#75 The Least Boring Weekly Newsletter
Good Morning readers!🌞
Have a wonderful week!🍾
Instagram, which began as a simple photo/video sharing app, has evolved into a feature-rich destination that many users like visiting. 🥅
Here are a few upcoming Instagram features!!
Instagram appears to be developing a tab for subscriber-only content. If you pay a creator🈷️, you'll have easy access to the area, which lists all of the paid goods they've posted.
Instagram is also working on a feature that allows you to respond to a specific Story📖 using an image🤳 of your choice.
Similarly, when viewing a Story, Instagram is working on a new voice 🎶note button that will be available as a reply option.
Just when you thought it’s done it's coming up with many more interesting features!🆒
The company is now adopting a QR📠 code option, which will allow you to share a post with your friends in a new method. 👬
All of this sounds cool, right? But this is just the start! Can't wait to see what it has in store for us!! 🎉
Almund's newsletter will let you in on all kinds of tips for D2C brands and much much more.
Alright, so let's get right to it!
This newsletter is going to dive into :
🌏 The Five 'Dragons' To Watch Out For In The New Supply Chain Environment
👌 Here’s How Community Building Can Help With What’s Happening
🙎 BRAND of the week - Persona Nutrition
📜 Top reads for this week
👩🏻💼 Plenty of jobs awaiting you!
So, scroll down already to THE VERY END & read up on what's yet to come your way!
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WHAT’S COOKING, HUH?
The Five 'Dragons' To Watch Out For In The New Supply Chain Environment
Did you know that in 2020, the total value of imported goods in the United States was estimated to be over $2.8 trillion? 💵( Woah)😮
The "first mile," or the first leg 🍗of a product's trip from sourcing to arrival at a warehouse, is referred to in supply chain parlance as the process of purchasing things from overseas vendors and delivering them to the United States.
Consumers began to gain a view into our complicated sector, even if it was via the lens of empty shelves and a lack of toilet paper, as the supply chain was turned upside down and became the center of attention. As unending lines of ships waited to enter ports and people anxiously searched for their next caffeine ☕fix, news stations captured the scene.
The five supply chain "dragons" that every brand must slay to be competitive in today's fast-paced market are listed below.
💲Profits
Things are sold as if it's 2022 in the supply chain world, while many of these products are purchased from overseas vendors as if it's 1985. This generates a tremendous chasm that, if not effectively handled, might negatively impact sales outcomes. A first-mile 🔉direct-to-supplier (D2S) relationship must be balanced with direct-to-consumer (D2C). When you buy something online, you can track its exact location throughout its months-long journey and connect it to the mechanisms that help you sell it.💱
🚧 Inefficiencies in the workplace
Spreadsheet software was not created to assist businesses in enforcing procedures, contracts, processes, standards, or compliance.
Despite this, many importers continue to use DIY methods to manage their materials valued at hundreds of thousands (if not hundreds of millions) of dollars.💰
Make sure you're aware of any inefficiencies in your operations and that you have the tools to deliver actionable information and monitor or enforce exceptional results.💻
🏙️Environmental Concerns and Social Justice
It will be necessary to track progress in the crucial areas of environmental, humanitarian, and social impact until and unless firms are digitally connected to the companies and people who manufacture their products. Digitally connecting with suppliers could establish the groundwork for the necessary training, transparency, reporting, and monitoring to address these essential challenges.⛓️
👤Employee Contentment
Business applications are drawing cues from consumer apps💻 to make it easier for employees to complete tasks, allowing them to focus on more strategic duties rather than monotonous ones.
👭Collaboration
The supply chain is, well, a chain, and it was never intended to have its links separated since it is via this relationship 💞that businesses can manage a product consistently and successfully from the first to the last mile.
Leaders, on the other hand, can spot these five "dragons" that add complexity to the supply chain and work to address them. 🏘️Consumers are seeking effective end-to-end🔚 supply chain visibility and increased degrees of openness. If we fail to meet their needs, the result is clear: customers will purchase elsewhere. ( That's what we want)
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Here’s How Community Building Can Help With What’s Happening
With the recent events happening in the eCommerce world, we realized that we must create a safe space for all DTC marketers and business owners to show each other support and extend a helping hand to those who need it.
Have you observed lower sales and traffic to your DTC business since the year began? Owing to rising living and utility costs, many are tightening their belts, spending less when shopping in eCommerce stores. If such is the case for your DTC business, then your customers perhaps need you to reach out to them.
Extending a hand to help, some kind words, and considerate marketing targeted toward your customers may not seem like a great strategy to bring about great revenue but it can help build a community that would benefit your DTC business more than you can imagine.
Don’t believe us? Let us list it all out! Here are some ways how community building can uplift your eCommerce business to greater heights.
Address Their Issues Right Away
There is no beating around the bush. Your customers are under financial (or any other) pressure which is causing them to reduce their basket value by a considerable margin every time they shop. Addressing their concerns and letting them know that you stand by them in these testing times is probably the best route to take. Building a community on the foundation of empathetic connections is a far superior strategy to implement.
Build A Better Brand Image
With an empathetic message and customer-first strategy, not only would you entice the audience enough to join your community but also build a better brand image. After all, customers all around the world don’t just stay loyal to a brand based solely on their products but also on what they stand for.
Be Remembered For Good
At times when the working community around the world is still recovering from the massive hit of the pandemic, it would do your business only good to be understanding and empathetic towards your audience. And who knows, your gentle words through the screen might help you reach a wider audience.
Retain Customers Better
With personalized offers, special discounts, and enhanced customer experience paired with your brand messaging that reaches your customers’ hearts, you’re sure to retain customers more than ever.
Additionally, customers are more enthusiastic about shopping from a brand that they’ve been recommended through their network. With these measures, your brand can leverage word-of-mouth marketing while simultaneously building a community.
The benefits for you and your audience are neverending when you try to build a community! So, if you’re strategizing to begin, we say go full-throttle!
Some easy ways you can help your audience out in this time when you’re seeing a fall in revenue are:
➡️ Address the issue publicly through various channels.
➡️ Offer personalized discounts.
➡️ Create value kits of your products for customers to make it easier for them to shop.
➡️ Engage with your audience online to understand their perspectives, needs, and requirements.
➡️ Conduct usability studies to understand your audience better and adapt your strategy accordingly.
➡️ Create customer-centric content that can help them out.
However, things don’t end here! Community building takes a lot of time, effort, and patience. But with a few tricks up your sleeve, you can fast-track this process. Let us help you out.
In the next edition, we’re going to walk you through a few ways you can leverage the revenue crisis to build a community to offer support and enhanced experiences to your customers. See you then!
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BRAND OF THE WEEK is…
DTC vitamin brand Persona Nutrition to sell vitamin packs via Target
Persona Nutrition🥛, a personalized vitamin company, is expanding its reach by bringing its daily gummy vitamin packets to Target stores across the country and on Target.com.
The Focus Teen, Everyday Kids, Immune Support Adult, and Glo Getter vitamin packets from the corporation will be available at mass merchants. Its vitamins are sugar-free🍬, gluten-free, and vegan and cost between $12.99 and $19.99.👜
Over the last year, Target has been partnering with direct-to-consumer wellness firms.🎯 The retailer teamed up with Care/of, a personal wellness brand, to launch its vitamin line online and in stores in March.
Target's partnership with DTC brands is part of a larger trend of internet brands employing brick-and-mortar ♦️stores to reach new customers. It has continuously expanded its DTC brand lineup, most recently adding Thinx, Proof, Function of Beauty, and other brands.〰️
"The formulations and demographics we chose for these four gummy vitamin packs are perfect for Target shoppers," Persona CEO Shawn Bushouse said in a statement. "Based on the same scientific knowledge that makes Persona personalized vitamins so successful, these gummies make it even easier for consumers to enter the vitamin/supplement marketplace."🛒
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TOP READS FOR THIS WEEK
👙Victoria's Secret takes $18M stake in California swimwear brand Frankies Bikinis
🤳Instagram reportedly working on a feature that will let users reply to stories with voice notes and images
📚TikTok partners with GIPHY on new video creation tool, ‘TikTok Library’
⏳TikTok is testing a ‘watch history’ feature to make it easier to uncover lost videos
📁WhatsApp likely to increase file transfer size
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In need of a job? We’ve got plenty awaiting you!
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CHOOSE SUCCESS below and have a great week! ‘Get that D2C business runnin’.
