SMS Marketing Secrets: How Ecommerce Brands Increase Sales and Customer Loyalty With Heather Roach

Heather Roach is the Director of Marketing at Original Footwear Company, a leading manufacturer of tactical footwear for military personnel, first responders, and outdoor enthusiasts. In her role, Heather has worked to evolve the company’s approach to SMS from a basic, automated setup to a more hands-on, test-driven strategy centered on personalization and audience segmentation. Her approach emphasizes balancing promotional messaging with meaningful, human communication to strengthen customer relationships and drive performance.

Here’s a glimpse of what you’ll learn:

• [2:31] Why SMS is an underutilized but powerful DTC growth channel
• [3:43] Heather Roach explains “set it and forget it” versus a strategic SMS marketing approach
• [5:28] A/B testing SMS: optimizing brand voice, messaging style, and formats
• [6:42] Heather explains how to balance promotional with relationship-driven SMS broadcasts
• [8:32] Finding the right SMS frequency, segmentation, and avoiding customer fatigue
• [11:32] High-performing SMS flows: abandoned cart, product recommendations, and reviews
• [17:02] What would Heather do differently when building an SMS strategy from scratch?

In this episode…

SMS marketing has often been treated as an afterthought, with many brands plugging in basic flows and hoping for the best. But what happens when a company decides to truly invest in SMS as a core growth channel, making it a personalized, hands-on tool for customer engagement? Could a more thoughtful approach to SMS be the key to unlocking exponential returns for ecommerce businesses?

Heather Roach, an ecommerce growth strategist, explains that success with SMS entails intentional, hands-on optimization. Heather emphasizes A/B testing messaging tone, timing, and format to understand what resonates. She highlights the importance of building diverse flows, including abandoned carts, product recommendations, and review requests, while balancing promotional texts with meaningful, human communication. By segmenting audiences, personalizing outreach, and actively managing responses (instead of relying solely on automation), brands can increase ROI, loyalty, and long-term engagement.

In this episode of Minds of Ecommerce, Raphael Paulin-Daigle interviews Heather Roach, Director of Marketing at Original Footwear Company, about leveraging SMS for ecommerce growth. Heather unpacks segmentation strategies, balancing promotions with brand voice, and optimizing automated flows for higher conversions.

Resources mentioned in this episode:

• Raphael Paulin-Daigle: LinkedIn | X
• SplitBase
• Heather Roach on LinkedIn
• Original Footwear
• Altama Boots: Website | Instagram
• Original S.W.A.T: Website | Instagram
• Emotive

Quotable Moments:

• “SMS, I feel, is a very underutilized application with customer outreach, direct one-on-one.”
• “It was one of those plug-and-play kind of situations that I think most brands really use.”
• “You need to have it be more than that because if not, it will start to fall on deaf ears.”
• “If you lose the humanity of the platform, you're going to lose your customer.”
• “This is not a slow cooker kind of thing. This is something you need to have hands on.”

Action Steps:

1. A/B test your SMS messaging regularly: Testing tone, timing, and content helps you discover what resonates best with your audience and improves engagement.
2. Build out essential SMS flows beyond welcome messages: Implementing flows such as abandoned cart and post-purchase recommendations increases conversions and customer lifetime value.
3. Balance promotional texts with meaningful communication: Mixing sales messages with human, brand-driven content prevents audience fatigue and builds stronger relationships.
4. Segment your audience for targeted messaging: Dividing customers based on behavior and engagement ensures more relevant messages and reduces annoyance.
5. Manage and respond to SMS conversations actively: Engaging in real human interactions strengthens trust, boosts loyalty, and can directly drive additional sales.

Sponsor for this episode…

This episode is brought to you by SplitBase.

At SplitBase, we design, test, and manage high-converting landing pages and on-site experiences for fashion, luxury, and lifestyle ecommerce brands. Our optimization program pinpoints exactly where your store is losing money most, and then we help you fix that.

The result? Increased conversions and profits for our clients.

With our team of conversion optimization specialists, performance marketers, and conversion-focused designers, we've got your back when it comes to testing and optimization.

Request a proposal on SplitBase.com today, and learn how we can help you get the most out of your marketing spend.

You can find us on LinkedIn, Twitter, and Facebook. Don’t miss out on our exclusive podcasts at Minds of Ecommerce.

Episode Transcript

Intro: 00:06  

Welcome to the Minds of Ecommerce podcast, where you'll learn one key strategy that made leading e-commerce companies grow exponentially. We cut the bullshit and keep the meat in a 15-minute episode. Founders and executives take us through a deep dive of a strategy so you get to learn and grow your online sales. In the last episode, we heard from Jessica Kalichman, the marketing director at ASTR the Label, a Los Angeles-based fashion brand. And we talked about how to grow through affiliates, but through the lens of a fashion brand.

Now, today, get ready. I'm chatting with Heather Roach, director of marketing at Original Footwear Company, and we'll be talking about how brands can leverage SMS for growth. I'm your host, Raphael Paulin-Daigle, and I'm the founder of SplitBase. This is Minds of Ecommerce. Now this episode is brought to you by SplitBase.

At SplitBase, we helped leading eight and nine-figure brands such as Dr. Squatch, Hyperice, and Amika grow through customer-focused conversion optimization programs. We find out exactly where your store is losing money most, and then we help you fix it. You'll find out what's working and what's not working, what's getting people to buy, and what's stopping people from buying. And with that information, we help you increase your conversions, help you achieve higher AOV, and of course, make more money, which in return will allow you to scale your ads profitably. We've been at it for over a decade and can help you manage the entire process from A to Z.

So go to splitbase.com to request your free proposal and learn how we can help you get the most out of your marketing spend through conversion optimization. All right, Heather, welcome to the show. Thank you so much for being here.

Heather Roach: 01:54  

Thank you for having me.

Raphael Paulin-Daigle: 01:56  

Yeah. As you know now this podcast is all about going deep, right? And dissecting one key growth strategy so our listeners can get the most value right away. And now I know that on your end, you've really focused a lot on SMS. Since you joined the company and with great success.

So can you just maybe give people a bit of context as to how you see SMS and how SMS is being used in the company? Can you just give us a bit of a context around that? And then obviously, we want to dive in into what you're actually doing and what's working.

Heather Roach: 02:31

Yeah, absolutely. SMS, I feel like is a very underutilized application with customer outreach direct one on one. It's something that for us, we've definitely utilized it in the past. And now that we're using it as the platform is intended, we've seen nothing but success. Year over year.

I think it's one of those things that's very handy to give a personal touch to your brand, especially if you are utilizing it correctly, which I know we're going to go into a little bit more.

Raphael Paulin-Daigle: 03:05  

Awesome. So yeah, tell me more. What, how do you SMS correctly? And I think I really appreciate your perspective here, because what you told me earlier, before we started recording, is that there was a time where SMS wasn't valued at the company as much as it is today. So you've seen the before and you've seen the after and the fantastic results that the after has brought.

So what does that after look like? What does a brand that has a s a mess but doesn't really put a lot of focus on it look like versus a brand that really leverages it as a core growth channel.

Heather Roach: 03:43  

Absolutely. The first few years that we had our SMS program, it was one of those plug and play kind of situations that I think most brands really use it as. And that's, you know, a basic welcome flow, a basic hey, your products on the way. And it's not really communication. It's just here's a simple flow or 2 or 3.

And we're just going to let it ride and then forget it. Exactly. Just set it and forget it. It's like a slow cooker, right? Just put the roast in there if it comes out dry.

Oh, well, it's edible. And at least we're doing the thing. That was the problem. It just kind of did what we put into it. But at this time, and once I took over utilizing SMS for our company, I realized that not only did we need more flows that offered more experimental engagement to our customers, but we also needed to figure out exactly what would work for our customer base.

So the first thing I did was start some AB testing. What language hits home? Do I need to do more with imagery or video? Or is it okay just to use SMS or do I need to mix for us in our community, being a tactical community? It ended up being that we didn't need MMS at all, which was great because MMS is going to be way more expensive.

You're going to have issues with loading some people's phones won't take it. And so the SMS for us is what worked. Now that may not be for everyone, but I do highly recommend a B test your community. Find what works for you.

Raphael Paulin-Daigle: 05:21  

And when you're saying A/B testing, you're saying like the actual messages, right?

Heather Roach: 05:26

So 100%.

Raphael Paulin-Daigle: 05:27  

Perfect.

Heather Roach: 05:28  

Yeah. The text, what your voice is saying, what does your brand voice sound like to your customer? What are they more responsive to? Do they want something that sounds more professional or more friendly? You know, so it's that sort of thing as well.

And then on top of those flows that are where you're experiencing our brand in the funnel, so an abandoned cart to welcome your products on the way those kinds of flows. On top of that, you need to have your broadcasts. But I have found that for our brand, it's not always just about. Hey, this new boot is out. Hey, this cell is going on.

Although those are very necessary, and they do return considerably with ROI. It's also about who we are as a brand. We are celebrating this holiday with you, especially for a military and first responder group like I deal with. Yes. You know, speaking to some of the military focused or Leo focused concerns, holidays, etc. that brings them back in and it makes it not just a contact trying to sell you something.

Actual voice you want to hear from.

Raphael Paulin-Daigle: 06:42  

And in those messages like, are you trying to sell something? Like, is there a sale? Is it a promo? Or it's just a small message like, hey, just wanted to wish you a happy holiday from the team and the brand and so on.

Heather Roach: 06:55  

Yeah, 100%. You have to have the broadcasts that are telling you about a sale or trying to tell you about this boot you really need to buy. But you need to have it be more than that because if not, it will start to fall on deaf ears. People won't always read and so your click through rate will suffer because they think, oh, if I look at this, they're just going to try to sell me something. But if it's an actual communication, and not only that, I use emoticons by privy and they give you the opportunity to actually engage in conversations one on one as well through handoffs, the handoffs prior were not being handled at all.

They just.

Raphael Paulin-Daigle: 07:35  

Sat there.

Heather Roach: 07:37  

I have noticed that the more that I actually communicate back when there's a question that that AI responder can't really connect with, I've, I've gotten more sales, I've gotten better loyalty to the brand because they, the person feels like they're being heard, right. That's a great thing. And the bad thing about AI, there are certain responses that can be automated. There are certain responses that cannot. And if you lose the humanity of the platform, you're going to lose your customer.

Raphael Paulin-Daigle: 08:09

Yeah, yeah. Well said. I'm curious here about the frequency of the podcast. Like obviously it sounds like you're really trying to build those relationships. I think it's also important not to be too annoying either, right?

But I think the definition of annoying varies from brand to brand and no one really knows, like how often we should send broadcasts? So what's the answer?

Heather Roach: 08:32

Well, the answer is a personal answer to each brand, to each community. Obviously, we don't really have a lot of drop off with ours. And I think some of that reasoning is behind how we do utilize it, that we're not just inundating with sales. When we do post sales, I can tell that we get annoyed or annoyed. I should give answers back.

And so we try to back off of that. If I'm going to send three a week, that's going to be very rare and very purposeful. So if there is a three day sale, I'm going to make sure you know that like and we target too. So you need to fraction out your audience. So we have a VIP audience that gets certain special treatment.

On top of that, we have our full audience. We have our full audience that has purchased from this connection. And we won't email them again. So we're not just annoying you, annoying you, annoying you. But then we have, you know, these have been reached but have not clicked through.

And that gets so you want to segment it out. We have, I think, 5 or 6 different segmentations that we do for any launch. Once you've purchased from that broadcast or engaged, even from that broadcast, unless there's an abandoned cart that needs to happen, we leave you alone. We don't want to keep at you for something you've already engaged with, because that becomes an annoyance. So you want to segment, you want to watch what works and what doesn't.

This is not a slow cooker kind of a thing. This is something you need to have hands on. I check it every week. I have a bi weekly meeting with my manager on their end so that we can make sure things are working. We analyze on a regular basis, and I keep an eye on that dashboard, which I do with all of our apps, obviously.

But for me, SMS has just shown and proven year over year. It's growing year over year, it's doing better. The ROI is picking up year over year. I mean, it's kind of a no brainer to me that if you touch it enough and you cater to your audience enough, the response will be there, right?

Raphael Paulin-Daigle: 10:52  

That's fantastic. I mean, you gave so many value bombs here, but I'm curious about the flows, right? We obviously talked about the broadcast. You have a strategy that's potentially a bit different, I think, than a lot of brands. and it's proven to work.

Now, what about the flows? Because like you said, like I think a lot of people, they said it, they forget it and they're like these templates that just go out and that's kind of it. So apart from like, say your typical welcome flow, what are we looking at? Like, what should brands implement? And I know the answer here again, is likely personal from brand to brand.

But what do you believe are the essentials?

Heather Roach: 11:32  

Well, you have to of course have a welcome flow. That's that's a given. You need to have an abandoned cart flow. It's another given if they've left something in that cart, you want to touch back and find out, you know what you can do to help them to make a decision. And I know a lot of people are like me.

You'll put wish lists in carts and then leave them, and then you mean to come back and purchase it, but maybe you forget. So that abandoned cart, you don't want to annoy someone with an abandoned cart either, but to give them a timeline. And also, you know, sometimes to sweeten the pot a little bit in that second touch of an abandoned cart, if it's staying in that abandoned cart. But you don't want people to start thinking, too. I can leave this in the cart, and I'll get a better deal if I leave it in the cart.

So you have to walk a fine line there, too, of not always offering that sweetening of the pot. Another thing we do is when, like I said, the shipping. When your products are on the way. We also do you know what. I can pull those up, but we have multiple different experiences.

A product recommendation is another that we do. So if you have scanned the website and you've looked at one product or two products, it will say, okay, so here's some recommendations of things if this is what they're looking at. There's also these other products that they might be interested in. Or if you purchase, that's another one. If you've purchased, we'll wait a little while.

We have a set determined time and we'll offer accessories that will go with that or maybe a companion product.

Raphael Paulin-Daigle: 13:07

That's a great idea.

Heather Roach: 13:08  

Offers, you know, something along the same lines of a need as what you've already purchased. So I wouldn't call it upselling because to me, I hate that word. To be really.

Raphael Paulin-Daigle: 13:20

Honest.

Heather Roach: 13:20

With you. I don't think it's personal. I think it's very old school selling where it's just hammering them until they spend all their money. It's more of a recommendation of how to improve your life with our products, in my opinion. And then also, you know, a checkout kind of a setup, which kind of flows with that abandoned cart situation, but just making sure that the needs are met.

And then we also do a review request. So a certain period of time after purchase is made. Would you like to place a review? If you do, you get a certain percent off for a future purchase? So not only are we encouraging future purchasing and brand loyalty, but we're also encouraging someone to leave a review.

And if they're leaving these beautiful positive reviews, then that gets us more SEO, you know, so we're going to be seeing more. And then when people go to look at our website to purchase these same products, it's just like that Amazon mindset, right? You see, you always scroll down and look and see what anybody else has said about that product. And so it gives people a sense of security that, okay, this is what I can expect from this product. And so these are experiential things that I think any brand can leverage.

It doesn't matter if it's boots or if it's perfume or whatever, you know, if you're touching the audience in a meaningful way and communicating with them in a meaningful way, they're going to respond, right?

Raphael Paulin-Daigle: 14:46  

I love what you're saying here because, you know, I strongly believe, and this applies to what you're saying, right? You can convert customers when you're creating an experience that's relevant and enjoyable to them. I truly believe at the end of the day, that's the core of conversion optimization. That's the root of marketing, right? When you're building something that is in line with your customer, that's when they convert by making their experience better, not worse.

And it seems like that's what you've applied here when it comes to SMS. And obviously it's working. So I think that's great. The second I think takeaway as well that I'm hearing is you are definitely leveraging flows at their fullest, right? I think some obvious flows, like you said, like card abandonment, right?

They sound obvious. I've worked with hundreds of brands. I can probably say that it's five, 10% of brands that even have, you know, anything beyond a welcome flow and broadcasts, right? So I think it's good for brands listening to think about, you know, you don't need to go crazy all in one go, but just add those couple flows once in a while and, and, and just treat them like any other channel. I think that's what I'm hearing makes this work.

Heather Roach: 16:03  

100% because, you know, the thing to keep in mind is as you're moving through your life, this is your consistent companion. Your phone is always with you. Yeah, and why not leverage something? You know, because they may not necessarily drive by a billboard. They may not necessarily go to this website or that website at any given time, but a little notification pops up on your phone.

What do you do? You check it every time, whether or not you're scooting past it. The visual is still there. And that brand awareness in that moment is you can't beat it.

Raphael Paulin-Daigle: 16:41

Now, I'm curious, as we're unfortunately almost out of time, I'm curious if you had to implement this all over again at the same company or at another company, right? Like, what would you have done differently? Right. Like you started almost from scratch in implementing this program at the brand, but is there anything you would have done differently perhaps on day one?

Heather Roach: 17:02

That is an excellent question. We started when we started with SMS. We did start with this program, but it was being handled by someone else. And it was that kind of plug and play mindset with that person. So in a way, yes, I did start from scratch with this because I brought it from just kind of a flat line to actually having a heartbeat and being viable and useful for the community.

Honestly, I feel like if we would have started at the place we are right now, it may have been too much for the community in the beginning, but I agree. Starting with the flows first, building up good tangible flows, running the abs, finding the language, finding the timing and just getting that going first and then starting in with the broadcasts, but starting on or starting out hands on versus just plug and play, leave it be, whatever, watch, engage the a, B testing and anything you do is always going to be valuable because it's valuable information to tell you how you're being received and what's working, what's not working.

Raphael Paulin-Daigle: 18:19  

Absolutely. We've been talking to Heather Roach, director of marketing at Original Footwear Company. Now, Heather, if people want to learn more about you, about the brand, where should they go? What should they do?

Heather Roach: 18:31  

Absolutely. They should go to originalfootwear.com. That's our website. Our brand's that's actually the parent company. Our brands are Altama and Original S.W.A.T.

We make tactical footwear. So if you go on to originalfootwear.com, you're going to see our brand, you're going to see our footwear, and you're going to see our heart and our charity involvements and things like that. If you want to follow us on social media at Altama Boots or at Original S.W.A.T, and we're there all the time, if you go onto Instagram, that's me you're talking to. So you can drop me a line and ask me any questions you want to.

Raphael Paulin-Daigle: 19:08  

Amazing. Heather, thank you so much for being here.

Heather Roach: 19:11

Absolutely. Thank you for having me.

Outro: 19:17

All right. Well, that's it for today's episode. And thank you so much for tuning in. Now, if you like what you've heard and you don't want to miss any of the new episodes that are about to come out, make sure you subscribe to the podcast and well, bonus points if you also leave a review in the iTunes store or wherever you're listening to this. Now, if you're working on an e-commerce store that does over $1 million in revenue and you need help with conversion optimization or landing pages, well, I've got some good news because there's a pretty good chance we can help with that.

Go to SplitBase. Come to learn more or even to request a proposal. If you have any guest requests, questions or comments, tweet me @rpaulindaige, and I'll be super happy to hear from you. And again, thanks again for listening. This is Minds of Ecommerce.

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