Conversational messaging helps hair and beauty retailer achieve up to 10% CTR.
What’s the best product for frizzy hair? How about acne-prone skin? Ask Oz Hair and Beauty. Over the years, the brand has become a haven for skincare, makeup, and haircare lovers who want specialists on speed dial. With conversational messaging, it’s providing customers with personal product recommendations, and that’s leading to more sales and improved ROI.
Oz Hair and Beauty is a premium hair and beauty retailer with multiple salons and a mammoth online catalogue (14,000 SKUs!) In recent years, it has tripled in size.
Right from the start, the goal has been to create a brand that does more than sell shampoo.
“We want to have conversations with our customers about their hair and skin, so we can guide them to the right products,” says Chris Haddad, CRM and E-Commerce Manager.
The brand’s customer service team includes some of the best hairdressers, skin technicians, and makeup artists from across the country. So, when a customer asks, ‘Which shampoo should I use for dry hair?’, they know they’ll get expert advice.
The challenge is providing that same customer experience online and in-store. Chris says it’s something they’ve always been good at, but with an ever-growing list of competitors, they knew they needed to get even closer to their customers – and fast.
Chris says he vividly remembers hitting send on the first SMS campaign – a short, sharp offer for one of the big brands. It was an off-the-cuff decision after talking to Sinch MessageMedia.
He got multiple calls from different teams asking what he’d just done. The warehouse was inundated with new orders and the customer service team was busy fielding phone calls and live chats.
“That’s when we knew we needed to get more strategic with SMS. We’d had our fun, sent out a blast, and got a great result, but we wanted to expand on that,” says Chris.
Some promos are so juicy, the only way to get in front of customers quickly is SMS.
That’s when Oz Hair and Beauty smashed out bulk SMS marketing campaigns.
In just a few clicks, it can send those hard-to-resist offers that people want. And, with 65% of consumers opening a text message within five minutes of receiving it, they know the message will be seen.
Sometimes, Chris and his team will plan SMS campaigns well in advance. Other times, they’ll shoot off a short, savvy SMS to help uplift performance.
“With Sinch MessageMedia’s help, we’ve figured out what works. We know we can smash out a 160-character SMS in a matter of minutes – and people will respond to it.”
That’s the beauty of SMS – it doesn’t need to be fancy to get golden click-through rates. We’re talking an average click-through rate of up to 10%. Nice!
With major sale events like Black Friday and Cyber Monday (BFCM), Chris says that in the past they’ve sent out a discount code via email and SMS – and that’s about it.
But this year, they’re sending more personalised SMS. Why? While one customer might love free gifts, another might only respond to a discount code for a particular brand.
Oz Hair and Beauty can:
We know what our customers want, and with Sinch MessageMedia, we can send them offers for the products they love using the channel we know they prefer.
Chris Haddad, CRM and E-Commerce Manager
With a gazillion brands and products on the market, how are they helping their customers find what they need? By texting them.
Oz Hotline is a dedicated virtual number where customers can send their product queries and get personalised recommendations from one of Oz Hair and Beauty’s specialists.
At the same time, those specialists can share live promos so customers get the right product for them – and a bargain too. How good!
Alongside the regular email campaigns, two-way SMS is helping them connect better with customers.
By using SMS as an engagement and conversational tool, we can add more value for our customers. And Sinch MessageMedia is the most easy-to-use platform to have those conversations.
Chris Haddad, CRM and E-Commerce Manager
With Sinch MessageMedia, Oz Hair and Beauty are reaching more people than ever before. They’ve sent almost 550,000 SMS messages this year – with a 100% delivery rate.
Even better than increased reach, the brand is seeing impressive click-through rates too.
For BFCM 2022, they sent just over 390,000 messages. That campaign resulted in:
Since then, every SMS campaign has achieved, on average, at least a 10.32% click-through rate.
As they say, the proof is in the SMS pudding. And they’re stoked with the results.
So, what’s on the horizon for Oz Hair and Beauty? Well, more retail stores across Australia and it’ll continue to grow its online marketplace.
Plus, this year, they’ll run their first omnichannel BFCM campaign with a focus on replicating the online experience in-store. If a customer receives a promo for a specific product and walks into a store that doesn’t stock that product, the Oz team can help find it online and get it shipped to them ASAP.
That’s where the brand believes the combined power of email and SMS will truly shine. Ping, ping!
And with Sinch MessageMedia and SMS, Chris is confident it can stay up close and personal with every customer – no matter how big it gets.
Oz Hair and Beauty is an ecommerce, retail, and salon brand that sells premium hair and beauty products from some of the world’s leading brands.
Customer
Chris Haddad, CRM and E-Commerce Manager
