When starting a new business in a saturated industry, it’s important to stand out and make a statement with your marketing. That’s exactly what Jordan Nathan did when he launched Caraway, a line of non-toxic ceramic cookware celebrating interior design and home décor.
Instead of featuring food or chefs, Caraway’s marketing showcased the products’ design and functionality, an approach that resonated not only with customers but investors, too. Jordan successfully completed multiple eight-figure rounds of funding, and created one of the fastest-growing DTC brands to date—thanks to the marketing strategy he used along the way.
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Stand out with these four marketing strategies
Following Caraway’s model, you too can make a big splash when you launch your brand to the world. Learn Jordan’s marketing tips to help you build a business that stands out.
1. Find something that makes your brand unique
Creating a business is one thing, but marketing your products can be a whole other challenge. The first step is discovering what makes your brand different from your competitors and lean into it.
“We saw a big gap in the market to focus on design, color, and home décor, because no other brand was thinking about [cookware] this way,” Jordan says. While still developing the brand, he realized its marketing assets had to highlight its bold colors, sleek design, and aesthetics to be memorable to new customers and potential investors.
2. Commit to standing out
When it came time to photograph the cookware for his website, social media, and promotional assets, Jordan didn’t want food or chefs to be the focal point. Rather, he focused on what made Caraway different, and allowed interior design to be the focus, before the products or their functions. “Our product photography was shot like sculptures, to present [the products] as art,” he says.
Before shooting content for your marketing channels, decide on the look and feel of your photography and stick with it. Jordan’s dedication to shooting Caraway’s products as pieces of art rather than as kitchen tools led to numerous features in publications such as Architectural Digest and Vogue.
3. Work with influencers—but not the ones you’d expect
The commitment to stand out and set yourself apart in marketing should extend into your influencer strategy as well.
“When it comes to influencer marketing, we focus a lot of our strategy on lifestyle influencers and individuals who can really tell the design story of the brand,” Jordan says. Since Caraway is known primarily for its cookware, Jordan takes the unexpected route and chooses influencers who focus on design and storytelling, rather than foodies or chefs. This unexpected decision draws extra attention to the brand and builds a design-savvy customer base.
Influencer marketing is one of Caraway’s most successful marketing strategies and is still something the brand employs today. After almost five years in business, the brand works with around 3,000 influencers and brand ambassadors.
4. Plan for the long term
It’s easy to forget your long-term goals when developing a marketing strategy, but Jordan emphasizes the importance of thinking five to 10 years ahead. This way, you don’t have to continuously update your pitch when looking for new retail partners or investors.
“We’ve always had a vision to take over the whole home, so I had to focus on the long-term [plans for] Caraway and what it could become,” Jordan says. Since he established this goal, all product shots, social strategies, pitch decks, and influencer connections have been made with the hopes of expanding the brand’s reach.
To develop a bold marketing plan, commit to the gap you’re filling in the market and dedicate yourself to working with other influential partners within the same industry to spread your message.
Tune in to the full Shopify Masters episode to hear how Jordan’s marketing strategies landed him millions of investment dollars and helped him expand beyond the cookware category.
