The Only Thing That'll Save You In A Recession

What's one thing that direct response marketers hate more than a banned ad account?

The one thing that can get them to vomit at any point in time?

… and also - the one thing that makes sure they have food on the table today AND in 6 months?

Can you guess it?

Probably not…

We're talking about branding (Woop Woop)

Why are we talking about this topic in particular?

Well - simply because the entire DTC industry is filled up with direct response marketers who just intentionally forget that there's a thing called branding (and that it's actually quite important)

So, because nobody else wants to talk about it - we're going to do it (You're welcome 😊)

… but wait - what do we even know about branding?

The honest answer is: Not much.

That's why we kicked Ash out of this week's newsletter and replaced him with our other Co-Founder - Ankit Patel - Our Chief Branding Officer at Obvi.

(Sorry, Ash - but you're a DR guy, too 😥)

Alright - without further ado, let's get into today's newsletter

Branding is about much more than colors and fonts

Ever thought about why some restaurants are able to cost A LOT more than their competitors and still be completely filled up almost every day of the week?

There are a few reasons, but one of them is:

They've nailed the customer experience.

Everything from when the customer walks into the door,

…to the atmosphere in the room,

…to the way they are served by the waitress are dialled in.

And in return - when the customer leaves the restaurant, they are like, "WOW - this place had such good service. It was so nice."

And then what do they do?

They tell their friends and their friends tell other friends

And on goes the spiral of word-of-mouth.

Now - let's take this restaurant analogy and try to apply it to eComm/DTC.

How do we give our customers the most "WOW" experience - and make them remember our brand in the sea of sameness?

The truth is: There are A LOT of ways to do this - but in this newsletter, we can cover a handful of them.

1) The User Experience: Is it frustrating to shop with you or easy-peasy?

Think of your webstore as an actual store.

And then pretend you are a customer who walks into the store.

Then ask yourself these questions:

Is it easy to navigate where the different products are?

Is it easy to find an answer to the most common questions for the given product (For example Size, Certifications, Supplement facts, Shipping, etc) ?

Can I pay with my preferred payment method, and is it fast and easy to checkout?

2) Customer Support Is Your Lead Brand & Retention Driver - NOT a cost centre

Even in this day and age where everybody is talking about retention - people still view their customer support department/function as a cost center rather than a retention driver…

So what do they do?

They try to outsource it to whoever offers the cheapest price.

They get an untrained intern to answer all the questions

They invest 0.0% energy and budget into the function it

And it's just straight-up DUMB!

Imagine this: You walk into a store and want to buy a product - but you have a question you need answered first.

But there's no one to help you with your question

At least not for another 20 minutes - because the store is understaffed

So - you head out of the door and buy from some other store.

OR (even worse, maybe)

You get served by a sales rep, but the answer they're giving you is super generic and doesn't help you at all. Or maybe they don't even answer at all but simply tell you to go read the FAQ on the wall…

Can you see how dumb that is ?!

Not only will you lose customers by not investing enough in your customer support

But they'll also have a negative experience with your brand.

And guess what?

They won't come back, and they'll never tell their friends.

Instead, they might tell their friends what a sh!tty experience they had - and then negative word of mouth will work against you.

So - the bottom line is:

If you want to build a brand, please take some of the energy and money that you invest in acquiring customers, and invest it in actually serving customers.

It'll be very worth every penny, both in the short and long run.

3) Post-purchase experience: Don’t mess up here!

There are two types of DTC brands.

The ones who get the customer to swipe their credit card and then forget everything about them.

And the ones who continue to care about the customer long after they've made the order

In the real world - you can probably compare it to having a one-night-stand vs. building an actual relationship with a person.

Now - the million-dollar question is…

Which strategy do you think is best from a Branding and Retention perspective?

The answer is pretty clear - right.

Yet, there are still lots of brands that fall into that first category - unfortunately.

If you want to build a brand that people can remember - then you need to continue to show the customers that you care about them after they've made the purchase.

Our favourite way of doing this is through Emails and App Notifications

On the email side - we've worked with D2CDesign to design and set up a handful of product-specific flows that basically do the following:

1) Tell them how to properly use the product that they've bought to achieve the best results

2) Invite them to join our community, where they can get accountability and motivation from others - who are trying to achieve the same result as them

3) Offer them a special discount on complementary products that can help them achieve their desired result faster

You can check out some of the awesome designs that D2CDesign have made for us HERE.

If you want them to spice up your email designs and make sure you have the optimal post-purchase setup - then don't hesitate to reach out to them. They’re amazing at their craft and can help in a lot of different ways (from design to web dev, or both)

They offer a FREE strategy session and a special discount if you mention that we sent you.

On the App Notifications side

What we do here is simply send motivational messages such as "Remember to take your capsules today!", "Remember to stay hydrated", "Remember to get outside today," and so on.

It may seem like a small thing - but it actually makes a big difference for our customers because it shows them that we actually care about them achieving the desired result we sold them on in the first place.

… and hence - we get to build a connection with them that goes deeper than 99.9% of brands out there.

The reason why we're able to do this without breaking the bank is that Push Notifications are completely free. This is just ONE of the many benefits of having a mobile app.

And if you still haven't built yourself an app - you're missing out on A LOT of potential for your brand.

It takes no time to get it set up (even for a non-developer person) and costs pennies compared to the ROI you can drive through the app.

Head over to Tapcart and claim up to 2 months of free subscription by mentioning Chew On This.

If you’re reading this - just know that we appreciate you

Thanks for giving us some of your valuable time and reading our newsletter. We appreciate you, and hope that you’ll come back to read again on Wednesday.

Stay safe, and have a great memorial day weekend

All the best
Ron & Ash