Today I am going to talk to you about a trend more and more striking everyday in the French clothing industry : hyper-specialization. Three examples of successful young entreprises : Archiduchess, Six & Sept and Ben & Fakto. I will first present these startups, and then analyze their social networks strategy: what works and what doesn't (with a focus on the very-debated Pinterest network).
Archiduchesse
You might have heard of them recently about their being copied by Chinese producers (see here for more details). And if not, here's the story : Archiduchesse is exclusively selling socks, all made in France : ankle socks, lisle socks, warm socks, high socks and tights : no more no less than these five varieties, all sold in more than 20 colors each (48 colors maximum for some socks)
Their website is very well constructed : navigation is very intuitive, agreable, and you never end up in some remote place of the website from which it is hard to come back from.
A very nice initiative (creation in 2006), that has been talked about a lot this year, and makes a successful business. For example, in March, they sold 4 507 pairs of socks (see there for more numbers)
Ben & Fakto
Ben&Fakto is an ethical e-business shop: 10% of each order is invested in micro-credit projects. The designers chosen are quite remote from traditional ethical or fairtrade clothing. High-priced, the clothes, jewellery, shoes and accessories are clearly designed and fashionable.
The e-shop offers a great variety, from ethical condoms (yes that exists), organic wear to hand-made necklaces. You can choose to segment your basket according to clothes category (trousers, shirt), or to the origin of the product (fair-trade, made in France, organic...)
For the record, Ben & Fakto was created last year, at Startup Weekend Lille (a great concept that I encourage you to see for yourself here), has been incubated by EDHEC business school: a very successful business.
Six & Sept
Six & Sept focuses on selling V-neck sweaters and cardigans, with original touches of color: on the end of the arms for sweaters, and around the buttons for cardigans.
They have clearly positioned themselves as a luxury brand: their cardigans are made in Venice, are in egyptian cotton, and the brand universes adopts the code of Parisian luxury. Their photographies are art-oriented, their Parisian store is called a gallery: a quickly identifiable positioning and market.
Commun points of the brands
• Relatively high prices : 4,50€ a pair of low ankle socks on Archiduchesse, 90 € for a skirt on Ben&Fakto, 110€ for a cardigan on Six&Sept. The three brands clearly aim at a trendy, fashioned-oriented, and responsible clientele : young and mostly urban.
• Hyperfocused on their core products for Archiduchesse and Six&Sept, and very coherent on their consumer promise for Ben&Fakto.
Social networks strategies
Ben & Fakto
|
Six & Sept
|
Archiduchesse
|
|
FACEBOOK
|
|||
Number of Facebook fans
|
3 075
|
360
|
13 093
|
Number of likes per post
|
10 in average
|
2
|
20
|
Number of comments per post
|
4 in
average
|
None
|
5
|
TWITTER
|
|||
Number of tweets
|
1 141
|
Not present
on Twitter.
|
845
|
Number of followed on Twitter
|
282
|
93
|
|
Number of followers on Twitter
|
529
|
2 033
|
|
PINTEREST
|
|||
Number of Pinterest boards
|
5
|
1
|
The brand
doesn’t have an account on Pinterest
|
Number of Pinterest pins
|
61
|
1
|
23
pins from Pinterest users
|
Number of Pinterest followers
|
38
|
1
|
|
Number of Pinterest users followed
|
15
|
10
|
|
Number of Pinterest likes
|
5
|
0
|
|
Ben & Fakto
It’s too bad users don’t interact more on the Facebook
page: the brand has a great (direct, interactive and funny) communication
through its internet site and its newsletter, and the tone is not present
enough on the Facebook page.
They have chosen a third-person communication, a great
humourous tone in the newsletter, but perhaps not that well adapted to
Facebook. Maybe bringing in more humour would help Ben & Fakto generating
more interactions. Their post which got the most likes was a post in which they
parodied an old French add (below) : maybe they should do that more often.
On
the other hand, a great Twitter communication in which they engage a direct
dialogue with their customers : people posting about / to Ben&Fakto get
very quick answers. (@benfakto)
On Pinterest though, their posts are not viral enough to generate more content from the followers of the
brand.
Six & Sept
The brand is very new, but the low level of
engagement of their Facebook fans leads to thinking they should invest in their
social networks strategy.
As they themselves generate quite a lot of content
they could incite more their customers to interact with them: by giving direct
incentives (reductions), or making them participate in online games for
example.
Moreover, the brand
has a clear art connotation; encouraging photo contests, in an art style (not
only of Six & Sept products) could generate a higher level of engagement of
their customers.
Likewise, their use of Pinterest looks a bit hesitant: between not using Pinterest and using fully Pinterest they have chosen to be on Pinterest but produce very few content: maybe producing more content (for example relaying the content already present on the Facebook page and on the website) would be more appropriate.
Archiduchesse
Archiduchesse's posts on Facebook are not very viral yet, but
users seem to post a lot more content directly on the Facebook wall of
Archiduchesse: to say hello, to make jokes, to say that they have just made
their first order and are very proud of it.
The beginnings of Archiduchesse on Facebook were quite
hesitant: it seems like Archiduchesse itself did not quite know what to post
and what not to post on their Facebook page, but now that the editorial line is
well defined, they get higher engagement rates. An advice: encourage and put
under the light pictures that customers take of their socks (yes, they do take
pictures of your socks: see Pinterest)
Like Ben&Fakto, Archiduchesse has a great Twitter communication, direct and interactive with consumers and people
who post about or to @archiduchesse.
And a last good point for Archiduchesse is its absence from Pinterest. By
letting its customers talk themselves about their products on Pinteret,
Archiduchesse has chosen not to take the risk (time, cost, reputation) of
launching themselves on Pinterest. The virality of the brand is still not very
high, but the fact that at least 23 users have chosen to post pictures of Archiduchesse
socks show a great brand attractiveness.
A quick conclusion
These three examples show us that diversifying your activity is not always the best business, and that very focused businesses are good business models : because customers clearly identify your core competencies and job, you are seen as an expert on your business, and more qualitative than your non-focused competitors.
A quick point also on Pinterest: brands successful on Pinterest are either brands that engage a clear dialogue with their customers (like Kotex for example) by repinning content from users and identifying key Pinterest users that could be their customers, or brands that let customers speak for themselves : in-between strategies take the risk of a waste of time and of return on investment.
No comments:
Post a Comment