Building direct relationships with customers gives brands valuable first-party data that can be used to make retailers more confident in carrying the brand’s products, a new WARC Best Practice guide to both brands and retailers benefitting from DTC.

This is according to Lance Porigow, Chief Marketing Officer at The Shipyard, a data-driven agency, writing exclusively for WARC: A channel conflict truce: How direct-to-consumer offerings benefit both brands and retailers.

Ultimately, one of DTC’s greatest strengths is enabling a two-way dialogue with customers, he writes, “creating first-party data along the way – and this is not only an engaging and mutually valuable interaction, it is also an increasingly worthwhile endeavour during a time of walled gardens, and a time when the tracking cookie is dying.”

Beyond that, the offer a brand brings to retailers can be made more attractive if they bring proprietary insight to the table. “Brands that know how to sell directly are much more valuable for retailers – because they come to the retail relationship already knowing inherently the ‘when’ and ‘why’ of each product’s selling proposition.

“What they can provide through their DTC knowledge goes way beyond by demonstrating their understanding of how to meet customer needs directly. They are providing retailers with the kind of data they rely on more.”

For the full story read: A channel conflict truce: How direct-to-consumer offerings benefit both brands and retailers

Sourced from WARC