In the late ’90s, while the dot-com boom gripped most, Dennis Chip Wilson experienced an epiphany in a Vancouver yoga class that would change the yoga industry and his life.
As Wilson was in that Yoga class, he looked around and saw no one had appropriate clothing for Yoga. He went on to ask students in the class and the instructor if they would be willing to pay for upgraded clothing to make Yoga easier.
His answer was a resounding yes. This was just the start of his journey to solving the problem of yoga attire and going on to build a fitness athleisure empire with Lululemon.
Starting with Fixing a Problem
Luluemon’s inception was all about problem-solving. How can they create Yoga clothing that people would obsess over and love while growing the Yoga community?
Wilson worked tirelessly to create, test, and improve yoga clothing by working with the top Yoga instructors in Vancouver.
All while creating perfect branding around the problem. The entire marketing, aesthetic, and more were all targeted at Lululemon’s target demographic.
They are creating not only a product that solves a problem. But a community around the brand that when people get in, they cannot leave because the experience was so good and they had so much goodwill with Lululemon.
Creating a Community
They were all about the community around Yoga and Lululemon. They were so committed they actually turned their first store into a Yoga studio at night.
Offer free yoga classes so people can experience it and their products for the first time.
Since they have already focused on every detail, such as the branding, the product, the customer experience, the Yoga, the classes, etc., people got to experience Lululemon, not just buy a product.
This experience bought people’s loyalty, engaging them in the yoga community and creating a cult following behind them.
This key allowed them to expand into more markets beyond Yoga because of their loyalty and community.
When they launched into more industries and products, people trusted the brand, not just the products. When the brand has trust, it allows you to expand into more niches than the one you started in.
The Genius Ambassador Program.
Understanding the power of influence within tight-knit communities, Lululemon pioneered an ambassador program that was revolutionary.
By equipping yoga instructors with free merchandise and empowering them to host complimentary classes, the brand transformed these instructors into brand evangelists.
They had Yoga instructors hosting free yoga classes to get new people exposed to Yoga and exposed to Lululemon. Those people would see the brand and the experience and want to join it and be a part of Lululemon.
The instructors couldn’t help but talk about the product because it was so amazing and became the only thing they wanted to refer to any student.
As they expanded to more parts of the US and more parts globally, not only did they use yoga teachers and classes, but they also targeted local athletes and ambassadors who were famous locally.
Which is far more personal than paying a massive athlete like LeBron James to promote it. People know people, and the closer it is to them, the more they trust it. By utilizing local ambassadors, they could expand to more markets and niches by having trust in the brand.
And once again, when people experienced Lululemon, they never wanted to leave.
The Ripple Effect
As Lululemon penetrated communities from within, using well-known people in the communities to spread the word. They were able to create a ripple effect. Where those people said they knew about the Lululemon experience.
Those people got to experience Lululemon, and they fell in love when they did. Lululemon executed that strategy ideally to get those people excited about it.
This created goodwill with the customers. Guess what that goodwill turned into?
Loyalty. Those people will never leave Lululemon because they love it so much. 2nd, it created word-of-mouth marketing. When you find something truly amazing, one of your first thoughts is, who can I share this with?
Who wants to hear about this?
That is the secret behind viral growth. Converting that goodwill that is generated by delivering something amazing and turning it into word of mouth, organic, and social revenue.
Let’s break it down to be simple.
So, do you want the TL;DR on what they did that absolutely crushed it? Well, here it is.
- Product and Market Fit: Lululemon’s ascension was fueled by a relentless focus on solving specific problems for its target audience, validated by the enthusiastic reception from the yoga community.
- Influencer Collaboration: By cultivating genuine relationships with yoga instructors and fitness influencers, Lululemon harnessed the power of word-of-mouth, turning satisfied customers into vocal advocates.
- Brand and Perceived Value Enhancement: The brand’s investment in customer experience and high-quality products created a perceived value that far exceeded the price point, driving customer loyalty and repeat business.
- Network Effect and Viral Marketing: Through strategic ambassador programs and community engagement, Lululemon initiated a self-sustaining cycle of advocacy and referral, amplifying its reach and impact exponentially.
- Social Media Leverage: By aligning its brand with the values and interests of its community, Lululemon has mastered the art of social media engagement, turning every product launch and event into a viral sensation.
- The Ripple Effect: When people tell people, those people tell people, and those people tell people. Creating a viral ripple effect allows you to grow without spending money on ads. This is exactly how Lululemon penetrated communities and created a ripple effect around the brand.
How you can do the same.
This is a dream scenario that will never happen to your brand. But that is not true. We could scale our previous company to over $220M a year in sales without spending ANY money on Facebook ads.
There is a science to it, just like Lululemon did, where you can actually get customers without spending any upfront money.
Imagine how your business would change if you made profits on the first purchase that someone bought from your brand.
- Product and Market Fit: You need to know your best customer and double down on it. Focus on the problem and niche you solve and go after that. Create something people will want to discuss because it has a unique niche and solves a problem for those consumers.
- Brand and Perceived Value Enhancement: There are many ways to improve perceived value. But it would help if you made sure that the perceived value of your products far exceeds the price customers pay. This creates a consumer surplus, your “currency” for viral marketing. You need to make sure everything is premium, not just in your eyes but the eyes of your target demographic. Does the website branding match what they want to buy from? Does the product landing page express the values of your product and why they need it? Is the checkout well-optimized and visually appealing? Is the shipping prompt premium? In the world of Amazon, everyone wants it now, and the faster you get it to them, the more valuable it is. How is the unboxing experience? Look at Apple; they are the king of this. How is the product quality? Is it everything you sold? Does it match your brand? The better you have all those things, the more goodwill you have, which means your odds of going viral are much higher. Sometimes, even with those things in line, it won’t “naturally go viral.” You have to activate that goodwill and ask your customers to turn it into organic growth, and this is where a post-purchase funnel can automate this “Natural Phenomenon.”\ With Kwik, we can help you create a post-purchase funnel that automates this customer-driven process that turns every customer into a brand fanatic. Someone who can’t help themselves but buy every color, tell their friends about your brand, create content and post on organic socials, and be your biggest fan. If you already have goodwill with your customers, we can turn it into viral growth using Stanley’s strategies but add incentives to ensure it happens. We do this with our funnel, which gets every customer to come in because of rewards and gets them to do everything they need to create this viral growth using our incentive program. You can read more about how the funnel works here.
- Influencer Collaboration / Driving Growth: The stage is set; you have an ultra-premium customer experience that generates metric tons of goodwill with your customers that is just waiting to be spent on the hand-crafted funnel that converts insanely high.It is just getting customers to buy and get into the funnel. One great way is doing what Stanley did. Find influencers or your biggest fans, and get them to kickstart the traffic. Run a special deal or promotion for them to start the organic sales funnel. The more, the better; getting more influencers to promote your brand or run paid ads to get that traffic is needed. But when the traffic starts, the funnel engages, converting every customer into a brand ambassador, converting goodwill into organic viral growth. Leading to the most profitable, consistent, and best customers you can get.
- Network Effect and Viral Marketing: Now that you set up the foundations and systems around the network effect, you just let it do its job. If it’s not working, check the KPIs and funnel and see how customers are converting down the funnel.
You can test if they need more incentives or marketing to move down. Eventually, you will nail down the funnel and get that organic growth brands want.
Keep in mind that it took Lululemon over five years for the significant growth to figure it out, but it started working overnight.
When you nail this strategy, it creates an enduring business. Customers sell for you. You can shut down your PPC or any paid advertising that costs money upfront because your organic viral growth is robust.
- Social Media Leverage: Lean into it, create a team around it, and take it to the next level. Now you see the funnel in action; you have the metrics to track it; move with the flow. Create something people continually love.Keep it fresh; add new incentives, rewards, challenges, etc., that keep people interested in your product and talking about it.
This is something you can do too!
It really is!
This is just ONE example of how a marketing genius realized that word of mouth is NOT just a natural phenomenon and that customer-driven sales are the way to market in 2024.
Having some form of post-purchase organic funnel has NEVER been more important than in 2024, as ad costs are rising, loyalty is dwindling, and competition keeps growing.
It would help if you stood out; this is your secret weapon that your competition needs to be using.
If you want to talk to our team, we’re partnering with companies to help them create a post-purchase funnel that does what we laid out above.
We have been doing it for 30 years and have sold BILLIONS of dollars worth of products with this organic sales funnel.
It’s not just an idea we see happening; we’re engineers of it, and we’re working with select companies that already have a few things in place.
- A great product
- Ability to scale
- Delivers on an experience.
- Ready to grow
- Willing to commit to this system.
If that’s you, we would love to speak with you and see if your brand is ready for this viral, word-of-mouth program that we call Customer-driven Sales.
Click here to see if we’re a good fit!
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