[vc_row][vc_column][vc_custom_heading text=”How Online Fashion Retailer Bonobos Suits Up Its Content Strategy”][vc_single_image image=”355″ img_size=”full”][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]By Julie Bawden-DavisFebruary 15th, 2012
When Bonobos opened its online store in 2007, selling men’s pants, it did so with the idea that many men prefer to click and shop rather than walk into a brick and mortar location.
By taking the virtual route with its product, the New York-based online retailer of trendy men’s clothing had no choice but to build an exceptional ecommerce experience of its brand using web and social marketing.
Contently recently caught up with Richard Mumby, vice president of marketing at Bonobos, to learn how the company keeps its name at the forefront of men’s online fashion.
Contently: The content strategy at Bonobos is fairly extensive. What kind of content do you produce and what need does each type of content fill?
Bonobos: Bonobos does produce a wide range of content — from product, to social, to email — and each serves a specific purpose.
Content for Bonobos starts with our product. As a largely web-driven retailer, we must provide ample context around our products and create a distinct brand position. We craft a story of how each product was conceived, how we could foresee a customer wearing it, or a creative, funny story to entertain our customers. The content is usually connected in one way or another with our product names, which are individually conceived — often bringing the humor and irreverence of our brand to life.
Without a physical retail store, it is critical to develop a social environment. We use our social content to create a sense of community where we contextualize our brand without explicit focus on transactions. This tact deepens the relationship with customers, which is apparent from frequent Facebook posts, questions, and responses to our content.
We know that email is a critical channel to drive revenue, but an explicit focus on transactional emails only exhausts customers and doesn’t provide a more premium brand position. We spend a lot of time finding ways to include editorial content in our regular cadence of emails. Also, we have a set schedule of campaigns around contests, events, and Bonobos culture.
Contently: How does your content strategy integrate with your company?
Bonobos: The company started by selling pants, but we’ve always focused on developing a distinct brand in the men’s apparel space. Content is a large component of how we’ve done this — from video chats by founder and CEO Andy Dunn, to a long history of blog posts. We also hire many creative people, and we encourage employees to contribute to various content platforms.
Contently: How much and how often do you publish?
Bonobos: While we don’t have a publishing calendar, we release new content nearly daily in the form of product launches, social media campaigns, blog posts, or email initiatives.
Contently: What types of content have been the most well-received?
Bonobos: Our social media campaigns are the easiest to track in terms of engagement, response and ROI. Most recently, we held a private customer event in New York City hosted by NBA All-Star Deron Williams around the launch of our Foundation Suit collection. We asked our guests at the event to check-in on Foursquare and share photos from the party via Instagram and Twitter using #BonobosSuitsU for the chance to take home one of the new suits.
We also invited customers around the country to join in the conversation surrounding the event on social media. They participated by visiting our website and tweeting their favorite Bonobos suit using #BonobosSuitsU. The customer who got the most retweets also scored a new Bonobos suit. While we had 250 people attend the event, we reached more than 850,000 people on Twitter with 3,500+ mentions and 4,000+ retweets of our #BonobosSuitsU hashtag.
Contently: How do you measure the success of your content?
Bonobos: We measure the success of our content where possible and relevant. For example, our email content is evaluated based on click-through rates. We measure our social media content based on shares and engagement.
The key to success with content on social is limiting the “hard sell.” We’re fortunate to have a passionate and engaged social community. Questions about product development and merchandising or quick humorous posts and photos that bring to life the Bonobos brand consistently drive engagement rates at least 10 times higher than posts designed to encourage customers to purchase.
Content Helps Brands Create Customers, Not Chase Them
By Lexi LewtanFebruary 15th, 2012
Are media companies ready to move from chasing customers to creating customers? Tony Uphoff, CEO of UBM TechWeb, thinks yes — and told Folio Mag that anyone not taking a hybrid approach will be left in the dust.
“Many of the laws of physics in advertising and marketing — reach and frequency, brand awareness, brand preference and call to action — have been upended and replaced by brand generation to create and sustain a more substantial engagement with customers,” Uphoff explains.
His proposed solution? Instead of collecting what he calls “Business Card Data,” or basic lead gen, brands need to find customers who actually care. “Content marketing helps cut the wheat from the chafe; engaging those with a real need, the right demographics and interest, as opposed to simply capturing business card information,” he notes. Interesting Point.
Image courtesy of colormarket
BRANDS
How BuzzFeed Creates Contagious Content for Brands [INTERVIEW]
By Lexi LewtanFebruary 14th, 2012
No longer is it just about so-called sticky content that keeps readers around, or even clicky content that causes them to hit a link; it’s also about serving up content that is spreadable.”
— David Carr in his New York Times article, “Significant and Silly at BuzzFeed”
If BuzzFeed, the online publication and self proclaimed “viral content detector,” has one goal, it’s to get clicks. And if Tanner Ringerud, BuzzFeed’s director of creative services, has one goal, it’s to get clicks for brands.
Ringerud, a former on-site editor, spends his time helping brands align with viral trends on the Internet. “My job is really figuring out how to get these to sync,” he explains. “You don’t want to be the brand that does the planking thing too late.”
His current role actually developed out of necessity, as brands began to approach the sharing laboratory. “We try to work together in a way that our users and the Internet as a whole will enjoy.” BuzzFeed does this by leasing its editors creative agency-style to companies looking to increase their exposure. Together, they create on-site content that fits the “BuzzFeed Tone” — an upbeat and zany voice, like Superbowl ads mixed with Internet meme culture.
Their work is provocative, timely and streamlined for sharing — and may be the perfect breeding ground for digital strategists to implement some adventurous branding.
The BuzzFeed Approach
Brands may be intimidated by the site’s gutter-brilliance approach, but the formula definitely works. For every 100,000 views generated on top of BuzzFeed’s paid advertising partnership, an extra 30,000 views on average are generated from sharing.
BuzzFeed’s creative formula also has worked well for improving brand perceptions. GE recently tested multiple campaigns around the internet with their video series, “The GE Show.” Of all their approaches, they noticed the biggest improvement in brand associations, like creativity and innovation with Buzzfeed’s content.
“It’s great for brands who are trying, and saying ‘now what?’” Ringerud explains. He sees content marketing as a positive trend, though understands that many companies still lack the web expertise and editorial perspective to produce truly effective Internet gold. “It’s great that brands are doing it,” he says, “The trick is doing it right.”
BuzzFeed’s omnivoracious community — 75% of their on-site viewers are actively looking for something to pass on to their friends — make the platform a perfect place for experimenting, especially if a brand has already been implementing a content strategy.
Packaging for Virality
Brand involvement varies on BuzzFeed — some use the site to highlight their own content, while others attempt to launch branded viral trends. BuzzFeed welcomes this variance, arguing that each brand must create the right type of wackiness for sharing to occur.
For companies who are hesitant to BuzzFeed’s somewhat aggressive tactics, placing experimental “containers” around their own online properties offers a less intensive way to play with the wackiness.
“We’ve had success with more traditional campaigns, like with Dell’s branded videos,” Ringerud notes. “They really worked with us to see how we could help get them in front of eyeballs.”
By placing the branded video inside an Internet friendly list like “The 10 Most Infamous Computer Viruses,” the site sends out bait — and waits for bites. But unlike “clever” link selling or sneaky Internet product placements, BuzzFeed’s approach is surprisingly genuine. Engaging in digital conversation can feel awkward and forced, but the site’s content is “inherently social,” Ringerud points out.
Brands like razor company Schick, on the other hand, take their experiments much further. Schick worked with BuzzFeed to create a meme called “razor-bombing,” where subjects “shaved the world around them.”
“We just said here’s this thing, its the next planking. Do what you will,” Ringerud notes. But users loved it, so the site helped launch a contest, where other users could use their own pics. The phenomena ended blew up — and it didn’t seem to make the experience less authentic for users knowing that Schick’s name was attached throughout.
Storytelling In a Digital Age
Today an “active” social media user is still somewhat of a mysterious persona, so it can be incredibly useful for brands to try some riskier content. While traditional ads use more of a Mad-Men approach trying to make distant glamour appealing, the Internet seems to be a more humble, and even freaky group of consumers.
BuzzFeed’s refreshingly self-mocking approach to new-media storytelling seems to represent this change in the media landscape. It really is giving people what they want in a way that has never been done before.
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