Jared Grawrock @ goodr

In this episode of the Omnichannel Marketer, host Kait Stephens interviews Jared Grawrock, Head of Lifecycle & Retention Marketing at goodr.

Jared shares his journey from dabbling in early social media and email marketing to leading retention strategy at one of the most beloved sunglass brands in the country. He discusses what it truly means to be "customer obsessed," how goodr balances DTC and omnichannel growth, and why building deep brand loyalty from day one is the single most powerful growth lever a brand can have.

The conversation dives into how goodr uses data, AI, and a relentless focus on the "why" behind customer behavior to build lifecycle programs that actually resonate, and why word-of-mouth still reigns as their number one acquisition channel after a decade in business.

TAKEAWAYS:

• Good lifecycle and retention marketing starts with asking "why" – why did they buy, why did they come back, and why does one cohort outperform another.
• Retention and acquisition are not competing priorities; they are complementary levers that must be balanced together.
• goodr actively embraces omnichannel growth, building strategies to serve customers wherever they want to shop, whether DTC, Amazon, or retail partners like REI.
• Using Brij inserts in Amazon orders has been a key tactic for identifying anonymous customers and bringing them into goodr's owned ecosystem.
• The brand's highest-retention cohort traces back to its earliest days, when the CEO handed out sunglasses from the trunk of his car. 
• Word-of-mouth remains goodr's number one acquisition channel, even after ten years of growth across paid and owned channels.
• AI is accelerating Jared's ability to analyze data and surface insights, including parsing nearly 10,000 open-ended loyalty survey responses in a fraction of the time.
• AI will improve product recommendations and shorten the consideration phase, but it cannot replicate the emotional experience of a purchase that just feels right.
• SMS is one of the most underrated lifecycle channels: powerful when done right, but easy to get wrong.
• The biggest mistake brands make in retention is treating customers as generic segments.

Where to find Jared Grawrock:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jared-grawrock-57124a7/ 

Website: https://goodr.com/

Where to find Kait Stephens:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kait-margraf-stephens/

Website: www.brij.it

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

This is the Omnichannel Marketer, the show where we get real about what it takes to build a brand, create a seamless omnichannel experience, and drive customer LTV across D2C, Amazon, and retail. I'm Kate Stevens, the CEO of Bridge. Join me for unfiltered conversations from the trenches of e-commerce. We'll unpack strategy and leave you with tactical advice you can use today to drive your business forward. Let's rock and roll. Hi everyone, this is Kate Stevens with the Omnichannel Marketer. I am super excited today to have Jared Graw Rock joining us from the Gutter team. Jared, how are you?

SPEAKER_01 0:43

I'm doing well. Thank you. Thanks for having me. I appreciate it.

SPEAKER_00 0:46

It's absolutely my pleasure. So tell me a little bit, Jared, about your career journey. What led you to life cycle and retention marketing at Gutter?

SPEAKER_01 0:56

My journey is a little bit weird and uh I think a little bit atypical because I think when I started this journey, there was no real thing as digital marketing. It was just kind of dabbling in like social media and email. Um and it just quickly became a little passion of mine. Like I've always loved those touch points and like watching that customer journey and you know, watching something from start to finish has always kind of been a piece of a digital marketing, no matter what that is, whether it's an email campaign or a social media post or uh e-commerce, like all of that. And so that's just kind of led me along this journey to where I found myself at Gooder. I started as the B2B digital marketing manager when we were very much in startup mode, and that has progressed along with this company as we've grown and our needs have grown. We identified that retention was was up there, and I kind of just rolled right up into the role itself where I'm uh overseeing our life cycle and retention marketing for the brand. So yeah, it's been it's been a great journey, but it's been uh a little bit different and it's kind of funny to look back on when it it basically kicked off from coding MySpace pages.

SPEAKER_00 1:53

That is um that is definitely a journey. So, how has your perspective on brand and the evolution of you know what you're focused on? How has that evolved as the brand has scaled?

SPEAKER_01 2:05

I mean, I think there's like any growing company, like always kind of have to, I think, refocus and look at like where you at, where you've been and and how you got here. And I think that's something that's really great that we do here at Gooder is because we're always kind of striving to look back, be like, oh, this is our growth, this is what we've done. Like, A, how can we do it better? Because we always ask that quite often, like, how can we do it better? And then B, like, is this where we want to go in that direction? Um, and that's kind of led to the exact, you know, the growth that we've seen as a as a brand overall is just kind of we have strategically made that happen. I don't think that's by accident at all. I think a lot of smart people have come to the brand and and worked really hard and and our shift in needs, just like my role itself. We needed to focus on retention. We need to look at like how our customers were coming back. We needed to see what they were buying and how often, and so on and so forth. So, like that focus became a benefit of our growth. So that's kind of exactly what we're doing still today.

SPEAKER_00 2:55

And what does good life cycle and retention marketing look like for a gooder?

SPEAKER_01 2:59

What does that mean? For us, us. I mean, that's being what we call internally like customer obsessed. We love being customer obsessed. We love knowing why. And on a personal level, I love knowing the whys. I will always ask why. And I think it's a little bit annoying for some of my teammates. But I go in and ask the why. Why did they buy? Why do we think they bought? Why do we think they came back here versus here? What did we do to help drive that traffic? So, like retention is kind of helping looking at all those questions as well. It's just like, why do we think they came back? Why does this cohort perform a little bit better than this cohort? Why does one email track a little bit better than others? What are the channels we're looking at? So for me, it's always been like up-leveling that why and then building strategies around that on the retention level. So, for example, is let's say we know they came in from an event. We know they came in from an event, so they may not know the brand all that well. Do our welcome flows match that type of entry point? Or are they the same kind of typical welcome flow that we do for a paid media campaign? And if they are, again, why? Why are we doing that same exact experience across the board? And if we can get to that level, then let's figure that out and serve them something a little bit better or a little bit more on target. So we're actually speaking to that customer. Um, that leans back to that customer obsession of like, we know they came from X. So let's build out an actual retention program for them because of that. So that's kind of what I believe good looks like here at Gooder. And again, we're always asking that question is this the right way to go? Is this best? Is this good? And would be even better. So I I get a lot of feedback from our team all the time being like, hey, we should do this, we should do this. Like, have we thought about this because for this customer? Um, and it's a great, you know, challenging thought always. And and that's kind of where we're at. And this is kind of how we believe retention and lifecycle is quote unquote good here at Gooder.

SPEAKER_00 4:37

I love that. So I think it's very easy to focus entirely on acquisition, especially as a scaling brand as you know, the key measure of growth. But how do you guys think about retention as a growth lover?

SPEAKER_01 4:50

I mean, I think they go hand in hand. If I'm being honest, you literally can't have one without the other. I mean, if you aren't growing, then how can you retain anybody? So, like that is the catalyst and that's the start of things. But I think if you just frame it there that that's your only growth, then I think that's where you start kind of limiting yourself in terms of deeper growth or deeper connection. I think retention, a lot of ways is is really focused on that back half of bringing somebody back. So if you can find out those whys on why they would come back more often than not, that's your growth pattern as well. You know, two purchases, three purchases, four purchases is growth. And it's just a different type of growth. And focusing on that and ensuring that you are okay with balancing that is the lever that you need to identify as a brand. One of the things that we are kind of looking at and kind of identifying is that we are growing massively in a lot of retail stores. We are growing in a lot of online, other online marketplaces. We have to balance that growth with our D2C growth. And then are we able to continue to let that growth and those patterns and those channels because of the retention that we're actually creating for those channels? I think one of the biggest examples is our Amazon growth right now. We we have seen a lot of explosive growth in Amazon. And as you know, we don't always get the picture of who that customer is. And so that growth is neither bad or good, it's just happening. So I think for us, like identifying tools that help us identify those customers the best we can, and then looking at that as a channel that's also growing with our D2C customer base is key. And being okay with that and recognizing that, hey, I might lose a customer to our retail space and make it not be a D to C channel versus a retail channel. We both experience growth. Let's continue to serve that customer where they're at if that's where they continue to tell us they want to shop. And that's okay. So balancing the brand objective and brand growth is I think more key than actually just saying it's acquisition versus retention or one or the other.

SPEAKER_00 6:41

Totally. How do you as an org balance those different incentives, especially with wholesale and marketplace growth? Knowing that the customer journey is truly omnichannel. And frankly, that your retention efforts are like undoubtedly benefiting both D2C, but then also retail sales. Like how do you align the align the org around that?

SPEAKER_01 7:04

I think it's, you know, it's asking yourself kind of and asking the org first, are you okay with someone buying here versus buying there? And if you're not, then I think you have to identify and look at strategies to either A, bring them right back to the channel, you want them to actively purchase that, or try to drive them away from that channel together. If you are okay with that, which is key, I think, if you're ROK with that growth on whatever channel it may be, then I think it's key to build out the strategies that work for them. So for example, our VP of digital, he's never bought online. And that's it's funny, but he's never bought online before he came to Gooder. He always bought at REI, which is one of our biggest retail partners. But we never knew he was buying at REI because we don't get that data. So the minute we can find that out, how do we build strategies to continue to have Ron, who's our VP of digital, continue to buy at REI because that's okay. That's where he wants to shop. And I think that's one of those retention activities that you need to ask yourself is like, how do we continue to get them to continue to shop where they actively want to shop versus that friction point of we have to bring them back to D to C? You know, if it takes you six emails, you know, 10 promos and so on and so forth just to bring that one customer back to D2C instead of saying, hey, we know you want to buy two or three more pairs at REI, what's better for your brand and what's better for that customer connection overall and for you? It's like it's letting him, letting that person buy 10 times in store, but being able to identify it is where that key key component comes in and continuing to serve that customer in that area. So that's it's always about um, you know, I'm gonna say balance over and over again. Probably it's probably the key word I'm gonna focus on here. But that's that's what it truly comes down to is talking to the org, talking to the brand, identifying are we okay with a customer buying in channel A versus B versus C? And if we are, let's go ahead and build strategies to continue to do that.

SPEAKER_00 8:46

And what do some of those strategies look like once you, you know, as you expand expand those channels? Yeah, walk me through what that looks like.

SPEAKER_01 8:55

So I think there's another evaluation of like what is most important for that customer base. So for example, on Amazon, we get very, very limited, you know, PII. We get very limited info on a customer coming from there. So for us, we would leverage a better incentive to capture that customer, i.e., maybe a free product. So a full disclosure, we do use bridge for our Amazon customer and they get an insert in all their Amazon boxes. And when they scan that, their incentive is much greater to come in because we really want to make sure that we are finding out who this customer is versus someone who may get one of those experiences within like our retail, our retail, like our cabana. You know what I mean? We have that customer already. So like maybe we skew that incentive so that we're still capturing that data. But what's more important uh or what is what we're gathering is the leverage point, basically. So, like that Amazon customer, it's really important for us to identify them first. So let's see if we can identify a better incentive, so to speak, to come into our ecosystem versus someone who's already in the ecosystem we already know. And then we leverage that later on down the road by saying, hey, let's create the welcome flow, let's create a specific offer, let's create specific like communications to this audience now that we can start to identify them. So yeah, it's always about kind of identifying, you know, not to get too into the logistics, like the margin. How much is it to have a customer buy on X versus Y? Is it more important? You know, do they need to buy two for us specifically? Do they need to buy two pair to equal the one? And then you start leveraging all those offers. Are you leveraging all those incentives to bring that customer in? And that's where I think you kind of go back and forth and you play with what that offer might be.

SPEAKER_00 10:30

Yeah. What are some of the offers that you guys have used in the past?

SPEAKER_01 10:34

Sure. I mean, right out of the gate, you know, there's the simple ones, right? Uh the warranty, sign up and register your product for warranty. You're in the ecosystem, there's continue to encourage loyalty signups. So you're already in that loyalty program and you reap the benefits of our loyalty program. There are immediate discounts, whether that's a site-wide or whether that's an immediate on a product, or there's free product. You know, Amazon is our highest level right now. So if you scan the barcode and you you come into that, you get the experience for a free product. And we believe that's the best route right now for this channel to gather and create that, that bring them into our ecosystem, basically. So that's why it's okay with us sacrificing a little bit of that margin for that, you know, deeper customer relationship down the road.

SPEAKER_00 11:13

Totally. Makes complete sense. How do you actually think about, you know, long-term value? I guess lifetime value is actually the better term there, as well as like, you know, short-term benefit.

SPEAKER_01 11:26

I mean, I think if I'm reading kind of the tea leaves around the e-commerce world, I think everyone's asking this question. I think everyone is like looking at like, are we gonna sacrifice short-term revenue for right now for a potential, you know, long-term customer play, long-term, you know, lifetime value? And I don't think necessarily either is wrong, but I think you as a brand have to kind of identify what do you really want in the long term? How are you going to recapture this customer later on down the road if you offer them something immediately? You know, and then starting to look at their like repurchase windows and identify and start creating strategies around that. So, you know, we're a sunglass company, so we know we have a little bit of a cyclical, you know, purchase window. How do we kind of balance that immediacy of you know, revenue promotions versus knowing they might come back in a year or six months when the weather's much nicer? And I think you're always gonna kind of have that collaboration in internally, at least we do, about, you know, let's plan this promotion right now. Let's get this out the door for the business objective, which could be revenue. It could be, you know, let's say like there's the revenue, there's just product discoverability, there's sometimes people are dealing with overstock. So all these can become a lever that you're pulling as a business objective that you are okay with kind of minimizing that LTV a little bit overall. That being said, if you come if you continue to bring them back over and over again, then you're actually increasing your LTV in the long run over a longer time frame. So like you have to just have those conversations about what the business objective really is at that moment and then set up time later on down the road to say, we want to make sure we're bringing this customer base back after we've done this kind of, you know, execution.

SPEAKER_00 13:04

So speaking of loyalty, Goodur has a incredibly strong following. How do you think about you know turning those customers into true loyalists? What's been the strategy there?

SPEAKER_01 13:16

That is such a good question. And, you know, there's there's kind of two time frames of Goodur, if I'm gonna be totally honest. There was a time frame where we're in really big startup mode. And when we were, you know, just starting out, our CEO literally was going out to run clubs and handing out sunglasses out of the trunk of his car. You know, I tell the story all the time. And we went back and we looked at some of those retention rates for that customer base, and they are much higher than any of our other customer base uh retention in our cohorts. And part of that, I believe, truly is that that customer connection. They had that deep customer connection early on to then kind of quote unquote fall in love with the brand, follow the brand and their brand's growth. And they are the ones who are continually purchasing and becoming and are loyal fan bases. Um, you know, it creates that deep customer connection with the brand. And they're they're kind of evangelists or loyalists or whatever you want to call them. They then help the future of your growth. You know, we are 10 years old as a company, um, and I've been here for five. And since I've been here, we've always had a post-purchase survey. And our number one answer on how did you hear about Good or how'd you hear about us is friends and family. It still is to this day. And that is still so wild to me considering all the growth and all of our acquisition channels that we try to, you know, continually bombard, but it's still friends and family. And that's just an amazing piece of like connection that a lot of brands would would, you know, claw their way up. You know what I mean? Like, like we still have it and I love it. And it's it's so great. And so that continually to have that word of mouth, that brand loyalty, is a massive boost to us and a massive kind of feather in our cap that allows us to to have a lot more fun, to kind of try some things out, you know. When we make sunglasses that glow in the dark, which is 100% uh an oxymoron, we still have people buy them. You know what I mean? Like they glow in the dark. You're buying sunglasses that go in the dark, and we have a loyal fan base that loves kind of those limited editions, and that out that allows us to kind of continue that deep customer connection because we might take a chance on a pair of sunglasses that that sounds really absurd, but works for our customer base. Yeah. It's always it's that that that deep loyalty, that deep connection is something that I would encourage any brand to really strive after. I do say that with a caveat that it's harder and it takes a lot longer than you know, quicker growth paths, but it's worth it in the long run.

SPEAKER_00 15:36

Yeah. Um, how do you bring that same emotional connection to your loyalty program? Because like the loyalty program is I I would think in many ways is kind of like the next iteration of like continuing to drive that community.

SPEAKER_01 15:51

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, one of the things we want to do is make sure there's a value to the loyalty and we're continuing to evaluate it and we're continuing to roll out uh new opportunities with it. Hopefully, we have free product redemption coming soon. So that way we can focus on a strategic piece of uh product that we want to offer to our loyalty members only. We also are coordinating and working with some of our sports marketing partnerships to enable a deeper opportunity that's just not sunglasses. Let's say hypothetically we have Vans Warp Tour tickets. We want the ability to have our customers, if they're in the area and have enough points, to redeem for Vans Warp Tour tickets. Like that's just that added benefit to the loyalty program. That's not just about sunglasses, it's about that connection you have with this brand that we are really trying to create and build out so that again, we're not just talking about our sunglasses, we're talking about this connection with our loyalty that you think is cool, that you want to share out with everybody else. Like, I'm I'm part of this loyalty program. I got to go to Vans, I got to go to Vanswarp Tour. That's cool. So those are kind of the things that we're looking to grow outside of our wild limited editions that you can only get being a loyalty member.

SPEAKER_00 16:56

Yeah, makes complete sense. All right, so shifting into everyone's favorite topic right now, AI. Um how are you seeing AI change your approach to lifecycle and retention marketing? And where do you see the biggest opportunities?

SPEAKER_01 17:10

Yeah, I mean, AI, one of the ways that's really, really helping me is shaping the way I look at data, shaping the way I ask a question, you know, going all the way back to the whys. If I can start using AI to quickly shape some of that data, then that's easier for me to go back to our C suite and say, hey, these are some of the patterns I'm seeing. This is what I'm seeing. I think our strategy could go here. So that's probably the biggest lift I think I'm benefiting from right now from AI. You know, like just being able to take a data set that would take me days, maybe, uh, you know, based on my projects that I have on the plate, and shorten that up and shorten that window to maybe even just one day instead of days. That is a benefit for me. And that's how I think AI is really, really helping change the game for us. Like, for example, um, we did a loyalty survey and we sent that out and um we did a lot of open-ended questions to our loyalty program, and we got almost 10,000 answers back from our loyalty survey. Parsing through 10,000 open-ended questions is wild. Yeah. But we fed it through AI and I said, hey, could you summarize our answers? And it just kicked out this massive report on every single open-ended answer and gave a synopsis. And so that was great. One of the things about me is I'm still gonna go back in and kind of parse through some of that data one by one. But it was better that I had a really high-level synopsis ready to go and I could report that back out. So that's kind of how I'm seeing it shape AI. That's how I'm seeing it shape like my role and my retention right now. But you know, the tools are ever increasing. So always open and always looking at at how that's gonna shape deeper customer connection.

SPEAKER_00 18:38

Yeah. Um, what is your view on how uh it can start to shape personalization, especially as you think about the level in which you can, you know, personalize copy and cohorts, and even as you think about channel specific flows, product specific flows, do you think that you see a future where that's um yeah, like hyper personalized?

SPEAKER_01 19:02

Yeah, absolutely. I absolutely do. And I think that's it's going to shape us and it's going to help out, and it's going to be a nice additional piece. But I was thinking about this the other day, and this is gonna be a kind of a weird tangent, but bear with me. I was thinking about this the other day. I went with a friend and and uh she was doing some shopping and she wanted to try on some clothes, and and she tried on a couple pieces, and whatever she came out of the dressing room, and like like she came out and was you could tell she loved the way that piece looked on her, and it was awesome, and she felt really good and it was very complimentary. And I was thinking about that, and this is gonna be weird. This is literally a LinkedIn post of like how the shape might be to be. But it was AI is never gonna be able to replace that feeling about trying something on and having it feel good. Will it be able to say this is probably a product recommendation because you've done this and this and this? Absolutely. We're gonna truly be able to replace that feeling of something looks good on me, so I'm going to buy it. Yeah. I hope not, maybe, but I hope not. And so, like, that is where I think in looking at product and looking at AI, how can we take some of those pieces and frame that up? But it's never gonna replace that feeling about I look good in this, and I'm going to buy this because I feel good in this. Um, and I think for a lot of brands, that's gonna be unmistakably hard to replicate in the future, but it will absolutely help shape product recommendations and give you a sense of it might shorten the buying window or the consideration phase. I think that's probably the biggest one. Because it will help shorten that consideration phase. But as we all know, buying something is is on an emotional level in a lot of ways. So until you can really truly minimize or find that gap, like it's it's it's not gonna be the end all replacement.

SPEAKER_00 20:38

Yep. Totally. I fully agree with that. Um, what is something that you believe about retention or life cycle cycle marketing that many brands get wrong?

SPEAKER_01 20:48

Wow. I don't know if anyone's truly, I mean, I was gonna say I don't know if any brand's truly getting it wrong, uh, because I don't, you know, have the back end insights to see that. But I think where we may or may not like really fully understand or miss it is expecting, and maybe this is a roll-up of the A AI question, is treating our customers like a generic X. Like, yeah, I've seen plenty of people create email flows, I've seen plenty of people create email templates from AI strategies and so on and so forth. And that's great, and that's helping a lot of people. But is that truly that brand and that deep customer connection that you really want there? Um and I think that's where I think we're we're we're sacrificing quick for hard and deeper connection. And I think that's where quote unquote a brand might get it wrong. But I also understand that that's also leverage, you know what I mean? If you can crank out a couple more emails or you can crank out a little bit more experiences, um, then sometimes that's the actual answer. You know what I mean? Like sometimes that's okay. But it it's it's just making sure that what you are producing um is actually relevating and resonating with your customer base and having it be okay to fail, I think. Expecting things to always be. Above KPIs or perform and and and not learning from that, I think that's where brands kind of quote unquote get it wrong is not taking your failures and really applying actual learnings behind it. And I think that's where people get it wrong. Because I mean, I'd be there are too many tools out there, there are too many voices out there that can help you frame exactly what can be a successful retention program. But unless if you're not personalizing it to your brand, then you are probably missing out on on something, some nugget, some piece of valuable information that that will help you in the long run.

SPEAKER_00 22:30

Makes complete sense. Where do you see the category heading in the next three, three to five years?

SPEAKER_01 22:36

I don't know. That is such a good question. I don't know. Like, and that this is probably I love e-commerce and I love you know lifecycle and retention and just digital marketing as a whole is I don't think I've had a period where I've never where I've thought like, here we are, this is all it's ever gonna be. You know, it'd be like it's it's ever evolving, it's ever changing, and a new tool comes out monthly, yearly. And we are all asked, like, hey, what's this gonna shape? How's this gonna shape like our future? How's this gonna shape our strategies? Is this changing our strategies? And I love that. I know it's very challenging, but I love that question all the time, just because it allows you to also grow and stretch and move. I know you know AI is gonna shorten up a lot of things, and I think it's going to enable a lot of growth from a lot of brands very quickly, and I think that's gonna be great. I think it's going to be that longevity. Um, how do brands continue that longevity in the long run versus oh my gosh, we're so successful, now what? And I think that's going to be a lot of I think that's where we're going in like five years. Is a lot of people, a lot of brands asking, now what? Because they hit that plateau or they hit that growth. And now they have to ask themselves, now what do we do? Like what do we go, how do we pivot? How do we grow from this learning? And so on and so forth. So I think hopefully in five years, we're all asking the same question about some other new challenge that's that's arising. And we're all on board with with kind of facing it and growing that opportunity.

SPEAKER_00 23:55

Makes sense. If listeners take one action away after listening to this episode, what what do you want it to be?

SPEAKER_01 24:02

Listen to your customers. They're going to tell you whether your product is good, whether your product's bad, whether your marketing is good, whether your marketing is bad, whether your retention efforts are good, whether they're bad. And grow with them too. Um, you know what I mean? Like we we offer a whole bunch of products now. You know, literally two years ago, three years ago, we had a very shortened product assortment. And we've grown that exponentially. And it's been awesome. We get to see customers now diving into a whole bunch of products we didn't have before and learning a lot about them. One of the things on our post-purchase survey, we ask if you bought for active or fashion. And then we go in and we look at the actual orders and what we believe internally about being active or fashion is not what they believe to be active or fashion. So from there, how do we market on those? It's hard work. And uh don't get me wrong, but it's it's really hard work to build that connection and try to be authentic. So that's the one thing is ensure that you are growing and listening and uh um being customer obsessed as well.

SPEAKER_00 24:57

Yeah, I I mean I fully agree with that. Even on the B2B side, we echo that all the time, thinking about how we can grow with our customers. And we have a Slack channel called Voice of the Customer. We're just highlighting basically tidbits that we learn.

SPEAKER_01 25:13

We do too. We actually do too. Yeah, yeah. Whether it's good or bad. Uh, you know what I mean? Like we'll go through, we'll go through our reviews, we'll go through our actual mail. We had this is gonna sound so weird, and I know no one's gonna believe us, but we had somebody write in that they came into an encounter with a deer and the glasses, it's it's true. Like, well, I think it's true. They they wrote in that the the glasses actually save them from like you know, facial damage from a deer. Wow. Um, you know what I mean? Like it's it's these wild stories that we get that wild. It's literally the voice of the customer, and and you know, we we send them out of care package and everything like that. But you know, like we run the gamut from you know, this was my my son's favorite pair to deer attack. So that's also another fun part of the brand is our absurdity equals their absurdity. So we're okay with it.

SPEAKER_00 25:59

Yes, it's part of your character.

SPEAKER_01 26:02

It's absolutely part of our character, and we're okay with it. And actually, we embrace it and love it.

SPEAKER_00 26:06

So embrace it totally. I mean it's a very good example of this. Is I saw you at Shop Talk, I wanted to take a selfie and you put on sunglasses, like you know, in a Vegas casino. So that that is like to me like very much good or brand.

SPEAKER_01 26:18

It's good or on brand. I almost I almost put them on for the very beginning of this intro call, but I decided against it just in this particular case because I literally have some literally within right now I could reach and and pull up her out uh because my my house is just full of gooder sunglasses because they're awesome.

SPEAKER_00 26:32

So amazing. All right, shifting into our lightning round. Okay, so just quick answers.

SPEAKER_01 26:38

Okay, quick answers. Oh, I'm terrible at these. Okay, that's great.

SPEAKER_00 26:40

Favorite omni channel brand right now, other than gooder.

SPEAKER_01 26:44

Oh, this is gonna be so weird and terrible. Uh it's Taco Bell. I love their I I I love everything they do, honestly, from their pop-ups in the desert to their hotel that they made, to their app, to their emails, to their social posts.

SPEAKER_00 26:57

I don't know this about them. I only know them from their crunch wrap supreme, which I had way too many times in college, but I needed follow their marketing.

SPEAKER_01 27:04

Their marketing is is pretty great. Um, yeah, it's it's I think it's really great because they do a good job of like omnichannel in the sense that like they know you're shopping at Brick and Mortars. They know you can shop on the app, they know you can do this, but like uh like they have like local new like new artists. They do a whole like launch on new artists within their app. And they did a vinyl record last week uh that they dropped. They didn't recognize one name on there, so I'm probably out of the demographic. That's neither here nor there. But uh but that's that's it's just that kind of kind of going all the way back to our loyalty program. They identified some more value to their loyalty program to help their customers as well. So that was a weird answer, but it is it's gonna be one of my answers right now.

SPEAKER_00 27:43

I I love that. I'm gonna spend more time looking at Taco Bell's marketing now. What is the most underrated life cycle channel?

SPEAKER_01 27:50

Oh, the first one I came with was SMS. And I think it's because SMS is so challenging. SMS is a channel where you get text messages that are very personal. You know, you're your bad news from your mom, you know, bad news across the board, good news. Like it's a very, very personal channel. Yeah. And if you kind of quote unquote break that veil of interrupting that personality with within your SMS program, you kind of already, you're already behind the eight ball in terms of that channel performing really well. So I think that's an undervalued one. So if you do it right, I think you can really, really reap the benefits. I think it's an amazing channel because of all the things it can do. But I also think some people treat it as a like a transactional, just a transactional. And I think that's where this might actually be my answer to brands getting it wrong. But this is where I think like, you know, like it's a very challenging platform if you get it wrong and if it's if it's not working well. So that's where I think it's an underutilized platform sometimes.

SPEAKER_00 28:46

Yeah, makes complete sense. A tool you can't live without.

SPEAKER_01 28:49

Slack. Um, does that count?

SPEAKER_00 28:52

Absolutely. I mean, it it feels so mission critical, it's almost like unfair to say. But yeah, no, I mean it's a perfect answer.

SPEAKER_01 29:00

Let's see my project manager. Those are probably the two that absolutely what project manager do you use? My actual project manager, Hera Gooder. Um she's incredible. And I there's no way I would be able to her name Sarah, by the way. Uh, there's no way I would ever be able to function without her. But I think in the omnichannel, in the in the space right now, um, you know, not to plug, not to, not to whatever, but like we love bridge right now. We uh we came to you with a challenge that we didn't have a lot of visibility in our omnichannel, you know, retail spaces. And so this is a program that we're up-leveling and we're growing it and we're expanding because we're starting to get that visibility. So, like right now, that was a big gap for us. And then, you know, I don't I need to stress that enough. It was a very big gap for us. And so closing that gap has been really important, especially on a retention-based opportunity and especially from a lifecycle opportunity. So, like, that is the tool we're actually actively up-leveling and and growing. So shameless plug. There you go.

SPEAKER_00 29:54

I mean, obviously, I I love to hear that. So thank you.

SPEAKER_01 29:57

Of course.

SPEAKER_00 29:58

Favorite podcast or newsletter?

SPEAKER_01 30:00

Favorite podcasts. You know what's weird is I don't do a lot of podcasts, I don't listen to a lot of podcasts. I just my ADD kicks in way too much.

SPEAKER_00 30:07

I'm surprised by that as a Californian because like you guys drive and thus like need audio entertainment.

SPEAKER_01 30:13

But radio guy. I mean, uh, here's what's gonna, I'm gonna make a lot of my coworkers and other Californians bad. My commute is eight minutes. Wow. I have a very quick commute, so I'm very lucky. Uh so you know, I get like four or five songs and that's about it. Let's see. I love from uh Yapo Eli's newsletter every week, uh Retention CX Weekly.

SPEAKER_00 30:35

Yep.

SPEAKER_01 30:35

I love that one every week. I see it on LinkedIn and I see it in my email in my inbox. That's probably the one that like I really resonate with a lot as we are up leveling our retention efforts overall. Like, I there's been a lot of good little nuggets and insights from that newsletter. So that's I'm gonna plug that one.

SPEAKER_00 30:50

Yeah, it's a it's a very good one. I agree with you. Favorite event that you're attending this year?

SPEAKER_01 30:56

Uh, Shop Talk. It was Shop Talk. We had so much fun. We met so many people, we got to say hi uh and others from your team. But I think Shop Talk was so great because we got to connect with our partners that we don't often get to connect with. They're a lot of our partners are East Coast, so getting to see them in person was so much fun. So absolutely Shop Talk.

SPEAKER_00 31:13

Awesome. Um, Jared, thank you so much for your time. Where can our listeners connect with you?

SPEAKER_01 31:18

Uh, you can definitely connect connect on LinkedIn. Jared J R E D Grarok, G-R-A-W-R-O-C-K. I'm the head of lifestyle retention at Gooder. So that's the best place to connect.

SPEAKER_00 31:27

Amazing. Thank you so much, Jared. Really appreciate your time. If you liked this podcast, follow me and the bridge page on LinkedIn and Twitter for hot takes and tactical advice. If you really love today's episode, we'd love a review on the podcasting platform of your choice, Apple Podcasts or Spotify. Thanks for listening.