8-Figure Brand's BFCM Playbook Revealed

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Welcome to this issue of The DTC Insider newsletter. 👋 

We strive to deliver the latest growth marketing news and trends in the DTC space straight to your inbox every Wednesday.

Topics we’ll cover today:

💠 TikTok Announced Symphony Creative Studio
💠 8-Figure Brand's BFCM Playbook Revealed
💠 From Amazon to TikTok Shops Success

TikTok Announced Symphony Creative Studio

Creating TikTok videos is time-consuming. Right?

Well, not anymore...

TikTok just announced Symphony Creative Studio. And it's 🔥 🔥 🔥 .

Brands can basically...

Generate new TikTok videos by:

🖼 Uploading their existing assets and providing basic info about their products.

🎤 Adding a narrator to their video by choosing from 300+ digital avatars with different appearances, voices and backgrounds.

Give their existing videos a fresh spin by:

🌎 Automatically translating and dubbing their video in different languages.

⚙ Editing their videos by adding captions, avatar, music, and more before going live.

I haven't played with it yet, but it's definitely lowering the bar for many brands that don't have a lot of content, time, and money to produce fresh TT videos all the time.

What do you think?

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8-Figure Brand's BFCM Playbook Revealed

The other day, Obvi published their new playbook for this BFCM and it’s 🔥 🔥 🔥 .

Since they're using an unconventional strategy, I thought of sharing it with you all.

Btw, if you don't know them, they are a very successful 8-figure supplement brand. They build in public, so I advise you to follow its founders: Ronak Shah and Ashvin Melwani, among others.

Here's their strategy:

First, you need to know why they completely scraped their traditional BFCM playbook this year.

The typical aggressive BFCM discounts lead to poor margins, and profitability is everything these days.

So, they found a way to:

👉 Maintain margins
👉 Capture holiday shoppers earlier
👉 Drive more revenue than the standard "40% off" campaign

How?

➝ Early access
➝ New product intros
➝ BFCM-specific marketing mix

Early access:

They say that 45% of holiday shoppers start before Black Friday hits.

And that comes with some benefits:

➝ Early birds typically have bigger budgets
➝ These customers make multiple purchases throughout the season
➝ More time to launch and optimize campaigns
➝ Lower CPMs
➝ Better inventory planning
➝ Fewer shipping headaches
➝ Leading to stronger customer satisfaction

New product intros:

BFCM is also a great time for introducing new products.

They say this transforms your sale into an event, not just a discount.

Here's what they're doing:

➝ Breaking into skincare
➝ Expanding hair care line
➝ Limited edition flavors
➝ Exclusive bundles

BFCM-specific marketing mix:

Their approach includes these channels:

➝ Meta (50% of budget)
➝ TikTok (25% of budget)
➝ Google (15% of budget)
➝ Influencer/Affiliate (10% of budget)

On Meta, they're now focused on creative testing through small-scale tests.

Using this time to build remarketing audiences, as every visitor now is a potential BFCM buyer later.

On TikTok, they say for them it's more of a discovery platform, so the goal is to entertain the audience through:

➝ Behind-the-scenes product launches
➝ Ingredient education (with a twist)
➝ Customer transformation stories
➝ Trend participation (when it makes sense)

On Google, they mainly talk about protecting your brand terms. Not sure if they run non-brand campaigns, but I'd definitely do it.

On the Influencer/Affiliate front, they've found a big differentiator: Facebook Live.

They claim it has become their highest-converting influencer activity, because of Faceook's built-in notification system.

When an influencer goes live, their entire following gets an alert. 🔔

Here's their Facebook Live strategy:

➝ Schedule multiple influencers throughout the month
➝ Mix product education with exclusive offers
➝ Enable live shopping features
➝ Create urgency with limited-time bundles
➝ Drive real-time engagement through Q&As

Another overlooked opportunity is community activation, if you have one.

Does the influencer size matter to them? No.

They chose to partner up with many micro-influencers who actually use their products, instead of fewer & bigger ones.

The results?

More authentic content, better engagement rates, and significantly lower cost per piece of content.

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From Amazon to TikTok Shops Success

Not sure how to crack the code of TikTok Shop?

Want to know how other brands did it?

Garrett Peters, co-founder of Duncan & Stone Paper Co., joins me on The DTC Insider podcast to share how his team:

👉 Leveraged Amazon as their no.1 channel
👉 Cracked the code on TikTok Shops this year
👉 Improved retention with smart segmentation strategies
👉 Navigated cash flow & inventory challenges during rapid growth

If you’re scaling an e-commerce brand, this episode is packed with actionable insights. 💡

We discussed:

👉 The Inspiration Behind Duncan & Stone's Launch
👉 Going Full-Time in E-Commerce
👉 Fulfillment Transition
👉 Amazon as a Key Channel
👉 TikTok Shop Strategy
👉 Managing Cash Flow & Inventory Challenges
👉 Improving Customer Retention Through Segmentation
👉 Preparing for BFCM & Q4

Tune in:

📺 YouTube
🎧 Apple
🎙️ Spotify
🌐 Website

More episodes our listeners love:

💎 The Secret Sauce Behind BattlBox's Success with John Roman

💎 IQBAR’s Journey to 10,000 Locations And $50 Million with Will Nitze

💎 Supplement Brand Bootstrapped $10,000 and Built It Into Sales of $30 Million in Three Years with Ronak Shah

💎 Unlocking 9-Figure Growth: The Blueprint That Transformed Two Brands with Brett Swensen

💎 Navigating Growth Beyond Your Niche with Podium Nutrition’s CMO

Also Happening in the DTC space

📰 Research Highlights Social Media Usage Trends in 2024
📰 Google Ad Manager Launches Curation Capabilities For Agencies
📰 Reddit introduces AI-powered keyword targeting features

Want To Unlock The Next Level Of Growth?

After auditing 20 brands recently, we found that many have been stuck in a revenue plateau for 2, even 3 years.

So, the question is: will you stay in the same place for yet another year, or will you draw a line in the sand and start a new chapter for your brand?

At BSR Digital, we have just 2 spots left for brands that want to unlock the next level of growth.

Will one of them be yours?

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