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What is ThreadBeast?
On the face of it, ThreadBeast is every mall-dreading introvert’s dream come true.
The Los Angeles-based company is a subscription box online retail service for men’s streetwear. It delivers personally customized clothing for every customer according to his style, size, and personality — every five weeks. These preferences are assessed through a form you have to fill out on your first purchase.
The apparel company currently offers three plans based on your budget. The higher you go, the more you get.
ThreadBeast thrives on being the ‘odd’ one among a plethora of subscription-based apparel brands in the US. ThreadBeast’s target audience is the youth. Young men for a knack of trendy wear, who rock ‘Dope’ T-shirts and ‘Grizzly’ skateboarding socks. If you like wearing suburban clothes, then this might be for you.
How It Works
You are required to log on to their website, answer nine questions aimed at your style and dressing preferences and wait for the box to deliver. A stylist and a complex algorithm approve every customer box. They send you one every five weeks automatically unless you decide otherwise.
ThreadBeast has partnered with numerous famous streetwear brands, so customers get what they want from highly reputable stores.
Their partners include Primitive, The Hundreds, Super Dry, and 7 Diamonds among others. Their partnerships allow for hefty discounts which they pass on to the customers. Every box contains at least double the value of what you paid for.
You can cancel your subscription through email, like every other subscription. One unique feature ThunderBeast possesses, however, is the ‘pause’ option in their subscription plans.
Want to save next month’s subscription money for something else? ThreadBeast allows you to skip one cycle of delivery – email them within seven days of receiving your last package. They will resume your subscription in the next month automatically.
How Do They Make and Retain Customers at Threadbeast?
ThreadBeast is one of the many subscription-based entities vying for the American online apparel market. The fact that they cater and provide to a particular taste and age can be an advantage or disadvantage. So how do they retain customers?
Blake Bolona, Head of Customer Experience at ThreadBeast states, “My main goal is to provide the absolute best customer experience possible. With happier customers, retention comes naturally, and the business improves."
Much of ThreadBeast’s growth is accredited to Facebook, so Facebook Messenger is a critical tool for ThreadBeast customer communication.
Blake emphasizes on prompt replies and a friendly tone. The focus on efficiency has ensured ThreadBeast respond to 100% of Facebook messages. While no message goes unanswered, the average time they take to reply has fallen significantly from 10+ hours to 4 hours.
Additionally, ThreadBeast also uses customized software so they can see a customer's account while they’re communicating. The software reduces the time needed to help customers with billing and account questions by a great deal. This information helps the staff prioritize and send messages to different inboxes depending on the requests.
“We can see the subscription plan they're on, the date they signed up, and the last time they reached out to us. It saves significant time, and helps scale our customer support efficiently.”
ThreadBeast has also tweaked the customer communication style they pursue.
Initially, ThreadBeast kept support messages very formal but found this wasn't resonating with customers. Blake argues that because they deal with a style-savvy, social demographic, it makes a professional tone seem dull.
Having more personal conversations holds exceptional value. Now, the customer service individuals are allowed to use their own style and tone while communicating - to significant effect.
“Sometimes our customers will request to talk with a customer experience representative by name - it doesn’t really get more personal than that,” according to Blake.
ThreadBeast clinches new customers by having existing customers advocate their brand and rewarding them in return. Their referral program rewards existing customers with a Free Package whilst their referred friends receive $50 in bonus item(s) in their first package.
To make the deal even sweeter, ThreadBeast arms their advocates with a guide on how best to share their referral link on Instagram. This step-by-step guide even provides images for advocates to use.
Marketing – The Force behind the Rise of Threadbeast
If nobody knows what you’re selling, nobody will buy your product. This aptly fits ThreadBeast. The LA-based company realised the power marketing has and has developed marketing strategies responsible for its growth.
ThreadBeast serves a particular age group specifically and targets advertisement along informal channels. Unlike older age groups, ThreadBeast’s targeted age group is socially active and prominent on social media. So that’s where they direct their efforts.
First and foremost, they tailor their efforts to cater to biggest social media platform; Facebook.
ThreadBeast Co-Founder, John Stevens places great emphasis on Facebooks ability to ”segment, target, test and expand the reach of our ads with new ad types, throughout the full marketing funnel, which has accelerated growth for our business.”
He further states that “Facebook is the driving force for our online customer acquisition strategy. Integral to this is the tracking and reporting that Facebook provides.”
ThreadBeast partnered with Ibex Digital to enhance its reach and social media engagement. The activity included a Facebook/Instagram ad strategy along with initiating Google Search Optimization protocols to aid ThreadBeast to achieve phenomenal growth.
The partnership strategy, under the name of ‘Unboxing Excitement’, started off with a series of video ads. Social media influencers received ThreadBeast boxes, and they opened up the content to great reviews. These videos were shared through the official Facebook page of ThreadBeast. The ‘unboxing’ videos were optimized for mobile device users. Targeted at young adults (18-24 years old) this initial awareness campaign was followed by carousel ads aimed at people who saw the video but didn’t make a purchase.
Other social media platforms were also used to market their services. On Instagram and YouTube for example. Social media influencers derive most of their fame from the population ThreadBeast looks to target, i.e., the youth, thus providing the best opportunity for advertising through them.
https://www.instagram.com/p/BkWwAzbgD-E/?taken-by=chadisrad
Such aggressive and innovative marketing gimmicks have borne results. ThreadBeast has experienced a 36% increase in the click-through rate and a 33% decrease in the cost per registration. The price per video view has fallen by 75%.
This is effective marketing.
(Hey! Do you want to read more awesome marketing strategies not dissimilar to those used by Thread Beast? If so, check these awesome guerrilla marketing tactics out!)
What Does The Future Hold?
ThreadBeast came into being in 2015 and grew within two years to 20,000 subscribers.
The brand awareness for the apparel retailer is on the rise. Google Trends – a reliable source of gauging public interest – show an upward hike for the searches. ThreadBeast receives an average of 650 unique visitors and 1,625 page views per day on their website, according to HypeStat.
They have expanded well beyond California, and boast a considerable reach. An enthusiastic startup, they are aware of market trends and take pride in providing something different. This approach has helped them amass more than half a million followers on Facebook and 180k+ followers on Instagram.
As per Owler, their revenue totaled approximately $1 million. A significant share for a market crawling with competitors – and the signs induce optimism.
Key market indicators for ThreadBeast and the online apparel market show positive signs for 2018.
According to the latest CommBank Retail Insights Report, the market for online retailers is to increase by more than 20%. This increase would cause online sales to consist of one-third of the total sales volume of the country. 76% of retailers are also predicting increased revenue over the next 12 months, with 43% anticipating growth of 6% or more. Of these, 18% are aiming for growth of more than 10%.
Revenue of the US Men and Boys Apparel market segment to US $89,560m in 2018, as per Statista. The income is expected to increase significantly by 2021 – with online volume amounting to 24% of the total. Other critical indicators like Consumer Spending per Capita and Population are also expected to increase.
Moreover, millennials are increasingly fond of high quality ‘premium’ wear. According to Nielsen, consumers are willingly investing in a better standard of living and clothing is a top priority at 36%. The market share of premium clothing brands, like ThreadBeast provides, is bound to expand.
Despite facing competition and catering to a particular demographic, ThunderBeast has managed to make a name for itself. Utilizing modern-day marketing tools to enhance the reach and a specific focus on customer satisfaction, they are on the right track.
Boosted by market indicators and confidence showed by customers, ThreadBeast can look forward to the future with optimism.
Continue reading: Wanna hear more success stories? Check out our growing list of the most successful Shopify stores.
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Aqiba is a professional writer based in Houston, Texas. Her passion is content writing and has been writing for 7 years.
