D2C stands for direct to consumer, which is a special business model that cuts out any middlemen. While many companies will develop products and sell them through other retailers or wholesalers, you sell straight to your customers. The obvious benefit of this is that you maximise profits by not needing to sell the goods cheaper to a third-party retailer so they can also make a profit.
The obvious drawback is that you’re all alone and can’t rely on third-party vendors to help out with their own marketing or brand image. In this case you need to know the key steps involved in running a successful D2C business – and they’re laid out for you below.
1. Sell Products With A Clear Purpose
Being a direct-to-consumer business means you can’t produce loads of products like other businesses. You don’t have the capacity to develop, manufacture, store and sell dozens of completely different things – it’s a total waste of money. This approach works when you sell through other retail platforms because those platforms generate more traffic, and there’s a higher chance of people seeing and buying your different goods.
With a D2C business, the focus shifts to developing a couple of products that serve a clear purpose. Make the target customer obvious and focus on appealing to them instead of the mass market.
Selling one or two products makes it seem like you’re an expert in that particular field, which helps with sales, but it also enables you to keep the costs low. You’ve got a product, it solves a clear problem, and you know who it’s for – this lets you forget about everything else and all of your marketing/branding centres around the target customer.
2. Use Self-Storage To Scale Your Fulfilment Needs
Your business will start small but should eventually grow as you generate more sales. In the D2C world, you’re often handling the shipping of goods yourself, which means you need a reliable way to fulfil and stock orders. At the same time, you need this to be scalable so you can adapt to increased needs.
As a result, self storage becomes the ideal solution for a direct-to-consumer approach.
With a self-storage facility you can rent as much space as you need to keep your stock. You then have immediate access to it whenever you want, making it easy to package and get ready for shipping. Then, if your business grows, you can rent larger storage spaces – or rent more self-storage in different locations around the country.
It’s smarter and more cost-effective than jumping straight into a warehouse, especially when your stock levels will be quite low in the beginning.
3. Build A Brand & Highlight Your Core Benefits
Direct-to-consumer isn’t just about the products you sell. If anything, it’s more about your brand as a whole. Let’s say you choose to sell your products through Amazon – your brand doesn’t matter as much then because Amazon itself carries enough weight for people to trust your listing. When you’re selling straight from your own website, you need to convince consumers that you’re the real deal.
So, build a brand and focus on the core ways a consumer will benefit from buying from you.
That’s the big thing here; you need to establish trust and authenticity, all the while demonstrating why it makes more sense to buy your product than it does to get a similar one from Amazon or a different marketplace. Highlight things like the cost-savings someone will gain from using your brand, or the idea of supporting smaller businesses.
Some of your core benefits will also tie in with the next step in your D2C journey…
4. Make Customer Loyalty Your Main Priority
It’s far easier to generate a stream of new customers when you sell via marketplaces, purely because they see so much web traffic. For a D2C business, new customer acquisition takes a backseat, and your main priority should be customer loyalty.
A returning customer is likely to spend more money than a new customer.
This is where you introduce a killer loyalty program that none of the general marketplaces can compete with. You have the freedom to design this program however you want – don’t be afraid to reward your customers as much as possible. As long as you still make a profit, a bigger loyalty reward will always generate repeat business.
5. Create Impactful Social Media Content
Social media will be the centre of your marketing strategy because it lets you create impactful content. Excellent social media content builds trust with your brand, which convinces people to buy from you over a marketplace. It also helps you acquire your first few customers and set them down the loyalty path.
Use social media content to make connections with your target audience and to demonstrate your products for all to see.
The best content should answer questions people have about your business before they raise them, but it should also bring the audience closer to your brand.
6. Ensure Your Website Is On Point
You will fail as a D2C business if your website sucks.
Your site needs to be fast, modern, and easy to use. If it doesn’t tick these three boxes, you can forget about paying customers. People need a good online shopping experience when they visit your site or they won’t checkout. Speaking of which, find ways to optimise the checkout process so people can buy things in a couple of clicks without any stress.
The easier your site is to use – and the nicer it looks – the more leads you’ll convert into paying customers.
Overall, a direct-to-consumer business is a lot of work. You lose out on the benefits of selling through external retailers or marketplaces, but you gain more control over your branding and pricing strategies. When done correctly, it will be a much more profitable way of running a business – you just need to follow the right steps throughout the process. Start with these six and continue from there to establish a winning D2C company.
