The retail panorama is altering. Shoppers are choosier, merchandise are extra specialised, and so as to get clients to stay round for the long-term, manufacturers have to face out amongst their competitors. To sustain, tendencies are biking at lightning pace, prompting attire leaders to launch new collections each few weeks — or try to take action.The result’s that customers at the moment are bombarded with selection. An imaginative and various market is one factor, however when too many choices equate to oversaturation inside a class or fashion, vogue firms should discover new methods to compete.
Princess Polly is aware of this problem properly. The vogue retailer’s response to a quickly evolving digital ecosystem the place shopper markets have grown more and more extra area of interest is a case examine in the energy of understanding — and unifying — the buyer journey.
How Princess Polly rode a social media wave
Beloved by Gen Z shoppers for its influencer-ready aesthetic, Princess Polly’s rise to fame can largely be attributed to the retailer leaning into social media.
Much like its cult-like following of younger clients, the Aussie-born model grew up alongside the rise of social media. Founded in 2010, Princess Polly and Instagram went on-line the identical yr and Twitter had simply reached the peak of its preliminary progress interval. Like its rivals at the time — Nasty Gal and ASOS, for occasion — Princess Polly took discover of how social media might vastly enhance its visibility, and that effectivity was at the core of the strategy.
However, because it rode the wave of a social increase, Princess Polly quickly discovered itself inundated by its quite a few communication channels. While the model deployed a number of consumer-driven marketing methods to succeed in its clients, it was utilizing a separate options supplier for every channel — resulting in a disparate technique and siloed information for its staff, and disconnected experiences for its clients.
What Princess Polly wanted was an strategy by which it might construct buyer experiences that weren’t solely cohesive and persistently on-brand, however partaking and thrilling sufficient to hook its customers and switch them into loyal model advocates. To tackle this endeavor, Princess Polly enlisted the assist of Yotpo, an built-in e-commerce marketing platform that helps companies create linked marketing methods. By partnering with Yotpo, Princess Polly was capable of align their marketing efforts from one platform — a transfer which yielded a wealth of built-in shopper information the model might leverage on its mission to create a extra seamless buyer expertise. Not solely did Princess Polly achieve an in-depth understanding of its clients, its new trove of information empowered the model with the potential to activate the proper touchpoint at the proper time.
To attain its ultra-connected clients, Princess Polly went straight to the supply
With 96 p.c of Gen Z shoppers already proudly owning a smartphone, Princess Polly determined to leverage the instruments already in the arms of its clients via easy, but efficient SMS outreach. As SMS helps the model join with its clients in a literal sense, it additionally gives Princess Polly with information that permits the model to attach on a extra private stage. By understanding who the buyer is and what their preferences are, Princess Polly can generate extremely personalised textual content messages, equivalent to hyperlinks to unique offers and flash gross sales in addition to sneak peaks of related merchandise drops.
The end result? SMS shortly grew to become one in every of Princess Polly’s finest performing channels with campaigns seeing as much as 73x ROI and welcome flows boasting 84% CVR. And not solely was Princess Polly getting via to its followers, outdated and new, their engagement and enthusiasm drove gross sales.
“SMS has been capable of help all of our marketing campaigns,” mentioned Kim Zorn, head of efficiency at Princess Polly. “The efficiency we see on the SMS unique gross sales are unbelievable — the ROI is one in every of the highest amongst our channels.”
Further unifying its strategy, Princess Polly turned to UGC and critiques
Brought up in an period of countless info, Gen Z and millennial shoppers are more and more seeking to their friends to assist them filter via the noise.
With this in thoughts, Princess Polly leveraged the Yotpo platform to combine critiques and visible user-generated content material (UGC) into its e-commerce web site. These options assist take the guesswork out of the buying expertise whereas imprinting an added layer of belief into the minds of its clients.
And with its SMS functionality, Princess Polly was capable of immediately request critiques and visible UGC by way of textual content after the buyer acquired their order.
“Reviews assist our clients discover the proper merchandise and enhance their shopping for confidence,” Zorn mentioned. “Plus, with the visible UGC we gather in overview requests and by way of Instagram, we will showcase galleries of actual folks sporting our merchandise and searching nice. It’s so impactful for our customers.”
Additionally, not solely did critiques assist inform buyer shopping for choices, in addition they supplied Princess Polly with insights into its clients’ experiences with its merchandise.
“We acquired suggestions from a number of clients about how a lot they liked a sure costume, however wished it was barely longer,” mentioned Zorn. “We took that info again to our product division and added two inches to the costume. We would have by no means identified these business-changing insights with out Yotpo critiques.”
For Princess Polly, personalization and belief are fostering model loyalty
As a part of its mission to have interaction clients past the procuring expertise, Princess Polly rolled out a brand new loyalty program that incentivizes engagement with all its marketing channels by rewarding customers with factors for leaving critiques and signing up for SMS.
Structured into VIP tiers, Princess Polly’s loyalty program presents advantages past reductions. The model’s VIP members are rewarded with experiences, equivalent to entry to its non-public Facebook Insider group and even alternatives to be featured on its social channels — a transfer Princess Polly knew would resonate deeply with its viewers of camera-ready followers.
And resonate it did: According to Zorn, VIP participation now averages 74% throughout Princess Polly’s 4 loyalty tiers and 95% of members grew to become redeemers in the most elite tier, Backstage Pass.
“It’s been a dream come true for our clients,” mentioned Zorn. “They get actually excited over the exclusivity and we’re capable of talk higher with them figuring out what they need.”
By uniting the buyer journey in these methods, Princess Polly not solely set itself up for the way forward for retail — it’s forging a path to that future that others are certain to comply with.
