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If you’re new to DTC, welcome! You’re in good company with fellow newcomers from Love Wellness, ReserveBar, The Tartan Blanket Co., Gutsy Kombucha, and Rise & Fall. 👋
In this newsletter you’ll find: 👇
📦 Personalization power with Eric Ji Sun Wu, Co-Founder of Gainful
📦 Solving your abandoned carts in Shopify with Adroll
📦 How to create real urgency for your brand and mean it this time
📦 Aspiring in-platform solution for seamless influencer whitelisting
Read ‘til the end to access exclusive DTC swag. 😎
👉 If a pal forwarded this to you, subscribe so you never miss out.
🎧 On this week’s pod, we made some serious gains with Eric Ji Sun Wu, Co-founder of Gainful.
Gainful is a health and supplementation company that offers personalized nutrition systems based on its customers' unique physiology, dietary needs, and goals.
If you’re interested in personalization and how to use it for your brand, you won’t want to miss this one!
The Takeaways: 👇
🧍 Pro tips for personalization:
Personalization is so hot right now.
But Eric cautioned against DTC brands jumping on the bandwagon. ✋
“Personalization shouldn’t be just slapped onto a company that has a couple of different flavors or colors. In those regards, people tend to like having a choice… Rather than to be told what color or flavor is best for them.”
It has to make sense for your specific category.
“...[And] if you think about the vertical that might need personalization the most, it’s probably supplementation.”
For instance, when it comes to supplements:
So, if your product aligns with some of these considerations, personalization might be a good move!
👊 Another quiz FTW
Here’s the kicker: You can’t buy anything from Gainful without taking their online quiz. Seriously.
Now that’s the definition of true personalization. 🧐
Once a customer takes the quiz, their recommendations are built on two levels:
Gainful also uses the data to highly segment customers based on several factors (goals, activity type, etc.), then offer them even more personalized marketing, education, and recommendations.
All this work = higher AOV, customer retention rates, and subscription rates for the brand.
“The magic of Gainful is in the personalization… Our goal is to personalize the experience from end-to-end.”
💰 What Eric would do with an extra $50K:
Like any smart marketer, he would divvy it up…
First, he would put some funds toward new product innovation:
“Not just on the physical product side (formulations, ingredients), but also on the digital side as well… More of the education, a performance ecosystem where there are platforms, fitness devices, etc. coming together.”
Second, he would invest more into their Registered Dietitian program to give their customers an even deeper, one-on-one access to the RD’s (which is free for customers, BTW. How cool is that?)
👉 Get all the personalization pro tips in the full convo with Eric here!
Last seen: traveling in a shopping cart.
So we've got abandonment issues...
Abandoned carts are something all Shopify stores face. Ecommerce brands lose a jaw-dropping $18 billion in annual revenue when shoppers fail to check out.
But that doesn’t mean you should accept that 🛒 + 💸 = 😭
Nearly 70% of online shopping carts are abandoned, don’t wait to recoup your lost dollars and customers. Download The Abandoned Cart Recovery Playbook for Shopify Merchants to…
👉 Click here to get your guide!
How to create REAL urgency with your brand
Winning in the digital advertising space is about constantly adapting your marketing efforts to meet people where they are.
We are already seeing behavioral shifts as we transition from the COVID-era of stimulus cheques and high app usage at home. People are excited to have ‘real’ life experiences again and are spending accordingly.
When you mix that with recession fears and expensive commodities, you get quite a different landscape. Not to mention, the tracking challenges post-iOS 14. 🤦♀️
The environment has shifted, and you need to adapt. The current environment requires you to give people a reason to act NOW.
At Pilothouse, we are seeing this play out across the brands we work with, regardless of vertical. Winners nearly always have an urgency element to them.
Urgency levers are easy to come by: % off, buy one get one, new limited edition styles, limited stock... The list goes on.
Creating an urgent statement is easy. Integrating this strategy long-term is the challenge. Don’t be the brand who cried wolf. Consideration periods are higher now. To close that gap without losing brand integrity takes serious effort.
Here’s what you can do:
1️⃣ Be honest
2️⃣ Get specific
3️⃣ Alternate your urgency levers to maintain the feeling of exclusivity
4️⃣ Weaponize FOMO
5️⃣ Playing hard to get
Even the most sale-sensitive brands can get urgent and drive intent in a way that doesn’t harm their image. Do it tactically, and do it fast. You won’t want to be late in adapting to this cycle.
If you’re looking to stay on top of trends and best utilize your Facebook ad space, reach out to the Pilothouse Facebook team! 🔥
They both charge you extra for things that should be included.
Yup, it sucks when you have to pay more for the good stuff (we're adding pepperoni if ya buyin'!) 🍕
That's why we recommend that DTC brands check out Aspire, which includes influencer whitelisting as standard. 🙌
Brands already using Aspire include Empress Gin, Minted, and SmartyPants. Here's why:
Aspire offers a native, in-platform solution for seamless influencer whitelisting at no extra cost.
It's time to get a slice of the action.
👉 Your next-level influencer whitelisting starts here.
🎯 The Juice is like noise-canceling headphones for marketers. It allows you to focus on relevant content, without the unnecessary noise of LinkedIn or Twitter. Silence it all with The Juice. *
🛍 Adobe unveils a new augmented reality shopping tool.
💰 Meta files a new lawsuit over the sale of fake customer reviews on Facebook.
🔥 Selling on Amazon vs. eBay: The eCommerce Showdown.
👏 Google launches new 'Related Search for Content' ads to help improve on-site engagement.
🤯 Mark Zuckerberg confirms NFTs are coming to Instagram.
🏋️♂️ 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.
❣️ 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.
Don’t forget to rate the DTC Podcast on Apple (⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️)
DTC Newsletter is written by Rebecca Knight, Jordan Gillis, and Kelsey Hess. Edited by Claire Beveridge and Eric Dyck.
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