Black Milk Clothing and their Social Technology Value Levers

Black Milk Clothing is an Australian clothing company, based in Brisbane, that provides fashion lovers with unique leggings, dresses, tops, skirts, gym wear and swimwear (mainly nylon based clothes). They are all kind of like collectable items. Some items are limited, some insanely limited, and those who collect and reach certain milestones get a custom made piece, just for them. Pretty cool, huh?

Black Milk is extremely customer and community orientated. Their followers are called ‘Sharkies’ and there are many Sharkie communities out on Facebook with different focuses – Creative groups, Queensland based groups, fitness groups – all just for Black Milk lovers. As Black Milk is solely an online company, they have had to rely on their online presence to get themselves out there and generate followers and ultimately sales.

The 10 Social Technology Value Levers published by McKinsey Global Institute in 2012 provides a vast insight into unlocking value and productivity through social technologies across several functional areas. In the diagram shown below, you can see these areas and value levers associated with them.

                                                       McKinsey Global Institute (2012)

In this blog post, I will be focusing on the Marketing and Sales area and discussing 2 of the value levers associated with this functional sector. These are value levers:

4. Derive Customer Insights

and

5. Use Social Technology for marketing, communication, interaction.

So, besides their website, Black Milk also uses Facebook, Instagram and even Pinterest to derive customer insights and deploy their marketing strategies. They also use all these social platforms as a basis for communicating and interacting with their customers.

From their Facebook wall, you can see customers asking questions about sizing and what’s to come in the next release, providing testimonials and even giving their own insights in what they should design or include in future releases.

Black Milk can see from these customer insights what the customers want and are interested in, and can then implement these interests in the future. This not only benefits the customers by keeping them happy, interested and excited, but the company also benefits from their customer satisfaction (repeat customers, happy customers, loyal customers) and also their sales will continue to improve if their products are in demand (which from the customer feedback, they know they will be). They can somewhat foresee and generate sales leads. The Social Economy: Unlocking Value and Productivity through Social Technologies report by McKinsey (2012) mentions that consumers purchase goods that are better suited to their needs. “When these better products increase total demand, both individuals and enterprise can capture value.” (pg. 13).

Similarly, their Pinterest page allows customers to interact with staff and gain much needed answers before the items are released for sale. As you can see from the images below, customers and staff are communicating freely with one another, keeping interactivity and engagement up.

Again, Instagram shows what customers like, and don’t like. Question’s are asked here too, though not as much as through other social technologies. This social tool is mainly used for marketing their products, though not only on their models, but also on the Sharkie’s that have purchased their nylon goodness. Black Milk repost everyday customers wearing their clothing. This is highly beneficial to consumers, as they can see different body types wearing the clothes, different styling options, and can also connect with other Black Milk lovers. This platform, through the comments and number of likes, is a great indication for the enterprise as to what products their followers like more over others. 

Black Milk obviously benefits from this as it shows their current and potential customers that they are very community oriented and love to show off their products and their customers. The Social Economy report perfectly states that one of the main benefits of using social technology is that “People derive great personal satisfaction from the relationships they are able to maintain, the information they can glean, and the communities they form through their use of social technologies” (pg. 13). I believe that this works both ways – for individuals and enterprise. There is great satisfaction in knowing that the enterprise you are spending your hard earned money on to look fabulous cares about you and your needs. Additionally, there is great satisfaction in knowing that your customers are staying loyal because you are listening to them and their fashion desires.

It is evident that social technologies have a strong impact on marketing and sales. Don't get me wrong, if these levers are handled incorrectly when dealing with a customer, then that could also be disastrous. Hard work needs to be put in by the enterprise into managing these numerous social technology tools, thoroughly keeping up interactivity and communication with customers, and being open to deriving customer insights. This case study shows Black Milk is taking full advantage of this particular value lever and are reaping the benefits. 

Thank you for reading! I look forward to your comments and feedback!