Forever 21 strategy and analysis

Forever 21 strategy and analysis

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  Brittany Sparks<br />MULT2093<br />July 31, 2011<br />Forever 21 Strategy and Analysis<br />Forever 21 has made an incredible name for itself over the past few years in the fashion industry. Forever 21 is a clothing company that sells the latest styles of clothing and accessories at an affordable price. Forever 21 is always adapting to keep up with the ever changing styles in the fashion world. The atmosphere that the Forever 21 company has created has definitely reached its target audience, young men and women that love staying on the cutting edge of fashion, no matter their style, for the right price. Forever 21 has not stopped there, it is continuing to broaden its demographics by expanding its brands within its name. Since Forever 21 is a company that is founded on the principle of staying up to date and trendy, by adding to their current social media they will be able to reach an even larger group of potential customers, as well as keeping their current Forever 21 lovers updated on their latest styles. <br />Forever 21 has a target audience of young women and men ranging from ages 13 to 30 that are seeking to keep up with the latest styles from the runway at an incredibly reasonable price. However, even though this is the targeted audience of Forever 21, many different people from many different backgrounds and age groups choose to shop at Forever 21 simply because it offers almost anything someone needs at the lowest price for its quality. <br />As stated previously, Forever 21 always wants to be on the cutting edge and what better way to stay on the cutting edge than to keep up with every type of social media. A goal of Forever 21’s is to expand its range of customers by offering a wider variety of styles, but for them to reach these other types of potential customers, they need to use social medias that will fulfill this goal. Along with this goal, comes with it the need to expand the notoriety of the company as well as sell more of its products. They have already implemented one strategy by using Facebook and updating the page’s status daily offering different merchandise information, along with its features and benefits. Based on this outline of goals for Forever 21 and its social media experience it can afford to spend at least 5-8 hours daily on its endeavor. <br />As for Forever 21’s website, it is completely optimized, harboring Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube badges on the home page. Facebook is the primary source of interaction they have with customers simply because people can comment and like Forever 21’s updates. Twitter is another way they allow users to interact, however it is not nearly as widely used at Facebook. Forever 21 also has an incredible blog on their website describing their YouTube page, but this is where Forever 21 falls short. They have very few videos posted on their page causing a great loss on their part. <br />To improve their already innovative and exciting website there are three things that Forever 21 could do. The first is to create an optimized video blog offering merchandise information and creative ways to wear Forever 21’s apparel. The second is to create an app for shopping. Third, is to use a social bookmarking site. If they implemented this tool, loyal customers and potential customers would be able to see what styles are trending and what Forever 21 is interested in, and for those shoppers that are loyal to Forever 21, this could potentially be a huge selling point. <br />Not much improvement is needed for Forever 21’s current sites, what they are doing with what they have is remarkable. However, as stated earlier, there is one area where they are falling short. They could use their YouTube profile to upload videos from a video blog or video diary to assist the style challenged and feature new products they are selling online. By doing this, they could increase their sales dramatically. <br />The proposed social media strategy for Forever 21 is as follows:<br />Implement an optimized video blog
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  Create a mobileshopping app
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  Use a socialbookmarking site
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  Add Groupons/Living SocialdealsThe analytics and metrics of this outline will be the effectiveness of these implemented strategies. For the video blog, the number of views each video gets within a month of its release will be a huge determinant. If there are more than 5,000 views, it would be considered a success. The success of the mobile shopping app would be determined on the number of purchases that occur throughout the first six months of its operation. Using a social bookmarking site will be the trickiest to determine success by far, but not impossible. If done properly, success can be measured by how many views the profile gets; again 5,000 within the first six months would be the determining number. Lastly, by offering a Groupon or a Living Social deal, the achievement would be over 5,000 purchased nationwide. <br />No matter how large or small a new strategic plan is, it takes time to implement. It will take very careful planning, time, and effort; nothing will happen over night. After six months, Forever 21 can evaluate their product and strategies to determine how they have been working and if changes need to be made. It is incredibly important for a company in the ever changing fashion world to keep the trend conscious followers fed with the knowledge they crave. This is why stability and consistency with all of their social marketing techniques are crucial in Forever 21’s success. <br />