Michelle Lomas
Commission Factory.
Dave Simmons
Yeah. Thanks Michelle. So yeah, you're right. I'm not a founder in the case of Jucy. I'm an, certainly an imposter.
Michelle Lomas
Let's talk about recovery. We've had a lot of brands on the show, a lot of retailers who, stepped into Covid, like everybody, a little bit unsure, stepped out really well.
Dave Simmons
Yeah. So let me give you a bit of context for Michelle. Yeah, Jucy's 21 years old. The two brothers who founded the business done an amazing job building a really strong iconic brand. The business had been through growth year in, year out, which had enabled them to get involved in all sorts of new innovation.
Michelle Lomas
It's a real measure of a business, I think how they work through a time like that, isn't it?
Dave Simmons
Yeah and listen, I can't stress enough how painful it was as a business people. It was a long time. Like we kinda look back now and it feels like it all went by in a flash, but when you were in the middle of it and you didn't know when the end was, it was really tough. For people that had been in the business for a long time, to remain motivated and to see what a long term could look like. But to your point, like Jucy's are really in it, and it's always been built on innovation, it's always been built on energy and entrepreneurial spirit, and we were able to harness that a little bit and challenge ourselves to go what do things look like?
Michelle Lomas
It sounds so inefficient.
Dave Simmons
Yeah. And this is only three years ago. And this is not Jucy. It was. It was across the industry.
Michelle Lomas
I thought that the industry must be far more advanced than that and centralised booking systems and...
Dave Simmons
still pretty clunky. And so what we said is, listen, we're gonna go API first and foremost, we're gonna move, we're gonna work with distribution partners that are willing to integrate the API and book on either online, through our online booking engine that we've developed for trade agents or through the API.
Michelle Lomas
Wow. Yeah.
Dave Simmons
We're back doing similar sorts of volumes that we were doing pre-Covid, but with about a third of the staff. Within a head office environment. And actually it's a far better experience for our trade partners. It's a far better experience for their customers and everyone's winning. So yeah, that, that's been huge. And we did that with, really limited development resource, within head office, but just really good, innovative in New Zealand, we had the same in a sort of numbering wire mentality.
Michelle Lomas
So smart. What were some of the things you did away with? Apart from the clunky booking system, was there a moment where you went, you know what obviously you're looking at the whole business and going, this is our time, this is our chance. So what else was there that you kind of went, this has got to go?
Dave Simmons
Probably the biggest thing in there Michelle was the, uh differential rate structure. So having lots of different rates going to different travel agents and into different markets. We'd have a, the site, you might have that vehicle behind me there. For example, the our Jucy chaser, that product would be one price in Germany at one time of the year. Be a different price in Australia, it'd be a different price On our website, it'd be a different price, whether you book through a wholesaler in Germany versus a travel agent in Australia. So there's a huge amount of complexity that had been built up over time, and probably the biggest single thing we did was just rip that all up and say we're gonna have one rate.
Dave Simmons
With without doubt. And probably one of the biggest challenges as we went through that Michelle is A having confidence in the brand and the strategy. But also having the discipline to say no. And that's super, super hard in any growth environment. Like we had a lot of old historical partners who came to us and said, you're only kidding about this kind of API thing, aren't you? You are gonna enable us to book offline again.
Dave Simmons
And it's nope. And some of the saying no was really hard, cause some of these partners had been giving us, big seven figure sums of business pre-Covid and we were like going, no, it's not how we want to build back.
Michelle Lomas
The Flex Your Hustle Podcast is made possible by the team at Commission Factory.
Dave Simmons
interesting question. Michelle, and this was a really unusual situation because when I came into the business it'd almost been like a nuclear bomb had been dropped of it on it.
Michelle Lomas
Yeah, it's like simplicity for necessity's sake. And if there's no other option and this is how you have to operate moving forward, I guess it does make it a lot easier.
Dave Simmons
It was the ultimate burning platform. It's in many ways, let's say it was far easier to drive change with those circumstances versus a large established business that's going well. And trying to drive change within that, it's certainly a lot harder.
Michelle Lomas
Glad to hear you guys are doing well today. And obviously you pulled through that period. A lot of other travel companies obviously didn't, so real testament to you guys just knuckling down and okay, how do we just do this?
Dave Simmons
Without doubt, affiliate marketing has been a huge part of our sort of recovery strategy. Super. My journey with affiliate marketing goes back probably 25 years in the UK.
Michelle Lomas
You just said something so interesting there that, I sometimes raise this with different business owners and they never think of affiliate as the cost of sale. They always think about it in their marketing mix. And yes, it operates in a very similar way of marketing.
Dave Simmons
Apart from bullying the finance people to just do it? The, listen, I think it's just understanding the model in terms of, for us it's a straight commission based model. There's a variality of the sort of variable component to it, obviously based upon the various publishing platforms that we hook into. But fundamentally, it's a straight commission that I, you can forecast on a fairly accurate basis on a monthly play in terms of what that percentage is gonna be.
Michelle Lomas
It's a no-brainer.
Dave Simmons
It's conversation. Yeah, absolutely. And without any shadow of a doubt at all if you treat it as a marketing expense, you're probably only gonna get 20, 30% of the value out of affiliate activity.
Dave Simmons
I'd say, we wouldn't do it with a travel agent or an online travel agent. If they're selling and we're paying them more commission, we're going, Hey, fantastic.
Michelle Lomas
And to your point as well, like you said, it does take time. There's a, there's. Learning that is involved with, affiliate marketing, and if you do cap it, you say, oh, I'll only dip my toe in the water every month with a certain small budget. You're not really, you're limiting yourself really, you're not allowing yourself to test and learn and try new things.
Dave Simmons
A hundred percent. And there's no downside in testing, right? There's, it's not there's. Heavy fixed costs associated with putting any new program in. It's all a variable cost, so there's no downside of having it uncapped because you're only gonna pay more if you've got more revenue coming through.
Dave Simmons
I would love to have a conversation with the CFO if if they said no to that. In terms of mate, do we wanna grow the business and drive sales here or not?
Michelle Lomas
It could be to your point, maybe a lack of understanding of just how far and wide affiliate marketing goes. And you mentioned something earlier which was so healthy and so smart in terms of, it's just a channel with untapped ability and you need to think of it more the transactional aspect rather than the things that go in and the things that people constantly think of first when they think of affiliate marketing, like influencer marketing or rewards or cashback.
Dave Simmons
Yeah. And it's still a journey of discovery. I keep being amazed, I like to think, I know a little bit about the environment, but I keep getting amazed at new partners that come to the surface that keep bringing new things to the table. We started in a very traditional sense, in terms of looking at platforms that could deliver eyeballs that were aligned with our kind of notion of kind of our target customer.
Michelle Lomas
Incredible to hear just how one relationship as well can really stretch the gamut of your business. It's not just about marketing and the pool of customers, it's about that conversion as well.
Dave Simmons
Without doubt. And I think there's a real internal benefit, a cultural kind of benefit from, embedding that affiliate thinking, if you like. And again, that cost of sale thinking to the business. There's no doubt that people within the Jucy team have benefited enormously from engaging with some of the various partners that we've brought on, and the real sharpness that they've brought around conversion and optimisation, which because that's what they live and breathe and their whole revenue models are based upon that.
Michelle Lomas
From an affiliate marketing perspective, how does that fit into your marketing teams or your agency structures? How's it all work? Even from a reporting perspective?
Dave Simmons
So it's really tough one, to be honest, Michelle, because there's just not people in the market who understand affiliate marketing.
Michelle Lomas
I love that.
Dave Simmons
And that's why we actually, found some specialist resource based out of the US that worked, has worked with us for the last two, two and a half years and have become a really tight strategic partner to help us optimise and to accelerate those learnings fundamentally in the affiliate space.
Michelle Lomas
I worked in the States for a while, and the affiliate marketing like you said, is much more mature over there.
Dave Simmons
Couldn't agree more. Michelle, and if you talk to marketing managers, everyone knows the phrase affiliate marketing, but if you then scratch behind that, and go, so talk me through some of the various platforms and the opportunities.
Michelle Lomas
Certainly, I like that thinking that you say around thinking about it in the context of how it's run, how it's measured from a COGS perspective, really thinking about it more as the platform itself for not, all the different places we can be in, not influencer marketing, not publisher marketing, et cetera, but just thinking about it as a new way of running business and what are all the things within our business, be it our customer experience, our website, where affiliate marketing can really impact the business.
Dave Simmons
The one thing you gotta promise me is that you don't share this with any of our competitors. Cause I'd hate for them to learn the secret of how awesome affiliate marketing is.
Dave Simmons
We're really, really uh, I guess in a privileged position to have such a, strong, iconic brand. Yes. You know, Jucy is such a strong, iconic brand and-
Dave Simmons
Campervan space. So the ability to leverage that and particularly with the audience that it reaches and connects into.
Michelle Lomas
All I have to say is the green van and everyone should get a visual in their head of, oh, I know those guys. The green van guys. Yes, they're the green van guys. Yeah, very iconic Green Van. I'm gonna plan my New Zealand road trip soon and it's going to be Jucy or nothing because there's no way I can get shots of my car that I hire and it's, with beautiful New Zealand backdrop and not have a Jucy van. It's just iconic.
Dave Simmons
That would be absolute disgrace Michelle, but I know someone can probably help you.
Michelle Lomas
How is the business going today?
Dave Simmons
It's been amazing. We've had a huge Summer season. We've welcomed back. Yeah, thousands of international guests into Australia and New Zealand.
Michelle Lomas
I'm really happy to hear it onwards and upwards to great tourism season next year as well. Absolutely.
Dave Simmons
Great to have the opportunity to chat with you, Michelle, and anything to help spread the word of the joys of affiliate marketing.
Michelle Lomas
We have another exciting episode coming up. Here's a sneak peek.
Sam Viney
We are really fortunate that we've got two people who can understand the commercial side of the business, obviously translate that into our performance media. And then quite frankly, the rarest part of that skillset and the one that both of them have is being able to communicate that back to the non-digital marketers within the business.
Michelle Lomas
If you aren't already, don't forget to follow, so you don't miss an ep. And while you're there, why not drop us a rating and review? We'd love to hear what you think. Flex Your Hustle is made possible by the great team at Commission Factory and produced by Ampel. I'm Michelle Lomas. Keep hustling and buy for now