What your zip code has to do with your shampoo

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Good morning!

In today’s newsletter,

This issue takes 2 minutes to read.

Check out our DTC tool stack here

Let’s dive into it👇

Your P&L shows what happened, but it can’t tell you if you’re actually making money. These six Excel models go a layer deeper: 13-week cash by bank balance, component-level COGS, channel margin per unit, inventory roll-forwards, monthly payback, and itemized trade spend.

Built by ex-CPG FP&A leads. Unlocked and documented in Excel and Google Sheets, so you can check every formula and defend it to your board. No Drivepoint account required. Plug in your SKUs, thirteen months, your own numbers, and know your margins, fees, and break-even cold.

👉Download the set now

We're doing a 100 days of stealing strategies from brands that are already winning.

For day 15, we have Prose

Every DTC brand runs a quiz now. 

Hair length, texture, goals. It feels personal, but most of it just sorts people into a handful of pre-built formulas. 

Prose does one thing differently. 

First they ask the generic questions like 

How long is your hair?

What's your natural texture?

Etc

But then they ask something strange.

Kind of a weird question right?

But it’s genius because then they tell you what your hair is actually up against there: local water hardness, pollution, humidity, UV exposure.

Then they build your shampoo around it.

So here's what you should do today: your quiz doesn't need more questions. It needs one question that captures something about your customer's environment or context that actually changes what they need, not just what they prefer. 

Grace Lee started Birdy Grey to fix bridesmaid dress shopping. $99 dresses, sold online, no fittings.

There's an obvious problem with that. You can't feel fabric through a screen.

So when customers started asking for fabric swatches before they'd commit, Grace didn't have a system for it.

She hand-cut fabric squares herself, taped them to little cards, and mailed them out one at a time.

That's not a scalable process. But it answered the one question standing between a browser and a buyer: what does this actually feel like?

The swatches worked so well they became core to how the whole site is built.

Birdy Grey bought a swatch-cutting machine and now produces tens of thousands of samples a year.

Here's the part worth stealing: she didn't wait until she had the infrastructure to offer this. She offered it the day someone asked, using scissors and a mailer. The system came later, once she knew it worked.

Action Summary:

Credit: Shopify Masters

Most brands assume Black Friday has to be the best deal of the season. Cyber Monday just repeats it, or comes in a little weaker.

Colby Kane, founder of Aviator, is planning to break that pattern this year. Cyber Monday's offer will be better than Black Friday's.

The logic makes sense once you hear it. Black Friday shoppers are moving fast because they assume it's the best deal they'll get. Cyber Monday shoppers are still deciding, so a slightly better offer gives them a reason to finally buy.

But that plan creates a problem. Someone buys on Friday, feeling good about their deal. Monday rolls around and they see a better price on the same product. Now they don't feel like a smart early shopper.

Here's the part worth stealing.

If a Friday buyer reaches out after seeing the better Monday offer, they get store credit for the difference, plus a little extra.

That one decision changes what would've been a complaint into a second purchase.

Colby's expectation is that a good chunk of those customers will use that credit to buy something else.

Action Summary:

Credit: Ethercycle

The best marketing ideas come from marketers who live it. That’s what The Marketing Millennials delivers: real insights, fresh takes, and no fluff. Written by Daniel Murray, a marketer who knows what works, this newsletter cuts through the noise so you can stop guessing and start winning. Subscribe and level up your marketing game.

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