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10 Critical Learnings to Win in D2C in Mid to Large Sized Organizations
10 Critical Learnings to Win in D2C in Mid to Large Sized Organizations

December 15, 2023

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Being a Chief Digital Officer in several large Healthcare & CPGs, I have encountered some of the common learnings to scale and win in D2C. Hope it helps and would love to hear your learnings so we can collaborate to learn as a D2C community.

1. Holistic Framework

Sometimes organizations think of D2C principally in terms of E-Commerce, but it is so much more to be successful. A useful framework to follow is to acquire, convert, and retain, and each of the three pillars requires the following listed components. To succeed, one needs to excel in all aspects over a period of time.

2. Consumer experience (CX) obsession

It’s obvious, and every company talks about consumer obsession. But are we really? Every day, the D2C team needs to be asking themselves how to improve the CX. What are you learning through your reviews, ratings, and consumer feedback as an organization, and how are you incorporating that to continuously improve CX? CX is an iterative process, not just a one-off. In my various roles, I read customer reviews and comments daily to pick up signals to act upon.

3. Consumer journeys, content and personalization

At the heart of CX lies journey mapping, content, and personalization. It is critical to have robust CoEs to make this the DNA of the marketing teams. Real-time content personalization is also key, meaning you need to map how your content operations will work in creative, design, and real-time deployment. Which parts of content operations do you keep in-house, and which do you outsource? What technology solutions do you deploy for personalization? Should your content teams be onshore or nearshore? There are many pros and cons to each approach. You can create the optimal solution and roadmap by working with the right partners.

4. Owned sites and marketplaces

Most successful CPGs follow a dual strategy of owned e-commerce sites and marketplaces. In many cases, marketplaces such as Amazon still account for the majority of sales, as that is where consumers do most of their shopping. Accordingly, it is very important that a CoE is set up to manage and extract maximum value from marketplace partnerships.

5. Revenue++

Most organizations initially think of D2C and e-commerce as a way to increase sales. Certainly, that can be true, but the insights one can generate through building first-party databases can be even more powerful. The D2C database can also be used to test new products or line extensions. D2C teams should, therefore, be positioning D2C on the wider benefits and not just revenue generation.

6. Tech is the enabler; don’t lead with it

Many mid to large CPG organizations make a large investment in martech stacks, only to be disappointed with the return and the ability of marketing teams to adopt and utilize these stacks to derive maximum value. Simply deploying a premium martech stack is like giving someone a Formula One car but without the license or training to drive it. Leading with strategy, skills development, and business processes is critical. Only then can the organization derive full value from the tech stack.

7. Archetypes

In many instances, D2C and E-Commerce revenues in large markets like the US can differ greatly from smaller markets. Following an archetype strategy can, therefore, be helpful in guiding investments across regions and markets and helping to optimize marketing and tech investment. In certain cases, premium martech stacks with greater functionality could be deployed in Tier 1 markets, whereas Tier 2 markets could have more value-based stacks to achieve positive ROI faster.

8. Product ownership and agile ways of working

Don’t fall into the trap of relying on traditional organizational structures to win in D2C. D2C requires agile decision-making based on real-time data. Business and IT product ownership is therefore critical for success. Some CPGs have created product owners to attract, convert, and retain streams to enable empowered decision-making and agile ways of working. It will be a journey and won’t be perfect on day, one, but over time, it will pay dividends.

9. End-to-end data insights

Many organizations have invested heavily in data lakes and hubs and are disappointed that they still cannot generate end-to-end insights. Customer Data Platforms (CDP) are now the emerging solution to help companies obtain end-to-end insights from disparate data sources. Word of caution: work with a partner with real experience in implementing CDP solutions.

10. Outcome based partners

Agencies and partners will be very happy to take your money based on time and materials. Introduce outcome-based pricing in your contract to ensure partners have sufficient skin in the game. It’s tough to construct and arrive at the right KPIs, but it is worth persevering to ensure partners have the right outcome-based mindset.


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