Why Prioritizing Customer Retention is Critical for Growth
During her visit to Los Angeles for the renowned Expo West, Molly Baker, the innovative founder of Indie Consulting, had the opportunity to engage in an insightful discussion with Brooke Cullison, the esteemed Growth Marketing Leader at Liquid I.V., one of the most popular brands in the United States at present. Brooke divulged numerous fascinating strategies on current top growth marketing tactics and effective networking techniques.
Molly Baker [MB]: Tell me a little bit about what types of things you're thinking about professionally today. What's been challenging? What do you see as opportunities? What's top of mind?
Brooke Cullison [BC]: It's such an interesting year. Our customers are really dealing with a lot, with it being an election year. So, I think that's always top of mind—meeting them where they are, making sure we're giving them the best possible experience, educating them about the product, and adding value.
And then, I think another big challenge is always performance. How the growth tactics that I used last year are not going to work this year. So, how can we learn faster to make sure that we're testing, getting real-time insights, and being able to act on that quickly? So, obviously, being in the growth space, performance is always huge.
MB: Do you have to reset your tactics every year? Is that something that you actively think about, or is it a constant trial and error to some extent?
BC: I would say it's rolling due to the fact that we're always testing something new and figuring out—is this test successful? Can it be scalable so that we can keep up with those trends?
MB: Do you ever change your success metrics, or do those stay pretty much consistent?
BC: For the most part, they do stay consistent. Given where I'm at in the performance space, revenue is always going to be top of mind, and ROAS is obviously a huge one. I think really looking at your company and the metric that works for you is what you need to hit.
MB: Brag about yourself a little bit. What are you better at than anybody else?
BC: I actually started out in politics and went through the 2014, 2016, 2018 cycle, past a statewide prop in California, which I was always very proud of. That was where I got my start, and then moved on over to DTC media e-commerce.
MB: What motivated you to make the change?
BC: I think I really just wanted a new challenge. There definitely came a time where I was ready to move on to a new challenge and made that transition. I found myself in the wellness space, which I always say is still really close to those roots of wanting to be in a place where I can help make people's lives better.
I am also celebrating my 3-year work-iversary at my current role, which is really exciting. It's been wonderful to grow there. I'm still challenged every day. Have an amazing team. I get to be a part of this purpose-driven brand. Going back to my political roots again, it's just been the best place for me to be.
MB: Speaking of DTC & Growth Marketing and your most recent experience, how do you think about balancing the acquisition of new customers versus retention of existing customers?
BC: I don't know if it's even really a balance. I always say prioritize retention. I think it's really important to build that foundation so when you do acquire new customers, they don't just fall off right away. A part of that, especially in e-commerce, is building that relationship with the customer. Getting to know your customer, making sure you understand what they want, how they're responding to everything you're doing is definitely at the core of what I like to do.
Between acquisition or retention, you can really center them around data. I think personalization and automation are such buzzwords these days. And you can't do that without data. Part of that is acquisition and a lot of it's retention. It is getting to know your customers and having that two-way conversation.
Get as many new customers in the pipeline as possible, growth at all costs, and it's really nice to hear people talking more about retention, talking more about profitability, and not just thinking about the top line going up.
My current role is making sure that we're designing content that is engaging in our customer's life. Specifically for TikTok, you're getting that native engaging content. And I think that's how brands can really drive growth today, really taking a look at your channel mix and understanding what goes where and how you can build better creative for each of those channels.
There are so many new channels that DTC brands get to play on now. We're seeing it with digital out of home or linear TV. I think it's amazing and it's super fun, but it's also a strain on the team. We can now run a linear spot for performance and track that and attribute it, but we also need to make sure the house is still in order on paid social. It presents new challenges.
MB: Three to five years ago, Google and Meta were having their heyday when it came to acquisition for DTC brands. You could go and build your campaigns and optimize & hammer new customers. As that has changed, what types of challenges have you faced as you've rethought acquisition channels?
BC: I think a big one that we all got caught up on is attribution. Really understanding your channel mix and what is doing what. And I think now the new challenge is almost incremental.
If ROAS or performance is looking really good but the top line isn't growing, you have to dig in there and you have to understand. If I make a change on this channel, can I actually drive incremental growth, leveraging those savings on another channel, and what are those channels?
That's something that I'm always looking at. What channels are actually driving the new customer growth? How can I build that into our evergreen testing roadmap? How can I make sure that we're getting those insights back in real-time so we can execute quickly?
MB: What do you think the future holds for DTC brands?
BC: The possibility is probably endless. There are so many new points of sales and DTC brands are being agile and being able to adjust to trends and changes in user behavior. I think it's really important for brands to invest in their DTC channels because it is the one place where you get to own that relationship with the customer.
I know I already mentioned this, but that's also how you get your data. That's how you make your acquisition campaigns better. That's how you make better experiences on retention for your customers, get more quality data, make up for some of these lost signals that we've alluded to on some of the bigger channels, and still run really efficient campaigns that create that ecosystem for your customers.
It's definitely difficult and challenging, but that's the fun part. You always want to be where your customer's at. It’s super exciting to see other brands, born in DTC, grow into retail. Where I'm at currently, we've had kind of a similar journey.
MB: What relationship has had the most impact on you, professionally over the years?
BC: My first boss. She'll hate that I call her boss because she really became my mentor, best friend, and big sister. She took me under her wing back in my DC political days, which you really need someone to do. She's such a salesperson, but also a strategist, which I think is really rare.
That definitely rubbed off on me a lot. I think I'm able to switch here and there and be really responsive and do a lot of things because of her early influence on me. Definitely able to take on a lot, ride the waves and do things really efficiently. I think my favorite thing she ever told me was work smarter. That's probably why I've also ended up in growth.
I also have to shout out that I have an amazing circle of entrepreneurial women in my life that are so inspiring. They do so many different things, but it's great to have that support system to always be able to go to and bounce ideas off of for inspiration.
Those are definitely the two big ones.
MB: How have you built that network?
BC: It definitely takes time. Especially when you move to different locations. You're almost rebuilding every time, but it's really getting yourself out there, making the time.
Community doesn't just happen. You have to be intentional about it. So, I know we're all so tired and have so much to do. It's really what are the important things to me? And for me, that really is my community. Get on Bumble BFF. Go on those hot girl walks. Go to events. You will end up meeting the people that you can bring into your community.
We were at an event last night and someone we were with said, if you leave this event and have met two to three interesting people, then it was a huge success.
And then the follow-up. Always the follow-up. Be curious about people, ask questions while you're there, but also make sure you follow up with them.
MB: Tell us who you are. What do you do? The big reveal.
BC: I'm Brooke Cullison. I'm the director of e-comm and media at Liquid I.V. I oversee our acquisition, retention, and media channels.
For those who don't know Liquid I.V., we're the number one powdered hydration brand in America. We have an assortment of hydration products that also have functional benefits. We have our hydration multiplier. We have products that focus on or add on immune support, sleep, probiotics, and energy.
I'm an avid fan of the product, which makes my job all that more fun.
MB: Tell us what a day in the life looks like. What's your typical workday?
BC: I feel like in this industry, we all kind of say the same thing. No day looks the same. It changes every single day.
One day, I could be reallocating spend across our different media channels, optimizing, pulling data, looking for insights to actually have the team execute on.
The next day could be our demand plan. Making sure that we have the right timelines together for our new product launches. We just launched our new Raspberry Melon Sugar-Free Hydration Multiplier product, which was really fun.
A lot of my role too is team building. I'm really fortunate to have an amazing team. A big part of my job is making sure they are supported and have the resources they need to lead their channels.
MB: What types of things do you do for team building?
BC: Definitely having multiple touchpoints with your team.
At Liquid I.V., we have a value of rocks. That means, the big things that you have to get done that week. Those are the things you focus on everything else. You gotta put those in the jar first and then everything else can be the sand that fills in the jar. If you did it the opposite way, the rocks would not fit.
That is something I love about our current company. We have our one on ones, which I am very religious about. Every week I meet with the team, make sure that we agree on what the rocks are, and then follow up as a full team a couple of times a week to make sure that we're all super aligned.
That is the only way I think you can stay as agile as we need to be.
MB: So you're reprioritizing every week.
BC: As you know, things could change within a couple of days. So you definitely have to have those touchpoints.
MB: Do you prep for your week on Sunday? Are you a Monday prepper?
BC: I definitely have a Sunday night block where I have to look at my calendar for the week. Then every day at the end of the day, I have a calendar block as well, which I highly recommend. Make sure you're looking at your calendar for the next day, and it is aligning to those priorities and you're able to have time to work.
Liquid I.V. has been so good at creating this culture. It's been a great place to work at. That's how we can continue to be innovative and create the best experience for our customers.
MB: What is the best part of your current role? What's the high and the low?
BC: The high is the challenge. It's fun to come to work a job where every day you're still learning something new. I mentioned I've been there for three years and I am still growing, still being challenged, still learning new things from my team, from my co-workers, from our partners. So that is such an amazing part of the role.
The low, I would say, is not winning. I'm competitive, and I don't like it when I feel like we haven't given our customers either the best experience or enough information or education to win their purchase at the end of the day. What we're here to do is, get hydration in the hands of our customers. And so not winning that on a daily basis hurts a little. So you spend a lot of time in your job looking at data numbers. I love data. Forecasting, re-forecasting, measuring success, measuring loss. I think so often people don't realize how a lot of marketing jobs are numbers-oriented. You're constantly betting on yourself and the work that you're doing and then seeing the outcomes and making adjustments to the next activations based on that. MB: At 21, did you ever think you would be doing what you're doing now? It sounds like “no” since you were working on politics.
BC: No. I definitely wanted to be a digital director on a political campaign. I did the political thing. It was great. I met a lot of amazing people and worked with a lot of amazing partners as well. And now I've bounced on over to wellness, which is another space that I love.
It's kind of been a natural journey. Definitely not the most linear, but it's where I was supposed to be.
MB: What piece of advice would you give to someone who's looking to get into growth marketing?
BC: Always be learning. Even when I was in politics, one of the things I always did was download or use every new channel.
Whether that is BeReal or whatever the next new thing is, Instagram Threads. Making sure that I use it as a user first so I really understand what the user behaviors are. How are we using this? What do we like about it? Then you can go and take that back into your work and really understand the channels that you're leveraging to reach your audience.
Also, we've kind of talked about this already, building a network. So important. I think when I really started to take that more seriously, I saw the change in my daily work. This is a habit of going on LinkedIn daily for the content. I think people are posting amazing content these days on both Twitter and LinkedIn. There's so much to consume, so many good podcasts out there too to listen to, and then going and meeting people in real life. Going to those events, finding those people you connect with, keeping in contact with them.
It is so fun to be able to meet people doing the same thing that you are and learning from them. So I would say definitely just stay as curious as possible.
Trendy or Tragic
BC: I say trendy. Let's celebrate each other. Let's celebrate the wins.
Olipop and their micro influencer approach
BC: Are they doing a lot of micro influencers? I know I follow their competitor, Poppi, which I love.
Liquid I.V. loves our community of micro influencers. They are an amazing part of our strategy. So, 100% say trendy. That again goes back to relationship building too. And I'm sure Olipop is doing a great job of that, of making sure that you're bringing your influencers and your partners in and making them understand the brand story and having extra people to help tell that.
Paid Membership Programs
BC: I love a paid membership program. I feel like you asked that because Liquid I.V. does have a paid membership program right now, and we've seen amazing success from it.
We've been having an ear to the ground for the last year and understanding how consumers are reacting to that program. I feel like we were inspired by Erewhon and REI that have those paid membership programs, which I'm a huge fan of. There's something really interesting about getting that immediate access and creating that value immediately for your customer. That's something that we're always trying to figure out how to do better—unlocking value for our most loyal customers.
So, I say any type of membership loyalty program is trendy.
It's so cool to see how that's evolved into much more sophisticated engagement programs and benefits and loyalty perks. And then always having the data to understand what we should do next. How can we provide better to pivot quickly and always be creating?
Check out Brooke Cullison on LinkedIn & @liquidiv on Instagram and liquid-iv.com.
As for us, follow @namedrop.pod on Instagram & LinkedIn and @molbakes on Instagram for all future episodes and insights.
