Learn how one of the largest multi-brand luxury retailers in the US is maximizing omnichannel customer engagement with SMS.

Neiman Marcus is in the relationship business. The renowned luxury retailer has been delivering high-end, personalized shopping experiences for over a century, and has always been committed to one fundamental goal: exceeding customer expectations.

We recently had the chance to sit down with Linda Lopez, Senior Manager, Mobile & App Enablement at Neiman Marcus, to talk about how the company approaches customer relationships, connecting their physical and digital touchpoints to increase engagement, and more. 

Keep reading for the key insights Lopez shared during our conversation.

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On prioritizing a customer-first marketing strategy

Lopez explained that Neiman Marcus’ customer-centric operating model aims to drive fast decision-making and agility to help the brand stay competitive: 

“Luxury retailers are expected to have a digital presence that’s always-on, personalized, and dynamic. We understand this at Neiman Marcus, and we continue to raise the bar. 

Our SMS channel with Attentive allows us to engage new and existing customers instantly and directly, incentivizing them to shop with us, in store or online. Our goal is to scale the program across ‌all our brands to drive better results month after month. Collecting zero-party data through SMS has also been fundamental in our ability to personalize content for every shopper. 

By putting our customers at the center of everything we do—with a relentless eye on removing friction from the shopping journey—we can accelerate growth and revolutionize luxury experiences.”

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On using A/B testing to optimize list growth 

Lopez emphasized the importance of testing and experimenting to consistently improve your SMS marketing strategy: 

“We strive to always get the most out of our SMS program. To do that, we need to learn about our customers' preferences, starting with what gets them to opt-in to SMS when they visit our website.

The size of your subscriber list directly impacts how much incremental revenue you can drive from SMS marketing, so testing your sign-up units is key.

We ran a couple of A/B tests to optimize our pop-ups. First, we tested whether it was more effective to show an image of a model, a product image, or no image at all. We also experimented with the time delay to determine when the pop-up should appear.”

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On strengthening their omnichannel presence with SMS 

Lopez shared how Neiman Marcus uses text messaging to drive in-store traffic, complement their app program, and create a seamless experience for shoppers: 

“In the past, our personalization strategies focused on clienteling, where store associates built 1:1 relationships with shoppers to recommend products based on their preferences. But, with the rise of e-commerce, we've started bringing those same personalization strategies to our online shopping experience.

With SMS, we can use the first-party data we've collected to customize messages based on shoppers' preferences. We can even geo-target messages to help drive foot traffic to any of our 36 locations across the US when we have an exclusive in-store activation or event. 

When we launched the new Neiman Marcus app, we also promoted downloads with an SMS campaign targeting subscribers who use an iOS device.” 

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On saving time and scaling strategies with Attentive AI™

Lopez spoke about how Neiman Marcus is embracing technology and innovation, including Attentive’s suite of AI tools, to improve performance and productivity: 

“We love Attentive's AI tools, especially features like Magic Message that help us create relevant messages quickly. It saves us a ton of time in the drafting process and ensures we're sending the highest-performing messages. That’s important to us as we continue to scale SMS across all three brands in our portfolio. Attentive's product roadmap is really essential to our goals.”

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