How 2 Dropouts Made $160 Million By Selling Watches on Shopify
Originally published on The Trial Ninja Blog
Imagine making $1.67 million dollars every month for 3 consecutive years…
Now add a big fat $100 million dollar check to it!
That’s the story of Jake Kassan and Kramer LaPlante — co-founders of MVMT did. They made 60 million dollars in 3 years by selling watches on Shopify and sold the business for $100 million.
I reverse-engineered what they did to become THAT successful:
- How MVMT’s high converting Shopify store is structured
- The secret behind MVMT’s free marketing strategies (hint: they let others do it for them)
- Revealed the “single-line-copy” mystery of MVMT’s Facebook ads
- How they got 4.6 MILLION social media followers
Read the full post to see EXACTLY what MVMT did so you can take your Shopify store to the next level.
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[Tip #1] MVMT’s High Converting Shopify Store
As for most online stores, the MVMT’s homepage is the page getting the most traffic:
63.77% of traffic is happening on their front page. Followed by the men’s watches collection page (14.51%) and — after quite a drop — the women’s watches collection page (2.63%).
The section that always gets the most attention on a website, is above the fold. Here’s MVMT’s above the fold section on their homepage:
Two separate images for their men's, and women’s collections. With two clear call to action buttons.
Ninja’s Takeaway: Make it easy for your shop visitors to understand what you’re selling and give them a clear introduction where to click if they want to shop.
We will now break down the winning homepage of MVMT.
Note: MVMT will probably change their website design and structure in the future. The following breakdown is based on their current homepage.
MVMT doesn’t use a Shopify theme you can purchase. Their website is fully customized and built by professional developers.
However, you can recreate the same structure with a Shopify app called “Shogun”.
MVMT’s homepage structure looks like this (I highlighted the most important parts):
If you take a good look at their online store, you’ll find several pages that are full of products, collections, and images. Like the ‘shop all mens’ page.
To build such great looking pages, MVMT uses an app named Shogun. It’s a drag & drop page builder that lets you create fully customized pages for your Shopify store.
As all of MVMT’s pages get a lot of traffic they want to make use of that. Hence, they are collecting data by asking people to sign up with their email addresses.
When you visit MVMT’s homepage for the first time and try to leave, this exit intent pop-up appears:
They’re offering a 10% discount to every new email subscriber.
The wording “unlock“ instead of the usual “subscribe now” gives the impression of privilege and exclusivity.
In addition to that, they collect emails in the footer of the website. They make it very easy for a visitor to enter their email. Once you’re signed up and engaged with the brand on some level, you will be asked more specific (optional) questions.
If MVMT asked for all this info in one and the same step, the interaction could feel too intrusive for some.
Featured Tool that you can use for beautiful popups: Privy
Ninja’s Takeaway: Don’t ask for too much straight away. Make it easy for your visitors to engage with your brand.
We will analyze their email marketing methods later in this post.
For now, we will take a look at one of MVMT’s key strategies to induce loyalty and, more importantly, derive revenue from it.
Let me introduce to you…
[Tip #2] The MVMT Insider Program
The “MVMT Insider” program is a reward program that lets customers earn points that can later be converted into store credit (no cash).
Here’s how and how often one can earn points:
One time only:
- Sign up points: 50 points
- Facebook like: 5 points
- YouTube subscribe: 5 points
- Instagram follow: 5 points
- Join Newsletter: 20 points
Note: One get the most points by joining the newsletter. This gives you a hint of how valuable email marketing is.
Unlimited:
- Refer a friend: 100 points
- For every $1 spent: 1 point
- Product review: 25 points
Once per month:
- Facebook share: 10 points
- Twitter share: 10 points
From a customer’s perspective, a program like this is great because loyalty is actually being rewarded. As MVMT always puts community and loyalty first, the implementation was a smart move.
In addition to that, It also works great to increase customer lifetime value and the average order volume.
Featured tool for referral marketing: ReferralCandy
Ninja’s Takeaway: Reward people who are engaging with your brand. Whether that is with a reward program or by reaching out manually and giving them a gift card for their next purchase. Let them know you are thankful for their purchase.
How MVMT Got 4.6 MILLION Followers on Social Media
When we add together the numbers on Facebook and Instagram MVMT has a staggering 4.6 million followers. They are, by all means, doing an incredible job on social media.
But how did they reach such numbers?
First off: it took them six years of hard work.
During those six years, they used certain social media tactics to help them on the road to success. Most of them are easily replicated.
[Tip #3] Giveaways: The Most Affordable Way To Get Likes
According to Daymond John (one of their advisors), MVMT used contests/giveaways to grow in audience. For every 1,000 Facebook likes they got, they gave away a free watch.
And they still do, to this day. Whether it’s on Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter; they give away free stuff all the time. At least one time per month / per platform.
People have to take certain actions to enter.
I analyzed their last 50 giveaways and, based on the engagement on each post, the best performing giveaways were always structured like this:
They ask people to leave a comment with 1, 2, 3, 4, or 5. Again, the stakes are low. It’s easy for anyone to enter and it is not intrusive.
Huge differences can be seen when comparing the outcome to that of another giveaway they ran.
This time, they asked to tag someone “who’d rock one”.
This giveaway didn’t even receive half the likes and comments, even though the pictures are similar.
The same 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 — giveaway structure is applied to all of their social media platforms. It always receives the highest engagement.
To give away a free watch (or any other product) doesn’t cost much. It’s one of the cheapest tactics to grow an audience on social media.
[Tip #4] The Lazy Content Creator Strategy: Let Others Do The Work
Being featured on one of MVMT’s social media pages is a big deal for many people. There are hundreds and thousands of posts by people from all around the world who tag MVMT.
We’re not talking about ‘cheap’ pictures. The vast majority of the tagged posts show very high-quality content. People spent countless hours taking these shots. Most of them will not have received the promoted products for free, let alone compensation for their efforts. They do it to A.) be part of the MVMT community and B.) to have a chance to be featured on their feed.
Additionally, they have created a format called “Fan Photos of The Week” in which they feature the best pictures taken by followers in the brand’s Instagram story.
Featuring customers is not just great for the featured person, but also for MVMT. By including user-generated content, they leverage the principles of social proof. Seeing that people of desirable taste and/or status have purchased a certain product can oftentimes be an enticing argument to do the same. MVMT happily show off their wide range of customers.
Featured Shopify app to automatically collect awesome customer photos: Loox
Ninja’s Takeaway: Make your customer your hero. Put them first and they will reward this with loyalty. MVMT use simple strategies and double down on things that work. They have not re-invented the wheel.
[Tip #5] Top-Notch Images For Social Media
There’s not a single bad picture on any of MVMT’s social pages. They’re simply nailing it.
Especially on Instagram where, compared to Twitter and Facebook, everything is more visual it is important to not just upload white-backgrounded product pictures. Nobody wants to see this kind of posts.
MVMT works with professional photographers and amateurs who know what they’re doing in front of and behind a camera.
The first impression of any of MVMT’s social media page is: “Wow”. On Instagram people resonate with their amazing pictures. Some people even follow just for the awesome content and not because of the products at first, but over time they could turn into customers. MVMT knows that it can take some time to turn a simple follow into a purchase. That’s why they put out great content every day to remind people how awesome they are.
Content-wise, they focus on showing real people in cool destinations wearing their products. To support these photos, they tell a story with pictures that don’t include any products at all.
24 out of the last 100 posts on the MVMT Instagram page are non-product images, aka. Stock photos.
Furthermore, on the MVMTforher Instagram page (their second Instagram page, only for women), 27 out of the last 100 posts are stock photos, quotes and memes.
Those non-product pictures are showing:
- Landscapes
- Cities/Skylines
- Quotes
- Memes
- Interior designs
- Stunning beaches
- Cars, Motorbikes, Helicopters, Airplanes
This strategy is easy to copy for any ecommerce entrepreneur. Pages like Burst, Unsplash or Pixabay offer a wide range of free stock images. In addition to that, you can ask influencers for permission to repost their pictures.
Ninja’s Takeaway: a social media page is oftentimes the first impression the customer gets of a business. If you really want to turn followers into loyal customers, you have to remind them constantly how awesome you are. Every single day.
Use the same strategy as MVMT and work with non-product pictures to tell a story.
A tool like Buffer lets you schedule your social media tools in advance so you don’t have to worry about posting regularly.
Based on the number of followers (3.6 million), Facebook is their top social platform. Engagement-wise, however, Facebook falls far behind Instagram.
MVMT posted the same post on Facebook and Instagram.
On Facebook, this post got 397 likes/reactions. On Instagram, the same post received 12,297 likes.
MVMT actually loses Facebook fans every single day.
Whereas on Instagram, they are gaining more and more followers every day.
There could be various reasons for this.
But one thing is for sure: MVMT’s marketers are aware of this fact. Which is why they put more effort into Instagram since it is the channel that works best for them.
On Facebook, MVMT publishes on average 0.3 posts a day. On Instagram, they post 1–7 images a day (stories not included).
This also applies to MVMT’s women’s Instagram page.
The fact that they have two Instagram pages (one for men, one for women) could count as evidence that they’d like to get more into the Instagram game. It also shows that they have realized that conversions can be increased with a second account.
Ninja’s Takeaway: Double down on what works for you. Testing new things are important but if you already found a way which works for you, stick to it and run experiments on the side to discover new ways. But the majority of your time should be spent on proven ways.
The Genius Marketing That Made Millions
MVMT doesn’t sell products.
MVMT sells a lifestyle.
And because they do this so well their marketing works.
Of course, their products do look good. But mostly, their products are the materialistic version of the lifestyle they sell.
Here’s one example:
MVMT uploaded a very successful video (1.3 million views) on YouTube called “Passport Goals”
This video is 1 minute long but you’ll only see MVMT watches in around 10 seconds of the video. You don’t even see any MVMT logo or “buy now” call to action at the end of the video. The video fully focuses on creating a certain vibe (having fun traveling around the world).
People will have the same fun traveling around the world without a watch from MVMT. But as they made it a part of this video (without selling), it seems a MVMT watch is necessary for making those experiences.
So keep that in mind while reading the marketing section: MVMT sells a lifestyle.
[Tip #6] How To Get People Share Your Products
MVMT created an actual referral movement. They implemented several systems that let other people spread MVMT’s word all over the places.
Anyone who’s interested in getting rewards for spreading MVMT’s word get a chance. They’re offering different ways of doing this so everyone can pick the one which they feel the most comfortable with.
Sharing with friends
This is an easy entry point. After a signup on MVMT’s website, everyone can refer friends. There’s no need to wait for an approval.
By referring friends, people will be rewarded in points for the “MVMT Insider” program (as explained earlier in this post). 100 points for each new customer. The referee will also get $15 off.
Brand ambassador
Becoming a brand ambassador for MVMT requires an application and has to be reviewed by the team.
For the purpose of this analysis, I applied but was rejected. So they’re actually reviewing all applications to make sure only people will be accepted who are a good fit for the brand.
Brand ambassadors of MVMT will be paid in commissions (1% — 4%), gift cards and points.
Affiliate program
Since 2015 MVMT also has a high commission affiliate program.
Referring a customer to MVMT will be rewarded with 10% commission on the sales amount.
For the purpose of this analysis, I also applied for their affiliate program but it’s still under review. This post will be updated once I heard back from them.
Overall, MVMT makes it easy for everyone to get rewarded for spreading the word. Not everyone can make money, but at least save some money on their next purchase.
Ninja’s Takeaway: Rewarding fans (or people who are about to become fans) is always a good idea to spread the word for you. Remember, people have different reasons to help you. Some are obsessed with earning points, others with making money and some just want to save money. Offer a way for everyone.
There are several tools/apps available which make it easy for you to implement the same strategies as MVMT.
Featured tool for referral marketing: ReferralCandy
[Tip #7] The Secret of MVMT’s Facebook Ads
MVMT really leveraging Facebook ads.
Note: This section is only a snapshot from the time I was doing the analysis for this post (February 2020).
The day I’m writing these lines, they’re running around 1,100 ads at the same time.
The majority of MVMT’s Facebook follow a certain structure.
I analyzed the structure of their last 100 ads. Here’s the result:
Single image ads
Within the last 100 Facebook ads of MVMT there are only 13 videos. The vast majority of ads are single image ads.
If they use videos, they mostly use still images that have been turned into a video. They most likely do this for re-targeting purposes. Facebook allows you to create a custom audience based on how long your customers watched your ad video.
High quality images
All ads contain magazine quality images. But there’s some difference.
You can split all ads into four categories:
- Product overlay (product on top of a picture)
- One color background (product in front of one color background. Red, orange, blue)
- On-hand (products worn by people)
- Artistic background (products in front of stylish background)
Very often MVMT uses UGC shots for their Facebook ads because they work better for them. Compared to staged model shots UGC shots resulted in 88% relative decrease in cost per order and 461% relative increase in engagement.
Increased engagement leads to even more engagement. It’s a snowball effect.
Single line copy
MVMT doesn’t play around with copy.
They keep it minimalistic. 97 of the last 100 ads only contain one line in their copy.
URL into copy
MVMT makes it easy for people to get what they want (their products).
They just add a simple “Shop Watches → [URL]” to the copy.
Note: Some Facebook user may not realize that they see an ad of a product they can purchase (even if they’d love to). Putting a url into the copy for everyone to see helps to make sure everyone knows that this is a product they can purchase. They only need to click on that link.
Here’s an example of a typical MVMT Facebook ad:
MVMT might have figured out what kind of ads work the best for them, but they never stop testing different kind of ads.
Product overlay, non on-hand, videos, …
There’s no such thing as “perfection” here. There’s always room for improvement. MVMT not just accepted this but also does everything they can to optimize their ads in order to grow the business.
To be able to run Facebook ads at scale like MVMT, you obviously need a strong financial background. Without outside funding it takes years (like it took for MVMT). Patience is the key here.
Ninja’s Takeaway: Facebook ads are an essential part of MVMT’s success. Even Gary Vaynerchuk said “Companies like MVMT […] hitting tens of millions to billions in sales by spending 100% their budget on influencers, Facebook, and Instagram”.
If you spend your money wisely, work with the structure of MVMT and never stop testing you may find success with your Facebook ads.
Win 1 year of Shopify for free: Enter here
[Tip #8] Email Marketing For Real Growth
It’s no secret that MVMT built their business on social media. At one point, however, they figured out that they have to diversify their sources of traffic.
Blake Pinsker, marketing & brand director at MVMT, said “if something happens to Facebook or Instagram, we want to make sure our business doesn’t die”.
MVMT already captured a ton of ton data and emails, but they never took advantage of it. Back then, they sent 1–2 emails every few months. So they gave email marketing a go. With lots of success.
One of their first “real” campaigns was a contest they ran on Instagram. Everyone who’d like to enter the contest (chance to win a free watch), had to enter their email.
Because MVMT always wants to put customers first, they also wanted to run this giveaway in a “everybody wins mentality”. So everyone who entered the giveaway received a discount code. A tool (not used by MVMT) you can use to create giveaways is KingSumo.
That way, MVMT collected 6,000 emails and converted 3% of them into purchasing customers.
Featured email marketing tool for amazing automations: ConvertKit
Ninja’s Takeaway: Don’t rely on just one channel (even if it works for now). If you want to build something sustainable, you have to take advantage of as many different marketing channels as possible.
The credo for MVMT’s email is clear “every email we send has to provide some sort of value”.
They balance their emails between product focused- and content focus emails.
Product focused emails
Those emails are very straightforward. People get to see a product, click a link and end up on a product page. That’s it.
Content focused emails
Those emails are build around the lifestyle they sell. The objective is to get people to the website and engage with the brand. The landing page, where people end up doesn’t even contain products. People would have to click on another link to see products.
And still, according to Blake Pinsker, a lot of the content focused emails were driving almost as much revenue as the product focused emails.
This is a super interesting fact as the customers have to take an extra step.
These emails are also perfect for the people who don’t have the intention to purchase a watch (yet). The content focused emails keep the brand in those people’s heads. Once they consider to purchase a new watch, MVMT pops up in their head. It’s an email format build for the long term success.
Ninja’s Takeaway: Not everyone will purchase products from your online store instantly. It takes time. Always trying to sell with the emails you send will frighten off people who might have become customers in the future.
After MVMT started to really take advantage of email marketing, they grew their email revenue by 105%, 262% grow during holiday season, 30% increased in open rates and 45% increase in overall conversion rate.
According to the agency they worked with, the first thing they did to build the foundation of MVMT’s email success was to “establish a consistent cadence for email messaging, and developed an editorial calendar that showcased engaging content”.
One specific tactic they used to drive a lot of extra revenue during holiday season was by introducing a weekend flash sale the weekend prior to Black Friday; setting the stage for the main event.
Like described earlier in this post, MVMT asks for the gender of the subscriber. Depending on the gender, they send out different emails.
For the purpose of this analysis I subscribed to both lists. Here’s an example of one campaign (the screenshots you see are just the first section of that campaign. If you’d like to see the full campaigns I recommend to sign up to their email newsletter).
Men’s list:
Women’s list:
I was part of their email lists for two weeks and received five emails during that time.
Abandoned checkout emails
In order to recover abandoned checkouts, MVMT sends out just one email trying to recover it.
Trigger time: 1 hour after checkout has been abandoned.
Subject: Items you viewed are going fast
The email itself is very straightforward and just shows the products which have been put into the cart + a “you may also like”-section showing three more products.
For the abandoned checkout emails there’s no difference between men and women products.
Featured tool to recover lost revenue via email: ConvertKit
[Tip #9] How To Win With Influencer Marketing
Working with influencers had and still haves a big impact on MVMT.
They’re working with a wide range of influencers from all around the world to spread the word for them.
Starting with micro-influencers who have a few thousand followers to big ones with a few million followers. MVMT started to work with influencers when this wasn’t even considered to be a huge marketing opportunity. They saw the opportunity very early and took advantage of it like crazy.
A very common way for companies to work with influencers is to send products + pay a certain amount of money for a picture on Instagram including a tag of the business page. MVMT, however, does it different.
We will take the example of a recent influencer campaign with Sami Clarke.
MVMT posted two pictures of her on their Instagram account
MVMT created a page on their blog for her.
MVMT features images with her on the product pages.
She did a post on Instagram.
Usually, brands expect to get the work done by the influencer. MVMT seem to expect the opposite. It seems that they’re putting more work into such a campaign than the influencer does. This is actually a very interesting fact. It almost feels like MVMT is honored that influencers want to work with them.
Especially the page they created for her is unique.
The complete text on this page does not contain a single word about MVMT or their products. They are, again, not obviously selling products. They’re, as always, telling a story. This time through the influencer.
Only at the very bottom of the page you find four “featured products”.
To create such great looking pages, MVMT uses an app called Shogun.
In an interview talking about influencer marketing, Jake Kassan said that “it’s all about relationships”. MVMT started to build relationships with the big influencers when they weren’t big. But then, once they got big, they remembered a good collaboration with MVMT and were happy to work with them again. This early-relationships-mentality also applied to creators. MVMT spotted their talents early on and could rely on them (again) once they became big.
But they dig even deeper.
In a collaboration with Sam Kolder (2 million combined followers on Instagram and YouTube), they created Sam’s own watch collection: “The Kolder Collection”.
If you take a look at Sam Kolder’s Instagram pictures, you’ll notice that he’s using one certain style of color grading.
Sam’s fans love that dark-blue/orange’ish style on his images and videos. So they gave his fans what they want and used these colors for his collection.
MVMT saw another big chance to put their products in front of millions of people. So they promoted the hell out of it.
On MVMT’s website, you’ll find 9 pages that contain the Kolder Collection. What’s interesting is that only 3 of them are product-focused. The remaining 6 are all content focused. MVMT continues to tell its story. This time, through Sam Kolder.
Together, they created six videos that got (in total) more than 5.5 million views!
The (by far) most successful video was “KOLD — My Year 2016” with 5 million views.
This video didn’t just bring traffic once. It’s still bringing in a lot traffic two years after it has been posted.
As this video was published on Sam’s very successful YouTube channel, MVMT received (and receives) a lot of attention from people who weren’t/aren’t familiar with their business.
To get even more attention, Sam posted 1 video and 1 picture of this collaboration on his Instagram account.
They even did a giveaway.
To enter, people had to tag 2 friends and follow @sam_kolder and @mvmt.
On average, Sam receives between 1,000–2,000 comments per posts. This giveaway post, however, received almost 9,000 comments. They only had to give away 2 watches to receive such a massive engagement.
Both Sam and MVMT put a lot of work into this collaboration and in getting it in front of people.
Ninja’s Takeaway: “it’s all about relationships”.
Start building relationships with rising influencers early on. Take your time to spot talents and start working with them now so you can rely on them once they’re big.
In addition to that, a company shouldn’t just expect the influencer to do all the work. It requires a lot of work from both sides to make a campaign successful.
Make Your Customer The Hero
Whatever MVMT does, it’s aligned with their story of living life on their own terms and their customer-first approach.
For MVMT, this approach has been working incredibly well and there’s not a sign that they will stop any time soon!
Ready to build your very own next-level Shopify store? Enter The Giveaway below!
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Ninja’s Top Twenty Takeaways
- Make it easy to understand what you do and where to click
- If you want your customer’s data, don’t ask for too much straight away.
- Reward people who engage with your brand. Let them know that you are actually grateful for their support.
- Run giveaways every month based on the “1, 2, 3, 4, 5 — structure”.
- Make your customer the hero.
- Social media is the first impression of your business. Make it appealing and tell a story.
- Stick to what has been working for you. Don’t reinvent the wheel.
- Make it possible for everyone to spread your word for you (refer for points, brand ambassador, affiliate)
- Facebook ads: Single image ads and simple copy over everything. Never stop testing new things.
- Don’t just rely on one channel.
- Not everyone will purchase instantly. People need time to make the purchase decision. Be patient with them and deliver content that is valuable.
- Influencer marketing is all about relationships. Don’t expect the influencer to do all the work for you. It has to be a fair collaboration to make it work.
