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CULTURE KINGSThe Big Payoff: Culture King’s Path to Omni-channel Success

C A S E S T U D Y

“I wouldn’t really call us a success yet. There’s still so much to do. There’s still so much opportunity out there.”

Graham Muir, Head of Brand and Ecommerce at Culture Kings, isn’t being modest. That’s just his view of his company’s current marketing efforts and really, it’s the ethos of the entire company.

Culture Kings is an Australian “streetwear” fashion retailer, selling a seemingly endless array of hats, shoes and … well, it’s hard to really capture them with a simple definition. Culture Kings’ four brick-and-mortar stores (a fifth opens soon in Perth) also feature a barbershop and a live DJ, and count numerous celebrities and hip-hop stars among their enthusiastic shoppers.

“Our business is constantly evolving,” Muir said. “We’re not pigeonholing ourselves into just one thing.”

The constant desire to stay fresh and relevant has fueled the next state of Culture Kings’ evolution: its increased focus on e-commerce.

Starting UpCulture Kings needed to expand its customer base beyond the major cities that host its brick-and-mortar stores. And it wanted to continue marketing products that didn’t sell during the relatively short time period when they were available on store shelves (Culture Kings introduces approximately 300 new products each week).

The first big step took place late in 2014 when Culture Kings switched to new marketing automation software.

“We wanted something that was scalable, on an enterprise level, with the ability to automate,” Muir said. “We want to create that true omni-channel experience. Bronto presented the best solution for us.”

Providing Value From The StartIn addition to purchasing Bronto’s software, Culture Kings also elected to use Bronto’s Strategy-as-a-Service, According to Muir, the Bronto strategist has played a valuable role in keeping Culture Kings focused and on task in developing its email program.

The first big project they collaborated on was creating a welcome series that would bring in new customers and subscribers and begin immersing them in the Culture Kings brand. They made sure their introduction wasn’t an overwhelming one by expanding it from one email into a series.

First came a basic “here’s what you’re going to get” message, as Muir put it. The next established brand legitimacy by showcasing Culture Kings’ impressive Wall of Fame, which features a lengthy list of celebrity shoppers. The third message provided information on the retailers’ various social platforms, while the fourth gave recipients access to Culture Kings’ weekly deals.

Culture Kings’ cart reminder series produced a remarkable $2.50 of revenue per email sent and currently accounts for 14% of all of their email-generated revenue.

+61 2 8030 7070 | bronto.com.au

C A S E S T U D Y

“The welcome series gives us the ability to showcase lots of value, including the massive size of our inventory and all the in-store events we have,” Muir said. “If we were to jam that into one email, it would just get lost.”

So far, open rates for the Welcome Series are more than double those of Culture Kings’ average marketing messages.

Converting “The Warmest Lead You Can Get”In early 2015, Culture Kings’ kicked their e-commerce efforts up several notches when Muir took on a more active role in the process. Soon after, Culture Kings launched the Bronto Pop-Up Manager app and also created an abandoned cart message series.

In just over a month, Pop-up Manager helped Culture Kings add nearly 2,500 subscribers, and the results from the abandoned cart series were even more impressive.

After previously seeing modest returns from sending a single cart reminder message, things took off when Culture Kings implemented an automated, three-message series. The cart reminder series produced a remarkable $2.50 of revenue per email sent and currently accounts for 14% of all of Culture Kings’ email-generated revenue.

“Someone who abandons a cart is the warmest lead you can get,” Muir said. “The cart reminder series is a no-brainer. You’ve got to have that stuff going and you’ve got to be tweaking it as you learn what works and what doesn’t.”

What’s NextMuir is happy to recount those recent e-commerce wins, but he’d much rather discuss what’s coming up for Culture Kings.

In just a few weeks, Culture Kings will begin importing all of its store transactions into its Magento e-commerce platform. That data, along with all of Magento’s website order information will flow into the Bronto Marketing Platform via Bronto’s Magento Extension.

That’s when “Bronto is really going to pay off,” as Muir put it.

“We’ll know, for example, that you purchased a t-shirt in our Brisbane store on this day, from this brand,” he said. “So now we’ll present you with a series of products, tailored to your tastes, based on the brand and category you purchased and the timing that’s going to work best.”

The in-store experience that has helped Culture Kings make its name will now play a big role in shaping the company’s online interactions with its customers. It’s a huge step toward Culture Kings’ goal of becoming an omni-channel retail power.

“We know where we want to be in five years,” Muir said. “We’re making the moves to set ourselves up for that.”

“It’s a good time for us.”

About Culture Kings

We stock the leading local and international streetwear brands, known and recognised around the world for their exclusive designer products and world-first fashion trends. We stay ahead of the pack at Culture Kings, and are the first to stock dozens of new brands that grow into global streetwear giants.