Exclusive Q&A: Kendra Scott personalizes customer texts
Jewelry brand Kendra Scott is enhancing its omnichannel customer experience with individualized SMS texts.
In a recent interview with Chain Store Age, Lauren Zarzour, senior director of paid & owned marketing, Kendra Scott, explained why and how the company leverages SMS texts as an omnichannel promotional tool.
What business issues was Kendra Scott facing?
As Kendra Scott continues to evolve our approach to engage with customers, we knew SMS texting was going to be an important tool for us in 2023. Consumer budgets were tight, and shoppers can get overwhelmed with all the marketing messages they receive during the holidays.
SMS allows us to engage with customers in real time and help them find joy in their shopping experiences by guiding them to the perfect gift at the best price point. To deliver upon that vision, we developed plans to ensure customers knew when our biggest sales were live, when popular products are back in stock, and how to find the perfect gift for their loved ones with personalized gift guides in two-way journeys.
Why did you decide to use one-to-one tailored texting technoloy from Attentive?
We know the in-store Kendra Scott shopping experience is a big part of why our customers choose to shop with us and we were inspired to bring the interactive, personalized stylist aspect that customers love into SMS this year.
Attentive provides the platform to engage with our customers in ways that are commonly missed in the digital space. We can learn who they are shopping for, what their budget is, their favorite style and take that information to provide the perfect gift for everyone on their list.
The technology's personalization and automation capabilities helped us build more robust shopper profiles as we continue to bring our one-to-one strategy to life. We had every confidence Attentive could support time-sensitive messaging during the very busy Black Friday – Cyber Monday shopping season.
What have the results been?
For trend-following customers, we sent a GIF showing how celebrities were styling the Kendra Scott Mikki Pave Hoop Earring, during the holiday season, and when it was on sale. This campaign drove a 10.8% conversion and made the Mikki Pave Hoop a popular seasonal purchase.
Finding the perfect gift among the thousands of options at Kendra Scott can sometimes get overwhelming for customers. We used a two-way SMS conversation to guide our customers to a curated, shoppable experience. This approach resonated with our customers and drove a 55.6% click-through rate and up to 48x ROI on gifting recommendations.
Are there future plans for SMS marketing you can discuss?
Kendra Scott is just getting started with SMS and are so excited to continue evolving our segmentation and personalization strategies. SMS is a great tool to drive revenue but also gives us a huge opportunity to provide value to our customers, connect more deeply & build more one-to-one experiences.
We have been exploring Attentive’s AI features, including both generative capabilities and a new feature allowing us to grow our audience size while being cognizant of budget. We’ve been very happy with the results thus far and plan to integrate more AI into our strategy.