Colette Laxton [00:00:00]:
I am as passionate about our mission as I was when we started the brand. You know, we've not done enough of a job because people are still effing up their faces, they're still over exfoliating their skin, they're still buying things because they're viral on TikTok that aren't right for them. So I've not done my job yet. My job is not complete to spread that knowledge to a point where people are like, hey, hmm, I get it, it's sexy, I like it, but it's not for me. And if I can get people to do that, I've done my job. And if they buy an Inculus product along the way, then fantastic.
Paul Archer [00:00:30]:
Love that. Love that.
Paul Archer [00:00:31]:
Have you ever wondered why some brands grow exponentially, building legions of passionate fans that live and die by their logos and some, well, don't? I do, all the time. And that's probably because I'm a massive brand nerd. But I believe there's a secret sauce at the core of every remarkable brand. A formula that sparks the growth of passionate communities, of superfans, building a business and a reputation that will last for years to come.
In this podcast, we tap into the greatest marketing minds in the world as they share the exact tactics and strategies used to build the world's greatest brands. Dropping actionable insights every brand builder can apply.
My name is Paul Archer and I'm a specialist in Brand Advocacy and word-of-mouth. Having consulted for hundreds of brands on a topic co hosting with me is the wonderful Verity Hurd, expert on the bleeding edge of social media.
It's time to learn and build Brand Advocacy.
Paul Archer [00:01:39]:
Hello, welcome to Building Brand Advocacy. My name's Paul Archer. I am your host today and I am joined by the amazing Colette Laxton of the Inkey List. Colette, how you doing? Hi.
Colette Laxton [00:01:51]:
I'm very good, thank you. Paul, how are you?
Paul Archer [00:01:53]:
I'm good. I'm psyched. I mean, this is. It's only 5pm here, we're both in the UK and it's like pitch black outside, which is miserable.
Colette Laxton [00:02:00]:
Yeah, it feels pretty dark. Pretty dark. But I'm excited to be here. We're going to get the energy going.
Paul Archer [00:02:04]:
We are, we're going to get it pumped. So if anyone, the few people who won't know who you are and your incredible brand, tell us all about Inkey List, what it is, and actually I'd be really interested to understand. Why did you start it in the first place?
Colette Laxton [00:02:20]:
So the Inkey List is a British skincare brand and we launched it Six years ago and we had a very clear single mission which was to spread the beauty of knowledge to the world. We wanted to call BS on the beauty industry that was very opaque back in 2018. Fun fact, you wouldn't even have ingredients lists on retailer and brands websites. So people were buying things, they didn't even know what was inside. So there's a very opaque beauty industry built on marketing magic and a lot of bs and we were calling BS on that. So we wanted to deliver a brand that was truly for everyone. Everyone's invited to the Inkey list because we're going to give you the knowledge you need to empower you for you and your skin. Very, very simple concept.
We are as black and white as our packs. We'll tell you like it is, no questions too big or small. We just want to help you find the right product for you and your skin, as simple as that. So that's the brand. And then why we started it was because of the bs. So our background. So I've co founded it with a guy called Mark Curry, who is a scientist by background, but we actually met working at Boots together. He was a healthcare buyer and I spent 10 years working through product development and marketing of beauty brands.
So it kind of the stars aligned. We had the right background and we said, hang on a minute, we can do this and we can do this way better.
Paul Archer [00:03:54]:
Amazing. And if anyone does not Boots is. It's a British version of Walgreens, but people love it. There's a lot of passion for that as a retailer.
Colette Laxton [00:04:02]:
There's a lot of passion for Boots. It's quite unique and trying to explain it to people in the US that like, hang on a minute, it's Wargrids, but it's sexier than Walgreens. It's not quite an Ultra or Sephora. It's somewhere in between all of those things. But yeah, lots of love for Boots on the high street, that's for sure.
Paul Archer [00:04:18]:
I actually love that description. What was it? What was your biggest takeaway from working 10 years at Boots? I mean, just was that one thing that you think just like sets you above the rest? Because of that, wow.
Colette Laxton [00:04:27]:
Everything. The end to end. Like, I truly did the groundwork. I worked in every single department. You know, I started by putting toys onto the boots.com website. Who knew they did toys? They did back in the day. But I literally learn how to load products onto a website right through to working the suppliers on packaging, right through to working in the department that acquired brands. So I really have a Full end to end perspective of what's great, what's not, and really how to build a brand.
Paul Archer [00:04:57]:
And fast forward to today. I mean, Inkey List, it clearly hit a nerve. I mean, it's doing phenomenally well. I mean, where are you right now? I know you've got a sort of social following combined of over a million people. Where is the business right now and what's next for it over the next couple of years.
Colette Laxton [00:05:16]:
Yeah, so it's six years and honestly, I can't believe it's been six years. We've grown incredibly fast and are very lucky that we have resonated globally. We've hit the Magic milestone of $100 million in sales, which is mind blowing. And we've built an incredible community of, like you said, over a million followers and people that are now obsessed with the Inkey List. And it's, it's nice. I would say in the last couple of years we've gone from being a kind of a niche indie beauty brand to kind of a main staple in people's bathroom cabinets, which is really the goal. So that feels, feels pretty, pretty good on a daily basis. It's hard work, but yeah, it's nice to become recognized as a brand that's truly valuable in people's lives.
Paul Archer [00:06:02]:
Lives huge. 100 million in six years is just remarkable. And if you think about that like, yeah, very much a cult brand, you sort of hit the zeitgeist. People loved it. You can't be $100 million brand and still really be that cult indie sort of brand that we can speak cult, but you're certainly not indie at that sort of stage. How have you built this community while sticking to your values? Because that kind of idea of scaling whilst actually sticking to who you are. Have you been true to that? And what has been the secret to.
Colette Laxton [00:06:34]:
It's really tough. It's really tough because the reason that people resonated with the Inkey List was our true authenticity. So, Paul, speaking to you now, if I met you down the pub or if I was selling to you in a, in a boot store or I was an influencer event, like I am who I am and I am an authentic founder and our team are authentic and genuine and that's great when you're an indie brand and you're super small and you can really have that human touch point. But it is definitely much harder as you scale. And for me that has been the biggest challenge. But the biggest factor of our success is truly staying authentic to who we are, making sure that everything we do is human and personal. So how do we give skincare education? We have a asking key service which is a one on one skincare support service team answering DMS or comments and speaking to people on social. It's, it's, it's real and it's human and we do everything we can to make that experience as personal and as human as possible.
Using tech to support us to get there. But building a big team of people, whether that be skincare experts online through to field team out in stores. We're just trying to spread the word in the most human and authentic way possible.
Paul Archer [00:07:48]:
And my team are bored of me saying this to them, but I'm obsessed at the moment of like focus and focus not being about choosing what to do, it's about choosing what not to do and what I love about the best brands in the world. If you ask them what it is about their brand, they often will tell you a much longer list of what they're not. So like giving that to you, what don't you do and what is the inking list not?
Colette Laxton [00:08:13]:
We don't chase fads, we don't chase trends and we don't chase numbers. So if you think about building a community, what would be the easiest way to build a community? Find some great macros that are super relevant, pay them a load of money. Jobs are good, it's not. And we actively are grassroots still and do a lot of grunt work to build community of the right people. And for me it's about playing the long game. It's not about the quick win and we've been very lucky that our scale has been speedy. But if you play the long game and do the right thing with the right people, that's where you get the results. I think a lot of brands and businesses get very excited by KPIs and ranking and let's be the number one EMV brand and do it at any cost.
And you can, you can, you can pay to play and you can do some shortcuts, but it's that longevity piece for me. What I will not do is chase a short term number or chase a short term viral moment or building of an audience.
Paul Archer [00:09:16]:
It's easy to say that when we're flying right and there's going to be people who are listening here, which they're like, okay, that's all well and good when you're growing massively, but I've got to make the bills pay. And I'm sure that it hasn't been all constant growth and rosy throughout that can you think of a time where those ideals were really challenged and what it was that you did to try and keep you sticking to the, to the, to the vision that you had?
Colette Laxton [00:09:42]:
Launching in North America was really, really, really tough. And even to this day, you know, there's different rules of the game. You know, we're in 35 countries as a brand, so playing to the rules of each market is really challenging. And I would say in North America specifically, brands are so loud and so aggressive and it is hard. There are times that you're like, oh, you know, I just need a shortcut. I just need to work with the right influencer to, you know, hit that mark. And, you know, the first year of the US was dicey. Like, it was dicey.
You know, we were super lucky that Sephora caught wind of the brand and we launched into North America within six months of launching. So they loved the idea, they loved what we'd started to build in the uk. But you're talking, yeah, literally six months and I had to fake it before I made it. And, and that was. That was scary. You know, within a couple of months of launching in the north, in the, in the North American market, you know, the numbers weren't there immediately. It did take a minute and, you know, we maybe were naive thinking that if we, you know, we had an overnight success in the uk, that we would have an overnight success in North America doing the same things. Oh, turns out, not so much turns out, you know, the cost of doing business in North America is way harder, I will tell you.
Actually, one massive, massive mistake I made that wasn't genuine to the brand, which was not hiring a field team and using an agency. So we were advised by Sephora, quite rightly, you know, you need to get yourself out in the market. We're a UK brand based in the uk. You need to get out there, you need to be spreading the word about your brand, get people into store, talking about your brand. Brilliant. Okay, fan, this agency, I, luckily we did a very, very good contract negotiation and managed to get out of it very, very, very quickly. But I walked into a Sephora door and was greeted by this guy and he was like, hey, do you want. Do you know about the Inkey list? Obviously, I'm not going to do the American accent.
I'm terrible at it. Although I pretty much live there now. And this guy was like, selling to me, like, he might as well have had the Inkey List. Like, inside his coat, he literally had come off. He said he was a nightclub bouncer and that he'd come off the shift and he was still wearing, you know, the suit from the nightclub, and then had a shift in store. And I was chatting to this guy, obviously had no idea who I was, and he was trying to sell me the Inkey list. And I was like, oh, as a founder that is truly passionate about delivering the right support and education for people in a human and authentic way, I was like, oh, yeah, that's not the one. So, yeah, that was a.
That was a real moment where I thought I was doing the right thing by getting people into the market to deliver education, but I wasn't controlling it. And it. And it was not good. You've got your mouth wide open.
Paul Archer [00:12:40]:
I'm just shocked. Yeah, I'm like, how does that ever seem like a good idea? Just, just. Okay, let's just unpack that a little bit. So the. What's the flip side of that? In fact, actually, that's a good place to start.
Colette Laxton [00:12:55]:
What.
Paul Archer [00:12:55]:
What has worked? How have you managed to get the brand out there through the stores? I mean, particularly, how have you managed to educate people? Because that's core to the. To the ethos of the brand. Like, how have you managed that in an entirely new country that no one's ever heard of you?
Colette Laxton [00:13:09]:
Every single level, you know, back to shortcutting, you have to do at every single level, think about where consumers are and how you can educate them in different ways. You know, we were one of the first brands onto TikTok, which was a huge, huge factor in our success in the US and we were very clear about the way in which we wanted to educate on TikTok and really use the power of the brand and the fact that we break down information and make it super simple. So therefore, you can do it in a super snap, happy, interesting way right through to working super closely with the retail advisors because they're the ones selling the brand every single day, making sure that we are educating very simply.
Our job is to break things down that are complicated. So we do that in every single channel and every single way. Building a community in the US was actually not as hard as I thought because I think the brand positioning just spoke to so many people. And there were a lot of. A lot of creators at the time that were starting to get real traction from this idea of transparency and no BS and really kind of trying to educate versus just, you know, selling the dream of magic.
So we found quite a lot of creators quite early on that really resonated with who we were. And they did a huge Part of the legwork of shouting about the brand, why we were different and, you know, why people should, should come and have a look at the Inkey list.
Paul Archer [00:14:40]:
That's amazing. And like, so you've got the retail associates, how are you actually training them? I mean, specifically, you've got your TikTok content, you're putting that out and that's blow by blow how the ingredients, how the products should be used and how are you able to translate that down into the boots in the ground? Because, you know, you don't own those guys, they don't work for you. Like, so how did that happen?
Colette Laxton [00:15:00]:
Find someone incredible in the US As a British founder, they love the fact that we're British and cute and they love to mock the accent and love, I don't know, they think we're posh, which is quite funny because I'm anything but posh. But there's a time and a place to use the Britishness. The American market does love the uk, but fundamentally, if you want to speak to that market, there's a real US connection that was needed and we bought on somebody incredible to drive education.
And what he was really great at doing and still works with us to this day is translating education into sexy snazzy snippets that the retail advisors could understand. Because guess what? They've got how many hundreds of brands and how many hundreds of products in their store? So how do you take the premise of Inky, which is about making skincare simple to understand and easy to use, but giving it a hook that allows them to go, oh, I remember that because so it was really important to us to get that American spin on the kind of no bs, straight talking British Inky, if you will.
Paul Archer [00:16:10]:
Love that. Can you buy ads against employees like that? Is that doable? Can we target that? I mean LinkedIn would work, but I guess most of these guys aren't necessarily on LinkedIn, but meta surely has some creepy data that you could, you could buy, I'm sure.
Colette Laxton [00:16:24]:
Good question.
Paul Archer [00:16:25]:
Maybe we should, we should start, we should start a Sephora ad agency specifically just for launching companies in another, in.
Colette Laxton [00:16:32]:
The, into Sephora, maybe on our weekends.
Paul Archer [00:16:35]:
Let's, let's give it, let's do it, let's do it. Yeah, we do it like we'll, we'll put a business plan in a pitch and put it, put it out there, see if the VCs are interested. Right? Okay, cool. So going back to it, I want to go back to the bouncer just all of a sudden then this is.
Colette Laxton [00:16:49]:
Not the plan to talk about. I love this a lot. I just ever told this story before.
Paul Archer [00:16:54]:
Well, it's fascinating, right? So the reason why I'm really interested in this is because, like, I'm obsessed with Advocacy and I love the way that stories travel between different people. And it's just like you managed to find the wrong advocate, yet then actually found these amazing advocates that went and told your story, particularly when you really knew what your story was, because it worked in UK and translating and that side of things. And so, like, how else are you building brand Advocacy within this new territory, within this new country? I mean, clearly finding some things that didn't work, like bouncers flogging you in Sephora. What else have you stopped doing and what have you really, really lent into?
Colette Laxton [00:17:32]:
I think we launched in 2018, right? So then we launched into North America in 2019. So we've been really through it as a brand in terms of going through a pandemic, because just as we got going and the moment we got full space in Sephora, in stores, and so you start on what's called, like the next big thing wall. It's like a trending wall that has kind of new brands in and we immediately went onto that wall. But then you get your own space. It's like the gondola or the wall. And it's like the big moment that you've made it and, you know, did the same thing in Boots and the moment we made it and we invested heavily in fixtures. We were meant to launch on 17-3-20. So put all of our investment into fixturization and then, you know, give it literally everywhere shut.
So the reason I say that is because what we have been navigating over six years, including that period, is online, offline and how you build a community and Advocacy offline and online and everyone talks omnichannel and multi channel and all these things. I don't think anyone's really got it down, you know, I really, really don't. But really working out, like, where is your consumer and how do you meet them, where they are in the way that they want to be spoken to and in the way they. That they want to be interacted with is really, really important. And we were able through the time of the pandemic to maximize. Everyone was at home not being able to go anywhere and they were on their screens bored. And we were able to capture them and build true Advocacy. Mark and I were on lives every single week.
We were one of the first brands again to go on to do An Instagram lives. And we would sit with a glass of wine for hours on end, talking to customers, literally just talking. They would say, like, this is my skin type. I don't know what to do. And we would just sit and there'd just be comments coming through and we'd be chatting. We'd get our team on. We just built like a real level of human connection with an audience who, ironically, some of them still keep in touch with me now and will DM me now because they were like our friend. They like, we were like their friends.
And people would say, this is like, I'm living for this. Like, my life is so dull right now. They might live on their own and they'd be like, this Monday night, I know Inky are going to be with me. And it was like a big part of people's lives. So we were able to like, capture that moment. There's other moments, like in real life, where we were able to capture them in where they want to be in the right time. So Sephora do a thing called Sephora, which is a huge mega, mega. Like, think of it like a trade show, but for consumers.
And every brand has a booth. And it's bonkers. Absolutely bonkers. We were a really, really young brand and were asked to do this, this event and we had no money, so we made it. Made our booth in the uk because we couldn't afford to make anywhere. Made it in the uk, shipped it out, took the entire team because we literally didn't have anyone. And we basically built this booth and it was totally unique to Inky. Every other booth was like, instagram ready, you know, come have a photo with the founder.
And was for me, absolute bs because it's like, what value are you giving to that consumer? We created a lab where people could talk to us about their skin and mix their own skincare serum. And we would personalize it so they would walk away knowing their skin and having a personalized serum just for them. And we, we were completely unknown brand at that point. Completely. Nobody knew who we were. This is 2019. And we ended up being the biggest line of any standard Sephora because people were interested, excited, it was interactive. And again, I had someone two weeks ago that when I was in New York, showed me a photo and said, I met you at Sephora and I've been a fan ever since.
So building Advocacy for me is like, it's not one thing. It's about having an impact on somebody and a group of people in the right space at the right time, in A way that they want to be spoken to. If I was to sit on Instagram right now with a glass of wine, people would be like, what are you doing? Like, I'm busy. Like, tell me, tell me what? Like, what I need to know and I'm going to move on. Like, look at TikTok lives now. It's fast. Like, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. Whereas at the time, that was where people were, you know, in a Sephora, Sephora environment and an event environment.
Give me something that excites me, intrigues me, lets me be part of it. So Advocacy's for me, for the Inkey List is building it the right way at the right time, with the right people where they are.
Paul Archer [00:22:23]:
Hey, it's me again. This podcast is sponsored by Duel, which is my company, actually. Duel is the leading Brand Advocacy platform used by the top retail consumer brands, including Unilever, Charlotte Tilbury, Elemis Loop, and about 50 more to manage, measure and scale their Advocacy member, affiliate, creator and brand ambassador operations. The platform offers unparalleled scale for complex brands by automating nine out of ten of the standard Advocacy management activities and allowing them to focus on arming their Advocates with the right tools to tell the brand story and drive Social Commerce, they can grow faster for less.
We only work with 15% or so of the brands we speak to, but we try and add value in many other ways, this podcast being one of them. So if you are a brand that's interested in this, maybe a large consumer retail brand, ideally you're doing $20-$30 million as a minimum, and you're pretty advanced on social and you need to know what the next stage is, then please get in touch. Email me at paul@duel.tech, that is Paul @ D, U, E, L Dot T, E, C, H or Google Duel dot Tech.
Paul Archer [00:23:30]:
It's amazing. Well, if you think about Advocacy as other people telling your story, but if your story is the same as everyone else's story, why would they tell it? You know, it's got to be different. It's got to be interesting, it's got to be. It's got to be remarkable in the literal sense of the word.
Colette Laxton [00:23:42]:
But I have to say, it's exhausting.
Paul Archer [00:23:44]:
Well, it is. So. So this is. The original kind of idea behind this podcast, was that I was interviewing founders of brands, purely founders, to understand what that magic secret sauce was that they had in that first sort of period of time. And now it's expanded out. We go very tactical on all parts of the marketing journey and the Advocacy journey. But the number one trend that I've spotted pulled out from this, from about sort of 40 or 50 founders on there, is that that first 0 to 10 million bit, the founder basically individually, 1 to 1 sold every single piece of that. Yes, there was a little bit of scaled marketing that goes on with one to many.
But effectively they had a relationship with those people. They hustled, they went to every event, they were in person, they just got in the mix of it and then it created these phenomenal fans of the brand who then went and told everyone and that is what built the brand. And I think that the tendency for people is to be like, okay, cool, I'm at this stage, I now must spend this much money on Meta or I must spend this on there.
And it's like, no, no, no, you must be getting into it. You must meet people like, because people love the founder story. And actually if you, if they meet you, they then go and tell 10 people about this incredible niche brand when they meet, met the founder and that you have 10, like customers for life because of that. And it's like that hustle, that is the difference, the inflection point of people who push through 10 million get to 20, then once they get through 20, they get to 100. Because it's, that's the hard work is getting to that bit there because then you can start scaling it.
And it's fascinating. Time and time and time the same story. Exactly what you said there, it's so inspirational. It just got to get in the weeds. Maybe not right now at this stage you'll be on that, but I'm sure people would love it if you went on there. Are you on your TikTok lives by chance now?
Colette Laxton [00:25:22]:
I'm everywhere. I am the one hosting community events. I am the one. I did, I think this last quarter I did 50 calls with influencers.
Paul Archer [00:25:34]:
Wow.
Colette Laxton [00:25:34]:
I am getting. I don't want to work with people that aren't representative of my friend. I want to speak to people, I want to get to know them and I want them to understand the brand. I don't want them selling. This is really great for your skin. And then they've moved on. I want them to believe in my mission. I want them to believe in what I'm doing and then work out if there's a connection.
It's hard. It's hard work. I'm the one driving community events. I did probably over 40 community events this year. I am as passionate about our mission as I was when we started the brand. You know, we've not done enough of a job because people are still effing up their faces, they're still over exfoliating their skin, they're still buying things because they're viral on TikTok that aren't right for them. So I've not done my job yet. My job is not complete to spread that knowledge to a point where people are like, hey, I get it, it's sexy, I like it, but it's not for me.
And if I can get people to do that, I've done my job. And if they buy an inculus product along the way, then fantastic.
Paul Archer [00:26:31]:
Love that. And so one of the things that is a massive trend as well on brands that are successful particularly to have community, is this generosity of spirit, generosity in time, which clearly you're doing here, but also generosity in product and seeing product and gifting and that as a mindset of getting product in people's hands, almost as a customer acquisition budget and way of doing that. And you lean into this quite a lot. Can you tell me a bit more?
Colette Laxton [00:26:58]:
Yeah. Getting the product out there and gifting. Gifting's always been a massive, massive part of the brand because I don't believe in, you know, just paid partnerships. I believe in getting to a point of paid partnerships, but I'm not sure we've ever just gone out to someone and done a paid partnership. For me, it's about building the relationship, you know, getting someone to try your product, them to organically like it. You know, we find most of, most of the people in our community that have just genuinely tried and like the brand and then you build that relationship just from that gifting moment. So for me, it's such a great way into the brand and it's expensive to a point where, you know you're going to kiss a lot of frogs. You're going to get a lot of people, you know, that aren't right for the brand.
But, but ultimately, if we can get the brands and the products out there to as many people as possible, it's effectively a sampling thing, isn't it? Think about, you know, on a retailer website, you'd sample your product for people to try it. You're doing the exact same thing, but you're choosing the people that you're gifting product to. And it's, it's tough, it's tough as a younger brand to be able to afford that. But I would much rather do the legwork of gifting than, you know, pay 50 grand for one macro that might not pay off any and even if they do pay off in the short term, like I said before, I'm in this for the long game.
And I think gifting for me is a much better way to not only grab somebody, but then there's like a way in which we build it. So you would kind of gift somebody our core product, find out their reaction, you know, work out whether there's something here. Then they'll be first onto our NPD drops. Like, how are you building that relationship? How are you making them feel more and more special? And then at that point where you think there's something here, you know, we'd invite them to an event, get to know them in person, et cetera, et cetera.
So it's a, It's a vehicle in, for me into, into the community. But again, it takes a lot of people packing boxes and filling in spreadsheets and going to the post office.
Paul Archer [00:28:59]:
Have you operationalized that?
Colette Laxton [00:29:00]:
We have. We have now. I will never, ever forget. This is a. Another anecdote for you. So we were, we had, we had an office that we had managed to get rent free. We basically said to someone, we're going to do something. If we are loyal to you, when we make it, we'll make sure that we, that we stay with you.
And we got free rent and we had this office we couldn't afford WI Fi. So I had just tethered off my phone and we had a pasting table, like a wallpaper pasting table. And from day one, we were gifting and I hired an intern. And I remember she was doing all the influence a bit. Finding the right people, da, da, da da. And I was like, cool. So boxes, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And she looked to me and went, oh, I don't do that.
I don't, I don't, I don't. I don't want to actually like pack and take things to the post office. And I remember looking at it and I was like, it's me or you. I was like, if you're not going to do it, I'm going to have to do it. So obviously hired you as an intern, but she was like, oh, no, I want to be an influencer manager. I was like, cool, okay, I'll pack that box then. Awesome. So you've also got to find the right people that before you operationalize it, can do the.
Won't work with you because it's a lot interesting.
Paul Archer [00:30:22]:
Yeah. Thoughts on a lot of the people. If you can't make it, Matt as an influencer, try to make it as an influencer manager. But it does sound that potentially you can't make it in very many places if you're not going to be happy to pat the boxes there. So what do you guys do about building this community that is different and unexpected?
Colette Laxton [00:30:46]:
So I would say the different touch points that we try to have. So as I said, the way that we gift, the way that we choose to gift is really trolling the right people that we feel have the right same values as us, same ethos in terms of education, the way in which we work with influencers. As I said, I am on the phone with influencers, building community and connections with them directly. And then I am somebody that is not a fan of. As you can tell, there is a place for paid, but I'm also not a fan of bribery. So not into brand trip, not into big fancy events. And even this week we did a party. So I said to the team, right, singles day.
I was like, it's a big. It's a big commercial day. But I was like, is it?
Paul Archer [00:31:40]:
It's a big day outside of China. I wasn't aware that this was not.
Colette Laxton [00:31:43]:
It's getting way, way bigger.
Paul Archer [00:31:45]:
Cool.
Colette Laxton [00:31:46]:
It's getting way bigger as a commercial event. But I was like, you know what, let's flip it on its head and let's. Let's take singles day. Flip it on its head with our community. So we did a skin. A. I say a skincare party. We did a day of skincare parties and I said to the team and they looked at me like I was like I'd lost it.
And I said, we're going to do it in our office. And they were like, no, no, no. No one's going to want to come to our office. I was like, we're doing in our office. So I want to build. Bring our community to our hq. Because guess what? Imagine going to a brand's office rather than paying for a fancy restaurant or an event space that's fake and that looks beautiful, but that is not reality. I was like, bring him to the office.
So I did a day of events, So I did three different classes where we bought customers, loyal customers, micro influencers and their friends. So the whole idea of it was we're redefining singles day and it was bring your BFF. So it was a BFF's singles party. So it was about bringing you and a friend that won't know inky so someone new to brand. And then I partnered with some of our key community to host the classes and then they bought Their community. So for me, this is about bringing genuine fans of the brand, genuine customers of the brand and new to brand. And we did a low key day full of skincare events, had a hell of a lot of fun. Loads of news to brand and I've just had the numbers in.
We got the highest EMV of any event we've ever done.
Paul Archer [00:33:24]:
And you know what, as they say, obviously you've got your own ones and your own community in there. The best way of building a community is to steal someone else's, as I was told by my head of community literally yesterday. So.
Colette Laxton [00:33:36]:
I love what you're doing, it's authentic. Because I'm not saying we need you. If you're going to partner with us, you need to bring this many people. It was like, get it out to your community. Like there was tickets. Like, like say, does anyone want to come and have a great day with their bff? And we're just building a bigger and bigger community of people that are interested. Cool, I'll go along. And then they leave.
Fans of the brand, they've tried it, they're excited, they've got to know us and we build from there.
Paul Archer [00:34:00]:
That's huge. It's also so easy to ask someone for one thing. Don't bring all your friends. Oh no, that. Bring your bff. I know who my BFF is. Okay, I will bring them. It's like, can happen.
Colette Laxton [00:34:12]:
Like even if the event was absolutely terrible, they're with their mate, so actually they're gonna have a nice time.
Paul Archer [00:34:19]:
Was there wine?
Colette Laxton [00:34:20]:
There was cocktails.
Paul Archer [00:34:21]:
I mean, you can't go too far wrong, can you?
Colette Laxton [00:34:23]:
This is true. This is true. Although not as many people drink anymore. I'm sure. My age actually it's not a. Not so much of a draw actually.
Paul Archer [00:34:31]:
I totally see that in all the events we put on, it's you kind of. Typically there's an events budget when you're like, okay, well this is how much you'll set aside and do those things. And then nothing gets. Gets drunk or eaten in many cases as well. And do those things we.
Colette Laxton [00:34:45]:
Yeah, it depends. Depends what you're offering. If it's sweet treats, people tend to.
Paul Archer [00:34:51]:
Well, there's the secret. Maybe that's what I'm doing wrong. Get better cakes.
Colette Laxton [00:34:55]:
Oh, don't do anything fancy or try and feed them properly.
Paul Archer [00:34:58]:
No, just some cakes. Cupcakes.
Colette Laxton [00:35:00]:
I mean, I love that like I'm teaching you how to run an event with, with sweet treats. I'm not sponsored by a cupcake brand, but I probably should be.
Paul Archer [00:35:09]:
You're not just teaching me, you're teaching all of the people listening to it as well. This is, this is high quality content.
Colette Laxton [00:35:15]:
Stop spending money on lots of fancy food.
Paul Archer [00:35:18]:
And our big influencers just bring it in, give them cake, give us a product. Massive EMV jobs are good.
Colette Laxton [00:35:25]:
Not going to lie. That's exactly what we did.
Paul Archer [00:35:28]:
Love it. Okay, cool. So in terms of actually the brand, as you're, as you're, you're moving forward now you've got this incredible community. When you talk about actually educating people beyond doing a TikTok post about a specific thing like this is core to your mission as a business. Like how else do you do that? Like where can you show up in a different way and an interesting way that you can really, really teach people about how this should be done and how they can become more aware of the products and how they should take care of their skin.
Colette Laxton [00:36:00]:
For us it's just literally end to end. So think about anywhere the customer is and make sure you're educating them in a different way. Example our packaging, like we literally built our packaging to be an education tool. So we will tell you how to pronounce the ingredient because guess what, loads of people can't even say the name of ingredients. We're going to tell you who it's for, how to use it when in your routine it goes morning and night, like simplicity, really easy education on the, on the inside, on the outside. But then once you take it home, we will then go deeper into education.
So when you get to your bathroom shelf and you're like okay, how do we use this or what does that go? Or da da da da, we're educating even more. So like everything that we do is about finding ways to educate our VM unit in, in a lot of our stores we have a QR code that is to speak live to our.
So if you're confused, got a question asking k you can go on the QR code and speak to our team. So if you're a fixture and don't know which product to go for, even though you should be able to do it by our packs, it should be, you know, shouldn't be have to be an assisted sale. But if you're still confused, we've got a team, they're there to help you anytime. And we actually say to our store, the store advisors when we train them if you're confused or you need help like please use our asking key service. So for me it's like every touch point you can possibly be out with the consumer, how do we educate them?
Paul Archer [00:37:26]:
And for anyone who's listening to this, Colette was doing a proper QVC demonstration there. So you can watch this on the YouTube. If you're not watching it, go to YouTube @ Building Brand Advocacy, hit subscribe and then you're going to get some incredible insight like that.
Colette Laxton [00:37:38]:
Oh my gosh, sorry. I went from cupcakes to salesperson then, didn't I?
Paul Archer [00:37:44]:
This is great. This is the hustle. This is just showing what a founder needs to do to get above and build $100 million business. But like, how often are people doing that? Yes, there's QR codes and things. I mean, like, are we talking five people a day? 500 people a day? Like, what, what does this really look like? And then how do you actually build a system around that?
Colette Laxton [00:38:02]:
Do you know what's a really good point? Because I think a lot of times you, the things that you think are going to be valuable are sometimes of like a vanity piece. And when we, I remember when we launched our website, we actually launched our website not as a trading website, as an education only website. Sorry, that was me blowing my brains out. Like, honestly, the, the, the, the, the kind of focus on our mission has always been like, almost to the point of mentality. But when we launched it, we were like, right, we're going to drive people there to help support them, drive education, and then we'll push them out to retailer websites. And when we did that, now you're going to be like, okay, yeah, whatever. But at the time, I didn't know any other brands that were doing this. We did a skin quiz and it was literally a way to help you find out the right products for you.
And it's our recipe builder. So you can basically put in all your skin concerns. We've now AI'd it, so you can now take a photo and it'll tell you basically your skin and what's right for your skin and we build you a routine. And when we did that, we were like, this is true to our mission, but didn't really know. And we thought this could be a vanity thing, it could be like 10 people do it and it's game over. But over 10 million people have done that. And I think if you can deliver something that is, that is truly valuable and that actually helps people rather than, oh my God, let's go to the metaverse. Like, there's so many things that we could have done that were cool and trendy and blah, blah, blah.
And I'm sure brands have made the Metaverse work. But, you know, we said, let's find something that we think will be valuable to our customer. And it was actually, how do you. The biggest thing they don't know is, great, you've taught me how to use one product or one ingredient, but where do I go from here? And building a routine builder actually has been one of the most successful things we've ever done.
Paul Archer [00:39:56]:
That's incredible. And have you measured that in terms of. From that point in terms of lifetime. Not lifetime value, I guess, but how long do people stick around? Do they. Are they coming back to it time and time again?
Colette Laxton [00:40:07]:
Yeah, we do find that there's a. There's a huge correlation between aov, obviously, because you're building routines, but also lifetime value. There's a. There's a huge correlation of people that make the effort to go through that. And even though it takes two minutes, but it's still an effort on the consumer's part. It definitely translates. We are not optimizing it. I wouldn't say.
But one thing I will say, it's really hard to actually get people to it. We've tried to do, like, ads, and the ads don't actually work. It almost feels like you have to kind of be in that mindset yourself of like, trying to find the answer and, oh, my God, amazing. This will help me. Rather than pushing, come and do our routine builder. Like, sod off. Like, you know, again, it's finding, like, meeting them where they are, but when they do do it, yeah, they're way more loyal, way better customer for us.
Paul Archer [00:41:02]:
And is that. Is it like, do you find the creators talking about that is. Is beneficial? Like, where's he trying to point? Because obviously when you. It's always very crude. You're like, go and buy this product, but actually, like, go here and use this thing as so much more. So much more powerful. It's so much more educational and value add. Like, are you using them for that?
Colette Laxton [00:41:21]:
Not. Not specifically, but I think it's kind of an arm, like part of our armor, if you will. Like, if a creator wants to talk about the brand, there's so many ways in which they can talk about it, but he's got to be relevant to their audience and the way that they talk. So, you know, do you struggle with your skin? You know, the Inky team can help you out or, you know, do you not know the order of your routine? You can go to the routine builder. So it's used within the toolkit of what creators can talk to, but we don't and haven't run specific like creator campaigns on Talk about our recipe builder. It's more of an organic thing that customers find and use, which I should probably write some notes on maybe.
Paul Archer [00:42:02]:
Wow. Well, let's see.
Colette Laxton [00:42:04]:
I always find get on it, get on, get on. Briefing some graders for me.
Paul Archer [00:42:09]:
Colette Laxton what a legend from the Inkey List. Thank you so much for being on Building Brand Advocacy.
Colette Laxton [00:42:15]:
I have loved it. Thank you so much Paul.
Paul Archer [00:42:17]:
That was another episode of Building Brand Advocacy, the world's top brand building podcast. To find out more about Building Brand Advocacy and how this podcast is part of a bigger plan for our brand building cookbook, then make sure to search for Building Brand Advocacy in Apple podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, or anywhere else that podcasts are fine. And make sure that you click subscribe so you don't miss any future episodes. Thanks to Duel for sponsoring. To find out more, go to www.duel.tech. That's D U E L dot T E C H and on behalf of the team here at Building Brand Advocacy, thanks for listening.
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