Hi there,
Let’s deep dive into our first D2C brand case study: DEUX, our favorite vegan & gluten-free cookie dough brand. Here we will try to examine their business model, digital marketing strategy, promotion tactic, and some of the admirable growth hacks they do.
Brand Origin
Sabeena Ladha wanted to flip cookie dough, her favorite nostalgic dessert by removing all the refined sugar, preservatives, and animal byproducts, and added good ingredients like zinc, elderberry, and aloe vera.
Product
DEUX starts with 3 flavors: Chocolate Chip, Brownie Butter, and Peanut Butter, BUT since then it has evolved to a couple of yummy flavors. The cookies themselves are made with a base of oats, nut butter, vanilla, maple syrup, coconut sugar, water, and flaxseed.
DEUX’s USP
Here is the unique selling proposition (USP) of DEUX:
- It’s Vegan
- It’s Gluten Free
- Low Sugar and Carbs
- And couple of bullet points, as stated in their website
DEUX Product Market Fit
It’s self explanatory that DEUX first 1,000 customers will be:
- Vegan practitioner
- Gluten allergen
- Healthy food lovers that crave for some cookies dough (or something sweet)
- Someone on a diet for weight loss but still crave for something sweet
Business Model
- D2C
- B2C
- Consumer Packaged Goods Vertical
Digital Marketing
Let’s cover their digital marketing effort from the paid ads, SEO, newsletter, up to social media.
Paid Channel: Meta Ads
What we can see from above ads screenshot is:
- Offer/Messages: a product launch of their new flavor (milk & cookies).
- Channel: Meta ads (with the placement on IG, FB)
- Audience: this type of ads usually targeting existing customer, as they are the segment that eager to try new product launch of their brand
This is another product launch of a new flavor (salted peanut butter), which runs on Meta ads, but this time they use a comparison angle, which compares DEUX with the other similar products.
Other type of ad on Meta that they run is UGC (user generated content) type format, which shows their buyer to unboxing their DEUX package.The landing page of this ads goes straight to the homepage.
Paid Channel: Google Ads
When I type manually on Google search bar for search term “deux cookie”, this search ads will appear:
Image Source: Google SERP
This search ad contain:
- Their product USP ofc, which are: vegan, gluten free, non-gmo, and so on.
- Offer: free shipping nationwide when you buy 3 jars.
- “As seen on”: shark tank.
- Sitelink extension: birthday cake, gingerbread, spice girls pack, and chocolate chip.
Non Paid/Organic Channel: Newsletter
They usually send 2 types of newsletter/email, which are: (1) promotional, (2) news (which they called snack break).
Image Source: DEUX newsletter
Above is the example of promotional type of newsletter, and it focusing on new product launch for this newsletter.
Image Source: DEUX newsletter
Above is the example of a news type of newsletter, and it focusing on updating the information related to the brand, for this case: (a) they move their newsletter to Substack, and (b) they relaunch the Cookies & Cream flavor.
Image Source: DEUX newsletter
There is also another email that pushes the subscription feature. With the 10% off as the main hook, and continue with them highlighting 2 ways to do the subscription, and how to do it step by step, with the CTA button at the end of it which will redirect users to www.eatdeux.com/pages/become-a-member.
Social Media: Instagram
DEUX Instagram contains various type of content, from pinned post (mostly about the new store placement on whole foods, etc), up to giveaway, fun post, and new product announcement.
Social Media: TikTok
On the other social media of TikTok, the content seems mirroring what we see on Instagram, especially the video content. What makes the difference is the 3 pinned videos on top.
Organic: SEO
Using SEMRush, here are the SEO analysis of DEUX website:
Good growth in organic traffic (2 years timeline), as well as the organic keyword rankings growth. Their website traffic mostly come from U.S of course (94%).
They mostly got ranked on keywords such as: “enhanced cookie dough” and “sugarcookie” besides all of their branded keywords.
Their top backlink comes from news page like People.com, and listing on website such as: Oukosher.org, and Targetaccelerators.com.
Promotion Strategy: Discount, Offers & Incentives
Hats off to DEUX, since they have lots of promotion, and offers to encourage their growth, here are some of it:
- New user offer: “WELCOME” for 10% off
- 🍪🍪🍪 Free Shipping When You Buy 3+ Jars 🍪🍪🍪
- Subscription with all of the benefits (early access, birthday perks, etc) (https://www.eatdeux.com/pages/membership)
- Save 10% when you subscribe
- Referral (https://www.eatdeux.com/pages/invite-friends), get usd 5 both.
- Seasonal/Based on event 15% off code (happy women history month)
Here is one example of it: Seasonal/Based on event 15% off code (happy women history month).
Competitors
We found 2 competitors with similar product to them, which are BHU Foods, and Bro Dough.
If I search for “cookie dough” on the amazon search bar, mostly the products that will appear will be the protein bar or usual hard cookies form. Nothing yet similar to DEUX (at least that what I got on April 2023, the time this blog written).
Admirable Growth Effort: Amplifying Media Coverage
On “Shark Tank” in November of last year, Ms. Ladha was discussed. She added on the broadcast that many other raw cookie doughs contain ingredients like processed sugars, preservatives, and animal byproducts. But it wasn’t just her spiel that caught people’s attention. She donned a hot-pink short suit by Cinq à Sept, which sparked sexist remarks on Twitter, Reddit, and other platforms. In a TikTok video with the description “silly me! “, Ms. Ladha spoke out the unfavorable remarks rather than remaining silent. I ought to have realized that the kitchen, not the boardroom, was where I belonged. The video has been viewed more than 1.3 million times.
Pirate Metrics AAARRR Funnel
- Awareness: Events, Ads, Viral video on TikTok.
- Acquisition: New user offer: “WELCOME” for 10% off push through all channel.
- Revenue: Seasonal/Based on event 15% off code (happy women history month) push through all channel.
- Retention: Save 10% when you subscribe, push through all channels.
- Referral: (https://www.eatdeux.com/pages/invite-friends), get usd 5 both.
IT’S DONE, end of case study, hope you enjoy it.
Cheers,
-Marcel Liem
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