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How Dollar Shave Club Acquired 12k Customers in 48 Hours
Power of Virality, Subscription to get new customers, Ranking higher on Google

Apparently, shaving began as long as 100,000 years ago with stone-age men using clam shells like tweezers to pull out their beard hair. Luckily for men, the tools to shave have dramatically evolved over centuries 😅.
Today, it’s a $13 billion industry largely underpinned by classic giant brands like Gilette and Schick who have always dominated the market. However, with the introduction of successful DTC brands like Dollar Shave Club (DSC), the industry went through a much-needed disruption.
DSC’s idea came about after Michael Dubin’s (the founder) family friend asked him for help to sell 250,000 razors from a previous failed business attempt.
So random…
But their conversation reminded them both about how men complain about the cost of razors and the inconvenience of accessing them in a shop.
So, they bought the domain name and created an insane offer of selling monthly razor subscriptions for as little as $1 per month - and the rest is history.
Here’s what I’ll be covering in today’s case study:
How DSC used video to land their irresistible offer
How their subscription model helps with customer acquisition
Insight into their SEO and ‘Shameless Plug’ strategy
Enjoy.
- Dev
FEATURE CASE STUDY
Dollar Shave Club

Context: Dollar Shave Club, founded in 2011 by Michael Dubin and Mark Levine, started when Dubin, a digital marketer, teamed up with Levine to sell his surplus razors online. They created a subscription model for affordable razor delivery, launching the website in July 2011. With an initial 1,000 subscribers from blogger outreach, the company went viral in 2012 with a funny video critiquing traditional razor companies, gaining over 27 million views and fueling its success.
In 2015, Dollar Shave Club gained a 48.6 per cent market share in the online razor space, with a subscriber base of over 4 million. In July 2016, Unilever, acquired Dollar Shave Club in a $1 billion all-cash deal, granting Unilever a 16 per cent unit share of the U.S. razor cartridge market and positioning it second to Gillette.
VIDEO MARKETING
Delivering an Irresistible Offer via Video
Describing Dollar Shave Club's video strategy as merely influential would be an understatement. It was an instrumental force that catapulted them to rapid customer growth.
Their approach to video content centred on three key objectives:
Draw people in through highly engaged videos
Tell a compelling story that hooks people in the narrative and provides the opportunity to communicate their brand message, value proposition and approach. This was their playbook to differentiate themselves from competitors.
Create video content that can be easily shared on social media and increase brand exposure.
There was a strong desire to build a strong brand identity by solving a specific ongoing problem (monthly razor purchases) by delivering an irresistible offer (high-quality razors for $1).
They spent about $4.5k creating the video, taking about a day to produce and within 72 hours it went viral! It racked up an impressive 27 million views garnered 140,000 likes on YouTube, and eventually crashed DSC’s website within an hour of publication. Importantly, it brought in 12,000 new customers to the brand.
Titled ‘Our Blades Are F*king Great” the video grabbed attention, provided humour and importantly, related to men who didn’t enjoy the old way of buying shavers. Led by the founder, Michael Ryan, the video hilariously delivered an entertaining pitch that hooked people from the get-go.
The key message that helped the video spread like wildfire was centred around addressing the pain points of traditional razor blade purchases, putting convenience in the spotlight and emphasising affordability. Above else, it was memorable and entertaining — a good combo for a classic ad.
Video strategy: Included humour, clear value proposition and a bold approach that polarised the traditional razor commercials, positioning their product as the hero.
SUBSCRIPTION MODEL
Leveraging Subscriptions to Acquire New Customers

DSC was early in the subscription game, bringing in repeat business that helped grow a loyal customer base. Customers no longer wanted to worry about running out of razors or making last-minute trips to stores — the convenience factor proved to be a very successful marketing angle for them.
Their subscription service landed well in the market because they focused on three key things: convenience, affordability and scarcity. Making it easy to buy their products from a smooth web experience and their app was equally important in driving up conversions.
Tactics they used to leverage their subscription model to attract new customers:
DSC offers free trials or discounted initial subscriptions to entice new customers to try their service. If they like it, they carry on and become part of their recurring revenue stream.
Creating an accessible referral program that offers customers a $5 bonus credit for each friend/family they refer successfully driving their word-of-mouth marketing forward.
Growth Strategy: First time offers and referral credits are great incentives to entice new customers and motivate existing custmers to spread the word.
SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMISATION
Shameless Plug to Drive Online Sales
Club Chronicles (DSC’s blog), draws in over 335k/month of organic site traffic, covering everything that potential customers might be searching for.
Their content covers everything related that falls into these categories:
Shaving
Grooming
Men’s Health
Hygiene
A smart way to niche down and rank higher on Google.
Within each article, they link to product and category pages whenever it’s relevant. To drive direct product sales from their organic traffic, they insert ‘Shameless Plugs’, where they direct readers to the product page.

Plus, it ranks for over 80,000 keywords, including:
Top-of-the-funnel keywords like "do you exfoliate before or after shaving”
Middle-of-the-funnel keywords like "shave butter"
Bottom-of-the-funnel keywords like "dollar shave club" and "dollar shave club razors”
Growth strategy: High-quality blog content that covers a wide range of topics directly related to a brand’s niche can help lower paid media cost. Helps to target diverse keywords and drive organic sales.
TREND SPOTLIGHT
Why People Are Engaging With Ugly Ads?

Ugly ads are a catch-all term that many marketers use to describe a piece of content that doesn’t look like your conventional ad. It’s something that would appear naturally in your social media feed. The unrefined aesthetic is what gets these ads to perform so well because people are simply tired of over-produced influencer programs.
Some examples of what makes ugly ads:
Typically feature static photos of products as they look in the real world.
They could also be someone just shooting a testimonial from their phones instead of a studio.
Memes
Any ad that doesn’t stick to a brand’s strict guidelines
Someone with shaky camera work
Why this matters: This helps brands avoid banner blindness, save some ad budget and stick out from competitors who are running similar ads. Ugly ads help you test key messages faster and at scale without having to commit to spending large amounts of marketing budget and then have it underperform 😬
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