Building Blocks - Issue #4

BB #4: Going viral on Tiktok for this tip

A few months ago my friends Wootak and Jeremy invited me to their show Under the Influence. A podcast they started to promote their hard seltzer brand Nectar. Their approach to Tiktok was simple - invite good story tellers, prepare question prompts that they know will get attention, and dive deep on the show. This content marketing play was brilliant. It allowed them to place their hard seltzer in a fun conversation to be seen by millions of people. They did it out of necessity. No social platform would let them run ads, but these doors closing opened up the biggest one for them.

In just a few months, the show gained over a quarter million followers and close to 7 million likes, all filmed in a makeshift studio in one of the founder’s backyards.

I can go on and on about the brilliance of Nectar’s social media strategy, and I would love to do that in another memo, but today, I want to talk about the marketing tip I gave on the show that made the rounds on Tiktok.

One of my favorite ways to find inspiration is to look at other industries to see what I can take into my own brand. I always thought looking at other beauty brands when I operate a beauty brand would makes me 20 steps behind, so I looked into the auto, tech, fashion, and Web3 space.

Mid last year I was looking into a new car and came across the brand Mercedes Benz. Throughout the listings, I would see some of them say “Edition 1” and they would cost a little bit more. I came to find out that Edition 1 is a trim that Mercedes offer when they release a new high-performance model car. They’re limited edition and with unique characteristics like different body parts or decals. Fans of the brand want them more because it’s limited and the value retains slightly better than the normal trim.

By this time, I’ve been operating doe for over 2 years and can say we have a sizable audience that are big fans of us. They buy anything new that comes out, even when we release a water bottle. So I got the idea of doing something similar to Mercedes for our next products launches - a unique limited edition design and packaging to reward the early adopters.

The feedback and sales blew past our expectations. We started seeing people treat the product like they’re collectibles, telling their friends that they were able to get something limited edition and buying large amounts of it because they’re going to be rare. The AOV went up, and we were able to turn over our inventory much faster than anticipated, helping our cashflow significantly. Our customers betted on the brand’s future, showing us that they think the brand will increase in value, which makes their collectibles even more valuable.

Looking back, this only worked because there was a strong community built around the brand, and we were able to consistently make the customer excited about what was coming next which compelled them to invest in us.

There’s a lot more marketing strategies that I took from Tesla, Uber Eats, and Instacart and applied to doe. If you guys love this, write me back and I’ll show you how we were able to increase our referral revenue by 6x through these ideas I took from other categories.

Hope you guys enjoy your weekend!