Marketing Examined - 🔍 How I'd Grow This Startup

Marketeers, this email comes from my car, stuffed with Christmas gifts, luggage, oh, and three BIG dogs, a brisket sandwich, and some coffee on the way to Florida for the holidays. If you see a mistake in today’s email - blame it on the bumpy Louisiana roads.

Today, I’m doing something different. I’m taking one of y’alls startups and writing about how I’d grow it.

Today, that startup is: MiiRo.

Let’s say you have an email list with 100,000 people on it, your current open rate is 25%, and your click-through rate is 2%.

That means you can always count on 25,000 people opening the email and 500 people clicking a link.

Let’s say you’re directing those 500 people to your landing page, which has a 3% conversion rate for your product that costs $250.

So, now you know every time you send an email, you know you’ll do $3750 in sales.

Now, imagine if you used a specific strategy to double your open rate to 50% and now 50,000 people open your email.

Without your click-through rate or conversion rate changing, you just doubled your email revenue by improving your open rate.

This strategy is exactly what Inbox Mailers will walk you through in its guide.

And even how clients have tripled their email open rates, improved email deliverability, and re-engaged dead email lists.

You can snag the guide here.

I’m going to break this case study on MiiRo into three parts:

• Optimize - What they’re currently doing
• Scale - How to grow MiiRo
• Retain - How to increase MiiRo's CLV

We're first going to work on their copy.

I would alter a few things above the fold:

• I would test 2-5 different headlines.
• I’d add a complimentary sub-headline
• I would change the creative to be benefit-driven

Example:

Let’s start with the headlines.

Here I’d label the headline formulas I’d use:

I’d change some sections on Miiro’s site.

The first section I’d replace is the “Shop The Sampler” section for a “5 Reasons Why MiiRo” section.

Example: Lemon Perfect

Like Lemon Drop, but switch the "Naturally Perfect" to "5 Reasons Why MiiRo" section and use it to educate the consumer on the benefits and differentiation.

We want to use the landing pages to educate the individual on “why this product.”

Following the “5 Reasons Why MiiRo” section, I’d add the “Us vs. Them” section.

After educating the consumer, I want to create an enemy.

In this case, you find other baking goods and desserts all over the grocery store.

By using the “Us vs. Them,” we not only create an enemy but continue to solidify why us.

Example: MiiRO

Next, I’d add a UGC section.

This UGC section acts as a support to your claims.

Display happy customers who love your product.

It’s a simple framework:

• Show real people
• Show real use cases
• Show real product outcomes

Example: Smile Direct Club

Now I’d add the “Shop The Sampler” section.

After the past three “pulling” sections where you’re trying to get the individual to buy into your brand, it’s time to add a “push section” and add a section to purchase Miiro.

Example: MiiRo

Now, onto the last two sections:

A Guarantee

Create a small section highlighting your “100% happiness guarantee” or your money back.

Example: Smile Direct Club

Frequently Asked Questions

Create a list of your most frequent questions, DMs, TikTok replies, etc, and use that to create a FAQ to add to your landing pages.

Example: Smile Direct Club

Let’s break down how I’d scale Miiro.

There are three pillars I’d focus on.

This would consume 80-90% of my effort, and I’d leave the remaining 10-20% to testing.

Pillars:

• TikTok Influencers
• Paid Social (TikTok, Facebook, and Instagram)
• Youtube Ads

TikTok is the most powerful top-of-funnel machine right now.

So, here’s what I’d do:

• Find 15-20 influencers to run a test post with
• Give them a set of benefits to focus on
• Let the influencer handle the creative
• Use UTM parameters and organic search to track the success of each influencer
• After the test trial, select 5 influencers and put them on retainers
• Create specific landing pages focused on these influencers (example)
• Based on the retainer, set a number of posts each month and access to this creative via spark ads

The key to making this work is finding influencers who already use similar products, talking about specific or similar problems, and/or identifying with the problem you are solving.

Those are the influencers who will be in it for the long haul.

1. TikTok Ads

Because TikTok is our primary focus for our content marketing efforts — it’s also where we’re going to focus our paid media efforts.

With TikTok ads, there are a few keys:

• Creative has a short shelf-life (rotate frequently)
• Take your best performing creative and reproduce it with 3-5 different angles
• People aren’t on TikTok to shop - provide information, education, inspiration, or entertainment, then introduce your product

These keys are followed by how we run our ads:

• Run all Influencer content via SparkAds (Running ads through the influencer’s profile)
• Every influencer-focused ad is sent to the influencer’s specific landing page
• Measure the CPA thoroughly (because we’re going to test it against other channels)

Other TikTok Tests

Here is a list of ideas and tests I’d try:

• Create a lead magnet with each influencer (ex. 10 keto-friendly recipes you can make under 30 minutes)
• Create an ad specifically for your newsletter and measure the ROAS from newsletter subscribers converted into customers
• Create an advertorial with the end goal of taking a quiz and measure the ROAS from taking the quiz and converting them into customers

2. Facebook and Instagram

For Meta and Instagram, I’d repurpose my top performing creative from TikTok.

And the same rules and tests from TikTok follow to Instagram and Meta.

3. Youtube Advertising

Youtube advertising rarely makes the conversation.

Here’s what I love about it: You can target based on someone’s Google history.

Because of that, you can tailor your creative:

• Based on the intent of the search
• Based on specific keywords or products

So, now you’re Youtube Ad puts the right product in front of the right person.

What does this look like for MiiRo:

Communities are where specific people with specific interests come together to share their collective passions.

And this should be a focus for MiiRo - specifically Facebook Groups.

For example:

Here’s what I’d do:

• Every day I’d block off time to respond to questions and share content
• After some time, I’d ask to sponsor the group after making an impression on the community.

Lastly, how to retain customers and improve Miiro’s CLV.

There are two things I’d focus on:

• Creating a community
• A Rewards Program

Let’s break this down.

A great community to model after is Obvi.

They’ve built a community of 55k members with very active members.

Two things they do well are: Giveaways and Q&As.

For MiiRo I’d:

• Replicate the giveaways and Q&As like Obvi
• I’d highlight a community member weekly on social and newsletters (and reward who you highlight) → Incentivizes members to be active.
• Host a live baking class bi-weekly or monthly and challenge members to make the recipe → Reward a member who participated

Community engagement is difficult, but you can manufacture enough momentum that it’ll eventually build itself.

At that point, a community manager or community moderator is essential.

Similar to newsletters and their success with Milestone-based referral programs, I believe it’d be a successful long-term play for MiiRo.

Specifically, it makes MiiRo different because its benefits (keto friendly & vegan) are part of a specific lifestyle.

This makes it perfect for repeat purchases.

Some stats to back up the importance of a rewards program for MiiRo:

• Acquiring a new customer can cost five times more than retaining an existing customer
• Increasing customer retention by 5% can increase profits from 25-95%.
• The success rate of selling to a customer you already have is 60-70%, while the success rate of selling to a new customer is 5-20%.

And the milestone-based reward program is the perfect way to incentive customers to order again.

I’d try something like:

• One free product worth $10 or less after 5 purchases
• One free product worth $20 or less after 10 purchases
• One bundle or mix & match products worth $45 or less after 25 purchases

• How ChatGPT will replace Google Search in the upcoming years
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• A short video about the marketing magic behind MSCHF
• HBR’s breakdown on how ChatGPT is AI’s breaking point
• How Apple and Nike have branded our brains
  

Get your product or service in front of Marketing Examined readers here.

As for next week, I'll send my last newsletter of the year on Tuesday.

I'll be spending time with family, regrouping, and getting ready for our 2023 launch.

Can't wait to hare the detals.