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Company: Sydney's Closet
Contact: Phyllis Brasch Librach, President and Founder; Erin Delanty, Internet Marketing Director
Location: Maryland Heights, MO
Industry: Retail, Online
Annual revenue: Confidential
Number of employees: 5

Quick Read:

In 2003, Phyllis Librach launched a Web site dedicated to providing plus-size prom dresses. Personalization has always been an underlying goal for Librach, who started the site after seeing her plus-size daughter attempt, in vain, to find a prom dress. "In a world where thin is in, I found it agonizing and unfair that millions of teens and young women like my daughter were fashion-starved for plus-size formal wear."

Since its launch, the company has significantly expanded its product selection by offering plus-size formal dresses for black-tie events, weddings, and cocktail events. In 2008, it introduced casual dresses. Its most significant merchandising strategy was the creation of Sydney's Closet Executives, a specially designed collection of dresses sold under the "Sydney's Closet" label.

By expanding its product line to include plus-size formal wear for occasions beyond proms, the site attracted a significantly wider demographic, ranging in age from 15 to 80.

The site attracts 10,000 to 25,000 unique visitors a day from all over the world. The company has recorded double-digit growth in revenue every year since its launch.

Despite those successes, shopping-cart abandonment had increased; moreover, the company did not know how to segment its growing visitor traffic and had difficulty personalizing the site experience.

To resolve those issues, Sydney's Closet in 2006,  tapped Quebec-based online marketing solutions provider Sitebrand to assess visitor traffic, identify problem areas, and expand opportunities for sales.

The Challenge:

Sydney's Closet, a niche clothing e-tailer focused on the plus-size market, found that its "one size fits all" message was not working: Shopping-cart abandonment had been increasing significantly.

Sydney's Closet customers come primarily through Web searches, and the company relies on search engine optimization as its main marketing method.

"We don't spend a penny on pay-for-click programs. Our entire SEO strategy is to win the top three positions for organic, or natural, listings for keywords that will send us a highly qualified customer," noted Librach.

The company's additional offerings—those beyond prom dresses—had attracted international customers as well as expanded its demographic base, attracting 15-80-year-olds.

The marketing challenge for the company came in the form of increased audience diversification. "You can't market to a 16-year-old the same way you do to a bride that is 25. We needed to find a way to talk to various visitor segments as individuals rather than grouping everyone into a single prom and bridal category," said Erin Delanty, Internet marketing director for Sydney's Closet.

The Campaign:

To power its customer personalization efforts, the company turned to Sitebrand and its visitor segmentation tool to help identify, test, and deliver content and offers more specific to visitors' interests and needs.

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Case Study: A Niche E-tailer Sizes Up Glamour... One Customer at a Time, Boosting Sales with a Personalized Web Site Experience

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