Grow Your Brand like Tealive: 7 Easy Steps

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Would you believe it if we said you could grow your brand by following in the footsteps of Tealive? Tealive, a Malaysian tea company that has also ambitiously expanded worldwide, boasts 600 stores and counting, over 70 different kinds of beverages, AND food— whether it’s savory (popcorn chicken, chicken meatballs, Nasi Lemak chips) or sweet (deli bakes, oh, and their caramel butter popcorn to-go— they’ve got it all (sorry, Chatime, and sorry The Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf Company)…At the moment, this may be Malaysia at its best.

 

But the thing that’s really special about Tealive is what they’ve purposefully done to stand out and stay ahead. In order to create best-selling products, the quality of what you’ve got to offer itself is key, and Tealive understands this. Tealive also understands that strategic partnerships are key to increasing brand awareness, and that whatever their target audience likes is where their focus should be on when implementing marketing campaigns. Without further ado, here are 7 easy ways to grow your brand, inspired by Tealive.

 

Marketing Strategy 1: Ensure the Best Product Quality

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This might sound cliche but no matter how much effort a brand puts into marketing, the products and services offered by the brand have got to be of value to potential customers. We’ve already highlighted how significant product quality is for brand success in our quick article on Steve Jobs and Design. So, if one of the world’s most valuable tech companies prizes the quality first approach to marketing, why shouldn’t you?…

 

And why shouldn’t Tealive? In fact, this quality first approach to marketing may just be the backbone of Tealive’s marketing strategy. For example, Tealive gets their milk from the Australian premium milk company MILKLAB— now, is that the best way to give your customers value or what? 

 

Plus, they’ve got plans to establish a regional research and development center just so that they can focus on creating more and more exciting drinks. So what are you waiting for? Grow your brand by investing in product quality.

 

Marketing Strategy 2: Forge Strategic Partnerships 

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Do we have to tell you that strategic partnerships can be everything to growing your brand? Partnerships not only create opportunities for your brand to learn and grow by virtue of working together with other brands, but they also allow you to utilize resources and expertise that your own brand may not have. All in all, this eventually makes for a better quality product (imagine, working hand-in-hand with people who know their stuff— which is why partnering with social media marketing experts is necessary if you’d like your brand to evolve and succeed).

 

For Tealive, this meant collaborating with WALLS to produce Tealive Boba Milk Tea Ice Cream and offering their ice cream not just at Tealive kiosks and shops but at convenience stores too. In short, you grow your brand when you open yourself up to imagining what you could achieve with others and the endless wonderful possibilities that result from collaboration.

 

Marketing Strategy 3: Go Green

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If you’re a food and beverage brand and haven’t yet included sustainability as an essential part of your marketing strategy, we don’t know what to say. If saving the environment isn’t enough of a reason for your brand to embrace environmentalism— the fact that your competitors are embracing environmental-friendly marketing strategies should wake you up to going green…

 

Just like Tealive, who has gone green by going strawless and utilizing packaging made from food-grade materials. Okay, but a lot of restaurants and cafes have gone strawless, you say. Well, check it out, if you’re a frequent customer, you can purchase their eco tea bag that fits four tealive drinks. In case you’re still finding all this sustainability talk rather mind-boggling, here’s a tip: do anything to reduce plastic use. 

 

Did we also mention their Tealive eco glass tumbler that comes in three lovely shades of blue, pink, and yellow? Providing options is always a great way to grow your brand.

 

Marketing Strategy 4: Reward customers

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Certainly, yet another effective way to grow your brand is by providing customers with deals such as the Every Thursday offer, Yearly Birthday Reward, and the Buy 10 Free 1 deals. Actually, the point-earning system has been used extensively by beverage companies to pull customers in for future purchases. Thus, here we can say that Tealive ensures it is doing what their competitors are doing. 

 

Which means if you want to not only grow your brand but to stay ahead of the competition, you’ve got to be aware of who your competitors are and what they’re doing. Simple, isn’t it? And even more specifically, if you want to stay REALLY ahead of your competitors in 2022, work with renowned social media marketing agencies on your social media branding strategies (incorporating all that competitor information, of course!).

 

Marketing Strategy 5: Create Options 

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It’s true that there are tons of drink options to choose from on their menu, but did you know that they also sell e-Gift cards and make your own Boba sets? Surely, developing new products increases productivity which in turn boosts profitability (more sales in the long run). 

 

However, we think this isn’t the only reason Tealive is fond of creating options…meaning, whenever a new product is released, it actually also does the trick of shaping the minds of their fans, who may gradually start to think to themselves: Tealive sure is interested in giving us a wonderful experience! Let’s stick around. 

 

In short, to grow your brand, pay attention to creating an impactful brand experience— customers feel excited & engaged and will keep your brand in mind when making purchasing decisions. That’s brand loyalty at play, too.

 

Marketing Strategy 6: Prioritize Design

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For any brand to succeed, design should be prioritized. From public posters and billboards to landing pages, websites, merchandise, and product packaging, how all of these look matters more than you think. They speak about your brand to the eyes of your potential customers and do the work of pulling them in to find out more about what you have to offer (interest stage), bringing them closer to the evaluation, engagement, and eventually purchasing stage. In other words, just like copy, design plays a pivotal role in branding and in generating leads and sales.

 

Which is why Tealive left their brand design in the hands of a branding expert who helped bring to life their brand identity using a standard set of brand colors—of purple, teal and yellow, applied throughout their designs be it online or in-store. 

 

For more on design approaches, feel free to check out these 3 incredible brands and how they stand out so that you too can do the same.

 

Marketing Strategy 7: Boost Brand Visibility

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To increase brand visibility, Tealive doesn’t just have in-line stores but kiosks and drive throughs at petrol stations and even has plans to set foot in India— and has already begun to flourish in China, with plans to proliferate into around 500 stores in this world’s second largest economy (expanding internationally is a surefire brand growth strategy). Grow your brand by putting yourself out there and everywhere too.

 

Our Conclusion

If you’re excited to grow your brand, learning from brands like Tealive should be your cup of tea. 600 outlets across Malaysia is one thing — they also make themselves available on multiple food delivery platforms such as foodpanda, shopee food, and grabfood and are quick to offer deals and vouchers. More importantly, like Tealive, your brand should strive to enhance product quality, forge strategic partnerships and collaborations, go green, reward customers, develop more products and services to create more options, prioritize brand design, and boost brand visibility.

 

Just like Tealive, Tinker Society ambitiously strives to keep each brand they work with up-to-date, embracing changes as the world evolves. If you’d like to work with innovative brand strategists that can grow your brand at a fair price, consider collaborating with us.

 

You may also find this article on branding and design trends helpful for your business.