18# Episode josh orr
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[00:00:00] What's up crew excited that you're here today? 'cause I have something exciting that I wanna share with you and it's something that I think that if you can implement has the power to change your site, your email, your social. Because most of us focus on the wrong thing. And what I mean is like, have you ever opened your inbox?
[00:00:18] And if you are like me, like I'm subscribed to a gajillion retailers and I can always see the ones that do email marketing and do side updates really well, and the ones that. [00:00:30] You can tell like they're struggling with, with messaging. Have you ever gotten those emails? And typically what those emails look like is like, here's what's new.
[00:00:40] What's new? You know, just arrived. Like it's things that are all around new arrivals and our core message is, look what's new. Now, what's the problem there? When we focus on just what's new, who does that apply to? Like if you were walked into a store and the salesperson, you know, you walk in, [00:01:00] they're like, what brings you in?
[00:01:00] They're like, oh, I'm just looking. And they're like, great, our new arrivals are over there. Now, if you've never been to that store, does that matter? Like does it really matter that there's some new things over there? Because for you, that entire store is new. Because I'm not a customer yet. What is new versus what is a month old has no relevance for me, and it doesn't bring me in.
[00:01:22] So what does draw me in? Like as a customer? What is it that draws you in? And this is where we get the power of [00:01:30] story and story is like it's storytelling. It is showcasing something to someone and drawing them into an example. And so think about this like, I'm in Texas, and right now it's the middle of August and temperatures are over a hundred degrees every single day, and it's humid.
[00:01:50] So you walk outside, like from the walk to my garage, from the walk, from my back door to my truck. I'm already sweaty, purely just like [00:02:00] that's five seconds and I am already sweating for that little bitty walk Now. In about a month, the temperature's going to finally get below 80 degrees, and my wife and I are going to finally go to one of our favorite restaurants.
[00:02:14] And let's be real, we have little kids. So favorite restaurant really doesn't mean we, it's the best food. It means that it has room for our kids to run around and not bug anyone. And there's this restaurant, it's this Italian place, and they have this massive green space behind it. The kids [00:02:30] can run around and play and there's even a park there.
[00:02:32] And so my wife and I like when weather's nice, we'll go there during happy hour, we'll order a glass of wine and we'll just watch our kids play and we have great conversation. It's practically like a date night for us and we get to reconnect. Now, my wife, if you are a boutique, what would it look like for you to showcase that feeling?
[00:02:56] To say, Hey, like this experience you're about to have, [00:03:00] this is the best version of it. You can showcase what it feels like. You can showcase what it looks like. You can showcase what she's wearing, and that's for something really minor, like just sitting on the back patio. And then of course you have really big events.
[00:03:14] But when we can make these events and we can showcase the best possible version of it to our customers, our products just fill in the story. An outdoor retailer might showcase this amazing camping trip where you [00:03:30] know, a dad with his son and what he looks like and what he's wearing and the gear that he has, and the products are just filling in the narrative.
[00:03:38] But as soon as I see that image, I can see myself in that moment connecting with my son as we makes smore. The products fill in the story, they are not the story. And so when we can shift this mentality, yes, we can sometimes focus on what's new, 'cause there's value in that. But more than that, we can focus on what our customer is thinking [00:04:00] about.
[00:04:00] What is going on in their life, what are they thinking about? What are they worried, worried about? And everything roots from our customer rather than our brand and what we're buying. And I hope you can see like there's a lot of nuance in this and it, it really is a shift in mentality. But when we shift our marketing and we shift our communication around our customer's lives, our customers connect with us better.
[00:04:22] So how do we do this? I wanna walk you through a framework that I created for Manifest with my friend Tara Austin. It is a [00:04:30] course and a like a in-person workshop that we do. I'm not sure when this podcast is gonna be released. Um, but if you're interested in learning about that, you can learn [email protected] slash focus.
[00:04:41] But that's not why I'm talking about this. So this framework, we call it the seasonal structure theory, and where it came from was realizing that, you know, throughout the year, like we have different seasons and yes, like there's the obvious seasons of winter, spring, summer, fall. But if [00:05:00] you think about it in, in our day-to-day lives, there are more seasons than that.
[00:05:05] Like you, yes, you have summer, but you also kind of get this season of back to school and then you get fall, and then you start to get like pre-holiday and holiday and then winter and it keeps going. And the seasons look different for everyone because it's based on the seasons of your customer's lives.
[00:05:23] Like in and of itself may, if you have little kids, is its own season. 'cause it is as hectic as December with [00:05:30] all the end of school year stuff. So you have these seasons. Well, underneath that what we wanna do is identify two kinds of events and you're going to have a lot of them. You have first major events.
[00:05:42] These are significant events in your customer's lives. And they can be obvious ones like July 4th, labor Day. Kids going back to school. And it can also be big moments that generally speaking, all of your customers resonate with, [00:06:00] uh, this could be vacations, this can be, uh, Friday night, like football games.
[00:06:05] If that's something you're like, if you're the, if your customer is the parent of high school kids, like that is a part of their life. Uh, and or game day, or you name it. And then underneath that you have what we call minor events. And minor events are what better could be better called moments, sitting on the back patio with a glass of wine.
[00:06:25] Girls night, maybe a date night. A date night could be a major event or a minor event. Really [00:06:30] depends on your customer. Do they shop for that or do they just have a wardrobe and pull from it? What does, what does that look like for your perfect customer? So we get these, these major events and these minor events.
[00:06:41] Well, here's what's cool is you know, instead of having a product, you get in a green dress and you launch it on your Tuesday night launch. And then if you think about it, at that point, we're done. Our post is around how cute the dress is, how you feel in it, how much you love it, and then it's, [00:07:00] it's done.
[00:07:00] The content we can produce from that dress is, is done, but instead when we focus it on events, that green dress can fit into game day. It can fit into date night. It can fit into the moment the patio. It can fit into a Labor Day party. It can fit into. Any of these things. 'cause we can tell a story where that product fills that in.
[00:07:21] And so after we've identified the events, we then wanna start showcasing it. And showcasing is embodying that to your [00:07:30] customer and saying like, this is the perfect version of that thing that you are thinking of. And that can be as big as your hero image, the big one on the top of the site. Or it could be as small as a try on video.
[00:07:43] Where you're trying on the dress, but instead of just talking about how much you love it, you are like, oh my gosh, and this would be perfect for like tonight I'm gonna go out with my husband and we're gonna sit on a back patio. And it's just verbally, you're talking about these events, but you are emotionally pulling them into that story.
[00:07:59] I. [00:08:00] And so this is maybe the most tactical podcast that I've done, but what's amazing here is when you can create your content calendar where, okay, so you have a major event, well, out of that, you're gonna have a major site update, three reels around it. You know, one that's more inspirational, one that's educational, how to style it, and another that is entertaining.
[00:08:21] It's just funny, but it's showcasing that moment and the, that product I. Then you have emails and you can, you can really [00:08:30] focus on those major events in the subject line of your emails. But what's amazing is that your products get to fill in the story. So if you, you know, if you're not catching what I'm talking about, or maybe this was too confusing, The, at the end of the day, what we want to do is shift our focus from what's new.
[00:08:48] I'm not saying don't ever focus on what's new, but focus on what's going on in your customer's life. Make your message be around those things. I. And then now your products [00:09:00] can fill in that story. So I hope that this was helpful today. I really think that the power of story, if you can shift your message to the story of your customer's lives and how your product makes that better, I.
[00:09:13] Like this is the path, like this is the singular thing that's going to change the way you merchandise your site. Change the way you plan your social, change the way you plan your ads, change your email and it gives you a content calendar that you can implement that that lets you [00:09:30] get away from. Look at the dress.
[00:09:31] It's so cute. And I'm not saying you never do that, but it's so much more powerful. It's, look at this dress. It's so cute. Tonight, this is what it's going to look like, and your customer gets drawn into that story. So I hope this was valuable for you. What I would love to know is if you implement it, shoot me a DMM at retail.
[00:09:52] Josh, I would love to hear from you, or if you have a question about it, I'd love to, to bring clarity and, and I love knowing how I can teach these things better. [00:10:00] If you did enjoy this, do me a favor, subscribe to the podcast and leave a review that helps us connect with more retailers as our biggest goal is to make an impact in the retail community.
[00:10:10] So grateful that you're here. Can't wait to see you next week.
