In this episode of Shopify Masters, you’ll hear from an entrepreneur who went from being a registered nurse with no business experience to founding a $1.4 million company featured on Shark Tank within a span of two years.
Episode Summary
Melissa Gerson is the inventor of the Tranquilo Mat: a portable calming mat that simulates the womb with continuous motion and sound to soothe crying babies and help them sleep.
She will share how she used Facebook Live to reach mothers, build trust, gather feedback, make sales, and test marketing ideas.
How to Start Your First Facebook Live Event
How to collaborate with other content creators to expand your Facebook Live event
How to get your product on gift lists
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Show Notes
Store: Tranquilo Mat
Social Media Profiles: Facebook, Twitter, Instagram
Recommendations: Facebook pages (mobile app), Rafflecopter, Privy (Shopify app), ReferralCandy (Shopify app), Product Reviews (Shopify app), MailChimp, Slack, Trello
Partnering with Experts to Produce Educational Facebook Live Videos
Felix: Today, I am with Melissa Gerson from Tranquilo Mat. Tranquilo Mat is a portable calming mat that simulates the womb with continuous motion and sound to soothe crying babies and help them sleep. It started in 2015 and is based in Boston, Massachusetts.
Hello, Melissa.
Melissa: Hi Felix. Thank you for having me.
Felix: We’ve described a little about the business and the product. Tell us a bit about your typical customers. Who are the ideal customers?
Melissa: Sure, everyone can suffer when there is a crying baby, even innocent passersby, for example. But our customers are parents and people who carry babies or are expecting a child. We get a lot of first-time parents. They purchase our product, parents with children in the age range of 0-12 months. It is most effective for babies aged 0-6 months, which is when they typically suffer from what is usually referred to as the fourth trimester. In the womb, the sound is like that of a vacuum cleaner, and they are in constant motion because they are suspended in fluid. They come out into the wide world, and we place them in a static crib in a quiet womb, and they do not want to sleep.
I’m a labor and delivery nurse, and I know the science behind keeping them calm, through the use of that continuous motion and sound, and I also invented a product in that way, and those are our customers, well, I think they’re mostly the babies, but the parents buy it for them because they need extra sleep.
Felix: Yes, that makes sense. I am actually expecting my first child. I don’t have this product yet, but I’m sure that when I’m in the midst of all that, I will want to get your product as soon as possible. That brings me to my point, do customers, actual buyers, do parents usually buy before the baby is born? Or do they usually buy after the baby is born? At what point in their lives do they come to you?
Melissa: It’s all about timing. I think some parents might have heard about us during pregnancy. Maybe they didn’t decide to purchase or put us on their wish list and didn’t get the product or didn’t have someone buy it for them. But we do have parents who buy before their child is born. They are very excited. The baby is born, they use it. And of course, we get parents who have heard about us or haven’t heard about us, but now they have a baby, they have a crying baby, they have a pain point, and they find us that way.
We use many techniques to reach these special customers of ours. Social media is the primary referral channel to our site. Social media ads, as well, and things like that. Typically, parents find us in their referrals on our site in one of these two scenarios. Either when they are setting up their wish lists and then getting the product as a gift from the wish list or when they have a new baby and are experiencing the pain and shock, so they find us that way.
We
We use many techniques to reach our special customers. Social media is the main channel for referrals to our site. Social media ads as well and things like that. Parents usually find us through referrals on our site in one of these two cases. Either when they are setting up their wish list and then receive the product as a gift from the wish list or when they have a new baby and are dealing with pain and shock, so they find us that way.
Felix: There are several types of customers or at least several stages in their lives: their lives before the baby, their lives after the baby, and of course anyone giving a gift to new parents. Do you have to change the messaging in any way? I know you mentioned the different ways you reach these customers through social media. But do you change the messages in any way to reach these customers at these different points in their lives?
Melissa: We’ve been very lucky. Those who buy as gifts are mostly grandparents, so they have had kids before or friends who may already have kids. A lot of the people who buy are those who see added value in a product like ours because they are used to taking their baby out, for example on long car trips or using a product like a swing to keep their baby calm. They understand that babies miss the constant movement, and when we tell them about the continuous sound, they say, “Oh, that makes total sense. My baby always slept at parties, so it makes sense that they miss the noise rather than the quiet.” It’s very easy to convert these customers because they see the value quickly, so we don’t necessarily need to change our messages here.
I think that new parents often feel overwhelmed by the things coming their way. In some cases, we need to have several touchpoints with these people to convert them into actual customers just because they look at this on the wish list on a Saturday, then come back to do their own research on the different products, and improve their wish list for the baby shower. Things like that,
Source: https://www.shopify.com/blog/tranquilo-mat-facebook-live-marketing
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