Fashion brands struggle for innovation in mobile marketing efforts
While fashion brands will be all over social media this week to drive the conversation around their latest looks at New York's Fashion Week, mobile marketing will likely not have much of a presence beyond this as these brands are still struggling with how best to leverage the technology.
While the majority of top fashion brands have mastered presences on social media, they are also for the most part struggling on innovative mobile tactics, such as mobile Web and applications, prompting experts to believe it may not be the right time just yet for mobile and fashion to intertwine. Fashion brands flock to social, and are right in doing so, to market their products based on where their customers are, and while social is inherently mobile, apps, mobile Web and other tactics, such as augmented reality and beacons, continue to be not as high of a priority.
?Like all mobile content, the answer is to be personal, timely and relevant, and brands should give fans and viewers what they want, where they want it and when it makes the most sense,? said Vanessa Horwell, principal and chief strategy officer at ThinkInk, Miami. ?Mobile campaigns need well-targeted content that is personal and timely, tailored specifically for what Forrester?s Julie Ask calls the ?mobile moment.?
?Those moments have to be incredibly relevant in order to engage with customers and app users,? she said. ?Larger-form online platforms like Pinterest and Instagram, which can serve as digital versions of the fashion shoot and runway, might be the best approaches at the moment for major fashion brands.
?If the mobile environment becomes the place to be and be seen for fashion brands, fashion marketers will ideally know to shift their sources to the mobile environment to follow their fans and customers.?
Visually inclined
Undoubtedly, the fashion industry is driven by visuals, which is hard to translate on small screens. While the physical experience of fashion shopping is likely never to die, omnichannel experiences are crucial.
However, outside of social, there are not many, if any, leaders in mobile innovation in the fashion industry. Conveniently enough, Pinterest has revolutionized fashion and works as an aggregator to carry consumers directly to product pages.
Finally, if social is currently serving its purpose, mobile itself is unlikely to be needed.
?Perhaps more than a lack of mobile innovation, fashion brands are hosting digital conversations and delivering online content where their followers and fans are most active, and that might not be in the mobile environment,? Ms. Horwell said. ?Since fashion is such a visual phenomenon and industry, fashion brands are far more evident on platforms like Instagram and Pinterest, where fashion magazines, designers and events are extremely active and able to attract lots of views and followers.
?Those platforms are better able to display the grandiosity, colors and boldness of fashion photography and styles, especially when compared to the capabilities of the smaller smartphone screen,? she said. ?One of the tenets of overall marketing is to know where your customers and clients are and then market to them appropriately.
?For the time being, fashion brands seem to be achieving the most success by taking advantage of the shared experiences and peer-to-peer influence that comes from these broader, highly visual online platforms, not from mobile apps.?
Furthermore, a lack of mobile plus overindulgence in social could be because fashion marketers are lost when it comes to mobile-centric experiences. While large department stores, such as Lord & Taylor, have been an innovator by being on the first to test beacons in its stores, fashion-only brands cannot compete.
?A recent study from RSR Research reveals that while retailers and fashion marketers understand the value of an innovative mobile strategy, they?re still challenged by three things: not knowing what customers perceive as valuable in mobile, the ability to understand and accommodate how different customer segments engage with the brand and the fact that it?s difficult to keep up with the speed of consumer adoption of mobile technology,? said Rebecca Schuette, director of marketing of Swirl, Boston. ?Lord & Taylor is a mobile innovator, embracing beacon technology to send personalized communication to their shoppers based on their in-store location and shopping behavior.
?Not only was Lord & Taylor an early adopter of the technology, but they also moved to a national deployment of their beacons in time for last year?s holiday season,? she said.
Given Lord & Taylor's success, it is possible that fashion brands are watching from afar and may try these types of technologies later on down the road.
Social is undeniable
Meanwhile, fashion retailers such as Victoria?s Secret and Forever 21 garner unparalleled success on social sites, such as Instagram, Twitter, Facebook and Pinterest, according to a recent study.
Engagor, a platform that measures real-time customer engagement and social media monitoring, recently observed 10 top U.S. retail brands for one month to uncover which ones generate the most buzz on social and engages the most with followers.
Results from the survey prove even more that while fashion is genius across social media platforms, due to customer habits on those same platforms, strictly mobile app or mobile Web engagement is not entirely needed at this point.
Brands monitored included Victoria?s Secret, H&M, Forever 21, Topshop, Gap, Express, Anthropologie, Banana Republic, Kate Spade and Levi?s.
Victoria?s Secret and Forever 21 had the most brand mentions overall on social and, though Banana Republic had the fewest, it was still one of the top three most engaging brands on social.
Additional key takeaways from the study include Forever 21 having the fastest social response time, averaging only 19 minutes. Females tend to dominate the social conversation around these brands, but males mentioned Levi?s more at 52 percent.
Only 19 percent of people engage through the Web, and mobile remains the leading platform for social engagement.
Also from the report, Victoria?s Secret?s #OwnTheBeach and #SomethingBigIsComing hashtags were the most used, followed by Forever 21?s #F21FitnessChallenge.
Geographically, Illinois, Pennslyvania and Texas are among the top five U.S. states generating the most social chatter. Banana Republic, H&M and Kate Spade garnered the most positive sentiment.
?With nearly two-thirds of mobile shoppers under the age of 35, there are a number of things to consider when marketing a mobile-friendly Web site or app that will attract attention,? said Folke Lemaitre, founder and CEO of Engagor, San Francisco. ?How do you make this interactive and shareable so that users can recommend items to their friends in the easiest way possible?
?It can be difficult to determine whether the better strategy is to develop a standalone app that functions also as its own social network or if you should integrate with already existing social networks.?
Final Take
Caitlyn Bohannon is an editorial assistant on Mobile Marketer, New York