#125 Brandon Higginbotham from Vintage Gentleman: How To Use Social Media To Launch Your Brand

09/08/22 • 22 min

#125 Brandon Higginbotham from Vintage Gentleman: How To Use Social Media To Launch Your Brand

It’s no secret that social media applications have taken over the world we live in. Every business owner is now a creator too. In fact, we’ve spoken about how important story-telling and social media can be in creating a strong brand identity in today’s world in several of our previous episodes of The Ecom Show.

But we’ve turned the tables around for this episode. Join Brandon, the founder of Vintage Gentleman, to learn more about how a social media creator/influencer can use their platform to bootstrap a brand from scratch.

Before we begin, here's a small recap of what this show is all about for all the new listeners. The Ecom Show is a weekly podcast hosted by Daniel Budai, the founder and CEO of Budai Media. Daniel invites e-commerce business owners from different industries to share their experiences, learnings, and expert tips to highlight the latest trends, hacks, and best practices for all e-commerce stores out there. This show is sponsored by Budai Media, a retention marketing agency that’s helped over 130 businesses scale their e-commerce stores with personalized email and SMS marketing.

Now that you’re all caught up, let’s continue with the show!

Tune in to learn more about:

✅ How Brandon Started the Vintage Gentlemen

✅ 3 Things That Have Helped Brandon Build a Successful Business

✅ Brandon’s Advice to Creators Looking To Start Their Own Brand

How Brandon Started the Vintage Gentlemen

Brandon has benefited from having an early adopter advantage. He began using Instagram in 2015 when he started noticing how the application helped create trends. He noticed an opportunity to build an audience and created the Vintage Gentlemen, which back then was just a simple lifestyle account that offered suggestions for men’s lifestyle products.

Since men’s lifestyle was a new niche he quickly gained traction and built an engaging community of about 20-30,000 followers. He started getting offers for brand endorsements and became a popular influencer. Brandon knew that there was scope to build something bigger using the community he had created, this is what led to him launching his own e-commerce store.

Brandon began by dropshipping products from the artisanal brands he had previously done endorsements with. After seeing how well that worked he slowly expanded to creating his own range of products. Currently, about 70-80% of Vintage Gentlemen’s range of products are manufactured in-house.

3 Things That Have Helped Brandon Build a Successful Business

With a following of over 240,000 followers on Instagram, Vintage Gentlemen has grown immensely since it began. What was once an influencer account is now a fully functional e-commerce store that manufactures most of its in-house products. Here are three key factors that have helped Brandon fuel Vintage Gentlemen’s growth:

Reinvesting money back into the business: Despite the success of Vintage Gentlemen, Brandon has still retained his job in the insurance industry. His job allows him to fund his own lifestyle without needing any money from Vintage Gentlemen enabling him to reinvest all the profits into growing the business.

Leveraging organic social media platforms to build a community: Vintage Gentlemen might have gone from being a lifestyle social media account to a full-fledged brand but they haven’t forgotten their roots. In fact, Vintage Gentlemen has expanded its social media reach by focusing on TikTok as well. Their strong social media presence and use of other social media creators to aid their growth has helped them build a community.

Finding a balance between paid and organic content marketing:Since Vintage Gentlemen already had an existing community of followers that supported the brand from its inception, Brandon spent the first few years focusing on fine-tuning the e-commerce operations. He set up other paid marketing channels like Google Ads to drive more leads, and email marketing to convert/retain these leads. His end goal is to create a brand that has both strong paid marketing as well as an enriched library of content that's engaging enough to build a community in the men’s lifestyle space.

Brandon’s Advice to Creators Looking To Start Their Own Brand

We asked Brandon what his main advice would be to content creators looking to start their own brand with very little capital. Here’s what they had to say:

Have a strategic approach to starting your business.
Consider drop shipping to save initial start-up costs, invest in a basic Shopify plan, and look at low-risk methods of bootstrapping your business.
Your initial focus needs to be on grabbing user attention and creating a community around your brand.
The key is to find creative ways to build you...

#125 Brandon Higginbotham from Vintage Gentleman: How To Use Social Media To Launch Your Brand

Now that you’re all caught up, let’s continue with the show!

Tune in to learn more about:

✅ How Brandon Started the Vintage Gentlemen

✅ 3 Things That Have Helped Brandon Build a Successful Business

✅ Brandon’s Advice to Creators Looking To Start Their Own Brand

How Brandon Started the Vintage Gentlemen

3 Things That Have Helped Brandon Build a Successful Business

Brandon’s Advice to Creators Looking To Start Their Own Brand

We asked Brandon what his main advice would be to content creators looking to start their own brand with very little capital. Here’s what they had to say:

Have a strategic approach to starting your business.
Consider drop shipping to save initial start-up costs, invest in a basic Shopify plan, and look at low-risk methods of bootstrapping your business.
Your initial focus needs to be on grabbing user attention and creating a community around your brand.
The key is to find creative ways to build you...

Previous Episode

#124 Michael Muscari From NanoNutra: 3 Strategies To Market A Supplement Brand

Did you know that 77% of Americans take at least one supplement? The supplement industry is booming, it’s valued at over $163 billion in 2022, and it’s predicted to grow at a compounded annual growth rate of 8.4% in the next eight years.

Supplements are great for your health, and running a supplement business can help you generate immense wealth! In this episode of The Ecom Show, we’re going to be scratching the surface on how you can create a name for yourself in this extremely lucrative and competitive industry.

Michael Muscari, the founder and CEO of the premium Liposomal Vitamins and Dietary Supplements brand NanoNutra will be joining our podcast host and CEO, Daniel Budai, to share some proven strategies that can help you market a supplement brand.

Tune in to this episode to learn more about:

✅ Michael’s Journey With NanoNutra

✅ 3 Strategies To Market A Supplement Brand

✅ Michael’s Advice To New Entrepreneurs

Michael’s Journey With NanoNutra

Michael worked as a financial advisor for a couple of years but he wasn’t too happy working a job where everything depended on the market’s volatility, so he started venturing out and landed a gig with an ad agency. At the same time, he was also working as a freelancer for a supplement company who were in the diet and weight loss space.

That’s where he got his first introduction to the world of e-commerce. Around the same time he stumbled upon the famous book, The Four Hour Work Week by Tim Ferriss. Determined to live by the four-hour philosophy, Michael decided to take control of his own life and started his own e-commerce venture.

Michael’s first venture was called ImmunitySport+ where he focused on creating a niche in the supplement market with his single green immunity tablet. By the time he got this brand up and running, he’d become an expert at SEO and selling on Amazon. He then launched his second fitness and wellness brand called Healthy Start. Healthy Start focused on a wider range of products. His business now exhibited over a dozen supplement products. He realized that he had cracked the code with his research on nanotechnology and liposomal supplements, and decided to go all in.

He sold off all the other assets and moved his sole focus to building NanoNutra.

NanoNutra is a premium Liposomal Vitamins and Dietary Supplements brand. Most oral supplements are unable to help human bodies retain 80% of the nutrients they consume through the pill. Michael’s research on liposomal technology helped him find a solution to this problem which led to him starting NanoNutra. They now sell a full line of supplements, all using liposomal technology.

3 Strategies To Market A Supplement Brand

The supplement industry is highly competitive and diluted. There are a ton of new brands springing up everyday and making a name for yourself requires strategic brand positioning and effort. We asked Michael to share the marketing secrets that he’s picked up over the years of working in this industry.

Here are the three strategies that he’s used to grow NanoNutra:

Focus on Education: NanoNutra uses a combination of technology and natural nutrients to create supplements that aid your fitness journey. Since they’re an early adopter of the Liposomal technology they focus heavily on educating consumers about the benefits and real life value of their products. They’re extremely transparent about what goes into their supplements, the results that customers can expect, and the process of how their supplements work. Michael also sends out a lot of high value emails to his subscribers to share credible information that can help them enhance their fitness and wellness journey.
Get Endorsements: NanoNutra focused on getting doctors, nutritionists and fitness coaches to endorse their supplements. They prioritized creating high-value content from credible fitness and wellness personalities over spending on influencer outreach. This has helped them build trust.
Create Subscriptions or Value-Packs:Supplements are something that you require on a cyclical basis. NanoNutra recognized this and created subscription packs that have helped them create a base of returning customers. They also provide discounted prices on variety packs to encourage customers to test their wide range of supplements.

Michael’s Advice To New Entrepreneurs

We asked Michael what his advice would be to new entrepreneurs. Here’s what he had to say:

“You have to have a lot of passion for whatever it is you choose to do or sell. You know, if you're just trying to make easy money, it's going to be very short lived if you find it at all.”

Find something that aligns with you and you...

Next Episode

Juan Chavez From JMC Equipment: Business Secrets From an Inc.5000 Company

Hey Budai Nation,

We’re honored to share that Juan Chavez, the CEO of the successful automotive business JMC equipment, is our guest for today’s episode. JMC equipment has been holding the title of an Inc.5000 company for the past 4 years now. They have a successful B2B e-commerce store that you’ll learn more about in this episode.

Welcome to The Ecom Show! Your go-to weekly e-commerce podcast for uncovering new stories, strategies, secrets, and everything e-commerce. This podcast is sponsored by Budai Media, a retention marketing agency that’s helped 125+ e-commerce businesses generate over $35M+ in additional sales revenue.

Join Daniel Budai (our host and the founder of Budai Media) and Juan Chavez in this episode to learn more about:

✅ Juan’s Journey With Jmc Equipment

✅ A Business Lesson That Juan Learned the Hard Way

✅ Juan’s Advice for New eCommerce Owners

Let’s jump right in.

Juan’s Journey With JMC Equipment

Juan is the second generation to be leading the team at JMC Equipment. The business was founded by his father, and Juan joined in after he decided to call quits on his first venture. JMC equipment is an automotive parts distributor to repair shops and retail stores. Before Juan stepped in, his father would approach stores in New York one at a time, and find leads door to door.

Juan helped launch JMC into the world of e-commerce by setting up a website and letting customers approach them instead. JMC is a unique company because their team is based out of Medellin, Colombia, but their sales are focused entirely on the US market.

Juan E. Chavez is based out of Medellin, Colombia. He has another successful business venture as well. Juan runs his own travel and real estate company that helps clients based out of New York find their dream apartments in Colombia.

Back to the Inc.5000 company though, JMC equipment has a solid team of skilled professionals that take care of the SEO and e-commerce side of things. They’ve also invested in building a strong team of salespeople, and customer-care executives that make sure that their leads get the information and push they need to purchase.

JMC Equipment sells high-ticket products with their average orders running anywhere between $2000 and above. In order to close a deal, they’re very active with their email marketing and even go a step beyond by calling their abandoned cart to close the sale. Their paid marketing efforts include a combination of Google ads, Facebook ads, and email marketing. For organic marketing, they also have an enriched library of educational blogs.

A Business Lesson That Juan Learned the Hard Way

Juan has over a decade of business experience under his belt. We asked him what’s the hardest thing that being in business has taught him, and here’s what he had to say: “The hardest thing I’ve learned goes beyond business, it’s basically about how to pick yourself up from a failure.”

I have been in that position where I thought that I might have to shut my business down. But the resilience to push forward despite the difficulties is what helped. Every other skill is a skill that you could probably just learn, you know if you put in the work, and if you put in the hours, but actual experience of like, you know, the experience that you go through when you make a mistake, and you lose money, or whatever, maybe you're or you're thinking about quitting is not something easy to understand.

But if you stick with it, you will eventually come out the other side a lot stronger with tougher skin. So the biggest lesson is not to give up when failure is knocking on your door.

Juan’s Advice for New eCommerce Owners

The best way to start an e-commerce business is by finding a good product that you have knowledge about, and that you’re motivated to sell. Ideally, find a way to sell this product without having to start with production. Dropshipping is a great way to escape inventory management. Once you have your e-commerce storefront, and marketing taken care of you can look into expanding into starting your own production. This gives you time to focus on taking your business off. The second piece of advice would be to know your industry. Research and talk to your potential customers, it’s the best way to grow your business.

That’s all for this episode of The Ecom Show. If you enjoyed it please make sure to be back here next Thursday for a brand new episode.

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