D2C Brand Playbook - Part 10 - To scale more than 100 Cr; time to go offline?

 As a D2C founder with PMF amidst rising CAC & efforts to scale; wondering : "Is it time to go offline?"

Take leaf out of Apple's mental model on offline.

While going offline, hashtagApple didn't follow the traditional tech retail playbook - no stores alongside its then category peers - IBM or HP in crowded electronics hubs.

Instead, opened in Manhattan’s chic SoHo, Milan’s Piazza Liberty -catchments that house best of luxury - Prada, Louis Vuitton, and Dior.

Why?
Steve Jobs understood that his groundbreaking tech has to marry lifestyle, not nerdiness.
Its products have to become objects of aspiration, luxury, and indulgence - to drive profits.

What followed was a masterclass in branding:
1. Brand Name
Apple dropped "Computers" from its name, distancing itself from the geeky tech stereotype.

2. Experience, not Stores
It built "Temples" of experience with products at center as gods, in spaces filled with luxury, spaciousness, mesmerizing design, and attentive service.

3. Shifted Product Focus:
Transitioned from desktops (practical, rarely gifted) to diesirable lifestyle products like iPods, iPads, and iPhones (that make prestigious gifts).

4. Premium Pricing:
Pricing kept climbing upwards with tech & quality; establishing that "Pricing is table stakes for perception".

5. Iconic Communication:
Crafted marketing around exclusivity, higher order simplicity, and black & white magic - making brand as the gold standard for any premium tech brand!

For D2C brands, Apple's offline journey highlights a crucial lesson:
-Going offline isn't just about expanding distribution; it's about strategically elevating your brand & consumer perception!

Don’t just go offline anywhere commercially viable; think first - what you want to build!

hashtag#BrandStrategy hashtag#Offline hashtag#Retail

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I write regularly on hashtag#D2C hashtag#brand building, scaling growth & hashtag#marketing insights.hashtag#RunningMarketer

D2C Brand Playbook - Part 9 - Your guide to estimate Marketing Budget.

How do you arrive at marketing budget for your D2C brand?

Most brands still set marketing budgets using folklore:
Spend 5–15% of revenue.
Match what the competitor spends.

But there’s much more nuance to arriving at your marketing budget.

It’s dependent on your category, your own business and your objective for the year -


✅ Your Category

What’s your Share of Voice relative to your Market Share?

SOV = your media spend share in the category.
SOM = your market share in the category.

eSOV (Excess SOV) = SOV – SOM.
eSOV thumb rule: every +10% eSOV typically delivers ~0.5% SOM gain per year.

What’s the Purchase Cycle & ATV dynamic for your category?

In high-ticket, low-frequency categories (real estate, automobiles), even 1% of revenue can be overkill.

What’s the # of visible brands in your category?
More brands = higher spend needed to stay salient. In a duopoly, your budget works harder.


✅ Your Company

Are you in the 0–1 stage, 1–10 scaling phase, or 10–100 growth phase?
Is your CAC sustainable relative to LTV?
Is your CAC ≤ 30% of LTV?

✅ Your Objective

Are you launching, gaining share, or sustaining this year?

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There’s a lot more to defining a marketing budget than % of revenue or CAC × target customers. More on this in the next post.

How do you arrive at your marketing budget? Drop a comment.

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I write regularly on D2C brand building, growth, and marketing insights.
hashtag#runningmarketer