Name: The Messaging Masterclass Represent
Uploaded: 2026-05-19T15:57:04.227Z
Duration: 27 min 22 s
Description: The Messaging Masterclass Represent

Transcript for "The Messaging Masterclass Represent": Hey, everyone. My name is Janelle Overholder. I'm part of the Attentive team, and I'm here today with Niall from the Represent clothing team to share a little bit more of their SMS strategy and their story and the partnership with Attentive. Morning, Mel. Morning, mate. So, yeah, I'm the CRM manager at Represent. Been there for roughly about a year. We're partnered with Attentive back in 2022, so we can't take all the glory. You know, the ecommerce lads that looked after CRM before me did a lot of the groundwork. And I'd say in this past year, we've really taken strides in optimizing the channel and using, you know, all the bells and whistles that SendHoo's got to really drive engagement with the customer. And and even when we go a little bit back, now, like, before we even got to this year of optimization and strategy, what were some of the challenges the business faced before adopting SMS, and what were some of the areas they wanted to focus on and overcome to be successful and utilize this channel as the new channel for their customers to engage with? Yeah. So I think in a nutshell, the business didn't really have, like, challenges as such. I think it was more looking to the future. Okay. It was like, right. We're not actually currently facing the challenges. It went through incredible growth, and they were like, right. Well, how do we just push it further? In the famous words of our CEO, common logic doesn't apply, something that was reiterated by my boss because, originally, an internationalization was a real key focus for the brand. So they looked towards a tentative being, you know, market leader in in SMS in in America. And then it was a case of, right, they ran two SMS platforms simultaneously just to see which one was better, and I don't think any other brands ever done that. So, yeah, props to my manager for for undertaking that task. But it worked really well, and they've obviously seen three x on top of what they were getting with the other provider. So it's like, right. Let's run it with run it with. I think if I was to answer it because, obviously, you know, onboarding was with them. So, you know, in terms of that, you say they don't have any challenges. But I think for me, if I'm looking at it through, like, a CRM lens and just what SMS can bring, it's cutting through the noise. You know? Email is quite a traditional CRM channel. A lot of people are scared of SMS because of the cost. You know, we've got some pretty strong firewall figures to back it up, but it cuts through the noise really well. You get sweaty to 30 emails a day. It's there's not you know? It starts to drive urgency when they're getting so many subject lines that kinda say the same thing. But with SMS, it it just cuts straight through. You know? You'd I think it adds a legitimacy to a brand. If you send in a text message, the business looks a bit more professional. And, again, you're not getting that many of them. So for being a launch based brand, you know, Wednesday at 08:00, drop after drop, you know, getting that customer to the site as quick as possible. The only way to do it is really through SMS. I love that. I think that's so key because there's a level of consistency. There's a level of urgency. And there's a little bit of especially with the represent customer, there is that community. And it's how do we get in front of our communities? How do we drive that engagement? So when you guys kicked kicked off that Attentive partnership, of course, we saw immediate impact with some of the numbers you've shared already. What were some of those other key issues that Attentive was able was able to support on to help the 10 to help the represent business get to that fixed point? To be honest, I think the scale of the operation was something that Attentive could really plug in because there's a lot of SMS platforms. They might only be UK. Do you know what I mean? Or they might just operate in parts of Europe. Whereas, you know, Black Friday last year, I'm pretty sure we shipped to a 122 countries. So that kinda shows the scope of what we're doing. So I think partnering with Attentive to tackle all the markets. You know, we've got four Attentive accounts. We've rolled them out, in a phased approach, but we've got the EU store. We've got a UK store, US, rest of world. So really to ensure that we're communicating to all our customers the best way and give them a real personalized journey, We needed a platform that was really gonna cater to all those markets. Yeah. And you were one of very, very few that could could do all those countries. And is there any other features that stood out for you in that early adoption that really drives that customer experience? CTAP tech, you know, that was the biggest, biggest thing for him in terms of the onboard, and he was very happy with it. Obviously, for those that don't know what CTAP technology is, in a nutshell, customer's gonna put the mobile number in on the sign up unit on the website. You know? Go on the site, pops up, put your number there. As soon as you've done that, it literally opens up in your SMS platform, whether you're on Android or iOS, whatever it is. And you just send that text message and you subscribe. Like, it's it's prefilled. It's so straightforward and seamless. You know? I think a lot of welcome journeys are incentivized. You know? Whether it's 10 pound off, 10% off, free delivery, whatever it is. If a customer's gotta jump through hoops to get it, they're gonna drop off straight away. And if if you just it's a pain point. Whereas through this, it's like that customer sees the pop up. They go on your website. They've got a high purchase intent at that point because they're thinking, oh, what a promo. Probably to place an order right there and then, and they've got it within seconds. So I think that was that was huge for us at the start. And then, obviously, list subscriber growth as well. You know, it's you're not gonna grow your list as much anywhere else. And now diving into the numbers. What was some of the success and results you guys have seen since you've launched launched SMS? So I'd say the one that stands out for me the most, which it almost doesn't make sense, is our signer units are great. Our signer units are best in class. Now if you were to think adding another step into a customer signing up would benefit the customer journey, it doesn't sound logical. But, again, like I've mentioned before, common logic doesn't apply. So Joe said, you know, we've got loads of clients doing the pre engagement step on the sign up units, and we're seeing incredible, you know, increase in uptake. And I was a bit hesitant at first. I was like, it doesn't sound like it makes sense. So just to put it in layman's terms, you've got a sign up unit. You add in a phase before it where you're taking out the, you know, the the merge fields where you put your number, your name, anything like that, and it is just a big creative, you know, picture of a bloke sat on a sports car or something like something jazzy from one of our campaigns. And then it just says, would you like 10% off? Yes or no? So we added that in before, and we see the 65% uptake. And it just doesn't sound like it makes sense, but it plays on that human psychology element where it's like, if someone stopped you in the street and went, hey, mate. What would you like a 10 off? You'd be pretty mad if you said no on it, so it just works. I think that's that's my favorite metric that we've we've come across. I think customer lifetime value is a big one because, you know, once you've got a customer's email address, you know, you know you're more likely to keep them. So when people adopt SMS, they wonder then how that's gonna affect the longevity of that customer. So in terms of repeat purchase, you know, two plus. Once you've got someone into SMS, you've got 32%, repeat purchase. So in terms of increasing that customer lifetime value, SMS has played a a pivotal role because that's a fantastic, statistic. And then in terms of ROI, which I think most people, would like on average over a six month period, 28 times ROI, which is, again, very strong. And I know it was key when we even if we look back at the last year, we talked about the optimizations early on. Of course, we wanted to hit the the gap ground running. We saw immediate impact, and we we optimized. But, of course, key was also adopting new product to look at how do we even take the results we have today to that next level. And I know AI Pro was one of those represent was one of those early adopters in in our international market to use AI Pro. Can you share a bit more about the AI Pro journey, how representing is using it, and the impact you've seen? Yeah. 100%. So, AI Pro was something that I I thought to you for nail to get sign off for, because, you know, I'm a one person CRM team at the moment. I think AI is a tool that all businesses should be looking at to make your life easier. Do you know anything that anything AI can take off your hands to do at the same level, if not better than yourself, everyone should do it. And for us, that was AI, bro. So you've got various elements to it. The ones that we use the most are Audiences AI. Because, obviously, AI probably is just the umbrella. There's a lot of products underneath. So Audiences AI is pretty simple, really. What are the segments you think you're gonna use for your SMS, put them in? Take Audiences AI, and then anyone with a higher affinity to buy or a lower likeliness to buy, they'll either be brought in or taken out, and it shows you the percentage metrics. And then when you look at the report inside of it as well, it does split it. So it's like without audiences there, this would have been the performance with it was this. So, again, that makes life so much easier because segmentation, you know, if you think about how many launches you're doing or how many BAU campaigns you're running at once, like, It can get quite a lot thinking about, you know, the segmentation strategy across everything. So that's definitely the one that I use most frequent. Send time optimization. Yep. Again, fantastic. You wouldn't use it for a launch. You know, say, like, with our Puma Club, the shoes sold out, I think, in two minutes, you know, which we thought we might have broke the site when when that happened because we were like, where's all this stuff going? It's always been bought. Fantastic. That's what we like to hear. But we wouldn't use it for something like that. You know? But then when we're in the middle of Black Friday, we're running additional promotions or, you know, testing new features, like, you know, with the send out 100 codes. If you want it, reply yes. If you don't, we'll be testing that with the send if this time around. It works fantastic. You know, the uplift we've seen using the 10 time optimization is brilliant. And I think just broad across all of those different, features within a 10 of AI, We see the 23% revenue uplift. So, you know, we know it's working. We're actually making Yeah. A quarter more. And I know and we've talked about this in length many, many times. Now it's a partnership. As you know, for the Attentive, one of our key foundations is championing our customer, and that is really we build it on the foundations of partnership. For us, we're an extension of your business. We wear the represent hats within the Attentive business. Can you share more about the partnership experience that you've had from the Attentive team over the last year? Yeah. A 100. I think this is a a good opportunity to say, you know, represents mission statement is, to be the best partner in the world. The two four seven mission statement is on a mission, so they they've both aligned pretty well. Now it's quite a vague statement. So we do have core values that we, we repeat pretty much every month when we have our monthly huddle as a business. I'd say one of the top three, if not the main one, is partnerships. You know, we aim to be the best partner we can be with everyone that we work with. You know? There's a lot of there's a lot of CRM providers out there. You know? We're tentative. No. It's a cut for our business. There's there's always new ones popping up. Old ones that might not have been too great out of nowhere have invested in the tech, and it's getting better. So there's a lot to choose from. We work with people. You know? Anytime we onboard something new in our tech stack, we look at the people because they're the ones you're working with. You know what I mean? I'm a one person CRM team. Our platform can be fantastic. If I've not got the support behind it, what use is that to me? You know? I can hand on heart say in my career, whether that be, you know, any job I've had. The support I get from Joel, our CSM, is incredible. Like, working with Attentive, everyone's lovely, but I've gotta give a specific shout out to Joel. Like, a lot of what we've made possible, a lot of the figures I've gone through, and, you know, what we've been able to pull off especially over peak is is through working with Joel directly. He's a, you know, he's a credit to Attentive. I just think overall, Attentive provide that level of service across the board. You know? Last night, we had the, Watson store, and then our store, and it, you know, it was fantastic. I spoke to a lot of new clients. Everyone's got the same level of service, which was great. You know? That's me thinking Joel was unique. That is Joel's still fantastic. We'll see. It was like, you know, like Blackpool Rock, high level of service runs runs pretty much through Attentive. And just as a reminder or, you know, an example of the level of service, I noticed that a lot of our automations were costing a little bit. So I sat down with Joel just before peak for an hour and a half, went through every single automation that we've got live, and realized a lot of them were over the character limit. So you're getting charged, like, two you know, the cost of two SMS for one going out. We revised the copy. We revised the logic. Joel then went away just before peak and did it across all three other stores. No one's doing that. And then with the help of Maggie as well, over Black Friday, we had a phased discount approach. So change the sign up units, change the welcome photo, like, Black Friday is here. Then we decided to score an extra 10, and then I think we decided to score about extra 15 or extra 20. Can't remember what it was. Now, ideally, customer journey is like the signing unit on the website reflects directly what the promotion is, and the welcome generally have the code in it. I spoke to Joel. I was like, mate, this is, you know, this is almost based on two weeks. Do you reckon it's possible? He pulled this doc together, all the different copy updates, ready color coded. I was gonna call them with Maggot. I think over peak in total, we must have updated about a 150 sign up units. And I'm like, we saw 70% uplift in subscriber growth, I think, in q three to four. And it's like, that's because of that. It might have been year on year. Don't quote me on that. But it just goes to show that having those sign up units reflected exactly what's going on in the business and just being on the top of it as much as we were. The the the list growth was insane. And I think this comes back to I think we've been talking a lot about the success numbers, and I know a lot of customers ask sometimes, like, hey. Where's that magic button? And I was like, no. It takes a lot of groundwork. It take a lot of partnerships and ongoing optimization, ongoing AB testing. I mean, sure, we're pushing those boundaries Yeah. Because that is what our consumers want, but that's also what makes a partnership Yeah. Is that we are actively looking at how can we do more, how can we do better, and we saw that impact just on those EFCN numbers. If we look at the next year ahead, of course, there's a lot of exciting stuff coming. And I know we've touched a bit on loyalty already. What is the strategy when it comes to loyalty thinking of '25, '26, even do I say it BFCM that we're already in full planning mode again? Is where do you see loyalty sit, and how does that come into that SMS strategy? Yeah. It's a great question. Loyalty is on everyone's mind at the moment. You know, brands that historically never have loyalty schemes are getting loyalty schemes. Ours has been in place since 2017. It's not changed an awful lot because we it just sort of hit the nail on there for this time around. We've got a very loyal community. You know, we're expecting four, five hundred people to show up on Saturday and run through the streets of Manchester, which will be fun. Now how that ties into our SMS strategy, being less transactional, I think SMS is a great channel to communicate with customers. My favorite metric in the CRM is click through rate. I think if we can increase click through rate and we can just get more automations live that resonate with the customer. It's not just all about buy this, buy this, buy this. Because you can get a quick penny out of somebody. But in you know, is that helping the lifetime value of the customer? No. Whereas with actively reminding customers you've got these points sat in the bank. You know, you've earned these points. So we wanna lean into that a bit more, be a bit more playful with them. I sort of touched on it previously, but a feature that Joel is very eager to test because he thinks it's really cool. And this is a good thing. Joel's also on brand with us. He loves Yeah. You know, he, I I I saw his Black Friday order, and I think everything in racing green is now in his wardrobe. One thing he really wants to test, and we're gonna do this over over Black Friday this year with our loyalty members, is, you know, we've got that two way communication Yeah. Which we don't leverage as much as we should, so that's why we won't really wanna use it this time around. So send an SMS to our loyalty scheme, potentially do it for you to buy today, and it's, like, limited 30% off code. Yeah. First 100 people to reply, George Heaton, Mike Heaton, you know, somewhere like that. Some are playful. We'll get the call sent to them. So leveraging the two way communication, we'll make it a bit playful as well. We wanna do more stuff like that. Less like, you know, this launch is out now and transactional stuff. We just want it to be a bit more bit more fun. So, and, again, just using all the data touch points, you know, anniversary flows, getting bit more birthday flows, you know, just reminding people of, like, how their years looks back. You know? We're gonna do we're gonna try and lean into represent wrapped a bit more this year. It's been quite static in previous years, so I'm already thinking rear end of the year. What can we do for SMS? What can we do for email? So really, like, let that customer see their year in a lens. And then that could be really fun and really engaging. And as we look at at BFCM, there's a lot going on. There is a lot of planning that goes in ahead, and I've known you've touched on some of that already. How do you cut through the noise? I think it's such a key part. It is not just about sending or batch and blasting. There is a lot of thought that goes in ahead of b s BFCM to get some of that outstanding numbers. What has worked in the past, so I know we've touched on some of what's coming as well, that represent wants to use in 2025. So overpeak, the way we get those numbers is basically just we're splitting the communications out. So we'll try and drive Prestige is our loyalty scheme. We'll try and drive as many prestige channels as we can leading up to it, you know, to really build up that pot. Because, say, you know, I've mentioned a lot, 8PM on a Wednesday is when we launch. So it's, you know, probably be a bit earlier for for Black Friday launch. But early access will start at six. So if you're you know, we've got five days. VIP, you're talking to spend $10 or more. So they'll get access at six. It'll probably go six, quarter past or half six for platinum, and then it, you know, trickles down like a waterfall. You got gold, silver, and bronze. Now we always split those out. So it's personalized because personalization, I think a lot of people can do it wrong. It's not about showcasing to a customer how many data you've got on them because then it gets. You know what I mean? It's like you don't need to use a customer's last name because, like, you know, I you know, my name is Nyla, but someone addressed me as Nyla O'Brien, but I would have done something wrong. So we try and use loyalty to to really, like, leverage that personalization. So that's the first thing they'll say is, like, bronze early access live. So it's like they recognize that, you know, their bronze here is really engaging for the customer, and then it's password protected. So the passwords we try and get quite creative with. I write the passwords, so it's not my my favorite part of the job. And we'll do them over peak, on the launch day. And then I believe so early access for the top customers. It's probably like VIP platinum. Okay. 19% click through rate, 52% no. 53% conversion rate. Amazing. So, you know, by splitting out granular, you do get to see the rep you know, the reporting metrics as well, which help. But, it also because it's community led. You know, we've got Facebook groups and whatnot. People are already putting what they bought in the Facebook group before the other ones have even got access yet, and I think that creates a bit of a it creates a bit of a buzz as well because it's like you need, you know, need to spend a bit more to get to that next tier or you need to engage with the brand a bit more because, again, you know, it's not just monetary, to get points. It can be through, you know, following us on Instagram, liking us on Facebook. We wanna get to a point where by attending two four seven runs, we'll we'll reward you points as well. So, yeah, leaning into all the different sales over Black Friday is definitely the way to drive the engagement. Amazing. And looking ahead of post BFCM is a critical part of the year. As we then look at any other key times of the year, is there any other key times where represent bring it buckles down down and use SMS to drive that impact? Either if it's some collapse or launches or even some of those key drops that comes throughout of the year where SMS is critical for that success. Oh, 100%. I think SMS really shows up when it's high heat. You know, my my background is with JD Group and more size specific where, you know, the way I describe it on that side of the defense is, you know, you got, like, say, like a Travis Scott's, like a tier zero. So I'd I'd I'd I'd say similar to this when our tier zero comes out, which is typically collaboration. That's when really SMS shines because that's the quickest way that customers get into the website. I'd say the best example of that numbers cannot remember them. I know it was the biggest launch night revenue we've had to date, though, was the Metallica collab. That was insane. You know? We split it out per tier because, again, we did heavily staggered early access on that because it's like, you know, VIP. They need early access. And I believe it's sold out in forty eight hours, maybe first week, something like that. And we had a lot of units. Pretty sure they had, like, three different hoodies, four different T shirts, leather jacket, joggers. It was a big collection. It wasn't that capsule. So that was incredible. You know? I think the metrics we saw on SMS was significantly higher than email. And, again, it is just that urgency. It's like your password's there. You can copy and paste it straight off the SMS. You click it. You're straight to the site. Job done. You know? It's it's such a quicker turnaround. We do have more rock collabs coming, which then we've got two that I know are fully signed off. Obviously, I can't, you know, say say too much. In my personal opinion, you know, potentially could be a future highest drop net revenue. What excites you about RCS? Everything, to be honest with you. Yeah. Yeah. So it's as if a black and white tele went to color HD curved screen sort of thing. The features you'll have is you've got, like, a hero image. Like, you would on, like, a Facebook profile. You've got that nice hero image. You've got a profile picture, which is typically the the be the brand's logo. There's a bit of an introduction on there as well. So I managed to condense down into very few characters a bit about the lads. So I founded in 02/2011, George Heaton, Mike Heaton. Just so, again, it, you know, reflects that the journey where the lads have have been on. And and in terms of the content, it's, you know, scrollable product recommendations, you know, a lot more data touch points to be able to per size to the customers. It is just SMS on another level. If we have to, if we think of the audience out there, there, there is many brands that's not adopted SMS yet. What is the advice you will share with them to get going on this on this still very new channel within The UK? Yep. You know, I I do find it mad that there's a lot of brands not leveraging SMS. I know represent we're quite early on it. I think even considering the fact that a new brand was so early to adopt it. You know, CRM in general is a two way door. Go through the door, try something, don't work. It's fine. You can go back around. Nothing's permanent. You know? It's all about trial and error. SMS is a great tool to connect with customers. So any brand that's saying they're a customer first business and that their focus the focus is on personalization. So, Tunal, as the CRM lead at represent, there's, of course, those key metrics that you build your success on thinking of your KPIs that the business has set as we kicked off January. There was expectations at how are you using SMS as part of that journey to help you get to some of those core KPIs and those goals that you've set and the business has set for yourself and your teams. Yeah. So, realistically, to put it pretty plain and simple, out of all of our channels, SMS, pretty confident has the highest ROI. So, you know, achieving the KPIs has been pretty simple. The main KPIs from a business perspective is always the ROI. Represent aren't shy of investing money if we know we're gonna get it back. So that's why, you know, the budget keeps going up year on year. You know? I I can't see. We're gonna cut it at any time, especially for SMS. I think as well, like, just customer lifetime value. You know? If we can increase that all the time gradually, you know, slow instead it wins the race. Using channels like SMS to speak to the customer at the right time, in the right tone of voice, with the relevant content, you know, really personalized, I think for me, that's how it's helping achieve KPIs. You know? We're cutting through the noise. We're making sure they don't miss out. We're making sure they know what everything they're fully immersed in what's going on to represent, and that is proven. High click through rate, high revenue generation. The statistic around 32% of SMS subscribers have placed two or more orders. You know? It's a testament to having it integrated into our CRM, tech stack. It just helps everything, really. It helps just drive every KPI that we need. Now thank you so much for joining us and sharing the Reprezent story. We're so excited about the collabs coming later this year and, of course, getting all ready for BFCM again.