Newsletter

BANTER

Saturday, March 12, 2022

Last Saturday we analyzed Bombas’ bomb ass Facebook Ads creatives, uncovering the visual and copywriting tactics of one of the best in the apparel business.

Today strap in for Bombas Brand Breakdown Part 2: a retention-focused analysis of the sock giant’s email game.

In this newsletter, you’ll find: 👇

📧 What we loved (and loved less) about Bombas’ welcome flow, abandon cart, and post-purchase emails

​​👀 Learn how minisocial UGC makes paid social magic for Soylent and Native deodorant

🤔 A report by Attest on what marketers need to know about the latest consumer trends

Buckle up DTC’ers because there’s a ton of amazing learnings and insights from our Pilothouse email gurus in this one!

Read till the end to access exclusive DTC swag. 😎

👉 If a pal forwarded this to you, subscribe , so you never miss out.

‍

EMAIL

🎉 Offer pop-up

Bombas uses two-stage signup on mobile that captures SMS. For most brands, this is a no-brainer. By asking in stages, you won’t affect your email capture rate, and we all know what SMS can do for open and conversion rates.

20% is a significant discount when most brands offer 10-15%.

Smartly, Bombas tells the subscriber the discount has already been applied, pre-framing them for their journey to become a customer.

Bombas is comfortable with discounting, likely because the cost of goods sold for socks is on the lower side, but by offering a steep discount on the first touch, you teach the customer to expect discounts throughout their lifecycle.

💡 Pro Tips from Pilothouse :

• Diversify the copy. It’s super repetitive and mentions 20% off three times on the first screen in a way that seems lazy. Maybe because 20% is significantly higher than customers are used to, it’s worth repeating as this is the main reason you’d sign up, but we’d spice it up.
• Test images. According to a cross-analysis by Klaviyo, pop-ups that have imagery perform 40% better on average!
• Test a $ off discount instead of %. Those tend to convert better.

👋 Welcome email 1

The first email in Bombas’ welcome series is solid and conversion-focused. Your code is delivered first, followed by their top product bundles categorized by gender.

💡 Pro Tips from Pilothouse :

• Make the CTA stand out. The primary Shop Now CTA has got to pop. Right now, it’s pretty small and hard to see, so it doesn’t catch your eye as a CTA should.
• Think about future campaigns. By getting the user to select their gender, Bombas can tag this and later send emails with better customization to improve conversion.
• Increase AOV. Bombas smartly chooses to promote packs vs. individual products for higher AOV.  
• Tell a visual story. Note how the product page draws your eye down to the bright blue Bombas Pledge and arrow-shaped logo centered at the bottom. The pledge is genius because it makes customers feel good about their purchases. This is great visual brand building!

Up next: a cross-gendered abandoned cart, and objection conquering welcome email two!

‍

SPONSOR

Consumer trends that brands need to know for success in 2022

The world is changing at a fast pace, and this uncertainty impacts how consumers want to hear from brands. 👀

For marketers, an ever-changing landscape means that it's more important than ever to understand how people spend money, what they do in their leisure time, and how the future looks.

Attest has put together a must-read report  from 2,000 US consumers looking at what's top of mind for them right now and how they want brands to respond.

What's inside:

• The type of messaging consumers want to hear from brands
• The top issues consumers want brands to take a stand on in 2022
• Which social media platforms consumers are using to interact with brands —including the rise of TikTok
• Where people are shopping, what they're saving up for, and the industries that look set to benefit

👉 Get the report for free today.

‍

EMAIL

🛒  Abandoned cart sequence

Three and a half hours after we bounced from our first purchase, we received Bombas’ abandoned cart sequence.

This seems slightly delayed as the expected timing is 1-2 hours for the first abandoned cart email.

This one came with a cheeky, alliterative title.

Having identified ourselves as male through this sequence, it’s interesting to note that Bombas shows imagery of women to invite us back to the purchase. We doubt this is accidental.

💡 Pro Tips from Pilothouse :

• Gender bender. Don’t be afraid to entice users with imagery the opposite sex, especially in a hail mary abandoned cart sequence.
• Intimacy sells. If you’re an intimate brand, leverage that intimacy however you can.

‍

🙋‍♀️ Welcome email 2:

The second email in Bombas’ welcome sequence came two days after the purchase and focuses heavily on their replacement policy, which is positioned cleverly as “sock coverage.”

More than just offering a strong replacement policy, Bombas helps customers visualize its value by laying out hypothetical issues that customers can either relate to or be amused by.

💡 Pro Tips from Pilothouse :

• Use humour. This email makes a strong play for brand affinity and LTV with both value and humour.
• Include testimonials. After the graphic, Bombas continues the joke about alien abductions. It’s funny, but with this real estate, we’d rather see a testimonial from a professional spaghetti eater who’s taken advantage of the coverage.
• Keep it simple. It’s quite a busy email, with at least five distinct font types. This is part of the fun approach but could be tightened up.
• Don’t forget CTAs. The guarantee graphic is strong but could benefit from a CTA within that section.

For the rest of the Bombas Email Breakdown, which covers Bombas Five email post-purchase email sequence (you won’t believe number four), click through to the DTC Blog.

👋Stay tuned for Part 3 of our brand breakdown on Bombas

‍

SPONSOR

Accessible UGC magic

How to leverage UGC for your DTC brand?

minisocial builds a community of micro-influencer creatives to produce fully-licensed content while generating the buzz associated with a traditional influencer campaign.

With minisocial  campaigns, the proof is in the pudding. 👇

Bite partners with minisocial around product launches and strategic initiatives to generate timely content with micro-influencer creators that comes fully licensed right out of the box.

Soylent needed to create testimonial-style UGC for ad assets and turned to minisocial to produce dozens of fully-licensed videos.

Native has run dozens of campaigns with minisocial and utilizes content from their campaigns everywhere from email marketing, ad assets, and organic social.

Want to learn more? Find a time to connect with their team or check out their case studies here.

👉 Get started and get 15% off your first campaign!

‍

BRANDS

🧼 HiBar: If you’re finally ready to cut the plastic out of your shower routine, it’s time to check out HiBar. Plastic-free shampoos and conditioners with salon-quality.

💪 Wellious: Sometimes, whey protein powder just doesn't sit well… Almond protein is the new kid on the block. It tastes good, has great health benefits, and is 100% vegan.

🔥 Tree Free Fire: No need to shell out all your money to buy firewood at the campground anymore. Tree Free Fire’s portable campfires use wax and peat moss so you can ‘enjoy a campfire anytime, anywhere.’

‍

‍

🔊 HAVE YOU HEARD OUR LATEST PODCASTS?

❣️ Molly Garraway on Growing a CX Team to 100, and Then Starting from Scratch with LoveSeen.

👟 Restructuring Google Ads for Customer Avatars with Sean McGinnis from Kuru Footwear.

🐶 40% Repeat Purchase Rate (Without Email) and True Meaning of Product-Market Fit with James Petrellis from Mighty Munch.

🥣 Mascots in the Metaverse: How to Make NFTs Work for Your DTC Brand with OffLimits CEO Emily Elyse Miller.

Don’t forget to rate the DTC Podcast  on Apple (⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️)

DTC Newsletter is written by Kelsey Hess and Rebecca Knight. Edited by Claire Beveridge.

Was this email forwarded to you? Sign up here.

NEED MORE DTC?

🚀 Advertise in DTC Newsletter.

💰Check out our course on Facebook and Instagram ads!

📥 Work for The DTC Newsletter: Send an email to Rebecca, rebecca@directtoconsumer.co, if you’re interested in writing for us!