What is direct to consumer (DTC)?
Direct to consumer sales cut out the middleman between manufacturers and the public. Instead of filtering your products down through retailers, wholesalers or sales platforms, you sell direct to the consumer. For some, this can mean less admin and increased profits.
“We want to drive 50% of our business through Direct to Consumer by 2025.”
The above statement represents what we see in most client briefs. This is quite a shift from the start of the pandemic, when the ask was much simpler: “Find ways to sell my products online to fill the gap left by offline retail”.
So why are we seeing this shift?
The benefits of DTC strategy.
- Ownership of 1st party data gives you the ability to market to the customer post sale.
- Direct sales tend to be more profitable.
- Enhanced customer engagement can lead to increased feedback which in turn helps create better products/services.
The challenges of DTC strategy.
- DTC is not an on/off switch, but a long-term play. In some cases, the transition can take years, not months = especially if you have deep relationships with wholesalers or other retailers.
Our approach to DTC strategy – FLOW.
One key element of our approach is building out your DTC channel alongside other sales channels. Once the DTC site is truly optimized, including the often ignored back-office requirements, we can then start to shift marketing dollars.
DTC Performance Marketing.
For brands to succeed in DTC, and potentially dial back their reliance on third parties, world class performance marketing is a must have. This is where FLOW comes in.
At Reprise Commerce we use our Flow methodology to ensure we are thinking about the end-to-end experience, from the initial prospect engagement right through to post-purchase retail operations.
It is only when you have user experience, media, and content working as one throughout the entire funnel that a DTC-first approach will truly pay off. Reprise Commerce can provide that end-to-end DTC service, while still ensuring your third-party marketplaces and eRetailers are generating the right level of sales while you require them to do so.
DTC Search Marketing: SEO & SEM (Paid Search) working as one.
SEO and SEM (Paid Search) are often managed in silos. Given both organic and paid listings co-exist on Google (and all other search engines), a siloed approach is both illogical and inefficient.
Done well, SEO should be the most efficient channel for established brands, as well as well planned and executed SEM. The combined results should be sector leading.
DTC Display & Programmatic.
Display and programmatic should be used to drive both product discovery and sales. At Reprise Commerce, we do this by adopting a data-led approach. By enriching your first party data with enhanced retail behaviors and signals via our sister agency Acxiom, we create personalized experiences and smarter bidding strategies that inspire customers to shop direct.
DTC Social Commerce & Influencer.
Different social channels, and influencers, attract different audience types. That is a given. But which are most suited to you brand and why? We have tools to provide just that insight as well as the capability to use the social channels to drive to DTC.
DTC CRM & Demand Generation.
One of the biggest challenges many DTC organizations face is how to improve engagement with their existing customer base, often finding that their legacy systems and approaches are no longer work with their new DTC customers. At Reprise Commerce we can help fix what you have, build you a new solution or simply help drive new leads.
DTC Retail Strategy & Operations.
Performance marketing can help drive the sale and give at least a flavor of the brand experience. But after you’ve taken the order, a lack of planning, failing distribution systems, issues with third parties and negative reviews can all detract from the customer experience and impact profitability.
Our specialists in DTC Retail Strategy and DTC Retail Operations are on hand to help.
DTC Site Design, Build & CRO.
Even if your DTC performance marketing is best in class, you will struggle to maximize profitability without an exceptional website. How the site looks, reads and flows is crucial. Missing a video of your product and the leading marketplace has one? You may well lose the sale, and indeed the customer.
We have been optimizing Direct to Consumer sites for many years and built a suite of proprietary DTC tools to help us maximize returns. We’re happy to license these tools to in-house teams, with training built in.
Ways We Work With Clients.
Consultancy
Managed Services
Analytics Support
Our DTC Agency services.
Reprise Commerce can help maximize your DTC returns throughout the customer journey. We can identify who your target customers are, drive relevant traffic to your site, and ensure that traffic converts and continues to engage after conversion. We can even help with profitability by working with your retail operations team.
Want to get started?
We are in 68 offices in 48 markets around the world and welcome the opportunity to partner with you.
