Baby Tula is a cultural phenomenon that has attracted the attention of parents across the world. Learn more about how they use SMS to announce new products.
Combining comfort, high-quality materials, and bold designs, Baby Tula has been recognized as leader in the baby carrying industry.
Baby Tula needed to promote their new products through a marketing channel with higher open and click-though rates than email.
With an embeddable form, Baby Tula collected hundreds of site visitors’ phone numbers. With just one text, they drove a 1,668% ROI.
It’s been featured by everyone from Wired to People. There are Facebook groups dedicated to it with hundreds of thousands of members. If you haven’t heard of it yet, you’ll likely see it on the wishlist of the next baby shower you attend. Baby Tula carriers are taking over. (And making parents lives much more comfortable and stylish in the process.)
It can be difficult to stand out in the baby product industry. Inc. Magazine recently reported that there are over 6,000 online stores in this “niche.” Luckily, Baby Tula’s unique carrier is impossible to emulate. Of course, a one-of-a-kind product is just the first piece of the e-commerce puzzle. The other is keeping customers engaged. And that’s where texting comes in.
We spoke to Kara Glenn, one of Baby Tula’s product managers, and Jessica Carlson, their marketing manager, to find out how they use SMS to keep in touch with their passionate fans.
Before we jump into Baby Tula’s communication strategy, we should probably answer the question—what is a Baby Tula? In short, it’s a stylish, comfortable, baby carrier that comes in colors beyond the traditional blues, beiges, and blacks.
“Our fans love our commitment to giving them new fabrics and styles to choose from. Fans love to collect our products,” explains Kara.
In addition to their wide selection of carriers, blankets, backpacks, and more, Baby Tula launches limited-edition Signature Carriers on a bi-weekly basis that are only available for a limited time. You can think of these Tula Signature Carriers as being similar to collectible Nike sneakers. People line up to order them. In fact, these Signature Carriers are so in-demand that they place 2-per-household limits on every order.
Even though the product drops happen at regular intervals, the team at Baby Tula knew fans wanted a way to be informed right away when new styles were released.
With an open rate of nearly 99%, texting was the solution.
The first step was to build a list of phone numbers. Jessica’s team created a pop-up on their site that directed people to a landing page about Baby Tula’s text alerts.
On the landing page, they used our embeddable web forms to collect phone numbers. They also regularly post on Facebook and other social media outlets to drive traffic to the landing page.
“Our fans expect our drops at the same time and day, but so many of them have signed up for the text alert because they really don’t want to forget,” says Kara.
Baby Tula started using SimpleTexting a little over a year ago. They now have thousands of customers signed up for text alerts, eager to find out about new Signature releases. Right when a new product drops, the Baby Tula team is able to send our a text to fans.
“Our customers really have reacted positively to our message,” says Jessica. “It’s definitely positive ROI when you look at what we’re paying per month versus who’s coming in through the link.”
For example, the last text campaign they sent had a 50% click-through rate. According to figures from Mailchimp, the average CTR of emails from retailers is less than 3%.
More clicks mean more purchases. With just one SMS campaign, Baby Tula made enough sales to drive a 1,668% ROI.
Limited-edition product drops may help build hype around Baby Tula’s latest styles, but for their team, it’s always been about putting parents first. “What sets us apart is that we foster a feeling of community,” explains Kara. “We have a passionate, tight-knit group of fans.”
Texting is just one of many ways the Baby Tula team stays in touch with these fans. They also stay actively engaged with their 350,000 Facebook followers, provide a directory of Baby Tula groups by location, and regularly publish articles on their blog covering everything from paternity leave to traveling tips.
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