Introduction
Consumer behaviour is rapidly changing with an ever- competitor environment. However customers expect high level of service with a range of buying options (WGSN, 2016). For future success and survival, brands must research and encourage new, captivating ways to different themselves from competitors and reposition their strategies (WGSN, 2016). It is important for brands to create effective engagement with the 21st century consumer (Walpole, 2016). WGSN explain the extreme change which consumer behaviour has had on brands by changing their mind set from ‘buying’ to ‘being’ (WGSN, 2016). Brands are now enabling consumers to engage with their brand instead of focusing on the products themselves. WGSN also explain that brands in the past only tried to convince consumer to buy a product, however it is now about inspiring them to be something, which has become the biggest trend in marketing and advertising today. Consumers want a special experience, with a desire to be treated as a valued individual within all age groups (Tandfonline.com, 2015). They want to be respected as consumers, personally, socially and economically (WGSN, 2016). The aim of this rationale is to explain and demonstrate a new online, digital, creative concept for Very Exclusive that will encourage customer engagement, development and loyalty. It will also address the customer relationship management, process and key metrics involved.
Contents Introduction Premium and Luxury retailing Introducing Very Exclusive CRM (Customer relationship management) Acquisition The creative concept The Target Market The strategy Measurements and Metric Evaluation References
Premium and Luxury retailing Luxury brand management is like the weather, changing rapidly. With the media and fashion industry in full tournament this past millennium, there is undulate upon undulate of adverts and campaigns. Within the glittery magazines and online videos custom to attract, consumers and even those within the industry have a troublesome period distinctive luxury from premium brands. Price is not the only determinative. Add the crossing over production strategies between the 2 types of brands and there is more of an over throw, still Luxury enthusiasts are always looking for the best. The question arises on what this expression actually indicates if it means anything at all. Most studies show that the term luxury is highly objective (Roumeliotis, 2017). Definitions of ‘’luxury’’ alternate highly and rely on with whom you debate the point and in what context. The word Luxury has never been something manageable to explain. It is relative, incomprehensive and evasive. In being, it revolves around objective criteria in the opinion, which composed a style and what is commonly related as a lifestyle (Roumeliotis, 2017). Gary Harwood, owner of KHLM and the director of a leading, established branding and communication design consultancy have stated:
‘’A luxury brand is very high-prices, exclusive and very unusual and not meant fir everyone. When it is abstained to be these things, then it has lost it exclusive edge. Commoditizing luxury brands and making them more accessible to the middle market puts them at risk of becoming ordinary, common and less desirable. The more available a brand is the less luxurious it becomes.’’ However luxury shouldn’t be defined as just an unordinary product. It should be accessible to the mass market. Brands that still claim an authentic luxury status include Hermes, Chanel, Louis Vuitton, Rolex and Cartier. These brands can actually maintain the trademark of luxury. Those that do blind attract, sex appeal with descent and quality, which means discounting is NOT apart of their strategy (Roumeliotis, 2017). If luxury brands are related to deficiency quality and storytelling then premium goods are high prices in general i.e. paying more, get more. These brands are less pretentious, more discreet, obtainable, modern, prime in rank, smooth design, manufacturer with accuracy. For example the L’Oreal are a gigantic firm within the cosmetic sector and positions it premium products with subtly. Clients may get the luxury treatment. However Dior makes no pretence and is categorized as a luxury beauty product and priced accordingly (Roumeliotis, 2017).
Introducting Very exclusive Shop direct is the UK’s second biggest pure play digital retailer, with yearly sales of almost £1.9 billion. Their digital department store brands include Very.co.uk, Littlewoods.com, VeryExclusive.co.uk and LittlewoodsIreland.ie. They allow an average of more than 1.2 million website visits every day, with 62% of online sales accomplished on mobile devices. They live to make excellent products accessible to more people. With a department store range of big famous brands, market leading ecommerce and technology capabilities and unique financial service products offering flexible ways to pay, they are well placed to deliver on that (Shopdirect.co.uk). They sell more than 1,300 famous brands including popular name labels and their own exclusive brands. They have four million customers and deliver 49 million products every year. Their free click and collect service and Collect+ deliver to 5,800 stores across the country increasing easy and convenience (Shopdirect.co.uk.) They influence their customers through many channels and platforms for brand awareness to attract new customers and encourage existing customers to shop online more often. They create exciting, season campaigns, investing high marketing budgets into TV, press, social media, which is all high branded and focused on distinctively. Very exclusive also invest on PPC, affiliates and retargeting (Veryexclusive.co.uk, 2016). Being such a competitive industry, consumers can shop anywhere they want. This makes it hard for companies to compete against each other. Very Exclusive works hard to inspire their customers and convince them to shop using all market touch points to keep ahead of competitors. (Veryexclusive.co.uk, 2016).
Very Exclusive have strategically created 7 segments. Millions of key customers are split across these segments generated by a level of income, cost or interaction with the business in the last two years. The 8th group includes customers that can no longer trade such as closed accounts and have not paid back leading into debt. • Retain – Their perfect customer, highly valuable, highly engaged and shopped recently. Visits the site once a week and is interested in credit options and service proposition. • Value - Highly engaged and shops frequently but drives negative value due to behaviours such as high return rates or customer who only buy with heavy promotion. • Engagement – good value and has shopped recently but prefers to shop using broachers, placing orders to the phone. • Cool/cold – Negative value who likes to use vouchers when she shops and last shopped around 12-18 months ago. (Shopdirect.co.uk, 2016).
CRM (Customer Relationship Management) Because of consumer behaviour changing and moving fast, companies are looking to spend more on retention than acquisition. This means customer relationship management is changing which requires increased development and investment with more personal one to one communications. Digital channels offer more measurable forms of marketing than the traditional campaigns. Customer relationship management (CRM) is the main aim and has become the new advertising strategy (Fisher, 2015). Chris Bates who is the head of customer marketing at john Lewis explains that CRM is growing as a discipline and is now being used by most brands to launch new products or sub-brands (Fisher, 2015). For Very Exclusive the purpose of CRM is to drive their business to succeeding their target through personalised and relevant contacts across multiple channels, Specifically Social media, email, direct mail, brochures and SMS. This encourages the Miss Very customer to visit their digital channels. Very Exclusive offer a planning function, which builds target customer contact, plans ensuring it align with the selling plan. The customer management team manages customer through their customer lifecycle by starting with using their channels to expertise to bring the target market. Once the first order is made they aim to develop their relationship with the customer, looking into the second and third order. Keeping them shopping and satisfied will maximise the opportunities to improve order frequently and rise order values. Social engagement has been one of the biggest impacts on consumer behaviour in this day and age. It has altered the way we communicate, interact and share content. Brands now have a voice and utilise that to connect with consumers through dynamic content. Brands integrate social into their CRM strategy through social media. These interactions may not be directly towards conversation with consumers however promotes the engagement creating influential relationships and builds a relationship and confidence in the brand driving future sales. Every part of data should be captured and recorded within the CRM system to guarantee information for future contact.
Acquisition Before retention, loyalty and advocacy comes development and acquisition. This means understanding the customer because acquisition is all about targeting the right type of customer. Very Exclusive aim towards one specific target market however if they broaden their customer to a new consumer, this will generate more traffic to the website, raising sales. The three main areas, which are taken into consideration when choosing acquisition include: Content over products: This means customers enjoy what they see and read more than the product itself. This may seem old-fashioned but as a genuine acquisition strategy, not many brands have efficiently applying content marketing. Super street declare, ‘’ Brand tone is so strong. Brand stories and content bond your audience to your brand.’’ This is true as it’s not about the one sale; it’s about composing a lifelong relationship. While promotion drives product, content develops context from the start and in the approaching year, there will be an increase focus on strong content experiences across the acquisition system of leading retailers. .
Kenneth Loo of PR firm, Kenwerks explains that brand-values are key to the customer’s experience. He also explains that brands need to stand for something, this means innovating and bringing something new to customers. Brand values are important as they are advertised to the customer through content and the customer will remember these values as the brand. Another way is using retention to optimize acquisition. This may be focusing on the loyalty of current customers. So instead of spending on new advertisements or marketing campaigns, companies can be more efficient and effective, generating revenue by targeting retained and loyal customers and then use the data from these segments to focus on the acquisition mix.
The concept This leads onto the concept, which will acquire a new customer. When thinking about a concept for Very Exclusive, all aspects need to be taking into consideration as in what they already do, what they don’t do and what will work for the newly aimed target consumer. This is when research was found by WGSN and a number of other sources outlining the main trends used to attract the luxury consumer today. WGSN explain that to flourish in this ever-competitive retail environment, luxury brands should invest in three main areas between now and 2020 (WGSN, 2016). Over the past two years, there has seen two key trends, which include the rise in Omni channel purchases and the need for physical experience, which has been given the name called ‘Phygital’. This is physical retail experience combined with digital browsing (WGSN, 2016). The top three most effective trends that lure luxury consumers over the next five years include, Exclusive collaborations with relevant partners, secret and exclusive brand experiences and personalised online experiences. These top three trends were considered to be almost twice as popular as the other trends researched which include, brand experience, incorporating art and culture and brand and retail experiences that illustrate a dedication to sustainability.
So after researching into the best strategies, Very Exclusive offers a range of different digital customer engagement like personalisation including a unique homepage for every customer, who uses propensity models and promotion strength to determine the best offers for individuals. This is built for desktop and mobile use. They also offer and send out email campaigns with style advising emails, which will push cross and up selling users.
The target consumer To attract a new customer Very Exclusive should think about these trends being used and develop relevant and effective content. The aim and objective of this strategy is to develop an online digital campaign advertising influential lifestyle and fashion bloggers who are highly engaged on social media. This will be named ‘Very Me Exclusive’, which will be presented among all communication channels such as social media, Email, their website and billboards. The campaign will attract and engage the new consumer, improve brand awareness, online engagement and build a community of interest online. This strategy will be aimed at a new consumer, focusing on the acquisition of the brand. The customer is young women aged 18-25, who follows fashion and trends, with low income. This consumer is key to most markets including mobile, fashion technology to music, entertainment and alcohol (Edger, 2013). This target market spends money and is around half of the UK youth population, contributing ÂŁ20 billion to the UK economy yearly (Eder, 2013). Urban city culture, lifestyle, celebrities and bloggers may influence them. This specific market is also influenced by architecture and modernism art and music. Research by the beans group explain that it is hard to engage to this target market as they usually have a clear perception on what they want and what they like about different products, services and brands.
However, they now use digital platforms such as Facebook and Instagram more than ever, making it the best way to engage them. This customer or generation expects top service on demand with choice. Social media marketing has been the top communication strategy for brands targeting this target market, which means brands must share relevant and entertaining content to maintain engagement. Very Exclusive must pitch towards the right target market through their brand image and ethos. However their communication platforms, such as Instagram, lacks personality and flowing content for this new target market. Therefore this is a big opportunity for them as a brand to grow and work on this platform to create a more appealing online community for them.
The strategy The Campaign will display and involve influential fashion bloggers such as luxury lifestyle and fashion blogger Hammasa who is an international model, youtuber and blogger based in the UK with over 80 thousand followers on social media. She has a high interest in luxury brands and is used for the promotion of luxury products and brands. Her image is highly influential to online consumers and users. Hammasa’s content matches and compliments Very Exclusive’s image and message to young women. She portrays herself as a normal young woman with average income however with a high profiled social media and image content, enables her to promote and own luxury brands and products sent for advertising. She will be photographer by a professional photographer fashion and lifestyle blogger in Manchester, wearing luxury items and styled in key trends. Deciding to create a promotional blogger campaign that will be channelled across Instagram and other communication platforms was for the reason that blogger campaigns on Instagram are becoming more engaging as the target audience enjoys viewing content instead of reading content. They want to be engaged and understand the brand message in an interesting, relatable way. The promotional campaign will share a message, which the audience will fully understand through visuals. This message will shout out ‘Very Me Exclusive’ creating a buzz and brand awareness. The idea behind the campaign is simple but very effective. It will also advertise the methods customers can use to afford the products such as the three way instalments. Whether it’s a designer coat or shoes that the customer has interest in this 3 payment over 3 months with no interest method is a great way for low-income consumers to purchase these items (Veryexclusive.co.uk, 2017). Very exclusive explain that this is automatically applied to everything a consumer buys. The key features, which this method gives is that it is available on any purchase at any time they shop, no extra costs, no interest and longer payment times.
Metrics and measurements When looking into the analytics aspect, Very Exclusive will have to measure the management and engagement of this campaign online. The reason brands do campaigns is to engage consumers and it is essential to promotional planning to be able to measure this. It will allow the company to understand the success and activity of the campaign. A number of metrics can be embedded and monitored. Since This campaign is aimed at acquisition, Very Exclusive need to think about all areas of measurements that this may involve such as the cost of customer acquisition (CAC), the Cost of how many customers are acquired, the Digital traffic sources -SEO, PPC, referring to websites. Defined as sources and mediums – e.g. someone clicked on an ad (medium) on Facebook. Keyword search (medium) using Google.Look at the prices of advertising to gauge how much it would cost to run a campaign, digitally or offline and LTV, Share of Wallet can inform acquisition profiling. The Social media metrics will involve likes, shares, comments, usage, mentions, followers and regrams.
This indicates engagement with the brand. This leads on to the questions does this campaign leave positive engagement, leading to sales? Are more people aware of the brand values, which generate sales? These are all volume based metric measurements indicating factors. Measuring engagement may mean considering the tone of the conversation around the brand, the voice it shares and the listening tools through social media. “Engagement on social media is an accurate predictor of real-world engagement� (AdWeek, 2016). The content is analysed and refined based on the driven data from the customer. This is to ensure its effective key performance indicators are traffic referrals, click through rates, conversion and new customer sign ups (Adweek, 2016).
Evaluation In conclusion to this rationale, this strategy will achieve the goals and objectives set out for this project. The content and visuals explain the strategy clearly. It is confident that the message from the campaign using influential bloggers and from the rationale compliments one another. With future plans for Very Exclusive, this strategy will further them to increase brand awareness, engaging a new target audience, enabling them to build a following and community on Instagram. I feel that I have learnt a lot about the digital online market, the customer relationship management, creative process and strategic communications during this project. It has enabled me to build on my skills as a creative and digital marketing student, using different software and websites and it has also helped me to build as a professional creative.
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