Issue 090: Ex-Nike Marketing Director Reveals Billion Dollar Secrets

+ Bulletproof Strat for Killer Landing Pages 💀

February 16, 2024

Okay! So, maybe Russia wants a nuke on the moon. Maybe. MAYYYBE. But, don’t panic. Pff. We’re sure it’s fine. 👌 

Hands Up Whatever GIF by The Democrats

And yet! With all this going on, we still devotedly pull together and deliver a spicy DTC News for you to sink your teeth into.

You. Are. Welcome. 🫡🇺🇸 

| TWEET OF THE WEEK

We hear about it everywhere. We’re constantly told (by people like me) that we need to build a “real brand”.

But what does that mean?

Peeling the Layers: Brand, Branding, and Marketing

  • Brand: a set of products that solve related problems for a particular group of people: boxers, knitters, software developers, photographers, or dentists, for example.

    • If you own a brand of knitting products, then you sell needles, wool, carry cases, pattern holders, patterns, and so on.

  • Branding: how you make people feel about your brand. Branding is sometimes used interchangeably with marketing, though they’re not the same thing.

  • Marketing: how you tell people about your brand. And as you’ll find out in a moment, it’s actually a subdivision of branding

How To Develop Branding 🏗️

Branding = Brand DNA + Value Delivery Vehicle (aka Marketing)

If branding is about influencing feelings, then we need to pin down what exactly stirs these emotions. That's where Brand DNA and its delivery method (marketing) come into play.

There are a lot of guides out there that will walk you through developing strong branding. Where many of them go wrong is focusing too much on the business that the branding represents and not enough on the people the branding is for. They are obsessed with brand names, logos, colors, and fonts. They forget the crucial ingredient – Brand DNA

| YOUTUBE UNIVERSITY

Ex-Nike Marketing Director Reveals Billion Dollar Brand Secrets

| TOGETHER WITH RICHPANEL

🦷 How Snow Teeth-Whitening Operates a $100M+ Business With Only 10 Customer-Service Agents

“Shouldn’t AI just be able to read through my support team’s past tickets and work out how to deal with future tickets?”

Here’s the scoop: Snow, the well-known teeth-whitening brand identified star customer support agents on their team who scored much higher customer satisfaction rates than the average.

Then they used Richpanel’s fancy AI learning system to train off of those winning support interactions.

Where are they now? Snow was able to scale to $100M+ in revenue with only 10 support agents and a little bit of AI magic that helps every team member mimic their star agents’ behavior. 🧠 

The Richpanel AI Assistants even started nudging happier customers to drop some love in reviews, and just like that, Snow’s BBB and Trustpilot scores shot up past 4.5+ stars.

  • Response times? Under 5 minutes. 🤯 

  • Customer satisfaction? Over 90% 😎 

  • Score on BBB & Trustpilot? 4.5+ ⭐️ 

Thinking it’s time to add AI magic to your support?

| QUICK SHOTS 🥃 

  • @itskcholiday: When you talk to 150 DTC brands a month one heartbreaking truth is affirmed. DTC is really hard and sh*t can go wrong fast.

  • @rabahrahil: I cant believe I got talked into blowing all my money on UFC 299 in Miami…when the Taylor Holiday v Drew Fallon PPV is streaming free on X 🤣🥊.

  • @kreatekit: I needed to find a way to increase our AOV. So I designed this landing page to sell BOTH Burn and Burn Elite as a 2 step bundle … What do we think? 👀

  • @BillDA: Today I am $211,000 richer and Jeff Bezos is $211,000 poorer 🤑 I did it by finding money Amazon owed us that our existing reimbursement tool had missed. Here's how to do it.

  • @codyplof: Bottom line: Black Friday was a huge success for Jones Road. Repeat customers made up over 50% of revenue during this period, and email was a huge part of that. Here's how we made it happen... So what did we do?

  • Barry Hott: After yesterday's outage, based on past experience with similar issues, I would expect Meta to pay out refunds in 4-8 weeks, but if you want to increase the likelihood of a refund for you and for everyone, you must report the issue to Meta reps and/or support. To make it simpler for you, I've put together instructions, screenshots, and what you can say to support. Please bookmark and share this!

| HERE FOR THE MEMES

| AND IN OTHER NEWS…

Meta Shares Insights Into How the Threads Feed Algorithms Work

Some handy insights into what Threads is using to determine user interest.

Inside Barilla's Viral Leftover Pasta Series on TikTok

Le Pub and the Italian brand on fighting food waste with 'a new kind of storytelling.'

11 digitally native retailers that could file for bankruptcy in 2024

While off to a slower start than 2023, filings are expected to continue in the industry, especially among many direct-to-consumer brands.

It was adland’s worst Super Bowl in years, but everyone is too afraid to tell you

After some long nights crunching the numbers, System1’s Andrew Tindall reveals that Super Bowl LVIII had some of the least effective advertising in the event’s recent history. Not all hope is lost, however. Here, he shares this year’s 11 best TVCs.

Billions of Dollars Beckon as Platforms Move B2B Commerce Online

Shopify, Visa, Amazon and others are seeking to bring a D2C experience to B2B payments through platforms, digital payments and streamlined back-end data flows.

Shopify President says international business is a 'massive area of growth'

Shopify President Harley Finkelstein told CNBC's Jim Cramer about his company's international business.

Solo Brands: I'm Expecting Further Financial Turbulence In 2024 (NYSE:DTC)

Solo Brands faces challenges in weak Q4 and beyond due to limited acquisition space and ongoing macroeconomic pressures. Learn more about DTC stock here.

| GET LINKED

Solo Brands imploded. I wouldn’t touch this biz with a 10 ft. pole. Why?

  • $2.69/share

  • $244m market cap.

  • -84% since Oct ‘21.

  • Lost $1.8B in Ent value

If acquired it I’d:

  1. Prioritize Retail

  2. Divest Chubbies

  3. Outdoor Acquisition Spree

Here’s how…

| YOU’RE HIRED

Brand

SaaS

Got a job you want us to list? Let us know.

| THE OUTRO

Once again, don’t panic. Not the time, okay?

NOT the time.

Adios! ✌️

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