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The Marketing Millennials
SPECIAL EPISODE #400: How to Launch a New Product with Ari Murray, Chief Digital Officer of Salt & Stone
00:24:26
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- [00:01]
Podcast Host (Marketing Millennials Intro/Outro)
Pop quiz. Where do all your tasks live right now? If you don't have one answer, that's a red flag and a sign you need Wrike. Wrike is an intelligent work management platform that kills the friction, killing your speed. Visit wrike.com TMM to see what I mean. Welcome to the Marketing Millennials, the no BS Marketing podcast. I'm Daniel Murray and join me for unfil filtered conversations with the brains behind marketing's coolest companies. The one request I tell our guests stories or it didn't happen. Get ready to turn the up.
- [00:48]
Daniel Murray
We are back with another episode of the Market Millennials podcast. This is a very special episode. It's episode 400. And you know what? I decided to bring on the best market I know, the one and only chief digital officer of Salton Stone and the founder and creator of Go to Millions, my wife, Ari Murray.
- [01:14]
Ari Murray
Well, do you just forget my title? No, you hesitated a little.
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Daniel Murray
She's had so many titles.
- [01:21]
Ari Murray
Happy 400.
- [01:23]
Daniel Murray
Thank you. Thank you for coming on and being a wonderful guest. But I want to get started because everybody wants to hear from you. We're going to talk lawn strategy, which actually Ari's going to talk launch strategy, but I'm going to ask her the questions about this. So, Ari, when you're launching a new product, where, where do you start? Walk me through the step by step.
- [01:47]
Ari Murray
It all starts with the forecast. Well, it starts with pricing, but I don't do a lot of these parts. And I'm still learning what it's like to be brand side. I was at an agency for the last four and a half years before I came to brand side. And so a lot of the products that are launching now were before my time. So I'm really much, I'm very much learning the process, but where it hits my plate is timing and forecasting. And timing, I think, is sometimes the biggest opportunity because I have so many opinions on calendar and on when to make a moment, when we're going to need a moment, what type of moment. And that's where I love to be involved, but it really depends on what you're launching. When I was at the agency, I led all of our teams and so some of our projects were website projects. So that can start with branding and naming and it can go far back. And then other projects are you start working with someone and they have the site down and it's the go to market. So I can't answer because it all depends. But currently I am a little late in the process. But I know it really varies depending on your role and what's being developed.
- [03:00]
Daniel Murray
Okay, I'll get more specific with you. Let's say it's a new SKU launch that you're launching on on the website. Walk me through that process of launching a new SKU product on your website.
- [03:14]
Ari Murray
Well, there's photo shoots, there's social grids, there's ad creative, there's email calendars, there's copywriting, there's merchandising, where that product will go into your current mix. I think about that a lot. I'm pulling a lot of data for that all the time. Always rearranging. There's what type of SKU launches? Is this the type of SKU that you'd want a homepage takeover on? Is this something untested? Is this something you want to gate to members? I could keep answering your questions with questions, but I really think there's so much to consider. What I'd say that maybe people don't think about enough is hitching your wagon to a certain skew and putting a lot of faith in something that's new to market. I found to be a really good way to misplan. And I think that whatever you can do for a new skew or a new drop to protect your month outside of that moment, should it not read the way you'd hoped, is how I like to play it. And I like to go into these moments really scaled. And so finding efficiency before takes a lot of pressure off of having to push a product that might not be what you hope. And another thing I'd say too is a lot of products need time in market. And for me, I think there's like a fallacy that gets created where you think a product is your hero, but that's because you've forced it to be your hero through years of repetition, through prioritizing it in photo shoots, through merchandising it first, through talking about it always. And I think a new skew needs time to fight for its life, but also needs sometimes to take stage. So did I answer?
- [04:59]
Daniel Murray
Yes. I'm going to go into. Let's go more broad then when considering a new, let's say SKU launch or website launch or what are some strategies someone can think about when thinking about it? Like you said, there's like launching with members, there's password protected sites, there's what are some. What do people think about when launching a new product to make it successful?
- [05:28]
Ari Murray
I think the power of urgency is really understated and it's the most efficient way to get people to do what you want them to do without having to spend into it. And so I think when launching anything or considering a new product, the drop strategy of it and what is going to make someone click that email and feel like they have to buy right then I can give an example. My coworker and I were shopping a brand. She was shopping it for her wedding. It's a white sweatshirt. I'm married and to you. And so I don't need this white sweatshirt. As you know, Daniel. Like, it's the last thing I need is a bridal. It's literally called the bridal collection. But I was watching her buy it and it was selling out, like as we were on the PDP in her size and we were starting to panic and then it had my size available and her size like magically popped up. So I felt this urge to just buy it because I was like, okay, a white sweater, like it's in my size. I. This thing's popular. I need it. Ah, like freaking out. And before I knew it, I blinked and we both bought it. But I'm not getting married. I just wanted the sweatshirt because I couldn't have it or I thought I couldn't have it again. And I think that that urgency and drop strategy is hard to bring back that trust on. So if you're going to be a brand that says set your alarm and if you're going to have urgency, then you need to actually stock out and you need to actually have momentum and hype. But I think that that is a flywheel that's really fun to create and
- [07:02]
Daniel Murray
going to planning process. Say let's do something more specific. Say someone wants to launch something new on Black Friday Cyber Monday. How far in event should they start planning? How far are you thinking about these things before? I know you're probably forecasting out inventory and all this stuff way ahead of time. So how long are you planning out a launch that's like happening on like a tent pole moment for your brand the year before?
- [07:36]
Ari Murray
Is that a bad answer? It's the truth. I. I know my goals and what I want to do and what I want to drop and what we have to create. So actually more than the year before, like probably 14 months before. So always in Q4 planning for full year ahead.
- [07:59]
Daniel Murray
Let's go go into a side that you do a lot of which is like the media planning of where things are going to be shown. So like the paid social. I, I know every brand is different, but what, what are you seeing A good split of media mix for someone to think about when they, they say, let's say they have a hundred thousand dollar budget for media spend.
- [08:26]
Ari Murray
I think it depends. What I'd say is I love to be pretty diversified across channel but on $100,000 I would spend all of that in Meta and Google and I think that there's like there's a TAM for every product and you're not going to hit as many people as you'd like on 100k. So I think putting that in Meta as your top of funnel, even though it is conversion but compared to Google, Meta is going to bring them to the door and Google is going to let them in. And I think that is the split for 100k budget. When you're in 7 figures I think you can be in 10 channels but 100k goes quickly.
- [09:10]
Daniel Murray
Let's say this because I know you've run into this problem with brands and did you work with the agency brands you worked in the past, you've seen brands do this. What is your recommendation? Let's say you're spending the 100k, you're, you're seeing such a good roas, such a good cac and you like you've spent through it and you would you go ask for more budget or what would you just say like oh, I've used my 100k budget for this quarter, now I have to go like I'll wait till next quarter, just spend again.
- [09:49]
Ari Murray
Oh no. I would be begging for money. And I think how I like to think about it is there's efficiency goals and there's top line goals and if you're in your efficiency then your top line goal is now the floor and you should be scaling when there is momentum. And I think every business is different. Cash flow is real, inventory is real, but you should be begging to keep blowing the top off of your plan as long as you're able to. And I think future you sometimes will feel that pain and you can stalk yourself out and you can't do things without finance approval and without holding hands with the team. But I personally have seen so many brands from my time at an agency not hit the gas when they were ahead and you can't just turn it on like the market will tell you and if you're hot, you need to run.
- [10:42]
Daniel Murray
I think that's a good point. I think momentum in marketing is such an underrated factor. Momentum in anything is an underrated factor and it's not something you can easily restart when you get. You see this efficiency. Meta has learned your audience or whatever channel you're on has learned your audience. You're spending very well, your creatives are crushing. And then you decide to pull back because you don't have the budget or you don't have approval and then the people once you do the next thing four months later. But you've lost all that momentum and you have to restart it. I think that's such a good point you made there about momentum and marketing.
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Ari Murray
Thanks, honey.
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Daniel Murray
What are some things you see brands doing terribly wrong when they're doing either new brand launches or new SKU launches?
- [11:34]
Ari Murray
I think a new brand should launch with a limited range. I think you cannibalize your message and there's only so big a basket anyone's going to build. I think as an example, today's what is it? April 2nd. So real active, which is Alex Earl's brand, just launched. They had five products. I think that's smart. I think that's the right amount. I've worked at beauty brands in the past that launched with 30 SKUs and I think that doesn't actually help someone who doesn't know the product to make a choice. So that's what I'd say. What was the second part to the question?
- [12:13]
Daniel Murray
I said the new There's a new site launch of a new brand like real actors. But there's also like someone is dropping a new SKU or new product on their website. What are the things you've seen go wrong when someone drops like a new
- [12:30]
Ari Murray
skew or I'd say there's a lot that can go wrong in pricing strategy. And I think a new product, if priced out of range or in a way that doesn't play well with the rest of your line, can make everything else anchor really expensive. And at the same time, depending on how your business is trending, I think people also aren't merchandising existing products together into newness that can actually push up aov. So my favorite thing to do is to try and to put as many products as make sense together and to build this one big ultimate bundle or this one big trio, whatever that quantity is for you. But sometimes I feel like we assume we're overwhelming our customers and we're not. And so I say like there's a lot of opportunity in creating newness out of existing product in merchandising. And then if it's a new product launch, I think a little restraint in the next future drop. Continuing to drop is always my favorite thing to do.
- [13:35]
Daniel Murray
And then I think some things on the website that people don't consider putting on or they, they don't put enough time and strategy. I'm thinking of like the shipping bar, like the shipping threshold bar or I know you talk a lot about, about people putting too many widgets on their site and blocking carts. So what are some things to think about on the website? What is like a good page look like? What, what's on there, what your people think about on a, on a good
- [14:06]
Ari Murray
pdp, for example, A good PDP we have to all remember and look at our heat maps. But in my experience, the amount of people that get below the fold, it's so rare. And the energy should be spent in your carousel and in your assets and in those thumbnails and you should have thumbnails. And I think so much of the information you think people will scroll down to, they'll never see. And infographics and motion and video and punchy copy all can exist and so can tags that exist as overlays on those assets in that hero. I think above the fold PDP is an art and it can get crowded and there's so much to do to draw the eye where you want it to go. But I think the assets are the biggest opportunity and especially the more you can do to fill out that bank and to let it be clear that there's more than one picture to swipe into. So those thumbnails I think are so important. So I think there's a lot of features depending on the vibe of the brand. Some brands want to have every pricing strategy, every, you know, it can get really crowded. And I think that works for a lot of different product lines. But what I'd say is the asset should be really fruitful and should continuously be something you're testing the format of.
- [15:34]
Daniel Murray
Is there any, I mean, you talked about like urgency of strategy. Are there any like proof points you add on a page that people should think about like ugc is there like backed by science thing?
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Ari Murray
So I have like a terrible opinion of UGC on web and I think it's just because I've seen it go so wrong. I think UGC looks great in reviews and I think that for a lot of products and brands like Sephora for example, I'm very influenced by the UGC within those reviews. But UGC can look really crazy and I think it depends on what is brand safe and it can look really amateur really quickly. And I think I'm of the belief that before and after it works really well. But even that can be in studio. So UGC I as a rule say I kind of get scared of but infographic studies, clinicals, pricing like cost per ounce, cost per day, breaking down the price, defaulting to show if you have subscriptions, defaulting to an open bar that actually has all the features exposed versus allowing the click. I think whatever you can do to expose more information but also to stay premium is my favorite.
- [16:56]
Podcast Host (Marketing Millennials Intro/Outro)
This hurts to say, but a lot of marketing ops are built on top of accidental processes. Wrike is a work management platform that fixes your workflows from the ground up. Let's say your approvals are buried in email, your assets are across three different apps, and your Mondays are one long status meeting. Wrike has AI powered automation, whiteboard style collaboration and 400 hundred plus integrations to connect everything into one scalable source of truth. Teams at Microsoft, Tiffany and Company, Southwest Airlines and thousands more already use it. Go to wrike.com TMM to get out of the weeds today.
- [17:42]
Daniel Murray
One thing that I also want to ask you is on launch, and I know you, Ari is always on her phone checking numbers. Whatever company she's been on, she's been on her phone checking Shopify, checking whether she has AAA or whatever other software she's using. But what are some like what during launch? What are some metrics that people should be paying attention to very closely that should be on their dashboard and should be reported on?
- [18:12]
Ari Murray
I think I like to look at the last 30 minutes as my absolute sign and I'm constantly filtering to the last 30 minutes every single time I'm checking my site. But during a launch I think there's so much to do to understand the breakdown between add to cart initiation and actual checkout. And I'm filtering for conversion rate by traffic, source by page and I think that's the easiest way to read if something's wrong in a launch, but also if there's opportunity and I don't know, I think I like to look at all of it. But what I'm most focused on is if my ad spend is where I want it to be for that time of day and for that moment to what we planned because that's the tell for future and then the last 30 minutes is the tell of if what we've done is working. And I I'd say the number one metric though to me you might think I'd say top line revenue or that number. But it's sessions. If sessions on site are low and let's say it's Black Friday and I'm watching what's happening if Sessions are like a thousand off of what I expected for that moment of when we sent that thing. That's when I freak out. I care a lot more about session growth in these pinnacle moments and in those minutes. That's the quickest read on if we're about to have a really big time.
- [19:37]
Daniel Murray
That's good. I mean, that's a good thing to think about because a lot of people throw off leading indicators like sessions, and they go. They go down saturated. Yeah, I think leading indicators even, like when I look at social posts, if I see something starting to gain traction early or I see views goo starting to go early, I'm like, okay, this is going to go viral or not.
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Ari Murray
Yeah, you could tell.
- [20:01]
Daniel Murray
Yeah, it's. It's early. It's early views, early likes, early reshares. That really could explain. Last question for you and ask everybody in the marketing millennials, but I want to ask you is, what is a marketing hill you will die on?
- [20:17]
Ari Murray
My hill is to marry someone who is more creative than you. When I met Daniel, I told him we were co workers. It's a whole story. But I told him I wanted to work at the company we worked at for five years, and that was my dream. And Daniel had, like, so much he wanted to do. He was way braver than I was as a marketer. And it's led me to a better path to watch him be bold. So marry someone more creative than you. And in whatever field they're in, that will help you to feel like you're always inspired. And I'm so happy about 400 episodes. I remember when you started this. It was so. It was so brave. And I'm so glad that we're here.
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Daniel Murray
When she says so great.
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Ari Murray
I was nervous.
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Daniel Murray
You mean she was making fun of me and saying, why the heck are you doing it?
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Ari Murray
It was sad. It was like my dad was your first listener for, like, many months. But you. You persevered. And look at us now.
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Daniel Murray
This was August 2020. Was the first. Or maybe no, 2020 or 2021. I forgot.
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Ari Murray
No, it was 2020 times were, like, very recording in your room. It was just. I didn't know we'd end up here, but I'm very glad we did. And again, back to my point. Good to be around people that are creative. They'll do things that maybe they're a little early too. And 400 episodes later. I'm very proud.
- [21:48]
Daniel Murray
Well, thank you, Ari. I mean, thank you for coming on the episode. I love you. I'm proud of you.
- [21:55]
Ari Murray
Wait, can I ask you questions now.
- [21:57]
Daniel Murray
No, you can ask.
- [21:58]
Ari Murray
Yes, I can. What is your favorite episode you've ever done?
- [22:05]
Daniel Murray
That's fine right here.
- [22:06]
Ari Murray
That's not what I wanted.
- [22:10]
Daniel Murray
There's so many. Because there's so many different takeaways, I think, going back to, I mean, I really like Rory Sullivan. Like, I've had him twice in the podcast. I just could listen to him talk for hours. And I'm really interested in marketing psychology. So that's an episode that I always go back to, that I, I think. But it's just so cool to have so many guests in so many different industries and so many different. And I remember when I first reached out to guests, it was so hard. I've got so many people rejecting me. Then some of them have come back and asked to be on the podcast, which is fun, but it's. Yeah, I think Rory's one of my favorite episodes.
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Ari Murray
I think mine's Amelia.
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Daniel Murray
Oh, I love Amelia.
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Ari Murray
I love Amelia.
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Daniel Murray
You love Amelia. She's.
- [23:02]
Ari Murray
She's an icon.
- [23:03]
Daniel Murray
Yeah. Go follow her on LinkedIn.
- [23:05]
Ari Murray
Yeah. We're very proud of you. Thank you all for listening.
- [23:08]
Daniel Murray
And go subscribe to. Go to Millions and go follow Ari on LinkedIn. Ari Murray, she writes a great newsletter and she needs to start a podcast. I really think she should. Please go, go flutter LinkedIn and say start a podcast. Thank you, everybody.
- [23:25]
Ari Murray
Thanks.
- [23:28]
Podcast Host (Marketing Millennials Intro/Outro)
Thanks so much for listening. Keep tuning in to hear more great insights from the coolest marketers from around the world. If you haven't already, make sure to subscribe and follow the Marketing Millennials podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcast. And if you like what you hear, I would greatly appreciate you giving us a five star rating. It helps bring more movies marketers into our community.