10 Ways to Advertise Without Facebook or Instagram
Direct to consumer brands were really the first companies to use digital marketing channels like Facebook and Instagram to their advantage. But over time as these brands found success those channels attracted many competitors including traditional brands and retailers. With so much competition not only is it hard to standout on Facebook and Instagram it’s also becoming more expensive to do so.
Zak Normandin, founder of digitally native brand Dirty Lemon, has said that cost per action on Facebook increased by a factor of three between 2017 and 2018. The company used to incur between $20,000 and $30,000 per day on advertising for Dirty Lemon on Facebook and Instagram alone.
With the popularity of advertising on these platforms not waning it’s worth taking a look at the brands that have successfully built their businesses by relying on tactics that are off the beaten path.
1. Try the real influencers
When Oatly entered the United States market in 2016 it didn’t have a Marketing department much less a CMO. "We don't follow the traditional playbook, we don't even have a traditional marketing department," said John Schoolcraft, Oatly US's creative director.
Oatly’s aversion to doing what everyone else is doing didn’t stop there. Instead of flooding the market with Instagram and Facebook ads Oatly employed an entirely different approach. Oatly conducted painstaking research to identify a set of coffee shops in the United States that could serve as informal brand ambassadors for its product.
Oatly didn’t choose any coffee shops but high end shops that roast their own beans and are local favourites. The process took several years and resulted in Oatly selecting ten coffee shops in major cities in the United States. “If you’re going to get people to try oat milk for the first time, you want to make sure that first trial is the best possible situation,” says Schoolcraft.
After selecting the ten coffee shops Oatly sent a sales rep to make a quick sales pitch at each location and left the baristas with free samples of Oatly. At first the baristas resisted but who doesn’t like trying something that’s free (think free samples at Costco). The strategy worked and Oatly’s product spread through coffee shops across the United States. By the end of Oatly’s first year in America its oat milk was in 1,000 coffee shops across the United States. "They developed a really strong alignment with baristas, roasters and coffee shop owners — the ultimate influencers for devotees of specialty coffee," said Lori Bartle, president of ad agency MeringCarson. "That's serious word-of-mouth, as these are the people who are more likely to recommend it not as a trend but as a lifestyle choice."
2. Focus on unique packaging and marketing messages
If you have ever seen products by The Ordinary you will know what the current trend in packaging is all about, minimalism or as Bloomberg writes many direct to consumer brands are simply “bland” nowadays. But a new crop of brands like Oatly are using their packaging and marketing messages as a way not to blend in but to stand out.
Oatly’s packaging and marketing messaging is bold. It’s quirky and it captures your attention. Some of Oatly’s marketing messages include: “if you don’t read this ad, no worries.”, “someone else likely will.” “Like milk, but made for humans.” “You actually read this? Total success.”
If you do not have a lot of money to spend on ads then why not wrap your product in packaging that sells itself? Oatly’s packaging almost screams: DON’T IGNORE ME! Learn more about me! Oatly’s marketing campaigns often focus on low-cost high traffic mediums like outdoor billboards, buses and subway platforms. Relative to other companies Oatly has spent little on advertising and about 60% of Oatly’s marketing budget goes to outside of home advertising.
3. Give Twitter a try
Innovation comes in all forms and for Wendy’s it can put its Twitter strategy on a pedestal for others to emulate. Wendy’s has always prided itself on being different with its square patties and Frosties instead of milkshakes. Its Twitter strategy is also a point of differentiation. Wendy’s is internet famous for trolling its competitors, roasting enemies as well as friends and giving away food to deserving customers.
“We believe that people are coming to us today on social to be entertained. That’s the commitment we have to deliver on” says Carl Loredo, Wendy’s Chief Marketing Officer. “Twitter might be the way you talk to your brother, but as you think of Facebook it might be the way you talk to your mom … so there’s aspects of how far you go down the line,” Loredo says. “We have to be mindful of where are we, what’s the platform. Our voice on Twitter would not work in the world of Instagram.”
Wendy’s has shown that being the best is not just about the quality of your products but also the strength and virality of your message and it’s paying off. In 2019 Wendy’s experienced its sixth year of consecutive same store sales growth. The brand has also amassed a substantial following on Twitter with 3.7 million followers. The brand’s social media prowess has not gone unnoticed, in 2019 Wendy’s was named as the most innovative company in the social media category by Fast Company.
If you are trying to emulate Wendy’s strategy know that there isn’t just one worker bee posting and responding to tweets 24 hours a day. Instead there is a team of five people that manage Wendy’s Twitter account. Some of the people are Wendy’s employees and others are from an agency. They are all empowered to tweet in the way they best see fit and as quickly as possible which makes sense as you can’t be a star on Twitter if there is a long bureaucratic process governing what is said in each and every tweet.
4. Add wholesale to your distribution channels
In the beginning Dirty Lemon like many direct to consumer brands used Facebook and Instagram to market its products. It even designed product packaging specifically to fit on a 2 x 3-inch screen and focused on a minimal (aka “bland”) aesthetic. “It was not a very overly branded product. There are only a few words on the front, namely the brand name and the product name,” says Normandin.
“Having advertised with Facebook and Instagram since very early on, we saw the cost to acquire customers rise significantly, and it's at a place now where it's just unsustainable. I think that's happening because brands that have historically relied on traditional advertising methods are now shifting their ad dollars to online and to Facebook and Instagram. When that marketplace gets flooded with demand, it raises the price to connect with and acquire customers. As the prices rise and more advertisers enter the marketplace, there was a point for us that it no longer made sense to spend millions and millions of dollars on Facebook and Instagram” said Normandin.
“So as the pendulum swings from traditional brands going to digital and away from retail, we're doing the opposite,shifting to retail and away from digital. As a young brand, there's only so many levers we can pull to reach the broader mass market. Shifting to retail is a great way to connect with a local audience but also have an impact on the national scale
As with most direct to consumer brands an online only business can only take you so far even if you have a handful of stores. To reach a larger customer base brands have to broaden their distribution points. It is easier to discover new products in a physical environment when a consumer is already on a shopping trip and happens to notice an interesting new product while they are standing in the beverage aisle at Walmart.
Seeing the writing on the wall, Dirty Lemon recently closed a deal that will see its beverages sold at over 500 Walmart stores in the Unites States. While some argue that this may hurt the cachet of the brand, to reach high levels of growth you can’t stay niche forever.
Normandin has called selling its product at Walmart as “the only way forward.” “If you look at the majority of beverage sales, they are either coming from Walmart, Target or Kroger, so we see this as an opportunity to acquire customers profitably” said Normandin. “When you look at what’s happened with Casper and a lot of direct-to-consumer companies that are getting hammered in the public market, it is because they’ve focused so much on spending whatever it takes to acquire customers and drive-top line growth. They’re losing a lot of money.”
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5. Leverage word of mouth marketing
There is great power in having someone personally refer a new and exciting product to a friend. If you think about many of the purchases you have made over the past year, the movies you watched or the books you read or the restaurants you ate at you will see that your actions are often a reflection of the tastes of those around you.
You may be familiar with Harry’s the brand that started out selling razors, shaving cream and other grooming products to consumers online. After only seven short years in 2019 Harry’s was valued at $1.37 billion. As described by Jeff Raider, Co-Founder and Co-CEO of Harry’s, the brand was laser focused on generating word of mouth to create a successful launch of the brand.
In a blog post on entrepreneur and author Tim Ferriss’s website, Raider tells the story of how Harry’s successfully got close to 100,000 email sign ups in the week before its eCommerce website went live, something that was critical the growth of this digitally native brand. In Raider’s words here is an excerpt from Tim Ferriss’ blog:
“The idea for our campaign was built around our belief that the most powerful and effective way to be introduced to our new company was through a credible referral. Thus, we focused on building a campaign that helped people to spread the word to their friends.”
“The fundamental mechanic of our campaign was a game: complete the challenge of referring friends and earn prizes. It seems pretty straightforward—and it is—but we think that what those prizes are, and how they are doled out, is critical to getting people excited play. Not all reward structures are created equal. Here are a few things what worked for us.”
“First, we tried to make our rewards tangible: free Harry’s product. On the page, we very clearly emphasized, ‘Invite Friends and Earn Product.’ It was the one message on the page where we did away with mystery and left nothing up to interpretation. We didn’t want there to be any doubt about what people might receive.”
“To earn the first tier prize—a free shave cream—you had to make only five successful referrals. The next tier was only five further referrals. If you signed up ten friends, you earned a free razor.” “The jump between tier two and tier three was more significant but still not overwhelming: 25 referrals and you’d receive a shave set with our more premium handle, The Winston. Finally, even the grand prize was within reach: a year of free shaving for those who referred 50 friends.”
“We started there, with our own friends. We had our team of 12 employees seed the campaign to their friends.” “When all was said and done, we had collected by our estimation over 85K valid email addresses (and over 100K emails in total) in the span of seven days.”
This example demonstrates the power even a small team of people has to get the word out. Imagine the amount of money it would have taken to gain a similar amount of email signups via Facebook ads. The people you know are more valuable than you think.
6. Invest in a sampling program
How many times have you gone to Trader Joe’s just to try free samples? We all have. Free samples encourage shoppers to try products they normally wouldn’t buy. Free samples are really just another form of marketing retailers use to generate more sales. Speaking about this Tara Miller, Trader Joe’s Director of Marketing, said: "so what a lot of people might not know is the biggest marketing expense we have at Trader Joe's is actually just letting people try our food.”
Customers can sample anything they want to in a Trader Joe’s store as long as it does not have to be cooked. The investment Trader Joe’s puts in sourcing high quality on trend products pays off when customers discover new items and tell others about it.
Providing free samples whether its food or clothing taps into a universal sales principle called reciprocity. Author Robert Cialdini writes in his best-selling book Influence, the Psychology of Persuasion that: “one of the most potent of the weapons of influence around us [is] the rule for reciprocation. The rule says that we should try to repay, in kind, what another person has provided us.” “By virtue of the reciprocity rule, then, we are obligated to the future repayment of favours, gifts, invitations and the like.” Retailers like lululemon also successfully use this strategy to get customer to buy more.
7. Try radio and print
Sometimes the best action is the one most people aren’t taking. Menswear direct to consumer brand UNTUCKit realized this when it first tried to figure out how to acquire its first set of customers.
In the early days of the brand the company tried the traditional step of hiring a PR agency to gain exposure. But after going down that route UNTUCKit decided to take the unconventional approach of firing its PR agency. It felt that the PR was not giving the brand the exposure it needed. Instead UNTUCKit placed ads on sports radio and in print airline magazines. While these are not the kinds of marketing moves that everyone is talking about these vehicles often have more captive audiences than a fast-moving social media feed.
You can try the conventional but if it’s not working why not take an unconventional approach? Taking the less travelled route may have less competition and better exposure. The exposure can also come at a cheaper price. UNTUCKit found that for approximately $350 it could reach 200,000 potential consumers using radio ads. After its first local radio ad placement in 2013 it had 1,500 website visitors in less than 10 seconds versus a normal level of traffic of 150-200 visitors.
Speaking about this approach, UNTUCKit CEO Aaron Sanandres said: "I think that the biggest lesson is to be curious, right, think about the different, maybe nonconventional ways, that you can get your message to the right audience, whoever that audience is for your particular business." "As long as you can measure it."
Often what looks like a challenge (i.e. your Facebook advertising budget is running out) can be a blessing in disguise as it forces you to think of more creative ways to acquire new customers.
8. Start a blog
Beauty company Glossier emerged out of the popular blog Into the Gloss which was launched by Emily Weiss in 2010. Prior to starting her blog Weiss worked at Vogue, Teen Vogue and W magazine. The blog gained traction due to her popular interviews with beauty mavens such as Kim Kardashian who provided insight into their beauty secrets.
Over time Weiss became known as a beauty expert who had tested and reviewed hundreds of beauty products. The blog also enabled her to gain a deep understanding of what types of beauty products customers want. Weiss then translated a dedicated millennial readership as well as an Instagram following into a set of loyal customers when she launched Glossier in 2014. By 2019 Glossier was valued at $1.2 billion.
9. Launch a newsletter
You may not know this but Gwyneth Paltrow’s popular lifestyle brand goop started out as a newsletter. It all began in 2008 when Paltrow sent her first weekly newsletter which focused on lifestyle advice to family and friends. A year later the newsletter had nearly 150,000 subscribers. By 2018 goop had over 8 million subscribers. goop’s newsletters are very popular with open rates of up to 40% which is twice the average for the lifestyle category. Those newsletters produce 35% of the traffic to goop’s website. That growth did not happen simply because Paltrow is a celebrity. Actress Blake Lively who also has a huge following launched her own lifestyle brand and website called Preserve in 2014 but the actress was forced to quickly shut it down within a year due to a lack of interest.
A newsletter can be a great way of providing advice and insight to existing and potential customers. Over time trust is built between you and your audience which can then translate into sales. It also allows retailers to have a one to one relationship with their customers. You have your customers’ email addresses and can contact them directly. This is something you cannot do if you are selling on Amazon, marketing on Facebook or if a customer walks in and out of your store without leaving contact information.
It was not until 2012, four years after Paltrow sent her first newsletter that goop ventured into eCommerce. Speaking about why she waited several years before monetizing her brand Paltrow said: “I was doing something from a very real, very honest place.” “There wasn’t anything commercial about it. So when we decided to foray into commerciality, there was something to trust.”
10. Diversify, diversify, diversify!
Christina Tosi is the founder of Milk Bar a company that makes and sells delicious baked goods with unorthodox names like Crack Pie, Confetti Cookie and Cornflake Chocolate Chip Marshmallow Cookie. These are not your average baked treats and like her desserts Tosi’s success is far from average.
After working at Momofuku for a few years restauranteur and Momofuku founder David Chang gave Tosi the seed money to open the first Milk Bar. “After the cereal-milk soft serve broke out [at Momofuku], I knew she had to do something. We had an option on a space, and she’d spoken about opening a bakery” said Chang.
Since opening that tiny first Milk Bar store, Tosi has written three cook books: Momofuku Milk Bar: A Cookbook, All About Cake: A Milk Bar Cookbook and Milk Bar Life: Recipes & Stories: A Cookbook. If you want to make Milk Bar’s signature treats at home you can take baking classes at Milk Bar. For $95 you can learn how to recreate Milk Bar’s famous Birthday Cake. Your kids can take classes too. For $35 your children can learn how to make truffles. Milk Bar also collaborated with clothing brand Madewell to create a limited-edition line of merchandise that included clothing and baked goods.
Tosi is far from stopping. Milk Bar products landed on the shelves of Whole Foods last year. “We’ve been working towards bringing our vision to grocery stores for quite a while.” “Grocery stores have always been my north star—it’s why I started baking the way I do.” “The American cookie aisle is relatively stagnant, and that’s what we’re coming out for” said Tosi.
Tosi shows that there are many ways to market a product beyond the traditional digital avenues like Facebook and Instagram. While we spend a lot of time online we do not spend all of our time there and it’s often the things we do offline that provide the best experiences.