E77: Andrea Guadalupi

Richard Hill:
Hi there. I'm Richard Hill, the host of eComOne. Welcome to our 77th episode. In this episode, I speak with Andrea Guadalupe, head of eCommerce at Tone & Sculpt. Well, we all know how crazy it's been in the last few months, training, working out, and keeping our nutrition on track. Whether that's working out at home or in the gym. Well, Andre has been responsible for the huge growth of Tone & Sculpt fitness app. What an amazing journey it's been with one pivot after another to suit the ever-changing demands of the fitness nutrition industry. If you enjoy this episode, please make sure you subscribe, so you're always the first to know when a new episode is released. Now let's head over to this fantastic episode. How are you doing Andrea?

Andrea Guadalupi:
Hey, Richard, how are you?

Richard Hill:
I am very well. I think we both got a bit of sunshine today looking at your picture there. Your image. Fantastic. So, I think let's get straight into it. Looking forward to this. I know you got a lot of experience in the actual trenches, which is great. So, let's get straight into it. So, Tone & Sculpt, why is Tone & Sculpt different to any other fitness app out there?

Andrea Guadalupi:
So, let's go straight into it. So, that's a very good question. So, it's interesting to see how the competitive landscape in the fitness environment changed drastically in the past two years. In particular, due to COVID, we had a big increase in both demand for workouts and workout apps. But also in terms of competition. So, we have a lot of big players that come competing with us. So, for example, we have Peloton, Apple TV+. So, it's really a matter of finding your niche and find a way to scale from there.

Richard Hill:
Yeah.

Andrea Guadalupi:
In terms of what differentiates us from any other fitness app, I think it's, first of all, the community aspect. So, we have a great community and that is the forefront of everything we do. So, we tend to talk to them a lot. They are part of the product. We have a forum, we have social channels and users engage with them a lot. Also we have a very specific target audience. So, we target only women and in general, the younger generation. So, our target audience are Gen X, plus older Millennials. I think this give us strategic differentiation compared to other apps out there.

Richard Hill:
Yeah. I think it's obviously a very interesting time, this last 18 months or so. I think the amount of ads we're seeing around fitness apps definitely. Personally, I know my wife and my sons are both into their fitness and the different things that we've signed up to. But the marketplace in general is pretty crowded. Isn't it? Your marketplace, in terms of fitness apps. I think, obviously it'd be good to talk more about that very specific demographic you're going after. It makes it a lot easier for creative ad targeting. Is that sort of way where you've sort of focused?

Andrea Guadalupi:
Yeah, that's correct. So, we ,of course, focus all our contents for those kinds of audience, really. So, we are on Instagram. We are very strong on Instagram. It's our key channel, but we are also on TikTok and partially on YouTube. For these other key three channels where we tend to scale. Of course, our key platform is the platform of our trainers that builds the kind of relationship is really one-to-one with our users. So, one of our co-founders is Krissy Cela, which is also our lead trainer and she has huge Instagram following of over a million followers. That's basically our platform for growth. But also in terms of differentiates, again, it's a lot about how we talk about training. Especially during lockdown, there were a lot of different trends and we try not to follow the trends too much, but our own thread regarding fitness. Basically what we want... What we say to our customer is to enjoy the process and not be focused on results. Results will come up with time. But yeah. We don't talk about physical transformation too much. We try to make fitness fun.

Richard Hill:
Yeah. Yeah. I think that's... Yeah, I think gone are the days where you see maybe there's some before and after pick as lead. That seems to be quite a tired now. Obviously that's important, but there's a day-to-day, so it's that routine, those daily things that we're working on. I think going back to your... If we focus on that sort of reasons for growth, obviously you're saying that one of your family, your founders, owners is also the trainer. The bit, I guess that's played a huge part then in terms of the actual growth over the last year. So, obviously very relatable. It's not just somebody there that's potentially coming in and out to do a session. They are the brand.

Andrea Guadalupi:
Correct. Yeah, our trainers, are the brands, our users tend to follow them and get their tips on social channels and create this kind of one-on-one relationship. It's so much more than an app.

Richard Hill:
Yeah.

Andrea Guadalupi:
I think the key reason for Tone & Sculpt's growth comes from the vision of our founders. So, it's quite interesting to see, especially for me coming from more a trading background to see how they are really not focused on the commercial side of things.

Richard Hill:
Yeah.

Andrea Guadalupi:
Of course money plays a role, but their focus is to create the best possible product in order to change people life. That's in our day to day a lot and I think the consistency of that message throughout the year is what made the difference for us. Because we are... Really in everything we do, we're really focused on the user. When we talk about customer obsession, we're out there.

Richard Hill:
It's great to hear isn't it? It is great to hear. I think the people behind the brand are living and breathing the brand, they're living and breathing what they're doing. Obviously, the outcome of that is you're doing a good job and people want to be looked after in your community. They want to know that the training and the knowledge, and the guidance, and the support, and the fitness element, you know, is coming from the heart. Because these people, your bosses, are living and breathing this stuff. But of course, behind that is the commercial element. Now I think... Let's dive in there for a bit. I think obviously paid ads. Let's maybe... How do you split your time and your resource between so acquisition and retention? Obviously getting people signed up is one thing. But as we know, in the fitness game everyone realized that, like the gyms, they have a busy time in January that they're all rubbing their hands in January. So, I think that acquisition and retention, obviously big part of your business. I'm quite interested to hear, to hear sort of both sides.

Andrea Guadalupi:
Yeah. That's an interesting one. So, I think as part of our industry, we have lots of people that joined and they stopped their subscription for a few months, then stop, start again. So, we tend to split entirely the process of acquisition and retention. So, we think that's the reason why people join us, in the first place, is different from the reason why they stay for us. They join because they want to make a change in their life. But then they stay because they like the community. They like the work or the kind of relationship that they would miss in any other app out there. In terms of resources, I would say my time is probably 30 acquisitions, 60 retention, 73 retention. Yeah, because we found it also from a commercial point of view. The key driver for growth is retention. So, we look at current rates very closely all the time and try to... Well, it's much easier to make an impact data, than spend more on ads and get more new users.

Richard Hill:
Yeah. Yeah. I think it's very relatable for a lot of people listening in. The different businesses they're in obviously there are new customers. A lot harder than to retain one and obviously get them becoming more of an ambassador. So, retention, we've all signed up for these various apps and you call it various things. Subscriptions is basically what we're talking about and.

Richard Hill:
I've been pretty guilty of signing up to quite a few. We've had a couple of deliveries yesterday from a couple of coffee brands, obviously very, very different, but ultimately it's just a subscription business where I've, I received three packs of coffee yesterday. They all came on one day. I was like, I need to, I need to adjust my timing sort of thing. But ultimately I don't want to cancel them, but I want to adjust and have that ability to adjust when I have things. So, what sort of things have you done to retain when people ultimately, they sign up, they do their do their week or their month. There's obviously sweet spots that when people are more likely to churn and then what have you been doing to retain them for a lot longer than traditional retention periods?

Andrea Guadalupi:
So, I think there are a few different things as again, retention is the key pillar for growth. So, first of all, we tend to create a lot of campaigns. So, if you look at the app now and you look at the app again in three months, it's not going to look the same. That's particularly important for subscription. This is where a user keep seeing and find your stuff. So, for example, throughout this year we had three challenges, 28 days challenges that we launch just for specific timeframes. We have a new trainer joining the app. We have new guys departments and massive switch from home workouts at the beginning of the year towards gym workouts. We opened. So, I think that's one key part in terms of retention. So, being exciting for the users.

Richard Hill:
Fresh. Yeah.

Andrea Guadalupi:
Another thing is about the quality of the workouts. So, of course, at the end of the day, users use our app for the workouts. So, lots of work behind the scenes in terms of looking at every possible metrics within the app and try to understand what users do, what they don't, what we thought they were doing and they are not doing it. Try to understand why and make changes in order to improve customer experience throughout their subscription. I think that's over time, of course, there's, you know, small incremental changes, but it's what improve our retention. Lastly, I think given the fact that we talk about a journey, not a short burst of fitness workouts. We tend to try to push users to work longer plans. I think that does better, as well.

Richard Hill:
So, when they sign up they're paying for a longer... Not a month, they're paying for three months. There's options to pay for 3, 6, 12 months that type-

Andrea Guadalupi:
Correct. We have monthly, quarterly, yearly subscription. Of course having longer subscription is a-

Richard Hill:
No incentives. So, it's obviously a lot cheaper to sign up for 12 months than it is for one month, times 12. Yeah.

Andrea Guadalupi:
Correct. We have a 14 day free trial, so that's the lowest. Allow the user to build the confidence to go to a longer plan after they try the app.

Richard Hill:
Yeah. Yeah. So, do you have... Yeah, I think that's obviously a great, great insight that having those different price points and obviously stacking the value for the longer, higher price points. So, are you doing anything... I'm quite intrigued to wondering if you're doing anything where people come about, "Do you know what? I'm going to cancel." I'm going into the app. I'm trying to cancel it. Have you got anything, what are you doing there to stop that moment there?

Andrea Guadalupi:
So, yeah, of course the cancellation flow is a key part of any growth marketing businesses. So, we try not to be too aggressive in the way we do things. We just try to, we just ask them what is the key reason? We have a few that we have listed. If they answer it, one of them, then we track them and over time we can show them personalized messages depending on option. But there's a lot of back and forth and re-subscription going on. So, I think that's a big part of our [crosstalk 00:13:02] not anymore subscribed.

Richard Hill:
It surprises me how many subscription firms and how many that don't have a cancellation flow in place. It's very surprising. So, I think if you're listening to this episode, obviously quite a lot of things there, and I think if we're breaking them down there, keeping things fresh, really important. They think about that, you're paying for the same thing, it just gets tired. Doesn't it? If this is to be listening to the same training with the same trainer, the same 45 minute routine or the 20 minute routine. It's like anything, isn't it? Things get tired, whether it's where you go into your favourite restaurant and the menu doesn't change, you go somewhere else.

Richard Hill:
So, keeping the quality there, making sure that the quality is always... You're always looking to up your game because if you're not somebody else is. There's always other things out there, there's always other shiny objects out there. Isn't that? Keeping that conversation going, I think is a real key one, but then that cancellation policy, as well. There's quite a lot of things there that I think when you obviously stack them together, and you'll continually building on them. Just keep stacking doesn't that a 10%, 10%, 10%.

Richard Hill:
But interestingly you're sort of 70% focused on retention. I think a lot of people in the eCommerce space do not spend enough time on retention. I think obviously, you guys have been fantastic. I've asked you that I was quiet quite a lesson there, retention dies. So, what would you say has generated the best results for your business? You don't have any specific campaigns that you've ran recently over the last 18 months?

Andrea Guadalupi:
Yeah, I think that the most interesting piece has been the Strong Guide. So, Kristi rebranded, one of her guides are strong with a lot of the insights that we provide internally. So, it was an interesting piece of collaboration between different teams where we had to analyse data, understand what we're doing, why they were switching and give recommendation to the trainers. Then she repeated the whole journey and all the workouts. Then we relaunched basically as the gym were reopening. So, we've seen a very nice trend, the user going from the lockdown, doing home workouts, switching back to gym and starting their journey there. Again, this is something that differentiates us a bit, compared to other players in the market where they have online classes that you need your laptop or your TV to really play.

Richard Hill:
It's an interesting one, isn't it? Because we have obviously seen this map, obviously you could buy any weight trading gear 12 months ago, or it was three times the price because everyone's buying it to do at home. Obviously now gyms are open. It's funny, I've been going back and I see a definite increase in the amount of people that are grabbing their phone. Obviously they're listening to what they were doing at home or the people on an app, but they're doing it in the gym. They're actually doing it. Right. Okay. So, it's chest today. Oh, right. Yeah. And then they're watching a little video and just the amount of people I've personally definitely seen more people on their phones not messing about, but actually look at it, their apps or whatnot in the gym. So obviously-

Andrea Guadalupi:
Yeah. I think generally speaking here in the UK, the number of subscription change. I think they come back to the level before COVID and that's a very good as a community, especially because fitness, I think lots of people realize the value of fitness during the lockdown. So, we have definitely a spike in demand. But it's very interesting to see how now user behaviour is changing and there even inside the gym is different from what it was.

Richard Hill:
Yeah. Yeah. So, let's stay there for a moment and it's a data wise, what you've got data around, who's doing what on the app, or what specifically data do you look at to help drive business change, business decisions. And it's been a very, a lot of change, how obviously home workout, gym workouts, outside workouts, weather, obviously home. But what are you looking at to... You've made some quite bold moves there by, restructuring everything based on some facts and doing the research, but what data specifically. I think it, of people that are listening to this and well, okay. Where do we start? What do we do with the data? Where do we get a data from know, obviously people are buying things, but if things are changing out side of our ecosphere, how do we know?

Andrea Guadalupi:
Yeah, that's, it's a very instinct conversation that we can have. We tend to track everything that is happening. We want to understand what actually user to do in the app. In terms of commercial metrics, we are looking our key to metrics. So, number of free trials and generate basically a customer they're coming in, the one that comes out. Then when we look at, in terms of prompts, marketing, we tend to look at everything. Yeah. One of the key thing we do is looking at the engagement in general users in the app. So, whenever we have a campaign with Centrelink, what people have seen in ads, what people have seen on social, to what your directory doing and try to assess what is the impact of each and the reaction that can be very different. So, fortunately our tech stack allows us to make analysis quick. I think that's very important thing. Yeah. Yeah. And-

Richard Hill:
Yeah. So, what do you do when you're you instinctively know that people are going to the gym more, but how do you know that they're doing less at home? But that's more about... You got access to third party data that you use. So, you don't really know what that transition is. You don't know that like, but I assume you don't know, until you find out that half the planet is working out at home or most of the planet is working out at home.

Richard Hill:
Then all of a sudden the gym's open and you assume more people are going to the gym, but in the early days, I don't think they were. Where are we now? So, eight months ago, maybe when they opened briefly in the UK, I know I was like, oh, I think I'll... It, wasn't very busy, but yeah, it is busy now. Definitely. But how do you know you? You're just basically going to the gyms yourself? You actually do it like your actual physical recky of different areas, or obviously this is a worldwide app. So, how do you sort of get that data to know that there's been a change in the industry?

Andrea Guadalupi:
So, first of all, it been a very intense period of uncertainty. So, we have to create different plans depending on, what we're thinking what's going to happen. Then lockdown happened so quick that it's very difficult to react quickly. But yeah. That's what we tried to do. Whenever gym reopened, we try to create a new feature that all of us uses to go there. Luckily it went well, in terms of data. I think a piece of insight that I can give you is that Gens X tend to love to give insights. So, on our social channels, we do a lot of surveys internally through the app. We do lots of surveys and our users are always very, very keen to give us an update and tell us what they like and what they don't. I think that's generational thing as well, so it's kind of scalable for other businesses as well.

Richard Hill:
Yeah. Oh, I like that. That's good. So, you touched on a few moments ago about your tech stack. So, is there any specific tech that you would say to our listeners, is that... What would you recommend to the listeners that there's a lot of options out there isn't there. I think how do you use and what do you use?

Andrea Guadalupi:
So, we, as a Mixpanel plus brace in terms of CRM, plus data analytics. There are a lot of different tools out there. I think every brand trade their own stock at the end. There are lots of different values I started as well. I think the good thing of these two tools is that they allow us to track things in real time. So, we were able to see and make decisions based on the precious data available, which considering the number of actions that the user can take into the app. It's quite good comparison to the old time when you have to mine data from a database.

Richard Hill:
Yeah. Great. So, I think obviously that's, you know, you guys are doing really, really well. I think obviously you've been been fortunate. People say we've been fortunate in terms of different industries have done really, really well this last 18 months. But ultimately you've got a crack in business. But some things that you will have tried right where the gym's open probably very briefly. I was trying to get my timeline now, but probably eight months ago. Obviously if you put everything into that it would have been a bit of a disaster.

Richard Hill:
But obviously you've got to dip your toe into these things to see you're testing. Aren't we? We're testing, testing, testing. So, there are people that are listening that they're testing things and then it's not working, it's not selling. Give us a bit more insight into that. There's obviously a lot of challenges that have potentially trying different things as cost associated with that building campaigns. Creative costs, research costs. For products not selling and you're trying versus a lot of different things. What sort of advice would you give to our listeners to overcome those challenges?

Andrea Guadalupi:
So, yeah, first of all, regarding testing, I think the key thing there is to create something that a framework that is robust. So, I've seen people doing tests for the sake of doing tests, but the tests where we're not giving at the end result, it was strategic. So, I think this is probably the key thing that whenever you try to test something new, you have to have an outcome already prepared in case one, the two wins or, or the variation wins. We try to test things that are big enough. Of course, that depends from the size of your business. Amazon can do tests on very small things. That's not the case for us, but we tried to test things that are insightful and backed full as well. Then from a data point of view, you have to be solid in the understanding of when tests has significance when you can call it win or lose. This is not super clear for many people in the-

Richard Hill:
Yeah. I guess, obviously, that will vary a lot depending on the size of your organization, but ultimately I think quite often people will do a little test maybe and get five clicks or 50 orders. Obviously that's not a test. you've got to put quite a bit of data or sample size or to what do you, what do you consider a sort of successful test?

Andrea Guadalupi:
So, personally, we use internal tools that look at the historical significance and tell us depending on the size of the population, depending on the conversion rates, what the conversion could be, anything we are, these among this percentage sure. That the test is successful. At the end of the day, there's always uncertainty. But depending on the magnitude of the test, you can accept more or less uncertainty in your results.

Richard Hill:
Love it, love it. So, I think we'll have a lot of head of eCommerce listening to this episode. I really do. Now, obviously you're running a very successful, totally eCommerce business. So, ultimately, what does... I think there's, there's so much to do isn't there, but you know, this is the way we know when you start, you start rattling off the to-do list of the things that head of eCommerce and marketing heads are responsible for how do you prioritize things? How do you prioritize the tasks and the things that you have to do, I need to do list on a, on a sort of daily, weekly, monthly basis?

Andrea Guadalupi:
Yeah. So, I think these really one of the key thing to really be successful. As I told you, the pace at which we try to do things is extremely high. So, we try to be fresh for our users. That means that we need to produce a lot of content. We need to launch that and try lots of different things. Yeah. So, in terms of how I tend to prioritize, I first have a look at what are the blockers for other people. So, what is in the project, I am the bottleneck and this when everyone, we have, like this you're in a situation where everyone has time than to do their stuff. Yeah.

Richard Hill:
So, yeah. Resolving bottleneck. So, the people are not stuck. Yeah.

Andrea Guadalupi:
Correct. Yep. That's one part and the other one is to try to always consider the potential effects and or what you're doing and try to prioritize the thing that have more impact that's on. This is to say for us it's-

Richard Hill:
Yeah. That really resonates to be fair it's trying to get, make sure that your team are not stuck. Then I came to spending time with your team members on the projects. The things that are... The power of 10, 20, 30 people, depending on your organization and department size that they're moving. But then it's like, right. Where am I going to make the most impact as an individual with my team? Almost maybe opening a new door to a whole new revenue stream or a whole new campaign, or a new whole, oh, gyms are opening. Well, we can keep going here with the home fitness and we'll do okay. But hang on, there's there's a whole new world over here, or the whole world is coming back. Yeah. So, is there anything else you would add to that?

Andrea Guadalupi:
Yeah. The other one is, I think it's very, very important to keep the communications up, especially in the world that is moving towards remote working, or at least partial, remote working. So, yeah, I think, especially in, during the lockdown periods. Make sure that everyone is on top of everything. Especially when you're stuck in a lot of meetings, you just forget, or tend to forget. [crosstalk 00:28:20]

Richard Hill:
Are you working 100% remote or are you in an office some days a week?

Andrea Guadalupi:
We are in the office now three days a week.

Richard Hill:
Same. Yeah.

Andrea Guadalupi:
Personally, as more company trying to grow, we really find helpful to be in same room to discuss plans and share ideas. We're still in this phase where lots of processes are not set yet. So, yeah. It's beneficial be in the same space at the same time. I think throughout the lockdown we also learned the benefits of being on your own when you have to do the do.

Richard Hill:
Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. There's some times where you just want to get your head down, crack on, get the job done, and I don't want to talk to anybody. Yeah. Yeah. It sounds just like our bikes to be fair. Yeah. We're doing three days a week and then yeah. Two days at home. So, right. Head down focus, three days of a lot of collaboration, a lot of discussion, a lot of projects.

Andrea Guadalupi:
It's going to be interesting to see how the industry we've changed depending on the fact that some individuals prefer to work remotely. Some others just like to be in an office environment. I think there's going to be a lot of changes in terms of individual adapting through the organizations and the change.

Richard Hill:
Yeah, it is. Yeah. Yeah. It's interesting time at the moment. I think obviously a lot of people are going back, whether that's two, three days a week. But I think just see what will then happen from that. But then there'll be like... Actually, my prediction is more, I think that will very much be two, three days. But then I think it might go... Actually it might be bit more of a rich retraction from that. It might be more of a sort of maybe a little bit less is required now because we've sought out the coms a bit more where we've seen everybody where we're working on projects a bit tighter. So, now actually we might do three days at home and two days in the office. But we'll see, we'll see. We'll find out soon enough, won't we?

Andrea Guadalupi:
I think it's very company specific, as well. So, I guess for certain organizations, it's just better to be in the office for some others, it's not required. So, giving the flexibility to kind of use the best available talent or a cheaper talent for-

Richard Hill:
Yeah. So, what would you say the future looks like for terminal Scotland?

Andrea Guadalupi:
So, we have lots of exciting campaigns going on. So, we're pretty busy with trying to launch new campaigns going on.

Richard Hill:
Yeah.

Andrea Guadalupi:
We are just trying to keep being ahead of game. [inaudible 00:31:04]

Richard Hill:
Going to give us any sort of hot off the press, something that very unique in the fitness industry that you're launching? Is that possible? I don't know. We'll let the cat out of the bag. Maybe.

Andrea Guadalupi:
Let me think. Well, I can tell you that we just signed up our newest trainer.

Richard Hill:
Yeah.

Andrea Guadalupi:
So, that's definitely going to happen. Yeah. That would bring some fresher-

Richard Hill:
Somebody well-known in the fitness.

Andrea Guadalupi:
Yeah.

Richard Hill:
Yeah. Well, we'll keep an eye out for that. Well, thanks Andrea for being a guest. Now we really do like to finish every episode with a book recommendation. We're big time readers at eComOne. I know a lot of our listeners, we're always recommending books, as you might see behind me. So, what would you recommend to our readers?

Andrea Guadalupi:
So, the book I would go for it's called "Invisible Woman," exposing that bias in a world designed for men.

Richard Hill:
Okay.

Andrea Guadalupi:
It's a very interesting read, especially for men, I would say. Basically explore all the things that have just been designed for men and let you understand... What was quite opening for me, but basically let you understand how even small things like your phone has been designed for the hand of men, not the hand of a woman. When you scale that across all the products in the world and how we need to improve on that.

Richard Hill:
Wow. That sounds a very good book. Very good book.

Andrea Guadalupi:
The good thing from my point of view, that is all like data driven and evidence-based. I can relate to that.

Richard Hill:
That sounds like a really good book. That sounds like one of the best recommendations we've had for quite some time. That's great. Well, thank you so much for being a guest on eComOne. For the listeners that want to find out more about yourself, more about the brand, what's the best way to reach out to you, Andrea?

Andrea Guadalupi:
I think LinkedIn is the best channel. If you want to reach out to the brand, we can find out some social.

Richard Hill:
Okay. Well, thanks for being a guest on eComOne. Well, one, I look forward to catching up with you again soon.

Andrea Guadalupi:
Thank you very much. It's been a pleasure.

Richard Hill:
Bye bye.

Richard Hill:
Thank you for listening to the eComOne eCommerce podcast. If you enjoyed today's show, please hit subscribe and don't forget to sign up to our eCommerce newsletter that leaves a review on iTunes. This podcast has been brought to you by our team here at eComOne, the eCommerce marketing agency.