BANTER

We can’t help that our insights are so 🔥 Don’t forget with great marketing advice comes great responsibility…

Responsibility to put it into practice, and the responsibility to let us know if it’s working 👍

Last Saturday, we took you scrolling through the latest of Brightland’s sponsored posts. Now it’s time we turn our attention to what’s hitting their subscribers’ inboxes.

In this newsletter, you’ll find: 👇

📦 Brand Breakdown Part 2: Brightland (Email)

📦 Insights into shopper behavior with strategies for loyalty with Bluecore

📦 Making your visual asset library open and accessible with Air

Read till the end to access exclusive DTC swag. 😎

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

‍

EMAIL

👋 Email 1: Welcome

Who doesn’t love clean and clear navigation?

At the top of the email, Brightland includes tabs (Shop, Gift, About, Subscription) to help map the customer journey effectively.

This helps them categorize the audience into distinct segments—from those who need to know more before committing to a purchase to those already using the products regularly and looking into a subscription. 🙌

Brightland does a great job of introducing their mission near the top of the email, but the ongoing emphasis on the specifics of their mission and values eventually starts to drag and results in information overload. 🤯

However, the emotional appeal toward the community at the end leaves the reader engaged and inspired.

💡 Areas of opportunity:

• Include a call to action top-of-fold to encourage a higher click-through rate.
• There’s design inconsistency on the CTA buttons, with some stylized in all-caps while others are in sentence case.
• The content is lengthy. We suggest consolidating it a bit but keeping the letter from the CEO. That's a really nice touch! 👌
• Add a coupon code. Brightland should set up a website pop-up for 10% off and include this in the welcome series to encourage first-time purchases.
• The structure of the CTAs in this post is a tad confusing. Brightland should consider a different layout to optimize the time customers scroll through.

📫 Email 2: Free Delivery

Including an introductory offer and a free delivery call-out during the holiday season is a good move for Brightland, mainly to keep AOV high with a minimum order amount.

But it does potentially create an expectation for price slashes for those new to the brand.

For the CTA, using language that suggests claiming an exclusive offer rather than a generic ‘shop now’ is also a good strategy.

Brightland is wise to use the Mini Essentials sample set as a featured product, which is likely to pique the interest of a first-time buyer.

In addition to the navigation bar from the last email, Brightland also included bottom navigation buttons that allow the recipient to shop by category and gauge interest in particular products.

💡 Areas of opportunity:

• The bottom section of the email is CTA heavy, making for an overwhelming user experience.
• Using ‘Text Us’ and ‘Recipes’ CTAs might be too much of an ask this early in the relationship with a potential buyer.
• Simplify the bottom of the copy. It's too busy; there’s no need for all that info and CTAs.

‍

SPONSOR

Throw away those old marketing books

It’s never too late for a fresh start—and there’s no better time than Spring.

While your shoppers are dusting off cobwebs and flinging open windows, it’s time for you to take a look at delivering something new.

With always-on, dynamic marketing, help your shoppers to find even more of what they’ll love from your brand while increasing revenue and keeping them for life.

Use this jumpstart guide, get insights into shopper behavior with strategies that will kickstart your way to loyalty so you can:

• Improve identification rates
• Meet your shoppers where they are to drive conversion
• Keep the growth going all year round

Grow your opportunity with each new purchase and bring back those second-time buyers.

🧽 Start your Spring clean here.

‍

EMAIL

👀 Email 3: Mini Essentials

This might have been an excellent addition to Brightland’s welcome series. However…

💡 Areas of opportunity:

• This email was received right after an order confirmation, which means that recent buyers weren’t excluded from receiving the send.
• Brightland either overlooked creating a proper exclusion segment for converted purchasers or chose not to do so. 🤷
• By offering an attractive discount on a specific product, Brightland must exclude those who purchased this set in the last 1-2 months.

‍

📦 Email 4: Order Tracking

Including a link to recipes with an order tracking email is a nice touch. It can help educate buyers about the product and get them excited about how they’ll use it.

💡 Areas of opportunity:

• This approach would be more impactful as a separate email with tailored copy and a CTA to get the audience excited about the recipes and use the opportunity to upsell.
• In this version, the copy feels quite uninspired and could use an infusion of brand personality. ⚡
• A post-purchase flow would be a brilliant follow-up. Utilizing a "how to use" the purchased product and recipes.

‍

SPONSOR

Make up for lost time with Air

Is it starting to feel like you were hired to manage an unorganized storage unit?

This isn't Storage Wars! 🚚

DTC businesses waste hours every day on cloud storage trying to stay organized in Dropbox and Drive.

It's time to make your visual asset library open and accessible with Air.

• Intuitive search: Your visual assets are scanned and tagged with content keywords, so there is no need to remember locations or filenames.
• Visual browsing: No need to click into folders. Everything is clean and visible; a powerful filter builder gives you complete clarity.
• Secure sharing: Share links to single assets or entire boards, internally or externally, and set passwords or expiration dates for peace of mind.

Turn back time and lock up those cluttered cloud storage units 🔐

👉 Schedule a demo today!

‍

EMAIL

♻️ Email 5: Repeating

This email had plenty going for it the first time around. But receiving it for the third time, even after a purchase, has made it lose its luster.

💡 Areas of opportunity:

• By re-sending the content and not excluding converted purchasers, Brightland’s offer doesn’t feel special anymore.
• If segment filters were set up to exclude buyers, this content could have been repurposed with a different subject line.

‍

🎉 Email 6: Holiday!

This holiday email uses a fun headline and copy to showcase Brightland products as the perfect gifts. The brand used a staggered design to display product photos and accompanying copy with CTAs in a way that doesn’t feel too crowded.

💡 Areas of opportunity

• Brightland should ensure this email makes it specifically to the segment of their audience that had previously clicked on the “Gifts” button on their top navigation.
• The email reiterates the offer of 30% off the Mini Essentials set that buyers cannot claim until they purchase. Since the language can be misleading, it would probably be best to retire this offer.
• While the copy itself is strong, the repeating ‘Shop’ CTAs fall flat in comparison. For the same reason, the ‘Shopping for the Holidays?’ section at the bottom seems redundant.
• We much prefer this layout over some of the previous ones. However, segmenting this and using dynamic blocks could ensure that Brightland sends the right products to the customers that have previously purchased or shown interest.

‍

✍️ Email 7: Endorsements

Highlighting endorsements from food writers, rather than just customer reviews, is a great way to build brand credibility. The copy at the top of the email is engaging and effectively introduces the endorsements below.

💡 Areas of opportunity:

• This PR content could have been used more strategically earlier in the welcome series campaign. These types of endorsements would have been influential in converting someone who has yet to make a purchase.
• Alternatively, this could be a way to encourage repeat purchases, had the email been sent a week or two after the customer has received their order. As part of the holiday gift campaign, this messaging doesn’t quite fit.
• A CTA higher up in the email would be more optimal. The CTA sits at the bottom, which risks the possibility that people won't reach the bottom of the email to read it.

To get up to date on Brightland’s delivery confirmation and educational emails, click here!  🚀

‍

👋 Catch you next week for Part 3 of our brand breakdown on Brightland

‍

BRANDS

🩳 Big Bud Press : Finally, a LA-based clothing label that specializes in unisex clothing and goods! Absolutely everything on the website is sized for anyone and their in-depth sizing chart makes consumers comfortable and confident in their purchases. 👏

💍 Wolf Circus : Bling bling! WC is a woman-run jewelry company that’s committed to building and nourishing ethical practices. WC’s jewelry is handcrafted in their studio and made with high-grade recycled metals, freshwater pearls, and lab-created gemstones.

👟 Greats : Greats creates sneakers that are built to last. They strive to transform premium materials into the perfect ethical shoe. Greats use 100% recyclable packaging and partner with factories that use fewer resources in production.

‍🔊 HAVE YOU HEARD OUR LATEST PODCASTS?

🍭 100 Million TikTok Views: Slapping the Marshmallow with TheMarshmallow.co's Joel Twyman.

👀 If You Shelve It, Will They Come? With Fractional CMO Bryan Holladay.

🏋️‍♂️ Why Personalization Might be the Biggest Opportunity in DTC with Eric Ji Sun Wu, co-founder of Gainful.

💄The Fast Road to 8 Figures with Jones Road Beauty's Cody Plofker.

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

DTC Newsletter is written by Rebecca Knight, Jordan Gillis, and Tina Donati. Edited by Claire Beveridge and Eric Dyck.

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!