Secrets to building a customer-centric DTC brand

In episode 96 of the Customers Who Click podcast, I had a fantastic chat with Stephanie Bregman about how Manly Bands overcame attribution and other data issues caused by the recent iOS changes, how licensed partnerships have been a powerful contributor to growth, and how they keep on top of new technologies and emerging customer experiences.

I think Manly Bands is doing an incredible job, and even if you’re not looking for a wedding band, go check out the website, they’ve got so many cool rings on there, and this is what allowed them to disrupt this industry.

The whole idea of the company is to give the customer what they want.

Their whole ethos of the business is to make sure that every customer gets a ring that is perfect for them, and meaningful to them, and that's so much more powerful than ‘this one is silver, this one is platinum’ and you’re also paying thousands for what are pretty generic rings.

Stephanie is the CMO of Manly Bands, an ecommerce business selling unique wedding bands for men. Stephanie has been involved in retail marketing for 20 years and started off as a marketing consultant for MB. You can connect with her on LinkedIn, Twitter or head over to https://manlybands.com/.

Key highlights:

01:07 - 07:38 - Biggest Contributors To Manly Bands’ Growth - Before we get into that, you need to know the backstory behind Manly Bands. The brand was founded by John and Michelle, a couple looking to get married and getting pretty disappointed with the selection of mens wedding bands - they were plain boring and super expensive. People assumed that men don’t care for their wedding bands, but they do! John and Michelle found that gap in the market and created a cool brand that really cares about helping their customers find the perfect product for their big day.

Combine that with a great team, brand with a purpose and a fantastic experience & customer service and there you have it. It wasn’t the fastest growth by any means because it took a while to build that credibility and trust but today, but you only need to check out their reviews or social media feeds to see that their customers love the product.

08:13 - 11:18 - Boosting Sales with Product Collections - Manly Bands has just released the official vendor Fender Collection, so think of the kind of wood they use, the authentic guitar string that runs down the rings, they even have one that looks like a fretboard. The point of doing this? Creating products that’ll appeal to various target audiences. Because it’s not just men that are getting married, it’s those that “settled” for one before, they want to upgrade like women do and so on. Manly Bands focuses on creating amazing products that’ll make those customers buy rings because they really like them.

16:53 - 20:51 - Building Brand Awareness Through Brand Partnerships - Manly Bands is super keen on partnering with relevant brands and see it as a great prospecting opportunity. You share the same audience, and it kind of works like referral marketing for both parties. Not to mention it helps customers to take some of that pressure off, because your partner might offer something the customer still has on their to-do list - and bang, here’s a brand they can trust. And vice versa, of course.

20:59 - 33:24 - Challenges Manly Bands is Facing Right Now - First of them is the unpredictability caused by COVID, and it’s not just the supply chain issues, either. No one is 100% sure they’ll go ahead with their wedding in case everything shuts down again. Another big one, was of course the iOS update but Stephanie and her teams overcame it by making the most of their data. They prioritise gathering zero-party and using their own channels & tools to nurture leads rather than relying purely on paid ads.

40:05 - 45:53 - Never Stop Testing New Technology & Channels - Manly Bands never stops testing and experimenting with new channels or technology to appeal to their customers. Their audience is predominantly younger millennials and Gen Z, and Stephanie and her team know they have to meet their customers where they’re at. So they had the idea of creating a shopping app that works like a certain popular dating app where you swipe profiles - except in this case, people are choosing wedding bands. Stephanie is also super excited about the Metaverse and the future of retail within it.

47:06 - Who Would Stephanie Like to Take For Lunch in the D2C Marketing World?

Warby Parker, Spanx and Purple Mattress.

54:10 - Stephanie’s Must-Have Ecommerce Tools:

Microsoft Power Bi, which is a data visualisation tool
Asana, ClickUp - task management tools
CoSchedule - a powerful marketing calendar

If you’d like to hear more from Stephanie, you can connect with her on LinkedIn, Twitter or head over to https://manlybands.com/.