Building Mosi: The Brand Reinventing the Tea Experience

By Jenna Movsowitz

Paul Davis grew up around tea. His parents were missionaries in Africa, and he spent his life traveling around the Southern half of the continent. As he moved from village to village, one tradition remained consistent: tea drinking. Tea was at the center of the table as he met people from different cultures and backgrounds. It was the connector regardless of race or religion, the universal experience that exposed commonalities amongst strangers. And despite many physical relocations, tea continued to provide Paul with a sense of belonging and tradition; his passion for tea grew with his desire for human connection.

Many founders set out on a mission to make an aspect of an existing product better. Whether it’s a nutrition label, ingredient list, functionality or flavor variety, brands often innovate through single-facet improvement. But Paul wanted more than just a better version of a product – he wanted to improve the entire practice of making and drinking tea. It is with this ambitious mindset that he launched Mosi Tea: not just another tea brand, but a brand reinventing the entire tea-drinking experience.

BUILDING COMMUNITY AROUND INNOVATION

While Paul knew that his brand would ultimately include a line of teas, he decided to center his Kickstarter around the brand’s most impressive innovation: the world’s first multi-brew infuser. Staying true to his mission, this novel design would marry ease and convenience with the traditional tea practice of using loose leaf tea.

Mosi’s tea infuser brews loose leaf tea on-the-go in a leak-proof, double-walled cup made out of Triton: a shatter resistant yet glass-like, BPA-free material used in baby products and medical devices. Its patented, interchangeable design attaches any of their three different sieves (for loose leaf, fine teas or coffee, and cold brew) or their whisk attachment for matcha.

This innovation gained impressive traction, landing it among the top 1% of all Kickstarters. “We had a Trojan horse mentality with the infuser. At the end of the day, the supporters of our Kickstarter were looking for a better way to enjoy tea,” says Paul. “And they will be the biggest fans of Mosi as a brand.” To echo the sentiment of the infuser, Mosi launched a tea line that mixed familiarity and tradition with innovation. From Rooibos Lavender to Rose Black, Mosi’s incredibly high quality, thoughtfully-sourced teas pair age-old tea varieties with an added, unique flavor spin.

MOSI’S APPROACH TO DISTRIBUTION

Since launching one of the most successful kickstarters of all time – and later winning Best Tea Making Equipment Innovation at the World Tea Expo – Mosi’s name has become known in countries around the world for their impressive infuser. Paul saw their early infuser success as a potential driver of their future tea line success. He poured this mentality into forming Mosi’s sales strategy.

USING AMAZON TO DRIVE DTC TRAFFIC

In short, Mosi’s core strategy is a DTC-Amazon partnership that leverages the infuser as an acquisition tool. Mosi currently only sells the basic infuser model on Amazon, and sells the infuser add-ons (the different sieves and matcha whisk) and all teas on their DTC site. Because tea is an incredibly competitive space, the Mosi team decided to focus on the brand’s key differentiator to draw customers to their Amazon page – and then use that listing, and the box of the infuser itself, to drive further purchases and tea subscriptions through their DTC site.

With an Amazon listing set up for success – chock full of educational content, videos, and thoughtful keywords – Mosi has been drawing in new consumers for their infuser. But as any brand on Amazon knows, sales through Amazon sacrifice the opportunity to communicate with customers post-purchase. As a workaround, the Mosi team got creative with QR codes. On each infuser box, customers will find Amazon-specific QR codes on the packaging. Drawn in by the callout to learn more about how to use the infuser, customers will be sent to a landing page with an educational product tutorial, but also to Mosi’s DTC site that houses all infuser add-ons and their tea line. The QR codes also lead to a landing page to collect first-party data from otherwise anonymous Amazon customers. “The infuser box is literally a sales tool for tea,” Paul says.

The marriage of the tea line, infuser, and infuser add-ons becomes a fascinating business model. “People like to try new things. If we’ve been able to sell them on the infuser already, we feel like we have a pretty good chance of selling them on our tea. On the flipside, if we can get a customer to sign up for a year-long tea subscription upfront, we may offer the infuser for free as an acquisition tactic.”

MARKETING TO THE LIFETIME CUSTOMER

To support their Amazon efforts and stick out amongst the crowded tea and tea equipment space, the Mosi team has been focusing on search-engine optimization (SEO) and pay-per-click (PPC) keyword strategy. For SEO, the team is focusing on publishing upwards of three educational blogs per week, along with a variety of tea recipes that explore new ways to enjoy tea – from tea cocktails to tea lattes and refreshing iced concoctions. At the same time, they have focused on optimizing all site copy and product descriptions.

With PPC, Mosi leans into their highly innovative hero product. “We bid on long-tail queries surrounding the infuser,” says Paul. Long-tail queries are searches containing over three words. They are usually highly-specific and rarely searched – something like “matcha tea infuser for on-the-go.” Though these keywords rank low, they target a customer looking for a highly-specific item. With less competition and highly motivated searchers, the conversion rate is higher and the cost-per-click (CPC) is much lower. Plus, customers can easily find exactly what they’re looking for, and avoid the noise of the crowded industry. This strategy is a great way to drive new traffic to their site. But it’s also yet another embodiment of Mosi’s mission. By avoiding quick-growth marketing tactics like social media giveaways, and instead investing in building out an educational site, the Mosi team is building an approachable, excited tea enthusiast community. “We’re not looking for discount customers. We’re looking to build genuine lifetime customers and community,” says Paul.

LOOKING AHEAD

As Mosi continues to draw new customers to their site, they hope to continue sharing educational content, building out a robust tea subscription program, and helping tea diehards and novices alike learn new ways to incorporate the beverage into their daily routines.

“The US went through a third and fourth wave of coffee. We want to be at the forefront of the same progression for tea, helping Westerners understand the incredible versatility of tea,” Paul says. By investing in tea education and building up an inviting tea community, Paul believes that Mosi has the potential to reframe the way our society views tea.