Why conversational design will keep fashion brands alive?
Fashion is about wearing your dreams more than the clothes. And what makes clothes your dream or your aspiration arises in your conversation.
A great fashion marketer knows how to weave your dream into stories. We in other words call it a trend as it’s something which all are aspiring at the moment. So designers don’t design clothes they design the conversations that realize dreams.
We are here today to share, the 3 secrets of a good conversational design. This blog will help your business transform and your brand to come alive. Over the decade fashion marketing has changed as much as it has remained the same. Some Fashion brands have remained iconic. For example, Tiffany and Revlon which today remains the choice even for the youth.
This write-up is for marketing professionals, fashion & design entrepreneurs, and fashion retailers. You can explore, how digital marketing is shaping the conversations of brands. It’s based on digital marketing principles as seen from the lens of the luxury marketer.
#1 from Consumer to People
While branding professionals address people as consumers. what lies beneath is the ability to serve human beings. Its hallmark is to understand the sentiments, dreams, and aspirations.
Charles Revson the founder of Revlon is often quoted — In the factory we make cosmetics, in the store we sell hope.
Charles Revson formed Revlon in 1937. It becomes one of America's Iconic brands within 6 years of its existence and continues to have its brand name popular among the millenniums.
So what do we mean by “Value” or Hope as perceived by the end consumer? how do we understand that and fulfil that promise? Economics as explained by Levitt Steven in Freakonomics is a science. It’s concerned with incentives. And it is a science that measures, how people respond to those incentives.
Not much has changed while everything has changed when we look at the business of fashion today. We make predictions basis big data “keyword” “impressions” & “search volumes” on the internet. This is becoming a proven fact as elaborated in the wisdom of the crowds by the author
# 2 from Product to Experience
We as consumers don’t buy products per se. we buy the product to fulfill our need, desire, or the aspiration behind that stated need.
“At 60 miles an hour the loudest noise in the new Rolls-Royce comes from the electric clock” — the epic line ever wrote by David Ogilvy
The truth behind this headline is more important to understand than the narrative itself.
Ironically so an ad for Pierce-Arrow car had a similar narrative 25 years earlier to the Rolls Royce one. However, Ogilvy insisted that he’d spent time researching his new client before starting on the copy. His headline was a quote from the Technical Editor’s write-up in The Motor, a British motor magazine. The ad ran in The New Yorker & other big-city newspapers until 1962. Ogilvy stopped working with Rolls-Royce when he found the quality and Promise mismatch.
Today in the digital age this narrative will not stand a day if it’s not backed up with the real experience even more. While on one side today for a brand, you don’t need a traditional marketing billion-dollar budget. The power of word of mouth is even more powerful as of now. Especially when it’s expressed on social media.
And it also has its negative implications if not managed well. Today, the digital ecosystem can amplify even a single voice to the millions. Having a reputation management system is inevitable. Let’s look at the famous incident about Dave Carrol. It’s a famous example of how one viral can hurt a brand’s reputation. This happened as Dave Carrol the musician on the united airlines plane saw from his window seat his guitar mishandled. And all he did was compose a song “united breaks guitars” which went viral to millions on youtube. United’s questionable policies got a lot of attention. Negative word on social has the power to destroy the brand image which takes millions of dollars to build. All it takes is a tweet.
# 3 from Communication to Dialogue
Traditional Advertising was broadcasting one-way while digital platforms are two-way dialogue.
The challenge today is to create a dialogue with the consumer which is more transparent. A survey by Uhuru monitored the Facebook ad management of several brands. They found that on average ROI (return on investment)on retargeting campaigns was almost 3x. So your social media strategy for your fashion brand is to create a dialogue that is as per a context. The Generic Broadcasting days to raise awareness are now diminishing.
There’s firm evidence that the shift towards digital marketing has finally taken place. In the book We’re All Marketers by Nico De Bruyn the author quotes, in 2017, about $76 billion was spent on digital marketing, surpassing the traditional spend on TV advertising, which was about $72 billion that year. This was much before the covid crisis.
So there is a fundamental shift that has happened today. The new laws of digital marketing are critical for our brands to remain relevant today.
This community culture is helping brands to create more specialized and bespoke dialogue. There is a niche culture emerging to service your clients to their specific needs.
Consumers are getting more rational in making their choices today than before. With a cell phone in every consumer’s hand, they are empowered to make informed decisions. Today a simple choice like going to a restaurant or a movie basis social media feeds. It’s basis what the others have to “comment” and “rate” on the social platforms.
So, consumers are buying your product based on the community likes and dislikes. It’s shaped by the story the consumer creates about the brand. So either you control your story or others will do so.
Value Redefined
It’s time to re-look at what is Value per se today in the digital and real world.
Let’s look at some of the facts as to how the dynamics of fact and value interplay actually result in:
- 91% of millennials trust online reviews as much as friends and family.
- Reviews on higher-priced products can increase their conversion rate by 380%.
- 83% of customers don’t trust advertising.
- Consumer reviews on products are trusted almost 12 times more than the manufacturers’ descriptions.
- 26. 73% of consumers think written reviews are more important than star and number ratings.
- 77% of users would leave a review if asked.
- Over 80% would pay more for a product that has user-generated content.
This is a huge shift in the way value and facts influence buying behavior today. Advertising is no more a great influencer when it comes to marketing fashion.
There is a linear relationship between the facts and values in the consumer’s mind. And it’s getting more predictable. Thanks to the developments in Artificial Intelligence modelling today.
What is the Matrix of Bespoken?
The way men consume fashion is sometimes different from the way women do. Today with data we can study this behavioural pattern and can create our dialogue that rides over this pattern. Conversational Design is a term coined by the author which helps the brand demystifies the pattern and create its journey pathways algorithmically. It’s a rule-based response that triggers a bespoke experience for the same product proactively.
Let’s examine this predictive model, the basis on which a brand can build its social content journey pathways. Let’s examine each stage of the consumer journey
QIV — Disagree on Facts/Disagree on Values.
This is the first stage where there is no brand awareness and enrolment. It’s like talking to a stranger on the high street for the first time. Here the brand needs to build its authority and reputation at this stage for this set of consumers. At this stage, a cold call can get transformed into a potential lead.
The digital marketers refer to this as the top of the funnel. For example, let’s take the fashion platform- Bespoken. If you have read this section of the blog, you must have found some interest in the brand bespoken. And that's because you have an exciting desire to transform your brand narrative. This blog has just added some value to your existing conversation about the brand problem and its potential. So with this blog, the brand Bespoken has become visible and available to you as it’s helping you solve your problem on hand.
QIII-Agree on Facts/Disagree on values.
At this stage, it’s important to understand a bit about the consumer. As at this stage, the context is missing for the consumer. And knowing about his or her context give out real insight. It’s a very critical stage for the Brand to create the missing gap and fill it with the possible bespoke solutions available for the consumer to fulfill his or her dreams and aspirations.
While there are some facts available to help buy. Some core beliefs come in the way. These are filters based on your consumer’s culture, values, and beliefs about the brand and its immediate market. A strong story about why this brand exists becomes necessary. Your story has to have the authenticity of the brand to give it the right perception and context.
QII- Disagree On Facts/Agree On Values.
This is a stage where a healthy conflict causes dissonance. And also most of the customer insights can emerge at this stage. The dissonance gets resolved mostly when there is a trial or first-hand user experience.
The conversation designers, at this stage, bring a new tangible or sensorial dimension to the conversation. By design with this resolve, the consumer experiences a new reality that never existed before. A recent example is a way Tesla has introduced a free trial stage in their customer journey that brings magical results for the consumer to make up his mind to buy the car. There is a good track record on this journey already.
QI- Agree On Facts/ Agree On values.
This is the most favourable stage for the brand. One needs to build assets to capitalise on this conversation.
This stage is where the Social and Email marketing strategy comes into play. It naturally results in conversation and an opportunity to cross-sell or upsell. The Consumer in this stage can favourably contribute to being an Advocate. He or She can help the brand with consumer-generated content as the brand ambassador. At this stage, one needs a well-crafted strategy to convert with velocity.
A well-crafted strategy for content development can be built using the above journey for the brand using the conversational design approach.
Bespoken- the matrix of customer’s conversational journey:
It’s the design of the human interaction journey as a spoken conversation leading to the desired outcome to discover what the consumer really wants
Bespoken- is a conversation design approach for the business of fashion.
This journey is curated basis for the “values” of what matters to the end customer and the product “facts” available to help him or her to buy fashion
let’s apply the Fashion buying journey also known as “The Matrix Of Bespoken” for Men or Women.
The simplicity of this model lies under the principle: We don't sell we help consumers buy. And it works because it's based on the 3 ingredients of the secret sauce: where we naturally transition from consumer to People, from product to experience, and from communication to dialogue.
The Stories curates basis this content forwards conversation that really matters. This is the core of what the problem bespoken is solving first for the end consumer and therefore for the brands by understanding his or her life journey, what he or she values, and what his or her body shape needs and lifestyle he or she desires. It algorithmically guides him or her towards fulfilling his or her style statement with the aid of AI stylist -Alina.
So let’s create the “style statement” as a consumer. Our strategic conversation route to this transition effortless for the brand.
visit https://www.gobespoken.com/and experience the magic. It’s time to demystify your brand’s conversation people have or don’t. You will get see it as a pattern when to subscribe to “The Matrix of Bespoken!”