James Ball

Where possible, increase Trust and Credibility. In a world where anyone can produce a product and sell it online, it’s important to build trust. Consumers are more apprehensive than ever to buy from a brands so by leveraging positive feedback from an individual who people respect and trust, they are more likely to buy and not let negative views impact their view of the brand. Once you have positive content and credibility, you can leverage this in your ad creatives, landing pages and emails to counteract negative reviews. This is a great way to also handle objections people may have about your products as if X person approves of the product, and the customer respects X person, they are less likely to have many barriers to purchase.

Within your email marketing strategy you should be very aware of 2 main things: When sending an email you should consider who its going to: How many times have they purchased? (Loyal VIP Customer V First Time Customer) When was their last purchase? 1 year ago V 1 week ago require different messaging What did they purchase? Do they regularly purchase a specific type of product? When sending an email you should consider the email content: Is it value based or promotional? This will affect which metrics you should be analysing. A sale email will have a higher CTR than a value email and that's ok. Is there a clear call to action? You want to have one clear ask of the customer per email - don’t over complicate things!

Personalization is a great way to ensure that your emails get read, but also engaged with. Here are a few ways to do this: First name - This can increase open rates when used in subject lines. Product - By personalising product blocks in automated flows to show the exact product the user previously purchased is a great way to reduce the clicks needed for a user to add their favourites to cart. Email Content - By segmenting your list by customers who purchase specific products, you can send emails geared towards their favorite collections or personal goals. By implementing these 3 types of personalization your list will appreciate your emails, not resent them, leading to an increase in rapport and purchases.

Staying ahead of the curve and industry trends is essential in order to maximize performance and not to get burnt by the everchanging landscape. Ios15 was a great example of this whereby open rates were hugely affected by Apples privacy changes. In February 2024, Google and Yahoo made huge changes to spam filters changing the thresholds by which it decided if a sender email was spam. Brands who were late to update their strategy and sending infrastructure in the midst of these changes saw considerable detrimental effects to their email marketing revenue and it just goes to show how small changes from big companies like Apple, Google and Yahoo can have huge impact on DTC email marketing.

Before taking to the content creation process, it's essential to have a document with clear brand voice, values and branding. Having the following documented will allow you to produce content that performs, but also upholds the brand values and aesthetics: Tone of voice: Does the brand want to be portrayed as fun, cheeky and casual, or serious, authoritative and formal. Values: Being clear on the brands values and USPs such as sustainability, price, quality or customer care. Branding: Having documented fonts, hex codes and aesthetic style is essential for continuity and trust. Only after clearly defining these 3 points in a master document for all team members, contractors and creators can you take to the creation process effectively.

Hypothesis Formulation: Start by crafting educated hypotheses about the angles and media types that are likely to yield success. Test Implementation: Set up comprehensive tests and feedback loops, to gather real-time data and insights. Results Analysis: With new data, analyze the results of the tests. Identify top performers, pinpoint what's driving success, and glean insights to inform next steps. We pay particular attention to the following: Click through rate Thumb stop rate Hold rate Be very careful when analysing results, if an ad has a very high CTR, but low TSR, it could have potential simply by changing the hook and improving the TSR. Equally if it’s the other way round, keep the hook but change the body and CTA of the ad.