Not only are we great at throwing industry meetups, we’re great at picking days without the heatwave! The 25th didn’t get above 85 degrees, probably due to the ice-cold free drinks we were slinging all night to the 100+ attendees at Birch Hoboken. Let’s recap!
Along with our partners P3 Media and Easyship, Refersion hosted another successful meetup for merchants, business owners, eCommerce agencies, and those just looking to get started selling online on the Shopify platform. The night started with an introduction by Refersion’s CEO Alex Markov, telling the audience that between the free food and drinks, they’d be hearing from successful Shopify businesses on real-world insights into how they each grew their customer base.
Alex then gave the floor to the first speaker of the night, Rivky Itzkowitz from Impact Fashion. Rivky not only owns the brand, she’s also the designer, model, and basically the “everything person” for her shop! Who better to learn from than the superwoman who literally does it all?
Rivky explained that she had to pivot once she understood the challenges of gaining customers. Her initial problems were the same ones that most boutique luxury brands have in common: items are expensive, they’re difficult to keep in stock (a common issue for smaller businesses that deal in a high-end product), and most clothing is event-focused (as opposed to general wear). With these obstacles recognized, Rivky knew she had to change her brand strategy to acquire more customers.
So Rivky zig’d when everyone else zag’d. She made her clothing line less expensive, which also helped with keeping items in stock, and made sure the outfits and jewelry could be worn as everyday items, not just for special occasions. This led to much wider appeal and helped Impact Fashion reach more customers who liked her designs, as well as those who made “impulse buy” decisions more frequently with the lower price tag.
And it worked! Orders increased by nearly 200%, and the number of returning customers more than doubled. Rivky said the key to these changes came from truly listening to her customers, especially the ones that appreciated her mission of body positivity and stylish modesty. An amazing success story throughout.
Next up was Stephen Hersh, CEO at Biaggi, an innovative company who pioneered folding 4-wheeled luggage and now, a whole lot more. Sound familiar? That might be because you saw Stephen win big on the hit show Shark Tank! An investment from Lori Greiner has paid off handsomely for all parties involved.
As Biaggi grew, Stephen said they focused on 4 main questions when it came to their customer acquisition:
- Who are my customers?
- How do I reach them?
- What do I show them?
- How much can I spend?
Diving deep into each of these four questions revealed Biaggi’s target demographic, where they lived online (for targeted campaigns), what sort of content motivated them to act, and how much to spend on them by using 3 key metrics in their data to track… 3 key metrics that only our audience gets to know (so make sure you come to our next meetup to learn all the helpful hints!).
As for results, Biaggi’s sales numbers speak for themselves. From annual revenue going from $40,000 to well above $2 million in just four years, Stephen’s work in finding the right customers and marketing to them in a way that elicits a response has definitely succeeded.
All that’s left for them now is to go global!
Our final presentation came from Renske Gosselink, co-Founder at Noobie Box, a gift box company with a focus on women on their journey of motherhood. Their flagship item is a free gift box for expecting mothers, as well as gift boxes, appropriate from pregnancy through the first year with the new baby.
With a clear niche and a positive message and product, Renske knew that Noobie would want to leverage referral marketing and influencer marketing to spread awareness of their gift boxes. But they didn’t know how exactly to select and reward influencers for sharing their brand. And they knew that if the incentives weren’t right, there just wouldn’t be any referrals coming in at all.
To do referral marketing the right way, with solid data, Noobie launched the “Noobie Ambassador Program” using Refersion. This way, they could create exclusive offers just for their ambassadors, as well as create personalized discount codes which would be automatically tracked and logged in Refersion. They also made the wise decision to create separate referral programs: one for all their customers, and one for just their Ambassadors. This helped them track their most loyal and active supporters, and reward them accordingly.
The results? Over 1,000 affiliate orders since launching the Noobie Ambassador Program in May of this year. With more motivated reps, shares on social media are up, leading to a full 20% of their new customer acquisition coming directly through referrals. It’s safe to say that Renske and Noobie are now big proponents of data-driven referral programs!
And that was it for the speakers! As more food and drinks were consumed, they stuck around to chat with our audience in informal Q & A, and the night ended with positivity all around. Another successful learning meetup in the books. Check out all the pictures from the fun night here!
