As direct-to-consumer (D2C) brands compete to win consumers’ attention and to secure their loyalty, the custom printing site Sticker Mule has expanded to a new audience by taking a sharp turn — launching a hot sauce brand.
“We [launched Mule Sauce] for fun, to be honest with you,” the brand’s Co-founder and CEO Anthony Constantino told PYMNTS in a recent interview. “It’s sort of a joke, but it’s only a funny joke if we actually make a good hot sauce.”
What may have started as essentially a bit has become a very real part of the company’s business. Now, the hot sauce has its own audience independent of the sticker-printing business, with the company shipping nearly 40,000 bottles each month. Anecdotally, Constantino mentioned that when he wears his “Sticker Mule” T-shirts out in public, he gets comments from those who primarily know the company from its hot sauce.
The D2C hot sauce category is competitive, with brands such as Truff and Bushwick Kitchen building their following from the ground up. Sticker Mule, meanwhile, was starting with a built-in audience.
“We want a million people using mule sauce every year,” Constantino said. “I think that’s a good goal for where we’re going to be next year,” he added.
As it looks to secure existing customers and attract new ones, Sticker Mule relies primarily on its mailing list, which has gained some attention for the short, design-less, text-only messages it uses to promote products without exhausting consumers.
“Some people call our water activated tape WAP. Its correct abbreviation is WAT,” one recent pitch reads. “You should try to avoid this mistake. Anyways, get some WAT today for only $9 (usually $19).”
Constantino added that while other kinds of marketing, such as SEO and advertising, are more critical in launching a D2C startup, the email list gains importance as the brand grows.
“A lot of people mismanage their email list. They send too many emails, and they send low quality emails,” Constantino said. “For us, it’s writing a fun email that’s concise and not over-sending.”
Nearly half of all consumers engage with D2C brands each month, according to data from the July edition of PYMNTS’ ConnectedEconomy™ study, The ConnectedEconomy™ Monthly Report: Rise of the Smart Home. The study, which draws from a survey of nearly 2,700 U.S. consumers, found that 45% of consumers had made eCommerce purchases directly from brands in the previous 30 days, and half of them did so weekly or more.
Get the study: The ConnectedEconomy™ Monthly Report: Rise of the Smart Home
That share of eCommerce customers continues to rise, according to U.S. Census Bureau data on the recent past and to projections of digital sales going forward. Today, the eCommerce mix of total retail sales is about one percentage point higher than it would have been without the increase in the use of digital channels by consumers, prompted by the pandemic, between 2020 and 2022. This single percentage point translates to $81.6 billion in eCommerce sales over the last four quarters.
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