We sat down with Devon Kelley, Eighth Generation’s Director of Marketing, to learn more about their mission-driven approach to messaging, their global aspirations, and how the switch to Attentive is lighting the way. 

Proudly owned by the Snoqualmie tribe of Washington state, Eighth Generation is taking a different approach to traditional tribal entrepreneurship. Renowned for their stunning wool blankets, Eighth Generation is a lifestyle and homegoods brand with products created solely by Native American artists. Eighth Generation is fighting to take the market back from “Native-inspired” items, instead giving shoppers the opportunity to support real Native artisans and connect meaningfully with their culture. 

When their initial SMS provider couldn’t provide the level of growth and service they needed, they switched to Attentive in 2023. Since then, the brand has skyrocketed, growing campaign revenue by more than 300% and landing on the cover of British Vogue. 

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Could you share how Eighth Generation’s mission informs your marketing strategy?

We're a small yet globally engaged business based in Seattle, proudly owned by the Snoqualmie Tribe. Owning a lifestyle and home goods brand offers a fresh perspective on tribal entrepreneurship, which is both exciting and transformative.

At Eighth Generation, we're renowned for our wool blankets, but our product range extends to a variety of Native-designed home goods, personal adornments, and other unique items. What truly distinguishes us in the market is our commitment to authenticity. Unlike many major brands that offer "Native-inspired" items, everything we create is genuinely designed by Native artists. We’re bringing the market back from “Native-inspired” to Inspired Natives. We aim to connect with an audience that craves authenticity and wishes to engage with cultural art in a meaningful way. Our products not only showcase beautiful designs but also educate consumers about the rich stories, histories, and futures associated with them, as told by our Native artists.

We target conscientious consumers who are eager to support small businesses, the Native community, and the actual artists behind the products they purchase. Our audience is deeply engaged with our brand across various platforms like social media, SMS, email, and our website. They seek the stories behind the designs and want to know the artists personally. This desire for connection drives us to adopt a robust marketing strategy that feels more like an ongoing conversation than a simple marketing push.

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How does your SMS channel support that mission?

When we started our SMS program, we wanted a new way to reach an interested audience. Folks that liked our brand and cared about our messaging enough to give us their phone numbers and let us text message them to share what we’re doing. Our hope was to drive revenue by giving people the VIP feeling of a peer-to-peer conversation. 

At the time, we were using another SMS provider and it wasn’t working out as we had hoped. They were a smaller organization and their capabilities were limited to SMS only. This meant we didn't have the option to integrate SMS with email, which was a significant drawback. Additionally, their small size meant that I didn't have a reliable team to support or assist us at that provider. I didn’t have the tools or support I needed to grow our SMS program there. 

From research and conversations with other leading marketers, I knew what I was looking for existed at Attentive. So, we had a conversation at the executive level about making the switch and investing in a company that was going to be able to help us achieve our goals instead.

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In addition to increased capabilities, what else was appealing about working with Attentive? 

Switching to Attentive meant moving to an industry-leading, globally recognized company. They offered a range of products, integrations, and other services that were crucial in helping us on that growth journey.

We’re a small business, and we were looking for a partner that could meet us where we were and eventually help us grow. It’s hard to find an organization that can do both, but we were hopeful that we could find the help we needed at Attentive.  We want to make sure every home in the country, and eventually the world, has Native American art and design in it. With a goal like that, we need a partner who is dreaming just as big as we are.

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Have you found the kind of support you were hoping for with Attentive?

Yes! We instantly felt that Attentive understood our goals and the team was so easy to work with. We were immediately paired with a great onboarding team and a Customer Success Manager who had made a huge difference.

The Customer Success team has been phenomenal. My CSM meets with me every week to help me figure out who I’m going to message and what I’m going to say. We discuss messaging, visuals, and timing,–and their advice helps me make my messages stand out from everyone else who is using SMS to engage their customers.

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What Attentive feature or features have been the most impactful so far?

The audience segmentation tools Attentive offers have created the biggest impact so far. We have a large list, but they’ve all come to the brand for different reasons. With segmentation, I’m able to really craft a message that they care about and engage with.  We’re improving the customer experience by sending personalized and hyper-targeted messages. We’re retaining customers and building a community that feels valued. We’ve seen engagement increase over 1500% and campaign revenue rise more than 300% since switching to Attentive, so we know we’re on the right track with getting messages to our customers that they really care about.

We have customers all over the world. However, we also cherish a very special, hyper-local audience that initially, we struggled to connect with effectively. That changed when we began utilizing the geo-fencing capabilities of Attentive, segmenting our audience by area code, zip code, and purchase behavior.

As an e-commerce business, we still maintain a physical store in downtown Seattle. It's crucial for us not to waste time and resources messaging people who are 3,000 miles away and unlikely to visit. With Attentive, we can specifically target our local fans, who are incredibly valuable to us. This allows us to offer them a VIP experience at our store, something we couldn't do before.

The AI features Attentive offers have also been really interesting to explore. We’re an incredibly creative business and the AI is there to prompt us if we ever get stuck or want to try something new. We’re also able to use it to help us figure out what time we should be sending to audiences based on their past and predicted future behavior, which takes the guesswork out of it for me and my team. I love that I’m able to keep the creativity I want in my business, but I get the little bit of boost from the AI where and when I need it. 

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What makes you most confident that you made the right decision to switch to Attentive?

It’s hard to say one thing that made me feel most confident about making the switch to Attentive. There are so many things that make me feel really settled, solid, valued, and happy with this business relationship. First, I don’t have to worry about any of the legalities, the rules and regulations around what I’m sending because I know Attentive has that covered–I’m never going to send out something that violates CAN-SPAM or any other law. 

I also love having a team to work with. Our Marketing department is very small, but working with Attentive, I feel like I’ve grown my team. I’ve increased the number of really intelligent, creative, thoughtful people around me who are able to make sure that we are sharing our message in a way that's fun, creative, and timely. I’m also able to learn new ideas and statistics from my Customer Success Manager that I can bring back to my leadership team and use to inform what we do in the future so that we can craft the best messages possible.

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What advice would you give to someone in a similar situation considering a switch to Attentive?

I would recommend that they consider their SMS provider in the same way they consider purchasing a mattress or a pair of shoes–things that are worth investing in.  Both need to be supportive and high-quality because they are integral parts of your day. SMS is integral to our company’s success, and having the right support for our SMS program has been important.  

I'd recommend that other marketers make the switch to Attentive if they are interested in expanding the impact of their team. I'd make the switch to Attentive again because I know that I’m with a team. I’m with experts who treat me like a peer and take care of the more boring technical stuff that I don't want to focus on. With Attentive, I can do what I do best, which is creative marketing. They do what they do best, which is making sure that those messages reach the right people at the right time to help me make the most money possible.

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What’s next for Eighth Generation?

We’re launching email with Attentive and I’m really excited to see how it unfolds. I'm eager to see how our messaging supports itself across various channels. I'm looking forward to seeing all these elements come together to deliver a unified, impactful message to our audience, no matter where they engage with us.

Having SMS and email on Attentive as the two main pillars of our marketing strategy will be key. I’m interested to see how we can begin to use Attentive’s AI in more ways to expand how creative and effective our messaging can be. We have big dreams, and are excited to partner with Attentive in achieving them. 

Learn more about why thousands of brands choose Attentive as their SMS & email marketing solution, and see what we can do for you. Try us for free.