👋 Hello great people of the D2C Community! This is your host Berkay writing. In today's D2CVille Exclusive, we had a wonderful interview with Muhammed Tufekyapan , Founder of the Shopify app Growth Suite .
After many years working as a digital marketing, conversions, and analytics expert, Muhammed eventually found Growth Suite to help D2C brands with their growth challenges.
Thanks to his wealth of experience, he offered unparalleled advice on skyrocketing the growth of D2C brands, in addition to sharing insightful predictions on the future of D2C expansion and much more!
👀 A Quick Intro Muhammed, tell us more about yourself and Growth Suite!
MT: First of all, thanks for having me here, Berkay. My name is Muhammed, and I have been working on digital marketing, conversion, and analytics since 2012. There are a few key milestones in my journey:
I published my first e-book, "Introduction to Growth Hacking ," in 2015. Note: It's in Turkish. After the book, I organized the annual "Growth Hacking Istanbul" conference until 2019. I joined the Shopify community in 2020. During these years, I have experienced how the meaning of growth has changed in the industry. At first, people tended to approach growth hacking as cheap tactics and free traffic. Many case studies claimed to achieve overnight growth with a few magic tactics, but these created a false belief in the growth process.
Then, conversion became a priority for most companies. After all, it doesn't matter how much traffic you get if you can't convert it. Conversion is an equation with multiple variables, including marketing, UX, and offer.
After working with different brands in Istanbul, Turkey, I decided to build a Shopify app to help merchants with their conversions. The first version of Growth Suite collected data from Google Analytics and detected visitors' buying intentions. Based on this information, it segmented visitors as hot, warm, or cold and made them time-limited offers. The same visitor could not see the same offer again for 30 days. The goal was to create urgency without being fake.
After seeing the first traction, I realized that Shopify stores needed more. So, I started to build the second version of Growth Suite last year. Now, it is a "shop buddy."
Growth Suite 🚀 Growth Suite Let's say you build an awesome store and start to get traffic. You may expect to get sales, but you will likely see low conversion. This is because it's like a vending machine: there are products and people.
What I'm focusing on with Growth Suite is building an experience like visiting a high-end, premium physical store. When you visit a high-end physical store, there are sales consultants. These are kind, confident people who don't try to sell you something; they just help you to buy the best items with the best deals.
Growth Suite helps you do the same thing in your store.
💪 Growth Suite Features Personalizing Customer Experience Personalization is often a buzzword in e-commerce, but can you provide an example of a highly creative way a store has used Growth Suite to personalize the customer experience and drive extraordinary results?
MT: Sure, here is an example of a highly creative or unconventional way a store has used Growth Suite to personalize the customer experience and drive extraordinary results:
Store: A personalized jewelry store that sells custom-made necklaces, bracelets, and earrings.
Challenge: The store wanted to increase the conversion rate of new visitors and encourage them to create their own custom jewelry pieces.
Solution: The store used Growth Suite to create a personalized quiz that helps new visitors find the perfect jewelry style for their taste. The quiz asks questions about the visitor's personal style, preferences, and budget. Once the visitor completes the quiz, Growth Suite recommends a few jewelry pieces that are tailored to their individual needs and wants.
Results: The personalized quiz resulted in a 15% increase in the conversion rate of new visitors. Additionally, customers who completed the quiz were more likely to purchase higher-priced jewelry items.
Why it's creative: The store's use of a personalized quiz is creative because it goes beyond simply recommending products to customers based on their past purchase history or browsing behavior. Instead, the quiz takes the time to understand the customer's individual needs and wants, and then provides personalized recommendations based on that information.
Why it drove extraordinary results: The personalized quiz was so successful because it made it easy for customers to find the perfect jewelry pieces for their taste. This helped to reduce the amount of time and effort that customers needed to spend shopping, and it also increased the likelihood that they would find a product that they loved.
Product Finder Quiz Can you walk us through the process of how the AI-driven product finder quiz tailors the shopping experience for visitors? What's the most unexpected or surprising outcome you've seen from a store that has implemented this feature?
MT: Sure. Here is a walk-through of the process of how the AI-driven product finder quiz tailors the shopping experience for visitors:
The visitor takes the quiz. The quiz typically asks the visitor a series of questions about their preferences, such as their personal style, budget, and what they are looking for in a particular product. Growth Suite analyzes the visitor's responses. Growth Suite uses a variety of factors to analyze the visitors' responses, including their word choice, the order in which they answered the questions and the amount of time they spent on each question. Growth Suite recommends products. Based on the visitor's responses, Growth Suite recommends a selection of products that are tailored to their individual needs and wants. Product Finder Quiz The AI-driven product finder quiz tailors the shopping experience for visitors in a number of ways:
It saves visitors time and effort. Visitors don't have to browse through a large selection of products to find what they're looking for. Instead, they can simply take the quiz and Growth Suite will recommend a selection of products that are relevant to them. It helps visitors discover new products. The quiz may recommend products that the visitor wouldn't have found on their own. This can help visitors to discover new brands and products that they may love. It increases the likelihood of a purchase. Visitors are more likely to purchase a product if they have been recommended to them based on their individual needs and wants. Most unexpected or surprising outcome from a store that has implemented this feature:
One of the most unexpected and surprising outcomes that I've seen from a store that has implemented the AI-driven product finder quiz is that it has helped to increase the sales of higher-priced items.
I initially assumed that the quiz would mostly be used to recommend lower-priced items, since visitors are often looking for the best deal. However, I've found that visitors are also happy to purchase higher-priced items if they have been recommended to them based on their individual needs and wants.
Growth Suite - Bestie Discounts Tell us about your "Bestie Discounts" feature for friends of existing customers!
MT: The Bestie Discounts feature is a Growth Suite feature that allows existing customers to share referral links with their friends and family. When a friend clicks on a referral link and makes a purchase, both the friend and the existing customer receive a discount.
The Bestie Discounts feature is a great way to encourage customers to refer their friends and family to your store. It is also a great way to reward your existing customers for their loyalty.
Bestie discounts Here are a few extraordinary stories of how the Bestie Discounts feature has turned everyday customers into brand advocates and ambassadors:
One customer used the Bestie Discounts feature to refer her entire friends group to her favorite clothing store. As a result, the clothing store was able to acquire a group of new customers who were all likely to purchase again in the future.
Another customer used the Bestie Discounts feature to refer her sister to her favorite pet supplies store. The sister loved the store and became a regular customer. She also started referring her own friends and family to the store.
A third customer used the Bestie Discounts feature to refer her boyfriend to her favorite electronics store. The boyfriend bought a new laptop from the store and was very happy with the purchase. He also started referring his own friends and family to the store.
These are just a few examples of how the Bestie Discounts feature can be used to turn everyday customers into brand advocates and ambassadors. When customers have a positive experience with your store and are rewarded for sharing that experience with their friends and family, they are more likely to become loyal customers and brand advocates.
How to Use Bestie Discounts? Here are some tips for using the Bestie Discounts feature to turn everyday customers into brand advocates and ambassadors:
Make sure that your referral discounts are generous enough to incentivize customers to refer their friends and family.
Promote the Bestie Discounts feature to your existing customers through email marketing, social media, and on-site messaging.
Make it easy for customers to share their referral links with their friends and family. Include social sharing buttons on your website and in your email marketing campaigns.
Track the results of your Bestie Discounts program so that you can see which customers are referring the most new customers to your store. Reward these customers with extra discounts, exclusive offers, or other perks.
By following these tips, you can use the Bestie Discounts feature to turn everyday customers into brand advocates and ambassadors who will help you grow your business.
🤝 Personalization for Growth Personalization is often perceived as time-consuming. Can you explain how Growth Suite simplifies the process and makes it feasible even for smaller e-commerce businesses to implement effectively?
MT: Personalization is often perceived as time-consuming because it requires businesses to collect and analyze a large amount of data about their customers. However, Growth Suite simplifies the personalization process by automating many of the tasks that are involved.
Here are a few ways that Growth Suite makes personalization feasible even for smaller e-commerce businesses:
Growth Suite automatically collects and analyzes customer data. This includes data such as purchase history, browsing behavior, and demographic information.
Growth Suite segments customers based on their data. This makes it easy for businesses to identify different groups of customers and send them targeted messages and recommendations.
Growth Suite provides a variety of personalization features that are easy to implement. For example, businesses can use Growth Suite to create personalized welcome messages, product recommendations, and discount offers.
Cross-Selling Feature and Personalization How can a small e-commerce business use Growth Suite's cross-sell offer feature to personalize the customer experience?
MT: A small clothing store can use Growth Suite to create cross-sell offers for customers who are viewing a particular product. For example, if a customer is viewing a pair of jeans, Growth Suite could recommend a matching belt, shoes, and/or top. The cross-sell offers would be tailored to the customer's individual style and budget, based on their past purchase history and browsing behavior.
This is a great way to encourage customers to purchase additional items from the store. It is also a great way to increase the average order value.
A few tips for smaller e-commerce businesses that are new to personalization:
Start by focusing on one or two personalization strategies. For example, you could start by welcoming messages and offers for visitors who are in the consideration process.
Cross-sell feature Gradually add more personalization strategies as you gain more experience and resources.
Use Growth Suite to automate as many of the tasks as possible.
Track the results of your personalization efforts so that you can see what is working and what is not.
🗣️ How to utilize customer feedback? Customer support and user feedback are vital in the software industry. How do you collect and act on user feedback to continually improve Growth Suite?
MT: This is a wonderful question, Berkay. There are many things I do for this step.
First of all, I have a dashboard that shows Growth Suite users' success with our widgets. I check this widget weekly to detect if something goes wrong for my users. If I see something unusual in the widget's performance, I deep dive into the details and try to find what's wrong.
After that, I use surveys inside Growth Suite to measure NPS and collect feedback about Growth Suite's features.
I also run Growth Workshops with my users to understand their growth problems and how Growth Suite can help them fix these needs. I invite them to my Slack channel where I share tips and articles about conversion and marketing and answer their questions one-on-one.
Of course, I also use Google Analytics to check my funnels and see what's happening on the app side.
💰 Growth tips for DTCs Do you have any quick tips for D2C entrepreneurs who are finding it difficult to grow businesses?
MT: I know there are lots of recommendations for D2C entrepreneurs , like focusing on data, testing, and constantly improving. These are all important, but my first recommendation is a little different:
Focus on your mental health first. Burnout is real, and it’s hard to do anything big or meaningful when you’re burned out. Make sure to take care of yourself, both physically and mentally.
Next, don’t be fooled by the “case studies” that promise to make you six, seven, or eight figures in a month. Every business is different, and there is no one-size-fits-all solution to growth. Instead, focus on building a strong foundation for your business, including a clear core structure, branding, and growth strategy.
Finally, get to know your customers! They’re your greatest resource. Talk to them, understand their needs, and use their feedback to improve your products and services. The key to growth is in your customers, so make sure you’re listening to them.
I hope these tips help!
Focus on your mental health first. Burnout is real, and it’s hard to do anything big or meaningful when you’re burned out.
📈 DTC Growth Trends for 2024 Finally, what are your projections for the future of D2C growth? What are the trends that are coming up to take over?
MT: I believe that the following trends will take over in the coming years:
1. Personalization: D2C brands are uniquely positioned to provide personalized experiences to their customers. As consumers become more demanding and expect more from the brands they shop with, personalization will become increasingly important.
2. Data-driven decision-making: D2C brands have access to a wealth of data about their customers and their business. By using this data to make informed decisions about everything from product development to marketing strategy, D2C brands can gain a competitive advantage.
3. Community building: D2C brands are building strong communities around their brands. This is helping them to create loyalty and trust with their customers, which is essential for long-term growth. Learn more about community building here .
4. Subscription models: Subscription models are becoming increasingly popular, as they provide consumers with a convenient and affordable way to purchase the products and services they need. D2C brands are using subscription models to increase customer lifetime value and recurring revenue.
Growth Suite Remember to follow Muhammed on LinkedIn. If you're looking for an all-in-one growth app, see Growth Suite’s page on the Shopify App Store or visit their website !
D2CVille If you reached this point, well, thank you! Check out our weekly newsletter for more content like this! And hey, did you know we share a bunch of content on social media? Check it out!
.png)
%20(2).webp)
.webp)
.webp)
.webp)
.webp)