How Tecovas’ CMO Designs Product to Unlock New Markets

[00:00:00] Krista Dalton: The example of entering spaces that you have the right to be in reminded me of when Victoria's Secret got into swimwear and they rapidly became the number one market share because they had a promise that , they make women's bodies beautiful. And swimwear was such a natural extension of what they already did. 

And we always. Say, if you ever are on the side of the road and have a flat tire, the person who's gonna step out of their car and help you is gonna be in a pair of cowboy boots.

 Our creative director is authentically from Austin, and he has this very strong belief that use models doing real things and you don't use real people doing model things.

So everybody in this thing like was an actual, they were actual doormen, they were actual players, they were actual workers. 

I'm very proud of it. We don't pay people for reviews, we don't pay influencers.

[00:00:47] Taylor Holiday: Well, it's so fascinating. Like none of the language you just used would necessarily be the kinds of things people would assign to marketing, right? Necessarily. Right. It's all a product centric view of the world. And that's sort of the foundation that's led you into the spot that you're in today, which I think is more and more common, especially for those CMOs that are successful.

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[00:01:46] Taylor Holiday: Welcome to a very, very special episode today of the Ecommerce Playbook Podcast, just absolutely surfacing unexpectedly from the depths of the internet, like, great moments can. I am joined today by Krista Dalton, the CMO of Tecovas @kristhejean on on Twitter.

You may not, you may not know it, but she is there and she is watching, and today she is with us to settle a large controversy around what I think was a truly incredible piece of advertising. But we're gonna get the real story today. Krista stoked to have you with us.

[00:02:19] Krista Dalton: Oh, I'm so thrilled to be here. Thank you so much for having me and for responding. I think that was the first time I've ever slid into the dms.

[00:02:27] Taylor Holiday: This is such a funny story because I genuinely didn't believe it was you. I was like, there's no way. 'cause So Krista is obviously not she's a the, the kind internet phrase might be lurker on Twitter where you're not posting a lot of content, but you're reading. And so I get a, I get a DM from somebody who has seven followers and no profile picture saying I'm the CMO of Kovas.

And I'm like, yeah, right, you are sure. So I'm like, literally you can see our exchange. I'm like, come on, who is this really? Is this really you?

[00:02:52] Krista Dalton: It was, it was delightful. I, I didn't realize how creepy I looked on on Twitter until that moment, and I was like, oh, you have every right to question if this is me. Yes.

[00:03:02] Taylor Holiday: So, yeah. 'cause it's funny, when this had all started, I went on LinkedIn and figured out, okay, who's on the marketing team? And there's a person on your data team that I had been DMing back and forth with who's a great dude. And then so I knew that okay, the name was right. At least, at least either somebody was trying to impersonate you or it was really you.

So that, that was a great way to start this conversation. Off. But for those people that don't know, give us a quick background. What is Kovas? Who are you? We'll start there and then we'll dive in.

[00:03:28] Krista Dalton: Sure. So, again, thanks for having me. I'm Krista Dalton, so chief marketing officer here at Kovus and SVP of Digital. And I've been here for two years. Kovus is a western wear retailer, premium kind of positioning within the space. We've been around for 10 years, started as the first ever direct to consumer cowboy boot company, expanded into retail.

We're now in over 40 locations in 22 states. Really just having extraordinary growth as we've expanded our presence. And before this, I was at Target for nine years, and then Overstock which is now beyond Inc for seven years as their chief customer and merchandising officer.

[00:04:08] Taylor Holiday: Yeah, so I, I'm always fascinated by like, what is the path to CMO for different people? I think it's a, it's always an interesting journey and I love, like, I think for the context of when I went and looked and I was like, oh, Chris Beget is a merchandiser for Target. This informs probably so much of how you see the world.

So tell us a little bit about what does a merchandiser do and what it, what were you doing at Target?

[00:04:27] Krista Dalton: Thank you. So for, for your audience I'm an over preparer, so I've watched so many episodes of this podcast and you talk so much about p and ls and business acumen, I learned that at Target and I was thinking about where I really learned that skill. But as a merchandiser at Target, you start off as an allocator and so you gotta get the right product in the right place at the right time.

And I worked in plus-size women's clothing and maternity wear for the first few years, and you needed to know your p and l from day one contribution margin. Daily conversation gross margin. I ended up making a Jim Roy calculator based off of the like percent off lift expectations of what we needed to be profitable.

And that was at like 23 years old. And so it's really fun to watch kind of how you're educating people. But went through there and did City Target, which was a small format store. And then I was the first person to go from stores to.com at Target, which was at the time a 200 person team a mile away. I had somebody literally apologize to me. I was like, I'm gonna go be a manager at.com. And they were like, Ooh, sorry. Like in 2013. but learned and loved that pickup of paddle mentality and you learned how to do everything at once. And so led the apparel team@target.com and merged 'em together, but really got the bones of how do you run a profitable business within that space and product, product.

[00:05:56] Taylor Holiday: Well, so that's, so, it's so fascinating. Like none of the language you just used would necessarily be the kinds of things people would assign to marketing, right? Necessarily. Right. It's all a product centric view of the world. And even finance combining those things. And that's sort of the foundation that's led you into the spot that you're in today, which I think is more and more common, especially for those CMOs that are successful.

They have that really rich product background and really clarity of how to communicate with the financial side of the organization around what's important. So I think that's super cool and probably we could do, do a whole episode on that, but today we have to settle a war. We have to settle a war on the internet.

It's so funny, I gotta give you some context. So I sent this tweet I was on vacation with my family. I'm in The Bahamas where just I'm like sitting on a beach and I get this ad and I'm like, oh, this is really cool. I'm on TikTok, scrolling, whatever, sitting by the pool. And I. I am from Southern California.

I do not wear cowboy boots. I wouldn't, I, it's just not for me. But I've always followed the brand. I have a lot of friends in Austin. I think it's super cool. You guys are obviously in our industry, you're, you know, one of the, the premier brands in the T two C space, so I know who Kovas is. So the second I saw this, I was like, oh, this is cool.

Maybe this is, this is a way in for me. Maybe I could, like, this is my opportunity to participate in the brand. I felt like, oh, this is, this is super cool product extension. So I went to click on it and then I wanted to go after like those green ones that you have, but they were all sold out and I was like, oh man, this must be, this must be really working.

So having a personal experience, I liked. Trying to buy it, seeing it was sold out. I just ascent the suite. And it's one of those things where this is how the internet works. You think nothing's gonna happen, and then all of a sudden there's an uproar over whether or not this is a good ad. And I just, I, I was shocked at the, and granted, I always sort of provoke a little more.

So my phrase, this is growth marketing. One of the things I've been trying to press on people about is that growth marketing is not just like a media buying tactic exercise, it's an exercise in the connection between brand and product and all these different things. So I fire this off and it was outrageous to me how much dissent there was around the idea that this could be a good ad.

[00:07:56] Krista Dalton: Yeah,

[00:07:57] Taylor Holiday: so where did this surface on your radar? Like how did you come across this conversation? Initially.

[00:08:03] Krista Dalton: it's such a good question. I think I first got a Google alert about it and then my head of PR had like, oh, look, somebody's talking about our work line. And we were always watching for those moments. And then I got, I got from two other sources, and then like a friend also sent it over. So at that point I was like, all right, GU, I'm gonna like watch this thing, trust me. And, and that's kinda how it popped up, but I. Reading the comments were hilarious. And I think the first thing I sent you was like, I'm so glad you're engaged. And the second was, you were right.

[00:08:33] Taylor Holiday: Which is always a really exciting affirmation for me, but, so let's, let's talk a little bit about, lay the foundation for us about where Tecovas has been and the role that maybe product and marketing in this category fits. And then we'll get into the, the specifics of that ad. Because for me, my commentary was really way less about the individual ad unit, even though I love that.

And we'll talk about it as much as what it means for a brand to go out and build a category extension to.

[00:08:58] Krista Dalton: Mm-hmm.

[00:08:58] Taylor Holiday: great story to be connected to who they are. So tell us a little bit about where Tecovas has come from on the product side and what this work line represented and how you got there. Maybe.

[00:09:06] Krista Dalton: Yeah. One of my favorite quotes actually from that episode from you was that the ad itself was the least interesting part of the conversation. And my, my creative team obviously would disagree, but I love that kind of where does growth come from? Conversation. And as I've entered the C-Suite and really talked about, I really think in terms of five plus years out, where are we going?

Where do we need to be? What's our 2030 mission right now? And that was true at Target. We had Mission 2020. But having a vision for where we're going is incredibly important. And so at Tecovas, we are a cowboy boot maker and they're made by hand and they're handcrafted in Leone, Mexico, which is like, a very storied place and the leather and our head of supply chain is grew up in tanneries and knows like where to get sheep skin and what, why it's used and things like that.

And so the craftsmanship story within our cowboy boots, we really went into this space of western wear and we had apparel kind of as a natural extension, but as we were looking towards what we wanna be in the space, workwear kept coming up. It came up from customer surveys. It came up in word of mouth at our retail stores where people were saying, Hey, I need a solution. I know TOCO has builds comfortable boots. It's like. There's no break in time on our cowboy boots. And so when you get your first pair, 'cause that's gonna be a when, not an if kovus is ones you can wear like from day one. So we wanted to have something that felt natural to our customers that could keep our brand promise.

'cause I have seen brand extensions where you try and go into a space that you don't have the authority to go into and it fails. work felt like a very natural extension of that. As well as answering a customer solution and growing the tam we were trying to address.

[00:11:00] Taylor Holiday: Yeah. That's awesome. So you, you used a phrase there going into a category you don't have the authority to speak into. Well, how do you think, you know, if you possess that and how do you think about trying to understand where that might apply and where it wouldn't apply? I.

[00:11:14] Krista Dalton: From the chief marketing officer point of view, the customer insights team falls under me and the brand. So I know that our brand pillars are radical, hospitality, craftsmanship, and comfort from day one. And so first we need to actually be able to know how to build the thing that we're building, which sounds really basic, but like we're never gonna put out a scratchy shirt that would be anathema to who we are. On the other side of it is the customer insights. So it's doing a deep dive into what's in your closet. We've met with dozens of customers to say like, what are you looking for? And met with specifically work customer isn't, it kept coming up as something else in their closet. And something that we felt was a natural extension for us.

[00:11:57] Taylor Holiday: So this is a good question 'cause one of the things that came up was, is this ad in this category intended to expand LTV for an existing set of customers? Is it intended to take you into a new market segment and get net new acquisition? Or is it both? So what I heard there was that there was a beginning.

Point of a foundation of what do current Tacoma's customers have in their closet

[00:12:18] Krista Dalton: Mm-hmm.

[00:12:18] Taylor Holiday: way that might be expansive to the existing base. But how do you think about that? What's the balance between the goal of a product like that expanding your tam? I heard you use that phrase earlier, or increasing the value of the customers you do have.

[00:12:30] Krista Dalton: I have a very nerdy answer for you, which is we actually built out a two year plan, and in the first year we knew that it was gonna be adding to the closet of existing customers, so LTV, of current customers, because that was the most cost efficient way to enter the market.

[00:12:44] Taylor Holiday: That's right. Yeah.

[00:12:46] Krista Dalton: We said, okay, how do we show our customers who currently know what we are, that we have another product for them? And once we had that, we also knew, I'm gonna say this, but They would be, they already had trust in Tecovas. And so this was iteration one of a new product for us. And so we'd done wear testing, we'd done all of the things that we knew, but if there was any misstep in version one, we also wanted it to be with our most loyal customers who we had a dialogue and a relationship with. And so we actually seeded it with dozens of them and said, give us your feedback. Wear them every day and just tell us. So gave away a lot of boots gave 'em away to a lot of reviewers to say, Hey, tell us your honest thoughts. We were looking for really honest feedback in this first round long term.

This is entering a new market. And so as you think about growth, there's a cap on the western market. It's not anywhere near where we are, but if we wanna continue to grow, the work market is a completely unique customer need case. for instance, when you shopped on us and it was out of stock, you weren't gonna switch to our current existing line.

And so we knew it was incremental.

[00:13:49] Taylor Holiday: Yep. Yep. That's great. So I love, there's a few things there that I think are really important that I'd love to and when you say nerdy, I have a spreadsheet behind me and a frame. So please get, go, go as deep as you can here. But so one is minimizing the risk of a new product extension by ensuring that you could deliver value to customers that you can reach for free, that are already in your audience, that are loyal to who you are.

That like, that really lowers the risk of a net new product expansion, right? Because you know you're gonna be able to drive some level of demand off of your base. But from there, ultimately the real value, the larger upside unlock is to be able to go into a new category that expands the brand's audience even more.

Right? So there's sort of a both and there that I think is, is really interesting. And I'd be curious, as you think about like. Volume and velocity of the sequence of that and how you sort of test through each segment. How do you approach that? Do you guys start with small initial pos? Do you go in with a larger launch strategy?

Like what's the sequencing for a brand like yours around expanding the the between from existing into that new market? And how do you validate as you go?

[00:14:53] Krista Dalton: Yeah. We really did this with earned and owned channels. So we started with a teaser program that was on our very engaged socials. I say socials Instagram for us and TikTok for us are just doing great. And Instagram, we said it's coming. And it was a picture of like, I think a black and white oil rig on our first one and our customers on the comments.

It blew up. They were so excited. They're like, we've been waiting. So we knew that it wasn't, I. As expensive to use, already engaged customers. And so CRM and social were where we went at the beginning and then backed into the number by looking at the total market within Workwear, looking at our competitors and saying, what do we have the right based off of our current market share to own within this space? But we, we did hedge our bets because we

[00:15:45] Taylor Holiday: Yeah.

[00:15:46] Krista Dalton: colorwise or style wise what people were gonna lean towards.

And so learned a ton about what they were interested in. And focus groups are never, it's so funny to me. I, I hate qualitative data. When people tell you they're gonna buy something, I've never seen that work out correctly. People vote with their dollars differently and what they value and telling them. price for work, for instance, they needed to know that we were hitting the standard needed for a workplace, for OSHA standards, for what a composite toe is, what the materialization is. That was all like entry level. We needed to tell them why you picked kovas and what we didn't wanna do is be just another work brand. And so the idea of entering it as it all day, wear it at night, that was kind of our unique value proposition.

[00:16:34] Taylor Holiday: Yeah. And it's funny 'cause even one of the callouts with that video in particular was that people were like, oh, there's no features and like all the sort of direct response features and benefits like, and it was like, no, no, this is identity, this is, this is giving you a sense of who it is. And I think that was kind of like one of the main things that kind of threw people was that it didn't actually, like people, I don't even know what this product is.

I'm like, no, no, no. Yes, you do. Take your time. Don't, don't wa go watch. But so talk a little bit about that. 'cause I, I do think that was one of the things I noticed for sure because, and even that's what I'd say even invited me in a little further was that if you had told me about composite toes, like I don't, I.

Care. I, I don't know anything about this. I the work wear standards. I thought it was a cool looking boot and it gave me a vibe that I like, you know? So how do you think about that identity attribute and the message that you're describing versus trying to go out against Wolverine and everyone else around features and benefits that standardly everybody can replicate.

'cause they're almost standards, the thing about features that are standardized is like, that actually makes them commoditized. They, everybody has the feature, right? So it's sort of a weird dynamic when you enter a market like that.

[00:17:35] Krista Dalton: It's everything you're saying is resonating with me. The okay. 90%. So we're obviously a male audience 90% of the time on paid advertising, what works is. A closeup of the boot with like, comfortable, a single word call out. Like, and we joke that like we tested into this, right? So like we started with like a full model and then we started with a leg, and then we went into the boot, and then we went into just the toe of the boot.

And then we went from like a statement that was like, get ready for rodeo to like rodeo, ready to comfortable. And the more simplified, the more kind of focused it can be, the better the performance marketing worked for us. The exception was working into this new category of work.

[00:18:18] Taylor Holiday: Interesting. Interesting. 

[00:18:19] Krista Dalton: , so typically it's getting closer and closer and simplifying that was not true in this go-to-market strategy with work. So we created over 50 different variations. Things that we knew worked where it was the toe of the boot, just the laces of the boot the. Actual on model shot. But then we also did more brand awareness of, hey, we're entering the work market where there's no call outs and benefits.

There was just an awareness that we're entering into this space. And in that first two weeks in our paid advertising, the awareness piece of work without any benefits listed was our best click through was our best additional sales and was our most engaged with customers. And so obviously the algorithm has naturally pushed it, and my team reacted in about 90% of our sales within two weeks, was all pushing to awareness at that point.

[00:19:11] Taylor Holiday: Wow. Wow. That's crazy. And so why, why do you think that is? Why, why do you think that's different than cowboy boots?

[00:19:16] Krista Dalton: I think it also helps the. People know who is. Our core customer knew that we had the brand promise of comfort and craftsmanship, and that now they knew enough about the category to make some assumptions. If you're entering the work category, you're not entering without knowing the standards that you need to hit. So as you've mentioned, it's price of entry. And so saying, Hey, we did everything everybody else is doing is less interesting to the consumer than, oh, Jacobs is trying something new. Let's see what it is. Let's see if it's a fit. I, I was driving home from, so by Southwest

[00:19:55] Taylor Holiday: I.

[00:19:55] Krista Dalton: night and a young man, I was listening to your podcast and a young man was filling up the gas tank next to me and we found out that he worked at a local construction company, was looking for some waterproof boots, was hoping to find Sumit to Covis.

Wasn't sure if we had them. So he had brand awareness of who we were. Already loved us. Owned our cowboy boots, had a need state, and was so excited to find out that we answered that need state and that need state was what we needed to tell people about as we entered market more broadly.

[00:20:26] Taylor Holiday: Yeah, it's really interesting. So we work a lot of brands in like the golf or baseball space, and I think about like clubs equipment in those spaces. They're all regulated to the same standard. So like if you sell a youth baseball bat, your bat can't actually be better than my bat. Like they're literally regulated down to the same exit velocities, the same standards.

And so you can't really go to market and be like, we have this barrel size and this diameter and this material because it's all regulated down to standard. So it's all a question of brand expression identity that you can give to people in a way that is really interesting. So that, that's, that's fascinating.

So say more about the different variations that you guys tested. You said you're testing across 50 different variations. Let's talk a little bit about the distribution strategy and go to market. So when you decide, okay, we're going into category, tell me a little bit about content media planning. How do you end up in the right distribution down to the iterative testing level?

Let's get to the tactics of the, the media plan then.

[00:21:19] Krista Dalton: Yeah, so we had three different problems with this one, this launch. One was the launch date, got really close to cyber, got too close for my comfort. And so in October we made the game time decision to launch at the day after Cyber Monday, which already was a risk like, Hey, let's see how

[00:21:40] Taylor Holiday: Wow. Okay. Yeah.

[00:21:42] Krista Dalton: does.

In December we had a 12 week out tease plan. So the creative team knew we were launching a new, I'm gonna back up even further. One year out, we officially said, Hey, we're working with a new category, which is gonna be work. These are the standards that we're doing. Create a business plan. And we did it all in-house. And so we went through and said, what do we wanna promise to be? What do we want the customer need to be? Are we going after internal customers or not? And we decide, okay, in 2024, internal customers adding to their closet. This is really just LTV play. Next year we'll do acquisition off of this and then allocated a budget to it. We are a profitable company, wanted to be profitable even in Q4 as we were doing this. So worked through margins which probably sharing, I don't know, secrets, but margin and work is, is tighter than other apparel categories. We just had to make sure it met all the standards, but still hit the price point we wanted to. Where were we creating a white space within the total market and was this a white space naturally for our customer? Allocated our dollars. Then within, as I mentioned, email, social, and we had our creative director took three days in October, I believe. 'cause that was how close we were to the sample really.

So we needed the final samples and took it to a shoot site. And some of the comments that I found funniest on your post by the way, were like about the authenticity of the cowboys. And our creative director is authentically from Austin, and he has this very strong belief that use models doing real things and you don't use real people doing model things.

So everybody in this thing like was an actual, they were actual doormen, they were actual players, they were actual workers. So, everybody in the shoot kind of fell that way and we ended up spending more. At the beginning 'cause I really believed in the product at that point. We had done a lot. So, a lot of our spend at launch ended up being seeding getting natural reviews. We at kovus, this is whatever, I'm very proud of it. We don't pay people for reviews, we don't pay influencers.

We give them our product and we say we trust our product enough that you have to give us a real review. And I think with Gen Z in particular, anything that says like hashtag add at the end or I was paid for this review falls on deaf ears 'cause they think it's just false. So that was our strategy was get into the markets where people's voice, could sing about our product for us.

[00:24:12] Taylor Holiday: So, I love that. So important things that I think are underappreciated in our space. One, this is a one year process. This is, this is planning and forethought, and you have a 12 week tease, which teasing seems to be like a constant thing for you guys. Like I, I was looking on your website before we got on the call and it's like.

The women's agave, ostrich cowgirl boot coming soon. Like there's always this sense by which you're showing people that they should continue to be here. 'cause there's going to be more cool things all the time.

[00:24:41] Krista Dalton: Mm-hmm.

[00:24:41] Taylor Holiday: that sense by which it's like there's always something coming from a brand is exciting. It keeps you engaged, I think.

Where does that come from? Where does that idea that you should constantly be teasing something, because sometimes people are like, teasing is just something you don't have to sell yet. You can't monetize a tea. Like, so how do you think about that process of the importance and role that the pre-sale plays in the process?

[00:25:04] Krista Dalton: Our chief product officer, chief Merchandising Officer Madison Lee, has put together a very clear value proposition for men and women men. She wants to make sure we have the everyday scotch goat that every man wants. But we also have really meaningful materialization upgrades that are the gator and the. Pure ruku fish and, and different things that excite that male customer. For females, it's color ups. Women love the color ups. It's the number one thing they click on, on the left nav, which means it's the number one thing they're looking for. But women also wanna have that exclusive feel, so that agave that you're talking about.

I expect to sell out in two days. We just had a pink sell out in a single day. And it's okay for us to tell our customers that's never coming back. And so the strategy with women is you do have to buy. And that's that urgency piece because we have customers who want it well enough that you can't expect it to stick around. And if you want it, get it now.

[00:26:00] Taylor Holiday: Yeah, it, it, it just, the, the, I feel like one of the things that we have to constantly answer as marketers is why do I need to buy today? Like, not, why do I need to buy? That's a general problem to be solved, but why do you need me to buy right now? And you guys, you guys do an awesome job with this. So let's go back to the Cyber Monday.

It's the day after

[00:26:16] Krista Dalton: Yep.

[00:26:17] Taylor Holiday: the expectation versus reality of this drop. How did work turn out then for you in that period?

[00:26:23] Krista Dalton: Crushed it. That's like the spoiler, but we announced it the day after and we stopped. The only time we discount is during cyber. We are just not a discount brand. We don't believe in the high low game. We believe in radical hospitality. And that comes across as like, Hey, this is the price. Day in and day out.

We're not trying to trick you or you're not gonna miss a big deal. Outside of cyber, when the customer expectations really clearly this moment, so in December, while some other brands were saying, Hey, we're extending our cyber offer, we launched work on the homepage and it was full takeover. Launched it with email, launched a secondary signup to have it, and sales were about four x what we thought it would be on one particular boot. We found out very quickly what this customer wanted in terms of our silhouettes and our colors. I thought. My husband is an airplane mechanic and so I knew that he really cared about his shoes and how they looked, but I didn't realize that this customer in particular, really cares about the aesthetic of the colorization of their work boot.

And so there was a very clear winner, sold very, very well. But as I mentioned, about 60% of the sales came through email on the first day, and then very quickly paid ads, which we had turned on heavily than we would for any other launch. So you mentioned the agave, for example. We do not turn paid ads on for any of ours because about 70% of those sales come from repeat customers.

We don't need it. It's just a margin hit that like they, they fund other things that way. In this case, we decided to

[00:27:55] Taylor Holiday: Totally. Yep.

[00:27:57] Krista Dalton: it was phenomenal for us.

[00:27:58] Taylor Holiday: So through December you go, you move through more inventory than you even expected on the core amongst existing customers, the limited edition colorways, there's not even run room to run paid now as we get into this year, okay, so now we're, it's January, February, March, and now we have the harder job. Now we've gotta go out and see if we can prospect.

We've gotta go out and see if we can drive net new acquisition and demand. How's that going? How has we, how have we done as we moved into, so, okay, can we go win beyond our existing customer base?

[00:28:26] Krista Dalton: Sales were so that we've had outta stock issues, and so as the head of marketing I have. We have continued to keep it warm, but we have not poured the amount of dollars into acquisition because I don't wanna acquire someone who can't find their size who is looking for that double E and can't fit it.

I, I don't wanna disappoint someone that way, especially this particular customer. I don't wanna lose them early. And so we just got replenishment and going after that new customer acquisition, it has pivoted over to the normal mix, which is about 50 50 that we have of new customers and repeat customers within the space. But we are looking into entering it through louder voices, so, contractor associations, unions, things like that, letting them know that we're in the, in the game. So we're looking into direct mailers. Newsletters have been really successful for us. And then we also played, I don't know if I mentioned this, so the spot that you mentioned is a takedown of a 32nd commercial spot. The 15 second on TikTok worked better for us than the 32nd, which was super fascinating. But we played that 32nd spot on every episode of Landman the Billy Bob Thornton vehicle. And worked really well for us. The response rates were there, customers were really interested. And TV continues to be something that really works with us, which I know was one of your 2024 predictions that the grift of TV was gonna go away, TV's been gangbuster

[00:29:53] Taylor Holiday: so let's let, let's be, let's be clear though. So, so when I think about distribution, what I, what I, what I hate is a dialogue that roots the conversation at a channel level, which just says TV is a thing, like Channel X is a thing. What you just described to me is something very different, which is to say product.

Matches, distribution matches customer. So when you said you didn't just say, we set up linear television and blasted it out at a $5 CPM, you said we picked Landman. Right. Which is a show that your persona customer is featured in and would be watching. Right. So that to me is just meeting your person where they are at, at the highest quality touchpoint.

And it's not even like, it's a, it's a beautiful show. It's a show that aesthetically I think you would want to be connected to. So to me that, that, that transcends medium for me versus anything to do what I don't like is a conversation that a brand needs to be in a channel because it's a channel.

[00:30:51] Krista Dalton: Oh

[00:30:51] Taylor Holiday: I'm much more appreciate is this idea of a thoughtful dis, a thoughtful distribution strategy that matches what is the product and story that I'm saying. And, and this is the thing that I think when I look deeply at it, like I'm looking right now.

[00:31:03] Krista Dalton: Mm-hmm.

[00:31:03] Taylor Holiday: Through your ads library. And so I see, and this is a thing, I think you guys do it really well and this is why that ad to me was obviously one piece of a much bigger story is that, okay, let's, let's sort of paint the map of distribution here.

We've got 32nd spots on Landman. We've got 15 and thirties on TikTok and IG and YouTube. And then you go look and, and there is beautiful static photography that does all the things. So I see one right now that's like your are new tools for your trade and it's guy with blowtorch featuring product. And then there's this like really cool aesthetic that you do that's almost like, they look like throwback photos of old western miners that are kind of sitting there and it says to Covas work, right?

Like that styling that it looks like I was looking at a museum wall, you know that vibe. And so there, there's all sorts of different, and then the other thing I've come across a lot on TikTok the more for your boots, I haven't seen it as much of it yet for the, the work stuff is you do do a lot of this, like authentic UGCs or review content where you have people reviewing the boots, unboxing, giving reviews and things like that.

And so the medium mix is diverse and rich and thoughtful and connecting with people in multiple touchpoint. And so I, I always say that like an, you want an ad to be like, ideally it's being served into a tilt up soil, right? So that when the customer experiences the ad, it reinforces these other places.

Oh, that's the thing I saw in Landman. Oh yeah, that's there. It's like, oh, now I want it. Right. I've seen the teaser. I, I was watching Landman and then I got the ad. That's best case scenario. Now I'm actually positioned to transact versus trying to ask that one individual interaction to do all the work by itself.

I.

[00:32:37] Krista Dalton: Yes, yes, yes, it is connected. Connected branding is something that I'm incredibly passionate about and consistent branding. So most of what you see with work was all shot on that three day shoot and why I wanted that all, whether it was a takedown email homepage, that it all looks and feels connected to the audience regardless of the placement that we put on it.

And beyond that, we needed to have a strategy that told the story because boomers need 0.9 impressions in order to make a purchase. Millennials need about 1.7 and then Gen Z needs 2.3 and they need each of those impressions to be different. And I needed to be thoughtful about where we saw them and why and it couldn't feel like they needed to relearn the brand.

'cause then it doesn't register as a second impression. So needed to be thoughtful about it. Needed to be. Also I Kovus is joyful place to work, but is still a rather small company. And with less than 30 people on our entire creative side, we creative and performance. Actually, need to find ways to scale with what we have. And that means being really efficient with our dollars for our shoots. We can't have a shoot that is just a single boot shoot. It needs to be bigger and it needs to be in more use cases that the performance team can pick up and use.

[00:33:56] Taylor Holiday: Yeah, that's great. Yeah. So you end up with one three day shoot fueling you with this library of static, of of video. I've even seen like an eight second version of that ad. So there's like eight fifteens, thirties, there's all, there's 16 by nine, there's nine by 16. Like, it all sort of lives into this library that can carry you out beyond even the present expectation, it sounds like of the initial launch of it.

But where, where does work go from here? Do you guys expand this more colorways? Is it, are you gonna get into work apparel? Like where does Kovas go for the category from here?

[00:34:26] Krista Dalton: It's such a good question because it all starts with that merchandising team as we talked about. So the vision for them is expanding and meeting this customer need more. So, yeah, I'll, I'll share this. We're getting into women's work wear. One of our biggest feedbacks from our launch was it was only men's wear.

So, we left out a customer segment that was very vocally upset that we didn't include them. So that'll be happening this year. We're expanding different use cases, colorways, and then looking into what else our customers. Want from us is the research that we're currently doing. Example that, this is such a random aside and feel free to cut this in post. But the example of entering spaces that you have the right to be in reminded me of when Victoria's Secret got into swimwear and they rapidly became the number one market share because they had a promise that women, they make women's bodies beautiful. And swimwear was such a natural extension of what they already did. They had the actual technical know-how and skill to enter that space and every right to do so if they had instead been like, we're going into shoes because people who wear our apparel also wear shoes. It's a technical thing that maybe wasn't part of their core business. It was something that couldn't keep their brand promised necessarily.

And so I don't know that that would've been as successful. And so making sure you're entering the product in the way that the customer wants you to, is, is so important to your longevity. And so with work, we're getting back to basics of what does this customer need from us today, besides obviously a trucker hat.

[00:35:58] Taylor Holiday: Yeah.

Yeah, I mean, it boots is like, you didn't even leave boots, right? Like, or this is a very natural sort of next, next step over

[00:36:07] Krista Dalton: Yeah,

[00:36:07] Taylor Holiday: you all in a way that like, there's no, there was no real question for me of like, this is such such an obvious place that you all can play when you, when you, when you think about Then

[00:36:16] Krista Dalton: we did

[00:36:17] Taylor Holiday: I'd be curious, like, as you look out the growth expectation, oh, go ahead.

[00:36:22] Krista Dalton: We did actually just expand. I forgot to mention this, so I'm like, I'll interrupt. Did expand into work world recently. And so that wholesale angle as

[00:36:31] Taylor Holiday: Interesting.

[00:36:32] Krista Dalton: channel do we sell it in? Because our retail customer, we have it there.

We have it obviously on our site, but there's locations within the US where you physically want to go. We don't have a store or there's not as much of a reason for us to open a store. So entering through something like a work world that is a place people trust for their work wear felt like a natural fit for

[00:36:51] Taylor Holiday: I.

[00:36:51] Krista Dalton: as well.

[00:36:53] Taylor Holiday: So, yeah, so that, that's a great question as it relates. So, so that's a distribution expansion opportunity. So as you think about the growth of Kovas in, let's say the next 12, 24 months as you're looking out, I think there's a lot of brands that, my experience of the pure play D two C space is that there's a lot of people that are trying to grow off of covid highs, and it's really challenging to outset that, those categories or to to comp year over year constantly against what were some really big expectations.

There's compounding pressure on a lot of categories in this individual channel. How much of Covid o's growth is gonna come from product category or channel distribution expansion versus same product set comp, year over year growth? Like where do you think about the mix across all those different things as CMO?

[00:37:39] Krista Dalton: Yeah, so there's two different things. Unfortunately, Toco was part of the apparel world during Covid, so it was actually a, a really tough time for us. As you know, coming back into it, reengaging our customers and then being in physical locations where you can come in and get a free drink and try on our boots and learn from our experts has really helped us regain our momentum. And we have found that we're actually expanding the tam for Western wear online, more so than stealing from anyone else, which feels really in line with our radical hospitality as well. We have an internal phrase that is maybe the west excuse me, the west doesn't need more people, but maybe more people need the West. And as somebody who lived in Utah for seven years and consider ourselves western there, just something that really resonates. And so bringing this category to more people in a comfortable way where they can feel comfortable wearing it all day in maybe locations where everybody else isn't wearing that is important to us, and we've done that. What that means for us in the next 12 to 24 months is we're expanding into 15 more stores, including New York, opening in the fall, Chicago opening in the summer Miami. Oh, no, Miami's already open Orlando. more retail locations, as well as expanding our current customer base. And so our year over year new customer acquisition is up a hundred percent. And those are customers over 60% of them have identified that they do not own a, a cowboy boot today. So helping people enter into this

[00:39:11] Taylor Holiday: That's amazing.

[00:39:12] Krista Dalton: It

[00:39:12] Taylor Holiday: Yeah.

[00:39:13] Krista Dalton: and the 40% that do own, own and over six pairs. So we're both appealing to the person

[00:39:19] Taylor Holiday: Wow.

[00:39:20] Krista Dalton: boot every day and to the customer who doesn't, and that feels really good.

[00:39:25] Taylor Holiday: Yeah, that's, that's super fascinating. How much do you think that for apparel, that even that idea of like, maybe more people need the West, how much of this do you feel like is, and how much do you think about trend in culture as it relates to style and fashion playing a critical role? Like I think about like you're describing Yellowstone and Landman, it does feel like there's this sort of like underlying appeal of the west, you know, in these sort of like dramatization in culture.

I'm wearing a rope hat right now. Like I, there's this like sense by which I think there is an aesthetically informed trend related to some of this right now. How do you all think about your role in that? Or do you feel like you're riding a wave? How do you think about that as a marketer? Is your job to try and for create that movement or do you participate in it?

How do you think about the greater cultural undertone of this of this reality?

[00:40:14] Krista Dalton: Yeah, west is definitely having a resurgence right now. a hundred and, you know, 50-year-old or one of our competitors is over 180 year old trend that sees a lot of people finding it as they move forward. Right now, you know, the Fashion House has got into it. Some of the biggest names in fashion are wearing, you know, the Roper boots for the first time and entering into the space Post Malone with his country album, Beyonce with hers. It is a space that, that of people are discovering. However, I believe that it is a cultural touchstone of Americana that. Is not a wave that's going away. It's not the farmhouse chic of the home aesthetic that disappeared after 10 years. It is an inherent part of America and I think it particularly is gonna apply an appeal to Gen Z and to millennials, which sounds a little, I know 'cause I'm the marketing person.

You're like, well, you're hoping, but at the same time, they're a group who wants experiential shopping. They will pay more money to go to a trampoline park than they will on a single disposable item. Like temu and shine and, and those things that don't last versus our boots that a cobbler can keep you in for life, that you want to hand down to your sons.

The craftsmanship inherent in it is something that is valued by these up and coming shoppers as well as the older generation that finally has the disposable income to get into a really nice pair that speak about who they are. And we always. Kind of say, you know, if you ever are on the side of the road and have a flat tire, the person who's gonna step out of their car and help you is gonna be in a pair of cowboy boots.

'cause that's who it is. And so I think it's more of a cultural identity and it's less of a trend. And so we're very excited to, to expand the market.

[00:42:04] Taylor Holiday: That's cool. Alright, we're gonna zoom back in real fast for the tactical side. Talk to me about what is TVA's marketing measurement system. Tell me a little bit about how do you all internally assess performance? What tools, systems, what metrics are you focused on as a marketing leader to assess the output of your media?

You.

[00:42:22] Krista Dalton: on a daily basis. I look at ROAS by channel. I look at new customer acquisition by channel, and then I look at engagement. So starting at the most performance based ones, looking at. Roas. So what are the dollar returns? We have different goals by each channel but we also know that, for instance, if I turned everything off and just left on performance, performance would tank. So it's, it's not as easy as saying is the channel to turn on. It is the full funnel approach of what percent of my dollars are going where. I will tell you, for instance, mid-funnel CRM I'm quadrupling the spend in, and it's not because I think our ROAS can maintain where it's at in that channel.

It's because we are a company of storytellers and that is inherent in who the west is, and we need to tell people. For Mother's Day, we're not doing a promotion. We're doing come into the store for a mom date and get your boot branded. We have cattle brands that say like, mom, that look like a tattoo. We're saying, come on in. We did the same thing for Valentine's Day. So that those storytelling spend moments matter. We have increased TV spend by about 40% live sports. Yellowstone, every Sheridan property we are involved in. 'cause it resonates well with our customers and we have the creative to match it.

[00:43:38] Taylor Holiday: Yeah. So, okay, I'm gonna go a little further. So when you say roas, do you use a third party tool? Are these platform reported numbers? Do you have a preference to one day click, seven day click, seven day click, one day view? Like what is what? Define for me the specifics of that terminology Within Kovas, I.

[00:43:54] Krista Dalton: Oh, thank you. Internally we do judge it based off of two different metrics. We have last touch attribution. And we internally measure that Tableau has reports that pump out to me. I'm trying to install an AI that tells me when something tanks or goes up based off of same day attribution and seven day trends that tells me, Hey, here's a number that looks different than anything we've seen before. Just flagging for me. 'cause the problem is we have so much data that I almost dunno how to look at it. The third party systems that we use, log Rocket helps us with heat mapping identifying any issues. We have load issues. Our dev team uses it a lot to ensure that our new site experiences are working really well.

We use a company called Evolve AI to do, think of it as multi-arm band AI testing, but it's not technically that. Then I also use a company called Heap which we replace GA four with, which allows us to track where customers come in, where they leave. And then on the backend, we have a huge customer engagement, like 20% of our customers answer our post-purchase survey.

So we also do attribution based off of customer identified. Where did you come to know about us?

[00:45:05] Taylor Holiday: Okay. Is that what you do with tv? 'cause you're not measuring TV on a last click basis. Right? So how are you, what's giving you the confidence in the, the TV performance?

[00:45:12] Krista Dalton: Two things. One is this is my first time at a private company, so I'm very blessed. I was able to do this. I turned TV off. Our, our

[00:45:22] Taylor Holiday: Okay.

[00:45:22] Krista Dalton: our executive team at the time wasn't sure about tv. And so I turned it off for two months at the beginning of 2024. And our ROAS on our lower funnel channels tanked. And then when we turned it back on, we were the case book study for, it takes six to eight weeks to get customers to visit again and takes six to eight months to get them to convert again and every metric hit. And now my CFO and I, I just sent an opportunity to him yesterday and he texted back and just all caps like, yes, good opportunity.

Get it. 'cause I proved out that the impact to ROAS on other channels is affected by the full funnel strategy. And it wasn't just a white paper, it was concrete for them so they believe in it.

[00:46:07] Taylor Holiday: That's awesome. So functionally created your own holdout basically. Yeah.

[00:46:10] Krista Dalton: yeah. And the other thing I do is I track I told you, you have it framed behind you. I would have something framed behind me, but track direct traffic and engagement within, so what was our Google searches for our terms? What was people typing into? covid.com? How did it affect. By our, so for instance, we ran actually a retail spot during the chief's game, and 18 million households saw it, and we saw a 16 x spike in people searching for kovus near me.

And that sustained for the six weeks afterwards as a 60% of the a hundred percent index. So continuing to see, like it's resonating with people

[00:46:50] Taylor Holiday: Are you familiar? Do you know Preston from Chubby's? Another Austin based brand,

[00:46:54] Krista Dalton: I know, ch,

[00:46:54] Taylor Holiday: but 'cause 'cause he is a big proponent of what you're describing with. Yeah, suppressant was one of their founders and, and he's a big advocate of this idea, what you're describing, which is like, what is the underlying organic demand for your brand?

So things like what is your direct traffic, what are your brand search volume as an indication of the overall health of the demand for your thing. That sort of sits underneath and there's a, there's a cool company called tracksuit that no affiliation for me, just just a company that I like what they're doing, which is sort of this always on in market research about your brand, your unaided brand awareness,

[00:47:27] Krista Dalton: Yeah.

[00:47:28] Taylor Holiday: We, their their data team and I, and have been having this discussion about could we build a model that relates the efficiency of your media? So the, in particular, the efficacy of your return on acquisition against urinated brand awareness over time. Like, so is there a correlation between what you're describing to, to show the value of this constantly constant presence for people at the top of the funnel about who you are on how much, how effective your direct response media becomes.

And I think, I think it's, it's especially when you can create and stack these sequence of high quality touch points in consistently reinforcing positions, it's just so effective, right. To, to, to make it so that the, by the time that image ad that shows up, it's just, again, there's already been, like you said, for Gen Z, maybe, or maybe it's the third touchpoint that they need to be able to get them to actually transact now, because we've already been saturating them with quality touchpoints.

How, but so, so you guys are big though. Like, you, you get the opportunity. To invest in a latent payback period for that.

[00:48:29] Krista Dalton: Yes.

[00:48:29] Taylor Holiday: curious, like, let's imagine, take me back, let's imagine you're small. Let's say, let's say you're in the 10 to $15 million range and you are sort of stuck. What I see brands kinda sort of stuck between is this like short term need for cash today

[00:48:43] Krista Dalton: Yep.

[00:48:43] Taylor Holiday: and the long term investment required to sort of build the foundation.

So imagine you're speaking to a smaller apparel brand that is, has ambitions of playing the game in the way that you're playing it, but maybe doesn't have the excess capital or sort of the liquidity to make that longer term investment. How would you think about balancing that problem for them between the short and long term on the marketing side?

[00:49:07] Krista Dalton: Yeah, I probably because I was at a public company, I'm all about profitability from the beginning. I know there's companies like Poppy that have exploded, and I don't know their numbers, but I'm sure that they're not, the amount they're spending on marketing has to outpace where their sales were. And for a small company that doesn't have capital, that doesn't have a huge investor, that doesn't have an influencer name or a celebrity attached to it, I think it's important to figure out your unit economics to figure out how much are you making per, how do you get to first order profitability and get comfortable with your foundations?

Because if you layer brand onto a bad product, you're gonna fire festival yourself. Like Fyre Festival, great marketing, like terrible product is really what they, they came down to. So, for a younger company and part of that is the connected thing, and so have really clear KPIs communicated to your team. really clear marketing goals that trigger secondary points. If we hit this, we can do this. But for instance, with the direct traffic, one of the things we do, because we didn't wanna pay to tag all of our traffic, is when traffic comes in from the different channels, what's their behavior on site once they land there? I'm fortunate enough to own both the e-comm experience as the SVP of digital and as the marketer. And so I bring traffic in, but one of my channels brings a customer who lasts four seconds and one of them brings a customer who lasts four minutes. I'm pushing more funding into the channel that lasts four, four minutes, even if it brings down my traffic metric. 'cause I want qualified traffic that actually wants what I have. And I don't wanna trick them into being on my site. I want them to want to be here as much as I want them here.

[00:50:54] Taylor Holiday: that's right. Yeah. And that four seconds is just this indication that there's some incongruence between what they clicked on and the experience that they were getting in a way that's like, wait a second, this isn't actually what I wanted. So great CTR, but doesn't mean anything if we can't actually give them something on the other side of it.

[00:51:09] Krista Dalton: Yeah. Or for example

or

[00:51:10] Taylor Holiday: I love that. Go, go ahead.

[00:51:12] Krista Dalton: sometimes some of the traffic from YouTube can occasionally be people trying to get out of the ad so they can watch the thing they were trying to watch.

[00:51:20] Taylor Holiday: Yeah, exactly. That's my kids' entire experience is they're spamming the next button. Hoping that they're skipping the ad.

[00:51:26] Krista Dalton: Yes.

[00:51:27] Taylor Holiday: Yeah, exactly. Yeah, for sure. And that can totally be an indication. Alright, this, this is amazing, Krista. I, is there anything else as it relates to the way you think about product-led growth or growth marketing for to Go is that you think is relevant to this conversation that we should make sure we get in there?

About where you're going with work or what you've seen work with people that you think they could take away and apply in their world.

[00:51:50] Krista Dalton: Yeah. The, yes. The two things I would say are, one is know who your customer is. Know what they're looking for and don't make assumptions about that. The second is know why they're buying your product and don't assume you are solving a problem. They, that's so vague. I'm gonna be more specific. say you're selling an incredibly comfortable boot. You are not saying to them, oh, we'll also outfit you for this ball. You're going to. You are saying, I need to offer you the same level of comfort in everything else you have. I need to offer you the radical hospitality in store. Everything needs to bleed together into the type of brand experience that emphasizes the product that you have. Because if you offer a brand promise that doesn't match with the product being bought, it will fall apart and customers will not know who you are. They will not repeat with you, and they will be confused going forward with how to recommend you even in their own mind and your share of wallet will go down.

[00:52:56] Taylor Holiday: Yeah, I, it's so good. I, if I can sort of like bullet point, the things that I've heard that I'm gonna take away is, one, this is a process that begins with thoughtful planning. You have, you talk to your customers, you know who they are, you ask what they care about, what they're buying. Then you think about how you can take the pillars of who your brand is.

So clear brand identity informs then, so customer insight plus clear brand identity plus authority,

[00:53:18] Krista Dalton: Mm-hmm.

[00:53:19] Taylor Holiday: then continuity of the same quality of experience across the way. A

[00:53:22] Krista Dalton: Yes.

[00:53:22] Taylor Holiday: content production that's going to be on budget and consistent and thoughtful about the price. The amount of inventory that we have allows for multiple mediums speaking to customers at the top of the funnel with high quality touchpoints that again, relate to that persona.

Everything tied to who they are, what they care about, what they watch. You're just very in tune with the person you're trying to serve. And when you think about the idea of hospitality, that shows up in the DNA of our work too. Like, it feels like you are being hospitable to your customer by serving them where they want to be served.

And there's a thoughtfulness to every place that it's showing up. And so that, that to me is like, it's just rooted in. Who a brand is on the inside and outside. We used to talk about this when we start. So my brother and I started a company called Kalo selling silicone wedding rings. And we used to always say that we wanted the inside of the office to feel like the brand on the outside.

Like we wanted this continuity of who we are to show up everywhere. And so we I think that's my experience of what it, your retail store, the way that you as a marketer are, and the way that the ads show up. They actually have a through threat in terms of what they're trying to accomplish and the message that they're giving.

And that sort of substance and meaning can't be just sort of iterated your way to, and like a hook variation testing model. It's deeper than that. There's something, there's something of real substance there.

[00:54:33] Krista Dalton: Yes. And I always love the

Test your way into a strategy. You need to know who you are. And I, I'm gonna give you an example with this coat I'm wearing, but it's a kovas coat and the lining, which like nobody's gonna see, right? I know there's a horse on the inside, and it's such a nice moment of like, I know the thought that went into this product.

I know that the designer who made it put thought into what I wear. And even if nobody else knows it, it's, it's inherent to who I am and what I'm bringing into the world. So, yeah, it's, it's been such a pleasure being it to co and bringing it to the larger audience.

[00:55:09] Taylor Holiday: Yeah. And I, it's the way you talked about your person who's in charge of supply chain and their experience as a tanner. It's the way you talked about your creative director and their care for who shows up in your ads, is that there's clearly an organizational ethos that when we do something, we're gonna do it in a way that the brand integrity of is gonna show up at every person we have.

It's just like, it's gonna be embedded into every interaction that you have because it's who we are. Right. And so I think that that's, that's kind of how that shows up. I can hear it in your language. You talk about every coworker that way.

[00:55:36] Krista Dalton: Well, the, and the, and the only person I haven't called out who I should, is our CEO, who has an amazing experience with footwear and has this huge history of knowing what goes into footwear, what the expectations are, how molds work where the best people in the world are to make it, and how we can kind of enter that space.

And even as we think about, Hey, everything isn't handcrafted in Leon, if we need to widen our distribution network with how big we're getting. How do we make sure the customer never sees a difference in the product in their hand? And he knows all of that 'cause of his history too. So yes, we do have an internal team I'm very, very proud of.

[00:56:13] Taylor Holiday: Yeah, and it's funny, like the, so this, this company that I'm wearing, heart and Soil is another Austin based brand. And when I, when I meet their people and talk to their employees, it's. They, they talk in this way that I always say like, rather than say, some people tell you like how they got a job, they all have conversion stories.

It's like talking to somebody about their religion. It's like, I was sick and then I was well, and then it's like they all, they're all there under this deep missional purpose that then shows up in all the way that they do everything that they're doing is that they're actually sharing a story that they believe the world has to hear.

'cause it will be transformative to their life. And you can feel that in everything that they're doing. And so, so often, like when you, the end, like the ad is like the end result. It's like the very end of the chain. And the really what trends, what determines the outcome is the ingredients. It's everything that went into that end in distribution of the story is how good was the product?

How much did people give a shit along the way? How much are people actually trying to communicate something of substance? And we spent a lot of time debating the structure of that last output for sure. But I think this story, and what I'm hoping to continue to highlight are the inputs. It's like, how did, how did that get to the place that it's at to make it special?

Because I think that's where so much of the magic happens. And you guys are certainly a testament to that.

[00:57:24] Krista Dalton: Oh, thank you so much. It's been, and you're, and I really do, I love kind of the work you're doing with trying to explain eCom in a different way, help people grow to be larger and learn kind of the fundamentals of finance. I sent your first p and l I forget the name of the series you're doing, but it's like a deep dive into it to some

[00:57:42] Taylor Holiday: Bridges, the Bridges series. Yeah.

[00:57:45] Krista Dalton: younger employees and I was like, you should know profit loss statements and here's a good start and

[00:57:48] Taylor Holiday: Great.

[00:57:49] Krista Dalton: di dive into this. So excited about it.

[00:57:53] Taylor Holiday: That's amazing. Thanks Krista. I appreciate it. Well, we're gonna end with this because we have spent almost over an hour together and intentionally I have gone away from hyper focusing on this individual ad because I, again, the point I want people to understand about what I believe growth marketing is, are all the things that we've described, but if we don't give them this Krista, they, they might riot.

So can we get clarity of whether or not that specific ad is generating a positive return for kovas or not?

[00:58:23] Krista Dalton: It is 100% driving a positive return, not just on the dollar spent on it. It is, the category itself is 100% incremental. We found that through AB testing, the ad itself is performing better than the call to action ads that we have for the work boots and it's driving specific sales. Even though it's not saying, it's not technically a call to action, people are feeling it inherently and it's driving the majority of our sales right now with work boots.

[00:58:51] Taylor Holiday: There you go. Internet. Leave me alone, leave me alone. Take it up with Krista if you have an issue. Yeah, for workbooks, of course. Yeah. Lots of awesome stuff in happening, but there you go. That puts a nail in the coffin. That is the end of this argument. And Krista, you're amazing. I'd say follow you on Twitter, but I don't know that anybody's going to that.

You're gonna, you're gonna get much, but she is there. And who knows? Maybe she'll, she'll, she'll wake it. She's also on LinkedIn, but really follow Kovas. She's doing masterful work there. And I think at this moment in time, our interest is desperate to find the stories that matter that we can, as aspiring entrepreneurs and operators and marketers look to learn from and try and collect some of the story.

And hopefully what you heard today will help you all to go out and tell stories that matter, build things of substance, do it with integrity and care, and thoughtfulness and hospitality, if you will. So, Krista, you're amazing. Thank you so much for coming in today, and we'll talk soon.

[00:59:44] Krista Dalton: Thank you so much.