Key to Successful Businesses: Embrace the Underdog
As the 2010 explosion of new businesses comes new ways of doing business.
There are many companies who are successful in raising funding to keep up with rise of the demand of businesses.
Many mature companies have also seen rise in their digital and print readership when the media industry is in a total decline.
So how does a lifestyle company like Birchbox have over 7million customers and had to open up a 2,000 square foot store in NYC's prime real estate.
And how did Conde Nast bounce back from the lawsuit filed by former interns. Simple they embraced the underdog.
When most people think of bloggers, notions of slackers come to mind or people who have shopping addictions that selfie's of their purchases.
However, the Founders of Birchbox noticed early on bloggers even those who have 400 unique views, those are 400 potential customers.
So I can remember going to several events when that company just started and they had the equivalent of focus groups and would reward bloggers with free products to mention the product and the Birchbox brand. Hence, Birchbox created a community of loyal bloggers who would write about them for free.
They figured if one blogger has at least a min. of 500 unique views per month, then they would have over a million people at a rate of 50 bloggers driving traffic to their website, hence making purchases.
This is how Birchbox has grown rapidly without a lot of overhead in terms of a Marketing Team.
Next, Conde Nast... They have an entire section in certain publications devoted to Bloggers, in some cases bloggers can post to their own digital community within that publication.
I view it as a win/win, many bloggers if they do it full time it is with hopes of doing something more lucrative in the future with major brands, so if you state that you had your work published in a digital community with a Conde Nast brand, then companies take you seriously.
All in all, as I learned in film school it is the Power of the Antihero or the Underdog, once you give people who were once considered on the fringe the opportunity to be heard and understood, you have loyal customers.
Cheers to embracing the Anti-Hero!
There are many companies who are successful in raising funding to keep up with rise of the demand of businesses.
Many mature companies have also seen rise in their digital and print readership when the media industry is in a total decline.
So how does a lifestyle company like Birchbox have over 7million customers and had to open up a 2,000 square foot store in NYC's prime real estate.
And how did Conde Nast bounce back from the lawsuit filed by former interns. Simple they embraced the underdog.
When most people think of bloggers, notions of slackers come to mind or people who have shopping addictions that selfie's of their purchases.
However, the Founders of Birchbox noticed early on bloggers even those who have 400 unique views, those are 400 potential customers.
So I can remember going to several events when that company just started and they had the equivalent of focus groups and would reward bloggers with free products to mention the product and the Birchbox brand. Hence, Birchbox created a community of loyal bloggers who would write about them for free.
They figured if one blogger has at least a min. of 500 unique views per month, then they would have over a million people at a rate of 50 bloggers driving traffic to their website, hence making purchases.
This is how Birchbox has grown rapidly without a lot of overhead in terms of a Marketing Team.
Next, Conde Nast... They have an entire section in certain publications devoted to Bloggers, in some cases bloggers can post to their own digital community within that publication.
I view it as a win/win, many bloggers if they do it full time it is with hopes of doing something more lucrative in the future with major brands, so if you state that you had your work published in a digital community with a Conde Nast brand, then companies take you seriously.
All in all, as I learned in film school it is the Power of the Antihero or the Underdog, once you give people who were once considered on the fringe the opportunity to be heard and understood, you have loyal customers.
Cheers to embracing the Anti-Hero!
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