“However, this is very difficult to achieve through the typical marketing channels”

Moonbird founders Michael and Stefanie Broes (© Emilie Bonje)

The little device Moonbird is marketed by the developers as a ‘personal breath coach’. By expanding and contracting again, the device guides its user to a slow breathing rhythm via the palm of the hand. After all, calm breathing brings people (again) in contact with head and body. Only: how do you market such an unusual product? Michael and Stefanie Broes, co-founders of Moonbird, used Meta’s tools for this, among other things.

For many small (and not so small) entrepreneurs, Facebook and Instagram are often the tools to find their way to a relevant target audience. Meta launched the campaign to highlight the creative ideas of all those entrepreneurs Good Ideas Deserve To Be Found. SMEs are provided with all the necessary tools to develop personalized content that surprises consumers on social media and – hopefully – convinces them to buy their products and services. And Moonbird has also gratefully started working on that.

Moonbird was founded three years ago by brother and sister Michael and Stefanie Broes, who followed the usual process of ideation from prototypes to testing, to finally bring the product to the market. Despite the corona crisis and the associated lockdowns, the company managed to realize a good growth story.

“I was busy with meditation myself,” says co-founder Stefanie Broes, “and that is how I discovered the importance of breathing. I found that this was a great tool to calm the body in a quick and, above all, effective way.”

“That also allowed us to concretely get to work with challenges such as stress, anxiety, sleeping problems, and so on. I just lacked the means to perform those breathing exercises independently. That gave us the idea of ​​a physical tool, which we developed ourselves.”

Make the most of storytelling

Moonbird, a device that fits in the hand and not only guides the user through breathing, but that one thanks to the built-in sensor, it also indicates what the concrete effect is on the body, and how the exercises can be improved. In order to market the product efficiently, careful thought had to be given to the right marketing strategy, because it involved a unique development.

“Awareness in other words, it was crucial”, Stefanie continues. “Moreover, the public needed to not only know that we existed, but also discover the different ways Moonbird can help. So we had a longer run-up to encourage customers to make a purchase: we first had to get them involved in our story and make maximum use of information. So we didn’t just have to use it tools that focus on selling our product, but also tools that highlight the relevance of our product.”

Push through the right channels

That need awareness was the reason why Moonbird appealed to Facebook and Instagram at an early stage. “Back then our website heel was basic, we were already working cross-platform with advertisements”, explains Stefanie. “Even in the phase that we were still testing the product with end users and therefore didn’t know what it would look like, we had already pre-ordered it running campaigns, just to see if there was any interest in the market.”

“So Facebook and Instagram were there from the start,” adds Michael Broes. “We left it up to Meta’s business tools to decide which campaign to launch on which platform that was able to independently detect the most interesting target groups and push the campaigns through the right channels. In other words, our strategy was to test a lot ourselves, but ultimately leave the algorithm free to determine where the most conversion was possible.”

“What Meta also allowed is to grant validation very quickly,” Michael continues. “By that I mean: if you have an idea, you can very quickly test different assumptions and get feedback. That is very valuable for taking the next steps and determining the direction in which you should ideally go. This ranges from a certain product color or functionality to call to actions. We also experimented and tested with lots of personas, which allowed us to scale appropriately based on the results.”

International markets

Moonbird’s mission is ‘to enable every person in the world to experience the positive effects of breathing exercises’. Meta is also a real ally in that respect, because the tools make it possible to reach international markets.

“From day one it was clear that we had to be active outside our own national borders with Moonbird,” says Stefanie. “However, this is very difficult to achieve through the typical marketing channels, while with Meta’s channels you can, so to speak – or rather literally – reach the whole world. However, that is not as obvious as it sounds: the better you are at it, the more advanced you can workyou also have to take cultural differences into account, and so on.”

Quality of life as a gift

“We are only now getting the feeling that we are starting to be able to do it a little bit,” laughs Stefanie. “But that also means that you can certainly get better at it. For example, our conversion in the Christmas period of 2022 was much higher than in 2021, because we had become more efficient in our creative process.”

“We advertised during a busy period and focused more on that. That was also necessary, because Moonbird, although in the higher price category, turns out to be a product that people give to each other as a gift: you actually just give someone more quality of life. Ideal in a period when people make good intentions and want to take better care of themselves.”