Issue 080: 4 Strats that UNLOCKED 🔐 Profitable Growth in 2023

Yooo! We are almost there, y’all!

Even though, basically nothing changes from Dec 31st to Jan 1st… sales keep coming in… business is pretty “usual” if not a little slow for most… it still feels good to come to the satisfying completion of another calendar year. 💪 

| X MARKS THE SPOT

I have been doing a lot of reflecting these past few weeks and gearing up for the new year. I was looking back on my calendar and saw I talked to over 100 brands this year.

That means I looked at 100+ DTC brands' social media accounts.

They had the same mistakes.

If you want to level up your organic content in 2024, use these 10 principles:

Your 2024 Social Media Strategy

1. Use Education

No one knows your product as well as you, so educate them. You need to consistently teach people how your product can help their life.

Cute photos only go so far. Find ways to talk about product features or do a series where you bring in experts.

2. Use Long Form Video

Most brands are not finding ways to talk to their customers in long-form.

Put together an interview series or education series to talk to customers. Think about retention, not just new customers!

Long-form is great to go deeper with existing customers.

3. Use Video. Period.

2024 is the time to hit the record button. Stop saying that video is the future.

Today is the time to create videos, not tomorrow.

GET 4-10 RIGHT HERE.

| YOUTUBE UNIVERSITY

Scaling from 1,500$ to 100,000$ per day in Revenue - Nik Sharma

| TOGETHER WITH OPENSTORE

Scale, Sell, or Step Back in 2024?

With 2023 wrapping up, entrepreneurs are asking themselves whether to continue scaling, explore a sale, or take a step back. OpenStore makes selling your Shopify business or taking a break easier than ever. 

With a portfolio of nearly 50 Shopify brands, over 100,000 SKUs, and a customer base north of 1.7 million, entrepreneurs and Workspace6 members trust OpenStore to buy or manage their businesses as they start new ventures or take a well-deserved break. 

Here’s what some of the Shopify entrepreneurs who sold or entrusted their brands to OpenStore are doing with their new capital and time back: 

• Miguel sold his men’s apparel brand, Jack Archer, and is now launching a women's apparel brand. In the 9 months since the acquisition, OpenStore grew Jack Archer from $1M to $10M in revenue.

• Sarah, founder of the children’s brand Barn Chic, sold her business after it was taking too much of her time. She’s since returned to teaching and spending quality time with family.

• Tiki, founder of children’s play mat brand Copenhagen Kid, is enjoying a stress-free holiday season. She’s traveling and exploring new e-commerce business ideas inspired by her Danish background.

• Ryan, founder of leather goods brand WP Standard, was burned out by the daily operations. He's taking a break while OpenStore’s experts manage his brand for him.

OpenStore has provided millions of dollars to entrepreneurs nationwide. If your Shopify business nets $500k+ annually, discover how OpenStore can make 2024 your best year yet. 

| QUICK SHOTS

• @iamshackelford: We made an ad analyzer gpt that let’s you get IMMEDIATE feedback on any ad with suggestions on what to do next.

• @heyitsalexP: Luxury brands are not…1) Bootstrapped… 2) Built on Meta… 3) Profitable for the first 3-5 years… If you need to do one of these things, the “luxury playbook” (Or your biased interpretation of it) will do your business more harm than good.

• @Abir_CPA: Arguably the single most important metric in DTC finance. It tells you how much your growth is costing you. 👀 

• @minchoi: This is mind blowing! AI can now Outfit AND Animate Anyone from a single image 🤯 This Outfit Anyone + Animate Anyone is integrated together to take an image of a model, dress them with any style, then animate them 🤯

• @JackRubin1: Crazy update: We scaled our ad spend by 1,608% YoY— all while maintaining our target CPA. No, that’s not a typo. 👉️ 

| HERE FOR THE MEMES

| AND IN OTHER NEWS…

| DTCCI

| GET LINKED

2 minutes on the DTC Hot Seat with Feastable's Joseph Siegel

A Chamberlain Coffee + Feastables collab? Revenue flexes on Twitter, cringe-worthy SMS campaigns, and more...

If you're not following Joseph, he is a MUST follow for all retention marketing.

I asked Joseph:

• What brand partnership do you think would crush for Feastables?

• What brand do you derive the most inspiration from?

• Worst email or text campaign you recently received? (brand can remain anonymous 😉)

• What bad advice have you seen given often to retention marketers or DTC brands?

• What’s one of the best or most worthwhile investments you’ve made in your career?

This was taken from my recent 2% The Podcast conversation with Joseph on how Feastables is re-imagining email marketing engagement and how any brand can do the same.

If you're looking for email marketing wisdom, look no further!

| THE OUTRO

Hey! Don’t forget… we’ve got at least one more issue in us for 2023, and you won’t want to miss it.

See you in your inbox. 🫡 

Workspace6