October 12, 2021 
Overview
Are you an entrepreneur with kick-ass product ideas that can disrupt the current market space? Thinking about how to reach your target and potential customers in an efficient manner without the hassle of involving the army of sellers, resellers, distributors, and retailers? Are you looking forward to craft, and spread awareness about your brand/product from Day 1, and acquire succinct consumer mindshare? Then, leveraging the D2C, ‘Direct To Consumer’ strategy is your best bet.
Though this is still a relatively new business model, the name is quite evident. As an individual entrepreneur or a brand, you reach out to your potential customers directly, cater to their needs with your product offerings, and conjure nurturing engagements.
D2C – A Steady Trend or A Passing Fad?
The conventional market space was mostly ruled by the distributors as they were essential in bringing the products produced by manufacturers to the end customers. And, that said, distributors need not be a single entity. There could be a vast number of sellers, resellers, wholesalers, and retailers involved in the supply chain. With this approach, though the producers need not burden themselves with the distribution responsibilities, they had to split the profit margins. While profit margins are definitely substantial, producers had fewer opportunities to relay their product USPs directly to the customers. And, the same goes for receiving direct customer feedback too. The concept of D2C was born out of necessity to forge one-to-one, personalized brand-customer interactions.
Though it is still in a nascent stage, D2C is going to rule the marketing landscape in the years to come. Wondering how this declaration is concluded? Well, 2/3rd of the customer segment has come to wish for the same. And, with some key brands leveraging D2C to carve a successful growth curve, D2C is definitely going to stay in the trend for the foreseeable future.
Is D2C Worth The Investment?
Well, when we think from the investment perspective, there is not much that you need to do. You just need to line up your product stack, craft a customer-centric website or eCommerce platform, and voila! You are available 24/7 for your target and potential customers. This is the beauty of being digitally native. Then, you can focus on ensuring hassle-free product browsing, selection, order placement, and doorstep shipping. Well, if you are not ready with a distribution strategy and all that entails, you might have to contend with a few roadblocks. These challenges can be effectively overcome by taking care of brand-oriented packaging, and shipping activities.
Once the distribution task is taken care of, you are all sorted to launch your D2C brand to your target audiences and to get started with crafting nurturing customer engagement, meaningful relationships, and great revenue streams.
D2C and Its Unique Value Propositions
Still, feeling undecided about taking a leap of faith? Then, do check out the key value propositions offered by the D2C business model.
No Splitting of Margins
Gone are the days when the market ecosystem was ruled majorly by the distributors, who used to take a chunk of the producers’ profit margins. And, of course, in the conventional supply chain, producers had to rely on the army of distributors to get their products to the end consumers. However, the tables have turned with the D2C strategy in place. Producers now can get their product stack ready, upload their product catalogue on their website, and are all geared up to meet the customer demands. Brands by leveraging D2C won’t have to rely on distributors. Instead, they can enjoy a faster time-to-market without the need to split the profit margins with any other third-party entities. With a robust online and social media presence, they can reach out to millions of customers instantly. And, by leveraging cutting-edge marketing, and promotion tactics, converting the leads into loyal customers becomes fairly easy.
Get Your Hands on Targeted Customer Data
The beauty of the D2C approach is that brands have full control over the entire distribution arena. D2C presents greater opportunities for brands to directly interact with the customers, position the product offerings in a robust, and distortion-free manner, collect requisite feedback to reshape the product marketing, and customer success strategies. These data and derived insights can prove to be of utmost significance for brands to embark on a growth trajectory. These insights can be further leveraged to map customer journeys, craft remarketing campaigns in terms of PPC, and social media advertising to gain the inactive customers back.
Product Personalization
Products that essentially solve the end customers’ problem stay both in the trend as well as demand. Brands need real-time feedback on their product offerings so that they can further shape, and customize them. With multiple intermediaries in the distribution process, gaining direct customer feedback was something that brands could not avail of. However, with the D2C approach, this can be achieved effectively. Brands can offer the “try before you buy” features to help customers make informed decisions. This will also pave the way for product A/B testing from the pricing, promotion, and placement aspects.
Extensive Branding
Brand awareness, and establishing a digital presence are the key objectives that most brands, especially the D2C ones vying for. While this may take a bit of time, there are certainly other ways through which D2C brands can reach their customers, and stay on top of their minds. D2C brands can create differentiation through their online and social media presence. And, when they are ensuring the last-mile delivery, they can further create the differentiation through the product packaging.
Need hand holding to embark on the path of leveraging the concept of D2C? The experts at Vinculum are just a few clicks away!
