I used to be thrilled to be part of the NextGen Retail Leaders Digital Roundtable hosted by the Nationwide On-line Retailers Affiliation (NORA) in November. As a part of the occasion, I sat down with Emma Quirk, International Digital Advertising and marketing Supervisor at at Australian suncare model Bondi Sands to debate buyer loyalty and retention forward of their greatest peak season and the steps they took to construct their wonderful loyalty program with Yotpo.

1. What are your greatest peak seasons and the way do you forecast for them?  

For Bondi Sands, we now play in 4 main markets: APAC, NA, the UK and Europe. And being predominantly a self-tanning model, we undoubtedly do see robust seasonality throughout our areas, with our peak seasons primarily based round summer season — circling round our self-tan and suncare ranges.

We take insights throughout every market’s key peak seasons as they wrap up for that yr, to use any key learnings we have now seen to the markets which are then coming into into their peak season. Nevertheless, no market is ever the identical and localization could be very key! We additionally look into our previous information for earlier developments inside every market, after which overlay these developments with our gross sales goals and KPIs to kind the premise of our forecast and key digital exercise.

2. With so many peak seasons to handle, are you able to discuss us by means of the way you strategy buyer retention? And has it modified because the pandemic?

Effectively, it has undoubtedly modified because the pandemic — that’s for certain! Throughout our harshest lockdowns, we noticed a lot of our retail doorways shut. This actually allowed us to pivot and put extra emphasis on-line by way of our world eCommerce websites. With a lot enterprise concentrate on eComm, it turned our precedence door throughout that point.

It additionally made us evolve sooner. We checked out methods to extend our digital disruption out there and targeted on the sources and platforms that will assist elevate our eComm. We re-platformed our web site, shifting to Shopify Plus, which has made such a optimistic impression — having a very built-in web site allowed us to offer clients the perfect on-line expertise.

We shifted CRM platforms too, shifting to Klaviyo, which made us in a position to see extra of our first-party information and have that single buyer view. That actually helped us elevate our electronic mail advertising practices. After which in fact the rollout of our loyalty program!

3. How did your loyalty program come to be and the way did you construction it?

We launched our loyalty program, Bondi Babe Rewards in Could 2021. It’s a completely built-in loyalty program which runs on our eCommerce Shopify web site and can also be related to our CRM community, social channels, customer support helpdesk and our evaluate platform, Yotpo.

When it comes to the steps we took to construct out our program, having our buyer on the forefront of Bondi Babes Rewards was of the utmost significance to us, and that’s precisely the place we began. We wished to know what our clients want to see from us and our loyalty program. So, we surveyed a bunch of our VIP clients, asking questions on what kind of loyalty applications they have been at present utilizing, what they favored, what they didn’t like and what they worth most from loyalty applications. This turned the bones of our program’s construction.

When in search of the suitable loyalty accomplice, we wished to make sure we had synergies throughout our eCommerce platform, CRM community, social channels, and many others. Having a robust relationship with Yotpo, our Rankings & Evaluations accomplice, made us determine it was the perfect match to proceed the partnership into the loyalty arm of their enterprise. As a digital-first model, we see how essential opinions and referrals are, and have loved working with Yotpo to deliver these components into our loyalty program.

4. You latterly shared with me that since we began working with you, loyalty ROI elevated by 348% — an enormous achievement.

Sure! Since launching in Could we’re seeing unbelievable outcomes throughout the board, throughout all our KPIs, particularly our total program ROI!

5. What recommendation would you supply manufacturers who’re interested by beginning a loyalty program?

I might inform different companies trying to arrange their very own loyalty program to take their time, to grasp your first-party information and your buyer earlier than leaping ft first into loyalty.

We spent quite a lot of time ensuring that our goals and KPIs have been sound. We ran monetary modelling to make sure our loyalty program can be worthwhile to run and frolicked making 3-year projections to point out the optimistic impression loyalty can have on the enterprise.

Testing can also be key. We frolicked testing the performance, the logic, and the shopper expertise earlier than we went dwell. Having a strong testing interval was essential to iron out any glitches or points to keep away from any buyer dissatisfaction at launch. You undoubtedly need to launch and be capable of ship on the belongings you mentioned you’d, so testing is essential!

6. What are you doing at Bondi Sands to foster neighborhood?

Neighborhood is so essential to us and making our clients really feel like part of the model! Throughout digital and social we have now totally different neighborhood teams our clients can be a part of and take part in: our FB Group (Babes Who Bondi), electronic mail advertising (Membership Bondi), and loyalty program (Bondi Babe Rewards). We supply distinctive experiences inside these communities, offering pre-sale entry for brand spanking new product launches, early entry to buy our promotions on-line, involvement in trial groups to check new merchandise earlier than they hit the shelf, and in addition alternatives to contain our Bondi Lovers in our advertising campaigns.

We just lately launched a complete new class for us — skincare! Which is so thrilling and really totally different for Bondi Sands. Our On a regular basis Skincare vary is positioned to be created for actual pores and skin and examined by actual folks. So we reached out to our communities to be the face of the launch, to be our On a regular basis Influencers. To trial the merchandise for 30 days and to shoot weekly check-ins of their pores and skin journey which we have now now utilized throughout each touchpoint of our skincare launch. It’s so thrilling to see our passionate clients on the forefront!

7. What are you most enthusiastic about in 2022? Any developments you need to discover?

Aside from constructing the success of our loyalty program additional, one actually thrilling alternative I’m most trying ahead to in 2022 is partnering with TikTok on a deeper stage. Now we have simply applied TikTok Store for our NA area for natural social purchasing — just like instagram checkout within the US. We’re additionally trying into additional testing new advert options throughout TikTok, like conversion adverts and assortment adverts to proceed the eComm momentum for the enterprise.