They started out selling sweatshirts, but it could as well have been hats, sneakers, or mugs. Your product is almost the least of it. What mattered was "making noise."
In other words, make your store have a strong presence in social networks with powerful content capable of attracting users and that this later transforms into sales, whatever it sold.
If you've ever Googled how to use Instagram to grow your ecommerce, this will ring a bell. The search engine returns more than 300,0000 results on the subject. The summary of all of them: make content that "hooks" your users and tells a story.
And Blue Banana Brand is the example that shows that doing this effectively can translate into success. This Spanish ecommerce began selling sweatshirts without any experience and with an investment of 2,000 euros and expects to close 2020 with a turnover of 3 million. Not only that, he also plans to open a physical store and make the international leap. And all this thanks to his strategy on Instagram.
Its history dates back to 2016. At that time its founders Juan Fernández Estrada and Nacho Rivera were only 19 years old and wanted to do something. They had seen how many young people were using social networks to show their product, so they decided to replicate the model adapting it to their possibilities.
"We were both used to buying many brands of that style, small brands that had started on the internet, from young people, we liked the model, so that we, with our age and with our experience, which was completely null, could develop it" they explain its founders to Business Insider Spain.
They are not pioneers in it. Previous examples of the success of this model can be found in Hawkers or Northweek. Companies that started by launching a product on the internet without too much financial risk (in this case sunglasses) with almost minimal investment and with a strong presence on networks that made them go viral, thus promoting the project until it became a more than viable company.
Instead of glasses, his thing would be sweatshirts and t-shirts. The next step was to think about the additional value to add to your product, opting for the possibility of personalizing the articles.
"We ordered the sweatshirts from Portugal, and with our logo, the X, you could choose the different fabrics to embroider on the sweatshirt, the colors... that was the differential part of the product."
With that idea, they launched their online store in mid-2016. That first year they managed to invoice almost 41,000 euros, which became more than 289,000 euros in turnover the following year and that has not stopped growing with each year. During this early period all of their traffic was organic and came from Instagram.
"Instagram has been the main engine of growth. The first two years of sales, all the traffic we generated was organic and everything came from Instagram, we uploaded content to this social network, people saw it, they got into our website and they started to convert," they say.
Later, they did begin to work with paid traffic through ads launched, for example, on Facebook Ads, which made it easier for them to "increase sales quite a bit."
"But this has been thanks to the solid foundation that we have created in Instagram, which was the main source of income in the beginning." The company has 194,000 followers on this social network, where each of its entries generates thousands of likes in a matter of hours.
The key to your network strategy to boost your business in this way? A very clear brand philosophy and content not focused on selling.
"From day one the philosophy that here the story we tell is above the product was very clear."
"We realized the value of creating content that was a little different, and that's why we thought from the outset that people had to follow us regardless of whether they liked the clothes we made, simply because of the content we were generating. "explain the founders.
They started by connecting with their followers by posting "cool photos" of their clothes at each of the destinations they reached during their interrail trip that first year.
And from there they continued to professionalize and delve into the strategy of selling a lifestyle, connected to the experience of travel and adventure.
They looked for collaborators to whom they sent their garments in exchange for eye-catching photographs and later decided to go one step further, hiring two people who are exclusively dedicated today to generating all the content for social networks, and who have taken this to another level.
"Now in all the launches of the collections to hype them we are making impressive trips."
"Our idea is also to add value by telling the travel experience: what we are doing, what the routes are, where you can take the best photos..." they comment.
"To generate this engagement and loyalty that we have achieved, what you have to contribute is value, give people a reason to follow you and not just 'I'm going to follow this brand because I like their clothes.' That is what the thousands of ads on networks already have, for that you have websites or for that you have many other tools. I think that profiles on social networks have to add value, tell a story that is well reflected in the brand philosophy" Consider Rivera.
"Other actions we do on social networks are raffles, games... to try to engage the customer in a relationship that is not just me selling you this, but goes a little further."
One of the latest strategies in this line is the recently launched Instagram filter for its line of swimsuits, with which you could participate in a contest and win a garment.
"We prepared this filter so that people, in addition to buying, get involved, participate in all the actions that we are doing, it is a little more engagement with customers" explain the creators.
For a good strategy "you always have to take into account how the client is going to react and for this you have to know how they have reacted on previous occasions", warn the founders of the company.
"We try to test many actions and the goal is almost always to make the brand go viral."
Based on that, it is about doing a little test focused on knowing what works in your network.
"Seeing this works, this doesn't, until you find what can make people spread the brand," they recommend.
All this strategy has not only allowed them to be profitable from the first moment, without having resorted to investors to date. Rather, future plans contemplate up to three short-term growth paths.
The first, diversification in terms of products. After the swimsuits, they will create new garments, such as a coat that they prepare for the autumn-winter collection.
A second, the Blue Banana physical store that will arrive in Madrid this 2020 and where they seek to face the challenge of turning all that philosophy of adventure that defined them from online to offline.
Finally, the intentions to internationalize by making the leap to Europe. The first countries in which they want to replicate their successful method: Germany, Italy and France.
