Fey Design, International Market Entry (NL & DK)

Active Mandate · Fractional Executive / Part-time CMO · Home & Living (DTC) · Germany / Netherlands / Denmark · 2024–2026

This project documents my work as a Fractional Executive supporting Fey 1926 (Fey Design) with the international direct-to-consumer market entry in the Netherlands and Denmark.

The mandate focused on aligning product strategy, conversion funnel design, and marketing channels to enable a profitable and scalable international launch for a highly configurable, premium product.

Context

• Company: Fey1926 (Fey Boxspringbetten)
• Industry: E-commerce, Home & Living (Box Spring Beds)
• Geography: Germany (operations in Poland), market entry in the Netherlands (NL) and Denmark (DK)
• Timeframe: Started in 2024 in preparation for the DTC website launch; active throughout 2025 and early 2026 (handover to new in-house Marketing Lead in Q1 2026).
• Role & mandate: Fractional Executive / Part-time CMO, responsible for the implementation of the digitalization and internationalization strategy

Starting point

The international expansion was initiated under significant time and complexity pressure.

Key challenges at the start included:

• No clearly defined, profitable market entry strategy for NL and DK
• An imminent website launch (Jan/Feb 2025) requiring coordinated marketing, technical, and content readiness
• An initial marketing plan (March 2025) that generated traffic and engagement, but failed to convert into sales
  • In the Netherlands, only one bed was sold — and subsequently returned
• A highly configurable product portfolio, which made it difficult to create standard, linkable products required for performance channels such as Google Shopping

From a metrics and planning perspective:

• The target was to achieve profitability within 12 months, with a Marketing Efficiency (ME) of 20–25%
• By late 2025, sales performance was weak and the overall direction of the setup was increasingly questioned

Key constraints included:

• A fixed launch deadline (January 2025)
• A sizeable first-year marketing budget (~€500k) requiring efficient allocation
• Structural misalignment between product configuration logic and marketing channel requirements

Scope of responsibility

Responsible for

• Strategic marketing & sales planning
  • Market entry preparation
  • Conversion funnel mapping
  • Defining channel-specific requirements (Google, Meta, TikTok, Influencer Marketing)
• Media buying coordination
  • Steering and overseeing Google and Meta campaigns
  • Focusing on the transition from engagement to profitable sales
• Technical product & platform coordination
  • Working with the IT agency on SEO optimizations
  • Quality assurance for website performance and configurator logic
• Content & localization setup
  • Introducing and coordinating copywriters for English, Dutch, and Danish markets
• Product–marketing alignment
  • Proposing structural changes to the product portfolio
  • Introducing standard collections and pre-configurations to enable efficient promotion

Explicitly not responsible for

• Direct execution of media buying (handled by agencies and partners)
• Full-time management of the internal team
• Product manufacturing, logistics, or fulfillment operations

Collaboration model

Worked closely with:

• Christoph Jung (Account Strategist)
• Aneta Rogulski (CEO)

Key decisions & initiatives

Conversion-first focus

The conversion funnel was redesigned to prioritize:

• Short-term conversions
• Personalized lead capture
• Clear commercial intent

Generic newsletter-driven engagement was deprioritized in favor of measurable conversion paths.

Product–marketing alignment

A central strategic shift was required:

• Moving away from exclusively configurable products
• Introducing standard collections and pre-configurations
• Enabling linkable, comparable products for channels like Google Shopping

This decision traded pure customization for marketability and sales readiness.

Trade-offs

• Reduced emphasis on full customization
• Increased focus on standardized offerings that could be marketed efficiently

The trade-off was intentional: enabling sales first, customization second.

What was tested, killed, and doubled down on

Doubled down on

• Influencer marketing in NL and DK
• Website and category page optimization to improve first impressions and navigation

Identified for change

• The existing agency setup
• The lack of proactive, solution-driven marketing execution from the project leadThese were identified as structural blockers to achieving the desired outcomes.

Outcomes (current state)

• The international market entry was successfully launched
• Initial customer acquisition and engagement targets were reached
• The core challenge shifted from generating demand to converting demand into profitable sales

The project resulted in:

• A clear strategic roadmap
• Explicit identification of product presentation as the main sales bottleneck
• The foundation for a follow-up strategy session to fundamentally restructure the setup

The proof of concept is there, and in Q1 2026 the team will hire a head of performance marketing for the group. I will continue to support the team as a strategic advisor (ad hoc), provide guidance where needed and access to my network of marketing and AI automation specialists.

Lessons learned

What I would repeat

• Early alignment of product strategy with marketing channel requirements
• Treating marketability as a first-class constraint, not an afterthought

What I would do differently

• Address role misalignment and lack of execution ownership earlier

What others can learn

For high-value, highly configurable products, marketing-channel fit is as critical as product quality.

A strong marketing plan cannot compensate for a product structure that cannot be efficiently promoted.

Frequently Asked Questions

1. Why did a sizeable marketing budget fail to convert into sales at the start of the launch? A high-value product, like a premium box spring bed, requires more than just traffic; it requires a frictionless path to purchase. Initially, the high level of product configurability created "choice paralysis" and technical hurdles for platforms like Google Shopping. We learned that a strong marketing plan cannot compensate for a product structure that isn't optimized for modern e-commerce channels.

2. What was the "Product-Marketing Alignment" shift, and why was it necessary? We moved from offering exclusively custom-built beds to introducing "Standard Collections." In the DTC space, if a product isn't "linkable" or easily comparable, it won't perform on search and social channels. By standardizing high-demand configurations, we made the product marketable and sales-ready, while keeping deep customization as a secondary option for the customer.

3. How do you handle an international market entry where initial results are weak? I look for the "bottleneck" rather than just increasing the ad spend. In this mandate, the issue wasn't the market interest (traffic was high), but the conversion funnel. We pivoted from generic engagement to high-intent lead capture and redesigned the category pages to improve first impressions and trust in the Dutch and Danish markets.

4. What role does a Fractional CMO play in the transition to an in-house team? My goal is to build the roadmap and prove the concept so the business can hire with confidence. For Fey 1926, I stabilized the international launch and identified the exact profile needed for their next stage of growth. This led to the hiring of a dedicated Head of Performance Marketing in 2026, ensuring a smooth handover of a functional, data-backed strategy.

5. What is the biggest lesson for DTC brands selling high-ticket, configurable items? "Marketability" must be a first-class constraint. You can have the highest quality product, but if the technical structure of your portfolio blocks you from using Google Shopping or Influencer tags effectively, you are fighting an uphill battle. You have to align your product logic with the requirements of the platforms where your customers actually shop.