform Chewy of that, it’s like, I’m no longer going to be a customer at this point because I do not have a pet. But Chewy will send flowers. And that’s like the best play you could possibly have in that situation because of course that customer is going to come back to you. And I feel like Chewy can’t do wrong in that respect. But I think so many other companies are have really letting their customer experience fall by the wayside. Like, I talk to people about this all the time because like the chat bots, you can’t like get like an actual live customer representative on the phone anymore. And it’s just like really degrading. So it’s something that I really think people absolutely should be focusing on that retention piece because I feel like I hear more and more about people leaving companies that are brands that they’ve loved forever.
ROSE HAMILTON: Oh my gosh, it’s so true. It’s just so true. And especially if you’re an emerging brand. One of the things I love to hear, and it’s a theme, repeated theme for me over time, is successful businesses that were started with the founders. Successful businesses usually begin with that founder spent all of their time doing everything from packing up the packages and getting them out, but they spent all their time hanging out with their target customer, their target consumer. And I think that that’s the element that people have lost with technology, that a chatbots find good enough or we’ll just watch social media or we’ll find information somewhere else. And. But people lose sight of that one on one connection point. And as far as I’m concerned, every brand has a capability to create an advisory group of their VIP customers and should and should Be inviting them in and around the table multiple times a year to stay on top of what is in their hearts and their minds. And I think founders who are successful do that themselves. And then as the businesses scale and grow, investors come in, people come in. That connection to the core customer can get lost in a heartbeat. And I love seeing when there’s a turnaround scenario happening, I love seeing how you inject the consumer back in and the brands can take off again like it just lost their way. And that’s kind of how I think about it, is we help people start up, we help them get where they’re trying to go when they get lost along the way, and we help them get to their North Star. Because in your journey, all of those things will be true no matter how much you want to stay close to the consumer as you’re scaling and operations grow. That customer piece is just, it’s, it’s essential to how businesses succeed.
JONATHAN: Agreed. Yeah, no, that’s a really great insight too. And it’s, it’s just, it’s so funny just how time changes and technology and how that all kind of like factors in. But breaking down those silos, like you pointed out, I think is a really great way place to start, especially for businesses.
ROSE HAMILTON: And the best spot, I gotta tell you, is around data. So that’s the piece that in a business, like if you’re struggling, one of the first questions I will always ask is, where’s your data set? Who’s got it? Get it together, dump it out on the table and have everybody looking and reviewing those numbers. Because it could be things are being reported and there’s data reporting all over the place. But when was the last time you sat down face to face? It can be virtual and reviewed and created insights out of the data. And that is such a bonding experience for teams have done well where it’s like work with what you have and really refine, refine, refine before you throw money at a problem because you probably have more answers under your nose than you even realize.
JONATHAN: The other trend, it’s really great that you brought that up. The other trend that I’ve seen working for companies is that departments tend to have this approach where they will get data, there will be something in the data that does not make the company look great so that that company will work to either one, omit that from whatever they present upwards or they’ll spin it in a way that makes them look good and that’s just proliferating the problem and making it worse. When like those are the points that you really want to be communicating, like, it’s great that we’re doing our jobs, but those are the things that you could be improving your brand with.
ROSE HAMILTON: Yeah. And you know, from the outside in, what I love and what has inspired me to build the business that we have now is that I was the operator, searching, seeking, trying to find, running around companies. But because most of the time I was either in a digital role or a marketing role. Like you have your lanes. So you know, when people are protective of the data, it can be hard to actually make change happen. So the insight I had was, man, I’ve done enough of these turnaround deals now to know it takes more than one person. So now we’ve built it so that we can be the people that go in and those who are quiet because they’re afraid to bring it up or whatever the case is. Give me six weeks and I’ll have everything mapped out for you. Because we have the permission to go in, gather the information, create the insights and get people jump started at a much faster clip than having to sort around and only being in one single discipline. Because it’s the people, the process, the systems, all of it. And sometimes the outside support and help really can make a difference and help you move at a faster clip. So it gives me such joy to watch teams and have people who might be quiet in the corner, knowing there’s a problem, not sure how to bring it up. Well, we’ll just bust right through that. We will help you. Let’s get it served up and get action happening here. We want authenticity and we want action, action, action so that we can see these businesses grow because they’re helping humans live better lives. And to me, that’s what’s inspiring and exciting is I’m not a scientist, I’m not a product developer, but what I can tell you is I know good products when I see them and I get so excited about being able to help, like dust them off and let the real value shine and help people’s lives be better. And that, that’s a joy, that’s a wonderful joy to work with people who are really very mission based and really want to make an impact on the world.
JONATHAN: I love that. I love that attitude. That’s really great. I’m curious because we talk about trust, customer loyalty, authenticity. I’m curious, like, how have consumers been been at kind of resolving the tension between, you know, their values and their actual buying behavior? Because I think like sustainability and things like that. Obviously sustainability could be, you buy a sustainable product, it could be a little bit more expensive or, you know, eco friendly, whatever it is. But also at the same time, like, you know, they want to kind of resolve that and kind of, you know, stick to their values and be sustainable. And I’m just curious, like, do we see that trending in the right way? Is that, is that dichotomy still there?
ROSE HAMILTON: Oh, it’s still there. And I’m seeing more consumers vote with their wallet. So that’s exactly what I’m describing about post Covid now, because there’s so much education and because you can access so much, people are more thoughtful. So the impulse purchases are farther and fewer in between. People are far more careful about researching and understanding the story of the brand and understanding who’s behind it. What is the value of this company. And if I have a choice of 10 different companies who solve this problem I’m trying to solve by this purchase, and there’s one that’s actually giving back to charity, or one that’s doing something mission related that matches my values, that will help me build loyalty and trust, which goes back to what’s the one thing that you want to be known for? Wrap your entire business model around it. Because consumers will stay with you, they will stick and stay. And I think that’s the trick is to figure out of this customer you’ve decided you want to serve, what’s important to them, you know, and you brought up the pet space. So I’m thinking about some experience I’ve had in the pet space. And one of the most interesting things we found again in consumer research and data overlays, we did quite a bit with appending data to understand our core customer. We found an affinity between pet lovers and an affinity between charities and how much they would highly index on giving away to charities. And in an example like that, you partner with somebody who’s all about giving away to charities and you figure out how to give your customer access to that. And that’s a promotion that could be very successful if you’re doing a collaboration, which is another thing I didn’t mention, which is that the rate at which collaborations, smart collaborations are happening, that is how businesses are going to win. And it’s figuring out you have a collaboration with someone else who’s going after the same customer as you figure out how to co partner on it so that you borrow their stage, they borrow yours, and you add value to both of those and then you both get it and it’s a win win. And so I’m not sure how I Got off topic on that. But the collaboration part to me is so crucial. And those businesses that only think about advertising as a way of marketing are missing the point. Because if you look around, oh yes, back to the pet piece in the pet research, figuring out the charity element was a cornerstone to how we started targeting and how we went and looked at. How are we going to surface some of these customers? Like, where are they hanging out? What are they doing that maybe we’re not touching? And I think every brand today has that ability. If you can get that insight and know as an example, if you’ve got, you’re in the health and wellness space and perhaps your core customer who you’re trying to reach really loves fashion, what, what content spaces do you want to be in? Like figuring out those nuances and then figuring out who in the fashion space do you want to be partnering with in a unique way? I make, I’m totally making it up. But like, if that can inspire the thinking of, okay, we’re in this category but with what we know about our consumers, where else are they consuming and what else makes sense? Like you see. And where you see examples of this is in. So it’s definitely in the fashion space, but I also see it in, in the space of flavors. So if I’m Chobani and and I’m looking at who do I want to collaborate with again, pulling it out of the air. Pick any brand that sells a staple and then think about flavors that could be different, sizes that could be different athletes. Look at the influence of athletes now doing collaborations and letting, letting their journey in their life be connected to a product. Well, I question the celebrity part because as we discussed earlier, sometimes there’s no trust. But if you pick the right one and they’re truly aligned and their values are truly aligned and you’re really working with them deeply on the development of the product and it’s in their life. That’s where I see it being successful, as opposed to just picking a fancy celebrity off the street, paying them a lot of money and they just are the face in the commercials. I’m talking about deeply embedded collaborations where you’re in it to win it and it’s a couple year deal, but that you figure out how to add unique value.
JONATHAN: Those are all really great points. We talk about a lot of rapid shifts with demographics and I think there’s like certain expectations we have. Like, you know, like, you know, Gen Z will be on TikTok and then, you know, the millennials and boomers will be at retail But I’ve, I was actually just talking to a friend who’s, who’s like 55 year old father, like spends a lot of his time and he like runs a garage buying things off of TikTok shop, which I think is funny. And I’m curious, like, do you see a lot of those kind of trends converging or kind of going in an unexpected way?
ROSE HAMILTON: I sure do. And I think that you can be 55 and once you get caught into the, the TikTok shop space, if it’s serving up the content like the algorithm is designed to do and is making vis for you things that are of interest to you, it’s so personalized that we’re just going to see more people flocking there, I think. I mean, unless there’s a massive shutdown and no one can access it, then we need to find something else. However, I do think just the idea of curated content, personalized content into my feed, that becomes, because I feel like it’s personal to me, I feel like things are being screened out. And so whether you pick what, whatever channel you pick, whether it’s Facebook, whether it’s Instagram, whether it’s TikTok, they all matter because there’s personalization capabilities and you’re only going to get served the things that are getting the attention. And Gary Vee talks all the time about we’re in an attention economy and it’s all about attention. And I think he’s absolutely right. And I do believe like the growth around content creation and storytelling has never been more important, which is why, and there’s two dots I would connect here. Consumers want authenticity, they want stories, they want edutainment, they want to be educated and entertained. Like that combination is pretty amazing for a brand that can figure out how to get right in the middle of that and create and produce the content that’s authentic, that’s showing a value, is really powerful. So I do believe it doesn’t matter if you’re 50 or 60, we’re just going to see more and more people coming. And even though not everybody’s there today, just give it time and who knows what the next TikTok, so to speak, is going to be. But I would predict there will be a lot of streaming. I predict it’s going to be more educational content. You can’t go wrong with that. I entirely predict it’s going to be live. Being able to buy the product live, the live streaming piece is going to continue to grow. I mean, think about qvc, the concept of desiring to see someone talking and educating about a product, it’s the same as video. So why wouldn’t we see more and more QVC type shopping experiences showing up and being something people are demanding?
JONATHAN: Yeah, it’s amazing because I don’t know if you remember this, but there was a really short time that Amazon rolled out like a live shopping. Yes. During the pandemic. And then it disappeared. Obviously it’s showing back up again and people are implementing things like that. But I was just surprised that at that point in time they couldn’t have made it more basically made it flourish.
ROSE HAMILTON: Yep, yep. I think that’s where it’s going. I think that’s where the media component is going. And I think too the development of two way and even like podcasts I’m watching now that are two way, I love it because it gives the opportunity where anybody could be called on. And it reminds me of, I’m trying to think of the platform Clubhouse. So Clubhouse was so popular, but what was popular about it, it came and it went, was that anybody had the opportunity to have the mic. And so I think some of these podcasts are really onto something where they’re allowing the two ways. So it doesn’t matter if you’re the mayor of the state, it doesn’t matter if you’re someone who’s a stay at home mom, it doesn’t matter. And I think giving people access to the mic to ask the questions, to have the points of view in a live environment, I cannot wait as I think about the future to see how that starts to unfold. Because as I start to think about podcasts where I would like to see certain brands positioned, as I’m working on that work, I’m now increasingly more and more interested in where it’s going, which is not the standard podcast, but it’s going to be the ones that invite the audience in. Sort of like no different than a LinkedIn Live. It’s the same thing. Like there’s going to be more and more demand for that. I think.
JONATHAN: I like that. I mean, we all want to be heard, we all want to be seen. And I feel like as long as we have the chance to tell our story or share our thoughts, I think that that’s always going to be an important thing. I love that.
ROSE HAMILTON: It builds trust. It builds, it’s going back to how do you build loyalty? How do you build trust? Well, you create a stage for your customers to come and give their thoughts, you know, and one brand who I’ve done some work with that I thought was just brilliant. They’re so on it with the content and an emerging brand figured out office hours with the doctor who’s part of the formulator behind the product would be really powerful. And so opening up the office hours. And now she’s taking it a whole nother direction with webinars and content creation. And many brands have done that. But I think the itty bitty ones who are growing and emerging that don’t have money to spend millions on marketing can do an awful lot of great work by doing giving access to the experts who are behind the scenes creating these products. Like that’s authenticity, that’s loyalty. And if you’re a VIP with, with any brand and you’re given that opportunity to like meet the person behind it and they become super accessible and you can ask them questions and you can just pop on, that’s powerful. And again, that’s just creative thinking. That’s not a lot of budget. It’s being scrappy and thinking about what do you have to offer that nobody else can offer that will cause people to say, wow, they gave me that. I, I could. If they have some bumps in the road while they’re growing and scaling, it’s okay. I would stand up for them because they’re doing something else for me. And I think that’s so important for starting brands because you’re going to hit bumps in the road. So you need to be putting, we like to call it deposits. We like to be putting deposits in with our core customers so that when things do go bump in the night, they’ll stick with us because those who don’t do that when things go bump in the night because they will, you lose customers and they don’t come back because they’re not loyal.
JONATHAN: I love that. That’s a really great example too because I mean it’s, I mean of all the things we talked about as far as transparency and authenticity, I think that that really gets to the bottom of it and trust because I mean if you’re giving me the chance to talk to the people behind the product and to poke around, that’s a brand that I’m going to trust. I love that. If you had to give like brands or sellers, if you had to tell them like only focus on one or things, what do you think those two things that they should be prioritizing are.
ROSE HAMILTON: Number one would be retention ready acquisition. I say that all the time and that means talking to your customer, talking to your prospects, knowing that person inside and out. That is what retention ready acquisition Is to me, and it is customer obsession in every pocket of the business and making choices in your values that are. When things go bump in the night. How are you going, how are you going to live your values out? You know, like, how’s that going to look? And really thinking through that and thinking through how are we going to retain our customers? It’s never too soon to do that. And I’ve had a lot of people say to me over the course of years, we’re just starting out or we’re, you know, we’re midway through, like, do we really need to worry about putting a budget aside for retention? And my answer is the way businesses are functioning today with strategic exits, the relationship between cost to acquire customer and lifetime value and profitability. That is what’s going to be looked at. So the time to start that was yesterday. So, like, let’s get on it and be obsessed with lifetime value, not just the revenue and the profit margin. Focus on what are you doing? What is your, what’s your roadmap? What is your roadmap for making sure you’re moving your lifetime value metrics up and that you’re listening to the customer and understanding for those who churn all over it, why are they leaving? What could we have done differently? And be relentless at getting that customer feedback. Relentless. That’s, I think what’s going to, I observe, is making businesses successful and that is timeless. There’s nothing going to change. I don’t care if it’s TikTok or some new something happens with X that is all brand. I don’t care what platform. If you have that mentality up front, always, and you’re always questioning yourself, what are we doing around retention? Where’s our plan? Where’s the metrics? They’re equally important to me as customer. The cost to acquire a customer and your revenue numbers, they matter. And I would sacrifice a focus on that versus fast revenue targets because in the end the right kind of exit will require having a really good, A sticky customer base for sure.
JONATHAN: Rose, you have been a wonderful guest. I’ve really enjoyed talking to you. I love that you’re so passionate and you have like so much knowledge to share. So thank you for that. I feel like it’s always a trade off. Right. I feel like there’s always like passionate people but they don’t always have like that expertise and knowledge and I feel like you have a really great balance. So that’s phenomenal.
ROSE HAMILTON: So I appreciate that and I love to share. I mean, that’s really where I come from, which is, you know, I’ll frequently just take a couple hours in a given week and just talk to people. And it doesn’t mean that we’re conducting business, but it’s because I really do believe in sharing because it comes back around, it just always does. And I also love learning from people and I’m a podcast junkie, so there’s that. I love to learn.
JONATHAN: I appreciate that. I mean, the authenticity is there. So there you go. You seem like a very authentic person that’s always engaging. Is there something that I might not have asked that you would have wanted to talk about?
ROSE HAMILTON: The one thing that I think is really important is I just ran a poll asking people about AI. We did not touch on AI and there are different opinions on it’s here to stay. I’m just dabbling in it, I’m thinking about it. I’m all in. If you look across the board at answering that question, I’m actually quite stunned that there’s nobody really who, within our polls of how we’re looking at it, is saying, I am all in. There’s a lot of the wait and see folks. But my prediction is it’s not just in marketing, it’s across the board. The value of AI is that you can move faster if you can figure out how to synthesize the information and make it a value. Think about it as a value prop. AI powered tools of some sort are going to become really important. So as brands are thinking about AI and they’re like, maybe we might, we could. You need to get on it because if you’re not on it, your competition’s on it. And if you don’t have a roadmap on how you’re thinking about AI and direction around AI, feel free to give me a call because we, we do a lot of work in this space right now and figuring out how to make it a value add in businesses and actually how to start integrating and incorporating AI into the business in unique ways that’s not just, oh, copywriting, what should we say? ChatGPT, the human element in that is actually super important. And yes, it can be used to prompt, but the expertise is not in ChatGPT. And last I checked, ChatGPT is not going to action on it. So the beauty here is we can borrow and get the research done real quick and it doesn’t need to be, you know, $190 million study to figure things out. Like we can figure things out pretty quick, but the actioning on it and the execution on it is Where I see it falling down and it is such an opportunity for businesses. And I don’t care if you’re small, you’re a turnaround, you’re getting ready for exit. How you think about the data sets now is more important than ever. And I actually think when the Internet became a thing and it was real, that was at the very beginning, early days for me. I’ve only ever. I was born and raised in the whole data in, you know, intersection of performance, all of that. Being in brands for the first time in my career, I get so giddy and excited about how fast AI is moving and what it can do. It’s like the Internet was, but it’s where you turn on your innovation brain and you get inspired by it. The last thing you do is get scared by it because it’s here, it’s not going anywhere. Now the question is, how do you build a business model off of leveraging this awesome new set of tools? It’s just like TikTok. TikTok now has a shop, okay? AI, it’s a thing. And business models are happening everywhere on it. And CPG brands really can and should be using it in many ways. Carefully setting standards, set your policy up for what you will and won’t do and make sure you don’t get in trouble legally. But there’s opportunity. So that’s the one area that I would love to see brands really embrace it and be doing more with it because I see the power and the potential.
JONATHAN: Okay. I just had a brain blast because I was sitting here thinking she’s a phenomenal guest. I have to think of some reason to get her back on the show to talk about it. Now I’m like, all right, like AI, like, that’s the two parter. We’ll come back and talk to you about AI and marketing. That’s the way to do it.
ROSE HAMILTON: I would be thrilled and delighted because here too, sharing, sharing information and for me, if I’m able to spark some kind of a thought that changes people’s thinking, that to me is success and it gives them something to chew on and take back to their teams and that’s actionable. That’s what matters, I think.
JONATHAN: Yeah, I mean, you shared a lot and you’ve given us a lot to action off of. So I appreciate that.
ROSE HAMILTON: You are so welcome. What a delight and thank you for your thoughtful questions.
