The TL;DR:

• Let’s Chat D2C: Leveraging Direct Mail with toty, Sofía Vergara’s Suncare Brand.

• What I’m Thinking about this Week: Why is LinkedIn personal branding more effective for business growth than a business page?

• The D2Z Podcast: In this week’s episode, I interviewed Garrett Caudle, CEO of Influent, a top LinkedIn agency.

• App Updates & Highlights: Rebuy - Personalized Recommendations, Upsells, Cross-Sells, AI, Frictionless Re-ordering, and more.

• Upcoming Events: I’m headed to San Diego for the Commerce Roundtable Monday-Tuesday!

Let’s Chat D2C - Leveraging Direct Mail with toty, Sofía Vergara’s Suncare Brand

Toty faced challenges in retaining one-shot customers after their initial purchase, a common issue in e-commerce. To address this, we integrated direct mail campaigns into their retention marketing strategy, using PostPilot's platform. We seamlessly incorporated targeted postcards into the existing email and SMS marketing flows we already had set up for this customer cohort. These postcards aimed to bring back first-time customers and encourage repeat purchases by creating a more personalized and tangible marketing touchpoint.

SiteMatch and MailMatch Technology

PostPilot’s SiteMatch technology enabled us to send direct mail to anonymous visitors of the site, while their MailMatch technology enabled us to send direct mail to visitors who gave us their email addresses but no other information. This provided a way for us to engage with visitors whom we never would’ve been able to communicate with again, as well as give another communication channel to visitors whose email addresses we had but where messages often get lost in crowded inboxes or ignored due to ad fatigue. The physical nature of direct mail helped us stand out, delivering a more tactile, memorable interaction that bridged the gap between online and offline marketing.

The Results

The results of the direct mail campaigns were impressive, with Toty seeing a significant return on investment (ROI). For retargeting efforts, they achieved an average ROI of 5x, and for second-purchase campaigns, an ROI of 4x. This success highlights the power of combining traditional marketing methods like direct mail with modern digital strategies. It demonstrates that a multichannel approach, which includes both digital and physical touchpoints, can create a stronger, more effective customer engagement and retention strategy, ultimately leading to long-term growth.

What I’m Thinking About This Week - Why is LinkedIn personal branding more effective for business growth than a business page?

I’ve found LinkedIn personal branding to be far more effective than a company LinkedIn profile for business growth. But why? While I can’t say 100% why, these are some of my assumptions and why you should consider investing more time in your personal profile than your business.

1. Human Connection and Trust

People tend to trust and connect with other people more than they do with brands or companies. A personal profile humanizes the business and allows for deeper, more meaningful connections. When someone shares insights, experiences, and expertise on their personal profile, it feels more authentic, which helps build trust with the audience.

2. Greater Organic Reach

LinkedIn’s algorithm generally favors content from personal profiles over company pages, which means that posts from individual users tend to receive more visibility and engagement. Personal posts can reach wider audiences organically, whereas company page posts often require paid promotion to achieve similar reach.

3. Higher Engagement Rates

People are more likely to interact with content shared by individuals than brands. Personal posts often spark more conversation, as they seem more authentic and relatable. This engagement can extend to second- and third-degree connections, increasing the overall visibility and reach of the content.

4. Thought Leadership and Expertise

Personal branding allows individuals to establish themselves as thought leaders or experts in their field. When someone from a company is consistently sharing valuable content, providing insights, or commenting on industry trends, it positions them as an authority. This, in turn, reflects positively on the business they represent.

5. Relationship Building

LinkedIn is a relationship-driven platform. Personal profiles allow for direct connections and conversations that are harder to achieve with a company page. Relationships are key to business growth, and personal branding facilitates networking, partnerships, and client acquisition through authentic, one-on-one interactions.

6. Employee Advocacy

Employees who build strong personal brands on LinkedIn can collectively amplify a company’s message more effectively than a corporate account. When multiple team members are actively sharing content and engaging on the platform, it increases the visibility and credibility of the business, leading to higher growth potential.

7. Storytelling and Authenticity

Personal branding enables storytelling in a way that resonates more deeply than corporate messaging. Individuals can share their personal journeys, challenges, and successes, which creates emotional connections with their audience. This level of authenticity is difficult for a company page to replicate, making personal profiles more effective in creating long-term engagement and relationships.

8. Direct Interaction with Decision Makers

On LinkedIn, many decision-makers prefer to interact with other professionals rather than engage with faceless corporate pages. Personal profiles allow for direct conversations and outreach, making it easier to connect with influencers, investors, clients, and partners.

9. Broader Content Flexibility

Personal profiles have more freedom in the type of content they can share. Individuals can share diverse content ranging from personal anecdotes to industry insights, videos, and opinions. This variety makes personal branding more dynamic and appealing, while company profiles often need to stick to more formal, polished content.

10. Better Return on Effort

While maintaining a company page requires time and often paid promotions to see substantial results, personal profiles offer more ROI in terms of time spent. Even without paid ads, a well-managed personal brand can generate significant business opportunities, build a strong network, and drive leads—all through organic content and engagement.

11. Credibility Through Individual Leadership

When the face of a company (e.g., the founder, CEO, or senior executives) establishes a strong personal brand, it boosts the credibility of the entire company. Customers and stakeholders view the company more favorably when they can associate it with real people who are visible and active in the industry.

By using LinkedIn personal branding, professionals can harness the power of relationships, authenticity, and thought leadership, which are key drivers of business growth, while company profiles tend to be more limited in terms of engagement and reach.

This Week’s The D2Z Podcast

#122 – Essential Strategies for Entrepreneurs

🎧 Listen Now 🎧

In this week’s episode, I sat down with Garrett Caudle, CEO of Influent, a top LinkedIn agency. Specifically, we explored the following:

💰 The evolution of LinkedIn towards personal branding for business growth.

📲 Quality over quantity.

😎 Why consistency is so important.

🚀 Defining your audience, developing a content strategy, monitoring and adapting, and measuring your impact!

App Updates & Highlights - Rebuy

What is it: Personalized Recommendations, Upsells, Cross-Sells, AI, Frictionless Re-ordering, and more.

Differentiator: Rebuy is an omnichannel personalization platform empowering ecommerce brands on Shopify to increase AOV, accelerate sales, and grow quickly. Unlike other options, Rebuy provides a full suite of personalization, marketing, and retention services, white-glove support, and a customizable shopping cart. Trusted by 10,000+ retailers worldwide, Rebuy’s powerful technology redefines data-powered shopping experiences.

Starting Price: Rebuy has preferred partner pricing, which is free each month until you earn $1,000 in Rebuy-generated revenue, plus unlimited usage of their Shopify Plus Checkout Extensions product at no charge. Just mention that you came from me!

How we use it: Since there are so many different use cases, I summarize it in a YouTube video, which includes live examples from our current clients.

Watch the walk-through video of Rebuy here.

Upcoming Events

I’m headed to San Diego for Commerce Roundtable Monday-Tuesday!