Background
Inspired by the jaw of the Caiman, a fierce predator that dominates the rivers of the Amazon and a close relative to the alligator, Caiman Hat Clips create an easy storage solution for hats that don't damage or abrade them. It uses a hook and button-top grip to easily hang hats from a standard clothes hanger. Read on to learn how they grew their business with crowdfunding, and continue to build upon their success with strategic ecommerce efforts on Amazon.
Crowdfunding Marketing Approach
Caiman's crowdfunding team utilized lead generation advertising on Facebook to create interest prior to launch, focusing heavily on the viral video that the videography team created (it garnered 39,000 impressions and 28,000 views in the one week that it ran). Shorter clips from this video were perfect for creating engaging Facebook ads and GIFs for the campaign page. Simultaneously, the crowdfunding team’s content marketers got to work writing copy and designing the entire campaign page.
Once the Kickstarter project launched, Caiman's crowdfunding team continued to manage the campaign, running Facebook Ads, sending out updates, managing social media, garnering press coverage, coordinating cross-promotions and much more.
Ecommerce Marketing Approach
After the crowdfunding campaign, the Caiman team opted to sell the product solely on Amazon. Traditional forms of selling online tend to involve paying substantial amounts in marketing dollars, often dictated by resellers. This leads to a higher level of customer acquisition costs that don’t make sense for a low-cost product, much like Caiman Hit Clips. Amazon was the logical choice because of the reasonable costs to sell there and the volume of website traffic. Moving directly to Amazon meant that the team was able to start making money as soon as the product was listed.
Caiman’s ecommerce team worked hard to ensure success on Amazon by using competitor research, keyword optimization, image and product description optimization and other strategies to help improve the ranking on Amazon’s search. As this is a new and unique product, the team had to get as many positive reviews as possible to help with social proof and improve the product’s ranking on Amazon. Platforms like Feedback Genius and Seller Labs were used to gather positive product reviews that would boost rank, and a proactive customer service team was built to handle any inquiries or problems. Additionally, the team used Facebook Ads, as well as ads through Amazon’s platform.
After a few successful months on the platform, Caiman’s Amazon experts also qualified Caiman Hat Clips for an Amazon Lightning Deal, selling 400% more units that day than on average. To bolster these efforts, the team created a microsite to improve SEO, which helped increase the product’s ranking on Amazon, as Amazon views outside traffic to a product page as an important factor in improving the product’s rank on the site.
Caiman’s success on Amazon in 2018 allowed the company to not only make improvements on their flagship product, the Caiman Hat Clip, but grow their product lines and create more clips to hold other accessories, such as ties, belts and more.