How We Increased Our AOV by $10 in One Week

Happy Friday Jr. from cold & cloudy Toronto! 

It's my second time ever in Canada and I gotta say I'm loving this city. It reminds me of a nice mix between NYC & Chicago. Gotta love the energy, the hustle, and honestly some really damn good food. If you're reading this and live in Toronto or have a trip planned, you need to check out the Othership. It's a state of the art sauna & ice bath house that will heave you leaving rejuvenated and without a stress in the world.

Today will be a short send as I'm working on a master class that I've been filming all week. Involved in the project is my good friend Aaron Spivak who just sold his company Hush for $50M and Hyla Nayeri & Adrien Bettio (437 & Forbes 30u30). The course will be action packed with hours of information filled with everything from cracking into retail, influencer marketing, understanding your data, website optimization, building a community, and so much more. Respond back to this and I can hook you up with early access. 

I got two awesome emails over the week that I wanted to cover with today's send. 

"My ring toss game just went viral on Sportscenter with 48 million views! How do I make the most of this opportunity? - Kyle, Craggy Games

I hope that everyone reading this has atleast that one viral moment. When you have that "it" moment it's your job to do anything and everything to keep that momentum alive and to not let it die. One win leads to the next and you eventually become an unstoppable freight train. Here's what I'd do: 

1. Ensure that your email & sms capture is 100% firing correctly. Are you capturing emails at welcome, exit attempt, and abandoned checkout? This is the perfect moment to juice up your funnel FOR free. You need to do everything in your power to capture data from every single user.

2. Work with your PPC (pay per click) team to bid on every possible keyword that could be thought of from this once in a life time opportunity. In this situation terms & phrases such as "ring toss game", "sportscenter tik tok ring toss", "wooden swinging game". You get my gist. Make sure you are appearing for any and every possible phrase that a potential customer can be searching for you. We did this when we appeared on ESPN and are planning a similar strategy when we go on Let's Make a Deal later this month. 

3. Create a custom landing page or email pop up that celebrates this moment. When we were on the Today Show we had a custom lander with their logo that said "Hey! Did you see us on the Today Show? Claim your discount!" and then the code would be Today10. Nothing crazy but 1) it gives the customer peace of mind that they found the right product 2) if a random person did come on the site the little bit of social proof doesn't hurt

4. If you are a small business or this is truly a life changing moment (you're now sold out for months & you legit can't sell anymore because you need to restock), invest in recreating your post purchase & welcome flows and keep them live until this viral moment wears off. Humanize your brand & product and explain to the customer how much this moment means to you and you're working around the clock to keep up with demand. When COVID struck in 2020 we were back ordered at one point over 20,000 units. We had customer service nightmares around the clock, but we eased the tension the best we could with pre-populated emails explaining how we wish we could get your order out sooner, we're working nonstop and will provide any shipping updates as soon as they are available. 

"I want to donate a portion of my sales to a charity, but it's impacting my margins. What can I do?" - Sean Kelly, Jersey Champs

So I actually struggled with the same issue for a long, long time. I have an AOV of $165 with CROSSNET, but if you factor in a standard $10 discount for customer's buying on our site we really don't have the money to donate an extra $5 or $10 to charity. Every single dollar adds up and I was in a tough spot. I wanted to create a mission led brand that revolves around the importance of fun & mental health, but also needed to make enough money to continue to build a rapidly growing company. 

We've recently started using a really easy Shopify app called GIVZ that helps this entire crazy dilemma. Essentially I can now set a threshold that customers have to spend in order for a donation to kick in. We've sent the bar at $175 and we've already started to see customers starting to throw in a t-shirt or volleyball into their cart when they normally wouldn't.

It's an absolute win-win for both parties as my company is generating more revenue & we are also able to give back to any charity of the buyer's choice. Check out these donations below, pretty damn impressive in our first week. Thanks GIVZ!

Short and sweet this week! I have a ton of incredible freelancers & agency recommendations I want to give out next week. If anybody wants to skip the line and is looking for help in a particular area, give me a message back! If you want an intro to the good folks over at GIVZ, you know where to find me. 

Onwards & upwards,

Chris