Nic’s blog
I write about building businesses, failing and building a life, not a legacy.
The NicSocks Website Redesign
Starting NicSocks was an attempt at lean fashion ecommerce creation. With the help of the amazing skills over at Obox we launched a quick and effective site seen here:
For the launch of the brand this site was perfect, fun and effective. As sales increased, our customer base grew and the brand itself grew legs we realised that the time had come for a reworking of the website.
Obox has just launched an incredible new theme called FlatPack which fit the needs of the new NicSocks site perfectly. We wanted to give the site an edge and bring it inline with our customers and fans. David Perel took the lead and guided me in all things ecommerce and effective design.
With the amazing photography from Gregor Rohrig that you can see dotted throughout the website and the newsletter we felt that the site was ready to take on it's new and edgy look.
Selling socks is about more than just the selling of socks. I wanted to portray an experience to men browsing the site and show visitors (men and women) what being a NicSocks man means. I really feel like we've achieved this in the new design and hopefully this aesthetic will continue throughout the sock designs and into the Sockaholics Club!
A Phoenix Sale: Failed orders turned into sales
I absolutely love ecommerce but I cannot stand losing a sale.It's an extremely frustrating thing: Watching orders come in, process and then fail in the end.I was told that a business that earns money while you sleep is the best kind. The converse of that statement is also true: A Business that earns money while you sleep can create problems while you dream of money.One of the problems that I've been experiencing is that orders fail at a certain point and I can't tell why. So I decided to start emailing potential customers who don't complete their purchases on NicSocks. The replies are often simple and mundane ranging from forgetting that the tab was open, forgetting a credit card number or simply changing their mind about the purchase.What I have discovered is that no one is ever angry at me for asking them about their experiences and more often that not the problems that the customer is having can be rectified. I'll solve their problem with a little bit of customer TLC and close the deal.The end result is what I'd like to call a Phoenix Sale: A sale that was closed out of a failed order on your website.Talk to your customers. Every email could be a Phoenix Sale waiting to happen.
How I use social media to build brand and sell socks
Since launching NicSocks we've been lucky to have many people visit the site, follow us on our various social media platforms, buy socks and actually sign up for our subscription sock offering.After reading Gary Vaynerchuck's Crush It! I decided that I should really focus on communicating with people through basic channels and converting every opportunity to into a sale.Here are some things I've discovered about the different social media channels that I've been experimenting with over the past few months.
Joined: October 2012Followers: 167Tweets: 248Following: 99I only really started tweeting in November when I launched NicSocks. Since then I have made it my goal to engage with people on Twitter about socks and sock-related fashion. All in all I find Twitter to be a great tool to interact with people about my brand, their concerns, questions and feelings towards what we sell, how we sell and where we sell.Most of my interactions are with people who have just discovered our brand of sock and want a bit more information.Numerous sales from direct interactions with people as well as retweets and references on Twitter.
Joined: November 2012Number of posts: 63Likes: 133Here's a quick little "Insights" graph from the NicSocks FB page:
Massive highs and lows. Half of the likes I've received to the page are from friends and the largest reach I've had from a post was a picture of an article that was written about NicSocks in Entrepreneur Magazine.I have received zero sales from my Facebook page and continue to receive likes from people who I know are already fans of the page and have purchased socks. I have focused a lot of my attention of Facebook thinking that it would be a great way to build the brand. I think that in the long, long run that may be the case but the last four months have seen very little actual impact on NicSocks from the page.I've said this a lot in my professional life but what exactly does one do with a "like" on Facebook? In my experience so far, nothing.Zero sales from Facebook.
Joined: February 2013Boards: 6 (Boards NicSocks created)Pins: 113 (Things NicSocks has pinned)Likes: 54 (Things NicSocks liked)Followers: 12Following: 54It took me a bit of time to realise that Pinterest was a social network that NicSocks would slide right into and could really do well on. With that said, once I joined Pinterest I wasn't really sure what to do next. I decided that Pinterest would be a great place for NicSocks to begin positioning itself as a Men's Fashion Brand.I created 6 boards and began pinning things that were relevant to Men's Fashion starting with pairs of NicSocks and things that Nic wore every day. I expanded into Statement Items, Shoes, Fashion tips and Outfits.So far it has been a very hard slog on Pinterest. Lots of work uploading things, repinning, following people and liking other pins with very little return. But I think this one takes time to build so I'm sticking it out.Zero sales from Pinterest.
Google+
Joined: January 2013Followers: 3Google+ is an absolute mystery to me. I've googled "How to build a page on Google+" with no luck. I've spent time looking at other pages and adding content, I've posted, shared circled and linked all without any joy. 3 followers and that's about it.Zero sales from Google+
Joined:Followers:Following:Here's a quick snapshot of my Instagram:
Numerous sales from Instagram, globally and in South AfricaTumblrIt's not really even worth entering details around Tumblr. I found that this particular platform was one too many for me. I had a website, a blog, a twitter account and Facebook. All I was doing was reposting on tumblr to try and build an audience that was probably not going to notice I was there.I started my Tumblr and about a month into it I gave up. Too much work to repost via mobile on so many different platforms. Tumblr was the one to get the chop.Zero sales from Tumblr.
Blogs
The NicSocks blog is a pretty important part of the social media strategy. It's where I post all of my content first, it's where all of my social media links back to when I want to direct users to a message or a specific topic that requires discussion. For this reason I feel like there is great value in having and using the NicSocks blog.I don't have a massive readership yet via the blog but it's something that I am building slowly, organically and using the various social media platforms you read about above.They blog definitely hasn't resulted in direct sales however it leads readers to my website, to sign up to my newsletter and to browse our shop so there is massive value.Social media is a nebulas pit of tricks and tips and effort and time. If you're willing to put in the time and effort to figure out the tricks and tips for yourself then you'll gain the value. If you think social media is a quick way to make a name for your brand you're hopelessly incorrect.