Marketing Strategy Workshop: Phlur
This is the second edition of my monthly marketing strategy workshop. Last month, I worked on Mizuno Running Shoes. This month the focus is on Phlur, a sustainable fragrance brand. They happen to have my signature scent, Missing Person. The perfect, softest blend of musk, sandalwood, jasmine and nectar.
The purpose of this exercise is to reground myself in the marketing basics all while walking through those interested in how to craft a successful marketing strategy. I create a hypothetical “ask” from the brand to a marketing agency.
In this instance, Phlur has recently skyrocketed their brand presence due to influencer marketing and UGC (user generated content). This spike hasn’t translated to their social platforms (Instagram followers are currently at 162K). Their creative director believes this is because they lack personality on their social platforms and would like to create a strategy to begin shifting this.
Step 1: The Marketing Mix.
If you’ve ever read a marketing 101 book or taken a class, you may be familiar with the 4 P’s: Product Price Place Promotion.
Product: What does Phlur sell?
Phlur sells sustainable fragrances. They’re available in perfumes, lotions, candles and travel sets.
Price
Their prices range from $20 - $100 per item.
Place
You can order Phlur products online or purchase in-person at a Sephora.
Promotion
Paid advertisements (social + search), LinkedIn, Facebook, influencer marketing
Step 2: Define your objective.
Define a brand personality for Phlur and a plan to integrate that personality into social platforms to grow followings and engagements.
Step 3: Determine the budget.
Hypothetically, let’s say Phlur is giving is $600,000 for Q4 to make this happen.
Step 4: Perform a SWOT analysis.
SWOT stands for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats.
Strengths: A really great Product, an excellent/responsive customer service team, minimalistic branding is quite popular right now, influencers really back this brand which results in free UGC content from social users who have been influenced
Weaknesses: Product heavy Instagram posts, not a lot of personality woven in, very few opportunities for interactivity
Opportunities: Leveraging more camaraderie with influencers across platforms
Threats: With a large spike can come a large fall if it’s not nurtured properly
Step 5: Targeting + Positioning
For this piece of the strategy, you’ll want to outline things such as demographics, psychographics, lifestyle habits and purchasing behaviors. For example:
Demographics: Mainly females, ages 25 - 60, an income of $60K or more, USA (if we want to go international should open up internationally branded accounts and have them run by social managers in respective locations)
Psychographics: Avid social media users, in relationships or single, interests in fashion and beauty
Lifestyle Habits: Prioritize hygiene, frequently purchase beauty products
Behaviors: Tend to remain loyal to brands they love
Would also recommend, from a positioning standpoint, to step up the packaging. Similar to how FabFitFun puts a lot of work into making their packaging attractive and exciting, as if you’ve received a gift. Phlur currently delivers a box with a canvas bag inside. Is there a way to tuck additional goodies or coupons in to foster brand loyalty? This will also push more UGC content.
Step 6: Key Performance Indicators (KPI’s)
Now if you read last month’s, you know that the marketing plan is where you drill down into specific KPIs. The marketing strategy is where you provide a high level overview of what will be worked towards. For our Phlur campaign, we’ll be measuring retained following and engagement rate across social platforms.
