Resources / Use case: consumer goods
Local Outlet Marketing for Consumer Goods: Building Awareness Before a Retail Launch
How an energy shot brand used a one-week giveaway across eight outlets to feel familiar before it hit shelves.
By the Greater Wave team
When a product shows up in a store for the first time, shoppers decide in a few seconds whether they recognize it. For a brand moving from online sales into retail, building that recognition ahead of time is the whole job. This is how one brand used Local Outlet Marketing (LOM) to do it.
The situation
Ryde is an energy shot brand with a national customer base built mostly online. Ahead of a rollout into retail stores, their team wanted two things:
- A stronger social following, so the brand looked established
- More awareness in the specific markets where the product was about to appear
They were already running paid Meta ads and influencer partnerships, and decided to test LOM alongside them.
How the campaign ran
We built a giveaway campaign. To enter, people had to follow the brand, which tied the campaign directly to the follower goal.
- Outlet selection. We proposed ten outlets from our network. The client approved eight, covering the Midwest, Pacific Northwest, and South.
- A mix of reach. The eight outlets included one city-level outlet, four regional outlets, and three with broader audiences.
- Custom content. Each post was designed for the outlet running it. The creative, the caption, and even the prize were adjusted to fit each audience.
- One week. All eight posts ran inside a single week.
The results
How the cost compared
Ryde split its budget between us and a second outlet network, and was running other channels at the same time. That gave everyone a clean comparison.
The lowest cost per thousand impressions of four options
CPM index. The most expensive option is set to 100, so lower is better.
Roughly 40% cheaper than Meta ads and 70% cheaper than influencer partnerships. Influencer and Meta figures are estimates for comparison.
About 20 times the engagement of the other network
Likes and comments one week after posting, shown relative to our total
Our outlets had a combined following 36% smaller.
Why the gap was so wide
Both networks ran the same giveaway for the same brand. The difference was in the execution. The other network used one design, one caption template, and one prize across every outlet. Ours were different for each outlet, built around what that audience responds to.
The takeaway: cheap reach only matters if people respond to it. Outlet selection and outlet-specific creative are what turn a low CPM into real engagement.
Is your product a fit?
LOM tends to work best for consumer goods when:
- You are entering new retail markets or new regions
- You want awareness in specific places, not everywhere at once
- You have something to give the audience: a giveaway, a launch offer, a first look
If that sounds like your brand, reach out and we’ll put together outlet options for your markets.
Want the numbers?
Get the full case study, with the results we don’t publish.
We keep campaign numbers off this site. Request the case study and we’ll send the brief, the outlets, the creative, and the results. Or tell us what you’re promoting and we’ll come back with outlets and pricing.