How did a 110-year-old company become an overnight success and grow its sales by $700M in just a few years?
They tapped into this organic sales mechanism that other companies use to blow up organically without running ads or paid traffic.
We call this mechanism customer-driven sales, and we’re going to break down exactly how Stanley was able to use customer-driven sales to grow their company.
What is Customer Driven Sales?
It’s focusing on organic growth. Many companies focus daily on creating a sales funnel that converts ice-cold traffic into paying customers, which is the entire purpose of a DTC business.
But they must catch up on this process that many companies are capitalizing on. Creating this viral growth requires even more detail on a funnel that occurs AFTER a customer purchases—creating a complete cycle funnel, from converting customers to funnel customers to developing organic and viral growth.
Think about what you have in your post-purchase funnel. Do you funnel them into some email marketing? SMS marketing, paid ad retargeting, or even worse, you might be paying out loyalty points….
These are NOT the things that will make you go viral; they will add sales and make you more profitable, but you won’t be able to 17x your revenue like Stanley did.
It would help if you had a post-purchase funnel that is optimized for this organic and viral growth, which you’re probably not doing yet.
So, what funnel and changes did Stanley make to create this organic viral marketing engine?
The Stanley Story
If you have yet to hear of Stanley, you must not be on TikTok because Stanley has quickly become the king of marketing there. Taking a 110-year-old $40M a year brand to a $740M a year brand in just three years!
This kind of growth is not unique.
The viral nature of social media marketing has completely changed the way companies do business, and Stanley is just one of many examples.
Stanley’s product that took the world by storm is the Thirst Quencher 2.0.
This was first released in 2016. By 2019, the company had planned to phase out the product because it was not selling like it should.
But there was a group of Women Influencers named The Buy Guide who really loved the Stanleys. Their ability to fit in cupholders and have a great straw separated it from the current Hydroflask industry leader.
They even bought 5,000 units to sell to their followers on their site, and sold out within minutes.
In 2019, Stanley brought in a marketing genius named Terrance Reilly. He was the genius behind the Crocs transformation and completely changed the public perception of Crocs.
He recognized the power of what was happening with this viral and organic growth with the Buy Guys and the Thirst Quencher 2.0 and decided to talk to influencers.
They met and decided to change things. Stanley, a brand that has been around for over a century, has been targeting hardworking men and giving them vacuum-sealed cups.
The new pivot is creating colors and designs that appeal to the working mom. To give them a cup they can take to work and love.
This was hard for Stanley as it went against their previous target market. But Terrance recognized the power in this.
The Buy Guys and Terrance worked on those new colors and an affiliate commission for those girls on this new product, which they launched.
The new colors sold out in just three weeks. The new marketing and branding was working.
Stanley ended their revenue in 2020 with $90M.
They embraced this organic and viral growth and created a strategy behind it. So that, all anyone saw on their feeds was Stanley. With this awareness and hype, they were able to get into Target, Costco, Walmart, etc., and get their cups in more spots for people.
The demand was so high they had to limit two tumblers per customer.
This old brand has completely reinvented itself. Taking revenue up to $402M in 2022.
This new organic way of growing was everything for them. They embraced TikTok and realized they were the kings of it so much that they established and created a dedicated agency to help others make the same level of organic marketing they had created.
This changed Stanley from a fad to an icon. Its sales skyrocketed to $750M in 2023, adding $700M to its revenue since it started working with the Buy Guys and creating a company that will be around forever.
How Stanley Did It.
So, cool story, bro, but what did they actually do?
Was this just some string of luck? Or was it highly intentional?
Let me tell you, this was 100% strategic and formulated. Their top marketing is genius; they have done this at other companies, and now, Stanley, there is a PROVEN formula that other companies NEED to implement.
Instead of thinking about your ROAS and CPC, wake up to having your customers do the selling for you organically without needing to pay upfront.
This is precisely what Stanley did, and it just compounded year after year.
And where did it all start?
With The Buy Guide and the product. The product had to be good; the buy guys saw the potential but saw the need for more marketing. They visited the people who wanted this and proved it by selling many units.
But they saw a way of improving marketing and taking over the market. As the age-old saying goes, the customer knows best. Stanley listened.
They adjusted their branding, their marketing, and their target audience to create something that was wanted.
Then, they created an affiliate or revenue share with those influencers to help spark and drive traffic to the cups.
Not to mention, they enhanced the website, improved customer service, and had all the “premium touches” to ensure there was lots of goodwill with their customers who bought.
They had everything lined up: problems to solve, marketing, customer profile, customer service, branding, shipping, etc.
Everything was ultra-premium and ready to deliver the best cup experience.
The Network Effect
And what happened next? Those influencers began promoting the Stanleys. Not in a salesy way or a pushy way, but in the way of, “This water bottle will solve all your problems, has a handle, a great straw, fits in a cupholder, keeps ice longer, etc.”
Everything the customers wanted to hear.
Driving sales and selling out the product. But this is where the magic happened.
Because the experience was so premium, and the product was so good, all those who bought form the Buy Guide wanted to tell their friends about the same experience and value they got from their Stanley.
Just because the product was so good, the customer experience was so good, the branding and colors were so good, the shipping was great, etc., the whole experience was far above anyone else.
The product spread like wildfire.
The customers of The Buy Guys told their friends about the cup.
Why? Because of the experience they wanted to share. Stanley has built so much goodwill with each customer that they naturally want to use it and tell their friends.
Then, when the customers share with their friends, you get a self-perpetuating process where those new customers share with their friends, who share with their friends, who share with their friends.
Now, The Buy Guide influencers have reached more than their audience; they have got the friends of the friends of their followers. They created a ripple effect with unbelievable power.
They partnered with more and more influencers, and with the perceived value of the purchase being so high, customers shared like wildfire.
They even had such a trend on TikTok that #StanelyTubler had over 1 BILLION views. It became a trend to talk about Stanleys, show Stanleys, get the latest colors, etc. It was all anyone wanted to talk about because it was so viral.
All of it stems from one group of influencers.
This creates word-of-mouth marketing and is consistent in brands beyond Stanley. The only way to explode your growth is to have your customers sell for you.
There are more of them than there are of you, and getting them to sell for you creates an enduring brand that will never go away, just like Stanley did.
Summary
Stanley, a century-old company, achieved a remarkable transformation and growth by adopting a customer-driven sales approach. Here’s a detailed summary of their strategy and its execution:
Understanding Customer-Driven Sales
Customer-driven sales focus on organic growth post-purchase. Traditional sales funnels convert cold traffic into customers, but this approach emphasizes the funnel after purchase, aiming for viral growth through customer engagement and advocacy.
The Stanley Transformation
- Background: Stanley, established for over 110 years, experienced stagnation with a yearly revenue of around $40 million. The turnaround began with their product, the Thirst Quencher 2.0, initially faced discontinuation due to poor sales.
- Influencer Engagement: A group named The Buy Guide, comprising women influencers, found unique value in Stanley’s product. Their promotion and direct sales to followers led to immediate sell-outs, indicating untapped market potential.
- Strategic Hiring: Stanley brought in marketing expert Terrance Reilly, known for revamping Crocs. Reilly recognized the potential in the organic growth driven by The Buy Guide and the Thirst Quencher 2.0.
- Target Market Shift: Under Reilly’s guidance, Stanley shifted its target market from hardworking men to working moms. This involved redesigning products with appealing colors and designs suitable for the new demographic.
- Product Relaunch and Collaboration: Collaborating with the Buy Guys, Stanley launched new product variants with an affiliate program. The result was rapid sell-outs and significant revenue growth, reaching $90 million by the end of 2020.
- Expansion and Visibility: Leveraging the hype, Stanley products gained shelf space in major retailers like Target, Costco, and Walmart. Due to high demand, purchase limits were imposed, showcasing the brand’s newfound popularity.
- Revenue Surge: By embracing TikTok and other organic marketing channels, Stanley’s sales skyrocketed, reaching $402 million in 2022 and $750 million in 2023. Since the strategy’s inception, this represented an astonishing addition of $700 million to their revenue.
What did they do?
- Product and Market Fit: Recognizing and enhancing the product’s appeal to a specific market segment was crucial. The Buy Guys identified and targeted the product’s potential audience effectively.
- Influencer Collaboration: Forming strategic partnerships with influencers for marketing and sales, including revenue sharing, was a key growth driver.
- Brand and Perceived Value Enhancement: Improving the website, customer service, and overall brand experience ensured high customer satisfaction and advocacy.
- Network Effect and Viral Marketing: The premium product experience led to word-of-mouth promotion, amplified by influencers. Customers became brand advocates, creating a ripple effect of recommendations.
- Social Media Leverage: Exploiting the viral nature of social media, especially TikTok, was pivotal. The #StanleyTumbler trend, for instance, gained massive traction, contributing to the brand’s vitality.
How To Do This
Now we know how Stanley did this, what are actionable steps you can create to duplicate this in your DTC business to 17x your revenue like Stanley did?
- Product and Market Fit: You need to know who your best customer is 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 that to have success. 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? Apple is 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 it took Stanley 3 years for the significant growth to really 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.
Conclusion
That’s it! 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 is not 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.
Stanl
Suppose you want to jump on a call. In that case, we can get on and see if it’s a good fit to work with us and create an organic sales engine that will automate your sales process and create consistent, constant, and reliable revenue coming in without you spending ANY upfront money.
