Playing for Keeps: Recent Episodes
Churn Buster
Retaining customers has never been more important for eCommerce businesses. Join Kristen LaFrance, eCommerce retention specialist and head of community at Churn Buster, as she interviews guests from the top subscription businesses to learn how the best in the DTC space are retaining customers. If you're growing a subscription based business, running a subscribe and save program on your site, or just plain interested in hearing stories from the top DTC businesses, Playing for Keeps is for you.
- Checkout is one of the key points that make or break your conversion rate, but most brands have very little control in that arena
- How to create a more cohesive experience between your traffic sources and your sales pages
- "Optimizing" the happiness of your customers
- How personalized upsells can reward customers for making the purchase decision (within the purchase window)
- Discounting on an upsell can work really well because it’s not public- it’s a great way to reward a purchase, rather than incentivizing one
- “[SMS] is high risk and high reward.”
- Moving SMS from “one-to-many” communication to one-to-one
- “When I look at a thank you page- that’s not a receipt. That is the first ‘goodbye’ in your relationship… If you want to meet again, how do you say goodbye? With a receipt?”
- Connect with Jordan on Twitter (@jordangal), check out his podcast, Bootstrapped Web, and learn more about CartHook here
- How Felix Gray helps customers find the perfect fit by combining digital and in-store experiences
- 3 factors to work through: style, price, and brand equity
- Cross-selling for a product that generally lasts for years
- How different SKUs face different kinds of competition
- Building a website flow to help customers self-segment
- Maintaining brand standard across a ton of different channels
- Targeting paid ads when your product connects with a broad cross-section of consumers
- How Felix Gray segments customers to better understand repeat purchase rates (and offer better education)
- Establishing authority in a “post-trust” era
- Using data to decide when to launch products
- Overcoming customer mistrust of loyalty programs
- Loyalty emails perform ~14x better than standard marketing emails
- Here’s the LoyaltyLion blog
- Building up a base of loyal customers is a great way to avoid a race to the bottom on price
- Different methods for rewarding loyalty and how to tie those into your brand values
- Rewarding existing behaviors that signal engagement
- Building a better value exchange for loyalty programs- not just data for perks
- You don’t need to have everything together when you launch your loyalty program- releasing new rewards and incentivizing new behaviors is exciting for your customers
- Here’s more about TheCHIVE’s loyalty program, and here’s Annmarie Skincare
- How major players “pull the market up with them”
- Creating an Amazon-level experience through the entire customer journey
- Balancing fast shipping with environmental concerns and the core elements of your brand
- Distributing fulfillment centers geographically is a great way to get quicker shipping and a lower overall carbon footprint
- How to use storytelling in shipping
- Approaching fulfillment less as a cost center and more as a revenue driver that can build a better overall business
- How to use free and quicker shipping thresholds to improve AOV
- In-depth data can be a tool for understanding when it's possible to make operational exceptions
- How free and two-day shipping can increase your conversion rate
- Follow Casey on Twitter: @caseya
- Iterating a product through some rough initial steps- the product itself might not necessarily be “there” but the right value prop and idea is an important start
- Retention for a product designed to last years
- “Acquiring an audience via content and then retaining them as customers”
- Content can be a powerful tool for keeping potential customers engaged over a much longer buyer’s journey
- Tortuga’s content needs to be tailored to a really specific, niche set of needs, which makes it great for onboarding post-purchase
- Educating customers on the ways that products interrelate is a great tool for cross-selling
- Using a flagship product to drive purchases of other SKUs
- Helping customers make a series of smaller decisions rather than getting overwhelmed in a single moment
- The (surprising) value of recommending products from other companies
- Building your team with a focus on retention
- Diversifying ads to look native on newer social media platforms
- How Facebook advertising has shifted over the past few years (and what that means for brands)
- The experience of an ad vs conversion rate alone
- Why dropshipping is more of a struggle in 2020
- Using different campaigns for different parts of the funnel is a powerful tool for both acquisition and retention
- How to use retargeting for upsells and cross-sells (and deciding which products to push in these ads)
- Signals that let you know if your ads are working
- Retargeting is expensive on Facebook, but CPMs on newer platforms like Snapchat can be much lower
- How Savannah harnesses UGC to establish trust
- Bringing your most evangelical customers to the forefront in your advertising
- Why the customer portal is so important for subscription businesses
- Creating an education focus on the backend of a site
- The importance of keeping things exciting for a subscriber
- “Subscribers are really dictating how the merchant is creating the subscription experience”
- The three layers of retention and why CX platforms tend to get overlooked
- What actions can customers take beyond pause, skip, and cancel? (Hint: try a swap button)
- Tracking AOV over time
- More on tracking data in retention with Taylor Holiday
- Here’s the portal example from Atlas Coffee and here’s Cocokind’s membership model in action
- Balancing physical franchises and online sales
- Using 10-digit phone numbers vs short codes for SMS
- Replicating the in-store experience online
- SMS becomes more scalable as your team figures out elements to automate but you need to really interact with your customers first to understand their needs
- “Growth is only as good as your retention.”
- How a short supply chain gives brands a much faster turnaround on their creative
- Combating subscription fatigue by staying relevant
- How Sanjay balances the needs of consumers and team members
- “The world is my swipe file”
- Being the top product in a category vs raising the bar for the whole category
- Amazon has incredibly low marketing costs for a business of its size because they’ve nailed down a competitive advantage in operations
- “You can only spend your way to growth for so long before you have to dig in and have a better understanding of retention, repeat engagement, customer lifetime value, like, LTV:CAC equation, and understand at what point and to what degree you’re going to actually turn a profit and be a sustainable brand.”
- Customer experience is the primary differentiator for brands, and being evidence-based and predictive in your approach helps to underline all the work that you do here
- Operations are a core driver of customer experience- so what happens after checkout?
- Honing in on the sources of your variable costs- the two biggest cost drivers for DTC brands beyond product cost are variable marketing & the cost of fulfillment
- How real time operational state awareness and understanding the value of a customer (and order) can be used to respond to issues
- Here’s the Allbirds open letter to Jeff Bezos
- Learn more about SoundCommerce here
- The biggest trends in email marketing right now
- Using email as a narrative channel- it’s a great place to build out your brand story for customers
- How to use popups without being intrusive or damaging your brand
- Most cart abandonment happens before the checkout flow, so you need to combine exit intent popups with intelligent targeting
- How to differentiate while customers are waiting to receive the product
- Three things that impact email signup popup conversion the most: content in a form (converts at about 1%), an offer (converts at about 5%), “spin to win” (converts at about 15%)
- Don’t rush into broadcast SMS- focus on the use-cases and flows you already know are important
- How to follow up from a popup (tell them a story)
- Here’s the blog post about Privy’s pivot into the DTC space
- Retention Bite #3 on this page covers post-purchase emails (plus great examples from August Uncommon and Rooted NYC)
- Connect with Ben: @Jabbawy on Twitter
- Agency fees v.s. Guru guarantees: where operators turn with questions about PPC
- The central formula for ADMission’s approach to growth: Profit = (Visitors x Conversion Rate x 60-day LTV) - Costs
- Focusing on bottom line profit rather than top line revenue for better cash flow
- “Valuable content centers on the story your audience already inhabits, entering it not as the hero but as a human helper. Pick that story wisely and tell it honestly, no matter the medium on which it appears.” -Aaron Orendorff
- Why it’s so important to set goals for paid advertising before you start spending
- How to calculate profitable PPC spend for your specific brand
- Machine learning matters: “Let Facebook find your customers” then “keep iterating on success”
- Here’s the eCommerce strategy resource Kristen mentions at the end
- Join ADMission (at a discount)
- Reach out to Adrianne for access to the CAC:LTV webinar
- Creating a cohesive set of experiences through the whole customer journey means nailing down your tech and focusing on intangibles
- Creating a “value add” at every touchpoint instead of independent experiences
- How Elliot is built to even the digital playing field
- Marketing to individuals vs marketing to organizations
- The connections between DTC and SaaS/consumer tech
- “You can’t optimize brand marketing. You have to feel it- and oh my god, I hate saying that.”
- Looking at selling as a process largely external to your site
- Drops are way more interesting than teasing a release
- To meaningfully use a channel, you need to both create and consume from it
- Connect with Marco on Twitter: @allthingsmarco
- Customer-led buying, selling, and trading can help subscribers stay invested when they already have a ton of product
- How engaged customers become part of the Battlbox team
- Dealing with both active and passive churn
- The huge difference that a .5% improvement in retention can make
- Replenishment subscription vs curated box subscription
- Looking at brand experience from a customer perspective
- Using YouTube for both acquisition and retention
- Focusing your branding around a range of customer personas
- Building a passion project into something much bigger
- It’s not about creating a new habit- it’s reshaping existing rituals
- “Everything, to have a successful communication, is about context”
- Books referenced: Start With Why by Simon Sinek and Obviously Awesome by April Dunford
- “Consider your product as a feature of the experience”
- DTC pizza- could it be a thing?
- Benefit vs value for your customer
- How UGC creates context and tells the story of your product
- Selling isn’t just about price and convenience anymore- it’s about deeper values
- The difference between a subscription and a membership
- Investing time to create impact (doing the hard things that no one’s doing)
- Here’s the booklet Kristen mentions
- The different kinds of alcohol shopping- impulse buyer vs loyal buyer
- What DTC brands can learn from the wine industry- here’s the thread Kris mentions
- How Haus uses events to build up community and loyalty
- The best subscriptions reward customers for behavior they already engage in
- Why Haus focused initially on large cities and gradually moved into smaller developing markets (Seattle, Portland, Denver)
- “Community is an amazing thing for us because, just from a brand perspective, we’re about getting together over a drink”
- Organic growth is much harder to predict, and retention is vital to creating predictable revenue
- “It’s not about the freakin’ drink- it’s about the things that happen over the drink.”
- Starting with metrics and moving into qualitative conversations with customers
- Competing in a space that favors massive corporations
- How the American alcohol industry mirrors fast food
- Building a product experience specifically around community and sharing is a powerful tool for organic growth
- Combining generations of winemaking experience with a decade of Silicon Valley expertise
- Here’s the podcast Kristen mentions, with a lot more information on Helena’s background
- How Haus imported a European approach to drinking to the US with millennials in mind
- Consumer products need to be gold standard from the beginning- you can’t iterate a beta over time once it’s in the market
- Using word-of-mouth as a growth lever when there’s not a financial base for paid advertising
- Why Haus puts the product in context in all their imagery
- Customers don’t want the “what”- they want the “why”
- When things are tough, the weak points of your business tend to come to the surface
- Positioning during the COVID-19 crisis doesn’t have to be entirely about the disease- there are a range of ways to look at your product in context of consumer mindsets
- Revenue = (traffic) x (your conversion rate) x (your average order value)
- Understanding the context of the buyer is vital to understanding your own conversion rate
- In times of trouble, consumers tend to retreat back to products they’re already comfortable with
- “Increasing AOV doesn't even have to [be] incentivized, or discounted, or free gift to go with it. It could just be a natural congruency between products that are in your catalog.”
- Email sequences are a great way to shorten the sales cycle by packing in a much broader range of customer touch points
- Here’s Kristen’s last PFK conversation with Allen
- “Just because you have good branding doesn’t mean you’re entitled to trust.”
- The challenges (and opportunities) for subscription brands in different countries
- Building up authority via social proof
- The difference between replenishables and other kinds of subscription
- Mapping the customer journey to the pet-parent relationship
- Disruptive, industry-changing brands face different questions from consumers
- Creating a super personalized checkout and a customized shipping cadence
- How calling customers can be a powerful retention tool
- Being unreasonably flexible in customer service interactions
- Creating tools to help customers take better care of their pets
- “All great strategies focus on the why.”
- Huge amounts of VC money were poured into DTC in 2018 and 2019, but the brands that will thrive have more than just a growth strategy in mind
- How influencers (and rappers) use a retention- and community-first approach
- A lot of DTC brands think the product will speak for itself, but it’s the little things that make a business stand out in competitive markets
- VC funding v.s. Bootstrapping: “Are you pushing all your dollars to the max?”
- Customer experience is retention
- Navigating DTC text
- “Storytelling forces a brand to stand in the shoes of their consumers and decide whether or not they would buy their own product.”
- Brand awareness trumps all marketing metrics
- Great brands don’t follow the trends- they create their own voice
- The next era of DTC brands will fundamentally reshape commerce
- 6 Rules of Great Storytelling (As Told by Pixar)
- Building a brand focused on the Gen Z market
- Here’s Blumetopia
- Using a Close Friends list on Instagram and Facebook to build community
- The signs of success for a loyalty program
- Helping customers transition from traditional brands to organic products
- Check out this amazing email
- Younger customers are really quick to offer feedback, and it’s important shape your channels around that
- How Blume educates their customers with The States of Sex Ed
- “The only way you can serve your community is to be involved in your community”
- Launching SMS grooming advice for customers
- Using organic content as a key growth driver
- How word of mouth can drive 18% of sales
- "Our products are a way for us to fund our mission"
- Tying core values and mission into every part of the brand: freedom, hunger, trust
- Educated customers know that your brand is worth choosing- but it takes more than just a note in the box
- Being (one of) the face(s) of a brand
- Inspiring customers to invest in themselves
A few of the best emails we’ve seen:
- Scratch Pet Food
- Summersalt
- Unbound Babes
- Blume
Other Mentions in this ep:
- Here’s the link to Unbound Babe’s Google Sheet
- Here’s a direct link to the convo we mentioned on Twitter- join us!
- Here's the email Kristen wrote and talked about.
Connect with Kristen and Val:
- Connect with Val on Twitter: https://twitter.com/lovevalgeisler
- Connect with Kristen on Twitter: https://twitter.com/kdlafrance
- Email Kristen (kristen@churnbuster.io) if you need any help moving forward.
Other helpful COVID-19 resources:
- Coronavirus and Ecommerce – Real-time Data, Trends, Predictions, and More (Wallaroo Media)
- Coronavirus’ Impact on Ecommerce: The Latest Data and How to Respond (Common Thread)
- Marketing and Growth Lessons for Uncertain Times (CXL)
- How Glossier builds their customer support team gradually
- The customer for a traditional beauty brand is a department store or Sephora- not the end user
- “You can’t make a business out of selling a lipstick once”
- The relationship with the customer is more valuable than the transaction
- Don’t try to shape customer behavior to your channels- shape your channels to customer behavior
- Rethinking engagement across an entire business
- Every interaction doesn’t need to lead to a transaction
- A couple amazing Glossier emails: https://mail.mixmax.com/m/2ZrBxITEsPN3tDXIf and https://litmus.com/scope/zvv0kkybyi7l
- This episode is best enjoyed after Kristen’s interview with Taylor Holiday
- Working with a (really, really) long post-purchase email flow
- Bundled products can be great play for a higher LTV
- Here are a few fantastic emails to explore from Bambu Earth:
- Pre delivery email
- Great cross-sell email
- Why we exist email (my favorite)
- And because the team at Common Thread and ADmission is so amazing, click here to access the copy of
Bambu Earth's Welcome, Browse Abandonment, and Post-Purchase Flow Examples - Putting the founder and brand story front-and-center in messaging
- How to match ad spend to payback windows
- Who (or what) is the real end user of your product?
- Using Calendly and Google Events for personalized customer connections
- Using CAC:LTV to build a better understanding of acquisition and retention
- You can use cohorts to track more than time- and the results are amazing
- Data shows you what, but not why
- Retaining employees internally for better customer retention and a better company culture
- “Are you trying to exploit the customers that you have, or are you genuinely interested in the experience that they’re having?”
- Using 60-day customer value to realize profitability
- Using a founder-centric approach for your Facebook ads
- Understanding repeat purchase rates for specific products
- Realizing that you’re winning when you think you’re losing
- Taylor and Kohlman Verheyen explain CAC:LTV for one of their brands: https://commonthreadco.com/blogs/coachs-corner/ltv-cac-cohort-analysis
- Gifting as a retention tool
- Influencer photo shoot: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=THbjh-sMvIY
- Bold marketing and establishing trust
- Making a subscription-first model work
- Building giveaways around your hero product introduces customers to your broader product line
- Lots of balls jokes
- Combining product line with customer experience
- Creating community around daily habits
- Want more from Corinne? Connect with her on Twitter (@corinnejuliette) and check out her work here: bigcommerce.com/blog
- How sustainability can become a retention tool
- By the end of 2020, brands that don’t have sustainability programs in place are going to be differentiated- but not in a good way
- DTC brands are much nimbler than large retailers and can pivot in new directions with a lot less work
- Introducing eco-friendly initiatives gradually
- Figuring out better approaches to shipping (and reducing return rates)
- Sustainable practices can become a great source of user-generated content and organic conversation around your brand
- Wait, but what’s greenwashing?
- Thriving in the upcoming shakeup of DTC brands
- You can create authenticity or you can have it built in from day 1
- Using lead magnets in the DTC space can be a great way to lower your CAC- you just need to tap into the genuine needs of your customers
- Adding value rather than taking away for initial acquisition
- "If you need to discount your products then you have the wrong products or the wrong customer."
- Customers with a bad initial impression of the product can become ambassadors for the brand, but you'll need to craft a rock solid customer support experience
- Using mission rather than discounting to build an email list
- Use a shared goal or passion rather than traditional demographics to find your best-fit customer- it's all about the essence of the product (essssennnnnceeeeee)
- What it means to be quick thinkers that don't rush
- Hitting profitability on the first purchase
- How eCommerce and SaaS can learn from each other
- How top funnel activity leads all the way down to retention
- Here’s the email Kris references
- Organically establishing authority by connecting to influencers
- How to use email as a two-way channel
- “The future of beauty is customer-led.”
- How to turn Instagram into a CS platform
- Taking up space in your branding
- Nobody puts baby in the corner
- Customer responses that make you curl up in a ball and ugly cry
- “I don't need to reach millions of people right now. I need to reach like a hundred people.”
- Tiny teams do big things by using automation and email flows to their full potential
- Follow Val Geisler on Twitter
- Follow Kristen on Twitter
- Stay up to date with Kristen's weekly thoughts on retention by signing up for her Retention Bites here.
This episode covers:
- Why retention is so important
- The importance of knowing your customers
- How to understand customer journeys to improve retention
- Why DTC brands are shifting to subscriptions
- The future of the DTC industry
- (And more)
Before you go, we want to say a HUGE thank you to all the guests and listeners that make this show possible. Our conversations have been incredible, and we've been floored by your passion and genuine openness. It's an amazing gift to be a part of the DTC community.
Season two is right around the corner, and we're really stoked. Kristen is chatting with some of the top players in the DTC world, plus a new series of debrief conversations to put it all into perspective.
Want more churn-fighting tips? Keep up with Kristen weekly in our new Retention Bites newsletter- quick tips, thoughts, and actionable advice from the best and brightest in the industry. Sign up here:
https://churnbuster.io/newsletter-signup/
Update: The Piña Colada flavor is amazing. Right now, I'm digging on the Cherry, though :)
- Early-and-insider access provides your best feedback
- How hyper-personalization will change DTC
- Killing plants
- Diversifying a product line
- What's a London Fog?
- Kaleigh on hyper-personalization: https://www.forbes.com/sites/kaleighmoore/2019/11/20/why-online-brands-like-prose-are-leaning-into-hyper-personalization/#297602e737df
- Kaleigh on retention: https://blog.churnbuster.io/ecommerce-retention/
- Kaleigh on sustainable fashion: https://www.forbes.com/sites/kaleighmoore/2019/09/23/how-footwear-brands-are-leveraging-partnerships-and-materials-as-demand-for-sustainability-grows/#6b07ddf92302
- Plus tons of ideas for approaching a DTC brand in new ways
- Every part of a business can have a customer focus- even shipping cadence
- How to get your products to Burning Man
- Doing things early on that won’t scale builds loyalty in the long-run
- Here's the viral video I reference: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RLBDwNQzBDs&t=2s
- Here’s that amazing email: https://blog.churnbuster.io/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/Bite-toothpaste-bits-email.png
- Authentically passionate brands build real engagement- not just likes
- The quote I forgot: “Build your business one person at a time. Just focus on 100 people. If they love you, they will market the product for you and tell everyone else.”- Brian Chesky, CEO of AirBnB
- You beat Amazon by standing out and doing something different
- The doggo instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nemothepeekapom/
- How to scale in the wake of a viral video
- Aaron's questions to unlock your customer's hell
- Ecommerce Loyalty Programs: 25 Strategies Backed by 36 Examples and Over 100 Results & Stats (written by Aaron)
- Freshly Picked's membership program: The Fringe
- Common Thread Collective's LTV:CAC Cohort Analysis
- Yopto's 2019 State of D2C Marketing
- Who Is the Most Handsome Man in Portland, Oregon? Research Reveals
- Follow Fezziwig and Tyrion on Instagram 🐰
- Note: This episode includes 0 editing. Please forgive the marbles in my mouth :)
- Note: Kristen said "Ancient Nutrition aggravated their data".... they did not. The AGGREGATED it. Lol.
- Read the full post: Customer Acquisition Vs. Retention: A Battle For DTC Brand Focus
- Taylor Holiday's CAC:LTV tool
- Further reading: 7 Tips To Help Subscription Retailers Dominate Black Friday And Cyber Monday
- Further reading: 5 Actionable Strategies for eCommerce retention from Kaleigh Moore
- Listen: Ancient Nutrition on identifying promotions that extend subscription lifecycles with Jeff Schnepple
- Sign up for my monthly newsletter!
The world of wine is a $70 billion industry, with ship-to-home programs taking a bigger piece of the pie every day. While other brands are zeroing in on millennials, DRINKS is marketing to all wine enthusiasts, ages 21 - 91. Kristen sits down with Louis Amoroso, president of DTC for DRINKS to discuss how Wine Insiders uses deep personalization, feedback loops, and customer relations to be the powerhouse it is today. Plus, Kristen questions the impact Louis' childhood had on his business endeavor and explores the importance of retail experience in today's landscape.
Retention is the name of the game for subscribe and save programs, but measuring the impacts of your promotions on LTV isn't always an easy task. This week, Kristen chats with Jeff Schnepple, the Director of Marketing Technology at Ancient Nutrition, to learn how they conduct deep data analysis to uncover the offers that lead to the longest (and most profitable) LTVs (like free frothers).
- Get the high-level framework of Wilson Hung's model of increasing MRR.
- Follow Wilson on Twitter.
Learn about Churn Buster's delivery alerts
Kristen's retention emails course + templates
Note: Kristen says "in 2018, 85% of Black Friday Cyber Monday sales came from existing customers of companies" that number is actually 48% according to Klayvio's report"
Read Katelyn's post on Casper here: How crafty marketers use buying triggers to outsmart their competition
For replenishment subscriptions in particular, building customer habits is key to retaining customers and preventing the "too much volume" churn. From personalization to app development, Ritual has a strong focus on this particular area of retention. Tune into this episode with Laura Brodie, Director of Retention at Ritual, learn how Ritual helps their customers build healthy habits.
Imagine seeing your hero product on Amazon's best seller list for an entire year. That's exactly how Kopari Beauty made a splash in the natural beauty industry. Since selling out 5x on Amazon, Kopari has built a massive subscription program centered around their deoderant. Now, the team is working hard to increase average order value of those loyal subscribers. In this episode, Lanie Depasquale, Head of Retention at Kopari Beauty, digs into the nitty gritty on how they've leveraged personalization and education to increase average order value across the business.
It's so much easier to retain customers when you have a raving community built around your products. But how do you create content that drives that community excitement? In this episode of Playing for Keeps, Kristen sits down with Kaitlin Holliday, head of eCommerce + Data at Four Sigmatic to discuss their membership tactics, content development, and community-focused mindset.