🚨 In today’s newsletter 🚨

• A look at how The Rounds reached profitability

• Brand metrics you should pay attention to

• Testing AI tools for marketing copy

Let’s get into it👇

#1 - 🍃 How The Rounds made sustainability profitable

📰 TL;DR - The Rounds is a household restocking e-comm brand centered around sustainability. It delivers household goods in reusable containers and reusable bags, then picks them up again so they can be cleaned and used again. They only operate in select cities and have said they are profitable, including in how it operates fulfillment centers. This piece dives into how they pulled it off, including the use of AI. In this case, AI is used to predict what customers need, and they were able to put that in place thanks to a new round of funding. They currently have around 10,000 paying subscribers.

💡 Insight - This is an interesting case study because this business format in particular is tricky to pull off and way more complicated than simply shipping out an item. I think some of the success is due to being smart in not trying to do too much too fast. They operate in only a few large cities — scaling too fast would have been disastrous. The article notes that they’d probably have more subscribers if the service wasn’t so costly, but they clearly have enough customers to reach profitability. It goes to show that many people are willing to pay a premium for greener products.

➡️ You can read the article here...

#2 - 🔥 How sending free products to Micro-Influencers has helped brands 5X revenue in 2 months

Tapping into the power of social media Micro-Influencers and a platform called Stack Influence that automates influencer collaborations at scale (hundreds of promotions a month), Amazon brands like Unilever, Magic Spoon, and Blueland have been able to grow their monthly revenue by 5X, decrease their ad costs using a war chest of influencer UGC, and build an army of affiliate marketers to consistently drive new customers.

➡️ Get Started Here

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#3 - 📊 Brand metrics to follow

📰 TL;DR - This piece is a quick guide to brand metrics. These are sort of the softer side of metrics — more quantitative and qualitative. More difficult to track than just seeing your sales for the day, but definitely important. That includes things like brand awareness, brand equity, brand loyalty, and brand consistency. These take a little more work to figure out, such as with customer surveys and analysis. This also gets into how to use brand metrics. For example, having a high familiarity with your brand makes someone more likely to make a purchase down the line.

💡 Insight - Really pay attention to the “how to use brand metrics” section because I think it does a good job explaining why these metrics matter in a practical way. I like the example of how having strong customer loyalty means a refer-a-friend campaign is more likely to succeed. I also think that in DTC, having a strong brand is everything. The best brands aren’t just selling a product, they’re selling particular values and experiences. This is how you measure whether that’s working.

➡️ You can read the article here...

#4 - 🛠️ Things worth checking out

💿 PRODUCTS - Here’s a weekly roundup of e-commerce product releases.

📈 TRENDS - Read this week’s roundup of DTC trends and moves.

👕 WHOLESALE - Check out this list of the top wholesale clothing vendors in the US.

🌍 AFRICA - Check out this interesting piece on how e-commerce brands in Africa are concentrating on selling on social media.

🎄 HOLIDAYS - This new holiday shopping forecast predicts $1.6 trillion in spending.

#5 - 🤖 The best AI tools for marketing copy

📰 TL;DR - We know that generative AI tools have been a game-changer for writing copy, but what tools are the best? This piece puts a bunch of them to the test, including when used for blogs, social media copy, and emails. It notes what each tool — such as SocialBee, Copy.AI, and Scalenut — are good at handling, and where they fall short. Overall, a lot of them need a few tweaks here and there, and some don’t fully understand the best practices for certain formats, but the results are generally pretty good.

💡 Insight - I think it’s only a matter of time until these types of AI tools are built into every app you use, but for now these tools are all pretty useful. I see them being most useful for those of us who run our e-commerce businesses solo. You have to wear so many hats, from marketer, to SEO specialist, to photographer, to fulfillment. These tools at least make marketing easier for those days when you just can’t come up with a new Instagram caption or catchy email.

➡️ You can read the article here...