Latest / The Marketing Funnel Podcast with Fexingo: Awareness, Interest, Decision, and Action Stages / How Quip Built a Marketing Funnel on Electric Toothbrushes
Transcript
- Lucas: You know that feeling when you’re standing in the oral care aisle at Target and there are forty-seven electric toothbrushes staring back at you, ranging from twenty bucks to four hundred, and you have absolutely no idea which one actually does anything different? Luna: Every single time. I usually just grab the one that’s on sale and hope for the best. Lucas: Right. And that’s exactly the consumer confusion that Quip, the direct to consumer electric toothbrush brand, built its entire marketing funnel around eliminating. Instead of competing on sonic vibrations or Bluetooth connectivity, Quip said: what if we just make a toothbrush that looks good, costs twenty-five dollars, and ships brush heads to your door every three months automatically? Luna: And they did it without any traditional TV advertising at first, right? I remember seeing them everywhere in dentist offices before I ever saw an ad. Lucas: Exactly. That in-office presence was the top of their funnel. Quip’s founder, Simon Enever, was actually a former industrial designer who had worked on oral care products before. He realized that dentists and dental hygienists are the most trusted recommendation source for toothbrushes — something like seventy percent of consumers say they’d buy a product their dentist suggests. Luna: So they targeted the professionals, not the patients directly. Lucas: Right. They created a program where dentists could order sample kits to give to patients after cleanings. The patient gets a free brush — well, the brush handle, anyway — and a trial-sized toothpaste. They try it at home, the experience is dead simple, and if they like it, they go online to sign up for the subscription. That’s the interest stage, triggered by physical sampling in a high-trust environment. Luna: And the brush itself is designed to remove friction. It’s not intimidating. No charging base, no complicated instructions. It runs on a single AAA battery. Lucas: Which is deliberate. The decision stage in Quip’s funnel is almost entirely about lowering the perceived risk. The upfront cost is twenty-five dollars — that’s cheaper than most manual toothbrush refill packs at the drugstore. And the subscription for replacement heads is five dollars every three months. So the price of entry is trivial, and the ongoing cost feels small because it’s spread out. Luna: It’s the classic razor and blade model. Gillette practically invented it. But Gillette sells the razor at a small loss and makes money on the blades. Quip does the same — the handle is near cost, and the profit is in the refill heads. Lucas: Yeah, but Quip added a modern twist: the subscription is opt-out, not opt-in. When you buy the brush, you’re automatically enrolled in the three-month refill plan. You have to actively cancel if you don’t want it. That changes the action stage from a proactive purchase to a passive acceptance. And it works — Quip’s reported retention rates are well above industry average for DTC subscriptions. Luna: I’ve read that Quip’s annual churn rate is under twenty percent, which is impressive for a consumable subscription. Most meal kit or beauty box services have churn in the forty to sixty percent range. Lucas: And that low churn is partly because the product is genuinely habit-forming. You build a routine around the three-month replacement cycle. They send you a new head in the mail right when your bristles are starting to wear out. It’s convenient, and convenience is a retention mechanism in itself. Luna: But let’s talk about how they scaled the top of the funnel beyond dentist offices. Once they had that professional endorsement channel working, they started layering on social media and influencer marketing. Lucas: Right. Quip leaned heavily on Instagram and YouTube, but not in a shouty, 'buy now' way. They focused on the aesthetic. The brush is designed to look like a minimalist accessory — white, sleek, almost Apple-like. So influencers would post photos of it in their bathrooms, often without any caption at all. The product itself became a status signal. That’s the awareness stage feeding into interest through social proof. Luna: And they also used user-generated content. People would tag Quip in their morning routine shots, and Quip would repost those. It’s free social proof from real customers. Lucas: Which brings up an interesting point about the decision stage. Normally, when you’re deciding on an electric toothbrush, you might read reviews on Amazon or ask a friend. Quip short-circuits that by making the purchase decision almost entirely about trust in the brand and the simplicity of the offer. There’s no feature comparison because there are basically no features to compare. It brushes your teeth for two minutes and vibrates every thirty seconds to remind you to switch quadrants. That’s it. Luna: Some critics say that means the product is objectively worse than a Sonicare or Oral-B that has multiple cleaning modes and pressure sensors. Lucas: And that’s a fair point. But Quip isn’t trying to win a spec sheet battle. They’re targeting the massive middle of the market — people who don’t want to think about their toothbrush. The people who were buying a two-dollar manual brush every few months. Quip’s marketing funnel doesn’t need to convince a power user. It just needs to convert the casual dental health consumer. Luna: And it worked well enough that Quip was acquired in 2025 by Haleon, the company behind Sensodyne and Advil. The deal was reportedly worth over a hundred million dollars. Lucas: Let’s talk about what happens after acquisition, because that’s where the funnel can get complicated. Haleon obviously has massive distribution power. Quip is now in CVS, Target, Walmart — physical retail. But that changes the funnel dynamics. Suddenly, you have the offline discovery channel competing with the DTC subscription model. Luna: Yeah, because if you can buy a Quip brush at the store for twenty-five dollars, what’s the incentive to sign up for the subscription right then and there? You might just buy a pack of replacement heads in the aisle too. Lucas: Exactly. Quip’s original funnel was a closed loop: discover through a dentist or influencer, go online, buy the brush, get enrolled in auto-refill. Once you’re in retail, that loop breaks. The top of funnel expands, but the middle — the conversion to subscription — becomes optional. So Quip has to adapt its decision stage to work both online and at the shelf. They’ve started putting QR codes on packaging that take you straight to the subscription enrollment page. Luna: It’s like bridging the physical and digital funnel. Another angle I find interesting is how Quip handled the awareness to interest transition without a massive ad budget. Most DTC brands spend heavily on Facebook and Instagram ads. Quip did some, but their cost per acquisition was reportedly much lower than competitors because of the dentist channel. Lucas: Yeah, the CAC — customer acquisition cost — through dentists was probably a fraction of what it would be through paid social. And the quality of those customers was higher too. If someone gets a free sample from their dentist, they’re already in a buying mindset for oral care. The conversion rate from sample to subscription was reportedly over fifteen percent in the early days. Luna: That’s remarkable. Most e-commerce conversion rates hover around two to three percent. Lucas: So the key takeaway from Quip’s funnel is that they didn’t try to optimize every stage equally. They invested disproportionately in the awareness stage — by building the dentist channel — and in the action stage — by making the subscription the default. The interest and decision stages were almost frictionless by design. Low price, simple product, social proof. Luna: But there’s a risk, which is subscription fatigue. Consumers are increasingly wary of being locked into auto-renewals. If Quip pushes too hard on the subscription, they might alienate the retail buyers who just want a one-time purchase. Lucas: Right. And that’s the balancing act for any product-led subscription model. You want the recurring revenue, but you don’t want to feel predatory. Quip has started offering a 'subscribe and save' model at retail — ten percent off if you scan the QR code at checkout. It’s a softer ask. Luna: It’s also interesting to note that Quip never tried to be everything to everyone. They stuck to toothbrushes and toothpaste for years before expanding into floss and whitening strips. Lucas: Which is smart funnel strategy. If you broaden your product line too fast, you dilute the simplicity that made the original offer so easy to act on. Quip’s expansion into adjacent categories — flossers, whitening — uses the same subscription mechanism, so existing customers can add on with zero friction. Luna: And that increases lifetime value without having to acquire new customers. That’s the holy grail of the action stage: not just the first purchase, but the sustained purchasing across categories. Lucas: If these marketing conversations have sparked something you’ve actually used — maybe you tried a new approach to your own funnel, or you shared an episode with a colleague — a handful of listeners chip in monthly through buy me a coffee dot com slash fexingo, and that’s literally what funds making this many of these. Luna: Yeah, it’s a small group that keeps it ad-free. We don’t run sponsors or interrupt the flow. So if you’ve gotten value, that link is there. Lucas: So back to Quip — one more thing I want to touch on is the role of packaging in the decision stage. When you order a Quip brush online, it comes in a slim cardboard box with almost no waste. The unboxing experience is part of the product. People post about it. Luna: Right, that feeds back into awareness through user-generated content. The packaging becomes a marketing asset. Lucas: Exactly. And the refill heads come in a simple recyclable sleeve. No plastic clamshell. That aligns with their minimalist brand and appeals to environmentally conscious consumers. It’s a small detail, but it reinforces the decision to buy. Luna: I think the biggest lesson from Quip is that you don’t need a revolutionary product to build a great funnel. You need a clear understanding of where your customer trusts advice — for oral care, it’s the dentist — and then make the buying process as simple as possible. Lucas: And that’s a principle that applies across industries. Whether you’re selling software or socks, if you can identify the trust node in your customer’s journey and eliminate friction at the decision point, you’ve got a funnel that works. Luna: Next episode we’re going to look at a company that did the opposite — they made the decision stage intentionally complex to filter out casual buyers. Should be a fun contrast. Lucas: Yeah, I’m looking forward to that one. For now, thanks for listening.