From humble however feisty beginnings at an outside market in 2004, Portland, Maine-based Sock It to Me has developed right into a mighty (and approach gifted) crew of 40-plus staff creating over 400 authentic designs and servicing over 4,000 wholesale accounts in addition to its personal internet retailer.
Its development has been fueled by its distinctive product providing, private service, participating model character, and high-impact philanthropy. Sock It to Me socks are supplied in inclusive sizes for the complete household. The current addition of colourful face masks are knit with particular copper fibers, not simply commonplace cotton.
In 2020, the corporate determined to increase its e-commerce capabilities to discover and capitalize on its web site’s increased margin potential. To spearhead these direct-to-consumer efforts, Sock It to Me chosen efficiency advertising company DMi Partners to assist drive visitors to its web site by exposing the model to media shops and influencers. A strong internet online affiliate marketing marketing campaign launched the model to new on-line audiences by getting them excited to put on superior issues that defy the world’s expectations.
Impressed by DMi’s stable efficiency advertising outcomes and clever, brand-friendly method, Sock It to Me invited the company to take the reins on extra efficiency advertising efforts, which included SEO, ppc, and serving to the corporate navigate a web site redesign. The profitable, ever-deepening agency-client engagement has defied expectations. Increased visitors to the e-commerce web site has made odd revenues superior.
Sock It to Me’s engagement with DMi started with internet online affiliate marketing. Seeing these efforts rapidly bear fruit led the corporate to have interaction DMI Partners to perform an ADA audit of the Sock It to Me web site. The company now leads the way in which on all of the shopper’s search engine optimisation, paid search, and paid social efforts.
Objectives
As it sought to develop its e-commerce capabilities, Sock It to Me set three overarching targets:
- Drive extra income by means of e-commerce. The model wanted to develop into well-known and established within the market to drive revenues by means of its web site, somewhat than counting on boutique shops for gross sales.
- Design an internet online affiliate marketing marketing campaign that builds model recognition and excites prospects with its distinctive product line. The model wanted to increase its attain and develop its viewers by educating publishers about its providing.
- Build on the success of the internet online affiliate marketing marketing campaign to drive much more potential prospects to the web site. To acquire the most important viewers, drive visitors and generate gross sales, the marketing campaign wanted to enhance its general efficiency advertising technique.
Innovation and Creativity
Understanding that the energy of the Sock It to Me model lay in its distinctive positioning and colourful character, DMI endeavored to promote this character all through the marketing campaign. Just because the model contains an authentic hand-drawn doodle with the receipt of each order, DMI made positive to place the model as enjoyable, recent, particular person and funky. DMI Partners centered on Sock It to Me’s distinct messaging and method, making certain a match of their tone.
DMi set out to recruit a holistic mixture of affiliate companions. Selected bloggers and influencers had been every despatched three to 5 pairs of socks and a sexy fee supply. One-hundred-forty placements, together with mass media publishers, had been secured all through 2020. Much of the associates’ content material, which contributed 13 p.c of complete e-commerce gross sales, was repurposed for the model’s social media.
Keywords had been researched and chosen to drive visitors, enhance gross sales, and match the model’s messaging and tone on-line. Given the audience’s distinct wants and preferences, the crew had to assume outdoors the field to maximize the affect of the model’s distinctive voice. Top key phrases for the web site included funky socks, cool socks and humorous socks.
Additionally, DMi leveraged its inventive crew to produce enjoyable and fascinating brand-appropriate advertising collateral, just like the History of Undergarments infographic, to assist the model drive elevated visitors and gross sales.
The company was ready to creatively help and affect the redesign of the e-commerce web site, which launched in 2020, and improved the location’s navigation considerably. Understanding simply how huge a component emotion performed within the audience’s decision-making course of, the company designed an expertise that will enable customers to “store by temper.” This brand-appropriate expertise has proved profitable, with a 12 p.c enhance in conversion charge.
Smart Execution
The Sock It to Me model was comparatively unknown to customers, presenting DMi with a number of challenges. To overcome this, DMi commenced an intensive aggressive evaluation.
The insights uncovered helped DMi decide which levers the model wanted to pull — and when. Understanding opponents’ promotional methods allowed Sock It to Me to establish when a competitor’s 25 p.c off deal would harm its probability of publicity amongst affiliate publishers, prompting elevated fee charges throughout these intervals to assist sweeten Sock It to Me’s model attire.
DMi’s evaluation additionally uncovered what fee charges the model’s opponents had been providing to associates, permitting them to acquire market share. The insights gained additionally helped DMi safe placements with publishers and associates the place the Sock It to Me model would stand out.
Key writer placements included:
- The Spruce: The 8 Best Sock Subscriptions of 2020
- Business Insider: 34 Space Toys for Kids Who Love Outer Space
- Refinery29: 34 Can’t-Miss Single’s Day Codes to Use Right Now
- My Subscription Addiction: Sock It to Me Review
- Men’s Journal: Looking for Valentine’s Gifts Outside the Box? Check Out Sock It to Me.
With no earlier paid search and paid social benchmarks, DMi was compelled to take an experimental method. The company hit all income targets on paid search, and it continues to experiment strategically on the trail to remodeling the channel right into a income driver.
When tasked with serving to Sock It to Me navigate its website redesign, DMi’s search engine optimisation crew expertly managed new website points and developed methods to enhance general rankings. They helped the online designers enhance navigation and guided the construction design, together with the taxonomy of merchandise and the title web page. The web site now ranks extremely in seek for 50-60 core key phrases with website, pace and accessibility scores that match.
Human Touch
Working with a model that responds to prospects with personalised, human-sent communications, DMi knew how essential it will be to make sure that its complete method included a human contact.
While companies typically describe themselves as extensions of their shopper’s advertising division, within the case of Sock It to Me and DMi Partners, the groups grew to become increasingly built-in because the outcomes got here in.
DMi’s white-glove method fostered a collaborative, unified crew atmosphere. As the shopper’s belief in DMi elevated, so did the inventive and logistic cooperation ranges between company and shopper. Also, DMi took on the duties of auditing the model’s web site for ADA compliance. While maybe not a flashy job, the audit recognized quite a few methods the web site could possibly be creatively enhanced to present guests with essentially the most compliant and frictionless expertise doable.
Results and Effectiveness
The internet online affiliate marketing program’s success deepened Sock It to Me’s belief in DMi’s capabilities so considerably that it let the company take the lead on a number of development initiatives for 2020 and past.
- Affiliate Marketing: The associates program garnered 140 placements all through the marketing campaign. 137+ click on energetic associates and 30+ energetic sale associates generated 84,000-plus clicks and contributed 13 p.c of complete e-commerce gross sales.
- search engine optimisation: The crew achieved a No. 1 rating on the search time period “socks.” Ninety-plus p.c of high precedence key phrases achieved a first-page rating. Fifty-plus p.c of high precedence key phrases achieved a high 5 rating. The web site’s natural web page rating additionally delivered a big ROI.
- PPC: Currently reaching PPC income and profitability targets after stripping the search marketing campaign down to solely essentially the most worthwhile efforts in Q1.
- Website: DMi helped the shopper navigate a website redesign and e-commerce platform migration, particularly because it relates to search engine optimisation, UX, and monitoring.
“DMi has acted like a real accomplice in enterprise improvement each step of our journey collectively,” says Sock It to Me CEO Iwa Hooe. “It got here to the desk with a concrete plan to increase visitors to our web site by way of search engine optimisation, affiliate, and paid media methods. Woven into these methods had been nuances that indicated it was paying consideration to our model and our customers, which solely affirmed the dedication it had to our success. Early on DMi exceed our expectations on all ranges. In addition to the transparency and collaboration it supplied us each step of the way in which, its assist and perception had been instrumental to the success of our web site migration challenge. DMi continues to information us with techniques to enhance website pace and preserve ADA and WCAG compliance, and is now centered on serving to us maximize our visitors alternatives. We’re fortunate to have a accomplice like them!”
Kristina Nolan is the vp of internet online affiliate marketing of DMi Partners, a Philadelphia-based full-service digital advertising company.
