Social marketing has come to mean promoting a brand via Facebook, Twitter, and other online networks. But with its rep program, Karmaloop was selling streetwear to teens and young adults via social networking back when a “tweet” was simply something a bird uttered. And though Karmaloop now takes full advantage of all manner of social networks, its 6,500 reps worldwide still account for about 20% of its roughly $100 million in annual sales.
Sal Cataldi of Cataldi Public Relations, which works with Karmaloop, describes the three-year-old program as “high impact, low cost, and peer to peer.” Karmaloop customers who are interested in promoting the brand are given a customized code that they are encouraged to share via their personal blogs, Websites, Facebook pages, and just about any other channels they fancy, “so they kind of develop their own customer base,” explains director of lifestyle marketing Giovannah Chiu. For each sale they generate they earn points that can be applied for Karmaloop merchandise.
Karmaloop provides reps with downloadable banners, flyers, and the like, as well as a few ground rules. “There are certain things we do in-house that we don’t want them cannibalizing,” such as keyword bidding, Chiu says. Otherwise, “we encourage being creative and unique.”
In the beginning the rep program was open to just about anyone. More recently, Chiu says, Karmaloop has been compiling trending data to create a database of its most influential reps so that it can build a model of an ideal ambassador to use in selecting future reps.
The rep program is a natural extension of 10-year-old Karmaloop’s online roots. “We had a blog and a newsletter at the very beginning that wasn’t always part of the ecommerce site,” Chiu recalls. These focused at least as much on music and events as on Karmaloop’s apparel offering, building credibility and creating a sense of community with its core audience.
“We have our built-in audience and the trust and loyalty of millions of 18- to 24-year-old kids, and they’re going to follow us, because peer-to-peer is how we do that,” Chiu says.
In addition to the rep program, this philosophy led to the creation of KarmaloopTV.com in 2008. Providing music videos, interviews with performers and designers, and coverage of fashion, trends, and even politics, KarmaloopTV.com started as a fairly altruistic venture, Chiu says. “We saw an opening in this growing culture and wanted to be an influence and be influenced. But there were other aspects we could not deny: advertising and tying the videos back to the products.”
The KarmaloopTV microsite has expanded to include channels devoted to specific brands and regularly scheduled programs such as BuyerWire (“a weekly show that gives you an inside look at the hottest streetwear brands on the market”) and Daily Loop. A tab on the top nav bar of KarmaloopTV.com takes visitors back to the core ecommerce site. Videos are also posted on Karmaloop’s robust Facebook page, which has more than 88,000 fans.
These fans, incidentally, aren’t shy about posting on Karmaloop’s Facebook wall, both praise and gripes. The company makes a point of responding when appropriate, smoothing out service snafus and even singling out clever posts. “If someone’s doing something cool or making cool comments, we call them out, say ‘Check them out,’” Chiu says. “There’s a lot of content out there that’s keeping it growing and more dynamic.”
And more content and growth are on the way. In the first quarter of 2011, KarmaloopTV will debut as a full-fledged HD cable and satellite network. “It’s about giving young people something that’s really going to inspire their passions,” says Cataldi, who contends that the network will fill a gap by providing in-the-know 18- to 34-year-olds with programming targeted exclusively to them. Among the network’s proposed series are an expanded version of Daily Loop, “with its in-studio hosts and roving field reporters covering the latest in fashion, film, music, dance, video games, politics, and more”; Cut n’ Sew, a streetwear version of Project Runway; and global hip-hop documentary series One Mic.
Karmaloop is touting the size and engagement of its current audience—including 1.2 million opt-in email subscribers and 4 million unique visitors to its Website each month—as a means of promoting the network. And no doubt the network will promote the retailer’s existing channels. As Chiu notes, “All the platforms complement each other and give each other leverage”—which of course is in keeping with the current definition of social marketing.
