👋 Quick word

Welcome to the DTC Report, where we analyze some of the best high-growth brands out there & tell you how they grew.

This week, we’re analyzing how Ritual.com fast-tracked its growth. They are reportedly beyond the $50M / year milestone. Quite the achievement for a brand that launched in 2015.

💫 Mentions

• Snoop Dogg might be launching a hot dog(g) brand.

• Wholesale seems to be the solution to dwindling margins for DTC brands.

👀 This week you’ll find

• How Ritual kept the same exact website since day 1.

• How Ritual.com works with micro-influencers and Facebook ads to grow into new market segments.

💊 Ritual.com’s secret to growth.

Ritual is reportedly well beyond the $50M / year milestone, and they show no sign of slowing down.

💫 Highlights

• Brand building = trust

• Crafting a story around the founder is a great way

• You should (maybe) get a single word domain name

👉 A deliberate approach to brand building

Ritual.com’s brand hasn’t changed a bit since its inception in 2016. They came out of the gate swinging.

Since day 1

• Their brand has not changed in the slightest.

• They bought the domain name Ritual.com,

• They’ve made transparency a key part of their brand.

🗒 Single word domain names like ritual.com are underrated

Think of receiving an email for a potential collaboration from [email protected] vs. receiving an email from [email protected]. The compound effect is massive and very hard to measure.

📚 Storytime

Kat, the CEO of Ritual, bought the domain ritual.com from the getgo. She always wanted her company to be known as Ritual and not Ritual Vitamins. Brand has always been a key component of her approach.

However, the owner of the domain ritual.com didn’t want to sell it to her for the price she was willing to pay.

Kat kept talking with the owner of ritual.com on a regular basis without much development.

Through one of these regular conversations, she learned that the owner of the domain she wanted was interested in owning jolt.com.

In a moment of brilliance, Kat contacted the owner of Jolt.com, orchestrated a deal with him for cash and equity in Ritual, and traded jolt.com for ritual.com.

You can listen to the whole story right here.

🗣 A persona-driven approach to category expansion

Ritual.com started with one simple product line: Essentials for women. Clever name that captures the persona and the value proposition.

They have since grown beyond that single product line to address a larger market.

They’ve built a rollout strategy that utilizes Facebook ads and micro-creators to scale a new market.

1. Branch into a new category (i.e., 50+ post-menopause)

2. Source micro-creators that match the target audience

3. Create authentic UGC-type content around the product line

4. Test different copy and different creatives.

5. Double down on what’s working

They now branched into many other categories:

• 50+ post-menopause

• Pre-natal

• Post-natal

• Kids 4+

• Etc.

💡 Takeaway

• Effective category expansion in DTC / e-commerce business comes down to identifying the right persona to associate with your new product.

• Use relatable, real people in your ads. Make sure that these people actually care about your product. Bonus points if these people are customers of your product.

• The narrower your product line targeting, the easier it will be for your target audience to associate with it.