Episode Summary
In this episode of the 7-Figures and Beyond e-commerce marketing podcast, host Greg Shuey chats with Goni Goder, VP of Marketing for North America at Keter. The discussion centers on content marketing strategies and how brands can produce and distribute authentic, unique content that resonates with consumers through various channels such as SEO, email, and paid media. Goni shares insights into Keter’s approach to marketing, highlighting their focus on understanding consumer needs and trends, creating a robust messaging framework, and leveraging data to refine marketing efforts dynamically.
Video Replay
Key Takeaways
- Importance of Brand Authenticity: Goni emphasizes the need for content to be true to the brand’s core values and to reflect the brand’s identity authentically, which helps in building consumer trust and engagement.
- Consumer-Centric Approach: Understanding the consumer’s preferences and behaviors is crucial. Keter uses consumer insights and feedback to tailor content and marketing strategies effectively across various platforms.
- Cross-Channel Content Utilization: The strategic use of content across multiple platforms, including influencer collaborations and direct-to-consumer channels, enhances reach and impact, reinforcing the brand’s presence in a competitive market.
- Adaptability and Responsiveness: The ability to pivot marketing strategies based on real-time data and consumer feedback allows Keter to stay relevant and responsive to market changes and consumer needs.
- Integration of Digital Tools: Goni discusses the integration of AI and digital tools in content creation and product development, aiming to optimize these processes while maintaining brand integrity and uniqueness.
Episode Links
Greg Shuey LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/greg-shuey/
Goni Goder LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/goni-goder-cohen-1411734/
Keter: https://www.keter.com/en-us/
Episode Transcript
Greg: 0:27
Hey everyone, welcome to episode 23 of the Seven Figures and Beyond podcast. Hope everyone is killing it this week. Today I’m going to be chatting with a truly awesome marketer, one of my friends. Her name is Goni Goder from Keter, so she is the VP of marketing of North America and she is tasked with driving growth for the brand across the United States and Canada, and her and her team are absolutely crushing it right now. Our discussion today is going to be around content marketing. We haven’t really had a discussion yet on the podcast around content marketing. We haven’t really had a discussion yet on the podcast around content marketing, so I’m really excited about that. Brand content can take many forms and it can be used to fuel growth across several different channels, including SEO, email marketing and paid channels as well. So our discussion is going to be mostly centered around how your brand can keep up with creating relevant, unique, true to brand content that can be distributed through paid channels. So, Goni, thank you so much for taking some time out of your day to be with us.
Goni: 1:37
My pleasure, Greg.
Greg: 1:38
Awesome. Before we dive in it’s my favorite question to ask, because I like to learn a little bit about everyone is would you take a few minutes to introduce yourself to our listeners and share a little bit about your personal story and how you have gotten to where you are today?
Goni: 1:55
With pleasure and thank you so much for having me. So first of all, so as you, as you presented me, I’m marketing for Keter. So Keter is, at its very essence, a products company. You know we do lifestyle solutions for in and around the home, and by that we mean we design, produce and sell to our consumers from a variety of products, from large outdoor sheds, garden furniture, home organization solutions and DIY. We sell in more than 100 countries. We have longstanding relationships with the biggest retailers in the world. And some may say you know, most chances are that you have one of our products but you don’t always know that it’s a Ketter product, which is my job to change that.
Goni: 2:47
My personal story is maybe not your traditional linear one. I’ve always been drawn to marketing and creativity. I think I’m kind of that odd mix of creativity and analytics. So I kind of my first job was with IBM in London doing business development. From there I kind of developed into strategy. So I was a strategic consultant for a good few years and then I transitioned to more of a hands-on product management, category management, where marketing but in a way that’s tied to business and numbers was always part of what I did and I kind of. You know I grew within Keter from product category into marketing with a digital focus. I’ve been with Keter a total of around 10 years I think I had a bit of a break in between and in this current role, which is in marketing with a strong focus on digital, I’ve been for four years and based out of Toronto, canada.
Greg: 4:00
That’s awesome. I love it. And I remember when we first met I was like Keter, Like I don’t know that I’ve ever heard of Keter before. And then the next Saturday I was in Costco and saw one of your products. I’m like what, what on earth, Like it’s wild. And now I’ve got a shed, I’ve got a deck box. You know, I’m starting to collect Keter products because, honestly, they’re the best in the market. I’ve had other brands of deck boxes and the things just warp in the sun and fall apart and it’s just great stuff. So if you need anything like that, you should go check them out, because they’ve got awesome awesome product yeah we do, we live and breathe products.
Goni: 4:40
That’s really the core of our DNA.
Greg: 4:43
Yep, and then did you. You’re selling at Home Depot now right? Did I hear that?
Goni: 4:47
Yes, so we sell across all the biggest retailers in the US. So we’re at Home Depot, lowe’s, costco, sam’s Club, target, amazon, wayfair, menards I’m sure there’s a few that I’m forgetting but everywhere and obviously direct to consumer through Kedacom. So that’s the space where you can really get an exposure of our full assortment and you can buy directly from us online as well, per your preference. So we make it easy to buy whenever, wherever.
Greg: 5:19
And you can check out some of their amazing branded content, which is what we’re talking about today, exactly. All right, cool, are you ready to jump in?
Goni: 5:28
Pleasure yes.
Greg: 5:31
All right. So I think, as marketers, we all know that creating great content is hard and time consuming, so let’s start out talking about the ideation piece. Let’s start out talking about the ideation piece. So how do you keep up with and get ahead of current trends when creating content, and where do you and your team draw inspiration from when trying to flesh out and develop new ideas?
Goni: 5:58
So we do have a lot of flexibility. We’re a very creative team and we love to try new things. But one of the first things that I did in this role was also create the messaging framework. So there wasn’t a lot of happening in the marketing space for our brand, but what was really needed at the time was you know, who are we as a company, what’s our positioning in the market, how do we stand out? So kind of identify the gap in the market, but also do a deep dive into our DNA, because you know there’s a gap, but where do we fit, when is our messaging and what we bring to the market relevant?
Goni: 6:38
In the outdoor space, we did a really interesting consumer research and it was during COVID and we realized that consumer have this untapped emotional connection to the backyard.
Goni: 6:48
So we really, you know, we want to create that framework of who we are, what’s kind of our core DNA, what defines us, and have that overall messaging layer which, in our case, was bring more authenticity, be playful, allow ourselves to experiment and be kind of the professional voice in the space across all of our categories, but also one that has that human connection and that when we have that framework, then we experiment and it can be being inspired by things that we see across numerous brands.
Goni: 7:26
I love lifestyle beauty and it could be from brands that either operate in the outdoor space, indoor space, various industries, and we really look at how do they stay true to their own brand values. But then how do you connect with your consumers in the way that is engaging, that touches on an emotion? So we can be inspired by things that we see happening in the world and we can be inspired by spending a weekend next to a lake and finding a deck box there and understanding how this you know the role our products play in consumers’ lives. And then how do we want to bring that aspiration, as well as very important tactical information, to our consumers? And we constantly learn who is our consumer, what do they like. So we have our annual calendar, but we really touch on experimenting and seeing kind of the immediate feedback of what works.
Greg: 8:24
Awesome. You know you touched on talking to the consumer, listening to the consumer. What do you and your team do on a regular basis to be able to pull those insights from your consumers?
Goni: 8:36
So we have regular connects internally as a team and with the agencies that we work with, for instance, with your team. This has been incredibly useful. Every few weeks we’d sit down and we’d go through our SEO strategy and we’d go through our newsletters. We’d go at a level of detail, that which button worked when we clicked on that button, when we changed the design, when we put put lifestyle image, when we did this type of call out. We really, you know, your team really walks us through. Where were our consumer eyes? Where did they click?
Goni: 9:11
And we test and it makes us first of all. It’s really rewarding because it’s us having a direct impact. We can change the content, we pivot on the spot. Within a few days, we send out a newsletter, we test it and we connect again. But we’d connect again when we have enough data. Uh, because you again, you don’t want to change everything all the time. And same goes for seo. And then we and obviously in the paid landscape, um, and also when, when our products go live on the site and we have heat maps. So we really now I think it’s a really exciting time to be a marketeer, because you can see immediately the impact of the work that you’re doing in a way that’s measurable and you can adapt and change, while staying core to who your brand, what your brand is all about. Because, as you said, trends there’s so many trends, but you cannot hop on every trend wagon that passes by.
Greg: 10:11
No, you cannot. You cannot be pulled in too many directions. That’s one of my big things is you’ve got to focus and you’ve got to get really dialed in. Yeah Cool, that’s awesome. So when I talk to brands who want to work with us, one of the first things that I look at is their content everything from category pages to PDPs blog posts. I want to see if they have a well thought out on brand content strategy that serves a purpose, is helpful and appeals to their audience. So when you and your team are creating this kind of true to brand content, what does that process look like?
Goni: 10:54
Great question. So when I look at things holistically, I look at three areas. I look at, first of all there’s aspirational campaign. You know creative campaigns that you portray kind of what people are aspiring to have in their life. You create the dream.
Goni: 11:14
There is the very tactical product information, as you said, in our product pages. This is kind of well-advanced in the consumer journey, you know, making sure that all the right information is there to help consumers make a choice, whether it’s you know how we show dimensions, capacity, durability, all the important benefits in our space. And the third one is information that’s authentic and relatable. So when it comes to aspirational campaigns, I think for us in certain categories um, especially kind of being in newer, newer, older brand where we found it most effective is to tap on the consumer once they’ve started that journey. So while we want to be somewhat aspirational, we don’t we take it within still the realms of relevancy.
Goni: 12:09
Product information is something that is well thought through with every single product launch to really make sure that. And again we’re doing that. You know we’re not just being descriptive but we’re talking about how does this meet you in your life? If this has a strong lid, a strong roof, what does that mean for the weather in the country or the state where you’re living and the wind resistance to your specific climate? So we talk about the actual product, but in a way that’s super relevant to the consumer. And then the third aspect is creating relatable content. Is creating relatable content I’m really constantly thinking as how do we make our content reliable and relatable? So it’s not just us talking about our products, but it’s finding partners and utilizing content created by our own consumers, because consumers believe other consumers more and more in this world today. So I hope that kind of answers the question. But I always think about all those three kind of aspiration, product and relatable, authentic content at the same time.
Greg: 13:16
No, I love that, that’s perfect. And I think all of that kind of dovetails back into the overall customer journey, right, as they’re out searching for inspiration, right, you’ve got to have those pieces of content as they drive down the funnel. Then you have to have other pieces of content and so really understanding the customer and what their unique buying journey looks like, and even how do they use the internet through that buying journey right, it’s simple. Like, how, like which platforms and which sites and where do they like to consume information, without knowing that it can sometimes get hard to produce the right kind of content.
Goni: 13:53
Greg, you’re spot on, because the journey is not linear and consumers experience it through different devices, through different platforms. It could be through searching on Google, it could be through a retailer website, it could be our own website. It could be through a retailer website, it could be our own website, it could be social. There’s so many touch points and you’ve got a kind of one of the most important starting points is where is our consumer spending their time and in each in that point, what type of content is relevant for them to consume? Because when you’re way further down the funnel, you don’t want the aspirational storytelling. You want an answer to your question. Yep, absolutely.
Greg: 14:32
I love that Cool. So I mean, this is probably the million-dollar question is, you know, I think anyone can create amazing content. It’s when you start to scale. Create amazing content it’s when you start to scale is you can start to lose some of that quality and true to brand type content, right? So how does your team scale this kind of work? Like, what have you put in place to allow that to happen?
Goni: 15:02
So one of the things that and I don’t know if this kind of answers directly your question from a scale, but it’s more like how do we utilize the content in the best possible way? So every single piece of content needs to work really hard for us because it needs to touch on all those multi-platforms. You know, if we create content with influencers, we want to utilize it in our site, we want to utilize it in our newsletters, we want to use it in our site, we want to utilize it in our newsletters, we want to use it in our blog content. So I think there’s a bit of a planning stage like try to get ahead of our promotional calendar, as far ahead as we can, and that every piece of content needs to work across multiple platforms. And it’s not easy. It was even kind of from a team structure perspective.
Goni: 15:50
At some point we were being very siloed, so it didn’t allow us to. I don’t know if it’s scale or optimize things more efficiently, but we’ve kind of worked on that. We made a lot of progress and it’s just kind of also creating those internal connects and it’s just kind of also creating those internal connects. I know that. You know, ai is the new buzzword on and that kind of touches on creating more content more effectively. But I’m a little bit, you know we’re dipping our toes, but at the end of the day I go back to the point of focus and relatable and not having a sea of sameness. So being able to stand out always comes from a creative thought um and staying unique. So that’s something that we’re testing, um to allow us to have more content available quicker, but very, very, um, you know, with some caution next to it.
Greg: 16:45
I like that a lot. How far out do you build your promotional calendars?
Goni: 16:51
So we around you know Q4, we build the next year’s calendar of all of our marketing activities. So we put in the rough dates for promotions. And this is more. I’m talking about the space that is the one that’s directly handed by us, because when it comes to retailers, promotional calendars, we don’t always have visibility way in advance and that’s more something that we work very closely with our sales team to make sure that they have the right content. But when it comes to the space that we control, we try to have kind of that broad view a year in advance. That’s awesome, but things change consumer demand chains so fast so fast and we really need to pivot and understand.
Goni: 17:38
Okay, well, we didn’t necessarily want a promotion in this category, but it’s picking up, so it’s again. It’s having that enough of a framework to allow you to be organized and plan with your content creation. But you gotta, you gotta learn how to pivot and it’s and it’s every single day having that discussion, and even right now we have a big content production for planned for june and the products that we’re we’re sending. Okay, there’s always last minute change because we see this product picking up and it needs better content.
Greg: 18:10
That’s awesome so having it built out a long way out, but being able to pivot and adjust is going to be critical.
Goni: 18:17
Exactly that.
Greg: 18:18
Okay, so what challenges have you faced when trying to scale? I know it’s always maybe a little bit scary sharing some you know fails or challenges. Where have those come and how did you overcome those?
Goni: 18:31
I love sharing challenges. That’s kind of what builds us right. I think I kind of mentioned it a little bit in terms of retail. So you know, we work with the strongest retailers, but how do we deliver uniqueness to each one of those retailers? How do we make sure, yes, we, we sell the keter or we have, you know, a sub-brand curver? How do we bring that story but in a way that’s right for their consumers as well?
Goni: 19:04
Um, and it’s, it’s very tricky because it’s, you know, it’s a slightly different consumer. So you really got to understand the nuances between our various customers and it also kind of goes all the way to understanding the nuances between our different consumers and how they shop. So those are things that you want to try to. You know you want to tailor your content as much as you want, as much as possible, whether it’s retailer or consumer. You know, in the back in the day it was, you had an ad and it was meeting like millions and millions of eyes. Now you want to get to the stage that what you deliver is specific to that one consumer when they see, when they meet you. And I think that is an ongoing challenge, to make sure that we really capture that.
Greg: 19:54
Yep Agreed A hundred percent. So how do you kind of tweak your content formats to meet your customer where they are, when they need it? What does that look like?
Goni: 20:10
So I think I feel the most when we work on some organic social content, like organic content creation and creation. When it comes to working with your team on newsletter blog writing Again, we go back to those sitting down, seeing what works, understanding how does the consumer landscape look like? How’s our performance top line look like? What do we see our consumers leaning more into? For instance, we have a subcategory garden beds. Last year performed extremely strong in February. This year we’re seeing a slight delay.
Goni: 20:47
So we really look at what’s in demand and then tailor our content, especially in promotions, because promotions are where we find that we hit numerous platforms and we really need to think and come together as a team and say, okay, this is, you know, we don’t want to be repetitive, we want to stand out in each single piece of communication. Um, and it could be on our own platforms and it could be even on amazon. Amazon home depot are such advanced retailers in the e-commerce space and we’ve got to kind of really be tuned with what they’re doing, what their competitive landscape looks like and how do we stand out.
Greg: 21:29
Interesting. Yeah, and that’s interesting about garden beds Kind of doesn’t surprise me either. I mean, like we had snow here yesterday and it’s May 6th, right, people aren’t really planning. I get on Facebook and there’s a Utah gardeners page and people’s May 6th, right, people aren’t really playing. I get on Facebook and there’s a Utah gardeners page and people are like, well, hope, my uh hope, my plants didn’t just die that I planted in my garden. It’s like I guess you also have to look at weather and different patterns and trends and those types of things, especially for a business like yours. And so, yeah, that’s that’s interesting. Once you put out all this content and you’re pushing it out through organic, social, paid, social, seo email, how do you measure the success of that content?
Goni: 22:13
So I think there’s, you know there’s. There’s the KPIs, the standard KPIs that we set forth each year. We look at engagements, we look at clicks, we kind of see what resonates. We also kind of look at things organically, like if we did awareness, if we kind of invested more behind our brand and created more organic contact, how is that meeting us? So there’s so many KPIs but we try to simplify. You know, sometimes you need to overcomplicate things in order to simplify them.
Goni: 22:45
We still go back to asking ourselves the basic questions, because there’s things that you see the impact right away and there’s things that we know are going to impact us a few months down the line. So it is working with, you know, working with agencies, working with our teams, looking at kind of those traditional engagement kpis. But we also look at do we still still stand out? Like we would also work with people outside of our marketing team. We’d work also with sales team and get from them feedback on what resonates when a consumer is walking down the stores. We’re very lucky in that sense that we have all these richness of touch points, certain D2C brands developed and then open physical space, some physical space open. We kind of did everything at the same time so we can see what’s happening on Amazon as well as what’s happening in store at Costco or Home Depot and get those insights. So we’ll do like field agent research and send kind of agents to an in-store and get consumer insights from them. So we blend traditional with with digital as well.
Greg: 23:51
That’s fascinating. Another thing that I’ve heard from some clients is they also have a feedback loop from customer service as well.
Goni: 23:59
And a hundred percent.
Greg: 24:01
I’m sure you probably have a bunch of that, every single.
Goni: 24:04
it’s so important for us to work very close with customer service and we make changes based on that, so we get tons of feedback from customer service. That is a source of improving the contact us page on the site because it’s not intuitive enough. It is putting new content out there because consumers are not super clear on it. Is putting new content out there because consumers are not super clear on how to order spare parts, so we created a whole new guidance around spare parts. It’s how do we communicate and dialogue with consumers. Everything is so transparent. Every touch point is visible. So, yes, that’s a very good point and that’s something that is just. It’s become so organic to how we work.
Greg: 24:45
You’ve really got to break down those internal silos for sure. It’s more important now than it ever has been ever Agreed.
Goni: 24:54
It also is a source of opportunity because there’s so much knowledge inside the organization, from our salespeople that speak to the merchants and visit the store, to consumer service that speaks to end consumers, our social platforms, everything.
Greg: 25:08
So what are we? It’s May. We’re almost five months into the year. What predictions do you have for the rest of the year, and even in the next year, when it comes to content initiatives for a DTC brand?
Goni: 25:25
So one of the things that I really am thinking about a lot at the moment is influencers versus kind of your user-generated content. I think that you know consumers several years ago. The problem one of the areas that influencers really delivered tons of value is, you know, people didn’t believe brands as much. There was a bit of a trust issue. Influencers you’ve got to be really filter the right fit for you, the right fit for them. I love working with influencers. I think they bring tons of fresh perspective. They have such loyal communities and audiences that they’ve built. But I also see some cases and some instances where trust issues begin to emerge. Now call them a little bit more than influencers because you kind of how do you make that happen? But I think there’s tons of value and in information that comes from our actual consumers when they write reviews, when they share their content. I think it plays such a huge role in what our uh consumers in their decision to buy something. So it’s a huge area of focus. Um, I don’t want to like the buzzword like our you know our reviews.
Goni: 26:45
The new influencer content. Is that the new media? But I think that’s something super important. I think how social and how consumers consume. Data has really impacted how online retail websites look like. Right People don’t read anymore. Everything needs to be very simple, very visual, very video nothing new, but that’s something that led us to do a complete revamp of our content and how we utilize graphic and, as I said, kind of digital tools AI. It’s something that we started utilizing very effectively in our product development processes. Interesting Allowed us to bring a lot of innovation to the retailers we work with. We’ve done beautiful projects, so we’ve done it as part of product development, and now we’re exploring how do we utilize that for content creation again in a way that stays very true to our brand gotta be careful there with AI and keep it brand-centric for sure.
Greg: 27:43
Exactly, I love that, yeah, and I love calling influencers creators these days, so I think we’re really aligned right there for sure.
Goni: 27:52
I agree, and they’re amazing creators. I love sending products and giving kind of free reign and the results we get. Our team’s obsessed with it. It’s so much fun, so I love that from a creativity perspective. Um, and that’s kind of how we we view it as as as a team that’s awesome.
Greg: 28:15
How are you scaling that up, or are you scaling it, or do you kind of just have, like you know what? We want to work with x number of creators and that’s great for us so it’s.
Goni: 28:24
It’s a process. Uh, you know, progress over perfection. We do kind of work with about, you know, 10 to 8 influencers per season, um, which I think is it’s not a lot, but it’s still something that we get a lot of value from, and we also try to maintain those relationships right. We also ask ourselves as a brand, how do we bring this person who built such a huge community, how do we bring them value as well? So we really try to keep, you know, it’s about people and we currently don’t utilize tools in that space. We really are maybe a bit traditional in that sense. It’s important for us to really dive into that influence or really make sure that the fit is there, and I think one areas of scaling can be potentially through work around reviews and content that we get from there. And then, you know, next year we really are testing some new things this year that we’re hopefully going to optimize more and use more next year.
Greg: 29:26
That’s awesome. I don’t run across many brands who work with so few influencers, but the approach makes a lot of sense, right, so I love that. That’s awesome, all right. Well, you’ve dropped some serious knowledge on us today. Do you have any final words of wisdom that you can impart upon us before we end?
Goni: 29:49
I think it is really interesting to developing marketing and digital landscape. For myself, it’s always been about, I think, two things Creativity, always staying creative, trying new things, seeing what works, trying to be unique and stand out. And, secondly, the people that we work with. Whether it’s influencers, whether it’s partners such as yourself, whether it’s our own team, there’s a way of working together, of being respectful, of knowing that we spend so much time together, so many hours together, so doing it in a way that we enjoy what we do, because everybody goes through challenges, but you kind of just need to know how to navigate through those and stay positive and stay creative.
Greg: 30:38
That’s awesome, cool, perfect. I think that’s a great stopping point. So, goni, thank you again for being with us today.
Goni: 30:45
Thank you so much, Greg, for the opportunity.
Greg: 30:47
And I’m going to have one more question for you in just a second because I’m curious if you guys are using this. So in our next episode, laurel is going to be back. So she’s taken a good, solid month off, and she’s done that because she’s been really busy, honestly buried and taking a more active role with our clients as of late, which is great. But I need her back on, so she’ll be on in a few days. So our discussion is going to be about meta AI. It’s also known as advantage plus creative enhancements, goni. Are you guys using that tool inside of Meta?
Goni: 31:26
We’re still learning. We’re still learning and educating ourselves. Got it.
Greg is the founder and CEO of Stryde and a seasoned digital marketer who has worked with thousands of businesses, large and small, to generate more revenue via online marketing strategy and execution. Greg has written hundreds of blog posts as well as spoken at many events about online marketing strategy. You can follow Greg on Twitter and connect with him on LinkedIn.
