Category: DTC Marketing

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Direct-To-Consumer DTC Marketing Pet Pet Food Pet Health & Wellness Pet Supplies
Chewy
Chewy

DTC brands are known for their clever, original, and on-trend ads. Read what we can learn from the pet product marketing tactics Chewy.com uses to connect with audiences.

In a few short years, DTC (or D2C) brands have gone from a novelty to an essential part of the lives of most consumers. Emarketer forecasts that DTC sales will account for $17.75 billion of total ecommerce sales in 2020, up 24.3% from the previous year.

Many of the newer DTC brands who have become household names have used highly memorable and creative direct to consumer marketing approaches to gain traction. One such example is Chewy.com, a DTC pet brand. Let’s take a closer look at how Chewy.com advertises, and what we can learn from their pet product marketing approach.

Using a Savvy DTC Ad Strategy to Build Market Share

This Chewy.com ad cleverly targets the new parent demographic. One of the primary benefits of Chewy’s direct to consumer marketing model is convenience — it delivers toys, chews, food, and treats directly to a consumer’s home, in a box.

For new parents, saving a trip to the local brick and mortar pet store is a significant draw. Chewy’s ad shows how its service can ease the burden of new parenthood, often one of life’s most overwhelming experiences.

Chewy’s ad is smart for another reason: It targets a large and growing demographic. Pets are often regarded as “training babies” by millennials, who are delaying the rituals and milestones of adulthood longer than earlier generations. Because younger people humanize their pets and treat them as family members, they are more willing to pay for premium products and services. Focusing on the “new parents with a dog” market is a smart move for Chewy.com, given their passion and willingness to spend.

Chewy’s ads also make an economic case familiar to DTC or D2C brands. This ad stresses that all the products offered by Chewy are not only cheaper than those found in a brick and mortar retailer, they also come with free shipping.

It’s a powerful ad because today’s “pet parents” want to do more for their animals, but they may be constrained by lack of income (a particular problem for younger pet parents). Chewy’s ad maintains that it’s possible to buy the best for your animal by opting for their low overhead DTC model.

Chewy.com also released ads focusing on the ease of the delivery and exciting experience of “unboxing” a collection of dog food, treats and toys; an ad showing how Chewy.com customer service reps can assist with helping find food for dogs and cats who are “picky eaters”; and ads that feature specific owners and their dogs, all enjoying Chewy.com boxes.  

All of the ads are upbeat, brief and colorful and feature lots of testimonials and images of happy pets. Additionally, all of the company’s pet product marketing messages highlight at least one aspect of Chewy.com DTC value proposition: Cheaper products, easy delivery, the boxing experience, etc.

Experience-based Advertising and Pet Product Marketing, Chewy-style

Chewy operates on the premise that consumers only share two types of experiences online: Great ones and terrible ones. So Chewy, obviously, strives to generate the former.

The company has drawn notice for sending flowers and condolences to a customer who called to cancel an order after a pet’s unexpected death. The customer was stunned and appreciative and later shared the story on social media.

Chewy is also known for sending handwritten notes addressed directly to its customers’ pets — a whimsical touch that plays extremely well in an era when most of us humanize our animals.

The Takeaway for Pet Product Marketing

DTC brands seeking to build awareness, attract new audiences, and engage with their existing customers would do well to consider Chewy’s direct to consumer marketing, DTC advertising, and customer service model.

Chewy’s ads are not high concept; instead, they hammer home the core value proposition of the company’s DTC model and show plenty of happy and excited pets.

At Bigeye, we have the experience and expertise to create top drawer DTC ad campaigns such as those created by Chewy.com. Contact us today for more information about how we can help you reach your goals.

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Direct-To-Consumer DTC Marketing
ecommerce marketing
ecommerce marketing

Improving customer service means improving eCommerce marketing in order to retain and attract customers. Learn to improve customer service with these tips.

In recent months, eCommerce has enjoyed an incredible boom. At the same time, consumers also have plenty of choices and the means to research them. While online shoppers tend to demonstrate loyalty to brands they love, a poor experience will encourage them to try another internet shop. That’s why you need to prioritize customer service as a key part of your eCommerce Marketing strategy.

Consider these key stats from HubSpot that illustrate why you need to invest in high-quality customer service:

  • American shoppers who say customer service factors into their shopping choices: 90 percent
  • American consumers who say they’ve switched companies in the past year because of poor customer service: 49 percent

Mostly, it can cost between five and 25 times as much to acquire a new customer than to retain an existing one. Even if you’ve hired a high-quality consumer marketing agency, worked hard to develop your brands and packaging, and done everything else right, poor customer service experiences can keep prospects from making their first purchase and just as bad, prevent a first-time buyer from making a second purchase. 

Ten eCommerce Marketing Suggestions to Improve Customer Service

You can benefit by investing in some fairly simple and affordable enhancements to your customer service. This is true if you market other company’s brands or rely upon direct to consumer advertising.

Consider these tested tips to help show prospects and customers that you care about their experience both before and after you make a sale.

  1. Create a knowledge Base: You can find plenty of software and plugins that will make it simple to add an online knowledge base to your eCommerce site. You might start by answering the types of topics that customers frequently ask you or your existing customer service people.
  2. Show transaction history online: Giving customers the ability to login and see their ordering, billing, and shipping history online will help eliminate a lot of questions and misunderstandings.
  3. Create how-to videos: Posting videos that explain how your website or even some of your products work will help answer questions, increase customer satisfaction, and probably even drive sales.
  4. Create a scalable team: While a lot of these steps can help reduce the number of customer service reps you need, make sure you can handle peak demand.
  5. Offer live chat: According to Forrester, typical live chat sessions can cost up to 30 percent less than comparable phone calls. Some software allows you to use pre-written macros to answer frequent questions, and often, agents can handle more than one chat session at a time.
  6. Develop a multi-channel customer service strategy: Besides offering support on your website, you can also consider it on social media channels. This way, you meet customers where they spend a lot of time. Also, by giving an irritated or anxious customer a place to send a message you may prevent them from venting in a public post.
  7. Use help desk software: Not only can this software help track touch-points, it can also keep different service channels integrated. For instance, you can keep a record of interactions from social media and your website stored in one place.
  8. Offer a 24-7 voice system: Even if you can’t possibly keep somebody online 24 hours a day, you can still take messages that get routed to your held desk software for responses during the next business day. Even in this age of social media messaging and live chat, some folks still like to speak with a live person.
  9. Keep your FAQ updated: Once you get your customer service rolling, you should find that some questions occur more frequently than others. Having those clearly addressed in a simple FAQ should head off a lot of contacts and customer frustration.
  10. Track and measure customer service: If you want to keep improving, you need a way to measure your progress. In addition to tracking the number and types of request, you may want to send out surveys after a contact to give customers a chance to provide feedback.

Even if you initially only provide limited options for customer to get in touch, it’s important to ensure that confused or dissatisfied people have a way to get their concerns addressed. Any growing eCommerce business must attract and retain customers. Poor customer service experiences will turn away customers, even for companies who do a lot of other things right.

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Direct-To-Consumer DTC Marketing
e commerce marketing scaled 1
e commerce marketing scaled 1

Use eCommerce marketing to take advantage of the growing population of regular online shoppers, while avoiding the pitfalls of this digital transformation.

As news of the COVID-19 pandemic spread almost as fast as the coronavirus itself, governments started encouraging people and businesses to take social distancing measures. Soon after, even the brick-and-mortar businesses that didn’t have to close their doors, often cut hours to reduce the risks to staff and customers. Both businesses and customers have experienced dramatic changes in a very short time. Still, this sudden shift in shopping behavior has allowed eCommerce to boom.

How does the COVID-19 crisis impact eCommerce marketing?

As with all crises, some dramatic changes are likely to remain permanent. For instance, business reliance upon eCommerce marketing had already grown at a steady pace. During the pandemic, buying and selling online suddenly spiked. These growth figures come from the Salesforce Global Shopping Index for the first quarter of 2020:

  • Traffic growth: 16%
  • Digital commerce growth: 20%
  • Individual shopper growth: 4%

Certainly, marketers expect eCommerce growth over time. Still, these figures from the first quarter of 2020 surpassed the 2019 holiday season, which was considered a productive one. When compared to last year, home goods increased by 51 percent. Active apparel grew by 34% and toys by 31%. Such essential goods as food and personal care items spiked up 200 percent.

Is the rise of eCommerce marketing permanent?

Each holiday season attracts new eCommerce business. As new shoppers get introduced to online shopping or at least, shopping at new sites, the first quarter has always surpassed the first quarter for the previous year. However, analysts don’t necessarily expect as much activity in the first quarter as occurred during the holiday season.

According to CIO Magazine’s report on the impact of COVID-19 on consumer behavior and eCommerce marketing, none of this is temporary. They believe that the current crisis will create the sort of emotional bookmark that 911 and Pearl Harbor did. Some of these rapidly upset routines will cause people to revaluate and change behaviors long after the crisis has passed.

To support this assertion, consider new research from the Capgemini Research Institute:

  • Before the coronavirus pandemic, 59 percent of consumers reported a lot of interaction with brick-and-mortar stores. Just about a quarter of consumers said they expected to frequent stores as much afterwards.
  • Within the next six or nine months, less than 40 percent of consumers said that they expected to return to previous levels of visiting physical outlets.
  • Before the pandemic, about 30 percent of consumers reported a high level of engagement with online stores; however, 37 percent now report this behavior.

In other words, consumers anticipate shopping online more and in physical stores less.

Will the eCommerce boom end physical stores?

Because of these survey results, Capgemini analysts agreed with CIO’s assessment that this bump in online spending would continue even after the crisis ends. At the same time, even the Amazon marketing agency doesn’t want to see local, physical stores vanish.

For instance, Amazon purchased Whole Foods and opened outlets to give their customers a better experience. Prime subscriptions offer customers the choice to either save money online or inside a store. People can see, touch, and even smell products. Customers also can choose in-store pickup for deliveries, an option that has proven increasingly popular with other omnichannel outlets.

Capgemini also doesn’t expect physical stores to vanish; however, shoppers may have higher expectations in the future. It’s intuitive to predict that survey respondents said they would pay more attention to sanitization issues in stores. They also said that they would be more likely to patronize physical or online businesses that communicated a strong sense of purpose and a commitment to sustainability. Customers will return to stores. At the same time, they may visit stores less and be much pickier about which ones they choose to frequent.

Vital eCommerce marketing tips

Ecommerce marketing may enjoy a boom because of the coronavirus. At the same time, even businesses with existing eCommerce platforms have to overcome some obstacles:

  • Pre-coronavirus, many businesses focused mostly or solely upon foot traffic and have had to abruptly change their strategy to include eCommerce marketing. This increases competition for keywords, consumer attention, and of course, online revenue. While an established eCommerce brand will enjoy some advantages, they may not entirely overcome the budgets of large companies that need to rev up online marketing fast.
  • As CIO Magazine ironically phrased it, the digital transformation wasn’t entirely prepared for the digital transformation. Some platforms could not handle the sudden and unexpected surge to “Black Friday” traffic levels. Very commonly, retailers suffered because of supply chain disruptions and inefficiencies. Many simply didn’t have the processes and manpower in place to handle the extra business. Even Amazon had to slow down delivery of non-essential items to ensure essential products moved to their destinations quickly.

With these obstacles in mind, these essential eCommerce marketing tips can help companies survive and thrive through the current crisis and beyond:

  • Shore up supply chains: You can’t make good inventory decisions without good information. Contact manufacturers or distributors to understand how they’re coping and what you can expect from them. Hedge your bets by finding alternative suppliers.
  • Communicate with customers: Just as you want your suppliers to keep you in the loop, your customers want to know if they can rely upon you to provide them with excellent service and reliable deliveries. These days, people also want to feel good about doing business with you by knowing that you’re striving to improve safety for them and employees. Let people know how well you’re doing through emails, your website, and social media.
  • Revisit your understanding of customer needs: You may believe your business understood your customer very well before the crisis; however, your customers’ situations and needs have changed as abruptly as your company’s have. For example, many beauty products companies started adding hand sanitizer to their product line to help meet customer demand.
  • Understand that customers may spend more time at home: If your customers are suddenly forced to spend more time alone and at home, you may profit by freshening up your products to appeal to them. For example, Son of a Sailor used to concentrate on selling jewelry and other fashion accessories. They’ve added a new “Boredom Busters” section to their site to appeal to the stay-at-home crowd.
  • Make smart advertising choices: Choices you make about PPC bids and other advertising can always make the difference between great returns and poor ones. It’s more important than ever to make certain you’re tracking the right metrics and planning advertising campaigns that support your business goals. On the other hand, some kinds of eCommerce businesses have found advertising costs have dropped somewhat because their competitors have reduced budgets.
  • Address technical and security concerns with your site: Of course, a better time to address any technical or security issues with your site would have been before the crisis. Still, these things don’t tend to fix themselves. The investment you make in faster loading times and solid security features will put your business in a better position to attract customers now and keep them in the future.

Additional eCommerce tips to help your online business thrive during coronavirus

You may have more concerns about simple survival right now than about rapidly expanding in the future. Still, these actions that you can take to give customers a better impression of your brand will increase revenues in ways that will benefit you now and later.

Let your customers know you value their business

These days, eCommerce sites have enjoyed plenty of success attracting new customers and waking up old ones with generous promotional offers. This can work especially well if you believe your typical customers may have cut back on spending because of their own economic uncertainty. More than ever, consumers want to find good value.

Also, with the understanding that it’s almost always cheaper to retain a loyal customer than to find a new one, consider creating or revamping loyalty programs. Some examples of suggestions for improving a loyalty program to respond to the current crisis came from Antavo, a loyalty management platform:

  • Consider extending the dates on expired points. As an example, CVS, just did this with their CVS Bucks program. Of course, they also sent out an email to let customers know about their generosity.
  • Consider making rewards a little easier to redeem, and in particular, offer good rewards to incentivize customers to join your program and to help you meet other sales goals.

Show customers you care about their communities

Even before this current crisis, savvy marketers understood how giving back to communities helped them improve brand recognition, reputation, and even revenue. For instance, plenty of distilleries have begun producing hand sanitizer to give away. Patagonia, the clothing retailer, sends a percentage of profits to environmental causes.

Some businesses may believe the pandemic has strained their budgets too much to consider adding charitable donations. Maybe it’s time to consider the buy-to-give or other incentive models. For example:

  • TOMS built its shoe and eyewear business by giving away a product for every product purchased.
  • AmazonSmile donates a percentage of qualified sales to charities designated by the customer.
  • You could also select some charities and allow customers to add an extra dollar or two at checkout.
  • Instead of sending excess inventory to the virtual bargain basement or even discarding it, consider donating it.

The long-term outlook for post-coronavirus eCommerce

Social distancing measures have abruptly reduced or even eliminated revenue for many physical businesses. In response, both retailers and consumers have turned to the internet for buying and selling. While the pandemic may have generated an abrupt surge in online shopping, eCommerce marketing analysts expect the trend to continue after the crisis has passed. More people will grow accustomed to the convenience and value, plus some will remain reluctant to spend much time in local shops after they open. While eCommerce stores can expect more opportunities, they also need to overcome a number of challenges. Some sensible improvements to marketing, technology, and business processes can also help to overcome these.

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Direct-To-Consumer DTC Marketing Marketing/Business
ecommerce scaled 1
ecommerce scaled 1

Read why eCommerce is booming during the coronavirus, and how businesses can retain those customers after the crisis passes.

During these days of the coronavirus outbreak, you might have a hard time picturing a return to normal business conditions. Still, you can already see signs that preventative measures have begun to flatten the curve and even turn it around. Doctors and scientists have remained optimistic that they can devise better treatments and effective vaccines rapidly. Hopefully soon, people can start to resume normal activities and companies can reopen their doors.

Still, most marketers expect at least some of the dramatic changes to consumer behavior to last. More specifically, one sector of the economy, eCommerce, has boomed. With that in mind, it’s important to address eCommerce management and marketing strategies that will ensure that you can retain the gains you may have made for a long time after the coronavirus crisis passes.

How has eCommerce marketing fared during the coronavirus outbreak?

To understand how rapidly eCommerce has grown, take a look at one particular segment, food and beverages. According to eMarketer, they had previously forecasted eCommerce sales for food and beverages would increase during 2020. The pre-coronavirus forecasts predicted growth of over 23 percent and over $32 billion in revenues for the year. While eCommerce had only accounted for 3.2 percent of all receipts in this market,  they had suggested food and beverage as an example of a segment of eCommerce niche without much current penetration and plenty of room for growth. 

Before the crisis, retailers marketing on Amazon may have also enjoyed brisk growth because of the way the largest online retailer had improved logistics to provide quick deliveries. Even though Amazon ranks first in overall eCommerce, it is not the only source of food and beverage. In fact, a large segment of that market also goes to grocers and independent direct-to-consumer companies.

In any case, you should inform yourself by looking at the surge during the first months of coronavirus stay-at-home orders:

  • Just within the three days between March 12 and March 15, a comparison of that same time period from last year showed that orders in that sector boomed by over 200 percent.
  • Another survey sampled the time period between March 1 and March 25, and found 183-percent growth.
  • A poll of consumer behavior between March 1 and March 25 found that American adults reported increasing their online grocery shopping from about 11 percent to 37 percent. Even more, eMarketer reported that shopping online grew steadily more common each week by the middle of March.

Will marketing my product online continue to grow after the coronavirus?

Obviously, people have increasingly turned to eCommerce because they want to avoid crowded grocery stores during the crisis. Also, some retailers have limited hours or even temporarily closed, so consumers need a convenient alternative. Still, you can look at past consumer behavior to predict that many of these consumers will continue to shop online after the outbreak.

Predictably, eCommerce spending has surged during the last quarter of each year. Still, it doesn’t die down after the holiday season ends to the the previous first-quarter levels. Multiple-year charts look more like an ascending staircase than like a series of peaks and valleys. During successive years, sales will surge again the next fourth quarter to even higher levels than the year before. This suggests that once consumers get used to shopping online, they tend to keep the habit.

Which eCommerce website management and marketing strategies will help you retain customers after the coronavirus?

Certainly, shoppers will still return to retail outlets after the crisis passes. At the same time, it’s fair to predict that they will also continue to spend more money online than they did before the pandemic. Even if consumers just switched out the equivalent of one out of ten of their normal shopping trips for an online order, it would have a tremendous impact on eCommerce growth.

Of course, you may have plenty of online competition in your niche and cannot guarantee that all of the customers you attracted during the outbreak will return to your business. These eCommerce marketing suggestions can help you retain more of your customers now and in the future:

Subscription orders

If you’ve done any consumable marketing on Amazon, Shopify, or even your own eCommerce site, you’ve probably run into subscription orders. You often see them for such consumer goods as coffee and dog food, and they let customers create a recurring order every month, typically at a discount. Such DTC companies as Dollar Shave Club and Blue Apron also rely upon the subscription model. They tend to work particularly well in such categories as food, pet food, and beauty.

According to McKinsey Research, the overall subscription market has increased by 100 percent a year, and about 15 percent of all consumers say they have used subscriptions for convenient, repeat ordering at least one time. The model particularly appears to appeal to younger adults who live in urban areas and earn at least $50,000 a year.

Consumers who take advantage of subscription purchases say they enjoy the convenience and value; however, they also say they’re quick to cancel if they don’t receive high-quality service and products. If you decide to offer subscription ordering, you need to make certain that you have the good products and services in place to sustain it.

Loyalty programs

Adding a loyalty program to your eCommerce marketing plan provides you with another way to entice customers to return. Typically, these programs offer such rewards as points to accumulate for free products, discounts, or notification of special promotions. Some companies even give their customers extra points for mentioning their products on their social networks or for providing reviews. If you add a referral program to your loyalty program, you can even encourage your current customers to mention your business to their friends.

Provide flexible customer service options

Recently, a lot of businesses have made their return or cancellation policies more flexible to help their customers out during the current crisis. This adjustment can also give your business a way to make certain that you keep consumers delighted, and even when they’re not, you will have a way to learn about issues and try to correct them. Even though you may adjust your return or cancellation policies now to accommodate uncertain customers, you may decide that your flexibility will also help you retain them in the future. 

You have probably noted that large eCommerce sites like Amazon usually offer a variety of shipping options. For instance, patient shoppers may even get free shipping if they choose a slower option. Customers with urgent needs can opt to spend more for expedited shipping. You might also consider adding promotions that offer more free shipping options for orders over a certain amount, or you can even make that a perk of your loyalty program.

Build a high-quality subscriber messaging list

In the old days, eCommerce marketing companies would have simply called this an email list. These days, you might also consider giving customers the option to choose text messages over emails. Even though most people already receive a lot of messages from businesses and probably don’t read most of them, that’s not true for some companies.

Plenty of businesses can boast that their customers look forward to receiving their communications because they work hard to offer value in exchange for attention. The more you can personalize these lists, the better chance you will have of having customers who perceive your communication as valuable too. For example, you might send special promotions for coffee grinders to customers who have already ordered or at least browsed your unground coffee bean selection. You could direct the offers for tea infusers to customers who have purchased your leaf tea.

Since a subscriber list can prove such a valuable way to retain customers, you may consider offering some perks to entice people to join. For example, you could offer a one-time coupon that entitles your new subscriber to a discounted purchase or upgraded shipping.

Why develop better plans for eCommerce marketing?

Steps you take today to improve your eCommerce website management and marketing can help you enjoy your share of the current eCommerce boom. Once this crisis has passed, your improvements should also help you retain and attract more online shoppers in the future.

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Direct-To-Consumer DTC Marketing Media & Analytics
DTC media plans scaled 1
DTC media plans scaled 1

DTC retailers have been affected by COVID-19. Pivoting your 2020 marketing plan using e-commerce, data, and direct sales platforms will help you recover.

By the Middle of March, AdWeek published the sobering news that DTC stores had been among some of the first retailers to close because of the coronavirus crisis. At the same time, these companies’ rationale for closing may point to strengths — and not weaknesses — with many of the brands. To develop an effective media plan for DTC brands, you might consider some of the strongest examples in the industry and how they coped even when retailers had to close. 

Rethinking the media plan for DTC brands for post-crisis 2020

Adweek’s take on early closings by such DTC retailers as Glossier, Warby Parker, and Allbirds contained some encouraging insights. These companies did not necessarily lock their physical stores because they struggled more than typical retailers. Instead, many of them believed they could ride out the storm without brick-and-mortar outlets because they had already developed a strong online presence. In fact, some DTC retailers only sell online or at least, began with e-commerce marketing before establishing brick-and-mortar stores. In this time of crisis, they could simply return to their roots.

Pivoting e-commerce marketing strategies after the coronavirus crisis

To develop your plan for DTC marketing after coronavirus, it could help to consider the example of one very young company and then, consider some advice for the industry as a whole.

Success through infrastructure, data, and innovative direct sales platforms

Zak Normandin founded Iris Nova, a soft drink company that sold offline through its own retail stores and the hospitality industry. Normandin spoke about remaining unafraid to pivot his marketing strategy, and how this alleviated sales losses during the past couple of weeks after many of his offline channels lost business or closed.

Now backed by Coca-Cola, Normandin first gained attention with the novel tactic of marketing more through text messaging than web platforms. ‘In fact, customers can directly order crates of beverages through SMS. With more people staying home, demand for home delivery has increased and this ordering method appears increasingly popular with the company’s customer base.

The company does have financial challenges because of the loss of retail business, but Normandid says that he’s thankful that they had already invested heavily in brand awareness, marketing intelligence, and technology for their mobile direct ordering system. As an example, they’ve also developed retail technology they used for their own cashless store. Even though they needed to shutter the store during the coronavirus crisis, they can use this tech to generate additional revenue in partnership with other companies.

Digital DTC marketing trends for during and after the coronavirus crisis

Jerome Shimizu co-founded DoGood Media and serves as its chief data and analytics officer. He observed that stay-at-home measures have made consumers increasingly dependent upon direct orders. At the same time, lots of legacy companies have failed to keep up with this model. He mentioned that more old-fashioned businesses could benefit by looking at the ways newer players, like Iris Nova, have developed their online customer base.

It’s also a good time to make certain brand messaging expresses sympathy to the stress many customers have experienced during the crisis. As an example, McDonald’s had a chance to procure at least an extra million masks to donate to healthcare workers when it ordered protective supplies for its own employees. This act of enlightened self-interest helped the company improve their brand image as a good employer and community member.

For a DTC example, look at Brands X Better. A couple of dozen DTC brands, including Clean Simple Eats, Boll and Branch, and Harrow Sports, have teamed up together to commit a percentage of sales to a charity effort. These individual brands all cooperate to donate money and promote the effort. In turn, the website also helps promote the companies. The message on the Brands X Better site tells visitors that by buying from these brands, they can help support worthy causes and of course, keep the companies in business and employees at their jobs. 

It’s already time to develop e-commerce marketing for after the coronavirus

As demonstrated by these examples, your ability to weather the current crisis and bounce back stronger afterwards depends upon the actions you can take now to respond. You might also need to remain flexible in the way you meet consumer demand, even though you have to make drastic changes to your original marketing and advertising plans for the year.

A strong e-commerce platform and online audience can help carry you through times of weaker offline, retail sales. During the crisis, lots of consumers have turned to online ordering, so you just need to let them know you’ve made that available for them. You may even find sales boosted by consumers who are more likely to order for home delivery than to travel to a retail outlet right now. To build your brand imagine, consider actions and marketing that can demonstrate how well you adjusted and strove to help protect your employees and your community. In some cases, you may even find it easier to stretch limited resources if you can find other like-minded companies to partner with.

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Direct-To-Consumer DTC Marketing
e commerce scaled 1
e commerce scaled 1

No matter what you sell from your e-commerce shop, you have a great opportunity to grow your business – follow these steps to gain a competitive edge.

Amazon, the world’s e-commerce leader, enjoyed over $280 billion in revenue during 2019, a 20-percent increase from the prior year. Even much smaller, independent digital shops can do very well with the right e-commerce marketing strategy. For instance, Shopify powers over half a million e-commerce stores, with over $40 billion in sales and an average yearly growth rate of 74 percent.

New or established, large or small, these e-commerce and Shopify marketing tips will help bring more customers to your virtual front door and keep making purchases once they have found you.

Ten effective e-commerce marketing strategies to grow your online business

The success of established online stores should offer you encouragement. On the other hand, you should also understand that you’re going to need to compete with other digital vendors for attention and dollars. To do that, you first need to make sure people know what you’re selling and why they should choose your e-commerce shop over another source. Some of you may also offer new or unique products, so you’ll also need to introduce an audience to the value of whatever you’re selling.

Once you’ve achieved some brand and product recognition, you will also probably have to keep testing and refining your e-commerce digital marketing to enjoy continued growth. In that way, you should view digital marketing as more of an evolving process than as something you can just set and forget. Good e-commerce marketing can take considerable effort. In the end, your effective marketing strategies will also help you enjoy the competitive edge that will help you stand out, profit, and grow.

If you’re just getting started or haven’t enjoyed the success you hoped for, consider trying these 10 e-commerce marketing strategies:

1. Create Buying Guides

These days, consumers spend time researching purchases online. You could engage online shoppers with helpful content that helps people find the perfect gift for their dad, which air fryer features are worth the money, or types of swimming suits that flatter various kinds of bodies.

Whatever you’re selling, people certainly have questions about it. Position yourself as the expert and make shoppers aware of your store by posting helpful buying guides on your social sites, website, and digital store. Besides buying guides, you might also create useful guides to using or caring for various products. For instance, you might sell heirloom seeds and could offer seasonal planting guides or even recipes. This sort of helpful content can improve your marketing and your customer service.

2. Host Giveaways, Contests, and Quizzes

You might think it’s counterintuitive to increase sales by giving things away. At the same time, giveaways give you a chance to spark interest in your brand and hopefully, get some positive feedback from lucky winners. Quizzes, giveaways, and contests can also give you a chance to build your subscription list by capturing names and email address. You can also use quizzes to gather marketing information and target your offers and communications to specific interests. Obviously, you should try to tailor any of these events to the type of audience you hope to attract as customers.

3. Offer Promos, Coupons, and Discounts

Offering limited-time promotions for some or all of your products can have a profound psychological effect on consumers, according to Psychology Today. The article mentioned that with newer and weaker brands, shorter and more urgent calls to action more effectively overcome buyer’s resistance. Stronger and more established sellers may profit more by extending their sales longer. As with other marketing, you might need to test your limited-time offers to see which promotions and durations provide you with the best results.

Also, you can use these limited-time sales as content to promote on your store, blog, and social media. Be certain to encourage your audience to share your coupons and promo codes with their own social circles. Even if one person isn’t in the market for something, they might think of a friend who is.

4. Convert First-Time Buyers into Repeat Buyers

Attracting repeat buyers can help you maximize the returns that you will enjoy from your e-commerce store marketing budget. The sooner you can convert first-time purchasers into loyal customers, the more you can profit. If you offer consumable goods, you might start off by offering a substantial discount or perk for people who take advantage of your offer to send your items by periodic subscriptions. Such consumable items as soap, razor blades, and coffee do very well with this sort of marketing plan. Make certain that you clearly demonstrate the savings that subscription purchasers will enjoy on the order page.

5. Encourage Testimonials and Reviews

Plenty of successful online stores encourage reviews and testimonials from their customers. They may even go so far as offering a gift card or special discount code in exchange for posting a review on a product or service page. It’s even more helpful if the review form encourages the reviewer to share their feedback on their own social media pages. Either way, today’s online shoppers do use reviews to help inform purchases and even a mix of great and not-so-great reviews may look more credible than a page with no reviews at all.

6. Practice Enlightened Self Interest

By associating your brand with a worthy charity you can help improve your community and your positive brand recognition. Figure out what kinds of causes your audience is likely to value and lend your support. One recent study found that Millennials, for example, are even likely to spend more on purchases when they associate the company with worthy causes that they also support.

Also, some charities will help promote their sponsors by mentioning the company on a sponsor page or in a newsletter. Your sponsorship of worthy causes also gives you more content for your social media, blogs, and email or text subscribers. That way, subscribers don’t always associate your communication with just selling.

7. Get Customers to Return to Abandoned Shopping Carts

Lots of digital marketers do everything well in order to attract customers to their e-commerce store and get them to select items to purchase. At the same time, many marketers estimate they suffer very high rates of abandoned shopping carts. In other words, the customer does everything but actually pay for their purchase.

Use built-in features to remind these customers of the deal they’re missing out on and perhaps, even send them an additional incentive in the form of a limited-time discount or free shipping offer. It’s also a good idea to send people with abandoned shopping carts the contact information for customer service, so you can see if there’s some problem that kept the shopper from buying. Perhaps the potential customer was surprised by the shipping rates or wanted another payment option, and that’s information you should learn.

8. Build Subscription Lists

Some online shops offer new subscribers a discount to encourage customers and visitors to give permission to add their email or cell phone number to an email or text subscription list. This additional discount may also entice some shoppers to take advantage of their discount by making a purchase.

Beyond just offering a financial incentive, let shop visitors know that they can also expect value out of their subscription. For instance, you might tell subscribers they will be the first to know about sales or even have the chance to get special offers. These days, lots of people get bombarded by so much digital communication that they’re wary of giving out their contact information, so you need to impress your site visitors with the value you will offer.

9. Use Subscription Lists Wisely

Again, most people get a lot of emails that they don’t read or even send directly to their SPAM folders. Believe it or not, some e-commerce stores have customers who look forward to getting their communications. You need to invest some effort to attract subscribers in the first place, so you want to make certain that you satisfy expectations by always providing value when you do send out emails or texts. As much as possible, try to personalize communication, so you have the best chance to engage your audience. Take particular care with your subject lines to let people know that you’ve written something that is worth their time to read.

10. Build Customer Loyalty

Customer loyalty programs will offer your e-commerce store a variety of benefits that you can translate into profits. It’s almost always cheaper and easier to entice a satisfied customer to buy again than to attract a brand-new customer. That means that your customer service needs to be considered part of your marketing as much as any incentives you offer for repeat purchases.

Beyond just encouraging customers to return to your shop, you can also create a brand ambassador program to motivate your current customers to spread the word about your products or services. Word-of-mouth advertising by your loyal customers can provide you with the most cost-effective kind of marketing, so you should definitely consider ways to encourage it.

As an added benefit, a loyalty program can help you better track customer behavior, and you can use that information to tailor your offerings and communication.

Is that all there is to e-commerce marketing?

For e-commerce or even more specifically, Shopify marketing, you might find almost as many effective tactics as you can find online stores. For example, this article did not touch upon such offline marketing methods as signs, popup shops, and event tables. It also took for granted that you have already created a website, blog, and/or social pages. It also assumed that you had designed an easy-to-navigate, attractive shop and offered high-quality products and great customer service. The best choice of e-commerce marketing strategies may very well depend upon your intended market, budget, competition, comfort with various tactics, and what you’ve already tried.

Categories
Direct-To-Consumer DTC Marketing Retail
dtc marketing scaled 1
dtc marketing scaled 1

In a world of customized placement, your DTC brand needs to be omni-channel, which is why a proper DTC marketing plan is so critical.

Direct-to-consumer (DTC) brands are riding a sustained growth wave. It’s estimated there are more than 400 significant brands now in this category, while DTC web traffic is growing 100%  year over year. This growth is being supported by performance-based DTC marketing plans.

Don’t think top retailers haven’t noticed. Nordstrom, Sephora, and other industry heavyweights are working overtime to entice emerging DTC brands into the retail space by offering a range of incentives.

One example: Bloomingdale’s Carousel concept, which allows DTC sellers to set up rotating pop-up shops within the storied retailer’s brick and mortar environs.

Yet, as DTC brands would be the first to tell you, this kind of relationship doesn’t come without substantial tradeoffs.

Winning with a blended approach

Wholesale retailers, always eager for trendy, differentiated offerings, have been busy integrating DTC brands at a rapid clip. There’s no question that such relationships offer very real benefits for these brands. A DTC marketing plan that provides proper placement in Nordstrom or Bloomingdale’s can expose DTC products to much wider audiences.

Partnering with an esteemed wholesale retailer also gives newer DTC brands instant cachet and credibility. For a largely unknown brand, an association with a retail heavyweight can be extraordinarily valuable.

Yet these benefits are also somewhat mitigated by the demands DTC brands are facing. Given their reach and capacity, it’s not surprising that large retailers want to get DTC brands in front of a sizable number of their customers. Yet these brands are often ill-prepared to scale up to accommodate placement at 50 stores.

Large retailers also exert a very high degree of control over product strategy and operations. DTC brands that are accustomed to exerting full control over how their products and services are presented and marketed may balk at relinquishing that control. Much of the storytelling, creative messaging or flair associated with DTC brands may be suppressed when these products are presented and marketed by a larger retailer with different sensibilities and prerogatives.

So how do DTC brands thread the needle?

Many of today’s most successful DTC brands have been squaring this circle by pursuing a blended approach. They make wholesale retailers a part of their omni-channel strategy, but only on their terms.

If retailers push DTC brands to scale too early, they resist. If DTC brands believe their messaging is being polluted by clumsy or irrelevant retail marketing, they speak up.

Most importantly, these DTC brands don’t cede control over their narrative. They may be hitching a ride on a larger, faster and more visible ship, but they remain the undisputed captain of their fate.

Looking for a DTC marketing boost?

Attractive and eye-catching product and packaging design is a virtual pre-requisite for successful DTC brands. Luckily for you we’re experts in this field. Whether you need assistance with product design, performance-based advertising and marketing strategies or branding services, we have the necessary expertise to deliver the goods.

Contact Bigeye today for more information about how we can help take your DTC marketing plan to the next level. 

Categories
Direct-To-Consumer DTC Marketing Marketing/Business Media & Analytics Programmatic Buying Search Engine Optimization
shopify scaled 1
shopify scaled 1

Shopify, one of the world’s fastest-growing e-commerce platforms, is growing at such a rapid rate that it’s projected to overtake eBay as the second-largest e-commerce platform in 2020, according to CNBC.

While that kind of growth offers massive opportunity for Shopify retailers, it’s also quickly becoming a much more competitive space. Shopify now has more than 1 million merchants active on its platform, all of whom are working to differentiate themselves and outsell the competition.

So what’s the secret to gaining more traction with your Shopify store? Let’s take a closer look at seven key tips for better Shopify store development.

1. Prioritize customer service — and outsource if necessary

E-commerce doesn’t have to mean minimal customer service. In fact, it was Jeff Bezos’ famous “customer obsession” that helped Amazon become a global heavyweight. Yet for most people operating Shopify businesses, dealing with customers is an enormous time suck. While keeping your clients happy is critical, most people simply lack the bandwidth for the task.

Instead, it makes sense to outsource customer service functions. The international call center business is booming, and you can find qualified customer service freelancers on just about any major Gig Economy marketplace. It’s important to ensure that the workers you contract with have first-class fluency in English. Adding live chat is another element that can really improve the customer experience.

2. Focus on the right design

Great design is crucial to the success of any Shopify site. This begins with choosing an appropriate theme. Find one that fits the look and feel of your brand or signature products. The right theme can have a dramatic impact on the visual atmosphere and overall user experience of your site.

While Shopify offers some free design templates, you can also choose to pay for some of the premium designs the company offers. Unsurprisingly, the premium templates tend to be more eye-catching, which can help your site stand out with a fresh look. In addition to the look and feel of your site, you’ll also need to consider how design impacts functionality. Do you want larger images? A wider Instagram feed? These small decisions can have a significant impact on how your products are browsed and purchased, so weigh these decisions carefully.

Generally speaking, it’s also a smart idea to design with certain principles in mind. Your site should feel clean and uncluttered. An overabundance of design elements or products can confuse or irritate visitors and encourage them to depart without buying.

3. Incorporate and optimize elements stressing your originality

Templatized websites run the risk of appearing a bit cookie-cutter, but there are a few steps you can take to make your site appear fresh and original. First, commission striking, original photography and avoid over-reliance on stock imagery. This can go a long way toward giving your site some visual panache that makes it stand out from other e-commerce offerings.

Second, create copy that is truly creative and that engages the reader. Too often Shopify copy is bland and boilerplate. By coming up with lively product descriptions and other copy, you can help convert buyers and differentiate your approach. You’ll also want to choose headlines that stand out from the crowd and that are calibrated to resonate with your target demographics. Figure out why people would be interested in your products and use that as a guide for creating catchy headlines. Humor — in the appropriate contexts — is also a big plus.

4. Check out the competition and test your approach

Auditing other e-commerce sites is a smart way to evaluate your own approach. You can take what they are doing well and adapt it for your own purposes, while also identifying any deficiencies in their approach and capitalizing on them.

Incorporating some simple A/B testing into your site can also help you learn what people are really responding to. These tests allow you to take two versions of a screen, headline or some other element and evaluate how visitors interact with each version. This can be an invaluable tool for learning what converts and what causes people to disengage.

5. Build your social proof

There’s no debating it: Reviews are the lifeblood of any e-commerce store. This means it is critical to monitor your reviews and respond in a timely fashion. If there was a legitimate issue, be transparent and forthcoming rather than defensive, and offer to make it right. This will often disarm even the most dissatisfied customers and help turn negative interactions into positive ones.

Encourage your customers to leave photo reviews whenever possible. Visitors enjoy these and they often seem more credible than text reviews. The more smiling and happy customers you can showcase on Shopify the stronger your business will be.

6. Tread carefully with shipping costs

Excessive shipping costs are one of the most common reasons why customers do not follow through with e-commerce orders. For online retailers, nothing is more frustrating than getting a customer all the way to the checkout page…only to have the product deleted from the cart because of elevated shipping charges.

E-commerce consumers have been conditioned to expect low or no-cost shipping by Amazon Prime, so it’s a wise idea to either build the cost of shipping into your products or figure out an alternative method for defraying costs.

7. Use a well-designed SEO and programmatic ad strategy

An up to date Search optimization strategy plays an essential role in helping people locate you. Most site owners aren’t experts at search, so it often makes sense to bring a marketing agency or SEO expert into the mix. The rules governing SEO are always evolving, so working with an expert can save you the hassle of trying to master search and remain perennially current on the latest changes to Google’s ranking algorithm. It also makes sense to work with a Shopify agency that specializes in this kind of overall site development.

Pay-per-click ad strategies are easier to learn, as you can get a lot of traction by researching keywords and slowly refining your approach over time. Taken together, both strategies can go a long way toward jumpstarting your Shopify revenue.

The takeaway

Shopify is second only to Amazon in terms of the opportunity it offers e-commerce retailers. By following these seven tips and practicing smart Shopify development, you can get faster traction, differentiate your site and generate more revenue.

Categories
Direct-To-Consumer DTC Marketing Pet Pet Health & Wellness Pet Supplies
dtc subscription service
dtc subscription service

If your fur baby could help lead you to a $250 million DTC subscription service, wouldn’t you want to be set for success?

Millennials are delaying child-rearing. Millennials love dogs. Millennials are receptive to DTC subscription services and advertising.

What do these three things have in common?

They’re a recipe for a $250 million business.

Barking up the money tree

It’s hardly surprising that younger people are delaying home-purchasing, parenting and other traditional milestones. Student loan debt is at historic levels and wage growth has been flat.

While you can’t eliminate the paternal/maternal impulse, you can reroute it. Priced out of parenthood, millennials are turning their thwarted parental impulses toward pets. 

Call them starter children, fur babies, or absurdly over-indulged animals, the numbers don’t lie: 44% of millennials see their pets as proxy children.

Brands in the flourishing pet care space have been quick to capitalize on this sentiment. Yet none are quite so well-positioned as DTC brands, who are firmly in the millennial sweet spot. They offer boutique, cleverly marketed products to a narrow yet hardcore audience; they deliver to your door and they are price competitive.

That’s more or less the millennial trifecta, and one of the brands that have been most successful at deploying this strategy is BarkBox. 

BarkBox is a DTC subscription service that delivers a box of dog treats to your door. Not revolutionary, sure. Yet the idea plays beautifully on several consumer preferences.

  • You don’t have to leave the house and visit a pet store full of poorly-differentiated toys and treats
  • You don’t have to spend time choosing what to buy
  • Your dog treats arrive in a box, curated for your pet’s enjoyment
  • The contents of each box are a mystery, making the process a bit like opening a gift
  • BarkBoxes are sold direct-to-consumer, with the parent company (Bark) largely relying on Facebook for marketing during its early growth phase

That’s a winning formula, and not just for pets. Another popular DTC subscription service, Universal Yums, curates boxes of candy and snacks from across the globe and sends a new box from a different country to subscribers each month. 

BarkBox, which handles its creative in-house, recently tested its first direct response TV ad, then measured the number of new subscriptions gained in the immediate wake of the ad. It’s a strategy that many DTC businesses are following, as they try to do more with less outside the confines of the traditional large agency model.

Direct to consumer marketing strategies have a variety of powerful benefits for brands such as Bark: They allow more control over brand messaging, they reduce costs, and they enhance flexibility.

Partnering with the right DTC marketing agency can help small businesses unlock these benefits and drive real, tangible results.

The takeaway

Small DTC businesses often lack the resources to partner with the largest agencies – yet that doesn’t mean they can’t have access to world-class campaigns. At Bigeye, we understand the DTC subscription service and advertising market on a deep level, and we’re nimble enough to help you create compelling direct to consumer marketing campaigns on demand. 

Categories
Direct-To-Consumer DTC Marketing Marketing/Business
direct to consumer brands 1 scaled
direct to consumer brands 1 scaled

Direct to consumer brands are winning market share from brick and mortar retailers – but they need the power of legacy TV to take the next step.

Direct to consumer (DTC or D2C) companies have taken full advantage of paid social and paid search to bootstrap growth. The dominant digital ad trio of Instagram, Facebook and Google has allowed DTC brands to reach vast audiences on a fairly limited budget.

Yet if DTC brands want to maintain or even exceed their early growth trajectory, they need to look beyond direct to consumer marketing to a legacy channel: Television.

Why DTC + TV is the growth equation for brands

According to data from the Video Advertising Bureau (VAB), TV spending among DTC brands is rising. The Bureau tracked Nielsen research data from 125 DTC brands and found that they spent $3.8 billion, collectively, on TV ads in 2018.

The more interesting statistic, however, is this: 70% of these DTC brands were spending ad money on TV ads for the first time in 2018. Top spenders in the DTC TV ad category include prominent names such as Chewy, Smile Direct Club, Purple and Peloton, all of whom spent more than $100 million in 2018 alone.

Purple, a mattress company, was particularly notable, spending $140 million after spending almost nothing on TV ads in 2017.

In many cases, this was money well spent. Peloton, for example, doubled its sales to $700 million in 2018 after increasing its TV ad spend by 48%.

Overall, DTC brands increased their total spending on TV ads by 60% in 2018. Total ad investment by all brands in the category reached $3.8 billion last year.

What’s behind the increased spending?

There’s a reason why DTC brands are pumping money into TV in unprecedented numbers: They need to scale, and quickly. DTC companies have, in most cases, validated themselves and their model within the market; now they face heightened competition from other DTC brands and traditional retailers who are rolling out their own DTC strategies.

This trend is supported by changing consumer behavior. According to a study from YouGov, 64% of Internet users say that 20% (or more) of their total purchases will occur through DTC brands. Businesses are staking out territory now to capture this revenue.

TV is playing a critical role in this process, as DTC brands seek to leverage its vast reach to drive viewers into the online marketing funnel, as shown by VAB data:

  • Turo, a car sharing startup, increased online video views by 5,100% after increasing its TV ad spend.
  • GrubHub increased its online video views by 1,100% after tripling its TV ad spend.
  • Poshmark saw online search queries increase by 6,900% after increasing its ad spend by 8,400%.
  • Barkbox witnessed a search query gain of 824% after increasing its ad spend by 726%.

Current data also shows that viewers are receptive to this strategy. Research done by Telaria showed that DTC shoppers who are shown both linear and connected TV ads are twice as likely to buy. 

Overall, DTC brands are using TV to exponentially increase exposure and awareness, which results in massive increases in search interest, online engagement and, ultimately, sales.

Another factor influencing DTC growth is cost. While digital advertising is still much less expensive than TV, the cost of advertising on Facebook and other platforms is rising. 

The takeaway

DTC brands have used a digital-first approach to grow and win market share while operating on relatively small budgets. 

That strategy, however, is becoming less relevant as DTC brands mature. In order to reach the vast new pool of consumers outside their digital sphere, it becomes necessary for DTC brands to enter the TV market, where potential buyers can be engaged and guided to online channels. 

At BIGEYE, we’re experts at helping DTC companies reach their full potential through savvy media buying and strategy. We can help you scale and reach new audiences with creatively inspiring new campaigns, smart media buying strategies, and advanced audience analysis and market intelligence.

Don’t hesitate to reach out to us today to learn what a truly great marketing campaign can do for your brand.