Ring Ring! Twitter calls

 

It’s a bit like a Greens voter driving around in a gas guzzling 4WD. A Buddhist monk at a death metal concert. Or a fashion editor in rubber thongs.

I believe in the virtues of multichannel retailing, but I own a badly dented LG mobile from 2008, possibly 2007, wouldn’t be stretching it to say 2006.

It’s not worth accessing Facebook or Twitter on this breathtaking piece of technology; by the time it logs on to either social media platform, I could have posted my entire life story in tweets or status updates and still had hours to kill. Which is perhaps the point, having spent my early years in the relatively life threatening city of Algiers, Algeria.

So it is with some guilt that in between typing this editor’s letter, I am preparing for Ragtrader’s first-ever marketing lunch, to be held at Cutler and Co restaurant in Melbourne.

Scheduled to take place on September 3, the lunch will see some 10 fashion marketing executives gather round to talk about the role of channels such as Facebook, Twitter and smartphones (oops) in communicating with consumers.

As regular readers will know, we have covered the multichannel experience in several editions of Ragtrader, but this has always been skewed towards fashion commerce rather than communication.

We want to know how fashion retail marketers feel about new media in their respective field. Are they social media converts or do they prefer traditional mediums such as print catalogues and campaigns? Does it have to be either or?

While we can’t indulge each of you with this information over a three-course meal, we do intend on bringing you a slice of the action in print. Keep an eye out for future editions of this magazine for a breakdown of key talking points at the business lunch.

In the meantime, feel free to email me at assia@yaffa.com.au with your own multichannel marketing experiences. I know one online retailer who, with no budget for a marketing department let alone a marketing executive, does it all herself.

Kath Purkis, founder of leblackbook.com.au, developed her own iPhone application after researching some nifty websites on Google and has an online magazine to promote key season looks.

She also drives traffic to the portal by posting self-styled looks on platforms such as chictopia.com and distributing promotions through a dedicated Facebook page and blog. It’s not all about dollars – it’s good for branding too.

It’s just a shame I can’t access it all on my phone.