Discussion: Amber Venz Box Digital Marketing in the Age of Influencers (SXSW Convergence 2016)
Consumers are increasingly craving relatable content to guide their purchases, and they look to social media and digital creators for their inspiration. A retailer's relationship with those content creators, who have the power to reach consumers and make real connections, is a crucial part of getting their message heard by the right audience. rewardStyle President and Co-Founder, Amber Venz Box, will highlight how the landscape of digital influence has evolved over the years becoming a pillar in key marketing strategies that shape consumer engagement and brand loyalty.
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00:00South By Style presents digital marketing in the age of influencers with Amber Vins-Box.
00:07Thank you.
00:10Hi, my name is Amber Vins-Box and I'm the co-founder of Rewards Style and Like to Know It.
00:16I want to start by just thanking South By for inviting me to speak here this year.
00:20I've been coming for many, many years and I think that this is, it's really exciting for us to be acknowledged and recognized for our work in this space.
00:28And I think it'd be, you know, any founder's bucket list item to be here today.
00:33So thank you so much for that.
00:35We're going to start by just talking about a little bit about me.
00:39And then Rewards Style, just so you guys can get the background of, you know, my experience in this industry.
00:46Then we'll move into some technical, sociological, economic kind of factors that have been, made a big impact on the industry.
00:54And then we'll close up with just some things that I think you all can apply to your businesses.
00:58After about 45 minutes, we're going to move into questions.
01:01So do save those and we'll call you to the aisle in the middle when we're finished and have a discussion.
01:10So when I was a little kid, even as early as like second grade, I remember watching Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen adventure movies.
01:18And I love these movies because they were in Paris and they were in New York and they were at slumber parties and they had these great outfits.
01:24And it was really all about the outfits.
01:26So I'd watch these shows.
01:28I'd see what they were wearing.
01:29Then I'd go back to my closet and see how I could match it up and how I could wear exactly what Mary-Kate and Ashley wore.
01:34So, you know, I always loved fashion.
01:37And by the time I got to fifth grade, I wanted to kind of participate in the industry a little more.
01:42And I guess you could say that my entrepreneurial drive was identified pretty early.
01:47In about fifth grade, my grandmother had taught me how to knit scarves.
01:52And so I was knitting scarves and then selling them on the back row of math class and was asked to leave.
01:57And by high school, I took it a little bit further.
02:02I actually launched a jewelry line.
02:05And so this is me here just shooting one of the look books for my jewelry line.
02:09And then, you know, after high school, I decided that I was going to go to college.
02:14And I went to SMU in Dallas.
02:16And after my freshman year at SMU, I started working at a local retail shop.
02:21And this was my dream job through and through.
02:23I actually, when I went in for the interview for this job, I said it's my dream to work at a store like this.
02:29And I just want to be around people like you.
02:31Do you have a friend who has a store kind of like this that I could work for?
02:35Because I think I was maybe too timid to ask directly, can I just work here for you?
02:39I got the job, and I absolutely loved it.
02:42I got to do everything with these owners.
02:45It was a husband and wife team.
02:47And they let me do everything from buying to merchandising the store.
02:51I worked there 40 hours a week, all while being a full-time student at SMU.
02:56The owners also picked up my jewelry line.
02:58And so I was able to gain experience working for somebody else, all while building my own brand.
03:05And then in 2008, at the age of 20, I met my now husband and business partner, Baxter Box.
03:17When I met Baxter, I was really deep into the jewelry business.
03:21And so I loaded up all of my jewelry that I'd created, and I brought it in a rolling suitcase over to his house.
03:27And I laid it all out, and I was telling him where I'd found all the pieces and the inspiration for everything that I had made.
03:32And of course, he was completely uninterested in everything I had to say.
03:37But I think what sparked his interest is when I pulled out my spreadsheet, which is where I actually tracked my business.
03:44And he was able to see the sales that I was just pulling through this one store.
03:49That sparked his interest, and we actually ended up forming a business partnership.
03:53And Baxter helped me to grow my business, launch e-commerce, and then eventually quit my full-time job to do jewelry full-time.
04:03So after leaving my full-time job, I really missed styling.
04:07Because in that job, I mentioned I got to go buy the clothes, I got to merchandise the store.
04:11I had my specific clients that I bought for all the time.
04:14And so when we'd go to New York to the showrooms, I'd buy two size 8 of that Chloe wedge,
04:19because I knew that so-and-so liked it, and she'd want one for her house and one for her boat.
04:23And I was very intimately involved with our customers and what they would be wearing.
04:28And so I launched a personal shopping business.
04:31And what that meant was that I would take customers, women or men, into local boutiques,
04:39and I would dress them either for an event or for a season or for a vacation.
04:43And the way that I was compensated was that the store owners would pay me a commission
04:48on whatever my customers ended up purchasing.
04:51So this is something that they were already doing.
04:53If you go into your local department store, here there's Neiman Marcus down the road,
04:58whatever your mid-to-high-end luxury boutiques and department stores are in your town,
05:04this is the way it works for store clerks. They're paid on a commission.
05:07And I really loved the personal styling element,
05:10and I was hoping to actually be able to get more offline customers.
05:13So then I launched a blog.
05:17I launched vinsedits.com, and this was six years ago,
05:21so this might look like what you're typically seeing today from bloggers,
05:26but this was big time for me then.
05:28I had had somebody come and design my site. I had created this logo.
05:32I was documenting everything I did across the jewelry line and my personal shopping,
05:37and I'd hired a photographer.
05:39I was all in on this blog and totally fell in love with it.
05:43And I mentioned this was six years ago.
05:46This is a clip from the Dallas Morning News.
05:48They did a full-page article on Meet the Blogger.
05:51And the reason I think this is such a cool and hilarious article now looking back
05:55is there would never be an article on somebody launching a blog today
05:58because it's that ubiquitous.
06:00At the time, it was this incredible novel idea,
06:03and it required a story in the paper.
06:07So as I continued on with my blogging,
06:09I realized that I had actually cut myself out of my own business.
06:14One day, one of my key clients called me and said,
06:16Hey, Amber, you posted about that Proenza Schooler PS1 bag,
06:20which was the hot designer bag at the time, and she said,
06:23and I bought it, and I was the first one of all my friends to have it.
06:26Thank you so, so much for posting.
06:27Keep posting more stuff.
06:29And that was just knife through the heart because at the time, you know,
06:33I'm living at home.
06:35There was no paycheck to paycheck,
06:37so that would be generous to say I was living paycheck to paycheck.
06:40That $150 that I would have gotten commission on selling that bag,
06:44that was meal money for several weeks.
06:47And so that was kind of a painful moment
06:49and also a turning point for me of how do I, you know,
06:53I've just cut myself out of my offline business.
06:55My customers are now going online,
06:57so how do I make this my business, my blog my business?
07:04So I decided to go to New York.
07:06There weren't really many bloggers around Dallas
07:09where I lived then and live now,
07:11and so I went to a blogger meetup,
07:13and my goal was I'm going to figure out how these girls are making money
07:16or what they're doing in their community to make this a go.
07:19And I met a blogger that you guys all probably know
07:22if you're familiar with the style industry.
07:24She's still one of the biggest out there.
07:26And I asked her, how are you making money on your blog?
07:30And she said, well, I get free clothes and I get invited to events.
07:34And I was like, right, so neither one of us are making any money on our blogs.
07:39You know, at the time, blogging was something that was a creative outlet
07:43and it was a passion project,
07:45but I really couldn't afford for it to be a passion project.
07:48This wasn't something that was, I mean, it was fun for me,
07:51but it wasn't just fun for me. It had a purpose.
07:53The reason that I had really launched the blog in the first place
07:56was to be a marketing tool for my jewelry business
07:59and to be something that was going to drive more offline customers for me
08:03and my personal shopping business, so this wasn't a fun hobby.
08:10So back to Baxter.
08:13So Baxter and I love building and growing businesses together,
08:17and that's something that we've done together over the past, I guess,
08:20almost eight years now.
08:22When I came home from New York, he said, so what did you find out?
08:25And I was like, that everyone else's broke or living off their daddy too.
08:29And so I heard a clap, I think. That's good.
08:35So he just said, okay, well, let's figure this out.
08:38So how do you want to make money on your blog?
08:41In this ideal world, unicorns, everything is on limits.
08:44How do you do this?
08:46And my only experience in really what I was doing was this personal shopping,
08:50and so if I took a client, again, into a store, I'd get a commission on sales.
08:53So I said, well, that's what I want to do because that client that bought the PS1 bag
08:58that I would have made that $150 commission on
09:01except that I can't go knock on Net-a-Porter's door and say,
09:03you owe me $150.
09:06I need to be able to do that online.
09:08And so he said, okay, well, what is this business going to be called?
09:12And I was 22 years old at the time, and I said, well, reward style
09:17because if you have great taste and people love your recommendations
09:21and you're great at styling clothing, then you'll make money.
09:24And so we started kind of just researching the market.
09:28Baxter had had other businesses before.
09:30Clearly, I had had other businesses before.
09:32And we looked at market size, what's happening in retail,
09:35and then what's happening in the blogging space.
09:38And when we looked at both, it was clear that this was a huge opportunity
09:43if we were able to get this right.
09:45There were a lot of people who were going to need to turn this hobby into a career
09:48or who would want to turn this hobby into a career.
09:50So we went to our friends.
09:52We met up at a local Irish pub, and we said, we've got this idea.
09:56It's called Reward Style.
09:57We're going to help style bloggers make money on their content.
10:00This is how it's going to work, and we'd like for you to pitch in
10:04and help us get this business off the ground.
10:06We need to pay a developer to start building this product.
10:09And one of our closest friends stopped and he said,
10:12Baxter, if this is such a big deal, why haven't you quit your job?
10:16And at that moment he said, okay, I will.
10:19I will quit my job, and he did.
10:21And he came to join us.
10:22And so this is a cool picture to us because this was, you know,
10:26Baxter gave me $800 to furnish our first office.
10:30So I took this canvas out of my own bedroom.
10:32It had something on it that was kind of ugly, and bought some paint
10:35and started painting.
10:36And so this is actually still in our office today,
10:38but this was our logo there.
10:43Baxter and I are really very yin and yang.
10:46So I clearly, you know, had the fashion side of the business.
10:49His background is in engineering, technology, and investing,
10:52and so he has, you know, kind of that other side of the brain.
10:55So as co-founders, we work very well together because we work
10:58in very different sides of the business,
11:00and we very much so needed each other.
11:03You know, I don't have a problem admitting that I have trouble
11:06setting up a printer on my computer.
11:09Baxter was able to, you know, identify and distill down what it was that,
11:13you know, I needed in order to be successful on my blog
11:16and really make those dreams come true.
11:22So to get this started, we had to build out a network.
11:25And so network has two sides.
11:27You have publishers and you have retailers.
11:29So we started with the publishers.
11:31I mean, excuse me, we started with the retailers.
11:34Went out and just started, you know, calling and said,
11:36hey, if we can get some publishers who create really beautiful content
11:41to write about your brands and about your products,
11:44would you be willing to pay a commission on their content?
11:48Really the main point of friction was that no one worked with bloggers,
11:53and so we were passed around marketing departments,
11:55and, you know, no one wanted to be in business, you know,
11:58with a blogger, and certainly influencer wasn't part of marketing vernacular.
12:02But on the other hand, this wasn't a monumental ask for them
12:05because this is something that they'd already been doing.
12:07You know, if you remember, we talked about how they're paying,
12:10you know, a commission to somebody.
12:12It's either a salesperson in the store or it's a salesperson online.
12:15So as long as they were willing to work with us
12:17and really just adapt their model into what consumers were actually doing today,
12:21which is, you know, less and less going into stores
12:23and more and more discovering product online,
12:26then we could work together.
12:28So our early-day clients, our first two were Shopbop and Net-a-Porter,
12:32and for us, we had enough coverage there to start working on the publisher side.
12:37So going out to publishers, you'll remember none of us were getting paid,
12:41so this wasn't a hard ask either.
12:44You know, I called that publisher that I mentioned earlier
12:47that was a big New York-style blogger, and I said,
12:50Hey, are you making any money yet? No.
12:53Well, if I can offer you a solution where you can make money on the content
12:57that you were already going to create, we're just going to track it for you
13:00and bill a commission, would you do that?
13:03And, you know, the yes was so loud you could hear it in the other room
13:06even if you weren't on the phone.
13:08And so at that point, we launched RewardStyle.
13:14So on the month of my 23rd birthday, we opened an office,
13:19and so these are some pictures.
13:21For those of you who know Dallas, it was in Mockingbird Station
13:24in a residential loft, the smallest one that they have,
13:26and about three of us fit in it.
13:28But this was our launch party.
13:30You can see I'm the one in the middle.
13:32I was blonde and tan at that point.
13:40So did it work?
13:43Well, you know, you look at today, and there are 9,000 publishers
13:47across 80 countries who use this product.
13:50There are 4,000 retailers and 500,000 brands,
13:54and I think you could say that consumers like us as well.
13:57200 million consumers have made a purchase
14:00based on RewardStyle influencer content.
14:08I want to share our mission with you guys
14:10because you'll see at the end how this is really important.
14:13Our mission is to empower the world's influential publishers
14:16to achieve maximum economic success
14:19by providing an ecosystem of innovative technology,
14:23strategic consulting, and global brand partnership opportunities.
14:29By doing those three things, over the last four years,
14:33we've been able to drive half a billion dollars
14:35in retail sales to our partners.
14:37Sorry, that was just last year,
14:38about half a billion dollars in retail sales.
14:40Overall, we've already driven, in the last four years,
14:43we've driven over a billion.
14:45An interesting stat that I came across just last week
14:48was that we account for 7% of all traffic, all web traffic,
14:53to one of the largest multi-brand luxury retailers in the U.S.
14:57So we've been incredibly impactful on the retail industry.
15:02It's a pretty exciting time to be an influencer
15:05or a retailer or a consumer.
15:10So how did we see all that growth?
15:12What did we do?
15:13Well, there's a couple of different things.
15:14First of all, when we started Reward Style,
15:16I mentioned 22, 23-year-old girl.
15:18I just wanted to show people my outfits
15:20and how to put them together.
15:21And so we worked with all the fashion retailers.
15:23So it started with Shopop and Net-a-Porter,
15:26and then I was finally able to afford an apartment.
15:30And so I wanted to talk about products from West Elm
15:32and Pottery Barn and Target.
15:34And then I started getting wrinkles.
15:36And so we needed Clinique and Prescriptives
15:38and MAC and Sephora.
15:41And then Baxter and I finally got married.
15:43And so I wanted to talk about stationary lines
15:46and wedding dresses.
15:47And just four months ago, we had a child who's here.
15:51And little Birdie wears cute outfits every day,
15:54and I wanted to be able to show all the products
15:56that I buy for her, whether it's her strollers or her bottles.
16:00And so as I needed more and more breadth of product,
16:04we actually recruited that breadth of retailers.
16:09And so we now don't just work in the fashion space.
16:12We're working across all of these different verticals.
16:14And as you can imagine, those opened up new doors for us
16:17with every type of retailer that we brought on.
16:22Something else that happened during this time
16:24was just the growth of all of these different channels.
16:26So when we launched Rewards Style,
16:28we were really just working with bloggers.
16:30It was nice if the blogger had a Facebook page
16:33or a Twitter page, but it wasn't really a must-have.
16:38We launched 2011.
16:41By 2012, we started seeing new social platforms
16:44that were interesting pop up.
16:45And so today, a given influencer is going to publish
16:48on a handful of platforms every single day.
16:51And so with each of those channels,
16:53that became a new opportunity for us
16:54and a new type of influencer,
16:56because the girl who's big on Pinterest
16:58might not have a big blog,
17:00or the girl who's done an incredible job on Instagram
17:03may not be great on YouTube.
17:05And so not only are our publishers
17:08extending their businesses into all of these new channels,
17:11but we're able to actually attract
17:12a new type of influencer who is specific to these channels.
17:15So these are opportunities for us.
17:17What we've done is just really built products
17:20that track and monetize each of these channels.
17:22So no matter where our publishers want to create
17:25or distribute their content,
17:27they're able to do that with us
17:30and actually truly extend their business
17:32and monetize those channels.
17:35Another way that we expanded, I guess a third way,
17:38would be globally.
17:39And so we've talked about vertical expansion,
17:42channel expansion,
17:43and then we, you know, look to grow around the world.
17:46So in 2011, we opened our Dallas office.
17:502012, we opened London.
17:52Since then, over the last four years,
17:54we've grown from a concept into a pretty large company.
17:58We now have 180 team members across five offices.
18:02Those team members speak more than a dozen languages,
18:05and we've been able to help our publishers
18:07extend their businesses into new territories,
18:10and same with our retailers.
18:12And then we've been able to also extend our consumer reach
18:15by launching in all of these regions.
18:19I mentioned earlier we have publishers in 180 countries,
18:22and we've, you know, reached consumers.
18:24And when I say reach, I mean consumers in over 200 countries
18:28have actually made purchases
18:29based on the content of our consumers.
18:32So that's kind of what was happening
18:34on the reward style of the business,
18:36but there's some things happening culturally.
18:38First of all is just technology.
18:40So when we started reward style,
18:42I wasn't taking pictures on my cell phone.
18:45And when you look at just the hardware and software
18:47and what that has, you know, really enabled us to do,
18:50we all have, you know, Wi-Fi-connected phones
18:52that are sitting in our hands right now
18:54with really high-quality cameras.
18:56These cameras are with us 24 hours a day,
18:58and we have editing apps
18:59that make these images really, really beautiful.
19:04Beyond technology...
19:05Oh, and here's some of my favorite editing apps,
19:07if you were curious.
19:09Beyond technology, the second thing
19:11that I think that's really contributed
19:13to the really extreme success of this industry
19:16is distribution.
19:18So, you know, it's our generation,
19:20we're not more, you know, I guess, any more talented
19:23in that we're not better stylists,
19:25we're not better photographers,
19:26we're not better writers necessarily
19:28than any other generation.
19:29It's just that we're more popular,
19:31and that's because we've been able to put our content
19:33and our product across all of these channels
19:35and able to, you know, grow an audience.
19:37So without an Instagram,
19:39I wouldn't have 70,000 followers
19:41that I'm speaking to before I come on stage today.
19:44These are all...
19:45Because of these platforms,
19:46we have the opportunity to reach consumers around the world,
19:49which is what makes the global nature
19:51of our business important.
19:53So why is it, you know,
19:55that blogging isn't just the flavor of the month?
19:58And why is it that it's actually here to stay
20:01and has a permanent place in the fashion industry?
20:04It's because of monetization.
20:06So you have the technology, the hardware, the software,
20:09you have the distribution now,
20:11but without the monetization,
20:13it's not going to go anywhere.
20:14And with, you know, plugging Rewardstyle into that,
20:17being an influencer is now a career option.
20:20We're now in the age of the influencer,
20:22so let's think about that.
20:23We're now...
20:24Influencer is a career option.
20:26This is Chiara, one of our clients.
20:28She's one of the largest bloggers in the world,
20:31you know, based in Italy and L.A.
20:33These are her covers.
20:34This is incredible.
20:35You know, when I say that influencer is a career option,
20:38I have an 8-year-old niece who told me the other day
20:41that she wants to be a YouTuber
20:43because she wants to review Twitter
20:45and she wants to be a blogger.
20:47And she told me the other day
20:48that she wants to be a YouTuber
20:50because she wants to review toys
20:51and she knows which products are target exclusives,
20:54but she can't even spell exclusive.
20:56So, you know, and if she's good enough at it,
20:58then she can join Rewardstyle and make a career of it.
21:04So, you know, we've talked about publishers
21:06and bloggers and publishing,
21:07and so I want to show you just kind of
21:09what that looks like and what's changed.
21:12In a great way, not a lot,
21:14but also in a, you know, in this subtle way,
21:17it's changed the industry.
21:18So this is an image of Blair from Atlantic Pacific.
21:22So Blair, on the left-hand side of your screen,
21:25that's an image from her blog
21:26whenever we recruited her back in 2011.
21:29So when I first talked with Blair,
21:31I told her, you know, it'd be interesting
21:33if you'd tell us what, you know, brands you were wearing
21:35or show us what you have on
21:37because her blog was much like a Tumblr
21:39in that she was creating these beautiful pictures
21:41and it was just image after image after image.
21:43It was this beautiful inspiration
21:45like you see in a lot of places.
21:48Blair's transformation after working with Rewardstyle
21:51was I would compare it to, you know,
21:53it's like when Pinterest or Tumblr turns into Houzz.
21:56It's like you go to Houzz
21:57because you want actionable information.
21:59You're getting service.
22:00You know you can actually buy what you land on.
22:02So the change with Blair was subtle,
22:04but this is what we do for publishers
22:07and retailers and consumers,
22:08and what you'll notice, the difference,
22:10is that she's actually now showing you
22:12exactly what she has on.
22:13So she's telling you,
22:14and she's also showing you visually,
22:15you can now get my outfit.
22:17Another cool thing about this
22:18is you can see how this has enabled her
22:20or really empowered her to professionalize.
22:22The picture on the left from a couple years ago
22:24is a much less, you know, professional experience
22:27than what you're experiencing on the right.
22:29So Blair's winning because she's able to actually,
22:31you know, make a career out of this.
22:33She's now quit her job.
22:34She was very high up at a major U.S. designer,
22:37and she's now focusing, you know,
22:39on her blog and her publishing career full-time.
22:45Blair has also extended her business.
22:47We talked about, you know, all the channel expansion,
22:50and so she's not only publishing to her blog.
22:53She's now extended her business into Instagram.
22:55But the thing about publishing
22:57is it's very similar to retail
22:58in that part of it's about your product selection
23:00and what you're showing.
23:01The other part is about your service.
23:03You know, think about why you guys choose
23:05to use the retailers that you use.
23:07It's partially because they have the stuff you like,
23:09but then also partially because they treat you really well
23:12and they give you, you know, the service that you need.
23:15And with Blair extending her, you know,
23:17her business into Instagram,
23:19she needed to be able to tell her followers and customers
23:23what products she was wearing.
23:25And so what you'll notice in her captions
23:27is that she has a like to know it link in those captions.
23:30And what that does is it actually allows her,
23:33you know, followers to like her photos
23:35and get these Instagrams to her inbox
23:38with all the associated product information.
23:40So they can trigger that email
23:41if they're interested in what she's wearing
23:43and find out exactly what's happening.
23:45And so she has now successfully
23:46been able to extend her business there.
23:48And this is just kind of a look at those captions
23:50so you would know what that little link looks like.
23:53Like to know it is actually a product that we built
23:56in order to help our publishers
23:57extend their business into this platform.
24:00And so what we saw was that around 2013,
24:03our publishers started creating more content on Instagram
24:06than any other platform.
24:07They were seeing more engagement there
24:09and more growth there.
24:10And so being platform agnostic,
24:11we needed to work within the boundaries
24:13that Instagram had set out from their user experience
24:16and create something that was going to help
24:18our brands, our retailers,
24:19and our consumers to all be successful.
24:21And so this is our like to know it product.
24:24It is a consumer product.
24:25While reward style itself is B2B, this is B2C.
24:29You just go to liketoknow.it.
24:31You register your Instagram account and your email address.
24:35And you can choose if you want to get emails
24:38as soon as possible, daily, weekly.
24:41And then whenever you like photos
24:43that are like to know it enabled,
24:45it will actually send an email to your inbox
24:47with that information.
24:48So here's a look at one of our publishers,
24:50Ami from Song of Style.
24:52And she has used like to know it.
24:54You like that photo.
24:55You'll see what the email looks like to your inbox.
24:57You can immediately click through to purchase what Ami wore.
25:00So these girls are offering that same level of service
25:03across different platforms.
25:08I want to show you a little bit about like to know it.
25:11You know, is it working?
25:13Well, I think our consumers would say it's working for them.
25:16We've influenced sales in 242 countries.
25:19We have 1.7 million followers on our own Instagram,
25:22which is where we promote those publishers
25:24that are using like to know it.
25:26There's over 1,000 pieces of unique like to know it content
25:29created every single day.
25:31So that's a publisher going in, uploading their photo,
25:34tagging those products so that their consumers
25:36could then get that information directly to their inbox.
25:41Last year we drove over $77 million in retail sales.
25:45So just to put that in perspective,
25:47we launched 2014 midyear.
25:50We drove about $10 million in retail sales that year,
25:53$77 million last year.
25:55So consumers understand it, they're using it,
25:58and they're buying based off of it.
26:02Right now there's about 6 million emails
26:04that are triggered monthly.
26:06So that's when someone sees the Instagram,
26:08they like the Instagram to get that email to their inbox.
26:11And this is a cool stat.
26:1395% of these users actually choose to get the information
26:16as soon as possible.
26:18So people who are coming to blogs, to Instagram, to YouTube,
26:21they have intent to purchase.
26:23And I think like to know it shows that very, very well
26:26because of these people who are signing up,
26:28they don't want to wait till the end of the day.
26:30They don't want to wait till the end of the week.
26:32They want it immediately because they need that information
26:34because they do have that intent to purchase.
26:38So what's next?
26:40Well, if you're just looking at what's happening,
26:42you know, I think in retail in general,
26:45you'll see that retail sales are up about 4.3%.
26:49We went from $4.7 trillion in 2014
26:52to $4.9 trillion last year.
26:55But what I'm really interested in is the growth of e-commerce.
26:57And so e-commerce was up 12%.
27:00And we went from $305 billion to $341 billion that year.
27:04So it's big, it's exciting, it's growing quickly.
27:08What's cool is this is inning number one.
27:10This is still early days.
27:12This is not even the beginning on a spectrum.
27:17And that's what I think what's cool about this industry
27:19and what's cool about what's happening in retail,
27:21in the content space, in the social sharing space.
27:27So I'm a fashion girl.
27:29You might be an investor dude.
27:31Why is this relevant to you?
27:33I hope that some of the things that I was able to share
27:36with you guys are applicable to your own businesses
27:39or your own dreams.
27:41And here's the key things that I want you to understand
27:43from today.
27:44Reward style solves a real problem.
27:46And this is why, you know, we have been successful
27:48and why I have every confidence that we will continue
27:50to be successful.
27:51We solve a problem, but most importantly,
27:53we continue to innovate.
27:55So you saw that whenever we launched reward style,
27:57Instagram wasn't even around.
27:59We reacted quickly to that.
28:01We found a solution that consumers responded to
28:03and we helped our retailers and our publishers be successful
28:06in this new era of Instagram.
28:09So solve a real problem and continue to innovate
28:11because what's a good idea today might not be a good idea
28:14tomorrow and might not sustain you.
28:18The second thing I wanted you to hear today
28:20was just focusing on the long game.
28:22So we, you know, establish our mission.
28:24We stick to our mission.
28:26We continue to invest in our team.
28:28As you saw, our team's now 180.
28:30We continue to invest regionally.
28:32We now have five offices around the world,
28:34speaking more than a dozen languages.
28:36We invest in our partnerships and our consumers
28:38and our retailers through education.
28:40You know, if you happen to follow my Instagram,
28:42you'll see we are around the world all the time
28:44and it's not just me.
28:45Our team is on the ground with our clients
28:49all the time investing in them.
28:51We're focused on the long game
28:53and we only invest in things that align with our mission.
28:59Next is have a revenue strategy.
29:01This is sometimes a novel idea, I think, in this space.
29:04We, you know, had a revenue strategy from day one.
29:07We were making money from day one,
29:09which has allowed us to have so many opportunities
29:11and have just really larger control over our destiny.
29:14So if you can do this, this is the way forward.
29:21And next, hire people with complementary strengths.
29:23So I mentioned earlier, you know,
29:25Baxter and I are very much yin and yang.
29:27I know nothing about technology.
29:29He knows nothing about fashion, but I know what we need
29:31and he knows how to make it happen.
29:33So, you know, whenever we think about hiring partnerships,
29:36we look for complementary skill sets.
29:38So whenever you're doing that,
29:39whether you're just launching your business
29:41or you're hiring or you're looking for people
29:43to partner with, find people that complement you.
29:49Next, it seems obvious, but really love what you do.
29:52I think it was hopefully clear to you guys
29:54that from a very, very early age,
29:56I was absolutely obsessed with all things fashion
29:58and wearing outfits and being a part of the industry
30:01and watching the industry, and, you know,
30:03that grew from, you know, the little girl picture
30:05with sunglasses on in the corner
30:07to launching the jewelry line to launching the blog
30:09and just continuing to be a part of my industry.
30:12And, you know, for Baxter, I don't think that he saw himself
30:14working in the fashion industry ever.
30:16He was a surfer dude when we met.
30:18But he loves and is passionate about technology
30:20and about strategy.
30:22And so together, we are a great team
30:24and we absolutely love what we do.
30:29And finally, focus on making other people successful.
30:32You know, it's easy to think about your own success
30:34and how can you personally be successful,
30:36but it's harder to think about
30:38making the people around you successful,
30:40and that's what Rewardstyle does every day.
30:42We're here to make other people economically successful,
30:45and that's why they're using our platform
30:47and why, you know, consumers are loving what we're doing
30:50and making purchases.
30:52So if you can focus on making other people successful,
30:54I can almost promise you
30:56that you will yourself be successful.
30:58I want to now move into QA
31:00so that we can talk about some of your questions
31:02and what's happening in your business,
31:04and thank you all for coming
31:06and helping me get a good dialogue going.
31:08Thank you.
31:14If you have any questions, we can come to the center aisle
31:16and we'll start QA.
31:21Hi.
31:22Yes.
31:23Sorry, I'm a little short.
31:24Thank you for that.
31:25That was super helpful.
31:26I would love it if you could expand a little bit more
31:29on how your team was able to react so quickly
31:33to build Like to Know It,
31:35because that's always difficult, I find,
31:37with a changing industry like social.
31:40Absolutely.
31:41You know, and there are so many platforms out there,
31:43and there's new ones popping up every single day,
31:46and there's ones that even got major investment dollars
31:49that seemed like they were going to be credible
31:51that really weren't.
31:52So what we looked was, what are our clients doing?
31:55And so we looked at how active they were
31:57on all of these channels.
31:59We made sure that the activity rate was high
32:01before we put investment.
32:02And so with Instagram, the numbers made sense,
32:04the data made sense,
32:05and they were really asking for something.
32:06And so at that point,
32:08we quite literally drove out to Marfa and sat there
32:11and said, we're not leaving until we have a plan.
32:14And we did it that weekend.
32:15So I think once you've seen that tipping point
32:17of our clients or our customers are here,
32:20this is where they want to be, this is going to stay,
32:23I think at that point, that's when you invest.
32:26Thank you.
32:28Hi.
32:29Hi.
32:30My question is about how you managed
32:32to get so many people on board
32:34knowing your product and using your product.
32:36I'd imagine that initially it might have been a hard slog,
32:39and I'm curious as to even now
32:41how much manual outreach there is to get people on board.
32:44Right.
32:45So when we started Rewards Style,
32:47we were reaching out one by one,
32:50but then it became word of mouth very, very quickly.
32:52So I would say in any business,
32:54referrals will be quite important.
32:56We started working with some of the top publishers
32:58from day one just because of the smaller network
33:01that I had of those publishers,
33:02and then they referred their friends.
33:04Certainly our team is quite large now
33:07when you look at just managing those accounts
33:09plus growing those accounts.
33:11So we do see have a great,
33:14I don't know what industry you're in,
33:16but certainly have great forms.
33:19So when people are looking to work with you,
33:20they can apply easily and get there,
33:22but also think about incentivizing your current clients
33:24that are happy with your business to refer their friends.
33:27Thank you.
33:29Hi.
33:30Hi.
33:31First of all, from Dallas.
33:32So great to hear other people, businesses coming from Dallas.
33:35But in terms of analytics,
33:37you talked about the purpose and the mission
33:40is to provide global partnerships.
33:42And so in what ways is Rewards Style
33:45providing kind of analytics behind
33:47what partnerships are working,
33:49and how do you see that being important
33:51as Rewards Style moves forward?
33:53Yeah.
33:54Well, I would actually, I think,
33:56when you're looking at what partnerships
33:57are working currently,
33:59last summer we took our first round of funding,
34:01so we had a Series A.
34:02And we brought a few angel investors on board
34:04as well as a lead investor, Maverick Capital,
34:07a large hedge fund.
34:08And we had very specific ideas
34:10when we thought about what do we currently need
34:13and who can help us.
34:14When you're growing internationally,
34:16getting the attention of global retailers was hard.
34:19It was hard when we started in the US,
34:21and we had great success here,
34:23but in Sweden, they didn't know what we were doing,
34:25and in Russia, no one had heard of Rewards Style.
34:27And so we thought, okay, well, who can we partner with,
34:29and it's going to open doors for us
34:31locally in the regions that we're looking to expand to
34:33so that we can move quickly,
34:34because we have the playbook now.
34:36It's got to be modified for each region,
34:38and we know who we're after.
34:39And so we looked specifically for partners like Maverick,
34:43who have international reach among retailers,
34:46even some of our angels who are here in the audience today
34:48that had great relationships in the industry
34:50with brands on the ground in growth markets for us,
34:53and we partnered with them
34:54in a strategic and financial way.
34:56Thanks.
34:57Thank you.
34:58Hi.
34:59Can you share what the average commission is
35:02that these retailers are paying,
35:04and a success story of a blogger
35:07and how much they're able to earn using Rewards Style?
35:10So I think both of those are really great questions,
35:13and they're questions that our competitors would love to know,
35:16and because I know that many of them
35:18are here in the audience today,
35:19I'm not going to share any of that with you,
35:21but thank you.
35:22Okay.
35:24This was close, but more technical.
35:26How do you...
35:27What formula do you use to track sales?
35:30Because you don't know on their website
35:32the actual final transaction,
35:34if it actually went through or not.
35:36How do you measure that?
35:38Yes.
35:39So there's a lot of technology that exists
35:41that you can use to apply those models.
35:43So a technology that we use for tracking sales
35:46is called Affiliate,
35:47and basically Affiliate technology
35:49has existed long, far, and before Rewards Style,
35:52most commonly applied in the coupon space.
35:54And so there are providers who do that
35:57really all around the world
35:58that will track those sales for you.
36:00Okay.
36:01So it's kind of like an estimate, not a real?
36:03No, it's real.
36:04Yeah, so we're looking at exact cart prices,
36:06you know, all of that very exact information.
36:10Thank you.
36:11Yeah.
36:12Hi, how's it going?
36:13Hi.
36:14With social media having, you know,
36:16very few barriers to entry,
36:18are you finding that it's becoming a crowded marketplace
36:21and there's very little opportunity
36:23for new bloggers in the space,
36:25or are they evolving and becoming successful?
36:28No, we look very closely at that.
36:30So the question was about, you know,
36:31kind of the evolving publisher,
36:32and is there room for anybody else?
36:35You know, while this graph
36:36doesn't specifically pertain to that,
36:37what I showed you earlier about, you know, e-commerce
36:39just being still such a small piece
36:41of what's happening in the overall retail space
36:43and it's such early days,
36:44it is still hugely early days in the blogging space.
36:48And what we actually see is that, you know,
36:50when we started RewardStyle 2011, you know,
36:52I mentioned the newspaper article in 2010
36:54about, like, meet the blogger.
36:56Those publishers have now evolved their businesses
37:00and grown their business in different ways.
37:02There wasn't a playbook for them,
37:03so it took a little bit longer for them to get there.
37:05Now when we look at the different RewardStyle classes,
37:08meaning who started with us in what year,
37:10the classes of publishers
37:11who have started in more recent years
37:13actually see more hyper growth
37:15than those publishers that started quite a while back,
37:17and that's because the roadmap
37:18has really kind of been laid for what, you know,
37:21what are those objective things that you can look at
37:24to see are you going to be a successful publisher.
37:26So there's still a whole lot of opportunity
37:29across so many different channels
37:31and in so many different niches,
37:33and I would just say now it's just apply that playbook
37:35that's already been kind of laid out.
37:37Great, thank you.
37:38Thank you.
37:40I work for McDonald's,
37:41and I was going to ask you about blogging and food,
37:45but I actually would love to know
37:46where your sandals are from.
37:51I appreciate that.
37:54You can use LikeToKnowIt to find out.
37:57No, you know, actually they're old Zara,
37:59but I found a similar pair
38:00since they're a few seasons old that are similar
38:03and the same price point that you can buy
38:05if you use LikeToKnowIt.
38:07Thank you, and actually, you know,
38:08I just thought about something for the earlier question too.
38:11With the, you know,
38:13this distribution that these social platforms
38:15are allowing,
38:16you no longer have to be in major business centers.
38:18You don't have to be in New York or L.A.
38:20in order to be a successful publisher.
38:22One of our most successful publishers
38:24is in a small town in the middle of America
38:26in a town that has less than 200,000 people,
38:29and she's one of the most successful publishers worldwide,
38:32and so there's certainly still
38:35an incredible amount of opportunity.
38:39Hi, this was a great two-part question.
38:41How old is your youngest blogger?
38:44My daughter definitely wants to know.
38:46Okay.
38:47Do your bloggers get basically screwed
38:50if the readers end up purchasing
38:53inside a brick-and-mortar store,
38:55or does your affiliate technology
38:57allow for some sort of tracking?
38:58So starting with the bricks-and-mortar question,
39:01certainly we, you know, expect that,
39:04I hate to call it, you know, kind of attrition,
39:06but that slow drip into the retail stores,
39:08and it's been proven that, you know,
39:10I think it's about 45% of purchases that happen,
39:12don't quote me, this was a college research paper,
39:14which was a long time ago,
39:15but a high percentage of people
39:17who buy in-store research online.
39:19Because of that and because of the prevalence of that
39:22in certain sectors, even especially with beauty,
39:24those retailers really adjust their commission rates
39:27to make sure that they remain attractive
39:29because they're expecting to see that, you know,
39:31some of it's going to happen in a place that can't be tracked,
39:33and so we want to make sure that it's impactful
39:35and the publisher is rewarded
39:36whenever the transaction does occur online.
39:39And as far as the age of our influencers,
39:41you know, I know we have some in the teens,
39:44but I don't know who's actually the very youngest.
39:47All right, thank you so much.
39:51Hey there.
39:52So the like-to-know-it integration on Instagram
39:56to me is ingenious,
39:58and I was just wondering if your team came up with that idea
40:01or if you saw it being used somewhere else
40:04and just incorporated it into your platform.
40:06No, I can say with 100% certainty
40:09that Baxter and I came up with like-to-know-it
40:11sitting in the Paisano in Marfa, Texas.
40:14It was something that we absolutely created,
40:16came back into the RewardStyle office
40:18excited about this idea,
40:19literally drew it out how it would work
40:21on a table with a marker for our engineers,
40:23and we said, and if you build it in a month,
40:25we'll give you a bonus.
40:26So it was like, this is too good to miss.
40:28It makes so much sense.
40:29People are slaves to their inbox.
40:31It's your to-do list.
40:32This is where they'll want that information,
40:35and 1,000% of RewardStyle developed and created
40:39an executed tool.
40:41Very impressive.
40:42Thank you.
40:45Another two-part question.
40:46The first one is there's the generic term of bloggers,
40:51but then would you say that Instagram
40:54has become the primary channel rather than blogs per se?
40:59And secondary on that point,
41:02how do you reconcile the tension
41:06between audience and engagement?
41:10I have an influencer business in Australia,
41:12and what I see is that quite often is with the larger
41:14the audience it gets, the lower the engagement.
41:18And in this kind of atomized environment
41:20where essentially it's the attention economy,
41:25do you see engagement as being just as important
41:29as reach?
41:32Even more important, I would say.
41:34So the question was about is engagement more important
41:37or equally as important as reach,
41:39and it's much more important.
41:40So for us, the objective measure of influence is retail sales.
41:44Your customers are voting with their wallet.
41:46There might be three million people following you,
41:48but if only five people are actually making a purchase
41:51based on your recommendations,
41:52then for us that's your influence,
41:54and that's how you are then compensated
41:56is for those sales.
41:57So when we look at, we work with people
41:59who have 16 million followers on Instagram and more,
42:02and then we work with someone who has 30,000 followers
42:05on Instagram who made close to about $150,000
42:10in one month last year.
42:11And so it's incredible to see that this publisher
42:14that I'm talking about with the smaller audience,
42:16they are hyper-engaged.
42:18They absolutely bow at her feet,
42:19everything that she says,
42:20and she's really figured out how to tune into them
42:23and what kind of price points they want,
42:24how much content they want,
42:26and how to reach and engage with them.
42:28So certainly for our retailers,
42:30I think at the end of the day we're all looking
42:32for a return on investment.
42:34And so unless branding is the exercise,
42:36a lot of people are more interested in just dollars
42:40coming into the store,
42:41and so engagement is the most important.
42:44Remind me the first part of your question.
42:46Forget the first part.
42:47If I could follow up with a cheeky follow-up.
42:50In terms of that, a lot of clients are obsessed with reach.
42:54How do you address that?
42:57Actually, it is engagement,
42:58that attention metric that is the most important.
43:01How do you get that across to them?
43:04I'm not sure if I totally understand the question,
43:06but I will say that we have retailers
43:08who are interested in branding exercises.
43:10And there's certain retailers that it doesn't make sense.
43:13There was a nice woman here from McDonald's earlier.
43:16And for us, we can't track French fry purchases online.
43:20And so for them,
43:21do a campaign that's integrated into beautiful native content.
43:24That's going to be more of a reach campaign,
43:26but we can also target publishers
43:28based on their known conversion.
43:30But in that case,
43:31we're not going to be able to actually measure offline sales.
43:34Does that help?
43:35Yeah, that's fine.
43:36Okay, thank you.
43:38Hi, Amber, how are you?
43:39Hi.
43:40Thank you so much for the presentation today.
43:42It was very interesting and great to hear.
43:44My question is,
43:46in the beginning of your presentation,
43:48you kind of went through some of the brands
43:50that you have either on board now
43:52or you've been working with.
43:54And you talked about the mid to larger kind of luxury brands.
43:58How do you and your company kind of recommend
44:01where the publisher, who they should partner with,
44:04or what they should kind of push for their clients?
44:06Or do you guys kind of more reactively let them tell you
44:09what their readers are interested in?
44:12So our goal is to have coverage across every retailer
44:14that would be interesting for our publishers to talk about.
44:17So we want to have Etsy before they think about,
44:19I need to link to Etsy today.
44:21And so we've forged 4,000 global brand partnerships
44:25to make sure that we can track and bill
44:27across all of these retailers.
44:29And then again, of course, across all of these 80 countries
44:32that our publishers live in and beyond.
44:34So for them, it's more that we make it available.
44:37And then on the retailer side,
44:38we're working with the retailers and the brands
44:40to find ways to make themselves attractive to the publishers
44:43because the publisher has complete autonomy
44:45to link to or talk about whoever they like.
44:48You can think of us almost like a Google Analytics.
44:50So where Google is tracking sort of anything
44:54that's happening on the site from a visitor perspective,
44:57an interest perspective, we're actually the analytics
45:00that's covering their site on any sort of brand
45:02or product-level interest.
45:03And so we're giving them that feedback
45:05and helping them to curate their content
45:07so that it's better and more targeted for their readers.
45:09So they know that no one liked when I linked
45:11to shoes the other day.
45:12Shoes don't do well on my site.
45:13But beauty does incredibly well.
45:14And here's, you know, of the beauty retailers,
45:16here's the one that actually converts best for me.
45:18We're feeding all that information back to them
45:20so that they're more valuable to their own consumer
45:22and they get to know them better.
45:24Thank you.
45:26Hi. I really enjoyed your presentation.
45:28So I was wondering, do you do any other sort of native
45:32help assist your publishers create those brand partnerships
45:35that go beyond the affiliate relationships,
45:37sponsored content stories or product placement?
45:40Yes, we do.
45:41Okay, so...
45:43Yeah, tell you a little bit about that.
45:45So, you know, we started in what's called CPA,
45:48so cost per action, and that's where we're billing
45:50on the, you know, on sales.
45:52The action there is sales.
45:54The second layer would just be, you know,
45:56the flat rate campaigns and collaborations.
45:58And that can be anything from brokering content
46:00for Instagram ads to, you know, brokering content
46:03that lives across the publisher's site.
46:05So it can be distributed across publisher content,
46:08across retailer content.
46:10It could be, you know, even an in-store launch.
46:13So brokering really anything that's happening
46:15across our publisher network.
46:17And then we're actually currently in beta
46:19for reward-style media, which is our CPM property,
46:22which is where our retailers are now being able to pay
46:25to place their ads on strategic publisher sites.
46:28And so that's kind of, I guess,
46:30a multi-layer approach to content marketing.
46:33Great. Thank you.
46:36Hi. So I had a question.
46:38You talked about data-driven investment.
46:41And for a young brand,
46:44influencers are a little bit, like,
46:46costly to partner up with.
46:48How would you judge, like, for a brand
46:50that has low revenue, low profit at the moment,
46:52how do you judge partnering up with an influencer
46:55and whether it's worth it?
46:57Yes. Well, I think a couple of different things.
47:00First of all, it can be costly to do flat-rate campaigns,
47:03and you're not guaranteed any sort of return.
47:05If you're able to run a campaign through reward-style,
47:07we cast for your flat-rate campaigns
47:09based on historical performance.
47:11So we want to see, let's say that you've got,
47:13you know, a handbag line that's around leather,
47:15it's around $100, it sells in the U.S.
47:17We're going to actually look at publishers
47:19who has the highest conversion rate in that product category
47:21at that price point in the regions you're looking to serve,
47:24and we can't guarantee a conversion,
47:26but we can certainly help, you know, predict
47:28what we think has happened
47:30and what has happened historically
47:32based on that type of content.
47:34So, you know, we are the only ones
47:36that have that particular, you know, data,
47:38performance-level data there,
47:40and so I would encourage you to use us for that.
47:42And then let's see, does that answer your question?
47:44Yeah, I think so.
47:46Okay. Thank you.
47:48Yeah.
47:50Hi. I'm a little short.
47:52Hi, my name is Anna Lee.
47:54I started a blog about a year ago almost,
47:56so I guess, like, what advice do you give
47:59to bloggers and digital influencers
48:02who are up and coming
48:04to break through that,
48:06I guess, initial glass ceiling?
48:08Yeah, that's my question.
48:10Yes. A couple things.
48:12Consistency in your content.
48:14So choose your channels wisely
48:16based on what you believe you can conquer
48:18and what you have the bandwidth to publish to.
48:20Imagery is important,
48:22but you don't have to be so out of reach with your imagery.
48:24So you'll notice even on my own Instagram,
48:26they're all taken from, you know, a cell phone.
48:28I've invested in the imagery
48:30in that it all has the same filter,
48:32it fits together like a quilt really nicely,
48:34but they're all taken on a phone.
48:36So you don't need expensive equipment.
48:38You just need to know kind of what your brand vision is
48:40for your content.
48:42So publishing consistently.
48:44Keep your images really beautiful.
48:46You know, plug into publisher networks
48:48or local events.
48:50And the more people you meet,
48:52the more, you know, you're able to really kind of learn and glean.
48:54And you can pretty much learn anything online now.
48:56You know, from signing up to a Skillshare
48:58to going to a local blogger meetup.
49:00Another thing to consider here is, like I mentioned earlier,
49:02there really is a roadmap now.
49:04So you look at the top performing publishers in the world
49:06and really dissect their sites and their content
49:08and see what they're doing right.
49:10And try and learn as much as you can about your own consumer
49:12because that person is going to be different from mine
49:14than, you know, the top bloggers in the world,
49:16from Kendall Jenner's.
49:18It's going to be your own specific audience
49:20and they're going to have a price point they like
49:22and a cadence they like and an image style.
49:24And so really, you know, use what you can.
49:26There's a platform even for Instagram, for example,
49:28that I've used in the past called Iconosquare
49:30that gives me a lot of feedback
49:32about what my followers like there.
49:34A girl in Dubai actually told me
49:36she likes something called Social Blade.
49:38I've not used it, but she swears by it.
49:40So there's a lot of tools that you can use
49:42on an analytic perspective.
49:44Of course, use your Google Analytics.
49:46And if you're accepted to Rewards Style,
49:48certainly comb through those.
49:50And we have tons of, you know, content
49:52that we create every day that's educational
49:54that you could really make a full-time job out of reading.
49:56So just, yeah.
49:58Awesome. Thank you.
50:00Yes, thank you.
50:02Hi.
50:04I appreciated what you have to say.
50:06I actually have a really good friend
50:08who had a relaunch of her blog party last night,
50:10or of her blog last night.
50:12In a world where there's traditional publishing,
50:14first I just want to ask,
50:16when you're saying publishers,
50:18are you referring to the bloggers
50:20that are working within the Like to Know It network?
50:22So publishers for us and, like, our client reach
50:24is across bloggers, traditional magazines.
50:26It's Instagrammers, YouTubers.
50:28It's, you know, now celebrities, actresses,
50:30they all are using Rewards Style
50:32because they have digital distribution.
50:34So we use publisher broadly
50:36for anybody who's publishing
50:38style-centric content digitally.
50:40Okay. And just one more question.
50:42Yeah.
50:44In terms of this whole movement
50:46of more and more bloggers coming through,
50:48how do you think that you're portraying
50:50kind of a realistic vision
50:52for somebody who is a teenager
50:54to late teens to early 20s
50:56that says to themselves,
50:58I really want to make a career,
51:00but they still actually have to put food on the table?
51:02What kind of, I would say,
51:04outreach do you put back out there
51:06to help train these girls or guys
51:08when they want to make a career out of it?
51:10You know, right now,
51:12we focus on the clients
51:14that we are able to accept
51:16into the Rewards Style community,
51:18and so that's who we're really investing in.
51:20Certainly, you know,
51:22I and our team do speaking engagements
51:24all in different communities.
51:26None of our content is something
51:28digitally that we're putting online,
51:30but I think if you read anything,
51:32even especially about my story,
51:34you saw that, you know,
51:36I think when we opened the Rewards Style office,
51:38something I didn't mention was that
51:40I was living at home, you know,
51:42eating cereal and had less than $300 in my bank account.
51:44I had a jewelry line.
51:46I had a personal shopping business.
51:48You know, you don't start blogging
51:50and then tomorrow turn into Oprah.
51:52It's something to where, you know,
51:54you might need to be doing other things
51:56to make ends meet until it does happen,
51:58and for some people, it happens in an extraordinary way,
52:00and for other people, it's a great supplement
52:02to their primary income.
52:04Cool. Thank you.
52:06Absolutely.
52:08Hello. So I'm a publisher,
52:10and I know that it's pretty competitive
52:12to be affiliated with Rewards Style,
52:14but I'm just curious for retailers
52:16what you're looking for,
52:18because I also know that it's pretty competitive
52:20for retailers as well.
52:22Yes. So, you know, I don't know
52:24if you've ever applied to Rewards Style as a retailer.
52:26I think some of the things listed on our form
52:28are just even, you know,
52:30we're looking at the number of SKUs,
52:32so how many products do you actually have that you're offering,
52:34your depth of inventory,
52:36how long have you been a retailer,
52:38is there a great opportunity for you as a retailer
52:40when you're working with us,
52:42and is there a great opportunity for our publishers,
52:44if we do drive our consumers to your site,
52:46are they going to have a good experience?
52:48So we want to make sure that everything's really aligning
52:50before we would invest in that partnership,
52:52but certainly, you know,
52:54breadth and depth of product
52:56and really kind of the quality
52:58of the e-commerce retailer,
53:00if there's someone that's relevant
53:02to our publisher base
53:04that they would want to be linking to.
53:06Okay. Thank you.
53:08Yep. Thank you.
53:10Is that all the questions?
53:12Okay.
53:14It's not a question, it's just a complaint.
53:16Because of your influence,
53:18I have to run to Sephora
53:20because my wife sent me a list
53:22with $1,600 worth of products.
53:24And on that, we'll close.
53:26Thank you all so much for coming here tonight.
53:28Really appreciate your attention.
53:30Thank you.