Know Your Audience...
Emerging brands, legacy retailers and everyone in-between can learn a few things from Digital Native Vertical Brands about how to leverage growth marketing to achieve massive and sustainable growth.
DNVB’s exploded on to the eCommerce scene and created huge waves across eCommerce, and changed the retail landscape forever. The main thing to know about DNVB’s is that they operate on a drastically different business model. They work by being extremely lean, flexible and fast-moving, both in their brand and their marketing.
So what can you do to replicate their success for your own business?
Start Simple
Try to get just one thing right. The immediate focus for new DNVB’s is to make whatever they are offering across whatever industry they are in really, really good. To do this they pick just one product that they can craft, re-work and ultimately perfect for their niche.
Eventually, the most successful brands manage to diversify, but only after they have revolutionised their verticle.
Prioritise Experience
To win you’ll have to find an authentic way to connect with your consumers. The best DNVB’s did this by having a solid grasp of their consumers lifestyles, habits and decision-making process, and how they use and are influenced by technology in their daily lives before they launched.
The idea of the brand is shaped entirely by customer information: how they shop, how they get information, how they use technology and their wants and needs. Use this information to create a flawless buying and customer service experience. If you can get this right then you’ll build a base of loyal brand advocates.
CAC is your Hero Metric
Focus on CAC
Earlier I mentioned that DNVB’s work lean and still manage to grow incredibly fast - but how? By getting rid of costly supply chains they free up margin to outspend their competitors to reach the right audiences.
To get this right they focus on hyper-focused digital advertising to laser target their audiences. By becoming extremely efficient in customer acquisition (which is where Growthcurve comes in), you can scale more effectively: faster, cheaper and for longer than ever before.
Be More Human
DNVB’s have mastered the ‘brand as a friend’ type of customer interaction. Through collecting and analysing a large amount of customer data they can see exactly the type of interaction and content their customer wants. Then they use the information to perfect their product and brand.
They also use social media as a gateway for customer interaction and invest heavily in community management. They engage their audiences with highly relevant, internet-cultured content and their channels become places of entertainment that people - customers or not, spend time exploring.
Communities drive loyalty
Building a strong community of enthusiastic and engaged customers is critical to the growth and survival of D2C brands. Having an online space where you can communicate directly with your consumers, and equally they to you is the new way of forging brand loyalty and advocates. In fact, 38% of consumers will buy from one brand vs another simply because it gives them a sense of community. Work on your social media presence, figure out your core values and create engaging content.
DNVB’s are able to be highly relevant, efficient, convenient and personalised - always exceeding their customer’s expectations. For the customers of DNVB’s standardised messages no longer cut the mustard. You have to make sure that your brand communicates with the individual, but is able to do so at scale. Give yourself the best chance of not just surviving, but growing by following a few classic DNVB marketing tactics.
