#112 Boyuan Zhao: E-Commerce Agency CEOs Share Their Best Tips
Welcome back to The Ecom Show! Today's discussion is special for anyone with their own e-commerce store because we've got the founder of not one but two e-commerce agencies to talk about everything Ecom!
Our guest for today is Boyuan Zhao. He is the founder of the e-commerce email marketing agency PLTHORA. Apart from this, he also has his own Youtube channel where he shares tutorials on how to master Klaviyo, and he's got professional investments in cryptocurrency as well.
In this episode, Boyuan Zhao and Daniel Budai, podcast host and CEO of Budai Media, will be discussing everything that goes into growing an e-commerce brand.
Tune in to hear more about:
✔️The Key To Designing A Viral Product
✔️Be A Content First E-Commerce Brand.
✔️ Boyuan's Advice For E-Commerce Entrepreneurs.
The Key To Designing A Viral Product
This one's important for anyone that's looking to enter the e-commerce space or to even expand their product line. There are two things that can make any product go viral.
The first is coming up with something quirky. Take the brand Oodie for instance. Oodie is an apparel brand that creates oversized hoodies that double up as blankets. This Australian apparel brand has built a nine-figure business by creating a unique and quirky product that stands out. In fact, one of our previous guests, Jason Williamson, runs an SMS marketing agency that handles Oodie's SMS flows, and he shed more light on this brand in episode 105.
The second is to create hyper utility. Products that can find a unique solution to a very specific problem have the potential to go viral. The Shark Tank legacy brand, Scrub Daddy, is a perfect example of this. There is a sponge that helps clean out every corner of a dish. Similarly, any product that solves a specific problem has viral potential because those types of products are great for ads. You can create simple direct videos that drive customers to purchase your product.
If you're looking to enter the e-commerce space with a new product, start by finding a problem and find a unique way to create a solution for it. A lot of people do it the other way round. They create their product and look for a USP after. However, the best way to beat market saturation is by creating a product that can easily stand out.
Be A Content First E-Commerce Brand
With the explosion of social media, everyone's a content creator! It's no longer enough to just have a good website. In order to create a successful brand, you need to have a great social media presence. This includes being omnipresent on channels like Tik-Tok, Instagram, Facebook, or even Youtube; based on what you sell. Social media platforms help you build a community that can drive your sales even if your website isn't great!
For example, there's this company called Ancestral Supplements. This company's founder markets himself as the Liver King. Their products sell extremely well despite having a simple website, high prices, and a high shipping fee. This is because they have great marketing in place. Being a content-first brand helps in building social capital in the form of trust. The more your customers trust you, the more they're willing to shop from you, despite your brand's shortcomings.
Boyuan's Advice For E-Commerce Entrepreneurs
E-commerce agencies interact with entrepreneurs from every walk of life and solve problems by coming up with innovative strategies on the regular. We asked Boyuan to share some of his biggest learnings and takeaways from his experience in the industry. Here's what he had to say:
What has been your biggest learning from running a business?
"My biggest learning has been understanding the value of time. People are constantly advertising how they achieved success in very quick timeframes; this can mess with your perception of how well you're doing something. But it's important to understand that things just take some time, especially if you're pursuing more high-leverage activities.
For example, when I first started out, I was doing cold email outreach. So, it'd be about a two-week delay between me putting in the effort and seeing the return. But then, when I started pivoting towards content, it was actually like a three to a six-month time period before I got my first big client. But the thing is, cold outreach is linear in the sense that you just send the email, and that's it. And it's forgotten about, whereas content is more or less evergreen, so it's higher leverage. So, it took me a while to understand that exponential growth can take time to build."
Hiring is extremely crucial for agencies because, in an agency, you're selling a service. And the quality of your service depends on the people in your team. Could you walk us through your hiring process?
"I'm pretty proud of my team at the moment; I'm working with some really great people. I usually hire from within my own community. I get several inquiries about job openings from my YouTube follower base. The second has been through LinkedIn and extensive interviews. I outsource it to professional recruiters and try to find quality leads by filtering them out with good assignments and a detailed interview process.
I also keep finding ways to retain my team by incentivizing team members when they accomplish good targets. This is usually done by rewarding them with a bonus when the project they're working on performs extraordinarily well."
To sum it all up, the key to growing your brand lies in building a viral product, focusing your energy on creating a strong content strategy to market your product, being patient, and most importantly, surrounding yourself with the right kind of team to help your brand grow!
Thank you for tuning in to this episode of The Ecom Show. We release new episodes every Tuesday and Thursday.
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