Plainspeak, a new women’s supplement brand that launched earlier this month, is betting on mail-order sampling to grow subscriptions. The brand launched with a single product, Strength Water, an all-in-one women’s supplement that includes 15 grams of grass-fed protein and five grams of creatine, plus collagen, calcium and vitamin D.
Plainspeak co-founder Sara Brooks told Modern Retail that, having worked as a CPG strategy consultant for years, she knew that launching a wellness brand in today’s noisy climate would require more than just paid advertising.
“We thought, ‘If we can mail a sample sachet directly to people’s mailboxes, we can build an acquisition channel with a different approach than the typical CPG paid media model,’” she said. The way it works is that anyone who direct-messages the brand with requested information, including their address, on Instagram can receive a free single-serve sachet of Plainspeak’s mix. The brand has the prompt in its social media bios and calls it out throughout posts and videos.
This strategy of leveraging basic USPS services and social media has quickly become one of the cornerstones of Plainspeak’s launch phase.
Brooks said the sampling-based acquisition strategy relies on everyday women spreading the word about Plainspeak, rather than influencers. She added that, as platforms like Instagram and TikTok have become littered with ads for GLP-1 medications and red-light therapy targeting women, the founders wanted to avoid getting sucked into the paid ads cycle early on.
