Micro-Moments: Converting Customer Service Into Marketing

0:00You know, if you need white rice for dinner tonight, going to Marty is not going to help you. We are not a 15-minute grocery delivery service. We are a deal discovery platform that sells groceries, beauty, and household goods. You're rescuing products that they haven't expired yet, but it's something that cannot be kept on the shelves of mainstream supermarkets, for example, right? We make it really easy for the brands that we work with as well. Once you're in the system with Marty, we'll make a deal, and then within 48 hours, we've already picked up your product. We don't have any subscriptions.

0:31There's no memberships to shop at Marty. We firmly believe that we can help our customers not only save money, but have fun in the process. What do you believe or could you tell me what is your number one priority for the next 12 months? Acquisition and retention. We want to bring people in and then we want to keep them. And the way that we feel very strongly that we'll be able to keep people is through this obsession with the customer.

0:57Hey everybody and thank you for tuning in. My name is Andres Figueira and I'm going to be your host for the day. Today's episode is sponsored by the Global Talent Company. We connect amazing talent from Argentina, South Africa and anywhere really with leading tech companies all over the world. So if your team is looking to hire top-notch South American or South African talent, just visit theglobaltalent.co and see how we can help. And today with me here, I'm speaking with Michelle Nadeau, Chief Marketing Officer at Marty, a company that is reimagining how Americans shop for food by making overstock products accessible and even up to 70 % off.

1:33So this is proving that sustainability and affordability don't have to be at odds. So, Michelle, it's great to have you on the episode. Welcome. Thanks for having me. Excited to be here. No problem at all. And Michelle, I just want to start by being able to give the audience a bit more context as to what exactly it is that Marty does and your background as well, how you got to be the CMO and anything you want to shed some light on. Yeah, of course. Well, Marty is a leading marketplace at the moment. We started about four years ago getting into this market of overstock groceries. We have an app, we have a website.

2:12Customers all over the country can go to this, to the app, go to the website and basically load their cart with amazing products from brands that they know and that they love and they trust. And they can get them all for up to 70 % off, sometimes 80 % off and sometimes free. uh so i'll i'll chat i'll chat a bit about our our free free samples program in a bit but but we are really excited about the opportunity to have this we started as a grocery store kind of an online grocery store and we've since entered into different categories so we have beauty products we have home goods products and the way that it works is we work directly with brands and distributors on their overstock and surplus inventory.

2:54And this is product that unfortunately doesn't really have a home. It can be, you know, a brand that creates snack bars that they always create an overage because they have to. And then they have excess inventory and they don't have anywhere to sell it to. Marty will come in. We scoop up these products at a fraction of the price. And then we're able to offset that to our customers a fraction of the price. So our customers get to save a ton of money. They get to try new brands, which is one One of the reasons people love coming back to Marty is they get to discover all of these different brands that they've never heard of.

3:26They know that we've got a ton of stuff for the ones that they know and that they love. But then we also have this opportunity for them to discover new brands. We started we went nationwide a couple of years ago. So since then, we've really been growing in the market here in the States. And we've been bringing on more products every single week, every single month, new brands. We've worked with over 4000 different brands. and currently at any time that you jump onto the site, we've got about 1500 different products. So we've really been growing and making it exciting for customers to continue to come back and then become more interesting to people that have never heard of us before.

4:01So we're kind of doing a little bit of both as we continue to grow. And one thing that's really exciting for us is, and you talked about this sustainability meets affordability concept, we don't have any subscriptions. There's no memberships to shop at Marty. We really want to make it as easy as possible for customers to save money by kind of removing some of those other specific things that companies have. We're able to to keep it really easy for people to shop. Now that I'm hearing you speak, then I feel that that the hook with what Marty does is that you're rescuing products that they haven't expired yet.

4:37They they don't have anything wrong with them, but it's something that cannot be sold or cannot be kept on the shelves of mainstream supermarkets, for example, right? Exactly, exactly. And so sometimes it's more complicated to find a home for these items, which leads to, unfortunately, a lot of food waste. What we're trying to do is we're preventing food waste before it happens. And it's one of the reasons that our partners love continuing to work with us because we make it super easy for them. Once you're in the system with Marty, And it's very, very quick. We'll make a deal. And then within 48 hours, we've already picked up your product.

5:11So we make it really easy for the brands that we work with as well to basically take away that inventory that has been an eyesore for them. Okay, and I love it because you help make this process a lot more agile. And by providing that agility, we are able to save on food. People save on how much they spend. But it's also very important to not make it be a loss for what food could be good for other people. So I love that concept. I think it's super noble. And Michelle, I do have a question is, how are you able to market savings through Marty and with the things you sell without making the brand feel like a discount or a clearance outlet?

5:50Because I imagine there must be like a fine line between making it feel like it's, we just want to get rid of this versus you should buy this because it's better. Yeah, well, you know, and it's an important distinction too, is that really how when we started, it was more of this, we have inventory that we don't know what to do with. We want to move through it quickly. And that is 100 % still the case with what we're doing. But there's been a shift in that brands actually now want to work with us because of the type of branding opportunities that there are working with Marty. So we've kind of shifted, we flipped the script a little bit on what is like liquidation, closeout, overstock, excess, you name it.

6:30We've taken the concept of it, which does have kind of a dirty, nuanced feel to it. And we flipped the script and we've made it, hey, let's be proud of not only the product, but use this as an opportunity to get in front of our hundreds of thousands of customers that are eager to learn about new brands. So, you know, we can say, look, here are the brands that we offer at Marty. These are the brands that you'll be featured with. And so in a lot of ways, when the brands that are coming to us come to us, they see the other brands that we have. They see these, you know, more premium gourmet specialty items that are on the site.

7:05And they say, hey, I want to be looped in with those. So it's actually it's brand protection, but it's also brand awareness. And it's like I imagine a brand sees all these other bigger brands there and it's kind of like why am I not pictured in the Marty catalog with my things as well. I love that. I love that. Okay. Okay. And Michelle, has it been hard getting customers to trust Marty when you guys are selling all these discounted products, knowing like the consumer knowing where it comes from? Has it been an issue like getting them to trust Marty completely or were they very on board since the beginning?

7:41That hasn't been an issue for us. And the reason for that is because we stand behind what we sell. So not only are we working with reputable brands, we also are really confident in what we're selling because of these reputable brands. This isn't a place to just kind of move through some inventory and look the other way. This really is an opportunity to get brands in front of the customers. So to directly answer your question, we really haven't had that as an issue. And we've got a customer service, we have a customer support team on staff all days of the week. So if anyone actually has a problem, they by all means can reach out to us and we've got somebody standing by to help.

8:21And so from a reputability perspective, that also has really helped us stay in front of any of those types of issues. So it honestly, Andres, it really hasn't been a problem for us. That's beautiful. And I imagine it must not be when a company such as Marty is doing things right. Then why would there be a reason to not trust you guys? this trust only comes when the confidence is broken. And if that hasn't happened, then that is an excellent spot to be with all of your consumers. So that is great. Because we're a, you know, direct to consumer company, and we're digital first, there's so many opportunities that we have right in front of us to make everything right from the beginning and to create moments of trust.

9:02For example, when when somebody places an order, and you know, they, of course, they're getting tracking information, they're getting emails and SMS messages updated with, you know, tracking information, et cetera, et cetera. But when we know that the, that you've received your order, because we know that FedEx dropped off the box at your front step, we've got the photo, you guys have the photo. We send a text message, just checking in, making sure that everything was right. We try to integrate those types of moments everywhere throughout the customer journey. And so it's, but it's the little things, it's the little things, right?

9:36And so we'll get people, you know, regular customers that respond back and they're like, thanks for checking in, Anna. Everything's all good in this order. Or, you know, sometimes, hey, actually this, you know, bag of chips is busted. And we're like, oh my gosh, we'll make that right right away. You know, like little things that we're able to work with our customers on just right in the moment when they need us. Of course, it's all in the details. And being so on top of things with your consumers, it really does make them feel as special as they are. But sometimes consumers can be, they can feel that they're not being taken care of after they actually purchased the thing.

10:13So you being on with them the whole journey, it speaks a lot to how Marty works and the brand they want to be. So that is super cool. That is super cool. And Michelle, in terms of the marketing channels you guys use, do you have any marketing channel that is predominantly better or that is working best for the company right now? Or do you just have like the usual ones, social platforms and like television, radio? I'm not sure. From a marketing perspective, we're all at a stage right now, especially in Q4, where we need all of our channels to be working strongly for us. And that's where the money is going to go from a paid perspective.

10:47The way that we like to think about it is we've got our regulars, the paid social, working with Google, kind of more the standard ones that you can imagine. And then we always like to allocate a percentage of our marketing budget to kind of more testing things. So if it's working with a new influencer or, you know, working with a new affiliate that we can kind of like do a rev share model on or something like that, or kind of latching on to a PR, an exciting PR endeavor. So we're always like on a monthly basis where we're kind of like, OK, here's what we know, continue doing what we know. And then where are we testing boundaries to see what tactics we can find that are new that we can start integrating into kind of our tried into true methods?

11:30OK. And could you share some light into what you've tested that has worked out that you were like, oh, my God, I didn't expect this to work. And it's amazing. Let's keep doing this. Did you have have you had that situation occur? Yeah, you know, I think one of the big unlocks has been how we use our different channels. For example, like, you know, creating content for our ad channels can be really challenging. But we found a couple of services that allow for us to create content that resonates very, very quickly. For us, we know that with over 1500 products on the site at any given moment, it's really hard to see them all.

12:09What we've started to do is done some really creative dynamic product ads. And so we're able to surface up like creatively a bunch of different products so people can see them in a way that resonates. And we're able to change them very, very quickly to stay up with algorithm. So it's not necessarily the, you know, huge, big unlocks and completely new channels. while we are testing a bunch of different things as well. I think the big unlock is how to make a channel better and better and better and better instead of letting it kind of fatigue. You have to stay on top of it. It's true. And I've seen this with a lot of companies I've talked to and it's been like people think email marketing is dead.

12:51But if you do it properly and you have a different approach to it, then it's extremely effective. And therefore, it's all about how you use those channels that we all know which they are, but the most important part is differentiating yourself in the use case that you give it. So I totally get that as well. Okay. And Michelle, you did mention, and we said it as a joke, but I would love to know is how Marty is leveraging AI to help you guys with your processes? I'm not sure if you have a new way that you maybe are using AI, but it's a turning topic at the moment. So I got to ask. Of course, of course.

13:24It's the hottest topic out there. For Marty, you know, we're so... invested in AI in particular use cases. You know, I think as at an individual level and in an organizational level within, within Marty, people are using AI all the time, right? And where we're integrating AI, where it makes sense to help with copy or spur some new ideas, et cetera, et cetera. But from a way more important perspective, AI is actually our foundation of our bidding tool. And when I say our bidding tool, this is our, it's basically the full logistics management system that we're running our business off of, which is how we're communicating with our vendors, how the system, like how we know what products we need more of, what we need less of, where we're going from a future perspective.

14:16It's making our logistics truly, truly seamless. So we're using AI as a technological platform is actually fueling everything that we're doing that's making our business operations move so quickly. And when I say quickly, our speed is really where we're the most dangerous, if you will, in a positive way. we were able to if we have a conversation with a with a brand or with a vendor we're able to cut a po that day pick up within 48 hours and have product on the site within honestly within days of even cutting a po and the reason that we're able to move that fast is through our platform that that we've built you know that's that's completely marty marty technology so and and we We're on Shopify.

15:03Klaviyo is our email system. So we've built this stack of technology that actually integrates into everything that we're doing super seamlessly. Wow, that is amazing. And I love how you're mentioning then that AI is helping you do the, I want to say dirty work, but it's more like the behind the scenes work of understanding when inventory of this product is low, when you got to ask for a new shipment of that product, or if you got to go look for something else. And I feel that's where AI is helping out companies the most. And it's in those mundane, monotonous tasks that don't require a lot of, I want to say, professional insight in how the email is written or what you're exactly saying.

15:44It's just measuring something, knowing that it got to a certain level and providing a warning or flagging this to a human. And then the company can act on it appropriately. Yeah, it's the secret sauce, I would say, because it makes us really powerful, especially as a small team, to be able to, again, move really quickly because that's really where we can shine. Okay. And Michelle, you actually touched another point that I wanted to ask about, and it is in terms of your team. I know you mentioned that Marty just went nationwide in the States right now, so you're catering to all States. Yeah, a couple of years ago we did.

16:23so yeah we so we've got about a couple two years in in uh you know the full country and being and being a nationwide company like how big is the marty team since you just mentioned it's small are you guys working remote to just have everybody in each time zone or how does that work a little bit a little bit we have people across the country san francisco we're in la we're in seattle we're in Atlanta, we're in Jersey, our warehouse is in Texas. But to your point, it actually makes us a lot more powerful because we're both in all types of communications. We're able to, you know, somebody's always online.

17:00Let's put it that way. But no, we do. We have a small team and we're able to accomplish a lot. And a lot of that has to do with the technology that we have at our disposal. You know, we're obviously smart people doing the best we can, but we also know how the systems work and know how the systems play together and we move fast. So it's a small, it's a very small and nimble team. And the way that we're structured, especially as a remote company, you know, makes us able to shift quickly as we need to. So the company has gone through different iterations of what the product mix looks like. You know, foundationally, we're the same.

17:39The brand is the same. The message is the same. The mission is the same. But every single day, the website is different, meaning products are going in and out of stock every day and that new products are getting added to the site every day. So technically, the site is different every single day. You guys got to get Sonic as your mascot with everything being so fast. Oh, my goodness. Yeah, exactly. And Michelle, any plans from Marty to expand beyond the States? Is that something that you guys may have in your in your planning for the next five years, for example? And this is just me asking because I feel you have an excellent system that you've been able to build out that I'm not sure if you guys want to export to other countries and try to do the same thing because saving food, helping people save money and just making sure nothing is lost.

18:28I feel it's a very universal concept. So it could apply anyway. Those are values that are not solely American. That is true. Everybody wants that. Everybody wants that. I can't speak to that one at the moment, but anything is possible. But you're right. You're right. The issues that we're working with, you know, overstock, people wanting to save money, reducing food waste, all of those things, those can be applied globally. So we'll see. We'll see where the future takes us. Okay. And Michelle, I know you can't speak a lot to what's going to happen in five years, but in a marketing perspective, what do you believe or could you tell me what is your number one priority for the next 12 months?

19:11Yeah. I mean, I think we can break everything down into two different buckets, really. And this is not novel, but acquisition and retention. We want to bring people in and then we want to keep them. And the way that we feel very strongly that we'll be able to keep people is through this obsession with the customer. And what I mean by that is going really, really deep with our customers and using technology to help personalize. these are like there's a lot of buzzwords that i'm using right like customer obsessed personalization etc but it's true if we can from a messaging perspective be where our customers are with the products that they need because we know what they've bought before it's a home brand so for us we're really everything that we're doing is is is really around this discovering new brands at Marty, hunting for new deals at Marty, and then really about how we can recommend products that you actually want.

20:09So isn't it cool to know that Andres, you really love American snacks. Let's say you're also vegan and you're gluten-free. You know, these are all things that we know about you. So why can't we just help tailor some carts and make them specifically for you, meet you where you are. Let's say, you know, Tuesdays at 3 p.m. you generally like to place your Marty purchases or, you know, when when when we bring something onto the site that we think Andres would like, how can we actually say, hey, Andres, we just launched this thing. We know that you'd love it. And so so for us, it's really a big opportunity to to to use our inventory and our messaging a lot smarter and to connect those dots better.

20:53So for us, that'll be that's a big initiative really from a retention perspective. And then things like that pay for themselves and word of mouth. What you're mentioning in the personalization of the carts that you can get and make for people, that is something that is beginning to happen here in Argentina with like the main chains of grocery stores or delivery apps. But being able to tailor and know the cadence that your customer has every Tuesday, they submit their purchase because these are groceries and it's things they need to buy all the time. if you're able to to breach it's like what's called to bridge that gap with them and be able to suggest stuff that's just amazing like i'm hearing it out from the marty side from what you're telling me and i'm like i would love that if it were specifically tailored for me it would be beautiful like oh my god makes sense right totally totally and that really is like the best way to get somebody to tell their friend like dude they just uh recommended me to buy this and and and it tastes great go try out marty and you'll see that you'll get recommendations from what you like and i think that is the most honest organic and authentic way of marketing because word of mouth is like the best voucher you can get for your brand yeah absolutely and and we we firmly believe that we can help our customers not only save money but have fun in the process so so we're here to help one help them with that i love that and michelle have you have you felt the the like have you felt that you've needed to fight with mainstream i want to say mainstream because like the legacy brand grocery stores and stuff.

22:23Have you had to fight for customers' attention or is Marty's proposal so different that it just stands out by itself and people choose Marty because of what you guys represent and that's it? Yeah, you know, I think we'd be daft to realize that, you know, if you need white rice for dinner tonight, going to Marty is not going to help you. We are not a 15-minute grocery delivery service. We are a deal discovery platform that sells groceries, beauty, and household goods. That being said, it is not an instantaneous, you know, we ship out of our warehouse within a day. I mean, it's fast. It is a fast process, but it's also we have to differentiate ourselves from Instacart or GoPuff or DoorDash.

23:04We are not at your door in 15 minutes. But because of that, you can save money. So when you plan ahead a bit and say, okay, it's Monday, I need, you know, for this weekend, what are the things I need for this weekend or something like that? And and then you can actually save money that way. We we love our opportunity to say, you know, you can shop shop with Marty, shop Marty first. You can save money with Marty and then go buy your produce at your local farmer's market. You know, your your your local grocery store. Like we don't sell eggs. We don't sell butter lettuce. You know, like you still you still need to go to other places to really finish, you know, your full cart experience for all the food that your family would eat.

23:45But if you if you plan in advance and I'm not talking about weeks in advance, you can just like hop on and say, here are some things that I know that I need, then we can promise you savings. OK, so I just feel Marty isn't the perfect place for a procrastinator. You got to be a bit organized and know and in preparation, ask for stuff, because if not, the experience might not be the best. Yes. And the the there's also if it's something that you truly, truly need, then then, yes, that's not the best the best use. You know, again, the white rice example, if you need white rice for dinner tonight, Marty is not your answer.

24:20But if you are on Marty and you find a bunch of stuff that you might not necessarily need right now, but well, it's this it's you know, it only costs this much. Therefore, I'm just going to buy it. For example, I just placed, you know, an order I just placed, I got some of the compostable sponges. I don't need them tomorrow because I have more in the, you know, under my sink, but now I have access to more. And so like, you know, because it was just such a great deal, I know I'm going to need them eventually. So we play both ways. You know, it's sometimes the things that you want, the things that you need.

24:57And again, not instantaneous, but quickly. And Michelle, I know we're almost at time, but I did want to give you the chance before we finish the episode to let anybody in the audience who's in the States right now, let them know how they can check out Marty's catalog, how they can order from you guys if they want to just know more about the company. Absolutely. Well, I tell you what, I'm going to show you the app. We've got a couple of things here I want to point out. So one, you can download the app. We're loading new products onto the site every single day. App notifications go out every day.

25:32So once you have the app, you can really easily just stay on top of what's new. Otherwise, you can go to martie.com, M-A-R-T-I-E.com. And a couple of things to point out, this section right here just landed. This is where you get to see all of the new products that are on the site from today. And so you can see we have a full, you know, we've got snacks. We've got pantry staples like tomatoes and all sorts of good stuff. I'm also going to go where we've launched a program with our vendors where you can claim free gifts. So we're it's kind of like a sampling program for some of our vendors. So they can actually provide products to us.

26:12We can offer them to our customers for free. So, hey, just throw this in your in your bag. We got you covered while we still have inventory of it. And and yeah, you can shop the site that way. There's no subscriptions. There's no memberships. You kind of just shop what you want and then we'll ship it to you. Okay. That is so useful. And I love the sample and the gifts. It made me feel like the digitalization of those little stations at the supermarket where they give you a little sample. But it's in the app. Exactly. Yeah. So you can get a free product while you're there. And then, of course, everything else on this site is up to 80 % off.