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E7: John Roman: The Founder of BattlBox on Testing and Implementing Data-Driven Solutions

E7: John Roman: The Founder of BattlBox on Testing and Implementing Data-Driven Solutions

by AJ Davis

2 weeks ago


In this episode of Experiment Zone, AJ Davis sits down with John Roman from BattlBox, a unique outdoor adventure subscription service dedicated to building brand equity through community and quality content. They delve into BattlBox's intriguing journey from its inception in 2015, its sale in 2021, and its repurchase in 2022. The discussion highlights BattlBox's male-centric marketing strategy, its focus on community building, and its use of content-driven growth to attract a dedicated audience on platforms like TikTok and YouTube. Key elements explored include the brand's four subscription tiers, exclusive benefits through Battlvault, and the importance of a members-only community on Facebook.

The episode also covers BattlBox’s e-commerce strategies, such as the impact of A/B testing, optimizing landing pages, and utilizing social proof and transparency to enhance user experience and conversion rates. Listeners will gain practical insights into data-driven decision-making, the efficacy of rigorous testing, and continuous adjustments based on live data to foster sustained customer engagement and satisfaction. John wraps up by sharing ways to connect with BattlBox for those interested in further exploring their successful e-commerce journey.

Transcript from video:

0:00 On today's episode of experiment Zone we're going to talk to John Roman from
0:04 BattlBox John's sharing with us some things that they've already tested
0:09 John's going to take us through a number of things that they've tested on their
0:12 homepage and some key pages that visitors see in their journey and he's
0:16 going to share some surprising outcomes that they've had so keep
0:21 [Music]
0:28 listening all right tell tell a little bit about yourself and your company sure
0:33 so AJ BattlBox is an outdoor adventure brand we started in 2015 were kind of
0:39 known for a couple of things one being our subscription box and the other being
0:43 our Netflix TV show um been on quite the journey with the business we sold it in
0:50 2021 and then bought it back uh last year so it's been quite quite the
0:56 journey tell us a little bit about that what's the journey been like the buying
1:00 and selling sure definitely uh it was not part of the plan our plan was to
1:05 exit and um you know figure out what the next chapter of life was going to be for
1:11 us but about a year in we we saw an opportunity um to grab the business back
1:18 and and get it at a a lesser price than we had previously sold it for so it was
1:23 became like a just a basic Arbitrage business opportunity that we we couldn't
1:28 pass on so we jumped back in the driver's seat and now we're we're we're
1:33 we're driving again nice um so for those listening along tell us a little bit
1:38 about your target audience who's your ideal
1:41 customer sure so we're definitely a m Centric brand um so 90% of our um
1:49 purchasers are male um 10% are female out of the 10% that are female 50% are
1:55 actually purchasing for a mail in their life so super super male Centric
2:00 um age really I'd say 20 24 to to 54 24 to 55 is all a sweet spot but we really
2:10 excel in the the 34 to 44 3 35 to 44 range um household incomes typically 120
2:20 to 130 gotta and what prompt someone to look for a product or to to look for you
2:27 guys or to find you guys sure so we're a little bit different um when you look at
2:32 your traditional you know direct to Consumer brand um where it's very uh
2:38 transactional if you will um so we lead everything with with content and and
2:44 building Community which is um a lot in the funnel and it's it's a long game for
2:48 sure but it's in the long run it's better for really brand equity and and
2:53 and in creating a brand so people typically find us um on TikTok or
2:58 YouTube just going through maybe some outdoor breast practices or some uh
3:04 preparedness tips um really the the average BattlBox customer could be one
3:09 of so many different buckets it could be um just the adventurer the hiker the
3:14 camper um it could be just a outdoor lover that wants to go you know camping
3:20 one weekend with their family um and it could even be just U um uh someone that
3:26 cares about being prepared um and just having a stock of gear in case something
3:31 possibly goes wrong think of it almost like an insurance policy um except you
3:36 actually get something tangible every month in the mail so typically they find
3:40 us um on on some sort of social media platform TikTok YouTube Instagram and
3:47 they start learning about us and eventually they decide they want to join
3:52 and tell us what the experiences like once they do join what do they
3:55 get sure so so we have four different tiers uh the basic goes up to and the
4:01 basic the advanced the pro and the Pro Plus basic starts at it's 35 a month
4:06 plus shipping and sales tax all the way up to the Pro Plus which is 170 a month
4:11 plus shipping and tax um 50% of our base is in the Pro Plus the largest tier um
4:18 which is quite unusual for a for you know a traditional e-commerce to have
4:22 that large of average order of valy you so in addition to the products that are
4:26 in the box and they stack so if you get the pro box you get everything from the
4:30 basic the advance and the pro item um but you know it could stand alone
4:36 because the value if you're to shop these on your own and try to procure
4:40 this box without our buying power you're going to be paying significantly more so
4:45 a $200 all in after shipping in tax box it might you might not be able to Source
4:51 it for less than $350 so right there there's there's
4:55 value but we actually we don't push that that's not the value that we talk about
5:00 um it's actually probably fourth or fifth on the list of of benefits so one
5:04 of the biggest is is the community um so we have uh not everybody joins the right
5:10 now the community is on Facebook so it's a private group members only you have to
5:13 be an active member um not everybody joins the group I think we have maybe
5:17 10,000 active members in there right now and it's a true Community right it's not
5:22 us facilitating communication um or trying to uh stem engagement if you will
5:30 it's it's literally a true Community right they're interacting with each
5:33 other they're trading gear they're talking about hiking they're talking
5:37 about preparation they could be talking about anything right they could be
5:40 talking about what they do with their kids during the day um it doesn't
5:44 necessarily even have to be outdoor Centric right it's just a bunch of
5:47 like-minded individuals um having conversation and the community to me is
5:52 probably one of the most valuable if not the most valuable peace um in addition
5:57 to that one of our big things we wrote out as called the battle Vault so if
6:02 you're an active member you have access to this and um two different sections of
6:06 it right now but we're building it into something greater uh one is the product
6:10 section so we have about I think 1,200 different SKS in there um at PR at the
6:16 best price you're going to find the item um so you will not be able to find it
6:20 for as good of a price as we are going to sell it to you for it's not it's not
6:25 a profit Center for us we're using our buying power and passing all the savings
6:29 on to the consumer and the second section is for partners so um outdoor
6:35 gear but not even necessarily um limited to that it's just people we found other
6:40 companies partners that we can provide discounts or service for um our members
6:46 just as an added value added added benefit besides the actual box um so
6:51 those are probably the two biggest thing the community in the battle bolt that
6:54 really um our customers love love it and I I love how many different aspects of
7:01 the value you're bringing out here and what I'd love to do now is to transition
7:05 to our taking a look at the site together seeing how much of that stuff
7:08 is really coming out and then hearing a little bit from you about some of the
7:11 choices that are on there so let me go ahead and get the screen shared all
7:15 right and before we hopped on today we talked about how most of your traffic's
7:17 on mobile so we're going to be doing our review today on your mobile site um I'll
7:23 just start with a couple things as I go but please jump in as you're you know
7:27 want to sharing share things for while you're doing it or question questions
7:29 you might have or any input I can share um so looking at your site I there was
7:34 another thing that popped up before this and the screen's been up for a little
7:37 bit so now this email sign up has popped up um I don't know if you guys have
7:41 tested this before but we always find a little surprisingly that this doesn't
7:45 really hurt conversion and it actually helps drive a lot of email do you
7:49 guys yeah so we have um so we're we're we're crazy with the amount of testing
7:54 that we do um so the popup you're seeing now is um it's a couple different so we
8:01 have call them campaign Journeys depending on behavior on the site this
8:05 is typically um it's normally not the first it's normally second or third in this
8:11 series um and it's just 100% based on the the user interaction with the site
8:17 how they're behaving if we've already identified the traffic or not um and
8:22 this is simply um a a digital asset we we put together 12 outdoor survival
8:28 skills that everyone should master we're just get a share with you and um
8:32 exchange for your email address so we can mark it to you later um probably the
8:37 first thing you saw was the spin to win yes um okay so I did see it and
8:43 unfortunately I had I like I either clicked away or it went away before I
8:46 could get the screen share going today so tell us a little bit about why you
8:49 guys have that first so so at least I I will say in um at least the spin win is
8:56 a completely custom spin win so we built it it like a um uh you have a couple
9:02 axes and it's a axe board if you will like like throwing the axxe to see what
9:08 what you win so it's not your traditional um boring Spin to Win I
9:13 don't like Spin to Win I I'm just never been a fan of it but I'll be darned if
9:21 it doesn't consistently outperform everything else we do from a
9:26 popup perspective it just converts significantly higher and I'm just I'm
9:33 I'm waiting for the day when when something performs better because I
9:36 don't like it but you can't argue with the data right if it's it's converting
9:41 at a I think it converts at 16% um which is just phenomenal um even
9:47 on bad months with with maybe less ideal traffic going to the site still north of
9:52 12 so it's just it's tough to argue um yeah and you guys sound like you're just
9:58 very data driven right so we're not just acting on what we think might work but
10:02 you're actually measuring it and making decisions based on it we're we're nerds
10:06 um every every little incremental lift or change or tweak we can make to to
10:12 make the traffic the finite amount of traffic we get more valuable yeah and it
10:17 sounds too like I'm seeing here both in the value you're giving in the joining
10:21 the newsletter exchange as well as in the description of that custom spin
10:26 wheel there's some brand elements being introduced too so it's like these are
10:29 the first touch points for some people on the site that kind of introduce what
10:33 you guys are all about too yeah that that pre digital piece is interesting
10:37 because you you typically don't see that on direct to Consumer Brands it's more
10:40 of a B2B play um and that's where we got got the idea from right you see it all
10:45 the time on B2B sites get get this white paper see this top 100 Brand X and um
10:52 the reality is it works and uh we tried to figure out how do we get um that type
10:58 of pitch on a consumer site and we we went
11:02 through quite a few iterations and we finally that finally performs the best
11:07 out of out of the things we tried that's great what are some areas of the site
11:12 where maybe there's you know some shifting or some questions you might
11:15 have that would be interesting to dive into next yeah so we you know we're
11:20 sending traffic for the first time to the site more times than not it's a
11:25 landing page but uh the landing page are actually iteration of our homepage um
11:31 which which you're on right now our most popular page is or section is the what's
11:37 in the box so people typically the customer journey is they're here they're
11:42 going through this site currently and they can pick your box and they can they
11:46 can convert and and make it all the way um like if you click pick your box it's
11:52 going to fast forward to the Box sections um and and you have the four
11:58 options we've done test in on moving um moving them out of order moving them on
12:04 mobile in a swipe um graphic and uh this still performs performs best um but when
12:13 people are not ready to buy the first thing they do is they hit that they hit
12:18 the the the hot dog button right the option menu button and they go to what's
12:22 in the box yeah let's take a look at that and to your point around like the
12:27 carousels versus exposed things those are all really good variables to play
12:31 with like we've seen ourselves sometimes just like text links to things are more
12:35 effective or having the full image and a description so there's a lot to test
12:39 that's really audience dependent so if you're if you're scrolling down um and
12:43 you eventually get to the options of of picking your box so we walk you through
12:48 the steps we walk you through the benefits um we get you excited and then
12:52 it's it's time to pick your box so these images there's four of them um it's say
12:58 overhead shots um and it's you know truth be told
13:04 they're they're they're transparent images and we've just made made the the
13:09 the overhead shot they're not really you know shot overhead and
13:14 um I don't like them not a fan of them we had um so we're like let's we have to
13:20 do something better I mean easy way to move the needle so we did these amazing
13:25 actual items in the Box Box shots we did did above we did so we did overhead we
13:31 did side we did front we came up with all of these and they look beautiful um
13:36 and it truly shows what you're getting um instead of us having this and if you
13:41 screw up a little bit we have to even put a uh a warning products in the
13:47 images below are examples of products you could receive and not the actual box
13:51 itself um which like having to put that gives me anxiety but us testing the
13:58 beautiful Imager that we did professionally done not not photoshopped
14:03 um significantly underperformed these these overhead
14:08 photos overhead digital photos and it it just kind of like is a great reminder
14:15 that you have to test right and even the things that
14:20 seem glaringly obvious um aren't necessarily the case it's just funny cuz
14:27 you um I would have every dollar in the bank account that
14:31 these beautiful ads beautiful shots we we came up with we're going to
14:35 outperform and they don't um it's just a just it's just a fun reminder that and
14:41 uh the last thing on the homepage if you scroll down a little bit
14:45 further um pass this um you know pass this and then we have over a million
14:52 boxes shipped and we have our trust pilot you know unbiased third party and
14:57 then the as scenen um typically you see those um right at the
15:02 top of the site um arguably either above the fold or the first thing you see um
15:08 as you scroll from above the fold they perform better down here does
15:14 not make any sense like people like someone who doesn't know that we test
15:19 will like send us an email and they're like excuse me you have your social
15:25 proof the bottom half of the page like what are you doing like you clearly
15:29 don't know we can move the needle for you and it's like here's a link to our
15:34 test like it doesn't work um so it's just funny that little nuances but then
15:39 for some Brands it might it might be the the the best practice in the needle
15:43 mover so it's just just kind of a fun reminder of all these things need to be
15:48 tested yeah I love you're sharing those because I think you're right like we
15:51 have the sense of what best practices are but at the end of the day the only
15:54 way we really know is if we test it with our customers with our live experience
15:59 exactly um and and I think you know there's ways we could understand it if
16:02 we wanted to dive into it you know one of the things that I had in mind as you
16:06 were saying that is wow I'd really want to see a usability study of your page
16:10 and see how people move through it and what kind of questions they have as they
16:13 go because I'm guessing they're not really thinking about you know is this
16:17 something that I should trust because they're still learning what it is to
16:20 begin with and that might be a reason that it is this way but it's not
16:24 intuitive that that makes sense for All Brands right so yeah so the next place
16:28 they go um our most popular section is the what's in the box so unlike um you
16:34 know I don't view us as a subscription box but we do have a subscription box so
16:40 if you're going to look at subscription boxes across the
16:44 e-commerce um realm there's not a lot of transparency in what is actually in the
16:50 past boxes right most don't talk about it you have to kind of do some Recon and
16:55 research and it's often times because part of their model is you know um high
17:01 margin low cost not a great customer experience so they they don't they don't
17:05 showcase what was in the Box previously which which we we do the opposite so we
17:10 showcase every pass box you know we send one out every month SO3 months of boxes
17:17 and um it's it's the most popular area because you can literally come down you
17:24 can see a video it's a 30 minute review of The Box we go through each item you
17:29 can buy doll card individually if you like but you truly understand everything
17:34 that came in there um and it's just does a great job of setting proper
17:41 expectations um there's not a surprise right you'll have people go through four
17:45 five six 10 of these Pages before then coming back or we actually have a callot
17:50 to action on here to subscribe if you're ready so it um they
17:56 eventually o maybe we don't we did maybe it's at the top maybe let's
18:03 see oh it is you have a join now at the top yeah yeah um so you know the video
18:09 is interesting I don't know if you click it what it looks like on mobile I know
18:13 desktop it's quite the experience so it's cool because we'll
18:21 have we have all the items in the box that are at the bottom so you can scroll
18:25 through them too and and see kind of the items you don't have to leave the video
18:30 and and scroll back down yeah and I'm curious kind of what
18:36 kind of testing you've done in this section are there certain things that
18:39 surprised you along this way yeah so you know before so this is
18:46 probably the maybe 10th iteration of the what's
18:51 in the box Pages now seems like a lot but you know that's 10 different
18:56 iterations um big iterations over over 9
19:00 years so it's not that crazy um it's it's changed a lot so we we
19:07 previously um it's just grown over time and in P testing initially the page was
19:12 literally just um two images we used to send a single card in the box and one
19:19 was kind of a summary typed up couple paragraph summary and one was the items
19:24 in there we would just scan the two images or I guess we had the digital
19:27 images and that would be the the breakdown and then from that grew um
19:32 grew us putting the video there too and then we quickly found um through just
19:40 customer feedback that you know we can want everybody to be a member be a
19:46 subscriber to the box but the reality is you know that's not for everyone some
19:50 people are not comfortable with um some some strangers procuring a $200 box for
19:56 every month um so we had a lot of feed fact that some people religiously come
20:01 and watch the box and then they purchase they they want just the one item from
20:05 the box and they're going to pay full retail um and not get it through the
20:10 subscription so through feedback we tested different iterations of if you
20:14 scroll down um how we're we're showcasing the items in there um we
20:21 eventually initially they we had a we tested where it was a popup of the
20:26 product you could decide if you wanted it um and then we opted to test just
20:30 having a quick add toart quick button um which which was actually a pretty large
20:36 needle mover allowing them to not have to leave this page and add something a
20:41 cart um was a benefit that's great I'm going to flip
20:46 the question that I usually ask around because today you've shared some really
20:50 inspiring test ideas that you guys have already done so rather than me asking
20:54 you what you would test I'm going to like recap a couple things I heard that
20:57 I thought were really interesting for the audience okay um I thought that your
21:01 your conclusion or your testing of the placement of testimonials is something
21:05 that a lot of companies don't think to do your product image test really stood
21:09 out to me as you know not just following your gut instinct on what images might
21:14 be better might look better to us but really what performs better um and then
21:18 I think the other thing here about you know challenging the subscription model
21:22 so I'm hearing you know you can subscribe to the box but we also work
21:25 with customers and meet them and how they need to shop otherwise of this
21:29 ability to add to cart here follow along build as part of that Community but not
21:33 necessarily get that box every time or to operate in the we trust you here's
21:38 the great curated good value you get each month so think some really great
21:43 takeaways and really appreciate having you on and sharing some of the things
21:46 that you guys have learned along the way before we wrap up were our audience
21:50 interested in getting to know your business better getting to know you
21:53 what's the best way for them to reach out um so obviously they want to check
21:58 out the business just go to battlbox.com um and it's it's BattlBox um on is the
22:05 handle for for both social media Tik Tok YouTube are two largest channels I'm
22:10 most active on LinkedIn and I'm I'm on X a little bit
22:15 but I'm I don't have the patience for it um and then uh I have a Blog online
22:22 queso which is a resource of um all things Ecom Commerce um really the the
22:31 focus on the blog is not just showcasing the winds also showcasing the losses
22:37 because four reasons one the losses where you get the most learnings which
22:41 which is Paramount for growth um but also and probably one of the reasons I'm
22:45 not a big fan of a is there's just so much toxic behavior um in e-commerce it
22:53 seems where people are touting these wins and it's not transparent and sound
23:00 realistic um and they don't talk about the the lves they take and that just
23:04 kind of bothers me a little bit so that's the focus of that um and then
23:09 also we we have a podcast um so it's called the awesome podcast uh awesome is
23:14 spelled Asom um and it's it's all things
23:19 e-commerce from from a few different perspectives love it thanks for sharing
23:23 all those resources really appreciate you being on today and taking the time
23:26 to share with our audience as well thanks you're having me thank you for
23:30 tuning in to the experiment Zone podcast you can check out more episodes on
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23:59 [Music]