Latest / eCommerce Podcast / AI SEO for your Ecommerce Business with Farzad Rashidi

Transcript

AI SEO for your Ecommerce Business with Farzad Rashidi · eCommerce Podcast

0:05
Matt Edmundson: Well, hello and welcome to the Ecommerce Podcast
0:08
with me, your host, Matt Edmundson. Now this is a
0:11
show all about helping you deliver E commerce.
0:15
Wow. And to help us do just that, I'm chatting
0:19
with today's guest all the way from Washington
0:22
D.C. Farzad Rashidi from Respona about strategies
0:27
for AI search. Or let's put it another way, how
0:30
do you get ChatGPT to recommend you and your
0:33
products? That's what we're going to be talking
0:36
about in today's show, which I'm very excited
0:39
about because we've talked a lot about AI. We
0:41
have never talked about how to conquer AI search.
0:44
So I have got my notebook, I have got my pen and
0:48
I am ready to take a lot of notes. So I hope you
0:50
are as well. Of course, if you are subscribed to
0:53
a very friendly, well presented, highly formatted
0:57
newsletter, then these notes will be coming
1:01
straight to your inbox automatically. If you
1:04
haven't yet signed up to the newsletter, you can
1:06
do that at ecommercepodcast.net just follow the
1:10
links, you'll figure it out, I'm sure, if you're
1:11
in E commerce and if you can't, maybe my UI is
1:15
all kinds of crazy or maybe you shouldn't be in E
1:17
commerce. Either way, you should probably get in
1:20
touch. But a very warm welcome to you. If you are
1:23
new to the show. Love to know your thoughts, love
1:26
to know your comments. You can reach out to me on
1:28
social media, either on Instagram or on LinkedIn
1:32
in just drop me a line, let's know what you
1:35
think. Send me a link to your website. I would
1:37
love, love, love to see it. And if you are
1:40
regular to the show and you've been coming back,
1:43
all power to you my friend. Thank you so much.
1:45
Like I said last time, it enables us to get some
1:47
great guests on the show. The more people listen
1:49
to it, the bigger the show gets, the bigger the
1:52
guest gets. Like Farzad. I mean you can't get
1:54
much bigger, can you? You just can't. So we are
1:57
going to get into all that. But like I say, big
2:00
thank you to those of you who subscribe. Now
2:02
let's talk about Foz. He is the lead innovator at
2:06
Respona, a link building outreach platform
2:09
designed to boost businesses organic traffic.
2:13
From Google. Before Respona, he led marketing at
2:17
Visme, driving the platform to over 27 million
2:24
users. Yes, you heard that right. 27 million
2:26
users and achieving 2.5 million monthly organic
2:30
visitors. If only my website had such beautiful
2:34
numbers. But Farzad welcome to the show, man.
2:37
Great to have you. How are we doing today, good
2:40
sir.
2:40
Farzad Rashidi: I'm doing very well. Thank you so much for having
2:42
me.
2:42
Matt Edmundson: Matt, it's great that you're on here. Great that
2:45
you're on here. 27 million users. I mean, that's
2:48
just. That's a lot of people, right?
2:52
Farzad Rashidi: They're actually. They're just past 30. I think
2:53
that number is a little outdated, but, yes,
2:57
they're doing well. Right.
2:58
Matt Edmundson: Wow. Wow. That's incredible. So tell me a little
3:01
bit about Respona. What's going on there?
3:03
Farzad Rashidi: 100%. So Respona, in a nutshell, is a platform
3:06
that connects you to other websites, companies
3:09
that are writing content about topics that are
3:11
similar to yours. So, for example, if you run an
3:15
E commerce brand and you want to promote your
3:18
product a lot of ways, where customers will find
3:22
a product like yours or Googling, and they're
3:25
looking for products like X, Y and Z, best X, Y
3:28
and Z tools for that and this. And so
3:32
essentially, Respona helps you identify some of
3:34
these opportunities that are getting a lot of
3:35
traffic, puts you in touch and connects you with
3:38
the website owner and helps you get more product
3:41
placements. Get other websites to link back to
3:44
your website, per se.
3:47
Matt Edmundson: Fantastic. And in fact, it's fair to say you are
3:49
a user of your own medicine, because how we got
3:52
connected was in fact through your platform.
3:55
Farzad Rashidi: That's right, yes, absolutely. So one of our
3:57
cousins actually was. Yeah, yes. So you found
4:01
your podcast through Respona and reached out. And
4:04
so since you guys were connected, he was so kind
4:08
to put us in touch, and I'm glad that he did.
4:10
Matt Edmundson: Yeah. Yeah. So Alex was on the show a couple of
4:13
months ago. Alex Beck from couch.com.
4:16
Farzad Rashidi: That'S right.
4:17
Matt Edmundson: And he's such a legend, that guy. I really like
4:20
that guy. We had a fun time. If you've not heard
4:23
the episode, then definitely check that out.
4:26
You'll find it in the archive.
4:28
Farzad Rashidi: Amazing.
4:28
Matt Edmundson: But, yeah, amazing.
4:29
Farzad Rashidi: I didn't know it was released yet, so I'll
4:31
definitely check it out.
4:33
Matt Edmundson: Well, that's a good point. I'm assuming it's been
4:34
released. I definitely did the conversation a
4:36
couple of weeks ago and A couple of weeks. A
4:40
couple of months ago, I think it's been released
4:43
because we've been joking back and forth about
4:45
some of the video that's been released on
4:46
LinkedIn.
4:47
Farzad Rashidi: Okay, great. Yeah, yeah.
4:50
Matt Edmundson: So now we've been having a good time. So let's
4:53
get into this then, because originally we had it
4:55
down to talk about SEO and you came up and you
4:57
said, matt, listen, I've got an idea. What do you
4:59
think about what? I opened up with AI Search and
5:05
I thought this was utter genius. So let's just
5:08
explain the reason why we're talking about it.
5:12
Explain to me why you thought this was a good
5:13
idea.
5:14
Farzad Rashidi: 100%. So we've, we onboard, obviously I'm still
5:19
involved with our customer onboardings. Every
5:21
single customer comes on board, I have a
5:23
conversation with them. And recently a lot of the
5:27
conversations were sent around AI Search and you
5:31
know, it's a buzzword and people are like,
5:34
everybody's talking about it. And I tend to
5:36
personally be more skeptic towards these. I'm
5:39
like, oh, it's a fad, you know. But recently I've
5:42
gotten into tennis and I was researching tennis
5:45
rackets. So I noticed instead, usually I would
5:50
just pull up Google and just go and Google, hey,
5:52
what are some of the best tennis rackets? But
5:53
then I caught myself, literally, I was on
5:56
ChatGPT, we use it quite extensively. And I was
6:00
like, hey, I was just explaining some background.
6:03
It's like, hey, I'm a beginner, but I've been
6:06
playing for a few weeks, I've been playing with
6:08
this racket and now I'm looking to upgrade and
6:10
I'm. And I'm looking for these qualities in the
6:12
racket that has some power and like you still
6:15
control and so the stuff that is a little bit
6:18
tough to communicate to Google in a way. And I
6:22
was like, wow, hold on a second. All of these
6:24
rackets are E commerce brands and as a consumer,
6:30
you know, that's looking to purchase, like
6:32
somewhat of a significant purchase. I'm literally
6:35
going on ChatGPT first, so. And I was like, wow.
6:40
And this was literally a few days ago. So I was
6:43
like, this would be a perfect conversation to
6:45
have with Matt because since it's so new and
6:48
novel, most people won't have the slightest idea
6:51
how to get their product to get recommended up
6:53
there. And this is something that obviously is
6:57
not as well talked about. A lot of people are
7:02
just still trying to figure it out. So I thought
7:04
this would be a great conversation for us to have.
7:06
Matt Edmundson: And I think it is, because I'm laughing at, not
7:09
at you. I'm remembering an event that happened
7:12
just like on Monday. I think it was. I was sat
7:16
in. In fact, it was Monday. Today is Thursday. So
7:18
three days ago I was sat in a. I was sat in a
7:22
coffee shop, one of the local coffee shops. It
7:24
was Monday morning, I walked through the park,
7:27
sat down, you know, got A cup of tea and I took
7:30
my journal and was just thinking about a few
7:32
things and one of the things that's been in the
7:34
back of my mind recently was I wonder if I needed
7:37
to drinking electrolytes, because I do. Like,
7:41
I've got a. People might judge me. That's fine. I
7:46
recently acquired a Peloton bike and so I use
7:50
that three times a week. I didn't pay full price.
7:52
I just want to clarify. I use Facebook
7:54
Marketplace and got a really good price. Anyway,
7:58
I love the bike, I genuinely do. I think it's
8:00
great. But you obviously sweat a lot. So I'm
8:04
like, do I need electrolytes? Because I can feel
8:06
it during the day that I'm a little bit more
8:07
tired. And so I'm like, I. The reason I'm
8:11
laughing is because I just sat there talking to.
8:15
It wasn't chatgpt, it was Perplexity, which I
8:20
absolutely love. But Perplexity is powered by
8:24
ChatGPT. Right. So. And I, I just sat there and
8:30
went, should I take these electrolytes? And it
8:33
came back and basically said, well, let me ask
8:35
you some questions. We went back and forth and
8:37
yes, you should. And now I understand it and
8:38
you're having this little conversation and it was
8:40
like, great. Or to be fair, I did have that
8:44
conversation with ChatGPT. Then I was in
8:45
perplexity and said, what is the best electrolyte
8:48
brand that I should get? And it came back with
8:50
three options for me. So I think you should get
8:51
this, this, this and this. And it's not until
8:53
we've just been talking that I thought, where in
8:55
the world did it get that information from? And
8:59
what actually happened was I went and bought one
9:01
of those. I bought the top brand AI recommended
9:05
to me after asking me a bunch of questions.
9:07
Because you're right, I just, I look, I looked on
9:11
Amazon, I looked on Google, I thought, I don't
9:13
know what I'm getting. I don't know. Too many
9:14
options. Yeah, too many options. And I just
9:17
didn't understand it at all. And so I thought,
9:20
this is absolutely fascinating. So I'm so happy.
9:24
Why did I do that? Why did. Why did. Why did I go
9:27
to AI? And it's becoming easier, isn't it?
9:30
Because now you can just. The Chat GPT app on
9:35
your phone. I was having a conversation with it
9:37
earlier. I didn't even have to type anything. It
9:39
was just asking me questions and I was answering
9:41
and it was asking me more questions.
9:43
Farzad Rashidi: Yeah.
9:43
Matt Edmundson: And it's just the most. In fact, I was asking it
9:47
about intermittent fasting. Should I intermittent
9:49
fast if I'm not feeling great? And it's like,
9:52
well, how do you feel? Blah, blah, blah, blah,
9:53
blah. And it's like, maybe, maybe today you
9:56
should eat a little bit earlier. And I was like,
9:58
this is just the most extraordinary thing. And so
10:03
how do we do it then? Because you're right, more
10:06
and more of us are starting to do this thing.
10:09
Farzad Rashidi: Yeah, 100%. So first, it's important to
10:12
understand the distinction between these AI
10:15
models. So OpenAI is a company, they're not a
10:19
search engine, they're a technology company that
10:21
builds these large language models. To LLMs, it's
10:24
that tech, the powers, essentially, language
10:28
generation. The reason why a lot of people still
10:32
use tools like Perplexity is that they use the
10:36
LLM to generate the answer, but based on
10:39
essentially information that's already public on
10:41
the web. So it makes the search results more
10:43
reliable. So when you use Perplexity, you can
10:47
understand, okay, where is that data coming from?
10:49
Like, who's actually recommending me to
10:51
Intermittent Fast? And the search results are
10:54
actually at the top. So essentially what it does,
10:55
it kind of acts like a Google search. So they
10:57
actually have their own search engine that they
10:58
built and it will go and just take a look at the
11:02
first 10 results on Google, essentially, and then
11:06
dig through each one of the websites and it pulls
11:09
bits and pieces from all of them and it
11:11
understands overlapping. So in this case, if
11:13
you're asking, hey, what are some of the best
11:15
electrolyte brands, the three that are
11:18
recommended is most likely the one that's been
11:20
more frequent and overlaps essentially in all
11:24
those 10 search results that it went through.
11:26
Now, ChatGPT is a little bit different. They have
11:29
added the web search functionality because
11:32
Microsoft owns half of it. So they essentially
11:34
are powered by Bing. What they're working on is a
11:38
product similar to Perplexity. Oh my God, I
11:41
cannot pronounce that word.
11:44
Matt Edmundson: How we say perplexity?
11:45
Farzad Rashidi: Exactly. Yes. I wonder if their founder can say
11:50
Perplexity like five times. Like.
11:56
Matt Edmundson: I'll get on the show and find out.
11:57
Farzad Rashidi: There's a chat 100%. Right. Anyways, so they're
12:01
actually working on a new product, OpenAI, called
12:03
Search GPT, which is essentially similar to
12:07
Perplexity. So where you can actually see the
12:09
search result and the answers are cited so you
12:12
can go and actually explore more. Which has been
12:15
sort of incorporated into ChatGPT, but since you
12:17
can't see it as visibly, they're working as
12:20
separate product. So a lot of the search all I'm
12:23
trying. And also Google itself. So they had their
12:27
sge, the search engine or excuse me, the search
12:30
generative experience. It's tough to catch up
12:34
with all these terms. And so what we're doing
12:37
essentially is like feature snippets on steroids.
12:41
So you ask Google something, sometimes it has a
12:43
little feature snippet. So those AI generated
12:45
ones were, were sort of pulled back a little and
12:48
now I'm sure they're working on in the background
12:50
because they get a lot of backlash since they're
12:51
huge. So they can't, you know, they're not like a
12:54
startup like Perplexity. If they give wrong
12:56
information it would be okay.
12:57
Matt Edmundson: Yeah.
12:58
Farzad Rashidi: And people are going to go through them. So
12:59
that's why it's, it's a little bit more difficult
13:01
for them and slower for them as it is for larger
13:04
companies in general. But anyway, long story
13:05
short, what I'm trying to say is that we are
13:07
moving towards that direction just because the
13:10
general experience of search is changing. You can
13:12
give it more context, it understands you a lot
13:14
better and gives you more concise answers that
13:17
you don't have to dig through. Like the 10 blue
13:19
links on Google. So all that to say as e commerce
13:24
brands you need to start showing up on those
13:26
search results and that this AI models generate
13:30
regardless of where they are. And the question
13:33
is, okay, where are they getting that
13:35
information? And we want to be mentioned because
13:38
they're not. I mean chatgpt hallucinates a lot,
13:40
but as I said with their new products, Search GPT
13:43
and Perplexity, all these tools and Google's sge,
13:47
they're all grounded in search results that's
13:51
already public on the web. So they're essentially
13:53
just summarizing the answers for you. So the
13:57
question is how do you get yourself on those
14:00
search results? So it's no longer enough. So
14:03
traditional SEO is essentially you getting your
14:05
own web pages up in the search results as much as
14:07
possible for your target keywords. But now it's
14:10
no longer that because it's what we're heading
14:14
towards. Again it's majority still that
14:17
experience. But within the next couple of years
14:20
my assumption is that more and more people are
14:21
going to start utilizing these chatbots and this
14:24
chat interface. And so it's no longer enough to
14:27
get your, your own website up in the search
14:29
results. Now you also have to be on other
14:32
people's websites that are talking about topics
14:35
that are related to yours in order to have enough
14:39
frequency for it to pick up and be included in
14:41
the answers.
14:42
Matt Edmundson: Right.
14:43
Farzad Rashidi: And that requires you to leave your cave. And you
14:47
know, people like to just sit behind a computer
14:49
and type to actually go and start reaching out to
14:52
other people, other websites, other websites that
14:55
are ranking for your target keywords and
14:57
incentivize them to work with you to place your
15:00
products and talk about your products so that now
15:02
you have a much higher chance of landing in one
15:05
of the answers that they generate.
15:08
Matt Edmundson: This is interesting. So frequency then. I mean,
15:11
we used to call it backlinks, didn't we? In a lot
15:13
of ways. Or guest content and all that sort of
15:15
stuff. Right. But frequency is becoming more and
15:20
more important because this is how the AI finds
15:25
information out. It's all based on frequency, not
15:28
just the fact what was number one on Google, but.
15:31
And actually one of the things I've also noticed
15:33
with perplexity because I've got this pro mode
15:36
thing, I don't know, you put it in pro and it you
15:39
putting your information and it writes four or
15:42
five search terms. So it searches for what you
15:48
want, but then it tries to figure out what you
15:50
really want and it writes four or five search
15:53
terms around what it thinks you really want. And
15:55
it goes and searches those as well. And that I
15:58
thought was really, really fascinating that
16:02
actually I've not just got to get my website up,
16:06
I've not just got a rank for terms which I think
16:09
I need to rank for. I've now got to think about
16:12
frequency and I've also got to think about the
16:14
search terms that AI is going to use around those
16:17
search terms to try and make sure that I'm also
16:21
ranking for those as well. Strikes me like
16:24
there's a lot going on here.
16:27
Farzad Rashidi: Yeah. And that also adds a level of credibility.
16:30
So the nice thing about the reason why we rely on
16:35
a lot of these AI engines is that it's a
16:38
culmination of research that they've done, this
16:42
model has done at the point of search. It's not
16:44
just an individual website's opinion, obviously.
16:48
If five websites are mentioning one specific
16:51
brand, it's much more likely that that's an
16:53
actual good brand that you want to buy versus
16:56
them just placing themselves at the top of the
16:58
search results somehow. It could be an affiliate
17:00
agreement, it could be, you know, a sponsored
17:03
link a lot of the time. So that sort of adds a
17:06
level of credibility to the search results. The
17:08
more up, the more different websites are talking
17:12
about your brand and talking about your product.
17:15
Matt Edmundson: Yeah, that's really, really powerful. I'm kind of
17:18
curious, where do you, where do you start? Like
17:24
if you're for example, if you're just starting
17:27
out in E commerce, you kind of going, well I'm
17:30
kind of new to this game. It sounds like a lot
17:31
dude.
17:32
Farzad Rashidi: Yeah.
17:34
Matt Edmundson: Where do they start? You know, where's a good
17:36
place to begin?
17:37
Farzad Rashidi: That's an excellent question. So I actually have
17:40
some strategies that I'm happy to share. Step by
17:43
step.
17:43
Matt Edmundson: That's a beautiful thing. That's what I was
17:45
hoping you would say. So let's go through the
17:47
strategies.
17:48
Farzad Rashidi: Absolutely. So first and foremost, one of the
17:51
simplest strategies I always recommend is what I
17:53
call the listicle strategy. So think of it. Just
17:57
put yourself in shoes of a customer. So let's say
18:01
Matt, when you wanted to buy electrolytes, what
18:04
did you search on wherever the search engine was?
18:08
Matt Edmundson: I didn't actually search on the search engine.
18:11
What did I write? I think I went to Amazon. I
18:14
just put in electrolyte drinks.
18:16
Farzad Rashidi: Right. But when you are searching for it as in
18:20
like usually research terms like best electrolyte
18:24
brands or something like that.
18:25
Matt Edmundson: Yeah I would have put in something like best
18:29
electrolyte brands.
18:30
Farzad Rashidi: Right.
18:31
Matt Edmundson: Or something like that. Certainly that's why I
18:32
put into Perplexity. What's the best brand?
18:36
Farzad Rashidi: Yeah, exactly.
18:37
Matt Edmundson: For this, for this product.
18:39
Farzad Rashidi: Right.
18:39
Matt Edmundson: Most reputable. I think I might have said most.
18:41
Farzad Rashidi: Reputable topic best, you know, essentially
18:46
different variations of that topic. So anything
18:47
that implies to the search engine that this is a
18:50
list of I want to, I want to purchase, I want to
18:52
evaluate a variety of brands. So what, what are
18:56
the ones that I should look into? So the first
18:58
thing we do is I use this, what I call this
19:02
Google Advanced. Well I don't call them, they're
19:05
called Google Advanced operators. So Google is
19:08
very flexible when it comes to the search
19:09
strings. You can type in order to find
19:11
opportunities. And what I like to is essentially
19:16
just pull up Google and utilize these advanced
19:20
operators. One of them is called intitle. So
19:23
essentially or you know, if you're just starting
19:26
out, you're a novice, like you don't have to
19:27
worry about that. You can just type literally
19:30
best electrolyte brands, best CBD gummies, best
19:33
tennis rackets, whatever and then just go through
19:36
the search results. Using this advanced operation
19:38
can get them a little bit more targeted. So
19:40
that's they're more likely to be listicles than
19:42
there are other things. Right. But you know
19:45
you'll be able to essentially go through the
19:46
search results and then find non competing
19:50
articles. So some of them may be your
19:51
competitors. Like a lot of electrolyte brands
19:55
themselves have an article on best electrolyte
19:57
brands and surprise, their brand happens to be.
20:00
Matt Edmundson: Oh, they're always going to be number one. Yeah,
20:01
yeah, yeah, Right.
20:02
Farzad Rashidi: So. Well, there are some of those, but there are
20:03
some independent publications, lots of them, I
20:06
would say the argument, majority of them that
20:07
are, they're not electrolyte brands, but they're
20:10
writing content about that. So it could be a news
20:12
channel, it could be a blog, it could be a health
20:15
website. So now collecting those first. So
20:20
essentially finding, okay, what specific article
20:23
from what website is step one. Now step two is
20:26
who's the right person to contact for that
20:28
website. So a lot of people just intuitively will
20:31
go and find a contact Us page or something on the
20:34
website and then reach out to that and again,
20:37
surprise, not going to get much of a reply. I
20:40
mean, unless it's a very small blog, that's the
20:42
only email they have. Like if someone reaches out
20:44
to your support channel or support email. Hello,
20:46
unless it's a sales query, then you're probably
20:48
not going to pay much attention to it. So usually
20:52
the research starts in LinkedIn, so instead of
20:54
the website itself. So once you find a website,
20:57
we usually find either their LinkedIn link or I
21:01
Google the website's domain and site LinkedIn.com
21:05
yeah, and then you can easily spot their LinkedIn
21:08
page and go through the employees. And I usually
21:10
try to see if we can find like a content manager
21:13
or editorial person or some, some person in their
21:16
partnerships or marketing or somewhere relevant.
21:19
And sometimes they don't have anyone like that.
21:21
If it's a smaller publication, maybe just the
21:24
owner or the founder. And usually at last reserve
21:29
if you couldn't find the LinkedIn page that they
21:30
don't have any sort of presence there, then rely
21:32
on the generic email. So there's that tiered
21:34
system of finding the right person. A lot of the
21:36
times, if you can find the author of the article
21:40
and check and see if that person works at the
21:42
company, that also would be a great contact. So a
21:45
lot of times they're not actual staff writers.
21:47
There might be contributors or freelancers. So
21:49
you wouldn't want to reach out to those because
21:51
they won't have any sort of editorial access to
21:53
the publication. So finding someone actually
21:55
works there. So if it's the writer of the article
21:57
and that person works there, that'd be the best
21:58
person. If not, okay, let's go to the content
22:00
manager. So then once you have that person's
22:04
LinkedIn found that you want to find their email
22:06
address. And so we actually have a free tool, you
22:09
can Google like respond to email finder. And it's
22:11
like a ungated thing that you can put in
22:14
anybody's name and domain. It will help you find
22:16
the email address. There's a bunch of tools out
22:18
there to help you do that once you have
22:20
identified the right person. And then there you
22:23
go. So that's your person. Now the question is
22:25
the pitch, right? And so how do you actually get.
22:29
So now we, we've identified a blog post or
22:32
webpage that we really want to mention on we
22:34
found the right person, got their email. So now
22:38
the question is how do we, what do we say to
22:39
them? Whatever you do, do not go on ChatGPT and
22:44
say what do I say to this person? Because please,
22:49
please don't. Not at least at the current stage
22:52
of these LLMs. So they're just going to write a
22:56
very rewarded email. Even if you give it like
22:59
some instructions, it still wouldn't sound
23:02
natural. Write that email yourself, at least the
23:04
template, the basic template of it yourself. And
23:08
there's a few things you want to hit in that
23:10
email. Just general rules of thumb that I'm sure
23:13
Matt, you get your fair share of bad cold email
23:17
since you have a popular podcast. So hopefully
23:19
these will resonate. So first thing, don't make
23:22
it too long. Keep it super short and sweet. So we
23:25
see a significant drop in reply rates once we
23:27
exceed a hundred words. So seventy, eighty words
23:30
max. That's literally like three or four
23:32
sentences.
23:32
Matt Edmundson: Yeah.
23:33
Farzad Rashidi: So keep it short and sweet. The goal of the first
23:36
email is not to get your product place is not to
23:40
build a partnership. Goal of the first email is
23:43
to get them to reply. And if you're sending a
23:45
long list of emails and long email with a list
23:50
of, you know, five benefits of your product,
23:52
nobody's going to read that. Even so keep it
23:54
short and sweet. Two is personalization. So you
23:57
want to imply to that person that, hey, you've
23:59
done some research and usually mentioning
24:02
something interesting I talked about in the
24:03
article would, given that first line would give
24:07
that indication that hey, this is at least a
24:09
halfway decent email. Even if it's nowadays with
24:12
these AI tools it's easier to generate those. But
24:15
it's still, and it's an indication, it still puts
24:18
at that top 1% of people, 99% of people don't,
24:22
don't bother changing their templates. So
24:24
customization second and three is incentive.
24:27
Which in my opinion is actually most important of
24:29
all, but goes without saying that people aren't
24:32
just doing things out of the goodness of the
24:34
heart. Yeah, in Business most of the time. Right.
24:38
Not. There are exceptions, of course, but put
24:42
yourself in shoes of the recipient. That's.
24:44
You'll be surprised how many people I onboard
24:47
into respond. And then I take a look at their
24:49
template. I'm like, would you reply to an email
24:51
that you're sending to other people? And they're
24:54
like, no, absolutely not. I'm like, then why are
24:56
you sending it to other people? So you can't just
25:01
reach out to someone and say, hey, can you pick
25:03
up my grandmother from the airport? No, nobody's
25:06
gonna just do something for you. This is not how
25:07
the world works.
25:09
Matt Edmundson: It's funny how we know that intuitively, but we
25:12
just seem to take our br of the box and just,
25:16
just go, well, this will be fine. Surely that'll
25:18
work.
25:19
Farzad Rashidi: Yeah.
25:19
Matt Edmundson: And it's always intrigued me because you go,
25:22
you've gone to all the effort up until this
25:23
point, but you just, it's at this point
25:26
everything sort of, sort of fails.
25:28
Farzad Rashidi: Mm, exactly. Yeah. It's a puzzle and if you mess
25:32
on either one of them, it's just not going to
25:34
work.
25:34
Matt Edmundson: Yeah.
25:35
Farzad Rashidi: So, so, and the thing is, because of the
25:38
abstraction technology, you're not actually
25:40
looking at a person, you're just looking at a
25:42
computer screen typing something. So you don't
25:44
really understand the fact that it's actually
25:45
going to go to a human who's sitting there with
25:49
their.
25:50
Matt Edmundson: That's very true. Yeah.
25:52
Farzad Rashidi: So we got to hit those three things. What's the
25:56
incentive? What's in it for them? It's got to be
25:58
short and sweet and it's going to be
25:59
customizable, like customized person,
26:01
personalized email. Now you might be saying, hey,
26:03
that's a lot of work. And you know, that's what
26:05
we have, we built a tool around that. But again,
26:08
it's not to say that we're doing any magic.
26:10
Everything you can do manually yourself. And so
26:15
once we have an email crafted, send it and last
26:19
but not least, follow up. So about a month, about
26:22
a week in, so give a few days to a person and if
26:26
you're sending it manually, just snooze and
26:28
follow up once and make sure in that follow up
26:32
email you're saying that it's a one time follow
26:34
up. Right. So do not pester people. Right. That's
26:39
aren't interested. If you send two emails to
26:40
someone that haven't replied to, you're more
26:42
likely not interested. You might get some advice
26:47
other than that, but it's going to ruin your
26:49
email domain reputation because if you make
26:51
people angry they don't like your emails, they're
26:53
going to market as spam. It's going to harm your
26:55
domain or reputation. So don't do that. Be nice
26:57
to people. Just hey, it's a one time follow up. I
27:00
don't hear back. Just assume you're not
27:02
interested to remain respectful of your email.
27:04
That's it. We have done it. That's one strategy.
27:09
Listicles and now rinse and repeat, which are
27:12
keywords you could come up with. And I guarantee
27:15
you, if you've played this right, means it's a
27:18
strong enough incentive. So what's the strong
27:21
enough incentive that we should elaborate on
27:23
that. Just a few examples. So if you have a
27:25
decent product that everybody can use, sending
27:28
them free samples is good. People love free
27:29
stuff. If you have an affiliate program, that's a
27:32
great one. So if they have Listicle, you know,
27:35
they would love some monetization if they
27:37
generate some sales so you can do some revenue
27:40
share with them. So if you use share Sale or
27:42
something like that, CJ Network, whatever, that
27:45
would be a great way to also add them in. Third
27:48
one would be obviously monetary compensation.
27:51
That's the least, my least favorite because
27:54
usually legitimate publications, stuff like that
27:56
aren't interested and monetary comp. But there
27:59
are sometimes some editorial fees, stuff like
28:01
that, if it's a legitimate publication, gets a
28:03
lot of traffic. That might be something you may
28:04
want to consider. These are just examples. As I
28:08
said, there's different ways to skin a cat. So
28:11
different motivations work in different niches
28:13
depending on the industry you're in. But yeah, so
28:18
that's the Listicle strategy. That's a simple
28:20
one, that's very intuitive. Hopefully that covers
28:23
it. I have a few more, but I'm going to pause
28:25
here real quick, Matt, give you a chance to.
28:27
Matt Edmundson: Yeah, no, it's really great. I, I like the, I
28:32
like the simplicity of it. So I like the
28:33
listicles. I get that. I get that. I can figure
28:36
out who wrote the article, I can figure out who
28:38
contacted them. I can do the legwork. I can go to
28:42
LinkedIn, I can figure out who it was, get their
28:45
email address and so on and so forth. I can then
28:47
reach out to them. I'm going to make an
28:52
assumption here, Farzad, and correct me if I'm
28:54
wrong, but I'm assuming that what you guys do at
28:58
Respona can do most of that legwork for me, which
29:03
is how you've sort of come to where you are on
29:05
the software. Would that be correct?
29:06
Farzad Rashidi: Yeah, absolutely. So the background is Vismoon
29:09
we're doing all these manually, even though it's
29:11
a software product, still a product. So we want
29:14
to get on all the best presentation software,
29:16
best design tools, yada, yada yada. So we still
29:19
had to do all that manually. So we built an
29:21
internal tool to help us streamline that flow so
29:23
we can feed it with a keyword and it will do all
29:25
the work for you. So we developed as a standalone
29:29
product and released it as a standalone product.
29:31
So that's kind of the backstory of how respondent
29:33
came to be.
29:34
Matt Edmundson: Fantastic. But obviously you can do this
29:36
manually. You can go figure it all out. Yeah.
29:39
Let's talk about this pitch a little bit more. So
29:43
just because I can hear all the questions people
29:46
are asking, because the questions, some questions
29:48
are in my head, I think. So we're looking for
29:50
something that's 100 words or less, so something
29:52
about 70, 80 words in length. And I'm going to
29:55
go, hey, Fuzzad, just want to say that was an
29:58
awesome article, man. On the 10 best tennis
30:01
rackets to buy. If you're a beginner, I think
30:05
that'll really help whoever. I'd love to send you
30:10
our racket, which is also great for beginners,
30:13
would love to get your feedback on it. Can I do
30:16
that? Love and hugs, Matt. Maybe not love and
30:19
hugs, but you know what I mean, it's as simple as
30:21
that. Right? Is what you're saying is the actual
30:23
email, I'm sending that out, I've not heard from
30:25
you. A week later I'm going, hey, just check in.
30:28
This is just a one time follow up from me. Just
30:30
check in on this. If it's of interest, I'd love
30:32
to hear from you. If it's not, don't panic. I'm
30:34
not going to screw up your inbox by Matt kind of
30:40
thing. And that's in essence what you're saying,
30:42
right?
30:42
Farzad Rashidi: Exactly. And a lot of commerce owners already are
30:45
doing this, but they only do it within the
30:48
context of social influencers for some reason. So
30:51
they're doing this to Instagram people and TikTok
30:53
influencers. And in my opinion it doesn't make
30:56
much sense. It's not to say social influencers
30:58
don't work. They actually work very well for
31:00
ecommerce. But if you get a TikTok influencer to
31:04
post something once, yes, you're going to get
31:06
some sales and then two days later it's going to
31:08
go down to zero because they've produced new
31:11
content, there's new things getting published all
31:13
the time. So it's a constant rat race of you
31:16
paying for influencers and then their influence
31:19
dies. That post dies within I would argue 20
31:24
minutes. But when you get a reputable website
31:28
that's already getting ranking in traffic, you
31:30
get your product there, it's there forever. I
31:33
mean not forever, but you get the idea.
31:35
Matt Edmundson: Yeah.
31:35
Farzad Rashidi: Now this not only gets sends referral traffic to
31:38
your site, now these AI tools are going to pick
31:40
them up. And so the ROI on that is insane. Even
31:44
if you have to pay for that placement, I would
31:46
argue that's a lot more valuable, not a little
31:49
bit more. A lot more valuable in the long run
31:52
compared to social influencers. So I would at
31:55
least dedicate, you know, a portion of those
31:58
influencer marketing budget to work and put it
31:59
towards these because these to me make a lot more
32:02
sense in terms of distribution. That's evergreen.
32:06
Matt Edmundson: That's really fascinating. I'm curious also what
32:09
you've discovered about the one time follow up.
32:12
Now the reason I'm asking this is we have a
32:14
couple of sequences which we send out to on
32:17
colder outreach for some of the companies that we
32:19
have and we have a three email sequence. The
32:25
number one is the hello. The number two is just
32:28
checking in and the number three is this is the
32:31
last time I'm going to be in touch. You know the
32:34
hello and goodbye email, we do that in a three
32:38
email sequence. What your suggestion is actually
32:42
to bring that down to two.
32:44
Farzad Rashidi: What I'm suggesting is to experiment with it.
32:47
It's not and science is more of an art at that
32:50
point. One, two follow up is okay. If you go in
32:53
three follow ups, four email total, that's too
32:55
much. Cut that. So one or two follow ups. Two
32:58
follow ups is the absolute maximum. Wouldn't go
33:00
any more than what you're doing. I personally
33:03
like it when people are respectful and just say
33:05
hey, it's a one time follow up. Yeah, but again,
33:09
is that gonna make that much of a difference? No,
33:11
it's probably not going to make any dent in your
33:14
reply rates and open rates overall. But in the
33:17
long run, I think after years of doing cold
33:19
outreach, it does reduce the likelihood
33:22
intuitively. Again, this is something I don't
33:24
have concrete data on. It's my intuition that
33:28
less people mark your emails as spam, so it will
33:30
help maintain your domain repetition higher. But
33:34
two follow ups, you're doing okay. Yeah, just
33:36
don't send five.
33:37
Matt Edmundson: Yeah, no, no, no, not at all. But we kind of
33:41
captured it. 3. It just sort of felt right. But
33:43
what I've not done, ironically given the Podcast
33:46
that I have is we've never tested two. And so I
33:50
like the idea of testing it. And I think we will.
33:54
Farzad Rashidi: We'll.
33:54
Matt Edmundson: We'll try your strategy and if it.
33:57
Farzad Rashidi: It might make it worse. Yeah, and then you go
33:59
back.
34:00
Matt Edmundson: Yeah, but we'll find out when. We will find out
34:02
from there if it makes it better. I owe you a
34:04
pint, brother. So next time you're over here,
34:06
we'll. I'll take you to the pub and we'll. I'll
34:08
pay my debt.
34:09
Farzad Rashidi: Sounds like a plan.
34:12
Matt Edmundson: Absolutely. So what's another strategy? I mean,
34:15
that's one is the listicle. Yeah. What's your
34:19
second best strategy?
34:20
Farzad Rashidi: Yeah, so another one I like to do is product
34:23
review. And it's a little bit different. So
34:27
instead of you going after direct competitors,
34:31
any tool that's in your space. So for example, we
34:36
just literally brought on a customer that's in
34:38
sporting equipment. And I think they sell like
34:42
pickleball equipment, stuff like that. Well,
34:44
reach out to ones that are reviewing tennis
34:47
rackets. Like, yes, it's a different sport, but a
34:51
type of website that's writing a review. Certain
34:54
type of. That's probably not the best example.
34:58
Let's say you run, you. You have a healthy
35:01
product. Let's say you sell CBD gummies to help
35:04
you help your customers get more. Get better,
35:08
sleep. All right, well, there are only so many
35:11
CBD gummies that you can find reviews on. So you
35:14
would look up like X, Y and Z. I don't take CBD
35:17
gummies. I don't know any good brands. But one
35:20
idea, one idea you could do. So like AG1, that's
35:24
like very popular now. It's like a powder
35:27
supplement. Again, I don't take it either, but
35:29
it's like some sort of health drink now it's
35:32
within the same space. So if a website is writing
35:35
a review on AG1, they are most likely would be
35:39
interested in your CBD gummies too, because
35:41
within the realm of what you do, AG1 has nothing
35:43
to do with your product. Right. So we sell CBD
35:45
gummies there prowler that does different things.
35:49
So I would like you to sort of keep an open mind
35:52
and you should never run out of opportunities
35:54
that way. So now you take a popular brand or take
35:58
a popular product and look up. So as I said, I
36:02
sell CBD gummies, I go on Google and I look up
36:05
AG1 reviews. And yes, there are some review
36:08
sites, whatever. And then there's actual
36:10
websites, blogs that are people that are writing
36:13
reviews on, and a lot of those also have a
36:15
YouTube channel. They have other ways of
36:17
distributing their content. But it's a great way
36:19
to also find opportunities for you to get people
36:22
that are interested in writing reviews and then
36:25
essentially getting them incentivizing them to
36:27
write a review for yours. And that's another, I
36:30
would say channel that you can find opportunities
36:33
for you to do outreach. Another one is competitor
36:37
mentions. So stuff that's not directly product
36:41
reviews, but They've just mentioned AG1 in
36:44
passing. Like hey, like the title article is how
36:48
to get better sleep at night. And or. And then
36:51
one of the paragraphs is written, oh, you should,
36:54
you know, take some supplements. Maybe you're
36:55
lacking iron or whatever and then take AG1. I'm
36:58
completely butchering this because I'm not
37:00
familiar with these products. But you get the
37:02
idea.
37:03
Matt Edmundson: You get to get AG1 reaching out to you going can
37:05
we just send you some so you understand what it
37:07
is you're talking about? Which is fine. They
37:09
should send me some as well. Yeah, actually no
37:11
they shouldn't because I.
37:12
Farzad Rashidi: Take is available publicly.
37:14
Matt Edmundson: So find me on LinkedIn. I'll send you the
37:17
details. Not from.
37:18
Farzad Rashidi: That sounds great. But anyhow. Yeah. So basically
37:22
the art ton of the articles that you find don't
37:24
necessarily have to be a listicle or a review. It
37:28
could just be a mention. And so the way you find
37:30
them is a little bit more difficult because if
37:32
you just type ag1 there's a lot of essentially
37:38
websites or a lot of articles on AG1 website that
37:42
will show up. So you want to filter those. So for
37:45
that we actually have a. We use these Google
37:49
advancements, advanced operators that sort of
37:52
respond and builds automatically but you can
37:54
build them yourself. And that is using basically
37:59
saying. So they're trying to see if folks that
38:04
are listening how they're going to visualize
38:06
this. So there's this advanced operator called
38:08
Intext. Like Intext and then you can type in AG1.
38:14
So Indertext I mentioned AG1 but within their
38:18
text I also mentioned another keyword because
38:20
sometimes the name of a company could be like
38:22
purple.
38:23
Matt Edmundson: Yeah.
38:24
Farzad Rashidi: What is purple? They know that's going to bring
38:26
up the color purple and it's going to bring up
38:28
the mattress. So yeah, then we'd look up like for
38:31
example health supplement. So in tax. AG1 in tax
38:35
health supplement or whatever. Yeah. And then
38:39
minus ag1.com or whatever the website is. So it's
38:43
a negative website. And you know, and then you
38:46
can decide if you want in URL Bl. So we'll
38:49
essentially just help you find blog posts. So
38:52
what that will do is that will help you find blog
38:54
posts that have been written that mention AG1 in
38:58
their content within the context of health
39:01
supplement that are not from ag1.com right. So
39:06
that will just help you by filtered out by bulk.
39:10
In bulk. So Google essentially does it work for
39:12
you? So now all of the search results now are
39:14
going to be AG1 related products or excuse me,
39:19
Agent 1 related content pieces. You could reach
39:22
out to those side owners and then instead of buys
39:24
them and then we can get more and more into the
39:27
weeds and go into more advanced and like you say,
39:29
you.
39:29
Matt Edmundson: Just keep going and going and going, don't you?
39:31
Then once you enter the rabbit hole, you can just
39:33
keep going down there for as long as it goes on
39:37
for. But that's super clever. I like because
39:41
you're using some very simple instructions in
39:43
Google search, aren't you? In text. And yeah,
39:50
it's pulling up the results. You're going through
39:52
those you're connecting with, you're doing it
39:54
just got old fashioned legwork, aren't you?
39:55
Connecting with people who are already writing
39:58
this kind of stuff and going hey, can I. Same
40:01
thing, incentive. Can we maybe connect over this?
40:05
Farzad Rashidi: Exactly.
40:07
Matt Edmundson: I mean if you were, if you. I guess my question
40:12
here for is that if you were a startup and if you
40:19
were also an established E Com business because
40:22
the budgets are very different, aren't they for
40:24
these two companies, how much time would you be
40:27
devoting to this?
40:30
Farzad Rashidi: That's an excellent question. So there is not an
40:33
absolute numerical number that I could share.
40:37
What I would share is in terms of resource
40:40
delegation. So how much of your resources you
40:43
should be spending. And that's usually a function
40:45
of content creation. So I like to follow the 8020
40:49
rule there. So if you're spending essentially you
40:54
should be spending 20% of your resources on
40:57
content creation. 80% of promotion to get optimal
41:00
results. That's usually people do it backwards.
41:03
They spend 80% creating content and then 20%
41:06
promoting it. And so if you flip that ratio and
41:10
again it's not to say you need to have more
41:12
resources to promote. No, produce less frequent
41:16
content and then use the excess resources you
41:19
have to spend more on promotion. So if you're
41:22
writing blog articles, write less blog articles
41:26
and have the person that's writing the content
41:28
pieces to actually go promote your product. And
41:30
it's not just product placements also for
41:32
individual blog posts that would write, we try to
41:34
get links to them and get folks to mention it.
41:37
Similar process. And so that is something that I
41:41
think a lot of people sort of mistake is that,
41:43
oh, I'm a one person show and I don't have a
41:46
whole lot of time. Well, brother, if you have one
41:50
or two of those sites, say yes, that's going to
41:52
bring an Evergreen floor customer ecommerce
41:55
store. Now as painful sound comfortable people
41:57
don't want to do it. Yeah, that's your
41:59
competitive advantage. If it was easy, then it
42:01
would have been a channel in the first place.
42:03
Right. So the fact that it's difficult is good.
42:05
Matt Edmundson: Yeah. So no, I totally agree. Yeah, totally
42:09
agree. I think I remember when I saw the power of
42:12
this when I owned a beauty company and we were
42:17
checking. This is going back several, you know, a
42:20
decade at least. I remember we looked at the
42:25
analytics and we looked at the data and we were
42:27
making £6,000 profit every single month because
42:33
of one blogger in Sweden. I mean Sweden is not a
42:38
massive country. And this lady just wrote this
42:41
article was really sweet and it generated six
42:45
grand. In fact, no, it generated way more than
42:47
£6,000 because I said, we contacted her and said,
42:50
would you like to do some kind of an affiliate
42:52
link? And she says, oh no, it's fine. And I'm
42:54
like, but you would, she would in fact have
42:56
earned six grand a month off the affiliate
42:58
scheme. That's how much it was bringing in. And
43:03
it did all of these links just to get them in.
43:06
And you only need a few of those and your quids
43:08
in really. But I really, I really like this
43:12
because it's such an opposite message to what we
43:15
hear with AI. With AI, you can create a thousand
43:18
articles this week. You know, I can take your
43:20
long form video and give you 50 short form videos
43:23
in a second. But I love what you're saying,
43:25
actually create less content, create really good
43:29
content and then focus on promoting that content.
43:35
It's, it's a wonderful message because so, so
43:39
much of our time we create content but nobody
43:41
reads it. It's like if we build it, they will
43:42
come. It's not quite what. It's not the field of
43:45
dreams anymore, is it? It's not working that way
43:47
anymore, unfortunately. Yeah, so no, love that,
43:52
love that. Far as I'd. Let me ask you a question.
43:54
This is the time of the show where I say to you,
43:57
what's your question for me? This is where I ask
44:00
you for a question. I will take your question and
44:03
I will answer it on social media and then I will
44:06
spend a lot of time promoting said answer.
44:12
Farzad Rashidi: Sounds great. Brilliant.
44:13
Matt Edmundson: Okay, what's your question?
44:15
Farzad Rashidi: All right, well I think then the topic that we
44:18
discussed today, I think a good question would be
44:21
how can E commerce stores. Let me reword that and
44:27
say it more coherently so you can actually
44:30
utilize this clip. How can E commerce stores
44:34
tweak and adjust and adapt their strategy in the
44:38
age of AI very customer promotion or customer
44:44
acquisition?
44:46
Matt Edmundson: Okay, if you want to know how I'm gonna answer
44:48
that question, come follow me on social media, on
44:51
Instagram and just look for me on LinkedIn. Matt
44:54
Edmundson it's the same thing and I will do my
44:56
level best to give a very good answer to said
44:58
question. But Farzad, listen, how do people reach
45:02
you? How do they connect with you? How do they
45:03
find out more about your site? If they're
45:05
thinking, man, this is a good idea, I definitely
45:06
want to check out your software because it sounds
45:08
like it's going to save me hours in this
45:10
strategy. What's the best way to do that?
45:13
Farzad Rashidi: Absolutely. My LinkedIn is Farsad Rashidi There
45:17
aren't a ton of us out there, so fairly easy to
45:20
spot. But our website is respona.com R E S P O N
45:26
A dot com and we have a ton of free educational,
45:29
ungated resources like the strategies I talked
45:32
about. We have them publicly available on our
45:34
website. So you don't need any of these fancy
45:36
tools. If you're just starting out or you're a
45:38
small business, you can do a lot of it yourself
45:40
manually. And if you are a larger brand and you
45:43
have some resources and don't want to do this
45:45
manually, then a tool like respondent would be a
45:47
no brainer because it helps you save a ton of
45:50
time with building some of these campaigns out
45:51
for you.
45:52
Matt Edmundson: Fantastic. Fantastic. We will of course link to
45:55
Farzad's information in the show notes as well,
45:58
which you will either have come into your inbox
46:00
if you're in the newsletter you can see them on
46:03
the website at ecommercepodcast.net or of course
46:05
if you just scroll down in podcast app they will
46:09
be there as well. But Farzad, listen man,
46:11
genuinely great to meet you. Thanks Alex for
46:14
connecting us. Really appreciate that and love
46:17
the conversation man. Lots of food for thought.
46:20
Love the strategies. Super helpful for some of
46:22
the other stuff we're doing in the business. So
46:25
I've got a conversation with the marketing team
46:27
tomorrow where I get them to listen to the
46:29
episodes early. They're like oh great. More but
46:32
genuinely loved it man. Really appreciate you
46:34
taking the time and coming on and sharing those
46:36
insights with us.
46:37
Farzad Rashidi: Of course it's My pleasure, and thank you so much
46:39
for having me, Matt.
46:40
Matt Edmundson: Brilliant, brilliant, brilliant, brilliant. There
46:43
you have it. What a great conversation. Huge
46:45
thanks again to Farzad for joining me today. Now,
46:49
be sure to follow the Ecommerce Podcast wherever
46:51
you get your podcasts from, because we've got yet
46:53
more great conversations lined up and I don't
46:55
want you to miss any of them. I never do. Hence
46:58
the reason I say it every week. Now, in case no
47:00
one has told you yet today, let me be the first.
47:04
You are awesome. Yes. You are created awesome.
47:07
It's just a burden you have to bear. Farzad got
47:10
to bear it. I've got to bear it. You've got to
47:13
bear it as well. Now, the Ecommerce Podcast is
47:15
produced by Podjunction. You can find our entire
47:18
archive of episodes on your favorite podcast app.
47:21
The team that makes this show possible includes
47:23
the legend Sadaf Baynon and Josh Edmundson, who
47:27
wrote the theme music. As I mentioned, if you
47:29
would like to read the notes, the transcript, all
47:31
that sort of stuff, you can find them on our
47:33
website, which is ecommercepodcast.net that's all
47:37
one word, ecommercepodcast.net but that's it from
47:41
me. That's it from Farzad. Thank you so much for
47:44
joining us. Have a fantastic week wherever you
47:46
are in the world. I'll see you next time. Bye for
47:48
now.
47:50
Farzad Rashidi: Sa.