By Vishal Jain
D2C brands have transformed the shopping sector. With direct connection to the consumer, their expectations and aspirations, D2C brands, thanks to the digital transformation have become the new way to conduct business. From essentials to luxury products, digitisation has helped consumers reach the brand directly. As this gap between companies and consumers reduces customer acquisition and retention, it is becoming a more layered and Molex problem for D2C brands.
Technology in the past few years has seen monumental growth. From the inception of an idea to execution and the growth, D2C brands today are heavily dependent on technology to stay connected to the consumer. Be it content generation on social media or a seamless shopping experience on the website, technology aids all steps of the process. This does tend to burden businesses with acquisition costs. Here are a few keys ways in which D2C brands can leverage technology to reduce customer acquisition costs.
AI for CRM – The current driving point for customer acquisition is promptness. Once the customer interacts with your business on any platform, the key step is to make them feel welcome and heard and automating conversations and the bot is the best way to achieve this. Optimising conversation channels with chatbots reduces wait time thus, helping with customer acquisition and retention. Automation also helps in directing the concerned consumer to the relevant page or support team to accelerate conversions.
Advanced marketing – With intelligent SaaS platforms, analytics, etc in place today, it has become easier to discern customer purchase behaviour. Based on the data collected, AI can help D2C brands analyse and study changes in purchase patterns depending on age, demographics, seasons etc. AI-based marketing aids insight generation, predictive measures etc to help D2C brands prune their target group and reach the right audience.
Optimising customer journey mapping, product recommendations, omnichannel presence, segment building etc are all facilitated via advanced AI-based marketing. By serving relevant queries that absolutely require a human presence and attention, the automation process reduces the need for an extended team and also optimists time in lead generation and conversion
Omnichannel presence – Reaching the consumer today is not just about marketing a product but also about resonating with them and augmenting the recall value to acquire new clients. As digitisation seeps into everyday life, an omnichannel presence is the way forward for D2C brands to stay connected to their consumer. Tech-based products allow brands to market across different channels with optimised operations, time and cost. Be it email marketing, social media channels, print et al, technology helps in accelerating and optimising a brand’s unique language and reach.
Augmented business reach – With the surge in Q-commerce and hyperlocal, having a presence close to your target audience is not only fruitful but also the need of the hour. Technology-based analytic tools help D2C brands understand their key market and take decisions accordingly to either set up micro-warehouses or propel their reach in a particular area, season or time to attract a wider audience. Proximity to the consumer also helps businesses in offering special prices and delivery timelines.
Besides this, a key trend that aids the growth of D2C businesses is supply chain evolution. Supply chains gather and generate big data which is then converted to insights by AI. This segmentation to understand insights can help D2C brands refine supply chains and scale up operations.
The will in turn helps in understanding demands and preparing accordingly to accommodate new customer acquisitions.
Technology is the framework for digitisation and digitisation is the framework for business development in today’s age. Recognising gaps and opportunities and rendering technology and tech-based tools to address the same can propel D2C brands to unprecedented success.
The author is co-founder of Roadcast. Views expressed are personal.
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