As the need for sustainable hygiene products grows ever-stronger, the space in the market for an environmentally friendly, convenient way to rid the bathroom of plastic waste has opened up for the incredible Wild Cosmetics.
Building a Booming, Sustainable D2C Brand with Wild Cosmetics Co-Founder, Charlie Bowes-Lyon – Episode 10
With a focus on innovating beyond their initial, highly successful natural deodorant, the Co-Founder and CMO behind their marketing strategy – Charlie Bowers-Lyon – joins Alex on this episode of Scale of One to Tech to detail the story of their turbulent two-year journey as a D2C brand.
We hear how Wild Cosmetics has diversified their channel mix to avoid any massive impacts to their strategy, what they look for when hiring new team members, and constructing their marketing campaigns without coming across as ‘preachy’.
This episode covers
- Wild Cosmetics’ USPs in a growing, environmentally conscious market
- The massive range of channels that help Wild to grow
- Marketeers maintaining their edge by staying hands-on with new technologies
- Hiring with skills, experience, attitude and diversity in mind
- Tips for starting a D2C business
- Whether to prioritise a great product or a great brand
Links & references:
Alex Marriner: https://www.linkedin.com/in/digitalmarketingrecruitment/
Acquire Digital Talent:
https://www.linkedin.com/company/digital-marketing-recruitment-london/
http://www.acquiredigitaltalent.com/
Charlie Bowes-Lyon: https://www.linkedin.com/in/charlieboweslyon/
Wild Cosmetics:
https://www.linkedin.com/company/wildrefill/
https://www.facebook.com/WildRefill
https://www.instagram.com/wildrefill/
Episode highlights:
“Most households have a recycling bin and a normal bin, and normally the bathroom bin just gets emptied into the normal bin,because people don’t really consider the plastic waste in the bathroom. But there’s a huge, huge amount of it; almost every product we use. So that’s where we got to, and we saw a lot of traction with natural deodorant in the US.” – 5:35 – Charlie Bowes-Lyon
“Wild’s mission is to remove waste, specifically plastic waste from the bathroom. We launched with a natural deodorant which has been a kind of hero product, and one that we’re very passionate about making as good as we possibly can. We’re always iterating on that.” – 9:30 – Charlie Bowes-Lyon
“Understanding how to get the most out of Facebook is key to any online business. The caveat to that is that you really don’t want to be 100% reliant upon Facebook, because the iOS 14.5 update could come out, Apple decides suddenly that everyone has to opt in for ads, and overnight your business can materially change if you’re overly reliant on any one channel.” – 16:25 – Charlie Bowes-Lyon
“The absolute key thing for a startup is to hire for attitude, because skills can be taught, whereas attitude tends to be inherent to someone.” – 23:50 – Charlie Bowes-Lyon
“So I think it’s really important just to get in, get going, and get stuff selling as soon as possible, because you’ll never get more valuable feedback than you will from your customers. You’ll very quickly work out if you have a good idea or a bad idea.” – 33:50 – Charlie Bowes-Lyon
“I believe that if you make the best product you can and it’s something people genuinely want, and you know what you’re doing when it comes to performance led marketing, the brand will come with it.” – 39:28 – Charlie Bowes-Lyon
“Influencers are just people and, like with people, you get influences of every single type of variety. So I guess my top tip, if you as a business are trying to onboard influencers, is give them space to be creative.” – 40:50 – Charlie Bowes-Lyon