How a brand you've never heard of got 1M impressions

Welcome to another edition of PROse, the B2B marketer's no BS guide to growing an engaged audience.

Do you know what’s special about this week?

No? Think hard…

Ok, I’ll tell you.

This week we’re publishing the first installment of our new interview series.

(If your answer was “the holidays”... you’re right too 😂)

This series will go behind the scenes with marketers from well-known and rising B2B brands.

I won’t lie. I’m excited about it.

And even more excited to start it off with…

My favorite/former boss, Alex McEachern from Repeat.

Let’s get it!

First, Alex’s favorite/funniest memory from when we worked together

Alex: “You making fun of all the Canadian ways I say shit.”

Oh, yeah this was definitely fun lol.

Note about me: I can be the most unserious person in meetings sometimes.

So when I first heard Alex pronounce process as “pro-ses”, instead of “prä-ses”, I couldn’t let it go.

Fun times 🤣

What is Repeat?

Repeat is a Shopify SaaS app that automates post-purchase retention for CPG brands.

Alex: “On the product side, at a high level, Repeat automates the work of a retention or lifecycle manager to make sure the offer for customers to purchase again lands at the right time, in the right way.”

Repeat’s marketing philosophy

Repeat’s big bet is that they’ll grow through brand and community.

But to build that community, they had to decide how they wanted to get attention.

Instead of prioritizing paid media to gain attention, they’re playing the long-game.

Alex: “Our play is to build ‘tentpoles’. The idea is that you can talk about something going into it, during and after. Building tentpoles allows us to own attention for as long as possible without it feeling like we’re doing it for no reason. 

A previous example is our Expo Afterparty. It allowed us to talk about the party that was coming before the actual event; it then allowed us to talk about it that weekend; then in the ‘post’, we got to share all the pictures and memories from the party.

That’s what we care about on the marketing team. If we’re going for attention, it needs to be a tentpole activity.”

The Big Bet: CPG House

If I’m being honest, I feel like community is a buzzword.

Tons of tech providers have a “community”.

But if you ask their community members, the value often isn’t there

Usually because the company treats it as a space to mass pitch their product and demand gen activities.

I love that Repeat is going about it a different way.

Alex: “Our tagline is ‘CPG is a grind but the journey is better when we share it together’. Starting a carbonated water or a cookie company is not like starting a t-shirt company. There's a lot more regulatory hurdles, you need more upfront investment, it’s hard to do.

No one goes to school to be a CPG founder. So we wanted to create a safe space where people could come together and learn from each other. We built CPG House as a ‘by-application’ community for CPG founders and operators. We call it a “walled garden”. It’s a group of CPG people only - and we’re very strict about that.”

Oh, I almost forgot to mention…

At the time of this interview, CPG House had ~900 members.

Insane. Building an engaged community of any size is hard.

Something that size is nothing short of a miracle, especially for an early-stage startup.

And their bet is paying off.

Launching the Consumer Packaged Awards (CPAs)

If you’re at all active with DTC Twitter, you probably heard about or saw the CPAs this past summer.

For those who aren’t familiar, the CPAs is a live awards show for CPG operators hosted by Repeat.

It was the perfect idea for Repeat’s tentpole strategy.

Alex: “It gave us a natural reason to be building attention two months out from the actual event. We had two weeks of nominations, two weeks of finalist voting, and two weeks of pumping up the event itself. And once the event was over, people would share their trophies and talk about winning. I don’t think I’ve ever been part of something where we were able to hold attention on a single thing for so long.”

This probably has you wondering, “how do you plan something like this?”

Alex’s answer is, “just get started”.

(Special shoutout to Tess Allen who took on double-duty as project manager for the team!)

In true startup fashion, that meant Alex nominating the first few people himself to get the ball rolling.

And once people were notified they were nominated for an award, they became curious and even nominated their coworkers and friends.

The results?

500 nominations

3000 finalist votes

1,000,000 impressions

As for the business impact...

Alex, again: "We didn't just get one or two more inbound leads per week. We got multiples more leads during the awards show."

Simply put, the team crushed it. 

And rumor has it, there’s a Part 2 coming in 2023 👀

Annndddd, that's it.

If you're thinking about ways you can bring some excitement & awareness to your brand, go the Repeat route.

You don't have to spend a ton of money or be a big brand yet.

Happy holidays (from freezing Chicago)! ❄️