#97 The Least boring Weekly Newsletter

June 15, 2022 • Estimated Reading Time: 10 minutes

Good Morning Readers!

Here’s to wishing for a successful day ahead!

Adding another company to the retail distribution lineup, the athleisure hair care brand Sunday II Sunday will now sell on the online store, SoulCycles and its seasonal outdoor Bridgehampton Studio. 

SoulCycle will be selling Sunday II Sunday essentials like oils and its signature collection,  which comprises Root Refresh Micellar Rinse, Restore My Daily Moisturizing Spray, Soothe Me Daily Scalp Serum, and Edge Flourish Daily Nourishing Serum, according to the announcement. The collaboration with SoulCycle is their first partnership with a fitness studio!

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:

💳 Credit Card Debt Reached A New Peak; How Is It Affecting The DTC Industry?

🎥 Video Bites: All Things DTC!

📊 What’s Your Type As A DTC Business?

📕 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!

WHAT’S COOKING, HUH?

The Federal Reserve’s monthly credit report showed that revolving credit, which includes credit card balances, spiked up to 20% in April to a whopping $1.103 trillion, far surpassing the pre-pandemic record. Moreover, the credit card balance has been stacking up; just 3 months into 2022, credit card balances reached up to $841B, a report from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York stated—that’s alarming.

What’s causing the extreme increase in credit card borrowing? Let’s take a deeper dive. 

The pandemic caused a global slowdown in the occasions for expenditure; with fewer chances of being able to spend money on events, food, and travel, people paid off over $83B of their credit card debt, setting a new record. However, after two years since the first outbreak, things are changing. 

Inflation is making things difficult for the average millennial. There has been a recent spike in prices for gas, housing, groceries, and other necessities that is causing working professionals to go back to sustaining themselves on high balances on their credit cards. 

Additionally, auto and student loan debt, along with mortgages, has increased drastically, causing people to now rely on their credit cards to make ends meet. But all this isn’t slowing down the consumers at all!

After the initial shock of the pandemic wore off and brands opened businesses again, we saw an increase in ‘revenge spending.’ Moreover, the FOMO (fear of missing out) effect has struck consumers’ minds enough for them to start traveling internationally, regardless of them having to rely on their credit cards. 

While this may be the case for a select section of the audience, many consumers are still extremely mindful of their activities online, especially when it comes to making purchases online. And this constantly see-sawing behavior of the consumer base is what DTC brands must align their focus to. 

With such a significant shift in the economy, which is sure to catch everyone’s attention, DTC businesses worldwide need to understand the needs of customers and give them personalized services. 

What’s Your Type As A DTC Business?

If you’re running a direct-to-consumer business, it’s your consumer data that can help you get any form of success—financial, social, or operational. Data has every business in a chokehold so tight that it is impossible to design and put together any kind of business operation without taking into account the data collected. After all, the business is designed by the consumers, for the consumers.

The collected data helps you shape:

➡️ Marketing strategies for the brand

➡️ Changes in the existing product and service 

➡️ New product and service launches

➡️ Improved customer journeys

➡️ Efficient access to digital touchpoints

➡️ Personalized marketing 

And more.

But how you obtain data is becoming just as important as the data itself. There is a constant shift in the importance of zero-party, first-party, second-party, and third-party data, and brands must know the difference if they want to keep the customers to keep coming back for more.

What’s Zero-Party Data?

Zero-party data, also known as “explicit data,” refers to data that a customer is willingly sharing with your brand as they interact with your eCommerce store or any other digital channels. 

The best way to ensure your customers wouldn't hesitate in providing their data online is by creating a highly engaging and interactive experience. You must also make it clear to them how and where you’d be collecting their data to avoid any misunderstandings.

Some ways to collect zero-party data are:

On-site polls, quizzes, & surveys;

Social media channels;

Digital Contests, and;

Registration or sign-up forms

What’s First-Party Data?

First-party data is consumer information that you collect and own. With an increasing degree of restrictions on the collection of third-party data, first-party information is now highly valuable to marketers. 

Since it’s native to your business, it is more reliable and personalized. It’s data directly from your consumers, so you can play around with how you wish to make use of these insights that are directed straight at your products, services, and customer experience. 

As it’s implied that the data you’ve collected from your consumers will be used to redesign your customer experience to cater to their needs directly, you can be shameless about using it for email marketing, personalized messages, tailored promotions, and on-site product recommendations.

Some examples of first-party data are:

CRM data

Purchase history

Behavioral data via your website

Consumer feedback

Social media engagement

What’s Second Party Data?

Second-party data is exactly first-party data, except that you aren’t the one doing the sourcing. Consecutively, you don’t own it too.  It is collected by another company and sold to interested or relevant businesses in the form of a paid partnership. 

The ultimate downside: this data isn’t for YOU. The business sourcing the data may or may not be relevant to you and your business. Hence, designing your operations and strategies based on data that isn’t catering to your audience may do more harm than good.

What’s Third-Party Data?

This is the most talked-about kind of data; it’s the kind of guest that people start speaking about even before they enter the party. 

Third-party data is bought from sources that are not the original owners of the information as well. Large data aggregators source this data from other sources such as large corporations, government entities, researchers, and corporate conglomerates that have never-ending access to consumers. After the acquisition of the data, aggregators analyze and sort through the data to categorize it into industry-type, audience behavior, demographic, and other such characteristics for rapid distribution. 

Data is paramount when it comes to running a DTC business. If you wish to build a successful business, begin by understanding the kind of data you’d benefit from the most and start collecting it effectively. 

Video Bites: All Things DTC!

This week, we chose to break down this fantastic video from Glossier!

Glossier made us all feel fuzzy and warm with this campaign video! Why does this video work?

It’s simple.

It speaks about Glossier less, and about the people more.

It talks about just how good the products ‘feel on you’, as opposed to ‘how good they are.’

The video shows beautiful instances of people enjoying time with their families and kids, feeling content in their own company, with beautiful stills of the cityscape interrupting the video every now and then. The direction makes sure to never take away any attention from the people in the video, even if they’re not on the screen.

The message is clear and empathetic in this video. It talks about feeling good in one’s own skin, sharing beauty ‘secrets’ that people discover for themselves, taking time to feel beautiful, and enjoying life. And isn’t that what we all want?

Glossier took a step away from the usual tone that most beauty and skincare companies take to keep its users in the limelight with this campaign and we appreciate it. 

Top Reads Of The Week

The drop in Shopify stocks brings new problems faced by the DTC industry in 2022 to the surface.

TikTok released two new features that are designed to prioritize users’ wellbeing.

CPG giant Edgewell launched a new start-up called Fieldtrip that specializes in skincare targetted at GenZ.

Recover, a recycled cotton company raised $100M with Goldman Sach’s aid.

In Need Of A Job? We’ve Got Plenty Awaiting You!

General Manager - Buffalo Wild Wings

Head Of Growth Marketing - Domino Data Lab

CHOOSE SUCCESS, and have a great day ahead! Get that DTC business runnin’.