One campaign before Cabana Miami. 750 retailers after it.
Miss June is a French premium resortwear brand. Trade shows are part of its calendar. Cabana Miami was booked, the lookbook ready, SS26 ready to ship.
But Miss June had learned what every exhibiting brand eventually learns: showing up and hoping the right buyers find you doesn't work. The brand knew it needed meetings before the doors opened. The problem was having no way to make that happen. The boutiques it wanted were scattered across the US and Australia, nobody had contacted them, and the show was days away.
THE CHALLENGE
Cabana is three days. The buyers you need don't know you're coming.
US indie stores and Australian stockists are different networks with different buyers in different time zones. Reaching both properly takes time the show calendar doesn't give you. And in the weeks before Cabana, buyers get flooded. Anything that doesn't feel like it was written specifically for them gets ignored.
Most brands in this position show up and take their chances. Miss June had the booth booked either way. The question was whether the investment would actually work.
THE SOLUTION
Two markets, 276 personalised emails, launched three days before the show
Kingpin ran two sequences in parallel, 276 personalised emails to 87 boutiques filtered to Miss June's profile, each written around the specifics: the booth number, the dates, the collection, the preview film.
What would have taken weeks of manual research and writing went live in three days. That speed is what makes pre-show outreach possible even when the show is already on top of you.
THE RESULTS
A meeting booked before the show — and a playbook for every show after
Cold email in fashion wholesale typically opens at 20 to 30%. Miss June got 74% in the US and 62% in Australia. The message matched the boutiques it reached. Three replied with genuine responses, and one meeting was confirmed before the show opened. Pipeline in two markets Miss June had never touched, built in three days.
Each genuine buyer conversation carries real order value. An interested boutique in this segment typically places an $8,000 to $10,000 opening order, around 6x the campaign investment if it closes, and more as stores reorder.
The campaign also returned useful intelligence: 21% of US contacts and 28% of AU contacts in the industry database were stale. Miss June now knows exactly which ones.
THE OUTCOME
From 87 boutiques to 750 — reaching the exact stores that fit
After Cabana, Miss June scaled it. The next campaign reached 750 of the brand's target retailers along the French coast, the heart of its swimwear market, selected to match Miss June's profile, not whoever happened to walk past a booth.
With more shows coming in September, the playbook is in place: every show Miss June attends now starts with buyers already contacted and meetings already in the calendar. The booth works as a closing venue, not a lottery ticket.
The trade show didn't get cheaper. It got more valuable. And between shows, Miss June now has a channel it controls: targeted, scalable, pointed at the exact stores it wants.
