Direct-to-consumer. DTC. What emotional response do those words conjure for you? The formula for DTC used to be simple – spend marketing dollars to acquire new customers. Today, customer acquisition costs can be 10X higher than they used to be, so what should be the new strategy in these challenging, post-pandemic economic times? Polly Wong, president of Bellardi Wong, and our latest Retail Transformer, has the answers. Polly’s agency works with the best, most successful DTC brands and she is sharing the best practices every DTC founder, brand manager, and category manager need to know to be successful in this episode! Should you open stores? Leverage print? Catalogs? Is Facebook still worthwhile? What about TikTok? Listen and find out!News alert #1: The Retail Razor Show has been nominated for The Retail Voice Award at the Vendors in Partnership Award ceremony during NRF 2023 in January in New York City! IF you’re a fan of the show, please give us your vote! You can vote here: https://bit.ly/VIPretail News alert #2! We’ve moved up to #19 on the Feedspot Top 60 Best Retail podcasts list, so please keep those 5-star reviews in Apple Podcasts coming! With your help, we’ll move our way further up the Top 20! Leave us a review to be mentioned in upcoming episodes! https://blog.feedspot.com/retail_podcasts/Meet your hosts, helping you cut through the clutter in retail & retail tech:Ricardo Belmar, a RETHINK Retail Top Retail Influencer for 2022 & 2021, RIS News Top Movers and Shakers in Retail for 2021, a Top 12 ecommerce influencer, advisory council member at George Mason University’s Center for Retail Transformation, and director partner marketing advisor for retail & consumer goods at Microsoft.Casey Golden, CEO of Luxlock. Obsessed with the customer relationship between the brand and the consumer. After a career on the fashion and supply chain technology side of the business, now slaying franken-stacks and building retail tech!Includes music provided by imunobeats.com, featuring E-Motive, and Overclocked, from the album Beat Hype, written by Hestron Mimms, published by Imuno.The Retail Razor ShowFollow us on Twitter: https://bit.ly/TwRRazorConnect with us on LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/LI-RRazorSubscribe on YouTube: https://bit.ly/RRShowYouTubeSubscribe on Apple Podcasts: https://bit.ly/RetailRazorShowRetail Razor Show Episode Page: https://bit.ly/RRShowPodHost → Ricardo Belmar,Follow on Twitter - https://bit.ly/twRBelmarConnect on LinkedIn - https://bit.ly/LIRBelmarRead my comments on RetailWire - https://bit.ly/RWRBelmarCo-host → Casey Golden,Follow on Twitter - https://bit.ly/twCaseyConnect on LinkedIn - https://bit.ly/LICaseyRead my comments on RetailWire - https://bit.ly/RWCaseyTRANSCRIPTS2E5 Retail Transformers - Polly Wong[00:00:00] Pre-Intro[00:00:00] Casey Golden: Ricardo, I've got one word for you to describe this week's show. Dtc. [00:00:06] Ricardo Belmar: Yeah, so Casey, I'm thinking that's technically three words, but, but nevermind that. Um, I don't think we've done an entire show focused on DTC before, have we?[00:00:13] Casey Golden: Hey, I didn't write the script. So[00:00:21] So this is exciting and. I'm especially pumped for all [00:00:24] the DTC founders out there tuning in. This one is for you.[00:00:28] Ricardo Belmar: That's true, and honestly, if you're a direct to consumer founder listening or, or watching us on YouTube, stop right now. Go grab a pen and paper or your iPad or whatever you like to use to take notes, because believe me, you are going to be writing things down nonstop in a mad fury throughout this episode.[00:00:45] Casey Golden: Oh yeah. The tips and tricks are going to be flying. And you just don't wanna miss a[00:00:50] minute.[00:00:51] Ricardo Belmar: So should we just start the show or should we make listeners suffer a little bit more first, with more of our carefree and eloquent banter,[00:00:56] Casey Golden: Oh, you're so cruel. Let's get to the music already. [00:00:59][00:01:19]