The Power of Ambassadors and Building a Beloved Brand
The Power of Ambassadors and Building a Beloved Brand
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show notes
In this episode of Local Marketing School, Emily Steele interviews Morgan Lerner, Chief Creative Officer at GoNanas, the fastest growing baking mix company, using bananas to make indulgent, vegan, gluten-free, and allergen-friendly baked goods. Morgan joins to share how GoNanas has grown from a college dorm room to ecommerce to now sold in over 4000 retailers. We discuss key strategies for growth, staying authentic on social media and innovating continuously. Morgan also offers insight into GoNanas brand ambassador program that’s grown from 25 people to over 3500 members. This is a great episode for marketers looking to grow their businesses while maintaining a strong connection with their customer base!
TUNE IN FOR TOPICS LIKE:
2:28 Co-founding GoNanas and the inspiration behind the business
6:46 Key factors that turned a side-hustle into a full-time company
8:59 The most surprisingly successful flavor drop
10:17 Setting up a powerful ambassador program from scratch
14:54 Expanding into retail and lessons learned in the grocery aisle
19:53 Two things to get your brand ready for retail shelves
21:31 Strategies for growing @gonanas to 67k on Instagram
23:33 Lessons for building your ambassador community
25:52 Scaling nationally in an authentic way
27:30 What's next for GoNanas
Listen to this week’s Local Marketing School conversation!
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Emily Steele (00:01)
Hey everybody, we are back with another episode of Local Marketing School. And today I am bringing you Morgan Lerner, who is the co-founder and chief creative officer at GoNanas, which is the fastest growing baking mix company that uses bananas to make indulgent, vegan, gluten-free, and allergen-friendly baked goods. By having the consumer add ripe bananas to their mixes, they're making baked goods taste homemade from a mix and reducing food waste. So cool, right?
While they launched their mixes online in 2020, they've now expanded into over 4,000 retailers, including Whole Foods and Target nationwide. Morgan spearheads their brand marketing and R &D. She also grew their social media presence to over 90,000 followers as of this recording and their influencer ambassador program to 3,500 members with over 10 million online monthly reach. Morgan and her co-founder, Annie, most recently also made the Forbes 30 under 30 2024 list.
In today's conversation, we really dig into Morgan's story about how GoNanascame to life in college and the pivot that 2020 created for their business, which feels like for the best for them to expand nationally, like you heard just now. And we also talk about what does it take to build a social media presence in a community and a strong ambassador program. So those of you are interested in the nuts and bolts of that. You will love this episode and Morgan's perspective on that. We talk a lot about the core identity, how do you think about brand as you expand nationally and have less control over what people's perceptions are of you when you're not, you know, directly giving someone a product to try. And the conversation is just so fun. Morgan is such a positive lady and brings so much goodness to this industry. So let's dig into the conversation.
Emily Steele (02:04)
Hey Morgan, welcome to local marketing school.
Morgan Lerner (02:05)
or rolling. Thanks for having me, Emily.
Emily Steele (02:34)
Yes, we finally got this on the schedule. Anyone who runs a business and think both of us at some points are like, this doesn't work. No, this doesn't work and it's usually me, but we're here. We did it. We're recording. my gosh. Okay, well tell me about your journey to co-founding GoNanas and what inspired you to do this?
Morgan Lerner (02:44)
We did it. We did it. We're here. It's all that matters.
Yeah, it's been a wild journey. So my co founder and I were neighbors in the dorms at the University of Michigan. So we honestly bonded at brunch one day in a food club. both loved food and health and baking. And we were baking one day kind of near campus and decided to healthify banana bread. Again, like we loved baked goods, but a healthy version of them that actually tasted good didn't exist.
You know, our only options on the way to class were Starbucks pastries. So kind of unintentionally, we wanted to change that. And in the car ride home, we came up with our name and got an LLC on campus and decided to launch it. So I don't know if we as much set out to launch a business as much as we were passionate. And it kind of came out of that passion and exploration with each other and that was pretty much eight years ago. It was a side hustle for many years, just as students, you don't have time to have a full time job. although we were baking as much as possible in business class. and we've been doing it full time for about four and a half years now. So, COVID was a big turning point for us when banana bread was blowing up and we basically took our recipe. Yeah. I remember that Yeah, we like to say it still is. But we did that recipe that we had made as students on campus and launched a mix and that's what really took off. So that was a big turning point, but it really started as students just out of the need and passion.
Emily Steele (04:29)
Yeah, so you're baking this on campus, are you selling it? Are you like, how are you getting it out to fellow students? Assuming that's your first audience of buyers, right?
Morgan Lerner (04:48)
Yeah, we launched with a bake sale on campus like really old school classic how else do you sell baked goods and we were kind of like how do we sell this so we started basically getting a commercial kitchen and driving these loaves these handheld kind of on the go banana bread loaves to coffee shops, cafes and juice bars. So ultimately self distributing to food service a very small amount of shops. We don't do that at all anymore because we're all dry mixes, but yeah, that's how it began.
Emily Steele (05:17)
Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So you get to the point where you're doing this. It's stuff like a side hustle. It is one of you or both of you. Like, I really want to make this full time. Are you both thinking that like, because obviously, like, you do this in college, you don't necessarily like, this is my career path. Right? Otherwise, you probably would have just quit college to just do it if you knew.
Morgan Lerner (05:24)
Yeah, you know, we did have a slightly different views on it. I mean, we always wanted it to be our full time job. Like that would be the dream. I think it took a while to actually get to a point where we had a real, I don't like to real business, but something that could support us. And so you know, in college, you get asked the question, where are you working? What's your next job? So You know, I went into consulting post college and she went into kind of CPG to learn the ropes. So it took time to get there. I think we always wanted it to be. And for me, it took a little bit longer to kind of see the real proof. And I think that's, I don't think that's a bad thing because I think you have to listen to the market's response. And so I was not going to like push for something that wasn't there until it was.
Emily Steele (06:09)
Yeah, especially because you're like a turning point was 2020. You couldn't have predicted like this moment would happen. So it's like, what was happening at that point? You were both working full time elsewhere and still like making this on the side or were you like, my gosh, have you seen all of this content around banana bread? Like, do we need to re-invigorate this? Like what is happening at that time?
Morgan Lerner (06:47)
Yeah, so we'd actually started moving to a manufacturer with these ready made loaves because we were you know, we graduated had jobs and couldn't do it. And we just knew it was kind of time we had more demand. I think we were in about 60 stores at that time. But this was also when shipping was kind of for lack of a better word a shit show during COVID. And so we realized we actually can't ship these ready-made baked goods. Like they're gonna arrive unwell. So we pivoted and we had all these extra ingredients because our coffee shops and cafes and juice bars shut down during COVID. So we really pivoted. We launched our first mix then very small batch and those started quickly taking off with social media. And you know, the Detroit News randomly picked us up. If you ever want to see the segment, I can send it to you. It's kind of hilarious.
Emily Steele (07:18)
Yeah.
Morgan Lerner (07:45)
And then we used that those and brought those to our manufacturers instead of the mini breads and kind of ditched the ready-made. So it was this kind of crazy storm and we just completely pivoted everything and ran with the because that's what really started taking off.
Emily Steele (07:55)
Yeah, okay. So this is happening 2020 and you're getting some traction. Are you basically, I mean you have to go a totally different route then. So do you sell then e-commerce wise the mixes or are you just like, hey we're going to try to get into local grocery? Are you doing both simultaneously?
Morgan Lerner (08:20)
No, we were basically exclusively ecom. We started diving in a little bit more to social media and our goal was, you know, how do we pay ourselves and be profitable just because, you know, we were hoping now that this could be a full-time job. So we created our ambassador community. We launched that and we started with 25 and then became 50 and started just amassing, you know, more and more ambassadors that helped us get the word out organically. So I would say it was was social media, our ambassador community, and then we started doing these like flavor drops where we would launch a limited edition flavor and see kind of a spike in sales and excitement. So that was really how we launched DTC. And now it's such a core of what we do. I love our flavor drops, but it was all just this experiment to try to grow.
Emily Steele (08:59)
Yeah, okay. I want to ask you about ambassadors, but I want to ask you like what's been like the most surprising flavor drop that did that maybe you didn't anticipate would do as well as it did or was like a unique flavor combo?
Morgan Lerner (09:27)
Apple cider donut has completely popped off every single year. And I just didn't expect that. I mean, it's such a fun. I think it's because I'm not like an apple pie gala. I'm not like an apple dessert gal, but people went crazy for that flavor. And every year I'm like, is it gonna do that? Well, it's like our best selling fall food. People love it. So screw pumpkin.
Emily Steele (09:35)
Yeah. cool. Yeah, you definitely like I usually gravitate towards like a pumpkin like I would assume and fall but we got your apple people so I love that. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Morgan Lerner (09:56)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I can help you. Yeah, it's you can make donuts. So people love making something else with it. It's almost like they feel like they've made a donut from scratch when they used our mix and put it in a donut mold, you know, but it makes you feel yeah, exactly. Like, yeah, that's me.
Emily Steele (10:12)
I was like, I resonate my with this. So you spin this up, e-comm, DTC, and you're like, hey, we're going to use ambassadors. Are you like, hey, people on social media, here's some free stuff. Will you talk about us? Is that kind of the initial, or you know we built out a program. We know exactly what it was going to be like to grow it. how does that start for you?
Morgan Lerner (10:41)
So funny, I feel like people always assume you have it all figured out and really you're just like totally figuring it out as you go. So no, we definitely didn't have a whole program structure. I, and I don't even have a marketing background. For me, it was all about community and people. And so I just started making connections with our most loyal and excited consumers. And even our social content is and was just spotlighting our community and tapping into what they want and asking what they want and looping them into the behind the scenes. So it was kind of, I think they went hand in hand. So it was really tapping into those loyal, engaged followers online, inviting them to the program and looping them in on kind of all that was going on and giving them some fun perks but not actually free products. So our ambassadors get a discount to purchase their own product and can earn all these rewards, but it's very much like, you know, choose your own adventure, make your own adventure.
Emily Steele (11:32)
Yeah, yeah, that's so fun. So would you say the persona of an ambassador is someone who loves baking or like who are some of your most successful ambassadors?
Morgan Lerner (11:51)
Yeah, I think the foodie community for sure. It does not have to be someone who's a big baker just because I almost feel like we're targeting the people who love baked goods, aren't necessarily or don't identify themselves as bakers. But we make it easy and possible because the mixes are easy and taste so good and are made with simple ingredients. So it tends to be more of just the foodies who love, you know, putting something on the table, making it look good, sharing it with people.
Emily Steele (12:20)
Yeah, yeah, that makes so much sense. So essentially, like it would be an affiliate marketing structure as ambassadors, right? Like a lot of DTC brands, cool, cool. Do you build out a community for them to like offer like trainings or keep them motivated or is it really self-sustained once they sign up?
Morgan Lerner (12:21)
Yeah, it's a little bit of both. I think there's some great softwares and platforms that help really automate everything. But I think you always have to be providing new opportunities for them to get involved and still focus on the community aspect because I think that's what keeps people in long term. So it's kind of a little bit of both.
Emily Steele (12:44)
Yeah. Do you feel like you've done anything that's been like if another CPG brands listening, like how, what can they learn from your experience of building and kind of investing in community?
Morgan Lerner (13:15)
Yeah, I think, you know, people, there's a lot of things you can do to give people perks and fun benefits and free things. And I think there's an element that that's just how humans work. But you can't forget the, like, they just like free stuff they do. And that'll keep you in but long term it is that community play. So how can you offer something that's unique for us? It's early access to our flavors, and then layer it, Is it, you know, the founders emailing and setting up events, you get that personal touch. Are you keeping them in the loop on exclusive behind the scenes and what's really going on? Are you asking them for feedback? So I think there's that additional layer, even in social media, that is so important. And that will help you stand out because everyone has their own flavor and authenticity and way of doing it. So get clear on what makes you as a brand and you as leaders or whoever's running the program authentic and unique lean into that and then layer in the incentives and the you know giveaways yada yada.
Emily Steele (14:22)
Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, that's super helpful. So, okay, we're stage 2020 and you're kind of going the direct consumer and now you're in 4,000 stores, right? So like something changed. What happened?
Morgan Lerner (14:34)
Yeah. Growing grey. yeah, my gosh, a lot has happened in the past four years. We I think the biggest turning point was, you know, DTC, we saw a lot of healthy growth, which is exciting. And we got all this data from Shopify to be able to then start pitching grocery stores. And we joined the Mondelēz accelerator. I don't know if you're familiar with Mondelēz. They own you know, Toblerone, Ritz crackers, Oreo, all these big brands. So they basically gave us a MBA in CPG and taught us a lot of what we needed to know going into retail. Cause it's just this whole other world. And you know, once you get on the shelves, it's super competitive and you have to stay on shelf. And I don't think people realize that. So we wanted to get really smart on retail and then started pitching retailers.
Morgan Lerner (15:31)
I believe it was like 2021, 2022. We raised a little bit of capital to be able to also go into grocery because it's such a pay to play space, unfortunately. Or better, yeah, I would say unfortunately. And then that takes a year to actually get on shelves. So when you submit or pitch yourself to Whole Foods, if you get accepted, a year later you'll be on shelf. So it's this whole process and we just started hitting the shelves in 2023. Yeah, it's a long intro.
Emily Steele (16:06)
What has that experience been like? Because it feels like you're further removed from the customer, right? So you're like, okay, well, I hope you're buying it and liking it. What did that do to your psyche? I feel like that would be hard to not release control because it's such a great growth path. But, and you lose that kind of, you can't just email them because you don't know who they are necessarily.
Morgan Lerner (16:12)
Yeah, I know. That's so true. I think I've always stayed really close to our DTC business and I still do so that keeps me feeling connected. I think they're totally different worlds. What's cool about grocery, especially being nationwide is the discovery. So I love, you know, even still checking our posts or our tags or random outreach, outreaches from people and they've found us from Target or Whole Foods. So I think it's just the coolest discovery and there's nothing like walking in a store and seeing your product because ultimately that is where people shop for food and shop for baking mixes. There's still a market for DTC but it is all in retail. I think the coolest part too was, know, if you can do it well in retail, you can have, you have a large business on your hands and can really reach a lot of people. think, DTC for the most part for food has its limit. And so retail is kind of this test of are people really gonna like you or do you really have something that can be in grocery stores nationwide for good, which is our goal. So seeing the data and the numbers after being in retail for a few years now has been so exciting. Because then it's like, okay, we are actually reaching people and people are coming back and we're in the top of the category. So that's been so, so exciting because it just shows how much potential we have.
Emily Steele (18:02)
Totally. And you're doing something like people are familiar with baking mixes. The differentiator for you is it's a banana that goes in as the wet ingredient, right? Is that pretty much the biggest thing? Like, yeah.
Morgan Lerner (18:08)
Yeah, I mean that's a huge part, right? And we're often placed next to the bananas in the grocery store because you can pick them up together. But I'd like to say it's way more than that. It's the formula and the flavor behind it. So, you know, the formula that we were kind of testing for all those years as undergrads, when you taste GoNanas, it's not like your classic banana bread. It just has this really indulgent, yummy taste that you would never know that it's vegan and gluten free. So I do think it's the formula with the banana and then you layer on the brand and all that other fun stuff that makes me.
Emily Steele (18:42)
Yeah, and it's like such a fun brand, right? You see like all of the products on the shelves and you're like, this actually this stands out. It feels like do you get a younger demographic based on like the playfulness and funness of the brand if you will, like DTC. Yeah.
Morgan Lerner (18:52)
Yeah, mean, think packaging like you said when you're just on shelf and you're so removed from the customer packaging is everything and it's something we consistently pretty much every year we're changing something so it's really fun. Yeah, I think you know, our customer is female so our branding plays to that really well and the funness I think helps us stand out on shelf and attract new customers. But some of that you're like, I have no idea.
Emily Steele (19:31)
Yeah. Hope you like it. Hope you grab it. Thank you. Yeah. So any advice for anyone who's getting retail ready, getting ready to pitch to the Whole Foods, the targets of the world? What do you feel like you did right? What did you do wrong? Anything you do over?
Morgan Lerner (19:42)
Yeah, I would say two things. think one is building your case study from the very beginning, any data we could get, even if it was a mom and pop shop and we got any kind of sales data, we started building our case study and then using that to pitch retailers and we're consistently updating, refining, improving that quote unquote case study. And that's so key when you get into retail, because that just only becomes more and more important and then also just use the feedback and lean on the feedback from your customers and continuously be improving and doing something different because the product is the most important thing and that's ultimately if you have a good product and then you know can really learn how to do retail you'll be a lot more successful than if you're just throwing a lot of money at something that isn't really there or isn't really different or isn't offering something unique and valuable so I kind of like to say pair those two things. It's like build your data and listen to it. Like really, yeah, try to improve and do something different.
Emily Steele (20:54)
Yeah. Cool, cool, that's super helpful. When it comes to your social media presence, you have so many followers, you're gonna hit that 100K mark if you haven't already, right? You're like, let's just plan on it. Anyone listening, go follow GoNanas. It's like, come on, let's get that to 100K. I would say, I mean, that's super impressive. What are some of the strategies you use to build that type of following and like is it what you would have expected it to be at such a high follower count, if you will?
Morgan Lerner (21:27)
Hmm. thank you. Yeah, I think we're always trying to brainstorm new ways because social media is just always changing and I never want to be stale as a brand. So I don't like just doing giveaways. For example, I'm like, okay, can we grow in a more innovative, authentic, organic way than just throwing giveaways out there? So I think layering lots of tools you know, giveaways is a simple one if you're just getting started, but I love brand collaborations and just basic innovation. So we do a lot with influencer and brand collaborations at the product level and that gets so many eyes and you're naturally combining networks to get more people. think, you know, paid ads help as well. That's something we've layered in over the years, but I love the kind of growth that comes from true innovation whether it's partnering with a brand or influencer or just making really innovative content and reaching people in that way. So there's so many ways.
Emily Steele (22:25)
There's so many ways. Do you spearhead that effort or is that someone you partner with or how does, what does your kind of marketing team composition look like?
Morgan Lerner (22:38)
Yeah, we're still a super small team. I do all of our partnerships and product innovation, which I love. We do have someone who helps us on the paid social and organic social side. We have someone awesome who does our email and SMS marketing. Those things were really big and important investments because I am by no means an email or SMS or ads expert So, you know, we've built that kind of small but mighty team, I still do our partnerships and product. Yeah.
Emily Steele (23:10)
cool, cool. So that's super helpful from the social perspective. And then you kind of shared earlier on in our convo, like your ambassador community was like starting with 20 people and now you have like 3,500 people who are ambassadors, which is incredible. Again, like how do you think about building that community? are some lessons other people can learn from your experiences, your mistakes, your wins?
Morgan Lerner (23:18)
Yeah, my gosh, so many people love to feel seen and feel valued. So from the very beginning, and it's something I still want to do more of, that's the challenge as we get bigger, is spotlighting our ambassadors and just like hyping them up. So when we had 25 ambassadors, I truly believed and still do that they're like the coolest people, right? Like I can't believe these people want to rep our product.
Morgan Lerner (24:00)
And so I would hype them up, share them on social DM them become their best friends. Like they were just super important still are. So we try to invest in them and spotlight and hype them up. And then it became known that we have these ambassadors. It was kind of dual marketing and really supporting and retaining those ambassadors. So we tend to get a pretty healthy, you know, inbound outreach of people just applying on their own and we still put it out there that we have this program. So I think that was really key is just making the people in the program feel really special and valued and having that kind of feed itself.
Emily Steele (24:30)
Cool, yeah, mean, easier at 20 than 3,500, but there are ways to, there's there are so many great tools and also just like prioritizing with your time. Like, how do you show up for these people in a way that makes them feel validated and seen and appreciated? And it does go a long way. I don't think people, I don't know that as many brands really own that. They'll be like, yeah, our customers are really important. I'm like, you have a weird way of showing it. Or not, like you don't have a way of showing it. You know? Yeah, you're like, you actually listening to them? Right? Are you really doing what it takes to build that stickiness and brand experience? know, so it's.
Morgan Lerner (25:18)
Yeah, well, it is easier when it's smaller. And I think like, so a lot of people think it's almost intention with scaling of like, how do you reach a lot of people and grow, you know, your sales, but then also make every single person feel valued. And I do think that gets harder as you grow. That's why I'm always still talking about it. Because it's like, how do you do this? So it's just kind of recognizing that both are maybe.
Emily Steele (25:52)
So I was thinking through how do you balance your authenticity and who you are at the core as you scale nationally? How do you think about that? Because it has to be, you know, when you're in 10,000, 20,000 stores, do you do things differently? What does that look like as you scale?
Morgan Lerner (26:04)
Yeah, it's such a I think it's such a challenge and I don't have a perfect answer because I think it's something I think about all the time because that is the marketing that I know and love is that authenticity piece. And I don't think you have to lose that as you grow. I think it's just you have more to consider. I think your audience gets bigger and you're considering all different kinds of voices. Maybe you have retailers who are watching your social media. So I just think there's different considerations. Like professionalism is a real thing because it comes with trust. So I think the honest answer is I'm still figuring that out, you know, and just considering both and kind of trusting my gut along the way and leaning on people who have done it. think I'm kind of in this phase of reaching out to bigger people in the space and learning how they do it because, yeah, I only have my one experience of it.
Emily Steele (27:06)
Right, right, and being open to be like, how do you do this? By the way, I don't know that I know yet. Can you help me know? Yeah.
Morgan Lerner (27:12)
Yeah, I'm like, what's a brand strategy? Okay, I'll do that.
Emily Steele (27:20)
You're like, I know this mix and I know like our packaging is great. Now what's like the next level, you know?
Morgan Lerner (27:26)
Right, right. I know it innately. Yeah.
Emily Steele (27:30)
Yeah, yeah, so cool. So as we wrap, I would love to hear what's next for GoNanas. Is like anything on the docket that you can tell us about, any way we can continue to support you. Tell us all the things.
Morgan Lerner (27:39)
I love this question. You know, consistently growing in retail. So hopefully we'll be in more retailers near you. Although I can't disclose any just yet. So you all follow along. Go underscore Nanass on Instagram. So yeah, I think continuing to grow in retail and build our team. We're still pretty small, but just continuing to grow that. And then let's see fun flavor launches. We're launching a holiday menu in December, that's gonna be really great. We have pancake mixes and cookie mixes now, so lots of fun flavors coming up. I know, I'm gonna have to send you a big fun care package. Yeah.
Emily Steele (28:20)
I was like, I will order right after this, absolutely. And everyone else listening too better do the same.
Morgan Lerner (28:29)
I know if you're not hungry after this, I don't know. I'm like, I want some banana braed. Yeah, yeah. So lots of fun flavors, collaborations, new doors, growing the team, all the things.
Emily Steele (28:44)
Yeah, cool. Well, it so fun getting to know you and just hearing about how you invest in community, how you've taken this from dorm room to online to 4,000 stores. We didn't even unpack probably all of the stuff you've learned in the trenches, but there's so much more. So maybe we'll just have to do this again once you can make your big announcement. But no, I appreciate your time on the podcast today, and I'm sure everyone listening will get a lot of benefit from your story. So thanks, Morgan.
Morgan Lerner (29:12)
Aw, thanks for having me, Emily. Yeah, we'll have to do a part two.
Emily Steele (29:16)
Part two. Sounds good. There we go.
