📦 - Short Stories and Even Shorter Hair

Manscaped’s TikTok, True Classic’s Success, Building on your Content’s Momentum, and Preserving Visitor Data [DTC]( Banter Friday, June 23, 2023 One more time for those in the back! 📣 👂 In this newsletter, you’ll find: 👇 📦 How Manscaped makes the most of TikTok 📦 Small changes and big results for True Classic 📦 Hook your audience and never let go 📦 Keeping visitor data alive post-iOS 14.5 Read till the end to access exclusive DTC swag. 😎 👉 If a pal forwarded this to you, [subscribe](, so you never miss out. In The Loop 🧑‍⚖️ [FTC sues Amazon, alleging it tricked consumers into signing up for Prime:]( The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has sued Amazon, accusing the company of using deceptive user interface designs to trick consumers into signing up for its Prime subscription service. The complaint alleges that Amazon made it difficult for users to cancel their memberships, employing manipulative tactics known as "dark patterns." The lawsuit represents a significant move by the FTC to address harmful business practices that exploit consumers, and it comes after a months-long investigation into Amazon's Prime practices. 💳 [May credit card data show more delinquencies in May, verging on 'normal' rates:]( Consumer payment trends are returning to pre-pandemic levels, but delinquency rates on credit cards have exceeded those levels at three major companies. Net charge-offs are also higher compared to May 2019 for two companies. Analysts predict that delinquency rates will continue to rise in the coming months, leading to weaker consumer spending in the second half of 2023 as excess savings are depleted. TikTok How Manscaped is Leveraging Short Form Content on TikTok ✅ The right content for the right brand TikTok can be a goldmine of value for the right brand. Manscaped has a signature personality and voice they’ve been able to refine over many years, so TikTok might just be the perfect platform to let them shine. [Pilothouse]( took a peek at what Manscaped offers us in the capital city of short-form content. Let’s find out what’s working for them and what isn’t. 👇 🎉 Have fun with it We think this is an incredibly fun animation made in partnership with a well-known animator. The sketch is fast, funny, and stays true to Manscaped’s branding. The one thing holding this wonderfully quirky cartoon back is the overall narrative direction. With a bit more consideration for the story, viewers could’ve been rewarded with a bit more than just the product as the punchline. 🥁 🎣 When you present a narrative hook to lead your content, your audience is more likely to stop scrolling and pay attention. A narrative helps your ad feel more organic and aligned with what TikTok users expect from creators on the platform. There aren’t many people who’ll stick around to watch your ads if they can tell it's an ad. 🤷 🤗 Do it for them Manscaped has seen great success with creative from a female’s perspective. 👍 Getting men to consider their hygiene from the perspective of a loved one or have self-care products suggested as a gift seems to hold tremendous value. ❣️ When a purchase decision has a positive impact on more than just the consumer, it only becomes more compelling to buy. Positive impact is at the heart of this angle. Manscaped is proposing a future where the consumer is complimented and praised for using their products. It can be immensely compelling in all the right ways. To really sell viewers on the benefits of Manscaped’s products, a before-and-after style video or a glow-up reveal can make a huge impact on those who are looking to make a positive difference in their life. Keep reading to find out how to push your narrative content straight to consumers’ “For You” pages! 👇 Sponsor A Small Change in Retention Leads to Big Results for True Classic. 💰💰💰 It costs big bucks to acquire a new customer right now. 💰💰💰 That’s why so many top DTC brands are focusing on customer retention using one of the most powerful retention tools today: [Mobile apps.]( Think about it. With push notifications at your fingertips, you can cost-effectively reach and engage your best customers where they spend most of their time – on their phones. 📱 (Apps are also a cheat code if you want to avoid increasing advertising prices, fickle algorithms, and expensive SMS campaigns.) Take it from True Classic... When CACs started rising, [they built a mobile app]( to re-engage existing customers at low cost and with minimal effort. And with 91% user retention and 200+% conversion rates on app vs mobile web, you could say it paid off. Want to learn how they did it? 👉 [This is how True Classic created their winning app]( (without stretching their budget, team resources, or doing a lick of coding). TikTok Pushing Your Content to the “For You” Page 📚 Telling a story This creative leverages the narrative angle we’ve been looking for! 👏 The key to drawing an audience in is to hook them with potential. If you start your content with a bunch of unique selling points (USPs) and product features, viewers will be quick to form an opinion about what they’re watching without first absorbing the content you have to offer. Keep audiences engaged and waiting for a conclusion they’re looking forward to. A light-hearted tone, some personable characters, and a relatable situation like we see here adds crucial emotional weight making the end of this content worthy of viewers’ time and attention. 👀 Besides the t-shirt, there’s no brand information and Manscaped isn’t even brought up until about 35 seconds into the piece. This allows the product time to naturally integrate with the narrative as the characters discover its hidden value within the story's context. The original video on this creator's page has just under 4m views, and that’s well above his average. This just goes to show the power of a good story paired with the right creator. 🎁 Wrapping this up Manscaped has seen waves of success throughout their years of posting content on TikTok. Most of their top content pieces came from partnerships with creators, and we think that’s a healthy and safe approach with predictable results. 💸 Manscaped’s momentum continues to influence subsequent posts like a giant unstoppable snowball of positivity! But this isn’t the case for many brands. Consistently posting content in large volumes provides unreliable performance. If a piece of content doesn’t perform as well, Manscaped relies on being able to leave that content in the past with a calendar of new content lined up to take its place. This is a valid approach given the habits of TikTok’s user base, but finding a balance between consistency and substance should help boost their watch time sending their content straight to “For You”” pages all over the platform. That substance may come as narrative angles are more integrated with Manscaped’s content. Their products hold the potential to make a tangible impact on someone’s personal and professional life. There are so many glow-ups to be revealed and success stories to be told here that typical product featurettes should be few and far between. 📕 The moral of the story That’ll conclude [Pilothouse’s tour of TikTok]( with Manscaped! We encourage you to look at their incredible variety of content on TikTok to see what’s performing well and think of how your brand can leverage similar content styles. Has Manscaped influenced your TikTok strategy? Can narrative take your brand to new heights? Let us know in a reply! 📧 Sponsor Your Visitor Data Doesn't Have To Die After iOS 14.5 And ITP Introducing [Smart ID]( by Black Crow AI, your solution to identifying and marketing to 100% of your website visitors. Before installing Smart ID, [Felina Intimates]( saw declining Klaviyo audience sizes due to Apple iOS and ITP updates. Smaller audiences meant less email revenue. With Smart ID, they experienced remarkable results: - 59% email audience expansion - 54% lift in email revenue - 64% boost in profit from email Don’t let iOS and ITP updates break your email marketing strategy. 👉 [Read the full story & discover how your brand can benefit from Smart ID!]( Quick Hits 😎 [Buy Media, Pay Later](. Get up to 90 days extra to pay for your ad campaigns with Juni Capital for Invoices - plus auto-collect, pay, and reconcile in a few clicks. * 🎵 [TikTok’s new Interactive Add Ons aim to boost brand engagement]( from consumers. Add Ons are displayed through stickers, polls, countdowns, and more. 📺 [Youtube tests a new option for viewers to create a Short as a reply](. These replies won’t be shown publicly and only be available to a select group of Android and iOS users. ✅ Get exclusive access to [Pilothouse's strategic blueprint for Meta account simplification]( at DTCx Northbeam's Media Buyer Summit. [Click here to register for the June 28th virtual event]( and join brands like Sur La Table, TikTok, Hexclad, and more! * 🐦 [Twitter teases a new feature]( that allows users to search key terms in their Followers list. This should help brands or creators find and interact with specific, highly-engaged Followers. 👽 [Reddit shares new insights]( into how consumers use the platform for product research. The report reflects the high value consumers place on their peer’s experience with brands and products. Sponsored * SHARE DTC NEWSLETTER Want to level up the marketing skills of your teammates and employees? 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