Face it, ladies of the 21st century all adore shoes, and the online world seems to be inundated with women blogging about their shoes. Women have never been so utterly obsessed with talking about their feet - especially designer feet. Shoes are the female version of porn, only socially acceptable. Designers have used women’s fascination with shoes and Social Media to market their brands successfully. These are some of the stats I found on the results of two very different shoe brands:
1. Jimmy Choo and @CatchAChoo
Jimmy Choo is famous for its fabulous designer shoes. To increase sales, the design label decided to use members of Social Media websites Facebook, Twitter and Foursquare to ‘follow’ a pair of designer trainers online via the @CatchAChoo Twitter account.
From FashionablyMarketing.Me - Case Study: Jimmy Choo @CatchAChoo Campaign (May 2010)
- After @CatchAChoo was covered by The Evening Standard, sales of the sneakers in-store increased by 33%.
- Positive mentions of the brand increased by 40% online.
- The campaign spread from Foursquare, Twitter and Facebook; followers would find them at prestigious venues that fit with brand.
- 1 in 17 people in London were chasing Jimmy Choo around London. There were 111 checks in 4 weeks, 4,000 mentions on Twitter. It amounted to 4,000 online participants across Facebook, Twitter and Foursquare.
- 4,000 individuals participated altogether on Foursquare, Twitter and Facebook.
- The campaign was mentioned over 5,000 times on Twitter.
- 250 blogs and publications mentioned the CatchAChoo campaign.
What is interesting is that Jimmy Choo noted that 90% of the conversation of their brand was happening offline. Their brand benefited greatly from both online and offline PR.
2. Zappos.com
Zappos is a large online shoe and clothing shop. The prices of shoes are relatively cheaper to Jimmy Choo, but the Social Media marketing strategy proved equally successful for the brand.
From Zappos.com (August 2010)
- Since its founding in 1999, Zappos has grown to be the largest online shoe store.
- They grossed over $ 800 million dollars in merchandise in 2007 in sales online.
- Zapposgrossed a whopping $ 1 billion in 2009 in online sales.
A close look at their Social Media presence shows that:
- Zappos has 57, 211 fans on its Facebook page.
- On Twitter @Zappos has a huge following of 1, 711,038 followers.
Quite interesting stats for the shoe-lovers out there, although it would be interesting to find out how many people shop for shoes online in South Africa. Do you?
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