In recent years, new brands have emerged in the self-care and online shopping space, while established brands are seeing a resurgence through social media. Consumers are increasingly interested in personal hygiene and skin care products like body scrubs and masks. Personal care products, such as mouthwash, are popular on platforms like TikTok. However, there are still gaps in niche areas like body scrubs and shower gels. Tree Hut has successfully transitioned to an "offline retail + online social media content e-commerce" model and seen over 100% growth by promoting its shower gels and body scrubs on TikTok.

Brand background

Tree Hut believes that everyone should take time to relax and indulge in moments of self-care, especially during bathing. The brand offers American-made body care products, transforming daily hygiene routines into self-care rituals. They believe in uncompromising self-care and take pride in creating enjoyable beauty products of exceptional quality.

Founded in 2002, Tree Hut focuses on providing high-quality yet affordable body care products, with their Shea Sugar Scrub being a star product. Initially partnering with retailer Ulta Beauty, the brand later expanded to Target, Walmart, and Amazon. According to data, the keyword "Tree Hut" has over 20,000 monthly searches on Amazon, with monthly sales reaching 55,000 units and exceeding 400,000 in revenue. In December, sales exceeded $600,000, ranking them first on the Amazon Body Scrubs bestseller list.

TikTok Product advantages

As a personal care brand established in 2002, Tree Hut has built a fan base and reputation for over 20 years, and has a professional team that continuously launches new products to attract more consumers and enhance the product's advantages. Offline retail remains one of the brand's product strengths.

However, it is worth noting that the brand has introduced customized services, allowing consumers to choose healthy habits through a series of specially formulated products to help them achieve the best results. The independent site has a category called "Discover Your Daily Habits", with four subcategories: Moisturizing, Exfoliating, Cleansing. Users can quickly find the products they want. When scrolling down, they can see a looping display of "Product + Review" images, with product details displayed on the left and consumer reviews on the right.

The scrub released by the brand contains shea butter oil which can deeply moisturize, nourish and soften dry skin. It also helps promote elasticity and has natural exfoliants that effectively remove dead skin cells and promote blood circulation on the skin surface. In terms of texture, Tree Hut's scrub is shiny, like it has added glitter, which makes it look very shiny compared to other scrubs, making it very popular on social platforms like TikTok.

Social media marketing

Currently, the most commonly used social media platforms in the US market are TikTok, YouTube, Facebook, etc. Among them, the short video marketing format of TikTok is becoming more diverse, becoming the preferred social media for both new and old brands to expand their customer base. TikTok is no longer just a gathering place for small creators, KOLs and KOCs from other platforms are also gaining fans on TikTok. When brands choose to collaborate with influencers, they can choose to collaborate with influencers on different social media platforms.

Tree Hut's setting on TikTok is very worth learning. The placement of the jump link in the introduction is very intuitive. By jumping to the purchase link through the image, it reduces the user's jumping steps and the user's indecision time. Click on the image to jump to the Target platform for direct purchase. Compared with traditional jump link settings, Tree Hut's settings are more convenient and intuitive.

Tree Hut started posting videos on TikTok in 2021 and has gained a total of 1.5 million followers. At the same time, they have established a presence on other social media channels, with 250,000 followers on Facebook and 552,000 on Instagram. In the early stages of posting videos on TikTok, the brand did not find suitable promotional points and failed to maximize the showcasing of the product's features, resulting in poor marketing effectiveness.

Through continuous exploration, Tree Hut successfully marketed by creating differentiation, collaborating with TikTok influencers, delving into content creation, and ultimately gaining a large following of beauty enthusiasts on TikTok. There are 33,000 videos related to Tree Hut's sugar scrub under the hashtag #treehutsugarscrub, and 96,000 videos under the brand hashtag #treehut.

The search for the brand name "treehut" reveals that since 2022, creators have been sharing their products, with some bloggers receiving millions of views. Most creators' videos have tens of thousands of views, with many discovering the products through tags and making independent recommendations. Through a large amount of KOC content creation for viral marketing, they attract amateur users to purchase, which is also one of the common marketing methods used by the brand on TikTok.

Image source: TikTok.com

Summary

Tree Hut has faced challenges such as low sales and obstacles in social media marketing, but successfully pivoted by identifying the right social media positioning, product differentiation, and multi-channel sales. They also proved the effectiveness of TikTok marketing. Tree Hut's focus on user experience and launching new products to meet customer needs, along with the emphasis on single-product marketing, were key to their success. It is essential to promote product features to the maximum extent possible.

The body scrub market is expected to grow to $2.77 billion, with a continued emphasis on the product's ability to provide smooth and clean skin, providing opportunities for brands. If looking to launch a body scrub brand in the U.S. market, one can take inspiration from Tree Hut's business model, concentrating efforts on product features and promotions.