You're getting a bonus issue of the newsletter this month, but there's a catch: this newsletter is "sponsored"...by me!
I just launched my first course: Retention Beyond Email. If you are subscribed to my other newsletter, you've already heard the news.
I designed this course to address a recurring theme I've seen in my consulting work: retention problems are often really acquisition problems, and acquisition problems are often really merchandising problems.
Retention Beyond Email shows you how to build retention into every aspect of your business, from merchandising and offers to email and SMS.
I share the entire playbook I run with my consulting clients and walk you through the execution step-by-step.
Working with me 1:1 on a retention or marketing audit starts at $5,000 USD, but this course is just one payment of $349.
If you've ever considered working with me, this is the most cost-effective way to do it.
Click here to learn more about what's included in Retention Beyond Email and join the course.
Quick note: this course is not 100% dedicated to fashion brands, although I do cover them separately in the merchandising and offers sections.
If your top business challenge is growing consistently and profitably with Meta, this course can help, but I have a course dedicated to the SILIBI Scaling System in the pipeline for Q4.
If that interests you, click here to be notified when that course drops.
Now, on to the content...
Case Study #1: Kate Spade & The Lobster Shaped Purse
If you weren’t aware, Kate Spade used to sell handbags shaped like lobsters, crabs, donuts, and even a sandwich.
When I worked at Tapestry (Kate Spade’s parent company), we ran an analysis of the average lifetime value of customers who entered the brand through various product categories.
The brand’s “novelty” collection–the purses and small leather goods shaped like random objects–brought in the highest value customers by far.
(You can run this analysis too–it's not just for fashion brands. No coding required. I show you how in Retention Beyond Email.)
When you think about this for a minute, it all makes sense.
The novelty items were on the higher end of Kate Spade's price range, but they weren’t the most expensive product line. They were collectable–one of the best ways to drive customer loyalty.
And they appealed to a “quirky” sort of woman who wore simple outfits with bold accessories, so she was a “heavy user” of the category.
You have this same kind of “VIP bait” hiding within your product assortment. There are bundles, collections or products that bring in big spenders at disproportionately high rates. This rule applies no matter what type of products you sell.
If you mess with your “VIP bait”, it can kneecap your business.
Unfortunately, Kate Spade did exactly that. Management had been struggling to “reposition” the brand for years, and continued to do so after I left in 2022.
As part of that process, they phased out most of the novelty collection. It is a shadow of its former self–fewer, duller products.
The result? Sales have been in decline for more than two years, and rumor has it that Tapestry is considering divesting the brand.
Was the senseless murder of the lobster purses the sole cause of the drop in sales? No, but it was a meaningful contributor.
Lesson: there is value in your assortment that lies outside your "hero" products and categories. Seek out your "VIP Bait" before you phase out or restructure products or categories.
Case Study #2: Tibi Goes "Advanced Contemporary"
Tibi brought me on as Digital Marketing Director in 2018 to help the brand's eCommerce business return to consistent growth.
They also had big ambitions for the DTC channel and wanted to see eCommerce drive at least half of Tibi's sales within the next 24 months.
When I started the role, the brand had never run a conversion objective campaign on Meta.
If you recall, 2016-2018 was part of the "golden age" of Meta ads. I whipped up a simple SILIBI strategy with the brand's existing assets and within a month, we were growing full price sales by 20% YoY.
When we wrapped up the 2018 calendar year, the leadership team was optimistic about the brand's direction. We were finally seeing significant growth in the full price business, and the markdown business was doing even better.
Then...the brand decided to reposition itself from "contemporary" to "advanced contemporary".
What this meant in practice:
- Prices increased by 20-30% across the board
- Design became less feminine, more high fashion and (frankly) much harder to wear
- A clampdown on creative diversity in our Meta advertising–the ads we ran HAD to be from our seasonal campaign shoot
What happened as a result?
- Loyal customers churned out of the brand in droves–there was nothing they wanted to buy.
- Meta performance fell off a cliff–our TAM shrank dramatically
- We went from 20% YoY growth in full price to 20-30% YoY declines
Tibi eventually course corrected by developing more basics and launching an always-on outlet on their website.
Lesson: Your "loyal" customers aren't loyal to the brand, they're loyal to the product. If you dramatically change direction or increase prices, odds are they will lapse out.
Case Study #3: A Jewelry Brand Struggles With Its Hero Product
One of my very first consulting clients–a brand I worked with before I even started writing online–was a bootstrapped jewelry brand that had grown the business with Meta ads.
They had one hero product line with very original, distinctive styling. Ads featuring this product consistently crushed on Meta.
There was only one problem: no one was buying anything else the brand was selling.
They couldn't scale ads featuring other products successfully, and customers who entered through the hero rarely bought anything else.
To figure out what was happening, I ran a survey where I asked customers some questions about why they bought the hero and what they liked about it.
But I also asked for their IG handles...and then I stalked them. I did this to get an understanding of the "vibe" of the women who were buying the hero. I wanted to see if I could imagine them buying the brand's other wares.
It turned out that my hunch was correct: the hero product attracted women who had goth/rock n roll/alternative style, while the rest of the product line appealed to more of an uptown aesthetic.
In Retention Beyond Email I share three ways to prevent this from happening to your brand:
- A deep dive on the fashion customer path to loyalty–how the average customer progresses through your product assortment to reach the 4th+ purchase.
- Six strategies for product line expansion, with real world examples, listed from lowest risk to highest risk.
- Three merchandising reports I run for every retention client that will help you find retention opportunities in your assortment.
You can click here to grab Retention Beyond Email. But do it soon, because the course closes this Friday, November 7th at midnight EST.