Episode 60: How a Digital Product Shop Can Help You Expand Your Business and Increase Your Impact with Jennifer Roskamp

Monica Froese &  Jennifer Roskamp

You are listening to the Empowered Business podcast. I’m your host, Monica Froese, and if you’re like me, you want to grow a business you love that gives you financial freedom and fits your lifestyle. Every week you’ll get strategy and unfiltered opinions from me and other successful business owners that will inspire you to make big moves in your business. When we work together, we not only grow faster, we also amplify each other’s voices. Are you ready to build your business on your terms? Let’s jump in. Welcome back to the Empowered Business Podcast. Today I have an interview, the first interview I’ve done in about ten months. I was really excited to do this one because my guest is one of my favorite human beings ever. She has been along on this business journey with me almost the entire time. And when I reached out to her about six months ago and said, Hey, I think you’re missing out not having a storefront for your digital products, one of the things I just love about her is that she takes quick action. And so in today’s episode, we’re going to be talking all about how one of my good friends, Jennifer Ross Camp, who has an amazing blog called the Intentional mom, decided to pivot her marketing strategy and put all of her products into her shop. And we’re going to talk about her success that she’s been having from it. Jennifer Ross Camp is a homeschooling mom of nine and Gigi of one who is passionate about helping women and moms put to rest the Instagram ideal of perfection and embrace stepping into reality, which is accepting that achieving perfection is an ideal that no one can meet. She is also the founder and creator of the intentional mom, where she also works as a money coach, everyday life guide and a learn from my mistakes kind of mentor who isn’t afraid to say she’s not perfect. And I really think you’re going to learn a ton from her in today’s interview. So let’s dive right in. Jennifer, welcome to the entire Business podcast. I’m so excited to have you today.

Hey, thanks for having me. I’m excited as.

Well. Yeah, this is my first interview in like ten months, I was telling you. So I woke up this morning, thought on my calendar and briefly got a little nervous. But, you know, we’ve known each other for a long time, so, you.

Know, I was excited to hear I’m. I’m the one that’s coming back from the hiatus with you, so. That’s right.

You’re welcome. Us back because we have a very exciting topic to talk about today, which I’ve been priming everyone about leading up to this, because we’re going to be talking about your awesome Shopify store. But before we do that, I always ask everyone on the podcast to tell us about their entrepreneurial journey, how they got started and what they do today.

So I started at like, I think many of us started with a blog, right? So it was so funny because I got the idea that I told my husband that was the idea. And he says, What makes you think anyone’s going to listen to you? And if you know me at all, like, you know, I was like, Oh, wow. And so that was just the challenge. So did the typical blogging things, you know, and all that. And actually back in the day, which again, if you know me at all, you know that I love email, right? Like, I love emailing my audiences. Right. Well, back in the day when I was first kind of getting started and people were like, you need an email list, I was like, Well, that’s dumb. No, I don’t. That’s dumb. Well, I resisted that for a while, and then I got the email list going and then I started creating my own products and it has just taken off from there. I would no longer consider myself a blogger. That’s hard, you know, That’s that one facet of my business that just kind of auto plays on its own. But I love sinking into creating products, inspiring people. I do a lot of coaching, I do a lot of teaching. I love courses, I love teaching, live, all that stuff. So I finally feel like I’ve settled into just kind of being like an online coach and business creator. That’s what I kind of feel like I am.

Product creator. Product creator. Okay, so what is the name of your blog?

So it’s the intentional mom.

And when did you start blogging?

Let’s see. I got to think of this in ways of pregnancy. So hang on. Let me think of who I was. Pregnant. Well, spoiler.

Alert. Tell everyone how many kids you have.

I do have nine. She does almost everything I think about I have to relate to Let’s see, who was I pregnant for? But so it was. Let’s see, she’s six of seven. So it was 2015 when I started.

Okay. You shortly after that. We I’ve known you almost your entire and I’ve seen you through two or three pregnancies. I feel like.

Yes. Yep. To two pregnancies. Yep.

Okay. Okay. Now, the intentional mom, what’s the whole basis of the intentional?

So basically where I’ve settled, right, Because I didn’t really know what that was initially either. And that’s kind of taken some weaving and some, you know, coming on this path and kind of just solidifying who I am and what I do. But I know now, after all this time who I am and who I serve and what I love to do and what I’m really here for is to help busy women and moms, that the idea of that perfection that we see on Instagram aside and step into reality with me so that we can all kind of redefine what perfection is or what we’re all striving for every day. And it’s not that it’s ever going to look like we see on Instagram. It’s come get in the trenches with me and let me show you the good, the bad and the ugly. And that’s what I love to do. I love to take the mask off, you know, and just be like real with people. That’s kind of my mission. It’s just to be real and say, you know what? This is what it’s really like. You do a good.

Job at it. And speaking of which, we’ll link to this in the show notes. Everyone should follow Jennifer and watch your stories on Instagram. I love watching your stories. When I found out my daughter was going to have surgery, you were the first person I message because I’m thinking. How do you do this times? Nine. What if you have three kids at once that have all this stuff? And then that could be multiplied, just be multiplied for you. And I’m just like, I’ve always been so impressed and just enamored with what you manage to accomplish in a day. And so when I think of, like high performers, especially when it comes to running, you homeschool your kids, too. So it’s like, no joke. You homeschool. You run a successful business. You have a husband, You have nine kids to keep alive. And it just has always blown my mind. So when I think about being overwhelmed in my life. When I found out she had to have surgery and all the appointments that I added to my calendar for just one child, I thought immediately, How would Jennifer handle this? Because you have to juggle an astronomical amount of stuff and you still manage to keep the wheels on the bus. So you’re essentially teaching other women how to do that. In a way that like I would get overwhelmed, but it’s with ease. Like you’re not saying it’s easy, but.

It can be.

Managed. Yes, it can be.

You can. Initially, we all feel like this. This is not manageable. Like this will not work. Yeah. And I’m saying, you know what? It will work. Let’s take a step backwards and let’s just think this through like it’s going to be okay. Like, that’s that is where I would love to be in everybody’s life. Like, hang on, take a breath for me. It’s going to be okay.

That’s your superpower for sure. Like your absolute superpower. So I have so many questions to ask you, but one of the things that I feel is a very good baseline for people to know is your email for someone who didn’t want an email is like, Why do I need email? You’re very interesting because you send an email every single night. And I would say I probably read like 75 to 80% of the emails you send at night. And I mean, I would have thought, too, like when you first told me you did that, I remember thinking. Wow. You must get a lot of unsubscribe. But you. It’s kind of your secret sauce, right? In your business. So what’s the whole logic behind why you do it? And like what you found over the years works best?

Well, the reason I think it’s effective, I think we all have to define what our purpose is for our email list. Right. And we know that in business, like everything, if we’re running to run a smart business and the whole work smarter, not harder, like everything we do, we should know what our purpose behind it is. Why am I doing this right? And so I think being clear and really defining for yourself what your purpose for your email is that will help guide you in. How can I accomplish that? And I determined that what I wanted to do with my email was I wanted to build a relationship with people. I wanted to ten times that know like and trust factor. I wanted to put myself out there and I wanted to share who I am with them. But I also knew that I wanted to hear back from them about who they are because there are so many fascinating things you can learn about people. The benefit when you build this two way relationship, which you can only get if you think about it in real life, how do you build a relationship with anybody? It’s time spent, right? And so, you know, not only am I putting myself out there and sharing myself with them, I’m hearing that which has amazing benefits. I think a lot of us got started in some sort of whatever facet our business looks like.

We got started kind of to help people, to inspire people, to encourage people, well, you know, people who come and read, for instance, my blog, right. Like they aren’t necessarily people looking to build a relationship with me. They’re coming there to solve a specific problem based on a pin they saw on Pinterest, like, how do I clean window tracks? That’s my secret weapon blog post. That was so crazy. But they’re not looking to build a relationship with me, and so I’m not feeling fulfilled. Really. If you think about it, I’m not feeling fulfilled by all those people that come. Yes, my page numbers, mate, my page views might be high, all of that. But what I discovered in having them email me back and share themselves with me is I finally get that fulfillment that what I’m doing matters right. Like that’s what we all want. So not only am I feeling fulfilled in what I do, and because we build this two way relationship, I also hear about their struggles. I also know what’s on their mind and how does that benefit us. I know exactly what they need. I know exactly what products to create. I know exactly what words they use. Talk about copy. Right. It’s beneficial in so many ways.

So people are always willing to tell you their problems. Yeah, people love telling you their problems and all a digital product is what you spend time creating is a solution to the problems that your audience is having and they’re telling you every day.

I don’t ever have to wonder if I wonder if this answer what they need. I don’t have to wonder those things. I get asked. Well, all of that getting into it, though. I did not realize all of that until I started experiencing it.

You just wanted to build up the rapport essentially when you got started. I get asked a lot too, from people. I had a great question from someone recently. I said, How do you know what to create next? And I said, Well, you’re going to get to a point in business where my problem is I don’t have enough time to create all the things I could create because people have no issue at this point telling me what they want from me and what they need for me. They are so willing to just actually people are very willing to ask for help in a way, even if they think they’re just dumping their problems. They’re really asking for for help when they’re emailing. And it’s definitely abundant. So one of the things I love about your nightly emails is you’re really good at building a story and like leaving a cliff hanging for the next night. Those are the ones I will say. Not all of your ones are like that, but the ones when I notice I’m opening consistently, like over a week’s time is because you’ve left me hanging and I’m like, I need that conclusion to this story. Yeah.

And I do love that because I hear that from people. So that’s kind of like why I like doing that now. But really it needs a need and that is that those nightly emails, my goal is 300 words and if I get to where I’m at like 320, then I know, nope, this is going to have to be split. So that’s where that started. And that’s also why that happens, because I do not want to send a 600 word email at the end of the day to people. They’re not going to read it. I just that’s not.

What I want to be. Okay. That’s what I was going to ask, because drop off, essentially people won’t make it through. So in terms of how you utilize calls to action in your emails, I know not all of your emails have a call to action. Some of them are just, you know, ends with the story or the cliffhanger. Do you have a certain like quota in your mind that you like in terms of selling in these emails, or do you kind of go by the seat of your pants?

Well, I will say every single email does have a call to action. It might not be a sales call to action.

Interesting.

It will be something. It will be. Hey, go follow me on Instagram, because that’s where I put all the behind the scenes. It will be go read this blog post. It will be reply and let me know if you ever experienced anything like this. I am asking them to take an action in every single email. The only exception to that is if like I have a huge launch tomorrow and I’m totally seeding that and it’s the email that says, you know, hey, something super exciting is happening tomorrow, make sure you open tomorrow’s email. Like, I don’t want to give them a call to action at that point because I want them to be so focused on the call to action for tomorrow. But that’s the only exception to that. But in terms of how often do I ask people to purchase something, in terms of that being the call to action? I will tell you, it’s a lot more now with the shop.

So I lead in.

Yeah, it used to be maybe like one or two a week, whereas now, because I’ve got something going on in the shop on a regular scheduled basis, they’re all boom, boom, boom right there, and then maybe a different one earlier in the week. So I’ve probably doubled sales links.

So how many are you emailing multiple times a day with leveraging your shop strategy, or is it still just the nightly emails?

So if it’s during a launch, then it is twice a day and those nightly emails are not. I would say if even if during a launch I try to make those involve a story like it would not scream launch sales email to you in the evening but because everybody expects those evening emails, it does give me an opportunity to send, even if I’m not talking about anything about what’s being launched and I’m simply telling the story. That piece at the end gives me the opportunity to email them once that day about the launch sale, but I get two chances for them to click on something.

So I believe the way that prior to putting focus in your shop that you were selling, that I was selling was essentially you would have a great idea for a new product and you’d want to introduce it to your list, so you’d create a sales page for it, and then you would spend a few days telling people about this great new thing that you have. And here’s the sales page link. Now, when they went to the sales page, that was the only thing they’re going to be buying from it, right? So there was no way to see other things that you had to offer. So you’d have essentially concentrated launch time for that product, that sales page. So you probably had a lot of sales pages. Yes, like me. So what I discovered leading into like why the shop has just changed so much for me is there are a few things. One, you only have so much email bandwidth, so you can’t put like if you have ten products you’re not linking in an email to ten plus they would have to check out ten different times that. So the sales page mentality is really a funnel mentality. The sales page is meant to get you to buy the one thing and perhaps take the order bump if you have one on the cart and maybe there’s an upsell, but there’s no choice in it. You’re either taking that action or you’re not, which limits the amount of times you can talk about these products because you go all email so many times. So what I was finding for myself over the six years was I would create something, we would launch it, it’d go great.

We get this nice cash influx, whether it was like anything from a spreadsheet to a bigger program, and then it might be a year or two until I could circle back and talk about it again because I was on to the next thing, creating the next thing people were asking me for, and then I could talk about that one. And over the years I amassed all of this stuff that I would look. So I’m big on numbers, right? So I love the fact that I have historical profit and loss statements now, and I would look and be like, Wow, in 2020 that spreadsheet made 25,000 and we have not sent a single email about it in 18 months. What a waste. So it felt like I was constantly on this hamster wheel of creating new content, new products to basically put it out in front of my audience once and then move on to the next thing. So that was that stockpile. The other stockpile I had, which I clued in that you also had was there’s all of this content we create behind the firewall of our programs. We have bigger we have programs that really you do too, that span price ranges and complexity. Like you have a membership. I have a membership. We do these things and we create all these resources inside of them. And then the only people that will ever access these resources are the people that paid to be behind that specific firewall. But you put equal effort into creating those resources.

Then what if you could sell it to everyone in your audience? And so there were these two distinct things where I was, I felt going into the shop mentality that I have all these products that never see the light of day again. And I have all of this. Lives behind a firewall, that a lot of it can be drawn out and be standalone products. So that’s how my shop really took off this year. And then since I read your emails and I follow you on Instagram and I just love I mean, I love. Everything you talk about and stop it always like it gets me very excited. And I love when people can do that to me. So here I am. You came out with this accomplished workshop series. That’s what we call it, right? Okay, So. I was probably like three or four months into really ramping up my shop and I’m clicking on your sales page for these accomplished workshops. And all I kept thinking was. That’s a lot of calls to action on one sales page. And you were very focused on selling those that you weren’t. At least the actions I wasn’t seeing. You talk about all this other stuff that you have. Like I know you have a really awesome life management binder and this membership and I was thinking she’s really missing out. And then I reached out to you and I said, I think you missing out. And I told you about my shop strategy. So from there, let’s pick this up. You went fast when I told you about this.

I did. Because kind of like you, it was I felt this frustration of I have all of these great products, but there’s not enough time to do anything with them. What excited me about what you said is it’s a way for me to get these tools to everybody that not everybody’s going to want, right? Like, there’s going to be a segment of people who want this tool and a segment of people who want that tool. And I didn’t have a way of giving people those options before. And so that’s what really made me excited is because again, because I hear from my audiences, I know what their struggles are every day. And so I would get repeated requests for a similar topic, and I would feel so, like pigeonholed in like, Yeah, I can create that. I know I can help with it, but how am I going to fit that into, You know, I would look at my launch calendar, how can I fit that into my launch calendar like I can’t? So I’m what excited me and what gave me the like lit the fire under my butt to do it so fast is I have probably 30 courses or like mini classes that are still collecting dust still like eventually I will move those all there. But I was like, Oh my gosh, I have so many resources that I know people will benefit from. I can finally get them to them. I was so excited about.

For the benefit of us, the content Hamster wheel really gets a lot easier when you can streamline into one place, but also you created these products like you said, multiple times because you genuinely want to help people and there was no way for you to get these things that you created two, three years ago back in front of people without bombarding them with 100 links. So the shop then created this centralized call to action, essentially. And I think the important thing about that is because you emailed consistently, so now you can have this like Central and you can highlight different products in there because what happens when you get to the store is the marketing on your store takes over with things like you have cross sells and order bombs and there’s all these marketing strategies you can implement. And the cool thing is, is that if they’re on an individual sales page, again, you’re dictating the only order bump that they can get versus in the shop. They can be like, Wow, like we were just talking about it earlier, the frequently bought together app, which right now is not for me. It’s at the bottom of my product listing, but it’s like when they get down there they can be like, Oh, these things go really nice together and then they can check out the next listing. Whereas in a sales page I would have had to pick one of those things to present in that set.

And what is the likelihood that you’re going to guess, Right. Like, right, the likelihood that you’re going to guess to your audiences as a whole their greatest need right now like. I mean, you can guess, but there’s still going to be a lot of people that, you know, you could help if only you had a way of saying, look at all of these solutions. What are you struggling with right now? Basically, that’s what my shop allows me to do, is say, look, I’ve been at all of this stuff. Do you struggle with time management? Do you struggle with meals? Do you struggle with, you know, kid stuff? Do you struggle with organization? You know, they can find stuff for all of them.

Is your main call to action now, then your shop Pretty much. Is that where you’re driving the majority of your email traffic?

I have not linked anybody to a lead page. I don’t think since we got this the test if we get the shop up and running. In fact, I’m just planning out quarter one right now and I’m I’m literally again, it’s not on my radar to use the sales page.

So hasn’t it made mapping out your marketing campaigns just so much easier?

Yes. Yes. Yes. And I was trying to think of under what instance I would use a lead page, like I haven’t slipped Facebook ads yet to go to the shop. And I don’t know if I will, because there’s that whole warm, cold traffic thing. Right. But it might be worth testing just because, again, the way that people are consuming content, whether they’re learning or whether they’re becoming educated, just on whether or not I’m going to purchase this product, I feel like all of my long sales pages need to be made shorter, number one, and maybe the shop is the way to go. I don’t know. I think it’s something interesting that I might think about testing. I don’t.

Know. Well, I will say I’ve actually I’ve personally never been a fan of long sales pages, and I am that person that clicks the button to get down to of drafts to the bottom so I can just see what the heck you’re asking me to pay for and like how much it is. I find long sales pages not to be effective. And I know that, you know, I also believe in testing and audiences are different. And I’ve talked to a lot of people that say, Hey, long sales pages work. The thing about the shop, what happens is it provides a consistency in product listing human brain. They don’t want to work too hard. So if you have sales pages, if you’re sending people to multiple sales pages and they look different, different length, they’re structured different based on the offer that is, you’re making people work a lot harder versus when they’re on your shop and things are consistently laid out, like the images are consistently branded. The way you write your descriptions are very systematic, which we’ve talked about doing dropdowns now for, you know, condensing our product descriptions to make it to the point. And then if they want to learn more, just like an ecom shop, like if you want to learn what that shirt’s made up, you go to the dropdown to see what makes up the shirt, you know, versus on a sales page. You scroll for days. It’s like, I feel like you lose people’s attention. You know.

I’m like you, I don’t want I’m not a fact finder. But what I love about this dropdown capabilities that now you’re talking about is it allows us to make both people happy. I’m like you. I’m like, I will know within 20 seconds of being on a website whether I’m going to buy that thing or not. In fact, might make me mad to have to read words so it can make people like you and me happy, but yet give the opportunity to the hard fact finders.

Said well funny enough I, I am I fact finder which is interesting. So I am a fact finder and follow through. I’m not a quick start. And I find it fascinating because the thing is is that I’m a height.

What lead.

Pages Well so I’m a fact finder but I find that the long sales pages are a bunch of fluff that waste my time. That’s my attitude towards it. So you don’t need to reiterate my problem like 50 times for me to understand my problem. That’s why I’m here. So let’s just and I don’t need to hear the same thing that’s included 50 times either. And that’s what these long sales pages do. They just, like, retool the same information like ten different ways. And I don’t get that. Like, just give me the facts.

And I wonder, too, if, like, you know, if we think about what has happened in the world the last couple of years, like I wonder if also people on a large, large scale now, they are more acutely aware of what their problems are and what their struggles are. And so maybe prior to the last couple of years, maybe they would need to hear it said the same thing, basically said ten different ways to pick out one that identified that they could identify with that would help them identify themselves in this product that you’re offering. But I feel like maybe because people are more acutely aware of these kinds of things where now they don’t want that, I don’t want to hear ten different times about this struggle that I’m having in slightly different ways. You know, I don’t know. I, I.

Well, so you said you’re alluding you were bringing up the question of when would you still use a lead page? And I do. I actually do have decently strong opinions on this, if you want to hear them, which is so I do believe that a typical sales funnel methodology is still very effective for bringing in people who don’t know anything about us yet. So because what it does is it gives them that hyper specific journey. If they and I’ll give you an example of how I would relate it to your business, but they come to you with this. They landed on you because you’re solving some sort of problem for them. And if you send them to your shop and they really don’t know anything about you, now you’re solving lots of problems on your shop and that can lose them because you’re giving them too many options. Whereas in a funnel, it’s, here’s your problem, I’m giving you a specific solution, I’m giving you a guided journey. And once you kind of own that relationship after that guided journey, now it’s like, Hey, let me open, open your eyes to all these other things I can help you with. So I do believe that there’s a place for both. How I can relate it to your business is you blog, right? And so you have a ton of blog posts and you get traffic to that blog post and you’re getting people who get traffic to a blog post are getting it because they’re solving a specific problem with that blog post.

So when they come in to you through there, if your main call to action. Was go to my shop, go to my shop, go to my shop. You might lose them because even though you might point to like that specific product in your shop, there’s two things. One, what if they don’t want to buy from you right away? Then there’s less of a chance of you getting that email address to own that relationship to to nurture. And then also they’re going to be able to see all the other things you have for sale, and that’s where the squirreling can happen. So I still think that. But when we think about launching, we think about launching to our warm audience. And in that regard, sending them to the shop makes a whole lot of sense. Plus you’re still training them over the time. Like now that you’re emailing consistently to the shop, you’re training people to expect to land on your shop that are in your audience. So that’s how I see it.

Appreciate it too. I mean, there are so many people who did email and I’m so glad to be able to see everything all in one place because, you know, they know I have a lot of stuff because there’s a lot of times. Yeah. I mean, I even said lots of times, yeah, I have something about that. But I haven’t even had time to tell you about that yet. And so now, like, you know, it’s like, oh, this, you know, I think they feel like they appreciate the flexibility.

Well, let me tell you, it’s funny because I find particularly working with women, I’ve worked with a lot of women who started in the blogging atmosphere with this give everything for free. And they have such a hard time charging for their expertise, which I think coming from corporate, I just did not have that so much of a problem personally. And but what I you know. What I have found through this shop is people are very grateful that you’re giving them the opportunity, because I and I know that your products are very good. I know my products are very good. People are thankful because they have these problems. And now you’re making it easier for them to get the solutions from you. They’re mad that you’re selling to them. They’re like, Wow, this is amazing. Thank you so much for offering this to me. And that I’ve found that blows the mind of a lot of my students because they’re so afraid of selling. And I’m like, selling a serving. That’s what you’re in business to do. I have a whole podcast episode in my in the Harvard Business Society about this podcast in there. And it was funny seeing the feedback from that here. I email sales emails almost every day and they’re on my email list and they don’t get mad at me about it. They’re like, I get it. Like, I’m not mad at you when you are presenting this solution to me and you’re asking me to pay you. But somehow I think people are going to get mad at me for doing the same. Yeah, it’s just not the way it works.

It is. It’s just it’s a shift that I think is easier for some people to make than others.

Yeah. So let’s say, when did you get the shop really up and running? Timeline wise.

I think it was Labor Day weekend. So it was first week in September.

And so we’re not even two full months in. So this will air in December, but we’re recording at the end of October. So we’re not even two full months into pushing the call to action to the shop. Right. Right. And how is it going?

It is going amazing. Yes, the revenue is amazing, but the the revenue is just the one part of it. You know, again, for me, the the thing I love about it the most is I have a way to connect people with what I know will help them. But like you said, it makes the planning the launch schedule easier, like the amount of stress and kind of like overwhelm with all the different options. And I think kind of even the weight that I would feel about what should I want this month, right. In looking at let’s see what time of year in it. Okay, So this is when this is probably going to be that biggest need, you know, and the revenue is just the one piece that has been such a huge benefit because it’s the it’s the weight that has been lifted off me as well. And knowing that I’m serving my audience better and then knowing again what we all like to have is a more predictable income. It is allowed me to start already kind of predicting what that income will be. And I have a big sale every weekend just, you know, and it’s like consistent now. It’s been what, six weeks of that maybe. And I’m now to the point where I feel like I can kind of guess what it’s going to do every weekend, you know, I don’t know.

So it’s interesting because once you have a few more months under you, what you’re going to find, I’m going to tell you to do this in your polyolefins. So let’s assume I was ready. I know. So I have I’m holding up literal print it sales history from Shopify right now. You can’t see because you’re listening. But I am. And what I did was once I had I think I have like seven or eight months when I did this, I printed off year to date, I sorted by total sales. So then I did every single month I print it off sort of by total sales. And then up the top on each report, I highlighted the number, so I knew how much that month made and what When I was planning my marketing calendar for October, I went back to this historical data to ask myself a couple of questions. First of all, what surprises me about what performed well? And did I have a concentrated did I send a flash sell email on that? Did I? Well, what got people to buy that on that month? The other thing I’m asking myself is, well, what have I not put in front of them in a while that performed well. So if something performed really well in April and now I’m in October and I haven’t mentioned it again yet, let’s bring that back up because it was a obviously it worked.

And then I also asked myself from there, what order bump an upsell with a catch to it. How did that perform? Because if it didn’t perform well, then I’m going to swap out what I’m using for the order bump and upsell with Honeycomb. To try to get to make it even a better flat shell than it was the last time. The more data you get, the more informed decisions you can make on your marketing calendar. And I used to fly by the seat of my pants. I never had. I always wanted a marketing marketing calendar. And I would know, like the big launches, but I didn’t have the time. There just wasn’t a consistent place to gather all the data, to look at it and be like, okay, so what should I be doing right now? Like my pals would help. But also it was hard to keep recycling things back in front of my audience. So. I would pull from three years ago and be like, Oh, I haven’t talked about that in three years. And now instead of it being I haven’t talked about that in three years, I can be like, Oh, it did really well in May. Let me get it back in front of people in October. Whereas you probably were experiencing the same thing. There were things that you talked about in years. Oh, for sure.

For sure. And there were things that, again, I never had the time to launch. So the only place they ever lived before that was like on an order bump or an upsell like via drive cart. That’s like they have never been products that could be purchased except for that before. So there was such limited entry points too.

So one of your main it sounds like one of the main methodologies you’re using is similar to our fire. So I had told you that and this was just out of nowhere that I decided to really kick off the shop out of frustration. I was just super frustrated going into 2022. And the one thing I knew, and I can thank you for this, it’s actually like Roundabout comes back to you. I know that the emails I’m more likely to open are the consistent emails that show up in my inbox at the same time. So like you, Abby Lawson is another one. It’s funny because like, I am a big organizer, but I wouldn’t say it would be like a main topic I follow. But because she has emailed me at 9 a.m. on a Saturday for the last nine years, I open that email. I’m expecting it in my inbox. Same with you at night. And so I knew when I wanted to start regularly getting people back into the shop that I wanted to send a deal. At the same time every week. And I wasn’t going to tell people I was going to do it. They would just come to expect it. I never said a word. I just. 3 p.m. on Friday or Friday comes out and the whole point of the fry is to get them into the shop on a really great offer. But of course we want them to add more. So it sounds like you’re doing that. But on the weekends.

Yes. Yeah. So that was a brain shift for me, right? Was to deeply, deeply discount one product. And sometimes for me it might be two depending on it’s kind of like two things are overlapping. But you know, to deeply discount that one product because again, what we’re trying to do is there’s also a large segment that’s on my email list, that’s on your email list who have never purchased anything. And I know that my paid products are worth purchasing. And so to get them in, you know, on a super, super great deal and maybe make turning non purchaser into a purchaser, you know, there’s just there’s so many benefits to do it. But I will say that was a brain thing for me was to take something and make it such a good deal. But again, like you, it’s scheduled, it’s on the weekend. They know to expect it. And so, you know, it’s done really well. And like you say, there’s not very many people who come in and just get that one product.

Exactly. So one of the things that I feel like before having the shop and it seems like we. Connect on. This is the reason I’m so passionate about talking about it is because the way typical e commerce, physical products, the way they teach to use storefronts like I’m doing right now is they have inventory, they have shipping they have to worry about. They have these fixed costs associated with each product that we simply don’t on info products. When you create it, you put the labor in upfront. And of course there’s like ongoing customer service labor that goes in. But essentially if you bought them out a price on a product, you’re not hurting anyone because you’re not shipping it, it’s not sitting in a warehouse somewhere. And so you don’t have those fixed costs associated with it. And what I have found consistently is that going to the mentality from what every product is priced at and caring so much about that and instead looking at it as what’s my average order value and how do I increase that? Because if I can predict how many people I can get to the shop and I’m working on increasing my average order value, and then by nature of that, my average customer value, because repeat customers matter, then when you change your mind to focus on that number instead of focusing on, Oh my gosh, I can’t believe people just paid $17 for something they should have paid 97 for.

It’s like, who cares? Because at the end of the day, if your average order value is tracking where you need it to to hit your revenue goals, that’s all that matters. And that was a huge, huge shift for me. It kind of actually blows my mind. Now, we also found and this might be interesting for you, I don’t know, because we have more data than you at this point, but you might find this as you go along. So the important thing is, is to get people to actually take action into the shop. Like the first hurdle is getting them to actually click right. So you want to get the super compelling offer. Well, if our offer was over $100, our click through rate went super down, which is interesting because we know if we can get people in the shop, they likely will spend more than $100. It was just that we had a I had a hard time with that one because I’m like, I don’t think we would give a super awesome deal on something. And I’m like, this is why aren’t people clicking? And finally, I just had to come to the conclusion what gets them to click is a low price offer.

And I think that, you know, we’ve talked before. I think that’s, again, a shift that has happened in the last two or three years and is continuing to gain momentum, I think with the uncertainty with the economy and just you know, there’s just a lot more uncertainty. And so I think that the way that people initially think about buying something, they’re more reserved. But when it comes down to actually buying this stuff, I don’t think that their spending habits have really changed. But part of taking them from a non buyer to a buyer that fertile has had to become smaller.

Agreed. I agree. That is exactly what I’m seeing. And it’s interesting because right now I’m focused on be it a be small business or small business and you have a consumer market and we have consumer products that they’re not our main focus. We don’t lead with them at this point, and we’re both seeing the same thing. The same exact.

Thing. And it makes sense because we are all facets of people, all little pockets of all the different people. We’re all living in the same world, right? There’s I think there’s very few people who are unfazed or unaffected by just what is happening in the world these days. And so it is going to affect everyone spending. So it’s just it’s amazing how I’m seeing that. But what you’re saying is correct. They’re spending as much. I’m finding they’re spending as much, if not more, doing it in smaller bite sized pieces than they would in one packaged together bulk price, which is something I’m going to continue to explore more know.

Yeah. So as you build the repeat buyers, that average customer value which is different than average order value because order value, I mean even our upsells, when they take it in Shopify, they create another order. So your average order value is important, which by the way, is what Shopify leads with. But I have found being a digital product seller with a really good warm audience, that you have the average customer value increasing that matters more. Not an easy number to get to in Shopify Analytics. So spoiler alert, I use an app called Data Export, which has helped significantly with that, but that’s what I have found has been a major focus. So final question, do you have now you’re like six, seven, eight weeks into doing this, What’s like your next iteration? What do you think you’re going to try? Do you have anything on the horizon that you’re excited to try out in the shop that is like new and exciting to you?

I think I’m going to do I do have a few of those. What’s the correct term that Shopify uses with or Honeycomb uses where you have the replacement product, like the upsell that becomes the replacement?

I think they call it. What do they call it? I don’t know. It is they might call it a cross-sell, but it’s like different. It’s weird, but basically it replaces.

So I think it might be an upsell. And the other kind is a cross-sell.

So cross-sell is when it adds an additional thing to the car and upsell in their methodology. And their language is when it swaps for.

Yes, I think that’s correct. I want to tap into that more because I think that’s really, really powerful. But by default, I’m going to be tapping into that more because I am going to be taking some of my bigger products, dividing them up into that smaller hurdle that we talked about. And so because I’m going to be breaking that some of that apart by default, I’m going to be utilizing that feature of Shopify a lot more because it is going to be to someone’s benefit when they’re going to purchase two or three of something. But there’s five pieces that all go together. It is going to be to their benefit to buy it that way. So, so I’m excited to explore that more. I only have that in a few select. It has worked well when I’ve done it, so I’m excited about that. And I also just started thinking about and I know that you talked about this, I feel like in your workshop where you talk about it, but I’m kind of wondering if there’s a feature within Shopify. I’m wondering if I want to have a free tab. I know that you had thoughts about that, and if your thoughts about that are still kind of the same. And I’m wanting.

To sell like a free, like basically like an opt in mentality where they can like get a free printable is something.

Like a piece of something that then they could purchase, you know, just a small taste of it. Kind of like in my shop, I have $5 bundles, so probably not as robust as that because the $5 bundles still have seven or eight pages in most of them, but even smaller than that, just to let them try out the little the really magical pieces of certain products that I feel like if they could just try it, it would make them want the rest for free.

For free or something. Yeah. Interesting. Well, one thing though, the practical thing that comes to mind is if you’re going to have ads that ever run to your shop, it will fire. And I know you probably know this from all of our time running Facebook ads and trying to optimize it over the years. It will fire, to my understanding, the purchase pixel, but on a $0 and that can mess up your purchase pixel with that. That’s something. So if ads are going to be a play in your store, you’re going to want to keep that in mind. So, you know, I honestly, for some reason, the free thing in the shop doesn’t resonate with me. I would almost rather do it a dollar, a dollar, and then all those upsells in order bumps because at least you’re collecting the payment method and it makes it much easier for them to add these things on. Then with your marketing triggers.

Yeah, that’s true. That’s true. Another thing I wanted to explore is if we can create like a start here journey where if we were going to use our our shop or cold traffic, they could still, you know almost like the about we like make you know, someone doesn’t have to learn about me but if it is if it’s cool traffic and they do want to know who is this person. You know I was thinking about maybe creating like a journey in my shop. Still like having a journey piece.

Okay, so we recently have started to do this because we found the same thing. So by nature of even though we have a focus on getting our email traffic, people who already know us, their effect the matter is you’re still going to be indexed on Google. We actually been ranking for some search terms unintentionally because we write product descriptions that have keywords. Just that’s natural, right? Because by because our products are solving a problem. So the problem with the keyword and the description, so you’re going to get Google Traffic affiliates is another big thing. So, you know, there’s lots of people that want to recommend or send people to your shop. So you’re as you keep promoting your shop to your warm audience, cold people are going to come. So we are running into the same issue because we’re like, wow, we have like 100 products. And no matter how we divide out these collections and the menu, the fact of the matter is that’s going to be overwhelming to someone who doesn’t know us. So what I did was I took all of our products that were in the shop at the time, and I divided them out into where they’d be on their journey. So like getting started with digital products, how to sell digital products, templates to help with that, whatever it might organize in your business.

So I divided it out into like the main topics and then we created a start here. It’s the first tab in the store and the dropdown are like the major topics that we cover and we didn’t want to overwhelm on the topic. So even though like 20 products could fit into one of those categories, it was like the core ones that would help them get. Accomplish that, that topic. And so now that you’ve mentioned this, we did this like a month and a half ago. One of the things that we use is Hotjar on the shop. So I can see how people navigate through our store. So I actually don’t know how it’s been going. To be honest with you also, because I don’t even know how many technical cold people come into my shop at this point. I anecdotally know people are because I see Google search counsel and stuff like that. But that’s something that I want to dig further into as well. I think that there’s I honestly think at the end of the day, even your shop is a buying journey, like the way we see sales funnels. It’s the same, it’s the same. It’s still a buying journey. You want to take people on in the shop. It’s just how you’re going to lay it out is different.

Yeah, and I think what I’ve discovered too, that I’m actually going to be doing here in the next couple of weeks is I feel like I need and maybe this is just the way my brain works, but just like I told you, I needed to know what my purpose was or my goal or my objective was for my email list, I feel like I want to know what my objective is with my shop. Obviously, besides the obvious, like what is my goal there? And I think really where I’m kind of going to end up landing is my shop is going to be the quick place to come to kind of get, you know, solve your quick like whatever your struggles are right now. Come into the shop, find which struggle you’re struggling with and just, you know, any time. So like what you’re struggling with today might be different than what you’re struggling with three weeks from now. So what I want to do is I want to my hope is that, again, I think this is going to be where I land, is that my my audience is when they notice that they’re having a consistent struggle after a week or two. Ha! I wonder if Jennifer has something about this. Let’s go to the shop and see if there’s something that will help me solve this. Like, that’s kind of what I mean by journey is that they’re seeing the shop as a gateway to tools that can that they’re used to being able to almost always come there and find a tool that will help them solve whatever it is they might be dealing with.

That’s a really good way to look at it. Is it linked in the bottom of all your emails? The shop with.

Me. But it’s not. It’s just very like building that up as well and figuring out how I would fit that into like my welcome sequence and stuff. Again, not introducing them to early because I agree with the fact that, you know, if, you know in the first week or two weeks you send them to the shop where there’s all these options, like I would rather have a more customized path for them. Like this is really the path I would like for you to take. And after you get on that path and let’s open things up a little bit, I agree with all of that, but that’s where I feel like creating this purpose for my shop club so I can start kind of talking about my shop, not talking about the shop, but talking about the journey that the shop is going to take them on before they actually get to the shop.

Yeah, that makes sense. No, I get that. It does. It does. Especially because you email every day and that actually very naturally, it’s one thing. I mean, you’re good at a lot of things. One thing you’re definitely good at is really naturally working things in, in the story. And I think that there’s because of the nature of your products, solving a lot of these problems that you talk about in your nightly email, you can work that in like even just to say, Yeah, you know, I put this in the shop because I realized that it could really help the struggle that I’m going through. And so, you know, I put it up just like in passing, just so they know, like, wow, she’s has the struggle. She came up with a solution. She put it in her shop. Like just mentioning that in passing, it will click with people.

Yeah, I’m finding a lot more value in seating in general, even if I’m not providing a way to purchase or learn anything about what I’m seeing here in this little sentence. Within the context of the story that I’m telling, I have not been doing it diligently enough for long enough. But I know that, like as a consumer, when I’ve been seated about something and stated about something, I know how that is effective for me. And again, it’s not even about the marketing. I’m excited for the solution. By the time it’s been seated enough, I’m no longer thinking about how much is that going to cost me. I’m just thinking about the solution that I’ve been waiting for. It’s finally here now and I’m so excited because I don’t have to wait anymore.

You know, I think that that’s a really good thing. When I look at why some people are successful this and some are not. At the end of day, we are in business and I’m a big fan of like, I don’t feel bad. Making money because that’s what a business does and the business also supports. I’ve talked about this a lot. Employees and other things like when you make money, you can actually do a lot of good with the money. So that’s what business says. We make money and that’s what we’re a business to do. But for me, like you, if I can’t connect to how I’m helping, like the bigger thing that I’m doing, I’m not motivated by that money alone. Does it make me motivated to show up and do this day after day? So having that bigger purpose that connect to. Is I feel like when people don’t have that, that’s when they have lackluster results.

Yeah, I totally agree. I mean, the biggest what I love the most about what I do is I experienced it just the other day when someone was we were having a conversation. I was talking about how like I just decided the whole list I made for today, like, I’m not doing it like I’m not because I don’t feel like it. And and she’s like, wow. She’s like, That makes me feel so much better to know that you do that. Because just like when I look at your Instagram stories and stuff, like, I feel like you’re doing all of these things. And I said, okay, so I am. Maybe that’s how it looks to you, but maybe it’s nothing like what I thought my day was going to be right. And so it was just that whole conversation. Like when I know that I have made someone else feel better or like there’s nothing wrong with for whatever they’re beating themselves up about, that’s what lights my fire. That’s what brings me back to work every day. It’s it’s it’s not the dollar signs. It’s not it’s. It’s knowing that I could help somebody feel more validated, less judged, and like giving them permission to be more who they are without feeling like they have to be this ideal perfection out there.

And really, and then a day money is a means to an end. Like you can’t be providing this to the people that you are. If you weren’t making money because you had nine kids and a husband and a house to take care of, to which, you know, like there that I always say that I tell people all the time, I genuinely love what I do, but I could not do it if I wasn’t making money because I could not sit in this chair to do it if I was not making money. I have to pay for other things to happen around me in order to make this happen. Like someone to watch my child before she went to preschool. You know, for me that was at least necessary. I know that I. Well, you have older kids, too, so that might help. But we all have things like, I can’t be in this seat every day providing value and helping people do what that I help them to do if I was not making money. That’s just the reality of it. There’s nothing to feel bad about that. They go hand in hand. Really?

Yeah. Yeah. It’s just we all do that with our job that we go to and punch a time clock or work for a boss. It’s the same thing. Yeah. Our audience is who we’re doing the work for. We’re not doing it for a boss.

Yes, I love this. I could talk to you forever, but of course, like to listen to show notes. But where can people find you?

Well, the easiest place to find me is the shop. So it’s shop. The intentional romcom. Like, if you’re looking for what I have, it’s shop the intentional mom dot com and all of my blog is at the intentional mom dot com. And if you’re looking for me on Instagram, I’m the intentional mom blog on Instagram.

Yes. And we’ll definitely link to all this. And I highly suggest two things to everyone. One, follow her on Instagram, love her stories, and then you’ll be like, Wow, I really don’t know how she does all this. And then you’re gonna want to buy her products because then you’re gonna want to figure out how she does it all and to get on the email list, because, I mean, most people listening are marketers because I always say if you’re in business, you’re a marketer, so you are a marketer. And the way you do your nightly emails is genius. And I feel like it’s a strategy very few people use and you could learn a lot from it. So those would be my two calls to action, her Instagram and her email.

Awesome. Thanks for having me. This has been so fun. I could talk to you for hours too. I think we could do this once a week.

We could. Thank you so much. I really appreciate it.

Yeah. You’re welcome.

I hope you love the interview with Jennifer as much as I did. She is genuinely one of my favorite people to work with, and she just does amazing things. So I really hope you go and check out her shop and see what she’s doing. And also, I wanted to remind you that we are hosting a live event called the Digital Shop Experience January 16th through the 20th of 2023, and this is where I’m going to be taking you behind the scenes of all of the things that we have done to build our own Shopify store to six figures in just six months. And in this experience, I’m going to be walking you through how I’m going to do it in a brand new shop, a brand new digital product shop that I am launching at the same time. So you’re going to get in real time a look into how we’re going to make this happen. And you can follow along so you can launch your own six figure digital product shop. So I want you to head on over to Empowered Business dot Co forward slash experience. We will link that in the show notes for you as well. That’s where you can learn all about the live experience that we are running January 16, the 20th and Jennifer. Will actually be there for this. She signed up and she is coming. So it’s going to be a great time and I hope to see you there if you have any questions at all about it. There is a chat button on that page so you can message me at any time and I’ll get back to you. Also, just a reminder, this is the last episode in this four part series on how we pivot it in 2022 with the digital product shop. We’ll be back in the New year. And until then, I would love for you to connect with us on Instagram. It is Monica dot fros fr0se. I would love to see you there. I read all my messages there and I respond. And so let’s stay connected and I will see you in the new year and hopefully in the experience.