DTC652: Life on Film’s Clever UGC Strategy

Good morning,

Reddit launches Ads Inspiration Library. Advertisers can view all top-performing ads in one place and filter by vertical, keyword, ad budget, format, placement, and objective.

More on this below in our News section!

‍

Here’s what you’ll find in today’s DTC:

📸 Learn how every Life on Film TikTok goes viral thanks to their clever use of UGC.
🎃 How to crush Halloween campaigns on Meta, which is quickly becoming a huge sales event.
❌ And…don’t make these mistakes when trying to retain customers.

‍

You’re reading this newsletter along with new subscribers from: Keika Naturals, Bridge & Burn, and Breeze Balm. 👋

⏩ Your Customers Are Skipping Ads and Watching Creators. Are You?

Reality check: If you’re an ecommerce brand without an influencer marketing strategy, you're falling behind. 👀

Top brands (Think Surreal, Obvi, and Tabs Chocolate) are using SARAL to build communities of nano and micro-influencers that drive revenue through organic content.

Investing in influencers = consistent flow of high-performing organic content = reduced ad production costs, maximized ROI, and more control. 💁‍♀️

Scale this, and you get hundreds of influencers promoting your brand for free. 😎

But how can you manage it all?

SARAL makes it simple. It’s the easiest ‘all-in-one’ influencer marketing tool, with everything you need to build an influencer program.

Hop on a (free) personalized tour, OR if you're ready to get started... 👇

📸 How Life on Film Struck Content Gold

Life on Film has a unique content strategy that has grown its TikTok account to nearly half a million followers in less than a year. 📈

How did they do it?

‍

Through the power of UGC. ✨

Life on Film’s TikTok videos often go viral, and for good reason.

The brand has mastered creating content promoting its product, a disposable camera, without looking like they are selling anything.

‍

This is how they capture a viewer’s attention: 👇

The brand’s hook in every video is always the same.

The founder approaches a person or group and delights them by giving them a free disposable camera they can use to document their next adventure.

The text overlay reads: ‘Giving disposable cameras to strangers.’

The catch? They have to return the camera so the brand can create a video for social media.

‍

Why this format works so well:

1️⃣ Increases watch time: This type of short-form content does a great job of hooking in the viewer and getting them to watch until the end since followers are curious about what happened and want to see the photos developed from the trip.

2️⃣ Easy to scale: This content is a hit with viewers and is very bingeable. The brand could also easily scale this and post daily to grow its following even faster.

3️⃣ It feels authentic: The brand does a great job promoting its product in these videos and delighting both the viewer and strangers.

Life on Film creates a strong emotional connection with its audience, which paints the brand in a positive light: it helps real people capture real moments.

‍

The takeaway?

This is what we mean when we talk about low-effort and high-impact content!

For Life on Film, the brand approaches strangers and asks them to create UGC, which they can repurpose for their TikTok videos. They don’t need to spend on big-time influencers, although recent collabs with Ed Sheeran and Ice Spice sure don’t hurt.

🎧 Crush Your Halloween Campaigns on Meta

Today on the podcast, we're joined by Taylor and Aves, the creative minds from Pilothouse.

They share their expertise in preparing for holidays like Halloween, which is evolving into a major retail event.

With Halloween and Thanksgiving on the horizon, this episode dives into strategies to capitalize on these growing consumer moments and why you should prepare for them earlier.

Avery explains: "There's been a shift in consumer behavior. Halloween is becoming more like the bigger holidays – people decorate, host parties, and treat it with the same enthusiasm as Christmas."

‍

In this podcast, we cover:

• Capitalizing on smaller holidays: Understanding how to align your brand authentically with cultural moments.
• Put campaigns live earlier: Don't hesitate to launch those holiday campaigns earlier. It can yield better results.
• New testing methodology: A new creative testing method to find winning ads more efficiently.

‍

👉 You can listen to the full episode with Taylor and Aves here.

🌐 IN THE SOCIAL SPHERE

Don’t make assumptions. Feedback is a gift and the key to retaining customers long-term.

‍

‍

⚡ QUICK HITS

📧 Selling $5M+/year and not sure your A/B tests are being impactful? Top brands like Nustrips, Particle, and Javy are using Optimizer to A/B test emails at scale, boosting revenue by 20%. Get a FREE trial of Maverick’s Optimizer. *

📥 Got a B2B Biz?

Join dozens of B2B companies finding demand-gen success through our niche community of 160k brand leaders and founders this year. Talk to our team to learn more.

‍

Have you heard our latest podcasts?

• 🏜️ Dosso Beauty Tackling Hair Deserts with Hypoallergenic Products
• 📧 AKNF 437: Mastering Email Marketing with Quadrant Framework
• 🐶 Ollie on The Role of Brand in Scaling a Pet Food Company
• 🦆 AKNF 435: Stocking the Pond and Planning for Q4
• 👟 How VKTRY Gear Achieved 240% Growth with Niche Marketing
• 🆚 AKNF 433: All In on Amazon v.s. Diversified DTC

‍

Don’t forget to rate the DTC Podcast on Apple (⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️)

‍

DTC Newsletter is written by Rebecca Knight and Frances Du. Edited by Eric Dyck.

Was this email forwarded to you? Sign up here.

Please note that items in this newsletter marked with * contain sponsored content.