Bee-High 如何通过在 Tumblr 上建立受众来重新定义大麻文化
已发表: 2016-06-30Travis Lachner 是 Bee-High 的创始人，这是一家引领新一代大麻文化的社会盈利公司。
在这个播客中，您将了解他如何经营大麻配件的副业，以及为什么他选择将时间投入到 Tumblr 而不是 Facebook 上进行营销。
在这一集中，我们讨论：
- 在开展业务之前如何以及为什么要深入参与社区。
- 如何应对日常工作和副业创业时缺乏活力和动力。
- 什么是“自有品牌”直销以及为什么它可能比传统直销更好。
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转录
Felix ：今天我加入了来自 Bee-High.com 的 Travis Lachner，担任 Bee-High.com。 Bee-High 是一家引领新一代大麻文化的社会性盈利公司，成立于 2015 年，总部位于科罗拉多州丹佛市。 欢迎特拉维斯。
特拉维斯：你好菲利克斯，很高兴来到这里。
菲利克斯：很高兴有你。 告诉我们更多关于您的故事，因为我知道您销售几种不同的产品，您销售的最受欢迎的产品是什么？
Travis ：我们基本上已经将自己定位为新一代大麻文化的电子商务市场。 我们的很多主要产品是配件和烟枪、水管、大麻文化中称为 dab rigs 的设备，很多配件基本上是大麻行业的辅助产品。 本质上不接触植物的一切。
特拉维斯：我来自科罗拉多州，土生土长。 我有幸看到大麻产业在我面前发展壮大。 很多人都取得了巨大的成功并探索了该地区； 我是一个非常善于探索的人，自然很难抗拒这个机会。 然后中学水平只是在个人层面上对大麻有普遍的兴趣。 我真的很喜欢大麻，因为它被用作一种健康产品，真正改善了人们的生活，而不是不幸地困扰着许多行业的老派心态。 我真的很高兴能在这里跳槽，成为第一个上船的人，并能够真正为正在兴起的新一代大麻文化定下基调。
菲利克斯：非常酷。 您正在了解这个行业如何仍然存在耻辱感，因为它变化如此之快，尤其是在美国。 你有没有担心过这个问题，或者你是否认为这是一个机会？
特拉维斯：当然，这是一把双刃剑。 机会就在那里，但这个机会的缺点是你必须克服很多繁文缛节和规定。 我们可以稍后再谈，但这绝对是我们真正关注品牌的领域之一，它打破了那种老派、懒惰的刻板印象。 业内的每个人都明白，这实际上并不是所有使用大麻的人。
我相信你知道经典的刻板印象或 Tommy Chong，70 岁的秀风格，“哇，伙计，哇。我们完全忘了点披萨兄弟。” 不就是不。 是的，这些人是存在的，但我们必须意识到这只是社区的一小部分。 我们对品牌的很多关注只是打破了懒散的刻板印象，并主要针对负责任、受人尊敬的普通用户，而且他们有很多。
Felix ：我猜你是怎么认识到有这些类型的用户，有市场的？ 因为你一直在说这种刻板印象......再次像你所说的'斯托纳文化'......你怎么知道除了大麻使用者的那种刻板印象之外还有更多？
特拉维斯：我在科罗拉多州丹佛市的战壕里看到了这个行业的兴起。 我真的有两件事让我产生了这种心态：第一件事真的只是我在家庭、周围环境和成长过程中对大麻的个人经历。 没有一个真正符合大多数人联想到的懒惰的刻板印象。 我个人一直对懒惰的斯托纳刻板印象不感兴趣。 然后第二手是大麻实际上合法化的时候，科罗拉多州的人们正在失去理智，在想，“哦，伙计，所有这些人都会在街上吸食大麻。” “天啊，世界末日了。”
最后它合法化了，老实说，从那以后事情真的变得更好了。 我有机会真正与这些高风险人士交谈，无论是大麻药房所有者还是普通用户。 真的只是普通人在使用这种植物。 他们如何使用它以及为什么要使用它的范围很广。 只是亲眼看到这一点，并注意到与我们正在谈论的一般假设以及行业中实际发生的事情的不一致，很明显将并非每个人都属于该类别的点联系起来。
费利克斯：有道理。 不是每个人都在听大麻行业，但他们可能在向我们推销产品，或者他们的整个品牌可能在 [听不清 00:06:59] 更敏感，或者再次成为一个带有污名的行业。 在那种情况下，当谈到如何绕过这种耻辱时，你能提供什么样的提示，因为我可以想象......也许这不是真的......我可以想象它可能更难推销或建立联系或甚至可能会做一些诸如投放广告之类的事情，因为这又是一个被污名化的行业。 你经历过吗？ 您发现哪些方法可以很好地帮助您解决这个问题？
特拉维斯：是的。 我会给你两个重点关注的领域：第一个是社区。 您需要了解您将加入的社区，并且您需要考虑自己是该社区的一部分。 你绝对不想进入你向社区推销的心态。 你真正想做的是进入这个社区，无论是数字的还是现实的世界，并与这些人交谈，了解他们想要什么，了解他们需要什么，了解他们不想要什么，了解他们不需要什么。 从很多方面来看，它基本上为您提供了很多拼图和开发它的结构。 这个问题的第二部分，我要补充的是你的语言和你的品牌是非常关键的。
您可能已经注意到的一件事是，每次我提到这种美妙的植物时，我都称它为大麻，因为它就是这样，这就是我们给它打上烙印的方式。 你使用的语言有很多力量，当你使用人们尊重和理解的语言时，它会吸引那些使用相同语言的人。 我使用大麻这个词而不是说“吸大麻”。 或者，“你想抽点杂草吗？” 之所以这样，是因为它确实在更高层次上与我们的社区产生了共鸣。 真正准确地使用您的语言并真正参与到您的社区中将是实现这一目标的两个很好的起点。
Felix ：让我们开始讨论这个问题，这同样适用于任何地方的任何人，无论行业如何。 当您考虑创业，考虑在特定行业创建业务时，您是在说首先要参与社区。 你有什么方法做到这一点？ 或者您建议人们通过哪些方式参与社区以尽可能多地了解目标市场，以便您可以开发正确的产品并以正确的方式进行营销？
特拉维斯：我们做了什么……你可能听说过水坑的概念。 你想找到你的观众在哪里闲逛以及他们和谁一起闲逛。 值得庆幸的是，大麻是如此广泛的产品，几乎任何市场上的几乎任何人都可以在技术上成为准确的受众。 我们真正的最佳点是利用特定渠道的社会营销，这些渠道在大麻社区中有很好的大麻主题参与。 其中之一是 Tumblr，如果你曾经在 Facebook 上过，你可能会意识到这可能不是分享你抽着烟枪的照片或分享一些你会在传统 Facebook 上发布的东西的最佳场所状态。
在 Tumblr 上，匿名化程度更高，人们全力以赴，他们在该社区中感到更加安全，并且该部门正在进行更多的活动和参与。 您会注意到，我们不会因此而主动针对 Facebook 上的任何事物或任何人，直到这种耻辱感有所降低。 作为一个个体经营者，我真的必须把所有的精力都集中在能给我们带来最高回报的市场和渠道上。 现在，我们的秘密来源实际上是 Tumblr，它有一个非常棒的大麻社区，他们非常活跃和参与，对这项运动和推动事情充满热情。
Felix ：当然，我想稍微谈谈你的 Tumblr 策略，因为我认为这个播客上没有任何人使用 Tumblr 来推销他们的业务。 你之前所说的很有意义，因为大麻仍然存在这种耻辱感。 使用大麻的人仍然“在壁橱里”； 这不是你可以出来对你的朋友、家人或 Facebook 说的话。 我可以想象，这至少在 Facebook 等某些平台上会降低可分享性或病毒式传播。 毫无疑问，我马上要谈谈你是如何在 Tumblr 上解决这个问题的。
在我们到达那里之前，让我们谈谈您的业务的开始。 你知道它有市场，因为你在科罗拉多州的丹佛，你就被线下世界所包围。 对于那些不是来自……不熟悉或不来自美国的人来说，这是最早将娱乐性使用大麻合法化的州之一。 你知道它有市场，你知道它周围有大企业。 第一步是什么？ 你知道有市场，你是如何从知道有市场到真正创业的？
特拉维斯：我进入这个市场的方式是非传统的。 很多人真的直接潜入水中。我没有那种奢侈，我真的很年轻，录制这个时我已经 25 岁了。 实际上这个周末刚满二十五岁，当所有这些都发生时，他刚从大学毕业。 我看到所有这些都发生在我身边，当然你想成为其中的一部分，但同时你必须对眼前的事情保持现实。 我认为会真正引起你的听众 Felix 共鸣的一件事是，也许我们可以放弃我们正在进行的所有事情，然后跳进去尝试一下，看看效果如何。 并非我们所有人都有这样做的奢侈。
实际上，我一直在全职工作，周一到周五，朝九晚五，在一家非营利组织做一份常规工作。 其中很多给了我每个人都在努力争取的总体稳定性，也给了我很多充满激情的工作。 感觉就像我在做一些不同的事情，我在做一些有意义的事情。 我并不完全有这个，“好吧，把所有东西都扔掉，走吧，我们走吧。摇滚的时间到了。” 像很多人一样跳进去。 在进入这个行业时，我有更多的战略方法。 这更像是把你的脚趾浸入水中，我实际上是在我全职工作的时候开始了这项业务，这个网站，这个社区的百分百。
正如我们现在所说的那样，实际上我几个小时前刚刚从我的正常工作中下班，并转变为这种独行者模式。 我认为你的听众真正能从中领悟到的是，你不需要全力以赴。 您可以用最少的资源随时开始任何事情。 我进入这个市场是一个非常渐进、缓慢但稳定的增长。 我真的只是创建了网站，创建了我们的 Tumblr，并准备从那里开箱即用。 几乎是缓慢的、有机的参与建立了社区，建立了最终融入我们营销策略和一切的受众。
其中很多是我知道我想做的事情，但因为我必须对你生活中的平衡保持现实，意识到你可以从一边开始做一些事情，然后让它成长。 看看什么有效，看看什么无效，这不一定是你的世界末日。 如果出现问题，您仍然会拥有这个……无论您传统上的退路是什么。 有些人会认为这会让你得到庇护或避免冒险。 这真的让我可以对我们的观众和我发布的内容进行非常实验，看看哪些有效，哪些无效。
它不必像很多人认为的那样压力很大。 我对那些正在考虑做某事的人的建议，如果他们有想法，他们对内里外外都了如指掌，他们真的很热衷，只是给它一点机会，看看它是如何进行的，给它一点牵引力。 你会发现有效的想法，你会发现无效的想法，并与你的听众产生共鸣，那些有效的想法并消除任何无效的想法。 这真的只是一场缓慢而稳定的比赛，菲利克斯从这里获胜。
菲利克斯：我肯定想多谈这个，因为我对这个特定的话题感觉非常强烈，因为它的代表性真的很低，你有这种观点是因为它不那么有趣，或者当故事是“二十五岁”时它不会成为头条新闻一岁的人一边做生意一边做生意。” 这并不像“一个 25 岁的人辞掉了六位数的工作，一头扎进并开办了一百万美元的生意”那么有趣。 它没有那么有趣，但我认为对很多人来说这是一种更现实的方法。 我会争辩说，现在听的大多数人都处于这样的情况，他们正在从事日常工作或咨询或做某事来支付大部分账单，然后试图开始做一些事情。
我认为这是一个非常重要的话题，因为如果你确实同意你必须辞职并全职工作的想法是：第一，这可能很危险，你可能非常危险，它可能会破坏你所说的很多稳定性都是你扔出窗外的。 第二件事是，有时人们觉得他们必须等到完美的时机，“我还不能这样做，因为我还没有辞职，我不能全职专注于它。” 它使人们等待的时间比他们需要的要长，我认为这就是你的意思。
特拉维斯：正是菲利克斯。
菲利克斯：当然。 让我们谈谈桌子另一边的共同点。 我认为你提出的一件事是，如果你有 B 计划，我猜你总是会最终回到你的 B 计划，你的备用计划。 你对此有何看法？ 你觉得这曾经出现在你身上吗？ 我猜当有人说“如果你有一个备用计划，你总是会遵从它”之类的话时，你的一般想法是什么。
特拉维斯：是的。 实际上，我对那个有点心烦意乱，因为我确实听说过您所做的完全相同的事情。 我听各种播客、自我发展、专业发展、创业建议。 其中很多都导致了全力以赴的方向，而没有后退。 实际上，我在这个确切的问题上也为 Felix 感到痛苦，因为我想知道我在技术上阻碍了自己多少。 同时，我也想非常尊重我的社区和我们正在培养的观众。 我认为，当您全力以赴时，您可以了解的另一点是，当您本周绝对需要出售食物以备不时之需或本月支付租金时，您的意图可能会略有改变。
你的态度、你的语言和你的语气将与培养与这个社区的有机关系大不相同。 我认为我可以为另一支起步缓慢的球队扮演一个小恶魔的代言人，其中一个权衡是你可以在你的人际关系中保持更加真诚和有机，从长远来看，我相信这会比你试图推动的单一销售更有价值。 我更倾向于培养一种长期的关系来增加客户的终身价值，而不是强迫他们走一条短而窄的道路，这样我本周就可以从他们那里得到快速的销售。 这是我在那个部门的意见。
菲利克斯：我认为你的理解是有道理的，当你不需要把食物放在桌子上或支付房租因为你已经有其他东西可以帮助你支付所有这些费用时，你开始思考并且做出长期决策，而不是今天、本周、本月的销售。 另一点是你是否觉得你可能会失去动力，因为还有一个想法是你有一些事情正在推进，但你只有一半的时间，甚至不到一半的时间专注于它，因为你有八个小时的时间一天致力于别的事情。 你有没有觉得你正在失去动力或者可能没有那么多......显然你可能没有那么多能量但是你如何处理这些缺点？
Travis ：这是我一直关注的事情之一，从个人发展的角度来看，就是避免比较和绝望，这真的会害死你。 如果你在创业区、运动区、艺术区，总会有人做得更好，有人做得更快，有人全力以赴。这是我真正陷入困境的事情之一一整年都在看着我们的竞争对手，然后说，“哦，废话，他们的成长好多了。他们在这个部门和所有方面看起来都好多了。” 然后我必须坐下来意识到，“好吧，我是一个创建这个社区的人。”
我会研究我们的一些竞争对手，他们有二十、三十、五十多人的团队。 我真的必须让自己扎根并意识到，“好吧，这是你需要为自己做的事情。” 我认为，当您将这些指标转移到这样的外部标准时，从长远来看，这对您确实不利。 它肯定会影响到我，我觉得我显然希望每天多花八到十个小时来放大这一点，但现在投资回报率的平衡无法弥补它。 这就是我对菲利克斯这个问题的看法。
菲利克斯：我认为这是有道理的。 有趣的是，我还与其他一些企业家交谈过......没有时间，但因为他们每天有 8 小时、12 小时、10 小时的工作时间，这往往会花时间分散自己的注意力或专注于错误的事情，有时这些限制肯定会迫使你发挥创造力有时。 还迫使您考虑真正迫切需要完成的事情，而不是将时间花在实际上不是业务核心的事情上。 这对缺乏时间来说是一个积极的方面，它只会迫使你真正节省时间和精力。
特拉维斯：完全正确。
Felix ：这引出了我的下一个问题，因为你有一份日常工作，因为你通过薪水获得报酬，你一天中的时间显然更少，因为你要花八个小时左右的时间工作。 与 [音频不清晰 00:23:52] 只是辞职并从头开始创业的人相比，您确实拥有更多的现金和稳定性。 在您时间贫乏但现金/稳定性丰富的情况下，您如何利用这一优势？
特拉维斯：你之前刚刚发表的评论完全导致了这一点，我真的认为每晚做两个小时的企业家可以在两个小时内完成相同数量的工作，而相同数量的工作为有他们一整天的人可能需要四个小时，五个小时。 鉴于您正在分心和充实时间，我真的认为如果您将时间和精力集中在特定领域，它将放大您的结果。 你需要注意的是一直在寻找那八十个。 寻找你百分之二十的努力带来了百分之八十的结果。 如果你能找到有效的方法和需要关注的东西，我相当有信心，一个真正聪明和聪明的人可以在更短的时间内完成同样数量的工作。
我亲眼目睹了这一点……在我住在丹佛之前，我实际上是在通勤到丹佛。 我刚通勤一次，早上两个小时，两个小时前，我只是播客大师。 每一天，进进出出，我意识到我会回到家，大约八点到十点是我的蜜蜂高功率时段。 从八点到十点，我从第一分钟到最后一分钟都知道，我处于野兽模式，完成任务。 我确切地知道我将要做什么，我在开车回家的路上一直在考虑它，我知道接下来会发生什么。 我觉得如果我在相反的情况下，那天早上我刚醒来，就像，“我可能需要完成这件事，也许我也可以跳进去。”
我只是在周末注意到了这一点，因为这是我开始进入的模式，当你有所有这些额外的时间时，我想把它奉献给公司并建立品牌。 我真正注意到的一件事是帕金森定律的概念正在发生。 该声明的真正含义是一项任务将填补您给它的时间。 很多时候你会在截止日期前注意到记者； 您可以将截止日期提前三天，项目将在这段时间内完成。 你可以给他们额外的一周时间，他们很可能会在大约一周内完成完全相同的项目。 我非常相信利用帕金森定律为您带来优势的概念。
菲利克斯：我喜欢这样。 说到这一点并说出你所说的关于 820 的内容，你如何定位或识别那些活动，那些将为你的业务带来 80% 价值的任务？
特拉维斯：一直在听。 始终倾听您的客户，阅读您所在行业的所有内容，阅读其他人在做什么。 这就是我们的许多策略的用武之地，那就是进行竞争对手研究，看看什么对其他人有用，他们错过了什么。 我对自己查看大量细节和信息以及各种市场研究的能力非常有信心，并将其归结为战略性的、有意义的东西，找到模式，找到结果的来源。 很多时候你会发现它来自你关注的一两个或三个不同的领域，对我们来说，它肯定是在社交营销和电子邮件营销的混合领域。
费利克斯：有道理。 最后一个问题是你在做这方面的工作，你有一份全职工作，我假设在某个时候你会想要全职专注于 Bee-High。 你什么时候知道是时候辞掉日常工作并专注于你的副业了？
特拉维斯：我有一个数字，基本上是指我的薪水。 我希望能够通过 Bee-High.com 将我目前的薪水翻倍，当我达到那个点时，我想我可以自信地跳起来全力以赴。这只是个人的战略决定，争取一个数字。 我有一个教练或导师建议设置一个日期，看看你的日历是两年后，三年后，找到你什么时候想摆脱这个，或者你想开始这个.. . 无论你想从哪个角度来，你都可以做相反的事情并启动倒计时。 那将是另一种方式，但对我来说，我有一个收入数字可以带回家，一旦我达到这个数字，我就会安全，跳入并全力以赴。这对我有用，也许是基于时间的目标对其他人来说会更好，但这就是我的游戏计划。
菲利克斯：有道理。 对于可能还没有业务或仍在从事全职工作的人，他们可能会想：“我想辞职，全职专注于我的业务，如果我能与我的薪水相匹配，我将开始创业。” 为什么说工资翻倍？
Travis ：因为我很清楚我正在创造的生活方式设计，而我实际上只是对其进行逆向工程。 我不只是过着我现在正在做的生活，而是从我想要过的生活方式开始倒退。
费利克斯：另一件要考虑的事情是，当你工作时......我只能代表美国的人说，仅仅因为你的薪水与你的工资相匹配，并不意味着所有的福利、健康保险，税收，通常有时由您的雇主承保的所有其他东西将不再承保。
特拉维斯：没错。 真正的工作或我们认为真正的职业有很多次要价值，是的，也许我有非常好的同事和伟大的老板，我们在非营利组织做得很好，这不像很多故事中很多这样其他人，你会听到很多这些人的经典故事，比如，“哦，我想走进我老板的办公室，拿着猎枪走进去。” 你就像，“哦，天哪，天哪。” 比如，“我喜欢和我一起工作的人，我喜欢我正在做的工作。” 如果没有必要，真的没有必要去搅动马蜂窝。
费利克斯：有道理。 现在让我们谈谈您建立的业务。 我们知道你卖的价格，它是如何运作的？ 你如何采购它们？ 你的供应链是什么？ 它是什么样子的？
特拉维斯：这实际上是我今天非常高兴谈论菲利克斯的事情。 我们完全运作......我意识到这可能会令人困惑，我用我们这个词来形容我在 Bee-High 所做的几乎所有事情。 我使用皇家我们作为协作我们只是因为它是一个社区。 有这么多热情的人一直在帮助我，感觉就像我们一样。 只是为了澄清，目前这是一个单独的项目。 我没有员工，但我经常使用我们这个词，但这只是因为它是一个如此强大的社区，而且我们有很多人都参与其中，无论他们是否是员工。
我非常高兴分享的一件事是我们的整个模型基于私人合作伙伴的直接运输设置。 这基本上意味着我不必接触任何库存，这让我非常高兴。 我不必处理仓储、包装、运输以及您传统上在电子商务商店中设想的所有行政工作。 实际上我不需要做任何这些，这让我有最大的精力和精力专注于前端和培育品牌、建立受众并与我们的消费者建立这些关系。 私人合作伙伴代发货模式是我去年偶然发现的一个非常棒的概念，它对我的发现非常有帮助，它几乎是我们整个公司的确切模式。
代发货我相信大多数人都知道，但这是当另一个人或公司代表您向客户发送产品时。 Drop shipping 已经存在，这已经是一件事了，并且有在线资源，您可以注册它。 我注意到很多现有的只是注册并进行直接运输的问题是这些行业的竞争性质，而这些产品很难与之竞争。 当有十、十五、二十、三十个其他人可以访问该网站并单击注册时，“我想放弃发货”。 他们可以在一天、两天、三天内建立并运行他们的网站，这真的是低效的，它把竞争带到了一个荒谬的水平。
我实际上采用了直接运输模式并联系了私人产品合作伙伴。 实际上，我没有去拥有所有这些不同类型产品的单一仓库或托运人，而是与将要发送的实际产品建立个人关系。 举个例子，我们可以在这里学习，比如我想开始销售研磨机，这是一种非常常见的大麻配件，我想要最好的研磨机。 我开始研究不同的公司，哪些是最好的，哪些评价好，哪些评价差，然后我选择一个品牌，一个产品。 在这种情况下，我选择了来自亚利桑那州的 Phoenician Engineering，他们真的是一家了不起的公司。 他们专注于豪华、高端、优质的医疗级研磨机。
他们就是我所说的产品合作伙伴。 我与他们联系并建立了积极的关系，最终我在 Bee-High.com 上销售他们的产品，每次我们从观众那里收到订单时，我可以以零售价继续以批发价购买该产品直接运送给消费者。 我正在收集从批发到转售的利润，他们像往常一样履行订单。 这确实是一个很棒的概念，它显然有它的权衡，但主要的事实是我不托管任何库存、任何仓储、任何运输或履行，这让我有能力培养我们的内容营销、我们的社交营销、我们的电子邮件营销并专注于前端的一切。 我真正注意到的是，在这个行业的绿色热潮中，最终出现的是拥有出色产品的人； 很棒的东西出来与它无关，没有观众可以卖给它。
他们没有动力，我进来填补这个空白。 我基本上做完全相反的事情，我正在培养这个志趣相投的人社区并收集我们的观众，我会伸出援手，这就是我的价值提议是，“我有十万人可以让你的产品摆在面前。” 我可以带来的价值对很多人来说都是必要的。 如果您知道某个特定的产品或特定的品牌或公司正在扼杀它，并且您知道这一点，但他们无法吸引观众或进入市场，那么您可以成为 Segway，您可以填补这一空白。 这确实是我们的许多商业模式蓬勃发展的地方，就是这种私人合作伙伴直接运输模式，它与每个产品合作伙伴都是一对一的。 一旦你让它运行起来，它实际上是一个非凡的设置，你不必专注于库存以及随之而来的所有恶作剧。
菲利克斯：让我稍微分解一下——
特拉维斯：做吧。
费利克斯：你显然想成为一种直销模式，因为它可以节省你很多时间，因为你没有那么多时间开始，但现在你也可以更多地专注于营销和社区建设它的一个方面。 您不想只是去寻找任何其他公共直接托运人，因为竞争会如此激烈。 他们将向如此多不同的零售商销售产品，以至于你进入没有意义，因为再次存在如此多的竞争，而这一切都是因为当时的商品。 您会发现这些制造商，这些公司已经在创造出色的产品，然后您正在与他们建立关系，最终目标是与他们达成协议，以便您可以在有人从您的网站购买时以批发价从他们那里购买他们完成订单并将其直接运送给您的客户，对吗？
特拉维斯：当场。 这正是菲利克斯。
菲利克斯：让我们再谈一点。 这绝对是我个人以前从未听说过的模型，但是当您谈论它时，它会很有意义。 For anyone out there that wants to do something like this, let's say they find a product, find a company and they feel like they can fill that void that you're talking about and be the marketing and the sales, the community building arm of that company, how do you begin this conversation with those partners? What are you saying to them to even get them interested in you in the first place?
Travis : The most critical elements of this entire process is the audience and the community that you own. You need to have something of value to offer to these product partners, that's what I call them in the model is a product partner because that's exactly what they are. What you really want to be doing is offering as much value as you can to them to even have them be interested. All of your leverage comes on that front-end of the market. You need to be able to show or tell them how much you would be able to affect this community, your audience, your anything that you own and you have an influence over, that has value to other individuals. I would really focus on cultivating a highly targeted community and that's going to be where a lot of your leverage comes in.
I'll jump on a call or go through the old school emailing back and forth but really come to them with an offer of, "Hey, I have a hundred thousand responsible, respectable, regular cannabis users in my community. Your product fits the exact type of products that we're trying to put in front of this audience." Really coming at it from this angle of giving them value and producing results. Because a lot of the time you're going to be competing with massive ... They might be fulfilling orders for a thousand products at a time. This might just get blown off, you have to be able to understand and demonstrate the value that you can bring to the table.
Felix : In your case you had built this audience of a hundred thousand people and definitely want to talk in a second about how you did this, but you built this up first before you ever approached any of these partners that you found?
Travis : Slowly. I was able to have a basic first partner, right out the gates just because it actually worked perfectly like that. They weren't too concerned and they provided the products that we needed and it gave me just a little bit of a structure to start with. When you really start expanding and getting into a little bit of the higher end products, you definitely are going to need the actual audience and a targeted audience is where the value comes in. We are very clear that we are shooting for a little bit above the traditional market and shooting for the affordable, luxury category. We're not competing on price, a lot of the things that I consider when looking for partners is the value and the perception of their products and how well that's going to match the audience that I'm serving.
In the case of Phoenician, they have luxury premium grinders; this guy he's obsessed with engineering, he knows like, "Oh, if you move this tooth to this side then it won't get stuck on this." A whole another level of detail that I didn't even know existed but it gives the user a premium experience. It made it very clear that we had a product audience match whereas if I went and saw somebody with the exact same thing and they had some cheap aluminium alloy grinder that was manufactured ten thousand at a time and they sell three thousand at a time to wholesale distributors throughout the country, it's very unlikely that we would have a product market match there. Being really focused and really considerate of the audience that you have and the audience you're serving and the product that you're reaching out to attempt to connect with that audience.
Having that match is very critical and I've been very concise and considerate about the selection of our products which has been really part of our success model. Instead of giving the whole warehouse style of websites, I'm sure you've been in a website where you literally just feel like you're in a warehouse and you're just clicking through pages and pages and categories and we offer the polar opposite of that. If you would imagine a traditional warehouse Walmart style store, we are the polar opposite of that. We would be like a man's designer boutique around the corner. I'm very concise about the products selections that I put in front of our audience. Instead of just overwhelming everybody with anything and everything, that's been another little detail of creating really positive relationships with these individuals because of our marketing and our branding a lot more product partners that fit that category are all about it.
费利克斯：有道理。 Let's talk about this audience that you built. A hundred thousand people, heard you say it a couple of times, is that just all in one platform and how is that spread out amongst all your profiles?
Travis : The primary metric I'm trying to get away from using but I use it right now just for tracking general metrics is cumulative social reach. That's pretty much our reach across all of our networks. That actually has been trimmed down significantly after our most recent Instagram shutdown got chopped down at a 50-55k which was heartbreaking but still recovering from the sting on that one. What that basically is is across all of our networks, we have access to about a hundred thousand followers and a large majority is Tumblr, another chunk of that is from MassRoots which is a mobile app targeted only for cannabis consumers. That was definitely again we mentioned that watering pool earlier. You want to be at the exactly where your audience is and it was dumb not to be there. MassRoots was another very excellent area for us to cultivate a little more traction then the classic Tumblr, Twitter, Pinterest is the other ones.
Felix : I don't want to get stuck on this point for too long but you said fifty thousand followers on Instagram, that profile got shutdown. Man, that definitely sounds devastating, what happened?
Travis : As you mentioned earlier what are the trade-offs of being cannabis related and cannabis company. One of the things that we've done as a strategic decision is be very clear with our language and the terms that we use. A lot of the times I'm sure you've been into maybe a head shop or heard the people that use the phrase, "This is for tobacco use only." You're like, "Okay, sure." Everybody knows that's not actually for tobacco use only. A lot of the other companies they just roll with that because that's what you're supposed to do and everybody just thinks that's how it's supposed to go. We've done the exact opposite again mentioning being really precise with your language. We're very open and transparent about using cannabis terms, cannabis language and saying, "Yes, this bong is for cannabis. This is not going to be for tobacco use only."
Felix : That was against Instagram's policies or something?
Travis : Yes. 确切地。 If you're in the category for tobacco use only that means you're safe technically and we are actually very clear about, "This is for cannabis, this is a cannabis product. This is a cannabis accessory." That violates a lot of terms for anything on the national level. The Instagram was actually just a small dose of the ... I call it cannabis bigotry in the industry. It's really a professional, industrial level of cannabis bigotry and it's anything affecting a national retailer or a national company will almost a hundred percent of the time cut out anything cannabis related. Our PayPal account has been shut down and our funds frozen multiple times, the Instagram shut down still recovering from that one. Just this morning actually recovering from Payment Gateway just got shut down as well.
That one wasn't even our fault, we had a previous high risk retailer or a high risk underwriter that was acquired by a different company, that new company came in and reviewed the policies and everything and cut anything and everything cannabis related or cannabis accessory related. Literally, as we speak I just opened my email this morning to see that our Payment Gateway has been shut down. I've got a stack of papers to sign up for a new Payment Gateways, get all of that figured out later. It's really a frustrating point but it's also really a moral stand from my perspective as well that I'm not going to play the for tobacco use only games. I'm in this again for the long run, I'm in this for the long haul and we're open about being heavy cannabis supporters.
It has some trade-offs and quickly I'm quickly realizing what those trade-offs are one at a time but as you've probably noticed in every entrepreneurial story, every theme, it's about re-routing your navigation to get to where you need to. I know where I need to get and it's going to be a leading cannabis brand and you're not going to get there plastering for tobacco use only on all of your products. It has its trade-offs but I think we're going to stick with our moral stand of remaining very transparent that our products are for cannabis.
费利克斯：有道理。 Let's talk about Tumblr then. You're mentioning that MassRoots is one platform, Instagram at a certain point and you guys are recovering from that but Tumblr is also a big one for you guys. What is the strategy on there? How have you used Tumblr to cultivate following?
Travis : This was again another little sweet spot that I was able to find in the realm of social marketing and content marketing. As I mentioned earlier, I'm always looking for that eighty-twenty and Tumblr gives you an opportunity to create a platform. It's basically a microblog and unlike most other platforms, you have to post your own content, post your own image. Tumblr, you can create a completely curated blog of other people's existing content and let me be clear for a second, this is an image that somebody else has posted or uploaded and you re-blog it on your page. It basically creates a curated content blog and that is not stealing images, downloading them and uploading them as your own, that is a completely different category and that's a big no, no.
Felix : You still get credit?
Travis : Yeah. This is where it's originally sourced and you do what is called a re-blog on Tumblr. It's basically the same concept of a share on every other network. Instead of creating original content when I was first starting, I was able to build a platform curating really great content of smoking pictures and great glass, really that heavily visual communication with the audience. With that now that we do have an audience to leverage and cultivate, I've been sprinkling in a lot of micrographic content marketing, we can just into content and email marketing a little bit after this. It's a little trifecta that they all feed into one another but really focusing on visual content and creating an environment and a community that people want to be a part of and that's what I have found in Tumblr.
Felix : How do you find the content to re-blog? 你在寻找什么？ What's the best ways for someone who wants to start a new Tumblr profile to build a community, what are the first steps they should take to find the best content to curate?
Travis : I'll give the forewarning it is definitely a slow and steady growth. If this is something you're going to want to jump into be weary that this isn't like a paper [inaudible 00:53:49] campaign that you're just going to amplify. It's really a long game strategy and it feels really empty and slow at the beginning but once it picks up, it starts taking off. One of the areas that I really started off with was just general hashtags as with every other social channel you can go and scour and explore all the existing hashtags. Anything cannabis related I was going ahead and jumping in there as my starting point. Then once you get into this community you start seeing who the regular influencers are, whose stuff gets re-blogged the most, what type of content gets shared all the time, what type of stuff just completely flops.
From there you can start targeting specific influencers to connect with. Once you break out of the surface level hashtag environment you can start jumping into seeing, "Okay, well who are the people that are dominating these hashtags? Who are the people that are really resonating?" These people have their own little mini audiences. Really tapping into an influencer marketing model with tons of smaller individuals. If you would imagine a traditional influencer marketing with authors and really big shots in traditional marketing, this is really the same concept but boiled down to more of a micro level. Connecting with these micro influencers, re-blogging a lot of their content and in turn that starts creating this self-sustaining cycle of value once you start creating these audiences.
Felix : Once you've built this community, once you've built a bunch of followers on Tumblr, how do you drive them to your store?
Travis : Actually, I have a couple of different things that we do: one of my areas of focus is actually not driving social traffic directly to our store. I actually attempt to drive a lot of our traffic to our email list which we can jump into content marketing, social marketing and email marketing to me are a holy, little trifecta and they're all interconnected. What I basically do is create really engaging visual content to share on the platform. A quick example, I'll give you an example of how it would work out and I'll create a micrographic that compares the death statistics of alcohol versus the death statistics of cannabis and I'll have an entire article ready, sitting on the site, nothing sells the ... Just educational informative community content and that's where I'll drive a lot of our traffic from social areas and all the time I'm always trying to feed people into your mailing list.
That's what you need to be doing if you want to own an audience, it needs to be on your email list or regularly coming back to your site but most of the time you want to be driving your traffic to an email list of some sort. That's really a lot of the focus that we do is I'm all about the soft sale, I'm sure I would probably make some marketing funnel experts cringe. I'm all about cultivating a long-term relationship over a short-term sale. We actually drive a lot of our traffic to the website for sharing content, sharing articles and educational pieces instead of jumping directly to the sale but we definitely do have ... I sprinkle in probably maybe about five or ten percent of our posts that just link directly to products and those do tend to do pretty well as well.
Felix : You're creating some original content that is related to your brand, related to your industry, then people are clicking on a link to go to some landing page somewhere from the site for email listing. How do they actually get from Tumblr to your email list?
Travis : One of the things that we really focus on funneling traffic to our mailing list is through our content sign up. We have a bunch of ... It's basically a legalization campaign called #Mission420. A lot of that content is very viral focused on stirring up opinions, getting people really passionate, getting them involved with cannabis legalization and exposing the details of cannabis versus other things. Getting people as passionate as possible before they get to the end of that article, the technical details would be email subscriber pop-ups.
Felix : You got some content that you've created on your site then you're sharing that on Tumblr and then they click over to it, then there's a pop-up basically from the sign up for your newsletter?
Travis : Yeah. Every article is going to be slightly different, I'm trying to really custom tailor every offer but you need to either ... There's two keys that you need somebody to sign up for your email list: they need to either be passionately in love with what you're doing or sharing or writing or you need to have something really cool or really awesome on the other end of that subscriber list. I've taken two different strategies for that: one is a traditional giveaway platform where we just straight up, "Give us your email address, your entry to the giveaway and you could win anything you want from the site for free." Stuff like that very simple model.
The other model is a little more complex, a little deeper and that's where it taps into the heartstrings and the emotions of our audience and that's where more of our campaign comes in like the Mission 420 campaign. Our cannabis education articles revealing all the different benefits of CBD oils and cancer treatments and just really a wide spectrum of passionate content that gets people going. A lot of it is either I email subscriber pop-up box or even just a simple link at the bottom of every article. It's keeping it simple and making sure that when somebody jumps on your page, there's really only one thing to do and you want to be funneling everybody towards a single call to action.
A lot of times you'll see so much content that just sends people, "Follow us on this and share it over there." "Oh, don't forget to sign up on our thing at the bottom of the footer, you can sign up for an email newsletter too. Don't forget to check this on your way out." Then people just leave and close the page. Any content that you're producing and you're driving social traffic to, I would recommend having one single call to action for that page and just make it very clear from top to bottom what that call to action is and eventually it pays off.
Felix : I totally agree that you want to keep it simple and then also give them a good reason to sign up and not just, "Hey, sign up for our newsletter." I don't want to be too dense about this myself because I don't have much experience with Tumblr, are you posting the link to the content on Tumblr? What exactly are you posting to get them to your site?
Travis : Thankfully one of the cool things about Tumblr is there's a wide variety of content posting types whereas Twitter you just have your a hundred and forty characters, you're good, you go upload something if you want then it's done. Tumblr has a really wide variety of post types, they have photo sets, they have single photos, audio, all kinds of different strategies. In general the most successful strategy is a single micrographic image and it's basically a mini infographic that can be absorbed in five, ten, fifteen seconds. Don't overdo it and that's where a lot of our traffic comes from, is I'll post a single micrographic that's part of a larger article and just create a link to that article within the post. The micrographic will be explaining, "Ninety percent of users that overdosed on prescription painkillers could have potentially been saved from cannabis." A little quick snippet of information, a little quick fact, it's heavy on visuals then in the text under that image is just a quick link to the actual article or anything that you want to create.
If you want to actually create a call to action directly from within Tumblr, you can link up to it as well, it gives you a lot of flexibility in controlling hyperlinks, bolding this and what not whereas a lot of other platforms you're really just restricted to what they give you. That is one of the areas where I can create custom links and that's also one of the areas I've been experimenting too, is to see what types of links are working? Is it better to send people directly to the mailing list or is it better to send them to content first then the mailing list? Just always testing, always optimizing but thankfully the flexibility of Tumblr allows for a very wide spectrum. The sweet spot that I would emphasize is a single image that tells them a small story in five to ten, fifteen seconds and I think you'll see a lot of success with that.
费利克斯：有道理。 You're creating some kind of custom graphic, custom infographic that then links to your content page or you also said that you might link to your email sign up directly and that makes sense. Can I close it down by talking about email marketing? What are you doing once you actually get their email address? What are you sending them?
Travis : I have basically two different routes that are set up here: there's the traditional automation and autoresponders that are set up. Right now if you were to sign up and subscribe to our list on Bee-High.com, you would get emails for the next I believe sixteen weeks is how long I've got it set up now. Again, maximizing that eighty-twenty, email automation sequence is really where you can maximize a lot of your efforts because once it's set up, you can keep building and keep building off of that. Right now we have a sixteen week automated email sequence that goes out when you sign up. It's about once per week, not over doing it then I do traditional broadcast style what most people would just call a blast in email marketing.
That's when anything that comes up that is super topical, we'll jump in the news if there's anything really big happening in the world of cannabis, we'll jump in there. Then anytime we upload new products is also when I'll utilize the more of a blast style of email marketing instead of the automation. We've got a little bit of a hybrid model of automation that kicks in as soon as you sign up then over time depending on topical events, new products et cetera then that's when we leverage more of the traditional blast style of email marketing that everybody is more used to.
Felix : I like that, that you have basically sixteen weeks of communicating with the customers that are actually having to type up these emails yourself. This ties all together email marketing, Tumblr with the social marketing, the content marketing you're doing. All of these on the side, how successful has the business been since you've started it?
Travis : It has been excellent. Of course everybody has a different definition of success but I am in a great spot. We're in a steady growth of about ten, twenty percent per month and that's all I could ask for. I'm really satisfied with that. Jumping into more of a revenue side of things the first year I ever started jumping into this we hit 25k revenue and now this year we're projected to double that and possibly more. We're going to be hitting around 50-55k this year.
Felix : This is all done on a part time. How many hours a day are you spending on this obviously in the week?
Travis : It varies on a spectrum but I pretty much have this 8 to 10p.m blocked out every single day and that's pretty much my Bee-High focus zone that I get almost everything done in that 8 to 10p.m, Monday through Friday. I try to invest as much as I can on the weekends really doing a lot of the sacrificing of social hours and going out on Friday's and Saturday's nights, a lot of the times they're spent right here in front of this keyboard but it's really worth it in the long run I believe.
Felix : Thanks so much Travis of Bee-High.com, Bee-High.com is the website. Anywhere else you recommend the listeners check out for them to follow along with what you're up to, what your company is up to?
Travis : Yeah. Bee-High.com, sign up for our mailing list, you'll definitely be interested in a lot of the content that we promote and put out. On more of a personal level for anybody that's just wanting to connect for a business relationship, feel free to reach out to me on LinkedIn, that's actually been one of my sweet spots for connecting with business to business partners and all kinds of individuals. Feel free to find me on LinkedIn @Travislachner. That's Lachner.
Felix : Thanks so much Travis.
Travis : Thanks so much Felix, I appreciate your time.
Felix : Thanks for listening to Shopify Masters the e-commerce marketing podcast for ambitious entrepreneurs. To start your store today visit shopify.com/masters to claim your extended thirty day free trial.