Challenge

Did you know that Americans consume an average of 13% of their total calories from added sugars? This is significantly higher than the CDC’s recommended limit of less than 10%. Studies show that reducing sugar can improve your attention span by up to 15%, which is why Amy Cohn, Founder of Joydays, made it her mission to launch a cookie business with healthier recipes than you’re likely to find anywhere else. Many merchants prioritize their look and feel over product quality, but Joydays’ fun and modern branding came second to the healthiness of their sweet treats.

The challenge that Joydays faced, however, was driving trial. Many consumers are enthusiastic about the prospect of healthy desserts while others are more wary. This latter group might fear that sweets made with healthier ingredients won’t taste as good or that higher-quality products will increase the price beyond what they’re used to paying for cookies. Joydays saw an opportunity in Thingtesting’s business platform to get through to this sector while expanding their reach.

Solution

Many factors about Thingtesting initially appealed to Joydays, including our fun and curated feel, the number of other brands on our platform, and, most importantly, our loyal audience and unique character. As Cohn puts it, Thingtesting is an excellent place to discover brands because unlike platforms like Amazon — which are simply places to purchase — we have a broad community of users who want to try new things and support early-stage businesses. As such, Thingtesting possesses more of a VC-like ethos. Cohn explains:

“People on Thingtesting are so much more forgiving because they understand the challenges of an early-stage startup, which is particularly important in the food and beverage space. So many brands are clamoring for certain demographics they think they’ll appeal to, but Thingtesting’s audience isn’t pigeonholed demographically because it’s made of consumers of all ages and backgrounds who want to test new products.”

Joydays also notes that Thingtesting was ideal because we don’t have a high minimum spend. Starting merchants don’t have tens of thousands of dollars that other platforms charge, so our fair pricing empowered Joydays to expand their marketing efforts without financial strain. Thingtesting was thus able to serve as a sort of “incubator” capacity, building the brand while they collected feedback from customers that they could use to steer product development.

Results

Joydays launched multiple successful Thingtesting campaigns. The brand was able to:

🍪 Gross $8,000+ in sales

🍪 Collect 370+ reviews

🍪 Collect 790+ survey responses

Joydays also found particular value in the feedback that customers would leave. Shoppers on other platforms often don’t recognize that human beings are behind the brands they’re reviewing and are more inclined to leave unhelpful feedback, but Thingtesting humanizes the brands that use our solution. Reviews and survey responses provided Joydays with insight that it can continue to use to improve its cookies.

When asked about Joyday’s Thingtesting strategy, Cohn says that they didn’t do anything out of the ordinary — the secret was in how far the Thingtesting community reaches. The brand didn’t have to stick to the typical metro playbook because our community is a testament to how modern brands can succeed with rural audiences. Plus, the responsibility of marketing and creating lists usually falls on a merchant, so tapping into an existing and widely distributed audience was key to saving time, effort, and money.

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