Helping 8-9 figure brands create content engines and content flywheels resulting in unforgettable brands.
I spoke to someone today trying to scale a CPG brand. And here’s how I told him to grow it: They’ve got an Olive Oil brand. Phenomenal product. Great story. In all Whole Foods. But he’s trying to scale and gain awareness around his product. His idea? Crank meta ads. Problem? His ad account is fresh. They don’t have winning creative. Hasn’t tested LPs or PDPs. Budget? Tight. So, here’s what I told him to do instead: • Seed Influencers/Creators • Invest in organic content •Turn on paid with winning pieces from creators and organic • Invite top creators and/or influencers to become ambassadors 1. Seeding Influencers/Creators And not just any influencers or creators. Go niche. Go deep. And find very specific creators who talk to very specific people aligned with your ICP. So instead of going for the foodie because they have a large audience. Go for the mom foodie, who lives a luxury lifestyle, and lives in a major city near Whole Foods that carries your product.. Next - hit 250 - 500 influencers a month. And two things will happen: 20-30% will opt-in to receive product 30-35% will post content about the product for free And you now have 30-90 pieces of content at the cost of goods. The goal is to build a lasting relationship with all of these creators. Hence, seeding them and letting the plant grow over time. 2. Now, Organic Content Key here is for influencers and creators to play into his content funnel. The influencer and creator content drives awareness and brings ppl into his ecosystem. But it’s his job to turn awareness into follows. Followers into fans. So, three options from cheapest to most expensive: • Hire an in-house creator • Build a lean content team around the founder • Build an entire content and marketing team for biz Regardless, approach the content like a funnel: TOF - How can I make people aware of me, brand, and product? MOF - How can I get people to follow me, brand, or product? BOF - How can I get people to become fans of me, brand, or product? He hasn’t built a content team so to start - I told him to have a testing strategy over a growth strategy. Have a lot of ideas. Test them. Set baseline KPIs. When a piece of content hits the KPI, take note and scale it. 3. Then Turn On Paid After months of influencer seeding and posting organic content, this will happen: You’ll now know what to run as paid ads. You’ll know which influencer posts drove sales. And you’ll know which organic pieces drove sales. Those will be the winners you use for paid as he tries to unlock it as an acquisition channel. And again - he’s lean right now. If the budget was bigger, then I’d advise throwing every piece of creative into the ad account. Launch dynamic creative testing. Cost caps. And refine, optimize and scale from there. Anyways, I hope that helps some of you who are in the same shoes and trying to scale a brand. Below is my favorite resource for finding the right influencers.