The Basics
Please give full business name and contact details that will be published with the entry.
teapigs Ltd
Louise Allen/ Nick Kilby
0208 568 1200/ 5511
The Old pumping station, Pump Alley, Brentford, TW8 OAP
What is your name and role?
Nick (tea evangelist)
Louise (tea addict)
How long has your business been in existence?
3 years (2006)
What is your industry and main product/ service?
teapigs provide quality whole leaf tea in convenient tea temples for people who like tea.
How many full time employees do you have?
5 Full time employees.
Where the business is going
What is your business vision? (What would you like your business to become?)
To be the leading cutting edge tea company.
Sum up your brand.
Quality. Contemporary. Quirky. Friendly. Approachable.
Customers
Describe your customers in a sentence. What do they want?
People who like tea who are looking for something better. Foodies who experiment – have an interest in experimenting or trying something better. Our customers support and love our real tea mission. Looking for a much better tea? An interest in tea.
Why should they choose you rather than anyone else?
We sell convenient, fantastic-tasting whole leaf tea. We are unique. There simply isn’t much choice to compare us with! We have unique packaging, brand image and range. Trade customers get a brand with great shelf-talking ability and a unique story – a quality product to sell with pride. In a recession, drinking a quality tea isn’t a downgrade from other choices they may be making.
Your Stand on marketing
Do you have a written down marketing plan?
teapigs have a business plan that they review every 4 or 5 months, but its a topline document that allows them to create the direction, drive the focus and be something to come back to to create alignment. teapigs are a great example of the sheer brilliance of simplicity or single-mindedness effectively deployed.
What is your general opinion of marketing? (what would you say to businesses that don’t pay any mind to marketing?)
Everything teapigs does is about marketing. From how the brand is represented, through to order taking and even handling customer queries. Everyone is responsible and plays a role. Marketing is business. A good product without sound marketing (including sales and distribution in that definition) can still fail. teapigs used a seeding strategy building distribution through specialist stores, their online presence and sales and trade shows. teapigs cold call and send samples, although now they are established, everyday brings fresh trade enquiries.
What is your marketing philosophy? (What governs your marketing choices?)
Keep it simple. Put yourself in the mind of the consumer. (This is what I want, this is where I would like to buy it, this is what I would like it to look like). In teapigs case, it helps that they do represent their target market, loving tea they way that they do. Live it.
If you could use no more than 15 words to (explain)market your business?
Quality whole leaf tea in a convenient and stylish format. teapigs’ tea tastes better.
What has been biggest marketing challenge for your business to date?
Distribution. Justifying the price premium in a market selling tea a penny a bag. For trade customers selling teapigs tea provides an opportunity to charge more for tea, given its superior taste and quality. In recent times, providing an alternative to higher priced speciality coffees for customers in the form of superior tea, provides a point of difference and revenue generator.
teapigs tea drinkers cross income barriers. The basic qualification is to be an interested tea drinker. Comparatively to other beverages, it’s not expensive. It’s about overcoming the commoditisation of tea.
What was your first big marketing break, and what did you to capitalise on it?
Consumer shows like the Good Food Show at Olympia. It meant instant sales. Harvey Nichols approached teapigs at the show, and suddenly the ball started rolling with a little help from PR and being in front of the right people. Supplying the restaurant 15 – an iconic restaurant – was a goal. teapigs spent time preselecting and creating the vision of where they would like to be sold.
What is the most successful type of marketing you do and why? How do you determine what is successful?
Packaging and product. The display options provided to trade customers – decant into glass jars.
Sampling works well as teapigs know the prospect will like the taste.
Shows and markets. Selling directly to people. Talking to buyers and customers and understanding why they buy and what they like.
Digital marketing – newsletters, blog. Provide promotion code, suggestions, create top of mind awareness, and talking about things that are important to teapigs. Helps to build the affiliation with customers.
Affiliate companies and partnerships have been rewarding.
Customer service. It doesn’t often go wrong, but teapigs like to solve issues in a fun fashion wherever possible.
Provide referrals – give cards to customers that they can use to tell their friends – ‘your tea is rubbish’ (obviously to show them the teapigs light). Often referrals come from people that have tried it in the office.
Motivate
Where do you get your marketing ideas? (do you have any regular sources of inspiration?)
Look around constantly. Look for brands with similar tone of voice to see what they are doing. Years of oppression in the corporate world have many buried layers of ideas dying to show themselves, says Louise.
teapigs’ own excitement for being consumers drives how they market.
What would you tell a business (entrepreneur) looking for guidance on their marketing efforts?
Believe in what you are doing. Be prepared to eat, drink and sleep the brand you are creating. Having a strong brand and product proposition makes it all so much simpler. Write some things down that identify what you believe in for your brand.
Don’t be scared to sell it. Do you like what we have got?
Use the opportunities you have.
Simple. Simple. Simple.
This interview with Bronwyn Durand and teapigs was for Marketing Ideaology.
