Adrian Vella (00:00)
To start off with, obviously, lovely to see you Steffen. think, actually, just before we get involved, it’d be great to just know a bit about yourself.

Steffen (00:08)
Yeah, no, good to see you too, mate. So for everyone else who doesn’t know me, I’m Stefan. I’ve worked in the affiliate industry for about eight years now, seven or eight years. So getting on to be a bit of a veteran, but yeah, I’ve worked agency side for a long time. People might know me from my time at Summit Media up in the lovely hole in East Yorkshire. And then, yeah, I’m now currently at Vivo Barefoot, which is, yeah, nice.

change from going from agency side to client side but it’s really cool. But yeah, good to be here. I appreciate you inviting me on.

Adrian Vella (00:41)
Thank you for joining us. Please tell me you have some of the shoes on right now. I’m not going to ask you to do the stretches, but please tell me you have some on.

Steffen (00:47)
I have some within an arms reach, but being honest, I don’t have any shoes or socks on, so I’m currently barefoot living the true meaning of the name, you know?

Adrian Vella (00:59)
I love that very much. So I guess we can maybe go into Vivobarefoot itself a little bit. Can you tell us exactly kind of what Vivobarefoot Barefoot sells and a little bit about your typical customers?

Steffen (01:12)
Yeah, so giveaways a little in the name, but we sell barefoot shoes and to anyone that doesn’t know, it’s essentially a wider toe boxed shoe. So a little more room for your toes to kind of stretch at the end. And typically thinner soles. So we have quite thin soles on the shoes, but that gives you like an enhanced kind of experience or feeling to where you are. So your feet are allowed to be feet a little more and increase the feeling that they’re getting. So

and I suppose a typical customer, I put myself into that hat because prior to working for the brand, I wore the shoes for like seven years. So for me, it was about, it started in the gym. was just about wanting to have a better connection with, kind of lifts and better form. And I think feeling your feet and the power and transfer of things there. I played American football, so I had a lot of, benefits, I think that happened from that training and that sprinting in the shoes.

I just found the benefit of my kind of foot health, but it was ultimately wanting to explore how to improve foot health. And then there’s just such a vast array of benefits that come with that, which I think people want to explore. So I think that would probably be a typical customer. Someone’s looking to try and increase their foot health and curious about the benefits that come with that.

Adrian Vella (02:24)
It’s always nice to be passionate about the brand. I’m sure many affiliate managers who do work on a certain product are not necessarily the users of it, so it’s really nice that you have a passion point on that one.

Steffen (02:33)
Right.

It helps and I think it’s an interesting combination for sure because it’s when I have conversations with people I feel like I know what I’m talking about because I was the customer like I understand the product and I’ve walked in them for so long so it’s definitely nice to have aligned the two. Yeah really cool to be fair.

Adrian Vella (02:56)
they’ve taken a walk in the shoes as they say. Cool, What part of the sales funnel is Viva kind of super focus on right now? What are you trying to do?

Steffen (02:58)
There you go.

We have some big milestones coming up in terms of kind of business side, revenue size, all that type of thing. So it’s new customer acquisition, I think is the main thing. It’s so really trying to get the brand out there known more and ultimately getting those new customers in. That’s the main thing, I think. And then obviously there’s so many things that kind of…

play up into that big kind of picture stuff, but I think ultimately it’s getting more new customers into the brand.

Adrian Vella (03:33)
Nice, because Vivobarefoot’s quite rapidly growing, right? Because I think, if I’m not mistaken, you’re both the US and UK at the moment.

Steffen (03:39)
Yeah, I mean, we operate worldwide from a marketing sense. cover main markets being the UK, US and Germany. And then we do operate in others, kind of around the world. But those markets are certainly the kind of bigger

Adrian Vella (03:56)
made you start exploring brand partnerships as a growth lead out of pure interest?

Steffen (04:00)
Well, to be honest, I’ve known of you guys for a long time. think if we let everyone into that, I’ve kind of seen the journey. when I worked at AgencySide, we had clients that had some forms of things live and had many which we tried to get live and maybe didn’t quite get there. So it’s kind of on previous experience. But I’ve seen a lot of the impacts and a lot of the things that you guys post online.

and everything there and seeing the growth of things. I think ultimately, because I knew it was there and I knew we had these, you know, targets of things and what ways can we contribute and kind of add ideas into the mix. And ultimately, you know, it’s one that wasn’t being explored at the time. And I felt I could, you know, put that in there and see if it’s something that could be explored. So, yeah, I mean, it makes sense a lot as well as certain things. I mean, obviously, you know, we’re doing the loyalty side too. So it’s…

There’s multi-factor into how we wanted to look at it, but I think, yeah, it’s a previous experience from my side and something we weren’t currently exploring.

Adrian Vella (04:59)
Interesting and you touched on the point there which is that you’re looking at it from maybe both a customer acquisition perspective and a loyalty perspective. you feel that for example brand partnerships with Viva could actually help you in that kind of full funnular approach of it?

Steffen (05:13)
I certainly think so. think, you know, if you’re at checkout and you need a little extra push over the edge, sometimes it doesn’t take too much to convince you. mean, I’m sure we’ve all been in carts and then gone, maybe not. And then you’ll leave it and then you’ll maybe go back to it and then you’ll keep doing it for a while and something will convince you. But the idea is then to how can you maybe convince them a little quicker.

and just little incentives I think make sense to have in there from that side. And then from a loyalty side, I mean, also to go back to that, I’ve been affected by that. I’ve been to checkouts and then have been like, but I also get this and this and I could make use of that. And it helps. I’ve been personally impacted. And then from a loyalty side, I think, you know, there’s a lot of brands which I know have good…

like relationships with us or ultimately would align with our brand values and what we want to achieve and what we want to do. our customers are really loyal customers. Once they’re in with us, it makes sense to give them extra. I think the idea of being able to present them with some brands they will likely, you know, I think that also is appealing and also something we weren’t doing at the time. then luckily it timed up with something internally about

how we’re looking to expand this kind of my Vivobarefoot or the login experience of being a Vivobarefoot customer and then coincided very nicely, to be honest.

Adrian Vella (06:31)
Definitely this was not a paid placement I’d like to confirm for those who are perhaps holistic. Fair enough. And So we kind of touched on that a little bit already, but what customer behaviors, know, like a drop off at checkout or high bounce rates or poor engagements indicated to Vivobarefoot that a change was needed? What was the core struggle that maybe this is helping you overcome?

Steffen (06:34)
No, I will… No. It’s not.

I think everyone would want to have a better conversion rate, right? I think ultimately that’s such a good metric to have. Like if you can convert more of the customers you’re getting on your site, then you’re going to make more money. So I think ultimately it’s how do we convert? got, you know, we’re doing very well from a traffic and a nice perspective. And it’s also being considerate of, you know, we’re not just buying a pair of shoes. It’s almost you’re buying a

a potential lifestyle change. So it comes with a greater period of consideration for that purchase, especially if you’re a new customer, because then you’re constantly having to, if I like this, then I’ve got to get more of those. And then there’s a price point and then everything then becomes a harder entry point. So I think.

Trying to give a little more to those that are kind of on the edge, think, it makes sense, I think, to add something in there or at least try and incentivise that journey a little more. Because we do understand that there is a greater consideration period, but ultimately, I think those people that do come on there, they do want the product, it’s maybe just, can we tempt them to get it sooner than they would, may have it, ultimately they probably would still end up getting it, but.

it might take a little longer, so.

Hopefully that makes sense. It does in my head at least.

Adrian Vella (08:04)
Yeah, no, absolutely.

No, I agree. Right. And it’s I think the thing that you said at the beginning of the answer makes the most sense. Right. Like, I don’t think anyone would ever complain if that checkout performs better. Right. Like it’s it’s an absolute ⁓ no, we got more sales and we made more money without spending any more money. yeah. No, I couldn’t possibly want that.

Steffen (08:17)
Exactly. ⁓ no, conversion rates gone up, we’ve got more sales. ⁓

disaster.

Adrian Vella (08:28)
How will you evaluate if your audience responded positively to a gift or purchase offer? Is it purely just the conversion rate? Like, is there any subjective factors behind that? How do you guys plan to measure it?

Steffen (08:41)
I think ultimately impact on conversion rate is one metric, but I think, hopefully there’ll be some level of customer feedback or at least in some point, maybe there’ll be some, form of indication we get as part of that. because I appreciate the update or, know, whatever it might be. There might be things there, but ultimately I think the main things we can measure is conversion rate and ultimately redemptions. We’ll be able to see, you know, who is picking what and what.

maybe is resonating more. And then I think the idea of testing and, A B testing things, learning from, what customers are interacting with and are putting into their basket and are seeing that kind of value in there. Then I think there’s, there’s kind of multiple ways that we will look to measure it. And I think those are probably the biggest tells any improvement to that conversion rate. And ultimately if, people are indeed

converting on those gifts.

Adrian Vella (09:31)
think what might be interesting for you guys is because obviously you’ll get insights about, example, if you’re running three gifts at once, that here’s three different ones and maybe they’re quite contrasting. You might actually learn something quite interesting about your audience in the sense of like they prefer this kind of gift, like this kind of category, that something like that. I think some of that will be interesting to overlay into future gifting choices of like, okay, the better we get at this, maybe the greater effect we can have on that basket completion rate as well.

Steffen (09:39)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah, exactly.

And that would be the cool thing because it’s, you know, obviously there’s a lot of different options that you can potentially try them there. And then ultimately the customers are the one that will dictate, what happens there. But I think we can put some best guesses in place and then just test and learn. They all test and learn.

Adrian Vella (10:11)
Love an A-B test, it’s exactly what we always love, When you were trying to work out, you know, the brand partnerships were for you, did you review any case studies or examples of stuff before moving forward? Did it feel like just obvious or did anything else kind of sway your mind in terms of taking that plunge, I guess?

Steffen (10:27)
From my side, no. Again, just from personal experience and obviously understanding and knowing the product and its value. think from who I needed to speak to, fortunately for me, my manager has ⁓ really strong background in affiliate marketing and understands a lot of the propositions. And there’s obviously a lot that work through the channel and obviously having that ease of access to kind of go live. think.

It was more about what value could it add and how does it do that? So seeing that and being able to share the case studies with him, I think also helped, you know, at least get that initial conversation in place. And then it was a case of, there’s the, here’s the offering, here’s what we can do. And then that was, that was the convincing thing. And then it’s ultimately goes to the next stage of making sure that other people.

can kind of get on board with that too but it certainly helps having like the shark stuff and everything from from that side I mean it’s and personal experience I just know it works so it’s more just how can we make it work was ultimately the angle.

Adrian Vella (11:27)
I the good thing is that you understand the concept right? guess for those or other brands who are like, okay, at my level, I want to do it, but I need to kind of go to the stakeholders above me, have ultimate sign off. Would you maybe have any particular tips for them?

Steffen (11:38)
Mm-hmm.

Again, think there’s, sometimes those ideas of things are too good to be true. It’s like, well, you only pay for the sales that actually come through or you only, you’ll get things that will come through from sales that have been made. You can test in so many different ways and ultimately just being willing to test at some point.

Like even if it’s like segmented into traffic and it’s like a percentage of a certain region and you know, things like that, because that’s how likely we’ll get going with things. It’s testing in, you know, the UK and then ultimately looking to see impact on there and then building out from there. So it’s then just being willing to trust that, actually this can have an impact and it’s had impact for multiple other companies. So there’s no other reason why.

it wouldn’t be able to do the same thing. It is offering a good value to the customer. So it’s not taking away from the journey. If anything, it’s enhancing that journey because of what it’s being offered and it’s for the customer. it’s, yeah, it’s just being, ⁓ just take the plunge, just give it a test and you’ll probably be pleasantly surprised and then go, ⁓ we should have done this earlier. It’s like, yeah.

Adrian Vella (12:49)
I you. ⁓ No, it’s an interesting one, I think you’re lucky because you clearly work for business, which is very adept at testing and it clearly sounds like it’s part of the culture. I think for some other people in our industry, maybe it’s not quite as easy to get that signed off, right?

Steffen (12:50)
Well, don’t, I noticed how I didn’t say that.

But that was the implied, yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Well, having worked agency side and seeing sometimes what it’s like when you go to a client and you’re so excited about an idea, you’ve got this great, great, thick, pitch planned out and then, you know, it’s going to work. You know, it’s going to have an impact. And then it’s just like, I don’t know about that. You’re like, well, why not? Like it’s some, I get there’s a level of skepticism in, in, in places. And I’ve been at, you know, a part of those where you’ve then been shut down and not been able to do something. And it’s frustrating because you know, it

can have impacts and have seen it’s had impacts. And I think, yeah, I understand it’s not, I am lucky in that regards, because they are very adept at testing and making sure that, you know, things work and we can try and find, and for me, it’s all about trying to find what’s that sweet spot. How do we, in order to get that and what works to make it really easy, manage, you have to test things. You have to.

And if you don’t, then you’re not going to be able to see the true like scope of how much value can you get out of your website and your current customers or future customers. Like there’s just so much which makes sense, which it then just, I do get skepticism about trying new things, but ultimately those who do have a hard time, you just got to be persistent. You’ve got to keep trying.

and keep going and keep hounding Adrian and Chris and make sure that they give you all the collateral you need. then you should hopefully win that, you know, it’s a marathon, not a sprint, right?

Adrian Vella (14:36)
For sure, I feel like I’ve just heard the first half of like the Braveheart speech, by the way, like that was, that was, that was passionate. I really loved it.

Steffen (14:43)
Well,

that again, for everyone, I wasn’t paid. this is, you I just, when things work, they work. it’s, it’s, it’s, just want, plus from my own personal, like if you call it selfish perspective, I just want to see something go live that, know, you’ve had implemented and then you can just see the, the impact it’s having and then just go.

new

Adrian Vella (15:02)
I love the confidence there. There’s a little touch of humility just to make sure, you

Steffen (15:06)
Well, yeah, you always stay

humble, but you you’ve got to celebrate the wins and it’s, you know, it’s important too.

Adrian Vella (15:13)
100 % great answer by the way on that one. So you kind of slightly touched on it, but what metrics or forecasts do you think helped you to build a business case? What numbers or what things do you think ultimately helped you seal the deal and get your test life?

Steffen (15:27)
Well, from our side, was probably in the reverse of what you’d initially wanted to happen because I think Gifts We Purchase is an easy go, like it’s an easy go live. I think from our side, because it timed up with this loyalty project we’ve had going on, it made sense to look at it from that side first. I know it will be…

covered slightly later, but it’s a very easy go live. So it’s almost been kind of like, we’ve had this plan in place to use it. We know it’s there. We know what we’re going to do with it. It’s going to go live. And then the rest of it’s like, well, but there are other things we can do. So I think initially it was, here’s how we can have an impact. We can essentially create a revenue.

stream out of customers and it rewards on that basis. And then the other side is then, well, how can we use a really awesome benefit or almost a more impactful benefit of how can we get more customers? So it was kind of the flip side. was the kind of this was how the introduction was done. And then it shifted to, we can also, they can also do this. And from at least my side of my manager’s side, it’s like,

you we want that test in place because I’m very confident it’ll work. He’s very confident also, but it’s just you want to see it like I want to see it live. want to see it, you know, having that impact. And then it’s just getting, you know, everyone else on board and the timings of things. then it should, which will go first live. I’m not sure. But my bet would probably be loyalty. But I think we’ll see. I don’t know.

Not taking bets though.

Adrian Vella (16:58)
Fair enough, more than fair enough. Will you be looking to kind of test the idea on a smaller scale before kind of ramping up to 100 %? I know we talked earlier about, you know, there’s options around testing. We want to try and a certain kind of portion of traffic first. Is that, you know, in your guys’ opinion, like a pragmatic approach? Like how, what do you think about that? I guess in essence.

Steffen (17:17)
From, I think that makes the most sense. And I think that will also be the way to get it signed off in terms of a, you know, I think it will be a UK market start. I think it will be a percentage of traffic. then obviously then looking at the performance over, you you guys, I’m sure we’ll have a suggestion on what period of time we should look to test it and then, and scale and then ultimately see what those impacts are. And as long as we can get that.

of agreed period, think I’m confident we’ll be able to have those those impact in that that time frame. So, you know, kind of starting small scaling up and then ultimately should it go the way I would expect it to, then it’ll be a case of all how do we expand beyond the UK market and look to kind of tap into that same experience for customers in other markets as well. So that’s that’s the plan.

Adrian Vella (18:09)
I think for the benefit, the way that we tend to look at is that, of course, you want to reach statistical significance, right? So how long you run it for, what percentage of traffic to a degree obviously does matter, but also doesn’t matter is when have we got enough data to say confidently to, know, 90%, 95 % accuracy, like this is the result that we get. I think the interesting thing that we’ve learned as well is that different markets can behave differently. So you need to do different tweaks. So

Steffen (18:21)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Adrian Vella (18:35)
Just

for example, if you run the UK first and you run it on 50 % for two weeks, then you reach that significance. Doesn’t mean that’s automatically roll it into the US. You need to take the same approach again, because buying behaviors very different, you know, happens per market. For example, Germany. Germany is very different to the UK, like in terms of what they like, the UX, everything else as well. So I’d definitely say for every geographic expansion, run the same systematic kind of process until you reach the statistical thing that you need to.

Steffen (18:54)
Mm-hmm.

That makes sense.

Yeah, well, I’m sure the team, your guys side will have that guidance and I think we’ll be able to feed back along the way. think, and ultimately I’m very confident, once we get something in place and it’s going that it’s going to do what it says on the tin. I won’t say the brand just cause it’s, but you know what, you know the brand. But yeah, I think that’s the long, the term approach, I think to it. And then ultimately

testing and seeing what offers resonate and the same from the loyalty side, like what are the customers dictating, what do they want, are there any new brands that we can get in there that we really want to work with and any offers that we specifically think would work really well with our customers, obviously being the brand we are, we’re a B Corp, we’re very sustainable focused but there’s a lot of brands that align in many ways.

I think it would be a really fun one to get live and just go on that journey with and just see what sort of impacts that can have. But ultimately it’s what can we make sure the customers are getting and what’s the value that they’re going to get from that. And if we can find that sweet spot where we know people like X, Y and Z, we do this at this time of year, whatever it might be, then I’m looking forward to hopefully getting to that point of it.

I’m sure there’ll be loads of things we’ll learn along the way, especially in all the different markets you write. The US, I’ve noticed again from the affiliate perspective, it’s similar in some ways, but very different in a lot of others. And Germany, mean, our affiliate channel is very efficient, which is probably unsurprising, again, being a German market, but the channel there has been an interesting exploration for me. It’s still fairly new.

to me, I’d not had too much German affiliate market experience, but it’s what I’ve learned thus far, been really good and it’s exciting to be in that space and I’m looking forward to seeing how we can grow even more because it’s a very barefoot friendly market, Germany, that they’re really into that sort of thing, so everyone gets out and there’s a lot of hikers and walkers and it connects a lot with what we are as a brand.

How can we roll that out everywhere and give the customers a really good experience, you know, as well as on their feet, but also when they’re a customer, they also get, you know, looked after from that regards too. So yeah, there’s a lot that goes to it.

Adrian Vella (21:15)
Yeah,

think, you know, think brand partnerships of this really much work in the same way to your point. I think there’s definitely nuances per market and it’s as everything I think you can need to build a hypothesis of what you think is going to be the story that unfolds in terms of, you know, this is what we expect our German audience to do based on what we know about them. This is what we are UK one or US one.

Steffen (21:28)
Mm-hmm.

Adrian Vella (21:35)
But of course, hypothesis is just a hypothesis, right? Again, it’s a case of we might get it right 70 % upfront, but then how do we get it to 80 %? How do we get it to 90 %? I always tend to say to people like, expecting 100 % of getting it right all the time is unrealistic. Same as running your affiliate program, right? You’ll get some partners wrong, and that’s fine. It’s a case of, how do you get the big wins

Steffen (21:49)
Yeah, no chance.

Yeah, and think from going back to the how do you get things signed off, it’s also that lovely CPA perspective of things. It’s like, if it doesn’t work, you haven’t paid for it to not work. When it boils down to it, I think ultimately it’s just a no-brainer in a lot of ways, but…

just getting it into that same mindset for others, think is, it’s not an issue, it happens everywhere. So it’s just getting on board more so, getting on board that brand partnership train.

Adrian Vella (22:29)
Gotta love the brand partnership train. I might try and roll that into something else. Great phrase.

Obviously, as with any tech partner, right, there’s always kind of the question of like, ⁓ how difficult is it to do? know, our tech resources really low, you know, what technical operation hurdles did you think you would face? And what was the reality?

Steffen (22:49)
I think whenever there’s the general perspective, whenever there’s new tech, it’s always, there’s going to be some form of deep integration. It’s going to have to go in some IT backlog of things that need to be done. It’s going to take ages to roll out. It’s, you know, all that type of thing. because of that old master tag and ultimately ease of getting going with things that way, it’s,

I think it was a pleasant surprise to that team. They’ve had this big project going on internally of getting this loyalty thing. And there’s a lot of moving parts with linking Magento and various other moving parts of platforms. And then when this one came up and it was like, that’s all it is. So that then, as I said earlier on, it got…

That’s meant it’s the integration has been going great. You know, we’re in a good place with it, but this integration was pushed back to towards the back end of it because of how easy it would be to integrate. They were just like, that’s, that’s not going to be a problem. So it’s just planned in everything’s it’s been, mean, I said to you for a while, it’s been greenlit for ages. So we’re just like, waiting for that team to kind of get everything else sorted. Then we’ll get that in place and then boom, customers will have that.

that new logged in experience and be able to get access to things. So that’s going to be a cool, a cool rollout, to be honest, because it’ll be interesting to see how everyone, everyone responds because we’re bringing Vivobarefoot Health in that too. So that’s our educational courses. So you can sign up for those. if anyone does, sometimes you get them with shoes and you can sign up and ultimately learn more about the benefits of barefoot and maybe it’s the particulars, you know.

there’s fundamentals, maybe it’s a particular thing like a yoga-based thing or movement or trail running and things like that. you know, you’ll get access to those and then you’ll also have access to your orders, everything from that side. And then you’ll have your loyalty side, which will then be kind of a reward points. And then this side, which will then have, what they can get from a offers perspective from other, you know, non-competes and various…

companies we want to partner with and put across.

Adrian Vella (24:57)
You make an interesting point

there actually, which is that this is only just one small bit of a very big kind of brand revolution for your record. I think to your point there for the clarity of everyone, you’ve kind of never had a logged in area to a degree, right? It’s like, actually we have all of these different things that we must do before we get to the point of doing rewards. know, how did, the thing I’m interested about is like, that’s a very large strategic decision to do all of that at once. You what?

process the business to be like, yeah, fine, let’s just do everything. Let’s like rip the bandaid off. Let’s just do it all at once.

Steffen (25:25)
I think we had this, we needed to bring consolidation. Vivobarefoot Health was on a separate platform, so if you had an account for Vivobarefoot Barefoot, it would be a different login for Vivobarefoot Health. And there was other platforms which had other logins, so then it just needed to come together so that it could then be a better access for everyone else. we’ve been able to log in and obviously see all your account information, but…

If you wanted to then go see your Vivobarefoot Health, you’d have to go elsewhere. And from that reward side, that’s never been implemented. And they’ve not had, there’s been a refer a friend program, but there’s never been a loyalty program. So that’s something that they’re also introducing at the same time. So it’s going to have this whole kind of refreshed approach of what that will look like. And that’s also fully being defined as to what that will be.

That’s what the refresh will ultimately come out and we’ll be able to have all of these different areas which customers will then get access to, to be able to just have that better logged in customer experience. And if they do have Vivobarefoot Health courses, then they can still access it from their onevivobarefoot.com login, as opposed to having to go to all these various other places. So it just seemed again like…

a perfect addition to that overhaul of things to then have that kind of give back to the customer side of things where they could then, you know, yes, they’re going to get the loyalty for shopping with us, but also if you do go shop elsewhere, here’s a bit of a discount or, you know, if you do buy something, then check this out. You know, maybe you can benefit from things that way.

Adrian Vella (26:59)
Have you guys considered something along the lines of when you launched the Bevo account area, you email everyone who would be applicable to like, hey, you you’ve got this new account area, come in today and claim a gift of XYZ. Have you guys considered that as a nice kind of almost like way to lure people in to sign up for those accounts?

Steffen (27:17)
That’ll be interesting. I’m not sure because there’s a big old team working on it from the holistic perspective. I’m sure there’s probably some cool things that we could suggest forwards to that as and when we’re getting towards that launch. think it’s pen for… Pen? Penciled? Or we should say penciled for October. So it’s September, October time, I believe.

But it’s really close and I know the team that’s like they’ve been working really hard on pulling all that project together. And it’s going to be really cool, I think, to see that new experience. then obviously playing a part in that with this integration and things there is going to be good to see our customers respond. then hopefully we can get things going with the gift we purchase. then it’s that.

kind of full experience then has really been increased across the board for customers. Like it’s just improved substantially, I would say, once all of that’s in place. yeah, that’s going to be really exciting to see all of that materialized, but it’s definitely been a big project. hats off to everyone for getting it in a good place and nearing launch now.

Adrian Vella (28:23)
So if you could give a piece of advice to a brand considering doing brand partnerships, what would that be?

Steffen (28:30)
I would say first of all, make sure that you just get everyone on board, that you commit to the test. I think that’s the main thing. it’s just, you need people on board to ultimately make sure that it’s, everyone can get on board with it and then understand what benefit that’s gonna have. I think from a sign off perspective, it’s a case of, you know, working with Adrian and the team that started to…

They’ll give you everything you need to convince the powers that be or at least get them on a call with them so they can convince them. But suggest it because it’s certainly an exciting area and I think it opens up, it’s kind of a really cool different angle to as an affiliate manager, it opens up really cool new angle to affiliate marketing from my perspective because then we work with a lot of different businesses and with that a lot of different people.

but this is just that slightly different words than business to business. And it’s like, well, we’re kind of similar. Like we should try and help each other out from that side. we come up with a good offer that we can test with your customers or our customers? And these closer relationships that can build, mean, your customers are likely going to be shopping with those brands anyway. So if we’re friends in that regard, it’s like…

At least they know they’re connected. So it’s like, okay, well, that makes sense. And I think there’s a lot of different brands from what we are as a brand that makes sense for us to try and have some form of brand partnership with, because we know our customers are going to go over and shop with them. And if we can send someone or introduce, or at least they’ll go to our customers, hey, if you go and shop with X brand, you can get 20 % off with us or whatever. Use our code.

little things like that or whatever it might be. I think, you know.

It’s a no brainer. you just, you just got to get them, get them on a call, get them to convince them and then just don’t be afraid to get that test in place because there’s no negatives ultimately. like, no, I’ve, I’ve given an offer to someone else and they’ve bought something at 20 % off.

They bought something, okay, maybe it wasn’t much. You didn’t lose anything, okay, it didn’t work the way you wanted, but it hasn’t, you there’s no negative from that side. it’s, yeah, you just gotta just keep being persistent and then make sure that when you get, and then it’s finding the right brands to work with. That’s the next thing is like who aligns with you? Because there’s gonna be some which will be probably applicable to.

way more brands. mean, for us, we’re kind of unique in a sense of, you know, the way we’re positioned as a business being a B Corp and sustainably focused, like, it makes more sense for us to partner with brands of similar ilk than it would be to, you know, go with, I won’t name anything, but go with something more, you know, mainstream, if you will, from that side. But some will work exceptionally well, I’m sure, from that side. So it’s just about testing what works with your customers.

there’s so much on offer that it just makes sense just to give it a go and then if it doesn’t work it doesn’t work nothing’s happened but I guarantee it will work so it’s ⁓ yeah you just got to give it a try and just try and convince the powers that be to stick with it because it will work

Adrian Vella (31:32)
Mini Braveheart loved it. So we’ve kind of gone through the schematics of brand partnerships. I’m just curious, you know, what’s a dream brand that you’d love to partner with yourselves as we’ve a better and why that particular brand?

Steffen (31:46)
there’s probably a few for me personally, think from a, if we’re talking loyalty side of things, or at least brands having included in there, I think the likes of, like for me, Patagonia or someone like that would, would make a lot of sense. they don’t sell shoes to my knowledge. We do. We don’t sell clothes. They sell awesome clothes. our customers will be very similar in, in, in a lot of ways. so some, something like that would make a lot of sense for.

for us. But then there’s brands like that, for example, Gymshark, mean, huge name, obviously very popular would be a great offer to be able to present to customers and like Ben, the chap who owns Gymshark, I don’t think I’ve ever, I think I’ve seen one picture where he’s not been wearing a pair of vivos. So like there’s an association or at least a link with the brands already. having something in place with a brand like that would make sense because

There’s a lot of crossover with people who will discover our brand that way or have some form of lifting and gym culture and all that side of things. I mean, our gym range and the things you wear, it’s very good. So like I, and I’m not just saying it, I had these shoes before working for the brand. So it’s like, I’ve had multiple pairs that just, they’re so good in the gym.

So I think that would, that would be another one, which would be a cool one, I think, to, kind of have announced that we partnered from this perspective, like, obviously they have ginormous name, but we’re very linked in a lot of ways. So I think those two would be two, two big ones for me.

would be a cool one to kind of have offered out. think that would resonate well with customer base. There’s loads, I’m sure there’s a whole bunch that would probably like to get in there.

Adrian Vella (33:21)
I think we’ve probably got about 700 options in the UK at the moment you can realistically pick from here and now. I think to your point, I guess the key thing that you said there was affinity, right? Like the affinity between your user base and them and creating a perception of value for your customers. guess rudimentally, obviously we talked about Patago nia to a gym shark but it’s, it is that affinity that maybe you personally see it as like, this is how we give value.

Steffen (33:38)
Mm-hmm.

Adrian Vella (33:48)
this is how we get people to be more loyal to Vivobarefoot, right?

Steffen (33:51)
Yeah, and I think that will be the same of a lot of other brands. think if I flip it and think about it, why would someone want to work with us? We offer a lot of value from that side. Like if you’re trying to push a sustainable thing, like, OK, we’ve got you covered. Like if you’re trying to push a health focused thing, OK, yeah, we got you covered. Like premium footwear. Yeah, we’ve got you covered there too. Like all seasons. Yeah, we have all different types of shoes. And it’s like

we can offer a discount. So there’s so many, you know, perks from, think the idea of what it would be like to work with a brand like Vivobarefoot. But then, yeah, I think it’s…

just needs to get involved in it. That’s the main thing. It’s just being involved and then getting to to expect me 700 different options. mean, that’s going to be a hard pressed on a page of however many 10, not 10 offers or so. then. I suppose gift purchase is going to be quite a number of offers that side too, which less so from our side. I don’t think we can really give away. That’d be a fun one though, wouldn’t it?

Adrian Vella (34:53)
For sure. think the… I agree. We could try it. I think what’s…

Steffen (34:55)
real random to give away a couple pairs of shoes to some… Maybe that’s gonna be a good one to do. Random, like you could

set it at five and then just to show five random ones and like, hang about, they’ve just said I can get a pair of Vivobarefoot’s at checkout for free.

Maybe we should try that.

Adrian Vella (35:11)
I think

what’s really interesting, what you said there by the way, to go back one step, was that there’s multiple ways that you can link your brand to another brand. And that’s a really interesting thing, right? Because I’m sure many people look at it like it’s very linear. Like, does that brand match me or does it not? And to your point, right, you guys have outdoor walking options. You have indoor stuff. You can wear them to the gym. There’s actually multiple different audiences that you

just as one brand could tap into multiple other brands. And think that’s a really interesting point.

Steffen (35:43)
Yeah, having those key categories, like you say, the outdoor, we have the kind of, if you call it fitness range, but ultimately it’s your gym shoes and then like your studio based shoes, your yoga shoes, things that you can move very freely. And the outdoor stuff, kind of waterproof, warm, you know, everything that, so those that kind of are in those, those verticals, like if you’re an outdoor enthusiast and you

discover the brand like we’ve got everything you’ll you’ll need and you’ll I guarantee you’ll enjoy the experience of what it’s like doing those things you love but then having a little extra connection with with that with your feet

Adrian Vella (36:21)
think the final thing I was going to say there, which would be interesting, think, from also gifting your shoppers, that could be very interesting, right, like doing that dynamically. for example, if we assume you’ve got the Vivobarefoot Outdoor range, right, and let’s assume it’s for, you know, for hiking, we can probably make some assumptions that maybe you own a dog. So actually, we’ll give you something that’s related to your dog as a gift to maybe help you to encourage to buy those outdoor shoes, or by contrast, for your fitness shoes, like, okay, what do do when you go to the gym? You might listen to music. So here’s an offer of

Steffen (36:33)
Mm-hmm.

Adrian Vella (36:49)
X months on your favorite streaming service. think that’s an interesting place as well. How do we break down your audience and try and create the most accurate gifting depending on what rudimentary they’re buying in the first place.

Steffen (36:57)
Mm-hmm.

So we have all of our internal personas, if you will, of the different types of people that wear vivos. there’s all sorts of names, and I want a conscious maverick, and there’s all sorts of different things that will fit into these different categories. But ultimately, we have such a deep range in those key verticals. But the main thing coming up is that we’ve got all of those.

all of that’s covered, but it’s then the general, it’s the why should you care about wearing barefoot shoes or our barefoot shoes your day to day? When you go into the office, when you go into the city, you go about your day to day, you go to the shops or whatever it might be, what’s the benefit and why? And I think that general, that’s the next kind of brand campaign that’s coming up is ultimately that.

place for them in general, general day to day. Plus, I’ll be honest, I mean, I know you have a pair, but walking around London in a pair of barefoot shoes, I mean, you’re feeling some texture changes going around in all those different places. And it’s, it’s a, as everyone knows, it’s a busy old city, but when you’re feeling those, those things, when you’re walking around, it kind of slows the city, for me anyway, it slows the city down a bit more. Cause I get a little, I’m a Northern boy. I’m not used to all of the,

the kind of hustle and bustle of London. But I find because I’m feeling where my feet are, it’s I’m here and it’s less like as everywhere else it kind of brings you into that. So it’s a cool feeling walking around a city in barefoot shoes. it’s something I would, you know, obviously I’d recommend, but if it’s definitely worth doing.

Adrian Vella (38:37)
interesting I wore my vivos actually to Rome and obviously there’s lots of cobbled streets in Rome so to a degree one could have felt you know slightly more connected to the history of all that was. I went mental I think I did 30,000 steps and I’m just gonna you know really throw myself in.

Steffen (38:42)
There is.

And ⁓ you went straight in too, yeah, having not warned them, which, you know,

I would also probably not recommend, but you had a great time from feedback and I’m sure it was a good experience, but it was more so you probably shouldn’t run in them immediately, think is, no, nor I did join, we’re currently doing a couch to 5K, which I’ve decided to join.

Adrian Vella (39:03)
not really a runner anyway so it’s fine it’s okay

Steffen (39:12)
that Vivobarefoot are doing. I don’t know at what point in a 5k training thing, you can call yourself a runner, but I’m looking to get to that point.

Adrian Vella (39:20)
Technically more than one step is going for a run if it’s at a speed. Just going put it out there. Cool. I’ve got two final questions to help us wrap up. the first one is, what role do you think these brand partnerships will play as acquisition costs keep rising? How do you think that might negate some of that a little bit?

Steffen (39:24)
Well, maybe I’m a runner now.

I think from this role in general, think just adding the extra value from, from both sides, it makes sense from, for us, or at least makes sense to me, as to, you know, why you would want to try and, and, and get customers a little easier and more cost-effectively than, than paying for X, Y, and Z and not having any, you know, guarantees or any…

know, if your conversion rates still have an hour time and you’re paying and getting loads more pies to the site and you’re still not able to convert them as that missing maybe secret sauce that you’ve not quite got to whether it’s price point, whether it’s discount or whether it literally is just like a little push over the edge. And that’s what I see a lot of this being is that that kind of push over the edge of, it’s in the basket, it’s ready there. Hmm. Ooh, but I also get

And that’s how my mind shifts. And I think a lot may resonate with that, or at least it’d be play a part, or maybe you go back sooner. You think, if I do get that, can get X from insert food delivery service here. And maybe we could do that for a month. Okay, I’ll go back and I’ll go get those shoes because we can also get this. Like something like that. makes sense. Like if you just put yourself in your own…

Like when you go shopping, what do you think of? And then that, I mean, that applies to so many people. then you just got to try and if you think, well, this helps benefit my journey, it probably helped do that to a lot of other people. and you only pay in theory for those ones that you do convert. So what, there’s no real risk.

Yeah, I think it seemed a smart way to try and get more out of what you’ve currently got as opposed to paying a whole bunch for potential other things you might never convert from.

Adrian Vella (41:20)
Nice and to wrap it up, so final question. Obviously, thank you so much for doing today. I guess, where can people follow what you’re doing next? Where can people follow not just yourself, but like Viva Bef, how can we help you at the end of the day?

Steffen (41:33)
Well, I’d recommend everyone to go to vivobarefoot.com and have a little peruse and then we’ll look around and see what you think. We have a lot of different types of shoes on there for all sorts of occasions. If you’ve got kids, Back to School Range is live. But from what’s going on here, I think we’re on

this brand partnership journey and it’s going to start to expand a little more in the coming months as and when we launch or relaunch our my Vivobarefoot login experience with all these extra additions that will be in place and then no doubt when when all that’s live I’ll be very excitedly posting about it on on LinkedIn and and so you can welcome to

follow there if you would like to stay up to date or maybe Adrian will give me a repost so you might not even need to follow me you can just follow him and then he’ll he’ll do it because they always post so yeah I’m sure if you really want to see ⁓ affiliate North I’ll be I’ll be doing something affiliate North Philly Fest North there’s a there’s anything anything up north you’ll see me at in the in coming months PI live obviously so

Adrian Vella (42:33)
Anything up north. ⁓

Steffen (42:40)
I say there’s loads, I love the affiliate channel, there’s so many different things going on, it’s nice to have like a new, for me, new fun area to start to look forward to working in and if you feel like you’re watching this and you think, Vivobarefoot, good band, I’d like to do that, then you know who you need to speak to, to maybe sort something out there.

Adrian Vella (43:01)
Well, yeah, if any brand wants to speak to you directly, guess, obviously, they can contact us through email. We can happily pass that over or I guess drop your note on LinkedIn, right? Probably the best, two best ways to get hold of you.