How BattlBox Cracked the Short-Form Video Secret for Sales Success — John Roman | Making Short-form Videos for TikTok, Ig, YouTube, AI Tools for Content Creation and Editing, Why a Human Face Sells More Products, Why Diversifying Content is Crucial (#331)

In this episode of the eCommerce Coffee Break podcast, we dive into the world of short-form video content for TikTok, Instagram Reels, and YouTube Shorts. Our guest is John Roman, CEO of BattlBox.com, who shares his journey from B2B sales to e-commerce success. John reveals how BattlBox leveraged video marketing to grow their brand, starting with long-form YouTube content and evolving into a powerhouse of short-form videos across multiple platforms. Learn about their content creation strategy, the importance of authentic branding, and insights on the future of content marketing in e-commerce. 

Topics discussed in this episode:  

• Why short form video content became crucial for ecommerce brands 
• What AI tools can be used for content creation and editing 
• Why having a human face for the brand is important, as it potentially sells more products 
• How consistent testing and learning is essential for success on platforms like TikTok 
• Why diversifying content types (video, blog posts, articles) remains important for marketing 
• How to overcome "paralysis by analysis" as it's crucial for creating and publishing content 
• Why unpolished, genuine content often performs better than highly produced videos 

Links & Resources

Website: https://www.battlbox.com/
Website:  https://onlinequeso.com/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/john-roman/
X/Twitter: https://twitter.com/JohnMRoman

Get access to more free resources by visiting the show notes at
https://t.ly/z456a

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Transcript

Claus Lauter: Welcome to the e commerce coffee break podcast. Today's episode, we discuss how to create short form content for Tik TOK, Instagram, and YouTube shorts. Joining me on the show is John Roman, CEO of battlbox. com. So let's dive right into it. 

Voice over: Top rated Shopify growth podcast dedicated to Shopify merchants.

Voice over: And business owners looking to grow their online stores. Learn how to survive in the fast changing e-commerce world with your host Claus Lauter, and get marketing advice you can't find on Google. Welcome. Welcome to the show. 

Claus Lauter: Hello. Welcome to another episode of the e-Commerce Coffee Break podcast. Today we want to talk about short form video content.

Claus Lauter: We want to talk about TikTok reels. Shorts and so on and so forth. We have never had this topic and it's so important for the merchants out there. And I have someone on the show today, which I'm really proud about. It's John Roman. He's the CEO of battlbox. com. John has a strong background in building B2B sales teams and telecom and software sectors.

Claus Lauter: He transitioned into e commerce and investing, eventually joining Battlebox in 2016. So that has been a while. Under his leadership, Battlebox grew rapidly and launched a Netflix series. A series called Southern Survival and after Battlbox on Carnivore Club was sold in 2021, John led a group to buy back Battlbox in 2023.

Claus Lauter: Well, dive into this a little bit as well. And he's also a fellow podcast host at the ASM podcast. So we have a lot to cover. Hi, John. How are you today? 

John Roman: Hey, I'm doing well. Glad to be here. 

Claus Lauter: You're around for quite some time with Battlebox. Um, in the pre chat, we were talking about it. I know, um, the brand for a very long time.

Claus Lauter: Our listeners probably don't give me a short overview how you got into e commerce and what Battlebox is about. And then we dive into short form video. 

John Roman: Sure. So, so my background as, as you had hinted to was, was B2B sales. Um, so software technology, um, all of which is, uh, some form of the subscription model of reoccurring revenue.

John Roman: And, um, so I, I knew that aspect of the business, you know, well, so in 2015, I was investing in, uh, Um, some companies and and just to clarify, not like, you know, private equity, you know, VC money, like, these are very small, small checks. Um, and in in my network of people I've come across not not like institutional or people even looking to raise.

John Roman: So, I had come across BattleBots about a week after launch, so super, super new, and what I loved about it was the reoccurring revenue. Model that it was it was it was monthly and that's kind of where you know, my brain was at prior So there was the just the subscription element You know reoccurring revenue is easier to forecast.

John Roman: It's easier to scale. It just checks a lot of boxes and That was that was the the initial Um, initial attractiveness of of it. Obviously, as I got into it, fell in love with it and and it took a whole new part of my life. But Battle Box as a whole, it's think outdoor adventure survival gear. So everything from hiking to camping to.

John Roman: Something as simple as just preparedness, um, just, you know, having the monthly box just simply because you want to be prepared for, uh, you know, all kinds of potential scenarios from as simple as the power going out to something as complex as the power grid going out. Um, so just everything in the outdoor and survival space and.

John Roman: Um, while we don't position ourselves as, you know, a subscription box, where it's just an outdoor, an adventure brand, um, the reality is about 90 percent of our revenue comes from the monthly recurring subscription box. 

Claus Lauter: Now, obviously there's a ton of other companies in the field of outdoor survival and so on and so forth.

Claus Lauter: But Battlebox started relatively early facilitating video in a very, um, I think entertaining way. And I think that's a huge point that made you successful as the brand it became. Tell me a little bit on when you started doing video and when you really saw the potential on focusing on video. Sure. So, so 

John Roman: really.

John Roman: Um, everything points to YouTube as being, um, both how we discovered it and how we, how we executed it. So it's two parts. One, we had a very unique, so this is 2015, um, call it March 2015, very unique at the time, now best practice, but we knew we wanted to send, um, about 30 battle boxes out to YouTubers.

John Roman: People that would review it, give unbiased feedback, and we knew that back then, you know, the benefit's going to be, it's giving us almost an organic footprint on, on YouTube. And so that was the first aspect of it. The second aspect, um, came quickly, quickly afterwards, where we had a, uh, uh, just a date at 2015 pre purchase survey.

John Roman: So we'd stop you from purchasing and we'd say, Hey, you know, how did you hear about us? And, uh, we'd have the usual suspects. You know, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and, uh. YouTube and we had an other there and you could click the box and put in whatever you wanted and we saw this influx of people writing in current 1776 and we saw that it was a it was a large amount it was, you know, the 1st month, maybe 1520 percent and it was pretty consistent, which as we scaled that became a rather significant number.

John Roman: So we we looked. This current 1776 up found him on YouTube cross checked our spreadsheet of the free boxes. He wasn't on there. Turns out he was actually a paying customer and he was just giving unbiased reviews. Um, this wasn't his full time gig. He was in the industry for a couple of decades, and this was his his nighttime relax and hobby, if you will.

John Roman: But we saw this. This, uh, I wouldn't say virality, but just engagement levels that were really high with his his once a month video review. Um, so that relationship is quickly blossomed it turn into. Hey, you don't have to pay anymore. We're going to send you the box for free to. Hey, we'll write you a check each month.

John Roman: Continue doing what you're doing. If you have questions, reach out to us 1st to try to control the narrative a little bit more. Um, and then the next step of it was, hey, this is kind of wild. Do you want to, um, quit your career, uh, move down to Georgia? Um, and we were family and wife, three kids and do this full time.

John Roman: Um, and he, he, he luckily for arguably all of us agreed came down and it was at that point. So that was, um, towards the middle ladder part of 2016 when the relationship took that, that, um, new form. And from that point. It was okay. We've now seen a year and a half worth of data that these unbiased organic YouTube reviews that are video are giving us traction.

John Roman: We saw that his videos did the same thing, but on a higher level. So how do we leverage this? So when he came in full time, it was how much content can we do and how much can we put out and how can we really. Educate and lead and indirectly soft sell, um, the brand with, with video and, you know, at the time, a lot's changed since 2016, but at the time it was Brandon was part of the table, so he was the camera guy, he was the guy in the, he was the face, he was the editor, he was the guy posting it on social, obviously that's changed a lot, but, uh, Yeah, that was the initial approach.

John Roman: And we just quickly saw success. You know, a lot of it, people listening might be like, well, yeah, of course you do that. Um, but in 2015, 2016, that wasn't necessarily the known best practice. 

Claus Lauter: No, absolutely. I think user generated content was not even a word back in that time. Yeah. So, uh, you were basically far ahead of the curve and.

Claus Lauter: In 2015, 2016, there were no stories. There were no wheels. There was definitely no tick tock. So all of that came much, much later now with all these new tools that are around, um, how much has. Your approach on video marketing changed with new platforms with new formats and so on and so forth. 

John Roman: Yeah, so it's, it's, it's changed.

John Roman: It's changed a lot. So, you know, back then, our entire strategy was, was long form, um, traditional horizontal content, you know, as we progressed. Yes, we posted it on YouTube, but we would put it on all channels, um, as well. The channels that could support, um, long form video, like Facebook. Not all, not all could at the time.

John Roman: Now all of them can. And then, as we got Um, into the pandemic, you know, early 2020, we saw, uh, musically become tick talk and, and this tick tock app really changing the, the, the way consumers digest content. So, you know, early 2020, we, we grabbed the battle box handle on tick tock, and then we did nothing at all with it.

John Roman: Um, we sat on it for, for over a year and we just didn't know as we were, we were watching it closely, but we're not going to dance. That's all this app seemed at the time and we're like, okay, we're not gonna dance. So what can we do? And it took us a year to finally say, okay, this seems to be evolving and it seems to be changing Um and being more than just Uh an app for dancing so in in february 2021 We started posting content.

John Roman: Um, we we did a combination of of shooting new, you know vertical format videos And what we did for honestly the majority of our content. We took our existing horizontal long form, um, and we literally edited it where it was Short form vertical so we took our existing content You And we started, um, editing it to be sub a sub a minute and, and posting it on TikTok, taking different approaches, really a lot of testing and trying to find what would resonate, what would cause that virality, et cetera, the entire 2021.

John Roman: So all the way, almost through the end of the year, we had very little success. Um, we have a win here and there, but it was one win for, you know, a thousand losses. And, but we were getting smarter and, and every time we got a win, there was a new baseline of what, of what a bad performer would be, you know, initially it was 200 views and then we would always get 1000 views and then it just got higher and higher and the viral posts would do better and better and then.

John Roman: You know, towards the end of 2021, we had an inflection point, a tipping point where we really had a dialed in. We knew what the content needed to be. Um, not with 100 percent certainty, but knowing if we put 50 videos up, we know one or two or three of them are going to perform well, which is crazy to say that that's success, but, um, understanding TikToks algorithm, that's pretty close to success.

John Roman: So we went full gas and. Around the same time as TikTok was getting normalized and older consumers were using it, and it was more accepted, and there was content that wasn't just dancing, you saw, um, both Google and Facebook realize this, Meta and Alphabet realizing that this new kid on the block is, is possibly problematic, so what they both did was Is they made tweaks to their algorithm, um, they both at this point had a short form video product, um, Instagram, and I guess technically Facebook both had, both had, uh, Reels, and then YouTube had Shorts, and they both made the algorithm treat the short form video content, um, a little bit better than it probably was.

John Roman: If you were putting short form video content out, it was going to get more views than any of the other type of content on that platform. And we realized this. So we had been working February through, you know, November, December, all of this Tik TOK content. Well, we have hundreds of pieces of content. So we started then putting a distribution on Instagram reels and YouTube or Instagram reels and YouTube shorts, and all of a sudden we saw Most of the same stuff that did well on TikTok was doing well there.

John Roman: There were nuances. Some stuff was different, but we had all this content. So it was go, go, go. And we ran. Um, you know, by the end of that first year, we probably had, um, three, 400, 000 on tick tock 300, 000 on tick tock. Um, but we had taken YouTube and we had 50, 000 on YouTube. We were getting about 500 new subs a month and just repurposing that content.

John Roman: We were able to get up to a few hundred thousand, uh, in a very short order, six, eight weeks. And then Instagram, we were able to grow that. As well, and then we just rinse and repeat. And now, um, you know, fast forward, tick tock is keep saying we're really close to a million, um, hopefully we will be at a million soon.

John Roman: I think we're at 960, 970, 000. Um, YouTube we're at, uh, over 750, 000. So we've really leaned in, um, and, and figured it out, but it's still a work in progress. 

Claus Lauter: Hey, Claus here. Just a quick one. If you like the content of this episode, sign up for our free newsletter and become a Smarter Shopify Merchant in just 7 minutes per week.

Claus Lauter: We curate content from more than 50 sources, saving you hours of research and helping you stay on top of your e commerce game with the latest news, insights, and trends. Every Thursday in your inbox, 100 percent free. Join now at newsletter. ecommercecoffeebreak. com. That is newsletter. ecommercecoffeebreak.

Claus Lauter: com. And now back to the show. Very important. Thank you to mention this. Whenever a platform, no matter what platform it is, they're rolling out a new feature, they're pushing it for a while. Like it was with reels and stories and then sort of settles in something else comes, comes new. So you need to be in the right moment with the right content to do so.

Claus Lauter: You said you have a lot of content. You created a lot of content for a lot of our listeners. They're small, medium enterprises. Um, they probably don't have the resources or just give me an idea of what kind of resources, how many people did you have in the background? Was it people working internally for you or what agencies working?

Claus Lauter: What was the structure behind the curtain basically to create all of this content? 

John Roman: Sure. So yeah, so two things. So one great call out on when, when there's a new new feature. For a platform, they're going to, they're going to push it, right? Like they put these resources and they want it to be successful.

John Roman: They didn't roll it out for it to fail. So it's, it's keep your finger on the pulse with these things. Another, and there's always new ones, right? So first half of this year was TikTok shop and end of last year, like everyone was talking about it and TikTok was pushing it and the algorithm again, treated it better as better than it should have.

John Roman: And, um, you know, now YouTube shopping is being rolled out. So it'll be, it'll be interesting to see. They've made a couple attempts at this previously, so it'll be interesting to see if this is the new one that sticks. But if you're putting out content for it, You can know with certainty, it's going to be treated better than the content actually is.

John Roman: So take advantage of, um, so when, when I look back on, you know, behind the curtain for the 1st, when he's 16 for the 1st, 4 and a half years, um, really, it was just, just Brandon on the team. He was the camera guy. He was the face. He was the editor. He was the 1 that posted. Um, so he, he, he owned it from, from farmer table.

John Roman: Truly. Um, as we've scaled, you know, we've added additional layers. Um, so we, the first thing we did is we, we had a social media manager that now schedules the posts. Um, so he just had to shoot it, film it, edit it, and then hand it off. Um, and as we, and it was because we wanted to put out more content. So how do we take something off?

John Roman: Off Brandon's plate so we can put out more and then as we wanted to continue that we, we got a full time video editor. Um, that was the next next place when we did. So, at that point, he's just filming it. Um, video editor edits goes to social media poster. Um, and we've just continued to scale so so now we have we have 3 full time video editors.

John Roman: And we have two, two full time creators and then one, and then one poster. So it was a very slow and steady scale. And we only did it as, um, as it could be supported. The additional resources could be supported, um, with the revenue. So very conservative instead of the traditional go crazy, go big. Like we, we built it very slowly over, over nine years.

Claus Lauter: Okay. Now I like this approach. Um, so people do not need to be scared that they now need to take all the money in their hands to get a full time editor that comes over time as revenue grows. I 

John Roman: don't, yeah. And I don't think it's, it's needed today. It's, it's, they've made it so simple sometimes with editing.

John Roman: There's, um, a tool, a free tool. They have a, uh, it's, uh, it's a premium. You can buy a better version of it, but CapCut. Um, and there's some other tools too, where, uh, you can do so much editing. Like it's mind blowing. 

Claus Lauter: Like I want to pick up that would happen by my next question is like what kind of tools specifically AI tools are you using to just generate more volume on content for your business or for your viewers?

John Roman: Yeah, so there's um, so as far as the video editing, um, for AI, there hasn't been a time we've played around with a bunch, um, that that, you know, do some, some quick edits. Yeah. And, um, the reality is we haven't found one that we've kept. Um, when I look at AI tools we're using for content, Um, on traditional content we're using, Um, you know, the chat GPTs and the clods of the world for, um, for copy, for ads, uh, for iterations, uh, for emails.

John Roman: We do a lot of testing and, and, you know, it's a volume game to find what works. Um, Additional AI tools we use will do will occasionally do do voice. So whether it's whether it's text to text to voice where we're writing a script and then it's it's read, um, that's hit or miss. We've had a lot of success with, um, as an example, we did a commercial spot and there was a voiceover and we didn't want to use Brandon's voice.

John Roman: Um, we wanted a more traditional voice and I read the script, but we didn't want my voice either. Um, so I read it and then we used AI to change the tone and make it in a more. Professional polished sounding. 

Claus Lauter: Okay. No, that sounds good. Now, how important for you is the personal aspect of branding Brandon as the face of the brand, um, compared to just a normal marketing message going out?

John Roman: So I think it's huge, right? It's not a straightforward answer. I think you have to look at a couple of things. One, you have to look at You know, at least for a direct to consumer brand, you have to look at where the product falls on the need want scale and the farther it is from absolute mission critical need and in the want discretionary spending, I think the more important it is that you have to have some sort of connection with, with the consumer, with the buyer.

John Roman: And the easiest way to do that is with. Um humanizing the brand and you best way to do that is is through a face through a face or through almost a um, there's necessarily have to be a face but almost a behavior like a Certain behavior you look at um interesting example wendy's on x right? Like there's not the I mean, yes wendy's the face, but there's not an actual very rarely Do you see the social media manager showing themselves but it's this snarky attitude, right?

John Roman: And that's kind of the brand there For us, we, we wanted a human. We want to humanize it. Brandon has an amazing persona and personality and it's very contagious. And, um, and he truly loves the gear. So it's like a, it's a match made in heaven, right? He gets to talk and show this amazing gear. Um, so it just obviously resonates because he's not unique in, in the passion for outdoor gear.

Claus Lauter: Before we come to the end of the coffee break today, I want to ask you about the Outlook how video, obviously, I think in my opinion, is one of the most important marketing ways right now and going forward as well. How do you see other ways of content marketing? Um, Still surviving like blog post will that be something that will survive or will it vanish or what do you see coming up or leaving the marketing plate 

John Roman: so so I think video will continue being very important as you stated it's just an easy way to quickly digest content and it's really apparent you know across the globe that.

John Roman: That people like video content. People like to scroll on their phone and see multiple topics fairly quickly. Short attention span is, is the reality. Do I think the other forms of content go away? I don't. I think sometimes you do need traditional copy. To to convey a message. It needs a lot of times marketing messages do need to be read.

John Roman: And yes, you can put it as subtitles on a video, but I don't think we're at the point where people don't read the actual text copy as far as blog posts and articles. I don't think we're at a place where they're going away either. I would think that they still serve a huge purpose. So you look at, um, the obvious traditional SEO reasons, right, where, where people are Googling or searching and, and that content matters because the algorithm isn't at the point where it's only ingesting video and then extrapolating that into text.

John Roman: Now we might get there at some point. Um, but further validation of, of articles is, you know, you're seeing Google search queries go down. And, and chat GPT and other AI search tools, um, you know, open AI is rolling out their new search, um, tool, which is, which is interesting, but all that's doing is, is finding the answer.

John Roman: But again, it's not ingesting a lot of video and extrapolating it. It's looking for actual text copy. Um, so I think until AI gets to the point where it's just video ingestion, And it can accomplish the same. I don't think text is going anywhere anytime soon. So I think all of that copy still matters, matters greatly.

Claus Lauter: Okay. So the workload for our marketers are listening here is you still have to do the hard work post. You have to do everything. 

John Roman: Now, there are, there are AI tools where you can, um, dump a video in and get some great, so I think there's still ways to work smarter. 

Claus Lauter: Absolutely. Yeah. I think that's key is using AI to work smarter.

Claus Lauter: I'm using AI, basically in the same level, what you mentioned before all the tools every day, all the, and it just makes your life so much easier and save so much time. And, um, I think sometimes even the quality is much better than what I would do on my own. So from there, AI is definitely helping there.

Claus Lauter: Now you're also sharing a lot of, um, help for merchants out there on a podcast and on your own blog. Tell me a little bit about that. 

John Roman: Sure. Um, so yeah, so the, my blog is online. Queso. com. The approach towards there is that you see a lot of, um, you know, especially on X, a lot on LinkedIn too, where people are only sharing wins.

John Roman: And and and successes and I think that's a little toxic and not realistic. The reality is. Most people have a lot more losses than they have wins, and those losses are arguably more important because that's where the learnings are. That's how you get the information you need to attempt again to get that win.

John Roman: So really, the a lot of the blog is is focusing on learnings and losses and and more education and less less bragging. Um, and the pod, the podcast. So the, the awesome podcast awesome spelled is interesting. So it's, it's an e commerce centric podcast. The, the focus is interesting because it takes 4 different perspectives.

John Roman: So the A stands for agency. Um, so it's someone that runs an agency. Uh, S stands for SAS, software as a service. So someone that runs a software brand. Uh, O is operator, runs an e commerce direct to consumer brand. And M is marketer. So it's four different approaches towards, you know, problems in e commerce.

John Roman: And it's wild that so many things are looked at completely different, um, by the, you know, different pillars of the industry. Thank you. So it tries to give people well, well rounded, a well rounded answer to a problem. 

Claus Lauter: Absolutely. I think there's a very good approach. I'm a marketer, online marketer for 25 years.

Claus Lauter: When I talk to agency owners, eh, it's a different world over there. 

John Roman: It is. It's a totally different world. And sometimes we're not speaking the same language. So this hopes to like kind of bridge it together. 

Claus Lauter: Yeah, very good approach. I like that. Where can people find out more about you guys? 

John Roman: The podcast is ASOM pod.

John Roman: We're on all social media channels for myself, LinkedIn is, is where, where I'm the best at in the, uh, the most active, not, not very good at X. 

Claus Lauter: Okay, cool. Before we come to the end of the coffee break today, is there one final thought that you want to leave our listeners with? 

John Roman: I 

Claus Lauter: would 

John Roman: say on, on the going back to the content piece, I think it's, it's human nature and really easy to get paralysis by analysis and think that your content has to be perfect.

John Roman: Um, the reality is just hit the record button. Sometimes you don't even have to edit, just go. I think the concept that content has to be polished is, is false. Actually, consumers. And people digesting content appreciate when something is more real and genuine so Yes Use CapCut, use a video editor if it's, if it's easy and free, but don't get lost in it.

John Roman: Don't think you have to make this perfect finished product because the, the raw stuff, the genuine stuff where you can tell it's user generated and it's not some big organization making it, the real stuff performs better. And I prefer it performs better on, on B2B, it performs better on D2C. Um, People want that that human touch that that human element from everything to just go.

Claus Lauter: No, I think it's that. Yeah, I agree with you. It definitely makes the life of a big Coca Cola's brands out of the world very difficult because now one of a sudden you as a small DTC brand can compete with them and even be better than what they produce. And I think that's a big advantage in today's market.

Claus Lauter: John, thanks so much for your time today. Um, I would put the links in the show notes as always. So you will be only one click away and I hope a lot of listeners will reach out to you and check out what you do on your blog, on your podcast, and also check out your brand to see the long way where you have come.

Claus Lauter: Thanks so much. 

John Roman: Thanks for having me. 

Claus Lauter: Hey, Claus here. Thank you for joining me on another episode of the e commerce coffee break podcast. Before you go, I'd like to ask two things from you. First, please help me with the algorithm so I can bring more impactful guests on the show. It will make it also easier for others to discover the podcast.

Claus Lauter: Simply like, comment and subscribe in the app you're using to listen to the podcast and even better if you could leave a rating. And finally, sign up for our free newsletter and become a Smarter Shopify merchant in just seven minutes per week. We create content from more than 50 sources, saving you hours of research and helping you stay on top of your e commerce game with the latest news, insights, and trends.

Claus Lauter: Every Thursday in your inbox, 100 percent free. Join now at newsletter. ecommercecoffeebreak. com. That is newsletter. ecommercecoffeebreak. com. Thanks again, and I'll catch you in the next episode. Have a good one.