{"id":91291,"date":"2020-01-08T12:00:15","date_gmt":"2020-01-08T20:00:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thegood.com\/?post_type=insights&p=91291"},"modified":"2025-05-15T09:41:32","modified_gmt":"2025-05-15T16:41:32","slug":"dtc-brands-email-engagement","status":"publish","type":"insights","link":"https:\/\/thegood.com\/insights\/dtc-brands-email-engagement\/","title":{"rendered":"How DTC Marketing Can Build Engagement in the Inbox (Rather than Unsubscribes)"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

I wrote <\/a>a piece on DTC email marketing<\/a> that gained over 50,000 impressions and 4,000 engagements on Twitter. These numbers shocked me, too. One day, I had 3 notifications on Twitter, the next I woke up with over 300 notifications and 200 new followers.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Here\u2019s what happened: In the span of 65 days, Bombas sent me 24 DTC marketing emails. 23 out of those 24 were 100% product or sales based emails. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

For reference: that\u2019s roughly one product email every 2.5 days for 2 months straight. In total, I opened 3 emails (<15% open rate) and clicked on 1. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

When I looked at these numbers, it absolutely floored me. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

How can a brand as successful and widely known as Bombas still be treating this valuable channel with such little regard to the consumers on the receiving end?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That question, I found, is a pressing one in the DTC space. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"screenshot<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

As a benchmark, email marketing should be driving around 20-30% of your total revenue<\/a>. And as you continue to scale, that is going to turn into a multi-million dollar, revenue-driving asset. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hence why I am so adamant that this channel deserves a lot<\/strong> more attention from DTC brands. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

This topic poses more divisive questions for DTC marketing: Can we use email marketing in a way that\u2019s actually driving acquisition and retention on a large-scale? Can we email customers in a way that actually results in a positive experience?<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Today, we\u2019re digging into these questions. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

So why does this matter? Isn\u2019t email dead anyways? <\/h2>\n\n\n\n

So here\u2019s the thing with email: experts have been saying \u201cemail is dying\u201d for years now. But lo and behold, it\u2019s still one of the largest revenue drivers for DTC brands. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to Campaign Monitor<\/a>: For every $1 spent, email marketing generates $38 in ROI.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

No matter how we slice it, email isn\u2019t going away anytime soon.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

And even though years of spammy email marketing has left us all a bit numb in the inbox, it still gives you the space to get your ideas and content to your customers with limited competition for your messaging. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"DTC<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Where social media surrounds your posts and ads with competing voices on all sides, email is a lot cleaner, clearer and more direct.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Consumers are less distracted when reading emails than when scrolling through social media. Where a branding misstep on Instagram can be quickly bypassed, bad messaging and a flawed approach in the inbox is extraordinarily glaring<\/a>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

When done poorly, email can totally wreck a customer\u2019s experience with a brand. After all, no one likes being spammed, and it\u2019s so, so easy for an email channel to get spammy. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Instead, we need to think about email as a key channel for building up brand equity with potential customers, even if the immediate sales results aren\u2019t always clear. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In my podcast interview<\/a> with Allen Burt, he put it this way: <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOne of the beauties of\u2026 email marketing is it actually makes the other stuff you’re doing, your performance marketing, etc. more effective. So if you put somebody into an email flow that’s really high value content, even though they don’t buy off of that email flow, guess what? They’re going to be 10 times more likely to buy on that next ad because now they’ve engaged with your brand\u2026\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

So the work you do in your customer\u2019s inbox is foundational for the work you do everywhere else. Focus on engagement, and give them good reasons to open your emails every time. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Let\u2019s get to the how.<\/p>\n\n\n\n