Disrupting Dental Supply with Transparent Pricing | Barrett Cox of Net32

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Hey everybody. Welcome back to Pathmonk Presents. Thanks for joining us today. We’re really excited to have Barrett Cox, Director of Performance Marketing over at Net32, to join us today to talk about everything that’s going on over there from a marketing and growth perspective. Barrett, how you doing today?

Barrett Cox: I’m doing well. Thanks for having me, Kevin.

Kevin: Of course. Really looking to hear what you guys have to say. To get things started before we dive into things a little bit too deeply, I just wanted to give our audience a little bit of an understanding about what’s going on over at Net32. Why don’t you give us a little bit of background and what it is that you guys do over there?

Barrett Cox: So Net32 is an online dental supply marketplace. Our customers for the most part are dentists. They can shop over 60,000 products. The nice thing is that we provide all of the different vendors so you can see the pricing, shipping options, et cetera. So transparency is really big for us. Transparency and cost savings.

Kevin: You never really see a marketplace that’s showing transparent pricing. There’s always some sort of upsell. So that’s a refreshing perspective. So to dive into things, it’s pretty clear that you guys support dentists, right? But maybe you could tell us what sort of companies, or should I say practitioners, do you see typically working with you guys? Is it more like group practices? Is it more individuals? And what sort of problems are you solving for them?

Barrett Cox: It’s really a mix of both, right? And this is an industry that’s really been sales rep-oriented for a really long time. We’ve been around for 30 years, so we were really a disruptor in the market. So again, what we’re giving are these dentists, these groups, et cetera — we’re giving the ability to see transparent pricing so they’re not getting different pricing from the dentist around the corner, which they might be from some of the other vendors in the space.

Kevin: That’s exciting. I think you used the perfect word, like disrupting the classic sales process. I would imagine — maybe you can give me a little bit more light on this scenario — but sales rep goes into the office, tries to upsell on the products that they have compared to the pricing from some sort of competitor. But you guys are just putting it all out there, correct?

Barrett Cox: Correct. And I should tell you, I’m still relatively new to the dental industry. I started almost six months ago, so I’m still learning a lot about the dental industry. But that’s my understanding and I think it’s a unique space. We’re seeing more of the sales rep presence last than it has in other areas.

Kevin: Cool, so refining those dental chops, per se. In terms of the next question I wanted to ask: from a marketing and growth perspective, how do your clients, or how does your audience typically find out about you? Are there any sort of top acquisition channels at the moment?

Barrett Cox: I think we’ve been around for a long time, so as I’ve talked to dentists, as my mom has asked her dentist — people know about us. I think we’re still trying to grow. We certainly are still trying to grow. But what we’re trying to do is expand our presence in the market, and that’s tough against some of these behemoths that have been around forever and what dentists are used to. But we’re trying to give the control back to them — take away that sales rep that’s gonna show up at your office, let you have the control and understand how much you’re saving and why.

Kevin: Thanks for the top-level answer. To get a little bit deeper down into the details of the acquisition channels, maybe you can tell us: are there any marketing efforts that you guys are currently working on in terms of specific acquisition channels?

Barrett Cox: Unsurprisingly, we’re pretty heavy on the search front right now. But one of our major initiatives this year is channel diversification and working on our media mix. So that includes things like our podcast program that we recently launched. We’re focused on host-read podcasts versus programmatic, ’cause we’re really trying to build trust. We don’t want to be that programmatic ad that gets skipped — we want these potential new customers to hear from a podcaster they trust. We’re looking at direct mail, we just relaunched our CTV program with a new partner, relaunching paid social is in the works on Meta, but we’re also trying to understand what Reddit or something like that can do for us. As a marketer I use Reddit quite a bit. It seems like there’s a large dental community there. So understanding what these channels can do for us is going to be important. Measurement is one of my big initiatives for this year.

Kevin: Interesting. And I know you guys have been around for — I think you mentioned — 30 years. So almost this kind of new growth initiative sounds so exciting, especially for a marketplace in such a traditionally defined industry. It seems like breaking that wide open and figuring out these new channels is an exciting time for you guys.

Barrett Cox: Absolutely. And I think that’s what we’re seeing from our customers — we’re seeing a much more diverse customer. So what we’re trying to do is convince that classic dentist that they should be buying from us because of the savings, but also making sure that newer dentists who’ve graduated in the past five years or will graduate in the next five years should be buying from us as well because we’re giving them so much control back.

Kevin: Really interesting how you mentioned a dentist that’s been doing this for a long time, someone that recently graduated, or even those that aren’t even graduated yet. It probably makes sense to start marketing to those people super early so that when they do come into working full-time, they’re already familiar with who Net32 is. That’s a pretty interesting strategy.

Barrett Cox: Challenging one though, because figuring out how we can calculate that CAC to LTV on a current student… we’re looking a ways out.

Kevin: Yeah, really. Okay, so I wanted to move on to talk a little bit about the website itself. I know it plays, as a marketplace, a role similar to Amazon or something like that, but maybe you can tell us: what role does the website play in terms of client acquisition? It seems like a place where clients can definitely go and buy all of the products they need. But in terms of new client acquisition, how are you using it for that goal? Are there any major strengths or weaknesses?

Barrett Cox: The website is everything. As Director of Performance Marketing, I can deliver all the traffic in the world to our website. And even if it’s qualified, we still need our website to be as frictionless as possible. I think our UX, UI, product, and engineering teams are all doing a spectacular job. One of the things I’ve been really impressed with is the testing velocity at which we run. There are always multiple tests running across multiple platforms. The teams are always looking for my input and cross-functional input on what we should be doing and where. I think we have a really great search function on our website that gets a ton of usage. In the future, what I’d like to see is a bit of modernization — and we’re on our way there. But from a branding standpoint, just being a little bit more bold. We have a new CEO as of this past January and “be bold” is one of the initiatives he’s pushing us with. That’s where we’re going. It’s really impressive. Again, testing velocity is so important across marketing and it’s good to see that in other parts of the organization.

Kevin: I had a guest on the show recently, and I asked what advice he would give his younger self, and he said: test something out every single week. So testing velocity, especially within marketing, is huge. Being able to figure out what works and what doesn’t work — it’s not going to happen unless you run those tests. Really good answer.

I want to move away from Net32 and a little more into questions about Barrett the marketing professional. My first one being a little bit related to Pathmonk — we’re a tool that’s all about website conversions. Maybe you can tell us: what have you learned about what makes a website great at converting? Any tools, tips, or recommendations?

Barrett Cox: Yeah, and honestly, I’m going to go outside of Net32 for this and base it on my experience as a consumer. There are so many things that you can do as a business to decrease friction in terms of finding information about a product and converting. I think we’ve all gotten sucked into one of those Instagram ads, and before you know it, you’ve bought a hat you might not ever wear again — but it looked good and it was really easy to make that purchase. I think that’s one of the major factors all businesses need to account for. We’re currently testing a number of upper funnel channels, and we’re improving our “Heidi” — how did you hear about us? That’s my favorite marketing acronym. I’m trying to make sure we place that wherever possible and have those conversations with UX and product teams about where to place that without slowing down account creation or order confirmation.

Kevin: Nice. I like that. Heidi. I’m gonna steal that one. That’s a good one.

Barrett Cox: It’s a good one.

Kevin: Okay, focusing more on Barrett — what does your day-to-day look like as Director of Performance Marketing? What are the tasks you’re typically focused on?

Barrett Cox: We’re a small business — roughly 60 employees — so I don’t have an analyst doing everything for me. First and most important: I need to be aware and up-to-date on what performance looks like. What are we spending? What’s performing? What’s good or bad? And be ready to answer those questions. Second: working on major initiatives. Right now, I’m working on building an in-house predictive LTV bidding solution that we can apply across platforms. It’s fun, cross-functional, and potentially has a big impact on the business over the next few years — but it’s a lot of work. Third: reporting and education. Marketing, especially performance marketing, changes so frequently, so we constantly have to educate both up and across the organization. Marketing spend is always a large portion of the P&L, so it ends up under the magnifying glass. We need to make sure everyone understands, at least at a high level, why we’re spending the way we are.

Kevin: Really good answer. I can’t agree more that the education both up, down, left, and right is crucial. Marketing is at the center — we need to understand what we have, how to position it, and how to share it with everyone else, while listening to feedback from sales, product, and customer support. You really hit the nail on the head there.

Next question — in terms of growth, we’re always looking to improve ourselves. Where do you go to stay up to date and consume content to improve your marketing skills?

Barrett Cox: We love our platform reps — Meta, Google, Microsoft Ads. They provide great info, but you’ve got to take it with a grain of salt because they’re ultimately salespeople. There’s still useful stuff in their webinars. I mentioned Reddit earlier — it’s been really helpful when I’m searching how to do something or checking other people’s experiences with a new feature. And I’ve got to give a shout out to ChatGPT, Claude, etc. When I need to remind myself how to run a regression analysis, ChatGPT is great at jumpstarting those old stats classes from 15 years ago.

Kevin: Yeah, I had someone recently say their main source for learning is just talking to AIs. And Reddit — I’ve heard that a lot lately. Even if they’re not in your LinkedIn network, someone out there has likely run into the same issue. Good tips.

Alright, last section — rapid fire. Short, crisp answers, but take your time. They’re more playful.

What’s the last book you read?

Barrett Cox: Man, I don’t read that many books these days. I do cook a lot. I’ve been trying to cook out of Matty Matheson’s cookbook — it’s aggressive, but I love cooking, so I’ll go with that.

Kevin: Cookbooks — nice. If there were no tech boundaries and you could snap your fingers to solve one marketing problem, what would it be?

Barrett Cox: Reliable impression and view-based attribution.

Kevin: Attribution is huge. If you could just pull all the data from all your campaigns into one reliable place — massive.

One repetitive task you could automate?

Barrett Cox: Reporting. I love it, but things break constantly — whether it’s a pixel or a platform connection. Reporting.

Kevin: I feel that in my soul.

And lastly: what advice would you give your younger self if you were starting out as a marketer?

Barrett Cox: Don’t become a marketer — get into day trading. (laughs) But seriously, don’t stress too much about where you are. Work hard, be a good person, and doors will open up. Your career will progress as it should.

Kevin: Really wise words — just keep knocking and doors will open. That’s gonna wrap it up for today. Barrett, thank you so much for joining us. Before we end, give our audience one last note on what Net32 is and where they can find you.

Barrett Cox: You can find us at net32.com. We’re an online marketplace for dentists and similar needs. Come check us out — we’ve got tons of products. We’re a growing business and always open to feedback. Thanks so much for having me, Kevin.

Kevin: No problem. Thanks, Barrett.