Exploring a Brand — 1st Phorm
As my personal blog is based on Branding, Marketing, Sales, and Mindset, I wanted to create a special segment with one of my biggest interests: branding.
Whenever we talk about branding, product ideas, and business stories… I get super excited and giddy.
I’m so weird.
There’s just something about businesses that focus on branding that really stand out to me: if you’re focusing on brand building, you’re typically focused on the people in your community.
This is why I love branding.
So with that, I decided to make an observational review series on brands that do it BIG: from things we’ve learned and observed from these brands, and what we can implement into our own personal or business brand.
What I will be analyzing will be mostly positive for the time being: it’s not my place to analyze the flaws and faults of a brand. We may get into that with failed businesses in the future, but in the meantime, I would really like to focus on the positives.
So to start the first review of this series, I wanted to talk about a supplement brand that actually inspired me to make my own — 1st Phorm.
About 1st Phorm
1st Phorm (1stphorm.com) was created with every intention to be more honest and transparent in the fitness industry. This is something that has been lacking in the industry as a whole.
Being in the industry and knowing it all too well, most of our experiences are fluffed. Instagram is a fitness influencer’s paradise: it is a platform that typically showcases the best life has to offer.
1st Phorm decided to take the platform and make it their own: encouraging their community to be real and honest with the people around them.
This actually makes 1st Phorm a powerful brand: I have never seen any supplement brand that does a community better than 1st Phorm.
The Brand Difference
While the community elevates the brand beyond what industry giants have done, 1st Phorm takes it a step beyond.
If you really dive in and observe the brand, you will see their unique take on brand awareness.
While brands navigated online to build their businesses, 1st Phorm focused on utilizing local and online.
From Local to International
Now while I don’t know much about how they grew their social media presence in the beginning, I noticed that 1st Phorm is directly tied to St. Louis.
People know the brand locally, which really interests me in the Internet World. They implemented a tried and true strategy that some marketers don’t typically talk about any more: a local presence.
They are a part of their community in every piece of it. What we don’t think about is the brand loyalty and pride people have in a community-based brand that really impacts the lives of others.
If they wanted to, they could rest on the brand loyalty of their local presence, but they took it further.
Organic Reach
1st Phorm really elevated their brand through the use of social media and its organic reach on Instagram and Facebook. These are the platforms they are typically most active in.
They pay little to none on paid advertising. Can you imagine what they would be like if they spent more on it?
If you look up their User-Generated Content, you will find aspiring fitness influencers or lifestyle vloggers who are a part of their affiliate program. These individuals share their products… with links directly to the site from YouTube.
This makes the community-based brand a powerful one: their influencers and affiliates take pride in the products. They share them as a result.
Affiliate Marketing
To take it a step further, these individuals are not your regular affiliates. These are creatives who blog, podcast, post frequently, and live a lifestyle they want.
They do not need a salesforce when they have powerful brand advocates (affiliates) that support all of their products.
I believe the majority of their revenue comes from the affiliates they have that are a part of their program. What makes it more brilliant is the incentive that their own affiliates make a commission out of their own purchases.
This provides an incentive to build a habitual program (exercise, nutrition, etc) around the supplement brand
Their affiliate program is so powerful because they educate their affiliates about the following:
- Their Products
- Nutrition and Exercise
- Their Sales Process (educating the affiliates and their customers)
- Their Brand
- and plenty more.
This builds an investment in the brand that transitions a regular affiliate into a brand advocate.
You do not have to physically work there to feel the culture and community around it. They make you feel you are a part of something greater than yourself.
My Personal Experience Through Their Affiliate Program
A few years back, I joined their affiliate marketing program because I believed they were driving the fitness industry in the right direction.
Becoming a part of their team, I experienced everything I have been saying first-hand. The positivity, the energy, and the community around it.
If I did not have any intention of creating Reforged, I most likely would have stayed within their affiliate program. This would’ve eventually allowed me to grow my personal brand.
While I didn’t actively enter their community events, as I was overworking myself (my biggest weakness at the time), I would’ve went to every event.
And even when I didn’t go, the online community of people I interacted with were amazing. They were helpful, friendly, kind, and uplifting.
The experience was unbelievable. I have never been a part of an affiliate program that was this intimate with their people.
Things We Can Learn
Here are a few things we can learn in Building a Brand like 1st Phorm:
- The Community is everything. Your customers and affiliates are part of a community — something bigger than just the products you sell. If you have this, you have a lucrative business.
- Local Marketing can build a presence. As 1st Phorm is very active within their community, they have built a powerful reputation locally. This is something to think about if you’re an eCommerce brand.
- Online Presence through organic reach. 1st Phorm dominated Instagram because of their honesty and transparency. This is something that was never really emphasized in the industry it’s in. Even if you’re a brick and mortar store, building an online community can build brand advocacy and trust. Even better: you can turn it into an eCommerce store as well.
- Find more than just influencers — find vloggers, bloggers, or industry creatives. While 1st Phorm has some major influencers under their belt, they really shine with their affiliates. Their affiliates are aspiring to do big things in the industry by being lifestyle bloggers and vloggers. Some of their affiliates rose up the ranks to be sponsored athletes as a result of their dedication and audience. This is brilliant because they took their audiences along with them.
A Closer
As the series continues to expand, I want you to know something important about each brand we cover.
You’re going to see hundreds of variables and strategies that these powerful business brands have executed upon. Your goal is not to copy every single strategy. The goal is to take bits and pieces of what you can learn from these brands. Then, experience or test things that will make your brand stand out.
You need to take some of the lessons and execute upon them for a time. See what works best for you. If you really think about 1st Phorm, here’s what they did (for simplicity’s sake):
- Built a community around a fitness brand with honesty and transparency (locally and online).
- Created an affiliate marketing program that revolved around educating their affiliates on everything, which built brand advocacy.
- User-Generated Content from affiliates and aspiring influencers, sharing their content all over YouTube, Instagram, and Facebook.
It really can be this simple.
And with that, I wanted to take the time to thank each and every one of you for reading this. I hope it brought you some insight and perspective on brand building.
I can’t wait to talk about more.
Until next time!
