#89 The Least Boring Weekly Newsletter

May 18, 2022 • Estimated Reading Time: 11 minutes

Good morning readers! 🌄

Here’s to hoping for a successful day ahead.

✨  We’ve got some great news! ✨ 

📢 On popular demand, we’re continuing our BETA Program for another week📢

Test out our automation tool for enhanced data acquisition, faster processing, and efficient synthesis—give your DTC brand THE edge it needs. 

Madison Reed proved that women will only buy hair color online, but over the years, the company, founded by Amy Errett, managed to open up more than 60 new hair color bars across the country. They also established a wholesale presence with Ulta and then got in on Ulta’s deal with Target while also operating the website and Amazon sales.

We last checked in on Errett two years ago, when she discussed Madison Reed’s hair color bars, how the pandemic affected the business and the possibility of creating a men’s color category.

Now with both the DTC and retail front of the business doing well, the eight-year-old company wants to establish even more of a local relationship with customers by expanding the number of color bars it operates across the country. At the color bars, the hair color is applied by a licensed professional more quickly and cost-effectively than in traditional salons, the company said.

Almond’s newsletter will let you in all kinds of tips for D2C brands and much much more.

Alright, so let’s get right to it!

This newsletter is going to dive into:

💲4 ways in which entrepreneurs can effectively scale their business.

💬Centralized or Decentralized Marketing- That is the question.

🤝Why so many CEOs are Engineers?

📕Top reads of the week.

🧾Plenty of jobs awaiting you!

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WHAT’S COOKING, HUH?

Scaling any business is tricky but definitely plausible. With the right strategy and skillset, it is possible. So, let’s talk about the four ways effective entrepreneurs can scale their business:

➡️ Think Long-Term

If you don’t know what’s your end goal, you won’t have a clear path to scale your business. Your team, especially the front-line employees, must be aligned with your ultimate vision. After all, companies with clear objectives are more likely to experience successful transformations. 

Consider asking yourself difficult, sharp questions to unlock new ideas you hadn’t thought of before. Not only will they help you have a clear outcome in mind but will also set you up for success from the start.

➡️ Consider Investments From The Get-Go

Venture capital-backed companies receive over 50% of investment in the U.S. If you can get a VC firm to support you, it can benefit you greatly. 

Simply put, VC firms provide you with a lot of up-front cash to invest in better systems for faster processes. With their years of experience in investing, they can perhaps help you scale faster. Another great way to source capital is crowdfunding. 

➡️ Learn To Bootstrap

If you are considering building a business using funds, a backup strategy to work without them is a necessity too.

Some investors are open to investing large sums of money only to expect big returns quickly. And more than often, it isn’t possible. Hence, considering some alternatives which allow you to retain complete ownership of your equity but without any startup capital is just as important.

➡️ Upgrade Your Tech

Scaling up doesn’t just mean expanding your business to reach more audience; it means being quicker about everything you do—from strategy and trends to introducing new products to the market. When you embrace new technologies, it enhances your business’ functioning drastically. In a recent McKinsey study, 68% of companies said that technological transformations impacted their revenue growth.

From employee communication tools to automated data analysis software, consider upgrading it all with efficient, user-friendly, and cost-effective systems to scale better. 

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Centralized or Decentralized Marketing- That is the question

Marketing is all about communication—the way you advertise your business is the kind of message you put across. With a simple shift in focus or approach to communication, the type of audience your business will attract changes drastically. 

But that doesn’t mean a kind of marketing strategy is less effective than the other—each has its own sets of pros and cons. The kind of marketing strategy you opt for heavily depends on your company’s structure and operations. 

Kinds Of DTC Marketing Plans

Marketing strategies come by default as you set up your company, often based on your products/services, organization size, and structure. While neither is harmful to a company, one kind can suit your business more than the other. And that’s why it’s always better to understand what would help your business more—centralized, decentralized, or distributed marketing?

Let us take a closer look.

👤 Centralized Marketing

When organizations produce a single product or service, or products/services that are all closely related to each other in terms of their functionality, then a singular marketing department controls all the marketing activities for the business. This may include handling all initiatives, creating and managing campaigns, and producing future strategies. 

Since this kind of marketing is spearheaded by only one team, it produces a unified brand image across all platforms. 

Pros

✅ Economically Efficient

Since all data, resources, skills, and systems are clubbed together into one department, it’s easier on your company’s budget and helps you cut down on costs. 

✅ Complete Control

With a single team handling all your marketing operations, you can have complete control over every marketing venture. With complete ownership of every initiative, the team can be hands-on for every project they deploy and overlook. 

Cons

❌ Lack Of Personalization

Since all your marketing operations are centralized, it limits your business’ ability to provide hyper-personalized experiences for your customers.

❌ Chances Of Poor Services

Your products and services might bear the brunt of a poorly managed centralized marketing team. It can lead to poor local management of products, leading to a loss in revenue. 

👥 Decentralized Marketing

When a business offers a collection of services or products, all completely contrasting or unrelated, they usually opt for a decentralized marketing approach. With no similarity in the products/services, their marketing, approach to advertising, pricing, and strategies are also completely different. This is more common in large corporations or businesses. 

Pros

✅ Product/Service-Specific Marketing

Product-specific marketing can bring your business better results. That’s why decentralized marketing can help your brand perform better on every product/service you offer.

✅ Customer-Centric Experiences

Since your marketing structure isn’t centralized, you can focus on developing a customer-first experience that caters to the audience locally. This can help them go through a better, enhanced, and more persuasive customer journey, increasing the chances of your business gaining a loyal customer. 

Cons

❌ Increased Costs

With multiple teams handling marketing for different products/services, your finances can take a hit.

❌ Chances Of Miscommunication

With multiple teams strategizing for, deploying, and tracking campaigns, there are higher chances of miscommunication. This poses a threat to brand integrity and focus. 

 Distributed Marketing

Distributed marketing helps you enjoy the best of both worlds. With a centralized approach, your team can develop strategies for marketing campaigns and through a decentralized approach, you can localize your campaigns for better results and customer satisfaction.

The marketing approach is like a wand—it chooses you. No, we’re not entirely kidding.

Depending on the kind of business you’re running, you’re bound to lean towards a kind of marketing strategy. However, with a few tweaks to your business processes and operations, you can create a marketing team structure that best suits your DTC business and customers’ needs the best. 

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Video Bites: All Things DTC!

Watch the complete video here: Why Are So Many CEOs Engineers?

To all those who hope to be CEOs of major tech companies across the globe without falling into thousands of dollars of student debt trying to get an MBA, this video is the beacon of hope. 

This video by News think sheds light on how the most successful CEOs in the world at the moment have one thing in common: they’re all engineers. The video walks you through each notable CEO, their background, and how they rose to be a CEO from a dedicated engineer. 

➡️ Elon Musk, a self-taught rocket science engineer, has a degree in physics and economics. His collective knowledge about the industry and his products is what blew the mind of an engineering consultant, Sandy Munro. 

➡️ Satya Nadella, an engineer at Microsoft who rose to the position of CEO, announced his affinity for innovation and its need in the company for Microsoft to be in power again. And he did just that for Microsoft to go from Apple’s competitor to a large stakeholder in the tech industry. 

➡️ James Dyson, a British engineer, took the old-school road when developing a better vacuum cleaner which later became a notable brand. After feeling frustrated with his vacuum cleaner losing suction, he spent 15 years working on 5000+ prototypes which to develop the best vacuum cleaner he’d ever used. 

So, what makes engineers SO good for businesses? They aren’t afraid to be completely involved in the business from day 1. From hiring processes to fine-tuning the product to being involved in the testing and developing stages of the business—they seem to be everywhere all at once. And that’s what makes for a great CEO. 

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Top Reads Of The Week

Instagram tests a new tab format 'following' with users in India.

YouTube receives MRC brands safety accreditation for the second year running.

Carhartt hires new SVP for DTC

$3B In Bitcoin Sold To Save UST StableCoin From Collapsing.

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

Copywriter - PharmiWeb.jobs

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CHOOSE SUCCESS below and have a great week! ‘Get that D2C business runnin’.