In this timely episode, Brett Curry sits down with Nick Flint, Director of Email Marketing, to tackle the pressing challenge facing e-commerce brands today: how to maintain profitability amid rising tariffs. As import costs surge, they share actionable strategies for protecting your bottom line without sacrificing growth. Whether you're considering price increases, optimizing marketing spend, or leveraging email to boost customer loyalty, this episode delivers practical solutions you can implement immediately.

Key Takeaways

• Strategic Price Adjustments That Won't Kill Conversions: Learn how top brands are implementing 5-20% price increases, creating premium limited-edition offerings, and shifting from percentage-based discounts to flat-dollar thresholds that protect your margins while maintaining customer appeal.
• Cut Costs, Not Growth: Discover the hidden areas where you're leaking profits—from underperforming ad spend to unnecessary software subscriptions—and how regular P&L reviews can reveal thousands in recoverable expenses without compromising product quality.
• Email as Your Profit Preservation Tool: Capitalize on relationship-building email strategies that turn price increases into opportunities, including exclusive "lock-in" offers for loyal customers and subscription incentives that stabilize revenue during uncertain times.
• Inventory Intelligence for Cash Flow Optimization: Master the delicate balance between avoiding stockouts and preventing capital-draining excess inventory with practical forecasting approaches that protect your cash position.
• The Human Touch in Challenging Times: Find out why connecting authentically with customers through personalized communication may be your greatest competitive advantage during economic pressure—including specific question-based campaigns for your most valuable customers.

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- All right, Nick Flint, the buzz for right now and likely the foreseeable future is what do we do about the tariff madness that's impacting our industry? And so wanted to have you on here so we could talk briefly about what are some ways that we can mitigate risk, that we can protect profits so we can cut costs so that we can still find opportunity for growth and opportunity to thrive even in this climate. And so let's dive in. But first of all, how's it going? By the way,

- I'm doing pretty good over here. Really starting to dial in with some of our clients and the strategies that they have with these new changes and what they might see in their price structure, differences in the future.

- Great. Well, email's gonna play a big part of this. So Nick is our, our director of email. And I think now is the time we lean into the tried and true, right? Doing more for our customers, leaning into them more. Email is one of the, the most guaranteed returns and the lowest cost to execute on. So now is the time for emails. We'll lean into some tips there, but ultimately what we're looking for right now and whatever brand wants is how do I protect profits? How do I continue to grow? How do I protect profits? And I think ultimately the first thing, Nick, that we gotta look at is how can you increase prices and or increase profit per order without tanking conversion rates, right? Without killing conversions. 'cause not just as simple as raising rates through the roof, right? Raising prices through the roof because then people will stop buying. And so let's talk through some suggestions here on, on what we can do. So, so raising prices. One thing to keep in mind, Nick, and you know, we've been talking to a lot of our, our bigger clients. I've had 10 to 15 calls recently. We've been texting, messaging, you know, talking to clients frequently. And so one thing I'm hearing a lot from bigger brands is, Nick, they're just gonna raise prices. They're just gonna raise them, have not heard fully, you know, what, what percentage kinda lift that's gonna be that that's gonna be brand by brand, it's gonna be depending on the category, depending on how much room the brand thinks, they have to still remain competitive. Depends on the strength of the brand as well. But also a lot of people are just gonna raise prices, right? And so I think you gotta look at that and whether that's a 5%, 10%, maybe a 20% increase, it's gotta be on the table and you gotta be talking about it. One of the other things that we're looking at is how do we maybe bundle things and come with creative offers so that we can raise the a OV and and like the raise the profit per order. So what, what are your thoughts on both of those items? What are you hearing? What are you seeing?

- What's, what's funny is a lot of the stuff that we're looking at, you should be doing this year round, but it's really top of mind right now. Like

- Yeah,

- What does it come down to? Charging the right amount and then cutting your costs across the business when possible and trying to run a lean operation so you stay profitable. And it really comes to the forefront where you're starting to look at every dollar, every statement, every transaction coming through. Yep. So some of the easiest low hanging fruit that they can be doing right now to help raise that average order value, not give away too much margin. 'cause if you can not discount your products and extra 10%, that kind of combats that 10% extra that you're paying Yes. Over on your, your cost of goods coming across the seeds. So off the bat, one thing we've been shifting is the initial, just the popup offers on the site and the intro, instead of going with like a standard, you know, 10, 20% off your first order, we're putting a minimum threshold in there now. So, you know, $10 off any order of $50 plus if they're gonna spend 70, 80, 90 bucks, that $10 is gonna stay the same and not gonna be that fixed percentage versus 20% off of your $90 order. It's eight bucks that the brand saves.

- Yeah, I love that. So, you know, one, one of the, the best tools we have to grow our email list and grow our email marketing is the, is the popup in the offer. But nows may be a time to, to be less liberal with your, your discount. So make that a flat dollar amount so it doesn't scale to infinity. Also, maybe just raising the threshold for when that kicks in. So yeah, we're, we're going to limit that, right? I think the other thing to think about is, is, you know, how do we bundle products to, to, and create some interesting pricing there where we're, we're still getting more profit per transaction even while maybe our, our cost structure, our cogs have gone up. So I think that's an interesting one to look at. And it's something you've talked about Nick, and we, we've seen this with brands like Nike and others, is it's not just raising prices, but how do we introduce things like limited edition specials? How, how can we introduce things that feel more valuable and are more valuable so that we can charge a, a premium? So what, what are your thoughts on that

- For these limited edition items? It works for whatever level you're at. That, that's one kind of really unique thing about this strategy. If you're selling a $10 cup, launching a limited edition collab with someone, or even like a new colorway, you're just doing 200 of, you can now sell that for 15 instead of 10. Same thing on like the sneakers. Just like you talk about, you know, instead of $150 via sneakers, you're now going for 180 'cause it's a limited edition release. So if you can find some kind of way to implement scarcity with a new product, launch a new variant, we have a coffee brand doing this, they're leaning into more select roasts from around the world and they're really putting the emphasis on the Costa Rican farmers who are making these beans. And that's why it's slightly more per bag, but the quality's there and people appreciate it. And you also see people start to splurge on some stuff like that, you know, when they're starting to look at their own bank accounts a little bit tighter, you know, I'm not gonna go buy a new car right now, but you know what, I'll spend 15 for bank coffee. Might not my coffee. Yeah, totally. It's every morning then. Really good.

- Yeah, it's a really good thought that, that even when the consumer is, is pinched a little bit, even when the consumer confidence is low, it's not that they stop buying, right? We still, we all, we love to buy things. It's our favorite recreation, you know, retail therapy is a real thing, will always be a real thing. But yeah, how can you lean into something where, hey, okay, may, maybe I'm trading down in other categories, but I'm trading up in your category and and that's what you want to try to, to create there. So yeah, I I really wanna underscore, you know, this is not a time to cut growth costs, I believe, right? And, and this is, we were talking about this in our morning, Monday morning meeting today, Nick, where you know, David, David Ogilvy, legendary ad guy, the the guy behind Dove stoke and man in a halfway shirt and Rolls Royce and a number of others. He talked about, man, I I view advertising as an essential part of every product, just like I would an essential, an essential ingredient or central component. And just when times get tough, I'm not gonna cut, I'm not gonna cut the tires outta my Rolls Royce, you know, because times are tough. I I've gotta, I've gotta invest in that. And same is true for marketing. We don't wanna pull back on marketing otherwise we'll lose market share otherwise we'll, we'll create a death spiral potentially. And so lean into marketing, maybe you wanna lean into it in a more efficient manner. Maybe you raise your mirror, things like that, but don't but your advertising and growth budgets. But on the topic of cost cutting, Nick, I think this is a real thing, right? We've gotta look at how can we get lean? How can we be lean and mean right now? So what are some suggestions there? What have, what have you heard from others? What tips do you have?

- Especially on the SMS side of things, we're getting really tight with who we're sending to right now. You might have a 20,000 per SM person SMS list with, you know, 10 k those being engaged and the other 10 k is like, you're hopeful they'll purchase one day, they've been hanging around forever and you will send them those texts for the big launches or product drops. But now we want to tighten up that window so those SMS sends are to your more guaranteed segment, keep the revenue coming in from them and then as things start to normalize, then breach back out into that broader audience that you were looking at before, kind of that hopeful window you're spending some extra money on.

- Yeah, I love it. And you know, one of the other things we're, we're leaning into, you know, we do a lot with obviously Amazon ads and Google ads and YouTube and things like that is, you know, there, there are times when, when things are smooth and easy where, where maybe you kind of ignore some wasted ad spend, right? Where maybe there's some keywords that are not gonna performing with an Amazon ads with Google ads, but when times are good, you kinda let that slide. We audit, you know, dozens of accounts every month and we regularly see, you know, wasted ad spend in the 10 to 15 to $20,000 a month range, meaning you could cut that ad spend and sales would not dip. Now's the time to be looking at stuff like that. So don't cut your overall ad budget, but man, cut the waste. And so I think that's something you wanna lean into and look at right now. You know, one of the basic things we do all, all the time as an agency, Nick, is we at least quarterly and, and now I'd say you probably do this monthly, look at all your recurring expenses. What, what are, what are we paying for? What tools, what softwares, what are we paying for that we're not using? And we see this a lot where maybe you're like, oh wait, we're paying for three multi-touch attribution tools, right? We're paying for these two tools and those reporting, we don't, we don't need all that, right? And so what can we cut to get lean and mean? Because really I think right now we're kind of fighting and scrapping for every point, every point of profit that we can get. And so looking to cut expenses, cut software costs, cut, cut opex, things like that. What are the tips or insights you have on, on cost cutting? Nick,

- It is funny for that. That's one thing I don't recommend automating it is going over your p and l. Yeah. Like, yeah, QuickBooks could automate for you and shove into the different categories, but even for my own personal finances on Sundays, I sit down and I go look at every line item. And if I have a, a late fee for my gym, 'cause I missed a class, I punch myself in the arm for that $15 feed. I they hit you with

- Your wife's like Nick pushups right now.

- They, they get you with those cancellations. But looking at like cost cutting as a whole, get aligned with your inventory forecasting, sit on the extra inventory might have been a nice safe play and good to have in the future. And what if sales just spike up outta nowhere? Then I have the inventory for it. But really start to figure out how much you are selling through on a 30, 60 day basis. How much you need to be ordering so you're not running out of product. And then start saving some costs. 'cause you don't have a bunch of debt inventory sitting there in some kind of three pl

- Love it man. And this is also the time of you looking at your three pl. How can we cut costs there? How can we renegotiate? How can we lower shipping costs? Obviously talking to your factory, to your, your factory, to the manufacturers you work with. How can we extend terms, how can we maybe share in some of the price increases? So get creative there and, and really just look for any way that you can save and partner. Really nothing should be off the table because every point of margin matters at this point. And, and you know, another, another thing we recommend on the, on the Amazon side, we got a couple services we recommend where they will go and help you recover fees from Amazon because there's probably some fees you've been charged that you can get a refund on for a variety of reasons. But often that amounts to 1000, 5,000, $10,000 a month type of thing in, in recouped fees. So now is the time to look at everything like that as well. Try to save as much as you can without reducing product quality and without taking your foot off the gas pedal because you want to still be gaining market share and growing through this time. Now another thing we, we talked about Nick, as you know, hey, now's the time to lean into email marketing. So what are some creative things we can do to make our email marketing better that's going to lift sales, lift profits. What can we do right now?

- I really like leaning into the brand's tone and the brand's voice. And just remember that you're talking to other people on the other side of this transaction email or SMSI can see a lot of brands kind of just sending out this one way informational bit. One account I was auditing earlier today, a text, it was just super scientific, followed by read the blog post here. I'm like, do you think your customers really want to get this text and will it make them feel special like that the blog post? Like, come on, figure out a new way to phrase that and relate to your customers and work on your tone. You know, general population probably a little bit stressed out now as well. So connect with them on a personal level that'll make them feel more connected to your brand. And a great way to do this is just, you know, asking questions and having a real conversation with them. Especially if it's your top a hundred, 300, 500 customers. I always recommend sending out a question type email campaign to get those replies to help with deliverability and to boost your results in the future. But for now, if you don't have like the customer service backend to deal with a thousand replies, start with your top a hundred, 300 customers and figure out what question you wanna ask them and actually relate to them and have that back and forth conversation. And it's more likely could get you some referrals in the future when they send people your

- Way's. Really great. And you know, one of the other things I'll mention an idea that we actually, we did this a couple years ago for another client where they were about to raise their prices. They had not raised prices in quite some time and so they emailed their entire list. I think they started with our VIPs and then they emailed everybody, but they said, Hey, you know, we're raising our prices on this date, here's why. And I, and I think it's another way where email gives you the, the freedom to do this. You just explain this to your customers that hey, our cost of goods are going up 50% right now, so we're not raising our prices 50%, we're raising our prices 10% or whatever the case may be. But here's why we have to do a price increase. We just, we have to, right? But here's what we wanna do for you because you're a valued customer locking in the existing price through this date. And what's interesting about that is it, it's basically a sale. It's not a sale. 'cause you're not discounting, you're just saying we're about to raise our prices, but you can order right now. Now obviously there are a few things you gotta keep in mind there. If you're low on inventory, you can't do it if, if you're, you know, inventory forecasting is not precise right now you can't do it. But if all those things are good and you wanna raise a little bit of cash right now to kind of help weather the storm, it's a great way to do a quote unquote sale without doing a discount.

- Especially if you have a subscription based business. Hey, you know, subscribe now to get 10% off for every order moving forward. Yes. And that'll give 'em reason to not cancel in the future because we'll see those new price increases. Oh, if I cancel then I gotta come back into this new higher

- Rate. Yeah. And maybe, maybe make that offer just for subscriptions only. We're like, hey, we're about to raise prices, but not only are we not raising prices on our existing subscriptions, we're on this current discount. So get locked in now so that you don't have to worry about it later. And, and yeah, that creates predictable, consistent revenue, which is worth it in the long run. So Nick Flint, any, any final thoughts? How do we protect profits, cut costs? How do we find ways to win right now?

- Yeah, closing out in less than a minute here, focus on what's working for your business right now. Probably don't use this time to test out a ton of new things that are gonna cost you a lot of money. So focus on what's working for you. Communicate with your customers openly and like a human, actually connect with them. Look at all of your costs. And then lastly, consult an actual tariff lawyer. You know, yes, before you do something silly, like try to backend this secret deal with your manufacturer where they put it as half the cost when it comes overseas and you're gonna get audited and probably sent to prison, dodge all that by talking to an actual professional. 'cause it's hard to sell products when you're in a jail cell.

- Yeah, yeah. That, that cut in profits, reduce profits much easier to tolerate than prison foods. So I I like that. That's really, really sound advice, Nick. I appreciate that. And, and just final thought as we wrap up here is that even in the midst of tariff craziness and, and the way this all will, will shake out and likely change a million times here in the, in the coming months, there's always, always, always a path forward. There's always a way to win, there's always a way to grow, there's always a way to gain new customers. And so that's why we wanna bring you solutions. And so with that, we'll wish you good luck. Thank you Nick, for joining us and until next time,

- See you then.

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