- The Weekly Sharpener
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- The Weekly Sharpener #134
👋 Hey fam!
I'm really excited to share this 👊 Wednesday roundup with you!
Before we dive in I wanted to make sure you are reading Cody Plofker’s newsletter. If you’re trying to learn about media buying, creative, or being a modern-day CMO in e-commerce. I read it weekly and think you’re losing business if you don’t. (Not an ad but I felt strongly about it after the last few weeks of pure 🔥)
Now onto the show!
Another Add Creative is out and you're in for 🤌 content. Excited for you to spend some time learning from Will Nitze (CEO of IQBAR) the initial process of building his business, why thoughtful packaging is a cheat code, and how DTC and retail should work hand in hand. You will learn, whether you like it or not!
We also dive into our top 5 🤖 AI tools of the moment for marketers and how you can use them.
We learn a few things from our experts about new ad styles and CRO fundamentals. Excited for you to check it out.
Also, make sure to sign-up for the Rockerbox event this month to learn about what’s working in paid marketing (😉 it’s free)
Hope your ads are scaling and LTV is 📈!
Cheers,
Chase
Starting using Pencil to Create winning ads 10x faster with AI.
Special Tip:
PR Advertorials are a major creative hack.
A simple print screen from a publication's story about your product will KILL on paid.
So many brands use this tactic daily. Don’t miss out.
Courtesy of Fraser Cottrell
Partner with us 🤝
Marketing agencies, freelance creatives, and e-comm experts…want access to our generous revenue share and co-marketing opportunities? Become a Pencil Partner today! You can learn more here.
🎙Add Creative
Come hang with Will NItze and learn about what it takes to create a CPG brand in 2023. His thoughtful but experimental approach is a great reset on what you should be doing with your brand.
I listened to this episode 2x before shipping it because there was so much value and density, I hope you enjoy it!
Spotify 🎧
Content That Matters 🐐
🤖The Top 5 AI Tools you should be using…
Turn your clips into viral videos. Creating content is hard, trust me. Creating video content is that difficult x 100, why do you think we created Pencil?
If you are working on your organic content game you can work with amazing editors, etc, however, if you don’t have the budget or want to test new things Opus allows you to do that very quickly and with high fidelity.
You’re a small business owner - you don’t have the time to be running your own ads but you don’t have the budget to be working with an agency - what do you do?
Automate it of course. Otis can help you make short work of building your entire paid media architecture and optimization process.
For me, this is a new way to make UGC. Use one of the 140+ AI avatars to go from text to video.
Why do I think this is impactful? Easy - you can do something that cuts through - it’s almost life-like BUT you can say: “Real Customer Feedback” on the video and get the scroll stop from your prospective customers.
This is a creative newsletter so we are going to lean into that. Want AI photoshoots, check out this tool, why it’s impactful for early companies is you are usually taking a lot of the product shots yourself.
Use this and create new unique images for your PDP’s and Category Pages.
I believe CX is a major miss for most brands - if you are strapped in trying to deliver a robust experience or need help with the volume you are experiencing (a great problem to have) this is a great tool that will take you a little bit of time to get your chat support set up but once it’s going you will solve 80% of your problems.
That means you can focus on solving the top 20% of challenges your customers are having. That sounds like a good use of your time!
Expert Strategy + Learnings
Some amazing learnings from thought leaders in DTC.
Dylan's CRO Tips 🙌
UGC IS NOT DEAD!!!! You can use it on your website, can be more effective than testimonials sometimes.
Also, having the video in your ad on your LP can help build trust because they feel they've "seen it before" therefore more likely to buy.
For more 🔥 follow Dylan Ander.
Rahul's Paid Media Learnings 🤘
Sticky notes - Ad Creative
Why I think this works:
Simple creative showcasing product + value prop
Doesn't look like an ad, disguises as an organic post on the feed.
Follow Rahul and reach out to Reach Digital to work with him 🧠
Worth Your Time 🤌
From our Library 📚
Join the ✏️ community
Sign up to learn and meet 200+ other great founders & operators across DTC.
Curious about what we're building? 🧱
Check out our roadmap and upvote what you think is important! If we have missed anything, you can add your suggestions as well.
YouTube Channel 📺
Check out our library of amazing video content on creative, ads, and ecom operating.
Our Preferred Tech Partners 👏
Foreplay - spy on your competitor’s ads + save what you like
soona - studio-level assets in days and without the heavy cost. Yes, please. (Use Pencil39 for a free first photo)
Motion - you want insights on your ads - make it fast/easy/actionable.
Social Snowball - frictionless affiliate programs for your customers and creators
Triple Whale - attribution - need I say more
Air - keeping all of your assets organized is a pain. Air makes it delightful.
Creative OS - if you love making ads on Figma, you'll love this.
Insense - your one-stop shop for sourcing and working with creators.
Fav Newsie's
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