Launching a DTC Digitally Native Brand from Scratch – Gekks - Christian and Justin Arquilla Ep76

The Advantages of a Direct-To-Consumer Marketing and Selling Approach for Small Brands

How can you scale your business with a solely direct-to-consumer approach? Having a unique product that has a competitive advantage coupled with an excellent online and offline marketing strategy is what will help you scale without involving a third party.

In this episode of the Page One Podcast, Luke Peters interviews brothers Justin and Christian Arquilla, the co-founders of Gekks brand. Gekks is a growing brand of patented low profile no smell socks. Justin is an entrepreneur, husband, and father of three with a finance background. Christian has a background in private equity and restructuring consulting, he’s a dad of three under 4-year old’s, and a husband. They talk about the idea of starting Gekks and the strategies they’ve put in place in each of their roles to establish a strong brand that is Gekks.

Listen in to learn why raising capital before scaling a business is a much better strategy than doing it after. You will also learn the power of a direct-to-consumer approach to help engage your customers and potential customers.

Key Takeaways:

• How selling directly to consumers without third parties helps with direct contact with them and remarketing campaigns.
• The importance of engaging potential customers to help get your business out there and make sales.
• The importance of establishing a direct-to-customer channel where you can track sales.
• The advantages of using an internal marketing team over an agency.

Episode Timeline:

• [2:00] They explain what Gekks socks are all about.
• [3:44] Christian explains his role in sales and Justin’s operational role, plus the team that makes up Gekks.
• [4:46] How they solely handle their fulfillment and shipment on all their orders saving thousands of dollars a year.
• [7:59] The inexpensive ERP systems they use to handle the business side of things.
• [9:11] Why Gekks is currently not relying on Amazon and is still making huge sales online.
• [11:19] They explain the problem they’re having with the reorder rate and how they’re trying to solve it.
• [14:37] Where the idea for the no smell Gekks socks came from, plus how their sales shifted from mainly male in 2017 to now making more sales from female customers.
• [18:32] The three things you need to implement for your business to succeed in this day and age.
• [21:11] The challenges of getting impressions on social media and Google ads over the last few years.
• [25:21] How to use engaging branded surveys as a way to attribute sales from the customers.
• [30:58] They explain how they have built an internal marketing and advertising team that outperforms any of the agencies they have used before.
• [33:04] The mix of suppliers nationally and internationally that Gekks uses.
• [36:03] How to approach direct to consumer and third-party selling in 2021 as a new brand owner.
• [38:29] Christian explains why not raising money at the beginning of their business was the biggest mistake they made.
• [40:08] The advantage of raising capital before scaling a business over doing it after you’ve already started scaling it.

Quotes:

“If your product isn’t amazing and doesn’t have a competitive advantage, people aren’t going to come back.”- Christian [39:34]