Over at DTC, we’re 2022 Winter Olympics OBSESSED…
Which leads us to ask, if marketing were an Olympic event which one do you think it would be? 🧐
If you’re new to DTC, welcome! You’re in good company with fellow newcomers from Truewerk, EcoSpaw, BulkSupplements.com, Sauce Shop, and PackIt. 👋
In this newsletter, you’ll find: 👇
👀 Creative ways to use your UGC
🦷 How Tend merges dentistry with hospitality and disrupts the $300B space with Matt Fitzgerald
❤️Valentines creative for the single shopper
Read till the end to access exclusive DTC swag. 😎
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User-generated content (UGC) is marketing's new favorite child.
It makes sense why.
UGC is smarter, better-looking, and brings more pride to the family than outdated digital marketing methods.
Consumers love the authenticity of UGC and self-report that it influences their purchasing decisions.
We’re guilty of purchasing almost anything a stranger on social media tells us to buy. We probably owe it to our families to delete TikTok from our phones and maybe disconnect ApplePay. 🤷♀️
Since UGC is such a powerful tool, DTC brands should take the plunge and invest more into creator content.
Here are some creative ways you can incorporate UGC across the digital shelf as you strategize. 👇
📸 Create a UGC social ad
One clever way to advertise products across social media is to make a UGC ad.
Tint reports that UGC ads receive 4x higher CTRs and a 50% drop in CPC compared with other ads.
A UGC ad is when a brand elicits help from a creator or customer to make a piece of content that will resonate well with potential customers.
Savannah Sanchez, Ad Creative & TikTok Ads Master, says the best UGC ads follow a simple formula:
Savannah’s client Alleyoop does this well.
Allyoops creators make several videos that follow this exact formula. Then, Savannah tests them to see which performs best.
If you’re creating your first UGC ad, using this formula is a great jumping-off point.
🥰 Use beautiful UGC images and videos on your product description pages (PDPs)
Today’s consumers crave authentic content—especially Gen Z consumers. They want to hear diverse voices and read genuine opinions of how products work.
One cool way brands deliver real content to consumers is by infusing UGC right into their PDPs.
Some brands include UGC tutorial videos and images as part of their product photos. Barry M does this.
Barry M is known as an inclusive skincare brand that has 20 different skin color shades. As you swipe through the different shades and scroll through the product pictures, you’ll see that Barry M includes an influencer product shot that matches each respective shade.
Here’s what the photos look like for Shade 15 and Shade 3.
Using photos from customers is a great way to show off the foundation and for visitors to see how the product looks on actual humans—not just airbrushed models.
✍️ Don’t forget about written product reviews
It’s easy to think of UGC as unboxing videos from influencers, gorgeous Instagram product shots, and fun video ads.
However, one of the most valuable types of user-generated content is written reviews.
Stats show 92% of consumers trust recommendations from people they don’t know over branded content.
It’s also true that written reviews greatly influence purchasing decisions.
The marketing takeaway is clear: Include reviews on your website, post reviews to your social media, and find creative opportunities to show potential customers what happy customers say about you.
We like it when DTC brands include written reviews right on the product pages. We read these reviews. We write these reviews. And, we reference them when trying to decide between two similar products.
Beauty brands do this well. Take a peek at the Starface product pages.
Customer reviews take up more real estate than any other page element on its product pages. Check it out.
Consumers can filter reviews, write reviews, and even see image and photo reviews.
It’s a brilliant sales and marketing technique. Instead of taking the brand’s word for it, you can take it from ~2K other consumers that the products work.
What’s the main takeaway? User-generated content isn’t a fleeting trend. It’s a marketing tactic that is taking the world by storm. Leading DTC brands invest in UGC and let creative influencers take the reigns. Why not join them?
Order fulfillment can make or break your customer experience. 🕐
Here are the key stats:
So, how do you deliver an exceptional customer experience without driving up fulfillment costs? 🤔
Deliverr can help you learn how to optimize your fulfillment operations, whether you use a 3PL or your own warehouse.
Why not get chatting with one of their logistics experts and see how they do it?
Deliverr helps thousands of brands, including Ani Energy, Wellpath, and PhoneSoap, level up their fulfillment game and create happy customers.
With 80 warehouses, sophisticated logistics technology, and seasoned operators, Deliverr has unparalleled expertise to help you succeed.
👉 Book a quick call with a fulfillment expert today.
🎧 This week on the pod, we got to the root of how to do dental differently with Matt Fitzgerald, CMO of Tend.
Tend is helping people actually look forward to going to the dentist by vastly improving the customer experience, complete with modern studios, state-of-the-art tech, a top-rated clinical team, and, most importantly, selfie mirrors for taking tooth pics.. (get it? 😁).
OK, enough with the dentist puns. Here’s a snapshot of the insights from our convo with Matt!
The Takeaways: 👇
🦷 Winning with 1:1 and out-of-home marketing:
Marketing a service comes with an interesting dilemma/opportunity… Matt calls it “the chair hour.”
“You have a single hour with a patient, and if you don’t fill that chair hour, you never get it back. You can’t sell two, and you can’t stack the chairs on top of each other.”
He quickly realized that a one-on-one service requires a one-on-one marketing approach.
Some of the successful tactics Tend has used include:
“[10-15% of new customers] will tell us the very first time they learned about Tend was walking around their neighborhood.”
🤔 Why NPS is a top three KPI:
NPS = Net Promoter Score.
It’s essentially a gold-standard customer experience rating that involves a traditional survey and scoring system. ⭐
“NPS is a top three KPI for us. We watch it like a hawk.”
However, there are some stipulations for making sure your NPS is as accurate and actionable as possible:
Clear themes = clear ways to improve.
💰 What Matt Would Do With an Extra $50K
“I would want to try a new [higher-risk] channel…. Whether it’s streaming, TV, or Youtube something much more video-based.”
👉 Get the full drill with Matt of Tend here!
With minisocial, you can produce beautiful, authentic user-generated content featuring your products that are fully licensed to your brand.
Campaigns are fully managed and start at just $2k ($1.7k after your special DTC reader discount).
👀 Here's some UGC-spiration
Haven’s Kitchen
Ready-to-serve sauce brand, Haven’s Kitchen uses minisocial to support retail partners with on-demand user-generated content on TikTok and Instagram.
Native
Personal care brand, Native uses minisocial to create share-worthy content at scale. By refreshing their recurring campaign brief monthly for over two years, the brand always has new content on hand.
Sunwink
Super herbs brand, Sunwink uses minisocial to amplify product launches on Instagram with timely UGC & micro-influencer creators to boost their community and tagged photos.
Want to give it a try and get 15% off your first campaign by mentioning this ad.
Check out this still from a slow-scroll video ad from 1-800-Flowers 👆
Why’s it so great? Here’s what the team at Pilothouse thinks:
✅ Broad Appeal
Sometimes, you’ve just gotta treat yourself. The ‘Celebrate You’ angle is a great way to have an endless target audience.
Consider using broad appeal in your ads! It doesn’t limit your audience in the same way that ads only appealing to couples tends to do.
🔥 Emojis in Headlines
When in doubt, emoji it out.
1-800-Flowers’ ‘Turn V-Day Into Me Day’ as a catchy hook coupled with an emoji is a great way to grab reader's attention.
The more memorable you make your ad, the more likely users will come back if they don’t buy right away.
Remember this: a catchy hook + the offer + a clear indication of the brand = higher changes of purchasers coming back to your ad!
✨ Vibrant Creative for Repeat Purchasers
The copy indicates that this ad is looking for shoppers shopping ‘again.’
The bright colors and slow scroll through products is a great way to grab attention and show shoppers that the company offers much more than just flowers.
It’s a great way to boost LTV by positioning the ad as a repurchase for a different reason.
🚀 Thanks to the Pilothouse team for the creative tips! Don’t forget to treat yourself this Valentine's day 🍫
📈 Amazon reveals ad services revenue as segment hits $9.7B.
🤯 Snap reaches 319M daily active users while revenue hits $1.3B.
👋 Introducing Optimize with Google Analytics 4.
📧 Social climbing: email knocked from the top slot with B2B marketers.
❤️ Facebook: 2022 Valentine’s Day trends for Marketplace sellers.
🦷 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.
💗 Changing the World's Pleasure Baseline with Jen Batchelor CEO and Founder of Kin Euphorics.
🍪 How HighKey Raised Their AOV by 40% with Chief Digital Officer Ryan Rouse.
Don’t forget to rate the DTC Podcast on Apple (⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️)
DTC Newsletter is written by Ashley Cummings, Kelsey Hess, and Rebecca Knight. Edited by Claire Beveridge.
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