How to Use Public Relations To Grow Your Amazon Brand | James Falconer | SellerRocket

Episode Summary

In this Prime Talk Podcast Sponsored by GETIDA – James Falconer - Publisher Relations & Enterprise Partnerships at SellerRocket - SellerRocket's mission is to help brands succeed by getting products matched with affiliate publisher review companies. We are the best known for getting products featured in Amazon editorial recommendations, but we offer a variety of services, also more information about James's life journey. #JamesFalconer #SellerRocket

About James Falconer of SellerRocket - Their mission is to help brands succeed by getting products matched with affiliate publisher review companies. We are the best known for getting products featured in Amazon editorial recommendations, but we offer a variety of services. We have roots with top publishing companies and years of ecommerce experience. Our team understands the ins and outs of the online buyer journey. Additionally, our relationships with high domain-authority sites, top digital publishing companies, and high traffic consumer platforms make working with us one of a kind. The problem with trying to get your products featured on editorial recommendations and reviews sites on your own is that it’s labor-intensive and time-consuming. Oftentimes, you would have to pay a PR agency a large lump sum upfront before your products are even featured. At Seller Rocket, we streamline the process of matching your products to publishers in a timely fashion. We offer performance-based pricing and only charge when your products are featured in an article and generating sales. We work with different-sized sellers and brands, agencies, and aggregators. We have clients all over the world who work within the US market. Ultimately, our service will boost your bottom line and make your current marketing campaign more efficient and effective. Leverage the Seller Rocket boost today!

Find the Full Episode Below

Yoni Mazor: 00:06
Hi everybody welcome to another episode of Prime Talk today I have a special guest today I'm having James Falconer. James is a public relations and enterprise partnerships at seller rocket is a unique public relations PR platform for Amazon sellers is going to talk to us more about it very soon. But first, James, welcome to the show.

James Falconer: 00:25
Hey, thank you for having me. Good to be here.

Yoni Mazor: 00:28
Pleasure. Glad to have you on board. So today's episode was really going to be you know, the episode all by you the story of James Falconer are you gonna share with us? You know, who are you? Where were you born? Where'd you go out? Where'd you go to school? How'd you begin your professional career station to station two until where you are today with especially with the world of E-commerce. So I guess without further ado, let's jump right into it.

James Falconer: 00:49
Okay, cool. Yeah. Well, where should I start? I mean, I've been in publishing for over 20 years now. I started and I actually still living in a city called Winnipeg, in Manitoba, Canada. So I'm Canadian. If you can't tell by my accent.

Yoni Mazor: 01:05
I know I couldn’t actually it's pretty good. Only when you're gonna start saying a boat something like that.

James Falconer: 01:10
Yeah, a boat or fresher? Yeah, but so I'm up in Canada. Been in this a long time. You know, I guess things really started to take off for me. 2006 was 2005 2006 was a big period for me. Along with some friends, we started a site called crackberry.com.

Yoni Mazor: 01:29
Yeah, before all that you kind of jumped a few stages. We're gonna get to that soon, I hope. But I so let's backtrack. So born raised in Canada, and what's the name of the town? Winnipeg. Which area? Is that next to Toronto? Are you in Montreal or California?

James Falconer: 01:44
If you go from Texas and go straight north until you hit the border, you'll hit Winnipeg pretty much.

Yoni Mazor: 01:50
Yeah. What's it like? Like what's the industry is or culture over there? What’s it about? What's it famous for? In other words?

James Falconer: 01:56
Well, you know, we love our hockey. We've got an NHL team up here. We're all about hockey.

Yoni Mazor: 02:03
What’s the name of the NHL team just sorry you know pauses for ignorance.

James Falconer: 02:07
The Winnipeg Jets.

Yoni Mazor: 02:09
The Jets.

James Falconer: 02:10
Yeah, I like New Jersey jets and NFL Okay. I have something in common I'm here in New Jersey so we have the Energy Okay. But what kind of jets are like water jets?

James Falconer: 02:18
No just planes we have a big aviation history out in the city a lot of Air Force activity and stuff like that.

Yoni Mazor: 02:26
Yeah, It makes sense. Okay, so big a hockey what else? You guys are big on over there.

James Falconer: 02:29
Yeah, well, we're kind of you know, we're kind of in-between the Canadian Shield which is kind of like, Rocky, you know, lakes, cottage country, and the prairies to the west of us. So, you know, there's a lot of farming going on. But we're kind of in a good spot. Right. So, you know, farming agriculture. But then a lot of, you know, more touristy things to the east, you know, fly and fishing and stuff like that, too. Right.

Yoni Mazor: 02:53
Nice. Okay, so you grew up and you did everything there elementary, high school, all the way to college?

James Falconer: 02:58
Yeah. All my education. Up here. I really dove into business, you know, on my own, like back in 2000.

Yoni Mazor: 03:07
Were you graduate? Are you still in school or university or something?

James Falconer: 03:11
Yeah, I graduated high school. And I just started working immediately. Right. And oh, yeah.

Yoni Mazor: 03:15
And that was your 2000? Yeah. What was your first station? And I guess in the business world or the professional world.

James Falconer: 03:23
First thing. I did was collaborated with an SEO company back in the day. And that was back in the very, you know, early days of E-COM. So like, I remember setting up, you know, accounts in commission junction, things like that, like back when it started in 2000. So dj.com commission. Yeah, exactly.
Yoni Mazor: 03:45
So let me understand the context here. So you know, in Canada, I guess a small town, but nevertheless, famous for being having an NHL professional team. You finish high school. And right away, you're like, so you're ready to save computers or the internet. What drove you into Oh, I'm going to do some SEO? You know, and advertising online? What I guess Where'd that come from? It seems a bit from my little perspective a little bit random. So what is the context over there as far as you're concerned?

James Falconer: 04:10
No. I mean, I'd always been interested in computers, I was always tinkering with computers, programming, writing, doing graphic design. So I was always on the computer. And one of my good buddies was working for a company that I got in touch with, and they really wanted to work with me. So from that point, you know, I thought it would also make sense just to start my own business and start working with them, which I did. And that's kind of where it all started. Right? So that's where I got so.

Yoni Mazor: 04:37
You open your own company, and you service them basically, you're a contractor for them. Exactly. Nice. And that was your 2000 and how many years did you they stayed on as a client? Or what was the experience you gained within those?

James Falconer: 04:49
Yeah, I stuck with them from you know, the dates for probably 2000 to 2004. And with them, you know, doing all sorts of work for all sorts of different clients, right? It was seeing where we could best service through affiliate programs, etc, you know, the best service the clients help them get rankings. I was doing a lot of the I was doing design I was doing some writing, I wasn't the SEO person per se, I was helping with all the other things that they needed help with.

Yoni Mazor: 05:20
Got it? I guess so. So let me understand the kind of the elements of this industry because you know, we mostly focus here on you know the world of E-commerce in this podcast. And also, that's kind of my experience. It's pretty fairly simple. You have a product, you want to sell it use, you know, ecommerce channels, it could be on your website, or your website, or Amazon or in the following, but that company that reached out to you, what were they about? Were they a retailer where their a content provider, service provider, solution provider, a non-profit organization, give us a little bit of context, what was their mission?

James Falconer: 05:48
All sorts of people, right, like the clients that we had coming through. We're in all sorts of industries. So I can remember working with a company like Oakley,

Yoni Mazor: 05:57
Oakley, sunglasses. Yeah, as far as.

James Falconer: 06:01
Like it all kinds, right?

Yoni Mazor: 06:03
What do you do? For example, for Oakley? That's easier to understand like at least it's a brand that I'm aware of? So what would you do for Oakley, for example?

James Falconer: 06:10
Yeah, but really, for them, you know, focusing on the search engine positioning. So we were building our own custom websites, you know, to feature content about them, whatnot. So I would jump in wherever I could to help with that. There were so many clients, so many different areas, that's just one example. Right? Yeah.

Yoni Mazor: 06:32
Okay. But when you say you basically set up a website to feature them with content, what does that mean?

James Falconer: 06:36
Well, those were definitely the early days of the Internet, right? So we would go ahead, and if we knew we could get positioning on something, we would build a property based on that. So you know.

Yoni Mazor: 06:48
Is that still prevalent today in the world of SEO or that's long gone?

James Falconer: 06:51
No, those are the old days; I would say it was more of the Wild West.

Yoni Mazor: 06:57
Yeah, so let me get this straight. So back in the day, the algorithm for Google was always kind of simplified and said, Oh, the more we see this in the website is this URL, this link to this website, it's probably a good website, therefore, you're going to put it up the search results that helps with SEO. So the tactic was just you know, buy domains, set up websites and future that, you know, put some texts or whatever feature that website and then backlink, all these websites you build these properties. Into the websites, you're trying to push whether it might be Oakley or another, you know, a client that comes in and wants to improve their rank and juice. And I usually say a lot of water flew and the ESO river and that's no longer the case. Exactly. Yeah. Okay, so 2000 2004 that was, you know, your station. What happened in 2004? Was your next station.

James Falconer: 07:45
Yeah, well from there, got together with some friends. And that's really when Crackberry kind of started. We started this site called Crackberry, and it was all about Blackberry phones. Everything about them, right? We started…

Yoni Mazor: 08:00
What do you call it? Crackberry? Because like an addiction to BlackBerry, so like, crackers addicting. That was kind of the nuance there or something.

James Falconer: 08:06
Yeah, it was kind of what it was the common nickname at the time, I guess you could say, for BlackBerry users that were kind of, you know, just consumed with their device. So that's what we went with. We bought the domain, we got to work on the site. And there, I did all the different things, right. I was doing the writing. I remember setting up the forums, doing programming within the forums, doing graphic design. We even set up our own you know, we had a warehouse down in Florida were for the first few years, especially like shipping products from our own warehouse to people. It was you know, all the things for everything, Blackberry in it, and it's still you know, we don't own it anymore. That's another story for later, but we sold it as part of the network back in 2000.

Yoni Mazor: 08:53
Crackberry is a few things as far as I understand. You do some retail. You’re actually selling phones or you’re selling accessories, you're selling repairs, or all three.

James Falconer: 09:03
We don't sell a device. Well, we sell devices through partners and blog posts, right?

Yoni Mazor: 09:09
That's the affiliation that's through affiliate right so you put an article you want to buy here's a retailer boom, buy it you get your commission, you're good to go. But you said you had your own warehouse for you I mean usually for shipping goods, right? Yeah. So what kind of goods is more of accessory side or repairs? Or?

James Falconer: 09:24
Yeah, all the above. I mean, we weren't doing the servicing ourselves. But we had a warehouse full of cases, holsters, you know, new trackballs for trackballs that wore out new keyboards. It's like anything, screen protectors, you get your name and we probably had it.

Yoni Mazor: 09:39
Like the Hospital for Blackberry. Just make sure that you know that the patient comes to life. [Inaudible 9:44] it gets a prostate anything is you know. Got it all right very cool. So Crackberry 2004. Basically, it's all about the content, right the media, which generates the revenue through affiliation or actual physically directly selling i guess it sounds like it was highly successful?

James Falconer: 10:03
Yeah, no, it was great that we spun that into a network that we called Mobile nation. So Crackberry became, we also had Android Central, we also had more, which was all about iPhones and iPads and everything, Apple, we also had Windows Central about everything computers, it just grew into this really nice network that was doing really well. So we covered the news. We did a lot of affiliate marketing, you know, through all the programs that you would expect. So, if there were ways we could monetize there, we did. And then we grew the network to a point where it was super solid. And in 2019, it was acquired.

Yoni Mazor: 10:43
So you stay there for 15 years yourself. That was kind of your baby, that you, manage all failures 15 years
James Falconer: 10:50
Was there for a great good time. And you know, all just amazing friends and colleagues that you know, staying in touch with to date. And then after we were acquired, I stuck around with the company that bought us a company called Future. Their massive publisher, basically, Canada, US or, the headquarters is in the UK, but they have people and offices in the US and in the UK. And they've got sites like tech radar, Tom's guide, you know, the list goes on. They're just they’re massive. And it was really fun to work with them for a couple of years, to see how they operate and the scale that they operate at. It's truly impressive.

Yoni Mazor: 11:30
Yeah, so crack racing. Sounds like there was firstly on the track you laid out. But what was the name of the group? You eventually had? Did you dub another name?

James Falconer: 11:38
Yeah, we formed it into a network called Mobile Nations.

Yoni Mazor: 11:42
Yeah. You mentioned that so mobile nation, you know, derived from, you know, one good experiment that, you know, we can highly successful, you know, you kind of multiply that, to its own each track to, its own niche. As you mentioned, you got the Android, you got the Mac, you got the windows. And this was the company that you were one of the co-founders.

James Falconer: 12:00
Yeah, for Mobile Nations. I was, you know, obviously still working as a consultant through those times, too, right. So I was just part of them, you could say, I was part of the core team that made it all happen. And from there, when future acquired us, jumped on over there as an employee for a few years. And now was at the point, you know, at the beginning of this year, where I wanted to get back to, you know, working with smaller, scrap year companies that are, you know, you can jump on things and get things done like super quick, I really missed that. So that's kind of where I'm at right now, in my career.

Yoni Mazor: 12:36
I want to dive into that very soon, I just, I didn't realize we have to embody 15 years of activity for you, which is pretty intensive, in the online space, a rule that's like being, like 500 years in traditional industries, because things are so dynamic when it comes to everything online. So with Crackberry or mobile nation, you start with Crackberry. And then you lay it out. So what was I guess, your professional experience there or development over the years or 15 years in touch with us, just in a nutshell, a few milestones that you consider to be meaningful, and made an impact to where you are today with what you're focused on with seller rocket?

James Falconer: 13:10
Yeah, definitely. I mean, I think where do I start? I mean, there's so much stuff that happened with Crackberry. Like, one thing, in particular, I was super pleased about was just the work we did. On the community side. We, to this day, still have millions of members, and across the Mobile Nations network, which included Crackberry, we grew it to over 8 million members. So these are all people that are active in our forums, you know, discussing their phones, helping people with problems, whatnot. So we built out a really robust community vibe there, which still continues to this day. So along with that, you know, I set up the structure and, you know, how do you do that? Right, like, how do you foster that growth? And what we did was we established a team of volunteers, you know, there were about 500 volunteers at its biggest size. And we just basically turned it into this solid team.

Yoni Mazor: 14:05
That was a little bit like Wikipedia a little bit.

James Falconer: 14:08
Yeah. And, everyone reported up to our team at the top, just to make sure everything was still moving. You know, people were good, you know, taking care of members, we're getting answers to their questions like super-fast and efficiently. So that's what we did, in a nutshell on the community side, and then of course, for Crackberry. I mean, there were different milestones. We had met up’s all across the country through the years we had in 2017. I flew over to Spain, with some of the team and we held a meet-up there, and it was like a 10-year anniversary celebration, and…

Yoni Mazor: 14:42
It has like a big cell phone. We're in a global convention. That's why that was the event that yeah, the meeting round.

James Falconer: 14:49
Yeah, late. It was Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. And BlackBerry was actually launching one of their new phones at the time when so we kind of has, you know, working with each other to make that happen. And it was a lot of fun because we were able to invite some of our best members and supporters to the years to actually meet them in person, which is kind of the next level and doesn't happen all the time. So it was super cool. And we got to be, you know, kind of behind the scenes on how these launch events work. And, uh, you know, that's just one fun memory that jumps out at me too.

Yoni Mazor: 15:24
That's very cool. I know, there's a Canadian connection to BlackBerry. It's also a Canadian brand and company. So there's a, something emotional for you. And then the Canadian side of things are because it sounds like you probably are, we're just I guess it was first to market, right? A little short story of no black Blackberry, the devices started the early 2000s were pretty much the first Smartphone, as we know, today, became hugely successful was almost a monopoly. And then, I guess when the iPhone came in again, it started to change the dynamics. And then he had the Chinese invasion. Have you got Huawei and we have a few more? These Chinese devices are very popular. And you got Samsung with South Korea? Definitely. Those are the big players. Yeah. But I guess blackberry and Crackberry was a huge central focus for you along the years, or at some point, that dynamic change, where it's more on the iPhone side, or the Windows side, in terms of the actual content and community engagement,

James Falconer: 16:17
Yeah know, the dynamic was always changing, right? You know, especially in the early days, as new players came into the market, it was clear, you know, okay, Blackberry was early BlackBerry was first along with a couple of others, they did it really well. And then like you said, iPhone came along, then all of a sudden, there's something called Android that comes along, all of a sudden, you have three or four or five different players competing for the space that is probably going to end up, you know, pared down to like two players. And that's kind of where we're at right now with Apple and iPhone, and the Android operating system with you know, all the different manufacturers that are manufacturing phones for that. So we did our best to accommodate all the different, you know, phones OSS at the time, just to make sure we gave people a place to, to talk about it, give people a place to read the news and stay on top of the latest to, you know, buy the accessories or things that they wanted to go with all their phones and tablets, as everything evolved. And we don't want more than

Yoni Mazor: 17:15
a decade into the I guess, the Smartphone revolution, I believe the first iPhone was what, 2007 2008, maybe 2009 or more than a decade and, you know, it's already ubiquitous, you know, there's more your smartphones are humans. So what is so exciting for communities to even be you know, just to get the new version? You don't? What do you have to know before it even comes out? Where does that excitement stem from? I'm asking you because you're immersed in that community in that mindset. So I assume you have better answers for me and try to gauge that?

James Falconer: 17:43
Well, you know, I think it comes down to people's passions, right? There's just a group of, you know, a core group of people that are super passionate about technology in general, but more in particular, just their personal tech that they use to get more done in their daily lives. So from our perspective, it was, you know, how do we help these people, you know, get more out of their life? Basically.

Yoni Mazor: 18:07
Are you also feel like you're part of that community? Is it something that personally also can excite you or is more technical for you? Because it was a great business opportunity for you to take all your skills and knowledge and to create a successful platform with the mobile nation?

James Falconer: 18:20
Yeah, I know, it's definitely part of it. Right, I wouldn't have been a part of it had another passion about it from the start. The BlackBerry is the device that kind of hooked me in and it grew from there. But

Yoni Mazor: 18:31
I am here for perfection. Yeah, full disclosure. My first Smartphone was a Blackberry. It was great. There you go keyboard, but suffering from the iPhone. Keyboard, but just not enough for me. There's no replacement. I guess the moment you're attached to what kind of device you have right now.

James Falconer: 18:48
I've still, you know, speaking of just being passionate about it, I mean, I still do have know probably one of everything, right? So I'm on an iPhone right now. But I bounced between, you know, different phones, I have a new Android phone that comes out. I'll take a look at it. If I want to buy it. I'll buy it. But, you know, I jumped basically now between an iPhone and whatever Android device makes the most sense.

Yoni Mazor: 19:10
Which one? Yeah, the latest Samsung or Google.

James Falconer: 19:14
Yeah, a few that I've got a couple of Samsung's some of the One Plus phones. A few others.

Yoni Mazor: 19:21
What do you do when you have to? I guess you have the same phone number, but two different devices. What do you have it just for? It's like taking a car, right? It's like you have a regular sedan, then you have your convertible, and yeah, your SUV? Is that kind of the approach in some way? And then the car world?

James Falconer: 19:38
Yeah, somewhat I mean, I guess I'll just drop my SIM Card into the different ones, set it up and use it right. So I've done this so many times. There's, there's probably better ways of doing it. But sometimes I just feel like I need a bit of a change.

Yoni Mazor: 19:49
Wow, I never thought about that. So I'm just saying it took me to a whole new world that never really kind of took a moment to jump into and try to realize, okay, and you build the whole community around that and you know, yeah, the digital and The digital space and the physical space also, and you made a nice career out of that. Okay, so thank you for sharing that. So I guess let's jump into when you know, you, you will mobile nation, and then your next station comes in so what transpired there? What happened?


James Falconer: 20:14
Yeah, so you know, we built Mobile Nations up to just a great network, right huge US audience, big mobile focus. And in 2019, it was acquired by that larger publisher, I talked about the future. So that would that was a wonderful experience, just seeing how all that stuff happens. I mean, I think, you know, Mobile Nations that the total number in the press release, I believe, is like $115 million that it was sold for. So it was a, it was a fairly big size deal.

Yoni Mazor: 20:46
Do you have any equity stake in that company? By that time? Are you just hardcore, just, you know…

James Falconer: 20:51
Just part of the Quartz team, you know, being a part of that process and seeing how it was all done, and then coming from that smaller team and into a larger publicly-traded company, was super interesting to just see how the larger companies operated.

Yoni Mazor: 21:12
And he's publicly traded in the UK.

James Falconer: 21:15
Yeah, UK but you know, all I shouldn't say all but most of the people that I worked with were on the US side, they had they definitely had us operations and UK operations.

Yoni Mazor: 21:25
Got it. Okay. So you saw how things work on a more corporate large scale. And then you kind of had the bug in you saying, I want to be able to focus on helping the more scrappy entrepreneurs, micro printers under their efforts. So would you mean, what happened? What transpired?

James Falconer: 21:41
Yeah, well, I mean, I, I stuck around for a couple of years a future, I was doing a lot of biz dev partnership work. Having the publishing history that I had, I could speak to speak very well to a lot of the products that they had on offer, even help them to develop new ones, which was a lot of fun, too. So I did that for a couple of years, built a team internally there. But it just became clear, you know, I, I wanted, I wanted to get back to doing what I've done before, which was, you know, really helping out. As I said, the smaller, scrappier companies. So I decided at the beginning of this year, to leave, and I left on super good terms with them. So that's some good friends. They're definitely missed but jumped back into doing this. And that's why I'm here with the seller rocket today Okay,

Yoni Mazor: 22:28
So 2021, you head over to seller rocket and tell us all about this. What is this? I'm an Amazon seller, for example, what's going on here? What is this all about? What is the book all about?

James Falconer: 22:37
Yeah, so I mean, it's, it's basically econ PR for sellers. And, you know, before I get too into it, and I don't want to get into the, to the weeds about I'll give that the overview. But I did some selling myself. So I can speak to this from experience. I wanted to…

Yoni Mazor: 22:55
Say that selling yourself he sold on Amazon.

James Falconer: 22:59
Know Amazon, you know, I wanted to get the experience of like, okay, what are people doing? And this was, this was many years back now. But I wanted to understand, you know, kind of what it took to do all the things from, you know, sourcing the products, you know, to managing all your listings to get everything right optimization, and pay per click. So I did that for a couple of years on my own, just to underscore you that

Yoni Mazor: 23:23
You start just some context here, what was your first start selling on Amazon you know.

James Falconer: 23:27
I don't recall, I think it was probably 2016 or something like that. around then, and did it for a couple of years, just to you know, and I was sourcing my own products, I focused on electronics, and I didn't have many ASINs. Right, like, I just wanted to do it as a bit of an exercise. So I knew, and I felt that

Yoni Mazor: 23:48
I was in US, Canada, both.

James Falconer: 23:52
And I just wanted to get that knowledge of like, what that took and what people are dealing with because I found it super helpful. So I can speak to that too. So getting back to seller rocket, you know, that's where they come in, where I found out very quickly, like if you want to make this work and do it well and really thrive. This is something that you need to really focus on and do full time. And as one person amplifying your efforts is crucial. So the short of it is what seller aka does that can help everyone listening is they, they're basically econ PR, they generate editorial recommendations. So all those recommendations you see from publishers within Amazon results, and they generate articles within Amazon that'll help you know your products as well so that they do those two, two really good things really, really well. So you can go ahead and do your own PR and marketing, which I totally recommend you do. Like that's you should be doing it anyway. But this is kind of like an extra layer of you have this whole team that's out there advocating for your products all the time. You don't have to mess with affiliate programs, if you don't want to, you don't have to hire a PR company, if you don't want to, they have relationships with over 70% of publishers that are in Amazon publishing content already. So as long as your products are well-reviewed, and rated, and have, you know, four-star and above rating, you're in a good spot with them. Because what they'll do is they'll present those products in front of all these publishers, and just say, hey, you know, here's some, we know you have this or that coming up in your editorial calendar. Check this out.

Yoni Mazor: 25:34
Yeah, let's say I'm an Amazon seller. And let's pick very popular categories for I guess, profitable Amazon brand owners, it's the kitchen category, have a great Cool Kitchen, you know, kitchen category product could be a beautiful spatula, maybe it's a variety of colors, or maybe sustainable materials, or it's recycled, or whatever it is. So what happens I go to sell rocket, I plug and play or just reach out to dynamic of, of actually sending things emotion, what effectively happens?

James Falconer: 26:02
Yeah, no, it's super simple. I mean, I do recommend go check out the site, right seller rocket IO, everyone listening, you can reach out to me, direct just James at James Celeron. And the way it works is very simple, you would just provide a list of the basins that you would want us to work with. It can be as you know, a little as a handful if you wanted to start, but we encourage, of course, the more the better to get the better rates or enterprise rates, you would provide a listing of those ASINs to us along with the rating for each product. And a number of reviews, and probably you know of keyboards to just the keywords that you want to target for each Aspin. So you provide all that to our team, we get that set up in the system. And then you can get his hands-on or hands-off as you want, you know, we're happy to jump on calls, do whatever we need with you. But we will take that information and start advocating for your products.

Yoni Mazor: 26:57
So that's you guys working behind the scenes? What do you do when you go out and pitch it or what you know, what's dynamic, what happens?

James Falconer: 27:03
Yeah, well, publishers that are signed up receive our feed, right? So they're constantly getting recommendations for from us to like, hey, you know, we know you have, you know, there's gonna be a big push on, you know, kitchen accessories in August, you know, what have you, here's some items that you may or may want to consider. Publishers love it, because we're always bringing them really good recommendations. In the end, they only want to recommend good products to their audience, of course,

Yoni Mazor: 27:32
What happens so that's a publication, let's say, really top-notch popular publication for people who like to follow kitchen trends and cooking trends. And they want they're gonna make an article about it, they're just gonna make them article-specific about the actual Asian, or the product, or they're gonna feature a few products in there, you know, 10bit, five best things, you know, new products for your kitchen or stuff like that, what's kind of the content side of things? How does that feel and look like?

James Falconer: 27:58
It could be both right? Like it could be, they could take that and actually do a recommendation on a particular product. And you'll see those show up as editorial recommendations. So if you search for, you know, like, best spatula, or whatever it is, and you scroll through the results, you may see some recommendations from different publishers that provide that third party level layer of trust, right to like, if these third-party publishers are writing about a product, and they're recommending it, you know, that it gives that extra credibility.

Yoni Mazor: 28:29
Usually recommend they just mentioned the brand. And then they tell you, go well they don't even say where to buy it or in the price. Or they tell Yeah, go buy it and then put a link into Amazon or your website or both? Or is that also an option?

James Falconer: 28:39
It's both. I mean, it's a nice, short written, you know, recommendation. Basically, if you do searches for popular keywords, they'll start showing up like the recommendations, which has been around a while now. And publishers are definitely using it. They're seeing success with it right? Because obviously, they're making a little bit more money based on their relationship with Amazon. If their recommendation shows up and is performing like basically generating the clicks and then the sales.

Yoni Mazor: 29:11
so you tell me the publishers also have another kickback opportunity by featuring your product because they have their own relationship with doing Amazon affiliates. What's the name of they call it today? It's not affiliated anymore. They redub it what's the new name Amazon called…

James Falconer: 29:23
Yeah, the Amazon onsite program?

Yoni Mazor: 29:26
Yeah. Where basically if they feature an article and you ace in and they know, they link into Amazon and somebody makes a purchase within 30 days, for example, Amazon identifies them as the affiliate and gives them a kickback so that's what they also accepted so they get paid to feature you are paid to feature uncover a good wholesome product. The right which is good for their audience and then you know people are interested in those types of products usually cover that creates a trend that creates a buzz that creates excitement and content. And then they have the opportunity also to get a kickback but that doesn't scratch. The seller, the seller you get a link to your listing you get the notion with the audience there that you know, this is a cool thing. It's kind of validated because you have also your ranks on the marketplace, this is not a good method to get ranked, is it, or to give you your views? This is what's your established you want to push more traffic or there are more elements that I am missing?

James Falconer: 30:18
Yeah, no I think you got it, there are definitely knock-on effects, right? Like, if you get placement, an editorial recommendation, or an article, now publishers have the ability to publish full-length articles within the system too. So they're a little bit different than the editorial recommendations. But regardless, both of those who have a lot of knock-on effects, like there's going to be a bit of a halo effect, because of those placements, like you said, your rankings are going to improve, you're going to be able to, you know, spend your money more efficiently and pay per click, as a result as well, there's a lot of different things, consumers are going to start recognizing your brand a lot more, they may go directly to your site, you know, as a result, there's a lot of things that had happened.

Yoni Mazor: 30:59
Once again I said that a lot of them that actually click and go visit the Amazon page will convert so it will help you know your conversion rate on the Amazon Asian listing page, which in law will improve your overall bestsellers rank and that, you know you propel from there.

James Falconer: 31:12
Exactly. So everything we're doing is gonna improve the results across everything else you're doing too. So that's why, you know, if I was still selling stuff on Amazon, I would totally sign up and do this myself. Because I'm only one person, and I don't have that team of PR people generating, you know, earned placements for me within Amazon and outside of Amazon. So that's kind of where this comes in, right? Like the, for people that already have established products that are doing well that have great ratings, great reviews, this is a no-brainer, visit the site, you can get in contact with me, I can talk you through it in more detail. And then for people that are starting out, don't discount this, this is still you know, if you can get the rating and review count up there to where it should be, we can definitely do this.

Yoni Mazor: 32:06
We can interview but would you say they're ready to go the bare minimum five reviews 50,

James Falconer: 32:11
We recommend at least a four-star rating and 100 reviews. At that point, the publishers will really you know, give it a look like we have to leave it to them for consideration, right? Like there's we can't just say, hey, write about this, that's not going to work for many different reasons. So anything that gets written is earned rate. And it has to be, and it does take some time. So for everyone listening, you know, if you …

Yoni Mazor: 32:37
Just launch the product of your product, build you you know, build your rank and build you, you know, popularity, build your reviews, that's its own project until methods. Make sure it's established is founded. And then you kind of be ready to graduate to the next layer of sophistication with marketing and branding your products online is you know, doing no public relations.

James Falconer: 32:56
Exactly. If you get that all in line, talk with us, and happy to help and then for you know, folks that maybe are just starting out or, you know, maybe those reviews and rankings aren't there just quite yet, you should still get in touch with us, because we'll want to talk about it, we want to talk through the opportunities that are there. Obviously, with a lot of the publisher relationships that we have, we can do a lot of things off-site as well. So means the on the publisher sites, not within Amazon. So there are things we can do there to help you get those ratings and reviews up to where they need to be. And just draw that extra audience to your products to so on both sides of the coin, we can help. So whether you're established with tons of ASINS, fantastic, maybe you're small, you only have a handful of ASINs. Or you're launching your own DDTC site. That's fantastic, too. I think the bottom line like we just want to hear from you. We can put together a program that makes sense in both cases.

Yoni Mazor: 33:56
Guy. What if a memorial established, you know, brand owner, we do actually have you know, audience out there that are very established, they actually use PR firms will be beneficial for them to reach out and get some more juice out of this or what would be an extra angle there on reaching out.

James Falconer: 34:10
Yeah, for anyone that already has relationships with PR companies or even good relationships with some of the bigger affiliate platforms, I would still recommend getting in and getting in touch because we can do analysis and even a test just to see how we perform versus what you're paying for elsewhere. I think you'll find that because we're so performance-based. You're only paying for the results that you get, and we can talk about that in a bit. But you know what PR companies are going to, you know, pick crazy hourly rate or per project basis or what have you. It's expensive, through the affiliate programs, right? In most cases, unless you're a big player, like, you know, NHP or Dell or someone you're not going to have anyone on those internal affiliate teams advocating for you and being like an account manager so you don't have that. It's very passive and you have to go out and beat that drum yourself. So with us, we kind of you know, cover that off. And you can still continue doing all that stuff.

Yoni Mazor: 35:05
So you’re saying there's an opportunity for customization where wherever, you know, public relations activities you already have, you can add your ad, you guys is another layer to increase distribution or increase reach for maybe kind of spots in areas or publications that you're missing out on.

James Falconer: 35:19
Exactly. It's, this is all additive to everything that you're already doing. So it's, not going to hurt anything you're already doing, it's only going to help. It's very low touch very, you know, easy to get into there's, it's a small cost to get in and start doing it. So that there's no really no reason to not give it a shot. And give it a fair chance, right, like 99% of our clients stay on 99 out of 100 people stick around, what we're doing is working. So you know, I encourage everyone to get beside luck. Reach out to me.

Yoni Mazor: 35:54
I think it kind of makes sense. Because if I'm a brand of any kind, I got to get exposure and constantly drip it. It's not like a one-shot and you're done. Even if you go you have the opportunity to be with the Oprah Winfrey sure show back in the day was a big show where if your brand is there, boom after the launch, but you got to stay relevant, you got to stay out there, right, that helps the public relations help to keep up dripping, you have the same obligation for different formats or different content articles, or other just keep that that alone, build your presence out there with probably the consumers that are much more most interested in what you have to offer. And as you have updates, new features, or whatever it is, or maybe in a sale or whatever, you got to keep communicating and all these channels are open. And they're easier today more than ever before to reach out to because back in the day. Yeah. Some television didn't talk to me even before the internet day right days. Yeah, television yet some newspapers. And just to reach out, it's a fortune. The animation, we actually started with cable television, we have more localized, so it's a bit more affordable. But now you can be featured all over the world and be bought all over the world because, you know, you put it on Amazon UK, you promise on us, it's so easy. Selling on Amazon, US and selling overseas pretty much on the platform level. The same thing, you might have to set up a few things on VAT and taxes and registration. Okay, some bureaucracy, wash it everything kind of. So the same, but then you have all these publications. So I guess this begs the question, you also do international and multi-language. Is this more mostly on the US, an English-speaking side?

James Falconer: 37:21
Yeah, no, I mean, US, UK, Canada, for sure. Is

Yoni Mazor: 37:25
Canada's also French, or there's only on the English side. French and English. Got it? Okay. So there's a multi-language approach there. Okay, so how much do you guys cost the Canadian dollars a day, what's the price point for sellers to consider entering into this opportunity with seller rocket?

James Falconer: 37:42
Yeah, so the way it works is very simple. And for everyone listening will extend the enterprise rates, I've just mentioned the podcast, and we'll happy to extend them at the enterprise rate, which is its $1,000 setup fee. And then after that, it's $100 per month per parent eyestone that you have, plus a 10% rev share. So once you pay that $1,000, setup fee, any other ASINs that you want to run, it's $100 a month. And then the 10% is all tracked in our dashboard, we track all the performance data. So you're going to be able to see the placements that are generated, you're going to be able to see the clicks the sales.

Yoni Mazor: 38:18
Is there is a dashboard? And once I set up with LR can I get access to a dashboard, and I can see the whole activity on the dashboard level.

James Falconer: 38:23
Exactly. And you can submit your own dashboard, everything's very transparent, you can see everything there, you can submit new ASINs as you go, like, let's say you started with five or 10, you're finding it's really working up to the first four. So weeks, submit, you know, you can spend as many as you like so you can keep ramping up if you want q4 crazy, you know holiday shopping season is coming up. So the timing right now is right to get started with something like this to be in a good spot for later in the year. And then you know, of course, we're always standing by to help with any questions that you have about the setup. And you know, happy to hear from everyone out there.

Yoni Mazor: 39:01
I like it. So let me get this straight on the structure. So let's say I have five parent nations, right each Asian each pronation has like a gazillion variations, that's a different issue. So I pay $1,000 flat, then I pay for each parent, another $100 per month. So that's another $500 per month, I go to the dashboard, so good that $1,000 set up for you just once, and then I can add five patients or 500 or 5000 doesn't matter, right? As long as they're paying $100 a month for that period parent Jason which then you guys keep dripping in and dripping and dripping into all these publications out there and the outlets and media outlets and then that funnels more and more traffic into my Amazon listings hopefully and then that converts and you know propel so I think if you really believe in your brand and you're passionate about it and you know you you're really passionate about making sure that any consumer out there that can utilize the product that your brands offer and benefit from it. Make that push make that effort That's really the only way to win. And if, if you're just kind of only competing on the PPC side of things, even though you're extremely successful at it, you're wizard, which is cool. Try other methods because if at the moment, this starts to be wobbly or shaky, or somebody outbid you was gonna be another layer for you to continue your success story. So building a fortress is not just about having one strong wall, you have all these walls around you, that help you kind of safeguard your, your traffic and the conversion and, and the sales revenue that you're generating. So any feature that you can add into pushing traffic to your listings and converting and growing from there and enhancing the recognition of every brand and getting Ben followers and consumers that follow you and keep on buying. I think that's huge. That's pretty much the end game for anybody out there on the marketplace. So I guess seller, Raka is one more opportunity that's available. So Jen, thank you so much for that, thank you for sharing all that. I want to kind of recap the story, in a nutshell, to see if we got it. Right. So, so far, born and raised in Canada, around 2000, ready, start working from 2000 to 2004, believe you worked in helping out, you know, all these publications out there on the affiliate side of things SEO and, you know, getting traffic and backlinks. But then 2004, you know, Crackberry kind of laid out. And that created a mobile nation, which was a platform for a lot of publications. Regarding obviously, the cell phone and accessories categories, that thing that became hugely successful, a million followers, sold to a huge publicly-traded company, and over $100 million worth of exit over there, which you were part of, you know, the team at the time when we got purchased, then for a year or two you kept working with, you know, with future the corporate company, the public company that bought mobile nation. And once again, you're immersed with the experience of, you know, online distribution, online publication, just you know, flowing traffic from one destination to another, and making sure that traffic is, is engaging, it's useful, it's beneficial for whoever's out there, until and then you kind of see the bug to help I guess, the smaller guys, so to speak, and then you jump in 2021 to, to sell a rocket. And now this is you're on a mission to help you know, the brands out there. Online brands, especially Amazon, Amazon sellers, who are trying to promote and grow their own brands, you present this opportunity for them. And that's kind of taken 15 years plus I've experienced doing this and mastering this and providing this in the most I guess, affordable way possible. And the easiest way possible. It's also on the dashboard, I have all this visibility out there. It's kind of innovative, which I find really cool. That we get to store right in a nutshell.

James Falconer: 42:40
Yeah, I think you got it. I mean, I think I think the beauty about this is, you know, it's high performance-based, and you know, chances are, you know, for everyone, you know, out there listening, you know, whatever your category or your product is, you know, chances are we you know, not only do we have a publisher, that would be ideal for it, but there's also probably competition that they're already rapping. You know, we're working with over 2000 brands where we're working with over 50,000 products. So I just encourage everyone to reach out and we'll find you know, a great way to work together.

 

Yoni Mazor: 43:12
Got to do it. I do highly recommend Alright, so now we got all that in place. I want to touch on two last things. The first thing I guess you kind of mentioned we can we mention again if somebody wants to reach out to you and connect and Learn More, where can they find you? And the lesson will be is what did you message of hope and inspiration for entrepreneurs listening out there?

James Falconer: 43:29
Yeah, well, to get in touch with us. Just go to the seller, aka die.io You can read all about us there. You can get in touch there, you can send me an email James at cellar rocket.io mentioned the podcast as I said, I Will grant our enterprise rates that we talked about earlier. And for you know, entrepreneurs out there, you know, I guess just one word of you know, hope inspiration is really just following your passion, right? Like that's, that's what I've done my whole career and it's always led me in the right direction. You know, if you stick to that, you know, follow the passion, let that drive you. You're gonna end up in a really good spot, you know, work with people that really love what they do and are passionate about it as well and you're gonna find yourself in a really good spot.

Yoni Mazor: 44:16
Very good. I love it. Follow your passion. There are so many things out there you can do that can help you basically make that success story and solid rock is one of the beautiful stuff. Right. So James thanks again for all of that. I hope everybody else enjoyed this and stay safe and healthy until next time.

 

 

GET A FREE CONSULTATION