When I first heard that I had to write about D2C marketing, I did what many professionals do when presented with something they know nothing about – I quietly panicked and then asked ChatGPT.
However, to my surprise, I discovered that D2C marketing isn’t as foreign to me as I thought. And it probably isn’t for you either.
Dollar Shave Club, Blue Apron, and Glossier are all well-known brands built on the business model and considered master classes in marketing—not to mention D2C marketing.
With D2C business sales is expected to reach nearly $230 billion By 2025, here’s what you need to know about the model and the marketing within it.
Table of contents
What is D2C marketing?
In D2C or direct-to-consumer marketing, companies promote and sell their products or services directly to consumers rather than through intermediaries such as wholesalers or retailers. This is typically done online through a brand’s website or social media, but some also have small retail spaces or pop-ups.
B2C vs. D2C marketing
If you’re like me, D2C marketing probably sounds a lot like business-to-consumer (B2C) marketing. I mean, they both target private customers, right?
While that’s true, D2C is still unique. ChatGPT explained it well using the metaphor of a lemonade stand.
Lemonade stands as we know them – people who make lemonade and sell it at stands outside of events or at home – are inherently D2C. You make the soda (as a manufacturer), put up a sign (as a marketer), and give it directly to the people who buy it (the consumer).
However, if you decided to go B2C with your lemonade business, you wouldn’t be selling directly to people on the street, let alone having a stand. Instead, you would give it to a third party or other retailer to sell it to others for you.
You see, B2C works with third parties or “middlemen” such as wholesalers, retailers or distributors to get your product into the hands of consumers. Retailers often even do some of the marketing to boost sales.
D2C has none of this help. Your product goes directly from the manufacturer to the consumer who purchased it through the brand’s website, store or pop-up. Overall, it is a more direct line to the buyer than in the B2C sector.
But why has this model become so popular in recent years?
Advantages and benefits of D2C marketing
Honestly, a lot of D2C’s rise was out of necessity.
During the COVID-19 lockdown, people were unable to leave their homes. They were forced to shop online and, given the difficult economic environment, many chose to buy in small quantities. Many D2C brands are digital or E-commerce-focused, so they thrived in that climate. (Take Pelotonon the one hand.)
But more established, traditional brands also like it L’Oréal started investing in D2C stores for several reasons.
Low barriers to entry
Thanks to services like Shopify, squareand on-demand manufacturing, it’s pretty easy to start a D2C business. All you need is an idea and the internet.
In fact, as I delved deeper into this topic, I realized that I had even looked into D2C On-demand clothing brand.
I built it entirely with free tools and every sale offsets the cost of making it.
Speaking of…
Lower costs
By eliminating the “middleman,” D2C brands save money.
They don’t have to pay their partners, so they have lower costs and a higher profit margin. In return, they can pass these savings on to buyers in the form of a lower price, and lower prices can lead to more sales. It’s a beautiful cycle.
More control
D2C brands care about every stage of the buyer journey, meaning they have complete control over the approach and customer experience. This of course means more responsibility, but also leaves less room for inconsistencies.
Better data
By controlling the entire product cycle and buyer journey, D2C brands can access more and typically better data.
This gives them a more comprehensive picture of their company and allows them to see where things are going well and where improvements are needed. It also allows them to provide a better customer experience through personalization.
Better customer experience and relationships
In a crowded market 86% of consumers say they will pay more for a superior customer experience. Actually, 70% of customers Expect everyone he interacts with in a company to know the full context of his past involvement and actions.
With their streamlined processes, controls and data, D2C brands are better equipped to deliver the personalized experience and attention to detail that modern shoppers seek.
Improved brand loyalty
A great customer experience and affordable pricing drive brand loyalty and improve customer lifetime value (LTV). For brands, this means longer-term repeat business and even referrals to new customers.
Disadvantages of D2C marketing
Now we can’t talk about the good things about D2C marketing and not address the bad.
With complete control comes full responsibility for any problems that arise.
For example, a D2C company often experiences delivery and fulfillment issues.
For example, if the type of shirt I selected for certain designs on my website is no longer manufactured or out of stock, production and shipping will stop until I make adjustments.
This can be particularly difficult to manage if your team is small (or, like me, a one-man team). You can only work on so many things, so it’s easy to feel overwhelmed.
The D2C business also requires you to be a “jack of all trades”.
You will need knowledge in product development, supply chain management, marketing, sales and more. Add in the highly personalized customer service that people expect from D2C companies, and you’ll find that scaling your business is a challenge.
It can be a lot of pressure, but also extremely fulfilling. If you run or are thinking about running a D2C business, familiarize yourself with D2C marketing strategy.
D2C marketing strategy
For much of their online presence, D2C marketing is largely based on a digital strategy. These include, among others:
- Content marketing & Search engine optimization (SEO): These two strategies work together to provide value to your customers and be found in their search for answers.
- Website strategy & Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO): These are tactics that focus on making your website as intuitive and helpful as possible so that visitors are more likely to convert to a form or purchase.
- Email marketing: Once you have someone’s contact information, you can send more targeted, personalized content directly to their email inboxes. This typically involves sharing sales or discount information or providing other content related to our previous work with you.
- Social media marketing: Social media is another place where D2C brands are found and increase brand awareness through engaging content.
- Pay per click (PPC): Whether on social media, search engines, or elsewhere, PPC ads help brands beat algorithms and reach their target audiences. This type of exposure is critical for D2C brands without a physical storefront or additional partners.
- Influencer marketing: Without a retail or wholesale partner, promoting your product through relevant influencers and creatives can have a significant impact on how people perceive your brand.
With these areas in mind, let’s dive into some specific D2C marketing tips and D2C E-commerce Best practices.
D2C marketing tips
1. Create a sense of community.
Build a community is a powerful strategy for brands in general, let alone D2C.
It brings like-minded people together, not just because they like your product or service for practical reasons, but because they like what your brand stands for.
They share your values and mission, and your community gives them a sense of belonging.
The community gives consumers something bigger and deeper to promote and talk about. And all of this contributes to your brand awareness.
Beauty brand LiveTinted has done a great job of fostering community through social media.
Brand founder Deepica Mutyala has always loved makeup, but has never seen the faces of people like her in the industry, let alone shades or solutions for her skin tone.
She founded LiveTinted to change that and create a community where everyone can feel included and seen.
LiveTinted started as a pure D2C brand, but is now also available in ULTA stores.
The resulting community is probably one of the main reasons why the company was able to expand to such a large extent.
How do you create a sense of community around your brand?
- Interact with your audience: Respond to comments, ask questions, and encourage conversations.
- Creating shared experiences: Offer exclusive content and host live events where people can connect in person or streaming events where people can participate online in real time.
- Set up a private room: Think about a newsletter, a Facebook or LinkedIn group, or even a members-only online forum.
- Promote user-generated content (UGC): More on this shortly.
Learn more about communities in marketing The Ultimate Guide to Community Management (According to the Experts Who Do It Every Day).
2. Trust your mission.
What matters to your brand? Does it have a unique mission? Does every purchase support a charitable cause?
Highlighting these things in your marketing will make purchasing from you that much more meaningful. Every sale is no longer just a transaction for a consumer, but a small good deed.
The shoe brand Allbirds, for example, has its roots in sustainability.
Not only are the shoes made from natural resources, the packaging is also made from 90% recycled materials. The company also partners with the non-profit organization SOLES4SOULS® to donate gently used products to charity.
These practices are discussed in detail on the Allbirds website.
The brand even releases one annual sustainability report to hold themselves accountable for these claims.
But remember, don’t just join a cause or mission just because you think it will help you sell more. People can sense performative activism from a mile away.
If you have something that really fits your product or even inspired your founding, like Allbirds, leveraging your platform and resources gives your audience something they want to support even more.
3. Show your sense of humor and personality.
The most well-known D2C brand is Dollar Shave Club (DSC).
Since its launch in 2012, the brand has become a case study in marketing, largely due to the distinctive personality and humor it exudes in everything it does.
From its iconic introductory video (above) and social media content (below) to its website copy and actual subscription boxes, Dollar Shave Club makes a boring industry fun to talk about.
People can buy razors at virtually any store, but they order from DSC because of the fun and personable lifestyle they represent and the memorable personality that comes with it.
4. Share educational content to build trust.
An experiment by Conductor found that consumers who read early-stage educational content are 131% more likely to purchase from a brand immediately afterward than those who don’t. Use this to your advantage.
Think about your industry or product and what your target audience wants and needs to know about it. What do you need to know before purchasing?
How do they choose the option that’s right for them? Or what do you know that can improve your daily life?
By sharing honest, valuable information like this through blog articles or social media, people learn what you offer and begin to see you as a trusted expert in your field want to buy.
Fitness brand Peloton, for example, regularly shares health tips and advice on its social media:
Electric toothbrush company Quip takes a similar approach and provides advice on oral health on his blog.
5. Promote and highlight user-generated content (UGC).
Encourage your customers to create and publish content about your brands on social media.
This content not only shows appreciation to your customers but is also social proof of your claims. It shows potential new customers that you don’t just talk the talk; They actually deliver the results and experiences you promise.
Take this example from Daily Harvest.
Not only can followers see what their product actually looks like and how others enjoy it, but the brand also receives content for their social media.
The easiest way to source UGC is to create a branded hashtag like Coke’s #shareacoke or Nike’s #justdoit. However, you can also create an ambassador or loyalty program.
This can also help create a sense of community, which is a nice bonus.
Checkout How to use user-generated content in your marketing strategy to learn more about UGC.
6. Collaborate with relevant YouTubers and influencers.
69% of consumers trust information from influencers and their family and friends more than brands. This means that collaborating with trusted influencers or creatives in your field can arguably do more for your D2C brand than other types of marketing.
Collaborating with influencers can help you reach new audiences, increase brand awareness, and generate social proof.
Influencer collaborations are an integral part of Happy Socks’ strategy:
Find out more about your options Influencer marketing.
7. Invest in paid ads.
With so much competition, it’s becoming increasingly difficult to gain organic traction on social media and search engines.
Paid advertising offerings like Google Ads and Facebook Ads can help you beat algorithms and reach your target audience.
Glossier, for example, is no stranger to using ads on TikTok.
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Beauty brand D2C uses sponsored creator content to highlight its products and includes a call to purchase featured products on its website.
But make no mistake: you shouldn’t start running ads lightly. Isabelle LamCo-founder and chief operating officer of Canada-based snack brand Remix Snacks, urges D2C marketers to consider their costs and margins before investing in ads.
She shared in the interview: “When we started building out our D2C platform, we invested a lot of money in hiring an advertising agency and increasing our advertising budget to increase traffic and sales on our website. However, we began to realize that our gross margins made it very difficult to turn a profit no matter how many sales we made.”
“This was likely due to high shipping costs and we ultimately had to start over and rethink our pricing strategy to ensure we had healthy margins.”
8. Personalize your customer experience.
One of the biggest differentiators for D2C brands is the personalized experiences they can offer their consumers. In fact, people buy from D2C brands expecting this.
Luckily, with fewer middlemen, you likely have access to the data you need to shape these experiences in your marketing.
How can you personalize your marketing?
- Address your buyer by name in emails or even on your website.
- Make product recommendations based on previous purchases
- Send emails with content suggestions based on purchases or past behavior (e.g. pages visited or offers downloaded).
- Have team members respond to all social media interactions. Don’t automate.
Function of Beauty’s entire business is focused on personalization.
It sells hair care products tailored to your specific concerns and lifestyle, and sets the stage for a personalized experience by, most importantly, asking you for your name.
Pro tip: HubSpot users can Use personalization tokens to personalize their emails and even website text. You can also use smart lists and email automation to segment users and better deliver timely content.
Best practices for D2C eCommerce
For more eCommerce sales and marketing tools, check out our free Ecommerce planning kit.
9. Enable social shopping.
Research from HubSpot shows that social media is the preferred product discovery channel for Generation Z, Millennials and Generation X every fourth consumer have already purchased products directly on social media apps.
That’s a big part of the consumer market. With this in mind, in addition to marketing your product on social media, you should also think about setting up social shopping.
Instagram, TikTok (see below), and Facebook all have native features that allow audiences to shop without ever leaving their platforms.
When someone sees your product on social media, such as through an ad, a piece of your content, or even an influencer post, they can take immediate action.
Businesses can close more deals and shoppers have an easier shopping experience.
10. Reduce friction in your shopping experience.
Speaking of friction, work to reduce friction in all of your shopping experiences, including your website.
What does that look like?
- Minimizing the number of clicks required to complete a purchase
- Submit relevant additional suggestions
- After I abandoned cart emails and set up retargeting
- Enabling digital payments (e.g. Apple Pay or Google Pay)
Research from Cornell University found This “one-click” checkout leads to more website visits, shoppers to purchase a broader selection of goods, and an average of 28.5% higher spending. And it makes sense.
The easier you make it for people to take action, the more likely they are to do it.
Men’s clothing brand Bonobos does a great job of optimizing your shopping experience with the “Quick Buy” option on their website.
Pro tip: Thoroughly test every change you make to your website.
Isabelle Lam emphasized quality checking after UX updates, saying, “It’s easy to miss things like features or pages that aren’t working properly. So let multiple people go through your website as if they were visitors.”
“These little mistakes seem like nothing, but they can make a huge difference to your customers’ experience, especially when they’re on your website for the first time.”
In addition to quality, also test performance. Did things get better or worse after these changes? Monitor your website metrics and see what’s working.
11. Run sales, discounts and offers.
According to Capital One, 89% of Americans say price plays a bigger role in their purchasing decisions than any other factor. In fact, the company found that discounts are an important factor for 74% of online shoppers in the US.
While you certainly don’t want to bankrupt yourself with discounts, you shouldn’t underestimate the power of sales or bonuses. Away Suitcases uses UGC and influencers to raise awareness of its sales:
Closer to the consumer
Ultimately, D2C marketing is a unique endeavor. Whether direct-to-consumer sales is your only sales channel as a business or one of many, test these tips and best practices to see what your audience responds to.
When done right, they can only bring you closer to your customers and closer to even the most ambitious profit and growth goals.