We recently connected with Aaron Seeger and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Aaron, thanks for joining us today. So, let’s start with trends – what are some of the largest or more impactful trends you are seeing in the industry?

The world of eCommerce is constantly changing every single day. In fact, the only thing that remains constant in eCommerce is, in fact, change.

Starting and growing your own direct-to-consumer (DTC) channels has been more challenging than it’s ever been, and it isn’t going to get any easier moving forward. Supply chain issues, policy & algorithm changes, and rising competition have all contributed to rising costs when it comes to acquiring new customers at scale.

With that said, it isn’t all ‘doom and gloom’ for those looking to sell their own products. In fact, the future of commerce as a whole has never looked brighter for both merchants and consumers alike!

Since starting my agency, Mana Marketing, during the midst of the pandemic, we have seen and worked with many DTC brands in helping them grow their businesses and sell their products online at scale.

Through these partnerships, we’ve learned that there are a couple of core principles that separate brands that continue to thrive online, from those who get lost within the red ocean of rising competition.

I’ve boiled these down into three main components all of our successful brand partners possess, which has led them to create thriving DTC brands online that continue to make a positive impact on the world.

The first crucial component needed to build a successful eCommerce brand lies within the ability to create personal, long-term relationships with your customers.

With the steady rise of customer acquisition costs, more and more online brands find themselves relying less and less on quick, short-term advertising tactics for increased sales. Gone are the days when brands and advertisers use a “spray and pray” style of advertising which involves allocating 90% of the marketing budget towards a blast of their products and messages to the masses. Those who continue to do this are noticing a steady decline in healthy ROI and the lack of sustainability needed in today’s world.

It is said that 80% of sales come from only 20% of your customer base. Those who continue to grow and thrive have made an emphasis on building personal, long-term relationships with each of their customers for high retention.

This of course starts with a high-quality product and/or service that brings value to their ideal customers and benefits their lives in some way shape or form. With that said, the first time someone purchases your product isn’t enough; you must establish systems that allow you to maintain a relationship long after the first purchase. Ask yourself, “how can I continue to provide value and benefit my customers’ lives after the first purchase is made?”. Once you’re able to retain customers and become more personable at scale, your brand will begin to stand out from the rest and become the obvious choice when consumers are deciding on who to purchase from.

The second component needed closely relates to the first, which is all about building and nurturing communities around your products and brand. Humans by nature are tribal with a deep-rooted sense of wanting to belong to a greater community. The most successful eCommerce brands on the planet have nailed this and have successfully interwoven these ideologies within their marketing strategies.

Establishing a trusted community around your brand not only increases retention amongst current and new customers but also increases their loyalty. Businesses that invest in community building have also seen a reduction in customer support costs as well. This is due to the added ability for customers to tap into your community for assistance in troubleshooting, as well as insight into best use cases around your products.

The third component needed to be successful in eCommerce is having a strong social-driven MISSION. The modern consumer would rather invest in a brand and products that align with their core values and interests. They want to feel as though they are a part of something bigger than themselves and that the brands they buy from feel the exact same way. Crafting these social-driven missions not only makes for highly effective unique selling points for your business, but they also expand the influence and reach of your brand through positive impact.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

As far back as I can remember, of my main passions in life has been creating things that have a lasting impact on people’s lives.

Professionally speaking, having the opportunity to turn an idea into a tangible product/service/platform/creative work that others can enjoy has always given me the biggest sense of achievment and fufillment.

With that said, I dabbled in many creative fields throughout my childhood, with one of the more prominent forms being film-making and video editing. This eventually led me to pursue the art of video editing throughout my years as a student, with the skill serving me well in various side projects. One of which being a founding member of a student-run online multi-media newspaper, called The NYSide.

Immedtiately after graduating college, I went on to work a couple of years in reality TV post-production, and had the amazing opprtunity to work on some incredible shows for household names such as Disney+, HGTV, TLC, BET, A&E, Nat Geo, and more.

However, throughout my three years working in television, there was always an internal sense that something was missing. I felt as though there was a lot more I could be doing with my time, and more of an impact I could be making. I had started plenty of side hustles, which I would work on during off-hours or after work. One of the more successful side hustles included starting and growing my own eCommerce brand. I was using the dropshipping model, which works through finding products (typically from China) to sell online without the need to pay up-front for inventory. The dropshipping model was easy to break into, as it didn’t rely on a massive amount of overhead to get started. You would simply act as the middle-man between the products and the consumer. I had some decent success with this model, selling Harry Potter makeup brushes, out of all things lol. However, through this experience, I realized that I was in love with the marketing and branding aspect of the business. I thoroughly enjoyed using my creative abilities to craft a video using purpose-driven storytelling, and have it be seen by potentially hundreds of thousands of people worldwide.

This developed skillset led me to begin helping friends/family and other local businesses expand their reach and sales through these creative & analytical mediums.

It was at this point that confirmed what I wanted to spend the rest of my life doing, which is what I’ve loved all along: using my creative skillset to build meanginful ventures that offer positive impact on people’s lives.

Once the COVID pandemic hit, and my last TV contract expired, I finally decided to go off on my own and start Mana Marketing, a digital growth and advertising agency. Naturally, it eventually made the most sense to transition away from working with local businesses, to working with brands expanding their presence online, as I could draw from my personal successes and setbacks within the same vertical.

I knew that my creative experience would provide much needed value in the marketplace and a competitive advantage as well. What separates Mana Marketing from other digital agencies within the space is the attention to creative detail, as well as a 360 holistic approach we take to scaling our client’s brands.

Most agencies tend to focus on Facebook Ads, or social media posting as a service, however, the inherit problem with this lies within the confines of the service itself.

If you talk to most online brands today, you’ll most likely hear of horrific experiences of burning through cashflow, wasting time, and broken relationships after working with untrustworthy agencies.

Most of them do not deliver results. This is because most agencies will sell Facebook ads to anyone and everyone, not taking into consideration the strategies that work today, and more importantly, those who truly NEED their services.

We take a different approach to truly partner with our brand clients, and take a holistic, 360 approach when it comes to scaling. We don’t chase fads and trends that are here today and gone tomorrow. Our focus is on the long-term sustainable success of our partners and making sure their business is covered from all angles.

When you win, we win. It’s as simple as that.

Overall, I am most proud of the impact we’ve had on our client’s lives, as well as customers around the world. The amount of positive influence we are able to provide through our agency services still amazes me to this day.

We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.

You only truly fail if you give up, which means you are in complete control of your outcome and path.

Early on when I first started my agency back in mid-2020, my initial goal was to work with personal trainers and help them build a presence online to shift after the pandemic. The reason stemmed from the fact that I personally know a good amount of PT’s who were struggling around that time, as their gyms and facilities were closed.

With that said, in order to try and make the transition from working in TV to running a business as seamless as possible, I wound up investing a good amount of money into an agency mentorship. For the most part, it was a great program that taught me a lot about what it takes to run a successful agency. However, they also had another component to their program, which was providing done-for-you agency ads services for any clients we happened to sign. While it was a great idea, their execution wasn’t the best, and I had to learn this the hard way.

After a few months of taking sales calls, sending cold DMs, and phone calls with no full-time income, I had finally landed my first personal training client! The initial communication and onboarding were smooth, and I was excited to start my full-time entrepreneurial journey. Long story short, the first couple of weeks pass with this client, and the mentorship’s fulfillment team totally dropped the ball on delivering results. The result ended in a not-so-friendly phone call, and ultimately, losing the client.

It’s a pretty devastating feeling losing your first big client after months of learning and sales calls. My number one priority always comes down to delivering results for my clients, and to lose my first contract this way was a crushing feeling.

At this very moment, if I decided to simply give up and throw in the towel, I wouldn’t be where I’m at today.

I decided to learn from this situation, drop the fulfillment team my then mentors provided me with, and take matters into my own hands by developing delivery systems in-house to maintain complete control of my client’s results and successes.

After signing on a couple more personal training clients to run ads for, I ran into my next major issue: the current agency model I was pursuing wasn’t sustainable long-term. I winded up delivering some exceptional results for my current clients, which was an amazing feeling, however, working with personal trainers came with challenges in and of itself.

A lot of my PT clients could only handle so much business. In a way, delivering an excess of new business for my clients was almost hurting my agency’s long-term growth, as once they were capped out for the month, they did not have the capacity to renew services.

The last thing I wanted to do was reduce the effectiveness of my service offering. In fact, I would rather start a new business altogether.

Again, another moment that could have changed the entire trajectory of my life if I decided to drop everything.

After a lot of self-reflection, I recalled the success I had with my previous side hustles within the eCommerce space and how passionate I was about the marketing aspect. I knew that my video background would help me differentiate my agency from others within eCommerce advertising, as my service offering was a lot more versatile than simply offering “Facebook Ads”.

I quickly got back on the grind and pivoted towards my goal of developing the best eCommerce growth agency in the world. I signed my first client within the first month of the shift, and haven’t looked back since.

Fast forward to today, and I am working with a team of 3 others (and growing), delivering amazing results for our clients, and continuing to solidify and nurture partnerships with amazing brands and agencies.

There is still a lot of work to be done and we are just getting started, however, none of this would have happened or even possible if I simply threw in the towel once times became tough.

Adversity is one of the many hidden blessings of life. If it weren’t for adversities, I wouldn’t be on the path I’m on today. I will continue to improve and become a better entrepreneur thanks to tough times and lessons learned along the way.

What do you think helped you build your reputation within your market?

Besides the results we’ve been able to generate for our eCommerce clients, the number one thing that has built my reputation in my market is my core values.

What do I mean by this?

My word is my bond – if I say it’s going to be done, it will be done. My consistent effort to remain a reliable resource for my clients has dramatically improved their experience, as well as my credibility in the marketplace. This has also dramatically increased referrals for my agency as well, which has been one of our main sales channels when it comes to signing new clients.

For anyone starting/growing a service-based business, I always recommend striving to become the most reliant and trustworthy person in your field. Do this enough over a long period of time, and you will eventually become the ‘go-to’ professional in your industry.

Contact Info:

• Website: http://scale.manamarketingco.com/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/7figureecommerceblueprint
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/aaronmseeger/

Image Credits
All photos were captured/taken by me.