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The DTC Playbook: 5 Strategies That Actually Work
upgrade UGC, start clipping, join these founders, fix your emails and more
Parker Burr & Graham Welter
July 31, 2025
The DTC Playbook: 5 Strategies That Actually Work
Your weekly dose of no-BS marketing tactics that move the needle for retail & ecommerce brands.
Listen up: that folder labeled "UGC Gold" on your desktop? It's basically a graveyard at this point. Everyone's doing basic paid UGC now, and consumers can smell that low-effort, apartment-filmed content from a mile away.
The smart money has moved to Branded Creator Content (BCC) — partnering with creators for 3-month narrative series instead of one-off posts. It's the difference between buying a single asset and commissioning a mini TV show where your brand is the hero.
Brutal truth bomb: If you're a Shopify brand sending emails, there's a 70% chance they're landing in spam folders. We're talking about brands literally burning $70K/month in lost email revenue because their deliverability is trash. The fix isn't sexy, but it's the difference between a $100K/month brand and a $300K/month brand using the exact same email strategy.
This wasn't some "dump money into Meta ads and pray" fairytale. This was structured, scrappy, and relentlessly aligned to revenue. We're talking +380% growth in purchases, 4.95x ROAS, and +75% CTR boost. The secret? They started with financials, not platforms — aligning media KPIs with actual business goals instead of chasing vanity metrics.
While everyone panics about Facebook CACs hitting $89, the operators inside Workspace6 are celebrating. Why? They've figured out how to be profitable at $200 CAC while competitors max out at $75. It's called "reverse CAC engineering" — instead of trying to lower costs, you engineer your entire business model around higher CACs. When you can win at costs that eliminate everyone else, you basically own the market.
Your TikTok strategy is probably garbage. Instead of praying your 90-second brand film goes viral, smart DTC brands are filming 30 minutes of raw content and pulling out 6-10 moments that actually make people stop scrolling. Mid-Day Squares turned their startup journey into a reality show. Starface built 1M+ followers with weird, offbeat moments. The formula: Record once. Clip 10x. Post daily.
That's a wrap for this week. Stop leaving money on the table.
— Parker & Graham
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