Clearstem: Revenue regeneration: Growing 20-30% month over month with stem cell skincare brand Clearstem

🎧 In the latest DTC pod episode, we got more than skin deep with Danielle Gronich "The Acne Guru" and Kayleigh Christina, founders of CLEARSTEM Skincare.

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CLEARSTEM is a next-generation anti-aging and anti-acne skincare line that utilizes the power of stem cells with no hormone disruptors or toxins. This fast-growing brand has also won multiple beauty awards and been featured in Forbes, Poosh, Entrepreneur, Buzzfeed, The Zoe Report, Refinery 29, and more.

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In this podcast, you’ll learn why doing things that don’t scale in the beginning can make you more successful later and the power of podcast appearances for building a cult following.

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‍The Takeaways 👇

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📈 Education: start scrappy, then scale:

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Since the beginning, Danielle and Kayleigh have focused on growing the brand with free value.

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Even their original influencer strategy was focused on education, offering one-on-one skincare advice and free products–without asking for anything in return.

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“We truly just exchanged value for products. Those early-day influencers [have] ended up being our biggest ambassadors now.”

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But as they’ve grown, they’ve had to scale past one-on-one efforts. Here’s what they do now to continue to offer free value:

• Purely educational email flows
• IG Lives where customers can ask questions
• Free masterclasses/webinars on a topic, end with a Q&A

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They’ve also built an educational course, called Ditch Your Acne, that they often use as a cross-sell, upsell, discounted offer, or even as a free gift (no overhead! 👌).

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“I would highly suggest to any brand out there that has education around your product…build some type of a course.”

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🎙️ Building a cult following with podcasts:

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Podcast appearances have become a major part of their marketing strategy.

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“We would see a massive increase in sales every time we were on a podcast.”

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Makes sense. It’s a platform where they can share their story, educate, and provide immediate value to listeners – which has helped them grow quite the cult following.

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💡 Danielle and Kayleigh also dropped one gold nugget of podcasting advice you should know about:

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Running ads on a podcast that you haven’t been interviewed on might be a waste of money.

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Podcast ads are notoriously tricky and take time and money before they pay off (if they ever do). When you run your ads on a show you’ve been on, the audience is more familiar with your brand and thus, the ads are often much more successful.

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Solid advice!

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💰 What Danielle & Kayleigh would do with an extra $50K:

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They would devote the $ to booking two major “perfect fit” podcasts, as well as scaling Pinterest and TikTok.

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Aaaaand they might also spend some of it figuring out how to party with Ryan Reynolds and Blake Lively.

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PS: CLEARSTEAM is looking for a Head of Growth, as well as a role for Projections/Supply Chain. If you think you’re a good fit, shoot them an email at hello@clearsteamskincare.com!

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