Contents
- Who is Grace Beverley?
- How Did Grace Beverley Start Her Business Empire?
- How did Tala Start?
- Who is Tala’s Target Audience?
- What is Tala’s Marketing Strategy?
- Why is Tala a Good Case Study?
Who is Grace Beverley?
Grace Beverley is the epitome of modern entrepreneurism. From humble origins as an Oxford undergrad making fitness content, she went on to establish three wildly successful brands in quick succession, as well as write a book, run a weekly podcast, and claim her place on Forbes Top 30 Under 30 – all by her current age of 27.
Grace demonstrates that these days, business empires don’t take decades to build. The maturity and symbiosis of social media and ecommerce systems mean that with the right product, brand, market awareness and strategy, you can reach stratospheric levels of success in very short timescales.
In an age of multiplying celebrity product lines and indie brand disruptors, we already know that entrepreneurs don’t need to pick a lane and stick to it. However, Grace Beverley demonstrates that with vision – with the right strategy – there’s really no limit to the diversity of successful business ventures that one mind can be behind.
More than anything, Grace shows us that modern entrepreneurism is often shaped and driven by personality: brand success emerges where personal passions meet market opportunity. From exercise bands to sustainable gym wear, productivity planners and written reflections on hustle culture itself, Grace Beverley keeps turning facets of her lifestyle into thriving businesses.
How Did Grace Beverley Start Her Business Empire?
Grace began regularly uploading to YouTube and Instagram under the handle GraceFit, at the age of 18 – with a regular stream of lifestyle content and a fitness focus, she steadily built a following of more than half a million, establishing herself as one of the leading fitness influencers in the UK.
In interviews, Beverley credits the inspiration for her first business venture, B_AND, to the frustration she felt when navigating the limited range of exercise band products on the UK market. With a choice between cheap, rubbery bands and expensive professional models, she identified a clear gap in the market – because she was the customer.
Social media influencers are increasingly finding themselves in prime position to establish successful businesses:
- They have an almost unparalleled understanding of the competition, from products to price points, limitations and strengths, all through their work using, reviewing and discussing leading solutions in their niche.
- They have a rich, two-way relationship with their target market. Not only do audiences feed influencer understanding of pain points and priorities, but consumers look in turn to them specifically for advice on what products to choose and lifestyle habits to adopt.
- They have a ready-made, powerful and low cost marketing channel: organic social
Beverley’s start as a social influencer gave her all these things, plus another critical element – with good earnings from influencer partnerships and from the platforms themselves, she had an independent source of early capital.
This allowed her to launch B_ND in the middle of her undergraduate degree, and TALA just before her finals, both – crucially – without external funding. Without the need for immediate investors, and the demands and delays they can sometimes bring, Grace could act with agility and creativity. The results speak for themselves.
How did Tala Start?
Emerging against the backdrop of the Covid-19 lockdowns, TALA capitalised on the seismic shift in online fitness culture that Beverley had already been riding for some time. TALA launched itself into the incredibly competitive niche of activewear, looking to carve out a space among the likes of Nike, Adidas, Gymshark and Lululemon.
Despite an apparent wealth of consumer options, Grace and others in her community were frustrated by the lack of sustainable, ethical choices that didn’t break the bank. TALA was born to bring together functionality and environmental responsibility in activewear, which continues to be the brand’s flagship value to this day.
Delivering sustainability while keeping prices competitive was key to the brand’s survival. Beverley shrewdly identified that the market was broadly composed of high-end sustainable brands on one end, and fast-fashion behemoths on the other. The untapped market in the middle had to be accessed via compromise – Grace explains how:
“There were tiny compromises we could make. For example, by making the activewear 2% less sustainable, in terms of the material we’re using, we were able to halve the price.”
TALA’s early days are an exemplary case study of business bootstrapping in the social age. The brand had a marketing budget of zero for its first year. Just by building an organic social following, they achieved over £6 million in sales over that same period.
With re-investment of early profits, combined with Grace’s influencer earnings and smart cost avoidance practices, they could scale rapidly. TALA originally launched as a licensed brand through a manufacturing partner who specialised in influencer-led brands, but in 2021 they were able to cut ties and become fully independent.
This wasn’t just a break from a business partner. Beverley wanted to divorce the brand entirely from its influencer-dependent model, aiming instead to build a lasting athleisure brand built on innovation and endurance.
Who is Tala’s Target Audience?
TALA’s market are primarily Millennial and Gen Z women. These women want quality activewear that lasts and feels luxurious, all without eye-watering price tags.
TALA customers are active, ethically minded, and want to wear products that are as good for their body as the planet. The company specialises in meeting this need for affordable sustainability through its use of upcycled and reused materials, involving everything from factory offcuts to blends of recycled material like elastane and lycra.
Most importantly, TALA customers want activewear that really works for their bodies and lifestyles. TALA believes they’re the leader of the pack in this department, for one reason especially: TALA doesn’t just make clothes for women, it’s run by women.
With 75% of board seats and leadership positions held by women, as well as majority ownership by women, the company has no trouble staying perfectly in tune with the needs of its female customers.
This shared identity between company and customer is reflected in everything, from product design to a marketing strategy that manages to hit the perfect notes pretty much every time.
What is Tala’s Marketing Strategy?
Grace Beverley as the Ultimate Brand Ambassador
While TALA isn’t an “influencer brand” anymore, it hasn’t relinquished the benefits of being a business led by, represented by, and drawing inspiration from its CEO / veteran influencer Grace Beverley.
TALA naturally appreciates that influencers are a vital part of brand identity and a key distinguishing feature in the social age. Originally an influencer for hire, Grace is now a deeply entwined brand ambassador – to the point that the boundaries between her and her brand are often blurred.
This ambassadorship provides the brand with a living, breathing, speaking avatar – someone to espouse TALA values, wear its products, and engage directly with its community in-person and on social media.
This deep involvement of a founder-ambassador is the special ingredient. Rather than just being hired as the face of a brand, Grace Beverley is a brand ambassador who leads the development of the brand itself. She’s irreplaceable. She is a source of aspiration to her customers, employees and followers. She’s the ultimate in brand-influencer fusion.
Memorable Influencer Collaborations
Having an all-star influencer founder for a brand ambassador doesn’t lead TALA to rest on its laurels when it comes to regular influencer marketing – quite the opposite.
It’s no surprise that as someone who got their start and built their empire on influencer marketing, Grace and her businesses are awake to the full potential of collaborations.
TALA operates across multiple levels of influencer engagement, whether it’s straightforward affiliate link-based partnerships with influencers across the micro, nano, macro range, or something more in-depth.
One example of a recurrent partnership can be seen with their swim and resort collection for Summer 2024, ‘The Sunshine Girl Capsule’, made in partnership with fashion and Pinterest influencer @keziacook (442K followers). This partnership is a call back to their first ever influencer collaboration as TALA, which was with Kezia – much to the delight of their followers.
Listening to Customers
TALA excels in maintaining a productive two-way relationship with its customers. Not only does it welcome and support user generated content, it invests heavily in collecting customer feedback – whether through monitoring social channels or requesting it directly.
TALA aren’t just responding to comments on their socials and calling it a day. They pride themselves on ‘data-driven and responsive’ collections, making adjustments to garment lengths, cuts and styles if customer feedback indicates that it’s needed.
Nothing builds brand loyalty better than demonstrating loyalty to customers in turn. By creating spaces for their community to have their voices heard and even shape the direction of TALA, Grace and her team are building priceless – and enduring – social capital.
Why is Tala a Good Case Study?
Grace Beverley and TALA are a fairytale story of influencer-led brand success. Unlike legacy businesses that are scrambling to adapt to the new social commerce landscape, or quickly adopt its surface features, TALA was conceived, created and raised in it.
From recognising accessible sustainability as a powerful and productive niche, to an agile marketing strategy that depends as much on user input as it does influencer output, TALA shows us what success looks like in the fashion and fitness verticals.
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