Author: myles

Categories
Brand Long Read SMM

In Musk We Trust: What Your Brand Can Learn From Tesla

Tesla. We all know the name, and will have our own opinions of a company which is consistently seeking innovation and has carved it’s way as the pioneer of electric vehicle ownership. However, how can your brand see Tesla in such a way that would be of benefit?

With Tesla, something is very different, and it all stems for the C word.

1. Customer Centricity

Everything at Tesla embodies an experience which is customer centric. From the website user design, right through to the ownership after care everything is built around the customer in such a way that majorly disrupts the car industry.

It’s such an integral part of Tesla, and this is why Tesla owners genuinely want Tesla to be successful on every level. Tesla owners want to be a part of the Tesla journey, the Tesla ethos, and see the company be a major success. They are raving fans, rooting for the company to dominate. An extremely high 80% of customers buy or rent another Tesla for their next car after buying their first, and it’s no surprise.

What can you learn from this? Create an experience that is adored, fine tuned to focus on creating loyalty and you will have something truly special; an experience that sticks in the mind of your customer. With this you will have them for life, time and time again.

2. A website that oozes class, and makes the buying process a breeze

Go on the Tesla website and you will see a user experience that is far beyond any capability of it’s competitors. Car sites are traditionally sticky, bulky and difficult to navigate. Check out BMW and you will see how their site homepage is busier than the sale rales at TK Maxx, cluttered with corporate jargon and taking the customer away from what they want to see, and straight into what the company feels is important.

Tesla on the other hand, much like their vehicles is sleek, smooth and crisp. It’s so clean we would eat our breakfast off it.

It creates an experience that mirrors the Tesla ownership experience. Experience here is the important word when thinking of your brand like Tesla; you want to create a feeling of ownership of your product, even before it has been ordered.

The call to action on each slide is an enticing button which is seamless with the web design, taking you on a customer journey which focusses on you beginning your Tesla ownership ride.

Within just TWO clicks from the homepage, you are given the ‘Buy a Tesla’ option.

Now, we don’t know what your product is, however if it is anything smaller or less pricey than an $80,000 electronic vehicle and your customer cannot buy it within just two clicks…

…What are you doing?!

From here, picking out your vehicle and having all of the key questions answered without needing a “questions” section shows just how advanced they are on the market.

Tesla Custom Build

Car information, price, savings you’ll be getting, a bar to change your payment method, delivery date, and a customer journey bar at the top to show you that you are only 3 steps away from having your Tesla fully spec’d out, it’s all so clean and is exactly what the customer wants to see.

Tesla have gone for minimal styling here, keeping things light and simple for the customer for something that historically has been such a complex purchase for many.

If Tesla can do this on one of the biggest purchases an individual can make, why isn’t your site following suit?

3. A Digital Only Strategy

In 2020, customers will more often than not, be starting their purchase online. That means that digital provides customers their first impressions of the brand. Tesla stands out right away with a strong digital presence, in a way that is mission focussed and depicts the why behind the brand in such a way it creates legions of fans even from those who have never even sat inside a Tesla cockpit. Instead of being pushed into a sale by a well oiled car salesman wearing a Datejust, they are given information to make their own choices through the omni channel experience online. Such things have been taken to the extreme by Tesla too, in 2019 they shut down all of their physical Tesla showrooms and stores. They are the only car manufacturer to have an online only presence which was a major shift for the market, and one which is radically innovating, going against the grain of the supposed ‘need’ for physical locations for car companies.

When you focus on where the customer is, how they want to shop and why they shop for what they do, you’ll find that the online experience is paramount.

4. A Mission Beyond The Product

Tesla is hugely mission focussed beyond all else. Excusing the pun, the cars themselves are just a vehicle for change. In Tesla’s words their purpose in the world is to “accelerate the world’s transition to sustainable energy.”

Existing for more than profits, making money and selling their new cars and getting them out onto the roads, Tesla has built an identity for carving a strong mission that everyone buys into. It makes their employees more engaged and dedicated to the ultimate cause, which encourages them to deliver a better customer experience because there is a paramount ‘why’ behind everything Tesla stand for.

On the other end of this, Tesla owners are a part of something. A movement for change, for the better.

If your product or brand doesn’t have a central purpose aside from selling, you may be at the mercy of brands that can have people buy into a ‘why’.

In Musk We Trust,

The Normal Company

Categories
Fashion SMM

Carousel Posts; The Secret Weapon for Engagement?

Magic Fox https://www.instagram.com/magic_fox/?hl=en

Ever sitting there with ‘Gram-Whiplash’ thinking what the hell just happened with the time?

You went to check Instagram for a couple of minutes to pass the time, only to end up losing 48 minutes of your day…

Your favourite influencers and brands probably had something to do with that.

…and the main culprit for attention grabbing and sending you down a deep, dark rabbit hole?

Carousel posts.

In 2017 Instagram launched this new carousel format, which allows users to add up to ten images or videos to a swipeable single post. It didn’t take long for the new feature to gain popularity, especially in the influencer and fashion space which expectedly, adopted it in a warm embrace.

Additionally, high roller brands have been quick to pounce, using the carousel to promote look books, entire collections in one post, and capsule wardrobes in one ‘gram.

Attention is a key metric for brand success. If you don’t have it, you don’t have an audience, and if you don’t have an audience…

…You’re irrelevant.

Some of our favorite influencers that our brands at The Normal Company work with are out there showing brands why they’re missing out if they haven’t made carousel posts a regular and integral part of their content flow.

Influencers leverage the feature to add an extra layer to their partnerships, and showcase everything from their carefully procured trips to Hvar, selfie styles in the bedroom mirror, to 5 different ways to wear a blazer in Winter 2019.

With this becoming a top trend to stay relevant, and with the average engagement per post being around 35%+ on a standard post, (The Normal Company campaign analytics September 2019) we highly recommend that you stay ahead of the curve, and get your influencers to post your products in a carousel layout.

Giulia Nati’s account @giulianatiofficial posts mainly single image shots, however to mix it up she will post carousel images that depict a ‘story’ of her day, or in this instance on a brand collab, the carousel image comes into it’s own to showcase how the front and back of her outfit is truly unique, giving an instant experience with her audience as to how unique her particular daily wear is.

Giulia not only knows how to work her angles in the latest fashions, but she knows how to put her content to work too, which makes her a very good choice for our luxury womens labels to work with on a consistent basis.

The data on the back of these posts is astounding, and when used in comparison to single image content posts, we also see the back end metrics lining up nicely for us to add in our Normal Formula, to scale brands in this peak part of the calendar. High quality traffic gets generated, which allows us to fully leverage the influencer collaboration to maximum capacity and sales ROI.

There you have it; the hidden lever for content performance on Instagram for some of the top brand influencers.

With the Instagram algorithm always swinging in strange ways, you need to up the ante when it comes to how you collaborate with influencers to get maximum returns. Influencers work, and always will work, but only with the right system in place and staying ahead of your environment.

Categories
Fashion SMM Uncategorized

Why #MenWithxHM Is The New Standard of Collaboration For Brands

#MenWithxHM Faux leather jacket

“A design collaboration with style inspiration from the 10M+ followers of the MenWith Instagram accounts. This has resulted in a collection of updated key items for supreme style, every day.”

Nowadays, every brand who is striving for success and growth has an influencer strategy. Actively seeking the fashionpreneurs, latest hyped individuals, reality TV stars and best models of which closely align to select core values of the brand.

This strategy is tried and true, with influencers obviously playing a core part in driving bucket loads of traffic to a store, with a simple endorsement of a branded product.

This is something that we at The Normal Company, are 100% in agreement with for brands to do. However, this is becoming more and more saturated as each year goes by, and the influencer craze is becoming a blood bath that as consumers get wiser, and the #ad hashtag gets used more frequently than a Valencia filter, brands have to show a little more innovation when it comes to collaboration, in order to step up their game and step up their brand impact in competitive markets such as fashion.

Please step onto the stage, #MenWithxHM.

A TRUE collaboration, fit for the current influencer-saturated world we live in today.

@menwithclass have collaborated with H&M for their latest HMx collection. With an instagram account following of just shy of 5 million, and 10 million accumulatively across all of the ‘men with’ accounts such as @menwithstreetstyle, the Men with Class accounts are a brand in themselves. Embodying the very latest trends of the modern man, and encouraging gents worldwide to adopt the top trends in which they showcase.

#MenWithxHM Faux leather jacket

@menwithclass owners Erik & Daniel have amassed a cult following of men all seeking to get inspiration from their content, and H&M knows it. The collection embodies this and their exact style preferences in a capsule collection of basics and subtly branded #MenWith garments that portray the style aspired to be achieved by their following.

This, is a power collaboration.

A collaboration which asks a ready and waiting crowd the question ‘What do you want?’ built from the exact needs of a follower base, and the fashion inspiration in which millions of men worldwide are looking for, and actively seeking whenever they hop onto Instagram.

By looking at the posts with most views, comments and general engagement, H&M collaborated with MenWith to create a capsule collection which looked at this data, and provided the exact styles and items. The collaboration includes a knitted roller neck, two soft hoodies, plain t-shirts, sunglasses, suede caps and the statement biker jacket.

#MenWithxHM swipe up to shop advert on Instagram stories

The saying goes ‘place a burger van where there is a starving crowd’ and it’s safe to say that the #MenWithxHM collection does this to mass effect.

Categories
Things We Are Hyped About

Our Top 3 Remote Getaways Every CEO & Entrepreneur Has To Check Into

If you’re running a company, time out is just as important as time in. Getting away from the grind can be equally beneficial to the growth of your company, and ultimately the growth of you as a busy entrepreneur.

Head space, a place to recharge batteries, a zone where you can get creative without distraction, being at one with your goals and reflections are all reasons why getting away into the right place can do wonders for the business minded individual.

Bill Gates credits his massive success to being alone. Two times a year, for seven straight days, Bill Gates will spend time all by himself in the forest with no cell phone and no computer. He just totally disconnects from the outside world. He calls that “thinking time” the Think Week.

We, are all about this too.

This temporary change in lifestyle is the secret to his massive success he claims. He’s a business powerhouse worth 92.8 billion today, holding the top spot on the list of The World’s Billionaires for 18 out of the past 23 years. And he’s donated $35.8 billion worth of Microsoft stock to the Gates Foundation.

Clearly, Thinking Time is a top component to Bill Gates’ incredible wealth story. During his Thinking Time, he does a lot of reading and journaling about what he has done, is doing, and will accomplish. He also comes up with new ideas and innovations for his company.

So, we took on the challenge to find some V2.0 getaways, that may actually trump a forest and allow you to do the same, with an innovative touch.

Shipwreck Lodge, Namibia

Jetting off to Namibia may not be the first port of call for most, however at Shipwreck Lodge, there are a few hundred shipwreck style cabins scattered along Namibia’s Skeleton Coast. It’s serene & idyllic, the perfect place to reflect and gaze into the sunset to gather your thoughts.

Each of the 10 bedrooms feature a large horizontal window where guests can look out across the surrounding sand dunes and spot wildlife including brown hyenas and desert lions.

Namibia Shipwreck Lodge

 

Al Faya Lodge, UAE

Architecture studio Anarchitect has turned a couple of stone buildings in the UAE into Al Faya Lodge, a hotel and saltwater spa in the remote Sharjah desert.

A complex of architecturally sleek, clean cut buildings now forms the Al Faya Lodge, which sits in the red sands at the foot of Mount Alvaah in the Emirate of Sharjah.

The rooms here are all equipped with stargazing skylights, and if you are to choose the Master Suite, this has a private roof terrace to enhance your experience as you appreciate the solitude, and be at one with your thoughts on expansion and creative endeavours.

Al Faya Lodge is a top pick because it is actually designed to be booked out all as one, so the entire complex can be experienced to your full privacy. Or, bring the entire team along to channel some focus.

This Arabian complex also has a tidy reception area, a dining room where chefs can be hired, and an outdoor terrace with a fire pit.

 

Punta Caliza, Mexico

When you can only arrive to a destination by boat, you know you’re somewhere remote and away from it all.

Our version of entrepreneur bliss.

The boutique hotel Punta Caliza, which is situated on Isla Holbox – a zero cars allowed fishing village north of Mexico’s Yucatán Peninsula.

This epic destination is made up of 12 whitewashed guest suites each boast their own plunge pool and have thatched roofs intended to mimic traditional Mayan structures.

Punta Caliza Mexico

Categories
Fashion SMM

Why Beauty Brands Are Pretty Money.

Fenty Beauty Personalisation

The beauty industry is changing, expanding at a rapid rate, and having more investment ploughed into it by the day.

And, investment firms are taking notice.

This, is why Beauty Brands are Pretty Money right now.

According to a recent report from Nielsen, 96% of traditional beauty retail channels (meaning brick-and-mortar options) are controlled by the top 20 cosmetics manufacturers. But, on the contrary to this, 86% of e-commerce channels are controlled by companies outside the top 20.

What does this mean?

Opportunity for the space is ripe.

Smaller beauty e-commerce brands (mostly online only) are dominating the online marketplace for direct-to-consumer sales. And now, we see that outside investors are dipping their toes into this sea of new waves.

In 2018 alone, US-based companies in this beauty sector raised a record amount of funding, and 2019 is set to produce another record breaker.

The total of $900 million was the figure for the year, with 2017 being $634 million.

That’s almost 30% increase in investment.

So, why are cash rich investors swooping in on beauty companies specifically? It’s partly because businesses that specialize in cosmetics and other personal care products are getting good at using technology to sell their products. They are also at the forefront of where the world is; social media.

Beauty brands that perform well, are performing well because they KNOW the online landscape and have used it to their total advantage.

Because, if they didn’t, they wouldn’t exist.

These ‘small’ online only brands are the new ‘go to’ for investors for this reason. They are innovative, forward thinking, always producing new content to beat the rest and stand out, and have a strong understanding of the online ecosystem which is the foundation for commerce going into 2020 and beyond.

As an example of a big hitter, we may want to look at Glossier.

Glossier for instance, launched its makeup on Instagram before it even had its website.
The brand founder Emily Weiss said at TechCrunch Disrupt in 2018 that more than 70% of millennials purchase beauty and fashion products through Instagram. We personally believe this will be 80-90% within the next 24 months.

YouTube, and anything video related such as IGTV is also a major platform for beauty brands. An average of more than 1 million beauty videos are viewed on the video site every single day, according to a BBC report. That’s up from averages of 800,000 per day last year and about 500,000 in 2016.

A separate conclusion for why private investors and investment firms alike are into beauty companies right now is that they’re paying attention to what customers want, and how they want it.

Beauty consumers are increasingly drawn toward personalised beauty products, including those that offer a variety of shades for a diverse customer base. In early 2017, Shiseido bought MatchCo, a venture-backed startup that makes customisation software meant to help users find products that match their skin. Mented Cosmetics specializes in makeup made for darker skin tones. And singer Rihanna is the founder of Fenty Beauty, which provides foundations meant to work with all skin tones around the world.

Personalisation is key in this new world when it comes to just about anything, and the beauty niche is definitely paving the way for this future.

Myles Broom

The Normal Company

Categories
Things We Are Hyped About

We Are Hyped About: Kanye Teasing New Yeezys

Kanye West stepping out, New Yeezy's 2019 release

Kanye West is his own cat walk 24/7.

Whatever he puts on, you KNOW it will kick off on social media with people asking questions, asking when it may be released, and asking when and where they can grab the same pieces.

Kanye donned some new Yeezy’s in California, and @yeezymafia were (excuse the pun) hot on the heels of the new step out earlier this week.

Their page has gone OFF since the post, and this has inevitably lead to increasing speculation not only of new limited edition Yeezy’s hitting the market, but potentially a new line.

Could this be an upcoming release?

Could it be a stunt?

On face value they look like the 700’s, but we have spotted that they look like they may have luminescent features, and also are a less chunky version of most other versions.

Could this be a new summer line? A lighter, more stripped back and neutral release?

Who knows.

Either way, we’re in.

Categories
Fashion Long Read SMM

Fashionable E-Mail Marketing MUSTS.

For an eCommerce fashion label, you may have your instagram content on point. You may have ALL of the best models & influencers draped in your logo..

..You may have thousands of customers buying from you consistently.

BUT, what are you doing on the email front?

Poor email marketing & systemisation is a huge culprit we see between a brand in which dominates it’s sub sector, contrasting that in which fails to even scratch the surface on the potential sales volume it should be getting. At the normal company, our process relies on having a super sleek back end, specifically when it comes to email marketing.

Email becomes one of the most important communication channels with your customer when it comes to not only driving sales, but recouping them.

Why? Email marketing lets a label reach out to prospective and current customers with offers, news, product launches and more. It’s also a key tool to reignite interest, and capture the sale when it is in limbo.

If you are a fashion eCommerce brand, or any brand for that matter in any space, you need to listen up to this checklist below, and make it a focal point for your back end. Now.

1. Have a sexy subject line

The days of ‘ALL CAPs’ are gone. These actually trigger the spam filter on a lot of mailboxes, and you may see this yourself with a poor delivery & open rate.

In 2019, it’s all about being on trend, relevant, and actually of interest.

To win the open rate, you have to be gentle and subtle in your subject line without overselling yourself. Remember, that people respond to phrases that we use in our everyday life because it is more human.

No one wants to receive an email which literally looks like a marketing email, no matter what brand or store you run.

So, What exactly should you be crafting up for your subject line?
Personalisation, relevance, personality.
The key is to describe what is inside your mail, in a sleek pocket size way.

You need to create the ‘WOW’ moment, immediately as you only have a split section to do so, before your customer scrolls away from you.

2. Content, Content, Content.

It’s simple really. If you don’t have good content, there’s no ‘why’.

You need a strong WHY to enable a conversation, and enable the hook back into your site, and those products in which are most relevant to your potential customer.

When you get your e-mail opened, welcome your customer with an attractive visual. Something enticing, and something bold.

Tom Ford does this incredibly well:

Provide a relevant landing page in the Call to action of the visual. Avoid linking everything to your home page, as this essentially creates unnecessary barriers and hurdles for your customer to trawl through, in order to get where they want.

Normal Tip:

A short and sweet customer journey, wins.

Your graphic curation in your marketing email should be attractive and the text should be highly visible, punchy and striking. Do not forget to optimise the same for mobile views as 62% of emails are opened and read on mobile.

3. The personal touch.

Here’s a question to ask yourself:

“Am I connecting with an individual, or scatter-gunning to the masses?”

Ask yourself, and you may want to go back to the drawing board. Often there is a hit and hope strategy at play with most email marketing we see, and brands in which we coach on this aspect when it comes to driving all time high revenues.

When you hit schedule, you are not just mailing an offer or information, you are mailing experiences.

You are connecting..

.. or disconnecting.

How will you produce a personalised message? How will you really hit home to that customer as they sit at home and browse Gmail?

Address the customer by name, or make recommendations based on browsing behavior.

Don’t just sell, give fashion tips on colours for the upcoming season, trends, how THEIR personal taste is being seen on influencers etc.
It is the extra effort in being friendly that makes all the difference to be more engaging and give the customer a great experience, which will separate you from the herd in that email box.

M&S Email Campaign

M&S do this terrifically. So much so, it’s as if we produced it right here at Normal!

Everything about their broad email marketing is on a ‘non salesy’ front. It’s personal, it’s professional, and it sparks intrigue.

4. If you’re not doing THIS, you’re bleeding money.

Cart Abandonment Emails.

This right here is your second, third or fourth chance to get those abandoned carts over the line.

We see time and time again an ineffective strategy here for many brands, and it’s one in which once we bring it to light, it’s a real face palm moment (for us, and them).

It is frustrating is when customers abandon their cart, but rewarding when you can make them complete their purchase with cart abandonment emails.

According to SalesCycle, eCommerce brands who sent cart abandonment emails received 46% open rate leading to 35% of the returning customers completing their checkout processes.

Cart abandonment emails, ideally, should be sent soon after the customer abandons the cart, and a follow-up email of the same in consecutive days. (Read our 10 Best Practices Of Abandoned Cart Emails for an in-depth explanation.)

Must include elements of a cart abandonment email:
Image of the abandoned products in the cart
A headline which mentions the product of interest
Recommendations for further products
Concise CTA
Something which makes them say ‘oh go on then!’

The proof is in the scale.

One of our fashion brands who we took on last month, had zero abandoned cart processes in place. They were losing out.

So, we put it to the test and found the following once we applied our Normal email strategy & comprehensive system:

Within 1 week of setting up, our email marketing generated an EXTRA £11,540.93 in revenue.
This was directly from our abandoned check out email marketing, coupled with intuitive facebook & instagram story ads.

So, tell us it’s not worth waiting any longer?

Conclusion:

These are the 4 basic and fundamental factors that fashion brands should consider in executing their email marketing. Today.
Even if you are a smaller brand,, with these context in mind, you can slowly work your way up to achieving more click-through rates, ROI, and ultimately a larger revenue at the end of it all.

Email marketing: The trend which is not going out of fashion any time soon.

Categories
SMM

The next Stormzy? How music charities offer hope to London’s youth

With Amy Winehouse, Mark Ronson created a sound so popular that everyone copied it – which meant that everyone got sick of it too. For a while, as the industry cashed in on the soul revival he’d ushered in, the phone didn’t ring: his producer friends, he says, got the calls for Adele instead.He was fired by The Gossip; he wrote a doomed anthem for Coca-Cola(“God bless Katy B”).

There was too much clubbing – and that peroxide hair. As the noughties faded into history, he says, he was thinking, “What am I doing and how am I going to get back to being relevant and anyone giving a shit”?

With Amy Winehouse, Mark Ronson created a sound so popular that everyone copied it – which meant that everyone got sick of it too. For a while, as the industry cashed in on the soul revival he’d ushered in, the phone didn’t ring:his producer friends, he says, got the calls for Adele instead. He was fired by The Gossip; he wrote a doomed anthem for Coca-Cola(“God bless Katy B”).With Amy Winehouse, Mark Ronson created a sound so popular that everyone copied it – which meant that everyone got sick of it too. For a while, as the industry cashed in on the soul revival he’d ushered in, the phone didn’t ring:his producer friends, he says, got the calls for Adele instead. He was fired by The Gossip; he wrote a doomed anthem for Coca-Cola(“God bless Katy B”).

Quotes

I work well with female artists. Most of them have complicated lives and this intricate sense of emotion

With Amy Winehouse, Mark Ronson created a sound so popular that everyone copied it – which meant that everyone got sick of it too. For a while, as the industry cashed in on the soul revival he’d ushered in, the phone didn’t ring: his producer friends, he says, got the calls for Adele instead.He was fired by The Gossip; he wrote a doomed anthem for Coca-Cola(“God bless Katy B”).

video-thumb

With Amy Winehouse, Mark Ronson created a sound so popular that everyone copied it – which meant that everyone got sick of it too. For a while, as the industry cashed in on the soul revival he’d ushered in, the phone didn’t ring: his producer friends, he says, got the calls for Adele instead.He was fired by The Gossip; he wrote a doomed anthem for Coca-Cola(“God bless Katy B”).