Ep 640: 2x LTV From Loyalty Without Discounting: Carve Designs on Retention, Direct Mail, and CTV

Really, we want to give our customers things that they find exciting and that they feel

“our true benefit of being engaged with the brand.”

Customers, they want to meet each other because they have this shared interest. They also want to meet people at the brand. They had been investing in direct mail for many years.

And it's a channel that is a marketer I've always found fascinating.

For us, we really treat it as a performance channel. We do send to prospects, but also pass buyers. Every send is a slightly different mix of that. One thing with direct mail that has helped us grow the program is... Most brands treat brand protection as a legal expense.

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That's ESQ Geo.com/free-audit the links in the show notes. I'm gonna welcome to the D2C podcast, excited to dive into your experiences with carved designs. Maybe we could start with a little bit. You worked at some really interesting larger brands.

Maybe give me a bit of your hero's journey in this D2C space.

Yeah, so I really had an incredible opportunity to work for many years at a large brand called

Amherst Sports, which is the parent company for iconic brands like Solomon, Atomic, Soon-To, Architects, Wilson Sporting Goods, and that really was my foundation for digital marketing and D2C. I was a part of the North American regional team, so our job was really taking global strategy and bringing it to market locally.

And after spending the majority of my career up until that point at portfolio organizations, I was working across enterprise-level brands, I was really excited about the opportunity to join Carve, which is where I'm at today, to be really immersed in growing a direct a consumer side of the business and just be a little bit closer to the overall strategy of the brand.

Was there anything you had to unlearn from your time at the larger enterprise brands going into an SMB like Carve? Yeah, so I'd say the biggest thing was having to kind of zoom out a bit more and look at all of the pieces and how they play together, oftentimes a larger organizations, you're a little bit more specialized and focused on an individual channel, and I'd say that in

all of my rules, I've had to be a bit scrappy and I'd say that when you're at a smaller organization, that's incredibly important as well. Scrappy is a buzzword, but also a curse word occasionally when you lean on it too heavily, but I know what you mean.

“I think from our pre-chat, one of the first things you focused on when you moved to Carve”

was rebuilding the retention program from the ground up. What was the state of it when you walked in and what was you're thinking about sort of resetting that retention program? Yeah, so when I joined Carve, they were already 20 years into their journey and really had

done an incredible job of building a really loyal customer base.

They started as a wholesale business primarily and then during COVID, really the data see a business started to grow, so they had this incredible loyal audience who was already coming back year after year or season after season to buy more of their favorites. And with that, I'll say a lot of the fundamentals were already in place to drive life cycle. There was a really healthy email and SMS program, a newly launched loyalty program,

and a really robust direct mail program. However, there was an opportunity to leverage customer data a bit more than they already were when it came to personalization with communication. So one of the first levers that I actually started to work with was segmentation with email and SMS to create more personalized experiences for audiences.

And then another really cool project that we did pretty quickly after I started was actually mapping the customer journey. And I say that this is something that when I've showed this figmobord to some of my peers, they get really excited about it and it was a really fun project to have in one place

to talk to a customer that we're not already doing so in the life cycle space or maybe

where we're talking to them too much and we actually need to pull away.

“When you talk about segmentation, was that around the seasonality around the products?”

Because I know you guys started in bathing suits, but have since expanded into dresses and accessories, which probably really helps with flattening out the seasonality issue that you might have, but what was the lens that you focused on for the segmentation that worked best? Yeah, so we started with the pretty standard segmentation of RFM modeling.

So a residency frequency and monetary value and with that we added a few additional layers. So the customers that are engaging with us more frequently, purchasing from us more frequently, we're going to have more touchpoints with them and back off a little bit from those that aren't purchasing as frequently, because we know that that just clogs up their inbox and can potentially create an even worse experience with the brand if you're going to

do much communication from somebody. So we really started with that best practice and then from there we played around a bit with purchase behavior specific to categories. So if somebody did purchase one style of bathing suit or one style of denim and we really

“thought that they would like a different style, we used segmentation to try and move them”

through the journey and get them into a different product. Some of this was done on the campaign level and some of it was done through automations.

And then you found that someone, like the specific product that someone buys first can predict

how valuable they become. This is something I hear all the time where it's like you might even have a product that converts best on the front end, but doesn't lead them into the most valuable customer journey, talking about what you discovered and what this ended up looking like on your figma board.

Yeah. So we worked with our CDP partner at the time to dive into customer cohorts based on purchasing categories. So what category do they first come in through with its swim, dresses, tops, denim, accessories, all of our different categories.

And we looked at the customer LTV based on that first initial purchase with us. And it became pretty clear that there were few categories that stood out at the time. One of which was actually dresses and in other words, accessories. And so what we did with that information was we built, of course, additional segmentation and look like audiences that we could use in other channels.

So these are high value customers that we can create look like audiences for paid, even into drug mail. We passed that data along. So all these different channels we can use it. And also change the way that we thought about some of our marketing.

So we wanted to make sure we were always showing a mix of these different products, product

categories that brought in that higher LTV customer. Instead of maybe only focusing on seasonally robbing categories at the exact time or kind of, we just altered her mix a little bit to ensure that those categories were really front and center. And then when it comes to the top of funnel for the business, what is your mix look

“like when it comes to introducing new customers to the brand?”

As far as the channel is that we utilize, we use Connected TV performance influencers and then some standard paid channels, but we really think of Connected TV as our upper funnel channel. And as far as messaging goes, that is very kind of standard brand building messaging, introducing customers with showing multiple product categories.

And we actually lead with our founder, our founder is the voiceover for Connected TV ads because she's the voice of the business and people love hearing from her. So we found a lot of success with that. We just published a piece this week, actually, about how important in your emails it is to introduce your customers to characters within your business, whether that be the founder

and actually sort of experimenting with sending more plain text emails from specific characters. We do it on the newsletter side, every newsletter comes from me. For instance, is that something that you guys utilize as well, the character approach? We speak from our founder quite often, from either both of them or one who really leads up our creative side of the business.

We do that in email. We do have it in our welcome flow where we introduce our customers to our founders. And then we've done it occasionally. We sprinkle it in to text-based emails. I'd say we use it a little bit more sparingly on the email side, but where we've really

unlocked utilizing that, I don't necessarily want to say character because she's a real person, right, who is just, she's a boy, so the brand, we use founder-led content across all channels. So our paid media mix right now has a mix up influence our content, UGC, and founder content are pretty much any given time.

Also have a note here that you guys have been doing direct mail for such a long time, sending catalogs, plus triggered postcards, which I think is really cool.

for bottom? Yeah, so this is actually one of the, one of the many reasons that I was really excited to join Carve was because they had been investing in direct mail for many years, and it's

a channel that is a marketer of always found fascinating.

For us, we really treat it as a performance channel. We do send to prospects, but also pass buyers, and every send is a slightly different mix of that, but we send five to six catalogs a year, and we're both prospecting and retaining customers through that, and then the, the programmatic postcards is also really fun space that I've been able to work really closely with.

We actually tie that into our winback campaigns that we trigger via email, and based on the customers behavior in those emails, it'll either also drop them a postcard in the mail if they haven't converted, or if they convert, then it's great that we were able to do that for a much lower cost via email. And then it obviously for socials creates a wealth of still content.

Having a catalog, you can, you can obviously have a ton of still content for your, your social buys, but as we all know, the algorithm is pretty hungry for video these days.

“How have you shifted your content from, you know, catalog based stills to video?”

Within the last, I'd say 24 months, there's been a pretty big shift. A few years ago, if you were to look at our creative, most of it would be from our seasonal catalog photo shoots, and well, the creative was beautiful. It just wasn't working as well for the algorithm. What we did was one of our leaders had an idea to test some employee-generated content

EGC, and it just took off. It did really well. And starting with this test, we, we really built out a content pipeline, but we, we needed that test in order to, to kind of prove success in order to figure out how to build this pipeline. So now we, like I mentioned, we have a mix of UGC style content.

So still on photo shoots, what we've done a little bit differently is our organic social team. They now go to the photo shoots and they're taking UGC style content on the photo shoot. So it's kind of killing two birds with one stone a little bit there, and then with performance influencers, we got really great UGC content, and then the last piece is the EGC.

So that's our founder content, but then also we have a select group of employees who feel comfortable shooting content, and it's really authentic for us. So that's kind of how we've shifted to video, but we still use, I will say that with static we've tested a lot of different types of content with, you know, we can use it with gifts and carousels, and we have found some success.

So static is still a part of our media mix, it just isn't as much. And then on TV, so it sounds like TV is quite a big part of your top of funnel, which is pretty cool, and are you using the same video, that video pipeline that you've sort of created for socials, on TV as well, or is that different content as well?

We've actually partnered with an incredible agency who's able to take that UGC and

“EGC and turn it into a beautiful ad for us, which I think is really important for listeners”

to hear because, you know, when we first think of CTV, it feels like there's a barrier to entry if you don't have this really beautiful commercially shot content, and you don't need that anymore. There's really skilled agencies who can put together an awesome spot for you that performs really well.

And it also gives us some flexibility to update it more frequently because we have that content coming in so regularly. And then how do you think about attribution with TV? Are you looking for really introducing people to the brand with it mainly? How do you look at it in terms of, yeah, attributing sales to that platform?

Our key metric of success that we are optimizing towards is cost per site visit. We do look at rowaz as a secondary metric, and we're measuring that with an MMM tool. And so we can see both the attributed revenue on our site directly, but then we can also see it on other channels like Amazon. So we can really see the halo effect of connected TV.

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Just go to triplewhale.com/bfcm and start planning today. We are actually just putting out a report in August, that is hyperbillistically called the death of discounting, and it's from the position of using things like loyalty programs more than relying on discount.

“I think brands are experiencing a lot of margin pressure across the board right now.”

It's rising costs and potential tariffs, and all of these type that the straight-up more moves of all these things. And so I'm really interested in brands that shy away from discounting and maybe lean more into loyalty, talk a little bit about your approach at Carve with the loyalty program. For us, when we think about our loyalty program, exactly like what you mentioned, we

want to give perks outside of just straight discounts. Really we want to give our customers things that they find exciting, and that they feel our true benefit of being engaged with the brand. So outside of just discounts, we lean into things like early access for new releases, early

access for the few sales a year that we have, they get notified first.

Opportunities to give us product feedback, and hopefully eventually even more in-person opportunities. But I think loyalty programs are in a really interesting space right now. And when I look at some peers, you see peers who aren't even doing any discounting that can really have those in-person activations to bring together their audience.

“And I think that that's the future is making your loyal customers feel a part of the brand”

in whatever way is attainable for you, but also is natural for you. So whether that's bringing your most loyal customers to a music festival, if that's really connected with your brand or into trying new product and give feedback directly to the product designers, we want to think about it in that way instead of just straight discounts. I love the idea of bringing people together in person.

I think that's a theme across all brands that I talked to and what we're doing at D to C as well.

People are really hungry for in-person connection, community, things like that.

Is that something that you've tested on the loyalty side is bringing people together in person? At car we haven't tested that just yet in previous roles I have and have had success with that. Like I just mentioned, customers really want to - they want to meet each other because

they have this shared interest. So whether it's - I'm a big runner whether it's, you know, meeting other runners who love a brand or for us if it's surfers bringing them together. So that's one piece. They want to meet others who shop from the same places and they can find connection there,

but then they also want to meet people at the brand.

“I think everybody can relate to wanting to get feedback directly to those at their favorite”

brand that they purchase from regularly and so I think that's another benefit of bringing people together in person. What is car of sort of retail footprint like at this point? Yeah, so we are in wholesale partners across the country from specialty outdoor to some larger retailers as well and then we play in market place as well as D to C.

We met briefly at the Triple Will event, the Wally's, how are you guys using Triple Will? Are you guys, like, or how are you specifically around the agentic side of things? Are you guys using Mobie 2 for agentic media buying? We have not yet used it for media buying, but we are in Mobie 2 every day asking questions,

getting performance updates and really using Mobie to help power some of this cohort analysis that I've talked about. So I'm in their building cohorts and tracking them, tracking their LTVs over time as well as just our day-to-day metrics that we look at, Vietnam Mobie. Back to loyalty, do you have any data on the LTV differences between loyalty members versus

non-loyalty members for any brands out there who are thinking of starting a loyalty program but maybe haven't? We see roughly 2x LTV for loyalty members versus non. Who do you use for your loyalty program? We are using Okando, we moved to them this year and we really love them, they have a great

dashboard and also integrations with many tools. We use them for reviews, surveys and loyalty. And then how will you approach Q4 this year? Because everyone talks a bit game about not wanting to discount, but when it comes to the Super Bowl of discounts, is it something you're going to relent to a little bit and have

some discounts this year? Really, I mean, even leading up to Q4, so just sharing where my mind is out for the

We've talked a lot about the swim business and also this growing apparel business that we

have. We're really focused on getting more customers using our loyalty program and our lifecycle programs to get spring purchasers to become fall purchasers. So that's one thing that's really on our mind right now. And then when we think of Q4, we do participate in the really tent pole moments, of course.

But we do try and integrate those loyalty things that I mentioned as much as we can to provide added value during that time period. So we also might do like point multipliers or other things instead of just straight discounting to still participate in the big sale moments. Swim seasonality can be brutal.

“I think that's why over the past 18 months, you guys have really advanced into other apparel”

and accessory categories. How has that evolution gone for you guys? It's gone really well. But pretty much all can be attributed to our amazing product, a merchandising team who've just done a fantastic job with the new product.

So that's really one key lever is having great product. And then the second piece goes back to the marketing mix. So really what we've done is shifted from having swim style potentially just by itself to making sure to include apparel within every piece of creative. So you'll see swim and apparel style together and that's helped get more customers into

apparel as well. Do you guys manage your meta ads internally or have them out with an agency? We use an agency. I'm just, oh, I don't know if you'll have visibility on this.

I'm always, one of the things we're talking about right now, we've reported on for the

past two days on the newsletters. Everyone talking about never pausing your ads and how even ads that appear to be under performing actually might be contributing to the purchase funnel in a way that you're not maybe fully aware of.

“Is this something that you could echo or would echo?”

We haven't had this specific conversation yet, but I do think that there's a lot of value and idea of ads can come back at round. We very frequently do pause down ads and then turn them back on because it just might not have been the right moment or it was a top performing ad that lost steam will turn that back on.

So I think that there's that's certainly an interesting concept to just leave them on all the time because they I've been flow so much. What was the last interesting thing that you can think of that you used mobile two for? Yesterday, I was working with mobile to create one thing I really like creating with it now are very pretty dashboards and you can directly tell it to do that.

So I actually created an LTV dashboard with mobile two. I had it already in another place, but I wanted an awesome looking snapshot that I could share with the team. So I have an LTV dashboard that reports 30, 60, 90 and 12 month LTV.

“And then you guys were recently purchased by Comers, that right?”

Yes, so we were acquired in late 2025 by Comer Brands and they own many other women's apparel brands as well as what we now consider a sister brand, which is Fair Harbor, which is a menswear brand with coastal roots. And it's been really exciting to be a part of Comer and share best practices and trends. And also just ideas with some others in our space.

Very cool. Has there been any cross marketing? At this point, are really just more sort of comparing marketing tactic notes?

Yeah, we actually did our first pop-up a few months ago in New York City.

With another one of the brands. And that was really exciting because those are first pop-up, and we really think that's just the beginning. Otherwise, it's a lot of sharing notes around different ways that we can activate. Any, just to drill back in a little bit on, I think, direct mail at CDVRO is interesting

topics for brands that haven't tackled. Do you have anything that you haven't mentioned yet about either of those two platforms or sources that you have learned in your time sort of using them effectively? Yeah, so I'd say that one thing with direct mail that has helped us continue to grow the program over the years is running a lot of incrementality tests.

So we're constantly doing that to just analyze results, so that's one thing with direct mail. And the other thing is just try it. I don't really think there's any harm in trying it, especially with how easy it is to activate the programmatic postcards, especially there's some tools that make it really

turn key, so I just encourage people to try direct mail. And on the CTV side, the same could be said, there's so many platforms now that make it really turn key, and that can take your UGC style content and turn it into ads. And I'd say the tests budgets are actually probably smaller than you would think, which

We talk a lot on the retention side of things with our, especially with our sister podcasts

here, the retention podcast about abandonment flows and how valuable they are.

“So the idea that you can actually trigger a postcard on an abandonment flow, I think is”

a pretty valuable one, is that something that works pretty well? Yes, we've been running those for about 18 months and they work really well. We do it for a few different abandonment flows, we've seen success there. What are you most excited about for the rest of this year? Yeah, gosh.

I mean, really what I spoke about a few minutes ago with getting more people into the fall product, the new line looks so good, it launched this week, take a look, but I'm really excited about that, especially, and then on the paid side, continuing to utilize

our influencer's content in paid media, I'm excited to see it just continue to grow.

That's something I didn't mention earlier is also to potentially not get discouraged if you're not seeing traction there. It took about six to 12 months of us trying partnership content before it really started to take off, so that's something that I'm just constantly looking at every day to see how well our partnership content is doing.

How has overall the retention rebuild gone?

“What are some numbers that you're sort of able to point to?”

Have you seen any increases in cost per acquisition or in terms of LTV from the changes that you've made to retention program? Yes, so we've seen an increase in our LTV year of year. I don't have the exact percentage pulled up, but we have seen an increase there, and then we've also seen an increase in click-through rate and conversion rate, and click-through rate

to something that going back to that segmentation that I mentioned at the very beginning wasn't an initial challenge that I was really trying to unlock. Why is this so low? What can we do in order to make sure that we're serving the right content to the right people?

So seeing a really healthy increase there, your year is just another good KPI that we keep track of. And then you're using AI extensively sounds like mobile too for data analysis, for dashboarding things like that.

“Do you draw the line at using AI for creative or how else are you guys using AI in the”

biz right now? We aren't quite using it for creative that's in market. We use it for creative ideation, but we've also started using another tool on the retention side called Orita, which is segmentation based around AI. So far, we've seen a lot of success there, that's definitely a good one to check out.

Basically what it does is it creates segments for us, instead of our traditional RFM modeling

and now create segments that are surfacing customers when they're most likely to purchase. It's a highly engaged segment that we usually send to every day, and we've already seen incremental revenue and we've been running with them for about two months now. So that's a really cool tool that we're utilizing. And then we're just playing around with the different AI features within a lot of the existing

tools that we already have. Well, this has been awesome. Thanks for coming on. This has just been a really all-killer, no filler version of this podcast. We got all the answers we're looking for.

Thanks for coming on the D to C podcast. This was awesome. Thank you so much for having me, Eric. It's been great. And if people want to follow your journey on in this D to C world is linked in the best

place for that? Yes, definitely linked in, Hannah Fleming. Catch up with you again. See you. Thanks a lot.

All right. Thank you. Thank you so much for listening to today's episode. If you're not a subscriber to our newsletter, you can do that right now at direct to consumer all-oneword.co.

I'm Eric Dick, and this has been the D to C podcast. We'll see you next time.