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Steve Werner: Welcome back to grow your impact income and influence the number one show helping you reach millions online using your story we’re going to learn all about great entrepreneurial journeys today.

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Steve Werner: I have Andy with us Annie has a master’s degree in marketing research, but she also use that degree to found a site called recipes which helps people.

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Steve Werner: cook better come up with great recipes I love that stuff right.

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Steve Werner: we’re gonna get into that but more importantly we’re going to talk about how you do marketing research, I think this is so important, I think it is one of the things that causes so many entrepreneurs to struggle so much any welcome to the show how are you doing today.

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annie: i’m great thanks so much for having me on.

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Steve Werner: No problem, it is my pleasure so.

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Steve Werner: Marketing research degree turned into recipe, please take us through that journey How does that happen.

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annie: yeah so I started in marketing and digital marketing back when I was like 2021 years old and I started off in marketing as a link builder for search engine optimization.

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annie: And that, for me, just like open my mind to.

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annie: What exists within the marketing world, and I was just fascinated how websites rank in Google and that just, you know as as a consumer, you don’t necessarily.

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annie: Think about what goes into that and so for me that just totally broaden my horizons broadened my mind and, at the time I was getting my bachelor’s degree in psychology, and so I finished that degree.

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annie: But wanting to go more into business and into marketing and in sort of the why people do the things they do, and so that’s where you know I got into marketing research, specifically, which is.

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annie: way more helpful than you even expect or think when you’re an entrepreneur or starting your own business.

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Steve Werner: Okay, so you go through school and you get out what did you what was like your dream job like when you were like okay i’m going to do, marketing, research, what did you want to get out and do when you got out.

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annie: See I got the wrong degree for what I was interested in and I didn’t I didn’t know I wanted to know why do people in the C suite Why do executives make really bad decisions that.

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annie: could have been informed by research but they didn’t bother to do the research so like why on a whim, does the CEO say we’re going to open this this new channel of business and so.

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annie: I didn’t learn that instead I learned how I, as a business leader can make good data informed decisions that help save my business money that helps save my business time that helps my message resonate more with my audience and those sorts of things.

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Steve Werner: Okay awesome I mean I think that’s really, really cool because CEOs I mean i’ve i’ve done some executive coaching i’ve interviewed I don’t know.

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Steve Werner: Probably 50 of them by now on this podcast and it is interesting, like they’re the the role of the CEO is to be the visionary and to see all the moving pieces and put the puzzle together in a way that makes company profitable.

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Steve Werner: But I think a lot of times they make ego based decisions.

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Steve Werner: Without and that can be good and bad right, I mean Lee iacocca make great decisions at Chrysler for a while and then he made a whole chain of horrible ones, and you look at any business.

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Steve Werner: The CEO is the person guiding it and if they have the research backing, they can definitely make some good decisions, so how does this lead then to you doing.

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Steve Werner: recipes.

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annie: yeah so I was working as Director of marketing for like a household brand in 2019 to 2020 and I was commuting.

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annie: an hour and a half, each way to this job and cove it happened, my office shut down and suddenly I had three hours a day that previously, I had spent you know power walking to the train station and on a train crammed in like a sardine, and so I started cooking a lot more at home.

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annie: And so it was just my experience that it’s very frustrating to cook from recipes online you Google, the best air fryer chicken recipe you get to a food blog.

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annie: you’re bombarded with ads you have to close out to pop ups and then you know there’s 12 paragraphs of text before you get to.

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annie: An autoplay video before the instructions and the ingredients.

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annie: And so, finally you’ve gotten to the instructions you’ve gotten to the ingredients you’re tossing your raw chicken in olive oil and salt and pepper.

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annie: and your screen goes blank because it’s you know gone to sleep it’s timed out, and here I am raw chicken fingers with olive oil.

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annie: And how do you react this that information, so you, you know rinse your hands, you get back and then you have to scroll all the way through, so I was just really frustrated with that experience personally.

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annie: And so I started exploring it and that’s sort of where the research comes in, as I started talking to people.

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annie: On both sides of the equation, I talked to food bloggers and it turns out they’re frustrated for a lot of different reasons around that experience to.

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annie: And I talked to other people home cooks people who cook from online recipes.

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annie: And you know it’s it’s anyone who’s cooked from an online recipe knows that experience so that was sort of the first step is you know reaching out to.

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annie: Other people who might be in your target market reaching out to you know people on the other side of the equation, to make sure that you’re including different stakeholders to really identify you know what problem, am I solving and how can I solve that problem.

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Steve Werner: Well that’s I mean first off your story resonates so well the I mean you come from link building, so you understand, like Google, the reason that all that’s there right because I get.

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Steve Werner: super frustrated by that too i’m like just give me the friggin like.

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Steve Werner: I need to know what goes in it, so I can buy it and put it together right just give me the bear thing.

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Steve Werner: But for those of you who don’t understand how this works, they have all that extra text because that’s what google’s looking for.

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Steve Werner: they’re looking for how many times is the key word up here is it used in sentences and it’s all done by Ai so they’re reading it to make sure that it’s a high value.

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Steve Werner: which gets the link higher up the search results which then allows them to make more money from ads right, I mean the whole thing is.

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Steve Werner: it’s not there for free it’s there because they’re making money through it, so you started doing research.

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Steve Werner: What did you find and how did you decide to fix it like this is really interesting because most people.

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Steve Werner: would have said, I want to be, or I want to cook better from home and i’m going to spread recipes and make money.

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Steve Werner: Like i’m going to that’s how they get to this, you came from it from a completely different angle you saw the frustration, but then you started doing research So what did you learn when you started doing.

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annie: So I started just really thinking about it, talking to people about the experience but it wasn’t until I actually saw a tweet by another company.

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annie: basically saying hey guys we fixed food blogs here’s our tool, which was a scraping tool, where you can enter in the URL to a.

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annie: recipe on a blog and it returns you with only the ingredients and the directions.

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annie: That tool was shut down within 24 hours because it’s essentially stealing the copyrighted materials of bloggers, you know they put hours and hours into producing this content they shoot custom photography for it, they buy ingredients they pay for website hosting.

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annie: And it strips away all of their income so you’re only you know left with the piece that you want and they’re left with nothing.

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annie: And so there was so much backlash around that tool and that sort of the tone that they were going with you don’t have to deal with the life story of the blogger, you can just get you know the good stuff.

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annie: And so that’s sort of when I sort of explored more on the creator side of what issues are affecting the creators creators aren’t happy with the situation either you know they do, they earn.

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annie: On the higher end 20 to $30 per thousand people who visit their website.

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annie: And you know that that means they have to drive thousands and thousands and thousands of visitors to earn an income that for most people is not a full time income, so their side hustling to.

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annie: And so I really what I learned most in talking to creators was about the the tone and communication is that.

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annie: it’s really condescending to say, I only want this get your life story out of here.

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annie: And so that was huge in terms of what how i’m going to talk about things in my marketing materials on my blog.

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annie: And how we can build better relationships between the food bloggers and the end users, where the bloggers are treated with respect their stories are honored but at the same time, the content is formatted in an ad free way that.

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annie: You know, meets the needs of people who are actually have sticky fingers and they’re cooking the recipe.

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Steve Werner: Nice, I mean that’s at the end of the day, that’s what makes every business work better right, I mean you look at airbnb look at uber uber is probably the best like.

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Steve Werner: It made both sides better in let the drivers make more money it let the users get a better experience faster, you can do it through an APP cars are usually cleaner they’re usually in better shape usually.

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Steve Werner: Usually right, I mean we’ve all been in bad overs, but if you guys have never had the pleasure of riding in New York City taxi that can be.

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Steve Werner: 10 times worse so okay How, then, my question is you started doing the research, how did you come to a yes or no decision like this is what i’m going to do, or no it’s not worth it, because you just laid out like side hustle as a recipe food blogger.

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Steve Werner: let’s just put that into context for people who are trying to do the math right every if they make 20 bucks per thousand people for 10,000 people they’re making $200 the average food blog probably gets 5000 15,000 what’s.

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annie: I mean it’s just you there is no average food blogger, because.

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annie: It there are a higher number of bloggers on the lower end you try it for a year you don’t make that money until you fall off, but then there are food bloggers who are phenomenally phenomenally successful who make you know 10s of thousands of dollars a month.

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Steve Werner: right there the rarity though let’s.

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annie: Go with like.

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annie: 95% yeah you’re probably in that under $1,000 a month.

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Steve Werner: So and they’re putting in I mean to write a food blog to do custom photography to go get the stuff and write it.

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Steve Werner: You are correct, like I wouldn’t want to discount anyone’s story, but when i’m hungry and I want to cook air fire chicken I don’t want the life story, I will I definitely don’t want I get annoyed with videos that have longer than about a two second intro anymore on YouTube.

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Steve Werner: Like get rid of all of that crap like I don’t need to.

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Steve Werner: There was one I watch the other day, I think it was 35 seconds of intro crap it was like I don’t need any of that like so how did you come up with a solve for this, because I think your soft probably came through the research I would think.

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annie: yeah so we’re creating basically a premium experience, think about YouTube versus you know the paid version of YouTube think about.

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annie: You know, watching free YouTube videos compared to having a netflix subscription so our business model is the same we’re doing it premium subscription on a monthly or annual basis, so users are paying to access unlimited of our content.

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annie: And right now we’ve got access to about 6000 recipes but we’ve more than tripled our number of creators, since we launched in November, so we are.

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annie: You know, expanding that library at sort of an exponential rate and, soon, we will have.

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annie: Any recipe, you could possibly imagine instead of going and searching in Google, you can go to recipe and search there and find something that’s going to be formatted in a more user friendly way and that’s going to be, you know.

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annie: It doesn’t have ads obviously we do maintain the integrity of it, and so we keep that story or the tips and tricks, whatever the author is trying to share we mean team, the integrity of that because.

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annie: Food is inherently cultural and historical and familial and those stories are important, but we format it in a different way, so that it comes after.

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annie: That vital information that you need the ingredients, the directions go you’re paying for this premium experience.

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annie: Maybe that content adds a lot of value to you, so you can choose to engage with it or not, but it’s not you know forced and.

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annie: it’s seo content is very like you were mentioning common in food blogs, where you know, someone has a recipe for air fryer chicken wings their processes i’ve developed the recipe.

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annie: Now i’m going to create a keyword informed outline that must be at least 1000 words and they copyright or hire a copywriter.

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annie: For the sake of seo to build this seo content that strategically will get more eyeballs to their website and sort of that’s where.

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annie: The content it’s necessary because it’s, the only way you’re going to get from Google to their content, but it’s not adding value to the majority of the users.

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annie: So we’re just reformatting it so that that is all sort of bonus extra information if it’s helpful to you, you can read it, but it’s not going to get in the way of cooking that recipe.

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Steve Werner: Nice So how are you taking care of the recipe creators, because there go ahead.

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annie: So we’ve actually been able to achieve.

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annie: Payments payouts have an average of 70 cents per recipe view.

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annie: Which on an individual recipe view basis, but if you calculate calculate that out 2000 per thousand views per thousand impressions we’re looking at about $700 rpm versus what we were talking about previously.

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annie: Where you know, on the higher end bloggers tend to earn 20 to $30 per thousand views so for one thing we have successfully so far been able to pay out significantly more like you know more than 10 X per recipe view.

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annie: scalability obviously as a start up a new business is an issue, though, because you know if if we’re paying 10 X per recipe view but there’s only 10 recipe views that’s still not a significant amount of money.

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annie: And so we are taking care of creators in other ways, one thing we’ve done is we’ve launched a creator equity Program.

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annie: Which is you know similar to like an employee options pool where our creators, who contribute content over the period of our first year of business will have.

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annie: Essentially, what similar to equity in it, so that if in 10 years we are the netflix of recipes online we sell the company, then they also tangibly gain in the benefit because you know they.

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annie: Are our business relies on them, and so what we try to do is we try to actually treat them as if you know they are respective partners and we you know we need them, and so that’s sort of the the courtesy and the gratitude that we’re extending to our creators.

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Steve Werner: awesome So let me ask you what was in forming this, and thank you so much for sharing the story, because it, I find it really fascinating that you put the research first.

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Steve Werner: You kind of build the business based on like I could you could have done any business, you did it because you saw a need, what was the biggest thing the biggest Aha that you had in doing the research for this what was something that shine like a big light bulb that you weren’t expecting.

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annie: um I guess just the how much creators struggle to equally as much as users, because i’ve always been on the user side i’m not frustrated user who doesn’t want ads who doesn’t want to stroke scroll through content.

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annie: But I you know I interviewed creators i’ve emailed back and forth with you know, probably 100 different food bloggers.

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annie: i’ve run surveys to the food bloggers that i’ve been talking to you and communication with and the data is pretty amazing and one of the surveys I ran.

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annie: It 73% of the creators, that I had been talking to reported that they did not feel like they earned a fair wage or fair fair revenue for the amount of work they were putting into their blog.

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annie: And then beyond that that’s 20 I can’t do math 27% of creators, who do think they’re earning a fair amount of money they were significantly more likely to have revenue streams, including ads.

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annie: sponsorships and affiliate links and when you think about it, each of those things sort of deteriorate, the user experience.

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annie: If you have ads that’s one thing if you have ads and affiliate links and then it’s a sponsored post to each of these things make it a you know worst experience for users.

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annie: And that’s, the only way that creators can earn an income that is fair for the amount of time they’re putting in so it was really eye opening you know.

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annie: Being able to take a look into the other perspective of i’m used to one side of the story, which is i’m sick of ads on recipes but really seeing you know.

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annie: How creators feel and how they’re treated, because people do treat them with a lot of condescension and discarding you know, some people.

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annie: You know, put put seo content, but some people, you know if you’re looking at pad Thai they share the historical and cultural context of that dish, which is important to them.

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annie: And so you know it feels to them, sometimes like people are saying you know go go back to the kitchen, you know just make me a sandwich.

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annie: Which isn’t a good feeling, so it was really getting a holistic perspective, not only of what the you know users, consumers experience, but on the other side, what what goes into producing this content.

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Steve Werner: got it.

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Steve Werner: Okay, so I want to shift gears a little bit, and I want to move into what your degrees in and actual like marketing research, so if somebody is looking at starting a business if they’re getting started.

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Steve Werner: coach consultants course creator maybe they want to start a brick and mortar business if they’re thinking about starting a business, what do you think the first two or three steps should be that they start researching what should they be looking at.

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annie: yeah so you want to ask lots and lots of questions and actually one of the problems with market research and marketing research is that.

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annie: it’s made to seem very inaccessible to entrepreneurs and to small businesses.

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annie: Because if you, you know go to a database you’re trying to find your target market size and you go to these databases it’s like $5,000 to access.

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annie: You know, a report of market statistics or if you go to an agency it’s going to cost $10,000 a month or whatever it is it’s very, very expensive and there’s sort of an elitist attitude of.

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annie: You know you have to do it scientifically with rigor and in these certain ways that only a few train people like myself, you know have that experience to do.

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annie: So understanding that you can access marketing research to as an entrepreneur and not being intimidated that’s going to be huge starting by asking questions.

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annie: Like have a curious mind and ask, as many questions as you can both to your target user and to anyone else involved in the equation that’s going to be important.

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annie: And you can also utilize resources that you already have to do market research or marketing research, if you have an email list already you’ve been doing a blog you have blog visitors, if you have social media channels.

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annie: anything like that you can leverage those resources either reach out to people, personally, send a survey that kind of stuff and without having to pay money you know you can do marketing research with resources that you already have.

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Steve Werner: I mean that’s awesome I do think, I mean, I think.

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Steve Werner: When I got started, I remember I can’t remember what what site, it was but yeah it was like $1,000 for some kind of market research, I was like well I can’t do that.

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Steve Werner: But then I remember reading.

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Steve Werner: The four hour workweek and he just went on Facebook i’m actually at the time, I think it was my space battle.

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Steve Werner: Though like really date four hour workweek but like he went on social media and started asking questions he went to groups and he found people, and I feel like that is like you can’t over.

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Steve Werner: rate doing the research because i’ve seen so many people, I mean i’ve had people come to me with webinars that they spent hundreds of hours like 100 hours building out a webinar for a product that nobody wanted.

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Steve Werner: And they didn’t know that beforehand and it’s like if you just would have done spent five hours worth of research, it would have saved you so the.

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Steve Werner: I love the everyone out there right seth godin have a big why, like you wanted you want to be really passionate about what you’re doing, but you also have to do the research, because otherwise you’ll get into it a little bit and you won’t have.

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Steve Werner: The income to support it because the market doesn’t want it, but you have to do both so.

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Steve Werner: I think the other question that I have for you, which I would be really interested in is how do you prevent.

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Steve Werner: Confirmation bias in the marketing stuff that you get because I know so many people That said, well, I did marketing research, I went and asked people, and this is what I got back like I got this essay.

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Steve Werner: Back That said, you know they really wanted this widget and it’s like when I read the research on like that’s not what I get from it, but you were looking for it So how do you prevent confirmation bias.

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annie: So to start you can’t entirely you know they’re always going to be biases and you know the approach you’re taking you know can influence the results that you get in your interpretation can impact.

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annie: So my biggest piece of advice is to start with a plan and to define your marketing research plan before you ever do it, you write down.

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annie: You know what is your business objective in doing this research.

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annie: What questions do you need to ask, in order to figure that out what type of data analysis, do you want to do, because you know if you just want averages, if you want descriptive statistics or if you just want yes, no answers.

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annie: you’re going to be asking much different questions, then, if you want qualitative information or, if you want to do you know T test and more advanced you know statistical modeling and that sort of thing so.

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annie: You want to really understand what information, you need to answer that business question and then you build questions, based on, you know how do I reach that objective, instead of.

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annie: You know, going into an interview and saying i’m going to wing it, because then you know you’re you’re leading the discussion in a way that may not be productive to those goals.

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annie: A few other things that are like specific call outs are leading questions so you know you might be a pet a pet.

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annie: apparel supplier you create dog jackets you sell dog jacket so you’re asking i’m doing marketing research i’m asking my audience, do you love dogs, with the option, yes or no i’m a terrible person.

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annie: Obviously that’s an exaggerated, you know example but that’s the sort of thing you see in like Facebook polls like where you’re.

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annie: you’re leading them to the correct answer, which is obviously, yes I love dogs because i’m not a terrible person and would never want to admit that.

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annie: But you know, there are much more subtle examples for companies do that, where they.

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annie: Put that feeling of this is the wrong answer, and you can tell, in the way they worded it so that it’s going to influence either.

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annie: Only the people who receive the people will respond are going to be only yes answers, or the people who would normally answer, no, you know, maybe they like cats a little bit more, but i’m influenced to mark, yes, instead, because I don’t think i’m a terrible person.

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annie: And then they’re like double barreled questions, which is another example so say, the question is, do you like dogs and why do they make you happy.

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annie: that’s two different questions jammed into one question we’ve said, do you like dogs, yes, I like dogs, but maybe they don’t make me happy, maybe they make me feel companionship.

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annie: And so you’re not able to you know parse the answers of you know which answer, are they answering what their response so Those are just examples of things you want to avoid so that you’re not sort of steering your audience, to give you the answer that you’re looking for.

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Steve Werner: that’s that’s really good I I like that, and I, like the way that it’s laid out so.

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Steve Werner: The thing that I could hear people saying is well how do I come up with the right questions, what are some sample questions that people should be asking like I know that it’s hard, I know that is based on.

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Steve Werner: A lot of different variables, there are a lot of different spaces out there, but how do you come up with the good questions because you’re, you said you know, take the time to come up with really good questions, what are good questions that they should be asking.

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annie: Good questions, I mean obviously want to look for these type of biases in your question, so you can come up with your you know the questions that come to your mind jot those down.

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annie: right down to you know, look at that question and say what business goal does this question help me achieve what am I asking about what is the way i’m asking about it questions should be.

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annie: collect, what is the way to say it mutually exclusive and collectively exhaustive.

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annie: And so, that means if you’re asking you know how old, are you and the age ranges are you know 18 to 2022 24 and 25 to 99.

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annie: that’s a terrible you know set of age ranges in general, but then, if someone is under the age of 18 and they’re taking the survey.

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annie: You won’t even be able to know if you need to exclude their answer if you’re only looking for data from people over the age of 18 well now either those people don’t take the question, or they lie on it, and then you know if you’re saying.

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annie: 18 to 2022 24 what does a 20 year old respond in that case, do they do the 18 to 20 or 2224 so you need to look for things like that.

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annie: And, and you know that maybe you’re asking questions about shoes right so.

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annie: What what shoes, do you wear most often and you have high heels or ballet flats, or you know work boots.

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annie: there’s so many that you’ve left off on there that you know, maybe people put high heels, but that’s not their true answer so you need to make sure that i’m answer covers every possible scenario and that’s sometimes looks like putting a you know other category and they can fill it in.

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annie: But that just ensures that you get a little bit better data, for you know that type of question.

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Steve Werner: got it, so the last question that I have for you is what is the biggest mistake that you see people do when they are doing research when they actually take the time to do some research Where do they go off the rails what’s something they should avoid doing.

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annie: um for me i’m you know split in the middle, because it drives me crazy that people are intimidated by market research so people don’t do it because they’re afraid.

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annie: And then on the complete opposite spectrum they’re the people who do it and think their God.

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annie: And so you have to understand your limitations, you have to understand that you know, this is not scientific research, this can help you get answers that can help you make good decisions in your business.

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annie: But you know you don’t need to be publishing a research, study on the survey of 30 people that you did.

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annie: And that type of thing where.

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annie: You know, people are like I proved I scientifically proved that all women wear high heels 24 seven you know your.

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annie: People talk about it with such authority when they’ve done, you know they did a survey of 30 people, which is great that helps you understand those 30 people.

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annie: But it doesn’t necessarily help you understand a different 30 people, so you have to understand that your results your audience, you know it can help in your business but it’s not necessarily automatically applicable to other situations.

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Steve Werner: that’s I think that is really good to know, without them, I guess, two really quick follow up questions that came out of that the first one is.

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Steve Werner: What is a minimum viable number, you said 30 people I would think it would be a little higher, what do you think the minimum viable number for a market survey is.

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annie: It depends and that’s going to be the answer you know 99% of the time, there are statistical ways that you can calculate calculate the minimum sample size that you need for statistical validity.

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annie: A lot of the time you know you’re not using statistical methods that are you know going to going to make that necessary.

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annie: Or you know the the audience, you have access to your email list is only 100 people and the hundred people you send the survey to only 20 of them respond.

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annie: That doesn’t mean that you can’t use that data or that that data is bad it just means that you can’t throw 100 youth, I mean you can’t make a million dollar decision off of that that tells you, you know.

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annie: I I now have data to support this intuition, that I had or this assumption that I have which, in turn, then my next steps can be you know getting a greater data sample or.

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annie: You know testing it in different ways, you don’t want to weigh 100% of an enormous decision on a very small sample of data.

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annie: But at the same time, you know a lot of the time when you’re a small business or an entrepreneur you’re just not going to be able to get thousands and thousands of survey responses that are you know randomized so that you can make assumptions and and generalize that to a broader group.

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Steve Werner: got it, I mean there there’s a lot that goes into it, I just the one thing that I guess i’ve seen a couple of people do that I would I would call out here is they go to their friends and family.

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Steve Werner: And that’s probably the worst place to get data I would highly recommend going to a Facebook group, where you don’t know anybody because they’re going to be honest with you um go ahead that’s.

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annie: Definitely yeah that’s that’s definitely one thing is, it is your sample telling you what they think you want to hear that’s a problem.

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annie: Facebook groups can be helpful if you find the right audience, but again, you want the audience to closely match what you envision as your target market, so if you’re selling high heeled shoes.

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annie: You know, you might pop a question in a women’s forum women’s evening wear group women’s cocktail attire group.

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annie: Whereas, you know going into the dog lovers group and talking about high heeled shoes.

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annie: you’re not getting you might get responses, you probably won’t get any traction unless people start making fun of you, because that’s just how you know the Facebook algorithm works.

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annie: But you know if your target market is women who wear high heels informal settings and you’re serving dog owners those aren’t going to overlap very well and you won’t be able to generalize the data that you have to your greater target market.

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Steve Werner: got it.

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Steve Werner: Any Thank you so much for sharing like it’s a pretty fascinating journey to see first like how you built recipes and then like the kind of nuts and bolts of how it works if people want to learn more about you where should they go.

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annie: yeah so if you’re actually interested in recipe like you’re a home cook and it sounds cool you want to try it out just recipes COM are EC ipl e.com.

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annie: If you want to connect with me if you have questions about marketing research or you know you have a business idea, and you want to know what questions to ask anything like that you can reach out to me on linkedin.

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annie: And I can send you a link, so that we can include it in the show notes, too, if people want to connect with me directly.

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Steve Werner: awesome so both of those will be linked in the show notes under this episode.

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Steve Werner: Go check it out, and if you have questions definitely reach out you have somebody with a master’s degree in marketing research willing to help you take the time reach out to her on linkedin and you Thank you so much for being here today.

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annie: thanks for having me.

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Steve Werner: No problem, it is my pleasure and to everybody else out there until next time take action change lives and make money we’ll see you soon.