📦 - Teamwork Makes The Dream Work

DTC 287 - The Oodie, blog engagement, and TikTok Cap Campaigns [DTC]( Banter Wednesday, January 25, 2023 If you’re new to DTC, welcome! You’re in good company with fellow newcomers from Buddy & Lola, Accenture, Søciety Cycling, Lark, and Nerdwax. 🤓 In this newsletter, you’ll find: 👇 📦 The Oodie’s Davie Fogarty: Lessons from a fast $400M 📦 Create and sell premium, custom-made merch instantly 📦 Six tips to maximize blog engagement and move the needle 📦 How to join our curated group of DTC mentors and DTC heavy-hitters at C-Suite Las Vegas 📦 How to lower your acquisition costs with TikTok Cap Campaigns Read till the end to access exclusive DTC swag. 😎 👉 If a pal forwarded this to you, [subscribe,]( so you never miss out. Podcast 🎧 On today’s episode of the DTC pod, we’re cozying up with Davie Fogarty, founder of the successful wearable blanket brand The Oodie. Davie shares insights on his company's growth and hiring strategies while emphasizing the importance of building a strong team and processes. He shares how good merchandising hires helped save the company millions of dollars and his thoughts on what it’ll take for The Oodie to reach $1 billion in sales in 2023. ‍The takeaways 👇 🤝 Teamwork makes the dream work There’s a multitude of ways to achieve success in the DTC space, from focusing on customer experience to building a strong brand and everything in between. For Davie, it’s all about teamwork. He suggests that putting "people first" is crucial and attributes the company’s ability to excel to his team and having been able to attract talented people. “It's all about getting the right people and process, in that order. People first, and then process. There's a lot of talented people in our industry, and I think because of our product and timing, we have excelled past a lot of very smart people.” 🛍️ Going the distance Making the move into retail can make a huge difference for DTC companies in terms of revenue and demand planning and forecasting. At nearly a billion dollars in sales, Davie suggests that working with retailers, rather than against them, is the better approach for The Oodie. He mentions the importance of forecasting in creating scarcity around product drops, which can be a key part of any business model. “Wholesale and retail are very different, but… we've got all these licenses and these new drops that, if a retailer can get exclusivity with, they're gonna bring in a lot of people… I think that we have a lot to offer to these retailers.” 💰 What Davie would do with an extra $50K: Davie would invest in building the company’s own media organically, potentially starting a YouTube channel focusing on unboxing videos or a podcast-style format. He also discusses leveraging social platforms to reach a wider audience and build the brand even more to create a standalone product through organic social media marketing efforts. “I think there are huge opportunities through organic and social media at this stage, especially if you can build it as a brand in itself. It can even become its own product.” 👉 Listen to the full episode with Davie [here!]( Sponsor Inventory headaches: be gone. Hey – you – with 500 boxes of product cluttering your garage… 😬 What if you could create and launch new products without playing the risky and costly game of inventory management? [Printful]( allows you to create and sell premium, custom-made merch *instantly.* No tying up cash in inventory or demand forecasting required. Plus, you get your garage back. 👏 Spotify for Artists, Comedy Central, Dunkin’ Donuts, and many other top brands use Printful's on-demand production to: - Design and list products in minutes - Effortlessly test ideas and scale their selections - Spend their cash on growth, not operational headaches “Teaming up with Printful lets us keep our product lineup fresh and gives us the freedom to grow the business without tying up our money in 2,000 t-shirts in my garage.” –Aaron Reynolds, EFFIN’ BIRDS. Don't waste the limited time and money you have on operational headaches. 👉 [Free your garage today with Printful!]( Engagement How To Get People To Engage With Your Blog Content Ever had this problem? You put tons of time and energy into creating a blog post for your brand… But then you check your traffic, time on page, and session metrics only to find that your mom in Minnesota is the only person who engaged with your content. Thanks, mom. 🤦‍♀️ Sure, a view is a view, but unfortunately, it doesn’t affect the bottom line of your DTC brand. So, what gives? How do you get your mom AND your ideal customers to engage with your blog content? 1️⃣ Revisit your audience research strategy Sometimes blog posts aren’t getting engagement because they aren’t speaking to the right audience. If you want to boost your engagement rates, you have to put in the time and do the audience research. 📊 Audience research will tell you more about who is buying your products. During your research, find out: - Demographics - Sources of influence - How much they know about your area of expertise - What they like/don’t like Once you know who your audience is, it will be easier to create content that resonates well. 🤝 2️⃣ Choose topics people care about If you’re writing like a boring professor lecturing an audience, chances are your audience won’t be that interested. Successful content isn’t a lecture — it’s a conversation. 🗣 In other words, if you’re writing to boost engagement rates, make sure you’re writing about trending topics that inspire, educate, take a stance, or illustrate a point. These are the kind of blog posts people comment on, cite, and share. 🔁 3️⃣ Level up your writing In today’s highly digital world, people are inundated with content. Simply put: readers have a slew of choices when it comes to what blog posts they decide to read. 📚 If you’re regurgitating boring AF SEO content, chances are your readers will skip right past your articles and move to the next. If you’re looking to stand out in a crowded sea, you have to write content that slaps. And you have to produce it consistently. Consider hiring a professional content writer with proven results to help make your content shine. 🌟 4️⃣ Cross-promote your blog content While blogs can generate content on their own, it’s smart to cross-promote your blog on different channels. Share your content across Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, and any other channel where your customers follow you. 📱 Consider asking your team members to engage with your content on social media and share it as well. Sometimes engagement is a matter of beating the algorithm. Tip: Don’t include your link in your initial post. Social media platforms love to keep you on their platform and often bury posts with links. Instead, include the link in the first comment. You can also add the link to a Twitter thread after the fact. 5️⃣ Repurpose your blog content Long-form blog content can be a stellar way to engage your audience. But it’s not the only way. How people prefer to consume content varies from person to person. As such, consider repurposing your content in different formats. For example, you can turn a blog post into a webinar, a podcast, a video, or a newsletter. 📹 You’ve already done the research to create a killer blog post. You can use that knowledge to create different types of content and get more traction across channels. 6️⃣ Make it easy to share People won’t go out of their way to engage with your blog content. Make it easy on them. Turn on the comments section so that customers can ask questions. Also, turn on comment notifications so you can respond to customer comments when they come rolling in. It’s also smart to include a one-click social share button on each of your blog posts. If a customer likes your content, all they have to do is click to share it with their audience. 🤝 Your content isn’t as simple as just posting and hoping for the best – boosting engagement rates on your blog (and getting people to read your work) requires a combination of strategies. Focus on the above steps to create content that resonates well with your readers, drives engagement, and helps you achieve your business goals. Do you have a tactic that’s helped move the needle for engagement on your blog? Reply to this email and let us know! 😊 Sponsor Early Bird Tickets are Running Out ⌛️ Don’t miss your chance to join our curated group of DTC mentors and 100+ other DTC heavy hitters at [C-Suite Mastermind in Las Vegas, March 23-24!]( I’m even looking at the attendee list and it’s blowing my mind. Join us and you’ll be rubbing elbows with: 💰 the CEO of a publicly traded DTC brand portfolio company valued at over $30M 🧴The founder of a fast-growing skincare system (she’s been on the pod!) 🐑 Austrian brothers who are founders of a wool product empire! 🎾 The guy who leads DTC at a $70M+ sporting goods brand If you’re not this big yet, don’t worry. The event is designed to give all levels of DTC builders maximum value in the connections they make. ⏰ Don’t hit the snooze button on your DTC destiny… [Grab your early bird ticket today to save $1000 while supplies last!]( TikTok No CAP 🧢 Have you found winning creative on TikTok but struggled to find horizontal scale? Look no further! [TikTok Cost Caps]( have entered the chat. With Cost Caps, you have the opportunity to set a target cost-per-result – in this ad’s case, cost per install! In this example, the creative was already a top-performing ad. The algorithm already had learnings about the target audience and how to be competitive. The next step was to utilize cost caps to do this at scale. The result? The [Pilothouse TikTok team]( set a target of $7 cost-per-install which resulted in installations at an average of $1.33 (80% lower than the target). The campaign also saw a 5% decrease in cost-per-clicks and a 15% increase in conversion rate. Don’t sleep on cost caps people. 😉 Quick Hits 🪟 [Microsoft]( shuts down its VR initiative. ⛳️ [Web3]( expands into golf. 🔎 [Google]( plays catchup with its own AI search tool. 🎵 [Spotify]( lays off 600 people. 🤑 [OpenAI’s]( multi-year, multi-billion dollar partnership. 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. Here's your unique referral link: [( [Share via facebook]( [Share via twitter]( [Share via whatsapp]( [Share via email](mailto:?subject=Check%20this%20out&body=%F0%9F%94%A5%20Signed%20up%20to%20this%20newsletter%20a%20couple%20of%20weeks%20ago%20and%20it's%20amazing%20for%20DTC%20marketers%20like%20you!+https%3A%2F%2Fsparklp.co%2F47c676d0%2F%3Futm_source%3Demail) [See how many referrals you have!]( Referal program is subject to [DTC Terms & Conditions.]( 🔊 Have you heard our latest podcasts? 💸 [Andrew Wilkinson]( at C-Suite in Victoria: Bootstrapping vs VC vs PE vs Angel. 😎 [Pretty Boy]( - Ben Feys and Kevin Niehoff: Nailing your Brand Identity and Balling on a Budget. 🥤 [Sansorium]( - Fiona Hepher: Sipping Sober with a 30% Return Customer Rate. ❤️ [Rootd]( - Ania Wysocka: Helping a Million Users in the Age of Anxiety. 💰 [Mike Fata]( - CPG Lessons From Scaling Hemp Hearts + A Trifecta of 9 Figure Exits! 💡 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](, [Ashley R. Cummings](, 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 [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. 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