Happy Sunday!

If you've opened the Sunday newsletter, then you already know the deal — get comfy, grab a beverage (I'm sipping on some fine Harmless Harvest coconut water), kick the feet up, and pull up the weighted blanket.

First off, if you've been thinking about what Apple might be building for an ads platform, Moiz and I got into it on Limited Supply. If you don't care about the mechanics behind the next advertising juggernaut, then DO NOT LISTEN to Limited Supply!!

Ok, let's get into the newsletter...

With the larger brands that we work with, there's so much data to dive into. If you remember last week's newsletter, I talked about the importance of collecting data, to use later. In fact, this morning I took a themed workout class, and wondered, "I wonder what the % increase of new vs existing customers is for this specific instructor, as a result of a themed ride?" While I highly doubt Soulcycle is looking at any of that data, if they track things properly, they could pull the answer to that.

With our larger clients, one thing I've been obsessing over is how a customer gets onboarded to a brand. There are so many ways to do it. It starts with word of mouth that someone may hear about your brand, or through some form of content (organically or an ad). Right away, your brand becomes associated with an emotional experience. If you're putting out good content, you should be building excitement, FOMO, and maybe even saliva, within a consumer.

Bringing in parallel concept, Peak & Pit Experiences, you can see similarities between what we experience in daily life, and how we can better apply these frameworks around Peak & Pit to customer onboarding. The TL;DR of Peak & Pit experiences are:

Peak Experience: a "high". The peak is the best part, or most memorable, accomplishing, or courageous part of an experience.

Most peak experiences have 1 of these 4 characteristics:

  • Elevation: these are moments of happiness that transcend the normal course of events through sensory pleasures and surprises.
  • Pride: these are moments that capture us at our best; whether it be moments of achievement or moments of courage.
  • Insight: these are our eureka moments; they change our understanding of ourselves of the world and give us a moment of sobering clarity.
  • Connection: these are moments that are social in nature; think weddings, graduations, baptisms, and parades.

Pit Experiences: a "low". The pit is the more negative or most challenging part of an experience.

Give this article a quick read, and you'll know what I'm talking about (it's where I took the 4 characteristics from). 

When you look at how some of the best brands/experiences in the world use this to their advantage, you start to understand the framework of how to best utilize it and can apply it to your own brand. Here are some examples:

  • You get excited to buy an Eight Sleep (peak), you spend a few thousand dollars (pit), you get a plain-text email from the CEO thanking you for your purchase (going toward peak), and your product arrives (peak).
  • You get excited to go to an EDM concert (peak). The first opener has 2 light colors and 1 pattern in which the lights move (pit), the second opener has more lights and gets to use the screen (going toward peak), then the main act comes on using all the lights, pyro, fog, extra subwoofers (peak). The show ends (pit), but after chanting "ONE MORE!" there's one more song to close it out (ultra peak!).
  • You order a product from a brand you've been saving up for (peak), your product arrives and its damaged (pit), you get in touch with customer service (going toward peak), the issue gets resolved and the customer is even happier than when it first arrived (ultra peak!). 
  • You go to a Rumble class (peak), halfway into the workout you're out of breathe and can't drink water cause you need to breathe (pit), you finish a class (going toward peak), and everyone claps for each other and gives fist bumps (ultra peak!). 

Our experiences are designed to maximize the emotion tied back to an event. People don't remember the pits, but they definitely remember the peaks. You probably know someone who takes a Soulcycle class and just says it's so much fun and full of community — that's because they're intentional about those peaks throughout the experience!

In the customer service example, there is research that demonstrates a higher customer lifetime value and propensity to spend with a brand, after having a customer service issue be resolved.

Of course, this is just the beginning of someone's journey with you as a customer, but applying the knowledge of these psychological frameworks can dramatically improve someone's experience with you as a customer, and eventually a brand advocate.

One interesting point that Matt Bertulli made on the Down to Chat podcast was that when someone's first full usage cycle with a Lomi went perfectly, they became a super-fan and evangelist for the brand. But when it didn't go perfectly, the overall usage and customer satisfaction were both much lower. It's all directly tied to someone's emotions and then their willingness, in the future, to experience those emotions again.

With HOOX, it's almost entirely what we're always thinking about. Our whole team (designers, copywriters, strategy) is always thinking: how can we illustrate something compelling enough to make someone feel like their life will be changed for the better? The combination of incredible copywriting + excellent UX = conversion rates going from 1.8% to 5.5%, selling the exact same product.

The punchline of today's email is: Your customer should always leave an experience in a peak state of mind.

On to some fun stuff...

Vendor of the Week:

Tapcart — One of the easiest ways to keep building peak experiences, is through push notifications and a mobile app

Why not? You have a Shopify store doing well over 6-figures... why don't you have an app? It doesn't make sense to me! In the past 2 months, we launched 2 apps with Tapcart — one for a client, and one for Long Wknd.

The apps give us access to:

  • Our best segment of customers — the super-fans are the ones who download the app.
  • Better repeat purchase rate — we can trigger push notifications when we know someone's product is running out.
  • Push notifications — push notifications in 2022 is what email open rates were in 1997 and you'll kick yourself for not leveraging it.
  • Exclusive merchandising — app users can get access to better bundles or buy new products/variants before site shoppers.

With a mobile app, you naturally get to enjoy the benefits of having an app, like:

  • Higher conversion rates than on a website
  • Send targeted push notifications
  • Apple Pay + Face ID for order checkout
  • Higher session frequency
  • Higher AOV + items in checkout

Ok, but building an app costs $120k? No. In fact, Tapcart is running a Black Friday offer for marketers (it's done ahead of time, so you can be cranking BY Black Friday). Tapcart is giving anyone who wants to build a mobile app a 3-month free trial. 

Your app will be live in 2 weeks or less, and their team will make the launch the lightest lift in your entire peak season execution plan. I've launched 2 apps on Tapcart so far, and their team is insanely proactive in helping get the apps live. 

An app is a perfect complement to your current peak season strategy because it amplifies and extends the ROI on your holiday promotions. Oh, AND, app adoption among consumers is 40% higher during peak season.

Sign up for a demo with Tapcart — honestly, you got nothing to lose by getting a 20-minute demo of the drag & drop builder, or seeing how the conversion lift with an app can positively impact your store.

Click here to have someone reach out from Tapcart!

Jobs of the Week:

I'd love to create a way to collect a list of talented people who are looking for roles and can list those to help people find their next job. If anyone has ideas on how to set this up, let me know!

Question of the Week:

What else do you like to read in the world of eCommerce, DTC, CPG, retail, macroeconomics, etc? 

These are some I enjoy:

Go To Millions — growth marketing

Cody's newsletter — paid media/customer acquisition

Eli's newsletter — retention & customer experience

The Perspective — design/conversion tips

The Trim — F&B logistics

The Next — food & wellness optimization

Brand of the Week:

Canopy — The humidifier that recently named Ali Webb its President

You’ve more than likely seen the brand, Canopy, before through an influencer, an Instagram ad, or a piece of press. The Canopy team has absolutely crushed generating earned media — including the right product round-ups and IG stories.

In addition, their website is such a beautiful site experience. They do a smart job positioning a humidifier as a beauty tool (similar to what Jolie does with the shower head), and it works! The team behind it is Doris Dev, an agency that builds products for brands like Blueland, Great Jones, By Humankind, Supply, Magic Spoon, etc. 

It’s a great brand, they have a great presence on social media, and you should check it out here!

That's all for this week

That's all folks! It's a bit shorter today than usual, but I hope it was equally valuable. If it was, feel free to drop a reply to this tweet and let me know!

Have a fantastic upcoming week. Moiz and I are going to record another episode of Limited Supply on Wednesday, so tweet us any topics/questions you think we should cover! Thank you for reading this far. 😊

Get those 8 hours of sleep tonight, get a sweat in, start that Monday off right, stay hydrated, and have the best week ahead!!

You’re probably thinking… 8? Is Nik writing this newsletter? We have revised our numbers downward in light of the macroeconomic environment. Anyways, have a great night!