Julie Mathers has spent her working life in retail, having enjoyed tenures with several of the massive chains both here and in the UK. Four years ago, she took the leap to launch the online site Flora and Fauna on the back of being “really passionate about plant-based products and animal welfare.”
Her primary motivation was offering people a place to shop that could be trusted: a retail environment where empowering choices and educating customers was the true purpose. Four years later, and the brand has become a successful stalwart of the SMB and retail community.
Flora and Fauna has built its customer base – 40% of which returns now on a regular basis – through digital marketing and word of mouth. The ability to reach customers through digital channels, Julie says, allows the brand to accomplish three things: tell its story; help inform and educate and thirdly, nurture the growth of a community that can talk between itself.
For example, the company sells environmentally-friendly nappies, which in turn, sparked conversations between those who had converted to the eco friendly-type and those who were in consideration. “We created a place online where those conversations could happen. We’re not even part of that discussion – that’s for our customers to take advantage of. I’m very proud we can facilitate that happening,” Julie said.
Julie is confident that those environments are beneficial not just for Flora and Fauna, but also her customers. With that freedom automatically comes security about knowing who your brand is. “Knowing your brand and knowing who you are is essential – without that,” she says, “you will not succeed.”
With a workforce of over 25 people – one of whom solely concentrates on social media – Julie has become a successful Australian SMB story and epitomises the findings of a recent PwC Australia Connecting Benefits report. In that report it is revealed that “aided by their growth from using Facebook, SMBs in Australia hired approximately 120,000 employees.” Meanwhile, Julie has been able to access the “8.2 million Australians have purchased from, or visited, an SMB after seeing content relevant to the business on Facebook.” It is from that pool of savvy customers that Flora and Fauna grown.
Julie would argue that it’s not just having the digital tools to hand that has allowed her to achieve her goals. In fact, she conveys a truth that marketers at the larger corporations have almost forgotten: “I have humanised our brand in our communications. That’s what draws customers to us.”
A great example of this is how Flora and Fauna uses Facebook and Instagram in a way Julie describes as “rough and ready”. “One evening we were out in our car park organising the recycling – nothing glamorous, nothing special. We posted a picture of the team literally getting their hands dirty and the response was amazing – 262 shares of that one image. Something about the ordinary nature of what we were doing chimed with our customers. It’s that type of connection that makes us more than just a retail site,” she said.
Julie’s next step is to ramp up the site’s presence with Instagram Stories. “It’s a new form of advertising for us, although we have seen on a few occasions a better ROI from posting there. It’s more consumable – everyone is looking for the next, new thing, so we post a lot of our new product there. And we won’t just post once – people can miss things and people can forget too, so we make sure the hotter items are repeated.”
Julie admits that while she has a six-month plan for marketing – with an in-built ‘editorial’ calendar – she finds that managing the mix of marketing, the posts and the ads is handled too on a day-by-day, almost hour-by-hour basis. “It doesn’t actually take me that long to make decisions on the day-to-day – not as long as people might think. I have built up enough experience now to know what works, and what’s more, we have the data there to prove me right, or in fact, wrong,” she laughed.
“Our mission,” Julie said, “is to help everyone, and to make our products and what we’re trying to do as accessible as possible.”
Have something to say on this? Share your views in the comments section below. Or if you have a news story or tip-off, drop us a line at adnews@yaffa.com.au
Sign up to the AdNews newsletter, like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter for breaking stories and campaigns throughout the day.