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C.O. Bigelow

C.O. Bigelow

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How the oldest apothecary in America utilized Octoly’s influencers to increase their brand awareness online.

Garner authentic UGC and drive online sales

The Brand

C.O. Bigelow is the oldest apothecary in America, founded by Vermont Physician Dr. Galen Hunter in 1838. The brand, based in New York, continues to keep its apothecary traditions alive in today’s market, transporting customers back to a time of personalized attention, honest ingredients, and customized formulas.

Challenge

C.O. Bigelow approached Octoly looking to create user-generated content of their products in use. The team wanted real people using their products and sharing their authentic feedback, in the hope of creating more digital brand awareness. With a store in New York and a previous focus on one-on-one customer interaction, they are in the process of scaling up their e-commerce site, accelerated by the pandemic.  

As a small team with a start-up mentality Victoria Orti-Vinas, Marketing Director at C.O. Bigelow, found herself doing photoshoots in their office to produce new content. Without much gifting distribution capacity, she hoped Octoly could connect C.O. Bigelow with the right influencers (targeting women ages 25 to 45) to produce engaging content they can use across their digital and social marketing.

Results

While C.O. Bigelow had initially hoped that Octoly could expand their digital brand awareness and provide content to be used in their marketing strategy, the sales growth created by using conversion codes surprised the team. “We were just really happy to have the content because we value it but the fact that the service paid for itself because some of the influencers were able to drive a lot of traffic and sales for the website was a wonderful surprise,” said Orti-Vinas. “We were really happy with the response since it was able to justify the cost of the service.” 

C.O. Bigelow has started using the content generated by Octoly influencers in newsletter marketing, website banners, and Facebook ads. They’re also continuing their partnership with Octoly, expanding into TikTok content creation. “Every day, I look forward to logging into Octoly to see what requests are trickling in,” said C.O. Bigelow.

The Solution

By using Octoly, Orti-Vinas, and her team at C.O. Bigelow were able to receive the beautiful and honest content they were looking for, predominantly focusing on Instagram. “Through Octoly, we were able to have our products in the hands of real people that can speak directly in an authentic way to their community,” said Orti-Vinas. 

C.O. Bigelow was also able to build new relationships with influencers and expand their digital reach. They achieved this by utilizing micro-influencers with high engagement. “Before we joined the platform, we usually wouldn’t pay attention to anyone that had less than three thousand followers,” Orti-Vinas explains. “Octoly connected us with micro-influencers with communities that trust them and we’ve seen these micro-influencers produce great content. It’s been a unique opportunity to look into metrics.”

The results in 1 year

Influencer Posts

346

People Reached

7.8M

Interactions

205K

ENGAGEMENT

2.93%

“I would highly recommend Octoly to someone who is looking to streamline their influencer gifting at scale. We were just really happy to have the content because we value it but the fact that the service paid for itself because some of the influencers were able to drive a lot of traffic and sales for the website was a wonderful surprise”

Victoria Orti-Vinas, Marketing Director at C.O. Bigelow

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