Ink and Influence: Balancing Brands in a Fast-Moving Market | EP. #198

Rob Smead 00:03
You want to try to stay cohesive with one brand. You want to keep your messaging and esthetics kind of looking the same.

Andrew Maff 00:09
Welcome to the E comm Show podcast. I am your host. Andrew Maff, owner and founder of Bluetusker, from groundbreaking industry updates to success stories and strategies. Get to know the ins and outs of the E commerce Industry from top leaders in the space. Let's get into it.

Andrew Maff 00:23
Hello everyone, and welcome to another episode of the E comm show as usual. I am your host, Andrew Maff, and today I am joined by the president of One Ink Seven, Mr. Robert Smead, Rob, how you doing, buddy? Ready for a good show?

Rob Smead 00:35
Great man. Thanks for having me on the show today.

Andrew Maff 00:38
Yeah. Super excited to have you on the show. I am a big fan of this industry. Wife and I are obsessed. So it's having you on the show is going to be really fun. I always like to kind of start it off pretty stereotypically. Just give you the floor. Let you tell everyone little bit about your background, how you got started with One Ink Seven and then we're going to take it from there.

Rob Smead 00:55
Well, it's a long story, so I'll condense it down as I can but I've been in the tattoo industry for about 32 years now. 1994 is when I started in tattooing, and then around 2012 is when I developed my first product in the tattoo space, which was a tattoo stencil primer, which my whole business has been built on making products out of necessity, so really finding gaps in my tattoo process where, you know, products that I needed to make my job easier that didn't exist, and how I could fill those gaps. And so, yeah, that's basically how the business started. Before that I had a T Shirt Company, tattoo related T Shirt Company. I made some foot switches and some portfolios for other artists and things like that. But in 2012 is when the business really started to take off after I invented the first product under our brand.

Andrew Maff 01:54
It's awesome. What was the first product?

Rob Smead 01:56
Tattoo, stencil, primer, yeah,

Andrew Maff 01:59
So there's multiple one ink seven is essentially like an umbrella company, correct, because there's multiple brands under it. So you've got Electrum supply, Electrum Ink, Electrum print, I've got my notes here. And 1974 holdings, correct,

Rob Smead 02:15
Yeah, 1974 Holdings is a separate entity that's just like my personal holding company, which is involves some other independent projects that I work on outside of the tattoo space.

Andrew Maff 02:27
Gotcha.

Rob Smead 02:27
So it's like, I have a podcast that's, that's part of 1974 holdings. But yeah, one ink seven is all tattoo related stuff. Electrum supply, Electrum Inc, Electrum print, like you said,

Andrew Maff 02:38
Interesting. So why? Why'd split them out? Why'd you do supply versus ink first print?

Rob Smead 02:43
Uh, well, they were all started at different times. So Electrum supply started in 2012 and Electrum Inc came along in 2022 okay, and then Electrum print just started up in 2024 and so they're separate businesses, separate ein numbers. So they're just part of the holding company. They're run independent of one another, but they are similar to one another.

Andrew Maff 03:14
Yeah? Say they're similar audiences, though, right? Yeah, all the same audience, yeah. Okay. Do you kind of find ways to cross pollinate? And basically, you know, from, I guess, from a marketing perspective, find ways to kind of sell people onto other of the businesses

Rob Smead 03:30
We do. But I guess one thing that I like about having them separate is that we can be a little bit more creative in our marketing approaches, where you want to try to stay cohesive with one brand you want to keep your messaging and esthetics kind of looking the same. It's nice because Electrum Inc, you know, for example, we could be a lot more edgy and metal in our marketing approach, whereas we wouldn't necessarily take that approach with Electrum supply. So I do like the fact that I have some flexibility and creative leverage in regards to being able to experiment with different marketing techniques on the different channels

Andrew Maff 04:05
Interesting. What have you seen working the best for you so far?

Rob Smead 04:10
Really, you know, it's I'm finding now, more it changes. You know, all the time it's like people's interests change, and people's attention focus changes. I feel like social media really is challenging to keep up with in general, as far as, like, what people are going to be engaged with today versus what they're going to be engaged with tomorrow, it seems to constantly be changing all the time. Yeah, so I feel like a huge part of the marketing side is just constantly trying to keep up with what's relevant today and knowing that it's probably going to be outdated tomorrow. So yeah, more or less now, I'm finding the most engaging content is like the behind the scenes type of stuff, where, where we're like, we'll do skits with our employees, or we'll do sit downs with our employees and or we'll take a camera behind the scenes and actually take our customers inside. The warehouse, and, you know, show you how we do things as far as packing their orders or talking to customers on the phone or engaging with customers when they come in the store, that seems to be the content that really generates the most interesting engagement right now.

Andrew Maff 05:14
Interesting. The in your space. I know the one thing that's a pretty different, comparative to almost every other brand we've had on the show, very heavy in, like conventions and going to different shows and things like that. Because I know in the tattoo industry, I mean, there's one in a different city, like it seems like every other day. So is that? Is that a big part of the different businesses for all the electrums? Is it kind of showing it all of those. Are you still leaning in on most of the digital side?

Rob Smead 05:45
Um, you know, with Electrum supply, we used to do a lot of conventions. We've kind of backed off of that some, because after covid, the convention circuit kind of really changed a lot. So yeah, and the economy's been really kind of screwed up for the last couple of years. So tattooing, unfortunately, is more of a luxury expense. So when money gets tight for people, you know, they're not necessarily splurging on tattoos like they would when the economy's healthy or when they're when they're bringing in money, and the cost of goods isn't so high, you know. So, yeah, I think, I think the challenge now with conventions is that it's not bringing the same amount of foot traffic through the doors as it did pre covid. So for for brands like me, where you go to a convention and you potentially have, you know, seven other supply companies on the floor at the same time, it's very challenging to make money there. So we're kind of doing a different strategy with conventions now where we're just kind of going to shows, but not necessarily purchasing booths or floor space or hauling products to the show, but we're just going to the show, walking the floor, maybe taking some samples of products to give to artists, and really just trying to connect more one on one with artists at the show and just generate leads that way. That seems to be a more healthy approach and a more fiscally responsible approach today, whereas with Electrum Inc, we're full blown doing conventions but but heavily in South America, the tattoo scene is really thriving in South America, interestingly. So we're still, we're still bringing artists to shows in South America. We're still setting up booths. We're still, you know, given some awards at the tattoo competitions, so, so we're still very heavily engaged in conventions on the tattooing side.

Andrew Maff 07:31
Interesting. I mean, that makes a lot of sense, right? Because now you can there's a specific product line that does really well in the convention, so you lean in on that, but then you're able to take that data and then kind of replicate it across to, let's say, over to, like, Electrum supply or something like that. So that makes a ton of sense that. So I didn't even know that South America was a growing tattoo industry. So tattooing is changing, like, it feels like it's all the time, right? Styles go in and out. There's huge peaks of like, everyone wants to get new tattoos, and then obviously you deal with issues like inflation and stuff, and so obviously it's not always the cheapest thing in the world. So it kind of spins off, like, what's How do you adjust based on this industry that's like, constantly changing?

Rob Smead 08:15
I mean, you got to study a lot of trends and patterns. You know, like, historically in our industry, we always have busy time around tax time, because that's when people get their tax returns. They got that extra money to burn, and they go get tattoos. Whereas, whereas around the holidays, November through December, it can become a real ghost town, you know, like people just are spending their money on Christmas presents and holiday type stuff. So they're again, they're not going out and spending money on tattoos around those times. So you always have to ebb and flow with those seasonal highs and lows. But even now, it's becoming more challenging, because it's just like I said, it's an ever evolving landscape. In some ways, it's a very diluted landscape in regards to products. So there's a lot of there's just a lot of dilution in the product space. So, you know, you could have 20 different ink brands that you're competing against in a small niche market. So you more or less, now, we're really trying to find ways that we can kind of branch out of the tattoo scene a little bit with some of our products. You know, are there applications in sports medicine or at pet care, you know, for example, we've got a few products that we think we can cross over into some different markets and maybe get some traction in those regards. So it's interesting because, you know, I probably spend 20 hours a week in marketing meetings, you know, with my team, and we're just constantly talking about different things on different platforms, and it seems like there's also a new social media platform popping up every other month. So you got to try to pick and choose which ones are going to be the ones you know. So right now we're really putting heavy emphasis on Tiktok. We just feel like Facebook and Instagram has really kind of lost its you. Power in regards to ad spend. And like paid, paid ads, you know, we're seeing that we're not getting a good return on our ad spends on Facebook and Instagram. So now you know, and we want to figure out, you know, how can we get more user generated content? And it seems like Tiktok is the place for that. And we like tick tock because you can incentivize users to create content by offering them commissions on your products and them helping you sell your products. So we're kind of excited about getting into that. We've been plugging a lot into that this week

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Andrew Maff 11:01
Do you lean in a lot into the UGC and kind of like influencer marketing and just having other tattoo artists basically leveraging all the different product lines as much as possible?

Rob Smead 11:09
Yeah, I feel like, well, networking is the most important thing in our world. I feel like I'm probably in most, most businesses. I feel like networking is probably the most powerful tool that you can leverage, especially if you have, you know, creators with, you know, 500,000 followers or more in there and their demographic is the demographic that you're trying to target, you know. So, you know, if you can pay them $40 for a $200 item that you're selling, I mean, and all they got to do is make a video and put a shop link on it. It's kind of a no brainer for them, you know.

Andrew Maff 11:39
Yeah, there's a good point which so you're leaning in heavy on the Tiktok side. Obviously, you've got it on your own site. Are you selling anywhere else besides just your own website?

Rob Smead 11:48
Amazon? Yeah. I mean, we're, we're building on Amazon. We've been, we've been selling on Amazon for a few years, but now we're really focused on trying to build that platform out more, also looking at platforms like Walmart, and trying to also get a get some of our products on the shelves and like Walgreens or CVS or stores like that, we have a couple of FDA approved numbing products that that we'd like to see on the shelf next to back teen, you know, in the in the pharmacies and things like that. So, but that's all part of the plan where we're trying to kind of branch out of branch out of the tattoo focus a little bit and get into a broader marketplace.

Andrew Maff 12:27
Yeah, that's a very interesting move. You know, you don't hear a lot of brands, you know, they they always look at their product line, look at their target audience. Really segment in on the audience. They rarely try to step back and look at the product line and go, who else would like this? And start to re look at different audiences that they could potentially tap into. Are you thinking of basically expanding the brand enough to where the marketing is just relevant for additional audiences, or are you thinking like we're actually just going to launch a separate business with the same product line so that we can hyper focus on the audience.

Rob Smead 13:03
Oh, you know, I don't, I don't know that I thought that far ahead of it yet, as far as, like, you know, right now, my mind is just around doing what I have with the business that I have now and the brand that I have now, because we built a pretty powerful brand in the tattoo space, and it's got good esthetics and it's got good social awareness already. So I don't necessarily know that I would want to start from scratch with a whole new business. I think it's probably better to just keep building on the platform that we have and, you know, just trying to maybe branch out. You know, there's no reason why, there's no reason why a brand necessarily has to stay stuck in the same, you know, demographic or target audience. You know, I feel like a really good and powerful brand should be able to reach people in any segment, you know,

Andrew Maff 13:50
yeah, how is it with tattooing? I mean, it's an art, right? I mean, you're selling to artists. So it's uh, it's very much a extremely creative, uh, industry, but you're running a business in it. So how do you what's kind of the approach there to make sure that you're still kind of catering to that classic art form and the artist, as opposed to just like, you know, stringent corporate business stuff.

Rob Smead 14:22
Well, that's funny, because that's always a real big topic of conversation in the industry, because recently, a lot of the smaller, independent brands have gotten bought up by, you know, capital ventures firms, you know. So there's, there's a couple big capital ventures firms out there that have, that have formed a couple big conglomerates in the space now, and they've gotten very corporate, and they've really lost their they've lost that connection to the artist, I feel like, with, with bringing a lot of suits and ties into the mix and that that are just focused on the bottom line numbers and not necessarily the craft of tattooing. And I think that's where we continue to keep our advantage, because I've been an artist for 32 years, you know? So I understand the business. I understand the business from an artist's perspective. And when I'm developing products, I'm developing them from an artist's perspective and practical application and use. So I know that the products I'm putting out in the market are going to be beneficial to the artists that we're selling them to and I think if, if, if we were to ever, you know, we're pretty set on not selling out. We've had a couple of offers to sell our company to these people and I've turned it down every time, because I just feel like it's very important for us to keep that connection with the artist. And that's always been the most important part of my brand is just being that artist owned brand and I think it's what's gotten us, as far as we've gotten, is keeping true to our roots and in our ties with the community, and we just stay focused on that. And I think that's the right thing to

Andrew Maff 15:54
do. Yeah. So is your role really kind of continuing to build almost a little bit of the personal brand? Is that why you kind of went into, like, the podcast side to help kind of elevate the personal brand and this kind of trickle down effect, to make sure that people are aware that you're, you're one of them, and not one of the suits and ties.

Rob Smead 16:13
Yeah. I mean, you know, the community recognizes me. I mean, I've been around for a long time, so I'm, I'm, I'm very well recognized in the space. So they, I don't know. It's never a case where I have to prove that I'm one of them. They know I'm one of them. It's just, it's just, I'm the visionary of the company. You know what I mean? So I'm always fueling the growth ideas and the strategies and and just giving my team the freedom to do the things that they want to do. I'm not necessarily the forward facing Person of the company. You know, my daughter is more of the hands on Artist Relations person. She's very good with the artist. She's been by my side since she was 15 years old. So she's, you know, long time. She's been by my side learning this business, in this trade, and so she can connect just as well, if not better, with the artist than I can, and she's much more personable. And, you know, I'm just more strictly business in my approach to things. You know what I mean? Like I'm I'm looking at numbers all day and trying to strategize marketing plans. And you know, she, she thoroughly enjoys going out and talking to artists and being at shows and picking up the phone or or talking to artists when they come in the shop, and she's just always got a smile on her face. And I feel like, you know that customer service is really, that's really the secret sauce, man, you know, it's, it's, it's all about good customer service.

Andrew Maff 17:31
Oh yeah, especially in that, in that industry, because I know, like the, you know, there's, you have artists that feel certain way about other artists, but that's usually nuanced, small things, but either way, like, once you kind of break into that community, it's definitely a tight knit community. Word travels fast. So really good customer service and being able to take care of them, things tend to spread pretty quickly. Do you do anything in terms of kind of cultivating that community and keeping them all in one place? Like, I know some people do like Facebook groups, or like Slack channels or anything like that, like anything you kind of do to bring everyone into one area.

Rob Smead 18:06
Yeah, we've done that the whole time. So, you know, way back in the beginning, we had a group called the killer artist alliance that was like artists that we traveled to conventions with, and that's it's always been kind of that family dynamic. We've also had like Electrum elite, which would be like our sponsored artist, or like our pro team artist or and then we, just recently, we've launched like, the business of tattooing, which is like a complete educational content platform. So we do a lot of educational content on, like, just how to be a better shop owner, how to market yourself on social media properly, and we don't charge anything for that. You know, it's all just a free service to our user base and our fans and customers. And we've gotten a lot of good, positive engagement and feedback from that, and we just like to be able to do that. So I think, I think that really keeps our community tight, and it's what keeps people coming back to us and staying loyal to us for all these years.

Rob Smead 19:06
Yeah, and that's really smart idea. You get a lot of businesses that kind of feel like, you know, typically it's not the case, but they feel like they've capped out on their community, and so they usually just say, like, Okay, this is it. I've kind of hit a wall, but I think it's a genius to start creating content to educate people, to help them get more involved in the community or join the community. And so you're actually growing your artist base or your community base by starting off right from the beginning. It makes a ton of sense. What's the you know, you started the business. It was at 17, I think, right. So, like, you've been at this, or even in the industry, since for years. So what's the, what's the next step? Like, what are your thoughts on where you want to take one ink seven in the whole Electrum line?

Rob Smead 19:51
Man, I've got a lot that's, that's the that's the problem with my my headspace is that, I'm an elite visionary, realistically in every definition of that word. So I'm just constantly brainstorming new product ideas, new growth ideas. You know, I've got a million ideas. And the good thing about my internal team is that they're very good at recognizing that 99 out of 100 of my ideas aren't necessarily good ideas, you know what I mean? And we don't want to really invest time and resources into all 100 of these ideas, yeah, but out of every 100 ideas, I come out with a good one, and that's just continues to what build, what builds our business? You know? We're just going to keep building our educational content, working on expanding our podcast platform with educational and regulatory navigation content, and just keep building our community of artists. And, like I said, try to find ways to creatively expand out of the tattoo space in some, some way, shapes and forms. Yeah, and then, and then we've got, you know, other ideas with, with some product launches and things like that, and just creative marketing ideas. But otherwise, we're, we're just, we're just focused on, you know, growing our bottom line and bringing, bringing more customers into the business. In the Electric family

Andrew Maff 21:16
Love it. Rob, I don't want to take up too much more your time. I know you're super busy. I appreciate you having on the appreciate you having on the show. I would love to give you the floor let everyone know where they can find out more about you, and, of course, more about One Ink Seven.

Rob Smead 21:30
Sure. So the best way is Instagram, Tiktok, Electrum supply, Electrum Inc, both, both of those platforms. You can find us on Facebook, Electrum supply and Electrum Inc, electruminc.com or electrumsupply.com and then my personal social media is NoFlashNinja on Instagram.

Andrew Maff 21:50
Love it. Rob. Thank you so much for being on the show. Everyone who tuned in as usual. Thank you as well. Please make do. Make sure you do the usual thing. Rate, review, subscribe, all that fun stuff on whichever podcast platform for or ever did the Ecomm show.com to check out all of our previous episodes. But as usual, thank you all for joining us. See you all next time, have a good one!

Narrator 22:10
Thank you for tuning in to the Ecomm show. Head over to Ecomm show.com to subscribe on your favorite podcast platform or on the Bluetusker YouTube channel, the Ecomm show is brought to you by Bluetusker, a full service digital marketing company specifically for E commerce sellers looking to accelerate their growth. Go to bluetuskr.com now for more information, make sure to tune in next week for another amazing episode of the E comm show!