D2C brands work differently from legacy brands that have been in business for decades.

In an era when digital marketing simply did not exist, brands were built on the power of distribution. The wider you could spread your net and become available, the more likely you were to fly off the shelf. And advertising was limited to buying expensive media space in newspapers and television.

But the advent and penetration of e-commerce has changed everything. With performance marketing & social media marketing, you can basically advertise to and reach any number of potential customers.

If you are launching a D2C brand, or are already a few years into it, then here are 3 essentials you need to do to get your fundamentals in place –

Define a solid brand communication strategy

You need to be very clear on what it is that you’re selling. WHY should a customer choose your product over a competitor’s. Sit down and brainstorm your Unique Selling Proposition. What is it about your product and brand that is UNIQUE to YOU.

Once you have this figured out, make a list of 5-8 ways in which you can communicate this creatively. For instance, in case of a skincare brand, you could talk about the sensorials and how the product smells and feels. Two, you could talk about the benefits and results consumers can expect from this product. Three, you could talk about the ingredients and manufacturing process – if there is a specific ingredient that works, or is sourced from XYZ location. Four, you can focus on a specific childhood memory that your product evokes. Each of these is a communication angle you will be testing. And this list would be different for every category, product and brand.

Now build these communication angles into creative assets and take them to your customers via performance & social media marketing. Analyse what your customers respond to, and double down on the angles that work more than the others.

In the end, successful marketing strategies are rooted in solid communication strategies, spoken over and over again.

Focus on both performance & social media marketing

We can no longer build a brand only through performance marketing. It is simply too expensive. The communication angles that you created should now flow into an intentional performance marketing campaign and social media marketing campaigns.

Launch a prospecting campaign, with 4 ad sets. Each of these ad sets will contain unique audiences (these will be derived from your ideal customer persona). Each of these ad sets will then contain each of the ads created above. So you will be testing 4-5 communication angles with 4-5 audience sets.

It will be wise to also create a retargeting campaign and apportion ~15% of your budgets to these. If you are brand new, start with a small budget of Rs. 800/ad set. If you have been around a while, then start with higher budgets. Scale the ones that give a higher ROAS, switch off the ones that don’t.

Parellely, lay out content pillars for your Instagram & Youtube page. You need to define what you will be talking about each week. Remember, you are not trying to sell your products through your social media pages. Instead, you are trying to build a community, which becomes the ‘top of funnel’ audience for your brand. For reference, check out Redbull’s Instagram page. They almost never have any content that focuses on showing or selling the product.

Some great content pillars to engage your audience are educating them, entertaining them, or making content that is share-able. Each of these will indicate to Instagram’s algorithm that the content you are making is valuable and needs to reach more people.

Performance marketing is a NOW game, social media marketing is a long-term game. So be patient.

Leverage the power of collaborations early on

Start with small collaborations. When you start a brand, every penny counts. Initially focus on getting barter collaborations. Reach out to influencers that have <5000 followers (check their engagement numbers to make sure these are genuine). In most cases these influencers will be happy to collaborate in exchange for your products.

By collaborating with these influencers you will achieve two things – One, you will reach their audiences with very little investment. Two, you can also use these as performance ad assets (make sure you bake all usage rights into the influencer agreement).

As you increase reach and revenue, you can start collaborating with bigger influencers and also set aside a budget for these collaborations.

For all of the above, keep a solid watch-out on what is working, and what is not. And keep doubling down on strategies that bring you results.

Remember, great brands are built when you have a great strategy coupled with relentless execution.