#119 The Least boring Weekly Newsletter

Good morning! 

Here’s hoping your day is as awesome as an avocado toast sandwich with extra Sriracha sauce 🍅🥗

DTC companies are a huge boon to the US economy. They offer customers products and services they want when they want them, and they provide a lot of jobs. However, there's one thing that's holding back these companies: access to financing. We've previously written about the importance of building your brand before you start selling your product. This is still important, but it's also important to remember that many DTC startups will need money to build their companies. With the right financing, DTC companies can grow faster than ever. 

In the past few years, we have seen a lot of DTC businesses closing down. The reason for this is that they lack finance. They cannot secure new loans or investments from banks or investors, making it tough for them to continue operating. There's a lot of talk about the DTC brand shutting down its operation, but here's a real-life example of what happens when a DTC brand lead investor recently declined to move forward with his investment plan. Then Helena Price Hambrecht has to stop their upcoming series. It's not just about customer experience and brand reputation—it's also about finances. In reality, many DTC brands are struggling to stay alive in the US market today.

Even though financing can work for DTC companies in various ways, it's important to know how your business is structured and what kind of financing you need to find the right solution for your needs.

• If you're starting, the most common way to get funding is through a bank loan. This is an easy way to get cash fast if you have collateral, like real estate or equipment. However, if you don't have any assets, or the bank doesn't think your company is worth as much as its assets, this may not be an option for you.

• Another option is angel investing. An angel investor invests their own money into a company they believe has great potential for growth and profitability. Unfortunately, most angels only invest in companies that have already proven themselves through sales and revenue streams (which means they're more likely to be profitable), so this might not be an option if your business isn't quite there yet!

• If neither of those options is available to you due to a lack of assets or lack of profit potential, though, then there's still hope for crowdfunding! Crowdfunding allows companies with no assets or profits yet still great ideas for products or services to access.

Almund’s newsletter will give you all kinds of tips for DTC brands and much more.

Alright, so let’s get right to it!

This newsletter is going to dive into:

🍫Vegan Kitkats Are Launching—But These Treats Will Cost You More

📈Improve Your Store's Conversion Rates During The Busiest Shopping Season - Black Friday 

🎥 Video Bites: All Things DTC!

💡3 Secret Tips To Insanely Boost Sales This Black Friday & Cyber Monday With YouTube!

📕 Top Reads Of The Week

⚙️ Plenty Of Jobs Await You!

So, scroll down to THE VERY END & read up on what’s yet to come your way!

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Vegan Kitkats Are Launching—But These Treats Will Cost You More

Vegan makeup. Vegan cupcakes. And now, vegan Kit Kats. It seems like there is an increasing number of vegan options being introduced to the market, but these new Kit Kats will surely catch your eye. The KitKat V, a plant-based version of one of the most well-known chocolate bars in the world, will go on sale starting this Friday in 15 European nations, according to the Swiss food giant Nestle SA. 

As previously reported by Bloomberg News, the vegan KitKat employs a rice-based mix as a milk alternative, unlike the traditional KitKat. It took two years to produce and is one of the largest launches of a vegan option for a well-known candy company. As Nestle found when their Milkybar, Wowsomes, with 30% less sugar, was taken off the market due to insufficient demand, new product introductions can sometimes fail. However, Nestle has great expectations for KitKat V and is starting with 300 tonnes with more production capacity. Unwelcome news is that KitKat V will probably cost more than the standard version, which is unfortunate given the greatest cost of living crisis in decades. Nestle explained that this is because it costs more to create since the components are more expensive and the production lines require more thorough cleaning.

The fact is that we're seeing more and more plant-based products hitting the mainstream market, but some of these products are plagued with problems—and they may ultimately detract from the overall market if nothing is done. That's not to say there aren't any good ones right now, but before ubiquitous veganism becomes a reality, these companies will have to step up their game and prove that these products can hold their own in an already crowded marketplace. 

Improve Your Store's Conversion Rates During The Busiest Shopping Season - Black Friday 

With Black Friday just around the corner, many retailers are working hard prepping their websites and stores. In 2022, Black Friday falls on the 25th of November. Whether you work in retail or are an eCommerce website owner, Black Friday is a huge event. It's one of the busiest shopping days in the United States. But there are some things you need to do before Black Friday even comes around. What exactly do successful businesses do to get ready for Black Friday? Let's find out with this post.

Here are six things that eCommerce retailers need to do in order to be ready for Black Friday:

• Increase your online presence: Black Friday is the perfect time to reach out to new customers, and the best way to do that is through social media. Create a Facebook event, invite your followers to it, and share updates about what you're offering on Black Friday (and how much money you plan to make). Make sure you have a dedicated Twitter handle so you can direct people there if they have questions or want to make a purchase.

• Prepare your website and checkout process: Your website is one of the most important parts of your business, so you need to make sure it works well and performs well on a big day like Black Friday. You should also make sure that your checkout process is optimized for speed and efficiency because customers will be stressed out if they have trouble making their purchase on Black Friday.

• Make Sure Your Site Is Secure: You don't want people logging into your site if they aren't actually customers! The best way to prevent this is by using HTTPS encryption on all pages in your checkout process (and even beyond). Make sure that your payment gateway supports HTTPS as well so that shoppers' data is encrypted during transmission between their browsers and your servers.

• Revamp the Product Page: While shopping during the Black Friday Sale consumers are in such a hurry that they don’t wait for a few seconds and switch to another website even if they find the product description a tiny miny difficult to understand. So, the retailers have to optimize the product description accurate to the SEO and easy to understand. To make the description easy to understand and more attractive in look, bullets can be used and the description should be so brief in the starting highlighting important features, points or information about the product. 

• Offer exclusive discounts that only last a few hours or days: People love exclusivity—that's why limited-time offers are so effective! By offering special discounts for only a short amount of time, you'll encourage customers to shop quickly so they don't miss out on these amazing deals!

• Know what your competitors are doing: You can't just assume that your competition is sitting around doing nothing while you prepare for Black Friday. You need to know what they're doing, so that you can adjust accordingly and even beat them at their own game!

Don't forget that other holidays are coming up too! Cyber Monday is rapidly approaching after Thanksgiving and Cyber Week begins soon after that

Video Bites: All Things DTC

“The World Is Your Cart”, Instacart has launched a new campaign on the 28th of August, 2022. Instacart has been the leading online shopping app in North America but this new campaign introduced to its users by the company is another creative marketing tactic that attracted the attention of its users and non-users after the advertisement of the campaign. 

Lizzo collaborated with Instacart for the campaign - “The World Is Your Cart”. In the advertisement, one can see Lizzo along with her mother, Sheri and this ad would definitely make the viewers feel like they have jumped into Lizzo’s shopping cart in which there is a vegan cherry ice cream, etc. This spot features ‘The Sign’, a scored version of Lizzo’s latest album, Special. 

Instacart announced that this application will no longer be limited to grocery shopping only. It opens an endless opportunity for its users to look up every day and brings the uncountable potential to our fingertips. People can shop by looking into Lizzo’s grocery list in this app.

What Do We Like About The Ad Here?

• The unexpected collaboration people got to see - Instacart and Lizzo, who is a  Grammy Award-winning singer, rapper and flutist.

• The graphics and SFX were remarkable. One can not take his/her eye off the advertisement.

• The way Instacart introduced new possibilities for shopping, everything available on the app will be delivered to the consumer as fast as one hour to the doorstep.

• This application has everything handpicked from the different best stores. 

3 Secret Tips To Insanely Boost Sales This Black Friday & Cyber Monday With YouTube!

If you own a business, you've probably been part of Black Friday & Cyber Monday madness. Or Are you going to be putting Black Friday and Cyber Monday at the heart of your campaigns? We hope so because if you're not it could cost you a lot of traffic. This can be a time of year when you experience extraordinary sales and profits. Or, it can be a time of year when you lose money at an alarming rate. The outcome is dependent upon how you approach the holidays and how much time you spend planning and executing properly.

YouTube ads are great for Black Friday and Cyber Monday because they allow you to target specific demographics with videos that will resonate with them on an emotional level. Here are 3 ways to use Black Friday & Cyber Monday for massive sales with YouTube advertising.

• Create a video series about Black Friday deals: A video series is one of the most effective ways to leverage YouTube ads for increased engagement, views and conversions. When people watch a series of videos about a certain topic, they feel like they have more information than before about that topic. This is especially true if you have multiple videos discussing different aspects of your product or service.

• Increase reach with remarketing ads: Remarketing ads are one of the best ways to reach your audience on YouTube. They allow you to show ads based on previous browsing behavior, so you know who will be most likely to click through. If someone visits your site but doesn't convert, remarketing will help you get them back when they're ready to buy!

• Promote Your Best Deals: If you're running any special offers or promotions this year, it's important that they're easily accessible on your site and social media accounts. However, there are always going to be people who prefer shopping in person or browsing anonymously online—and those people may be more inclined to shop if they know exactly where they can find what they need at a good price.

Top Reads Of The Week

Best Buy experienced a drop in its sales as consumers pull back on electronics. 

During the Olympics & Paralympics, Fanatics will operate retail stores. 

Amazon gives an edge to Rivian Automotive, an electric van-making company. 

Ulta eCommerce sales accounted for a quarter of BOPIS

Digital commerce sales growth slowing down in 2022. 

IN NEED OF A JOB?  WE'VE GOT PLENTY AWAITING YOU!

Assistant Store Manager - Starbucks

Analytics & Optimization Manager - DisneyTECH

Retail Sales Supervisor - Nestle

Gucci Team Coordinator - Gucci

Retail Sales Specialist - Spectrum

CHOOSE SUCCESS below and have a great weekend! Get that DTC business runnin’.