The Sports And Leisure Retail Brand Believes That The Source Of E-Commerce Should Start From The Offline.

When Jon Passavant and Benj Lee decide to sell online Leather accessories Their biggest expense was not the cost of making a $2000 briefcase, nor the cost of sending their wallets to all parts of the world, but marketing. They spent 1/3 of the initial budget of $1 million. market Marketing.

Previously, they sold Passavant & Lee brand products through stores, and retailers were responsible for attracting customers. But online, they must find ways to make themselves stand out from thousands of brands. They understand that it is necessary to advertise on search engines and social media, but realize that this is far from enough. So they produced some marketing budgets to cooperate with other brands and to organize offline promotional activities, such as flash shops.

Passavant said: "we will not spend $100 thousand on paid advertising, and we will not pay attention to paid advertising in the future. Because this is the same as drug taking: the more the paid ads do, the more the effect will only get worse. We are not going to take part in this game.

In order to attract online customers, Passavant & Lee paid a high cost, and so did other brands. A large number of consumers directly facing the DTC brand enter the competition for customers, leading to a sharp rise in the cost of digital marketing. The single click cost of search engine advertising increased by 25% last year to a record high, according to data from marketing analyst iProspect. Brands have said that although the effect of traditional online marketing activities is declining, the cost is rising. Faced with nearly saturated social media advertising, more and more consumers are beginning to choose to ignore it.

This phenomenon is destroying the operation mode of many brands. Glasses brand Warby Parker is one of them, when the brand started the digital marketing campaign around 2010, then it was market The environment is not so crowded now. In order to make themselves stand out while reducing costs, newly established start-ups have turned to creative alternatives. They even started using the marketing tools before the digital age, such as issuing paper product catalogues, and advertising advertisements in buses and subway cars.

Digital marketing is essentially the same as a rental block billboard. Naadam is a start-up company founded in 2013, focusing on Sustainable cashmere knitwear. At the beginning of its founding, Naadam was highly dependent on traditional digital marketing strategies such as paid search. Nowadays, online advertising and other digital channels are still the core marketing means, but CEO Matt Scanlan is considering using offline channels, such as taxi advertising, subway advertising and outdoor billboards. In September this year, Naadam will open a store in New York. At the same time, it will issue a paper product catalogue for the first time and distribute 500 thousand copies to customers. After obtaining $16 million in financing last week, Naadam is consulting with the Hearst group, hoping that the latter will provide a package of print advertising services involving more than $1 million in the amount of Hearst.

"All brands, including their parent companies, are using Facebook's paid advertising service," Scanlan said. But the return on investment in digital marketing is declining. This is a common phenomenon, not just a few light spots on the radar. "

Online self-employed entrepreneurs, such as Scanlan, are developing in the direction of physical stores, and are more strategic than most previous fashion start-ups. They regard physical stores as a means to improve sales performance and spread good reputation. Aurate, a jewelry company, launched its own e-commerce website in 2015, and opened a flash store to enhance its brand awareness. But it did not spend money on social media promotion or advertising on Google. The founder of Sophie Kahn and Bouchra Ezzahraoui said that although the digital marketing strategy was eventually adopted, physical stores seemed equally important to them.

Aurate currently has four entity stores: two in New York, Boston and Washington. Scanlan also hopes that Naadam can get more customers through physical stores. The two founders of Aurate said there was actually more money to raise online sales than rent.

Kahn said: "we sell time earlier than digital marketing, and all of our retail channels are profitable. Digital marketing is essentially the same as rent. "

Since the first store opened in Hamptons in 2014, Bandier, a high-end sports and leisure retail brand Bandier, now has six stores. Neil Boyarsky co founded the brand with his wife, Jennifer Bandier. He said that although online businesses account for a large proportion, they also use physical stores to attract new customers, including distinctive shop facilities, such as the gymnasium in Noho store in Manhattan.

Boyarsky said: "the entity store involves a series of content design and planning, including art, experience and food."

He added that smart designs can achieve different marketing effects. He mentioned the example of Glossier: in 2016, the brand wrapped the L line Bedford subway station in Brook forest, painted the cavernous space with its landmark pink, and hired models to distribute hundreds of pink roses to passengers. After the spanformation of Glossier, the subway station has become an authentic device which is suitable for sharing on Instagram. This strategy worked: passengers shared photos here on social media and expanded the scope of Glossier's publicity outside the Bedford subway station.

Boyarsky said: "this is an excellent example of creating a $1 million return with a budget of $50 thousand."

Excellent retail experience can also greatly enhance online sales performance. Bandier in Texas Prefecture After opening a store in Dallas, 7% of the brand's online sales come from Texas, second only to New York and California. After opening a number of physical stores, Shoe shoe The start-up brand Margaux also gained more customers. Of all four stores in the brand, new customers account for more than 80%. The founder, Alexa Buckley and Sarah Pierson, said they opened a "store store" at the flagship store of Bloomingdale Street, located on 59 Street (59th Street), where the proportion of new customers is as high as 96%.

Ezzahraoui said that in order to reduce costs, Aurate used customer feedback and survey results to develop effective marketing strategies. By analyzing the viewing amount of Facebook video and the clicks of different products, Aurate can determine the inventory of products and adjust the marketing content in real time. For example, an early publicity video shows a wearer. Aurate jewelry But the attention of this video is lower than the publicity video that only shows products.

"You have to do your best to collect data," says Rachel Tipograph, founder of MikMak.TV, a video marketing software company. Only in this way can you know who only eats gluten free food, who wants to go on holiday, and who likes tight jeans.

"If you don't do that, digital marketing will be pointless," she said.

The founder of Passavant & Lee said that in order to make good use of some marketing budgets, they employed a full-time internal analysis manager.

Lola is an organic women care brand, and online interaction with customers is its marketing tool. Alexandra Friedman and Jordana Kier co founded the brand. Friedman says customers send 900 e-mails a month, and they answer questions in the mail. This strategy originated in the early days of Lola: with the help of 15 female focus groups, the brand designed the original product.

Since its inception in 2015, Lola has successfully expanded its scale through word of mouth, news reports and organic (rather than paid) social media marketing.

Friedman said: "we recognize that the most important thing is to open channels of dialogue. Our email plan takes into account brand building and customer support.

Brands can also use third party tools to enable digital customers to make full use of their funds. How can we retain the website visitors who do not buy things? Stone Set Studio founder Jenna Wise recommends the use of chat robots, which can communicate with visitors through Facebook Messenger. To enable website visitors to purchase products, chat robots can send them discount codes or personalized messages.

For example, a product of MikMak can shorten the loading time from external links to Instagram, thereby reducing the average jump rate of the website and extending the stay time of visitors on the page. Another product can add "shopping cart" function to Instagram Stories. Instagram users can buy products directly after watching the contents of the brand push.

Wise said: "brands may try everything to see which ones are really useful. You can make digital marketing plans, but you must make adjustments freely and flexibly according to the implementation of the plan. "