BPN Case Study: How They Make 90% of Their Revenue From DTC Channels

Hey legends, Dev here 👋

Firstly, thanks for taking the time out again to read through this newsletter. In the last week, I’ve doubled the number of subscribers 🙏 . Couldn’t be more grateful for all the support and feedback!

In today’s edition, I’ll be breaking down Bare Performance Nutrition’s DTC marketing strategy. Here’s what I’m covering:

• Nick Bare and BPN’s content-heavy marketing approach

• How consistent storytelling helped drive revenue

• Setup of their advertising foundations

• A unique approach to SMS marketing that generated over $1m in four months

• How outsourcing part of the shipping helped scale

• Efforts to amp up customer acquisition and retention

• The outcome of combining creative & performance marketing

FEATURE CASE STUDY
Bare Performance Nutrition

Context: BPN's growth journey, spearheaded by owner Nick Bare, is nothing short of epic. I came across this brand thanks to Nick's YouTube and Instagram, where he's built a colossal social following showing us behind the scenes of building a brand and his journey to becoming a hybrid athlete. He kicked off with a $20k loan, making $15k in its first year,  and now they're pulling in a whopping $3.5 million in monthly revenue. 

At the core, their DTC marketing strategy has helped them build a strong community who are behind their mission and can relate to their story. This relationship has helped to drive between 80-90% of revenue directly from consumers.

Masterclass in Content Marketing

Their content marketing is clear. They focus on relatable and valuable content that engages, educates and motivates their target audience. This approach, in turn, helps them attract and nurture a loyal customer base who have a longer customer lifetime value. 

They primarily utilize social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and Snapchat for distribution, with Nick Bare’s personal YouTube channel serving as a key entry point into the BPN ecosystem. His YouTube channel and Instagram have skyrocketed to a whopping $1.1m+ subscribers since . Plus he’s also released over 160+ podcast episodes to further solidify his personal brand and capture attention for the brand.

These channels aren't just about numbers; they're a platform for Nick to shape and flaunt the brand's "voice." In an industry where trust and education play pivotal roles in purchase decisions, this transparency is the secret sauce that sets them apart.

Consistent Story Telling 

BPN's storytelling has been a central part of their growth strategy, with each product created as the solution to a problem, and the tagline "Go One More®" driving their commitment to helping customers find their full potential

Advertising Foundation 

After nailing their organic game, they turned up the volume to reach a wider audience by amplifying creatives and messages through paid media.

Approach: Leading with content their customers resonate with, they put what customers want in the spotlight. BPN is all about that customer-first vibe in everything they do. They run prospecting and remarketing campaigns on Facebook and Instagram. Plus, they send frequent emails (2-3 per week) and constantly refine their SEO strategy for published content, so they stay top of mind.

Unique Approach to SMS Marketing 

BPN is crushing it with SMS marketing, pulling in $1 million in revenue and building highly committed customer loyalty in just four months. Here's the breakdown of their SMS strategy:

• Timing: Set a one-day click window and a 12-hour view window, allowing them to get a truer sense of the performance of each send.

• Community First, Discounts Second: Unlike other DTC brands, BPN goes for community vibes over discounts in their SMS game. No pushy sales pitches, just long-form text messages fostering an impressive 81% retention rate—impressive in a world drowning in spam.
  

• Perfect Cadence: 2-3 messages per week. Every message is crafted for a real conversation, steering clear of that robotic unhelpful tone.

• VIP Treatment: Segmenting to warm audiences only, focusing on the ones who want to engage with the brand - a true VIP channel.

Faster, Accurate Shipping = Repeat Purchases and Extends the CLTV

They recently partnered with micro-fulfilment centres located in metropolitan areas, allowing them to reduce some of the volume pressure and offer two-hour delivery for customers. This move works well while scaling your paid advertising efforts, and for BPN, it was successful — notably during their Black Friday sales where they offloaded 25% of orders to their fulfilment partners.

Launched a Free Training App

BPN recently dropped a free BPN Training App for both iOS and Android. It's a strategic move to amp up customer acquisition and retention in both DTC and retail spaces. This not only hooks customers into their brand ecosystem but also aligns them with the mission and, of course, the ultimate products.

Combining Creative and Performance Marketing

Although they are careful with discounting, BPN leverages strong offers to test and drive sales through paid social campaigns on Facebook and Instagram. Their philosophy towards paid media is to combine the creative with a performance marketing team and test at scale.

Common DTC Tactic: Utilising discounting to get new prospects over to make their first purchase is a common tactic that DTC brands utilise. This ad typically lives in a bottom-of-funnel campaign where brands retarget people who have engaged with their social accounts, website or product pages. After conversion, customers enter a post-purchase email funnel, where they will be placed in a series of emails that are designed to build trust and get the customer more invested in the brand, eventually leading to repeat purchases.

An interesting ad that was directly talking about Nick Bare’s wellness stack. This ad likely lives in a remarketing campaign, targeting people who follow Nick’s social channels. Using the influencer angle and a call-to-action to ‘Shop Now’ this is designed to drive people to make that ‘investment’.

The last style of ad that we found running was UGC (User Generated Content) produced by brand ambassadors talking about their health and wellness stack - this is a middle-of-funnel campaign where building trust and authority is the key focus.

ACTIONABLE INSIGHTS
What Can You Implement?

Content Marketing & Storytelling:

• Craft engaging, valuable content on key platforms (YouTube, Instagram, podcasts).

• Prioritize subscriber growth and showcase behind-the-scenes content.

• Align products with solutions, and establish a tagline for emotional connection.

Advertising Foundation:

• Build strong organic foundations before diving into advertising.

• Lead paid strategies with content, keeping ads simple on Facebook and Instagram.

SMS Marketing:

• Build lists intentionally, and set specific click/view windows for accuracy.

• Focus on community-building over discounts, and segment SMS campaigns to warm audiences.

Efficient Shipping:

• Partner with micro-fulfilment centres for fast, accurate shipping.

• Utilize partnerships strategically during peak periods.

More Value:

• Figure out a way to deepen customer engagement within the brand's ecosystem.

• BPN and Nike are great examples of creating something that further supports their target market’s lifestyle of staying active. 

Performance & Creative Marketing:

• Use strong offers judiciously on Facebook and Instagram.

• Implement a full-funnel approach, testing diverse audiences.

• Apply discounting strategically in bottom-of-funnel campaigns.

• Test a wide range of creatives, especially UGC.

Diverse Ad Formats:

• Explore micro-influencer and user-generated content campaigns.

• Tailor campaigns to different stages of the customer journey. Talk specifically to that stage of their journey to achieve relevance.

E-COMMERCE NEWS

• Temu, the online marketplace, amped up its advertising strategy by boosting its total ad spend by a whopping 1000% year-on-year from January to November 2023. The breakdown? 76% targeted social media, 13% went into digital display ads, and the remaining 11% covered other channels. 

• Google remains the top platform for information-seeking, according to Adobe Analytics. TikTok has swiftly climbed to the fourth spot in favoured search platforms, marking a notable shift in the digital landscape.

• ​​Three years after Apple’s iOS 14 changes, brands find Meta advertising has stabilized. In its most recent earnings report, earlier this month Meta posted a 23% year-over-year increase in ad revenue. With Meta’s latest investment in advertising tools, such as the AI-based Advantage+ suite, the company has e-commerce brands continuously running campaigns on its platforms.

That’s all for today! Let me know what you think of this edition.

Dev✌️

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