BOOHOO.COM STANDS OUT in InternetRetailing research for the breadth and depth of its customer engagement. It’s an approach that sees the retailer tailor its use of social media to the varying customer preferences of the different markets that it serves. The retailer has 12 European websites, including 11 localised to individual markets, and one pan-European website. In both the UK and Norway, it uses seven social media channels, including Facebook, a general Twitter account and a customer service one. It also has a presence on YouTube, Instagram, Pinterest and Snapchat, where it can highlight inspirational video and images. In France and Germany, it adds the regionally popular GooglePlus and highlights its English language blog alongside social media channels.
The retailer has strong levels of engagement, with, at the time of writing, around 0.5m followers on its twitter, 2.5m Likes for its Facebook page, and 4.4m followers on Instagram.
In its latest full-year results, to 28 February 2017, the retailer explained its approach to social media. “We continue to make use of social media platforms for marketing and our campaigns are used alongside the ongoing blogger, influencer and ambassador outreach,” it stated. “This delivers bespoke user-generated content, promoting the brand and the latest products on both boohoo and third-party influencer channels. The influencer community continues to play an integral part in our marketing efforts and we have worked with hundreds of bloggers and influencers across our key geographic markets in the last 12 months.”
Contributors and student ambassadors contribute content, which is published both on their own and boohoo’s social channels as well as in boohoo’s online magazine, The Fix.
Advanced analytics help marketers to ensure that campaigns and other marketing activities are both relevant and targeted. “Reaching new customers through social media is an integral part of our strategy that we have given special attention to in the last six months, which has seen our average weekly post reach on Facebook rise from 70,000 to between 15m and 20m on average. With increased exposure globally on Facebook Live, Snapchat, Instagram and Instagram stories, this has contributed to both brand awareness and revenue growth,” said the retailer. It also says that customers increasingly prefer to contact it via social media because it is convenient, and that it typically responds to queries in an hour. Boohoo.com also scores well for the speed at which its website loads.