Marcus Luciani – Dotdigital https://dotdigital.com Tue, 06 Feb 2024 10:09:50 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.3.2 https://mkr1en1mksitesap.blob.core.windows.net/staging/2021/11/favicon-61950c71180a3.png Marcus Luciani – Dotdigital https://dotdigital.com 32 32 3 tips to nail your D2C marketing strategy https://dotdigital.com/blog/3-tips-to-nail-your-d2c-marketing-strategy/ Thu, 05 Oct 2023 09:11:05 +0000 https://dotdigital.com/?p=62117 The D2C (direct-to-consumer) business model has been on the rise, as traditional B2B brands seek to cut out the ‘middle-man’. As businesses come under increasing pressure to manage operating costs, the D2C model offers an attractive way to complement (or replace in some cases) their existing network of B2B relationships.

With this shift comes a change in the way a business develops its marketing strategy. Navigating the world of D2C marketing can be challenging, as you now own the end-to-end customer journey. Especially in a world where ecommerce sales continue to be on the rise and consumers are becoming more and more demanding of personalized digital experiences, it has never been more important to develop a strong digital marketing strategy in the world of D2C.

1. Build your brand story and foster new relationships

A key benefit of a D2C model is that you now have complete ownership over brand identity and the customer experience. As a D2C marketer, ensure you’re doing everything you can as a brand to convey your brand story to your target market.

Consistency is key when it comes to communicating across all channels. G2 states companies that focus on maintaining brand consistency across all channels have seen an average growth of 33%. The experience a customer has on social, or email, should have the same experience when hitting a website landing page from a campaign. Many brands also forget to focus on the post-purchase journey – messaging and branding should remain consistent across promotional and transactional messaging.

With an influx of new customers, make a good first impression on new customers. Email is an excellent channel to execute this – create an automated email welcome program that both converts and tells your customers what they’re in store for. More than 8 out of 10 people open welcome emails, generating 4x as many opens and 10x as many clicks as other email sends. An email sign-up indicates a super-engaged customer – take advantage of that engagement and focus on the USPs of your brand.

It’s also important to make sure your GTM is mindful of your current B2B relationships. Don’t become a competitor to your existing customers. The beauty of creating a great brand story is that when done right, it will only help your B2B partners succeed too. Compliment, don’t compete.

2. Focus on driving customer loyalty

Undoubtedly, a focus for D2C marketers initially will be acquisition. Acquisition is obviously very important, but D2C brands must not lose focus on retaining current customers. Acquisition is more expensive than retention – acquiring a new customer costs five times more than retaining an existing one.

Marketers can tap into Dotdigital’s marketing automation to help achieve this. After acquiring a customer, direct marketing channels like email and SMS act as a perfect way to continue to nurture the customer relationship and turn a first-time buyer, into a loyal advocate. You have the foundations to now understand important data such as purchase behavior, interests, preferences, and engagement with your marketing campaigns to curate a personalized experience going forward.

Shopify CEO, Tobi Lutke puts it perfectly; “There are only two things on the internet that you can own: your website and your email list. Everything else is just temporarily rented”.

One of Australia’s most recognized electrical wholesalers, Lawrence & Hanson, had to pivot during COVID-19 to focus on D2C and online ecommerce. During this change, they found huge success focusing on customer loyalty and building out loyalty programs that rewarded loyalty with benefits to drive retention and provided the foundation to succeed and grow their online sales and ecommerce offering. At the end of the day, loyalty boils down to trust. Lawrence & Hanson underpinned their successful loyalty programs with the use of personalization in marketing campaigns. 

Customers want to feel as if the brand knows and understands their wants and needs. Lawrence and Hanson did exactly that when shifting away from a ‘batch-and-blast’ email strategy and focused on 1-1 personalization which assisted in building trust with their customers.

B2B customer loyalty does differ from B2C. B2B relationships are more complex, lengthy, and considered sales cycles. But this doesn’t mean loyalty should be valued any less when looking at D2C loyalty. Reward loyalty, recognize it, understand who is buying and what drives them, and you will be able to create a community of loyal advocates.

3. Use data to enhance the customer experience

As the shift to D2C grows your customer base, there are new ways for marketers to look at managing relationships to deliver a personalized customer experience. Where many B2B relationships can be managed by sales/account management teams, D2C marketers must rely on data to effectively manage a larger customer to deliver a personalized customer experience.

  • Integrate your martech: This helps you have a holistic view of a customer’s engagement with your brand. A great example of this is seen through leading packaging wholesaler Signet. Implementing an integrated tech stack, enabled the creation of data-focused personalized campaigns and allowed for effective data segmentation and tailored campaigns and promotions. Operationally, this is also going to save you and your team time and make processes more efficient.
  • Make use of behavioral data you capture against customers: This will help you send the right message, at the right time. For example, understand the browsing behavior – what category are they frequently browsing? What products? What type of content are they opening, clicking, and resonates best? Use this to change the story you’re telling the customer and enable you to send more relevant content, which in turn will only increase engagement and conversions.
  • Capture and leverage zero-party data: Give control to your customers – let them determine how they want to be communicated with. Within a preference center, the best practice is to capture data such as first name, channel opt-ins, frequency of messaging, interested products and categories, etc. Capturing the data is great – but it’s what you do with the data that counts. Place customers in segments and even tailor messaging through the use of dynamic content in email.

D2C marketing strategy summary

To wrap it up, as D2C business models continue to evolve and gain traction, it’s important for businesses to adapt their marketing strategies for long-term success. By concentrating on crafting a coherent brand story, nurturing customer loyalty, and harnessing data for personalized experiences, companies can effectively navigate the world of D2C marketing.

]]> Sports marketing strategies: how to keep fans engaged all year round? https://dotdigital.com/blog/sports-marketing-strategies-how-to-keep-fans-engaged-all-year-round/ Tue, 26 Apr 2022 09:15:36 +0000 https://dotdigital.com/?p=34484

Sports marketing strategies: how to keep fans engaged all year round?

crowd of fans having fun at a sport event

As marketers, we understand why engagement is paramount. Engagement is about empowering the customer to connect with your brand and enhance the overall customer journey, across every touchpoint. The more engaged they are, the longer they’ll be a loyal customer.

But how critical is engagement for sports marketing?

A Deloitte survey indicates that more than 60% of fans are more likely to engage with the team in the upcoming season if they’ve had a great “year-round experience,” and 55% said they’re more likely to purchase a ticket in the future.

Unsurprisingly, off-season engagement is directly related to higher spending. Fans who engage once a month, spend 40% more than the fans who have no engagement in the off-season, and this is spanning across different sports.

The data shows just how important it is to keep fans engaged during the off-season and all year round. Here are my key strategies to help you keep these fans interacting with your marketing while leveraging this engagement to acquire new fans and keep current fans loyal and happy.


1. Make a good first impression

Making a good first impression on your fans is vital. It has the power to make or break a new relationship. It usually begins with a welcome email following a sign-up. Implementing an automated welcome journey is an absolute must-have for any brand looking to drive customer engagement. In our benchmarking report, Hitting the Mark, we revealed that:

  • Welcome emails are 86% more effective than standard email marketing.
  • Click rates are 5x higher than standard campaigns.
  • Welcome programs generate up to 320% more revenue than other promotional emails (Try including an offer in your welcome email – it can boost your revenue by another 30%!).
  • Contacts who receive a welcome program are 33% more engaged with your brand.

If these statistics aren’t enough to convince you of the importance of perfecting an automated welcome program, check out the case study from  Atomic Group, which is home to Homyped and the sporting goods brand Sportsco.

Example of emails used by sports marketing brandsTriggered by new fans entering the database, Atomic Group implemented an improved welcome series that soon emerged as the highest performing campaign they ran. This was a major contributor to a 326% increase in revenue in the first quarter of 2021 compared to the previous year.

In short, it’s vital to nail your automated welcome journey. First impressions matter to consumers, and with the super-high engagement rates compared to other email campaigns, it’s arguably one of the most important as well.


2. Segment your fans and hyper-personalize your messaging

Sporting clubs, just like many other businesses, have a vast range of customers with different preferences, needs, wants, and buying propensities. We are now well past the days of a “one-size-fits-all” approach to marketing. It’s imperative to understand your customer base and send the most relevant and personal content possible that they want to see.

It’s an obvious but necessary focus within a marketing strategy: the more segmented, targeted, and personalized your messaging, the more chance your fans will resonate and interact with the content. It is always great to start with primary data fields such as first and last name, location, etc. However, the next step to hyper-personalize your messaging is to begin tracking consumer web session behavior and utilize customer abandoned cart and page browses data to send dynamic content specifically targeted to the individual fan.

A prime example of this in action is separating your customers based on their propensity to purchase with your brand, for example, a loyal and recent customer, to new, inactive ‘non-customer’. Integrating eRFM persona modeling can help achieve something like this. Look to keep your loyal season ticket holders engaged with access to unique and exclusive merchandise releases, and if an engaged customer hasn’t made an initial purchase just yet – sending an automated email with a discount code could help nudge the fan to make the first purchase. This way, segmenting the audience can get super detailed and ultimately outperform a “batch-and-blast” strategy out of the water.

USA Rugby tackles member engagement

USA Rugby example email of sports marketing

With more than 200,000 active members, fans, and donors, USA Rugby had difficulty with very low open rates – sitting at an average of 8.4%.

From high-school and pro players to ticket buyers and philanthropic donors, it became apparent that segmenting these audiences is a key factor in increasing engagement within their email marketing strategy.

USA Rugby adopted powerful email preference centers to update their customers’ marketing preferences. They also looked to leverage their customer data to create personalized content for these segments. These efforts lead to a 205% increase in open rates.


3. Leverage cross-channel

Buzzword or not – implementing a cross-channel strategy works.

We all know how crucial social media is for sporting clubs with content like updates, reports, and announcements, but don’t forget about other channels that still increase overall engagement with your brand.

Whether transactional or promotional, SMS is a great way to cut through the noise and reach your fans with no barriers or obstacles. The near-perfect read rate of 98% tops the charts in comparison to other channels. Matchday reminders, event updates, and promotions are a good way to remain on top of mind, but you can also use SMS in direct collaboration with an email campaign (such as a welcome program) to bolster email engagement rates and skyrocket ROI in the process.

Benefits of incorporating an SMS marketing strategy:

  • 95% of SMS messages are read within the first five minutes.
  • The average consumer checks their phone around 150 times per day. As a result, 70% of shoppers would like their favorite brands to send offers directly to their mobile.
  • 22% of text messages are forwarded to friends and family when considered valuable by the reader.


To summarize

Here are key strategies to help you increase engagement and create meaningful connections with your fan base:

  • Understand that off-season engagement is paramount – not only for future engagement but directly impacting revenue and future ticket sales.
  • Make an excellent first impression – make the most out of the sky-high engagement rates within a welcome program.
  • Segment and personalize content – throw away your one-size-fits-all model and capitalize on targeting your key fan segments with personalized content. Deliver that ultra-personal experience with the data you capture to drive engagement.
  • Leverage cross-channel – connect with your fans on multiple channels – one touchpoint isn’t enough. To improve ROI, look to incorporate multiple channels within your campaigns.


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