MUD/WTR Built a $400m DTC Brand in Less Than Five Years

Despite loving my morning coffee, I've always searched for alternatives that didn’t have me crashing after the first couple. This week’s brand, MUD\WTR, caught my attention because it quickly became a viral sensation, helping millions of people swap their coffee for something packed with ingredients to give you natural energy and fight oxidative stress🧐!

Starting as a homemade drink, it gained traction as people continued to seek alternatives to coffee. Surprisingly, it resonated with a significant audience looking to escape the caffeine jitters and crashes, making it one of the most remarkable direct-to-consumer brand stories of the past 5 years. And, they’ve done it all mainly through online marketing.

By the end of this breakdown, I was sold by this brand’s product and mission. Definitely giving Mud\WTR a trial run soon.
- Dev

This is what I’m covering in today’s edition:

• How Mud\WTR uses its message to increase affinity

• Building a content machine via blogs and films

• Attracting higher LTV customers via podcasting

• Continuing to build on 500k+ annual users via Tiktok and Meta ads

• Wrap Up

• News and Rabitthole reads from this week

CASE STUDY
MUD\WTR

Context: MUD\WTR, a coffee alternative company founded by Shane Heath in 2018, provides a variety of products. Their products are made from organic ingredients like lion’s mane, cordyceps, and reishi mushrooms, known for providing natural energy and focus without the usual coffee jitters. By offering healthier alternatives to traditional caffeinated beverages, they are promoting mental well-being, and consumers are embracing this brand wholeheartedly. Since its inception, they have gained over 500k annual customers and sold more than 3 million units.

CONTENT MARKETING
Storytelling and Community Building as a Media Company

The founders are avid users of their products and provide a repository of positive and actionable content while building a supportive community around them.

Messaging: Focuses on promoting a new morning ritual rather than just a coffee alternative. They aim to elevate the morning coffee habit to a ritual, emphasizing the concept of sacred practices and personal well-being. By using a first-person narrative across all channels, their ads feel more personable, creating a connection with the audience.

Blog: They create content that aligns with MUD\WTR's ethos of optimizing the mind, body, and rituals for a healthier lifestyle. In the past, they have created a series around ‘cold plunging adventures’, which included content pieces like benefits of cold plunging, 101 tips for newbies and budget-savvy how-tos. Supported by personal anecdotes, their blog resonates well with people and feels like a friend is sharing these stories as opposed to a company trying to push their product.

MUD/WTR Films: A clever way to position their video marketing strategy. It’s an extension of their blog where they produce content about psychedelics, well-being, and the human experience through a cinematic lens. This content is laid out aesthetically on their website and hosted on their YouTube channel. When someone wants to watch it, they are seamlessly directed to their YouTube channel. This approach empowers visitors to their website to immerse themselves in captivating story-based 'films,' generating more views and nurturing a deeper bond with the brand's core values and community.

PODCAST ADVERTISING
Acquiring Higher LTV Customers

New brands often stick to paid media like Facebook Ads, but MudWTR took a bold step for growth. By targeting podcasts, they reached a wide audience and gained high-value customers. For them, podcasting has played a significant role in creating top-of-mind awareness and engagement with warm audiences, while helping connect with their community. This is what their podcasting advertising playbook looks like:

Targeting niche podcasts: They focus on advertising on podcasts that have their ideal customers. For example, Farnham Street is a niche podcast they advertised to tap into an audience actively seeking to live a fulfilled life.

Frequency of ads makes the difference: You can’t expect to run one ad and achieve significant sales growth. Podcast audiences are different, they need to hear your ads a few times for them to connect the dots. MUD\WTR advertise on a single podcast between 3-5 times. Each time their conversion rate has climbed but typically falls after the fifth time.

Tracking ROI: It’s difficult to track returns from podcasts, but they simply generate and share away unique codes for each episode they advertise on.

TIKTOK ADS
The Brand’s Most Scalable Acquisition Channel

Pivoting to TikTok from Meta has been a game-changer. They’ve been able to tap into TikTok as a scalable acquisition channel, contributing to significant growth rates each quarter and expanding their presence on the platform by targeting a younger audience group.

Educational ads: Aim to captivate a curious audience by providing educational content before inviting them to take action and try their products. They create visually engaging content that informs viewers about the benefits of their products while educating them about the ingredients.

User-generated content: Encourage users to create content featuring MUD\WTR, such as taste tests, creative recipes, or morning rituals, and leverage popular TikTok challenges and trends.

Realness: Embrace TikTok's culture of authenticity by showcasing real people enjoying MUD\WTR in their daily lives, whether it's during morning routines, work breaks, or relaxation time.

Social currency: They have about 18k+ reviews with a 4.5-star rating that is well communicated via social channels, especially via paid social ads.

FACEBOOK AND INSTAGRAM ADS
MUD\WTR’s High-Volume Channel

Despite looking to diversify their media mix to TikTok and Snapchat, Facebook is still an important channel for them. An established channel that connects them to people who will likely buy anything for the first time - still produces high sales volumes despite having a higher acquisition cost.

Buyer Journey: It’s best practice to tailor ads based on the customer journey, and the MUD/WTR media team stick to this rule. Their campaigns and ads are split up into two groups: cold audiences and warm audiences. Both audiences go to separate landing pages after they click, a successful tactic to seamlessly cater to the buyer stage of each shopper.

• Cold audiences typically go to a landing page with more information about the products sprinkled with some social proof.

• Warmer audiences are taken to the product page, increasing the odds of them finally making a purchase, assuming the shopper has all the brand info down-packed.

Continuously testing angles and hooks: Since the start of March 2024, they have loaded 96 different variations of ads, indicating the importance they place on finding the right message + creative angle for their ideal customers.

Ad testing: Judging from their ad library it looks like they are testing short and long-form ads all created from unique creative assets. However, the copy remains the same across multiple ad formats.

WRAP UP
TL;DR

• Using a first-person narrative across all channels, their ads/organic content create a personal connection with the audience.

• The blog aligns with MUD\WTR's ethos, offering content on optimizing the mind, body, and rituals for a healthier lifestyle.

• MUD\WTR Films extends the brand's approach with video content on psychedelics, well-being, and the human experience. Achieving affinity and nurturing a deeper bond with the brand's core values and community.

• Podcast advertising has proven effective in reaching a wide audience and acquiring high-value customers for MUD\WTR. Advertising 3-5 times maximised impact, tracked via unique promo codes.

• Their TikTok strategy includes educational ads to inform viewers about product benefits, user-generated content to engage with their audience, and showcasing real people enjoying their product.

• Facebook remains crucial for Mud/WTR, targeting first-time buyers despite higher costs and lower LTV.

• MUD/WTR tailors ads based on the customer journey, directing cold audiences to informative landing pages and warm audiences to product pages for optimal conversions.

• All channels are supported by strong social proof of over 18k positive reviews.

NEWS & RABBITHOLE READS
Google Lags Behind TikTok in Search Among Gen-Z

• TikTok is rolling out a new analytics element called “Creator Search Insights”, which will provide creators with info on what users are searching for in the app so that they can customize their content approach in line with interests.

• Found this interesting article talking about the implications of a TikTok ban, including who stands to gain, who stands to lose, and what it means for the e-commerce landscape as a whole.

• Google lags behind Instagram and TikTok in local search among Gen Z. While Google still holds popularity for local search among older generations, Instagram (67%) and TikTok (62%) are the preferred choices among Gen Z.

• Other newsletters that I’ve been finding useful:

  • Thumbstop: Deep dives into performance marketing ads.

  • BookBub: Getting ebook deals for your next marketing read

  • Techpresso: Digital moves fast, and understanding tech is critical to stay ahead, a good newsletter to get the low down in a few minutes.

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