Well Made
Craig Elbert, Care/of: Making Science Personal – Well Made E17
March 30, 2017 · RSS · Apple Podcasts
For two years, Craig Elbert was the Vice President of Marketing at Bonobos, and now he runs a vitamin company. So, what's the connection between great trousers and daily vitamins? Besides Craig, it's the category of Vertical Commerce Brand.
Craig experienced first hand the overwhelming lack of clarity in vitamin and supplement stores. With his background at Bonobos, he saw this as an opportunity to use the direct-to-consumer, VCB model to build a brand that people loved.
In this episode of Well Made, Stephan talks to Craig about and the first few months of launching of Care/of and how he's brought his marketing experience to the world of vitamins.
It was important to Craig and his co-founder Akash Shah that spreading the word about Care/of happened organically and authentically, so with the help of the firm La Force, they spoke directly to press and influencers, but not before crafting a narrative they could stand behind.
“A lot of it, when launching a new business and a new brand, is making sure you know your narrative down pat.”
“There’s this idea of a curiosity gap…once you start doing something and your curious about what’s on the other side, that curiosity is a strong motivator.”
A pivotal part of Care/of is their questionnaire which they use to help pick the perfect vitamin combination for you. Initially the survey was brief, but to Craig's surprise, people wanted it to be longer. It seemed counterintuitive at first, but users wanted to spend more time to the site so that they could answer extensive questions to get hyper personalized results. The current version of the questionnaire does just that, and it takes about 4 minutes to fill out.
From the language to the imagery they use, Craig said that Care/of is on a mission to close the feedback loop on vitamins and supplements. They're working directly with doctors and scouring decades of research to get down to the science to find out what works and what doesn't and communicate research and results clearly and efficiently.
By staying customer-focused and using technology to grow in a way that's grounded in empathy, Care/of is off to a great start and we can't wait to see how it grows from here. Follow Craig on Twitter, Care/of on Instagram and take the questionnaire for yourself.
You can find this and all future episodes on iTunes, Google Play, and here on the Lumi blog. This episode was edited by Evan Goodchild.
