Marketing Happy Hour - How Community Drives Brand Development | Lindsay Silberman of Hotel Lobby Candle

Starting point is 00:00:00 Hey, Lindsay, how are you? Welcome to Marketing Happy Hour. I'm good. Thank you so much for having me. We are so excited to have you. And we were just talking off record. We have been burning some of your candles at home and are absolutely obsessed and so excited to just kind of talk about the story behind that brand and everything that you've built so far. But first, we have to ask you, what's in your glass this afternoon? So I'm not, this is not what I'm currently drinking. I'm currently just drinking a basic girl Stanley filled with ice water.

Starting point is 00:00:37 But I'm thinking toward my happy hour this evening and I love a Friday night, slightly dirty martini shaking so cold that there's like little ice chips on the top. Um, you know, a goat cheese stuffed olive would be ideal, but if that's not available, I would settle for a regular olive and just slightly dirty. Love it. Yum. I absolutely love a dirty martini. So I'm right there with you. Preferably at a hotel bar. Yes. Oh yeah. A hundred percent. I'm currently just drinking a brew doctor kombucha. This one is peach punch and it's peach prickly pear and green tea. It's so good. This is my favorite brand of kombucha that's out there. And I keep mentioning it and I'm like, hopefully someone from the brand is going to hear this, just giving them a shout out. But Cassie, what do you have? I just have, I have a Stanley as well. I'm, I'm with Lindsay

Starting point is 00:01:34 here filled with water. Um, very simple, but I don't know. I'm thinking, you know, happy hours in a little bit as well. And I'm always a Aperol spritz girly, but, um, we'll see, we'll see what I'm feeling. But Lindsay, I have to ask you really quickly. What's your favorite hotel in New York to get a dirty martini at? Oh my gosh. I have so many. I love the Bowery hotel. I love, um, the Carlisle probably Bemelman's at the Carlisle is like my favorite, most

Starting point is 00:02:04 iconic, you know, just a quintessential New York hotel to get a drink. So good. Love it. I love it there. And they have the best martini service. They give you little snacks. I always love that. I'm like, you know, obviously my, so much of my brand is hotel and hotel lobby inspired. So you can imagine I spend a lot of time in hotel lobbies and at hotel bars, you know, getting inspiration, R&D, all that good stuff. That's amazing. That's incredible.

Starting point is 00:02:33 You need to make a guide to all of the good drinks that are at hotel bars. We have it. We have it. Oh, well, there you go. We'll have to check that out right after this recording. We are actually headed to New York shortly and we'll, um, we'll be referencing your, um, your guide there. Awesome. Yes. Okay. Well, like Cassie mentioned, we are so excited to chat with you today about all things hotel lobby candle, but first could you share a little peek into your career journey thus far and how the idea

Starting point is 00:03:06 for a home fragrance line inspired by five-star hotels around the world came to be? Yeah. So I have, you know, not, I don't know that there is ever a traditional entrepreneur path, but I worked in corporate for 10 plus years before taking the leap to go off on my own. I grew up always dreaming of being a magazine editor. And it was kind of a rare case in that, like I knew from, you know, the age of seven years old, probably, or eight years old that I wanted to work in publishing and pretty much spent all of my high school and all of college pursuing that goal. So had internships in college. I interned at Vogue one summer and essentially did everything that I had to do in order to like fulfill my dream of working at a big magazine in New York after I graduated college. So I did that.

Starting point is 00:04:01 I moved, I went to school in Syracuse, majored in magazine journalism, moved to New York City right after graduating, immediately started working. My first job was at GQ magazine. Then I was a business reporter at Inc. magazine for a couple of years and freelance for a bunch of places in between there. But most recently, I had spent the majority of time at Town and Country magazine as a deputy digital editor, covering everything from luxury travel to beauty to some fashion and style. And I did that up until 2018. So throughout a lot of my career, my focus was luxury travel and beauty. And I got to, you know, go to all of these incredible hotels all over the world. And my job was pretty much to tell our readers what the new hot place was going to be and, you know, where to stay and what to do. And you were going to different cities and it was extremely challenging, you know, to have to do that for my job, five star hotels. It was extremely challenging, you know, to have to do that for my job.

Starting point is 00:05:06 Five-star hotels. It was amazing. Like I, it was certainly something that I never even like thought was possible, but I kind of just fell into it. I loved travel and was always traveling just on my own and started taking on that role in the editorial space and became kind of known as someone who is a luxury travel expert. And I found throughout that time, one of my favorite things about luxury hotels was that a lot of them have these beautiful signature scents. And it's definitely a branding thing for the hotels. They want you to walk in and sort of be enveloped in this like beautiful, just like intoxicating fragrance. And they want you to

Starting point is 00:05:46 remember that every time you leave and come back, or if it's been years and then you come back and just have that same experience. And so I love the way it made me feel. And I love the way it gave me such a sense of place. And there were times where, you know, I would be at one hotel and then years later I would go to like a different, that same hotel brand, but in a different city. And I would smell that same fragrance and it would just like bring me right back. And I love, I always thought like, I wish my apartment could smell like these fancy hotels. Like I want my home to have a signature scent. I want it to be inspired by that, like, you know, feeling that I get at a luxury hotel. And often there just weren't any, there wasn't a brand, there wasn't anywhere to buy a lot of the type of fragrances that hotels

Starting point is 00:06:29 were branding. So I basically did nothing about it other than have this idea in my head. And what, after I left my job in 2018, I had grown a big Instagram following at the time and decided to pursue content creation as a full-time career and COVID happened. And so I finally had the opportunity after thinking about it for a while to pursue this idea of creating a candle brand and a home fragrance brand inspired by five-star scents, five-star fragrances, as we say. So I knew nothing about starting a business. I knew my taste level. I knew that I had, you know, collected and burned luxury high-end candles for my entire life. And I knew what I liked and what I didn't like. And I had a very clear vision for the brand, but I really knew nothing about starting a

Starting point is 00:07:27 business. And I never considered myself entrepreneurial at all. I always felt like I was the type of person who really had to be in like a structured corporate environment. And that was where I would thrive. And, you know, I've kind of learned that that's not true. I think, you know, you can totally be entrepreneurial without fitting the mold, let's say, of what you think an entrepreneur is. So 2020 happens,

Starting point is 00:07:54 start thinking about the brand. I start doing tons and tons of research into manufacturing and how to find a manufacturer into the type of waxes people use into perfumers and fragrance houses and packaging and all these things and totally bootstrapped the entire project, invested my own money into our first round of two scents, which is what we launched with in October. And yeah, it's sort of just been like a roller coaster from there. There's many more details that I could go into, but that was sort of the top line story of how it all happened. Oh my gosh, that's such a good story. And I love that you point out, you know, you didn't really know what you were doing. You just like did the research and did the work to

Starting point is 00:08:42 get it done. Because I feel like that's a story that a lot of people can relate to, especially listeners of this podcast. I know that a lot of our listeners are aspiring to be, you know, business owners or entrepreneurs themselves one day. And I love that you, you know, attest to that you don't have to fit into the typical mold. Your path can look different than anyone next to you. So I love that. You mentioned that the first two scents were released at the same time. What were those first two hotel lobby scents and how did you market the initial launch of your line? Yeah. So we launched with two candles. It was our signature scent, which is our signature candle and a holiday candle. And, you know, initially we launched in October. I thought, okay, a lot of people are going to be buying gifts for the holidays. This is a really good time to start a brand. People might be willing to spend a little bit more money and buy things as gifts. And also because it was during COVID and people were stuck at home and really missing travel. And I know for myself, like I was just kind of clinging

Starting point is 00:09:51 on to like any little piece of like Zen and like special loose indulgent self-care luxury things that could make me feel just more normal and maybe more relaxed and make my day feel a little bit more special. And so it, you know, it sort of was a good, good time for us to launch. Um, we launched October of, like I said, 2020, and I genuinely had no strategy. My only strategy was that for about a week before our launch, I posted on my Instagram and said that, you know, I have been working on this thing behind the scenes. So we launched with two cents. I truly, because it was during COVID and there were supply chain issues and basically like every possible issue you could have, you know, you could think of, we ran into with our, the boxes were delayed.

Starting point is 00:10:51 Our glass was possibly not going to be available. So I didn't want to like go too hard in promoting it because I truly wasn't even sure if we were ever going to launch the product or have product to launch by the day that I wanted to. And then it was about a week before where I was like, okay, the candles are being filled. It is actually happening and I feel ready to talk about it. So like I said, I did have already a built-in audience on Instagram and that's pretty much where I started. I posted on Instagram and said, this is something that I've been secretly working on behind the scenes for like the past eight months. And I want to talk to you about it. I want to tell you the whole behind the

Starting point is 00:11:30 scenes of the process. I want to describe in detail to you every single cent and like where my thought process was. And kind of just like, I took people through the entire process that I hadn't been sharing at all. And did that pretty much every day for seven days leading up to the launch. I had people, I think maybe sign up for a wait list or something. I don't, I don't really remember, but I had no idea how much inventory to buy. I had no idea if people would even understand what I meant by a hotel lobby scent. And I just knew in my gut that once people saw the products and smelled them for the first time, they would be obsessed with it. But I, you know, people are buying blind.

Starting point is 00:12:11 They're buying without having ever smelled the products before. So I had to just hope that people would believe in it. And I bought enough inventory that I thought would last me until let's say like December of that year. I thought, well, I could just sell through all of this by the time that the holidays were all around and that will have been a success. And I had no plan after that. I was like, if it works, then maybe I'll launch another scent. If it doesn't, then that will have been like a really interesting learning experience. And we ended up selling out in 24 minutes. It was about like 3,000 candles, which was exceeded, truly exceeded my wildest expectations.

Starting point is 00:12:52 Like I just had no idea that it was going to happen that quickly. So that happened on launch day. Our Shopify site was like, I mean, I built it myself, like in my living room, you know, we were just totally overwhelmed with traffic and how we were going to get all the orders out. And, you know, we just basically said like, bear with us. I didn't even know how to put like an out of stock thing on our, on our website. It was just really chaotic, but in the most amazing, exciting way. And yeah, that was sort of what happened. Wow. That is incredible to hear just the behind the scenes look at the craziness of launch day. I'm curious to hear too,

Starting point is 00:13:34 how has your marketing strategy kind of shifted or changed over the years? You mentioned kind of just starting out on your personal Instagram, sharing about the brand, sharing about a behind the scenes look at what it takes to start this candle company in the initial stages. What are you focused on now? Like, are there areas that you're focused on now that you weren't so focused on in the beginning? Yeah. I mean, I think for sure when we started, I really didn't have a plan other than operating from a place of telling the story of the product

Starting point is 00:14:06 and getting people to love it and getting people to talk about it and share. You know, the other thing is that as someone, as an editor and an influencer who like is on the receiving end of PR packages and boxes and things, like I wanted all of our packaging for our customers to feel like they were opening a PR package. And I wanted the details to be like super thoughtful and Instagrammable because I knew the power of social sharing and influencer marketing. And, you know, I really believe that everyone is an influencer. And if we had people posting of 100 followers or 300 followers, there's importance to that almost as much as people with a million.

Starting point is 00:14:51 So that was a big part of it for me as well. But that's sort of a through line in our marketing strategy. But now we're definitely more focused on email and SMS and affiliate. And we're doing a little bit of ads, not too much. But for sure, like now we really lean into like our community and people who love the brand, just like fans of the brand, as well as other influencers too. Lindsay, I have to ask you too about one of my favorite topics, which is storytelling. And I can already kind of envision how you would describe the story behind this brand, even just the whole idea of feeling like you're stepping into a hotel lobby and what that means to someone, you know, the nostalgia, the connection that they have to different hotels around the world that they've traveled to. But in your opinion, how important is great storytelling in the success of your marketing strategy? And how do you feel other brands can develop that own story for themselves around their brand as well?

Starting point is 00:15:54 Yeah. So for us, it's crucial. It is like, as a former writer and editor, like storytelling is in my DNA and it is, I truly think the reason why our brand has been successful. It is challenging for people to buy a candle that they've never smelled before. Even for myself, it's hard to understand or kind of get what something smells like when you've never smelled it. So for us, it's really about creating this entire universe around what the candle is inspired by and giving people a sense of place. And we really tell the story from the very, very beginning. And we talk about, you know, the moments that we drew inspiration from for the fragrance. And we really put the person

Starting point is 00:16:37 in the place and paint the picture of what, you know, that what they're smelling at the time. So I remember when we launched our holiday candle, we were sharing a lot of imagery and videos of, you know, like snow falling out the window and a crackling fireplace. And I would say like, okay, imagine yourself, you're in a mountain lodge and you're sitting, you're cozying up on a leather couch and you just like took off your snow boots and there's snow falling outside the window and there's a fireplace crackling and you can smell the smoke and you just ordered yourself a cocktail, a hot toddy or something. Um, like think about that smell and what that moment smells and feels like that is the smell and the feeling that you get from this candle.

Starting point is 00:17:19 And we really tell that exact type of story with every one of our launches. We even like we have playlists that correspond with the candle in the sense to like get people into the mood. We have really strong visuals. We do a lot of like lifestyle imagery that doesn't necessarily even incorporate the candle, but it just like sets the scene. And I think for a lot of people that helps them understand what this candle will smell and feel like. I have such a good idea to, to use those different sensory elements to kind of paint that picture too, because I feel like to your point, if people

Starting point is 00:17:57 aren't necessarily literally smelling the candle, they feel like they are just because of those descriptors and the rich language that you're using. So such a good strategy for, for that as well. And I also want that holiday candle. That sounds so nice. But I have to also ask you too, especially, you know, being, having a past in, in press and media, how do you feel like storytelling plays into garnering press coverage and outside of storytelling, is there anything else that you'd say is important for garnering that press? Yeah, I think, honestly, I think relationships are the most important thing. I always found, you know, when I was on the other side, I valued relationships with like

Starting point is 00:18:41 publicists and, you know, people in house at brands and agencies so much because when you're in editorial, you're getting literally hundreds of pitches from brands a week. And often things are so cut and paste and cookie cutter, and you can tell it's just like not personalized for you. And there's just, you know, the people aren't necessarily thinking about you as an editor and like what your specialty is and getting to know like the type of story that you would write. And so I think it's important, number one, to build like a personal relationship with, you know, writers and get to know like what they like, what they don't like. I always say I would rather like we send out 10 very individualized, thoughtful outreach to media than like a blast to 100 people. That's just like

Starting point is 00:19:33 a generic press release. And so that's the one thing. And then the other thing is there has to sort of be a hook. And that was always something I looked for when I was a writer. You know, you need a story like there has to be like a story, there has to be something interesting about it. I would always think about like, what's the headline before, especially when I moved into digital, I started my career in print and then moved into digital. And I would, unless I could really think about what the headline was before I would write the article, like, you know, it wasn't probably a story that I would be interested in doing because in write the article, like, you know, it wasn't probably a story that I would be interested in doing because in the same way, like an email subject line needs

Starting point is 00:20:10 to get someone's attention, you know, there really needs to be a headline that gets, you know, get someone's attention and something that's compelling. So I would think about like, if you're a brand and you're trying to get media attention, what is like the headline that you envision the writer writing for something about you? Yeah, I couldn't agree more. And we always talk about that when we're talking to any PR professional, any of the work that you can do, as much work as you can do upfront to kind of have those headlines or have those like thoughtful stories behind what you're pitching is always going to be super helpful in addition to relationships. So I love that you touched on that. But there's also a component to your brand. You have built a community of candle super fans

Starting point is 00:20:58 that support you. And I would just love to hear how you keep those brand fans engaged on social and other marketing platforms as you're thinking about coming out with new products or promoting your existing products. So I think for us, so much of keeping the community excited and engaged is by involving them. I'm constantly impressed and appreciate the very like direct and detailed feedback we get from people about what they're wanting, what they're not liking, what they're, you know, I'll ask people, you know, what city should we launch next? So a lot

Starting point is 00:21:35 of our candles are inspired by specific cities and destinations. And we will do a focus group or we'll post like questions on on Instagram and say what city should we launch next and what color do you see that you know that candle glass to be and what notes would you want to see in that um we even we actually one of our our can our holiday candles which is called chalet it's this very like spicy fiery like I call like a sexy cinnamon holiday candle. And that was entirely driven by feedback that we had gotten from our community. So I was a little bit stumped about for like our second or third holiday season, what the holiday scent would be. And I really wanted to understand what people wanted. So we started talking to the community and it was like overwhelming the number

Starting point is 00:22:24 of people that said they wanted a cinnamon type of candle, which I just personally would not, I had no idea. I didn't know that people would want that. And then, you know, I said, well, what type of color of the glass would you want for holiday? And everyone was saying like, they wanted like a deep red. So that's literally what we did. We created this candle that was completely inspired by what the community told us that they wanted. And, you know, we just always keeping an open line of communication and being open to feedback and just involving them in the process and also reposting everyone

Starting point is 00:22:54 on Instagram and thanking them for, for sharing and just kind of knowing, having people know that they like have a direct line to us and we're totally open to ideas and thoughts. That's such a good note too, because we always tell people as well, you can't assume that you know what your consumer wants if you're not having those direct conversations with them. So literally allowing them to buy into the process and be a part of that, I'm sure is very rewarding for your community because they feel like they had a part to play in that development process. So that is absolutely wonderful. I think, you know, I think it's, it's a little bit of, you have to strike the balance between both. So, you know, I think you as a brand, you can't like entirely be driven by what

Starting point is 00:23:40 your community wants. Sometimes you need to tell them, maybe sometimes they don't know what they want and you need to be the one to dictate, like, and you need to be the one to set the trend. And, and then other times I think getting the feedback is amazing. Like I'll give you an example. So that one candle was an example of something where we really were driven by them, but we also just launched a candle that's called Hamptons and it's inspired by a weekend in the Hamptons and it's the scent is we're calling it very farm stand and garden inspired and the top notes are green tomato vine and basil and mint and if I would have asked people what type of summer scent they wanted I would, I would have been shocked

Starting point is 00:24:26 if a single person said tomato, but I started to really be into these like tomato and savory and kind of like garden driven scents. And I felt like if people gave it a chance, they would be into them that too. So sort of took a risk and I wasn't sure if it would really hit, but it had the, the feedback we've been getting is like insane from the scent. And I think if I had asked people beforehand, if they wanted that, I don't know that they would have said they would, but with like the whole marketing and the visuals and the story that we created behind it. Um, and the fact that the scent itself is incredible. I think we sort of gave people something they didn't know they wanted, but now they love. So. Oh, that's so fun. That sounds great. Well, I want to hear too, as an influencer yourself, but also just being on the brand side

Starting point is 00:25:15 and working directly with your affiliate programs and just influencers yourself, where do you see the future of influencer marketing heading? Any trends you anticipate or things you're even just seeing now that you feel like are going to continue to build over the next year or so? Yeah, I think that the future of influencer marketing is infinite. I would say it's interesting because I obviously come from a traditional media background. And back in the day, it was sort of like people learned about what to buy and where to go and like what to eat and all these things from magazines. And now that really has so shifted, in my opinion, to influencers. I think about my own life and things that I've bought or

Starting point is 00:25:59 brands that I'm intrigued by. And it's like entirely driven by what I'm seeing on social media. So the first part is that like influencer marketing is bigger now than it's like entirely driven by what I'm seeing on social media. So the first part is that like influencer marketing is bigger now than it's ever been. And I am so confident that it's only going to continue to get bigger and more important for brands. And I would say that affiliate marketing is going to become more important for a lot of brands. I think building relationships with smaller, more targeted creators is important. And that's something a lot of people know and are talking about already, but we've certainly had success with creators who have smaller accounts, like 20,000, 25,000, more like micro level versus we've had people with three, four, five million, 10 million people post about,

Starting point is 00:26:46 sorry, 10 million followers post about the candle and like can't move the needle nearly as well as someone with a smaller following. So we really pay a lot of attention to smaller creators and know that like having them be invested in us and be ambassadors of the brand and being part of our affiliate program and all of that, that's really important to us.

Starting point is 00:27:09 And I think that's going to become more important to a lot of brands in the future. Completely agree. Well, we love to ask this question on the show too. What do you know now that you wish you knew earlier on in your career? I know you touched a little bit on like in the beginning of creating this brand, you didn't really know what to do, but is there anything throughout your entire career that you are looking back on and that you would like wish you knew back then? I have a few things I would say, you know, from back in when I worked in, in media and editorial, like I definitely learned that, um, you have to roll your sleeves up and be willing to do and learn everything and like be a sponge

Starting point is 00:27:53 and ask a million questions. And, you know, it's not that it's not that I didn't know that then, but I do think that making connections, meeting people, following up, and just soaking in information from every single person around you is crucial. And you just never know when any of those people may become important to you later on in your life. And now as a founder, I would say that Google is your best friend. And, and if you, I remember thinking when I started, oh, there must be some like secret playbook or something. Like how do people, how do all these people know how to start companies? Like, I just felt so in the dark

Starting point is 00:28:39 about how to start a brand. And I was like, oh, all these people, there must be some secret way that everyone knows. And what I learned is that there's not. And a lot of people just figure out by doing. And I'm not kidding. When I say I wanted, knew I wanted to start a candle brand. I did not know the first place to start. So I started Googling how to find a manufacturer. What, like, where does one find a manufacturer? And then I just started emailing people that came up. And I learned from that, that a lot of them will only talk to you if you have, you know, have a lot of money and you want to produce a lot of units. And so those people were out and then I learned, okay, well, you need to find manufacturers that are open to working with smaller budgets and smaller quantities. And just so much of what I learned was just through researching and Googling

Starting point is 00:29:25 and reaching out to people and asking a lot of questions. So that is, you know, there is no like secret playbook. You truly just have to learn by doing. I would say that learning from every mistake is, is huge. Like there have definitely been times where we tried things that like did not work. And I never really like get too upset about it because I just think of it as like, okay, well that's something we know now that we didn't know before. I really try to think of every like miss or like missed opportunity, just like as a learning experience and add it to like my bank of knowledge for the future and then the other thing too and I was actually just listening to another episode of your podcast where the guests were just talking about

Starting point is 00:30:11 like really honing in on what they like to do and what they're good at and then finding other people or contracting out the you know other people to do rest. So I would say like when you're first starting out, obviously, like, unless you have funding from a lot of people, if you're just bootstrapping, you're of course going to do everything yourself. But as you grow, I think you need to get very honest with yourself about like what fills your cup, what you're good at and like what things like fill you with dread. And there are definitely things that fill me with dread. And I try to find other people to whose expertise, you know, those things are and who people who enjoy doing the things that I don't, you know, I think you need to like know your magic and know

Starting point is 00:30:56 what makes you really good at what you do and try not to get bogged down with the things that you're not good at because you can find someone else who's really good at those things and be more efficient with your time. Oh, such good advice. Thank you for that encouragement and that reminder. That was so good. And we've just loved learning about your story and the brand and your past and how you've developed everything that you've built so far. And we can't wait to stay in touch with you, Lindsay. So if you don't mind, share with us a little bit about how we can connect with you personally, but also with Hotel Lobby Candle as well. Sure. So my Instagram handle is at Lindsay Silb. You can find our brand Hotel Lobby Candle at hotellobbycandle.com. We also have our Instagram account at Hotel Lobby Candle and we're sold on our website

Starting point is 00:31:45 as well as NeimanMarcus.com and in most Neiman Marcus stores. Awesome. Well, thank you so much again. We really appreciate it and can't wait to just stay in touch and stay tuned with the brand and new scents that you release and just congrats on all the success that you've found so far. Thank you so much. Thank you so much for listening to this episode of the Marketing Happy Hour podcast. If you enjoyed this episode, please remember to subscribe, rate, and leave a review on your favorite podcast platform. If you want more of Marketing Happy Hour, but don't know where to

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Marketing Happy Hour - How Community Drives Brand Development | Lindsay Silberman of Hotel Lobby Candle

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