Indie Success Stories | The Art of Product Marketing at FireflySlime
Table of contents
01 Fireflyslime with Angelina
02 The Art of Product Marketing with Fireflyslime
03 Cooperation between Fireflyslime and influencers
04 Use social media platforms to build a fan base
05 Build fans' desire to buy new products
foreword
Fireflyslime, founded by Angelina, has exploded in business over the past five years. As she expanded, she established her own Shopify stand-alone site. With the help of the stand-alone site, Fireflyslime has sold hundreds of thousands of products to customers. The slime has an annual income of $100,000.
Slimes are no longer just children's toys. Over the years, slime, a shape-changing substance, has become more and more popular, and eventually became popular on the Internet due to the spread of Gen Z on social media. Today, it is accepted by people of all ages, and slime is often used as a treatment. Anxiety and hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). A quick search for "slime" on social platforms will reveal countless channels, pages and profiles stretching and showcasing slimes in different colors, shapes and molds.
01 Fireflyslime with Angelina
Angelina Ly, 14, was in middle school when she noticed slime toys were becoming popular. Inspired, she started making her own slimes and showing them on social media, she created her own homepage accounts on Instagram and TikTok and it went viral with a lot of followers. Her fans started asking her to sell her products.
That's how the brand Fireflyslime (Firefly Slime) was created, an e-commerce business that sells colorful and creative slimes — from acai bowls to others like "cookies and cream" icing" products.
Her business has exploded over the past five years, and as she scaled, she moved from the Esty platform to the Shopify standalone.
Along the way, Fireflyslime has sold tens of thousands of slimes to customers, generating $100,000 in annual revenue, while Angelina actively attends slime lovers across the country to learn about their needs. Today, she runs her company full-time — developing new slimes, growing her social media following and packing every order, while studying business administration as a full-time college student.
02 The Art of Product Marketing with Fireflyslime
Angelina has grown Fireflyslime into a successful business without spending a dollar on advertising. So what's the secret to her success? Every time Fireflyslime releases new slime products and creates popular products, it will preheat and promote marketing on Instagram, TikTok, YouTube and other social media with more than 500,000 fans in advance.
Every time Angelina launches a new slime (limited product), within 10 minutes, 90% of the stock is sold out. This is not an accident, rather, the launch of these products is a well-designed marketing strategy - Angelina has established among her potential customers by strategically partnering with some influencers and using multiple social media channels to promote Start buying expectations, so as to control the final sales.
03 Cooperation between Fireflyslime and influencers
Angelina has amassed a huge following for her company on social media, but the success of Fireflyslime's product launch cannot be entirely attributed to Angelina's fans. Part of the success is due to Fireflyslime and influencers ( Mainly a collaboration between Slime and Unboxing creators) to promote the new Fireflyslim product through their social media channels.
There are four main marketing strategies for Angelina to cooperate with Internet celebrities:
1. Find influencers with the right audience. Angelina is specifically looking for influencers with a younger audience — her main slime clients. She often gets influencers to do unboxing videos, a format ideal for promoting slime products.
2. Send your products to influencers for free. While Angelina doesn't pay influencers for marketing, she does send them products for free. While many big influencers will also ask to pay for featured products, it is possible to avoid paying by partnering with some smaller or niche creators.
3. Make your specific requirements to the influencer. When Angelina spoke with influencers, she opted for specific requirements over ambiguity when it came to what she ultimately posted. She asks them to post videos and photos around her product launch dates for strategic coverage within the right time frame.
4. Make full use of the content posted by influencers. After the cooperation with influencers went live, Angelina can make full use of the Internet by reposting relevant content on her own social media channels and adding video content etc. to her Shopify stand-alone site as a media review. Content posted in red.
These marketing strategies related to influencers have paid off, and Fireflyslime's customers have continued to grow. “If I only promote through my own social media platform, there are only so many people I can reach,” Angelina said. “If I reach out to other influencers who have a different audience than me, I will get more Never heard of my client," she added.
04 Use social media platforms to build a fan base
Fireflyslime's social media platform has always been an extremely important part of its advertising strategy. "Almost all of my followers on Tiktok, Instagram and YouTube are live fans, not zombie fans, " Angelina said. "I've grown my current fan base over the past five years by posting content myself, And I've never paid for any ads," she added.
One of Angelina's social media strategies is differentiated marketing, publishing differentiated content across her multiple social media channels, rather than publishing the same content on every platform. She initially found success on Instagram, where she was one of the earliest slime influencers, and during that initial period, every time she refreshed her profile, she added hundreds of new followers. She grows her Instagram following through longer videos, better graphics and longer captions to convey more and wider messages.
But with the rise of TikTok, she has had to come up with new content formats for the nascent platform. “On TikTok, all my videos are simple and straightforward. I will find the essence of the video I shoot and squeeze it into 30 seconds and make a catchy opening.” Angelina said, "You have to figure out a way to avoid users crossing out your video, and instead watch your video for as long as possible," she added.
Today, she produces multiple types of videos on TikTok, not only keeping up with existing trending hotspots, but also showing behind-the-scenes videos of her business, making popular ASMR videos featuring her slime, She even intentionally packs orders for customers in front of the camera in order to bring heat to her new products.
"Particularly the packaging video, it shows people that these are the things you can buy. The packaging video provides personalized content to the whole buying process," Angelina said. "People love ordering products with packaging video because They want to know how their purchases are packaged.”
05 Build fans' desire to buy new products
Before launching the new product on the Fireflyslime stand-alone site, Angelina first shared it on Instagram and TikTok to warm up the upcoming product. By advertising a product before it goes live, she can keep her fans informed of upcoming product releases in advance—spending days or weeks building up buzz for upcoming products on independent sites to attract fans.
"I start by posting the products I'm selling on my social media channels. I mention in the title or the video, or even in the comments section...this slime will be released someday," Angelina said. " I put a lot of emphasis on promoting a product launch day!”
In the days leading up to a product launch, Angelina will pique her fans' interest with additional posts, letting them know to "set an alarm," as well as posting flash sales on discounted products. This method works, and often sells out her product, which is in short supply. "People email me and say, 'I've been trying for two weeks and I still can't get this product,'" Angelina said. Those who missed out eagerly watched her social media pages, waiting for the next new product launch.