4 High-Growth Marketing Strategies From Paul Tran, CEO of Manscaped

Paul Tran, the CEO, and founder of Manscaped, scaled his company from $3 million to $300 million in just a few years. A member of the Growe team met him at the recent Accelerate Conference and struck up a conversation. He was kind enough to share his insights on how he did it. So now we’re going to share his insights with you.  

Manscaped is a men’s grooming brand, and it’s no exaggeration to say that it has revolutionized the industry. Their unique approach to marketing and storytelling has played a huge role in the company’s dramatic increase in size.

Here are four high-growth strategies that have contributed to their success.

1. Master Your Logistics

When it comes to direct-to-consumer (DTC) brands, the ability to scale and snowball often hinges on a particular cornerstone – logistics. Paul Tran, the CEO of Manscaped, firmly advocates this principle – so much so that it inspired this post!

According to Tran, the supply chain must come first. Without a robust and reliable logistical foundation, clever marketing strategies will not result in brand growth but rather delayed shipments and tiny profit margins.

One of the prominent factors in Manscaped’s meteoric rise within the men’s grooming industry has been its focus on logistics. By staying ahead in this complex domain, the brand has successfully navigated the trials and tribulations of scaling a business in a highly competitive market.

But what does mastering logistics entail? For emerging DTC brands, it involves several interlocking components. These encompass efficient inventory management, reliable supplier relationships, seamless order processing, and rapid, cost-effective shipping. It is also vital to have a simple return and exchange policy, as this significantly impacts customer satisfaction and brand perception.

Ultimately, a meticulously planned and executed logistics strategy is the foundation of brand growth. It makes it possible to pull off high-growth marketing strategies. Once logistics fall into place, you can focus on crafting engaging brand stories and experiences.

2. Develop a Compelling Story

The narrative your brand tells plays an instrumental role in capturing the attention of your target audience. The extraordinary success of Manscaped stems from their masterful storytelling ability, which has not only resonated with their audience but also echoed throughout the industry.

Having identified a glaring void in the men’s grooming market, Manscaped decided to provide a solution – a premium grooming experience exclusively designed for men. This concept, rooted in solving a genuine problem, became the basis of Manscaped’s brand identity, making it irresistible to its target audience.

However, it was not just the story but how it was told that contributed to Manscaped’s disruptive impact. The brand’s marketing approach is audacious, explicit, and stylishly unconventional, reflecting the unique personality of the brand. Their bold style breaks through the noise, making Manscaped an unforgettable player in the industry.

Consider this innuendo-laden commercial that immediately addresses the problems of their target audience with humor and style.

Very few brands have so straightforwardly set out to fix this specific, annoying problem that men have. Manscaped found this underserved market, made excellent products, and nailed down branding. Combined with a cost-effective supply chain, that is a recipe for success.

3. Leverage Different Sales Channels

In the current DTC landscape, capitalizing on the potential of diverse sales channels is an integral part of a brand’s growth strategy. Tran has led his brand’s ascension by taking a multi-channel approach. Manscaped started as a pure DTC brand, but they progressively expanded into various sales channels, including online marketplaces like Amazon and physical retail stores, to broaden their reach.

However, expanding into different sales channels requires a nimble approach to storytelling and brand representation. On your own website, for example, you can provide as much context as you like. You can lay out the pages in any fashion, collect email addresses, and correspond with your shoppers. This isn’t the case on platforms like Amazon. The risk here is that brands might have difficulty communicating their values to shoppers on other platforms.

Manscaped has adeptly faced this challenge, understanding that each channel offers unique opportunities to communicate their story and connect with their audience. Take, for instance, the retail space. Packaging is the most influential storytelling medium here.

Manscaped makes the most of this opportunity by designing eye-catching, compelling packaging that effectively communicates their brand’s narrative. It serves as a silent salesperson on retail shelves, instantly conveying the premium, disruptive nature of their products to potential customers.

Expanding to different sales channels isn’t just about increasing your brand’s reach. It’s about adapting your storytelling and customer engagement approach to suit each channel’s unique attributes. Doing so can ensure a consistent brand experience across all touchpoints, whether it’s the retail shelf or a customer’s social media feed.

In the style of Manscaped, consider how your brand can utilize different sales channels. Adapt your narrative to each platform, and you’ll create a holistic brand experience that resonates with your customers and propels your brand toward high-growth success.

4. Test, Test, and Test Some More

In the realm of high-growth marketing strategies, there’s one guiding principle that outshines the rest: the commitment to rigorous and consistent testing. Tran has instilled this principle into the core of the brand’s operations, attributing much of their success to this continuous cycle of experimentation and learning.

For Manscaped, testing isn’t just a step in the process; it’s the driving force that shapes their decision-making across the board. Whether fine-tuning marketing strategies or exploring avenues for international expansion, the brand is committed to testing different approaches to discover what resonates most with their audience and aligns best with their overarching brand goals.

To understand this approach in a more concrete way, consider Manscaped’s tight-knit community of loyal fans, aptly named “Manscaped Ballers.” This group plays a critical role in the brand’s testing process, providing real-time, actionable feedback on new products before they reach the broader market. By clearing their work with loyal fans before pushing their products to the market, Manscaped ensures they consistently deliver products that meet and exceed their customers’ expectations.

The emphasis on testing underscores an essential truth in the DTC industry: assumptions and intuition can only take a brand so far. The real magic happens when you dive into the data, explore different possibilities, and learn directly from your audience’s response. This relentless pursuit of improvement separates high-growth brands from the rest.

Final Thoughts

The dramatic rise of Manscaped from a $3 million venture to a $300 million empire is a testament to the transformative power of strategic marketing and operational excellence. Paul Tran’s guiding principles – mastering logistics, developing a compelling story, leveraging different sales channels, and a relentless commitment to testing – can serve as stable pillars in any high-growth success story.

If you are a DTC brand owner yourself, consider the Manscaped story a blueprint for seeking high-growth success. By working these principles into your brand’s operations, you can also chart a course for unprecedented growth and industry disruption. It’s a challenging journey, but as Manscaped’s success illustrates, the rewards are well worth the effort.

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