ABOUT THE BRAND

A refreshing take on a satisfying brew

Ever crave a beer without the buzz?

HOP WTR's booze-free brew was born from a desire for the ritual of grabbing a drink with friends—without the dreaded hangover. 

Originally crafted as a healthy alternative to beer, the California-made sparkling hop water has now become an everyday, all-day drink for health-conscious consumers. Filled with stress-busting adaptogens and nootropics, HOP WTR serves up a refreshing experience.

We had the opportunity to chat with Brad Nogle, HOP WTR's VP of eCommerce, on how they’re amping up their customer experience with a mobile app. Here’s what he had to say on their Tapcart success story.

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THE CHALLENGE

How to quench customers’ thirst for repeat purchases

It hasn’t taken long for HOP WTR’s customers to become sparkling loyalists. Naturally, they already had a high repurchase rate and wanted to double down on that strategy. Brad and the team wanted a way to connect with their best customers and increase their repeat purchase rate and average order value with a better customer experience (CX) on mobile.

Deciding on an app to nurture existing customers was a no-brainer for Brad, who values a holistic omnichannel ecommerce strategy. He knows that the marketing landscape has changed in the last few years, making it more expensive to acquire new customers. Retaining the customers once they get them is even more critical. Brad and the HOP WTR team saw a greater need to build long-term relationships with their customers—and they knew an app was the way to do it.

“We wanted to continue to increase our repeat rate even more. We wanted to increase the average order value (AOV), and at the highest level, we wanted to grow the lifetime value (LTV) of our customers.”
Brad Nogle, VP of eCommerce

Brad and the team knew an app would represent the brand well. Beyond sales, an app provides the opportunity to engage with customers and act as a hub for unique and exclusive content and products. Plus, an app's strong ROI with low platform costs and low implementation effort would be well worth the time and investment.

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THE SOLUTION

Creating a smooth CX from click to sip

Brad wanted to give HOP WTR’s most loyal customers the ultimate experience: a hub for content, fast loading times, and quick purchases. 

Tapcart helped him do that.

In his experience, Brad says that custom apps take a lot of dev time and custom management, which wasn’t something they were interested in building. Tapcart’s turnkey features made it easy to translate their website to an app and build the hub they hoped to create. 

“We wanted to make sure that we were getting a strong return on our investment for the platform cost,” so for Brad, Tapcart was the perfect solution that lets him do more with less. 

The Tapcart team helped with the onboarding process, making it a simple, low-level lift for HOP WTR. Brad says they made the brand come to life in the app with their seamless and straightforward onboarding.

“We wanted the app to be a place where our most loyal customers can go, and we can engage with them. We also wanted to offer our app users great perks. We use the app to drive customer loyalty and create a better CX for our most loyal buyers.”
Brad Nogle, VP of eCommerce

To HOP WTR, the app is a tried and true engagement tactic. With the app up and running, HOP WTR built a content hub to generate excitement for their tentpole sales events. Brad said, “This helps drive additional engagement beyond the purchase funnel on our website.”

Here are some creative ways HOP WTR drives engagement with the app:

• The team uses Tapcart’s Custom Blocks to create trackers for users participating in Sober October and Dry January 
• The team shares mocktail recipes and tons of regular and engaging content. 
• The team adds a store locator so users can find HOP WTR in their local areas to drive in-store beverage sales

“We see it as a great opportunity not just to drive online but just really drive brand loyalty wherever the consumer wants to shop, whether in-store or online,” said Brad.

The team uses push notifications when launching a new retailer and includes in-store coupons in the app to take it a step further. They’ll also market events they host at retailers with the app.

The faster loading times are another big win for HOP WTR's customer experience. Customers can open the app and check out quickly and seamlessly—especially compared to the website. That, plus the ability to save past orders, favorite products, etc., make it ideal for quick, repeat purchases. 

“[The app] makes it really easy for customers to do business with us. That's what we want from a customer experience standpoint—to remove any friction, and having that fast-loading app experience helps do that.”
Brad Nogle, VP of eCommerce

That’s a big win for both the customer experience and the repeat purchase rate.

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THE RESULT

Here’s a toast to HOP WTR’s 20% LTV lift with their Tapcart app 

Just how big of a win was the app to increase the repeat purchase rate? In-app customers have a 20% higher repurchase rate than customers purchasing through other means.

App users also have higher average order values than website users. App customers have 40% higher AOVs than website users. With higher repurchase rates, AOV, and a 139% higher conversion rate, the app has curated (and created) HOP WTR's best customers.

The HOP WTR team spent time driving new app downloads and app engagement, including:

• Marketing the app via paid social advertising
• Offering limited-time products to app users first
• Sending push notifications for sales, product releases, and more

They’ve also used magic links that lead people to an app download using mobile communications and a QR code for customers on desktops.

Push notifications have become a top strategy for driving in-app sales. Brad says they save push notifications for more premium engagements, like sharing their most significant sales. While they may send several emails advertising a sale, app users only get one related push notification. This helps keep their app users from burning out on push notifications. And it works. They see between 20 and 30% higher conversions on push notifications over SMS.

“The mobile app is more than just like another communications channel… We see the app as an omni-channel hub for us. It's where our loyalists go to get the best content from us.”
Brad Nogle, VP of eCommerce

It’s super seamless for HOP WTR to update the app from a marketing standpoint. From the Tapcart Dashboard, Brad can easily automate push notification campaigns and update the app design to feature their marketing campaign and in-app perks. 

The Capture Kit feature has also been a convenient tool for the team to drive app awareness.  With it, they can include QR codes in email marketing campaigns, on the website, and paid social. Seeing the increased LTV, HOP WTR team is always looking for ways to market to prospects or past customers to adopt the app. 

The work the HOP WTR team is doing is paying off. In addition to higher AOV and a higher repurchase rate, they see around 20% higher LTV from app users than in other channels. It’s deepening HOP WTR's connection with its customers, leading to more sales.

“The numbers don't lie. Having this app experience seems to deepen the relationship and drives repeat purchases.”
Brad Nogle, VP of eCommerce

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Find out how HOP WTR and top brands like Kaged are breaking boundaries and sales records with Tapcart. Let's chat.