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BANTER

Guilty as charged 🥲

If you’re new to DTC, welcome! You’re in good company with fellow newcomers from Shampora, PLANTMADE, Malvados, Hey Bud Skincare, Lucy in the Sky, Lounge Underwear, and Táche. 🥛

In this newsletter, you’ll find: 👇

📬 9 easy wins to improve your email deliverability - Part 2

🐶 40% repeat purchase rate (without email) and the true meaning of product-market fit with James Petrellis from Mighty Munch

💡 Why you should be dark posting your UGC

Read till the end to access exclusive DTC swag. 😎

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

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EMAIL DELIVERABILITY - PART 2

Promo-box be gone ✨

In case you missed Part 1 of improving your email deliverability, make sure to check it out in DTC 142!

If you’re still working on improving deliverability on those pesky emails, tune in for part 2 👇

5️⃣ Test variations in your “From” line

If you aren’t doing it already, use your brand name in your “From” line. This helps reduce Spam complaints and improve open rates, which will help deliverability.

You could also test sending emails from a company individual to give messages a more personal feel.

Others, like Chase Dimond, have experienced better open rates by using their email domain in the “From” line.

The options are endless—just remember to test and see what’s working!

6️⃣ Consider simpler emails

Image-heavy emails with very little copy can be hallmarks of Spammers, so providers tend to be wary of them. Additionally, some ISPs don’t display images by default, which means they may not even show up for some users. Images are also slower to load, which impacts UX and engagement.

This is why many brands are experimenting with simpler, text-based emails to improve load time and deliverability.

Of course, this is all highly brand relevant. If your emails are extravagantly designed, full of GIFs and crazy animations—but you have killer engagement—keep fighting the good fight! 👊

(And if you use images, make sure they’re properly compressed and include alt text.)

7️⃣ Clear Unsubscribe button

This should be a no-brainer, but the sad truth is we all experience the “where the F is the Unsubscribe” moment on a much-too-regular basis. 🤦

It doesn’t have to be in screaming red letters. Just make sure your Unsubscribe button is easy to find…

Because if users can’t see it, they’re more likely to hit Spam/Complaint, a killer for deliverability.  

Good example of subtle yet clear:

8️⃣ Practice good list hygiene

Ahhhh hygiene. A world we’ve all come to know and love/hate the past 22+ months. 😷

Just like your hands, regularly cleaning your list is an excellent idea. Unopened emails, unengaged subscribers, and bounce rates can all affect your sender reputation and overall deliverability.

A few tips for good list hygiene:

• Build out re-engagement campaigns to regularly check in with short-term unengaged subscribers (every 3-6 months depending on how much you mail).
• Periodically segment unengaged subs into their own lists and remove them from regular mailings.
• Every 12 months, fully clean your list of anyone that hasn’t engaged. At this point, permission to send emails has expired, and you run the risk of low open rates, high bounce rates, and spam complaints.

9️⃣Use Spam checkers

And finally, the sure-fire way to know if your emails are making it to Primary or Promos… is to test them!

Free email spam checker tools like Litmus, Email on Acid, and GlockApps are extremely helpful. Add them to your email workflow if you want to maximize deliverability. 📨

Did you find these tips helpful? Did we miss any? Hit reply and let us know! (See what we did there? 😉)

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PODCAST

🎧 This week on the pod, we were joined by James Petrellis, a 10-year performance marketing entrepreneur and founder of natural pet brand Mighty Munch , which creates premium supplements for your furry friends.

In this episode, James fills us in on how the brand is on track to do 8-figures—without email marketing or Amazon. 😮

If you like controversial takes, grab a bowl of popcorn and a comfy seat because you’re gonna love this pod.

‍The Takeaways 👇

🔥 Why “creative burnout” is a myth

Here’s a mind-blower for ya: Mighty Munch has been successfully running ads using some of the same creative for over a year.

“Everyone says ‘creative burns out.’ That’s bullsh*t. No, it doesn’t… The issue isn’t creative burnout. The issue is bad media buying and bad campaign management.”

After all, if there are millions of people out there to test your creative on, how could it possibly burn out in two weeks? 🤷

Change the way you’re buying media, so you aren’t narrowing yourself to a tiny audience—namely by running ads “broad” and letting Facebook do your retargeting.

“If you’re spending six hours per day in Facebook Ads Manager, you’re doing it wrong.”

📧 What happened when they stopped doing email marketing

Ready for mind-blower number two? Mighty Munch has a 40% repeat customer rate with practically zero email marketing. 🤯

How is that possible, you say?

According to James, it all comes down to selling a product that solves a problem.

“When they buy [your product] if it does solve their problem, there’s a good chance they’re gonna come back and keep buying. If it doesn’t, they’re not.

Don’t worry. James isn’t totally bagging on email. He just thinks it’s a little overhyped by the industry.

“How do you get the best repeat customer rate? The first step isn’t email. The first step is to get your product right, so it solves a problem…that’s the biggest thing you can do.”

💰 What James would do with an extra $50K

The barrier to entry to TV is seemingly so high, but James believes it’s possible to D-I-Y TV ads using methods from digital marketing—like UGC video footage.

“We’re gonna produce our own ad, it’s gonna be a problem-solution, proper direct-response DTC branded ad that we know works…and we’re just gonna see what happens.”

👉 Listen to the full convo with James here !

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SPONSOR

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UGC

Are you dark posting your UGC?  

It’s been widely reported that UGC ads receive 4x CTR, and CPC’s cost 50% less than non-UGC ads. 🔥

Why? Because we know they’re more trusted and more engaging.

So how can we optimize UGC beyond that? Dark Posting.

What is dark posting? 🤔

A dark post is a targeted ad that appears in the news feeds of only a selected set of users and nowhere else (aka the post doesn’t show when you visit the creators page).

Content is run through a creator’s handle as if they’d posted it themselves, but the post does not live on their feeds or profiles.

Dark posting allows you to capitalize on the social proof the creator’s handle and profile offers, run multiple ad iterations, and test different audiences with different copy, etc.

The Pilothouse UGC team has found that with less spend, dark posted content performs just as well (or better!) than the top branded ads in the account.

Check out the stats! 👇

Dark Posted

• A dark posted ad for a men's grooming company spent $60, had 14 purchases, and a ROAS of 13.94 for $840 revenue.

• Another dark posted ad for a menswear brand spent $580, had 17 purchases, and a ROAS of 5.19 for $3K total revenue.

Top Branded

• A non-UGC ad for the same menswear brand spent $1007 and had ROAS of 5.53 for total revenue of $5.5K.  
  

The proof is in the pudding. Dark posted UGC holds up to the best of the best.

Thanks to Debbie on the Pilothouse UGC team for the insights. 🚀

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QUICK HITS

💡Reserve your DTCX3 spot to join 50+ DTC leaders and experts in a FREE virtual e-commerce event that focuses on the most actionable tips to help you elevate every aspect of your brand.*

📸 Instagram now provides some insight into story engagement by introducing story likes.

🛍️ Close to 6 out of 10 consumers (US) shopped at a DTC brand in 2021.

👟 Allbirds partners with Trove launching "ReRun" to enter the secondhand sneaker market.

👀 Increasing non-dining partnerships paid off, 25M active users for DoorDash in Q4 2021.

📌 Pin it! The New Twitter option lets you pin DM chats to track conversations better.

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🔊 HAVE YOU HEARD OUR LATEST PODCASTS?

🐶 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.

🦷 Tend Merges Dentistry with Hospitality and Disrupts the $300B Space with Matt Fitzgerald.

💄 Youthforia's Fiona Co Chan Creates an Organic TikTok to Amazon Pipeline.

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

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

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