Q

Why A Jar of Pickles is Embracing the ‘Raw, Unfiltered’ Side of Instagram

Jar of Pickles

Kirstie Wang started her stationary, accessory and gift brand, A Jar of Pickles, when she was in her last year of college. At that point, it wasn’t even a side hustle; “hobby” would be a more appropriate word, in her opinion. But it was after she graduated and was a few years into her corporate job that the hobby generated enough revenue — and demanded more time — that it truly became a side hustle. Now, A Jar of Pickles is a six-figure business consisting of a small team made of AAPI women who design, source and package their products in-house. 

“It was never full-steam-ahead for me doing this full-time until I was faced with those time challenges,” Wang admitted during an interview with Small Business Xchange. Seven years into her entrepreneurial journey, “I was pregnant with my first child and I couldn’t do my side business, my corporate job and have a baby. At that point, one thing had to go.”

It was through the encouragement of her husband, almost eight years into juggling both jobs, that she left the brand marketing corporate job she loved and went all-in on A Jar of Pickles. “There was so much momentum going with the business, it almost seemed like a waste to just let it go. And at that point, luckily, A Jar of Pickles had a very steady foundation of repeat customers, products, inventory, everything. So instead, the transition was really focused on how to go from a corporate schedule and a corporate culture to a small business, self-employed culture.”

Setting an Operational Foundation

A big part of developing a self-employed operation is, well, operations. And Wang learned quickly just how unglamorous it all is, from ordering and managing inventory, to managing finances and P&L statements. “There are all of these things that take up so much time behind the scenes that people don’t post about and don’t share about, because it’s not that interesting.” But she had to quickly learn how much time and effort to dedicate to these more operational tasks versus more creative ones, like marketing.

Luckily, A Jar of Pickles grew enough so Wang could hire two full-time employees: a studio fulfillment associate, who was focused on fulfilling direct-to-consumer and whole sale orders, and a senior studio manager, who handles all inventory, receiving, quality assurance and ordering. “With more than 400 SKUs, it becomes a lot more complicated — managing what goes on our shelves, what goes in our storage and all the operations and logistics.”

The small but mighty team uses Slack to manage tasks and special order requests, such as customizations and personalized notes for gifts, and has since migrated from a standalone Etsy shop to a Shopify-powered store. With this transition, A Jar of Pickles has built a tech stack that encompasses a customer loyalty and rewards program (Smile), shipping/delivery (ShipStation), employee training and standard operating procedures (Loom), design (Adobe) and more.

Turning Organic Marketing into a Growth Engine

As Wang dedicated more time to growing A Jar of Pickles, she quickly learned how much she loved the marketing side of the business. While she always liked marketing in her corporate career, her passion for the field grew ten-fold when she could focus more time, effort and energy on marketing her own business.  

Now, instead of cramming content creation in on the weekends, she can block full days to the creative process so she can develop fun, high-quality content that showcases her brand, her products and her team. After all, approximately 98% of her marketing strategy is driven by organic channels and tactics, from social media to email (powered by Klaviyo) and video.

“Now that I’m doing this full time, my entire day can be marketing if I want it to be — and I’ve been able to make it really fun for me,” Wang said. “I now spend a good chunk of my time marketing in real time, all the time; I’m spending at least half the day for half the week on social media marketing.”

Instagram (specifically Stories) has been especially valuable for Wang, who enjoys posting more organic and authentic behind-the-scenes content to resonate with A Jar of Pickles’ growing community of repeat customers. In fact, she believes it is this behind-the-scenes content that has been one of the biggest drivers of the brand’s growth.

“We are always on Instagram — it is our biggest social marketing channel by far,” Wang explained. “I’ve posted on Instagram Stories almost every day for the past four years and I will die on this hill: Instagram Stories needs to be more utilized for businesses, and I think there’s strategic ways to do it that people aren’t necessarily capitalizing on. It’s just such a great way to directly connect with customers. I’m in my DMs all the time, and so I have a very good pulse on what our customers want from us, what they’re happy with, what they want to change.”

Venturing into Paid Advertising

Wang attributes the brand’s stellar customer reorder rate of 52% to its strong organic marketing strategy, which she largely drives. “I want to make sure that I’m in those conversations, and I want to make sure that I’m touching every single interaction,” Wang explained. “When I’m talking to customers about products or their feedback, it is very important for me to be there and touch those marketing pieces. And then for things like customer service, I can easily outsource that to my team.”

She added: “Paid [marketing] is very different, but for organic social marketing, I will never outsource that. Because when you’re a small business and you are creating products that you personally design or you personally touch and have a hand in, there’s such a distinct voice that you have when you are doing the social and organic marketing versus someone else. I would warn other people to be very, very careful if they do outsource it, because you lose that whole personality, that whole brand voice.”

Now that the A Jar of Pickles is nearing its tenth birthday, Wang is slowly dipping her toes into paid marketing and is open to accepting outside support. She also brings in her team members to host Instagram takeovers, so there is a clear “creative hand-off” between Wang and her team.

“I didn’t choose to do paid advertising until our tenth year in business because I’m so frugal with the way that we spend our money,” Wang admitted. “I’d rather keep those profits and reinvest in the business. That’s why we focus so much on organic marketing. Because it’s free, and, yes, it takes more time, but it’s free and there’s less risk.”

Why A Jar of Pickles is Embracing the ‘Raw, Unfiltered’ Side of Instagram

Jar of Pickles

Kirstie Wang started her stationary, accessory and gift brand, A Jar of Pickles, when she was in her last year of college. At that point, it wasn’t even a side hustle; “hobby” would be a more appropriate word, in her opinion. But it was after she graduated and was a few years into her corporate job that the hobby generated enough revenue — and demanded more time — that it truly became a side hustle. Now, A Jar of Pickles is a six-figure business consisting of a small team made of AAPI women who design, source and package their products in-house. 

“It was never full-steam-ahead for me doing this full-time until I was faced with those time challenges,” Wang admitted during an interview with Small Business Xchange. Seven years into her entrepreneurial journey, “I was pregnant with my first child and I couldn’t do my side business, my corporate job and have a baby. At that point, one thing had to go.”

It was through the encouragement of her husband, almost eight years into juggling both jobs, that she left the brand marketing corporate job she loved and went all-in on A Jar of Pickles. “There was so much momentum going with the business, it almost seemed like a waste to just let it go. And at that point, luckily, A Jar of Pickles had a very steady foundation of repeat customers, products, inventory, everything. So instead, the transition was really focused on how to go from a corporate schedule and a corporate culture to a small business, self-employed culture.”

Setting an Operational Foundation

A big part of developing a self-employed operation is, well, operations. And Wang learned quickly just how unglamorous it all is, from ordering and managing inventory, to managing finances and P&L statements. “There are all of these things that take up so much time behind the scenes that people don’t post about and don’t share about, because it’s not that interesting.” But she had to quickly learn how much time and effort to dedicate to these more operational tasks versus more creative ones, like marketing.

Luckily, A Jar of Pickles grew enough so Wang could hire two full-time employees: a studio fulfillment associate, who was focused on fulfilling direct-to-consumer and whole sale orders, and a senior studio manager, who handles all inventory, receiving, quality assurance and ordering. “With more than 400 SKUs, it becomes a lot more complicated — managing what goes on our shelves, what goes in our storage and all the operations and logistics.”

The small but mighty team uses Slack to manage tasks and special order requests, such as customizations and personalized notes for gifts, and has since migrated from a standalone Etsy shop to a Shopify-powered store. With this transition, A Jar of Pickles has built a tech stack that encompasses a customer loyalty and rewards program (Smile), shipping/delivery (ShipStation), employee training and standard operating procedures (Loom), design (Adobe) and more.

Turning Organic Marketing into a Growth Engine

As Wang dedicated more time to growing A Jar of Pickles, she quickly learned how much she loved the marketing side of the business. While she always liked marketing in her corporate career, her passion for the field grew ten-fold when she could focus more time, effort and energy on marketing her own business.  

Now, instead of cramming content creation in on the weekends, she can block full days to the creative process so she can develop fun, high-quality content that showcases her brand, her products and her team. After all, approximately 98% of her marketing strategy is driven by organic channels and tactics, from social media to email (powered by Klaviyo) and video.

“Now that I’m doing this full time, my entire day can be marketing if I want it to be — and I’ve been able to make it really fun for me,” Wang said. “I now spend a good chunk of my time marketing in real time, all the time; I’m spending at least half the day for half the week on social media marketing.”

Instagram (specifically Stories) has been especially valuable for Wang, who enjoys posting more organic and authentic behind-the-scenes content to resonate with A Jar of Pickles’ growing community of repeat customers. In fact, she believes it is this behind-the-scenes content that has been one of the biggest drivers of the brand’s growth.

“We are always on Instagram — it is our biggest social marketing channel by far,” Wang explained. “I’ve posted on Instagram Stories almost every day for the past four years and I will die on this hill: Instagram Stories needs to be more utilized for businesses, and I think there’s strategic ways to do it that people aren’t necessarily capitalizing on. It’s just such a great way to directly connect with customers. I’m in my DMs all the time, and so I have a very good pulse on what our customers want from us, what they’re happy with, what they want to change.”

Venturing into Paid Advertising

Wang attributes the brand’s stellar customer reorder rate of 52% to its strong organic marketing strategy, which she largely drives. “I want to make sure that I’m in those conversations, and I want to make sure that I’m touching every single interaction,” Wang explained. “When I’m talking to customers about products or their feedback, it is very important for me to be there and touch those marketing pieces. And then for things like customer service, I can easily outsource that to my team.”

She added: “Paid [marketing] is very different, but for organic social marketing, I will never outsource that. Because when you’re a small business and you are creating products that you personally design or you personally touch and have a hand in, there’s such a distinct voice that you have when you are doing the social and organic marketing versus someone else. I would warn other people to be very, very careful if they do outsource it, because you lose that whole personality, that whole brand voice.”

Now that the A Jar of Pickles is nearing its tenth birthday, Wang is slowly dipping her toes into paid marketing and is open to accepting outside support. She also brings in her team members to host Instagram takeovers, so there is a clear “creative hand-off” between Wang and her team.

“I didn’t choose to do paid advertising until our tenth year in business because I’m so frugal with the way that we spend our money,” Wang admitted. “I’d rather keep those profits and reinvest in the business. That’s why we focus so much on organic marketing. Because it’s free, and, yes, it takes more time, but it’s free and there’s less risk.”