Wednesday, April 5, 2023
Brain on sleep mode. 💤
If you’re new to DTC, welcome! You’re in good company with fellow newcomers from Deloitte, Los Angeles Apparel, Mevotech, Alasature, and Chewy. 🐶
In this newsletter, you’ll find: 👇
📦 TAXA Outdoors, Garrett Finney: Digital meets dealership, NASA Architect goes out of home for real
📦 Why 75% of marketing projects fail
📦 Flaunt your product’s versatility
📦 Acquiring customers with UGC on TikTok
📦 Advertising in YouTube lineups
Read till the end to access exclusive DTC swag. 😎
👉 If a pal forwarded this to you, subscribe, so you never miss out.
🎧 Today on the DTC pod, we're hitching a ride into the wild and wonderful realm of adventure and innovation with TAXA Outdoors, the camper trailer brand that's got everyone talking (and camping!)
Join us as we chat with Founder and CEO Garrett Finney, who went from building habitats for NASA to creating these epic mobile abodes that effortlessly combine rugged charm and practicality. We'll talk about the headaches of traditional dealership models, the magic of digital fixes, the downright fun of cross-product collabs, and more!
The takeaways 👇
🛑 Halting the haggle
Garrett and his team’s innovative approach to selling camper trailers is really based on how technology and changing consumer behavior are redefining the automotive industry at large. The industry is rapidly embracing a DTC approach for a seamless buying experience. Take Tesla, for example, which has successfully bypassed the dealership model thanks to dedicated resources, a hefty experimentation budget, and legal adaptability. Tesla showrooms employ "marketing reps" to assist customers, but no salespeople are in sight.
Imagine car shopping like online shopping, in which customers find the best deal and contact the nearest dealer to arrange pickup, with traditional haggling becoming obsolete. The industry's future is omnichannel and tech-driven, prompting even small dealerships to innovate and enhance customer interactions as the landscape evolves.
“72% of our customers say we would prefer not to go buy this at an RV dealership… The haggling thing is big. I'm not, one, very good at it, and two, I hate it. I hate haggling. And that's not where our customers are.”
🤝 Cutting-edge collabs
Partnerships with complementary DTC brands can be game changers for businesses looking to expand their reach. It's a chance to introduce your company’s products to a wider audience who may not know your brand yet.
Garrett discusses the importance of finding the right partner on the podcast, such as TAXA teaming up with Athletic Brewing, a non-alcoholic beer maker, or their past work with Topo Designs. The trend of collaborating with compatible DTC brands helps connect with people interested in specific niches.
“We very much share a social and outdoor mission with the companies we work with. You know, we just think people should go outside and have a great experience, and that’s a complement to their home life and their work life.”
💰 What Garrett would do with an extra $50K:
Garrett would dive headfirst into the social media pool.
He wants to embrace ~camping season vibes~, so he'd tailor content on platforms like Instagram and YouTube to match the dreaming, planning, and buying moods of potential customers throughout the year. Garrett intends to highlight not only the epic National Park trips, but also the relatable, everyday adventures such as setting up camp in a parking lot during a Little League game.
"I’m always think[ing] of increasing the diversity of the stories we depict."
👉 Listen to the full episode with Garrett Finney here!
This is why 75.0% of marketing projects fail
🙋 Lack of customer understanding.
So, if you want your projects to be included in the pool of success, you need to get to know your consumers better.
AKA, you’ve gotta do your research.
92.6% of US marketers say that expectations for teams are at the highest. And 93.1% say their market is more competitive.
You could devote time and effort to gather your own data, spend big bucks hiring a consumer research agency…
Or you could use Attest.
Their easy-to-use platform takes the time, effort, and cost out of consumer research.
Attest’s data is also triple-checked for accuracy, so you can feel comfortable using it to make big decisions.
👉 Get the unfair advantage that comes with access to great research.
Versatility is Vital
Chances are, your product is not only for single use in one specific scenario. That means your brand has the chance to show potential shoppers how versatile your product can be!
The Pilothouse creative team is running an ad for jewelry client Olive & Piper that does just that. 👇
The creator speaks over a screen-recorded video using the TikTok greenscreen feature. The key here? Show the product right up front and flaunt its versatility.
The hook in this ad focused on the premise that the earrings are perfect for “everyday or special occasions.”
👀 The results?
The Pilothouse team saw:
Happy testing! 👋
Looking to learn how to use UGC on TikTok to Acquire Customers?
👋 Say hello to user-generated content (UGC) and visual user-generated content (VUGC) from the experts at Cohley! 😎
Cohley's highly successful TikTok Creative Brief Template and creator-led TikTok content strategies have helped thousands of brands achieve scroll-stopping, thumb-mashing campaigns. 🚀
Now you can access this information and more at their upcoming webinar, presented in conjunction with TikTok and Yotpo. Prepare to learn:
👉 Sign up today and start boosting your brand's engagement and sales.
Advertising in YouTube Lineups
🧑🤝🧑Reach music fans far and wide
Do you ever wonder what the cool kids are listening to these days? Did you know that answer could lead to more impressions on your ads through YouTube Shorts? Thanks to the latest enhancement to YouTube Music from YouTube called “Lineups,” you could soon be advertising based on musical preferences, ensuring that you reach your target demographic…
Later this summer, YouTube promises to curate Shorts Feeds based on the music within each video. This is what YouTube is calling a “lineup.” Placing this content together will ensure viewers are fed with Shorts that match their musical tastes so they are as engaged as possible. For example, fans of Taylor Swift, Ariana Grande, and Selena Gomez are likely to see the same lineup of Shorts because their musical tastes are similar.
🔎 Discover a new demographic
The benefits for a marketer come in the form of advertising within a particular lineup so marketers know the exact demographic they are reaching. It’s a pretty intuitive way to reach consumers who may have previously fallen outside of your initial target audience.
So how would a brand begin to form a strategy around a music preference? We have a couple of steps to help get you started:
🤔 Who, what, and why
A user persona is crucial here as it will help your brand generate a broad description of who might be listening to a particular type of music. If you are a beauty brand, you could have a wide range of target demographics based on age and complexion. Music lends itself well to developing a personal aesthetic so this could be a fun exercise to conduct with your team!
Either start developing user personas to include musical preferences or expand on your current personas. After considering musical preferences, your brand can curate a collection of ads that appeal to specific demographics who will see your content when they are most engaged with listening to their favorite music.
📺 Binge videos
Watching music videos can be incredibly inspiring. They are filled with visual motifs, camera tricks, and environmental designs that appeal to a very specific fan base. That’s useful enough without even considering that the concepts of the biggest music videos were designed by industry-leading professionals! Take notes and try to emulate the visuals from these videos to subconsciously engage viewers who will recognize their favorite artist’s aesthetic. In combination with YouTube’s Lineups, you can craft some truly memorable content for fans of any genre of music.
😎 Become a cool kid
This almost goes without saying, but we’re going to anyway. Stay updated on the latest trends like dances, visuals, and vocabulary to include them in your ad. Unless you want to hit someone with a bout of nostalgia, it’s in your best interest to scroll through the trending section of TikTok or YouTube to stay relevant. It’s even better if you can put your unique twist on a trend. Creating something that’s worth talking about with friends is immensely valuable. With your own unique spin, a viewer who comes across another iteration of that particular trend will undoubtedly recall what your brand did to contribute.
🎵 The power of music
We can’t ignore the potential to reach new audiences based on musical preferences simply because of how engaged people are when they are jammin’ to their favorite tunes. Knowing that your brand is aligned with their tastes helps consumers welcome your products and vision into their everyday life. We’ve said that retention is the name of the game and what better way to make lifelong friends than by leveraging the power of music?
🐥 Twitter has difficulty identifying verified users who earned it versus those who paid for it. Checkmarks will be removed from accounts that don’t pay for them, affecting their presence in the “For You” feed.
📷 Instagram and Facebook NFTs will be deactivated on April 11. This follows Meta’s previously announced shift away from the Metaverse and NFTs into AI-focused research.
📓 LinkedIn adds an algorithm to boost suggested posts. You will now see more suggested posts in your feed to expand your network. Or, as a creator, you’ll likely see more invitations to connect with others and impressions.
🔎 Google adds new travel features to help you save money on accommodations. Properties will have a swipeable feed of images supported by flight price guarantees and forecasting.
🔒 Passkeys are the latest development in online security. Google, Apple, and Microsoft are on board to adopt more ways to protect your information and make passwords a thing of the past.
🐶 Pet Health Comes Home with MySimplePetLab's Jen Hagness.
☠️ Liquid Death Mountain Water: Hamid Saify - Death, Beverages, and the Attention Economy.
🟥 Mid-Day Squares: Jake Karls and Nick Saltarelli - Rainmaking, Fundraising and "One word: F&%^ng Crazy."
🧖♀️ Bushbalm's David Gaylord goes B2B, Enters US retail bigly, and rides the Vajacial wave on DTC.
👀 Ronak Shah - Obvi Collagen - Obvi's biggest blunders (and how you can avoid them) - C-Suite Mentor Preview.
💡 Listen to the Biggest Marketing News Stories Today.
Don’t forget to rate the DTC Podcast on Apple (⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️)
DTC Newsletter is written by Rebecca Knight, Kate Gullett, and Michael Venditti. Edited by Claire Beveridge and Eric Dyck.
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