A Founder Becomes a Marketer and has Massive Success with Organic Social - TIkTok, Instagram and Facebook

Eric Eden: 0:59

Welcome to today's episode. Our guest is Lee. He is the founder of Magic Tree. He will tell us a little bit about his company and some of the great marketing he's done. Today he's based in London. Thanks for joining us today. Welcome to the show, Thank you and thanks for having me on. Why don't you give us, before you jump into your story, why don't you give us just a quick minute or two about your background, because I think it's pretty interesting in what you're doing with the company you founded here.

Leigh Matheson : 1:30

Yeah, sure. So background is math science, did economics at university. Ended up going into a corporate job yeah, so it was doing real estate across Europe, buying and selling retail parts, industrial units and office blocks. They're very different to what I do now, but had the millennial dreams of one day start with a company. And then so started my natural health supplements company a couple of years ago, just with one product and it all kind of expanded the range out and then I managed to quit my job last year, so full time with the business now. It's been great. Yeah, just looking to grow and continue growing.

Eric Eden: 2:05

That's awesome, and just so people have a sense of it, the products that your company offers.

Leigh Matheson : 2:11

They're all natural herbal supplements, so it's awesome all over the world. Just as an example of a few, there's Moringa seeds, seamos, which is a popular one, lions made mushrooms, which is popularity, and then Shilajit, which is our best seller. So that's the natural Himalayan resin from the Himalayan mountains, decomposed plants under hundreds of years of mountainous pressure. But, yeah, the products aim to resolve or help treat a range of health issues, from fatigue to brain fog to more chronic conditions, health and arthritis, lower blood pressure. So, yeah, it's been an educational journey for me as well since I actually started the company, become a naturopath in that time as well. But the scope and range of health benefits that are available just from natural solutions and the things that have been used for thousands of years and it's been lost knowledge as the more kind of allopathic medical communities taking over. But, yeah, trying to bring some of that knowledge back and educate people about self healing as well.

Eric Eden: 3:07

And what is a naturopath?

Leigh Matheson : 3:10

The naturopath is an umbrella term for a natural healer. The teachings cover reflexology, rheumatherapy, homeopathy, herbology, massage therapy. So that's the umbrella term, and then you tend to specialize into one of those retreat paths. So yeah, herbalism is what I've been studying for longest, and was studying that before I did that course as well. So we're specialized.

Eric Eden: 3:34

And I assume that this has to be something that you are passionate about to make a business like this successful, right.

Leigh Matheson : 3:41

Yeah, it's probably funny, I was always big on exercise but never that big on health and diet and stuff, and it was only when my dad introduced these merinda seeds to me three years ago. Now, three or four years ago took me on a journey to do a deep dive into understanding health, understanding the systems, and yeah, I'd always went to start a business and to kind of went hand in hand at that point and then just growing together.

Eric Eden: 4:06

So tell us about the business. How did you go about marketing this? Yeah, cool.

Leigh Matheson : 4:13

I'd say I was a business person that's dabbling in marketing, as opposed to a natural marketer, and when I first started it was all right, let's just do some Facebook ads, because that's what we're going to say to do Tried that and it didn't work, which was a blessing in disguise. So about six months in, my girlfriend actually persuaded me to try TikTok, and then at that time this was six months after COVID, so TikTok had blown up-ish in COVID, but it was still pretty much known as a dancing at the teens, so it wasn't really anywhere business people would be or should be. So then I think I was quite lucky because then maybe the fifth video I made, that one got a couple hundred thousand views and then I was like, oh, okay, there's actually sales coming from this, it's a viable platform to actually invest time in and try and grow it. And then turns out that success was short lived, because for the next hundred and twenty-two days who actually counted last week posted every day and it was between 500 and 2000 views. But that hundred and twenty-two days straight and it was on that hundred and twenty-third day the penny dropped or something clicked to our sore video and it was okay. How can we just focus on posting trends or what everyone else is doing, trying to copy. How can we actually add value to this space? How can I use what I've learned and actually try and provide information that people find useful in their lives? And that's when things really started to slow down. So instead of getting 500 to 2000 views, it was more 10,000 to 20,000 views per video. And then, a few months after that, hit our first kind of viral video, which got three million views in the end. But that was the massive turning point that allowed us to really grow and scale, because we was able to use that concept, repackage it and repost it a few different times. So we was able to get maybe five or six more videos, just with the same kind of angle, but just slightly tweaking the words. So that probably got another 10, 15 million views on TikTok and was able to repost that on Instagram and then it went viral again. So that was another 10, 15 million views and a few months later it was able to repost that again on Facebook. Went viral again another 10, 15 million views. I'm still trying to figure out YouTube shorts, but hopefully the same will happen again there too. Yeah, from doing that, within a 12 month span, was able to get 500,000 followers when it builds that brand equity. And, yeah, there's always a residual viewership that's just coming from those videos now, which is really good.

Eric Eden: 6:39

So that was all organic, starting with TikTok and then moving to Instagram and then to Facebook. It was all organic. You got 10s of millions of views, you picked up half a million followers and what I heard is it's all your girlfriend's fault.

Leigh Matheson : 6:55

She likes to imagine that she should get some other credit at least right.

Eric Eden: 6:59

But it was here since I heard that it started with TikTok, right, and you had a early success. But then you had to really experiment and you had to stick in there for 120 days. That feels like a long time to stick in there when you're in the middle of it.

Leigh Matheson : 7:15

Definitely. And I think if I didn't have that early success, I probably would have quit and just thought this is a waste of time and let's be one somewhere else, something else. But yeah, I think, with whatever marketing channel you're doing, you have to have that period of stick to itiveness and putting up with it for a period before you do reap any rewards. And you're always learning something. So you're not just posting the same thing, not learning anything, it's. You're always trying to be adaptive and test something, and if that video is not working, all right, we'll try something else. And you're always chasing your tail because the algorithms are changing. But eventually you do win.

Eric Eden: 7:49

And so part of the testing is the e-commerce part of people are seeing this stuff on TikTok or Instagram and then buying it online and it's being shipped to them. Is it being shipped to people all over the world?

Leigh Matheson : 8:06

Yeah, so you ship worldwide. So the good thing about TikTok is wherever the video goes, that's where the sales will come from. Yeah, based in the UK. It didn't try to target any other countries, but I think 50% or 40% of the following is the US, then a big following in South Africa, quite a big following in Nigeria, uganda and Facebook. So it ended up organically building this you know, and I wouldn't go as far as presents because it's not that big, but people know us around the world, which is really good, and when you are reaching out to retailers or affiliates from different countries, it's forced us to set up that internal network from the start, which is the positive.

Eric Eden: 8:38

Yeah, being in the US. When I talked to my business colleagues in the UK and I asked them about the US market, they often just remind me that the US is just a little experiment that the British tried out. That has had some successes and some failures, and it sounds like this one has been a success.

Leigh Matheson : 8:59

Yeah, I think the most kind of small business is. The US is the holy grail of where you want to get to, because it's bigger markets, bigger money, bigger audience, bigger everything, basically, yeah. But yeah, it's TikTok is unique in a sense. Organic social media as a marketing method is unique in that you just get the traffic wherever they send it to. If it's paid ads, you're choosing a market to try and dominate. If it's affiliates are choosing who to try and dominate. Retail, same thing. Yeah, it's unique in that sense.

Eric Eden: 9:25

Did you think when you started the company, that organic social of TikTok and Instagram and Facebook getting tens of millions of views and a half million followers, did you think that would be what got you to be?

Leigh Matheson : 9:43

successful. No, I thought that would be it. If you asked me then I would say that's the stupid business plan. Like I said, my background was all very science, numbers, finance analysis. So when I set out, it was all very much what's repeatable, what's scalable, what can we do over and over again? And going viral was something that seemed out of control, out of my control, and something doesn't make sense to pin a business plan on. Thankfully, we've had it and now we're looking to diversify away from that because the algorithms they don't always give. What I've noticed is they tend to give you six months' shine and then they'll shine the light elsewhere. When you do get your own time in the light. It is important to diversify and build out your business and establish other marketing methods, which we're doing now and in the process of doing it in the last six months, or six months to a year, but, to answer your question, definitely not. But it could be that the organic social media would have launched the business ultimately.

Eric Eden: 10:41

How hard is that, ben, for you in the last six to 12 months of trying to build out other channels? Is it hard, is it easy?

Leigh Matheson : 10:48

Definitely hard. I think everything in e-commerce or in business is hard. To be honest, I think what I'd say is I was a beneficiary of a wave in terms of Instagram was trying to compete with TikTok to get viewership back. They were giving out a lot of views. Tiktok was also giving out a lot of views. That's changed now, especially with the introduction of AI as well, which is really changing the way organic content is being distributed across platforms. Everything's gotten harder because of that extra competition. Then, in terms of looking at other marketing methods the essence of to be able to be successful or organic you do have to refine your product market fit. You do have to refine your messaging. All of those things naturally benefit all the other marketing methods because essentially it's the same thing. You're just deciding how to get your message out there, but spent two and a half years refining that message Comfortable there. It definitely helps, but it doesn't make it easy. Every time you try and go into a new marketing platform, from what I've seen, it's like you have to cut your teeth on it, you have to learn, you have to waste some money, you have to learn the pitfalls. That's all part of the process. Email, I think, is the best thing. You can build your email list, then no one can take that away from you. Algorithms don't affect it and the way people interact with emails don't really change over time. That's the way really. That's our Holy Grail or our gold standard.

Eric Eden: 12:09

That's great. So, as a founder who has become a pretty good marketer pretty remarkable marketer from my opinion what advice can you give to other marketers from what you've learned in the last year being a founder, starting this up, getting it to be successful?

Leigh Matheson : 12:28

Yeah, I think the most important thing is to just show up, and the more time you can spend out of your comfort zone, the better. Speaking to people and just picking people's brains is super important and that's something I like the idea of just doing everything remote and I can do it all from behind the screen or from anywhere in the world and that was, at the start, what I thought I was working towards. But actually there's so much power in speaking to people, understanding people's backgrounds, their stories, making connections, and that's, I think, what's ultimately going to help you to grow, whatever stage of business you're at, whether it's step one, step 10. This other people that are most likely to actually introduce you to someone or tell you some nugget of information that's going to help you succeed. There's no rational point sense in trying to reinvent the wheel and discover everything yourself because it's already been done. Someone else has already done it multiple times. So the more you can leverage that network and actively extend your network, I think will help. But showing up you have to not be afraid to say I don't want to look silly or he tried it or she tried it and it didn't work for them, or you have to just be open Minded to everything, especially if you don't want to spend money, especially with organic social media as well. You just have to. If you get zero views, doesn't matter. Put it behind you and turn it up again tomorrow.

Eric Eden: 13:47

I think some people might want to learn more about your business based on what you shared. Can you share your website and, if you have an offer, if people want to learn more?

Leigh Matheson : 13:56

about what you're doing. Yeah, companies with Magic Tree Superfoods. The website is wwwmagictreesuperfoodscouk. We currently have a 30% off your first bundle offer running right now, so if you're a listener, you're going to take advantage of that. You can use the code FB30OF and then also on LinkedIn, just as my name and the business name separately. If you want to get in touch there, it's Tor. And then socials Facebook, tiktok, instagram, magic Tree and, of course, Amazing.

Eric Eden: 14:29

Thank you very much, Lee. We appreciate it. I'd like to suggest that everyone share this episode with their friends. People should hear this great story about organic social marketing that founders like Lee are using to grow their business. Thank you very much, Lee.