10 Ways to Build a Successful D2C Brand

10 Ways to Build a Successful D2C Brand
The strategy which made D2C on the rise is its close and personal relation focusing on high engagement with their customers.

By Dr veenu sharma , Assistant Professor – Retail and Marketing, Birla Institute Of Management Technology

28 Jan 2022 | 9 min read

In this era of making something new, no one wants to miss an opportunity for explosive growth and making their story worth telling. Where growth is good, scaling too fast is not always a good sign. Digitalization is changing the industry at a high pace and direct-to-consumer (D2C) is becoming a new trend of entering the market. 

Eliminating the middlemen entity is providing the manufacturer a greater control as well as an opportunity to directly engage and learn from its customers. Where the entry into this strategy market seems a cakewalk, one can’t ignore the fact of competing against established retail giants. The strategy which made D2C on the rise is its close and personal relation focusing on high engagement with their customers

Don’t Let Your Brand Fail

It’s important to achieve a position of being a market leader with the right talent and right product, as a brand’s growth is highly dependent upon the first-time users than its repeat users. Recently, all sharks at Shark Tank India too advised the budding entrepreneurs about creating the fear of missing out and the importance of building your name under a specific category for the core customer base rather than building a product for all. For being a part of the compelling story, brands should focus on the problem their brand is going to solve and make customer life easier in the coming years.

Market and consumer behavior has changed a lot, as pandemic has accelerated online adoption as well as customer expectation. Thus, it’s important to focus on representing your USP through multiple points of sale to increase brand recall by ensuring an excellent first impression through naming, packaging, and positioning.  

In the past few years, many D2C brands have created their space in the Indian market across various categories like food & beverage (Licious, Country Delight), beauty and personal care (Sugar, Mamaearth), home décor (Pepperfry), fashion and accessories (Lenskart, Bewakoof), electronics (BoAt) and many more. 

ALSO READ: Technologies to Impact Customer Engagement for D2C Brands

Ready to go D2C

To stand out right from the launch, it’s important to have a clear vision for your presence to disrupt the market with an affordable solution. One should not forget that innovation always has a short life, thus it should be followed by another to make a mark in the industry. With the continuing evolution of the marketplace, D2C brands should focus on marketing efforts to resolve the customer pain points. Celebrity influencers and even micro-influencers had proven to be an influential strategy in promoting the product through convincing content - Tiege Hanley, created by Vlogger Aaron Marino, Founder of the Alpha M Youtube channel is one of the best examples of the ‘content first approach’. To endeavor the success of being D2C, brands should train their employees and ensure their preparedness for the impact of this switch.

D2C is a ‘hot new thing’ and one should note that, ‘any company can thrive using the D2C model now, tomorrow, and ten years from now - as long as you use the model to optimize the service you provide your customers and the processes that allow you to do so’. Technology is the most important support behind the D2C revolution. 

Jake Gregory, Manager, Deloitte mentioned, “Now more than ever before, brands have the power to own their customer relationships. Digital platforms and tools are empowering brands to open new channels and broaden their customer reach - driving increased revenue streams, profits, and financial performance.” 

Launching of the D2C brand is possible with two major advantages, no middlemen and owning the relationship with your customer by ensuring:

1.    The Spirit to Convert Passion into a Business – The willingness to take risks and determination to own the foundation with constant evolution will be making the leaders capable of running a successful business.

2.    An Idea Worth Building for Your Target – Focusing on core and creating a viable product, and solving real customer problems should be the goal. 

3.    Creating Awareness or Competing with Tycoons – Analyzing the market and knowing the competitors will help in building a successful business plan.

4.    Being Customer-Centric - Delighting customers should be the primary objective by being seamless across all touchpoints.

5.    Nurturing the Relationship with an Identity – It’s important to focus on the communication for developing relationships at every stage with an attractive, straightforward, and exclusive plan in addition to affordability.
 
6.    Securing the Data and Going Viral – The answer to your problem lies in your customer data and leveraging the data to create a personalized experience is the necessity. Encouraging customers to make positive content and spread the word will make your brand expand with fewer efforts.
 
7.    Selecting RIGHT Fulfillment Vendor and Digital Partner –
Right fulfillment will help in saving shipping rates as well as packaging and the right digital partner will help in being more competitive by managing customer service and fulfillment process from time to time. 

8.    Designing a Multi-Channel Strategy – Splitting the sales across platforms to create more eyeballs as well assess which channel contributes to selling through. 

9.    Keeping Consistent Content – Compelling and engaging content helps in driving the business objectives. 

10.    Innovating – It’s the HEART, Howard Schultz, Chairman, and Chief Executive, Starbucks mentioned, “Innovation must be disruptive. And by disruptive, I mean disruptive. You gotta fracture and break the rules and disrupt.” 

Launching a D2C brand demands out-of-box thinking, with innovative marketing and positioning strategy.

In this era of making something new, no one wants to miss an opportunity for explosive growth and making their story worth telling. Where growth is good, scaling too fast is not always a good sign. Digitalization is changing the industry at a high pace and direct-to-consumer (D2C) is becoming a new trend of entering the market. 

Eliminating the middlemen entity is providing the manufacturer a greater control as well as an opportunity to directly engage and learn from its customers. Where the entry into this strategy market seems a cakewalk, one can’t ignore the fact of competing against established retail giants. The strategy which made D2C on the rise is its close and personal relation focusing on high engagement with their customers. 

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