Joe Anhalt is a New York-based copywriter turned designer turned all-around marketer. He consults with direct-to-consumer e-commerce companies on growth strategies, including branding.
It focuses on storytelling and conveying a brand’s point of view. “You can attract buyers into your world,” he told me. “Building a brand is like building a world.”
Anhalt covered several growth tactics in our recent conversation, including marketing channels, design essentials, multi-channel selling, and, of course, the importance of branding.
The full audio of our discussion is embedded below. The transcript is edited for clarity and length.
Eric Bandholz: Tell us your story.
Joe Anhalt: I led growth and marketing for six years at Koio, a direct-to-consumer luxury footwear company. I recently left the company and am doing independent growth marketing consulting for small DTC companies growing from $3 million to $50 million in annual revenue.
It was fun to be on the other side. I have only worked in-house at brands throughout my career.
I started as a copywriter, studied advertising, and majored in film in school. I have always been attracted to the arts, especially the visual arts, whether it is always photography or video. I loved it, and I still love it. But as a copywriter at an early-stage tech startup, I moved into search engine optimization, email marketing, social ads, and content marketing. This turned into a general growth marketing hacker.
Bandholz: How do entrepreneurs manage the design aspects of their business?
Anhalt: First, founders need to set their expectations. They need to lose their ego and admit that they are not creative or design experts. Let’s say you have a background in finance or consulting and you’re trying to build a brand. In this case, you should educate yourself and experiment. There is a certain level of talent in creative and artistic fields, but there is a lot you can learn from it. You can learn taste, style, aesthetics and simple things like composition, rule of thirds, coloring, storytelling and depth of field, which you can learn in a cinematography or photography class.
You can start visiting museums and learning about art history. I’m lucky to live in New York. I can go to the Met or the Whitney. Every city has beautiful art. You must continue to learn to succeed and recognize that you are behind the eight ball design, but you can learn it and approach it like any other school subject or business challenge.
I encourage people who are less skilled in creative or art direction to start training. The beautiful thing about art and design is that it surrounds us and hits us in the face. A beautiful landscape can inspire you.
Bandholz: Many companies are trying to save money. How can they produce quality photos or videos at a lower cost?
Anhalt: The iPhone is a good investment if you shoot content and want it to be high quality. Lighting is super important. Never shoot at midday. The shadows and light are way too harsh. Location matters. Location, like real estate, helps improve production value. For example, someone in Austin, Texas, might drive two or three hours west to a remote landscape. It’s similar to Palm Springs or Joshua Tree, where many luxury brands shoot campaigns.
Going to dark places and using the natural environment and practical effects is a great way to elevate the production value. We lucked out at Koio because we live in New York. If you shoot in Tribeca, you put a logo on the image, and all of a sudden it becomes luxury. With the iPhone, if you have good lighting, a good wardrobe, and a great location, you’ll get 90% of the way there without spending $20,000.
Bandholz: Many ecommerce brands struggled in 2023. Which marketing channels offer the most opportunity in 2024?
Anhalt: The market picks winners and losers. There are still many winners. 2024 is about profitability, not growth at all costs.
Facebook and Google ads remain the main growth channels. There is a lot of optimism for TikTok, but success depends on the product category. TikTok could be a success if you are a beauty product and your average order value is less than $50. However, higher AOVs need to be creative in channel allocation.
I push my team to think about visual channels, like YouTube and television. These are some of the best places to tell a story. Facebook can generate a ton of data, traffic, and conversions, but I question building a long-term brand with Facebook alone.
If you aspire to become a mainstream brand like Nike or Apple, you will at some point need to develop a multi-channel approach with retail, wholesale and collaborations. DTC is a good launch strategy, you have to make bets to be a big player. Give retail a chance. It’s one of, if not the best, places to tell your story and point of view as a brand. You can attract buyers into your world.
Think of Apple. They built these beautiful retail stores in incredible locations with amazing architecture. Enter it and you enter their world.
Building a brand is like building a world.
Bandholz: Where can people hire you, support you, follow you?
Anhalt: My website is AnhaltAdvertising.com. I am @joefromnormal on Twitter and Instagram. You can reach me at LinkedInAlso.
