Ready to discover the behind-the-scenes secrets of a business that is revolutionizing the medical aesthetic industry? On this 174th episode of the E-Comm Show, Andrew Maff interviews Hannah Craft, Marketing Director of MedShift. Together we'll uncover the secrets behind MedShift and how their innovative consolidation model is revolutionizing the industry.
In this episode, discover how Medshift is transforming medical aesthetics with smart consolidation and innovative marketing. From reducing vendor chaos to building trust through loyalty rewards and thought leaders, Medshift shows how to drive credibility and retention within a B2B market. If you're a digital marketer looking to fortify your strategy, without using the usual SEO and ads, this episode is a must-listen.
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Andrew Maff and Hannah Craft
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Hannah Craft
I graduated from Clemson University with a double degree in Marketing and Graphic Communications. Although I started my career as a graphic designer, I quickly discovered my passion for digital marketing. My ability to understand the full omni-channel buyer journey has enabled me to manage successful campaigns across various industries and connect brands to their customers at the right place and time.
Andrew Maff 00:03
Because if we want to call ourselves the Amazon of esthetics, it's more than just having everything you need in one place. Hello everyone, and welcome to another episode of The E-Comm Show as usual. I'm your host, Andrew Maff, and today I am joined by the amazing Hannah Craft, who is the marketing director over at edshift. Hannah, how you doing? You ready for a good show? Hi,
Speaker 1 01:14
Andrew. Thank you for having me. Super excited to be here and super excited to talk about med shift. I
Andrew Maff 01:21
am very excited to have you on the show. It's a very interesting product line. Don't come across it too often, especially on the show. So we're gonna learn a lot today. Very excited. I like setting these off in a relatively kind of stereotypical way and just giving you the floor. Tell us a little bit about you know, your background, where you got started, and, of course, how you got into mid shift. Yeah.
Speaker 1 01:40
So I have a very interesting background. I actually started my career in graphic design, and one thing led to another. I was doing graphic design for a company, and they had an email marketing position open up, and I kind of jumped at the opportunity to elevate my career, which then really just launched my passion for all things digital marketing. And as they say, the rest was history. I loved the marketing side of things. I loved the digital marketing side. I loved all like the different tech stack I got to work in with, you know, ads, emails, social, video, kind of a little bit of everything, but that marketing outlet still allowed me to do what I was passionate about. First was the design part. So I, ironically, was in sports for a couple years, worked in the sports industry, and then from there, I went to the agency world for a little bit, and I realized that the agency world was not for me, and I found my way over to med shift. It was kind of serendipitous how I ended up here, but it just has been a perfect fit. For the past almost two years, we've really grown a lot. We're very fast paced, very small company, so we all wear a lot of hats, which I love, and it's been really great to kind of dip my toe in the esthetics industry. It's very it's a very interesting, very fast, growing industry. And I feel like I've kind of found my, found my groove here.
Andrew Maff 03:06
Nice. You know, it's interesting. A lot of the like, best marketers I've ever worked with started off with a design focus and then moved into more of like, the execution of those elements. And I always think it's, it's probably, at least, in my opinion, because it wasn't me, it was it's more around, like they understand the messaging and the esthetic of how that's going to look to the to the potential consumer, and then they figure out how to get it in front of the right people, as opposed to the other way around, which is you can get it in front of the right person, but If you don't have the right kind of messaging and and just overall esthetic and copy, it's not going to do much for them. Is that, would you say that's a proper assumption? Yeah,
Speaker 1 03:49
absolutely. Having a design background has really helped me in my career, just being able to convey kind of my thoughts from a marketing perspective, and I feel like you get more buy in when you can physically show, you know, the higher ups and leadership team and your bosses, like this is what I'm envisioning, and when they actually see it, you know, it helps build your case more.
Andrew Maff 04:11
Is a very good point. So tell us about med shift. Obviously, I know strong focus in the esthetics industry, which is a wide industry, and it involves a lot of different professions, but tell us a little bit about med shift, the product line and the overall offering. Yeah, so
Speaker 1 04:25
Ed shift is very unique, and we don't have a ton of direct competitors, so we're very unique in that sense, but we are an authorized and trusted reseller of esthetic products, so anywhere from you know, esthetic devices, injectables, the medical supplies you need, you know, dermal fillers, toxins. We sell all of that through our E commerce store, store.medshift.com, and so we have a very broad product base. When I first started, I think we had maybe 40 or 50 products, and we're now up to over, like 220, so. Um, so the growth has been tremendous, but we like to consider ourselves the Amazon of esthetics. It's everything you need for your practice in one place. And we've really kind of leaned into that by bringing on several partners, well known partners and brands such as GE Healthcare Derma made cool health dermalux, and then recently expanded our offerings into the weight loss side of things with semaglutide and trizepatide. So we have a lot of offerings, essentially everything esthetic practice would need to buy for their practice in one place, which saves them time and money from dealing with different retailers. And I think there is some statistic, the average esthetic practice uses 20 to 25 vendors. So we're really looking to consolidate those 25 vendors into one. So you're dealing with one company, we have a low price guarantee, which guarantees all of the that our prices are the lowest, you won't find it anywhere else. And we really are able to offer that because of our expertise and the people we have that are able to kind of get good deals and work with manufacturers to pass on savings to our customers.
Andrew Maff 06:10
So labeling yourself as like the Amazon of the esthetics, we'll blur that out there, bleep it out. We very obviously it's a very presumptuous goal, but it makes a lot of sense, right? Like, to your point, if they've got that many vendors, why have them go everywhere? I always had a theory for the past several years that the more like niche marketplaces will start to pop up where they're heavily focused on industries or hobbies or things like that, similar to what you're doing at Med shift. Is it all reselling of other brands products, or do you private label anything of your own?
Speaker 1 06:46
No, it's all resale of other manufacturers products. So for example, our pharmaceutical products with the semaglutide and tricep petite, we work with a 503 B pharmacy to make sure that, you know, our customers have consistent supply they're from a reputable pharmacy. But it also makes it easier for us to go out and bring in more manufacturers, since we're not having to deal with inventory and shipping, a lot of what we offer is drop shipped by the manufacturers based on our agreements. So we're kind of lucky in the sense that we don't have to deal with a bunch of inventory on hand, and that we can rely on our partnerships with our manufacturers to ship those products. But that also allows us to bring in more manufacturers and more products to really grow that grow our store and offer become the Amazon of esthetics and brands and not just have, yeah, a bunch of brands. So you can get anything you need based on, you know, some people prefer different brands over others, and it just helps us grow that offering for our customers.
Andrew Maff 07:55
Yeah? So that model of effectively, drop shipping all that is the dream, right? Like, that's what everyone wants so they don't have deal with operations. I'm also a marketer at heart. If I never had to deal with inventory and fulfillment, I would be thrilled. So the the idea of that makes a lot of sense. One of the things I always get curious about from a drop shipping perspective, is the order comes through in your scenario, obviously, your website, so med shift.com or store.medshift.com and then the order gets sent to the manufacturer, who then fulfills the order, so that the the fulfillment element is out of your control. So do you have, like, do you put certain agreements in place with them? Or how does that work to make sure that you still kind of control the full customer journey? Yeah,
Speaker 1 08:40
so we do offer, if you order before noon, same day shipping, and we have those built into our agreements with our manufacturers. Some manufacturers are going to be unique, just in terms of the medical space. You know, some products need to be refrigerated, so some require overnight shipping, and then the shipping rates are determined in our manufacturer agreements, whether the customer pays them, whether it's included, or whether med shift covers some of the cost of shipping, just kind of depends. But yeah, we're very we're very close and very mindful with our manufacturers of shipping and turnaround time. Because if we want to call ourselves the Amazon of esthetics, it's more than just, yeah, you know, having everything you need in one place. It's also the customer service, which we really pride ourselves on, and it's also the fulfillment and shipping side of things. And while we're not shipping things out directly, in most cases, we do have a full commercial operations team that manages all that and makes and stays on top top of that to make sure our menu, or our manufacturers are for fulfilling their end.
Andrew Maff 09:43
Interesting. On the esthetic side, I know that there's, like, there's, I don't even have, probably countless different types of, you know, businesses that are in the quote, unquote like esthetics fields behind like med spas and even like tattoo shops offer it now and then, you have standard esthetics and plastic. Surgeons all these different elements. And I know that because, in fact, oddly enough, for whatever reason, I've got a pretty good amount of experience in this space, and I know that the issue always becomes like, how do you focus on those individual industries so from like, a marketing perspective and that district different customer profile, how do you kind of build that out and adjust your messaging to either be relevant to all of them or personalize it for them? Yeah,
Speaker 1 10:26
so I think, and that's a great question, and that's kind of where our ICPs come into play, because we do mostly market to med spas, but we're also marketing to plastic surgeons and dermatologists. We do some tattoo removal, women's health, things like that. There's a lot of different types of companies out there, so really our segmentation within Shopify and our CRM is really important to us to make sure we're sending the right message. And any kind of email communications we have, we build out different messaging for those different practices. And I think, you know, specifically with our med Med Spa practices, a lot of times we're messaging directly to the owner, because they have a big hand in everything. But when it comes to plastic surgeons, a lot of times we're trying to get to the plastic surgeons through the front desk. So we do change our messaging based on who we're marketing to, and I think that's been a big differentiator for us. And then we also have relationships with representatives from some of the manufacturers, so we also communicate to them differently too. So we have, we have relationships with the reps, and the reps sell through us to their customers. So that kind of presents another segment that we have to consider. So it's all about personalization. I'm sure you, more than anyone know that this day and age, yeah, talking to the right person, hitting them at the right time and keeping it super personal.
Andrew Maff 11:57
Yeah, from a, from a B to B perspective, there's always kind of that different marketing and potentially like sales approach. Do you have like a sales team that's also doing any kind of like outreach, or do you solely rely on inbound?
Speaker 1 12:11
So we do have a sales team that does some outreach, but I think most of kind of what we've relied on is word of mouth, and we've been really able to grow leveraging reps from the manufacturers that we partner with, and that kind of leads me into another piece of our business we added recently this year, is our ambassador program. So relying on thought leaders in the industry and relying on some of these reps to get our name out there, get them in front of the right people, and we've seen huge returns on that just having loyal ambassadors that, you know, they bring us new customers, and we reward them for that. So we've seen a lot of growth there. But in addition to obviously doing some outreach and with our inside sales team. But I think a big part of the esthetics industry too is trade shows and events. So we make sure that we kind of have a presence at most of those industry events. Too
Andrew Maff 13:11
nice. So you have the ambassador program that incentivizes these esthetic companies to bring you additional esthetic companies. Do you also have anything from a loyalty perspective, to keep them shopping directly with you, like any type of like loyalty program where they get points, or, you know, refunds, or anything like that. Yeah,
Speaker 1 13:29
so I think that's one of the best initiatives we launched early this year, is our med shift insider rewards program so customers, it's customers earn points every time they shop, and then they can redeem those points on a future purchase for money off. It's not, you know, it's very easy. It's easy to understand, you know, you kind of get rewarded for shopping. And then we offer, you know, this quarter, we're doing double points on everything. New Year, you know, potentially we'll do double points on weight loss products to kind of push those so, you know, kind of rewarding these practices for coming back and shopping with us and then seeing that instantly hit their account like, oh, on my next order, now I know I'll get $20 off. And they can obviously earn more for the more they shop. And then they can also earn for people they refer to us as well,
Andrew Maff 14:21
nice some of the I'd imagine a pretty good amount of the products you have, you have restrictions around advertising it and being able to make certain claims and things like that. Am I right? Yes, yep. So with that, are you only available on the website, or are you also approved resellers on like other marketplaces as well.
Speaker 1 14:42
Nope, we sell strictly on our website, and that's just the agreement we have with our manufacturers. So we can make sure. So you know, any restricted product has to go through a medical provider and they have to have a certain NPI number. So we kind of take all. All of that into consideration. Have that housed on our back end so we know if someone's qualified or not. If they don't have an MPI number that's been approved or that we know about, then they can't purchase the product. So just in agreement, like with our manufacturers, that's the sole distribution channel for us. Gotcha.
Andrew Maff 15:18
So I'd imagine with those two then with having to supply that number, there's got to be some type of, especially, at least for the restricted product, some type of, like, gate, right? Like, they can't just purchase it, they've got to, you have to go through, like, an approval process, yeah,
Speaker 1 15:32
and then there's a whole other kind of side of it. When a provider does purchase it, they have to do an E script and submit that prescription to our pharmacy, and then our pharmacy will fulfill it directly to the patient. Interesting.
Andrew Maff 15:46
So does that involve medical records and things like that? I was like, is there like HIPAA? This is going to get outside my wheelhouse, but does it get into like HIPAA, or anything along those lines where it's starting to tread that line, or is that still kind of stay on the doctor's side and you guys are just more or less fulfilling? Less fulfilling? Yeah,
Speaker 1 16:03
Andrew Maff 16:38
yeah, what about from, like, a marketing perspective? So you mentioned you've got a sales team that has to do all the that does the outbound occasion, things like that. But from a marketing side, how are you bringing these new customers in? Are they, you know, is it an SEO approach? Is it paid advertising, social influencers? What's what's working best for you? Yeah,
Speaker 1 16:58
so B to B is gonna is a little bit different. Going back to where I started my career, I've always done B to C, so it's been kind of interesting to be on the other side. But as of right now, we do know SEO or paid advertising, a lot of kind of how we've grown is through partnerships within the industry. So partnering with thought leaders and opinion leaders, you know, that are well known in the industry, that have kind of been around for a while, and partnering with them to do different you know, webinars, thought leadership, content, email campaigns. So promote like they'll send out something to their customer base. And that also goes back to the ambassador program. So really leveraging the ambassador program with thought leaders within the esthetic space has really helped us grow, and it's we've seen significant growth, specifically over this past year, and I think it's because of the launch of our ambassador program and our loyalty program. Yeah,
Andrew Maff 17:56
retention is key. Once you get them in, it's hard to keep them, so it's great putting together a program like that. Yeah, going back to your B to C roots. Have you thought about venturing into trying the influencer side for med shift? You know,
Speaker 1 18:10
somewhat so yes, a little bit. Some of our thought leaders are, like I said, very well known and have a very big following. But we also offer a whole other side to our business, which focuses on training, education and continuing education for injectors. And we recently partnered with Erin courtway, who's a very well known injector out of Arkansas. She runs prism esthetics. They have two locations. She has a massive following, and we have seen, just through partnering with her, significant growth in terms of traffic on our site. You know, people signing up to join, kind of our community of or our thought leadership community where they can access educational content. So that's kind of been our first taste of influencer. But I think, you know, she's been great, and I would love to continue doing more with her. And also, you know, bringing in some other influencers too.
Andrew Maff 19:09
Yeah, it's always interesting. It's one of those things, like, I find a lot of like, B to C sellers. Don't think about some of the B to B tactics that work really well. Like, to your point, like webinars and podcasts, like this one and a great and gated content, that kind of stuff. And then sometimes it's the opposite, right? Like the B to B E commerce brands don't always think about like, hey, there's actually traditional B to C stuff that can work pretty well. And I could see how influencer marketing could actually work really well, because even though they don't have as large of a following, it's, it's a very engaged community. So I would think that that would, that would do pretty well. So is that? So what's is that kind of in the game plan for 2025 like, what's the thought going forward?
Speaker 1 19:53
For sure. So we recently started our partnership with Aaron in November. So this is very. Recent but just in the one day she kind of took over our Instagram. We, I think our traffic tripled over a normal day. So we're seeing the numbers speak so we're seeing the traffic. We're seeing the numbers come in. So that's kind of why we're shifting gears in 2025 like this is something we really should tap into more, just from a not necessarily notoriety standpoint, but just an awareness standpoint, because, you know, the more we get our name out there, the more we're still present at trade shows, and the more we partner with other thought leaders and other influencers in the industry. You know, people are going to become more and more aware, and that's what I think has helped us this far in terms of our growth.
Andrew Maff 20:44
Yeah, very informative. Hannah, thank you so much for being on the show. I don't want to take up too much of your time. I know you guys are super busy over there. I would love to give you the opportunity to let everyone know where they can find out more about you, and, of course, more about med shift.
Speaker 1 20:56
All right, yeah, thank you for having me. Great conversation. Look forward to chatting with you again.
Andrew Maff 21:01
Appreciate it. And your website is store.medshift.com Correct? Good job. Yep, perfect. Nailed it. Thank you for being on the show. Obviously, everyone that tuned in, thank you as well. Please make sure you do the usual thing, rate, review, subscribe all that fun stuff on whichever podcast platform you prefer, or head over to the ecom show.com to check out all of our previous episodes. But as usual, thank you all for joining us, and we'll see you next time.
Narrator 21:25
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