How PR Marketing Helped Scale a Drinks Brand with Laura Riches, co-founder at Laylo (episode 424)
Laura Riches is the co-founder at Laylo, a seller of boxed wine. Launched in 2020, they’ve turned their side hustle into a critically acclaimed, award-winning rocket ship (to quote Laura) in just two years. They sell via a Shopify site and now have over 5,000 regular buyers.
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About Laura Riches
Laura started out in retail and worked at Harrod’s on a graduate scheme straight out of university. While she found the job interesting, she felt that eCommerce was going to be the next big thing and wanted to learn more about it.
At the time, the Javelin Group were the specialists, and Laura joined them as a strategy consultant. It was an exciting time for her because she worked with more than a few businesses that had eCommerce at the top of their to-do list.
Starting Laylo
Laura says that if it weren’t for the pandemic, Laylo would not have happened. Prior to 2020, she was working as a freelance consultant, and when the pandemic hit, she found more time on her hands.
When her co-founder, Laura Rosenberger, whom she worked with at Naked Wines, approached her with the idea of starting a boxed wine business, Laura immediately took to the idea. The combination of having the time to get into business, being more open to risk, having the right idea, and working with the right person was what made Laura say “yes” to the proposal.
The Laylo Team
The Laylo team is currently made up of six people:
- Laura Riches, who handles marketing, works together with someone who takes care of partnerships and another who looks after their social media and content
- Laura Rosenberger, who handles operations, works with an operations manager
- And a salesperson covers on-trade sales
The Sustainable Choice
Laura shares that boxed wine generates 90% less carbon than glass bottles.
Because of the typical wine bottle’s shape – rounded with a tall flute at the top – it’s more carbon-inefficient to produce and transport. Even the recycling process requires high temperatures to recycle the bottle.
Boxed wines are more compact, and the entire packaging is fully recyclable, which makes them the more sustainable choice.
The Challenge of Handling Possible Returns
While the business doesn’t get return requests from customers, there is always a possibility of customers not liking the wines they ordered.
To address this challenge, Laylo offers a 100% money-back guarantee. This way, customers can buy Laylo boxed wines with confidence, and in case the taste is not to their liking, the relationship between the customer and the business is not sacrificed.
A Single Measure of Success
A year into the business, Laura says they focused on one measure of success, and that is boxes on shelves.
Defining this measure was a good and useful way for Laura to filter their marketing priorities. If a strategy didn’t put boxes on shelves, it was deprioritized.
The idea here is that as a wine company, ultimately their goal is to have more people enjoy their wine and not just drive revenue.
eCommerce Book Top Tip
eCommerce Traffic Top Tip
- For Laura, it’s PR. Prior to Laylo, Laura had no experience with PR. She had to learn it from scratch, and she says she’s proud of the fact that wine critics talk about their brand in a positive way. She has two tips for going about your PR strategy: one, get great photography, and two, make it easy for journalists by speaking to them like real people.
Tool Top Tip
- Laura says what works for them, although it’s not a tool, is the process of choosing three things with the most impact that their team will work on for the week.
Growth Top Tip
- If you think of your business growth as a car, Laura’s tip is to think about the components that will make you go as fast as you can from A to B and not focus on the shiny stuff that can actually get you bogged down.
Interview Links
- Check out Laylo Premium Boxed Wine
- Use the code MASTERPLAN at checkout to get £10 off your purchase
- Laura on LinkedIn
*Thanks to Hannah Hooton from Genie Goals for the intro to this guest
Related episodes
- Customer Clarity and Growth Focus with Buderflys’ brilliant Shea Gerhardt (episode 412)
- Building a sustainable loungewear brand with PR and Community – it’s Krisha Kotak from Tula+Tye (episode 385)
- Fashion replatforming, customer service and the impact of PR with Needle & Thread’s Mark Liddington (episode 262)
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