4 Killer Ways Pretty Little Things Use Content Marketing

4 Killer Ways Pretty Little Things Use Content Marketing

Your working so hard to grow your business and raise its brand awareness, but are you utilising content marketing effectively? Understanding what content marketing can do for your company as well as understanding the benefits it can bring to your business, could be the thing that helps to catapult your brand's presence amongst your target audience.

There's so much information out on the web about content marketing, I thought I'd share some best practices the fashion powerhouse, Pretty Little Thing utilises to create and share their digital content.

The brand, Pretty Little Thing burst onto the scene in 2012 and founded by brothers Umar and Adam Kamani. Within the space of 6 years, Pretty Little Thing has grown into major global game player in the online fashion retail world; with sales reportedly surging 400% to £17m in the first 12 months to end of February 2016.

In fact, according to the annual Global Consumer Brand survey, search interest for PrettyLittleThing peaked from January 2016 to November 20, 2017, listing the brand ahead of luxury fashion houses Gucci and Louis Vuitton, which came in second and third place respectively. source: Click here 

So, how does a power house like PLT use Content Marketing?

Ok, lets first define what content marketing is. The Content Marketing Institute defines content marketing as;

"Content marketing is a strategic marketing approach focused on creating and distributing valuable, relevant, and consistent content to attract and retain a clearly defined audience and, ultimately, to drive profitable customer action."

PLT has managed to fuse the world of celebrity, fashion and trending topics through engaging digital content to engage with their target and drive sales.

1. Interaction with their target audience 

When referring back to the definition of content marketing, PLT design and share their content to attract and engage with their target customers. Pretty Little Things (PLT) target audience are 16-25 year olds who want to access the latest trends at affordable prices to look like their favorite celebrity. Their customers are constantly on their phones and use social media to keep up with the times. 

PLT has a strong following on social media and they use 8 different social networks to keep in touch with their target and connect and share engaging content with their target audience.

Why we like this approach - The way PLT engage with their target audience across the different social networks varies, they do not adopt "the one size fits all" and the user experience is completely unique for each social network.

2. Generate brand awareness

Pretty Little Thing does this well. Their approach is to work with a number of high profile influencers, celebrities and brand influencers such as Kourtney Kardashian to help their target audience get to know their brand and promote their clothes.

Kourtney Kardashian Pretty Little Thing Collaboration

Sophia Ritchie clothing line 

PLT teams up with fitness Influencers

Why we like this approach - This relatively new brand has cleverly positioned themselves as the go-to brand for finding the latest fashion and accessories, so their customers can look like their favourite celebrities. By teaming up with fashion influencers and high profile brand ambassadors this has helped to reinforce their customers can look just like their favourite celebrity.

3. Creation of unique and expert content on their website can help to boost search engine optimisation 

Using the example of the nine fitness influencer above, By PLT teaming up with nine credible fitness influencers, not only was the brand able to promote their new fitness range, but align PLT with these influential individuals who have over 300,000 followers between them on social media.

The digital content created from this activity included;

• VIP event for the fitness influencers, 
• Video of the 1 hour work out session
• PLT Blog post, 
• Instagram stories and highlights
• Snapchat & Facebook posts 
• Email marketing
• Dedicated hashtag #pltwerkit 
• Then to top it off, they team up with Love Island 2017 sensation, Montana Brown to be the brand ambassador for the active fitness range 

Why we like this approach - This approach encourages engagement amongst the influencers/ ambassadors and their social networks and forces your marketing efforts to go viral across social networks. This approach could be replicated 

Question to you: Can you think of a fun and engaging way to launch your service or product to your target audience?

4. Generating new leads through the creation of premium content like blogposts

To build its email list, PLT encourages consumers to sign up to their newsletter allowing them to access; exclusive discount codes discover launch dates for new clothing lines and get to know their favourite celebrities a little bit more. e.g Find out what Maya Jam's festival playlist would be or Q& A with Paloma Ford. To access the free newsletter, consumers simply provide their name and email address.

Why we like this approach - By offering consumers access to free content in exchange for their contact details its a good way to keep in touch with consumers who are new to your brand. This approach also allows you to keep consumers informed about the latest deals and discounts you are offering.

PLT email 

Whether you like it or not, content marketing is here to stay. If you are a brand or business owner who is new to content marketing, check out this useful guide produced by the Institue of content marketing.