Freedom Rave Wear's massive HiTide results

Plus updates from the team and an awesome podcast.

Author

Jesse Clemmens
April 24, 2024

Welcome to HiTide’s weekly newsletter, packed with our latest product updates, tips, case studies, and SMS marketing news for DTC.

Shipping to your inbox straight from New York and written by yours truly, Jesse from HiTide.

This week:

  • 🗞️ A recap of our webinar with Postscript and Amped.

  • 🎙️ Highlights from our podcast with Flowium

  • 🔍️ An epic case study from Freedom Rave Ware ($24 revenue/new subscriber on their first campaign!)

  • 📆 Upcoming Events & 🔗 Quick Links

Let’s dive in!

⚡️ New In HiTide: Improved Attentive Integration

We’ve updated our Attentive integration to make it even easier for customers to opt into your list directly through SMS.

In the old integration, customers would get sent a short link that they would have to click, open an Attentive landing page, and manually enter their phone number. Too many steps and far from ideal.

We’ve reduced the friction by working directly with Attentive to support their Sign-up Units.

Now customers can receive a text from your Attentive account with a “Reply Y to subscribe” message. And that’s it! Quick, SMS native opt-in.

No more landing pages! 🚀 

🗞️ Updates

Last Thursday we had a killer webinar with some lovely folks from Postscript, Amped, and fast fast-growing swimwear brand onewith. We covered a lot including best practices for pop-ups, DM automation, and a step-by-step SMS growth playbook by Hayley, founder at onewith. Honestly had an amazing time with this one!

Check out some highlights over on X or watch the full replay.

I recently joined the Flowium Email Einstein podcast to discuss HiTide, its place in the market, and how brands can get the most out of it.

Some highlights:

  • TCPA Compliance: How HiTide's Instagram DM automation works to capture SMS opt-ins in a TCPA-compliant way.

  • Many Ways To Grow: Use different campaign styles and keyword triggers to keep things fresh and growing.

  • Zero Party Data: Collect zero-party data directly from customers then push it back into platforms like Attentive, Postscript and Klaviyo.

  • Case Study: Massive reach with a giveaway campaign achieving $0.24/new subscriber.

"The difference between HiTide and anyone else out there is that HiTide is laser focused on SMS growth ... We make it easy to connect in five minutes and get up and running for a very low cost and high value."

Listen in on 📺 YouTube, 📻 Spotify, or 🍎 Apple Podcasts.

Freedom Rave Wear, a family-run business based in San Diego, California, has grown from a garage startup to an internationally acclaimed brand in the rave community. With a strong Instagram following of over 160k, the brand's limited-run collections and capsules often sell out in a flash.

Instagram was working but its reach was unreliable with many loyal followers missing drops and releases. Customers on an owned channel like SMS would have a far higher LTV. So they set up HiTide and Klaviyo and got to work building their list.

The Strategies

They centered a giveaway campaign around an organic feed collab post with rave influencer and capsule collaborator Chase @tweenkboosiechase.

Followers could enter for early access to the drop by commenting with Chase's signature "👹" emoji. Comments as a trigger are great because they also boost post distribution and social proof.

Participants got a DM that brought the opt-in conversation directly to their inbox in a fresh, personal way. HiTide's integration with Klaviyo allowed FRW to quickly convert these conversations into SMS subscribers.

The Results

Over 60% of participants who triggered FRW's automated DM opted into their dedicated Klaviyo drop list. Impressively, 51% of these SMS opt-ins were net new or reactivated subscribers.

The remaining 45% of subscribers, who were already opted into FRW's SMS, were added to an intent list for easy reach on future drops and similar campaigns. In the three weeks following the campaign, FRW saw a remarkable $24 revenue per subscriber from downstream Shopify orders.

"Best app to grow your SMS list and revenues by far. Nothing else comes close. If you don't try this you don't want your business to grow."

HiTide has become an integral part of their strategy for drops, ticket giveaways, early access, and special discounts; driving thousands of new subscribers.

📆 Events

On April 9 we had a great time attending The Whalies Official Welcoming Event at Shopify NY alongside 60 other founders and marketers. Fantastic event by TxtCart, DigiCom and Triple Whale. I was lucky enough to join a fun panel.

The Shopify NY space is beautiful! Pic doesn’t do it justice.

Wednesday, April 24 (and pretty much every Weds): We'll be at the New York DTC running club again. If you are in town join us for an (out of breath) chat! Hit the link and come for a run.

Amazing to see SMS still bearing fruit as a new revenue channel for major major brands; reminder that it’s still early:

“SMS now represents 4% of our total business revenue, there’s a ton of growth potential for revenue, but also as an acquisition channel surpassing, or getting on par with, our email program.” 

Some numbers for the nerds out there - a great compilation of consumer studies on SMS. 72% of US digital retailers believe increased SMS marketing will most impact their business in 2024, tied with AI. 66% of people worldwide use texting to engage with companies. Text messages boost clickthrough rates, a key reason 60.5% of US marketers use SMS. 

Proof that in marketing, beauty is in the simplicity:

Until next time!

-Jesse