Fast Break is a CPGSPN spinoff where I transition from cold emails and power rankings to the CPG stories that matter most to me.
Today’s subject: Scrappy Marketing
By Fall 2020, I had been working with Outer Aisle (via my agency) since May 2018. Shortly after this campaign, I served as their CMO until December 2023.
In that time, I ran point on growing their online business from $0 to roughly $9M in annual revenue across Amazon and dotcom.
For a temp-controlled product, that was no small feat.
But there was one thing I had been pushing for relentlessly: a more robust NPD (new product development) pipeline.
Two flavors I had asked for repeatedly were Everything and Taco.
On a Monday in September 2020, during an executive meeting, I finally got the green light to launch Everything Sandwich Thins.
There were just three problems. We had to launch in one month (10/12/20), the product would not ship until December, and there was $0 in incremental marketing budget.
➡️ This is the story that earned me the nickname “The MacGyver of Marketing,” which was a blessing and a curse.
I had been begging for this flavor for years. Now that it was happening, I couldn’t screw it up.
So I went to the CFO, and the conversation went something like this:
VASA: “This was sprung on me at the last second. I need some extra budget to make this big.”
CFO: “That’s nice. You don’t have any.”
VASA: “Sick.”
CFO: “Have a good day.”
➡️ Message received.
No additional spend. Not a lot of time. No inventory until December at the earliest.
But I did have a secret weapon: housefile.
This is your rolodex. Your owned audience. Your community. Your leverage.
At the time, we had:
100k+ engaged Instagram followers
A strong low-carb and keto affiliate roster
A Tapcart app with push notification capabilities
10k+ customers in a Facebook group
~6k active subscribers via Recharge
300k+ emails via Klaviyo
Thousands of SMS subscribers via Postscript
➡️ Many executives (even internal) undervalued housefile back then. For me, it was my only shot to make this work.
Set a new daily online sales record using only our owned media channels. Yes, we had an evergreen budget, but I couldn’t carve any out without missing existing online sales goals.
The previous record was around $55k, but it was an inefficient spend achieved only after spending $100k on a Dr. Oz segment.
➡️ Reminder: I had $0 in campaign budget and roughly 30 days to figure it out.
I needed to create urgency from existing traffic without deferring a purchase. The risk was pretty obvious. Every RSVP could have been a lost sale.
So I built an RSVP campaign using an exit-intent pop-up that triggered only after a shopper:
Added $1+ to cart
Idled for several seconds
If you didn’t care enough to add something to cart, you didn’t see it.
The pop-up was simple. But it worked.
Three key elements:
TEASER
The flavor stripe said “SOMETHING NEW.”
The flavor tagline said “COMING SOON.”
Three big old question marks
HEADLINE
“Mark Your Calendars”
URGENCY
Be first. Limited quantities. 10/12.
➡️ But the real unlock was the two CTAs.
Clicking this opened the user’s calendar and saved a launch “event” for 6am PT on 10/12/20. They got reminders 15 minutes before launch and exactly at launch. This was my personal favorite.
This opted them into SMS so I could remind them on launch day. I kept this segment warm so they remembered why they signed up.
➡️ This alone grew Outer Aisle’s SMS list by 40% in four weeks.
Pre-launch ran for 4 weeks
3,000+ RSVPs
One reminder email the day before
One launch email the morning of
Here’s the reminder email.
And here’s part of the launch email. The CTA buttons led to the App Store and Google Play.
➡️ Not only did our owned channels need to pull their weight, but we modeled that 20% of RSVPs had to convert to hit our goal.
We broke the company’s all-time daily online sales record in under five hours. And this was driven entirely by owned channels.
25% of RSVPs actually converted
Thousands of new email and SMS subscribers
Thousands of new app downloads
Hundreds of thousands of dollars in revenue. All before shipping a single unit.
Campaign budget: $0
➡️ We later ran another pre-sale campaign, this time for the entire website, in December and then launched on Amazon.
It was harder than hell. But it was worth it.
Scrappy marketing is leverage.
Use what you already have and turn launches into events, not just announcements.
CPGSPN is free to you because my marketing agency, Growthbuster, funds my time.
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Building Perfy: a low sugar soda that doesn’t spike blood sugar, with a mission to eradicate cane sugar and high fructose corn syrup from the food supply.
I’ve also been running Growthbuster since 2017, a CPG and local marketing agency focused on food & beverage for humans and pets. We’ve worked with brands like Magic Spoon, Lemon Perfect, Outer Aisle, and more. We handle organic social, email, SMS, as well as branding and consulting projects.
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