#366 - 360° Brand Growth: How Premium Brands Crack the UK, Optimize Their Funnel & Scale Profitably

Speaker A: Foreign. This is D2C pod, where the worlds of creators, consumer goods and brands collide. We get behind the wheel to show you how today's biggest products and ideas are made, launched and scaled. If it's shaping the future of commerce and culture, you'll Hear it here first. Catch new episodes weekly on Spotify, Apple Podcasts or D2C pod.com Be sure to check out our newsletter for weekly breakdowns and recaps linked in the show notes. So before we, before we kick off today's recording, I've got one more for you. E commerce costs are rising. USPS changes alone could push delivery costs, uh, up more than 25% this year. And to stay competitive, you need a supply chain partner built for scale. And that's what Stored is. A modern 3 PL that unites warehousing, fulfillment and transportation with cloud software for full visibility and control. In 2024 alone, Stord saved customers $130 million in parcel fees and powered nearly 1% of all U.S. black Friday and Cyber Monday sales. Now they're offering a free mystery shopping report. See how your ops and logistics stacks up against competitors with real actionable insights. Get yours at Stored. Link Mystery and scale smarter with Stored. What is going on DTC Pod? Today we are joined by Natalia Chappelle, who is the director of Natalia Chappelle and Company. Um, I'm super excited for this conversation because Natalia's been based in the UK and has a ton of experience working with some um, not only uh, in house with some super high, um, profile brands on the luxury side of things, beauty, um, as well as a whole bunch of different sectors but has a lot of experience in terms of like understanding the UK market and what it takes for ah, brands, whether it's a US brand that's you know, scaling up really quickly and wants to enter the market. Um, what it takes to be able to pull off a successful entry into the market. So um, today, really excited for the convo. We're not only going to talk about what it takes to scale a world class brand, we're going to be talking about, um, you know, specific markets and learnings that you can apply to your particular brand. So I guess without any further ado, Natalia, I'll let you kick us off. Why don't you just tell us a little bit about your background. How did you get here? Um, take us through your whole kind of career path that led you into the E commerce world.

Speaker B: Thank you for having me. Yes, I guess I have always loved fashion. I studied um, fashion marketing at University and then decided to um, persuade my career in digital marketing. I sort of always thought all these years ago that I would do advertising, actual TV advertising. But then I quickly realized that data is king and if you can combine that in creative then actually you can drive some pretty incredible campaigns and results. So, so I accelerated my digital marketing experience for a very well known brand in the UK which had tons of data to go after and I learned really quickly. I then decided that it wasn't fast paced enough for me so I joined a business called the Hug Group or some people may know it as thg. It actually entered the US market by acquiring them store and a brand Biosense, the beauty brand. So it's quite well known sort of across the pond with some of the US entries but uh, really a huge ecom business. And I headed up the marketing team within the luxury division. So there was a beauty my protein division, um, so retail and own brand very very good to different points of business that you can learn from in terms of your margin, how you manage books, how you look after your P and L and everything. And we were sort of the luxury retailer called Coggles. So um, storing and um, and stocking quite a lot of well known brands. Talking about the US brands that being coach, um Ralph Lauren, various different brands as such and then UK brands but also Scandi and European brands as well. So price points a couple of hundred pound plus a couple of thousand pounds um and US dollars similar and sort of really focusing on digital marketing primarily because it was a D2C brand with one store in the UK but primarily focused on how can we acquire customers, make that relatively cost effective so that we could reinvest money into the marketing funnel and then continue to grow that whilst also looking after our retail retention. Obviously that is always like the golden method to make any business grow but the reality of it uh, through Covid and everything else is a challenge. As a digital marketing business it grew for us substantially in Covid because we were actually able to continue to deliver to customers when a lot of businesses weren't able to do that and that continued to grow from strength to strength. But as a female founder speaking to many of those businesses and brands I recognize that uh, there is an opportunity really for me to look at things holistically and what I m mean by that is you know, invest in your meta ads but also making sure that the customer you're acquiring is actually signing up to emails and converting because we forget that we really need to be looking at the big picture and you Know the conversion path these days is so, so confusing with where the customer's first touch point is to the last touch point and how that sort of looks into actually from viewing your brand to converting. And some of the frustrations I felt some of these brands we worked with had. And as a female in the workplace, I know the UK versus us, uh, varies in maternity cover and so on, but I just really couldn't imagine how as a female and being a mother one day I would be able to do both of those things. I'm lucky enough that I love my job and I really wanted to continue doing that, but I just didn't feel that the corporate world would allow me to do so. And so I stepped away from a very safe job and decided to set up as a proud female founder. And we now work with very many brands of similar scope within the luxury, fashion, home, homewear, lifestyle, beauty brands and, and help them um, scale up sustainably. Very much so. We don't sort of deliver short term growth because that never is a good long term view and there's always going to be some risks associated with that. And I also very much so shout about the fact that as a female founder, uh, less than 2% of VC backing goes to those female founded businesses. So I fly that flag very, very high and I hope to really spread the awareness so that more female founded businesses get the backing that we rightly so need and deserve.

Speaker A: No, absolutely. And um, no, it's so awesome to hear and I'd love to kind of talk a little bit about your strategy too when you, when you start working with the brand. So first and foremost, um, you know, some of these brands that you've been working with more recently, who are they? How would you characterize them? I know we talked about it in terms of like, sector, but what about in terms of the scale? Right? Like when you, where do you feel like you do your best? And then I want to kind of talk about what does your playbook sort of look like? Because like you said, you're not just looking for quick growth wins per se. Obviously we'll take them if we can get them. But what does um, what does your process look like when evaluating a brand and looking for um, opportunities to drive success?

Speaker B: So we focus on, you know, a lot of what we do requires budget itself plus the management fee. So when we speak with brands, um, they operate in the sectors similar to um, you know, what I've always worked on and um, the people that work on the team too. And that covers luxury, fashion, lifestyle, Homeware and beauty brands but they are in sort of at the infancy of its growth. They are at the next stage where they are bringing, you know, 1 million pound plus revenue in, in a year and they're ready to grow and really sort of bring their efficiencies in. And of course we need to look at that holistically so we very much focus on how we do that. We understand um, that there'll be data loss from platform to platform, but educating the brand founders and um, most of the time we will always work with their marketing team who are knowledgeable about marketing. You know, we don't typically work with people who are wanting to start their journey on matter and they've got very limited understanding of it because so much of it comes from education. It obviously requires a budget itself. Um, and so that's the sort of main focuses and how we would work with a brand and the ready and the next scaling up is very much to focus on. We've got established channels, we now just really need to accelerate that, uh, bring the efficiencies and ensure that we're continuing to acquire the customer whilst actually also retaining them. So we often talk about that paid to free channel mix and what we mean by that is your Google Ads and meta TikTok ads and so on those performance channels, you want them to continue to drive revenue with a really strong roas, uh, whilst having your organic channels and that being your email marketing, your CRM strategy and everything sort of in the back end with people actually directly going on your website because they are already aware of you and purchasing without needing to be nudged with an ad. So then your LTV and all your KPIs here are very well measured so that you've got really lovely channel mix and um, you're able to continue to reinvest your marketing to drive that growth and that sustained growth. Um, you know, everyone would love a click of a finger, ah, and a very quick growth overnight. But most of the time if you're going to do that, it's because you've invested tons of money in one channel and if you're just relying on that one channel and God forbid something happens such as a new product is rolled out or replaced with the one that's currently driving your revenue, then you will be in quite a sticky situation.

Speaker A: So how would you characterize um, where a lot of these businesses I guess are at maybe when they start, you know, start working with you? So I guess we've got that from a revenue point of view. But like when you're onboarding them. When you're looking at their mix between paid and organic, uh, you know I think one thing that I constantly notice in like Ecom, it's probably you know, maybe they found a lot of success in paid channels or maybe they found an unlocked one, you know, really content driven channel that's working really well. But a lot of times like you're to your point on the organic side, there's like a lot left on the table. Um, so how do you kind of like get in there? What do you typically see when you're onboarding a client? Are they set up, how much are they spending a month in meta? Um, you know, and how do you uh, you know, a evaluate their existing channels and then B, what's the kind of, what are the conversations and things you are talking about? Obviously it's, it's a little bit different with every client but like how are you balancing that channel mix? So what you're saying, it's like you've got the organic which is feeding the paid and the paid is feeding the organic and everything. You know, the business continue to drive a really healthy um roas so it can continue.

Speaker B: So most of it always comes down to the data. Without, without that we can't optimize anything. And a lot of the times you'd be surprised how despite a big brand driving, you know, minimum 1 million-plus in revenue a year is, is, is not actually utilizing and there'll be cracks in the walls in terms of actually the hygiene setup. So typically always analyze the amount of traffic that you are actually getting to your website, what your S signals are. You know, if you're running all of your ads, are they actually all tracking properly? Is everything tagged on your website accurately? And again caveating that will there will be data loss. But first party data is so important now to make sure that you're delivering the best possible marketing that you can for your customers and treating them the way that they should be spoken to depending on their journey. So that's a huge level of analyzing that we will look at and actually spin it around to say we can support you in growth but uh, what does that growth look like to you? Because a lot of people just want double digit sort of consistent growth for revenue. But it's not just about that. Is geo have the amount of products that you feel comfortable. So from meta, you know, you could be spending, you could be tripling your budget and um, that being a couple of, you know, so let's say £30,000 of meta ad spend just on, in, on a monthly basis, you could double that to tripling that and that's all well and good, but if you're driving traffic to your website, which isn't sustainable to drive that conversion piece because there isn't enough of product skew and breadth of it, then you're going to waste your, spend your money. So we try and educate people and understand actually what the business goal is for the next 6 to 12 months and categorize it in the sense that if we feel confident that we can drive the conversions because we rely on data so much, then from a paid point of view we can continue to accelerate it and forecast everything on the existing data that we have. Because most of the time with somebody who is speaking, spending, you know, thousands of pounds on, on Meta and that's Meta alone, then you've got Google Ads. Lots of these people will be tapping into TikTok shop. We've got on um, TikTok ads. We've got enough data to be able to say, okay, this is how we can scale it up now because our cost of acquisition is X and then this is what we anticipate for it to be scaled. But we very much so educate people that there's obviously so much you can do. If you're a beauty brand, you more likely have a lot more breadth of stock than if you're a fashion brand because your SKU depth is less wide than your actual offering of your products. You've got your size and limitations and loads of different things. A lot of people forget that. They just want to see how they can grow. And we know over the past couple of years the challenges with cross borders and getting your product. You know, in the uk us we've got loads of different issues now with customs and stuff. So there is actually quite a lot that we try and educate because whilst we can spend all the money, it ultimately still comes down to making sure it's efficient and on top of it. We need to continue to grow our creative strategy and from M that we look at content creators and UGC because that's really, really what drives your strategy forward on Meta and so it's really just understanding on where you're at now and how can we forecast that growth to be there because it's, that's not the issue. It's actually anticipating that increased traffic and revenue growth on your website and making sure that it actually converts because that was. Without that, we'll obviously not be able to get the conversions feeding back to Meta and therefore that won't be as uh, successful and your money isn't going to be very well spent.

Speaker A: Yeah. And I think that's such a good point to what you're saying. It's like, what you're really trying to do is create this like kind of flywheel where everything starts to feed itself. You've got your organic, which feeds the paid, you've got the paid, which goes back into learning, which gives you more fuel to have more creative, which means you can, you know, have a more diverse creative, which means you can scale your budget and, and on and on and on. But um, I want to kind of take a step back. We were talking about data. Um, when you're talking about data, how do you, like, where do you, where are you referring to? Are you talking about in your Shopify dashboard? You're pulling a couple of reports there? Are you looking at Google Analytics? Like when you're thinking about like, okay, a lot of brands don't have good data hygiene even once they're past the seven figure, uh, mark. Like, where do you start and what are you setting up on the data and the tracking side to make sure that moving forward you're going to have the numbers and the data that you need to help them, uh, continue to scale, uh, profitably.

Speaker B: So we've got, you know, yes, you've got GA4 and Shopify data, always caveating the, you know, meta, GA4 and Shopify will have different attribution models. So there will be cross, um, you know, reference in terms of data. Sometimes there'll be, you know, duplications and many of our clients, both when I worked in house and now sort of doing that on my own for brands, will always ask the golden question of why doesn't it all match? And I always say, you know, if I had the magic answer to making sure that every single one of the results and um, numbers add up, then I would probably be currently doing Pilates in the Maldives, not doing this. And what I mean by that is we all ask that question. You know, it's marketing's worst nightmare to know that not every single one of these numbers will add up. So the hygiene on Meta is making sure that your capi is activated and that is using your conversion API, always making sure that that data is fed through and then you've got all your first party data. The amount of times Klaviyo and Meta will somehow have failed and you haven't got your up to date segments feeding through. You know, how are you defining your new to existing customers? Have you refreshed all of Your segments do they are actually look okay, we, it's so often oversight by many of these brands that you know, they say, oh, it's been a while since we reviewed our flows on email. And then you think, well, you've got so many more people now in your database but you're not talking to them the right way. And that applies to, to your organic strategy on your email, how you operate that into making sure that your all your audiences are uploaded into Google Ads as well. Because otherwise, you know, if you're wasting spend by talking to your returning customers as if they are new customers, then that's, you know, something that should be a quick win for you to turn that into an efficiency. You should in theory be retargeting customers with a much higher roas than you are of course by acquiring your customers because those people already know you as a brand and they should be so much more efficient for you. And so these are the kind of things that we typically do. And um, it still amazes me how many people either have not refreshed it in a while or attempted at doing something and then, you know, didn't really do it. A lot of the time they trust that the web developers will do it, but they may be out of touch slightly. So it really is just understanding that everything is linked properly and up to date, but caveating that there are also third party platforms that you're able to look at that pulls all the data together and it sort of matches up your different attribution model to make sure that your results are there but that you're optimizing appropriately to everything that your data is telling you.

Speaker A: No, I love that and I think it's such a good point. And even um, you know, the point that you just made about making sure your meta audiences are set up the right way so your existing customers, you're targeting them with the right ads for the right part of the funnel that they're in. Um, and just making sure you've got uh, everything going the right way. Like for example, one thing that um, we did in one of our brands that helped a lot. That's something that even some brands that are getting set up just don't do is meta knows uh, what's converting and what's working on that side. But meta can't take attribution for customers that are coming from organic channels. So you should make sure you're feeding those customers back into your metapixel so it can continue to learn. So again, your organic is helping show meta what those lookalikes should look like. So again, I think um, you know, just being smart about that and making sure um, the you know, the ad engines that are, you know, driving your traffic, they know they have all the right up to date data so that they can you know, learn the right way as well as uh, optimize and serve the right content to the right customer in the right stage of the funnel.

Speaker B: Absolutely. And to your point there, uh, you know, you're organic engages and um, anyone else that should be fed into your paid strategy. And that's exactly what, what we talk about when we refer to the holistic approach and making sure that the customer is there, whether it's paid organic and it should work in conjunction with each other rather than against each other.

Speaker A: Perfect. And let's talk about um, uh, you know, let's talk about on the organic side, right? Like what do you do to help a brand, uh, optimize on that side? What are you looking at? Is it um, you know, is it SEO? Is it direct traffic? Is it Google shopping? Like where when you think about like organic traffic and building a sound strategy to complement the paid stuff, uh, you know, how are you doing it? What are you thinking about? How are you getting that set up?

Speaker B: I think a lot of the times we treat um, your direct website as the first sort of point of optimization because anything that is being driven to from a traffic point of view, we want to make sure that we analyze it and um, yes, make sure that all of your sites have got possibility to run the best that they possibly can. So really tapping into SEO and um, best practices, making sure that your product description pages are your sort of most optimized and best optimized that they possibly can be. If that's where you're conversion pieces, um, uh, from a landing page point of view, what learnings can you do there? So very much so doing a big website audit and um, highlighting the things that are misses in terms of, you know, your product descriptions could really be doing with updating and um, you haven't actually got reviews added to all of your pages that are necessary to be added. So huge part of this is making sure that once the customer lands on site they're actually treated very similarly to as if they've walked into your store. They will be greeted by an assistant, asked what they're looking for and then guided based on their answer to the right product. And that's exactly what the online experience should be to that customer. You should never treat your product description page as an assumption that that customer is Going to add to cart and then check out. It needs to be there with recommendations, similar products. If the product is out of stock, it really needs to be converting them at any given point. Then secondary to that, we always make sure that the content strategy within your influencers and UGC and everything there is really, really strong. Because again how you're talking about your brand, who is talking about your brand, is so important to potentially reaching that new customer and then landing them on your website and getting them to convert. It is something that a lot of people assume isn't the right approach or you know, it can be, it can look like an ad, but I think that's where we come back to authenticity and making sure that you choose the right person. Particularly in the UK market, it's a huge focus on choosing an authentic content creator to produce your, your content for you and then how you utilizing it. You can absolutely make sure you upload it on email, on your paid ads as well. It just needs to be utilized to make sure that's fit for purpose. But very much so looking with that content first approach to tell a story about your product and about your brand and that's uh, quite a huge thing that we focus on and help with all of our brands we work with.

Speaker A: I think that's super important and I want to just double click on that really quickly in terms of like aligning your content strategy from others to align with your brand brand and how to pull that off the right way. Um, I think one thing that's always like so fascinating is you know, we're, we live in a world of, of views and you see, you know, you're like, oh, if this thing does a million views and you get X amount of conversion, like you're rich, right? But in reality, um, you know, I've seen it time and time again. You can have a content piece go super viral and it does really well but like it just doesn't convert. Um, and a lot of that comes down to the message. So it's like that question, am I better off getting like 5 to 10,000 views of something that's like right on the money in terms of like what we do, what the value prop is that's like geared for conversion that's like, you know, really, really hitting at that bottom of the funnel or are you creating like fun entertainment top of the funnel content? Maybe it goes viral but uh, you know, it doesn't really go anywhere from there. So. And then obviously when you're scaling your content through UGCs and affiliates, that becomes really, really important to get right. Because now it's not you controlling your message and tweaking it really simply. It's like you already have one layer of like, it's like playing the game of telephone where they're already probably not going to say exactly what you're saying. So how do you think about that? When you're playing the game of conversion, you're looking at the data, you're trying to like have the right strategy for the creators that you're working with. How do you equip them, um, for, or how do you prepare them for success and conversion? Or do you have them play the numbers game? Do you have them play the conversion game? How do you think about it?

Speaker B: I think there are definitely two sets of um, objects objectives to that. And we always very much so try and educate everybody about exactly how UGC and content creator strategy works. It's time consuming, it's about relationships and um, actually building a trust with somebody you work with. That goes back to the whole idea of do you want to go viral or do you actually want to convert those sales? And um, sometimes there are people who are just going to drive traffic to your website and brand awareness. But as you said, that doesn't necessarily mean it'll turn into any form of monetary value and therefore you can deem that as let's aim to go viral. I think anyone who does that and hopes for the best is probably not going to be in the market for a very long time because you should always aim for that sustained growth. And with the right content creators who actually genuinely love and are passionate about your brand will have a very, very engaged following who will also tap into that specific product that you're offering. In terms of how they portray the brand, you always really want to trust them with the fact that you've chosen them for the right reason. And that's why it takes time. Because you're going back and forth. You want to make sure that the product selection is appropriate, that the education is there. But what you're effectively doing is giving up some of your control because you know that it's their content they're producing, it's them who's creating that authentic content with their audience that will hopefully convert nine out of 10 times that will happen. But you just have to be aware that you're going to have to let go of some of that control and look at your brand through someone else's glasses. That's kind of what we always say. It is a lot to give up, especially if you're really, really precious about your brand. But if somebody is passionate about the product then it's no different than how your community of people and customers, it operates with your brand too. And I think that's exactly what that UGC and content creation does for you. It can be a huge impact and can drive loads of revenue for you if it's executed properly. But just caveat in that it does take time because relationships don't happen overnight and you really have to nurture it and it can be cost effective if it's executed well. But I wouldn't just go for the big numbers and assume that that's what's going to turn your brand around overnight.

Speaker A: And how do you think about uh, creator like running and structuring um the creator programs? A lot of times one of the trickiest things is finding sourcing and onboarding creators. So um, what do you guys do? Do you have creators that you've worked with? Like you say you have relationships. Do you um, you know, kick off every new project and try to figure out the perfect creators for that particular brand? You work with an agency to help on that side, like what's, what's worked for you guys. And how do you think about that? Because I know um, you know there's so many creators, some are really good, some are not so good as a brand you're being like, okay, how do I set this up? Who am I sending product to, who's getting the brief, who are we onboarding and all of this. So yeah, how do you, how do you think about uh, that side of ah, a creator and affiliate program?

Speaker B: I think a lot. Again we've come a long way um, through an affiliate program we are actually able to also track things a lot better now. And so the way we sort of structure it, we have loads of relationships with from being in the industry for a number of years now to be able to know who our sort of go to and some people who we know we trust and that will a deliver and they will be reliable and that will also actually deliver the results that we want them to. They want to work for every single one of the brands that, that we work with. Hence why we've got a number of those people and how we sort of keep in touch and make sure that we've got good relationships as well as through number of events that we've run with brands in the past. We typically will also engage with those content creators because it's actually a really good way to build those relationships. There's always a brief that we will always include. Um, and it's super clear on this is what we want to get out of it. Are you keen to get involved? This is what you get out of it. Please select some of your products. We would love if you were able to follow some of these. And here are some of the guidelines on brand and making sure that that's covered. And then off to you to see how you sort of operate. Some of the influencers and content creators will directly work with some will have managements and that's when it becomes a bit of a three way relationship and conversation, so to speak. But most of the time it very much sustains, stems from the relationship that you will have with those people. The trust but also actually the tracking. So affiliates are great to be able to do. A lot of those will have, you know, URLs through platforms such as AWIN. Obviously LTK is huge. A lot of content creators will want to use that. And we always say that anyone who's saying we will work on a commission basis versus oh no, no, I would really love to be paid £10,000 or US$10,000 and I actually don't work on commission basis. That's when you will then want to question whether they can provide any further insights into their own results, their own growth of their following. Because sometimes you can make substantially more money on a commission basis than you can on a flat fee. And that's when you can say, well, maybe this is more of a traffic campaign rather than a revenue campaign. And it just comes back, comes down to the objective, what do we want to achieve out of it? But I can't stress enough of how much of this is relationships and a lot of these people that we work with, that we have on the books have been with us for a very long time and will always create incredible content for us and they don't really let us down.

Speaker A: No, I think, I think you're, you're spot on there. Um, switching gears up a little bit, Natalia. Um, I want to talk about what it takes to break into the UK as a brand. One thing that we were chatting about when we were chatting LA fine was just how, you know, there's been some brands that do a really great job of making that transition from, you know, whether it's coming in from the US or a different market and entering the UK and some have like totally flopped. Right. So, um, you've seen the space, you know, the messaging that hits, you know, the marketing that hits, um, all of that. Why don't we just chat Through a couple. Well, maybe we can just start with what does it take to break in, right, from xnos, like logistics point of view, what, what do you need to do to be able to like sell in in the uk? And then we can talk about, um, you know, different specific brands.

Speaker B: So of course it'll all depend on your product and your offering and your actual AAV or your, you know, basket value. And do you have, or plan to have a warehouse in the uk? Because regardless of where you are in the world, we know the customs unfortunately are ah, really tricky and, um, overcoming those loads of paperwork and saving yourself a headache is huge. I trust that everybody in the world, both the US and the UK market are very similar in the sense that customers want it tomorrow, want it now. And so are you able to really offer that service, which is a huge thing aside from your actual logistics and your location of your warehouse and your customs and all your sort of duties that may impact therefore your, your bottom line and your margin on your product. Secondly, can you deliver the service that a lot of customers will absolutely want to get out of the product and how your delivery thresholds and your actual charges apply? Being aware of the various different people and the services offering that people offer in the UK is really hugely important. And we rely quite heavily on Royal Mail, which is a UK sort of based logistics delivery company which is traditionally been run for a number of years. They've got the Redvans and they sort of that traditional delivery threshold which a lot of people will know it's reliable, it isn't late, um, and you know, you won't get it sort of delivered a couple of days later. So these are your main things really because your service is so huge, down to your customers reviews and how then people will actually come back again if it's efficient. So these are really quite big things. And educating yourself and doing your market research in the UK will be quite important to understand whether you're able to have, uh, a warehouse in the uk. And fortunately since leaving the eu, um, you know, with Brexit and all the challenges, you have to have that in the UK rather than in Europe, because it just means that additional paperwork that you have to enter into through the customs and the border, so to speak. Then secondly, it's actually understanding the UK market and how you talk to the customer. The language, um, you know, your US language versus the British language is very different. Um, we typically don't use words like awesome and capitals because it feels quite shouty. We like more sort of understated Wording in, you know, how we obviously don't say we, you say fall, we say autumn. You know, it's actually wild how many brands I see time and time again that get targeted with that talk to you in that uh, not appropriate copy on your creative as well. And then thirdly, making sure all of your marketing is relevant to the UK market. If we talk about influencers and content creators, they vary from the UK to the us and so who are the people that are relevant to the UK market is really important because that's what will bring your brand to life, to relevancy within what's happening in the uk. Don't be shying away from the USP and why you're tapping into the UK market and talk about it. Because a lot of the UK brands really thrive on saying, this is a really good us, uh brand, I really want to buy it because it's telling me of all the USPs that it's doing rather than trying to adapt it to be the UK brand. That's kind of the point of difference. And finally the biggest one, there are loads of calendar moments happening in the uk. A lot of the times we have bank holidays or uh, what we call the public holidays and those typically fall on a Monday. It just means it's an extra week and you know, uh, an extra long weekend in the uk. And a lot of the times a lot of retailers will run bank holiday offers. So if you've got your ads set up there, you will be expected to see slightly higher CPCS and cost increase because a lot of people will go after that customer. Equally, an offer related, you know, brand will, will do something to make that customer convert. So it's really just tapping into everything that's happening in the uk rather than copy and pasting what you've done in the US and expecting that to convert in the uk, I think that's really, really important. And many brands from the US that have done that well have, have thrived and have done really well. We've got a great example of Drunk Elephant who entered the UK market. They did that through Space nk, which you know is a high value retail. They did an event with them and um, they talked about everything from the usp, from why they are an amazing American brand that's finally making its way into the uk. It created a huge buzz with the right content creators. They did an event um, down in London and it was really successful and that brand is still thriving and it continues to do really, really well. Not going to sort of bad mouth and be negative about some of the other brands that haven't done particularly well. But the brands that have failed and sort of returned back to the US are the brands that haven't adapted the strategy, they haven't done their sizing, the marketing hasn't felt appropriate to the UK consumer. The wording, everything sort of from that side of things has meant that they probably haven't done the right thing by getting that UK customer engaged and therefore, you know, obviously costing loads of money in having UK stores where actually over the past couple of years we've seen a huge digital growth through content creators and everything like that. And if you aren't tapping into it, that's how you will likely see some challenges in continuing to grow in the UK market, which just as the US market is relatively competitive.

Speaker A: Yeah, and I think that's what the main thing I'm hearing. It's like if you're going to do it, do it right. Don't just try to necessarily copy your paper, your exact same playbook, run your same ads. You need to like be not only set up from an operational perspective but also set up on the messaging. And it kind of goes back to your first point about making sure your communications to your customers, whatever part they are in the funnel, are appropriate. So you know, if you're launching in the uk, you need to communicate to those customers whether it's top of funnel, meta or you know what, maybe it's uh, uh, an in person sort of ad or campaign or whatever. It just needs to be um, kind of dialed in focus and um, I'm curious if there's any other examples of um, you know, brands that should have maybe like done really well, brands that consistently do really well in the US market but like, you know, maybe they just weren't really received well. Um, I don't know if you have any other examples that are top of mind knowers. If not, I'm just curious if there's any other examples of brands that either did a really good job or um, you know, maybe you feel like could have uh, done a better job. If had they really um, you know, done a couple things different, they could have really um, stood out.

Speaker B: Yeah, well, it's interesting really because obviously the way that we portray Ralph Lauren is likely to be very different across in the US but by tapping into all the events that take place throughout the year in the UK and um, one of those is Wimbledon and Ralph Lauren being the sponsor for a number, a number of years, tapping into that sort of preppy British heritage And looks is what makes Ralph Wren continuing to grow well by adapting its, its product offering, its messaging, the partners and everywhere that is seen to be a brand that's continuing to do well and that will of course be very different over in the US but brand that is actually you know, portraying itself to be British heritage isn't actually uh, a UK brand which is really interesting because of everything that it really very much so taps into. And I think when we talk about the success of the UK brands or the UK market is trying to wave itself into the British heritage and everything that makes you know, that sort of Britishness and, and the etiquette and everything that it becomes and, and what that brand does particularly well. Coach is, is another brand that has tapped into a younger generation through utilizing the right content, influences and, and ambassadors and celebrities in the UK that's made its successful brand. It had played hugely with CGI and other various things and, and it's what made the UK relevant in that form. And, and actually it's what typed and, and made the brand grow with a younger audience and, and it's, it's done that quite successfully. And then thinking about I suppose some of the brands that have perhaps challenged and, and not failed in the right word but haven't done quite as well, you know, Forever 21 just, just didn't really adapt to the existing, quite already established um, brands in, in the UK market such as Primark which is also in store but offers that, that value fast fashion for the UK consumer and has been doing that for a long time. It just didn't really do quite as well. It relied far too much on its sort of in store presence but we know that's moved on quite a lot and actually the UK high street has challenges and um, has been struggling. That's why your digital experiences are really important and everything that takes place online is sort of at the forefront of your brand success. So really making sure that you know your trends and really tapping into that Britishness is what people like to see even if your brand isn't actually British, but it's tapping into the moments that take place in the calendar. What is it that's relevant? What do you want to aspire to? And that's really what we've seen through some of those brands that's done really really well. And then perhaps some of the other brands that have failed and kind of had to return back to, to the

Speaker A: U.S. uh, no, super helpful Natalia, uh, on all of that and my last question before we wrap up here is uh, you know, you've had the pleasure of not only working in house across uh, a bunch of brands, but working very closely with brands that are scaling up uh, really quickly as you look forward to, you know, we're, we're heading into uh, Black Friday holidays and then into 2026. Uh, obviously the landscape always changes. It sounds like a lot of the principles that you're operating out of are truly are like evergreen sort of things. But are there any, whether it's uh, particular platforms or trends or things that as you look towards um, the new year, get you excited as a marketer, are there any things that um, you're looking to kind of go harder on or um, you know, maybe leverage, uh, as you're, you continue to grow your brands?

Speaker B: Definitely. I think staying on top of trends and always being ahead and not being afraid to test new platforms is huge part of, of what we do and how we operate and how we help brands grow. And we have seen great success with partnership ads and again tapping into that authenticness with lower CPCS on Meta. It's um, something that we're really looking forward to testing more of. Again it taps into that more authentic content creation that's brought through an influencer, a uh, content creator that's already got a really, really trusted audience and bringing that through, um, own brand. A lot of the times they aren't polished, they don't look incredible. I think TikTok has taught us that exact thing that you have to apply and adjust your strategy to each platform and continuing to test those things will be really, really key to brand growth. So I'm really excited to continue to accelerate partnership ads, um, and alongside that, ah, I think really just understanding how we can talk to that younger customer who continues to keep us on our toes and um, what are their values and how we can bring them on to the journey to eventually purchase is the key to any brand's growth. So really engaging with how that younger customer works. We know in the UK they're very much so all about authentic, sustainable. That sort of investing in pieces to last them longer is sort of key for growth. And I think finding those customers and where they are and adapting your marketing strategy to them specifically is what will get brands growth and um, continue that sort of success, sustainable revenue stream. So I'm really excited to continue on that strength as well. Because you're always learning something new every day.

Speaker A: Oh absolutely. Um, so as we wrap up here, Natalia, where can uh, where can we get in touch with you if you know, if we're looking to start scaling our brand or tap into the UK or just, um, you know, chat further with you about, uh, you know, your take on our brand and what we need to do. Where do we find you? Why don't you shout out your socials?

Speaker B: So I am quite vocal on LinkedIn. I love talking about everything about how, um, you can be a female founder in, in the workplace and, um, continue to love your job whilst also being a mother. So definitely give me a follow on LinkedIn and, um, drop me a message there. And we are just currently, uh, redesigning our website. So whilst that's probably not the best point of contact because it doesn't represent how far we've come along, Natalia Chapel and co on Instagram is our other source of information and everything that we do, from silly videos and trending videos to actually all the information about marketing as well.

Speaker A: Perfect. Well, Natalia, thank you so much for joining us. We had a blast. Um, and we hope to check back in with you very soon.

Speaker B: Thank you so much for having me. It was great to chat to you.

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