On the "Casual Fridays Podcast",
Guest Speaker, Carlos Gil, shares his story about his experience of starting a mask business during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020.
It began with his family thinking the absolute worse of the pandemic and wanting to isolate themselves away in a cabin for safety. This lifestyle didn't last long and his family needed an income.
In Mid to Late March of last year, COVID began to impact the United States, and slowly across the nation, masks began to be mandated. Immediately, Carlos thought that if masks are going to be mandated, people will want stylish options of masks. Carlos Gil went to Walmart, product-tested current masks, see what people wanted, and knew that masks could be fashionable. With only $5,000, Carlos created the mask company, "Outlaw Masks."
"It's pretty easy to start an E-commerce business: develop an idea, then procure products from the manufacturer, create a brand identity and launch it."- Carlos Gil, Founder of Outlaw Masks
Being an entrepreneur is like being on a roller coaster, there's a lot of ups but way more downs. Entrepreneurship doesn't prepare you for the downside until you are in the thick of it. They are just trying to SURVIVE with a limited revenue stream.
"When you are in an adverse situation, you go north or you go south. With dependents and kids as responsibilities, going south is not an option."- Carlos Gil, Founder of Outlaw Masks
For the mask product to be successful, selling to consumers falls on brand. In order to sell the focus is on the repackaging and brand itself rather than the mask. This last year, the mask hasn't changed. The features and fabrics change but the basic element is for protecting oneself from COVID. Lots of people began selling masks, they had to sell the brand and make it unique.
Products come and go, but creating a brand identity is the key. Building a stable brand identity because products can phase in and out. In order to promote OutLaw Masks, Carlos used TikTok which was a pretty controversial marketing tactic and gained over 300,000 followers with 20 million organic views a month. TikTok made it an identifiable brand and a database of customers.
"The first few months were tough, sitting on thousands of units of inventory, and arguing with people on social media on why they should wear a mask and then why they should buy a mask from us."- Carlos GIl, Founder of Outlaw Masks
The pivotal moment was the idea of guerrilla-style marketing which is sending influencers free products, and if they like it, they'll share it. An endorsement at the cost of a product.
In order to do this, OutLaw Masks direct messaged NBA players on Instagram and sent them personalized videos that their mask was on their way. In return, the founders of Outlaw Masks received intel on where to ship these masks from the players themself.
They shipped masks and after a couple of weeks, there was a social media post of an NBA player with an Outlaw Mask on!
TikTok Marketing
When Outlaw Mask first joined TikTok, they had imposter syndrome..by not being in the same demographic as being a dancer and younger generations. But quickly after downloading TikTok, Outlaw Masks saw that it was much more than a dance app for teens. TikTok has algorithms that share content based on one's interests and adapts to the user's response to each TikTok making it more specific, the longer they scroll on the app.
Social media is overly saturated with people speaking over each other to market their products. This is why Outlaw Mask turned to TikTok. On TikTok, Outlaw Mask creates short videos about 15 secs long. The content is usually an act of kindness like offering a free mask to someone for free. It's all recorded on an iPhone then in-app add music and effects. The company doesn't even talk about the product, they just show what the mask looks like. The one link in Outlaw Masks TikTok's bio is their e-commerce website.
When one of their videos goes viral, they have more products sold. From there, they use their viral TikTok videos and retargeted them through Facebook and Instagram ads. This is to generate multiple ads over time to users. They typically won't buy the first time but after a while, they'll get curious and purchase the product. Retargeting is to gain visibility and frequency of advertisements across social media. Multiple advertisements and a variety of content are vital to pull in customers.
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