DTC means that brands directly establish sales channels to contact consumers without going through any intermediary channels or platforms. For example, through the official website, LINE official account and physical stores, we directly market and promote the brand to consumers, and cultivate the relationship between the brand and customers. D2C is opposite to the traditional B2B2C e-commerce platform model. The detailed differences are as follows:
What are the differences between DTC/D2C and traditional e-commerce B2C? What are the three major advantages?
As can be seen from the above figure. DTC allows brands to own their own touch points and member data . Thereby creating more flexible interactions . And the business focus can bring personalized experiences with consumers as the center . However, in the process of transforming into D2C, brands often face some challenges due to other environmental factors.
Challenges and opportunities facing DTC/D2C
DTC has many advantages over sms services traditional B2B2C practices, but it also has problems such as losing traffic on large platforms. Coupled with the sharp decline in digital advertising traffic dividends in recent years, many brands are faced with the problem of being unable to obtain traffic at low cost and the cost of acquiring customers is high.
Xue Jin, CEO of Crescendo Labs, pointed out at the 2022 Marketing Growth Hacker Annual Conference: “Brands face the high cost of obtaining traffic, and there are two solutions: one is to find cheaper traffic sources; the other is to find cheaper traffic sources; It is to invest in customer loyalty operations (such as membership) and try to increase customer lifetime value (LTV) . “The most suitable strategy for the DTC business model is the latter, because when the brand faces consumers directly and owns consumer data, there are opportunities. Make more accurate data insights, more efficient marketing, and establiips
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Schematic diagram of the four key points of the brand management DTC/D2C business model cycle
The above four steps can create a complete DTC business model cycle for the brand:
(1) Expand the contact points between brands and consumers and master multiple channels
Among the brand’s members and potential audiences, everyone’s consumption habits and Internet usage habits are different. Brands should expand channels that are consistent with the tone of their own what are the benefits of digital transformation? why is it important? products, such as making good use of the respective advantages of APP, stores, official websites, and LINE official accounts to deliver differentiated brand images to consumers with different preferences. Only by expanding channels and proposing a complete layout strategy can we leverage the advantages of DTC and create higher-quality marketing and CRM.
(2) Establish brand data assets and integrate data from multiple parties
When the sources of brand data become more diverse and the amount of data owned by enterprises increases rapidly, data integration becomes a necessary task. However, data from different sources is scattered in different applications, hosted by different organizations, and the structure of different data is also different. The process of transforming into D2C often requires a series of processes to seamlessly integrate different data sources.
Crescendo Lab provides the following common and fast data integration services. If you have more needs, you can refer to the instructions here :
- Using the MAAC all-round cacellnumbers marketing platform , the first-party data collected by the brand through LINE OA is connected with the third-party data on GA.
- Automatically import and synchronize consumer survey data collected by brands through SurveyCake and Google Forms to MAAC
- Integrate existing member information on e-commerce platforms such as 91APP and SHOPLINE with first-party data collected by LINE
- Automatically synchronize and integrate offline POS machine data to MAAC
- Integrate data from other CDPs or CRM platforms such as Salesforce with data in MAAC