On today’s episode, Kunle is joined by Kelley Thornton, Co-Founder & CEO of Tiege Hanley, a Chicago-based self-funded men’s grooming DTC brand. Kelley is a 20+ year veteran in the consumer goods industry and has led Tiege Hanley to being a 8-figure company within 2 years of launching in 2016.

What does it take to grow a truly niche product? A product where you don’t just have to become a part of the narrative, but you must help build up the narrative. Tiege Hanley has achieved tremendous success in this very situation and can be a great case study for new and upcoming consumer brands. They have cracked the code of the men’s grooming market by having a robust team, choosing the right platform to market on and working with influencers that truly embody what their brand stands for. A 95% user subscription rate is testament to this fact.

In today’s episode, Kunle and Kelley go through the awesome growth story of Tiege Hanley. You will get great insight on growing with influencers and tenets of building a successful subscription model. Whether you’re a business owner or marketer, this is a great episode for you!

Here is a summary of some of the most important points made,

• The format of your content should be based on market research
• One-off deals with Influencers are not as productive as longer engagements
• Choose influencers basis their follower’s demographics
• Always provide more value to members than to prospects
• Agencies can help in finding the right influencers
• Focus on building as much in-house expertise as possible

Covered Topics:

On today’s interview Kunle and Kelley discuss,

• Product Packaging and Bundling
• Leveraging YouTube Influencers
• Metrics for choosing Influencers
• Cracking the Subscription formula

Timestamp:

• 02:05 – Tiege Hanley’s growth stats:
  • Creative subscription model with very high opt-in rates of 95%
  • Youtube + Influencer driven marketing leading to 40-50% Y-o-Y growth
  • Profitable from month 5 of launch
  • Shipping to 100+ countries every month
• 11:20 – Product strategy: Easy and simple monthly box of grooming products
• 14:20 – Kelley’s background
  • Retail strategy and consumer research expertise
• 19:45 – Why Tiege Hanley chose YouTube as their platform of choice
• 22:05 – Year-1 content strategy:
• 90% influencer content
  • Using an agency to connect with other influencers
  • Leveraged influencers that embodied their brand’s story and with active and engaged followings
  • Chose health and lifestyle influencers
• 25:30 – Tips for influencer marketing:
  • Track performance metrics for each influencer
  • Never sign up influencers for one off engagements
  • Work closely with influencers to tailor the content
  • “Go deeper rather than wider”
  • Select influencers with Global audiences
• 31:00 – Learnings from Influencer marketing
  • Don’t be afraid to spend on the right influencers
  • There are no “off-the-shelf” metrics to track success
  • Work with mini-influencers as well
• 33:10 – Top factors for picking influencers:
  • Video engagements levels
  • Location and demographics of their audience
  • Trajectory of their channel and niche
• 38:00 – The “hard yards” of achieving 95% subscription
  • Engagement with audience drives subscription
  • Provide more value to members than to prospects
  • Launch to members first, better prices for new products
• 43:10 – Tiege Hanley’s most popular products:
  • Tier 1 – Basic care
  • Tier 3 – Anti aging
• 44:00 – Subscription Stack
  • Recharge
  • Shopify
• 46:00 – Team Philosophy:
  • Built to become a $100 million company in 5 years
  • Focus on having In-house expertise
  • Create systems with an “Amazon mindset”
• 48:00 – Under what conditions would you consider selling the company?
• 50:30 – Impact of COVID:
  • Net strong positive
  • Challenge is the level of uncertainty in the consumers mind
• 53:10 – Subscription stats
  • Approx 35 reorder cycle
  • Total of 90-day window
• 56:01 – Lightning Round

Lightning Round:

1. Q: What advice would you give to yourself 5 years ago?
   A: Fire myself and shutdown my previous company
2. Q: Are you a morning person?
   A: I’m a 24-hour person
3. Q: What are 2 things you can’t live without?
   A: My family and a good glass of wine
4. Q: What book are you currently reading?
   A: Clean by Hamblin and a book on Wealth Creation
5. Q: What are your 3 indispensable tools for managing Tiege Hanley?
   A: Execution and Focus
6. Q: What’s been your best mistake till date? A set back that’s given you the biggest feedback.
   A: Not fire people faster

Takeaways:

• One-off deals with Influencers are not as productive as longer engagements
• Always provide more value to members than to prospects
• Focus on building as much in-house expertise as possible

Links & Resources

• Aaron Merino
• Menfluential
• ReCharge
• Shopify
• Clean: The New Science of Skin by James Hamblin

Tweetable Quotes:

“Go deeper rather than wider.”

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SPONSORS:

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