What Today’s DTC Brands Can Teach Those of Tomorrow
We are smack-dab in the middle of a bold new era — one in which the direct-to-consumer (DTC) brand marketer is reshaping the entire outlook of business and marketing. In this article, Pepperjam CMO Maura Smith takes a look at 5 key strategies many DTC brands have in common.
We are smack-dab in the middle of a bold new era — one in which the direct-to-consumer (DTC) brand marketer is reshaping the entire outlook of business and marketing, simply by taking the time to re-imagine and re-construct the commerce experience from the consumers’ point of view. More intuitive and more armed than their predecessors, these marketers are forging consumer-centric strategies and practices and innovating new data-driven systems for reaching and powerfully engaging today’s consumers where and how they are.
There’s been a need for change from the perspective of consumers for a long time coming. The digital age created more access than ever for consumers to voice their opinions and preferences about brands including the ways they expect to interact and make purchases. But what had to come next was responding to this feedback with a meaningful change to the commerce experience, at every level and at scale.
The most successful emerging DTC brands were paying close attention to the consumer movement and feedback loop and stepped up to the plate, completely disrupting physical retail—creating a slow yet steady shift in the way they enabled consumers to shop. At the same time, an already not-very-linear consumer journey became even more so. Today, the DTC movement is in full swing. There are more and more consumers interacting and buying directly from providers and manufacturers. It is a complete and total retail revolution in the way so many brands conduct business.
To fully appreciate the scale at which DTC brands are changing the terrain and future prospects for retail, it’s important to understand how the traditional retail model works. In the traditional retail equation, there are quite a few distinct and typically independently owned and operated entities involved in the process to get a product to the consumer. For example, there is the brand itself, separate manufacture and separate marketers and retailers—all contributing to the brand’s bottom line.
In stark contrast, the DTC model does it all. Many DTC companies manufacture, market/advertise, sell and ship their own products. The middlemen in the equation have taken a backseat in customer-purchase transactions leaving brands with a more hands-on, personal relationship with the people who are interested in their products.
If you’re a brand looking to learn from those brands who are front and center in the DTC era, you would be wise to take a page from their playbook of successes and get to know exactly what they have to teach.
The Contemporary DTC Brand
You won’t have to search far to find a plethora of stellar examples of DTC brands that have impressive successes to boast—they’re everywhere—and in just about any product niche. Among the most commonly known or easily recognizable include:
Casper- Founded in 2014, Casper sells mattresses in a shippable box and allows consumers to sleep on it for a 100-night risk-free trial, a relatively new concept in the mattress industry at that time. In just two short years, the company raked in $100 million in sales.
Learn More: Constantly Evolve Your Brand’s Digital Presence
Harry’s Razors Company- Founded by a man frustrated about the absurdity behind the difficulty and high price of buying razors, Harry’s started in 2013. By 2017, the company had a $200M sales volume.
Allbirds- Allbirds was created out of a single concept: Would consumers want simpler shoes not cloaked in branding? Creating a simple shoe that could be directly sold to consumers without all the hype has helped the company reach an astounding value of $1.4 billion as of 2018.
While this list of popular DTC brands is in no way exhaustive, it does illustrate a common thread: pinpointing a catalyst for disruption and going for it. Let’s take a closer look at some of the insights up and coming DTC brands can glean.
1. Create A Product Or Service That Solves a Consumer Problem
All DTC brands succeeding today are solving an explicit problem for consumers. Using the aforementioned DTC brands as examples, Harry’s gave people easy access to inexpensive razors, Casper offered a mattress without the hassle of physically shopping for it plus offered a free 100-night sleep period to ensure total satisfaction. Allbirds offered a shoe sold based on how they were made not who made it or sponsored it.
Modern consumers want experiences, not just products. They want to know the story behind what they’re buying and using, and they want to feel compelled to buy it and use it through the power of great storytelling. And, you can bet that once a consumer adopts a brand, today, that brand becomes part of a consumer’s own story through the pride of association — and that in turn drives ongoing business results for that brand. So, as an up-and-coming DTC brand, understanding well what your target consumer wants and needs is your number one task. Find the gaps, solve for them and involve the consumer. Use the brand story as a mouthpiece to acquire more customers and enroll the right partners to amplify and multiply this message for your brand.
2. Keep Everything You Can in the Scope of Your Control
Think about this: retailers are always at the mercy of their suppliers. A customer walks into a retail store and finds that their favorite brand of jeans is no longer in stock. The customer can complain to the retailer, but there is little the retailer can do because the company that made the jeans is no longer in business. As an emerging DTC company, you will likely take on many, if not all, of the retailer tasks and therefore, rely less on companies that are beyond your control when it comes to your product or service.
3. Listen and Promptly React to Customer Feedback
Years of retail shopping left consumers hungry to give feedback and be heard because their voices are often lost in the retail-buying process. The modern consumer is perfectly capable and perfectly willing to voice their opinions when they are pleased or displeased with a product or service. If you ask your customers for feedback, you are going to get it, and all this information must be used to further develop your brand, your products, and how you function as a business.
Learn More: In Today’s Experience Economy Your Customer Data Solution is Critical
The Good American, a DTC digital brand focused on denim, put feedback to work and saw a drastic improvement in their sales because of it. When customers complained that neither size 14 nor size 16 jeans were fitting properly, the company took the initiative to create the same jeans in a middle size; size 15. This new size is now the company’s third best-selling size.
4. A Well-Established Consumer Community Will be Your Best Brand Advocates
One major element that DTC brands have changed is the way consumers feel about the companies they buy from. It’s a bit more like a working relationship between two parties who both have something to gain from the connection. Consumers get the products that are designed with them in mind, sold with their wants and needs in mind, and even shipped the way they want them—subscription or try-on-before-you-buy style. DTC brands get a dedicated community of consumers who offer valuable feedback to evolve products, services, and the brand. But the brand also gets something else: a whole community of brand advocates out there spreading the word about the brand which is priceless.
The more you listen to customers and put their feedback to work, the more established that community becomes, and the more willing that the community will be to support you, your product, and your service. The modern-day consumer is interested in finding out what existing customers have to say about a product or service similar to how they’re interested in promotional (read: paid) ads they see on Facebook or Twitter.
5. Think Differently About Sales & Marketing: Affiliate Marketing Can be Your Strongest Ally
To be effective, marketing must be multifaceted. A diversified approach is always best..
One of the biggest mistakes DTC companies—or any company—can make, is to rely too heavily on any one marketing tactic or sales channel. has a dynamic marketing mix, using different channels to speak to customers at each stage of the marketing funnel. For instance, they might leverage podcasts to authentically build awareness, and a combination of Facebook and Instagram ads to attract new audiences. Or pair traditional PR outreach with affiliate marketing around product launches – leveraging the interplay of press coverage, referral traffic, and conversions. Today’s affiliate marketing allows a DTC brand to access publishers ordinarily expensive to advertise with, in a meaningful and mutually beneficial way. A brand can turn its favorite media companies into brand advocates – especially when there’s a proven audience alignment.
Because so many of them are doing it well, across apparel, beauty, footwear, health and wellness, any given category, the demand for DTC brands is growing among consumers, and this upward trend is not showing any signs of slowing down any time soon. There’s a lot to learn if an emerging DTC brand can watch the rising boats, and learn, the rising class can help define future eras only now being imagined.
