HUE Boutiques

Corporate Digital Research

Report

HUE Boutiques Digital Media Proposal By: AHN Minji, LIEW Shi Jia, LIM Kai Yuan, Joan LOW Xiao Xuan, Serene GOH Miao Ling, TEO
Wen Kai
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Contents

Company Background 1

Why do you think social media makes sense for them? 1

Social media survey 3

Recommendations: Listening to Customers via Facebook and blogs 4

Less Effective: Twitter and Corporate Blog 4

Measurement 5

Summary 6

Bibliography 7

Appendix 8

- Social media survey

- Result of survey

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Company Background
Hue footwear boutique located in Raffles City is every working lady’s source of
indulgence in shoe therapy. A quick look into their flagship boutique at Raffles
City reveals Hue’s elegance and their discerning eye for minimalist designer
brands from all over the world: Beverly Feldman, Pura Lopez and Sacha
London, just to name a few. Hue offers a huge range of shoes for women,
whether it is heels, wedges or simple flats. Hue delivers the latest styles and
trends in fine quality finishing. Its very own house brand, designed by the
owner, is also available in its stores, adding on to their range of footwear at
reasonable prices. Men can also find their trusted footwear amongst Hue’s
selection of imported Italian men’s shoes, a gender not missed by Hue’s
owners.

Hue brings about a message of empowering and enabling today’s working class
ladies with their stylish designs of footwear and eclectic mix of sassy
handbags. Akin to their minimalistic designer footwear partners, these
exquisite leather bags are also available exclusively at Hue. Exclusivity and
distinctive designs are what Hue offers to the average shopper that steps into
their boutique.

Hue’s online presence is in line with their theme: minimalistic. Though much
has been said about Hue on forums in Singapore and various shopping sites
that feature designer brands, Hue does not have any online presence. From the
discussions online, it is evident that customers of highly priced designer shoes,
unlike the consumers of footwear in the lower range, put significant effort in
decision making before making a purchase. Considering the amount of effort
females now go through to find their perfect ‘solemates’, designer shoes can
be ranked as a high involvement product. Hence, there is a need for Hue to
communicate actively with its customers.

Why do you think social media makes sense for them?

Numbers from Mashable indicate that the fashion industry is embracing social
media slowly. People from outside of the fashion industry, which has
notoriously shut its doors to anyone deemed an outsider, have also started to
participate more in the discussing of fashion.1For example, bloggers have had
an enormous impact on fashion, with those dedicated to their craft like Scott
Schuman of the Sartorialist earning recognition from brands like
Dolce & Gabana and leading publications like Vogue2.

By using social media, Hue is able to engage with their customers on a one-to-
one basis, further establishing good relationships with its customers. This is
important for a brand like Hue because they have a small group of very loyal

1
http://mashable.com/2010/02/13/fashion-industry-social-media/?
utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Mashable+
%28Mashable%29
2
http://mashable.com/2009/12/21/social-media-fashion/

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customers, who often return to the store for more shoes if they take a liking to
a specific brand of shoes.

Furthermore, a quick search on the web indicated that there were questions
and comments made about the shop and its shoes online but there was no one
from the company responding to these conversations. By having an online
presence, Hue is able to manage conversations about its brand at a single
location, rather than have customers talk about them on other web pages with
no representative from the company answering their queries.

In engaging its customer base online, the company is able to build better
relationships with its customers. This can be a platform for them to understand
their customers’ needs and wants and cater to them accordingly. It is also an
avenue for the company to announce business-related news like new product
launches, which customers will find useful especially if they have waited for the
shoes launch from a particular brand.

Last but not least, social media allows Hue to leverage on its customers’
networks of friends to spread its brand message. When friends share about a
brand to their friends, the information is considered more credible compared to
information shared by the corporation. With Hue, this is especially important
because the shoes they carry are unique and specially catered to a group of
people. So fans of the brands can share about the company easily with their
like-minded friends if the company has an online presence.
Social media survey
A survey was done on site at Hue with walk-in customers over the course of a
week. The surveys were made to be short and simple, requiring minimal
explanation from the store assistants, who gave out the surveys. The sample
size was 40. The aim of the survey was to find out Hue’s customers’ usage of
social media: which social media platform was popular amongst them and
whether they were actively involved in it.

Most of the correspondents purchase their shoes from Hue for work and social
reasons (Appendix Figure 1). In addition, our initial hunch was confirmed in that
since Hue does not have a website at the moment, most customers got to
know about it through friends, family and magazines (Appendix Figure 2).

Customer moderate use of social media: What is promising, though, is that a

36% of respondents (Appendix Figure 3) find information on shoes via social
media before purchase. Of these, most of the respondents searched for
information regarding footwear from bloggers (18%), followed by Facebook
(12%) and finally forums (6%). Also, a good proportion of the respondents had
a Facebook account (39%) and read blogs (20%) (Appendix Figure 4).

From the results, we were able to come up with the social technographics of
Hue’s consumers. The biggest groups are joiners and spectators3 respectively
(Appendix Figure 5). All this shows that even though they visit blogs, they
3
Li, Charlene and Bernoff, Josh. 2008. Groundswell.

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rarely comment and are probably researching and discount hunting. Other data
collected tells us that most of them are Singaporeans, female and above 25
years of age (Appendix Figures 6-8).

Recommendations: Listening to customers via Facebook and

blogs
Previously, the owner of Hue form of communication with select customers was
through emails. However, the owner was unable to get centralized feedback
and discussion going on between her customers. Now the owner wants to
understand the customers more and listen to them. The communication
strategy employed by Hue is to listen to their customers. The conversations
and relationships built on the social media platform will be used for research
and to better understand its customers.

The first step for Hue in entering the social media landscape would be to go
where their customers are: Facebook, blogs and possibly twitter. In the light of
limited human resources, we believe that the use of Facebook and blogs would
suffice. Moreover, since most of them are joiners and spectators, we do not
expect overwhelming discussion. The two channels will be used more to reach
out to customers, listen to them and engage them in conversations.

Facebook: Facebook, with 1,103,260 users as of April ’094, can be used to

communicate new product launches, promotions and news more readily
available and easily disseminated, just to name a few advantages of using
Facebook. Furthermore, Facebook allows customers to link up and is an avenue
for them to discuss their preferences and provide real-time feedback. A case
study of a local brand that has used Facebook to its advantage is Charles and
Keith, with more than 12,000 fans5. When a new photo album showing new
shoes was launched, there were comments made by fans and many others
liking the photos.

Hue can use its Facebook page to communicate its brand message to
customers, release business-related news like product launches and sales, and
engage customers in meaningful discussions about footwear. An innovative
way for Hue to garner customers’ enthusiastic involvement would be to
conduct a Facebook poll for the next product to carry, in an A VS B
competition. Being a footwear boutique emphasizing minimalist designs, the
customers have similar, almost niche tastes, making it more likely for them to
make friends or start conversations on Hue’s Facebook page. With customers
being more involved in the brand and the conversations surrounding it, they
are more inclined to spread the brand to other like-minded friends and getting
them to vote.

43
http://www.nickburcher.com/2009/03/facebook-usage-statistics-by-
country.html
5
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Charles-Keith/57105021281?
ref=search&sid=1177795561.69855095..1

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Blogs of key fashion influencers and blog personalities: It can also add as a link
to highly influential and trusted local fashion blogs like plussixfive6, Fashion
Nation7 and personalities like XiaXue8, all of which will be engaged by Hue to
aid its publicity. With other brand ambassadors talking about Hue, the message
comes across as credible and believable as customers regard them as opinion
leaders, and whose tastes are similar to them.

Corporate Website: Hue’s Facebook page can also be used as a platform to

drive customers to its corporate website. A corporate website would not only
create the impression of professionalism, it serves as a platform for product
updates and business-related news etc. In addition to pictures and product
specifications, we propose that the website feature a mix-and-match visualizer
which allows its customers to make purchases online. As indicated in our
survey results, shoppers go online to research on shoes before buying. Thus,
the mix-and-match visualizer provides a customization function that lets them
match their outfits to the shoes they are about to purchase before making the
decision to buy. With an additional online purchase function, Hue would also be
able to tap into markets that are otherwise inaccessible due to geographical
factors.

Less Effective: Twitter and Corporate Blog

Twitter: This avenue is considered not as effective as our chosen social media
platforms because it means extra cost for the already short-staffed Hue to
have someone constantly maintaining the Twitter site and constantly replying
to tweets. Furthermore, most of Hue’s customers have indicated that they do
not use Twitter and thus it might not be economically viable and wise to use
Twitter as a platform to engage current customers nor to attract new ones
through word-of-mouth.

Corporate Blog: Creating a corporate blog for Hue also appears to be an

unattractive option as it would serve the same function as its corporate website
and Facebook page. Third-party blogs, as mentioned above, would not only
require less manpower, they are also seen as reliable sources of objective
information by the customers instead of a one-sided promotional effort by Hue.
Measurement
Given the nature of the business Hue is in, it is important to note that the short
term profits that a small medium enterprise is required to make and limitations
of the social media campaign which includes extra financial costs, people and
time. Therefore, in applying Oliver Blanchard business metric sense of ROI
derivation, a balance will be struck between the short term expectations of
results from Hue’s management and gauging how successful Hue’s campaign
is working through the buzz generated on Hue’s Facebook page, corporate
website and third-party blogs.

6
http://www.plussixfive.com/
7
http://fashionation.wordpress.com/
8
http://xiaxue.blogspot.com/

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Before launching the social media campaign, a baseline of sales revenue that
serves as a minimum standard is established. This baseline sales figure will be
measured up against the sales revenue from points of sale at the Hue outlets.
In assessing the effectiveness of the campaign, daily interaction on the
Facebook sites will be evaluated using Facebook inbuilt Insights application
(Appendix Figure 9), which employs deep analytics to showcase visitor age,
gender, site activity etc; while Google analytics will be employed to track Hue’s
blog for visitors’ demographics.

To chart the progress of the campaign, a specific timeline will be designated to

measure Hue’s social media activity in terms of the hype generated and sales.
For example, types of information released to Hue’s target audience will vary
from time to time, from polls to online discussions and product releases; from
which useful information such as number of transaction at Hue’s outlets,
number of new group members, sales revenue and activity on Hue’s Facebook
page and corporate website can be traced. From the collated data, Hue will be
able to measure performance of specific activities of its social media campaign
by charting the results on overlays to determine correlation and regression
through statistical tools.

A minor drawback will be the requirement of current results to benchmark

against, which will take time to measure before the actual social media
campaign can be launched. Otherwise, the continuous reviewing of results and
activity on a regular basis will give some indication of the effectiveness of the
interactivity of the discussions online and the continuity of the social media
campaign.

Summary
In order to listen and engage customers better, Hue should implement a social
media strategy which involves getting onto Facebook, setting up a corporate
website and engaging third-party bloggers to spread its brand message. In its
marketing efforts via social media, Hue must be able to evaluate the
effectiveness of the campaign, to decide whether to continue. In doing so, it
measures the number of fans the campaign has garnered and the ability of the
campaign to generate actual returns for the company. It does so using inbuilt
analytical tools on Facebook and Google as well as short surveys to find out if
customers knew about Hue online, and if it was through these channels that
convinced them to purchase footwear from Hue.

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Bibliography

Burcher, Nick. March 2009. Facebook usage statistics by country – March 2009.
Retrieved 26, February 2010 from Nick Burcher’s website.
http://www.nickburcher.com/2009/03/facebook-usage-statistics-by-
country.html

Facebook. 2010. Charles and Keith fanpage. Retrieved on 26, February 2010.
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Charles-Keith/57105021281?
ref=search&sid=1177795561.69855095..1

Fashionation. Retrieved on 26, February 2010.

http://fashionation.wordpress.com/

Li, Charlene and Bernoff, Josh. 2008. Strategies for tapping the groundswell. In
Groundswell. Harvard Business School.

Prabhakar, Hitha. 2010, February 21. How the fashion industry is embracing
social media. Retrieved 26 February, 2010 from Mashable website.
http://mashable.com/2010/02/13/fashion-industry-social-media/?
utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:
+Mashable+(Mashable)

Wright Lee, Macala. 2009, December 21. 5 ways social media changed fashion
in 2009. Retrieved 26 February, 2010 from Mashable website.
http://mashable.com/2009/12/21/social-media-fashion/

plussixfive. Retrieved on 26 February 2010. http://www.plussixfive.com/

Xiaxue. Retrieved on 26 February 2010. http://xiaxue.blogspot.com/

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Appendix
Social Media Survey

1.) What are your shoes purchases at this shop usually for? (You can circle more than 1)

Social Work Wedding Others:

2.) How did you get to know about this shop?

Friends/Family Magazines Bloggers Forums Social

Networking
Sites
(Facebook,
etc)
3.) Where do you usually get information before you purchase shoes?

Friends/Family Magazines Bloggers Forums Social

Networking
Sites
(Facebook,
etc)

4.) Do you shop online?

Yes No

5.) We have some questions about your use of social media.

Do you have a twitter account?

Do you tweet daily?
Do you visit forums?
Do you visit forums only before you
want to make a shoe purchase?
Do you contribute to forums actively?
(At least once a week)
Do you own a frequently updated blog?
(At least once a week)
Do you read blogs?
Social Networking Sites (Facebook, etc)
Do you subscribe to RSS feeds or
del.icio.us?

6.) Please state your nationality

______________________________

7.) Please choose your age range

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21-25 26-30 31-40 41-50 50+ Others:

8.) Please indicate your gender

Male Female

Figure 1: Reasons for purchase

Figure 2: Sources of awareness

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Figure 3: Pre-purchase research media

Figure 4: Use of social media

Figure 5: Social technographics of HUE customers

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Figure 6: Nationality

Figure 7: Age

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Figure 8: Gender

Figure 9: Example of Facebook Insight - Beluga

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