Successful Marketing Strategies that have helped D2C Business Grow Online

Direct business to customer type of business is getting more popular recently. Brands are now trying new ways to impress customers. D2C is a new business type that lets brands interact with customers directly. It is one of the best options to reach your customers by cutting down the middle man. As this is a different marketing approach, it needs a different approach to get succeeded. If you are not familiar with the D2C business model, this is the best place where you can learn more about it.

What is a D2C business model?

D2C business model is an eCommerce marketing strategy that allows brands or business manufacturers to sell their products direct to customers. It bypasses third-party vendors or resellers while marketing your products. This business model allows business to express their brand voice and controls every aspect of buyers’ journey. Other benefits of D2C business models include

  • More control over brand
  • Better customer insights
  • Freedom to experiment 
  • Reduce advertising cost
  • Expensive overhead

Benefits and Challenges of Marketing in D2C Ecommerce Model

D2C business model requires a lot of effort in creating new marketing strategies that are more efficient and affordable. There are many challenges while trying to manage marketing directly. The main challenge is the difficulty of measuring ROI. You can use few marketing strategies to generate better sales, increase the audience base and receive brand recognition. Ecommerce is growing fast and due to the growth of internet users.

There are new upgrades that need to be made to your marketing strategies to make it successful nowadays. 

Control over the brand-: You will have complete control over your brand while using the D2C business model. It allows you to choose the best ways to reach customers and market your products in the market.

Access to customer data-: When you market your products, you can see complete customer data that can be used in future campaigns. While using a middle man to sell your product, you won’t get that information always. 

Connection with customers-: In the D2C business model, a brand can directly connect with customers throughout their buyer’s journey. Use this connection to make them as your brand advocates to market your product.

Challenges of D2C model

Just like advantages, there are few challenges you might have to face while marketing your products directly to customers like

Trouble keeping up with distribution-: It is not easy to track your supply, without a proper inventory management system or eCommerce presence. It is essential to keep products in stock to manage your product distribution smoothly. If this is not possible, there is a chance of losing a lot of sales. It can impact the brand’s reputation.

Difficulty in building a brand reputation-: It is hard to build a brand reputation initially without a 3rd party distributor. Customers will not easily trust a brand that tries to sell directly. If you sell it through trusted third-party distributors or an eCommerce site, it is easy to improve the sale and build a better brand reputation.

Lots of work-: When you manage a D2C business model, you must have to manage all aspects of marketing and campaigns. It is a lot of work, and the best way to reduce your work is by registering in D2C marketing services. They are experienced people who can help you to market your products to your target customers. It will help you to concentrate more on other areas of your business.

Successful D2C Marketing Strategies:

  1. Establish a better brand voice

The first and foremost step will be to create a better brand voice. The customer might be hearing your brand name for the first time. When you try to sell your brand through a retail store, they may buy the product because they trust the store. But when it comes to the D2C business model, there are no retailers or middlemen to help you to build a brand reputation. Before starting your marketing strategies, spend some time establishing a brand voice. Your brand voice represents your company’s values and attitudes. Brand voice is something that helps the customers to understand more about a brand.  Answer these questions and shape your brand voice that resonates with your target audience. 

  • Who are you?
  • What is the USP of your business?
  • What do your offer to customers?
  • What does your business stand for?
  • How can your brand change customer’s life?
  1. Establish your target audience

It is the send step you might have to do while trying to implement marketing strategies to promote your brands. Define your target audience based on their interest, demographics, age, hobbies, buying habits, socioeconomic status, etc. There is no point in marketing without knowing the target audience. It is a complete waste of time to market your products to a group that does not care what you have to offer. Create a buyer’s persona and build marketing strategies to help you make impressive marketing campaigns to those personas. 

  1. Create a clean website

Without a proper website, it is not easy to manage your D2C business. Everything is online now, and customers always check your website for more information before buying your product. It gives you a better online presence as well as a place where you can share all information about your products. Create a website with a clean and modern design that can help customers easily find all information about your brand. Make the design responsive and easily navigable. Having an advanced and updated website will help you to attract more leads to your business. Thereby improves your browsing experience.

  1. SEO for D2C business

Search engine optimization is one of the most popular digital marketing strategies that help brands to get a better ROI. When you implement SEO, there are few things you might need to know for better results, such as 

  • 53% of internet traffic happens through search
  • 40% of internet revenue depending on the search
  • 1/3rd of marketers agrees that SEO offers better ROI

SEO for D2C is unique for direct-to-consumer marketing. Unless other businesses have to rely on their distribution system for more value. There are no middle man, retailers, or partners to handle the various business task. The brand has to deal with every step of marketing, and having a clear SEO strategy can be more helpful to connect with customers easily. 

Concentrate on ON-page as well as off-page SEO to get a better ranking for your website. Include all best practices of SEO like highest ranking keywords, quality contents, backlinks, metadata optimization, etc to get the result you want. Know the trends and changes happening in search engine algorithm to make suitable changes in your website to bring it to the top position of SERP. 

  1. Social media commerce

Social media is one of the most popular marketing strategies nowadays. The advantages of social media marketing are that it lets you extend the reach of your brand, grow the brand visibility, and more traffic towards your website. Social media strategy is like SEO that allows you to improve the visibility of your brand to a new set of audiences and impress them towards your business. Also, social media promotion will increase the sale through increasing shares and better backlinks. Social media campaigns are getting more popular nowadays because of the increase in the number of social media users. 

Concentrate on all popular social media channels like Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter offers ad networks that use the PPC model. You can customize ads based on the nature of the target audience, their location, demographics, and so on. 70% of customers search for products on social media platforms while trying to buy something. 1 in 4 businesses makes a sale through Facebook. Social media gives new ways to expand the reach of your products without the help of third-party vendors. Social media offers incredible data, KPI tracking, and a way to target an audience while marketing your products. Businesses can set up their campaigns based on the type of social media platform they choose. 

  1. Landing page optimization

Landing page act as the face of your business. A landing page is where you need all information about your business for your customers. You need to optimize a website to get the response you want for your business. Optimizing landing pages are helpful to improve user experience, optimize the speed, content, and CTR. D2C business model mainly focuses on increasing CTR and reducing the bounce rate of your webpage. Find all possible changes to include on your landing page to get a better ROI for your marketing effort. Optimize blogs, images, URLs, and categories to get the visibility you want for your products. As per the latest research, if the page loading speed is between 1 to 3 secs, the bounce rate increases by 32%, whereas it becomes 106% if the page loading speed falls in between 1 to 6 secs. Other than these factors, you need to focus on other Google-emphasized features like mobile-friendliness, navigation, website structure, UI, and performance of your website.

  1. Develop a subscription-based model

To create a successful D2C business model the best way is to set up a subscription-based business model. It will help a business to retain the existing customers and attract new customers at the same time. Dollar shave club and Honest company are two successful examples of D2C business models. A high customer retention rate with recurring revenue can help to grow your business exponentially. 

  1. Use content marketing

Digital contents are helpful to promote a D2C business among the customers. Customers always love to read beneficial information regarding a brand. Brands can create content that can help the audience to solve their problems. Content marketing is the best way to improve the visibility of a business nowadays. You can create various types of content such as blogs, video content, advertisements, and social media posts to promote your brand among the target audience. You can run a blog within your website by including valuable information regarding your brand. Do your research and find out the questions that your audience might have regarding your brand. Try to give the answer to these questions by creating informative content and publish them on your blog. This way, you can build better brand awareness and brand credibility among the audience.

  1. Influencer marketing

Just like any other business model, D2C models can use influencers to promote their brand within the target audience. Some expert people have so many followers on social media platforms. They can create content that can influence the buying decision of the audience. Most brands use celebrities as their influencers. But other than celebrities, many people have the power to influence their followers in each niche. Find out some-one with that quality from your niche and collaborate with them to promote your brand. The best thing about influencer marketing is the ease of use and ROI can get from their investments. 

  1. Viral videos

Video marketing is a valuable tool to spread your word among the target audience. It is known as one of the most popular and effective marketing strategies for all business models. The visual promotion has the power of convincing the audience. It can easily explain any concept simply by entertaining the audience. Create promotional videos regarding your brand and spread them through various video distributing channels. These channels will help to ensure maximum reach of your brand and impress the customers to buy your product. Using social media for your video content promotion can give you the expected result as fast as possible. 

  1. User-generated contents

User-generated contents are valuable to prove the genuinity of a brand. Customers always read reviews and testimonials about a brand before buying a product. Good reviews are always good for the growth of a business. Encourage your customers to post content regarding your brands, such as reviews, feedbacks, demo videos, or pictures featuring your brand. Such contents are useful to post on your website or marketplace to encourage others to buy your products. Ask them to create content directly on social media to get the result you want. A company that creates user-generated content is 50% more likely to make a purchase. Visual contents are more impactful in creating a sale rather than any other form of content.

  1. Sell through any fulfillment

Using fulfillment companies like Amazon can help you to grow your brand to a new area of marketing. These eCommerce sites will let you sell your products for a small commission. You can register to these websites and start to post your products for sale. D2C business model requires logistics, storage space, and fulfillment arrangements. By registering on fulfillment sites, you can save some money from spending on logistics and storage space. They will handle everything for a percentage of the sale or a fixed monthly cost. It will also give better brand visibility and more sales. 

  1. Email marketing

Email marketing is another way to ensure a better brand reach within your target audience. It allows brands to send direct messages to customers regarding any information about a product. You can send personalized content to your customers through email marketing. This customization will help you see an increased sale and customer engagement. Highlight brand offers and discounts in your email to engage customers with your business. Send engaging emails to your prospects by sending relevant deals that are available online, as well as in your physical store. 

Conclusion

Now you know the concept of D2C marketing and various channels to promote your business. It has its advantages and disadvantages. But once you can establish the brand name within your customers, you don’t have to look back. Genuine brand lovers will help you to establish and grow your business through word-of-mouth marketing. You can use them as your brand advocates and offer them rewards for every sale that comes through them.

Start your D2C business model immediately and plan your marketing strategies on your Shopify Store. Strategies may vary based on your business type. You can do A/B testing to find out the best marketing strategy that works for your brand. If you have any concerns or questions regarding D2C marketing, share them with us here.

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