Executive Summary

Boutique Jacques is a family owned business based on Montreal which specializes in off-the-rack and custom mens suits and related business attire for men. The company has a second floor retail showroom in a non-shopping district of Montreals west end and has been online since 1999. The company maintains 2 virtually identical e-commerce web sites. Boutiquejacques.com is used mainly as an online brochure for local clientele while ExecStyle.com is targeted at the U.S. market with U.S. Dollar pricing. Both sites are maintained in parallel and for the most part offer the same products and use the same site structure. The company designed and developed their web sites in-house and, while lacking eye-catching visual imagery, the sites are well designed, easy to navigate and fully e-commerce-enabled. Response time and usability are very good. The company has a modest presence on Facebook and Twitter and has undertaken a number of community-building and promotional activities to drive site traffic. Members of the project team interviewed the owner and web master in order to gain an understanding of the current business and online marketing strategy of Boutique Jacques. We then conducted a competitive analysis online and by using tools such as the 2010 Internet Retailer Top 500, Alexa.com and SEMRush.com. We surveyed key competitor sites in order to understand what techniques are currently employed in the industry to drive site traffic, conversion, acquisition and customer retention. Objectives The objectives of this project are as follows: 1. To identify the key problem areas confronting BoutiqueJacques.com (and its sister site ExecStyle.com) in growing online sales 2. Evaluate the companies strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats 3. Establish a set of achievable business objectives and goals 4. Propose an online marketing strategy to help Boutique Jacques achieve these objectives and goals 5. Recommend tools and techniques for benchmarking and measuring effectiveness in order to continuously improve, refine, adapt and evolve a successful online strategy The business objectives for Boutique Jacques are the following: Objective: Acquisition The company needs to increase its online customer acquisition volume which is negligible today. Objective: Conversion The company needs to improve its call-to-action strategy for visitors in order to increase the size of the customer database and increase sales. Objective: Retention The company needs to increase the number of repeat shoppers and provide compelling reasons for customers to return to the site on a regular basis and hopefully for life. 1

Recommendations The recommendations this report will put forward will be the key components of the online marketing strategy Boutique Jacques will need to adopt in order to grow its online business. These will fall into four main categories: 1. 2. 3. 4. Acquisition Conversion Retention Measurement and Optimization

The techniques these 4 areas will comprise will include site design, search engine optimization (SEO), search engine marketing (SEM), Social Media Marketing, e-mail marketing, affiliate marketing, web analytics, competitor benchmarking and site performance monitoring. These techniques and tactics will be explained in greater detail in Internet Marketing Plan found later on this report. Acquisition Boutique Jacques inability to sustain significant site traffic can be countered by the adopting the same techniques commonly used by the most successful online retailers today. In order to increase its visibility and reach, we strongly suggest the company join a reputable affiliate network such as LinkShare or Commission Junction. Despite the fact that the companys target market segments are young to middle age business professionals - a highly Internet-savvy audience - at the present time, the company does not invest in any Search Engine Marketing (SEM). There is no Search Engine Optimization (SEO) strategy in place either. We therefore recommend that Boutique Jacques adopt a program of focused SEM campaigns and begin to optimize their site content for organic search engine searches. Conversion The company loses most of their online visitors on the product pages - the very page on which visitors need to convert! There can be many reasons why visitors abandon at the product page. The price may be too high, the product may not be what the visitor had in mind, there may be insufficient information about the product or inadequate photography. However in the case of Boutique Jacques and mens suits in general, the most likely reason a visitor abandons on the product page is because they perceive risk in purchasing an item that may not fit them properly. Boutique Jacques offers some basic tips on their site on how to measure oneself for a suit, shirts or trousers however the information is difficult to locate and once found, difficult to understand. As size may be the single greatest barrier to conversion, Boutique Jacques needs to offer a free measuring tape and provide not only measuring instructions but pictures and video to demonstrate the mysterious technique of correctly measuring oneself. Furthermore, there needs to be a highly visible link on all product pages to

the measurement instructional content. This page should always open in a pop-up window so that the visitor is not directed away from the product page. Another useful technique for reducing abandonment on the product pages is to introduce User Generated Content (UGC) such as customer ratings under each product with a link to customer reviews. Again, reviews should open directly on the product page in order to avoid directing the visitor away from that page. A Facebook like as well as Tweet button should appear under every product because these fields can update in real time with the number of likes and tweets visible right next to the product itself. This tactic can also increase acquisition through the social networks. Internet surveys have shown that 91% of people trust consumer reviews and 87% of people trust their friends recommendations. Displaying product recommendations once a visitor has added a product to their shopping cart and at check-out is also recommended. This is an easy technique for up-selling accessories such as ties and belts for example when a visitor buys a suit, trouser or shirt. Real-time display of inventory is also useful so visitors can see when a product is out of stock or running low possibly motivating would-be customers to buy now rather than risk not being able to buy at all.

Retention We know that the majority of online sales are from first-time buyers. While acquisition is probably Boutique Jacques biggest problem, a good retention strategy is equally important in order to build repeat and even lifetime customers. Boutique Jacques needs to begin retargeting first time buyers and email subscribers and re-targeting with cookies, Google AdSense and other advertising networks. An innovative social media marketing strategy will reinforce brand recall and create an online community of young professional men who buy new suits regularly. Email marketing and social media marketing campaigns need to become more product-oriented yet also personalized to individual customers tastes and preferences. We also recommend adding LinkedIn to Boutique Jacques social media marketing mix. Most business professionals are active LinkedIn members and use the site to network with other business professionals. Because of this affinity with the companys target market, LinkedIn Company Pages and LinkedIn Ads options should not be overlooked. Content strategy should include style tips, business etiquette, interview strategies and size and measurement tips. This type of content will reinforce the companys reputation as a reference and resource for businessmen and professionals. Measurement & Optimization 3

The online marketing tools and techniques we propose for Boutique Jacques also allow the company to measure and optimize the effectiveness of their evolving strategy. It is crucial for e-commerce sites continuously measure ROI (Return on Investment) for SEM and response rate for e-mail marketing campaigns. Free tools such as Google AdWords, Google Analytics, Alexa.com and SemRush.com will allow Boutique Jacques to measure the success of all online marketing campaigns. Moreover, even Facebook and Twitter provide reporting and tracking tools to measure important social activity associated with the companys brand.

Background
Problems Site Traffic (Acquisition) Despite exceptional customer service and offering some well-recognized brands, as of November 2011, Alexa.com ranked BoutiqueJacques.com and ExecStyle.com among the least trafficked online menswear sites with ranks of 6,455,635 and 1,182,656 respectively. The bounce rate on ExecStyle.com is currently 58.1% according to Alexa.com. As the companys traditional client base has eroded, Boutique Jacques has tried to target more diverse market segments (such as business school students) yet the strategy for doing this is not clearly defined. Conversion Rate Like most of their competition, Boutique Jacques is not exclusively an online business. The company moved online in order to broaden their reach and enhance customer service. However conversion rates for ExecStyle.com are currently around 0.5% and overall online sales for the company compared to their traditional bricks and mortar retail business are negligible. Despite early success with offering custom suits, sales for this product type have fallen over time for Boutique Jacques while dynamic new competitors have emerged in the last new years and are succeeding as pure-play custom suit merchants. A toll-free number is prominently displayed on all pages and customers used to phone the showroom frequently to enquire about sizing after seeing something online. However call volume from the site has continued to decline over the last year. Retention The majority of online sales are from first time buyers with a negligible number of repeat shoppers. Competitive Analysis When asked, Boutique Jacques identified 3 main competitors: 1. Indochino 4

http://www.indochino.com/ - custom suits - Vancouver-based and Shanghai, very stylish and progressive design - Fast & Easy - MEASURE YOURSELF IN 10 MINUTES,
THEN PUT YOUR SUIT ON, WRINKLE-FREE, RIGHT OUT OF THE BOX 3 WEEKS LATER. It seriously takes 10 minutes. You don't need a tailor, only a good friend (mom,

girlfriend, sister, buddy) and you can have your measurements in minutes. Our team then goes through all your measurements to ensure that everything looks good. It's a pretty easy way to get started on your first custom suit. Get a free tape measure now! 2. ModaSuite http://www.modasuite.com/ Montreal-based - Partner In Style - If you need a measuring tape, well ship one to you free of charge. Positoned as personalized-shopping based on tastes, preferences, size etc., membership-based with membership pricing - Modasuite offers most of its clothes in made-to-measure for an amazing fit. You will need a tape to enter your measurements. Get one now for free.
OUR STYLISTS HAVE RECEIVED YOUR SUBMISSION. YOUR PERSONAL SELECTION WILL BE READY WITHIN 24 HOURS. While you wait - Get 40% off & free shipping on some of our favorite accessories today only. It's our welcome present.

ModaSuite offers a personalized shopping experience by requiring registered visitors to create a personal style, size and measurements profile. 3. DeCalo Fashion http://www.decalofashion.com/ - More well known brands and lower prices - positioned as a discount suit retailer but carry many premium brands such as Hugo Boss, CK etc. based in NY Two of the above competitors are Canadian-based companies (Indochino and ModaSuite) who target the U.S. and international markets. The U.S. market is roughly 10 times bigger than the Canadian market however building market share south of the border presents several challenges. U.S. consumers are reluctant to order goods from Canada for fear that customs and duties on goods shipped from Canada would likely offset any perceived savings of buying online from a Canadian retailer. There are several major competitors in the domestic U.S. market who already enjoy strong brand recognition and benefit from scale which Boutique Jacques does not have. On the other hand, Boutique Jacques enjoys good relationships with several Montreal-based suit manufacturers which allows them to offer custom suits at a good price as well as several other off-the-rack known brands. Boutique Jacques sells several brands which are either private label or have no significant brand recognition in the general marketplace.

Internet Retailer Top 500 Our team consulted the 2010 Internet Retailer Top 500 in order to identify other major players in the North American online mens business attire market. We identified a further set of primary and secondary competitors. Primary competitors would be classed as pure-play mens suits merchants (both off-the-rack and custom) while secondary competitors would be classed as general apparel, designer apparel or mass merchants who offer mens suits and business attire as part of their overall product offering. Primary Competitors Internet Retailer Top 500 5

JoS. A. Bank Clothiers Inc. http://www.josbank.com/ JoS. A. Bank offers suits dress shirts, sports coats, pants, ties, sportswear, outerwear, shoes and accessories and tuxedos. In October 2010 the company launched a web site - Josbankbigandtall.com - which is part of the retailers strategy to develop more niches in mens apparel. The Mens Wearhouse Inc. http://www.menswearhouse.com/ The Mens Wearhouse which operates 1,248 bricks-and-mortar stores across its Mens Wearhouse, Moores and K&G stores brands, in August 2010 hired Susan T. Neal as senior vice president, e-business and digital strategies. She is responsible for enhancing the companys e-business initiatives, expanding its online presence and launching e-marketing digital programs. Secondary Competitors Internet Retailer Top 500 Brooks Brothers High-end apparel merchant Brooks Brothers in February 2010 launched Bazaarvoices social commerce platform on BrooksBrothers.com. The retailer encourages every shopper to review the products they purchase. The review solicitation e-mail, which typically goes out one week after a purchase online or in a store, has the highest open rate of all e-mails sent by Brooks Brothers. Boden USA Boden, an online apparel retailer based in the United Kingdom, last year reduced its online marketing costs with new coding that tracks the performance of web ads. At year-end, Boden installed tracking tags from vendor TagMan. The TagMan system allows a retailer to install a single TagMan tag on any web page to encompass all of the pages ad-tracking tags. Net-A-Porter (MrPorter) Online womens fashion retailer Net-A-Porter in January 2010 launched a site called Mr. Porter that is dedicated to menswear. The site, MrPorter.com, will sell clothes from such brands as Ralph Lauren, Burberry and YSL. Like Net-A-Porter, the mens site will offer shoppers advice about style - the womens site, for instance has recommendations about what items go together - and same-day shipping in London and New York. The sites expected launch comes as the web-only retailer marks its 10th anniversary. In June 2010, French luxury goods maker Compagnie Financire Richemont SA completed its acquisition of Net-a-porter. Richemont which owns such high-end brands as Cartier, Dunhill, IWC, Piaget and Van Cleef & Arpels, acquired Net-a-porter for $534.48 million. Net-A-Porter offers Style Help which includes: Stylepedia an exhaustive A-Z of mens style, Video Manuals quick tips from those who know, Style Icons the legends that inspire us, The Essentials 30 seasonal items we think every man should own. An additional competitor identified is iTailor.com (http://www.itailor.com/) a European outfit which offers custom shirts and suits made to measure at a very low cost. They offer online visitors an 3-D designer tool with dynamic images of the clothing items that users can customize directly on the site. Most US-based competitors receive site traffic from more than five countries. Canadian-based competitors like Moores get their traffic primarily from Canada. However, two important competitors,

US-based Mens Wearhouse and Montreal-based ModaSuite receive a significant percentage of traffic from Canada too. Many of Boutique Jacques competitors offer innovative promotions and purchase incentives. Many companies offer store credits (ModaSuite), promo codes (Mens Wearhouse). The most impressive customer rewards program has been implemented by UK-based Boden. Boden encourages visitors to subscribe and recommend a friend. In return it offers to ship a free catalogue to the referred friends. Boden offers their Twitter followers a free product if they re-tweet a certain post. On their blog Boden offers reward points for visitor interactions on the blog.

Competitive Operating Data (source: Internet Retailer Top 500 2010)

Financial 2010 Sales: 2009 Sales: 2008 Sales: 2007 Sales: 2006 Sales: 2010 Growth Rate: Operations Monthly Visits: Monthly Unique Visitors Conversion Rate Average Ticket Total SKUs on Web Web Site Summary Year Launched Merchant Type Performance Response Time Site Availability Consistency Marketing Search Engine Shoppers 2010 27% 32% 27% 34% NA 2.35s 100% fair 2.66s 100% good 1.44s 100% good 1.21s 100% excellent NA NA NA 2000 web only 2002 Catalog/call 1998 Retail Chain 1999 Retail Chain 2000 Retail Chain 4m 189,909 2% $190 NA 1m 112,396 3% $280 NA 1.5m 1,150,000 3% $74 7,500 700,000 400,000 4% $200 80,000 850,000 500,000 1.6% $150 NA Net-A- Porter $219.4m $182.9m $159m $90m $70m 20% Boden USA $118.5m $105.8m $103.7m $93.3m $85m 12% Brooks Bros $94.5m $78m $70m $59.8m $16.9m 21.11% JoS. A. Bank $65.1m $60.7m $54m $50m $40m 7.34% Mens Wearhouse $25.5m $10m $16.1m $14.8m $12.1m 155%

Search Engine Shoppers 2009 New Shoppers 2010 Return Shoppers 2010 Monthly e-Mail Campaigns - With incentives - With links to social networks SEO Effectiveness Number of affiliates Shopper Profile Male/Female Age 24 or less 25-34 35-44 45-54 55+ Annual Household Income $30,000 or less 30,001 to $60,000 $60,001 to $100,000 More than $100,000

25% 59% 41% 18 3 18 good NA

28% 61% 39% 8 8 8 good NA

33% 55% 45% 30 29 30 excellent 250

37% 64% 36% 35 35 35 fair NA

NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA

37%/63% 23% 32% 19% 14% 11%

30%/70% 14% 29% 29% 18% 10%

54%/46% 19% 23% 21% 17% 20%

58%/42% 16% 23% 21% 17% 22%

NA NA NA NA NA NA

22% 18% 31% 29%

16% 15% 32% 37%

17% 15% 30% 37%

18% 17% 31% 34%

NA NA NA NA

Description & Analysis of Issues

SWOT Analysis Strengths 1. Customer Service - easy to speak with a professional - toll-free number prominently displayed on every page; Easy return policy - satisfaction guarantee 2. Usability - site is easy to navigate, search and buy 3. Personalization - offer custom suits made quickly by a local supplier 4. Branding - offer some well-known brands such as Calvin Klein and Ralph Lauren 5. Price - all products are competitively priced 6. SEO - boutiquejacques.com comes up first in organic search for mens suits montreal

7. Student Advisory Board from H.E.C. - target audience focus group meets regularly to share insights 8. Supply Chain - well-established relationships with local manufacturers

Weaknesses 1. Very low conversion rate 2. Lack selection of business casual clothing 3. Many brands are not well known 4. Lack information and videos on how to measure yourself for a suit, trousers or shirt 5. Lack more affordable priced business attire (such as Zara and Simons) 6. Site design lacks style and excitement compared to competition 7. Site does not offer significant savings to online purchasers versus bricks and mortar shopping 8. No current SEM strategy - they buy no keywords Opportunities 1. Offer male style tips and information - dress to impress etc. 2. Offer short videos such as how to measure yourself, how to knot a tie, how to polish shoes etc. 3. Build a customer database and send out sales incentives regularly 4. Create a customer loyalty program such as points or buy 5 items get one free etc. 5. Build a strong brand awareness among Business Schools students through continuous social media presence and WEB 2.0 tools 6. Can earn bigger profit margins on custom suits if they can figure out how to drive that segment - this is a growing segment online and competitors have succeeded here 7. Diversify product offering into smart-casual, business casual attire to attract a younger market 8. Expand custom suit offering to custom shirts as well 9. Propose tuxedo rental service 10. Well-known brands and products reduces size risk for online buyers (i.e. increases size familiarity with brand-loyal consumers) 11. CK and Ralph Lauren are 2 of their most recognized brands and represent 70% of their online sales. 12. Copy brooksbrothers.com social commerce strategy: Encourage every shopper to review the products they purchase. The review solicitation email, which typically goes out one week after a purchase online (or in store), has the highest open rate of all emails sent by Brooks Brothers. Threats: 1. Custom suits no longer selling well - have lost ground to competition in this area 2. Many employers now have a business casual dress code so less demand for suits among young professionals 3. Young generation is more brand glamour oriented 4. U.S. market is dominated by large players such as Macys, Indochino and Decalo

Discussion and Evaluation of Possible Online Marketing Tactics

We have analysed the recent performance and marketing techniques of Boutique Jacques as well as several of Boutique Jacques online competitors in order to identify strategies and techniques which can be used to increase customer acquisition, retention and conversion. Two competitors focus exclusively on selling custom suits: Indochino and iTailor.com. Indochino has a successful search engine marketing (SEM) strategy which increases visibility on Google. According to SEMRush.com, Indochino bids on Google keywords such as custom suits (Cost per Click = $3.03), custom suits online ($2.09), tailor made suits ($2.16). iTailor also uses an SEM strategy for their custom shirt offering, As custom suits are the main focus of these 2 larger players, we can assume that there is a market for this type of product.

Problem/Objective: Acquisition Possible Solutions: SEM - Develop a strategy: bid on keywords to increase traffic SEO - to have more control over specific campaigns and to better target their segment Join affiliate networks - to increase visibility and reach Offer promotional discount in exchange for registering for email newsletter

Problem/Objective: Retention Possible Solutions: Regular email marketing campaigns- re-targeting Social Media Marketing - publish engaging content such as YouTube videos and Facebook contests and incentives; update Facebook page regularly with compelling content; Create a LinkedIn Company Page and update regularly with coupons Add user generated content (UGC) such as reviews and ratings to reduce risk perception and increase credibility Improve blog content and update more regularly with compelling content such as interviewing tips, business etiquette and contextual style tips Create a single unified brand with a single site in order to boost overall, traffic, brand and referals

Conversion Product page - to become more accessible (display prices without having to roll over) and to contain more customer reviews & ratings SEM campaigns should deep-link directly to specific product pages where appropriate Create a individual page for each suit or product which provides larger and higher resolution imagery Wishlist and Recommendations are to be added + consider Inventory (Mr. Porter example: saves your purchase history and allows you to buy the same item in the future) LinkedIn

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Because LinkedIn audience consists of 120 million members with $86K average HHI and 71% of them are with college or post-graduate degree, it is an interesting place for Boutique Jacques to shine in. We would recommend the company to consult the best-in-class developers of the LinkedIn Certified Developer Program (CDP) to devise an appropriate new way to connect the companys brand with the consumers (Figure 6-8). LinkedIn seems to have the tools to amalgamate all the marketing techniques and strategies that we suggested to Boutique Jacques in one network with the audience that fits perfectly with Boutique Jacques target market. Figure 6

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Figure 7

Figure 8

Retention (link to objective) Conversion (link to objective) Customers do not know usually how to measure themselves in order to determine their best size. This is probably the single greatest barrier to conversion for online shoppers of suits and business clothing.

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Benchmarking (link to objective)

Recommendations
Internet Marketing Plan

Current Marketing Strategy

Product Boutique Jacques offers 17 brands of corporate menswear online and is planning to add business casual lines to respond to the current trend where fewer young office workers are wearing suits on a daily basis. In terms of brand selection, only Macys beats Boutique Jacques with their 19 brands available to online shoppers. The company also offers custom suits - a recent trend in online suit retailing in which customers can select a fabric and choose options such as 2-button, 3-button, side vents or back vents, lining, etc. However, despite early interest, sales for custom suits have decreased for Boutique Jacques since first offering this type of product. To exploit current trends in business dress, Boutique Jacques is considering expanding their product selection to include business casual attire. Boutique Jacques strategy is to target the corporate market niche and believe their competitive advantage rests in building a lifelong relationship with their customers which bigger merchants cannot do. Price Boutique Jacques prices are reasonable, competitive and fit a range of budgets. Suit prices range from $200 to $700. Place Since the Boutique Jacques name is only recognized in the west end of Montreal and only appears in search results for mens suits in Montreal, the site traffic is entirely local. ExecStyle.com on the other hand, receives traffic from the US (about 42%) and surprisingly India (about 39%). The remaining traffic is classified as coming from other geographic areas (but not Canada.) Promotion Customer acquisition and retention is all about promotion and re-targeting. Boutique Jacques offers $50 off for people who become a Facebook fan. Unlike many of their competitors, Boutique Jacques does not currently offer credits, coupons, promo codes, customer reward programs, bogos or similar deals or purchase incentives.

Boutique Jacques current online marketing strategy lacks effective acquisition and retention tactics. At the very least, there are a number of simple yet crucial tactics competitors are presently using which Boutique Jacques needs to adopt immediately in order to simply remain competitive. To resolve the size/measurement/fit risk perception, Boutique Jacques (and ExecStyle.com) should start offering to send out a free measuring tape to all site visitors. In order to receive the measuring tape (which is necessary to measure oneself for sizing) the site visitor will need 13

to provide their contact information including email and postal address. This data builds the customer database which is necessary for future email marketing and re-targeting. As a condition for receiving the free measuring tape, Boutique Jacques could also introduce a individual style profile feature which must be completed before providing the contact details necessary for mailing out the measuring tape. ModaSuite already does this an uses a simple online survey with sample style images the visitor selects to best match their personal style taste (see Figure 3).

Figure 3

Market Segmentation
Boutique Jacques has faced some target market challenges over the last few years. Many of their traditionally loyal local customers have moved away from Montreal to Toronto and beyond. Some have gotten older or retired and finally, many young office workers today no longer are required to wear a suit and tie to work. As such, the company has recognized that it must broaden its reach to less traditional segments such as students who are getting ready to graduate and attend job interviews. Boutique Jacques recently held a promotion at H.E.C and had an article written in H.E.C. (Universit de Montral) student newspaper. The company printed up cards and handed them out at the H.E.C. campus. The cards asked students to photograph themselves in a suit and upload the picture to the companys Facebook page and solicit as many likes as possible. The 3 entries with the most votes would win a free suit. Only 16 individuals participated but it boosted site visits by 1400. Though not a massive response, the company was able to connect with those who were most popular on campus and now Boutique Jacques has more than 1000 Facebook fans. The winner of the contest got 130 likes and had 2000 votes. The 3 14

winners brought the company approximately 600 likes. The company then set up an advisory board of students from H.E.C. Four students in the early-mid 20s range helped Boutique Jacques work on strategy for the web site. The company also did a fashion show at Club 1234 set up by Universit de Montral students. Boutique Jacques is planning to do a similar campaign at the John Molson School of Business, only they intend to do it even better and more sophisticated. The above approach while somewhat effective in creating brand awareness and generating some sales, is not sustainable in the long term. While graduating students may need to buy a suit for their first interviews, the likelihood is that once employed, they will not need to wear suits on a daily basis so repeat purchases in the future are unlikely. The company must therefore refocus its efforts on the customers are not just likely to buy once. This can only be achieved by effectively targeting professional who wear suits daily and expanding the product offering to include business casual clothing products. Using Alexa.com, we analysed site traffic for the companys competitors and found that most visitors to menswear retailer sites are males between 25 and 34, who have no children, who are college or graduate school educated, and who very often browse these sites from work. Analysing data from Internet Retailer Top 500, we observed that more than 60% of site traffic was from individuals with an annual household income over $60,000. The gender distribution for site traffic to competitive sites was on average 56% male, 44% femaile which indicates that wives and girlfriends play an influential role in the mens clothing purchases. Boutique Jacques main target market segment is therefore males aged 25-34 with annual incomes of $60,000 to $100,000 however the sites need to be conscious of female tastes and opinions in its design. To adapt to the changing norms of business dress, the company plans to expand its business casual lines to compensate for the decrease in demand for suits.

Internet Marketing Mix

In this section we will discuss a number of key ingredients of the proposed online marketing mix. Elements include banner ads, email marketing, search engine optimization (SEO), search engine marketing (SEM), social media and affiliate networks. All of these will help Boutique Jacques meet its e-commerce objectives. SEO Internet Retailer estimates that the web accounted for 60% of growth across all channels last year. Google Product Search came up most often with 374 merchants representing 75% of this years list up slightly from 365, or 73% using that marketplace in last years edition. Not only is it important to work on Boutique Jacques visibility in this most popular search engine, but it could also be achieved at a relatively low price. To start off, the keywords that Boutique 15

Jacques could use to associate their company with in organic Google search results should be product-oriented and as specific as possible in order to reach the carefully selected market niche of young professional men in Montreal. While it is currently very fortunate that bathrobes for men, mens suits,montreal suits for men queries drive the most traffic to Boutique Jacques website, the company needs to control the queries to better coordinate them with their specific marketing campaigns in order to measure the success of these campaign in terms of % traffic they generate. SEM Our competition analysis has shown that only two companies, Moores and Modasuite, out of the fourteen Boutique Jacques competitors weve identified do not invest in search engine marketing. Yet, the costs of search engine marketing are quite low for the online menswear retailers. For example, montreal professional suits, montreal custom suits, montreal

calvin klein, montreal ralph lauren queries are currently not bid upon by anyone and therefore their cost per click (CPC) is 0$. With the right, campaign-oriented SEM strategy, Boutique Jacques could dramatically improve their online figures. Campaignoriented SEM strategy will also save Boutique Jacques from DeCalo Fashions and Indochinos heavy expenses on the broad and pricey keywords such as ralph lauren suit (1.61$ CPC), calvin klein suit (0.60$ CPC), mens suits (2.00 $ CPC), custom suits (3.03$ CPC), custom suits online (2.09 $ CPC), tailor made suits (2.16 $CPC) etc.
Email Marketing DeCalo Fashion offers 10% off to every new subscriber (Figure 4). Targeting a younger demographic

While Boutique Jacques current email marketing initiatives are similar to most of the companys competitors, the company might want to distinguish itself from the competition by expanding its email services to LinkedIn InMail. While its not a free service, LinkedIn offers industry-leading open rates. Moreover, LinkedIns partner messages allow for customization, including a co-branded landing page, an ad unit, and a call-to-action button. Most importantly, LinkedIn has largest audience of executive professionals, allows for precise targeting by job title and industry, provides innovative marketing tools to engage members and support from marketing solutions team to refine campaign reach. This is a very interesting opportunity for Boutique Jacques considering their current problems with reaching their target market. Outsourcing the e-mail marketing to LinkedIn could generate the following results according to some LinkedIns clients testimonials: 16

 61% rise in click-to-conversion rate More names and contact info for lead-gen pipeline Increase in Twitter followers improves social media reach In the case that Boutique Jacques decides to keep their email service in-house, there are a few guidelines the company might need to review: Newsletters should be personalized and provide with dynamic content Newsletters should be product-oriented and allow for an instant purchase Newsletters should allow the customers to choose what products they want or do not want to see the updates for in order to re-target them more effectively in the future. The company should closely monitor customer interactions with emails (for example, what links on the newsletter are clicked most or least often) in order to optimize the future email marketing campaigns. Email marketing campaigns should be based on the double opt-in option (ask to subscribe and then confirm the subscription) in order to ensure the quality of the subscribers and to prevent the emails from being marked as spam. Conversions generated via newsletters must be closely monitored and analysed Email marketing campaigns should not exceed the profits they generate.

Another email marketing strategy Boutique Jacques needs to implement is to provide their email subscribers with the content from the companys social media channels. Boutique Jacques emails could link back to Facebook contests, include Twitter updates, and possibly YouTube videos. Adding relevant and engaging content from Boutique Jacques blog is also a great way to make the newsletters look less like advertisement and more like a mini-portal. This strategy along with the ones mentioned above will increase customer retention and improve the companys conversion rate.
Social Media Marketing Analysing Boutique Jacques competitors and their social media marketing strategies, weve been able to see three current trends. Some of the e-tailors (like ) used Facebook, Twitter, and/or Blogs to offer promotions in exchange for liking, or following them. For example, as it was mentioned before, Indochino offered a free tape to everyone who likes them on Facebook. Modasuite and DeCalo Fashion offered deals and coupons to their Facebook fans and Twitter followers. Mr. Porter also offered gift cards giveaways in exchange for Facebook likes, but all these strategies are good for one-time acquisition of online audience. However, in order to retain their online audience, Mr. Porter, for example, created a sense of exclusivity for their fans by making their YouTube channel and Twitter account private and available only to their subscribers. This is an unusual gesture because most of other companies make a serious effort of increasing their visibility and reach through channels like YouTube. Boutique Jacques intention to create a more sophisticated at Concordias JMSB could include taking the videos of the event and creating a YouTube channel. Videos are number one online format of the content that generates traffic. If Boutique Jacques needs a long-lasting acquisition and retention strategy, providing their visitors with video content is a great way to reward these visitors for the time and interest they took to watch the videos.

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Some e-tailors chose to provide their online visitors with interesting and relevant content as well as entertain and engage them with contest, games, and applications. Mens Wearhouse offers Well-dressed Contest on their Facebook page. Brooks Brothers has Facebook Events and Questions sections. The Question section asks their Facebook fans to give their opinion on the latest appearance of certain clothing articles in the traditional media, for instance. The application allows users not only to participate, but also follow the discussion, and even ask their friends opinions. The most prolific e-tailor in terms of online community entertainment is probably Macys. Although Macys is a mass merchant and does not belong strictly to the mens apparel category, their Facebook page is very fun and engaging contests like Parade Brigade, Celebrity Tree Auction, Recipe Share, Trend Report, 1M Makeover... Kenneth Cole, as was mentioned before, offered Design Your T in support of Haiti Facebook application. Boutique Jacques has successfully implemented user entertainment and giftsfor-likes strategy with their recent submit-your-photo contest and saw some dramatic increase of traffic to their website pages. Nevertheless, entertaining the online audience in such a way does not generate any lasting results. These are all temporal improvements in terms of traffic and conversions. Therefore, many companies strive to retain their online visitors by engaging them in a discussion or by providing them with informative and relevant content. For example, most of Boutique Jacques competitors use Twitter to engage their customers in a conversation about their products and services. Boden, for instance, asks their Twitter followers to retwit a certain phrase in return for a discount. In addition to engaging the online audience, inform and servestrategy also allows to retain the visitors valuable attention. Blogs are a great way to inform the potential online customers about the styles, trends and clothing etiquette. While Boutique Jacques has a nice blog, it is not product-oriented (does not link back to their product page) and is not community-oriented. Yet, it is important for their blog to be specific and oriented towards their current visitors demographic and geographic profiles. In comparison, Boden well integrated their Shop section into their lifestyle and fashion blog and their readers can easily order Boden products directly from the blog. It is a very powerful strategy as it satisfies the online visitors search for certain information and allows him to make a purchase of the products he took interest in reading about. The inform and serve technique allows to retain the customers attention and provides them with a place for future educated shopping reference. Another social media marketing strategy is to aggregate the products and services with content and social media channels. One of the examples is Jos. A. Banks Facebook page. The page has several links back to their collections and products (The Miracle Tie Collection). In addition, the page links back to their Expert Advice. Also, one could use their Facebook pages internal search engine to look for the products and buy them. They even post their job offerings on Facebook. Another example of social media aggregation is Macys blog which has a catalogue of products one can download and some updates from their Facebook and Twitter activities. In addition, Macys is consistent with their branding and design across all of their platforms which greatly contributes to their brands recognition. Casual Male provides their Facebook page visitors with sign-up for emails option. It is a very nice way to connect their social marketing campaigns acquisition initiatives with their email marketing campaigns retention objectives. Social media aggregation joined with the inform and serve technique are the best way for Boutique Jacques to increase the traffic towards their product pages and increase the time their visitors spend on page. The above-mentioned social media marketing strategies are not costly. Just a while ago these techniques were considered innovative and out-of-the-box, but one of the companies weve researched in our competition analysis went even further. Boden came out with an interesting idea to merge their efforts to inform, serve, engage, entertain their online audience in what they call Boden Community. Although technically Boden Community is a blog, it serves both as a portal and a social networking channel. But the most innovative idea Boden came up with was the Community Rewards program. Boden encourages their online visitors to take part in 18

the blog to earn a certain number of points for a certain level of engagement which could later be used towards getting a free Boden product. The company clearly goes beyond the limits to establish customer loyalty and solidify their brand.

LinkedIn Because LinkedIn audience consists of 120 million members with $86K average HHI and 71% of them are with college or post-graduate degree, it is an interesting place for Boutique Jacques to shine in. We would recommend the company to consult the best-in-class developers of the LinkedIn Certified Developer Program (CDP) to devise an appropriate new way to connect the companys brand with the consumers (Figure 6-8). LinkedIn seems to have the tools to amalgamate all the marketing techniques and strategies that we suggested to Boutique Jacques in one network with the audience that fits perfectly with Boutique Jacques target market. Figure 6

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Figure 7

Figure 8

Boutique Jacques management also had a social media project in progress - to produce a 'How to dress for an interview' video before next year. 20

Affiliate Marketing Since Boutique Jacques main concerns are generating traffic, retaining their current visitors, and raising the number of conversions, it is important for the company to increase their visibility through affiliate marketing. While Boutique Jacques executives explained their concerns with fraudulent clicks, their competitors (Mr. Porter, Boden, Brooks Brothers, and Jos. A. Bank) use the professional services of the big companies with well-established reputation like LinkShare, Commission Junction, and Google Affiliate Network. Given the fact that mens clothing is often covered by online mens magazines and traditional media (that have a great presence on the Internet nowadays), it is important to provide their readers and viewers with a link to the relevant shopping experience Boutique Jacques provides. It is strongly advised that Boutique Jacques engages in an affiliate program in order to dramatically increase their visibility and reach.

Measurement & Optimisation (to make the sites initiatives more accountable) Develop SEO & SEM strategies to become analyzable by Alexa.com & SemRush Use Google AdWords to monitor the success of campaigns Analyze Facebook & Twitter numbers and level of engagement (like Bodens Community Rewards program) Out-off-the-box solutions: LinkedIn business profile: business conferences and coaching events - suit to go

Specifications Site Design Boutique Jacques maintains two e-commerce-enabled web sites, one for the Canadian market - BoutiqueJacques.com and one for the U.S. and international market ExecStyle.com. Both sites are nearly identical in terms of function, content and structure. They offer good functionality and easy navigation. However the visual aspects of the site design lack excitement and look outdated. The use of earthy colours and tones - grey and brown - do not convey the exciting and powerful mood that todays business executives associate themselves with. Geo-IP: Introduce dynamic page generation based on visitor IP address based on geographic location to solve the problem with US vs CAN prices The site also lacks compelling content such as professional fashion photography, dynamic images, video and buyer tools such as 360 degree views, style tips, size and measurement tips and instructions, live chat, user generated content etc. A link to sizing instructions in the help section is a dead link that brings up a 404 error. Functionality

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In order to get more sales for custom suites a step by step building sequence has to be implemented with a clear link on the landing page: model, fabric, color, and other details. An example of such a customizing sequence may be seen at http://www.itailor.com (custom shirts) and at one of direct competitors website http://www.indochino.com/ (less customizable though) Just as a selling tip, both of close competitors, Indochino and Modasuite offer measuring tape free of charge and clear timing for choosing cool and well fit suit: MEASURE YOURSELF IN 10 MINUTES, THEN PUT YOUR SUIT ON, WRINKLE-FREE, RIGHT OUT OF THE BOX 3 WEEKS LATER. It seriously takes 10 minutes. You don't need a tailor, only a good friend (mom, girlfriend, sister, buddy) and you can have your measurements in minutes. Our team then goes through all your measurements to ensure that everything looks good. It's a pretty easy way to get started on your first custom suit. Get a free tape measure now! Such a simple hook could significantly increase customers database. Merchandising may be improved (model photos need to be done) Website search implementation To detect US or Canada based users, the IP detection and cookies along with correlating currency could be implemented As a matter of the very near future, an iSuit mobile application for Apple and Android devices has to be built in order to help customers to order a suite on iPad or Android tablet right away (the worlds experiencing mobile boom , in a couple of years Internet users will be surfing mostly through mobile apps) Product reviews and ratings are not well implemented on the Boutique Jacques website. They display one testimonial per product and on has to click on More to see the rest. The ratings are not at all present. Yet Brooks Brothers allows their customers not only to review but also rate their products by quality, appearance, and fit.

Social Media and WEB 2.0 Interactive Strategy Create Video content strategy YouTube channel Video tutorials Video ads Video blog Quarterly Facebook competitions Monthly discount updates LinkedIn presence Daily Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Google+ updates Live chat Customer insight may help to make the consumer acquisition and retention functioning much better, in order to do that direct interactive reviews, testimonials and comments page is highly recommended Online surveys may help in the matter above as well

Web Site Specifications Site Map Header 22

- Fashion Blog - Facebook - Twitter - Shopping Bag Home - My Account : Order History / Place Order Re-Order Past Ordered Items Wish List View Wish List Account Maintenance Update Email Change Password Personal Information - Store Hours & Location: Customer Service Contact Us Order Status - Shipping & Returns: Shipping Policy Return Policy - Weekly Specials: Current Store Sale - Whats New - In Store Sale: Current Store Sale - New Arrivals: Mens New Arrivals - Custom Garments: Build You Own Custom Suit Why Buy a Custom Suit? Why Choose Custom Suits? Custom Suits Fabrics - Categories - Mens Suits: Brands-Styles-Colors-Prices Product Page - Mens Suits Separates: Brands-Styles-Colors-Prices Product Page - Mens Sport Coats & Blazers: Brands-Styles-Colors-Prices Product Page - Mens Tuxedos: Brands-Styles-Colors-Prices Product Page

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- Mens Pants: Brands-Styles-Colors-Prices Product Page - Mens Shirts: Brands-Styles-Colors-Prices Product Page - Mens Sweaters: Brands-Styles-Colors-Prices Product Page - Mens Ties & Belts: Brands-Styles-Colors-Prices Product Page - Mens Outerwear: Brands-Styles-Colors-Prices Product Page - Mens Bathrobes: Brands-Styles-Colors-Prices Product Page - Brands - Ralph Lauren: RALPH LAUREN | Men's Suits & Suit Separates RALPH LAUREN | Men's Sports Coats & Blazers RALPH LAUREN | Men's Tuxedos RALPH LAUREN | Men's Pants - Calvin Klein: CALVIN KLEIN | Men's Suits & Suit Separates CALVIN KLEIN | Men's Sports Coats & Blazers CALVIN KLEIN | Men's Tuxedos CALVIN KLEIN | Men's Pants - DKNY: DKNY | Men's Suits & Suit Separates DKNY | Men's Pants - Canada Goose - Luca Bretoni: LUCA BERTONI | Men's Suits & Suit Separates - S. Cohen: S.COHEN | Men's Suits & Suit Separates S.COHEN | Men's Sports Coats & Blazers S.COHEN | Men's Tuxedos S.COHEN | Men's Pants S.COHEN | Men's Outerwear - Coppley: COPPLEY | Men's Suits & Suit Separates COPPLEY | Men's Pants 24

- Manzoni: MANZONI | Men's Suits & Suit Separates MANZONI | Men's Sports Coats & Blazers MANZONI | Men's Tuxedos - Ballin: BALLIN | Men's Pants - Lois: LOIS | Men's Pants - Jack Lipson: LIPSON | Men's Shirts - Enro - I. Miller: I. MILLER | Men's Shirts - Ike Behar - Polifroni: POLIFRONI | Men's Shirts POLIFRONI | Men's Accessories - Serica: SERICA | Men's Shirts SERICA | Men's Accessories - Bench Craft: BENCH CRAFT | Men's Accessories - Fashion Blog - Facebook - Twitter - Rigth side-bar - Guaranteed Secure Transaction - Featured Items - Footer - Customer Service - Contact Us - Hours & Location - Order Status - Shipping & Returns - Fashion Blog - Secure Shopping - Privacy Policy - About BJ Content Architecture Project Plan

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