Your Digital Marketing Coach with Neal Schaffer

Sweet Success: A French Macaron Maker's Rise to SEO Mastery

• Neal Schaffer • Episode 357

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In today's episode,  we have an incredible guest who embodies the entrepreneurial spirit and digital savvy - Anthony Rosemond. Anthony, originally from France, took the bold step with his wife to open an online macaron shop in the US, crafting a delectable niche in the competitive world of French pastries.

Anthony will delve into their journey from farmers markets to building a robust online presence, revealing how focusing on non-branded keywords and constructing a valuable content library can elevate your SEO game. We'll uncover the tactics they used to rank for "macarons near me," the strategic use of the SEO tool SEMrush, and how they crafted authentic blog posts that responded directly to their customers' curiosities.

We'll also touch on the synergistic role of social media, especially Instagram, and how their organic growth to 100,000 followers fueled both brand legitimacy and business growth - including virtual classes that became a sensation during COVID.

Anthony also plans to share insights on transitioning their marketing efforts to target corporate events and gifting. We'll even get a sneak peek into their success with email marketing, the importance of non-discount promotions, and a fascinating shift from B2C to B2B.

So get ready to be inspired and learn how to sweeten your digital marketing strategy with the insights from Anthony Rosemond's journey from in-person sales to dominating the online French pastry market. Don't go anywhere, because this episode will be as insightful as it is flavorful!

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Speaker 1:

SEO. It's the acronym that can mystify and even intimidate. But what if I told you that there is a secret recipe to ranking success that doesn't solely rely on your brand's name recognition? That's right. We are unfolding the layers of non-branded SEO and how a little savoir faire in content creation can have your website climbing the search engine ranks From French Macron to the digital search of a storefront. Our guest Anthony Roseman's story is as rich and colorful as his delicious pastries. He's here to share insights on building a content library that not only ranks but entices and converts, prepare to satisfy your marketing cravings with a taste of SEO success. So stay tuned to this next episode of the your Digital Marketing Coach podcast.

Speaker 2:

Digital social media content, influencer marketing, blogging, podcasting, vlogging, tiktok, linkedin, twitter, facebook, instagram, youtube, seo, sem, ppc, email marketing there's a lot to cover. Whether you're a marketing professional, entrepreneur or business owner, you need someone you can rely on for expert advice. Good thing you've got Neil on your side, because Neil Schaefer is your digital marketing coach helping you grow your business with digital. First marketing, one episode at a time. This is your digital marketing coach and this is Neil Schaefer.

Speaker 1:

Hey everybody, this is Neil Schaefer, your digital marketing coach. Welcome to episode number 357. Before we get to today's interview with my special guest, anthony Rosemont parlez-vous français? It's time for a personal update on the book. This podcast interview actually comes from writing my book.

Speaker 1:

I have a chapter dedicated to this concept of creating a library of content and when I was looking for case studies that I could use to prove my concept, I happened to run across this case study on the SEMrush, or SEMrush website that featured this maker of macarons, who actually is just an hour outside of me in Los Angeles. It's a really amazing story and I think you'll hear the results he got were amazing as well. Yes, this is being repurposed to be a case study in a chapter in my book. I know that my book still does not have a name. It does. I haven't yet revealed it to the public but I continue to proceed forward right now, continue to be in project management mode, dealing with trying to get a book cover to fit my concept a little bit better and also dealing with the creation of book illustrations, also making progress on my workbook, which will be a companion workbook for this book the first time I've ever done it, but I think, as an educator and wanting you to really internalize and get started on everything I teach in the book, I thought that would be a great way to do that. So stay tuned for those updates.

Speaker 1:

And we also have our AI tool of the week. I like introducing these to you. There's still so much technology out there that has evolved over the last year and you don't want to wait for the current tool that you're using to start having AI functionality. Not every tool has AI functionality, and even some that do, it's not really a lot of added value. You might be able to get the same thing in a chat GPT or a Google Gemini. Now, today I want to introduce to you a tool that you've heard me talk about before in this podcast. Disclaimer I am a ambassador or I should say brand ambassador for this brand and for this product, but that is in no way influencing my introducing this tool to you.

Speaker 1:

The tool is Adobe Express. Now we know that, in terms of just easy to use graphic tools for social media, the five letter tool that begins in the letter C was first to market. But, like many other tools that, let me ask you do you still use tweet deck to manage your social media. Do you still use Hootsuite to manage your social media? I think over time, new tools come out, they emerge and they are often better. Thinking of what functionality do the current gorillas in the market lack? Now Adobe I believe I said the same approach with Adobe Express.

Speaker 1:

I used to be called Adobe Spark, so they've been doing it for a few years and now they've come to a point with infusing it with AI and really easy to use user interface with tons of attractive templates. I urge you, if you haven't done so before, go to Neal Schaefercom slash Adobe Express. Yes, it's an affiliate link. It helps support the production of the show, but you can try Adobe Express basically for free, for lifetime. They have a limited free lifetime version. Check it out. I think the user interface will be a pleasant surprise In terms of AI functionality.

Speaker 1:

It uses the Adobe Firefly AI engine. It also uses the same sort of generative AI fill. So with one touch, with one click, you can remove the background from an image and then you can have a text prompt and ask Adobe Express to basically fill in the background with any image that you want. This is the same AI generative fill that Photoshop uses. That is available in Adobe Express as well. Obviously, there's AI resizing of images, there is AI translation of captions in your image and, in fact, if you were to see a video that I did some time ago, I actually showed how to do, basically in a minute, use text to image, edit the text and then immediately create like five different variations for five different social networks, and then each one of those in five different languages. Pretty freaking incredible. So go to nealshafercom, slash Adobe Express. We will have the link in the show notes as well.

Speaker 1:

All right, now it's time for this interview, which I truly enjoyed. This is with my French friend, the macaron maker himself, anthony Rosemont. Makes you a stick to the end. It was a great interview. Hey everybody, neil Schaefer, welcome to another live stream edition of the your Digital Marketing Coach podcast.

Speaker 1:

As I continue my pursuit of writing my fifth book, which I hope becomes a definitive digital marketing playbook for a new generation of entrepreneurs and business owners, I am scouring the web looking for case studies that fit the vision that I have for my book, that fit what I want to teach others to do, and in doing that research I come across a lot of really, really interesting businesses doing a lot of interesting things. So today I'm going to introduce you one of those small business owners who has had major impact in something that might surprise you. It surprised me because when you think of French pastries, macarons specifically, you might think that Instagram or perhaps TikTok, is a place where you can generate a lot of demand for your business. And it is right, and I know that our guest today is also active, at least on Instagram, but I didn't check the TikTok. But SEO is also a place where this owner decided to make a big investment and I think it's going to be a really, really interesting story and hopefully really inspire you, because this gentleman, you know, with his wife and family, moved from France to the United States to open up an online macaron shop. There's going to be a lot more behind the story, so I can't wait to get into it.

Speaker 1:

Anthony Roseman, the founder and owner or co-owner of Pastries, welcome to the show. Yes, hi, thanks for having me. It's so great to have you and obviously I read about you through your case study on SEMrush, but it mentioned that you went all the way from France, the United States, to open up this shop. Can you maybe start with? What was that vision? What was that dream? Why did you come thousands of miles to this foreign country to do what you're doing now?

Speaker 3:

So, yeah, my wife and I, we both had patience for baking and entrepreneurship together, so we decided to leave everything in France to the US, back in 2017 now, and the idea was to build an online store about French pastries, and in the beginning, we didn't know much. You know that what would be a good impact for the market in the US Like what kind of French pastry do you guys like? So we just, you know, bring a lot of different things to the table, and the macarons were the most popular ones, so that's why we focused on this one first, and that's kind of how we all started to put a long story short, you know.

Speaker 1:

So what made you? Were you already doing this? In France? You already had a pastry shop, and then you decided to take it, or no, no, no, no, I'm an engineer originally.

Speaker 2:

Oh, wow.

Speaker 3:

I was a manager in the, I would say, the Edison of France, managing some teams, operational manager, and my wife was a human resource. So we traveled quite a lot. We did three years in the French West Indies, which was, you know, in the Caribbean, and we did a couple years as well in the Grand Yone Island, which is in the Indian Ocean next to Madagascar.

Speaker 2:

So at some point.

Speaker 3:

We really wanted to do our own stuff, and so we had this discussion. You know what do we like to do.

Speaker 2:

For me.

Speaker 3:

I like, of course, baking, but I also like you know, every like, every aspect of the online stuff. Like you know, digital marketing, building a brand online all that is things that I really love to do, and she was really interested into this idea. So we, we just, you know, we just left everything and decided to try.

Speaker 1:

Were you a trained chef in French pastries before you started Before no, we just had that patient.

Speaker 3:

You know doing that at home. Okay, so before to actually leave, what we did is we had Le Corgogne in Paris. It's like an intensive pastry program where you learn like one pastry every day and that's what we did. You know to kind of have. You know you have the passion part that you do at home but you need to do like a professionally trained just to see you know kind of the secrets for the recipe to put them in In huge batch as well. So that was, that was a good experience. You know the Corgogne in Paris. So we did that before to leave so we can have like a professional background as well.

Speaker 1:

Got it. So you went from there, came to the United States with the concept of French pastries, not knowing what people would like, and you landed upon the macaron. Was there a a process where you test selling different products to find that? Was it market research or how did you? How did you hone in on the macaron as your main product?

Speaker 3:

Yeah, yeah, so the first time when we arrived. So we arrived in February 2017 and, you know, three months, very simple. We were in the Airbnb and, just, you know, with two luggage, starting from scratch, and before to start selling anything, I wanted to find the product market fit. So the idea was to get feedbacks. You know, at some point we didn't have a product, we didn't have a business. I wanted to to know what, what do people like here? And if there is a fit, you know, for our product to the market.

Speaker 3:

So what we did is we went on to the app called Mita and what we were doing is like offering free pastries samples, like different kind of French pastries, so it was like macaron, it was different kind of cakes, pies and all that. And we will just go to these meetings and just share with them these pastries and get, like you know, for free and get feedbacks in exchange. And that's how we kind of ended up in a, in a group of pregnant women with twins. So it was like twins, pregnant women. That was kind of fun because, you know, we were not pregnant at all, but it's just you know surrounded by twin pregnant ladies and husbands and we bring like French pastries to the table.

Speaker 3:

That was a cool, cool situation.

Speaker 1:

You said these were Apple Meetups. You know it's like an app. Oh, meetupscom Got it, Got it.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, meetups. Yeah, you have an app and you can, you know, meet people with the same interest as you, or things like that.

Speaker 1:

So you were finding just people to meet up with locally where you were various places.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, yeah, yeah, like a group of people that were open to, to taste those you know and give us some feedback. That's brilliant.

Speaker 1:

Okay, so you landed on the Macaron and you know. Obviously you figured out how to make them. How did you decide on I guess, for lack of a better word like the launch plan or the marketing plan, or, outside of those people you were meeting on Meetup? How were you going to promote these? And because it's an online store, I assume although I think you have an in-person store as well how you know what was sort of the marketing plan at the start?

Speaker 3:

So this very beginning one, it was really like the feedback stage, I would say. But after that what we wanted to do is the next step is like a validation. You know we wanted to get sales to see and to still be in front of people to see it. You know, because online you can do pretty much everything but you don't meet people. And before to go online I wanted to really meet people and see their face when they try our stuff.

Speaker 3:

So what we did is, now that we know my carons are popular, we're going to start with those and we wanted to go to farmers markets. So it's kind of a next step. You know, now it's a business, even if it's a small one. You know we've just markets going here and there, but you know we have a product now. So we tried to do some accounts and we bring it to the table and trying to sell to real customers. So you know, finding the right price, finding the right flavors, the right colors that was the idea behind this phase as well, and of course, you don't get the first sales and see how the business can go, you know.

Speaker 3:

So the next step was this one the farmers markets that we did.

Speaker 1:

And you live I'm actually not too far from you in Orange County, but yeah, so I'm assuming like every day of the week, literally, there's probably a different farmers market that you could have gone.

Speaker 3:

Yes, we did three of them and actually I was even closer to you because we were in Costa Mesa oh wow, newport and Malibu. So that was the three farmers market that we did at the time and we did it for maybe a couple months you know, six months maybe. And the beginning we saw, like you know, trends in terms of flavors. For example, sited caramel, pistachio, things like that. That was the idea to get like the popular flavors. And then in parallel I was starting to build the Shopify store, so that kind of you know, went head to head together. I was kind of getting the feedbacks from the markets that I was putting into the website.

Speaker 1:

And you were still making the. You didn't have a retail store, then you were still making these at home and then bringing them.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, exactly we had, like a rental kitchen, a commercial kitchen that you can rent, you know, by the hour, and we were using those you know to produce the backer ones.

Speaker 1:

So when you were at these farmers markets and then you were not promoting like a website, basically come back next week if you want to buy more type of yeah in the beginning, not, but in the towards the middle of this experience.

Speaker 3:

Yes, because the website wasn't done in the beginning, but once it was done, I, what I did is like, physically, I had like an email list that I would like have people sign up for the newsletter and let us know their email In exchange, like of you know a couple more, my parents for free. So that worked pretty well. We build up, you know, a good list, but of course you go to see these farmers markets. You are limited to the people that are in front of you so you can't really scale that much. But it was kind of the first, I would say the first marketing aspect to it, you know really smart.

Speaker 1:

You were already building up your list and you had a lead magnet, which is free macarons, which is awesome.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1:

Was the list being built, like you know, 10 or 20 each day, 50, 100. Do you remember sort of like the volume?

Speaker 3:

Yeah, yeah, yeah it was probably 10 to 20 each day, since you know you have people to accept it to write and then you know. So it's like people in the markets sometimes they're in the hurry, so it was kind of you know different, but yeah, probably 10 to 20 a day. So, yeah, by the end of the the farmers markets, a couple of hundreds emails, you know, from locals.

Speaker 1:

So then you were building, you chose Shopify as your e-commerce CMS, which makes a lot of sense, obviously. So now you're building your website. Now you want to launch your website, right? So how did you shift the marketing at that phase?

Speaker 3:

To tell you the whole thing, at the very, very beginning we wanted to do a subscription box only, so it wasn't even Shopify. In the very, very beginning we had another platform that was focused on subscription box, because our idea in the beginning was to have a French pastry subscription box, like everyone's getting a new kind of French pastry. But that business model was very limited, you know, to people wanting to engage into a subscription. So we got like lots of requests to have you know one time order and everything and that platform that we had at the time on the end of subscriptions. So that's how we really switched to Shopify in the very early days, because it was, you know, more flexible.

Speaker 3:

We already, have we also have a subscription box today, you know, but you can do more stuff with Shopify.

Speaker 3:

But yeah, now that we have the Shopify thing going on. We were doing the Farmers' Market Steel in Parthen. The beginning and the switch I would say was more like I would say was starting early on to work on SEO, because SEO is really the organic part of things that I like. People will find you because of your product, of your blog post or whatever, but then we find you naturally with your Google. So early on I started to focus really on SEO.

Speaker 1:

Got it. So I guess, similar to how, if you want to get your product found in real life, go to Farmers' Markets. If you want to get it found online, do a SEO right. So I want to take a step back. So you know, you launched a subscription box, launched a Shopify store. Did you sort of learn how to do this all yourself? Did you hire an agency to do all this for you, or what was the process?

Speaker 3:

I would say throughout the years before coming to the US, I always had this online marketing passion, so I knew about SEO, but I had to dig in at some point I don't especially in the beginning we don't have the resource to hire too many people and it was important for me to learn this kind of stuff. So I really learned it myself, like you know, through our blogs, different stuff that I saw online, and obviously SamRush was a big, big help. You know their tool is very great. So yeah.

Speaker 3:

I kind of really learned myself in the beginning. It's a long strategy, but I started to study the competitors first to see what they are doing and what we can do better.

Speaker 1:

Got it. So the Shopify store that you put up, you put up yourself. Then correct the web design. All that, yes, yeah.

Speaker 3:

The process of the design, the logos, the identity of the brand, the story behind it. Yes, we know that.

Speaker 1:

Very cool. So you then shifted to SEO. So you know, the case study in SamRush is about how you were targeting non-branded keywords, obviously. So if people are interested in macro, how do we get found? I'm assuming was the original you know start. So can you sort of describe that process to everybody, of what you did and what the results ended up being? Because I was really impressed by what I read of what you were able to achieve for a pretty competitive keyword in a really short amount of time.

Speaker 3:

The really first thing that I focused on is read the competitors, because you know when you arrive new in the market. At least that was my approach, but you don't arrive to reinvent, you know the better, or something.

Speaker 3:

So I studied what they were doing good and what they're doing bad, and that I can, you know, enter into that bridge. So the first one I noticed is was the Macarons Near Me. The Near Me keyword at the time was getting popular, but not that many people were banking for it. So I directly attacked this keyword, you know, by adapting like a product page to answer people's questions about Macarons Near Me. So that was my really first approach to it.

Speaker 1:

So you mentioned a product page. So was this like an FAQ, a blog post? How did you create content that target that very specific key phrase?

Speaker 3:

Yeah, in the beginning. It was really not. It was easier, I would say, to rank for such an easy keyword, because Near Me now is really complicated keywords to get.

Speaker 3:

But at the time especially for Macarons Near Me it wasn't, you know, nobody was really ranking hard for it. So I kind of added, like the header name, you know the product name is 48 Macarons, for example. So I added a page so you can buy and have to cover everything. So it's not a blog post, you know. And so I adapted, you know, the tags, like the H1 tags, putting some related keywords here and there, cool sentences related to it, and that was kind of it in the beginning and we started to rank very fast for this one because it wasn't such a competitive keyword. Yeah, and when I saw that, I started the same strategy for other keywords like buy Macarons or Macarons shipped. You know everything related to Macarons.

Speaker 1:

Got it. So you started by looking at the keywords that your competitors were ranking for, which obviously is very, very easy to do in Sumrush. Did you ever sort of look at you know, Sumrush also has like keyword explorer, like put in Macaron and go through all the different keyword variations and the difficulties and the volumes? Did you go through that process as well, or did you just stick with what your competitors were ranking for for ideas?

Speaker 3:

No, no, no. So the competitors actually were ranking for different keywords and I wanted to rank for. I would say, you know, with Sumrush I would see a gap. The gap you know, like the ones, the keywords that they are ranking for and the ones that they are not ranking for, but that are very good keywords you know, like buying intent keyword.

Speaker 3:

So once I did the Macarons near me and all these you know buying intent related, I started using Sumrush as well, like typing, for example, macarons, and they give you like all sorts of different keywords that are questions that people are asking online and my idea about SEO is really to answer people's questions. So, after focusing on the buying intent keywords for the beginning because you know we are business, so we really wanted to bring like sales and potential customers I wanted to attract prospects. You know people are interested about Macarons or asking questions about it. So, for example, why are Macarons so expensive? How do you make Macarons? Are Macarons gluten free? All these kind of questions is like people getting interested early on, not ready to buy it, but still so we started answering all these questions in a specific blog post. That was my strategy for SEO after that.

Speaker 1:

And those questions were less about questions that people asked you at Farmers Market and more about based on the keyword analysis in Sumrush. Based on that is how you develop the content correct or a combination.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, yeah yeah, yeah.

Speaker 3:

I would say the markets for the farmers markets. I got lots of feedbacks about the products, so the macarons itself, like the flavors, the colors, even some future features. That I didn't expect. But people gave me some cool feedbacks in the market. For example, I don't know if you saw on our website, but you have the possibility to select only the macarons you like with like a menu selection interactive and that was something that came from I remember his name, kevin in the markets that were buying macarons from us because at the time we were offering variety sets in a bag of mix and everything. And he said oh, that would be cool if your website could select only what you like.

Speaker 3:

So that was the kind of feedback that helped us shape our product. And then when I went online, it was more like SamRush and things like that that would help me. I would say spread the word online on the SEO level.

Speaker 1:

Got it, but those blog posts that you created revolving around those questions, those keyword ideas, came from SamRush, then is that correct?

Speaker 3:

Yes, yes, yes, yeah, yeah, yeah, they were coming more from SamRush and, yeah, my Google search in general, because SamRush is kind of, I would say they take their data from Google. But if you type some stuff on Google, you can find also, like suggested questions, that people are asking about the related topic. So, yeah, that's how I get all my questions that I want to answer when we get to it, got it, and how did you go about creating a blog post then?

Speaker 1:

So you know you wanna target the keyword. You have an idea. Okay, I'm gonna write a blog post about why are macarons so expensive, for instance. What was the thought process as to what should the word count be? What should I say? Did you struggle with that or was it natural?

Speaker 3:

More natural because, you know, we spent so many months and so many years now with the macarons, so we kind of really know everything about it and, yeah, we have such experience in it. We saw that the competitors were doing things differently, because I ordered from every competitors that we have and, for example, I knew for a fact that they weren't shipping fresh. You know it was shipping frozen and we are shipping fresh. So that's like a big difference that we are making and I can tell if something's fresh or not. You know. It's like when you go to the restaurant if you I don't know if you buy a steak or a fish, you know if it's fresh or not by looking at your plates at some point of experience that you have.

Speaker 3:

So, with our experience, it was easier to develop this blog post because our product is really authentic, you know, fresh and all that. So we know the difference between what's done the right way and the other way. So, yeah, you know we had kind of the answer and we really wanted to dig deep into each topic as well. It's very important to rank to. You know, show your expertise.

Speaker 1:

And so did you personally write those blog posts. Did your wife help out, or?

Speaker 3:

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, for example, why are macarons expensive? That's an easy one, of course. You can answer in one sentence, but you wanna elaborate on those. So, for example, it's because of the recipe that's hard to make. It's not because of the ingredients, it's more because of the process of it, you know.

Speaker 2:

So these kind of things I can do it by myself some more.

Speaker 3:

I would say touchy topics like how can you tell if it's fresh or frozen, or how do you rate frozen macarons, things like that. This way we can talk together with my wife and say, okay, what are the different points, that you can make a difference between the frozen macarons and the fresh one.

Speaker 3:

So for example you have a little layer of white of water on top. It's partly frozen before it because it's coming from the towing process. You know, once it was frozen then it release water when it come back to the normal states. So that's the first point. The second point you might have like a lose of crunch of the outer shell because the water will wet the macarons shell, you know. So you will lose that little crunch that you have on the outside of the shell. You know all these little points we go deep into it to really explain people that are interested about this question so they can leave the blog post with everything answered, you know.

Speaker 1:

Got it and over the course of time, how many of these blog posts have you written?

Speaker 3:

Good question, probably 50 to 100, maybe. I try to tend to do quality, you know, over quantity I don't wanna. We want to rank, so we really want a quality. Especially nowadays with the competition, you need to make a difference with your expertise. So that's why I try to really take more time maybe, but have a good piece. You know that answer really the question in deep.

Speaker 1:

So it sounds like when you wrote the blog post this is more when you launched the strategy. So over a certain point in time you pretty much were able to create all the blog posts to answer all those questions about macaron, correct? So I'm assuming at some point you stopped. Maybe you started to revise older blog posts, republish them, but at some point you had enough content. Is that correct?

Speaker 3:

Yeah, yeah yeah, so today, for example yeah, we kind of answered most of people's questions.

Speaker 3:

Of course we kind of ran out of questions, but yeah, so Samrush helped, google helped, but also our customers online helped, because we noticed like a couple of questions were asking, you know, like our customers. So you know, if everybody's asking this, let me do a blog post about it and then sort this for once and maybe send people to this blog post to dig into this subject. But yeah, at some point we ran out of questions to answer. But you can always for example, I'm trying now to answer questions related to other French pastries what is a bonbon? You know people are asking about this question as well, so I'm trying to, you know, give my expertise of what is it?

Speaker 3:

Things related to general topics as well. I can do as long as I can, you know, place our product into it so it can be related, for example, like related to holiday gifts five best holiday gifts. This is like a big keyword, but it's always good to try to give your intake of this one. So, yeah, it's hard to keep focus, you know, on the business because we already answered all questions, but now we are looking, like you know, for new topics that we can relate to it.

Speaker 1:

So what has been you've been blogging, then since 2019, 2020?

Speaker 3:

Yeah, I would say so.

Speaker 1:

And so what has been the impact? If you were to look at, for instance, your website traffic, would you say an overwhelming majority comes from search.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, yeah, yeah, the organic search are really the first one, because we currently, today and since a while now, we don't even do Facebook ads, for example. So Google ads we do, but you know it's with the competition these days it's harder to convert. So you know most of our traffic is organic. The good thing is you get more traffic so people get to know you more. But you know when you answer not buying intake keywords like informational keywords even if people have their answer, you know, to their questions, they will leave your website, so it will drop your conversion rate and now our job is really to try to hook them, you know, to an offer before they leave, or you know things like that.

Speaker 1:

So that's the new challenge after that, conversion rate optimization right. So would you say, as far as the impact on sales, what impact do you think the organic that the blog content has had, or do you just see it's generated a lot of traffic but not necessarily sales?

Speaker 3:

No, I would say the sales is hard to track because most people that I would say come from the blog post don't necessarily buy right away.

Speaker 2:

They buy maybe weeks or months later, maybe in December for the holiday season, and they wrote the article maybe back in February, so it's kind of hard to track.

Speaker 3:

So it's always the same with SEO it's like a long run strategy but overall it spreads like brand awareness. So it's always good to have organic traffic. Really, people know you, even if they don't buy from you. They can always relate someone to your business because you answer their questions in a very expert way. So, yeah, how to track, but definitely worth doing for sure.

Speaker 1:

Got it? What are the other things that you think, from a digital marketing perspective, have been impactful for your business? So you mentioned Google ads. You mentioned doing Facebook ads. Before you obviously have built an email list, probably done other organic social media, I'm assuming. How does this all fit together? Where do you see what activities have had the most impact?

Speaker 3:

if you were to sort of summarize, the one thing that I would SEO for me is really the first thing, because it's really the base of your business. What I wanted to in the beginning I didn't want to rely on ads because, especially because of, for example, ios 14 and all that that you can't really track now anymore. You know there's sales coming from Facebook. So for me, seo is really the first thing to work on early to show your expertise, and it's also a good way to show people that you know your product and you are an expert because you can explain things related to it. So really, the SEO is would be the first, for me the first base of every business.

Speaker 3:

Over the years You're going to keep having traffic from this blog post of this SEO effort that you made, which is not necessarily the case in ads. As I said after that, we also we are doing Google ads. That's great because people are looking for something and you are advertising them for something that they are searching, compared to Facebook, where you're just scrolling your stuff, looking at things and, oh, you have a product, but you are not in demand in the beginning, which is different for Google. So that's why I always try to focus more on Google. Seo is Google, google and Microsoft, but mostly Google. So that's the second thing.

Speaker 3:

Google ads is great too. And then over time it's really to have a strategy to build your email and SMS list with a good offer on your website, because over time, if your product is great and you do good customer service and people like what you are doing, you're going to be able to retarget for Christmas new types of macarons, new flavors, new colors. Now we can print any logo, any photo on macarons. So over time you're going to be like your audience, like customer audience. That is really important and important part today of our revenue. It's people that are coming back from years or maybe months.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, over the years, it's going to be more and more important.

Speaker 1:

On the email side. I'm assuming you're using Clavio, since you're on Shopify. Yes, have you played around with lots of different flows? Are you doing a lot of automations or is it pretty standard abandoned shopping cart every month? Have some sort of promo. What's the current state.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, so you do have the classic ones, because you can't miss them. It's like abandoned cart, of course, when you have like a?

Speaker 3:

birthday, happy birthday flow. That is good too. People, once they order, they can enter their birthday checkup and when their birthday is coming up, we send them an email for 12 macarons free for their order. So that's a good one too. But yeah, so we have a couple of flows like that. I want to make sure to also don't do promo. We never do discount almost never, maybe Black Friday but because for me it kind of decrease your rent, kind of, I prefer to send things like okay, seven, three macarons for orders over X, better than 10%, 20%, because it kind of discounted rent. So our approach to it is really giving away something if you buy something, but not like giving a percentage off or something like that. So that's our approach to it. Makes a lot of sense.

Speaker 1:

What about, so I guess, the only other missing piece. You mentioned the difference in Google ads and Facebook ads, which I completely agree. What about organic social media? I see like beautiful images up on Instagram, so is that been an important part? Is that just something that you feel is important to communicate, or what has that role been?

Speaker 3:

Yeah, so the Instagram part of it is. It was fun. We grew organically as well from zero to 100,000 followers. In the very beginning, what we did was really sharing secret tips showing the backstage of it, since it's very colorful and all that. It was pretty popular. And what really helped us grow as well is the online class that we started to do during COVID. We were doing virtual classes to have people make macarons at home and we were sharing secret tips on the Instagram and that also grew our community very well. But the counterpart of that Instagram you know following and all that is that at the end is really Instagram algorithm. You know that control if your content is being sent in front of people, feeds and stuff. So sometimes you see a post decreasing. You don't know why. Sometimes one is doing amazingly well. You don't know really why.

Speaker 2:

You know, there is that part that you don't really control.

Speaker 3:

So that's the part that you don't control, but on the other side it gives a pretty good, I would say backstage idea for customers. So, you know, if they are on Instagram, they can go there and see what you are doing. You know, on the website we have some pictures, but in there we have videos of the making process and all that. So you know it gives more legitimacy to your business.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, just sharing some of that with our audience, you could see just how beautiful, very high quality, very engaging. You know Instagram posts. You mentioned during COVID that you were doing. You know these virtual classes on cooking, so how did that work? Were you doing Instagram lives? Basically, Were you using your email list and bringing people into like a Facebook live environment, or how did that work?

Speaker 3:

So it was more like we used our you know Instagram and our community to promote our virtual class. So it was a buying product. You know it was like $79 for the ticket and got it. Yeah, so we were promoting it. We were using Instagram to promote it so, you know, sharing secrets and stuff like parts of it and say, okay, if you're interested for the whole process, you can subscribe to the class. It's going to be like in two weeks you know this part of things and we were doing the class on Zoom, like on Saturday.

Speaker 3:

Also for example, we have one coming for Halloween this Saturday, okay. So yeah, we were really using Instagram as a way to promote these classes, but it wasn't live on Instagram really, because our objective was really to have, you know, buying, intense, buying people for the tickets for the class, because you know it's very valuable, what we have to share, and, of course, you can't always give it away for free.

Speaker 1:

And where do you, how do you facilitate the classes then? Is it just over Zoom?

Speaker 3:

They buy the ticket, then they get the link, or yes, so you have the ticket then just the day before, so for example, tomorrow, because this class is Saturday tomorrow and we send to everyone that purchase the tickets and we send the link and the password and what we do is we remain a custom class, because making macarons takes days in reality, but we had to make it fit into one hour, you know, to make sure people have doesn't stay forever, right. So we compacted the recipe. We, you know like things, like you have to wait for the shells to dry. We already have another batch that's already dried from few hours ago. You know, we kind of have all the step compacted in one hour and so for one hour, just, you know, people see live what we are doing. That's why we don't advise to bake at the same time, because it's like I said, it's a long process. So it's better to watch, take a note, and at the end we answer every single question that you know our customer might have.

Speaker 1:

Got. It Makes a lot of sense. So what would you say then to the role that organic social? So yeah, I mean a hundred thousand followers on Instagram. I think a lot of businesses would die for that sort of coverage and happen all organically. That that in itself is its own. You know case study and success story, but how do you think that has impacted your business?

Speaker 3:

You know, it kind of gives us legitimate business. You know. It gives you, I would say, an impact saying, okay, you're not just another online e-commerce. When people see your following and your content on Instagram, they realize, okay, you guys are serious and you sharing good stuff. So it gives you like a business card. I would say, you know, it's like a validation business card. I would say so it gives you a good reputation. It gives you, you know, a way to share the background, like I said, but it's always showing, okay, you guys are really who you say you are and you're doing great stuff from what we are seeing. You know, so it's really like a validation.

Speaker 1:

And it looks like your approach to content was less about like promotion and more about just showcase what you're doing.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, yeah, because it's. You know it's a very colorful cookie so it's really impactful to the eye. So that's part of it too. You know it's good to see this kind of thing. So we share the backgrounds of it because, you know, my parents are like a challenge for most people because it's very complicated to make. So people are always like eager to get some tips. So we share the tips part but we share also, you know, like the new season coming, new flavor. You know kind of all the background news and I really wanted to make it about the business and not about us. I know you know some other business or competitors. They like to showcase themselves and stuff, but that's not our approach to it. I really wanted to be product centered, product centered background. You know secrets about the recipe. What do we do really about the macarons itself? Less than us, you know.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, that's a fantastic approach, and I think that's where a lot of businesses really struggle. I guess you were sort of lucky in that your product is very visually attractive to begin with and very colorful. Yeah, it's a visual network like that. So, anthony, is there anything you know? Looking back, you've been doing this for several years. You're still building the business. Is there anything that you might have done differently or anything that you plan to change in your strategy over the next six to 12 months?

Speaker 3:

The change that we are doing right now is that we were very focused on business to customer. You know, direct to customer. So, for example, you have an event and you want macarons for your event, you're ordering, we're shipping to you and that's it. That's, you know, business to customer. Now we are focusing a bit more about business to business. There are corporates, events, corporate gifts, for example, for the holiday season coming. We are having lots of requests about that. Like you know, people want to print their logo on the macarons for Netflix, for example, and they want to send it to their employees or their clients, and we do that as well. So I'm focusing on this part of the business as well. Now, you know, to have both aspects to it. So that's really our main focus towards the end of year, for example.

Speaker 1:

Oh, wow, so that's gonna take an entirely different marketing strategy. I'm assuming it's a lot of prospecting, working with distributors and yeah, yeah, yeah, for example, I'm trying on LinkedIn, which is more like a business profile.

Speaker 3:

So on this one, you can target, like event planners, at specific companies, so this is perfectly for them. You know your approaches. My approach is, like you know, sending free samples and, you know, knowing that the holiday gift season is coming is the perfect timing right now to try that. So, yeah, I'm really focusing on this aspect right now.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, that's awesome, anthony. This has been just a wealth of knowledge and experience, so thank you so much for sharing. I'm assuming that if our viewers and listeners are getting hungry listening to this and they wanna try your macarons, I'm assuming we have a link up here on the screen. Pastries P-A-S-T-R-E-E-Zcom is where we should send them.

Speaker 3:

Yes, yeah, yeah, that's the website and we have. I don't know when you will be live with this one, but we have new season of flavor every month. Now we have Halloween, but we do have also Christmas flavor. It's Valentine's, like heart shaped macarons for Valentine's.

Speaker 1:

So, yeah, I mean we have new stuff every month Very cool, and I'm just showing people your website here. I see you have Halloween macarons for those that see this. In time, you have the pop up seven free macarons today only really smart, great way of getting people on the list and, hopefully, the conversion rate optimization. So, yeah, very cool, very attractive. I hope people listening or watching will check it out. Once again, it is pastriescom P-A-S-T-R-E-E-Zcom. Anthony. Anywhere else we should send people Instagram, tiktok. What would Instagram be? The big social media channel for you?

Speaker 3:

Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's our big one. We mostly share the background of it, like I said, and the process of it. And, for example, we had a, I think, for Christmas. We're gonna do that as well, but for Halloween we have a cool contest. So every Halloween orders we introduce randomly in orders Hocus Pocus, Macarons 21. And if you find one, you just have to post us on your story on Instagram and you get like a free 24 macarons extra. So we're gonna probably do that as well on Christmas, since it's doing well for Halloween.

Speaker 1:

That's really really smart, Anthony. Thank you so much. I hope everyone will check out pastries. I wish you the best luck and hopefully our paths will cross, because we're only like an hour away from each other.

Speaker 3:

Yes, I agree.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, macarons our whole family loves them, so we'll have to check them out.

Speaker 3:

For sure. Thanks for sharing me. It's always a pleasure to share.

Speaker 1:

All right, well, that is the library of content, especially focusing on non-branded content, the library of content in action, and if it can work for a B2C e-commerce brand, you bet it can work for B2B or any other B2C brand. That's why, for me, the library of content is the first of the chapters that I'm going to have on teaching SEO in the book, and I think it's actually the most important. If you don't have the content, you can't rank. It really is that simple how you create that content, the keywords that you decide to target. There's a science, there's an art. I'm going to go into more depth. I'm going to have some workbook exercises around this as well. That I worked on last night actually, so really can't wait to talk about that. Make sure you stay in the loop. Sign up to my newsletter neilshaffercom slash newsletters that when I launch my launch team, you'll be one of the first to know. All right, well, I want to thank you all for your subscriptions, for your reviews on the various podcast apps that you listen to this on, as well as those of you that tagged me on social media talking about this podcast. I really appreciate it. It is the gasoline that fuels my engine, so thank you, thank you, thank you, and that is it for another episode of your digital marketing coach podcast.

Speaker 1:

I will be here next week with a solo show, and I haven't decided yet. Often the topics for solo shows come very much at the moment, but I'm thinking of next week, talking about creators and entrepreneurs and the relationship between the two. In fact, I've been talking a lot about since I wrote books and started a blog back in 2008, 2009,. I and many others like me are the original content creators. Content creation is not just audio video, and content creators, if they really want to take their work seriously, need to develop a business, need to think like entrepreneurs and, in fact, businesses, in their content creation, should be thinking more like content creators, and they already know that they're entrepreneurs. So there's an interesting overlap between these concepts that I want to dig in deeper. Just stay tuned the next week We'll talk then. This is your digital marketing coach, neil Schaefer, signing off.

Speaker 2:

You've been listening to your digital marketing coach. Questions, comments, requests, links. Go to podcastneilschaefercom. Get the show notes to this and 200 plus podcast episodes at neilschaefercom to tap in to the 400 plus blog post that Neil has published to support your business. While you're there, check out Neil's digital first group coaching membership community If you or your business needs a little helping hand. See you next time on your digital marketing coach.