1 00:00:05,280 --> 00:00:08,569 Matt Edmundson: Well, hello and welcome to the Ecommerce Podcast 2 00:00:08,617 --> 00:00:11,785 with me, your host, Matt Edmundson. Now this is a 3 00:00:11,825 --> 00:00:15,529 show all about helping you deliver E commerce. 4 00:00:15,657 --> 00:00:19,433 Wow. And to help us do just that, I'm chatting 5 00:00:19,609 --> 00:00:22,281 with today's guest all the way from Washington 6 00:00:22,353 --> 00:00:26,977 D.C. Farzad Rashidi from Respona about strategies 7 00:00:27,041 --> 00:00:30,863 for AI search. Or let's put it another way, how 8 00:00:30,879 --> 00:00:33,695 do you get ChatGPT to recommend you and your 9 00:00:33,735 --> 00:00:36,935 products? That's what we're going to be talking 10 00:00:36,975 --> 00:00:39,591 about in today's show, which I'm very excited 11 00:00:39,623 --> 00:00:41,671 about because we've talked a lot about AI. We 12 00:00:41,703 --> 00:00:44,623 have never talked about how to conquer AI search. 13 00:00:44,679 --> 00:00:48,263 So I have got my notebook, I have got my pen and 14 00:00:48,279 --> 00:00:50,327 I am ready to take a lot of notes. So I hope you 15 00:00:50,351 --> 00:00:53,095 are as well. Of course, if you are subscribed to 16 00:00:53,175 --> 00:00:57,271 a very friendly, well presented, highly formatted 17 00:00:57,343 --> 00:01:01,235 newsletter, then these notes will be coming 18 00:01:01,275 --> 00:01:04,443 straight to your inbox automatically. If you 19 00:01:04,459 --> 00:01:06,187 haven't yet signed up to the newsletter, you can 20 00:01:06,211 --> 00:01:10,083 do that at ecommercepodcast.net just follow the 21 00:01:10,099 --> 00:01:11,803 links, you'll figure it out, I'm sure, if you're 22 00:01:11,819 --> 00:01:15,187 in E commerce and if you can't, maybe my UI is 23 00:01:15,211 --> 00:01:17,771 all kinds of crazy or maybe you shouldn't be in E 24 00:01:17,803 --> 00:01:20,507 commerce. Either way, you should probably get in 25 00:01:20,531 --> 00:01:23,675 touch. But a very warm welcome to you. If you are 26 00:01:23,715 --> 00:01:26,859 new to the show. Love to know your thoughts, love 27 00:01:26,867 --> 00:01:28,715 to know your comments. You can reach out to me on 28 00:01:28,755 --> 00:01:32,667 social media, either on Instagram or on LinkedIn 29 00:01:32,721 --> 00:01:34,991 in just drop me a line, let's know what you 30 00:01:35,023 --> 00:01:37,239 think. Send me a link to your website. I would 31 00:01:37,287 --> 00:01:40,727 love, love, love to see it. And if you are 32 00:01:40,751 --> 00:01:42,835 regular to the show and you've been coming back, 33 00:01:43,215 --> 00:01:45,679 all power to you my friend. Thank you so much. 34 00:01:45,807 --> 00:01:47,751 Like I said last time, it enables us to get some 35 00:01:47,783 --> 00:01:49,831 great guests on the show. The more people listen 36 00:01:49,863 --> 00:01:52,087 to it, the bigger the show gets, the bigger the 37 00:01:52,111 --> 00:01:54,223 guest gets. Like Farzad. I mean you can't get 38 00:01:54,239 --> 00:01:57,319 much bigger, can you? You just can't. So we are 39 00:01:57,367 --> 00:02:00,567 going to get into all that. But like I say, big 40 00:02:00,591 --> 00:02:02,901 thank you to those of you who subscribe. Now 41 00:02:02,933 --> 00:02:06,461 let's talk about Foz. He is the lead innovator at 42 00:02:06,493 --> 00:02:09,853 Respona, a link building outreach platform 43 00:02:09,989 --> 00:02:13,237 designed to boost businesses organic traffic. 44 00:02:13,301 --> 00:02:17,429 From Google. Before Respona, he led marketing at 45 00:02:17,477 --> 00:02:23,745 Visme, driving the platform to over 27 million 46 00:02:24,245 --> 00:02:26,909 users. Yes, you heard that right. 27 million 47 00:02:26,957 --> 00:02:30,621 users and achieving 2.5 million monthly organic 48 00:02:30,693 --> 00:02:34,903 visitors. If only my website had such beautiful 49 00:02:34,959 --> 00:02:37,695 numbers. But Farzad welcome to the show, man. 50 00:02:37,735 --> 00:02:39,991 Great to have you. How are we doing today, good 51 00:02:40,023 --> 00:02:40,519 sir. 52 00:02:40,647 --> 00:02:42,631 Farzad Rashidi: I'm doing very well. Thank you so much for having 53 00:02:42,663 --> 00:02:42,831 me. 54 00:02:42,863 --> 00:02:45,263 Matt Edmundson: Matt, it's great that you're on here. Great that 55 00:02:45,279 --> 00:02:48,487 you're on here. 27 million users. I mean, that's 56 00:02:48,511 --> 00:02:51,975 just. That's a lot of people, right? 57 00:02:52,015 --> 00:02:53,927 Farzad Rashidi: They're actually. They're just past 30. I think 58 00:02:53,951 --> 00:02:57,311 that number is a little outdated, but, yes, 59 00:02:57,343 --> 00:02:58,487 they're doing well. Right. 60 00:02:58,551 --> 00:03:01,303 Matt Edmundson: Wow. Wow. That's incredible. So tell me a little 61 00:03:01,319 --> 00:03:03,095 bit about Respona. What's going on there? 62 00:03:03,215 --> 00:03:06,535 Farzad Rashidi: 100%. So Respona, in a nutshell, is a platform 63 00:03:06,655 --> 00:03:08,999 that connects you to other websites, companies 64 00:03:09,047 --> 00:03:11,415 that are writing content about topics that are 65 00:03:11,495 --> 00:03:15,983 similar to yours. So, for example, if you run an 66 00:03:15,999 --> 00:03:18,399 E commerce brand and you want to promote your 67 00:03:18,447 --> 00:03:22,751 product a lot of ways, where customers will find 68 00:03:22,783 --> 00:03:25,055 a product like yours or Googling, and they're 69 00:03:25,095 --> 00:03:28,911 looking for products like X, Y and Z, best X, Y 70 00:03:28,943 --> 00:03:32,031 and Z tools for that and this. And so 71 00:03:32,183 --> 00:03:34,319 essentially, Respona helps you identify some of 72 00:03:34,327 --> 00:03:35,855 these opportunities that are getting a lot of 73 00:03:35,895 --> 00:03:38,583 traffic, puts you in touch and connects you with 74 00:03:38,719 --> 00:03:41,607 the website owner and helps you get more product 75 00:03:41,671 --> 00:03:44,727 placements. Get other websites to link back to 76 00:03:44,751 --> 00:03:47,015 your website, per se. 77 00:03:47,175 --> 00:03:49,511 Matt Edmundson: Fantastic. And in fact, it's fair to say you are 78 00:03:49,543 --> 00:03:51,959 a user of your own medicine, because how we got 79 00:03:52,007 --> 00:03:54,355 connected was in fact through your platform. 80 00:03:55,445 --> 00:03:57,317 Farzad Rashidi: That's right, yes, absolutely. So one of our 81 00:03:57,341 --> 00:04:01,045 cousins actually was. Yeah, yes. So you found 82 00:04:01,085 --> 00:04:04,573 your podcast through Respona and reached out. And 83 00:04:04,709 --> 00:04:07,981 so since you guys were connected, he was so kind 84 00:04:08,013 --> 00:04:10,237 to put us in touch, and I'm glad that he did. 85 00:04:10,421 --> 00:04:13,797 Matt Edmundson: Yeah. Yeah. So Alex was on the show a couple of 86 00:04:13,821 --> 00:04:16,765 months ago. Alex Beck from couch.com. 87 00:04:16,845 --> 00:04:17,269 Farzad Rashidi: That'S right. 88 00:04:17,317 --> 00:04:20,181 Matt Edmundson: And he's such a legend, that guy. I really like 89 00:04:20,213 --> 00:04:23,013 that guy. We had a fun time. If you've not heard 90 00:04:23,029 --> 00:04:26,441 the episode, then definitely check that out. 91 00:04:26,473 --> 00:04:27,885 You'll find it in the archive. 92 00:04:28,185 --> 00:04:28,713 Farzad Rashidi: Amazing. 93 00:04:28,769 --> 00:04:29,665 Matt Edmundson: But, yeah, amazing. 94 00:04:29,705 --> 00:04:31,785 Farzad Rashidi: I didn't know it was released yet, so I'll 95 00:04:31,825 --> 00:04:33,097 definitely check it out. 96 00:04:33,281 --> 00:04:34,897 Matt Edmundson: Well, that's a good point. I'm assuming it's been 97 00:04:34,921 --> 00:04:36,689 released. I definitely did the conversation a 98 00:04:36,697 --> 00:04:40,529 couple of weeks ago and A couple of weeks. A 99 00:04:40,537 --> 00:04:43,537 couple of months ago, I think it's been released 100 00:04:43,561 --> 00:04:45,425 because we've been joking back and forth about 101 00:04:45,465 --> 00:04:46,921 some of the video that's been released on 102 00:04:46,953 --> 00:04:47,329 LinkedIn. 103 00:04:47,377 --> 00:04:50,039 Farzad Rashidi: Okay, great. Yeah, yeah. 104 00:04:50,127 --> 00:04:53,287 Matt Edmundson: So now we've been having a good time. So let's 105 00:04:53,311 --> 00:04:55,743 get into this then, because originally we had it 106 00:04:55,759 --> 00:04:57,703 down to talk about SEO and you came up and you 107 00:04:57,719 --> 00:04:59,855 said, matt, listen, I've got an idea. What do you 108 00:04:59,895 --> 00:05:05,631 think about what? I opened up with AI Search and 109 00:05:05,663 --> 00:05:08,207 I thought this was utter genius. So let's just 110 00:05:08,271 --> 00:05:12,367 explain the reason why we're talking about it. 111 00:05:12,391 --> 00:05:13,727 Explain to me why you thought this was a good 112 00:05:13,751 --> 00:05:14,231 idea. 113 00:05:14,343 --> 00:05:18,921 Farzad Rashidi: 100%. So we've, we onboard, obviously I'm still 114 00:05:19,113 --> 00:05:21,033 involved with our customer onboardings. Every 115 00:05:21,049 --> 00:05:23,033 single customer comes on board, I have a 116 00:05:23,049 --> 00:05:27,217 conversation with them. And recently a lot of the 117 00:05:27,281 --> 00:05:31,913 conversations were sent around AI Search and you 118 00:05:31,929 --> 00:05:33,921 know, it's a buzzword and people are like, 119 00:05:34,073 --> 00:05:36,521 everybody's talking about it. And I tend to 120 00:05:36,593 --> 00:05:39,337 personally be more skeptic towards these. I'm 121 00:05:39,361 --> 00:05:42,403 like, oh, it's a fad, you know. But recently I've 122 00:05:42,419 --> 00:05:45,595 gotten into tennis and I was researching tennis 123 00:05:45,635 --> 00:05:49,995 rackets. So I noticed instead, usually I would 124 00:05:50,035 --> 00:05:52,347 just pull up Google and just go and Google, hey, 125 00:05:52,371 --> 00:05:53,827 what are some of the best tennis rackets? But 126 00:05:53,851 --> 00:05:56,827 then I caught myself, literally, I was on 127 00:05:56,851 --> 00:06:00,403 ChatGPT, we use it quite extensively. And I was 128 00:06:00,419 --> 00:06:03,291 like, hey, I was just explaining some background. 129 00:06:03,323 --> 00:06:06,771 It's like, hey, I'm a beginner, but I've been 130 00:06:06,803 --> 00:06:08,243 playing for a few weeks, I've been playing with 131 00:06:08,259 --> 00:06:10,523 this racket and now I'm looking to upgrade and 132 00:06:10,539 --> 00:06:12,843 I'm. And I'm looking for these qualities in the 133 00:06:12,859 --> 00:06:15,291 racket that has some power and like you still 134 00:06:15,363 --> 00:06:18,307 control and so the stuff that is a little bit 135 00:06:18,371 --> 00:06:22,699 tough to communicate to Google in a way. And I 136 00:06:22,707 --> 00:06:24,915 was like, wow, hold on a second. All of these 137 00:06:24,955 --> 00:06:29,963 rackets are E commerce brands and as a consumer, 138 00:06:30,099 --> 00:06:32,099 you know, that's looking to purchase, like 139 00:06:32,267 --> 00:06:35,299 somewhat of a significant purchase. I'm literally 140 00:06:35,347 --> 00:06:39,805 going on ChatGPT first, so. And I was like, wow. 141 00:06:40,825 --> 00:06:42,993 And this was literally a few days ago. So I was 142 00:06:43,009 --> 00:06:45,497 like, this would be a perfect conversation to 143 00:06:45,521 --> 00:06:48,001 have with Matt because since it's so new and 144 00:06:48,033 --> 00:06:51,681 novel, most people won't have the slightest idea 145 00:06:51,753 --> 00:06:53,913 how to get their product to get recommended up 146 00:06:53,929 --> 00:06:57,097 there. And this is something that obviously is 147 00:06:57,201 --> 00:07:01,977 not as well talked about. A lot of people are 148 00:07:02,001 --> 00:07:04,065 just still trying to figure it out. So I thought 149 00:07:04,105 --> 00:07:06,405 this would be a great conversation for us to have. 150 00:07:06,755 --> 00:07:09,611 Matt Edmundson: And I think it is, because I'm laughing at, not 151 00:07:09,643 --> 00:07:12,883 at you. I'm remembering an event that happened 152 00:07:12,939 --> 00:07:16,251 just like on Monday. I think it was. I was sat 153 00:07:16,283 --> 00:07:18,811 in. In fact, it was Monday. Today is Thursday. So 154 00:07:18,843 --> 00:07:22,979 three days ago I was sat in a. I was sat in a 155 00:07:22,987 --> 00:07:24,459 coffee shop, one of the local coffee shops. It 156 00:07:24,467 --> 00:07:27,095 was Monday morning, I walked through the park, 157 00:07:27,635 --> 00:07:30,587 sat down, you know, got A cup of tea and I took 158 00:07:30,611 --> 00:07:32,435 my journal and was just thinking about a few 159 00:07:32,475 --> 00:07:34,763 things and one of the things that's been in the 160 00:07:34,779 --> 00:07:37,667 back of my mind recently was I wonder if I needed 161 00:07:37,691 --> 00:07:41,903 to drinking electrolytes, because I do. Like, 162 00:07:41,959 --> 00:07:46,679 I've got a. People might judge me. That's fine. I 163 00:07:46,727 --> 00:07:50,351 recently acquired a Peloton bike and so I use 164 00:07:50,383 --> 00:07:52,655 that three times a week. I didn't pay full price. 165 00:07:52,695 --> 00:07:54,831 I just want to clarify. I use Facebook 166 00:07:54,903 --> 00:07:57,835 Marketplace and got a really good price. Anyway, 167 00:07:58,735 --> 00:08:00,791 I love the bike, I genuinely do. I think it's 168 00:08:00,823 --> 00:08:04,607 great. But you obviously sweat a lot. So I'm 169 00:08:04,631 --> 00:08:06,551 like, do I need electrolytes? Because I can feel 170 00:08:06,583 --> 00:08:07,951 it during the day that I'm a little bit more 171 00:08:07,983 --> 00:08:11,413 tired. And so I'm like, I. The reason I'm 172 00:08:11,429 --> 00:08:15,385 laughing is because I just sat there talking to. 173 00:08:15,765 --> 00:08:20,661 It wasn't chatgpt, it was Perplexity, which I 174 00:08:20,733 --> 00:08:24,589 absolutely love. But Perplexity is powered by 175 00:08:24,637 --> 00:08:30,133 ChatGPT. Right. So. And I, I just sat there and 176 00:08:30,149 --> 00:08:33,717 went, should I take these electrolytes? And it 177 00:08:33,741 --> 00:08:35,253 came back and basically said, well, let me ask 178 00:08:35,269 --> 00:08:37,037 you some questions. We went back and forth and 179 00:08:37,061 --> 00:08:38,749 yes, you should. And now I understand it and 180 00:08:38,757 --> 00:08:40,541 you're having this little conversation and it was 181 00:08:40,573 --> 00:08:44,280 like, great. Or to be fair, I did have that 182 00:08:44,312 --> 00:08:45,936 conversation with ChatGPT. Then I was in 183 00:08:45,960 --> 00:08:48,120 perplexity and said, what is the best electrolyte 184 00:08:48,152 --> 00:08:49,984 brand that I should get? And it came back with 185 00:08:50,024 --> 00:08:51,776 three options for me. So I think you should get 186 00:08:51,800 --> 00:08:53,800 this, this, this and this. And it's not until 187 00:08:53,832 --> 00:08:55,648 we've just been talking that I thought, where in 188 00:08:55,656 --> 00:08:59,284 the world did it get that information from? And 189 00:08:59,984 --> 00:09:01,792 what actually happened was I went and bought one 190 00:09:01,808 --> 00:09:05,200 of those. I bought the top brand AI recommended 191 00:09:05,312 --> 00:09:07,786 to me after asking me a bunch of questions. 192 00:09:07,960 --> 00:09:10,919 Because you're right, I just, I look, I looked on 193 00:09:11,007 --> 00:09:13,183 Amazon, I looked on Google, I thought, I don't 194 00:09:13,199 --> 00:09:14,935 know what I'm getting. I don't know. Too many 195 00:09:14,975 --> 00:09:17,127 options. Yeah, too many options. And I just 196 00:09:17,151 --> 00:09:20,671 didn't understand it at all. And so I thought, 197 00:09:20,703 --> 00:09:24,223 this is absolutely fascinating. So I'm so happy. 198 00:09:24,319 --> 00:09:27,927 Why did I do that? Why did. Why did. Why did I go 199 00:09:27,951 --> 00:09:30,415 to AI? And it's becoming easier, isn't it? 200 00:09:30,455 --> 00:09:35,407 Because now you can just. The Chat GPT app on 201 00:09:35,431 --> 00:09:37,535 your phone. I was having a conversation with it 202 00:09:37,575 --> 00:09:39,439 earlier. I didn't even have to type anything. It 203 00:09:39,447 --> 00:09:41,095 was just asking me questions and I was answering 204 00:09:41,135 --> 00:09:42,927 and it was asking me more questions. 205 00:09:43,111 --> 00:09:43,519 Farzad Rashidi: Yeah. 206 00:09:43,567 --> 00:09:47,343 Matt Edmundson: And it's just the most. In fact, I was asking it 207 00:09:47,359 --> 00:09:49,303 about intermittent fasting. Should I intermittent 208 00:09:49,359 --> 00:09:52,007 fast if I'm not feeling great? And it's like, 209 00:09:52,031 --> 00:09:53,871 well, how do you feel? Blah, blah, blah, blah, 210 00:09:53,903 --> 00:09:56,647 blah. And it's like, maybe, maybe today you 211 00:09:56,671 --> 00:09:58,551 should eat a little bit earlier. And I was like, 212 00:09:58,583 --> 00:10:02,655 this is just the most extraordinary thing. And so 213 00:10:03,475 --> 00:10:06,587 how do we do it then? Because you're right, more 214 00:10:06,611 --> 00:10:08,695 and more of us are starting to do this thing. 215 00:10:09,075 --> 00:10:12,455 Farzad Rashidi: Yeah, 100%. So first, it's important to 216 00:10:12,915 --> 00:10:15,355 understand the distinction between these AI 217 00:10:15,395 --> 00:10:19,619 models. So OpenAI is a company, they're not a 218 00:10:19,627 --> 00:10:21,299 search engine, they're a technology company that 219 00:10:21,347 --> 00:10:24,227 builds these large language models. To LLMs, it's 220 00:10:24,251 --> 00:10:28,051 that tech, the powers, essentially, language 221 00:10:28,123 --> 00:10:32,779 generation. The reason why a lot of people still 222 00:10:32,827 --> 00:10:36,547 use tools like Perplexity is that they use the 223 00:10:36,571 --> 00:10:39,655 LLM to generate the answer, but based on 224 00:10:39,955 --> 00:10:41,843 essentially information that's already public on 225 00:10:41,859 --> 00:10:43,739 the web. So it makes the search results more 226 00:10:43,787 --> 00:10:47,587 reliable. So when you use Perplexity, you can 227 00:10:47,651 --> 00:10:49,483 understand, okay, where is that data coming from? 228 00:10:49,539 --> 00:10:50,995 Like, who's actually recommending me to 229 00:10:51,035 --> 00:10:54,023 Intermittent Fast? And the search results are 230 00:10:54,039 --> 00:10:55,751 actually at the top. So essentially what it does, 231 00:10:55,783 --> 00:10:57,407 it kind of acts like a Google search. So they 232 00:10:57,431 --> 00:10:58,935 actually have their own search engine that they 233 00:10:58,975 --> 00:11:02,231 built and it will go and just take a look at the 234 00:11:02,263 --> 00:11:06,399 first 10 results on Google, essentially, and then 235 00:11:06,487 --> 00:11:08,967 dig through each one of the websites and it pulls 236 00:11:09,031 --> 00:11:11,359 bits and pieces from all of them and it 237 00:11:11,407 --> 00:11:13,799 understands overlapping. So in this case, if 238 00:11:13,807 --> 00:11:15,791 you're asking, hey, what are some of the best 239 00:11:15,983 --> 00:11:18,327 electrolyte brands, the three that are 240 00:11:18,351 --> 00:11:20,855 recommended is most likely the one that's been 241 00:11:20,895 --> 00:11:24,215 more frequent and overlaps essentially in all 242 00:11:24,255 --> 00:11:26,791 those 10 search results that it went through. 243 00:11:26,943 --> 00:11:29,415 Now, ChatGPT is a little bit different. They have 244 00:11:29,455 --> 00:11:32,031 added the web search functionality because 245 00:11:32,183 --> 00:11:34,871 Microsoft owns half of it. So they essentially 246 00:11:34,903 --> 00:11:38,463 are powered by Bing. What they're working on is a 247 00:11:38,519 --> 00:11:41,719 product similar to Perplexity. Oh my God, I 248 00:11:41,727 --> 00:11:43,235 cannot pronounce that word. 249 00:11:44,335 --> 00:11:45,791 Matt Edmundson: How we say perplexity? 250 00:11:45,903 --> 00:11:50,529 Farzad Rashidi: Exactly. Yes. I wonder if their founder can say 251 00:11:50,577 --> 00:11:53,165 Perplexity like five times. Like. 252 00:11:56,025 --> 00:11:57,641 Matt Edmundson: I'll get on the show and find out. 253 00:11:57,673 --> 00:12:01,897 Farzad Rashidi: There's a chat 100%. Right. Anyways, so they're 254 00:12:01,921 --> 00:12:03,873 actually working on a new product, OpenAI, called 255 00:12:03,929 --> 00:12:07,121 Search GPT, which is essentially similar to 256 00:12:07,233 --> 00:12:09,921 Perplexity. So where you can actually see the 257 00:12:09,953 --> 00:12:12,609 search result and the answers are cited so you 258 00:12:12,617 --> 00:12:15,417 can go and actually explore more. Which has been 259 00:12:15,441 --> 00:12:17,417 sort of incorporated into ChatGPT, but since you 260 00:12:17,441 --> 00:12:20,533 can't see it as visibly, they're working as 261 00:12:20,549 --> 00:12:23,133 separate product. So a lot of the search all I'm 262 00:12:23,149 --> 00:12:27,461 trying. And also Google itself. So they had their 263 00:12:27,533 --> 00:12:30,837 sge, the search engine or excuse me, the search 264 00:12:30,901 --> 00:12:34,525 generative experience. It's tough to catch up 265 00:12:34,565 --> 00:12:37,853 with all these terms. And so what we're doing 266 00:12:37,909 --> 00:12:41,077 essentially is like feature snippets on steroids. 267 00:12:41,141 --> 00:12:43,269 So you ask Google something, sometimes it has a 268 00:12:43,277 --> 00:12:45,413 little feature snippet. So those AI generated 269 00:12:45,469 --> 00:12:48,517 ones were, were sort of pulled back a little and 270 00:12:48,541 --> 00:12:50,101 now I'm sure they're working on in the background 271 00:12:50,133 --> 00:12:51,765 because they get a lot of backlash since they're 272 00:12:51,805 --> 00:12:54,141 huge. So they can't, you know, they're not like a 273 00:12:54,173 --> 00:12:56,413 startup like Perplexity. If they give wrong 274 00:12:56,469 --> 00:12:57,565 information it would be okay. 275 00:12:57,605 --> 00:12:57,989 Matt Edmundson: Yeah. 276 00:12:58,077 --> 00:12:59,725 Farzad Rashidi: And people are going to go through them. So 277 00:12:59,765 --> 00:13:01,637 that's why it's, it's a little bit more difficult 278 00:13:01,661 --> 00:13:04,021 for them and slower for them as it is for larger 279 00:13:04,053 --> 00:13:05,773 companies in general. But anyway, long story 280 00:13:05,789 --> 00:13:07,549 short, what I'm trying to say is that we are 281 00:13:07,597 --> 00:13:09,965 moving towards that direction just because the 282 00:13:10,005 --> 00:13:12,559 general experience of search is changing. You can 283 00:13:12,567 --> 00:13:14,871 give it more context, it understands you a lot 284 00:13:14,903 --> 00:13:17,847 better and gives you more concise answers that 285 00:13:17,871 --> 00:13:19,591 you don't have to dig through. Like the 10 blue 286 00:13:19,623 --> 00:13:24,391 links on Google. So all that to say as e commerce 287 00:13:24,423 --> 00:13:26,527 brands you need to start showing up on those 288 00:13:26,551 --> 00:13:30,295 search results and that this AI models generate 289 00:13:30,335 --> 00:13:33,695 regardless of where they are. And the question 290 00:13:33,775 --> 00:13:35,823 is, okay, where are they getting that 291 00:13:35,879 --> 00:13:38,311 information? And we want to be mentioned because 292 00:13:38,383 --> 00:13:40,431 they're not. I mean chatgpt hallucinates a lot, 293 00:13:40,463 --> 00:13:43,433 but as I said with their new products, Search GPT 294 00:13:43,569 --> 00:13:47,365 and Perplexity, all these tools and Google's sge, 295 00:13:47,665 --> 00:13:51,041 they're all grounded in search results that's 296 00:13:51,073 --> 00:13:53,201 already public on the web. So they're essentially 297 00:13:53,233 --> 00:13:56,965 just summarizing the answers for you. So the 298 00:13:57,305 --> 00:14:00,361 question is how do you get yourself on those 299 00:14:00,393 --> 00:14:03,001 search results? So it's no longer enough. So 300 00:14:03,073 --> 00:14:05,265 traditional SEO is essentially you getting your 301 00:14:05,305 --> 00:14:07,761 own web pages up in the search results as much as 302 00:14:07,793 --> 00:14:10,805 possible for your target keywords. But now it's 303 00:14:10,845 --> 00:14:14,957 no longer that because it's what we're heading 304 00:14:14,981 --> 00:14:17,533 towards. Again it's majority still that 305 00:14:17,589 --> 00:14:20,085 experience. But within the next couple of years 306 00:14:20,165 --> 00:14:21,869 my assumption is that more and more people are 307 00:14:21,877 --> 00:14:24,197 going to start utilizing these chatbots and this 308 00:14:24,301 --> 00:14:27,413 chat interface. And so it's no longer enough to 309 00:14:27,429 --> 00:14:29,509 get your, your own website up in the search 310 00:14:29,517 --> 00:14:32,069 results. Now you also have to be on other 311 00:14:32,117 --> 00:14:35,621 people's websites that are talking about topics 312 00:14:35,653 --> 00:14:39,085 that are related to yours in order to have enough 313 00:14:39,165 --> 00:14:41,909 frequency for it to pick up and be included in 314 00:14:41,917 --> 00:14:42,677 the answers. 315 00:14:42,821 --> 00:14:43,293 Matt Edmundson: Right. 316 00:14:43,389 --> 00:14:47,653 Farzad Rashidi: And that requires you to leave your cave. And you 317 00:14:47,669 --> 00:14:49,421 know, people like to just sit behind a computer 318 00:14:49,453 --> 00:14:52,581 and type to actually go and start reaching out to 319 00:14:52,613 --> 00:14:55,213 other people, other websites, other websites that 320 00:14:55,229 --> 00:14:57,381 are ranking for your target keywords and 321 00:14:57,413 --> 00:15:00,117 incentivize them to work with you to place your 322 00:15:00,141 --> 00:15:02,797 products and talk about your products so that now 323 00:15:02,821 --> 00:15:05,533 you have a much higher chance of landing in one 324 00:15:05,549 --> 00:15:07,785 of the answers that they generate. 325 00:15:08,645 --> 00:15:11,333 Matt Edmundson: This is interesting. So frequency then. I mean, 326 00:15:11,349 --> 00:15:13,093 we used to call it backlinks, didn't we? In a lot 327 00:15:13,109 --> 00:15:15,309 of ways. Or guest content and all that sort of 328 00:15:15,317 --> 00:15:20,517 stuff. Right. But frequency is becoming more and 329 00:15:20,541 --> 00:15:25,733 more important because this is how the AI finds 330 00:15:25,789 --> 00:15:28,549 information out. It's all based on frequency, not 331 00:15:28,557 --> 00:15:31,029 just the fact what was number one on Google, but. 332 00:15:31,197 --> 00:15:33,053 And actually one of the things I've also noticed 333 00:15:33,069 --> 00:15:36,397 with perplexity because I've got this pro mode 334 00:15:36,461 --> 00:15:39,005 thing, I don't know, you put it in pro and it you 335 00:15:39,045 --> 00:15:42,861 putting your information and it writes four or 336 00:15:42,893 --> 00:15:48,397 five search terms. So it searches for what you 337 00:15:48,421 --> 00:15:50,349 want, but then it tries to figure out what you 338 00:15:50,397 --> 00:15:53,421 really want and it writes four or five search 339 00:15:53,453 --> 00:15:55,253 terms around what it thinks you really want. And 340 00:15:55,269 --> 00:15:58,749 it goes and searches those as well. And that I 341 00:15:58,757 --> 00:16:01,305 thought was really, really fascinating that 342 00:16:02,885 --> 00:16:06,581 actually I've not just got to get my website up, 343 00:16:06,613 --> 00:16:09,181 I've not just got a rank for terms which I think 344 00:16:09,213 --> 00:16:11,941 I need to rank for. I've now got to think about 345 00:16:12,013 --> 00:16:14,245 frequency and I've also got to think about the 346 00:16:14,285 --> 00:16:17,901 search terms that AI is going to use around those 347 00:16:17,973 --> 00:16:21,349 search terms to try and make sure that I'm also 348 00:16:21,477 --> 00:16:24,093 ranking for those as well. Strikes me like 349 00:16:24,109 --> 00:16:25,785 there's a lot going on here. 350 00:16:27,525 --> 00:16:30,677 Farzad Rashidi: Yeah. And that also adds a level of credibility. 351 00:16:30,821 --> 00:16:35,133 So the nice thing about the reason why we rely on 352 00:16:35,309 --> 00:16:37,997 a lot of these AI engines is that it's a 353 00:16:38,021 --> 00:16:41,505 culmination of research that they've done, this 354 00:16:42,045 --> 00:16:44,181 model has done at the point of search. It's not 355 00:16:44,213 --> 00:16:48,221 just an individual website's opinion, obviously. 356 00:16:48,333 --> 00:16:50,957 If five websites are mentioning one specific 357 00:16:51,021 --> 00:16:53,507 brand, it's much more likely that that's an 358 00:16:53,531 --> 00:16:56,115 actual good brand that you want to buy versus 359 00:16:56,275 --> 00:16:58,163 them just placing themselves at the top of the 360 00:16:58,179 --> 00:17:00,747 search results somehow. It could be an affiliate 361 00:17:00,811 --> 00:17:03,859 agreement, it could be, you know, a sponsored 362 00:17:03,907 --> 00:17:06,979 link a lot of the time. So that sort of adds a 363 00:17:06,987 --> 00:17:08,907 level of credibility to the search results. The 364 00:17:08,931 --> 00:17:12,491 more up, the more different websites are talking 365 00:17:12,523 --> 00:17:14,775 about your brand and talking about your product. 366 00:17:15,115 --> 00:17:18,731 Matt Edmundson: Yeah, that's really, really powerful. I'm kind of 367 00:17:18,763 --> 00:17:24,511 curious, where do you, where do you start? Like 368 00:17:24,543 --> 00:17:27,783 if you're for example, if you're just starting 369 00:17:27,799 --> 00:17:30,047 out in E commerce, you kind of going, well I'm 370 00:17:30,071 --> 00:17:31,743 kind of new to this game. It sounds like a lot 371 00:17:31,799 --> 00:17:32,319 dude. 372 00:17:32,447 --> 00:17:33,115 Farzad Rashidi: Yeah. 373 00:17:34,375 --> 00:17:36,711 Matt Edmundson: Where do they start? You know, where's a good 374 00:17:36,743 --> 00:17:37,631 place to begin? 375 00:17:37,783 --> 00:17:40,767 Farzad Rashidi: That's an excellent question. So I actually have 376 00:17:40,791 --> 00:17:43,431 some strategies that I'm happy to share. Step by 377 00:17:43,463 --> 00:17:43,823 step. 378 00:17:43,919 --> 00:17:45,743 Matt Edmundson: That's a beautiful thing. That's what I was 379 00:17:45,759 --> 00:17:47,663 hoping you would say. So let's go through the 380 00:17:47,719 --> 00:17:48,505 strategies. 381 00:17:48,695 --> 00:17:51,285 Farzad Rashidi: Absolutely. So first and foremost, one of the 382 00:17:51,325 --> 00:17:53,533 simplest strategies I always recommend is what I 383 00:17:53,549 --> 00:17:57,653 call the listicle strategy. So think of it. Just 384 00:17:57,669 --> 00:18:00,973 put yourself in shoes of a customer. So let's say 385 00:18:01,029 --> 00:18:04,333 Matt, when you wanted to buy electrolytes, what 386 00:18:04,349 --> 00:18:07,985 did you search on wherever the search engine was? 387 00:18:08,365 --> 00:18:10,505 Matt Edmundson: I didn't actually search on the search engine. 388 00:18:11,965 --> 00:18:14,333 What did I write? I think I went to Amazon. I 389 00:18:14,349 --> 00:18:16,145 just put in electrolyte drinks. 390 00:18:16,695 --> 00:18:20,471 Farzad Rashidi: Right. But when you are searching for it as in 391 00:18:20,543 --> 00:18:23,919 like usually research terms like best electrolyte 392 00:18:24,047 --> 00:18:25,503 brands or something like that. 393 00:18:25,639 --> 00:18:28,975 Matt Edmundson: Yeah I would have put in something like best 394 00:18:29,015 --> 00:18:30,527 electrolyte brands. 395 00:18:30,711 --> 00:18:31,295 Farzad Rashidi: Right. 396 00:18:31,415 --> 00:18:32,983 Matt Edmundson: Or something like that. Certainly that's why I 397 00:18:32,999 --> 00:18:36,463 put into Perplexity. What's the best brand? 398 00:18:36,519 --> 00:18:37,527 Farzad Rashidi: Yeah, exactly. 399 00:18:37,631 --> 00:18:39,055 Matt Edmundson: For this, for this product. 400 00:18:39,175 --> 00:18:39,479 Farzad Rashidi: Right. 401 00:18:39,527 --> 00:18:41,575 Matt Edmundson: Most reputable. I think I might have said most. 402 00:18:41,615 --> 00:18:46,061 Farzad Rashidi: Reputable topic best, you know, essentially 403 00:18:46,093 --> 00:18:47,941 different variations of that topic. So anything 404 00:18:47,973 --> 00:18:50,397 that implies to the search engine that this is a 405 00:18:50,421 --> 00:18:52,533 list of I want to, I want to purchase, I want to 406 00:18:52,549 --> 00:18:56,053 evaluate a variety of brands. So what, what are 407 00:18:56,069 --> 00:18:58,637 the ones that I should look into? So the first 408 00:18:58,661 --> 00:19:02,365 thing we do is I use this, what I call this 409 00:19:02,405 --> 00:19:05,021 Google Advanced. Well I don't call them, they're 410 00:19:05,053 --> 00:19:07,965 called Google Advanced operators. So Google is 411 00:19:08,005 --> 00:19:09,781 very flexible when it comes to the search 412 00:19:09,813 --> 00:19:11,749 strings. You can type in order to find 413 00:19:11,837 --> 00:19:16,085 opportunities. And what I like to is essentially 414 00:19:16,125 --> 00:19:20,045 just pull up Google and utilize these advanced 415 00:19:20,085 --> 00:19:23,669 operators. One of them is called intitle. So 416 00:19:23,717 --> 00:19:25,997 essentially or you know, if you're just starting 417 00:19:26,021 --> 00:19:27,709 out, you're a novice, like you don't have to 418 00:19:27,757 --> 00:19:30,237 worry about that. You can just type literally 419 00:19:30,301 --> 00:19:33,789 best electrolyte brands, best CBD gummies, best 420 00:19:33,837 --> 00:19:36,373 tennis rackets, whatever and then just go through 421 00:19:36,389 --> 00:19:38,589 the search results. Using this advanced operation 422 00:19:38,637 --> 00:19:40,253 can get them a little bit more targeted. So 423 00:19:40,269 --> 00:19:42,603 that's they're more likely to be listicles than 424 00:19:42,619 --> 00:19:45,187 there are other things. Right. But you know 425 00:19:45,211 --> 00:19:46,723 you'll be able to essentially go through the 426 00:19:46,739 --> 00:19:50,203 search results and then find non competing 427 00:19:50,259 --> 00:19:51,771 articles. So some of them may be your 428 00:19:51,803 --> 00:19:54,995 competitors. Like a lot of electrolyte brands 429 00:19:55,035 --> 00:19:57,539 themselves have an article on best electrolyte 430 00:19:57,587 --> 00:20:00,275 brands and surprise, their brand happens to be. 431 00:20:00,315 --> 00:20:01,627 Matt Edmundson: Oh, they're always going to be number one. Yeah, 432 00:20:01,651 --> 00:20:02,403 yeah, yeah, Right. 433 00:20:02,419 --> 00:20:03,891 Farzad Rashidi: So. Well, there are some of those, but there are 434 00:20:03,923 --> 00:20:06,139 some independent publications, lots of them, I 435 00:20:06,147 --> 00:20:07,963 would say the argument, majority of them that 436 00:20:07,979 --> 00:20:10,205 are, they're not electrolyte brands, but they're 437 00:20:10,245 --> 00:20:12,141 writing content about that. So it could be a news 438 00:20:12,173 --> 00:20:14,877 channel, it could be a blog, it could be a health 439 00:20:15,021 --> 00:20:20,341 website. So now collecting those first. So 440 00:20:20,373 --> 00:20:22,973 essentially finding, okay, what specific article 441 00:20:23,029 --> 00:20:26,461 from what website is step one. Now step two is 442 00:20:26,493 --> 00:20:28,549 who's the right person to contact for that 443 00:20:28,597 --> 00:20:31,837 website. So a lot of people just intuitively will 444 00:20:31,901 --> 00:20:34,621 go and find a contact Us page or something on the 445 00:20:34,653 --> 00:20:37,219 website and then reach out to that and again, 446 00:20:37,307 --> 00:20:40,179 surprise, not going to get much of a reply. I 447 00:20:40,187 --> 00:20:42,243 mean, unless it's a very small blog, that's the 448 00:20:42,259 --> 00:20:44,003 only email they have. Like if someone reaches out 449 00:20:44,019 --> 00:20:46,523 to your support channel or support email. Hello, 450 00:20:46,619 --> 00:20:48,571 unless it's a sales query, then you're probably 451 00:20:48,603 --> 00:20:52,235 not going to pay much attention to it. So usually 452 00:20:52,315 --> 00:20:54,955 the research starts in LinkedIn, so instead of 453 00:20:54,995 --> 00:20:57,027 the website itself. So once you find a website, 454 00:20:57,131 --> 00:21:01,611 we usually find either their LinkedIn link or I 455 00:21:01,643 --> 00:21:05,413 Google the website's domain and site LinkedIn.com 456 00:21:05,549 --> 00:21:08,109 yeah, and then you can easily spot their LinkedIn 457 00:21:08,157 --> 00:21:10,709 page and go through the employees. And I usually 458 00:21:10,757 --> 00:21:13,381 try to see if we can find like a content manager 459 00:21:13,413 --> 00:21:16,621 or editorial person or some, some person in their 460 00:21:16,653 --> 00:21:19,917 partnerships or marketing or somewhere relevant. 461 00:21:19,981 --> 00:21:21,757 And sometimes they don't have anyone like that. 462 00:21:21,781 --> 00:21:23,965 If it's a smaller publication, maybe just the 463 00:21:24,005 --> 00:21:28,933 owner or the founder. And usually at last reserve 464 00:21:29,029 --> 00:21:30,629 if you couldn't find the LinkedIn page that they 465 00:21:30,637 --> 00:21:32,557 don't have any sort of presence there, then rely 466 00:21:32,581 --> 00:21:34,335 on the generic email. So there's that tiered 467 00:21:34,375 --> 00:21:36,679 system of finding the right person. A lot of the 468 00:21:36,687 --> 00:21:39,955 times, if you can find the author of the article 469 00:21:40,295 --> 00:21:42,551 and check and see if that person works at the 470 00:21:42,583 --> 00:21:45,319 company, that also would be a great contact. So a 471 00:21:45,327 --> 00:21:47,511 lot of times they're not actual staff writers. 472 00:21:47,543 --> 00:21:49,911 There might be contributors or freelancers. So 473 00:21:49,983 --> 00:21:51,391 you wouldn't want to reach out to those because 474 00:21:51,423 --> 00:21:53,943 they won't have any sort of editorial access to 475 00:21:53,959 --> 00:21:55,535 the publication. So finding someone actually 476 00:21:55,575 --> 00:21:57,159 works there. So if it's the writer of the article 477 00:21:57,207 --> 00:21:58,775 and that person works there, that'd be the best 478 00:21:58,815 --> 00:22:00,877 person. If not, okay, let's go to the content 479 00:22:00,941 --> 00:22:04,261 manager. So then once you have that person's 480 00:22:04,293 --> 00:22:05,957 LinkedIn found that you want to find their email 481 00:22:06,021 --> 00:22:09,309 address. And so we actually have a free tool, you 482 00:22:09,317 --> 00:22:11,357 can Google like respond to email finder. And it's 483 00:22:11,381 --> 00:22:14,301 like a ungated thing that you can put in 484 00:22:14,333 --> 00:22:16,397 anybody's name and domain. It will help you find 485 00:22:16,421 --> 00:22:18,029 the email address. There's a bunch of tools out 486 00:22:18,037 --> 00:22:20,229 there to help you do that once you have 487 00:22:20,277 --> 00:22:23,389 identified the right person. And then there you 488 00:22:23,397 --> 00:22:25,637 go. So that's your person. Now the question is 489 00:22:25,661 --> 00:22:29,515 the pitch, right? And so how do you actually get. 490 00:22:29,675 --> 00:22:32,155 So now we, we've identified a blog post or 491 00:22:32,195 --> 00:22:34,883 webpage that we really want to mention on we 492 00:22:34,899 --> 00:22:38,107 found the right person, got their email. So now 493 00:22:38,131 --> 00:22:39,843 the question is how do we, what do we say to 494 00:22:39,859 --> 00:22:44,947 them? Whatever you do, do not go on ChatGPT and 495 00:22:44,971 --> 00:22:48,175 say what do I say to this person? Because please, 496 00:22:49,275 --> 00:22:52,395 please don't. Not at least at the current stage 497 00:22:52,435 --> 00:22:56,083 of these LLMs. So they're just going to write a 498 00:22:56,099 --> 00:22:59,835 very rewarded email. Even if you give it like 499 00:22:59,915 --> 00:23:01,995 some instructions, it still wouldn't sound 500 00:23:02,035 --> 00:23:04,507 natural. Write that email yourself, at least the 501 00:23:04,531 --> 00:23:08,787 template, the basic template of it yourself. And 502 00:23:08,931 --> 00:23:10,691 there's a few things you want to hit in that 503 00:23:10,723 --> 00:23:13,683 email. Just general rules of thumb that I'm sure 504 00:23:13,739 --> 00:23:17,179 Matt, you get your fair share of bad cold email 505 00:23:17,227 --> 00:23:19,755 since you have a popular podcast. So hopefully 506 00:23:19,795 --> 00:23:22,003 these will resonate. So first thing, don't make 507 00:23:22,019 --> 00:23:25,047 it too long. Keep it super short and sweet. So we 508 00:23:25,071 --> 00:23:27,847 see a significant drop in reply rates once we 509 00:23:27,871 --> 00:23:30,319 exceed a hundred words. So seventy, eighty words 510 00:23:30,367 --> 00:23:32,151 max. That's literally like three or four 511 00:23:32,183 --> 00:23:32,759 sentences. 512 00:23:32,887 --> 00:23:33,543 Matt Edmundson: Yeah. 513 00:23:33,679 --> 00:23:36,719 Farzad Rashidi: So keep it short and sweet. The goal of the first 514 00:23:36,767 --> 00:23:40,271 email is not to get your product place is not to 515 00:23:40,303 --> 00:23:43,167 build a partnership. Goal of the first email is 516 00:23:43,191 --> 00:23:45,927 to get them to reply. And if you're sending a 517 00:23:45,951 --> 00:23:49,991 long list of emails and long email with a list 518 00:23:50,023 --> 00:23:52,491 of, you know, five benefits of your product, 519 00:23:52,603 --> 00:23:54,827 nobody's going to read that. Even so keep it 520 00:23:54,851 --> 00:23:57,643 short and sweet. Two is personalization. So you 521 00:23:57,659 --> 00:23:59,571 want to imply to that person that, hey, you've 522 00:23:59,603 --> 00:24:02,027 done some research and usually mentioning 523 00:24:02,051 --> 00:24:03,635 something interesting I talked about in the 524 00:24:03,675 --> 00:24:07,227 article would, given that first line would give 525 00:24:07,251 --> 00:24:09,147 that indication that hey, this is at least a 526 00:24:09,171 --> 00:24:12,707 halfway decent email. Even if it's nowadays with 527 00:24:12,731 --> 00:24:15,627 these AI tools it's easier to generate those. But 528 00:24:15,651 --> 00:24:18,887 it's still, and it's an indication, it still puts 529 00:24:18,911 --> 00:24:22,087 at that top 1% of people, 99% of people don't, 530 00:24:22,151 --> 00:24:24,439 don't bother changing their templates. So 531 00:24:24,487 --> 00:24:27,655 customization second and three is incentive. 532 00:24:27,735 --> 00:24:29,711 Which in my opinion is actually most important of 533 00:24:29,743 --> 00:24:32,783 all, but goes without saying that people aren't 534 00:24:32,879 --> 00:24:34,791 just doing things out of the goodness of the 535 00:24:34,823 --> 00:24:38,775 heart. Yeah, in Business most of the time. Right. 536 00:24:38,815 --> 00:24:42,867 Not. There are exceptions, of course, but put 537 00:24:42,891 --> 00:24:44,811 yourself in shoes of the recipient. That's. 538 00:24:44,923 --> 00:24:47,339 You'll be surprised how many people I onboard 539 00:24:47,387 --> 00:24:49,211 into respond. And then I take a look at their 540 00:24:49,243 --> 00:24:51,395 template. I'm like, would you reply to an email 541 00:24:51,435 --> 00:24:54,531 that you're sending to other people? And they're 542 00:24:54,563 --> 00:24:56,339 like, no, absolutely not. I'm like, then why are 543 00:24:56,347 --> 00:25:01,115 you sending it to other people? So you can't just 544 00:25:01,155 --> 00:25:03,603 reach out to someone and say, hey, can you pick 545 00:25:03,619 --> 00:25:06,147 up my grandmother from the airport? No, nobody's 546 00:25:06,171 --> 00:25:07,891 gonna just do something for you. This is not how 547 00:25:07,923 --> 00:25:09,335 the world works. 548 00:25:09,635 --> 00:25:12,507 Matt Edmundson: It's funny how we know that intuitively, but we 549 00:25:12,531 --> 00:25:16,183 just seem to take our br of the box and just, 550 00:25:16,279 --> 00:25:18,591 just go, well, this will be fine. Surely that'll 551 00:25:18,623 --> 00:25:19,151 work. 552 00:25:19,303 --> 00:25:19,615 Farzad Rashidi: Yeah. 553 00:25:19,655 --> 00:25:22,007 Matt Edmundson: And it's always intrigued me because you go, 554 00:25:22,031 --> 00:25:23,879 you've gone to all the effort up until this 555 00:25:23,927 --> 00:25:26,655 point, but you just, it's at this point 556 00:25:26,695 --> 00:25:28,463 everything sort of, sort of fails. 557 00:25:28,559 --> 00:25:32,031 Farzad Rashidi: Mm, exactly. Yeah. It's a puzzle and if you mess 558 00:25:32,063 --> 00:25:34,303 on either one of them, it's just not going to 559 00:25:34,319 --> 00:25:34,711 work. 560 00:25:34,823 --> 00:25:35,231 Matt Edmundson: Yeah. 561 00:25:35,303 --> 00:25:38,167 Farzad Rashidi: So, so, and the thing is, because of the 562 00:25:38,191 --> 00:25:40,239 abstraction technology, you're not actually 563 00:25:40,327 --> 00:25:42,249 looking at a person, you're just looking at a 564 00:25:42,257 --> 00:25:44,297 computer screen typing something. So you don't 565 00:25:44,321 --> 00:25:45,849 really understand the fact that it's actually 566 00:25:45,897 --> 00:25:49,953 going to go to a human who's sitting there with 567 00:25:49,969 --> 00:25:50,525 their. 568 00:25:50,825 --> 00:25:52,481 Matt Edmundson: That's very true. Yeah. 569 00:25:52,633 --> 00:25:56,873 Farzad Rashidi: So we got to hit those three things. What's the 570 00:25:56,889 --> 00:25:58,529 incentive? What's in it for them? It's got to be 571 00:25:58,537 --> 00:25:59,713 short and sweet and it's going to be 572 00:25:59,729 --> 00:26:01,753 customizable, like customized person, 573 00:26:01,809 --> 00:26:03,377 personalized email. Now you might be saying, hey, 574 00:26:03,401 --> 00:26:05,873 that's a lot of work. And you know, that's what 575 00:26:05,889 --> 00:26:08,303 we have, we built a tool around that. But again, 576 00:26:08,449 --> 00:26:10,163 it's not to say that we're doing any magic. 577 00:26:10,219 --> 00:26:14,735 Everything you can do manually yourself. And so 578 00:26:15,275 --> 00:26:19,715 once we have an email crafted, send it and last 579 00:26:19,755 --> 00:26:22,915 but not least, follow up. So about a month, about 580 00:26:22,955 --> 00:26:26,899 a week in, so give a few days to a person and if 581 00:26:26,907 --> 00:26:28,731 you're sending it manually, just snooze and 582 00:26:28,763 --> 00:26:32,043 follow up once and make sure in that follow up 583 00:26:32,099 --> 00:26:34,251 email you're saying that it's a one time follow 584 00:26:34,283 --> 00:26:39,323 up. Right. So do not pester people. Right. That's 585 00:26:39,369 --> 00:26:40,919 aren't interested. If you send two emails to 586 00:26:40,927 --> 00:26:42,279 someone that haven't replied to, you're more 587 00:26:42,327 --> 00:26:47,327 likely not interested. You might get some advice 588 00:26:47,391 --> 00:26:49,047 other than that, but it's going to ruin your 589 00:26:49,071 --> 00:26:51,167 email domain reputation because if you make 590 00:26:51,191 --> 00:26:53,359 people angry they don't like your emails, they're 591 00:26:53,367 --> 00:26:55,151 going to market as spam. It's going to harm your 592 00:26:55,183 --> 00:26:57,471 domain or reputation. So don't do that. Be nice 593 00:26:57,503 --> 00:27:00,703 to people. Just hey, it's a one time follow up. I 594 00:27:00,719 --> 00:27:02,151 don't hear back. Just assume you're not 595 00:27:02,183 --> 00:27:04,653 interested to remain respectful of your email. 596 00:27:04,839 --> 00:27:09,113 That's it. We have done it. That's one strategy. 597 00:27:09,169 --> 00:27:12,201 Listicles and now rinse and repeat, which are 598 00:27:12,233 --> 00:27:15,945 keywords you could come up with. And I guarantee 599 00:27:15,985 --> 00:27:18,921 you, if you've played this right, means it's a 600 00:27:18,953 --> 00:27:21,361 strong enough incentive. So what's the strong 601 00:27:21,393 --> 00:27:23,009 enough incentive that we should elaborate on 602 00:27:23,017 --> 00:27:25,553 that. Just a few examples. So if you have a 603 00:27:25,569 --> 00:27:28,097 decent product that everybody can use, sending 604 00:27:28,121 --> 00:27:29,865 them free samples is good. People love free 605 00:27:29,905 --> 00:27:32,643 stuff. If you have an affiliate program, that's a 606 00:27:32,659 --> 00:27:35,571 great one. So if they have Listicle, you know, 607 00:27:35,603 --> 00:27:37,691 they would love some monetization if they 608 00:27:37,803 --> 00:27:40,131 generate some sales so you can do some revenue 609 00:27:40,163 --> 00:27:42,411 share with them. So if you use share Sale or 610 00:27:42,443 --> 00:27:45,563 something like that, CJ Network, whatever, that 611 00:27:45,579 --> 00:27:48,755 would be a great way to also add them in. Third 612 00:27:48,795 --> 00:27:51,547 one would be obviously monetary compensation. 613 00:27:51,651 --> 00:27:54,227 That's the least, my least favorite because 614 00:27:54,291 --> 00:27:56,219 usually legitimate publications, stuff like that 615 00:27:56,267 --> 00:27:59,513 aren't interested and monetary comp. But there 616 00:27:59,529 --> 00:28:01,169 are sometimes some editorial fees, stuff like 617 00:28:01,177 --> 00:28:03,305 that, if it's a legitimate publication, gets a 618 00:28:03,305 --> 00:28:04,737 lot of traffic. That might be something you may 619 00:28:04,761 --> 00:28:08,049 want to consider. These are just examples. As I 620 00:28:08,057 --> 00:28:10,685 said, there's different ways to skin a cat. So 621 00:28:11,665 --> 00:28:13,713 different motivations work in different niches 622 00:28:13,809 --> 00:28:18,073 depending on the industry you're in. But yeah, so 623 00:28:18,129 --> 00:28:20,249 that's the Listicle strategy. That's a simple 624 00:28:20,297 --> 00:28:23,433 one, that's very intuitive. Hopefully that covers 625 00:28:23,449 --> 00:28:25,121 it. I have a few more, but I'm going to pause 626 00:28:25,153 --> 00:28:27,577 here real quick, Matt, give you a chance to. 627 00:28:27,641 --> 00:28:32,093 Matt Edmundson: Yeah, no, it's really great. I, I like the, I 628 00:28:32,109 --> 00:28:33,573 like the simplicity of it. So I like the 629 00:28:33,589 --> 00:28:36,277 listicles. I get that. I get that. I can figure 630 00:28:36,301 --> 00:28:38,653 out who wrote the article, I can figure out who 631 00:28:38,709 --> 00:28:42,525 contacted them. I can do the legwork. I can go to 632 00:28:42,565 --> 00:28:45,045 LinkedIn, I can figure out who it was, get their 633 00:28:45,085 --> 00:28:47,629 email address and so on and so forth. I can then 634 00:28:47,677 --> 00:28:52,221 reach out to them. I'm going to make an 635 00:28:52,253 --> 00:28:54,357 assumption here, Farzad, and correct me if I'm 636 00:28:54,381 --> 00:28:58,361 wrong, but I'm assuming that what you guys do at 637 00:28:58,393 --> 00:29:03,393 Respona can do most of that legwork for me, which 638 00:29:03,409 --> 00:29:05,393 is how you've sort of come to where you are on 639 00:29:05,409 --> 00:29:06,673 the software. Would that be correct? 640 00:29:06,769 --> 00:29:09,753 Farzad Rashidi: Yeah, absolutely. So the background is Vismoon 641 00:29:09,769 --> 00:29:11,753 we're doing all these manually, even though it's 642 00:29:11,769 --> 00:29:14,353 a software product, still a product. So we want 643 00:29:14,369 --> 00:29:16,457 to get on all the best presentation software, 644 00:29:16,561 --> 00:29:19,457 best design tools, yada, yada yada. So we still 645 00:29:19,481 --> 00:29:21,241 had to do all that manually. So we built an 646 00:29:21,273 --> 00:29:23,809 internal tool to help us streamline that flow so 647 00:29:23,817 --> 00:29:25,933 we can feed it with a keyword and it will do all 648 00:29:25,949 --> 00:29:29,629 the work for you. So we developed as a standalone 649 00:29:29,677 --> 00:29:31,445 product and released it as a standalone product. 650 00:29:31,485 --> 00:29:33,253 So that's kind of the backstory of how respondent 651 00:29:33,269 --> 00:29:34,013 came to be. 652 00:29:34,149 --> 00:29:36,461 Matt Edmundson: Fantastic. But obviously you can do this 653 00:29:36,493 --> 00:29:39,065 manually. You can go figure it all out. Yeah. 654 00:29:39,805 --> 00:29:42,385 Let's talk about this pitch a little bit more. So 655 00:29:43,965 --> 00:29:46,597 just because I can hear all the questions people 656 00:29:46,621 --> 00:29:48,517 are asking, because the questions, some questions 657 00:29:48,541 --> 00:29:50,669 are in my head, I think. So we're looking for 658 00:29:50,717 --> 00:29:52,669 something that's 100 words or less, so something 659 00:29:52,717 --> 00:29:55,133 about 70, 80 words in length. And I'm going to 660 00:29:55,149 --> 00:29:58,363 go, hey, Fuzzad, just want to say that was an 661 00:29:58,379 --> 00:30:01,155 awesome article, man. On the 10 best tennis 662 00:30:01,195 --> 00:30:05,579 rackets to buy. If you're a beginner, I think 663 00:30:05,587 --> 00:30:10,611 that'll really help whoever. I'd love to send you 664 00:30:10,683 --> 00:30:13,595 our racket, which is also great for beginners, 665 00:30:13,635 --> 00:30:15,987 would love to get your feedback on it. Can I do 666 00:30:16,011 --> 00:30:19,427 that? Love and hugs, Matt. Maybe not love and 667 00:30:19,451 --> 00:30:21,251 hugs, but you know what I mean, it's as simple as 668 00:30:21,283 --> 00:30:23,363 that. Right? Is what you're saying is the actual 669 00:30:23,419 --> 00:30:25,543 email, I'm sending that out, I've not heard from 670 00:30:25,559 --> 00:30:28,167 you. A week later I'm going, hey, just check in. 671 00:30:28,191 --> 00:30:29,991 This is just a one time follow up from me. Just 672 00:30:30,023 --> 00:30:32,423 check in on this. If it's of interest, I'd love 673 00:30:32,439 --> 00:30:34,167 to hear from you. If it's not, don't panic. I'm 674 00:30:34,191 --> 00:30:40,119 not going to screw up your inbox by Matt kind of 675 00:30:40,127 --> 00:30:42,111 thing. And that's in essence what you're saying, 676 00:30:42,143 --> 00:30:42,671 right? 677 00:30:42,823 --> 00:30:45,855 Farzad Rashidi: Exactly. And a lot of commerce owners already are 678 00:30:45,895 --> 00:30:48,071 doing this, but they only do it within the 679 00:30:48,103 --> 00:30:51,023 context of social influencers for some reason. So 680 00:30:51,039 --> 00:30:53,943 they're doing this to Instagram people and TikTok 681 00:30:53,999 --> 00:30:56,577 influencers. And in my opinion it doesn't make 682 00:30:56,601 --> 00:30:58,937 much sense. It's not to say social influencers 683 00:30:58,961 --> 00:31:00,497 don't work. They actually work very well for 684 00:31:00,521 --> 00:31:04,233 ecommerce. But if you get a TikTok influencer to 685 00:31:04,249 --> 00:31:06,713 post something once, yes, you're going to get 686 00:31:06,729 --> 00:31:08,809 some sales and then two days later it's going to 687 00:31:08,817 --> 00:31:11,041 go down to zero because they've produced new 688 00:31:11,073 --> 00:31:13,289 content, there's new things getting published all 689 00:31:13,297 --> 00:31:16,073 the time. So it's a constant rat race of you 690 00:31:16,129 --> 00:31:19,497 paying for influencers and then their influence 691 00:31:19,561 --> 00:31:24,421 dies. That post dies within I would argue 20 692 00:31:24,453 --> 00:31:28,173 minutes. But when you get a reputable website 693 00:31:28,229 --> 00:31:30,677 that's already getting ranking in traffic, you 694 00:31:30,701 --> 00:31:33,549 get your product there, it's there forever. I 695 00:31:33,557 --> 00:31:35,325 mean not forever, but you get the idea. 696 00:31:35,405 --> 00:31:35,757 Matt Edmundson: Yeah. 697 00:31:35,821 --> 00:31:38,637 Farzad Rashidi: Now this not only gets sends referral traffic to 698 00:31:38,661 --> 00:31:40,941 your site, now these AI tools are going to pick 699 00:31:40,973 --> 00:31:44,877 them up. And so the ROI on that is insane. Even 700 00:31:44,901 --> 00:31:46,837 if you have to pay for that placement, I would 701 00:31:46,861 --> 00:31:49,435 argue that's a lot more valuable, not a little 702 00:31:49,475 --> 00:31:52,375 bit more. A lot more valuable in the long run 703 00:31:52,795 --> 00:31:55,003 compared to social influencers. So I would at 704 00:31:55,019 --> 00:31:57,867 least dedicate, you know, a portion of those 705 00:31:58,051 --> 00:31:59,819 influencer marketing budget to work and put it 706 00:31:59,827 --> 00:32:02,715 towards these because these to me make a lot more 707 00:32:02,755 --> 00:32:06,579 sense in terms of distribution. That's evergreen. 708 00:32:06,747 --> 00:32:09,707 Matt Edmundson: That's really fascinating. I'm curious also what 709 00:32:09,731 --> 00:32:12,011 you've discovered about the one time follow up. 710 00:32:12,043 --> 00:32:14,019 Now the reason I'm asking this is we have a 711 00:32:14,027 --> 00:32:17,517 couple of sequences which we send out to on 712 00:32:17,541 --> 00:32:19,661 colder outreach for some of the companies that we 713 00:32:19,693 --> 00:32:25,901 have and we have a three email sequence. The 714 00:32:25,933 --> 00:32:28,517 number one is the hello. The number two is just 715 00:32:28,541 --> 00:32:31,133 checking in and the number three is this is the 716 00:32:31,149 --> 00:32:34,613 last time I'm going to be in touch. You know the 717 00:32:34,629 --> 00:32:38,733 hello and goodbye email, we do that in a three 718 00:32:38,789 --> 00:32:42,245 email sequence. What your suggestion is actually 719 00:32:42,285 --> 00:32:43,985 to bring that down to two. 720 00:32:44,845 --> 00:32:47,197 Farzad Rashidi: What I'm suggesting is to experiment with it. 721 00:32:47,381 --> 00:32:50,045 It's not and science is more of an art at that 722 00:32:50,085 --> 00:32:53,629 point. One, two follow up is okay. If you go in 723 00:32:53,677 --> 00:32:55,413 three follow ups, four email total, that's too 724 00:32:55,429 --> 00:32:58,037 much. Cut that. So one or two follow ups. Two 725 00:32:58,061 --> 00:33:00,205 follow ups is the absolute maximum. Wouldn't go 726 00:33:00,245 --> 00:33:03,549 any more than what you're doing. I personally 727 00:33:03,597 --> 00:33:05,557 like it when people are respectful and just say 728 00:33:05,581 --> 00:33:08,949 hey, it's a one time follow up. Yeah, but again, 729 00:33:09,077 --> 00:33:11,563 is that gonna make that much of a difference? No, 730 00:33:11,669 --> 00:33:14,375 it's probably not going to make any dent in your 731 00:33:14,415 --> 00:33:17,071 reply rates and open rates overall. But in the 732 00:33:17,103 --> 00:33:19,231 long run, I think after years of doing cold 733 00:33:19,263 --> 00:33:22,231 outreach, it does reduce the likelihood 734 00:33:22,303 --> 00:33:24,567 intuitively. Again, this is something I don't 735 00:33:24,591 --> 00:33:27,959 have concrete data on. It's my intuition that 736 00:33:28,127 --> 00:33:30,463 less people mark your emails as spam, so it will 737 00:33:30,519 --> 00:33:33,515 help maintain your domain repetition higher. But 738 00:33:34,095 --> 00:33:36,951 two follow ups, you're doing okay. Yeah, just 739 00:33:36,983 --> 00:33:37,711 don't send five. 740 00:33:37,783 --> 00:33:41,263 Matt Edmundson: Yeah, no, no, no, not at all. But we kind of 741 00:33:41,279 --> 00:33:43,291 captured it. 3. It just sort of felt right. But 742 00:33:43,383 --> 00:33:46,075 what I've not done, ironically given the Podcast 743 00:33:46,115 --> 00:33:50,635 that I have is we've never tested two. And so I 744 00:33:50,675 --> 00:33:54,611 like the idea of testing it. And I think we will. 745 00:33:54,643 --> 00:33:54,899 Farzad Rashidi: We'll. 746 00:33:54,947 --> 00:33:56,979 Matt Edmundson: We'll try your strategy and if it. 747 00:33:57,147 --> 00:33:59,315 Farzad Rashidi: It might make it worse. Yeah, and then you go 748 00:33:59,355 --> 00:33:59,987 back. 749 00:34:00,171 --> 00:34:02,059 Matt Edmundson: Yeah, but we'll find out when. We will find out 750 00:34:02,067 --> 00:34:04,323 from there if it makes it better. I owe you a 751 00:34:04,339 --> 00:34:06,547 pint, brother. So next time you're over here, 752 00:34:06,571 --> 00:34:08,291 we'll. I'll take you to the pub and we'll. I'll 753 00:34:08,323 --> 00:34:09,163 pay my debt. 754 00:34:09,299 --> 00:34:10,535 Farzad Rashidi: Sounds like a plan. 755 00:34:12,125 --> 00:34:15,717 Matt Edmundson: Absolutely. So what's another strategy? I mean, 756 00:34:15,741 --> 00:34:18,973 that's one is the listicle. Yeah. What's your 757 00:34:19,029 --> 00:34:20,277 second best strategy? 758 00:34:20,421 --> 00:34:23,477 Farzad Rashidi: Yeah, so another one I like to do is product 759 00:34:23,541 --> 00:34:27,773 review. And it's a little bit different. So 760 00:34:27,949 --> 00:34:30,925 instead of you going after direct competitors, 761 00:34:31,005 --> 00:34:36,151 any tool that's in your space. So for example, we 762 00:34:36,183 --> 00:34:38,775 just literally brought on a customer that's in 763 00:34:38,855 --> 00:34:42,151 sporting equipment. And I think they sell like 764 00:34:42,183 --> 00:34:44,911 pickleball equipment, stuff like that. Well, 765 00:34:44,983 --> 00:34:47,719 reach out to ones that are reviewing tennis 766 00:34:47,767 --> 00:34:51,183 rackets. Like, yes, it's a different sport, but a 767 00:34:51,239 --> 00:34:54,383 type of website that's writing a review. Certain 768 00:34:54,439 --> 00:34:57,955 type of. That's probably not the best example. 769 00:34:58,855 --> 00:35:01,795 Let's say you run, you. You have a healthy 770 00:35:01,865 --> 00:35:04,711 product. Let's say you sell CBD gummies to help 771 00:35:04,743 --> 00:35:08,239 you help your customers get more. Get better, 772 00:35:08,287 --> 00:35:11,119 sleep. All right, well, there are only so many 773 00:35:11,167 --> 00:35:14,391 CBD gummies that you can find reviews on. So you 774 00:35:14,423 --> 00:35:17,271 would look up like X, Y and Z. I don't take CBD 775 00:35:17,303 --> 00:35:20,423 gummies. I don't know any good brands. But one 776 00:35:20,439 --> 00:35:24,375 idea, one idea you could do. So like AG1, that's 777 00:35:24,415 --> 00:35:27,007 like very popular now. It's like a powder 778 00:35:27,111 --> 00:35:29,151 supplement. Again, I don't take it either, but 779 00:35:29,263 --> 00:35:32,791 it's like some sort of health drink now it's 780 00:35:32,823 --> 00:35:35,639 within the same space. So if a website is writing 781 00:35:35,687 --> 00:35:39,407 a review on AG1, they are most likely would be 782 00:35:39,431 --> 00:35:41,119 interested in your CBD gummies too, because 783 00:35:41,207 --> 00:35:43,687 within the realm of what you do, AG1 has nothing 784 00:35:43,711 --> 00:35:45,711 to do with your product. Right. So we sell CBD 785 00:35:45,743 --> 00:35:49,519 gummies there prowler that does different things. 786 00:35:49,687 --> 00:35:52,359 So I would like you to sort of keep an open mind 787 00:35:52,487 --> 00:35:54,463 and you should never run out of opportunities 788 00:35:54,519 --> 00:35:58,861 that way. So now you take a popular brand or take 789 00:35:58,893 --> 00:36:02,613 a popular product and look up. So as I said, I 790 00:36:02,629 --> 00:36:05,005 sell CBD gummies, I go on Google and I look up 791 00:36:05,045 --> 00:36:08,845 AG1 reviews. And yes, there are some review 792 00:36:08,885 --> 00:36:10,901 sites, whatever. And then there's actual 793 00:36:10,973 --> 00:36:13,093 websites, blogs that are people that are writing 794 00:36:13,149 --> 00:36:15,773 reviews on, and a lot of those also have a 795 00:36:15,789 --> 00:36:17,477 YouTube channel. They have other ways of 796 00:36:17,501 --> 00:36:19,613 distributing their content. But it's a great way 797 00:36:19,629 --> 00:36:22,891 to also find opportunities for you to get people 798 00:36:22,923 --> 00:36:25,051 that are interested in writing reviews and then 799 00:36:25,083 --> 00:36:27,483 essentially getting them incentivizing them to 800 00:36:27,499 --> 00:36:30,939 write a review for yours. And that's another, I 801 00:36:30,947 --> 00:36:33,395 would say channel that you can find opportunities 802 00:36:33,435 --> 00:36:37,123 for you to do outreach. Another one is competitor 803 00:36:37,179 --> 00:36:41,851 mentions. So stuff that's not directly product 804 00:36:41,923 --> 00:36:44,939 reviews, but They've just mentioned AG1 in 805 00:36:44,987 --> 00:36:48,963 passing. Like hey, like the title article is how 806 00:36:48,979 --> 00:36:51,805 to get better sleep at night. And or. And then 807 00:36:51,845 --> 00:36:54,021 one of the paragraphs is written, oh, you should, 808 00:36:54,053 --> 00:36:55,901 you know, take some supplements. Maybe you're 809 00:36:55,933 --> 00:36:58,501 lacking iron or whatever and then take AG1. I'm 810 00:36:58,533 --> 00:37:00,181 completely butchering this because I'm not 811 00:37:00,213 --> 00:37:02,517 familiar with these products. But you get the 812 00:37:02,541 --> 00:37:03,045 idea. 813 00:37:03,165 --> 00:37:05,213 Matt Edmundson: You get to get AG1 reaching out to you going can 814 00:37:05,229 --> 00:37:07,173 we just send you some so you understand what it 815 00:37:07,189 --> 00:37:09,693 is you're talking about? Which is fine. They 816 00:37:09,709 --> 00:37:11,437 should send me some as well. Yeah, actually no 817 00:37:11,461 --> 00:37:12,437 they shouldn't because I. 818 00:37:12,461 --> 00:37:14,613 Farzad Rashidi: Take is available publicly. 819 00:37:14,669 --> 00:37:17,693 Matt Edmundson: So find me on LinkedIn. I'll send you the 820 00:37:17,709 --> 00:37:18,531 details. Not from. 821 00:37:18,603 --> 00:37:22,619 Farzad Rashidi: That sounds great. But anyhow. Yeah. So basically 822 00:37:22,667 --> 00:37:24,747 the art ton of the articles that you find don't 823 00:37:24,771 --> 00:37:28,523 necessarily have to be a listicle or a review. It 824 00:37:28,539 --> 00:37:30,915 could just be a mention. And so the way you find 825 00:37:30,955 --> 00:37:32,923 them is a little bit more difficult because if 826 00:37:32,939 --> 00:37:38,215 you just type ag1 there's a lot of essentially 827 00:37:38,995 --> 00:37:42,523 websites or a lot of articles on AG1 website that 828 00:37:42,539 --> 00:37:45,667 will show up. So you want to filter those. So for 829 00:37:45,731 --> 00:37:49,691 that we actually have a. We use these Google 830 00:37:49,723 --> 00:37:52,567 advancements, advanced operators that sort of 831 00:37:52,591 --> 00:37:54,807 respond and builds automatically but you can 832 00:37:54,831 --> 00:37:59,807 build them yourself. And that is using basically 833 00:37:59,871 --> 00:38:04,447 saying. So they're trying to see if folks that 834 00:38:04,471 --> 00:38:06,215 are listening how they're going to visualize 835 00:38:06,255 --> 00:38:08,343 this. So there's this advanced operator called 836 00:38:08,399 --> 00:38:14,775 Intext. Like Intext and then you can type in AG1. 837 00:38:14,855 --> 00:38:18,469 So Indertext I mentioned AG1 but within their 838 00:38:18,517 --> 00:38:20,621 text I also mentioned another keyword because 839 00:38:20,653 --> 00:38:22,869 sometimes the name of a company could be like 840 00:38:22,957 --> 00:38:23,637 purple. 841 00:38:23,781 --> 00:38:24,157 Matt Edmundson: Yeah. 842 00:38:24,221 --> 00:38:25,981 Farzad Rashidi: What is purple? They know that's going to bring 843 00:38:26,013 --> 00:38:28,237 up the color purple and it's going to bring up 844 00:38:28,261 --> 00:38:31,533 the mattress. So yeah, then we'd look up like for 845 00:38:31,549 --> 00:38:35,189 example health supplement. So in tax. AG1 in tax 846 00:38:35,317 --> 00:38:39,425 health supplement or whatever. Yeah. And then 847 00:38:39,885 --> 00:38:43,741 minus ag1.com or whatever the website is. So it's 848 00:38:43,773 --> 00:38:46,893 a negative website. And you know, and then you 849 00:38:46,909 --> 00:38:49,705 can decide if you want in URL Bl. So we'll 850 00:38:49,745 --> 00:38:52,473 essentially just help you find blog posts. So 851 00:38:52,489 --> 00:38:54,777 what that will do is that will help you find blog 852 00:38:54,801 --> 00:38:58,593 posts that have been written that mention AG1 in 853 00:38:58,609 --> 00:39:01,505 their content within the context of health 854 00:39:01,585 --> 00:39:06,361 supplement that are not from ag1.com right. So 855 00:39:06,553 --> 00:39:10,537 that will just help you by filtered out by bulk. 856 00:39:10,681 --> 00:39:12,929 In bulk. So Google essentially does it work for 857 00:39:12,937 --> 00:39:14,553 you? So now all of the search results now are 858 00:39:14,569 --> 00:39:19,559 going to be AG1 related products or excuse me, 859 00:39:19,647 --> 00:39:22,351 Agent 1 related content pieces. You could reach 860 00:39:22,383 --> 00:39:24,343 out to those side owners and then instead of buys 861 00:39:24,359 --> 00:39:27,343 them and then we can get more and more into the 862 00:39:27,359 --> 00:39:29,703 weeds and go into more advanced and like you say, 863 00:39:29,719 --> 00:39:29,871 you. 864 00:39:29,903 --> 00:39:31,503 Matt Edmundson: Just keep going and going and going, don't you? 865 00:39:31,519 --> 00:39:33,911 Then once you enter the rabbit hole, you can just 866 00:39:33,943 --> 00:39:37,831 keep going down there for as long as it goes on 867 00:39:37,863 --> 00:39:40,835 for. But that's super clever. I like because 868 00:39:41,495 --> 00:39:43,807 you're using some very simple instructions in 869 00:39:43,831 --> 00:39:46,835 Google search, aren't you? In text. And yeah, 870 00:39:50,175 --> 00:39:52,351 it's pulling up the results. You're going through 871 00:39:52,383 --> 00:39:54,015 those you're connecting with, you're doing it 872 00:39:54,055 --> 00:39:55,943 just got old fashioned legwork, aren't you? 873 00:39:55,999 --> 00:39:58,703 Connecting with people who are already writing 874 00:39:58,759 --> 00:40:01,807 this kind of stuff and going hey, can I. Same 875 00:40:01,831 --> 00:40:05,359 thing, incentive. Can we maybe connect over this? 876 00:40:05,527 --> 00:40:06,435 Farzad Rashidi: Exactly. 877 00:40:07,295 --> 00:40:12,319 Matt Edmundson: I mean if you were, if you. I guess my question 878 00:40:12,367 --> 00:40:19,061 here for is that if you were a startup and if you 879 00:40:19,093 --> 00:40:22,053 were also an established E Com business because 880 00:40:22,149 --> 00:40:24,013 the budgets are very different, aren't they for 881 00:40:24,029 --> 00:40:27,757 these two companies, how much time would you be 882 00:40:27,781 --> 00:40:28,985 devoting to this? 883 00:40:30,005 --> 00:40:33,829 Farzad Rashidi: That's an excellent question. So there is not an 884 00:40:33,877 --> 00:40:36,965 absolute numerical number that I could share. 885 00:40:37,045 --> 00:40:39,985 What I would share is in terms of resource 886 00:40:40,335 --> 00:40:43,191 delegation. So how much of your resources you 887 00:40:43,223 --> 00:40:45,911 should be spending. And that's usually a function 888 00:40:45,943 --> 00:40:49,719 of content creation. So I like to follow the 8020 889 00:40:49,767 --> 00:40:54,639 rule there. So if you're spending essentially you 890 00:40:54,647 --> 00:40:57,079 should be spending 20% of your resources on 891 00:40:57,127 --> 00:41:00,479 content creation. 80% of promotion to get optimal 892 00:41:00,527 --> 00:41:03,407 results. That's usually people do it backwards. 893 00:41:03,551 --> 00:41:06,471 They spend 80% creating content and then 20% 894 00:41:06,543 --> 00:41:10,955 promoting it. And so if you flip that ratio and 895 00:41:10,995 --> 00:41:12,819 again it's not to say you need to have more 896 00:41:12,867 --> 00:41:16,147 resources to promote. No, produce less frequent 897 00:41:16,211 --> 00:41:19,771 content and then use the excess resources you 898 00:41:19,803 --> 00:41:22,411 have to spend more on promotion. So if you're 899 00:41:22,443 --> 00:41:26,075 writing blog articles, write less blog articles 900 00:41:26,115 --> 00:41:28,019 and have the person that's writing the content 901 00:41:28,067 --> 00:41:30,483 pieces to actually go promote your product. And 902 00:41:30,499 --> 00:41:32,171 it's not just product placements also for 903 00:41:32,203 --> 00:41:34,139 individual blog posts that would write, we try to 904 00:41:34,147 --> 00:41:37,011 get links to them and get folks to mention it. 905 00:41:37,083 --> 00:41:41,451 Similar process. And so that is something that I 906 00:41:41,523 --> 00:41:43,875 think a lot of people sort of mistake is that, 907 00:41:43,915 --> 00:41:46,579 oh, I'm a one person show and I don't have a 908 00:41:46,587 --> 00:41:50,507 whole lot of time. Well, brother, if you have one 909 00:41:50,531 --> 00:41:52,923 or two of those sites, say yes, that's going to 910 00:41:52,939 --> 00:41:55,291 bring an Evergreen floor customer ecommerce 911 00:41:55,323 --> 00:41:57,683 store. Now as painful sound comfortable people 912 00:41:57,739 --> 00:41:59,771 don't want to do it. Yeah, that's your 913 00:41:59,803 --> 00:42:01,683 competitive advantage. If it was easy, then it 914 00:42:01,699 --> 00:42:03,155 would have been a channel in the first place. 915 00:42:03,195 --> 00:42:05,489 Right. So the fact that it's difficult is good. 916 00:42:05,627 --> 00:42:09,221 Matt Edmundson: Yeah. So no, I totally agree. Yeah, totally 917 00:42:09,253 --> 00:42:12,813 agree. I think I remember when I saw the power of 918 00:42:12,829 --> 00:42:17,389 this when I owned a beauty company and we were 919 00:42:17,437 --> 00:42:20,637 checking. This is going back several, you know, a 920 00:42:20,661 --> 00:42:25,397 decade at least. I remember we looked at the 921 00:42:25,421 --> 00:42:27,301 analytics and we looked at the data and we were 922 00:42:27,333 --> 00:42:33,483 making £6,000 profit every single month because 923 00:42:33,539 --> 00:42:38,011 of one blogger in Sweden. I mean Sweden is not a 924 00:42:38,043 --> 00:42:41,499 massive country. And this lady just wrote this 925 00:42:41,547 --> 00:42:45,139 article was really sweet and it generated six 926 00:42:45,187 --> 00:42:47,619 grand. In fact, no, it generated way more than 927 00:42:47,667 --> 00:42:50,523 £6,000 because I said, we contacted her and said, 928 00:42:50,539 --> 00:42:52,155 would you like to do some kind of an affiliate 929 00:42:52,195 --> 00:42:54,147 link? And she says, oh no, it's fine. And I'm 930 00:42:54,171 --> 00:42:56,587 like, but you would, she would in fact have 931 00:42:56,611 --> 00:42:58,715 earned six grand a month off the affiliate 932 00:42:58,755 --> 00:43:02,335 scheme. That's how much it was bringing in. And 933 00:43:03,155 --> 00:43:06,227 it did all of these links just to get them in. 934 00:43:06,251 --> 00:43:08,659 And you only need a few of those and your quids 935 00:43:08,707 --> 00:43:11,415 in really. But I really, I really like this 936 00:43:12,155 --> 00:43:14,979 because it's such an opposite message to what we 937 00:43:15,027 --> 00:43:18,363 hear with AI. With AI, you can create a thousand 938 00:43:18,459 --> 00:43:20,579 articles this week. You know, I can take your 939 00:43:20,627 --> 00:43:23,291 long form video and give you 50 short form videos 940 00:43:23,323 --> 00:43:25,727 in a second. But I love what you're saying, 941 00:43:25,791 --> 00:43:29,639 actually create less content, create really good 942 00:43:29,727 --> 00:43:34,075 content and then focus on promoting that content. 943 00:43:35,055 --> 00:43:39,039 It's, it's a wonderful message because so, so 944 00:43:39,047 --> 00:43:41,071 much of our time we create content but nobody 945 00:43:41,103 --> 00:43:42,799 reads it. It's like if we build it, they will 946 00:43:42,847 --> 00:43:45,367 come. It's not quite what. It's not the field of 947 00:43:45,391 --> 00:43:47,495 dreams anymore, is it? It's not working that way 948 00:43:47,535 --> 00:43:52,009 anymore, unfortunately. Yeah, so no, love that, 949 00:43:52,097 --> 00:43:54,365 love that. Far as I'd. Let me ask you a question. 950 00:43:54,985 --> 00:43:57,121 This is the time of the show where I say to you, 951 00:43:57,153 --> 00:44:00,521 what's your question for me? This is where I ask 952 00:44:00,553 --> 00:44:03,513 you for a question. I will take your question and 953 00:44:03,529 --> 00:44:06,377 I will answer it on social media and then I will 954 00:44:06,401 --> 00:44:08,805 spend a lot of time promoting said answer. 955 00:44:12,025 --> 00:44:13,377 Farzad Rashidi: Sounds great. Brilliant. 956 00:44:13,521 --> 00:44:15,009 Matt Edmundson: Okay, what's your question? 957 00:44:15,177 --> 00:44:18,759 Farzad Rashidi: All right, well I think then the topic that we 958 00:44:18,807 --> 00:44:21,487 discussed today, I think a good question would be 959 00:44:21,591 --> 00:44:27,711 how can E commerce stores. Let me reword that and 960 00:44:27,743 --> 00:44:30,279 say it more coherently so you can actually 961 00:44:30,327 --> 00:44:33,755 utilize this clip. How can E commerce stores 962 00:44:34,935 --> 00:44:38,807 tweak and adjust and adapt their strategy in the 963 00:44:38,831 --> 00:44:43,959 age of AI very customer promotion or customer 964 00:44:44,087 --> 00:44:44,955 acquisition? 965 00:44:46,855 --> 00:44:48,935 Matt Edmundson: Okay, if you want to know how I'm gonna answer 966 00:44:48,975 --> 00:44:51,855 that question, come follow me on social media, on 967 00:44:51,895 --> 00:44:54,167 Instagram and just look for me on LinkedIn. Matt 968 00:44:54,191 --> 00:44:56,967 Edmundson it's the same thing and I will do my 969 00:44:56,991 --> 00:44:58,903 level best to give a very good answer to said 970 00:44:58,959 --> 00:45:02,455 question. But Farzad, listen, how do people reach 971 00:45:02,495 --> 00:45:03,927 you? How do they connect with you? How do they 972 00:45:03,951 --> 00:45:05,263 find out more about your site? If they're 973 00:45:05,279 --> 00:45:06,727 thinking, man, this is a good idea, I definitely 974 00:45:06,751 --> 00:45:08,423 want to check out your software because it sounds 975 00:45:08,439 --> 00:45:10,179 like it's going to save me hours in this 976 00:45:10,227 --> 00:45:13,499 strategy. What's the best way to do that? 977 00:45:13,627 --> 00:45:17,363 Farzad Rashidi: Absolutely. My LinkedIn is Farsad Rashidi There 978 00:45:17,379 --> 00:45:20,523 aren't a ton of us out there, so fairly easy to 979 00:45:20,539 --> 00:45:26,051 spot. But our website is respona.com R E S P O N 980 00:45:26,083 --> 00:45:29,899 A dot com and we have a ton of free educational, 981 00:45:29,947 --> 00:45:32,267 ungated resources like the strategies I talked 982 00:45:32,291 --> 00:45:34,531 about. We have them publicly available on our 983 00:45:34,563 --> 00:45:36,799 website. So you don't need any of these fancy 984 00:45:36,847 --> 00:45:38,567 tools. If you're just starting out or you're a 985 00:45:38,591 --> 00:45:40,847 small business, you can do a lot of it yourself 986 00:45:40,911 --> 00:45:43,591 manually. And if you are a larger brand and you 987 00:45:43,623 --> 00:45:45,423 have some resources and don't want to do this 988 00:45:45,479 --> 00:45:47,823 manually, then a tool like respondent would be a 989 00:45:47,839 --> 00:45:50,007 no brainer because it helps you save a ton of 990 00:45:50,031 --> 00:45:51,711 time with building some of these campaigns out 991 00:45:51,743 --> 00:45:52,591 for you. 992 00:45:52,783 --> 00:45:55,375 Matt Edmundson: Fantastic. Fantastic. We will of course link to 993 00:45:55,415 --> 00:45:58,315 Farzad's information in the show notes as well, 994 00:45:58,775 --> 00:46:00,861 which you will either have come into your inbox 995 00:46:00,923 --> 00:46:03,017 if you're in the newsletter you can see them on 996 00:46:03,041 --> 00:46:05,745 the website at ecommercepodcast.net or of course 997 00:46:05,905 --> 00:46:09,017 if you just scroll down in podcast app they will 998 00:46:09,041 --> 00:46:11,745 be there as well. But Farzad, listen man, 999 00:46:11,825 --> 00:46:14,281 genuinely great to meet you. Thanks Alex for 1000 00:46:14,313 --> 00:46:17,721 connecting us. Really appreciate that and love 1001 00:46:17,753 --> 00:46:20,405 the conversation man. Lots of food for thought. 1002 00:46:20,865 --> 00:46:22,849 Love the strategies. Super helpful for some of 1003 00:46:22,857 --> 00:46:25,017 the other stuff we're doing in the business. So 1004 00:46:25,201 --> 00:46:27,089 I've got a conversation with the marketing team 1005 00:46:27,137 --> 00:46:29,433 tomorrow where I get them to listen to the 1006 00:46:29,449 --> 00:46:32,441 episodes early. They're like oh great. More but 1007 00:46:32,473 --> 00:46:34,425 genuinely loved it man. Really appreciate you 1008 00:46:34,465 --> 00:46:36,441 taking the time and coming on and sharing those 1009 00:46:36,473 --> 00:46:37,401 insights with us. 1010 00:46:37,513 --> 00:46:39,497 Farzad Rashidi: Of course it's My pleasure, and thank you so much 1011 00:46:39,521 --> 00:46:40,745 for having me, Matt. 1012 00:46:40,905 --> 00:46:43,177 Matt Edmundson: Brilliant, brilliant, brilliant, brilliant. There 1013 00:46:43,201 --> 00:46:45,601 you have it. What a great conversation. Huge 1014 00:46:45,633 --> 00:46:49,041 thanks again to Farzad for joining me today. Now, 1015 00:46:49,073 --> 00:46:51,177 be sure to follow the Ecommerce Podcast wherever 1016 00:46:51,201 --> 00:46:53,169 you get your podcasts from, because we've got yet 1017 00:46:53,217 --> 00:46:55,857 more great conversations lined up and I don't 1018 00:46:55,881 --> 00:46:58,097 want you to miss any of them. I never do. Hence 1019 00:46:58,121 --> 00:47:00,519 the reason I say it every week. Now, in case no 1020 00:47:00,527 --> 00:47:04,023 one has told you yet today, let me be the first. 1021 00:47:04,119 --> 00:47:07,631 You are awesome. Yes. You are created awesome. 1022 00:47:07,743 --> 00:47:10,903 It's just a burden you have to bear. Farzad got 1023 00:47:10,919 --> 00:47:13,023 to bear it. I've got to bear it. You've got to 1024 00:47:13,039 --> 00:47:15,559 bear it as well. Now, the Ecommerce Podcast is 1025 00:47:15,607 --> 00:47:18,015 produced by Podjunction. You can find our entire 1026 00:47:18,095 --> 00:47:21,079 archive of episodes on your favorite podcast app. 1027 00:47:21,207 --> 00:47:23,871 The team that makes this show possible includes 1028 00:47:23,903 --> 00:47:27,161 the legend Sadaf Baynon and Josh Edmundson, who 1029 00:47:27,193 --> 00:47:29,537 wrote the theme music. As I mentioned, if you 1030 00:47:29,561 --> 00:47:31,513 would like to read the notes, the transcript, all 1031 00:47:31,529 --> 00:47:33,505 that sort of stuff, you can find them on our 1032 00:47:33,545 --> 00:47:37,537 website, which is ecommercepodcast.net that's all 1033 00:47:37,561 --> 00:47:41,545 one word, ecommercepodcast.net but that's it from 1034 00:47:41,585 --> 00:47:44,137 me. That's it from Farzad. Thank you so much for 1035 00:47:44,161 --> 00:47:46,353 joining us. Have a fantastic week wherever you 1036 00:47:46,369 --> 00:47:48,473 are in the world. I'll see you next time. Bye for 1037 00:47:48,489 --> 00:47:49,045 now. 1038 00:47:50,315 --> 00:47:50,555 Farzad Rashidi: Sa.