DTC Ecommerce Digital Marketing: Sell outcomes, not products (podcast episode #135)

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The artificial intelligence revolution is upon us. Today we see AI doing everything from taking orders in a drive-thru to serving as a pseudo boyfriend or girlfriend.

But, according to my most recent guest, more importantly – AI boosts revenue.

To hear the story behind that lesson, along with more lesson-filled stories, I talked to Dario Markovic, CEO, Eric Javits.

Eric Javits had $15 million in revenue last year and is tracking to hit $18 million this year.

Markovic manages a team of 10 with a three- to four-million-dollar marketing budget, along with a worldwide vendor ecosystem.

Hear the full episode using this embedded player or by clicking through to your preferred audio streaming service using the links below it.

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Lessons from the things he made

Data wins

By refining customer avatars, A/B testing ads, and automating CRM, Markovic helped their DTC brand grow from $500K to $10M+ with a 3.5X ROAS. Data over guesswork wins, he says.

AI boosts revenue

AI-driven product recommendations and chatbots increased conversions by 20% in three months. Tech-driven experiences = higher sales, Markovic says.

The use of artificial intelligence is in some ways a modern version of what founder Eric Javits originally did 40 years ago when he founded the business. Javits traveled across the United States and talked to customers and stores and asked what they needed. This feedback ultimately led him to create the patented Squishee material he used to make the hats.

Sustainability sells

Authentic storytelling, influencer partnerships, and transparency tripled engagement and boosted retention for their eco-friendly brand, with 45% more repeat customers. Customers buy from brands they trust, Markovic says.

Stories about the people he learned from

Funnels = profits

via Russell Brunson, ClickFunnels

Markovic learned about funnels from Brunson, as well as Brunson’s predecessor Dan Kennedy, the guru of direct response marketing. Funnels turned $1 leads into $50 customers – a game-changer in monetizing attention for Markovic.

Retention over acquisition

via Ezra Firestone of Smart Marketer

Personalized emails, loyalty programs, and SMS marketing boosted repeat purchases by 72% for the Eric Javits brand, tactics that Markovic says he learned from Firestone.

Sell outcomes, not products

via Alex Hormozi

Reframing an offer from "8-week training" → "Scale to $100K/month in 90 days" doubled conversions overnight, in lessons Markovic learned from Hormozi. The lesson he took away for his own brand – clear messaging sells.

Discussed in this episode

Conversion Rate Optimization: 3 effective marketing strategies explained by the marketers who created them

MarketingSherpa Customer Satisfaction Research Study

Online Business Strategy: Steps marketers took to create powerful marketing funnels with Google, Amazon, and Facebook

Help, Don’t Hype: A guide to customer-first marketing

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Transcript

Not ready for a listen yet? Interested in searching the conversation? No problem. Below is a rough transcript of our discussion.

Dario Markovic: You know, let's say you love marketing. You're a marketer. You know, do I recommend to just not, you know, read about marketing. There's other, you know, very, very, you know, good books, you know, that that help and then just, you know, management and, and just aren't excited. They assume, you know, my most exciting person, you know, one student or, you know, a some was here, but those books are more exciting.

But there's just other books that, you know, self talk and a lot of ways that you can you can learn about those things if you can, you know, if you're if you're interested, if you want to make it, that's, that's I think, you know, it's a way it's there's no, no need to do an MBA.

Intro: Welcome to how I made it in marketing. From marketing Sherpa, we scour pitches from hundreds of creative leaders and uncover specific examples, not just trending ideas or buzzword laden schmaltz real world examples to help you transform yourself as a marketer. Now here's your host, the senior director of Content and Marketing at Marketing Sherpa, Daniel Bernstein, to tell you about today's guest and.

Daniel Burstein: The artificial intelligence revolution is upon us, my friends. Today we see AI doing everything from taking orders in a drive through to serving as a pseudo boyfriend or girlfriend. But according to my next guest, most importantly, AI boosts revenue to share the story behind that lesson along with more lesson filled stories. Joining me now is Dario Markovich, the CEO of Eric Javits.

Thank you for joining me, Dario.

Dario Markovic: Thank you. And thank you for having me.

Daniel Burstein: It's great to have you. Let me give the audience a sense of, who I'm talking to a bit about your background. You've been a controller at Al Peak, co-founder of Made Communication. And for the past five years, Dario has been at Eric Javits. Eric Javits had $15 million in revenue last year and is tracking to hit $18 million this year.

Markovich manages a team of ten with a 3 to $4 million marketing budget, along with a worldwide vendor ecosystem. So, Dario, give me, give me a sense. What is your day like as CTO?

Dario Markovic: Well, I'm very hands on CEO, so, pretty much, starts with, with, waking up and, you know, getting my hands, getting my head dirty, or if you can say so, and the computer is, pretty much going in and and doing some actual work immediately, especially in the morning when you're kind of fresh.

So, as I kind of mentioned, I'm hands on, so I'm digging into the ad platforms that are managing, you know, from meta to Google to, to, you know, for the platform. So we use, email marketing, SMS, kind of reviewing, you know, last, last weeks or last days, metrics, seeing if there's anything to adjust.

That's kind of the first thing that I do, catching up with the team after that. You know, how how's filament going? How's the whole site going? And pretty much kind of dive diving into today with with other tasks that, you know, CEO has to, I guess the do every, every other day.

So. Yeah. All right.

Daniel Burstein: Well, let's talk about some of, the lessons you learned from some of the things you made. I like to say, never been in other industries. I've never been a podiatrist or an actuary. But we get to make things in marketing, I guess. Fashion, too. You make hats, get to make things. So let's take a look at some of the lessons from some of the things you made.

Your first lesson is data winds. How did you learn this lesson?

Dario Markovic: So, so with the time, I mean, we started with marketing very early, I mean, and very early, but, you know, early 2011, 2012, that's where we're kind of maturing or my, my interest in marketing started. And then, data wasn't as this available or as accurate. I would say, as it was today or as it is today with all the platforms, with all the tools that we have available, was for us to to make decisions and, and today, and, and with AI today, it's, it's much faster.

It's, it's much easier to get the accurate data. So if you, if you look at the data, frequently if you're just, it's, I would say claiming in my, my experience, it's much easier math faster to get, to make adjustments and to see results. Happening or improving. Why you where you look at data.

So, so that that's kind of my approach to data. And you know, what is to maybe five years ago, it took us, you know, a few hours to go through data or a few days, and to, to make adjustments, to look at it and to understand it. Today, it might take an hour or even less with the with AI.

So, if, if, if someone says, hey, data is just too much, it's too, too wide, it's too complicated. I think that's not an excuse anymore. Perhaps it was, you know, especially for for small team, small companies, this didn't have the time to to go through data. Today, it's just, incredibly easy, incredibly, you know, we can do it incredibly fast.

So, you can make those adjustments and you can see results really fast.

Daniel Burstein: Yeah. Let me ask you, you mentioned ab testing ads a lot. I wonder what was the most profound insight, some of the most profound or surprising insights you had about the customer from AB testing ads? Because a b testing is always so interesting. It just it gets us into that customer mindset. We did I interviewed the people behind the Obama campaigns, AB testing, and for for people who are on the other side.

I'm going to mention the other administration. Just a second. I'm not taking sides, but we interview them because at that time that was the biggest, the I think $500 million from AB testing they ever had. And when I, when I talk to them, you know, these were some really advanced analytics people. And they said, you know what?

We were better than chance we, we, you know, guessing internally we'd always kind of place bets on the ads. What would win? We weren't better than a coin flip. We really needed to do is test. And then we learned so much about our target customer. Right. Which for them was donors and voters. So for you, what was going on with some of the most surprising or insightful insights you got about your audience, your ideal customer from AB testing,

Dario Markovic: That a very, very minimal change it might be to 2 or 3 words in a sentence can really change conversion rate very significantly. It's something that I never yeah, I never believed that was possible. Hey, why put two words or a word sometimes in in a sentence change? Change. You know, conversion rate. Now you're saying, you know, hey, what's what's the left wing conversion?

It might be, you know, 10%. But again, if you put up numbers, if you if you, you know, it might be a few hundred thousand dollars in a certain month. So, and if you don't test it, you know, if you just say, hey, you know, it might not, it might not, you know, bring me too much or, you know, it's it's too time intensive to to test those campaigns or sometimes we do test for instance, we use shoplift on, on our, on in our Shopify to test, you know, landing pages or test certain aspects of the website at once.

And, sometimes we do five tests so we don't see a significant, you know, significance in it. But it doesn't mean, hey, you know, we should just stop testing. You know, maybe the 6 to 7 test. It really has an impact. And sometimes when you test two things for three, two, especially, especially if you do one test at a time.

You you testing two things, right? You're testing A and B, you know, sometimes it's perhaps not the best test. So you should go back to test the same thing again. Just different, probably different creatives of a different whatever you're testing them sort of takes a few times to test the same thing to really get a result.

That's something I, you know, I never did in the past. That's just it just tested the one thing once I look at two images to to to to Banner's way to a to headlines now to test the same banners, you know, with different headlines or different images and so on. So it takes it takes time. It takes it takes time to test, to just test, test.

Daniel Burstein: Well, is there anything you learned about the customer from this test because you mentioned, like, hey, the power of sometimes the 2 or 3 were trained. 2 or 3 words can really change. Things mean something. In our test, we found is because those 2 or 3 words change something. In the psychology of the consumer, for example, we've seen, you know, the difference between a get headline where they're actually getting something versus asking them something to do, asking them to do something.

Those are very minor word changes, right? Like fill this out versus get this for filling it out. Right. That could be. But that's a huge change in the psychology for the consumer. So is there anything you learned about the customer from those changes?

Dario Markovic: The customer likes to it what we learned of the changes. Customer just likes to it just likes to see himself what the outcome of the product or the item. It knows how to frame it. Customer likes to see the dream or likes to see, you know, displayed with the hat or the bag or whatever we are selling like to see themself into it.

So we stopped using words that, you know, hard sell the customer just kind of, you know, it sounds kind of cheesy, but not selling dreams. But, you know, we're kind of selling the customer. Hey, you know, this is how you will feel. This is how you will, you know, the feeling of the customer. Yeah. It's kind of where we realized if a customer wants to, you know, wants to feel it.

And those are the words that we kind of realize, hey, you know, we we have to, you know, sell them or we have to kind of tell them, you know, this is how you will feel with, you know, getting our products or, you know, purchasing our products. So, so this is this is kind of more the outcome.

It's it's kind of a little bit again is what, what you know, what others are saying, you know, should perhaps sell more, the product or talk about, you know, how it's useful for the customer that hasn't been really for us, at least it hasn't been really the best, you know, approach rather than, you know, hey, this is whatever.

You know, you will feel your experience. You know, when your next trip to Europe to, to do to the Bahamas, this is how you, you know, this is how you how you feel, wearing network jackets.

Daniel Burstein: Yeah. So we talked about maybe testing very data driven, very ROI driven. But let me ask the flip side how do you allocate your budget to some of the things that are harder to manage or harder to measure with data? And give you an example, like, you know, when I think of high fashion, I think of Vogue magazine and all those beautiful ads that are hard to measure or the other thing.

And when I say this, listeners, remember I mentioned Obama a minute ago, Eric Javits hat was worn by Melania Trump, the first lady at the inauguration, which I would think would be a huge brand lift, but again, little harder to measure how the first lady when you had the inauguration would impact sales. So, you know, we talk about, yes, maybe testing and some, some of these very data driven things, but how do you allocate your budget to things that are harder to manage with data?

Or maybe do you not?

Dario Markovic: We do allocate budget to, to, to to things like, like PR or you know, going with what, you know, certain publications and certain things that are difficult to measure. But you're right, you know, did the approach or we're still I would still consider us as a small company. So we, we're self-funded, which means where we're putting, you know, profits back in, into growth, into, you know, inventory and then just marketing.

And, so we're we're the approach we're doing is a direct response marketing. We have to we have to because that's, you know, again, we don't have the, the, the dollars behind, to, to put more into the, the top of the funnel, which would be those, those it's more that the hard to measure that you're mentioning marketing now obviously with, with you know, the inauguration that we got, you got a lot of exposure.

I think we had, you know, hundreds of of of, of, publications across the globe. We're writing about the, the hat, you know, the the kiss, or the kiss the hot and and, you know, there's a lot of memes and it was picked up by a lot, a lot of, publications. We've got a lot of exposure.

And now, you know, if you measure that exposure into dollars, you know, and the few that I know, a PR person would say, you know, that's worth millions and millions dollars, obviously, you know, and we want see that in the back end. Now, do we see a big lift, and sales with it, especially for a week.

I think business of fashion, you know, how does that is on a, on a call that a piece about about that, you know, and and then, you know, you can you can read it in business a fashion. There's a, there's a article about, you know, how much belief we got. And, you know what, what that brought to the company.

But, generally it's it's it's we do allocate, but I would say it's a very small percentage of, of our budget that we allocate to those things. I'm not saying again, those are not important. You should you should not invest into those. But just if you want to measure and if you want to, you know, if you budget this tight is perhaps not the best way to just, you know, put significant budget to those channels.

Again, where throughout, throughout the years we're using link B, we're using, we're using other, you know, corporations way, the way, you know, marketing with with Hearst, where we're working with all those, you know, publications. But, it's really a small piece of the overall strategy.

Daniel Burstein: Okay. Here's another lesson you mentioned I boost revenue. Tell me how you learned this lesson.

Dario Markovic: Well, we started, obviously with with the whole AI boom. You know, the first thing for us was, hey, we could use AI to optimize the business, you know, make it more productive, make it make it more customer centric so the customer has a better experience. You know, we started I think the, you know, there's just a lot of ways to start with our customer service, customer service.

You know, testing, we have but we do a not sure if I, if I can mention that where we have a collaboration with meta, where our meta with llama, integrates or has a combination with Georgia has had this. And, so what we do is we integrated meta with Georgia's, and we, we help, so we kind of have a bot, obviously it's an eye.

AI was pretty much like it's like a human. So it cost cells, products, it recommends products. It it's much faster to answer it. It answers to a customer. 24 seven. So, you know, you have those customers that, you know, ten of the night, 11 and, you know, nine on their computer looking, searching through the web. And, you know, we we have our customer service working from eight to 6 or 96.

So you don't have a customer service agent to respond at the 11, you know, the night. So those this those bots are very good. So they, they they train they're trained. So what they can do, they can say, hey, you know, I'm looking for this site and according to my trip, you know, to, to, to Europe next week and you know, I'm looking for this hard, you know, work I would you recommend and then it's really good at selling.

So that's one of the case studies where, where AI boosts, revenue. For us, there's just more case studies and like, we have the time to, to, to discuss, but does that's one of the, you know, case studies where I can help, you know, boost revenue.

Daniel Burstein: What? And has I done anything to help you again, kind of learn about the customer to inform product development or anything else your company does because, for example, and I've written case studies about personalization before. For example, I did one with a game publisher where they were adding personalization and push notifications and increase conversion 14%. One of the key things they said they talked about, too.

It's not just the personalization. It's about really understanding a customer based on everything you know about that individual, individual user. So yes, then you strategically leverage after personalization. But you know, you could use that across the company. So I just wonder, was there anything you were able to learn about the customer from the AI and that personalization?

Dario Markovic: Obviously where we are using in short answer, yes and no. I mean, it's it's still, you know, we're still working. I mean, the information that we're adjusting kind of goes back to the data that, that, that we kind of talked about five, ten minutes ago. You, you can digest more data from the customer.

So your, you're able to, to filter to, to map it out in a different way. That perhaps you weren't able a few years ago. So, it's raw. It's really. It depends how you use it. Down, down the road. You know, how you connect a hunt to how you put it into your ecosystem? What?

What, you know, klaviyo with odds with with with everything else? At the end, it's it's still it still needs brains. It still needs innovation behind on how how you, you know, how you how you use it. For us, I was the we're in the process of of just implementing it more and more with different tools, with different, tactics, but generally, yes and no.

I mean, for us, we, we, we definitely look to, to to implemented more and to implement it more into our ecosystem where we can we can learn more about it, about the customer and use it to grow.

Daniel Burstein: Well, let me ask you to. So you talking about using klaviyo and AD and stuff and that's great. But as a CEO of the company, does that inform the actual products you make? And I'll give you an example. I interviewed the, founder of the Art of shaving a few guy that's not even public. It'll be it'll be public by the time this one's out.

And ultimately, they're bought by Procter and Gamble and Gillette and all this stuff. But he said, look, I started as a shopkeeper because, Mike, how did you develop these products? He said, I started as a shopkeeper. I was in that shop. People walking in, I was talking to them. I heard what they wanted, and that's how I built the product.

And I think that's something we've generally lost as we've moved to, you know, digital. And I know obviously your product has sold more digital, but it's sold through retail channels like Nordstrom and some of these places where you don't have a representative talking. So I just wonder is when we talk about things like data, AI, it'd be testing all these things.

Is there anything you've been able to gather from that to actually, you know, shape either that strategy of the company with the products or maybe you're like, no, look, we have fashion designers and it's art, and they design based on what they think is best. And we're not going to use data and analytics and customer feedback for it.

We've got these visionary artists. So I just wonder, does it go beyond marketing to the actual company and product.

Dario Markovic: Sure. Well, my business partner, Eric Javits, he, he founded the business 40 years ago. So this is what he actually did. He many, many years ago, obviously in the 90s and early 2000, he went out in a few weeks at a time. He traveled across the US and he did a play this. He talked to the customers in stores and asked them what they need.

And, you know, kind of got their feedback, hey, know, like a hat that there's, you know, there's an the doesn't get damaged if I travel and, you know, my husband doesn't want to wear these hot boxes, you know, you need so, so he, he developed that, you know, squishy material which is patented, which, you know, it's rollable.

It's packable. So. So he listened to the feedback of the customer. Obviously, he doesn't do that anymore. He's is, you know, 40 years in business, now with, with with, you know, our traffic being almost 90% online, you know, we we do obviously still listen to the customer in different ways. We're just, you know, feedback, reviews.

We we do have, you know, certain customer groups that we call. Ask them what? You know, what? How do they feel with what? You know, we fortunately, we have this history of 40 years. So so we have with legacy brands. So we have a lot of styles. But we introduced it in early, you know, 2000 or you know, even even longer ago.

So this is the same product. So, you know, hey, you know what? What do you wish? And we're asking, do we have to have this data where we can, you know, you know, hey, these customers, bald advisors, you know, we talk to them still physically, you know, I would say physically through the phone, through your call, and just ask them, you know?

Hey, what do you feel? What? How do you like it? You know, you've got, you know, ten business in the past, you know, ten years of 20 years, you know, how do you see this current visor? What do you use it for? Golf. And use it for small walk. Do you run with it to go to the beach with it?

So, I think it's so important, but, you know, there's there's, there's you mentioned, you know, there's the artist behind the, you know, that's still sometimes it gets all the feedback and it's still, you know, still feels, you know, the, the direction or the trend goes in a different way than what the customer said. But it's a mix.

I mean, if you don't listen to the customers, even in fashion, might be very difficult in the long run.

Daniel Burstein: Yeah, well, there is a balance. You know, the famous Henry Ford quote. If I asked people what they wanted, they would have said a faster horse. So you want to stay close to the customer, but also like, especially for a fashion brand, I think the, the artisanal, it's important. So you mentioned that 40 year heritage of the brand.

You also said one of the lessons you learned is sustainability sells. So is that something that goes back all 40 years, or is that something that's kind of maybe evolved over time where you figured that out?

Dario Markovic: It did evolve over time. We have a very doable, sustainable product, which, you know, helps us, you know, kind of, you know, get, you know, we have a lot of customers. They especially through Nordstrom's, they have a hat. Again, it is a convention where legacy brands, we have the same. So have a lot of similar styles or exactly the same styles that we produced ten years ago.

A and the they send a hat to Nordstrom back as a return. And you can see, you know the logo is different. You know the materials were different those tiny years ago. And it's the same hat and looks it looks, you know pretty good. And it looks pretty new. I also ten years ago. So, you know, and we sometimes, you know, have stories about those, those, you know, even though it's a silhouette, you know, shouldn't do this.

You shouldn't say the hat that you use for ten years as a customer. But, we kind of find it funny, when we find it, you know, we use it as a story and how durable and how, you know, how how how if a quality product we have with sustainable product, you know, you can have the same thing, you know, you can have sustainable, high quality, durable, and luxury.

We have premium price. You can combine it. So I think, if you can combine those things, you can you can use it in your marketing or storytelling.

Daniel Burstein: Yeah. So you mentioned Nordstrom's and returning had after ten years. Obviously Nordstrom's is one of the retailers that sister hats. Nordstrom's is well known for putting the customer first, going to great lengths and having kind of a rabid fan following for that. So I wonder, is there something your brand does to put the customer first? Because when we've researched this topic, you mentioned 45%, of customers are repeat customers.

And when we've researched this topic, we found that, there is a 713% difference between satisfied and unsatisfied customers saying they are very likely to continue purchasing to being a repeat customer. Right? So, you know, I don't think that should be surprising to us. Right. Obviously satisfied customers are going to going to purchase, repeat purchase more. That's a huge difference.

When you see the numbers. And we think about things like CPA and, customer lifetime value. And then when we asked satisfied, unsatisfied customers kind of what's the difference? What makes you satisfied unsatisfied, the unsatisfied customers? The number one thing they said was the feeling that the company does not put my needs and wants above its own business goals.

Right? So and I say that because it wasn't like, well, the company, you know, had a bad product or the company failed in this way. Right? We see repeatedly customers, they will be forgiving for brands when they fail them. At times, if they feel like they are actually putting their customer first with what they're doing. And like you said, Nordstrom's great example.

So I wonder, you know, are there any specific things you do with your brand to, to try to give get that feeling across to them that that we are putting you first as a customer?

Dario Markovic: Sure, sure I do. I do want to, you know, not I'm not doing a bring that Nordstrom thing a little bit of, you know you know, me not sure if many folks are aware, but you know if Nordstrom not so many brands out there has us it's nothing against Nordstrom. It's their policy has a as a consignment.

You know, it's a consignment model which means, you know, they're okay with receiving everything back because they go back to the vendor. Let's just say, yeah, I got it back. I have a credit, so it doesn't hurt them. It's this. It's a different approach, right? If you run a business, I'm very sure if they would run a business and it's similar to Amazon if they would run a business.

And if someone comes back after ten years and wants to return the product, you know, and they wouldn't just say yes, I think that has to be, you know, cleared up. It's it's, you know, they want to look good in front of the customer. And so we do. So we, we do want to look good for our customer, but it's different if it goes into into margins, if it goes into it into the finances, it doesn't go into them.

So I think many, many people are not aware, if that happens, you know, actually they don't get a hit. Now for us, you know, it's it's again, if you want to compete in today's world with the Amazons and with the Nordstrom's, you have to, you know, and the customer get you got used to it. So the customer is like, hey, I can return know some whenever you want.

So I want the same thing from you. Now you have to find a balance. Hey, how do I do it? You know, how do how do I, you know, how do I get the customer to return? And how do I make him happy? So he comes back. We. You know, I know that they return customer attorney customers cheaper to, you know, acquire or to retarget to or how you want to call it, than a new customer.

So you want that repeat customer. We have a high repeat customer rate. No. Now through the years, we will, you know, kind of we we've made it easier to return. We've made it. You know, we stretched out to I think we're 28 days, from the shipment date. So there's there's more to plenty of time to, to decide if you like too.

Have you can try it on. You can. But still we are business. You know, it's difficult to, you know, we offer free returns, which is, which eventually cuts, cuts into the margin. So our exchanges especially, you know, we have some things that we we include it, you know, if you if you change, if you if you take stock credit, if you, you can, you know, fully get free shipping going back.

But you know, if you want a refund, we do charge a small restocking fee. So it is it is a it is a balance. You can't I will say, through our expense, you can make everyone happy. Even that's our goal to to really make everyone happy. And, hey, if the product becomes damaged or if there's anything we, we want, you know, expedited shipping to the customer, there's still a lot of things that we do to make the customer happy, but at the end, it's, it's a it's a business.

What we we do have to, we do have to, you know, make the business profitable. And, and and it's especially, you know, in our case where the product is, is, is very lightweight. The dimensional rate is significant. So shipping costs are a big factor, for the business. So so those are a few things. If your experiences on our end, there's much more things that we do.

But yeah, there's a, there's are a few examples in our side.

Daniel Burstein: Yeah. It's understandable. I understand that balance. And I hear what you're saying about Nordstrom. But here's the thing. Here's one thing for everyone. When listening consider like yes, obviously you have to figure out the business numbers, the margin for some of those things. The customer knows nothing about what you're talking about with Nordstrom right. So at Nordstrom is done is they've figured out this great business mechanism on the back end that they look great on the front end to the customer.

And so that is obviously that's our job building a brand. We all have to figure that out in the right way okay. So those are some of the lessons from some of the things that Dario has made in his career. That's a great thing we get to do as marketers. We get to make things, but we also learn from other people.

In the second half of the episode, we're going to hear some of the people that Dario learned from. But first I should mention that the How I Made It and marketing podcast is underwritten by Mech Labs. I the parent company of marketing. Sure, you can get conversion focused training from the lab that helped pioneer the conversion industry in our AI guild, along with a community to collaborate with.

Grab your three three month scholarship to the AI Guild at Joint Mic Labs. I.com that's joining Mech Labs ai.com to start getting artificial intelligence working for you. All right, let's take a look at some of these people that you learn from. Dario. First you mentioned Russell Brunson of Clickfunnels and you learn that funnels equal profits. How did you learn this from Russell?

Dario Markovic: So, you know, well, there's a, you know, the folks out there that that love marketing. I guess it's it's kind of very difficult to not mention Russell. So, you know, Russell, Dan Kennedy, you know, it's kind of Russell learn from Dan Kennedy, which is, you know, person that, know, kind of, it's the guru or the the leader of the direct response marketing.

So, so I guess, you know, early on, you know, when Russell started back early, ended in 2001, which is Clickfunnels, just before that, you know, with the approach and how you that now in my, in my case, it's in e-commerce, it's a bit different than, you know, creating those funnels that you, that you can, you know, sell one product and, you know, talk to the customers in a bit different way.

But the approach still, still, you know, is, is what we're trying to do. And our approach and marketing to the people is, is, you know, what, the approach on, on, on text on, let's say on, you know, on how you approach it with, not just individuals and the website or the, the approach. And, you know, if you have a tool behind us, just click funnels, which folks are where it's, it's, it's a, it's a, it's a funnel builder.

And what we do is how do you talk to the customer. What do you lead him first how you pre frame him. So those are more two strategies that we use that Russell brand to kind of teach me. How do you pre frame, how do you bring to customer to the website. How do you lead them to you know how you talk to him, how to tell him a story about the product.

So those are things that Russell, Brunson and his teachings and his his approach, kind of, you know, shaped me on how to, you know, talk to the customer, how to convince the how to bring into your site, apart from, you know, just, you know, using the funnels that he also kind of talks about. So, so that's the way how we or how use it in my ecommerce, you know, in my ecommerce career.

Daniel Burstein: Do you have an example of how you balance what you give in the funnel before you get something? So, for example, I wrote a case study with a business academy that generated €20,000 by switching to a funnel that began with free value, a five day free workshop. Now, of course, like you said, an e-commerce product can be very different than selling some of these digital online products like training.

So it's it's a little harder there. But, you know, sometimes some companies do things a community, you know, all different things, to, to try it out there. So is there anything that you're able to do at the beginning of the funnel that you have some switch from, from here we're going to give first before we start asking to get or is it just go right into product sales.

Dario Markovic: So it's a it's a very good question. Especially in the case of Eric JV. It's I have done this before. I have offered services. Because we have a product we have products, you know, 250 to 400 50 or $500. So it's, it's not as easy to go in and say, hey, you know, here, try this product or, you know, get this product for free.

And the approach that we have were or kind of proceed more as a premium luxury company. So, you, you, you know, you have a it's a bit more difficult to get into this, but there's ways on, on, you know, offering customers a certain obviously, you know, discounts are not a, not the way to that we, that we kind of it's not the way as well if you if you perceive as a premium but you offer add ons, to the product, you know, hey, you know, you can you can use this, you know, advisors, you could use this terrible ad, you can use this, which is, you know, kind of tell stories

about it that, makes your product different. Your, you know, your you're giving, you know, kind of membership to zero of a loyalty program, that gives benefit and longer run, so it's it's it's the first, let's say, first kind of hooked up customer in what, you know, with what you're saying with it, offering them one week for free to be more difficult on a premium luxury product.

But, you know, there's ways round that you can, you know, get them to feel, hey, you're, you're you're part of a group of a membership of, of of, you know, exclusive, you know, group of, you know, wearing district shirts. You have you get those add ons to those products that you can get if you're part of it.

So those are ways how we approach it.

Daniel Burstein: Okay. Another lens lesson you mentioned was retention over acquisition. And you learned this from Ezra Firestone of Smart Marketer. How did you learn this from Ezra?

Dario Markovic: So this is also one of the, you know, the of the, you know, marketers that I, that I learned from, that I learned from still, today's, today's time. He what has his brand's, focused on life intervention on and, repeat that, you know, repeat customers, coming back to the site, kind of went through all his, you know, courses to this mark marketer and, you know, that that was his approach.

You know, you if you want to have a more valuable brand and it talks about your brand, talks about your product, say, well, we kind of mentioned in the past, it's it's a cheaper to acquire the or to retarget, you know, everyone says, hey, it's for free to, to to talk to your existing customers.

It might be to certain channels, but it still requires time, so requires those channels to still have a certain cost associated to it. So it's not just, you know, hey, I acquired a customer once and that's it. But certainly it is. It is much, much, cost effective. It's cheaper to talk to the existing customer.

So, Ezra, you know, through what he teaches us, you know, those that just talk, but you make the feel make the customer feel special. Talk to him in a different way. Approach him differently. Exclude him from from the customer and how you talk to the customer to a new customer that you're trying to acquire. So those are the few ways how are you should kind of approach existing customer and talk to them in a, in a different way, make them feel special.

So they just, you know, take the time again to look at you and say, oh, yeah, of this product, it's actually a great product. You know, I don't need it, but let me take a look again. You know, they're they're really so nice to me. And, that sometimes, you know, you know, it's surprising they brings wonders in the customer, even though he wasn't ready, to buy a, you know, their hat comes back and buys it at that.

Daniel Burstein: Yeah. So you mentioned loyalty program before. When I think of retention, I think of a loyalty program. Can you walk us through how you launch loyalty program and what you decided to include or not include in it because you know, we've talked about things like margins, that loyalty program likes that data when, your product is partly sold through bricks and mortar retailers like Nordstrom or any retailers, we don't necessarily have that direct relationship with the customer.

So loyalty program can help with data. But like you said, there's margins, there's cost. Nothing is free. Even your current customers. Nothing is free. I don't know if you could walk through how you decided to launch it and what you decide to include or not include to both make it valuable for the customers. So I did one repurchase because one of the thing is, when I think of hats, like you mentioned, some people return a monster after ten years.

You make a very, I guess would say reliable, durable product. It's not something like when you're going into Starbucks every morning and grabbing your cup of coffee. So loyalty program might be a little different for that. So maybe you can walk us through that a little bit.

Dario Markovic: Sure. We yeah. We weren't, we weren't starting off, offering. So we perceived that we thought having a loyalty product is going to be a, a thing that the customer automatically is going to describe. But who doesn't want to points, you know, who doesn't want to, you know, purchase something and get something in return? It kind of, you know, it kind of resulted that it was summer, you know, I guess, you know, everyone has a loyalty program, so it's not, as you know.

Hey, you know, I'm just subscribing here. So happened there. And, you know, it makes sense, especially for a product that you're going to mention that you need ten hats. You know, who need to have, you know, who needs to buy ten hats or who needs to buy every weekend at a hat, and especially $300, so it's it's not as easy to like, hey, why should I subscribe to the program?

I don't need a hat for another year or two. So, so what we do is we, we kind of, you know, make it, we include we start including different things in the royalty program. Apart from just points how you can acquire points. Again, I've gone back, you know, started to have kind of you started to be a member of it.

You know, if you start to subscribe, you, you know, I get cross benefits from partnerships that we have with other brands. Not just Eric. It's, so you, you know, you might get, you know, with times, you know, much more points just being part of it for a certain time. So, you know, especially for those that, and that by Eric Javits for a long time when I bought from Eric Javits, because we're just recently five years doing e-commerce.

So the 35 years before that customer didn't have any other options than to just buy Eric Javits and the Nordstrom seams or any boutique. So, now, David Chance to, you know, if, if, if they bought ten years ago or the last ten years, you know, if I've had somewhere a Nordstrom store in Bloomingdale's now they can buy an Eric shirts.

They can, they can kind of, you know, I would say, you know, because we don't we don't do a lot of discounts throughout the year. They there's a way for them to, to get their dream hats or their the had, you know, with points or with, with something that they can, you know, that they couldn't do before.

So, yeah, there's a few ways that we that we try to convince them just. Hey, this is our loyalty program. This is, you know, you can get a few points when you purchase. You can use them as you know, as as points when you buy. And again, it's not just the only way. So that that's a few things that we do in that loyalty program.

We didn't start off, offering this, but, something that we, that we do more and more right now and then we offer just, additional, you know, five points, ten points to certain months. So especially, you know, if we see those customers that never bought a fall product, you know, we offer. Hey, you know, I get to get ten x points trying our fall product.

So, you can get your dream, summer product in a few months. You know, what, with, certain points.

Daniel Burstein: Yeah. I mean, points are a great way to stay, like, you know, luxury brand tends to not want to discount and, points. It's a great way to, make sure that you can still gives a certain incentive, but not having to discount, you also mentioned sell outcomes, not products. And you learn this from Alex Hermosa.

How did you learn this from Alex?

Dario Markovic: So it goes goes back to what I mentioned as well. You know what what we kind of ab tested, back then, and, you know, Alex is one of the person that, you know, kind of derived from Dan Kennedy. Russell Brunson down to Atlanta, Alex Hermosa. Yeah, it's, same here. And going through his books and his, and his, courses.

It's, what works for him is, not just selling. Hey, this is this is the heart that, you know, we have the squishy pattern to control, and you can it, it results. The customer doesn't, you know, obviously, it's a good thing to have to to mention. Not when you perhaps sell, but, you know, down to to the product page and the description.

It's a great thing to have and to mention the extra features you have, but, it results that the customer wants to feel or wants to see themselves in the product. Before you even tell them what the product is about or what the product has or but what the features are about, the product. So that's key.

That's key for us. Or was it was a it was a big changer. And the conversion rate and just acquiring more customer, getting more accustomed to that first purchase. You know, it's just not it still has, I would say has earned those the sneakers, you know, today, anyone and even 18 years old because paste $300 for a sneaker has, you know, perhaps it's not as, you know, as like, hey, I why should I pay $300 for a hat?

So you have to you have to do different storytelling, different, approach and, you know, tell seldom that experience, you know, wearing a hat and how that might change them, how to how they can feel, how they can be perceived. So this is, this is one of the important things that we change then that approach, how we how we do marketing.

Daniel Burstein: Yeah. So how can we reframe our messaging, focus on tangible outcomes customers can expect without just devolving into hype? Like, you know, when I've written about this before, I've written, I don't think I came up with this. I think I heard this from someone else. But help, don't hype, right? Everyone wants to be helped. No one wants to be sold.

And I think of some of those direct response lessons are great. But like an example you use with the direct response, it's reframing eight week training to scale to $100,000 a month in 90 days. Right. And so there's certain things that you can do in like direct response for like information products online and stuff that kind of fall more towards a hype.

But like I was mentioning that luxury products, somehow they find this balance where it's like it is very hype filled because you see these just like, just dripping with luxury. But there's never any hype claims, right? There's, there's never those types of words used like a you will have this person, you will be, you know, seen as the best person at the car line or whatever.

You know, it's nothing like that. It's just it's just that resulting experience. So especially where you're, you know, doing a lot online now in e-commerce, how do you reframe that messaging and focus on the the outcomes on just the product, but don't get into kind of some of that hype language that works for maybe works for some direct response, but I don't think would work in luxury.

Dario Markovic: I think fashion has a bit of, has a bit of a different, you know, kind of advantage, I would say field, because fashion, you know, at the end you wear it, you show it. And today's Instagram, TikTok world, you know, you see everyone, you're kind of scrolling through it, just seeing those people wearing that fashion.

So it's a very visual product. It's a very visual, you know, for you, framing people in a visual, not just, you know, hyping or just like using the words on monkey, this is how you will feel. This is there's a lot to do also with visuals in fashion. It's a good thing, I think, you know, video visuals, the you can, you know, the entire fashion world uses a lot of, you know, the kind of partnered with traveling with what?

But, you know, the the tourism industry, with hotels, with, you know, the experience with, with with, you know, how you yeah, you know, how you might feel. So the customer sees all of those, you know, this content that they use online, and fashion is part of it or is sometimes it's, it's not the focus, but people wear fashion, right?

You have to wear fashion. So it's a bit easier to sometimes sell, sometimes to try to, you know, portray the customer in a certain way or sell them to outcome in fashion. Then let's say an info product or an, in somewhere else. So, visuals is a very, very important thing in fashion. Obviously what I wish was as we can sell fashion, but, I will argue that, you know, in visuals, in fashion are very, very important.

And how you put those fashion, how you put those visuals into place, how you how you combine it with, with, with text has a lot to do with, you know, selling that outcome.

Daniel Burstein: Right. So we talked about some of these specific lessons, but I want to ask you, at a high level, like what skills that you had as a marketer did you use to actually run that company? I wonder if you could tell us about that story a bit, because, you know, there's a lot of marketing leaders are listening right now that want to grow into that overall, you know, CEO role, not just see it come from the CFO or wherever else.

And I think from what I know about your story, I don't know how much you're able to share, but you've done something very impressive where you've been able to both, I think, reduce cost, increase revenue and not do this for, again, just some you know what we see a lot like software based products. But you have to run a company that actually makes a physical product, makes a physical good, has to make it very high quality and has to sell it through many channels, not just e-commerce.

Like we said, you have all those retailers to work with. So I wonder if you can I know how much of the story can share where what skills you took from your marketing background that then helped you to get into all of these other elements of the company where marketing brand and launching that e-commerce channel were important? There's so much more involved.

Dario Markovic: So, well, I guess I guess the little small adventures I had, I was coming from where the finance world, okay. You know that control background, right back in, in Europe. So it wasn't that fun. It wasn't that exciting, this marketing, I'd say it was very boring. Something I didn't like at all. So I said I won't do anything with it anymore in my life.

But it entered helping me down to, you know, being surfing, surfing as a useful, for me. So I want I want to sugarcoat it and say, you know, hey, this, you know, this this, you know, just came from the marketing world, and I did this, that it did help me, to kind of, you know, dig into the deeper into into, into the company when I was starting at Eric Church.

So, you know, you you we figured out, hey, this company was in deep trouble and not just wasn't able to sell goods. Even it hasn't it didn't have any online presence. And just on so other things, but, you know, it wasn't running, you know, it wasn't, efficient. It wasn't profitable. So, yeah, that certainly helped me, looking at, you know, I had a company in, in, in a numbers way, cleaning it up, you know, looking at margins, looking at, you know, the entire supply chain, you know, how how can we do it more efficiently?

And at the end, you know, it's it's a lot of, you know, it's not just, you know, for those that don't have a finance background, you know, if if you just, you know, let's say you love marketing, you're a marketer. You know, I do highly recommend to just not, you know, read about marketing. There's other, you know, very, very, you know, good books, you know, that that help and then just, you know, management and, and just aren't excited.

I assume, you know, my most exciting business, you know, response to it or, you know, I some was you looking at those books that are more exciting. But there's just other books that, you know, self-taught in a lot of ways that you can you can learn about those things. You can, you know, if you're if you're interested, if you want to make it, that's that's I think, you know, it's a way it's there's no, no need to do an MBA or to, to have bachelor's degrees in, in business.

It's not a need. There's no need at all. You have you have very good books. You you know, in today's world, you can get something. You acquire a skill by doing that only for 2 or 3 months. It's more important than you can do. Yeah, it can acquire sometimes skills much better than going 2 or 3 years.

Doing an MBA. So those are kind of the ways that I would recommend that someone, you know, that that's just coming from a marketing background kind of keywords to, you know, getting the, the role like this. But, I would claim that marketing is one of the most powerful ones. So if you're good at marketing and sales, I think you do.

You have a much better advantage than someone that comes from, you know, country, you know, finance world. So you have a better base. So if you go, you know, I would say you're here if you go down to, to the other parts, like, you you could make it easier then, you know, if, if you, if you start as, you know, as a, in a finance where you go up to marketing, which I actually did by the end, you know, my passion was always like, I guess for marketing, so, so that, that that's some of the, my, my advice.

And it's all it's, it's, it's some tips you will never be prepared for role. You know, I wasn't I wasn't aware about what you know, what I saw involved in fashion with hats. You know, it was in the fashion and then coming to activities and, you know, hey, I was reading another fashion brand for ten years in the past, and now I'm coming into this role, and I know, it has a lot to do with, with obviously common sense and just being self-taught and getting into it and adjusting, to things.

But if, if, if you have sales and marketing, strong, it will always keep you at a certain level and you can, you know, you can catch up on the other parts.

Daniel Burstein: Yeah. No. And that's, that's a fair point too, about your financial background. But when are you able to maybe like in just a quick two, three minute story, share about what you came in and did, how you cut revenue, how you cut costs and increased revenue and out of a new channel. I just want to, like you mentioned, that's really good.

Your financial background, was there a key marketing skill or two that helped you in leading the overall company? Obviously, we've talked about many that led to your specific campaigns to be able to come in and say, cut costs, increase revenue and just deal with all the things you had to deal with. I would think some of the kind of what we might call, the softer skills, obviously the hard financial skills, communication, messaging, I don't know some of these things.

Brand awareness might have helped you.

Dario Markovic: Sure. I think I think what what we we didn't we what helped us so. Well, how I kind of, what helped me is we focused on a few things in the beginning. What made us the dollars in order to give me. It's easy to cut cost, right? I don't want to say cut this, cut this, cut that.

And you've got cost. But how you keep pricing, how you kind of get more sales, more sales, get more profit is about focusing on, on just a few things that move the needle. I would say, especially if you're a lean, if you come in the company where, you know, it's $1 million and up, then you have to do something.

You have a few weeks left. So, hey, take, you know, the strongest horse. I would say straight take the most obvious thing. Just focus on this for six months. And now we do hundreds of things. No jobs that were profitable. We grew, you know, 4 or 5 facts, while we were on 2020. But we didn't do anything of, you know, we didn't do 80 or 90% what we do not.

So we just did 1 or 2 things. So and then I find that, you know, that that part of it that makes your brand or makes your channel or makes your makes your company grow and moves the needle, that's like it's very important. It's the key, for us, what it was Facebook. It was Google. It's still is kind of now would be, would we, you know, would we be, is it, just doing that what we did in 2020, we wouldn't be here today with this, you know, growth just doing that.

That's that's clearly. But it's still, you know, the most important of one of the few more important things that we, you know, do at the company. But back then, it helped us to survive, to grow to a certain level. And, you know, being able to start to implement those things. So in ratifying this few things, that helped us, you know, kind of stay over the water.

That's kind of the key. For other brands, it might it might be something different. But for us, it there was 1 or 2 things and that and then we, we we didn't have, we didn't have an email list. We didn't have we didn't have customer service. We didn't have. Oh, my God, we didn't have a return platform.

We didn't have, in the ERP. Imagine we didn't have all this. We did not have. So and when someone say how you run a business now, if we would have have had everything. I don't know if if we would have have we, we would have focused so much in 1 or 2 things for 6 to 8 months.

Perhaps, you know, our energy would have gone to other things. There weren't as much as is needed at that moment or or were in those, you know, revenue driven as is 2 or 3 things. So sometimes you have to neglect, you know, and it's perhaps, you know, everyone says it's very bad advice. This guy's giving, but, you know, and, you know, in certain ways where you're like, you know, hey, you have this is what you want it left, you know, it's to give to you know, hey, folks, you have to front opposite.

You know, it's it's tough. You know, I was into it obviously down the road. It helps with being those situations. Situation just makes you stronger. But, you know, if you weren't us, which is very difficult to kind of feel, see it, you know, in those eyes, if you were like, back, you were pretty much a million, you know, and there's nothing to sell, nowhere to sell.

And 70,000 units in the warehouse, you know, payroll, you know, being late. No, nothing in the bank account, you know, and we're running behind you. Pay me, pay me, pay me. And you're sending the blood. You're going out of business. So it's different. You know, again, I could be saying there's I mean, talking about this is if you don't feel it, if we're not in this situation, it's a bit different.

So, so finding and identifying that, you know, the mover, that that's key. And not focusing on everything. I know it goes against the general advice, but that's, that's what helped me.

Daniel Burstein: Okay. It worked.

Dario Markovic: I worked, it worked.

Daniel Burstein: Yeah. All right. If you had to break it down. Dario, what are the key qualities of an effective marketer?

Dario Markovic: Adapting and testing, you know, if if you think you know it all or you're, you can rely what you did and you had success, what you did, it's it's I think it's not worth. It's a good this experience is great is if you take as to the learning, you stop testing and adapting especially for you guys.

You guys know, last five years, if you weren't adapting and testing to those, these changing environments, you're you're, you're not a good marketer in my opinion. So I think a good marketer, you know, is constantly testing and adapting to the changing environment. And never living off of what, you know, they did in the past of, you know, hey, I just brought up a $100 million company or, you know, I had five companies that I brought up, you know, 2 to 10 million.

So. Great. You know, now we have 20, 25. Environment changed. So how good are you today? I would say, you know, that's a good that's a quality mark for sure.

Daniel Burstein: How good are you today? I like it. That's a good, good topic to put to this episode. Well thank you so much for your time, Daria.

Dario Markovic: Thank you very much.

Daniel Burstein: And thanks to everyone for listening.

Outro: Thank you for joining us for how I made it and marketing with Daniel Burstein. Now that you've got an inspiration for transforming yourself as a marketer, get some ideas for your next marketing campaign. From Marketing Sherpas extensive library of free case studies at Marketing sherpa.com. That's marketing for rpa.com and.