From COVID-19 to slow winter months, there’s no season this family business hasn’t weathered. On this 128th episode of the E-Comm Show, Andrew Maff interviews Kent Wilson COO of SnapPad. SnapPad has become a household name amongst RV goers- but it wasn’t always that way. After severe supply chain issues during the COVID-19 pandemic and an unstable market, SnapPad has had to stay adaptable and ready for change.
In this episode, Kent Wilson discusses how remaining steadfast in their offering and adaptable in their marketing has been the biggest cornerstone for SnapPad’s success. By mastering omnichannel marketing, SnapPad has been able to reach target audiences during times when competitors were struggling. If you're wondering how to thrive in the cold winters of your business season, this episode might just be for you.
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Surviving Every Season as a Seasonal Business with SnapPad
Andrew Maff and Kent Wilson
CONNECT WITH OUR HOST: AndrewMaff.com | Twitter: @AndrewMaff | LinkedIn: @AndrewMaff
Kent Wilson
Kent is one of three brothers who launched RV SnapPad from the family's garage back in late 2015. Before he was an ecomm entrepreneur, Kent was the lead social media strategist at Evans Hunt Group in Calgary where he worked with local, National, and International brands. Kent is also a recognized sports content creator, having previously worked as the editor-in-chief of an independent sports network with more than 100M annual pageviews. His writing has been published in Post Media, Yahoo Sports, The Score, and The Athletic.
00:00
If you take the product, give us a review posted and that's about it. And that's still kind of the baseline of it Show Hello, everyone and welcome to another episode of The E-Comm Show. I'm your host, as usual Andrew Maff and today I'm joined by the amazing Kent Wilson, who's the CEO of RV Snap Pad. Kent, are you doing great for good show?
01:14
Yeah, I'm ready. Let's do it.
01:17
Awesome. Very excited to have him on the show. have obviously, you know, dug into the brand, obviously, before you and I started chatting and love the direction. I know you guys have been around since I think it was what 2015? I believe it was right. Yeah, late. So even when we launched? Yeah, so you've been at it for a little bit? Let's, let's do the usual we'll pretend that no one knows who you are. And why don't you give us a little bit about your background and tell us more about SNAP pad. And we'll take it from there.
01:44
Yeah, so Snap Pad has actually a family company. So I'm one of three brothers that are involved, my dad as well. Cool. The funny thing is, is the story actually starts probably 25 years earlier than that my dad and a partner of his at the time launched a product into the RV industry created it got it into market. And but we're not part of the success of it. So it's still staple in the industry. But what they did is this was before ecommerce, so they had to raise a lot of money to get tooling done to do a roadshow get it into distributors and stores, that was really the only way to go to market back in the early 90s. For them, they were kind of diluted out of their own company as a result by someone they trusted. So it was unfortunately he you know, the family didn't really benefit from that, aside from the experience and the connections that he made in the industry. So years later, he came back to his three sons were all sort of growing up, and I was working in marketing. My other brother was an SEO and my other my brother, who is now the CEO, had just come out of business school. So he came back to us and said, let's give this RVing thing another try with the new sort of concept, which became our hero product, RV snap pads, which is what the brand is named after. So it's a it's a thing that snaps onto the bottom of Jack feet. Sort of like shoes. But anyways, we, you know, kind of a garage, made it up in our garage, found a manufacturer in the US was willing to do the prototype for us. And that's how it that's how it started.
03:24
So you launched in 2015, correct? Yeah.
03:30
September 30, I believe.
03:32
So you were four or five years in and then you get hit with a pandemic. And now I'm going to assume that that might have actually been helpful, because I know a lot of people kind of hit the road. And we're just living that life for a little bit. But I also know that it's not always the case, because some people were ready to leave, like, how did that actually end up affecting you?
03:53
Yeah, so at that point, our brand did have a lot of momentum going into 2020, we'd been growing about 100 plus percent year over year, we'd started onboarding, distributors and b2b accounts. So we're actually starting to look into supplemental manufacturing at that point, because our existing manufacturer who took a chance on us when we started, was having trouble scaling up with us. So what happens in the pandemic is it spikes demand, but it completely kneecapped our supply. So we were about three weeks out from bringing on a new manufacturer, they shut down completely. Our existing manufacturer went through series of shutdowns, because a lot of businesses did at the time. He eventually got that sort of exemption was around certain forms of business, but he had waves of people just getting sick or not coming into work. So at the same time that was happening, we had most of our major b2b accounts, placing massive deals with us. And it got to the point where we were three to six months out from most of those deals. We had to shut down marketing We turned off direct to consumer completely. We just couldn't fulfill I think we were 40,000 units back ordered by the start of 2021. So he should have been a blessing was a horrible curse. And what happened was the borders are shut, right? So we're looking for new manufacturing remotely up. We live in Canada, and we manufacture in the US. So we're trying to contact manufacturers can't go across the border to meet with anyone see the facilities. So it took us probably another year to get that supply chain up and running. And the funny thing is, is our original manufacturer went out of business in 2021. Midway through, so it really, yeah. So by the start of 2022, we were kind of ready to get back at it. But it was two years of no cashflow, not knowing if we could ship product, people calling us in and yelling at us because they didn't get their their Pio from six months ago. So it was it should have been the biggest bump in our business. And it was the most difficult time we've been through.
06:06
But you're still here, you're still, you know, you've you've clearly made it since you're on our podcast. Can't believe so many people are gonna yell at me for that comment. So you made it through? What do you what is it that kind of helped? After COVID, you kind of had those issues, what's what's kind of helping on the trajectory now.
06:30
So really helped that we created the category that we are in. So if we had been in sort of another category with established incumbents or a bunch of competition, and we couldn't have filled, that that probably would have sunk us completely, right? Because you know, you've customers go somewhere else. But we're the only ones that do this. And we'd gotten enough product market fit that there was all that demand that kind of was unleashed back onto us, right. So once we were back into business, you know, people just kept, kept buying the product. So that helped tremendously. Now after the pandemic, outdoor in general and RVing specifically had a really bad time, because obviously, you pulled forward all this demand in a short period. Supply chains have been backed up, but demand just sort of re plummeted back down to, you know, below normal, but it's getting back up there now. So yeah, RVing I think had its worst season in two decades. Last year 2023. We were told by one of our distributors that we were the only product in our category that grew at all, there was 10 20%. Lack of growth, I should say they they went backwards by that amount, most of their stuff, we grew about 12%. But we now have a robust supply chain. We're in every major distributor, we're in about 750 different dealerships in the US. We're starting to get into Canada, ironically, we started the US we're moving north. But yeah, we're we're actually starting to see the best direct to consumer sales we've ever seen over the last month, which is noteworthy because we're a seasonal business, and we're still kind of in winter mode here. So yeah, we're pretty. Yeah, we're pretty optimistic that we can get back into that 50 to 100% growth year over year.
08:24
Wow. So what do you think's driving all that DTC growth?
08:31
Well, it helps that we've, we've improved a lot of our marketing last year. So once we came back into the game, iOS 14, I changed things Facebook and obviously evolved so it actually took us the last couple of years to relearn how to do the acquisition at the top of the funnel, at least for DTC we took over our own Amazon store too. Previously, we're doing it through third party seller thing. And yeah, and our Amazon store has started to really gain momentum. The other thing is is our kind of product servicing the niche that it's servicing is highly word of mouth dependent, like you have our viewers RVing looking at what other gear other our viewers have, and we're starting to just hit sort of a critical mass of people know what the product is talking about it telling others about it so it seems to be just organic natural traction on top of you know, some improved marketing efforts.
09:31
So always great when you get the word of mouth snowball effect and CPAs start coming down cat comes down and then it's just you start scaling it up pretty easily from there at least sounds easier than it is. But what's so the the marketing pros you mentioned you know, you improve the side with meta you've taken over from the Amazon side. So you've definitely got kind of like an omni channel approach going because you're also selling you know, you've got, as you said, you're in dealerships you have your own DTC site you We're on Amazon. And what's that approach? From a marketing perspective? Are you? Are you letting people just shop wherever they want? Or are you directing them to certain areas? Like how are you kind of managing that omni channel approach.
10:13
So there's a bit of a media mix going on. So we do the meta thing, which is our primary paid acquisition, that drives people back to our website, which is also the best educational vehicle for people, you know, aside from what the product does, we have to tell people, what RV it will fit on, because it says like, like I said, shoes, so there's a lot that goes into it. And our websites, the best place to discover that fitment, either through the tools that we have, or through customer service. So from there, yeah, we kind of hope people go and find it wherever they're most comfortable, if it's from a dealer, if it's from Amazon, if it's from from our website, so but the other thing we do is a lot of influence or outreach and seeding. That was a very early tactic that we've kind of built on. So I think we've worked with hundreds, or we have RV influencers, a lot of them on YouTube. And, and that seems to drive a lot of, you know, brand awareness at the top of the funnel and some of those people, you'll come back to our website, buy from us, but I'm sure they also go to some of these other channels as well. We're looking to expand into paid YouTube down the road and maybe even television.
11:25
The so the influencer side, you said primarily through seeding. So you're just Yeah, sending them free stuff and posting about it? And how are you kind of managing that? Because I know like, it's a tough area, we do a good amount of it. But it's definitely, you know, you run the risk of whether they're actually going to post about it and you know, things like that, how quality of the content comes out like what's, what's your approach on seating influencers?
11:49
Yeah, very early on, it was it was just that direct, you take the product, give us a review posted and that that's about it. And that's still kind of the baseline of it, we've have evolved to have some of our best craters on retention. So once they prove that their content works, there's a fit with us and the audience. They keep making stuff for us. We don't have too much. We've never encountered issues where we send some one something and they don't post, I'd say that's less than 10% of the time, our product is very high ABV. It's, you know, about 150 bucks. So it's, it's a pretty significant give. And a lot of people seem to feel at least obligated for giving something that could that that they'll do something about it. But the other thing is we have an NPS of 90, but people really like the product. So we don't have to be most of the time. We don't have to convince them once they start using it to be enthusiastic about it. It's not a it's not a you know, please try my soda and even if you don't like it, post about it on Tik Tok that type of thing. Most of our creators most of our creators are live lifestyle are legitimately our viewers. And once you snap our product on I mean it's on your it's like installing something on a vehicle. Yeah, so it's it's definitely something that you if you don't want to if you don't legitimately like the product or what it's going to do for your life style, you're not going to use it or post about it. So luckily, it's extremely rare where we we do seating and we don't get something from someone now. It's still like herding cats, as you say, we do have someone dedicated in the team literally doing it every day where they follow up with people. You know, do breathe. Okay. Get the content back gas. So yeah, it's I started the program myself with a smaller but we literally had to hire someone to do it, though.
13:38
Yeah. You mentioned your background. You started in marketing, correct?
13:44
Yeah, I was in the actually social media for a digital agency here in Calgary. So I started their social media department back in the day, and that was back and getting likes for the Facebook page and things like that, and then evolved into PPC management on Facebook when they were just starting to become the powerful platform that they are now.
14:06
So you've moved into more of an operational role. Who's what's the approach on the marketing side? I know your brother's you said his SEO background, you've obviously got someone internal influence or like, what's the team like?
14:19
Yeah, my brother originally worked under me when he came in the guy who was doing SEO, he had done some web development, too. And he kind of learned under my wing all this other stuff at the time, but now he's the head of marketing. And yeah, as we've gotten bigger, and we have, you know, multiple sales channels, we've got lots of inventory to worry about. We have multiple regions we started selling in Germany. Recently we're looking at Australia, so operationally, it was just like, Okay, we need someone looking after all this other stuff as well.
14:52
We don't have to get too deep into it if you don't want to, but I've got to ask because I've worked with family before. It's It's an interesting, I don't work with family before. I don't work with family now. So let's put it that way. How do you? How do you manage that? How is how's that dynamic? How do you guys kind of keep things separate? Or do you prefer not to?
15:16
Oh, yeah, we don't it's there's two reasons. The first one is it's Luckily, the three brothers have, we all have complementary skill sets. So it's more of a placing people in the machine where they belong, and being comfortable there. were fairly close family, we grew up over time. So we, we have strong relationships. But the the second thing is what I mentioned before, having this project be sort of a reclamation of something we lost previously, like, it's we have that intrinsic motivation on top of, you know, wanting to build something for the family, it's like, Well, this was kind of stolen from us in a way, you know, 20 or 30 years ago. So there's, there's that sort of mission behind everything, which brings everyone together. Yeah.
16:03
I understand that. What um, I won't, I won't harp on it. What? So you're thinking about getting into television, you mentioned what's, what's your approach there? What are you? How are you thinking, I'm kind of getting into that. I know, that's, that tends to be a bigger, kind of scarier jump for a lot of brands, because it's very difficult to actually paint any kind of picture of an ROI behind it. So how are you kind of planning on attacking that? Is that going to be from like a streaming perspective, where it's a little bit more miserable? Are you doing more like traditional television,
16:34
we're actually looking to bring on a vendor here pretty soon, who has experience in sort of taking a digitally native brand that whatever we're at this this year, and taking us to the next level in terms of marketing, so they have creative chops, they've done it before, they know how to do sort of multi channel, top of funnel brand stuff on top of the performance and direct response things that you typically see on say on tick tock, tick tock, and things. So yeah, I think it'll have to be someone external to us, because we do not have any of that experience ourselves. And yeah, we're gonna look for someone who can say, we see what we're doing. Now. We think we can do it over here bigger and better. Yeah.
17:18
To that point, actually, so you talked about metal and stuff and influencers? Have you ventured into the Tiktok. side? And any luck there? If you have
17:28
we do some some of our influencers do have the, their accounts on tick tock, as well as Instagram or YouTube? We do see some sales coming through it. We've put a little bit of organic stuff on on there. One of the issues is, is our demographic is very much older 45 Plus, and especially the baby boomers who are 60 Plus and retired. Yeah, they weren't as heavy on that channel. And I think it's might be gaining ground now. So I it's on the roadmap to really investigate. But, you know, it's, we're not making nine figures or anything at this point. So I we have so much room, I think left on the channels that we're on right now. It's we don't want to kind of dilute our efforts. So it's on the roadmap, but it's not a high priority. Yeah.
18:18
Because they're older, have you ventured into Microsoft ads at all?
18:25
Actually, one of the vendors we're talking about is brought up being with us, because we're not, we haven't really done much on the Microsoft sides. But yeah, that was one of their first like, you should probably at least try this out.
18:36
Yeah, I would agree with it. I mean, we've found for brands that have kind of an older audience, because it comes preloaded on most PCs, if they're not tech savvy, and they just want to leave it as is. They're using Bing. I mean, it's not going to be what Google is. But it's we've actually seen some pretty decent numbers off of that comparative to Google not from volume, but the returns better in some cases.
19:01
Yeah, I think that'll be one of our first tests this year, honestly. Yeah.
19:05
How are you treating Amazon? Are you guys using that as like an acquisition channel? Are you using? Are you actually kind of focusing heavier on that and just using is more an omni channel approach.
19:18
We don't really dry purposely drive anyone to Amazon to tell you the truth. But it beats our It beats our direct to consumer store most days, quite drastically, actually. And it's been like the gap has been widening for some reason. So that's actually one of the things I'm gonna look into this year. Like why does Amazon beat the pants off our our Shopify store, but yeah, it's been taking it over. The reason we did it actually is because I started doing the math. We started getting these huge orders from our third party seller and we're like, what's going on here? And then I started looking at you got to three feet three miles rather than two when you're doing that to you Amazon and third party. So I just sent They said, Okay, well, let's take him out of it. And then we hired an agency once we got on there. So they're, they're optimizing pages, they're doing PPC. So that's probably helping as well, because the third party seller before was kind of doing that stuff, but not really. So that's another thing that's helped us get traction.
20:18
Have you explored? Because I find product lines like yours where you know, your ARV is 150 Plus, you've got a good Amazon presence, you still got a decent DDC presence directly on the site. Have you explored Amazon's by with prime
20:36
we have we were going to implement it. I think a month ago or so. But there were legal complications around it being a US store and us being a Canadian entity. And you have no idea how often we hit weird stuff like that. Yeah. Yeah. At some point, we may have to domicile ourselves down there because it's all weird. You know, government policy and internal policy with bigger banks and fintech stuffs, you know, on Amazon, so we probably will go that way if we can resolve just the the legal stuff.
21:12
Amazon, they're fun rules. They never never ceases to amaze me. And I really appreciate you being on the show. I don't want to take up too much more your time. I'd love to give the opportunity for everyone know they can find out more about you and of course more about Snap Pad.
21:29
Yeah, so snap pads, RVsnappad.com If you're in the us.ca if you're in Canada, you can find us on YouTube and Facebook pretty easily. Unfortunately. Once you do that, we're going to start falling around with retargeting. Hopefully Hopefully you have an RV you want snap pads, but I'm on mostly on X or Twitter, which I still call it @Kent_Wilson. Beautiful.
21:55
And thank you so much for being on the show. Everyone who tuned in, of course thank you as well please make sure you do the usual rate review, subscribe all that fun stuff on whichever podcast platform you prefer or head over to theecommshow.com to check out all of our previous episodes. But as usual, thank you all for joining us. We'll see you all next time.
22:13
Thank you for tuning in to The E-Comm Show head over to theecommshow.com to subscribe on your favorite podcast platform or on the BlueTuskr YouTube channel. The E-Comm Show is brought to you by BlueTuskr, 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.
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