Hey hey hey D2C Community! This is Berkay here.
Just Vertical , a D2C brand based in Toronto, Canada, offers a variety of indoor gardening solutions for households and businesses.
One thing that really stood out to me about Just Vertical is their impeccable product designs. If their products were available in my country, I would definitely get my hands on one of their renowned EVE models. EVE is the smaller option compared to the AEVE, and both models not only enhance indoor gardening but also serve as stylish home decor. What's even more impressive is that Just Vertical emphasizes the importance of reducing the carbon footprint associated with food transportation and plastic packaging, contributing to a more sustainable future.
During our chat with Chris, being fellow marketing and growth enthusiasts, we delved deep into the fascinating complexities and challenges of this field. We explored various topics including growth channels, UTMs, analytics, AI, and so much more. I must say, even within the span of a 40-minute podcast episode, I learned an incredible amount!
Without further ado, here are the key insights we gained from our enlightening conversation. Sit back, relax, and enjoy!
👀 A Quick Look into Christopher's Career Christopher began his career in Toronto, specializing in marketing during his university years. While working as a content marketing manager initially presented challenges, an opportunity arose when the organization implemented a demand generation tool. Despite lacking prior experience, Christopher successfully managed and implemented the system, leading to a transition in his career focus towards marketing systems. Over the years, Christopher has gained expertise in various marketing activities, such as webinars, content creation, email marketing, and podcast hosting.
These skills eventually led the way to his current Growth and Marketing Manager position at Just Vertical!
🌱 Just Vertical Just Vertical specializes in manufacturing indoor growing systems suitable for any space and lifestyle. Their product range caters to homes, offices, garages, and basements, offering flexibility for diverse environments. The company provides prebuilt indoor gardens like the EVE and AEVE models, which are plug-and-grow units ideal for growing fresh herbs, leafy greens, and produce year-round. Additionally, they offer larger and custom farms, including green walls of various sizes.
Just Vertical's hydroponic technology enables thriving plant growth without soil, utilizing an inert medium, essential nutrients, LED lights, and self-watering systems. This innovation allows for year-round indoor cultivation, especially beneficial in colder climates.
The EVE vs. The AEVA
Comparison of the two models 🪴 Indoor Vertical Gardening Just Vertical stands out in the market through its product design. While hydroponic technology is not new, Just Vertical integrates hyper-efficient LED lights into aesthetically pleasing furniture, allowing their products to seamlessly blend into living spaces. Their mission is to provide "furniture that feeds you ," aligning with a vision of a sustainable future.
Regarding maintenance and vacation-proofing, Just Vertical understands that customers have varying levels of gardening expertise. Their products cater to both inexperienced and seasoned individuals, offering a self-watering system facilitated by a water reservoir and timer. This automated watering process requires infrequent refills every 2 to 3 weeks and the addition of a nutrient solution. With minimal maintenance tasks such as root trimming, Just Vertical ensures hassle-free upkeep for their customers.
Towards a more sustainable future Just Vertical aims to address several challenges associated with the food industry. First, they tackle food waste by allowing users to harvest what they need, reducing waste from unused portions. Secondly, they emphasize reducing plastic packaging and waste by encouraging customers to grow their own produce, decreasing reliance on store-bought packaged goods.
Finally, Just Vertical focuses on reducing food travel miles by promoting local indoor cultivation. This approach mitigates the environmental impact of long-distance transportation, including emissions and pesticide usage, while making fresh, local produce easily accessible.
🧳 Sales Strategies for Just Vertical Just Vertical primarily focuses on online channels for sales, successfully leveraging marketplaces such as Best Buy, Wayfair, Indigo, and Amazon. Additionally, they have their own e-commerce store built on Shopify .
To complement their online presence, Just Vertical targets specialty hydroponic growing stores and high-end furniture retailers for brick-and-mortar sales. With around 20 physical stores across North America, they concentrate on the Northeast and the Pacific Northwest regions. Their approach combines online and offline strategies to reach a broader customer base.
Effective Marketing Strategies Chris says Just Vertical receives a significant portion of its website traffic from Facebook, Instagram, and Google Search. However, Google Search has proven to be the primary driver for conversions and actual purchases. Email marketing has also been highly effective for their overall growth.
To track campaign effectiveness, Just Vertical implements a UTM (Urchin Tracking Module) structure, tagging their ads and analyzing visitor behavior on their website. By gaining insights into campaign success, they make data-driven decisions to optimize costs and improve marketing strategies.
But Chris still thinks it’s definitely very hard to exactly know where the traffic is coming from.
💪 Being genuine authentic While Just Vertical has primarily focused on customer acquisition, they recognize the value of building a community. They plan to establish a referral campaign to encourage customer engagement and word-of-mouth referrals.
Being authentic and “normal” was a general theme of our chat with Chris. He said
My philosophy as a marketer is that we just gotta be normal. It sounds kind of stupid, but this is what we should do as a company. Like what would you expect from us? What do you want from us? We should provide you with these.
Check out our DTC Guide to Growth Marketing if you want to improve your growth game!
Authentic Content Creation and Social Media Presence Chris acknowledges the challenge of creating authentic and engaging content for social media platforms. They believe in sharing valuable content that genuinely represents their brand's vision instead of resorting to manipulative tactics.
To improve their content quality on platforms like TikTok and Instagram, they have recently hired a dedicated team member and plan to bring on an in-house videographer and photographer. This will enable them to produce high-quality, entertaining, and interesting content while reflecting their brand's values.
🏄 Future Plans Looking ahead, Just Vertical plans to introduce new products, expand into the commercial market, and leverage data effectively for agile decision-making. They aim to simplify and democratize marketing processes while embracing advancements in AI marketing and chatbot marketing to thrive in the future.
If you reached this point, well, thank you! Please consider following D2CVille on social media and contacting us if you’d like to be a guest in one of these podcast episodes!
And if you’re in Canada or the US, visit Just Vertical at this link for more information about their wonderful indoor gardening products!
One last thing: Check out the marketing tool stack Chris uses to let more people know about Just Vertical! It’s here .
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