The current shopping landscape remains uncertain. Despite this, people will continue to shop. People will continue to buy. And, brands will continue to have significant opportunities to engage with shoppers across the journey. Successful DTC brands will adapt to a constantly changing reality to drive transformative growth.
While DTC brands were well positioned to capture the increase in online shopping over the past few years, in large part due to technology and automation to drive business outcomes, other retailers and brands have caught up in digital maturity and sophistication. The playing field has been leveled, necessitating DTC brands to refocus on the next stage of digital maturity and innovation. The differentiators that paved the way for initial growth of the disruptive DTCs will not be the same drivers to position for success in the next phase. Shopper expectations will only continue to increase. Now is the time to rise to the shopper challenge and prepare for the next chapter in retail.
The question as a DTC brand is simple: Will you be a transactional brand focused on short-term goals or a transformative brand building for the long haul?
Below are my three imperatives for the choice you’ll hopefully make, becoming a transformational DTC brand:
Grow share responsibly
Growing your share responsibly means understanding your business goals, value drivers and investing effectively to reach the shoppers most likely to deliver on those goals. By combining powerful reach tools like Broad Match and automation strategies like Performance Max, you’re able to cast a wide coverage net across high-value queries and let automation do the heavy lifting of finding the right shoppers to achieve your business objectives.
Drive profitability
With share steadily growing, it’s time to place a lens on finding the most profitable transactions by zeroing in on the profitability levers and targets for your business and feeding that data into the automated solutions that will power maximum performance within your defined targets. To be clear, this upfront understanding of your business is crucial - the better the inputs for your automation strategy, the better the output and impact. These automated solutions, powered by machine learning, will find you the customers - at scale - to best deliver against your profitability targets more efficiently and effectively than possible with the most advanced manual bidding strategies.
Invest in your brand
Your brand is your greatest differentiator - it is essential to invest accordingly. It is the face of your company and the driver of connection and relevance with shoppers. A full-funnel strategy introducing your brand to shoppers, cementing your brand consideration set and ensuring your brand is top-of-mind at point of purchase is key in both first-time and repeat purchases. With seventy-five percent of people surveyed saying advertising in YouTube videos makes them more aware of new brands or products1 and 70% of them saying they bought a brand as a result of seeing it on YouTube2, YouTube is a key platform in driving effective engagement across the funnel towards meaningful brand results. Beyond the ability to build your brand and drive influence with shoppers, YouTube helps close the sale by combining reach campaigns with Video Action Campaigns that seamlessly help move shoppers through the funnel from awareness to purchase.
Being a transformational brand doesn’t mean doing everything, rather, doing crucial things very well. With a focus on growing your share, doing so profitably, and driving ongoing brand demand you’ll be in a position to deliver on the opportunities of today, while defining the relationships of tomorrow.
1 Google/Talk Shoppe, U.S., Why Video study, n=2,000 A18-64 gen. pop video users, Feb. 2020.
2 Google/Talk Shoppe, U.S., Why Video study, n=2,000 A18-64 gen. pop video users, Feb. 2020.
