What (exactly) is direct-to-consumer marketing?

Nowadays, both B2B and B2C customers can typically navigate to a  retailer’s website, add the exact product they need to their virtual shopping cart, and have it delivered to their home or office within a few days (if that).

This direct-to-consumer model of marketing and sales has benefitted both suppliers and consumers in a number of ways:

For one, because no “middleman” retailer exists in the relationship, companies are able to forge a more direct connection with their customers. In the traditional sales model, the supplier merely provided the product, while the retailer provided the overall customer experience. With the D2C model, suppliers are able to provide both an outstanding product and an outstanding overall experience to their customers.

This direct connection, in turn, also allows D2C brands to learn much more about their customers – and to make improvements to their products and services based on what they learn. Again, while not exactly impossible, this process is certainly much more difficult with the retail middleman getting in the middle of things.

Additionally, the D2C model all but ensures that messages from one side of the transaction are heard loud and clear by the other party – and that communications aren’t being jumbled up by the middleman. For example, if a consumer has an issue with a product, they have no other option than to contact the supplier directly (as opposed to the traditional model, in which consumers may need to rely on the retailer to send the message along to the supplier).

Finally, suppliers that sell directly to their customers ensure that all of their products are available to all of their customers at all times. While a retailer might choose to offer a handful of products from a given supplier at a specific time (e.g., a clothing retailer only offering a brand’s “summer collection” during the warmer months of the year), suppliers are free to offer any of their products to their customers on an as-needed basis.

Of course, for a company to be successful as a direct-to-consumer supplier, it needs to have a solid marketing plan in place in addition to offering quality products. Since, again, the D2C supplier takes on the responsibility of providing a top-notch experience to its customers, it will need to do a little more to set itself apart from its competition.

In this course, we’re going to take a look at how one company, in particular, was able to do all this – and maintain relevance in today’s Amazon-dominated world.