BRAND DIGITAL MARKETING PLAN FOR RVS LUXURY SHOES.

If there’s one thing a brand should take out of the Covid-19 era, it’s that some things previously learned about customers and target segments have changed.  According to the Morning Consults writer, Victoria Sakal “COVID-19’s impact on spending behavior, shopping habits and even selection criteria have real implications for…. premium brands as some consumers trade up, others trade down and others choose not to buy altogether”

What is a contemporary footwear brand? 

While luxury brands like Chanel, Celine, Christian Louboutin, Aquazzura and Manolo Blahnik are highly coveted expensive occasional shoes; the contemporary brands refer to a subset of lifestyle designer shoes with low price tags, and good craftsmanship. These are modern lifestyle designs that could be targeted at a slightly younger target audience with less spending power. While the luxury shoes could begin at a whooping cost of $700 – 4000, the contemporary counterpart ranges between $250 – $700 depending on the extent of craftsmanship, aesthetics and materials per design.

Beneath the contemporary lies discount lines such as Nordstrom Rack and finally followed by the budget fast fashion brands such as Zara and H&M. Tory Burch and Michael Kors are leading brands in the Contemporary female footwear line.

Changing Consumer Behavior.

According to Forbes, luxury won’t climb out of its hole until the end of 2022 or early 2023 when it will finally reach 2019 levels of €281 billion ($344 billion). While there is certainly a drop in demand for luxury goods, the contemporary market appears to be an attractive segment to luxury consumers who developed a cost-conscious behavior during the highs of the pandemic. For these sects, purchasing contemporary is a reasonable compromise as the quality of these products are comparable to what they are used to, but at a lower price.

To take advantage of this shift, contemporary designers should pay attention to the current marketing trend, called the Covid-Era Marketing Trend.

What is Covid-Era Marketing Trend ?

Refers to the perceived and observed changes in the direction of the marketing world based on the change in consumer behavior as a result of the unexpected global pandemic that shook the earth in 2020.  Any marketing strategy that isn’t aligned to this latest trend may be unproductive or be considered insensitive by the observant audience. 

Using the Covid-19 marketing trend, we observe how the world has changed, with a greater awareness of the social issues that surround us. Brands that thrived entirely on product promotion before the Covid era may lack relevance if they do not keep up with the trends. Every business and brand should be committed to social concerns in 2022.

1. Mission and Overall Objective of the Digital Marketing Strategy:
   • RVS creates a broad overview of the company’s overall mission, and then answers specific questions such as :
   • What category of brand are we (luxury, contemporary, Moderate or Basic) ? 
   • What resources are needed to accomplish our digital marketing goals (budget, outsourcing, in-house expertise)?
   • What platforms are best suited for capturing our audience?
2. Conduct a Situational Analysis: Using SWOT analysis, RVS assesses both internal and external environments with regards to its strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats.

3. Identify and evaluate the opportunities by re-segmenting customers (Post – Covid).

As explained earlier, consumer behavior has changed and it is necessary to re-evaluate your consumers habit and interests before making significant investments in digital marketing.

For example, you might discover that prior to Covid19 era, RVS customers were predominantly accessible on Instagram and Facebook but many have drifted towards YouTube channels during the lockdown period because they relied on the platform for know-how videos such as “how to cut my son’s hair”, or “home workout routines” etc. If Youtube has become the forefront for your segment’s attention, then make necessary changes.

Implement the Marketing Mix and Allocating Resources.

The four P’s of marketing—product, price, place, promotion—are often referred to as the marketing mix. Using the newly segmented results, we know that our value driven products are targeted towards the needs of the 26 -45-year-old working-class women based in Urban cities etc. Although all competitors are increasing selling price due to the inflated costs of raw materials and logistics, RVS will maintain the current pricing as a means of gaining competitive advantage. Although our margin is lower due to increased production cost and reduced profit margin, the overall benefits of gaining new customers, retaining existing customers and creating sustainable relationships with the clients is adequate compensation. Factoring in the covid era marketing trend, we also realized that consumers are price sensitive, which makes the pricing decision ideal.

Due to limited financial resources, our promotion will be limited to effective and efficient digital channels. Covid Era Marketing is synonymous with Digital Marketing these days. The transition to digital marketing has been predicted for years. However, the global COVID-19 pandemic sped up that change in ways marketers couldn’t have anticipated.

“Your potential customers have already moved to digital channels. Will you meet them there?

For Place, the company will be developing a website via Shopify or Amazon fashion. Although RVS had a personalized e-commerce website prior to the COVID era, limited sales were made through the platform for some reasons. Using these new platforms allow smaller brands like RVS enjoy exposure to a global network and the reputation of these established online retailers.

DIGITAL PROMOTIONS FOR RVS.

• Create a Knowledge Based blog | Good SEO: As discussed earlier, RVS will create knowledgeable content that enriches the customer. For example, if your company sells shoes, you could start a blog featuring articles such as “Choosing the ideal outsoles for the winter season”.
• Collaborate with Influencers: In the re-segmenting phase, we identified that the new segment is influenced by a reference group consisting of family, peer and most especially, industry influencers. Using the segmentation analysis, RVS was able to collaborate with an influencer (brand alignment, level of influence or engagement, and previous history were factors considered).

• Provide support and availability via OmniChannels : According to hubspot, Omni-Channel marketing refers to “methods where businesses promote their products and services across all channels, devices, and platforms using unified messaging, cohesive visuals, and consistent collateral”. For RVS, we intend to leverage on the website, social media platforms like Instagram, Facebook and LinkedIn (professional), blogging,
  • Posting relatable and relevant content consistently on effective social media platforms (aided by management tools such as Heropost, Canva).
  • Using SquareSpace or WordPress to create and manage blogpost content, and optimize brand visibility
  • Digital advertisement on one or two proven effective channels (Youtube, Google Ads etc) but based on research of consumer behavior.
  • Influencer Marketing.
• Evaluate performance by using metrics:

Measuring performance via omnichannel is complex but necessary for RVS and other businesses. According to a Mckingsey report, executing a strategy doesn’t automatically result in confirmed profitability, market share, efficiency, etc.

We measure our digital platform activities using Google analytics to measure important metrics such as:

• Number of unique visitors
• Month-on-month (MoM) growth in registrations
• Organic user acquisition, Manual hours invested per manufactured item
• Active Usage: Daily Active Users, Ratio of new users to repeat users, Conversion rates, Abandon rates
• User Engagement: Net Promoter Score (NPS), Traffic sources, Customer Satisfaction Index, and Bounce rate and exit rate.
• Basic ROI calculations

Following these metrics, RVS is able to measure individual performance on several platforms and make necessary required adjustments.