Does growth hacking apply to fashion? Can the fashion industry actually implement growth methodology and active experimentation framework?

Growth hacking is a relatively new focus in the marketing field, which focuses on a fast company growth, including fashion. The goal of its extremely effective methodology is to quickly test ideas that can improve the customer experience before investing a lot of resources, copy and expand ideas that can work, and modify or abandon those that don’t work.

Before anything else we start with metrics to measure growth of our fashion corporation. The key metrics should always be the ones that best deliver growth to your fashion company, like the number of items purchased per client, average basket size or the number of new and repeating clients.

Once we know which metrics are the most important ones, it is time to set goals. Goals should be SMART, and these are specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and timely.

• So what can we do to improve the course of our business?
• Think of goals as a desired increment, of decrement, of your key metrics. How many new clients do we want to have in a given month?
• How much do we want to increase the average basket size or average ticket size?

When we already know what brings us growth, which KPIs to focus on and also, what are the SMART goals associated with them, it is time to design or ideate growth drivers. Growth drivers are hypothetical ways to achieve our goals, and we will be validating or rejecting them through small campaigns, called experiments.

Possible growth drivers for the fashion industry could be remarketing, Google shopping network, email marketing campaigns or social contests.

• Which one works best for us?
• Which one should we focus on?

This is what we will be testing through growth hacking methodology. With remarketing, you can capture recent visitors who have left your website for some reason. Whether it is an abandoned shopping cart, a visitor that has not subscribed to your blog, or a new visitor who has not viewed your summer sandals, these users are opportunities. Remarketing is an effective way of saying, "Hey! Remember the account? Come back, I will tell you exactly what you want." We could set up remarketing experiments to see whether we can increase our sales through this driver.

In the same way due to the high level of offers currently existing in all types of business, it is important to differentiate and ensure that our offers and special promotions reach and are relevant to our clients, email marketing can be an important tool for any fashion marketer. Does it make sense to invest in a strong email marketing strategy in place to communicate regularly with potential customers about specials, sales, new styles or popular stock items? We don´t know until we test this growth driver and see our experiments results.

Automating the email flow associated with a particular behavior could help increase relevance; for example, if someone completes a purchase and makes you believe they will be interested in a particular markup, enter them into the email flow. This is something to test!

Can Social Contest be a growth driver for your fashion company?

Social media contests are a great way to get your audience to participate in your brand. They may also be crucial for expanding your business scope to new potential customer bases. The contest can be simple, such as tagging a few friends, sharing your posts or using brand tags. Or, you can make it more complicated, such as the following example, which requires you to make a purchase before you can enter it. In a Social Contest driver you could set up different experiments with small contests to see whether this is something your company could benefit from and potentially grow.

Finally, the learnings. Learnings are essential to document in order to know what worked in the past and what to avoid repeating. You should have a regular feedback cycle and track your learnings consistently.

Want to know more about how to apply growth hacking to your fashion business? Sign up for Hypertry and ask for a one to one session!