Maximising Customer Retention Post-BFCM

Speaker A: And we are live. Hello, everyone.

Speaker B: Hello.

Speaker A: We were just having a free chat, uh, in the waiting room right before we click the Go Live button. And, uh, we've got people calling in from all over the world. So before, uh, we talk ourselves, maybe a question to the audience. If you've just tuned in. Where are you calling in from? Uh, Liz, I'm going to start with you because you're in the most exciting spot of all.

Speaker B: So I'm usually a Sydney local. At the moment I'm in New York. So it's about 5pm In New York City. The sun has gone down, it's below zero degrees Celsius. So, yeah,

Speaker A: love that. The first question I got from you is like, hang on, there's like a lot of background noise here. That's New York for you. Um, yeah. Hear any of it?

Speaker B: Thank God. I was really worried, guys. There's just repetitive beeping outside my window. The traffic is crazy.

Speaker A: Love that. How about you, Jeremy? Where are you?

Speaker C: Um, I am. I'm calling in from Sydney today. Very, very sunny Sydney. Um, I was just thinking about the New York thing. I've listened to quite a few podcasts and one of the ones I listen to, they quite often interview people from New York and it's like a big. It's like literally one of the biggest podcasts in the world. And you always hear sirens going off in the background. So don't worry.

Speaker B: I'm all good, guys. Don't worry.

Speaker C: But, David, I'm calling. I'm calling from the Klaviyo Apac hq, which is on George street in Sydney.

Speaker A: Awesome. Yep, very nice office.

Speaker B: Have.

Speaker A: Have been nice. I'm calling him from Auckland in New Zealand. Um, so the bottom end of the world. For any of those in North America that don't know where New Zealand is on the map, I think there's actually a subreddit dedicated to maps of the world without New Zealand. Um, so, yeah, often people can't point it out. And even our, um, Department of Internal affairs, you can tell the IT teams have IT humor. Um, but when you hit the 404 page on their website, it's got a map of the world without New Zealand on it. And it's like, oops, something is missing.

Speaker B: I love that. That's so cool.

Speaker A: That's the Kiwi humor right there. So we got someone calling in from Auckland, which is nice. And, uh, yeah, everyone else, don't be shy in the chat if you want to share. Or we can, um, get to questions from the chat as well. Where you're all calling in from. Um, we'll get started in about a minute or so. Got a few more people trickling in. And you're hiding in a soundproof, uh, booth, I think, aren't, uh, you, Jeremy?

Speaker C: You got that out really well. Soundproof booth. So to just. Just pull the. The bell back. I tried to say that three times before we went live today, and I messed it up each time, so I won't attempt it now. But, yes, a semi soundproof sort of area within the Klaviyo office. I'll call it.

Speaker A: Nice. Yeah, I'm calling in from our podcast room and, uh, I'm assuming, Liz, you've gotten back to your hotel?

Speaker B: Yes, guys, I tried my best to make it not look like a hotel room, but you can't avoid the giant light and the curtains. So, yes, you know, I think it

Speaker C: is the heavy drapes, heavy curtains.

Speaker B: Well, I'm hoping it blocked out some of the sound as well.

Speaker C: Yeah.

Speaker B: Um, but, yeah, very much a hotel room.

Speaker A: Love it. All right, well, let's kick off. So, um, first of all, shall we start with a quick introduction? Um, maybe I'll start with you, Jeremy.

Speaker B: Who are you?

Speaker C: Um, my name is Jeremy Singh. I work for Klaviyo. I've been at Klaviyo now for just over two and a half years. Coming up to three years, um, in the Klaviyo Sydney office. Um, ah, My role within Klaviyo is that, um, I'm what you call a partner manager. My official title is Senior Partner manager. Um, and basically I look after the relationship between Klaviyo and the agencies. Um, and the agencies or the service providers that we work with, such as the lovely folks at Zyber.

Speaker B: Cool.

Speaker A: Thanks, Jeremy. And, um, how about you, Liz?

Speaker B: Um, I'm actually on the brand side. So. Hi, everyone. I'm Liz. Um, I'm the CRM specialist here at Meshki, which, for those that might not know, is a women's fashion brand located in Australia, but we do ship globally and I'm on the customer side of Klaviyo, so B2C.

Speaker A: Love that. Awesome. And, uh, hi, everyone. I'm David. I'm the CEO here at Zyber. So we're a, um, Shopify plus and Klaviyo Master Platinum. Um, partner. So we, I guess, are on the agency side, so to say, of, uh, Klaviyo, and use Klaviyo for pretty much all of our customers. Like, it's a phenomenal tool, um, to help us drive roi, as I'm sure Uh, everyone in the room will agree with. And, uh, yeah, actually, funny side story, I've been now, um, to the Klaviyo head office in Boston a few times, and, uh, Liz and I met while playing pickleball in Boston.

Speaker B: Always an exciting time with Klaviyo. So that was really good.

Speaker A: Yeah, that was actually much more fun than I expected. I was like, I don't know what to expect from pickleball, uh, but it was awesome. And, uh, yeah, we're both on the community Champions program as well. So, um, if you haven't, uh, ever heard of the Klaviyo community, definitely check that out. Little plug here. Community.klaviyo.com. um, but, uh, yeah, let's kick into it. So what are we here for today? So we really want to chat, I guess, about, uh, bfcm, uh, the big holiday that's now been and gone. And there's always a lot of content that kind of happens beforehand to get yourself ready. Um, and I think for me, one of the most important parts, like, you know, whether it's on a project, whether it's on a big holiday like this, is to kind of retro and go, hey, how did it actually go? What did we learn? What was different? Um, what was new? Um, and really keen to, uh, kind of get into that with you guys and find out, like, how. How BFCM has been. So, yeah, I guess, maybe, uh, maybe first question is, um, you know, how was BFCM for you guys this year? And did you notice any shifts in, um, customer behavior compared to previous years? Maybe we'll start off with you, Liz.

Speaker B: Um, I definitely noticed. As far as the industry goes, um, brands are starting really early. So we were joking that, um, it's not Black Friday anymore. It's Black Friday month. It used to be a weekend, then it was a week, then a fortnight. Now it literally goes for the entire month of November. So one thing I thought that was interesting, at least we saw for patterns in Fashion customers, was though everyone started early. Customers know to wait. So you get that preliminary uplift if you do decide to go a little bit early. But there's still definitely that anticipation for the official Black Friday weekend. Um, and they know that that's coming. So just something interesting to note is even though there might be pressure on the brand side, when you see all your competitors start to go live, your customer knows that, um, it's not real until the end of November.

Speaker A: Yeah, that, that, uh, that makes total sense. How about you, Jeremy? Like, what have you seen? Uh, as someone m also Looking over a large number of, uh, of clients.

Speaker C: Yeah, it's. It was, uh. It's. It's. It's an interesting one. I definitely agree with what Liz is saying. Like, you know, the. It is turned into the month of. Of. It's not Black Friday Cyber Monday. It's the month of Black Friday Cyber Monday. Uh, which is interesting. Um, Uh, I know as a. As. As a consumer, I. I will wait. And this. This year, I did one. I did. Made one purchase where I didn't wait, and then there was an extra 10 off Black Friday. On Black Friday, I'm like, it stings. It does. It does. The 10 wouldn't have equated too much, but I'm still like, I feel like I lost something as a result. Um, so people have been trained, um, to. To effectively wait. Which is. Which I always found is interesting. But, um, in terms of just looking at it a little bit more broadly and as a claim and, you know, as Klaviyo, we are seeing more messages go through than. Than ever. Um, we are seeing more, um. You know, but that goes to email, text messages and push messages. I think. Um, uh, we had. We. Every Black Friday. I've been within this. In this business. We certainly have broken a record every single year. Um, this year we did, um, between Thanksgiving and, um. So Monday, there was billions of dollars worth of revenue generated within Clayvon, somewhere around about $3 billion worth of revenue sort of mark generated within Klaviyo, um, just going out to all those Klaviyo merchants globally, um, which, um. Which is a heck of a feat because if you consider it this really, like, you know, a weekend and a couple of extra days, so four days, and you're talking about billions of dollars just transacting, um, uh, the, um. Yeah. So it just gets bigger and bigger each year. And I think, um, I know growing up in Australia, Black Friday type Monday wasn't necessarily a thing all the time. It was just Christmas sales. Right. But now it is definitely a thing, and it's definitely his name.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: It's a good bonus, I guess, for, uh. You know, you mentioned Thanksgiving there. Like, it's almost like we forget, uh, Thanksgiving along the way. Oh, that's right. You guys have a day to eat turkey. And, uh, you know, all of a sudden my reels pop up of lots of people trying to deep fry a turkey in the backyard. But, uh, we kind of skip that component of it and just go straight into the sales piece, uh, which is interesting from a consumer perspective. It's a good one. You touch on there. Jeremy too. If you have a pre sale event, if you think about the whole customer experience component to it, you kind of feel a little bit hard done by, even though your discount wouldn't have been that much greater by not waiting. So it's that fine balance between not upsetting a customer that actually is committed to buying from you early because you've got a, um, you know, if you, if, especially if you're selling something that other merchants sell as well, that's uh, that tough balance, I think. Hey, um,

Speaker B: I think that's an interesting point. It's actually something we wanted to address this year at Meshki. Um, we did early access for the first time last year with our loyalty program, um, and had some feedback, you know, that when the discount deepened people did feel hurt. You know, they've supported us at full price all year. Um, so this year early access was actually a deeper offer for us. So we had 25% off, um, site wide basically. And then when we switched to general access and launch our sale, that was 20%. Um, and we had some amazing feedback. We were really transparent with it as well. We let people know on the last day that hey, like, yeah, the offer is actually going to drop tomorrow. So people felt really, um, clear and respected and that their loyalty had been rewarded adequately. So I think there's a few things you can do around that to counteract that feeling of being, um, you know, losing out.

Speaker C: Yeah, yeah. And it was, it was a similar thing. Like it was like, yeah, just an early access piece and like, if, if you let me know that, you know, that was gonna be the greatest discount then that was gonna be the best discount out there then great. We jumped on straight away and gone on to it. I think that's a really, really good move. And um, obviously you guys are thinking of the customer first.

Speaker B: I think we lose some of the transparency sometimes where we're like, oh, you know, the offer gets better. It's okay to say to them, you know, this is the best it's going to get. The offer will go up later, but you know, your size might sell out. We've only got so and so many left in this thing you had your eye on, um, and maintain that communication and transparency. I think that the customer appreciates that.

Speaker A: Yeah, I think so too. I really like that strategy as well because I think the last thing you want to do is upset your most loyal customers at the end of the day. Right. Like if that's what you're doing by further deepening that discount, particularly Like, I think it's, it's interesting how it's different vertical to vertical as well. Right? Because some products, like, you know, let's say I want to buy a new, you know, iPhone, right? Like there's loads of shops selling iPhones and they're all the exact same product. So with uh, with those types of purchases, you might also be kind of weighing up like, okay, what am I, what am I going to do here? Am I going to jump on this opportunity early or is it going to get better from other brands at the same time? Like it's that kind of competitive market from a um, consumer experience perspective. And I, I committed to not buying anything. I was like, no, I don't need anything. I still made three purchases over Black Friday myself. Hey, like I always get sucked into, do I need it? No, but this is really cool.

Speaker C: Exactly the same. David.

Speaker A: Okay, I'm gonna hold back this here. Um, but yeah, that's, I think back to your point though, um, Liz, you know, around, uh, brands jumping on pretty early. It's, it's, it's also something we saw. Um, a lot of merchants do really get in there a couple of weeks in advance. It's like, yeah, Black Friday month is here. Um, obviously there's singles day kind of happening, uh, in the earlier half of November as well. And particularly for brands that sell to um, to Chinese consumers, it's also a big um, sales data tends to happen. So um, yeah, interesting. And then from a, um, from a, I, um, guess conversion perspective or from a first time purchaser perspective because we talked a little bit about that loyal segment. But how about customers that have bought from you for the first time during Black Friday? Um, what have you guys sort of found that brands are doing to convert them from a, from a one time shopper into a loyal customer?

Speaker B: I am um, I'm a big advocate for this. We do a lot of lead generation leading up to Black Friday as a company. And then you know, Black Friday's over and you're like, I have all these new customers. What do I do with them? Um, I always say to go back to what is your unique value proposition? What is the value you offer? Ah, beyond a discount. Anybody can discount anything. That's not why people shop with you. At least in fashion. You know, there's many a fashion retailer out there, um, and it goes, it goes back to why did they shop with you? What is the value that you fulfill? What is the problem that you solve for your customer? Um, and how do we basically put our best foot forward and push those, those values, um, to bring them back.

Speaker A: Yeah, I love that.

Speaker C: Yeah, I completely agree. Like really just iterating what makes that brand unique to try and turn them into that. But at the same time, like there's also, there's always just going to be that person that's just there for the discount and will never buy at full price. So I'd make sure you identify and be aware of those people at the same time because you want to market to them slightly differently because you get repeat purchases. But it's not just going to be the same.

Speaker B: Um, your sale customer gets put down sometimes, but they're a very valid customer and you've got all your segments sorted, then you can utilize them to their fullest potential. Just like a full price customer.

Speaker C: Absolutely, absolutely. It's um, it's um. But I think the clear thing, like, you know, whether you're looking at a sale customer, whether you look at someone that you might turn to, somebody loyal, is that you're thinking about it before Black Friday of what, how you're going to communicate and follow up that, um, with that individual. Because, you know, ultimately it's a bigger sale period of the year for a lot of businesses that we work with here at Klaviyo. They'll do, you know, 20, 30% of their revenue, 40% of the revenue in the peak period. Um, and sometimes they obviously the margins aren't as high in that period because a lot of times things are being discounted because that's what people expect. But that could be elite generation for your entire year in terms of getting new customers into your funnel. If you look at it from a pure sales metric point of view, um, so make sure you're thinking about it like, you know, brands that are doing it well and brands that are doing it in a very smart way. Constantly thinking about it, whether it's going to be like, I'm going to do this to appeal to the sale customers throughout the whole year. We think we can get this group and make them really, really loyal advocates for the brand. You know, whatever the strategy is, the key thing is that they're thinking about it and they're not just finishing Black Friday going, well, cool. It's cool sales period. Pop the champagne. See you in January. Um, uh, you know, uh, I'm gonna say don't take a break. It's always important to take pause and take a break. But you know, at the same time just have a little think about how you're going to treat those new users at that time. Or those new customers at that time.

Speaker B: I really like what you said Jeremy, about the bottom line. I think that um, we always talk about our loyal customers and then our sale customers, but they can be one and the same. Like if you look at any RFM model, frequency is a category. Just because they're always shopping the sales section or they're, they're a discount shop, it doesn't mean that they're not purchasing with you multiple times throughout the year because they love your brand. They might just be a little bit savvier and that just might be something that's higher on their priority list. And I think that that's okay. Um, so just, I really, yeah, I really like what you said there. They can be both.

Speaker C: They can absolutely be both. Absolutely both.

Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah, I love that too. I think there's, there's um, you know, there's a lot to unpack there, right? Because we're talking here about segmentation and I can't believe that in 2020 I feel like I should not be having this conversation. But I still see so many brands that do this kind of spray and pray or spray and blast approach, um, where there's just no segmentation or personalization. Like you need to try and understand that actual customer and then build your strategy and your follow up based on what it is that their customer is doing rather than just cool, now they're in the mailing list. Like let's just spam them with every newsletter under the sun. And then, oh, how weird. Like we have a high unsubscribe rate like you know, and they're not repurchasing. Um, I think that personalized, um, you know, understanding your customer and personalizing your communication is this, this really should be a year round strategy. But it's even more important during this time. Um, you know, one of the um, partners that we work with, they talk about the CAC apocalypse. It's like a term that's always stuck in my head.

Speaker C: It sounds like a first world brand.

Speaker A: When you're trying to, you know, pronounce a word quickly three times, try. I've done a lot of practicing on this one, but I think like cost of acquisition is high for me. One of my favorite metrics in Klaviyo is actually the um, the you know, revenue per recipient. Because for me that like shows just how much you're able to get out of every single customer when you have a solid strategy in place. Um, yeah, I'm sure you guys feel the same way, right? But it's like okay, this is what I've gained now. I can market to this customer, uh, essentially at a very low cost. I'm not having to try and find them because they're already in my database. Um, and you can segment them based on what you want to then do. Top of funnel. Sure. To bring them back. But yeah, that for me is probably one of my favorite metrics out of the Klaviyo platform.

Speaker C: Yeah, not even that. Like, um. Yeah, that. Plus on top of that, if you have to go look for new customers that are, uh, similar to that person, um, or single similar to that segment, you can also push that information into your, you know, your, um, the advertising platforms that you use as well. Um, so there's if. If. Yeah, definitely. If you're not using segments in 2024, you, you should be, um, at the bare minor emphasis place these segments.

Speaker A: Speaking of, uh, we're kind of in this, uh, you know, 2024 trends sort of conversation. And uh, you know, if you hadn't noticed and lived under a rock, you probably didn't realize that there's a little bit of stuff happening in this, like, whole AI space. I don't know, it's just been a bit of a hype word for the year. Um, but, uh, yeah, lots, lots of exciting stuff obviously happening there. Um, I thought maybe we can chat about, um, what have you guys done with AI? Like, what's actually worked, what's not worked? Um, Klaviyo has launched a range of different AI tools. M. Do you want to grab that one first, Liz?

Speaker B: Um, I actually love the AI functionality. I know we just spoke about it, but for my segments, I think honestly, during Black Friday, I'm making so many different segments. I'm trying to speak to everybody all at once, but in a way that feels personalized and is, um, engaging and doesn't seem like that batch and blast. And it's so helpful to be able to just type what I want and have it spit out. This is your segment. I like that you can then really quickly just go in and make little tweaks. I think no AI is perfect. I think that it's just a, um, generate and figure. But that is such a time saver. And I think it takes, um, tangible conversations. Because during Black Friday we're all having meetings with, um, every other department who's looking at marketing saying, what more can you do, um, to be able to take those conversations, pop them into an AI and have it give me the perfect segment. Just a time saver for sure.

Speaker C: It's. It's encouraging to using it like that Liz, because I've been telling people like that's how you would use it. So it's good to see. I'm not lying first of all, but I think you are absolutely, um, definitely. I'm a big fan of that as well. And now with the form, um, with the flows AI as well, um, you can, you can do something similar to try experiments with flows. It's kind of like I want to get this idea, I've got this thing that I've theorized and I want to get it out there quickly and I just want to just validate you know, numbers. If I approach this segment, would there actually be enough people in that segment to warrant you know um, running a campaign with or using the trigger as a um, um for a flow, um, and so on and so forth. But you, you don't want to sit there and just like because you kind of. It's a different sort of way of thinking to trying to build a segment. Like you gotta go, okay, you've got to think about those operators and what have you where you can just quickly type out what you're thinking and, and then it'll go away and build it for you. Um, likewise with the flows. Um, I know with me personally I really like any of the things that's sort of focused around machine learning. Um, I, you know we've, there's me, I've been, I'm a bit of an all hat when it comes to marketing tech. I've been doing marketing tech now or working for marketing tech companies for over a decade now. Um and machine learning has been around for quite a while. Um, uh, you know, doing things like you know, lead scoring and what have you based on um, based on activity beforehand. But um, you know things like the um, product analysis that we now offer which is a really really cool feature that's within our um, CDP and data products. Um, you know the ability to identify okay if somebody's purchased the product and this is most based on their behavior, this is most likely going to be the next product they purchase. Um so if you're talking about personalization, trying to get some of those people to buy again or become a loyal customer over the course of time having something like that. If you've got a multi product company, very, very, very handy.

Speaker B: I ah, really like that. We sold obviously did a lot of bestsellers over Black Friday. Um, and so thousands and thousands and thousands of people buying the exact same thing. And I think being able to look historically at okay these new Customers have purchased a denim set for the first time. We've seen that be a best seller for the last year. What did those people go and go and buy next? Um, and then how do we use that information to then retarget Black Friday customers? Was actually really helpful.

Speaker A: And that's so powerful. Right. Like, I think the, um, I'm a huge fan, as you know, Jeremy, as well, of the CDP product for exactly those types of insights because it can actually help you drive strategy. Like sure, in marketing output, but even with things like on site personalization, like if we segment those customers out and then use a group membership API, um, to be able to push data in. Sorry. For those of you less technical that are listening in, I get straight down the geeky bucket.

Speaker B: David does. David loves a custom API. Loves it.

Speaker A: I'll build a short, a hacky way for that.

Speaker C: You did pretty well, David. We were about 20, 20, 25 minutes into the call and we brought up APIs. That's good.

Speaker A: We brought out AI first, so at least I got the hybrid. But one thing I, I actually really like about the AI, like you, the way that Klaviyo approaches it I think is really good. Like a lot of. I've seen a lot of, um, SAS companies kind of implement. Cool, here's AI, here's a button called AI. Now go and figure out what to do with it. Like, you know, all the best. Whereas I think what Klaviyo is doing is you guys are very deliberate about what you're doing with AI and where you implement and you're very prescriptive. So like, yeah, you go into a flow AI to help you create a flow based on a brain spark that you've got. You type that out in natural language what your brain spark is and it goes and takes that and creates a flow. So it's like a really practical application of AI. Um, I actually really like the um. I know it's been around for a while, but like the ability to have a crack at subject lines, like, I think is still one of the like biggest. Like, oh, what am I going to put? Like what, how's it going to work? Well actually, let's just a B test it. Like, you know, you write the idea that you've got and then why not do a B variant where you get AI to generate something and then like you might be proven wrong. Which you know is, is great, right? Like, I love being proven wrong with an A B test because you've always got a preference. But being proven wrong, it's like and that's why we ran the test, because, you know, we're not basing our, um, we're not basing our entire strategy on assumptions. We're actually basing it on data. Right. So creating, um, uh, like an a B test on the subject line is such a small thing, but it can be such a massive driver of open rates and therefore click rates and therefore purchase rates.

Speaker B: Um, actually something that, um, Klaviyo introduced right before Black Friday that I loved was the Recommendation Center. So for those that aren't, you know, are, uh, so time poor, they don't even have the, the chance to think about, okay, what am I going to do next? What? You know, and start talking to the AIs. It literally just pops up right there for you. And he's like, hey, you could use a post purchase flow. You could, you know, you could do this, this cross sell. So that's actually another one that I really liked that was even, even simpler and more prescriptive in nature.

Speaker A: Yeah, very true. I mean, this is the beauty again of the platform. Like, you guys are always looking for ways. I say you guys because, you know I'm talking about here. Right. But like, Klaviyo is always looking for ways to help me as a merchant drive more and more and more value out of that platform. So those recommendations are super helpful, I think for anyone that's looking to grow, like, how much revenue they can drive out of the platform.

Speaker C: Yeah. And it kind of goes like AI and you know, other tools that are out there are always really helpful and fun and all and what have you. Um, I've played with the AI rap generators and stuff like that, or making country music songs and all that sort of stuff. When it comes down to, you know, utilizing tools like that for work, ultimately it's just got to save time or save me from a writer's block or something along those lines. Um, um. And if you think about, you know, rolling some of those features of rolling some of those capabilities and tools, it has to achieve that. Any useful AI tool that I've used, or any useful, um, reporting tool that I've used, if you, if you want to just take a step back, if you want to take one step removed from the AI, um, it always just comes down to, does this save me time? Does this save me time? Or does this, um, ah. And, and if it does save me time, then I will use it. So I think when you come down to. As into like the way we've approached AI and the way we've looked at it and, and the direction we've taken it. It's just come down to how can we help um, people that are executing using, utilizing Klaviyo every day, how can we help them save time so they can not worry about the bullion operators when building a flow or building out a segment but they can worry about like strategy wise what they need to be doing with their brand, you know, different ways that they can engage with people. Big post bfcm, um, uh, and what that looks like and so on and so forth. Um, because that's where people earn their money as a marketer. Not necessarily by you know, fiddling around with bullion operators.

Speaker A: Yeah, I love that And I think even for you know it's, it's, it's easy I think for people like myself and Liz to forget like we're, we're like power users.

Speaker C: Right?

Speaker A: We know exactly. Oh uh, I need to like segment this thing based on this thing and do that. Like for us it doesn't take that long. But I think if you put yourself to the very first time you logged into the platform which for me is you know quite a few years ago now and it was still much more basic than it is today but if you put yourself kind of in that, okay, I'm m a startup, I'm running the company, I'm doing everything, I've built the website, I'm doing all of those pieces like for, for um, a lot of SMBs. This would be such a like overwhelming experience. Like oh, I want to start a flow based on wait, do I use ordered product or placed order? Like and what's the difference and how do I like so being able to guide by having that piece there where it just goes yeah, you know what, I've already selected the right one for you because this is what you need to use. Um, and that's the AI side. Even on the non AI side your library is a great starting point I think for any brand that's looking to um, get started by just creating some basic flows. You even take the branding uh, already there and you can get started really quickly. Um, which is you know the, the biggest, the biggest uh, uh, I guess killer of revenue you can drive out of the platform is being overly critical about oh no, I need to make sure everything is 100 perfect. Like if you're just starting out, just get something live because something is better than nothing and then you can iterate on it. Right.

Speaker C: Um, yeah I've seen welcome flows um, generate millions within weeks. Um so and that there's like A preset formula for that. Yeah, but I've literally seen local flows generate billions per week for um, a customer base. Um, um, but you're right, you know, just we'll do what you can do. Something's better than nothing, um, with this communication. So we'll do whatever we can to make sure that someone gets something out there.

Speaker A: Yeah. And then I wanted to kind of come back uh, on this one with you Liz. Like we, we talked about uh, being part of the Klaviyo community and it's funny right? Like as, as humans we, we like if you, if you look at it kind of on a psychological level, like we end up building these bonds with certain brands, right. That we love, that we buy their stuff. Um, and I think some brands are tremendously capable in building these types of communities around their brand. How do you sort of see that, like, particularly with new customers kind of coming in, like how do you look at that, um, in your role around building that community piece?

Speaker B: Um, I think when it comes to community, so when it's interesting, Meshki as an enterprise brand has, you know, there's millions, millions and millions of profiles across our accounts. Um, and it's about how we make them feel like we are genuinely emailing them 1, 1 to 1. Like there is a stylist, there is a customer service agent, there is even if it's me running our loyalty program, reaching out to give them that personalized one on one service that they would expect. Um, we always like to use luxury brands as a reference. Um, you feel a sense of community because you know you have a sales assistant that messages you when something comes in and they think that you would like it. You know, it's the same thing but on a mass scale because at the end of the day um, I am one person, I'm no sales Assistant on the WhatsApp but the, it's creating community is allowing your customer to feel seen and heard, um, and appreciated. And as an online business, you know, we're a pure play retailer, we don't have any stores. Um, online is basically our only touch point with them. So email and SMS where it's that direct marketing is so essential to make them feel like we are talking to them directly. Um, there's great overlap now with there's amazing tools um, you can use to extend that reach onto things like WhatsApp and um, Instagram DMS and things like that to really take it multi channel. And that's I guess what we're trying to do post BFCM of course, but always Yeah, I love that.

Speaker A: You know, it's so funny, I guess the way I look at the digital, um, space, right, Is like, retail has been around for, uh, 10,000 years, so we should not try and like, recreate a formula that's entirely different from a really good retail experience. Um, and building that sense of like, hey, you're there if I need you, but you're not like, too in my face either. You know, when you walk into an electronics, like, there's like four salespeople gunning to run first. Like, you know, like, it's all about finding that balance and like, what a good retail experience looks like. And, you know, I was at a. We're part of the marketing association here in New Zealand, and I was at an event last, uh, week. Um, they do a event every month and they had, uh, two of the major supermarkets, um, speak. One was. One is like a, ah, like a nicer, um, supermarket. They sell kind of gourmet stuff. And then one is one of the two major chains that we've got here. And it's so funny because when they're talking about basket sizes and doing this and doing that to surprise and delight, and all of a sudden I'm like, if I close my eyes and forgot who we're.

Speaker C: Who.

Speaker A: Who's actually talking here, I could have sworn that we're talking about online, um, you know, retail. Because it's exactly the same, like, we're trying to achieve the exact same thing as what you do in store.

Speaker B: It's the same thing, if anything, with even more potential, because we can reach anyone anywhere in the world. I like what you said about the, um, the tech stores. That's how I feel about brands that send campaigns every single day. Like, if a sales assistant at, you know, a luxury brand texted you every single day, you'd be like, this is too much. Like, it's, it's. You're obsessed. You block them immediately and that's, you know, if you'd unsubscribe. Whereas if they reach out to you once a week, a fortnight, you know, monthly, what, whatever, depending on your level of engagement to say, hey, I think you'd really like this, or here's something new or something, you know, I saw you looked at this and it's back in stock and blah, blah, blah, um, that feels way more special and you actually really appreciate it and it adds to the experience. Rather than taking away.

Speaker C: I'm gonna steal a line off one of my colleagues. Cat, she always says, I've heard her say this a couple Times. I even think she said it in a, in a talk with you, David. She just said, just think of your ideal, like the, the best experience you've had in a retail store and, and, and execute that online, basically is what.

Speaker A: Is what.

Speaker C: You know, it's a lot easier said than done. It requires a lot of thinking, a lot of tech. But right information, right person at the right time is what it boils down, down to. Um, you know, like, hey, like if you walked into a store and then they recognized you from the last time you walked into the store and hey, go, hey, that T shirt or that, the, that dress or whatever that you were looking at before, we didn't have your size. We actually got it back in stock in your size and just straight in front of you, like real information to the right person, um, at that, at the right time. Um, you can create that online, um, at any time, at any point in time. It's just about being smart with what you do well.

Speaker A: And that's the, like, you know, for me, one of my, uh, I'll share a funny anecdote. So one of my favorite retail experiences is my local pit stock. So the salesperson at pit stock is absolutely incredible. I have fish. I don't have cats or dogs because I'm allergic. I have fish, right? And I went in there with my daughter to buy her fish. Um, they've grown massively. By the way. If you're planning to get fish, don't get goldfish because they went from like this to this.

Speaker C: Like they've honestly good straight up cop now.

Speaker A: But I walk in there and she's like, hey, how are you, David? How are Sushi and Rainbow, which is the names that my daughter picked. I'm just gonna say straight up, how are Sushi and Rainbow doing? I'm like, how do you remember my name? And the fact that my goldfish are called Sushi and Rainbow, like, this is crazy. Um, but that, that relies on a human memorizing this information. You know, the beauty of online is we can track all these things, we can ask these questions, and we can use that in the messaging to drive personalization. So it's, it's almost even easier than having to, um, you know, actually rely on our human memory. But like, for me, this is like, if, if I think of like a great experience from a retail perspective, I will always go to pet stock. I wouldn't even look anywhere else because I know she knows what I'm going to be looking for. You know, and I think if you can replicate that Kind of experience online. You know, you're, you're, you're winning as a brand.

Speaker C: Absolutely. Couldn't agree more. Cool.

Speaker A: Yeah, great one around, um, community. So we've heard that it now takes around 20 touch points to first convert a customer. Um, so, yeah, what are you guys doing to kind of be across all of those, um, those touch points? Liz?

Speaker B: Um, we have a great marketing team. I'll be honest with you guys. It takes, um, it takes a really, a really great amount of teamwork, I would say. Um, we take advantage of absolutely every channel, but they also work in harmony. They're always cohesive, um, in order to make sure that what you're seeing on one channel reflects the same, the same thing on all the other channels, but that it's tailored as well. I hate when I see a subject line from a brand. Um, they email me and then I get an SMS and it's the exact same copy. I don't mind that you've contacted me on both, but, but separate them. You know, like, let's, let's come up with something new to keep it interesting and let's space out that timing. Um, you obviously want to keep your brand front of mind and you want it to be consistent so that your customer understands you, but also reflect A, the channel that you're on. Um, and b, keep in mind that they might, they might see this, they might see you everywhere. If they're a really engaged member of your community. They're on the website, they're getting ads, they're flipping, probably follow you on socials, they're Getting emails and SMS's and app pushes and pop ups on the side and all that kind of stuff. And um, you want it to be consistent but different enough that it's always exciting and never, never feels repetitive. I think a good way of doing this is a switching up your copy from medium to medium to maintain a theme, but just be different. Um, the other thing that I like to do is will always to space everything out. You're always keeping in my preferred channel tagging, but then also think, yeah, what, what is relevant, um, to the channel. You would never post the same thing on TikTok that you would on Instagram. For all of my socially savvy people out there, you shouldn't do the same thing through email and sms. It just reads different. It feels different. You know, I feel like you can always be a bit cheeky on an app push because it's a bit, you know, fun. And um, sms, you got to be quick because you're only got so many characters. Same thing with a subject line you're trying to stand out a subject line, you're trying to stand out amongst you know, thousands of emails in an inbox, all these different brands and sms, they're opening your sms, it's just you, it's just you and them so you can have that, that different um, communication.

Speaker A: Yeah, I love that.

Speaker C: Now the differentiation point is. Yeah, definitely resonates with me. Something that we always recommend as well. Um, you know right from like I was looking at some of advice that the um, uh, customer success team were giving out. Um, um, and some of my partners are giving out bfcm. Um and they're saying like you know in bfcm like a lot of brands they uh have like they put on time sensitive things or they're trying to cut through the noise. So they'll often go text first on communication. Like they'll push it out text first. So it's important to make sure that when you post BFCM that you know, you might want to switch that back to email first and that's the same as like you know a seasonal thing. But by the same token if you've got a consumer um, that has only ever engaged with text messages then just also send them text message, text text first or don't send an email at all um because that's the way they prefer to be communicated with because emails channel doesn't work for them. Um, and vice versa as well. Why spend the money on text message if they happy to receive and buy emails? Um, uh, buy off an email. Um, you know it's really about you know, communicating with people the way that they wanted to. That's why we recommend that you know, when people uh, are looking at these sort of multi channel, multi touch communication methods, um, you know, use the products that you use. Like obviously I work for Klaviyo so I'm going to say use for these Klaviyo but whatever it is that you do use, make sure that the email and text message is talking to each other. Um, because they are, it's one person receiving those two pieces of communication. Email, text, um, um and push make sure it's all talking to each other. Because if one person is receiving the same message over and over and over again for every single channel, it's not going to be a great experience. Just it's straight up going to be a bad time. Um, so that's all you say. Just make sure that they're all talking to each other and um, you're not just Blasting. To your point, Liz, you're not just blasting and same message to all of those mediums at the same time.

Speaker A: Yeah, I think it turns into noise, right. From a consumer perspective. And I think like it always blows my mind the brands that have no strategy in place around sunsetting or calming down on communication. You know, like, I'm like, cool, I bought something from you five years ago. I clearly am not interested because I've never been back and haven't opened your emails. Why are you still emailing me? So we were chatting about this, the office last week, like uh, probably twice a year. I'm like, okay, this week is going to be an unsubscribe week. Like I, anything that's no longer relevant to me, I'm gonna go and like actually click the unsubscribe. But it always makes me realize how big Klaviyo is because every single one of them is like based on the URLs on clay

Speaker C: shortener

Speaker A: K. Click. Yes, absolutely.

Speaker C: Um, but yeah, it's, it's, it's, it's super important. And the other, the other piece is like, uh, and this is what makes uh, any. When you're using the platform that you use to manage all this communication, whether Clavi or something else. Also, I'd say other thing is make sure that it is taking in as much data as possible as well, because those touch points can be, you know, you said 20, did you say, David, 20 different touch points before makes purchase. Those touch points come from everywhere they're coming from. Um, like literally they're coming from chat, they're coming from social, they're coming from the website. They come back home absolutely everywhere. So if it's not plugged in and has integrations with the majority of your stack, what's sending out the communication then? Um, you're not really capturing when there's going to be the right time to talk to that individual or how to talk to them effectively.

Speaker A: Like now you're speaking my language, right? Because, you know, I love an API integration, but this is, this is crucial. Like for me, when we're deciding on a tech stack, it's like, cool, what in the tech stack doesn't already integrate in? And then what do we need to build integrations for or use some kind of tool to integrate back into Klaviyo, because the more you understand your customers, the more targeted you can be in your approach and the less kind of spray and walk away or spray and pray you have to do. Um, because you actually understand what the customer wants I think the crucial piece, I wanted to dig a little bit deeper on the SMS part. Um, uh, yeah, I, I think SMS for us in New Zealand is um, you know, it's, it's the reality of it is it's not the cheapest channel, um, especially because of short code requirements and things. But then the results on the flip side, like we had a brand, we asked them, when are we going to do this, when are we going to do this? When are we going to do this? And then at 10am on Friday they're like, oh yeah, I think we're ready for this. Can you do some segmentation? So that was a fun time um, for the team. But you know, the actual instant gratification that you get out of SMS is obviously insane. Like click rates where I think for Merchant we were about 15x what we get on email. Um, and that was their first ever campaign. How are you guys, um, kind of using SMS and how do you use it within your wider communication strategy?

Speaker B: I love sms. I think it definitely has its time and place. I do think sometimes it can be overused. Um, I love preferred channel tagging. It's one of the first flows I set up when I started at Meshki, um, because I just found we were sending SMS to everyone and everyone wasn't engaging necessarily. Um, and like you said, they're expensive, they can be so effective when you send them to the right audience. But if your customers aren't engaging with you on sms, they're going to unsubscribe, um, or worse, you're going to be sending them things, they're going to continue to get annoyed with you, um, and you're wasting your money and your time. So definitely preferred channel tagging. We use it in, so obviously we have that individual flow set up but then we use it in every single one of our flows. And when it comes to peak periods where we are sending more multi channel communications and we're sending higher volumes, um, we use them in our campaigns just to ensure that we're targeting you where, where you, where you want to be targeted.

Speaker C: Yeah, I love that, I love that you put that in place because that's what people always think. Oh, we want people to send more text messages. We just want to send if they, if that's the right way to communicate to get the desired response, which is a transaction. Um, uh, and there's, but there's always going to be times of the year, um, seasonal, like you know, Black Friday start Monday. But also we had, we had a requirement and we had to expand on ASMS capabilities recently because, because um, we had a couple of requirements from merchants, um, uh, locally, um, that were they would do things like um, put on a sale on the website. Um, they'll like do a shock drop on the website, um, of a sale, um, or, or product, I can't remember, for the sale or product. Um, um, but it'll be available for the next hour. Um, you're not going to send an email for that. You um, just straight up, I'm not going to send an email for that. Because you get home you're so frustrated.

Speaker A: You're like oh my God, I got

Speaker C: this email an hour and a half ago. Personal email twice a day. That's, that's me anyway, I check my personal email twice a day so you're not going to get that out window. Um, so what we had to do was adjust our throughput on messages so that um, you know, these brands also, you know, sending messages to tens of thousands of people at the same time and there's a logistics thing there of making sure that they all get the, they all, it all gets through the channels through the telecommunications network. Um, so we literally have to adjust this to allow brands to do that. But things like that can be super effective broadly, but as a general rule of thumb, as business as usual, but that's you know, special. They're not going to do shock drops on their website every, every, every single day of the week or they're going to do weekly. They're not going to do it monthly. They probably do it quarterly if that. They probably do it really realistically a couple of times a year. Um, and Black Friday, Cyber Monday is only once a year. So when it comes down to it, it's just like your BAU communication should encompass what is that person's, what, what way does that person like to be communicated with? Um, what I'm keen on hearing, Liz as well is like you mentioned, you guys are using, utilizing uh, uh, for that sort of tailored um, uh, uh, communication. You also easily utilizing WhatsApp and direct messages. How's that going? Like how does that serve a different purpose to text messaging? Um, is that uh, as far as you know, the idea behind that communication?

Speaker B: Yes. So obviously it's a much more, for lack of a better word, I would say intimate communication that's not necessarily awesome. I think it's important to really isolate your absolute top customers like who are ah, your best friends in the universe where it's okay to be communicating them with them on these really personal platforms. You Know where they talk to their family and their friends. Um, they're definitely used to being emailed and used to being sms. I think that that obviously in marketing your consumer's used to that and expects that. Um, but if you're going to start with those more social platforms, start really small, um, and make it really meaningful. Is it to genuinely offer, you know, I've been talking about um, sending out communications on scale. We don't really do that there. It's genuinely, uh, can I help style you for this? So I noticed, you know, you wear mashki on every holiday you go on. I'd love to help you with your packing list. You know what's missing? Um, we've got, we're expanding our categories all the time, um, to offer more and more across areas like bridal and things like shapewear and accessories and swim and they're little add ons to introduce to our customers that really help. So I actually work really closely um, with a great customer service team to identify those opportunities of customers who they have to reach out to our customer service team for that support. Um, but we want to be able to meet them where they are and be proactive in those communications and turn up first. So I'd say start small with your absolute most loyal VIPs. Tailor those communications so that they're perfect. Um, because you don't want to start batching and blasting there. It gets weird.

Speaker C: Yeah. Yes, I love that.

Speaker A: So funny too. I think there's such a cultural difference between different regions of the world when it comes to this type of thing though. Like, like the Chinese for example are very used to getting everything through WeChat. And I mean I, I grew up in the Netherlands. Like the um, amount of users in The Netherlands of WhatsApp is higher than the population and that's like the default method. So if I want to speak to a retailer in um, in the Netherlands, you WhatsApp them. That's the only real way of communication and that's usually also how you get messages. Um, and then like in India you'll get literally message after message after message after message from brands. So it's like super noisy in there. Whereas I think for me most of what I have on WhatsApp now is like family communication. But then I'm starting to see more brands kind of starting to pop up in that space.

Speaker C: Um, the brand communication I've seen in the space, like locally here in Australia, I haven't um, encountered, I haven't, I haven't used what's happened those in those other regions. But um, the one I don't mind, uh, um, and I, uh, think often shows is things like flight reminders like, yeah, hey, your flights about to board. Like it's genuinely something helpful and I guess it's what you're getting towards, Liz. It's like you've done to a small audience. They're engaged, highly engaged and this is genuinely something that is helpful. Um, it's, it's um, which may result in a transaction but it's, it's designed to help over, over everything.

Speaker B: Do you know what I like about that? And just to flick to the chat guys. I know, sorry, I don't know if anyone's been reading the chat. There's a few really great questions in there. But Hannah must, um. SMS is still slow in the uptake in New Zealand. People don't trust it as much. How would you suggest we warn people to it without spamming them? To Jeremy's point, I love a transactional sms you guys. I love it and our customers love it because it's helpful. We're not trying to sell them anything where you know they've already shopped, we're just trying to help them. We're trying to give them a better customer experience. Um, we find that out generally actually to be honest, across all mediums, transactional comms are um, massive revenue drivers for us because we show them a great brand experience so they can come back. It almost goes hand in hand. So I would say when you're trying to warn people to the concept, start honestly with things like an order confirmation sms. Firstly, um, they'll identify that they can trust your number. I think spamming and phishing and hacking and all that stuff really worries people, especially with links in SMS's. So it's fine with an order confirmation SMS that links back to your website to recap what they've ordered, they can check their details. I um, know ours updates with um, live status updates. Um, that is kind of how I would start with sms. If you wanted to get your audience used to it, if it wasn't as culturally accepted or used.

Speaker C: Yeah, I completely, yeah, we see that working so, so well all the time. It's that and then probably the next evolution of that is if they have, if you've got some sort of returns desk or something along those lines, it's fantastic. It's way easier than to be replying back and forth to some texts. Um, uh, rather than um, you know, waiting for the email and then, you know, walking away from you and coming back, it's like quick text message, like what, what's the issue? Was it damaged? Was it wrong side, so on and so forth. Um, um, yeah. So any of those completely, completely on board with that yet if they, if they're not used to it, transactional is a great place to start.

Speaker A: Yeah, I love that too. And I think like any good um, communication strategy, right? Like not everything, not, not, not everything is around sales. And yeah, to your point, transactional emails is one component of that. Or transactional SMS versus email is one component of that. But even education and like my, one of my favorite examples of um, it's on the email side but I think could be applied across any channel. Um, is actually Dyson, like I bought a vacuum cleaner from them like five years ago. It's amazing by the way. And when I registered my product after a month they just sent me an email to say, hey, um, it's now time to wash your filter and here's a like one minute video on how to do it.

Speaker C: Like.

Speaker A: But the fact that five years ago that happened and I still remember that today shows you how powerful that actual education component is and it's made me more loyal to that brand. Which you can in turn measure through, you know, all of the tools that you've got. But I think like anything you can do that's not just about hey, buy the next product for me. Buy, buy the next product from me. Um, is always a powerful way to communicate with anyone. And I think this, you know, to your point, transactional is one component. But even post purchase stuff like hey, just wanted to check in, how's this going? And yeah, for us, for quite a few of our brands in the top flows, actually the review request is like always M drives revenue and you're like, you just got to request the review and now you're spending money again. This is amazing.

Speaker C: Oh yeah, I've seen that more than a few times.

Speaker A: Yeah, the reviews, um, because actually you're asking like, hey, how was your experience? And people like oh, that's right. It was actually amazing. Like you know, as opposed to like hey, you need to buy something else. No, hey, how was it? And then it gets them to think about it, right?

Speaker C: So it's um, yeah, it's um, it's, it's. And if you do go down the sales. I'm sorry Dave, I was thinking about Dyson. You know, the new ones actually have it on the LCD screen or the readout. Actually I just, I got one of the new Dysons and um, first time I took apart the filter and actually showed me how to replace it on the actual product itself. So when we get push notifications into Dysons then that I think will be

Speaker A: Internet of things.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: Ah, I did just buy the air purifier and it's the same, it's got little screen on it.

Speaker C: Um. I was going to say the um. But if you, if you do go down the sales path path and, and you are just ah, answer that questions around out. If you do want to send an offer out make sure it's worthwhile because that is the most intrusive form of marketing you're likely to have um at that point in time is because think about it, your phone gives you a notification. You pick up your phone because there's only really a few people that text me actual SMS message me and it's basically my parents don't use WhatsApp so it's going to be one of them um, or it's going to be someone in a professional capacity or it's going to be marketing message. Um so I, I usually pick up my phone each time um, one of those messages comes to me. Um, so it's always important to keep that in mind. Just don't send junk through and a

Speaker A: priority as we mentioned before too right. Like if you're like for me one of the companies I, allow me to um, SMS me is, is actually a petrol retailer because they'll send a text whenever they've got a um, special on um but I always get notified like hey, it's 15 cents off leader from tomorrow morning. I'm like okay, sweet. I need a petrol anyway like that for me is like just, it's, it's just a type and I'm a, I'm a Dutchy, right. I always find the best deal on something like petrol because petrol is petrol, you know, like and I need to get it. So it's like oh, it just reminds me, it triggers me to actually go and buy it. Um, so it's so power, it can be so powerful but you got to think about how you're using it as a channel. Absolutely awesome. Well guys, I feel like I could go for another three hours. This has been super interesting and there's heaps more that we could be talking about but I can uh, see at the time and uh, or see from the time that we're starting to near the end of the uh, conversation. I think one um, uh, comment I saw in the chat as well which was a cool strategy around kind of being really hyper transparent with 30, 20, and 15%. Um, I thought that was quite a cool one.

Speaker C: Yeah.

Speaker A: Strategy, uh, as well, like, hey, you're gonna save the most if you buy right now. Ignore every. Ignore those dollars you put aside for Black Friday, the day itself. Go and buy from me now, because you'll get the highest discount.

Speaker C: I like that, too. I've seen a few people pull it off. Yeah, it's, um. That's a good one. Really, really good one.

Speaker A: I love, uh. I love skincare products, by the way. And the Ordinary for me was a really cool one. They actually shut their entire shop on Black Friday. So they. They are the opposite. They're like, no, we closed down. And then after that, you can get a sale. But, um, like, they just do something different. And I think that's. For me, like, anything that's different and helps you stand out is always a good, um. Good. Good. Interesting way of engaging with your consumers. Cool. Well, thanks, guys. It's been an absolutely fantastic session. I, um, think Liz's camera has just kicked, uh, off.

Speaker C: They could all hurt your wi fi.

Speaker B: Sorry, guys.

Speaker C: That's okay.

Speaker B: I'm doing my best.

Speaker A: But, guys, I wanted to say thank you so much for jumping on. I think it was, uh, yeah, super insightful. I hope, uh, everyone that's, uh, jumped in live enjoys that. And for those of you watching this later, um, I hope you got some insights out of that. And, uh, yeah, thank you guys so much. Really appreciate it.

Speaker C: Thanks, David. Thanks, Liz. And thanks, everybody.

Speaker A: Thanks, guys.

Speaker B: Thanks.