This week’s episode of the Zero to a Million Podcast with Zach Rego features Laura and Kelly Moffat, Founders of Kirrin Finch. Coming from non-fashion backgrounds was not a deterrent to Kirrin Finch's founders as they were determined to create high quality fashion for a specific segment of the market.
Laura and Kelly leveraged several key strategies to ensure they have a viable product that will sell, like performing product and market research, creating an online presence pre-launch to create email lists, and joining an accelerator program to help them through product iterations and other challenges.
The founders created the brand, which was built to solve a problem they encountered when searching for a suit for their wedding day. In the beginning, they focused on producing button-up shirts but eventually moved on the creating Italian-made suits, their main goal, which has now become their banner product.
The brand has grown considerably in the past 5 years thanks to their savvy marketing, superior product, and community building. They share their biggest wins and most pressing challenges and future marketing campaigns which explore SMS marketing.
HIGHLIGHTS
06:18 Market and product research: Focus on button-up shirts and producing them really well
08:41 Joining an accelerator program and getting guidance for product iterations:
10:20 Building the brand pre-launch: Creating email lists and building Instagram followers
12:40 Size forecasting is a primary challenge
14:06 SEO groundwork to drive organic search and producing engaging content
19:12 The Dapper Scouts: Brand ambassadors that drive community, empowerment, and acceptance
22:46 Creating Italian-made suits as a banner product
27:27 Launching a brand new website and continuing the digital marketing stack + SMS marketing
35:02 Connect with Laura and Kelly and follow Kirrin Finch
QUOTES
06:36 "Because we didn't come from a fashion background and we sort of decided, let's make one product really, really well and we'll kind of build the business from there. We'll validate the business with one product, we'll do it amazingly well, and we'll go from there."
10:43 "We also did have a landing page, website, initial Instagram, kind of building the brand, building the email list, building the Instagram followers, before we even had any product to sell."
14:23 "Organic search can take 2 to 3 months to begin to build up that SEO value and we didn't see other people doing that. And so we worked on that very early on and that's really paid off. Today, I think the majority of our traffic still comes from organic search."
20:48 "It's about creating community. It's about creating acceptance. And we'll get the parent that's like ah, my kid just came out, I don't know what to do, and we'll say okay well, hey, check out some of these stories."
30:27 "SMS, I think, opens up the way to get back in that customer's front and center. I think SMS will probably go the way of email and we'll end up with SMS promotional folders and all that stuff. But for now, we're getting in, we're getting to the customer."
You can connect with Laura and Kelly in the links below:
- Website - https://kirrinfinch.com/
- Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/kirrinfinch/
- Tiktok - https://www.tiktok.com/@kirrinfinch
- LinkedIn (Laura) - https://www.linkedin.com/in/laura-moffat-57a1563/
- LinkedIn (Kelly) - https://www.linkedin.com/in/kelly-moffat-she-her-3b699156/
For more tips for starting and launching your business, be sure to subscribe to the podcast on Apple or Spotify today!