🏆 SHOPIFY 1% WINS: Start Thinking Like a Publisher, Not an Ecommerce Store

0:00OmniSend just shipped something that I've always wanted. You can now connect OmniSend to ChatGPT or Claude and just say, where can my email and SMS campaigns be making more money? And it actually figures it out. It reads your store data, all your campaign details, your store history, and it tells you and the insights are legit good. And even better, you can then say, okay, let's fix that or build that campaign. And it actually does it right from your chat. It's wild. Now, if you're one of our listeners, you can get 30 % off for three months on OmniSend. Just go to the show notes. There's a link there.

0:31Or you can just use the code J30, J-A-Y-3-0 when you sign up. Now, if you're using another email and SMS platform and you want to switch to OmniSend, which is a great idea, they will do the migration for you. Just give them five days and then you show up with everything set, ready to go. Now, they've migrated thousands of stores from Klaviyo. And on average, they're saving 35 % on their email and SMS bills. If you're listening to this show, you clearly care about your Shopify business. If your store isn't backed up and protected, it could all be for nothing. That's why I tell every store owner I know who cares about their business, you 100 % need Rewind installed.

1:07It's a non-negotiable for me. One bad CSV import, one app that edits your store the wrong way, which has happened to basically everyone I know. One bulk edit gone wrong, and now AI making changes for you. Listen, Shopify does not have an undo button. Rewind is the undo button. Go to shopify1percent.com slash rewind for 30 days free on us. Links in the show notes too. So the other day I was driving with my wife and she asked me, hey, what'd you talk about with your 1 %ers today? And I thought, huh, what a great way to refer to people in our community. The show is the 1 % Shopify 1 % podcast. We're all focused on helping brands increase, make changes that make a 1 % impact.

2:01And so I just loved this concept of the 1 %ers. So if it's okay with you, I'm going to start referring to you as my 1 %ers. I love it. I absolutely love it. I think, you know, how we see ourselves and the labels we give ourselves make a huge impact in life. And, you know, if you if you call yourself a loser or something else, I think that makes an impact. And I think if you call yourself some kind of like an achiever, your inner voice, I think it makes a huge impact, too. And so I love one percenter. I'm a one percenter. You're a one percenter. If you're listening to this, you're a one percenter.

2:37You're focused on making one percent impacts to grow your Shopify business. So I'm actually going to get T-shirts made one percenters and I'm going to send them every single person that leaves a five star review for this podcast with a comment. is going to get a 1 %er t-shirt. So if you leave a review, let me know. Email me, jay, J-A-Y, at Shopify 1%. So that's Shopify, the number one, and then percent spelt out. Shopify1%.com. Jay at Shopify1%.com. I don't mind giving everyone my email. Email me and let me know. And I will send you a 1 %er t-shirt. I just love the concept. So welcome, 1 %ers.

3:16on the thread of 1%, I've been kind of referring to these as daily shorts. We're changing this. These are going to be 1 % wins. So each day I'm going to share a 1 % win. Let's just cut right to the chase. These are meaningful bits of advice that can make at least a 1 % impact in your business. And when you improve 1 % every day for a year, you at the end of the year have improved 3 ,700%. So today's 1 % win is here's a thought for you. You're not a store. You're a media company. And it's what you're actually selling is not products. You're selling attention. And I think this needs to be a big mind mindset shift for a lot of brands is they think they're selling their products they're talking about their products they're promoting their advertising their products product product sale discount promotion everything's about the product but you're actually not a product company you're a publishing company that sells products and if you look at the best brands out there they are all publishers they are on now we're gonna get into a little bit of what does it mean to be a publisher but they are putting content out into the world and they have an amazing product.

4:40Now you need to be selling your products, but you need to be a publishing company first. I'm going to say it first. You need to be a publishing company first than a product company. There's the world has enough product companies out there. I mean, Amazon has a version of every single product. They're a product company. People just go straight there to find a product. If you want to win, you need to be a publishing company. And actually, there's a lot of data around this, too. And so actually I did a little bit of research before this. 47 % of people that buy a product online consume or view five pieces of content before making a purchase.

5:18I mean, so it's part of the journey. They don't just go to your store and buy. Amazon might be a little bit different. And actually, I would argue that Amazon, it might be similar, too, because they still view the content. but they end up clicking an affiliate link, you know, top 10 camping stoves. Those are publishing. It's just not Amazon doing the publishing. It's the affiliates or the brands who are selling on Amazon. So, you know, content is so important for so many reasons. It's good for SEO. It's good for building relationship. It helps you rank. It's evergreen content. And it's just, and it has compounding returns, right?

5:53So when you put content out into the world, it's not just one and done. that content can bring you returns for a long, long time. So what does this look like? What does this mean to be a publisher? If you, if you believe what I'm saying and you say, okay, I want to be a publisher first. It's actually not as hard as you think. There's a lot of ways you can go about this. Some of it, one is blog content. I actually think blogs are one of the more underutilized tools right now for content. You know, we, we went through that craze, I guess, I don't know, maybe craze, but like in the early 2000s where everyone had a blog and now everyone has like a social profile and there's different ways you have your audience.

6:36But you remember when everyone had a blog and there was, and the comments on the blogs were super active. It's not that way anyway, anymore for sure. But blogs are very easy to produce and great for SEO and great for keeping your site updated. Google cares about how recently updated your site is. And blogs can be really easy to create. They are, you can just take, actually I'm going to talk about this in a little second, but I'll just mention it now. One of the things I love is take one customer question every week and then turn it into a blog post. So some question that a customer emailed you about or was asked on social media, turn that question into a full fledged blog post, make sure it's SEO optimized for your product or your niche.

7:20and then boom, you've got a blog post. And you can use ChatGPT for this. You can take a support ticket that a customer asks with your answer, put it into ChatGPT, ask it to create a 300 to 500 word blog post with key points and break out the steps, keyword optimized for your topic and boom, you've got a blog post. Now, I would not just copy and paste it. I would use that as a starting point and then go in and modify it and edit it a bit and make it, you know, you can get good at this. Definitely don't copy and paste it, modify it first, but use it as a starting point. Okay. Blog content, social media, social media is a great way to entertain, inspire, educate your customers and just really engage with them.

8:05Emails and newsletters, another way to publish. You own the channel when you have emails and newsletters. Podcasts are great and guest appearances on podcasts. You don't have to host a podcast. You can get on podcasts. it's easier than you think. We'll talk a little bit about it. PR, press coverage. I think this is another huge underutilized area. We think that press releases are only for big companies, but if you have something to say, if you are, have an opinion on something in your space, like if the product you built is solving a new problem, or if you're approaching in a certain way, or selling in a certain way.

8:42If you're doing a neat thing, like maybe you sell shoes, but for every pair of shoes bought, you donate a pair of shoes to a kid at school. Like if there's something you have to talk about, leverage PR firms. And there are ones out there that actually don't cost a lot. I know sometimes there's ones that can be very expensive. There's a couple that I know that are relatively inexpensive and I'll put a couple of links in the show notes. But it's amazing. One good press coverage, the impact that can make to your brand is huge. Now, people may or may not read all of them, but you get to use the logo on your site.

9:20You get to add it to your title, your LinkedIn. Like if you get one Forbes article or one Glossier article or something that is in your niche, you can now forever say like you can have that in your title. You can have the logo on your website and it's huge. another type of publishing is founder stories behind the scenes content you know like a lot of a brand that does this really well is midday squares they're they are oh man i was talking to one of the founders and they said they have it was something like 20 terabytes of video footage they literally just film everything every day in the factory making the bars in their offices they film everything and then they turn they have a team that just turns it into content for social media it's like all behind the scenes type material and it's done fantastic for them they've blown up and they're in costco and target and they're everywhere but they were a publishing company not a energy bar company they're a publishing company it's so important to understand what people will always say like well how did they beat all these other you know midday i shouldn't say energy bar they wouldn't want it called that they're like it's not like an energy bar they're a health health anyways I'm not I'm not on their marketing team but you get the point but they are not competing against like the the material that it's made out of and the features and all that they're a publishing company they're building an audience okay so why do most brands not do this if we know that it's important to do and we okay yeah I look at all the top brands like that yes they were they're publishing companies first why are they not doing it well we all say I don't have time I don't know what to say I'm not good on camera well you know what neither were any of these companies none of them had time either none of them were good on camera and none of them probably knew what to say when they started so and in fact I would say being really good on camera is actually not important at all I think authenticity is what matters and I would not worry at all about how good of quality equipment you have.

11:25I think just be authentic, be you, make time for it. There is no such thing as not finding time. It's, you can say, I'm not prioritizing that now. But if you ever find those words, this is a little side note. If you ever find the words saying, oh, I don't have the time, stop saying that. Because that is not an empowering way of talking. Say, I'm not prioritizing that right now. and that's the truth and I think we need to you know we speak truth about how we are making decisions and it's it's stressful and you can feel like even when I when I say to myself oh I don't have the time I'm where can I find the time I start to feel this like tightness in my chest and that's because that's not an empowering way of looking at the world that's like saying I have no control the world is in control it moves the power into outside forces versus inside versus if I say, I'm not prioritizing that right now.

12:23I could do it. I'm just, I'm not prioritizing it. So anyway, just a little side note. If you ever find yourself saying, I don't have the time, change your language to, I'm not prioritizing that right now. And you'll see how you look at things differently. And it's true. You're not prioritizing it right now. So you have the time. You're just, you're not prioritizing it right now. So, okay, let's get into a few things that you can do. I would say if you're bought into this, choose one platform that you can commit to for 30 days to put content into that can be instagram reels linkedin tiktok blog post just show up every day for 30 days or some cadence don't don't just post when you say i'm gonna commit to this for the every 30 days and post when i feel like it no say i'm gonna do it every second day or i'm gonna do three a week monday Wednesday, Friday, and stick to that.

13:13I honestly would try to do more, but it's important to be consistent for at least 30 days and one platform. Don't try to do them all. Don't try to create content and then put it on every platform. Just pick one, just pick, pick one and go in on it for 30 days. Simple. Okay. If you're not sure what to do, I honestly would do the founders, the founder story or the founders journal founders um just talk about what you're working on talk about your challenges talk about your company your team your why your vision your mission your product why you started it just why you build it why you love this company why you why you care about it like just everything like talk about your story and break it into pieces each day there's definitely lots more you can talk about it but i'm just saying if you don't know what to talk about if you're like, great, I want to do this every day for 30 days.

14:03I don't know what to talk about. Just start with your founders, like call it a founder's journal. One other thing I would probably do is I would in the next 30 days set a goal to pitch yourself to three podcasts. Find podcasts in your niche. Make sure you listen to a number of their episodes, which you probably do already and you should be doing. Make sure you understand the format and style. Reach out to the host. Most hosts are very receptive and often they're looking for guests and explain that you love their show. You've been listening to it for a while. Which episode is your favorite one?

14:39You love the episode with John from this company. Express that I think I would have a lot to offer as a guest on this show. I've taken a unique approach to X marketing strategy or I've done this on my website or I've figured out a really great way to grow my audience through this channel. but give something because like remember these podcast hosts they want to give their audience valuable insights so you don't just say I love your show I've been I've been a listener and I would I'd love to be a guest that'll just get deleted trust me I get a dozen of those emails every I don't know every and not quite a dozen a day I'm getting about six a day and there's a lot of people looking to get on podcast so it doesn't take much to cut through it a little bit if you really want to take a step up, you could create a one pager PDF with your headshot, a short bio, your accomplishments, your brand, your, your story, what you're passionate about, a few key things that you want to dive into on the show.

15:41And, you know, some recent media that you've been mentioned in, like other, other podcasts you've been on, news articles, YouTube videos, webinars, anything like that. I love that. When I get those from potential guests, they're like, here's everything here's what I want to talk about here's other appearances I've been on that will put you in the top one percent of uh of people asking to be on a podcast so reach out to three just to make that your goal reach out to three podcasts and with a little bit of a strategy getting on uh that's a that's publishing right and then on your on on the blog and I mentioned this earlier but I had a note here to mention again so I'll just say like there's a lot you can blog about but I do think one of the best things is what customers are asking and not only because it's interesting to customers like if a customer support tech is about a certain thing it's also probably inherently very SEO friendly like a question people go to google with questions so I don't know let's just say you sell a camping stove and if someone asks the camping that asks you in an email what is the best way to start this camping stove in the fire if in the rain or is this camping stove safe if there is a fire ban on actually right now that's happening where i live there's been some wildfires so we can't have a fire when we're camping and so there's some camping stoves that are maybe considered safe and some that aren't and some of them have anyways so like Like that's a question I would go to Google with.

17:16And now if you have a blog post that is all about that question, it will rank first. So easy to do. So it's so, so easy. So that's just a great idea if you want to turn some of the, if you're looking for content for your blog. So, okay, I could go on about this. I know I went a little bit longer than I wanted to, but I think this is a really important one. If you make that mindset shift that you're not a product company, you're a publishing company, I promise you this will be much more than a 1 % win. So and it's true today that the best brands are publishing companies, but it's going to be even more true tomorrow, especially with potentially AI becoming a big way that people buy.

18:02Like people are going to AI, they're asking it for recommendations on sunglasses to wear and certain things like your website and how good it looks and all that is will probably become less important and how you engage with the world through your publishing channels will be even more critical and so it's important now but it's going to be even more important in the next few years to come so you know the product gets you the transaction you you have the product for that but your content, your publishing strategy, it gets you the relationship and there's no purchase without that. So that's my challenge for you today.

18:45You are a publishing company, not a product company. I'm not going to make you say it with me, but say it in your head. Okay. And believe it. And now go out, pick a couple of those strategies we talked about. And there is your 1 % win for today. Thanks for listening and I'll see you on the next episode. These have been so much fun. And just real quick, if you got your phone in your hand or on your computer, hit subscribe. And I would love it if you left a five star review. We are really trying to get as many as we can. And if you leave a comment with it, we feature it on our website and email me.

19:18Like I said at the beginning of the show, J-A-Y-J at Shopify1percent.com. Email me, let me know, and I will send you one of our new one percenter t-shirts or hats we're probably gonna have a few different things so thanks so much everyone see you next week