Contact Coffee Co
In the episode, we talk to Luke Dalton, co-founder of Contact Coffee, a veteran-owned coffee company run by former Royal Marines!
We explore concepts like why it’s important to put a face to your brand, how to establish topical authority, the power of content, and how to work with micro-influencers.
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00:00:01 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Hiatus.Design, website design and brand studio
Hi, I'm Chris, director at Hiatus.Design, a website design and branding studio that builds incredible. Brands. We wanted to document, innovative and disruptive ideas for a successful companies to help startups get a strong market position as quickly as possible. In this episode, we talked to Luke Dalton, co-founder of Contact Coffee, a veteran owned coffee company.
00:00:20 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Hiatus.Design, website design and brand studio
Run by former.
00:00:20 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Hiatus.Design, website design and brand studio
Royal Marines.
00:00:22 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Hiatus.Design, website design and brand studio
Concepts like why it's important for based on your brand, how to establish topical authority, the power of content, and how to work with micro influences.
00:00:44 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Hiatus.Design, website design and brand studio
Hey, look good. See gamify. How's it going?
00:00:47 Luke Dalton, co-founder of Contact Coffee, a veteran-owned coffee company run by former Royal Marines
Hello, you're very good. How are you?
00:00:48 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Hiatus.Design, website design and brand studio
Not too bad. I'm doing the onset of winter now and the the early evenings and the hot chocolate and well. But it's good to see you again and obviously we've been working together over the last few months on brand and stuff. So I was I was making keen to get you on the podcast at some point and help kind of share so.
00:00:51
Yeah.
00:00:54 Luke Dalton, co-founder of Contact Coffee, a veteran-owned coffee company run by former Royal Marines
Yeah, exactly. Yeah.
00:01:04 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Hiatus.Design, website design and brand studio
Of these, you know these these lessons you've learned along your journey and use it to help other veteran owned startups and scale ups on their journey for things they might be trying that might be.
00:01:14 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Hiatus.Design, website design and brand studio
Working so I guess.
00:01:16 Luke Dalton, co-founder of Contact Coffee, a veteran-owned coffee company run by former Royal Marines
We are definitely now appreciate it all.
00:01:17 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Hiatus.Design, website design and brand studio
So well, I guess just to kick us off, can you tell us a little bit more about contact coffee?
00:01:23 Luke Dalton, co-founder of Contact Coffee, a veteran-owned coffee company run by former Royal Marines
Yeah. So essentially we're the original military coffee company and essentially we provide robust gear and coffee to be enjoyed in any environment. So buy a new appointment, you might mean war zones or the Atlantic or the deserts or even the score them.
00:01:39 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Hiatus.Design, website design and brand studio
Yes.
00:01:42 Luke Dalton, co-founder of Contact Coffee, a veteran-owned coffee company run by former Royal Marines
So we're sort of opening up.
00:01:44 Luke Dalton, co-founder of Contact Coffee, a veteran-owned coffee company run by former Royal Marines
To anyone, basically anyone that needs to operate on coffee.
00:01:47 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Hiatus.Design, website design and brand studio
Yeah, yeah. And I just wanna. I wanna jump on. So you said just then, like you, you said the the original British military Coffee company and and that was that was exactly what I saw. When I think it's going.
00:01:58 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Hiatus.Design, website design and brand studio
Back.
00:01:58 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Hiatus.Design, website design and brand studio
To like six years ago, like 5 or 6 years ago when I first became aware of of contact.
00:02:04 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Hiatus.Design, website design and brand studio
Coffee. I was like, I obviously saw the saw, the branding for it saw the messaging and was like, this is brilliant. This is like there's no one has has made like, a a tribe specific like, you know, community specific coffee before. And I love the I love going like, you know, the gritty texture that came out with it the, the on brand messaging and obviously as next as both ex boot next.
00:02:24 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Hiatus.Design, website design and brand studio
You know, I was like, I was like, I would if this is politics behind this is all this is awesome.
00:02:30 Luke Dalton, co-founder of Contact Coffee, a veteran-owned coffee company run by former Royal Marines
Yeah, yeah, we spelt coffee wrong. Yeah. Yeah, probably.
00:02:36 Luke Dalton, co-founder of Contact Coffee, a veteran-owned coffee company run by former Royal Marines
Right. I mean that that was it. I mean that might have been a little big, but just sort of a bit of a chest out that would be where the original British one obviously keyword British there because there's there's no surprises or hiding from there's quite a decent.
00:02:42 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Hiatus.Design, website design and brand studio
Yeah.
00:02:50 Luke Dalton, co-founder of Contact Coffee, a veteran-owned coffee company run by former Royal Marines
Company in America that may have inspired us, but again, that's that's why we created it is.
00:02:56 Luke Dalton, co-founder of Contact Coffee, a veteran-owned coffee company run by former Royal Marines
Because I was, I was. I was in Afghanistan at the time and and I spotted one of these mugs and I thought I was really cool. Like, like again, like you just said about our company for let's go up and resonate to it. Went to buy some obviously cause it was from the states. It was ridiculously expensive. And then the import tax and everything. So it was it was looking at like 3540 good for.
00:03:16 Luke Dalton, co-founder of Contact Coffee, a veteran-owned coffee company run by former Royal Marines
I think I was a bit like, well, stuff is a UK stockist. Is it even a UK company? And as I'm doing that sort of research, a little bit of an entrepreneurial spark. Yeah, just sort of started contact coffee. So a bit of a gap in the market.
00:03:31 Luke Dalton, co-founder of Contact Coffee, a veteran-owned coffee company run by former Royal Marines
Then yeah, bold of it. And here we are today. So for eight years done.
00:03:33
Yeah.
00:03:36 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Hiatus.Design, website design and brand studio
Well, yeah. What? What was like the what, what?
00:03:39 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Hiatus.Design, website design and brand studio
Do those first.
00:03:39 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Hiatus.Design, website design and brand studio
Few bags kind of look look like look like where you say you you highlighted them. It was something you started off, you know, on a on a on a a bit of a whim. So like, what does the what are the first iterations of contact coffee look like?
00:03:54 Luke Dalton, co-founder of Contact Coffee, a veteran-owned coffee company run by former Royal Marines
Accent problem. So yeah, essentially just applying black coffee bag with a white label just sort of slapped on the front, probably slightly on the and. Yeah, just some Johnny Edge 5 sort of drawing and times new Roman text and that that is exactly what is it.
00:04:12 Luke Dalton, co-founder of Contact Coffee, a veteran-owned coffee company run by former Royal Marines
I put I posted on my LinkedIn not long ago about sort of progression and sort of where we started, where we are now.
00:04:18 Luke Dalton, co-founder of Contact Coffee, a veteran-owned coffee company run by former Royal Marines
And yeah, we've come a a long, long way. But again, we knew we knew nothing about coffee, knew nothing about business, pretty much just had the idea. The first thing we did was go onto Instagram, create an Instagram account. So we did everything sort of backwards and and wrong, so to speak. If if there's a wrong way of doing things. So yeah, we just sort of.
00:04:37 Luke Dalton, co-founder of Contact Coffee, a veteran-owned coffee company run by former Royal Marines
Hard target through it and just did it all. All disjointed. And yeah, the first the first bags going back to your question, the the first bags were terrible.
00:04:44 Luke Dalton, co-founder of Contact Coffee, a veteran-owned coffee company run by former Royal Marines
I think our first order was like 10, which we just sort of drunken gave to our friends.
00:04:49 Luke Dalton, co-founder of Contact Coffee, a veteran-owned coffee company run by former Royal Marines
And then trying to.
00:04:50 Luke Dalton, co-founder of Contact Coffee, a veteran-owned coffee company run by former Royal Marines
Sell some random people in the runs on Instagram. So yeah, it's quite funny looking back, but yeah, we've we've come a long way, especially if it comes.
00:04:56 Luke Dalton, co-founder of Contact Coffee, a veteran-owned coffee company run by former Royal Marines
To the visual sort of thing.
00:04:57 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Hiatus.Design, website design and brand studio
Yeah, it's brilliant. I I think it. I think it's inspiring to like you know, it's not easy to put yourself out there and just try, you know, something new, which is something you don't, you know, necessarily know too much about. So I think there's, you know, there's something definitely inspiring and and judging by you know how how big and how well far reaching the the the companies doing these days, you know, I think it's like.
00:05:17 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Hiatus.Design, website design and brand studio
Really, it's it found a niche and and really kind of grew into that, didn't it?
00:05:21 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Hiatus.Design, website design and brand studio
So.
00:05:22 Luke Dalton, co-founder of Contact Coffee, a veteran-owned coffee company run by former Royal Marines
Yeah, I think that naivety helps as well. I think if you know too much, you sort of talk your way out things like like yourself. If you were to start your business from now, you'd you'd know too much and you'd be caught edging on the on the on course just to do certain things and certain decisions. So I think if you just you go and enjoy with no idea what you're doing, you just sort of like.
00:05:27
Yeah.
00:05:42 Luke Dalton, co-founder of Contact Coffee, a veteran-owned coffee company run by former Royal Marines
If you don't use Katie, you just wanna do everything. So yeah. Also, I've also missed that now, because everything that I'm I do now is that I'm. I'm thinking too much about stuff and maybe talking myself out of it. But yeah, when?
00:05:54 Luke Dalton, co-founder of Contact Coffee, a veteran-owned coffee company run by former Royal Marines
Sort of get no commitments. Got nothing to lose either. It's not like we had our life depended on. It was essentially a hobby that turned into a business on accident. There's no aspirations or anything for it to go to where it is now.
00:05:56
Yeah.
00:06:07 Luke Dalton, co-founder of Contact Coffee, a veteran-owned coffee company run by former Royal Marines
So yeah, for that naivety and just keenness, just sort of helps.
00:06:11 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Hiatus.Design, website design and brand studio
Yeah. Yeah. And that ability to experiment in the early days, isn't it? Where, like you don't feel the pressure of having an established brand? You're like, oh, I can try this font or I can try that colour or this this image.
00:06:20 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Hiatus.Design, website design and brand studio
Or and you you kind of then like you try different directions to find out what's what works and know like what the brand's all about, don't you? And I mean, I look back.
00:06:28 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Hiatus.Design, website design and brand studio
At our our.
00:06:29 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Hiatus.Design, website design and brand studio
First like 5 or 6 logos and they're so vastly different I could just see the, you know, they see the, like sort of us doing, you know, one thing like B2C companies, maybe then B2B companies and then.
00:06:40 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Hiatus.Design, website design and brand studio
They were just literally swung all over the place with the branding, so you know it's super important because it you got to experiment to find your your niche and you find your place.
00:06:50 Luke Dalton, co-founder of Contact Coffee, a veteran-owned coffee company run by former Royal Marines
Yeah, exactly. But at the time, that's the best logo you've.
00:06:52
OK.
00:06:53 Luke Dalton, co-founder of Contact Coffee, a veteran-owned coffee company run by former Royal Marines
Ever. Yeah, it's the best.
00:06:54 Luke Dalton, co-founder of Contact Coffee, a veteran-owned coffee company run by former Royal Marines
Product and I look back now and it you, you do, you do cringe and we get some people that message us and saying I've been been with you from the start and I'll send a picture of like one of the mugs from the very start or.
00:07:06 Luke Dalton, co-founder of Contact Coffee, a veteran-owned coffee company run by former Royal Marines
Yeah. And I'm just looking at some of that. It's.
00:07:09 Luke Dalton, co-founder of Contact Coffee, a veteran-owned coffee company run by former Royal Marines
Terrible. Like it's it's on the ****. It's like terrible. It's not even straight or like, the sizing's just totally.
00:07:16 Luke Dalton, co-founder of Contact Coffee, a veteran-owned coffee company run by former Royal Marines
Off and but at the time I imagine we opened the box of all the.
00:07:19 Luke Dalton, co-founder of Contact Coffee, a veteran-owned coffee company run by former Royal Marines
Mugs and yeah, yeah, there's there's a cost.
00:07:20
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:07:23 Luke Dalton, co-founder of Contact Coffee, a veteran-owned coffee company run by former Royal Marines
There's still some stuff on Google or for Google certain things, and they still pop up and I'm just like, oh, they need to disappear. But yeah, I think that it's quite nice to look back in it and yeah, but if you have a bad day or if you think things are going in that direction.
00:07:28
Yeah.
00:07:37 Luke Dalton, co-founder of Contact Coffee, a veteran-owned coffee company run by former Royal Marines
Could look back and go, OK, we've.
00:07:38 Luke Dalton, co-founder of Contact Coffee, a veteran-owned coffee company run by former Royal Marines
We've actually developed some.
00:07:40 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Hiatus.Design, website design and brand studio
Come a long way. Yeah. And then there's there's there's, like, a quite a big trend actually in in brands kind of telling their brand story, you know, which is like this is where we were.
00:07:42 Luke Dalton, co-founder of Contact Coffee, a veteran-owned coffee company run by former Royal Marines
Yeah.
00:07:48 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Hiatus.Design, website design and brand studio
You know, like five years ago. This is where we are now and not not. We're selling numbers and stuff, but like visuals and, you know, like posters and stuff, there's a there's a big, especially the outdoor scene. There's like a lot of companies like The North Face and the big players who are who are actually just reposting or recreating a lot of their old adverts from, like the 80s and 70s and stuff because they they realise it's got.
00:08:08 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Hiatus.Design, website design and brand studio
Nostalgic appeal to to, you know, to people now who are buying their gear, who are with them at.
00:08:13 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Hiatus.Design, website design and brand studio
The.
00:08:13 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Hiatus.Design, website design and brand studio
Start and really quite like that. That reminder of that. This is this was us like 30 or 40 years ago and this is and it helps their customers remind themselves of the save.
00:08:23 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Hiatus.Design, website design and brand studio
His name?
00:08:24 Luke Dalton, co-founder of Contact Coffee, a veteran-owned coffee company run by former Royal Marines
Yeah, exactly. I think it's that vulnerability. It's sort of quite in at the minute. I think just with any sort of influencers or just any company, it's think before it was always sort of quite peacocking and we are the best.
00:08:27
Good.
00:08:37 Luke Dalton, co-founder of Contact Coffee, a veteran-owned coffee company run by former Royal Marines
We are.
00:08:37 Luke Dalton, co-founder of Contact Coffee, a veteran-owned coffee company run by former Royal Marines
This.
00:08:37 Luke Dalton, co-founder of Contact Coffee, a veteran-owned coffee company run by former Royal Marines
But brands and people sort of starting to.
00:08:40 Luke Dalton, co-founder of Contact Coffee, a veteran-owned coffee company run by former Royal Marines
**** out themselves a bit and.
00:08:40 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Hiatus.Design, website design and brand studio
Yeah.
00:08:42 Luke Dalton, co-founder of Contact Coffee, a veteran-owned coffee company run by former Royal Marines
Open themselves up to that.
00:08:43 Luke Dalton, co-founder of Contact Coffee, a veteran-owned coffee company run by former Royal Marines
And the bullet inside look like this is what we were and it was pretty ****. But we're here.
00:08:48 Luke Dalton, co-founder of Contact Coffee, a veteran-owned coffee company run by former Royal Marines
And even if people making mistakes, I think brands are sort of holding the hands up to it and actually looking at stuff. So, OK, there's a marketing opportunity. We had them there, but I think the dog quite good at that. They made a mistake like the gold from the gold candies or.
00:08:54 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Hiatus.Design, website design and brand studio
Yeah.
00:09:00 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Hiatus.Design, website design and brand studio
Yeah.
00:09:01 Luke Dalton, co-founder of Contact Coffee, a veteran-owned coffee company run by former Royal Marines
Something.
00:09:02 Luke Dalton, co-founder of Contact Coffee, a veteran-owned coffee company run by former Royal Marines
Not long ago, he's held his hands up and made a bit of a joke about it. And as a as a PR.
00:09:08 Luke Dalton, co-founder of Contact Coffee, a veteran-owned coffee company run by former Royal Marines
Study like it did really, really well.
00:09:10 Luke Dalton, co-founder of Contact Coffee, a veteran-owned coffee company run by former Royal Marines
So yeah, I think things are changing, especially in digital marketing.
00:09:12 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Hiatus.Design, website design and brand studio
Yeah, 100%, I mean, yeah, 100%. I mean, I was just gonna bring up the example of like, liquid death, for example. You know, it's probably the most over studied brand I think.
00:09:15 Luke Dalton, co-founder of Contact Coffee, a veteran-owned coffee company run by former Royal Marines
Everything's an opportunity now.
00:09:22 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Hiatus.Design, website design and brand studio
Over the last like few.
00:09:23 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Hiatus.Design, website design and brand studio
Years as examples I can it's water and.
00:09:25 Luke Dalton, co-founder of Contact Coffee, a veteran-owned coffee company run by former Royal Marines
Closer.
00:09:25 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Hiatus.Design, website design and brand studio
It can, yeah. It's so ludicrously successful.
00:09:29 Luke Dalton, co-founder of Contact Coffee, a veteran-owned coffee company run by former Royal Marines
And The thing is, is, yeah, like years ago, if anyone, if they walked into any boardroom or any investment.
00:09:35 Luke Dalton, co-founder of Contact Coffee, a veteran-owned coffee company run by former Royal Marines
And said, well, this is what you're doing and what you can't reinvent the wheel like it's water. Yeah, somehow it's. I can't get my.
00:09:42 Luke Dalton, co-founder of Contact Coffee, a veteran-owned coffee company run by former Royal Marines
Head around it.
00:09:43 Luke Dalton, co-founder of Contact Coffee, a veteran-owned coffee company run by former Royal Marines
It took me a while to even realise it as well because obviously I saw it. I was I was another energy drink or something like that. And then keep saying it's quite active on LinkedIn and seeing all these these case studies and a lot of.
00:09:48
Yeah.
00:09:55 Luke Dalton, co-founder of Contact Coffee, a veteran-owned coffee company run by former Royal Marines
Brand influencers looking at it and analysing it. I'm just like, how have.
00:09:58 Luke Dalton, co-founder of Contact Coffee, a veteran-owned coffee company run by former Royal Marines
They done that, it's.
00:09:58
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:10:00 Luke Dalton, co-founder of Contact Coffee, a veteran-owned coffee company run by former Royal Marines
Like you said, it's just what?
00:10:02 Luke Dalton, co-founder of Contact Coffee, a veteran-owned coffee company run by former Royal Marines
So if I could do that well.
00:10:04 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Hiatus.Design, website design and brand studio
Yeah, yeah, that's that's I, I now hold up as like my example for anything that's like, you know.
00:10:10 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Hiatus.Design, website design and brand studio
If if you if you. If you can try something and then you know you find an idea that works off the back of it, then because the guy the guy found it the the inventor and I think his Mike name was Mike is he he came up with the idea after seat being on the Vans Warped Tour and seeing that there's loads of like bands drinking water out these cans but because of their their.
00:10:30 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Hiatus.Design, website design and brand studio
Their brand tie in with Monster Energy. They weren't allowed to drink like just bottled water, so they had to put water. You know, the the monster put bottled water into into their their metal tins. So when they're photographed, they were, they were all be looking at their drinking Monster Energy drinks, whereas actually their drinking.
00:10:42
OK.
00:10:47 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Hiatus.Design, website design and brand studio
And that's that's. That's what I see the the the the inventor was actually hanging around with them, I think as part of their their branding team and was like this like here and then it was like another six or seven years later he he actually had to go himself and just put water.
00:11:01 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Hiatus.Design, website design and brand studio
In a can.
00:11:02 Luke Dalton, co-founder of Contact Coffee, a veteran-owned coffee company run by former Royal Marines
That's crazy. Make make waterfall.
00:11:04 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Hiatus.Design, website design and brand studio
Exactly. Anyway, let me go on to the.
00:11:08
Yes.
00:11:11 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Hiatus.Design, website design and brand studio
Question.
00:11:12 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Hiatus.Design, website design and brand studio
The second question, sometimes you'll be.
00:11:13 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Hiatus.Design, website design and brand studio
And it's a Friday afternoon, so you'll be super busy. But look where the idea for the the company that brand come from. Like was it was it one of those things where you like, you know, how a moment where you knew the name came to you in like a dream or straight away or was it 1.
00:11:26 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Hiatus.Design, website design and brand studio
Of those, it took a long time to figure out the name.
00:11:30 Luke Dalton, co-founder of Contact Coffee, a veteran-owned coffee company run by former Royal Marines
Now. Now let me like I touched on it earlier. As I was in Afghanistan and I saw the the American version of us who was like on a mug and sort of started looking at it and then realised it wasn't.
00:11:42 Luke Dalton, co-founder of Contact Coffee, a veteran-owned coffee company run by former Royal Marines
And then that's where the sort of spark came for it. But again, I think I think that the reasons why we did it is obviously we all, we've all been away with fashion packs and sort of like your your three and ones and you're sort of like your instant coffee and then sort of prior to that Afghan going back another year or two was in the court.
00:12:02 Luke Dalton, co-founder of Contact Coffee, a veteran-owned coffee company run by former Royal Marines
Then we're after and we'd take coffee out. That's where sort of coffee started like this is where the coffee shops sort of pop, popping up, sort of the.
00:12:08 Luke Dalton, co-founder of Contact Coffee, a veteran-owned coffee company run by former Royal Marines
And sort of find ourself on an evening after that patrols and just sort of sitting down and making a coffee and sitting down with the French press and Raven knowing it, we were just sort of sitting there talking about the days you get to know each other, don't you know sort of talks?
00:12:19 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Hiatus.Design, website design and brand studio
Yeah, yeah.
00:12:20 Luke Dalton, co-founder of Contact Coffee, a veteran-owned coffee company run by former Royal Marines
When you've, when you've got minimal.
00:12:22 Luke Dalton, co-founder of Contact Coffee, a veteran-owned coffee company run by former Royal Marines
In there. So that's a sort of without knowing it.
00:12:24 Luke Dalton, co-founder of Contact Coffee, a veteran-owned coffee company run by former Royal Marines
Subconsciously are.
00:12:26 Luke Dalton, co-founder of Contact Coffee, a veteran-owned coffee company run by former Royal Marines
Sort of careers and.
00:12:28 Luke Dalton, co-founder of Contact Coffee, a veteran-owned coffee company run by former Royal Marines
Lois sounds got dramatically sort of revolved around coffee was coffee.
00:12:31 Luke Dalton, co-founder of Contact Coffee, a veteran-owned coffee company run by former Royal Marines
Involved. So I think that that opens up to other stuff and.
00:12:36 Luke Dalton, co-founder of Contact Coffee, a veteran-owned coffee company run by former Royal Marines
Being open with each other sort.
00:12:37 Luke Dalton, co-founder of Contact Coffee, a veteran-owned coffee company run by former Royal Marines
Of.
00:12:38 Luke Dalton, co-founder of Contact Coffee, a veteran-owned coffee company run by former Royal Marines
Blokes being open with each other and it's amazing what you get someone if you just sit down there with a with the goodness, if that's that's coffee or tea, don't have to sit there with a white board. But two blokes sit on the table with a coffee. It's. Yeah, it's mad that you can get out of each other. So yeah, that's that's basically where we started.
00:12:42
Yeah.
00:12:52 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Hiatus.Design, website design and brand studio
Send.
00:12:56 Luke Dalton, co-founder of Contact Coffee, a veteran-owned coffee company run by former Royal Marines
To sort of bring him around from coffee, trying to fight against the ship, coffee in the Russian past and and. Yeah. Like I said, no, no plan to sort of back on the flag packet, just forward forward some military terminology around trying to stick coffee on the end of it. Yeah. That's where the name came from as well. Obviously contact has to sort of.
00:13:01
Yes.
00:13:15
Yeah.
00:13:16 Luke Dalton, co-founder of Contact Coffee, a veteran-owned coffee company run by former Royal Marines
Meanings, yeah.
00:13:18 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Hiatus.Design, website design and brand studio
Brilliant. I mean, I I can see, like, there's there's a real there's, like a wider, wider piece there about kind of bringing people together over over a hot wet and it it reminds me of like, I rode across the Atlantic as part of an expedition. Some what, 7 years ago. And actually the the the actual act of making a coffee on board of like a little 7 metre raincoat, you know with.
00:13:38 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Hiatus.Design, website design and brand studio
An Aeropress and that it was about half an hour evolution a I kid you not, you know, because you're you're literally giving it this on this tiny little boat and then see elbows flying everywhere and using a jet boil that's kind of suspended on this metal contraption.
00:13:43
Yes.
00:13:46 Luke Dalton, co-founder of Contact Coffee, a veteran-owned coffee company run by former Royal Marines
Yeah.
00:13:51 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Hiatus.Design, website design and brand studio
And then obviously like obviously boiling some water up is hard enough and then actually using an Aeropress on board of this little tiny little boat, you know, it's even even harder, but it became this kind of form of economy actually where it was like, you know if you if you could see some was having a bad day, you were like like, OK, I'm going, I'm going to instead of sleeping in.
00:14:08 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Hiatus.Design, website design and brand studio
The in the cabin. I'm going to get out and I'm going to make.
00:14:11 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Hiatus.Design, website design and brand studio
So and so hot wet cause it's you know, it's super early in the morning and they'll mega appreciate a strong proper French press coffee. And I was like just a sound up.
00:14:20 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Hiatus.Design, website design and brand studio
By just just.
00:14:21 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Hiatus.Design, website design and brand studio
How you know how much social capital you could build with each other with as a?
00:14:24 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Hiatus.Design, website design and brand studio
Team, you know, just by making a a coffee. And I was like, so when when I saw contact coffee, I was like, this is brilliant. There's so much connection there for people who need, you know, who definitely need.
00:14:34 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Hiatus.Design, website design and brand studio
Caffeine.
00:14:36 Luke Dalton, co-founder of Contact Coffee, a veteran-owned coffee company run by former Royal Marines
Yeah, exactly. And what you said when you least expect it.
00:14:38 Luke Dalton, co-founder of Contact Coffee, a veteran-owned coffee company run by former Royal Marines
If you'll just.
00:14:39 Luke Dalton, co-founder of Contact Coffee, a veteran-owned coffee company run by former Royal Marines
Glad someone walks over to take away coffee and not just things of coffee next week. It's like.
00:14:45 Luke Dalton, co-founder of Contact Coffee, a veteran-owned coffee company run by former Royal Marines
Instant, right? That's how I feel.
00:14:45 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Hiatus.Design, website design and brand studio
Yeah.
00:14:48 Luke Dalton, co-founder of Contact Coffee, a veteran-owned coffee company run by former Royal Marines
Looking for when we get flowers, it's.
00:14:50 Luke Dalton, co-founder of Contact Coffee, a veteran-owned coffee company run by former Royal Marines
Like Ohh I said, nothing to.
00:14:52 Luke Dalton, co-founder of Contact Coffee, a veteran-owned coffee company run by former Royal Marines
It.
00:14:52 Luke Dalton, co-founder of Contact Coffee, a veteran-owned coffee company run by former Royal Marines
But yeah, I mean you mentioned that the process and it's it's probably different on a on a little boat across the Atlantic, but it's it's enjoying that process as well. It sort of it pulls you away from your desk, it pulls you away from that **** that you have and.
00:15:05 Luke Dalton, co-founder of Contact Coffee, a veteran-owned coffee company run by former Royal Marines
It pulls your life and whatever's happened on tour.
00:15:06 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Hiatus.Design, website design and brand studio
Yeah.
00:15:07 Luke Dalton, co-founder of Contact Coffee, a veteran-owned coffee company run by former Royal Marines
And essentially takes your mind off it for like 3 to 5 minutes. And then obviously after that sitting down with someone else for another 1015 while it while you're drinking, it's that it's that whole process and then sort of resets, recharges and then you crack on, which I think again resonates massively with the military community.
00:15:22 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Hiatus.Design, website design and brand studio
Yeah.
00:15:24 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Hiatus.Design, website design and brand studio
Yeah, I think I think Sydney as well now. It isn't like you know, I've got a coffee machine here, but actually praising the French press because it gets you away from the screen and do some with your hands where you could just do, you know, work on theoretical things.
00:15:36 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Hiatus.Design, website design and brand studio
Or you know.
00:15:37 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Hiatus.Design, website design and brand studio
You know computer files and actually didn't really feel like a sense of achievement at the end of the day or even, you know, up to lunchtime, so.
00:15:43 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Hiatus.Design, website design and brand studio
I kind of found myself actually edging more towards wanting to do things in my hand that you can see something you've achieved and it's just making a coffee.
00:15:50 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Hiatus.Design, website design and brand studio
Right.
00:15:51 Luke Dalton, co-founder of Contact Coffee, a veteran-owned coffee company run by former Royal Marines
Yeah, it is. It's it's. It's that easy. You can be sucked into the laptop and then walk over to the kitchen, press a button, come back. It gets my girl, and then, I mean you've you've had 1015 seconds there, but if you physically have to go there, it sounds.
00:16:04 Luke Dalton, co-founder of Contact Coffee, a veteran-owned coffee company run by former Royal Marines
Like physical problems, but.
00:16:06 Luke Dalton, co-founder of Contact Coffee, a veteran-owned coffee company run by former Royal Marines
Physically put the coffee into an Aeropress and physically have to push it down. And so I mean, it's but it.
00:16:11 Luke Dalton, co-founder of Contact Coffee, a veteran-owned coffee company run by former Royal Marines
It pulls your life from.
00:16:14 Luke Dalton, co-founder of Contact Coffee, a veteran-owned coffee company run by former Royal Marines
So I think.
00:16:14 Luke Dalton, co-founder of Contact Coffee, a veteran-owned coffee company run by former Royal Marines
It's important just to take that time out.
00:16:16 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Hiatus.Design, website design and brand studio
Yeah, 100%. I mean my, my air place now goes on like every bike packing expedition or or like, you know, like, just just wild, wild, wild camping night out. The Aeropress comes, you know, the metal mug, the Aeropress, you know, obviously the jetpur goes everywhere anyway, but the. Yeah. But it's it's nothing like that in some rallies.
00:16:32 Luke Dalton, co-founder of Contact Coffee, a veteran-owned coffee company run by former Royal Marines
Yeah.
00:16:35 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Hiatus.Design, website design and brand studio
It's the sound of the The Jets all like growing up is is playing, but anybody there's like a decent confidentiality like oh.
00:16:36 Luke Dalton, co-founder of Contact Coffee, a veteran-owned coffee company run by former Royal Marines
Yeah.
00:16:38 Luke Dalton, co-founder of Contact Coffee, a veteran-owned coffee company run by former Royal Marines
Yeah, exactly so.
00:16:41
Yes.
00:16:43 Luke Dalton, co-founder of Contact Coffee, a veteran-owned coffee company run by former Royal Marines
Book a very bit of kick, but then that I mean that's where we sort of adapted and ended up creating our our coffee bean bags and.
00:16:50 Luke Dalton, co-founder of Contact Coffee, a veteran-owned coffee company run by former Royal Marines
Which probably would have served you a lot better on that vote than in there at first, cause well we we supplied status Code 14, we did the Atlantic as well and they they took something to 300 and and then I spoke to Steven that since and they were saying it's the best thing they've ever had. Just again the morale. But they haven't got a message.
00:16:52
Yeah, yeah.
00:17:09
Yeah.
00:17:10 Luke Dalton, co-founder of Contact Coffee, a veteran-owned coffee company run by former Royal Marines
It's same concept to the tea bag. Get the chip boiled up Chuck some.
00:17:13 Luke Dalton, co-founder of Contact Coffee, a veteran-owned coffee company run by former Royal Marines
Of.
00:17:14 Luke Dalton, co-founder of Contact Coffee, a veteran-owned coffee company run by former Royal Marines
Them in it's instant well.
00:17:15 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Hiatus.Design, website design and brand studio
That's. Yeah, that's that's I love that.
00:17:18 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Hiatus.Design, website design and brand studio
Some of those those bags on our our trip now that probably be even easier, save a lot of sleep.
00:17:23 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Hiatus.Design, website design and brand studio
Time as well.
00:17:25 Luke Dalton, co-founder of Contact Coffee, a veteran-owned coffee company run by former Royal Marines
Yeah.
00:17:27 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Hiatus.Design, website design and brand studio
And it would just get on to the next question like how do how do customers and people find contact coffee? Like, what's like, how do they come into contact with a brand?
00:17:37 Luke Dalton, co-founder of Contact Coffee, a veteran-owned coffee company run by former Royal Marines
So initially, social media, I think we when we started we were sort of got in at.
00:17:42 Luke Dalton, co-founder of Contact Coffee, a veteran-owned coffee company run by former Royal Marines
The right time.
00:17:44
There.
00:17:45 Luke Dalton, co-founder of Contact Coffee, a veteran-owned coffee company run by former Royal Marines
There was no one sort of locals and there wasn't that many military bands to be found. It's quite it's very big in America, which is where we sort of started looking at it. And I think as it started to come to the UK, I think ourselves, HR 4K and it's girl stoic conditioning really sort of like the the early ones in. So originally social media.
00:18:05 Luke Dalton, co-founder of Contact Coffee, a veteran-owned coffee company run by former Royal Marines
I think as we've gone along, you've gotta think away from social media. Now I know it scares people and everyone thinks that whole life involves on social media, but especially since moving to the digital market in the past two years and knowing a lot more about SEO, yeah, Google's my best friend at.
00:18:21
Yes.
00:18:21 Luke Dalton, co-founder of Contact Coffee, a veteran-owned coffee company run by former Royal Marines
The minute.
00:18:23 Luke Dalton, co-founder of Contact Coffee, a veteran-owned coffee company run by former Royal Marines
And a lot of digital PR as well, which I suppose can sort of.
00:18:27 Luke Dalton, co-founder of Contact Coffee, a veteran-owned coffee company run by former Royal Marines
There's two umbrellas that there's the social media aspect, and then there's search. But yeah, I think search search really excites me at the minute and I think it has a bit more longevity, especially when you look at sort of like Twitter. I mean Facebook, everyone's on Facebook. I've been on Facebook for like 9-10 years and at the time, you're your life revolves on Facebook and I'll see a few names about MSN site.
00:18:39
Yeah.
00:18:48 Luke Dalton, co-founder of Contact Coffee, a veteran-owned coffee company run by former Royal Marines
Was the what the last day you are logged into MSN, but you you didn't know it. So there's there's God knows how many messages on there and emojis for and about MSN. But yeah, it's like nothing sort of lasts forever. So I think you put all your eggs in one.
00:19:00 Luke Dalton, co-founder of Contact Coffee, a veteran-owned coffee company run by former Royal Marines
Get, then you're just gonna get penalised and stuff and I hope that otherwise the algorithm's going now if you if you're not on it, you're just gonna get left behind and we've we've sort of felt that a little bit, whether that's.
00:19:13 Luke Dalton, co-founder of Contact Coffee, a veteran-owned coffee company run by former Royal Marines
Because of the sort of content we put out, touching sort of like military and that sort of controversial content, I think from a certain platform.
00:19:23 Luke Dalton, co-founder of Contact Coffee, a veteran-owned coffee company run by former Royal Marines
It's yeah, it's hard. I'm sort of fighting against it rather.
00:19:26 Luke Dalton, co-founder of Contact Coffee, a veteran-owned coffee company run by former Royal Marines
Than with it.
00:19:27 Luke Dalton, co-founder of Contact Coffee, a veteran-owned coffee company run by former Royal Marines
So yeah, just just keep our options open. But yeah, search is.
00:19:30 Luke Dalton, co-founder of Contact Coffee, a veteran-owned coffee company run by former Royal Marines
My is my new one right? Yeah.
00:19:30 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Hiatus.Design, website design and brand studio
Main one. Yeah, 100%. Yeah. And I I was. I was. I was kind of brought in to search fairly early on as well because I was I kind of because I realised that actually the the difference with search and social media is that search it kind of accrues value over time, doesn't it? So because Google trusts you.
00:19:46 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Hiatus.Design, website design and brand studio
Or and if you as long as your website is being updated relatively regularly, then you it sends the right signals to Google that they will then show your content when you put say put a query in where social media is almost the other way around is it whereas you make it it's it's kind of their momentarily it fleets away and then it's kind of it flows on the bottom of.
00:20:05 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Hiatus.Design, website design and brand studio
Your feed or.
00:20:06 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Hiatus.Design, website design and brand studio
I mean at the bottom of your person, and prayer is never gonna be seen again unless you've done a lot of hashtags.
00:20:12 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Hiatus.Design, website design and brand studio
To it, but that that's kind of like the the the longevity of of search like you say is that you can make the content once you can, you know go back and revisit it, edit it, update it and then it's it almost counts of fresh, there's fresh again, isn't it? So in Google's eyes, it's like you're putting new fresh content on there. So if I find one of the things we recommend.
00:20:30 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Hiatus.Design, website design and brand studio
Is.
00:20:30 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Hiatus.Design, website design and brand studio
Is to clients is like don't worry about.
00:20:33 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Hiatus.Design, website design and brand studio
Like paid ads straight away or or social media like really build out your SEO because that's the stuff which is going to propel you like six months down the line, 12 months down the line and 18 months and beyond. You know, it's just gonna keep on going up as the more Google trusts you.
00:20:48 Luke Dalton, co-founder of Contact Coffee, a veteran-owned coffee company run by former Royal Marines
Yeah, it's 100% long term strategy. I think. I mean you touched on PC there, but I think the minute it's not PPC you sort, you're seeing that ohh straight away SEO you're sort of working where you can get some quick wins but you're you're sort of working on the 612 like you said 18 month strategy sometimes especially when it comes.
00:21:05 Luke Dalton, co-founder of Contact Coffee, a veteran-owned coffee company run by former Royal Marines
To.
00:21:05 Luke Dalton, co-founder of Contact Coffee, a veteran-owned coffee company run by former Royal Marines
Backlinks and building topical authority.
00:21:08 Luke Dalton, co-founder of Contact Coffee, a veteran-owned coffee company run by former Royal Marines
It's a long game. We not again, I don't know quite a lot about SEO. Now I am an SEO.
00:21:15 Luke Dalton, co-founder of Contact Coffee, a veteran-owned coffee company run by former Royal Marines
So looking at our domain and what we sort of did in years, we we were doing quite well without even knowing.
00:21:20 Luke Dalton, co-founder of Contact Coffee, a veteran-owned coffee company run by former Royal Marines
Yeah, that we bought all caught some quite good authority. But for them, that knowing what I know now, they've invested a lot more time into the website.
00:21:21 Luke Dalton, co-founder of Contact Coffee, a veteran-owned coffee company run by former Royal Marines
So.
00:21:34 Luke Dalton, co-founder of Contact Coffee, a veteran-owned coffee company run by former Royal Marines
Like I said, building that domain authority backlinks digital PR. So like I said you you get an influencer, you pay an X amount.
00:21:41 Luke Dalton, co-founder of Contact Coffee, a veteran-owned coffee company run by former Royal Marines
We'll give them so much product and I'll post about you once and you'll get a few followers and then two weeks later that that.
00:21:46 Luke Dalton, co-founder of Contact Coffee, a veteran-owned coffee company run by former Royal Marines
Post.
00:21:47 Luke Dalton, co-founder of Contact Coffee, a veteran-owned coffee company run by former Royal Marines
Just sort of deep in in the Instagram archive, but if that was.
00:21:52 Luke Dalton, co-founder of Contact Coffee, a veteran-owned coffee company run by former Royal Marines
A link on a blog article that link would be there for 2345 years as long as that other domain lasts 4. So that's a a really strong signal to Google to say, OK this this website's legit people are linking to it. There's a reason why people are linking to it. So yeah, if that's a bit of an earlier.
00:22:11 Luke Dalton, co-founder of Contact Coffee, a veteran-owned coffee company run by former Royal Marines
Choices definitely invest time and effort into the into your website.
00:22:14 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Hiatus.Design, website design and brand studio
Yeah, 100 percent, 100%.
00:22:17 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Hiatus.Design, website design and brand studio
Great. Well, let's get me on to my.
00:22:18 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Hiatus.Design, website design and brand studio
Next question.
00:22:20 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Hiatus.Design, website design and brand studio
So how important have industry events and social media been resonating with your customer base over like the last since you've been going?
00:22:30 Luke Dalton, co-founder of Contact Coffee, a veteran-owned coffee company run by former Royal Marines
Things for the face. The brunt. I think that's that's quite key I think.
00:22:33 Luke Dalton, co-founder of Contact Coffee, a veteran-owned coffee company run by former Royal Marines
We're.
00:22:34 Luke Dalton, co-founder of Contact Coffee, a veteran-owned coffee company run by former Royal Marines
Again, maybe we started the myself and business partner is still serving.
00:22:38 Luke Dalton, co-founder of Contact Coffee, a veteran-owned coffee company run by former Royal Marines
The units that you have to be really, really cautious about what we did, especially the the content we were.
00:22:44 Luke Dalton, co-founder of Contact Coffee, a veteran-owned coffee company run by former Royal Marines
Putting out and.
00:22:45 Luke Dalton, co-founder of Contact Coffee, a veteran-owned coffee company run by former Royal Marines
Obviously, trying to keep ourselves in the dock, so to speak. So I think when we actually started moving into events, which annoyingly started to build a bit of traction pre COVID, yeah, it's actually putting face to the brand actually meeting people.
00:22:59 Luke Dalton, co-founder of Contact Coffee, a veteran-owned coffee company run by former Royal Marines
Well, sort of. Showing people that we, we are normal, we're not sort.
00:23:04 Luke Dalton, co-founder of Contact Coffee, a veteran-owned coffee company run by former Royal Marines
Of.
00:23:04 Luke Dalton, co-founder of Contact Coffee, a veteran-owned coffee company run by former Royal Marines
What people expect, and there's some some strange rumours going around the corner and stuff that we were driving around in some sort of, yeah. Yeah, some bad stuff. So yeah, we just sort of play for the rooms. But yeah, I thought it was good just to sort of get a face to face with people.
00:23:20 Luke Dalton, co-founder of Contact Coffee, a veteran-owned coffee company run by former Royal Marines
A lot of time, that's that's.
00:23:21 Luke Dalton, co-founder of Contact Coffee, a veteran-owned coffee company run by former Royal Marines
When?
00:23:22 Luke Dalton, co-founder of Contact Coffee, a veteran-owned coffee company run by former Royal Marines
The sort of veteran owned business Spark started flowing around, especially everyone sort of saw what we were doing and going OK. It's happening in the states. There's a there's a few companies.
00:23:32 Luke Dalton, co-founder of Contact Coffee, a veteran-owned coffee company run by former Royal Marines
Doing in the UK.
00:23:32 Luke Dalton, co-founder of Contact Coffee, a veteran-owned coffee company run by former Royal Marines
Now, so yeah, just just a lot of face to face a lot of resignation.
00:23:36 Luke Dalton, co-founder of Contact Coffee, a veteran-owned coffee company run by former Royal Marines
With people.
00:23:38 Luke Dalton, co-founder of Contact Coffee, a veteran-owned coffee company run by former Royal Marines
Like what we would need to do the same thing.
00:23:39 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Hiatus.Design, website design and brand studio
Yeah, 100%. I mean, we found exactly the same thing actually is that by by kind of showing the people behind the brand, you know behind the company actually is that is that people then trust you more and they realise actually you're.
00:23:49 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Hiatus.Design, website design and brand studio
You know you're not a scam because obviously, especially over like the last kind of five years during COVID, there's a, there's a lot of a lot of companies that were just like appearing out of nowhere and pretending to be these legit big companies that were, in fact, you know, actual scams. So I think kind of connecting like real people with real backgrounds, you know, real, like topical authority like you mentioned earlier.
00:24:02
Yeah.
00:24:10 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Hiatus.Design, website design and brand studio
With, you know this is what positions me to be able to do this service or deliver this product. It gives it so much more like trust ability and and and kind of likeability about the brand, doesn't it?
00:24:22 Luke Dalton, co-founder of Contact Coffee, a veteran-owned coffee company run by former Royal Marines
Yeah, exactly. I think it's similar to when you're a unit. If if there's a new lad comes to the unit, the first thing you asked the lads that's worked with before is was eagle like like how was he was good.
00:24:31 Luke Dalton, co-founder of Contact Coffee, a veteran-owned coffee company run by former Royal Marines
At.
00:24:31 Luke Dalton, co-founder of Contact Coffee, a veteran-owned coffee company run by former Royal Marines
His job and that's that's the same as. This is everyone just wants so reassurance that they're they're OK, they're good bloke and they're pretty genuine. And when you do it yourself, don't you paint a picture in your head? What someone's gonna be like?
00:24:42 Luke Dalton, co-founder of Contact Coffee, a veteran-owned coffee company run by former Royal Marines
Or what? They're. You think they're from social media? And then you meet them and you yours. I'm going.
00:24:46 Luke Dalton, co-founder of Contact Coffee, a veteran-owned coffee company run by former Royal Marines
To make it as well.
00:24:51 Luke Dalton, co-founder of Contact Coffee, a veteran-owned coffee company run by former Royal Marines
Love what? It's actually it's saying.
00:24:54 Luke Dalton, co-founder of Contact Coffee, a veteran-owned coffee company run by former Royal Marines
So I think it's better face to face and.
00:24:56 Luke Dalton, co-founder of Contact Coffee, a veteran-owned coffee company run by former Royal Marines
I think that's.
00:24:56 Luke Dalton, co-founder of Contact Coffee, a veteran-owned coffee company run by former Royal Marines
It's hard because everyone wants to do stuff. I mean like maybe doing this on zoom now. And yeah, I think I think it's important, especially if you can get down to Expos and these sort of networking events. I mean, networking events are quite.
00:24:58 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Hiatus.Design, website design and brand studio
Yeah.
00:25:09 Luke Dalton, co-founder of Contact Coffee, a veteran-owned coffee company run by former Royal Marines
Quite hot at the minute, especially military ones, and there's been next into businesses quite hot and it's quite a few other ones popping about. But yeah, I think if you can think it's important.
00:25:11 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Hiatus.Design, website design and brand studio
Yes.
00:25:17 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Hiatus.Design, website design and brand studio
And.
00:25:18 Luke Dalton, co-founder of Contact Coffee, a veteran-owned coffee company run by former Royal Marines
Skype show you.
00:25:19 Luke Dalton, co-founder of Contact Coffee, a veteran-owned coffee company run by former Royal Marines
Licence. Yeah, actually meet people.
00:25:20 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Hiatus.Design, website design and brand studio
Yeah, and yeah, we were talking before the end, before the podcast, actually, I think.
00:25:24 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Hiatus.Design, website design and brand studio
We we we really were.
00:25:26 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Hiatus.Design, website design and brand studio
Briefly met during the HR 4K kind of business event back in 2019, but it was it's long ago and I could have had quite a big mountain accident. Not long after that. So my memory is a bit hazy, but I remember from the.
00:25:32
Yeah.
00:25:40 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Hiatus.Design, website design and brand studio
Which is the event is it was you had lots of cool veteran owned companies and at.
00:25:46 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Hiatus.Design, website design and brand studio
You know Benz HR4K venue. And I was like, this is this is the future. Like things like this, you know, actual in person events. We can see people and actually get to see.
00:25:54 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Hiatus.Design, website design and brand studio
Like you know what? What? What?
00:25:56 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Hiatus.Design, website design and brand studio
Personality is behind a brand in a way, isn't it? You can see what they're, you know, do they do they live up to the thing they're portraying outside or are they actually? Is it all a bit of smoke and mirrors? So yeah, I think it's.
00:26:06 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Hiatus.Design, website design and brand studio
Super important.
00:26:08 Luke Dalton, co-founder of Contact Coffee, a veteran-owned coffee company run by former Royal Marines
Yeah, exactly too far. The smoke and those things were actually quite paranoid about that. We didn't want. We don't want to make out, but we were someone we weren't or did what we didn't, if that makes sense. So we were very cautious about. We didn't want to make out, like essentially big time and.
00:26:19 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Hiatus.Design, website design and brand studio
Yeah, yeah.
00:26:25
Yeah.
00:26:27 Luke Dalton, co-founder of Contact Coffee, a veteran-owned coffee company run by former Royal Marines
And there's a lot of other bands that are sort of coming across like that and.
00:26:30 Luke Dalton, co-founder of Contact Coffee, a veteran-owned coffee company run by former Royal Marines
The Americanized and stuff. And we were like not American, even though it come down to the content it.
00:26:36 Luke Dalton, co-founder of Contact Coffee, a veteran-owned coffee company run by former Royal Marines
Was.
00:26:36 Luke Dalton, co-founder of Contact Coffee, a veteran-owned coffee company run by former Royal Marines
Sort of like we're not American. We've never used that piece of kit. We've never wore them like visions. We've never, we haven't gotta go. And at home we don't chop wood on the weekends. We don't drop shock. It's so, I mean, so we're just trying to be as.
00:26:50 Luke Dalton, co-founder of Contact Coffee, a veteran-owned coffee company run by former Royal Marines
Authentic as we could I.
00:26:51 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Hiatus.Design, website design and brand studio
Yeah.
00:26:51 Luke Dalton, co-founder of Contact Coffee, a veteran-owned coffee company run by former Royal Marines
Think people.
00:26:52 Luke Dalton, co-founder of Contact Coffee, a veteran-owned coffee company run by former Royal Marines
Are probably a bit shocked in the metals because they just like, OK, these are pretty genuine. I'm not trying to base.
00:26:57 Luke Dalton, co-founder of Contact Coffee, a veteran-owned coffee company run by former Royal Marines
They're not and.
00:26:59 Luke Dalton, co-founder of Contact Coffee, a veteran-owned coffee company run by former Royal Marines
That's why we tried to be sort of British and a bit authentic and.
00:27:01 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Hiatus.Design, website design and brand studio
Yeah. Yeah. And like, yeah, he always, like, adapts the adapt, the language and the the messaging and the the positioning to like what is actually us, you know, is that where, you know, British forces especially, especially boot necks. You know, we position ourselves on on that like, humility, that likability and that also like, you know, unselfish.
00:27:19 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Hiatus.Design, website design and brand studio
And and kind of like helping each other and being genuine, isn't it? So I think that's and that that really shines for in the brand as well. You know, I think it's it's something which if you see the videos then just it it comes across in the way the videos are produced the messaging the the images you use and the the colours and the fonts are so yeah it's.
00:27:36 Luke Dalton, co-founder of Contact Coffee, a veteran-owned coffee company run by former Royal Marines
Yeah, we don't take yourself too seriously ever again. I feel like I'm slightly.
00:27:43 Luke Dalton, co-founder of Contact Coffee, a veteran-owned coffee company run by former Royal Marines
Don't take yourself.
00:27:44 Luke Dalton, co-founder of Contact Coffee, a veteran-owned coffee company run by former Royal Marines
Out serious, we've.
00:27:44 Luke Dalton, co-founder of Contact Coffee, a veteran-owned coffee company run by former Royal Marines
Got tongue in cheek? Or take the **** out of ourselves just as much as anyone else. So yeah, that that was big for us. It's not not take business and our company too serious.
00:27:47 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Hiatus.Design, website design and brand studio
Yeah.
00:27:53 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Hiatus.Design, website design and brand studio
Yeah, same here.
00:27:54 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Hiatus.Design, website design and brand studio
Yeah. Well, I mean, it does get me actually quite convenient. So the next on the next question actually is is can understanding how the changing business landscape has pushed contact coffee to experiment with new approaches to raise its profile and we kind of mentioned some of them was really cool videos previously. So I don't know if you want to kind of jump on jump on and tell us more about that.
00:28:15 Luke Dalton, co-founder of Contact Coffee, a veteran-owned coffee company run by former Royal Marines
Yeah. I think again, when you mentioned it saying it's there's no one really doing that at the time and it was quite a big investment for us sort of investment at that level of videography there with the company that we used and and it works really, really well.
00:28:32 Luke Dalton, co-founder of Contact Coffee, a veteran-owned coffee company run by former Royal Marines
I mean to the point that again we we were sort of like the first sort of veteran UK companies that were knocking around. I think now there's there's so many we've used for ourselves, there's.
00:28:41 Luke Dalton, co-founder of Contact Coffee, a veteran-owned coffee company run by former Royal Marines
A lot.
00:28:41 Luke Dalton, co-founder of Contact Coffee, a veteran-owned coffee company run by former Royal Marines
Of military photographers, military videographers, and every company is doing their own geography and stuff. It's since the costs are all pretty simple. Yeah, but no one was doing it at the time.
00:28:52 Luke Dalton, co-founder of Contact Coffee, a veteran-owned coffee company run by former Royal Marines
Bus and we were getting the amount of comments we were getting and traction for me just saying ohh I thought this. I thought this was enough to join the order I thought this.
00:29:01 Luke Dalton, co-founder of Contact Coffee, a veteran-owned coffee company run by former Royal Marines
It's better than the girls we've been through that.
00:29:04 Luke Dalton, co-founder of Contact Coffee, a veteran-owned coffee company run by former Royal Marines
We get tackling things like.
00:29:06 Luke Dalton, co-founder of Contact Coffee, a veteran-owned coffee company run by former Royal Marines
Get contact coffee to the.
00:29:07 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Hiatus.Design, website design and brand studio
Next video, because the ones on.
00:29:08 Luke Dalton, co-founder of Contact Coffee, a veteran-owned coffee company run by former Royal Marines
TV in a minute. Oh gosh. And it's.
00:29:10 Luke Dalton, co-founder of Contact Coffee, a veteran-owned coffee company run by former Royal Marines
Just like because it's.
00:29:12 Luke Dalton, co-founder of Contact Coffee, a veteran-owned coffee company run by former Royal Marines
Got great controversy around the the ads at the time was always there cause I think they're just trying to get be a bit too soft and yeah, yeah.
00:29:18 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Hiatus.Design, website design and brand studio
Miss yeah.
00:29:20 Luke Dalton, co-founder of Contact Coffee, a veteran-owned coffee company run by former Royal Marines
Yeah, alright. Contact coffee for president.
00:29:25 Luke Dalton, co-founder of Contact Coffee, a veteran-owned coffee company run by former Royal Marines
For that, that really helped us a lot and it really helped us portray what we were about as well. Again, we weren't. We didn't come from a business background. We had no sort of brand or marketing experience. So we knew what we wanted to say. We just think quite nice to say it. So I think investing in.
00:29:43 Luke Dalton, co-founder of Contact Coffee, a veteran-owned coffee company run by former Royal Marines
Into that and into professionals that are clearly better than us, and that helped a lot. And I think that's that's what we try and do now, especially me personally is me. That's not good at everything and work with people or.
00:29:55 Luke Dalton, co-founder of Contact Coffee, a veteran-owned coffee company run by former Royal Marines
Employ people are battling there. So I mean that works quite well for me and yeah.
00:29:57
Yeah.
00:30:00 Luke Dalton, co-founder of Contact Coffee, a veteran-owned coffee company run by former Royal Marines
Alright.
00:30:04 Luke Dalton, co-founder of Contact Coffee, a veteran-owned coffee company run by former Royal Marines
Alright.
00:30:05 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Hiatus.Design, website design and brand studio
I needed that.
00:30:06 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Hiatus.Design, website design and brand studio
That was that was like 10 times more that we usually get from, you know, from from clients, you know, sometimes it can just be a a, you know, Chris, can he can you guys do you know this this image or produce this work on the website and you're like Oh yeah, can you just expand on that and and then go dead, you know, they'll.
00:30:12
Yeah.
00:30:21 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Hiatus.Design, website design and brand studio
Be.
00:30:21 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Hiatus.Design, website design and brand studio
Like, OK, cool. I'll just. I'll just do what I think is right.
00:30:24 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Hiatus.Design, website design and brand studio
Deliver that kind of hope it it's in the right ballpark.
00:30:25
Yeah.
00:30:27 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Hiatus.Design, website design and brand studio
And yeah, you know, when you give us that, that style board, I was like, Oh my God, this is brilliant. This is to say, like, did you get this? But give us this again in the future. That's really helpful to to exactly what you kind of after so.
00:30:45 Luke Dalton, co-founder of Contact Coffee, a veteran-owned coffee company run by former Royal Marines
Good.
00:30:47 Luke Dalton, co-founder of Contact Coffee, a veteran-owned coffee company run by former Royal Marines
My father.
00:30:47 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Hiatus.Design, website design and brand studio
Yeah, yeah, love it. But I would just saying that I think in the but the the videos are so good because they they.
00:30:54 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Hiatus.Design, website design and brand studio
They gave, like your vibe. You know, it sounds a bit Chad. Excuse me, but it kind of it gives, like, the vibe of the company when sometimes the images and, you know, like posters can can do so much and they can, they can communicate about a company. But when you see moving image like animations or video is it, it's just the next level of you know.
00:31:11 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Hiatus.Design, website design and brand studio
This.
00:31:11 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Hiatus.Design, website design and brand studio
Is this is what is the company is all about so.
00:31:15 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Hiatus.Design, website design and brand studio
I remember. I remember when I seeing them and I was like, honestly thought they were recruitment video for the core because I was like, these are really well produced like, these are really good, you know. And I ran. I ran recruit for for the for the Marines back in 2012 for the for the Olympic.
00:31:21
Yeah.
00:31:27 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Hiatus.Design, website design and brand studio
Yeah. And I was like ohh wow, it's it's the same. The same agency that we used back then to do this. Yeah, it's like.
00:31:34 Luke Dalton, co-founder of Contact Coffee, a veteran-owned coffee company run by former Royal Marines
They are now the quality of it is again, at the time it was a big investment.
00:31:38 Luke Dalton, co-founder of Contact Coffee, a veteran-owned coffee company run by former Royal Marines
For us.
00:31:38 Luke Dalton, co-founder of Contact Coffee, a veteran-owned coffee company run by former Royal Marines
But you? Yeah, you'd be paying 10X what we paid that way for that, that quality of video. And then the the kit and the equipment and like the the lads that were doing the the filming. But yeah, I think at the time no one was really doing it, I think video.
00:31:41 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Hiatus.Design, website design and brand studio
Yeah, yeah.
00:31:53 Luke Dalton, co-founder of Contact Coffee, a veteran-owned coffee company run by former Royal Marines
And and obviously social media favours video at the minute.
00:31:57 Luke Dalton, co-founder of Contact Coffee, a veteran-owned coffee company run by former Royal Marines
So.
00:31:58 Luke Dalton, co-founder of Contact Coffee, a veteran-owned coffee company run by former Royal Marines
It it, it's hard to stand out.
00:32:00 Luke Dalton, co-founder of Contact Coffee, a veteran-owned coffee company run by former Royal Marines
And like I said, especially with within that sort of like military nation, whether that's a company that's making gear, coffee, just genetic T-shirts or even like chess, that they're all all very single. Now there's any sandwich you can do, Simon. Sounds cost it. There's any sign, any videos you can do for CrossFit. And it all became very same. It's like, oh, what we'll do is get a bloke to walk in the gym, do some stretching.
00:32:13
Yeah.
00:32:21 Luke Dalton, co-founder of Contact Coffee, a veteran-owned coffee company run by former Royal Marines
It's like, yeah, but then now every single possible there is, like, walking in the gym, doing some stretching. It's like there's only so much you can do. And I'm. Yeah, I feel like that a little bit more, that sort of stuff. So yeah, I think you just gotta keep adapting. And you've obviously got.
00:32:31
Good.
00:32:36 Luke Dalton, co-founder of Contact Coffee, a veteran-owned coffee company run by former Royal Marines
You're gonna set trends. Everyone's gonna jump on it, but you just need to step right quicker than everyone else and try to get get there first for someone else. But yeah, I'm not too sure where you stand without moving slightly more towards the coffee as opposed to the the military aspect of it. Well, that's me. Just sort of being being out for a bit longer now and sort of losing touch.
00:32:50
Yeah, yeah.
00:32:56 Luke Dalton, co-founder of Contact Coffee, a veteran-owned coffee company run by former Royal Marines
And I think when Jose knows.
00:32:58 Luke Dalton, co-founder of Contact Coffee, a veteran-owned coffee company run by former Royal Marines
I was aware of what was happening within the military and you, you get you get trends within the military. What lads are currently wearing and all that sort of stuff, but yeah, maybe because I've been out a bit longer now, I'm sort of looking sort of the outdoor space and what's happening over there and just, you know, trying to adapt to everyone.
00:33:12
Yeah.
00:33:13 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Hiatus.Design, website design and brand studio
Yeah. Define Wilson. Well, I mean, the does actually get into the community on to the next question actually is like, do you, do you see the business launching new products or services based on the success, all the market changes that you can share with us and that no pressure to to highlight?
00:33:28
Connect.
00:33:31 Luke Dalton, co-founder of Contact Coffee, a veteran-owned coffee company run by former Royal Marines
Madam, I I think the collaboration's quite big and I think you see that in marketing as it is now. I think there's so many different collaborations and digital marketers quite like it when they seeing all these new collabs, you get a lot in the like the drinks world like clothing made and clothing have been for a while like you.
00:33:46
Yeah.
00:33:49 Luke Dalton, co-founder of Contact Coffee, a veteran-owned coffee company run by former Royal Marines
Sort of get like.
00:33:50 Luke Dalton, co-founder of Contact Coffee, a veteran-owned coffee company run by former Royal Marines
Added last joined on the Gucci and that sort of thing. I think it's just just share.
00:33:51 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Hiatus.Design, website design and brand studio
Yeah.
00:33:55 Luke Dalton, co-founder of Contact Coffee, a veteran-owned coffee company run by former Royal Marines
And that.
00:33:56 Luke Dalton, co-founder of Contact Coffee, a veteran-owned coffee company run by former Royal Marines
Showing that industry coverage with other companies, I think it's quite a clever way of doing things.
00:34:02 Luke Dalton, co-founder of Contact Coffee, a veteran-owned coffee company run by former Royal Marines
And I don't mean go out there and club with someone every single week, so again, it's gotta be authentic. It's got makes sense, you look.
00:34:07 Luke Dalton, co-founder of Contact Coffee, a veteran-owned coffee company run by former Royal Marines
At some collabs and you think.
00:34:09 Luke Dalton, co-founder of Contact Coffee, a veteran-owned coffee company run by former Royal Marines
That's sort of something there to get it.
00:34:11
Yeah.
00:34:13 Luke Dalton, co-founder of Contact Coffee, a veteran-owned coffee company run by former Royal Marines
For yeah, I think if you're having the right way, that's quite key, I think. So we've got, we've got a few bubbling out of other coffee companies which are quite exciting, but it should be early next year. So again, just sort of sharing that industry coverage, trying to work together, evolving against each other.
00:34:31 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Hiatus.Design, website design and brand studio
Yeah, yeah.
00:34:34 Luke Dalton, co-founder of Contact Coffee, a veteran-owned coffee company run by former Royal Marines
And yeah, I think.
00:34:37 Luke Dalton, co-founder of Contact Coffee, a veteran-owned coffee company run by former Royal Marines
Yeah, moving into bespoke products as well, I think that's quite big. Everyone wants bespoke. So we've sort of looked at moving into, it's probably more B to B aspect of the business, but doing promotional assets so.
00:34:52 Luke Dalton, co-founder of Contact Coffee, a veteran-owned coffee company run by former Royal Marines
Looking at when you go to all these Expos, you get a lot of sort of like plastic products like like you get your pens, you get your bags and all that sorts of your stress balls.
00:34:59 Luke Dalton, co-founder of Contact Coffee, a veteran-owned coffee company run by former Royal Marines
Everyone's talking about sustainability and the money, and there's loads of companies saying they're they're carbon neutral. All this sort of stuff. And then you look down at the stand. And so I I went to a not long ago, I think it's a, it's actually a military procurement Expo and and there's this one it had like carbon neutral.
00:35:08
Yeah.
00:35:19 Luke Dalton, co-founder of Contact Coffee, a veteran-owned coffee company run by former Royal Marines
We are the first green this and.
00:35:21 Luke Dalton, co-founder of Contact Coffee, a veteran-owned coffee company run by former Royal Marines
We're going to see her and Alex.
00:35:22 Luke Dalton, co-founder of Contact Coffee, a veteran-owned coffee company run by former Royal Marines
Walked.
00:35:22 Luke Dalton, co-founder of Contact Coffee, a veteran-owned coffee company run by former Royal Marines
Up I was like, picked up a stress ball, so there's hyperbole and he's just like like, you know, made me to the looking at sort of making a little bit of noise in that area as well, which.
00:35:40 Luke Dalton, co-founder of Contact Coffee, a veteran-owned coffee company run by former Royal Marines
Was doing really, really well on B2B side of things, so.
00:35:44 Luke Dalton, co-founder of Contact Coffee, a veteran-owned coffee company run by former Royal Marines
Creating bespoke products for companies trying to get them to use them for commercial assets so it's fully sustainable. The coffee bags, sustainable packaging, totally reasonable supporting our business and then they can essentially have bespoke coffee with their branded QR codes website on it. So that's that's really good for us.
00:36:04 Luke Dalton, co-founder of Contact Coffee, a veteran-owned coffee company run by former Royal Marines
And of course, we're selling 3000 coffee bags to a company and then 3000 people are gonna drink one of our coffee. So we're essentially getting paid to give out samples to 2000 people. So it's it. It's quite a nice.
00:36:16 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Hiatus.Design, website design and brand studio
Kind of bundle, isn't it?
00:36:17 Luke Dalton, co-founder of Contact Coffee, a veteran-owned coffee company run by former Royal Marines
Quite a nice little place. Yeah. So that's something that we're building quite on quite a bit as well. So again, you don't just get sucked on to BTC sitting there waiting for everyone to land on the website or the Instagram.
00:36:27 Luke Dalton, co-founder of Contact Coffee, a veteran-owned coffee company run by former Royal Marines
Page you've got sort.
00:36:28 Luke Dalton, co-founder of Contact Coffee, a veteran-owned coffee company run by former Royal Marines
Of.
00:36:28 Luke Dalton, co-founder of Contact Coffee, a veteran-owned coffee company run by former Royal Marines
Actively be moving around, dipping your toe.
00:36:31 Luke Dalton, co-founder of Contact Coffee, a veteran-owned coffee company run by former Royal Marines
Into or pots.
00:36:31 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Hiatus.Design, website design and brand studio
Yeah, definitely. Yeah. And I remember seeing that on, I think I LinkedIn over the last few months, I can't remember which companies it was, but there there was then I think a fee that had got their own.
00:36:41 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Hiatus.Design, website design and brand studio
Kind of company branded contact coffee blends and I was like, that's such such a good idea because it's not only does it get increased brand awareness for obviously for your company, but also the other company is doing it gives something that's actually authentic and going to be used like you know I think of how many conferences or X-rays have been to and given you know the same BIC pen that's got you know like.
00:37:02 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Hiatus.Design, website design and brand studio
You know the white plastic penny of their company prints on the side of it, as if they expect you to use it, you know, take.
00:37:07 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Hiatus.Design, website design and brand studio
Around and then.
00:37:09 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Hiatus.Design, website design and brand studio
Use it somewhere else and you know, like the the stress balls like you say or the OR the cheap water.
00:37:13 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Hiatus.Design, website design and brand studio
Bottles, you know, they're just like and you kind of almost in almost sends a negative message out about the company. So doesn't it where it's like, you know, we we spent a whole pound on this, this really cheap plastic bottle that we're then giving or forcing on people into, like, goody bags or something. Whereas actually, if you get given, like, you know, coffee, coffee is something that everyone loves, you know, regardless of what people.
00:37:33 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Hiatus.Design, website design and brand studio
Say.
00:37:34 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Hiatus.Design, website design and brand studio
You know, like if if any company gave you like a fresh bag of coffee, you know, be like, this is the a way better way to like get brand awareness out there like 100% hundred times.
00:37:39 Luke Dalton, co-founder of Contact Coffee, a veteran-owned coffee company run by former Royal Marines
Yeah.
00:37:42
Yeah.
00:37:44 Luke Dalton, co-founder of Contact Coffee, a veteran-owned coffee company run by former Royal Marines
Yeah, exactly. And that bag of coffee is gonna sit on the side, and you're gonna sort of. I mean, there there's a touch point to get. I'm not. I'm not sort of. I don't know the in depth and sort of science around it. But there's there's sort of touch points you have to engage with.
00:37:47
Hmm.
00:37:57 Luke Dalton, co-founder of Contact Coffee, a veteran-owned coffee company run by former Royal Marines
The company so many.
00:37:57 Luke Dalton, co-founder of Contact Coffee, a veteran-owned coffee company run by former Royal Marines
Times we see their logo might be applied. Sometimes you might not more than logo.
00:37:57 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Hiatus.Design, website design and brand studio
Yes. Yeah.
00:38:03 Luke Dalton, co-founder of Contact Coffee, a veteran-owned coffee company run by former Royal Marines
So.
00:38:04
Well.
00:38:04 Luke Dalton, co-founder of Contact Coffee, a veteran-owned coffee company run by former Royal Marines
Given that pen, like I said, just going to get the drawers going, jump at the bottom of the bag, you having that coffee, you're going to revisit that coffee. So the initial mate, then you're gonna pick up the bag of coffee, probably look at it, talk about it and that's really cool. And then you gonna revisit that coffee 5 or 6 sometimes. So you've you've actually engaged with their logo, they've done in 6-7 times.
00:38:23 Luke Dalton, co-founder of Contact Coffee, a veteran-owned coffee company run by former Royal Marines
So you're more likely to revisit them or sort of throw down the line side. Yeah, it's a really interesting in product to to move into that space with and yeah, we're we're just trying to cause a bit of noise with it, which it it's doing quite well. Naturally, we sort of we're.
00:38:25 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Hiatus.Design, website design and brand studio
100 hundred 100.
00:38:36 Luke Dalton, co-founder of Contact Coffee, a veteran-owned coffee company run by former Royal Marines
Going towards a.
00:38:36 Luke Dalton, co-founder of Contact Coffee, a veteran-owned coffee company run by former Royal Marines
Lot of tech companies, a lot of military tech companies, just cause my.
00:38:41 Luke Dalton, co-founder of Contact Coffee, a veteran-owned coffee company run by former Royal Marines
So it's nice to see. It's nice to see just the popping up all over the place.
00:38:43 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Hiatus.Design, website design and brand studio
Brilliant. Yeah, there was also a kind of a psychological perspective as well. Is that the the kind of a lot of organisations are realising actually brand association is also important as well as much as you know you see a you see a brand you don't actually like encode it with a with a an emotion whereas actually if you if you can associate a brand.
00:39:04 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Hiatus.Design, website design and brand studio
Very strong positive emotion then actually you encode it and it's easy to retry.
00:39:08 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Hiatus.Design, website design and brand studio
So you're more like to remember that brand. So if if you go back to the idea of, you know, you give somebody a cheap plastic white pen, then what you're kind of communicating to them actually is that they don't really value that client very highly to give them, you know, the fact they give like a really cheap disposable white pen, whereas actually if you associate somebody with, like, coffee, then actually you've got positive associations.
00:39:09
OK.
00:39:30 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Hiatus.Design, website design and brand studio
You know the the the the memories encoded the memory of seeing your branding and their branding is encoded with positive memories of drinking coffee. So actually it's that the the, the, the the psychology shows it it's more like to bring that memory up when they see that that brand recall when they see the logo again because it's got attached to a a good memory so.
00:39:48 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Hiatus.Design, website design and brand studio
Yeah, there's a there's there's a load of neuroscience in this stuff, which we've been exploring in the last six months that like, you know, this is like revolutionises, like digital experiences, brand experiences, brand association, that I'm like, wow, this is. I never knew how how deep this goes.
00:40:04 Luke Dalton, co-founder of Contact Coffee, a veteran-owned coffee company run by former Royal Marines
Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's it's, it's that talking point, isn't it? Someone hands you a pen. You know, actually, I could do it. Comes from ship for me, like, oh, I could do components I've got. Sometimes your coffee. Like I've, I've. I've had these guys or. OK like who's that? And then I remember drinking coffee. Remember when like when I was in sort of back in the 80s and the coffee ship and it just sort of.
00:40:08 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Hiatus.Design, website design and brand studio
Yes.
00:40:22 Luke Dalton, co-founder of Contact Coffee, a veteran-owned coffee company run by former Royal Marines
Excited. Just.
00:40:23 Luke Dalton, co-founder of Contact Coffee, a veteran-owned coffee company run by former Royal Marines
Spot conversation. Just you're building reports right away without even knowing it. So yeah, I think it's good.
00:40:26
Yeah.
00:40:28 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Hiatus.Design, website design and brand studio
100% yeah, Nice as well.
00:40:30 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Hiatus.Design, website design and brand studio
And let's jump on to the to the the second.
00:40:33 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Hiatus.Design, website design and brand studio
To last question.
00:40:35 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Hiatus.Design, website design and brand studio
Now, what do you see as the main challenges to startups trying to grow and stand out in the current economic climate? Obviously, we've had a I, you know, come out over the last two years. We've seen like everyone on social media video, YouTube is obviously.
00:40:48 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Hiatus.Design, website design and brand studio
Exploding kind of.
00:40:49 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Hiatus.Design, website design and brand studio
How?
00:40:50 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Hiatus.Design, website design and brand studio
What kind of what kind of challenges do you see other startups of startups facing?
00:40:55 Luke Dalton, co-founder of Contact Coffee, a veteran-owned coffee company run by former Royal Marines
I think it's the noise, isn't it? I think you've really gotta stand back for the noise.
00:41:00 Luke Dalton, co-founder of Contact Coffee, a veteran-owned coffee company run by former Royal Marines
Now and it's.
00:41:00 Luke Dalton, co-founder of Contact Coffee, a veteran-owned coffee company run by former Royal Marines
It's. It's how you do it, you've.
00:41:02 Luke Dalton, co-founder of Contact Coffee, a veteran-owned coffee company run by former Royal Marines
Really.
00:41:02 Luke Dalton, co-founder of Contact Coffee, a veteran-owned coffee company run by former Royal Marines
Gotta think of how you're gonna do it. Like so there's there's so much video, so much content. Now there's there's just stuff float around. So I think you need, you need to. You need to resonate. You need to actually provide something.
00:41:10
Yeah.
00:41:15 Luke Dalton, co-founder of Contact Coffee, a veteran-owned coffee company run by former Royal Marines
More than just products, so again with myself SCR head.
00:41:19 Luke Dalton, co-founder of Contact Coffee, a veteran-owned coffee company run by former Royal Marines
A post on Instagram just sort of quite a cool photo. Just talking a little bit about your product. You're not really, you're not really providing anything but an article on your website about how to make that coffee the best tips to make that coffee the best bit of equipment to make it with useful links to.
00:41:26 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Hiatus.Design, website design and brand studio
Yeah.
00:41:38 Luke Dalton, co-founder of Contact Coffee, a veteran-owned coffee company run by former Royal Marines
Other articles or useful links to the products as well, and you actually provided something so.
00:41:44 Luke Dalton, co-founder of Contact Coffee, a veteran-owned coffee company run by former Royal Marines
And again it it's it's longer lasting so I.
00:41:45 Luke Dalton, co-founder of Contact Coffee, a veteran-owned coffee company run by former Royal Marines
Think.
00:41:46 Luke Dalton, co-founder of Contact Coffee, a veteran-owned coffee company run by former Royal Marines
Investing time and effort into your website. Useful content.
00:41:50
Yeah.
00:41:51 Luke Dalton, co-founder of Contact Coffee, a veteran-owned coffee company run by former Royal Marines
Is what you need to do. I think you've got. You've gotta have a. You gotta have a.
00:41:54 Luke Dalton, co-founder of Contact Coffee, a veteran-owned coffee company run by former Royal Marines
Presence on social.
00:41:55 Luke Dalton, co-founder of Contact Coffee, a veteran-owned coffee company run by former Royal Marines
Media, whether you like it or not, and and again that's a good trust single to Google just to to see that you're legit and spit authority.
00:42:01 Luke Dalton, co-founder of Contact Coffee, a veteran-owned coffee company run by former Royal Marines
That you've you've got those platforms?
00:42:04 Luke Dalton, co-founder of Contact Coffee, a veteran-owned coffee company run by former Royal Marines
You know. But yeah, unless unless you've got time and effort to invest in video and think your your best bets on on search, that's it.
00:42:11 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Hiatus.Design, website design and brand studio
Yeah, yeah, 100%. And that's kind of where we see there's kind of offering value to the to the you know to the client, to the customer by making things like white Papers or downloadable ebooks or things like that. It's it's we, we've we've we went like the tells Adventure sub brand and that's actually something we've we've seen a huge amount of value in is actually is is making e-books.
00:42:23 Luke Dalton, co-founder of Contact Coffee, a veteran-owned coffee company run by former Royal Marines
Yeah.
00:42:31 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Hiatus.Design, website design and brand studio
And like how to run the the marathon desirables or how?
00:42:34 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Hiatus.Design, website design and brand studio
You know, do these these like mountaineering expeditions and stuff and we we're quite slow slow to the to understand it. And I was like well actually how do you how do you make like valuable products and it is it is is kind of like downloadable white papers like like all the tick list thing things where people can go before I'm going on expedition for example I can go through this tick list that somebody else has prepared.
00:42:50 Luke Dalton, co-founder of Contact Coffee, a veteran-owned coffee company run by former Royal Marines
Yeah.
00:42:54 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Hiatus.Design, website design and brand studio
Obviously what? Take responsibility for that tick? Listen. But like a thing of value, you know that you can go on to the website is, you know is is again something which which bring people to the party and actually they'll appreciate and associate you with good things as well.
00:43:09 Luke Dalton, co-founder of Contact Coffee, a veteran-owned coffee company run by former Royal Marines
Yeah, exactly. And I.
00:43:10 Luke Dalton, co-founder of Contact Coffee, a veteran-owned coffee company run by former Royal Marines
Think if you have one piece of content you can actually get quite a lot from it. So you could start off with, say, an initial video of.
00:43:16 Luke Dalton, co-founder of Contact Coffee, a veteran-owned coffee company run by former Royal Marines
How to?
00:43:16 Luke Dalton, co-founder of Contact Coffee, a veteran-owned coffee company run by former Royal Marines
Use now press so that video can be on YouTube, so it could be sort of five to 10 minute video. You can then break that video down into shorts, so you could probably create 15 to.
00:43:25 Luke Dalton, co-founder of Contact Coffee, a veteran-owned coffee company run by former Royal Marines
20.
00:43:25 Luke Dalton, co-founder of Contact Coffee, a veteran-owned coffee company run by former Royal Marines
Shorts out of it. You can then break that down into.
00:43:29 Luke Dalton, co-founder of Contact Coffee, a veteran-owned coffee company run by former Royal Marines
Different images for social media and then you can also break that down into a blog. You can do a lot of sub blogs from that from that as well and and even like you said crack and white paper create infographics so you can create one piece of good content and actually have quite a lot of.
00:43:46 Luke Dalton, co-founder of Contact Coffee, a veteran-owned coffee company run by former Royal Marines
Of a bit of content making support from it. So I think investing you if if you if you're against time investing into something that's actually useful and you'll be able.
00:43:47 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Hiatus.Design, website design and brand studio
Yeah, yeah.
00:43:56 Luke Dalton, co-founder of Contact Coffee, a veteran-owned coffee company run by former Royal Marines
To get a lot more out of it.
00:43:57 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Hiatus.Design, website design and brand studio
Yeah, 100%, yeah. And it's like we said earlier, it's it's the the longevity of that content actually is lasts much longer than that paid that paid advert or that social media post, although obviously a lot of it will will turn into it. You can use social media office to direct people to your website or that piece of value that you're given. But yeah, yeah and.
00:44:16 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Hiatus.Design, website design and brand studio
With exactly the same mindset is kind of thinking about the long term rather than just the short term.
00:44:21 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Hiatus.Design, website design and brand studio
Sales or conversions about, you know, just hitting people with adverts and stuff because what we're also seeing is that the more an organisation relies purely on adverts is that actually people associate it with with that kind of short term thinking. So it has a a negative effect on the product or the service as well. So if you, you know.
00:44:39 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Hiatus.Design, website design and brand studio
That people just.
00:44:41 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Hiatus.Design, website design and brand studio
Constantly bombarding you with pop-ups. People say, well, actually, I I kind of hate this company now. It keeps on irritating with these freaking pop up.
00:44:50 Luke Dalton, co-founder of Contact Coffee, a veteran-owned coffee company run by former Royal Marines
Yeah.
00:44:51 Luke Dalton, co-founder of Contact Coffee, a veteran-owned coffee company run by former Royal Marines
Yeah, exactly. And I think I think in in ours, we.
00:44:55
Hmm.
00:44:57 Luke Dalton, co-founder of Contact Coffee, a veteran-owned coffee company run by former Royal Marines
Luckily, we invest in, you know, quite early and and we did quite well out of COVID for emails. So we got quite a large.
00:45:02 Luke Dalton, co-founder of Contact Coffee, a veteran-owned coffee company run by former Royal Marines
E-mail database and.
00:45:03 Luke Dalton, co-founder of Contact Coffee, a veteran-owned coffee company run by former Royal Marines
I think that's it's quite big now, but a couple of years.
00:45:06 Luke Dalton, co-founder of Contact Coffee, a veteran-owned coffee company run by former Royal Marines
Ago, it's sort of.
00:45:06 Luke Dalton, co-founder of Contact Coffee, a veteran-owned coffee company run by former Royal Marines
Old school marketing people.
00:45:07
Yes, yes.
00:45:08 Luke Dalton, co-founder of Contact Coffee, a veteran-owned coffee company run by former Royal Marines
Sort of steal away from it, but I think when when you look at our figures and what have been talking is we get a.
00:45:14 Luke Dalton, co-founder of Contact Coffee, a veteran-owned coffee company run by former Royal Marines
Lot.
00:45:14 Luke Dalton, co-founder of Contact Coffee, a veteran-owned coffee company run by former Royal Marines
From me now. So I think working on that e-mail database.
00:45:16 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Hiatus.Design, website design and brand studio
Yeah, yeah. Same. Yeah, we, we we've kind of so been building up ours over the last few years as well and just and just.
00:45:17 Luke Dalton, co-founder of Contact Coffee, a veteran-owned coffee company run by former Royal Marines
From the start.
00:45:23 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Hiatus.Design, website design and brand studio
Trial and error and just to just to see what the right balance of you know, kind of like information in there versus just you know summarising interesting important thing. So yeah, it's it's not something you can just pick up and just go oh.
00:45:35 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Hiatus.Design, website design and brand studio
And exactly how to write the perfect e-mail, yeah.
00:45:39 Luke Dalton, co-founder of Contact Coffee, a veteran-owned coffee company run by former Royal Marines
Yeah. Not definite. Yeah, it's it's hard. It's hard. It's it's a fine art, especially before you can get a lot of automation set up now as well. Probably more for ecom, but a lot of retargeting.
00:45:51 Luke Dalton, co-founder of Contact Coffee, a veteran-owned coffee company run by former Royal Marines
You can you can segment people quite nicely as well, so you can from from our point of view see exactly what they they normally buy. They buy and have and what they bought before. So you can sort of retarget and say, OK, you bought your coffee 30 days ago, you're probably come in to the end of that bag now. Do you want some more or last year bought your calendar, you have it this year?
00:46:06 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Hiatus.Design, website design and brand studio
Yeah.
00:46:10 Luke Dalton, co-founder of Contact Coffee, a veteran-owned coffee company run by former Royal Marines
X amount often, so there's there's quite a lot of noise marketing strategies you can do, especially if you got a big database then your numbers can not quite help it. I mean like percentage wise it's it's.
00:46:19
Yeah.
00:46:22 Luke Dalton, co-founder of Contact Coffee, a veteran-owned coffee company run by former Royal Marines
You open rates quite low and then obviously you click right and bottom, you actually get food and from that you know and sort of 1112 thousand people then you sort of conversion rights. But if if you pump out enough and and you send the right emails to the right people, it can, it can be.
00:46:38 Luke Dalton, co-founder of Contact Coffee, a veteran-owned coffee company run by former Royal Marines
Worth.
00:46:39 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Hiatus.Design, website design and brand studio
Increase your brand rich year. Nice 100%.
00:46:39 Luke Dalton, co-founder of Contact Coffee, a veteran-owned coffee company run by former Royal Marines
A lot of.
00:46:41 Luke Dalton, co-founder of Contact Coffee, a veteran-owned coffee company run by former Royal Marines
Yeah.
00:46:41 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Hiatus.Design, website design and brand studio
Well mate, I realise it's Friday afternoon, so I should let you get on. But before I let you go, can I just ask the last question? You got any words or advice for, you know, for those startups who are entering business, you know, like what? What they can do to make themselves successful or just kind of get through those difficult early years in the sandbox.
00:47:00 Luke Dalton, co-founder of Contact Coffee, a veteran-owned coffee company run by former Royal Marines
Yeah, I think just learning from our mistakes. So I think just it sounds Chad and that cliche, but just just build that foundation, but by foundation of I mean your website, I think it's really important to build that domain authority up early topical authority spend a lot of time and effort into that. You don't need to.
00:47:20 Luke Dalton, co-founder of Contact Coffee, a veteran-owned coffee company run by former Royal Marines
Spend money when I say that we'll just do a bit of research into SEO, whether that's just basic SEO.
00:47:27 Luke Dalton, co-founder of Contact Coffee, a veteran-owned coffee company run by former Royal Marines
And then just create good content, good quality content. I think less is more. It's tempting just to keep firing stuff out. And we did it in the early years, we posting every.
00:47:36 Luke Dalton, co-founder of Contact Coffee, a veteran-owned coffee company run by former Royal Marines
Sort of day.
00:47:37 Luke Dalton, co-founder of Contact Coffee, a veteran-owned coffee company run by former Royal Marines
And stuff. But yeah, I think quality over quantity when it comes to.
00:47:40 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Hiatus.Design, website design and brand studio
Yeah.
00:47:41 Luke Dalton, co-founder of Contact Coffee, a veteran-owned coffee company run by former Royal Marines
Content.
00:47:42 Luke Dalton, co-founder of Contact Coffee, a veteran-owned coffee company run by former Royal Marines
And they're just just sort of following the trends, but don't get sucked into them.
00:47:47 Luke Dalton, co-founder of Contact Coffee, a veteran-owned coffee company run by former Royal Marines
I also think micro influences are quite good at the minute. It's quite nice thing that we experimented with last year so.
00:47:56 Luke Dalton, co-founder of Contact Coffee, a veteran-owned coffee company run by former Royal Marines
So they seem to have, I think people get sucked into numbers sort of people. Everyone wants to go viral. Everyone gets sucked into like the ego numbers of how many followers and stuff. But.
00:48:02
Yeah.
00:48:08 Luke Dalton, co-founder of Contact Coffee, a veteran-owned coffee company run by former Royal Marines
We we got a lot of traction from sort of sending stuff out to people that sort of within sort of two to 5000 follower range just because they're a lot.
00:48:16 Luke Dalton, co-founder of Contact Coffee, a veteran-owned coffee company run by former Royal Marines
Or like tuned with our audience. And they're very, like, engaging with them and people see them as a bit more authentic. But then you see an influence, who's got 5 million followers, people start to see feelings. Now, they're like, wonder how much he's got paid to do that. And you see them holding the product and it's just, you see, frustrated.
00:48:23
Yeah.
00:48:28 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Hiatus.Design, website design and brand studio
Yeah.
00:48:34 Luke Dalton, co-founder of Contact Coffee, a veteran-owned coffee company run by former Royal Marines
For you know, it's just ********.
00:48:36 Luke Dalton, co-founder of Contact Coffee, a veteran-owned coffee company run by former Royal Marines
So graphic micro influence influencers look at your niche, see who are they, sort of influencers and or sort of.
00:48:44 Luke Dalton, co-founder of Contact Coffee, a veteran-owned coffee company run by former Royal Marines
Key characters within that sort of niche and and get on the get on them early.
00:48:48 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Hiatus.Design, website design and brand studio
Yeah. Yeah. And I guess from from our perspective, they're gonna be more authentic, aren't they? So you know that they're not doing their their content or their influencing as a as a full time job actually doing it. They're interested in their, their passion about the subject, aren't they? So I think you're going to get that's going to come out in the the way they talk, how they talk. I think it's going to it's going to resonate with.
00:48:53
Yeah.
00:49:08 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Hiatus.Design, website design and brand studio
Those kind of non verbal communication, you know, with the with the audience. So yeah, 100% that's that's a it's such a good point. It was actually brought out micro influences yet. So I'm really glad that you that you're able to to kind of shine shine some light on that as well fantastic.
00:49:23 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Hiatus.Design, website design and brand studio
Mate. Well, look, I I realise it's it's funny. Evening now. So I really I really say thank you very much for doing some on the podcast. And then yeah, make wish you the very best of luck with them. Kind of like quickly keep on going around and look forward to it and following it and look forward to kind of like collaborating with the team.
00:49:41
Yeah, I now.
00:49:42 Luke Dalton, co-founder of Contact Coffee, a veteran-owned coffee company run by former Royal Marines
Appreciate it and thank you for designing our Advent calendar.
00:49:46 Chris Shirley MA FRGS, Website Developer, Digital Marketing Specialist and Brand Designer at Hiatus.Design, website design and brand studio
There's really great chatting with Luke and hearing how he's grown the contact coffee brand. Want to know more about the company? You can find a link to the website and the shows below and we'll see you next time.
