BI 344: How Swag.com Growth Hacked Their Way to the Inc 5000 List

On the Bright Ideas eCommerce podcast, Trent Dyrsmid interviews today's most successful eCommerce, Agency, and SaaS founders and gets them to share all their most effective strategies and tactics for growth so you can quickly figure what you need to implement in your business today to get ahead of your competition. If you are looking for proven methods to scale up your eCommerce business, increase efficiency, improve your systems, and delegate more, this is the podcast for you. eCommerce, automation, outsourcing, standard operating procedures, workflow management, search engine optimization, social media, podcasting, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube.

Episode Highlight

[04:13] – Jeremy gives a background of his business

Jeremy started a product distribution company online called Swag.com in 2016.
He discovered a problem with antiquated catalog presentations.
His solution was to streamline the entire experience allowing buyers to personalize their products.

[05:20] – What is so special about Swag.com?

Swag.com is different because of the product personalization and distribution platform.
What is being distributed is an experience.
Sales talk is not always required to sell products.

[07:21] – How Swag.com gained traction

Initially, they targeted big brands to build strong client portofolio.
A catchy name was essential. For Jeremy, Swag.com says everything about the business without having to say anything explicitly.
With consistent content creation, they built a strong SEO strategy to increase their organic visitors. Their main focus is not on making viral posts but on getting to their target customers.

[8:25] – Getting the domain and starting up the business

Jeremy got the domain from day one with no funds thanks to a deal they made with the owner; they eventually paid $200,000 for it.
An outbound strategy works in the initial stages of startup businesses.
Starting from top to bottom is not disadvantageous contrary to what other entrepreneurs believe.
Rise above the challenges, get in the door and do everything you need to do.

[14:48] – Strategies to control traffic

Using Google is too expensive to focus all your strategy based on it.
One content strategy is creating consistent content to catch the attention of potential customers.
From an SEO perspective, using longtail keywords in blog posts is effective when it´s focused to a specific target audience.
Using traction channels or joining partnerships is a strategy in growth hacking.

[24:29] – Best conversion hacks

The first conversion hack is to label products with Swag’s tagline “we made this”.
After expansion, they started adding shipping labels saying “powered by swag.com” to every package.
To gain more organic buyers, conducting giveaways is useful.
Reciprocity helps solve the problem of cold outbound emails.
The best way to raise money is through the press.

[30:58] – Jeremy’s number one goal for the year ahead

Jeremy intends to push hard on the Swag distribution platform.
The platform will have unbelievably new features by then.
The next phase is for the platform to allow people to automate Swag distribution by themselves.