Case Study: Clothing Ecommerce Builds a Brand on Social Media
September 14, 2018
This Marketing 360® eCommerce marketing client shows that when it comes to selling clothes, social media marketing is the winner.
We often say that digital marketing is all about doing more of what works and less of what doesn’t. What that often comes down to, specifically, is finding the right marketing channels.
We can say something with confidence. If you’re selling women’s fashion, Instagram and Facebook are gold. You must market on these channels.
This Marketing 360® success story is case in point. Here’s the breakdown.
Instagram
There really is no more natural marketing channel for fashion product lines than Instagram. It’s a catalog you update in real time that lends itself perfectly to showing clothes. And of course it’s built for mobile with content people love to share.
Out of 280 social referral leads (last 90 days), 261 came from Instagram.
Social referral is the biggest sales driver on the brand channel (280 out of 437 total conversions) which is their top producing channel:
Tactically, Instagram isn’t difficult so long as you’re consistent. The most important component is to add high-quality images your followers will share.
Facebook
This business also does steady sales using STA® paid ads on Facebook. We use lookalike audiences and retargeting.
First, when somebody shops the website but abandons their cart, we hit them with this ad:
This brought in an additional 114 sales:
We use lookalike audiences to target new customers who resemble the demographics of current shoppers. The ads are the same types of product carousel ads as we use for retargeting. With lookalike audiences, the ads get the highest conversion rates of any campaign:
The search conversion (organic and paid) is almost all branded, and this business had little success with Google shopping ads, so we don’t invest in that channel.
One interesting component is the branding effort they’ve made regionally. The business owners are from Nebraska with connections in the fashion industry in that state. No surprise that the most popular recent Instagram post is Nebraska themed:
This is a smart strategy because it gives them a competitive advantage in that region. Their brand is most popular in Nebraska, where they get nearly half their sales:
Many fashion eCommerce businesses jump into national campaigns with big pushes on Google Shopping and Amazon.
But unless people have a feel for your brand, this will be a struggle.
The shareable, visual content of social media is the place to build this brand recognition. You start regionally then push into new territories, as this business is now prepared to do.
*Results are based on past client performance. Individual account performance may vary. Results are not guaranteed.