Customer-first fashion
How brands are nurturing micro-communities
From concept to creation, fashion and beauty brands are realising the importance of bringing the consumer with them every step of the way.
In tech you wouldn’t launch a product and expect people to buy it without group testing it first, so why do we expect that to happen in fashion? High-budget aspirational marketing campaigns and influencers with millions of followers offer consumers a vision of luxury, but not everyone who admires them will make a purchase. While the most exclusive brands only target individuals within high-income brackets, for brands placed somewhere in the middle, a more direct-to-customer marketing strategy could put them ahead of the game.
Brands and building micro-communities of loyal customers, including them at every stage in creating and testing new products. Think of these communities as a bit like having a loyalty card that gets you extra benefits. Micro-communities exist in private Instagram accounts, IG’s close friend’s function, Facebook groups and direct messaging apps like Community and Attentive. Some brands also look into pre-existing communities, like Reddit forums dedicated to their brand or products.
“Nearly two-thirds of 1,000 people under 30 said they would rather talk in private message threads than open forums. 60 per cent said that talking in private groups means they can share more openly.”
In a 2019 survey by creative agency Zak, nearly two-thirds of 1,000 people under 30 said they would rather talk in private message threads than open forums. 60 per cent said that talking in private groups means they can share more openly. These findings suggest that the early adopters of micro-communities will reap the rewards. “The likes of Glossier and Outdoor Voices made the concept of community a thing,” explains marketing and communications consultant Jordanne Young. “Glossier takes notes on forum conversations in order to develop products beauty fans really want and Outdoor Voices host IRL events all over the States, and digital events in lockdown. For other brands looking on in awe, it looks like a no-brainer to copy and paste.”
But building a truly loyal community is not an easy task. “It takes commitment, transparency and follow-through – particularly if you want it to pay dividends,” Young continues. “I don’t have enough limbs to count the number of times a brand has told me they have a really strong community, but when I dig deeper, all it means is an Insta following. Quite often, there’s no depth to that community.”
Brands like Glossier have a huge fanbase but they have also found ways to connect with their most dedicated customers to find out what they would like from the brand. Glossier has been working with micro-communities since its conception. When the beauty brand started in 2014, at first, they experimented with workplace messaging tool Slack, dedicating a channel for around 1,000 of its most engaged fans. The company has listened to feedback from Instagram comments, tweets, emails, its 19,000-member Facebook group, Into The Gloss as well as the R/Glossier subreddit. For example, when customers complained that it was wasteful to receive a new pink bubble wrap pouch with every order, Glossier made a less packaging option available.
Into The Gloss interview featuring Salima Issaoui (@salissaoui), founder of a Moroccan skincare brand called Uzza.
A Paradox of Inclusivity
When it comes to creating a valuable micro-community, the customers who actually spend the most money are the ones to listen to. The consumer votes with their wallet. Jewellery designer Jessica de Lotz offers incentives to a tight-knit group of her customers, called Jessica’s Gems, via Instagram’s close friend’s function. “This enables her to broadcast sale news and collection sneak-peeks to members,” explains Young. “Members have to have spent over a certain amount to be accepted as a Gem.’”
Micro-communities create this paradox of inclusivity. Often anyone can join private pages on Instagram and Facebook but customers that spend the most money have the greatest input and access to the most exclusive perks. While it makes sense to listen to the customers with the most buying power, brands must be careful not to alienate other parts of their customer base. One-off customers, such as those who spend a lot of money for a special occasion or as a gift as well as customers who are loyal but only buy one item every six months are still valuable and they make up the majority of the customer base. Micro-communities are not supposed to replicate old models of exclusivity because inclusivity and high engagement are both necessary to build a community with a strong base.
“A thirst for community and experience has emerged from lockdown.”
“A thirst for community and experience has emerged from lockdown” says Anna Brettle, founder of retail experience agency Stellar. “There are a huge number of brands now hosting virtual masterclass events whether that be for beauty brands sharing their hints and tips for the latest make-up trends, fashion retailers hosting virtual personal styling appointments or for coffee machine brands introducing third-wave coffee and latte art classes.” Brettle is used to organising direct-to-customer in-store product demos and masterclasses, but in lockdown these have all been moved online. Despite the physical distance, this creates, Brettle says she has noticed “a craving for the content and offering an immersive, engaging experience to consumers.” Stellar offers personal one-to-one demonstrations as well as masterclasses for larger groups both of which increase potential and existing customers’ confidence in the brands they are being presented with. This method gets results. In a survey of 300 high street shoppers, Stellar found that product demonstrations are directly linked to sales uplift, with 84% feeling more inclined to buy from a brand in the future after a demonstration experience. 59% would not buy a product costing more than £250 without testing it and understanding how it works first-hand.
Where does this leave creativity?
Creating a valuable community is clearly a strategy that works. However, Stellar is a third-party company charged with promoting brands to the consumer. When the brand itself, and the creatives behind it, use this approach, what does it mean for individual creativity? If designers are constantly listening to what their customers want, what happens to their unique creative vision?
High fashion puts a lot of value on individual creativity and traditionally designers create and lead trends rather than following them. For many who work in the industry, fashion is about more than a product. It is about the magic of creation. However, consumers now expect luxury prices to be justified not only by high quality or a designer label, but also sustainable, ethical and, where possible, local production. As brands begin to test new materials and work in sustainable textile innovation, we could see more consumer product testing in fashion, whether that means in surveys on Instagram stories, email newsletter or a small physical sample group of loyal customers.
“We find that different groups have increasingly specific needs, motivations and purchase triggers, so it is vital to really tune in, in a targeted and open-minded way.”
Brett Booth from youth and culture agency Nerds, who have worked with Converse, Dr Martens and Timberland says, “We find that different groups have increasingly specific needs, motivations and purchase triggers, so it is vital to really tune in, in a targeted and open-minded way. I stay open-minded because there are too many brands and teams representing brands that are projecting their own values onto consumers that don’t live in the same bubble, so being truly open to this process and the fact you may not hear what you want to hear is also key.” Many emerging brands and designers will be expected to focus on sustainability and diversity at every stage of building their brand, but these are issues that most young creatives and young people, in general, are concerned with anyway so in many cases this comes organically.
“Some consumers want to see brands thinking and acting as they are, with heightened ethical and social consideration, whether that is related to the environment or, as we’ve seen more recently, anti-racism,” Booth continues. “Some just want to see some more transactional recognition for their continued spending, such as discounts, perks, special offers, priority status.” Either way working with micro-communities could help achieve both of these goals, closing the gap between what consumers want and what brands produce at the same time as making customers feel more of an affinity with the brand.
Saving money and reducing waste
Consumer testing and sustainable production can go hand-in-hand if carried out in the right way. If you can predict what the customer will buy, then overproduction will become increasingly rare. According to managing director of ZigZag Global Patrick Eve, brands typically overproduce by 40%. Commercial textile waste is estimated to account for 40 times as much fashion waste as residential dumping. Consumers can be told to mend, recycle and keep clothes for longer, but the real waste problem lies with brands, not individuals. Most fashion brands produce products and then expect them to be bought. When there is stock left over at the end of the season, it has to be disposed of. In a 2017 study by the Ellen Macarthur Foundation, it was estimated that one garbage truck full of textiles is landfilled or burnt every second. Tom Johnson, Co-founder of design agency Lighthouse, offers some insight into how small-scale testing can reduce waste as well as saving time and money. “By starting small and following lean methodologies you can launch quickly and iterate with a minimal offering that can be grown over time,” he explains. “This means no more months-long projects before getting your product in front of customers. You can be live and getting revenue in the fraction of the time of a traditional product launch. You’ll launch with the key features that matter most and no fluff which will save time and money.”
“If you listen to what your customer is saying and adapt to that, even if you don’t like what you’re hearing, you have a much better chance of either getting to the right thing or knowing to call it a day before you sink lots of time, effort and money into it.”
“You have a much better chance of success if you're always releasing based on user behaviour rather than just guessing,” Johnson continues. “If you listen to what your customer is saying and adapt to that, even if you don't like what you're hearing, you have a much better chance of either getting to the right thing or knowing to call it a day before you sink lots of time, effort and money into it.” Producing less and producing what customers actually want to buy could be an important step in reducing waste in the fashion industry, but it’s by no means a given. Fast-fashion giants like Boohoo and Missguided test demand for products by initially releasing a small batch then increasing production if the product is popular. They also pay attention to trends on social media and TV before launching new collections. While this saves time and money for the brands, the speed and mass of production is not at all sustainable.
Smaller brands can communicate much more directly with customers. Luxury fashion copywriter Katie Ramsingh explains that, “Small brands connect more meaningfully with their customers by letting them be a part of every step of making a collection. By bringing their followers along on the journey they allow them to really feel like they’ve had a hand in making the collection, and so when it’s released, they want to buy it.”
“The most successful micro-communities that I’ve seen brands build are those operating a consistent feedback loop,” adds Jordanne Young. “Members are part of the conversation from day one: from ideation and product sampling, to launch, feedback, and back again.” Another example of a brand successfully following this pattern is tights brand Heist. They launched with the involvement of over 100 women, an approach that has evolved into CO.LAB.12 where they work with 150 ‘creators.’ To truly reach the customers with the most money to spend, social media alone is not enough. After all, you don’t have to be on Instagram to have buying power. Most brands haven’t abandoned traditional marketing completely for that very reason.
“The customer cares about the product, not the profit.”
Whichever method brands use to reach and create micro-communities, a consumer-led community-based approach to product creation and marketing reaps rewards. Brands building loyal micro-communities now will be poised to take charge of the future. “In a climate where brands must commit to sustainability pledges, and consumers holding brands accountable is common practice, a connection must be made where these two coalesce to deliver output that’s authentic and essential,” concludes Jordanne Young. “The customer cares about the product, not the profit”. While some brands use micro-communities to continue to feed into a culture of exclusivity and use demand as an excuse for overproduction, smaller brands adopting a more consumer-led approach ultimately bodes well for a more ethical and sustainable fashion industry.
Header image by Daniel Dorsa
14.09.2020
