Ep 514: How Hestan Built a 40% Repeat Purchase Engine With Content & Plain Text Email | AKNF

Summary

Podcast Summary: DTC Podcast - Ep 514: How Hestan Built a 40% Repeat Purchase Engine With Content & Plain Text Email | AKNF

Introduction

In Episode 514 of the DTC Podcast, hosted by the DTC Newsletter and Podcast team, listeners are given an in-depth look into how Hestan Culinary achieved an impressive 40% repeat purchase rate. The episode features Christina Schodeny, Senior Director of Marketing at Hestan Culinary, who shares actionable insights on leveraging content and plain text email strategies to foster customer loyalty and drive sales without relying on discounts. The discussion is moderated by Jordan Gordon from the "world's best email retention podcast," offering a rich blend of practical advice and strategic frameworks for direct-to-consumer (DTC) ecommerce brands.

Background and Brand Evolution

Christina Schodeny begins by outlining her journey with Hestan Culinary, emphasizing her transition from the restaurant and food marketing industries to building brand equity at Hestan. With over seven years at Hestan, Christina underscores her passion for both cooking and the brand, positioning herself as both a marketer and a customer.

Notable Quote:

"I've been with the Hestan brand for seven years now, which is really exciting... I'm the Hestan customer. So it's just been a dream to work on the brand and build the equity of Hestan."
— Christina Schodeny [03:55]

Achieving a 40% Repeat Purchase Rate

The core of the conversation revolves around Hestan's remarkable achievement of a 40% repeat customer rate, the highest Christina has observed. Unlike many brands that rely heavily on discounts to encourage repeat purchases, Hestan focuses on storytelling, chef partnerships, and plain text emails to build long-term relationships with customers.

Notable Quote:

"Our repeat customer rate this month is 40%. That's insane. That's the highest I've seen it."
— Christina Schodeny [00:00]

Email Marketing Strategy

Christina attributes much of Hestan’s success to their email marketing strategy, crafted in collaboration with Pilot House. The approach balances direct sales messaging with inspirational and educational content, such as recipes and chef stories. This strategy ensures that customers stay engaged with the brand beyond their initial purchase.

Key Points:

• Content Balance: Emails are a mix of product promotions and valuable content like recipes and chef features.
• Plain Text Emails: Utilizing plain text emails fosters a more personal and authentic connection with customers.
• Segmentation and Testing: Pilot House assists in segmenting the email list and testing different messaging strategies to optimize engagement and conversions.

Notable Quote:

"We're selling cookware at the end of the day, and there is a direct response that we're expecting from email... But it's also important for us to balance all of that with amazing content that's inspirational and approachable for our audience."
— Christina Schodeny [10:54]

Integration with Other Marketing Channels

Hestan adopts a holistic marketing approach, integrating email with paid advertising and soon-to-be-launched SMS campaigns. Christina highlights the importance of consistency across channels, ensuring that messaging is tailored appropriately for each medium while maintaining a cohesive brand narrative.

Key Points:

• Paid Ads and Email Synergy: Paid ads focus on emotional appeal and brand awareness, while emails delve deeper into product features and benefits.
• Omnichannel Strategy: Balancing direct-to-consumer (DTC) sales with strong retail partnerships to provide a seamless customer experience.
• Future SMS Integration: Moving towards strategic SMS usage to complement email and enhance customer engagement, particularly with the upcoming loyalty program.

Notable Quote:

"We have a 360 campaign marketing strategy. So it's important that we are telling the same stories, story consistently across the channels."
— Christina Schodeny [19:14]

Content Creation and Brand Storytelling

A significant aspect of Hestan's strategy is leveraging partnerships with top chefs and culinary institutions to create compelling content. By showcasing how professional chefs use Hestan products, the brand not only highlights product excellence but also inspires customers to elevate their cooking experiences.

Key Points:

• Chef Partnerships: Collaborations with renowned chefs like Thomas Keller add credibility and aspirational value to the brand.
• Educational Content: Providing tips, tricks, and recipes through emails and landing pages enriches the customer experience.
• Human Element: Featuring team members like Michael, the cookware concierge, adds a personal touch and builds trust with customers.

Notable Quote:

"We work with a lot of great Michelin star chefs and professional chefs. And we have one chef here in San Francisco, Matt Aino, and he says, you know, I never worry about your cookware because it just works."
— Christina Schodeny [07:55]

Email Design and Flexibility

Hestan opts for HTML-based email templates over fully designed, image-heavy emails. Christina explains that this choice allows for greater flexibility and ease of updates, enabling the team to respond quickly to inventory changes or new product launches without overcomplicating the design process.

Key Points:

• HTML Templates: Simplifies updates and modifications, ensuring timely and relevant content delivery.
• Content Over Design: Focuses on delivering valuable information rather than intricate designs, aligning with the brand’s strategic goals.
• Consistency and Scalability: Maintains a consistent brand message while allowing for scalability as the product line expands.

Notable Quote:

"We have been on our fourth year. We have a great relationship. Everything that you've grown our email program... Email's our second strongest channel... It goes hand in hand."
— Christina Schodeny [29:49]

Challenges and Strategic Adjustments

Christina discusses initial challenges, such as conveying the technical aspects of cookware in ads, which proved less effective. Instead, Hestan pivoted to focus on consumer benefits and emotional storytelling in ads, reserving technical details for emails where customers are more engaged and willing to absorb detailed information.

Key Points:

• Technical Messaging: Realized that technical details were not resonating well in top-of-funnel ads.
• Consumer Benefits: Shifting focus to how products make customers' lives easier and more enjoyable.
• Emotional Connection: Building an emotional connection through storytelling enhances brand loyalty and repeat purchases.

Notable Quote:

"What the consumer really wants... is it makes my life easier. So we need to lead with the consumer benefit and support it with the technology."
— Christina Schodeny [19:14]

Future Plans and Loyalty Programs

Looking ahead, Hestan is excited to launch a loyalty program aimed at rewarding and further engaging their existing customer base. This initiative will likely leverage the established email and soon SMS channels to provide personalized rewards and foster deeper customer relationships.

Key Points:

• Loyalty Program Launch: Designed to enhance customer retention and reward repeat purchases.
• SMS as a Complementary Channel: Strategic use of SMS to communicate with VIP customers without overwhelming them.

Notable Quote:

"We're about to launch a loyalty program which we're really, really excited about... SMS can play more of a role kind of for that audience to people that want to hear from us more often."
— Christina Schodeny [27:21]

Conclusion

Christina concludes by emphasizing the importance of building long-term relationships with customers through consistent, value-driven communication. Her partnership with Pilot House has been instrumental in achieving significant growth in Hestan’s email marketing efforts, making email their second strongest channel after paid ads. The strategic integration of content, storytelling, and flexible email design has allowed Hestan Culinary to scale effectively while maintaining a premium brand image.

Notable Quote:

"We want to build the long term relationship with our customer. We have so much to offer at Hestin. You know, we make amazing wine, we make award winning appliances. So it's not just we're selling you a pan and then we're done."
— Christina Schodeny [37:31]

Key Takeaways

1. Balanced Content Strategy: Combining direct sales messages with inspirational content such as recipes and chef stories enhances customer engagement and repeat purchases.
2. Plain Text Emails: Maintaining a personal and authentic tone in communications fosters trust and loyalty.
3. Integration Across Channels: Consistent messaging across paid ads, email, and SMS ensures a cohesive brand narrative and maximizes marketing effectiveness.
4. Flexibility in Email Design: Utilizing HTML templates allows for rapid updates and scalability, essential for responding to market changes and product launches.
5. Long-Term Relationship Focus: Prioritizing long-term customer relationships over short-term sales drives sustained growth and brand equity.

This episode serves as a valuable resource for DTC brands aiming to enhance their email marketing and retention strategies. Christina Schodeny's insights into Hestan Culinary's successful approach offer actionable lessons on building a loyal customer base through thoughtful content and strategic communication.

Transcript

[Christina Schodeny]

Our repeat customer rate this month is 40%. That's insane. That's the highest I've seen it. SMS is interesting for us. We've always been a little bit hesitant as a luxury brand. We want to use SMS in the best way for our brand. Before Pilothouse, we were very much of the mindset of let's say everything all the time to everyone, through every channel. Oh, we have to talk about Nanobond. We have to talk about the master brand. Oh, and the handle and the flush rivets and the cleaning. Like no. We want to build the long term relationship with our customer. We have so much to offer. It's not just we're selling you a pan and then we're done.

[Eric Dick]

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[Jordan Gordon]

Peace. It's the world's best email retention podcast and I'm your host, Jordan Gordon. We are a member of the DTC network of podcasts and the philosophical home of the pilot host's email and customer retention team. If you want to make the sweet nectar of low cost revenue a large part of your digital ecosystem, follow us on your favorite podcast app today. In this episode, we are joined by senior director of marketing for Heston Culinary, Christina Schodeny. Hey, Christina. Hello.

[Christina Schodeny]

Hi. Thanks for having me, Jordan.

[Jordan Gordon]

I'm very happy to have you. So, everybody out there in the audience, full disclosure, Christina is a client of Pilothouse, but there is no, there's been no backhand deal to get her on here and pump us. You know, there's, you know, no extra payments or discounts happening. We just really wanted to have her on because she can speak in a real operational sense or kind of, you know, live sense to some of what we've been discussing about reinforcing the brand over time. And I've discussed it with you, but in like a very theoretical sense. So it would just be nice to get someone on who can kind of talk about it on the ground. But before we start, Christina, why don't you tell us a little bit about the path that brought you to Hesston and kind of where you're taking Heston.

[Christina Schodeny]

Sure, sure. So I've been with the Hesston brand for seven years now, which is really exciting. In a previous life, I've worked in restaurant and food marketing space during college and out of college I also worked in the restaurant industry. I love to cook and I worked as a chef in several restaurants and then didn't love kind of the social life that goes along with that, so moved more into the restaurant and marketing space. I worked both on the agency side doing food marketing, concept development, recipe development, and advertising for restaurant and food brands. But now I'm on the brand side with Hesston and I love it. I love to cook, I love our products. I'm the Hesston customer. So it's just been a dream to work on the brand and build the equity of Hesston.

[Jordan Gordon]

Yeah. Awesome. And, you know, I didn't even actually know a bunch of that about you and we've spoken so many times. It's always so businessy. Awesome. And let me also say for the, for the audience, I am, I am a Hestan customer as well. I've bought the 10 piece set nanobond. And I'm sorry, Christine has heard this so many times, but I'll just say that when I first used it, I had this moment where I thought, what? And I realized there's actually different kinds of pots and pans. There's a hierarchy of quality, you know, and the Hestan nanobond, like, it cleans, it cooks so perfectly. So, I mean, I'm constantly cooking dad stuff like I'm frying eggs for the kids. And like, it doesn't. It's just like comes off perfect. They don't get destroyed. And then when you go to clean it, the dirt just comes right off. And it's not non stick. It's just stuff doesn't stick to it because it's so well made. And I think it's actually, Christina, if I'm correct, it's because the stainless steel or whatever steel is porous, but there's actually less pores on the, on the, on the skillet. Is that correct?

[Christina Schodeny]

Yes, yes. Stainless steel as a materials is a porous material. So when you're cooking with any sort of stainless steel, you know, as you heat up the pan that will expand, your oil will seep into those pores. And that's how you get a lot of the staining and the oil buildup that people have just lived with for, for years, it's just kind of been like, well, that's just what happens with my cookware. But with Nanobond, the great innovation is that we bond the titanium to the stainless so it seals those pores. So now you're just cooking on a non pore surface. And you're exactly right. You get great stick resistance and super, super easy cleanup. We always hear, you know, it's a pleasure to clean, if you can think about that. When people think of cookware, it's kind of silly, but it's true because everything just washes right off the surface. Nothing is building up or staining or seeping into it.

[Jordan Gordon]

Well, and I don't even think about the cleanup as the big thing because like, every single. We got two kids, every single task just takes away from the small amount of time you have. And so it would be too much to say, like, getting my Heston was a life changing event. It wasn't like getting married. But it did change the way that we approach our kitchen because you then want to cook more for yourself because it's Just easier to cook and then, you know, you're, you're eating better food and you're kind of just getting less, you know, crap that will, that will placate the boys. So it was a kitchen changing event. Let's call it that.

[Christina Schodeny]

Yeah, no, absolutely. And I think you're exactly what, what you're saying is what we do here at Hesston, right, It's innovation, not for the sake of innovation, but to solve problems in the kitchen and challenges that people see when cooking. And we can use our innovation, our great engineering, we have 50 plus years of engineering expertise behind us to make really amazing cookware that makes it, like you said, makes it fun. You don't have to worry about the cleanup. We work with a lot of great Michelin star chefs and professional chefs. And we have one chef here in San Francisco, Matt Aino and he says, you know, I never worry about your cookware because it just works. You know, I worry about a lot of other things when I'm running a restaurant staff and labor and ingredients and menu development, but I never have to think about the cookware because it just works. So we love to hear that.

[Jordan Gordon]

Yeah, we, we, we travel with our skillet.

[Christina Schodeny]

Yes, that's great. We love that.

[Jordan Gordon]

But anyway, this of course is about email and retention. It's, it's not just about Hestan cookware. So I thought it's just a jumping off point when we talk about kind of reinforcing the brand over time. Actually, sorry, just to set the stage again for the audience, we've been talking about this a lot. I have spoken about how it's important to have not necessarily one to one, but some kind of proportional relationship between your impressions kind of up at the top of the funnel when you're bringing brand awareness and, and opens unique opens that use that one sees in, in Klaviyo. Because that indicates that, you know, for every person that you're making aware of the brand, you are then, you know, maybe it's not that same person, but you are then also reinforcing that brand, you know, over something like, like a two year time horizon. And so not putting any real numbers to that but, but just important to be aware of that relationship and how critical it is. And so for Hestan, we've, we've been doing recipes and chefs and things like that. So I wonder if you can just talk for a second about how you have been working to reinforce your brand. That and other things, you know, kind of over a two plus year time horizon with your audience.

[Christina Schodeny]

Yes. Yeah, I Think, you know, what you're saying is so important for our brand, especially an emerging and, you know, young brand that we are, is building the foundation and building the equity of Hestan. You know, cookware at the end of the day is a commodity and there's so much competition out there, but we really want to build the equity of the Hestan brand. We have such a great story to tell with our innovation, the chefs we work with, like you said, and just the overall Hestan master brand. So we want to have super, super strong brand equity. And I think what you see here in our email program and everything that Pilot House has worked on has been instrumental in helping us build that. I love what you said kind of at the beginning of our relationship together was, is we want people to come for the cookware, but stay for the. So I think your team has done an amazing job of balancing, especially on email. Yes, we're selling cookware at the end of the day, and there is a direct response that we're expecting from email in terms of product sales and E commerce and revenue. But it's also important for us to balance all of that with amazing content that's inspirational and approachable for our audience. So I think having the balance of, okay, this is our product, this is the sales event, or what we're trying to promote this week. But also look at these amazing recipes that we can share and inspire you on how to use your cookware. Look at this chef story that we can tell of. You know, again, a Michelin star chef that's. That's using Hestan, what they love about it and what they look for when they're searching for cookware or. Or other partners. You know, we work really closely with Johnson and Wales culinary schools and Culinary Institute of America too. Again, just to make sure that Hestan is top of mind in all of these audiences. So I love when you said that when we first started working together, I thought, that's so true. You know, come for the cookware, stay for the content is really, really important when we're building our mess.

[Jordan Gordon]

Yeah, and like, one of the. One of the nice things about it too, is, like, if you do it right, it should be incredibly easy because what you're trying to do is just pick the right thing and kind of like, you know, it's pretty obvious for you. It's like chefs and recipes, you know, nice and obvious. I mean, it could be trickier. Like, what if you're selling diapers? Okay, well, you know, you know, for babies. Well, you know what people love their babies. So you can probably find some content concept around babies that people will find interesting. And the nice thing is, since you're trying to make that part of your brand, you get to just run with it. You get to run with it for two or three years. And so that, you know, all you need to worry is about the next piece of content. You don't necessarily have to worry about, like, is this the right. You know, should we change this, this quarter? No, you shouldn't change it this quarter. You should keep doing it for two or three years and make it part of who you are. So obviously, like chefs and recipes. Is there anything else that. I mean, because by the full disclosure, I don't completely understand her channel. Someone on my. You know, she has a team from our. From our team that's running it. Is there anything else you're doing beyond the kind of chefs and recipes?

[Christina Schodeny]

I think cleaning, too. You've talked about it from the start. That's so important to our audience, too. We hear a lot of that in focus groups. I just want cookware that's durable. I want cookware that I'm not going to ruin. So that's a lot of questions we get to around cleaning. So we really want to make sure that how to. Or educational piece is included in our email messaging. And then also we have a great resource on our team. Michael, who's our cookware concierge, he's a direct salesperson. He works as a personal shopper for our website. He is really on the front lines and always is providing great tips and tricks. You know, he hears so many questions when he's dealing with our customers on what they're looking for or, you know, maybe they're messaging that they're not understanding on the website. You know, how can we do that better? He's always a wealth of resource, too, so we always like to include, you know, messages from him, too. And I think it adds kind of a human aspect, too, right to the brand. Of course, you see all the beautiful food all the time. But to have Michael there as kind of the face, the face of Heston has been really strong for us. We also get a few people that occasionally ask, you know, is he a real person? Is he. Is he a bot? No, no. Michael exists. I think one time he had to do kind of like a proof of life. He held up like a newspaper, you know, in front of him to prove to someone that he's like, you know, he's a real person, he's their own, and he's a Great. You know, he's a cookware expert. He's not just a Hestan brand, but he knows kind of, you know, the competitive landscape really well. So a lot of customers will come back to him and say, you know, I'm considering cast iron or I saw this new technology or I have questions about this. And they build lifetime relationships with Michael.

[Jordan Gordon]

And here's an amazing idea for the audience. I would say this is probably appropriate if you have kind of a premium item with more with a higher AOV is, you know, obviously everybody out there, you can put like a click to call at the bottom of your email and have an expert in house. And I mean, if you're selling something that costs, you know, a couple bucks, right. It certainly can make sense to, to really drive that to. Yeah, just make it easier to get in touch with, with that, with that customer. So look, I brought here just a recent email and everybody out there, if you're on Spotify or, or, or Apple podcasts, you can, you can come and find the world's best email retention podcast on YouTube to look at the image. Probably not make or break for the pod, but it is a beautiful image. So here's an example of how we're reinforcing that brand. And I wonder if you can maybe speak to just the message and then also we'll speak to the HTML portion in a second. But first of all, what were you doing here and how does it help?

[Christina Schodeny]

Yeah, no, that's great. So I think again, like you said, we're a luxury brand, we're a premium brand, and we're, when we're approaching anything that we do with Hestan, we really want it to feel inspirational, aspirational, but still approachable. So I think this is again, a great example. You know, we're selling cookware, but it's a very soft sell here. Kind of like, you know, we're selling the hole, not the drill. To kind of take a quote from William Sonoma, one of our great partners is, you know, I'm going to buy this piece of cookware, but I'm not really sure. Am I going to use it once, am I going to use it twice a year? Is it going to prove its value? So how can we inspire people and show them different ways to use different vessels? So I think this is a great email. It's featuring, you know, three different pieces here that we probably all have, you know, in our, in our kitchen, but some new and exciting recipes that are, I think, really mouth watering. Amazing food photography here that you can see but just again, really inspiring people on to go beyond their traditional ways of using their cookware and get the most value out of it.

[Jordan Gordon]

And also, I mean, an important point here when I look at this is the fact that there's a few pieces of cookware. So a lot of people are coming in on a skillet, right? And then, so our kind of the email and retention's job is, okay, well, let's, you know, let's get the saucepan, you know, or let's buy the set. And so this. I can see here that it's. It's, you know, already I'm visualizing like, oh, I don't have nearly enough. Just the image itself is like, I don't have enough pieces yet. I can't. I can't do all this. And also, this is just. It's a bit. It's not an oddity. It's just of note that you are a brand of ours that has consistently, like, I think we're in our fourth year, been on an HTML template. Most of our brands do full design. And in fact, when you. When we first got together, you showed me some competitors and they were doing kind of these full design emails and we set you up on HTML. I'm from the old days, so I just. It was HTML back in the day. And we were. But we were just talking a bit before the pod started, and it's like, you know, is that. Was that even a decision of yours? Like, are you happy with that? Or is it just like we're just doing whatever Pilot House does? I wonder if you'll just kind of repeat what you were saying about that.

[Christina Schodeny]

Yeah, so no, I think we. You guys are the experts. We look to you. Like you said, we're on our fourth year. We have a great relationship. Everything that you've. I think you've grown our email program. I think, what, triple digits probably every. Every year. So I think we look to you as the experts and whatever you guys think is the best, you know, for our brand, we. We trust you with that. And I think, you know, too, we just like, probably the flexibility that this offers. We. We always have a lot, lot to say at Heston. So I think your team has been a really good job of, again, balancing the messaging throughout the email. You know, not too long, not too short, you know, just enough and then doing some test. I think testing falls in that too. Right? Are we, you know, are we a b. Testing different segments or different sections within the email? So again, we just kind of look to your recommendation.

[Jordan Gordon]

So the Neat thing I take from that is like, I mean, you might not have even ever thought about it. Right. You know, and it does show. I mean, I've discussed this a little bit before with the audience. I've brought, like, you know, I brought Gucci and raffle or any mails that are HTML. I would say, yeah, three quarters, maybe four fifths of our clients are on full design. And full design emails are great. Everyone's an individual work of art. But, you know, interestingly, it's like content is king. No one actually really cares if it's HTML or if it's full design. They care. What are you adding to my life? And in this case, and what that did, is it actually. It's over. Over time. You know, when. When these little emergencies come up and someone's sick or whatever it is, anybody can go in and just update the text. It's an HTML email, you know, or dragging a different hero shot. Hey, this is the. Oh, my God, we don't have that one. You can just. Anybody can do it.

[Christina Schodeny]

Or when we sell out of it, because your email is so great, we're like, oh, that went a lot faster than we thought. Swap in a new product.

[Jordan Gordon]

So you again, you know, you came. You came for. Came for email, stayed for the ads. Right. I guess would be kind of how your relationship with Pilot House started. And now, you know, you're using a suite of services. And I'm interested in. In understanding and everybody. If you want to hear some more about this topic, you can go back to my conversation with Abby, who works at Pilothouse as an account strategist, where we're talking about how do email ads interact? And you're on the brand side and it's like, how do email and ads interact? Like, realistically, are they kind of just two different silos when rubber meets the road? Or is it important that the two interact very tightly? How do you feel about that?

[Christina Schodeny]

I do think it's important that they interact. I think when we, you know, before Pilothouse, I think we were very much of the mindset of, let's say everything all the time to everyone, through every channel. We have so much to talk about. Hestan, our technology is really like first class. And there's a lot to say about cookware. And I think that was kind of a challenge for us at the beginning is with the ad teams is, oh, we have to talk about Nanobond. We have to talk about the master brand. Oh, and the handle and the flush rivets and the cleaning. Like, I think your team is like, no, like there's. You guys were really, really great at helping us edit, which is super important in marketing. Right. Just in general, but I think and also finding the right messaging and right content and creative by channel. I think that's what has helped us do so well with you guys over these past years is that you've really dialed in that approach of this messaging. Whatever. Such and such doesn't work on paid ads, but that doesn't mean it doesn't work at all. Let's move that messaging into email. So I think your team together has been really instrumental in driving that kind of strategy. And that I think leads to consistency too as well, which has been super important for us. We work with a lot of partners, a lot of channels say we have a 360 campaign marketing strategy. So it's important that we are telling the same stories, story consistently across the channels. But again, your team's really helped us dial in. Okay. This type of messaging works really great on paid. And then let's use email to tell more of that story. We want an amazing thumb stopping ad that gets people to click into it, sign up for our email and then this is the platform that we can tell a lot more of the Heston story and the why and the technology behind it. I think we've learned in cookware especially it's important to lead with the consumer benefit. You know, we want to talk a lot about, oh, product feature, product benefit, product material. Yeah, that's great. But at the end of the day, what the consumer really wants, just like you said at the beginning, is it makes my life easier. So we need to lead with the consumer benefit and support it with the technology. So that's how I see paid and email working together is let's appeal to the emotional side and the consumer benefit on paid. Yeah, I do wanna, yeah, I do need more cleaning help or yeah, I do want that beautiful looking steak on the grill. How do I cook that? And then click in sign up for the email and that's when we can start talking about how great our technology is and how great our products are.

[Jordan Gordon]

So again, we're living in sunny Aguascalientes, Mexico and we had kind of a cookout for our son Jordan Alexander's birthday. He had a pinata and we were just sitting there kind of, you know, and I'd cooked up, I'd cooked tacos and somebody who was there who was kind of also an expat and just like a friend of my wife kind of just looked at the pots and pans and said those look expensive. It was just the funniest comment. Right. Like, well, they are. So the interesting thing is that's like, that's kind of what you were saying there. That's not like it's, you know, this is how we make the. This is how. What's the word you used?

[Christina Schodeny]

Yeah, make all the layers or.

[Jordan Gordon]

Layers. Yeah, like you were showing the pictures and the emails. It's not that. It's like, oh, my God. That just looks, it just looks, you know, really, really stunning. And that's kind of, I guess what you're, what around. What you're trying to do, you know, at the very top of the funnel is just kind of, you know, draw people in and, and then follow up with that. So that. Yeah, that sounds really good. So there's a handover from something very emotive at the top of the funnel where people are saying, yeah, I would like better cookware. And then you're handing people off to a long term relationship of kind of recipes. You wouldn't run a recipe, I assume at the top of the funnel that's.

[Christina Schodeny]

No, no, we do all the time. No, it's great. We do, yes, we, absolutely. Yeah, we do a lot of, you know, we'll do whitelisting with influencers. It's a much softer sell. But yeah, we want to draw people in. I mean, food's universal. Right. Just like you're saying. You're talking about how you're this great party food is what brings us together. And I think it's really universal. So we've seen a lot of success in just doing kind of the softer sell to it. And again, I think it's at different stages of the funnel too. Right. We have really hardworking direct response ads that work great too. But we also have recipes that coming from chef partners, especially our chef partners too. I think people want to learn from. We work with America's best chefs. Thomas Keller is our brand ambassador. Super fascinating if you watch the new Netflix chef's table, but ton of hestan cookware in there, it's great. But I think people, yeah, people really want to see kind of behind the scenes. You know, maybe I go to the restaurant website or I read about the chef, but what else can we give them access to that's not, you know, that feels personal to them. So we do a lot of whitelisting and influencer collab content with all of our chef partners and that does really well. And again, it's a much softer salad. It's more celebrating Their story and kind of how Hestan is the right tool for the job that elevates their craft.

[Jordan Gordon]

And that's leading to the signup form for the email.

[Christina Schodeny]

Yeah. Go right to a landing page. And we have great landing pages that our team manages between all of our partners of their favorite cookware pieces, recipes from them, how they use, again, how they use these different vessels. It's just not a stock pot to boil pasta. There's so many different things that you can do with it. It feels really inspirational for our customers.

[Jordan Gordon]

Okay, so what are some of the things that would work in ads and wouldn't work in email or reverse? What are some of the things that you don't cross pollinate?

[Christina Schodeny]

What we love about Pilothouse too, is you guys have so much creative velocity. As the team says, no idea is too precious. You guys are always willing to test many, many iterations. But I think kind of, again, going back to what I was saying earlier is we've tried very technical ads at top of Funnel, and I just. I don't think we've seen as much success as we thought. You know, we're so close to it. I've used Hestan cookware even before I worked for Hestan. So, you know, being a chef and a love of cooking, I get that, you know, I want that technical knowledge. But I think if you're just getting started or not familiar yet with Hestan, you're like, why, again, why do I need that? It's really important to, I think, stay focused on the consumer benefit. So I would say anything super, super technical, you just haven't seen.

[Jordan Gordon]

You don't put. You don't put the pictures of the layers and everything.

[Christina Schodeny]

Like, there's a time and place for that. And we just don't see it work as much as well as we thought it would at top of funnel. So, again, I think email's a great medium or even landing pages. Right. To tell more of the story when the customer has more time. You know, what's the attention span on an ad these days? You know, three seconds these days, probably. So are you really digesting all that technical layers? No. But can you, again, resonate emotionally with the benefit and then spend more time on email or on our website learning about it?

[Jordan Gordon]

The really cool thing about that, though, and this ties into, again, something I've discussed theoretically with the audience, but here it is a chance to really drive it home, is that emails, part CRO. Hey, get them back on the site, get them converted and part branding. And so the really cool thing about that is. Yeah, so you've got something that you do in email that it's not going to work in ads because. Yeah, because it's just, it's too concentrated, too focused, too short term. But you can still do that stuff in email. We're looking right here about how you still are drawing someone into a world, you know, kind of, you know, and playing on their emotions and their love for cooking, but also running that very technical stuff because you get the time to do it if you're, if you're thinking about a two year time horizon for an address. So kind of email in that way is a little bit all singing, all dancing. How about. I'm actually not sure as well. Sorry guys, I don't have. I'm not exactly sure exactly what Heston does in every single thing because I've got a team who does that. But what are we doing for SMS at all while we're on it?

[Christina Schodeny]

We're working on an SMS refresh with you guys. We were using another provider and we were just seeing some data issues. Tim kind of discovered that maybe the data isn't syncing. So we're actually in the process of moving SMS over to your team. So it's getting set up now with the team. But SMS is interesting for us. We've always been a little bit hesitant of it. You know, as a luxury premium brand, we want to use SMS in the best way for our brand. So we don't use it as much as maybe other brands would. It's very, very strategic. We just use it, you know, I'd say a few times a month more, I'd say in the VIP capacity. Right. We just, we're sensitive to how much, you know, I get so many a day, like does it start to get annoying? So we're just sensitive of it for Hess and so it's a growing channel for us. We are about to launch loyalty program which we're really, really excited about. We've been working on for months and months to develop the perfect loyalty program. So I do think SMS can play more of a role kind of for that audience to people that want to hear from us more often.

[Jordan Gordon]

They put their hand up in a certain way. Yeah, that's the stuff that I wanted to discuss. And I wonder, is there anything that you, any message you have for the world as we close off the podcast?

[Christina Schodeny]

Well, if you need great cookware, please visit hestonculinary.com, i'll put the plugin. No, but I think, Jordan, we've touched on it just lightly. But I think the pilothouse team has been so great for email. I can't say enough things about working with you and the team. I think just the strategy behind everything. I think very much, and this is probably an oversimplification but I think before working with you it was very much of we just send an email. You just send an email out to your audience. But you guys have really come in and I think the things that you do with segmentation and testing and I know you carved down our list with a scalpel of finding the best, most responsive audience and, and how we message them has just been such, seen such incredible growth. And email's our second strongest channel, which I think speaks a lot. It's really again after the paid ads, it's our strongest channel. And like you said, they go hand in hand. Right. We couldn't do it without the other. But I just can't say enough things about your expertise and your team's expertise and everything. Email and we love working with you.

[Jordan Gordon]

Thank you very much. That was completely unscripted audience. Completely unscripted. But look, the important point on that and this I've also discussed with the audience. So it's great to have someone come in and in a practical sense talk about it. That the point of email and retention, right. So that includes SMS and all these things. Loyalties of retention tool as well. The point of that is to cut in low cost revenue. So yeah, you've got an ads channel and the general path for someone at Pilot house is they come and they sign up for ads and then go, you know, a few months down the line, hey, we got all these customers, we gotta reactivate them. Hey, let's sign up for email. And also out of not the norm with hestom was you came for the email and then afterwards took the ads and so everything was set up and we were converting really, really well. And so it really made the ads pop. I think when, you know, when I analyzed the kind of annual numbers and everything it's like, well that really worked. And it's because, because of the low cost revenue of email and retention, it just improves all the ratios which just allows you, you know, I always say it allows you to unlock more spend up funnel. Can you maybe confirm the way that you work has, has a really strong retention channel allowed you to spend more because ratios are better.

[Christina Schodeny]

Yeah. I think what you're saying is what you said about starting with email. Yeah. Maybe intentionally. We didn't, we didn't think it was going to be very Strategic. But I think you're absolutely right. You know, it was kind of building that foundation of the email first and the retention model and then. You're right. It does allow the ads to work a lot harder too. And I think since we've had such strong email, I think that success and those learnings certainly influence the ad team as well. Right. You know, does that inspire them? Oh, look at this email flow. That's doing really well. You know, is there an opportunity to pull in similar messaging for ad and what the team, I think is working. I shouldn't say what the team. I know what the team is working on now is really dividing up our messaging for adding email into different funnels too. Right. We have so many products now. We'll be launching our fifth cookware collection out of Italy this year.

[Jordan Gordon]

Which one? What's it called?

[Christina Schodeny]

It's going to be called Pro Bond Luxe. It'll be launching in August. But like I said, it's our fifth cookware collection, which is a lot for our brand too. So we know there's different customers for different products too. So your team has been great, the ads team as well, of who is the customer for each collection. And now they're really segmenting out the full funnel approach for each collection and that just allows us to scale the business even more. Right.

[Jordan Gordon]

When. When we had Abby. Does Abby work with you? Yes.

[Christina Schodeny]

Yes.

[Jordan Gordon]

Yeah. When we had Abby on and we never really talk about the client specifically. We're always like, it's a certain pet filter brand. Right. But I think she was, I think she was talking about, about Heston when she was discussing technology solutions she was using and techniques she was using to figure out the path. Thinking back. Sure. She was talking about about your brand. What are you doing? Kind of to. To figure that. To figure that out and to enter and to send. To get some. To put the right product in front of someone.

[Christina Schodeny]

Yeah. We're still very much in the discovery phase. We use a lot of, you know, on site tools as well. You know, analytics. We've just activated North Beam too, which we're really excited to see. Kind of the three, like I said, that 360 approach. But we also, you know, our business is, is omnichannel too. At the end of the day, our D2C is between, you know, 40 and 45% of our revenue. But retail is really, really strong for us. So I think we hear a lot from our retail partners too. You know, what customers are coming in and asking about Hestan, what they're looking for. That's also a great resource. We learn so much. Every time I get on a retailer call, I learn so much from their business too, on what they're seeing on their end. So I think that influences a lot of what messaging we're testing and trying for E commerce.

[Jordan Gordon]

One thing that stuck out there is it's DTC 40 to 45% of your business now. That was not the way it was four years ago.

[Christina Schodeny]

No, it's grown a lot. There's again so much scale there. But we still, like I said, we wanted to be omnichannel from the beginning. That's really, really important for us for cookware. We know 92% of our customers are going to visit a store in their purchase journey. They want to pick up and feel the cookware, see it in person. And everyone can make everything look good online these days. You know, you can make the lower end cookware look as great as our high end cookware too. So it's really important that the retail part is again, that consistency and messaging is working for us and everything that we're doing online.

[Jordan Gordon]

Yeah. And on the kind of. When we think about email as the CRO, the CRO portion of email after someone comes in, there's two ways to approach this. One is a really lean way where it's like, okay, whatever they came in on, just let recommendations kind of feed them the right products and put them in one clean funnel or, you know, push them down kind of, you know, like I say four or now five different descriptive and discrete paths that speak to the product that they came in on. And I talk with the audience about the importance of having an email program that's manageable with low technical debt versus in this case, the uplift of really speaking to them where they are. And if you had to pick one of those two for any brand out there, who's listening? If you had to pick one of those two more to manage, but speaking directly to someone on different categories or less to manage and just letting the machine take care of it, what would you pick?

[Christina Schodeny]

Oh, that's hard. I think there's just a time and place for both. Right. I mean, again, we have so much to say at Hestan. I wouldn't want to just go down one path. I think we're still learning too a lot about cookware as our business scales and how the economy reacts to it and the audience. So I don't know if I could pick just one. I think what your team has taught us, the right creator for the right channel, it changes and it changes too in their purchase journey. Right. When they're doing research and before they purchase. But you know, after we, like you said, it's retention, at the end of the day, we still have a lot of repeat customer. You know, our repeat customer rate this month is 40%. That's insane. That's the highest I've seen it. So we know that they're coming back. That's why we're so excited to launch loyalty program too because we know that our customer really, really trusts the Hestan brand. So I think even after, you know, it just doesn't die after they purchase. Right. There's so much more that we can share with them and want to share with them. So it's hard for me just to choose one path.

[Jordan Gordon]

Understood. But let me just drive home for the audience how critical it is, how critical it has been in making someone think over time how premium of a brand it is to have like you know, two or three really beautiful, well thought out messages hit the inbox, right. In someone's most personal digital space, their inbox. All those brand impressions, all those low cost brand impressions and how expensive that would have been to do with just ads. And that is the true unlock with email. And we were talking about this with the audience just a couple of episodes ago. It's like, everybody goes right for like attributed revenue. And so we have to, we live in two worlds on our team. It's like, okay, we got to drive the attributed revenue. How's that work? Okay, you know, you know, okay, check out abandoned. Because of course check out abandoned is important, but it's, it's like one that's like one of four touch points in that first purchase. Whereas speaking to someone for two years with beautiful, well thought out email.

[Christina Schodeny]

Oh, yes, yes.

[Jordan Gordon]

Standalone unlock for driving home that, that brand. So that was a perfect way, I think once again to close the discussion.

[Christina Schodeny]

Yeah. So I think it comes back to what we started, the equity. Right. We want to build the long term relationship with our customer. We have so much to offer at Heston. You know, we make amazing wine, we make award winning appliances. So it's not just we're selling you a pan and then we're done. It's exactly what you're saying. We want a long term relationship with our customer. We have so much, so much to say.

[Jordan Gordon]

Well, thank you very much for joining me and see you on a meeting sometime. Okay.

[Eric Dick]

Thanks so much for listening to today's episode. If you're not a subscriber to our newsletter, you can do that right now at directtoconsumeralloneword co. I'm Eric Dick, and this has been the DTC podcast. We'll see you next time.