Mange Customer Relationships with Tyler Handley of Inkbox

Foundr Journal publishes in-depth interviews with the world’s biggest entrepreneurs. Our articles spotlight key takeaways from every journal subject. We talked with Tyler Handley, cofounder of Inkbox, about the right way to handle buyer relationships. Learn excerpts from that in-depth dialog beneath. To learn extra, subscribe to the journal.

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Again in 2015, Tyler Handley was enthusiastic about getting his first tattoo. However he confronted a typical dilemma—and that’s the truth that tattoos are everlasting. How might he make sure that the design he bought at the moment can be one he preferred 15, 20, or 50 years down the road?

Sure, you may all the time get a laser elimination therapy, however these are identified to be painful and dear. And, sadly—apart from the short-term tattoos he used to get from merchandising machines as a child—Handley wasn’t conscious of another semipermanent choices.

He determined to handle the issue himself and enlisted the assistance of his brother, Braden. The duo borrowed $10,000 from a buddy to assist them get off the bottom and, in the identical yr, launched Inkbox.

Quick ahead seven years. At this time, Inkbox is a beloved model that generated simply shy of $30 million in income final yr. The corporate was additionally acquired earlier in 2022 by pen-maker BIC for $65 million.

The Snowball Impact

Getting these first few clients by way of the door is a problem each entrepreneur faces.

In accordance with him, Inkbox’s first yr was sluggish. The corporate solely made just a few thousand {dollars} per day—in the event that they had been fortunate. What lastly began driving the corporate’s progress was a mixture of Fb advertisements, Instagram influencer advertising, and word-of-mouth.

“That’s all the time the toughest half. It’s like rolling a snowball down a hill, proper? You need to get it began by some means. In case you can’t, nothing’s going to begin rolling.”

For brand spanking new founders who’re additionally struggling to develop their firms, Handley recommends discovering that one core channel and homing in on it—somewhat than spreading your self too skinny. One other piece of recommendation? Don’t lose give attention to the top-of-funnel advertising efforts, particularly whereas scaling.

Regardless that top-of-funnel investments may be extra expensive, Handley believes it positively impacts the remainder of the funnel and in the end will ship returns. The truth is, he’s tracked the info and is aware of that it pays off over time.

“I believe numerous firms get trapped in simply spending into the center of the advertising funnel. However you’re not driving sufficient consciousness, which doesn’t compress that value. We’ve been actually placing extra into that prime to construct model consciousness and put the [Inkbox] title on individuals’s tongues. So once they do see that advert that’s extra mid-funnel for them, they’re much more more likely to click on and much more more likely to convert.”

Bizarre However Good

Finally, the Handley brothers determined to search for extra funding. They raised round $1.2 million throughout its pre-seed and seed rounds and, just a few years later, $13 million throughout its Collection A—enabling them to considerably increase the kinds of tattoos they’ll provide.

At this time, Inkbox has one thing for everybody. For individuals who need stunning and aesthetically-pleasing tattoos, the corporate has delicate floral designs. Folks in search of a extra atypical look have the choice to get a tattoo of a frog driving a skateboard or the Mona Lisa capturing lasers out of her eyes.

“I might say irreverent is the proper phrase to explain them. Bizarre can also be a great phrase—however bizarre in a great way.”

Inkbox additionally launched a more recent model of its product about three years in the past, which gave them rather more flexibility from a design perspective. One of many advantages of this replace is that it allowed them to construct out the neighborhood of artists they accomplice with on the designs.

“One of many core elements of our enterprise is the truth that our 10,000+ designs are designed by round 650 totally different artists—lots of whom are actually, actually gifted tattoo artists from world wide. Collectively, I believe they earned round simply $1.5 million final yr, which was actually cool for us to see.”

The corporate additionally launched its customized platform, which makes up about 15–20 p.c of its quantity. With this characteristic, clients can both add a design themselves or design one from scratch utilizing Inkbox’s fonts and catalog of designs.

“It’s why now we have so many designs on our platform. Folks have very particular tastes and calls for for what they placed on their our bodies for one to 2 weeks. And so customized was only a pure extension.”

Tricks to Handle  Buyer Relationships

How have the Handley brothers grown so shortly whereas managing buyer relationships? Listed below are their suggestions for constructing long-term buyer relationships.

1. Perceive the place your enterprise is at the moment: Constructing buyer relationships is a resource-intensive course of—and typically your enterprise isn’t fairly able to make that funding. As an illustration, Handley explains that within the early days of Inkbox, they needed to focus extra on progress than retention. “We had been simply actually relying closely on new clients from Fb to drive top-line progress—with out specializing in returning clients and retaining these clients.” And that is OK as a brief state.
2. Take note of your CSAT rating: While you’re prepared to begin investing in buyer relationships, top-notch customer support is essential. One metric that may enable you gauge the standard of your customer support is your CSAT, or buyer satisfaction, rating. “Our CS workforce has a extremely excessive CSAT rating. And that’s essential as a result of it’s a product that’s new to customers,” Handley says.
3. Spend money on constructing your electronic mail campaigns: Begin with emails in the event you’re unsure the right way to construct a post-purchase journey for purchasers. In case you’re on Shopify, there are tons of prebuilt campaigns you should utilize. “Simply get them again within the door with a drip marketing campaign,” Handley says. “12 emails over three or 4 months with growing affords.”