Lesson #4 - Maintaining the Love

I love David’s Bridal so much that this week’s post is dedicated to that socially savvy and totally trendy Bride loving brand all over again!

Visiting David’s Bridal’s website is a fun, enjoyable, and informative experience for Brides of all kinds. It’s updated constantly with the latest additions to their various collections including bridal gowns, bridesmaid’s dresses, shoes, accessories and much more. With daily deals and online promotions, sometimes the website is more effective than an in-person stop at a David’s Bridal store!

There are several sections of the website that take a Bride far past just browsing for her gown or her bridal party dresses and introduce fresh and new content. The “Dress Your Wedding” link takes her to a virtual world where she can create her entire bridal party and actually put them in their outfits. She can even change the background to fit something closer to her actual wedding atmosphere. This option gives her the ability to “see” what her wedding party will look like when they are standing next to her.

The “Color &Style Inspiration” link brings her to a place where she can do just that…get inspired. There are links to the David’s Bridal catalog and look book, to the latest bridal trends, to real life wedding stories, and of course, to their blog and social media sites. One of the neatest features in this section is the “Find Your Figure” tool. It allows her to click on the body figure that most resembles her own and then gives her ideas for the types of dress that will look most faltering on her.

There is also a “WeddingSolutions” link that offers her advice on various parts of the wedding planning process, apart from dress and shoe buying. This section of the site shows viewers that David’s Bridal is more than just a wedding dress retailer, but that they are also true industry professionals with a great knowledge for their product and beyond. With links to local vendors, tips and advice articles, photographers, reception services and much more, it shows that David’s Bridal is a true expert when it comes to helping you plan your special day.

One of the best features of the David’s Bridal website is their “My Event” section. This is a great way to get Brides hooked on their site and coming back for more than just dresses and shoes and really plays to that “industry professional” piece we just talked about. The My Event site provides her with all of the tools needed to plan her special day. From a budget calculator to a shopping list, this is her virtual filing cabinet and will help keep her on task with the planning process. The best part – it’s completely mobile friendly! 

As you can see, David’s Bridal’s website is a fun and interactive place for Brides to play, dream, create, and be inspired. With “share” and “like” buttons on every buyable item’s page, it’s easy for users to share their findings with friends and followers alike. The best part about their website though is that you can continue dreaming and creating on your smart phone as well! Their mobile website is user friendly and easy to navigate, just like their online version, so the planning doesn’t have to stop when you leave your computer.

In visiting the David’s Bridal website, you will encounter some “push marketing” tactics like a pop up chat window that allows you to speak directly with a David’s Bridal representative, emails that offer promotions and insider tips on the latest trends in the wedding industry, and pop up ad windows showing off their exclusive wedding invitation collection. They also make great use of “pull marketing” techniques by giving you the opportunity to sign up for email newsletters, being the first link when “wedding dresses” is searched on Google, an opportunity to sign up for text messages alerts on promotions and trends,  and offer great real-life advice and stories on their official blog site.

Throughout all of David’s Bridal’s multiple online outlets, consistent branding and theming is seen on every platform. From Facebook to Twitter and Instagram to banner ads and websites, the use of their logo and similar colors (depending on the fashion season of course) makes it easy to navigate between each site and never feel lost or confused.

There isn’t a lot about the David’s Bridal website, or brand in general, that I would change. However, there is always room for improvement. I think that marketing their My Event tool more could prove quite useful. I had never even heard of their event tools until pretty recently, I thought that only brands with planning tools were The Knot and Wedding Wire. These two brands also off their planning tools in an app, something David's Bridal could benefit from greatly. It’s also pretty difficult to find their blog on their website and social media platforms. In fact, I’m not entirely sure how I happened upon in the first place. The only way I could find the link to it on their website, was at the VERY bottom of the site in a “Connect With Us” section that houses links to their Facebook, Pinterest, Twitter, and YouTube accounts. They obviously have a great presence in social media, but I feel like they could do a better job of sharing that with their website visitors.

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Lesson #2 - New Is Better Than Old

Welcome to the 21^st century, where we have information at our finger tips and we request our news updates come every second rather than three times a day. We are officially a world of on-demand and instantaneous consumers and there is no turning back now. If companies and brands want to keep up with the changing (already changed) times, they need to jump onto the bandwagon…and quick! It’s time (in most cases, past time) to start changing the way our marketing departments are created, maintained, and utilized. We must now look at ways to make our content available to the consumer at all hours of the day, and be ready to react to those consumers’ requests and comments (at all hours of the day). This will take more than staffing our marketing departments with 9am-5pm employees; we need to have a staff dedicated to monitoring and researching our audiences and ready to fire back with a response in a matter of minutes. In this new era of technology and business, letting a post or comment sit untouched for too long can have a negative effect on your brand. At the same time, know when to stop talking or when to stay silent all together. The “old” conventional approach to marketing just doesn't have what it takes to carry your brand to success in this new social media driven world.

While employee and content availability is crucial to success for your brand on social media, so is the language and composition of that content. The content your company or brand shares with its audience needs to be relevant and personal, allowing for human connections to grow and develop. These are much different approaches from the previous safe and formal route marketing campaigns were driven down. With content being available at any moment and never truly going away, it’s no longer a campaign marketers should really be focused on, it’s now solid and engaging content that takes precedence over a simple marketing campaign. Concentrating on forming bonds and relationships with your audience, through genuine and direct contact is what gets your followers excited about your brand and willing to share their excitement with others. In this day and age, word of mouth has morphed into an online sharing phenomenon. For every online conversation, there are nine offline conversations about that same piece of content. Social media has become a spring board for sharing content and a place to get consumers talking about your product!

I for one am clearly a fan of the new way of thinking in terms of marketing and social media. While there is still a place for old school marketing methods, like print ads and television commercials, it’s pretty clear that those methods on their own are no longer enough. If you’re not ready to take the leap into the new way of thinking completely, try adding in a dash of new school methods here and there along with your traditional approaches…after all, it is important to walk before you run!

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