“Yotpo is a fundamental part of our recommended tech stack.”
Laura Doonin, Commercial Director
After spending a decade as an attorney in a high-stress environment, Suhail Rivera knew she needed a lifestyle change. When her attempts to treat long-term anxiety and depression with traditional medicine failed, Rivera began researching alternate options and discovered online groups where individuals shared stories of how they healed themselves through the power of a radically different diet. She read the works of the late herbalist Dr. Sebi, switched to an entirely vegan alkaline diet, and set out to begin a regimen of supplements, all of which improved her health in ways she never thought imaginable. Discovering that dietary supplements were too pricey for the average consumer—herself included—she started assembling her own and sharing them with friends and family as a way to make this form of healing more accessible to others. As her supplements continued to grow in popularity, Alkaline Herb Shop was born.
Offering more reasonably-priced supplements in higher quantities than competitors allowed Rivera to share the gift of self-healing with those in need. As she began to grow her business, she learned customers appreciate direct relationships, and are constantly looking for suggestions and best practices, which created the perfect opportunity for Rivera to try a new marketing channel.
In an increasingly overly-saturated milieu, brands must find ways to differentiate themselves from others, cut through the noise, and speak as directly to consumers as possible. SMS serves as a bridge between Alkaline Herb Shop and its customers, creating a conversational channel that dovetails with email to deliver a more tailored experience.
Where email remains the go-to channel for widely distributing updates and keeping customers in-the-know about new products, SMS allows Alkaline to send more timely updates, personalized recommendations, and other messages at crucial touch points along the customer journey, facilitating conversations that result in an increase in conversions.
As a small team with no in-house marketing, Alkaline Herb Shop enlisted Hawke Media to build their SMS marketing channel from scratch—from integrating solutions, to collecting subscribers, to building SMS flows and planning targeted campaigns.
Having already seen huge success with Yotpo Ratings & Reviews and Loyalty—and especially thrilled after seeing sales skyrocket from implementing Google Star Ratings— both Hawke Media and Alkaline Herb Shop knew that adding SMS into the brand’s existing Yotpo suite would add significant value. Yotpo SMS & Email provided the opportunity to easily build a sophisticated SMS strategy through a one-click integration with Yotpo Reviews & Ratings, to get Alkaline Herb Shop up and running immediately.
Yotpo SMS & Email’s advanced segmentation and targeting rules, alongside a visual flow builder, provided Hawke Media and Alkaline Herb Shop with the tools they needed to segment customers and craft messaging to create customized mobile experiences in line with buying behaviors, leveraging conversation to increase conversion rate. Because dietary supplements are highly personal and designed to fit each customer’s unique needs, those one-on-one conversations allow Alkaline Herb to adjust communications to fit.
Hawke Media and Alkaline Herb Shop then built a strategy that encouraged customers to sign up for SMS messages using a few different subscriber collection methods, including onsite popups offering a 15% off coupon and free cookbook; an email sent to their entire database offering a discount for signing up; and, of promotions on social media using keyword sign-ups.
