Improved Promotion

River Island does have a steady presence on social media, so they should now focus their efforts on their app. It does have a good start but has so much potential to become something more. They do not have a loyalty program so building one could build a loyal shopper base for the store. This loyalty program could be easily accessed on the app, with features such as:

Easy access to account/points earned when shopping Access to coupons/discounts only for members Access to choosing the music playing while shopping Invitations to certain events/launch parties for new products

Building a loyalty program will help out the promotion aspect and would for sure help out with building a loyal customer base that could spread even more via social media.

Next Step Proposals

While we all wish we could just start anew with those 7 P’s, that is unfortunately never the case. However, the majority of those categories (while they all do need improving) are stable enough to stand on its own for now. Because of this, we can focus our efforts on really improving one certain category that can bring in more customers and hopefully help out with the other categories.

In a normal world, though, we can go about planning these proposals with no problems or external consequences. The world we are currently residing in, a world on hold due to the international pandemic of COVID-19, is not the normal world previously mentioned. All around the world, economies are collapsing, people are stuck at home out of work and all normal life as we knew it is now a foreign aspect.

In London, all non-essential businesses are closed down (obviously including yours!) and we now have to take further steps in order to stay afloat during this unprecedented time and look for ways to continue engaging with your customers. Knowing this, we are offering two proposals in a wacky time such as this:

1. Steps the brand should be taking right now to ensure customers’ worries and keep an audience

2. An event to hold in the next three months to jumpstart your brand back on the right foot (with both the current lockdown in mind and looking towards the unknown future)

These two proposals are keeping a relatively low budget in mind so we don’t have to break the bank, especially in a time where revenue is reducing and people don’t want to spend money when it’s tight.

Photo credit: River Island Instagram, 2020

Steps To Take During the Crisis

PROTECTION, CONNECTION, ENGAGEMENT

1. Ensure that all your staff and customers are safe at home: following social distancing guidelines, personal hygiene, deep cleaning of stores, whatever government laws allow for your store to do without putting many people in harm’s way (lay people off? Putting employees out of work with the potential to gain unemployment benefits?). Above all, having the common human decency to look out for one another and doing your part in helping out the world in this tough time.

2. Social media! Social media! Social media! Everyone is now at home with some sort of internet connection and technological device...connect with your audience! This step has been already completed: starting the #IslandersAtHome, having various staff members posting themselves at home, at-home workout/WFH tips, etc.This was a great start, but there are even more ways to improve.

• Checking in with your followers on more than just a physical sense: instead of pushing “work from home” tops, push ways to help out mentally during this crisis, easy self-care tips, ways to keep your mind and body at peace during all this, etc. Only pushing out what your staff is doing and pushing sales in a time where many people no longer have a disposable income is not the best way forward.

3. Engage with your followers! Instagram lives, Facebook lives, constant YouTube uploads, Twitter polls...there are endless ways to get your followers input on new content/building upon a fanbase.

Event Proposal

Our proposal looks to strengthen one category of the marketing mix that is somewhat lacking but use another category that already has a strong base: creating a “night out” social media campaign to launch the revival of your new hero product: going-out/evening dresses. This event will look to improve your product while using the strength of social media platforms. However, to keep it on a low budget, we will look in house for ways to revitalize what we already have! This event will work for whatever the future holds: if we as a nation are still under lockdown with strict social distancing guidelines or we are starting to trickle back into normal life slowly.

Campaign: A Night Out...Inside! Client: River Island Timescale: 16-21 August Budget: TBD The renewal and release of all the hottest trends for a night out--even if it is a night out in your living room!

Objectives

• To improve the market of night-out products with River Island as a consumer’s go to • To drive sales and footfall to River Island • To champion evening fashion to River Island against other high street destinations.

Strategy & Plan

Team sent out surveys to their followers across email blasts, social media platforms and through the River Island app to see what their shoppers like when it goes to what they wear going out on the town. Will be a cost for surveys

From there, results were used to shoot campaigns (using store as shoot location and having a low budget shoot for a night out) and sent across all social media platforms and local UK influencers. Followers and influencers alike are asked to show their night out looks using the hashtag #RiverIslandEvening so they can submit their own inspiration for what they wear. Using direct links to River Island’s new website (using new campaign videos), shoppers can now purchase looks similar to what their own idea was. Cost for campaign and uploading online

Measurement & Evaluation

Using social media analytics and website traffic analytics, we can see how our numbers change with the new campaign, hashtag, etc. Looking to increase traffic by 10% and followers by 15%. Cost for analytics and consulting.

Results

The number of followers and website traffic increases. More users download the River Island app and become a part of the loyalty rewards program.