Four ways Rue La La engages and empowers their members

Rue La La has grown tremendously over the last three years thanks to their truly engaged and empowered members. At the Shop.org Online Marketing Half-Day Workshop in New York City on May 3rd, retailers learned just a few ways the Rue La La team has grown, sustained, and enhanced their member file through strict adherence to brand qualities, adding new businesses, and empowering, inspiring, and engaging their customer.

Stephanie Brocoum, a founding Rue La La team member and Vice President of Marketing, and Josh Verrill, Rue La La Director, National Brand Partnerships and Corporate Development, presented several key focus areas for Rue La La around inspiration, empowerment, creativity, and delight. The presentation focused on empowering the Rue La La member. Everything they do, from their blog featuring brands and special events to enable discovery and inspire, to their mobile app that allows their core customer to easily shop on the go, the Rue La La team is enabling “her.” This empowerment is focused on giving their members access to brands and control over their site and shopping experience.

The primary element of their member empowerment strategy focuses on engagement. The Rue La La team even has a specific group of people – their customer excitement team – responsible for optimizing the lifetime value and extending the Rue La La shopping experience with creative, engaging touch points. These creative, clever touch points focused on member engagement and empowerment include:

• The Rue La La blog featuring brands, interviews with fashion designers, and special events to enable discovery and inspire.
• The mobile app for their on-the-go core customers to easily browse and shop.
• Customer service on Twitter that they have branded as Rue La La Concierge. Their concierge, Amy B., is actively answering questions on Twitter and Facebook for Rue La La customers that have questions about their orders, want to get on the wait list for products, and need some style advice.
• A presence on Facebook to showcase what Rue La La is all about. Rue La La has always thought about their Facebook presence as an extension of their brand. Since all of their merchandise is behind the wall their Facebook page enables members and prospective members to have a special experience with a brand, receive special offers, and even enabled fans (or likers) of the brand to curate a Facebook fan style boutique.

Rue La La is bringing their products and brands to life and creating a special shopping experience for all of their members. In wrapping up their presentation, Stephanie and Josh touched on a few key points on engaging now that every retailer and brand should consider.

• Create an integrated experience. Get “her” or “him” or “them” so excited about so they share it for you.
• Always have your customer at the center of every decision. Is the product, the experience, the message, right for her?
• Value the sum of the parts. When looking at ROI for initiatives like Facebook communication channels remember to consider the customer service value and the earned media value.
• Extend your brand and your experience where and when you can to be more to your customers.