Happy Sunday!
I hope that you've had a great weekend and you're getting excited for the upcoming week. The short weeks always sound good in theory, but I feel like once the day off is over, it's just crunching 5 days into 4. Either way, I hope you've got your feet kicked up, you're relaxed, and you're ready to talk about the hook.
I'm flying to Montreal right now as I write this for Sam Lewkowict's wedding tonight! You might know Sam as the co-founder of Black Wolf Nation, but ever since we met at a coffee shop in Times Square NY, we became close friends. This is also the first wedding I'm attending in my adult life (of 4 that are planned), so if you've got any tips for me, please let me know! PS, if you want to wish him, click this link to tweet him congrats!
So last week, I talked about how the brands I was meeting with in LA are really great about content creation. On that note, and because August usually sees a dip in CPMs on ad platforms, I thought I'd talk about this concept I have called "Buying the Dip" in DTC.
Buying the Dip is essentially taking advantage of when August CPMs drop down, and you can spend money to build higher-intent audiences for Black Friday, Christmas, and the overall holidays.
In DTC, brands are usually really good at either:
- awareness
- content creation
- conversion-optimized website
- 13/10 innovative product
In a few instances (compared to what has been launched — check CPGD or ThingTesting) you see a brand that has all those things done really well. In many cases, it's because teams are small or the right talent isn't there to think through the other places where they lack. For example, I can think of an amazing desserts brand that has incredible founders and products, but horrible marketing. On the other hand, there are suitcase companies that have world-class marketing, but a horrible products they've been able to disguise.
With many of the brands pushing past their first $1 million in sales, you usually see that they have a good product, they're pretty good with building awareness for what they're doing and they have a decent site. But they all still lack the middle part of their marketing funnel, which is where someone is aware of the brand but hasn't made the decision yet to make a purchase.
And because I'm writing this email on a flight to a wedding, I'm going to try to give you a few quick ideas on how to build this up. If you work in B2B, these also work... they would replace the webinars and eBooks.
In all these cases, these can be pushed organically, or you can buy the dip and get your lists ready to retarget for the holidays.
TikTok Content
With TikTok, there are so many ways to play this. My favorite is either capturing people's first reaction to trying the product (sniffing the deodorant, tasting the snack, trying the sauce, etc) or education behind parts of the product.
For example, if you sell deodorant, there are hundreds of stories to tell from talking about certain ingredients and how they can be harmful, to breaking down the science behind how it works.
If you're a food or beverage brand, you can go the super fancy route of making food on TikTok that no one else will be able to make, but it's satisfying to watch, or you take the Olipop route and make the best-looking root beer float.
Third-Party Reviews
If someone is interested in learning more, chances are they will go to Google to search your brand name, which is why you want to have third-party sites review your products. The sites can be random bloggers, to The Fascination to Thing Testing. The more reviews, the merrier.
You'll also get reviews from people who bought the product for different use cases, whereas your website might speak to just one or two use cases. For example, Hint water's website talks about how great the product is. But a cancer blogger might speak to how the flavoring makes it easy to drink water while going through chemotherapy.
Facebook Groups
If your customer is someone who's still on Facebook, you should absolutely build a Facebook group. For products that require some form of validation (apparel, supplements, etc), having a Facebook group has worked really well to convert new customers.
Why? Well, inside the group are people who are ready to answer any and all questions because they're passionate about the brand itself. Many times, I've seen brands even just run ads to get people signed up to their FB group, knowing they'll see the content and then want to convert. Or, it'll be the exit-intent popup or site-abandonment email telling you to go to the FB group and read reviews.
Creator Content
Creator content works so well for 3 reasons:
It's more content for you as a brand
You get alignment with that creators beliefs, values, standards, etc.
You get distribution to their audience
When @wellthybelly posts about Hilma bloat relief on her Instagram, she checks all the boxes. Hilma gets content. I know it's got to be legit, because I know she doesn't promote anything that doesn't work. And, I see it as a result of being a follower.
You also get the benefit of different angles as to why people consume or purchased the product. This doesn't just apply to supplements, it can be furniture, phone cases, cleaning supplies, etc.
Mission-Based Content
Why did you start your company? What do you want people to be more educated on? Create content around that and push it. This content doesn't even have to be sales focused, but it should educate someone to the point where they start to think, "Damn, maybe I should be showering with a filter in my water."
This isn't reverse-engineering SEO, this is pure answering the question of "What do you want your company to change in the world" and then pushing content behind that.
Interactive Tool
One of the brands that Masala Capital invested in, is Jolie Skin. Ryan Babenzien, the founder, had a genius idea to create a water report on their site to collect emails.
Instead of a silly 10% off coupon in exchange for an email collection, you can enter your name, email, and zip code, and Jolie will run through the US government's API for water quality, and send you a localized water report.
Similar to Mission-Based Content, it works because whether or not you end up making a purchase right there, you still get value out of it as the consumer. In this case, it's also something that someone can go post on social media organically, too.
If you can find your version of the Jolie Water Report, you're set.
IRL Activations
The last idea that comes to mind as we begin the descent is doing things IRL.
Ty Haney is one of the OGs with the Outdoor Voices running clubs across the country. I've seen other brands do it with dinners, activities, Saturday morning workouts, etc. Bringing people together for something where the punchline isn't your brand, but your brand gets the privilege to be there, is a great way to build community and get the credit from the community.
Invite people who are customers, people who want to become customers, and any others who might benefit.
IRL activations don't have to be expensive pop-ups, only.
All of these ideas push someone to go from knowing about your brand to want to make a purchase or building the intent to learn more.
Now we're getting close to landing, so on to some fun stuff...
Vendor of the Week:
Rebuy — The Swiss-Army Knife app on Shopify that every merchant needs
I talk about Rebuy a lot, and it's not going to stop anytime soon, because they are maybe the most founder-friendly app in the Shopify app store. It's less than $5/month, and with just Rebuy, you can add all these to your site:
- Smart reorder cart (each person sees what they last ordered)
- Smart cart (gamifying free shipping, up-sells, etc)
- Product recommendations based on the product being viewed
- Pop-up bundle upsells
- Post-purchase upsells
- In-checkout upsells
- and more
Basically, it's silly to not have Rebuy installed on your site at this point. Recently, they just launched a Klaviyo integration, which means you can take the same logic/frameworks from the above features, and apply them to Klaviyo.
If someone bought a product, you can send a personalized Klaviyo email with the products they need to reorder. If someone makes a purchase of Chamberlain Coffee's social dog, they might now also get a product recommendation based on Rebuy's AI.
It also works! On your site, you can easily see the increase in UPT (units per transaction aka things in the cart), AOV (average order value), and revenue. With the Klaviyo integration, we're already seeing a 10% lift in AOV and ~10% lift in revenue too.
If you are one of the last Shopify stores that haven't already installed Rebuy, then click this link to their site, and install it! It will take you less than 5 minutes to install, less than 30 minutes to get set up, and less than 48 hours to see a lift in your revenue.
Click here to learn more and install Rebuy for Shopify!
Jobs of the Week:
Sharma Brands — UX/UI Designer (You'll work directly with Bailee!)
Series-E Travel Software Co — Director, Product Marketing
This travel company is a $100M company (you'd think it was a seed crypto co 😂) is looking for a Director of Product Marketing. 7+ years + CDP experience preferred. ~$200K salary, 4.5 work day, full benefits. If you want to apply, please go to this intake form, and input the job code: sE-PM
If you want to get listed here, you can work directly with Workweek's recruiting team, or submit a job here!
Question of the Week:
What is your favorite thing to do in a new city?
I love finding out where the locals go to eat and hanging around there!
Brand of the Week:
Blume — The elixirs and mixers that you've seen all over TikTok
Blume is a bootstrapped superfood mixer and elixir brand founded by Karen Danudjaja, and pretty much run solely by her! They'll do 8-figures this year, with no funding, no team, and all hustle.
With that alone, I fell in love with the business. The website is so fun. The creative assets they have are incredible. The copy is witty. I ordered tons of the products just because I loved everything about it, and I can confirm the products are 13/10. *chefs kiss* as the kids say.
Try my favorite product, the blue lavender sleep blend, here!
That's all for this week
I hope you found something in this email that you feel good about trying out with your brand (or honestly these all work for services business, too).
This coming week, we have another brand launch that I'll put out on Twitter, which I'm excited about. I'll also be working out of Montreal, so let me know if you're around!
Have an incredible upcoming week, get those 9 hours of sleep, and stay healthy! 😊