How to develop the foundations of a powerful D2C brand
The questions you need to ask, and answers you need to know in order to create an engaging and differentiated D2C brand
TLDR:
The foundations of a successful brand require deep knowledge of your target audience, competitors, and industry
To understand this, D2C companies should create/conduct the following:
Customer personas
Competitive audit
Stakeholder interviews (current and past customers, investors, employees, industry experts)
Whenever I hear the question, why does a D2C company need a powerful brand? I follow up with my own question: why would someone buy a product from a D2C company rather than Amazon?
On paper, it makes more sense to buy from Amazon. Amazon likely has a very similar product that is cheaper and has faster shipping times. The experience is probably more seamless, and you have just as many options (if not more). So why would anyone make a more expensive, more complex purchase from a D2C brand?
The answer is simple. D2C companies are marketing companies and brand gurus. They would not ordinarily be able to compete with Amazon and industry incumbents, so they must have a unique angle - their brand.
So how does a D2C company create a powerful brand? It starts with fully understanding the industry, your competitors, your target audience, and what makes you different. In order to uncover these insights you need to create/conduct the following:
Customer personas
Competitive audit
Stakeholder interviews
Let’s break it down
Target audience:
You need to understand who will be purchasing your product/service. There are many D2C companies with very similar products and missions, but their target audience is different, whether that be by age, geography, socioeconomic status, etc. As a result they have very different brands.
Take a look at two D2C companies that both sell high-end business clothes for women: M.M.LaFleur and Argent.
They both have similar price points, similar styles, and a similar target audience, but they vary on one key element. While M.M.LaFleur targets women working in more conservative industries such as consulting and finance, Argent targets women working in more liberal industries such as tech.
This difference in target has resulted in two very different brands, with M.M.LaFleur having more subdued, classic styles, while Argent has bright and bold outfits that are guaranteed to catch eyes.
In order to deeply understand your target audience, you need to create multiple personas, even if they differ just slightly. Each persona should have a name and illustrate the following:
Demographics: Median age of your target, median income of your target, job & education, family/relationship status
Goals: What are they hoping to achieve in an area that relates to your product/service? What challenges are they facing that will hinder them from getting there?
Favorite brands: These brands do not have to be competitors, but a sampling of brands they are loyal to
Bio: A paragraph that describes the key information gathered above as it pertains to your product/service. Through this description the reader should inherently understand why this persona is a good target
While this is a standard persona, each company has different needs, so feel free to add more information if you believe it is needed to fully understand your audience.
Competitive audit:
Conducting an in-depth competitive audit is essential to creating a powerful brand. In order to understand what makes you different, you need to understand what your competitors are doing/saying. Start by identifying 4-5 competitors who have a similar product and are targeting the same or a similar target audience.
For each of these competitors you need to answer the following questions by reading their website, presentations/press releases, social media, interacting with their customer service, etc.
What are your competitors saying, and how are they saying it?
What are they focusing on?
Are they focusing on too many things?
Do they have a distinct personality/tone?
Is it consistent across all channels?
Is this strategy resonating with their audience?
Can you describe in one sentence, who they are and why someone should buy from them? (If you can’t, it suggests that their messaging isn’t clear)
What makes them different from you?
What would you do or say differently?
Next you’ll want to look at competitors from a visual lens:
Are they digital first?
What colors are they using and why?
Are they colors traditional in the industry?
What images are they using? Photos? Drawings? Of who?
How are they simplifying information?
How are they standing out from incumbents?
Does the design match the tone of their website?
After conducting this audit, you should have a very clear understanding of what you’re up against, but more importantly, you should have a better understanding of what makes you special. What you can do better than them and why customers should care.
Stakeholder interviews
You need to understand what a diverse group of people think about your company, your brand, the industry, your competitors, and the challenges they believe you’re up against. Many believe that they already have these answers, but it’s essential that you get a fresh perspective. It’s so easy to slip into group think, and this is the best way to break out of that mindset.
The way to achieve this is by conducting interviews with employees, investors, customers, and industry experts. Perhaps adding in even a couple of people who are not fans of your company. Investors who passed on investing, or customers who never made a second purchase. You want to understand all perception -- good and bad. You may even consider having an impartial individual conduct these interviews, so no one feels pressured to give a ‘right’ or ‘positive’ response.
Once you’ve identified a group of stakeholders to interview, you should ask questions that interrogate the following:
Industry:
What are customers looking for in the industry?
Is there an opportunity for disruption? If yes, are we poised to disrupt?
What are the biggest pain points for customers in this industry? Do we address them?
Will we be relevant in 5 years? If not, what do we have to say or do in order to stay relevant?
Competitors:
Who are the biggest threats?
What are they doing better or worse than us?
What makes us different/unique?
Brand:
How would you describe our company to a friend?
If our company were a character, either fictional or real, who would we be and why?
What do you like most about our company?
Where are the areas that need to improve?
Do you believe that we have a unique story that we should tell the market?
Audience:
Describe to us our ideal customer
What about us would resonate the most with them?
How can we move from awareness into the consideration set?
What are the most important touchpoints for our audience?
What channels are the most important for engagement?
Once again, feel free to adjust these questions and make them more relevant to your company’s needs. Perhaps you need to interrogate the existing company culture, or the sales process. These are broad so they can apply to multiple industries, but they are meant to be curated to address the pressing questions you need to answer
Wrap up
Once you’ve created the audience persona, conducted a competitive audit, and interrogated stakeholders, you should have a very clear understanding of who you are, why you are different, and why customers should make a purchase from you. You can now take the next step and create a brand that is:
Different from competitors
Focused on what makes you different
Tells people why they should buy from you
Still wondering how to actually put the brand together? Subscribe for Part 2, which will outline how to create a brand, or email me at caylinmay51@gmail.com.