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Issue 79
Direct to consumer icon Rihanna is now officially a billionaire.
Riri is founder of DTC businesses Fenty x Savage, Fenty Beauty, and Fenty Skin, plus she has a new luxury line in the works.
Oh… I guess she does music too?
Alexa… play "Work" by Rihanna.
🥄 A breakdown of Magic Spoon’s email marketing.
🎨 Testing creative where business meets simplicity.
🔑 A key creative tip you should definitely be trying.
Read till the end to access exclusive DTC swag. 😎
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Magic Spoon has some of the best emails in the game. Pilothouse's head of email, Julien, helps us break them down.
Let’s dive in. 👇
Magic Spoon leads off with a contest angle rather than a discount in their pop-up. This route can help prevent the expectation of discounting early on, which is something Magic Spoon likes to avoid.
The opt-in rate will potentially be higher than a discount offer, but conversion rates can be lower depending on the backend follow-up flow.
The design and copy are perfect.
Magic Spoon reinforces the brand with a killer headline: "Do you believe in Magic?"
Notice the mid-level CTA "Try Now" at the top.
It’s softer than "Buy Now" which we love.
The reviews answer KEY objections that users might have.
For example:
Each review answers those questions - apply this to your own brand!
Magic Spoon uses lots of faces throughout their email photography. It’s a small detail, but incorporating a human element goes a LONG way.
If you didn’t convert on the first email, Magic Spoon hits you with this.
Right away they’re focusing on key value props: Low carb, high protein.
The variety pack is the main focus which is a high AOV and helps consumers figure out which flavor is their favorite.
Don’t risk pushing one particular flavor early on. The consumer might not like it and give up on your brand.
Introduce them to a couple of flavors. Even if they don’t order the variety pack, they’re aware of your offerings.
This is absolutely vital to have in your welcome series flow.
It’s a great way to connect consumers with your brand early on.
It’s a simple email that answers the following:
Notice the soft CTA "Learn More."
This helps transfer users from the email to the website where they’ll potentially make a purchase.
There’s a bright future on the horizon. One where DTC brand marketers are the sole owners of their growth.
Monumental data privacy shifts are taking place in digital marketing. Following Apple and Google’s recent updates, the way you sell your products and build relationships with your customers has changed irrevocably.
But, perhaps this is for the better.
Andrew Bialecki, Klaviyo’s co-founder and CEO, optimistically focused on the future and what it holds for your relationships when he kicked off Klaviyo’s product event.
He shared, "We believe the future of our relationships with the people we care about won’t be gated by marketplaces or social platforms – we’ll talk directly to them."
Harnessing your Customer-First Data™ is your path towards more ownership and more genuine connections with your audience.
Essentially – more talking, less stalking.
Hear more of how Andrew’s thinking about the future and learn about four major product updates that’ll help you better navigate it.
👉 Get the highlights from Klaviyo’s Product Event
"This is a classic ‘back in stock, but never went out of stock,’ email," notes Pilothouse’s Julien.
Notice the two CTAs which help measure intent.
Once someone clicks on either button, you can funnel them into further campaigns
The copy is spectacular and the product-specific testimonials and UGC-style images complete this email. 🚀
This email helps build a human element into the Magic Spoon brand with killer copy and a look into one of their values: Weirdness.
While 99% of this email is about their people and hiring, they do sneak the CTA in: "Fill your bowl."
We don’t know the data behind this email, but I think we’d be surprised how many sales they get off this.
Test it out for your own brand.
Up to this point, Magic Spoon has delivered all value-based content.
They established the brand, why they’re great, and why you should buy.
All this is done before providing any type of discount.
Every brand is different – some provide discounts in the first email while others, like Magic Spoon, want to establish themselves first.
This email comes eight days after signing up and the coupon is perfectly placed in this email.
The girl pointing towards the coupon is a nice touch as well.
Notice the time limit – just 48 hours.
These types of emails can be super boring but Magic Spoon crushes it.
Notice that they’ve changed the font color – a simple but important element that continues to drive the brand.
Highly engaging graphical emails that you can mark as transactional (like this one) are extremely underutilized, notes Julien.
When marked as transactional, it means the email will be delivered to those who purchase no matter if they’ve opted out of marketing emails.
Notice that they’re anticipating questions and trying to provide answers early on – GREAT customer experience move.
The estimated delivery date is in its own box which is harder to execute than you’d think – great work.
The transaction data is standard, but it’s in Magic Spoon colors. Plus, the graphics and floating cereal make this an exciting email to receive.
They’ve probably had supply chain issues before so they’re getting ahead of it by stating "If you didn’t receive everything in your order, hang tight."
Again, it’s a great CX move and something ALL brands should apply if you’re having logistical issues.
Magic Spoon’s emails are heavily loaded with images.
The Pilothouse team suggests incorporating more HTML so it doesn’t hurt your deliverability rates.
Remember this for your own brand!
Tip from the Pilothouse team: 70:20:10 Rule
When planning out your performance creative, you’ll want to follow the 70:20:10 rule:
✅ 70% of your creative should be iterations of winning content.
✅ 20% of your creative should be expanding on smaller scale tests that showed promise, but may not have met the mark quite yet.
✅ 10% of your creative should focus on brand new ideas. Think outside the box. Something that will really catch people’s attention.
🤷 Imagine if every time you texted your friend, they replied "Who's this?"
With a help desk like Gorgias, you can connect your Shopify, Magento or BigCommerce store so you can easily see customer data including their first name, order history, tracking links and more - all right beside every customer ticket.
👉 Gorgias is offering DTC Newsletter subscribers their 2nd and 3rd month of Gorgias free. Click here to learn more.
We’re loving this ad from Nike!
With all the craziness going on around the product, it’s almost impossible to not look at the copy and the simplicity of the shoe.
🍊 PepsiCo to sell Tropicana and other juice brands for $3.3 billion.
🛍 Brandless raises $118M in funding round.
💎 Fenty’s fortune: Rihanna is now officially a billionaire.
🤑 WeCommerce signs definitive agreement to acquire Archetype Themes.
💰 Suma Brands raises $150M to acquire more third-party brands for its Amazon roll-up play.
👟 Foot Locker shells out $1.1B to acquire two athletic retailers.
💸 YouTube’s $100M shorts fund to challenge TikTok goes live.
📱 European refurbished electronics marketplace Refurbed raises $54M Series B.
🧴 Function of Beauty acquires personalized skincare company Atolla.
🎮 Penn National Gaming (PENN) acquires Score Media and Gaming (scr) for $2B in cash and stock.
👩💻 Marea Wellness scales menstrual health organically on TikTok and Reddit with Monica Grohne.
🍼 Organic influencers for the win with Co-founder and CMO of Lalo, Michael Weider.
✅ How Kellogg’s thinks about DTC and eRetail with Joe Harper and Jordan Narducci.
🥤Slashing Facebook ads in half with Olipop’s Steven Vigilante.
💇♂️ Beardbrand’s Eric Bandholz and the DTC long game.
🌴 Product/market fit with Canopy Humidifiers' Eric Neher and Michael De Santis.
Don’t forget to rate the DTC Podcast on Apple (⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️)
DTC Newsletter is written by Thomas Schreiber, Eric Dyck, Sadie Evans, and Rebecca Knight.
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