DTC POD: How The Best Brands Are Built (Ramon Berrios, Blaine Bolus)
Explorez tous les épisodes de DTC POD: How The Best Brands Are Built
| Date | Titre | Durée | |
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| 18 Oct 2022 | #233 - Lee Joselowitz, The Quality Edit: Affiliate & Performance Editorial For Brands | 00:49:08 | |
On this episode of DTC Pod, Lee joins Blaine to talk about the crossover between growth marketing and performance editorial. They talk about how ritual grew to a 9 figure brand, the power of affiliate, the importance of search intent, new media models, audience targeting, first party data, team building, and much more.
3:00 Performance x Press 🚀 What ultimately changed the trajectory for Ritual was a few bespoke content partnerships with a handful of top-tier publishers. Like BuzzFeed was one of the standout ones, and we worked with them in ways that had never really been done before, leveraging their press and leveraging their editorial in paid acquisition, paid advertising in new and novel ways. It was, at the time, really groundbreaking and really, really changed the trajectory for ritual.
Google's really a strong place to be this really strong search intent. People are very specifically looking for, whether it's a prenatal vitamin or a multivitamin, or a postmenopause, or whatever it may be, people are searching for what they need. So it was almost like, crazy to not be showing up there, and it became very quickly a really big channel for Ritual. 8:15 Podcasts & Higher LTV 📈 As a subscription business, we had visibility into, where our best customers were coming from. And podcast customers were always at the top of that list. I think those are the customers that really, took the time to educate themselves, were really, not making impulse decisions on like seeing a cute Instagram ad. And, that more educated consumer really stuck around and became that really high LTV customer that we were trying to acquire. So then we kind of became obsessed, like, where else can we find, this type of customer?
This episode is brought to you by OpenStore: Visit https://open.store to get a free, no-obligation offer for your e-commerce business from OpenStore in 24 hours. Have any questions about the show or topics you'd like us to explore further?
Want the weekly TL;DR of tips delivered to your mailbox? Follow us for content, clips, giveaways, & updates! DTCPod Instagram Lee Joselowitz - Co-Founder of The Quality Edit | |||
| 11 Jan 2024 | #305 - Nikole Flores & Ali Karsch - The PR Playbook for Emerging Brands | 00:55:00 | |
Ali Karsch is the founder, and Nikole is the Head of PR at LVPR - a major PR firm specializing in working with famed DTC brands like Native, Vinebox, Jean Dousset, Kevyn Aucoin, Stojo, STATE Bags, Bean Box, Copper Cow Coffee, Usual Wines, Cloud Paper, Jinx, DOG by Dr Lisa, Jiggy, SmarterKids, Sugarwish, Mosaic Foods, London Grant, and more. Together, they have launched The Littles Advisory, a boutique CPG startup advisory that helps emerging startups, who may not be ready for a big ticket PR agency, find their footing as they bring their brands to market. New Products Discussed: Additional episodes you might like: • #175 Ariel Vaisbort - How OLIPOP Runs Influencer, Community, & Affiliate Growth • #184 Jake Karls, Midday Squares - Turning Your Brand Into The Influencer With Content • #205 Kasey Stewart: Suckerz- - Powering Your Launch With 300 Million Organic Views • #219 JT Barnett: The TikTok Masterclass For Brands • #223 Lauren Kleinman: The PR & Affiliate Marketing Playbook • #243 Kian Golzari - Source & Develop Products Like The World's Best Brands ----- Want the weekly TL;DR of tips delivered to your mailbox? Follow us for content, clips, giveaways, & updates! DTCPod Instagram Ali Karsch - Founder and CEO at LVPR & Co-Founder at The Littles Advisory | |||
| 01 Feb 2022 | #167 - Andrew Benin: CEO, Graza - How to generate $100k+ in your CPG DTC launch | 00:37:25 | |
Andrew Benin is the co-founder & CEO of Graza, a Brooklyn based DTC brand reimagining extra-virgin olive oil. Andrew previously served at DTC powerhouses including Magic Spoon, Casper, & Warby Parker where he worked in key operational roles. His new brand, Graza, had one of the most successful CPG launches of 2022. 3:29 - Becoming a CPG addict Andrew got his start working for hot DTC Brands like Warby Parker, Casper, and Magic Spoon. It was a thrilling environment, but he knew he wanted to build something of his own. “When you work at really hot CPG companies, you are an addict of course. Because the company you're working for is growing, and growth is the fuel that fires the whole engine. But I definitely was looking to replicate that fire for something that I cared about. And olive oil is a dream, because it's objectively healthy. It is delicious. The supply chain is beautiful. The places where olive trees are grown and harvested are beautiful. And people's general reaction is shit, I love olive oil. It's kind of everybody's best friend, you know? So it definitely had strong tailwinds. But when I actually thought, okay, it's time to start a company, super saturated market. Investors had seen decks come across their desk recently. Really fragmented supply chain. So all of the reasons not to do it started coming up at the same time as the energy to do it. But I couldn't stop. I knew that we were going to get an olive oil company off the ground.” 05:09 - Focusing on middle America Luxury olive oil abounds in the world...for a steep price tag. Andrew realized that what middle America needed was olive that hit the sweet spot between amazing quality and accessibility. “I got really, really close with Mike Anthony, the executive chef at Gramercy Tavern. I get back to New York. I'm still working at Magic Spoon. And I find time with Mike to do a tasting at the restaurant. And we're trying really expensive, really delicious, really crazy olive oils. And he looks me in the eye and he's like, you know, I have 10 of you in this zip code who I can call on to get me amazing Italian, Portuguese, Spanish, French, Argentinian olive oil anywhere I want in the world. Don't start another boutique luxury olive oil company. Don't do it. That's not what we need. Middle America doesn't need that. Because it's not even just middle America doesn't need that, we can't afford it. So that changed my perspective completely. And ever since then, mass and scale and mass premium have been the leading principles for this company. Of course without sacrificing quality at all. I would put up our olive oil against any gold metal, whatever award olive oil there is in the world.” 8:07 - Making olive oil sexy Graza’s unique squeeze bottle makes it possible to be both playful and insanely functional. “We just wanted to add some life and some sex appeal to it, some fun. A big part of the development process and the idea was when we were like, screw it. We're going to put this in a chef-inspired squeeze bottle. That was a whole deviation from the norm. And that was a lot of energy from the culinary community, a lot of energy from the investment community. People were like, damn. This is going to really be usable on all social media verticals. You can do collabs with restaurants. And it all kind of started coming together when we flipped the form factor. You know, olive oil is always sold in the same dark green glass bottle with a random label with an olive branch on it. And when we chose a squeeze bottle, everything changed in terms of the visual appeal. And this is something that makes us not only a CPG food company, it makes us a tool in the kitchen.” 14:13 - Finding a design partner Graza tapped Gander as their design agency, and offered them an equity and cash partnership to give the relationship deep roots. “Our original design was a Dr. Bronner's bottle with a Mike's Hot Honey cap, put together with some Photoshop work. That's how it started. But we knew we were going to work with a great branding and design agency. We worked with Gander, Take a Gander is how you can find them online. They also did Magic Spoon and Banza and Gotham Greens and Mystic Market. So I knew they had the heat. We decided to explore an equity and cash partnership with them, which I think is a great way to work with long-term partners. I think it's a great way to keep people invested and honest…I think working with a great branding agency not only is like the visual aspect, they instill amazing creative project management into your company from an early point. And their first job is to extract all of the thoughts that you've had for six months alone, writing in your iPhone notes, writing a Google Doc, sending emails. Their job is to get that all out of you. And I think if we didn't work with some professionals like that, it would still just be stuck in my brain somewhere. And I'd be very frustrated.” 15:56 - Vetting new partners Andrew suggests doing reference checks, carefully reviewing offers, and paying close attention to what is in the project scope before committing to new partners. “It's the classic. You have to reference check. You have to right away ask for three companies that you worked with. I'm going to speak to all of them. And you got to put in the effort. What I will say is don't pay more than $150 grand for branding work. That is when things get crazy. You know, we got some offers in for $250k, $300k, $350k and we're going to do these data insights and consumer insights. I kind of read all that stuff is BS. Like if your job is a creative agency, I'm going to pay you for the creative. If your job is to give me consumer insights, I'm going to partner with McKinsey before I partner with the creative agency for that. So know what you're getting, and I know what you need. My last bit of advice would be the scopes of work that come through. You are going to be held to it. And if you deviate from scope, you are going to be billed for it. So don't take those lightly. Make sure exactly what you want is in there. And if you don't know how to ascertain that information, get help from a founder. Go into CPG founder Slack groups and figure out who can help you figure that out.” 21:04 - Seeding to creators pre-launch Graza’s successful launch can be credited to successfully seeding to creators and influencers in a respectful way. “For us all this organic pre-launch effort was mostly around seeding. I think if you have a physical product that is affordable to seed, you have already struck gold. And then you have to have faith in yourself and your team and your story and how you package it and the notes that you write and everything that you do, that these creators are going to naturally feel inclined to participate. So we took a seeding approach that was no strings attached, no asks, nothing. No incessant communication. If you want to squeeze with us, if you want to have some dope olive oil, drop your address. And if you don't, no hard feelings at all. If you only want to do a paid campaign, we'll speak to you in a year. I think that having a deep respect for the creator economy is vital for a CPG founder. Because these are people that their skill is mocked sometimes. And oh, you have 20,000 followers on Instagram. These are people that are trying to hustle and make a career out of this. And getting behind a camera with food is really hard, really hard. I have tried to do it many times, and my videos are awful. So I just think having the utmost respect for them and treating them like they are the key for all of us. So seeding really worked.” 32:12 - Kicking off a retail strategy Andrew knew that retail would turn into a big component of Graza’s business. That’s why he identified a talented co-founder to run and own Graza’s retail arm. “We divide and conquer. I have an amazing co-founder Allen… Allen had run an $80 million business just at Costco in apparel, and it's the retail mass mindset that we needed. So Alan runs our entire sales team. Allen facilitates our selection of brokers and a whole bunch of other stuff. But dividing and conquering in those channels. It was always kind of a dream to be okay, maybe we can actually have different ownership of digital and physical from day one. And obviously it's not a perfect line, but we're doing a pretty damn good job. So for us, we have to figure out how to supply 1,500 stores. It's a huge, huge challenge for a new brand. Our interactions with our customers digitally will always be so vital to our community building and brand building. And we're not going to let those strategies conflate with what works on a retail shelf. I don't think they are completely transferable. And I also think it's a pipe dream to be like, oh, we'll get our physical retail customers and convert them over to digital customers, and everyone's going to be happy. Wrong. No one's going to be happy.” 36:40 - Channeling startup energy Work-life balance is simply impossible for a startup founder. Andrew said that something changes when it’s your own business that allows you to draw on a deeper well of energy. “I worked for people that I watched them suffer, because it was their company. And I got to go to the gym at 7:00 PM and go out to dinner with friends. That's not my reality right now. But I think at the same time, you tune into like a different stamina, different energy, that just keeps you going. Yesterday was Sunday, and I was answering every single customer email that we got, because I think it’s really really important, especially with these early customers. And that's in thanks to amazing training that I had at companies where customer service was everything. So I'm not going to sit here and say that my personal health is at an all-time high. It's not. But the community that we're building in the food space is insane. It is a lot of fun to work with olive oil. Every time we go to dinner here in Brooklyn, we bring a bottle and we're just squeezing it everywhere. It is fun. We're gonna build out a team to help, for sure. And that's going to be so exciting. Maybe in a year and a half, two years, I can come up for some air. But right now I want to put everything into this, because at the end of the day, we're selling something to people that actually is good for them.” Watch the full interview here: This episode is brought to you by OrderGroove and OpenStore: Visit https://www.ordergroove.com/dtcpod/?utm_source=event&utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=2022q1_dtcpodpodcast_thirdparty_demo_us&utm_content=demo today to receive 2-months off your first contract. Visit https://open.store to get a free, no-obligation offer for your ecommerce business from OpenStore in 24 hours. Have any questions about the show or topics you'd like us to explore further? Andrew Benin - CEO of Graza Ramon Berrios - CEO of Trend.io Blaine Bolus - COO of Omnipanel | |||
| 20 Aug 2020 | eCommerce Funding and Growth Strategy (with Wayflyer) | 00:26:43 | |
In this episode, Jay is joined by Nicolas Derico, Director of Marketing at Wayflyer. Wayflyer is a company that offers revenue-based financing for eCommerce brands. In this podcast, Nicolas discusses when is the right time for brands to seek out funding, along with the requirements they should meet. Nicolas also discusses what brands should use their funding as a means to grow their business. Finally, we will also dive into some specific marketing strategies that Nicolas believes are crucial for businesses at any stage to use in order to keep growth steady.w To learn more about Wayflyer, visit: https://www.wayflyer.com/ If you’d like to learn more about Trend and our influencer marketing platform for users and brands visit trend.io. You can also follow us for tips on growing your following and running successful campaigns on Instagram, LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter. | |||
| 22 Feb 2022 | #173 - Greg Frontiero: How Noowave Nailed a Bootstrapped CPG Launch | 01:16:16 | |
Greg entered the tech scene early in his career thanks to a friend who tipped him off on a sales job at a New York startup. He started out by literally sleeping in the office by night and making 150 cold calls per day. Unfortunately, his busy schedule and city lifestyle quickly led to burnout. After buying a one-way ticket to Thailand to decompress, Greg came back to the states and got a job at Twitter as a senior sales associate. Soon, he found himself falling back into his old bad habits, and starting formulating a nootropic beverage that would allow him to do his best work without negative side effects. Next, he worked at Stack Overflow on the enterprise sales team, which dried up during the pandemic. During 2020, he found the momentum he needed to finally become an entrepreneur and found NooWave.
17:56 - Find your “personal monopoly” Thanks to David Perell’s Write of Passage course, Greg found himself talking about his nootropics hobby over and over. A classmate’s interest provided the fuel he needed to get going. “There's this online writing course. I don't know if you guys know David Perell and Write of Passage….The very first week he has this section of the course where it’s called ‘your personal monopoly.’ So, I'm Greg Frontiero. I worked for these tech companies. I love nootropics. I am a professional wrestler. I do MMA stuff. And like, what is this zone where only I can talk about it and nobody else can touch me, right? What's my brand that nobody else writes about but me? And so I would say these nootropics things in these breakout rooms, and everybody had the same question, like what is a nootropic? I would tell that story I just told you, give you an example. Oh, I drink this coffee. And this guy, Robbie Crab who is like a performance speaking coach DMs me in the middle of me giving my speech about it and goes, ‘I want to buy this. Where can I buy this coffee?’ And I was like, oh, like I make it. And he's like, you should sell it. And it was like immediately. So when I tell you I had NooWave in my head for six years, I actually launched the company in six weeks.” 21:30 - Tap your network Greg’s first move was to write a letter about his new venture and send it to his network. The response was absolutely overwhelming, with everyone demonstrating interest in his product. “So I take this one blog post and I launch it to what I think is going to be crickets. No one's gonna care about it. I put it on my LinkedIn. I put it on like Twitter. I put it on whatever. It launches, and I swear to God, it's like a movie where every single person in my entire life like came out of the woodwork. Kids I haven't talked to her since kindergarten, teachers, coworkers, people at my MMA gyms, wrestler friends, everybody. Everybody in my life came out and. And I don't know if they necessarily gave a shit about like a nootropic coffee, but they were backing me and they sorta wrote it for me. It was just such a feel-good moment of, man. All that time in my life was for something, the connections and the people that you met. So we sold out our first run immediately.” 25:49 - Cold call manufacturers Most companies require expensive minimums that are out of range for bootstrapped founders. Greg tapped deep into his salesman roots to find a coffee company that would work with him. “I'm also talking to all these manufacturers and how to do fulfillment and all that stuff. And it's a nightmare, right? Like when you're making this product and you have no money and resources and all these companies have giant minimums. And so now I'm looking at this and I'm looking at getting loans and small business loans and all that stuff. So this is what I tell everybody. I think if there's one thing I can tell people that is like the hardest part about starting a CPG brand is like the manufacturing process fucking sucks…The benefit of my experience is I'm so used to making 100 cold calls a day. I'm very used to that. And this is the old school of business. I am making like literally 10 phone calls a day to manufacturers in Seattle and talking to coffee people, talking to cacao people…That's how you have to do it. Honest to God. I'm telling you guys, this is not a thing where you can send an email and they're going to be opening your door, to maybe sell you 100 bags. You’re just not going to get a response. So you have to beat them down and you have to call.” 28:31 - Pray for good luck After Greg identified a coffee partner, he started getting bad vibes. At the last second, another fulfillment option reached out to him. They remain his partners to this day. “At the fucking last week, we're going here. This company is just waiting for me to write them the check. And side note, I fucking hated our sales rep, hated this guy. Just every conversation with him sucked. He would just speak to me and he'd be like, ‘Yeah, so about the formula, like is this right?’ I was like, no, that's completely wrong. Like it's written down, you're responding in the same email. Just look! This is the person I'm gonna work with? We're about to launch and you fucked this up three times. And so we can't get on the same page. He's not responding for a week. And I was like, oh my God, this is going to go badly. I get this phone call. I won't say who we work with, because I don't know if they're big enough for me to reveal my secret sauce…so this angel woman calls me and she's like, Hey, I'm an upstate coffee roaster. And we really want to work with you.” 33:55 - Monitor your pricing Greg’s goal is to eventually reduce the price of NooWave so that his 20-year-old self could afford it. “I can't wait to get our price down, by the way. I think we were we're definitely a premium coffee right now, and I don't want to be. I want to be like and get inspired by Chris Cantino and Jaime Schmidt. All they get is pitched by brands that are like, ‘we're like the luxury, you know,’ and it's awesome. By the way, at the time we sold a $30 coffee. So I can't throw stones at my glass house. But we had to, because I didn't have any money. And I was like, this is what it costs. I need to. I read Super Maker and it said to times it by three. So I'm going to do that. There's really basic stuff, but then I started doing it. And every iteration, we get a little bit cheaper and I'm going to continue to do that. Because I want the 23-year-old version of me to be able to afford this, and right now he couldn't. And that's not good.” 36:59 - Find your true audience Greg’s first run sold out thanks to friends and family. It dropped sharply afterward, but he was able to bring sales back up thanks to tapping into his true target market: tech bros. “Here's what the truth is. Everybody in my life came out of the woodwork and bought it. Let's say 90% of those people dropped off. Because they weren’t my target audience. They were like my mom, who's I don't need this. So then it's weird. It went immediately down, but I had this momentum of that Write of Passage, where all of my target audience are all these kind of people like me: these nerdy kind of tech-broey kind of dudes that are all now coming out of this course with their little newsletters that are all micro-influencers essentially. They all have like a thousand-person newsletters of all their friends and family. So I sponsor all their newsletters. They're all doing their unique projects. Word of mouth is a very real thing. So we started getting all these orders out of nowhere of people being like, this works. This coffee helps me focus, but it doesn't stress me out.” 38:05 - Build in public Greg writes a weekly newsletter rain or shine. It not only allows him to organize his thoughts on building the business, but has resulted in valuable feedback from his customers. “I do a weekly newsletter every Wednesday that is just like a personal blog. And I talk very openly about the business. And it's like very much building in public and saying, I tried this this week. It didn't work. I think I'm going to try this. What do you guys think? Hey, do you like this? So I'm like talking to my customers every week. They respond back. I have people I've never met that I have really deep-level conversations with on email. I've had phone calls with them afterwards. And actually, this is such a powerful thing for anyone who's listening. You know the whole like talk to your customers thing and nobody does it? I had a Google spreadsheet of everyone who bought this coffee. The first thing I did is I wrote every single person a personal letter, custom. If you bought it Ramon, ‘Thanks so much for buying this. I saw on your Twitter bio your DTC POD thing. I want to check out Trend too, let’s get in a talk.’ Handwritten…This is the crazy thing. At the end of every letter I was like, if you don't mind, please take a picture and post this. Even if it's not something you like, we need content. So now I have hundreds of bags. I have really roughly around 500 pieces of content. And I have enough to just post every day.” 45:11 - Identify mentors who are one step ahead When you reach out to other product founders who were recently in your shoes, you can gain valuable wisdom that is fresh in their mind, without worrying about competition. “The best analogy is the ladder, where you don’t want to talk to someone who's like sold a Unilever for $100 million dollars. They’re not going to be able to help you. You want to talk to someone who's a year ahead of you. When I keep bringing up Chris from CROSSNET, that is a great guy to talk to because he's five years ahead. He did exactly what I want to do. He's already done it, but he's not far enough that he forgot what it was like to be where I'm at. And that's like a good sweet spot. There's so many people now, DTC has sort of exploded. And there's people 1-5 years ahead of me that I can chat with and I can trust. And it's always good that they're not competitive to me. So if someone's like candles, they're not going to like steal your shit. And you don't have to worry about like, oh, this person's going to snake me. They're not even in the same space. They're not going to start a coffee brand.” 55:58 - Be prepared to grow slowly When you are truly bootstrapped, you can’t delude yourself with visions of overnight success. Greg recommends keeping your business as a side hustle for as long as possible. “If you're bootstrapping this thing, you need to do it from your job as a side hustle, or you need to have a significant amount of cash. Because it's not going to truly make money if you want to grow the business for a while. And you know, you see these revenue charts that people release and it's pretty common theme that year 1-3, it kind of just sucks. And there's something about that second, third year, fourth year you start seeing I'm able to pay myself now. And honestly, when I look at our numbers compared to people that have released historical numbers, I'm like, yeah, we're there. We're at two. So we're at six figures now. That's it. It's not impressive. If I paid myself now, it'd be mediocre. So like I said, we tried to grow too fast and we tried to cheat, and it just doesn't work. Whenever you try to copy someone without understanding why they did what they did, or why it's relevant to that company and why they did what they did, it's just a disaster. And every time we've done this methodical, long, like you can tell when the effort's there, it pays off in spades.” 59:28 - Don’t ignore Amazon Yes, there are downsides to selling on Amazon, but the platform can also be an incredible option for bootstrapped founders who need revenue quickly. “So first and foremost, everybody who says I want to own the customer and the data and all that, they're absolutely correct. I would prefer that too. Who would not prefer that? I don't have that option. I'm a bootstrap person. I need to make money. And if I need to make money, I need to like suck at Jeff Bezos's tit and do the Amazon thing, it works really fucking well. Upon launch, it's like immediately now probably 50% of our revenue is from Amazon. Because it just kind of takes care of itself. Your conversion rate for Amazon is like 40% versus like 2% on your stores. And we have 80 five-star reviews. It's not unimpressive, but they're all five-star reviews. So it's great. And the testimonials there are great, it starts helping us with our copy. Don't discount Amazon. I would start it right away. It's a process to get on Amazon. It takes time and you got to do it. It's annoying and finicky and shitty. But I think building both in tandem is actually really great.”
Watch the full interview here:
This episode is brought to you by OrderGroove and OpenStore: Visit https://www.ordergroove.com/dtcpod/?utm_source=event&utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=2022q1_dtcpodpodcast_thirdparty_demo_us&utm_content=demo today to receive 2-months off your first contract. Visit https://open.store to get a free, no-obligation offer for your ecommerce business from OpenStore in 24 hours.
Have any questions about the show or topics you'd like us to explore further?
Greg Frontiero - CEO of Noowave Ramon Berrios - CEO of Trend.io Blaine Bolus - COO of Omnipanel
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| 22 Dec 2020 | Brand partnerships, brand collaboration, and the future of commerce (with co-op commerce founder Conner Sherline) | 00:34:58 | |
We Speak About:
A look at the future of brand partnerships and brand collaborationsConner Sherline, founder of co-op commerce joins the POD to discuss brand partnerships and brand collaborations. Before starting co-op, Conner spent five years working for Facebook and Instagram. Conner and his wife (also his co-founder) have brought a disruptive platform to the brand partnership space allowing brands to cross-sell each other products with no risk. Brand partnerships and collaborations are a common way for early-stage brands to go. It allows each brand to capitalize on the other’s audience and grow. Typically, however, most brand partnerships focused on top of the funnel tactics. Thanks to improvements in shopping platforms, it is now possible to create brand partnerships that focus on the bottom of the funnel. This is where co-op comes in. The best brand partnerships are rooted in authenticityA fancy platform can help you better leverage partnerships but it isn’t the only thing you need. When building partnerships, focus on creating authentic relationships. You should look at what kind of audience buys your products and work with brands that have a similar audience. This will increase your chances of having a successful brand partnership. In addition to looking at the audience, it’s also important to look at values. Your values should align with the brands you are working with. Stay tuned as Conner discusses some of the challenges brands face when partnering, what they can do to overcome them, and what the future of commerce looks like. If you’d like to learn more about Trend and our influencer marketing platform for influencers and brands visit trend.io. You can also follow us for tips on growing your following and running successful campaigns on Instagram and LinkedIn. Mentioned Links: co-op commerce’s website: https://www.coopcommerce.com/ co-op’s marketplace: https://www.thecoopcollective.com/ | |||
| 07 Feb 2020 | KOLs Rule Influencer Marketing in China: Here's Why | 00:20:22 | |
In this episode, Jay and Ramon discuss KOLs, more commonly known as key opinion leaders. KOLs have become increasingly important in China due to a distrust of advertising from brands. They have some similarities with influencers in the sense of the power of their voices but their goals tend to differ. Key opinion leaders are viewed as experts in their field and their presence drives credibility and sales to a brand. We’ll discuss KOLs play an important role in influencer marketing in China along with exploring China’s $17 billion influencer marketing industry. For more on this topic, check out our blog post: https://trend.io/blog/kol-influencer-marketing/. If you’d like to learn more about Trend and our influencer marketing platform for users and brands visit trend.io. You can also follow us for tips on growing your following and running successful campaigns on Instagram, LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter. | |||
| 04 Oct 2022 | #229 - Rob Willey: The CMO's Guide To Business Transformation | 00:55:38 | |
On this episode of DTC Pod, Rob joins Blaine to talk about how to operate a consumer brand and think like a seasoned executive. They talk about what channels to focus on to grow, how to tap into existing infrastructure, deciding what to prioritize, how to nail a rebrand, finding quick wins for your brand, ins and outs of the beverage and wellness space, bringing a new concept to market, the similarities between marketplace and DTC as a consumer executive, positioning TaskRabbit in a competitive landscape, taking a wholistic approach to marketing, solving issues at their root cause, and much more.
6:40 First, Stop Bad Spend 🚦 And so after kind of understanding the business and understanding the consumer, which I think any good executive needs to do, I don't care what department or what sort of team you lead you, then for me it was kinda like, okay, I, I actually start to try to diagnose what's wrong, you know? And because usually those are the places where you gotta stop spending first. And in my career, I'll be honest with you, people have brought me in because they need something fixed. And so that's usually the case with executives. Turnover happens, particularly at this CMO level because something's not going right.
Marketing is the tax you pay for being unremarkable. And as a marketer, right, early in my career, I found that sort of offensive, you know, one of the executives at Task Rabbits said that to me. And at first it kind of like, sort of hurt my feelings. I was like, Wow, is that really how marketing is, you know, perceived? But then as I started thinking about it, I, it's true. You know, the more, the, the less remarkable you are as a company, as a brand, as a product, the more expensive it is to convince people to use it.
Every good young startup does a couple things. Well, if they wanna be successful, paid social is one of them. Generally PR is one of the other ones, right? Search marketing is part of that. Uh, and then ultimately you have to drive email or retention. And if you can get those systems in place early on, usually at least have some revenue. You have some retention, you have some ltv, right? Your LTV c a ratio starts to like at least look a little healthy and you got something to go on.
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| 23 Oct 2020 | Founder Stories: How AVEC has built brand equity through storytelling (with Dee Charlemagne) | 00:26:49 | |
We Speak About:
Building brand equity starts with a great brand storyDee Charlemagne, Co-Founder of AVEC, joins the DTC POD to talk about brand storytelling. A little about AVEC - it’s a premium mixer that’s all-natural, made with real juice, botanicals and spices, and low in sugar and calories. Before AVEC, Dee worked at agencies and publishing companies. Her experience there allowed her to understand how brand communities are built. AVEC leans heavily into storytelling in its own brand, even with its name. AVEC means “with” in French. An aspirational goal for AVEC is to have people order drinks with liquors and its flavors (i.e. Tequila AVEC Yuzu & Lime). Many eCommerce businesses today are focused on performance marketing. While this is important, AVEC likes to lean more into storytelling. One of the first meetings Dee and her co-founder, Alex, had revolved around brand values. These are incredibly important to build brand equity. It’s important to give your brand personality (and be personal)In addition to writing down brand values, Dee thinks brand personality is important. Dee suggests writing down three words that describe your brand. The best brands are part of culture. Think about how your brand can take things from culture and include it in your story. Pick cultures that share the same values as your brand and draw from those. For example, Supreme draws heavily from the skateboard and hip-hop culture. As you add personality to your brand, it’s also important to be personal yourself. Dee and Alex put time every day into crafting media relationships. They even hand-deliver items themselves. Relationships should also not be transactional. Having a very honest approach can go a long way to building brand trust and brand equity. By continuously putting time towards building relationships, AVEC has been able to gain a lot of press. Stay tuned as Dee also talks about how AVEC has tapped into their local community to grow, what challenges they have faced and overcome, and what’s next for the brand. If you’d like to learn more about Trend and our influencer marketing platform for influencers and brands visit trend.io. You can also follow us for tips on growing your following and running successful campaigns on Instagram and LinkedIn. Mentioned Links: AVEC’s website: https://avecdrinks.com/ AVEC’s Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/avecdrinks/ | |||
| 02 Aug 2022 | #211 - Paul Michaux: Prose - Building to $100M ARR With Customized Hair Care | 00:47:19 | |
Paul Michaux is the co-founder & head of product at Prose, the DTC customized hair care brand. Michaux founded Prose in 2017 but he built up his expertise and knowledge of product, branding, & consumer goods working at P&G, Christian Dior, and L’Oréal. Prose has achieved immense success and is a leader in hyper-personalization consumer goods. They’re backed by the some of the biggest names in VC like Insight Partners, Forerunner Ventures, and Lerer Hippeau Ventures. The Unique Strategy That Fueled Prose’s Growth The 2 Things Every Entrepreneur Needs To Know
26:45 - 27:03 To Building Businesses That Last
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Paul Michaux - Co-Founder & Product Prose | |||
| 15 Mar 2022 | #178 - Shaun Brandt, Oddit: Conversion As A Service. Optimize DTC Like A PM | 00:50:37 | |
Shaun Brandt, co-founder of Oddit, is a designer and brand builder who is an expert at perfecting the customer journey and reducing friction points. His extensive agency experience (Shaun co-founded a product design agency that grew to 80 employees) helping brands grow enabled him to create Oddit. This first-of-its-kind CRO platform helps DTC brands boost conversion & strengthen loyalty. Shaun chats with Blaine Bolus and Ramon Berrios to discuss what makes Oddit unique and common CVR mistakes brands make.
Building Trust
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Shaun Brandt - Co-founder of Oddit Ramon Berrios - CEO of Trend.io Blaine Bolus - COO of OmniPanel | |||
| 11 Mar 2022 | #177 - Matt Mullenax, Huron: Round 2: A+ Body Care for Guys Everywhere | 00:47:39 | |
Matt Mullenax, CEO of Huron, chats with Blaine & Ramon about his men's care brand offering A+ body care products for guys everywhere. This is Matt’s second time on the DTC Pod. The first time we spoke to Matt was during Huron’s launch, and a lot has happened since, including a global pandemic. Matt discusses how Huron evaluates their supply chain on a super granular level and how this informs their content and marketing strategy, selling on Amazon, and keeping a super clean & lean tech stack.
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Matt Mullenax - CEO & Co-founder of Huron Ramon Berrios - CEO of Trend.io Blaine Bolus - COO of OmniPanel | |||
| 11 Oct 2022 | #231 - Vasa Martinez: Product Positioning & Brand Building 101 | 00:47:25 | |
On this episode of the pod, Vasa joins Blaine & Ramon to talk about how brand building and product positioning. They also cover topics including creative direction, the role of content in growth initiatives, how to nail a creative brief, how to design content for different parts of the marketing funnel, learnings from working with some of the top brands in CPG, and much more.
5:05 It started with content creation and the why behind content creation. I like to say, content within context, something along those lines. You can't just post pictures of your product. It's gotta balance information and entertainment and a bunch of other things. And there has to be a goal behind it. And it's not just like a shot in the dark, let's go viral type thing, which a lot of founders kind of think can happen, especially that don't have the, um, experience in CPG or in marketing in general.
But I think where people fail is in the creative creative brief process. So part of a creative brief is where is it going, the exhibition of it. But they don't really like chime into what problem are we solving, what's the goal? And most importantly, what part of the funnel are we in? So from a creative perspective, if you're running certain ads, top funnel, middle funnel and bottom funnel, you're saying different things. The top funnel might be a, this is why we exist, here's some cool things about our product, this is a problem we solve. You might be saying different things down further in the funnel.
I speak always in the lens of food and beverage and for me the foundational element of creativity is how do you set up your positioning statement To me that is the Rosetta Stone of any brand. And there is a positive correlation between brands that know that like the back of their hand and how well they do and the brands that are figuring it. Like everyone's figuring it out. I figured it out for a period of time for Perfy, but the faster you can get to that, there it is, the better chance of success that you have.
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Want the weekly TL;DR of tips delivered to your mailbox? Follow us for content, clips, giveaways, & updates! DTCPod Instagram Vasa Martinez - Founder & CEO of Perfy | |||
| 28 Mar 2024 | Ex Butcherbox Exec Is Solving The Perishable Goods Fiasco with Juan Meisel | 00:38:09 | |
Episode brought to you by More Staffing Juan Meisel is the Founder and CEO at Grip Shipping, a pioneering Direct-to-Consumer eCommerce for perishable products. After serving as the Head of Logistics of Buterbox, he launched Grip which has since processed over a billion dollars' worth of perishable goods through their innovative platform, and now offers comprehensive fulfillment services, reducing shipping costs by an impressive 30%. On this episode, we'll cover everything about perishable logistics, how Butcherbox solved for these challenges at scale, and how brands can tap into the same infrastructure through Grip with low minimum volume requirements for fast growing perishable goods brands. Shownotes powered by Castmagic Additional episodes you might like: • #175 Ariel Vaisbort - How OLIPOP Runs Influencer, Community, & Affiliate Growth • #184 Jake Karls, Midday Squares - Turning Your Brand Into The Influencer With Content • #205 Kasey Stewart: Suckerz- - Powering Your Launch With 300 Million Organic Views • #219 JT Barnett: The TikTok Masterclass For Brands • #223 Lauren Kleinman: The PR & Affiliate Marketing Playbook • #243 Kian Golzari - Source & Develop Products Like The World's Best Brands ----- Want the weekly TL;DR of tips delivered to your mailbox? Projects the DTC Pod team is working on: Follow us for content, clips, giveaways, & updates! DTCPod Instagram --- Juan Meisel - Founder and CEO at Grip Shipping | |||
| 01 Aug 2024 | #334 - The Fabric of a Brand: Hedley & Bennett’s Founder on Community, Finance, and Growth | 00:37:29 | |
Ellen Marie Bennett is the founder and chief brand officer of Hedley & Bennett, a culinary lifestyle brand that started as a B2B company, offering high-quality aprons to professional chefs, and later expanded both its product line (to include other kitchen items) and customer base (now largely DTC). In this episode of DTC Pod, Ellen shares her journey of starting the company while working as a line cook. She emphasizes the importance of a slow and steady approach to building a business, focusing on financial responsibility and gathering feedback from core customers to improve products. Ellen discusses her strategic approach to marketing, building an engaged community, and expanding the brand through collaborations with chefs, influencers, and creators. The conversation also touches on Hedley & Bennett’s expansion into DTC, their plans to go omnichannel, and how they’re investing sustainably for long-term success. Interact with other DTC experts and access our monthly fireside chats with industry leaders on DTC Pod Slack. On this episode of DTC Pod, we cover: Timestamps Show notes powered by Castmagic Past guests & brands on DTC Pod include Gilt, PopSugar, Glossier, MadeIN, Prose, Bala, P.volve, Ritual, Bite, Oura, Levels, General Mills, Mid Day Squares, Prose, Arrae, Olipop, Ghia, Rosaluna, Form, Uncle Studios & many more. Additional episodes you might like: • #175 Ariel Vaisbort - How OLIPOP Runs Influencer, Community, & Affiliate Growth • #184 Jake Karls, Midday Squares - Turning Your Brand Into The Influencer With Content • #205 Kasey Stewart: Suckerz- - Powering Your Launch With 300 Million Organic Views • #219 JT Barnett: The TikTok Masterclass For Brands • #223 Lauren Kleinman: The PR & Affiliate Marketing Playbook • #243 Kian Golzari - Source & Develop Products Like The World's Best Brands ----- Want the weekly TL;DR of tips delivered to your mailbox? Projects the DTC Pod team is working on: Follow us for content, clips, giveaways, & updates! DTCPod Instagram Ellen Marie Bennett - CEO and Founder of Hedley & Bennett | |||
| 23 Jul 2020 | Facebook Ads Optimization and Scale (with SHOPANOVA) | 00:40:45 | |
In this episode, Jay and Ramon are joined by Robby Switzer and Nathan Otwell from SHOPANOVA. SHOPANOVA is an agency that helps online stores get massive eCommerce growth. They specialize in paid media, specifically Facebook and Instagram ads. Facebook and Instagram ads are a popular growth channel for eCommerce businesses. The wide audience on these platforms allows new brands to reach a ton of consumers with a smaller advertising budget. But running Facebook ads does not always guarantee success. There is a learning curve to running ads and, if you’re not careful, you could end up spending thousands of dollars with no return. So how can you position yourself for the best return on ad spend (ROAS) possible? SHOPANOVA has some suggestions. We’ll discuss what’s the most important metric you should be measuring in ad campaigns, according to the experts. We’ll also talk about when you should run ads, how long you should wait before killing campaigns, and the importance of collecting data through Facebook’s pixel. To learn more about SHOPANOVA, visit: https://shopanova.com or https://shopanova-and-me.com If you’d like to learn more about Trend and our influencer marketing platform for users and brands visit trend.io. You can also follow us for tips on growing your following and running successful campaigns on Instagram, LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter. | |||
| 24 Mar 2022 | #181 - Vladimir Vukicevic, Better & Better: Toothpaste Meets Whitespace | 00:54:45 | |
Better & Better recently raised a $4M seed round, Blaine and Ramon got the chance to talk to Vlad in-depth about his entrepreneurial journey, the difficulty of pitching a DTC product in a trend-driven VC climate (note: many investors are interested in investing crypto, NFTs, traditional SaaS, etc), competing against legacy brands like Colgate, using customer feedback to relaunch SKUs, and more! RocketHub and Meural 3:08 - 7:20 Inspiration behind Better & Better 7:47 - 10:51 Proof of concept 12:05 - 14:13 Pitching a DTC to VC 14:34 - 15:33 Better & Better seed investors 15:36 - 16:47 The questions VC’s ask 17:55 - 21:30 Advisors, prototypes, and employees 27:24 - 30:34 Decreasing CAC for Better Better 32:37 - 33:23 Bottom-up pitch vs. Top-down pitch 33:24 - 35:57 Challenging legacy brands 41:15 - 43:26 Improving the product 49:13 - 50:55
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Vlad Vukicevic - CEO Better & Better Ramon Berrios - CEO of Trend.io Blaine Bolus - COO of OmniPanel | |||
| 05 Dec 2024 | #349 - Between Trends and Timelessness: The Antara Approach to Building Strong Brands from the Outside In | 00:35:45 | |
Isabel Mendez is the founder and design director at Antara Studio, an award-winning full-service design partner for purpose-driven brands. With a focus on brand, content, and design, Isabel and her team help companies create cohesive and emotionally resonant identities across all touchpoints. In this episode of DTC POD, Blaine and Isabel discuss:
Interact with other DTC experts and access our monthly fireside chats with industry leaders on DTC Pod Slack. On this episode of DTC Pod, we cover: Timestamps Show notes powered by Castmagic Past guests & brands on DTC Pod include Gilt, PopSugar, Glossier, MadeIN, Prose, Bala, P.volve, Ritual, Bite, Oura, Levels, General Mills, Mid Day Squares, Prose, Arrae, Olipop, Ghia, Rosaluna, Form, Uncle Studios & many more. Additional episodes you might like: • #175 Ariel Vaisbort - How OLIPOP Runs Influencer, Community, & Affiliate Growth • #184 Jake Karls, Midday Squares - Turning Your Brand Into The Influencer With Content • #205 Kasey Stewart: Suckerz- - Powering Your Launch With 300 Million Organic Views • #219 JT Barnett: The TikTok Masterclass For Brands • #223 Lauren Kleinman: The PR & Affiliate Marketing Playbook • #243 Kian Golzari - Source & Develop Products Like The World's Best Brands ----- Want the weekly TL;DR of tips delivered to your mailbox? Projects the DTC Pod team is working on: Follow us for content, clips, giveaways, & updates! DTCPod Instagram Isabel Mendez - Founder and Design Director of Antara Studio | |||
| 02 Oct 2020 | How more content can keep your brand top of mind, increase conversions, and reduce ad fatigue | 00:20:55 | |
We speak about:
Why You Need More ContentIn this episode, Jay and Ramon talk about why you need more content for your brand. The most obvious reason you need more content is that you really can’t afford to leave holes in your content delivery for your customers. Ramon says the opportunity cost is too great to not really know how well your content is doing. Another immediate benefit of creating more content for your channel or brand is that it gives you more data. The more content you have the performs well, the more quickly you can analyze that and put out more content like it to grow your base. You Need to Stay Fresh in the Customer’s MindStaying at the top of your customer’s mind is the goal. You want them to think of your brand before anyone else’s, and pushing more content can help you to do that. A lot of times it’s hard to keep the flow up, but there are tools and agencies available (like Trend) to help you produce more content and stay in the conversation. Agencies need to actually deliver value to their customers, so make sure whoever you hire to help drive content is actually creating value for you and your customers. Having a limitation of content may actually reduce your engagement, so think about that. In other words, spending time researching the customer personas can help you to “segment” your content and target them directly. This kind of content production can lead to more customer conversions and more overall growth. Crossover Between Influencers and Content CreatorsIn addition to your regular content, you need to look for ways to bring your content to different consumer markets. And you need more content in general to do this. Look at the recent example of McDonald’s crossover campaign with Travis Scott. We don’t know how much that partnership cost McDonald’s, but we can probably assume it was less than trying to advertise directly to Travis Scott fans. The crossover of brands allows McDonald’s to sell that experience without even creating a new menu item. This also created content that mapped the entire customer journey and can be used to drive traffic. Additionally, the more personalized your content is, the better. Pay attention to what your customers actually want, and make efforts to deliver that. To sum up, the more content you have, the more you can do the following things: 1) learn about what content is performing, 2) create opportunities to stay in the minds of your customers, 3) successfully convert more consumers from other markets to ultimately grow your brand, and 4) reduce ad fatigue. If you’d like to learn more about Trend and our influencer marketing platform for influencers and brands visit trend.io. You can also follow us for tips on growing your following and running successful campaigns on Instagram and LinkedIn. | |||
| 06 Sep 2022 | #221 - Ronak Trivedi: Pietra - The Platform Powering Creator Led Commerce | 01:01:15 | |
On this episode of DTC Pod, Ronak joins Blaine & Ramon to talk about evolving dynamics of the creator economy, how creator brands are typically launched, how Pietra solves for sourcing, fulfillment, and e-commerce, productizing a service for the most time-constrained customers, how their marketplace got started, how they raised their seed and series A from top VCs, brands that have launched on Pietra, what scale can look like in this niche, and much more.
The Fastest Way To Drop Your Own Line 🛍️ So you, as a business owner, went from having to master the supply chain and understand all these pointless things like warehousing and labor and importing and exporting and whatever. To, I have a website, I have a place to sell my product. I have access to the world's best factories. And now all I have to focus on is design and promotion. Everything else is taken care, taken care of for you, through the platform of PIETRA.
How To Outsource The Dirty Work 💸 Like you didn't have to go spend six months building a data center. Cause in a couple of clicks, Amazon just set up your data center for you. Right. You don't have to go figure out a commercial lease because in a couple of clicks, we worked gave you office space. And that discrepancy, I think, just like in the tech sector allowed all of these amazing developers to like make apps and start companies like Uber being one of them. there needed to be some sort of huge push on the other side of the spectrum. And that's where we really saw an opportunity. I'm like, it shouldn't be that hard for someone who has a cool idea to start their own sneaker line. Like they shouldn't have to spend three years of their life trying to do this.
Send This To A Creator 💎 Why do they need to care about labor and importing and warehousing and staffing and sourcing? Like they don't, they want to design candles. They want to show up in a warehouse and they want two day shipping everywhere in the US for a cheap price, but like everything else, take it off their plate, let them go on their vacations, let them be creative.
Avoid This Partnership At All Costs 😵💫 Exactly. Even worse. That's like the worst case, right. Where a creator has no control over their company. And so they're like, because you know how to set up a factory, I guess. And like you have some homeys in Switzerland that knows how to make watches. Like you're taking 75% of my business. we take that and say, you can start your business for 39 bucks a month.
This episode is brought to you by OpenStore: Visit https://open.store to get a free, no-obligation offer for your e-commerce business from OpenStore in 24 hours. Have any questions about the show or topics you'd like us to explore further?
Want the weekly TL;DR of tips delivered to your mailbox? Follow us for content, clips, giveaways, & updates! DTCPod Instagram Ronak Trivedi - Founder & CEO of Pietra | |||
| 09 Aug 2022 | #213 - FORM By Sami Clarke: Building A Digital Wellness Empire Through Content, Community & Commerce | 00:56:00 | |
Sami Clarke is a certified health, wellness, & fitness trainer who built a large following for her workout videos and holistic approach to wellness. With millions of followers and hundreds of millions of views across Youtube, Instagram, & TikTok, Sami cultivated a strong community before deciding to start her own fitness & wellness platform, FORM. FORM not only offers digital fitness training and community access, but focuses on developing physical products that fit Sami's holistic approach to wellness.
39:56 Building Community? Save This. We love love love our community and talk with them all the time. So first and foremost starting the facebook group - literally before launch. Do people still use facebook? Do people still use facebook because I don't, BUT.. facebook is the only place where you can converse back and forth. And our biggest thing is this isn't about me communicating with them but it's more about them communicating together. Because that's going to grow then they're going to meet amazing people that are likeminded - so we're like we have to go to facebook.. AND IT WORKED!
46:45 - 47:20 For Brands: Why Scripts ≠ Storytelling There's a journey into what needs to happen before pressing, you know, complete purchase. And there have been so many different instances for influencer campaigns where all that matters is the ROI and I really encourage brands and founders to take a step back from that and lean into their storytelling through influencers and the way that influencers cannot read a script but really tell their own story on that brands behalf. I really think that brands that can do that well will convert so well.
Tell Your Story And have the brand tell their story. People LOVE to know how they got to where they're at, they love the process rather than "hey we made it" and "try our product".. I mean tik-tok get raw with it, share the story!
How TikTok Saved A Businesses CRISIS They were like "I'll take the crooked".. and i was like "you will?". Thousands of people liked it saying they'll take it. We were so upset we wasted all this money, everything was crooked, here comes tik tok "we LOVE the crooked" "give me the crooked".. so i made a tik tok wearing the crooked and i said "these are live right now, they are crooked, but go get em". We called them the tik tok special. I only put them on tik tok. They sold out in 5 minutes.
This episode is brought to you by OpenStore: Visit https://open.store to get a free, no-obligation offer for your e-commerce business from OpenStore in 24 hours. Have any questions about the show or topics you'd like us to explore further?
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Sami Clarke - Founder of FORM | |||
| 20 Mar 2020 | How Is Coronavirus Impacting eCommerce And What You Can Do To Lessen The Impact | 00:19:50 | |
In this episode, Jay and Ramon discuss how Coronavirus will impact US eCommerce. COVID-19 is having a heavy impact on the US economy and consumer habits. With most retail stores closing, consumers have turned to eCommerce to provide their goods. Consumer habits are also in the process of changing as more people find themselves with extra time at home and time savings from working at home. Some brands are embracing the shift and putting more effort into eCommerce and getting creative on how they can still provide products to their customers. We’ll take an in-depth look at how brands and influencers can weather the storm and offer some ideas as to how both groups can keep work going despite the external pressures that are being placed on them. We’ll also look at whether these consumer behaviors are here to stay and the impact it will have on the future of online shopping. For more information on this topic, check out our report on COVID-19’s impact on eCommerce: https://trend.io/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/COVID-19-Impact-on-US-eCommerce-2.pdf If you’d like to learn more about Trend and our influencer marketing platform for users and brands visit trend.io. You can also follow us for tips on growing your following and running successful campaigns on Instagram, LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter. | |||
| 29 Oct 2020 | Nik Sharma on what it takes to become a $10M DTC brand | 00:23:44 | |
We Speak About:
If you want to stay ahead of the competition, you need a moatNik Sharma, CEO of Sharma Brands and an active investor in the DTC space, joins the POD to talk all things DTC. Nik has worked with a lot of notable DTC brands including Judy, Hint, Dream Pops, and more. To reach a $10M level, Nik says that brands need to have an economic moat. That’s essentially a distinct advantage that competitors will have a difficult time copying. Your moat could be ingredients that people don’t have as easy access to, supply chain benefits people don’t have access to, or even a celebrity endorsement. Even though you need to have a moat, you don’t need to worry about your competition a much. With a moat, it’s going to be very difficult for competitors to just copy your brand. Nik says you really shouldn’t even worry about them much. Having a moat isn’t the only ingredient to successIt’s true, the $10M-plus brands do have a distinct competitive advantage. But if you’re not careful, you could blow that advantage. One of the pitfalls Nik says to look out for is performance marketing. Performance marketing should be used to extend something that’s already great, not build the business. Being too reliant on performance marketing or gaining press is a dangerous path. Nik has seen many brands fail this way. If you go the performance marketing route, make sure that you are breaking even or being profitable on first purchase. Nik also suggests adding a developer to your team. A developer can help you test changes on your website faster, launch new pixels, and be more agile. Many brands don’t think of hiring a developer in-house but Nik says it can be hugely beneficial. With pixels, you can even fire certain pixels based on average order value. Make sure you also focus on user-generated contentAnother key element to success is authentic content. Content that looks native to a platform performs better on that platform because that’s what non-sponsored content looks like as well. The best brands have a huge stack of creative ready to go. They are testing and launching creative on a weekly basis. Stay tuned as Nik discusses other ways brands can be successful, what he looks at before investing in a brand, and what brands he looks to for inspiration. If you’d like to learn more about Trend and our influencer marketing platform for influencers and brands visit trend.io. You can also follow us for tips on growing your following and running successful campaigns on Instagram and LinkedIn. Mentioned Links: Nik’s Twitter: https://twitter.com/mrsharma Text Nik: 917-905-2340 | |||
| 29 Feb 2024 | #312 - Dad Gang Decoded: Building a Fatherhood Community One Hat at a Time With Bart Szaniewski | 00:45:51 | |
Bart is building at the intersection of commerce & community and promoting the message of fatherhood through fashion. With a twelve year stint optimizing brands and content, Bart now champions the Dad Gang, a movement that brings dads together under the banner of quality streetwear. We kick off with how he turned a small investment of $750 into a phenomenon that has sold 90,000 hats and counting and is consistently repped by some of the biggest celebrity and athlete dads. Shownotes powered by Castmagic Additional episodes you might like: • #175 Ariel Vaisbort - How OLIPOP Runs Influencer, Community, & Affiliate Growth • #184 Jake Karls, Midday Squares - Turning Your Brand Into The Influencer With Content • #205 Kasey Stewart: Suckerz- - Powering Your Launch With 300 Million Organic Views • #219 JT Barnett: The TikTok Masterclass For Brands • #223 Lauren Kleinman: The PR & Affiliate Marketing Playbook • #243 Kian Golzari - Source & Develop Products Like The World's Best Brands ----- Want the weekly TL;DR of tips delivered to your mailbox? Projects the DTC Pod team is working on: Follow us for content, clips, giveaways, & updates! DTCPod Instagram --- Bart Szaniewski - Co-Founder at DadGang | |||
| 04 Jan 2024 | #304 - Ryan Denehy, Electric AI - What It Takes To Build & Run A Unicorn | 01:01:12 | |
Episode brought to you by More Staffing Electric, valued over $1B has raised over $200M to date and is backed by GGV Capital, Bessemer Venture Partners, Primary Venture Partners, Greenspring Associates, 01 Advisors, Bowery Capital, The Slack Fund, Vintage Investment Partners, and Atreides Management. Ryan joins Blaine & Ramon to give a first hand look at what it takes to build a unicorn, how to level up as an entrepreneur, and some hot takes on current market affairs. Additional episodes you might like: • #175 Ariel Vaisbort - How OLIPOP Runs Influencer, Community, & Affiliate Growth • #184 Jake Karls, Midday Squares - Turning Your Brand Into The Influencer With Content • #205 Kasey Stewart: Suckerz- - Powering Your Launch With 300 Million Organic Views • #219 JT Barnett: The TikTok Masterclass For Brands • #223 Lauren Kleinman: The PR & Affiliate Marketing Playbook • #243 Kian Golzari - Source & Develop Products Like The World's Best Brands ----- Want the weekly TL;DR of tips delivered to your mailbox? Follow us for content, clips, giveaways, & updates! DTCPod Instagram Ryan Denehy - Founder and CEO at Electric AI | |||
| 07 Jun 2023 | #278 - Everything You Need To Know About AI x Commerce | 00:49:09 | |
Episode brought to you by Trend & Finaloop.
2. Advancements in AI and ML 3. Making AI accessible to all 4. Language models for consumer use cases 5. AI for e-commerce conversion optimization 6. Importance of human oversight in AI 7. Importance of data management for AI
[00:05:04] Recent surge in AI due to generative models; open AI major player. [00:09:38] Prediction and automation are ultimate goals with countless use cases. [00:14:26] XGen AI enables user-controlled ML systems for transparency and democratization. [00:20:50] E-commerce requires AI-powered tools to optimize customer experience for product recommendations. [00:28:51] User prediction pipelines create personalized shopping experiences that adapt to activities. [00:34:04] Data organization for Shopify Plus crucial for ML; deep analysis important. [00:41:05] Focus on partnerships for ML education; customize services; AI should automate repetitive interactions. [00:46:36] Need for accessible education on AI tools for the average person.
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Episode brought to you by Finaloop, the real-time accounting service trusted by hundreds of DTC Brands. Try Finaloop free - no credit card required. Visit finaloop.com/dtcpod and get 14 days free and a 2-month P&L within 24 hours. Past guests & brands on DTC Pod include Gilt, PopSugar, Glossier, MadeIN, Prose, Bala, P.volve, Ritual, Bite, Oura, Levels, General Mills, Mid Day Squares, Prose, Arrae, Olipop, Ghia, Rosaluna, Form, Uncle Studios & many more. Additional episodes you might like: • #175 Ariel Vaisbort - How OLIPOP Runs Influencer, Community, & Affiliate Growth • #184 Jake Karls, Midday Squares - Turning Your Brand Into The Influencer With Content • #205 Kasey Stewart: Suckerz- - Powering Your Launch With 300 Million Organic Views • #219 JT Barnett: The TikTok Masterclass For Brands • #223 Lauren Kleinman: The PR & Affiliate Marketing Playbook • #243 Kian Golzari - Source & Develop Products Like The World's Best Brands ----- Want the weekly TL;DR of tips delivered to your mailbox? Follow us for content, clips, giveaways, & updates! DTCPod Instagram Frank Faricy - Founder and CEO of XGen | |||
| 22 Mar 2022 | #180 - Rob Fraser, Endur: Socks to Scale. Starting DTC On the Right Foot | 00:56:20 | |
Rob Fraser, CEO of Endur, chats with Blaine and Ramon about how his career as an athlete enabled him to succeed as an entrepreneur and taught him the value of persistence, determination, and the ability to overcome failure. As an entrepreneur of a multi-million dollar brand, Rob discusses the power of bootstrapping & being scrappy (i.e., hitting the pavement & selling directly to customers, getting in-person customer feedback and transferring those learning to the online customer experience), creating a unique business model that allows endur to white-labels socks, maintain cashflow & reinvest that cash into endur or inline inventory, the power of ambassador programs, and how COVID propelled endur to new heights. Being an athlete… 0:56 From athlete to entrepreneur… 7:30 - 10:19 COVID’s effect on Endur 12:23 - 15:43 Avoiding analysis paralysis 16:47 - 17:13 Hitting the pavement 17:19 - 21:04 Website tips 21:53 - 23:29 Brand ambassador program 23:52 - 24:31 Identifying brand super powers 25:00 - 27:39 Making the first million 28:55 - 30:34 The changes after one million 30:36 - 33:16 Relentless pursuit of the mission 36:42 - 39:29 Endur’s unique business model 39:47 - 43:22 M&A 46:16 - 47:41 Working in the office 51:13 - 52:07
This episode is brought to you by OpenStore: Visit https://open.store to get a free, no-obligation offer for your e-commerce business from OpenStore in 24 hours.
Have any questions about the show or topics you'd like us to explore further? Follow us for content, clips, giveaways, & updates!
Rob Fraser - CEO & Founder of Endur Ramon Berrios - CEO of Trend.io Blaine Bolus - COO of OmniPanel | |||
| 21 Nov 2024 | #347 - Shading the Future: Inside Everhem’s Rise in Custom Window Treatments | 00:43:46 | |
Haley Weidenbaum is the CEO and co-founder of Everhem, a DTC company specializing in custom window treatments, including shades and drapery. In this episode of DTC Pod, Haley discusses the strategies that have helped Everhem grow and differentiate itself in the market. She discusses the challenges of online shopping for custom products and how Everhem addresses them through thorough guides and customer support. Haley also shares insights on Everhem's dual business mode—how they serve both interior designers and regular consumers, and how they adapt their offerings to meet the unique needs of each customer segment. Interact with other DTC experts and access our monthly fireside chats with industry leaders on DTC Pod Slack. On this episode of DTC Pod, we cover: Timestamps Show notes powered by Castmagic Past guests & brands on DTC Pod include Gilt, PopSugar, Glossier, MadeIN, Prose, Bala, P.volve, Ritual, Bite, Oura, Levels, General Mills, Mid Day Squares, Prose, Arrae, Olipop, Ghia, Rosaluna, Form, Uncle Studios & many more. Additional episodes you might like: • #175 Ariel Vaisbort - How OLIPOP Runs Influencer, Community, & Affiliate Growth • #184 Jake Karls, Midday Squares - Turning Your Brand Into The Influencer With Content • #205 Kasey Stewart: Suckerz- - Powering Your Launch With 300 Million Organic Views • #219 JT Barnett: The TikTok Masterclass For Brands • #223 Lauren Kleinman: The PR & Affiliate Marketing Playbook • #243 Kian Golzari - Source & Develop Products Like The World's Best Brands ----- Want the weekly TL;DR of tips delivered to your mailbox? Projects the DTC Pod team is working on: Follow us for content, clips, giveaways, & updates! DTCPod Instagram Haley Weidenbaum - Co-Founder and CEO of Everhem | |||
| 29 Oct 2021 | How to master direct market research and use it to help retention (with Joanne Coffey, Head of Retention at Aisling Organics) | 00:27:57 | |
We Speak About:
How Aisling Organics rentains customers through implementing feedbackJoanne Coffey, Head of retention at Aisling Organics, joins the POD to give some insight on the direct-to-consumer business’s marketing and retention strategies Aisling Organics is a cosmetic brand that creates clean products Joanne began with the company as an intern and due to her personal passion in the industry she worked her way up to handle marketing operations. Joanne puts consumers at the forefront of her strategy for improving the brand by analyzing current trends in the space and reviewing and accommodating feedback from consumers. Joanne recognizes that treating the brand as a person will further create a personalized experience for consumers. Building a brand that’s human is key to retention in DTCAisling Organics stands not only for their clean products but also the personalized experience that comes from consumers engaging in a personable marketing experience with the founder The brand has experienced growth by prioritizing customer feedback and adjusting to their needs and treating customers and an essential part of their business Consumers are treated as more than just buyers and retention is accomplished by creating a personable experience The brand has fostered further entrepreneurship opportunities by staying authentic with their SMS strategies and marketing posts Joanne recommends working smarter not harder and the best way to accomplish tasks is to do little things throughout the day. Stay tuned as Joanne discusses effective retention strategies. If you’d like to learn more about Trend and our influencer marketing platform for influencers and brands visit trend.io. You can also follow us for tips on growing your following and running successful campaigns on Instagram and LinkedIn. Mentioned Links: Aisling Organics website: https://aislingorganics.com/ Joanne Coffey twitter: https://twitter.com/itsJoanneCoffey | |||
| 12 May 2022 | #195 - Chaz Zayed & Emmit Flynn, Awful Cloth: Getting Celebs to Authentically Promote Your Brand | 00:58:27 | |
On this episode of DTC Pod, Blaine & Ramon chat with Chaz Zayed and Emmit Flynn about how they started Awful Cloth in their dorm room and grew it into a viral brand, collaborating with Barstool on a hoodie, why they’ve seen so much success with influencers (side note: they’ve never paid any influencer to wear their hoodie!), and their plans to grow the brand. 2:06 - 7:59 The Start of Awful Cloth 15:30 - 18:46 Entrepreneurial Mindset from Day 1 19:34 - 23:38 Going Viral 24:32 - 26:19 Influencer Marketing 27:15 - 30:22 Barstool Collab 31:19 - 36:16 Reaching out to Influencers 37:07 - 41:15 The Challenges of Entrepreneurship 42:19 - 46:39 Working on Awful Cloth’s Website 47:01 - 54:49 Future Collabs
This episode is brought to you by OpenStore: Visit https://open.store to get a free, no-obligation offer for your e-commerce business from OpenStore in 24 hours.
Have any questions about the show or topics you'd like us to explore further? Follow us for content, clips, giveaways, & updates! Emmit Flynn - Co-Founder of Awful Cloth Chaz Zayed - Co-Founder of Awful Cloth Ramon Berrios - CEO of Trend.io Blaine Bolus - COO of OmniPanel | |||
| 27 Oct 2022 | #236 - Patrick Campbell, Profitwell: Bootstrapping Pricing SaaS to a $200M exit | 01:02:03 | |
On this episode of DTC Pod, Patrick joins Blaine & Ramon to talk about frameworks for building successful businesses. We talk about his background, taking the leap to start, evaluating risk, bootstrapping SaaS, developing an MVP, taking a product to market, how customers think about pricing, willingness to pay, pricing strategies, scaling, navigating an exit, and much more.
His Lightbulb Moment To Become A Founder (5:00) And then all of a sudden just jumped in and was like, I'm gonna start a company. This was the hardest thing I realized I could always find a job. Like, I had so much insecurity about that, but then I was like, Wait a minute, this doesn't make sense. Worst case, like I'm living poor, I can go get a job as a barista. I can go get a job on a construction crew. Like I, I can find those skills. and that gave me the confidence to be like, Well, let's try this for nine months and see what happens.
Like what is value based pricing? Oh, it's like figuring out what your customer's willing to pay and then charging that rather than, like most eCommerce people do is they look at their costs and they're like, well the VC said I gotta get to 40% margin, let's just slap 40% margin on top of it, right? And it's like, yeah, but if your customer's only willing to pay like less than your cost, you're don't force it like you have a problem, you have a wrong customer, a wrong product, like something right or bad cost depending on what it is.
Basically started with a little app that you could send a survey to your target customers, your email list, your current customers. And we would say, Great for this group that you surveyed, your price should be a hundred dollars and here's kind of your curve. So if your price went up, like here's how many people you'd expect to lose if your price went down, here's how many people you'd expect to win or lose, and so on and so forth. And that was the mvp. And then we eventually put service on top of it.
This episode is brought to you by OpenStore: Visit https://open.store to get a free, no-obligation offer for your e-commerce business from OpenStore in 24 hours. Have any questions about the show or topics you'd like us to explore further?
Want the weekly TL;DR of tips delivered to your mailbox? Follow us for content, clips, giveaways, & updates! DTCPod Instagram Patrick Campbell - CEO of ProfitWell (now Paddle) | |||
| 27 Feb 2020 | User-Generated Content: Our Ultimate Guide On Acquiring, Leveraging, And Scaling UGC | 00:24:17 | |
In this episode, Jay and Ramon discuss user-generated content (UGC) and its role in building audiences for both brands and influencers. Brands and influencers are always trying to create engaging content to grow their audiences. To create the most engaging content, brands and influencers have turned to user-generated content due to its authenticity and its ability to connect with audiences. UGC is especially important for brands as it has been proven to be highly influential in the purchasing decisions of potential buyers. Over 60 million images are posted to Instagram every day making one of the most scalable ways for brands to market products, recognize fans, and drive sales. In this episode, we’ll discuss how to create and acquire great UGC, how users interact with UGC, and how brands can reuse UGC to scale their business. For more on this topic, check out our blog post: https://trend.io/blog/user-generated-content-guide/ If you’d like to learn more about Trend and our influencer marketing platform for users and brands visit trend.io. You can also follow us for tips on growing your following and running successful campaigns on Instagram, LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter. | |||
| 08 Mar 2022 | #176 - Kal Freese, Taika: Future of DTC, intersection of Web3 and CPG | 00:45:05 | |
Kal Freese, co-founder of Taika chats with Blaine & Ramon about launching the functional coffee brand & how Taika leverages opportunities in Web3 to power brand, community, & product growth. Kal is a lifelong entrepreneur, YC alum, and multiple time VC backed founder who has always had a deep passion & appreciation for coffee. When he was 21, Kal opened a coffee shop in Helsinki and became a champion barista ranked no.9 in the world. Kal wanted to create the perfect coffee that provided people with energy but didn’t make them feel wired or jittery. He ended up creating Taika, a functional coffee made with adaptogens including L-theanine, lion’s mane, and ashwagandha.
There are many resources on the internet to learn about Web3. Some of the people and resources that Kal recommends checking out include:
Watch the full episode here:
This episode is brought to you by OpenStore: Visit https://open.store to get a free, no-obligation offer for your ecommerce business from OpenStore in 24 hours.
Have any questions about the show or topics you'd like us to explore further?
Kal Freese - CEO of Taika Ramon Berrios - CEO of Trend.io Blaine Bolus - COO of OmniPanel
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| 24 Aug 2021 | Fantastic emails and texts: Italic's SMS opt-in email and Doe Lashes product launch text | 00:06:27 | |
We Speak About:
Copy this email from Italic and this SMS that drives urgency fro Doe LashesIn today’s episode of fantastic emails and texts, we’re looking at content from Italic and Doe Lashes. Italic is a brand that prides itself on providing quality goods while Doe Lashes specializes in handcrafted silk lashes. Italic sends out a great email to convert email subscribers into SMS subscribers and Doe Lashes sends out a great text for an upcoming product launch. Stay tuned as we dive into an awesome email from Italic and a great urgency-driving SMS from Doe Lashes.
If you’d like to learn more about Trend and our influencer marketing platform for influencers and brands visit trend.io. You can also follow us for tips on growing your following and running successful campaigns on Instagram and LinkedIn. Mentioned Links: Italic’s SMS opt-in email: https://twitter.com/lovevalgeisler/status/1425821223175565312 Where to find Doe Lashes’ SMS: https://fantastictexts.com/product-launch/ Italic founder Jeremy Cai on the DTC POD: https://trend.io/blog/founder-stories-jeremy-cai-italic Doe Lashes’ founder Jason Wong on the DTC POD: https://trend.io/blog/brand-building-influencer-marketing | |||
| 27 Jun 2024 | #329 - The Crystal Ball of Commerce: Predicting Trends with Next Big Shop’s Founders | 00:50:26 | |
David Hoffman and Samir Rayani co-founded Next Big Shop, where they leverage their expertise to analyze and interpret publicly available but hard-to-access e-commerce data for insights into retail success and product trends. As partners, they collaborate on developing data products that inform and guide direct-to-consumer strategies for various brands and industries. In this episode of DTC Pod, David and Samir explore e-commerce trends, the significance of retail presence for certain product categories, and the intricacies of building and using data products to analyze market and sales data. They also cover the challenges faced when building data products, the role of data in measuring the success of brand strategies, and the need for precise data communication. Interact with other DTC experts and access our monthly fireside chats with industry leaders on DTC Pod Slack. On this episode of DTC Pod, we cover: Timestamps Show notes powered by Castmagic Past guests & brands on DTC Pod include Gilt, PopSugar, Glossier, MadeIN, Prose, Bala, P.volve, Ritual, Bite, Oura, Levels, General Mills, Mid Day Squares, Prose, Arrae, Olipop, Ghia, Rosaluna, Form, Uncle Studios & many more. Additional episodes you might like: • #175 Ariel Vaisbort - How OLIPOP Runs Influencer, Community, & Affiliate Growth • #184 Jake Karls, Midday Squares - Turning Your Brand Into The Influencer With Content • #205 Kasey Stewart: Suckerz- - Powering Your Launch With 300 Million Organic Views • #219 JT Barnett: The TikTok Masterclass For Brands • #223 Lauren Kleinman: The PR & Affiliate Marketing Playbook • #243 Kian Golzari - Source & Develop Products Like The World's Best Brands ----- Want the weekly TL;DR of tips delivered to your mailbox? Projects the DTC Pod team is working on: Follow us for content, clips, giveaways, & updates! DTCPod Instagram David Hoffman and Samir Rayani - Co-Founders of Next Big Shop | |||
| 10 Nov 2020 | Black Friday Cyber Monday tips from Nik Sharma, Privy, and other eCommerce and DTC leaders | 00:15:01 | |
We Speak About:
Don’t miss these BFCM tips by Nik Sharma, Privy, and othersWe’re recapping some tips for Black Friday and Cyber Monday that eCommerce and DTC experts like Nik Sharma and Privy have shared. This year’s BFCM sales for eCommerce are going to be the highest yet. More shoppers than ever are expected to buy online this BFCM due to the pandemic. Also, Black Friday sales in the US have increased by $1B every year since 2017. Black Friday and Cyber Monday aren’t just about the offer you present. It’s also about how you present the offer. You need to make your offer clear and make sure to not run it at the expense of your business. You also need to make sure you are attacking BFCM outside of just performance marketing and email marketing. Those two channels are great but don’t forget about the value of other channels like influencer marketing. Stay tuned as we unpack how to make your offer for BFCM standout, what deals you should run, answer whether you should use a landing page, and more. If you’d like to learn more about Trend and our influencer marketing platform for influencers and brands visit trend.io. You can also follow us for tips on growing your following and running successful campaigns on Instagram and LinkedIn. Mentioned Links: Nik Sharma’s Masterclass on BFCM: https://www.privy.com/masterclass/video/bfcm-with-nik-sharma Tips from eCommerce and DTC experts for BFCM: https://unbounce.com/campaign-strategy/black-friday-tips-more-online-sales Nik Sharma’s email list: https://sharma.ck.page/ | |||
| 31 Mar 2021 | How Stratia Skincare used Reddit as launchpad for building a DTC brand (with Alli Reed, Owner and Founder or Stratia Skincare) | 00:27:28 | |
We Speak About:
How Reddit helped launched Stratia skincare from hobby into full-time jobAlli Reed, Owner of Stratia Skincare, joins the POD to give some insight on the direct-to-consumer business’s growth, marketing strategy, and how the brand got started. Stratia Skincare is a cosmetic brand focused on being affordable and effective that started off on Reddit and exponentially grew. Alli had no expectations of the product developing into a large entrepreneurship opportunity; However, the product grew a natural following and boomed from there. No marketing or advertising expenses were involved for the first three years of production. Brand growth was fostered by positive reviews and word of mouth. Product growth transitioned the marketing mix and sales coming from reddit have extended to other platforms. As the business has grown it has now saturated credit markets. Alli recognizes that Stratia is an authentic cosmetic company that will continue to grow, as direct- to-consumer companies are gaining more attention due to COVID-19 increasing online shopping. Sometimes in DTC, it pays to market differentlyStratia Skincare stands out as an eCommerce cosmetic company that delivers simple, effective, and affordable products. The brand further differentiates itself by providing the science behind the ingredients in their products and sharing this knowledge with their consumers. A large percentage of their business now comes from instagram, and Alli is now utilizing TikTok to further the brand’s growth. Alli takes a unique approach of showing how knowledge based the brand is and the level of research involved, through social media platforms. Alli recommends seeking advice from established companies in the industry you are getting into to avoid simple mistakes. Stay tuned as Alli discusses how Stratia Skincare has grown from a small hobby into a successful business. If you’d like to learn more about Trend and our influencer marketing platform for influencers and brands visit trend.io. You can also follow us for tips on growing your following and running successful campaigns on Instagram and LinkedIn. Mentioned Links: Stratia Skincare website: https://www.stratiaskin.com/ Stratia Skincare instagram: https://instagram.com/stratiaskin/ Stratia Skincare TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@stratiaskin/ Alli Reed’s email: Alli@stratiaskin.com | |||
| 29 Dec 2022 | #252 - Jack Benzaquen, Duradry: Bootstrapping From Niche Problem to Household Name | 00:49:09 | |
On this episode of DTC Pod, Jack joins Blaine to talk about how to build a brand in today's landscape. They talk about identifying a problem, bootstrapping, which channels to start on, how to think about capital, working with suppliers, building at the right pace for your business, speeding up cash conversion, subscription & retention from the customer's pov, the importance of unified data, the power of layering brand at the right time, and much more. More info on the Duradry brand here.
Past guests & brands on DTC Pod include Gilt, PopSugar, Glossier, MadeIN, Prose, Bala, P.volve, Ritual, Bite, Oura, Levels, General Mills, Mid Day Squares, Prose, Arrae, Olipop, Ghia, Rosaluna, Form, Uncle Studios & many more. Additional episodes you might like: • #175 Ariel Vaisbort - How OLIPOP Runs Influencer, Community, & Affiliate Growth • #184 Jake Karls, Midday Squares - Turning Your Brand Into The Influencer With Content • #205 Kasey Stewart: Suckerz- - Powering Your Launch With 300 Million Organic Views • #219 JT Barnett: The TikTok Masterclass For Brands • #223 Lauren Kleinman: The PR & Affiliate Marketing Playbook • #243 Kian Golzari - Source & Develop Products Like The World's Best Brands ----- This episode is brought to you by: OpenStore- Visit https://open.store to get a free, no-obligation offer for your e-commerce business from OpenStore in 24 hours. Have any questions about the show or topics you'd like us to explore further?
Want the weekly TL;DR of tips delivered to your mailbox? Follow us for content, clips, giveaways, & updates! DTCPod Instagram Jack Benzaquen - Founder & CEO of Duradry | |||
| 09 Mar 2021 | How to raise over $3M on Kickstarter while launching your product (with Conor Lewis, founder of FORT) | 00:29:15 | |
We Speak About:
Strong research and product development lead to successful products.Conor Lewis, CEO and founder of FORT, joins the POD to talk about FORT’s successful crowdfunding campaign and strong Facebook community. His company FORT, sells magnetic pillow fort for children. Conor lost his job in April 2020 and started FORT soon after. The idea was one of many startup ideas on Conor's phone. FORT was developed in only a couple of months due to Conor’s push to develop a product fast. FORT already had a strong email list and community before deciding to crowdfund on Kickstarter. Building an online community and how to leverage it into a successful crowdfunding campaign.FORT gamified the sharing of their product, allowing them to expand their reach using their strong online community. Using a private Facebook group, Conor was able to build personal connections with his audience. He used the Facebook group as a way to get feedback on the idea of his product and answer questions personally to his audience. Because of the nurturing of this community, FORT’s Kickstarter campaign was able to raise over 2 million dollars in less than a day. Stay tuned as Conor shares his experience launching FORT on Kickstarter thanks to a strong online community. If you’d like to learn more about Trend and our influencer marketing platform for influencers and brands visit trend.io. You can also follow us for tips on growing your following and running successful campaigns on Instagram and LinkedIn. Mentioned Links: Follow Conor on Twitter: https://twitter.com/conorblewis Follow Conor on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/conorblewis/ FORT’s website: https://getthefort.com/ FORT’s Kickstarter campaign: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/conorblewis/fort-magnetic-pillow-fort FORT on Twitter: | |||
| 19 Jan 2021 | Building a more sustainable DTC brand by understanding linear commerce | 00:06:47 | |
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The line between media and commerce are blending, and it’s a big win for DTC brands that get it rightLinear commerce - it’s a term coined by Mizzen+Main founder Web Smith that identifies the different ways a DTC brand can launch. According to Smith, there are five different ways a direct-to-consumer brand can launch. On one side of the line, you have a brand that acquires most of its customers through paid efforts. On the other side, you have a media company that may eventually launch a product years later. As eCommerce and brand launches continue to evolve, the line between media and commerce is blending. The brands that now launch with an established audience can acquire customers for less and have higher lifetime value. By leaning into audience growth first, you can build a more sustainable business. Stay tuned as we discuss the five different versions of DTC launch strategies, what is the best strategy you can take for your brand, and some ideas to build your audience first. If you’d like to learn more about Trend and our influencer marketing platform for influencers and brands visit trend.io. You can also follow us for tips on growing your following and running successful campaigns on Instagram and LinkedIn. Mentioned Links: Web Smith’s 2PM: https://2pml.com/ More on linear commerce: https://2pml.com/2019/04/22/on-linear-commerce/ | |||
| 07 Jan 2021 | The growth metrics you should follow for eCommerce and how to predict purchases and churn | 00:33:41 | |
We Speak About:
Brand growth is more than customer acquisition, it’s also retentionJuliana Jackson, Head of Product Marketing at Omniconvert, joins the POD to talk about eCommerce growth metrics and marketing to the right people at the right time. Omniconvert is a company that helps data-driven marketers around the world to understand, segment, convert, and retain more customers. Building a brand is much more than acquiring customers. Customer acquisition is important but without retention, your eCommerce brand can’t grow. That’s why you need to pay attention to metrics like customer lifetime value. Understanding how much your customers spend with you and how they feel about your brand are just as important. Today’s brand growth equation needs to account for more than just lifetime spend though. You also need to look at customer experience, net promoter scores, and customer support. Understanding customers on a deeper level can fuel eCommerce growthBrand growth isn’t just about the metrics. You need to understand what segments your customers fall into. You don’t need to build out crazy segments but you should consider grouping customers based on recency and frequency of purchase. Knowing how often and when customers purchase is a big piece of nurturing. By splitting up your customers, you can understand which customers are likely to continue to purchase from you and which are likely to churn. This helps you build a more predictable business model. Stay tuned as Juliana provides tips on what metrics you should look at, how to better predict repurchases, and how to delight your customers. If you’d like to learn more about Trend and our influencer marketing platform for influencers and brands visit trend.io. You can also follow us for tips on growing your following and running successful campaigns on Instagram and LinkedIn. Mentioned Links: Omniconvert’s website: https://www.omniconvert.com/ Connect with Juliana: https://www.linkedin.com/in/iulianajackson/ | |||
| 29 Jun 2021 | The welcome series to help you convert non-buyers into buyers (and how to get them into your email sequence) | 00:07:41 | |
We Speak About:
In DTC, frequency is key to convert non-buyersAttracting new customers doesn’t always succeed on the first try, and these types of shoppers, who have not yet purchased your product, are known as non-buyers. So how do you promote customer conversion? Sometimes influencing the amount of times a person comes into contact with your ads will promote purchase behavior. One marketing strategy used to sway potential customers is through an email sequence. Stay tuned as we unwrap an email marketing outline by Chase Dimond, and how to tailor the four types of emails designed for customer conversion.
If you’d like to learn more about Trend and our influencer marketing platform for influencers and brands visit trend.io. You can also follow us for tips on growing your following and running successful campaigns on Instagram and LinkedIn. Mentioned Links: Full thread on non-buyer welcome series by Chase: https://twitter.com/ecomchasedimond/status/1378008560894767104 Chase’s email newsletter: https://chasedimond.com/chase-email-newsletter Chase’s podcast: https://kite.link/chase-dimond-podcast | |||
| 30 Jun 2022 | #203 - Brendan Brosnan & Chris Heckman: Yogaste - Building & Selling to OpenStore in 24 Months | 01:05:41 | |
On this episode of DTC Pod, Brosnan and Heckman join Blaine & Ramon to discuss the process of creating, scaling, and selling an e-commerce business. They cover topics including how to start an online store, how to validate before investing in inventory, getting started with print on demand options, tapping into sourcing agent networks, what makes a viable partnership with a manufacturer, options for acquisition, how to sell the business, how OpenStore’s credibility and ethos made them the right buyer, what payout and transition looks like, and what opportunities look exciting next. 11:27 - 12:15 24:56 - 25:37 1:01:30 - 1:02:12 This episode is brought to you by OpenStore: Visit https://open.store to get a free, no-obligation offer for your e-commerce business from OpenStore in 24 hours. Have any questions about the show or topics you'd like us to explore further? Follow us for content, clips, giveaways, & updates!
Brendan Brosnan and Chris Heckman- Co-founders of Yogaste Ramon Berrios - CEO of Trend.io Blaine Bolus - COO of OmniPanel | |||
| 09 Nov 2021 | DTC Finds: Best CPG blog examples + Transactional emails swipe file (examples) | 00:07:43 | |
We Speak About:
Learn more about what makes a great brand blog and how to optimize your transactional emailsIn today’s episode of DTC Finds, we’re looking at a Twitter discussion on great CPG blogs and sharing a great resource you can use for inspiration for your transactional emails We’ll share some of the best examples from the Twitter discussion and then look at this swipe file from Wonderment for transactional emails! Stay tuned as we break down unique blog posts and strategies from top brands as well as how to stay connected with customers through the buying process. If you’d like to learn more about Trend and our influencer marketing platform for influencers and brands visit trend.io. You can also follow us for tips on growing your following and running successful campaigns on Instagram and LinkedIn. Mentioned Links: Twitter discussion on CPG blogs: https://twitter.com/kaleighf/status/1453481617163444229 Wonderment transactional email swipe file: https://www.wonderment.com/ecom-txn-swipe-file | |||
| 05 Apr 2022 | #184 - Jake Karls, Midday Squares: How to turn your brand into an influencer with content marketing | 00:51:29 | |
Mid-Day Squares is the healthy chocolate bar company that’s built a name for itself through its bold content. Today on the pod, Ramon and Blaine are joined by the architect of Mid-Day’s brand voice & content strategy, Jake Karls, better known as the “Rainmaker” at MDS. As a Rainmaker, Jake is out there developing critical relationships with multiple stakeholders (i.e., press, investors, customers, etc.), cultivating the brand’s personality, and getting people excited about MDS. 1:17 - 4:27 Idea for Mid-Day Squares 4:55 - 7:38 Forming Mid-Days Content Strategy 10:07 - 10:55 Creating a Personality 11:48 - 13:32 Highs and Lows of Documenting Everything 14:00 - 17:55 Turning customers into fans 18:24 - 20:37 Celebrity Package Goods 20:58 - 23:42 Jake’s background and being a Rainmaker 25:14 - 30:46 Misunderstood and Hershey’s lawsuit 31:26 - 34:00 Getting everyone on board and therapy 34:45 - 38:00 Financing Content 38:13 - 42:33 Motivating young people 43:12 - 47:42 Evolution of MDS & DTC sales
This episode is brought to you by OpenStore: Visit https://open.store to get a free, no-obligation offer for your e-commerce business from OpenStore in 24 hours.
Have any questions about the show or topics you'd like us to explore further? Follow us for content, clips, giveaways, & updates!
Jake Karls- CEO of Mid-Day Squares Ramon Berrios - CEO of Trend.io Blaine Bolus - COO of OmniPanel | |||
| 05 Oct 2020 | How to pick the right creator for your influencer campaign | 00:20:55 | |
We speak about:
Today, Jamie Catanach, head of customer success for Trend, joins the show. Trend is the leading destination for brands looking to work with creators and produce high-quality content/ How To Pick The Best Creators For Your BrandWhen a brand is looking to work with a creator, they first need to think about their goals. Are you working on brand awareness or are you trying to get sales for your business? Setting goals upfront is an essential part of the process. Creators and influencer marketing is a great way to build brand awareness, but it’s also a driving force for brands to get a massive amount of content for their business. Micro-influencers are talented and can deliver great social proof to your audience. For content-driven campaigns, content aesthetic is an important factor. Your creator should fit the persona of your ideal customer. That way, the content can seamlessly flow on your website and social media channels and appear natural. If you’re trying to drive sales through influencer marketing, include discount codes and affiliate links. Here you may need to be more focused on engagement numbers, rates, and follower counts. High-Quality Content Is Critical For Your CampaignsAs a bi-product of working with creators, you will also receive brand awareness. Other consumers may purchase and tag your products in their photos, delivering more social proof. High-quality content is always essential. You want to make sure that the little things are right – the content should be well lit, and the product should be clear. Make sure you take a look at your creators' past content to ensure their work is ideal for what you need. The content that really wins is authentic content – it looks like your friend made it. Authentic content converts at a higher level in the right channels than something created in a professional studio. Stay tuned as we talk about the essential things necessary to produce a successful campaign, the importance of setting expectations, and how many creators your business should be using based on size. If you’d like to learn more about Trend and our influencer marketing platform for influencers and brands visit trend.io. You can also follow us for tips on growing your following and running successful campaigns on Instagram and LinkedIn. | |||
| 13 Feb 2020 | Casper's Mattress Brand Was Built on Influencers, Will It Mean Success For Their IPO? | 00:27:27 | |
In this episode, Jay and Ramon discuss Casper’s IPO launch and how it’s been built on influencers. Casper is the first company to mention in their S-1 filing that influencers adversely affect the brand and subject them to penalties. They are also the most recent money-losing “unicorn” to go public. We’ve seen it with Uber and Lyft, both of which haven’t gone so well. It’s incredible that Casper reached a $1 billion valuation, sometimes selling themselves as a tech company with an app, podcast ads, and more. How will they fare in the public market though? As of this podcast publishing, Casper’s stock has already dropped almost 20% from its initial list price. If you’d like to learn more about Trend and our influencer marketing platform for users and brands visit trend.io. You can also follow us for tips on growing your following and running successful campaigns on Instagram, LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter. | |||
| 21 Jul 2021 | Tips from a rising star in the DTC space on growth, product launches, CX, and personal brand (with Lillie Sun from Three Ships Beauty) | 00:40:07 | |
We Speak About:
Three Ships Beauty steps to startup successLillie Sun, leader of growth for Three Ships Beauty, joins the POD to give some insight on the direct-to-consumer business’s growth, product launches, and the customer journey. Three Ships Beauty is a Skincare brand that creates effective, natural, and affordable products. Lily recognized that when it comes to startups, implementing an ambassador program will help the brand to effectively engage with their customers and organically drive awareness, leading to growth.
A unique approach was taken for product launches by limiting a creative marketing that would not exemplify what the product is about, and instead focus on orienting the campaign on the core product and benefit. Lillie recognizes that in the first stages of growth, it’s okay for your brand to test out everything to see what works and then dial down and what processes are delivering the most benefits. In DTC, it pays to be personableThree Ships Beauty stands out as an eCommerce skincare company that develops 100% natural plant derived products at an affordable price. The brand has experienced growth by experimenting with numerous marketing channels to see what works and curating a personable customer experience. Lillie takes a unique approach to achieving growth by not only personalizing the customer experience but also the product through a skincare quiz on their website. The brand takes additional steps to personalize their brand by segmenting their SMS channel into categories, based on what their consumers would like to hear. Lillie recommends having a good foundation in business experience before jumping into growth roles. Stay tuned as Lillie discusses non-digital marketing factors that led to growth why you don’t always need to be too creative with your marketing strategy. If you’d like to learn more about Trend and our influencer marketing platform for influencers and brands visit trend.io. You can also follow us for tips on growing your following and running successful campaigns on Instagram and LinkedIn. Mentioned Links: Three Ships Beauty website: https://www.threeshipsbeauty.com/ Lillie Sun’s twitter: https://twitter.com/Lillie__Sun | |||
| 31 May 2023 | #277: Bear Balanced - From Space-X To Supplements | 00:47:01 | |
On this episode of DTC POD, Dylan Menter shares his journey from building literal rockets to bootstrapping his own CPG business. We discuss the challenges, research, and scaling up production of his product. We cover everything from patents, to manufacturing, to bootstrapping, to purchase orders, to branding on this info packed episode. Here's a few more key themes we'll dive into:
2. Creating a unique product 3. Research and collaboration with professionals 4. Scaling a solo operation 5. Importance of having a stable job 6. Navigating the manufacturing process 7. Patenting and protecting proprietary information.
[00:03:13] Former SpaceX employee creates creatine gummies [00:10:55] Protecting proprietary formula - patent specific formula researched [00:20:29] Natural product creation takes year trial, commitment crucial [00:27:48] Making the gummies involved physical and mental exhaustion [00:31:59] Find experienced manufacturers in retailers you want to target [00:38:11] Google Ads aided in brand growth, positive feedback received [00:43:48] Plans to scale ad platforms & bring in professional athletes
Past guests & brands on DTC Pod include Gilt, PopSugar, Glossier, MadeIN, Prose, Bala, P.volve, Ritual, Bite, Oura, Levels, General Mills, Mid Day Squares, Prose, Arrae, Olipop, Ghia, Rosaluna, Form, Uncle Studios & many more. Additional episodes you might like: • #175 Ariel Vaisbort - How OLIPOP Runs Influencer, Community, & Affiliate Growth • #184 Jake Karls, Midday Squares - Turning Your Brand Into The Influencer With Content • #205 Kasey Stewart: Suckerz- - Powering Your Launch With 300 Million Organic Views • #219 JT Barnett: The TikTok Masterclass For Brands • #223 Lauren Kleinman: The PR & Affiliate Marketing Playbook • #243 Kian Golzari - Source & Develop Products Like The World's Best Brands ----- Want the weekly TL;DR of tips delivered to your mailbox? Follow us for content, clips, giveaways, & updates! DTCPod Instagram Dylan Menter - Founder & CEO of Bear Balanced | |||
| 16 Mar 2021 | How offering free shipping affected Heartland Bread's business (marketing breakdown) | 00:11:09 | |
We Speak About:
Is free shipping something to consider for your brand?Free shipping. Everybody loves it. So why is it that some brands choose to pass shipping costs to customers? Is it because of logistics issues? Is something else? In this episode of the DTC POD, we dive into Heartland Bread’s decision to change its pricing strategy and offer free shipping for its customers. Based on the price of your product, free shipping is something you may or may not want to consider. If your product is less expensive, rolling shipping costs into the product could make your product too expensive for customers. If your product is more expensive, free shipping might be a no-brainer. Stay tuned as we discuss Heartland Bread’s previous pricing strategy, their new strategy with free shipping, and the effect it had on their business. If you’d like to learn more about Trend and our influencer marketing platform for influencers and brands visit trend.io. You can also follow us for tips on growing your following and running successful campaigns on Instagram and LinkedIn. Mentioned Links: More on Heartland Bread’s free shipping strategy: https://sendeats.com/blog/free-shipping/ | |||
| 28 Jun 2022 | #202 - Nishant Samantray: Building Arrae Into an 8 Figure Brand, FAST | 00:49:42 | |
On this episode of DTC Pod, Nish joins Blaine to talk about how he started Arrae with his wife, Siffat Haider. They discuss how to build a DTC brand with a product lens, what it took to get to the first 17K orders, personal touches to drive early sales, how they transitioned into scaling, how they got Hailey Beiber as a mega fan of Arrae, the tech stack that powers their growth, how they think about subscription experience, timing their retail strategy, and how they got into 13 Erewhon locations.
23:01 -23:58 12:36 - 13:04 27:10 - 28:00
This episode is brought to you by OpenStore: Visit https://open.store to get a free, no-obligation offer for your e-commerce business from OpenStore in 24 hours. Have any questions about the show or topics you'd like us to explore further? Follow us for content, clips, giveaways, & updates!
Nishant Samantray- Co-founder of Arrae Ramon Berrios - CEO of Trend.io Blaine Bolus - COO of OmniPanel | |||
| 03 Aug 2021 | Copy this last chance email for non-buyers for your eCommerce store | 00:05:34 | |
We Speak About:
The last chance email you need to steal for your DTC store.Email marketing is an underestimated technique that can potentially earn you more buyers. One email strategy in particular is last-chance emails. Last-chance emails are a way to remind potential buyers of a discount or deal that will persuade them to make a purchase. This strategy drives urgency and creates another platform for brands to communicate with their customers. Stay tuned as we discuss a specific brand and break-down their successful last chance email strategy. If you’d like to learn more about Trend and our influencer marketing platform for influencers and brands visit trend.io. You can also follow us for tips on growing your following and running successful campaigns on Instagram and LinkedIn. Mentioned Links: Good Pair Days’ last chance email: https://reallygoodemails.com/emails/dont-miss-out | |||
| 21 May 2020 | Raphael Paulin-Daigle: How To Make Landing Pages That Convert Better And Generate More Sales | 00:19:33 | |
In this episode, Jay and Ramon are joined by guest Raphael Paulin-Daigle, Founder & CEO of SplitBase. SplitBase specializes in building high-converting landing pages and strong on-site experiences for eCommerce brands. With SplitBase’s experience in landing page optimization, Jay and Ramon join forces with Raphael to discuss how brands can get even more for their influencer marketing efforts using personas. One-to-one marketing, or at least the idea of it, has become increasingly important as consumers have become tired of catch-all traditional advertising. Thus, brands have turned to user-generated content to break through stale advertising. How do you dial in your marketing efforts even more? By segmenting consumers into personas, and using that user-generated content to create an even push to the one-to-one marketing consumers are asking for. We’ll discuss why traditional product pages aren’t the best place to send audiences and offer some suggested tools you can use to improve your conversion rate. We’ll also dive into why brands need to continue to optimize and how not doing so could result in you missing your maximum potential ROI. If you’d like to learn more about Trend and our influencer marketing platform for users and brands visit trend.io. You can also follow us for tips on growing your following and running successful campaigns on Instagram, LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter. If you are interested in using the tools that Raphael mentioned during the podcast, here are the links: Unbounce: https://unbounce.com/ Instapage: https://instapage.com/ Shogun (Shopify app): https://apps.shopify.com/shogun For more information on Raphael's company, SplitBase, visit: https://splitbase.com/ | |||
| 17 Dec 2020 | 5 more great tips from eCommerce and DTC industry leaders including Jing Gao, Nik Sharma, and more (part 2) | 00:09:37 | |
We Speak About:
More eCommerce and DTC tips to follow from smart marketers and foundersWelcome to part 2 of our series recapping our favorite tips from DTC POD guests. If you missed part 1, you can access it here. Part 2 features tips from Shark Tank contestant Aisha Chottani, Jing Gao from Fly By Jing, Nik Sharma, and more. In this episode, we’re covering things like product feedback, consumer buying habits, and tips from a former DTC investor. Part 1 featured five tips and this time we’re throwing in a bonus 6th tip that you will have to listen for. It’s from out guest Sonia Nagar who dropped a ton of knowledge in episode 58 of the DTC POD. Stay tuned as we recap these great tips to help you level up your eCommerce and DTC brands. If you’d like to learn more about Trend and our influencer marketing platform for influencers and brands visit trend.io. You can also follow us for tips on growing your following and running successful campaigns on Instagram and LinkedIn. Mentioned Links: EP 50 with Nik Sharma on building a $10M brand: https://trend.io/blog/nik-sharma-dtc EP 52 with Aisha Chottani on customer feedback: https://trend.io/blog/founder-stories-moment-beverage EP 54 with Jing Gao on importing products and dealing with increased demand: https://trend.io/blog/founder-stories-fly-by-jing EP 56 with The Verticale on DNVBs and the future of DTC: https://trend.io/blog/the-verticale-dnvb-dtc-marketplace EP 58 with Sonia Nagar on advice from an investor turned founder: https://trend.io/blog/dtc-investor-turned-brand-founder | |||
| 13 Jul 2023 | #283 - Jordan West - Ads & Marketing 101 | 00:38:32 | |
In this episode of DTC POD, Blaine and Jordan talk about how to grow e-commerce brands through paid performance. They talk about Facebook's tracking methods, insight platforms, customer psychology, setting up tools for effective ads, combating ad fatigue, using images vs videos, alternative opportunities, Facebook groups, Performance Max, SEO strategies, Apple's privacy measures, AI tools, starting with ads, and engaging with customers.
1. Tracking and Attribution 2. Understanding Customer Psychology 3. Tools and Platforms 4. Creative Content 5. Engaging with Online Communities 6. Testing and Optimization 7. SEO and Organic Traffic
01:35 - From video production to founding Suna. 05:12 - Learn ads before hiring. Find customers on search platforms. Performance Max and Advantage Plus need data. Start with unpaid methods. 08:53 - Essential Google Analytics, Tag Manager, Facebook Pixel setups. 13:59 - Tracking customer behavior with various tools. 16:56 - Understand customer psychology beyond price. Uncover barriers to purchasing. 21:26 - YouTube for retargeting, Performance Max for Google. 24:45 - Testing crucial for effective strategies. 28:53 - Rank for buyer intent, blogs for expertise. SEO drives organic traffic. 31:35 - Performance Max: untapped opportunity, perpetual creative engine. Image creative highly effective, ad fatigue. 33:50 - Fresh and engaging ads, images convey more.
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Past guests & brands on DTC Pod include Gilt, PopSugar, Glossier, MadeIN, Prose, Bala, P.volve, Ritual, Bite, Oura, Levels, General Mills, Mid Day Squares, Prose, Arrae, Olipop, Ghia, Rosaluna, Form, Uncle Studios & many more. Additional episodes you might like: • #175 Ariel Vaisbort - How OLIPOP Runs Influencer, Community, & Affiliate Growth • #184 Jake Karls, Midday Squares - Turning Your Brand Into The Influencer With Content • #205 Kasey Stewart: Suckerz- - Powering Your Launch With 300 Million Organic Views • #219 JT Barnett: The TikTok Masterclass For Brands • #223 Lauren Kleinman: The PR & Affiliate Marketing Playbook • #243 Kian Golzari - Source & Develop Products Like The World's Best Brands ----- Want the weekly TL;DR of tips delivered to your mailbox? Follow us for content, clips, giveaways, & updates! DTCPod Instagram Jordan West - upGrowth Commerce | |||
| 24 Dec 2020 | How Apple's iOS 14 update will affect your Facebook ads (Apple's AppTracking Transparency update) | 00:11:01 | |
We Speak About:
Apple is making it a lot easier for users to opt-out of data collection with the iOS 14 update, here’s what it meansUsers who update to iOS 14 will find it easier to opt-out of data collection. While that’s a win for users, it is going to make it a lot tougher for small businesses to optimize their ads. As a result, Facebook is making some changes to its ad platform to better reflect the changes. With this new update, Facebook ads managers will see changes to things like event tracking, measurement, and more. It will have a significant impact on how brands and agencies set goals and optimize for conversions. Stay tuned as we go through what these changes mean for your ads and how you can better prepare your ad account for these changes. If you’d like to learn more about Trend and our influencer marketing platform for influencers and brands visit trend.io. You can also follow us for tips on growing your following and running successful campaigns on Instagram and LinkedIn. Mentioned Links: How iOS 14 may affect your ads (from Facebook): https://www.facebook.com/business/help/331612538028890?id=428636648170202 Facebook’s update for developers with iOS 14: https://developers.facebook.com/blog/post/2020/12/16/preparing-partners-ios-14-mobile-web-advertising How to verify your domain with Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/business/help/245311299870862 Shopify’s Facebook app: https://apps.shopify.com/facebook | |||
| 05 Jan 2021 | Different types of campaigns to run with influencers and creators (for better results!) | 00:08:51 | |
We Speak About:
Working with influencers is more than just sending out a product and getting them to take a photoAt Trend, we’re always talking about the importance of adding structure to your influencer campaigns. So today, we’re going over some structured campaigns you can create. These ideas are different types of campaigns you can run with influencers. We’re going through six different campaign ideas and offering a bare minimum framework that you can use right now. The content you receive from these campaigns is sure to improve your content calendar. By using this framework you will be able to create different themes around the content you create. As a brand, you will also be able to improve the stories you can create with your content. Stay tuned as we run through various influencer campaign ideas, discuss the goals you should set for them, and talk about how to use the deliverables to grow your brand. If you’d like to learn more about Trend and our influencer marketing platform for influencers and brands visit trend.io. You can also follow us for tips on growing your following and running successful campaigns on Instagram and LinkedIn. Mentioned Links: Set up a free Trend campaign and get access to templates for your next creator campaign: | |||
| 10 Oct 2024 | #343 - The ‘Clean Caffeine’ Revolution: How Plant Press is Energizing the Beverage Aisle | 00:34:56 | |
Ariana Farahani is the founder and CEO of Plant Press, a fast-growing functional beverage brand offering a healthier alternative to traditional energy drinks. In this episode of DTC Pod, Ariana shares her journey of developing Plant Press from a homemade recipe to a nationally distributed product. She discusses the importance of gathering consumer feedback and iterating on the product based on data, which led to pivotal changes like focusing solely on clean caffeine and adjusting flavors. Ariana also goes into the strategic decisions behind Plant Press's distribution strategy, from securing early retail partnerships with local bodegas and fitness centers to navigating the complexities of working with broadline distributors, including the key growth channels that proved successful early on. Interact with other DTC experts and access our monthly fireside chats with industry leaders on DTC Pod Slack. On this episode of DTC Pod, we cover: Timestamps Show notes powered by Castmagic Past guests & brands on DTC Pod include Gilt, PopSugar, Glossier, MadeIN, Prose, Bala, P.volve, Ritual, Bite, Oura, Levels, General Mills, Mid Day Squares, Prose, Arrae, Olipop, Ghia, Rosaluna, Form, Uncle Studios & many more. Additional episodes you might like: • #175 Ariel Vaisbort - How OLIPOP Runs Influencer, Community, & Affiliate Growth • #184 Jake Karls, Midday Squares - Turning Your Brand Into The Influencer With Content • #205 Kasey Stewart: Suckerz- - Powering Your Launch With 300 Million Organic Views • #219 JT Barnett: The TikTok Masterclass For Brands • #223 Lauren Kleinman: The PR & Affiliate Marketing Playbook • #243 Kian Golzari - Source & Develop Products Like The World's Best Brands ----- Want the weekly TL;DR of tips delivered to your mailbox? Projects the DTC Pod team is working on: Follow us for content, clips, giveaways, & updates! DTCPod Instagram Ariana Farahani - Founder & CEO of Plant Press | |||
| 10 Jan 2023 | #254 - Megan O'Brien, Arch Insights: Market Validation, Positioning & New Products | 00:38:02 | |
On this episode of DTC Pod, Megan joins Blaine and Ramon to talk about how brands can better leverage consumer insights to validate ideas, develop new products, build more powerful brands, increase revenue and purchases, build better wholistic customer experiences, mitigate risk, find exciting opportunities, build off flagship products, and much more.
Past guests & brands on DTC Pod include Gilt, PopSugar, Glossier, MadeIN, Prose, Bala, P.volve, Ritual, Bite, Oura, Levels, General Mills, Mid Day Squares, Prose, Arrae, Olipop, Ghia, Rosaluna, Form, Uncle Studios & many more. Additional episodes you might like: • #175 Ariel Vaisbort - How OLIPOP Runs Influencer, Community, & Affiliate Growth • #184 Jake Karls, Midday Squares - Turning Your Brand Into The Influencer With Content • #205 Kasey Stewart: Suckerz- - Powering Your Launch With 300 Million Organic Views • #219 JT Barnett: The TikTok Masterclass For Brands • #223 Lauren Kleinman: The PR & Affiliate Marketing Playbook • #243 Kian Golzari - Source & Develop Products Like The World's Best Brands ----- Have any questions about the show or topics you'd like us to explore further?
Want the weekly TL;DR of tips delivered to your mailbox? Follow us for content, clips, giveaways, & updates! DTCPod Instagram Megan O'Brien - Founder of Arch Insights | |||
| 04 Jun 2020 | A Look Inside eCommerce In China (with Qumin CEO Arnold Ma) | 00:32:21 | |
In this episode, Jay and Ramon are joined by guest Arnold Ma, CEO and Founder of Qumin. Quim is a people and experience business focused on China. With Qumin’s experience in ecommerce and marketing in China, Jay and Ramon join forces with Arnold to discuss why marketing in China is so different than the approach brands take in the US. eCommerce and influencer marketing has developed very differently in China than it has in the West. A focus on digital payments, livestream selling, and an increased value on peer opinions are just some of the major differences that exist in China vs the West. Are these trends that will transfer over to the West, or are there other factors that will create a different evolution of eCommerce here? We’ll take a look at social commerce in China, and how China’s lack of infrastructure for the desktop-era pushed brands and consumers to mobile. We’ll also go in-depth on specific campaigns that Arnold and his team have completed, and why they had to take a different approach than what would work in the West. To learn more about Arnold’s company, Qumin, visit: https://qumin.co.uk/ If you’d like to learn more about Trend and our influencer marketing platform for users and brands visit trend.io. You can also follow us for tips on growing your following and running successful campaigns on Instagram, LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter. | |||
| 17 Jun 2021 | What's next for the DTC POD? - recapping the first half of the year and looking ahead | 00:04:47 | |
We Speak About:
We’re celebrating half a year on the DTC POD by discussing some exciting new ideas to come!As retail begins to open back up and things start getting back to normal, consumer habits continue to change and evolve and we plan on providing insight to that experience. Jay discusses previous guests on the POD who persevered through COVID-19 as agency owners, brand founders and marketers. Stay tuned as Jay discusses new things to come for the DTC POD and an outline of what to expect for the second half of the year! If you’d like to learn more about Trend and our influencer marketing platform for influencers and brands visit trend.io. You can also follow us for tips on growing your following and running successful campaigns on Instagram and LinkedIn. | |||
| 02 May 2023 | #273: Philip Ruffini, CEO Content Assistant: Content Strategy and Organic Social for DTC | 00:49:53 | |
On this episode of DTC POD, dive into the art of content creation, Philip joins Blaine to share his insights on defining content pillars and optimizing for views and followers. They discuss the importance of hyper-testing and copying when starting out, as well as the power law of content distribution. They chat about what makes unique and memorable content, and how content differs for B2B and D2C brands. They also touch upon the importance of content ROI and share case studies of successful startups.
1. What are content pillars, and why are they important for content creation? 2. What are the two types of content best suited for organic? 3. What is the best starting point for creating content? 4. What is hyper testing, and why is it important for content creation? 5. The Power Law in content distribution. How do you get to be in the top 0.1%?
[00:07:47] Define content pillars, use well-known brands, optimize for views. [00:11:15] Multiple platforms = credibility, two case study examples, intangible ROI. [00:16:58] Copying is good, hyper-testing helps, repurposing is key. [00:19:30] Separate hires for each social media platform, understanding content creator tiers. [00:23:10] Stand out, invest in high quality production, be in top 1%, waste no resources. [00:27:00] Educational, voiceover-based videos, differentiate for success, faster revisions. [00:32:54] Consistency is key, incorporate news, find sustainable system. [00:35:36] Wide variety of content, analyzing performance, Chat GPT for ideas. [00:40:25] Create content around problem-solving for DTC brands, balance entertainment vs. educational for B2B. [00:43:17] Unique content is important, Duolingo's unique brand identity example.
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Episode brought to you by Finaloop, the real-time accounting service trusted by hundreds of DTC Brands. Try Finaloop free - no credit card required. Visit finaloop.com/dtcpod and get 14 days free and a 2-month P&L within 24 hours. Past guests & brands on DTC Pod include Gilt, PopSugar, Glossier, MadeIN, Prose, Bala, P.volve, Ritual, Bite, Oura, Levels, General Mills, Mid Day Squares, Prose, Arrae, Olipop, Ghia, Rosaluna, Form, Uncle Studios & many more. Additional episodes you might like: • #175 Ariel Vaisbort - How OLIPOP Runs Influencer, Community, & Affiliate Growth • #184 Jake Karls, Midday Squares - Turning Your Brand Into The Influencer With Content • #205 Kasey Stewart: Suckerz- - Powering Your Launch With 300 Million Organic Views • #219 JT Barnett: The TikTok Masterclass For Brands • #223 Lauren Kleinman: The PR & Affiliate Marketing Playbook • #243 Kian Golzari - Source & Develop Products Like The World's Best Brands ----- Want the weekly TL;DR of tips delivered to your mailbox? Follow us for content, clips, giveaways, & updates! DTCPod Instagram Philip Ruffini - Founder and CEO of Content Assistant | |||
| 12 Sep 2024 | #340 - AI Meets Skincare: Unicorn Beauty Powerhouse Dermalogica’s Formula for Global Success | 00:37:47 | |
Aurelian Lis is the CEO of Dermalogica, a global skincare brand rooted in skin treatment expertise. With a background in atomic physics, laser optics, and extensive experience in the cosmetics industry, Aurelian has led Dermalogica to significant growth and innovation since taking the helm post-acquisition by Unilever. In this episode of DTC Pod, Aurelian discusses the strategies that have driven Dermalogica's success, including delegating authority to the right people, empowering employees to innovate, and effectively integrating AI and machine learning across various functions. He stresses the importance of maintaining genuine personal connections with customers and staying true to the brand’s core values while proactively adapting to new trends, tech, and consumer preferences. Interact with other DTC experts and access our monthly fireside chats with industry leaders on DTC Pod Slack. On this episode of DTC Pod, we cover: Timestamps Show notes powered by Castmagic Past guests & brands on DTC Pod include Gilt, PopSugar, Glossier, MadeIN, Prose, Bala, P.volve, Ritual, Bite, Oura, Levels, General Mills, Mid Day Squares, Prose, Arrae, Olipop, Ghia, Rosaluna, Form, Uncle Studios & many more. Additional episodes you might like: • #175 Ariel Vaisbort - How OLIPOP Runs Influencer, Community, & Affiliate Growth • #184 Jake Karls, Midday Squares - Turning Your Brand Into The Influencer With Content • #205 Kasey Stewart: Suckerz- - Powering Your Launch With 300 Million Organic Views • #219 JT Barnett: The TikTok Masterclass For Brands • #223 Lauren Kleinman: The PR & Affiliate Marketing Playbook • #243 Kian Golzari - Source & Develop Products Like The World's Best Brands ----- Want the weekly TL;DR of tips delivered to your mailbox? Projects the DTC Pod team is working on: Follow us for content, clips, giveaways, & updates! DTCPod Instagram Aurelian Lis - Global CEO of Dermalogica | |||
| 10 Jun 2020 | How to Get More Content If You're Out (Or Just Want More) | 00:14:01 | |
In this episode, Jay discusses what you can do if you need to create more content. If you need to scale your content production or don’t have enough content right now, we have some suggestions on where you can get it. With so many platforms for brands to be active on, it can be a huge challenge to produce the content you need to be effective on each channel. Plus, once you start producing engaging content, consumers expect you to continue to deliver the same amount of content on a regular basis. As content studios stay closed and new brands continue to be created, there is a growing need for content. We’ll go through a proven strategy to determine how much content you need. We will also go through different solutions you can use to start creating on-brand content now, for any budget. If you’d like to learn more about Trend and our influencer marketing platform for users and brands visit trend.io. You can also follow us for tips on growing your following and running successful campaigns on Instagram, LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter. | |||
| 14 Nov 2024 | #346 - Scaling Sourdough: How Wildgrain Baked Up 80K+ Subscribers | 00:39:58 | |
Ismail Salhi is the co-founder and CEO of Wildgrain, a fast-growing DTC subscription service that delivers artisanal breads, pastries, and pasta directly to customers' doorsteps. In this episode of DTC Pod, Ismail shares his journey of rapidly scaling Wildgrain to over 80,000 subscribers since launching during the pandemic in 2020. He shares the key strategies that have driven Wildgrain's success: focusing on product quality, customer experience, and efficient operations. Ismail discusses their decision to outsource baking to local bakeries—a move that positioned them as a larger buyer than Whole Foods and Trader Joe's in some markets. He also emphasizes the importance of investing in logistics tech to optimize product delivery and streamline processes. This focus on tech integration across all business areas has been crucial to their ability to scale effectively. We also explore Wildgrain's customer acquisition strategies, which involve education marketing, meta, and influencers. Interact with other DTC experts and access our monthly fireside chats with industry leaders on DTC Pod Slack. On this episode of DTC Pod, we cover: Timestamps Show notes powered by Castmagic Past guests & brands on DTC Pod include Gilt, PopSugar, Glossier, MadeIN, Prose, Bala, P.volve, Ritual, Bite, Oura, Levels, General Mills, Mid Day Squares, Prose, Arrae, Olipop, Ghia, Rosaluna, Form, Uncle Studios & many more. Additional episodes you might like: • #175 Ariel Vaisbort - How OLIPOP Runs Influencer, Community, & Affiliate Growth • #184 Jake Karls, Midday Squares - Turning Your Brand Into The Influencer With Content • #205 Kasey Stewart: Suckerz- - Powering Your Launch With 300 Million Organic Views • #219 JT Barnett: The TikTok Masterclass For Brands • #223 Lauren Kleinman: The PR & Affiliate Marketing Playbook • #243 Kian Golzari - Source & Develop Products Like The World's Best Brands ----- Want the weekly TL;DR of tips delivered to your mailbox? Projects the DTC Pod team is working on: Follow us for content, clips, giveaways, & updates! DTCPod Instagram Ismail Salhi - Co-Founder and CEO of Wildgrain | |||
| 23 Mar 2023 | #266: Marshall Nyman - Everything You Need To Know About Affiliate As A Growth Channel | 00:41:51 | |
Episode brought to you by Trend & Finaloop.
Common mistakes made in affiliate marketing, the right partner mix, and low-value publishers who can negatively impact the program. The role of influencers in affiliate marketing, how to find them, and how they can drive interest and promote brands. How affiliate marketing has evolved over the years, from being deal and coupon-focused to including content production and influencers, and how tech has expanded its reach. How affiliate marketing is a cost-effective and performance-based way for brands to connect with third-party partners and drive sales, & how multiple affiliates can influence a single sale.
"We want to try to get in those articles because if you're looking for maybe best betting and you type in what is the best betting to Google, that first article is going to get a lot of traffic. And if you are able to be in that article, you're going to get a lot of traffic to your site in return." — Marhsall Nyman 00:10:09
"It really takes a lot more than just setting it up in the platform. I think that's probably the biggest misconception that I get from people when I talk to them that have an affiliate program. We set it up, nothing's happening. Yeah, nothing's happening because you haven't gone out and done anything. You have to go out, you have to forge relationships with these publishers and get them interested and excited about your brand." — Marhsall Nyman 00:15:09
Episode brought to you by Finaloop, the real-time accounting service trusted by hundreds of DTC Brands. Try Finaloop free - no credit card required. Visit finaloop.com/dtcpod and get 14 days free and a 2-month P&L within 24 hours.
Past guests & brands on DTC Pod include Gilt, PopSugar, Glossier, MadeIN, Prose, Bala, P.volve, Ritual, Bite, Oura, Levels, General Mills, Mid Day Squares, Prose, Arrae, Olipop, Ghia, Rosaluna, Form, Uncle Studios & many more. Additional episodes you might like: • #175 Ariel Vaisbort - How OLIPOP Runs Influencer, Community, & Affiliate Growth • #184 Jake Karls, Midday Squares - Turning Your Brand Into The Influencer With Content • #205 Kasey Stewart: Suckerz- - Powering Your Launch With 300 Million Organic Views • #219 JT Barnett: The TikTok Masterclass For Brands • #223 Lauren Kleinman: The PR & Affiliate Marketing Playbook • #243 Kian Golzari - Source & Develop Products Like The World's Best Brands ----- Want the weekly TL;DR of tips delivered to your mailbox? Follow us for content, clips, giveaways, & updates! DTCPod Instagram Marshall Nyman - Founder of NYMO & Co. | |||
| 07 Nov 2024 | #345 - Financial Foundations for DTC Success: What E-commerce Founders Need to Know About Tax and Accounting | 00:48:53 | |
Christian Rivera is the founder of The Ecommerce Accountants, a firm that specializes in tax, accounting, and business structuring for e-commerce companies. Their clients include social media marketing agencies, dropshippers, digital marketers, Amazon automation, Amazon FBA, and internet coaches/gurus. In this episode of the DTC POD, Christian explores key accounting issues that e-commerce businesses must address to succeed, such as sales tax compliance, revenue recognition, and inventory accounting. He also unpacks tax strategies that can help entrepreneurs set up smarter finances and maximize their profitability. Interact with other DTC experts and access our monthly fireside chats with industry leaders on DTC Pod Slack. On this episode of DTC Pod, we cover: Timestamps Show notes powered by Castmagic Past guests & brands on DTC Pod include Gilt, PopSugar, Glossier, MadeIN, Prose, Bala, P.volve, Ritual, Bite, Oura, Levels, General Mills, Mid Day Squares, Prose, Arrae, Olipop, Ghia, Rosaluna, Form, Uncle Studios & many more. Additional episodes you might like: • #175 Ariel Vaisbort - How OLIPOP Runs Influencer, Community, & Affiliate Growth • #184 Jake Karls, Midday Squares - Turning Your Brand Into The Influencer With Content • #205 Kasey Stewart: Suckerz- - Powering Your Launch With 300 Million Organic Views • #219 JT Barnett: The TikTok Masterclass For Brands • #223 Lauren Kleinman: The PR & Affiliate Marketing Playbook • #243 Kian Golzari - Source & Develop Products Like The World's Best Brands ----- Want the weekly TL;DR of tips delivered to your mailbox? Projects the DTC Pod team is working on: Follow us for content, clips, giveaways, & updates! DTCPod Instagram Christian Rivera - Founder of The Ecommerce Accountants | |||
| 14 Mar 2024 | #314 - Scaling Growth In Beauty with ILIA Beauty VP of Digital & Ecommerce, Cherene Aubert | 00:46:45 | |
Cherene Aubert is the VP of Digital and E-commerce at ILIA Beauty, a skincare-powered makeup brand which has taken the beauty industry by storm as it's quickly scaled past 100M in revenue. In this episode, we sit down with Cherene to discuss some of the most successful strategies that the most successful brands use to grow. Shownotes powered by Castmagic Additional episodes you might like: • #175 Ariel Vaisbort - How OLIPOP Runs Influencer, Community, & Affiliate Growth • #184 Jake Karls, Midday Squares - Turning Your Brand Into The Influencer With Content • #205 Kasey Stewart: Suckerz- - Powering Your Launch With 300 Million Organic Views • #219 JT Barnett: The TikTok Masterclass For Brands • #223 Lauren Kleinman: The PR & Affiliate Marketing Playbook • #243 Kian Golzari - Source & Develop Products Like The World's Best Brands ----- Want the weekly TL;DR of tips delivered to your mailbox? Projects the DTC Pod team is working on: Follow us for content, clips, giveaways, & updates! DTCPod Instagram --- Cherene Aubert - VP of Digital and E-commerce at Ilia Beauty | |||
| 29 Dec 2021 | Creating a market | Launching a DTC sport (with Chris Meade, Co-Founder & Chief Marketing Officer of Crossnet) | 00:54:22 | |
4:47 - The night CROSSNET was invented Chris and his friends were throwing ideas for a product invention at the wall to see if anything stuck when someone mentioned four-way volleyball. “ESPN was on in the background. Not sure if that motivated it or not, but Mike wrote down four-way beach volleyball. Mike’s one of our other co-founders, grew up playing soccer and basketball. Four-way volleyball net. And we're like, yeah, no shit. That'd be sick. Jumped on Google, and nobody had done it before. And right now it was like four in the morning, you're in your hometown farm town. It’s cool, and nobody does it, and we’re like, this is it. That's the game. So we went to bed and then the next morning we woke up, went to Walmart, got two badminton nets, cut up the center, staked them on the side of my mom's garden shed. Texted all the boys, like yo come over. And we just started making a game in the backyard, like you did when you're 12 years old.” 7:47 - Building a brand Chris had previously worked with his friend and brother on a startup during college. He knew that when creating his own company, he wanted to create a true brand. “I graduated with a film degree $100,000 in debt. And I was making like 40 grand a year. It wasn't sustainable. So I couldn't go home and focus on e-commerce. So I left. And my brother invented the GLUNT, which is the glass blunt, which is famous, probably the most famous glass blunt that went on for like millions of dollars in sales. It was really, really successful. And I gave up on the cane and I could have gotten involved in that. So when I started CROSSNET, I'm not giving up. I don't care how long this is going to take. It's going to work, just stay patient. So that was the e-commerce history kind of to set us up for good success because I knew I did not want to drop ship this thing. I wanted to form a brand.” 12:53 - Balancing Uber and CROSSNET Chris was still working in sales at Uber when he moved to Miami, juggling both his full-time job and experimenting with CROSSNET. “We started getting the proof of concept down. We had 50 units coming to the States, started selling them. And people started to take interest a little bit. I went to my boss [at Uber Eats] and I said, Hey, I don't know if I’m making the right move, but I’ve got a damn good idea. I'm going to move to Miami in two weeks. You'd either let me work remote—and this was before COVID. This is before everything—I was like, either let me work remote because this job is easy as hell and I can do it from my apartment, or I'm done. And he was so cool. And he's like, yeah, go work remote and lead the team. And I had a team of 12 people reporting to me. I led the team for six months working remote in Miami, on the beach playing CROSSNET during the day and answering emails from my phone for Uber.” 16:08 - When your product is your billboard By setting up live games in Miami and elsewhere, Chris and his team got an incredible amount of exposure that was better than any billboard. “What ended up happening was we go to the beach every day and set up the net. Get there at nine o'clock. And 20 minutes in we’d have everybody looking at us, every single person at that beach was staring at us taking photos. It was like a billboard, but it was just our product. I always say it's really hard to market a product that nobody gets to see, unless it's just one on one. When I set up a CROSSNET, hundreds of people see it. So people would start playing. I would film ads on my phone and go home and run Facebook ads at night. Eventually what would happen was you'd be on vacation in Colorado. You'd go home. And you sell nothing in Denver. And all of a sudden we started getting sales with Denver. And I'm like, oh shit, you must be out there playing, right. So it just started snowballing. We had 50 out, and then 250, and now there's 100,000 out there. So when summer comes, it's just that perfect storm.” 21:14 - The first factory After nailing down a prototype, Chris and the team went out in search of a factory. They negotiated a small starting quantity for about $20,000. “At this point we typed in Aliexpress Volleyball Nets. Found a few factories, sent over an NDA, sent over the blueprint. Our co-founder Mike was an engineer, so he was good at AutoCAD and we saved the cost there. Lucky. Sent it over, said yo, we have an idea. Immediately heard, ‘sure. $500 grand.’ $500? Who the hell do you think we are, $500 grand? No chance. Found one lady that was like, all right. I can do 50 for you. And we're like, please, we promise one day we'll be the biggest company. And now we outgrew our factory. We had to find a new supplier because it became so big. But to your point, negotiate. 50 units. Okay. We’ll wire over the check for $20 grand or whatever it was. We literally had $20 grand for this whole company to start.” 25:06 - The video that went viral The best growth moment came when Chris agreed to send a free sample to someone who ended up being on an Olympic volleyball team. “Yo, let me get free samples. I'm sure you guys deal with that all the time. But it’s like you know this stuff costs money, right? Would I just light $60 on fire? Or would you give me $60 for free? Hell no, you're not giving me $60 for free. So why should I do that for you? But there's one guy, I guess he was compelling enough. And he said, send me out a sample. I said, okay, I'll send it to you. You pay for the shipping. So he pays like $200 to ship it to Latvia. I don't know where Latvia is, we just ship it. Nothing happens. Four months go by. Crickets. I’m moving on to the next thing. And my phone just starts spazzing one morning. I wake up, I got like 5 million views on this video. 10,000 comments, a quadrillions shares. And it’s these dudes in Latviaplaying on the beach. It ends up being the Latvian Olympic volleyball team. So they're on the beach, palm trees. Spike it, dig it, doing everything I can't do on a CROSSNET. And that was our first banger piece of content.” 28:19 - The trouble with shipping Shipping container costs have skyrocketed, but if you need product you have little choice. Chris hopes to see container costs stabilizing somewhat going forward. “Everyone talks about shipping containers. I just found out our team paid $25,000 for a container. There was 350 units in that container. My cost on these just went up $70 for this damn thing. It's just like stupid mistakes that we're making. But also we really have no choice. If we want the products here, you have to pay it. But if you're losing money on the product, you have to shut it down. Don't even sell that product. It’s a loss here at this point. Chill out until the containers come back down. So those are all things we're dealing with right now...I have seen lately that containers are coming down. A lot of boats on the water are landing, now looking for their charges from six months ago. So now I'm dealing with the billing, which sucks. But moving forward we’re seeing containers hopefully being a fraction of that $20K. So if we can get down that $12-15K range, I'd be pretty content. I don't think we're anywhere close to that $3 grand that we started at in 2018.” 30:42 - Taking CROSSNET international Today CROSSNET has warehouses and 3PLs in Canada, Australia, and hopefully will add a greater presence in Europe soon. “I have a warehouse in Kingsville, Ontario, Canada. We opened up that last year. A warehouse in San Diego. Just opened up a 3PL in Australia, which took about a year of work. And then we're opening up a 3PL in Europe somewhere so that we can fulfill some of those countries. But it's a lot of legal work right now. You have to pay VAT fees for all the countries. And it's just a lot of headache to even deal with Europe right now. I'd love to get to Europe tomorrow, but Australia seems like it's going to be a rocket ship for us. There’s great weather, beaches. And the nice thing I'm pumped about is when it is freezing cold in Connecticut in October, November, January, February, March, go sell in Australia. Shut off all my ads in the east coast, throw them over to Australia.” 34:33 - Getting off the ground in Australia While getting set up in Australia has had its challenges, Chris knows it will be well worth it. “You cannot get an Australia website without having an Australian registered business, which is crazy to me. So it took us about eight months to get a registered Australian business. You can get a domain in 30 seconds here. You have to have a registered Australian business, which took forever. So eight months of planning, we vetted a ton of 3PLs and found the one that we liked, CP3, great company. And then essentially from there, it was just lining up shipments. Trucking that directly from China to the 3PL in Australia, them unloading, making sure our SKUs are right. Product photography, making sure the Shopify is duplicated but also speaks the language, which is important. And then from there, it's finding the relevant content that sticks.” 41:11 - Becoming a legitimate sport From partnerships with legacy players to selling at a high level, Chris’ background has allowed him to help take CROSSNET to the next step. “It's one thing to say all right, cool. We have a cool sport we made up. But it's still like, it's just a sport that you made up, it's not a real sport yet. So how do we validate, how do we make it real? So we did stuff with USA Volleyball, with Wilson, and we'll go on doing cooler brand partnerships. And for me, being 24 at the time, what better way to legitimize your sport and product than to put yourself into retail. Knowing nothing about retail, but knowing from my corporate days at like Contently where I was selling SaaS software. I was literally 22 years old. Had my nice little tie on, going in to see the CMO at like AIG, some 65-year-old lady, like Fortune 500, Fortune 50 companies. And they're talking to me in person. Like that doesn't even add up. So the way I got good at that was through LinkedIn, and that was the only way. It was crafting good messages, not the shit that you get every day.” Full video interview: https://youtu.be/D1gyFhOKQAU Chris Meade - CMO of Crossnet Ramon Berrios - CEO of Trend.io Blaine Bolus - COO of Omnipanel | |||
| 12 Oct 2020 | Planning for Black Friday and Cyber Monday (and how creators can help) | 00:21:15 | |
We speak about:
Today, Jamie Catanach, head of customer success for Trend, joins the show. Trend is the leading destination for brands looking to work with creators and produce high-quality content. You need a campaign plan for Black Friday and Cyber MondayCOVID is changing how Black Friday and Cyber Monday (BFCM) will look in 2020. People are more hesitant to shop in person – they are more interested in making purchases online. Thirty percent of annual retail sales happen between Black Friday and Christmas – the holiday season is HUGE for businesses. Make sure that you have a plan in action ready for Black Friday and Cyber Monday. How do you start a plan? First, set your goals. It’s essential to know what you are trying to achieve during Black Friday and Cyber Monday. We are a few weeks out from BFCM – get focused on it sooner rather than later. Think about the plan you can put in place. It’s never too soon to set things in motion. Sixty-seven percent of shoppers intend to buy online this year because of the pandemic. As a result, you should increase your focus on digital presence efforts, even if you have a brick and mortar location. Make sure you have a strategy for this holiday season. Working With Creators For The HolidaysWorking with creators and influencers is an essential piece of the puzzle for your Black Friday and Cyber Monday marketing. They can help you get in front of your customers and your audience. Your goal should be to spread word of mouth, social proof, and generate website traffic to create conversions. If your product is suitable for gifting, make sure that your customers know that. Use your influencers to do an unboxing. You can also create exclusive discounts for your creators. When your product is in the creator's hand, it can provide social proof for your company. You can also repurpose this content in paid ads. You will create more touchpoints that can end in conversion as a result. Most brands will be discounting their items, so why not work with an influencer and creator to promote a discount and create great content? It will help you stand out from your competition. When you run a Black Friday campaign, you want to reach the most amount of people. Overall, creators and influencers are great partners for the holidays. Jamie says it can be a cheaper option because the cost for paid ads this year will be higher due to the US election. With Trend, you can activate micro-influencers at $100 a pop (and you keep the rights to the content too). Stay tuned as we talk about the importance of repurposing content and the latest day you should start your campaign. If you’d like to learn more about Trend and our influencer marketing platform for influencers and brands visit trend.io. You can also follow us for tips on growing your following and running successful campaigns on Instagram and LinkedIn. | |||
| 22 Apr 2020 | Questions You Need to Ask Before Buying An Influencer Marketing Platform | 00:12:52 | |
In this episode, Jay goes through a list of questions all brands should ask before selecting an influencer marketing platform to use. As the influencer marketing industry has grown, so have the number of platforms to manage influencers. There are now 100s of platforms out on the market. Many brands are now turning to influencer marketing platforms to help scale their efforts and evolve their in-house processes. Even though jumping to a platform can be appealing, you should make sure you truly need a platform and if you do, ask what kind of platform you need. Knowing the answers to these questions can help you save time and money Jay will discuss 6 questions you must ask before purchasing an influencer marketing platform and help you answer whether you even need a platform in the first place. For more on this topic, check out our blog post: https://trend.io/blog/pick-influencer-marketing-platform If you’d like to learn more about Trend and our influencer marketing platform for users and brands visit trend.io. You can also follow us for tips on growing your following and running successful campaigns on Instagram, LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter. | |||
| 14 Feb 2023 | #259 - Julia Perez, OWYN: How The Best in CPG Grow OmniChannel | 00:50:47 | |
On this episode of DTC Pod, CMO Julia Perez chats with Blaine about everything related to OmniChannel growth. They talk about the importance of understanding the customer on a deeper level, the attention to detail of the Red Bull team, and the need for solid processes. They also cover topics like content marketing, retail strategy, unified brand messaging, field marketing, positioning, creator briefs, finding ad arbitrages, building new product lines, and more.
[00:01:00] Plant-based nutrition company, known for ready-to-drink protein shakes, top 8-allergy free, mission to clean up protein space, transparency and healthier products. [00:04:10] Addressing medical needs and cultural space simultaneously with cool, delicious flavors. [00:07:17] Career journey in beverage, CPG, digital, wellness, and fitness marketing, culminating in successful business exit. [00:12:41] Have a team that understands the brand. Stay focused and understand your customer. Building team and understanding brand, customer, and strengths; focus and not adapting to competitors. [00:21:37] Focus on brand mission, understand customer needs and habits, invest in retail and train sales associates. [00:26:26] Red Bull gear was restricted to Wings team members and education pamphlets were required with every can. Two team members were required on a mission and gifts had to be given with one hand in the pamphlet and one hand in the bottle. [00:34:18] Testing field marketing programs in New York and South Florida. [00:38:38] Switch influencer budget to TikTok for more impressions and reach right customer with right message. [00:43:13] Approved by registered dietitian; empowering consumers; unified messaging. [00:47:49] Innovating new product line, investing in medical marketing and retail, growing subscription base.
"Creating a brand and a personality out of this beautiful water bottle and telling a story"— Julia Perez 00:07:17
"Right away I'm thinking about the team. It's really all about the team and understanding. It's really important to have someone in the content position who deeply understands the brand and the lifestyle you're trying to convey. Know your strengths as a CMO and build a team that can fill the things you're not so good at. Focus on your own brand and how your customers use it, rather than trying to fit a square peg into a round hole."— Julia Perez 00:12:41
"Going back to staying focused on what your brand is delivering and what your brand's mission and purpose is, because it's really easy to see what other peers are doing in the space that might be more D to C or might be more Amazon, and you might want to try things and test things out. But again, going back to the customer's position is that we are not a deed to C exclusive brand, and nor is that where the majority of our growth is coming from. So while it might be fun to do all these fun D to See tech implementations all the time, it's not necessarily what Owen needs to be doing. So, again, like, staying focused on what's driving your business and not getting distracted with what competitors are doing is key."— Julia Perez 00:21:37
"We're very data driven. We're still a startup, so we're not just going to build out a whole field marketing team and go from there. We have a DTC business, we have an Amazon business. We have so many other focuses we need to focus on. So we're going to be doing testing over time."— Julia Perez 00:34:18
"We decided, well, I looked at it. I said, let's just switch all of our influencer budget to TikTok, everything, and let's just spend there and we can get a lot more for our money. And we can work with Nano influencers and have you know, for an example, instead of having three influencers talk about you for the month of February, you could have 30 for the same price and you still have the same number of impressions. Make more impressions."— Julia Perez 00:38:38
Additional episodes you might like: • #175 Ariel Vaisbort - How OLIPOP Runs Influencer, Community, & Affiliate Growth • #184 Jake Karls, Midday Squares - Turning Your Brand Into The Influencer With Content • #205 Kasey Stewart: Suckerz- - Powering Your Launch With 300 Million Organic Views • #219 JT Barnett: The TikTok Masterclass For Brands • #223 Lauren Kleinman: The PR & Affiliate Marketing Playbook • #243 Kian Golzari - Source & Develop Products Like The World's Best Brands ----- Want the weekly TL;DR of tips delivered to your mailbox? Follow us for content, clips, giveaways, & updates! DTCPod Instagram Julia Perez - CMO of OWYN | |||
| 25 Apr 2023 | #272: Scout Brisson, CEO De Soi: Building Brand With Katy Perry & Taking Non-Alc Mainstream | 00:47:56 | |
On this episode of DTC POD, Scout joins Blaine to dive into the world of branding, marketing, and entrepreneurship. We talk about Katy Perry's involvement in building her flagship non-alcoholic beverage brand, as well as exploring the lasting trend of health and wellness driving consumer behavior, the importance of social media presence, and the impact of beverage sales in-store. We learn about De Soi's scrappy approach to working with brand ambassadors, finding product-market fit in their direct-to-consumer (DTC) business, and their focus on efficient and sustainable growth.
[00:06:22] Katy Perry + Morgan McLachlan create De Soi. [00:10:36] Health and wellness trends & sober curiosity. [00:16:02] Katy's role in brand development [00:20:03] De Soi's DTC launch, media features. [00:24:54] Strategy: DTC, wholesale, and social media. [00:31:40] Target audience and location for branding. [00:34:33] Leveraging Brand ambassadors & events. [00:37:43] Navigating fundraising and strategy. [00:41:39] Shift to efficient, sustainable growth and profitability.
Shownotes powered by Castmagic
Episode brought to you by Finaloop, the real-time accounting service trusted by hundreds of DTC Brands. Try Finaloop free - no credit card required. Visit finaloop.com/dtcpod and get 14 days free and a 2-month P&L within 24 hours. Past guests & brands on DTC Pod include Gilt, PopSugar, Glossier, MadeIN, Prose, Bala, P.volve, Ritual, Bite, Oura, Levels, General Mills, Mid Day Squares, Prose, Arrae, Olipop, Ghia, Rosaluna, Form, Uncle Studios & many more. Additional episodes you might like: • #175 Ariel Vaisbort - How OLIPOP Runs Influencer, Community, & Affiliate Growth • #184 Jake Karls, Midday Squares - Turning Your Brand Into The Influencer With Content • #205 Kasey Stewart: Suckerz- - Powering Your Launch With 300 Million Organic Views • #219 JT Barnett: The TikTok Masterclass For Brands • #223 Lauren Kleinman: The PR & Affiliate Marketing Playbook • #243 Kian Golzari - Source & Develop Products Like The World's Best Brands ----- Want the weekly TL;DR of tips delivered to your mailbox? Follow us for content, clips, giveaways, & updates! DTCPod Instagram Scout Brisson - CEO of De Soi | |||
| 02 Jun 2021 | 3 fast tips for product categories | 00:04:19 | |
We Speak About:
Simple tips when it comes to structuring product categoriesWhen attracting an audience to your brand's webpage, it is important to stay organized. One key way to do this is through efficiently structuring product categories so that your potential customers can find what they are looking for. One important idea to keep in mind is how to navigate this factor with the rise of mobile shopping. Stay tuned as we discuss three simple tricks to optimize product categorization and what to avoid .
If you’d like to learn more about Trend and our influencer marketing platform for influencers and brands visit trend.io. You can also follow us for tips on growing your following and running successful campaigns on Instagram and LinkedIn. | |||
| 16 Apr 2020 | Influencer Marketing Campaigns That Actually Work? Here's Our Guide | 00:05:28 | |
In this episode, Ramon discusses how to create an influencer marketing campaign that generates an ROI and why it’s so important to pay creators. Many brands brag about working with influencers just for exchange of product. By doing this, brands do not value the efforts of the influencers which can lead to poor outcomes. The brands that are doing influencer marketing the best lean in on their roots and their story. They are able to effectively communicate how influencers should capture their product and elevate the brand. Ramon will discuss how your brand can be like other brands that have experienced success with influencer marketing. He will also discuss why influencer marketing is a long game and brands need to be willing to be patient to see results. For more information on this topic, check out our blog post on this topic: https://trend.io/blog/influencer-marketing-case-studies If you’d like to learn more about Trend and our influencer marketing platform for users and brands visit trend.io. You can also follow us for tips on growing your following and running successful campaigns on Instagram, LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter. | |||
| 14 Dec 2023 | #301 - Jeff Byers, Momentous - Scaling DTC $2M - $36M in 18 Months | 01:16:28 | |
Episode brought to you by More Staffing Additional episodes you might like: • #175 Ariel Vaisbort - How OLIPOP Runs Influencer, Community, & Affiliate Growth • #184 Jake Karls, Midday Squares - Turning Your Brand Into The Influencer With Content • #205 Kasey Stewart: Suckerz- - Powering Your Launch With 300 Million Organic Views • #219 JT Barnett: The TikTok Masterclass For Brands • #223 Lauren Kleinman: The PR & Affiliate Marketing Playbook • #243 Kian Golzari - Source & Develop Products Like The World's Best Brands ----- Want the weekly TL;DR of tips delivered to your mailbox? Follow us for content, clips, giveaways, & updates! DTCPod Instagram Jeff Byers - Co-Founder and CEO at Momentous | |||
| 28 Jun 2023 | #281 - Robbie Salter, Jupiter - Building A Disruptive DTC Haircare Brand | 00:50:46 | |
On this episode of DTC Pod, Blaine chats with Robbie Salter, one of the founding partners of Jupiter. Robbie shares his journey of creating innovative products and addressing the needs of both men and women. They discuss how to build a brand, starting from scratch, navigating supply chain issues to inventory management, building a CX flywheel, and the importance of having a mission greater than your product.
1. Haircare innovation and product development 2. Supply chain challenges and inventory management 3. Building a brand strategy consultancy 4. Investing in venture capital and startups 5. Entrepreneurship and asking questions 6. Customer experience and packaging 7. Mental health advocacy and giving back
[00:05:40] Finding a problem worth solving [00:10:01] Developing dandruff care products [00:12:17] Embracing curiosity [00:16:00] Finding manufacturers [00:18:18] Decisions on product ingredients [00:22:56] Packaging vs product quality [00:26:57] Importance of customer experience, female perspective [00:33:09] Overcoming supply chain issues, prioritizing customers [00:36:56] Honesty and transparency [00:40:51] Focus on mental health [00:44:11] Nights and Weekends brand consultancy [00:47:53] Importance of trust in a partnership
Past guests & brands on DTC Pod include Gilt, PopSugar, Glossier, MadeIN, Prose, Bala, P.volve, Ritual, Bite, Oura, Levels, General Mills, Mid Day Squares, Prose, Arrae, Olipop, Ghia, Rosaluna, Form, Uncle Studios & many more. Additional episodes you might like: • #175 Ariel Vaisbort - How OLIPOP Runs Influencer, Community, & Affiliate Growth • #184 Jake Karls, Midday Squares - Turning Your Brand Into The Influencer With Content • #205 Kasey Stewart: Suckerz- - Powering Your Launch With 300 Million Organic Views • #219 JT Barnett: The TikTok Masterclass For Brands • #223 Lauren Kleinman: The PR & Affiliate Marketing Playbook • #243 Kian Golzari - Source & Develop Products Like The World's Best Brands ----- Want the weekly TL;DR of tips delivered to your mailbox? Follow us for content, clips, giveaways, & updates! DTCPod Instagram | |||
| 19 Oct 2023 | #294 - Paul Jarrett, Bulu - How The Best Brands Nail Logistics & Fulfillment | 00:54:16 | |
Episode brought to you by Trend & Finaloop. Additional episodes you might like: • #175 Ariel Vaisbort - How OLIPOP Runs Influencer, Community, & Affiliate Growth • #184 Jake Karls, Midday Squares - Turning Your Brand Into The Influencer With Content • #205 Kasey Stewart: Suckerz- - Powering Your Launch With 300 Million Organic Views • #219 JT Barnett: The TikTok Masterclass For Brands • #223 Lauren Kleinman: The PR & Affiliate Marketing Playbook • #243 Kian Golzari - Source & Develop Products Like The World's Best Brands ----- Want the weekly TL;DR of tips delivered to your mailbox? Follow us for content, clips, giveaways, & updates! DTCPod Instagram Paul Jarrett - CEO of Bulu | |||
| 30 Mar 2021 | Leveraging brand-owned communities to fuel DTC growth | 00:12:17 | |
We Speak About:
Brand communities - it’s time to start building one if you haven’tEverybody knows the power of community. So why is it that some brands don’t invest in it? Brand communities can be a powerful tool when done right. They can be great sources of feedback, recurring revenue, and even reduce support tickets. A good community feeds off of each other and acts like an extra employee and a super customer, spreading the word about your brand and buying up a lot of products. Communities can be either brand-owned or not brand-owned. There’s no right or wrong choice between the two. They are just different. To get people to buy into your community though, you might need to sweeten your offer Stay tuned as we discuss where to build communities, what’s a brand-owned community, brands that are crushing community, and more. If you’d like to learn more about Trend and our influencer marketing platform for influencers and brands visit trend.io. You can also follow us for tips on growing your following and running successful campaigns on Instagram and LinkedIn. Mentioned Links: Great DTC brand communities: https://socialladderapp.com/2020/02/11/4-dtc-brand-communities-we-love/ Steps to build online communities: https://www.bigcommerce.com/blog/online-communities/#7-steps-for-building-an-online-community | |||
| 07 Mar 2023 | #263: JBC - The PR Strategy Behind Your Favorite Brands | 00:43:17 | |
When she and her colleague Melissa Duren Conner hit a crossroads in their careers, they decided to join forces and create their own agency, Jennifer Bett Communications (JBC). Jennifer and Melissa wanted to create an agency that approached media relations in a strategic and creative way, focusing on meaningful storytelling and more intellectual PR. Since then, JBC has helped launch some of the top names in consumer brands, including Parachute, Magic Spoon, Recess, Cuyana, Andie, Knix, July, M.Gemi, Cuup, and more just to name a few.
[00:08:21] PR is essential for brand launch; many options and partners available to fit any budget. [00:15:55] PR should not be an afterthought; time should be invested to ensure messaging is communicated across all platforms and that the PR partner understands the brand. [00:21:24] Positioning Ben for success in food and beverage beyond CBD. [00:23:10] Helping brands reach their goals over time with targeted press. [00:27:27] Empowering women in healthcare, particularly in fertility, is important to Melissa and the agency. Nodal is an example of a brand doing this. [00:30:23] Food & beverage division works with innovative brands in climate tech and sustainability, particularly small, independently owned brands, with increasing presence of women. [00:33:06] Passionate founders, mission-oriented brands, and innovation. [00:35:02] Innovation and fresh ideas excite people and make them want to be involved. [00:38:44] Launched affiliate division and executive speaking division, hiring experienced talent, launching brands in various industries.
Past guests & brands on DTC Pod include Gilt, PopSugar, Glossier, MadeIN, Prose, Bala, P.volve, Ritual, Bite, Oura, Levels, General Mills, Mid Day Squares, Prose, Arrae, Olipop, Ghia, Rosaluna, Form, Uncle Studios & many more. Additional episodes you might like: • #175 Ariel Vaisbort - How OLIPOP Runs Influencer, Community, & Affiliate Growth • #184 Jake Karls, Midday Squares - Turning Your Brand Into The Influencer With Content • #205 Kasey Stewart: Suckerz- - Powering Your Launch With 300 Million Organic Views • #219 JT Barnett: The TikTok Masterclass For Brands • #223 Lauren Kleinman: The PR & Affiliate Marketing Playbook • #243 Kian Golzari - Source & Develop Products Like The World's Best Brands ----- Want the weekly TL;DR of tips delivered to your mailbox? Follow us for content, clips, giveaways, & updates! DTCPod Instagram Jennifer Meyer - Founder of Jennifer Bett Communications (JBC) | |||
| 02 Sep 2021 | Understanding the future of DTC trends and brands (with Aja Singer, creative and brand strategy consultant) | 00:28:51 | |
We Speak About:
Aja Singer, an insight on working with ambitious brands through creative and brand strategyAja Singer, a creative and brand strategy consultant for mission driven DTC brands, joins the POD to give some insight on creative strategy and product development Aja spent the last 10+ years mastering brand creative & product design, and became the creative director for an e-commerce startup that grew into a multi-million dollar business She now uses her skill set, in uncovering what drives consumer behavior and creating products and content that inspires community and drives revenue, to help other startups in need In addition to being a consultant, Aja also has a newsletter to inform about branding and DTC trends Aja recognizes that people and the market are always evolving, and it is important to keep up Community is key for DTC growthAja Singer stands out as a brand consultant for her extensive knowledge in brand creative, strategy, and design She has helped foster sustained growth for brands by centering community and personal interaction with consumers as the key to success Aja recognizes the importance of connecting with consumers and understanding their needs to curate products and messaging that speaks to them She fostered further opportunities for brands by paying attention to evolving marketing strategies and recognizing what works for current trends Aja recommends creating an engaging community for your brand and experimenting with marketing strategies Stay tuned as Aja discusses how to build a community around your brand and product strategy and design trends If you’d like to learn more about Trend and our influencer marketing platform for influencers and brands visit trend.io. You can also follow us for tips on growing your following and running successful campaigns on Instagram and LinkedIn. Mentioned Links: Aja Singer’s newsletter: https://ajasinger.substack.com/ Aja Singer’s twitter: https://twitter.com/ajasinger Aja Singer’s website: http://www.ajasinger.com/ | |||
| 30 May 2024 | #325 - The Art of Modern Retail: Kellen Roland on Strategy, AI, and Mentorship | 00:55:42 | |
Kellen Roland served as first CEO of JOOPITER alongside Pharrel Williams and VP of Sales of Herschel Supply Co, and brings 18+ years of expertise in the luxury and consumer sectors. He has a triple role as a founder, investor, and strategic advisor. He fosters business growth through insightful leadership and AI integration, invests in promising businesses like TRUFF, and offers strategic advice to brands such as Slowtide. With an acute sense of cultural trends and storytelling skills, he establishes authentic links between brands and audiences. Notably, he worked at Agenda Trade Show, Herschel Supply Co., and iamOTHER, founded The NTWRK Agency, and eventually built JOOPITER alongside Pharrell Williams. At present, he shares this extensive learning at his own consulting business, KRMC. In this DTC Pod episode, Kellen Roland gives insights on building strong retailer relationships. He emphasizes the importance of delivering unique value to create lasting partnerships in retail. He also discusses negotiating techniques and the need to maintain a healthy balance of markups and margins, appealing to vendors while preserving brand profitability. Kellen encourages brands to be agile; taking customer feedback seriously and quickly adapting to changing preferences is key for success in the fast-changing DTC landscape. Through his strategic insights, Kellen cements the framework for a successful retail strategy that is as much about captivating storytelling as it is about shrewd business deliberations. Join 15k founders and marketers & get our pod highlights delivered directly to your inbox with the DTC Pod Newsletter! On this episode of DTC Pod, we cover: Timestamps Show notes powered by Castmagic Past guests & brands on DTC Pod include Gilt, PopSugar, Glossier, MadeIN, Prose, Bala, P.volve, Ritual, Bite, Oura, Levels, General Mills, Mid Day Squares, Prose, Arrae, Olipop, Ghia, Rosaluna, Form, Uncle Studios & many more. Additional episodes you might like: • #175 Ariel Vaisbort - How OLIPOP Runs Influencer, Community, & Affiliate Growth • #184 Jake Karls, Midday Squares - Turning Your Brand Into The Influencer With Content • #205 Kasey Stewart: Suckerz- - Powering Your Launch With 300 Million Organic Views • #219 JT Barnett: The TikTok Masterclass For Brands • #223 Lauren Kleinman: The PR & Affiliate Marketing Playbook • #243 Kian Golzari - Source & Develop Products Like The World's Best Brands ----- Want the weekly TL;DR of tips delivered to your mailbox? Projects the DTC Pod team is working on: Follow us for content, clips, giveaways, & updates! DTCPod Instagram Kellen Roland - Founder of KRMC | |||
| 04 Apr 2024 | #317 - Unleash the Power of Amazon SEO: Outrank & Outsell the Competition with Mina Elias | 00:42:46 | |
Mina Elias, backed by his vast experience, outlines a strategy to captivate customers and set apart offerings in Amazon's competitive market. He shares a blueprint for keyword optimization on Amazon, highlighting the need to start small and grow strategically based on performance results. His approach underlines the role of flexibility in advertising, where constant adjustments can lead to enhanced visibility and higher conversions. Additionally, Mina discusses how click-through and conversion rates dramatically affect a product's organic ranking on Amazon. He recommends driving branded traffic from external sources to Amazon pages to raise product visibility against fierce competition. Mina also shares a few tips on crafting effective product detail pages. He stresses the importance of each component—from images to reviews—working together to showcase the product's merits and convince shoppers to purchase.
Episode brought to you by More Staffing Join 15k founders and marketers & get our pod highlights delivered directly to your inbox with the DTC Pod Newsletter!
On this episode of DTC Pod, we cover: Timestamps Show notes powered by Castmagic
Past guests & brands on DTC Pod include Gilt, PopSugar, Glossier, MadeIN, Prose, Bala, P.volve, Ritual, Bite, Oura, Levels, General Mills, Mid Day Squares, Prose, Arrae, Olipop, Ghia, Rosaluna, Form, Uncle Studios & many more. Additional episodes you might like: • #175 Ariel Vaisbort - How OLIPOP Runs Influencer, Community, & Affiliate Growth • #184 Jake Karls, Midday Squares - Turning Your Brand Into The Influencer With Content • #205 Kasey Stewart: Suckerz- - Powering Your Launch With 300 Million Organic Views • #219 JT Barnett: The TikTok Masterclass For Brands • #223 Lauren Kleinman: The PR & Affiliate Marketing Playbook • #243 Kian Golzari - Source & Develop Products Like The World's Best Brands ----- Want the weekly TL;DR of tips delivered to your mailbox? Projects the DTC Pod team is working on: Follow us for content, clips, giveaways, & updates! DTCPod Instagram ----- Mina Elias - Founder of Trivium Group and Chief Executive Officer at MMA Nutrition LLC | |||
| 17 Nov 2021 | DTC Finds: The BFCM strategy for you to copy | 00:08:08 | |
We Speak About:
Tips and tricks for generating the most value out of black friday and cyber mondayIn today’s episode of DTC Finds, we’re looking at an article by Nik Sharma discussing great sales strategies for the holidays and providing unique promotions to boost sales. We’ll share some of the best strategies from this article and dive into how to offer these deals to customers. Stay tuned as we break down these unique holiday sales strategies as well as how to optimize the customer experience during holiday shopping. If you’d like to learn more about Trend and our influencer marketing platform for influencers and brands visit trend.io. You can also follow us for tips on growing your following and running successful campaigns on Instagram and LinkedIn. Mentioned Links: https://www.shopify.ca/blog/ask-nik-black-friday-cyber-monday-sales-strategies | |||
| 08 Feb 2024 | #309 - Scale Your Brand Like a Pro, DTC Blueprints from Homestead with COO, Joel Padron | 00:42:49 | |
Joel Padron is the COO and Partner at Homestead Studio, a leading growth agency specializing in acquisition and retention services for brands scaling from 7 to 8 figures of revenue. After scaling Crossnet on the performance side, Joel has been behind the wheel with some of the fastest growing brands in commerce since joining Homestead.
Additional episodes you might like: • #175 Ariel Vaisbort - How OLIPOP Runs Influencer, Community, & Affiliate Growth • #184 Jake Karls, Midday Squares - Turning Your Brand Into The Influencer With Content • #205 Kasey Stewart: Suckerz- - Powering Your Launch With 300 Million Organic Views • #219 JT Barnett: The TikTok Masterclass For Brands • #223 Lauren Kleinman: The PR & Affiliate Marketing Playbook • #243 Kian Golzari - Source & Develop Products Like The World's Best Brands ----- Want the weekly TL;DR of tips delivered to your mailbox? Projects the DTC Pod team is working on: Follow us for content, clips, giveaways, & updates! DTCPod Instagram --- Joel Padron - COO and Partner at Homestead Studio | |||
| 11 Apr 2023 | #269: Izzy Gewirtzman Saving Big On Shipping - A Masterclass For Brands | 00:54:20 | |
Episode brought to you by Trend & Finaloop. On this episode of DTC Pod, Izzy Joins Blaine to lead a masterclass on saving on shipping. 1. What are the most common mistakes when negotiating shipping rates? 2. What surcharges and hidden fees most commonly drain shipping budget? 3. What are the most common overlooked details that make brands lose money on shipping? 4. What type of shipping carrier is best for my store?
00:04:28 - Shipping costs = 10% of revenue 00:09:31 - Create account, leverage resellers 00:14:08 - Consult peers, ask for transparency 00:18:01 - Use lightweight services, regional carriers 00:24:41 - Optionality and reduced rates with regionals 00:28:03 - Service, volume, contract negotiation = cost 00:31:34 - Know carrier, understand data, negotiate everything 00:37:41 - Negotiate discounts; be proactive about rate increases 00:42:21 - FedEx EB increasing costs, offer discounts 00:46:16 - Negotiate for peak period costs
Episode brought to you by Finaloop, the real-time accounting service trusted by hundreds of DTC Brands. Try Finaloop free - no credit card required. Visit finaloop.com/dtcpod and get 14 days free and a 2-month P&L within 24 hours. Past guests & brands on DTC Pod include Gilt, PopSugar, Glossier, MadeIN, Prose, Bala, P.volve, Ritual, Bite, Oura, Levels, General Mills, Mid Day Squares, Prose, Arrae, Olipop, Ghia, Rosaluna, Form, Uncle Studios & many more. Additional episodes you might like: • #175 Ariel Vaisbort - How OLIPOP Runs Influencer, Community, & Affiliate Growth • #184 Jake Karls, Midday Squares - Turning Your Brand Into The Influencer With Content • #205 Kasey Stewart: Suckerz- - Powering Your Launch With 300 Million Organic Views • #219 JT Barnett: The TikTok Masterclass For Brands • #223 Lauren Kleinman: The PR & Affiliate Marketing Playbook • #243 Kian Golzari - Source & Develop Products Like The World's Best Brands ----- Want the weekly TL;DR of tips delivered to your mailbox? Follow us for content, clips, giveaways, & updates! DTCPod Instagram Izzy Gewirtzman - Founder of Shiplion | |||
| 30 Oct 2024 | #344 - David Protein’s $1,000,000 Week Launch with Cofounder Zach Ranen | 00:51:26 | |
Zach Ranen is the co-founder of David, a protein bar brand which disrupted the market with 50% more calories from protein than any other bar and a groundbreaking dollar-to-protein ratio. In this episode of the DTC POD, Zach shares David's pre-launch and launch strategies, leading to 1M+ dollars in sales in the first week. This includes engaging with influencers like Peter Attia and Andrew Huberman and giving away 20,000 product samples. Zach also gives insights into their R&D process, how they built the David brand, their product-led approach to growth, and future plans. Interact with other DTC experts and access our monthly fireside chats with industry leaders on DTC Pod Slack. On this episode of DTC Pod, we cover: Timestamps Show notes powered by Castmagic Past guests & brands on DTC Pod include Gilt, PopSugar, Glossier, MadeIN, Prose, Bala, P.volve, Ritual, Bite, Oura, Levels, General Mills, Mid Day Squares, Prose, Arrae, Olipop, Ghia, Rosaluna, Form, Uncle Studios & many more. Additional episodes you might like: • #175 Ariel Vaisbort - How OLIPOP Runs Influencer, Community, & Affiliate Growth • #184 Jake Karls, Midday Squares - Turning Your Brand Into The Influencer With Content • #205 Kasey Stewart: Suckerz- - Powering Your Launch With 300 Million Organic Views • #219 JT Barnett: The TikTok Masterclass For Brands • #223 Lauren Kleinman: The PR & Affiliate Marketing Playbook • #243 Kian Golzari - Source & Develop Products Like The World's Best Brands ----- Want the weekly TL;DR of tips delivered to your mailbox? Projects the DTC Pod team is working on: Follow us for content, clips, giveaways, & updates! DTCPod Instagram Zach Ranen - Co-Founder and President at David | |||
| 07 Mar 2024 | #313 - Designing Renowned Experiences: From Startups to Style Icons with Allegra Poschmann | 00:46:20 | |
Allegra Poschmann is the CEO & Design Director at Pact, a design led, development driven studio that creates digital experiences. In this episode, Allegra shares her journey of substantial growth in the design industry and the compelling success of the nap dress. Listen as we explore the unique approaches to customer engagement and personalized brand experiences that are defining modern retail. Shownotes powered by Castmagic Additional episodes you might like: • #175 Ariel Vaisbort - How OLIPOP Runs Influencer, Community, & Affiliate Growth • #184 Jake Karls, Midday Squares - Turning Your Brand Into The Influencer With Content • #205 Kasey Stewart: Suckerz- - Powering Your Launch With 300 Million Organic Views • #219 JT Barnett: The TikTok Masterclass For Brands • #223 Lauren Kleinman: The PR & Affiliate Marketing Playbook • #243 Kian Golzari - Source & Develop Products Like The World's Best Brands ----- Want the weekly TL;DR of tips delivered to your mailbox? Projects the DTC Pod team is working on: Follow us for content, clips, giveaways, & updates! DTCPod Instagram --- Allegra Poschmann - CEO & Design Director at Pact | |||
| 16 Nov 2023 | #298 - Moe Hayek, Limitless - Hitting 7 Figures With Tiktok Shop | 00:53:42 | |
Episode brought to you by More Staffing & Capital One Additional episodes you might like: • #175 Ariel Vaisbort - How OLIPOP Runs Influencer, Community, & Affiliate Growth • #184 Jake Karls, Midday Squares - Turning Your Brand Into The Influencer With Content • #205 Kasey Stewart: Suckerz- - Powering Your Launch With 300 Million Organic Views • #219 JT Barnett: The TikTok Masterclass For Brands • #223 Lauren Kleinman: The PR & Affiliate Marketing Playbook • #243 Kian Golzari - Source & Develop Products Like The World's Best Brands ----- Want the weekly TL;DR of tips delivered to your mailbox? Follow us for content, clips, giveaways, & updates! DTCPod Instagram Moe Hayek - Partner at Limitless | |||
| 15 Jun 2022 | #200 - Episode 200! Blaine Bolus & Ramon Berrios on Consumer, Creator, & Commerce | 01:05:05 | |
Follow Along on Social Don’t hesitate to reach out to us on socials or directly to Blaine & Ramon if you have a guest you’d like to recommend, or specific topics you’d like to learn more about in the consumer, creator, and commerce landscape which we can explore with future guests.How did the pod start and where are we going?
How has the DTC landscape changed since?
Previous episodes and learnings from DTC Pod guests:
Product finds & whats next:
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| 04 May 2021 | Quick tips to level up your Pinterest marketing strategy (with examples!) | 00:07:16 | |
We Speak About:
Often forgotten, Pinterest can be a great place to grow your brandProduct promotion is the first step to building a successful brand, and this element can be accomplished in various unique ways. Many brands take to Facebook and Instagram to engage with potential consumers, but there’s an underlooked platform with a high rate of users - Pinterest. Pintrerst is a popular social media outlet known for its creative user-generated content, and its development as a purchase point to connect users with brands. Not only can this platform be utilized to inform users of your product, it's also a beneficial resource that provides feedback on competitors. Stay tuned as we discuss key strategies for marketing on Pinterest and additional components to increase brand value through this platform.
If you’d like to learn more about Trend and our influencer marketing platform for influencers and brands visit trend.io. You can also follow us for tips on growing your following and running successful campaigns on Instagram and LinkedIn. Mentioned Links: Key Pinterest stats: https://blog.hubspot.com/blog/tabid/6307/bid/31147/the-ultimate-guide-to-mastering-pinterest-for-marketing.aspx Brands with great Pinterest strategy: https://later.com/blog/brands-on-pinterest/ How to build your own Pinterest strategy: https://www.oberlo.com/blog/nail-pinterest-marketing-pinterest-ads | |||
| 06 Oct 2022 | #230 - Nigel Thomas: ROAS is Dead, The Keys To Building Bottom Line Revenue | 00:55:23 | |
On this episode of DTC Pod, Nigel joins Blaine to break down the foundational building blocks for brands that want to build profitable businesses. They cover topics like how to build solid unit economics, types of content that perform, optimizing customer journeys, understanding attribution, copywriting, landing pages, as well as benchmarks to hit to build a successful brand.
6:35 The first one, and we'll get back to this in a second, because it's the most important is unit economics by what are unit economics. The second thing is the content. Again, you can't turn water into wine. If we don't have good enough content to work with, we add need to get that content from the brands, or we need to go out there and use one of our content partners and just get really good content. The third one is the customer journey. At the end of the day, if you've got the best starts in the world, it doesn't matter if the customer journey CRO isn't in place and obviously the retention and it all connects congruently. The fourth area is attribution.
It doesn't matter how good your creative is. It doesn't matter how good your copy is. At the end of the day, if you've got the stronger economics in the backend, you'll always win. Now, add on top of that. Great copy, great customer journey, great creative. Then that's a house on fire.
So average order value must be above $50. And again, maybe we can work them to get it above $50 by changing the landing page, but $50, especially at scale, you need that these days, you really do need that. Then the other thing is the CPA to lifetime value ratio, needs to ideally be one to three. I'm saying, ideally within even a 60, 90 day period.
This landing page is built to do one thing. It's built to sell products. There's no light areas for them to click out into the homepage or anything else. All the friction was removed. And we're talking, one of the things that most people don't understand is copywriting. It's all about the headline. That's where most of the people are going to bounce off. It needs of course, beyond brand, but it also needs to hit real deep on the emotions and pain points. David Ogilvy says, they spend 80% of the time researching, 20% of the time writing.
This episode is brought to you by OpenStore: Visit https://open.store to get a free, no-obligation offer for your e-commerce business from OpenStore in 24 hours. Have any questions about the show or topics you'd like us to explore further?
Want the weekly TL;DR of tips delivered to your mailbox? Follow us for content, clips, giveaways, & updates! DTCPod Instagram Nigel Thomas - CEO of Alpha Inboud | |||
| 25 Jan 2024 | #307 - Jess Chan, Longplay - How To Boost Revenue Through Retention & Lifecycle Marketing | 00:44:41 | |
Jess Chan is the CEO and Founder of Longplay, an lifecycle & retention agency for DTC brands. She's also the brains behind Backbone, an innovative tool that wraps all those email and retention best practices in one simple to use tool. In this episode, Jess joins Blaine to discuss what it takes to succeed as a brand that wants to lean into retention & lifecycle marketing to scale DTC revenue. Additional episodes you might like: • #175 Ariel Vaisbort - How OLIPOP Runs Influencer, Community, & Affiliate Growth • #184 Jake Karls, Midday Squares - Turning Your Brand Into The Influencer With Content • #205 Kasey Stewart: Suckerz- - Powering Your Launch With 300 Million Organic Views • #219 JT Barnett: The TikTok Masterclass For Brands • #223 Lauren Kleinman: The PR & Affiliate Marketing Playbook • #243 Kian Golzari - Source & Develop Products Like The World's Best Brands ----- Want the weekly TL;DR of tips delivered to your mailbox? Projects the DTC Pod team is working on: Follow us for content, clips, giveaways, & updates! DTCPod Instagram --- Jess Chan - Founder and CEO at Longplay & Backbone | |||
| 21 Feb 2023 | #260: Ryan Springer, MidnightVP - How to Raise VC for DTC & Consumer Brands | 00:50:15 | |
On this episode of DTC POD, we discuss the key factors that investors look for in a business, such as product excellence, differentiation and the ability to manage capital responsibly. We cover benchmarks for what it takes to be successful at each stage of raising capital for your brand. We discuss the best types of businesses to launch, what VCs look for in a crowded space, and the importance of retail margins and unit economics when launching a business.
Timestamps [00:03:58] Networking and pattern recognition in CPG industry vital for success in BD; takes 6 years to know if VC is successful. [00:08:47] Austin is an excellent city for CPG, supportive culture, helpful community, and over a third of portfolio companies are based there. [00:11:11] Portfolio companies doing well; 15x markup, 300%-200% growth, 98% retention rate, 8-9x growth [00:17:24] Investing in pre-revenue businesses requires special conditions such as high retention rate, LTV to CAC ratio, high AOV, and other metrics. [00:23:04] Founders need to manage capital responsibly, focus on break even and not overhire; gaps between funding rounds are getting longer. [00:26:04] Need resources, plan, and know-how to succeed; don't forget freight costs; raise money sooner; treat retailers like laboratories. [00:31:55] Valuations have been compressed, but there are still some companies that can get high valuations if they have strong metrics and a compelling founder. Some companies are being undervalued and some are being overvalued. [00:36:52] Exploring a variety of categories, looking for something special and unique. [00:45:31] Get advice from experts and understand your product's channel and unit economics to find the path of least resistance.
VC Investments are Paying Off: "Within 18 months, one of our portfolio companies just had a 15x markup, another is growing 300-200% every year, and Jolie Skincare is doing unbelievable on a monthly basis." — Ryan Springer 11:11
"If you're under 20% on retention and customers order twice or more in a year, it's going to be tough for us to get interested. You have to be like a couch that's a little outside of where we would normally invest." — Ryan Springer 21:43
"We've seen valuation compression. It's definitely real, but it's not the same. We use projections to see whether or not you have a realistic understanding of how the business works, not what weight to value a company. We don't do trailing twelve months either, necessarily."— Ryan Springer 31:57
Past guests & brands on DTC Pod include Gilt, PopSugar, Glossier, MadeIN, Prose, Bala, P.volve, Ritual, Bite, Oura, Levels, General Mills, Mid Day Squares, Prose, Arrae, Olipop, Ghia, Rosaluna, Form, Uncle Studios & many more. Additional episodes you might like: • #175 Ariel Vaisbort - How OLIPOP Runs Influencer, Community, & Affiliate Growth • #184 Jake Karls, Midday Squares - Turning Your Brand Into The Influencer With Content • #205 Kasey Stewart: Suckerz- - Powering Your Launch With 300 Million Organic Views • #219 JT Barnett: The TikTok Masterclass For Brands • #223 Lauren Kleinman: The PR & Affiliate Marketing Playbook • #243 Kian Golzari - Source & Develop Products Like The World's Best Brands ----- Want the weekly TL;DR of tips delivered to your mailbox? Follow us for content, clips, giveaways, & updates! DTCPod Instagram Ryan Springer - Founding partner of MidnightVP & Founder of High Desert Cactus Vodka | |||
| 29 Jan 2020 | Why Everyday Influencers Are Key To Unlocking Brand Credibility | 00:23:56 | |
In this episode, Jay and Ramon discuss the power of everyday influencers. When most people think of influencers they think of celebrities. Often left out are everyday influencers. They are the hidden gems of Instagram. They live normal lives, which makes them highly relatable, but they have a specific passion that post about, such as baking, fashion, the best restaurants around town – you name it. As a result, they have built an audience that is interested and trusts them when it comes to that specific niche. We’ll discuss how this makes them more credible for sponsorship and why brands should be working with this group. For more on this topic, check out our blog post: https://trend.io/blog/everyday-influencers-explained/ If you’d like to learn more about Trend and our influencer marketing platform for users and brands visit trend.io. You can also follow us for tips on growing your following and running successful campaigns on Instagram, LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter. | |||
| 26 Oct 2023 | #295 - Jeremy Barbara, Sundays - How The Best Brands Scale Profitably Through Influencers | 00:47:05 | |
Episode brought to you by Trend & Finaloop.
Additional episodes you might like: • #175 Ariel Vaisbort - How OLIPOP Runs Influencer, Community, & Affiliate Growth • #184 Jake Karls, Midday Squares - Turning Your Brand Into The Influencer With Content • #205 Kasey Stewart: Suckerz- - Powering Your Launch With 300 Million Organic Views • #219 JT Barnett: The TikTok Masterclass For Brands • #223 Lauren Kleinman: The PR & Affiliate Marketing Playbook • #243 Kian Golzari - Source & Develop Products Like The World's Best Brands ----- Want the weekly TL;DR of tips delivered to your mailbox? Follow us for content, clips, giveaways, & updates! DTCPod Instagram Jeremy Barbara - Head of Influencer Marketing at Sundays | |||
| 29 Apr 2021 | An inside look at how Little and Lively Clothing did $250k sales in 24 hours with no ads (with Jordan West) | 00:29:27 | |
We Speak About:
How one brand supercharges growth with a Facebook GroupJordan West, agency owner of Mindful Marketing and co-owner of Little and Lively clothing, joins the POD to give some insight on the direct-to-consumer business’s growth, marketing strategy, and customer retention. Mindful Marketing is a digital marketing service aimed to help businesses find customers. This company derived out of the strategies that were used to market his own clothing company, Little and Lively. Jordan recognizes that when it comes to brand promotion, product launches are a valuable way to generate business and increase profit. To initiate this marketing strategy, Jordan produces gated and ungated launches to keep customers excited and ready. A beneficial approach was taken by utilizing a VIP Facebook group to centralize customers, which has created a platform for customer feedback and consumer generated content. This entail has led to higher profits. Jordan values the feedback from his consumers, and knows that building a loyal following is a key strategy for building a brand. Sometimes in DTC, let the people do the talkingMindful Marketing stands out as an online service agency that was created to help others grow a business, by using marketing experience from their own clothing company. Jordan takes a unique approach to achieving successful growth by limiting costly advertising and benefiting from consumer generated content. The brand favors a VIP Facebook group, which has given customers a platform to promote and provide feedback on products as well as get premium access to gated product launches and limited offers. Jordan recommends continually developing new products and to establish a goal with your advertising besides driving straight purchases. Stay tuned as Jordan discusses how building a gathered community creates profit and additional techniques to promote products . If you’d like to learn more about Trend and our influencer marketing platform for influencers and brands visit trend.io. You can also follow us for tips on growing your following and running successful campaigns on Instagram and LinkedIn. Mentioned Links: Mindful Marekting’s website: https://mindfulmarketing.co/sales/-launch-checklist Jordan West’s Linkedin: linkedin.com/in/jordan-west-marketer | |||
| 06 Jun 2024 | #326 - Disruptive Sips: Building Iconic Beverage Brands from Scratch with Christopher Hunter | 00:36:52 | |
Christopher Hunter is a seasoned entrepreneur best known for creating Four Loko, a caffeinated alcoholic beverage that caused a stir across college campuses and beyond. Currently, he serves as the CEO of Koia, a leading plant-based protein drink company that has achieved over $100 million in annual retail sales nationwide. In this episode of DTC Pod, we uncover tactics for rapid growth in the CPG space. Christopher highlights the importance of adapting to market shifts and consumer demands, which steered his brand from a costly initial direct-to-consumer model to a more sustainable retail focus, eventually re-introducing multi-packs for platforms like Instacart and launching shelf-stable products on Amazon. With Koia now available in approximately 30,000 retail locations—including a recent nationwide partnership with Starbucks—Christopher reflects on the brand’s product development and scale-up process. Shop Koia on Amazon. Interact with other DTC experts and access our monthly fireside chats with industry leaders on DTC Pod Slack. On this episode of DTC Pod, we cover: Timestamps Show notes powered by Castmagic Past guests & brands on DTC Pod include Gilt, PopSugar, Glossier, MadeIN, Prose, Bala, P.volve, Ritual, Bite, Oura, Levels, General Mills, Mid Day Squares, Prose, Arrae, Olipop, Ghia, Rosaluna, Form, Uncle Studios & many more. Additional episodes you might like: • #175 Ariel Vaisbort - How OLIPOP Runs Influencer, Community, & Affiliate Growth • #184 Jake Karls, Midday Squares - Turning Your Brand Into The Influencer With Content • #205 Kasey Stewart: Suckerz- - Powering Your Launch With 300 Million Organic Views • #219 JT Barnett: The TikTok Masterclass For Brands • #223 Lauren Kleinman: The PR & Affiliate Marketing Playbook • #243 Kian Golzari - Source & Develop Products Like The World's Best Brands ----- Want the weekly TL;DR of tips delivered to your mailbox? Projects the DTC Pod team is working on: Follow us for content, clips, giveaways, & updates! DTCPod Instagram Christopher Hunter - Co-Founder of Phusion Projects and Koia | |||
| 19 Mar 2021 | Lessons learned from scaling a men's skincare brand to a multi-million dollar brand (with Benjamin Smith, Founder and CEO of Disco) | 00:35:11 | |
We Speak About:
Standing out in a crowded, yet growing marketBenjamin Smith, founder & CEO of Disco, joins the POD to talk about changing the standard for men’s skincare and the importance of customer validation. Disco is a science-backed skincare brand with a focus on product development for a growing market of men. Benjamin has always been invested in his own health and wellness, especially skincare. Growing up, a family friend and dermatologist who is now Disco’s medical advisor, taught him how to take care of his skin early on. Having a dermatologist on the Disco teams helps them create clean products with deliberately chosen ingredients. There’s a gold rush to capture the market share of men, and the skincare space is crowded, but Ben views this as validating. Having a unique brand and effective products, allows Disco to reach its target consumers. A founder’s perspective, the importance of listening to customersBen understands from experience the challenges of being a founder. From the launch to the middle of last year, Disco had a low conversion rate and couldn’t figure out how to acquire users properly. Ben even ran out of money a couple of times. Finally, in the summer of last year, Disco found its stride by learning how to speak to customers better. That’s what allowed them to scale so quickly, especially in the last six to seven months. The three actions Ben took for Disco to reach its recent turning point were adding a post-survey into the checkout process, reaching out to customers for feedback, and noticing patterns between the two.
Reaching out to customers, Ben received valuable feedback about the website experience and the product that was similar to post-purchase survey responses. Ben learned Disco needed to acquire customers in a different way. That’s when they really had a product-market fit and started to grow. Stay tuned as Ben discusses how he validated Disco, how to scale an eCommerce brand fast, and how Disco is using content to grow. If you’d like to learn more about Trend and our influencer marketing platform for influencers and brands visit trend.io. You can also follow us for tips on growing your following and running successful campaigns on Instagram and LinkedIn. Mentioned links: Disco’s Tik Tok account: www.tiktok.com/@letsdisco Disco’s Instagram account: www.instagram.com/letsdisco Disco website: www.letsdisco.com | |||
| 10 Nov 2022 | #240 - Sanya Deshpande, Oura Ring: Brand Marketing 101 | 00:45:45 | |
On this episode of DTC Pod, Sanya joins Blaine to talk about what it means to be an effective brand marketer. They discuss frameworks for building ironclad brand, how brand marketing evolves with scale, how to tell an effective brand story, brand purpose, figuring out what you stand for, layering performance on top of brand, building a cohesive funnel, increasing points of connection, content programming & initiatives, partnerships, collabing with Gucci, and much more.
I think it's just really about, what types of, not necessarily needs you're trying to solve, but really what types of communications you're, you're putting out into the world and, and what you hope to gain out of your consumer. whether it's really sort of telling them what you're about at the highest level. I sort of see that as, almost like a bit of a speed date with the consumer. Like here's what I'm about as a brand. Here's what I stand for, here's my purpose. And then really leading them, all the way through, and giving them a reason to buy.
I personally am a huge fan of Patagonia. I think, they've been around for so many years, but every single piece of brand advertising that they do communicates the value of, of why they exist. So I think that, we, we hear, we hear this so much, but attention economy, we're losing people three second attention span. but I think it's more important than ever to remind people why you exist. So even if you are a household name, even if you are a mainstream, I think giving consumers more, points of connection and, deepening their understanding of what you bring to their life on.
You shouldn't be thinking of like, okay, from one campaign, I'm going to go now go to another campaign to do my third or fourth campaign in your, from, from quarter to quarter or for your full year. But it's really sort of thinking like showrunners in terms of like seasons, right. And in what your, the types of stories you're, you're telling your consumers, through, through your campaigns. And I think those messages need not be extremely different.
So really understanding, like who are we solving for, right. Whether it's a meeting with the product marketing team meeting with product supply, chain operations, really understanding sort of what is that experience that we're delivering to our end user? and for me, the challenge has been like, not thinking about it, just in terms of like a purchase journey where it's like, okay, this is awareness, this is consideration, this is conversion, but really breaking those silos, and understanding, okay, from a human experience standpoint, like what do we want people to hear at this point? What do they need to, what's going to offer them reassurance, when they're trying to troubleshoot, with customer service, like what's going to offer them reassurance, when they're coming on, coming onto our website and learning more about our features. OpenStore- Visit https://open.store to get a free, no-obligation offer for your e-commerce business from OpenStore in 24 hours. Have any questions about the show or topics you'd like us to explore further?
Want the weekly TL;DR of tips delivered to your mailbox? Follow us for content, clips, giveaways, & updates! DTCPod Instagram Sanya Deshpande - Brand Marketing Lead at ŌURA | |||