#20 - What Are Brands These Days Facing?

Heyo, Josh here.

Wanted to pop in to share some interesting convos my team and I had with a couple of brands last Thursday, at a Mixer we hosted with Klaviyo and Verz Design (as well as ask you what you’re seeing on your end).

These were brands that have found success in either retail or ecommerce, from giant brands you know like Disney, to our more local ones like Sharp, Cedele, and brands with a huge focus on eCommerce like Swee Lee & Saturday Club.

1) Q1 has been tough/slow

Inflation is going up (fears of a looming recession), sales are slower, and consumers are a little more careful with their purse strings. Suppliers give shorter repayment periods, banks are more stingy with their loans… You get the idea.

An interesting way I use to gauge the pulse of the market is looking at alcohol sales. There’s been an overall 3 - 7% dip this quarter, signs that show the market isn’t looking too hot.

However, the bigger brands are also looking beyond 2024 - whether it be through building a stronger foundation/brand, retaining more loyal customers, or even expanding product lines.

You know as they say, if you’re going through hell, keep going.

2) Not doing email/sms ‘correctly’

Now I put this in air quotes because we live and breath email/sms - it’s literally our livelihood.

The brand founders/managers have to juggle a myriad of things, from operations to fulfillment, ads, profitability, so it makes sense to have certain blind spots.

That being said, here are two examples of the conversations I’ve had over the course of the night.

a) Sending emails only to engaged last 30 days

This was for a beauty brand, who had an AOV of ~$60.

They were slightly profitable on the front end, but struggling to raise AOV of their customers on the back to increase profitability.

List utilization (how much of their active engaged subscribers they’re reaching out to) was sitting at ~22%, which means there was a huge chunk of their audience that were neglected and not being hit with the latest offers.

Their reasoning was that they assumed that segment was the hottest, and they wanted to ensure their deliverability was high.

Whilst that’s a good thought, sometimes life happens, and they were really just shooting themselves in the foot and throttling a lot of their reach.

(below’s how we view the customer journey)

b) Sending campaigns on gut feel

Imagine campaigns as a lever to generate money.

The more times you pull the lever, the more money comes out.

Sending campaigns based on gut feel is a no-go, because it means that if you’re swamped, fighting fires, or forget, you’ll lose out a chunk of revenue just like that.

That’s why we have content calendars, and plan our campaigns one month in advance.

This reduces unnecessary scrambling, and helps keep the team aligned and prepped for upcoming events and promotions.

And… that’s about it from me.

By the way, regarding campaigns above, we’ve made it easy for you and compiled our system into a planner.

This is the same process we use for high growth ecommerce brands like The Oodie, Organifi, Truly Beauty & 400 more.

You can grab your copy here.

Also interested in hearing what you’re currently seeing on the market, or anything you’re struggling with.

Have a good weekend!