Why Bloom Is Booming On TikTok And Winning At Target & Walmart

26:55Making great content does not mean that they can convert. How much of the influencer strategy revolves around awareness versus sales? I think you touched on that, Greg, but I mean, you're at the end of the day looking for this influencer to drive and generate revenue. Am I wrong? It's funny because our entire program is very top of funnel. So especially the influencer side of our marketing, which is majority of our marketing spend and definitely majority of the impressions we're making on people. It's very top of funnel. I mean, it verges on product placement in their already normal content. You know, we're not asking influencers to take our greens bottle and give a whole sales pitch about the product.

27:32We want them to show how they're incorporating it in their life. So in that sense, they're not sending people to Amazon. They're not sending people to Shopify and they're not, generally speaking, they're not sending people to a specific conversion point, but we're trying to make sure they're as aware as possible about our brand and about our product. And then as they're shopping in the places that they're already shopping, which is, you know, Target, Walmart, the top retailers in the United States, Amazon, then they're able to convert when they're ready. So it's very different than operating, you know, a bottom of funnel meta marketing campaign, but it's worked for us.

28:04And it's definitely complimented our now rollout into retail. How many influencers do you have total at this point? Or how many influencers do you work with? thousands. We work with thousands. You know, some might not post for a couple months. Some might post four times a month. You know, we have a network of thousands of influencers in the United States with a, you know, majority female U.S. following. Well, I guess that makes my next question less pertinent, but I'll ask it anyway. Mari, do you ever have any disagreements with your team about who you're working with, whether it be just a gut feeling or a feeling that they are not representing the brand in the way that you would like them to?

28:45Interesting question. I will say where I'm at right now with the business is that I really have handed off these responsibilities and I fully trust the influencer team to make the best decision we have. I mean, I think one of the best parts about Bloom is we have such a fantastic team. A lot of them are women. I think we're like 90, 95 % women team. A lot of them are young. They probably understand TikTok better than I do, if I'm being honest. However, we have had discussions behind the scenes about big names, celebrities sometimes, you know, thoughts around certain influences. And, you know, I think we have occasionally had discussions around it, never disagreements, discussions around it.

29:27And at the end of the day, I think they know what my values are. And I think that we always end up on the same page. So currently, I feel like everyone who represents Bloom aligns well with those values. Certainly there's a question about compensation. You know, how much do we spend on this person via whether it's product or otherwise? And, you know, how do we measure the compensation's value and its impact on sales? We operate our entire marketing strategy around a blended CAC, you know, just essentially dividing our top line sales across Omnichannel, you know, with our marketing spend. We really try to not focus on individual channels unless there's a holiday, like whether it's a prime day or a sale going on a target.

30:14Then the entire influencer program is pretty much reverse engineered around CPM. So what is the cost per thousand views? That's how top of funnel it is. We're just trying to grow brand awareness with this product. The product's great. If somebody tries it, they're going to tell their friends about it. They're going to continue buying it. So when it's based around CPM, which is something that's very achievable with influencer marketing on TikTok. So, or sorry, it's achievable affordably, right? So if you're talking a podcast ad, you might be talking$30 CPM. If you're talking a YouTube, like what the top influencer on YouTube, you're talking, it could be$80,$90 CPM.

30:50If you're talking where our influencer programs at now, it's well below$10. So we're able to get millions of views for a fraction of the price that the average business is getting it. And that's pretty much where we started a negotiation out with an influencer. So if an influencer is getting, you know, a million views, we need to try to negotiate that as close to our goal CPM as possible. That's fluctuated over time, especially as the influencers on TikTok become more aware of their rates, let's say. Now everybody has an agent. So we've had to increase that since we've started the program, but it's still a very competitive, highly affordable CPM that's been the foundation of the whole program.

31:31You've both referenced TikTok a couple of times. It does seem to be the social media channel that everyone is targeting and chasing after. How do you hire, Mari, folks who really understand the platform and can speak to the users on it from Gen Z to Gen Alpha and even beyond? As I said before, we really have such a young team. They're all pretty much under the age of 30, especially in the influencer department, mostly women. They are the ones shopping via TikTok. Like I think a majority of this office, they understand the trends, they understand the audios, they know which influencers are having an impact better than Greg and I do.

32:19So I think hiring younger and hiring kind of from our demo has helped us a ton. Greg, would you agree with that? We've always been a fan of starting people at an entry-level role. We love hiring people right out of school. We prefer if they're not brainwashed, lack of a better term. And the lead of our influencer program who spends sometimes millions of dollars a month is, Mara, is she 25? 24, I think. 24, she's 24. And she has 12 people under her. So it's a really unique program. There's very little attribution. We don't use affiliate links. We don't use affiliate codes. It's highly tracked from page views and just like surges of sales and our omni-channel retailers.

33:00But most CMOs, let alone CEOs, let alone investors, which thankfully we don't have any of, but would have a heart attack if they, you know, looked over this program. Well, if it works, it works. I mean, the proof is in the pudding. So again, I think people listening to this podcast would say, oh, well, that makes a lot of sense. You know, someone who actually understands TikTok is someone I should hire. I mean, the knock on Gen Z is that they don't work as hard as previous generations. So again, going back to this question of how do you know if they're the right fit? What is your criteria? How do you measure their experience versus their understanding of a particular social platform?

33:42For this program specifically, the TikTok program, which is, you know, now it's probably 15 headcount here. It's a little volatile depending on the season, but it used to entirely stem from an internship program. So dare I say, it allowed us to do a, you know, a free trial on some people. They weren't free interns. They had actually a great hourly rate, but we'll call it a free trial. So, you know, they'd have a three month internship and then we would decide of, let's say there was 10 of them, you know, we would try to keep two and make them full time. So that was one of the best things we ever did here.

34:13It's still a program that exists at Bloom and, you know, they'd be coming right out of UCLA or USC or where, you know, whatever school was conveniently located for the students to come to our headquarters. and, you know, again, the woman who runs the program started as an intern. So that was huge for us. Now, you know, as we're hiring more experienced roles for certain spots here, people who have done it before, right, in terms of, you know, growing a business to the whatever our goal may be, we try to do like six rounds of interviews. You know, they're doing homework assignments. They're coming in person a couple times.

34:44We have a great HR lead who was actually our first hire ever. so our strategy has not changed a bit but we treat different departments differently but i like that phrase done it before because i think that's the thing with tiktok marketing no one has done it before so i think it's more about bringing in the young people and empowering them and greg does this he has great leadership skills and he'll say to them no one has done this before you know as much as the next person. I very often see, and I don't want to name names, but I see brands who probably have older employees who have great qualifications and have been in this industry before and they completely flop on TikTok because they have no idea what's going on.

35:30I really think that this is an unprecedented time and hiring young people and telling them they can do this, I feel like we're just having to break the mold a little bit and trust them. it's more about their willingness to work hard and be a team player than them having the qualifications prior if that makes sense there's no such thing as an expert there's no such thing as someone with experience in this department i mean i would say that even for instagram i would say you know that the climate the environment of social media is so volatile it changes every six months you know what what mari was an expert at in 2019 2020 2021 you know she's now pivoted to podcast.

36:10Like it's a completely different world. And if you're hiring someone over 30 years old, even over 27 years old, I'm older than both of those ages to lead those departments, they better be young minded or a young soul and, and, you know, be really into those apps because they change very often. And someone who hit a home run in 2020 by no means is qualified to still hit a home run in 2023. You can't catch lightning in a bottle twice. So yeah, we have pretty strong views on that. Well, from TikTok to podcast, it seems like the, I guess, shift in focus for you, Mari, personally, has been pretty successful.

36:46And I talk to entrepreneurs who are saying to me, oh, you know what, I should start a podcast. Can you offer any tips or pointers on, you know, how to do so? And I honestly don't know how to answer their question sometimes because, Because yeah, it doesn't take a lot to launch a podcast, but it does take a lot to get people to listen to it. And that's the whole point. You know, Mari, when did you have the idea to start a podcast? And when did you realize that the timing was right and that you could get a large following using that platform? I think it was always in the back of my head because I've been someone since I was young who loves presenting.

37:27I always wanted to be a TV presenter in school. I was horrible academically, but loved giving a presentation. So I've always loved using my voice and sharing. And over the last couple of years, I started guesting more on other podcasts and kind of seeing how it worked and getting my voice out there. And I said, OK, I think this is a really good method for me for sharing my story, but also potentially hosting and asking other people about their stories. I didn't know if it would convert. And I was pretty bluntly told, it doesn't matter how many followers you have on Instagram, it doesn't always convert.

38:01And I went into it with that mindset, which I think was good because I wasn't expecting success right away. I knew I would have to work hard for it. So as soon as I knew I wanted to launch a podcast in January, I started batching content and I did tons of interviews. Like I want to say I did like 20 before I even launched. And that gave me such room to practice and mess up and hear, you know, okay, I say um a lot or I'm interrupting the person. I need to stop talking while they're talking, whatever it may be, and really hone in on those hosting skills before I did actually launch. It is hard work.

38:40I think I didn't anticipate how much work it is in terms of research, editing, ads, intros, whatever it may be. but I think it is truly my favorite thing I've ever done because I'm honing in on my skill set but it's still so challenging and there's still so much room to improve and I think in terms of converting I'm still figuring out exactly what hits but I think you know when I think of my standout episodes all of them are slightly controversial or a new concept or someone that I don't 100 % agree with I think that's kind of the magic in podcasting is it's not about continuously talking to people who have the same values or mindset as you.

39:23It's about bringing on people who have a new mindset and a new idea and something you can learn from. So whenever I do interviews, I try to put myself in the mindset of the audience. What would they want to know? What would they ask? And most of the time, when I think my question's dumb, it's the same question everyone else is thinking too. So I've had to really let go of that ego and lean into that. but you're 100 % right. I think so many people want to do podcasts now. And I think that there's some number about the percentage of hosts that get past the first five episodes. It's some crazy amount drop off.

39:57So that consistency in itself, I feel like puts you ahead of everyone else. From a marketing standpoint, how do you promote the show? Or is it really just the content that drives interest? As of right now, it's pretty much just the content. I mean, we do tap into Bloom's email list every now and again and try to collaborate there. But mostly my goal is to make the most viral content I can from the episode and get it on Instagram, get it on TikTok, repeat, create new clips, pull from different parts of the conversation, look back and see what performed and then just keep trying to replicate that.

40:37And also talking to different kinds of people. It's sometimes surprising to me what resonates and what doesn't. It doesn't always resonate when you have a big name on the show. Sometimes it's more about the actual topic. So just, yeah, a lot of content. People want video now. They don't want to just listen. So keeping up with the demand there and, yeah, trying new things as well. Over the past three and a half years, I would say most of the interviews that I've conducted for Taste Radio have been virtual, probably 65, 35 at this point. But I do love recording in person as much as possible. And I think there is a sense from consumers that they want to have as many sort of IRL, real world experiences.

41:23I just feel like it's not just consumers, but people in general. And I think going from social marketing to that in-person live kind of experience with a brand or a brand owner makes a huge impact on how that person has a relationship or that person's relationship with the brand. What I'm getting at is how do you go from something like TikTok, Instagram podcasts to that IRL experience that people are clamoring for these days? That was something we really put a lot of focus on after COVID was that in real life event because we kind of blew up during COVID. For the first couple of years, we were very much an online brand, but we do have such a strong community that we started doing meetups in person.

42:15One that stands out was our bodega event in New York City. We began everything in New York. Greg and I grew up in New York. So we hosted an event at a bodega in New York and had green smoothies and I was taking photos and we had magazines with the greens all over them. And our team is so personable and so great with talking with the community. And we had line out the door and it was like this big moment where we could create a lot of content around it and make everyone at home feel like they were there too. That was such a success that we basically kept replicating that. And now we've done so many different events.

42:50We recently did one in the Hamptons. We took over Hamptons Coffee. We had an influencer house. We have a collaboration with Vida Coco coming up with a Winter Wonderland event here in LA. I think people do want that in-person connection with the brand and it really helps the brand come to life. Kind of what we've done here in the Bloom office, you get to show everyone what the environment would be like if the brand was like a real person or, you know, whatever it may be. So I'm a huge fan of in real life events. I think they make a big difference and you can connect with the customer even more.

43:26It also helps doing these IRL events when you have products in stores that they shop at. So going from, say, a bodega event in New York City and saying, oh, yeah, we're also sold at this retailer. It's even more amazing if you have a retail partner like Target or Walmart. It's a big leap, though, going from direct-to-consumer, e-com, to these massive, massive retailers. I think translating D2C success into retail is one of the toughest things that a brand can try to do. And I think it's generally taken too lightly. You'll see nine figure D2C brands that flop when they go to a Target or retail.

44:05So it does not necessarily translate. It was also very difficult to get our product in Target. They did not want a quote, superfoods product. They gave superfoods a try for 2021, 21, 2022, and they were doing awful. So they cleared those shelves and just brought in more collagen. And I was like, please put us on the bottom shelf with one forward-facing SKU in as many stores as you want. And so I launched in Target in October, 2022, in like five, 600 stores, one forward-facing Berry SKU. And right out of the gate, it was selling great, like really great, like top five SKU in the whole department, even though we were only in a quarter of the stores.

44:45And me being a spoiled brat from e-commerce, I was like, all right, great. Put us in full chain. Like, let's go on full chain. It's about to be resolution season. This is a huge opportunity. And they were like, whoa, hold your horses. Like, this is Target. We reset our shelves once a year in like October. So I was like, I mean, I basically was like, here's a million dollars and let's call them slotting fees. Put them anywhere you want. You know, we're ending COVID right now. A ton of people can't put product on your shelf. Put me anywhere on your shelf where there's an open space in any of your stores.

45:13and let us show you what we can do in terms of a digital activation, letting our omni-channel shopping customers, you know, take over your stores. So we got that. And during resolution season, we launched full chain, still with just one SKU on the bottom shelf in targets nationwide. And just a month into having our product there, we set the record for the highest selling SKU in the history of the OTC and vitamin department. So, you know, we were more than any Quest Bar, Vital Proteins product. And then, you know, from there, we've added more SKUs. We've definitely grown our relationship with Target in terms of, you know, some of the activations that we're doing on a collaborative level.

45:54And it's now our number one, you know, brick and mortar retailer. In March, we launched in Walmart. And I think, you know, Target as a whole has that social media sex appeal. So it very much complements a brand that's doing really well on social media. It also really complements the Gen Z young millennial female. So in a way, we kind of reverse engineered our entire product line for the target female. And so I think it was just a match made in heaven. It was meant to be. But we're really excited about expanding those doors and seeing where else we can make some fun content with and get our consumers or existing consumers of those retailers excited about bringing Bloom into those stores.

46:34So that will be what 2024 is all about. So if I'm hearing this correctly, there is a direct line from your social media following to Target stores. It wasn't something where someone was passing through that aisle and accidentally bumped it with their shoe and said, oh, what's this? Bloom Nutrition, and picks it up and thought this would be a good fit in their lives. You really drove interest and drove people to Target stores via your social media. I would say anytime there was a change. So anytime we went from 600 stores to full chain, when we introduced our second SKU, when we got, you know, our first end cap or an off shelf in their store, which, you know, this happened on maybe an every other month basis or cadence, we would do a full digital campaign around that activation in the store.

47:21And the reality is, is as a social media brand or social media founders or operators, you should be constantly looking for validation and credibility that you can get associated with your brand. And the consumer understands that Target, Walmart, insert certain retailers' names, they're not just letting anyone into the store. They're doing diligence on that product. And so for us to be the social media brand, young founders, hey, why should I trust you guys? Well, once we were able to get these retailers to stand behind us and even amplify our brand, it just honestly gave a boost to every channel.

47:57So I think that you should make a big deal about every time you have some sort of partnership happening with a retailer. You should constantly remind customers that you're at these retailers because it will even enhance your e-commerce performance. And lastly, yeah, like you need to tell people to go to those stores and buy it because that's not only gonna create sales in that store, but if you create enough sales, it's going to give you more opportunities for things like off shelves and exciting collaborations with those doors. Mari, as Greg mentioned, you entered Walmart, Bloom Nutrition entered Walmart earlier this year, the biggest brick and mortar retail chain in the world.

48:32And having Bloom Nutrition on its shelves seems like a huge win, but it might also come with a change in the way people view the brand. It might come with this sense that, oh, Bloom Nutrition is a big brand now and it's a Walmart brand. Did that ever come into play? I mean, you have any hesitation about aligning with a retailer of that size? I think in terms of our mission, we were always about accessibility and we're based here in LA. Before that, we were based in New York, but we always had this knowledge that my community and Bloom's community is really everywhere. We're all around the country, Kansas, Florida, Texas, wherever it may be.

49:12We never wanted to be this niche health product that only existed in New York and LA. We wanted to be everywhere. So I think getting into Walmart was actually just a huge win for the community because we had followers who were like, oh, great. You launched in Target. I don't have one near me, but they did have a Walmart near them. So for us, it was more of a win than anything. And because we always had that close connection with the community, they were celebrating with us and they couldn't believe that. They remembered when we launched from my dad's attic and when we were taking the photos ourselves.

49:42So to see us on the shelves of Walmart was this huge, huge win and I think the way we communicated that was by me getting in the store and showing them and talking about it and showing them the true emotion we had when we did launch there because otherwise you know there's this kind of screen between you and the customers and I don't really like that I like to break down that wall and show them like hey this was a really big deal for us and it still is so yeah if anything I feel like it was just a celebration on both ends yeah Walmart's been great to work with. You know, in the last few years, they've brought a really high quality selection of products, especially supplements into their stores.

50:21And, you know, we've been really proud to be partnered with them. With the amount of stores that you're in, brick and mortar stores that you're in, I wonder where D2C fits into the future of their business. How do you think about the sort of balance between D2C and brick and mortar at this point? It's tough. I mean, for starters, everyone wants the lowest price. Everyone wants a unique SKU. Everyone wants the newest flavor first. So, you know, just like how you have a relationship management with your customers, you have a relationship manager with your influencers, a relationship manager with your employees or your team.

50:51You also have that with your retailers and you need to keep them happy, really happy and excited to continue pushing your brand. So there's quite a few moving pieces in terms of the omni-channel operation. I would say that something that I did not expect to happen, which is fine that it did, is now our personal website. It's not nearly as lucrative or as large as it used to be. You know, that has definitely been cannibalized and brought into for an overall net gain into Amazon, Walmart, and Target. But, you know, you just need to continue trying to keep all of those retailers happy and follow their rules.

51:24You know, it's not rocket science. It's not rocket science, but it is a complicated dance, as it were. I think you just talked about that, Greg, which is trying to keep all moving pieces in the same direction, but it sounds like you've done so. And it sounds like Bloom Nutrition is a pretty remarkable brand in that it was born out of a mission and desire to make people feel better. And you're doing it every day with millions of people all over the United States. I can't imagine that feeling, you know, financially just, you know, putting that aside for a second, just being able to help people along their health journeys is an amazing thing to do.

52:02Greg, Mari, thank you so much again for taking the time to sit down with me today. So excited to share this with our audience. Thank you so much. This was a pleasure. Thank you. That was great.

52:15That brings us to the end of this episode of Taste Radio. Thank you so much for listening. Taste Radio is a production of BevNet.com Incorporated. Our audio engineer for Taste Radio is Joe Cratchy. Our technical director is Joshua Pratt, and our video editor is Ryan Galang. Our social marketing manager is Amanda Smirlinski, and our designer is Amanda Huang. Just a reminder, if you like what you hear on Taste Radio, please share the podcast with friends and colleagues. And of course, we would love it if you could review us on the Apple Podcasts app or your listening platform of choice. Check us out on Instagram.

52:50Our handle is BevNetTasteRadio. As always, for questions, comments, ideas for future podcasts, please send us an email to ask at tasteradio.com. on behalf of the entire taste radio team thank you for listening and we'll talk to you next time