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Most list-growth advice assumes you have a website people visit. Cove Soda doesn't. They sell zero sugar soda in roughly 7,000 retail doors with no real DTC store, which means no site traffic, no purchase pop-ups, and no easy email capture.
Zoe Kahn runs marketing for Cove as interim VP. In this episode she breaks down how a retail-first brand still builds a direct, owned channel, why she treats in-person events as the acquisition surface, and how she competes in a soda aisle that already has Olipop and Poppi running Super Bowl ads.
What you'll get:
- The event tactic that grows an email and SMS list without DTC: trade a full can for an opt-in
- How to segment by geography so US news goes to US fans and Canadian news goes to Canadian fans
- How she picks which events to sample at, and why marketing assets in a state change the math
- Using Amazon attribution links to test creative and copy when you have no DTC
- A clear take on why an oversaturated category is not a reason to quit
- The early-career mistake that shipped roughly 700 wrong orders, and what it taught her
Who this is for: retail-first and omnichannel operators, beverage and CPG founders, retention and lifecycle marketers, and anyone who has been told they can't build a list without DTC.
What to steal: the can-for-email swap at events, geographic list segmentation, and an event-selection checklist built on demographic fit and asset location.
0:00 Intro
3:16 Building a Canadian Brand in the US
7:55 How Cove Soda Stands Out in a Crowded Market
10:09 Using QR Codes to Grow Email and SMS Lists
17:50 Practical AI Workflows for Marketing Teams
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Watch this interview on YouTube - https://dtcnews.link/video
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