380% growth throughout 2023 driven through DTC
Heavily reduced CPA through rapid experimentation
Reduced payback period to make DTC profitable on first purchase
Doubled three-month retention rate to grow lifetime value
Mother Root is a non-alcoholic aperitif brand — founded in 2018, by former wine trade professional Bethan Wallace Higson. By the start of 2023, they had built a strong retail and trade business, but had hit a plateau with direct to consumer, unsure of how big the opportunity could be.
They came to Ballpoint with a series of questions. Did they have product market fit? Was DTC the right channel for them? Could they double their monthly DTC revenue in 2023?
We started work with Mother Root by going back to the core principle of Ballpoint’s approach. Start with the customer, diagnose the bottlenecks, and then strategically experiment across the funnel. The result more than doubled targets and built a sustainable and profitable growth engine.
At Ballpoint, everything starts with the customer. We worked as an extension of the Mother Root team to introduce the Jobs to be Done (JTBD) framework. We launched JTBD interviews, designed hypotheses around profiles, and identified every touchpoint in those journeys. The output directly informs the messaging, creative, product, acquisition, and retention strategies for the year.
With the customer development complete, we could analyse the bottlenecks in the system. This identified two dual priorities. One, build a scalable and profitable growth engine, but first, improve retention to build stronger lifetime value.
To attack the retention target, we adopted a behavioural science approach. Much retention marketing folklore focuses on providing value or building 'loyalty, instead, we focused on building habit. Part of this strategy introduced a 'How to Drink It' series across organic, email, and events to build Mother Root into the regular 6pm drink for the community.
We started by getting one channel absolutely right. Based on our customer research we knew the starting point was Meta and so focused all efforts across the channel. We ran more than 50 creative tests, and a dozen media experiments over a six month period cementing the channel as the core driver of growth
Last-click attribution isn't fit for purpose in 2024. We built an analytics engine and measurement framework. This was focused on incrementality, was one that provided true demonstrations of return, and measured cohorted behaviour across the funnel. This provided theconfidence to lean aggressively into acquisition.
Bethan Wallace Higson
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Founder, Mother Root
Mother Root had a brave and open approach to experimenting, which is part of our DNA at Ballpoint. We tested wild ideas and learned what their customers wanted.
It took three months of this growth mindset to see the testing pay off but the results speak for themselves.