Filip Keuppens, VP, Global Sales, and Marketing of Pickle Juice Company tells us about word of the mouth marketing.
Tell us about you, your career, and how you joined Pickle Juice Company.
Filip Keuppens: My background is in CPG and competitive sports. I’ve always wanted to be part of an organization committed to developing healthy products that significantly impact performance or an experience. When the opportunity to join what was then a very small organization came, I couldn’t turn it down, and the rest is history.
Do you have small habits that made a meaningful impact on your life and business?
Filip Keuppens: Being honest and transparent is important. I fully believe in a team model where all members are encouraged to lead with ideas, hold themselves accountable, and be recognized for their contributions. Trying to create a work environment that is fun but productive is important. I try to lead by example as much as possible.
How does your company market Pickle Juice specifically online?
Filip Keuppens: No, we are open to almost any distribution model that gets the product to the consumer. We are consumer and product-centric rather than supply chain centric. Online sales account for approximately 30% of our total business.
What specific tools, software, and management skills are you using to manage your online marketing?
Filip Keuppens: We have a unique go-to-market strategy that is part traditional CPG, part mission-based, and part experiential. Most of our growth relies on strong word of mouth from our brand ambassador and event support space. We are very reliant on personally attending events to build relationships and expand our network.
What is your hiring policy/process, and how do you retain employees?
Filip Keuppens: Recruiting has shifted to an “all hands on deck” approach over the past year. We’ve found most of our success through casting a net throughout personal networks rather than relying on traditional job boards.
How are you funding your growth?
Filip Keuppens: We are entirely self-funded and not operating at a loss. Budgeted profits are re-invested into the company’s growth, and we are balancing our expansion to stay within budgetary and cash flow thresholds.
Who are your competitors?
Filip Keuppens: Pickle brine has become an unlikely competitor because of some consumer misconceptions, but for the most part, we are fortunate to reside in our own space as our product is the only product on the market that is scientifically proven to stop muscle cramps with no rival
How do you plan to stay in the game?
Filip Keuppens: We are still in the “harvesting” phase of growth and will start entering the “mining” phase in about two years with our flagship product, Pickle Juice. We are building the groundwork for more aggressive overseas expansion and planning to introduce several new products entirely unrelated to pickle juice over the next couple of years. We are also building our facility to function as a co-packing plant in order to develop multiple revenue streams.
Tell us a customer success story of yours.
Filip Keuppens: We’ve been incredibly lucky on that front. We have almost no customer attrition and are seeing same-store sales increase double digits year over year. One of our favorite experiences is the frequency with which we see our product on televised sporting events. In my entire career, I’ve never seen anything like it.
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