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Insanely Simple Ways To Stop Direct-To-Consumer From Eating Your Brand
Since 2015, the string of veteran retailers like Diesel, Gymboree, Rockport, Brookstone, Payless and others that have filed for bankruptcy, or folded into the sunset, has become a grim infographic.
Sprung from pioneers like eBay, Amazon, and Alibaba, the new direct-to-consumer (DTC) model that feeds enterprises like Warby Parker, Casper mattress, Taylor Stitch, Freshly, Porter Road and others to come, meets consumers face to face on their smartphones and laptops.
The most adept DTC marketers watch their screens in real time, doing A/B tests on the run — the striped shirt versus solid colors, lipstick versus brushes, naked pink versus YInMn blue. They are running BOGOs versus discount codes, pushing for signups and spreading their learning across a spectrum of real time hooks.
Instead of thinking from quarter to quarter or week to week, DTC marketers think moment to moment. Because consumers are shopping moment to moment.
Time has collapsed and a single hesitation can be fatal.
Because of lower marketing costs for newbies entering established markets thanks to a “free” Internet, new DTC contenders have risen in consumer packaged goods, fashion, beauty, home furnishings and virtually every category. Even sleepy categories…
