First DTC supplement brands campaign checklist

A first DTC supplement brands campaign at founder scale. Numbered so you can stop lying to yourself about which step you skipped.

Confirm the client’s live product, in stock, no disease claims on the page actually closes. Creators cannot fix packaging.
Write the avatar in a sentence: the client’s customer is US English, 25-40, already bounced off a tub they tasted once and a stack a YouTuber sold them, watches ‘my supplement graveyard’ and ‘this tub tastes like chalk’ videos at the kitchen sink.
Write the problem in their mouth: I own a cabinet of almost-full tubs I will not finish.
Write what they already quit: a YouTuber stack, a tub under the sink, and a powder they used for a week.
Write what they watch: supplement graveyard, chalk-taste, ‘the YouTuber stack’, tubs-under-the-sink.
Write the reject: the gym influencer whose whole grid is a storefront of 12 tubs.
Write adjacent so the phone does not smear: graveyard tubs, chalk taste, not medical claims and not before-after bodies.
Put that sentence into the brief
Scroll as them on a fresh Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube account. Example to look for: someone opening a cabinet of half-used tubs. Signal: the same graveyard-cabinet face two sink nights.
Keep a 50k average-view floor. Below that, $700 a post for 1k views is a money sink.
Skip #supplements as a roster method.
Email. The contact is usually in a bio that is not a 12-tub storefront. Name a real video. Ask for the phone number.
If they won’t give a number, move on. Storefront influencers quote supplement-haul rates.
On the call, Minimum View Guarantee. Example: $2000 / 4 posts / 1M views. Talent extra.
Send the contract while the yes is still warm. Scout $1,500 / Outreach $2,500 / Dealmaker $5,000.
The mix in a real glass, not a lab coat.
Tell them what to film: mix it, taste it, drop the code. No outcomes. Do not ask them to claim sleep, muscle, or a cure. Ask them to mix it and say if they will finish the tub.
Give each creator their own code. Unique codes, not a body transformation you cannot claim.
Do not run a launch day on the same morning if you wanted isolation.
Two follow-ups, then stop. If you do this right, ie at scale, you will have many other creators to choose from.

Doing the scroll by hand is kind of soul-crushing. Like a before-after body video and you will get talent you cannot run claims with. No demo. No download guarantee. You approve every creator and every rate.

Graveyard videos already have the audience; a mix that tastes like something they will finish is the only honest demo. No cure language.

First DTC supplement brands campaign checklist

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