Jon Bausman is the former Director of Marketing at Vitality, a booming athleisure brand headquartered in Denver, CO. His 15+ year marketing career and portfolio of several outdoor brands such as Cabela’s, Columbia Sportswear, Airhead, as well as Eli Lilly & Company, DowAgro Sciences, and Super Bowl 46. In a past life, Jon served as an Entertainment TV Host, starred in Walmart commercials, and was on several episodes of Parks and Rec. He enjoys snowboarding, hiking, camping, and believes quoting movies is his second language.
Key moments in this episode.
3:00 starting out as an actor and moving into marketing through the lens of a social media marketer.
5:30 Moving into Vitality from other brands and the lessons Jon brought.
7:50 Building community and brand
12:30 The importance of founders communicating with customers
16:15 The challenges of building a community
21:00 DTC Brands shifting their expectations with rising costs of acquiring customers
30:00 SEO and fundamentals pay the bills
32:00 Vitality’s approach to data driven analysis
36:00 Is selling wholesale and in market places inevitable?
42:00 Shifting strategies to win when there is no right or wrong answer