Why most brands don't connect with their customers (and how to fix it)

0:00Building a sustainable brand is something that can sustain time and sustain wear. Our manufacturing partners are all based in Bali. We've been traveling there for months out of the year for the last six years. We are such a connection-based brand with our customers. I think they want to see the authenticity and the realness. So we really minimize the use of AI right now. Welcome to the DTC Insider Podcast, where online business owners come to find actionable tips and tactics to grow their businesses. Now, here's your host, Brian Roizenthal.

0:47Hey, welcome to another episode of the DTC Insider Podcast. I'm Brian Roizenthal, your host. And today I'm super excited to interview Lauren DeCarly, founder of Paneros Clothing. Hey, Lauren, welcome to the show. Hey, Brian. Thanks for having me. My pleasure. I know we, you know, people don't know this, but we've been trying to make this happen for a year now. And you've been traveling a lot, right? So I really appreciate you being here today. Yeah, it's great. It was an incredible year of traveling and it's really great to have the time now. to sit down and chat with you. Yeah, I mean, before getting started and talking about Paneros, you know, I'm from Argentina, you know, and here we, everything is far away.

1:33For those in the audience who don't know where Argentina is, it's the southest part of the continent of America, right? So we are far away from everything in the world. So to the U.S., 10 hours, Europe, we're less the same. Don't get me started with places like the one you visited, valleys of Africa. but what I have learned over the years is that traveling opens your mind a lot. And I know that in the U.S., correct me if I'm wrong, it's not that common, you know, to travel outside the U.S., to see the world and learn those things. So I wanted to ask you, what could you say to those who haven't thought of traveling yet outside the U.S.?

2:11What did you learn? What did you see? What did you like? Personally, I think it's so important to get to experience different cultures and to see how other people live, I think you, oftentimes it's very humbling and also expands your mind and expands your, it's really incredible to meet people from around the world to experience new things that you would have never have seen or never have take food. You have never have tasted music. You have never would have never have listened to and just see different cultures and really experience how others live around the world. I think it's really important.

2:53Yeah. And it teaches you patience. I think, you know, traveling is not always easy. So it teaches you also a lot about yourself. Yeah. So, yeah, I totally agree. Have you ever traveled alone? Have. Only two places that I have been before. I would like to travel solo to new places. I think that is something that everyone should do because I think it really like teaches you about yourself and shows you like, oh, I'm capable of doing this. Like it can be a confidence boost and you learn about yourself along the way. Yeah. Okay. So let's talk about Panera's, but then I'll come back to these travels because I know it's related to your business.

3:37So could you please tell the audience, those who don't know about Panera's, what is it about? So Panera's Clothing is a women's clothing company. We at our core is about sustainability and ethical practices. We create timeless classic quality pieces that truly are meant to stand the test of time, both trend wise and longevity in the quality. So really make you feel beautiful in pieces that you will love that can become future heirlooms and that highlight that handcrafted artisan aspect of them. What does, you know, having, let's say, oh, I wanted to use the word I use, but I'm lost. You know, it's, you know, so end of the year.

4:25So what was the word they used to define your brand? I lost it. sustainable, ethical, quality. Yeah, sustainable. Thank you. So simple, but I lost it. Thank you. So to build a sustainable brand, does it actually entail, you know, for those in the audience that want to say, oh, I want to build a sustainable because it sounds cool. You know, I want to build a sustainable brand. What does it really entail for those who don't know? I mean, for me, sustainability goes much further than just using eco-friendly materials like building a sustainable brand is something that can you know sustain time and sustain wear and so for me it was not this added initiative that we were trying to do when I was building Preneros I wanted it to be like at the core of everything we do and so for me it is like all the decisions I make I have to think about like where does the material come from?

5:25How is the customer going to have, you know, to appreciate it, how it's going to last in their closet? How are our manufacturers working? Are we, you know, the ethical practices? I think being ethical has to be included in being sustainable because it's not sustainable in my mind to treat your supply chain poorly. So it goes all the way from sourcing the materials, making the product to the customer, even thinking about all of the packaging and the customer experience. Like we use, we don't use any fully synthetic items. All of our materials are natural base. We use algae ink. So really thinking about the whole life cycle of the product from the beginning all the way to the end, even when the customer doesn't want it anymore.

6:14Okay. Then what happens to it you know so does it biodegrade can it be recycled so really thinking about every aspect of the product and as the business so even how you're shipping things and there's just there's so much that goes into like sustain the word sustainability in my mind oh is it all related through your travels to Asia? Yes. So we are, our manufacturing partners are all based in Indonesia, in Bali specifically. And so Bali is a beautiful island and the culture there is very much about energy and nature and having that connection to nature and to people. And so that's also a big part of our business, being very transparent and highlighting the incredible people that we work with because I think that's a big part of creating a strong brand is having that connection between who's making the product and your customers.

7:19You know, whenever I speak with a brand, I mean, the most common scenario is that they have, you know, manufacturers overseas and many of them never visit them. They don't know I don't see that as a bad or a good thing. I'm not judging that part yet. I'm talking about that. It's easier, cheaper to do it that way. So I was going to ask you, how did you make the decision of not doing it that way and go there, visit them and do things differently? I personally think it's very important to know who you're working with. I not only love going to Bali, it's like our second home. We've been traveling there for months out of the year for the last six years.

8:04And I think not only is important to know who you're working with, know the conditions, know like firsthand, like what are they getting paid and where the facilities are and where are the materials coming from in the supply chain. But building that relationship with them and having them, having our artisans and our manufacturers be like family to us is to me something that makes our brand so special. It's not just like, oh, so-and-so like somewhere is making this product for you. Like I think telling the story about who we're working with and how we're making the product is so important in building a brand, being transparent with your customers and also having that connection and really like storytelling.

9:00I think people really connect with storytelling and you get to develop that emotional connection between your customers and your suppliers. And for me as a designer, I love being hands-on and working with our artisans and driving three hours to their house so that we can see them working at home. We don't make them drive or travel far to come to the office to work. So like our crochet artisan, she lives in the Northern part of Bali. And so I'll go and visit her at her home and she can work and still take care of her family. So I think it's really important what other like instilling and incorporating the values that are important to you within your business yeah I think it speaks highly of you because if you treat your suppliers this way I can't even imagine how you treat your customers so I think it's as a brand it's amazing but still I think it's I don't know if difficult or expensive but it's going the extra mile and many founders still don't do that.

10:03And again, I'm not judging them for not doing it, but I'm saying that there's a lot of upsides when you do it and you are here saying everything about it. So I love it. I love it. So I wanted to talk for a minute about 2025. If you had to describe 2025 for Paneros in one word, what would it be and why? That's a great question. I would say educational. And I would say that because we tried a lot of new strategies this past year. I also was traveling for six months out of the year while I was working. So that was educational on my part as the founder and how I need, you know, need to work within the business.

10:49But there was a lot of new things that we figured out strategies that did work, strategies that didn't work, products that worked or didn't work. So it was a very educational year. We started working with an amazing fashion photographer this past year. And so really seeing how, you know, the work that we get from him really elevated the brand where, you know, and where we wanted to go. So that was like one of the strategies that we had that was working well also like expanding the product selection working on like production schedule and how that's not very easy when you're traveling and constantly in a new country every month so it was very educational for me as a founder but also the business as a whole and like seeing okay this is like what needs to be done this is what we can do next year this is what worked, what didn't work.

11:49I think every year is educational, but this specific year, I feel like there was a lot of things that we learned. That's great. And if you had to mention a win and a challenge, what would those be about? Wins, I would say we saw, we took some risks with our core items in new fabrications and our customer loved them. And so seeing like our best selling item, like how we expanded upon that, like was amazing to see. We also did an in-store partnership in Manhattan and in the Hamptons this past summer. The store in Manhattan is still going, but you know, that's always a risk and that did very well for us.

12:34So we have lots of amazing ideas and things coming up in this next year because of those partnerships. Something you stopped doing in 2025 that turned out to be a good decision that you can remember now? Something I stopped doing? Yeah, turned out to be a good decision, you know. Hmm, something I stopped doing last year. Can I come back to that one? Of course. So I have another one for you. So, you know, typically, you know, small brands, you know, founders wear too many hats, you know. And roles, of course, of those founders evolve as they build, as they learn, as they grow a team. So for you, how did your role as a founder evolve over the past year?

13:20So I think I can connect the last question with this. So something I stopped doing was trying to do it all myself and really like leveraging my work onto my employees and really trusting them to take over certain aspects of the business. and you know can't do it all as a founder like only until a certain point you just but realistically like you can't you need support and so that really worked out for us as a business me being able to let go of certain areas of the business and really like trust our employees to go over top areas marketing was a big one and the photography so before we hired our fashion photographer Theo I was doing all the photography and editing and the videos and all of it myself.

14:11And it's a lot on top of everything else. So having like making that decision, not only did it really elevate the brand, but it released a lot of my time. So it was really beneficial. When things happen and you don't have to do them, right? Yes. Yes. Trying to do more of that. I always tell founders that. You can work as they say, you know, I learned this in an agency mastermind some years ago. You can work in the business or on the business, right? The main difference is that you can work in the nitty gritty, in the tactical aspects that will move the needle at the, let's say, bottom layer, but not strategic leadership, high level decisions, or you can work on the business.

14:56Those decisions that will, you know, the leadership decisions that will take the business to the next step. Right. And I find that it's typically normal, you know, that, again, when you wear many hats, you typically wear those of the first bucket, you know, of in the business and probably stop doing some of that on the business. So when you take a look after year two, three, say, we are not growing, but I'm doing meta, I'm doing emails, but yeah, we're taking care of, you know, strategic decisions. Right, right. I don't have anyone else. But I think, yeah. I think in the beginning, you kind of have to.

15:34And like, we're self-funded. We've never taken on any capital. And I think in the beginning, not only is it like financially, you typically have to do all of the jobs. But I think it's really important to do all the jobs because then when you hire someone, you know what they have to do. And you can see like where then big picture also like where they can take it. So, Lauren, basically, you know, every brand needs to, Two things, they need to acquire more customers and they need to retain customers, right? For years, many brands, all they talked about was customer acquisition because it was cheap and they didn't think as much of, you know, retention strategies.

16:14And I want to go there in a minute. But before that, what is working right now for you in terms of customer acquisition? Because I know it's pretty challenging for some brands right now, pretty expensive. And, you know, there are many changes on Meta, on Google, in AI, everything is going on at the same time. So could you please show with the audience what is working for you right now? Yeah, of course. So we do run paid ads on Meta and Google. It's working for us right now. That's not to say it has, you know, it's highs and lows and ebbs and flows. But something that we really try and do is not put all of our eggs into one basket and make sure that we are reaching out to customers and acquiring customers on different sales channels.

17:03So, for example, we work with actual physical brick and mortar stores so we can acquire customers in person and get their data. We work with other online retailers that are larger so that we are reaching a bigger audience and acquiring customers there. And I think especially we've started to learn from like Q4 of 2025 is that customers really want to be connected to the brand. They want to feel either a connection to a founder or the employees or the story, the workers, the artisans. So we're really honing down on creating a connection through our different social channels, our email marketing.

17:52when we do our packaging. So really working to acquire customers by obviously paid ads and working with these other stores and sales channels, but on like what organically can we do to acquire customers through a connection? What kind of content have you found that works best to build that connection? Because is it founder-led content? Is it behind the scenes content? What works for you? It's a mixture of both. It's a mixture of behind the scenes where recently I was in Bali with our team and we're building a new factory. And so I was doing a story on Instagram, like showing them the new factory and like all of, you know, the initiatives and what we're trying to build there.

18:40And what also works is when we share our artisan stories. So there were behind the scenes and the customers get to see them making the garments and making the products that we're selling and that they love. interview all of our artists and say that really again it goes back to that connection and like does it hit them on an emotional level does it hit them you know there's different ways and then I do styling videos so again it's not a model it's me you know person and I style our our like latest collection in a few different ways so those behind the scenes the styling and like the emotional connection with our artisans are what works for us best.

19:25That's great to hear. You know, I know there are different points of view in terms of, you know, producing founder-led content or not. Some founders want to be behind the scenes and I respect that and that's good. But I always say something. I am a firm believer in using your company size to your advantage. If you're a small company, you need to find a way to stand out. buying ads and all the stuff that's great but what else how do you really stand out how do you cross that barrier and build that connection as you said with your audience and i think that a huge lever that most brands don't realize even those like even more those small brands don't realize is the fact that they can decide what to do tomorrow they don't need to go through some i don't know marketing plan approval or things like that and sometimes there's a lot of power And it's underestimating how much you can accomplish by being yourself and telling your audience, after all, it's your audience, who you are, what you are about, and the same about your brand.

20:27I think there's real value in being different than being there for your customers. And I think more and more customers want to see authenticity. And so when you don't have like the professional lighting and like everything looking perfect and it feels, they feel more like they're a part of your everyday or they're a part of that authentic moment and you're not reading a script. So I like, for example, the story I took where I'm in the factory, it's a construction site. It's not glamorous. and I'm, you know, in my flip-flops, like in Bali and, you know, my clothes and that got the most reach and the most views and the most comments because I think people want to see that authenticity of the brand and of the founder.

21:15And organically, what works for you the best in terms of the channels? Is it Instagram, TikTok, YouTube? We have an older customer base, so we're not really doing TikTok. So Instagram and Facebook are our biggest drivers. Do you have any kind of Facebook group or just the posts? We don't have a Facebook group. We just post on our page. That's great. That's great. So that's about acquisition. You know, again, I think it's pretty important and working on the messaging, on the offer and everything right now is key to make the most out of the investment, let's say, because, you know, everything is, as we said before, more expensive.

21:54And if we can be smart about the offer, the value ladder in our marketing, we can make more money on the backend to be able to afford the higher costs. And the second thing that I wanted to cover is customer retention. Again, it was really neglected. I've been doing the podcast since 2021. I speak with a lot of brands and I work with a lot of them through the agency since 2013. So I don't know it all by all means, but I've heard a lot and I see a lot. Things have changed a lot since 2023, I would say. And brands are speaking about retention more and more. There aren't as many brands as I thought doing things to really retain customers.

22:37So I know you've been doing some great stuff on that front. So could you please tell the audience more about it? Yes. So we have a live chat on our website. I mean, we see customers ask questions about sizing or when things are coming back in stock or questions about returns. You know, you always get those general ones. But we also have a rewards program that we launched in Q4 of last year. So we've seen our customers come back more and more again to get those points so that when they reach the different thresholds, they get a reward and they get money off on their next order. So we have seen a lot of customers joining the rewards program.

23:23And I think customers want to feel appreciated. You know, like you are offering them a product, but we need each other in this relationship. So we really pride ourselves on our customer service, again, with the live chat, through emails. And we also make our packaging very luxurious for our customer. They get nice duster bags. They get handwritten notes. We offer them an additional discount code for their second purchase. So we really try and support them along the journey so that they have trust in us and they appreciate, you know, everything that we're giving them and they will come back time and time again.

24:03And we have customers that have been shopping with us since 2020. You know, it's I think you have like you have to show them like your appreciation for them. You can't just like send them something off in a poly bag and, you know, expect them to fall in love with you. I feel like you really have to give them the full experience and the full appreciation. Yeah, I interviewed some brands that even do some meetups from time to time and they say that it's a beautiful experience because there's nothing like meeting your clients or customers in real life. Even more when you share some values, because I get it, you know, there are some brands that, you know, it's harder for them to build, you know, advocacy or raving dance because I don't know, they might be selling something that doesn't create that kind of feeling.

24:53But in this case, I feel that it could be built in a great way. So, of course, meetups might be a stretch, but sometimes some others, what they do, for example, is they have some guest speakers and organize a webinar or something like that. So their audience have in common that they have questions about X topic. So it might be indirectly tied to what you sell, not that directly sometimes, but it's common interest in the audience. So maybe you optimize that and you gain a new audience as well from that speaker and from that action. So I think there are a lot of creative ways outside of creating an ad or an email that brands can think of, right?

25:37Right. I think it too, it also connects with like, what content are you producing? So like, again, how can you connect to your audience and give them content that they want to see or, you know, that they want to engage with so that they keep coming back for more and more? So it's all always all tied together. Yeah, exactly. And two questions I have about what you said, you know, the live chat and rewards program. I'll start with the live chat question. So for anyone listening to these who is analyzing whether to implement that or not, does it take a lot of time to answer questions? Do you have a lot of questions a day?

26:14So do you need someone full-time or a VA to answer the chat? How does it work for you? So we have our fulfillment employee that also does the live chat. So no, you definitely don't need a full-time employee for it. You can also enter prompts for when you get specific questions like a size guide or what's your return policy so that it'll automatically reply to them. So it's not as intense as you might think time wise or like setting it up. And it does help, you know, people want to know that there's someone there on the other end. So we have seen it help. I mean, obviously the AI part doesn't suggest everything.

27:04So that's why I like to have one of our employees on there in case, you know, if they're looking for something specific, she can give recommendations. They can give like their specific body measurements and she can recommend the perfect size and the fit and just, you know, explain a little bit more, be more personable to them. You want to mention the tool you're using? We are using Tidio. Okay, great. Right. About the rewards program, I've seen many programs, you know, new programs created and then fail as fast as they were created. It seems that there's something with rewards program that makes them, I don't know if the word is that they have flaws, but depending on how they are built, they work better or worse.

27:52Right. And the other day I have also a podcast here in Argentina where I live in studio. It's a different thing. And we reviewed the companies that do the, you know, the bank stores, the online stores for the banks and some other B2B entities. So they run the whole thing for Latin America, like big, big banks, big companies. And they run their work program. And we were speaking with them because they've been building that for a decade or two decades from now. that is super tricky even for them to, you know, implement a successful reward program because people care about what they care about. They don't care about points or I don't know, it's tricky.

28:33And I had a rewards company myself back in the day, 2011 or so. So yeah, it's something, a topic I really love. I'm passionate about it, but I know it's tricky. So how are you implementing it? And do you have some early results for me? because I guess it's new, right? Yes. So we use Smile. It's an app through Shopify. I mean, I consider myself pretty tech savvy, but obviously I'm not an IT person. I was able to set it up on our website easily. They have a great support chat. So if you have any questions, we are just on the free plan right now until we see more momentum on it. But we have had a couple hundred customers sign up.

29:18We have, you know, customers that email, oh, like, am I at the threshold yet? Or, you know, we can reply back to them and quickly go through exactly how they can see their information. Because, you know, it's new for us. It's new for our customers, too. So we provide that support so that they can see their dashboard and everything. But, yeah, we have seen customers shopping more because they want to get that discount off of their next order. Yeah, based on my humble experience with reward programs, I think it's key for customers to see some carrots right away, you know, some rewards right away.

29:57Otherwise, if like the programs or those programs that you don't ever get to what you want, it should be probably the opposite, right? they buy once and they get even the smallest thing. And you need to, of course, my advice for, you know, not only you, everyone listening from experience is that, of course, after you map out the touch points of your customers and the time between the first and second order and future ones, and the biggest churns as well, you can probably design intentionally some rewards for those moments to mitigate them. And of course, there are some other use case scenarios, But that's probably when people see the biggest uplift from those efforts.

30:41Yeah. So our customers will get points when they sign up. They'll get points on their birthday as a little reward. Obviously, we want our customers to share our brand too. So if they like share us on Facebook or, you know, there's different objectives that they can take that are also beneficial to us and then they'll get some rewards. Great. So two questions. that I have before we wrap up this amazing episode is the following. The first one is, are you using AI in any way, whether it's client facing or behind the scenes besides this chat? We use it minimally. Like I said, we use it on Tidio, on our live chat for the more basic questions.