📦 - Pint Sized Cherubs 👼

DTC 604 - Brand Anniversaries, Reverse Countdown Timer, and Sonny Angel Craze Thursday, July 18, 2024 Good morning, Meta is rolling out a new feature for Instagram advertisers. With this change, you can showcase custom offers on your call-to-action button. This allows advertisers to test multiple CTAs in one ad and see which copy leads to the most conversions. Read more about this update in our News section! Here’s what you’ll find in today’s DTC: 🎂 Five fun ways to celebrate your brand's birthday and generate more sales. ⏲️ Learn how Zara creates hype and sells out inventory with its sales countdown timer. 😇 And…these pint-sized angel toys are everywhere and even made an appearance on SNL. Learn why _____ _____ are such a hot commodity. You’re reading this newsletter along with new subscribers from: [Molson Coors](, [Slug Bicycles](, and [Cequence Security](. 👋 SCALE 🧽 This Brand Is Changing The Way People Clean… Tineco is a floor care brand that’s changing the way people clean. By selling on [Walmart Marketplace](, they’ve been able to build their brand name and reach new customers, all while becoming more efficient and growing sales. 🚀 With Walmart Marketplace, you can do more than just expand reach. [Sell on Walmart.com and get](: - Innovative programs that help you scale - Walmart’s omnichannel advantage - Simple, cost-effective fulfillment And if you join now, you’ll save up to 50% on referral and fulfillment fees.* 👀 [LEARN MORE]( *Conditions apply *Sponsored BRAND ANNIVERSARY 🎂 Five Ways To Celebrate Your Brand’s Birthday It’s time to celebrate and pop some champagne! 🍾 Your brand anniversary only occurs once a year, so build excitement, celebrate with your customers, and create a campaign to generate more sales! Here are a few ideas for celebrating your brand's birthday. 1️⃣ Run a giveaway [Verb Energy]( celebrated its 6th anniversary by offering one of its Instagram followers a chance to win a year's supply of caffeinated energy bars. Not only did this generate a lot of brand awareness and engagement on social media, but the brand also collected a lot of customer feedback on how they like to enjoy Verb products for an extra entry. 2️⃣ Release limited edition products [Tower 28]( released a limited edition shade of their lip products, Confetti Cake, exclusively on their website. The cake-inspired flavor gets all of their fans in a celebratory mood and creates excitement around the surprise product drop. They also partnered with award-winning bakery Milk Bar on their PR packages delivering the lip product to influencers and a branded Confetti Cake mix and matches so customers can celebrate with them by making a sweet treat. 3️⃣ Drop limited edition merch Drink brand [Poppi]( celebrated its birthday by launching a limited edition sweatsuit inspired by their popular Raspberry Rose flavor, which they cheekily called Birthday Suit. "Merch lives forever," said Sophia Sesto, director of brand awareness and culture at Poppi. The brand is well known for creating merchandise like sweatsuits to give to creators and sell online. This strategy turns the drink brand into more of a lifestyle brand, and thanks to UGC, their sweatsuits have become highly coveted items. 4️⃣ Promote a birthday sale Clothing Brand [Smash + Tess]( celebrates their birthday with a blowout birthday sale. For orders over $200, they also prepared a GWP with a promo code using the word GIFT to stay on theme. 5️⃣ Offer Free Shipping Don’t have time to plan a big celebration? Keep the promotion simple. Apparel brand [Djerf Avenue]( sent out a mailer offering its customers a one-day free shipping code for its founder's birthday. The discount code also gave a shout out to the founder and influencer Matilda Djerf. How are you celebrating your brand's birthday this year? Reply back for a chance to be featured in a future newsie! SALES TACTIC ⏲️ How Zara’s Reverse Countdown Timer Creates A Sales Frenzy Many brands add a countdown timer in the last few hours to add urgency to a sales period. But like everything in marketing, sometimes this tactic can stop yielding strong results because it’s become so common, and consumers are well aware of it. So how do you keep things fresh and interesting? 🤔 What if…you take the reverse approach of time scarcity and turn it onto its head into a time hype? [Pilothouse]( spotted this new sales tactic that adds a creative spin to the overused countdown timer. Zara has been tactfully implementing the sale count-down timer in anticipation of its biggest sale of the year. Often, it sells out of 90% of its overflowing inventory within a three-day period. 📈 Here are some ways Zara created sales hype instead of sales angst. 🚨 Warn the people. Give a precise time and date indication of the sale periods. Zara cleverly creates waves of sales, providing exclusivity on its app first, then their website, followed by retail stores. 👀 Offer a sneak peek: Allow users to get a sneak peek into what products will be discounted within a set time frame. Zara highlights cost savings in neon green so it’s easy to see against their white backdrop and is visually impactful. 🛒 Cart stuffing. Users can add everything they want into their cart and view their anticipated savings for when the sale is live. Seeing how much they can save is a great incentive for them to follow through on their purchase. 🎉 Make the wait fun! Giving a nice little game for customers to play before placing their order. To keep shoppers from abandoning their site and holding attention, Zara keeps them engaged with a virtual game. The takeaway? These four simple steps emulate the same in-person craze of sample sales, where people line up for hours outside a store to get their hands on limited qualities of heavily discounted goods. This year, instead of doing the same Early Access Black Friday, Black Friday, and Cyber Monday with timers counting down to the sale end, why not count down to the sale start? 📈 SEARCH SURGE Trending This Week: [Sonny Angels]( Why is this happening? You’ve probably seen these all pint-sized cherubs over social media. These cute angel baby dolls created by Japanese toy maker Toru Soeya have a cult-like following that’s reached fever pitch this year. Although originally intended to help women in their twenties de-stress, younger consumers are also hopping on the trend, sharing their collection and educating others on where to buy. Who should hop on this trend: Brands who want to capitalize on this trend can do licensing deals. Phone case brand Castefiy will be [rolling out their Sonny Angels collab tomorrow on July 19th](. ⚡ QUICK HITS 🛍️ ATTENTION CPG Brands: here’s your guide to influencer marketing. SARAL has the latest tips, tactics, and templates that will help you drive engagement and sales. [Get your free copy here](. * 🗑️ Time to throw out your inefficient SMS marketing strategies. Yotpo is sharing a better way to increase your ROI on National SMS Waste Day, July 23 at 2PM ET. [RSVP here](. * 📰 NEWS - Meta [is rolling out a feature that allows Instagram advertisers to test multiple CTA offers in one ad](. - Adobe Analytics [predicts Prime Day will bring in an estimated record-breaking $14 billion in sales](. - YouTube [tests Community Spaces feature to help drive more engagement](. - Anthropic [brings ChatGPT competitor Claude AI to Android devices](. SPONSOR DTC 📥 Got a B2B Biz? Join dozens of B2B companies finding demand-gen success through our niche community of 160k brand leaders and founders this year. [Talk to our team to learn more](. Have you heard our latest podcasts? - 🕶️ Parker Godfrey on [How Kiaura Went Viral on TikTok Shops]( - 😆 [AKNF 421:]( Grow Top Of Funnel With Humor and Controversy - 🌽 FFUPS founder Sam Tichnor on [How He Scaled Snacking]( - 💰 [AKNF 419:]( Bidding on Branded Keywords on Google Ads - 🦙 Paka Founder Kris Cody on [His Peruvian Retail Journey]( - 🤖 [AKNF 417:]( Learn How To Build Your Own Brand GPT Don’t forget to [rate the DTC Podcast]( on Apple (⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️) DTC Newsletter is written by [Rebecca Knight]( and [Frances Du](. Edited by [Eric Dyck](. Was this email forwarded to you? Sign up [here](. Please note that items in this newsletter marked with * contain sponsored content. [Direct To Consumer]( Pilothouse, 1011 Government St., Victoria, BC V8W 1X6, Canada [Advertise with DTC]( | [Work With Pilothouse]( [Unsubscribe](