It’s no secret that conversion rate optimization (CRO), is an essential part of business strategy in this digital age. No matter your business model, your online presence is imperative to your success.
Marketers have known this for decades. But optimizing a site for the customer’s journey can’t just be intuited out of thin air. Every action a potential customer makes on the website is a part of their personal journey, and small changes can make a big difference when looking at the site holistically. The ease of a customer’s journey is essential in turning potential customers into active, happy customers.
CRO is the process of removing barriers to conversion, enticing action, and creating an overall positive page experience for your customers.
It’s easy to think there’s some kind of “magic bullet” when it comes to CRO-- a tried and true formula that produces immediate results for every industry and website. Unfortunately, there’s not. Instead, the true secret to CRO is knowing what to test and how to test it. You need intuition to know what to test, but sometimes the results of those tests will surprise you.
CRO testing is a quantifiable way to discover what is truly working on your site and what is not. It will save you money in the long term, with the potential to increase your revenue in the short term. Plus, you’ll learn things about your customers that you never imagined.
KOIO sells handcrafted Italian leather shoes. Their boots had hit a wall: they had consistent traffic viewing their product pages, however these users rarely added products to their cart. They were unsure what they could do to turn more visitors into customers, so they came to 97th Floor with the goal of capturing more users who were bouncing from their pages.
97th Floor knew KOIO’s situation and recommended a CRO campaign to provide actionable insight as to what site changes would produce the most dramatic results. They are a B2C business whose primary customer is a luxury audience willing to purchase products at a high price point. As a result of the average product price, revenue increases were closely tied to higher conversion rates. This made CRO an incredibly effective strategy in achieving their goals.
Audit: First, 97th Floor analyzed KOIO’s site and noted points of the customer’s journey with the highest potential for improvement. We worked to understand what bumps in the customer journey might cause potential customers to leave the purchase pages prematurely (and why). We did this by actively seeing things through the customer’s eyes. With the customer’s journey in mind, we identified areas where we could improve or modify KOIO’s current value propositions and CTAs.
Another site variation we were especially interested in was understanding the behaviors of their mobile and desktop users. Nearly 70% of users on KOIO’s site are on mobile devices, so we wanted to know: how effective was KOIO’s site for mobile users?
Using the findings from the audit, we made tactical hypotheses about what changes would best improve conversion rates. Then we designed a campaign to test which elements were the most potent forces for conversion.
Based on the specific situation and KOIO’s unique goals, we recommended multivariate testing-- a type of CRO in which several different variations are tested simultaneously and data is collected about each variation’s effectiveness.
Hypothesis: In order to optimize the testing process, we gave each of our hypotheses a score based on which ones we expected to perform the best. We thought about user experience, and the messaging they were exposed to on the product level. Then we scored them as to how likely the change was to increase the likelihood of sales. After our ranking evaluation, we placed each hypothesis on a priority road map to be sure that the majority of our resources focused on testing the highest potential variations.
Tests: After we’d formed our strategy, it was time to start testing. In order to be most efficient with our client’s budget, we set an appropriate timeframe for running tests, and determined to only continue running the tests that showed significant improvements. More traffic means faster results, and because our previous SEO strategy was already bringing in the traffic we needed, the results came quickly. For this test, getting significant results took about two weeks.
In addition, we ran two separate tests: one on the desktop site, and the other on mobile. For both tests, we kept the content nearly identical, but altered the placement of different elements as outlined above-- more on the importance of this strategy later.
As these tests were running, we monitored the results to evaluate trends and pivot as needed. For example, one of the tested variants (making “free shipping and returns” float) quickly showed that the results wouldn’t be helpful, so that variant was stopped.
Once the tests were in place, the results began rolling in.
If you remember, we started with five hypotheses and dropped one (that was clearly showing negative results). The four test variants that continued all resulted in positive lift percentages on the desktop test. The highest of these increases was a jaw-dropping 28.5%. Now, let’s emphasize that having several high performing variants is an unusual occurrence in CRO. Usually one variant pulls ahead as the clear leader. We were delighted to see that in this case, every variant was a positive one. This is a good reason to run multiple tests, so you get a clear picture of what is possible, rather than running the risk of missing something in testing a single hypothesis.
The highest individual increase was a 52% revenue increase for the variant in which we removed the financing option. This particular variant also brought us new information about KOIO’s customers-- their luxury audience did not respond as well to the product when asked if they’d like to choose a financing option. This is a valuable insight into how their customers want to be addressed and treated. However, if we had not run these tests it would have been easy to overlook a small detail like this, without which we would have lost both the 52% increase, and the valuable insight into our customer’s desires.
KOIO also gained valuable insight into their customers’ mobile experience as a result of CRO testing. A common misstep in any sort of multivariate testing is to run a desktop test, and blanket apply the findings to both the desktop and mobile versions of the site. Fortunately, 97th Floor knew better. We tested the mobile and desktop experiences separately, allowing us to see distinctions in desktop and mobile behavior. Our client was then able to take this information and create a plan for a separate mobile-optimized site.
With this information, we organized the product pages to better serve the customers, and the rest is history.
The total result for all of the variants combined was a 29% increase in revenue in 18 days. Those kinds of growth numbers are worth stopping for: CRO is no joke. Because of these higher conversion rates, our client experienced more than a quarter jump in sales and the bounce rate dropped significantly. Most importantly, KOIO now has a clear game plan based on solid data that they will use to maximize their revenue into the future.
KOIO is now bringing in more revenue than ever, because of the simple steps they took with us to optimize their site for their customers.
CRO has the potential to provide businesses with actionable insights that make a real impact — but it must be done right. Testing backs up intuition, and the two make an unstoppable CRO pair.
Last week, Google announced a new set of metrics that will play an integral part in the future of Google’s algorithm called, Core Web Vitals. Google is giving a whopping 6+ months head’s up for SEOs and webmasters, and it looks like we’re going to need it.
This update will not take effect until 2021.
From Google, “The ranking changes described… will not happen before next year, and we will provide at least six months notice before they’re rolled out.”
I’ll go into it in detail later on the Core Web Vitals, but they are essentially an organized set of loadability metrics Google believes contribute to positive user experience. These contribute to the encompassing term from Google, page experience, which is core to this upcoming update.
At a glance, page experience is a set of signals that measure how users interact with a web page beyond its strictly informative elements. It includes Core Web Vitals, which is a set of metrics that measure real-world user experience for loading performance, interactivity, and visual stability of the page. Once this update rolls out, Google will be combining the Core Web Vitals ranking signals with the existing Search signals of mobile-friendliness, safe-browsing, HTTPS, and intrusive interstitial guidelines in order to create a more complete and measurable picture of the user’s on-page experience.
The focus on page experience seems to be a signal from Google that holistic SEO matters more now than ever. It’s clear that content or links alone don’t determine the ranking of a given webpage, although Google has made it clear that content still plays a vital role in the future of the core algorithm.
A good page experience doesn’t override having great, relevant content. However, in cases where there are multiple pages that have similar content, page experience becomes much more important for visibility in Search.
Content still tops the list when optimizing a page or site, but it seems page experience can solve tie-breaker situations.
Core Web Vitals are encompassed within Google’s definition of page experience. At this time, it appears that three vitals will be measured when this core update launches:
Google has made it clear that this list is not set in stone, and there could be new metrics added to this group down the line. 97th Floor will continue to give updates on Core Web Vitals as more information is made known, and we have more time to test.
SEOs have long been able to use tools provided by Google like Page Speed Insights, Google Search Console, and Chrome User Experience Report. As of last week, they have each been updated with new elements pertaining to the Core Web Vitals.
Marketing leaders need to ensure that their SEOs and development team members are properly integrated to ensure the testing, and execution of these improvements take place.
The world has at least 7 months before this rolls out, but that’s no reason to sit until that time comes. Because much of what will go into page experience will require web developers to optimize, it’s critical that SEOs begin having those conversations now to ensure they have the bandwidth for technical fixes in the months to come.
Curious SEOs have already started digging into the tools provided by Google to see how their site’s fare:
Effective immediately 97th Floor is including LCP, FID, and CLS into our site audits for all clients. Of course, Google has mentioned that the effects of these fixes will not directly help sites until the update officially rolls out in 2021, but some sites could see longer runways to rollout than others, and henceforth will require ample time to execute fixes. We recommend SEOs begin utilizing their Google testing tool of choice.
For the next six months double down on content that cuts to the heart of the user’s questions. I suggest SEOs review high traffic pages and ensure that new content conveys clear messaging and gives users a reason to stay on the page.
For example, if your web page has a chart that lists out the qualifying times for the Boston Marathon, turn that into a calculator, provide graphics that illustrate training regimens, and link to your existing articles about the Boston Marathon.
One way that you can identify the pages that could use the most attention would be to hop into Google Analytics and filter down to Google / organic pages that have a session duration that is below the average session duration for your site. This list could then be sorted by the ones that have been getting the most conversions in order to ensure you’re prioritizing the pages that will drive the most return for your site going forward.
I’d also add one last plug for SEOs to continue optimizing sites for the areas Google has called out in previous updates like mobile-friendliness, safe browsing, HTTPS security, and intrusive interstitials so that once the update goes live, you’ll be ahead of the curve on those areas as well.
As a whole, SEOs should take time with each initiative they undertake to ask themselves, “is this creating a better user experience?” Gone are the days when SEO was only concerned with acquiring links, and creating good title tags. SEOs need to appeal to the human algorithm more and more, which means they need to understand their unique audience and create an experience tailored to their needs.
As if the world needed more change at the moment, Google announced a new core algorithm update on May 4th and began rolling it out last week — completely disrupting many SERPs and websites in the process.
SEOs can expect 2-4 core updates like this one each year, but this update reaches wider and cuts more severely than most. Core Google algorithm updates can take as long as two weeks to roll out completely, but so far we’ve seen this wave begin in earnest on May 4th and hit hard again on May 8th.
The May 2020 Core Update is now rolling out live. As is typical with these updates, it will typically take about one to two weeks to fully roll out.
— Google SearchLiaison (@searchliaison) May 4, 2020
The effects of this update have been fierce, with some SEOs around the web reporting that it feels more like a penalty than an algorithm update. For some, the negative effects have felt even more insulting given the timing, but of course, where there are losers, there are also a few winners.
The impact seems generally industry agnostic, with all industries seeing fairly similar volatility rates (for better or for worse). However, while SEOs around the globe are reporting fluctuations across virtually all industries, there seems to be a concentration in the chatter around real estate, health, and travel.
There’s no shortage of findings here, but one example worth discussing is news-medical.net (and other health/medical sites), who are seeing a dramatic return to a higher status. News-medical.net is one of many sites who was hit with harsh ranking and traffic drops after Google’s Medic Update in August of 2018.
It’s also fascinating to see lexico.com, oxforddictionary.com, and encyclopedia.com as winners in this turnout given their potential for exposure based on the sheer volume of these sites. In theory all three of these sites are meeting very similar needs in SERPs, yet all three has seen drastic increases.
Perhaps not quite as surprising is seeing sites like beachbodyondemand.com and yogainternational.com leading the pack given that they have risen in popularity organically during these times of isolation.
As for the traffic losers, the theme is more obvious. Streaming, be it video (twitch.tv) or music (allmusic.com, iheart.com, and spotify.com), are all taking notable hits. This is especially strange because one can assume that (like the fitness websites above) these sites should be receiving more visits than ever during times of isolation.
While this list is far from comprehensive, it does shed light on the notable sites who have seen the largest decreases in organic reach with Google. Websites seeing negative outcomes from this update should identify competitor sites or related industry sites who have fared better, and work to determine the difference between their site’s keywords, structure, backlink profile, content quality, and overall EAT (expertise, authority, and trust) and those of the competition. This should lead to a number of actionable SEO recommendations.
SEOs familiar with Google updates know that not much official advice comes from Google when a core algorithm update rolls out.
We know those with sites that experience drops will be looking for a fix, and we want to ensure they don’t try to fix the wrong things. Moreover, there might not be anything to fix at all.
Google adds, “There’s nothing wrong with pages that may perform less well in a core update.”
With vague (and some could say, disheartening) advice like this, it’s natural to want to throw in the towel after devastating losses. But it’s important to remember that these core updates happen multiple times a year, giving SEOs plenty of opportunity to reevaluate their site’s structure, keyword targeting, backlink profile, and quality of content in preparation for the next update.
Smart SEOs are taking this time to reevaluate the on- and off-page metrics and models of their competitors who have won out their SERPs so that they can get a fresh view on what options might be most effective in regaining lost ground. As Google’s core algorithm updates mature, the fixes and actions for SEOs will become more nuanced and specific to the site and SERP, and simple advice like clean up your backlink profile, or have better EAT won’t produce the same value it did in the past.
97th Floor is searching through our client’s analytics and rankings to identify any sites that have seen a negative impact in order to uncover a discernible reasoning behind those whose rankings sunk versus those who were lifted higher. However, we haven’t found any websites with starkly negative results. In fact, most have increased during this shakeup.
This could be indicative of our holistic approach to SEO strategies over a one size fits all tactic. In addition to the above recommendations from the industry, we add that a holistic SEO strategy will beat out a fad fix in the long run every time.
A holistic SEO strategy focuses on the core disciplines of SEO:
Because our clients have fared comparatively well over this set of core updates, we believe that SEOs should be focusing on a comprehensive strategy in addition to fixing the obvious errors on their sites. This is the SEO strategy that will allow sites to weather any algorithm storm and come out strong on the other side.
If you have any questions about this update or want to chat about what we can do to help you be better prepared for the next core update, we’re here for you.
Comments or questions? Hit me up on Twitter.
Google wants to help people find the most accurate and relevant information possible, and with all the changes surrounding COVID-19 this is more true than ever. At 97th Floor, we want to ensure that SEO strategies are adjusting to the recent industry changes as well. Here’s a breakdown of some Google My Business tips, along with some suggestions for SEO strategy you can incorporate into your current digital marketing plan.
In Google My Business accounts, you will now see a new option to mark your business temporarily closed. Many businesses have been closed because of this pandemic sweeping the world, and many people are unsure of what is still operating at this time. This button is an easy way for businesses to communicate with Google (and by extension, their customers) about the current status of the operation.
The types of businesses that could benefit from this would be restaurants, event venues, theaters, or any other business that have to close its doors due to social distancing. If your business has temporarily adjusted hours and non-persistent closures, you can also use the Special Hours feature to keep your customers up to date.
Google just released the following statement regarding functionality limitations for Google My Business:
During the unprecedented COVID-19 situation, we are taking steps to protect the health of our team members and reduce the need for people to come into our offices. As a result, there may be some temporary limitations and delays in support as we prioritize critical services.
Our current focus is on the quality and reliability of information on Google Search and Maps. We want to ensure users and business owners have access to essential features like whether the business is open or has special hours. Learn about best practices for affected businesses, and what you can do to keep your customers informed.
Below is a summary of the limitations as well as what they mean for your brand:
It looks like Google is hoping to get things back to normal as soon as possible, but for now this will be the new normal.
Conferences, events, and other professional gatherings have also seen significant impacts because of COVID-19. As we try to flatten the curve, many events have changed plans to protect attendees from being infected. A new schema update allows publishers to share the status of their event with their users, without having to remove it from the event experience. Using the schema.org eventStatus property will allow you to mark events as canceled, postponed, rescheduled, or moved online. Likely those same businesses who are having to temporarily close their doors or adjust their hours should also look into using this markup for their events, where it applies. This is all outlined in greater detail on Google’s webmaster blog.
If your team can afford to invest in SEO, I’d recommend you still keep your foot on the gas pedal where possible. This is largely due to the fact that once this virus has been contained and the pandemic is over, the market/demand will return. Once that happens, you want to be sure your business is ready to take part (from an SEO perspective).
For example, if you are a niche ecommerce brand and sales are currently down, you’ll first want to take care of your people and customers. Once you’ve done that, you can pivot your organic strategy to focus more on building your brand’s topic dominance via new content. This content should address topics relevant not only to your brand, but also to the way your customers are being impacted by the pandemic. While all these pieces are gaining traction and organic strength, you can utilize internal linking. Linking from these posts to other focus pages on your site will ensure the organic momentum you’re building is being passed on to those key pages essential to your customer journey.
As an agency, we completely understand that running and maintaining an SEO campaign can be costly. And if your business has been negatively impacted by this pandemic, here are some free tools I’d recommend in order to help lessen the financial burden of continuing your SEO efforts:
Running an SEO strategy during a pandemic is challenging to say the least. We acknowledge all SEO practitioners out there who are rolling up their sleeves and getting to work even with the recent changes in the market. It’s safe to say that no one has gone through this situation before — we’re all pandemic SEO noobs. But as we all come together and make sharing information a priority, we’ll be able create a better search experience for users and our clients.
Too often marketers rely on instinct to create content. As a result, content is less engaging and we have to produce more of it to make up for that lack of performance. In this clip from the 2019 ContentTECH Summit, Paxton Gray - VP of Operations at 97th Floor - shares how marketers can access hidden treasure troves of data, which will help them to create content their audience will love.
At 97th Floor we love to talk shop. We also love to talk about pop culture, and you better believe that television tropes are frequent points of discussion. You may have heard of the classic trope known as, A.I. is a crapshoot. It’s the scenario where a supposed perfectly created artificial intelligence rises up, and ultimately leads to humanity's demise — or at the very least ruins someone’s day.
This isn’t a new concept. In fact, it features (in varying degrees) in some of the worlds most well known movies and television franchises: Terminator, The Matrix, Avengers: Age of Ultron, 2001: A Space Odyssey, TRON, Logan’s Run, Battlestar Galactica, Dr. Who, and the list continues on until you get to the genteel Pixar classic, WALL-E (I am of course referring to the evil co-pilot robot, not the cute one that saves the world).
If pop culture is any indication, it’s pretty clear that we, as a collective whole, have trust issues when it comes to cold, soulless data. But if that’s the case, then why are marketers so keen on putting the numbers in charge?
Now, don’t get me wrong; I love data. But I have to love data. A digital marketer literally cannot function without data. So when I see “data-driven” on a resume or across an agency’s site, it’s almost like they’re saying nothing at all.
It’s like seeing a pizzeria advertising that they use dough on all of their pizzas. I mean, sure, it’s better than the alternative (although dough-less pizza would be a big hit with the keto crowd). It’s probably just not something that needs to be advertised. It’s a pizzeria; even without being told, we’re already pretty sure that dough is part of the equation.Data and modern marketing are inseparable. So stop bragging about it.
Additionally, I believe there’s a growing flaw in the data-driven mindset, namely that data becomes a dictator in the strategy. But handing over the reigns to analytics programs is exactly how LA got cremated inTerminator, and doing the same thing with marketing strategies is only slightly less careless.
If you’ve ever read a terribly unhelpful blog post, you could probably trace it back to some SEO who saw a valuable long-tail keyword, and then threw together some heavily optimized (but ultimately worthless) dumpster fire of content designed to capture it. Or, if you’ve ever been accosted over email relentlessly asking for a purchase with varying price discounts, it’s probably because the data said that users make purchase after 14.2 emails, which led a marketing automation specialist to believe that hitting you up on a daily basis would make you convert faster.
And yes, obviously analytical insights are invaluable. And strategies built exclusively on data can even work sometimes. But the returns will seldom stack up to what you can get with a flesh-and-blood marketer calling the shots. The point is that data doesn’t run marketing strategy for humans. Humans make campaigns for humans, and we need to keep it that way.
In other words, you never put the robot in charge of the nukes, and you don’t let a spreadsheet do your marketing for you.
The same logic applies to every marketing convention that gets codified as "best practice." Once something earns that label, it belongs to everyone — which means it belongs to no one's advantage. Udi Ledergor, former CMO at Gong and B2B marketing strategist, makes the case that the marketers who win aren't following the consensus — they're the ones who acted before it formed. This short video captures why arriving at a best practice on time is usually arriving too late.
But PJ, you’re in digital marketing. Are you saying you ‘don’t use data?’
No. I’m not saying that I don’t use data. Quite the contrary, we need data. We rely on it — always have, and always will. In fact, let me tell you a story:
In the first version of competitive research I ran at 97th Floor, we collected 43 metrics for each result on the first page of Google, plus the page we were trying to rank.
Don’t worry, I’ll do the math for you: That’s 473 different cells being manually populated. And when I say manually, I really do mean manually. We used 10 different tools to get everything we needed. Metrics ranged from word count, to load time, to followed backlinks, to Google+ shares (do you feel old yet?). A single SERP would take someone 1.5 – 3 hours. Let’s just say I got through a lot of podcasts during this method of competitive research.
And while time consuming, this method of data mining was therapeutic, restful, even invigorating. The process of gathering data by hand was lengthy, but every hour in the trenches saved weeks of bad strategy.
A lot has changed since then at 97th Floor, we’ve scaled that research process into our suite of proprietary software. Now of course we have our competitive research tool (more on that to come later), which lifts all the metrics we need through the glorious use of APIs and some custom formulas. But the core truth, that our data helped us do a better job, remains.
So yeah, we like data. We respect data. We use it and abuse it. But data, all by itself, does not move the needle — like at all. It’s the action you take based on the data that makes all the difference.
I’d be lying if I said that we’re not proud of our new set of proprietary tools that have essentially taken our drawn out processes, and condensed them into something simple, effective, and efficient. But the reason we love these tools so much is because of the time they save us on the front end of a campaign. If we can condense the first week’s worth of data gathering into an afternoon of well coordinated data pulls and analysis, we’re that much further ahead. But we’re certainly not done.
Not all robots are bad. Heck, R2D2 certainly picked up more than his share of the slack. And sure, most of the time data does the heavy lifting.
I remember a relatively recent situation where a newly onboarded client approached us with a keyword they had been struggling with for years. They had a well optimized page for it, the page had many links going to it. On paper they should have been doing better for this keyword.
Once upon a time, that page had been in an above-the-fold position for its SERP. Then it had begun to drop. The client added more copy to the page to counter the dropping ranking. But more copy caused it to drop even further, which suggested to the client that they had to add even more copy. This game of cat and mouse went on until they were off the first page entirely. And that’s where they were when 97th Floor was brought in.
After assessing the situation, we threw the page into our proprietary competitive research tool. Once the data was finished crunching, the answer was obvious. They had vastly over-optimized the page!
When looking at the top 10 results on the front page of Google, the SERP was seeing an average word count of 1,983. But the page our client has built had… any guesses?
17,744 words.
Not characters, words. Oh and the page was using the exact-match keyword more than twice the amount of the average on the SERP.
The data called out a problem. It helped save the day. But the data didn’t come up with the solution.
We got to work crafting a strategy involving everything from keyword usage, to semantic analysis, strategic internal links to alleviate cross page cannibalization, and strategically cutting and reworking sections of the page. Essentially, we deoptimized the page. After the above plan was executed with the client, we saw fruit — jumping from page 2, to spot 2 in less than a week.
I love this story because:
1) The tool saved us a bunch of time upfront on research and on the backend by ensuring we weren’t wasting time reoptimizing what was already too optimized.
2) The SERP data lead us deeper down a very productive rabbit hole; cannibalization, which upon more research, yielded some very actionable tactics.
3) Possibly my favorite, we didn’t have to waste any time and energy on backlinks.
The above story and hundreds before it have happened at 97th Floor. While we can’t function without data, we certainly can’t function with numbers alone. That’s why it’s called digital marketing, not digital analyzing.
That’s why I love this industry. We’re a fun breed of humans that crave and cultivate good data, and then create something bold and beautiful — with or without the data’s support.
I cringe a little when I hear people say, “well, this is what the data says we should do.” I’m sorry did I hear you just imply that this spreadsheet told you to increase your bid strategy? Of course not. What you meant to say was, “I believe we should increase our bid strategy.”
Own that strategy, don’t let data own you.
Don’t be handcuffed by data; have the courage to look beyond surface-level data inferences, and use your own intelligent, problem solving, human brain to figure out the rest. Because, when all is said and done, your clients aren’t interested in hiring a spreadsheet (or even R2D2).
One of the not-so-secret secrets to successful marketing is knowing your audience. Arguably, the best way to do this is to use persona based marketing. When we onboard new clients at 97th Floor, we always ask for their existing personas, and they often shrug their shoulders and rifle aimlessly through some papers. “I think we had some made about a year or two ago,” they say. But in this age of smart digital marketing, that just won’t fly. The world needs more personas—and better personas. We at 97th Floor have the expertise, and we’re here to make the internet a better place. So we put this guide together to help you build personas for your business that will bring in consumer insights that will elevate all of your marketing efforts and increase your revenue.
A buyer persona is a fictional depiction of an ideal, individual customer. Creating and applying a buyer persona helps marketers craft campaigns that feel more true and have more impact. A good buyer persona can turbocharge the understanding of your customers, leading to more traffic, higher conversions, and eventually, bigger revenue figures.
This is Tony Zambito in 2001. He invented the concept of buyer personas, according to
himself and the internet. “Buyer personas are research-based archetypal (modeled) representations of who buyers are, what they are trying to accomplish, what goals drive their behavior, how they think, how they buy, and why they make buying decisions.”
Sound familiar? Maybe you're thinking of a time when you fit in a very small chair at a very small desk and were instructed that 5 W's and an H - Who, What, When, Where, Why, and How - belong in every story. Hmm. And we didn't think they taught marketing that young. But the truth is that you need these components for your company's storytelling and you must have them for your consumers' sake.
While we're here, let's consider what a persona is not.
Consider this quote from Scratch: “Consumers aren't as interested in your story until it helps them tell their own. Personas are a powerful and concise way for you to use data to understand your consumers—and help your whole company understand your consumers - so that they are ultimately interested in your brand story”. Sounds rather important, right?
Persona based marketing is the practice of building your entire marketing strategy around detailed, data-driven buyer personas. Instead of creating broad, one-size-fits-all campaigns, you develop messaging, offers, and experiences tailored to the specific needs, motivations, and challenges of your ideal customers. This approach ensures every ad, blog post, email, and social media update speaks directly to the people most likely to engage with your brand. When executed well, persona based marketing increases clicks and conversions, builds trust, fosters loyalty, and keeps your brand top of mind for the audiences that matter most.
In the past few years, our client teams at 97th Floor have launched wildly successful campaigns driven by insights discovered through building personas.
In-depth personas are invaluable to our teams and our clients.
Rachel Bascom, head of content at 97th Floor, shares these benefits from using personas:
And if your personas are doing that, they're ultimately bringing you this:
We're confident that data-driven personas enable every department to work better for clients and the company.
How should you create a buyer persona? The ingredients are simple, and the process is not rocket science. Like baking bread, you already own most ingredients—flour, water, yeast, salt—and the things you don’t already have in your cupboard are easily accessible.
Begin with a little market research. What data do you already have about your customers? What are their current job titles, responsibilities, and interests? If you can, use a tool like SparkToro to find out more about what your customers care about. Ask: Why would they benefit from your brand? What are their pain points, and how does your offer solve them? The more research you can do, the better.
Then add a little speculation. If your persona loves running, you can assume they’ll care about running form or proper running shoes. If they’re a busy mom, you can assume they’re looking for ways to relax and save time. Some assumptions are okay, and even needed, but be sure you don’t get off track.
Once you flesh out your customer with a few assumptions, mix your research and speculation together with a knowledge of the user journey for your product or service. For instance, how do they come in contact with your brand? Will they be eager to buy, or will they need a little persuasion? What appeals to them on your site?
Finally, sprinkle a little creativity on top. This is the fun part: make it a story. Be as specific as you possibly can. What is their name? What do they look like? How does an average day in their life flow? Don’t be shy, write it out. Use your imagination. The end result should be fun, spunky, realistic, and easy to remember.
In baking bread, you simply put the dough in an oven. For personas, however, you need something much more rare: objectivity. A good persona requires you to set aside what you think you know about your customers and to see what the data tells you. This is very, very difficult for most businesses, which is why it makes sense to ask someone else to do it for you. When it comes to paying someone to create a customer persona for you, the greater the objectivity, the more you will pay. Spend less, and you will have a few assumptions mixed in with your objective assessments.
However, assumptions, especially when used in the less-critical and less-controversial parts of the buyer persona, are likely a good trade-off for many businesses. Not everyone needs to spend $50,000 to get something truly useful.
The personas that we build for our clients at 97th Floor are a mix of strategic assumptions and objective research. We are intentional in our approach, choosing where we can assume and where to use data. It might not be the right approach for every business, but it’s appropriate for most businesses most of the time.
Let’s break it down.
There are three major parts to buyer personas:
As you might presume, demographic information tells us the external details about the persona. This describes the age, gender, racial identity, socio-economic details, family status, occupation, and such. We glean it from a number of sources: existing customer profiles, analytics data, competitive analyses, etc. We use whatever we can get our hands on.
When we build our personas, we use a balance of assumption and evidence. Our stance is that in this area, the information that we infer is good enough for the purpose, and the potential mistakes are low-impact ones. But don’t get me wrong, you shouldn’t go wild with assumptions here.
There isn’t much value in knowing that your average age customer is 37 rather than 39 or 40. But there is a significant difference in the average age of 30 instead of 45. Be careful that you have enough evidence for the correct ballpark. But don’t waste resources digging into teeny specifics if they aren’t likely to be impactful.
Remember that a buyer persona is different from a target audience. This is not a broad composite, but a fictionalized specific individual. There is value in having a target audience in mind--in knowing a range that describes the whole of your customers--but the value of a buyer persona is to clearly envision one perfect client.
The demographic information describes the external details of the individual, while the psychographic information describes her internal life. We want to know what she likes and dislikes, what makes her excited or nervous, what she reads and who she follows. This is the information that a savvy marketer will prize.
We obtain this through research into tens of thousands of individuals’ web habits. With this information, we can better predict the specific behaviors and biases of a likely customer, but also general principles that describe a lot of people. There are tools out there that will help you to accomplish this task with some confidence--just don’t forget the critical role of objectivity here. We’ve seen clients with personas that only really describe the client themselves. It’s an awkward conversation: “Since you’re just launching Bob’s Widgets, is it realistic that your persona is already a member of the Bob’s Widgets Fan Club?”
When you get the psychographic profile right, it’s almost magic. For example, our research might uncover that people who like your brand are also fans of the Chicago Bulls or the Los Angeles Dodgers. It is probably too specific to know which particular team they root for, but it is useful to know that your audience is sports fans (as opposed to, say, fans of quilting or politics or tattoos).
Many clients we onboard don’t have personas (or have only target audience information). Others have spent tens of thousands of dollars on specialists to get personas built. These expensive ones are often very slick, visually stunning, but a little impractical. While there is a lot of good stuff in these large personas, the mental strain to use them—and to tell what is most important—is too much. So we developed a convenient method that uses our inherent human neurological strengths to make it memorable.
We tell a story.
Maybe our stories aren’t on par with Shakespeare, but we are not doing this to scratch a creative itch. We are doing this because, as humans, we remember stories. We also remember songs, but that seemed like a little too much. So we’ve chosen to always tell a story about our persona.
There is no new information in the story. All the data we use for the story is already covered in the demographic and psychographic sections. But when we craft it into a couple of clear, easy-to-read paragraphs to describe the character succinctly, suddenly she is easier to understand and easier to remember. Because of that memorable image, it is easier to keep clearly in mind, and thus easier to create campaigns just for her.
Critically, when we tell a story, we have more of the facts in easily accessible memory. Without personas, marketers will create campaigns crafted for one or two of the most obvious customer characteristics, and they generally fall pretty flat. They’re not much better than target audience descriptions. But a good story to anchor our memory allows us to retain a fuller picture of the individual. In turn, our campaigns therefore have more depth, fullness, and richness. They are, simply, more effective campaigns.
She tried to diet and exercise, but her goal seemed so distant. Plus, was it even realistic for her to lose 50 pounds when she barely had time to pee alone before one of her hungry kids found her? She wanted more direction, maybe from a personal trainer or dietician, about what her goal weight should be. But they were so expensive.
She’d tried doing her own research about her BMI and ideal weight. But those gave her wide ranges or goal weights that seemed impossible.
Do you see how this little clip from Sharon’s life makes her a tangible woman? We feel her discomfort at the party. We understand why she is the perfect customer for this fitness company. We even get excited to find marketing strategies that will help Sharon find our client’s company and feel empowered on her next birthday.
Personas that hang around in a company’s back pocket unused aren’t doing anyone any good. A successful buyer persona is one that gets frequently referenced and utilized. The team has read it, talked about it, and knows it. They know that fictionalized individual as well as they know each other. She feels real to them.
Not only should these personas feel real to your team. You should lean on them during planning and writing content. This is the essence of persona based marketing. For instance, as you're sitting down to plan out Q2’s content, turn to your personas. Mention, “Taylor (your persona) has young children. During Q2 those children will start summer break. How might that affect the kind of content she wants to access during that time? How might it affect how much time she has to engage?” Use the persona’s name. There’s power in shared vocabulary. Of course “Taylor” won't mean much to those outside this team, but your marketing team should be using your persona’s names. Use the personas to tap into the daily life of your content consumers, and they will feel a more realistic connection to your company.
All of this work might seem like the buyer persona is creating extra work: compressing data into a single point, and then it has to be expanded again when doing the actual marketing. The magic of the buyer persona is that it enables, and even encourages, the marketer to work at an individual level but to have that function at a broad scope. The compress-decompress that the buyer persona facilitates will hone the edge of the campaign. In practice, if it’s done right, it can feel like a superpower.
We create personas for clients as a service, or we upgrade existing ones, but personas are only the launching pad into the deep pool of consumer-facing work. Here are a few examples of great client work powered by a marketing team that understands its audience using the processes we describe above.
eFileCabinet came to us with a goal of increasing its brand visibility. In a fairly stagnant industry, their cutting-edge technology had a hard time gaining the excitement it deserved. Our team came together to define who eFileCabinet’s customers were. Like most businesses, they required multiple personas, but one particularly useful buyer persona portrayed an accountant who was frustrated with endless paper filing and tedious office chores.
Sure, this persona is an accountant, but he was far from boring.
We looked closely at what human emotions and pain points he faced, as well as ways he might enjoy letting off steam. The answer: taking a hammer to the often-frustrating office equipment he sits in front of every day. Enter: the Rage Cage.
So they could live the Office Space dream, our team crafted an experience for an accounting conference that would give them what they really wanted—the chance to smash old office equipment. Then we connected with these individuals to introduce them to the benefits of eFileCabinet’s problem-solving, headache-reducing software. This became an award-winning campaign that brought eFileCabinet the highest influx of MQLs in a single month and 100+ closed deals. None of this would have been possible without concrete, memorable, human buyer personas.
One 97th Floor client, a data service company called Qubole, was facing a long sales cycle that they were eager to tighten. We knew that buyer personas would undoubtedly help Qubole target the most promising potential customers. So we took a closer look at Qubole’s ideal buyers and got to work.
We created a persona who was a data scientist at a growing tech business that needed to scale quickly. We got to know his pain points with bringing on a data company, including security and IT complications. Knowing this information, we created a hyper-focused content strategy that was built with him in mind.
With the help of this persona sitting in the driver’s seat of our newly targeted content strategy, Qubole’s traffic and conversions skyrocketed. In fact, 97th Floor's strategy led to a 600% increase in organic traffic and a 300% increase in qualified organic leads. In addition to chopping their buyer’s cycle from 240 days to only 90 days.
As with most NBA teams, the Utah Jazz found themselves struggling to sell their summer season ticket. They came to us with a desire to increase their summer ticket sales and maybe, just maybe, they’d be able to do something never done before: sell out the entire lower bowl for the summer season. As always, we began with the audience and personas.
Because we are from Utah, we knew what a typical Utah Jazz fan looks like, and so we had a good understanding of the audience to begin with. The final version of our persona consisted partially of what we knew from the standard Jazz fan and was merged with the data we had collected about folks who buy low-cost items (like summer season tickets) via Facebook Ads. Once we had our more specific persona, building the campaigns in Facebook Ads came very naturally.
First, we fanned out our ads’ reach to a wide audience of Jazz fans on Facebook. Then, we conducted tests to see which ads were the most effective at increasing sales (this information even informed our personas to make them better for the next round). We found that segmentation, even to a non-Utah Jazz audience, and sales-focused ad copy brought in a positive ROAS, a great achievement for the low budget of their summer season marketing. Our knowledge of the buyer personas of these summer customers gave the Utah Jazz an increase in ticket sales by over 300% MoM.
Our beauty and skincare client uses playful design, sustainable ingredients, and
delicious flavors to deliver products that feel like a treat for their consumers. But the company wasn’t leveraging its audience to maximize conversions. They needed real
customer personas, complete with a goal and journey for each.
Using analytics, we built—you guessed it—5 consumer personas.
Each persona included personality traits, concerns, risks, influences, an analysis of
the buyer’s current status with the company, and solutions for improvement.
This in-depth analysis led to a full-funnel strategy, including launching on new
platforms.
Our research helped us craft persona-focused messaging. Our discovery that certain personas were interested in astrology inspired our design team to create these stunning ads for a zodiac sign campaign, targeting shoppers based
on their birthday.
And the results? Highest-ever engagement, volume of purchases, and ROAS of all client ads.
Using only
4.1%
of total ad budget
Accounted for
42.5%
client's total purchases
While achieving
Historic ROAS
of all purchases
As these examples show, personas are not reserved for folks in content marketing roles. Entire teams from SEOs to paid media specialists to, well, everyone, should be well-versed in your buyer personas because a good persona will have insights that influence every decision from every member of a marketing team.
We've all stumbled through a cluttered Walmart. The seasonal decor, random furniture, and crates full of $5 movies and cereal boxes stall your progress to the single thing you came here for. Pretty annoying, huh?
In 2009 Walmart addressed the mess with Project Impact. The project's purpose was to improve customer experience by reducing clutter and improving the aesthetics to compete with Target. This idea came from a survey that asked customers, "Would you like Walmart to be less cluttered?" The answer was an overwhelming, Yes. But who wouldn't say yes?
Walmart halted the project when the first 600 locations that they tidied saw year-over-year sales plummet. Walmart lost an estimated $1.85 billion in sales. It appeared that all the extra clutter led to people buying more.
Fueled by turkey and pumpkin pie and armed with a Christmas wishlist, nearly 155 million Americans make Black Friday weekend the biggest shopping event of the year. Seattle-based outdoor retailer REI would rather not participate.
Instead of wow-ing shoppers with massive markdowns, REI closes its stores, activity centers, distribution centers, call centers, and headquarters for its annual #OptOutside campaign.
In 2015, REI saw 10 times more traffic than any other retailer on social media as thousands posted with the hashtag.
In 2021, REI expanded the campaign to challenge its members and community to get outside and build an inclusive outdoor space.
And yearly earnings? Up and up.
Alright, alright. So we can't really say for certain that Walmart wasn't using personas and that REI was. But what we can say for certain is that REI understood its mission and its consumers' habits and lifestyle far better than Walmart did.
Persona based marketing is an ongoing process that shapes every part of your overall strategy. The more you refine your personas with real data and insights, the more precise your targeting, messaging, and campaigns will become. If you’re ready to turn buyer personas into a powerful growth tool, let’s talk about how 97th Floor can help you build and use them to drive measurable results for your brand.
Persona based marketing is the strategy of shaping your campaigns around detailed buyer personas—fictional, research-driven profiles of your ideal customers. It matters because it allows you to speak directly to the people most likely to buy from you, making your marketing more relevant, impactful, and profitable.
A persona should be defined using real data and research, not guesswork. It includes demographics, behaviors, goals, challenges, motivations, and decision-making patterns. The more precise and evidence-based your persona, the more accurate and effective your marketing will be.
A persona guides everything from content topics to ad targeting. It helps you choose the right channels, craft messages that resonate, and design customer experiences that move people to take action. Persona based marketing ensures every marketing decision aligns with the needs of your audience.
Persona based marketing increases brand growth by improving engagement, driving higher conversion rates, and building stronger customer loyalty. When you understand and speak directly to your ideal customers, you attract the right audience, convert them faster, and retain them longer.
Start by gathering data from your existing customers through surveys, interviews, analytics, and CRM insights. Identify patterns in demographics, goals, and challenges. Then, turn those findings into clear, detailed profiles that your entire team can use to guide marketing decisions.
[leadership] comes down to who you are and your ability to influence people to do great things.
Welcome to the the 97th Floor Mastermind Interview Series where each week we sit down with one of the makers, thought leaders, and visionaries behind the biggest and/or up-and-coming brands around. We talk about everything from business and marketplace insights to personal journeys and successes, to failures and legacy.
In this episode we’re talking to Kurt Workman, CEO and Co-Founder of Owlet Baby Care, about his own journey to business success. Through personal experiences and insights, Kurt shares how he learned how to turn potential hurdles into valuable educational opportunities.
0:10 About Owlet
2:52 Priorities
5:12 Technology behind Owlet
8:45 Failure
12:10 The startup phase
17:15 Building the company
19:03 Success
23:55 Hiring and firing
28:43 What keeps you up at night
31:15 Pain points with growth
35:55 Kurt’s legacy
Learn more about Owlett
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The one thing we can always be sure of when it comes to Google’s algorithm is that change is always around the corner. Unfortunately, with some of these changes, Google can be a bit more tight-lipped about what exactly we can do to adjust to these changes. This seems to be the case with the August 1st Google broad core algorithm update. While there is plenty already written on this topic, I’d like to share what we’ve learned thus far when it comes to the health-related sites affected by the August 1st Google Medic update.
On August 1st, Google began rolling out a broad core algorithm update that, based on internet consensus, largely affected YMYL (your money, your life) sites. The update seemed to favor those sites that had well established E-A-T (expertise, authority, and trust).
The name ‘Medic’ comes from the Update was made popular by Barry Schwarts as he described the effect the broad core algorithm update had on health-related sites. This brings me to the next aspect of the Medic update. Google representatives have consistently stated that algorithm changes are always being tested, but Google sometimes rolls out changes that affect the entire search algorithm. These are called broad core algorithm updates.
On 8/1/10 Google not only confirmed that an update was indeed being rolled out but said that it was a broad core algorithm update.
Other than confirming the existence and type of update being rolled out, Google hasn’t provided much more guidance than in the past (as shown below):
Generally speaking, there has been a lot of discussion regarding YMYL, QRG and EAT and its role in the August 1st medic update. I’ve broken down a synopsis of what these acronyms mean along with how they relate to the update:
While this is helpful for site owners to know on a general level, I’d like to go into some specifics of what we’ve learned as I and others have worked with health-related sites negatively or positively affected by this update.
In order to better understand the effect the algorithm update had on the health industry, we examined 1,267 keywords that we felt represented the current health industry. Below is a description of the dataset we examined:
Based on the trends and common occurrences we saw in each of these verticals, we were able to gather a set of common characteristics for URLs ranking in spots 1-5 for each keyword vertical mentioned above.
“Healthy” Sites: Medic Update Winners
Overall, we noticed the following types of sites seemed to be favored above what was previously at the top of the SERPs prior to the August 1st update:
When it came to what differentiated these sites from all the others now being punished by Google’s update could be put into two camps:
On-page differences:
Off-page differences:
Other differences:
One thing to note about these points is that every keyword vertical is different and these are findings we generalized from the broad data set described above. Looking at a similar data set in a different vertical and industry will yield different findings.
If you have the misfortune of being negatively affected by this and all other updates that have rolled out since then, making changes in line with what Google has prescribed as well as what we’re seeing the medic winners for your vertical do is the best place to start your recovery journey.
Just as Google continues to update its algorithm, sites will continue to have opportunities to improve their organic performance and as with all things SEO, continual improvement regardless of performance will always be the best path to victory.
Keeping your website in optimal condition gives your business an edge against the competition. Regular website audits help identify and resolve issues that may hurt performance, user experience, or search engine visibility. With consistent, comprehensive audits, you can keep your website functioning at top-level, reaching your audience, and supporting your business objectives. Here, I’ll give the SparkNotes version of how to perform a successful audit and maximize your website’s potential.
Whether you’re a novice or an expert in the field, when performing a website audit, you need to start with the basics to identify any glaring issues that require immediate attention. In this article, I’m not going to dive into keyword research. While keyword research is an important step in evaluating the SEO of your website, it requires a longer explanation if you want your research to be perfect. If you want to dive into keyword research, one of our SEO experts, Joe Robledo, covers the steps of a low hanging fruit keyword audit here.
For the steps of an SEO website audit that I’ll be covering, you’ll need to use a few tools and platforms. Here are my recommended platforms to use for this audit.
In the sections below, I’ll break down what to look for, the tools necessary for each section, and also uncover potential issues. Welcome to your SEO audit crash course.
To fully understand the success of your website efforts, you must have accurate data. There are many issues that come from incorrect data or lack of data. I’ll be speaking specifically about Google Analytics in this section. The first step is to review the goals that are set up within your view. Ask yourself, are these goals valuable? Do they represent my team’s KPIs? Does this information help us track revenue and ROI?
After you’ve ensured your goals are tracking the exact data you’re after, check on your filters tab within your reporting view and review your filters. If it’s not currently added, take your company’s IP address and add it as a filter to your view. You don’t want all the times employees viewed your website pages to skew your data.
Once you’ve properly filtered your IP, go back to your home tab and view your traffic channels located under the ‘All Traffic’ dropdown in your ‘Acquisition’ tab. What is the traffic distribution of your channels? If your direct, other, or not set channels have a traffic percentage larger than 5% then there is a possibility of a tracking error across your website. A possible issue is that you have a login page on your website and haven’t included current users as an excluded filter.
Next, check your organic traffic over the past few years. Are there any major dips in traffic? If there is anything substantial, your website may have experienced a penalty in the past. Gather as much information as you can from past penalties and determine how they were resolved.
The last step to verify all traffic is being recorded properly is to use GAchecker.com. This tool allows you to see if any pages across your website don’t have your UA tracking code. Ensure all the website pages that you want tracked are included in the list of pages with the tracking code.
Indexation
Once you’ve verified that Google Analytics is set up correctly, you’ll need to verify that your website is being indexed in Google. The first items to check are your robots.txt file and sitemap. The robots.txt file can usually be found by typing yourdomain.com/robots.txt. Your robots.txt file should look something like this:
Your robots.txt file tells Google bots what they should and shouldn’t index on your website. Any pages that you don’t want showing up in the SERPs should be added as a Disallow. Such pages include: login pages, internal assets, or any page not needing indexation by Google’s search engine. In the robots.txt file, you also want your sitemap listed for Google bots to easily locate and crawl.
What is a sitemap? A sitemap is your website’s repository of pages, neatly compiled for Google’s bots to crawl. In short, a sitemap is the file that can help Google bots navigate your website and find pages that you want indexed. Even without this file, Google can still crawl and index your website’s pages, but with a sitemap, you can make your pages easier to crawl and improve your chances of sending Google to the right pages.
Another indexation problem that I have seen across a majority of sites is duplicate content. Duplicate content can happen in multiple ways and may cause Google to drop your keyword rankings because it’s not sure which page should rank for certain keywords. The first duplication issues to check are the URLs. Are there variations of the same page that are pulling up a 200 status code instead of redirecting to one page? Examples of potential duplicate URLs are below.
Each of these pages is the same, yet they show up as different URLs. This could be happening across your website and there are two ways to fix this issue. The first solution is to set up site-wide redirects to send any variation of a URL to one specific designation. If your website is ‘HTTPS’ without ‘www’ and contains a trailing slash, then set up all variations to redirect to https://yourdomain.com/.
If you’re unable to set up 301 redirects due to the platform you’re using, or if you need to keep those pages, then set up a rel=canonical tag. The rel=canonical tag signals to Google that a given page is a duplicate page, but to reference the rel=canonical URL as the first and main page when indexing.
Another problem that lowers your chance of showing up in Google SERPs is JavaScript. Google has a hard time reading JavaScript, so if you have on-page elements in JavaScript, it’s possible they may not show up for Google bots. Hubspot’s Matthew Barby explained this issue in describing a robust content category page that his team built that wasn’t showing up in Google’s SERPs. In troubleshooting the issue, they used a JavaScript Switcher extension to see what the page showed to Google and saw nothing. After recognizing this error, with a few tweaks to the page, they were able to rank for their focus keywords.
One of the last steps in reviewing the indexation of your website is checking your mobile-friendliness. Use Google’s Mobile-Friendly Test to see how Google values your mobile pages. With Google’s mobile-first index, the content on the mobile version of your website is going to affect how Google ranks your pages. If you’re not serving a mobile-friendly page, then you could be hurting your rankings.
After reviewing your analytics and the indexation of your website pages, it’s time to dig into the content on your website. When Google is crawling your website pages, you want to ensure everything is in working order and optimized to match the search intent behind searchers’ queries. When reviewing your on-page content, using Screaming Frog will help you uncover issues involving meta information. Run your domain through Screaming Frog’s spider tool and review the items below:
The last step in your SEO website audit is to review additional technical aspects of your website that might improve your website’s rankings. Identifying and fixing major technical issues on your website can be the difference between ranking at the top of page two, or reaching the top of page one in Google’s SERPs.
There are a few common mistakes made when conducting website audits. Look out for the following:
Keep an eye out for these pitfalls as you conduct your own website audit. They’re easily avoidable when you know what to look for.
Before you begin diving into new content and off-page optimizations, review this audit list to ensure the site’s health is in top shape. Once your site’s technical issues are in order, then you’ll be ready to crank out new content.
humility is about confidence. it's about knowing you're enough. it's not better than and it's not less than.
Welcome to the the 97th Floor Mastermind Interview Series where each week sit down with one of the makers, thought leaders and visionaries behind the biggest and/or up-and-coming brands around. We talk about everything from business and marketplace insights to personal journeys, successes, failures and legacy.
In this episode we’re talking to CEO and Co-Founder of Homie, Johnny Hanna. Homie is a platform where you can buy or sell your home online without an agent. In this interview, we talk about building a blue ocean within an old industry. Johnny shares his insight about educating on a new offering in a marketplace, scaling and living on the spectrum of “less than” and “better than.” We dive into the meaning of failure and what work-life balance really means. Let’s jump in!
0:10 Building a blue ocean
3:45 All about Johnny
6:15 Mentoring and giving back
6:56 What is Homie?
11:20 Educating on a new offering in a marketplace
12:43 Scaling requires education, data and nailing the “it factor”
18:18 The spectrum of “less than” and “better than”
22:23 Finding good fits within a team
24:33 Work-life harmony and defining seasons of business
28:53 What keeps Johnny up at night
30:00 Failure and solving one problem at a time
39:00 Johnny’s legacy
Learn more about Homie
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What’d you think of the episode? The conversation continues in the comments below. Be sure to leave your insights.
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one of the best things we've done at chatbooks is to create a clear set of values; we promote, reward and cut based on these values.
Welcome to the the 97th Floor Mastermind Interview Series where each week we sit down with one of the makers, thought leaders and visionaries behind the biggest and/or up-and-coming brands around. We talk about everything from business and marketplace insights to personal journeys, successes, failures and legacy.
In this episode we’re talking to Chatbooks Chief Marketing Officer, Rachel Hofstetter. Rachel joined Chatbooks in November 2015 and played a pivotal role in creating the video The Real Mom, which has since amassed more than 100 million views. Rachel did this while also overseeing the overall brand that is turning instagram photos into instant coffee table artwork. Prior to Chatbooks, Rachel worked at “O” the Oprah Magazine, Reader’s Digest, wrote a best-selling book Cooking Up a Business and founded a company called guesterly. Her insights in this interview on everything from just getting started on a project or life goal, to failing, to defining your teams’ north star are spectacularly clear and spot on. Let’s jump in!
0:35 An editor, best-selling author and entrepreneur—Rachel Hofstetter's start and journey to Chatbooks.
3:37 Validating an idea, starting a company and getting noticed by Glamour, Real Simple and Procter & Gamble.
6:39 Storytelling and entrepreneurship.
7:14 Chatbooks launch and the story behind the simple idea and brand.
10:58 The process (and myth) behind creating a viral video; collaborating with the Harmon Brothers.
14:58 Creating a clear vision and three objectives of a CMO.
17:27 How to grow an all-star team and defining the 5-points of the Chatbooks north star.
22:55 The remedy to fear of failure.
29:00 Rachel's guiding principle to always improving and growing.
31:37 The art of essentialism and getting the right things done.
33:27 Saying "no" without saying no.
what I give doesn't have to necessarily be what you asked for and it can still be beneficial to you.
36:24 Legacy; what Rachel wants to be remembered for.
39:04 Advice to those figuring out what they want to have, be, do next.
Learn more about Chatbooks | guesterly
Chatbooks "The Real Mom" video
Rachel's book Cooking Up a Business: Lessons from Food Lovers Who Turned Their Passion into a Career -- and How You Can, Too
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What’d you think of the episode? The conversation continues in the comments below. Be sure to leave your insights.
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