SILVERBACK | Conquering the Strongman Market.
How We Took Silverback all the way to THE top of their niche: ACHIEVING FIRST-ORDER PROFITABILITY, Cultivating a loyal fan base, and Generating over £1.5M in revenue + more.
CLIENT:
SILVERBACK GYM WEAR
Silverback is the UK's #1 Strongman brand, it's a brand that goes beyond just clothing, inspiring and empowering its customers to better mental health, physical strength and emotional resilience.

GOALS:

  • 1
    Maximise customer acquisition volume while maintaining 1st order profitability.
  • 2
    Increase customer retention rates and customer 60/120/365 day lifetime value.
  • 3
    Become the undisputed #1 strongman brand.
  • 4
    Launch, validate and scale into a new category: Women's clothing.
GOAL 1: Maximise customer acquisition volume while maintaining 1st order profitability.
CHALLENGE:
Scaling with the limitation of first-order profitability is notoriously difficult! Most brands favour pushing for faster growth, accepting the norm of achieving profitability on the second order. This is a strategic decision each brand owner makes to fit their business and willingness to take on risk.
DELIVERABLES:
  • Full FB Ads Campaign Management, including everything from content creation, campaign set-up and optimisations to scale first-time orders while remaining profitable.
  • Google Ads to capture high intent interest on Strongman-related commercial searches, position Silverback and the Strongman sport synonymously as one. And, as we rapidly grew, came the need to combat competition on branded keywords “Silverback”.
OUTCOME:
  • 12,369 New Customers at a £5.69 Acquisition cost, Generating over £600K.
  • 9.89 aMER (acquisition Marketing Efficiency Ratio)
  • 6.5x FB ROAS | £59.9K spent to generate £393K.
  • 22x Google ROAS including branded keywords. 14x Google ROAS excluding.
GOAL 2: Increase customer retention rates, AOV and lifetime value.
CHALLENGE:
Bringing back customers for a second purchase is easier said than done and is dependent on a multitude of factors, some within the brands control and others that are not. The key lever that is in our control is to maximise the post-purchase customer experience from both an offline perspective (delivery & unboxing experience) as well as online (post-purchase messaging, 2nd order product upsell/cross-sell recommendations, and brand activation exercises to build brand equity).
DELIVERABLES:

1) RESEARCH
  • Customer analysis to understand customer segments and behaviour, and find trends that can provide a starting point to testing.
  • RFM segmentation to identify the most common and most valuable customer types.
  • Analysing offline post-purchase experience and making recommendations for improvement.

2) TESTING & UNLOCKING PREDICTABILITY
  • Email marketing flows to test and optimise for best messaging, 2nd order product recommendation, and timing to ensure we are hitting our proven formula of Right message x Right person x Right time.

3) MAXIMISING OPPORTUNITY & SCALE
  • 1-2 weekly email campaigns leveraging new product launches, and cultural or seasonal moments to get in front of the customers and give them yet another reason to buy again.
OUTCOME:
  • Increased overall customer returning rate by 13%
  • Increased AOV by 7%
  • Generated over £500K from email marketing, accounting for 36% of total revenue.
  • Achieved 28% increase in customer LTV within 60 days & 62% increase within 1 year.
GOAL 3: Become the undisputed #1 strongman brand.
CHALLENGE:
To become the best in any category is hard, to become the best in a category within fitness is madness. The fitness space is easily one of the most competitive, filled with noise and alternatives for the customers. we knew in order to achieve the #1 spot we would have to position and present Silverback in a way that will break through the noise on social media to increase brand awareness, position it synonymously with the Strongman sport as a whole to increase brand equity, and deliver on brand promises consistently to build brand loyalty and mitigate risks of customers switching to others brands for a better price or any other reason.
DELIVERABLES:
  • Silverback Rebrand: Creating a new strategy, an identity that reflects the #1 position and clearer core messaging that cuts through the noise and makes Silverback more than just a “good” clothing brand.
  • Google & FB Ads: Strongman keyword targeting to create a synonymous link between brand and sport and retargeting to give the appearance that Silverback is everywhere.
  • Brand activations: Exhibiting at the Arnold Sports Festival, Birmingham, to create 1:1 interactions with customers IRL, and sponsoring events and stages around the festival to maximise brand awareness and the feeling like Silverback is everywhere, as we did digitally via Google and FB ads.
  • Create an effective strategy to sponsor UK strongman events and athletes while ensuring a positive ROI.
OUTCOME:
  • Regarded as the leading / #1 Strongman brand by Strongman sport/events and athletes themselves.
  • Increased sales, lower acquisition costs, and higher retention and LTV rates.
GOAL 4: Launch, validate and scale into a new category: Women's clothing.
CHALLENGE:
Break the status quo in the male-dominated strongman space while also managing how to enter one of the most competitive in the fitness niches: Womens activewear. Where the behemoths dominate, the customers have a near infinite amount of options, and effectively challenge gymsharks, alphalte and others competitive prices and strong brand equity. This was a challenge and so the contant stock delay that we were highly apprehensive about, but as always, up for the challenge.
DELIVERABLES:

WOMEN'S RANGE LAUNCH STRATEGY:
  • Developing a comprehensive launch strategy that leveraged existing male audiences during the gifting season, a strategy to build a female database, and creating a messaging framework that resonated with both primary and secondary target audiences.

VISUAL IDENTITY
Photoshoot Arrangements & Collections Mapping:
  • Mapping out and categorising stock into collections, creating mood boards and photoshoot references for effective carousel images on the website, and optimising product descriptions and the buy boxes on the website.

EMAIL CAMPAIGNS:
  • Building excitement and anticipation for the launch by developing effective visuals, copy, and segmentation that resonated with our target audiences. Leveraging existing male database during the gifting season and testing and expanding women’s database.

ADS CREATION
  • Brand awareness campaign to let our customers Silverback now has a new women's range.
  • Test and validate demand for Silverback's women's range amongst new audiences and segments.
  • Drive women to a custom LP to test core messaging, measure demand and begin to build a list of potential customers.
OUTCOME:
  • The launch accounted for an additional 25% of revenue that month.
  • We built an active women's database of 13K.
  • And since the women's range has been continuously expanding with more female athletes, ranges and of course customers.
Additional revenue generated from the launch.
From near 0 to 13K female database.
25%
13k
let's work together!

Pete Tidmarsh -
Co-Founder of Silverback

"We decided to join forces with BBM at the start of 2021 to assist us with our digital marketing strategy. BBM runs our paid and social campaigns and has recently taken over our email platform, so our entire digital marketing strategy is orchestrated.


The team at BBM are incredibly professional and goes above and beyond to ensure our digital branding is on point and relevant in the marketplace. Adam and Kate are exceptional and their knowledge and professionalism are the foundation of a diverse and talented marketing team."

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