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Issue 197
That’s it. That’s our goal. Happy Wednesday, increase that ROAS! 👊
If you’re new to DTC, welcome! You’re in good company with fellow newcomers from Crypto.com, Resident Home, This Little Goat, Bellamianta, and Lettuce Grow. 🥬
In this newsletter, you’ll find: 👇
📦 Death Wish Coffee's Will Critcher spills the beans
📦 The help you need to increase your ROAS with Black Crow AI
📦 Six Facebook copy styles you can steal today
📦 Reduce your average cost per for project by 50% with Superside
📦 CLEARSTEMs truth about anti-acne and anti-aging skincare
Read till the end to learn how you can join the DTC Facebook group. 😎
👉 If a pal forwarded this to you, subscribe , so you never miss out.
🎧 On this episode of the DTC pod, we chatted with Will Critcher, eCommerce Director at Death Wish Coffee, who spilled the beans on the brand’s success.
Death Wish is on a mission to save the world from blah beans and caffeinate the universe with The World’s Strongest Coffee. ☕ A premium product, bold personality, and marketing prowess has helped this brand build an iconic 8-figure coffee empire in less than 10 years.
Grab a cuppa Joe and tune in to learn how a Superbowl ad launched the brand, why the death of the Facebook feed is eminent, how adding Quick Shop boosted their ATC by 400%, and much more.
The takeaways 👇
✂️ Separation of church & state content and sales:
Death Wish has always been big on email marketing. “We have two commodities: coffee and email addresses.”
In the past, they would combine promotions and content in one email, thinking the content would be supportive of the sale. Pretty common approach, right?
However, they noticed that sometimes the content would outperform the promo and hypothesized that having both in one email was cannibalizing potential sales.
So they decided to separate the two:
✔️ Not only did their sales-focused emails improve, but their newsletter quickly amassed 100K followers and is now beloved by customers.
Sometimes it pays off to simplify and focus!
☕ A whole latte leadership wisdom:
As someone who’s been mentored by great leaders, Will shared some of his favorite nuggets (or beans?) of leadership wisdom:
The speed at which truth is shared within an organization is directly correlated with the success of that business.
Context over control. (No micro-managing.)
[A successful company is] not a family. It’s a Superbowl-winning football team.
We would also like to add: The success of your business is linearly correlated to how caffeinated your employees are. 🤪
💰 What Will would do with an extra $50K:
“Pre-roll and display ads on Pornhub.”
(No, really. That was his answer.)
We’ve got the hook: Hot coffee near you. 🔥🔥🔥
👉 Get the full drip with Will Critcher here!
To say that marketers have been heavily impacted by iOS 14.5 would be an understatement. 😓
High CPMs and poor targeting have deteriorated the margins of DTC brands, and have skyrocketed the cost of acquiring customers with paid media campaigns.
While we haven’t found a time machine that can take us back to the good ol’ days of sales attribution (yet), over 150 DTC brands are squeezing more out of their paid media spend by using Black Crow AI.
Black Crow's plug-and-play platform leverages the power of first-party data and machine learning to target only your most likely buyers and maximize your precious marketing budget.
The results speak for themselves - DTC brands like Bearaby and Cotopaxi have increased their ROAS by over 30% since using Black Crow AI.
👉 Qualified brands can receive a 30-day free trial of their platform - click here to learn more.
Being creative through the slow summer months (and an impending recession) is no easy feat. 😰
Luckily for you, we’ve got a Facebook team ready to spill their secrets on how you can level up your ad copy to get those sweet, sweet conversions.
Steal these six copy tips to get you started: 👇
1️⃣ Use numbers
It’s important to remember that numbers draw more attention in your copy with a specific callout. Consider using a stat or fun fact!
The number you choose to showcase should help the shopper understand why they need your product. If it’s on-brand for your company to joke around, try that! Or go the more traditional route:
2️⃣ Add important message callouts
It's a classic, but hooks like:
Create an instant emotional response to engage with your message. Using this style prompts ad readers to react with more urgency and intensity.
3️⃣ Position as a win
Any unique offer element can be framed this way, but clients have seen success with hooks using:
Give the prospect a positive response right away and create excitement about your offering. Now you just have to deliver with the offer positioning itself.
4️⃣ Position as a secret
Similar to positioning as a win, this is a different way to make someone feel like they've won.
5️⃣ Lifestyle
Seasonality and lifestyle can be winning angles! Consider if the product you’re offering fits into someone's seasonal routines and lean in.
What problems might your product solve for your target market during the summer? What way might it make someone's summer better?
6️⃣ Innovative and new
People want to feel like they're onto the newest and coolest trend. Share the innovation behind your product and leverage angles like:
Steal these tips to contrast test and/or iterate on your own winning creatives! If you’re stuck in a creative rut and can’t get those pesky ads to scale, reach out!
Quick question....
What could your brand could achieve with:
...And 50% reduction in average cost per project?
That’s what you get when you join Superside. And it comes with a simple subscription plan. No surprises or extra costs.
👉 Get high-quality creative assets pronto.
Created by Danielle Gronich (owner of the acclaimed San Diego Acne Clinic and The Acne Guru™) & Kayleigh Christina (Holistic Nutritionist), CLEARSTEM is the anti-acne, anti-aging, non-toxic solution that heals the damages done by your old skincare routine.
We’ve been watching their marketing strategy, and their top of funnel (TOF) approach is worth learning from. CLEARSTEM leans heavily on education and provide their viewers with the faults of other skin care products sourced from clinical studies. They may not be making friends in the industry, but they pride themselves on educating their customers on the truth.
The truth? Anti-acne products age you, and anti-aging products cause acne. At least that was the truth…
CLEARSTEM has revolutionized the approach to skincare. No more choosing between anti this or anti that. Their products do both without the addition of hormone disruptors or pore-clogging toxins. CLEARSTEM was created to help consumers heal their acne without resorting to toxic medications.
Their founders are a force to be reckoned with. Danielle and Kayleigh are on a mission to reach millions of people through their ambassador program and interviews. There’s no shortage of places you can find them: The Skinny Confidential, Blonde Files, Almost 30, Dr. Will Cole, and DTC Podcast. It’s clear why CLEARSTEM’s revenue tripled in 5 months and is on track to 6x for 2022.
If you want to revamp your skincare routine or your TOF approach, check out CLEARSTEM. They’ve got you covered.
🚨 Want to give their products a go? Use code DTC15 at checkout for 15% off CLEARSTEM products.
QUICK HITS
🔎 Google Hangouts is shutting down in November and moving to Chat today.
📱 Instagram adds new age verification features to detect younger users.
🍔 McDonald’s Names Ian Borden as New CFO and Kevin Ozan moves to senior executive vice president.
💊 Pharmaceutical E-commerce Market projected to record a CAGR of 14.3%.
🔊 HAVE YOU HEARD OUR LATEST PODCASTS?
☕️ Death Wish Coffee's Will Critcher Spills The Beans.
🕯️Making Memories of NYC into Candles (and Killing it on TikTok) with Erica Werber from Literie Candle.
🍪 AdRoll Bakes Up A Solution to the 3rd Party Cookie-pocalypse.
🧴 Growing 20-30% Month Over Month with Stem Cell Skincare Brand CLEARSTEM.
🤑 Aviator Nation Drives Over $10 Million in Apparel Sales with their Tapcart App with Curtis Ulrich and Eric Netsch.
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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