3 Ways to Grow your business courtesy of my interview with Dave Rotheroe of Lick My Dip (plus the dangers of putting your brand on the parcel…)
I thoroughly enjoyed catching up again with Dave Rotheroe of Lick My Dip. This is the second time he’s been on the podcast – and again he shared a ton of great advice.
You can catch his first interview here, and the second one here.
Here’s the key lessons I took from our chat:
Number 1: Building a community of your customers will drive your business forwards
Dave’s been busy using my book Customer Manipulation to grow his business. The part he feels has made the biggest difference has been focusing on the existing customers. He’s done this in two ways (see the Number 2 for the other) one of which has been to build a Facebook Group just for his customers.
Within that group he’s sharing news and updates with them, and they’re getting really engaged! Leading to them bringing in new customers, AND they’re now dealing with customer service queries for him!
So he’s saving time, and growing his sales – all by building a fun community with his business’s fans.
Number 2: Build the products the customers want
Dave launched with one subscription option -a box of spicy items for £12.49.
Listening to his customers he’s added to this:
- There is now an Ultimate Box for £24.49 that has at least double the contents of the original box (now the Taste box) – so customers can try out Lick my Dip on the Taste box, and when they love it – upgrade to the Ultimate box. In the interview Dave goes into how he gets as many upgrades as possible (it involves the Facebook Group, Amazon, and clever use of paper…. but you’ll have to listen for those!)
- AND he’s added a shopify site to his business (the subscription products are on Cratejoy) so he can sell one off products. These are both his leftovers from the boxes, but also if the customers particularly like a product, or a brand he’ll stock the wider offering on the shopify site.
Number 3: Commit to Influencer Outreach
Influencer outreach is a marketing method with lots of different names, but let me explain how Dave’s doing it (because he has a very thorough approach).
At it’s simplest it’s sending a box of product to someone with a website who has a readership interested in spicy food products. And encouraging them to review the box, and drive traffic to your site.
Dave’s sending out sample boxes every month to the following types of influencer:
- Those who’ve sent him lots of great traffic (that buys) in the past – some of these are go good they get a box every single month
- Those he’s identified as being a great fit, with lots of traffic – for the big ones he sometimes has to offer an affiliate deal to get them to cover Lick My Dip
- Those who’ve emailed him to ask for a review box – these he investigates before he agrees to send one, usually with Similarweb.com to check their traffic volumes and social followings
This is a great, focused, and cheap way to build awareness of your business AND grow your sales.
Dave’s recently launched a course to help you with just this on Instgram. You can get it for just $50 (saving $150) by going here and using the code ECOMMERCEMASTERPLAN.
Finally, why you might not want to put your brand on the box…
Dave has lovely boxes to send his products out in.
At first a lot of boxes were going missing between his warehouse and the customer… so they started to send out the box in a plain black post bag.
Then, almost no boxes went missing. So if your product is so good delivery men / your customers’ desk mates might nick it, you might want to hide it!