How to Have Fun with Marketing with Rob Godwin, Lovehoney

Michelle Lomas: Now I don't host a podcast because I'm expecting to get gifts given to me, but I was very happy to see one turn up in the post from today's guest. Lovehoney is Australia's number one, sexual wellness company. The promotion of sexual wellness and mental health are the main motivating factors for Rob Godwin.

Michelle Lomas: Australasian director of LoveHoney and our guest today on Flex your Hustle. Going from two people, mailing out products from a bedroom to having 65 staff and seven departments, eight years later, the Australian division of LoveHoney is a huge operation. You don't get that kind of growth without there being big demand for what you are offering.

Michelle Lomas: So if there is heaps of demand out there, why is there still a sense of taboo around talking about or promoting sexual wellness products? Why aren't we seeing a sex toy section in Kmart right next to the Ugg Boots? This sense of taboo certainly presents marketing challenges. There are some restrictions in some areas.

Michelle Lomas: Rob is determined to change mainstream perceptions around his products and increase awareness of the fact that using LoveHoney products is not some sort of underground activity it's healthy. And there is no reason to be tentative about talking openly about sex, mental health, and of course, where LoveHoney can help.

Michelle Lomas: Rob knows he's spreading his message with significant support behind him. 600,000 orders get placed per year in Australia and LoveHoney has 300,000 customer reviews and actually it is with reviews, or, should I say one review in particular that I start my conversation with Rob in this episode.

Michelle Lomas: So you generously sent me one of your best sellers, and it was off the back of a great review as well.

Michelle Lomas: One of your best you've said, and I've got it in front of me and I can't read it all out because it's way too long. So my favorite part.

Michelle Lomas: "Having read everyone's reviews, I had high expectations, but with the price being under $50, I wasn't exactly going to be shocked if it was mediocre. A few friends of mine brought it recently and told me of its power.

Michelle Lomas: I was warned to take the day off, hydrate and above all, do some stretches. As with any new toy, it's trial and error. I started the clit one on low, which I barely even felt unbeknownst to me it wasn't lined up 100%. So me being me, I decided to go from zero to 60 in 3.5 seconds. I hit the suction button setting to level five or six and hit the G spot button as well and made a minor adjustment.

Michelle Lomas: At least, I think that's what happened because I'm pretty sure I blacked out my legs went straight out like those goats who faint went scared. I never came so fast and so hard in my life. Brilliant.

Rob Godwin: So that was your review?

Michelle Lomas: Yes, the, the, the fainting goats that, that got me that review, but yes. Thank you so much. Yeah, you do describe yourself as someone who's in the business of making people happy. Why don't you explain a little bit about that to me?

Rob Godwin: So, yeah, Rob, uh, Managing Director LoveHoney Australia with LoveHoney group. Uh, should I say for, uh, uh, APAC and yeah, my job is to, um, bring more orgasms to the world and I think the world would be a far happier brightful place.

Rob Godwin: Uh, if we had better and a higher quality, um, orgasms, really? So, uh, that's my job. I just facilitate our team in, uh, in making that purpose and that mission successful. I've got the best job in the world.

Michelle Lomas: Well, I think you've kind of undersold yourself a little bit, cuz I'm gonna read out a couple of points here.

Michelle Lomas: Well, LoveHoney is Australia's number one, sexual wellness company with 300,000 customer reviews and 17,000 reviews on trust pilot ranking on 4.7, you ship over 600,000 orders per year, which is close to 2 million items. That's a lot of happy people in Australia. You've won numerous awards. Best online retailer innovation champion awards, excellence in retail awards, including yourself, winning an award as number three in the top 50 people in eCommerce in the country, the queen has recognized LoveHoney.

Michelle Lomas: In 2016 and also 2021 for her highest business award for international commerce. And to top it all off, you merged with wow tech in 2021 to create a 1.2 billion dollar business. Did I miss anything?

Rob Godwin: Yes, we have dogs in the office. Ah, uh, we have some beautiful dogs. My boy Frankie Lampard. That comes in every day and we are most importantly, number one point is we are the LoveHoney family, and that's, even though we're a big multi-million dollar business and we're market leaders, we still are very humble and very appreciative of the family environment we have here.

Rob Godwin: And, uh, the success we have. So, uh, but that's a good summary.

Michelle Lomas: So let's talk a little bit about that story. Like any humble startup you started in your home, you know, sending stuff out and packing stuff out in your spare bedroom. So let's run through what your journey's been over the last eight years and how you've scaled.

Rob Godwin: So you rewind to 2013, uh, Rich and Neal who founded LoveHoney in the UK, they were just friends of us. I was the CEO of Sexpo and ClubX stores. And we just used to hang out. We both, all Pommies we'd hang out in LA's shows and Vegas. And, uh, if ever they were gonna do something Australia they'd do it with us and vice versa.

Rob Godwin: So we launched a few products over here. And then they rang me one day and said, we need help for a brand we're gonna launch or try to win the license for, and that was "50 Shades of Grey" and we collectively won the license, launched it with great success and, um, yeah. Went to market with that. And I just pestered them to turn the website on over here.

Rob Godwin: So we did business to business and then said, really, you've got some great USP's in terms of 24/7 customer service, your product range is superb. You're aimed at the female couples audience. None of which which was catered for in Australia said it will be successful. And their reply was "no, Australia's too small".

Rob Godwin: You've only got 30 million people. So why bother? And I, after six months of basically jabbing them in the ribs going. Do it, they eventually turned it on and we missed 70 phone calls in the first weekend. So they said, uh, I think you're right. How quickly could you start an office? So a week later, we put in a phone line back in the old days of actual phone lines and we had a couple of desktops and one person flew out from in England.

Rob Godwin: And we started from our spare bedroom. And then unfortunately, a couple, well, most of the offices we tried to hire wouldn't hire us because they would Google me and said I was a pornographer. And therefore, why do we want to give a company like LoveHoney space. Now through a friend of a friend, we managed to get a small office.

Rob Godwin: And within nine months we moved to bigger office and within 18 months, and we moved to our warehouse now. Now we are 5,000 square metres. We have 67 staff. We operate 7 days a week. We've got 24/7 customer service, and you can order a product in Sydney or in Melbourne as you did the other day and we can deliver it to you next day by 5:30.

Rob Godwin: If you place the order by 5:30, we'll deliver it to you next day. So that's pretty cool, uh, USP's for, for our business and, and everything we do is geared around a customer. So every process we do, every kind of strategy we try to implement. We put the customer first. We don't fit the customer around a business.

Rob Godwin: We fit the business around a customer. And I think that's where we won, like national retailer association, innovation champion, best online retailer, uh, Australia Post ORIA, Retail Global's excellence in retail. And obviously the small one from the queen.

Michelle Lomas: Just that little one,

Rob Godwin: just the twice, twice, twice.

Rob Godwin: Yeah. Two time, two time.

Michelle Lomas: Have you sent the queen a gift? That would be an interesting story to tell.

Rob Godwin: Um, I sent, um, Christine Holgate from the ex-CEO of Australia Post a welcome to LoveHoney love hamper. When she joined.

Michelle Lomas: You did not!.

Rob Godwin: I see. . Yeah. Cause if, if I can't do it, who could, um, and what I didn't realize was that any gift you get Australia Post, you have to declare to Canberra.

Rob Godwin: So she, she had to declare, uh, a Fifty Shades of Grey Greedy Girl. A LoveHoney, um, magic wand, um, some strawberry lubricant. And some massage oil, oh, and when they opened the Redbank, new 30 million distribution centre, I got invited along as a the biggest customer of Australia Post in Northern Brisbane. And, uh, I had this tap on the shoulder saying, um, are you Rob from LoveHoney?

Rob Godwin: It was Christine. And she went, this is before the Cartier, um, incident, shall we say where ScoMo, God, rest his soul. And, um, yeah, she tapped me on the shoulder and said, you, you caused great amusement and laughter in our department. So thank you very much.

Michelle Lomas: Excellent. Excellent. I wonder if that came up in the court case and what were these ones?

Michelle Lomas: These 50 Shades of Grey,

Rob Godwin: certainly not worth $50,000 each, but, um, uh, a lot more pleasurable than, uh, I watch.

Michelle Lomas: The one thing I think that you forgot to mention in all of your wonderful ways that you drive customer centricity is, um, your 100 day money back, which I was very pleasantly surprised to see in my pack. If it does not give me sexual happiness, I can come back to you and you'll give your money back.

Michelle Lomas: That's a pretty bold thing to do.

Rob Godwin: Well, our, our view is, is not on the here, sell it now. That's it done. We want that lifetime value for a customer, for them to have confidence, not only when they buy it, but when they have it. So it really, we, we, we are going over and above the, um, should we say the consumer rights because essentially this is such a personal range of products. It's such a, um, an intimate, uh, relationship that we, we are giving essentially we are delivering orgasms. We are delivering some really beautiful products. And if you don't back 'em, then you're not really fully supporting your, your product range. So if it doesn't satisfy you for the full 100 days, we should be giving the money back to you because you're not satisfied.

Rob Godwin: And the most costly exercise is getting new customers. What, what people tend to kind of not focus enough on is retention. And that's where we do an awful lot with Commission Factory through our affiliate program and through other channels as well is to encourage longevity is to encourage the repeat business.

Rob Godwin: Cause you don't so much work in getting great affiliates on board who share your brand values. Getting good customers on board. You wanna keep 'em and backing up your quality, backing up the performance. We'd rather you send something back. If you're not happy and we'll replace, it'll give you a full credit and keep you happy than for you just to go, oh, I wasn't happy with LoveHoney, and then not communicate with us.

Rob Godwin: And that's why we have 24/7 customer service as well. So I think all retailers should be doing this but we're again, leading the way. Should we say.

Michelle Lomas: You mentioned affiliate marketing and some of the partnerships that you're building there in terms of driving lifetime value. Tell me a little bit about the, the affiliates and some of the partnerships that are successful for you.

Rob Godwin: So we do with a number of publications. We'll do some affiliate relationships where they carry coverage or reports from LoveHoney. So we'll give them some exclusive content or write some blogs with them. And that's kind of like repositioning that affiliate channel in very purposeful and effective way that you can create great content and you can create content, which the readers wanna read, but also you can actually generate revenue for your affiliate partner.

Rob Godwin: As well as LoveHoney. So it's a win, win, win in terms of the consumer gets some really good information. The media publications get some great content and, um, some sales. And so do we, and that three way relationship of each of those 3 parties has to win for it to be a, a longstanding relationship. And I think we've been very successful in the content.

Rob Godwin: We, we try to position LoveHoney without sounding crass, minimal tits and ass shall we say? And I know my marketing manager are gonna be slapping me from, uh, afar, but in a way, um, by not being salacious by not being, by trying to attract that middle market, like couples demographic. By being more purposeful in actually what it does, how it's gonna benefit you and why you should buy it, rather than just having a sales, sales, sales mentality, or price mentality.

Rob Godwin: We're about content. And that's where that affiliate media relationship has been highly successful. Uh, for us. So with Commission Factory, we did a really good media day just before COVID where we invited the top 30 press to our office, Commission Factory did some presentations. And from that we've had essentially lasting relationships from working collectively with our affiliate partners.

Michelle Lomas: That's excellent. And I know you have your challenges from a marketing perspective, which is obviously why affiliates is such an important channel for you. Let's talk about that for a second, because you are classified as a category that is unable to access a lot of traditional marketing. So you do have to get a little bit creative with your marketing. What does your traditional marketing plan look like?

Rob Godwin: Um, well, first of all, um, Mr. Zuckerberg, uh, uh, is not on my Christmas card list and nor am I on, on his. We cannot promote our posts on Instagram or Facebook now where most businesses who attract our core demographic would spend the vast majority of their cash on social media.

Rob Godwin: We can't. So therefore we have to look at how we, how to distribute our media spend in a, in another way. So a lot of it is through co-ordinated uh, online and above the line. So we still do a lot of TV, uh, a lot of radio, and we do an overlap with our affiliate channels, uh, with our PR channels as well. But we also do some pretty cool, funky stuff.

Rob Godwin: Like last month we did, um, fashion week. So AfterPay Australian Fashion Week and we aligned with the top, uh, fashion designer and she did her runway with all the models wearing sex toys. So where you have like, uh, rings, vibrating rings and little bullets, they all walked the catwalk with them, wearing them as normal that got over 250 publications worldwide.

Rob Godwin: We had about 1.4 million dollar media value of exposure. And the ROI of that was astronomically high, but it just shows you, you gotta, as Gabby who founded Catch said, there's a front door, there's a back door and there's a door you haven't found yet in terms of getting that message out. And so sometimes you might come across your front door being closed.

Rob Godwin: Um, with social media, but you'll find another door. You've just gotta find it. And I love that. That's what we do pretty pretty

Michelle Lomas: well. Yeah. I love, I love that. I'm gonna use that. That's a great, that's a great quote. Yeah, it's really interesting. I loved what you did at fashion week. Very impactful. I'd love to dive into that a little bit because while sex toys are sort of in that conversation around sex health is definitely becoming more mainstream.

Michelle Lomas: And particularly with the younger generation or much more open to have the conversation as well. Um, it's still considered risqué and I, I even reference that great, you got great media exposure. I, I saw your news.com articles, but it still had X-rated on it and they tried to make it salacious. And so I'm just curious how you went about it.

Michelle Lomas: Like, how did you find a designer that was brave enough to take it on? And how did you end up with this collaboration?

Rob Godwin: Um, I think the general idea behind these things, when you get knocked back, people say, what do you do? How do you cope with, you know, like we get our radio ads, you know, we, we weren't allowed to use the word "vibrating" the other day on radio it's like, come on, come on. What static toys, you know? Um, so it's like in our reply to our media agency going "really, really are we actually now precluding the word vibrating from our radio adverts". So I think with like the fashion week example is actually to, to, to push your brand.

Rob Godwin: If you get knocked back and people say, what do you do? I go, I do more, you do more advertising. You do more of other line. You do more brand awareness, you're into more events or awards, et cetera, to get that we are normal. We've just launched with last year with the Adore Beauty with Flora and Fauna with the Somewhere company, we're about to launch with a massive, uh, department store as well.

Rob Godwin: That brings our brand to the mainstream where you slowly but surely reduce down the negativity or the salacious. The World Health Organization states that having a positive sex life is a human right. Therefore, what we are doing is helping actually people, you know, we, we did a research project during COVID where 75 out of a 3000 respondents, 75% identified having a good sex life as having reflects on having a good overall health.

Rob Godwin: Um, but vastly important was, uh, 25% identified as having good sex life equals a good mental health, uh, life as well. So these things are in intrinsically linked. So therefore when you, you reach out to people, you gotta find people that wanna work with you. So Karla Spetic superb designer, but she was like, yeah, it's cool.

Rob Godwin: Let's do something. And, and as soon as you do, you, you, you go outside of the norm. Then there's that kind of collective of me too, is that I wanna do that as well. Like for example, we do a lot of work with Bump'n, which is a disability charity, which is making the first disability toy designed by disability users for disability customers.

Rob Godwin: And that's cool. That's so cool. Now, are we gonna make any money out of it? Unlikely, but it's not a question of, yeah. Should we do this? It's why haven't we done this? And that's where again, you're pushing the brand. So it's not just that you're catering for a very, um, growing, uh, niche, uh, area of disability and everyone.

Rob Godwin: Whether you're able bodied or disabled deserves a good positive sex life, but also it's the knock on effect. It's a cue to us where able bodied people as well as disabled people will actually turn and go "actually, that's pretty cool". So you might not have a direct sell out the most immediate time of launching these products, but you're lifting the profile of your business.

Michelle Lomas: I wanna ask you a little bit about some of the things that haven't worked for you. We love a bit of failure conversation on this podcast and hearing some of the things that didn't work and what you did about it. What have you got that maybe didn't work out as well as you were hoping it would?

Rob Godwin: I think the great Daily Mail sex toy tester fiasco is a, is a cracker. Um, we had a, a NewsCorp journalist did a tour of the warehouse. We did, uh, a great illustration of our same day delivery service, uh, how we can ship products to you late in the day and you get the next day and the range of new products and new innovation we have. And in talking to one of our customer service agency, reporter was asking her questions and she as a matter of course, she said, yeah. As part of our jobs, we get to test toys for free and which we do, we give to our staff, if we have a product, which we needs testing, we'll give it to them. If they can write an articulate review. Fantastic. It's good for them. Good for us. And so she was describing how she does this and, um, as part of it, they asked her how much she got paid, which she illustrated as well.

Rob Godwin: So NewsCorp ran a great article, also leading article in that year, uh, bar none, which is fantastic. And then the Daily Mail next day ran a headline. I get paid $70,000 to test sex toys and that got syndicated around the world. And so from a story about customer service and our key delivery USP's, et cetera, it turned out to be regurgitated into, I get paid a lot of money to test sex toys, to the degree where she was on the 6:00pm live New Zealand news. And she was syndicated in every single publication news publication in Australia and around the world. Now, whilst that receives a huge spike in traffic and a huge spike in sales, it wasn't quite on brand. We are not here to, shall we say triumph, how much we get paid and us testing toys.

Rob Godwin: We'd rather promote the 300,000 customer reviews. Or the trust pilot reviews, rather than us paying people to test products say it wasn't on-brand. Um, but sometimes a story can get, uh, blown up and you can't really control it. It just gotta be mindful of who you do. Good collaborations with new stories with.

Rob Godwin: So, yeah, uh, whilst it was good for sales, it wasn't quite, uh, as controlled as we wanted to be.

Michelle Lomas: It's really interesting that story, because I think most marketers would say. That was the success story. Look at all the exposure that we got. Okay. It wasn't quite quite what we wanted, but you know, the, the brand awareness, whereas you would look at that as a failure because I feel like your brand and your brand positioning and how you're perceived in market is so important to you.

Rob Godwin: Yes.

Michelle Lomas: Um, to really make sure that the narrative is right to where you want it to be and how you want your customers to feel coming to your site and buying your products.

Rob Godwin: The, the narrative is the customer. The narrative is sexual happiness and sexual wellbeing. And the narrative is them enjoying their experience with LoveHoney, not us.

Michelle Lomas: Look, you've got so much experience in e-com. You've built a lot of successful businesses. For the marketers listening what's some advice that you would love to give them in terms of growth and, you know, growing their audiences?

Michelle Lomas: It's very simple. One key element should always consider, be authentic or just, don't like, literally you have to, whether you're selling insurance, whether you're doing dentistry.

Michelle Lomas: Within sex toys, whatever apparel, just, you've gotta be authentic. You've gotta believe in your brand and just cut the bullshit. And it sounds a bit crass, but it really is. Consumers see through that, consumers are hyper intelligent. They you've just gotta be truthful to your brand. Um, promote the, the authentic elements of who make, what makes you, who you are.

Michelle Lomas: And you stick to that. You're gonna get success. You deviate from that. You try and be something you are not, you're gonna get found out very, very quickly. So just be authentic and be you.

Michelle Lomas: Yeah, I love that. And I feel, you know, as a business, as we've talked and chatted about the ins and outs of your business and your, that sort of customer centricity, I feel like you have driven that authenticity across every facet of the business, from the distribution, the packaging, the delivery, the website, experience, the content, the affiliates, everything.

Michelle Lomas: And maybe that's something that many marketers lack. Because, so many different divisions handle so much stuff, you know, I'll, there's a different team for that. There's not always that consistency, but I think by the sounds of it, you've put a lot of effort and importance in that, and that's really shown/

Rob Godwin: Thank you very much. I really do appreciate that. And I really do appreciate, um, your time today. And I'm so glad you're in our group of testing products now as well.

Michelle Lomas: Well, you know, off the back of this, I owe you a review. You will see me there. I, I will, I, I don't think I can beat that review with the goat legs, but I will try and be as creative, as fun and as clever as possible.

Michelle Lomas: And, um, you've got a lifetime customer in me, so thank you. I will go home and talk to my husband and have a good conversation about what we would like to try next. So. I really appreciate it. And I appreciate you Rob, and thank you so much for, uh, joining us today.

Rob Godwin: My pleasure. Thank you for having LoveHoney today much appreciated.

Michelle Lomas: So interesting to hear from someone who has to sometimes work around normal marketing channels, because some people have issues with the products. I don't know about you, but I think we should be past the time when talking about sex toys and other sexual aids is scandalous. It's 2022!