DMC | Emplifi case study

How DMC is building a thriving community in Textiles

DMC’s products can be found wherever people are stitching and creating. Though much has changed since its founding in 1746, DMC has stayed true to its core principle of creating the finest needlework materials in the world. With hundreds of years of history, this brand has a loyal community that stretches across generations.

But even with stellar brand affinity, driving inspiration and engagement was a core goal of the marketing team at the brand. And to make the most of the highly engaged community, the brand needed an influencer management tool that would support its growing influencer program. To meet these needs, the team turned to Emplifi.

From inspiration to conversion

With nearly endless possibilities for creativity, the products on DMC’s website are easily brought to life with user-generated content and influencer content. This inspiration-focused tactic doesn’t just drive community engagement, it also impacts their conversion rate as well.

People are very passionate about using our core products for their needlework crafts. If you are new to the art, or you're curious about how people use our products, user-generated content and Emplifi definitely helps. User-generated content puts inspiration and instruction in the forefront. Emplifi also gives us an opportunity to gain perspective on trends. With Emplifi, we discover user-generated content that features designs we don't offer on site. It helps inform the team where people’s interests are, what's driving sales, and what we can use as inspiration for our development strategies.

Tiffany Medina

Consumer Marketing Manager

This community-driven and customer-led innovation is one of the hallmarks of this brand and continues to grow its presence even after hundreds of years. This strategy is paying off – customers that interact with this inspiring content are 1.6 times more likely to convert.

On-site TikTok gallery to teach and inspire

DMC also values video content as an educational resource for fans looking to grow their embroidery skills and knowledge. The brand’s “Shop The DMC TikTok” page allows site visitors to shop directly from an Emplifi-powered gallery of TikTok content, providing a clear path-to-purchase without compromising any of the original content’s elements.

In addition to the ability to shop products from each video, viewers have the option to explore DMC’s TikTok feed directly from this gallery. This on-site widget automatically populates the page with new TikTok videos as they are uploaded on the brand’s account.

Influencers in the craft niche

Niche influencers can be more impactful than celebrity endorsements. For DMC, influencers play a key role in creating community and inspiring browsers.

“Our influencers are talented designers. We use Emplifi galleries to merchandise an ever-green destination for their preferred products. Influencers use these carefully curated pages to present their favorite tools to their followers. This presents a concise and authentic way for their followers to create like the designer who inspires them. Emplifi gives DMC another way to develop mutually beneficial partnerships. From designers to hobbyists, DMC strives to support the creative community every possible way.”

By using Emplifi for its influencers, DMC is able to connect with these influencers and provide a mutually beneficial space to showcase inspiring projects.

Emplifi has given us a starting point in terms of community development. We can easily go beyond product attributes. The metrics we collect directly from our users allows us to make confident strategic decisions. We’re asking questions like: What can we do from a community standpoint? How can we build off the conversations that are happening? How can we spread the passion our community wants to share – it's not just a skein of floss or spool of thread.

With their community strategy growing and the right tools in place, the team has witnessed a 119% increase in average order value with Emplifi.

Global community success

Influencers and community change across locations, and as a multinational brand, DMC needed to be able to collaborate with influencers around the world.

“The global collaborative effort is easily managed with Emplifi, as everyone can freely contribute at any time. What’s interesting about the perspective from different regions is the content discovery results. Our offices around the world can look at captions, for example, and find UGC with words that resonate with a non-American audience.”

Emplifi’s influencer identification tool has given the team the ability to work even more collaboratively across international borders.

“We are building out the CRM portion and making sure all of our contacts have been uploaded to the back end so that we can start exploring further ways to mass communicate. Emplifi has given us a simple way to get that authorization that we’ve been needing to keep things organized.”

Bringing the community offline with Emplifi

A core part of community engagement for DMC stems from their pop-events and in-person trade shows. With Emplifi, this success translates from offline to online engagement.

Traditional in-person workshops, pop-ups, trade events, and stitching retreats are major ways our community creates together. With Emplifi's upload feature, we create unique digital pathways for our stitchers, partners, and influencers to bring offline events online. We are striving to increase site revisits, revenue, community exchange, and conversation with interactive technologies. Through UGC, DMC has an opportunity for 360° consumption cycle that can start offline. Through this, we’re looking to highlight and support parts of the community that are not digitally active.

By giving influencers and consumers a point of collaboration and conversation on their website, the marketing team is helping to facilitate an integrated community. This goal, while still relatively new, is being realized with the right technology in place.

Technology to solve problems

The deeper DMC goes into engagement and understanding the customer journey, the more important having reliable technology in place is. With Emplifi, the team at DMC has a tried-and-true tool to power the customer journey.

“Now we actually have the technology to find out what happens along the customer journey and who they interact with. Our team makes sure all other bits and pieces are in place so that results come through – but Emplifi is tried and true. The uploader and the widget setup is again, the easiest part.”

To see Emplifi’s products in action, visit the DMC website.

challenge

With centuries of history, DMC built a loyal, multi-generational community, but their marketing team aimed to further inspire and engage this audience.

solution

They turned to Emplifi’s influencer management tool, which helped grow their influencer program and tap into customer-generated content.

outcome

Customers that interact with this inspiring content are 1.6 times more likely to convert. With the right tools in place, the team has witnessed a 119% increase in average order value and a 105% increase in conversions with Emplifi.