At Charlie Oscar, we’ve been thinking a lot about the brands that we’re big “fans” of. We get excited by brands that have truly fanatical customers. They are the type of customers that write reviews like “omg I bought some for my whole family”, join long waitlists for new product drops, or start online groups to talk exclusively about the brand’s products.
However, as an investor I’ve noticed that many founders find it difficult to effectively measure and demonstrate this aspect of their brand when pitching. So I’ve put together 3 tips to help you prepare a story that shows off not only your killer performance data, but also the strength of your fanbase:
1. Community engagement
Definitely an overused D2C buzzword but the reality is that very few brands do this well, and even fewer are able to demonstrate it to investors. Investors are looking for brands that have a community of fans, not customers. A strong community of fans can be an increasingly valuable channel for lower acquisition costs and demonstrate that your brand has real long term value.
To measure your fan engagement, look at metrics like open rate of your emails, the percentage of customers that subscribe to your newsletters, average waitlists for new product drops, average time a customer spends on your website, percentage of customers who input into new product development, perhaps even get analytical with your review content (e.g. what percentage of your reviews say your product is ‘game changing / life changing’ or made them switch from ‘x brand’?). This could also include "social media mentions" i.e. how many times people comment at you or tag you in posts rather than just liking your posts. Get creative with measuring your community engagement!
“We had 20,000 people on the waiting list during the pre-launch period” - Daye, 2020
Beyond numnbers, a visual showcase of demonstrating community engagement is also effective. I love this recent example from the brand Underdays:
