- DTC Daily
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- Wednesday, May 31
🏳️🌈 Hold strong this Pride Month
📰 TL;DR - Pride Month officially begins tomorrow, but the controversies are well underway. We’ve all seen the backlash leveled at Target and Bud Light for Pride-themed collabs and merch. In both cases, the brands backed off — but that actually made things worse. Glossy talked to marketers who said listening to anti-LGBTQ rhetoric just shows that hate can win and it alienates customers who are themselves LGBTQ or allies.
💡 Insight - This underscores something very important: in the current political climate, aligning with LGBTQ communities isn’t just a throwaway marketing tactic. As a Lush spokesperson says here, brands need to be “comfortable with discomfort.” One argument is to not engage in social campaigns this way at all, but we also know that Gen Z in particular favors brands that are willing to put their values front and center. The point here is that if you’re going to show your values, stay true to them. Make them mean something.
👋🏽 Buh bye metaverse
📰 TL;DR - Brands are backing away from the metaverse and if you’re paying attention, that shouldn’t be a surprise. For awhile there, we were constantly hearing about brand pushes into Decentraland or Roblox but now major players like Walt Disney are pulling back. That includes e-comm brands who once launched virtual stories on these platforms.
💡 Insight - I mean, the writing is on the wall. Attention has quickly shifted from the metaverse to AI and I don’t see it going back. Frankly, I always thought most metaverse iterations were just crappy video games with some sort of crypto tie-in. The one exception is Roblox — kids actually love it! Probably because it’s actually built out to be more of a game than a fad. Point is, if you didn’t get in on the metaverse thing, doesn’t sweat it and move on.
🤖 ChatGPT for customer service
📰 TL;DR - AI is a game-changer for customer service, especially with smarter-than-ever chatbots. But you can also use good ol’ ChatGPT to generate some customer service interactions. For example, ask it for email templates for thanking customers for their purchases, or replies for positive reviews online. This article has a bunch of great prompt ideas.
💡 Insight - A good note here is you can ask ChatGPT to edit itself. If it spits out something you don’t love, ask it to make it shorter, or more emotional, or with a mention of a particular product or service. And, as I’ll always say, use this as a jumping-off point. Only you know the proper tone and voice for customer service interactions — don’t sound like a total robot.
📈 Retail trends you need to know
📰 TL;DR - I love a good trend roundup. This one really hits on some trends I’m definitely seeing — like adding new sales channels, feeling trepidatious about finances this year, and turning to automation. Also here is the importance of both mobile and social commerce — two areas you should not be neglecting, however you choose to approach them.
💡 Insight - First, it’s worth noting this is a piece of sponcon from Square, but the trends within it are still solid. The one thing here I think should be stressed is the rise of mobile commerce. Square says mobile payments are up 117% this year. This ties into social commerce because so many shopping journeys now begin on social media. If I’m browsing on my phone and see a great Instagram add, I’m opening my mobile browser, not my laptop (or ideally the Instagram post has a link nearby). So ABOFM: always be optimizing for mobile.
🛠️ Things worth checking out
💰 PAYROLL - Do you have payroll losses from 2020 or 2021? Lendio helps in reclaiming up to $26,000/employee in payroll losses. Find out what you qualify for here.
✍🏼 COPYWRITING - Is it time in your e-comm journey to hire an outside copywriter? Here’s where they could help you out.
😮 RESOURCES - As a business (in the US, in this case) there are a ton of free resources to help you along your journey. Check them out here.
🧵 RESOURCES - More trouble at ThredUp, this time with customers being mad how long it takes to process items they send in. Read here.
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