Truffs (a)

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Waddup. Waddup. Currently in LA. First time here. Thought I'd be enjoying that sunny and 75 weather. Wrong. A crazy amount of rain. Floods. The Venice boardwalk is empty. And I'm in my Airbnb waiting for the sun to peak through. Regardless, I'm grateful.

Also, if you're in Venice and want to hit a dinner with myself and other 8-9 figure DTC founders, marketers, and operators then hit the link here to RSVP.

Our friends over at Kustomer are sponsoring the dinner. All you gotta do is enjoy the good food and good talks.

But first, a huge thank you to our partner Ignite Digital.

In partnership with Ignite Digital

Masterclass is valued at $2.7B and SEO is their #1 source of traffic.

Every month, they get 11.2 million visits through:

• 601K Backlinks

• 49.3K Referring Domains.

That’s every marketer's dream.

My first step in any SEO strategy starts with a competitor analysis.

Ignite Digital has over a decade of SEO experience and will help you for free with:

• Competitor Analysis

• Keyword Analysis

• Website SEO Audits

• Monthly Reporting with your own Account Manager

There’s no downside. Perks of the Marketing Examined community.

The most valuable DTC brands expand into omni-channel to become truly dominant.

And it comes with unique challenges that can kill a company.

To start, you have to appeal to consumers outside your typical target and convince a broader audience to adopt your products.

Truff, an upscale hot sauce first sold exclusively on DTC.

Then they expanded into select luxury retail boutiques, and eventually most mass retailers.

At each step, they figured out how to appeal to a broader, mass-market audience on top of the niche, cult following they built.

Here’s how they did it.

Brand Partnerships

Truff's inaugural brand collaboration was with Bagel Bites in May 2021.

Which led to a partnership with Noodles & Company, where they introduced a limited-edition mac and cheese dish featuring Truff’s black truffle sauce, served across 450 locations nationwide.

Since then, their partnership program has taken off.

They’ve collaborated with brands like Hidden Valley and Taco Bell to iconic brands like Super Mario Brothers and streetwear brands like Warren Lotas.

The sheer variety of partnerships might seem surprising, but they align with Truff's goal to reach a broader audience, resonate with customers, create buzz, and inspire them to try new products.

The partnerships are intentionally selected to appeal to different segments of the mass market:

• Iconic + Mass Appeal: Hidden Valley Ranch is a mainstream product.

  

• Household Name with Nostalgia: Taco Bell inspires childhood memories.

  

• Iconic + Hyped Fans: Super Mario has a dedicated fan base that creates massive hype and buzz. The collab had 15,000 sign-ups on the online waitlist before launch and garnered over 5,000 social media shares in the first hour.

  

• Streetwear brands with cool + cultural relevance: Warren Lotas aligns with their image of offering cool and luxurious products - amplifying their upscale image while reaching the streetwear community

  

Brand partnerships is adjacent to influencer partnerships.

Just like a content creator has an audience you want to tap into, brands have customers you can tap into.

Here’s how you can implement:

1. Brainstorm a list of 20 brands your customer loves.

2. Identify the obvious + non-obvious.

3. Where is the broadest potential for audience growth?

4. Evaluate the potential for mutual benefit.

5. Send tailored pitch proposals for the selected brands.

6. Start with small, limited-edition collaborations.

With each collaboration, review what worked and what didn’t and apply best practices to larger and larger partnerships.

This is how Truff’s went from a premium DTC brand to over 20,000+ retail locations in a matter of years.

Shoot me any ideas you have for your brand. This is the type of stuff I love to jam on.

🕳 Rabbit Hole Reads and Resources

• Ask Me Anything: Have a marketing-related question, drop it here! (LINK)

• Lead Magnets: How to use loom videos as lead magnets. (LINK)

• Viral Memes: Josh Cellars wine is all over the internet right now because of viral memes. (LINK)

• Storytelling: Learn how top creators storytell w/ Patreon CEO Jack Conte's video series, “Digital Spaghetti. (LINK)

• $1b+ Unicorns: Read this report on The State of Global Unicorn Startups. (LINK)

• Product Marketers: A guide to the three pillars of product marketing. (LINK)