The lingerie company has gained elevated insight into customer demands.
Lingerie brand Cosabella said it is seeing huge gains since integrating artificial intelligence and marketing platform Emarsys. Since using the platform in October 2016, the company said e-mail-led revenues increased by more than 60 percent on a year-on-year basis while its subscriber base doubled.
And Cosabella said it will roll out the next phase of marketing platforms in order to enhance its omnichannel campaigns. The company is one of many fashion brands that’s restructuring its internal operations and corporate culture to follow a technology company model, which is resulting in a significant uptick of customer engagement and discovery of new revenue streams.
The market seems to be organically demanding these changes as consumers seek a customized experience, which includes everything from personalized e-mails to intuitive apps. Platforms such as Emarsys are an integral tool in emphasizing a customer-first marketing approach. “In [the quarter of 2016] we decided to leverage in-house talent and use technology to improve engagement,” said Courtney Connell, marketing director at Cosabella. “In the fourth quarter we launched five companies and ultimately felt that Emarsys was the most forward-thinking to be used over multiple channels. It has an easy dashboard and is very intuitive.” That becomes crucial when many marketers are still learning the ropes of retail technology.
Emarsys, which has 2,000 clients globally, entered the U.S. market 18 months ago and recently reached the milestone of having 50 customers in the states. Allen Nance, chief marketing officer of Emarsys, told WWD that the company is on track to have 250 customers this year. For its part, the company is differentiating itself in the market by offering a “fully integrated marketing solution” versus “cobbled together point solutions that don’t really work,” Nance said.
Moreover, the timing of Emarsys’ expansion into the U.S. comes at a time when “we’re seeing more and more fashion apparel companies seeing themselves as tech companies” who sell apparel, Nance explained. This shift in mind-set is helping companies and brands — like Cosabella — grow their direct-to-consumer offerings while also strengthening its wholesale business.
Guido Campello, chief executive officer at Cosabella, said as “a second generation ceo my goal is to future-proof Cosabella. We will achieve this by hiring the best talent and working with the best technologies out there.” Campello said Emarsys’ platform and AI capabilities is being used across the business including its direct-to-consumer segment and its wholesale business.
Campello describes Cosabella “a family-owned Italian lingerie company” that gained notice in the market “by designing the iconic bodysuit in the mid-Eighties.” The brand has a flagship in New York. And its products are sold boutiques and department stores across the U.S. and globally. The company said it is a luxury brand that “blends American innovation with Italian artisanship, and provides a product mix that includes intimates, swim, shape and loungewear.”
Cosabella employs the Emarsys suite, which includes programs Automation, Predict Web Extend, Smart Insight and CRM Ads. Collectively these platforms integrate customer intelligence in order to deliver personalized and predictive recommendations. What’s more, marketers are able to convert raw consumer data into realized insights for future activations that serve more personalized experiences.
It’s rough waters out there for retailers and brands. Not only faced with head winds of a shrinking market and picky shoppers, brands are left to navigate a sea of solution-providers without much guidance. But catching up to a learning curve is a small price to pay for improved customer engagement and mining of new revenue channels.
“The technology now is at a point that it’s available to small and medium fashion companies, freeing up time for new campaign innovation,” Connell said. It’s a snowball effect — more alleviated time means more time to commit to building distribution and wholesale businesses while devising upcoming campaigns that will resonate with consumers.
c/o WWD
By Elizabeth Doupnik on February 8, 2017
