DTC Lessons: Email marketing with Flowium

Each week, we're chatting to an expert in the eCommerce space to share their wisdom on building a resilient DTC brand in 2022 and beyond. This week we're handing the mic to Alexis Hetu, Partner Relations Specialist at Flowium.

Take it away Alexis…

Interview with Alexis Hetu, Partner Relations Specialist at Flowium

Let us know your role and what you do day to day.

As a Partner Relations Specialist, I help ensure we keep meaningful and successful relationships with our partners while strategizing new and effective co-marketing ideas.

It’s a tough year for eCommerce. Which area should DTC brands be focusing their time and efforts towards, and why?

Not only is interactivity making its way up as a top priority, but clever attention grabbers like gifs and crisp design elements help grab and keep the recipients attention. As the new year quickly approaches, I see many brands taking a less "professional" route and become more relatable and fun with their content.

At Flowium you help leading brands to grow and scale. Can you give us 2 success stories with DTC brands. 

We had a client that did not have any email marketing in place and was struggling to reach their customers across a number of different channel, such as email marketing, social media, etc. With the flow strategy we created, this client went from $0 email revenue to $29,000 (25% overall Klaviyo revenue) - all of this being attributed to flows. This difference happened over a period of 2 months.

Another of our clients has a really large store with a variety of types of purchasers in a specific niche industry. We created opt-in forms that requested information regarding if the subscriber was a professional, hobbyist, a professional in training or a family member of a professional so we could segment accordingly. We are able to send email campaigns with product offers that these types of purchasers would be most interested in as well as send the segment appropriate emails in the flows according to their profile property. These segments often outperform the standard engaged segment and provide a better experience for their subscribers.

You specialize in email marketing - what piece of advice would you give to DTC brands who want to improve their conversion rates? 

Always be prepared to answer what makes your product unique and valuable to the customer. Whether it's deep discounts, unique SKUs or an image the product projects for the customer, the key to beating out the competition will always be your Unique Value Proposition (UVP).

What are the biggest trends you’re seeing right now in email marketing? Which of these should DTC brands jump on, and which should they avoid?

Personalization, personalization, personalization! Emails tailored to a specific recipient tend to have a faster open rate and feel like the message was hand plucked just for them! Whether it's an abandoned cart image of a product left behind or recommendations for a future purchase with their name written on it, the inclination to repurchase is there. As we advance further into the future of technology, artificial intelligence is hard at work. This can help produce automations at a much faster rate, but can become tricky when personalization is "in."

If you could tell DTC brands to stop making one mistake, what would it be?

Stop overestimating your own products and services while underestimating the competition out there. DTCs will constantly be reminding customers why it's important to choose them over another. To simply believe that customers will choose you just because you make a better product and that the customer will inherently understand the value, is wishful thinking. Be vocal even if the competition sells an inferior product, you still have to operate as if they all are equal possibilities for the consumer. DTC brands that survive and thrive in 2022 will understand the significance of a dollar.

Complete the sentence: DTC brands that survive and thrive in 2022 will ____.

"... Focus on their channel and retention and less on acquisition. With 2022 being such a big year for transformation and transcension for the majority of the eComm space, DTC brands should put their efforts into nurturing those relationships they worked so hard to pursue throughout the new year."

Who in the eCommerce ecosystem you look up to and recommend everyone should follow?

One amazing influencer in the eCommerce space is Ezra Firestone. He has amazing resources to help grow your digital marketing strategies to the next level.

Thanks Alexis! Where can we hear more from yourself & Flowium?

You can find out more about Flowium via our website, and you can follow me on Linkedin!