𝐃𝐨𝐞𝐬 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐬𝐮𝐩𝐞𝐫𝐟𝐚𝐧 𝐩𝐥𝐚𝐲𝐛𝐨𝐨𝐤 𝐨𝐧𝐥𝐲 𝐰𝐨𝐫𝐤 𝐢𝐟 𝐲𝐨𝐮'𝐫𝐞 𝐬𝐞𝐥𝐥𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐒𝐭𝐚𝐫 𝐖𝐚𝐫𝐬 𝐨𝐫 𝐌𝐚𝐫𝐯𝐞𝐥?

I've been getting this question when talking to founders and CEOs about building loyal fanbases. People assume it only works for brands with built-in fandom that have IP or a proven franchise.

My experience at Eastern Standard Provisions says otherwise. It's a soft pretzel company where I was the CMO. No franchise. No built-in audience. Just a new snack food brand competing first via DTC and then on a grocery shelf against dozens of other snacks.

We grew it from a pre-revenue startup into a national retail brand in four years. Built a direct-to-consumer channel from zero to nearly 800,000 customers, landed nationwide placement in Whole Foods and Costco, and made the Inc 5000 list.

While a lot of our growth came from acquisition, growth in contribution margin came from treating repeat customers differently than new ones.

A first-time buyer needs to understand what makes the product worth trying. A repeat customer already knows. What they need is a reason to keep the brand part of their life. So we stopped selling pretzels and started offering recipes, gifting ideas, and ways to work the product into their lifestyle. And those customers became our most loyal fans and brand advocates.

That's the real insight. Fandom isn't a category. It's a behavior. Any brand has the ability to build it but few actually do, because it means changing the strategy, not the ad spend.

I run Superfan Brands, a fractional CMO practice helping consumer product companies build that kind of loyalty. If your growth is still riding on new customer acquisition alone, let's have a conversation.