The platform you ARE MISSING OUT ON! 🎯

Published: February 14, 2022

Welcome to Get In My Basket, the newsletter that will tell you everything you need to know about digital marketing for direct to consumer brands.

In this newsletter, you will find insider knowledge, tips and tricks to get your brand into more baskets.

In this issue you will find:

How to shake up your morning routine
The platform you might be missing out on
How to combine UGC with professional shots to create the perfect ad
Who is paying the bill?
Platforms that are exploring long form content

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What’s HOT?!?! This section of the newsletter showcases brands and businesses doing something innovative in their space.

This week, we’re looking into a DTC brand that has shaken up the most important meal of the day. The brand that captures the youthful spirit of a tasty breakfast bowl and pairs it with a nutritionally sound product, is Surreal.

Brand child of former Vita Coco duo, Kit Gammell and Jac Chetland, Surreal was set to be a hit with their experience at such a successful consumer brand. They saw an opportunity to disrupt the cereal category as it is a product that is in 90% of households, yet most recent developments by challengers have been in the form of on the go, convenient alternatives, never in cereal.

So, armed with this insight, they developed 4 unique flavours that are plant-based, gluten-free and grain free yet still taste like cereal from the good old days. In addition to this, the brand is high in protein (13g/bowl), low in carbs (5g/bowl), free from sugar but full of fun.

Their branding, tone of voice and aesthetic differentiates them from many healthy breakfast alternatives. They ooze personality in comparison making them accessible and relatable to consumers.

You don’t use Pinterest? Ok fine, we get it. But we’ll hit you with what you need to know. Although their active user count dropped again in Q4 of 2021, its third consecutive quarter of declining growth, it still has a valuable user base to tap into. Here’s why:

Pros:

As of 2021, Pinterest is the 4th largest social network in the world with 459 million active users each month.
82% of pinterest users are on mobile devices
85% of users claim to use the platform for planning events (Eg: wedding, home moves, desk sets up etc.)
Pinterest’s revenue grew 78% YOY in January 2021
90% of weekly active Pinners use the app to inform their purchase decisions
13 international markets have Pinterest in-app shopping tools
They have invested heavily in making it easier for merchants to upload their product catalogues, in order to list their products as shoppable Pins.
They have developed an AR feature to include furniture and home decor – so customers can try before they buy

So, why should your DTC brand be thinking about Pinterest?

There are, of course, a few answers to this, but one thing that we keep coming back to is the visual nature of the platform. Is your brand/product visually strong? Have you spent 1000’s of hours making sure it will stand out from competitors? Do you think your brand kicks ass? Well then, maybe you should consider the most visual platform there is.

If you aren’t a Pinterest user, you most likely have your thoughts about what the purpose of the platform is. A place to go for inspiration – to plan your wedding, or look for infographics? A moodboard of sorts? Although this does account for a lot of the user experience, the truth is that a lot has changed since the days of just being a planning platform.

The platform is now used largely to create a visual reference for a thought or idea. It also has paid social options, in-app shopping functions, and pioneering AR features. Users spend time pulling together their favourite pins that will bring their idea or dream to life. The AR feature takes this to the next step for interiors. It allows you to virtually place the piece of furniture you are looking at, in your room through your phone to see if it works in your surroundings. Although this AR feature hasn’t been widely rolled out across many brands and industries yet, the platform is still a valuable and visual planning tool for many different customer groups whether their interests lie in fitness, fashion, food or anything in between.

Pinterest is a place for exploration and we see this as a huge opportunity to get DTC brands in front of the right person, at the right time, with the right item. Look at it this way, imagine someone wants to create a gin based cocktail and is looking for inspiration on Pinterest (which happens to be a very common search on the platform). They might not know exactly what they are looking for, but they are looking for guidance. Whether it be looking for a recipe or visual idea of what looks great, they are looking for help or advice on how to make an idea a reality and will typically be highly impressionable. They clearly have high interest and intent in that area. Imagine then, if at just the right time, a gin brand pops up as a pin that helps recreate or achieve a desired drink. If it is the best looking bottle and image to be seen, it will be clicked on. So, any brands that have curious customers who like to host, work out, re-decorate, the list goes on, are forgoing a huge group of users who are looking for guidance on how to achieve a certain state if they are not on Pinterest.

To put it simply if you are not there, there is no chance of them finding you.

As you can see below, yes it is competitive, but if you can get the visuals right, the audience is there. That blue bottle stands out well right 😉

The thing about boards

Boards are a massive part of the platform, and the best hack for brands to be thinking about. If you can make the right creatives and get them placed on the right boards, the organic reach that is detailed and targeted will end up finding you. Keeping with the Gin theme (it is friday after all!) take a look at the board below: https://pin.it/3fu5uKl

This board came up after a quick search for “GIN” in the search bar. It wasn’t the first board but it was in the top 10. All of the pins that you can see have been pinned by The Boozy Ginger, some of which are brand posts, or related to brands. A great way to organically get your brand in front of audiences without being too “salesy”

One of the posts within this board was for Lillet: https://pin.it/3Uo9YKm

A lovely creative that is serving the audience with what they want; idea and inspiration, yet it is still selling the product and making Pinners engage. The creative is simple, on brand and not pushing the product hard which makes the audience interact and resonate with the Pin. We love it!

It’s all about the creative

We have said this before but it really is all about visuals on Pinterest. The more time spent making sure the creatives are thought out, subtle and stunning, the more success you will have on the platform. Here are some of our faves we have seen recently:

Who is doing it well? SWYFT: https://www.pinterest.co.uk/swyfthome/_shop/

Swyft is doing so well on the platform because they are thinking about why their audience is there. They are there to make inspiration boards for their home. Swyft is harnessing these audiences by targeting them with paid ads to appear in those searches and let their customers discover them. Go and take a look for yourself and tell us if you don’t think that would work for you.

Snapchat daily active users increases to 319 Million (over 20% YOY)
Meta brings 3D avatars to Instagram
Amazon becomes biggest advertiser in history; with record $16.9bn spend;
LinkedIn comments, likes and shares are up 37% YOY
Twitter explores ‘articles’ option that would enable long-form posts
Messenger has added a feature (that handily coincides with Valentines Day) that allows a total payment amount to be split between members of a chat

To finish off our newsletter we want to highlight some of the best creatives that we have seen recently, and tell you why we think they are a slam dunk win.

This newsletter seems to be very boosey this week but we love this unboxing creative from Good Pair Days. If you haven’t thought about a creative like this for your brand yet, you should! Here’s why:

✅ The mix of User Generated Content (UGC) and content filmed from a pro camera works! It’s organic-feeling yet premium blend remains accessible to viewers without compromising the quality.

✅ Clearly shows product benefits and how to use

✅ Clear text to allow conversion even in silent mode