Pay Attention Friends, Fashion Nova Sets Thirst Traps But it's all a Part of a Multi-Channel Marketing Plan *Inserts Evil Laugh*
I've been brushing up on my marketing skills lately (for the nosy ones in the back —I am in school right now because learning never stops and people respect degrees or whatever). That means, lots and lots of research on who is doing a bang-up job at promoting their products like a Mary Kay consultant.
New Term Alert: If you haven't been taking an "Integrated Marketing" approach to the way you promote, sell or, share your product/service —you'll want to take feverish notes here. As it's not only the best way, it’s the only way to reach your target audience any day of the week.
In a multi-channel world, it’s easy to get lost in the clutter and even harder to sashay onto centre stage (the confidence and 6-inch heels required, BAABY).
Competitors aren't your only battle royale opponent. *inserts hysterical laugh that leads into a cough*
So are dinner plans, mobile notifications, multiple open tabs in Chrome and sleep (I stole the last one from Netflix's competitor's list.) Dumping all of your company’s resources into one advertising channel will bankrupt the success rate of any online or offline campaign you undertake.
Instead, by creating a customer-centric content experience across all channels —it allows the company to attract and retain customers in a "loyalty loop" (another new term alert...don't you feel like you're right there in school with me??).
Rarely do we shop at retail stores as frequently as we did in the past and for that reason, companies need to get a bit more creative on how they win business over and over.
Fashion Nova, for example, is an online fashion brand retailer that sells women and men clothing. They use a mix of marketing channels from PPC advertising, social media, influencer marketing, email and affiliate marketing, to name a few.
*Insert defined examples of Fashion Nova's Integrated Marketing plan I speak of*
SOCIAL MEDIA HIJINKS FOR THE HIGHROLLERS: Influencer & Affiliate Marketing
Instagram is the main driver of sales traffic (with 16 million followers) to execute their social media campaigns.
Fashion Nova Appealing to Their Audience by Reposting Celebrity Influencers in Their Clothing.
Fashion Nova (FN) uses celebrity influencers as a marketing campaign, whereby famed VIPS promote the FN brand by posting pictures of themselves in the e-commerce retailer clothing and tagging them on Instagram (which they get a monetary kickback for the intense labour of clicking post —of course).
Think about it, if your favorite celebrity's outfit of the day is your next "hot girl summer 2019" outfit, you're going to buy it —where ever they got it from. And in this case, it happens to be from Fashion Nova (the thirst trap setup). I believe this is the reason their Instagram presence skyrocketed in the first five months in 2018.
“Fashion Nova built its massive fanbase partly by satisfying its customers’ desire for attention—sharing their selfies and shouting them out on Instagram.” —Quartzy
They remain culturally relevant, speak the language of their consumer and post shareable content. From the type of celebrity influencers they snag to the social media platforms they dominate, customers are at the mercy of their creative marketing techniques.
THE DIGITAL MARKETING CONGA LINE WITH A CALL-TO-ACTION ATTACHED: Pay Per Click Advertising + Pop-ups (the well-behaved kind) + Email Marketing
Now, say that “hot girl” outfit lured you to their website even once, a Fashion Nova advertorial will follow you around the internet (a modern-day bug-a-boo).
It'll make you want to start a spam support group.
It'll make you want to report and block.
It'll make you want to break your lease so you can move.
The actual term is called remarketing but doesn't bug-a-boo sound more accurate? It triggers when you've visited their online store while window-shopping without a purchase in-hand. If you really want what they're selling it's tantalizing to return back to the website.
Fashion Nova’s Pop-Up on their Website
So how can your business seduce the looky-loos who missed the "Contact Me" form on your website? Easy peasy lemon squeezy. By taking a page out of Fashion Nova's book and showing them a "Hold up" message when they go to click off your site to trot off somewhere else.
Enter a cleverly timed pop-up discount code or opt-in freebie to sweet-talk them into your email marketing funnel.
But back to remarketing (I really like this term bug-a-boo marketing instead —I'm going to make this stick so help you GAWD) comes in real handy for e-commerce businesses because it appears to look native (like it belongs) on other websites that have similar products. See the last article you read with the words "sponsored" faintly hovering over the ads.
Fashion Nova’s Ad Following Me Where ever I go and Why It Was Triggered By Google
"BRING IT HOME AND MAKE IT MAKE SENSE, TENNILE"
What all this means is there are many opportunities for you to stay on top of a customer's radar —no matter where on the world wide web they've trotted off to.
However, integrated marketing is more than a creepy ad that follows you in the shower. It becomes a results-driven transformer when you intertwine it with a range of promotional techniques on other platforms (i.e. Email, Social Media, PR, Mobile Marketing, Event Marketing etc.) with consistent messaging.
Consumers want information ranging from product reviews to the how-to videos on YouTube. They’re looking for and researching brands they want to engage with; what you want to do is be there when the need to buy arrives. Google describes these as Micro-Moments:
That's why we need to take copious notes of how brands we like, follow and buy from manage to hogtie our attention (certainly with a lavender smelling satin scarf, even if BDSM isn't for you).
#QTNA
How did they catcall your attention?
Where did it happen? Email, social media or direct mail?
What made you buy?
As long as a brand has your attention, it has your interest.
Then it's only a hop skip and a jump until you've bought into the thirst trap that is marketing.
