Growing Skincare brand Blossom Essentials 3x to 7 figures with Sarah Vilenskiy (episode 405)
Sarah Vilenskiy is the Founder and CEO at Blossom Essentials, a line of clean and non-toxic hydration products directly addressing chronic dry and irritated skin problems. Founded in 2020 they sell on Shopify from the USA to the world. They are experiencing 300% growth and are on track to hit $1.4m this year.
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About Sarah
Sarah comes from a long line of entrepreneurs, but she says she started Blossom Essentials out of a personal need.
She’s always had dry skin, and she wanted to create a product that got down to the root cause of the problem. Their first product, the multipurpose Honeybutter salve, was the answer to that problem.
Blossom Essentials’ Growth & Building the Team
Sarah attributes the growth of the brand to their team.
While she started out by herself with just a few contractors, this year, she brought on small equity partners who have experience in growing brands and expand initiatives.
Her partners began as media buyers but having seen the potential of the brand and with Sarah wanting to give them an incentive for helping grow Blossom Essentials, the working relationship developed into something more long-term.
Even the third-party logistics company they switched to has a good relationship with her equity partners and brings its own advantages.
In terms of growth on social media, 85% of the brand’s revenue comes from Facebook and Instagram.
Flexibility with Subscriptions
Blossom Essentials didn’t start out with a focus on subscriptions, but they’ve incorporated it over the last few months. And Sarah says since they’ve started giving it proper attention and been able to find the right subscription software for their brand, which is Prive, their subscription business has been going great.
Currently, what they’re trying to do is get their regular customers to turn into subscriptions. A lot of testing is happening at the same time, with the goal of being able to give their customers the flexibility they need when subscribing to products and to get them on board and make them maintain their subscriptions.
Listening to the Customers
At Blossom Essentials, they spend time listening to their customers, and one of the ways Sarah does this is by actually answering customer service phone calls. She has found that talking to them directly gives you a clear idea of their problems, what products they love, and why. This has also given her the opportunity to have deeper connections with her customers and learn from them.
Another way the brand engages with its customers is by running a brand ambassador program. Not to be confused with influencer marketing, Sarah says theirs is a program for everyday folks and customers who want to share what’s great about Blossom Essentials.
For Sarah, it’s important to connect with their real audience who actually use and like their products.
eCommerce Book Top Tip
- How to Win Friends & Influence People by Dale Carnegie
eCommerce Traffic Top Tip
- Facebook and Instagram are good especially when you’re able to moderate the comments well and get people to engage on your ads.
Tool Top Tip
- Slack messaging platform
- Google Drive personal cloud storage and & file sharing platform
Growth Top Tip
- Don’t compare your growth timeline to anybody else’s because everyone’s journey is different. Give your business the time to grow properly and don’t rush it.
Interview Links
Related episodes
- 388: Taking a sustainable, money saving brand to £5m a year with Helen Rankin from Cheeky Wipes
- 360: Growing a baby clothing subscription service with Eve Kekeh of Bundlee
- Grow from 7 figures to 8 figures in beauty with Janis Thomas from Look Fabulous Forever (episode 404)
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