Vessi Footwear Co-Founder Tony Yu tells us how to turn Customers to Community, Help the World, and Lower Your CaC by 90% While Growing 3X in a 60% Down Industry
🛒🌎ECOM COMMUNITY SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT: If you run an ecommerce brand or aspire to, you are hereby advised to watch this Hot Seat. Not only will it help you grow your business with seriously next level ideas, but it might just help make the world a better place by inspiring a quality capitalism :D
This week on Hot Seat episode #3, we talk about how Vessi Footwear's Tony Yu drives a 90% decrease in CaC through give back campaigns, (3x sales growth and 7x ROAS) through choose what you pay campaigns), Kickstarter, YouYube Integrations and LOTS more. Reviewing this cast I have to give my head a shake. The sheer amount of knowledge and value dropped by Tony Yu here is astounding.
00:00 - Intro to Vessi and podcast overview
01:17 - Footwear industry down as much as 40-60%!
01:42 - Early Covid Impact on Vessi Sales
02:10 - 3x GROWTH pivot from marketing spend to community initiatives
03:14 - Finding amazing new audiences due to pee and poo (nurses)
04:11 - 2000 free pairs of Vessi’s for front line workers!
04:20 - How else can we help? PPE and discounted shoes
05:50 - Vessi’s “Choose What You Pay” model
07:30 - Vessi’s Acquisition cost dropped 80% (7X ROAS) *
11:10 - Creative details for “Choose What You Pay” campaigns
12:25 - How did people behave discount/donation wise?
14:40 - So many opportunities for giveback now, virtuous cycle of giving back!
15:45 - Ideation to execution 2 days - copy is bottleneck
17:05 - “Message from our CEO in these trying times…” Meme - Stand Out!
8:30 - Community tech initiatives to help seniors
19:15 - Vessi Community Fund
21:05 - Inspiration for Vessi Shoewear - Direct to consumer shoes
23:00 - How big was Vessi’s first order?
23:50 - Last minute leak catch at Vessi factory
24:30 - JV deal to own your own factory
26:14 - Secrets to getting products launched on Kickstarter*
27:55 - is Kickstarter dead? (no)
28:53 - Using Kickstarter for new product lines within brands
32:27 - Who are Vessi’s main competitors now?
33:56 - YouYube Integrations: Massive scale influencers
37:18 - How to scale YouTube Integrations
38:45 - How does creative work with YouTube Integrations
41:20 - Vessi’s retail strategy (big box vs pop up stores)
44:58 - Vessi’s experiential retail strategy
45:53 - How do you 10X Vessi? (Building a brand in layers)
49:20 - Making giveback initiatives permanent
50:13 - Eric’s formula for fixing the world with quality capitalism :)
51:25 - Pilothouse buys Vessi shoes
52:50 - Attack of Tony’s Clone
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