DTC POD: How The Best Brands Are Built

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On this episode of DTC pod we cover:
1. Introduction to Jimmy Farley and TikTok's Monetization
2. TikTok Shop Distribution and Influencer Management
3. Content Creation Strategies and Virality
4. Product Selection and Creator Network Management
5. Marketing Advice and Building a Creator Brand
6. Creator Briefs and Brand Value Propositions
7. Software Development and E-Commerce
8. Creator Relations and Long-term Vision
9. Educational Methodology and Talent Management
10. Understanding Demographics and Influencer Impact
11. Red Flags and Effective Marketing Practices
12. Jimmy Farley's Background and Creators Corner
13. Influencer Group Management and Product Seeding
14. Business Ventures and Network Building
15. Transitioning Business Models and Network Value
16. Discord Community Insights and Revenue Generation
Timestamps
05:44 Experience in building vetted network with leverage.
10:32 Content creation process involves inspiration and reuse.
12:06 Viral content drives education and customer benefits.
14:31 Built strong community, resourceful TikTok marketing channel.
18:46 Creators and cash flow.
23:25 Content isn't guaranteed, creators make the difference.
25:17 Invested in TikTok shop, hands-off management.
29:08 Should I choose creators or pay influencers?
32:16 Importance of quick responsiveness, efficient agency strategies.
36:08 Minority stakes in multiple companies, specializing in supplements.
40:13 Retaining creators and brand advice in partnerships.
41:05 Commitment concerns and revolving nature of relationships.
45:13 Evaluate product potential before investing time and money.
47:01 Affordable rates for video content production explained.
53:01 Discussion about affiliate-based payment structures.
53:44 Creators seek fair compensation for quality work.
56:41 Find my best business content on Twitter.
Shownotes powered by Castmagic
Past guests & brands on DTC Pod include Gilt, PopSugar, Glossier, MadeIN, Prose, Bala, P.volve, Ritual, Bite, Oura, Levels, General Mills, Mid Day Squares, Prose, Arrae, Olipop, Ghia, Rosaluna, Form, Uncle Studios & many more.

Additional episodes you might like:

• #175 Ariel Vaisbort - How OLIPOP Runs Influencer, Community, & Affiliate Growth

• #184 Jake Karls, Midday Squares - Turning Your Brand Into The Influencer With Content

• #205 Kasey Stewart: Suckerz- - Powering Your Launch With 300 Million Organic Views

• #219 JT Barnett: The TikTok Masterclass For Brands

• #223 Lauren Kleinman: The PR & Affiliate Marketing Playbook

• ​​​​#243 Kian Golzari - Source & Develop Products Like The World's Best Brands

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Jimmy Farley- Co-Founder and CEO at Creator's Corner
Ramon Berrios - Co-Founder of Castmagic
Blaine Bolus - Co-Founder of Castmagic

1. “Our hypothesis was if we can really give content a shot and really invest in content marketing for a couple of months, maybe that can be our competitive moat.” @JVMeredith #DTCPOD
2. “The way I look at retail is ‘if we're not on the aisle in the broth and stock section, then we're going to lose market share’.” @JVMeredith #DTCPOD
3. “I think the key thing is to remember, is our marketing plan is just a plan and plans change constantly. It's important for us to be flexible to where, as we see opportunity, we're able to jump on it.” @JVMeredith #DTCPOD
4. “We try to leverage our experience on the performance marketing side to get what we need from the retail side.” @JVMeredith #DTCPOD
5. “Our core channels from the early stages were influencer and affiliate marketing and they are still core channels for us today.” @JVMeredith #DTCPOD

We Speak About:

• [01:15] Backstory on Trend’s personal connection to Kettle & Fire
• [02:30] About Jack and Kettle & Fire
• [05:00] Kettle & Fire’s unique content marketing approach
• [06:00] Why Jack and his team invested heavily in content and the results that followed
• [10:15] Kettle & Fire’s Facebook ads approach with a consumable good
• [12:50] How retail plays into Kettle & Fire’s marketing strategy
• [15:25] Jack’s approach to setting KPIs for Kettle & Fire
• [17:20] Trying to attribute and get data on retail sales
• [19:50] Key metrics for retail sales
• [22:55] How Kettle & Fire nailed their first retail experience
• [25:40] The channel Kettle & Fire used while warming up SEO
• [28:05] How Jack does influencer and affiliate marketing
• [33:20] What’s next for Kettle & Fire?

The scrappy marketing that grew Kettle & Fire into an 8-figure brand

Jack Meredith, VP of Marketing at Kettle & Fire joins the POD to talk about their unique approach to marketing and growth that’s turned the brand into a retail and DTC star.

Kettle & Fire is a brand that has created the first 100% grass-fed, shelf-stable beef bone broth.

When Kettle & Fire started, they didn’t have a ton of money resources to grow the brand. So instead, they turned to content and influencer marketing.

Content has been a huge growth lever for Kettle & Fire. Today, the brand ranks at the top for hundreds of keywords that creates a great funnel for customers.

Jack and his team have taken an almost B2B-like approach for content marketing and it’s paid off big time.

Tracking performance is key to growing a brand, even when data is hard to come by

Content and influencer marketing aren’t the only growth levers for Kettle & Fire though.

As the brand has grown, paid ads and retail have become a large source of growth for the business.

Opening up the retail channel specifically has yielded huge returns for the business. Jack sees it as a way to complement the online strategy.

Even though retail data is hard to come by, the brand is constantly trying to use their learnings in performance marketing to track performance in retail better.

Stay tuned as Jack breaks down all of the channels Kettle & Fire uses for marketing, how they’ve mastered retail, and the exact KPIs the brand uses to grow.

If you’d like to learn more about Trend and our influencer marketing platform for influencers and brands visit trend.io. You can also follow us for tips on growing your following and running successful campaigns on Instagram and LinkedIn.

Mentioned Links:

Kettle and Fire’s website: https://www.kettleandfire.com/

Jack’s Twitter account: https://twitter.com/JVMeredith

Jack’s DTC playbooks: https://www.dtcplaybooks.com/

1. “In the first couple of months we focused on getting everything up and running, and as we've grown a little bit, it's more so figuring out which one of these verticals is worth us investing more time and resources to. @Lillie__Sun #DTCPOD
2. “All small brands can really benefit from investing in customer experience” @Lillie__Sun #DTCPOD
3. “The customer journey is all about awareness, acquisition and retention.” @Lillie__Sun #DTCPOD
4. For us, it's all about aligning the campaign on the core product and the core benefit, and making sure that comes across in all elements of the campaign.” @Lillie__Sun #DTCPOD
5. “Having a community ambassador program is a great way to get that one on one communication with your customers in a timely fashion. They feel they're involved and you don't have to do so much guessing because you're getting that feedback from them.” @Lillie__Sun #DTCPOD

We Speak About:

• [02:16] Lillie introduces herself and Three Ships Beauty
• [03:54] Setting a business foundation and seeing what works
• [06:02] Testing different marketing channels through trial and error
• [08:14] Elements outside of digital marketing that led to brand growth
• [12:59] Testing and tweaking the SMS marketing strategy
• [16:56] How Three Ships Beauty segments the market
• [19:38] Steps to optimize the customer experience
• [24:06] How to enhance product promotion
• [19:09] The company’s successful approach for achieving customer retention
• [26:46] A unique strategy for product launching
• [30:53] Benefits of an ambassador program
• [35:01] The process for implementing technology and resources for brand growth
• [37:31] What’s next for Three Ships Beauty and where to find Lillie Sun online

Three Ships Beauty steps to startup success

Lillie Sun, leader of growth for Three Ships Beauty, joins the POD to give some insight on the direct-to-consumer business’s growth, product launches, and the customer journey.

Three Ships Beauty is a Skincare brand that creates effective, natural, and affordable products.

Lily recognized that when it comes to startups, implementing an ambassador program will help the brand to effectively engage with their customers and organically drive awareness, leading to growth.

A unique approach was taken for product launches by limiting a creative marketing that would not exemplify what the product is about, and instead focus on orienting the campaign on the core product and benefit.

Lillie recognizes that in the first stages of growth, it’s okay for your brand to test out everything to see what works and then dial down and what processes are delivering the most benefits.

In DTC, it pays to be personable

Three Ships Beauty stands out as an eCommerce skincare company that develops 100% natural plant derived products at an affordable price.

The brand has experienced growth by experimenting with numerous marketing channels to see what works and curating a personable customer experience.

Lillie takes a unique approach to achieving growth by not only personalizing the customer experience but also the product through a skincare quiz on their website.

The brand takes additional steps to personalize their brand by segmenting their SMS channel into categories, based on what their consumers would like to hear.

Lillie recommends having a good foundation in business experience before jumping into growth roles.

Stay tuned as Lillie discusses non-digital marketing factors that led to growth why you don’t always need to be too creative with your marketing strategy.

If you’d like to learn more about Trend and our influencer marketing platform for influencers and brands visit trend.io. You can also follow us for tips on growing your following and running successful campaigns on Instagram and LinkedIn.

Mentioned Links:

Three Ships Beauty website: https://www.threeshipsbeauty.com/

Lillie Sun’s twitter: https://twitter.com/Lillie__Sun

On this episode of DTC Pod, Sofia & Carolyn join Blaine & Ramon to talk about company building, product marketing, brand marketing, finding product market fit, guidelines for each funding round, syncing marketing & inventory, building a resilient supply chain, building community, & more.

9:46

Product Market Fit 🎯

It was a 90 degree day in Prospect park in Brooklyn. And we literally had a hundred plus parents come to pick up food from essentially complete strangers with unmarked coolers and unmarked cups. And we always laugh that that's when we knew that we had found a white space.

22:52

Community = Real Growth 🚀

I'll give you an anecdote but we started doing these tiny “supper clubs” we called them, these community events with 15 to 25 moms- and they started out in person. It was meant to be a regional event, but we're still seeing that those zip codes perform better than some other zip codes. They became virtual and now we're kind of rethinking that model, but I think this idea of how do you do community or organic acquisition at scale is really intriguing.

33:42

This Is How You Build Supply Chain 🔗

We try to keep a healthy amount of cover for ourselves, just in case something were to go wrong, which kind of brings us back to building for security. It's not a matter of if, but when something will go wrong, because it will. So to have as many backup solutions in our back pocket that we can, whether it's a quick ingredients switch, or a supplier switch, we've got an emergency solution just in case anything goes wrong.

39:10

Forecasting Demand In 2022 📈

Demand forecasting is definitely both art and science, but we use that subscription data and a lot of really detailed cohort analysis to identify which of these marketing moments is the most successful. And when we repeat it and make sure that we're planning for that appropriately. So we use both of those in conjunction to kind of build out our demand forecast models and then we plan production and inventory accordingly. But especially right now, and especially for early founders, you need to manage that with the cash that gets tied up in manufacturing inventory. So it's always a balance that you're trying to strike.

This episode is brought to you by OpenStore:

Visit https://open.store to get a free, no-obligation offer for your e-commerce business from OpenStore in 24 hours.

Have any questions about the show or topics you'd like us to explore further?
Shoot us a DM; we'd love to hear from you.

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Check out our newsletter here

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Sofia Laurell - Co-Fonder & Co-CEO of Tiny Organics
Carolyn O'Hare Batyske - Co-Founder & President & COO of Tiny Organics
Ramon Berrios - CEO of Trend.io
Blaine Bolus - COO of OmniPanel

Chris Bernard AKA “Bernie” joins Blaine and Ramon to discuss Mindright and working with Rob Dyrdek, learning from previous business mistakes of growing too fast, the importance of building your brand’s community before utilizing celebrity ambassadors, how TikTok is helping Mindright grow, and more.

Buff Bake 2:07 -3:03

Story behind Mindright 6:44 - 10:12

Pitching to Rob Dyrdek 11:03 - 14:12

Celebrity investors 16:35 - 17:33

Leveraging celebrity investors 18:19 - 19:42

Getting into retail 22:31 - 24:01

Brand ambassadors and influencers 24:34 - 26:27

Building the team 30:14 - 32:15

This episode is brought to you by OpenStore:

Visit https://open.store to get a free, no-obligation offer for your e-commerce business from OpenStore in 24 hours.

Have any questions about the show or topics you'd like us to explore further?
Shoot us a DM; we'd love to hear from you.

Follow us for content, clips, giveaways, & updates!

DTCPod Instagram

DTCPod Twitter

DTCPod TikTok

Chris Bernard- CEO of Mindright

Ramon Berrios - CEO of Trend.io

Blaine Bolus - COO of OmniPanel