THE D2C DAY Masterclass: Demystifying D2C Marketing For India’s Retail Brands

As consumers across the world transform their shopping and buying habits, it’s become imperative for retail brands to tailor their operations and go directly to consumers. With the post-pandemic conditions in the market driving online-first strategies, there’s a huge influx of brands beginning their ecommerce journey and taking their first steps in understanding the nuances of what makes a great direct-to-consumer (D2C) brand from product development to marketing and customer service.

Going D2C is not only helping consumer brands skip the third-party retailers, distributors and go direct to the consumer, it also gives them a chance to have a strong brand narrative through unique marketing strategies. And this is a critical component of the D2C game.

“Gaining an offline shelf is not only difficult, it also doesn’t give you an opportunity to explain your brand to your consumer. You cannot control what and how a store manager tells a consumer. Whereas in D2C you have the control over your brand narrative,” believes K. Vaitheeswaran, cofounder of D2C beverage brand Again Drinks and widely considered to be the father of ecommerce in India having founded FabMart in the late 1990s.

The direct feedback and customer knowledge gained through the D2C model also gives these brands a chance to build brand value, improve conversion rate and repeat purchase and build long-term relationships with customers.

But, how do you deliver the brand narrative in a compelling way? What are the tools and marketing methods you should adopt? How do you build the best marketing strategy for your brand? To answer these questions and any others that retail brands will have, we are excited to bring our very first masterclass on D2C marketing.

The THE D2C DAY Masterclass includes invaluable tips from the leading D2C brands in India along with our exclusive Guide, Playbook on the D2C segment as well as deals worth over $150K and access to Inc42 Plus!

What To Expect From THE D2C DAY Masterclass?

THE D2C DAY Masterclass is a crash course into the world of direct-to-consumer for retail brands, individuals, marketers, ad agencies and influencers. We are bringing together an all-star lineup of speakers and the brightest minds in the D2C industry. The masterclass will be focused on the role of branding, social media marketing and influencer marketing when taking the D2C route.

With brands old and new going digital, marketing and customer service is one of the key success factors in the D2C game. Whether it’s retail, social media selling or native ecommerce platforms, the D2C marketing masterclass will take you a step further in your online sales journey through exclusive insights and invaluable tips and tricks from industry experts.

What You Will Learn

• The Role Of Brand Positioning In A Competitive Market.
• Why Branding Is Key For D2C Success​
• Marketing On Social Media Platforms And Staying ROI Positive
• Creating Differentiation Through Marketing
• Why Influencer Marketing Is The Next Frontier For D2C Brands​ And How To Go About It
• The Journey Of India’s Most Successful Brands Towards Becoming Household Names

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Learn From India’s D2C Brands Experts

We have brought together founders from storied D2C startups to share their journey on building D2C brands in a cut-throat market, and the role of marketing in creating strong brands.

The Secret To D2C Brand Building By Vikas Bagaria, Pee Safe

With the pandemic stirring up the consumer goods space, embracing D2C is the need of the hour. It gives brands an opportunity to earn a high margin and have direct access to consumer preferences and data. However, in a highly competitive space, appealing to the target audience the right way is the key. This session will delve into the nuances and secrets behind building a strong D2C brand that has high recall among the core audience.

Social Media Marketing For D2C Brands: Abhishek Asthana, Founder, GingerMonkey

D2C brands have been moving away from traditional marketing channels to using social media to create a buzz. While this gives brands the chance to see quick results, building a long-term relationship using social media goes beyond having a presence on all social networks. Here we will discuss how to deliver the brand narrative and market products with ROI in mind using social media.

Scaling D2C Brands With Influencer Marketing: Viraj Sheth, cofounder and CEO, Monk Entertainment and Jalak Rawal Partner, COO, Monk Entertainment

Big brands love to engage with celebrities to expand their market reach and D2C brands are increasingly using influencers to create pockets of loyal users. But there’s more to influencer marketing than just picking the popular accounts on Instagram. Learn how to build a brand identity through influencers, and how to use celebrities to drive trust for the brand.

Reinventing D2C Marketing Playbook At Each Stage of Growth: Chaitanya Ramalingegowda, cofounder, Wakefit

“Brands today have a notion that marketing is something that involves glamorous ad campaigns that work once in a few quarters,” cofounder Chaitanya Ramalingegowda told Inc42 in a recent interview. In this session, we will hear from him further on how to approach overall marketing function at various stages of growth as a D2C startup and the dimensions covered at each stage. This includes marketing value proposition, team marketing channels, campaigns and thinking about brand vs performance marketing.

And That’s Not All!

As running a successful online store has become vital to survival, there are plenty of options available to brands to kickstart their D2C journey and it no longer needs significant tech investment as third-party providers and startups offer products to manage operations. These include shopping cart software, logistics SaaS, payment management systems and gateways, marketing and customer analytics tools and more. But it can get confusing to choose the best, easiest and quickest way to open an online store.

And, that’s why along with THE D2C DAY Masterclass, we are throwing in a detailed guide on ‘Building And Scaling Up A Digital Retail Brand’ packed with insights and lessons from India’s leading brands.

The latest guide by Inc42 Plus aims to help brands make the digital shift as seamless as possible.

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Written by Umair Mohammed, CEO and cofounder, Wigzo; Apurva Chamaria, SVP & Chief of Staff to CEO & MD at Tech Mahindra; Tarun Jyot Singh, cofounder, 1DigitalStack; Kapil Makhija, CEO, Unicommerce; Saahil Goel, CEO and cofounder, Shiprocket; Akash Sinha, CEO and cofounder, Cashfree and Smriti Tipirneni, Bengaluru partner, Burgeon Law, this comprehensive guide delves into every aspect of establishing a successful D2C brand.

What You Will Find In Your Ultimate Guide To Going D2C

• How to use digital tools & analytics to accelerate the D2C strategy
• How to go about digital payments
• Introduction to managing logistics and distribution
• Customer acquisition & marketing strategies to scale up
• Legal & compliance knowledge

Plus More!

Besides the guide, THE D2C DAY Masterclass also includes access to the latest Inc42 Plus Playbook — India’s D2C Rush, which includes — six in-depth articles with the perspective of multiple brands, ecommerce players, logistics tech startups, industry experts on India’s D2C rush.

The playbook will be the go-to place for Inc42 Plus members and brands to not only learn about joining the D2C bandwagon, but about how experts, venture capitalists and founders look at this emerging model.

Last but not the least, we understand just how important cost-savings are when scaling up your brand. So we are bundling in deals worth over $150,000 when you attend the D2C Marketing Masterclass.

The idea is to bring all the intelligence in one place for brands, startups and businesses who are looking at making the digital shift and those who want to understand the space at length. We envision this guide, playbook and THE D2C DAY Masterclass to be relevant for many years to come even if the D2C segment gets more nuanced.

And finally, Inc42 Plus membership — which will provide you unlimited access to deeper stories through Playbooks, data-backed insights, reports and much more.

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