How to Build a Billion-Dollar Business

CHAPTER 14CRACKING THE CODE

The campaign launched and whoosh! Sales took off like a rocket. In fact, sales doubled. We'd never seen anything like it. Through continuous iteration, refinement and adaptation, we had discovered the precise combination that consistently yielded exceptional results. Our modus operandi was to find out what worked, keep that, drop what didn't work and keep going. Our dedication to finding the optimal mix was the driving force behind our ability to deliver outstanding outcomes for our retailers.

How prizes and exclusivity drove sales

We partnered with Chemist Warehouse to launch a series of exclusive promotions. One hugely successful campaign was the exclusive promotion we held during the Australian Formula 1 Grand Prix. (This campaign occurred quite a bit later in our Swisse journey, but it's worth mentioning here as it demonstrates clearly how our success was not due to one critical factor or strategy, but was the result of a combination of a wide range of integrated factors. When combined, they delivered a result that exceeded the sum of their individual contributions. As we delivered more and more campaigns, we got better at finetuning the components to generate better results.)

The pitch was simple: buy a Swisse product and win the chance to attend the Italian Grand Prix, get VIP access to the track and have dinner with the legendary F1 driver Mark Webber. This was a pretty impressive prize by any measure and the racing crowd loved it. This ...