Saturday, April 10th, 2021
A live look at the state of social audio:
DTC’s sticking with podcasts for now, but if you join DTC+ you can jump on any podcast for live Q/A, so basically same same 😉.
Welcome to the Saturday edition of DTC Newsletter! In this issue you’ll find:
📦 A case study in creating viral content from the Novorésumé team.
📦 A deep dive into Pelaton’s high-impact, hyper-aligned partnership with Beyonce.
📦 How much is your business worth? Try this free valuation tool to find out.
📦 A thoughtful Mother’s Day suggestion for your email segmentation.
📦 Canva’s $15B valuation, Snapchat acquires Screenshop -- catch up on DTC M&A in our weekly roundup
Read to the end for an invite to our next FREE LIVE Workshop: The Amazon Growth Guide.
Novorésumé is an intuitive resume builder SaaS. Our customers use the builder to create a well-designed resume in minutes, without the hassles of resume formatting.
Back in 2016, when we were getting started, we wanted to come up with a marketing campaign that would promote the product, drive sign-ups for the BETA version, and wouldn’t cost an arm and a leg in terms of ad spend.
At the time (and for around nine months), the builder was completely free, so our promotion budget was basically non-existent.
After some brainstorming, we decided to create a Novorésumé resume for a famous celebrity and pitch it to journalists.
At that time, Stefan (our cofounder) and I had just finished reading Elon Musk’s biography, so we thought he’d be the perfect celebrity to try and prove our idea of “Less is More” by summarizing all of his vast professional experience into a one-page resume.
Our exact process for executing the campaign:
The original resume was shared by Business Insider, Independent.co.uk, Time, Lifehacker, Sciencealert and many more. 👇
Overall, the campaign was a major success.
The PR we got from the resume drove over 120,000 new users within six months. The campaign was featured in 100+ different media platforms.
In addition, this surge of users allowed us to test-drive our platform and see how users interacted with it. Based on this data, we also learned what our users were willing to pay for, allowing us to create a Premium version of the builder that our customers loved.
🚨 So Why Does Content Go Viral?
It has to follow general principles.You can’t write a cookie-cutter article and expect the internet to love it.
More often than not, content goes viral if it’s:
In the case of Elon Musk’s resume, we were capitalizing on number two.
It was around the time when Elon was getting tons of media attention for the first time, and people were super hyped to learn about him.
We were pretty sure the resume would at least get some media coverage. However, that’s not the only reason Elon’s resume worked out so well.
He’s popular because of his career – he’s doing work that is changing the world. Naturally, people want to know how he started, what his past companies were, etc.
And conveniently enough, the format of a resume managed to convey all that information.
If you’ve ever done an outreach campaign, you probably know they’re hit-or-miss.
Especially if you’re pitching yourself to big media – more often than not, they just don’t care.
With Elon’s resume, it was a completely different scenario. We were getting a ton of love from online publishers.
⁉️So, Why Did this Happen?
The media’s #1 goal is to generate clicks.
If you’re pitching them YOUR company, chances are, it won’t get them the results they’re looking for (unless you’re already famous).
With Elon’s resume though, it was a mutually profitable partnership. Media websites would get a ton of clicks, and we’d also drive awareness for our product since the resume was made through our builder. Win-win!
Looking to up your resume game? Check out our builder here!
After you’ve invested your blood, sweat, and tears into your business building it up to where it is today, you don’t want to see any of that effort go to waste.
You want to make sure you get the reward you deserve.
Problem is, online business mergers & acquisitions is a whole new industry to a lot of business owners. They don’t know how to sell their business.
The main reason many business sellers lose money on a sale is because they don’t know what price they can sell for.
Many owners have a bias where they think their business is worth a lot more than it is because of its “potential.” It makes them overprice their business, and savvy business buyers can see this inexperience. The buyer comes in and out-negotiates the seller to make them drop the price way lower than its actual worth.
Or the owner sets a price for their business that’s too low, and a buyer swoops in and takes the bargain.
Or they just get out-negotiated on price because they don’t know how much they should be getting for their business.
The core issue here is that the business owner doesn’t know how much their business is really worth.
But how can you know this if you’ve never sold a business before?
To help business owners avoid losing money on a sale, we created our Valuation Tool.
It allows you to get a baseline figure for your business in just five minutes, so you know the full cash amount you deserve.
There are other valuation tools out there, but ours is the ONLY one built with algorithms that use real sales data collected over years on our online business marketplace to get you the most accurate valuation figure.
In just five minutes you can find out how big of a cash reward you should be getting for your online business.
Wherever and however you sell your online business, avoid losing money when you do so by completing our Free Valuation Tool Now.
This past year Peloton has become an increasingly popular choice for at-home fitness, as the Covid-19 pandemic forced people to retreat inside and rethink their workouts.
While many businesses have been negatively impacted, Peloton has benefitted from the pandemic. Online searches for Peloton nearly tripled in February 2020. By May 2020, quarterly revenue soared 66%, and paid digital subscribers increased by 64%.
The demand for Peloton has become so high that the company is struggling to keep up.
Some have been skeptical about whether Peloton’s success will survive the pandemic; however, their announcement last fall shows that they’re in it for the long haul.
On November 10, 2020, Peloton announced a multi-year partnership with Beyonce Knowles to produce themed workouts for its members. The partnership would commemorate the Homecoming season at Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCU).
The programs are inspired by Beyonce’s 2019 Homecoming film and live album, based on her 2018 Coachella performance, which celebrated her long career and the culture of HBCUs.
Peloton and Beyonce also gave away 2-year digital memberships to students at ten HBCUs. Further, the brand announced that they’ be building relationships with each of these schools to “pursue long-term recruiting partnerships at the internships and undergraduate levels.”
The announcement saw immediate success, as Peloton’s shares rose 8.6%.Consumers were equally as excited.
One follower on Peloton’s Instagram commented, “This is so powerful. My personal trainer [...] is a Howard student and he taught me how to use Peloton. This campaign is making me feel so seen and valued as a current Howard student and Peloton user. Thank you.”; Another wrote, “You market to ME, you get me! Peloton purchased.”
The Peloton and Beyonce collaboration is a win on all fronts. According to Peloton, Beyonce was the most-requested artist by their 3.6 million global members. This isn’t surprising, given that millions already have Beyonce’s music on their workout playlists. Beyonce’s music is genre-blending, with songs spanning from bombastic anthems to emotional ballads that motivate, inspire, and advocate for female empowerment. Pop, R&B, hip-hop, rock, country. She. Does. It. All.
But it’s not only her music that makes this partnership perfect. Beyonce is a global superstar, businesswoman, and activist with a massive fanbase. She currently has 166 million Instagram followers.
According to D’Marie Analytics, a social media analytics company, one post from Beyonce is worth $1 million in advertising. She is a social media master who understands how to connect to her fans, ignite conversations about everything, and sell (just take a look at her first Ivy Park collection with Adidas that sold out in a weekend).
Beyonce is also recognized for her high production quality, elevating and pushing how consumers experience music and media.
On top of that, Beyonce is a performer known for her fitness and endurance. She frequently talks about the importance of prioritizing her health to achieve her goals and be the best version of herself. She is hard work and excellence embodied – everything Peloton and its followers strive to be.
In partnering with Beyonce, a Black female artist, and building relationships with HBCUs, Peloton is taking steps to make the health and wellness industry more inclusive.
This is important now more than ever in light of recent events of various
companies such as the New York Times, Crossfit, and Conde Nast being ousted for toxic workplaces, systemic racism, and sexism.
Consumers are becoming more aware and have higher expectations from companies to be inclusive and mindful about their business practices. With more inclusive practices and partnerships, Peloton will certainly attract new subscribers that they may not have had access to before.
This partnership is equally beneficial for Beyonce. She collaborates with powerful businesses where she can profit massively and make a big impact.
Working with Peloton allows Beyonce to continue her mission to celebrate and promote Black culture to a global audience.
To date, Beyonce’s themed workouts have launched and are accessible through its app. And Peloton’s sales continue to climb: They now expect to bring in more than $3.9 million in total revenue in 2021 – exceeding initial forecasts of $3.5 to $3.65 million. With its business partnerships and sales trajectory, there is no doubt Peloton is one to watch.
Looking to scale your brand on Amazon? Want to know how to optimize your Amazon listing, your Amazon Ads, as well as your store for maximum growth?
We’ve unlocked the code…
The Amazon team at Pilothouse has seen growth as high as 5.71x in Amazon sales and 4.86 growth in ad spend, all while hitting a 3.60 ROAS.
Join us for an hour for three days and we’ll teach you everything we know about hitting results like this. 👇
We’re bringing in all the big guns, plus a helpful tool to manage your ads that we’ll announce soon.
There is no-one in our audience who this workshop won’t help, and we’re thrilled to present it free to the whole DTC fam!.
All you have to do is sign up!
April 28-30, 1pm PST. Register now for this FREE three day workshop and make sure to click the links on the thank you page to add the events to your calendar so you don’t miss a minute.
The Pilothouse email team is BIG fans of this Mother’s Day email from Etsy. 👇
Why it works according to the team:
🎨 Canva announces $15B valuation.
🏡 Bloomberg News: Twitter held talks for a $4B takeover of Clubhouse.
📦 UPS invests in innovative new aircraft.
💵 Investing app Acorns acquired Pillar, an AI-powered startup that helps manage student loan debt.
🚗 Uber announces $250M stimulus to get drivers back on the road.
👻 Snapchat acquires social shopping app Screenshop, the Shazam of fashion.
💰 Retail analytics company Trax raises $640M Series E led by SoftBank Vision Fund 2 and BlackRock.
💬 Sendbird raises $100M at a $1B+ valuation, says 150M+ users now interact using its chat and video APIs.
💵 Crypto trading on Robinhood spiked to 9.5M customers in first quarter.
📱 Brand- and celebrity-used text platform Community raises $40M from Salesforce.
👶🏻 Realworld raises $3.4M to help Gen Z navigate adulthood.
🏋️♀️ As working out goes virtual, Moxie raises $6.3M seed+ round led by Resolute Ventures.
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