INNOVATION & GROWTH
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The Munro Beanie: Four ways to start building a loyal customer base
Founder Jo Dytch explains how a good brand story, a personal touch and fully understanding her customers’ needs helped her grow her fledgling e-commerce business
Average reading time: 6 minutes
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Executive summary
Your size may be a key selling point when building a customer base.
Adding a personal touch to customer service or product recommendations can help you stand out early on.
A high-quality product will encourage customers to return and buy again.
Ensuring that your products are well-made with fine raw materials is a good starting point.
Tap into a passionate community to build your customer base.
For example, Jo Dytch’s knowledge of hillwalking has helped her grow sales and develop new products.
Team up with similar businesses on marketing campaigns.
This can allow you to expand your customer base while building a useful network of like-minded business owners.
Jo Dytch found the idea for her e-commerce company in an unexpected place. Having not long moved home to Scotland, Dytch had taken up hillwalking and begun the challenge of climbing all of Scotland’s peaks over 3,000 feet high, known as Munros after the 19th century mountaineer Sir Hugh Munro.
“A friend’s father said to me over lunch, ‘Now you’re climbing the Munros, are you going to start putting a stitch in your bonnet every time you climb one?’ There’s an old tradition in Scotland where hillwalkers would stitch a red cross in their hat every time they climb a Munro to count the number they’d done,” she explains.
The conversation sparked the idea for a business selling woollen hats designed with this tradition in mind, although it wasn’t until three years later, in autumn 2020, that she turned the idea into a reality.
Jo Dytch’s passion for hillwalking helped her to tap into a niche market and build a base of enthusiastic customers early on.
The result is the Munro Beanie, a lambswool hat decorated with 282 white crosses – one for each Munro in Scotland. The beanies come with red wool, which the wearer can use to stitch a red cross each time they climb a peak. “I wanted to basically bring that historical tradition back to life,” Dytch says. “So I called a few mills and spoke to one who could send me some samples, and I gave them an idea of what I wanted.”
Launching as an e-commerce business enabled Dytch to test the idea with little risk. The mill allowed her to place an initial order for just 20 hats, and her upfront website costs were minimal. Starting out during the pandemic also worked to her advantage. As the mill was quieter than usual, the team was able to take on additional orders at short notice.
Just over a year on, the Munro Beanies have found customers up and down the UK. Customer numbers have increased 100% since January 2021. Meanwhile, the e-commerce model has allowed Dytch to continue testing out new products, buying in low quantities and tracking how popular they are with her customers.
It’s still early days for the business, however Dytch has a built a loyal customer base from scratch and with little budget. She explains the lessons she’s learned along the way.
1
Use your size to your advantage
Following the pandemic, consumers are more motivated to shop with small and local businesses. One survey of UK consumers conducted in 2021 found that half of respondents said they were more likely to support small businesses compared to before the pandemic.1
And for Dytch, playing up her status as an independent brand selling a Scottish product proved to be a good way to build up a customer base . “People think, ‘it’s a small Scottish-owned business, I want to support it’,” she says. “I have definitely found more of that than I was expecting.”
Working with a local supplier to produce the hats was a priority for Dytch when she was first starting the company, and the Scottish Borders region is known for its wool mills. “I was really keen to know that the beanies were being made in Scotland, because there has got to be some authenticity there and it’s a nice part of the story,” she says.
Part of the appeal, she says, is the personal touch when it comes to customer service. “I think with a small business, people like to talk to a human,” says Dytch. “Having that personal approach, especially with the business the size that it is now, will in itself generate customer loyalty.”
2
Don’t underestimate the power of a quality product
When it comes to marketing, the tools available may have become vastly more varied and sophisticated in last 20 years, but sometimes age-old tactics can prove just as powerful when building a customer base . For as many as nine in 10 consumers, recommendations from friends and family trump any other form of advertising.2
Dytch says that a lot of her customers have found her through recommendations from friends. She puts that down to having a high-quality product – which she admits she almost stumbled across by accident when the samples she was sent by the mill exceeded her expectations. “People have been very complimentary about the actual product,” she explains. “If it’s a scratchy hat and it doesn’t fit properly, people aren’t going to wear them and then they’re not going to tell their friends. The actual product is lovely, and based on that I get a lot of recommendations.”
The high quality also encourages customers to come back and buy another hat, perhaps as gifts for loved ones. “I’ve definitely had repeat business in that way,” says Dytch.
"Having that personal approach when the business is small will generate customer loyalty"
3
Find your “tribe” of core customers and tap into their passion
Being part of a niche interest group helped Dytch expand her customer base in the early months of the business. When launching the beanie, she found her first customers on Facebook groups dedicated to hillwalking or “Munro bagging” (the term for climbing all 282 Munros). “It’s nice to know that the business is being run by somebody who’s interested in what these people are interested in,” she says.
Being a passionate hillwalker herself also helps when it comes to thinking of new products, or the kind of content to publish on the website. One product she has added is the Munro Baggers Kit Bag, which contains the essentials for safe hillwalking, such as a survival blanket and whistle.
“People were coming to the website [to buy a hat] and saying, ‘I just got this for my daughter, she’s just climbed her first Munro,’ and I thought maybe there’s a gap in the market for [an essentials kit],” Dytch explains. “There are a lot of people now coming to the hills totally new. If I’d been given this when I started it would have been very useful.”
4
Approach complementary brands and support each other
Working together with other businesses in a similar space can have several advantages, such as helping build brand awareness among your respective audiences, or allowing you to share knowledge with like-minded business owners.
In the run up to Christmas 2021, Dytch decided to run a campaign over 12 days, promoting a virtual hamper which included various products and experiences for hillwalkers. She called on contacts that she’d made through her day job (Dytch works in events) as well as other small businesses she’d come across since launching the Munro Beanie.
“Or brands that I knew from being a hillwalker myself, that I’d followed for a while,” she adds. “I just reached out to several them on Instagram and asked if they wanted to put a prize in my hamper. And from them I’ve had some lovely feedback, to say that people loved it and [they would] love to do more.”
Looking to get started in e-commerce? Get insight and expert tips in reaching your next e-commerce goal with The E-commerce Playbook from FedEx.
Disclaimer: The information provided on this page does not constitute legal, tax, finance, accounting, or trade advice, but is designed to provide general information relating to business and commerce. The FedEx Small Business Hub content, information, and services are not a substitute for obtaining the advice of a competent professional, for example a licensed attorney, law firm, accountant, or financial adviser.
Sources
1. The Future of Small Business | Vistaprint, 2021
2. Word of Mouth Marketing in 2021 | BigCommerce
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