Case Study: PUPSOCKS
PupSocks’ marketing strategy is a shining example of how to use new digital media to present a familiar product.
How do you start with ingredients as simple as socks and pets, and turn them into an explosively successful clothing brand? That’s exactly what Zach Zelner, founder and CEO of wildly popular sock store PupSocks managed to achieve.
So what allowed Zach and company to take their humble sock business and turn it into a thriving clothing venture? Turns out the secret is in their savvy marketing.
This case study presents an overview of 4 of the key aspects of PupSocks’ marketing strategy that helped them find success.
By reflecting on PupSocks’ clean, thoughtful advertising techniques, we’ll illustrate just what it is about each graphic that contributed to PupSocks’ popularity.
Click the headings below to be taken to each section:
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PupSocks’ main social media banner | Image Source: Facebook
PupSocks Marketing Strategy - Intro
Opening in 2017, PupSocks is an online retailer of pet-themed socks. Upload your favourite picture of your pet, and they’ll print it onto your chosen style and size of socks, then ship your socks to you.
PupSocks was up against steep competition. Socks are sold at any store that carries clothing, and even novelty socks are not hard to find. So what makes the PupSocks marketing strategy stand out?
In an effort to carve out a different niche from their competitors, PupSocks made unique use of the power of social media and digital advertising.
PupSocks found almost unheard of success | Image Source: CommonThreadCo.com
PupSocks’ advertising efforts led to explosive growth, especially once the holidays hit and their extraordinarily giftable product line caught on.
In this case study we’ll be reviewing four different marketing techniques PupSocks used to reach such success within a year or so of its first opening.
Read on for details.
AD TIP #1 - CUTE BRANDING
Match the icons with the rest of the site | Image Source: Instagram @pupsocks
If you sell a family-friendly product, one of the best ways to build positive, endearing connotations for your brand is through cute branding.
In fact, the difference that cute brand logos make is so remarkable that a 2021 study in the Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services found that:
…the present research proposes that a cute brand logo can elicit the perceptions of potential growth among consumers experiencing the emotion of hope. This is because it makes consumers feel optimistic about the brand.
Source: ScienceDirect.com
For a variety of psychological reasons, humans like cute things.
So it didn’t take long for the PupSocks marketing strategy to realize that combining their pet-themed clothing product with very cute graphics, website design, and social media posts, was a great move for their public brand perception.
Of course, not every product is suitable for cute branding (cute power tools anyone?) but if you watch for it, you may find cute branding is used much more than you realize.
Remember the cute animals in Telus ads? Or toilet paper company Charmin’s bear family? Cute branding is an exceptionally common strategy.
TAKEAWAYS
Quirky iconography can augment already cute branding.
Make sure you don’t experiment with cute visuals without also connecting those visuals to your actual product.
Everyone loves cute things, and making use of those types of universal preferences is one way to make your brand stand out.
AD TIP #2 - SOCIAL MEDIA ENGAGEMENT
It’s hard to beat cute dog pictures | Image Source: Instagram @pupsocks
With their cute branding already decided upon, PupSocks’ marketing strategy needed a way to reach a large audience and grab attention.
As anyone with a phone will tell you, one of the best ways to disseminate cute animal pictures is through social media.
Combining cute pictures of dogs with product placement, PupSocks targeted social media as their main method of getting their product in front of the most potential eyes.
And one of the keys to any social media campaign is consistency.
If social media is a big focus for your company, you need to be consistent, both in the visual style of your posts, as well as the frequency of your posts.
As you can see above, the majority of PupSocks’ Instagram posts feature both a cute animal and a pair or two of on-brand socks.
Once you figure out a visual style that works, it’s easy to create new posts that follow the same formula.
Additionally, part of the PupSocks marketing strategy is to make new social media posts every 1-3 days, meaning there are always new pictures being uploaded that can get new engagement or be shared between users.
After developing their cute branding, and practicing social media consistency, PupSocks found massive success on Facebook. But even with all that, they found that their audience was at risk of ad fatigue.
Continue to the next section for information on how PupSocks solved that issue.
TAKEAWAYS
Consistency in both visual style and post frequency is key.
Incorporate your product into your social media posts, but don’t overdo it or customers will notice.
Changing the visual layout of each post will make your company’s social media profiles more interesting to browse.
Researching how other large companies present themselves on social media can provide important clues on how to present your own business.
AD TIP #3 - AD DIVERSITY
Vary your ads to reach a broader audience | Image Source: CommonThreadCo.com
With cute branding and consistent social media activity, PupSocks experienced amazing growth on Facebook in particular.
But Facebook isn’t the predictable social media monolith it once was: increased algorithmic content sorting and competition from other social media has resulted in a smaller, less diverse user base.
Trent Kerth, Lead Paid Media Buyer for PupSocks, explained:
“We had exhausted our broad audiences…The brand awareness was there, every potential visitor had been reached. Now it was a matter of getting them to convert”
People had become weary of seeing PupSocks in the same way for so long, so PupSocks expanded their ad styles. They heavily diversified their visual presentation so that their ads wouldn’t all look the same
This freshness meant people wouldn’t immediately recognize each ad as a PupSocks ad, meaning they’d be more likely to give them a click or investigate further.
TAKEAWAYS
Social media is essential to not just expanding your audience, but also expanding to the right audience.
It’s helpful to have someone on your team with knowledge on how to edit graphics using something like Adobe’s Creative Cloud or online free resources like Canva.
If you feel a promising marketing strategy has become exhausted, brainstorm new ideas and experiment to find new avenues of promotion.
AD TIP #4 - Discounts & CROSSOVERS
Get customers excited about your product | Image Source: Instagram @pupsocks
If you’ve ever tried to market yourself or something you make in order to develop your career or increase your audience, you already know the importance of networking.
The more connections you make, the more people can find you if you provide the service they desire. The same is true for businesses.
And one of the best ways to increase the network size of a business is through discounts and crossovers.
What makes discounts and crossovers unique from the Ad Tips above are that they allow two formerly separate audiences to overlap.
Events, limited-time deals, or other discounts will encourage customers to act soon so that they don’t miss them. Additionally, they’ll naturally feel encouraged to mention the deal to their friends.
In fact, limited-time discounts are one of the best ways to attract new customers to your service.
That’s why huge, digitally active brands like HelloFresh provide such remarkable discounts for new sign-ups: because then more people will dare to try the service, resulting in more potential repeat customers.
One way of making a discount or event exciting is by partnering with another company to make a promotional crossover.
This will allow two different companies to work together to show their product to each other’s audience.
Brainstorm discounts and crossovers that would make sense for your brand, and then disseminate the news of the event to your audience.
TAKEAWAYS
If planning a brand crossover, try to partner with another company that exists in a similar industry space: you want to make sure that their audience will actually be interested in your product.
Remember to advertise any deals you may put on: no one can make use of the deal if they never hear about it.
Discounts are a great way to offload products you have an excess of.
Don’t underestimate the power of discounts and crossovers to grow your business.
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