Tips from a rising star in the DTC space on growth, product launches, CX, and personal brand (with Lillie Sun from Three Ships Beauty)

07/21/21 • 40 min

DTC POD: How The Best Brands Are Built

“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
“All small brands can really benefit from investing in customer experience” @Lillie__Sun #DTCPOD
“The customer journey is all about awareness, acquisition and retention.” @Lillie__Sun #DTCPOD
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
“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

“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
“All small brands can really benefit from investing in customer experience” @Lillie__Sun #DTCPOD
“The customer journey is all about awareness, acquisition and retention.” @Lillie__Sun #DTCPOD
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
“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.

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.

Mentioned Links:

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

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

Previous Episode

3 checkout strategies to steal for driving upsells and cross-sells

“Providing sample products can provide an up-sell opportunity later if someone enjoys the product and buys the regular sized version.” @jadesai94 #DTCPOD
“These checkout strategies are a great way to build up excitement and build brand affinity.” @jadesai94 #DTCPOD
“A mystery product is something that you can up-sell down the line as well, and so you actually have information on that product already and you could potentially even test out feedback.” @jadesai94 #DTCPOD

We Speak About:

[01:18] How to implement cross-selling in a checkout strategy
[02:36] A pre-purchase strategy for driving urgency
[04:28] A unique checkout strategy for supply
[06:18] The types of customers to target

Simple checkout strategies to increase online sales

How many times do you go on a website and buy more than you planned? How often are you persuaded by the pop up ads promising a discount, a sample, or a surprise product with your purchase?

The answer is probably often but this isn’t just happening to you, in fact, all those examples are marketing strategies implemented to increase sales.

Checkout strategies are a great way to introduce your customers to new products they normally wouldn't buy and potentially gather feedback.

There are numerous touchpoints during the buying process that these strategies can be placed, and it invites room for creativity for your brand.

Stay tuned as we discuss three brands and their different approaches for implementing a checkout strategy.

Mentioned Links:

Corey Haines’ full thread on DTC: https://twitter.com/coreyhainesco/status/1414585378569297928

Next Episode

3 eCommerce blog examples to inspire your brand's own blog (+ key takeaways)

“By interviewing what a person is interested in, they might share it with their audience and people that are in their audience are probably going to want to purchase some similar items” @jadesai94 #DTCPOD
“If you have frequently answered questions, think about how you could potentially turn those into a blog post” @jadesai94 #DTCPOD
“Don't make every post about your products, it's important to use this as a space to educate, that's where you're really going to build up that brand trust.” @jadesai94 #DTCPOD
“When you're thinking about content, think about how you can position your content and how you can create content for not only people that might be first time buyers, but also people that have decided to rebuy.” @jadesai94 #DTCPOD

We Speak About:

[01:55] Nomad’s unique blog characteristics
[04:20] The benefit of interviews
[04:45] Additional blog post to build organic traffic
[07:13] Kettle and Fire’s successful blog strategies
[08:51] Key takeaways from successful blog brands
[09:48] Important tips for creating a blog

Building organic traffic through blogs for eCommerce brands

When it comes to attracting potential customers to your website and persuading a buying decision, blogs can be of great assistance.

A few posts can help drive traffic to your brand’s website and convert those viewers into customers. For some brands, blogs are the first strategy implemented to build their brand.

Blogs aren’t just for posting products, many times they are used to give viewers additional insight into the brand, which can optimize the customer journey.

By using the resource to create content centered around your brand and using the space to educate your customers, brand trust and customer retention may be optimized.

Stay tuned as we discuss three brands' successful blog strategies and tips on how to optimize your blog.

Mentioned Links:

Three Ships Beauty blog: https://www.threeshipsbeauty.com/blogs/news

Nomad blog: https://nomadgoods.com/pages/blog

Kettle & Fire blog: https://blog.kettleandfire.com/

More information on creating eCommerce blogs:

https://www.shopify.com/blog/blog-examples