The Triangl Marketing Hack That Literally Made Our Jaws Drop
The other day I was scrolling TikTok and I came across a clip that literally made my jaw drop and no, it wasn’t Jeremy Allen White’s Clavin Klein campaign, although that had a similar impact on me.
As a marketing girlie, my feed is filled with so-called experts sharing social media “hacks” they claim will bring you all the views, six-figure sales, and an engagement rate even Kim K could never hit. Most of it is total b.s. but, when I come across someone who has the credentials to speak on marketing strategy, I pay attention. So, when I saw Triangl founder, Erin Deering, talking about her experience growing her swimsuit brand on the Clever Women Co podcast, it stopped my scroll.
Deering launched Triangl in 2012 and most millennial women remember the absolute chokehold those neoprene bikinis would come to have on us all once the brand took off. By 2016, Triangl was turning over an annual profit of about $45 million dollars USD. Now, let’s be clear, there is *alot* that goes into building a brand of this size but Deering says getting her bikinis on Kendall Jenner was a major turning point for the company. So, how did she make that happen? With a pretty genius marketing hack, some light IG stalking and a dash of FOMO. Let’s discuss …
@cleverwomenco
Triangl credits most of their early growth to an organic Instagram strategy that focused on gifting and word-of-mouth rather than ads. With their eyes set on the U.S. market, Deering had the perfect it girl in mind: Kendall Jenner. Although her Kardashian sisters had amassed more of a following, the Triangl marketing team felt Kendall’s laid-back and athletic vibe was a better fit for the brand. Deering said she knew she wouldn’t be able to access Jenner directly so instead she decided to manufacture a little FOMO by gifting all of her friends Triangl bikinis instead. These lesser-known friends like Hailey Baldwin (now Bieber) and Bella Hadid, would go on to become major A-List celebrities in their own right, but back in the 2010s they were alot easier to get to.
Shortly after Hadid and Baldwin started posting about the bikinis, Deering woke up to an email from Jenner herself asking for some Triangl suits of her own.
And the rest, as they say, is history.
If we had an e-commerce brand today we would absolutely be leveraging this technique to try and get product into the hands of big-name creators and celebrities without going through agencies. If you’re an e-commerce founder and you want to try this out, we got the ball rolling for you with an it-girl cheat sheet. We researched friends, make-up artists, stylists, and boyfriends and we gave you some of our best IG-stalking tips. What are you waiting for? Get gifting.
It-Girl Cheat Sheet
Alix Earle
Hailey Bieber
Sofia Richie
Selena Gomez
Research Pro-Tips
If you’ve ever stalked an ex-partner on Instagram, you’ll probably be really good at this. If you haven’t, we commend you on your level of emotional stability and offer you these three pro tips.
Check Instagram Stories & Highlight Reels
I noticed that a lot of celebrities and big-name influencers won’t tag their friends directly on their posts. They do, however, often repost stories so check out those stories highlights to start to piece together the friend group you’re after.
Weddings & Birthdays
A google search of a celebrity's friends will often lead you to a People article with a list of equally famous it girls you won’t be able to get into contact with anyways. Instead, take a look at IG posts from big events like weddings and birthdays to find the real inner circle.
Research the Friends
Once you’ve found one or two members of the inner circle, hop to their IG profiles instead. You’ll likely find more tagged content and group photos there then you will on your it girl’s profile.
