This is about a project whose idea came to me several years ago. Now it's a company with 30 employees, a turnover of 7–12 million rubles per month, a well-built customer service, and a solid range of premium eco-products.
berrrloga.ru
The "Berloga" online store. Until the summer of 2021, it was called "Pogrebochek"
How it all started
In November–December 2018, I started looking into the work of affiliate marketers — people who buy traffic and make money reselling it. I read case studies and tried working with a couple of product offers. But I was almost immediately put off by the products I was advertising: their low cost and insane markups of 300–500% signaled poor quality. And since I'm a vegetarian and believe in karma, I just couldn't do that kind of thing.
Right at the end of 2018, I stumbled upon an article on VC.RU that detailed a strategy for online promotion of luxury homes (couldn't find the link on VC, but found the article on this site). I read it and got inspired. Without thinking twice, I suggested to Egor, a good friend of mine, that we try advertising Northern wild honey through Instagram.
Meet Egor Rychkalov, the honey mogul
Egor and I have known each other since 2010. He was my first business mentor: he taught me to sell honey the "shuttle" way — going around offices with samples and offering people "the best honey in the world." In 2013, we launched an online store called "Rodnoye Lugovoye" together — at the time, it was one of the largest online stores selling Ivan tea (Koporye tea) in Russia. In short, Egor and I share many stories, but that's not the point right now.
By December 2018, we already had a webpage about Northern wild honey, which, by the way, was consistently bringing in one customer per month. We launched Yandex.Direct several times, but it "didn't take off." Still, a near-zero result is a result too. What was interesting was that all customers praised our honey despite its price — 3,500 rubles per kilogram. That was a signal that we needed to look harder for our "target audience."
What was done?
I took ready-made footage from our supplier, Andrey "Medonos" Chernetsov, set up an ad campaign in Facebook Ads Manager "broad" (targeting: M+F, 25+, Russia) and... leads started pouring in from Chechnya. Yes, I really messed up at the start — instead of excluding ad impressions in the North Caucasus Federal District, I targeted those exact regions. Mixed up a checkbox, good thing we noticed in time.
Over the course of 2–3 years, we shot various videos with different videographers. One of the most successful, in my opinion:
Then we shot videos about porcini mushrooms, milk cap mushrooms, and Ivan tea. I grew as a specialist — took courses from the well-known "Targetorium." I ran ads not only on Instagram and Facebook, but also on TikTok and YouTube. YouTube, by the way, I never fully conquered: its optimization algorithms are far inferior to other foreign social networks, so I couldn't always keep the cost per lead within the right "window."
That's the advertising story.
So what's the secret?
There are no secrets or anything unusual. The recipe for "Berloga's" success is quite simple:
- High-quality, premium products that you can be confident in, that are in stock, and that people want to buy.
- A sales team that multiplied each customer's basket several times over: besides honey, people bought mushrooms, tea, berries, cedar products, and other goods, and the average order value grew from 4,000 to 10,000–100,000 rubles. I believe that if you're not a marketplace, you can only sell "verbally," over the phone. There can be no automation in the premium segment. And by the way, there are always at least 1–2 salespeople on shift.
- Service. A team that packs everything, ships it promptly, and deals with customer parcels if something goes wrong.
- Top management. The company must be led by partners who are driven toward super-success and... money. Otherwise, in tough times, there may not be enough drive for everyone.
If you find an interesting, unique, and high-margin product, send me a signal right away
By the way, my name is Roman and I'm a marketer who lives in the forest.