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D2C Marketing

Perfecting Branding at your D2C Company.

When we meet someone in real life, we ask for their name and ask questions to get to know them better. We listen to their anecdotes, ideas, opinions, and beliefs. We try to unearth their story, and to tell our own.The end goal is to connect. 

In D2C marketing and business, the rules don’t really change. Telling your story is a critical part of building your brand. It helps to shape how people view you and enables consumers to begin forging a connection with you and your company. Do it right, and you’ll put building blocks in place that allow you to develop a thriving brand with an equally thriving future, one that people buy from simply because they love what you do, what you stand for, and the stories you share.

Starting with the basics-

A great brand name is not just something that looks cool on your business card or is fun to say. And it isn’t great because you like it. It’s great because it communicates something to customers.

As branding pro Marty Neuemier says in The Brand Gap, “The need for good brand names originates with customers, and customers will always want convenient ways of identifying, remembering, discussing, and comparing brands. The right name can be a brand’s most valuable asset, driving differentiation and speeding acceptance.”

But choosing the right brand name can be exhausting, infuriating, and thrilling. The D2C Giant Warby Parker’s Cofounder Neil Blumenthal says it took his team six months and 2,000+ options to find the perfect name.

Fist Pump Success GIF

To set your brand up for long-term success, you need the right brand name. 

Follow our simple guide to find yours quickly and easily.While there is no magic formula, there are common traits that make a brand name easier for you to use and easier for other people to remember. 

Here are a few pointers to keep in mind according to experts who have been there, done that –

  1. It should be easy to pronounce,identify and memorize
  • Like Snackible- it’s crisp and catchy !
  1. It should give an idea about the product’s benefits and qualities.
  1. Ensure domain name for the same is available.
  1. It should suggest product/service category.

Nike. Coca Cola. Levis. Disney. AirBnB.

These brand names alone conjure vivid images of who they are and what they stand for—and these brands all have incredibly passionate audiences to boot.

That’s in part because each of these companies has a genuine brand story. A brand story conveys the history, purpose, and values of a business in a narrative that resonates with consumers and makes audiences feel emotionally connected.

John Stamos Wtf GIF by Lifetime

So,naming your brand is just the tip of the iceberg .

Lets stick to the D2C Giant- Warby Parker

The Warby Parker catalog may only include two main categories – eyeglasses and sunglasses – but they’ve become an ecommerce success in the nine years since they debuted because of the stories they tell.

Their self-proclaimed lofty objective? “To offer designer eyewear at a revolutionary price, while leading the way for socially-conscious businesses.” That’s practically a story unto itself. And they share plenty of other stories that lay bare exactly how they’re doing it.

Mother Earth World GIF by eyedesyn

Their “How Warby Parker glasses are made” page offers a behind-the-scenes peek at a pair of glasses from design through manufacturing, including background on supplies and suppliers.

The main material? Plant-based cellulose acetate.

The personal touch? Every pair is assembled and polished by hand.

A socially-conscious business? For every pair of Warby Parker glasses sold, they give a pair to someone in need via charitable partners around the globe. To date, they’ve given away more than 5 million pairs.

That’s a story we can all feel good about supporting.

It’s no secret that consumers are looking online for many of their shopping needs. With the click of a mouse, anyone can have a car delivered straight to their home, groceries stocked in their refrigerator shelves, and more. Direct-to-consumer brands are continuing to innovate and evolve to attract and retain loyal customers. Despite the latest trends, one thing remains true: brand storytelling is a constant part of the D2C marketing evolution.

Marketers are aware of the power of branding and storytelling; however, they’re still grasping at straws when it comes to it. 

That’s why at Xpert we have got India’s top growth experts from leading companies to help you learn and decode growth strategies for your D2C brand!

Apply to be on the waitlist for our next D2C Marketing Bootcamp and get to learn from leading experts from successful D2C brands like MyGlamm,WakeFit and so on!

Categories
D2C Marketing

Man Matters – India’s first Digital Health Clinic for Men

Man Matters – India’s first Digital Health Clinic for Men

Who do you go to, to talk about your wellness problems? 

Who does a man go to when he starts losing hair?

Losing sleep? Losing confidence?

dog day afternoon sigh GIF

When the men behind Man Matters asked themselves these questions, they found no answer.

And neither did millions of other men. 

This seemed quite unacceptable. Men rarely speak about their health and learn to live with their issues instead of dealing with them. It’s not that they don’t care. But talking about personal health, wellness can be difficult and often embarrassing for many still. And the people at ManMatters get that!

This epiphany led to the creation of a Mumbai based wellness platform for men that has been changing the way men approach health and their own holistic wellness!

& then Man Matters Was Created…

Man Matters - Home | Facebook

The founders took ‘matters’ into their own hands; and created a place for all matters of man. Hair, skin, weight, sleep, sex and much more. A wellness platform focused on men. If it matters to man or it’s matters of man, it matters to this up and coming D2C brand. 

So what is this wellness platform all about ?!

A DOCTOR LED TELEHEALTH PLATFORM FOR MEN?

Now,that’s something India has never heard of!

They boast of a premium set of products for each and every problem  under the sun which a man can face ,which are all certified under their respective industries.

But…

The team realized that to make the science behind wellness more accessible to all, they had to have the experts to guide them on this journey. And a genius move was that they joined hands with a set of medical experts and doctors who were passionate about changing male health habits and cared deeply about their craft.

This is the most unique feature that man matters offers – they have expert doctors on board to guide and fix your problems

These doctors provide free consultations to ensure that the products that your purchase off man matters are right for you .

Hair Matters by Man Matters - Home | Facebook

What’s more, the brand also follows up with you over time to check in on your progress monthly and doctors continue to give advice and guide you on what’s the best way to achieve and keep improving on your wellness goals!

Quality has turned into an obsession for this brand.While there are companies that may have the same ingredients, the quality of ingredients can be vastly different. Man Matters sources their ingredients from the regions where they are known to be highly efficacious, which in turn results in the products giving you better results.

The team behind Man Matters consists of consumers of personal care and supplements themselves, and hence they are super particular about the safety and quality of the products they consume and produce. 

With regimen focussed products , Man Matters also believes that solving problems like hair loss or quality of sleep is often not a one product solution but a holistic one. Thus they provide regimens to follow which ensure that the body and mind are getting targeted as a whole.

Right from the premium ,regimen based products delivered to your doorstep to specialised doctors available for problems which men might have otherwise felt uncomfortable to discuss, this startup has mastered the art of customer retention to the T !

MAN MATTERS Products Have Got You Covered With All Men Issues - dealivana  blog

So it makes sense why we have Marmik Mankodi, AVP Marketing @ Man Matters as a part of our D2C marketing Bootcamp!

Apply to be on the waitlist for our next cohort and learn to identify key growth levers, driving repeats & cross-ordering, Identifying payback periods & customer lifetime value…

Also explore building a purchase experience optimized for discovery & trust building for your D2C brand.Leverage insights and experience of industry experts from top companies and understand  how you too can scale delivery, manage returns & logistics successfully to drive customer delight.

Categories
D2C Marketing

Conquering Branding: Redefining Shaving at the Bombay Shaving Company.

Selling a shaving kit to men for Rs.3000 was unheard of until the Bombay Shaving Company, a D2C startup, disrupted the market.

Bombay Shaving Company is a D2C startup that specializes in men’s grooming, personal care, shaving, beard grooming, skincare, and handmade soaps and mainly caters to men. With thousands of customers and a unique perspective of branding, that is progressive and projects masculinity peculiarly to a new market, the Bombay Shaving Company has mastered the art of branding and positioning and is here to stay .

Now, Branding and Positioning are undeniable cornerstones of D2C marketing. They create a unique image of the company’s product and help in acquiring a space in the customer’s mind among competitor brands.

Let’s see how this budding D2C startup conquered them.

Beginnings-

When four friends from Bombay saw that men’s grooming and beard care was becoming a prevalent topic in many conversations, they recognized an opportunity and a problem to solve and decided to capture this untapped market. 

Grooming for men was always looked at as a trivial task, something “for the sake of it.” Even with India’s beauty and personal care market projected to reach $32.7 billion by 2023, growing at a CAGR of 8.1 percent,grooming products were traditionally targeted at the female gender.

However, with changing times and perceptions, the Bombay Shaving Company has redefined men’s grooming and their shaving experience. Through effective positioning they have transformed men’s grooming from a mundane to-do task to an experience to look forward to and they have created their space in the market.

They did so by bringing in their signature razor and what the marketing head at BSC calls the “Rolls Royce of razors” -India’s first and only precision razor, that was titanium plated,single blade and could even have your name engraved on it!

Their sole agenda was to make the shaving experience for men more enjoyable and practical in India !

The Bombay Shaving Company has always been consistent with its purpose of offering shaving as a joyful and premium experience , with the help of the strategies discussed in the end. 

 And we all know how important purpose is, 64% of global consumers are attracted towards brands that constantly convey their purpose.

Even the brand name has a reason behind it . ‘Bombay’ not only reflects the origin if the founders but has a certain rustic yet modern India vibe to it along with a spirit of coolness.

The words ‘Shaving Company’ demonstrate their commitment and sincerity towards making the shaving experience more joyful and give the feeling that there is a big force behind this operation, helping build the trust in the mind of the consumers.

But selling a shaving kit for Rs.3000 was not easy in a value-driven market. Changing shaving habits that have been ingrained for decades, at scale, was a challenging task.

Since their inception in 2015, a lot of competitors have also cropped up in the arena of men’s grooming but they still remain an unique brand.

Because they believe in mentoring the right way to groom. They do not cut corners and spend an ample amount of time in thoughtfully designing every part of the grooming experience to provide complete and uncompromising care. As a brand, they are also more progressive in how one thinks about and projects masculinity. They stay away from the brotherhood, macho and ‘men will be men’ codes often used by men’s brands.

Given these efforts, they have successfully curated an image of their products that is elite, niche, necessary, yet one of a kind .

So what were the key strategies behind their storytelling that registered their brand in their target audience’s mind?

  1. From the very beginning, they made it clear how they are different from Gillette and Dollar Shave Club. Their signature 6-Part Shaving System provided a complete, uncompromising shaving experience, the polar opposite to the ‘sat-a-sat’ and convenient norm set by the category. But since they did not have the big budgets to spend on marketing, they did a few more interesting things.
  1. For the first 6 months,  they only sold the complete 6-part kit  so as to enforce the shaving philosophy into the minds of the consumer.
  1. Premium Experience:They  packaged the complete kit in a really premium way to evoke a sense of luxury
  1. Personalization- They offered users to get their names engraved on the metal razor at no additional cost. This gave users a sense of pride to hold the heavy razor, and also served as a great trigger for personalised gifting.
  1. Emotional Marketing: To quote Dale Carnegie, “When dealing with people, remember you are not dealing with creatures of logic, but with creatures of emotion.”  Bombay Shaving Company rode on occasions like Father’s Day and Rakshabandhan to position its offerings as the perfect gift for fathers and brothers. They released a series of short videos in the #DadLogic series urging consumers to gift their dad a razor that is sharper than his wit.

In 2020 the brand also weaved a narrative around the festival of Rakshabandhan, through the campaign #SurakhshaBandhan. The users were encouraged to share their sibling stories with the campaign hashtags and social media influencers were roped in to promote the campaign. A call-to-action of discounts and offers was provided with every post to drive sales.

  1. User-Generated Content: The concept of premium packaging worked wonders when users posted their unboxing experiences on social media. This gave the brand a lot of positive word-of-mouth.

Clearly, the Bombay Shaving Club has an incredible marketing and positioning strategy in place and this is obviously  just a fraction of what went into their phenomenal success.

If you want to learn more , you can do so from the man behind it all – the marketing head at the Bombay Shaving Club, Samriddh Dasgupta himself.

Join our D2C marketing Bootcamp to decode marketing strategies from experts who have been there and done that!

Categories
Growth Marketing

Breaking down Positioning

Why do you think a cup of coffee at Starbucks can rob you of 300 rupees while you wouldn’t pay more than Rs. 30 for probably much better tasting cuppa at the nearest street shop even in your wildest dream?

Alos, thinking of exclusivity, luxury and elegance in technology?

Apple immediately comes to mind, doesn’t it ? 

This is where positioning comes in.Positioning equals setting the context for the product. It basically defines how your product is a leader at delivering something that a well defined set of customers cares a lot about.

 It should provide the customer clues to the following imminent questions-

·       What is the product?

·       Who is it for?

·       Why should they even care for it?

Let’s also explore what positioning is NOT about. And this might make the MBA peeps furious.

1.    Tag Line

2.    Point of View

3.    Vision

4.    Brand

5.    Messaging

6.    “Marketing”

7.    GTM Strategy

Positioning is not just a marketing or sales strategy; positioning is a business strategy. It identifies what market segment you’re competing in and the customer expectations in that segment, which will help you develop your best go-to-market strategy.

It is simply a process of how to best communicate your organization’s unique attributes to your target customers based on their needs and to counter competitive pressures.

It means making your already happy customers even happier!

Speaking of happiness…when talking about positioning, Coca-Cola is a pioneer.No wonder that the company has been able to survive for more than 125 years. The brand has always tried to bring out the value of happiness, friendship, joy, and sharing to position itself in the market. This has helped to promote engagement in consumers and in turn encouraged them to share happy experiences and moments.

How do we go about positioning, then?

It is clearly an important task for engineering growth. Here is how you can approach it –

1. Figure out your competitive alternatives

If you didn’t exist, what would your customers use?

2.    Find your unique attributes.

What features do you have that your competitors lack?

3.    Discover the value you are unlocking.

What value do the identified attributes enable for the customers?

4.    Identify the customers who care.

Who will appreciate the value that you are adding?

5.    Decide on the market segment you want to win over.

What context makes your value obvious to the target customers?

Here is a glimpse of what Harneet Bhalla, Senior Manager Growth Marketing at Glance, had to say on overcoming positioning in an org-

 Most of the time you’re in the middle of the org and not at the CEO level. 

So there is an existing point of view on positioning and a growth model. To bring in change and growth,here is how you can start off in order to influence leadership to factor in your goals-

  •  Ask questions to the leadership–what do they feel could be a positioning statement
  •  Arrange qualitative interviews with customers–ask them what they use your product for, who they feel are your competitors.
  • Use the gap between the answers from the leadership and the consumers to start a conversation about why the take on positioning needs to be revised.
  • Then you can pitch how you want to bridge the gap .

This is just a snippet of what you can learn by joining our growth marketing bootcamp .

Apply now to join the upcoming cohort & talk with leading experts from top companies, decode growth strategies and allow those conversations to boost your career in the right direction!

Harneet Bhalla, Program Director at Xpert
He leads Growth at Glance|ex-1mg. He has empowered more than 5 Fortune 500 companies, multiple start-ups, celebrities and thousands of others through his growth marketing insights. Has been an active speaker at various forums and conferences including TEDx GLAU and IIT Bombay. Featured on a number of podcasts across USA, UK, Canada and India.