Tuesday, August 15

#1 - 📈 This brand uses TikTok to spike sales

📰 TL;DR - Here’s a cool profile on how GotFunny, a t-shirt seller, uses TikTok to make sales go boom. The brand’s owner actually attributes 95% of its sale to discovery on social media, including TikTok. It actually took a few months to find a formula that works — chasing virality didn’t cut it. Rather, leaning into authenticity found its mark. Now, when a TikTok gets 500K views or more, online sales increase anywhere from 200% to 2,000% when they feature a product. Authenticity, for him, means low-fi, silly videos.

💡 Insight - I love the anecdote that the owner once spent three hours on what he thought was an optimized TikTok to only receive 300 views. This is what brands need to understand about TikTok — trying harder won’t necessarily yield results. That’s why it’s so important to have a TikTok native at the helm of your strategy, not a general marketer. At the very least you should spend hours consuming content before thinking you understand the platform. You can check out GotFunny’s TikTok profile here. You’ll notice they’re silly, simple, and feature a recurring character. Don’t overthink it!

➡️ You can read the article here...

#2 - 💰 How to turn your cart into a conversion machine

📰 TL;DR - Increase your Shopify store's revenue with Monk, the ultimate AOV enhancement app. Boost cart conversions using a progress bar, offer irresistible upsells, and set up cross-sells seamlessly. Customize widgets to match your brand's design.

💡 Insight - Monk is the all-in-one AOV enhancement app for your Shopify store's success. Increase conversions with cart upsells and a captivating tiered progress bar. Delight customers with tailored gifts based on specific products, quantities, or cart values.

No need to clutter your website with multiple apps; Monk does it all! Experience a boost in ROI and enhanced user satisfaction.

➡️ Get a lifetime 25% discount, an extended 21-day trial, and priority setup and support here.

📣 If you want to reach our audience of 10,000+ DTC store owners, tap here 

#3 - 📏 Shopify introduces AI fit tool

📰 TL;DR - Shopify is giving merchants access to True Fit Fashion Genome, an AI-based fit tool that helps customers find the right size. Similar to other competitors in this category, the tool creates a profile for customers by asking some basic questions about their body type, and also indicating what size they wear in other brands to determine the best fit for a given store. What’s also cool is customers create an account and password, so they can then reuse that profile on other sites. Some brands currently using this solution include Few Moda, Greyson, Toast, and Dia & Co..

💡 Insight - The name of the game with fit tools is reducing returns. We all know that returns are expensive and frustrating, and when it comes to apparel, an incorrect fit is a prime reason for initiating a return. What’s also interesting here is that there are now several AI-powered startups creating tools like this. If Shopify is backing this one, it’s possible that this one, in particular, will emerge as a winner, especially if multiple merchants adopt it and users can access their profile across multiple sites. Finally, it’s been proven that these tools are a conversion and confidence booster, so you should definitely be using one, even if it’s not this one.

➡️ You can read the article here...

#4 - 🛠️ Things worth checking out

😎 UGC - Need a no-commitment UGC solution? Try minisocial! They partner your brand with high-quality micro influencer creators who produce fully-licensed UGC. The best part, they have no commitments, just pay per project. Check it out here.

🚨 TRENDS - Get the latest DTC trends and moves in AdAge’s most recent roundup here.

✏️ AMAZON - Amazon is using AI to summarize customer reviews, just like Newegg just did. Read more here.

💸 TEMU - Ever wonder exactly what Temu’s strategy is right now amid its marketing spree? Here’s a great deep dive.

📚 BOOKS - Here are even more books about how to grow a business.

#5 - 🎄 How early will holiday shopping start?

📰 TL;DR - The answer is: early! According to this survey, 38% of people plan to start holiday shopping before it’s even Halloween. Another 44% will begin at Thanksgiving, which has become the traditional kick-off with Black Friday — Cyber Monday. As well, 4 in 10 plan to shop on Black Friday and 20% plan to shop on Cyber Monday. Interestingly, this seems to be a decrease from 2021. For online shopping, people seem most interested in marketplaces like Etsy, Amazon, and Overstock (now BB&B). Also interesting is that younger shoppers seem less interested in BFCM.

💡 Insight - There are lots of takeaways here. First, start putting your top sellers and gift sets on display as early as Halloween (or earlier!). It’s also fascinating that Gen Z and millennials are less interested in BFCM. That suggests to me that you create sales and promotions marketed on social media anytime throughout the holiday season and attract those age groups. This all suggests to me that people are looking for deals throughout the season, not just on BFCM, and they really want the right products, not just the ones that happen to be on sale. Finally, this all points to the fact that worries about spending mean that people want to spread out their purchases instead of going on a spree for a single weekend.

➡️ You can read the article here...