I’m sober.
Abstinence is becoming cool I’ve heard, apparently over a third of under 25’s are turning down alcohol. For me, it’s nothing sinister, and I’m definitely not cool – like many other young people, I’m just looking after my health a wee bit.
I’m almost finished with my second stint of zero alcohol, both have lasted six months. As an amateur rugby player, you might imagine that my relationship with alcohol is a favourable one, and it is! I love a pint!
During my periods of sobriety, non-alcoholic beers have been my crutch. Heineken 0% has been nothing short of a saviour. Non alcohol beers taste the same, and you don’t look as much of a dickhead in the pub.
My requirement for non-alcoholic alcohol means I’m always interested in buying clean liquor, so I was always gonna discover The Clean Liquor Company eventually – interestingly, it’s a project of former Made In Chelsea favourite, Spencer Matthews (@spencermatthews). The start up seemed perfect for the second edition of Guy’s Buy’s.
Product Discovery
A businesses growth relies on a steady stream of new customers, you can’t rely on your referrals forever…
Confession: I did not discover The Clean Liquor Company myself.
Nope, I was pleasantly surprised with an oddly shaped box in the post. Gill, my girlfriend, bought my a bottle of Clean Gin as a gift. She’s a nice girl 🙂
Is that a lesson in itself? Are you selling something that could quite easily be gifted? If so, are you exploiting that? Often, the product end user and the purchase decision maker are not the same person – baby products aren’t marketed to babies.
The Clean Liquor Company don’t necessarily put themselves out there as a gift. But I can imagine a fair amount is bought as a present for a newly “sober” friend, or loved one. Folks either like me – or maybe someone desperately clawing through Sober October – who will feel like they’re missing out on a fresh G&T or a Cuba Libre…
The Clean Gin impressed me. That’s a good start Clean Liquor Company, you get points for that. I had to buy a bottle of the Clean Rum for myself.
(Also, it meant I could write this effectively)
Always, always, always start with a good product. If the Gin had tasted like bleach, I would not have bought the rum, and you would not be reading this now.
Clean Liquor: What’s The Point?!
Before I go any further, allow me to address the elephant in the room. You’re thinking:
“Hang on, non alcoholic gin? Non alcoholic rum? What the f*ck’s the point?!”
I asked myself that, too. What am I paying for here? Am I about to hand over £20 for a posh bottle of water?! Nah mate, you’re alright.
If this thing wasn’t a gift, I’m not sure if I would’ve bought it myself at all. I definitely would’ve waited for a special occasion, and justified it to myself as a treat.
The high price point means I will start searching for the reasons NOT to buy. This is Clean Liquor Company‘s (who I’ll call CLC from now on), first slip up – you need to address my concerns in your product pages.
Here’s my first suggestion, you need a blog post, or a video, or a podcast, or a whatever, where you describe in detail how you make this drink. Convince me that it’s not just a £20 bottle of Evian. I’m certain you’ll be losing some sales because of this. Address it, and watch that conversion rate creep up. In short, what you should be doing is elimination every reason there is NOT to buy…
The non alcoholic drinks space is interesting. There is a pricing anchor in place from from regular spirits.
Humans are comparison machines, we quickly compare new things against what we already know. That’s how we make sense of what’s new, quickly. In this case, I know I can buy a decent bottle of Gin for about £25 – so what makes this alcohol free version worth the £22.50 I ended up paying?! Shouldn’t I be saving on the price of the alcohol?
That big pricing anchor is both a blessing and a curse. CLC will get away with charging more for a while, but I also need to do more to justify the prices. That said, they can’t be doing a bad job because I bought the thing didn’t I?! Here’s how it looked when it arrived:
Unboxing
Unboxing is your only marketing activity with 100% open rate, act accordingly.
I’d usually like to start with a look at the website, and the product pages in particular. Product pages are where you get your selling done!
My first experience with CLC was the unboxing, so it’s only right I start there.
In itself, that’s worth bearing in mind – what is an unboxing is someone’s first ever exposure to your product, and your brand? Is your unboxing experience fun enough?
Unboxing is a total treat, isn’t it?! The postman is second only to Santa Claus. He’s less special, because he comes more often, but it still feels like Christmas Day! Especially with the lockdown, unboxing stuff has been a brief moment of joy, when things have been pretty miserable.
Sadly, I was robbed of my full unboxing experience with Clean Liquor:
For unboxing, I’ll give Clean Liquor Co a respectable 7.5/10. You’ll get more when you become dog proof…
The bottle itself feels upmarket, the alcohol itself (especially the rum) smells like alcohol (it makes you wince a little) and the cardboard is non-excessive (silly Amazon). The glass was well protects and all the packaging is recyclable. All of that is good work.
The best part by far was that little multi-coloured booklet that’s peaking out of the box.
The booklet is a little intro to the brand, and shows me recipes that involve my new product. GREAT touch, Brilliant bit of marketing. Immediately, I’m more engaged with the product. I’m already thinking about when I can go for raspberries and fresh basil, so i can make the Founder’s Favourite.
When I think about it, if this booklet wasn’t included, I don’t think I would’ve bought the rum.
The booklet reminded me of how much I used to enjoy a Rum & Ginger Ale, while simultaneously getting me excited to try some cocktails. Top marks with this. Anyway, it’s earned you an up-sell. The booklet itself will sit nicely in the kitchen, or wouldn’t look out of place on your gin cabinet, if you’re that kinda guy.
Sounds like a good unboxing to me guy, why’ve you only given it a 7.5?
Good question!
I’ve been harsh, but CLC, you need to learn.
You’ve missed a HUGE trick here! I think doing this will IMMEDIATELY make you more money.
If someone at your company, or agency isn’t working on this right now, start. It’s not hard.
Include a postcard in the box, with an exclusive offer or discount on there. How about something like:
An EXCLUSIVE discount for you and a friend.
Have you got a friend who wants to join the clean drinking revolution?
Get them started today with this 20% off code.
They won’t find this online, and this is unique to you.
We’ll give you 20% off another bottle when they claim.
Humans are tribal creatures. Master marketer, Seth Godin even wrote a book about it.
This is a perfect marketing play on our tribal nature, and let’s Spencer to recruit more customers on the cheap.
We love being part of something bigger than ourselves. There’s not reason why CLC can’t encapsulate that warm fuzzy feeling with the “Clean Drinking Revolution”.
I mean, the whole clean drinking thing is a hell of a conversation starter. When you get onto the “no booze” topic, it goes one of two ways:
Either, you get shit for not drinking – Ahh guy, what are you being boring for?! Get a jager in you!
Or, people show genuine interest – Ah cool! So do you feel better for it? I bet you’ve saved loads of money?!
If was was speaking to someone with genuine interest, I’d love to be able to go…
Hey well, I got an exclusive code when I bought my bottle if you want to give it a shot?!
I’ll probably recommend anyway, but not everyone will. Pretend that everyone is stupid, you need to give them a quick, easy, simple way to recommend you. Besides, the discount code will give the new customer an actual reason to buy…
As much as I love marketing on the internet, you will never go wrong with a good product and some old fashioned word of mouth – We don’t have to measure EVERYTHING – Throw in some exclusivity and scarcity, and you’re onto a winner.
Ahhhhh, hold the phone.
Gill saw this on the Clean Liquor Instagram story on Sunday morning…
Okay, Clean Liquor, you you haven’t blasted the ball into Row Z, you’ve only whistled past the post.
Surely, it can’t cost you much to print out a card, whack an exclusive discount code through it, stick it on the end of your splendid booklet? Put that investment money to good use!
When I swiped up on the above Insta Story, the link went straight to the home page. Nothing about the discount whatsoever. That’s just slack, like passing the ball straight to a someone on the other team. Sort that shit out.
Web Experience
Since my gin was a gift, I knew exactly where to go for my rum. No Instagram advert, No TV talk show appearance, not even a google search required. I went straight to the website.
I feel like direct purchase is overlooked in Digital Marketing these days, they still happen! Let’s have a look at the site:
I like this home page, a lot.
It had some sort of lazy loading installed where the background picture doesn’t show up straight away, it felt like it brought me in a little more. Might just be me though, you try it > Home Page | Clean Liquor Co.
The branding and copywriting is very suave. I love the angle of “A different way to drink”. CLC are carving out a sub-niche within the “non alcoholic” category.
Clean Liquor is not aimed at those who aren’t drinking for health reasons, necessarily – Clean liquor is more for those who still want to go out and have a good time. The use of “No Hangovers” in the tagline, makes me think someone might have a “Clean Gin and Tonic” in-between their regular gin and tonics on a night out.
The background image makes me think of a party / bar atmosphere. An by far, the best copy on the whole website is: “feel free to drink this irresponsibly”.
That’s Spenny saying:
We can still have a great time, we just don’t need the hangover! Who’s in?
I’m with you Spencer, look after me!
As I scroll down, the price feels like a punch in the gut.
£25 you’re trying to charge me here, for a big, posh bottle of water?! I’ll say it again – what is the point of clean gin?! I need to know how this stuff is made!
With my eCommerce hat on, I love anything that increases Average Order Value. The banner below is high up on the home page. That’s a good move if you ask me. Maybe, one day I will buy 3 bottles instead of 1…. maybe.
Party at mine?
The drinkers are now thinking:
“A party, with clean rum?! Remind me not to come to yours for a party Guy.”
You do you pal, you do you.
These days, selling without Social Proof is a big no-no. And so, this is a nice use of Trustpilot. 👇
There’s a video of Spencer on the homepage too, called “introducing clean gin”. Ah hah, I thought this might have been the answer to my “is this glorified H2O?” woes….
Sadly, not the case.
It’s a pretty well done video by all accounts, but few visitors are gonna to spend 60 seconds of their browsing session here.
There are some brilliant little tid-bits in the video too! Some should be written copy! Honestly, how many people will watch that video? 1 in 10? These need to be written clearly somewhere on the page, so they get more eyeballs. Would probably work well as some bullet points:
- For every regular G&T you have, you can drink 31 clean G&T’s to get the same amount of alcohol.
- Same goes for calories, for every G&T, you can drink 31 Clean G&T’s.
I’d be making much more of those! As I’ve already touched on, its good to compare against things we already know. We all know how we’d feel after 31 G&T’s, so that’s an awesome bit of sales spiel.
To round off the home page:
- We’ve got links to the clean cocktails, which I like, but I already knew about them because of my pretty booklet. The recipe pages themselves are a bit boring. What about a day in the studio recording a video of Spencer making each one?
- There’s a little back story, always nice to have. I’d be milking this because of the celebrity anle.
- I signed up to the newsletter for my 10% off…
Hmm, okay, I would’ve signed up to the newsletter anyway so I could rinse you for this article.
Spencer, if you’re reading this and you want your £2.50 that I saved – DM me and I’ll monzo it to you….. 🤙
Home page, all in all pretty good!
Product Page
I journeyed to the Clean Rum Product page taking a slight detour to the about page, where I learn that Clean Liquor partners with the guys at Union Distillers….
Now, I’ve been whinging that this thing is a glorified bottle of water haven’t I? Since I’ve just learned about Union Distillers, I might be able learn about how Clean Gin is made. However, it occurs to me that I can’t be arsed to Google any further, so i wont. Perhaps I’m not that bothered.
The point is that other people will be.
I’m still wondering if this thing is worth it’s price tag. And that is not a good place to have you buyers.
CLC are equipping folks with a reason to dodge the purchase and go looking for a competitor product.
Question: How many reasons you should give your web visitors to not buy your products?
Answer: ZERO! Absolutely zero. Obviously, it’s zero.
Avoid mistakes before you seek brilliance.
Speaking of mistakes; The product page is lacklustre.
It’s a big fat OK.
It’s probably the bare minimum a DTC company can get away with, and that’s only if you have a brilliant product-market fit.
Credit where it’s due, the page is clearly and rightly optimised for mobile, given that most of the traffic must becoming from Instagram. I’ll get onto that, but for now I’ll give you a product page rundown:
I’m greeted with this picture. Love it. Does the job very well.
I like the use of the Rum & Coke. It’s the Rum & Coke I’m really buying, isn’t it? I want something to enjoy with friends, not just the bring brown bottle sitting on my shelf.
As you scroll down you get: product title, plenty of reviews, the price, delivery info, and a well placed email sign up with 10% discount incentive. Ticks all the boxes.
But as i said, it’s all a bit uninspiring.
If you’re reading this thinking about starting a little DTC enterprise, use this product page as your barrier to entry benchmark. If you want something real to aim for, check out my review of Manta Sleep. That’s a phenomenal product page. Phenomenal.
The product description claws CLC back some branding points:
CleanRum is distilled in exactly the same way as traditional golden spiced rum – delivering undertones of caramel and cayenne pepper – but with over 30 times less alcohol.
Good, but not brilliant. The “30 times less alcohol” bit should be right at the start, but even then, I’m just a bit meh at this point.
Here’s what I’d do:
I’d creatively borrow from the Manta Sleep playbook. CLC, if you’re reading, see where you’ve written the above^ “Clean rum is distilled….”,
I’d replace it with one of your reviews. Something like:
“Clean Rum is the real deal. A game changer. It’s incredible to be able to enjoy a grown up drink without the hangover the next day”… Caroline R, London.
That review would make it feel real, and that would buy me in a little more.
Always lead with benefits over than features. “30 times less alcohol” is a feature, “no hangover” is the benefit. So tell me more about the no hangovers, how I still can have a great time at a party and get fuck loads done the next day – That’s WHY I’m buying this.
If you hammer home the no hangover messaging, you give yourself a chance of competing for the customers who might still turn to a bottle of Kraken Rum, or Bath Tub Gin. Get yourself some more of that booze money!
By the time I’m on a product page, and I’m about to hit “add to cart”, I do not care about your branding, or manufacturing process or your back story. I’m selfish. Everyone is. Despite what they may say. If you want me to hand over some cash, I need to know WIIFM. What’s In It For Me?
All buyers do this, even though they say they don’t.
More credit for CLC, the product page is not a dead end page. Meaning, if you land on this page, you can click and browse other products, or go to different parts of the website. That’s a good thing. It’s very rare that you want a ‘buy it or nothing’ situation.
Checkout was clean and quick- it probably took less than 30 seconds with Google Pay. That’s great too, but you don’t get extra points for that. I’m a lazy consumer and quick effortless checkout should be a given.
The product page need work. But where Clean Liquor really fall down is next:
Post Purchase
Crickets.
Nothing.
There was no post purchase flow at all.
Why?!
I’ve just made my first purchase with you, you should to validate me. Tell me I’ve made a brilliant decision! Make me feel good! That’s the fastest way to make me purchase again…
All I got was the automatic shipping automation from Shopify, does anyone even open those anymore? Some do. But it doesn’t mean anything. We all just want the product to turn up at the door in a few days time.
It did, to be fair. Shipping was very quick with Royal Mail, and I was given a tracking number if I so wanted to.
But honestly, at post purchase is the time to get me really bought in with your brand. Appeal to me emotionally. I’m on high alert at this stage. I’m looking out all the time for my purchase product in my post, I’m very likely to respond, or at least read an email from you.
So send me one! I’m looking for stories, anecdotes, things I can be part of, things I can share with my friends.
And then, when you send out that automated email from Trustpilot asking for a review, hey I might be more likely to do it…
The whole of your email marketing was crap actually. Useless. 3 out of 10.
It would be zero but Shopify saved your arse, and only for the fact the 10% on sign-up…
Even then, I was pissed off because apparently Gill got a 20% discount code. I guess that’s the game though, you can run sales all the time. 🤷♂️
Seriously though nothing with your emails, no welcome series, no post purchase follow up flow, no weekly email newsletter.
Nothing. Zero. Zip.
Clean liquor, you’re missing a chance to carve out a section of loyal fans here. Email is a very personal thing. When someone signups up to your list, they are putting their hands up and saying
“I’m interested in you, tell me more about you please.”
You’re really wasting an opportunity.
The non alcoholic spirit space is not a well worn path and you could literally pave the way, if you do it right.
Indulge me as I double up on the analogies – a rising tide floats all the boats. if you do your email marketing better, you might become the biggest boat in the harbour.
Thing is, you’re producing some brilliant pieces of content. Your Instagram game is excellent, you’re producing good video and you’re writing good blogs. The content creation is supposed to be the hard part!
Re-purposing it all for email should be easy, and the potential reward will be immense.
Spencer, mate, you’ve done the hard bit well. You’ve made a good product, in a good market and you’re recruited me as a first time buyer.
Now, if you want to build a real seriously chunky businesses, start getting some repeat buyers through the doors. Email is vital to this.
How about sending more cocktail recipes inspired by the time of year? Stories from folks who have kicked their booze habit, and are doing better because of it? C’mon, it’s not hard, just give me SOMETHING.
Other Product Discovery
Atypically, I went straight to the website to make a purchase, I literally saw no other digital real estate. That’s rare these days!
It was only right to have a little peek at some other potential discovery avenues:
Instagram
I’m not really friends with Insta. I only download it whenever I want to post something. The rest of the time, I delete the app from my phone.
If someone wants to sell to me, Instagram is not the way to do it. I doubt there’s many 26 year old’s who fit that bill. But there are plenty of folks who dodge Social Media, and that adds more weight to my argument about email. I check those daily!
As much as you need to up your Email game, if I was starting to market a new business tomorrow, the advice I’d give myself who be to NAIL ONE CHANNEL before adding in other.
You’d rather do one brilliantly, than four or five averagely. And your Instagram is brilliant. Fair play, @cleanliquor.
How’s this for an extremely well dealt with hater:
If you are wanting to do Instagram well, at CLC to your swipe file. It’s great. Let’s just hope email is next on Spencer’s list….
Branding & PR
Spencer being of reasonable notoriety, not least his 750k instagram followers, means he will get some decent web traffic via branding and PR.
Hello magazine articles are definitely a way for him to get in front of an older audience. He should be milking them for all they’re worth. I think he’s just had another baby too? Keep an eye out for the 8 page spread….
Or don’t, you’re probably not bothered.
If the Clean Liquor Company’s perfect customer avatar does exist, I doubt they are gonna discover CLC via a PR article. The whole non-booze thing is really a trend for people Spencer’s age, and below.
That said, the more journalism CLC can get, the better. Traction from the PR world, with all it’s wonderful back links should help with SEO….. Or will it?
Google
If the way to find me is NOT through Instagram, you have to rely on me finding you via Google. If one day I had an overwhelming desire for a non-alcoholic gin or rum, I would simply take to everyone’s favourite search engine. Let’s have a look at the results.
Gin
Nowhere to be seen? I would’ve ended up buying a Seedip Garden.
Rum
STRYYK would have had me here, for sure.
CLC, you are nowhere to be seen here! After you’ve done your emails, sort this.
Had I not receive you as a gift, I would still be none the wiser.
Google Shopping will really help your cause, get yourself in the right hand side! Imagine this:
Someone takes to google with the genuine purchase intent for non-alcoholic spirits. They land on CLC’s slick website primed to buy. You weave in the story about Spencer – who is already famous, so you can shortcut the whole “do I trust you” thing. Hit home with some real life customer reviews. Quickly address the delivery and shipping concerns. Oh, and you do 10% off the first order? Nice!
That’s a recipe for success.
Then, for those who land on site, but don’t checkout straight away -that’s more than 95% of people remember – you retarget them on YouTube over the next few days with some of that cool video content you have.
There’s a sales funnel waiting for you to plug and play!
Retail
I’ve mixed feelings about you being stocked in Sainsbury’s and Dunnes, obviously you’re going to pick up some more sales, but I’m a typical millennial aren’t I, I like the cool, edgy internet only brands. Anything mass-market puts me off…
I’m not often in a Sainsbury’s (For the record, I’m team Morrisons….), I doubt I would’ve stumbled across you on the shelves.
Besides, if picking a bottle up from the shelf was my first interaction with the product, think about what’s missing. Not least, I don’t get the Spencer Matthews back story.The celebrity tie-in is genuinely a great way to differentiate.
But perhaps CLC want to stand on their won two feet. 🤷♂️
Since you’re stocked in supermarkets, I reckon your profit margin is quite considerable. 60% plus? You’re also stocked on Amazon with Prime! We all know how they eat up your profits.
Maybe this thing is just a big posh bottle of water after all?
When you decided to stock in Sainsbury’s, did you foresee that all your Instagram comments would turn into pissed off people that can’t find you in their Sainsbury’s local? Can you really be arsed with that? That same ignorant Instagram complainer could order within seconds with a few thumb taps…
Look, if it was my money, I’d pour it into DTC…. But it isn’t my money, and I doubt the investors would be too happy with my internet only strategy.
Taking it Further
There’s two ways to grow a business. Sell new products to your current audience, or you sell current products to a new audience.
How does that play out for Clean Liquor?
New Products
I saw somewhere that there are plans to produce a clean vodka. I’m sure you’ve done your research, but let me tell you, I will be steering well clear of that one!
Vodka, while it’s not for me, I can see the sense in it. Bringing out more clean spirits is certainly on brand.
Here’s a challenge for you CLC, I’m yet to see a decent low alcoholic Red Wine. Is that a thing? Can you make it a thing? I miss a glass of red with my Sunday Lunch.
That’s the kind of thing you could announce to me on your email list…
New Audiences
Selling your current products to a new audience is something that you should never run out of ideas for…
This might be a tough one in our new covid world, but there must be some cool companies or corporate gigs you can land. Surely there is a HR officer at one of the big tech companies, interested in striking a deal? You know the kind that mandates yoga at lunchtime, has nap pods and ball pits in the offices.
And there MUST be a “Alcohol hurts your gains” angle for the fitness crowd? Spencer could you go on a 12 week body transformation thing, show people that you can still drink and have a good time while doing so?
Dare I say it, you might even have political pull here, but it’s really hard to pull off. What about the fact that alcohol costs the NHS 10000000000000000* pounds last year? Although, somewhere deep down, I’m sure that’s why you started the company in the first place.
*I made that number up, obviously.
The Products?
The Gin I thought tasted like mouthwash at first but then it grew on me. It is genuinely nice. Come to think of it, I’m not sure I actually like Gin that much, maybe I just want to like it. Who knows.
The Rum however is bloody lovely, here’s my Rum and Ginger beer:
Where are Clean Liquor Company then?
Overall, they are in a very nice spot indeed.
Some things they’ve done brilliantly, and there some things where they have totally dropped the ball.
First things first, the product itself is great, you get nowhere without that. And the unboxing was good enough to get me to buy the rum myself, having been gifted the gin. The website is decent too, but those product pages need to work harder. That’s free money if you can increase the conversion rate!
Your Instagram is brilliant, and I imagine that is where most of your DTC business is coming from.
The strategic approach seems to be mass market with the shelf spaces and also going on Amazon. Would not be my choice, but good to see that someone, somewhere has made a decision.
Before I talk about the fixes, let me just say, that it’s a good thing to still have things to fix!! If they were totally perfect, everyone at Clean Liquor Company would just be looking around wondering what to do next. I don’t know anything about what goes into producing the product, so I’ll admit that, but the marketing team have plenty to do.
Get a good email marketing strategy in place first. Honestly something is better than nothing. You need to start turning first time customers into repeat purchases. Start looking at your customer LTV!
You’ve got a brilliant little sub niche, and already have good content in place. So now that I’m on your email list,start telling me the story of how I can still have a good time, minus the hangover. Pull me towards the brand more. Get me to care.
And if you’re going for total mass-market ubiquity. Christ, you need to be on Page One for Google. That intent based traffic is not to be sniffed at.
People with purchase intent + email marketing = £££££££££££.
The Clean Liquor Company is one to keep an eye on. Let’s see if they can improve the stuff they need to improve.