E-commerce website Threadless.com added direct response surveys to its social marketing mix this week. The site, which sells T-shirts based on popularity among its community members, will begin offering coupons next week.
The two enhancements are the result of the company’s work with marketing services firm Context Optional. The tools are part of a new set of features from the vendor. Threadless received 700 responses in the first hour after adding customer service polls within Facebook fans’ newsfeeds on May 18, according to Cam Balzer, VP of marketing at Threadless.
“Threadless on Facebook is all about having as many engagement points and as many human-scale conversations as we possibly can,” he said. “Instead of asking for free-form comments, it is great to have a more systematic polling tool within our fans’ news stream.”
Consumers can add products to their cart from the Threadless Facebook app, which links to the company’s e-commerce ordering system.
The T-shirt vendor plans to add shareable coupons, which will also appear in Facebook newsfeeds, next week.
“Threadless is driven by word-of-mouth and people sharing with their friends, so the ability to empower people further to share a coupon when they share a design is an amazing thing,” Balzer said. “It is throwing fuel on the word-of-mouth fire.”
Balzer said Threadless sees seven figures of annual revenue from consumers who have interacted with the brand through Facebook and viral efforts. Levi’s recently launched a social media tool that lets consumers shop for jeans from the social networking website.
“Social media gives us a natural way to extend what is already happening with Threadless tees in the real world,” said Balzer. “We are constantly looking for ways to accelerate word-of-mouth marketing.”
