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For most brands, going to market only being able to sell a few hundred units because of supply chain headaches sounds like a nightmare. But for Windmill, which sells both air conditioners and HVAC filters, this turned into marketing gold.<\/p>\n
The company first launched in the summer of 2020. \u201c[We] had a really awesome launch plan for 2020 that we had to scrap,\u201d said co-founder Mike Mayer. \u201cAnd so we couldn\u2019t get units from the factory to the U.S., just given all the complications in the supply chain.\u201d This made it so that the company had to build a waitlist.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s not the cleanest way to launch a brand and a business,\u201d Mayer said on the Modern Retail Podcast. \u201cBut it did sort of stir up some buzz.\u201d Many media outlets wrote about the multi-thousand-person waitlist. And when the products were finally ready to ship to customers\u2019 homes many months later, that led to even more coverage.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s been a few years since then, and Windmill has continued to grow. The company saw sales triple between 2022 and 2021, and just this year has expanded into HVAC air filters. With this growth, the business and marketing has gotten more nuanced. For one, Windmill \u2014 which began as a DTC brand \u2014 has expanded into new sales channels. Its available at the Home Depot and P.C. Richards, and will launch online at Lowe\u2019s later this summer.<\/p>\n
What\u2019s more, Windmill has begun investing more heavily in advertising. It no longer just relies on word of mouth or digital campaigns. For example, it\u2019s investing more in TV. It\u2019s a difficult formula to master, said Mayer, as Windmill makes a product that most people don\u2019t usually think of as branded.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe magic that we bring to this category is we have a brand [and] we have a personality in everything that we do,\u201d Mayer said. \u201cTV is no different.\u201d<\/p>\n
With the summer on the horizon, Windmill has plans to introduce more people to its products. It also has some new products it\u2019s going to unveil. \u201cThere\u2019s a lot more to come from Windmill and from us,\u201d Mayer said. \u201cWe\u2019re really excited.\u201d<\/p>\n
Here are a few highlights from the conversation, which have been lightly edited for clarity.<\/p>\n
Using a waitlist to generate buzz<\/strong> Windmill\u2019s distribution strategy<\/strong> What works in TV advertising<\/strong>
\u201cWe stumbled upon that insight by accident. It was not my choice to have a waitlist \u2014 [that for] the first few hundred people that signed up we would ship a unit to, and then the rest we were like, \u2018Sorry, we just literally don\u2019t have units \u2014 but you can preorder for next year.\u2019 I didn\u2019t want to do that. It\u2019s not the cleanest way to launch a brand and a business. But it did sort of stir up some buzz. And\u2026 we sort of stumbled upon this big insight that people wanted to talk about waitlists. Like, that was a thing. And we got a few articles literally just saying: \u2018The AC company that has 10,000 people on their waitlist is finally launching.\u2019 So we did use that to our advantage.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cOur strategy going in was always to be omnichannel. DTC basically means you have a website, and you can sell your product on your website \u2014 that\u2019s only one piece of the distribution puzzle, especially in this category. Because a lot of people want to go to a trusted retailer to buy an appliance like this. I think that it\u2019s changing with marketplaces and sort of the evolution of ecomm. But, still, people want to go in-store. They trust Lowe\u2019s or Home Depot.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWe started [testing TV] in March and April last year, and it didn\u2019t really get hot until mid-May. And so I\u2019ll tell you what didn\u2019t work was spending a lot on TV, when it\u2019s not hot outside, for a window air conditioner. And what did work was, one, targeting. We did target the young, professional millennial in urban areas \u2014 although that was a little bit more costly. But conversion was solid. And another thing that was interesting was that we got per-channel data. And so HGTV \u2014 you know, it sounds intuitive; people that are thinking about their homes, and they want to watch renovations \u2014 they gravitated toward our product more than some other channels. ESPN, for example, didn\u2019t convert.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n