📦 ‘Tis The Season

DTC 256 - Twitter threads, gifting creative, and Instagram scheduling [DTC]( 📈 [Find a Growth Agency]( 🗞️ [See Today's News]( 🧢 [DTC STORE]( Banter Monday, November 14, 2022 An important thing to remember this holiday season. 🛍️ In this newsletter, you’ll find: 👇 📦 How to write Twitter threads that gain traction 📦 Creating and implementing an effective retention strategy through email marketing 📦 Gifting angles to test on your ad accounts this holiday season 📦 The ins and outs of how to make retargeting work for you 📦 Getting your scheduling on lock on Instagram Read till the end to access exclusive DTC swag. 😎 👉 If a pal forwarded this to you, [subscribe,]( so you never miss out. Twitter 🍎 Don’t Write About Apples Twitter has been a hotbed of drama lately, and we’re guilty of clutching the popcorn. 👀🍿 Outside of takeovers, layoffs, and verification issues, the social media platform is still an excellent source of information, and marketers are taking full advantage of engaging audiences using tweets and Twitter threads. Here’s the lowdown on how to use Twitter to your advantage if you’re just getting started: 👇 🐣 Spring chicken Chances are your first tweet isn’t going to be viral. Before you can expect mad numbers on Twitter, you need to build a community to share your thoughts with. Follow like-minded people and get involved in conversations with constructive opinions and facts. 🗣️ Twitter is a great opportunity to keep your thoughts concise and purposeful, so make it your goal to learn something and teach someone every week. After some time, you’ll have built an audience. Ideally, you want to see about 1,000 people as your followers that are regularly engaging with you on individual tweets and conversations. Next, you need ideas on what to tweet. Here are a couple of prompts to start that brainstorming sesh: - Write a follow-up to someone’s tweet - Expand on an idea - Free write and edit your words - Record a rant and listen back to compile the best ideas - Answer questions presented on your favorite podcast - Present data as a story - Use visual elements 🌱 Plant the seeds You don’t need to write about apples. Everyone knows what they are, where to buy them, and that you can bake them. Write about their seeds and how they turn into apples. Tell a story and reiterate what that story taught you. Insights like these can only be formed by you and add value to your words. Make a promise to your followers that a thread will be worth the taps it takes to reach the end. Answer and ask meaningful questions throughout 7-10 tweets. Any longer, and your audience will start to lose interest. If it’s significantly shorter, you could probably edit your thoughts into a single tweet and increase the value of your reader’s time. Let each tweet stand on its own. If a follower shares a single tweet from your thread, will another reader understand what you are talking about? This is important because, at the speed at which information is shared today, it’s more likely that your readers won’t be scrolling back to the top to share the whole thread. 🧵 🧑‍🌾 Reap what you sow Include a CTA at the end of your thread. Though it asks more of your readers, they’ll put in the extra effort to share your content if they find value in it. Tell a story with your own perspective and takeaways. If you learned something about a topic or situation, there will be someone else who finds value in learning along with you. Once they have seen the value of your thread, it’s time to make this relationship a two-way street. Plug in your CTA at the end of the thread to keep the good vibes going between your and your audience. - How else can they engage with your brand? - Can they redeem an offer exclusive to Twitter followers to make them feel extra special? - How about that referral program you've been discussing? - Can they get more information on another site or podcast? Small incentives like these can make all the difference with such highly shareable content. 🏃‍♂️ It’s a marathon, not a sprint Building a community takes time. You may have a few rough tweets here and there, but that comes with speaking to such a large audience. Not everyone will agree with you, but some will. As hard as it may be, read everything that comes your way, as there will be opportunities to learn from others and slowly refine your writing style to provide the most value to the most engaged people. How are you feeling about Twitter these days? Staying put, buying Twitter Blue, leaving the platform? Reply to this email and let us know! CTA Sponsor Your Brand Deserves This... [Sendinblue]( dreams of a world where all businesses are given equal opportunity to empower themselves and build stronger customer relationships. 💪 Imagine a multi-channel marketing platform that provides: - Personalized emails - Automated workflows - Captivating SMS campaigns - Custom landing pages - Quick signup forms …and more, instantly. 🙌 Sendinblue makes these possible Retention is an essential part of your progress. [Explore concepts and KPIs to evaluate the current status of your retention.]( Sendinblue guides your brand in creating and implementing an effective retention strategy through email marketing. 👉 [Download the ebook and start building stronger relationships today!]( Gifting A Guide To Gifting Creative *In the tune of Deck The Halls* – ‘Tis the season to be gifting, Fa-la-la-la-la, la-la-la-la. 🎅 If you haven’t started adjusting your content to reflect the season, now’s the time! Black Friday, Cyber Monday, and Christmas are right around the corner, so it’s time to get planning. One of the biggest angles to lean into this season? Gift giving! 🎁 The Pilothouse creative team loves the gifting angle, as it’s incredibly prominent for the last few months of Q4. Whether you’re buying something for yourself, a friend, or a loved one, gifts are on the mind. Don’t forget, with gifting angles, you can iterate on top-performing ads from the holiday season and replicate them on other holidays throughout the year. Win-win if you ask us. 😉 Use this gifting season to find which ad styles within the angle work best for your brand. Your current and future self will be thanking you! Each gifting angle you target should help dictate the copy and type of content you use. Try out these gifting angles if they apply to your brand: 🥰 Gifting to significant others Gifting for your significant others can be a daunting task. Often, people find themselves wondering if their partner will actually like the gift and second-guessing their shopping decisions. Tell shoppers upfront that your product checks all the points on their wishlist to make clicking ‘buy now’ an easy choice. Copy suggestions: - “Imagine their reaction” - “The perfect gift” 🏠Shopping for family Shopping for family (specifically Dads) is no easy feat. Here are some copy ideas you can steal to use as a banner over a plain image, as ad copy, or as a clever application within your image: - “Gifting to that impossible person to shop for” - “The gift they never knew would be so much fun” 🤲 The experience of opening your product or receiving the gift This is the time to bust out those point-of-view (POV) shots and get crafty! If your product isn’t a perfect fit as a standalone gift, try one of these: - “The ultimate items to add to a gift basket” - “The perfect unique gift that goes way past chocolates and coffee” The goal here is to get people intrigued enough to click through. Send your customers to a page that outlines how people have used your product in this gifting scenario and showcase how fabulous of an addition your gift is. 📰 Make an article post that calls out your product If you choose to make an article specifically about your product, make sure the post-click experience shows social proof and how much love your product gets. Check out [this example from Big Blanket]( – They do a fabulous job at highlighting their customer's love on this landing page from an ad creative. Like the Pilothouse creative team always says, “It's important you try a mix of polished and scrappy content.” They each work differently within your funnel, and you’ll never know the potential of your top performers if you don’t give both a go! Remember, scrappy doesn't have to look bad, it just has to feel more authentic and less produced. What gifting angles would you add to the list? Reply to this email and let us know! 🎁 Sponsor Do you know what 97% of customers don’t do? They don’t make a purchase the first time they visit your eCommerce store. But that doesn’t mean they’re not interested in your product or never want to hear from you again. [The way to get these customers to remember your brand and complete purchases]( are to nudge them along every step of the way. How? Retargeting. 🎯 + 🎯 + 🎯 = 💸 Retargeting is one of the most powerful tactics to grow an eCommerce brand—but it’s tricky to get it right (and not come off as creepy). Good news! [AdRoll]( knows all the ins and outs of how to make retargeting work for you. And their ebook covers everything you need to know to get started and succeed with retargeting. ✅ 👉 [We recommend you put aside whatever book you’re reading now and pick up this money-making page-turner instead.]( Instagram 📱 The ‘Gram With a Plan Dealing with multiple social media accounts under several clients can get overwhelming very quickly. One small hack you may have encountered online is a content calendar. These days, many platforms provide free and paid options for content calendars but being able to translate your plans directly into a social platform is a game-changer. Instagram is the latest platform to provide creators with scheduling tools. The announcement came from Instagram’s @creators page, letting us know that we will now be able to schedule: - Pictures - Carousels - Reels Any professional account should be able to access this feature soon. Once you draft a post, tapping the “Advanced Settings” tab will allow you to schedule a post up to 75 days in advance. 🤔 So why start now? A calendar aligns you and your team with your marketing strategy's short- and long-term goals. It’s best practice to post at similar times each week, so your audience knows what to expect on any given day. If your audience knows what they are getting, you’re more likely to grow and retain those followers on each channel. 💪 Just try it! On Instagram, weekly posts such as #MondayMotivations can easily be planned a month at a time. While it doesn’t need to be a Monday thing, we encourage you to set aside at least one day each month to plan out at least four posts per account you manage. Freeing up some time on Mondays can make a huge difference in your ability to create more timely content for the week after meeting with your team. 😮 “Such vision,” they gasped Scheduling posts ahead of time intuitively leads to a more cohesive portfolio. Take your Instagram presence to the next level by making your entire feed a work of art! It makes for a memorable social experience with your brand and provides another creative medium for you to work with. This trend was and still is, massively popular with visual artists to show how their social presence is a single cohesive project. Take a look at the profile feeds for @themidnightmedia or @takearecess for some beautiful cohesive bodies of content. 🚗 A two-way street If you can work with sponsors, scheduling provides the essential time needed for reviews and approvals. Your reputation relies heavily on how well you managed your previous collaborations. If sponsors have the time to approve posts and provide feedback, you can continue to build those relationships and not only improve the reputation of the brand, but yourself as a content manager. 🧑‍🤝‍🧑 A lil’ something for everyone If this whole ‘scheduling’ thing is new to you, it’s a great time to start! Instagram is rolling out this feature right now, so now is the time to start planning your first batch of content for the coming month. Draft a post and scroll to the “Advanced Settings” tab to familiarize yourself with the process. If you don’t see it yet, keep your eyes open for an update. Marketers are social media wizards, so using Instagram's tool might make your magic a little bit easier. 🪄 Will scheduling open up new opportunities to refine your workflow? Perhaps you are now more inclined to reach out for sponsored posts! Marketers are social media wizards, so let us know how using Instagram's tool might make your magic a little bit easier. Quick Hits ✉️ [The new Gmail user interface]( is becoming the standard experience. 🪙 [Crypto giant Binance]( agrees to buy rival FTX amid ‘liquidity crunch.’ 🐤 [Twitter]( previews the new ‘official’ gray checkmark. ♾️ [Mark Zuckerberg’s message]( to Meta employees. ▶️ [Youtube Shorts arrive]( on the big screen. 🪟 [Microsoft’s]( $69B Activision deal faces EU probe. SHARE DTC NEWSLETTER 🔥 NEW REFERRAL PROGRAM HAS OFFICIALLY DROPPED 🔥 Want to level up the marketing skills of your teammates and employees? Just grab your referral link below and you’ll earn points toward cool gear for every new subscriber you bring to the DTC fam. 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Don’t forget to [rate the DTC Podcast]( on Apple (⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️) DTC Newsletter is written by [Rebecca Knight]( and Michael Venditti. Edited by [Claire Beveridge]( and Eric Dyck. Was this email forwarded to you? Sign up [here](. NEED MORE DTC? 🚀 [Advertise]( in DTC Newsletter. 💰Check out our course on [Facebook and Instagram]( ads! 📥 Work for The DTC Newsletter: Send an email to Rebecca, rebecca@directtoconsumer.co, if you’re interested in writing for us! Rate Us [Rate Us]( [Fueled by Pilothouse] [Share]( [Twitter]( [Facebook]( [LinkedIn]( [Advertise with DTC]( | [Work With Pilothouse]( At Direct to Consumer, we are strongly committed to protecting your privacy and providing a safe & high-quality online experience for all visitors. We understand that you care about how the information you provide to us is used and shared. We have developed a Privacy Policy to inform you of our policies regarding collecting, using, and disclosing information we receive from our Website users. 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