‘Tis the season for pumpkin spice and everything nice.
Here at DTC newsletter we’re gearing up for cozy sweaters and all the PSL’s we can get our hands on. Goodbye summer, welcome fall. 🍂
🎁 Organic ways to grow your email lists before the holidays.
🧐 Eliminating the glitch in Facebook ads manager.
🔥 Hot tips for Q4 content planning.
🛑 Stopping the scroll with animated Facebook ads.
🚨Last week: 1 new referral = access to our influencer course!
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We’ve said it before, but Black Friday is coming and soon. You may have your campaigns ready to go, but what about your customers?
The sad fact is the average eight-week retention rate for most industries is below 20%. So if you haven’t seen growth to your email list in the months before Black Friday, you’re likely preaching to a disengaged audience.
A strong email list is crucial to BFCM success. Let’s dive into how we can grow yours right now.
Quizzes are a fun and engaging way to connect with your customers and recommend relevant products.
You can then use this data to personalize your campaigns to each customer segment during Black Friday.
In 5–10 questions, ask customers about their preferences, sizing, and shopping needs. Before giving them their results, add an email or SMS opt-in with a special offer.
Gift finders, fit finders, style finders, or general product recommenders are all great quiz ideas.
Check out the beginning of Mavi’s gift finder quiz:
Use a welcome popup with a special offer to collect a customer’s contact information right when they visit the site.
Complement your welcome popup with an exit-intent popup in case they don’t convert right away.
Also ask customers about their shopping preferences. Keep the popup short; 1–2 questions max. Anything longer will be too distracting, and customers won’t convert.
Beau Berman, co-founder of Layer Origin Nutrition, notes:
“A/B test everything—including the image. We did this earlier in 2021 and noticed a 27% difference between sign-ups when we simply switched to a brighter image.”
Check out Ella + Mila’s three-step pop-up, which asks customers what they’re shopping for, their email, and recommends products all within the pop-up.
Co-founder of Travel Cat, Emily Miethner, has seen big success with hosting an event before Black Friday in order to connect with your customers and grow your email list:
“We started hosting virtual educational cat community events, which has helped create a really engaged segment of our email list.”
Similar to Emily’s approach, brands can host in-person or virtual events related to the products they sell or their mission.
For example, if you support a specific type of charity, host an educational event about what that charity supports and why.
Tip: Make it easy for customers to sign up for these events. “For our virtual events, we started out using Eventbrite but switched over to a Klaviyo signup unit. It works much better on mobile and has fewer steps for the user,” notes Emily.
Travel Cat’s event forms will also ask additional questions to collect email data points. That way, they can follow up with more educational content based on the user.
To announce your Black Friday promotions ahead of time, build hype and create an exclusive Black Friday deal for customers who sign up for your email during a specific time period.
For example, you can offer early access to your Black Friday promotion or an additional discount just for these early subscribers.
Announce this exclusive promotion on your social channels and drive users to a landing page where they share their contact information to get it.
Ask a few additional questions to learn about their preferences as well to help you personalize your campaigns to them.
Contests and giveaways see engagement rates of up to 5.8%, plus conversion rates of up to 34%, according to Outgrow.
If you partner with another brand to cross-promote both audiences, you’ll be able to connect with an entirely new group of customers, too.
Travel Cat’s “Forever Home Heroes” campaign supports cat rescue work.
Anyone around the world can participate by nominating and voting for a person or organization doing cat rescue, trap-neuter-release work, or foster care.
“We’re always looking to try creative campaigns besides the basic discount for sign up. Plus, strategically timing those campaigns to happen before sales or popular buying times has helped our success,” said Emily.
Rather than using a discount promotion to encourage email sign ups (on top of your Black Friday promotions that will be starting soon anyway), run a bonus loyalty points campaign.
Not only does this encourage more loyalty program sign ups, but it’s a good way to grow your email list since users will be subscribing to your email promotions when they join your loyalty program.
This can also help with word-of-mouth referrals to acquire more customers, if customers get extra points by referring friends and family.
We’ll be releasing MORE tips on Wednesday for how to grow your list.
If you’re planning on implementing any of these, reply to this email and let us know :)
With sky-high competition for the consumer dollar and super-savvy customers resistant to conventional digital marketing tactics, it's time for you to find a solution.
Luckily, it's simple: customer lifecycle marketing. It's a mix of strategies that positively influence customer behaviour as they move through the marketing cycle and deliver content that captures and engages.
You can learn how to accomplish all of that with Simon Data's latest on-demand webinar.
They demonstrate the power of lifecycle marketing that'll inspire you to flip your marketing strategy on its head, including tips on:
So sit back and relax, dear reader, and let Simon Data take the wheel on your next marketing strategy.
Facebook interface glitching out for you right now?
Recently, Facebook Ads Manager has been struggling to upload images.
Here’s what we’re seeing:
Every still image we upload (when building ads) fails to show up in the media selection. As a result, we have to discard the draft and refresh the tab before it shows up.
The Pilothouse teams’ workaround:
And POOF, they’re there now.
Check out these ads from TRUFF.
Facebook loves weird content and TRUFF has found a way to stop the scroll with crazy animations while staying on brand.
This is a pretty intricate piece of creative and is something brands should only be building for proven angles/concept campaigns.
If you’re in full-blown test mode, don’t spend huge amounts of time on one piece of creative.
TRUFF has been running the second ad since July, so it must be doing well for them to keep it going.
Might be worth testing for your own brand.
Your cupboards are overflowing with coffee, you ran out of toilet paper, your spouse is on you about two credit card charges this month…
Reordering can be easy, though.
CPG brands like Lemon Perfect, Hydrant, and Huron are giving their customers a fast and personalized way to reorder from text, email and even QR codes.
It’s one of those things that's easier to experience than explain, so click the link below to see it for yourself.
Check out Huron’s Repeat cart in action. 🔁
Repeat is so confident you’ll love it, they’ll even cover your second month’s bill.
Ready to make reordering easy?
Don’t settle for the same ol’ boring pop-up… take a page out of Liquid Death’s book
And make sure you read exactly what they say about signing up for their SMS list. 🤣 😂
It’s simple… make the customer laugh and you’ll earn a spot in their brain.
This week on All Killer No Filler we’re talking about a hot topic: Q4 Content Planning.
We’re joined by Pilothouse’s creative team including Angela, Head of UGC, Sam from Production, Evan the Content manager, and Cam, our Creative Director.
When thinking about Q4 planning, Black Friday and Cyber Monday are top of mind.
We also know that testing is important, but the question is when?
Try utilizing some of the smaller holidays (aka Halloween) to see what creative resonates with your audience.
Not sure where to start?
Try testing two types of offers you’re thinking of running for BF/CM and see which is a hit!
Know your demographics
It’s common in holiday seasons that your buyer is not always your end user.
Gifting is great inspiration for your UGC/influencer content.
For example, a menswear clothing line may utilize female influencers to showcase who they’re buying for instead of just taking the traditional angle of “what products you’re loving for you.”
Listen to the full pod here to get exclusive tips on how Pilothouse is thinking about Q4!
🔥 Join the top 2% of eCommerce owners, experts and entrepreneurs at PowerHouse Brands Live November 3-4 In Austin, TX!
💎 Goat and Gucci CEOs invest in resale platform Grailed.
📦 Inventory optimization startup Flieber bags $12M, aims to help retailers avoid out-of-stock and overstock moments.
⚽️ DraftKings makes $20B offer for UK sports betting company Entain, sources say.
🎥 StreamElements nabs $100M as it passes 1.1M creators using its platform to build and monetize video content.
📺 Roald Dahl's family lands £500m windfall from sale to Netflix.
🦾 LG is acquiring automotive cybersecurity startup Cybellum in a $240M deal.
🎤 Ex-Apple designer’s ultra-premium audio hardware startup Syng raises $48.75 million.
🌎 Omsom’s Emily Chan shares the secret behind 90% of their growth and it’s NOT paid ads
🛍 Building the future of online marketplaces with Matt Hayes, Co-Founder of The Fascination.
👩💻 Nestle's Orchid Bertelsen on strategies that scale across 30+ brands (and the metaverse).
🤑 How this DTC brand grew 1000% in one year with David Gaylord, CEO of Bushbalm.
Don’t forget to rate the DTC Podcast on Apple (⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️)
DTC Newsletter is written by Thomas Schreiber, Tina Donati, and Rebecca Knight.
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