The Psychographics of a Fashion Marketing Campaign

We talked last issue about the “oh my god” effect that happens between like-minded people upon recognition of each other, and as promised in a previous article, I’ll elaborate.

Profile of Shattered Girlz

I met the designer of a fantastic t-shirt brand the other day that operates under the label “Shattered Girlz.” She has a gripping personal story that instantly inspires one to root for her success. She suffered betrayal from men into whom she poured her heart and soul, and who in one case left her for another woman while she was caring for her terminally ill parents. This designer has an avatar, Dolly Tatume, a tattooed cartoon beauty whose life and loves are chronicled through the various t-shirt designs in the line. Dolly has also been involved in some dead-end relationships with men that have caused her a lot of pain, to the point that she refers to the men in her life as “Piggys.” There are several female tattooed characters in the line that represent different examples of female empowerment, like a dancer, a corporate lawyer, a college student, even a soldier. Shattered Girlz’s tagline at the moment is “Shattered Girlz: I can’t be broken!”

Psychographical Analysis of Shattered Girlz

Wikipedia’s definition of psychographics is as follows:

Psychographic variables are any attributes relating to personality, values, attitudes, interests, or lifestyles. Some categories of psychographic factors used in market segmentation include Social class, Lifestyle, Behavior, Opinions, and Values. Psychographics can also be seen as an equivalent of the concept of “culture” as used most commonly in national segmentation.

Let’s analyze the various aspects of this product line in terms of psychographics. Here’s what I come up with:

• Social class: young, college-aged urban women, perhaps in a street counterculture
• Lifestyle: goth and tattoos
• Behavior: searching for self-expression and empowerment
• Opinions: a negative attitude toward men in general, however fleeting
• Values: Women can rise from the ashes

Now, I don’t know about you, but whenever someone tells me their story of heartbreak, I’m instantly captivated. However, it would be the wrong move in this case to market this product to all women, even though we can all relate. Instead, we need to find a smaller subsection of all women, in this case young women. But can we drill down any further? I think so, and the next subset would be young women who are into the tattoo lifestyle.

Though I myself don’t have one, tattoos are interesting because they provide a deeply personal expression of the wearer’s soul that mere words cannot transmit. Many people get a tattoo after the birth of a child, after the loss of a loved one and other such life-changing events. These are people who find expression in the visual arts; in fact, many of today’s coolest tattoo artists come to the field with technical and fine art training. There are even shows about tattoo studios, like Inked and Miami Ink and LA Ink.

The Plan

Because of tattoo art’s strong graphic element, my suggestion to this designer was to start a comic book. In fact, the plan I built for the beginning stages of her email marketing campaign includes the following: Concentrate on certain keyword themes that resonate with young women who get tattoos: feminine tattoo designs, female ink, lower back tattoos, tramp stamps, broken heart tattoos, girl genius, lost girls, girl’s club, just to name a few.

• Turn her blog into a subscription-based, free comic book.
• Create a pay-per-click (PPC) ad campaign based on the keyword themes to promote the comic book.
• Create a landing page for a subscription to the comic book. Make sure it uses the keyword themes as well.
• Ensure that the comic book site advertises the Shattered Girlz t-shirt line.
• Invite comments or questions about each installment of the comic book. This can spark a dialogue with the readers, inspire suggested storylines or characters from them, thereby creating a rudimentary online community (aka: captive marketing niche). This also appeals to the “goth” community, since they can sometimes trend toward the clannish.
• Create an excuse to email these subscribers regularly via comic book teasers, contests, etc., while also including a sales message in each of these emails.

I am very certain that this sort of targeted activity, which is also very process oriented and methodical, will garner her lots of results. I should point out for the record that this type of list building will take some time, perhaps even as much as three months or more. We’re not talking about get-rich-quick schemes here.

But consider what will happen once she does build a list and eventually markets to it successfully. Sooner or later there will be flocks of beautiful tattooed college-aged young women who sport a Dolly Tatume t-shirt and who, upon crossing paths, will instantly exchange knowing, sympathetic looks. They may even engage each other in conversation, talking about the emotional wreck that used to be their lives and how Dolly and the gang really speak to them. They may even talk about the Shattered Girlz items they each have (ohmigodyouhaveadollyshirttoo!), and if we’ve played our cards right, they’ll even recommend certain Shattered Girlz products to each other.

And this is exactly what we want to happen.

I’ll keep readers posted on the results of this campaign on my blog. Until next time!

fashion designer