Inside Represent Clothing's global SMS strategy

Inside Represent Clothing's global SMS strategy: How loyalty drives growth

Represent Clothing has mastered the art of SMS marketing, turning it into a key driver of global growth and customer loyalty. In this session, Joel Edwards, Senior Customer Success Manager at Attentive, teamed up with Niall Young-O’Brien, CRM Manager at Represent, to share how the brand uses AI-powered personalisation and loyalty segmentation to create campaigns that truly connect with customers.

By combining data-driven insights with automation, Represent delivers highly targeted SMS messages that boost conversions and provide a seamless omnichannel experience. Despite rapid international expansion, the brand has maintained authentic and meaningful relationships that fuel repeat purchases.

Meeting customers where it matters

When it comes to choosing between SMS and email, Represent strikes a smart balance, each channel plays a distinct, complementary role in the customer journey. SMS is the go-to for high-impact moments like weekly product launches, where speed and urgency are key. With the "high-heat" business model, where products often sell out quickly, SMS cuts through the noise and delivers instant visibility, driving the highest ROI.

Beyond promotions, Represent uses SMS for a range of automations linked to their loyalty programme, Prestige. From tier reminders to personalised customer-first updates, these messages keep engagement high and retention strong.

More than ROI

The results speak for themselves. In 2024, Represent achieved a staggering 150x ROI on SMS journeys, with specific returns of 47x in the UK and 129x in the US. While not every campaign hits those heights, the overall impact has been undeniable, the brand doubled its SMS subscriber base in just one year, leading to an impressive 28x overall ROI, and up to 58x on individual campaigns, with conversion rates reaching as high as 53%. But beyond the numbers, the team’s ability to scale during peak moments like Black Friday stands out as a true achievement.

Niall, Joel and another team member personally led the charge, making over 150 sign-up unit updates in just three weeks to ensure every customer journey from welcome flows to on-site messaging was aligned. As Niall put it, “That’s the biggest achievement, numbers, revenue that's all great but what you can achieve with great strategic partnerships is a lot of work that you definitely can’t do on your own.”

Long term loyalty, one birthday at a time

A great example of Represent’s approach to loyalty-driven engagement is their birthday campaign. “For loyalty members, the first thing I wanted to set up was members getting 50 points on their birthday, so then they can redeem the points against a discount code whenever they want, so it’s not time sensitive,” said Niall. The team set up an SMS flow and connected the reward through LoyaltyLion, and it performed well.

The campaign saw a 12.4% click-through rate and a 6.8% conversion rate. “Considering we set it up more as an engagement piece, I’m really proud of those results, because it is one of those influence-revenue sort of streams. It’s not something that we’re directly saying, ‘oh, spend the money now’, it’s more of a nice-to-have. Then you’re looking at the long-term effects of that.”

For those unfamiliar with Represent’s business model, the brand runs weekly product launches, supported by their tiered Prestige loyalty scheme ranging from VIPs down through Platinum, Gold, Silver, and Bronze. Each tier enjoys different benefits, including lifetime discounts and exclusive perks, but the biggest draw is early access to new releases. A recent collaboration with Puma perfectly showcased this strategy in action.

VIP members received an SMS at 7 o’clock with a password granting exclusive early access to the launch. The buzz on social media was electric, with fans raving about “what a good day to be a VIP” as many products sold out by the time Bronze members gained access. This personalised communication not only amplified customer excitement but also created powerful social proof, confirming the effectiveness of Represent’s model and the brand plans to keep this momentum going.

See Represent Clothing and Attentive’s full SMS strategy breakdown in this Sync 2025 session.

sync 2025 | Inside Represent Clothing's global SMS strategy: How loyalty drives growth