Shades Dancewear

Shades/ Tired Movement – April 2022

Brief

Shades was a newborn dancewear clothing business, birthed by the founders of the TIRED Movement. Shades was to follow in the steps of the TIRED movement in promoting diversity, while selling dancewear that included a wider range of shades for darker skintones.

New to the business, Shades ws keen to establish a strong social media/ traditional media presence, and heighten engagement with wider dance community while promoting their upcoming products. A brand and content plan was required, as well as a PR plan to increase conversation around Shades and their solution to lack of diversity in the dance industry.

Situation/Problem

A list of complex detailed projects would have to be completed on a strict deadline with limited time and resources at my disposal.

Work

Consultation process

With the first step of the process being consultations, the scheduled meetings were to further investigate what motivated the founders and what they expected of me.

Our points discussed were as follows:

• The broad agenda of Shades

• The vision for the business

• Brand guidelines – consultations also included how that can be built

• Expectations of work hours, output etc

• KPI’s and other targets

Actions

Created a PR plan and strategy. This included:

• Extensive contact list of journalists in relevant industries to Shades detailing: job title, place of employment, contact details, social media handles and link to previous works.

• Multiple message templates of emails and call scripts to use to initiate contact

• A structured and detailed PR strategy made on PowerPoint detailing: Crisis management plan; and a draft of a press release; copy and content created for future PR campaign; and tools and metrics to look out for to measure success of PR campaign.

• A detailed analysis of Dove’s successful PR campaign to give visual example of the kind of impact they desire for their campaign.

Conducted in-depth market research into competitors and industry including:

• Content produced by competitors

• Brand positioning

• Prices

• Swot Analysis

• Logo design and other visual aids

• Products and special features etc

In addition, created a marketing report, including social media audit, focusing highlighting areas of improvement with social media presence

Issues highlighted were as follows:

• Inconsistent social media presence

• Lack of creative and captivating content

• Discrepancy between social media followers and website traffic

• Not targeting appropriate audience

• Decreasing engagement and views

• Stagnant page growth

• Lack of brand cohesion

Solutions

• Created content calendar with 2 week premade content, accelarating content production, posting and steady increase of an average of 13 new weekly followers from 6.

• Implemented new layout and colour scheme, redesigning instagram page.

• Introduced engaging new content with hashtags, videos, and exciting posts.

• Social media crisis management responses and social media guidelines drafted for future use.

• Redesigned website pages, using new creative copy chanelling brand voice and tone.

• Developed a profile for target audience, and content strategy on how to market to target audience.

Results

• Social media page growth on all social media accounts grew by 25% overall. Instagram showing largest growth from 995 to 1232.

• Boosted engagement by 37% on social media platforms.

• Increased website traffic by 10%, with conversion rate rising from 4% to 7% due to increase in pre-sales.

• Recieved replies from 6 dance influencers averaging 10,000 followers, and 3 journalists of local media outlets in Nottingham, to discuss Shades Dancewear

• Repeat website visitors retention increased from averaging 30 weekly to 36 visitors.