Alex Realmuto

Curious about how to navigate the ever-changing influencer landscape? Join me tomorrow at Morning Brew's NYC event, "Perfecting Your Influencer IQ" where I'll be speaking with Mae Karwowski, Founder & CEO, Obviously & Kyle Hagge, Chief of Staff, Morning Brew about: 🌟 Consumer Sentiments: Understand the current attitudes and behaviors about influencers. 💡 Maximizing ROI: Strategies to leverage influencer partnerships effectively. 📈 Trends: Discuss the latest trends shaping the influencer landscape and how to stay ahead. It's not too late to register: https://lnkd.in/dwvaDSiZ #InfluencerMarketing #ROI #ConsumerInsights #MarketingTrends #MorningBrew

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As we discussed last week, Gen Z’s massive spending power is reshaping brand strategies across every consumer industry. Here’s how some brands are responding: * Caribou Coffee is creating a dating show on TikTok. * Bojangles is launching Instagram-famous menu items like Bo-Berry cookies. * Chicken Salad Chick is tapping local influencers for improved imagery and virality. While these are good first steps, the companies that will truly win the Gen Z market will be those that rethink their entire customer experience, with a focus on digital engagement. Gen Z is the first generation to grow up with smartphones. Viral mobile apps like Duolingo, Clash of Clans, and Strava show that gamified experiences and a sense of community are key to retention. Restaurants of the future will need to offer digital experiences that are both fun and community-driven, blending online and in-store interactions into a cohesive, engaging journey. Gamification is crucial, but so is integrating all customer touchpoints. Whether it’s ordering online, dining on-premise, engaging on social media, or participating in branded events, the experience needs to be seamless and consistently engaging. For Gen Z, great food isn’t enough; the overall customer experience must be meaningful and memorable. At Hang, we allow brands to also offer rewards for non-purchase actions, such as engaging on social media, completing branded challenges, playing minigames, or referring friends. Brands can even offer gated specialty products or experiences to the most loyal customers to create a sense of exclusivity and “VIP treatment” for their superfans. We provide the tools for any brand to undergo a true digital transformation and redefine their engagement with customers across every touchpoint. If you’re a restaurant looking to adapt your digital strategy for the modern consumer, I’d love to tell you more– DM me!

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Is your D2C brand thinking about going into retail in the next 12 months? If you answered yes... you need to check out my latest podcast. Yesterday, I had the privilege of speaking with the very smart and talented Alexandra E. Vailas from DYPER. Our conversation was focused on going from D2C into retail and things you need to consider and focus on to give yourself the best chance possible to succeed. Link in the first comment!

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Awesome visual from The Wall Street Journal showing how #privatelabel sales have changed from a year ago. How can brands PUNCH BACK? 👊 Well, there is no single magic wand. Rather, brands must takes a multi-prong strategy to combat the PL threat. According to my colleague Jamie Dooley (who advises Profitero clients on PL strategies), this involves: ⚫ Better communicating your differentiated value through stand out #PDP content. Most private label content is basic, so brands can win by creating more compelling visuals to show off use cases and amplify RTBs and by leveraging #usergenerated testimonials where it's allowed. ⚫ Better #omnichannel negotiations. If retailers want you to invest more in #retailmedia make it contingent on better in-store / online promo positions and getting your fair share of organic Page 1 search visibility. ⚫ Better #SEO strategy. Retailers may give their private label products an unfair advantage in search, but that doesn't mean you should let competitors rank above you because your content is not search optimized. Invest in doing deep keyword research to make your #ecommrce product titles & descriptions more relevant to retailer algorithms and invest in #review syndication. Heavy discounting is a race to the bottom and isn't sustainable, but strategically using promo to boost organic search rank can be effective. ⚫ Better #innovation. If you don't already have a good innovation pipeline, then it's time to get serious. Launching new pack sizes will only get you so far. The ultimate way to differentiate vs PL is to solve unmet consumer needs. This is happening in the soda category with probiotic sodas like Poppi and in cereal with "protein enriched" "plant based" options. The bottom line: As long as #inflation lingers on, private label will continue to grow. But they can't get take ALL the share in the category. Fight hard now to make sure the share they take is from competitors and not your own brands. Like the saying goes, "You don’t have to run faster than the bear to get away. You just have to run faster than the person next to you.”

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If you work in retail, and want to know how you should utilize Instagram for more sales and brand awareness, check out this podcast episode and blog post with my recent interview on the Social Pulse: Retail Edition show. Host, Mike Allton, and I talked about why IG is important for retail brands, what content converts the best for brands (this might surprise you!), how retail brands should utilize Reels, how to get customers from IG to your website, and we talked hashtags (because yes, they still matter!). And so much more! This was a fun episode to do and I hope you find some helpful tips for your retail business in this episode. https://lnkd.in/guZUgmPU

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Social Commerce: The eCommerce Paradigm Shift. Published a piece on Fast Company last week that speaks to this. With the rise of TikTok Shops, re-emphasis for Meta on IG/FB Shops, and the new YouTube Shopping launch, social commerce is no longer inevitable...it's HERE. If you're an ecommerce brand, you need to understand that consumers have different preferences: - Some like purchasing on a brand's mobile website - Some like purchasing within the social app they discovered the brand - Some like purchasing directly within a video they just watched without interrupting their experience - Some like purchasing on desktop - and Some really don't care You need to cater to each of these divergent needs. One thing that is more apparent than ever, is the emergence of affiliates influencing ecommerce sales. Enabling ordinary people to enter the conversation and generate income from pushing products they believe in. The small screen is largely replacing the big screen. Meet consumers where they're most likely to purchase. Social commerce is the new wave of influence. 💥 READ MORE HERE: https://lnkd.in/eXXTiwZu

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Scaling an ecommerce brand from $9M to $25 takes a well-executed plan — and that’s what Jessica Curdi helped accomplish at StriVectin Operating Company. Now she’s doing it all over again for The Rootist as they scale from $0 to over $200,000 in ad spend in just a couple of months. Jessica has over 15 years of experience working on consumer brands in the fashion and beauty space, including StriVectin, L'Oréal, and YNAP (YOOX NET-A-PORTER), helping them reach growth objectives through ecommerce and digital marketing transformation. Her expertise spans brand awareness, growth and acquisition, and retention and loyalty. She is currently VP of Digital Marketing at The Beauty Bank, an innovative beauty brand incubator, leading digital marketing strategy across the growing portfolio of brands. In this episode of the Up Arrow Podcast by Elumynt, Jessica and I dig into: ✅ The details of how Jessica Curdi's methodical approach to digital marketing fueled rapid growth at StriVectin ✅ How to balance performance-focused and brand-centric advertising ✅ The importance of retention marketing strategies in maintaining customer loyalty after rapid growth ✅ Simpson’s Paradox, and how it impacts ad performance ✅ The challenges of scaling a brand’s ad spend from zero to several hundred thousand in just three months ✅ Retail vs. DTC… where are you sending your traffic, and why? ✅ The brilliant analogy about the South Pole and leadership in John C. Maxwell’s book, The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership. Plus, and as always, we get into a little of the personal stuff as we talk about her love for literature including The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald and The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams, nerds who like to learn about fonts, and the importance of dancing in any situation. And I butcher both the French and Russian languages in a single sentence. You can watch the video here: https://lnkd.in/g9suXDgJ Plus, a special shoutout to Michael Harris, Founder and CEO of Bamboo Software, LLC … and my brother, for introducing me to Jessica. P.S. There’s a wonderfully, semi-embarrassing story about Mike and Jessica and their time at ESSEC Business School. #ecommerce #DTC #retail #digitalmarketing #ecommercemarketing #podcast

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More and more retailers are getting into the advertising game: Nordstrom Saks Fifth Avenue (just announced last week) Dollar tree Walmart eBay Walgreens Target Kroger Wolt All these brands have launched their own Retail media networks (aka advertising). They are expanding what Google and Meta have dominated over the last decade. Just like Amazon, all these brands have come to understand how powerful this could be for the business. Which is why Retail media networks will account for 20% of ALL ad spend in 2024. This isn’t like putting adsense in your blog. It’s much bigger. I've seen a 5% bounce in EBITDA for D2C brands who've added some simple text based ads on their order confirmation page. A huge untapped potential is starting to get tapped. Uptick #ecommerce

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DTC brands: Be more direct to consumers. Do all the things you can't do on Amazon or in Walmart. Here’s what I mean The whole promise of DTC brands was to cut out the middleman and have direct relations with consumers. "Not able to own customer data" was the key reason brands didn't want to sell on Amazon or other retailers. DTC is not just about the supply chain. A more direct relationship gives you an advantage in creating a better product and a better shopping experience. You can get that advantage by - - Collecting & Using Zero-Party Data - Building a community around a mission or cause - Run surveys to improve product and experience - More personal and direct communication via Email, SMS - Personalized shopping experience - Better product pages and educational content Again, all the things you can't do on Amazon or in Walmart. That's the benefit of the model. Don't throw it away. Which of these strategies are you focusing on this year? #dtc #ecommerce Looking to achieve profitable growth. Yes, it's possible! Follow Rahi Jain to grow your store profitably.

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My post detailing 3 hot takes from two CMOs I spoke to last week caught a lot of attention and questions from marketers, so I went back to them to ask for more more detail. Reminder - these two CMOs are at a $10M+ and $100M+ revenue companies that both are growing nicely. I'll start with their take that got the most attention in the comments and DMs (and texts!) I received: "Data-Driven' is a false god." We talked for another 45 minutes about this statement, here's the key bits: 1) The CMOs were keen to clarify this was not a dismissal of data's importance, but that for them it is informative/supportive 95% of the time and leading/decisive 5% of the time. This is partially because the data rarely clears a quality bar where they feel it can dictate the path, and partially because they both have clear strategies that contextualize the data and define its application almost regardless of result. 2) One CMO put it simply - if you spend more time talking about data than creative, you are optimizing a losing battle. 3) The other CMO, who is in B2B, framed it in the context of the data enrichment and acquisition arms war. There are so many sources of company data, intent data etc, that it can make marketing teams lazy. They advise many marketing teams (usually who lack a true senior exec) who are chasing their tail investing in all the company data and running split tested campaigns that all go nowhere. 4) They emphasized that data is not the problem but it is creating bad habits, bad priorities, and bad execution amongst a lot of marketing teams. 5) They felt many this data is leading founders and business leaders to incorrectly staff their teams because they believe the data has made marketing more straightforward. (I personally saw this happen alongside the rise of the concept of "Growth Marketing/Marketers") Would love to hear how you all are viewing/using data in your orgs. Does it define planning and strategy? Or does it just decide winning campaigns and tests?

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An outlier amidst outliers. GoRuck, has done what many brands dream of doing, building an incredible business without a dependence on paid. The result of driving STRONG organic demand is that they have an ad hit-rate double that of other strong DTC brands we've studied, with low spend relative to their size. How? On today's Outliers episode:

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Some bets we’re making with Barrel Holdings: 1) We’re excited about Shopify’s focus on enterprise and believe in the growth story. → Both Barrel and Vaulted Oak have continued to expand our Shopify Plus footprint, working on increasingly complex e-commerce projects. 2) We are bullish on the growth of Webflow and excited about its Website Experience Platform (see recent acquisition of Intellimize). → BX Studio will follow Webflow in moving upmarket and continuing to expand our base of Webflow Enterprise clients. → This means expanding our services to include more UX + content strategy, personalization, A/B testing, and analytics, all necessary to serve more sophisticated Webflow customers. 3) We believe clients value speed when it comes to sales and marketing. → Our bet with Bolster is to offer design services for sales and marketing teams that help them speed up their processes and impact results. → This includes being innovative with design processes and AI. 4) Remote work is here to stay. We’re 100% comfortable keeping our teams fully remote. → We’ll invest in team get-togethers and in-person meetings with clients, but no need for offices or return-to-work mandates. 5) Workforce is global, we’re working with people from all over the world in both salaried and contractor capacities, and it not only helps us save costs but also provides access to some incredible talent. → Our agencies play in very competitive markets so we have to stay sharp and continue to deliver for existing clients while landing new ones. → Our investments across our agencies will prioritize talent (delivery) and sales & marketing (new opportunities). Less than 3 years ago, we only had Barrel. It’s been fun to see the holdco come alive.

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Partnering with the wrong agency is risky business for new founders. Too many apparel brands partner with the first agency that promises high ROAS (Return On Ad Spend). And it almost always leads to: Ineffective marketing strategies. Inconsistent branding. Lost revenue. To avoid this, we ask three questions before partnering with an agency. 1. How do you define and ensure quality control for my brand? --> This confirms they align with our brand guidelines. 2. What's your internal revision and approval process? --> This helps us understand how our feedback will be incorporated. 3. Which KPIs and metrics will you report on? --> This ensures efforts are measured against our brand's specific goals. Now, I'm curious to hear from you! When vetting an agency, what questions do you ask to ensure alignment and success? Let me know in the comments.

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💪💪 Increase Brand Exposure At Events 💪💪 𝐂𝐡𝐞𝐜𝐤 𝐨𝐮𝐭 𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐬𝐞 13 "𝐋𝐮𝐜𝐤𝐲" 𝐑𝐞𝐭𝐚𝐢𝐥 𝐓𝐫𝐞𝐧𝐝𝐬 1) Focus on the Product Experience - Kristin Naragon w/MACH Alliance 2) Learn How to Meet Your Customers Needs Immediately Michael Della Penna w/InMarket 3) Introduce Omnichannel Retailing Across Biz Platforms Salice Thomas w/Wipro 4) Leverage Partnerships With Influencers Amanda Whiteside w/Freshworks 5) Increase Brand Exposure At Events - Matthew Rolnick w/Yaymaker 6) Immerese The Buyer In An Engaging Brand Environment - Richard Lindhorn, ICAE 7) Ensure Data Security To Protect Your Business And Customers' Information Mustansir Paliwala w/Zomara Group Consulting & EQUANS 8) Engage in SMS Messaging To Communicate With Clients Brandon Batchelor w/ReadyCloud 9) Personalize Your Outreach Methods Archana Rao w/Innova Solutions 10) Reduce Your Brand's Carbon Footprint Praneeth Kudithipudi w/Sacumen 11) Demonstrate The Authenticity of Your Brand's People Ashleigh Stanford 🧩 w/PracticeTek 12) Create Magical Environments Through AR And VR Retail Visits Annu Baral w/LatentView Analytics 13) Embrace TikTok Shop Bryce Welker w/Crush Empire #RetailTrends #BrandExposure #Events

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Great to see Creditsafe data and insights shared in CNBC about Forever 21! We're constantly analyzing what's happening in various sectors and seeing what could potentially cause cash flow issues or create financial challenges down the road. Check out the full story!

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Join us for an enlightening conversation with Charmon Stiles, CSPO, renowned for her work with brands like Rolling Stone Culture Council, Fast Company Executive Board, and Russell Athletic. In our latest podcast episode, Charmon deep dives into essential brand strategies, AI’s transformative role in marketing, and the concept of "Naked Leadership". **Interested in How to Differentiate Your Brand?** Charmon shares her expert insights on crafting effective brand strategies and developing your personal brand as a standout product in the marketplace. Learn about the intersection of AI and human creativity and how you can leverage both for a competitive edge. Charmon has built amazing teams and has great insight on marketing in 2024, if you are looking for some great content, this is it. #contentmarketing #campcontent #AI #creativity #marketing

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Ten years ago brands like Zillow and American Express nailed it as pioneers of brands launching media companies - while hundreds tried and failed. Now we're in a new era for brand publishing... What's different? 🚀 The Journey For the brands mentioned above, the strategy was a success. But many brands struggled to find their footing, leading to the shutdown of countless content initiatives. Today we’re seeing a resurgence and a true new era for brand publishing, fueled by lessons learned from past challenges. 🔍 What’s Different Now? Today, successful brand publishing has 3 important components: 1. Distribution Focus 2. Strategic ROI 3. Measured Investment. More on this in my latest article - link in first comment. #BrandPublishing #ContentMarketing #BrandJournalism #EarnedMedia Image Credits: Roman Samborskyi - Shutterstock

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