Why Lemon Perfect is supplying bachelorette parties with free products
To the dismay of many brands, videos of influencers giving people tips on how to get free products for their bachelorette parties are currently going viral on TikTok.
Hydration brand Lemon Perfect, however, is seeing this trend as an opportunity to drive trial and brand awareness. The company set up a page on its website in January where people can submit their requests for free products. Now, the company receives almost 100 requests per day.
It’s not unusual for people to ask brands or celebrities for free gifts on special occasions like bachelorette parties, weddings or birthdays. However, some brands have instead opted to give discount codes or set limits around how many free items they could give away to brides. Lemon Perfect, on the other hand, sees this trend as a chance to acquire new customers.
“When people go to a bachelorette party, they’re looking for a really fun environment to celebrate their bride and or their groom, and they are often making content,” said Richa Anand, Lemon Perfect’s senior director of brand marketing. “I firmly believe that once people try the product and see how much opportunity there is with Lemon Perfect as a part of their regular day or their event or whatever it might be, they will become a fan.”
Lemon Perfect, which offers hydrating lemon water, began rolling out in retail stores in 2019. The company offers seven flavors — including original lemon, dragon fruit mango and watermelon — which are available in stores like Costco, Giant and 7-Eleven. Lemon Perfect has doubled its revenue year-over-year, and in 2023, it projected sales to hit over $60 million in retail sales. In 2022, Beyoncé Knowles-Carter became a backer in Lemon Perfect’s $31 million Series A funding round.
For budding beverage companies, one of the biggest hurdles is to get people to test out your brand. So when the company began to see more brides send direct messages to the company a few months ago, Lemon Perfect saw it as their chance to bump up their brand awareness by creating a designated page for these requests. To request products, people have to share links to their social media, the purpose of the event and how many guests will be at their events, among other information. The company has since supplied products to 12-person bachelorette parties to formal events with up to 500 people.
The company said it is unable to track whether this initiative has impacted revenue. “Our sales overnight are continuing to trend how they have been whether or not we are doing this,” Anand said. “What we’re building with these communities across the board across any of these types of events will then relate to sales in the future.”
Anand said the company doesn’t have any specific requirements when it comes to which requests they choose to fulfill. However, the company does request brides and their bridal party to post content with Lemon Perfect products. When the company fulfills requests, it sends a handwritten note and a personalized bachelorette discount code alongside the products.
“I think anybody can be influential in their own communities and their own friend groups,” Anand said. “If you have a bachelorette party and you’ve got 2,000 followers, you should be able to have Lemon Perfect at your event just as much as somebody who’s larger because I can’t always count on somebody with a larger following to post it.” The company will then repost the user-generated content on its own social media pages.
Alessandro Bogliari, CEO and co-founder of marketing firm The Influencer Marketing Factory, said that jumping on TikTok trends can be a cost-efficient way to generate buzz around a brand. Since the company already has existing products, shipping is the only additional cost this initiative would incur. Brands that are launching new products could also use this tactic to get people to taste it, he said.
“It’s still PR for you,” Bogliari said. “Instead of maybe having to pay for a post that sometimes can cost you anywhere from a few hundred dollars to thousands of dollars, you’re basically only taking the cost of the product.” However, he said that brands should also take the time to vet the people they are sending products to to avoid people taking advantage of the situation.
When asked how many of these requests Lemon Perfect ends up filling, Anand said that the company is attempting to say yes to most of the people sending requests. She said that while the company encourages people to post, the goal is exposure.
“Ultimately, I just want people to be able to be exposed to Lemon Perfect and see that there’s a better-for-you option out there,” she said.