Inspired with Alexa von Tobel
00:12:27 · Thomas Berolzheimer
[00:12:27] S3: So very early on. So it helped because we were able to start with one platform, and that was a blog on Blogger. And so I think everything has kind of... Since that moment, everything... As each new platform has come up, everything points back to the blog. That's our main spot. We still have the highest shopping engagement. Like, I'm a big data person. From the moment we started the business, I had been in, like, Google Analytics and looking at our affiliate data. So it's it's something where I'm like, I don't wanna guide too much on Julia on her product curation, but it does inform her. So I'm like, how do I surface the right reports for her? So it it always comes back to the data, and we're always testing to see what works and what doesn't work. And then it's up to her to interpret that and come up with a new strategy. So it's always been the blog in the center, and that hasn't changed. And Instagram has always... Like, Instagram popped off, and we're... At one point, I think we're the fastest growing influencer in the fashion space one year. And everyone stopped blogging. Everyone stopped their websites, and we were like, we're not going to make that decision. We're gonna keep passing back and make that the hub and send people to our website. Then this past year, about a year ago, we started a Substack. And while it became a really big platform and everyone knows Substack now, like, we wanted to do it in a different way. And with that, I'm... I haven't been someone who has posted. I'm not that public. I've always been behind the camera, and this was the first opportunity where, yes, we're in the fashion and beauty category, but I write half of the posts in my own voice as myself. So we think about every platform has to offer something different. So the blog, that's really about, I say, commerce. Even though we're not selling and having the checkout there, it... The sale does happen. They're convinced by the time that they go click out on our link. Substack is really that sort of, like, private community thing where it's content you don't get anywhere else, which is really, like, personal. Or because I'm writing, it's access to my voice. While while Julia is known for beauty and and fashion content, some of the most successful posts have actually been some of the things that I've written about.
00:14:41 · Thomas Berolzheimer, Alexa von Tobel, Julia Berolzheimer
You know, my my goal is always to surprise and delight people and give them content, like, about productivity or AI that they never thought that they need to read, but they're getting it because they're subscribing really to Julia. And then, you know, we we think about other platforms. Like, we made a a conscious decision not to jump on TikTok when we decide... We're like, we could do Substack or we can do TikTok. And I was just like, I'd rather go longer form than shorter form because we know that when we have a bond with a reader, there's more value there. Everyone sees more value in it. So we're we're constantly, like, analyzing new platforms because they're always launching. [00:15:21] S2: By the way, that's just such an interesting way rather than being like, let's do both, and let's just team up. You're like quality, quality, quality. You right now are basically the best performer on ShopMy. Why do you like ShopMy? Tell us how you think about using ShopMy. And, Julia, I'll give you a shout out. I love ShopMy Circles because I am... I... My favorite way to shop is to have the Internet shrunk, and ShopMy Circles does that. And I have three to five people I follow. You are one of them where I just see everything, and I'll be like, I need a dress. I'll take that one. I'll take the... These kids shoes, this, that. And it has made my life so much more streamlined. So I love your circle. Thank you. [00:16:02] S0: Thank you. [00:16:02] S2: How do you guys think about ShopMy?
00:16:04 · Julia Berolzheimer
[00:16:04] S0: I think, you know, at the beginning, we it's sort of funny to to look back because I think we had a lot of emails that we sort of just were like, oh, another affiliate network. Like, we don't need another affiliate network, you know. We've done we've done a lot of them. And it wasn't until Thomas took a call, and I'll let him speak after this, but he was so impressed of their strategy of of going after the brands first, and then the the creator influencer. Because once you get the brands involved, then you have money involved, and then that also brings in the creator influencer. And, I mean, for me, I was really blown away by by how they really targeted and went after sort of smaller brands. It... For a long time, it felt like we could only affiliate link to big retailers. So, you know, you know, while I wanna link to every single brand, at the end of the day, we were running a business with employees and an overhead and all these things. You know, we need to see a profit on most of the products we're linking. And so that meant we were linking to a lot to Nordstrom and Saks and Net a Porter. But now with ShopMy, they've gotten all of these sort of smaller brands like Gal Meier, Addersee, Lisette, Doen on affiliates so that we have an incentive to link directly to them instead of a retailer. And I feel like it's just a win win for everyone. These smaller brands, and many of these are not small by any means, but, you know, they're making more by having an influencer post directly to their to their website than they are selling wholesale. So it makes complete sense, and it's worthwhile for us because we get to form a deeper relationship with a wider variety of brands that, you know, if something takes off and does really well, well, then that's a great conversation to do something more and and have a longer longer lasting relationship with that brand.
00:18:08 · Thomas Berolzheimer
[00:18:08] S3: And I always think too, like, you have to think about how some of these processes of, like, being a influencer worked before ShopMy because they've changed so much. Like, gifting, for instance. Like, that process was terrible before. It would take five to 10 emails between... They're like, oh, we wanna gift... A brand would reach out to Julia. They say, we wanna gift you this... Some pieces. And by the time you got through 10 emails, it wasn't even worth the time that you spent on it to get that free thing. It's better for Julia to just have bought it, and then she can move on with her life. Like, now they do it in the streamlined system. You just opt in. You look through the product. Like, it's... It it makes it... And they've done that with sponsored posts via opportunities. It's it's just like everything is that much better. And and it used to be too. Like, you never had the access to just talk to a brand directly. We have a manager. We're big enough to have someone to be able to do that for us and represent us, but the average person has the ability to to DM and message someone at a brand, and they would have never had that. Maybe they could cold email them before, but, like, you can start having these relationships. And, like, for instance, jewelry was a... Before I say that, we link where the... We link to the most unique websites of any creator on on ShopMy, and we also have the most total links. And in... Before ShopMy, you would... We would be wanting to promote a small brand, and you'd be like, okay. I'm gonna promote them, and then you would go, and there's no affiliate. So then you're like, okay. Well, I could talk about them, but I'm technically missing out on money. So And you still have to think about it from, like, a business perspective. Whereas we started using and testing ShopMy early on. We're like, wait. They have that brand? And wait. They have that brand? And then all of a sudden, a category like jewelry, which Julia is a huge fan of and is totally obsessed with, all of a sudden, we were able to monetize that we we were never able to do it before. And it's happened category after category after category, and it's just... It's it's like we know that we're driving sales so that we have the potential to drive sales. We're just... Now we have ability to monetize it on a bigger scale.
00:20:19 · Alexa von Tobel
[00:20:19] S2: Which is obviously so much better. Yeah. I wanna talk a little bit about how you think about tools and technology and the future. And I know we've had a conversation before, where a decade ago, when you started your blog, fifteen years ago, you had a blog. Now you have a blog. You have an Instagram. You have a... You, you know, could or could not have TikTok. You have your Substack. You have your Substack premium and free. You have your ShopMy. You have your Amazon platform. It... You have a lot to manage. I think we all discuss it what we see very clearly with AI and five coding and all of the incredible stuff. And Thomas, you and I have had some really fun conversations about the future of tech in the category. It's very clear that just the world is gonna get easier. And I use the analogy to be like, in some ways, Julia is becoming a sats.com. The future of, you know, a person can become as big as a department store. And I see that very clearly from everything that, you know, Inspired has touched in ecommerce and the future of ecommerce. That shift feels very easy for me. How do you guys think about that? Just this huge shift that's happening where people have so much more influence. And if you think about it, Macy's was a guy. I'm pretty sure Bergdorf was a guy. Like, there were real people curating, and that was just happening digitally and with no physical footprint.
00:21:47 · Julia Berolzheimer
[00:21:47] S0: Yeah. I mean, it... It's it's so interesting to sort of like live in the in the shift because we never sought out to sort of have this whole sort of ecommerce on our website, but it's naturally shifted towards that as I think consumers have naturally shifted towards creators and influencers for not just deciding what to purchase, but like as entertainment. Right? Like now I think like Netflix is competing with with, you know, YouTube for content. Like people don't wanna watch shows. They wanna watch these creators instead. And, you know, we are constantly trying to think bigger picture of like, what's that next phase? How do we sort of integrate this power into something bigger and broader? And I mean, that's a question we're still trying to figure out, but we know at the end of the day, our customers are not just our followers are not just there to participate in, you know, watching something while some people create to for enjoyment or entertainment. Our followers are there because they want help in their purchase decisions. They want help in their style decisions. So we really look at ourselves as the authority of that.