3 Lessons from direct-to-consumer marketing strategies
Last week, remember, I wrote about the underlying trends spotted by analyzing over 400 Direct-To-Consumer sites. Today, as promised, I'm going to focus more specifically on the marketing angle, which offers some strong trends as well. Let's dive in.
Next Level Content Marketing
White papers, podcasts, videos, blog posts, infographics, i.e., content marketing, involve creating and distributing high value-added, useful and informative content in order to engage with audiences. As Jay Baer coined a few years ago, it's "youtility" content being useful to audiences. The range of tools is certainly wide but often very standard, almost mundane ... except for DTC brands, many of which innovate quite nicely. Check it out for yourself:
Hello Yumi, the brand of fresh and organic baby products, offers, in addition to a complete online magazine, an ebook to download called Rainbow in a window, which explains COVID-19 and lockdown to children. So far, the content remains quite classic except that there is an audio version narrated by Canadian actor Donald Sutherland - who received an honorary Oscar in 2017 to celebrate his acting career - and which counts 73K views on Youtube.
Einhorn is a personal care company based in Berlin that produces organic tampons and vegan condoms, among other products. In October 2020, the founder launched a book soberly entitled Unfuck the Economy, with a preface by Maja Göpel, a researcher and expert in the field of sustainable economy. In it, the entrepreneur-writer describes the current economy, whose prosperity, according to him, is based on data and finance at the expense of sustainability, which is all the more indispensable since his company has made it a cardinal value! Another brand to surf on the publishing trend, Magic Mind, a specialist in "productivity" drinks, wrote Beyond Coffee, which deals with mushrooms, adaptogens, and nootropics.
At Hi, they produce "healthy" high-protein drinks based on insects and superfood. Here, there is no blog but a museum of smoothies with an audio guide that tells the whole history of this beverage. And it's worth a visit.
As for Uncle Terries, they offer "vibes": a gallery of inspirational visuals, not really categories but images that appeal.
In the same spirit, Offlimits manages a phygital gallery with ephemeral exhibitions of artists who sell their work, some of which showcase the range of adaptogen-based cereals. What brief to expect to be put forward? Break the codes! Of the revenue generated, 50% goes to the artist, 35% is donated to Wide Rainbow, a non-profit association that opens up underprivileged neighborhoods to the arts and cultural education, and 15% is spent on printing and shipping.
With SMS coming back in force, newsletters are getting stronger
In October, I was writing about the new generation SMS with the rise of services like Subtext and Community. These services combine a dual approach: they rely on a scalable offer for sending mass messages like the classic SMS marketing tools, but, and this is the beauty of the thing, these services innovate by developing a personalized approach for each member of their mailing list. Their trick: A system that receives each message without polluting the thread for everyone, thereby, allowing the host to reply directly to an individual.
While these services are interesting and clearly worth studying closely, it would appear that texting in all its facets is returning to the heart of strategies, especially DTC brands. This is happening in several ways:
Text-to-buy: Jinx, the healthy subscription-based pet food brand founded by former Casper executives and funded by Alexis Ohanian, one of the co-founders of Reddit, among others, recently announced the launch of its text-to-buy service. An article published on TechCrunch relates the demo provided by Jinx, in which a user starts a dog food purchase on the startup's mobile website, enters his phone number for SMS updates, and then confirms his purchase through the same means. However, the brand is thinking bigger. It plans to add subscription management features in the near future so that subscribers can make adjustments "transparently." They could send a "push" notification that would say, "Hey, your order will be shipped in a week and will arrive in a week and a half, do you want to add this product." It would also be possible to suspend a subscription by a simple SMS. Other brands are already following suit, such as the La.Di.Da brand of lattés enriched with turmeric or matcha.
Text messaging as a backup to the newsletter: Another highlight is that more and more DTC brands are communicating with their customers via SMS, some as a replacement for the newsletter, others as a compliment. A few examples: Maev, specialized in holistic pet food, offers you a horoscope for dogs and their owners via SMS. Cann, which manufactures drinks infused with CBD, allows you to send messages to their "Canncierge" to solve absolutely all your questions. Pup active, a clothing manufacturer that celebrates its love of dogs, sends you discounts by text message, but also with photos of JB, the brand's dog mascot.
Newsletters are also taking off, reinventing themselves, and getting richer; no doubt under the impulse of creators' newsletters, currently hitting the big time. Cariuma, a Brazilian footwear brand, offers to plant a tree for each new subscriber to its newsletter. Diaspora harvests its fresh spices in small organic family farms across India and explains how they are grown. They also share readings and recipes. Magic Mind shares content about sleep, diet, mindfulness...
Strong community brands
I'm probably not teaching you anything by telling you that DTC brands make social media a strong part of their marketing strategy. It is nevertheless interesting to note the diversity of actions and channels used.
Socialize on-site. Chatra, Tawk, Gorgias, Tidio ... these are just some of the chat services deployed by DTC brands to engage in dialogue with their customers/browsers on their site. Personally, I have always been circumspect about this type of service, but it is clear that it is becoming widespread on platforms. We also see a proliferation of "social proof" tools, like small pop-ups indicating that a user has just bought a certain product and that there is little stock left—a common practice on sites such as Booking. Among the many tools that can be used to implement this kind of widget, one of them is Proof factor.
Collaborations & Ambassadors: like many other brands, Dazey, which specializes in CBD-based supplements, has developed its own ambassador program in a dedicated section. It has also created a tab dedicated to collaborations with creators, thus seizing the opportunity to infiltrate these communities; these communities do not necessarily operate on a public Twitter, Instagram, or Facebook, but in a much more fragmented way, in an email, a chat, a slack, a Telegram. When talking about ambassadors and influence marketing, one must adopt a 360° vision, and don't neglect any touchpoint, especially its employees! Let's mention here the jewelry brand Clear Cut which, right from the homepage, offers to organize a call with a salesperson or to send an email to one of their gemmologists. Every Wednesday, the brand organizes a Q&A where the founder, Olivia, answers questions asked by users through micro-videos. The stories format revisited thanks to the Altru platform allows Clear Cut to humanize their employees.
Are we moving towards a participative economy? A subject dear to the American VC, Sari Azout, who is convinced that consumer/brand alignment is crucial. With more precise economic incentives, they will develop in collaboration with communities in a more sustainable and engaging way. This is not about making a one-off for a classic consumer-brand collaboration, but about imagining models that integrate the user in the longer-term financial reward. This can already be observed:
Founded by the former COO of Glossier, Arfa rewards the collective of customers co-piloting the brand's development by paying 5% of the profits.
Nide, the French beauty brand, goes even further: Community members submit ideas and receive 500 euros if they have potential. If the idea gets enough votes from the community, the person wins 1,500 euros. And if the product is co-created after testing, the person gets 10% of the sales.
Are these examples of the beginnings of a major structural trend ahead? Certainly! I'll end it here for today, but I'll certainly come back to this in the coming months.
Until then, stay curious,
Marie
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