Ricki Crowley

There's a big misconception I need to clear up (and it's costing DTC brands). ❌ Package protection isn't an "added cost" ✅ Package protection is an added benefit Here are three arguments I see against package protection that feed this misconception: 1. "Isn't it just another fee for the customer?" Package protection is additional, keyword "additional" here. Fees are usually uncompromised and forced. Package protection is a choice, and unlike fees, there's a breakdown on "what" is being covered when the box is checked to add it. 2. "This is going to hurt my conversion rate." We've yet to have a brand tell us that adding package protection hurt their conversion rate. In fact, one brand saw a 9% increase in CVR after adding SavedBy Package Protection. It's been proven across ecommerce — customers aren't bothered by package protection, and most even see it as a value add (it is). 3. "We'll just protect our own packages." Enjoy the costs and time that goes into that. Every refund and replacement comes straight out of your bottom line. Service teams spend excessive time handling claims (which doesn't generate revenue). Meanwhile, you'll miss added revenue (from full price reorders), and we reduce customer service time spent on package issues by 93% on average. Package protection is offloading liability, giving your package claims process to a team that focuses on it all day, every day. It's a win for your customers and you. The best part? It's free for you. Doesn't sound like an "added cost" to me.

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A single intro I made drove 330 Creators to apply to Fiverr's Creator Network with 50+ accepted - 10% of the program, if the website number of 500+ Creators is accurate. So what was the intro? To my partners at Influencers.club. In just a few months, they've: • Sent 28,460 emails with a 46.49% open rate • Received 1,573 positive responses • Converted 330 Creators to apply to the network All at a friends and family rate thanks to my referral. If you can't tell from the screenshot, Fiverr is very happy with the results, and remain ongoing customers of Influencers.club. You can have these kinds of results as well. Here’s the CTA: Just DM me for an intro - you get a better deal and I get a nice referral fee. If you're going to VidCon, the Influencers.club team will be there - a great time to connect. Their CEO, Nikola Sokolov, will be on my Industry-track Creator Acquisition panel on Friday so come check that out. If you're interested in Fiverr's Creator Network - where Creators get paid for sharing their experiences working with Fiverr freelancers - DM Lior Taubenblatt. And if this all seems overwhelming but you know you need help building a Creator program, DM me anyway - my firm, Partner with Creators, can be a turnkey solution to build and manage any Creator program for you. What's stopping you from getting these results?

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Measuring ROI on your company's podcast isn't about guesswork. It's about hard numbers and real impact. 1. Listeners or Downloads: Want more reach? Track your downloads. Example: 6,000 downloads with a $10,000 investment gives you a 60% ROI. ((Total Downloads / Investment) x 100 ) 2. Leads and Conversions: Your podcast should generate leads. If 500 leads come from your podcast and you convert 5 at $1,000 each, a $10,000 investment brings a 50% ROI. ((Number of Leads from Podcast / Investment) x 100 ) 3. Ad Revenue or Sponsorships: Turn those ads into dollars. Example: $15,000 in ad revenue minus $10,000 in production costs equals a 50% ROI. ((Ad Revenue - Production Costs) / Production Costs x 100 ) 4. Engagement Metrics: Look at the average consumption rate, ratings, reviews, and social media interactions. If your average consumption rate is 80% for 35-minute episodes with 500 listeners per episode: 35 * 500 = 17,500 minutes. Divide by production cost for engagement ROI. 5. Brand Awareness: Measure increases in social media impressions, website traffic, and unique listeners. Calculate by (Number of Impressions or Visitors / Cost of Production). More eyes on your brand for less money equals success. 6. Professional Relationships: Networking through your podcast can open doors. These relationships can be invaluable, even if they're harder to quantify. 7. Educational Impact: If your goal is to educate, measure outcomes. High download rates for educational content mean you're hitting the mark. Don't guess. Measure. And turn your podcast into a powerhouse.

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Don't you hate spammy outreach? Guess what, so do your agency's prospects. Here's how you can send non-spammy outreach: 1️⃣ Break your niche into subniches ↳ Say your niche is "tech startups". A subniche could be "Sillicon Valley based Series A tech startups who recently raised funding" 2️⃣ Build a list that matches your subniche ↳ Here's where you'll need to put in the time to identify your prospects or hire a service like ours to do it for you. 3️⃣ Research your prospects to identify potential areas of collaboration ↳ Jot down notes of potential areas where you can help them. If someone doesn't seem to need your help, eliminate them from the list. 4️⃣ Write a hyper-personalized sequence ↳ Mention something that shows you know (a) they're from Sillicon Valley, (b) they recently raised Series A, (c) potential areas they may need help in, (d) why you're reaching out and (e) ask them if they'd like to see a case study. 5️⃣ Book meetings ↳ For the positive responses, send the case study and ask them for a meeting to explore if you could do something similar for them. For the negatives, keep nurturing them with your content. Do this, and people will THANK YOU, for reaching out to them. 😃 If you need help implementing this, then reach out, we can eliminate all the manual, boring and hard work involved in the process from you. _______ To learn more about getting clients consistently for your agency from LinkedIn go to 🦖 Tudor D. then click the 🔔 icon. You’ll be notified every time I post and you’ll be sure never to miss important content! #agency #newclients #AscendancyProgram

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I recently told a client to ask Apollo for a $5,000 refund (it worked) Here’s why: The reason they were using Apollo was for the following… - List building (raw leads lists) - Email validation - Email/outbound sequencing - Then they would sign into each email they had in order to respond to a lead. Zero personalization added, zero targeting, simply adding leads to campaigns + sending mass outbound. Low opens. They came to me because they knew this outbound infrastructure was a massive problem. If I remember correctly, they were seeing 35% open rates. Decent meetings since… …their product is great. They just knew if someone came in and re-built everything to the new-ages sales tech stack, their GTM strategy would drastically improve while lowering costs. Apollo is a solid tool for raw list building, but not the other points mentioned. P.S. Here’s what raw list building is and why Apollo is only good at sourcing this data. Raw list building = the top-of-funnel step in your list building. the very first tool you use to build a lead list. Apollo was built exactly for this. The only reason customers use their other features is because they are not aware of other (better) solutions. My typical flow for list building: Start with Apollo. Build your raw list. 🎯 Find the ICP (Ideal Customer Profile) E.g. Industry, Employee size, Job title, Location, company keywords, etc Then.. ..I push this raw data into Clay.com to 🐊 Find the ICS (Ideal Customer Situation) E.g. image attached Then I enrich emails (and double-validate) with a tool called Findymail. This is list building in 2024. ICS > ICP Back to this client… …I set up their new outbound infrastructure that allows them to send 7,500-12,500 emails/month at near perfect deliverability. (their Total-Addressable-Market is massive) Then… We used Smartlead for: 👉 unlimited email warmup 👉 auto-inbox rotation 👉 unlimited email accounts 👉 email sending + centralized master inbox. (Smartlead and Instantly are the top best email sending tools – for the love of outbound, do not use Apollo, Salesloft, Outreach, Lemlist for this.) We were a bit hesitant (and I still am) of the master inbox feature in these 2 tools, so I always create a safety net and forward all inboxes we set up to 1 master google-workspace inbox. (I also mentioned they should reply to every lead within 5 minutes. Speed-to-lead is crucial) They booked meetings with companies like Mastercard & Schwab. Signed Seatgeek as well in the first 3 weeks — screenshot in comments. Lesson? You likely don’t need annual subscriptions to bloated/outdated sales tech products. Stay as lean as possible and watch out for my post later this week on my (new-age) sales tech stack. Follow Cody Carnes for more 🔔 P.S. Want to work together? 1. Go to howtouseclay(.)com 2. Read through, see if my thesis aligns. 3. Book a call when you’re ready

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[3 Page ‘Notion Doc’ makes $544,092 in new consulting] Next week, I'm running a workshop that breaks down the profitable proposal strategy we’ve implemented, which has led to over $544,092 in new consulting work within 5 months. See, years ago, I would pair every opportunity with a new proposal. Want to work with me? Like a reflex - I’ll write up a proposal. But here’s the reality… Nobody ‘actually’ wants a proposal… and nobody ‘actually’ wants to write one. So, at the end of 2023, I decided that I wouldn’t write a proposal again. Since then, we’ve brought in $544,092 (in just 5 months), and in fact, we’ve closed some of the largest clients with a simple 3-page document. How? Let me explain. Every time you sit down to write a proposal… you work for FREE. For the most part, you are starting from scratch, or you ‘Frankenstein’ a few previous proposals together. A new client means a new scope of work, new deliverables, new investment calculations, and time spent putting it all together—all while charging ZERO DOLLARS for your time—like, what?! So what if you had ONE ‘proposal’ to rule them all? Like a live working document that made you money without you having to sit and donate your time to a document that, in most cases, won’t make you money or will leave you playing a game of cat and mouse while you send and ‘see’ then hope and ‘pray’ that they come back to you whilst it’s pinballed around in a series of emails to people you don’t know who decides the fate of your business… *Boooooo* Proposals are outdated, they are a formality, not a necessity - especially in the year 2024. So what if I gave you the simple 3-page document we use, which has generated over $544,092 in new consulting work within 5 months? And then, over 3 hours, walk you through: - The Offer Invitation Template: I’ll provide you with the simple 3-page document we use to convert $30k+ clients each month like clockwork, without needing constant customisation. - The 90-Day Performance Plan: We’ll map out your ‘pre-sold’ plan that positions your prospects for clear short-term wins, eliminating the need to spend hours tailoring a proposal for every prospect. - The Tactical Timeline Advantage: We’ll design your 3-phase ‘results-in-advance’ pathway that transitions you from hourly rates to higher, retainer-based positioning. Our expert clients have been using this offer invitation to set up and close more contracts in less time, securing deals up to $150k in half the time it used to take. You’ll get: ✓Lifetime access to the replay. ✓I’ll share the proposal templates we use + cheat sheets. ✓Plus a digital workbook with actionable frameworks. ✓BONUS: Free ticket to the next 2-day Expert Intensive hosted by the Expert Project (happening this June!) (Few spots left) Comment WORKSHOP, and I'll send you the details 👇 

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Wild One is already crushing it with <$5M in revenue and a Michelle Obama collab under their collar. But a few key website tweaks could unleash even more sales. Here's what I'd change if I were in charge of their CRO: 1. Homepage: Improve navigation, add social proof, strengthen copy, and enhance visuals. 2. Product Page: Showcase product imagery, highlight ratings, display bundle discounts, and simplify variant selection. 3. Cart Drawer: Implement a free gift progress bar, promote relevant upsells, highlight product details, and display payment icons. Like this optimization breakdown? Comment below, and I'll share more CRO insights! 👇

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D2C and eCom operators book me on MentorPass to understand how to grow their D2C businesses. The most frequently asked question I get is: "What category would you go after if you had to start from scratch in D2C? - and what attributes would you look for?" In the clip below I answer that question :) (Watch the clip at 1.5x the speed as I talk too slowly)

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Spicy take: Newsletter businesses are about to decline. Here's how I see it... *** Email lists have been the best way to market for at least 15 years now, but running newsletter-first businesses only got hot a few years ago. The rise of fast-growth newsletters like theSkimm and the Hustle prompted lots of us to launch newsletter businesses. And if I had to choose just one channel on which to pin my business, I'd choose email. This was true for me 15 years ago, and it's still true today. BUT. I expect email to follow the same fate as Facebook pages, SEO traffic, and all the other channels that no longer make growth easy. Each became less valuable as 1) it got more crowded and 2) the channel owner changed how it worked. *** We like to think we own our email list — and certainly that's more valid than with, say, a Facebook page or search traffic — but the truth is, email is still at the whim of one company: Google. Remember when Gmail launched the Promotions tab and marketers scrambled? Surely they'll deliver other improvements to the email experience, and some of those will bury newsletters from brands. Even if they don't make changes, the increase in noise is already hitting newsletter operators hard. The tools available now make it easier to send newsletters, but with so much noise in our inboxes and on the internet generally, it's becoming harder to maintain open rates and generate new readers. Think about your own personal habits. How many of the newsletters you subscribe to do you actually read? Even for my favorites, I don't open every one. I've got a business to build and a life to live, and my goal is to stay OUT of my inbox. In 5 years, email will look completely different. It *has* to evolve, because the always-overflowing, stress-inducing inbox is not working for us. I appreciate the newsletter business model for its simplicity. But I don't think it will last forever. *** It's easy to get discouraged, with TikTok up in the air, search traffic dwindling, third-party cookies becoming obsolete... and now I'm saying our favorite way to reach people, newsletters, has a similar fate. But here's the GOOD news... *We have figured this out before, and we'll figure it out again.* Those of us who've been running online businesses for years have reinvented ourselves countless times. The tactics that worked years ago aren't as effective now. New ways of capturing attention have come along, and we've learned how to lean into them, too. So we can look at these shifts with dread... or we can get excited about the challenges they bring and the opportunities ahead. The key is to trust yourself to roll with the punches. Pivot when you need to, and ride the next wave that comes your way. We have figured this out before, and we'll figure it out again. *** I'm Alexis Grant, founder of They Got Acquired. Check out our free report on content businesses that have sold: https://lnkd.in/e-6FdRPV

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If you're building your first product - stop searching for brand new ideas. Just go to a big enough subreddit and see which apps are people looking for alternatives to. These ideas are - - Validated - Solve a pain point - Filling a void in the market Your first 10 paying customers will be folks hanging out in that subreddit every day. This is r/MacApps - #startupideas

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Don't invest heavily on content until you've figured out outbound. By "figured out" I mean: until you're able to consistently and predictably acquire clients through outbound methods. Because if you haven't, you don't know your ICP that well, therefore. don't know what resonates with them. You'll be creating content you'd like to consume, not them. So, if you're thinking about hiring an agency to handle your content, but you still don't know where your next client will come from - even if your MRR looks solid: don't do it. Figure out a a predictable way of signing new clients first. Lmk if you need help with that ;)

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how much should YC founders spend on LinkedIn ads? harsh truth is: → First off, who should be investing in it? rule of thumb: linkedin ads work best for products with higher annual contract values. So if you’re selling socks for $20 online, linkedin is probably not for you—i suggest you try google ads. On the lower end of linkedin ads, you should be spending at least 2-3k a month for 2-3 months to see results. so we’re talking a minimum $6-7k over 2-3 months. why? the buying cycle is longer since the product is high-ticket. it usually takes 6-7 touch points before a prospect makes a decision—that’s why we need to extend the duration of the funnel over a couple of months. that being said, linkedin ads is the most underrated channel for b2b saas in 2024 if you do it properly. my advice: get into it fast while retargeting is still underpriced. or, at the very least, find a legit vendor and give it a 3-month try.

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If you're doing a B2B podcast correctly, huge download numbers should not be the goal. The real value: 👉Relationships built with guests 👉Niche repurposed content 👉High quality, hyper focused audience. If the show is a hit downloads-wise, that's just an added bonus.

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This entire email was created in less than 5 minutes. How? I built email prompts after breaking down 2,000+ emails from Top DTC brands like HexClad, Magic Spoon etc. Then I got my best friend to build me a proprietary app that takes in your brand assets, analyzes your website, and replicates your tone of voice and style. And now my team uses them to create good emails, fast. Like super fast. I mean, we're building an entire month's worth of emails in less than 2 hours. The beta version of this service went live with 6 brands in the last 2 months. In each and every case we have increased email revenue as attributed to Klaviyo. In 3 of those cases we beat the performance of agencies that were charging $4k+ monthly retainers. What we charge for this service is almost laughable. Yes, I will be releasing case studies along with brand owner testimonials in the upcoming weeks. But in the meantime, if you want to see how this works, send me a dm.

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I dropped this free tool for solo newsletter operators yesterday👇 (especially if you're running on beehiiv) It helps you make better growth and monetization decisions (and prevents you from wasting time on the wrong levers in your business). -- Here's what people have been saying so far: ➡️ "Just wanted to let you know this spreadsheet is unreal and super helpful - thanks for sharing!" - Matt Schoepflin ➡️ "I'm using your tool and realizing ad revenue may not be enough to sustain..." - Tyler Farley ➡️ "Very cool stuff here - nicely done!" - Dan Oshinsky   ➡️ "This is gold!" - Chris Abraham 🐝 -- Here are a few examples of questions you can use the model to answer: ➡️ Growth Milestones: 👉 How much monthly ad revenue can I expect if I get my audience to 10,000 subscribers? How much in product sales? 👉 If I invest $1k/month in beehiiv boosts to grow the audience, how long will it take me to reach 30,000 subscribers or $3k/month in revenue? ➡️ Ads vs. Owned Products: What should my current focus be: selling ads or creating a product/service offering? Which one will drive more revenue in the short-term based on my subscriber count? What if I did both? ➡️ Low vs. High Ticket: Which is better? A low-ticket product that 5% of my audience buys OR a high-ticket service that 0.5% buy? ➡️ Pricing: How should I price owned my products, services and premium subscriptions? ➡️ Ad Costs: If my CPA (cost per acquisition) goes up, how will that affect my profit margins? -- Get the tool here for free: https://lnkd.in/eWXDQ35k

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This simple strategy will keep your idea bank full. Questions are such a gift. Questions your audience asks you, questions your audience asks others — these questions give you insight into problems, hopes, and dreams. I keep a FAQs database inside my Notion setup (also included in CreatorHQ) so that what I hear a question from my audience, I capture it and can address it later. Makes content inspiration easy!

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If this metric is lagging in your studio... It can have major ripple effects. What’s the metric? >>Conversion Rate<< Studios often think they have a “marketing problem.” In reality...they have a “conversion problem.” Here’s what I mean… Conversion Rate Impact: → Imagine increasing CR from 15% to 40% → For every (100) intro packs sold → That's (40) new members  → Instead of (15) new members Cost Per Acquisition: → With a higher CR… → Your investment per new members plummets. → Instead of casting a wide net for minimal returns... → You're strategically investing in targeted conversions. → Making your marketing dollars are MORE effective. → (Bringing in more members for less) The Revenue Reality: → This is where the difference is felt → With an average monthly membership of $150 → At a conversion rate of 15% → You’re making $2,250/month With a conversion rate of 40%? You’re making $6,000/month. Annually, that's the difference between… $27,000 and $72,000. Yes, you read that right. So do you have a marketing problem? Or a conversion problem? #boutiquefitness #fitness #fitnessindustry #fitnesstrends #innovation #digitalmarketing

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I think more DTC brands should be taking notes on Death Wish Coffee. There are a few things that stand out to me (that most DTC brands aren't doing): 1. Obsession with the product and the "look." 2. A truly stacked subscription offer. 3. Site copy that makes you look twice. Here, I break down why these three tactics from Death Wish Coffee Company should be on every DTC brand's radar:

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Build. Your. Brand. Away. From. Google. There are lots of reasons to build your presence on Quora, Reddit, TikTok (still worth the time even with regulation pending), and industry forums. You can build communities of hyper-relevant users if you use a helpful, authentic, non-salesy approach. Don’t just spew info from a corporate account; mix in UGC and perspectives from brand advocates. People connect with people, after all. The bonus is that Google will pull a lot of those results into the SERP (non-AI Overview results, anyway). You can’t control AI, so play where you know the rules. This is a big mindset shift, but we can help you start getting your head around it. Our Director of SEO, Kelly Ayres, is presenting on this at SMX on Wed. - you can register for free at the link in the comments.

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