PICNIC: KEEPING 'EM WAITING

Morning — It's Niall again!It's been one hell of a week out there in the real world. So hopefully, this email acts as a little distraction from the crazy times we live in.As you can imagine, finding a great marketing campaign to break down every week is TOUGH. Thankfully, I have a bunch of great resources for inspiration, with my favourite being the Because of Marketing Newsletter (CLICK HERE) which gives me all the latest and greatest marketing campaigns on a platter - you should probably check it out.

Talking of great marketing strategies (great transition from me), I have an absolute cracker for you today. This is a company that you've probably never heard of. But this is one of the fastest (yet sustainable) growth strategies I've seen to date. This one is going to be short, succinct and jam-packed with value!

What you're about to learn:

- How Picnic doubled their revenue in one year

- How they kept their growth sustainable through organic tactics

- How you can implement a similar growth strategy into your business

You're in for a treat ;)

Est. Read Time: 5 minutes and 4 seconds

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Company Overview

Valuation: $3 billion (Source)

Revenue: €470 million (Source)

Picnic is a Dutch online supermarket. The company only delivers to homes and does not have its own stores. You order via the Picnic app and get your groceries delivered in the next few days in a little electric van like this:

Let's be clear here... We're not talking ASDA online shopping. We're not talking about TESCO click and collect. We are talking about a grocery store that is completely online - 0 stores!!!When you think about it, it makes sense. But why hasn't it been done before? Because there are a huge amount of problems with setting up an online grocery store. All the fruit, veg, and meat have to be fresh. This means to do this you would need Picnic distribution warehouses all over the country. An absolute nightmare when looking to scale quick...What if demand in a region drops?What if a region doesn't buy in?What if the majority of customers in a region are too far away?A plethra of problems.But a plethra of problems all solved by this one strategy...

Breaking Down The Strategy

Before we get too deep into the strategy, I really want to drill home how much of a nightmare of a business this would be to scale. Standard grocery stores are strategically placed where there is high foot/car traffic to guarantee revenue. Picnic, on the other hand, could put a warehouse - in Manchester let's say - and no one could order anything - leading to HUGE losses. Again, there's a reason no one has done it (successfully) before.

Until Picnic.And if you're wondering how successfully they are doing it, these headlines might give you a good picture...

Yep, they're the real deal and they're doing a PRETTY good job at this whole online grocery store thing.But what did they do differently? How did they solve the age-old issue of a fully online grocery store?Answer: Through a good ole growth loop (yep, they're my new favourite thing.)You see, the big thing holding back expansion for online grocery stores is the risk of having little to no demand in a region.

So what did Picnic do? Exactly this:1. They created waiting lists for each region of the Netherlands.

2. Then they expanded to a certain region once the waiting list hits a certain threshold.3. Thus incentivizing their current "waitlisters" to invite their friends to the wait list in order to get Picnic in their region quicker.The loop looks something like this:

Technically speaking this is an "acquisition loop" as its main focus is to simply acquire more users/customers. But there's so much more to it than just acquiring customers.- The Data SideJust think about how valuable all the data is for Picnic. It allows them to see a map of the whole country and see where its concentrations of future users are. They'll never have to worry about putting a warehouse in the wrong place, they can literally build them in THE perfect spot.

- Money-Saving Aspect

Picnic are acquiring priceless data + new customers from a purely organic approach. They don't have to spend millions of euros running paid social and guessing if it worked. They have stone-cold hard data and all organically. Meaning they could put that 700M they just raised towards better things!- Better Data = Better ServiceAnother factor to consider is that because Picnic is able to place their warehouses in the perfect location in each region it means it can level up its service to those customers. I.e. make more of a commitment to initial inventory, have shorter delivery times, and more. This increased quality of service just adds fuel to the fire and encourages more people to refer a friend - why wouldn't you if you loved the service?

The loop allows Picnic to win on all fronts. I've spent the last 10 minutes trying to conjure up a negative for the process but I simply couldn't find one. You could argue that waiting for the lists to his a certain number delays their growth? But my counter to that would be it also eliminates nearly all the risk.

Picnic can literally analyse each region, determine how profitable it would be to enter it and then make a decision.

It's like placing a bagel store on a street where you know (for a fact) that everyone absolutely loves bagels. It's almost a cheat code.

A cheat code with the results to back it up:

- Revenue doubled in 2021 (€232.7 -> 470 million)

- Expanded to France and Germany

- Named "Fastest Growing Company " in the Netherlands (Source)

- Raised €706 million in 2021

Well, you probably didn't wake up today thinking you'd learn about the fastest-growing company in the Netherlands and why they are growing so fast. But now you do.But the real question is...How in the world would you implement this in your business?

How To Implement It

I know, I know. You're wondering how I'm going to spin this one when you aren't an online grocery store. Don't worry, I've got you.For this implementation, I had a long hard think about why location data like this would be important to the readers (i.e. YOU). Honestly, it was a tough one, but I thought of a couple of examples.This whole loop revolves around a digital company acquiring in-person users. So this relates to a bunch of situations:- Dating App: Run a dating app? Use a loop like this to 1. Track where the majority of your potential users are and 2. Incentivize people in different regions to invite their friends to the app.- Running An Event: Set up waiting lists around the country to make sure you don't set up an event in a place where it will flop. Plus, you can quickly take your events from regional to national with this strategy!

Hopefully, you get the gist!Want specific tips? Reply to this email - I promise I'll reply :)But for now... that's all I've got!See you next Sunday

— Niall.

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This has been a breakdown of Picnic's marketing strategy. I hope you have learned something and can implement a similar strategy in your business!

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